The sound and the fury
twilight, into twilight and the sense of water peaceful and swift
beyond. Then the car went on, the draught building steadily up in the
open door until it was drawing steadily through the car with the odour
of summer and darkness except honeysuckle. Honeysuckle was the saddest
odour of all, I think. I remember lots of them. Wistaria was one. On the
rainy days when Mother wasnt feeling quite bad enough to stay away from
the windows we used to play under it. When Mother stayed in bed Dilsey
would put old clothes on us and let us go out in the rain because she
said rain never hurt young folks. But if Mother was up we always began
by playing on the porch until she said we were making too much noise,
then we went out and played under the wistaria frame.
This was where I saw the river for the last time this morning, about
here. I could feel water beyond the twilight, smell. When it bloomed in
the spring and it rained the smell was everywhere you didnt notice it so
much at other times but when it rained the smell began to come into the
house at twilight either it would rain more at twilight or there was
something in the light itself but it always smelled strongest then until
I would lie in bed thinking when will it stop when will it stop. The
draft in the door smelled of water, a damp steady breath. Sometimes I
could put myself to sleep saying that over and over until after the
honeysuckle got all mixed up in it the whole thing came to symbolise
night and unrest I seemed to be lying neither asleep nor awake looking
down a long corridor of grey halflight where all stable things had
become shadowy paradoxical all I had done shadows all I had felt
suffered taking visible form antic and perverse mocking without
relevance inherent themselves with the denial of the significance they
should have affirmed thinking I was I was not who was not was not who.
I could smell the curves of the river beyond the dusk and I saw the last
light supine and tranquil upon tideflats like pieces of broken mirror,
then beyond them lights began in the pale clear air, trembling a little
like butterflies hovering a long way off. Benjamin the child of. How he
used to sit before that mirror. Refuge unfailing in which conflict
tempered silenced reconciled. Benjamin the child of mine old age held
hostage into Egypt. O Benjamin. Dilsey said it was because Mother was
too proud for him. They come into white people’s lives like that in
sudden sharp black trickles that isolate white facts for an instant in
unarguable truth like under a microscope; the rest of the time just
voices that laugh when you see nothing to laugh at, tears when no reason
for tears. They will bet on the odd or even number of mourners at a
funeral. A brothel full of them in Memphis went into a religious trance
ran naked into the street. It took three policemen to subdue one of
them. Yes Jesus O good man Jesus O that good man.
The car stopped. I got out, with them looking at my eye. When the
trolley came it was full. I stopped on the back platform.
“Seats up front,” the conductor said. I looked into the car. There were
no seats on the left side.
“I’m not going far,” I said. “I’ll just stand here.”
We crossed the river. The bridge, that is, arching slow and high into
space, between silence and nothingness where lights—yellow and red and
green—trembled in the clear air, repeating themselves.
“Better go up front and get a seat,” the conductor said.
“I get off pretty soon,” I said. “A couple of blocks.”
I got off before we reached the postoffice. They’d all be sitting around
somewhere by now though, and then I was hearing my watch and I began to
listen for the chimes and I touched Shreve’s letter through my coat, the
bitten shadows of the elms flowing upon my hand. And then as I turned
into the quad the chimes did begin and I went on while the notes came up
like ripples on a pool and passed me and went on, saying Quarter to
what? All right. Quarter to what.
Our windows were dark. The entrance was empty. I walked close to the
left wall when I entered, but it was empty: just the stairs curving up
into shadows echoes of feet in the sad generations like light dust upon
the shadows, my feet waking them like dust, lightly to settle again.
I could see the letter before I turned the light on, propped against a
book on the table so I would see it. Calling him my husband. And then
Spoade said they were going somewhere, would not be back until late, and
Mrs Bland would need another cavalier. But I would have seen him and he
cannot get another car for an hour because after six oclock. I took out
my watch and listened to it clicking away, not knowing it couldnt even
lie. Then I laid it face up on the table and took Mrs Bland’s letter and
tore it across and dropped the pieces into the waste basket and took off
my coat, vest, collar, tie and shirt. The tie was spoiled too, but then
niggers. Maybe a pattern of blood he could call that the one Christ was
wearing. I found the gasoline in Shreve’s room and spread the vest on
the table, where it would be flat, and opened the gasoline.
_the first car in town a girl Girl that’s what Jason couldn’t bear smell
of gasoline making him sick then got madder than ever because a girl
Girl had no sister but Benjamin Benjamin the child of my sorrowful if
I’d just had a mother so I could say Mother Mother_ It took a lot of
gasoline, and then I couldnt tell if it was still the stain or just the
gasoline. It had started the cut to smarting again so when I went to
wash I hung the vest on a chair and lowered the light cord so that the
bulb would be drying the splotch. I washed my face and hands, but even
then I could smell it within the soap stinging, constricting the
nostrils a little. Then I opened the bag and took the shirt and collar
and tie out and put the bloody ones in and closed the bag, and dressed.
While I was brushing my hair the half hour went. But there was until the
three quarters anyway, except suppose _seeing on the rushing darkness
only his own face no broken feather unless two of them but not two like
that going to Boston the same night then my face his face for an instant
across the crashing when out of darkness two lighted windows in rigid
fleeing crash gone his face and mine just I see saw did I see not
goodbye the marquee empty of eating the road empty in darkness in
silence the bridge arching into silence darkness sleep the water
peaceful and swift not goodbye_
I turned out the light and went into my bedroom, out of the gasoline but
I could still smell it. I stood at the window the curtains moved slow
out of the darkness touching my face like someone breathing asleep,
breathing slow into the darkness again, leaving the touch. _After they
had gone up stairs Mother lay back in her chair, the camphor
handkerchief to her mouth. Father hadn’t moved he still sat beside her
holding her hand the bellowing hammering away like no place for it in
silence_ When I was little there was a picture in one of our books, a
dark place into which a single weak ray of light came slanting upon two
faces lifted out of the shadow. _You know what I’d do if I were King?_
she never was a queen or a fairy she was always a king or a giant or a
general _I’d break that place open and drag them out and I’d whip them
good_ It was torn out, jagged out. I was glad. I’d have to turn back to
it until the dungeon was Mother herself she and Father upward into weak
light holding hands and us lost somewhere below even them without even a
ray of light. Then the honeysuckle got into it. As soon as I turned off
the light and tried to go to sleep it would begin to come into the room
in waves building and building up until I would have to pant to get any
air at all out of it until I would have to get up and feel my way like
when I was a little boy _hands can see touching in the mind shaping
unseen door Door now nothing hands can see_ My nose could see gasoline,
the vest on the table, the door. The corridor was still empty of all the
feet in sad generations seeking water. _yet the eyes unseeing clenched
like teeth not disbelieving doubting even the absence of pain shin ankle
knee the long invisible flowing of the stair-railing where a misstep in
the darkness filled with sleeping Mother Father Caddy Jason Maury door I
am not afraid only Mother Father Caddy Jason Maury getting so far ahead
sleeping I will sleep fast when I door Door door_ It was empty too, the
pipes, the porcelain, the stained quiet walls, the throne of
contemplation. I had forgotten the glass, but I could _hands can see
cooling fingers invisible swan-throat where less than Moses rod the
glass touch tentative not to drumming lean cool throat drumming cooling
the metal the glass full overfull cooling the glass the fingers flushing
sleep leaving the taste of dampened sleep in the long silence of the
throat_ I returned up the corridor, waking the lost feet in whispering
battalions in the silence, into the gasoline, the watch telling its
furious lie on the dark table. Then the curtains breathing out of the
dark upon my face, leaving the breathing upon my face. A quarter hour
yet. And then I’ll not be. The peacefullest words. Peacefullest words.
_Non fui. Sum. Fui. Nom sum._ Somewhere I heard bells once. Mississippi
or Massachusetts. I was. I am not. Massachusetts or Mississippi. Shreve
has a bottle in his trunk. _Aren’t you even going to open it_ Mr and Mrs
Jason Richmond Compson announce the _Three times. Days. Aren’t you even
going to open it_ marriage of their daughter Candace _that liquor
teaches you to confuse the means with the end_. I am. Drink. I was not.
Let us sell Benjy’s pasture so that Quentin may go to Harvard and I may
knock my bones together and together. I will be dead in. Was it one year
Caddy said. Shreve has a bottle in his trunk. Sir I will not need
Shreve’s I have sold Benjy’s pasture and I can be dead in Harvard Caddy
said in the caverns and the grottoes of the sea tumbling peacefully to
the wavering tides because Harvard is such a fine sound forty acres is
no high price for a fine sound. A find dead sound we will swap Benjy’s
pasture for a fine dead sound. It will last him a long time because he
cannot hear it unless he can smell it _as soon as she came in the door
he began to cry_ I thought all the time it was just one of those town
squirts that Father was always teasing her about until. I didnt notice
him any more than any other stranger drummer or what thought they were
army shirts until all of a sudden I knew he wasn’t thinking of me at all
as a potential source of harm, but was thinking of her when he looked at
me was looking at me through her like through a piece of coloured glass
_why must you meddle with me dont you know it wont do any good I thought
you’d have left that for Mother and Jason_
_did Mother set Jason to spy on you_ I wouldnt have.
_Women only use other people’s codes of honour it’s because she loves
Caddy_ staying downstairs even when she was sick so Father couldnt kid
Uncle Maury before Jason Father said Uncle Maury was too poor a
classicist to risk the blind immortal boy in person he should have
chosen Jason because Jason would have made only the same kind of blunder
Uncle Maury himself would have made not one to get him a black eye the
Patterson boy was smaller than Jason too they sold the kites for a
nickel apiece until the trouble over finances Jason got a new partner
still smaller one small enough anyway because T. P. said Jason still
treasurer but Father said why should Uncle Maury work if he father could
support five or six niggers that did nothing at all but sit with their
feet in the oven he certainly could board and lodge Uncle Maury now and
then and lend him a little money who kept his Father’s belief in the