feeds him.”
“Take this tray up,” Dilsey said. “And hurry back and feed Benjy.”
“Dont you want Caddy to feed you.” Caddy said.
_Has he got to keep that old dirty slipper on the table, Quentin said.
Why dont you feed him in the kitchen. It’s like eating with a pig._
_If you dont like the way we eat, you’d better not come to the table,
Jason said._
Steam came off of Roskus. He was sitting in front of the stove. The oven
door was open and Roskus had his feet in it. Steam came off the bowl.
Caddy put the spoon into my mouth easy. There was a black spot on the
inside of the bowl.
_Now, now, Dilsey said. He aint going to bother you no more._
It got down below the mark. Then the bowl was empty. It went away. “He’s
hungry tonight.” Caddy said. The bowl came back. I couldn’t see the
spot. Then I could. “He’s starved, tonight.” Caddy said. “Look how much
he’s eaten.”
_Yes he will, Quentin said. You all send him out to spy on me. I hate
this house. I’m going to run away._
Roskus said, “It going to rain all night.”
_You’ve been running a long time, not to ’ve got any further off than
mealtime, Jason said._
_See if I dont, Quentin said._
“Then I dont know what I going to do.” Dilsey said. “It caught me in the
hip so bad now I cant scarcely move. Climbing them stairs all evening.”
_Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised, Jason said. I wouldn’t be surprised at
anything you’d do._
_Quentin threw her napkin on the table._
_Hush your mouth, Jason, Dilsey said. She went and put her arm around
Quentin. Sit down, honey, Dilsey said. He ought to be shamed of hisself,
throwing what aint your fault up to you._
“She sulling again, is she.” Roskus said.
“Hush your mouth.” Dilsey said.
_Quentin pushed Dilsey away. She looked at Jason. Her mouth was red. She
picked up her glass of water and swung her arm back, looking at Jason.
Dilsey caught her arm. They fought. The glass_ _broke on the table, and
the water ran into the table. Quentin was running._
“Mother’s sick again.” Caddy said.
“Sho she is.” Dilsey said. “Weather like this make anybody sick. When
you going to get done eating, boy.”
_Goddamn you, Quentin said. Goddamn you. We could hear her running on
the stairs. We went to the library._
Caddy gave me the cushion, and I could look at the cushion and the
mirror and the fire.
“We must be quiet while Quentin’s studying.” Father said. “What are you
doing, Jason.”
“Nothing.” Jason said.
“Suppose you come over here to do it, then.” Father said.
Jason came out of the corner.
“What are you chewing.” Father said.
“Nothing.” Jason said.
“He’s chewing paper again.” Caddy said.
“Come here, Jason.” Father said.
Jason threw into the fire. It hissed, uncurled, turning black. Then it
was gray. Then it was gone. Caddy and Father and Jason were in Mother’s
chair. Jason’s eyes were puffed shut and his mouth moved, like tasting.
Caddy’s head was on Father’s shoulder. Her hair was like fire, and
little points of fire were in her eyes, and I went and Father lifted me
into the chair too, and Caddy held me. She smelled like trees.
_She smelled like trees. In the corner it was dark, but I could see the
window. I squatted there, holding the slipper. I couldn’t see it, but my
hands saw it, and I could hear it getting night, and my hands saw the
slipper but I couldn’t see myself, but my hands could see the slipper,
and I squatted there, hearing it getting dark._
_Here you is, Luster said. Look what I got. He showed it to me. You know
where I got it. Miss Quentin gave it to me. I knowed they couldn’t keep
me out. What you doing, off in here. I thought you done slipped back out
doors. Aint you done enough moaning and slobbering today, without hiding
off in this here empty room, mumbling and taking on. Come on here to
bed, so I can get up there before it starts. I cant fool with you all
night tonight. Just let them horns toot the first toot and I done gone._
We didn’t go to our room.
“This is where we have the measles.” Caddy said. “Why do we have to
sleep in here tonight.”
“What you care where you sleep.” Dilsey said. She shut the door and sat
down and began to undress me. Jason began to cry. “Hush.” Dilsey said.
“I want to sleep with Damuddy.” Jason said.
“She’s sick.” Caddy said. “You can sleep with her when she gets well.
Cant he, Dilsey.”
“Hush, now.” Dilsey said. Jason hushed.
“Our nighties are here, and everything.” Caddy said. “It’s like moving.”
“And you better get into them.” Dilsey said. “You be unbuttoning Jason.”
Caddy unbuttoned Jason. He began to cry.
“You want to get whipped.” Dilsey said. Jason hushed.
_Quentin, Mother said in the hall._
_What, Quentin said beyond the wall. We heard Mother lock the door. She
looked in our door and came in and stooped over the bed and kissed me on
the forehead._
_When you get him to bed, go and ask Dilsey if she objects to my having
a hot water bottle, Mother said. Tell her that if she does, I’ll try to
get along without it. Tell her I just want to know._
_Yessum, Luster said. Come on. Get your pants off._
Quentin and Versh came in. Quentin had his face turned away. “What are
you crying for.” Caddy said.
“Hush.” Dilsey said. “You all get undressed, now. You can go on home,
Versh.”
_I got undressed and I looked at myself, and I began to cry. Hush,
Luster said. Looking for them aint going to do no good. They’re gone.
You keep on like this, and we aint going have you no more birthday. He
put my gown on. I hushed, and then Luster stopped, his head toward the
window. Then he went to the window and looked out. He came back and took
my arm. Here she come, he said. Be quiet, now. We went to the window and
looked out. It came out of Quentin’s window and climbed across into the
tree. We watched the tree shaking. The shaking went down the tree, than_
_it came out and we watched it go away across the grass. Then we
couldn’t see it. Come on, Luster said. There now. Hear them horns. You
get in that bed while my foots behaves._
There were two beds. Quentin got in the other one. He turned his face to
the wall. Dilsey put Jason in with him. Caddy took her dress off.
“Just look at your drawers.” Dilsey said. “You better be glad your ma
aint seen you.”
“I already told on her.” Jason said.
“I bound you would.” Dilsey said.
“And see what you got by it.” Caddy said. “Tattletale.”
“What did I get by it.” Jason said.
“Whyn’t you get your nightie on.” Dilsey said. She went and helped Caddy
take off her bodice and drawers. “Just look at you.” Dilsey said. She
wadded the drawers and scrubbed Caddy behind with them. “It done soaked
clean through onto you.” she said. “But you wont get no bath this night.
Here.” She put Caddy’s nightie on her and Caddy climbed into the bed and
Dilsey went to the door and stood with her hand on the light. “You all
be quiet now, you hear.” she said.
“All right.” Caddy said. “Mother’s not coming in tonight.” she said. “So
we still have to mind me.”
“Yes.” Dilsey said. “Go to sleep, now.”
“Mother’s sick.” Caddy said. “She and Damuddy are both sick.”
“Hush.” Dilsey said. “You go to sleep.”
The room went black, except the door. Then the door went black. Caddy
said, “Hush, Maury,” putting her hand on me. So I stayed hushed. We
could hear us. We could hear the dark.
It went away, and Father looked at us. He looked at Quentin and Jason,
then he came and kissed Caddy and put his hand on my head.
“Is Mother very sick.” Caddy said.
“No.” Father said. “Are you going to take good care of Maury.”
“Yes.” Caddy said.
Father went to the door and looked at us again. Then the dark came back,
and he stood black in the door, and then the door turned black again.
Caddy held me and I could hear us all, and the darkness, and something I
could smell. And then I could see the windows, where the trees were
buzzing. Then the dark began to go in smooth, bright shapes, like it
always does, even when Caddy says that I have been asleep.
JUNE SECOND, 1910
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, Quentin, I
give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather
excrutiating-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 clicking 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 the 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 wrapped 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 clutching her dress onto her shoulder with the
other hand, running 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. Have you got too proud to
attend 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 Sweeper’s 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 them—”
“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 jeweler 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.
The clerk said, “These 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.