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
Chapter 5
5
CHAPTER 5
CAPÍTULO 5
Summary
Le lendemain, dans le train, Joe ne lui 0n the train the next day, Joe
fit pas de grands discours en vers, mais il 5 didn’t make many speeches with
lui acheta la plus belle marchandise qui se rhymes to her, but he bought her the
puisse trouver au kiosque de la gare, tels best things the butcher had, like
des pommes et une lanterne de verre remplie
apples and a glass lantern full of
de bonbons. Et surtout, il parla des candies. Mostly he talked about plans
plans qu’il avait pour la ville sitôt qu’il 10 for the town when he got there. They
serait arrivé. Ils auraient sûrement besoin
d’un gars comme lui. Janie le contemplait
tant et plus, et elle était fière de ce qu’elle
voyait. Le genre corpulent, comme les
Blancs riches. Les trains, les villes, les
étrangers ne lui faisaient pas peur. Ils
descendirent à Maitland et il découvrit un
boghei qui les emmena sur-le-champ vers
la bourgade des gens de couleur.
were bound to need somebody like
him. Janie took a lot of looks at him
and she was proud of what she saw.
Kind of portly like rich white folks.
15 Strange trains, and people and places
didn’t scare him neither. Where they
got off the train at Maitland he found
a buggy to carry them over to the
colored town right away.
20
Ils y arrivèrent en début It was early in the afternoon
d’après-midi, et Joe déclara qu’ils when they got there, so Joe said
devaient parcourir le patelin et l’explorer. they must walk over the place and
Bras-dessus bras-dessous, ils se look around. They locked arms
promenèrent d’un bout à l’autre du [73] 25 and strolled from end tfo end of
hameau. Joe prit bonne note de la maigre
douzaine d’habitations aux façades honteuses,
éparpillées dans le sable et les racines
de palmiers nains et s’écria : « Bon dieu ! ils
appellent ça une ville ? C’est rien qu’un bout
de terre nue au milieu des bois.
the town. Joe noted the scant
dozen of shame-faced houses
scattered in the sand and palmetto
roots and said, “God, they call this
30 a town? Why, ’tain’t nothing but
a raw place in de woods.”
- C’t un plein paquet plus ptit “It is a whole heap littler than Ah
que c-que jcroyais, avoua Janie, thought.” Janie admitted her
déçue.
35 disappointment.
- C’est bien c-que jpensais, fit Joe.
Un tas de parlottes et personne qui fait
rien. Eh Dieu ! où qu’il est le maire ?
demanda-t-il à quelqu’un. Jveux parler
au maire. »
‘Just like Ah thought,” Joe said. “A
whole heap uh talk and nobody doin’
nothin’. I god, where’s de Mayor?” he
40 asked somebody. “Ah want tuh speak
wid de Mayor.”
Al día siguiente, en el tren, Joe no le
dijo muchas florituras, pero le compró
las mejores cosas que había en la tienda
de comestibles, como manzanas y un
fanal de cristal lleno de caramelos. Principalmente
habló de los planes que tenía
para cuando llegaran a la ciudad.
Estaba seguro de que necesitarían a alguien
como él. Janie no cesaba de mirarle
y estaba orgullosa de lo que veía.
Un tipo de una seriedad semejante a la de
los blancos ricos. Los trenes, las gentes y los
lugares desconocidos no le asustaban. Al dejar
el tren en la estación de Maitland se procuró
una calesa que los llevara enseguida a
la ciudad de la gente de color.
Cuando llegaron era la hora de la siesta,
por lo que Joe propuso que dieran una
vuelta por el lugar y echaran un vistazo
alrededor. Se cogieron del brazo y recorrieron
la ciudad de un extremo a otro.
Joe observó la docena escasa de vergonzosas
viviendas desperdigadas entre la
arena y las raíces de palmito, y dijo:
—Dió, ¿a esto le llaman ciudá? Pero
si no es má que un lugar perdío en los
bosques.
—Es mucho má pequeña de lo
que yo imaginaba —admitió Janie
desilusionada.
—Justo lo que yo suponía —dijo
Joe—. Mucho darle a la lengua, pero nadie
hace ná. Dió mío, ¿dónde está el alcalde?
—preguntó a uno—. Quiero hablá
con el alcalde.
Jody and Janie arrive in the Florida town to
find that it consists of little more than a dozen
shacks. Jody introduces himself to two men,
Lee Coker and Amos Hicks, and asks to see
the mayor; the men reply that there is none.
Jody moves over to a porch to chat with a
group of the townspeople, who tell him that
the town’s name is Eatonville. After hearing
that Eatonville contains only fifty acres, Jody
makes a big show of paying cash for an
additional two hundred acres from Captain
Eaton, one of the donors of Eatonville’s
existing land. Hicks stays behind to flirt—
unsuccessfully—with Janie. Later, Coker
teases Hicks because all the other men know
that they can’t lure a woman like Janie away
from an ambitious, powerful, moneyed man
like Jody.
After buying the land, Jody announces his plans
to build a store and a post office and calls a town
meeting. A man named Tony Taylor is technically
chairman of the assembly, but Jody does all the
talking. Jody hires Coker and Taylor to build his
store while the rest of the town clears roads and
recruits new residents. Jody soon recovers the
cost of the new land by selling lots to newcomers
and opens a store. At his store, Jody is quickly
named mayor, and for the occasion Taylor asks
Janie to give a short speech. Jody prevents her
from doing so, saying that wives shouldn’t make
speeches. His opinion angers Janie, but she
remains silent.
After becoming mayor, Jody decides that the
town needs a street lamp. He buys the lamp with
his own money and then calls a town meeting to
vote on whether or not the town should install it.
Though some dissent, a majority vote approves
the motion. After the lamp arrives, Jody puts it
on display for a week, and it becomes a source
of pride for the whole town. He organizes a big
gathering for the lighting, complete with guests
from surrounding areas and a feast. The party
is a huge success, full of ceremony and dignity.
Afterward, Janie hints that she wants to spend
more time with Jody now that he has done so
much work. He replies that he is just getting
started.
Deux hommes affalés sur leurs omoplates
Two men who were sitting on their
sous un énorme chêne vert shoulderblades under [32] a huge live
faillirent se redresser au son de sa voix. 45 oak tree almost sat upright at the tone of
Ils fixèrent Joe, son visage, ses
vêtements et sa femme.
« D’où quvous vnez en si grande hâte
vous aut’ ? demanda Lee Coker.
- Miyeu dla Georgie, répondit vivement
Starks. Joe Starks c’est mon nom, Joe
Starks de Georgie.
“Where y’all come from in sich uh
50 big haste?” Lee Coker asked.
70 “Where is de Mayor?” Starks persisted.
“Ah wants tuh talk wid him.”
75
his voice. They stared at Joe’s face, his
clothes and his wife.
“Middle Georgy,” Starks answered
briskly. “Joe Starks is mah name, from
in and through Georgy.”
55
- Vous et vot’ fille, z’allez vous “You and yo’ daughter goin’ tuh join
joind’-associer à nous ? demanda l’autre wid us in fellowship?” the other
silhouette allongée. Drôl’ment content reclining figure asked. “Mighty glad tuh
dvous avoir. Hicks c’est lnom. Gouv’neur have yuh. Hicks is the name. Guv’nor
Amos Hicks de Buford, Caroline du Sud. 60 Amos Hicks from Buford, South Carolina.
Libre, célibataire, sans emploi.
Free, single, disengaged.”
- Eh Dieu ! jsuis loin d’êt’ assez vieux “I god, Ah ain’t nowhere near old
pour avoir une grande fille. C’est ma enough to have no grown daughter. This
femme que vlà. » [74]
65 here is mah wife.”
Hicks se laissa retomber en arrière et perdit
aussitôt tout intérêt pour la conversation.
« Où qu’il est le maire ? insista Joe.
C’est à lui quje veux parler.
- Z’êtes un brin prématuré *, lui répondit
Coker. On en a pas encore nous aut’.
- Pas de maire ? Mais qui vous dit c-que
vous devez faire ?
Hicks sank back and lost
interest at once.
mite small quantity, pizca / ácaro / chiquillo
“Youse uh mite too previous for dat,”
Coker told him. “Us ain’t got none yit.”
“Ain’t got no Mayor! Well, who tells
y’all what to do?”
Dos hombres que estaban sentados
con las espaldas contra un enorme roble
casi se levantaron al oír su tono de
voz. Miraron fijamente el rostro de Joe,
sus ropas, a su mujer.
—¿De dónde vienen ustede con tanta prisa?
—preguntó Lee Coker. [51]
—Del centro de Georgia —contestó Joe con
energía—. Me llamo Joe Starks, a lo largo y
ancho de toda Georgia.
—¿Usté y su hija van a unirse a
nuestro vecindario? —preguntó el
otro—. Encantado de tenerles aquí. Yo
me llamo Hicks. Guv’nor Amos Hicks,
de Budford, Carolina del Sur. Libre,
soltero y sin compromiso.
—Dió, no soy tan viejo como
para tené una hija tan mayor. Ésta
es mi mujer.
Al oír eso, Hicks perdió todo interés y volvió
a sentarse.
—¿Dónde está el alcalde? —insistió
Starks—. Quiero hablar con él.
—Eso es algo una pizca prematuro —le
dijo Coker—. Todavía no tenemos arcalde.
—¿No tienen alcalde? Bueno, ¿y quién es entonces
el que os dice lo que tenéi que hacer?
After a while, Jody and the rest of the town start
to grow apart from each other, and Janie, as the
mayor’s wife, becomes the object of both respect
and jealousy. The townspeople envy Jody’s
elaborate new two-story house that makes the
rest of the houses look like servants’ quarters.
Jody buys spittoons for both himself and Janie,
making them both seem like aristocrats flaunting
[alardeando] their wealth and station.
Furthermore, Jody runs a man named Henry
Pitts out of town when he catches Henry stealing
some of his ribbon cane. The townspeople
wonder how Janie gets along with such a
domineering man; after all, they note, she has
such beautiful hair, but he makes her tie it up in
a rag when she is working in the store. Though
Jody’s wealth and authority arouse the envy and
animosity of some residents, no one challenges
him.
Analysis
This chapter explores the masculine power that
Jody Starks embodies. His political and
economic conquest of the town recalls the
opening passage of the book about «Ships at a
distance.» Jody is one of the few characters
whose ship does come in, but his success is
more of a curse than a blessing. His flaunting of
his wealth and power alienates the townspeople.
He appears to them as a darker version of the
white master whom they thought they had
escaped. His megalomania extends beyond social
superiority to a need to play god, as the lamp
lighting ceremony demonstrates. His words at
the end of his speech, «let it shine, let it shine,
let it shine,» refer to a gospel hymn about Jesus
as the Light of the World. Jody wants his light,
the light that he bought, built, and put in place,
to stand for the sun and, by extension, God
himself. These words also hearken back to the
Bible’s account of creation, in which God says,
«Let there be light» (Genesis 1:3). Jody’s money
and ambition give him power over the rest of
the town, and he exploits this advantage to
position himself as superior to the rest of the
town. Such hubris, or presumptuousness,
24