The sound and the fury
He loaded himself mountainously with stove wood. He could not see over
it, and he staggered to the steps and up them and blundered crashing
against the door, shedding billets. Then Dilsey came and opened the door
for him and he blundered across the kitchen. “You, Luster!” she shouted,
but he had already hurled the wood into the box with a thunderous crash.
“Hah!” he said.
“Is you tryin to wake up de whole house?” Dilsey said. She hit him on
the back of his head with the flat of her hand. “Go on up dar and git
Benjy dressed, now.”
“Yessum,” he said. He went toward the outer door.
“Whar you gwine?” Dilsey said.
“I thought I better go round de house en in by de front, so I wont wake
up Miss Cahline en dem.”
“You go on up dem backstairs like I tole you en git Benjy’s clothes on
him,” Dilsey said. “Go on, now.”
“Yessum,” Luster said. He returned and left by the diningroom door.
After awhile it ceased to flap. Dilsey prepared to make biscuit. As she
ground the sifter steadily above the bread board, she sang, to herself
at first, something without particular tune or words, repetitive,
mournful and plaintive, austere, as she ground a faint, steady snowing
of flour onto the bread board. The stove had begun to heat the room and
to fill it with murmurous minors of the fire, and presently she was
singing louder, as if her voice too had been thawed out by the growing
warmth, and then Mrs Compson called her name again from within the
house. Dilsey raised her face as if her eyes could and did penetrate the
walls and ceiling and saw the old woman in her quilted dressing gown at
the head of the stairs, calling her name with machinelike regularity.
“Oh, Lawd,” Dilsey said. She set the sifter down and swept up the hem of
her apron and wiped her hands and caught up the bottle from the chair on
which she had laid it and gathered her apron about the handle of the
kettle which was now jetting faintly. “Jes a minute,” she called, “De
water jes dis minute got hot.”
It was not the bottle which Mrs Compson wanted, however, and clutching
it by the neck like a dead hen Dilsey went to the foot of the stairs and
looked upward.
“Aint Luster up dar wid him?” she said.
“Luster hasn’t been in the house. I’ve been lying here listening for
him. I knew he would be late, but I did hope he’d come in time to keep
Benjamin from disturbing Jason on Jason’s one day in the week to sleep
in the morning.”
“I dont see how you expect anybody to sleep, wid you standin in de hall,
holl’in at folks fum de crack of dawn,” Dilsey said. She began to mount
the stairs, toiling heavily. “I sont dat boy up dar half hour ago.”
Mrs Compson watched her, holding the dressing gown under her chin. “What
are you going to do?” she said.
“Gwine git Benjy dressed en bring him down to de kitchen, whar he wont
wake Jason en Quentin,” Dilsey said.
“Haven’t you started breakfast yet?”
“I’ll tend to dat too,” Dilsey said. “You better git back in bed twell
Luster make yo fire. Hit cold dis mawnin.”
“I know it,” Mrs Compson said. “My feet are like ice. They were so cold
they waked me up.” She watched Dilsey mount the stairs. It took her a
long while. “You know how it frets Jason when breakfast is late,” Mrs
Compson said.
“I cant do but one thing at a time,” Dilsey said. “You git on back to
bed, fo I has you on my hands dis mawnin too.”
“If you’re going to drop everything to dress Benjamin, I’d better come
down and get breakfast. You know as well as I do how Jason acts when
it’s late.”
“En who gwine eat yo messin?” Dilsey said. “Tell me dat. Go on now,” she
said, toiling upward. Mrs Compson stood watching her as she mounted,
steadying herself against the wall with one hand, holding her skirts up
with the other.
“Are you going to wake him up just to dress him?” she said.
Dilsey stopped. With her foot lifted to the next step she stood there,
her hand against the wall and the grey splash of the window behind her,
motionless and shapeless she loomed.
“He aint awake den?” she said.
“He wasn’t when I looked in,” Mrs Compson said. “But it’s past his time.
He never does sleep after half past seven. You know he doesn’t.”
Dilsey said nothing. She made no further move, but though she could not
see her save as a blobby shape without depth, Mrs Compson knew that she
had lowered her face a little and that she stood now like a cow in the
rain, as she held the empty water bottle by its neck.
“You’re not the one who has to bear it,” Mrs Compson said. “It’s not
your responsibility. You can go away. You dont have to bear the brunt of
it day in and day out. You owe nothing to them, to Mr Compson’s memory.
I know you have never had any tenderness for Jason. You’ve never tried
to conceal it.”
Dilsey said nothing. She turned slowly and descended, lowering her body
from step to step, as a small child does, her hand against the wall.
“You go on and let him alone,” she said. “Dont go in dar no mo, now.
I’ll send Luster up soon as I find him. Let him alone, now.”
She returned to the kitchen. She looked into the stove, then she drew
her apron over her head and donned the overcoat and opened the outer
door and looked up and down the yard. The weather drove upon her flesh,
harsh and minute, but the scene was empty of all else that moved. She
descended the steps, gingerly, as if for silence, and went around the
corner of the kitchen. As she did so Luster emerged quickly and
innocently from the cellar door.
Dilsey stopped. “Whut you up to?” she said.
“Nothin,” Luster said, “Mr Jason say fer me to find out whar dat water
leak in de cellar fum.”
“En when wus hit he say fer you to do dat?” Dilsey said. “Last New
Year’s day, wasn’t hit?”
“I thought I jes be lookin whiles dey sleep,” Luster said. Dilsey went
to the cellar door. He stood aside and she peered down into the
obscurity odorous of dank earth and mould and rubber.
“Huh,” Dilsey said. She looked at Luster again. He met her gaze blandly,
innocent and open. “I dont know whut you up to, but you aint got no
business doin hit. You jes tryin me too dis mawnin cause de others is,
aint you? You git on up dar en see to Benjy, you hear?”
“Yessum,” Luster said. He went on toward the kitchen steps, swiftly.
“Here,” Dilsey said, “You git me another armful of wood while I got
you.”
“Yessum,” he said. He passed her on the steps and went to the woodpile.
When he blundered again at the door a moment later, again invisible and
blind within and beyond his wooden avatar, Dilsey opened the door and
guided him across the kitchen with a firm hand.
“Jes thow hit at dat box again,” she said, “Jes thow hit.”
“I got to,” Luster said, panting, “I cant put hit down no other way.”
“Den you stand dar en hold hit a while,” Dilsey said. She unloaded him a
stick at a time. “Whut got into you dis mawnin? Here I sont you fer wood
en you aint never brought mo’n six sticks at a time to save yo life
twell today. Whut you fixin to ax me kin you do now? Aint dat show lef
town yit?”
“Yessum. Hit done gone.”
She put the last stick into the box. “Now you go on up dar wid Benjy,
like I tole you befo,” she said. “And I dont want nobody else yellin
down dem stairs at me twell I rings de bell. You hear me.”
“Yessum,” Luster said. He vanished through the swing door. Dilsey put
some more wood in the stove and returned to the bread board. Presently
she began to sing again.
The room grew warmer. Soon Dilsey’s skin had taken on a rich, lustrous
quality as compared with that as of a faint dusting of wood ashes which
both it and Luster’s had worn, as she moved about the kitchen, gathering
about her the raw materials of food, coordinating the meal. On the wall
above a cupboard, invisible save at night, by lamp light and even then
evincing an enigmatic profundity because it had but one hand, a cabinet
clock ticked, then with a preliminary sound as if it had cleared its
throat, struck five times.
“Eight oclock,” Dilsey said. She ceased and tilted her head upward,
listening. But there was no sound save the clock and the fire. She
opened the oven and looked at the pan of bread, then stooping she paused
while someone descended the stairs. She heard the feet cross the
diningroom, then the swing door opened and Luster entered, followed by a
big man who appeared to have been shaped of some substance whose
particles would not or did not cohere to one another or to the frame
which supported it. His skin was dead looking and hairless; dropsical
too, he moved with a shambling gait like a trained bear. His hair was
pale and fine. It had been brushed smoothly down upon his brow like that
of children in daguerreotypes. His eyes were clear, of the pale sweet
blue of cornflowers, his thick mouth hung open, drooling a little.
“Is he cold?” Dilsey said. She wiped her hands on her apron and touched
his hand.
“Ef he aint, I is,” Luster said. “Always cold Easter. Aint never seen
hit fail. Miss Cahline say ef you aint got time to fix her hot water
bottle to never mind about hit.”
“Oh, Lawd,” Dilsey said. She drew a chair into the corner between the
woodbox and the stove. The man went obediently and sat in it. “Look in
de dinin room and see whar I laid dat bottle down,” Dilsey said. Luster
fetched the bottle from the diningroom and Dilsey filled it and give it
to him. “Hurry up, now,” she said. “See ef Jason wake now. Tell em hit’s
all ready.”
Luster went out. Ben sat beside the stove. He sat loosely, utterly
motionless save for his head, which made a continual bobbing sort of
movement as he watched Dilsey with his sweet vague gaze as she moved
about. Luster returned.
“He up,” he said, “Miss Cahline say put hit on de table.” He came to the
stove and spread his hands palm down above the firebox. “He up, too,” He
said, “Gwine hit wid bofe feet dis mawnin.”
“Whut’s de matter now?” Dilsey said. “Git away fum dar. How kin I do
anything wid you standin over de stove?”
“I cold,” Luster said.
“You ought to thought about dat whiles you wus down dar in dat cellar,”
Dilsey said. “Whut de matter wid Jason?”
“Sayin me en Benjy broke dat winder in his room.”
“Is dey one broke?” Dilsey said.
“Dat’s whut he sayin,” Luster said. “Say I broke hit.”
“How could you, when he keep hit locked all day en night?”
“Say I broke hit chunkin rocks at hit,” Luster said.
“En did you?”
“Nome,” Luster said.
“Dont lie to me, boy,” Dilsey said.
“I never done hit,” Luster said. “Ask Benjy ef I did. I aint stud’in dat
winder.”
“Who could a broke hit, den?” Dilsey said. “He jes tryin hisself, to
wake Quentin up,” she said, taking the pan of biscuits out of the stove.
“Reckin so,” Luster said. “Dese is funny folks. Glad I aint none of em.”
“Aint none of who?” Dilsey said. “Lemme tell you somethin, nigger boy,
you got jes es much Compson devilment in you es any of em. Is you right
sho you never broke dat window?”
“Whut I want to break hit fur?”
“Whut you do any of yo devilment fur?” Dilsey said. “Watch him now, so
he cant burn his hand again twell I git de table set.”
She went to the diningroom, where they heard her moving about, then she
returned and set a plate at the kitchen table and set food there. Ben
watched her, slobbering, making a faint, eager sound.
“All right, honey,” she said, “Here yo breakfast. Bring his chair,
Luster.” Luster moved the chair up and Ben sat down, whimpering and
slobbering. Dilsey tied a cloth about his neck and wiped his mouth with
the end of it. “And see kin you kep fum messin up his clothes one time,”
she said, handing Luster a spoon.
Ben ceased whimpering. He watched the spoon as it rose to his mouth. It
was as if even eagerness were muscle-bound in him too, and hunger itself
inarticulate, not knowing it is hunger. Luster fed him with skill and