the purple gown, and wearing soiled white elbow-length gloves and minus
her headcloth now. She came into the yard and called Luster. She waited
awhile, then she went to the house and around it to the cellar door,
moving close to the wall, and looked into the door. Ben sat on the
steps. Before him Luster squatted on the damp floor. He held a saw in
his left hand, the blade sprung a little by pressure of his hand, and he
was in the act of striking the blade with the worn wooden mallet with
which she had been making beaten biscuit for more than thirty years. The
saw gave forth a single sluggish twang that ceased with lifeless
alacrity, leaving the blade in a thin clean curve between Luster’s hand
and the floor. Still, inscrutable, it bellied.
“Dat’s de way he done hit,” Luster said. “I jes aint foun de right thing
to hit it wid.”
“Dat’s whut you doin, is it?” Dilsey said. “Bring me dat mallet,” she
said.
“I aint hurt hit,” Luster said.
“Bring hit here,” Dilsey said. “Put dat saw whar you got hit first.”
He put the saw away and brought the mallet to her. Then Ben wailed
again, hopeless and prolonged. It was nothing. Just sound. It might have
been all time and injustice and sorrow become vocal for an instant by a
conjunction of planets.
“Listen at him,” Luster said, “He been gwine on dat way ev’y since you
sont us outen de house. I dont know whut got in to him dis mawnin.”
“Bring him here,” Dilsey said.
“Come on, Benjy,” Luster said. He went back down the steps and took
Ben’s arm. He came obediently, wailing, that slow hoarse sound that
ships make, that seems to begin before the sound itself has started,
seems to cease before the sound itself has stopped.
“Run and git his cap,” Dilsey said. “Dont make no noise Miss Cahline kin
hear. Hurry, now. We already late.”
“She gwine hear him anyhow, ef you dont stop him.” Luster said.
“He stop when we git off de place,” Dilsey said. “He smellin hit. Dat’s
whut hit is.”
“Smell whut, mammy?” Luster said.
“You go git dat cap,” Dilsey said. Luster went on. They stood in the
cellar door, Ben one step below her. The sky was broken now into
scudding patches that dragged their swift shadows up out of the shabby
garden, over the broken fence and across the yard. Dilsey stroked Ben’s
head, slowly and steadily, smoothing the bang upon his brow. He wailed
quietly, unhurriedly. “Hush,” Dilsey said, “Hush, now. We be gone in a
minute. Hush, now.” He wailed quietly and steadily.
Luster returned, wearing a stiff new straw hat with a coloured band and
carrying a cloth cap. The hat seemed to isolate Luster’s skull, in the
beholder’s eye as a spotlight would, in all its individual planes and
angles. So peculiarly individual was its shape that at first glance the
hat appeared to be on the head of someone standing immediately behind
Luster. Dilsey looked at the hat.
“Whyn’t you wear yo old hat?” she said.
“Couldn’t find hit,” Luster said.
“I bet you couldn’t. I bet you fixed hit last night so you couldn’t find
hit. You fixin to ruin dat un.”
“Aw, mammy,” Luster said, “Hit aint gwine rain.”
“How you know? You go git dat old hat en put dat new un away.”
“Aw, mammy.”
“Den you go git de umbreller.”
“Aw, mammy.”
“Take yo choice,” Dilsey said. “Git yo old hat, er de umbreller. I dont
keer which.”
Luster went to the cabin. Ben wailed quietly.
“Come on,” Dilsey said, “Dey kin ketch up wid us. We gwine to hear de
singin.” They went around the house, toward the gate. “Hush,” Dilsey
said from time to time as they went down the drive. They reached the
gate. Dilsey opened it. Luster was coming down the drive behind them,
carrying the umbrella. A woman was with him. “Here dey come,” Dilsey
said. They passed out the gate. “Now, den,” she said. Ben ceased. Luster
and his mother overtook them. Frony wore a dress of bright blue silk and
a flowered hat. She was a thin woman, with a flat, pleasant face.
“You got six weeks’ work right dar on yo back,” Dilsey said. “Whut you
gwine do ef hit rain?”
“Git wet, I reckon,” Frony said. “I aint never stopped no rain yit.”
“Mammy always talkin bout hit gwine rain,” Luster said.
“Ef I dont worry bout y’all, I dont know who is,” Dilsey said. “Come on,
we already late.”
“Rev’un Shegog gwine preach today,” Frony said.
“Is?” Dilsey said. “Who him?”
“He fum Saint Looey,” Frony said. “Dat big preacher.”
“Huh,” Dilsey said, “Whut dey needs is a man kin put de fear of God into
dese here triflin young niggers.”
“Rev’un Shegog gwine preach today,” Frony said. “So dey tells.”
They went on along the street. Along its quiet length white people in
bright clumps moved churchward, under the windy bells, walking now and
then in the random and tentative sun. The wind was gusty, out of the
southeast, chill and raw after the warm days.
“I wish you wouldn’t keep on bringin him to church, mammy,” Frony said.
“Folks talkin.”
“Whut folks?” Dilsey said.
“I hears em,” Frony said.
“And I knows whut kind of folks,” Dilsey said, “Trash white folks. Dat’s
who it is. Thinks he aint good enough fer white church, but nigger
church aint good enough fer him.”
“Dey talks, jes de same,” Frony said.
“Den you send um to me,” Dilsey said. “Tell um de good Lawd dont keer
whether he smart er not. Dont nobody but white trash keer dat.”
A street turned oil at right angles, descending, and became a dirt road.
On either hand the land dropped more sharply; a broad flat dotted with
small cabins whose weathered roofs were on a level with the crown of the
road. They were set in small grassless plots littered with broken
things, bricks, planks, crockery, things of a once utilitarian value.
What growth there was consisted of rank weeds and the trees were
mulberries and locusts and sycamores—trees that partook also of the
foul desiccation which surrounded the houses; trees whose very
burgeoning seemed to be the sad and stubborn remnant of September, as if
even spring had passed them by, leaving them to feed upon the rich and
unmistakable smell of negroes in which they grew.
From the doors negroes spoke to them as they passed, to Dilsey usually:
“Sis’ Gibson! How you dis mawnin?”
“I’m well. Is you well?”
“I’m right well, I thank you.”
They emerged from the cabins and struggled up the shading levee to the
road-men in staid, hard brown or black, with gold watch chains and now
and then a stick; young men in cheap violent blues or stripes and
swaggering hats; women a little stiffly sibilant, and children in
garments bought second hand of white people, who looked at Ben with the
covertness of nocturnal animals:
“I bet you wont go up en tech him.”
“How come I wont?”
“I bet you wont. I bet you skeered to.”
“He wont hurt folks. He des a loony.”
“How come a loony wont hurt folks?”
“Dat un wont. I teched him.”
“I bet you wont now.”
“Case Miss Dilsey lookin.”
“You wont no ways.”
“He dont hurt folks. He des a loony.”
And steadily the older people speaking to Dilsey, though, unless they
were quite old, Dilsey permitted Frony to respond.
“Mammy aint feelin well dis mawnin.”
“Dat’s too bad. But Rev’un Shegog’ll cure dat. He’ll give her de comfort
en de unburdenin.”
The road rose again, to a scene like a painted backdrop. Notched into a
cut of red clay crowned with oaks the road appeared to stop short off,
like a cut ribbon. Beside it a weathered church lifted its crazy steeple
like a painted church, and the whole scene was as flat and without
perspective as a painted cardboard set upon the ultimate edge of the
flat earth, against the windy sunlight of space and April and a
midmorning filled with bells. Toward the church they thronged with slow
sabbath deliberation. The women and children went on in, the men stopped
outside and talked in quiet groups until the bell ceased ringing. Then
they too entered.
The church had been decorated, with sparse flowers from kitchen gardens
and hedgerows, and with streamers of coloured crepe paper. Above the
pulpit hung a battered Christmas bell, the accordian sort that
collapses. The pulpit was empty, though the choir was already in place,
fanning themselves although it was not warm.
Most of the women were gathered on one side of the room. They were
talking. Then the bell struck one time and they dispersed to their seats
and the congregation sat for an instant, expectant. The bell struck
again one time. The choir rose and began to sing and the congregation
turned its head as one, as six small children—four girls with tight
pigtails bound with small scraps of cloth like butterflies, and two boys
with close napped heads,—entered and marched up the aisle, strung
together in a harness of white ribbons and flowers, and followed by two
men in single file. The second man was huge, of a light coffee colour,
imposing in a frock coat and white tie. His head was magisterial and
profound, his neck rolled above his collar in rich folds. But he was
familiar to them, and so the heads were still reverted when he had
passed, and it was not until the choir ceased singing that they realised
that the visiting clergyman had already entered, and when they saw the
man who had preceded their minister enter the pulpit still ahead of him
an indescribable sound went up, a sigh, a sound of astonishment and
disappointment.
The visitor was undersized, in a shabby alpaca coat. He had a wizened
black face like a small, aged monkey. And all the while that the choir
sang again and while the six children rose and sang in thin, frightened,
tuneless whispers, they watched the insignificant looking man sitting
dwarfed and countrified by the minister’s imposing bulk, with something
like consternation. They were still looking at him with consternation
and unbelief when the minister rose and introduced him in rich, rolling
tones whose very unction served to increase the visitor’s
insignificance.
“En dey brung dat all de way fum Saint Looey,” Frony whispered.
“I’ve knowed de Lawd to use cuiser tools dan dat,” Dilsey said. “Hush,
now,” she said to Ben, “Dey fixin to sing again in a minute.”
When the visitor rose to speak he sounded like a white man. His voice
was level and cold. It sounded too big to have come from him and they
listened at first through curiosity, as they would have to a monkey
talking. They began to watch him as they would a man on a tight rope.
They even forgot his insignificant appearance in the virtuosity with
which he ran and poised and swooped upon the cold inflectionless wire of
his voice, so that at last, when with a sort of swooping glide he came
to rest again beside the reading desk with one arm resting upon it at
shoulder height and his monkey body as reft of all motion as a mummy or
an emptied vessel, the congregation sighed as if it waked from a
collective dream and moved a little in its seats. Behind the pulpit the
choir fanned steadily. Dilsey whispered, “Hush, now. Dey fixin to sing
in a minute.”
Then a voice said, “Brethren.”
The preacher had not moved. His arm lay yet across the desk, and he
still held that pose while the voice died in sonorous echoes between the
walls. It was as different as day and dark from his former tone, with a
sad, timbrous quality like an alto horn, sinking into their hearts and
speaking there again when it had ceased in fading and cumulate echoes.
“Brethren and sisteren,” it said again. The preacher removed his arm and
he began to walk back and forth before the desk, his hands clasped
behind him, a meagre figure, hunched over upon itself like that of one
long immured in striving with the implacable earth, “I got the
recollection and the blood of the Lamb!” He tramped steadily back and
forth beneath the twisted paper and the Christmas bell, hunched, his
hands clasped behind him. He was like a worn small rock whelmed by the
successive waves of his voice. With his body he seemed to feed the voice
that, succubus like, had fleshed its teeth in him. And the congregation
seemed to watch with its own eyes while the voice consumed him, until he
was nothing and they were nothing and there was not even a voice but
instead their hearts were speaking to one another in chanting measures
beyond the need for words, so that when he came to rest against the
reading desk, his monkey face lifted and his whole attitude that of a
serene, tortured crucifix that transcended its shabbiness and
insignificance and made it of no moment, a long moaning expulsion of
breath rose from them, and a woman’s single soprano: “Yes, Jesus!”
As the scudding day passed overhead the dingy windows glowed and faded
in ghostly retrograde. A car passed along the road outside, labouring in
the sand, died away. Dilsey sat bolt upright, her hand on Ben’s knee.
Two tears slid down her fallen cheeks, in and out of the myriad
coruscations of immolation and abnegation and time.
“Brethren,” the minister said in a harsh whisper, without moving.
“Yes, Jesus!” the woman’s voice said, hushed yet.
“Breddren en sistuhn!” His voice rang again, with the horns. He removed
his arm and stood erect and raised his hands. “I got de ricklickshun en
de blood of de Lamb!” They did not mark just when his intonation, his
pronunciation, became negroid, they just sat swaying a little in their
seats as the voice took them into itself.
“When de long, cold—Oh, I tells you, breddren, when de long, cold—I
sees de light en I sees de word, po sinner! Dey passed away in Egypt, de
swingin chariots; de generations passed away. Wus a rich man: whar he
now, O breddren? Wus a po man: whar he now, O sistuhn? Oh I tells you,
ef you aint got de milk en de dew of de old salvation when de long, cold
years rolls away!”
“Yes, Jesus!”
“I tells you, breddren, en I tells you, sistuhn, dey’ll come a time. Po
sinner sayin Let me lay down wid de Lawd, lemme lay down my load. Den
whut Jesus gwine say, O breddren? O sistuhn? Is you got de ricklickshun
en de Blood of de Lamb? Case I aint gwine load down heaven!”
He fumbled in his coat and took out a handkerchief and mopped his face.
A low concerted sound rose from the congregation: “Mmmmmmmmmmmmm!” The
woman’s voice said, “Yes, Jesus! Jesus!”
“Breddren! Look at dem little chillen settin dar. Jesus wus like dat
once. He mammy suffered de glory en de pangs. Sometime maybe she helt
him at de nightfall, whilst de angels singin him to sleep; maybe she
look out de do’ en see de Roman po-lice passin.” He tramped back and
forth, mopping his face. “Listen, breddren! I sees de day. Ma’y settin
in de do’ wid Jesus on her lap, de little Jesus. Like dem chillen dar,
de little Jesus. I hears de angels singin de peaceful songs en de glory;
I sees de closin eyes; sees Mary jump up, sees de sojer face: We gwine
to kill! We gwine to kill! We gwine to kill yo little Jesus! I hears de
weepin en de lamentation of de po mammy widout de salvation en de word
of God!”
“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Jesus! Little Jesus!” and another voice, rising:
“I sees, O Jesus! Oh I sees!” and still another, without words, like
bubbles rising in water.
“I sees hit, breddren! I sees hit! Sees de blastin, blindin sight! I
sees Calvary, wid de sacred trees, sees de thief en de murderer en de
least of dese; I hears de boasting en de braggin: Ef you be Jesus, lif
up yo tree en walk! I hears de wailin of women en de evenin
lamentations; I hears de weepin en de cryin en de turnt-away face of
God: dey done kilt Jesus; dey done kilt my Son!”
“Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Jesus! I sees, O Jesus!”
“O blind sinner! Breddren, I tells you; sistuhn, I says to you, when de
Lawd did turn His mighty face, say, Aint gwine overload heaven! I can
see de widowed God shet His do’; I sees de whelmin flood roll between; I
sees de darkness en de death everlastin upon de generations. Den, lo!
Breddren! Yes, breddren! Whut I see? Whut I see, O sinner? I sees de
resurrection en de light; sees de meek Jesus sayin Dey kilt Me dat ye
shall live again; I died dat dem whut sees en believes shall never die.
Breddren, O breddren! I sees de doom crack en hears de golden horns
shoutin down de glory, en de arisen dead whut got de blood en de
ricklickshun of de Lamb!”
In the midst of the voices and the hands Ben sat, rapt in his sweet blue
gaze. Dilsey sat bolt upright beside, crying rigidly and quietly in the
annealment and the blood of the remembered Lamb.
As they walked through the bright noon, up the sandy road with the
dispersing congregation talking easily again group to group, she
continued to weep, unmindful of the talk.
“He sho a preacher, mon! He didn’t look like much at first, but hush!”
“He seed de power en de glory.”
“Yes, suh. He seed hit. Face to face he seed hit.”
Dilsey made no sound, her face did not quiver as the tears took their
sunken and devious courses, walking with her head up, making no effort
to dry them away even.
“Whyn’t you quit dat, mammy?” Frony said. “Wid all dese people lookin.
We be passin white folks soon.”
“I’ve seed de first en de last,” Dilsey said. “Never you mind me.”
“First en last whut?” Frony said.
“Never you mind,” Dilsey said. “I seed de beginnin, en now I sees de
endin.”
Before they reached the street, though, she stopped and lifted her skirt
and dried her eyes on the hem of her topmost underskirt. Then they went
on. Ben shambled along beside Dilsey, watching Luster who anticked along
ahead, the umbrella in his hand and his new straw hat slanted viciously
in the sunlight, like a big foolish dog watching a small clever one.
They reached the gate and entered. Immediately Ben began to whimper
again, and for a while all of them looked up the drive at the square,
paintless house with its rotting portico.
“Whut’s gwine on up dar today?” Frony said. “Something is.”
“Nothin,” Dilsey said. “You tend to yo business en let de white folks
tend to deir’n.”
“Somethin is,” Frony said. “I heard him first thing dis mawnin. ’Taint
none of my business, dough.”
“En I knows whut, too,” Luster said.
“You knows mo dan you got any use fer,” Dilsey said. “Aint you jes heard
Frony say hit aint none of yo business? You take Benjy on to de back and
keep him quiet twell I put dinner on.”
“I knows whar Miss Quentin is,” Luster said.
“Den jes keep hit,” Dilsey said. “Soon es Quentin need any of yo egvice,
I’ll let you know. Y’all g’awn en play in de back, now.”
“You know whut gwine happen soon es dey start playin dat ball over
yonder,” Luster said.
“Dey wont start fer awhile yit. By dat time T.P. be here to take him
ridin. Here, you gimme dat new hat.”
Luster gave her the hat and he and Ben went on across the back yard. Ben
was still whimpering, though not loud. Dilsey and Frony went to the
cabin. After a while Dilsey emerged, again in the faded calico dress,
and went to the kitchen. The fire had died down. There was no sound in
the house. She put on the apron and went up stairs. There was no sound
anywhere. Quentin’s room was as they had left it. She entered and picked
up the undergarment and put the stocking back in the drawer and closed
it. Mrs Compson’s door was closed. Dilsey stood beside it for a moment,
listening. Then she opened it and entered, entered a pervading reek of
camphor. The shades were drawn, the room in halflight, and the bed, so
that at first she thought Mrs Compson was asleep and was about to close
the door when the other spoke.
“Well?” she said, “What is it?”
“Hit’s me,” Dilsey said. “You want anything?”
Mrs Compson didn’t answer. After awhile, without moving her head at all,
she said: “Where’s Jason?”
“He aint come back yit,” Dilsey said. “Whut you want?”
Mrs Compson said nothing. Like so many cold, weak people, when faced at
last by the incontrovertible disaster she exhumed from somewhere a sort
of fortitude, strength. In her case it was an unshakable conviction
regarding the yet unplumbed event. “Well,” she said presently, “Did you
find it?”
“Find whut? Whut you talkin about?”
“The note. At least she would have enough consideration to leave a note.
Even Quentin did that.”
“Whut you talkin about?” Dilsey said, “Dont you know she all right? I
bet she be walkin right in dis do’ befo dark.”
“Fiddlesticks,” Mrs Compson said, “It’s in the blood. Like uncle, like
niece. Or mother. I dont know which would be worse. I dont seem to
care.”
“Whut you keep on talkin that way fur?” Dilsey said. “Whut she want to
do anything like that fur?”
“I dont know. What reason did Quentin have? Under God’s heaven what
reason did he have? It cant be simply to flout and hurt me. Whoever God
is, He would not permit that. I’m a lady. You might not believe that
from my offspring, but I am.”
“You des wait en see,” Dilsey said. “She be here by night, right dar in
her bed.” Mrs Compson said nothing. The camphor-soaked cloth lay upon
her brow. The black robe lay across the foot of the bed. Dilsey stood
with her hand on the door knob.
“Well,” Mrs Compson said. “What do you want? Are you going to fix some
dinner for Jason and Benjamin, or not?”
“Jason aint come yit,” Dilsey said. “I gwine fix somethin. You sho you
dont want nothin? Yo bottle still hot enough?”
“You might hand me my Bible.”
“I give hit to you dis mawnin, befo I left.”
“You laid it on the edge of the bed. How long did you expect it to stay
there?”
Dilsey crossed to the bed and groped among the shadows beneath the edge
of it and found the Bible, face down. She smoothed the bent pages and
laid the book on the bed again. Mrs Compson didn’t open her eyes. Her
hair and the pillow were the same color, beneath the wimple of the
medicated cloth she looked like an old nun praying. “Dont put it there
again,” she said, without opening her eyes. “That’s where you put it
before. Do you want me to have to get out of bed to pick it up?”
Dilsey reached the book across her and laid it on the broad side of the
bed. “You cant see to read, noways,” she said. “You want me to raise de
shade a little?”
“No. Let them alone. Go on and fix Jason something to eat.”
Dilsey went out. She closed the door and returned to the kitchen. The
stove was almost cold. While she stood there the clock above the
cupboard struck ten times. “One oclock,” she said aloud, “Jason aint
comin home. Ise seed de first en de last,” she said, looking at the cold
stove, “I seed de first en de last.” She set out some cold food on a
table. As she moved back and forth she sang a hymn. She sang the first
two lines over and over to the complete tune. She arranged the meal and
went to the door and called Luster, and after a time Luster and Ben
entered. Ben was still moaning a little, as to himself.
“He aint never quit,” Luster said.
“Y’all come on en eat,” Dilsey said. “Jason aint coming to dinner.” They
sat down at the table. Ben could manage solid food pretty well for
himself, though even now, with cold food before him, Dilsey tied a cloth
about his neck. He and Luster ate. Dilsey moved about the kitchen,
singing the two lines of the hymn which she remembered. “Yo’ll kin g’awn
en eat,” she said, “Jason aint comin home.”
He was twenty miles away at that time. When he left the house he drove
rapidly to town, overreaching the slow sabbath groups and the peremptory
bells along the broken air. He crossed the empty square and turned into
a narrow street that was abruptly quieter even yet, and stopped before a
frame house and went up the flower-bordered walk to the porch.
Beyond the screen door people were talking. As he lifted his hand to
knock he heard steps, so he withheld his hand until a big man in black
broadcloth trousers and a stiff-bosomed white shirt without collar
opened the door. He had vigorous untidy iron-grey hair and his grey eyes
were round and shiny like a little boy’s. He took Jason’s hand and drew
him into the house, still shaking it.
“Come right in,” he said, “Come right in.”
“You ready to go now?” Jason said.
“Walk right in,” the other said, propelling him by the elbow into a room
where a man and a woman sat. “You know Myrtle’s husband, dont you? Jason
Compson, Vernon.”
“Yes,” Jason said. He did not even look at the man, and as the sheriff
drew a chair across the room the man said,
“We’ll go out so you can talk. Come on, Myrtle.”
“No, no,” the sheriff said, “You folks keep your seat. I reckon it aint
that serious, Jason? Have a seat.”
“I’ll tell you as we go along,” Jason said. “Get your hat and coat.”
“We’ll go out,” the man said, rising.
“Keep your seat,” the sheriff said. “Me and Jason will go out on the
porch.”
“You get your hat and coat,” Jason said. “They’ve already got a twelve
hour start.” The sheriff led the way back to the porch. A man and a
woman passing spoke to him. He responded with a hearty florid gesture.
Bells were still ringing, from the direction of the section known as
Nigger Hollow. “Get your hat, Sheriff,” Jason said. The sheriff drew up
two chairs.
“Have a seat and tell me what the trouble is.”
“I told you over the phone,” Jason said, standing. “I did that to save
time. Am I going to have to go to law to compel you to do your sworn
duty?”
“You sit down and tell me about it,” the sheriff said. “I’ll take care
of you all right.”
“Care, hell,” Jason said. “Is this what you call taking care of me?”
“You’re the one that’s holding us up,” the sheriff said. “You sit down
and tell me about it.”