William Thomas Faulkner

“ 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. ”

“ The first note sounded, measured and tranquil, serenely peremptory, emptying the unhurried silence for the next one and that’s it if people could only change one another forever that way merge like a flame swirling up for an instant then blown cleanly out along the cool eternal dark instead of lying there trying not to think of the swing until all cedars came to have that vivid dead smell of perfume that Benjy hated so. ”

“ Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.
It was propped against the collar box and I lay listening to it. Hearing it, that is. I dont suppose anybody ever deliberately listens to a watch or a clock. You dont have to. You can be oblivious to the sound for a long while, then in a second of ticking it can create in the mind unbroken the long diminishing parade of time you didn’t hear. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Caddy’s a woman too, remember. She must do things for women’s reasons, too.
Why wont you bring him to the house, Caddy? Why must you do like nigger women do in the pasture the ditches the dark woods hot hidden furious in the dark woods.
And after a while I had been hearing my watch for some time and I could feel the letters crackle through my coat, against the railing, and I leaned on the railing, watching my shadow, how I had tricked it. I moved along the rail, but my suit was dark too and I could wipe my hands, watching my shadow, how I had tricked it. ”

“ Uncle Maury kept saying Poor little sister, poor little sister, talking around his mouth and patting Mother’s hand. Talking around whatever it was.
“Have you got your band on?” she says. “Why dont they go on, before Benjamin comes out and makes a spectacle. Poor little boy. He doesn’t know. He cant even realise.”
“There, there,” Uncle Maury says, patting her hand, talking around his mouth. “It’s better so. Let him be unaware of bereavement until he has to.”
“Other women have their children to support them in times like this,” Mother says.
“You have Jason and me,” he says. ”

“ And so I was thinking what kind of a damn man would wear a red tie when all of a sudden I knew he was one of those show folks well as if she’d told me. Well, I can stand a lot; if I couldn’t, damn if I wouldn’t be in a hell of a fix, so when they turned the corner I jumped down and followed. Me, without any hat, in the middle of the afternoon, having to chase up and down back alleys because of my mother’s good name. Like I say you cant do anything with a woman like that, if she’s got it in her. If it’s in her blood, you cant do anything with her. ”

“ 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, Caddy The river glinted away beyond a swooping curve. ”

“ It’s a curious thing how no matter what’s wrong with you, a man’ll tell you to have your teeth examined and a woman’ll tell you to get married. It always takes a man that never made much at any thing to tell you how to run your business, though. Like these college professors without a whole pair of socks to their name, telling you how to make a million in ten years, and a woman that couldn’t even get a husband can always tell you how to raise a family. ”

“ Caddy said. “Why do we have to sleep in here tonight.”
“What you care where you sleep.” Dilsey said. She shut the door and sat down and began to undress me. Jason began to cry. “Hush.” Dilsey said.
“I want to sleep with Damuddy.” Jason said.
“She’s sick.” Caddy said. “You can sleep with her when she gets well. Cant he, Dilsey.”
“Hush, now.” Dilsey said. Jason hushed.
“Our nighties are here, and everything.” Caddy said. “It’s like moving.”
“And you better get into them.” Dilsey said. “You be unbuttoning Jason.” ”

“ I used to think that a Southerner had to be always conscious of niggers. I thought that Northerners would expect him to. When I first came East I kept thinking You’ve got to remember to think of them as coloured people not niggers, and if it hadn’t happened that I wasn’t thrown with many of them, I’d have wasted a lot of time and trouble before I learned that the best way to take all people, black or white, is to take them for what they think they are, then leave them alone. That was when I realised that a nigger is not a person so much as a form of behaviour ”

“ 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 somebody Versh 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. ”

“ What the hell chance has a man got, tied down in a town like this and to a business like this. Why I could take his business in one year and fix him so he’d never have to work again, only he’d give it all away to the church or something. If there’s one thing gets under my skin, it’s a damn hypocrite. A man that thinks anything he dont understand all about must be crooked and that first chance he gets he’s morally bound to tell the third party what’s none of his business to tell. ”

“ Damn if I believe anybody knows anything about the damn thing except the ones that sit back in those New York offices and watch the country suckers come up and beg them to take their money. Well, a man that just calls shows he has no faith in himself, and like I say if you aren’t going to take the advice, what’s the use in paying money for it. ”

“ Shreve said, “What the hell do you mean anyway, straggling off here, fooling with these damn wops?”
“Come on,” Spoade said, “They must be getting impatient.”
Mrs Bland was talking to them. They were Miss Holmes and Miss Daingerfield and they quit listening to her and looked at me again with that delicate and curious horror, their veils turned back upon their little white noses and their eyes fleeing and mysterious beneath the veils.
“Quentin Compson,” Mrs Bland said, “What would your mother say? A young man naturally gets into scrapes, but to be arrested on foot by a country policeman. ”

“ Luster said. “Look there.” The fire was there. I hushed. “Cant you set and look at the fire and be quiet like mammy told you.” Luster said. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Here. Here’s you some more cake.”
“What you done to him now.” Dilsey said. “Cant you never let him alone.”
“I was just trying to get him to hush up and not sturb Miss Cahline.” Luster said. “Something got him started again.”
“And I know what that something name.” Dilsey said. “I’m going to get Versh to take a stick to you when he comes home. You just trying yourself. You been doing it all day. ”

“ I dont know why it is I cant seem to learn that a woman’ll do anything. I kept thinking, Let’s forget for awhile how I feel toward you and how you feel toward me: I just wouldn’t do you this way. I wouldn’t do you this way no matter what you had done to me. Because like I say blood is blood and you cant get around it. It’s not playing a joke that any eight year old boy could have thought of, it’s letting your own uncle be laughed at by a man that would wear a red tie. They come into town and call us all a bunch of hicks and think it’s too small to hold them. ”

“ Mother said. “Nobody knows how I dread Christmas. Nobody knows. I am not one of those women who can stand things. I wish for Jason’s and the children’s sakes I was stronger.”
“You must do the best you can and not let them worry you.” Uncle Maury said. “Run along, you two. But dont stay out long, now. Your mother will worry.”
“Yes, sir.” Caddy said. “Come on, Benjy. We’re going out doors again.” ”

“ And more than that: he must see them first, get the money back, then what they did would be of no importance to him, while otherwise the whole world would know that he, Jason Compson, had been robbed by Quentin, his niece, a bitch.
He reconnoitred again. Then he went to the car and mounted the steps, swiftly and quietly, and paused at the door. The galley was dark, rank with stale food. The man was a white blur, singing in a cracked, shaky tenor. An old man, he thought, and not as big as I am. He entered the car as the man looked up. ”

“ I dont see how a city no bigger than New York can hold enough people to take the money away from us country suckers. Work like hell all day every day, send them your money and get a little piece of paper back, Your account closed at 20.62. Teasing you along, letting you pile up a little paper profit, then bang! Your account closed at 20.62. And if that wasn’t enough, paying ten dollars a month to somebody to tell you how to lose it fast, that either dont know anything about it or is in cahoots with the telegraph company. ”

“ She shut the door. Luster went to the woodpile. The five jaybirds whirled over the house, screaming, and into the mulberries again. He watched them. He picked up a rock and threw it. “Whoo,” he said, “Git on back to hell, whar you belong at. ’Taint Monday yit.”
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!” ”

“ I says, “You couldn’t square your conscience with that. You’ll just take her back there and let her find it. You wont tell, yourself.”
“I’m not trying to meddle in your business,” he says. “I know you missed out on some things like Quentin had. But your mother has had a misfortunate life too, and if she was to come in here and ask me why you quit, I’d have to tell her. It aint that thousand dollars. You know that. It’s because a man never gets anywhere if fact and his ledgers dont square. And I’m not going to lie to anybody, for myself or anybody else.” ”

“ And the good Saint Francis that said Little Sister Death, that never had a sister.
Through the wall I heard Shreve’s bed-springs and then his slippers on the floor hishing. I got up and went to the dresser and slid my hand along it and touched the watch and turned it face-down and went back to bed. But the shadow of the sash was still there and I had learned to tell almost to the minute, so I’d have to turn my back to it, feeling the eyes animals used to have in the back of their heads when it was on top, itching. It’s always the idle habits you acquire which you will regret. ”

“ In the diningroom Dilsey moved back and forth. Presently she rang a small clear bell, then in the kitchen Luster heard Mrs Compson and Jason descending, and Jason’s voice, and he rolled his eyes whitely with listening.
“Sure, I know they didn’t break it,” Jason said. “Sure, I know that. Maybe the change of weather broke it.”
“I dont see how it could have,” Mrs Compson said. “Your room stays locked all day long, just as you leave it when you go to town. None of us ever go in there except Sunday, to clean it. ”

“ Mrs Compson said on the stairs.
“Is which?” Dilsey said. “Whyn’t you let—”
“The key,” Jason said, “To that room. Does she carry it with her all the time. Mother.” Then he saw Mrs Compson and he went down the stairs and met her. “Give me the key,” he said. He fell to pawing at the pockets of the rusty black dressing sacque she wore. She resisted.
“Jason,” she said, “Jason! Are you and Dilsey trying to put me to bed again?” she said, trying to fend him off, “Cant you even let me have Sunday in peace?” ”

“ I didnt 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.” ”

“ I could hear Ben in the kitchen, where Luster was feeding him. Like I say, if we’ve got to feed another mouth and she wont take that money, why not send him down to Jackson. He’ll be happier there, with people like him. I says God knows there’s little enough room for pride in this family, but it dont take much pride to not like to see a thirty year old man playing around the yard with a nigger boy, running up and down the fence and lowing like a cow whenever they play golf over there. I says if they’d sent him to Jackson at first we’d all be better off today. ”

“ He said time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life. The hands were extended, slightly off the horizontal at a faint angle, like a gull tilting into the wind. ”

“ 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. ”