Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man is Hard to Find

Mr. Shiftlet's pale sharp glance had already passed over everything in the yard - the pump near the corner of the house and the big fig tree that three or four chickens were preparing to roost in - and had moved to a shed where he saw the square rusted back of an automobile. "You ladies drive?" he asked.
"That car ain't run in fifteen year," the old woman said. "The day my husband died, it quit running."
"Nothing is like it used to be, lady," he said. "The world is almost rotten."
"That's right," the old woman said. "You from around here?"
"Name Tom T. Shiftlet," he murmured, looking at the tires.
"I'm pleased to meet you," the old woman said. "Name Lucynell Crater and daughter Lucynell Crater. What you doing around here, Mr. Shiftlet?"
He judged the car to be about a 1928 or '29 Ford. "Lady," he said, and turned and gave her his full attention, "lemme tell you something. There's one of these doctors in Atlanta that's taken a knife and cut the human heart - the human heart," he repeated, leaning forward, "out of a man's chest and held it in his hand," and he held his hand out, palm up, as if it were slightly weighted with the human heart, "and studied it like it was a day-old chicken, and lady," he said, allowing a long significant pause in which his head slid forward and his clay-colored eyes brightened, "he don't know more about it than you or me."
"That's right," the old woman said.

================
Můj nejnovější objev, Flannery O'Connorová. Přečetla jsem tuhle knihu docela nedávno (česky jako Dobrého člověka těžko najdeš) a pak z ní týden měla těžké sny. Povídky vždycky začínají tak obyčejně, nenápadně, ale žádný detail v nich není bez záměru, naopak, jako čtenářům se vám původně nejasná zlověstná předtucha zkonkrétňuje a zesiluje až po (většinou) krutý závěr. Autorka si báječně podává pokrytectví, předsudky a laciné moralizování, stejné na americkém jihu padesátých let jako kdekoli v Čechách dnes. Titulní povídka je strhující.