The sound and the fury
niggers how quality does, Benjy,” he said, “Whut you say?” He looked
back. Ben sat, holding the flower in his fist, his gaze empty and
untroubled. Luster hit Queenie again and swung her to the left at the
monument.
For an instant Ben sat in an utter hiatus. Then he bellowed. Bellow on
bellow, his voice mounted, with scarce interval for breath. There was
more than astonishment in it, it was horror; shock; agony eyeless,
tongueless; just sound, and Luster’s eyes backrolling for a white
instant. “Gret God,” he said, “Hush! Hush! Gret God!” He whirled again
and struck Queenie with the switch. It broke and he cast it away and
with Ben’s voice mounting toward its unbelievable crescendo Luster
caught up the end of the reins and leaned forward as Jason came jumping
across the square and onto the step.
With a backhanded blow he hurled Luster aside and caught the reins and
sawed Queenie about and doubled the reins back and slashed her across
the hips. He cut her again and again, into a plunging gallop, while
Ben’s hoarse agony roared about them, and swung her about to the right
of the monument. Then he struck Luster over the head with his fist.
“Dont you know any better than to take him to the left?” he said. He
reached back and struck Ben, breaking the flower stalk again. “Shut up!”
he said, “Shut up!” He jerked Queenie back and jumped down. “Get to hell
on home with him. If you ever cross that gate with him again, I’ll kill
you!”
“Yes, suh!” Luster said. He took the reins and hit Queenie with the end
of them. “Git up! Git up, dar! Benjy, fer God’s sake!”
Ben’s voice roared and roared. Queenie moved again, her feet began to
clop-clop steadily again, and at once Ben hushed. Luster looked quickly
back over his shoulder, then he drove on. The broken flower drooped over
Ben’s fist and his eyes were empty and blue and serene again as cornice
and façade flowed smoothly once more from left to right; post and tree,
window and doorway, and signboard, each in its ordered place.
Transcriber’s Notes
Because of William Faulkner’s unorthodox use of punctuation, it is
sometimes difficult to distinguish printing errors from the author’s
intentions. Therefore, every effort has been made to make the text of
this eBook correspond exactly to the printed edition of the book from
which the text was derived. The only correction made was the addition of
a missing closing quotation mark in the paragraph that begins with “He
fumbled in his coat” on page 230.
The illustration of an eye on page 242 has been replaced by the text,
“[Illustration: Eye]”, in the plain text version of this eBook.