The sound and the fury
Outside the window he heard some jaybirds swirl shrieking past, and
away, their cries whipping away along the wind, and an automobile passed
somewhere and died away also. His mother spoke his name again beyond the
door, but he didn’t move. He heard Dilsey lead her away up the hall, and
then a door closed. Then he replaced the box in the closet and flung the
garments back into it and went down stairs to the telephone. While he
stood there with the receiver to his ear, waiting, Dilsey came down the
stairs. She looked at him, without stopping, and went on.
The wire opened. “This is Jason Compson,” he said, his voice so harsh
and thick that he had to repeat himself. “Jason Compson,” he said,
controlling his voice. “Have a car ready, with a deputy, if you cant go,
in ten minutes. I’ll be there—What?—Robbery. My house. I know who
it—Robbery, I say. Have a car read—What? Aren’t you a paid law
enforcement—Yes, I’ll be there in five minutes. Have that car ready to
leave at once. If you dont, I’ll report it to the governor.”
He clapped the receiver back and crossed the diningroom, where the
scarce-broken meal now lay cold on the table, and entered the kitchen.
Dilsey was filling the hot water bottle. Ben sat, tranquil and empty.
Beside him Luster looked like a fice dog, brightly watchful. He was
eating something. Jason went on across the kitchen.
“Aint you going to eat no breakfast?” Dilsey said. He paid her no
attention. “Go on and eat yo breakfast, Jason.” He went on. The outer
door banged behind him. Luster rose and went to the window and looked
out.
“Whoo,” he said, “Whut happenin up dar? He been beatin’ Miss Quentin?”
“You hush yo mouf,” Dilsey said. “You git Benjy started now en I beat yo
head off. You keep him quiet es you kin twell I get back, now.” She
screwed the cap on the bottle and went out. They heard her go up the
stairs, then they heard Jason pass the house in his car. Then there was
no sound in the kitchen save the simmering murmur of the kettle and the
clock.
“You know whut I bet?” Luster said. “I bet he beat her. I bet he knock
her in de head en now he gone fer de doctor. Dat’s whut I bet.” The
clock tick-tocked, solemn and profound. It might have been the dry pulse
of the decaying house itself; after a while it whirred and cleared its
throat and struck six times. Ben looked up at it, then he looked at the
bullet-like silhouette of Luster’s head in the window and he begun to
bob his head again, drooling. He whimpered.
“Hush up, loony,” Luster said without turning. “Look like we aint gwine
git to go to no church today.” But Ben sat in the chair, his big soft
hands dangling between his knees, moaning faintly. Suddenly he wept, a
slow bellowing sound, meaningless and sustained. “Hush,” Luster said. He
turned and lifted his hand. “You want me to whup you?” But Ben looked at
him, bellowing slowly with each expiration. Luster came and shook him.
“You hush dis minute!” he shouted. “Here,” he said. He hauled Ben out of
the chair and dragged the chair around facing the stove and opened the
door to the firebox and shoved Ben into the chair. They looked like a
tug nudging at a clumsy tanker in a narrow dock. Ben sat down again
facing the rosy door. He hushed. Then they heard the clock again, and
Dilsey slow on the stairs. When she entered he began to whimper again.
Then he lifted his voice.
“Whut you done to him?” Dilsey said. “Why cant you let him lone dis
mawnin, of all times?”
“I aint doin nothin to him,” Luster said. “Mr Jason skeered him, dat’s
whut hit is. He aint kilt Miss Quentin, is he?”
“Hush, Benjy,” Dilsey said. He hushed. She went to the window and looked
out. “Is it quit rainin?” she said.
“Yessum,” Luster said. “Quit long time ago.”
“Den y’all go out do’s awhile,” she said. “I jes got Miss Cahline quiet
now.”
“Is we gwine to church?” Luster said.
“I let you know bout dat when de time come. You keep him away fum de
house twell I calls you.”
“Kin we go to de pastuh?” Luster said.
“All right. Only you keep him away fum de house. I done stood all I
kin.”
“Yessum,” Luster said. “Whar Mr Jason gone, mammy?”
“Dat’s some mo of yo business, aint it?” Dilsey said. She began to clear
the table. “Hush, Benjy. Luster gwine take you out to play.”
“Whut he done to Miss Quentin, mammy?” Luster said.
“Aint done nothin to her. You all git on outen here?”
“I bet she aint here,” Luster said.
Dilsey looked at him. “How you know she aint here?”
“Me and Benjy seed her clamb out de window last night. Didn’t us,
Benjy?”
“You did?” Dilsey said, looking at him.
“We sees her doin hit ev’y night,” Luster said, “Clamb right down dat
pear tree.”
“Dont you lie to me, nigger boy,” Dilsey said.
“I aint lyin. Ask Benjy ef I is.”
“Whyn’t you say somethin about it, den?”
“’Twarn’t none o my business,” Luster said. “I aint gwine git mixed up
in white folks’ business. Come on here, Benjy, les go out do’s.”
They went out. Dilsey stood for awhile at the table, then she went and
cleared the breakfast things from the diningroom and ate her breakfast
and cleaned up the kitchen. Then she removed her apron and hung it up
and went to the foot of the stairs and listened for a moment. There was
no sound. She donned the overcoat and the hat and went across to her
cabin.
The rain had stopped. The air now drove out of the southeast, broken
overhead into blue patches. Upon the crest of a hill beyond the trees
and roofs and spires of town sunlight lay like a pale scrap of cloth,
was blotted away. Upon the air a bell came, then as if at a signal,
other bells took up the sound and repeated it.
The cabin door opened and Dilsey emerged, again in the maroon cape and
the purple gown, and wearing soiled white elbow-length gloves and minus
her headcloth now. She came into the yard and called Luster. She waited
awhile, then she went to the house and around it to the cellar door,
moving close to the wall, and looked into the door. Ben sat on the
steps. Before him Luster squatted on the damp floor. He held a saw in
his left hand, the blade sprung a little by pressure of his hand, and he
was in the act of striking the blade with the worn wooden mallet with
which she had been making beaten biscuit for more than thirty years. The
saw gave forth a single sluggish twang that ceased with lifeless
alacrity, leaving the blade in a thin clean curve between Luster’s hand
and the floor. Still, inscrutable, it bellied.
“Dat’s de way he done hit,” Luster said. “I jes aint foun de right thing
to hit it wid.”
“Dat’s whut you doin, is it?” Dilsey said. “Bring me dat mallet,” she
said.
“I aint hurt hit,” Luster said.
“Bring hit here,” Dilsey said. “Put dat saw whar you got hit first.”
He put the saw away and brought the mallet to her. Then Ben wailed
again, hopeless and prolonged. It was nothing. Just sound. It might have
been all time and injustice and sorrow become vocal for an instant by a
conjunction of planets.
“Listen at him,” Luster said, “He been gwine on dat way ev’y since you
sont us outen de house. I dont know whut got in to him dis mawnin.”
“Bring him here,” Dilsey said.
“Come on, Benjy,” Luster said. He went back down the steps and took
Ben’s arm. He came obediently, wailing, that slow hoarse sound that
ships make, that seems to begin before the sound itself has started,
seems to cease before the sound itself has stopped.
“Run and git his cap,” Dilsey said. “Dont make no noise Miss Cahline kin
hear. Hurry, now. We already late.”
“She gwine hear him anyhow, ef you dont stop him.” Luster said.
“He stop when we git off de place,” Dilsey said. “He smellin hit. Dat’s
whut hit is.”
“Smell whut, mammy?” Luster said.
“You go git dat cap,” Dilsey said. Luster went on. They stood in the
cellar door, Ben one step below her. The sky was broken now into
scudding patches that dragged their swift shadows up out of the shabby
garden, over the broken fence and across the yard. Dilsey stroked Ben’s
head, slowly and steadily, smoothing the bang upon his brow. He wailed
quietly, unhurriedly. “Hush,” Dilsey said, “Hush, now. We be gone in a
minute. Hush, now.” He wailed quietly and steadily.
Luster returned, wearing a stiff new straw hat with a coloured band and
carrying a cloth cap. The hat seemed to isolate Luster’s skull, in the
beholder’s eye as a spotlight would, in all its individual planes and
angles. So peculiarly individual was its shape that at first glance the
hat appeared to be on the head of someone standing immediately behind
Luster. Dilsey looked at the hat.
“Whyn’t you wear yo old hat?” she said.
“Couldn’t find hit,” Luster said.
“I bet you couldn’t. I bet you fixed hit last night so you couldn’t find
hit. You fixin to ruin dat un.”
“Aw, mammy,” Luster said, “Hit aint gwine rain.”
“How you know? You go git dat old hat en put dat new un away.”
“Aw, mammy.”
“Den you go git de umbreller.”
“Aw, mammy.”
“Take yo choice,” Dilsey said. “Git yo old hat, er de umbreller. I dont
keer which.”
Luster went to the cabin. Ben wailed quietly.
“Come on,” Dilsey said, “Dey kin ketch up wid us. We gwine to hear de
singin.” They went around the house, toward the gate. “Hush,” Dilsey
said from time to time as they went down the drive. They reached the
gate. Dilsey opened it. Luster was coming down the drive behind them,
carrying the umbrella. A woman was with him. “Here dey come,” Dilsey
said. They passed out the gate. “Now, den,” she said. Ben ceased. Luster
and his mother overtook them. Frony wore a dress of bright blue silk and
a flowered hat. She was a thin woman, with a flat, pleasant face.
“You got six weeks’ work right dar on yo back,” Dilsey said. “Whut you
gwine do ef hit rain?”
“Git wet, I reckon,” Frony said. “I aint never stopped no rain yit.”
“Mammy always talkin bout hit gwine rain,” Luster said.
“Ef I dont worry bout y’all, I dont know who is,” Dilsey said. “Come on,
we already late.”
“Rev’un Shegog gwine preach today,” Frony said.
“Is?” Dilsey said. “Who him?”
“He fum Saint Looey,” Frony said. “Dat big preacher.”
“Huh,” Dilsey said, “Whut dey needs is a man kin put de fear of God into
dese here triflin young niggers.”
“Rev’un Shegog gwine preach today,” Frony said. “So dey tells.”
They went on along the street. Along its quiet length white people in
bright clumps moved churchward, under the windy bells, walking now and
then in the random and tentative sun. The wind was gusty, out of the
southeast, chill and raw after the warm days.
“I wish you wouldn’t keep on bringin him to church, mammy,” Frony said.
“Folks talkin.”
“Whut folks?” Dilsey said.
“I hears em,” Frony said.
“And I knows whut kind of folks,” Dilsey said, “Trash white folks. Dat’s
who it is. Thinks he aint good enough fer white church, but nigger
church aint good enough fer him.”
“Dey talks, jes de same,” Frony said.
“Den you send um to me,” Dilsey said. “Tell um de good Lawd dont keer
whether he smart er not. Dont nobody but white trash keer dat.”
A street turned oil at right angles, descending, and became a dirt road.
On either hand the land dropped more sharply; a broad flat dotted with
small cabins whose weathered roofs were on a level with the crown of the
road. They were set in small grassless plots littered with broken
things, bricks, planks, crockery, things of a once utilitarian value.
What growth there was consisted of rank weeds and the trees were
mulberries and locusts and sycamores—trees that partook also of the
foul desiccation which surrounded the houses; trees whose very
burgeoning seemed to be the sad and stubborn remnant of September, as if
even spring had passed them by, leaving them to feed upon the rich and
unmistakable smell of negroes in which they grew.