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.
“Ma’am?” he said innocently, so innocently that Dilsey looked down at him, for a moment motionless, with something more than mere surprise.
“Whar you at?” she said.
“Nowhere,” he said. “Jes in de cellar.”
“Whut you doin in de cellar?” she said. “Dont stand dar in de rain, fool,” she said.
“Aint doin nothin,” he said. He came up the steps.
“Dont you dare come in dis do widout a armful of wood,” she said. “Here I done had to tote yo wood en build yo fire bofe. Didn’t I tole you not to leave dis place last night befo dat woodbox wus full to de top?”
“I did,” Luster said, “I filled hit.”
“Whar hit gone to, den?”
“I dont know’m. I aint teched hit.”
“Well, you git hit full up now,” she said. “And git on up den en see bout Benjy.”
She shut the door. Luster went to the woodpile. The five jaybirds whirled over the house, screaming, and into the mulberries again. He watched them. He picked up a rock and threw it. “Whoo,” he said, “Git on back to hell, whar you belong at. ’Taint Monday yit.”
He loaded himself mountainously with stove wood. He could not see over it, and he staggered to the steps and up them and blundered crashing against the door, shedding billets. Then Dilsey came and opened the door for him and he blundered across the kitchen. “You, Luster!” she shouted, but he had already hurled the wood into the box with a thunderous crash. “Hah!” he said.
“Is you tryin to wake up de whole house?” Dilsey said. She hit him on the back of his head with the flat of her hand. “Go on up dar and git Benjy dressed, now.”
“Yessum,” he said. He went toward the outer door.
“Whar you gwine?” Dilsey said.
“I thought I better go round de house en in by de front, so I wont wake up Miss Cahline en dem.”
“You go on up dem backstairs like I tole you en git Benjy’s clothes on him,” Dilsey said. “Go on, now.”
“Yessum,” Luster said. He returned and left by the diningroom door. After awhile it ceased to flap. Dilsey prepared to make biscuit. As she ground the sifter steadily above the bread board, she sang, to herself at first, something without particular tune or words, repetitive, mournful and plaintive, austere, as she ground a faint, steady snowing of flour onto the bread board. The stove had begun to heat the room and to fill it with murmurous minors of the fire, and presently she was singing louder, as if her voice too had been thawed out by the growing warmth, and then Mrs Compson called her name again from within the house. Dilsey raised her face as if her eyes could and did penetrate the walls and ceiling and saw the old woman in her quilted dressing gown at the head of the stairs, calling her name with machinelike regularity.
“Oh, Lawd,” Dilsey said. She set the sifter down and swept up the hem of her apron and wiped her hands and caught up the bottle from the chair on which she had laid it and gathered her apron about the handle of the kettle which was now jetting faintly. “Jes a minute,” she called, “De water jes dis minute got hot.”
It was not the bottle which Mrs Compson wanted, however, and clutching it by the neck like a dead hen Dilsey went to the foot of the stairs and looked upward.
“Aint Luster up dar wid him?” she said.
“Luster hasn’t been in the house. I’ve been lying here listening for him. I knew he would be late, but I did hope he’d come in time to keep Benjamin from disturbing Jason on Jason’s one day in the week to sleep in the morning.”
“I dont see how you expect anybody to sleep, wid you standin in de hall, holl’in at folks fum de crack of dawn,” Dilsey said. She began to mount the stairs, toiling heavily. “I sont dat boy up dar half hour ago.”
Mrs Compson watched her, holding the dressing gown under her chin. “What are you going to do?” she said.
“Gwine git Benjy dressed en bring him down to de kitchen, whar he wont wake Jason en Quentin,” Dilsey said.
“Haven’t you started breakfast yet?”
“I’ll tend to dat too,” Dilsey said. “You better git back in bed twell Luster make yo fire. Hit cold dis mawnin.”
“I know it,” Mrs Compson said. “My feet are like ice. They were so cold they waked me up.” She watched Dilsey mount the stairs. It took her a long while. “You know how it frets Jason when breakfast is late,” Mrs Compson said.
“I cant do but one thing at a time,” Dilsey said. “You git on back to bed, fo I has you on my hands dis mawnin too.”
“If you’re going to drop everything to dress Benjamin, I’d better come down and get breakfast. You know as well as I do how Jason acts when it’s late.”
“En who gwine eat yo messin?” Dilsey said. “Tell me dat. Go on now,” she said, toiling upward. Mrs Compson stood watching her as she mounted, steadying herself against the wall with one hand, holding her skirts up with the other.
“Are you going to wake him up just to dress him?” she said.
Dilsey stopped. With her foot lifted to the next step she stood there, her hand against the wall and the grey splash of the window behind her, motionless and shapeless she loomed.
“He aint awake den?” she said.
“He wasn’t when I looked in,” Mrs Compson said. “But it’s past his time. He never does sleep after half past seven. You know he doesn’t.”
Dilsey said nothing. She made no further move, but though she could not see her save as a blobby shape without depth, Mrs Compson knew that she had lowered her face a little and that she stood now like a cow in the rain, as she held the empty water bottle by its neck.
“You’re not the one who has to bear it,” Mrs Compson said. “It’s not your responsibility. You can go away. You dont have to bear the brunt of it day in and day out. You owe nothing to them, to Mr Compson’s memory. I know you have never had any tenderness for Jason. You’ve never tried to conceal it.”
Dilsey said nothing. She turned slowly and descended, lowering her body from step to step, as a small child does, her hand against the wall. “You go on and let him alone,” she said. “Dont go in dar no mo, now. I’ll send Luster up soon as I find him. Let him alone, now.”
She returned to the kitchen. She looked into the stove, then she drew her apron over her head and donned the overcoat and opened the outer door and looked up and down the yard. The weather drove upon her flesh, harsh and minute, but the scene was empty of all else that moved. She descended the steps, gingerly, as if for silence, and went around the corner of the kitchen. As she did so Luster emerged quickly and innocently from the cellar door.
Dilsey stopped. “Whut you up to?” she said.
“Nothin,” Luster said, “Mr Jason say fer me to find out whar dat water leak in de cellar fum.”
“En when wus hit he say fer you to do dat?” Dilsey said. “Last New Year’s day, wasn’t hit?”
“I thought I jes be lookin whiles dey sleep,” Luster said. Dilsey went to the cellar door. He stood aside and she peered down into the obscurity odorous of dank earth and mould and rubber.
“Huh,” Dilsey said. She looked at Luster again. He met her gaze blandly, innocent and open. “I dont know whut you up to, but you aint got no business doin hit. You jes tryin me too dis mawnin cause de others is, aint you? You git on up dar en see to Benjy, you hear?”
“Yessum,” Luster said. He went on toward the kitchen steps, swiftly.
“Here,” Dilsey said, “You git me another armful of wood while I got you.”
“Yessum,” he said. He passed her on the steps and went to the woodpile. When he blundered again at the door a moment later, again invisible and blind within and beyond his wooden avatar, Dilsey opened the door and guided him across the kitchen with a firm hand.
“Jes thow hit at dat box again,” she said, “Jes thow hit.”
“I got to,” Luster said, panting, “I cant put hit down no other way.”
“Den you stand dar en hold hit a while,” Dilsey said. She unloaded him a stick at a time. “Whut got into you dis mawnin? Here I sont you fer wood en you aint never brought mo’n six sticks at a time to save yo life twell today. Whut you fixin to ax me kin you do now? Aint dat show lef town yit?”
“Yessum. Hit done gone.”
She put the last stick into the box. “Now you go on up dar wid Benjy, like I tole you befo,” she said. “And I dont want nobody else yellin down dem stairs at me twell I rings de bell. You hear me.”
“Yessum,” Luster said. He vanished through the swing door. Dilsey put some more wood in the stove and returned to the bread board. Presently she began to sing again.
The room grew warmer. Soon Dilsey’s skin had taken on a rich, lustrous quality as compared with that as of a faint dusting of wood ashes which both it and Luster’s had worn, as she moved about the kitchen, gathering about her the raw materials of food, coordinating the meal. On the wall above a cupboard, invisible save at night, by lamp light and even then evincing an enigmatic profundity because it had but one hand, a cabinet clock ticked, then with a preliminary sound as if it had cleared its throat, struck five times.
“Eight oclock,” Dilsey said. She ceased and tilted her head upward, listening. But there was no sound save the clock and the fire. She opened the oven and looked at the pan of bread, then stooping she paused while someone descended the stairs. She heard the feet cross the diningroom, then the swing door opened and Luster entered, followed by a big man who appeared to have been shaped of some substance whose particles would not or did not cohere to one another or to the frame which supported it. His skin was dead looking and hairless; dropsical too, he moved with a shambling gait like a trained bear. His hair was pale and fine. It had been brushed smoothly down upon his brow like that of children in daguerreotypes. His eyes were clear, of the pale sweet blue of cornflowers, his thick mouth hung open, drooling a little.
“Is he cold?” Dilsey said. She wiped her hands on her apron and touched his hand.
“Ef he aint, I is,” Luster said. “Always cold Easter. Aint never seen hit fail. Miss Cahline say ef you aint got time to fix her hot water bottle to never mind about hit.”
“Oh, Lawd,” Dilsey said. She drew a chair into the corner between the woodbox and the stove. The man went obediently and sat in it. “Look in de dinin room and see whar I laid dat bottle down,” Dilsey said. Luster fetched the bottle from the diningroom and Dilsey filled it and give it to him. “Hurry up, now,” she said. “See ef Jason wake now. Tell em hit’s all ready.”
Luster went out. Ben sat beside the stove. He sat loosely, utterly motionless save for his head, which made a continual bobbing sort of movement as he watched Dilsey with his sweet vague gaze as she moved about. Luster returned.
“He up,” he said, “Miss Cahline say put hit on de table.” He came to the stove and spread his hands palm down above the firebox. “He up, too,” He said, “Gwine hit wid bofe feet dis mawnin.”
“Whut’s de matter now?” Dilsey said. “Git away fum dar. How kin I do anything wid you standin over de stove?”
“I cold,” Luster said.
“You ought to thought about dat whiles you wus down dar in dat cellar,” Dilsey said. “Whut de matter wid Jason?”
“Sayin me en Benjy broke dat winder in his room.”
“Is dey one broke?” Dilsey said.
“Dat’s whut he sayin,” Luster said. “Say I broke hit.”
“How could you, when he keep hit locked all day en night?”
“Say I broke hit chunkin rocks at hit,” Luster said.
“En did you?”
“Nome,” Luster said.
“Dont lie to me, boy,” Dilsey said.
“I never done hit,” Luster said. “Ask Benjy ef I did. I aint stud’in dat winder.”
“Who could a broke hit, den?” Dilsey said. “He jes tryin hisself, to wake Quentin up,” she said, taking the pan of biscuits out of the stove.
“Reckin so,” Luster said. “Dese is funny folks. Glad I aint none of em.”
“Aint none of who?” Dilsey said. “Lemme tell you somethin, nigger boy, you got jes es much Compson devilment in you es any of em. Is you right sho you never broke dat window?”
“Whut I want to break hit fur?”
“Whut you do any of yo devilment fur?” Dilsey said. “Watch him now, so he cant burn his hand again twell I git de table set.”
She went to the diningroom, where they heard her moving about, then she returned and set a plate at the kitchen table and set food there. Ben watched her, slobbering, making a faint, eager sound.
“All right, honey,” she said, “Here yo breakfast. Bring his chair, Luster.” Luster moved the chair up and Ben sat down, whimpering and slobbering. Dilsey tied a cloth about his neck and wiped his mouth with the end of it. “And see kin you kep fum messin up his clothes one time,” she said, handing Luster a spoon.
Ben ceased whimpering. He watched the spoon as it rose to his mouth. It was as if even eagerness were muscle-bound in him too, and hunger itself inarticulate, not knowing it is hunger. Luster fed him with skill and detachment. Now and then his attention would return long enough to enable him to feint the spoon and cause Ben to close his mouth upon the empty air, but it was apparent that Luster’s mind was elsewhere. His other hand lay on the back of the chair and upon that dead surface it moved tentatively, delicately, as if he were picking an inaudible tune out of the dead void, and once he even forgot to tease Ben with the spoon while his fingers teased out of the slain wood a soundless and involved arpeggio until Ben recalled him by whimpering again.
In the diningroom Dilsey moved back and forth. Presently she rang a small clear bell, then in the kitchen Luster heard Mrs Compson and Jason descending, and Jason’s voice, and he rolled his eyes whitely with listening.
“Sure, I know they didn’t break it,” Jason said. “Sure, I know that. Maybe the change of weather broke it.”
“I dont see how it could have,” Mrs Compson said. “Your room stays locked all day long, just as you leave it when you go to town. None of us ever go in there except Sunday, to clean it. I dont want you to think that I would go where I’m not wanted, or that I would permit anyone else to.”
“I never said you broke it, did I?” Jason said.
“I dont want to go in your room,” Mrs Compson said. “I respect anybody’s private affairs. I wouldn’t put my foot over the threshold, even if I had a key.”
“Yes,” Jason said, “I know your keys wont fit. That’s why I had the lock changed. What I want to know is, how that window got broken.”
“Luster say he didn’t do hit,” Dilsey said.
“I knew that without asking him,” Jason said. “Where’s Quentin?” he said.
“Where she is ev’y Sunday mawnin,” Dilsey said. “Whut got into you de last few days, anyhow?”
“Well, we’re going to change all that,” Jason said. “Go up and tell her breakfast is ready.”
“You leave her alone now, Jason,” Dilsey said. “She gits up fer breakfast ev’y week mawnin, en Cahline lets her stay in bed ev’y Sunday. You knows dat.”
“I cant keep a kitchen full of niggers to wait on her pleasure, much as I’d like to,” Jason said. “Go and tell her to come down to breakfast.”
“Aint nobody have to wait on her,” Dilsey said. “I puts her breakfast in de warmer en she—”
“Did you hear me?” Jason said.
“I hears you,” Dilsey said. “All I been hearin, when you in de house. Ef hit aint Quentin er yo maw, hit’s Luster en Benjy. Whut you let him go on dat way fer, Miss Cahline?”
“You’d better do as he says,” Mrs Compson said, “He’s head of the house now. It’s his right to require us to respect his wishes. I try to do it, and if I can, you can too.”
“’Taint no sense in him bein so bad tempered he got to make Quentin git up jes to suit him,” Dilsey said. “Maybe you think she broke dat window.”
“She would, if she happened to think of it,” Jason said. “You go and do what I told you.”
“En I wouldn’t blame her none ef she did,” Dilsey said, going toward the stairs. “Wid you naggin at her all de blessed time you in de house.”
“Hush, Dilsey,” Mrs Compson said, “It’s neither your place nor mine to tell Jason what to do. Sometimes I think he is wrong, but I try to obey his wishes for you alls’ sakes. If I’m strong enough to come to the table, Quentin can too.”
Dilsey went out. They heard her mounting the stairs. They heard her a long while on the stairs.
“You’ve got a prize set of servants,” Jason said. He helped his mother and himself to food. “Did you ever have one that was worth killing? You must have had some before I was big enough to remember.”
“I have to humour them,” Mrs Compson said. “I have to depend on them so completely. It’s not as if I were strong. I wish I were. I wish I could do all the house work myself. I could at least take that much off your shoulders.”
“And a fine pigsty we’d live in, too,” Jason said. “Hurry up, Dilsey,” he shouted.
“I know you blame me,” Mrs Compson said, “for letting them off to go to church today.”
“Go where?” Jason said. “Hasn’t that damn show left yet?”
“To church,” Mrs Compson said. “The darkies are having a special Easter service. I promised Dilsey two weeks ago that they could get off.”
“Which means we’ll eat cold dinner,” Jason said, “or none at all.”
“I know it’s my fault,” Mrs Compson said. “I know you blame me.”
“For what?” Jason said. “You never resurrected Christ, did you?”
They heard Dilsey mount the final stair, then her slow feet overhead.
“Quentin,” she said. When she called the first time Jason laid his knife and fork down and he and his mother appeared to wait across the table from one another, in identical attitudes; the one cold and shrewd, with close-thatched brown hair curled into two stubborn hooks, one on either side of his forehead like a bartender in caricature, and hazel eyes with black-ringed irises like marbles, the other cold and querulous, with perfectly white hair and eyes pouched and baffled and so dark as to appear to be all pupil or all iris.
“Quentin,” Dilsey said, “Get up, honey. Dey waitin breakfast on you.”
“I cant understand how that window got broken,” Mrs Compson said. “Are you sure it was done yesterday? It could have been like that a long time, with the warm weather. The upper sash, behind the shade like that.”
“I’ve told you for the last time that it happened yesterday,” Jason said. “Dont you reckon I know the room I live in? Do you reckon I could have lived in it a week with a hole in the window you could stick your hand—” his voice ceased, ebbed, left him staring at his mother with eyes that for an instant were quite empty of anything. It was as though his eyes were holding their breath, while his mother looked at him, her face flaccid and querulous, interminable, clairvoyant yet obtuse. As they sat so Dilsey said,
“Quentin. Dont play wid me, honey. Come on to breakfast, honey. Dey waitin fer you.”
“I cant understand it,” Mrs Compson said, “It’s just as if somebody had tried to break into the house—” Jason sprang up. His chair crashed over backward. “What—” Mrs Compson said, staring at him as he ran past her and went jumping up the stairs, where he met Dilsey. His face was now in shadow, and Dilsey said,
“She sullin. Yo ma aint unlocked—” But Jason ran on past her and along the corridor to a door. He didn’t call. He grasped the knob and tried it, then he stood with the knob in his hand and his head bent a little, as if he were listening to something much further away than the dimensioned room beyond the door, and which he already heard. His attitude was that of one who goes through the motions of listening in order to deceive himself as to what he already hears. Behind him Mrs Compson mounted the stairs, calling his name. Then she saw Dilsey and she quit calling him and began to call Dilsey instead.
“I told you she aint unlocked dat do’ yit,” Dilsey said.
When she spoke he turned and ran toward her, but his voice was quiet, matter of fact. “She carry the key with her?” he said. “Has she got it now, I mean, or will she have—”
“Dilsey,” Mrs Compson said on the stairs.
“Is which?” Dilsey said. “Whyn’t you let—”
“The key,” Jason said, “To that room. Does she carry it with her all the time. Mother.” Then he saw Mrs Compson and he went down the stairs and met her. “Give me the key,” he said. He fell to pawing at the pockets of the rusty black dressing sacque she wore. She resisted.
“Jason,” she said, “Jason! Are you and Dilsey trying to put me to bed again?” she said, trying to fend him off, “Cant you even let me have Sunday in peace?”
“The key,” Jason said, pawing at her, “Give it here.” He looked back at the door, as if he expected it to fly open before he could get back to it with the key he did not yet have.
“You, Dilsey!” Mrs Compson said, clutching her sacque about her.
“Give me the key, you old fool!” Jason cried suddenly. From her pocket he tugged a huge bunch of rusted keys on an iron ring like a mediaeval jailer’s and ran back up the hall with the two women behind him.
“You, Jason!” Mrs Compson said. “He will never find the right one,” she said, “You know I never let anyone take my keys, Dilsey,” she said. She began to wail.
“Hush,” Dilsey said, “He aint gwine do nothin to her. I aint gwine let him.”
“But on Sunday morning, in my own house,” Mrs Compson said, “When I’ve tried so hard to raise them Christians. Let me find the right key, Jason,” she said. She put her hand on his arm. Then she began to struggle with him, but he flung her aside with a motion of his elbow and looked around at her for a moment, his eyes cold and harried, then he turned to the door again and the unwieldy keys.
“Hush,” Dilsey said, “You, Jason!”
“Something terrible has happened,” Mrs Compson said, wailing again, “I know it has. You, Jason,” she said, grasping at him again. “He wont even let me find the key to a room in my own house!”
“Now, now,” Dilsey said, “Whut kin happen? I right here. I aint gwine let him hurt her. Quentin,” she said, raising her voice, “dont you be skeered, honey, I’se right here.”
The door opened, swung inward. He stood in it for a moment, hiding the room, then he stepped aside. “Go in,” he said in a thick, light voice. They went in. It was not a girl’s room. It was not anybody’s room, and the faint scent of cheap cosmetics and the few feminine objects and the other evidences of crude and hopeless efforts to feminize it but added to its anonymity, giving it that dead and stereotyped transience of rooms in assignation houses. The bed had not been disturbed. On the floor lay a soiled undergarment of cheap silk a little too pink; from a half open bureau drawer dangled a single stocking. The window was open. A pear tree grew there, close against the house. It was in bloom and the branches scraped and rasped against the house and the myriad air, driving in the window, brought into the room the forlorn scent of the blossoms.
“Dar now,” Dilsey said, “Didn’t I told you she all right?”
“All right?” Mrs Compson said. Dilsey followed her into the room and touched her.
“You come on and lay down, now,” she said. “I find her in ten minutes.”
Mrs Compson shook her off. “Find the note,” she said. “Quentin left a note when he did it.”
“All right,” Dilsey said, “I’ll find hit. You come on to yo room, now.”
“I knew the minute they named her Quentin this would happen,” Mrs Compson said. She went to the bureau and began to turn over the scattered objects there—scent bottles, a box of powder, a chewed pencil, a pair of scissors with one broken blade lying upon a darned scarf dusted with powder and stained with rouge. “Find the note,” she said.
“I is,” Dilsey said. “You come on, now. Me and Jason’ll find hit. You come on to yo room.”
“Jason,” Mrs Compson said, “Where is he?” She went to the door. Dilsey followed her on down the hall, to another door. It was closed. “Jason,” she called through the door. There was no answer. She tried the knob, then she called him again. But there was still no answer, for he was hurling things backward out of the closet: garments, shoes, a suitcase. Then he emerged carrying a sawn section of tongue-and-groove planking and laid it down and entered the closet again and emerged with a metal box. He set it on the bed and stood looking at the broken lock while he dug a key ring from his pocket and selected a key, and for a time longer he stood with the selected key in his hand, looking at the broken lock, then he put the keys back in his pocket and carefully tilted the contents of the box out upon the bed. Still carefully he sorted the papers, taking them up one at a time and shaking them. Then he upended the box and shook it too and slowly replaced the papers and stood again, looking at the broken lock, with the box in his hands and his head bent. Outside the window he heard some jaybirds swirl shrieking past, and away, their cries whipping away along the wind, and an automobile passed somewhere and died away also. His mother spoke his name again beyond the door, but he didn’t move. He heard Dilsey lead her away up the hall, and then a door closed. Then he replaced the box in the closet and flung the garments back into it and went down stairs to the telephone. While he stood there with the receiver to his ear, waiting, Dilsey came down the stairs. She looked at him, without stopping, and went on.
The wire opened. “This is Jason Compson,” he said, his voice so harsh and thick that he had to repeat himself. “Jason Compson,” he said, controlling his voice. “Have a car ready, with a deputy, if you cant go, in ten minutes. I’ll be there—What?—Robbery. My house. I know who it—Robbery, I say. Have a car read—What? Aren’t you a paid law enforcement—Yes, I’ll be there in five minutes. Have that car ready to leave at once. If you dont, I’ll report it to the governor.”
He clapped the receiver back and crossed the diningroom, where the scarce-broken meal now lay cold on the table, and entered the kitchen. Dilsey was filling the hot water bottle. Ben sat, tranquil and empty. Beside him Luster looked like a fice dog, brightly watchful. He was eating something. Jason went on across the kitchen.
“Aint you going to eat no breakfast?” Dilsey said. He paid her no attention. “Go on and eat yo breakfast, Jason.” He went on. The outer door banged behind him. Luster rose and went to the window and looked out.
“Whoo,” he said, “Whut happenin up dar? He been beatin’ Miss Quentin?”
“You hush yo mouf,” Dilsey said. “You git Benjy started now en I beat yo head off. You keep him quiet es you kin twell I get back, now.” She screwed the cap on the bottle and went out. They heard her go up the stairs, then they heard Jason pass the house in his car. Then there was no sound in the kitchen save the simmering murmur of the kettle and the clock.
“You know whut I bet?” Luster said. “I bet he beat her. I bet he knock her in de head en now he gone fer de doctor. Dat’s whut I bet.” The clock tick-tocked, solemn and profound. It might have been the dry pulse of the decaying house itself; after a while it whirred and cleared its throat and struck six times. Ben looked up at it, then he looked at the bullet-like silhouette of Luster’s head in the window and he begun to bob his head again, drooling. He whimpered.
“Hush up, loony,” Luster said without turning. “Look like we aint gwine git to go to no church today.” But Ben sat in the chair, his big soft hands dangling between his knees, moaning faintly. Suddenly he wept, a slow bellowing sound, meaningless and sustained. “Hush,” Luster said. He turned and lifted his hand. “You want me to whup you?” But Ben looked at him, bellowing slowly with each expiration. Luster came and shook him. “You hush dis minute!” he shouted. “Here,” he said. He hauled Ben out of the chair and dragged the chair around facing the stove and opened the door to the firebox and shoved Ben into the chair. They looked like a tug nudging at a clumsy tanker in a narrow dock. Ben sat down again facing the rosy door. He hushed. Then they heard the clock again, and Dilsey slow on the stairs. When she entered he began to whimper again. Then he lifted his voice.
“Whut you done to him?” Dilsey said. “Why cant you let him lone dis mawnin, of all times?”
“I aint doin nothin to him,” Luster said. “Mr Jason skeered him, dat’s whut hit is. He aint kilt Miss Quentin, is he?”
“Hush, Benjy,” Dilsey said. He hushed. She went to the window and looked out. “Is it quit rainin?” she said.
“Yessum,” Luster said. “Quit long time ago.”
“Den y’all go out do’s awhile,” she said. “I jes got Miss Cahline quiet now.”
“Is we gwine to church?” Luster said.
“I let you know bout dat when de time come. You keep him away fum de house twell I calls you.”
“Kin we go to de pastuh?” Luster said.
“All right. Only you keep him away fum de house. I done stood all I kin.”
“Yessum,” Luster said. “Whar Mr Jason gone, mammy?”
“Dat’s some mo of yo business, aint it?” Dilsey said. She began to clear the table. “Hush, Benjy. Luster gwine take you out to play.”
“Whut he done to Miss Quentin, mammy?” Luster said.
“Aint done nothin to her. You all git on outen here?”
“I bet she aint here,” Luster said.
Dilsey looked at him. “How you know she aint here?”
“Me and Benjy seed her clamb out de window last night. Didn’t us, Benjy?”
“You did?” Dilsey said, looking at him.
“We sees her doin hit ev’y night,” Luster said, “Clamb right down dat pear tree.”
“Dont you lie to me, nigger boy,” Dilsey said.
“I aint lyin. Ask Benjy ef I is.”
“Whyn’t you say somethin about it, den?”
“’Twarn’t none o my business,” Luster said. “I aint gwine git mixed up in white folks’ business. Come on here, Benjy, les go out do’s.”
They went out. Dilsey stood for awhile at the table, then she went and cleared the breakfast things from the diningroom and ate her breakfast and cleaned up the kitchen. Then she removed her apron and hung it up and went to the foot of the stairs and listened for a moment. There was no sound. She donned the overcoat and the hat and went across to her cabin.
The rain had stopped. The air now drove out of the southeast, broken overhead into blue patches. Upon the crest of a hill beyond the trees and roofs and spires of town sunlight lay like a pale scrap of cloth, was blotted away. Upon the air a bell came, then as if at a signal, other bells took up the sound and repeated it.
The cabin door opened and Dilsey emerged, again in the maroon cape and 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.”
Jason told him, his sense of injury and impotence feeding upon its own 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 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?”
“Hit de onliest one I could find,” Luster said. “Y’all took all of um Friday to dec’rate de church. Wait, I’ll fix hit.” So while Dilsey held the horse Luster put a splint on the flower stalk with a twig and two bits of string and gave it to Ben. Then he mounted and took the reins. Dilsey still held the bridle.
“You knows de way now?” she said, “Up de street, round de square, to de graveyard, den straight back home.”
“Yessum,” Luster said, “Hum up, Queenie.”
“You gwine be careful, now?”
“Yessum.” Dilsey released the bridle.
“Hum up, Queenie,” Luster said.
“Here,” Dilsey said, “You han me dat whup.”
“Aw, mammy,” Luster said.
“Give hit here,” Dilsey said, approaching the wheel. Luster gave it to her reluctantly.
“I wont never git Queenie started now.”
“Never you mind about dat,” Dilsey said. “Queenie know mo bout whar she gwine dan you does. All you got to do is set dar en hold dem reins. You knows de way, now?”
“Yessum. Same way T. P. goes ev’y Sunday.”
“Den you do de same thing dis Sunday.”
“Cose I is. Aint I drove fer T. P. mo’n a hund’ed times?”
“Den do hit again,” Dilsey said. “G’awn, now. En ef you hurts Benjy, nigger boy, I dont know whut I do. You bound fer de chain gang, but I’ll send you dar fo even chain gang ready fer you.”
“Yessum,” Luster said. “Hum up, Queenie.”
He flapped the lines on Queenie’s broad back and the surrey lurched into motion.
“You, Luster!” Dilsey said.
“Hum up, dar!” Luster said. He flapped the lines again. With subterranean rumblings Queenie jogged slowly down the drive and turned into the street, where Luster exhorted her into a gait resembling a prolonged and suspended fall in a forward direction.
Ben quit whimpering. He sat in the middle of the seat, holding the repaired flower upright in his fist, his eyes serene and ineffable. Directly before him Luster’s bullet head turned backward continually until the house passed from view, then he pulled to the side of the street and while Ben watched him he descended and broke a switch from a hedge. Queenie lowered her head and fell to cropping the grass until Luster mounted and hauled her head up and harried her into motion again, then he squared his elbows and with the switch and the reins held high he assumed a swaggering attitude out of all proportion to the sedate clopping of Queenie’s hooves and the organlike basso of her internal accompaniment. Motors passed them, and pedestrians; once a group of half grown negroes:
“Dar Luster. Whar you gwine, Luster? To de boneyard?”
“Hi,” Luster said, “Aint de same boneyard y’all headed fer. Hum up, elefump.”
They approached the square, where the Confederate soldier gazed with empty eyes beneath his marble hand into wind and weather. Luster took still another notch in himself and gave the impervious Queenie a cut with the switch, casting his glance about the square. “Dar Mr Jason’s car,” he said then he spied another group of negroes. “Les show dem niggers how quality does, Benjy,” he said, “Whut you say?” He looked back. Ben sat, holding the flower in his fist, his gaze empty and untroubled. Luster hit Queenie again and swung her to the left at the monument.
For an instant Ben sat in an utter hiatus. Then he bellowed. Bellow on bellow, his voice mounted, with scarce interval for breath. There was more than astonishment in it, it was horror; shock; agony eyeless, tongueless; just sound, and Luster’s eyes backrolling for a white instant. “Gret God,” he said, “Hush! Hush! Gret God!” He whirled again and struck Queenie with the switch. It broke and he cast it away and with Ben’s voice mounting toward its unbelievable crescendo Luster caught up the end of the reins and leaned forward as Jason came jumping across the square and onto the step.
With a backhanded blow he hurled Luster aside and caught the reins and sawed Queenie about and doubled the reins back and slashed her across the hips. He cut her again and again, into a plunging gallop, while Ben’s hoarse agony roared about them, and swung her about to the right of the monument. Then he struck Luster over the head with his fist.
“Dont you know any better than to take him to the left?” he said. He reached back and struck Ben, breaking the flower stalk again. “Shut up!” he said, “Shut up!” He jerked Queenie back and jumped down. “Get to hell on home with him. If you ever cross that gate with him again, I’ll kill you!”
“Yes, suh!” Luster said. He took the reins and hit Queenie with the end of them. “Git up! Git up, dar! Benjy, fer God’s sake!”
Ben’s voice roared and roared. Queenie moved again, her feet began to clop-clop steadily again, and at once Ben hushed. Luster looked quickly back over his shoulder, then he drove on. The broken flower drooped over Ben’s fist and his eyes were empty and blue and serene again as cornice and façade flowed smoothly once more from left to right; post and tree, window and doorway, and signboard, each in its ordered place.