97
Yet ev’n these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck’d,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh
48
.
Text 9
She was an old woman and lived on a farm near the town in which I lived.
All country and small-town people
have seen such old women, but no one
knows much about them. Such an old woman comes into town driving an old
worn-out horse or she comes afoot carrying a basket. She may own a few hens
and have eggs to sell. She brings them in a basket and takes them to a grocer.
There she trades them in. She gets some salt pork and some beans. Then she
gets a pound or two of sugar and some flour.
Afterwards she goes to the butcher’s and asks for some dog-meat. She
may spend ten or fifteen cents, but when she does she asks for something.
Formerly the butchers gave liver to any one who wanted to carry it away. In our
family we were always having it. Once one of my brothers got a whole cow’s
liver at the slaughter-house near the fairgrounds in our town. We had it until
we were sick of it. It never cost a cent. I have hated the thought of it ever since.
The old farm woman got some liver and a soup-bone. She never visited
with any one, and as soon as she got what she wanted she lit out for home.
It made quite a load for such an old body. No one gave her a lift. People drive
right down a road and never notice an old woman like that.
There was such an old woman who used to come into town past our house
one Summer and Fall when I was a young boy and was sick with what was
called inflammatory rheumatism. She went home later carrying a heavy pack
on her back. Two or three large gaunt-looking dogs followed at her heels.
The old woman was nothing special. She was one of the nameless ones
that hardly any one knows, but she got into my thoughts. I have just suddenly
now, after all these years, remembered her and what happened. It is a story. Her
name was Grimes, and she lived with her husband and son in a small unpainted
house on the bank of a small creek four miles from town.
(From
Death in the Woods
by Sherwood Anderson)
49
48
Graphics and punctuation taken from: История английской поэзии XVI–XIX ве-
ков : материалы к спецсеминару / сост. М. Р. Чернышов. Екатеринбург, 2009. С. 36–38.
49
Anderson Sh.
Death in the Woods and Other Stories. New York, 1933. P. 3–4.
98
Text 10
50
Punctuation and orthography according to the edition : A Poetry Anthology /
eds M. K. Danziger, W. S. Johnson. New York, 1968. P. 100–101.
Christopher Marlowe
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