I could hear my watch whenever the car stopped, but not often they were already eatingWho would play aEating the business of eating inside of you space too space and time confused Stomach saying noon brain saying eat oclock All right I wonder what time it is what of it. People were getting out. The trolley didn’t stop so often now, emptied by eating.
Then it was past. I got off and stood in my shadow and after a while a car came along and I got on and went back to the interurban station. There was a car ready to leave, and I found a seat next the window and it started and I watched it sort of frazzle out into slack tide flats, and then trees. Now and then I saw the river and I thought how nice it would be for them down at New London if the weather and Gerald’s shell going solemnly up the glinting forenoon and I wondered what the old woman would be wanting now, sending me a note before ten oclock in the morning. What picture of Gerald I to be one of theDalton Ames oh asbestos Quentin has shotbackground. Something with girls in it. Women do havealways his voice above the gabble voice that breathedan affinity for evil, for believing that no woman is to be trusted, but that some men are too innocent to protect themselves. Plain girls. Remote cousins and family friends whom mere acquaintanceship invested with a sort of blood obligation noblesse oblige. And she sitting there telling us before their faces what a shame it was that Gerald should have all the family looks because a man didn’t need it, was better off without it but without it a girl wassimply lost. Telling us about Gerald’s women in aQuentin has shot Herbert he shot his voice through the floor of Caddy’s roomtone of smug approbation. “When he was seventeen I said to him one day ‘What a shame that you should have a mouth like that it should be on a girls face’ and can you imaginethe curtains leaning in on the twilight upon the odour of the apple tree her head against the twilight her arms behind her head kimono-winged the voice that breathed o’er eden clothes upon the bed by the nose seen above the applewhat he said? just seventeen, mind. ‘Mother’ he said ‘it often is.’ ” And him sitting there in attitudes regal watching two or three of them through his eyelashes. They gushed like swallows swooping his eyelashes. Shreve said he always hadAre you going to look after Benjy and Father
The less you say about Benjy and Father the better when have you ever considered them Caddy
Promise
You needn’t worry about them you’re getting out in good shape
Promise I’m sick you’ll have to promisewondered who invented that joke but then he always had considered Mrs Bland a remarkably preserved woman he said she was grooming Gerald to seduce a duchess sometime. She called Shreve that fat Canadian youth twice she arranged a new room-mate for me without consulting me at all, once for me to move out, once for
He opened the door in the twilight. His face looked like a pumpkin pie.
“Well, I’ll say a fond farewell. Cruel fate may part us, but I will never love another. Never.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about cruel fate in eight yards of apricot silk and more metal pound for pound than a galley slave and the sole owner and proprietor of the unchallenged peripatetic john of the late Confederacy.” Then he told me how she had gone to the proctor to have him moved out and how the proctor had revealed enough low stubbornness to insist on consulting Shreve first. Then she suggested that he send for Shreve right off and do it, and he wouldnt do that, so after that she was hardly civil to Shreve. “I make it a point never to speak harshly of females,” Shreve said, “but that woman has got more ways like a bitch than any lady inthese sovereign states and dominions.” and now Letter on the table by hand, command orchid scented coloured If she knew I had passed almost beneath the window knowing it there without My dear Madam I have not yet had an opportunity of receiving your communication but I beg in advance to be excused today or yesterday and tomorrow or when As I remember that the next one is to be how Gerald throws his nigger downstairs and how the nigger plead to be allowed to matriculate in the divinity school to be near marster marse gerald and How he ran all the way to the station beside the carriage with tears in his eyes when marse gerald rid away I will wait until the day for the one about the sawmill husband came to the kitchen door with a shotgun Gerald went down and bit the gun in two and handed it back and wiped his hands on a silk handkerchief threw the handkerchief in the stove I’ve only heard that one twice
shot him through theI saw you come in here so I watched my chance and came along thought we might get acquainted have a cigar
Thanks I dont smoke
No things must have changed up there since my day mind if I light up
Help yourself
Thanks I’ve heard a lot I guess your mother wont mind if I put the match behind the screen will she a lot about you Candace talked about you all the time up there at the Licks I got pretty jealous I says to myself who is this Quentin anyway I must see what this animal looks like because I was hit pretty hard see soon as I saw the little girl I dont mind telling you it never occurred to me it was her brother she kept talking about she couldnt have talked about you any more if you’d been the only man in the world husband wouldnt have been in it you wont change your mind and have a smoke
I dont smoke
In that case I wont insist even though it is a pretty fair weed cost me twenty-five bucks a hundred wholesale friend in Havana yes I guess there are lots of changes up there I keep promising myself a visit but I never get around to it been hitting the ball now for ten years I cant get away from the bank during school fellow’shabits change things that seem important to an undergraduate you know tell me about things up there
I’m not going to tell Father and Mother if that’s what you are getting at
Not going to tell not going to oh that that’s what you are talking about is it you understand that I dont give a damn whether you tell or not understand that a thing like that unfortunate but no police crime I wasn’t the first or the last I was just unlucky you might have been luckier
You lie
Keep your shirt on I’m not trying to make you tell anything you dont want to meant no offense of course a young fellow like you would consider a thing of that sort a lot more serious than you will in five years
I dont know but one way to consider cheating I dont think I’m likely to learn different at Harvard
We’re better than a play you must have made the Dramat well you’re right no need to tell them we’ll let bygones be bygones eh no reason why you and I should let a little thing like that come between us I like you Quentin I like your appearance you dont look like these other hicks I’m glad we’re going to hit it off like this I’ve promised your mother to do something for Jason but I would like to give you a hand too Jason would be just as well off here but there’s no future in a hole like this for a young fellow like you
Thanks you’d better stick to Jason he’d suit you better than I would
I’m sorry about that business but a kid like I was then I never had a mother like yours to teach me the finer points it would just hurt her unnecessarily to know it yes you’re right no need to that includes Candace of course
I said Mother and Father
Look here take a look at me how long do you think you’d last with me
I wont have to last long if you learned to fight up at school too try and see how long I would
You damned little what do you think you’re getting at
Try and see
My God the cigar what would your mother say if she found a blister on her mantel just in time too look here Quentin we’re about to do something we’ll both regret I like you liked you as soon as I saw you I says he must be a damned good fellow whoever he is or Candace wouldnt be so keen on him listen I’ve been out in the world now for ten years things dont matter so much then you’ll find that out let’s you and I get together on this thing sons of old Harvard and all I guess I wouldnt know the place now best place for a young fellow in the world I’m going to send my sons there give them a better chance than I had wait dont go yet let’s discuss this thing a young man gets these ideas and I’m all for them does him good while he’s in school forms his character good for tradition the school but when he gets out into the world he’ll have to get his the best way he can because he’ll find that everybody else is doing the same thing and be damned to here let’s shake hands and let bygones by bygones for your mother’s sake remember her health come on give me your hand here look at it it’s just out of convent look not a blemish not even been creased yet see here
To hell with your money
No no come on I belong to the family now see I know how it is with a young fellow he has lots of private affairs it’s always pretty hard to get the old man to stump up for I know havent I been there and not so long ago either but now I’m getting married and all specially up there come on dont be a fool listen when we get a chance for a real talk I want to tell you about a little widow over in town
I’ve heard that too keep your damned money
Call it a loan then just shut your eyes a minute and you’ll be fifty
Keep your hands off of me you’d better get that cigar off the mantel
Tell and be damned then see what it gets you if you were not a damned fool you’d have seen that I’ve got them too tight for any half-baked Galahad of a brother your mother’s told me about your sort with your head swelled up come in oh come in dear Quentin and I were just getting acquainted talking about Harvard did you want me cant stay away from the old man can she
Go out a minute Herbert I want to talk to Quentin
Come in come in let’s all have a gabfest and get acquainted I was just telling Quentin
Go on Herbert go out a while
Well all right then I suppose you and bubber do want to see one another once more eh
You’d better take that cigar off the mantel
Right as usual my boy then I’ll toddle along let them order you around while they can Quentin after day after tomorrow it’ll be pretty please to the old man wont it dear give us a kiss honey
Oh stop that save that for day after tomorrow
I’ll want interest then dont let Quentin do anything he cant finish oh by the way did I tell Quentin the story about the man’s parrot and what happened to it a sad story remind me of that think of it yourself ta-ta see you in the funnypaper
Well
Well
What are you up to now
Nothing
You’re meddling in my business again didn’t you get enough of that last summer
Caddy you’ve got feverYou’re sick how are you sick
I’m just sick. I cant ask.
Shot his voice through the
Not that blackguard Caddy
Now and then the river glinted beyond things in sort of swooping glints, across noon and after. Well after now, though we had passed where he was still pulling upstream majestical in the face of god gods. Better. Gods. God would be canaille too in Boston in Massachusetts. Or maybe just not a husband. The wet oars winking him along in bright winks and female palms. Adulant. Adulant if not a husband he’d ignore God.That blackguard, CaddyThe river glinted away beyond a swooping curve.
I’m sick you’ll have to promise
Sick how are you sick
I’m just sick I cant ask anybody yet promise you will
If they need any looking after it’s because of you how are you sickUnder the window we could hear the car leaving for the station, the 8:10 train. To bring back cousins. Heads. Increasinghimself head by head but not barbers. Manicure girls. We had a blood horse once. In the stable yes, but under leather a cur.Quentin has shot all of their voices through the floor of Caddy’s room
The car stopped. I got off, into the middle of my shadow. A road crossed the track. There was a wooden marquee with an old man eating something out of a paper bag, and then the car was out of hearing too. The road went into the trees, where it would be shady, but June foliage in New England not much thicker than April at home in Mississippi. I could see a smoke stack. I turned my back to it, tramping my shadow into the dust.There was something terrible in me sometimes at night I could see it grinning at me I could see it through them grinning at me through their faces it’s gone now and I’m sick
Caddy
Dont touch me just promise
If you’re sick you cant
Yes I can after that it’ll be all right it wont matter dont let them send him to Jackson promise
I promise Caddy Caddy
Dont touch me dont touch me
What does it look like Caddy
What
That that grins at you that thing through them
I could still see the smoke stack. That’s where the water would be, heading out to the sea and the peaceful grottoes. Tumbling peacefully they would, and when He said Rise only the flat irons. When Versh and I hunted all day we wouldn’t take any lunch, and at twelve oclock I’d get hungry. I’d stay hungry until about one, then all of a sudden I’d even forget that I wasn’t hungry anymore.The street lamps go down the hill then heard the car go down the hill. The chair-arm flat cool smooth under my forehead shaping the chair the apple tree leaning on my hair above the eden clothes by the nose seenYou’ve got fever I felt it yesterday it’s like being near a stove.
Dont touch me.
Caddy you cant do it if you are sick. That blackguard.
I’ve got to marry somebody.Then they told me the bone would have to be broken again
At last I couldn’t see the smoke stack. The road went beside a wall. Trees leaned over the wall, sprayed with sunlight. The stone was cool. Walking near it you could feel the coolness. Only our country was not like this country. There was something about just walking through it. A kind of still and violent fecundity that satisfied ever bread-hunger like. Flowing around you, not brooding and nursing every niggard stone. Like it were put to makeshift for enough green to go around among the trees and even the blue of distance not that rich chimaera.told me the bone would have to be broken again and inside me it began to say Ah Ah Ah and I began to sweat. What do I care I know what a broken leg is all it is it wont be anything I’ll just have to stay in the house a little longer that’s all and my jaw-muscles getting numb and my mouth saying Wait Wait just a minute through the sweat ah ah ah behind my teeth and Father damn that horse damn that horse. Wait it’s my fault. He came along the fence every morning with a basket toward the kitchen dragging a stick along the fence every morning I dragged myself to the window cast and all and laid for him with a piece of coal Dilsey said you goin to ruin yoself aint you got no mo sense than that not fo days since you bruck hit. Wait I’ll get used to it in a minute wait just a minute I’ll get
Even sound seemed to fail in this air, like the air was worn out with carrying sounds so long. A dog’s voice carries further than a train, in the darkness anyway. And some people’s. Niggers. Louis Hatcher never even used his horn carrying it and that old lantern. I said, “Louis, when was the last time you cleaned that lantern?”
“I cleant hit a little while back. You member when all dat floodwatter wash dem folks away up yonder? I cleant hit dat ve’y day. Old woman and me settin fore de fire dat night and she say ‘Louis, whut you gwine do ef dat flood git out dis fur?’ and I say ‘Dat’s a fack. I reckon I had better clean dat lantun up.’ So I cleant hit dat night.”
“That flood was way up in Pennsylvania,” I said. “It couldn’t even have got down this far.”
“Dat’s whut you says,” Louis said. “Watter kin git des ez high en wet in Jefferson ez hit kin in Pennsylvaney, I reckon. Hit’s defolks dat says de high watter cant git dis fur dat comes floatin out on de ridge-pole, too.”
“Did you and Martha get out that night?”
“We done jest that. I cleant dat lantun and me and her sot de balance of de night on top o dat knoll back de graveyard. En ef I’d a knowed of aihy one higher, we’d a been on hit instead.”
“And you haven’t cleaned that lantern since then.”
“Whut I want to clean hit when dey aint no need?”
“You mean, until another flood comes along?”
“Hit kep us outen dat un.”
“Oh, come on, Uncle Louis,” I said.
“Yes, suh. You do you way en I do mine. Ef all I got to do to keep outen de high watter is to clean dis yere lantun, I wont quoil wid no man.”
“Unc’ Louis wouldn’t ketch nothin wid a light he could see by,” Versh said.
“I wuz huntin possums in dis country when dey was still drowndin nits in yo pappy’s head wid coal oil, boy,” Louis said. “Ketchin um, too.”
“Dat’s de troof,” Versh said. “I reckon Unc’ Louis done caught mo possums than aihy man in dis country.”
“Yes, suh,” Louis said, “I got plenty light fer possums to see, all right. I aint heard none o dem complainin. Hush, now. Dar he. Whooey. Hum awn, dawg.” And we’d sit in the dry leaves that whispered a little with the slow respiration of our waiting and with the slow breathing of the earth and the windless October, the rank smell of the lantern fouling the brittle air, listening to the dogs and to the echo of Louis’ voice dying away. He never raised it, yet on a still night we have heard it from our front porch. When he called the dogs in he sounded just like the horn he carried slung on his shoulder and never used, but clearer, mellower, as though his voice were a part of darkness and silence, coiling out of it, coiling into it again. WhoOoooo. WhoOoooo. WhoOooooooooooooooo.Got to marry somebody
Have there been very many Caddy
I dont know too many will you look after Benjy and Father
You dont know whose it is then does he know
Dont touch me will you look after Benjy and Father
I began to feel the water before I came to the bridge. The bridge was of grey stone, lichened, dappled with slow moisture where the fungus crept. Beneath it the water was clear and still in the shadow, whispering and clucking about the stone in fading swirls of spinning sky.Caddy that
I’ve got to marry somebodyVersh told me about a man mutilated himself. He went into the woods and did it with a razor, sitting in a ditch. A broken razor flinging them backward over his shoulder the same motion complete the jerked skein of blood backward not looping. But that’s not it. It’s not not having them. It’s never to have had them then I could say O That That’s Chinese I dont know Chinese. And Father said it’s because you are a virgin: dont you see? Women are never virgins. Purity is a negative state and therefore contrary to nature. It’s nature is hurting you not Caddy and I said That’s just words and he said So is virginity and I said you dont know. You cant know and he said Yes. On the instant when we come to realise that tragedy is second-hand.
Where the shadow of the bridge fell I could see down for a long way, but not as far as the bottom. When you leave a leaf in water a long time after awhile the tissue will be gone and the delicate fibers waving slow as the motion of sleep. They dont touch one another, no matter how knotted up they once were, no matter how close they lay once to the bones. And maybe when He says Rise the eyes will come floating up too, out of the deep quiet and the sleep, to look on glory. And after awhile the flat irons would come floating up. I hid them under the end of the bridge and went back and leaned on the rail.
I could not see the bottom, but I could see a long way into the motion of the water before the eye gave out, and then I saw a shadow hanging like a fat arrow stemming into the current. Mayflies skimmed in and out of the shadow of the bridge just above the surface.If it could just be a hell beyond that: the clean flame the two of us more than dead. Then you will have only me then only me then the two of us amid the pointing and the horror beyond the clean flameThe arrow increased without motion, then in a quick swirl the trout lipped a fly beneath the surface with that sort of gigantic delicacy of an elephant picking up a peanut. Thefading vortex drifted away down stream and then I saw the arrow again, nose into the current, wavering delicately to the motion of the water above which the May flies slanted and poised.Only you and me then amid the pointing and the horror walled by the clean flame
The trout hung, delicate and motionless among the wavering shadows. Three boys with fishing poles came onto the bridge and we leaned on the rail and looked down at the trout. They knew the fish. He was a neighbourhood character.
“They’ve been trying to catch that trout for twenty-five years. There’s a store in Boston offers a twenty-five dollar fishing rod to anybody that can catch him.”
“Why dont you all catch him, then? Wouldnt you like to have a twenty-five dollar fishing rod?”
“Yes,” they said. They leaned on the rail, looking down at the trout. “I sure would,” one said.
“I wouldnt take the rod,” the second said. “I’d take the money instead.”
“Maybe they wouldnt do that,” the first said. “I bet he’d make you take the rod.”
“Then I’d sell it.”
“You couldnt get twenty-five dollars for it.”
“I’d take what I could get, then. I can catch just as many fish with this pole as I could with a twenty-five dollar one.” Then they talked about what they would do with twenty-five dollars. They all talked at once, their voices insistent and contradictory and impatient, making of unreality a possibility, then a probability, then an incontrovertible fact, as people will when their desires become words.
“I’d buy a horse and wagon,” the second said.
“Yes you would,” the others said.
“I would. I know where I can buy one for twenty-five dollars. I know the man.”
“Who is it?”
“That’s all right who it is. I can buy it for twenty-five dollars.”
“Yah,” the others said, “He dont know any such thing. He’s just talking.”
“Do you think so?” the boy said. They continued to jeer athim, but he said nothing more. He leaned on the rail, looking down at the trout which he had already spent, and suddenly the acrimony, the conflict, was gone from their voices, as if to them too it was as though he had captured the fish and bought his horse and wagon, they too partaking of that adult trait of being convinced of anything by an assumption of silent superiority. I suppose that people, using themselves and each other so much by words, are at least consistent in attributing wisdom to a still tongue, and for a while I could feel the other two seeking swiftly for some means by which to cope with him, to rob him of his horse and wagon.
“You couldnt get twenty-five dollars for that pole,” the first said. “I bet anything you couldnt.”
“He hasnt caught that trout yet,” the third said suddenly, then they both cried:
“Yah, wha’d I tell you? What’s the man’s name? I dare you to tell. There aint any such man.”
“Ah, shut up,” the second said. “Look, Here he comes again.” They leaned on the rail, motionless, identical, their poles slanting slenderly in the sunlight, also identical. The trout rose without haste, a shadow in faint wavering increase; again the little vortex faded slowly downstream. “Gee,” the first one murmured.
“We dont try to catch him anymore,” he said. “We just watch Boston folks that come out and try.”
“Is he the only fish in this pool?”
“Yes. He ran all the others out. The best place to fish around here is down at the Eddy.”
“No it aint,” the second said. “It’s better at Bigelow’s Mill two to one.” Then they argued for a while about which was the best fishing and then left off all of a sudden to watch the trout rise again and the broken swirl of water suck down a little of the sky. I asked how far it was to the nearest town. They told me.
“But the closest car line is that way,” the second said, pointing back down the road. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere. Just walking.”
“You from the college?”
“Yes. Are there any factories in that town?”
“Factories?” They looked at me.
“No,” the second said. “Not there.” They looked at my clothes. “You looking for work?”
“How about Bigelow’s Mill?” the third said. “That’s a factory.”
“Factory my eye. He means a sure enough factory.”
“One with a whistle,” I said. “I havent heard any one oclock whistles yet.”
“Oh,” the second said. “There’s a clock in the Unitarian steeple. You can find out the time from that. Havent you got a watch on that chain?”
“I broke it this morning.” I showed them my watch. They examined it gravely.
“It’s still running,” the second said. “What does a watch like that cost?”
“It was a present,” I said. “My father gave it to me when I graduated from high school.”
“Are you a Canadian?” the third said. He had red hair.
“Canadian?”
“He dont talk like them,” the second said. “I’ve heard them talk. He talks like they do in minstrel shows.”
“Say,” the third said, “Aint you afraid he’ll hit you?”
“Hit me?”
“You said he talks like a coloured man.”
“Ah, dry up,” the second said. “You can see the steeple when you get over that hill there.”
I thanked them. “I hope you have good luck. Only dont catch that old fellow down there. He deserves to be let alone.”
“Cant anybody catch that fish,” the first said. They leaned on the rail, looking down into the water, the three poles like three slanting threads of yellow fire in the sun. I walked upon my shadow, tramping it into the dappled shade of trees again. The road curved, mounting away from the water. It crossed the hill, then descended winding, carrying the eye, the mind on ahead beneath a still green tunnel, and the square cupola above the trees and the round eye of the clock but far enough. I sat down at the roadside. The grass was ankle deep, myriad. The shadows on the road were as still as if they had been put there with a stencil, with slanting pencils of sunlight. But it was only a train, and after a while it died away beyond the trees, the long sound, and then Icould hear my watch and the train dying away, as though it were running through another month or another summer somewhere, rushing away under the poised gull and all things rushing. Except Gerald. He would be sort of grand too, pulling in lonely state across the noon, rowing himself right out of noon, up the long bright air like an apotheosis, mounting into a drowsing infinity where only he and the gull, the one terrifically motionless, the other in a steady and measured pull and recover that partook of inertia itself, the world punily beneath their shadows on the sun. Caddy that blackguard that blackguard Caddy
Their voices came over the hill, and the three slender poles like balanced threads of running fire. They looked at me passing, not slowing.
“Well,” I said, “I dont see him.”
“We didnt try to catch him,” the first said. “You cant catch that fish.”
“There’s the clock,” the second said, pointing. “You can tell the time when you get a little closer.”
“Yes,” I said, “All right.” I got up. “You all going to town?”
“We’re going to the Eddy for chub,” the first said.
“You cant catch anything at the Eddy,” the second said.
“I guess you want to go to the mill, with a lot of fellows splashing and scaring all the fish away.”
“You cant catch any fish at the Eddy.”
“We wont catch none nowhere if we dont go on,” the third said.
“I dont see why you keep on talking about the Eddy,” the second said. “You cant catch anything there.”
“You dont have to go,” the first said. “You’re not tied to me.”
“Let’s go to the mill and go swimming,” the third said.
“I’m going to the Eddy and fish,” the first said. “You can do as you please.”
“Say, how long has it been since you heard of anybody catching a fish at the Eddy?” the second said to the third.
“Let’s go to the mill and go swimming,” the third said. The cupola sank slowly beyond the trees, with the round face of the clock far enough yet. We went on in the dappled shade. We came to an orchard, pink and white. It was full of bees; already we could hear them.
“Let’s go to the mill and go swimming,” the third said. A lane turned off beside the orchard. The third boy slowed and halted. The first went on, flecks of sunlight slipping along the pole across his shoulder and down the back of his shirt. “Come on,” the third said. The second boy stopped too.Why must you marry somebody Caddy
Do you want me to say it do you think that if I say it it wont be
“Let’s go up to the mill,” he said. “Come on.”
The first boy went on. His bare feet made no sound, falling softer than leaves in the thin dust. In the orchard the bees sounded like a wind getting up, a sound caught by a spell just under crescendo and sustained. The lane went along the wall, arched over, shattered with bloom, dissolving into trees. Sunlight slanted into it, sparse and eager. Yellow butterflies flickered along the shade like flecks of sun.
“What do you want to go to the Eddy for?” the second boy said. “You can fish at the mill if you want to.”
“Ah, let him go,” the third said. They looked after the first boy. Sunlight slid patchily across his walking shoulders, glinting along the pole like yellow ants.
“Kenny,” the second said.Say it to Father will you I will am my fathers Progenitive I invented him created I him Say it to him it will not be for he will say I was not and then you and I since philoprogenitive
“Ah, come on,” the boy said, “They’re already in.” They looked after the first boy. “Yah,” they said suddenly, “go on then, mamma’s boy. If he goes swimming he’ll get his head wet and then he’ll get a licking.” They turned into the lane and went on, the yellow butterflies slanting about them along the shade.
it is because there is nothing else I believe there is something else but there may not be and then I You will find that even injustice is scarcely worthy of what you believe yourself to beHe paid me no attention, his jaw set in profile, his face turned a little away beneath his broken hat.
“Why dont you go swimming with them?” I said.that blackguard Caddy
Were you trying to pick a fight with him were you
A liar and a scoundrel Caddy was dropped from his club forcheating at cards got sent to Coventry caught cheating at midterm exams and expelled
Well what about it I’m not going to play cards with
“Do you like fishing better than swimming?” I said. The sound of the bees diminished, sustained yet, as though instead of sinking into silence, silence merely increased between us, as water rises. The road curved again and became a street between shady lawns with white houses.Caddy that blackguard can you think of Benjy and Father and do it not of me
What else can I think about what else have I thought aboutThe boy turned from the street. He climbed a picket fence without looking back and crossed the lawn to a tree and laid the pole down and climbed into the fork of the tree and sat there, his back to the road and the dappled sun motionless at last upon his white shirt.Else have I thought about I cant even cry I died last year I told you I had but I didnt know then what I meant I didnt know what I was sayingSome days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar. Man the sum of his climatic experiences Father said. Man the sum of what have you. A problem in impure properties carried tediously to an unvarying nil: stalemate of dust and desire.But now I know I’m dead I tell you
Then why must you listen we can go away you and Benjy and me where nobody knows us whereThe buggy was drawn by a white horse, his feet clopping in the thin dust; spidery wheels chattering thin and dry, moving uphill beneath a rippling shawl of leaves. Elm. No: ellum. Ellum.
On what on your school money the money they sold the pasture for so you could go to Harvard dont you see you’ve got to finish now if you dont finish he’ll have nothing
Sold the pastureHis white shirt was motionless in the fork, in the flickering shade. The wheels were spidery. Beneath the sag of the buggy the hooves neatly rapid like the motions of a lady doing embroidery, diminishing without progress like a figure on a treadmill being drawn rapidly offstage. The street turned again. I could see the white cupola, the round stupid assertion of the clock.Sold the pasture
Father will be dead in a year they say if he doesnt stop drinkingand he wont stop he cant stop since I since last summer and then they’ll send Benjy to Jackson I cant cry I cant even cry one minute she was standing in the door the next minute he was pulling at her dress and bellowing his voice hammered back and forth between the walls in waves and she shrinking against the wall getting smaller and smaller with her white face her eyes like thumbs dug into it until he pushed her out of the room his voice hammering back and forth as though its own momentum would not let it stop as though there were no place for it in silence bellowing
When you opened the door a bell tinkled, but just once, high and clear and small in the neat obscurity above the door, as though it were gauged and tempered to make that single clear small sound so as not to wear the bell out nor to require the expenditure of too much silence in restoring it when the door opened upon the recent warm scent of baking; a little dirty child with eyes like a toy bear’s and two patent-leather pig-tails.
“Hello, sister.” Her face was like a cup of milk dashed with coffee in the sweet warm emptiness. “Anybody here?”
But she merely watched me until a door opened and the lady came. Above the counter where the ranks of crisp shapes behind the glass her neat grey face her hair tight and sparse from her neat grey skull, spectacles in neat grey rims riding approaching like something on a wire, like a cash box in a store. She looked like a librarian. Something among dusty shelves of ordered certitudes long divorced from reality, desiccating peacefully, as if a breath of that air which sees injustice done
“Two of these, please, ma’am.”
From under the counter she produced a square cut from a newspaper and laid it on the counter and lifted the two buns out. The little girl watched them with still and unwinking eyes like two currants floating motionless in a cup of weak coffee Land of the kike home of the wop. Watching the bread, the neat grey hands, a broad gold band on the left forefinger, knuckled there by a blue knuckle.
“Do you do your own baking, ma’am?”
“Sir?” she said. Like that. Sir? Like on the stage. Sir? “Five cents. Was there anything else?”
“No, ma’am. Not for me. This lady wants something.” She wasnot tall enough to see over the case, so she went to the end of the counter and looked at the little girl.
“Did you bring her in here?”
“No, ma’am. She was here when I came.”
“You little wretch,” she said. She came out around the counter, but she didnt touch the little girl. “Have you got anything in your pockets?”
“She hasnt got any pockets,” I said. “She wasnt doing anything. She was just standing here, waiting for you.”
“Why didnt the bell ring, then?” She glared at me. She just needed a bunch of switches, a blackboard behind her 2X2 e 5. “She’ll hide it under her dress and a body’d never know it. You, child. How’d you get in here?”
The little girl said nothing. She looked at the woman, then she gave me a flying black glance and looked at the woman again, “Them foreigners,” the woman said. “How’d she get in without the bell ringing?”
“She came in when I opened the door,” I said. “It rang once for both of us. She couldnt reach anything from here, anyway. Besides, I dont think she would. Would you, sister?” The little girl looked at me, secretive, contemplative. “What do you want? bread?”
She extended her fist. It uncurled upon a nickel, moist and dirty, moist dirt ridged into her flesh. The coin was damp and warm. I could smell it, faintly metallic.
“Have you got a five cent loaf, please, ma’am?”
From beneath the counter she produced a square cut from a newspaper sheet and laid it on the counter and wrapped a loaf into it. I laid the coin and another one on the counter. “And another one of those buns, please, ma’am.”
She took another bun from the case. “Give me that parcel,” she said. I gave it to her and she unwrapped it and put the third bun in and wrapped it and took up the coins and found two coppers in her apron and gave them to me. I handed them to the little girl. Her fingers closed about them, damp and hot, like worms.
“You going to give her that bun?” the woman said.
“Yessum,” I said. “I expect your cooking smells as good to her as it does to me.”
I took up the two packages and gave the bread to the little girl, the woman all iron-grey behind the counter, watching us with cold certitude. “You wait a minute,” she said. She went to the rear. The door opened again and closed. The little girl watched me, holding the bread against her dirty dress.
“What’s your name?” I said. She quit looking at me, but she was still motionless. She didnt even seem to breathe. The woman returned. She had a funny looking thing in her hand. She carried it sort of like it might have been a dead pet rat.
“Here,” she said. The child looked at her. “Take it,” the woman said, jabbing it at the little girl. “It just looks peculiar. I calculate you wont know the difference when you eat it. Here. I cant stand here all day.” The child took it, still watching her. The woman rubbed her hands on her apron. “I got to have that bell fixed,” she said. She went to the door and jerked it open. The little bell tinkled once, faint and clear and invisible. We moved toward the door and the woman’s peering back.
“Thank you for the cake,” I said.
“Them foreigners,” she said, staring up into the obscurity where the bell tinkled. “Take my advice and stay clear of them, young man.”
“Yessum,” I said. “Come on, sister.” We went out. “Thank you, ma’am.”
She swung the door to, then jerked it open again, making the bell give forth its single small note. “Foreigners,” she said, peering up at the bell.
We went on. “Well,” I said, “How about some ice cream?” She was eating the gnarled cake. “Do you like ice cream?” She gave me a black still look, chewing. “Come on.”
We came to the drugstore and had some ice cream. She wouldn’t put the loaf down. “Why not put it down so you can eat better?” I said, offering to take it. But she held to it, chewing the ice cream like it was taffy. The bitten cake lay on the table. She ate the ice cream steadily, then she fell to on the cake again, looking about at the showcases. I finished mine and we went out.
“Which way do you live?” I said.
A buggy, the one with the white horse it was. Only Doc Peabody is fat. Three hundred pounds. You ride with him on the uphillside, holding on. Children. Walking easier than holding uphill.Seen the doctor yet have you seen Caddy
I dont have to I cant ask now afterward it will be all right it wont matter
Because women so delicate so mysterious Father said. Delicate equilibrium of periodical filth between two moons balanced. Moons he said full and yellow as harvest moons her hips thighs. Outside outside of them always but. Yellow. Feet soles with walking like. Then know that some man that all those mysterious and imperious concealed. With all that inside of them shapes an outward suavity waiting for a touch to. Liquid putrefaction like drowned things floating like pale rubber flabbily filled getting the odour of honeysuckle all mixed up.
“You’d better take your bread on home, hadnt you?”
She looked at me. She chewed quietly and steadily; at regular intervals a small distension passed smoothly down her throat. I opened my package and gave her one of the buns. “Goodbye,” I said.
I went on. Then I looked back. She was behind me. “Do you live down this way?” She said nothing. She walked beside me, under my elbow sort of, eating. We went on. It was quiet, hardly anyone aboutgetting the odour of honeysuckle all mixed She would have told me not to let me sit there on the steps hearing her door twilight slamming hearing Benjy still crying Supper she would have to come down then getting honeysuckle all mixed up in itWe reached the corner.
“Well, I’ve got to go down this way,” I said, “Goodbye.” She stopped too. She swallowed the last of the cake, then she began on the bun, watching me across it. “Goodbye,” I said. I turned into the street and went on, but I went to the next corner before I stopped.
“Which way do you live?” I said. “This way?” I pointed down the street. She just looked at me. “Do you live over that way? I bet you live close to the station, where the trains are. Dont you?” She just looked at me, serene and secret and chewing. The street was empty both ways, with quiet lawns and houses neat among the trees, but no one at all except back there. We turned and went back. Two men sat in chairs in front of a store.
“Do you all know this little girl? She sort of took up with me and I cant find where she lives.”
They quit looking at me and looked at her.
“Must be one of them new Italian families,” one said. He wore a rusty frock coat. “I’ve seen her before. What’s your name, little girl?” She looked at them blackly for awhile, her jaws moving steadily. She swallowed without ceasing to chew.
“Maybe she cant speak English,” the other said.
“They sent her after bread,” I said. “She must be able to speak something.”
“What’s your pa’s name?” the first said. “Pete? Joe? name John huh?” She took another bite from the bun.
“What must I do with her?” I said. “She just follows me. I’ve got to get back to Boston.”
“You from the college?”
“Yes, sir. And I’ve got to get on back.”
“You might go up the street and turn her over to Anse. He’ll be up at the livery stable. The marshall.”
“I reckon that’s what I’ll have to do,” I said. “I’ve got to do something with her. Much obliged. Come on, sister.”
We went up the street, on the shady side, where the shadow of the broken façade blotted slowly across the road. We came to the livery stable. The marshall wasnt there. A man sitting in a chair tilted in the broad low door, where a dark cool breeze smelling of ammonia blew among the ranked stalls, said to look at the postoffice. He didn’t know her either.
“Them furriners. I cant tell one from another. You might take her across the tracks where they live, and maybe somebody’ll claim her.”
We went to the postoffice. It was back down the street. The man in the frock coat was opening a newspaper.
“Anse just drove out of town,” he said. “I guess you’d better go down past the station and walk past them houses by the river. Somebody there’ll know her.”
“I guess I’ll have to,” I said. “Come on, sister.” She pushed the last piece of the bun into her mouth and swallowed it. “Want another?” I said. She looked at me, chewing, her eyes black and unwinking and friendly. I took the other two buns out and gaveher one and bit into the other. I asked a man where the station was and he showed me. “Come on, sister.”
We reached the station and crossed the tracks, where the river was. A bridge crossed it, and a street of jumbled frame houses followed the river, backed onto it. A shabby street, but with an air heterogeneous and vivid too. In the center of an untrimmed plot enclosed by a fence of gaping and broken pickets stood an ancient lopsided surrey and a weathered house from an upper window of which hung a garment of vivid pink.
“Does that look like your house?” I said. She looked at me over the bun. “This one?” I said, pointing. She just chewed, but it seemed to me that I discerned something affirmative, acquiescent even if it wasn’t eager, in her air. “This one?” I said. “Come on, then.” I entered the broken gate. I looked back at her. “Here?” I said. “This look like your house?”
She nodded her head rapidly, looking at me, gnawing into the damp halfmoon of the bread. We went on. A walk of broken random flags, speared by fresh coarse blades of grass, led to the broken stoop. There was no movement about the house at all, and the pink garment hanging in no wind from the upper window. There was a bell pull with a porcelain knob, attached to about six feet of wire when I stopped pulling and knocked. The little girl had the crust edgeways in her chewing mouth.
A woman opened the door. She looked at me, then she spoke rapidly to the little girl in Italian, with a rising inflexion, then a pause, interrogatory. She spoke to her again, the little girl looking at her across the end of the crust, pushing it into her mouth with a dirty hand.
“She says she lives here,” I said. “I met her down town. Is this your bread?”
“No spika,” the woman said. She spoke to the little girl again. The little girl just looked at her.
“No live here?” I said. I pointed to the girl, then at her, then at the door. The woman shook her head. She spoke rapidly. She came to the edge of the porch and pointed down the road, speaking.
I nodded violently too. “You come show?” I said. I took her arm, waving my other hand toward the road. She spoke swiftly,pointing. “You come show,” I said, trying to lead her down the steps.
“Si, si,” she said, holding back, showing me whatever it was. I nodded again.
“Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.” I went down the steps and walked toward the gate, not running, but pretty fast. I reached the gate and stopped and looked at her for a while. The crust was gone now, and she looked at me with her black, friendly stare. The woman stood on the stoop, watching us.
“Come on, then,” I said. “We’ll have to find the right one sooner or later.”
She moved along just under my elbow. We went on. The houses all seemed empty. Not a soul in sight. A sort of breathlessness that empty houses have. Yet they couldnt all be empty. All the different rooms, if you could just slice the walls away all of a sudden Madam, your daughter, if you please. No. Madam, for God’s sake, your daughter. She moved along just under my elbow, her shiny tight pigtails, and then the last house played out and the road curved out of sight beyond a wall, following the river. The woman was emerging from the broken gate, with a shawl over her head and clutched under her chin. The road curved on, empty. I found a coin and gave it to the little girl. A quarter. “Goodbye, sister,” I said. Then I ran.
I ran fast, not looking back. Just before the road curved away I looked back. She stood in the road, a small figure clasping the loaf of bread to her filthy little dress, her eyes still and black and unwinking. I ran on.
A lane turned from the road. I entered it and after a while I slowed to a fast walk. The lane went between back premises—unpainted houses with more of those gay and startling coloured garments on lines, a barn broken-backed, decaying quietly among rank orchard trees, unpruned and weed-choked, pink and white and murmurous with sunlight and with bees. I looked back. The entrance to the lane was empty. I slowed still more, my shadow pacing me, dragging its head through the weeds that hid the fence.
The lane went back to a barred gate, became defunctive in grass, a mere path scarred quietly into new grass. I climbed the gate into a woodlot and crossed it and came to another wall and followedthat one, my shadow behind me now. There were vines and creepers where at home would be honeysuckle. Coming and coming especially in the dusk when it rained, getting honeysuckle all mixed up in it as though it were not enough without that, not unbearable enough.What did you let him for kiss kiss
I didn’t let him I made him watching me getting mad What do you think of that? Red print of my hand coming up through her face like turning a light on under your hand her eyes going bright
It’s not for kissing I slapped you. Girl’s elbows at fifteen Father said you swallow like you had a fishbone in your throat what’s the matter with you and Caddy across the table not to look at me. It’s for letting it be some darn town squirt I slapped you you will will you now I guess you say calf rope. My red hand coming up out of her face. What do you think of that scouring her head into the. Grass sticks crisscrossed into the flesh tingling scouring her head. Say calf rope say it
I didnt kiss a dirty girl like Natalie anywayThe wall went into shadow, and then my shadow, I had tricked it again. I had forgot about the river curving along the road. I climbed the wall. And then she watched me jump down, holding the loaf against her dress.
I stood in the weeds and we looked at one another for a while.
“Why didnt you tell me you lived out this way, sister?” The loaf was wearing slowly out of the paper; already it needed a new one. “Well, come on then and show me the house.”not a dirty girl like Natalie. It was raining we could hear it on the roof, sighing through the high sweet emptiness of the barn.
There? touching her
Not there
There? not raining hard but we couldnt hear anything but the roof and as if it was my blood or her blood
She pushed me down the ladder and ran off and left me Caddy did
Was it there it hurt you when Caddy did ran off was it there
OhShe walked just under my elbow, the top of her patent leather head, the loaf fraying out of the newspaper.
“If you dont get home pretty soon you’re going to wear that loafout. And then what’ll your mamma say?”I bet I can lift you up
You cant I’m too heavy
Did Caddy go away did she go to the house you cant see the barn from our house did you ever try to see the barn from
It was her fault she pushed me she ran away
I can lift you up see how I can
Oh her blood or my blood OhWe went on in the thin dust, our feet silent as rubber in the thin dust where pencils of sun slanted in the trees. And I could feel water again running swift and peaceful in the secret shade.
“You live a long way, dont you. You’re mighty smart to go this far to town by yourself.”It’s like dancing sitting down did you ever dance sitting down? We could hear the rain, a rat in the crib, the empty barn vacant with horses. How do you hold to dance do you hold like this
Oh
I used to hold like this you thought I wasnt strong enough didn’t you
Oh Oh Oh Oh
I hold to use like this I mean did you hear what I said I said
oh oh oh oh
The road went on, still and empty, the sun slanting more and more. Her stiff little pigtails were bound at the tips with bits of crimson cloth. A corner of the wrapping flapped a little as she walked, the nose of the loaf naked. I stopped.
“Look here. Do you live down this road? We havent passed a house in a mile, almost.”
She looked at me, black and secret and friendly.
“Where do you live, sister? Dont you live back there in town?”
There was a bird somewhere in the woods, beyond the broken and infrequent slanting of sunlight.
“Your papa’s going to be worried about you. Dont you reckon you’ll get a whipping for not coming straight home with that bread?”
The bird whistled again, invisible, a sound meaningless and profound, inflexionless, ceasing as though cut off with the blow of a knife, and again, and that sense of water swift and peaceful above secret places, felt, not seen not heard.
“Oh, hell, sister.” About half the paper hung limp. “That’s notdoing any good now.” I tore it off and dropped it beside the road. “Come on. We’ll have to go back to town. We’ll go back along the river.”
We left the road. Among the moss little pale flowers grew, and the sense of water mute and unseen.I hold to use like this I mean I use to hold She stood in the door looking at us her hands on her hips
You pushed me it was your fault it hurt me too
We were dancing sitting down I bet Caddy cant dance sitting down
Stop that stop that
I was just brushing the trash off the back of your dress
You keep your nasty old hands off of me it was your fault you pushed me down I’m mad at you
I dont care she looked at us stay mad she went awayWe began to hear the shouts, the splashings; I saw a brown body gleam for an instant.
Stay mad. My shirt was getting wet and my hair. Across the roof hearing the roof loud now I could see Natalie going through the garden among the rain. Get wet I hope you catch pneumonia go on home Cowface. I jumped hard as I could into the hogwallow the mud yellowed up to my waist stinking I kept on plunging until I fell down and rolled over in it“Hear them in swimming, sister? I wouldn’t mind doing that myself.” If I had time. When I have time. I could hear my watch.mud was warmer than the rain it smelled awful. She had her back turned I went around in front of her. You know what I was doing? She turned her back I went around in front of her the rain creeping into the mud flatting her bodice through her dress it smelled horrible. I was hugging her that’s what I was doing. She turned her back I went around in front of her. I was hugging her I tell you.
I dont give a damn what you were doing
You dont you dont I’ll make you I’ll make you give a damn. She hit my hands away I smeared mud on her with the other hand I couldn’t feel the wet smacking of her hand I wiped mud from my legs smeared it on her wet hard turning body hearing her fingers going into my face but I couldn’t feel it even when the rain began to taste sweet on my lips
They saw us from the water first, heads and shoulders. They yelled and one rose squatting and sprang among them. They looked like beavers, the water lipping about their chins, yelling.
“Take that girl away! What did you want to bring a girl here for? Go on away!”
“She wont hurt you. We just want to watch you for a while.”
They squatted in the water. Their heads drew into a clump, watching us, then they broke and rushed toward us, hurling water with their hands. We moved quick.
“Look out, boys; she wont hurt you.”
“Go on away, Harvard!” It was the second boy, the one that thought the horse and wagon back there at the bridge. “Splash them, fellows!”
“Let’s get out and throw them in,” another said. “I aint afraid of any girl.”
“Splash them! Splash them!” They rushed toward us, hurling water. We moved back. “Go on away!” they yelled. “Go on away!”
We went away. They huddled just under the bank, their slick heads in a row against the bright water. We went on. “That’s not for us, is it.” The sun slanted through to the moss here and there, leveller. “Poor kid, you’re just a girl.” Little flowers grew among the moss, littler than I had ever seen. “You’re just a girl. Poor kid.” There was a path, curving along beside the water. Then the water was still again, dark and still and swift. “Nothing but a girl. Poor sister.”We lay in the wet grass panting the rain like cold shot on my back. Do you care now do you do you
My Lord we sure are in a mess get up. Where the rain touched my forehead it began to smart my hand came red away streaking off pink in the rain. Does it hurt
Of course it does what do you reckon
I tried to scratch your eyes out my Lord we sure do stink we better try to wash it off in the branch“There’s town again, sister. You’ll have to go home now. I’ve got to get back to school. Look how late it’s getting. You’ll go home now, wont you?” But she just looked at me with her black, secret, friendly gaze, the half-naked loaf clutched to her breast. “It’s wet. I thought we jumped back in time.” I took my handkerchief and tried to wipe the loaf, but thecrust began to come off, so I stopped. “We’ll just have to let it dry itself. Hold it like this.” She held it like that. It looked kind of like rats had been eating it now.and the water building and building up the squatting back the sloughed mud stinking surfaceward pocking the pattering surface like grease on a hot stove. I told you I’d make you
I dont give a goddam what you do
Then we heard the running and we stopped and looked back and saw him coming up the path running, the level shadows flicking upon his legs.
“He’s in a hurry. We’d—” then I saw another man, an oldish man running heavily, clutching a stick, and a boy naked from the waist up, clutching his pants as he ran.
“There’s Julio,” the little girl said, and then I saw his Italian face and his eyes as he sprang upon me. We went down. His hands were jabbing at my face and he was saying something and trying to bite me, I reckon, and then they hauled him off and held him heaving and thrashing and yelling and they held his arms and he tried to kick me until they dragged him back. The little girl was howling, holding the loaf in both arms. The half-naked boy was darting and jumping up and down, clutching his trousers and someone pulled me up in time to see another stark naked figure come around the tranquil bend in the path running and change direction in midstride and leap into the woods, a couple of garments rigid as boards behind it. Julio still struggled. The man who had pulled me up said, “Whoa, now. We got you.” He wore a vest but no coat. Upon it was a metal shield. In his other hand he clutched a knotted, polished stick.
“You’re Anse, aren’t you?” I said. “I was looking for you. What’s the matter?”
“I warn you that anything you say will be used against you,” he said. “You’re under arrest.”
“I killa heem,” Julio said. He struggled. Two men held him. The little girl howled steadily, holding the bread. “You steala my seester,” Julio said. “Let go, meesters.”
“Steal his sister?” I said. “Why, I’ve been—”
“Shet up,” Anse said. “You can tell that to Squire.”
“Steal his sister?” I said. Julio broke from the men and sprangat me again, but the marshall met him and they struggled until the other two pinioned his arms again. Anse released him, panting.