“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 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.”
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 uniform 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 wear in the world’s eye, pompous, spurious, not quite gross.
“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 post-office, 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 Versh said 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?”
“I’m not doing anything. Not until tomorrow, now.”
“What’s that you got there?”
“Nothing. Pair of shoes I had half-soled. Not until tomorrow, you hear?”
“Sure. All right. Oh, by the way, did you get a letter off the table this morning?”
“No.”
“It’s there. From Semiramis. Chauffeur brought it before ten o’clock.”
“All right. I’ll get it. Wonder what she wants now.”
“Another band recital, I guess. Tumpty ta ta Gerald blah. ‘A little louder on the drum, Quentin.’ God, I’m glad I’m not a gentleman.” He went on, nursing a book, a little shapeless, fatly intent. The street lamps do you think so because one of our forefathers was a governor and three were generals and Mother’s weren’t any live man is better than any dead man but no live or dead man is very much better than any other live or dead man Done in Mother’s mind though. Finished. Finished. Then we were all poisoned you are confusing sin and morality women dont do that your Mother is thinking of morality whether it be sin or not has not occurred to her
Jason I must go away you keep the others I’ll take Jason and go where nobody knows us so he’ll have a chance to grow up and forget all this the others dont love me they have never loved anything with that streak of Compson selfishness and false pride Jason was the only one my heart went out to without dread
nonsense Jason is all right I was thinking that as soon as you feel better you and Caddy might go up to French Lick
and leave Jason here with nobody but you and the darkies
she will forget him then all the talk will die away found not death at the salt licks
maybe I could find a husband for her not death at the salt licks
The car came up and stopped. The bells were still ringing the half hour. I got on and it went on again, blotting the half hour. No: the three quarters. Then it would be ten minutes anyway. To leave Harvard your Mother’s dream for sold Benjy’s pasture for
what have I done to have been given children like these Benjamin was punishment enough and now for her to have no more regard for me her own mother I’ve suffered for her dreamed and planned and sacrificed I went down into the valley yet never since she opened her eyes has she given me one unselfish thought at times I look at her I wonder if she can be my child except Jason he has never given me one moment’s sorrow since I first held him in my arms I knew then that he was to be my joy and my salvation I thought that Benjamin was punishment enough for any sins I have committed I thought he was my punishment for putting aside my pride and marrying a man who held himself above me I dont complain I loved him above all of them because of it because my duty though Jason pulling at my heart all the while but I see now that I have not suffered enough I see now that I must pay for your sins as well as mine what have you done what sins have your high and mighty people visited upon me but you’ll take up for them you always have found excuses for your own blood only Jason can do wrong because he is more Bascomb than Compson while your own daughter my little daughter my baby girl she is she is no better than that when I was a girl I was unfortunate I was only a Bascomb I was taught that there is no halfway ground that a woman is either a lady or not but I never dreamed when I held her in my arms that any daughter of mine could let herself dont you know I can look at her eyes and tell you may think she’d tell you but she doesn’t tell things she is secretive you dont know her I know things she’s done that I’d die before I’d have you know that’s it go on critic
ise Jason accuse me of setting him to watch her as if it were a crime while your own daughter can I know you dont love him that you wish to believe faults against him you never have yes ridicule him as you always have Maury you cannot hurt me any more than your children already have and then I’ll be gone and Jason with no one to love him shield him from this I look at him every day dreading to see this Compson blood beginning to show in him at last with his sister slipping out to see what do you call it then have you ever laid eyes on him will you even let me try to find out who he is it’s not for myself I couldn’t bear to see him it’s for your sake to protect you but who can fight against bad blood you wont let me try we are to sit back with our hands folded while she not only drags your name in the dirt but corrupts the very air your children breathe Jason you must let me go away I cannot stand it let me have Jason and you keep the others they’re not my flesh and blood like he is strangers nothing of mine and I am afraid of them I can take Jason and go where we are not known I’ll go down on my knees and pray for the absolution of my sins that he may escape this curse try to forget that the others ever were
If that was the three quarters, not over ten minutes now. One car had just left, and people were already waiting for the next one. I asked, but he didn’t know whether another one would leave before noon or not because you’d think that interurbans. So the first one was another trolley. I got on. You can feel noon. I wonder if even miners in the bowels of the earth. That’s why whistles: because people that sweat, and if just far enough from sweat you wont hear whistles and in eight minutes you should be that far from sweat in Boston. Father said a man is the sum of his misfortunes. One day you’d think misfortune would get tired, but then time is your misfortune Father said. A gull on an invisible wire attached through space dragged. You carry the symbol of your frustration into eternity. Then the wings are bigger Father said only who can play a harp.
I could hear my watch whenever the car stopped, but not often they were already eating Who would play a Eating the business of eating inside of you space to 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 the Dalton Ames oh asbestos Quentin has shot background. Something with girls in it. Women do have always his voice above the gabble voice that breathed an 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 was simply lost. Telling us about Gerald’s women in a Quentin has shot Herbert he shot his voice through the floor of Caddy’s room tone 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 imagine the 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 apple what 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 had Are 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 promise wondered 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 that 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 in these 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 die stove I’ve only heard that one twice
shot him through the I 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’s habits 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 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 hell 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 be 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