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169 pages

English

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Although he appeared to most observers to be white, American author Charles Waddell Chestnutt had some African-American ancestry and thus was subjected to the limited opportunities, discrimination, and segregated living conditions that faced African-Americans in the United States throughout his life. An accomplished writer, Chestnutt created The House Behind the Cedars as a means of trying to depict the multidimensional complexity of race relations in the nineteenth-century American South. Recommended for fans of literary realism and social issue novels.

Informations

Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775419495
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS
* * *
CHARLES WADDELL CHESNUTT

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The House Behind the Cedars First published in 1900 ISBN 978-1-775419-49-5 © 2010 The Floating Press
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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I - A Stranger from South Carolina II - An Evening Visit III - The Old Judge IV - Down the River V - The Tournament VI - The Queen of Love and Beauty VII - 'Mid New Surroundings VIII - The Courtship IX - Doubts and Fears X - The Dream XI - A Letter and a Journey XII - Tryon Goes to Patesville XIII - An Injudicious Payment XIV - A Loyal Friend XV - Mine Own People XVI - The Bottom Falls Out XVII - Two Letters XVIII - Under the Old Regime XIX - God Made Us All XX - Digging Up Roots XXI - A Gilded Opportunity XXII - Imperative Business XXIII - The Guest of Honor XXIV - Swing Your Partners XXV - Balance All XXVI - The Schoolhouse in the Woods XXVII - An Interesting Acquaintance XXVIII - The Lost Knife XXIX - Plato Earns Half a Dollar XXX - An Unusual Honor XXXI - In Deep Waters XXXII - The Power of Love XXXIII - A Mule and a Cart
I - A Stranger from South Carolina
*
Time touches all things with destroying hand; and if he seem now andthen to bestow the bloom of youth, the sap of spring, it is but a briefmockery, to be surely and swiftly followed by the wrinkles of old age,the dry leaves and bare branches of winter. And yet there are placeswhere Time seems to linger lovingly long after youth has departed, andto which he seems loath to bring the evil day. Who has not known someeven-tempered old man or woman who seemed to have drunk of the fountainof youth? Who has not seen somewhere an old town that, having longsince ceased to grow, yet held its own without perceptible decline?
Some such trite reflection—as apposite to the subject as most randomreflections are—passed through the mind of a young man who came out ofthe front door of the Patesville Hotel about nine o'clock one finemorning in spring, a few years after the Civil War, and started downFront Street toward the market-house. Arriving at the town late theprevious evening, he had been driven up from the steamboat in acarriage, from which he had been able to distinguish only the shadowyoutlines of the houses along the street; so that this morning walk washis first opportunity to see the town by daylight. He was dressed in asuit of linen duck—the day was warm—a panama straw hat, and patentleather shoes. In appearance he was tall, dark, with straight, black,lustrous hair, and very clean-cut, high-bred features. When he pausedby the clerk's desk on his way out, to light his cigar, the day clerk,who had just come on duty, glanced at the register and read the lastentry:—
"'JOHN WARWICK, CLARENCE, SOUTH CAROLINA.'
"One of the South Ca'lina bigbugs, I reckon—probably in cotton, orturpentine." The gentleman from South Carolina, walking down thestreet, glanced about him with an eager look, in which curiosity andaffection were mingled with a touch of bitterness. He saw little thatwas not familiar, or that he had not seen in his dreams a hundred timesduring the past ten years. There had been some changes, it is true,some melancholy changes, but scarcely anything by way of addition orimprovement to counterbalance them. Here and there blackened anddismantled walls marked the place where handsome buildings once hadstood, for Sherman's march to the sea had left its mark upon the town.The stores were mostly of brick, two stories high, joining one anotherafter the manner of cities. Some of the names on the signs werefamiliar; others, including a number of Jewish names, were quiteunknown to him.
A two minutes' walk brought Warwick—the name he had registered under,and as we shall call him—to the market-house, the central feature ofPatesville, from both the commercial and the picturesque points ofview. Standing foursquare in the heart of the town, at theintersection of the two main streets, a "jog" at each street cornerleft around the market-house a little public square, which at this hourwas well occupied by carts and wagons from the country and empty draysawaiting hire. Warwick was unable to perceive much change in themarket-house. Perhaps the surface of the red brick, long unpainted,had scaled off a little more here and there. There might have been aslight accretion of the moss and lichen on the shingled roof. But thetall tower, with its four-faced clock, rose as majestically anduncompromisingly as though the land had never been subjugated. Was itso irreconcilable, Warwick wondered, as still to peal out the curfewbell, which at nine o'clock at night had clamorously warned allnegroes, slave or free, that it was unlawful for them to be abroadafter that hour, under penalty of imprisonment or whipping? Was theold constable, whose chief business it had been to ring the bell, stillalive and exercising the functions of his office, and had age lessenedor increased the number of times that obliging citizens performed thisduty for him during his temporary absences in the company of convivialspirits? A few moments later, Warwick saw a colored policeman in theold constable's place—a stronger reminder than even the burnedbuildings that war had left its mark upon the old town, with which Timehad dealt so tenderly.
The lower story of the market-house was open on all four of its sidesto the public square. Warwick passed through one of the wide brickarches and traversed the building with a leisurely step. He looked invain into the stalls for the butcher who had sold fresh meat twice aweek, on market days, and he felt a genuine thrill of pleasure when herecognized the red bandana turban of old Aunt Lyddy, the ancient negrowoman who had sold him gingerbread and fried fish, and told him weirdtales of witchcraft and conjuration, in the old days when, as an idleboy, he had loafed about the market-house. He did not speak to her,however, or give her any sign of recognition. He threw a glance towarda certain corner where steps led to the town hall above. On thisstairway he had once seen a manacled free negro shot while being takenupstairs for examination under a criminal charge. Warwick recalledvividly how the shot had rung out. He could see again the livid lookof terror on the victim's face, the gathering crowd, the resultingconfusion. The murderer, he recalled, had been tried and sentenced toimprisonment for life, but was pardoned by a merciful governor afterserving a year of his sentence. As Warwick was neither a prophet northe son of a prophet, he could not foresee that, thirty years later,even this would seem an excessive punishment for so slight amisdemeanor.
Leaving the market-house, Warwick turned to the left, and kept on hiscourse until he reached the next corner. After another turn to theright, a dozen paces brought him in front of a small weather-beatenframe building, from which projected a wooden sign-board bearing theinscription:—
ARCHIBALD STRAIGHT, LAWYER.
He turned the knob, but the door was locked. Retracing his steps past avacant lot, the young man entered a shop where a colored man wasemployed in varnishing a coffin, which stood on two trestles in themiddle of the floor. Not at all impressed by the melancholysuggestiveness of his task, he was whistling a lively air with greatgusto. Upon Warwick's entrance this effusion came to a sudden end, andthe coffin-maker assumed an air of professional gravity.
"Good-mawnin', suh," he said, lifting his cap politely.
"Good-morning," answered Warwick. "Can you tell me anything aboutJudge Straight's office hours?"
"De ole jedge has be'n a little onreg'lar sence de wah, suh; but hegin'ally gits roun' 'bout ten o'clock er so. He's be'n kin' er feeblefer de las' few yeahs. An' I reckon," continued the undertakersolemnly, his glance unconsciously seeking a row of fine casketsstanding against the wall,—"I reckon he'll soon be goin' de way er allde earth. 'Man dat is bawn er 'oman hath but a sho't time ter lib, an'is full er mis'ry. He cometh up an' is cut down lack as a flower.''De days er his life is three-sco' an' ten'—an' de ole jedge is libbedmo' d'n dat, suh, by five yeahs, ter say de leas'."
"'Death,'" quoted Warwick, with whose mood the undertaker's remarkswere in tune, "'is the penalty that all must pay for the crime ofliving.'"
"Dat 's a fac', suh, dat 's a fac'; so dey mus'—so dey mus'. An' denall de dead has ter be buried. An' we does ou' sheer of it, suh, wedoes ou' sheer. We conduc's de obs'quies er all de bes' w'ite folks erde town, suh."
Warwick left the undertaker's shop and retraced his steps until he hadpassed the lawyer's office, toward which he threw an affectionateglance. A few rods farther led him past the old black Presbyterianchurch, with its square tower, embowered in a stately grove; past theCatholic church, with its many crosses, and a painted wooden figure ofSt. James in a recess beneath the gable; and past the old JeffersonHouse, once the leading hotel of the town, in front of which politicalmeetings had been held, and political speeches made, and political hardcider drunk, in the days of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too."
The street down which Warwick had come intersected Front Street at asharp angle in front of the old hotel, forming a sort of flatiron blockat the junction, known as Liberty Point,—perhaps because slaveauctions were sometimes held there in the good old days. Just beforeWarwick reached Liberty Point, a young woman came down Front Streetfrom the direction of the market-house. Whe