When the shadow of the
sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight oclock and
then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather's and when
Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire;
it's rather excruciating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto
absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no
better than it fitted his or his father's. I give it to you not that you
may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment
and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is
ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man
his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.
It was propped against
the collar box and I lay listening to it. Hearing it, that is. I
dont suppose anybody ever deliberately listens to a watch or a clock. You
dont have to. You can be oblivious to the sound for a long while, then
in a second of ticking it can create in the mind unbroken the long diminishing
parade of time you didn't hear. Like Father said down the long and lonely
light-rays you might see Jesus walking, like. And the good Saint Francis
that said Little Sister Death, that never had a sister.
Through the wall I heard
Shreve's bed-springs and then his slippers on the floor hishing. I got
up and went to the dresser and slid my hand along it and touched the watch
and turned it face-down and went back to bed. But the shadow of the sash
was still there and I had learned to tell almost to the minute, so I'd
have to turn my back to it, feeling the eyes animals used to have in the
back of their heads when it was on top, itching. It's always the idle habits
you acquire which you will regret. Father said that. That Christ was not
crucified: he was worn away by a minute clicking of little wheels. That
had no sister.
And so as soon as I
knew I couldn't see it, I began to wonder what time it was. Father said
that constant speculation regarding the position of mechanical hands on
an arbitrary dial which is a symptom of mind-function. Excrement Father
said like sweating. And I saying All right. Wonder. Go on and wonder.
If it had been cloudy
I could have looked at the window, thinking what he said about idle habits.
Thinking it would be nice for them down at New London if the weather held
up like this. Why shouldn't it? The month of brides, the voice that breathed
She ran right out of the mirror, out of the banked scent. Roses. Roses.
Mr and Mrs Jason Richmond Compson announce the marriage of. Roses. Not
virgins like dogwood, milkweed. I said I have committed incest, Father
I said. Roses. Cunning and serene. If you attend Harvard one year,
but dont see the boat-race, there should be a refund. Let Jason have it.
Give Jason a year at Harvard.
Shreve stood in the
door, putting his collar on, his glasses glinting rosily, as though he
had washed them with his face. "You taking a cut this morning?"
"Is it that late?"
He looked at his watch.
"Bell in two minutes."
"I didn't know it was
that late." He was still looking at the watch, his mouth shaping. "I'll
have to hustle. I cant stand another cut. The dean told me last week--"
He put the watch back into his pocket. Then I quit talking.
"You'd better slip on
your pants and run," he said. He went out.
I got up and moved about,
listening to him through the wall. He entered the sitting-room, toward
the door.
"Aren't you ready yet?"
"Not yet. Run along.
I'll make it."
He went out. The door
closed. His feet went down the corridor. Then I could hear the watch again.
I quit moving around and went to the window and drew the curtains aside
and watched them running for chapel, the same ones fighting the same heaving
coat-sleeves, the same books and flapping collars flushing past like debris
on a flood, and Spoade. Calling Shreve my husband. Ah let him alone, Shreve
said, if he's got better sense than to chase after the little dirty sluts,
whose business. In the South you are ashamed of being a virgin. Boys. Men.
They lie about it. Because it means less to women, Father said. He said
it was men invented virginity not women. Father said it's like death: only
a state in which the others are left and I said, But to believe it doesn't
matter and he said, That's what's so sad about anything: not only virginity
and I said, Why couldn't it have been me and
not her who is unvirgin and he said, That's why that's sad too; nothing
is even worth the changing of it, and Shreve said if he's got better sense
than to chase after the little dirty sluts and I said Did you ever have
a sister? Did you? Did you?
Spoade was in the middle
of them like a terrapin in a street full of scuttering dead leaves, his
collar about his ears, moving at his customary unhurried walk. He was from
South Carolina, a senior. It was his club's boast that he never ran for
chapel and had never got there on time and had never been absent in four
years and had never made either chapel or first lecture with a shirt on
his back and socks on his feet. About ten oclock he'd come in Thompson's,
get two cups of coffee, sit down and take his socks out of his pocket and
remove his shoes and put them on while the coffee cooled. About noon you'd
see him with a shirt and collar on, like anybody else. The others passed
him running, but he never increased his pace at all. After a while the
quad was empty.
A sparrow slanted across
the sunlight, onto the window ledge, and cocked his head at me. His eye
was round and bright. First he'd watch me with one eye, then flick! and
it would be the other one, his throat pumping faster than any pulse. The
hour began to strike. The sparrow quit swapping eyes and watched me steadily
with the same one until the chimes ceased, as if he were listening too.
Then he flicked off the ledge and was gone.
It was a while before
the last stroke ceased vibrating. It stayed in the air, more felt than
heard, for a long time. Like all the bells that ever rang still ringing
in the long dying light-rays and Jesus and Saint Francis talking about
his sister. Because if it were just to hell; if that were all of it. Finished.
If things just finished themselves. Nobody else there but her and me. If
we could just have done something so dreadful that they would have fled
hell except us. I have committed incest I said Father it was I it was
not Dalton Ames And when he put Dalton Ames. Dalton
Ames. Dalton Ames. When he put the pistol in my hand I didn't. That's why
I didn't. He would be there and she would and I would. Dalton Ames. Dalton
Ames. Dalton Ames. If we could have just done something so dreadful and
Father said That's sad too people cannot do anything that dreadful they
cannot do anything very dreadful at all they cannot even remember tomorrow
what seemed dreadful today and I said, You can shirk all things and he
said, Ah can you. And I will look down and see my murmuring bones and the
deep water like wind, like a roof of wind, and after a long time they cannot
distinguish even bones upon the lonely and inviolate sand. Until on the
Day when He says Rise only the flat-iron would come floating up. It's not
when you realise that nothing can help you--religion, pride, anything--it's
when you realise that you dont need any aid. Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames.
Dalton Ames. If I could have been his mother lying with open body lifted
laughing, holding his father with my hand refraining, seeing, watching
him die before he lived. One minute she was standing in the door
I went to the dresser
and took up the watch, with the face still down. I tapped the crystal on
the corner of the dresser and caught the fragments of glass in my hand
and put them into the ashtray and twisted the hands off and put them in
the tray. The watch ticked on. I turned the face up, the blank dial with
little wheels clicking and click- ing behind it, not knowing any better.
Jesus walking on Galilee and Washington not telling lies. Father brought
back a watch-charm from the Saint Louis Fair to Jason: a tiny opera glass
into which you squinted with one eye and saw a skyscraper, a ferris wheel
all spidery, Niagara Falls on a pinhead. There was a red smear on the dial.
When I saw it my thumb began to smart. I put the watch down and went into
Shreve's room and got the iodine and painted the cut. I cleaned the rest
of the glass out of the rim with a towel.
I laid out two suits
of underwear, with socks, shirts, collars and ties, and packed my trunk.
I put in everything except my new suit and an old one and two pairs of
shoes and two hats, and my books. I carried the books into the sitting-room
and stacked them on the table, the ones I had brought from home and the
ones Father said it used to be a gentleman was known
by his books; nowadays he is known by the ones he has not returned
and locked the trunk and addressed it. The quarter hour sounded. I stopped
and listened to it until the chimes ceased.
I bathed and shaved.
The water made my finger smart a little, so I painted it again. I put on
my new suit and put my watch on and packed the other suit and the accessories
and my razor and brushes in my hand bag, and folded the trunk key into
a sheet of paper and put it in an envelope and addressed it to Father,
and wrote the two notes and sealed them.
The shadow hadn't quite
cleared the stoop. I stopped inside the door, watching the shadow move.
It moved almost perceptibly, creeping back inside the door, driving the
shadow back into the door. Only she was running already when I heard
it. In the mirror she was running before I knew what it was. That quick
her train caught up over her arm she ran out of the mirror like a cloud,
her veil swirling in long glints her heels brittle and fast clutch ing
her dress onto her shoulder with the other hand, run ning out of the mirror
the smells roses roses the voice that breathed o'er Eden. Then she was
across the porch I couldn't hear her heels then in the moonlight like a
cloud, the floating shadow of the veil running across the grass, into the
bellowing. She ran out of her dress, clutching her bridal, running into
the bellowing where T. P. in the dew Whooey Sassprilluh Benjy under the
box bellowing. Father had a V-shaped silver cuirass on his running chest
Shreve said, "Well,
you didn't.... Is it a wedding or a wake?"
"I couldn't make it,"
I said.
"Not with all that primping.
What's the matter? You think this was Sunday?"
"I reckon the police
wont get me for wearing my new suit one time," I said.
"I was thinking about
the Square students. They'll think you go to Harvard. Have you got too
proud to at tend classes too?"
"I'm going to eat first."
The shadow on the stoop was gone. I stepped into sunlight, finding my shadow
again. I walked down the steps just ahead of it. The half hour went. Then
the chimes ceased and died away.
Deacon wasn't at the
postoffice either. I stamped the two envelopes and mailed the one to Father
and put Shreve's in my inside pocket, and then I remembered where I had
last seen the Deacon. It was on Decoration Day, in a G.A.R. uniform, in
the middle of the parade. If you waited long enough on any corner you would
see him in whatever parade came along. The one before was on Columbus'
or Garibaldi's or somebody's birthday. He was in the Street Sweepers' section,
in a stovepipe hat, carrying a two inch Italian flag, smoking a cigar among
the brooms and scoops. But the last time was the G.A.R. one, because Shreve
said:
"There now. Just look
at what your grandpa did to that poor old nigger."
"Yes," I said. "Now
he can spend day after day marching in parades. If it hadn't been for my
grandfather, he'd have to work like whitefolks."
I didn't see him anywhere.
But I never knew even a working nigger that you could find when you wanted
him, let alone one that lived off the fat of the land. A car came along.
I went over to town and went to Parker's and had a good breakfast. While
I was eating I heard a clock strike the hour. But then I suppose it takes
at least one hour to lose time in, who has been longer than history getting
into the mechanical progression of it.
When I finished breakfast
I bought a cigar. The girl said a fifty cent one was the best, so I took
one and lit it and went out to the street. I stood there and took a couple
of puffs, then I held it in my hand and went on toward the corner. I passed
a jeweller's window, but I looked away in time. At the corner two bootblacks
caught me, one on either side, shrill and raucous, like blackbirds. I gave
the cigar to one of them, and the other one a nickel. Then they let me
alone. The one with the cigar was trying to sell it to the other for the
nickel.
There was a clock, high
up in the sun, and I thought about how, when you dont want to do a thing,
your body will try to trick you into doing it, sort of unawares. I
could feel the muscles in the back of my neck, and then I could hear my
watch ticking away in my pocket and after a while I had all the other sounds
shut away, leaving only the watch in my pocket. I turned back up the street,
to the window. He was working at the table behind the window. He was going
bald. There was a glass in his eye--a metal
tube screwed into his face. I went in.
The place was full of
ticking, like crickets in September grass, and I could hear a big clock
on the wall above his head. He looked up, his eye big and blurred and rushing
beyond the glass. I took mine out and handed it to him.
"I broke my watch."
He flipped it over in
his hand. "I should say you have. You must have stepped on it."
"Yes, sir. I knocked
it off the dresser and stepped on it in the dark. It's still running though."
He pried the back open
and squinted into it. "Seems to be all right. I cant tell until I go over
it, though. I'll go into it this afternoon."
"I'll bring it back
later," I said. "Would you mind telling me if any of those watches in the
window are right?"
He held my watch on
his palm and looked up at me with his blurred rushing eye.
"I made a bet with a
fellow," I said. "And I forgot my glasses this morning."
"Why, all right," he
said. He laid the watch down and half rose on his stool and looked over
the barrier. Then he glanced up at the wall. "It's twen--"
"Dont tell me," I said,
"please sir. Just tell me if any of them are right."
He looked at me again.
He sat back on the stool and pushed the glass up onto his forehead. It
left a red circle around his eye and when it was gone his whole face looked
naked. "What're you celebrating today?" he said. "That boat race aint until
next week, is it?"
"No, sir. This is just
a private celebration. Birthday. Are any of them right?"
"No. But they haven't
been regulated and set yet. If you're thinking of buying one of themã-"
"No, sir. I dont need
a watch. We have a clock in our sitting room. I'll have this one fixed
when I do." I reached my hand.
"Better leave it now."
"I'll bring it back
later." He gave me the watch. I put it in my pocket. I couldn't hear it
now, above all the others. "I'm much obliged to you. I hope I haven't taken
up your time."
"That's all right. Bring
it in when you are ready. And you better put off this celebration until
after we win that boat race."
"Yes, sir. I reckon
I had."
I went out, shutting
the door upon the ticking. I looked back into the window. He was watching
me across the barrier. There were about a dozen watches in the window,
a dozen different hours and each with the same assertive and contradictory
assurance that mine had, without any hands at all. Contradicting one another.
I could hear mine, ticking away inside my pocket, even though nobody could
see it, even though it could tell nothing if anyone could.
And so I told myself
to take that one. Because Father said clocks slay time. He said time is
dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the
clock stops does time come to life. The hands were extended, slightly off
the horizontal at a faint angle, like a gull tilting into the wind. Holding
all I used to be sorry about like the new moon holding water, niggers say.
The jeweller was working again, bent over his bench, the tube tunnelled
into his face. His hair was parted in the center. The part ran up into
the bald spot, like a drained marsh in December.
I saw the hardware store
from across the street. I didn't know you bought flat-irons by the pound.
"Maybe you want a tailor's
goose," the clerk said. "They weigh ten pounds." Only they were bigger
than I thought. So I got two six-pound little ones, because they would
look like a pair of shoes wrapped up. They felt heavy enough together,
but I thought again how Father had said about the reducto absurdum of human
experience, thinking how the only opportunity I seemed to have for the
application of Harvard. Maybe by next year; thinking maybe it takes two
years in school to learn to do that properly.
But they felt heavy
enough in the air. A car came. I got on. I didn't see the placard on the
front. It was full, mostly prosperous looking people reading newspapers.
The only vacant seat was beside a nigger. He wore a derby and shined shoes
and he was holding a dead cigar stub. I used to think that a Southerner
had to be always conscious of niggers. I thought that Northerners would
expect him to. When I first came East I kept thinking You've got to remember
to think of them as colored people not niggers, and if it hadn't happened
that I wasn't thrown with many of them, I'd have wasted a lot of time and
trouble before I learned that the best way to take all people, black or
white, is to take them for what they think they are, then leave them alone.
That was when I realisedthat a Digger is not a person so much as a form
of behavior; a sort of obverse reflection of the white people he lives
among. But I thought at first that I ought to miss having a lot of them
around me because I thought that Northerners thought I did, but I didn't
know that I really had missed Roskus and Dilsey and them until that morning
in Virginia. The train was stopped when I waked and I raised the shade
and looked out. The car was blocking a road crossing, where two white fences
came down a hill and then sprayed outward and downward like part of the
skeleton of a horn, and there was a nigger on a mule in the middle of the
stiff ruts, waiting for the train to move. How long he had been there I
didn't know, but he sat straddle of the mule, his head wrapped in a piece
of blanket, as if they had been built there with the fence and the road,
or with the hill, carved out of the hill itself, like a sign put there
saying You are home again. He didn't have a saddle and his feet dangled
almost to the ground. The mule looked like a rabbit. I raised the window.
"Hey, Uncle," I said.
"Is this the way?"
"Suh?" He looked at
me, then he loosened the blanket and lifted it away from his ear.
"Christmas gift!" I
said.
"Sho comin, boss. You
done caught me, aint you."
"I'll let you off this
time." I dragged my pants out of the little hammock and got a quarter out.
"But look out next time. I'll be coming back through here two days after
New Year, and look out then." I threw the quarter out the window. "Buy
yourself some Santy Claus."
"Yes, suh," he said.
He got down and picked up the quarter and rubbed it on his leg. "Thanky,
young marster. Thanky." Then the train began to move. I leaned out the
window, into the cold air, looking back. He stood there beside the gaunt
rabbit of a mule, the two of them shabby and motionless and unimpatient.
The train swung around the curve, the engine puffing with short, heavy
blasts, and they passed smoothly from sight that way, with that quality
about them of shabby and timeless patience, of static serenity: that blending
of childlike and ready incompetence and paradoxical reliability that tends
and protects them it loves out of all reason and robs them steadily and
evades responsibility and obligations by means too barefaced to be called
subterfuge even and is taken in theft or evasion with only that frank and
spontaneous admiration for the victor which a gentleman feels for anyone
who beats him in a fair contest, and withal a fond and unflagging tolerance
for whitefolks' vagaries like that of a grandparent for unpredictable and
troublesome children, which I had forgotten. And all that day, while the
train wound through rushing gaps and along ledges where movement was only
a laboring sound of the exhaust and groaning wheels and the eternal mountains
stood fading into the thick sky, I thought of home, of the bleak station
and the mud and the niggers and country folks thronging slowly about the
square, with toy monkeys and wagons and candy in sacks and roman candles
sticking out, and my insides would move like they used to do in school
when the bell rang.
I wouldn't begin counting
until the clock struck three. Then I would begin, counting to sixty and
folding down one finger and thinking of the other fourteen fingers waiting
to be folded down, or thirteen or twelve or eight or seven, until all of
a sudden I'd realise silence and the unwinking minds, and I'd say "Ma'am?"
"Your name is Quentin, isn't it?" Miss Laura would say. Then more silence
and the cruel unwinking minds and hands jerking into the silence. "Tell
Quentin who discovered the Mississippi River, Henry." "DeSoto." Then the
minds would go away, and after a while I'd be afraid I had gotten behind
and I'd count fast and fold down another finger, then I'd be afraid I was
going too fast and I'd slow up, then I'd get afraid and count fast again.
So I never could come out even with the bell, and the released surging
of feet moving already, feeling earth in the scuffed floor, and the day
like a pane of glass struck a light, sharp blow, and my insides would move,
sitting still. Moving sitting still. My bowels moved for thee. One minute
she was standing in the door. Benjy. Bellowing. Benjamin the child of mine
old age bellowing. Caddy! Caddy!
I'm going to run
away. He began to cry she went and touched him. Hush. I'm not going to.
Hush. He hushed. Dilsey.
He smell what you
tell him when he want to. Dont have to listen nor talk.
Can he smell that
new name they give him? Can he smell bad luck?
What he want to worry
about luck for? Luck cant do him no hurt.
What they change
his name for then if aint trying to help his luck?
The car stopped, started,
stopped again. Below the window I watched the crowns of people's heads
passing beneath new straw hats not yet unbleached. There were women in
the car now, with market baskets, and men in work-clothes were beginning
to outnumber the shined shoes and collars.
The nigger touched my
knee. "Pardon me," he said. I swung my legs out and let him pass. We were
going beside a blank wall, the sound clattering back into the car, at the
women with market baskets on their knees and a man in a stained hat with
a pipe stuck in the band. I could smell water, and in a break in the wall
I saw a glint of water and two masts, and a gull motionless in midair,
like on an invisible wire between the masts, and I raised my hand and through
my coat touched the letters I had written. When the car stopped I got off.
The bridge was open
to let a schooner through. She was in tow, the tug nudging along under
her quarter, trailing smoke, but the ship herself was like she was moving
without visible means. A man naked to the waist was coiling down a line
on the fo'c's'le head. His body was burned the color of leaf tobacco. Another
man in a straw hat withoutany crown was at the wheel. The ship went through
the bridge, moving under bare poles like a ghost in broad day, with three
gulls hovering above the stern like toys on invisible wires.
When it closed I crossed
to the other side and leaned on the rail above the boathouses. The float
was empty and the doors were closed. Crew just pulled in the late afternoon
now, resting up before. The shadow of the bridge, the tiers of railing,
my shadow leaning flat upon the water, so easily had I tricked it that
would not quit me. At least fifty feet it was, and if I only had something
to blot it into the water, holding it until it was drowned, the shadow
of the package like two shoes wrapped up lying on the water. Niggers say
a drowned man's shadow was watching for him in the water all the time.
It twinkled and glinted, like breathing, the float slow like breathing
too, and debris half submerged, healing out to the sea and the caverns
and the grottoes of the sea. The displacement of water is equal to the
something of something. Reducto absurdum of all human experience, and two
six-pound flat-irons weigh more than one tailor's goose. What a sinful
waste Dilsey would say. Benjy knew it when Damuddy died. He cried. He
smell hit. He smell hit.
The tug came back downstream,
the water shearing in long rolling cylinders, rocking the float at last
with the echo of passage, the float lurching onto the rolling cylinder
with a plopping sound and a long jarring noise as the door rolled back
and two men emerged, carrying a shell. They set it in the water and a moment
later Bland came out, with the sculls. He wore flannels, a gray jacket
and a stiff straw hat. Either he or his mother had read somewhere that
Oxford students pulled in flannels and stiff hats, so early one March they
bought Gerald a one pair shell and in his flannels and stiff hat he went
on the river. The folks at the boathouse threatened to call a policeman,
but he went anyway. His mother came down in a hired auto, in a fur suit
like an arctic explorer's, and saw him off in a twenty-five mile wind and
a steady drove of ice floes like dirty sheep. Ever since then I have believed
that God is not only a gentleman and a sport; he is a Kentuckian too. When
he sailed away she made a detour and came down to the river again and drove
along parallel with him, the car in low gear. They said you couldn't have
told they'd ever seen one another before, like a King and Queen, not even
looking at one another, just moving side by side across Massachusetts on
parallel courses like a couple of planets.
He got in and pulled
away. He pulled pretty well now. He ought to. They said his mother tried
to make him give rowing up and do something else the rest of his class
couldn't or wouldn't do, but for once he was stubborn. If you could call
it stubbornness, sitting in his attitudes of princely boredom, with his
curly yellow hair and his violet eyes and his eyelashes and his New York
clothes, while his mamma was telling us about Gerald's horses and Gerald's
niggers and Gerald's women. Husbands and fathers in Kentucky must have
been awful glad when she carried Gerald off to Cambridge. She had an apartment
over in town, and Gerald had one there too, besides his rooms in college.
She approved of Gerald associating with me because I at least revealed
a blundering sense of noblesse oblige by getting myself born below Mason
and Dixon, and a few others whose Geography met the requirements (minimum).
Forgave, at least. Or condoned. But since she met Spoade coming out of
chapel one He said she couldn't be a lady no lady would be out at that
hour of the night she never had been able to forgive him for having five
names, including that of a present English ducal house. I'm sure she solaced
herself by being convinced that some misfit Maingault or Mortemar had got
mixed up with the lodge-keeper's daughter. Which was quite probable, whether
she invented it or not. Spoade was the world's champion sitter-around,
no holds barred and gouging discretionary.
The shell was a speck
now, the oars catching the sun in spaced glints, as if the hull were winking
itself along him along. Did you ever have a sister, No but they're all
bitches. Did you ever have a sister? One minute she was. Bitches. Not
bitch one minute she stood in the door Dalton Ames.
Dalton Ames. Dalton Shirts. I thought all the time they were khaki, army
issue khaki, until I saw they were of heavy Chinese silk or finest flannel
because they made his face so brown his eyes so blue. Dalton Ames. It just
missed gentility. Theatrical fixture. Just papier-mache, then touch. Oh.
Asbestos. Not quite bronze. But wont see him at the house.
Caddy's a woman too
remember. She must do things for women's reasons too.
Why wont you bring
him to the house, Caddy? Why must you do like nigger women do in the pasture
the ditches the dark woods hot hidden furious in the dark woods.
And after a while I
had been hearing my watch for some time and I could feel the letters crackle
through my coat, against the railing, and I leaned on the railing, watching
my shadow, how I had tricked it. I moved along the rail, but my suit was
dark too and I could wipe my hands, watching my shadow, how I had tricked
it. I walked it into the shadow of the quad. Then I went east.
Harvard my Harvard
boy Harvard harvard That pimple-faced infant she met at the field-meet
with colored ribbons. Skulking along the fence trying to whistle her out
like a puppy. Because they couldn't cajole him into the diningroom Mother
believed he had some sort of spell he was going to cast on her when he
got her alone. Yet any blackguard He was lying beside
the box under the window bellowing that could drive
up in a limousine with a flower in his buttonhole. Harvard. Quentin
this is Herbert. My Harvard boy. Herbert will be a big brother has already
promised Jason
Hearty, celluloid like
a drummer. Face full of teeth white but not smiling. I've heard of him
up there. All teeth but not smiling. You going to drive?
Get in Quentin.
You going to drive.
It's her car aren't
you proud of your little sister owns first auto in town Herbert his present.
Louis has been giving her lessons every morning didn't you get my letter
Mr and Mrs Jason Richmond Compson announce the marriage of their daughter
Candace to Mr Sydney Herbert Head on the twenty-fifth of April one thousand
nine hundred and ten at Jefferson Mississippi. At home after the first
of August number Something Something Avenue South Bend Indiana. Shreve
said Aren't you even going to open it? Three days. Times. Mr and Mrs
Jason Richmond Compson Young Lochinvar rode out of
the west a little too soon, didn't he?
I'm from the south.
You're funny, aren't you.
O yes I knew it was
somewhere in the country.
You're funny, aren't
you. You ought to join the circus.
I did. That's how I
ruined my eyes watering the elephant's fleas. Three times
These country girls. You cant ever tell about them, can you. Well, anyway
Byron never had his wish, thank God. But not hit a man in glasses
Aren't you even going to open it? It lay on the table
a candle burning at each corner upon the envelope tied in a soiled pink
garter two artificial flowers. Not hit a man in glasses.
Country people poor
things they never saw an auto before lots of them honk the horn Candace
so She wouldn't look at me they'll
get out of the way wouldn't look at me
your father wouldn't like it if you were to injure one of them I'll declare
your father will simply have to get an auto now I'm almost sorry you brought
it down Herbert I've enjoyed it so much of course there's the carriage
but so often when I'd like to go out Mr Compson has the darkies doing something
it would be worth my head to interrupt he insists that Roskus is at my
call all the time but I know what that means I know how often people make
promises just to satisfy their consciences are you going to treat my little
baby girl that way Herbert but I know you wont Herbert has spoiled us all
to death Quentin did I write you that he is going to take Jason into his
bank when Jason finishes high school Jason will make a splendid banker
he is the only one of my children with any practical sense you can thank
me for that he takes after my people the others are all Compson
Jason
furnished the flour. They made kites on the back porch and sold them for
a nickel a piece, he and the Patterson boy. Jason was treasurer.
There was no nigger
in this car, and the hats unbleached as yet flowing past under the window.
Going to Harvard. We have sold Benjy's He lay on the
ground under the window, bellowing. We have sold Benjy's pasture so that
Quentin may go to Harvard a brother to you. Your
little brother.
You should have a car
it's done you no end of good dont you think so Quentin I call him Quentin
at once you see I have heard so much about him from Candace.
Why shouldn't you I
want my boys to be more than friends yes Candace and Quentin more than
friends Father I have committed
what a pity you had no brother or sister No sister
no sister had no sister Dont ask Quentin he and Mr
Compson both feel a little insulted when I am strong enough to come down
to the table I am going on nerve now I'll pay for it after it's all over
and you have taken my little daughter away from me My
little sister had no. If I could say Mother.
Mother
Unless I do what I am
tempted to and take you instead I dont think Mr Compson could overtake
the car.
Ah Herbert Candace do
you hear that She wouldn't look at me soft stubborn jaw-angle
not back-looking You needn't be jealous though it's just
an old woman he's flattering a grown married daughter I cant believe it.
Nonsense you look like
a girl you are lots younger than Candace color in your cheeks like a girl
A face reproachful tearful an odor of camphor and of tears a voice
weeping steadily and softly beyond the twilit door the twilight-colored
smell of honeysuckle. Bringing empty trunks down the attic stairs they
sounded like coffins French Lick. Found not death at the salt lick
Hats not unbleached
and not hats. In three years I can not wear a hat. I could not. Was. Will
there be hats then since I was not and not Harvard then. Where the best
of thought Father said clings like dead ivy vines upon old dead brick.
Not Harvard then. Not to me, anyway. Again. Sadder than was. Again. Saddest
of all. Again.
Spoade had a shirt on;
then it must be. When I can see my shadow again if not careful that I tricked
into the water shall tread again upon my impervious shadow. But no sister.
I wouldn't have done it. I wont have my daughter spied
on I wouldn't have.
How can I control
any of them when you have always taught them to have no respect for me
and my wishes I know you look down on my people but is that any reason
for teaching my children my own children I suffered for to have no respect
Trampling my shadow's bones into the concrete with hard heels and then
I was hearing the watch, and I touched the letters through my coat.
I will not have my
daughter spied on by you or Quentin or anybody no matter what you think
she has done
At least you agree
there is reason for having her watched
I wouldn't have I wouldn't
have. I know you wouldn't I didn't mean to speak so sharply but have
no respect for each other for themselves
But why did she
The chimes began as I stepped on my shadow, but it was the quarter hour.
The Deacon wasn't in sight anywhere. think I would have
could have
She didn't mean that
that's the way women do things it's because she loves Caddy
The street lamps
would go down the hill then rise toward town I walked
upon the belly of my shadow. I could extend my hand beyond it. feeling
Father behind me beyond the rasping darkness of summer and August the street
lamps Father and I protect women from one another
from themselves our women Women are like that they
dont acquire knowledge of people we are for that they are just born with
a practical fertility of suspicion that makes a crop every so often and
usually right they have an affinity for evil for supplying whatever the
evil lacks in itself for drawing it about them instinctively as you do
bed-clothing in slumber fertilising the mind for it until the evil has
served its purpose whether it ever existed or no He
was coming along between a couple of freshmen. He hadn't quite recovered
from the parade, for he gave me a salute, a very superior-officerish kind.
"I want to see you a
minute," I said, stopping.
"See me? All right.
See you again, fellows," he said, stopping and turning back; "glad to have
chatted with you." That was the Deacon, all over. Talk about your natural
psychologists. They said he hadn't missed a train at the beginning of school
in forty years, and that he could pick out a Southerner with one glance.
He never missed, and once he had heard you speak, he could name your state.
He had a regular uniform he met trains in, a sort of Uncle Tom's cabin
outfit, patches and all.
"Yes, suh. Right dis
way, young marster, hyer we is," taking your bags. "Hyer, boy, come hyer
and git dese grips." Whereupon a moving mountain of luggage would edge
up, revealing a white boy of about fifteen, and the Deacon would hang another
bag on him somehow and drive him off. "Now, den, dont you crap hit. Yes,
suh, young marster, jes give de old nigger yo room number, and hit'll be
done got cold afar when you arrives."
From then on until he
had you completely subjugated he was always in or out of your room, ubiquitous
and garrulous, though his manner gradually moved northward as his raiment
improved, until at last when he had bled you until you began to learn better
he was calling you Quentin or whatever, and when you saw him next he'd
be wearing a cast-off Brooks suit and a hat with a Princeton club I forget
which band that someone had given him and which he was pleasantly and unshakably
convinced was a part of Abe Lincoln's military sash. Someone spread the
story years ago, when he first appeared around college from wherever he
came from, that he was a graduate of the divinity school. And when he came
to understand what it meant he was so taken with it that he began to retail
the story himself, until at last he must have come to believe he really
had. Anyway he related long pointless anecdotes of his undergraduate days,
speaking familiarly of dead and departed professors by their first names,
usually incorrect ones. But he had been guide mentor and friend to unnumbered
crops of innocent and lonely freshmen, and I suppose that with all his
petty chicanery and hypocrisy he stank no higher in heaven's nostrils than
any other.
"Haven't seen you in
three-four days," he said, staring at me from his still military aura.
"You been sick?"
"No. I've been all right.
Working, I reckon. I've seen you, though."
"Yes?"
"In the parade the other
day."
"Oh, that. Yes, I was
there. I dont care nothing about that sort of thing, you understand, but
the boys likes to have me with them, the vet'runs does. Ladies wants all
the old vet'runs to turn out, you know. So I has to oblige them."
"And on that Wop holiday
too," I said. "You were obliging the W. C. T. U. then, I reckon."
"That? I was doing that
for my son-in-law. He aims to get a job on the city forces. Street cleaner.
I tells him all he wants is a broom to sleep on. You saw me, did you?"
"Both times. Yes."
"I mean, in uniform.
How'd I look?"
"You looked fine. You
looked better than any of them. They ought to make you a general, Deacon."
He touched my arm, lightly,
his hand that worn, gentle quality of niggers' hands. "Listen. This aint
for outside talking. I dont mind telling you because you and me's the same
folks, come long and short." He leaned a little to me, speaking rapidly,
his eyes not looking at me. "I've got strings out, right now. Wait till
next year. Just wait. Then see where I'm marching. I wont need to tell
you how I'm fixing it; I say, just wait and see, my boy." He looked at
me now and clapped me lightly on the shoulder and rocked back on his heels,
nodding at me. "Yes, sir. I didn't turn Democrat three years ago for nothing.
My son-in-law on the city; me-- Yes, sir. If just turning Democrat'll make
that son of a bitch go to work.... And me: just you stand on that corner
yonder a year from two days ago, and see."
"I hope so. You deserve
it, Deacon. And while I think about it--" I took the letter from my pocket.
"Take this around to my room tomorrow and give it to Shreve. He'll have
something for you. But not till tomorrow,mind."
He took the letter and
examined it. "It's sealed up."
"Yes. And it's written
inside, Not good until tomorrow."
"H'm," he said. He looked
at the envelope, his mouth pursed. "Something for me, you say?"
"Yes. A present I'm
making you."
He was looking at me
now, the envelope white in his black hand, in the sun. His eyes were soft
and irisless and brown, and suddenly I saw Roskus watching me from behind
all his whitefolks' claptrap of uniforms and politics and Harvard manner,
diffident, secret, inarticulate and sad. "You aint playing a joke on the
old nigger, is you?"
"You know I'm not. Did
any Southerner ever play a joke on you?"
"You're right. They're
fine folks. But you cant live with them."
"Did you ever try?"
I said. But Roskus was gone. Once more he was that self he had long since
taught himself to
"I'll confer to
your wishes, my boy."
"Not until tomorrow,
remember."
"Sure," he said; "understood,
my boy. Well--"
"I hope--" I said. He
looked down at me, benignant, profound. Suddenly I held out my hand and
we shook, he gravely, from the pompous height of his municipal and military
dream. "You're a good fellow, Deacon. I hope.... You've helped a lot of
young fellows, here and there."
"I've tried to treat
all folks right," he said. "I draw no petty social lines. A man to me is
a man, wherever I find him."
"I hope you'll always
find as many friends as you've made."
"Young fellows. I get
along with them. They dont forget me, neither," he said, waving the envelope.
He put it into his pocket and buttoned his coat. "Yes, sir," he said. "I've
had good friends."
The chimes began again,
the half hour. I stood in the belly of my shadow and listened to the strokes
spaced and tranquil along the sunlight, among the thin, still little leaves.
Spaced and peaceful and serene, with that quality of autumn always in bells
even in the month of brides. Lying on the ground under the window bellowing
He took one look at her and knew. Out of the mouths of babes. The street
lamps The chimes ceased. I went back to the postoffice,
treading my shadow into pavement. go down the hill then they rise toward
town like lanterns hung one above another on a wall. Father said because
she loves Caddy she loves people through their shortcomings. Uncle Maury
straddling his legs before the fire must remove one hand long enough to
drink Christmas. Jason ran on, his hands in his pockets fell down and lay
there like a trussed fowl until Versh set him up. Whyn't you keep them
hands outen your pockets when you running you could stand up then
Rolling his head in the cradle rolling it flat across the back. Caddy told
Jason and Versh that the reason Uncle Maury didn't work was that he used
to roll his head in the cradle when he was little.
Shreve was coming up
the walk, shambling, fatly earnest, his glasses glinting beneath the running
leaves like little pools.
"I gave Deacon a note
for some things. I may not be in this afternoon, so dont you let him have
anything until tomorrow, will you?"
"All right." He looked
at me. "Say, what're you doing today, anyhow? All dressed up and mooning
around like the prologue to a suttee. Did you go to Psychology this morning?"
"I'm not doing anything.
Not until tomorrow, now."
"What's that you got
there?"
"Nothing. Pair of shoes
I had half-soled. Not until tomorrow, you hear?"
"Sure. All right. Oh,
by the way, did you get a letter off the table this morning?"
"No."
"It's there. From Semiramis.
Chauffeur brought it before ten oclock."
"All right. I'll get
it. Wonder what she wants now."
"Another band recital,
I guess. Tumpty ta ta Gerald blah. 'A little louder on the drum, Quentin'.
God, I'm glad I'm not a gentleman." He went on, nursing a book, a little
shapeless, fatly intent. The street lamps do you think so because
one of our forefathers was a governor and three were generals and Mother's
weren't
any live man is better
than any dead man but no live or dead man is very much better than any
other live or dead man Done in Mother's mind though.
Finished. Finished. Then we were all poisoned you
are confusing sin and morality women dont do that your mother is thinking
of morality whether it be sin or not has not occurred to her
Jason I must go away
you keep the others I'll take Jason and go where nobody knows us so he'll
have a chance to grow up and forget all this the others dont love me they
have never loved anything with that streak of Compson selfishness and false
pride Jason was the only one my heart went out to without dread
nonsense Jason is all
right I was thinking that as soon as you feel better you and Caddy might
go up to French Lick
and leave Jason here
with nobody but you and the darkies
she will forget him
then all the talk will die away found not death at
the salt licks
maybe I could
find a husband for her not death at the salt licks
The car came up and
stopped. The bells were still ring ing the half hour. I got on and it went
on again, blotting the half hour. No: the three quarters. Then it would
be ten minutes anyway. To leave Harvard your mother's
dream for sold Benjy's pasture for
what have I done to
have been given children like these Benjamin was punishment enough and
now for her to have no more regard for me her own mother I've suffered
for her dreamed and planned and sacrificed I went down into the valley
yet never since she opened her eyes has she given me one unselfish thought
at times I look at her I wonder if she can be my child except Jason he
has never given me one moment's sorrow since I first held him in my arms
I knew then that he was to be my joy and my salvation I thought that Benjamin
was punishment enough for any sins I have committed I thought he was my
punishment for putting aside my pride and marrying a man who held himself
above me I dont complain I loved him above all of them because of it because
my duty though Jason pulling at my heart all the while but I see now that
I have not suffered enough I see now that I must pay for your sins as well
as mine what have you done what sins have your high and mighty people visited
upon me but you'll take up for them you always have found excuses for your
own blood only Jason can do wrong because he is more Bascomb than Compson
while your own daughter my little daughter my baby girl she is she is no
better than that when I was a girl I was unfortunate I was only a Bascomb
I was taught that there is no halfway ground that a woman is either a lady
or not but I never dreamed when I held her in my arms that any daughter
of mine could let herself dont you know I can look at her eyes and tell
you may think she'd tell you but she doesn't tell things she is secretive
you dont know her I know things she's done that I'd die before I'd have
you know that's it go on criticise Jason accuse me of setting him to watch
her as if it were a crime while your own daughter can I know you dont love
him that you wish to believe faults against him you never have yes ridicule
him as you always have Maury you cannot hurt me any more than your children
already have and then I'll be gone and Jason with no one to love him shield
him from this I look at him every day dreading to see this Compson blood
beginning to show in him at last with his sister slipping out to see what
do you call it then have you ever laid eyes on him will you even let me
try to find out who he is it's not for myself I couldn't bear to see him
it's for your sake to protect you but who can fight against bad blood you
wont let me try we are to sit back with our hands folded while she not
only drags your name in the dirt but corrupts the very air your children
breathe Jason you must let me go away I cannot stand it let me have Jason
and you keep the others they're not my flesh and blood like he is strangers
nothing of mine and I am afraid of them I can take Jason and go where we
are not known I'll go down on my knees and pray for the absolution of my
sins that he may escape this curse try to forget that the others ever were
If that was the three
quarters, not over ten minutes now. One car had just left, and people were
already waiting for the next one. I asked, but he didn't know whether another
one would leave before noon or not because you'd think that interurbans.
So the first one was another trolley. I got on. You can feel noon. I wonder
if even miners in the bowels of the earth. That's why whistles: because
people that sweat, and if just far enough from sweat you wont hear whistles
and in eight minutes you should be that far from sweat in Boston. Father
said a man is the sum of his misfortunes. One day you'd think misfortune
would get tired, but then time is your misfortune Father said. A gull on
an invisible wire attached through space dragged. You carry the symbol
of your frustration into eternity. Then the wings are bigger Father said
only who can play a harp.
I could hear my watch
whenever the car stopped, but not often they were already eating
Who would play a Eating the business of eating
inside of you space too space and time confused Stomach saying noon brain
saying eat oclock All right I wonder what time it is what of it. People
were getting out. The trolley didn't stop so often now, emptied by eating.
Then it was past. I
got off and stood in my shadow and after a while a car came along and I
got on and went back to the interurban station. There was a car ready to
leave, and I found a seat next the window and it started and I watched
it sort of frazzle out into slack tide flats, and then trees. Now and then
I saw the river and I thought how nice it would be for them down at New
London if the weather and Gerald's shell going solemnly up the glinting
forenoon and I wondered what the old woman would be wanting now, sending
me a note before ten oclock in the morning. What picture of Gerald I to
be one of the Dalton Ames oh asbestos
Quentin has shot background. Something with girls
in it. Women do have always his voice above the gabble
voice that breathed an affinity for evil, for believing
that no woman is to be trusted, but that some men are too innocent to protect
themselves. Plain girls. Remote cousins and family friends whom mere acquaintanceship
invested with a sort of blood obligation noblesse oblige. And she sitting
there telling us before their faces what a shame it was that Gerald should
have all the family looks because a man didn't need it, was better off
without it but without it a girl was simply lost. Telling us about Gerald's
women in a Quentin has shot Herbert he shot his voice
through the floor of Caddy's room tone of smug approbation.
"When he was seventeen I said to him one day 'What a shame that you should
have a mouth like that it should be on a girl's face' and can you imagine
the curtains leaning in on the twilight upon the odor of the apple
tree her head against the twilight her arms behind her head kimono-winged
the voice that breathed o'er eden clothes upon the bed by the nose seen
above the apple what he said? just seventeen, mind.
'Mother' he said 'it often is'." And him sitting there in attitudes regal
watching two or three of them through his eyelashes. They gushed like swallows
swooping his eyelashes. Shreve said he always had Are
you going to look after Benjy and Father
The less you say
about Benjy and Father the better when have you ever considered them Caddy
Promise
You needn't worry
about them you're getting out in good shape
Promise I'm sick
you'll have to promise wondered who invented that joke but then he
always had considered Mrs Bland a remarkably preserved woman he said she
was grooming Gerald to seduce a duchess sometime. She called Shreve that
fat Canadian youth twice she arranged a new room-mate for me without consulting
me at all, once for me to move out, once for
He opened the door in
the twilight. His face looked like a pumpkin pie.
"Well, I'll say a fond
farewell. Cruel fate may part us, but I will never love another. Never."
"What are you talking
about?"
"I'm talking about cruel
fate in eight yards of apricot silk and more metal pound for pound than
a galley slave and the sole owner and proprietor of the unchallenged peripatetic
john of the late Confederacy." Then he told me how she had gone to the
proctor to have him moved out and how the proctor had revealed enough low
stubbornness to insist on consulting Shreve first. Then she suggested that
he send for Shreve right off and do it, and he wouldn't do that, so after
that she was hardly civil to Shreve. "I make it a point never to speak
harshly of females," Shreve said, "but that woman has got more ways like
a bitch than any lady in these sovereign states and dominions." and now
Letter on the table by hand, command orchid scented colored If she knew
I had passed almost beneath the window knowing it there without My dear
Madam I have not yet had an opportunity of receiving your communication
but I beg in advance to be excused today or yesterday and tomorrow or when
As I remember that the next one is to be how Gerald throws his nigger downstairs
and how the nigger plead to be allowed to matriculate in the divinity school
to be near marster marse gerald and How he ran all the way to the station
beside the carriage with tears in his eyes when marse gerald rid away I
will wait until the day for the one about the sawmill husband came to the
kitchen door with a shotgun Gerald went down and bit the gun in two and
handed it back and wiped his hands on a silk handkerchief threw the handkerchief
in the stove I've only heard that one twice
shot him through
the I saw you come in here so I watched my chance
and came along thought we might get acquainted have a cigar
Thanks I dont smoke
No things must have changed up there since my
day mind if I light up
Help yourself
Thanks I've heard a lot I guess your mother wont
mind if I put the match behind the screen will she a lot about you Candace
talked about you all the time up there at the Licks I got pretty jealous
I says to myself who is this Quentin anyway I must see what this animal
looks like because I was hit pretty hard see soon as I saw the little girl
I dont mind telling you it never occurred to me it was her brother she
kept talking about she couldn't have talked about you any more if you'd
been the only man in the world husband wouldn't have been in it you wont
change your mind and have a smoke
I dont smoke
In that case I wont insist even though it is
a pretty fair weed cost me twenty-five bucks a hundred wholesale friend
of in Havana yes I guess there are lots of changes up there I keep promising
myself a visit but I never get around to it been hitting the ball now for
ten years I cant get away from the bank during school fellow's habits change
things that seem important to an undergraduate you know tell me about things
up there
I'm not going to tell Father and Mother if that's
what you are getting at
Not going to tell not going to oh that that's
what you are talking about is it you understand that I dont give a damn
whether you tell or not understand that a thing like that unfortunate but
no police crime I wasn't the first or the last I was just unlucky you might
have been luckier
You lie
Keep your shirt on I'm not trying to make you
tell anything you dont want to meant no offense of course a young fellow
like you would consider a thing of that sort a lot more serious than you
will in five years
I dont know but one way to consider cheating
I dont think I'm likely to learn different at Harvard
We're better than a play you must have made the
Dramat well you're right no need to tell them we'll let bygones be bygones
eh no reason why you and I should let a little thing like that come between
us I like you Quentin I like your appearance you dont look like these other
hicks I'm glad we're going to hit it off like this I've promised your mother
to do something for Jason but I would like to give you a hand too Jason
would be just as well off here but there's no future in a hole like this
for a young fellow like you
Thanks you'd better stick to Jason he'd suit
you better than I would
I'm sorry about that business but a kid like
I was then I never had a mother like yours to teach me the finer points
it would just hurt her unnecessarily to know it yes you're right no need
to that includes Candace of course
I said Mother and Father
Look here take a look at me how long do you think
you'd last with me
I wont have to last long if you learned to fight
up at school too try and see how long I would
You damned little what do you think you're getting
at
Try and see
My God the cigar what would your mother say if
she found a blister on her mantel just in time too look here Quentin we're
about to do something we'll both regret I like you liked you as soon as
I saw you I says he must be a damned good fellow whoever he is or Candace
wouldn't be so keen on him listen I've been out in the world now for ten
years things dont matter so much then you'll find that out let's you and
I get together on this thing sons of old Harvard and all I guess I wouldn't
know the place now best place for a young fellow in the world I'm going
to send my sons there give them a better chance than I had wait dont go
yet let's discuss this thing a young man gets these ideas and I'm all for
them does him good while he's in school forms his character good for tradition
the school but when he gets out into the world he'll have to get his the
best way he can because he'll find that everybody else is doing the same
thing and be damned to here let's shake hands and let bygones be bygones
for your mother's sake remember her health come on give me your hand here
look at it it's just out of convent look not a blemish not even been creased
yet see here
To hell with your money
No no come on I belong to the family now see
I know how it is with a young fellow he has lots of private affairs it's
always pretty hard to get the old man to stump up for I know haven't I
been there and not so long ago either but now I'm getting married and all
specially up there come on dont be a fool listen
when we get a chance for a real talk I want to tell you about a little
widow over in town
I've heard that too keep your damned money
Call it a loan then just shut your eyes a minute
and you'll be fifty
Keep your hands off of me you'd better get that
cigar off the mantel
Tell and be damned then see what it gets you
if you were not a damned fool you'd have seen
that I've got them too tight for any half-baked Galahad of a brother your
mother's told me about your sort with your head swelled up come in oh come
in dear Quentin and I were just getting acquainted talking about Harvard
did you want me cant stay away from the old man can she
Go out a minute Herbert I want to talk to Quentin
Come in come in let's all have a gabfest and
get acquainted I was just telling Quentin Go on Herbert go out a while
Well all right then I suppose you and bubber do want to see one another
once more eh
You'd better take that cigar off the mantel
Right as usual my boy then I'll toddle along
let them order you around while they can Quentin after day after tomorrow
it'll be pretty please to the old man wont it dear give us a kiss honey
Oh stop that save that for day after tomorrow
I'll want interest then dont let Quentin do anything
he cant finish oh by the way did I tell Quentin the story about the man's
parrot and what happened to it a sad story remind me of that think of it
yourself ta-ta see you in the funnypaper
Well
Well
What are you up to now
Nothing
You're meddling in my business again didn't you
get enough of that last summer
Caddy you've got fever You're sick how are
you sick
I'm just sick. I
cant ask.
Shot his voice through
the
Not that blackguard
Caddy
Now and then the river
glinted beyond things in sort of swooping glints, across noon and after.
Good after now, though we had passed where he was still pulling upstream
majestical in the face of god gods. Better. Gods. God would be canaille
too in Boston in Massachusetts. Or maybe just not a husband. The wet oars
winking him along in bright winks and female palms. Adulant. Adulant if
not a husband he'd ignore God. That blackguard, Caddy
The river glinted away beyond a swooping curve.
I'm sick you'll have
to promise
Sick how are you
sick
I'm just sick I cant
ask anybody yet promise you will
If they need any
looking after it's because of you how are you sick
Under the window we could hear the car leaving for the station, the 8:10
train. To bring back cousins. Heads. Increasing himself head by head but
not barbers. Manicure girls. We had a blood horse once. In the stable yes,
but under leather a cur. Quentin has shot all of their voices through
the floor of Caddy's room
The car stopped. I got
off, into the middle of my shadow. A road crossed the track. There was
a wooden marquee with an old man eating something out of a paper bag, and
then the car was out of hearing too. The road went into trees, where it
would be shady, but June foliage in New England not much thicker than April
at home. I could see a smoke stack. I turned my back to it, tramping my
shadow into the dust. There was something terrible in me sometimes at
night I could see it grinning at me I could see it through them grinning
at me through their faces it's gone now and I'm sick
Caddy
Dont touch me just
promise
If you're sick you
cant
Yes I can after that
it'll be all right it wont matter dont let them send him to Jackson promise
I promise Caddy Caddy
Dont touch me dont
touch me
What does it look
like Caddy
What
That that grins at
you that thing through them
I could still see the
smoke stack. That's where the water would be, healing out to the sea and
the peaceful grottoes. Tumbling peacefully they would, and when He said
Rise only the flat irons. When Versh and I hunted all day we wouldn't take
any lunch, and at twelve oclock I'd get hungry. I'd stay hungry until about
one, then all of a sudden I'd even forget that I wasn't hungry anymore.
The
street lamps go down the hill then heard the car go down the hill. The
chair-arm flat cool smooth under my forehead shaping the chair the apple
tree leaning on my hair above the eden clothes by the nose seen
You've got fever I felt it yesterday it's like being near a stove.
Dont touch me.
Caddy you cant do it
if you are sick. That blackguard.
I've got to marry somebody.Then
they told me the bone would have to be broken again
At last I couldn't see
the smoke stack. The road went beside a wall. Trees leaned over the wall,
sprayed with sunlight. The stone was cool. Walking near it you could feel
the coolness. Only our country was not like this country. There was something
about just walking through it. A kind of still and violent fecundity that
satisfied even bread-hunger like. Flowing around you, not brooding and
nursing every niggard stone. Like it were put to makeshift for enough green
to go around among the trees and even the blue of distance not that rich
chimaera. told me the bone would have to be broken
again and inside me it began to say Ah Ah Ah and I began to sweat. What
do I care I know what a broken leg is all it is it wont be anything I'll
just have to stay in the house a little longer that's all and my jaw-muscles
getting numb and my mouth saying Wait Wait just a minute through the sweat
ah ah ah behind my teeth and Father damn that horse damn that horse. Wait
it's my fault. He came along the fence every morning with a basket toward
the kitchen dragging a stick along the fence every morning I dragged myself
to the window cast and all and laid for him with a piece of coal Dilsey
said you goin to ruin yoself aint you got no mo sense than that not fo
days since you bruck hit. Wait I'll get used to it in a minute wait just
a minute I'll get
Even sound seemed to
fail in this air, like the air was worn out with carrying sounds so long.
A dog's voice carries further than a train, in the darkness anyway. And
some people's. Niggers. Louis Hatcher never even used his horn carrying
it and that old lantern. I said, "Louis, when was the last time you cleaned
that lantern?"
"I cleant hit a little
while back. You member when all dat flood-watter wash dem folks away up
yonder? I cleans hit dat ve'y day. Old woman and me settin fo de fire dat
night and she say 'Louis, whut you gwine do ef dat flood git out dis fur?'
and I say 'Dat's a fack. I reckon I had better clean dat lantun up.' So
I cleant hit dat night."
"That flood was way
up in Pennsylvania," I said. "It couldn't ever have got down this far."
"Dat's whut you says,"
Louis said. "Watter kin git des ez high en wet in Jefferson ez hit kin
in Pennsylvaney, I reckon. Hit's de folks dat says de high watter cant
git dis fur dat comes floatin out on de ridge-pole, too."
"Did you and Martha
get out that night?"
"We done jest cat. I
cleans dat lantun and me and her sot de balance of de night on top o dat
knoll back de graveyard. En ef I'd a knowed of aihy one higher, we'd a
been on hit instead."
"And you haven't cleaned
that lantern since then."
"Whut I want to clean
hit when dey aint no need?"
"You mean, until another
flood comes along?"
"Hit kep us outen dat
un."
"Oh, come on, Uncle
Louis," I said.
"Yes, suh. You do yo
way en I do mine. Ef all I got to do to keep outen de high watter is to
clean dis yere lantun, I wont quoil wid no man."
"Unc' Louis wouldn't
ketch nothin wid a light he could see by," Versh said.
"I wuz huntin possums
in dis country when dey was still drowndin nits in yo pappy's head wid
coal oil, boy," Louis said. "Ketchin um, too."
"Dat's de troof," Versh
said. "I reckon Unc' Louis done caught mo possums than aihy man in dis
country."
"Yes, suh," Louis said.
"I got plenty light fer possums to see, all right. I aint heard none o
dem complainin. Hush, now. Dar he. Whooey. Hum awn, dawg." And we'd sit
in the dry leaves that whispered a little with the slow respiration of
our waiting and with the slow breathing of the earth and the windless October,
the rank smell of the lantern fouling the brittle air, listening to the
dogs and to the echo of Louis' voice dying away. He never raised it, yet
on a still night we have heard it from our front porch. When he called
the dogs in he sounded just like the horn he carried slung on his shoulder
and never used, but clearer, mellower, as though his voice were a part
of darkness and silence, coiling out of it, coiling into it again. WhoOoooo.
WhoOoooo. WhoOooooooooooooooo. Got to marry somebody
Have there been very
many Caddy
I dont know too many
will you look after Benjy and Father
You dont know whose
it is then does he know
Dont touch me will
you look after Benjy and Father
I began to feel the
water before I came to the bridge. The bridge was of gray stone, lichened,
dappled with slow moisture where the fungus crept. Beneath it the water
was clear and still in the shadow, whispering and clucking about the stone
in fading swirls of spinning sky. Caddy that
I've got to marry
somebody Versh told me about a man who mutilated
himself. He went into the woods and did it with a razor, sitting in a ditch.
A broken razor flinging them backward over his shoulder the same motion
complete the jerked skein of blood backward not looping. But that's not
it. It's not not having them. It's never to have had them then I could
say O That That's Chinese I dont know Chinese. And Father said it's because
you are a virgin: dont you see? Women are never virgins. Purity is a negative
state and therefore contrary to nature. It's nature is hurting you not
Caddy and I said That's just words and he said So is virginity and I said
you dont know. You cant know and he said Yes. On the instant when we come
to realise that tragedy is second-hand.
Where the shadow of
the bridge fell I could see down for a long way, but not as far as the
bottom. When you leave a leaf in water a long time after a while the tissue
will be gone and the delicate fibers waving slow as the motion of sleep.
They dont touch one another, no matter how knotted up they once were, no
matter how close they lay once to the bones. And maybe when He says Rise
the eyes will come floating up too, out of the deep quiet and the sleep,
to look on glory. And after a while the flat irons would come floating
up. I hid them under the end of the bridge and went back and leaned on
the rail.
I could not see the
bottom, but I could see a long way into the motion of the water before
the eye gave out, and then I saw a shadow hanging like a fat arrow stemming
into the current. Mayflies skimmed in and out of the shadow of the bridge
just above the surface. If it could just be a hell beyond that: the
clean flame the two of us more than dead. Then you will have only me then
only me then the two of us amid the pointing and the horror beyond the
clean flame The arrow increased without motion, then in a quick swirl
the trout lipped a fly beneath the surface with that sort of gigantic delicacy
of an elephant picking up a peanut. The fading vortex drifted away down
stream and then I saw the arrow again, nose into the current, wavering
delicately to the motion of the water above which the May flies slanted
and poised. Only you and me then amid the pointing and the horror walled
by the clean flame
The trout hung, delicate
and motionless among the wavering shadows. Three boys with fishing poles
came onto the bridge and we leaned on the rail and looked down at the trout.
They knew the fish. He was a neighborhood character.
"They've been trying
to catch that trout for twenty-five years. There's a store in Boston offers
a twenty-five dollar fishing rod to anybody that can catch him."
"Why dont you all catch
him, then? Wouldn't you like to have a twenty-five dollar fishing rod?"
"Yes," they said. They
leaned on the rail, looking down at the trout. "I sure would," one said.
"I wouldn't take the
rod," the second said. "I'd take the money instead."
"Maybe they wouldn't
do that," the first said. "I bet he'd make you take the rod."
"Then I'd sell it."
"You couldn't get twenty-five
dollars for it."
"I'd take what I could
get, then. I can catch just as many fish with this pole as I could with
a twenty-five dollar one." Then they talked about what they would do with
twenty-five dollars. They all talked at once, their voices insistent and
contradictory and impatient, making of unreality a possibility, then a
probability, then an incontrovertible fact, as people will when their desires
become words.
"I'd buy a horse and
wagon," the second said.
"Yes you would," the
others said.
"I would. I know where
I can buy one for twenty-five dollars. I know the man."
"Who is it?"
"That's all right who
it is. I can buy it for twenty-five dollars."
"Yah," the others said.
"He dont know any such thing. He's just talking."
"Do you think so?" the
boy said. They continued to jeer at him, but he said nothing more. He leaned
on the rail, looking down at the trout which he had already spent, and
suddenly the acrimony, the conflict, was gone from their voices, as if
to them too it was as though he had captured the fish and bought his horse
and wagon, they too partaking of that adult trait of being convinced of
anything by an assumption of silent superiority. I suppose that people,
using themselves and each other so much by words, are at least consistent
in attributing wisdom to a still tongue, and for a while I could feel the
other two seeking swiftly for some means by which to cope with him, to
rob him of his horse and wagon.
"You couldn't get twenty-five
dollars for that pole," the first said. "I bet anything you couldn't."
"He hasn't caught that
trout yet," the third said suddenly, then they both cried:
"Yah, what'd I tell
you? What's the man's name? I dare you to tell. There aint any such man."
"Ah, shut up," the second
said. "Look. Here he comes again." They leaned on the rail, motionless,
identical, their poles slanting slenderly in the sunlight, also identical.
The trout rose without haste, a shadow in faint wavering increase; again
the little vortex faded slowly downstream. "Gee," the first one murmured.
"We dont try to catch
him anymore," he said. "We just watch Boston folks that come out and try."
"Is he the only fish
in this pool?"
"Yes. He ran all the
others out. The best place to fish around here is down at the Eddy."
"No it aint," the second
said. "It's better at Bigelow's Mill two to one." Then they argued for
a while about which was the best fishing and then left off all of a sudden
to watch the trout rise again and the broken swirl of water suck down a
little of the sky. I asked how far it was to the nearest town. They told
me.
"But the closest car
line is that way," the second said, pointing back down the road. "Where
are you going?"
"Nowhere. Just walking."
"You from the college?"
"Yes. Are there any
factories in that town?"
"Factories?" They looked
at me.
"No," the second said.
"Not there." They looked at my clothes. "You looking for work?"
"How about Bigelow's
Mill?" the third said. "That's a factory."
"Factory my eye. He
means a sure enough factory."
"One with a whistle,"
I said. "I haven't heard any one oclock whistles yet."
"Oh," the second said.
"There's a clock in the unitarial steeple. You can find out the time from
that. Haven't you got a watch on that chain?"
"I broke it this morning."
I showed them my watch. They examined it gravely.
"It's still running,"
the second said. "What does a watch like that cost?"
"It was a present,"
I said. "My father gave it to me when I graduated from high school."
"Are you a Canadian?"
the third said. He had red hair.
"Canadian?"
"He dont talk like them,"
the second said. "I've heard them talk. He talks like they do in minstrel
shows."
"Say," the third said.
"Aint you afraid he'll hit you?"
"Hit me?"
"You said he talks like
a colored man."
"Ah, dry up," the second
said. "You can see the steeple when you get over that hill there."
I thanked them. "I hope
you have good luck. Only dont catch that old fellow down there. He deserves
to be let alone."
"Cant anybody catch
that fish," the first said. They leaned on the rail, looking down into
the water, the three poles like three slanting threads of yellow fire in
the sun. I walked upon my shadow, tramping it into the dappled shade of
trees again. The road curved, mounting away from the water. It crossed
the hill, then descended winding, carrying the eye, the mind on ahead beneath
a still green tunnel, and the square cupola above the trees and the round
eye of the clock but far enough. I sat down at the roadside. The grass
was ankle deep, myriad. The shadows on the road were as still as if they
had been put there with a stencil, with slanting pencils of sunlight. But
it was only a train, and after a while it died away beyond the trees, the
long sound, and then I could hear my watch and the train dying away, as
though it were running through another month or another summer somewhere,
rushing away under the poised gull and all things rushing. Except Gerald.
He would be sort of grand too, pulling in lonely state across the noon,
rowing himself right out of noon, up the long bright air like an apotheosis,
mounting into a drowsing infinity where only he and the gull, the one terrifically
motionless, the other in a steady and measured pull and recover that partook
of inertia itself, the world punily beneath their shadows on the sun. Caddy
that blackguard that blackguard Caddy
Their voices came over
the hill, and the three slender poles like balanced threads of running
fire. They looked at me passing, not slowing.
"Well," I said. "I dont
see him."
"We didn't try to catch
him," the first said. "You cant catch that fish."
"There's the clock,"
the second said, pointing. "You can tell the time when you get a little
closer."
"Yes," I said. "All
right." I got up. "You all going to town?"
"We're going to the
Eddy for chub," the first said.
"You cant catch anything
at the Eddy," the second said.
"I guess you want to
go to the mill, with a lot of fellows splashing and scaring all the fish
away."
"You cant catch any
fish at the Eddy."
"We wont catch none
nowhere if we dont go on," the third said.
"I dont see why you
keep on talking about the Eddy," the second said. "You cant catch anything
there."
"You dont have to go,"
the first said. "You're not tied to me."
"Let's go to the mill
and go swimming," the third said.
"I'm going to the Eddy
and fish," the first said. "You can do as you please."
"Say, how long has it
been since you heard of anybody catching a fish at the Eddy?" the second
said to the third.
"Let's go to the mill
and go swimming," the third said. The cupola sank slowly beyond the trees,
with the round face of the clock far enough yet. We went on in the dappled
shade. We came to an orchard, pink and white. It was full of bees; already
we could hear them.
"Let's go to the mill
and go swimming," the third said. A lane turned off beside the orchard.
The third boy slowed and halted. The first went on, flecks of sunlight
slipping along the pole across his shoulder and down the back of his shirt.
"Come on," the third said. The second boy stopped too. Why must you
marry somebody Caddy
Do you want me to
say it do you think that if I say it it wont be
"Let's go up to the
mill," he said. "Come on."
The first boy went on.
His bare feet made no sound, falling softer than leaves in the thin dust.
In the orchard the bees sounded like a wind getting up, a sound caught
by a spell just under crescendo and sustained. The lane went along the
wall, arched over, shattered with bloom, dissolving into trees. Sunlight
slanted into it, sparse and eager. Yellow butterflies flickered along the
shade like flecks of sun.
"What do you want to
go to the Eddy for?" the second boy said. "You can fish at the mill if
you want to."
"Ah, let him go," the
third said. They looked after the first boy. Sunlight slid patchily across
his walking shoulders, glinting along the pole like yellow ants.
"Kenny," the second
said. Say it to Father will you I will am my fathers Progenitive I invented
him created I him Say it to him it will not be for he will say I was not
and then you and I since philoprogenitive
"Ah, come on," the third
boy said. "They're already in." They looked after the first boy. "Yah,"
they said suddenly, "go on then, mamma's boy. If he goes swimming he'll
get his head wet and then he'll get a licking." They turned into the lane
and went on, the yellow butterflies slanting about them along the shade.
it is because there
is nothing else I believe there is something else but there may not be
and then I You will find that even injustice is scarcely worthy of what
you believe yourself to be He paid me no attention,
his jaw set in profile, his face turned a little away beneath his broken
hat.
"Why dont you go swimming
with them?" I said. that blackguard Caddy
Were you trying to
pick a fight with him were you
A liar and a scoundrel
Caddy was dropped from his club for cheating at cards got sent to Coventry
caught cheating at midterm exams and expelled
Well what about it
I'm not going to play cards with
"Do you like fishing
better than swimming?" I said. The sound of the bees diminished, sustained
yet, as though instead of sinking into silence, silence merely increased
between us, as water rises. The road curved again and became a street between
shady lawns with white houses. Caddy that blackguard can you think of
Benjy and Father and do it not of me
What else can I think
about what else have I thought about The boy turned
from the street. He climbed a picket fence without looking back and crossed
the lawn to a tree and laid the pole down and climbed into the fork of
the tree and sat there, his back to the road and the dappled sun motionless
at last upon his white shirt. else have I thought about I cant even
cry I died last year I told you I had but I didn't know then what I meant
I didn't know what I was saying Some days in late
August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something
in it sad and nostalgic and familiar. Man the sum of his climatic experiences
Father said. Man the sum of what have you. A problem in impure properties
carried tediously to an unvarying nil: stalemate of dust and desire.
but now I know I'm dead I tell you
Then why must you
listen we can go away you and Benjy and me where nobody knows us where
The buggy was drawn by a white horse, his feet cropping in the thin dust;
spidery wheels chattering thin and dry, moving uphill beneath a rippling
shawl of leaves. Elm. No: ellum. Ellum.
On what on your school
money the money they sold the pasture for so you could go to Harvard dont
you see you've got to finish now if you dont finish he'll have nothing
Sold the pasture
His white shirt was motionless in the fork, in the flickering shade. The
wheels were spidery. Beneath the sag of the buggy the hooves neatly rapid
like the motions of a lady doing embroidery, diminishing without progress
like a figure on a treadmill being drawn rapidly offstage. The street turned
again. I could see the white cupola, the round stupid assertion of the
clock. Sold the pasture
Father will be dead
in a year they say if he doesn't stop drinking and he wont stop he cant
stop since I since last summer and then they'll send Benjy to Jackson I
cant cry I cant even cry one minute she was standing in the door the next
minute he was pulling at her dress and bellowing his voice hammered back
and forth between the walls in waves and she shrinking against the wall
getting smaller and smaller with her white face her eyes like thumbs dug
into it until he pushed her out of the room his voice hammering back and
forth as though its own momentum would not let it stop as though there
were no place for it in silence bellowing
When you opened the
door a bell tinkled, but just once, high and clear and small in the neat
obscurity above the door, as though it were gauged and tempered to make
that single clear small sound so as not to wear the bell out nor to require
the expenditure of too much silence in restoring it when the door opened
upon the recent warm scent of baking; a little dirty child with eyes like
a toy bear's and two patent-leather pigtails.
"Hello, sister." Her
face was like a cup of milk dashed with coffee in the sweet warm emptiness.
"Anybody here?"
But she merely watched
me until a door opened and the lady came. Above the counter where the ranks
of crisp shapes behind the glass her neat gray face her hair tight and
sparse from her neat gray skull, spectacles in neat gray rims riding approaching
like something on a wire, like a cash box in a store. She looked like a
librarian. Something among dusty shelves of ordered certitudes long divorced
from reality, desiccating peacefully, as if a breath of that air which
sees injustice done
"Two of these, please,
ma'am."
From under the counter
she produced a square cut from a newspaper and laid it on the counter and
lifted the two buns out. The little girl watched them with still and unwinking
eyes like two currants floating motionless in a cup of weak coffee Land
of the kike home of the wop. Watching the bread, the neat gray hands, a
broad gold band on the left forefinger, knuckled there by a blue knuckle.
"Do you do your own
baking, ma'am?"
"Sir?" she said. Like
that. Sir? Like on the stage. Sir? "Five cents. Was there anything else?"
"No, ma'am. Not for
me. This lady wants something." She was not tall enough to see over the
case, so she went to the end of the counter and looked at the little girl.
"Did you bring her in
here?"
"No, ma'am. She was
here when I came."
"You little wretch,"
she said. She came out around the counter, but she didn't touch the little
girl. "Have you got anything in your pockets?"
"She hasn't got any
pockets," I said. "She wasn't doing anything. She was just standing here,
waiting for you."
"Why didn't the bell
ring, then?" She glared at me. She just needed a bunch of switches, a blackboard
behind her 2 x 2 e 5. "She'll hide it under her dress and a body'd never
know it. You, child. How'd you get in here?"
The little girl
said nothing. She looked at the woman, then she gave me a flying black
glance and looked at the woman again. "Them foreigners," the woman said.
"How'd she get in without the bell ringing?"
"She came in when I
opened the door," I said. "It rang once for both of us. She couldn't reach
anything from here, anyway. Besides, I dont think she would. Would you,
sister?" The little girl looked at me, secretive, contemplative. "What
do you want? bread?"
She extended her
fist. It uncurled upon a nickel, moist and dirty, moist dirt ridged into
her flesh. The coin was damp and warm. I could smell it, faintly metallic.
"Have you got a five
cent loaf, please, ma'am?"
From beneath the
counter she produced a square cut from a newspaper sheet and laid it on
the counter and wrapped a loaf into it. I laid the coin and another one
on the counter. "And another one of those buns, please, ma'am."
She took another
bun from the case. "Give me that parcel," she said. I gave it to her and
she unwrapped it and put the third bun in and wrapped it and took up the
coins and found two coppers in her apron and gave them to me. I handed
them to the little girl. Her fingers closed about them, damp and hot, like
worms.
"You going to give her
that bun?" the woman said.
"Yessum," I said. "I
expect your cooking smells as good to her as it does to me."
I took up the
two packages and gave the bread to the little girl, the woman all iron-gray
behind the counter, watching us with cold certitude. "You wait a minute,"
she said. She went to the rear. The door opened again and closed. The little
girl watched me, holding the bread against her dirty dress.
"What's your name?"
I said. She quit looking at me, bu she was still motionless. She didn't
even seem to breathe. The woman returned. She had a funny looking thing
in her hand. She carried it sort of like it might have been a dead pet
rat.
"Here," she said. The
child looked at her. "Take it," the woman said, jabbing it at the little
girl. "It just looks peculiar. I calculate you wont know the difference
when you eat it. Here. I cant stand here all day." The child took it, still
watching her. The woman rubbed her hands on her apron. "I got to have that
bell fixed," she said. She went to the door and jerked it open. The little
bell tinkled once, faint and clear and invisible. We moved toward the door
and the woman's peering back.
"Thank you for the cake,"
I said.
"Them foreigners," she
said, staring up into the obscurity where the bell tinkled. "Take my advice
and stay clear of them, young man."
"Yessum," I said. "Come
on, sister." We went out. "Thank you, ma'am."
She swung the
door to, then jerked it open again, making the bell give forth its single
small note. "Foreigners," she said, peering up at the bell.
We went on. "Well,"
I said. "How about some ice cream?" She was eating the gnarled cake. "Do
you like ice cream?" She gave me a black still look, chewing. "Come on."
We came to the
drugstore and had some ice cream. She wouldn't put the loaf down. "Why
not put it down so you can eat better?" I said, offering to take it. But
she held to it, chewing the ice cream like it was taffy. The bitten cake
lay on the table. She ate the ice cream steadily, then she fell to on the
cake again, looking about at the showcases. I finished mine and we went
out.
"Which way do you live?"
I said.
A buggy, the one
with the white horse it was. Only Doc Peabody is fat. Three hundred pounds.
You ride with him on the uphill side, holding on. Children. Walking easier
than holding uphill. Seen the doctor yet have you
seen Caddy
I dont have
to I cant ask now afterward it will be all right it wont matter
Because women
so delicate so mysterious Father said. Delicate equilibrium of periodical
filth between two moons balanced. Moons he said full and yellow as harvest
moons her hips thighs. Outside outside of them always but. Yellow. Feet
soles with walking like. Then know that some man that all those mysterious
and imperious concealed. With all that inside of them shapes an outward
suavity waiting for a touch to. Liquid putrefaction like drowned things
floating like pale rubber flabbily filled getting the odor of honeysuckle
all mixed up.
"You'd better take your
bread on home, hadn't you?"
She looked at
me. She chewed quietly and steadily; at regular intervals a small distension
passed smoothly down her throat. I opened my package and gave her one of
the buns. "Goodbye," I said.
I went on. Then
I looked back. She was behind me. "Do you live down this way?" She said
nothing. She walked beside me, under my elbow sort of, eating. We went
on. It was quiet, hardly anyone about getting the odor of honeysuckle
all mixed She would have told me not to let me sit there on the steps hearing
her door twilight slamming hearing Benjy still crying Supper she would
have to come down then getting honeysuckle all mixed up in it
We reached the corner.
"Well, I've got to go
down this way," I said. "Goodbye." She stopped too. She swallowed the last
of the cake, then she began on the bun, watching me across it. "Goodbye,"
I said. I turned into the street and went on, but I went to the next corner
before I stopped.
"Which way do you live?"
I said. "This way?" I pointed down the street. She just looked at me. "Do
you live over that way? I bet you live close to the station, where the
trains are. Dont you?" She just looked at me, serene and secret and chewing.
The street was empty both ways, with quiet lawns and houses neat among
the trees, but no one at all except back there. We turned and went back.
Two men sat in chairs in front of a store.
"Do you all know this
little girl? She sort of took up with me and I cant find where she lives."
They quit looking
at me and looked at her.
"Must be one of them
new Italian families," one said. He wore a rusty frock coat. "I've seen
her before. What's your name, little girl?" looked at them blackly for
a while, her jaws moving steadily. She swallowed without ceasing to chew.
"Maybe she cant speak
English," the other said.
"They sent her after
bread," I said. "She must be able to speak something."
"What's your pa's name?"
the first said. "Pete? Joe? name John huh?" She took another bite from
the bun.
"What must I do with
her?" I said. "She just follows me. I've got to get back to Boston."
"You from the college?"
"Yes, sir. And I've
got to get on back."
"You might go up the
street and turn her over to Anse. He'll be up at the livery stable. The
marshal."
"I reckon that's what
I'll have to do," I said. "I've got to do something with her. Much obliged.
Come on, sister."
We went up the
street, on the shady side, where the shadow of the broken facade blotted
slowly across the road. We came to the livery stable. The marshal wasn't
there. A man sitting in a chair tilted in the broad low door, where a dark
cool breeze smelling of ammonia blew among the ranked stalls, said to look
at the postoffice. He didn't know her either.
"Them furriners. I cant
tell one from another. You might take her across the tracks where they
live, and maybe somebody'll claim her."
We went to the
postoflice. It was back down the street. The man in the frock coat was
opening a newspaper.
"Anse just drove out
of town," he said. "I guess you'd better go down past the station and walk
past them houses by the river. Somebody there'll know her."
"I guess I'll have to,"
I said. "Come on, sister." She pushed the last piece of the bun into her
mouth and swallowed it. "Want another?" I said. She looked at me, chewing,
her eyes black and unwinking and friendly. I took the other two buns out
and gave her one and bit into the other. I asked a man where the station
was and he showed me. "Come on, sister."
We reached the
station and crossed the tracks, where the river was. A bridge crossed it,
and a street of jumbled frame houses followed the river, backed onto it.
A shabby street, but with an air heterogeneous and vivid too. In the center
of an untrimmed plot enclosed by a fence of gaping and broken pickets stood
an ancient lopsided surrey and a weathered house from an upper window of
which hung a garment of vivid pink.
"Does that look like
your house?" I said. She looked at me over the bun. "This one?" I said,
pointing. She just chewed, but it seemed to me that I discerned something
affirmative, acquiescent even if it wasn't eager, in her air. "This one?"
I said. "Come on, then." I entered the broken gate. I looked back at her.
"Here?" I said. "This look like your house?"
She nodded her
head rapidly, looking at me, gnawing into the damp halfmoon of the bread.
We went on. A walk of broken random flags, speared by fresh coarse blades
of grass, led to the broken stoop. There was no movement about the house
at all, and the pink garment hanging in no wind from the upper window.
There was a bell pull with a porcelain knob, attached to about six feet
of wire when I stopped pulling and knocked. The little girl had the crust
edgeways in her chewing mouth.
A woman opened
the door. She looked at me, then she spoke rapidly to the little girl in
Italian, with a rising inflexion, then a pause, interrogatory. She spoke
to her again the little girl looking at her across the end of the crust,
pushing it into her mouth with a dirty hand
"She says she lives
here." I said. "I met her down town. Is this your bread?
"No spika," the woman
said. She spoke to the little girl again. The little girl just looked at
her.
"No live here?" I said.
I pointed to the girl, then at her, then at the door. The woman shook her
head. She spoke rapidly. She came to the edge of the porch and pointed
down the road, speaking.
I nodded violently
too. "You come show?" I said. I took her arm, waving my other hand toward
the road. She spoke swiftly, pointing. "You come show," I said, trying
to lead her down the steps.
"Si, si," she said,
holding back, showing me whatever it was. I nodded again.
"Thanks. Thanks. Thanks."
I went down the steps and walked toward the gate, not running, but pretty
fast. I reached the gate and stopped and looked at her for a while. The
crust was gone now, and she looked at me with her black, friendly stare.
The woman stood on the stoop, watching us.
"Come on, then," I said.
"We'll have to find the right one sooner or later."
She moved along just
under my elbow. We went on. The houses all seemed empty. Not a soul in
sight. A sort of breathlessness that empty houses have. Yet they couldn't
all be empty. All the different rooms, if you could just slice the walls
away all of a sudden. Madam, your daughter, if you please. No. Madam, for
God's sake, your daughter. She moved along just under my elbow, her shiny
tight pigtails, and then the last house played out and the road curved
out of sight beyond a wall, following the river. The woman was emerging
from the broken gate, with a shawl over ner head and clutched under her
chary. The road curved on, empty. I found a coin and gave it to the little
girl. A quarter. "Goodbye, sister," I said. Then I ran.
I ran fast, not looking
back. Just before the road curved away I looked back. She stood in the
road, a small figure clasping the loaf of bread to her filthv little dress,
her eyes still and black and unwinking I ran on
A lane turned from the
road. I entered it and after a while I slowed to a fast walk. The lane
went between back premises-- unpainted houses with more of those gay and
startling colored garments on lines, a barn broken-backed, decaying quietly
among rank orchard trees, unpruned and weed-choked, pink and white and
murmurous with sunlight and with bees. I looked back. The entrance to the
lane was empty. I slowed still more, my shadow pacing me, dragging its
head through the weeds that hid the fence.
The lane went back to
a barred gate, became defunctive in grass, a mere path scarred quietly
into new grass. I climbed the gate into a woodlot and crossed it and came
to another wall and followed that one, my shadow behind me now. There were
vines and creepers where at home would be honeysuckle. Coming and coming
especially in the dusk when it rained, getting honeysuckle all mixed up
in it as though it were not enough without that, not unbearable enough.
What did you let him for kiss kiss
I didn't let him
I made him watching me getting mad What do you think of that? Red print
of my hand coming up through her face like turning a light on under your
hand her eyes going bright
It's not for kissing
I slapped you. Girl's elbows at fifteen Father said you swallow like you
had a fishbone in your throat what's the matter with you and Caddy across
the table not to look at me. It's for letting it be some darn town squirt
I slapped you you will will you now I guess you say calf rope. My red hand
coming up out of her face. What do you think of that scouring her head
into the. Grass sticks cries-crossed into the flesh tingling scouring her
head. Say calf rope say it
I didn't kiss a dirty
girl like Natalie anyway The wall went into shadow,
and then my shadow, I had tricked it again. I had forgot about the river
curving along the road. I climbed the wall. And then she watched me jump
down, holding the loaf against her dress.
I stood in the weeds
and we looked at one another for a while.
"Why didn't you tell
me you lived out this way, sister?" The loaf was wearing slowly out of
the paper; already it needed a new one. "Well, come on then and show me
the house." not a dirty girl like Natalie. It was raining we could hear
it on the roof, sighing through the high sweet emptiness of the barn.
There? touching her
Not there
There? not raining
hard but we couldn't hear anything but the roof and if it was my blood
or her blood
She pushed me down
the ladder and ran off and left me Caddy did
Was it there it hurt
you when Caddy did ran off was it there
Oh
She walked just under my elbow, the top of her patent leather head, the
loaf fraying out of the newspaper.
"If you dont get home
pretty soon you're going to wear that loaf out. And then what'll your mamma
say?" I bet I can lift you up
You cant I'm too
heavy
Did Caddy go away
did she go to the house you cant see the barn from our house did you ever
try to see the barn from
It was her fault
she pushed me she ran away
I can lift you up
see how I can
Oh her blood or my
blood Oh We went on in the thin dust, our feet silent
as rubber in the thin dust where pencils of sun slanted in the trees. And
I could feel water again running swift and peaceful in the secret shade.
"You live a long way,
dont you. You're mighty smart to go this far to town by yourself." It's
like dancing sitting down did you ever dance sitting down? We could hear
the rain, a rat in the crib, the empty barn vacant with horses. How do
you hold to dance do you hold like this
Oh
I used to hold like
this you thought I wasn't strong enough didn't you
Oh Oh Oh Oh
I hold to use like
this I mean did you hear what I said I said
oh oh oh oh
The road went on, still
and empty, the sun slanting more and more. Her stiff little Pigtails were
bound at the tips with bits of crimson cloth. A corner of the wrapping
flapped a little as she walked, the nose of the loaf naked. I stopped.
"Look here. Do you live
down this road? We haven't passed a house in a mile, almost."
She looked at me, black
and secret and friendly.
"Where do you live,
sister? Dont you live back there in town?"
There was a bird somewhere
in the woods, beyond the broken and infrequent slanting of sunlight.
"Your Papa's going to
be worried about you. Dont you reckon you'll get a whipping for not coming
straight home with that bread?"
The bird whistled again,
invisible, a sound meaningless and profound, inflexionless, ceasing as
though cut off with the blow of a knife, and again, and that sense of water
swift and peaceful above secret places, felt, not seen not heard.
"Oh, hell, sister."
About half the paper hung limp. "That's not doing any good now." I tore
it off and dropped it beside the road. "Come on. We'll have to go back
to town. We'll go back along the river."
We left the road. Among
the moss little pale flowers grew, and the sense of water mute and unseen.
I
hold to use like this I mean I use to hold She stood in the door looking
at us her hands on her hips
You pushed me it
was your fault it hurt me too
We were dancing sitting
down I bet Caddy cant dance sitting down
Stop that stop that
I was just brushing
the trash off the back of your dress
You keep your nasty
old hands off of me it was your fault you pushed me down I'm mad at you
I dont care she looked
at us stay mad she went away We began to hear the shouts, the splashings;
I saw a brown body gleam for an instant.
Stay mad. My shirt
was getting wet and my hair. Across the roof hearing the roof loud now
I could see Natalie going through the garden among the rain. Get wet I
hope you catch pneumonia go on home Cowface. I jumped hard as I could into
the hogwallow the mud yellowed up to my waist stinking I kept on plunging
until I fell down and rolled over in it "Hear them
in swimming, sister? I wouldn't mind doing that myself." If I had time.
When I have time. I could hear my watch. mud was warmer than the rain
it smelled awful. She had her back turned I went around in front of her.
You know what I was doing? She turned her back I went around in front of
her the rain creeping into the mud flatting her bod ice through her dress
it smelled horrible. I was hugging her that's what I was doing. She turned
her back I went around in front of her. I was hugging her I tell you.
I dont give
a damn what you were doing
You dont you dont
I'll make you I'll make you give a damn. She hit my hands away I smeared
mud on her with the other hand I couldn't feel the wet smacking of her
hand I wiped mud from my legs smeared it on her wet hard turning body hearing
her fingers going into my face but I couldn't feel it even when the rain
began to taste sweet on my lips
They saw us from
the water first, heads and shoulders. They yelled and one rose squatting
and sprang among them. They looked like beavers, the water ripping about
their chins, yelling.
"Take that girl awayl
What did you want to bring a girl here for? Go on awayl"
"She wont hurt you.
We just want to watch you for a while."
They squatted
in the water. Their heads drew into a clump, atching us, then they broke
and rushed toward us, hurling water with their hands. We moved quick.
"Look out, boys; she
wont hurt you."
"Go on away, Harvard!"
It was the second boy, the one that thought the horse and wagon back there
at the bridge. "Splash them, fellows!"
"Let's get out
and throw them in," another said. "I aint afraid of any girl."
" Splash them! Splash
them!" They rushed toward us, hurling water. We moved back. "Go on away!"
they yelled. "Go on away!"
We went away.
They huddled just under the bank, their slick heads in a row against the
bright water. We went on. "That's not for us, is it." The sun slanted through
to the moss here and there, leveller. "Poor kid, you're just a girl." Little
flowers grew among the moss, littler than I had ever seen. "You're just
a girl. Poor kid." There was a path, curving along beside the water. Then
the water was still again, dark and still and swift. "Nothing but a girl.
Poor sister." We lay in the wet grass panting the
rain like cold shot on my back. Do you care now do you do you
My Lord we
sure are in a mess get up. Where the rain touched my forehead it began
to smart my hand came red away streaking off pink in the rain. Does it
hurt
Of course it
does what do you reckon
I tried to
scratch your eyes out my Lord we sure do stink we better try to wash it
off in the branch "There's town again, sister. You'll have
to go home now. I've got to get back to school. Look how late it's getting.
You'll go home now, wont you?" But she just looked at me with her black,
secret, friendly gaze, the half-naked loaf clutched to her breast. "It's
wet. I thought we jumped back in time." I took my handkerchief and tried
to wipe the loaf, but the crust began to come off, so I stopped. "We'll
just have to let it dry itself. Hold it like this." She held it like that.
It looked kind of like rats had been eating it now. and
the water building and building up the squatting back the sloughed mud
stinking surfaceward pocking the pattering surface like grease on a hot
stove. I told you I'd make you
I dont give
a goddam what you do
Then we heard
the running and we stopped and looked back and saw him coming up the path
running, the level shadows flicking upon his legs.
"He's in a hurry. We'd--"
then I saw another man, an oldish man running heavily, clutching a stick,
and a boy naked from the waist up, clutching his pants as he ran.
" There's Julio," the
little girl said, and then I saw his Italian face and his eyes as he sprang
upon me. We went down. His hands were jabbing at my face and he was saying
something and trying to bite me, I reckon, and then they hauled him off
and held him heaving and thrashing and yelling and they held his arms and
he tried to kick me until they dragged him back. The little girl was howling,
holding the loaf in both arms. The half naked boy was darting and jumping
up and down, clutching his trousers and someone pulled me up in time to
see another stark naked figure come around the tranquil bend in the path
running and change direction in midstride and leap into the woods, a couple
of garments rigid as boards behind it. Julio still struggled. The man who
had pulled me up said, "Whoa, now. We got you." He wore a vest but no coat.
Upon it was a met shield In his other hand he clutched a knotted, polished
stick.
" You're Anse, aren't
you?" I said. "I was looking for you. What's the matter?"
"I warn you that anything
you say will be used aganst you," he said. "You're under arrest."
" I killa heem," Julio
said. He struggled. Two men held him. The little girl howled steadily,
holding the bread. "You steala my seester," Julio said. "Let go, meesters."
" Steal his sister?"
I said. "Why, I've been--"
"Shet up," Anse said.
"You can tell that to Squire."
" Steal his sister?"
I said. Julio broke from the men and sprang at me again, but the marshal
met him and they struggled until the other two pinioned his arms again.
Anse released him, panting.
"You durn furriner,"
he said. "I've a good mind to take you up too, for assault and battery."
He turned to me again. "Will you come peaceable, or do I handcuff you?"
"I'll come peaceable," I said. "Anything, just so I can find someone--do
something with-- Stole his sister," I said. "Stole his--"
" I've warned you,"
Anse said. "He aims to charge you with meditated criminal assault. Here,
you, make that gal shut up that noise."
"Oh," I said. Then I
began to laugh. Two more boys with plastered heads and round eyes came
out of the bushes, buttoning shirts that had already dampened onto their
shoulders and arms, and I tried to stop the laughter, but I couldn't.
"Watch him, Anse, he's
crazy, I believe."
"I'll h-have to qu-quit,"
I said. "It'll stop in a mu-minute. The other time it said ah ah ah," I
said, laughing. "Let me sit down a while." I sat down, they watching me,
and the little girl with her streaked face and the gnawed looking loaf,
and the water swif and peaceful below the path. After a while the laughter
ran out. But my throat wouldn't quit trying to laugh, like retching after
your stomach is empty.
"Whoa, now," Anse said.
"Get a grip on yourself."
"Yes," I said, tightening
my throat. There was another yellow butterfly, like one of the sunflecks
had come loose. After a while I didn't have to hold my throat so tight.
I got up. "I'm ready. Which way?"
We followed the
path, the two others watching Julio and the little girl and the boys somewhere
in the rear. The path went along the river to the bridge. We crossed it
and the tracks, people coming to the doors to look at us and more boys
materialising from somewhere until when we turned into the main street
we had quite a procession. Before the drug store stood an auto, a big one,
but I didn't recognise them until Mrs Bland said,
" Why, Quentin! Quentin
Compson!" Then I saw Gerald, and Spoade in the back seat, sitting on the
back of his neck. And Shreve. I didn't know the two girls.
"Quentin Compson!" Mrs
Bland said.
" Good afternoon," I
said, raising my hat. "I'm under arrest. I'm sorry I didn't get your note.
Did Shreve tell you?"
"Under arrest?" Shreve
said. "Excuse me," he said. He heaved himself up and climbed over their
feet and got out. He had on a pair of my flannel pants, like a glove. I
didn't remember forgetting them. I didn't remember how many chins Mrs Bland
had, either. The prettiest girl was with Gerald in front, too. They watched
me through veils, with a kind of delicate horror. "Who's under arrest?"
Shreve said. "What's this, mister?"
"Gerald," Mrs Bland
said. "Send these people away. You get in this car, Quentin."
Gerald got out.
Spoade hadn't moved.
"What's he done, Cap?"
he said. "Robbed a hen house?"
"I warn you," Anse said.
"Do you know the prisoner?"
"Know him," Shreve said.
"Look here--"
"Then you can come along
to the squire's. You'reobstructing justice. Come along." He shook my arm.
"Well, good afternoon,"
I said. "I'm glad to have seen you all. Sorry I couldn't be with you."
"You, Gerald," Mrs Bland
said.
"Look here, constable,"
Gerald said.
"I warn you you're interfering
with an officer of the law," Anse said. "If you've anything to say, you
can come to the squire's and make cognizance of the prisoner." We went
on. Quite a procession now, Anse and I leading. I could hear them telling
them what it was, and Spoade asking questions, and then Julio said something
violently in Italian and I looked back and saw the little girl standing
at the curb, looking at me with her friendly, inscrutable regard.
"Git on home," Julio
shouted at her. "I beat hell outa you."
We went down the
street and turned into a bit of lawn in which, set back from the street,
stood a one storey building of brick trimmed with white. We went up the
rock path to the door, where Anse halted everyone except us and made them
remain outside. We entered, a bare room smelling of stale tobacco. There
was a sheet iron stove in the center of a wooden frame filled with sand,
and a faded map on the wall and the dingy plat of a township. Behind a
scarred littered table a man with a fierce roach of iron gray hair peered
at us over steel spectacles.
"Got him, did ye, Anse?"
he said.
"Got him, Squire."
He opened a huge
dusty book and drew it to him and dipped a foul pen into an inkwell filled
with what looked like coal dust.
"Look here, mister,"
Shreve said.
"The prisoner's name,"
the squire said. I told him. He wrote it slowly into the book, the pen
scratching with excruciating deliberation.
"Look here, mister,"
Shreve said. "We know this fellow. We--"
"Order in the court,"
Anse said.
"Shut up, bud," Spoade
said. "Let him do it his way. He's going to anyhow."
"Age," the squire said.
I told him. He wrote that, his mouth moving as he wrote. "Occupation."
I told him. "Harvard student, hey?" he said. He looked up at me, bowing
his neck a little to see over the spectacles. His eyes were clear and cold,
like a goat's. "What are you up to, coming out here kidnapping children?"
"They're crazy, Squire,"
Shreve said. "Whoever says this boy's kidnapping--"
Julio moved violently.
"Crazy?" he said. "Dont I catcha heem, eh? Dont I see weetha my own eyesÀ-"
"You're a liar," Shreve
said. "You never--"
"Order, order," Anse
said, raising his voice.
"You fellers shet up,"
the squire said. "If they dont stay quiet, turn 'em out, Anse." They got
quiet. The squire looked at Shreve, then at Spoade, then at Gerald. "You
know this young man?" he said to Spoade.
"Yes, your honor," Spoade
said. "He's just a country boy in school up there. He dont mean any harm.
I think the marshal'll find it's a mistake. His father's a congregational
minister."
"H'm," the squire said.
"What was you doing, exactly?" I told him, he watching me with his cold,
pale eyes. "How about it, Anse?"
"Might have been," Anse
said. "Them durn furriners."
"I American," Julio
said. "I gotta da pape'."
"Where's the gal?"
"He sent her home,"
Anse said.
"Was she scared or anything?"
"Not till Julio there
jumped on the prisoner. They were just walking along the river path, towards
town. Some boys swimming told us which way they went."
"It's a mistake, Squire,"
Spoade said. "Children and dogs are always taking up with him like that.
He cant help it."
"H'm," the squire said.
He looked out of the window for a while. We watched him. I could hear Julio
scratching himself. The squire looked back.
"Air you satisfied the
gal aint took any hurt, you, there?"
"No hurt now," Julio
said sullenly.
"You quit work to hunt
for her?"
"Sure I quit. I run.
I run like hell. Looka here, looka there, then man tella me he seen him
give her she eat. She go weetha."
"H'm," the squire said.
"Well, son, I calculate you owe Julio something for taking him away from
his work."
"Yes, sir," I said.
"How much?"
"Dollar, I calculate."
I gave Julio a
dollar.
"Well," Spoade said.
"If that's all--I reckon he's discharged, your honor?"
The squire didn't
look at him. "How far'd you run him, Anse?"
"Two miles, at least.
It was about two hours before we caught him."
"H'm," the squire said.
He mused a while. We watched him, his stiff crest, the spectacles riding
low on his nose. The yellow shape of the window grew slowly across the
floor, reached the wall, climbing. Dust motes whirled and slanted. "Six
dollars."
"Six dollars?" Shreve
said. "What's that for?"
"Six dollars," the squire
said. He looked at Shreve a moment, then at me again.
"Look here," Shreve
said.
"Shut up," Spoade said.
"Give it to him, bud, and let's get out of here. The ladies are waiting
for us. You got six dollars?"
"Yes," I said. I gave
him six dollars.
"Case dismissed," he
said.
"You get a receipt,"
Shreve said. "You get a signed receipt for that money."
The squire looked
at Shreve mildly. "Case dismissed," he said without raising his voice.
"I'll be damned--" Shreve
said.
"Come on here," Spoade
said, taking his arm. "Good afternoon, Judge. Much obliged." As we passed
out the door Julio's voice rose again, violent, then ceased. Spoade was
looking at me, his brown eyes quizzical, a little cold. "Well, bud, I reckon
you'll do your girl chasing in Boston after this."
"You damned fool,"
Shreve said. "What the hell do you mean anyway, straggling off here, fooling
with these damn wops?"
"Come on," Spoade said.
"They must be getting impatient."
Mrs Bland was
talking to them. They were Miss Holmes and Miss Daingerfield and they quit
listening to her and looked at me again with that delicate and curious
horror, their veils turned back upon their little white noses and their
eyes fleeing and mysterious beneath the veils.
"Quentin Compson," Mrs
Bland said. "What would your mother say. A young man naturally gets into
scrapes, but to be arrested on foot by a country policeman. What did they
think he'd done, Gerald?"
"Nothing," Gerald said.
"Nonsense. What was
it, you, Spoade?"
"He was trying to kidnap
that little dirty girl, but they caught him in time," Spoade said.
"Nonsense," Mrs Bland
said, but her voice sort of died away and she stared at me for a moment,
and the girls drew their breaths in with a soft concerted sound. "Fiddlesticks,"
Mrs Bland said briskly. "If that isn't just like these ignorant lowclass
Yankees. Get in, Quentin."
Shreve and I sat
on two small collapsible seats. Gerald cranked the car and got in and we
started.
"Now, Quentin, you tell
me what all this foolishness is about," Mrs Bland
said. I told them, Shreve hunched and furious on his little seat and Spoade
sitting again on the back of his neck beside Miss Daingerfield.
"And the joke is, all
the time Quentin had us all fooled," Spoade said.
"All the time we thought he was the model youth that anybody could trust
a daughter with, until the police showed him up at his nefarious work."
"Hush up, Spoade," Mrs
Bland said. We drove down the street and crossed the bridge and passed
the house where the pink garment hung in the window. "That's what you get
for not reading my note. Why didn't you come and get it? Mr MacKenzie says
he told you it was there."
"Yessum. I intended
to, but I never went back to the room."
"You'd have let us sit
there waiting I dont know how long, if it hadn't been for Mr MacKenzie.
When he said you hadn't come back, that left an extra place, so we asked
him to come. We're very glad to have you anyway, Mr MacKenzie." Shreve
said nothing. His arms were folded and he glared straight ahead past Gerald's
cap. It was a cap for motoring in England. Mrs Bland said so. We passed
that house, and three others, and another yard where the little girl stood
by the gate. She didn't have the bread now, and her face looked like it
had been streaked with coaldust. I waved my hand, but she made no reply,
only her head turned slowly as the car passed, following us with her unwinking
gaze. Then we ran beside the wall, our shadows running along the wall,
and after a while we passed a piece of torn newspaper lying beside the
road and I began to laugh again. I could feel it in my throat and I looked
off into the trees where the afternoon slanted, thinking of afternoon and
of the bird and the boys in swimming. But still I couldn't stop it and
then I knew that if I tried too hard to stop it I'd be crying and I thought
about how I'd thought about I could not be a virgin, with so many of them
walking along in the shadows and whispering with their soft girlvoices
lingering in the shadowy places and the words coming out and perfume and
eyes you could feel not see, but if it was that simple to do it wouldn't
be anything and if it wasn't anything, what was I and then Mrs Bland said,
"Quentin? Is he sick, Mr MacKenzie?" and then Shreve's fat hand touched
my knee and Spoade began talking and I quit trying to stop it.
"If that hamper is in
his way, Mr MacKenzie, move it over on your side. I brought a hamper of
wine because I think young gentlemen should drink wine, although my father,
Gerald's grandfather " ever do that Have
you ever done that In the gray darkness a little light her hands locked
about
"They do, when they
can get it," Spoade said. "Hey, Shreve?" her knees
her face looking at the sky the smell of honeysuckle upon her face and
throat
"Beer, too," Shreve
said. His hand touched my knee again. I moved my knee again.
like
a thin wash of lilac colored paint talking about him bringing
"You're not a gentleman,"
Spoade said. him between us until the shape of her
blurred not with dark
"No. I'm Canadian,"
Shreve said. talking about him the oar blades winking him along winking
the Cap made for motoring in England and all time rushing beneath and they
two blurred within the other forever more he had been in the army had killed
men
"I adore Canada," Miss
Daingerfield said. "I think it's marvellous."
"Did you ever drink
perfume?" Spoade said. with one hand he could lift her to his shoulder
and run with her running Running
"No," Shreve said. running
the beast with two backs and she blurred in the winking oars running the
swine of Euboeleus running coupled within how many Caddy
"Neither did I," Spoade
said. I dont know too many there was something terrible
in me terrible in me Father I have committed Have you ever done that We
didnt we didnt do that did we do that
"and Gerald's grandfather
always picked his own mint before breakfast, while the dew was still on
it. He wouldn't even let old Wilkie touch it do you remember Gerald but
always gathered it himself and made his own julep. He was as crotchety
about his julep as an old maid, measuring everything by a recipe in his
head. There was only one man he ever gave that recipe to; that was
" we did how can you not know it if youll just wait Ill tell you how
it was it was a crime we did a terrible crime it cannot be hid you think
it can but wait Poor Quentin youve never done that have
you and Ill tell you how it was Ill tell Father then
itll have to be because you love Father then well have to go away amid
the pointing and the horror the clean flame Ill make you say we did Im
stronger than you Ill make you know we did you thought it was them but
it
was me listen I fooled you all the time it was
me you thought I was in the house where that damn honeysuckle trying not
to think the swing the cedars the secret surges the breathing locked drinking
the wild breath the yes Yes Yes yes
"never be got to drink
wine himself, but he always said that a hamper what book did you read that
in the one where Gerald's rowing suit of wine was a necessary part of any
gentlemen's picnic basket" did you love them Caddy
did you love them When they touched me I died
one minute she was standing
there the next he was yelling and pulling at her dress they went into the
hall and up the stairs yelling and shoving at her up the stairs to the
bathroom door and stopped her back against the door and her arm across
her face yelling and trying to shove her into the bathroom when she came
in to supper T. P. was feeding him he started again just whimpering at
first until she touched him then he yelled she stood there her eyes like
cornered rats then I was running in the gray darkness it smelled of rain
and all flower scents the damp warm air released and crickets sawing away
in the grass pacing me with a small travelling island of silence Fancy
watched me across the fence blotchy like a quilt on a line I thought damn
that nigger he forgot to feed her again I ran down the hill in that vacuum
of crickets like a breath travelling across a mirror she was lying in the
water her head on the sand spit the water flowing about her hips there
was a little more light in the water her skirt half saturated flopped along
her flanks to the waters motion in heavy ripples going nowhere renewed
themselves of their own movement I stood on the bank I could smell the
honeysuckle on the water gap the air seemed to drizzle with honeysuckle
and with the rasping of crickets a substance you could feel
on the flesh
is Benjy still crying
I dont know yes I dont know
poor Benjy
I sat down on the bank the crass was damn a little
then I found my shoes wet
get out of that water are you crazy
but she didnt move her face was a white blur
framed out of the blur of the sand by her hair
get out now
she sat up then she rose her skirt flopped against
her draining she climbed the bank her clothes flopping sat down
why dont you wring it out do you want to catch
cold
yes
the water sucked and gurgled across the sand
spit and on in the dark among the willows across the shallow the water
rippled like a piece of cloth holding still a little light as water does
hes crossed all the oceans all around the world
then she talked about him clasping her wet knees
her face tilted back in the gray light the smell of honeysuckle there was
a light in mothers room and in Benjys where T. P. was putting him to bed
do you love him
her hand came out I didnt move it fumbled down
my arm and she held my hand flat against her chest her heart thudding
no no
did he make you then he made you do it let him
he was stronger than you and he tomorrow Ill kill him I swear I will father
neednt know until afterward and then you and I nobody need ever know we
can take my school money we can cancel my matriculation Caddy you hate
him dont you dont you
she held my hand against her chest her heart
thudding I turned and caught her arm
Caddy you hate him dont you
she moved my hand up against her throat her heart
was hammering there
poor Quentin
her face looked at the sky it was low so low
that all smells and sounds of night seemed to have been crowded down like
under a slack tent especially the honeysuckle it had got into my breathing
it was on her face and throat like paint her blood pounded against my hand
I was leaning on my other arm it began to jerk and jump and I had to pant
to get any air at all out of that thick gray honeysuckle
yes I hate him I would die for him Ive already
died for him I die for him over and over again everytime this goes
when I lifted my hand I could still feel crisscrossed
twigs and grass burning into the palm
poor Quentin
she leaned back on her arms her hands locked
about her knees
youve never done that have you
what done what
that what I have what I did
yes yes lots of times with lots of girls
then I was crying her hand touched me again and
I was crying against her damp blouse then she lying on her back looking
past my head into the sky I could see a rim of white under her irises I
opened my knife do you remember the day damuddy died when you sat down
in the water in your drawers
yes
I held the point of the knife at her throat
it wont take but a second just a second then
I can do mine I can do mine then
all right can you do yours by yourself
yes the blades long enough Benjys in bed by now
yes
it wont take but a second Ill try not to hurt
all right
will you close your eyes
no like this youll have to push it harder
touch your hand to it
but she didnt move her eyes were wide open looking
past my head at the sky
Caddy do you remember how Dilsey fussed at you
because your drawers were muddy
dont cry
Im not crying Caddy
push it are you going to
do you want me to
yes push it
touch your hand to it
dont cry poor Quentin
but I couldnt stop she held my head against her
damp hard breast I could hear her heart going firm and slow now not hammering
and the water gurgling among the willows in the dark and waves of honeysuckle
coming up the air my arm and shoulder were twisted under me
what is it what are you doing
her muscles gathered I sat up
its my knife I dropped it
she sat up
what time is it
I dont know
she rose to her feet I fumbled along the ground
Im going let it go
to the house
I could feel her standing there I could smell
her damp clothes feeling her there
its right here somewhere
let it go you can find it tomorrow come on
wait a minute Ill find it
are you afraid to
here it is it was right here all the time
was it come on
I got up and followed we went up the hill the
crickets hushing before us
its funny how you can sit down and drop something
and have to hunt all around for it
the gray it was gray with dew slanting up into
the gray sky
then the trees beyond
damn that honeysuckle I wish it would stop
you used to like it
we crossed the crest and went on toward the trees
she walked into me she gave over a little the ditch was a black scar on
the gray grass she walked into me again she looked at me and gave over
we reached the ditch
lets go this way
what for
lets see if you can still see Nancys bones I
havens thought
to look in a long time have you
it was matted with vines and briers dark
they were right here you cant tell whether you
see them or not can you
stop Quentin
come on
the ditch narrowed closed she turned toward the
trees
stop Quentin
Caddy
I got in front of her again
Caddy
stop it
I held her
Im stronger than you
she was motionless hard unyielding but still
I wont fight stop youd better stop
Caddy dont Caddy
it wont do any good dont you know it wont let
me go the honeysuckle drizzled and drizzled I could hear the crickets watching
us in a circle she moved back went around me on toward the trees
you go on back to the house you neednt come
I went on
why dont you go on back to the house
damn that honeysuckle
we reached the fence she crawled through I crawled
through when I rose from stooping he was coming out of the trees into the
gray toward us coming toward us tall and flat and still even moving like
he was still she went to him
this is Quentin Im wet Im wet all over you dont
have to if you dont want to
their shadows one shadow her head rose it was
above his on the sky higher their two heads you dont have to if you dont
want to then not two heads the darkness smelled of rain of damp grass and
leaves the gray light drizzling like rain the honeysuckle coming up in
damp waves I could see her face a blur against his shoulder he held her
in one arm like she was no bigger than a child he extended his hand
glad to know you
we shook hands then we stood there her shadow
high
against his shadow one shadow
whatre you going to do Quentin
walk a while I think Ill go through the woods
to the road and come back through town
I turned away going
goodnight
Quentin
I stopped
what do you want
in the woods the tree frogs were going smelling
rain in the air they sounded like toy music boxes that were hard to turn
and the honeysuckle
come here
what do you want
come here Quentin
I went back she touched my shoulder leaning down
her shadow the blur of her face leaning down from his high shadow I drew
back
look out
you go on home
Im not sleepy Im going to take a walk
wait for me at the branch
Im going for a walk
Ill be there soon wait for me you wait
no Im going through the woods
I didnt look back the tree frogs didnt pay me
any mind the gray light like moss in the trees drizzling but still it wouldnt
rain after a while I turned went back to the edge of the woods as soon
as I got there I began to smell honeysuckle again I could see the lights
on the courthouse clock and the glare of town the square on the sky and
the dark willows along the branch and the light in mothers windows the
light still on in Benjys room and I stooped through the fence and went
across the pasture running I ran in the gray grass among the crickets the
honeysuckle getting stronger and stronger and the smell of water then I
could see the water the color of gray honeysuckle I lay down on the bank
with my face close to the ground so I couldnt smell the honeysuckle I couldnt
smell it then and I lay there feeling the earth going through my clothes
listening to the water and after a while I wasnt breathing so hard and
I lay there thinking that if I didnt move my face I wouldnt have to breathe
hard and smell it and then I wasnt thinking about anything at all she came
along the bank and stopped I didnt move
its late you go on home
what
you go on home its late
all right
her clothes rustled I didnt move they stopped
rustling
are you going in like I told you
I didnt hear anything
Caddy
yes I will if you want me to I will
I sat up she was sitting on the ground her hands
clasped about her knee
go on to the house like I told you
yes Ill do anything you want me to anything yes
she didnt even look at me I caught her shoulder
and shook her hard
you shut up
I shook her
you shut up you shut up
yes
she lifted her face then I saw she wasnt even
looking at me at all I could see that white rim
get up
I pulled her she was limp I lifted her to her
feet
go on now
was Benjy still crying when you left
go on
we crossed the branch the roof came in sight
then the windows upstairs
hes asleep now
I had to stop and fasten the gate she went on
in the gray light the smell of rain and still it wouldnt rain and honey-
suckle beginning to come from the garden fence beginning she went into
the shadow I could hear her feet then
Caddy
I stopped at the steps I couldnt hear her feet
Caddy
I heard her feet then my hand touched her not
warm not cool just still her clothes a little damp still
do you love him now
not breathing except slow like far away breathing
Caddy do you love him now
I dont know
outside the gray light the shadows of things
like dead
things in stagnant water
I wish you were dead
do you you coming in now
are you thinking about him now
I dont know
tell me what youre thinking about tell me
stop stop Quentin
you shut up you shut up you hear me you shut
up are you going to shut up
all right I will stop well make too much noise
Ill kill you do you hear
lets go out to the swing theyll hear you here
Im not crying do you say Im crying
no hush now well wake Benjy up
you go on into the house go on now
I am dont cry Im bad anyway you cant help it
theres a curse on us its not our fault is it
our fault
hush come on and go to bed now
you cant make me theres a curse on us
finally I saw him he was just going into the
barbershop he looked out I went on and waited
Ive been looking for you two or three days
you wanted to see me
Im going to see you
he rolled the cigarette quickly with about two
motions he struck the match with his thumb
we cant talk here suppose I meet you somewhere
Ill come to your room are you at the hotel
no thats not so good you know that bridge over
the creek in there back of
yes all right
at one oclock right
yes
I turned away
Im obliged to you
look
I stopped looked back
she all right
he looked like he was made out of bronze his
khaki shirt
she need me for anything now
Ill be there at one
she heard me tell T. P. to saddle Prince at one
oclock she kept watching me not eating much she came too
what are you going to do
nothing cant I go for a ride if I want to
youre going to do something what is it
none of your business whore whore
T. P. had Prince at the side door
I wont want him Im going to walk
I went down the drive and out the gate I turned
into the lane then I ran before I reached the bridge I saw him leaning
on the rail the horse was hitched in the woods he looked over his shoulder
then he turned his back he didnt look up until I came onto the bridge and
stopped he had a piece of bark in his hands breaking pieces from it and
dropping them over the rail into the water
I came to tell you to leave town
he broke a piece of bark deliberately dropped
it carefully into the water watched it float away
I said you must leave town
he looked at me
did she send you to me
I say you must go not my father not anybody I
say it
listen save this for a while I want to know if
shes all right have they been bothering her up there
thats something you dont need to trouble yourself
about
then I heard myself saying Ill give you until
sundown to leave town
he broke a piece of bark and dropped it into
the water then he laid the bark on the rail and rolled a cigarette with
those two swift motions spun the match over the rail
what will you do if I dont leave
Ill kill you dont think that just because I look
like a kid to you
the smoke flowed in two jets from his nostrils
across his face
how old are you
I began to shake my hands were on the rail I
thought if I hid them hed know why
Ill give you until tonight
listen buddy whets your name Benjys the natural
isnt he
Quentin
my mouth said it I didnt say it at all
Quentin
he raked the cigarette ash carefully off against
the rail he did it slowly and carefully like sharpening a Pencil my hands
had quit shaking
listen no good taking it so hard its not your
fault kid it would have been some other fellow
did you ever have a sister did you
no but theyre all bitches
I hit him my open hand beat the impulse to shut
it to his face his hand moved as fast as mine the cigarette went over the
rail I swung with the other hand he caught it too before the cigarette
reached the water he held both my wrists in the same hand his other hand
flicked to his armpit under his coat behind him the sun slanted and a bird
sing ing somewhere beyond the sun we looked at one another while the bird
singing he turned my hands loose
look here
he took the bark from the rail and dropped it
into the water it bobbed up the current took it floated away his hand lay
on the rail holding the pistol loosely we waited
you cant hit it now
no
it floated on it was quite still in the woods
I heard the bird again and the water afterward the pistol came up he didnt
aim at all the bark disappeared then pieces of it floated up spreading
he hit two more of them pieces of bark no bigger than silver dollars
thats enough I guess
he swung the cylinder out and blew into the barrel
a thin wisp of smoke dissolved he reloaded the three chambers shut the
cylinder he handed it to me butt first
what for I wont try to beat that
youll need it from what you said Im giving you
this one because youve seen what itll do
to hell with your gun
I hit him I was still trying to hit him long
after he was holding my wrists but I still tried then it was like I was
looking at him through a piece of colored glass I could hear my blood and
then I could see the sky again and branches against it and the sun slanting
through them and he holding me on my feet
did you hit me
I couldnt hear
what
yes how do you feel
all right let go
he let me go I leaned against the rail
do you feel all right
let me alone Im all right
can you make it home all right
go on let me alone
youd better not try to walk take my horse
no you go on
you can hang the reins on the pommel and turn
him loose hell go back to the stable
let me alone you go on and let me alone
I leaned on the rail looking at the water I heard
him untie the horse and ride off and after a while I couldnt hear anything
but the water and then the bird again I left the bridge and sat down with
my back against a tree and leaned my head against the tree and shut my
eyes a Patch of sun came through and fell across my eyes and I moved a
little further around the tree I heard the bird again and the water and
then everything sort of rolled away and I didnt feel anything at all I
felt almost good after all those days and the nights with honeysuckle coming
up out of the darkness into my room where I was trying to sleep even when
after a while I knew that he hadnt hit me that he had lied about that for
her sake too and that I had just passed out like a girl but even that didnt
matter anymore and I sat there against the tree with little flecks of sunlight
brushing across my face like yellow leaves on a twig listening to the water
and not thinking about anything at all even when I heard the horse coming
fast I sat there with my eyes closed and heard its feet bunch scuttering
the hissing sand and feet running and her hard running hands
fool fool are you hurt
I opened my eyes her hands running on my face
I didnt know which way until I heard the pistol
I didnt know where I didnt think he and you running off slipping I didnt
think he would have
she held my face between her hands bumping my
head against the tree
stop stop that
I caught her wrists
quit that quit it
I knew he wouldnt I knew he wouldnt
she tried to bump my head against the tree
I told him never to speak to me again I told
him
she tried to break her wrists free
let me go
stop it Im stronger than you stop it now
let me go Ive got to catch him and ask his let
me go Quentin please let me go let me go
all at once she quit her wrists went lax
yes I can tell him I can make him believe anytime
I can make him
Caddy
she hadnt hitched Prince he was liable to strike
out for home if the notion took him
anytime he will believe me
do you love him Caddy
do I what
she looked at me then everything emptied out
of her eyes
and they looked like the eyes in statues blank
and unseeing and serene
put your hand against my throat
she took my hand and held it flat against her
throat
now say his name
Dalton Ames
I felt the first surge of blood there it surged
in strong accelerating beats
say it again
her face looked off into the trees where the
sun slanted and where the bird
say it again
Dalton Ames
her blood surged steadily beating and beating
against my hand
It dept on running
for a long time, but my face felt cold and sort of dead, and my eye, and
the cut place on my finger was smarting again. I could hear Shreve working
the pump, then he came back with the basin and a round blob of twilight
wobbling in it, with a yellow edge like a fading balloon, then my reflection.
I tried to see my face in it.
"Has it stopped?" Shreve
said. "Give me the rag." He tried to take it from my hand.
"Look out," I said.
"I can do it. Yes, it's about stopped now." I dipped the rag again, breaking
the balloon. The rag stained the water. "I wish I had a clean one."
"You need a piece of
beefsteak for that eye," Shreve said. "Damn if you wont have a shiner tomorrow.
The son of a bitch," he said.
"Did I hurt him any?"
I wrung out the handkerchief and tried to clean the blood off of my vest.
"You cant get that off,"
Shreve said. "You'll have to send it to the cleaner's. Come on, hold it
on your eye, why dont you.
"I can get some of it
off," I said. But I wasn't doing much good. "What sort of shape is my collar
in?"
"I dont know," Shreve
said. "Hold it against your eye. Here."
"Look out," I said.
"I can do it. Did I hurt him any?"
"You may have hit him.
I may have looked away just then or blinked or something. He boxed the
hell out of you. He boxed you all over the place. What did you want to
fight him with your fists for? You goddam fool.
How do you feel?"
"I feel fine," I said.
"I wonder if I can get something to clean my vest."
"Oh, forget your damn
clothes. Does your eye hurt?"
"I feel fine," I said.
Everything was sort of violet and still, the sky green paling into gold
beyond the gable of the house and a plume of smoke rising from the chimney
without any wind. I heard the pump again. A man was filling a pail, watching
us across his pumping shoulder. A woman crossed the door, but she didn't
look out. I could hear a cow lowing somewhere.
"Come on," Shreve said.
"Let your clothes alone and put that rag on your eye. I'll send your suit
out first thing tomorrow."
"All right. I'm sorry
I didn't bleed on him a little, at least."
"Son of a bitch," Shreve
said. Spoade came out of the house, talking to the woman I reckon, and
crossed the yard. He looked at me with his cold, quizzical eyes.
"Well, bud," he said,
looking at me, "I'll be damned if you dont go to a lot of trouble to have
your fun. Kidnapping, then fighting. What do you do on your holidays? burn
houses?"
"I'm all right," I said.
"What did Mrs Bland say?"
"She's giving Gerald
hell for bloodying you up. She'll give you hell for letting him, when she
sees you. She dont object to the fighting, it's the blood that annoys her.
I think you lost caste with her a little by not holding your blood better.
How do you feel?"
"Sure," Shreve said.
"If you cant be a Bland, the next best thing is to commit adultery with
one or get drunk and fight him, as the case may be."
"Quite right," Spoade
said. "But I didn't know Quentin was drunk."
"He wasn't," Shreve
said. "Do you have to be drunk to want to hit that son of a bitch?"
"Well, I think I'd have
to be pretty drunk to try it, after seeing how Quentin came out. Where'd
he learn to box?"
"He's been going to
Mike's every day, over in town," I said.
"He has?" Spoade said.
"Did you know that when you hit him?"
"I dont know," I said.
"I guess so. Yes."
"Wet it again," Shreve
said. "Want some fresh water?"
"This is all right,"
I said. I dipped the cloth again and held it to my eye. "Wish I had something
to clean my vest." Spoade was still watching me.
"Say," he said. "What
did you hit him for? What was it he said?"
"I dont know. I dont
know why I did."
"The first I knew was
when you jumped up all of a sudden and said, 'Did you ever have a sister?
did you?' and when he said No, you hit him. I noticed you kept on looking
at him, but you didn't seem to be paying any attention to what anybody
was saying until you jumped up and asked him if he had any sisters."
"Ah, he was blowing
off as usual," Shreve said, "about his women. You know: like he does, before
girls, so they dont know exactly what he's saying. All his damn innuendo
and lying and a lot of stuff that dont make sense even. Telling us about
some wench that he made a date with to meet at a dance hall in Atlantic
City and stood her up and went to the hotel and went to bed and how he
lay there being sorry for her waiting on the pier for him, without him
there to give her what she wanted. Talking about the body's beauty and
the sorry ends thereof and how tough women have it, without anything else
they can do except lie on their backs. Leda lurking in the bushes, whimpering
and moaning for the swan, see. The son of a bitch. I'd hit him myself.
Only I'd grabbed up her damn hamper of wine and done it if it had been
me."
"Oh," Spoade said, "the
champion of dames. Bud, you excite not only admiration, but horror." He
looked at me, cold and quizzical. "Good God," he said.
"I'm sorry I hit him,"
I said. "Do I look too bad to go back and get it over with?"
"Apologies, hell," Shreve
said. "Let them go to hell. We're going to town."
"He ought to go back
so they'll know he fights like a gentleman," Spoade said. "Gets licked
like one, I mean."
"Like this?" Shreve
said. "With his clothes all over blood?"
"Why, all right," Spoade
said. "You know best."
"He cant go around in
his undershirt," Shreve said. "He's not a senior yet. Come on, let's go
to town."
"You needn't come,"
I said. "You go on back to the picnic."
"Hell with them," Shreve
said. "Come on here."
"What'll I tell them?"
Spoade said. "Tell them you and Quentin had a fight too?"
"Tell them nothing,"
Shreve said. "Tell her her option expired at sunset. Come on, Quentin.
I'll ask that woman where the nearest interurban--"
"No," I said. "I'm not
going back to town."
Shreve stopped,
looking at me. Turning his glasses looked like small yellow moons.
"What are you going
to do?"
"I'm not going back
to town yet. You go on back to the picnic. Tell them I wouldn't come back
because my clothes were spoiled."
"Look here," he said.
"What are you up to?"
"Nothing. I'm all right.
You and Spoade go on back. I'll see you tomorrow." I went on across the
yard, toward the road.
"Do you know where the
station is?" Shreve said.
"I'll find it. I'll
see you all tomorrow. Tell Mrs Bland I'm sorry I spoiled her party." They
stood watching me. I went around the house. A rock path went down to the
road. Roses grew on both sides of the path. I went through the gate, onto
the road. It dropped downhill, toward the woods, and I could make out the
auto beside the road. I went up the hill. The light increased as I mounted,
and before I reached the top I heard a car. It sounded far away across
the twilight and I stopped and listened to it. I couldn't make out the
auto any longer, but Shreve was standing in the road before the house,
looking up the hill. Behind him the yellow light lay like a wash of paint
on the roof of the house. I lifted my hand and went on over the hill, listening
to the car. Then the house was gone and I stopped in the green and yellow
light and heard the car growing louder and louder, until just as it began
to die away it ceased all together. I waited until I heard it start again.
Then I went on.
As I descended
the light dwindled slowly, yet at the same time without altering its quality,
as if I and not light were changing, decreasing, though even when the road
ran into trees you could have read a newspaper. Pretty soon I came to a
lane. I turned into it. It was closer and darker than the road, but when
it came out at the trolley stop--another wooden marquee--the light was
still unchanged. After the lane it seemed brighter, as though I had walked
through night in the lane and come out into morning again. Pretty soon
the car came. I got on it, they turning to look at my eye, and found a
seat on the left side.
The lights were
on in the car, so while we ran between trees I couldn't see anything except
my own face and a woman across the aisle with a hat sitting right on top
of her head, with a broken feather in it, but when we ran out of the trees
I could see the twilight again, that quality of light as if time really
had stopped for a while, with the sun hanging just under the horizon, and
then we passed the marquee where the old man had been eating out of the
sack, and the road going on under the twilight, into twilight and the sense
of water peaceful and swift beyond. Then the car went on, the draft building
steadily up in the open door until it was drawing steadily through the
car with the odor of summer and darkness except honeysuckle. Honeysuckle
was the saddest odor of all, I think. I remember lots of them. Wistaria
was one. On the rainy days when Mother wasn't feeling quite bad enough
to stay away from the windows we used to play under it. When Mother stayed
in bed Dilsey would put old clothes on us and let us go out in the rain
because she said rain never hurt young folks. But if Mother was up we always
began by playing on the porch until she said we were making too much noise,
then we went out and played under the wisteria frame.
This was where
I saw the river for the last time this morning, about here. I could feel
water beyond the twilight, smell. When it bloomed in the spring and it
rained the smell was everywhere you didn't notice it so much at other times
but when it rained the smell began to come into the house at twilight either
it would rain more at twilight or there was something in the light itself
but it always smelled strongest then until I would lie in bed thinking
when will it stop when will it stop. The draft in the door smelled of water,
a damp steady breath. Sometimes I could put myself to sleep saying that
over and over until after the honeysuckle got all mixed up in it the whole
thing came to symbolis night and unrest I seemed to be lying neither asleep
nor awake looking down a long corridor of gray halflight where all stable
things had become shadowy paradoxical all I had done shadows all I had
felt suffered taking visible form antic and perverse mocking without relevance
inherent themselves with the denial of the significance they should have
affirmed thinking I was I was not who was not was not who.
I could smell
the curves of the river beyond the dusk and I saw the last light supine
and tranquil upon tideflats like pieces of broken mirror, then beyond them
lights began in the pale clear air, trembling a little like butterflies
hovering a long way off. Benjamin the child of. How he used to sit before
that mirror. Refuge unfailing in which conflict tempered silenced reconciled.
Benjamin the child of mine old age held hostage into Egypt. O Benjamin.
Dilsey said it was because Mother was too proud for him. They come into
white people's lives like that in sudden sharp black trickles that isolate
white facts for an instant in unarguable truth like under a microscope;
the rest of the time just voices that laugh when you see nothing to laugh
at, tears when no reason for tears. They will bet on the odd or even number
of mourners at a funeral. A brothel full of them in Memphis went into a
religious trance ran naked into the street. It took three policemen to
subdue one of them. Yes Jesus O good man Jesus O that good man.
The car stopped.
I got out, with them looking at my eye. When the trolley came it was full.
I stopped on the back platform.
"Seats up front," the
conductor said. I looked into the car. There were no seats on the left
side.
"I'm not going far,"
I said. "I'll just stand here."
We crossed the
river. The bridge, that is, arching slow and high into space, between silence
and nothingness where lights-- yellow and red and green--trembled in the
clear air, repeating themselves.
"Better go up front
and get a seat," the conductor said.
"I get off pretty soon,"
I said. "A couple of blocks."
I got off before
we reached the postoffice. They'd all be sitting around somewhere by now
though, and then I was hearing my watch and I began to listen for the chimes
and I touched Shreve's letter through my coat, the bitten shadows of the
elms flowing upon my hand. And then as I turned into the quad the chimes
did begin and I went on while the notes came up like ripples on a pool
and passed me and went on, saying Quarter to what? All right. Quarter to
what.
Our windows were
dark. The entrance was empty. I walked close to the left wall when I entered,
but it was empty: just the stairs curving up into shadows echoes of feet
in the sad generations like light dust upon the shadows, my feet waking
them like dust, lightly to settle again.
I could see the
letter before I turned the light on, propped against a book on the table
so I would see it.
Calling him my
husband. And then Spoade said they were going somewhere, would not be back
until late, and Mrs Bland would need another cavalier. But I would have
seen him and he cannot get another car for an hour because after six oclock.
I took out my watch and listened to it clicking away, not knowing it couldn't
even lie. Then I laid it face up on the table and took Mrs Bland's letter
and tore it across and dropped the pieces into the waste basket and took
off my coat, vest, collar, tie and shirt. The tie was spoiled too, but
then niggers. Maybe a pattern of blood he could call that the one Christ
was wearing. I found the gasoline in Shreve's room and spread the vest
on the table, where it would be flat, and opened the gasoline.
the first car
in town a girl Girl that's what Jason couldn't bear smell of gasoline making
him sick then got madder than ever because a girl Girl had no sister but
Benjamin Benjamin the child of my sorrowful if I'd just had a mother so
I could say Mother Mother It took a lot of gasoline, and then I couldn't
tell if it was still the stain or just the gasoline. It had started the
cut to smarting again so when I went to wash I hung the vest on a chair
and lowered the light cord so that the bulb would be drying the splotch.
I washed my face and hands, but even then I could smell it within the soap
stinging, constricting the nostrils a little. Then I opened the bag and
took the shirt and collar and tie out and put the bloody ones in and closed
the bag, and dressed. While I was brushing my hair the half hour went.
But there was until the three quarters anyway, except suppose
seeing on the rushing darkness only his own face no broken feather unless
two of them but not two like that going to Boston the same night then my
face his face for an instant across the crashing when out of darkness two
lighted windows in rigid fleeing Being crash gone his face and mine just
I see saw did I see not goodbye the marquee empty of eating the road empty
in darkness in silence the bridge arching into silence darkness sleep the
water peaceful and swift not goodbye
I turned out the
light and went into my bedroom, out of the gasoline but I could still smell
it. I stood at the window the curtains moved slow out of the darkness touching
my face like someone breathing asleep, breathing slow into the darkness
again, leaving the touch. After they had gone up stairs
Mother lay back in her chair, the camphor handker- chief to her mouth.
Father hadn't moved he still sat beside her holding her hand the bellowing
hammering away like no place for it in silence When
I was little there was a picture in one of our books, a dark place into
which a single weak ray of light came slanting upon two faces lifted out
of the shadow. You know what I'd do if I were King?
she never was a queen or a fairy she was always a king or a giant or a
general I'd break that place open and drag them out
and I'd whip them good It was torn out, jagged out.
I was glad. I'd have to turn back to it until the dungeon was Mother herself
she and Father upward into weak light holding hands and us lost somewhere
below even them without even a ray of light. Then the honeysuckle got into
it. As soon as I turned off the light and tried to go to sleep it would
begin to come into the room in waves building and building up until I would
have to pant to get any air at all out of it until I would have to get
up and feel my way like when I was a little boy hands
can see touching in the mind shaping unseen door Door now nothing hands
can see My nose could see gasoline, the vest on the
table, the door. The corridor was still empty of all the feet in sad generations
seeking water. yet the eyes unseeing clenched like
teeth not disbelieving doubting even the absence of pain shin ankle knee
the long invisible flowing of the stair-railing where a misstep in the
darkness filled with sleeping Mother Father Caddy Jason Maury door I am
not afraid only Mother Father Caddy Jason Maury getting so far ahead sleeping
I will sleep fast when I door Door door It was empty
too, the pipes, the porcelain, the stained quiet walls, the throne of contemplation.
I had forgotten the glass, but I could hands can see
cooling fingers invisible swan-throat where less than Moses rod the glass
touch tentative not to drumming lean cool throat drumming cooling the metal
the glass full overfull cooling the glass the fingers flushing sleep leaving
the taste of dampened sleep in the long silence of the throat
I returned up the corridor, waking the lost feet in whispering battalions
in the silence, into the gasoline, the watch telling its furious lie on
the dark table. Then the curtains breathing out of the dark upon my face,
leaving the breathing upon my face. A quarter hour yet. And then I'll not
be.
The peacefullest words. Peacefullest words. Non fui. Sum. Fui. Non sum.
Somewhere I heard bells once. Mississippi or Massachusetts. I was. I am
not. Massachusetts or Mississippi. Shreve has a bottle in his trunk. Aren't
you even going to open it Mr and Mrs Jason Richmond
Compson announce the Three times. Days. Aren't you
even going to open it marriage of their daughter Candace
that liquor
teaches you to confuse the means with the end I am.
Drink. I was not. Let us sell Benjy's pasture so that Quentin may go to
Harvard and I may knock my bones together and together. I will be dead
in. Was it one year Caddy said. Shreve has a bottle in his trunk. Sir I
will not need Shreve's I have sold Benjy's pasture and I can be dead in
Harvard Caddy said in the caverns and the grottoes of the sea tumbling
peacefully to the wavering tides because Harvard is such a fine sound forty
acres is no high price for a fine sound. A fine dead sound we will swap
Benjy's pasture for a fine dead sound. It will last him a long time because
he cannot hear it unless he can smell it as soon as
she came in the door he began to cry I thought all
the time it was just one of those town squirts that Father was always teasing
her about until. I didn't notice him any more than any other stranger drummer
or what thought they were army shirts until all of a sudden I knew he wasn't
thinking of me at all as a Potential source of harm but was thinking of
her when he looked at me was looking at me through her like through a Piece
of colored glass why must you meddle with me dont
you know it wont do any good I thought you'd have left that for Mother
and Jason
did Mother
set Jason to spy on you I wouldn't have.
Women only
use other people's codes of honor it's because she loves Caddy
staying downstairs even when she was sick so Father couldn't kid Uncle
Maury before Jason Father said Uncle Maury was too poor a classicist to
risk the blind immortal boy in person he should have chosen Jason because
Jason would have made only the same kind of blunder Uncle Maury himself
would have made not one to get him a black eye the Patterson boy was smaller
than Jason too they sold the kites for a nickel a piece until the trouble
over finances Jason got a new partner still smaller one small enough anyway
because T. P. said Jason still treasurer but Father said why should Uncle
Maury work if he Father could support five or six niggers that did nothing
at all but sit with their feet in the oven he certainly could board and
lodge Uncle Maury now and then and lend him a little money who kept his
Father's belief in the celestial derivation of his own species at such
a fine heat then Mother would cry and say that Father believed his people
were better than hers that he was ridiculing Uncle Maury to teach us the
same thing she couldn't see that Father was teaching us that all men are
just accumulations dolls stuffed with sawdust swept up from the trash heaps
where all previous dolls had been thrown away the sawdust flowing from
what wound in what side that not for me died not. It used to be I thought
of death as a man something like Grandfather a friend of his a kind of
Private and particular friend like we used to think of Grandfather's desk
not to touch it not even to talk loud in the room where it was I always
thought of them as being together somewhere all the time waiting for old
Colonel Sartoris to come down and sit with them waiting on a high place
beyond cedar trees Colonel Sartoris was on a still higher place looking
out across at something and they were waiting for him to get done looking
at it and come down Grandfather wore his uniform and we could hear the
murmur of their voices from beyond the cedars they were always talking
and Grandfather was always right
The three quarters
began. The first note sounded, measured and tranquil, serenely peremptory,
emptying the unhurried silence for the next one and that's it if people
could only change one another forever that way merge like a flame swirling
up for an instant then blown cleanly out along the cool eternal dark instead
of Iying there trying not to think of the swing until all cedars came to
have that vivid dead smell of perfume that Benjy hated so. Just by imagining
the clump it seemed to me that I could hear whispers secret surges smell
the beating of hot blood under wild unsecret flesh watching against red
eyelids the swine untethered in pairs rushing coupled into the sea and
he we must just stay awake and see evil done for a little while its not
always and i it doesnt have to be even that long for a man of courage and
he do you consider that courage and i yes sir dont you and he every man
is the arbiter of his own virtues whether or not you consider it courageous
is of more importance than the act itself than any act otherwise you could
not be in earnest and i you dont believe i am serious and he i think you
are too serious to give me any cause for alarm you wouldnt have felt driven
to the expedient of telling me you had committed incest otherwise and i
i wasnt lying i wasnt lying and he you wanted to sublimate a piece of natural
human folly into a horror and then exorcise it with truth and i it was
to isolate her out of the loud world so that it would have to flee us of
necessity and then the sound of it would be as though it had never been
and he did you try to make her do it and i i was afraid to i was afraid
she might and then it wouldnt have done any good but if i could tell you
we did it would have been so and then the others wouldnt be so and then
the world would roar away and he and now this other you are not lying now
either but you are still blind to what is in yourself to that part of general
truth the sequence of natural events and their causes which shadows every
mans brow even benjys you are not thinking of finitude you are contemplating
an apotheosis in which a temporary state of mind will become symmetrical
above the flesh and aware both of itself and of the flesh it will not quite
discard you will not even be dead and i temporary and he you cannot bear
to think that someday it will no longer hurt you like this now were getting
at it you seem to regard it merely as an experience that will whiten your
hair overnight so to speak without altering your appearance at all you
wont do it under these conditions it will be a gamble and the strange thing
is that man who is conceived by accident and whose every breath is a fresh
cast with dice already loaded against him will not face that final main
which he knows before hand he has assuredly to face without essaying expedients
ranging all the way from violence to petty chicanery that would not deceive
a child until someday in very disgust he risks everything on a single blind
turn of a card no man ever does that under the first fury of despair or
remorse or bereavement he does it only when he has realised that even the
despair or remorse or bereavement is not particularly important to the
dark diceman and i temporary and he it is hard believing to think that
a love or a sorrow is a bond purchased without design and which matures
willynilly and is recalled without warning to be replaced by whatever issue
the gods happen to be floating at the time no you will not do that until
you come to believe that even she was not quite worth despair perhaps and
i i will never do that nobody knows what i know and he i think youd better
go on up to cambridge right away you might go up into maine for a month
you can afford it if you are careful it might be a good thing watching
pennies has healed more scars than jesus and i suppose i realise what you
believe i will realise up there next week or next month and he then you
will remember that for you to go to harvard has been your mothers dream
since you were born and no compson has ever disappointed a lady and i temporary
it will be better for me for all of us and he every man is the arbiter
of his own virtues but let no man prescribe for another mans wellbeing
and i temporary and he was the saddest word of all there is nothing else
in the world its not despair until time its not even time until it was
The last note
sounded. At last it stopped vibrating and the darkness was still again.
I entered the sitting room and turned on the light. I put my vest on. The
gasoline was faint now, barely noticeable, and in the mirror the stain
didn't show. Not like my eye did, anyway. I put on my coat. Shreve's letter
crackled through the cloth and I took it out and examined the address,
and put it in my side pocket. Then I carried the watch into Shreve's room
and put it in his drawer and went to my room and got a fresh handkerchief
and went to the door and put my hand on the light switch. Then I remembered
I hadn't brushed my teeth, so I had to open the bag again. I found my toothbrush
and got some of Shreve's paste and went out and brushed my teeth. I squeezed
the brush as dry as I could and put it back in the bag and shut it, and
went to the door again. Before I snapped the light out I looked around
to see if there was anything else, then I saw that I had forgotten my hat.
I'd have to go by the postoffice and I'd be sure to meet some of them,
and they'd think I was a Harvard Square student making like he was a senior.
I had forgotten to brush it too, but Shreve had a brush, so I didn't have
to open the bag any more.
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