The sound and the fury
I hit him I was still trying to hit him long after he was holding my
wrists but I still tried then it was like I was looking at him through a
piece of coloured glass I could hear my blood and then I could see the
sky again and branches against it and the sun slanting through them and
he holding me on my feet
did you hit me
I couldnt hear
what
yes how do you feel
all right let go
he let me go I leaned against the rail
do you feel all right
let me alone Im all right
can you make it home all right
go on let me alone
youd better not try to walk take my horse
no you go on
you can hang the reins on the pommel and turn him loose he’ll go back to
the stable
let me alone you go on and let me alone
I leaned on the rail looking at the water I heard him untie the horse
and ride off and after a while I couldnt hear anything but the water and
then the bird again I left the bridge and sat down with my back against
a tree and leaned my head against the tree and shut my eyes a patch of
sun came through and fell across my eyes and I moved a little further
around the tree I heard the bird again and the water and then everything
sort of rolled away and I didnt feel anything at all I felt almost good
after all those days and the nights with honeysuckle coming up out of
the darkness into my room where I was trying to sleep even when after a
while I knew that he hadnt hit me that he had lied about that for her
sake too and that I had just passed out like a girl but even that didnt
matter anymore and I sat there against the tree with little flecks of
sunlight brushing across my face like yellow leaves on a twig listening
to the water and not thinking about anything at all even when I heard
the horse coming fast I sat there with my eyes closed and heard its feet
bunch scuttering the hissing sand and feet running and her hard running
hands
fool fool are you hurt
I opened my eyes her hands running on my face
I didnt know which way until I heard the pistol I didnt know where I
didnt think he and you running off slipping I didnt think he would have
she held my face between her hands bumping my head against the tree
stop stop that
I caught her wrists
quit that quit it
I knew he wouldnt I knew he wouldnt
she tried to bump my head against the tree
I told him never to speak to me again I told him
she tried to break her wrists free
let me go
stop it I’m stronger than you stop it now
let me go Ive got to catch him and ask his let me go Quentin please let
me go let me go
all at once she quit her wrists went lax
yes I can tell him I can make him believe anytime I can make him
Caddy
she hadnt hitched Prince he was liable to strike out for home if the
notion took him
anytime he will believe me
do you love him Caddy
do I what
she looked at me then everything emptied out of her eyes and they looked
like the eyes in the statues blank and unseeing and serene
put your hand against my throat
she took my hand and held it flat against her throat
now say his name
Dalton Ames
I felt the first surge of blood there it surged in strong accelerating
beats
say it again
her face looked off into the trees where the sun slanted and where the
bird
say it again
Dalton Ames
her blood surged steadily beating and beating against my hand
It kept on running for a long time, but my face felt cold and sort of
dead, and my eye, and the cut place on my finger was smarting again. I
could hear Shreve working the pump, then he came back with the basin and
a round blob of twilight wobbling in it, with a yellow edge like a
fading balloon, then my reflection. I tried to see my face in it.
“Has it stopped?” Shreve said. “Give me the rag.” He tried to take it
from my hand.
“Look out,” I said, “I can do it. Yes, it’s about stopped now.” I dipped
the rag again, breaking the balloon. The rag stained the water. “I wish
I had a clean one.”
“You need a piece of beefsteak for that eye,” Shreve said. “Damn if you
wont have a shiner tomorrow. The son of a bitch,” he said.
“Did I hurt him any?” I wrung out the handkerchief and tried to clean
the blood off of my vest.
“You cant get that off,” Shreve said. “You’ll have to send it to the
cleaner’s. Come on, hold it on your eye, why dont you.”
“I can get some of it off,” I said. But I wasn’t doing much good. “What
sort of shape is my collar in?”
“I dont know,” Shreve said. “Hold it against your eye. Here.”
“Look out,” I said. “I can do it. Did I hurt him any?”
“You may have hit him. I may have looked away just then or blinked or
something. He boxed the hell out of you. He boxed you all over the
place. What did you want to fight him with your fists for? You goddamn
fool. How do you feel?”
“I feel fine,” I said. “I wonder if I can get something to clean my
vest.”
“Oh, forget your damn clothes. Does your eye hurt?”
“I feel fine,” I said. Everything was sort of violet and still, the sky
green paling into gold beyond the gable of the house and a plume of
smoke rising from the chimney without any wind. I heard the pump again.
A man was filling a pail, watching us across his pumping shoulder. A
woman crossed the door, but she didnt look out. I could hear a cow
lowing somewhere.
“Come on,” Shreve said, “Let your clothes alone and put that rag on your
eye. I’ll send your suit out first thing tomorrow.”
“All right. I’m sorry I didn’t bleed on him a little, at least.”
“Son of a bitch,” Shreve said. Spoade came out of the house, talking to
the woman I reckon, and crossed the yard. He looked at me with his cold,
quizzical eyes.
“Well, bud,” he said, looking at me, “I’ll be damned if you dont go to a
lot of trouble to have your fun. Kidnapping, then fighting. What do you
do on your holidays? burn houses?”
“I’m all right,” I said. “What did Mrs Bland say?”
“She’s giving Gerald hell for bloodying you up. She’ll give you hell for
letting him, when she sees you. She dont object to the fighting, it’s
the blood that annoys her. I think you lost caste with her a little by
not holding your blood better. How do you feel?”
“Sure,” Shreve said, “If you cant be a Bland, the next best thing is to
commit adultery with one or get drunk and fight him, as the case may
be.”
“Quite right,” Spoade said. “But I didnt know Quentin was drunk.”
“He wasnt,” Shreve said. “Do you have to be drunk to want to hit that
son of a bitch?”
“Well, I think I’d have to be pretty drunk to try it, after seeing how
Quentin came out. Where’d he learn to box?”
“He’s been going to Mike’s every day, over in town,” I said.
“He has?” Spoade said. “Did you know that when you hit him?”
“I dont know,” I said. “I guess so. Yes.”
“Wet it again,” Shreve said. “Want some fresh water?”
“This is all right,” I said. I dipped the cloth again and held it to my
eye. “Wish I had something to clean my vest.” Spoade was still watching
me.
“Say,” he said, “What did you hit him for? What was it he said?”
“I dont know. I dont know why I did.”
“The first I knew was when you jumped up all of a sudden and said, ‘Did
you ever have a sister? Did you?’ and when he said No, you hit him. I
noticed you kept on looking at him, but you didnt seem to be paying any
attention to what anybody was saying until you jumped up and asked him
if he had any sisters.”
“Ah, he was blowing off as usual,” Shreve said, “about his women. You
know: like he does, before girls, so they dont know exactly what he’s
saying. All his damn innuendo and lying and a lot of stuff that dont
make sense even. Telling us about some wench that he made a date with to
meet at a dance hall in Atlantic City and stood her up and went to the
hotel and went to bed and how he lay there being sorry for her waiting
on the pier for him, without him there to give her what she wanted.
Talking about the body’s beauty and the sorry ends thereof and how tough
women have it, without anything else they can do except lie on their
backs. Leda lurking in the bushes, whimpering and moaning for the swan,
see. The son of a bitch. I’d hit him myself. Only I’d grabbed up her
damn hamper of wine and done it if it had been me.”
“Oh,” Spoade said, “the champion of dames. Bud, you excite not only
admiration, but horror.” He looked at me, cold and quizzical. “Good
God,” he said.
“I’m sorry I hit him,” I said. “Do I look too bad to go back and get it
over with?”
“Apologies, hell,” Shreve said, “Let them go to hell. We’re going to
town.”
“He ought to go back so they’ll know he fights like a gentleman,” Spoade
said. “Gets licked like one, I mean.”
“Like this?” Shreve said, “With his clothes all over blood?”
“Why, all right,” Spoade said, “You know best.”
“He cant go around in his undershirt,” Shreve said, “He’s not a senior
yet. Come on, let’s go to town.”
“You neednt come,” I said. “You go on back to the picnic.”
“Hell with them,” Shreve said. “Come on here.”
“What’ll I tell them?” Spoade said. “Tell them you and Quentin had a
fight too?”
“Tell them nothing,” Shreve said. “Tell her her option expired at
sunset. Come on, Quentin. I’ll ask that woman where the nearest
interurban—”
“No,” I said, “I’m not going back to town.”
Shreve stopped, looking at me. Turning, his glasses looked like small
yellow moons.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not going back to town yet. You go on back to the picnic. Tell them
I wouldnt come back because my clothes were spoiled.”
“Look here,” he said, “What are you up to?”
“Nothing. I’m all right. You and Spoade go on back. I’ll see you
tomorrow.” I went on across the yard, toward the road.
“Do you know where the station is?” Shreve said.
“I’ll find it. I’ll see you all tomorrow. Tell Mrs Bland I’m sorry I
spoiled her party.” They stood watching me. I went around the house. A
rock path went down to the road. Roses grew on both sides of the path. I
went through the gate, onto the road. It dropped downhill, toward the
woods, and I could make out the auto beside the road. I went up the
hill. The light increased as I mounted, and before I reached the top I
heard a car. It sounded far away across the twilight and I stopped and
listened to it. I couldnt make out the auto any longer, but Shreve was
standing in the road before the house, looking up the hill. Behind him
the yellow light lay like a wash of paint on the roof of the house. I
lifted my hand and went on over the hill, listening to the car. Then the
house was gone and I stopped in the green and yellow light and heard the
car growing louder and louder, until just as it began to die away it
ceased all together. I waited until I heard it start again. Then I went
on.
As I descended the light dwindled slowly, yet at the same time without
altering its quality, as if I and not light were changing, decreasing,
though even when the road ran into trees you could have read a
newspaper. Pretty soon I came to a lane. I turned into it. It was closer
and darker than the road, but when it came out at the trolley
stop—another wooden marquee—the light was still unchanged. After the
lane it seemed brighter, as though I had walked through night in the
lane and come out into morning again. Pretty soon the car came. I got on
it, they turning to look at my eye, and found a seat on the left side.
The lights were on in the car, so while we ran between trees I couldnt
see anything except my own face and a woman across the aisle with a hat
sitting right on top of her head, with a broken feather in it, but when
we ran out of the trees I could see the twilight again, that quality of
light as if time really had stopped for a while, with the sun hanging
just under the horizon, and then we passed the marquee where the old man
had been eating out of the sack, and the road going on under the