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1、 A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND 好人难寻 Flannery OConnor（奥康纳） THE GRANDMOTHER didnt want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Baileys mind. Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy. He was sitting on the edge of
2、 his chair at the table, bent over the orange sports section of the _Journal_. Now look here, Bailey, she said, see here, read this, and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Fe
3、deral Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldnt take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldnt answer to my conscience if I did.Bailey didnt look up from his reading so she wheeled around then
4、 and faced the childrens mother, a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like rabbits ears. She was sitting on the sofa, feeding the baby his apricots out of a jar. The children have been
5、 to Florida before, the old lady said. You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad. They never have been to east Tennessee.The childrens mother didnt seem to hear her but the eight-year-old boy, John Wesley, a stocky child with g
6、lasses, said, If you dont want to go to Florida, why dontcha stay at home? He and the little girl, June Star, were reading the funny papers on the floor.She wouldnt stay at home to be queen for a day, June Star said without raising her yellow head.Yes and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit
7、, caught you? the grandmother asked.Id smack his face, John Wesley said.She wouldnt stay at home for a million bucks, June Star said. Afraid shed miss something. She has to go everywhere we go.All right, Miss, the grandmother said. Just remember that the next time you want me to curl your hair.June
8、Star said her hair was naturally curly.The next morning the grandmother was the first one in the car, ready to go. She had her big black valise that looked like the head of a hippopotamus in one corner, and underneath it she was hiding a basket with Pitty Sing, the cat, in it. She didnt intend for t
9、he cat to be left alone in the house for three days because he would miss her too much and she was afraid he might brush against one of the gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself. Her son, Bailey, didnt like to arrive at a motel with a cat.She sat in the middle of the back seat with John We
10、sley and June Star on either side of her. Bailey and the childrens mother and the baby sat in front and they left Atlanta at eight forty-five with the mileage on the car at 55890. The grandmother wrote this down because she thought it would be interesting to say how many miles they had been when the
11、y got back. It took them twenty minutes to reach the outskirts of the city.The old lady settled herself comfortably, removing her white cotton gloves and putting them up with her purse on the shelf in front of the back window. The childrens mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied up i
12、n a green kerchief, but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth viole
13、ts containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.She said she thought it was going to be a good day for driving, neither too hot nor too cold, and she cautioned Bailey that the speed limit was fifty-five miles an hour and th
14、at the patrolmen hid themselves behind billboards and small clumps of trees and sped out after you before you had a chance to slow down. She pointed out interesting details of the scenery: Stone Mountain; the blue granite that in some places came up to both sides of the highway; the brilliant red cl
15、ay banks slightly streaked with purple; and the various crops that made rows of green lace-work on the ground. The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled. The children were reading comic magazines and their mother had gone back to sleep.Lets go through Georgia fast
16、 so we wont have to look at it much, John Wesley said.If I were a little boy, said the grandmother, I wouldnt talk about my native state that way. Tennessee has the mountains and Georgia has the hills.Tennessee is just a hillbilly dumping ground, John Wesley said, and Georgia is a lousy state too.Yo
17、u said it, June Star said.In my time, said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then. Oh look at the cute little pickaninny! she said and pointed to a Negro child standing in the
18、 door of a shack. Wouldnt that make a picture, now? she asked and they all turned and looked at the little Negro out of the back window. He waved.He didnt have any britches on, June Star said.He probably didnt have any, the grandmother explained. Little niggers in the country dont have things like w
19、e do. If I could paint, Id paint that picture, she said.The children exchanged comic books.The grandmother offered to hold the baby and the childrens mother passed him over the front seat to her. She set him on her knee and bounced him and told him about the things they were passing. She rolled her
20、eyes and screwed up her mouth and stuck her leathery thin face into his smooth bland one. Occasionally he gave her a faraway smile. They passed a large cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island. Look at the graveyard! the grandmother said, pointing it out.
21、That was the old family burying ground. That belonged to the plantation.Wheres the plantation? John Wesley asked.Gone With the Wind, said the grandmother. Ha. Ha.When the children finished all the comic books they had brought, they opened the lunch and ate it. The grandmother ate a peanut butter san
22、dwich and an olive and would not let the children throw the box and the paper napkins out the window. When there was nothing else to do they played a game by choosing a cloud and making the other two guess what shape it suggested. John Wesley took one the shape of a cow and June Star guessed a cow a
23、nd John Wesley said, no, an automobile, and June Star said he didnt play fair, and they began to slap each other over the grandmother.The grandmother said she would tell them a story if they would keep quiet. When she told a story, she rolled her eyes and waved her head and was very dramatic. She sa
24、id once when she was a maiden lady she had been courted by a Mr. Edgar Atkins Teagarden from Jasper, Georgia. She said he was a very good-looking man and a gentleman and that he brought her a watermelon every Saturday afternoon with his initials cut in it, E. A. T. Well, one Saturday, she said, Mr.
25、Teagarden brought the watermelon and there was nobody at home and he left it on the front porch and returned in his buggy to Jasper, but she never got the watermelon, she said, because a nigger boy ate it when he saw the initials, E. A. T.! This story tickled John Wesleys funny bone and he giggled a
26、nd giggled but June Star didnt think it was any good. She said she wouldnt marry a man that just brought her a watermelon on Saturday. The grandmother said she would have done well to marry Mr. Teagarden because he was a gentleman and had bought Coca-Cola stock when it first came out and that he had
27、 died only a few years ago, a very wealthy man.They stopped at The Tower for barbecued sandwiches. The Tower was a part stucco and part wood filling station and dance hall set in a clearing outside of Timothy. A fat man named Red Sammy Butts ran it and there were signs stuck here and there on the bu
28、ilding and for miles up and down the highway saying, TRY RED SAMMYS FAMOUS BARBECUE. NONE LIKE FAMOUS RED SAMMYS! RED SAM! THE FAT BOY WITH THE HAPPY LAUGH. A VETERAN! RED SAMMYS YOUR MAN!Red Sammy was lying on the bare ground outside The Tower with his head under a truck while a gray monkey about a
29、 foot high, chained to a small chinaberry tree, chattered nearby. The monkey sprang back into the tree and got on the highest limb as soon as he saw the children jump out of the car and run toward him.Inside, The Tower was a long dark room with a counter at one end and tables at the other and dancin
30、g space in the middle. They all sat down at a board table next to the nickelodeon and Red Sams wife, a tall burnt-brown woman with hair and eyes lighter than her skin, came and took their order. The childrens mother put a dime in the machine and played The Tennessee Waltz, and the grandmother said t
31、hat tune always made her want to dance. She asked Bailey if he would like to dance but he only glared at her. He didnt have a naturally sunny disposition like she did and trips made him nervous. The grandmothers brown eyes were very bright. She swayed her head from side to side and pretended she was
32、 dancing in her chair. June Star said play something she could tap to so the childrens mother put in another dime and played a fast number and June Star stepped out onto the dance floor and did her tap routine.Aint she cute? Red Sams wife said, leaning over the counter. Would you like to come be my
33、little girl?No I certainly wouldnt, June Star said. I wouldnt live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks! and she ran back to the table.Aint she cute? the woman repeated, stretching her mouth politely.Arnt you ashamed? hissed the grandmother.Red Sam came in and told his wife to quit l
34、ounging on the counter and hurry up with these peoples order. His khaki trousers reached just to his hip bones and his stomach hung over them like a sack of meal swaying under his shirt. He came over and sat down at a table nearby and let out a combination sigh and yodel. You cant win, he said. You
35、cant win, and he wiped his sweating red face off with a gray handkerchief. These days you dont know who to trust, he said. Aint that the truth?People are certainly not nice like they used to be, said the grandmother.Two fellers come in here last week, Red Sammy said, driving a Chrysler. It was a old
36、 beat-up car but it was a good one and these boys looked all right to me. Said they worked at the mill and you know I let them fellers charge the gas they bought? Now why did I do that?Because youre a good man! the grandmother said at once.Yesm, I suppose so, Red Sam said as if he were struck with t
37、his answer.His wife brought the orders, carrying the five plates all at once without a tray, two in each hand and one balanced on her arm. It isnt a soul in this green world of Gods that you can trust, she said. And I dont count nobody out of that, not nobody, she repeated, looking at Red Sammy.Did
38、you read about that criminal. The Misfit, thats escaped? asked the grandmother.I wouldnt be a bit surprised if he didnt attact this place right here, said the woman. If he hears about it being here, I wouldnt be none surprised to see him. If he hears its two cent in the cash register, I wouldnt be a
39、 tall surprised if he . . .Thatll do, Red Sam said. Go bring these people their Co-Colas, and the woman went off to get the rest of the order.A good man is hard to find, Red Sammy said. Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no m
40、ore.He and the grandmother discussed better times. The old lady said that in her opinion Europe was entirely to blame for the way things were now. She said the way Europe acted you would think we were made of money and Red Sam said it was no use talking about it, she was exactly right. The children
41、ran outside into the white sunlight and looked at the monkey in the lacy chinaberry tree. He was busy catching fleas on himself and biting each one carefully between his teeth as if it were a delicacy.They drove off again into the hot afternoon. The grandmother took cat naps and woke up every few mi
42、nutes with her own snoring. Outside of Toombsboro she woke up and recalled an old plantation that she had visited in this neighborhood once when she was a young lady. She said the house had six white columns across the front and that there was an avenue of oaks leading up to it and two little wooden
43、 trellis arbors on either side in front where you sat down with your suitor after a stroll in the garden. She recalled exactly which road to turn off to get to it. She knew that Bailey would not be willing to lose any time looking at an old house, but the more she talked about it, the more she wante
44、d to see it once again and find out if the little twin arbors were still standing. There was a secret panel in this house, she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that she were, and the story went that all the family silver was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never fou
45、nd . . .Hey! John Wesley said. Lets go see it! Well find it! Well poke all the woodwork and find it! Who lives there? Where do you turn off at? Hey Pop, cant we turn off there?We never have seen a house with a secret panel! June Star shrieked. Lets go to the house with the secret panel! Hey Pop, can
46、t we go see the house with the secret panel!Its not far from here, I know, the grandmother said. It wouldnt take over twenty minutes.Bailey was looking straight ahead. His jaw was as rigid as a horseshoe. No, he said.The children began to yell and scream that they wanted to see the house with the se
47、cret panel. John Wesley kicked the back of the front seat and June Star hung over her mothers shoulder and whined desperately into her ear that they never had any fun even on their vacation, that they could never do what THEY wanted to do. The baby began to scream and John Wesley kicked the back of
48、the seat so hard that his father could feel the blows in his kidney.All right! he shouted and drew the car to a stop at the side of the road. Will you all shut up? Will you all just shut up for one second? If you dont shut up, we wont go anywhere.It would be very educational for them, the grandmother murmured.All right, Bailey said, but get this: this is the only time were going to stop for anything like this. This is the one and