The sound and the fury
is it you understand that I dont give a damn whether you tell or not
understand that a thing like that unfortunate but no police crime I
wasn’t the first or the last I was just unlucky you might have been
luckier
You lie
Keep your shirt on I’m not trying to make you tell anything you dont
want to meant no offense of course a young fellow like you would
consider a thing of that sort a lot more serious than you will in five
years
I dont know but one way to consider cheating I dont think I’m likely to
learn different at Harvard
We’re better than a play you must have made the Dramat well you’re right
no need to tell them we’ll let bygones be bygones eh no reason why you
and I should let a little thing like that come between us I like you
Quentin I like your appearance you dont look like these other hicks I’m
glad we’re going to hit it off like this I’ve promised your mother to do
something for Jason but I would like to give you a hand too Jason would
be just as well off here but there’s no future in a hole like this for a
young fellow like you
Thanks you’d better stick to Jason he’d suit you better than I would
I’m sorry about that business but a kid like I was then I never had a
mother like yours to teach me the finer points it would just hurt her
unnecessarily to know it yes you’re right no need to that includes
Candace of course
I said Mother and Father
Look here take a look at me how long do you think you’d last with me
I wont have to last long if you learned to fight up at school too try
and see how long I would
You damned little what do you think you’re getting at
Try and see
My God the cigar what would your mother say if she found a blister on
her mantel just in time too look here Quentin we’re about to do
something we’ll both regret I like you liked you as soon as I saw you I
says he must be a damned good fellow whoever he is or Candace wouldnt be
so keen on him listen I’ve been out in the world now for ten years
things dont matter so much then you’ll find that out let’s you and I get
together on this thing sons of old Harvard and all I guess I wouldnt
know the place now best place for a young fellow in the world I’m going
to send my sons there give them a better chance than I had wait dont go
yet let’s discuss this thing a young man gets these ideas and I’m all
for them does him good while he’s in school forms his character good for
tradition the school but when he gets out into the world he’ll have to
get his the best way he can because he’ll find that everybody else is
doing the same thing and be damned to here let’s shake hands and let
bygones by bygones for your mother’s sake remember her health come on
give me your hand here look at it it’s just out of convent look not a
blemish not even been creased yet see here
To hell with your money
No no come on I belong to the family now see I know how it is with a
young fellow he has lots of private affairs it’s always pretty hard to
get the old man to stump up for I know havent I been there and not so
long ago either but now I’m getting married and all specially up there
come on dont be a fool listen when we get a chance for a real talk I
want to tell you about a little widow over in town
I’ve heard that too keep your damned money
Call it a loan then just shut your eyes a minute and you’ll be fifty
Keep your hands off of me you’d better get that cigar off the mantel
Tell and be damned then see what it gets you if you were not a damned
fool you’d have seen that I’ve got them too tight for any half-baked
Galahad of a brother your mother’s told me about your sort with your
head swelled up come in oh come in dear Quentin and I were just getting
acquainted talking about Harvard did you want me cant stay away from the
old man can she
Go out a minute Herbert I want to talk to Quentin
Come in come in let’s all have a gabfest and get acquainted I was just
telling Quentin
Go on Herbert go out a while
Well all right then I suppose you and bubber do want to see one another
once more eh
You’d better take that cigar off the mantel
Right as usual my boy then I’ll toddle along let them order you around
while they can Quentin after day after tomorrow it’ll be pretty please
to the old man wont it dear give us a kiss honey
Oh stop that save that for day after tomorrow
I’ll want interest then dont let Quentin do anything he cant finish oh
by the way did I tell Quentin the story about the man’s parrot and what
happened to it a sad story remind me of that think of it yourself ta-ta
see you in the funnypaper
Well
Well
What are you up to now
Nothing
You’re meddling in my business again didn’t you get enough of that last
summer
Caddy you’ve got fever _You’re sick how are you sick_
_I’m just sick. I cant ask._
_Shot his voice through the_
Not that blackguard Caddy
Now and then the river glinted beyond things in sort of swooping glints,
across noon and after. Well after now, though we had passed where he was
still pulling upstream majestical in the face of god gods. Better. Gods.
God would be canaille too in Boston in Massachusetts. Or maybe just not
a husband. The wet oars winking him along in bright winks and female
palms. Adulant. Adulant if not a husband he’d ignore God. _That
blackguard, Caddy_ The river glinted away beyond a swooping curve.
_I’m sick you’ll have to promise_
_Sick how are you sick_
_I’m just sick I cant ask anybody yet promise you will_
_If they need any looking after it’s because of you how are you sick_
Under the window we could hear the car leaving for the station, the 8:10
train. To bring back cousins. Heads. Increasing himself head by head but
not barbers. Manicure girls. We had a blood horse once. In the stable
yes, but under leather a cur. _Quentin has shot all of their voices
through the floor of Caddy’s room_
The car stopped. I got off, into the middle of my shadow. A road crossed
the track. There was a wooden marquee with an old man eating something
out of a paper bag, and then the car was out of hearing too. The road
went into the trees, where it would be shady, but June foliage in New
England not much thicker than April at home in Mississippi. I could see
a smoke stack. I turned my back to it, tramping my shadow into the dust.
_There was something terrible in me sometimes at night I could see it
grinning at me I could see it through them grinning at me through their
faces it’s gone now and I’m sick_
_Caddy_
_Dont touch me just promise_
_If you’re sick you cant_
_Yes I can after that it’ll be all right it wont matter dont let them
send him to Jackson promise_
_I promise Caddy Caddy_
_Dont touch me dont touch me_
_What does it look like Caddy_
_What_
_That that grins at you that thing through them_
I could still see the smoke stack. That’s where the water would be,
heading out to the sea and the peaceful grottoes. Tumbling peacefully
they would, and when He said Rise only the flat irons. When Versh and I
hunted all day we wouldn’t take any lunch, and at twelve oclock I’d get
hungry. I’d stay hungry until about one, then all of a sudden I’d even
forget that I wasn’t hungry anymore. _The street lamps go down the hill
then heard the car go down the hill. The chair-arm flat cool smooth
under my forehead shaping the chair the apple tree leaning on my hair
above the eden clothes by the nose seen_ You’ve got fever I felt it
yesterday it’s like being near a stove.
Dont touch me.
Caddy you cant do it if you are sick. That blackguard.
I’ve got to marry somebody. _Then they told me the bone would have to be
broken again_
At last I couldn’t see the smoke stack. The road went beside a wall.
Trees leaned over the wall, sprayed with sunlight. The stone was cool.
Walking near it you could feel the coolness. Only our country was not
like this country. There was something about just walking through it. A
kind of still and violent fecundity that satisfied ever bread-hunger
like. Flowing around you, not brooding and nursing every niggard stone.
Like it were put to makeshift for enough green to go around among the
trees and even the blue of distance not that rich chimaera. _told me the
bone would have to be broken again and inside me it began to say Ah Ah
Ah and I began to sweat. What do I care I know what a broken leg is all
it is it wont be anything I’ll just have to stay in the house a little
longer that’s all and my jaw-muscles getting numb and my mouth saying
Wait Wait just a minute through the sweat ah ah ah behind my teeth and
Father damn that horse damn that horse. Wait it’s my fault. He came
along the fence every morning with a basket toward the kitchen dragging
a stick along the fence every morning I dragged myself to the window
cast and all and laid for him with a piece of coal Dilsey said you goin
to ruin yoself aint you got no mo sense than that not fo days since you
bruck hit. Wait I’ll get used to it in a minute wait just a minute I’ll
get_
Even sound seemed to fail in this air, like the air was worn out with
carrying sounds so long. A dog’s voice carries further than a train, in
the darkness anyway. And some people’s. Niggers. Louis Hatcher never
even used his horn carrying it and that old lantern. I said, “Louis,
when was the last time you cleaned that lantern?”
“I cleant hit a little while back. You member when all dat floodwatter
wash dem folks away up yonder? I cleant hit dat ve’y day. Old woman and
me settin fore de fire dat night and she say ‘Louis, whut you gwine do
ef dat flood git out dis fur?’ and I say ‘Dat’s a fack. I reckon I had
better clean dat lantun up.’ So I cleant hit dat night.”
“That flood was way up in Pennsylvania,” I said. “It couldn’t even have
got down this far.”
“Dat’s whut you says,” Louis said. “Watter kin git des ez high en wet in
Jefferson ez hit kin in Pennsylvaney, I reckon. Hit’s de folks dat says
de high watter cant git dis fur dat comes floatin out on de ridge-pole,
too.”
“Did you and Martha get out that night?”
“We done jest that. I cleant dat lantun and me and her sot de balance of
de night on top o dat knoll back de graveyard. En ef I’d a knowed of
aihy one higher, we’d a been on hit instead.”
“And you haven’t cleaned that lantern since then.”
“Whut I want to clean hit when dey aint no need?”
“You mean, until another flood comes along?”
“Hit kep us outen dat un.”
“Oh, come on, Uncle Louis,” I said.
“Yes, suh. You do you way en I do mine. Ef all I got to do to keep outen
de high watter is to clean dis yere lantun, I wont quoil wid no man.”
“Unc’ Louis wouldn’t ketch nothin wid a light he could see by,” Versh
said.
“I wuz huntin possums in dis country when dey was still drowndin nits in
yo pappy’s head wid coal oil, boy,” Louis said. “Ketchin um, too.”
“Dat’s de troof,” Versh said. “I reckon Unc’ Louis done caught mo
possums than aihy man in dis country.”
“Yes, suh,” Louis said, “I got plenty light fer possums to see, all
right. I aint heard none o dem complainin. Hush, now. Dar he. Whooey.
Hum awn, dawg.” And we’d sit in the dry leaves that whispered a little
with the slow respiration of our waiting and with the slow breathing of
the earth and the windless October, the rank smell of the lantern
fouling the brittle air, listening to the dogs and to the echo of Louis’
voice dying away. He never raised it, yet on a still night we have heard
it from our front porch. When he called the dogs in he sounded just like
the horn he carried slung on his shoulder and never used, but clearer,
mellower, as though his voice were a part of darkness and silence,
coiling out of it, coiling into it again. WhoOoooo. WhoOoooo.
WhoOooooooooooooooo. _Got to marry somebody_
_Have there been very many Caddy_