sound, so that after a time he forgot his haste in the violent
cumulation of his self justification and his outrage. The sheriff
watched him steadily with his cold shiny eyes.
“But you dont know they done it,” he said. “You just think so.”
“Dont know?” Jason said. “When I spent two damn days chasing her through
alleys, trying to keep her away from him, after I told her what I’d do
to her if I ever caught her with him, and you say I dont know that that
little b—”
“Now, then,” the sheriff said, “That’ll do. That’s enough of that.” He
looked out across the street, his hands in his pockets.
“And when I come to you, a commissioned officer of the law,” Jason said.
“That show’s in Mottson this week,” the sheriff said.
“Yes,” Jason said, “And if I could find a law officer that gave a
solitary damn about protecting the people that elected him to office,
I’d be there too by now.” He repeated his story, harshly recapitulant,
seeming to get an actual pleasure out of his outrage and impotence. The
sheriff did not appear to be listening at all.
“Jason,” he said, “What were you doing with three thousand dollars hid
in the house?”
“What?” Jason said. “That’s my business where I keep my money. Your
business is to help me get it back.”
“Did your mother know you had that much on the place?”
“Look here,” Jason said, “My house has been robbed. I know who did it
and I know where they are. I come to you as the commissioned officer of
the law, and I ask you once more, are you going to make any effort to
recover my property, or not?”
“What do you aim to do with that girl, if you catch them?”
“Nothing,” Jason said, “Not anything. I wouldn’t lay my hand on her. The
bitch that cost me a job, the one chance I ever had to get ahead, that
killed my father and is shortening my mother’s life every day and made
my name a laughing stock in the town. I wont do anything to her,” he
said. “Not anything.”
“You drove that girl into running off, Jason,” the sheriff said.
“How I conduct my family is no business of yours,” Jason said. “Are you
going to help me or not?”
“You drove her away from home,” the sheriff said. “And I have some
suspicions about who that money belongs to that I dont reckon I’ll ever
know for certain.”
Jason stood, slowly wringing the brim of his hat in his hands. He said
quietly: “You’re not going to make any effort to catch them for me?”
“That’s not any of my business, Jason. If you had any actual proof, I’d
have to act. But without that I dont figger it’s any of my business.”
“That’s your answer, is it?” Jason said. “Think well, now.”
“That’s it, Jason.”
“All right,” Jason said. He put his hat on. “You’ll regret this. I wont
be helpless. This is not Russia, where just because he wears a little
metal badge, a man is immune to law.” He went down the steps and got in
his car and started the engine. The sheriff watched him drive away,
turn, and rush past the house toward town.
The bells were ringing again, high in the scudding sunlight in bright
disorderly tatters of sound. He stopped at a filling station and had his
tires examined and the tank filled.
“Gwine on a trip, is you?” the negro asked him. He didn’t answer. “Look
like hit gwine fair off, after all,” the negro said.
“Fair off, hell,” Jason said, “It’ll be raining like hell by twelve
oclock.” He looked at the sky, thinking about rain, about the slick clay
roads, himself stalled somewhere miles from town. He thought about it
with a sort of triumph, of the fact that he was going to miss dinner,
that by starting now and so serving his compulsion of haste, he would be
at the greatest possible distance from both towns when noon came. It
seemed to him that, in this, circumstance was giving him a break, so he
said to the negro:
“What the hell are you doing? Has somebody paid you to keep this car
standing here as long as you can?”
“Dis here ti’ aint got no air a-tall in hit,” the negro said.
“Then get the hell away from there and let me have that tube,” Jason
said.
“Hit up now,” the negro said, rising. “You kin ride now.”
Jason got in and started the engine and drove off. He went into second
gear, the engine spluttering and gasping, and he raced the engine,
jamming the throttle down and snapping the choker in and out savagely.
“It’s goin to rain,” he said, “Get me half way there, and rain like
hell.” And he drove on out of the bells and out of town, thinking of
himself slogging through the mud, hunting a team. “And every damn one of
them will be at church.” He thought of how he’d find a church at last
and take a team and of the owner coming out, shouting at him and of
himself striking the man down. “I’m Jason Compson. See if you can stop
me. See if you can elect a man to office that can stop me,” he said,
thinking of himself entering the courthouse with a file of soldiers and
dragging the sheriff out. “Thinks he can sit with his hands folded and
see me lose my job. I’ll show him about jobs.” Of his niece he did not
think at all, nor of the arbitrary valuation of the money. Neither of
them had had entity or individuality for him for ten years; together
they merely symbolized the job in the bank of which he had been deprived
before he ever got it.
The air brightened, the running shadow patches were not the obverse, and
it seemed to him that the fact that the day was clearing was another
cunning stroke on the part of the foe, the fresh battle toward which he
was carrying ancient wounds. From time to time he passed churches,
unpainted frame buildings with sheet iron steeples, surrounded by
tethered teams and shabby motorcars, and it seemed to him that each of
them was a picket-post where the rear guards of Circumstance peeped
fleetingly back at him. “And damn You, too,” he said, “See if You can
stop me,” thinking of himself, his file of soldiers with the manacled
sheriff in the rear, dragging Omnipotence down from His throne, if
necessary; of the embattled legions of both hell and heaven through
which he tore his way and put his hands at last on his fleeing niece.
The wind was out of the southeast. It blew steadily upon his cheek. It
seemed that he could feel the prolonged blow of it sinking through his
skull, and suddenly with an old premonition he clapped the brakes on and
stopped and sat perfectly still. Then he lifted his hand to his neck and
began to curse, and sat there, cursing in a harsh whisper. When it was
necessary for him to drive for any length of time he fortified himself
with a handkerchief soaked in camphor, which he would tie about his
throat when clear of town, thus inhaling the fumes, and he got out and
lifted the seat cushion on the chance that there might be a forgotten
one there. He looked beneath both seats and stood again for a while,
cursing, seeing himself mocked by his own triumphing. He closed his
eyes, leaning on the door. He could return and get the forgotten
camphor, or he could go on. In either case, his head would be splitting,
but at home he could be sure of finding camphor on Sunday, while if he
went on he could not be sure. But if he went back, he would be an hour
and a half later in reaching Mottson. “Maybe I can drive slow,” he said.
“Maybe I can drive slow, thinking of something else—”
He got in and started. “I’ll think of something else,” he said, so he
thought about Lorraine. He imagined himself in bed with her, only he was
just lying beside her, pleading with her to help him, then he thought of
the money again, and that he had been outwitted by a woman, a girl. If
he could just believe it was the man who had robbed him. But to have
been robbed of that which was to have compensated him for the lost job,
which he had acquired through so much effort and risk, by the very
symbol of the lost job itself, and worst of all, by a bitch of a girl.
He drove on, shielding his face from the steady wind with the corner of
his coat.
He could see the opposed forces of his destiny and his will drawing
swiftly together now, toward a junction that would be irrevocable; he
became cunning. I cant make a blunder, he told himself. There would be
just one right thing, without alternatives: he must do that. He believed
that both of them would know him on sight, while he’d have to trust to
seeing her first, unless the man still wore the red tie. And the fact
that he must depend on that red tie seemed to be the sum of the
impending disaster; he could almost smell it, feel it above the
throbbing of his head.
He crested the final hill. Smoke lay in the valley, and roofs, a spire
or two above trees. He drove down the hill and into the town, slowing,
telling himself again of the need for caution, to find where the tent
was located first. He could not see very well now, and he knew that it
was the disaster which kept telling him to go directly and get something
for his head. At a filling station they told him that the tent was not
up yet, but that the show cars were on a siding at the station. He drove
there.
Two gaudily painted pullman cars stood on the track. He reconnoitred
them before he got out. He was trying to breathe shallowly, so that the
blood would not beat so in his skull. He got out and went along the
station wall, watching the cars. A few garments hung out of the windows,
limp and crinkled, as though they had been recently laundered. On the
earth beside the steps of one sat three canvas chairs. But he saw no
sign of life at all until a man in a dirty apron came to the door and
emptied a pan of dishwater with a broad gesture, the sunlight glinting
on the metal belly of the pan, then entered the car again.
Now I’ll have to take him by surprise, before he can warn them, he
thought. It never occurred to him that they might not be there, in the
car. That they should not be there, that the whole result should not
hinge on whether he saw them first or they saw him first, would be
opposed to all nature and contrary to the whole rhythm of events. And
more than that: he must see them first, get the money back, then what
they did would be of no importance to him, while otherwise the whole
world would know that he, Jason Compson, had been robbed by Quentin, his
niece, a bitch.
He reconnoitred again. Then he went to the car and mounted the steps,
swiftly and quietly, and paused at the door. The galley was dark, rank
with stale food. The man was a white blur, singing in a cracked, shaky
tenor. An old man, he thought, and not as big as I am. He entered the
car as the man looked up.
“Hey?” the man said, stopping his song.
“Where are they?” Jason said. “Quick, now. In the sleeping car?”
“Where’s who?” the man said.
“Dont lie to me,” Jason said. He blundered on in the cluttered
obscurity.
“What’s that?” the other said, “Who you calling a liar?” And when Jason
grasped his shoulder he exclaimed, “Look out, fellow!”
“Dont lie,” Jason said, “Where are they?”
“Why, you bastard,” the man said. His arm was frail and thin in Jason’s
grasp. He tried to wrench free, then he turned and fell to scrabbling on
the littered table behind him.
“Come on,” Jason said, “Where are they?”
“I’ll tell you where they are,” the man shrieked, “Lemme find my butcher
knife.”
“Here,” Jason said, trying to hold the other, “I’m just asking you a
question.”
“You bastard,” the other shrieked, scrabbling at the table. Jason tried
to grasp him in both arms, trying to prison the puny fury of him. The
man’s body felt so old, so frail, yet so fatally single-purposed that
for the first time Jason saw clear and unshadowed the disaster toward
which he rushed.
“Quit it!” he said, “Here! Here! I’ll get out. Give me time, and I’ll
get out.”
“Call me a liar,” the other wailed, “Lemme go. Lemme go just one minute.
I’ll show you.”
Jason glared wildly about, holding the other. Outside it was now bright
and sunny, swift and bright and empty, and he thought of the people soon
to be going quietly home to Sunday dinner, decorously festive, and of
himself trying to hold the fatal, furious little old man whom he dared
not release long enough to turn his back and run.
“Will you quit long enough for me to get out?” he said, “Will you?” But
the other still struggled, and Jason freed one hand and struck him on
the head. A clumsy, hurried blow, and not hard, but the other slumped
immediately and slid clattering among pans and buckets to the floor.
Jason stood above him, panting, listening. Then he turned and ran from
the car. At the door he restrained himself and descended more slowly and
stood there again. His breath made a hah hah hah sound and he stood
there trying to repress it, darting his gaze this way and that, when at
a scuffling sound behind him he turned in time to see the little old man
leaping awkwardly and furiously from the vestibule, a rusty hatchet high
in his hand.
He grasped at the hatchet, feeling no shock but knowing that he was
falling, thinking So this is how it’ll end, and he believed that he was
about to die and when something crashed against the back of his head he
thought How did he hit me there? Only maybe he hit me a long time ago,
he thought, And I just now felt it, and he thought Hurry. Hurry. Get it
over with, and then a furious desire not to die seized him and he
struggled, hearing the old man wailing and cursing in his cracked voice.
He still struggled when they hauled him to his feet, but they held him
and he ceased.
“Am I bleeding much?” he said, “The back of my head. Am I bleeding?” He
was still saying that while he felt himself being propelled rapidly
away, heard the old man’s thin furious voice dying away behind him.
“Look at my head,” he said, “Wait, I—”
“Wait, hell,” the man who held him said, “That damn little wasp’ll kill
you. Keep going. You aint hurt.”
“He hit me,” Jason said. “Am I bleeding?”
“Keep going,” the other said. He led Jason on around the corner of the
station, to the empty platform where an express truck stood, where grass
grew rigidly in a plot bordered with rigid flowers and a sign in
electric lights: Keep your [Illustration: Eye] on Mottson, the gap
filled by a human eye with an electric pupil. The man released him.
“Now,” he said, “You get on out of here and stay out. What were you
trying to do? Commit suicide?”
“I was looking for two people,” Jason said. “I just asked him where they
were.”
“Who you looking for?”
“It’s a girl,” Jason said. “And a man. He had on a red tie in Jefferson
yesterday. With this show. They robbed me.”
“Oh,” the man said. “You’re the one, are you. Well, they aint here.”
“I reckon so,” Jason said. He leaned against the wall and put his hand
to the back of his head and looked at his palm. “I thought I was
bleeding,” he said. “I thought he hit me with that hatchet.”
“You hit your head on the rail,” the man said. “You better go on. They
aint here.”
“Yes. He said they were not here. I thought he was lying.”
“Do you think I’m lying?” the man said.
“No,” Jason said. “I know they’re not here.”
“I told him to get the hell out of there, both of them,” the man said.
“I wont have nothing like that in my show. I run a respectable show,
with a respectable troupe.”
“Yes,” Jason said. “You dont know where they went?”
“No. And I dont want to know. No member of my show can pull a stunt like
that. You her—brother?”
“No,” Jason said. “It dont matter. I just wanted to see them. You sure
he didn’t hit me? No blood, I mean.”
“There would have been blood if I hadn’t got there when I did. You stay
away from here, now. That little bastard’ll kill you. That your car
yonder?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you get in it and go back to Jefferson. If you find them, it wont
be in my show. I run a respectable show. You say they robbed you?”
“No,” Jason said, “It dont make any difference.” He went to the car and
got in. What is it I must do? he thought. Then he remembered. He started
the engine and drove slowly up the street until he found a drugstore.
The door was locked. He stood for a while with his hand on the knob and
his head bent a little. Then he turned away and when a man came along
after a while he asked if there was a drugstore open anywhere, but there
was not. Then he asked when the northbound train ran, and the man told
him at two thirty. He crossed the pavement and got in the car again and
sat there. After a while two negro lads passed. He called to them.
“Can either of you boys drive a car?”
“Yes, suh.”
“What’ll you charge to drive me to Jefferson right away?”
They looked at one another, murmuring.
“I’ll pay a dollar,” Jason said.
They murmured again. “Couldn’t go fer dat,” one said.
“What will you go for?”
“Kin you go?” one said.
“I cant git off,” the other said. “Whyn’t you drive him up dar? You aint
got nothin to do.”
“Yes I is.”
“Whut you got to do?”
They murmured again, laughing.
“I’ll give you two dollars,” Jason said. “Either of you.”
“I cant git away neither,” the first said.
“All right,” Jason said. “Go on.”
He sat there for sometime. He heard a clock strike the half hour, then
people began to pass, in Sunday and Easter clothes. Some looked at him
as they passed, at the man sitting quietly behind the wheel of a small
car, with his invisible life ravelled out about him like a wornout sock.
After a while a negro in overalls came up.
“Is you de one wants to go to Jefferson?” he said.
“Yes,” Jason said. “What’ll you charge me?”
“Fo dollars.”
“Give you two.”
“Cant go fer no less’n fo.” The man in the car sat quietly. He wasn’t
even looking at him. The negro said, “You want me er not?”
“All right,” Jason said, “Get in.”
He moved over and the negro took the wheel. Jason closed his eyes. I can
get something for it at Jefferson, he told himself, easing himself to
the jolting, I can get something there. They drove on, along the streets
where people were turning peacefully into houses and Sunday dinners, and
on out of town. He thought that. He wasn’t thinking of home, where Ben
and Luster were eating cold dinner at the kitchen table. Something—the
absence of disaster, threat, in any constant evil—permitted him to
forget Jefferson as any place which he had ever seen before, where his
life must resume itself.
When Ben and Luster were done Dilsey sent them outdoors. “And see kin
you keep let him alone twell fo oclock. T.P. be here den.”
“Yessum,” Luster said. They went out. Dilsey ate her dinner and cleared
up the kitchen. Then she went to the foot of the stairs and listened,
but there was no sound. She returned through the kitchen and out the
outer door and stopped on the steps. Ben and Luster were not in sight,
but while she stood there she heard another sluggish twang from the
direction of the cellar door and she went to the door and looked down
upon a repetition of the morning’s scene.
“He done it jes dat way,” Luster said. He contemplated the motionless
saw with a kind of hopeful dejection. “I aint got de right thing to hit
it wid yit,” he said.
“En you aint gwine find hit down here, neither,” Dilsey said. “You take
him on out in de sun. You bofe get pneumonia down here on dis wet flo.”
She waited and watched them cross the yard toward a clump of cedar trees
near the fence. Then she went on to her cabin.
“Now, dont you git started,” Luster said, “I had enough trouble wid you
today.” There was a hammock made of barrel staves slatted into woven
wires. Luster lay down in the swing, but Ben went on vaguely and
purposelessly. He began to whimper again. “Hush, now,” Luster said, “I
fixin to whup you.” He lay back in the swing. Ben had stopped moving,
but Luster could hear him whimpering. “Is you gwine hush, er aint you?”
Luster said. He got up and followed and came upon Ben squatting before a
small mound of earth. At either end of it an empty bottle of blue glass
that once contained poison was fixed in the ground. In one was a
withered stalk of jimson weed. Ben squatted before it, moaning, a slow,
inarticulate sound. Still moaning he sought vaguely about and found a
twig and put it in the other bottle. “Whyn’t you hush?” Luster said,
“You want me to give you somethin’ to sho nough moan about? Sposin I
does dis.” He knelt and swept the bottle suddenly up and behind him. Ben
ceased moaning. He squatted, looking at the small depression where the
bottle had sat, then as he drew his lungs full Luster brought the bottle
back into view. “Hush!” he hissed, “Dont you dast to beller! Dont you.
Dar hit is. See? Here. You fixin to start ef you stays here. Come on,
les go see ef dey started knockin ball yit.” He took Ben’s arm and drew
him up and they went to the fence and stood side by side there, peering
between the matted honeysuckle not yet in bloom.
“Dar,” Luster said, “Dar come some. See um?”
They watched the foursome play onto the green and out, and move to the
tee and drive. Ben watched, whimpering, slobbering. When the foursome
went on he followed along the fence, bobbing and moaning. One said.
“Here, caddie. Bring the bag.”
“Hush, Benjy,” Luster said, but Ben went on at his shambling trot,
clinging to the fence, wailing in his hoarse, hopeless voice. The man
played and went on, Ben keeping pace with him until the fence turned at
right angles, and he clung to the fence, watching the people move on and
away.
“Will you hush now?” Luster said, “Will you hush now?” He shook Ben’s
arm. Ben clung to the fence, wailing steadily and hoarsely. “Aint you
gwine stop?” Luster said, “Or is you?” Ben gazed through the fence. “All
right, den,” Luster said, “You want somethin to beller about?” He looked
over his shoulder, toward the house. Then he whispered: “Caddy! Beller
now. Caddy! Caddy! Caddy!”
A moment later, in the slow intervals of Ben’s voice, Luster heard
Dilsey calling. He took Ben by the arm and they crossed the yard toward
her.
“I tole you he warn’t gwine stay quiet,” Luster said.
“You vilyun!” Dilsey said, “Whut you done to him?”
“I aint done nothin. I tole you when dem folks start playin, he git
started up.”
“You come on here,” Dilsey said. “Hush, Benjy. Hush, now.” But he
wouldn’t hush. They crossed the yard quickly and went to the cabin and
entered. “Run git dat shoe,” Dilsey said. “Dont you sturb Miss Cahline,
now. Ef she say anything, tell her I got him. Go on, now; you kin sho do
dat right, I reckon.” Luster went out. Dilsey led Ben to the bed and
drew him down beside her and she held him, rocking back and forth,
wiping his drooling mouth upon the hem of her skirt. “Hush, now,” she
said, stroking his head, “Hush. Dilsey got you.” But he bellowed slowly,
abjectly, without tears; the grave hopeless sound of all voiceless
misery under the sun. Luster returned, carrying a white satin slipper.
It was yellow now, and cracked and soiled, and when they placed it into
Ben’s hand he hushed for a while. But he still whimpered, and soon he
lifted his voice again.
“You reckon you kin find T. P.?” Dilsey said.
“He say yistiddy he gwine out to St John’s today. Say he be back at fo.”
Dilsey rocked back and forth, stroking Ben’s head.
“Dis long time, O Jesus,” she said, “Dis long time.”
“I kin drive dat surrey, mammy,” Luster said.
“You kill bofe y’all,” Dilsey said, “You do hit fer devilment. I knows
you got plenty sense to. But I cant trust you. Hush, now,” she said.
“Hush. Hush.”
“Nome I wont,” Luster said. “I drives wid T. P.” Dilsey rocked back and
forth, holding Ben. “Miss Cahline say ef you cant quiet him, she gwine
git up en come down en do hit.”
“Hush, honey,” Dilsey said, stroking Ben’s head. “Luster, honey,” she
said, “Will you think about yo ole mammy en drive dat surrey right?”
“Yessum,” Luster said. “I drive hit jes like T. P.”
Dilsey stroked Ben’s head, rocking back and forth. “I does de bes I
kin,” she said, “Lawd knows dat. Go git it, den,” she said, rising.
Luster scuttled out. Ben held the slipper, crying. “Hush, now. Luster
gone to git de surrey en take you to de graveyard. We aint gwine risk
gittin yo cap,” she said. She went to a closet contrived of a calico
curtain hung across a corner of the room and got the felt hat she had
worn. “We’s down to worse’n dis, ef folks jes knowed,” she said. “You’s
de Lawd’s chile, anyway. En I be His’n too, fo long, praise Jesus.
Here.” She put the hat on his head and buttoned his coat. He wailed
steadily. She took the slipper from him and put it away and they went
out. Luster came up, with an ancient white horse in a battered and
lopsided surrey.
“You gwine be careful, Luster?” she said.
“Yessum,” Luster said. She helped Ben into the back seat. He had ceased
crying, but now he began to whimper again.
“Hit’s his flower,” Luster said. “Wait, I’ll git him one.”
“You set right dar,” Dilsey said. She went and took the cheek-strap.
“Now, hurry en git him one.” Luster ran around the house, toward the
garden. He came back with a single narcissus.
“Dat un broke,” Dilsey said, “Whyn’t you git him a good un?”