The sound and the fury
She took the match, but she didn’t strike it. She sat there, looking at
the check. Just like I said it would be.
“I hate to do it,” she says, “To increase your burden by adding
Quentin. . . .”
“I guess we’ll get along,” I says. “Come on. Get it over with.”
But she just sat there, holding the check.
“This one is on a different bank,” she says. “They have been on an
Indianapolis bank.”
“Yes,” I says. “Women are allowed to do that too.”
“Do what?” she says.
“Keep money in two different banks,” I says.
“Oh,” she says. She looked at the check a while. “I’m glad to know she’s
so . . . she has so much . . . God sees that I am doing right,” she
says.
“Come on,” I says, “Finish it. Get the fun over.”
“Fun?” she says, “When I think—”
“I thought you were burning this two hundred dollars a month for fun,” I
says. “Come on, now. Want me to strike the match?”
“I could bring myself to accept them,” she says, “For my childrens’
sake. I have no pride.”
“You’d never be satisfied,” I says, “You know you wouldn’t. You’ve
settled that once, let it stay settled. We can get along.”
“I leave everything to you,” she says. “But sometimes I become afraid
that in doing this I am depriving you all of what is rightfully yours.
Perhaps I shall be punished for it. If you want me to, I will smother my
pride and accept them.”
“What would be the good in beginning now, when you’ve been destroying
them for fifteen years?” I says. “If you keep on doing it, you have lost
nothing, but if you’d begin to take them now, you’ll have lost fifty
thousand dollars. We’ve got along so far, haven’t we?” I says. “I
haven’t seen you in the poorhouse yet.”
“Yes,” she says, “We Bascombs need nobody’s charity. Certainly not that
of a fallen woman.”
She struck the match and lit the check and put it in the shovel, and
then the envelope, and watched them burn.
“You dont know what it is,” she says, “Thank God you will never know
what a mother feels.”
“There are lots of women in this world no better than her,” I says.
“But they are not my daughters,” she says. “It’s not myself,” she says,
“I’d gladly take her back, sins and all, because she is my flesh and
blood. It’s for Quentin’s sake.”
Well, I could have said it wasn’t much chance of anybody hurting Quentin
much, but like I say I dont expect much but I do want to eat and sleep
without a couple of women squabbling and crying in the house.
“And yours,” she says. “I know how you feel toward her.”
“Let her come back,” I says, “far as I’m concerned.”
“No,” she says. “I owe that to your father’s memory.”
“When he was trying all the time to persuade you to let her come home
when Herbert threw her out?” I says.
“You dont understand,” she says. “I know you dont intend to make it more
difficult for me. But it’s my place to suffer for my children,” she
says. “I can bear it.”
“Seems to me you go to a lot of unnecessary trouble doing it,” I says.
The paper burned out. I carried it to the grate and put it in. “It just
seems a shame to me to burn up good money,” I says.
“Let me never see the day when my children will have to accept that, the
wages of sin,” she says. “I’d rather see even you dead in your coffin
first.”
“Have it your way,” I says. “Are we going to have dinner soon?” I says,
“Because if we’re not, I’ll have to go on back. We’re pretty busy
today.” She got up. “I’ve told her once,” I says. “It seems she’s
waiting on Quentin or Luster or somebody. Here, I’ll call her. Wait.”
But she went to the head of the stairs and called.
“Quentin aint come yit,” Dilsey says.
“Well, I’ll have to get on back,” I says. “I can get a sandwich
downtown. I dont want to interfere with Dilsey’s arrangements,” I says.
Well, that got her started again, with Dilsey hobbling and mumbling back
and forth, saying,
“All right, all right, Ise puttin hit on fast as I kin.”
“I try to please you all,” Mother says, “I try to make things as easy
for you as I can.”
“I’m not complaining, am I?” I says. “Have I said a word except I had to
go back to work?”
“I know,” she says, “I know you haven’t had the chance the others had,
that you’ve had to bury yourself in a little country store. I wanted you
to get ahead. I knew your father would never realise that you were the
only one who had any business sense, and then when everything else
failed I believed that when she married, and Herbert . . . after his
promise . . .”
“Well, he was probably lying too,” I says. “He may not have even had a
bank. And if he had, I dont reckon he’d have to come all the way to
Mississippi to get a man for it.”
We ate awhile. I could hear Ben in the kitchen, where Luster was feeding
him. Like I say, if we’ve got to feed another mouth and she wont take
that money, why not send him down to Jackson. He’ll be happier there,
with people like him. I says God knows there’s little enough room for
pride in this family, but it dont take much pride to not like to see a
thirty year old man playing around the yard with a nigger boy, running
up and down the fence and lowing like a cow whenever they play golf over
there. I says if they’d sent him to Jackson at first we’d all be better
off today. I says, you’ve done your duty by him; you’ve done all anybody
can expect of you and more than most folks would do, so why not send him
there and get that much benefit out of the taxes we pay. Then she says,
“I’ll be gone soon. I know I’m just a burden to you” and I says “You’ve
been saying that so long that I’m beginning to believe you” only I says
you’d better be sure and not let me know you’re gone because I’ll sure
have him on number seventeen that night and I says I think I know a
place where they’ll take her too and the name of it’s not Milk street
and Honey avenue either. Then she begun to cry and I says All right all
right I have as much pride about my kinfolks as anybody even if I dont
always know where they come from.
We ate for awhile. Mother sent Dilsey to the front to look for Quentin
again.
“I keep telling you she’s not coming to dinner,” I says.
“She knows better than that,” Mother says, “She knows I dont permit her
to run about the streets and not come home at meal time. Did you look
good, Dilsey?”
“Dont let her, then,” I says.
“What can I do,” she says. “You have all of you flouted me. Always.”
“If you wouldn’t come interfering, I’d make her mind,” I says. “It
wouldn’t take me but about one day to straighten her out.”
“You’d be too brutal with her,” she says. “You have your Uncle Maury’s
temper.”
That reminded me of the letter. I took it out and handed it to her. “You
wont have to open it,” I says. “The bank will let you know how much it
is this time.”
“It’s addressed to you,” she says.
“Go on and open it,” I says. She opened it and read it and handed it to
me.
“ ‘My dear young nephew,’ it says,
‘You will be glad to learn that I am now in a position to avail
myself of an opportunity regarding which, for reasons which I
shall make obvious to you, I shall not go into details until I
have an opportunity to divulge it to you in a more secure
manner. My business experience has taught me to be chary of
committing anything of a confidential nature to any more
concrete medium than speech, and my extreme precaution in this
instance should give you some inkling of its value. Needless to
say, I have just completed a most exhaustive examination of all
its phases, and I feel no hesitancy in telling you that it is
that sort of golden chance that comes but once in a lifetime,
and I now see clearly before me that goal toward which I have
long and unflaggingly striven: i.e., the ultimate solidification
of my affairs by which I may restore to its rightful position
that family of which I have the honour to be the sole remaining
male descendant; that family in which I have ever included your
lady mother and her children.
‘As it so happens, I am not quite in a position to avail myself
of this opportunity to the uttermost which it warrants, but
rather than go out of the family to do so, I am today drawing
upon your Mother’s bank for the small sum necessary to
complement my own initial investment, for which I herewith
enclose, as a matter of formality, my note of hand at eight
percent per annum. Needless to say, this is merely a formality,
to secure your Mother in the event of that circumstance of which
man is ever the plaything and sport. For naturally I shall
employ this sum as though it were my own and so permit your
Mother to avail herself of this opportunity which my exhaustive
investigation has shown to be a bonanza—if you will permit the
vulgarism—of the first water and purest ray serene.
‘This is in confidence, you will understand, from one business
man to another; we will harvest our own vineyards, eh? And
knowing your Mother’s delicate health and that timorousness
which such delicately nutured Southern ladies would naturally
feel regarding matters of business, and their charming proneness
to divulge unwittingly such matters in conversation, I would
suggest that you do not mention it to her at all. On second
thought, I advise you not to do so. It might be better to simply
restore this sum to the bank at some future date, say, in a lump
sum with the other small sums for which I am indebted to her,
and say nothing about it at all. It is our duty to shield her
from the crass material world as much as possible.
‘Your affectionate Uncle,
‘Maury L. Bascomb.’ ”
“What do you want to do about it?” I says, flipping it across the table.
“I know you grudge what I give him,” she says.
“It’s your money,” I says. “If you want to throw it to the birds even,
it’s your business.”
“He’s my own brother,” Mother says. “He’s the last Bascomb. When we are
gone there wont be any more of them.”
“That’ll be hard on somebody, I guess,” I says. “All right, all right,”
I says, “It’s your money. Do as you please with it. You want me to tell
the bank to pay it?”
“I know you begrudge him,” she says. “I realise the burden on your
shoulders. When I’m gone it will be easier on you.”
“I could make it easier right now,” I says. “All right, all right, I
wont mention it again. Move all bedlam in here if you want to.”
“He’s your own brother,” she says, “Even if he is afflicted.”
“I’ll take your bank book,” I says. “I’ll draw my check today.”
“He kept you waiting six days,” she says. “Are you sure the business is
sound? It seems strange to me that a solvent business cannot pay its
employees promptly.”
“He’s all right,” I says, “Safe as a bank. I tell him not to bother
about mine until we get done collecting every month. That’s why it’s
late sometimes.”
“I just couldn’t bear to have you lose the little I had to invest for
you,” she says. “I’ve often thought that Earl is not a good business
man. I know he doesn’t take you into his confidence to the extent that
your investment in the business should warrant. I’m going to speak to
him.”
“No, you let him alone,” I says. “It’s his business.”
“You have a thousand dollars in it.”
“You let him alone,” I says, “I’m watching things. I have your power of
attorney. It’ll be all right.”
“You dont know what a comfort you are to me,” she says. “You have always
been my pride and joy, but when you came to me of your own accord and
insisted on banking your salary each month in my name, I thanked God it
was you left me if they had to be taken.”
“They were all right,” I says. “They did the best they could, I reckon.”
“When you talk that way I know you are thinking bitterly of your