Unspoken lies | Sherwood Anderson

Fleurs d'automne by Georges de Feure (French, 1868–1943)

Sherwood Anderson

——

Translated by Wu Yan

Ray Pearson and Hale Winters both worked as long-time workers on a farm three miles north of Winsburg. On Saturday afternoon they came to town and wandered the streets with other people from the countryside.

Ray was a quiet, rather neurotic fifty-year-old man with a brown beard and rounded shoulders due to excessive and hard work. His nature was very different from that of Hale Winters, and how different they could be between two men.

Ray was a completely serious man, and his wife had a sharp face and a sharp voice. The couple and six skinny children lived in a tattered wooden house next to a small river behind Wells Farm, where Ray was employed.

His colleague, longtime worker Hale Winters, was a young lad. He did not belong to the Ned Winters family, which were very decent people in Winsburg; he was one of the three sons of the old man named Wind peter Winters. The old man had a sawmill six miles from the city near Youningville, and the people of Winsburgh thought he was a depraved old scoundrel.

Located in northern Ohio, Fort Winsburg will be remembered by people from the north because of the unusual death of Peter Vinder the Elder. One night, he set off drunk in the city and drove along the railroad tracks back to his home in Youningville. Henry Bratenburg, the butcher who lived on the road, stopped him at the edge of the city and told him that he was about to encounter a descending train, but Wind peter beat him with a whip and continued to drive. When the train crashed and rolled him and his two horses, a farmer and his wife drove down a nearby road and witnessed the tragedy. They said that Old Winder Peter stood in the seat of his carriage, cursing at the locomotive that was rushing by, and that he was clearly shouting in gladness as the two horses were whipped by him in a furious rage and rushed straight towards unquestionable death. Teenagers like young George Willard and Seth Richmond will remember the crash vividly, because, though everyone in our little town says that this old fellow will go straight to hell and that it would be better to be better off society without him, they all have a secret belief that he understands what he did at the time and admires his foolish courage. Most teenagers have a period of hope that they will die honorably instead of just being a grocery store guy and living a monotonous life.

But this is not the story of Winder Peter Winters, nor the story of his son Hale, who worked with Ray Pearson on the Wells Farm. Here's Ray's story. However, a little bit about young Hale must be told so that you can appreciate the spirit of the story.

Hale is a bad thing. Everybody says so. There were three boys in winter's family, John, Hale, and Edward, all big men like Old Wind peter himself, all good at fighting and hunting, and in general, useless bad things.

Hale is the worst of the gang, always doing evil things. He once stole a pile of planks from his father's factory and sold them in Winsburgh. He used the money to buy himself a cheap set of fancy clothes. Then he was very drunk; when his father cursed and came to the city to find him, they threw their fists at each other when they met in the street, and they were arrested together and put in prison.

Hale went to work at Wells Farm because there was a village schoolgirl nearby who aroused his reverie. He was only twenty-two years old at the time, but he had already been to what the People of Winsburg called "bacon farms" two or three times. Hearing that he had taken a fancy to a female teacher, everyone concluded that it would not end well. "He's only going to make her suffer, you'll see," is what goes around.

But one day in late October, Ray and Hale were working in a field. They were peeling corn, casually talking and laughing. Silence ensued. Ray, more sensitive and caring, had a cracked hand, and his hand was in pain. He slipped his hand in his coat pocket and looked across the field. He was in a sad and troubled state of mind and was touched by the beauty of the countryside. If you are familiar with the autumn Winsburg countryside, and know how the low hills splash yellow and red, you will understand his emotions. He began to remember a long time ago, when he was a young man who lived with his father (then a baker in Winsburg), and how in those days he had wandered into the woods, collecting nuts, hunting rabbits, or just smoking his board cigarette and wandering around. His marriage was one of the days he was wandering. He lures a woman who is helping with the business in his father's shop, lures her out with him, and that's what happened. When a spirit of protest awakened in his heart, he was thinking about what had happened that afternoon and how it had affected his whole life. He forgot that Hale was around and began to talk to himself. "Fooled by God, fooled by life — that's how I am," he said in a low voice.

Thomas Edwin Mostyn (1864-1930) The Dream Palace

Hale Winters spoke as if he understood his thoughts. "Is it worth it?" Oh, what the hell is going on? How about getting married and things like that? He asked, laughing. Hale wanted to keep laughing, but he was also in a sincere state of mind. He began to speak sincerely. "Does one have to do this?" he asked. "Does he always have to be shackled and run like a horse all his life?"

Hale didn't wait for an answer, but jumped up and wandered among piles of corn. He was getting more and more excited. Leaning down suddenly, he picked up a yellow ear of corn and threw it over the fence. "I've made it difficult for Neel Gunther to be a man," he said. "I told you, you have to shut up and don't say it."

Ray Pearson stood up and stood staring. He was almost a foot shorter than Hale, and the young man came over and laid his hands on the shoulders of the man he was older, forming a picture. They stood in the vast and empty fields, behind which were rows of calm corn heaps, and in the distance were hills of red and yellow, and they had changed from two long workers who did not care about each other to being warm to each other. Hale felt this and laughed out loud, because laughter was his expression. "Oh, Dad," he said awkwardly, "come on, come up with an idea for me." I made it difficult for me to be a human being. Maybe you've had the same dilemma yourself. I know what everyone says should be done, but what do you say? Should I get married and settle down? Should I put on the yoke and bow like an old horse? You know me, Ray. No one can make me obey, but I can make myself obey. Should I do this, or tell Neel to roll her fucking eggs? Come on, you tell me. Whatever you say, Ray, I'll do what you say. ”

Ray couldn't answer. He got rid of Hale's hand on his shoulder and turned and walked straight to the barn. He was a kind man, and there were tears in his eyes. To Hale Winters, the son of Peter Winters the Elder, he knew that there was only one word to say, that there was only one word that could be praised by all his upbringing and all the creeds of the people, and yet he could not say in any way what he knew he should say.

At half past four that afternoon, when his wife called him along the path that leaned against the alley, he was wandering in the empty field in front of the barn. After talking to Hale, he did not return to the cornfield, but only worked near the barn. He had done his errands for the evening, and seeing that Hale was dressed and ready to go to town for a night of revelry, he saw him coming out of the farmhouse and walking up the road. He walked wearily behind his wife's back along the path home, looking at the earth and pondering. He couldn't think of anything wrong. Every time he lifted his eyes and saw the beauty of the countryside in the residual light, he always wanted to do something he had never done before, yelling or screaming, or punching his wife with his fist, or the same unexpectedly frightening thing. He walked along the path, scratching his head, trying to figure out what was wrong. He stared hard at his wife's back, but she didn't seem to be at all wrong.

She just asked him to go to town to buy groceries, and she told him everything she needed, and she began to scold. "You're always lazy," she said. "Now I want you to hurry." There's nothing in the house to make dinner, you have to hurry into town, hurry back. ”

Ray went into his own house and removed his coat from the hook behind the door. The bag of the coat was torn, and the collar glowed. His wife walked into the bedroom and immediately came out, holding a dirty cloth in one hand and three silver dollars in the other. A small child was crying bitterly somewhere in the house, and a dog sleeping by the fire stood up and yawned. The wife scolded again. "The children are going to cry for a while. Why are you always lazy? She asked.

Ray walked out of the house, climbed over the fence, and entered a field. The sky was getting dark, and the scenery unfolding before his eyes was lovely. All the hills were sprinkled with color, and even the small clusters of bushes in the corner next to the fence were beautiful and business-oriented. It seemed to Ray Pearson that the whole world, in the light of each other, had suddenly become vibrant, just as he and Hale had suddenly become animated as they stood in the cornfield and stared at each other.

On that autumn evening, the beauty of the countryside near Winsburg was too enticing for Ray. That's just it. He couldn't help it. Suddenly, he forgot all his duty as a peaceful old man, dropped his tattered coat, and began to run across the field. As he ran, he shouted out protests, protests against his life, against the lives of the people, against everything that made life ugly. "There is no promised promise," he shouted into the space unfolding in front of him, "I have promised nothing to my Minnie, and Hale has never made any promise to Neil. I know he didn't. She went with him into the woods because she was going. What he needed was what she needed. Why do I have to make sacrifices? Why did Hale make the sacrifice? Why would anyone make a sacrifice? I don't want Hale to age and be exhausted. I must tell him. I don't want to let it go. I'm going to catch up with Hale before he gets into town, and I'm going to tell him. ”

Ray ran clumsily, and on one occasion he stumbled and fell. "I have to catch up with Hale and tell him," he thought, panting, running more and more violently. As he ran, he thought about things that hadn't come to his mind for years—he had planned to run west to his uncle in Portland, Oregon—when he got married—and he refused to do long work, but wanted to go out to sea to be a sailor when he arrived west, or to find a profession in the pasture, to ride a horse to the town of the west, and to laugh and wake up the people in the house with his rough voice. Then, as he ran, he remembered his children and felt in the fantasy that their hands were grasping him. All his thoughts about himself involved Hale, and he thought the children were also catching the young man. "They're just accidents in life, Hale," he shouted, "and they're not mine or yours." I have nothing to do with them. ”

As Ray Pearson kept running forward, darkness began to envelop the fields. His breath became a sigh. When he came to the fence on the side of the road, he met Hale Winters, who was dressed decently, smoking a board cigarette, and walked over with great vigour, and he had no way of telling him what he thought or what he was going to say.

Ray Pearson lost his courage, and this is the end of the story of his encounters. He walked over to the fence, pressed his hands to the slats on it, and stood there staring blankly, when it was almost dark. Hale Winters jumped over a ditch and approached Ray, his hands in his pockets and laughing. He seemed to be ignoring even himself for the state of mind he had just created in the cornfield, and when he stretched out his strong hand and tugged at the hem of Ray's coat, he shook the old man as if he were shaking a dog that had done something wrong.

"You came to tell me, didn't you?" He said. "Oh, don't bother telling me anything. I'm not a coward, I've made up my mind. "He laughed again and jumped back into the ditch." Neer is not a fool," he said. "She didn't ask me to marry her. It was I who wanted to marry her. I'm going to settle down and have children. ”

Ray Pearson laughed too. He felt as if he were laughing at himself and the whole world.

When the form of Hale Winters had disappeared into the thin darkness of the main road leading to Winsburg, Ray turned and walked slowly back, across the field, to where he had left his tattered coat. Some kind of memory of spending a pleasant evening with skinny children in a tattered house by the river as he walked must have caught his mind, for he was muttering to himself. "That's fine. Whatever I tell him, it will be a lie. He whispered, and his form disappeared into the darkness of the field.

Flower Delivery, Christmas Eve, Bronxville by Harry Robinson AKA Hal Robinson (English, 1867–1933)

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