from step to step, as a small child does, her hand against the wall.
“You go on and let him alone,” she said. “Dont go in dar no mo, now.
I’ll send Luster up soon as I find him. Let him alone, now.”
She returned to the kitchen. She looked into the stove, then she drew
her apron over her head and donned the overcoat and opened the outer
door and looked up and down the yard. The weather drove upon her flesh,
harsh and minute, but the scene was empty of all else that moved. She
descended the steps, gingerly, as if for silence, and went around the
corner of the kitchen. As she did so Luster emerged quickly and
innocently from the cellar door.
Dilsey stopped. “Whut you up to?” she said.
“Nothin,” Luster said, “Mr Jason say fer me to find out whar dat water
leak in de cellar fum.”
“En when wus hit he say fer you to do dat?” Dilsey said. “Last New
Year’s day, wasn’t hit?”
“I thought I jes be lookin whiles dey sleep,” Luster said. Dilsey went
to the cellar door. He stood aside and she peered down into the
obscurity odorous of dank earth and mould and rubber.
“Huh,” Dilsey said. She looked at Luster again. He met her gaze blandly,
innocent and open. “I dont know whut you up to, but you aint got no
business doin hit. You jes tryin me too dis mawnin cause de others is,
aint you? You git on up dar en see to Benjy, you hear?”
“Yessum,” Luster said. He went on toward the kitchen steps, swiftly.
“Here,” Dilsey said, “You git me another armful of wood while I got
you.”
“Yessum,” he said. He passed her on the steps and went to the woodpile.
When he blundered again at the door a moment later, again invisible and
blind within and beyond his wooden avatar, Dilsey opened the door and
guided him across the kitchen with a firm hand.
“Jes thow hit at dat box again,” she said, “Jes thow hit.”
“I got to,” Luster said, panting, “I cant put hit down no other way.”
“Den you stand dar en hold hit a while,” Dilsey said. She unloaded him a
stick at a time. “Whut got into you dis mawnin? Here I sont you fer wood
en you aint never brought mo’n six sticks at a time to save yo life
twell today. Whut you fixin to ax me kin you do now? Aint dat show lef
town yit?”
“Yessum. Hit done gone.”
She put the last stick into the box. “Now you go on up dar wid Benjy,
like I tole you befo,” she said. “And I dont want nobody else yellin
down dem stairs at me twell I rings de bell. You hear me.”
“Yessum,” Luster said. He vanished through the swing door. Dilsey put
some more wood in the stove and returned to the bread board. Presently
she began to sing again.
The room grew warmer. Soon Dilsey’s skin had taken on a rich, lustrous
quality as compared with that as of a faint dusting of wood ashes which
both it and Luster’s had worn, as she moved about the kitchen, gathering
about her the raw materials of food, coordinating the meal. On the wall
above a cupboard, invisible save at night, by lamp light and even then
evincing an enigmatic profundity because it had but one hand, a cabinet
clock ticked, then with a preliminary sound as if it had cleared its
throat, struck five times.
“Eight oclock,” Dilsey said. She ceased and tilted her head upward,
listening. But there was no sound save the clock and the fire. She
opened the oven and looked at the pan of bread, then stooping she paused
while someone descended the stairs. She heard the feet cross the
diningroom, then the swing door opened and Luster entered, followed by a
big man who appeared to have been shaped of some substance whose
particles would not or did not cohere to one another or to the frame
which supported it. His skin was dead looking and hairless; dropsical
too, he moved with a shambling gait like a trained bear. His hair was
pale and fine. It had been brushed smoothly down upon his brow like that
of children in daguerreotypes. His eyes were clear, of the pale sweet
blue of cornflowers, his thick mouth hung open, drooling a little.
“Is he cold?” Dilsey said. She wiped her hands on her apron and touched
his hand.
“Ef he aint, I is,” Luster said. “Always cold Easter. Aint never seen
hit fail. Miss Cahline say ef you aint got time to fix her hot water
bottle to never mind about hit.”
“Oh, Lawd,” Dilsey said. She drew a chair into the corner between the
woodbox and the stove. The man went obediently and sat in it. “Look in
de dinin room and see whar I laid dat bottle down,” Dilsey said. Luster
fetched the bottle from the diningroom and Dilsey filled it and give it
to him. “Hurry up, now,” she said. “See ef Jason wake now. Tell em hit’s
all ready.”
Luster went out. Ben sat beside the stove. He sat loosely, utterly
motionless save for his head, which made a continual bobbing sort of
movement as he watched Dilsey with his sweet vague gaze as she moved
about. Luster returned.
“He up,” he said, “Miss Cahline say put hit on de table.” He came to the
stove and spread his hands palm down above the firebox. “He up, too,” He
said, “Gwine hit wid bofe feet dis mawnin.”
“Whut’s de matter now?” Dilsey said. “Git away fum dar. How kin I do
anything wid you standin over de stove?”
“I cold,” Luster said.
“You ought to thought about dat whiles you wus down dar in dat cellar,”
Dilsey said. “Whut de matter wid Jason?”
“Sayin me en Benjy broke dat winder in his room.”
“Is dey one broke?” Dilsey said.
“Dat’s whut he sayin,” Luster said. “Say I broke hit.”
“How could you, when he keep hit locked all day en night?”
“Say I broke hit chunkin rocks at hit,” Luster said.
“En did you?”
“Nome,” Luster said.
“Dont lie to me, boy,” Dilsey said.
“I never done hit,” Luster said. “Ask Benjy ef I did. I aint stud’in dat
winder.”
“Who could a broke hit, den?” Dilsey said. “He jes tryin hisself, to
wake Quentin up,” she said, taking the pan of biscuits out of the stove.
“Reckin so,” Luster said. “Dese is funny folks. Glad I aint none of em.”
“Aint none of who?” Dilsey said. “Lemme tell you somethin, nigger boy,
you got jes es much Compson devilment in you es any of em. Is you right
sho you never broke dat window?”
“Whut I want to break hit fur?”
“Whut you do any of yo devilment fur?” Dilsey said. “Watch him now, so
he cant burn his hand again twell I git de table set.”
She went to the diningroom, where they heard her moving about, then she
returned and set a plate at the kitchen table and set food there. Ben
watched her, slobbering, making a faint, eager sound.
“All right, honey,” she said, “Here yo breakfast. Bring his chair,
Luster.” Luster moved the chair up and Ben sat down, whimpering and
slobbering. Dilsey tied a cloth about his neck and wiped his mouth with
the end of it. “And see kin you kep fum messin up his clothes one time,”
she said, handing Luster a spoon.
Ben ceased whimpering. He watched the spoon as it rose to his mouth. It
was as if even eagerness were muscle-bound in him too, and hunger itself
inarticulate, not knowing it is hunger. Luster fed him with skill and
detachment. Now and then his attention would return long enough to
enable him to feint the spoon and cause Ben to close his mouth upon the
empty air, but it was apparent that Luster’s mind was elsewhere. His
other hand lay on the back of the chair and upon that dead surface it
moved tentatively, delicately, as if he were picking an inaudible tune
out of the dead void, and once he even forgot to tease Ben with the
spoon while his fingers teased out of the slain wood a soundless and
involved arpeggio until Ben recalled him by whimpering again.
In the diningroom Dilsey moved back and forth. Presently she rang a
small clear bell, then in the kitchen Luster heard Mrs Compson and Jason
descending, and Jason’s voice, and he rolled his eyes whitely with
listening.
“Sure, I know they didn’t break it,” Jason said. “Sure, I know that.
Maybe the change of weather broke it.”
“I dont see how it could have,” Mrs Compson said. “Your room stays
locked all day long, just as you leave it when you go to town. None of
us ever go in there except Sunday, to clean it. I dont want you to think
that I would go where I’m not wanted, or that I would permit anyone else
to.”
“I never said you broke it, did I?” Jason said.
“I dont want to go in your room,” Mrs Compson said. “I respect anybody’s
private affairs. I wouldn’t put my foot over the threshold, even if I
had a key.”
“Yes,” Jason said, “I know your keys wont fit. That’s why I had the lock
changed. What I want to know is, how that window got broken.”
“Luster say he didn’t do hit,” Dilsey said.
“I knew that without asking him,” Jason said. “Where’s Quentin?” he
said.
“Where she is ev’y Sunday mawnin,” Dilsey said. “Whut got into you de
last few days, anyhow?”
“Well, we’re going to change all that,” Jason said. “Go up and tell her
breakfast is ready.”
“You leave her alone now, Jason,” Dilsey said. “She gits up fer
breakfast ev’y week mawnin, en Cahline lets her stay in bed ev’y Sunday.
You knows dat.”
“I cant keep a kitchen full of niggers to wait on her pleasure, much as
I’d like to,” Jason said. “Go and tell her to come down to breakfast.”
“Aint nobody have to wait on her,” Dilsey said. “I puts her breakfast in
de warmer en she—”
“Did you hear me?” Jason said.
“I hears you,” Dilsey said. “All I been hearin, when you in de house. Ef
hit aint Quentin er yo maw, hit’s Luster en Benjy. Whut you let him go
on dat way fer, Miss Cahline?”
“You’d better do as he says,” Mrs Compson said, “He’s head of the house
now. It’s his right to require us to respect his wishes. I try to do it,
and if I can, you can too.”
“’Taint no sense in him bein so bad tempered he got to make Quentin git
up jes to suit him,” Dilsey said. “Maybe you think she broke dat
window.”
“She would, if she happened to think of it,” Jason said. “You go and do
what I told you.”
“En I wouldn’t blame her none ef she did,” Dilsey said, going toward the
stairs. “Wid you naggin at her all de blessed time you in de house.”
“Hush, Dilsey,” Mrs Compson said, “It’s neither your place nor mine to
tell Jason what to do. Sometimes I think he is wrong, but I try to obey
his wishes for you alls’ sakes. If I’m strong enough to come to the
table, Quentin can too.”
Dilsey went out. They heard her mounting the stairs. They heard her a
long while on the stairs.
“You’ve got a prize set of servants,” Jason said. He helped his mother
and himself to food. “Did you ever have one that was worth killing? You
must have had some before I was big enough to remember.”
“I have to humour them,” Mrs Compson said. “I have to depend on them so
completely. It’s not as if I were strong. I wish I were. I wish I could
do all the house work myself. I could at least take that much off your
shoulders.”
“And a fine pigsty we’d live in, too,” Jason said. “Hurry up, Dilsey,”
he shouted.
“I know you blame me,” Mrs Compson said, “for letting them off to go to
church today.”
“Go where?” Jason said. “Hasn’t that damn show left yet?”
“To church,” Mrs Compson said. “The darkies are having a special Easter
service. I promised Dilsey two weeks ago that they could get off.”
“Which means we’ll eat cold dinner,” Jason said, “or none at all.”
“I know it’s my fault,” Mrs Compson said. “I know you blame me.”
“For what?” Jason said. “You never resurrected Christ, did you?”
They heard Dilsey mount the final stair, then her slow feet overhead.
“Quentin,” she said. When she called the first time Jason laid his knife
and fork down and he and his mother appeared to wait across the table
from one another, in identical attitudes; the one cold and shrewd, with
close-thatched brown hair curled into two stubborn hooks, one on either
side of his forehead like a bartender in caricature, and hazel eyes with
black-ringed irises like marbles, the other cold and querulous, with
perfectly white hair and eyes pouched and baffled and so dark as to
appear to be all pupil or all iris.
“Quentin,” Dilsey said, “Get up, honey. Dey waitin breakfast on you.”
“I cant understand how that window got broken,” Mrs Compson said. “Are
you sure it was done yesterday? It could have been like that a long
time, with the warm weather. The upper sash, behind the shade like
that.”
“I’ve told you for the last time that it happened yesterday,” Jason
said. “Dont you reckon I know the room I live in? Do you reckon I could
have lived in it a week with a hole in the window you could stick your
hand—” his voice ceased, ebbed, left him staring at his mother with
eyes that for an instant were quite empty of anything. It was as though
his eyes were holding their breath, while his mother looked at him, her
face flaccid and querulous, interminable, clairvoyant yet obtuse. As
they sat so Dilsey said,
“Quentin. Dont play wid me, honey. Come on to breakfast, honey. Dey
waitin fer you.”
“I cant understand it,” Mrs Compson said, “It’s just as if somebody had
tried to break into the house—” Jason sprang up. His chair crashed over
backward. “What—” Mrs Compson said, staring at him as he ran past her
and went jumping up the stairs, where he met Dilsey. His face was now in
shadow, and Dilsey said,
“She sullin. Yo ma aint unlocked—” But Jason ran on past her and along
the corridor to a door. He didn’t call. He grasped the knob and tried
it, then he stood with the knob in his hand and his head bent a little,
as if he were listening to something much further away than the
dimensioned room beyond the door, and which he already heard. His
attitude was that of one who goes through the motions of listening in
order to deceive himself as to what he already hears. Behind him Mrs
Compson mounted the stairs, calling his name. Then she saw Dilsey and
she quit calling him and began to call Dilsey instead.
“I told you she aint unlocked dat do’ yit,” Dilsey said.
When she spoke he turned and ran toward her, but his voice was quiet,
matter of fact. “She carry the key with her?” he said. “Has she got it
now, I mean, or will she have—”
“Dilsey,” Mrs Compson said on the stairs.
“Is which?” Dilsey said. “Whyn’t you let—”
“The key,” Jason said, “To that room. Does she carry it with her all the
time. Mother.” Then he saw Mrs Compson and he went down the stairs and
met her. “Give me the key,” he said. He fell to pawing at the pockets of
the rusty black dressing sacque she wore. She resisted.
“Jason,” she said, “Jason! Are you and Dilsey trying to put me to bed
again?” she said, trying to fend him off, “Cant you even let me have
Sunday in peace?”
“The key,” Jason said, pawing at her, “Give it here.” He looked back at
the door, as if he expected it to fly open before he could get back to
it with the key he did not yet have.
“You, Dilsey!” Mrs Compson said, clutching her sacque about her.
“Give me the key, you old fool!” Jason cried suddenly. From her pocket
he tugged a huge bunch of rusted keys on an iron ring like a mediaeval
jailer’s and ran back up the hall with the two women behind him.
“You, Jason!” Mrs Compson said. “He will never find the right one,” she
said, “You know I never let anyone take my keys, Dilsey,” she said. She
began to wail.
“Hush,” Dilsey said, “He aint gwine do nothin to her. I aint gwine let
him.”
“But on Sunday morning, in my own house,” Mrs Compson said, “When I’ve
tried so hard to raise them Christians. Let me find the right key,
Jason,” she said. She put her hand on his arm. Then she began to
struggle with him, but he flung her aside with a motion of his elbow and
looked around at her for a moment, his eyes cold and harried, then he
turned to the door again and the unwieldy keys.
“Hush,” Dilsey said, “You, Jason!”
“Something terrible has happened,” Mrs Compson said, wailing again, “I
know it has. You, Jason,” she said, grasping at him again. “He wont even
let me find the key to a room in my own house!”
“Now, now,” Dilsey said, “Whut kin happen? I right here. I aint gwine
let him hurt her. Quentin,” she said, raising her voice, “dont you be
skeered, honey, I’se right here.”
The door opened, swung inward. He stood in it for a moment, hiding the
room, then he stepped aside. “Go in,” he said in a thick, light voice.
They went in. It was not a girl’s room. It was not anybody’s room, and
the faint scent of cheap cosmetics and the few feminine objects and the
other evidences of crude and hopeless efforts to feminize it but added
to its anonymity, giving it that dead and stereotyped transience of
rooms in assignation houses. The bed had not been disturbed. On the
floor lay a soiled undergarment of cheap silk a little too pink; from a
half open bureau drawer dangled a single stocking. The window was open.
A pear tree grew there, close against the house. It was in bloom and the
branches scraped and rasped against the house and the myriad air,
driving in the window, brought into the room the forlorn scent of the
blossoms.
“Dar now,” Dilsey said, “Didn’t I told you she all right?”
“All right?” Mrs Compson said. Dilsey followed her into the room and
touched her.
“You come on and lay down, now,” she said. “I find her in ten minutes.”
Mrs Compson shook her off. “Find the note,” she said. “Quentin left a
note when he did it.”
“All right,” Dilsey said, “I’ll find hit. You come on to yo room, now.”
“I knew the minute they named her Quentin this would happen,” Mrs
Compson said. She went to the bureau and began to turn over the
scattered objects there—scent bottles, a box of powder, a chewed
pencil, a pair of scissors with one broken blade lying upon a darned
scarf dusted with powder and stained with rouge. “Find the note,” she
said.
“I is,” Dilsey said. “You come on, now. Me and Jason’ll find hit. You
come on to yo room.”
“Jason,” Mrs Compson said, “Where is he?” She went to the door. Dilsey
followed her on down the hall, to another door. It was closed. “Jason,”
she called through the door. There was no answer. She tried the knob,
then she called him again. But there was still no answer, for he was
hurling things backward out of the closet: garments, shoes, a suitcase.
Then he emerged carrying a sawn section of tongue-and-groove planking
and laid it down and entered the closet again and emerged with a metal
box. He set it on the bed and stood looking at the broken lock while he
dug a key ring from his pocket and selected a key, and for a time longer
he stood with the selected key in his hand, looking at the broken lock,
then he put the keys back in his pocket and carefully tilted the
contents of the box out upon the bed. Still carefully he sorted the
papers, taking them up one at a time and shaking them. Then he upended
the box and shook it too and slowly replaced the papers and stood again,
looking at the broken lock, with the box in his hands and his head bent.
Outside the window he heard some jaybirds swirl shrieking past, and
away, their cries whipping away along the wind, and an automobile passed
somewhere and died away also. His mother spoke his name again beyond the
door, but he didn’t move. He heard Dilsey lead her away up the hall, and
then a door closed. Then he replaced the box in the closet and flung the
garments back into it and went down stairs to the telephone. While he
stood there with the receiver to his ear, waiting, Dilsey came down the
stairs. She looked at him, without stopping, and went on.
The wire opened. “This is Jason Compson,” he said, his voice so harsh
and thick that he had to repeat himself. “Jason Compson,” he said,
controlling his voice. “Have a car ready, with a deputy, if you cant go,
in ten minutes. I’ll be there—What?—Robbery. My house. I know who
it—Robbery, I say. Have a car read—What? Aren’t you a paid law
enforcement—Yes, I’ll be there in five minutes. Have that car ready to
leave at once. If you dont, I’ll report it to the governor.”
He clapped the receiver back and crossed the diningroom, where the
scarce-broken meal now lay cold on the table, and entered the kitchen.
Dilsey was filling the hot water bottle. Ben sat, tranquil and empty.
Beside him Luster looked like a fice dog, brightly watchful. He was
eating something. Jason went on across the kitchen.
“Aint you going to eat no breakfast?” Dilsey said. He paid her no
attention. “Go on and eat yo breakfast, Jason.” He went on. The outer
door banged behind him. Luster rose and went to the window and looked
out.
“Whoo,” he said, “Whut happenin up dar? He been beatin’ Miss Quentin?”
“You hush yo mouf,” Dilsey said. “You git Benjy started now en I beat yo
head off. You keep him quiet es you kin twell I get back, now.” She
screwed the cap on the bottle and went out. They heard her go up the
stairs, then they heard Jason pass the house in his car. Then there was
no sound in the kitchen save the simmering murmur of the kettle and the
clock.
“You know whut I bet?” Luster said. “I bet he beat her. I bet he knock
her in de head en now he gone fer de doctor. Dat’s whut I bet.” The
clock tick-tocked, solemn and profound. It might have been the dry pulse
of the decaying house itself; after a while it whirred and cleared its
throat and struck six times. Ben looked up at it, then he looked at the
bullet-like silhouette of Luster’s head in the window and he begun to
bob his head again, drooling. He whimpered.
“Hush up, loony,” Luster said without turning. “Look like we aint gwine
git to go to no church today.” But Ben sat in the chair, his big soft
hands dangling between his knees, moaning faintly. Suddenly he wept, a
slow bellowing sound, meaningless and sustained. “Hush,” Luster said. He
turned and lifted his hand. “You want me to whup you?” But Ben looked at
him, bellowing slowly with each expiration. Luster came and shook him.
“You hush dis minute!” he shouted. “Here,” he said. He hauled Ben out of
the chair and dragged the chair around facing the stove and opened the
door to the firebox and shoved Ben into the chair. They looked like a
tug nudging at a clumsy tanker in a narrow dock. Ben sat down again
facing the rosy door. He hushed. Then they heard the clock again, and
Dilsey slow on the stairs. When she entered he began to whimper again.
Then he lifted his voice.
“Whut you done to him?” Dilsey said. “Why cant you let him lone dis
mawnin, of all times?”
“I aint doin nothin to him,” Luster said. “Mr Jason skeered him, dat’s
whut hit is. He aint kilt Miss Quentin, is he?”
“Hush, Benjy,” Dilsey said. He hushed. She went to the window and looked
out. “Is it quit rainin?” she said.
“Yessum,” Luster said. “Quit long time ago.”
“Den y’all go out do’s awhile,” she said. “I jes got Miss Cahline quiet
now.”
“Is we gwine to church?” Luster said.
“I let you know bout dat when de time come. You keep him away fum de
house twell I calls you.”
“Kin we go to de pastuh?” Luster said.
“All right. Only you keep him away fum de house. I done stood all I
kin.”
“Yessum,” Luster said. “Whar Mr Jason gone, mammy?”
“Dat’s some mo of yo business, aint it?” Dilsey said. She began to clear
the table. “Hush, Benjy. Luster gwine take you out to play.”
“Whut he done to Miss Quentin, mammy?” Luster said.
“Aint done nothin to her. You all git on outen here?”
“I bet she aint here,” Luster said.
Dilsey looked at him. “How you know she aint here?”
“Me and Benjy seed her clamb out de window last night. Didn’t us,
Benjy?”
“You did?” Dilsey said, looking at him.
“We sees her doin hit ev’y night,” Luster said, “Clamb right down dat
pear tree.”
“Dont you lie to me, nigger boy,” Dilsey said.
“I aint lyin. Ask Benjy ef I is.”
“Whyn’t you say somethin about it, den?”
“’Twarn’t none o my business,” Luster said. “I aint gwine git mixed up
in white folks’ business. Come on here, Benjy, les go out do’s.”
They went out. Dilsey stood for awhile at the table, then she went and
cleared the breakfast things from the diningroom and ate her breakfast
and cleaned up the kitchen. Then she removed her apron and hung it up
and went to the foot of the stairs and listened for a moment. There was
no sound. She donned the overcoat and the hat and went across to her
cabin.
The rain had stopped. The air now drove out of the southeast, broken
overhead into blue patches. Upon the crest of a hill beyond the trees
and roofs and spires of town sunlight lay like a pale scrap of cloth,
was blotted away. Upon the air a bell came, then as if at a signal,
other bells took up the sound and repeated it.