The sound and the fury
the only one of my children with any practical sense you can thank me
for that he takes after my people the others are all Compson _Jason
furnished the flour. They made kites on the back porch and sold them for
a nickle a piece, he and the Patterson boy. Jason was treasurer._
There was no nigger in this street car, and the hats unbleached as yet
flowing past under the window. Going to Harvard. We have sold Benjy’s
_He lay on the ground under the window, bellowing. We have sold Benjy’s
pasture so that Quentin may go to Harvard_ a brother to you. Your little
brother.
You should have a car it’s done you no end of good dont you think so
Quentin I call him Quentin at once you see I have heard so much about
him from Candace.
Why shouldn’t you I want my boys to be more than friends yes Candace and
Quentin more than friends _Father I have committed_ what a pity you had
no brother or sister _No sister no sister had no sister_ Dont ask
Quentin he and Mr Compson both feel a little insulted when I am strong
enough to come down to the table I am going on nerve now I’ll pay for it
after it’s all over and you have taken my little daughter away from me
_My little sister had no. If I could say Mother. Mother_
Unless I do what I am tempted to and take you instead I dont think Mr
Compson could overtake the car.
Ah Herbert Candace do you hear that _She wouldn’t look at me soft
stubborn jaw-angle not back-looking_ You needn’t be jealous though it’s
just an old woman he’s flattering a grown married daughter I cant
believe it.
Nonsense you look like a girl you are lots younger than Candace colour
in your cheeks like a girl _A face reproachful tearful an odour of
camphor and of tears a voice weeping steadily and softly beyond the
twilit door the twilight-coloured smell of honeysuckle. Bringing empty
trunks down the attic stairs they sounded like coffins French Lick.
Found not death at the salt lick_
Hats not unbleached and not hats. In three years I can not wear a hat. I
could not. Was. Will there be hats then since I was not and not Harvard
then. Where the best of thought Father said clings like dead ivy vines
upon old dead brick. Not Harvard then. Not to me, anyway. Again. Sadder
than was. Again. Saddest of all. Again.
Spoade had a shirt on; then it must be. When I can see my shadow again
if not careful that I tricked into the water shall tread again upon my
impervious shadow. But no sister. I wouldn’t have done it. _I wont have
my daughter spied on_ I wouldn’t have.
_How can I control any of them when you have always taught them to have
no respect for me and my wishes I know you look down on my people but is
that any reason for teaching my children my own children I suffered for
to have no respect_ Trampling my shadow’s bones into the concrete with
hard heels and then I was hearing the watch, and I touched the letters
through my coat.
_I will not have my daughter spied on by you or Quentin or anybody no
matter what you think she has done_
_At least you agree there is reason for having her watched_
I wouldn’t have I wouldn’t have. _I know you wouldn’t I didn’t mean to
speak so sharply but women have no respect for each other for
themselves_
_But why did she_ The chimes began as I stepped on my shadow, but it was
the quarter hour. The Deacon wasn’t in sight anywhere. _think I would
have could have_
_She didn’t mean that that’s the way women do things its because she
loves Caddy_
_The street lamps would go down the hill then rise toward town_ I walked
upon the belly of my shadow. I could extend my hand beyond it. _feeling
Father behind me beyond the rasping darkness of summer and August the
street lamps_ Father and I protect women from one another from
themselves our women _Women are like that they dont acquire knowledge of
people we are for that they are just born with a practical fertility of
suspicion that makes a crop every so often and usually right they have
an affinity for evil for supplying whatever the evil lacks in itself for
drawing it about them instinctively as you do bedclothing in slumber
fertilising the mind for it until the evil has served its purpose
whether it ever existed or no_ He was coming along between a couple of
freshmen. He hadn’t quite recovered from the parade, for he gave me a
salute, a very superior-officerish kind.
“I want to see you a minute,” I said, stopping.
“See me? All right. See you again, fellows,” he said, stopping and
turning back; “glad to have chatted with you.” That was the Deacon, all
over. Talk about your natural psychologists. They said he hadn’t missed
a train at the beginning of school in forty years, and that he could
pick out a Southerner with one glance. He never missed, and once he had
heard you speak, he could name your state. He had a regular uniform he
met trains in, a sort of Uncle Tom’s cabin outfit, patches and all.
“Yes, suh. Right dis way, young marster, hyer we is,” taking your bags.
“Hyer, boy, come hyer and git dese grips.” Whereupon a moving mountain
of luggage would edge up, revealing a white boy of about fifteen, and
the Deacon would hang another bag on him somehow and drive him off.
“Now, den, dont you drap hit. Yes, suh, young marster, jes give de old
nigger yo room number, and hit’ll be done got cold dar when you
arrives.”
From then on until he had you completely subjugated he was always in or
out of your room, ubiquitous and garrulous, though his manner gradually
moved northward as his raiment improved, until at last when he had bled
you until you began to learn better he was calling you Quentin or
whatever, and when you saw him next he’d be wearing a cast-off Brooks
suit and a hat with a Princeton club I forget which band that someone
had given him and which he was pleasantly and unshakably convinced was a
part of Abe Lincoln’s military sash. Someone spread the story years ago,
when he first appeared around college from wherever he came from, that
he was a graduate of the divinity school. And when he came to understand
what it meant he was so taken with it that he began to retail the story
himself, until at last he must come to believe he really had. Anyway he
related long pointless anecdotes of his undergraduate days, speaking
familiarly of dead and departed professors by their first names, usually
incorrect ones. But he had been guide mentor and friend to unnumbered
crops of innocent and lonely freshmen, and I suppose that with all his
petty chicanery and hypocrisy he stank no higher in heaven’s nostrils
than any other.
“Haven’t seen you in three-four days,” he said, staring at me from his
still military aura. “You been sick?”
“No. I’ve been all right. Working, I reckon. I’ve seen you, though.”
“Yes?”
“In the parade the other day.”
“Oh, that. Yes, I was there. I dont care nothing about that sort of
thing, you understand, but the boys likes to have me with them, the
vet’runs does. Ladies wants all the old vet’runs to turn out, you know.
So I has to oblige them.”
“And on that Wop holiday too,” I said. “You were obliging the W. C. T.
U. then, I reckon.”
“That? I was doing that for my son-in-law. He aims to get a job on the
city forces. Street cleaner. I tells him all he wants is a broom to
sleep on. You saw me, did you?”
“Both times. Yes.”
“I mean, in uniform. How’d I look?”
“You looked fine. You looked better than any of them. They ought to make
you a general, Deacon.”
He touched my arm, lightly, his hand that worn, gentle quality of
niggers’ hands. “Listen. This aint for outside talking. I dont mind
telling you because you and me’s the same folks, come long and short.”
He leaned a little to me, speaking rapidly, his eyes not looking at me.
“I’ve got strings out, right now. Wait till next year. Just wait. Then
see where I’m marching. I wont need to tell you how I’m fixing it; I
say, just wait and see, my boy.” He looked at me now and clapped me
lightly on the shoulder and rocked back on his heels, nodding at me.
“Yes, sir. I didnt turn Democrat three years ago for nothing. My
son-in-law on the city; me—Yes, sir. If just turning Democrat’ll make
that son of a bitch go to work. . . . And me: just you stand on that
corner yonder a year from two days ago, and see.”
“I hope so. You deserve it, Deacon. And while I think about it—” I took
the letter from my pocket. “Take this around to my room tomorrow and
give it to Shreve. He’ll have something for you. But not till tomorrow,
mind.”
He took the letter and examined it. “It’s sealed up.”
“Yes. And it’s written inside, Not good until tomorrow.”
“H’m,” he said. He looked at the envelope, his mouth pursed. “Something
for me, you say?”
“Yes. A present I’m making you.”
He was looking at me now, the envelope white in his black hand, in the
sun. His eyes were soft and irisless and brown, and suddenly I saw
Roskus watching me from behind all his white-folks’ claptrap of uniforms
and politics and Harvard manner, diffident, secret, inarticulate and
sad. “You aint playing a joke on the old nigger, is you?”
“You know I’m not. Did any Southerner ever play a joke on you?”
“You’re right. They’re fine folks. But you cant live with them.”
“Did you ever try?” I said. But Roskus was gone. Once more he was that
self he had long since taught himself to wear in the world’s eye,
pompous, spurious, not quite gross.
“I’ll confer to your wishes, my boy.”
“Not until tomorrow, remember.”
“Sure,” he said; “understood, my boy. Well—”
“I hope—” I said. He looked down at me, benignant, profound. Suddenly I
held out my hand and we shook, he gravely, from the pompous height of
his municipal and military dream. “You’re a good fellow, Deacon. I
hope. . . . You’ve helped a lot of young fellows, here and there.”
“I’ve tried to treat all folks right,” he said. “I draw no petty social
lines. A man to me is a man, wherever I find him.”
“I hope you’ll always find as many friends as you’ve made.”
“Young fellows. I get along with them. They dont forget me, neither,” he
said, waving the envelope. He put it into his pocket and buttoned his
coat. “Yes, sir,” he said, “I’ve had good friends.”
The chimes began again, the half hour. I stood in the belly of my shadow
and listened to the strokes spaced and tranquil along the sunlight,
among the thin, still little leaves. Spaced and peaceful and serene,
with that quality of autumn always in bells even in the month of brides.
_Lying on the ground under the window bellowing_ He took one look at her
and knew. Out of the mouths of babes. _The street lamps_ The chimes
ceased. I went back to the postoffice, treading my shadow into pavement.
_go down the hill then they rise toward town like lanterns hung one
above another on a wall._ Father said because she loves Caddy she loves
people through their shortcomings. Uncle Maury straddling his legs
before the fire must remove one hand long enough to drink Christmas.
Jason ran on, his hands in his pockets fell down and lay there like a
trussed fowl until Versh set him up. _Whyn’t you keep them hands outen
your pockets when you running you could stand up then_ Rolling his head
in the cradle rolling it flat across the back. Caddy told Jason Versh
said that the reason Uncle Maury didn’t work was that he used to roll
his head in the cradle when he was little.
Shreve was coming up the walk, shambling, fatly earnest, his glasses
glinting beneath the running leaves like little pools.
“I gave Deacon a note for some things. I may not be in this afternoon,
so dont you let him have anything until tomorrow, will you?”
“All right.” He looked at me. “Say, what’re you doing today, anyhow? All
dressed up and mooning around like the prologue to a suttee. Did you go
to Psychology this morning?”
“I’m not doing anything. Not until tomorrow, now.”