The sound and the fury (11 page)

He was lying beside the box under the window bellowing
    that could drive up in a limousine with a flower in his buttonhole.
Harvard. Quentin this is Herbert. My Harvard boy. Herbert will be a big brother has already promised Jason
     Hearty, celluloid like a drummer. Face full of teeth white but not smiling. I've heard of him up there. All teeth but not smiling.
You going to drive?
    
Get in Quentin.
    
You going to drive.
    
It's her car aren't you proud of your little sister owns first auto in town Herbert his present. Louis has been giving her lessons every morning didn't you get my letter
    Mr and Mrs Jason Richmond Compson announce the marriage of their daughter Candace to Mr Sydney Herbert Head on the twenty-fifth of April one thousand nine hundred and ten at Jefferson Mississippi. At home after the first of August number Something Something Avenue South Bend Indiana. Shreve said Aren't you even going to open it?
Three days. Times. Mr and Mrs Jason Richmond Compson
    Young Lochinvar rode out of the west a little too soon, didn't he? 
     I'm from the south. You're funny, aren't you. 
     O yes I knew it was somewhere in the country. 
     You're funny, aren't you. You ought to join the circus. 
     I did. That's how I ruined my eyes watering the elephant's fleas.
Three times
    These country girls. You cant ever tell about them, can you. Well, anyway Byron never had his wish, thank God.
But not hit a man in glasses
   Aren't you even going to open it?   
It lay on the table a candle burning at each corner upon the envelope tied in a soiled pink garter two artificial flowers. Not hit a man in glasses.
     Country people poor things they never saw an auto before lots of them honk the horn Candace so   
She wouldn't look at me
    they'll get out of the way   
wouldn't look at me
    your father wouldn't like it if you were to injure one of them I'll declare your father will simply have to get an auto now I'm almost sorry you brought it down Herbert I've enjoyed it so much of course there's the carriage but so often when I'd like to go out Mr Compson has the darkies doing something it would be worth my head to interrupt he insists that Roskus is at my call all the time but I know what that means I know how often people make promises just to satisfy their consciences are you going to treat my little baby girl that way Herbert but I know you wont Herbert has spoiled us all to death Quentin did I write you that he is going to take Jason into his bank when Jason finishes high school Jason will make a splendid banker he is the only one of my children with any practical sense you can thank me for that he takes after my people the others are all Compson 
Jason furnished the flour. They made kites on the back porch and sold them for a nickel a piece, he and the Patterson boy. Jason was treasurer.
     There was no nigger in this car, and the hats unbleached as yet flowing past under the window. Going to Harvard. We have sold Benjy's   
He lay on the ground under the window, bellowing. We have sold Benjy's pasture so that Quentin may go to Harvard
    a brother to you. Your little brother. 
     You should have a car it's done you no end of good dont you think so Quentin I call him Quentin at once you see I have heard so much about him from Candace. 
     Why shouldn't you I want my boys to be more than friends yes Candace and Quentin more than friends   
Father I have committed
    what a pity you had no brother or sister   
No sister no sister had no sister
    Dont ask Quentin he and Mr Compson both feel a little insulted when I am strong enough to come down to the table I am going on nerve now I'll pay for it after it's all over and you have taken my little daughter away from me   
My little sister had no.    If I could say Mother.    Mother
     Unless I do what I am tempted to and take you instead I dont think Mr Compson could overtake the car.
     Ah Herbert Candace do you hear that  
She wouldn't look at me soft stubborn jaw-angle not back-looking
   You needn't be jealous though it's just an old woman he's flattering a grown married daughter I cant believe it.
     Nonsense you look like a girl you are lots younger than Candace color in your cheeks like a girl 
A face reproachful tearful an odor of camphor and of tears a voice weeping steadily and softly beyond the twilit door the twilight-colored smell of honeysuckle. Bringing empty trunks down the attic stairs they sounded like coffins French Lick. Found not death at the salt lick
     Hats not unbleached and not hats. In three years I can not wear a hat. I could not. Was. Will there be hats then since I was not and not Harvard then. Where the best of thought Father said clings like dead ivy vines upon old dead brick. Not Harvard then. Not to me, anyway. Again. Sadder than was. Again. Saddest of all. Again. 
     Spoade had a shirt on; then it must be. When I can see my shadow again if not careful that I tricked into the water shall tread again upon my impervious shadow. But no sister. I wouldn't have done it.   
I wont have my daughter spied on
    I wouldn't have. 
    
How can I control any of them when you have always taught them to have no respect for me and my wishes I know you look down on my people but is that any reason for teaching my children my own children I suffered for to have no respect
    Trampling my shadow's bones into the concrete with hard heels and then I was hearing the watch, and I touched the letters through my coat. 
    
I will not have my daughter spied on by you or Quentin or anybody no matter what you think she has done
    
At least you agree there is reason for having her watched
     I wouldn't have I wouldn't have.
I know you wouldn't I didn't mean to speak so sharply but have no respect for each other for themselves
    
But why did she
    The chimes began as I stepped on my shadow, but it was the quarter hour. The Deacon wasn't in sight anywhere.
think I would have    could have 
     She didn't mean that that's the way women do things it's because she loves Caddy 
     The street lamps would go down the hill then rise toward town   
I walked upon the belly of my shadow. I could extend my hand beyond it.
feeling Father behind me beyond the rasping darkness of summer and August the street lamps
    Father and I protect women from one another from themselves our women   
Women are like that they dont acquire knowledge of people we are for that they are just born with a practical fertility of suspicion that makes a crop every so often and usually right they have an affinity for evil for supplying whatever the evil lacks in itself for drawing it about them instinctively as you do bed-clothing in slumber fertilising the mind for it until the evil has served its purpose whether it ever existed or no   
He was coming along between a couple of freshmen. He hadn't quite recovered from the parade, for he gave me a salute, a very superior-officerish kind. 
     "I want to see you a minute," I said, stopping. 
     "See me? All right. See you again, fellows," he said, stopping and turning back; "glad to have chatted with you." That was the Deacon, all over. Talk about your natural psychologists. They said he hadn't missed a train at the beginning of school in forty years, and that he could pick out a Southerner with one glance. He never missed, and once he had heard you speak, he could name your state. He had a regular uniform he met trains in, a sort of Uncle Tom's cabin outfit, patches and all. 
     "Yes, suh. Right dis way, young marster, hyer we is," taking your bags. "Hyer, boy, come hyer and git dese grips." Whereupon a moving mountain of luggage would edge up, revealing a white boy of about fifteen, and the Deacon would hang another bag on him somehow and drive him off. "Now, den, dont you crap hit. Yes, suh, young marster, jes give de old nigger yo room number, and hit'll be done got cold afar when you arrives." 
     From then on until he had you completely subjugated he was always in or out of your room, ubiquitous and garrulous, though his manner gradually moved northward as his raiment improved, until at last when he had bled you until you began to learn better he was calling you Quentin or whatever, and when you saw him next he'd be wearing a cast-off Brooks suit and a hat with a Princeton club I forget which band that someone had given him and which he was pleasantly and unshakably convinced was a part of Abe Lincoln's military sash. Someone spread the story years ago, when he first appeared around college from wherever he came from, that he was a graduate of the divinity school. And when he came to understand what it meant he was so taken with it that he began to retail the story himself, until at last he must have come to believe he really had. Anyway he related long pointless anecdotes of his undergraduate days, speaking familiarly of dead and departed professors by their first names, usually incorrect ones. But he had been guide mentor and friend to unnumbered crops of innocent and lonely freshmen, and I suppose that with all his petty chicanery and hypocrisy he stank no higher in heaven's nostrils than any other. 
     "Haven't seen you in three-four days," he said, staring at me from his still military aura. "You been sick?" 
     "No. I've been all right. Working, I reckon. I've seen you, though." 
     "Yes?" 
     "In the parade the other day." 
     "Oh, that. Yes, I was there. I dont care nothing about that sort of thing, you understand, but the boys likes to have me with them, the vet'runs does. Ladies wants all the old vet'runs to turn out, you know. So I has to oblige them." 
     "And on that Wop holiday too," I said. "You were obliging the W. C. T. U. then, I reckon." 
     "That? I was doing that for my son-in-law. He aims to get a job on the city forces. Street cleaner. I tells him all he wants is a broom to sleep on. You saw me, did you?" 
     "Both times. Yes." 
     "I mean, in uniform. How'd I look?" 
     "You looked fine. You looked better than any of them. They ought to make you a general, Deacon." 
     He touched my arm, lightly, his hand that worn, gentle quality of niggers' hands. "Listen. This aint for outside talking. I dont mind telling you because you and me's the same folks, come long and short." He leaned a little to me, speaking rapidly, his eyes not looking at me. "I've got strings out, right now. Wait till next year. Just wait. Then see where I'm marching. I wont need to tell you how I'm fixing it; I say, just wait and see, my boy." He looked at me now and clapped me lightly on the shoulder and rocked back on his heels, nodding at me. "Yes, sir. I didn't turn Democrat three years ago for nothing. My son-in-law on the city; me-- Yes, sir. If just turning Democrat'll make that son of a bitch go to work.... And me: just you stand on that corner yonder a year from two days ago, and see." 
     "I hope so. You deserve it, Deacon. And while I think about it--" I took the letter from my pocket. "Take this around to my room tomorrow and give it to Shreve. He'll have something for you. But not till tomorrow,mind." 
     He took the letter and examined it. "It's sealed up." 
     "Yes. And it's written inside, Not good until tomorrow." 
     "H'm," he said. He looked at the envelope, his mouth pursed. "Something for me, you say?" 
     "Yes. A present I'm making you." 
     He was looking at me now, the envelope white in his black hand, in the sun. His eyes were soft and irisless and brown, and suddenly I saw Roskus watching me from behind all his whitefolks' claptrap of uniforms and politics and Harvard manner, diffident, secret, inarticulate and sad. "You aint playing a joke on the old nigger, is you?" 
     "You know I'm not. Did any Southerner ever play a joke on you?" 
     "You're right. They're fine folks. But you cant live with them." 
     "Did you ever try?" I said. But Roskus was gone. Once more he was that self he had long since taught himself to 
      "I'll confer to your wishes, my boy." 
     "Not until tomorrow, remember." 
     "Sure," he said; "understood, my boy. Well--" 
     "I hope--" I said. He looked down at me, benignant, profound. Suddenly I held out my hand and we shook, he gravely, from the pompous height of his municipal and military dream. "You're a good fellow, Deacon. I hope.... You've helped a lot of young fellows, here and there." 
     "I've tried to treat all folks right," he said. "I draw no petty social lines. A man to me is a man, wherever I find him." 
     "I hope you'll always find as many friends as you've made." 
     "Young fellows. I get along with them. They dont forget me, neither," he said, waving the envelope. He put it into his pocket and buttoned his coat. "Yes, sir," he said. "I've had good friends." 
     The chimes began again, the half hour. I stood in the belly of my shadow and listened to the strokes spaced and tranquil along the sunlight, among the thin, still little leaves. Spaced and peaceful and serene, with that quality of autumn always in bells even in the month of brides.
Lying on the ground under the window bellowing
    He took one look at her and knew. Out of the mouths of babes.
The street lamps
    The chimes ceased. I went back to the postoffice, treading my shadow into pavement.
go down the hill then they rise toward town like lanterns hung one above another on a wall.
Father said because she loves Caddy she loves people through their shortcomings. Uncle Maury straddling his legs before the fire must remove one hand long enough to drink Christmas. Jason ran on, his hands in his pockets fell down and lay there like a trussed fowl until Versh set him up.
Whyn't you keep them hands outen your pockets when you running you could stand up then  
Rolling his head in the cradle rolling it flat across the back. Caddy told Jason and Versh that the reason Uncle Maury didn't work was that he used to roll his head in the cradle when he was little. 
     Shreve was coming up the walk, shambling, fatly earnest, his glasses glinting beneath the running leaves like little pools. 
     "I gave Deacon a note for some things. I may not be in this afternoon, so dont you let him have anything until tomorrow, will you?" 
     "All right." He looked at me. "Say, what're you doing today, anyhow? All dressed up and mooning around like the prologue to a suttee. Did you go to Psychology this morning?"