献给爱米丽的一朵玫瑰花 (1930)

《献给爱蜜丽的一朵玫瑰花》（A Rose for Emily）是威廉·福克纳的一篇短篇小说，1930年4月30日发表。

情节

爱米丽·格里尔生小姐去世，杰斐逊的全体镇民都去给她送丧，因为她象征了传统和义务。她父亲曾贷款给政府，因而1894年镇长豁免了他的所有税款。爱米丽年轻的时候，她父亲赶跑了所有青年男子。父亲死后，镇上人经常看见她在周末与荷默·伯隆一起出游。伯隆是个精明强干的北方人，在建筑公司当工头。镇上人都反对他们的恋情，牧师也劝她不要成为镇里的耻辱。她购买了男人的用具和衣服，但只有药剂师知道她买了一包砒霜。一天黄昏伯隆进了她的屋子，爱米丽就锁在房子里，只见一个老黑仆进进出出。多少年过去了，屋子内发出了难闻的气味，没有人在意，直到四十年后人们终于进入了那个房间——男人躺在床上，尸体已然腐烂，旁边的枕头上有人头压过的印痕和一缕铁灰色长发……

"A Rose for Emily" is a short story by American author William Faulkner, first published in the April 1930 issue of The Forum. It was Faulkner's first short story published in a national magazine.

Plot summary

The story opens with an account of the funeral of Emily Grierson, an eccentric and reclusive Southern woman. Her funeral is a chance for many of the townspeople to engage their curiosity, since no one has entered her house but Tobe, a Black man serving as her gardener and cook, in ten years. In the story the following occurrences are described non-linearly.

The Grierson family, of the Antebellum South aristocracy, falls on hard times after the Civil War. Emily's father turns her suitors away because he does not consider them good enough for his daughter, so she is still single when he dies shortly before her 30th birthday. She refuses to give up his body for burial for three days, telling the townspeople who come to her house that he is not dead. For a while after her father's death, the only person seen about Emily's home is Tobe, who brings back groceries from the market.

It is learned that only the house was left to Emily after the death of her father; thus, she is left alone and poor. The townsfolk pity her and the mayor, Colonel Sartoris, makes a gentleman's agreement to overlook her taxes as an act of charity. To protect her pride, he tells her it is repayment for a loan given to the town by her father.

The next summer, construction workers arrive in the town to pave the sidewalks. Emily is soon regularly seen around town with Homer Barron, a laborer from the North. The townsfolk believe the relationship doomed because noblesse oblige would prevent Emily marrying Homer, and Homer "liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks' Club" and is "not a marrying man". The relationship continues regardless, and the townspeople begin to consider it a disgrace. They persuade the Baptist minister to discuss the matter with Emily. The conversation goes poorly, and the minister's wife contacts Emily's estranged family in Alabama.

While two of her female cousins are staying, Emily buys arsenic from the town's druggist. She also purchases what appear to be wedding presents: a man's toilet set engraved with Homer's initials, and men's clothes. Homer disappears, which the townsfolk believe to be so that Emily can get rid of the cousins before the wedding. The cousins leave, and Homer returns three days later. He is let into the house by Tobe and is never seen again; the townspeople assume that he has deserted Emily.

Emily becomes reclusive again. A strong smell begins to emanate from the house, which the townspeople ascribe to Tobe failing to clean properly. Afraid of offending Emily, they send men to sprinkle lime around the property under the cover of darkness. The smell dissipates after a while.

Years later, a new generation is in charge of the town. Having no ties to Colonel Sartoris, they attempt to get Emily to pay taxes again. They visit her home, where she behaves coldly towards them and flatly denies owing any taxes. She insists on maintaining the informal arrangement and tells them to see Sartoris, though he has been dead for a decade. They leave and decline to press the issue. The people of the town come to view Emily as a "hereditary obligation" to be humored and tolerated.

Emily dies aged 74. After the funeral, Tobe lets a group of townsfolk into her house and leaves through the back, never to be seen again. The townsfolk find a locked bedroom upstairs. They force the door and find the decomposed corpse of Homer Barron lying on the bed, with the gifts Emily had bought for him arranged around the room. On the pillow next to Homer is the indentation of a head and a long strand of iron-gray hair.