“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 Versh
said 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 o’clock.”
“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 ringing 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 girls face’ and can you imagine _the
curtains leaning in on the twilight upon the odour 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 wouldnt 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 coloured 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 couldnt have talked about you any more if you’d been
the only man in the world husband wouldnt 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 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 wouldnt 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 wouldnt
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 by 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 havent 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. Well 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 the trees, where it would be shady, but June foliage in New
England not much thicker than April at home in Mississippi. 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,
heading 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 ever 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 floodwatter
wash dem folks away up yonder? I cleant hit dat ve’y day. Old woman and
me settin fore 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 even 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 that. I cleant 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 you 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.”