Chapter IX: Part 9

After awhile he got up to the car and when I finally got it through his head if two people in a ford had passed him, he said yes. So I went on, and when I came to where the wagon road turned off I could see the tire tracks. Ab Russell was in his lot, but I didn’t bother to ask him and I hadn’t got out of sight of his barn hardly when I saw the ford. They had tried to hide it. Done about as well at it as she did at everything else she did. Like I say it’s not that I object to so much; maybe she cant help that, it’s because she hasn’t even got enough consideration for her own family to have any discretion. I’m afraid all the time I’ll run into them right in the middle of the street or under a wagon on the square, like a couple of dogs.

I parked and got out. And now I’d have to go way around and cross a plowed field, the only one I had seen since I left town, with every step like somebody was walking along behind me, hitting me on the head with a club. I kept thinking that when I got across the field at least I’d have something level to walk on, that wouldn’t jolt me every step, but when I got into the woods it was full of underbrush and I had to twist around through it, and then I came to a ditch full of briers. I went along it for awhile, but it got thicker and thicker, and all the time Earl probably telephoning home about where I was and getting Mother all upset again.

When I finally got through I had had to wind around so much that I had to stop and figure out just where the car would be. I knew they wouldn’t be far from it, just under the closest bush, so I turned and worked back toward the road. Then I couldn’t tell just how far I was, so I’d have to stop and listen, and then with my legs not using so much blood, it all would go into my head like it would explode any minute, and the sun getting down just to where it could shine straight into my eyes and my ears ringing so I couldn’t hear anything. I went on, trying to move quiet, then I heard a dog or something and I knew that when he scented me he’d have to come helling up, then it would be all off.

I had gotten beggar lice and twigs and stuff all over me, inside my clothes and shoes and all, and then I happened to look around and I had my hand right on a bunch of poison oak. The only thing I couldn’t understand was why it was just poison oak and not a snake or something. So I didn’t even bother to move it. I just stood there until the dog went away. Then I went on.

I didn’t have any idea where the car was now. I couldn’t think about anything except my head, and I’d just stand in one place and sort of wonder if I had really seen a ford even, and I didn’t even care much whether I had or not. Like I say, let her lay out all day and all night with everything in town that wears pants, what do I care. I dont owe anything to anybody that has no more consideration for me, that wouldn’t be a damn bit above planting that ford there and making me spend a whole afternoon and Earl taking her back there and showing her the books just because he’s too damn virtuous for this world. I says you’ll have one hell of a time in heaven, without anybody’s business to meddle in only dont you ever let me catch you at it I says, I close my eyes to it because of your grandmother, but just you let me catch you doing it one time on this place, where my mother lives. These damn little slick haired squirts, thinking they are raising so much hell, I’ll show them something about hell I says, and you too. I’ll make him think that damn red tie is the latch string to hell, if he thinks he can run the woods with my niece.

With the sun and all in my eyes and my blood going so I kept thinking every time my head would go on and burst and get it over with, with briers and things grabbing at me, then I came onto the sand ditch where they had been and I recognised the tree where the car was, and just as I got out of the ditch and started running I heard the car start. It went off fast, blowing the horn. They kept on blowing it, like it was saying Yah. Yah. Yaaahhhhhhhh, going out of sight. I got to the road just in time to see it go out of sight.

By the time I got up to where my car was, they were clean out of sight, the horn still blowing. Well, I never thought anything about it except I was saying Run. Run back to town. Run home and try to convince Mother that I never saw you in that car. Try to make her believe that I dont know who he was. Try to make her believe that I didn’t miss ten feet of catching you in that ditch. Try to make her believe you were standing up, too.

It kept on saying Yahhhhh, Yahhhhh, Yaaahhhhhhhhh, getting fainter and fainter. Then it quit, and I could hear a cow lowing up at Russell’s barn. And still I never thought. I went up to the door and opened it and raised my foot. I kind of thought then that the car was leaning a little more than the slant of the road would be, but I never found it out until I got in and started off.

Well, I just sat there. It was getting on toward sundown, and town was about five miles. They never even had guts enough to puncture it, to jab a hole in it. They just let the air out. I just stood there for awhile, thinking about that kitchen full of niggers and not one of them had time to lift a tire onto the rack and screw up a couple of bolts. It was kind of funny because even she couldn’t have seen far enough ahead to take the pump out on purpose, unless she thought about it while he was letting out the air maybe. But what it probably was, was somebody took it out and gave it to Ben to play with for a squirt gun because they’d take the whole car to pieces if he wanted it and Dilsey says, Aint nobody teched yo car. What we want to fool with hit fer? and I says You’re a nigger. You’re lucky, do you know it? I says I’ll swap with you any day because it takes a white man not to have anymore sense than to worry about what a little slut of a girl does.

I walked up to Russell’s. He had a pump. That was just an oversight on their part, I reckon. Only I still couldn’t believe she’d have had the nerve to. I kept thinking that. I dont know why it is I cant seem to learn that a woman’ll do anything. I kept thinking, Let’s forget for awhile how I feel toward you and how you feel toward me: I just wouldn’t do you this way. I wouldn’t do you this way no matter what you had done to me. Because like I say blood is blood and you cant get around it. It’s not playing a joke that any eight year old boy could have thought of, it’s letting your own uncle be laughed at by a man that would wear a red tie. They come into town and call us all a bunch of hicks and think it’s too small to hold them. Well he doesn’t know just how right he is. And her too. If that’s the way she feels about it, she’d better keep right on going and a damn good riddance.

I stopped and returned Russell’s pump and drove on to town. I went to the drugstore and got a coca-cola and then I went to the telegraph office. It had closed at 12.21, forty points down. Forty times five dollars; buy something with that if you can, and she’ll say, I’ve got to have it I’ve just got to and I’ll say that’s too bad you’ll have to try somebody else, I haven’t got any money; I’ve been too busy to make any.

I just looked at him.

“I’ll tell you some news,” I says, “You’ll be astonished to learn that I am interested in the cotton market,” I says. “That never occurred to you, did it?”

“I did my best to deliver it,” he says. “I tried the store twice and called up your house, but they didn’t know where you were,” he says, digging in the drawer.

“Deliver what?” I says. He handed me a telegram. “What time did this come?” I says.

“About half past three,” he says.

“And now it’s ten minutes past five,” I says.

“I tried to deliver it,” he says. “I couldn’t find you.”

“That’s not my fault, is it?” I says. I opened it, just to see what kind of a lie they’d tell me this time. They must be in one hell of a shape if they’ve got to come all the way to Mississippi to steal ten dollars a month. Sell, it says. The market will be unstable, with a general downward tendency. Do not be alarmed following government report.

“How much would a message like this cost?” I says. He told me.

“They paid it,” he says.

“Then I owe them that much,” I says. “I already knew this. Send this collect,” I says, taking a blank. Buy, I wrote, Market just on point of blowing its head off. Occasional flurries for purpose of hooking a few more country suckers who haven’t got in to the telegraph office yet. Do not be alarmed. “Send that collect,” I says.

He looked at the message, then he looked at the clock. “Market closed an hour ago,” he says.

“Well,” I says, “That’s not my fault either. I didn’t invent it; I just bought a little of it while under the impression that the telegraph company would keep me informed as to what it was doing.”

“A report is posted whenever it comes in,” he says.

“Yes,” I says, “And in Memphis they have it on a blackboard every ten seconds,” I says. “I was within sixty-seven miles of there once this afternoon.”

He looked at the message. “You want to send this?” he says.

“I still haven’t changed my mind,” I says. I wrote the other one out and counted the money. “And this one too, if you’re sure you can spell b-u-y.”

I went back to the store. I could hear the band from down the street. Prohibition’s a fine thing. Used to be they’d come in Saturday with just one pair of shoes in the family and him wearing them, and they’d go down to the express office and get his package; now they all go to the show barefooted, with the merchants in the door like a row of tigers or something in a cage, watching them pass. Earl says,

“I hope it wasn’t anything serious.”

“What?” I says. He looked at his watch. Then he went to the door and looked at the courthouse clock. “You ought to have a dollar watch,” I says. “It wont cost you so much to believe it’s lying each time.”

“What?” he says.

“Nothing,” I says. “Hope I haven’t inconvenienced you.”

“We were not busy much,” he says. “They all went to the show. It’s all right.”

“If it’s not all right,” I says, “You know what you can do about it.”

“I said it was all right,” he says.

“I heard you,” I says. “And if it’s not all right, you know what you can do about it.”

“Do you want to quit?” he says.

“It’s not my business,” I says. “My wishes dont matter. But dont get the idea that you are protecting me by keeping me.”

“You’d be a good business man if you’d let yourself, Jason,” he says.

“At least I can tend to my own business and let other peoples’ alone,” I says.

“I dont know why you are trying to make me fire you,” he says. “You know you could quit anytime and there wouldn’t be any hard feelings between us.”

“Maybe that’s why I dont quit,” I says. “As long as I tend to my job, that’s what you are paying me for.” I went on to the back and got a drink of water and went on out to the back door. Job had the cultivators all set up at last. It was quiet there, and pretty soon my head got a little easier. I could hear them singing now, and then the band played again. Well, let them get every quarter and dime in the county; it was no skin off my back. I’ve done what I could; a man that can live as long as I have and not know when to quit is a fool. Especially as it’s no business of mine. If it was my own daughter now it would be different, because she wouldn’t have time to; she’d have to work some to feed a few invalids and idiots and niggers, because how could I have the face to bring anybody there. I’ve too much respect for anybody to do that. I’m a man, I can stand it, it’s my own flesh and blood and I’d like to see the colour of the man’s eyes that would speak disrespectful of any woman that was my friend it’s these damn good women that do it I’d like to see the good, church-going woman that’s half as square as Lorraine, whore or no whore. Like I say if I was to get married you’d go up like a balloon and you know it and she says I want you to be happy to have a family of your own not to slave your life away for us. But I’ll be gone soon and then you can take a wife but you’ll never find a woman who is worthy of you and I says yes I could. You’d get right up out of your grave you know you would. I says no thank you I have all the women I can take care of now if I married a wife she’d probably turn out to be a hophead or something. That’s all we lack in this family, I says.

The sun was down beyond the Methodist church now, and the pigeons were flying back and forth around the steeple, and when the band stopped I could hear them cooing. It hadn’t been four months since Christmas, and yet they were almost as thick as ever. I reckon Parson Walthall was getting a belly full of them now. You’d have thought we were shooting people, with him making speeches and even holding onto a man’s gun when they came over. Talking about peace on earth good will toward all and not a sparrow can fall to earth. But what does he care how thick they get, he hasn’t got anything to do; what does he care what time it is. He pays no taxes, he doesn’t have to see his money going every year to have the courthouse clock cleaned to where it’ll run. They had to pay a man forty-five dollars to clean it. I counted over a hundred half-hatched pigeons on the ground. You’d think they’d have sense enough to leave town. It’s a good thing I dont have any more ties than a pigeon, I’ll say that.

The band was playing again, a loud fast tune, like they were breaking up. I reckon they’d be satisfied now. Maybe they’d have enough music to entertain them while they drove fourteen or fifteen miles home and unharnessed in the dark and fed the stock and milked. All they’d have to do would be to whistle the music and tell the jokes to the live stock in the barn, and then they could count up how much they’d made by not taking the stock to the show too. They could figure that if a man had five children and seven mules, he cleared a quarter by taking his family to the show. Just like that. Earl came back with a couple of packages.

“Here’s some more stuff going out,” he says. “Where’s Uncle Job?”

“Gone to the show, I imagine,” I says. “Unless you watched him.”

“He doesn’t slip off,” he says. “I can depend on him.”

“Meaning me by that,” I says.

He went to the door and looked out, listening.

“That’s a good band,” he says. “It’s about time they were breaking up, I’d say.”

“Unless they’re going to spend the night there,” I says. The swallows had begun, and I could hear the sparrows beginning to swarm in the trees in the courthouse yard. Every once in a while a bunch of them would come swirling around in sight above the roof, then go away. They are as big a nuisance as the pigeons, to my notion. You cant even sit in the courthouse yard for them. First thing you know, bing. Right on your hat. But it would take a millionaire to afford to shoot them at five cents a shot. If they’d just put a little poison out there in the square, they’d get rid of them in a day, because if a merchant cant keep his stock from running around the square, he’d better try to deal in something besides chickens, something that dont eat, like plows or onions. And if a man dont keep his dogs up, he either dont want it or he hasn’t any business with one. Like I say if all the businesses in a town are run like country businesses, you’re going to have a country town.

“It wont do you any good if they have broke up,” I says. “They’ll have to hitch up and take out to get home by midnight as it is.”

“Well,” he says, “They enjoy it. Let them spend a little money on a show now and then. A hill farmer works pretty hard and gets mighty little for it.”

“There’s no law making them farm in the hills,” I says, “Or anywhere else.”

“Where would you and me be, if it wasn’t for the farmers?” he says.

“I’d be home right now,” I says, “Lying down, with an ice pack on my head.”

“You have these headaches too often,” he says. “Why dont you have your teeth examined good? Did he go over them all this morning?”

“Did who?” I says.

“You said you went to the dentist this morning.”

“Do you object to my having the headache on your time?” I says. “Is that it?” They were crossing the alley now, coming up from the show.

“There they come,” he says. “I reckon I better get up front.” He went on. It’s a curious thing how no matter what’s wrong with you, a man’ll tell you to have your teeth examined and a woman’ll tell you to get married. It always takes a man that never made much at any thing to tell you how to run your business, though. Like these college professors without a whole pair of socks to their name, telling you how to make a million in ten years, and a woman that couldn’t even get a husband can always tell you how to raise a family.

Old man Job came up with the wagon. After a while he got through wrapping the lines around the whip socket.

“Well,” I says, “Was it a good show?”

“I aint been yit,” he says. “But I kin be arrested in dat tent tonight, dough.”

“Like hell you haven’t,” I says. “You’ve been away from here since three oclock. Mr Earl was just back here looking for you.”

“I been tendin to my business,” he says. “Mr Earl knows whar I been.”

“You may can fool him,” I says. “I wont tell on you.”

“Den he’s de onliest man here I’d try to fool,” he says. “Whut I want to waste my time foolin a man whut I dont keer whether I sees him Sat’dy night er not? I wont try to fool you,” he says. “You too smart fer me. Yes, suh,” he says, looking busy as hell, putting five or six little packages into the wagon, “You’s too smart fer me. Aint a man in dis town kin keep up wid you fer smartness. You fools a man whut so smart he cant even keep up wid hisself,” he says, getting in the wagon and unwrapping the reins.

“Who’s that?” I says.

“Dat’s Mr Jason Compson,” he says. “Git up dar, Dan!”

One of the wheels was just about to come off. I watched to see if he’d get out of the alley before it did. Just turn any vehicle over to a nigger, though. I says that old rattletrap’s just an eyesore, yet you’ll keep it standing there in the carriage house a hundred years just so that boy can ride to the cemetery once a week. I says he’s not the first fellow that’ll have to do things he doesn’t want to. I’d make him ride in that car like a civilised man or stay at home. What does he know about where he goes or what he goes in, and us keeping a carriage and a horse so he can take a ride on Sunday afternoon.

A lot Job cared whether the wheel came off or not, long as he wouldn’t have too far to walk back. Like I say the only place for them is in the field, where they’d have to work from sunup to sundown. They cant stand prosperity or an easy job. Let one stay around white people for a while and he’s not worth killing. They get so they can outguess you about work before your very eyes, like Roskus the only mistake he ever made was he got careless one day and died. Shirking and stealing and giving you a little more lip and a little more lip until some day you have to lay them out with a scantling or something. Well, it’s Earl’s business. But I’d hate to have my business advertised over this town by an old doddering nigger and a wagon that you thought every time it turned a corner it would come all to pieces.

The sun was all high up in the air now, and inside it was beginning to get dark. I went up front. The square was empty. Earl was back closing the safe, and then the clock begun to strike.

“You lock the back door,” he says. I went back and locked it and came back. “I suppose you’re going to the show tonight,” he says. “I gave you those passes yesterday, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” I said. “You want them back?”

“No, no,” he says, “I just forgot whether I gave them to you or not. No sense in wasting them.”

He locked the door and said Goodnight and went on. The sparrows were still rattling away in the trees, but the square was empty except for a few cars. There was a ford in front of the drugstore, but I didn’t even look at it. I know when I’ve had enough of anything. I dont mind trying to help her, but I know when I’ve had enough. I guess I could teach Luster to drive it, then they could chase her all day long if they wanted to, and I could stay home and play with Ben.

I went in and got a couple of cigars. Then I thought I’d have another headache shot for luck, and I stood and talked with them awhile.

“Well,” Mac says, “I reckon you’ve got your money on the Yankees this year.”

“What for?” I says.

“The Pennant,” he says. “Not anything in the League can beat them.”

“Like hell there’s not,” I says. “They’re shot,” I says. “You think a team can be that lucky forever?”

“I dont call it luck,” Mac says.

“I wouldn’t bet on any team that fellow Ruth played on,” I says. “Even if I knew it was going to win.”

“Yes?” Mac says.

“I can name you a dozen men in either League who’re more valuable than he is,” I says.

“What have you got against Ruth?” Mac says.

“Nothing,” I says. “I haven’t got any thing against him. I dont even like to look at his picture.” I went on out. The lights were coming on, and people going along the streets toward home. Sometimes the sparrows never got still until full dark. The night they turned on the new lights around the courthouse it waked them up and they were flying around and blundering into the lights all night long. They kept it up two or three nights, then one morning they were all gone. Then after about two months they all came back again.

I drove on home. There were no lights in the house yet, but they’d all be looking out the windows, and Dilsey jawing away in the kitchen like it was her own food she was having to keep hot until I got there. You’d think to hear her that there wasn’t but one supper in the world, and that was the one she had to keep back a few minutes on my account. Well at least I could come home one time without finding Ben and that nigger hanging on the gate like a bear and a monkey in the same cage. Just let it come toward sundown and he’d head for the gate like a cow for the barn, hanging onto it and bobbing his head and sort of moaning to himself. That’s a hog for punishment for you. If what had happened to him for fooling with open gates had happened to me, I never would want to see another one. I often wondered what he’d be thinking about, down there at the gate, watching the girls going home from school, trying to want something he couldn’t even remember he didn’t and couldn’t want any longer. And what he’d think when they’d be undressing him and he’d happen to take a look at himself and begin to cry like he’d do. But like I say they never did enough of that. I says I know what you need, you need what they did to Ben then you’d behave. And if you dont know what that was I says, ask Dilsey to tell you.

There was a light in Mother’s room. I put the car up and went on into the kitchen. Luster and Ben were there.

“Where’s Dilsey?” I says. “Putting supper on?”

“She upstairs wid Miss Cahline,” Luster says. “Dey been goin hit. Ever since Miss Quentin come home. Mammy up there keepin um fum fightin. Is dat show come, Mr Jason?”

“Yes,” I says.

“I thought I heard de band,” he says. “Wish I could go,” he says. “I could ef I jes had a quarter.”

Dilsey came in. “You come, is you?” she says. “Whut you been up to dis evenin? You knows how much work I got to do; whyn’t you git here on time?”

“Maybe I went to the show,” I says. “Is supper ready?”

“Wish I could go,” Luster said. “I could ef I jes had a quarter.”

“You aint got no business at no show,” Dilsey says. “You go on in de house and set down,” she says. “Dont you go up stairs and git um started again, now.”

“What’s the matter?” I says.

“Quentin come in a while ago and says you been follerin her around all evenin and den Miss Cahline jumped on her. Whyn’t you let her alone? Cant you live in de same house wid you own blood niece widout quoilin?”

“I cant quarrel with her,” I says, “because I haven’t seen her since this morning. What does she say I’ve done now? made her go to school? That’s pretty bad,” I says.

“Well, you tend to yo business and let her alone,” Dilsey says, “I’ll take keer of her ef you’n Miss Cahline’ll let me. Go on in dar now and behave yoself twell I get supper on.”

“Ef I jes had a quarter,” Luster says, “I could go to dat show.”

“En ef you had wings you could fly to heaven,” Dilsey says. “I dont want to hear another word about dat show.”

“That reminds me,” I says, “I’ve got a couple of tickets they gave me.” I took them out of my coat.

“You fixin to use um?” Luster says.

“Not me,” I says. “I wouldn’t go to it for ten dollars.”

“Gimme one of um, Mr Jason,” he says.

“I’ll sell you one,” I says. “How about it?”

“I aint got no money,” he says.

“That’s too bad,” I says. I made to go out.

“Gimme one of um, Mr Jason,” he says. “You aint gwine need um bofe.”

“Hush yo mouf,” Dilsey says, “Dont you know he aint gwine give nothing away?”

“How much you want fer hit?” he says.

“Five cents,” I says.

“I aint got dat much,” he says.

“How much you got?” I says.

“I aint got nothing,” he says.

“All right,” I says. I went on.

“Mr Jason,” he says.

“Whyn’t you hush up?” Dilsey says. “He jes teasin you. He fixin to use dem tickets hisself. Go on, Jason, and let him lone.”

“I dont want them,” I says. I came back to the stove. “I came in here to burn them up. But if you want to buy one for a nickel?” I says, looking at him and opening the stove lid.

“I aint got dat much,” he says.

“All right,” I says. I dropped one of them in the stove.

“You, Jason,” Dilsey says, “Aint you shamed?”

“Mr Jason,” he says, “Please, suh. I’ll fix dem tires ev’ry day fer a mont’.”

“I need the cash,” I says. “You can have it for a nickel.”

“Hush, Luster,” Dilsey says. She jerked him back. “Go on,” she says, “Drop hit in. Go on. Git hit over with.”

“You can have it for a nickel,” I says.

“Go on,” Dilsey says. “He aint got no nickel. Go on. Drop hit in.”

“All right,” I says. I dropped it in and Dilsey shut the stove.

“A big growed man like you,” she says. “Git on outen my kitchen. Hush,” she says to Luster. “Dont you git Benjy started. I’ll git you a quarter fum Frony tonight and you kin go tomorrow night. Hush up, now.”

I went on into the living room. I couldn’t hear anything from upstairs. I opened the paper. After awhile Ben and Luster came in. Ben went to the dark place on the wall where the mirror used to be, rubbing his hands on it and slobbering and moaning. Luster begun punching at the fire.

“What’re you doing?” I says. “We dont need any fire tonight.”

“I trying to keep him quiet,” he says. “Hit always cold Easter,” he says.

“Only this is not Easter,” I says. “Let it alone.”

He put the poker back and got the cushion out of Mother’s chair and gave it to Ben, and he hunkered down in front of the fireplace and got quiet.

I read the paper. There hadn’t been a sound from upstairs when Dilsey came in and sent Ben and Luster on to the kitchen and said supper was ready.

“All right,” I says. She went out. I sat there, reading the paper. After a while I heard Dilsey looking in at the door.

“Whyn’t you come on and eat?” she says.

“I’m waiting for supper,” I says.

“Hit’s on the table,” she says. “I done told you.”

“Is it?” I says. “Excuse me. I didn’t hear anybody come down.”

“They aint comin,” she says. “You come on and eat, so I can take something up to them.”

“Are they sick?” I says. “What did the doctor say it was? Not Smallpox, I hope.”

“Come on here, Jason,” she says, “So I kin git done.”

“All right,” I says, raising the paper again. “I’m waiting for supper now.”

I could feel her watching me at the door. I read the paper.

“Whut you want to act like this fer?” she says. “When you knows how much bother I has anyway.”

“If Mother is any sicker than she was when she came down to dinner, all right,” I says. “But as long as I am buying food for people younger than I am, they’ll have to come down to the table to eat it. Let me know when supper’s ready,” I says, reading the paper again. I heard her climbing the stairs, dragging her feet and grunting and groaning like they were straight up and three feet apart. I heard her at Mother’s door, then I heard her calling Quentin, like the door was locked, then she went back to Mother’s room and then Mother went and talked to Quentin. Then they came down stairs. I read the paper.

Dilsey came back to the door. “Come on,” she says, “fo you kin think up some mo devilment. You just tryin yoself tonight.”

I went to the diningroom. Quentin was sitting with her head bent. She had painted her face again. Her nose looked like a porcelain insulator.

“I’m glad you feel well enough to come down,” I says to Mother.

“It’s little enough I can do for you, to come to the table,” she says. “No matter how I feel. I realise that when a man works all day he likes to be surrounded by his family at the supper table. I want to please you. I only wish you and Quentin got along better. It would be easier for me.”

“We get along all right,” I says. “I dont mind her staying locked up in her room all day if she wants to. But I cant have all this whoop-de-do and sulking at mealtimes. I know that’s a lot to ask her, but I’m that way in my own house. Your house, I meant to say.”

“It’s yours,” Mother says, “You are the head of it now.”

Quentin hadn’t looked up. I helped the plates and she begun to eat.

“Did you get a good piece of meat?” I says. “If you didn’t, I’ll try to find you a better one.”

She didn’t say anything.

“I say, did you get a good piece of meat?” I says.

“What?” she says. “Yes. It’s all right.”

“Will you have some more rice?” I says.

“No,” she says.

“Better let me give you some more,” I says.

“I dont want any more,” she says.

“Not at all,” I says, “You’re welcome.”

“Is your headache gone?” Mother says.

“Headache?” I says.

“I was afraid you were developing one,” she says. “When you came in this afternoon.”

“Oh,” I says. “No, it didn’t show up. We stayed so busy this afternoon I forgot about it.”

“Was that why you were late?” Mother says. I could see Quentin listening. I looked at her. Her knife and fork were still going, but I caught her looking at me, then she looked at her plate again. I says,

“No. I loaned my car to a fellow about three o’clock and I had to wait until he got back with it.” I ate for a while.

“Who was it?” Mother says.

“It was one of those show men,” I says. “It seems his sister’s husband was out riding with some town woman, and he was chasing them.”

Quentin sat perfectly still, chewing.

“You ought not to lend your car to people like that,” Mother says. “You are too generous with it. That’s why I never call on you for it if I can help it.”

“I was beginning to think that myself, for awhile,” I says. “But he got back, all right. He says he found what he was looking for.”

“Who was the woman?” Mother says.

“I’ll tell you later,” I says. “I dont like to talk about such things before Quentin.”

Quentin had quit eating. Every once in a while she’d take a drink of water, then she’d sit there crumbling a biscuit up, her face bent over her plate.

“Yes,” Mother says, “I suppose women who stay shut up like I do have no idea what goes on in this town.”

“Yes,” I says, “They dont.”

“My life has been so different from that,” Mother says. “Thank God I dont know about such wickedness. I dont even want to know about it. I’m not like most people.”

I didn’t say any more. Quentin sat there, crumbling the biscuit until I quit eating, then she says,

“Can I go now?” without looking at anybody.

“What?” I says. “Sure, you can go. Were you waiting on us?”

She looked at me. She had crumbled all the biscuit, but her hands still went on like they were crumbling it yet and her eyes looked like they were cornered or something and then she started biting her mouth like it ought to have poisoned her, with all that red lead.

“Grandmother,” she says, “Grandmother—”

“Did you want something else to eat?” I says.

“Why does he treat me like this, Grandmother?” she says. “I never hurt him.”

“I want you all to get along with one another,” Mother says, “You are all that’s left now, and I do want you all to get along better.”

“It’s his fault,” she says, “He wont let me alone, and I have to. If he doesn’t want me here, why wont he let me go back to—”

“That’s enough,” I says, “Not another word.”

“Then why wont he let me alone?” she says. “He—he just—”

“He is the nearest thing to a father you’ve ever had,” Mother says. “It’s his bread you and I eat. It’s only right that he should expect obedience from you.”

“It’s his fault,” she says. She jumped up. “He makes me do it. If he would just—” she looked at us, her eyes cornered, kind of jerking her arms against her sides.

“If I would just what?” I says.

“Whatever I do, it’s your fault,” she says. “If I’m bad, it’s because I had to be. You made me. I wish I was dead. I wish we were all dead.” Then she ran. We heard her run up the stairs. Then a door slammed.

“That’s the first sensible thing she ever said,” I says.

“She didn’t go to school today,” Mother says.

“How do you know?” I says. “Were you down town?”

“I just know,” she says. “I wish you could be kinder to her.”

“If I did that I’d have to arrange to see her more than once a day,” I says. “You’ll have to make her come to the table every meal. Then I could give her an extra piece of meat every time.”

“There are little things you could do,” she says.

“Like not paying any attention when you ask me to see that she goes to school?” I says.

“She didn’t go to school today,” she says. “I just know she didn’t. She says she went for a car ride with one of the boys this afternoon and you followed her.”

“How could I,” I says, “When somebody had my car all afternoon? Whether or not she was in school today is already past,” I says, “If you’ve got to worry about it, worry about next Monday.”

“I wanted you and she to get along with one another,” she says. “But she has inherited all of the headstrong traits. Quentin’s too. I thought at the time, with the heritage she would already have, to give her that name, too. Sometimes I think she is the judgment of Caddy and Quentin upon me.”

“Good Lord,” I says, “You’ve got a fine mind. No wonder you kept yourself sick all the time.”

“What?” she says. “I dont understand.”

“I hope not,” I says. “A good woman misses a lot she’s better off without knowing.”

“They were both that way,” she says, “They would make interest with your father against me when I tried to correct them. He was always saying they didn’t need controlling, that they already knew what cleanliness and honesty were, which was all that anyone could hope to be taught. And now I hope he’s satisfied.”

“You’ve got Ben to depend on,” I says, “Cheer up.”

“They deliberately shut me out of their lives,” she says, “It was always her and Quentin. They were always conspiring against me. Against you too, though you were too young to realise it. They always looked on you and me as outsiders, like they did your Uncle Maury. I always told your father that they were allowed too much freedom, to be together too much. When Quentin started to school we had to let her go the next year, so she could be with him. She couldn’t bear for any of you to do anything she couldn’t. It was vanity in her, vanity and false pride. And then when her troubles began I knew that Quentin would feel that he had to do something just as bad. But I didn’t believe that he would have been so selfish as to—I didn’t dream that he—”

“Maybe he knew it was going to be a girl,” I says, “And that one more of them would be more than he could stand.”

“He could have controlled her,” she says. “He seemed to be the only person she had any consideration for. But that is a part of the judgment too, I suppose.”

“Yes,” I says, “Too bad it wasn’t me instead of him. You’d be a lot better off.”

“You say things like that to hurt me,” she says. “I deserve it though. When they began to sell the land to send Quentin to Harvard I told your father that he must make an equal provision for you. Then when Herbert offered to take you into the bank I said, Jason is provided for now, and when all the expense began to pile up and I was forced to sell our furniture and the rest of the pasture, I wrote her at once because I said she will realise that she and Quentin have had their share and part of Jason’s too and that it depends on her now to compensate him. I said she will do that out of respect for her father. I believed that, then. But I’m just a poor old woman; I was raised to believe that people would deny themselves for their own flesh and blood. It’s my fault. You were right to reproach me.”

“Do you think I need any man’s help to stand on my feet?” I says, “Let alone a woman that cant name the father of her own child.”

“Jason,” she says.

“All right,” I says. “I didn’t mean that. Of course not.”

“If I believed that were possible, after all my suffering.”

“Of course it’s not,” I says. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I hope that at least is spared me,” she says.

“Sure it is,” I says, “She’s too much like both of them to doubt that.”

“I couldn’t bear that,” she says.

“Then quit thinking about it,” I says. “Has she been worrying you any more about getting out at night?”

“No. I made her realise that it was for her own good and that she’d thank me for it some day. She takes her books with her and studies after I lock the door. I see the light on as late as eleven oclock some nights.”

“How do you know she’s studying?” I says.

“I don’t know what else she’d do in there alone,” she says. “She never did read any.”

“No,” I says, “You wouldn’t know. And you can thank your stars for that,” I says. Only what would be the use in saying it aloud. It would just have her crying on me again.

I heard her go up stairs. Then she called Quentin and Quentin says What? through the door. “Goodnight,” Mother says. Then I heard the key in the lock, and Mother went back to her room.

When I finished my cigar and went up, the light was still on. I could see the empty keyhole, but I couldn’t hear a sound. She studied quiet. Maybe she learned that in school. I told Mother goodnight and went on to my room and got the box out and counted it again. I could hear the Great American Gelding snoring away like a planing mill. I read somewhere they’d fix men that way to give them women’s voices. But maybe he didn’t know what they’d done to him. I dont reckon he even knew what he had been trying to do, or why Mr Burgess knocked him out with the fence picket. And if they’d just sent him on to Jackson while he was under the ether, he’d never have known the difference. But that would have been too simple for a Compson to think of. Not half complex enough. Having to wait to do it at all until he broke out and tried to run a little girl down on the street with her own father looking at him. Well, like I say they never started soon enough with their cutting, and they quit too quick. I know at least two more that needed something like that, and one of them not over a mile away, either. But then I dont reckon even that would do any good. Like I say once a bitch always a bitch. And just let me have twenty-four hours without any damn New York jew to advise me what it’s going to do. I dont want to make a killing; save that to suck in the smart gamblers with. I just want an even chance to get my money back. And once I’ve done that they can bring all Beale Street and all bedlam in here and two of them can sleep in my bed and another one can have my place at the table too.

APRIL EIGHTH, 1928

The day dawned bleak and chill, a moving wall of grey light out of the northeast which, instead of dissolving into moisture, seemed to disintegrate into minute and venomous particles, like dust that, when Dilsey opened the door of the cabin and emerged, needled laterally into her flesh, precipitating not so much a moisture as a substance partaking of the quality of thin, not quite congealed oil. She wore a stiff black straw hat perched upon her turban, and a maroon velvet cape with a border of mangy and anonymous fur above a dress of purple silk, and she stood in the door for awhile with her myriad and sunken face lifted to the weather, and one gaunt hand flac-soled as the belly of a fish, then she moved the cape aside and examined the bosom of her gown.

The gown fell gauntly from her shoulders, across her fallen breasts, then tightened upon her paunch and fell again, ballooning a little above the nether garments which she would remove layer by layer as the spring accomplished and the warm days, in colour regal and moribund. She had been a big woman once but now her skeleton rose, draped loosely in unpadded skin that tightened again upon a paunch almost dropsical, as though muscle and tissue had been courage or fortitude which the days or the years had consumed until only the indomitable skeleton was left rising like a ruin or a landmark above the somnolent and impervious guts, and above that the collapsed face that gave the impression of the bones themselves being outside the flesh, lifted into the driving day with an expression at once fatalistic and of a child’s astonished disappointment, until she turned and entered the house again and closed the door.

The earth immediately about the door was bare. It had a patina, as though from the soles of bare feet in generations, like old silver or the walls of Mexican houses which have been plastered by hand. Beside the house, shading it in summer, stood three mulberry trees, the fledged leaves that would later be broad and placid as the palms of hands streaming flatly undulant upon the driving air. A pair of jaybirds came up from nowhere, whirled up on the blast like gaudy scraps of cloth or paper and lodged in the mulberries, where they swung in raucous tilt and recover, screaming into the wind that ripped their harsh cries onward and away like scraps of paper or of cloth in turn. Then three more joined them and they swung and tilted in the wrung branches for a time, screaming. The door of the cabin opened and Dilsey emerged once more, this time in a man’s felt hat and an army overcoat, beneath the frayed skirts of which her blue gingham dress fell in uneven balloonings, streaming too about her as she crossed the yard and mounted the steps to the kitchen door.

A moment later she emerged, carrying an open umbrella now, which she slanted ahead into the wind, and crossed to the woodpile and laid the umbrella down, still open. Immediately she caught at it and arrested it and held to it for a while, looking about her. Then she closed it and laid it down and stacked stovewood into her crooked arm, against her breast, and picked up the umbrella and got it open at last and returned to the steps and held the wood precariously balanced while she contrived to close the umbrella, which she propped in the corner just within the door. She dumped the wood into the box behind the stove. Then she removed the overcoat and hat and took a soiled apron down from the wall and put it on and built a fire in the stove. While she was doing so, rattling the grate bars and clattering the lids, Mrs Compson began to call her from the head of the stairs.

She wore a dressing gown of quilted black satin, holding it close under her chin. In the other hand she held a red rubber hot water bottle and she stood at the head of the back stairway, calling “Dilsey” at steady and inflectionless intervals into the quiet stairwell that descended into complete darkness, then opened again where a grey window fell across it. “Dilsey,” she called, without inflection or emphasis or haste, as though she were not listening for a reply at all. “Dilsey.”

Dilsey answered and ceased clattering the stove, but before she could cross the kitchen Mrs Compson called her again, and before she crossed the diningroom and brought her head into relief against the grey splash of the window, still again.

“All right,” Dilsey said, “All right, here I is. I’ll fill hit soon ez I git some hot water.” She gathered up her skirts and mounted the stairs, wholly blotting the grey light. “Put hit down dar en g’awn back to bed.”

“I couldn’t understand what was the matter,” Mrs Compson said. “I’ve been lying awake for an hour at least, without hearing a sound from the kitchen.”

“You put hit down and g’awn back to bed,” Dilsey said. She toiled painfully up the steps, shapeless, breathing heavily. “I’ll have de fire gwine in a minute, en de water hot in two mo.”

“I’ve been lying there for an hour, at least,” Mrs Compson said. “I thought maybe you were waiting for me to come down and start the fire.”

Dilsey reached the top of the stairs and took the water bottle. “I’ll fix hit in a minute,” she said. “Luster overslep dis mawnin, up half de night at dat show. I gwine build de fire myself. Go on now, so you wont wake de others twell I ready.”

“If you permit Luster to do things that interfere with his work, you’ll have to suffer for it yourself,” Mrs Compson said. “Jason wont like this if he hears about it. You know he wont.”

“Twusn’t none of Jason’s money he went on,” Dilsey said. “Dat’s one thing sho.” She went on down the stairs. Mrs Compson returned to her room. As she got into bed again she could hear Dilsey yet descending the stairs with a sort of painful and terrific slowness that would have become maddening had it not presently ceased beyond the flapping diminishment of the pantry door.

She entered the kitchen and built up the fire and began to prepare breakfast. In the midst of this she ceased and went to the window and looked out toward her cabin, then she went to the door and opened it and shouted into the driving weather.

“Luster!” she shouted, standing to listen, tilting her face from the wind, “You, Luster?” She listened, then as she prepared to shout again Luster appeared around the corner of the kitchen.