[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
were quite old, Dilsey permitted Frony to respond.
"Mammy aint feelin well dis mawnin."
"Dat's too bad. But Rev'un Shegog'll kyo dat. He'll give her de comfort
en de unburdenin."
The road rose again, to a scene like a painted backdrop. Notched into a
cut of red clay crowned with oaks the road appeared to stop short off, like a
cut ribbon. Beside it a weathered church lifted its crazy steeple like a
painted church, and the whole scene was as flat and without perspective as a
painted cardboard set upon the ultimate edge of the flat earth, against the
windy sunlight of space and April and a midmorning filled with bells. Toward
the church they thronged with slow sabbath deliberation, the women and
children went on in, the men stopped outside and talked in quiet groups until
the bell ceased ringing. Then they too entered.
The church had been decorated, with sparse flowers from kitchen gardens
and hedgerows, and with streamers of colored crepe paper. Above the pulpit
hung a battered Christmas bell, the accordion sort that collapses. The pulpit
was empty, though the choir was already in place, fanning themselves although
it was not warm.
Most of the women were gathered on one side of the room. They were
talking. Then the bell struck one time and they dispersed to their seats and
the congregation sat for an instant, expectant. The bell struck again one
time. The choir rose and began to sing and the congregation turned its head as
one as six small children--four girls with tight pigtails bound with small
scraps of cloth like butterflies, and two boys with close napped
heads--entered and marched up the aisle, strung together in a harness of white
ribbons and flowers, and followed by two men in single file. The second man
was huge, of a light coffee color, imposing in a frock coat and white tie. His
head was magisterial and profound, his neck rolled above his collar in rich
folds. But he was familiar to them, and so the heads were still reverted when
he had passed, and it was not until the choir ceased singing that they
realised that the visiting clergyman had already entered, and when they saw
the man who had preceded their minister enter the pulpit still ahead of him an
indescribable sound went up, a sigh, a sound of astonishment and
disappointment.
Page 134
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
The visitor was undersized, in a shabby alpaca coat. He had a wizened
black face like a small, aged monkey. And all the while that the choir sang
again and while the six children rose and sang in thin, frightened, tuneless
whispers, they watched the insignificant looking man sitting dwarfed and
countrified by the minister's imposing bulk, with something like
consternation. They were still looking at him with consternation and unbelief
when the minister rose and introduced him in rich, rolling tones whose very
unction served to increase the visitor's insignificance.
"En dey brung dat all de way fum Saint Looey," Frony whispered.
"I've knowed de Lawd to use cuiser tools den dat," Dilsey said. "Hush,
now," she said to Ben. "Dey fixin to sing again in a minute."
When the visitor rose to speak he sounded like a white man. His voice was
level and cold. It sounded too big to have come from him and they listened at
first through curiosity, as they would have to a monkey talking. They began to
watch him as they would a man on a tight rope. They even forgot his
insignificant appearance in the virtuosity with which he ran and poised and
swooped upon the cold inflectionless wire of his voice, so that at last, when
with a sort of swooping glide he came to rest again beside the reading desk
with one arm resting upon it at shoulder height and his monkey body as reft of
all motion as a mummy or an emptied vessel, the congregation sighed as if it
waked from a collective dream and moved a little in its seats. Behind the
pulpit the choir fanned steadily. Dilsey whispered, "Hush, now. Dey fixin to
sing in a minute."
Then a voice said, "Brethren."
The preacher had not moved. His arm lay yet across the desk, and he still
held that pose while the voice died in sonorous echoes between the walls. It
was as different as day and dark from his former tone, with a sad, timbrous
quality like an alto horn, sinking into their hearts and speaking there again
when it had ceased in fading and cumulate echoes.
"Brethren and sisteren," it said again. The preacher removed his arm and
he began to walk back and forth before the desk, his hands clasped behind him,
a meagre figure, hunched over upon itself like that of one long immured in
striving with the implacable earth, "I got the recollection and the blood of
the Lamb!" He tramped steadily back and forth beneath the twisted paper and
the Christmas bell, hunched, his hands clasped behind him. He was like a worn
small rock whelmed by the successive waves of his voice. With his body he
seemed to feed the voice that, succubus like, had fleshed its teeth in
him. And the congregation seemed to watch with its own eyes while the voice
consumed him, until he was nothing and they were nothing and there was not
even a voice but instead their hearts were speaking to one another in chanting
measures beyond the need for words, so that when he came to rest against the
reading desk, his monkey face lifted and his whole attitude that of a serene,
tortured crucifix that transcended its shabbiness and insignificance and made
it of no moment, a long moaning expulsion of breath rose from them, and a
woman's single soprano: "Yes, Jesus!"
As the scudding day passed overhead the dingy windows glowed and faded in
ghostly retrograde. A car passed along the road outside, laboring in the sand,
died away. Dilsey sat bolt upright, her hand on Ben's knee. Two tears slid
down her fallen cheeks, in and out of the myriad coruscations of immolation
and abnegation and time.
"Brethren," the minister said in a harsh whisper, without moving.
"Yes, Jesus!" the woman's voice said, hushed yet.
"Breddren en sistuhn!" His voice rang again, with the horns. He removed
his arm and stood erect and raised his hands. "I got de ricklickshun en de
blood of de Lamb!" They did not mark just when his intonation, his
pronunciation, became negroid, they just sat swaying a little in their seats
as the voice took them into itself.
"When de long, cold--Oh, I tells you, breddren, when de long, cold.... I
sees de light en I sees de word, po sinner! Dey passed away in Egypt, de
swingin chariots; de generations passed away. Wus a rich man: whar he now, O
Page 135
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
breddren? Wus a po man: whar he now, O sistuhn? Oh I tells you, ef you aint
got de milk en de dew of de old salvation when de long, cold years rolls
away!"
"Yes, Jesus!"
"I tells you, breddren, en I tells you, sistuhn, dey'll come a time. Po
sinner sayin Let me lay down wid de Lawd, femme lay down my load. Den whut
Jesus "wine say, O breddren? O sistuhn? Is you got de ricklickshun en de Blood
of de Lamb? Case I aint gwine load down heaven!"
He fumbled in his coat and took out a handkerchief and mopped his face. A
low concerted sound rose from the congregation: "Mmmmmmmmmmmmm!" The woman's
voice said, "Yes, Jesus! Jesus!"
"Breddren! Look at dem little chiller settin dar. Jesus wus like dat
once. He mammy suffered de glory en de pangs. Sometime maybe she heft him at
de nightfall, whilst de angels singin him to sleep; maybe she look out de do
en see de Roman po-lice passin." He tramped back and forth, mopping his face.
"Listen, breddren! I sees de day. Ma'y settin in de do wid Jesus on her lap,
de little Jesus. Like dem chiller dar, de little Jesus. I hears de angels
singin de peaceful songs en de glory; I sees de closin eyes; sees Mary jump
up, sees de sojer face: We gwine to kill! We gwine to kill! We gwine to kill
yo little Jesus! I hears de weepin en de lamentation of de po mammy widout de
salvation en de word of God!"
"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Jesus! Little Jesus! and another voice, rising:
"I sees, O Jesus! Oh I sees!" and still another, without words, like
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]