Chapter 42 A Rose for Emily

Miss Emily Grierson died, and the whole town went to mourn: the men out of admiration, for a monument had fallen.The women, mostly out of curiosity, wanted to see the inside of her house.Except for an old servant who was the gardener and cook, no one had been in the house for at least ten years. It was a big boxy log house, once painted white, on one of the finest streets in those days, with cupolas, spiers, and scrolled balconies in the 1870s style, with Intense light breath.But garages and cotton gins and stuff encroached on the neighborhood's dignified names and blotted them out.Only Miss Emily's house remained, surrounded by cotton wagons and petrol pumps.The house, in spite of its dilapidation, was obstinate and affected, the ugliest of ugliness.Now Miss Emily has joined the ranks of the solemnly-named exponents who sleep in the cedar-fringed cemetery, where the unnamed rows of North and South fell at the Battle of Jefferson in the Civil War. Military Tomb.

In her lifetime Miss Emily was always a personification of tradition, a symbol of duty, and an object of attention.On the day in 1894, Colonel Sartoris, mayor of the town—that is, he issued an order that Negro women should not go to the streets without an apron—exempted her from all taxes due, and the period began after her father died. From the beginning of the day until her death, this is an obligation of the whole town to her.This is not to say that Emily was willing to accept a handout. It turned out that Colonel Sartoris had made up a lot of nonsense, saying that Emily's father had loaned money to the town government, so the town government would rather take this as a transaction. way of repayment.Only people of Sartoris' generation and a mind like Sartoris can make up this set of stories, and only women can believe it.

When the second, more open-minded generation became mayor and senator, this arrangement caused some minor discontent.On New Year's Day that year, they sent her a tax notice.February came and there was still no news.They sent a letter asking her to visit the sheriff's office.A week later, the mayor wrote to Emily himself, expressing his willingness to visit her at home or send a car to meet her, but all the replies were a note written on antique letterhead with fluent calligraphy and small handwriting, but the ink was no longer there. Yanyan, the general idea of ​​the letter is that she has not gone out at all.The tax notice is attached and no comments are expressed.

The senators held a special session and sent a delegation to visit her.They knocked on the door that no one had walked in or out of since she stopped teaching china painting eight or ten years ago.The elderly black manservant received them into a dark foyer, from which the stairs went up, still more dimly lit.A dusty smell filled the nostrils, the air was damp and airtight, and no one lived in this house for a long time.The negro led them into the living room, where the heavy furniture was all covered with leather covers.The Negro opened one of the shutters, and now it was even more visible that the leather cover was cracked; and when they sat down, a cloud of dust rose up from their thighs, and the dust particles swirled slowly in that ray of sunlight.On the tarnished easel in front of the fireplace was a charcoal portrait of Emily's father.

As soon as she entered the room, they all stood up.A small, round-chested, stout woman in a black dress, with a thin gold watch-chain hanging to her waist and dropped into her belt, supported by an ebony cane with a gold-inlaid head Has tarnished.Her stature is short, and perhaps because of this, other women appear to be plump, while she gives the impression of being fat.She looked like a corpse long soaked in stagnant water, swollen and whitish.When the guest explained the purpose of her visit, her eyes, sunken in the bulging fat of her face, looked like two small coal balls kneaded in a ball of dough, kept moving, sometimes looking at this face, sometimes looking at it that face.

She didn't ask them to sit down.She just stood in the doorway and listened until the representative who had spoken faltered, at which point they heard the tick of the pocket watch concealed at the end of the gold chain. Her tone was ruthless. "I don't pay taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris told me that. Maybe one of you can check the town records and shed some light." "We've checked the files, Miss Emily, and we're the government authority. Haven't you had a notice signed by the sheriff?" "Yes, I've had a notice," said Miss Emily. "Maybe he's proclaiming himself Sheriff . . . but I have no taxes to pay in Jefferson."

"But it doesn't say so in the tax books, you see. We're supposed to rely on..." "You go to Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes to pay in Jefferson." "But, Miss Emily—" "You go to Colonel Sartoris." (Colonel Sartoris has been dead for nearly ten years.) "I have no taxes in Jefferson. Toby!" "Get these gentlemen out." In this way, she defeated them "both man and horse".Just as they overcame their parents over that smell thirty years ago, two years after her father's death, when her sweetheart--the one we all believed would marry her--leaved her Soon.After her father died, she seldom went out; after her sweetheart left, she was hardly seen.The few women who ventured to visit her were turned away.The only sign of life around her place was the black man, who was a teenager, going in and out with a basket.

"As if any man, any man, can keep the kitchen in order," said the women.So they were not surprised when the smell got stronger.That was another link between the world of the masses and the noble and powerful Greerson family. A woman next door complained to Mayor Stephens, an eighty-year-old judge. "But madam, what do you ask me to do about it?" said he. "Hmph, tell her to get rid of the smell," said the woman. "Isn't there an express provision in the law?" "I don't think it's necessary," said Judge Stephens. "It's possible that the nigger she hired killed a snake or a mouse in the yard. I'll go and talk to him about it."

The next day he received two more complaints, one from a man who offered his opinion in a milder tone. "Judge, we really have to ask about this. I'm the last person to bother Miss Emily, but we've got to find a way." Young members of the new generation had a meeting together. "It's a simple matter," said the young man. "Tell her to clean the house and do it within a certain time, otherwise..." "How can this be done, sir?" said Judge Stephens, "will you say before a lady that she has a bad smell?" So, after midnight the next day, four men crossed Miss Emily's lawn, prowled around the house like burglars, sniffing desperately along the corners and in the cellar vents, while one of them Taking something out of the bag on his shoulder, he continued to sow seeds.They opened the cellar door and limed it and all the outhouses.As they turned back across the lawn, a light came from one of the dark windows: there sat Miss Emily, with the light behind her, her erect figure motionless like an idol.They tiptoed across the lawn and into the shade of the acacia trees that lined the street.After a week or two, the smell is gone.

And that's when people really started feeling sorry for her.The townspeople, remembering how Miss Emily's great-aunt, old Mrs. Wyatt, had finally turned into a complete madman, believed that the Griersons thought too highly of themselves and did not understand their position.Miss Emily and women like her looked down upon any young man.We have long thought of the family as figures in a painting: Miss Emily, slender, in white, at the back, her father in front, in profile with his legs spread apart, his back to Emily, holding a A horsewhip and a front door that opened back fit perfectly into the two of them.Therefore, when she was nearly thirty years old and unmarried, we were not really happy, but felt that our previous views had been confirmed.Even if her family has crazy blood, if there is any opportunity in front of her, she will not let it go.

When her father died, it was rumored that the house was all that was left to her; and people were a little pleased.At last they could show compassion for Emily.Alone and poor, she became more humane.Now she also experienced the feeling that everyone feels excited and joyful for a penny more, and bitter and disappointed for a penny less. The day after her father's death it was our custom that all the women were ready to visit her at her house, to express their condolences and their offerings.Miss Emily received them at the door of the house, dressed as usual, without a trace of sadness in her face.She told them that her father was not dead.She did this for three days, whether the priest of the church visited her or the doctor tried to persuade her to let them dispose of the body.Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly. We didn't call her crazy at the time.We believe she was out of control in doing so.We remember her father driving away all the young men, and we know that she has nothing now, and hangs on to the one who has taken her everything, as people always do. She was ill for a long time.When I saw her again, her hair had been cut short, and she looked like a girl, not dissimilar to the angels on the stained glass windows in churches—a bit sad and solemn. The administration had contracted to pave the sidewalk, and work had begun in the summer of her father's death.The construction company came with a gang of niggers, mules, and machines, and the foreman was a Yankee named Homer Burron, a tall, dark, capable man with a loud voice and eyes lighter than his face.Groups of children followed him and listened to him scolding black people with unsavory words, while the black people hummed labor songs rhythmically with the rising and falling of the pickaxe.Before long, he knew everyone in the town.Whenever people heard laughter anywhere in the square, Homer Burrone was in the center of the crowd.Soon afterwards we saw him and Miss Emily driving in a buggy on Sunday afternoons.The yellow-wheeled cart matched the sorrel workhorse from the stable. At first we were all glad to see that Miss Emily had some kind of sustenance, for the women said, "The Greersons never really set their eyes on a Yankee, a day's wage man." But there were others, some older ones, who said that sorrow would not make a really noble woman forget "genteel manners," even though it was not called "gentlemanly manners" in words.They just said, "Poor Emily, her relatives should come to her." She had relatives in Alabama; They had a falling out, and there was no contact between the two families after that.They didn't even send anyone to the funeral. As soon as the old folks said "poor Emily," they broke off in whispers.They said to each other: "Do you really think that is the case?" "Of course it is Lo. What else could it be?..." And they said this softly with their hands over their mouths; briskly. As the horses drove off, the shutters were closed against the sun on a Sunday afternoon, and there was a rustle of silk: "Poor Emily." She held her head high—even when we were convinced that she had fallen, as if she demanded more than ever that her dignity as the last of the Griersons be recognized, as if her dignity required the same contact to reaffirm her unaffected character.For example, when she bought rat poison and arsenic.That was more than a year after people had started saying "poor Emily," and her two cousins ​​were visiting at that time. "I want to buy some poison," she said to the druggist.She was in her early thirties at the time, and she was still a woman with slender shoulders and a thin waist, but she was thinner than usual, with a pair of black eyes that were cold and arrogant, and the flesh on her face was tense at the temples and eye sockets on both sides. Everything your imaginary lighthouse keeper should be. "I want to buy some poison," she said. "Got it, Miss Emily. Which one should I buy? Is it poisonous rats or something? Then let me tell you..." "I want the most effective poison in your store, I don't care about the type." The pharmacist named several kinds at once. "They're poisonous to everything, even elephants. But what you want is..." "Arsenic," said Miss Emily, "does arsenic work?" "Is it... arsenic? I see, miss. But what you want is..." "I want arsenic." The chemist looked down at her.She looked back at him, her body straightened, her face like a taut flag. "Oh, yes, of course," said the druggist, "if that's the kind of poison you want. But the law requires you to state what you're going to use it for." Miss Emily just stared at him, throwing her head back so that her eyes could meet his, until he looked away and went in to get the arsenic and wrap it up.The black delivery man delivered the package to her; the pharmacist never showed up again.She went home and opened the medicine package. On the box, under the skull mark, it was marked: "Poison poisonous rat medicine". So, the next day we all said, "She's going to kill herself." We all said it was the best thing.The first time we saw her with Homer Burrone, we both said, "She's going to marry him." Then, "She's got to convince him." Because Homer himself said he He liked the company of men, and was known to drink with young men at the Elk Club, and he himself said that he had no intention of starting a family.They drove past every Sunday afternoon in their handsome buggy: Miss Emily held her head up, Homer with his hat on one side, a cigar in his mouth, and the bridle and whip in yellow-gloved hands. .We can't help but say, behind the shutters, "Poor Emily." Then some women started saying it was a humiliation to the town and a bad example for the youth.The men didn't want to interfere, but the women finally forced the Baptist vicar—Miss Emily's family was Episcopal—to visit her.He never disclosed the details of the visit, but he never wanted to make a second trip.The next Sunday they appeared in the street again in their carriage, and the next day the Vicar's wife wrote to inform Emily's relatives in Alabama. It turned out that there were close relatives in her family, so we sat and waited for the development of the situation.At first there was no movement, then we got certainty that they were going to get married.We also heard that Miss Emily had been to the jeweler's and had ordered a silver men's toilet set, each engraved with "Ho Bo."Two days later we were told she had bought a full men's outfit, pajamas included, so we said, "They're married." We were so happy.We were glad that the two cousins ​​were more of the Griersons than Miss Emily. So we were not at all surprised when Homer Burrone left the town--street paving had been finished for some time.We were not without a sense of disappointment at the lack of a farewell scene.But we all believed he was there to prepare for Miss Emily, or to give her a chance to get rid of the two cousins ​​(by this time a clandestine clique had formed, and we were all on Emily's side) Miss, help her kick the pair of cousins ​​away).Not bad at all, and they were gone a week later.And, as we've all been waiting for, Homer Burrone is back in town.A neighbor saw the black man open the kitchen door one evening to let him in. And that's the last we see of Homer Burrone.As for Miss Emily, we have not seen her for some time.Negroes come in and out with shopping baskets, but the front door is always closed.Occasionally she could be seen passing the window, as she had been seen on the night of the lime-sprinkling, but for six months she did not appear in the street.We understand that this is not unexpected; her father's character, which has repeatedly added to her life as a woman, seems too malevolent and violent to disappear. When we saw Miss Emily again she was fat and gray.Over the next few years, the hair became grayer and grayer, becoming an iron gray like salt and pepper, and the color never changed.Until the day of her death at the age of seventy-four, she still maintained that vigorous iron gray hair, like the hair of an active man. Her front door had been closed ever since, except for about six or seven years when she was in her forties.During that period, she taught porcelain painting classes.In a room downstairs, she temporarily arranged a studio. Colonel Sartoris’s contemporaries all sent their daughters and granddaughters to her to learn painting. Sending them off to church on Sunday and giving them back quarters to put in the offering basin is exactly the same.At this time, her dues have been exempted. Later, a new generation became the backbone and spirit of the town, and the painting students grew up and left, instead of letting their own girls carry color boxes, boring paintbrushes and Go to Miss Emily to learn how to draw the pictures you cut out.After the last student left, the front door closed, forever.After the town implemented the free post system, Miss Emily was the only one who refused to have a metal number plate on her door, with a mail box attached.She ignored them anyway. Day after day, month after month, year after year, we watched the black man's hair turn gray and his back hunched, and he still went in and out with a shopping basket.Every December we mailed her a tax notice, which was returned by the post office a week later, uncollected.From time to time we saw her figure at a window on the lower floor—she had obviously sealed off the upper floor—like the sculpted torso of an idol in a shrine, and we couldn’t tell if she was looking at us.She has passed through generations like this-noble, quiet, inescapable, inaccessible, and eccentric. And so she died.Sick in a dusty, ghostly house, served only by an old Negro.We didn't even know she was sick; and we didn't want to ask any news from the Negroes.He spoke to no one, perhaps even to her, and his voice seemed hoarse from long disuse. She died in a downstairs room on a heavy walnut bed with hanging curtains, her iron-gray head resting on a pillow that was yellow and moldy from years of use and exposure to sunlight. The Negroes greeted the first women at the front door and let them in, their voices low and hissing, their eyes scanning everything quickly with curiosity.Then the Negro was gone, he walked through the house, out the back door and was never seen again. The two cousins ​​came soon after, and the funeral was held the next day, and the whole town came to see Miss Emily's body covered with flowers.Above the mortuary hangs a charcoal portrait of her father, with a deeply thoughtful expression.Women chirped about death, and old men—some in well-brushed Confederate uniforms—talked about Miss Emily's life in the corridors and lawns, as if she Contemporaries of their own, who believed in dancing with her and even wooed her, they messed up the mathematical progression of time.This is often the case with the elderly.In their view, the past years are not a road that gets narrower and narrower, but a vast grassland that has no influence on it even in winter. The past is cut off. We already knew that there was a room in the upstairs space that no one had seen for forty years, and that the door had to be pried open to get in.They waited until after Miss Emily was buried before trying to open the door. The door slammed open, filling the room with dust.This room, furnished like a new house, seems to be enveloped in a faint and gloomy atmosphere like a tomb: faded rose-colored curtains, rose-colored lampshades, dressing table, a row of elaborate crystal products and silver. The bottom of the men's toilet set, but the silver was so tarnished that even the engraved initials were unrecognizable.Among the clutter was a stiff collar and tie, which, as if freshly taken off, had left faint crescent marks in the dust that had accumulated on the countertop when they were picked up.On the chair was a suit of clothes, neatly folded; under the chair were two lonely and silent shoes and a pair of discarded socks. The man is lying on the bed. We stood there for a long time, looking down at the unfathomable grin on that fleshless face.The body lay there in what had once been an embrace, but the eternal sleep that outlasted love and overcome its torments had tamed him.What was left of him had rotted under the tattered pajamas, stuck to the wooden bed he lay on, inseparable.On him and on the pillow beside him, there was an even layer of dust accumulated over the years. It was only later that we noticed the mark of a human head on the pillow next to it.One of us picked something up from it, and upon closer inspection—a faint dry, fetid smell entered the nostrils—it turned out to be a long lock of iron-grey hair.