The sound and the fury
“Must be one of them new Italian families,” one said. He wore a rusty
frock coat. “I’ve seen her before. What’s your name, little girl?” She
looked at them blackly for awhile, her jaws moving steadily. She
swallowed without ceasing to chew.
“Maybe she cant speak English,” the other said.
“They sent her after bread,” I said. “She must be able to speak
something.”
“What’s your pa’s name?” the first said. “Pete? Joe? name John huh?” She
took another bite from the bun.
“What must I do with her?” I said. “She just follows me. I’ve got to get
back to Boston.”
“You from the college?”
“Yes, sir. And I’ve got to get on back.”
“You might go up the street and turn her over to Anse. He’ll be up at
the livery stable. The marshall.”
“I reckon that’s what I’ll have to do,” I said. “I’ve got to do
something with her. Much obliged. Come on, sister.”
We went up the street, on the shady side, where the shadow of the broken
façade blotted slowly across the road. We came to the livery stable. The
marshall wasnt there. A man sitting in a chair tilted in the broad low
door, where a dark cool breeze smelling of ammonia blew among the ranked
stalls, said to look at the postoffice. He didn’t know her either.
“Them furriners. I cant tell one from another. You might take her across
the tracks where they live, and maybe somebody’ll claim her.”
We went to the postoffice. It was back down the street. The man in the
frock coat was opening a newspaper.
“Anse just drove out of town,” he said. “I guess you’d better go down
past the station and walk past them houses by the river. Somebody
there’ll know her.”
“I guess I’ll have to,” I said. “Come on, sister.” She pushed the last
piece of the bun into her mouth and swallowed it. “Want another?” I
said. She looked at me, chewing, her eyes black and unwinking and
friendly. I took the other two buns out and gave her one and bit into
the other. I asked a man where the station was and he showed me. “Come
on, sister.”
We reached the station and crossed the tracks, where the river was. A
bridge crossed it, and a street of jumbled frame houses followed the
river, backed onto it. A shabby street, but with an air heterogeneous
and vivid too. In the center of an untrimmed plot enclosed by a fence of
gaping and broken pickets stood an ancient lopsided surrey and a
weathered house from an upper window of which hung a garment of vivid
pink.
“Does that look like your house?” I said. She looked at me over the bun.
“This one?” I said, pointing. She just chewed, but it seemed to me that
I discerned something affirmative, acquiescent even if it wasn’t eager,
in her air. “This one?” I said. “Come on, then.” I entered the broken
gate. I looked back at her. “Here?” I said. “This look like your house?”
She nodded her head rapidly, looking at me, gnawing into the damp
halfmoon of the bread. We went on. A walk of broken random flags,
speared by fresh coarse blades of grass, led to the broken stoop. There
was no movement about the house at all, and the pink garment hanging in
no wind from the upper window. There was a bell pull with a porcelain
knob, attached to about six feet of wire when I stopped pulling and
knocked. The little girl had the crust edgeways in her chewing mouth.
A woman opened the door. She looked at me, then she spoke rapidly to the
little girl in Italian, with a rising inflexion, then a pause,
interrogatory. She spoke to her again, the little girl looking at her
across the end of the crust, pushing it into her mouth with a dirty
hand.
“She says she lives here,” I said. “I met her down town. Is this your
bread?”
“No spika,” the woman said. She spoke to the little girl again. The
little girl just looked at her.
“No live here?” I said. I pointed to the girl, then at her, then at the
door. The woman shook her head. She spoke rapidly. She came to the edge
of the porch and pointed down the road, speaking.
I nodded violently too. “You come show?” I said. I took her arm, waving
my other hand toward the road. She spoke swiftly, pointing. “You come
show,” I said, trying to lead her down the steps.
“Si, si,” she said, holding back, showing me whatever it was. I nodded
again.
“Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.” I went down the steps and walked toward the
gate, not running, but pretty fast. I reached the gate and stopped and
looked at her for a while. The crust was gone now, and she looked at me
with her black, friendly stare. The woman stood on the stoop, watching
us.
“Come on, then,” I said. “We’ll have to find the right one sooner or
later.”
She moved along just under my elbow. We went on. The houses all seemed
empty. Not a soul in sight. A sort of breathlessness that empty houses
have. Yet they couldnt all be empty. All the different rooms, if you
could just slice the walls away all of a sudden Madam, your daughter, if
you please. No. Madam, for God’s sake, your daughter. She moved along
just under my elbow, her shiny tight pigtails, and then the last house
played out and the road curved out of sight beyond a wall, following the
river. The woman was emerging from the broken gate, with a shawl over
her head and clutched under her chin. The road curved on, empty. I found
a coin and gave it to the little girl. A quarter. “Goodbye, sister,” I
said. Then I ran.
I ran fast, not looking back. Just before the road curved away I looked
back. She stood in the road, a small figure clasping the loaf of bread
to her filthy little dress, her eyes still and black and unwinking. I
ran on.
A lane turned from the road. I entered it and after a while I slowed to
a fast walk. The lane went between back premises—unpainted houses with
more of those gay and startling coloured garments on lines, a barn
broken-backed, decaying quietly among rank orchard trees, unpruned and
weed-choked, pink and white and murmurous with sunlight and with bees. I
looked back. The entrance to the lane was empty. I slowed still more, my
shadow pacing me, dragging its head through the weeds that hid the
fence.
The lane went back to a barred gate, became defunctive in grass, a mere
path scarred quietly into new grass. I climbed the gate into a woodlot
and crossed it and came to another wall and followed that one, my shadow
behind me now. There were vines and creepers where at home would be
honeysuckle. Coming and coming especially in the dusk when it rained,
getting honeysuckle all mixed up in it as though it were not enough
without that, not unbearable enough. _What did you let him for kiss
kiss_
_I didn’t let him I made him watching me getting mad What do you think
of that? Red print of my hand coming up through her face like turning a
light on under your hand her eyes going bright_
_It’s not for kissing I slapped you. Girl’s elbows at fifteen Father
said you swallow like you had a fishbone in your throat what’s the
matter with you and Caddy across the table not to look at me. It’s for
letting it be some darn town squirt I slapped you you will will you now
I guess you say calf rope. My red hand coming up out of her face. What
do you think of that scouring her head into the. Grass sticks
crisscrossed into the flesh tingling scouring her head. Say calf rope
say it_
_I didnt kiss a dirty girl like Natalie anyway_ The wall went into
shadow, and then my shadow, I had tricked it again. I had forgot about
the river curving along the road. I climbed the wall. And then she
watched me jump down, holding the loaf against her dress.
I stood in the weeds and we looked at one another for a while.
“Why didnt you tell me you lived out this way, sister?” The loaf was
wearing slowly out of the paper; already it needed a new one. “Well,
come on then and show me the house.” _not a dirty girl like Natalie. It
was raining we could hear it on the roof, sighing through the high sweet
emptiness of the barn._
_There? touching her_
_Not there_
_There? not raining hard but we couldnt hear anything but the roof and
as if it was my blood or her blood_
_She pushed me down the ladder and ran off and left me Caddy did_
_Was it there it hurt you when Caddy did ran off was it there_
_Oh_ She walked just under my elbow, the top of her patent leather head,
the loaf fraying out of the newspaper.
“If you dont get home pretty soon you’re going to wear that loaf out.
And then what’ll your mamma say?” _I bet I can lift you up_
_You cant I’m too heavy_
_Did Caddy go away did she go to the house you cant see the barn from
our house did you ever try to see the barn from_
_It was her fault she pushed me she ran away_
_I can lift you up see how I can_
_Oh her blood or my blood Oh_ We went on in the thin dust, our feet
silent as rubber in the thin dust where pencils of sun slanted in the
trees. And I could feel water again running swift and peaceful in the
secret shade.
“You live a long way, dont you. You’re mighty smart to go this far to
town by yourself.” _It’s like dancing sitting down did you ever dance
sitting down? We could hear the rain, a rat in the crib, the empty barn
vacant with horses. How do you hold to dance do you hold like this_
_Oh_
_I used to hold like this you thought I wasnt strong enough didn’t you_
_Oh Oh Oh Oh_
_I hold to use like this I mean did you hear what I said I said_
_oh oh oh oh_
The road went on, still and empty, the sun slanting more and more. Her
stiff little pigtails were bound at the tips with bits of crimson cloth.
A corner of the wrapping flapped a little as she walked, the nose of the
loaf naked. I stopped.
“Look here. Do you live down this road? We havent passed a house in a
mile, almost.”
She looked at me, black and secret and friendly.
“Where do you live, sister? Dont you live back there in town?”
There was a bird somewhere in the woods, beyond the broken and
infrequent slanting of sunlight.
“Your papa’s going to be worried about you. Dont you reckon you’ll get a
whipping for not coming straight home with that bread?”
The bird whistled again, invisible, a sound meaningless and profound,
inflexionless, ceasing as though cut off with the blow of a knife, and
again, and that sense of water swift and peaceful above secret places,
felt, not seen not heard.
“Oh, hell, sister.” About half the paper hung limp. “That’s not doing
any good now.” I tore it off and dropped it beside the road. “Come on.
We’ll have to go back to town. We’ll go back along the river.”
We left the road. Among the moss little pale flowers grew, and the sense
of water mute and unseen. _I hold to use like this I mean I use to hold
She stood in the door looking at us her hands on her hips_
_You pushed me it was your fault it hurt me too_
_We were dancing sitting down I bet Caddy cant dance sitting down_
_Stop that stop that_
_I was just brushing the trash off the back of your dress_
_You keep your nasty old hands off of me it was your fault you pushed me
down I’m mad at you_
_I dont care she looked at us stay mad she went away_ We began to hear
the shouts, the splashings; I saw a brown body gleam for an instant.
_Stay mad. My shirt was getting wet and my hair. Across the roof hearing
the roof loud now I could see Natalie going through the garden among the
rain. Get wet I hope you catch pneumonia go on home Cowface. I jumped
hard as I could into the hogwallow the mud yellowed up to my waist
stinking I kept on plunging until I fell down and rolled over in it_
“Hear them in swimming, sister? I wouldn’t mind doing that myself.” If I
had time. When I have time. I could hear my watch. _mud was warmer than
the rain it smelled awful. She had her back turned I went around in
front of her. You know what I was doing? She turned her back I went
around in front of her the rain creeping into the mud flatting her