داستان A Rose for Emily با ترجمه فارسی

 A Rose for Emily


William Faulkner


I

WHEN Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in at least ten years.

It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.

Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor--he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron-remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity. Not that Miss Emily would have accepted charity. Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily's father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this way of repaying. Only a man of Colonel Sartoris' generation and thought could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed it.

When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction. On the first of the year they mailed her a tax notice. February came, and there was no reply. They wrote her a formal letter, asking her to call at the sheriff's office at her convenience. A week later the mayor wrote her himself, offering to call or to send his car for her, and received in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink, to the effect that she no longer went out at all. The tax notice was also enclosed, without comment.

داستان صدای چکمه /Hobnail نوشته ی Crystal Arbogast + ترجمه فارسی

فانی پوتیت عروسک پارچهای محبوبش را زیر بغلش گرفت و چهار زانو جلوی ایوان خانه دایی جونز نشست.

خورشید دیرهنگام بعدازظهری از میان برگهای درخت بزرگ بلوط میتابید و نور لرزانش را به روی اتاق میانداخت. تمام حواس بچه را نور طلایی خورشید به خود معطوف کرده بود و به گونهای نگاهش به بالا دوخته شده بود که انگار هیپنوتیزم شده است. صدای صحبت یکنواختی از اتاق میآمد.

«الن خوشحالم که امروز با ما به کلیسا اومدی. چرا شب نمیمونی؟ دیگه خیلی دیر شده، قبل از اینکه به خونه برسی هوا تاریک میشه.»

مادر فانی جواب داد: مهم نیست سالی. میدونی که لیج به شام چقدر حساسه! برای اون و پسرا غذا روی اجاق گذاشتم ولی دوست داره فانی و من خونه باشیم. از این گذشته دوست داره دربارة اینکه زن سام بورث تونسته اون رو به کلیسا بکشونه یا نه، خبری بشنوه.»

صدای خنده مادرش، افکار بچه را که غرق فکر بود پاره کرد، بلند شد و ایستاد. لباسش را روی زیرپیراهنی بیرون آمدهاش کشید و توی اتاق رفت.

«فانی شال گردنت رو بردار. وقتی خورشید غروب کنه، هوا سرد میشه.»

همانطور که دختر کوچولو داشت به طرف صندلی کنار بخاری میرفت تا شال گردنش را بردارد، دایی با یک فانوس از در پشتی توی اتاق آمد.

«الن، لازمت میشه. فتیلهاش تازهست و برات پرش کردم.»

داستان Sun-Powered Car نوشته ی Robert Burton Robinson + ترجمه فارسی

Sun-Powered Car

by

Robert Burton Robinson

It was just another lousy day in the life of a has-been TV news reporter.

Malcolm was past his prime. And at age 57, he’d long ago given up on his dream of sitting in the anchor chair. But the assignments he’d been getting recently were just downright degrading. It was a three-hour drive back to the city. He was starving. Weren’t there any McDonalds in this crummy little town? He decided to stop at the next restaurant he saw—no matter what it looked like.

Helen’s Hamburgers: the best burgers in town, the sign read. Malcolm suspected that Helen’s might be the only burger joint in town. The fact the there were no cars parked in front made him hesitate. He checked his watch. It was only 11:00 AM—too early for most lunchers. He parked his car and got out. Just as he was about to go inside, he heard something coming down the street. It was too noisy to be a bicycle, yet too quiet to be a car. He turned around.

The brakes squeaked on the 1957 Chevy Bel Air 4-door hardtop as it pulled in behind his car. It was in decent shape for a 50-year-old car. But an odd-looking luggage rack had been bolted to the top of the thing. Malcolm hated to see a great classic car defiled like that. But why was the engine so quiet? Then he realized that the flat thing on top of the car was not a luggage rack—it was a solar panel.

داستان مرد نابینا نوشته ی کیت چاپین + ترجمه فارسی

The Blind Man


A man carrying a small red box in one hand walked slowly down the street. His old straw hat and faded garments looked as if the rain had often beaten upon them, and the sun had as many times dried them upon his person. He was not old, but he seemed feeble; and he walked in the sun, along the blistering asphalt pavement. On the opposite side of the street there were trees that threw a thick and pleasant shade: people were all walking on that side. But the man did not know, for he was blind, and moreover he was stupid.

In the red box were lead pencils, which he was endeavoring to sell. He carried no stick, but guided himself by trailing his foot along the stone copings or his hand along the iron railings. When he came to the steps of a house he would mount them. Sometimes, after reaching the door with great difficulty, he could not find the electric button, whereupon he would patiently descend and go his way. Some of the iron gates were locked, their owners being away for the summer, and he would consume much time striving to open them, which made little difference, as he had all the time there was at his disposal.

At times he succeeded in finding the electric button: but the man or maid who answered the bell needed no pencil, nor could they be induced to disturb the mistress of the house about so small a thing.