Hurston, Zora N. ''Their Eyes were watching God''-Fr-En-Sp

tr. de Fr. Brosky Zora N. Hurston’s Their eyes were tr. de Andrés Ibañez notas
ici. Jm’en étais pas rendu compte quand
mon sommeil était à zéro. Jsors faire un
tour et voir c-qu’on peut faire. Jsuis prêt
à tout tenter au moins une fois.
- Tu frais mieux drester dans cette maison
et dte rposer. De toute façon y a rien à
trouver dehors.
- Mais jveux aller voir,
Janie. Peut-êt’ qu’y a du boulot
et que jpeux aider.
- J’ai du pognon sur moi, Janie. Y peuvent
pas m’embêter. De toute façon, j’ai
vraiment envie d’aller voir comment vont
les [298] choses. Jveux découvrir si jpeux
apprend’ quèquchose sur les gars des
‘Glades. Peut-êt’ qu’y s’en sont tous sortis.
Peut-êt’ pas. »
Ptit-Four sortit se promener. I1 vit la
main de l’horreur qui s’était posée partout.
Des maisons sans toit et des toits sans maison.
L’acier et la pierre émiettés et broyés
comme du bois. La mère de la méchanceté
s’était jouée des hommes.
5
Alors qu’il restait là à regarder, 40
Ptit-Four aperçut deux hommes qui se
While Tea Cake was standing and
looking he saw two men coming towards
dirigeaient vers lui, fusil en bandoulière. him with rifles on their shoulders. Two
Deux Blancs. Il se rappela ce que lui avait white men, so he thought about what
dit Janie et fléchit les genoux pour fuir. Janie had told him and flexed his knees
Mais il comprit en un éclair que ça ne 45 to run. But in a moment he saw that
servirait à rien. Ils l’avaient vu et ils étaient
trop près pour le rater s’ils tiraient.
Peut-être passeraient-ils sans s’arrêter.
Peutêtre qu’en voyant son argent, ils se
rendraient compte qu’il n’était pas un
vagabond.
« Eh là-bas, Jim, appela le plus grand
des deux. On te cherchait.
- Jm’appelle pas Jim, répondit Ptit-Four
sur le qui-vive. Pourquoi quvous
mcherchez moi ? J’ai rien fait.
55
heah. Ah didn’t notice when mah rest
wuz broke. Ah’m goin’ out and look
around and see whut we kin do. Ah’ll
give anything uh common trial.”
“You better stay inside dis house and
git some rest. ’Tain’t nothin’ tuh find out
dere nohow.”
10 “But Ah wants tuh look and see,
Janie. Maybe it’s some kinda work fuh
me tuh help do.”
- Là où y veulent que t’aide, ça “Whut dey want you tuh help do, you
va pas tplaire. Y s’emparent de tous 15 ain’t gointuh like it. Dey’s grabbin’ all
les hommes sur qui y peuvent mett’ de menfolks dey kin git dey hands on
la main pour aider à enterrer les and makin’ ’em help bury de dead. Dey
morts. Y prétendent qu’ils en veulent claims dey’s after de unemployed, but
qu’aux chômeurs, mais qu’tu travailles
dey ain’t bein’ too particular about
ou pas, y font pas les difficiles. 20 whether you’se employed or not. You
Reste ici. La Croix-Rouge fait tout stay in dis house. De Red Cross is doin’
c-qu’y a moyen dfaire pour les all dat kin be done otherwise fuh de sick
malades et les affligés.
and de ’fflicted.”
25 “Ah got money on me, Janie. Dey
can’t bother me. Anyhow Ah wants
tuh go see how things is sho nuff.
Ah wants tuh see if Ah kin hear
anything ’bout de boys from de
30 ’Glades. Maybe dey all come
through all right. Maybe not.”
Tea Cake went out and wandered
around. Saw the hand of horror on
35 everything. Houses without roofs, and
roofs without houses. Steel and stone all
crushed and crumbled like wood. The
mother of malice had trifled with men.
wouldn’t do him any good. They had
already seen him and they were too close
to miss him if they shot. Maybe they
would pass on by. Maybe when they saw
50 he had money they would realize he was
not a tramp.
“Hello, there, Jim,” the tallest one
called out. “We been lookin’ fuh you.”
“Mah name ain’t no Jim,” Tea Cake
said watchfully. “Whut you been lookin’
fuh me fuh? Ah ain’t done nothin’.”
cama se están volviendo mu atrevidas. No tengo
idea de cuándo se acabará mi descanso. Voy
a salir a ver qué puedo hacer. Daría cualquier
cosa por un trabajo.
—Lo mejor será que te quedes
en casa y descanses. Ahí fuera
no hay ná pa ti.
—Es que quiero salir a mirar, Janie. A lo
mejor hay por ahí algún trabajo en el que yo
pueda ayudar. [188]
—En lo que a ellos les gustaría que
les ayudaras, no te iba a gustar. Están
cogiendo a tós los hombres que encuentran
a mano pa obligarles a enterrar a los
muertos. Dicen que están empleando a
gente sin trabajo, pero no se preocupan
demasiao de averiguar si tienen trabajo
o no. Tú te quedas en casa. La Cruz Roja
ya está haciendo tó lo que puede por los
enfermos y los afectaos.
—Yo llevo dinero encima, Janie.
No pueden hacerme ná. Ademá, tengo
ganas de ver cómo están las cosa.
Quiero enterarme de qué ha pasado
con los muchachos de los
Everglades. Quizá han salío bien libraos.
Quizá no.
Tea Cake salió y se puso a dar vueltas por
los alrededores. En todo veía la mano del horror.
Casas sin tejado y tejados sin casa. Acero
y piedra, estrujado todo y despedazado como si
fuera madera. La madre de la malevolencia había
estado jugando con los hombres.
Tea Cake estaba de pie y observando
cuando vio que dos hombres con rifles
al hombro se acercaban hacia él. Eran
dos blancos, por lo que pensó en lo que
Janie le había dicho y se dispuso a echar
a correr. Pero enseguida se dio cuenta
de que correr no era una buena idea. Los
otros le habían visto ya y estaban demasiado
cerca para no darle si disparaban.
Tal vez lo dejarían ir. Tal vez cuando
vieran que tenía dinero se darían cuenta
de que no era un vagabundo.
—Eh, tú, Jim —le dijo el más alto—. A ti te
estábamos buscando.
—Yo no me llamo Jim —dijo Tea Cake, con
cuidado—. ¿Por qué me estaban buscando precisamente
a mí? No estoy haciendo ná.
sees that he is holding the pistol. He pulls the
trigger once, and it clicks on the empty chamber.
Janie grabs the rifle and hopes to scare him off.
But he pulls the trigger twice more, and as he is
about to fire again, Janie has no choice but to
shoot him.
Janie is put on trial that same day. In the
courtroom, all of the black people of the muck
have come to watch, and Janie can feel that they,
her former friends, have all turned against her;
they even offer to testify against her. Dr.
Simmons takes the stand in defense of Janie,
but Janie gives the most powerful testimony of
all, telling the court about their story and her love
for Tea Cake. The all-white, all-male jury finds
her innocent. The white women watching the
proceedings crowd around her in solidarity while
her former friends shuffle out, defeated. After
the trial, Janie gives Tea Cake a royal burial.
Analysis
Chapter 19 constitutes the final leg of Janie’s
spiritual journey, and she suffers a great deal.
In Chapter 16, the narrator notes that «[r]eal
gods require blood,» and Janie’s trials here
represent her final sacrifices on the path toward
liberation and enlightenment. The first trial comes
with Tea Cake’s being conscripted into the
racist burial crew. In contrast with Hurston’s
treatment of Mrs. Turner, this episode presents
racism in more conventional terms: whites
exerting their will on blacks. But again, the
racism is presented more as an environmental
force or cultural construct than an essential
quality of any particular person. The white men
remain nameless, and the racism seems more
a product of the environment and the
circumstances than anything else; Tea Cake and
Janie are able to escape it by leaving the area.
The second tribulation that Janie must face is
Tea Cake’s disease and deterioration. Once
again, Janie and Tea Cake are confronted not
by a particular person but by an impersonal force:
a disease that he contracts as a result of
events that occur during the hurricane. The
diseased Tea Cake, who flies into jealous rages,
is the polar opposite of the man he once was,
secure in the midst of the natural world and
generally confident in his possession of Janie.
In other words, this capricious force destroys Tea
Cake’s very essence. The moment of Tea Cake’s
death, though horrible for Janie to endure,
reflects how much she has grown as a person
and how secure she has become. Although Tea
Cake means everything to her, she is able to kill
him to save herself. Her relationship with him
has brought her along the path of enlightenment,
and now that she has achieved the horizon, she
is strong enough to live on her own.
The courtroom scene is Janie’s final trial. Here,
she faces ostracism from the same community
that nurtured her development and supported
her during the hurricane, a penalty worse than
any the court could impose: «It was not death
she feared. It was misunderstanding.» She does
not need the superficial acceptance in the gossip
culture of the porch —she has already dismissed
that world—but she needs the community to
recognize the strength of her bond with Tea Cake
as well as her own fortitude.
- C’est justement pour ça qu’on
tcherche - pasque tu fais rien. Allez viens,
on va inhumer les morts. On arrive pas à
les mett’ en terre assez vite. »
Le plus petit des deux saisit son fusil.
« File au bas dcette rue, Môssieur ! Fais
gaffe qu’on t’enterre pas, toi aussi ! Allez,
passe devant moi, Môssieur ! »
Ptit-Four se retrouva membre d’une petite
armée qu’on avait recrutée de force pour
dégager les décombres dans les endroits publics
60 “Dat’s whut we want yuh fuh—not
doin’ nothin’. Come on [161] less go
bury some uh dese heah dead folks. Dey
ain’t gittin’ buried fast enough.”
Ptit-Four reculait, sur la défensive. [299] 65 Tea Cake hung back defensively.
« En quoi ça mconcerne ? Jsuis un “Whut Ah got tuh do wid dat? Ah’m uh
travailleur, j’ai dl’argent en poche. workin’ man wid money in mah pocket.
J’ai été chassé des `Glades par la Jus’ got blowed outa de ’Glades by de
tempête. »
storm.”
70
75
The short man made a quick move with his rifle.
“Git on down de road dere, suh! Don’t
look out somebody’ll be buryin’ you!
G’wan in front uh me, suh!”
Tea Cake found that he was part of a
small army that had been pressed into
service to clear the wreckage in public
—Por eso te buscamos, porque no haces
nada. Vamos, hay que enterrar a algunos
muertos. La gente que hay no da abasto
para enterrarlos.
Tea Cake se puso a la defensiva.
—¿Y qué tengo yo que ver con eso? Yo
soy un trabajador con dinero en el bolsillo.
El huracán me ha echao de los
Everglades. [189]
El hombre más bajo hizo un rápido movimiento
con su rifle. —¡Echa a andar ahora mismo!
¡No vayamos a tener que enterrarte también
a ti! ¡Vamos, delante de mí!
Tea Cake se encontró formando parte del pequeño
ejército que habían reunido para limpiar de
escombros los lugares públicos y para enterrar a
At this point, Hurston utilizes an unusual
narrative device that has been the source of
much debate about the novel. For most of the
second half of the story, Janie speaks without
interruption. She has found her voice, and
language has become her means of exploring
herself, asserting herself, and enjoying human
interaction. But at the trial, Hurston renders her
silent. While speech has been rendered in bold,
direct quotations throughout much of the novel,
the narrator here summarizes Janie’s
statements indirectly. Janie herself does not
speak to the reader. The passage reads, «She
talked…. She just sat there and told and when
she was through she hushed.» Some critics have
argued that this shift reflects that Janie’s quest
has gone unfulfilled, that she has not found her
voice or the horizon. But other critics, notably
Alice Walker, have argued, as Mary Ellen Washington
recounts in the foreword to most modern
editions of the book, that Janie’s silence reflects
her mastery of her own voice. This perspective
is in keeping with the interpretation of Janie’s
passive acceptance of Tea Cake’s beating her
in Chapter 17 as a sign of her strength.
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