Classic Love Anthology - The Heartbreak Café Song

Author: (American) McCullers Li Wenjun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: On a leading afternoon, the road was deserted, the dust dazzlingly white; the sky above was bright as glass; a woman sat listlessly behind the blinds; listening to the singing of the bound from the depths of the earth. Miss Emily, capable and wealthy in the small town, "had grown bones and muscles like a man"; the local handsome man Marvin Macy fell in love with her, changing his rogueish ways to become a respectable man, and after two years of secret love, finally gathered the courage to propose. But this marriage lasted only ten days, "a groom could not take his beloved bride to bed." Macy reverted to his old ways and was imprisoned. Miss Emily contentedly enjoyed her peaceful life until her hunchbacked cousin Lемон came to the town, fell in love with him, and always yielded to him. Six years later, Macy was granted parole. Lемон, upon seeing him, tried to curry favor with him, but Macy responded with a punch. The hunchback still went out every day to pick fights with Macy and had him stay at their house. The conflict between Miss Emily and Macy finally erupted, and the two fought a duel in full view of the townspeople. Just as "her strong hands gripped his throat," the hunchback screamed and joined the fight, and Miss Emily became the loser. Of course, the hunchback and Macy robbed the café and left together. For three consecutive days, Miss Emily sat on the steps of the front porch, gazing and waiting, but the hunchback never returned. In the fourth year, she had a carpenter nail up all the windows and doors, "from then on she stayed locked in the room." The novel expresses a theme as eternal as love—loneliness—in a mysterious, eerie, and absurd way, using the absurdity of love to prove the inevitability of loneliness.