Chapter XI: Part 11

“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 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.

Transcriber’s Notes

Because of William Faulkner’s unorthodox use of punctuation, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish printing errors from the author’s intentions. Therefore, every effort has been made to make the text of this eBook correspond exactly to the printed edition of the book from which the text was derived. The only correction made was the addition of a missing closing quotation mark in the paragraph that begins with “He fumbled in his coat” on page 230.

The illustration of an eye on page 242 has been replaced by the text, “”, in the plain text version of this eBook.