The sound and the fury
taken in theft or evasion with only that frank and spontaneous
admiration for the victor which a gentleman feels for anyone who beats
him in a fair contest, and withal a fond and unflagging tolerance for
whitefolks’ vagaries like that of a grandparent for unpredictable and
troublesome children, which I had forgotten. And all that day, while the
train wound through rushing gaps and along ledges where movement was
only a labouring sound of the exhaust and groaning wheels and the
eternal mountains stood fading into the thick sky, I thought of home, of
the bleak station and the mud and the niggers and country folks
thronging slowly about the square, with toy monkeys and wagons and candy
in sacks and roman candles sticking out, and my insides would move like
they used to do in school when the bell rang.
I wouldn’t begin counting until the clock struck three. Then I would
begin, counting to sixty and folding down one finger and thinking of the
other fourteen fingers waiting to be folded down, or thirteen or twelve
or eight or seven, until all of a sudden I’d realise silence and the
unwinking minds, and I’d say “Ma’am?” “Your name is Quentin, isn’t it?”
Miss Laura said. Then more silence and the cruel unwinking minds and
hands jerking into the silence. “Tell Quentin who discovered the
Mississippi River, Henry.” “DeSoto.” Then the minds would go away, and
after a while I’d be afraid I had gotten behind and I’d count fast and
fold down another finger, then I’d be afraid I was going too fast and
I’d slow up, then I’d get afraid and count fast again. So I never could
come out even with the bell, and the released surging of feet moving
already, feeling earth in the scuffed floor, and the day like a pane of
glass struck a light, sharp blow, and my insides would move, sitting
still. _Moving sitting still. One minute she was standing in the door.
Benjy. Bellowing. Benjamin the child of mine old age bellowing. Caddy!
Caddy!_
_I’m going to run away. He began to cry she went and touched him. Hush.
I’m not going to. Hush. He hushed. Dilsey._
_He smell what you tell him when he want to. Dont have to listen nor
talk._
_Can he smell that new name they give him? Can he smell bad luck?_
_What he want to worry about luck for? Luck cant do him no hurt._
_What they change his name for then if aint trying to help his luck?_
The street car stopped, started, stopped again. Below the window I
watched the crowns of people’s heads passing beneath new straw hats not
yet unbleached. There were women in the car now, with market baskets,
and men in work-clothes were beginning to outnumber the shined shoes and
collars.
The nigger touched my knee. “Pardon me,” he said. I swung my legs out
and let him pass. We were going beside a blank wall, the sound
clattering back into the car, at the women with market baskets on their
knees and a man in a stained hat with a pipe stuck in the band. I could
smell water, and in a break in the wall I saw a glint of water and two
masts, and a gull motionless in midair, like on an invisible wire
between the masts, and I raised my hand and through my coat touched the
letters I had written. When the car stopped I got off.
The bridge was open to let a schooner through. She was in tow, the tug
nudging along under her quarter, trailing smoke, but the ship herself
was like she was moving without visible means. A man naked to the waist
was coiling down a line on the fo’c’s’le head. His body was burned the
colour of leaf tobacco. Another man in a straw hat without any crown was
at the wheel. The ship went through the bridge, moving under bare poles
like a ghost in broad day, with three gulls hovering above the stern
like toys on invisible wires.
When it closed I crossed to the other side and leaned on the rail above
the boathouses. The float was empty and the doors were closed. The crew
just pulled in the late afternoon now, resting up before. The shadow of
the bridge, the tiers of railing, my shadow leaning flat upon the water,
so easily had I tricked it that would not quit me. At least fifty feet
it was, and if I only had something to blot it into the water, holding
it until it was drowned, the shadow of the package like two shoes
wrapped up lying on the water. Niggers say a drowned man’s shadow was
watching for him in the water all the time. It twinkled and glinted,
like breathing, the float slow like breathing too, and debris half
submerged, healing out to the sea and the caverns and the grottoes of
the sea. The displacement of water is equal to the something of
something. Reducto absurdum of all human experience, and two six-pound
flat-irons weigh more than one tailor’s goose. What a sinful waste
Dilsey would say. Benjy knew it when Damuddy died. He cried. _He smell
hit. He smell hit._
The tug came back downstream, the water shearing in long rolling
cylinders, rocking the float at last with the echo of passage, the float
lurching onto the rolling cylinder with a plopping sound and a long
jarring noise as the door rolled back and two men emerged, carrying a
shell. They set it in the water and a moment later Bland came out, with
the sculls. He wore flannels, a grey jacket and a stiff straw hat.
Either he or his mother had read somewhere that Oxford students pulled
in flannels and stiff hats, so early one March they bought Gerald a one
pair shell and in his flannels and stiff hat he went on the river. The
folks at the boathouses threatened to call a policeman, but he went
anyway. His mother came down in a hired auto, in a fur suit like an
arctic explorer’s, and saw him off in a twenty-five mile wind and a
steady drove of ice floes like dirty sheep. Ever since then I have
believed that God is not only a gentleman and a sport; He is a
Kentuckian too. When he sailed away she made a detour and came down to
the river again and drove along parallel with him, the car in low gear.
They said you couldn’t have told they’d ever seen one another before,
like a King and Queen, not even looking at one another, just moving side
by side across Massachusetts on parallel courses like a couple of
planets.
He got in and pulled away. He pulled pretty well now. He ought to. They
said his mother tried to make him give rowing up and do something else
the rest of his class couldn’t or wouldn’t do, but for once he was
stubborn. If you could call it stubbornness, sitting in his attitudes of
princely boredom, with his curly yellow hair and his violet eyes and his
eyelashes and his New York clothes, while his mamma was telling us about
Gerald’s horses and Gerald’s niggers and Gerald’s women. Husbands and
fathers in Kentucky must have been awful glad when she carried Gerald
off to Cambridge. She had an apartment over in town, and Gerald had one
there too, besides his rooms in college. She approved of Gerald
associating with me because I at least revealed a blundering sense of
noblesse oblige by getting myself born below Mason and Dixon, and a few
others whose geography met the requirements (minimum) Forgave, at least.
Or condoned. But since she met Spoade coming out of chapel one He said
she couldn’t be a lady no lady would be out at that hour of the night
she never had been able to forgive him for having five names, including
that of a present English ducal house. I’m sure she solaced herself by
being convinced that some misfit Maingault or Mortemar had got mixed up
with the lodge-keeper’s daughter. Which was quite probable, whether she
invented it or not. Spoade was the world’s champion sitter-around, no
holds barred and gouging discretionary.
The shell was a speck now, the oars catching the sun in spaced glints,
as if the hull were winking itself along. _Did you ever have a sister?
No but they’re all bitches. Did you ever have a sister? One minute she
was. Bitches. Not bitch one minute she stood in the door_ Dalton Ames.
Dalton Ames. Dalton Shirts. I thought all the time they were khaki, army
issue khaki, until I saw they were of heavy Chinese silk or finest
flannel because they made his face so brown his eyes so blue. Dalton
Ames. It just missed gentility. Theatrical fixture. Just papier-mache,
then touch. Oh. Asbestos. Not quite bronze. _But wont see him at the
house._
_Caddy’s a woman too, remember. She must do things for women’s reasons,
too._
_Why wont you bring him to the house, Caddy? Why must you do like nigger
women do in the pasture the ditches the dark woods hot hidden furious in
the dark woods._
And after a while I had been hearing my watch for some time and I could
feel the letters crackle through my coat, against the railing, and I
leaned on the railing, watching my shadow, how I had tricked it. I moved
along the rail, but my suit was dark too and I could wipe my hands,
watching my shadow, how I had tricked it. I walked it into the shadow of
the quai. Then I went east.
_Harvard my Harvard boy Harvard harvard_ That pimple-faced infant she
met at the field-meet with coloured ribbons. Skulking along the fence
trying to whistle her out like a puppy. Because they couldn’t cajole him
into the diningroom Mother believed he had some sort of spell he was
going to cast on her when he got her alone. Yet any blackguard _He was
lying beside the box under the window bellowing_ that could drive up in
a limousine with a flower in his buttonhole. _Harvard. Quentin this is
Herbert. My Harvard boy. Herbert will be a big brother has already
promised Jason a position in the bank._
Hearty, celluloid like a drummer. Face full of teeth white but not
smiling. _I’ve heard of him up there._ All teeth but not smiling. _You
going to drive?_
_Get in Quentin._
_You going to drive._
_It’s her car aren’t you proud of your little sister owns first auto in
town Herbert his present. Louis has been giving her lessons every
morning didn’t you get my letter_ Mr and Mrs Jason Richmond Compson
announce the marriage of their daughter Candace to Mr Sydney Herbert
Head on the twenty-fifth of April one thousand nine hundred and ten at
Jefferson Mississippi. At home after the first of August number
Something Something Avenue South Bend Indiana. Shreve said Aren’t you
even going to open it? _Three days. Times. Mr and Mrs Jason Richmond
Compson_ Young Lochinvar rode out of the west a little too soon, didn’t
he?
I’m from the south. You’re funny, aren’t you.
O yes I knew it was somewhere in the country.
You’re funny, aren’t you. You ought to join the circus.
I did. That’s how I ruined my eyes watering the elephant’s fleas. _Three
times_ These country girls. You cant even tell about them, can you.
Well, anyway Byron never had his wish, thank God. _But not hit a man in
glasses._ Aren’t you even going to open it? _It lay on the table a
candle burning at each corner upon the envelope tied in a soiled pink
garter two artificial flowers. Not hit a man in glasses._
Country people poor things they never saw an auto before lots of them
honk the horn Candace so _She wouldn’t look at me_ they’ll get out of
the way _wouldn’t look at me_ your father wouldn’t like it if you were
to injure one of them I’ll declare your father will simply have to get
an auto now I’m almost sorry you brought it down Herbert I’ve enjoyed it
so much of course there’s the carriage but so often when I’d like to go
out Mr Compson has the darkies doing something it would be worth my head
to interrupt he insists that Roskus is at my call all the time but I
know what that means I know how often people make promises just to
satisfy their consciences are you going to treat my little baby girl
that way Herbert but I know you wont Herbert has spoiled us all to death
Quentin did I write you that he is going to take Jason into his bank
when Jason finishes high school Jason will make a splendid banker he is