Liam O’Flaherty - The Letter 汉译

It was a summer afternoon. The clear blue sky was dotted with fluttering larks. The wind was still, as if it listened to their gentle singing. From the shining earth a faint smoke arose, like incense, shaken from invisible thuribles in a rhapsody of joy by hosts of unseen spirits. Such peace had fallen on the world! It seemed there was nothing but love and beauty everywhere; fragrant summer air and the laughter of happy birds. Everything listened to the singing larks in brooding thoughtlessness. Yea, even the horned snails lay stretched out on grey stones with their houses on their backs.

There was no loud sound. Nothing asserted its size in a brutal tumult of wind and thunder. Nothing swaggered with a raucous noise to disarrange the perfect harmony. Even the tiny insects mounting the blades of grass with slow feet were giants in themselves and things of pride to nature.

The grass blades, brushing with the movements of their growth, made joyous gentle sounds, like the sighs of a maiden in love.

A peasant and his family were working in a little field .The father, the mother, and four children were there. They were putting fresh earth around sprouting potato stalks. They were very happy. It was a good thing to work there in the little field beneath the singing larks. Yes, God, maybe, gave music to cheer their simple hearts.

The mother and the second eldest daughter weeded the ridges, passing before the others. The father carefully spread around the stalks the precious clay that the eldest son dug from the rocky bottom of the shallow field. A younger son, of twelve years, brought sea sand in a donkey’s creels from a far corner of the field. They mixed the sand with the black clay. The fourth child, still almost an infant, staggered about near his mother, plucking weeds slowly and offering them to his mother as gifts.

They worked in silence; except once when by chance the father’s shovel slipped on a stone and dislodged a young stalk from its shallow bed.  The father uttered a cry. They all looked.    “Oh! Praised be God on high” the mother said, crossing herself.

In the father’s hands was the potato stalk and from its straggling thin roots here hung a cluster of tiny new potatoes, smaller than small marbles. Already their seeds had borne fruit and multiplied. They all stood around and wondered. Then suddenly the eldest son, a stripling, spat on his hands and said wistfully:

“Ah, if Mary were here now wouldn’t she be glad to see the new potatoes. I remember, on this very spot, she spread seaweed last winter.”

Silence followed this remark. It was of the eldest daughter he had spoken. She had gone to America in early spring. Since then they had only receive done letter from her. A neighbor’s daughter had written home recently, though, that Mary was without work. She had left her first place that a priest had found for her, as servant in a rich woman’s house.

The mother bowed her head and murmured sadly:

“God is good. Maybe today we’ll get a letter.”

The father stooped again, struck the earth fiercely with his shovel, and whispered harshly:

“Get with the work.”

They moved away .But the eldest son mused for a while, looking over the distant hills. Then he said loudly to his mother as if in defiance:

“It’s too proud she is to write, mother, until she has money to send. I know Mary. She was always the proud one.”

They all bent over their work and the toddling child began again to bring weeds as gifts to his mother. The mother suddenly caught the child in her arms and kissed him. Then she said:

“Oh! They are like angels singing up there. Angels they are like. Wasn’t God good to them to give them voices like that? Maybe if she heard the larks sing she’d write.But sure there are no larks in big cities.”

And nobody replied. But surely the larks no longer sang happily. Now the sky became immense. The world became immense, an empty dangerous vastness. And the music of the fluttering birds had an eerie lilt to it. So they felt; all except the toddling child, who still came innocently to his mother, bringing little weeds as gifts.

Suddenly the merry cries of children mingled with the triumphant singing of the larks. They all paused and stood erect. Two little girls were running up the lane towards the field. Between the winding fences of the narrow lane they saw the darting white pinafores and the bobbing golden heads of the running girls. They came running, crying out joyously in trilling girlish voices. They were the two remaining children. They were coming home from school.

“What brought ye to the field?” the mother cried while they were still afar off.

“A letter,” one cried, as she jumped on to the fence of the field.

The father dropped his shovel and coughed. The mother crossed herself. The eldest son struck the ground with his spade and said:”By the Book.”

“Yes, a letter from Mary, “said the other child, climbing over the fence also and eager to participate equally with her sister in the bringing of the good news. “The postman gave it to us.”

They brought the letter to their father. All crowded round their father by the fence, where there was a little heap of stones. The father sat down, rubbed his fingers carefully on his thighs, and took the letter. They all knelt around his knees. The mother took the infant in her arms. They all became very silent. Their breathing became loud. The father turned the letter round about in his hands many times, examining it.

“It’s her handwriting surely,” he said at length.

“Yes, yes.” said the eldest son. “Open it, father.”

“In the name of God,” said the mother.

“God send us good news,” the father said, slowly tearing the envelope. Then he paused gain, afraid to look into the envelope. Then one of the girls said:

“Look, look. There’s a cheque in it. I see it against the sun.”

“Eh?” said the mother.

With a rapid movement the father drew out the contents of the envelope. A cheque was within the folded letter. Not a word was spoken until he held up the cheque and said:

“Great God, it’s for twenty pounds.”

“My darling,” the mother said, raising her eyes to the sky. “My treasure, I bore you in my womb. My own sweet treasure.”

The children began to laugh, hysterical with joy. The father coughed and said in a low voice:

“There’s a horse for that money to be had, A horse.”

“Oh! Father, “said the eldest son. “A two-year-old and we’ll break it on the strand. I’ll break it, father. Then we’ll have a horse like the people of the village. Isn’t Mary great? Didn’t I say she was waiting until she had money to send? A real horse!”

“And then I can have the ass for myself, daddy,” said the second boy.

And he yelled with joy.

“Be quiet will ye.” said the mother quietly in a sad tone. “Isn’t there a letter from my darling? Won’t ye read me the letter?”

“Here,” said the father. “Take it and read it one of ye. My hand is shaking.”

It was shaking and there were tears in his eyes, so that he could see nothing but a blur.

“I’ll read it,” said the second daughter.

She took the letter, glanced over it from side to side, and then suddenly burst into tears.

“What is it?” said the eldest son angrily. “Give it to me.”

He took the letter, glanced over it, and then his face became stern. All their faces became stern.

“Read it, son,” the father said.

“‘Dear Parents,’” the son began. “‘Oh, Mother, I am so lonely,’ It’s all covered with blots the same as if she were crying on the paper. ‘Daddy, why did I…why did I ever...ever...’ it’s hard to make it out...yes... ‘why did I ever come to this awful place? Say a prayer for me every night, mother. Kiss baby for me. Forgive me, mother. Your loving daughter Mary.’”

When he finished there was utter silence for a long time. The father was the first to move. He rose slowly, still holding the cheque in his hand. Then he said:

“There was no word about the money in the letter,” he said in a queer voice. “Why is that now?”

“Twenty pounds,” the mother said in a hollow voice. “It isn’t earned in a week.”

She snatched the letter furtively from her son, and hid it ravenously in her bosom.

The father walked away slowly by the fence, whispering to himself in a dry voice: 

“Aye! My greed stopped me asking myself that question. Twenty pounds.”

He walked away erect and stiff, like a man angrily drunk.

The others continued to sit about in silence, brooding. They no longer heard the larks. Suddenly one looked up and said in a frightened voice:

“What is father doing?”

They all looked. The father had passed out of the field into another uplying craggy field. He was now standing on a rock with his arms folded and his bare head fallen forward on his chest, perfectly motionless. His back was towards them but they knew he was crying. He had stood that way, apart, the year before, on the day their horses died.

Then the eldest son muttered a curse and jumped to his feet. He stood still with his teeth set and his wide eyes flashing. The infant boy dropped a weed from his tiny hands and burst into frenzied weeping.

Then the mother clutched the child in her arms and cried out in a despairing voice:

“Oh Birds, birds, why do ye go on singing when my heart is frozen with grief.” Together, they all burst into a loud despairing wail and the harsh sound of their weeping rose into the sky from the field that had suddenly become ugly and lonely; up, up into the clear blue sky where the larks still sang their triumphant melody.