Versh said, Your name Benjamin now. You know how come your name Benjamin now. They making a bluegum out of you. Mammy say in old time your granpaw changed nigger’s name, and he turn preacher, and when they look at him, he bluegum too. Didn’t use to be bluegum, neither. And when family woman look him in the eye in the full of the moon, chile born bluegum. And one evening, when they was about a dozen them bluegum chillen running around the place, he never come home. Possum hunters found him in the woods, et clean. And you know who et him. Them bluegum chillen did.
We were in the hall. Caddy was still looking at me. Her hand was against her mouth and I saw her eyes and I cried. We went up the stairs. She stopped again, against the wall, looking at me and I cried and she went on and I came on, crying, and she shrank against the wall, looking at me. She opened the door to her room, but I pulled at her dress and we went to the bathroom and she stood against the door, looking at me. Then she put her arm across her face and I pushed at her, crying.
What are you doing to him, Jason said. Why cant you let him alone.
I aint touching him, Luster said. He been doing this way all day long. He needs whipping.
He needs to be sent to Jackson, Quentin said. How can anybody live in a house like this.
If you dont like it, young lady, you’d better get out, Jason said.
I’m going to, Quentin said. Dont you worry.
Versh said, “You move back some, so I can dry my legs off.” He shoved me back a little. “Dont you start bellering, now. You can still see it. That’s all you have to do. You aint had to be out in the rain like I is. You’s born lucky and dont know it.” He lay on his back before the fire.
“You know how come your name Benjamin now.” Versh said. “Your mamma too proud for you. What mammy say.”
“You be still there and let me dry my legs off.” Versh said. “Or you know what I’ll do. I’ll skin your rinktum.”
We could hear the fire and the roof and Versh.
Versh got up quick and jerked his legs back. Father said, “All right, Versh.”
“I’ll feed him tonight.” Caddy said. “Sometimes he cries when Versh feeds him.”
“Take this tray up.” Dilsey said. “And hurry back and feed Benjy.”
“Dont you want Caddy to feed you.” Caddy said.
Has he got to keep that old dirty slipper on the table, Quentin said. Why dont you feed him in the kitchen. It’s like eating with a pig.
If you dont like the way we eat, you’d better not come to the table, Jason said.
Steam came off of Roskus. He was sitting in front of the stove. The oven door was open and Roskus had his feet in it. Steam came off the bowl. Caddy put the spoon into my mouth easy. There was a black spot on the inside of the bowl.
Now, now, Dilsey said. He aint going to bother you no more.
It got down below the mark. Then the bowl was empty. It went away. “He’s hungry tonight.” Caddy said. The bowl came back. I couldn’t see the spot. Then I could. “He’s starved, tonight.” Caddy said. “Look how much he’s eaten.”
Yes he will, Quentin said. You all send him out to spy on me. I hate this house. I’m going to run away.
Roskus said, “It going to rain all night.”
You’ve been running a long time, not to’ve got any further off than mealtime, Jason said.
See if I dont, Quentin said.
“Then I dont know what I going to do.” Dilsey said. “It caught me in the hip so bad now I cant scarcely move. Climbing them stairs all evening.”
Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised, Jason said. I wouldn’t be surprised at anything you’d do.
Quentin threw her napkin on the table.
Hush your mouth, Jason, Dilsey said. She went and put her arm around Quentin. Sit down, honey, Dilsey said. He ought to be shamed of hisself, throwing what aint your fault up to you.
“She sulling again, is she.” Roskus said.
“Hush your mouth.” Dilsey said.
Quentin pushed Dilsey away. She looked at Jason. Her mouth was red. She picked up her glass of water and swung her arm back, looking at Jason. Dilsey caught her arm. They fought. The glass broke on the table, and the water ran into the table. Quentin was running.
“Mother’s sick again.” Caddy said.
“Sho she is.” Dilsey said. “Weather like this make anybody sick. When you going to get done eating, boy.”
Goddam you, Quentin said. Goddam you. We could hear her running on the stairs. We went to the library.
Caddy gave me the cushion, and I could look at the cushion and the mirror and the fire.
“We must be quiet while Quentin’s studying.” Father said. “What are you doing, Jason.”
“Nothing.” Jason said.
“Suppose you come over here to do it, then.” Father said.
Jason came out of the corner.
“What are you chewing.” Father said.
“Nothing.” Jason said.
“He’s chewing paper again.” Caddy said.
“Come here, Jason.” Father said.
Jason threw into the fire. It hissed, uncurled, turning black. Then it was gray. Then it was gone. Caddy and Father and Jason were in Mother’s chair. Jason’s eyes were puffed shut and his mouth moved, like tasting. Caddy’s head was on Father’s shoulder. Her hair was like fire, and little points of fire were in her eyes, and I went and Father lifted me into the chair too, and Caddy held me. She smelled like trees.
She smelled like trees. In the corner it was dark, but I could see the window. I squatted there, holding the slipper. I couldn’t see it, but my hands saw it, and I could hear it getting night, and my hands saw the slipper but I couldn’t see myself, but my hands could see the slipper, and I squatted there, hearing it getting dark.
Here you is, Luster said. Look what I got. He showed it to me. You know where I got it. Miss Quentin give it to me. I knowed they couldn’t keep me out. What you doing, off in here. I thought you done slipped back out doors. Aint you done enough moaning and slobbering today, without hiding off in this here empty room, mumbling and taking on. Come on here to bed, so I can get up there before it starts. I cant fool with you all night tonight. Just let them horns toot the first toot and I done gone.
We didn’t go to our room.
“This is where we have the measles.” 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.”
Caddy unbuttoned Jason. He began to cry.
“You want to get whipped.” Dilsey said. Jason hushed.
Quentin, Mother said in the hall.
What, Quentin said beyond the wall. We heard Mother lock the door. She looked in our door and came in and stooped over the bed and kissed me on the forehead.
When you get him to bed, go and ask Dilsey if she objects to my having a hot water bottle, Mother said. Tell her that if she does, I’ll try to get along without it. Tell her I just want to know.
Yessum, Luster said. Come on. Get your pants off.
Quentin and Versh came in. Quentin had his face turned away. “What are you crying for.” Caddy said.
“Hush.” Dilsey said. “You all get undressed, now. You can go on home, Versh.”
I got undressed and I looked at myself, and I began to cry. Hush, Luster said. Looking for them aint going to do no good. They’re gone. You keep on like this, and we aint going have you no more birthday. He put my gown on. I hushed, and then Luster stopped, his head toward the window. Then he went to the wi
ndow and looked out. He came back and took my arm. Here she come, he said. Be quiet, now. We went to the window and looked out. It came out of Quentin’s window and climbed across into the tree. We watched the tree shaking. The shaking went down the tree, then it came out and we watched it go away across the grass. Then we couldn’t see it. Come on, Luster said. There now. Hear them horns. You get in that bed while my foots behaves.
There were two beds. Quentin got in the other one. He turned his face to the wall. Dilsey put Jason in with him. Caddy took her dress off.
“Just look at your drawers.” Dilsey said. “You better be glad your maw aint seen you.”
“I already told on her.” Jason said.
“I bound you would.” Dilsey said.
“And see what you got by it.” Caddy said. “Tattletale.”
“What did I get by it.” Jason said.
“Whyn’t you get your nightie on.” Dilsey said. She went and helped Caddy take off her bodice and drawers. “Just look at you.” Dilsey said. She wadded the drawers and scrubbed Caddy behind with them. “It done soaked clean through onto you.” she said. “But you wont get no bath this night. Here.” She put Caddy’s nightie on her and Caddy climbed into the bed and Dilsey went to the door and stood with her hand on the light. “You all be quiet now, you hear.” she said.
“All right.” Caddy said. “Mother’s not coming in tonight.” she said. “So we still have to mind me.”
“Yes.” Dilsey said. “Go to sleep, now.”
“Mother’s sick.” Caddy said. “She and Damuddy are both sick.”
“Hush.” Dilsey said. “You go to sleep.”
The room went black, except the door. Then the door went black. Caddy said, “Hush, Maury” putting her hand on me. So I stayed hushed. We could hear us. We could hear the dark.
It went away, and Father looked at us. He looked at Quentin and Jason, then he came and kissed Caddy and put his hand on my head.
“Is Mother very sick.” Caddy said.
“No.” Father said. “Are you going to take good care of Maury.”
“Yes.” Caddy said.
Father went to the door and looked at us again. Then the dark came back, and he stood black in the door, and then the door turned black again. Caddy held me and I could hear us all, and the darkness, and something I could smell. And then I could see the windows, where the trees were buzzing. Then the dark began to go in smooth, bright shapes, like it always does, even when Caddy says that I have been asleep.
June Second, 1910.
When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight oclock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather’s and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather excruciating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father’s. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. 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. Like Father said down the long and lonely light-rays you might see Jesus walking, like. 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. Father said that. That Christ was not crucified: he was worn away by a minute clicking of little wheels. That had no sister.
And so as soon as I knew I couldn’t see it, I began to wonder what time it was. Father said that constant speculation regarding the position of mechanical hands on an arbitrary dial which is a symptom of mind-function. Excrement Father said like sweating. And I saying All right. Wonder. Go on and wonder.
If it had been cloudy I could have looked at the window, thinking what he said about idle habits. Thinking it would be nice for them down at New London if the weather held up like this. Why shouldn’t it? The month of brides, the voice that breathed She ran right out of the mirror, out of the banked scent. Roses. Roses. Mr and Mrs Jason Richmond Compson announce the marriage of. Roses. Not virgins like dogwood, milkweed. I said I have committed incest, Father I said. Roses. Cunning and serene. If you attend Harvard one year, but dont see the boat-race, there should be a refund. Let Jason have it. Give Jason a year at Harvard.
Shreve stood in the door, putting his collar on, his glasses glinting rosily, as though he had washed them with his face. “You taking a cut this morning?”
“Is it that late?”
He looked at his watch. “Bell in two minutes.”
“I didn’t know it was that late.” He was still looking at the watch, his mouth shaping. “I’ll have to hustle. I cant stand another cut. The dean told me last week——” He put the watch back into his pocket. Then I quit talking.
“You’d better slip on your pants and run,” he said. He went out.
I got up and moved about, listening to him through the wall. He entered the sitting-room, toward the door.
“Aren’t you ready yet?”
“Not yet. Run along. I’ll make it.”
He went out. The door closed. His feet went down the corridor. Then I could hear the watch again. I quit moving around and went to the window and drew the curtains aside and watched them running for chapel, the same ones fighting the same heaving coat-sleeves, the same books and flapping collars flushing past like debris on a flood, and Spoade. Calling Shreve my husband. Ah let him alone, Shreve said, if he’s got better sense than to chase after the little dirty sluts, whose business. In the South you are ashamed of being a virgin. Boys. Men. They lie about it. Because it means less to women, Father said. He said it was men invented virginity not women. Father said it’s like death: only a state in which the others are left and I said, But to believe it doesn’t matter and he said, That’s what’s so sad about anything: not only virginity and I said, Why couldn’t it have been me and not her who is unvirgin and he said, That’s why that’s sad too; nothing is even worth the changing of it, and Shreve said if he’s got better sense than to chase after the little dirty sluts and I said Did you ever have a sister? Did you? Did you?
Spoade was in the middle of them like a terrapin in a street full of scuttering dead leaves, his collar about his ears, moving at his customary unhurried walk. He was from South Carolina, a senior. It was his club’s boast that he never ran for chapel and had never got there on time and had never been absent in four years and had never made either chapel or first lecture with a shirt on his back and socks on his feet. About ten oclock he’d come in Thompson’s, get two cups of coffee, sit down and take his socks out of his pocket and remove his shoes and put them on while the coffee cooled. About noon you’d see him with a shirt and collar on, like anybody else. The others passed him running, but he never increased his pace at all. After a while the quad was empty.
A sparrow slanted across the sunlight, onto the window ledge, and cocked his head at me. His eye was round and bright. First he’d watch me with one eye, then flick! and it would be the other one, his throat pumping faster than any pulse. The hour began to strike. The sparrow quit swapping eyes and watched me steadily wit
h the same one until the chimes ceased, as if he were listening too. Then he flicked off the ledge and was gone.
It was a while before the last stroke ceased vibrating. It stayed in the air, more felt than heard, for a long time. Like all the bells that ever rang still ringing in the long dying light-rays and Jesus and Saint Francis talking about his sister. Because if it were just to hell; if that were all of it. Finished. If things just finished themselves. Nobody else there but her and me. If we could just have done something so dreadful that they would have fled hell except us. I have committed incest I said Father it was I it was not Dalton Ames And when he put Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. When he put the pistol in my hand I didn’t. That’s why I didn’t. He would be there and she would and I would. Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. If we could have just done something so dreadful and Father said That’s sad too people cannot do anything that dreadful they cannot do anything very dreadful at all they cannot even remember tomorrow what seemed dreadful today and I said, You can shirk all things and he said, Ah can you. And I will look down and see my murmuring bones and the deep water like wind, like a roof of wind, and after a long time they cannot distinguish even bones upon the lonely and inviolate sand. Until on the Day when He says Rise only the flat-iron would come floating up. It’s not when you realise that nothing can help you—religion, pride, anything—it’s when you realise that you dont need any aid. Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. If I could have been his mother lying with open body lifted laughing, holding his father with my hand refraining, seeing, watching him die before he lived. One minute she was standing in the door
I went to the dresser and took up the watch, with the face still down. I tapped the crystal on the corner of the dresser and caught the fragments of glass in my hand and put them into the ashtray and twisted the hands off and put them in the tray. The watch ticked on. I turned the face up, the blank dial with little wheels clicking and clicking behind it, not knowing any better. Jesus walking on Galilee and Washington not telling lies. Father brought back a watch-charm from the Saint Louis Fair to Jason: a tiny opera glass into which you squinted with one eye and saw a skyscraper, a ferris wheel all spidery, Niagara Falls on a pinhead. There was a red smear on the dial. When I saw it my thumb began to smart. I put the watch down and went into Shreve’s room and got the iodine and painted the cut. I cleaned the rest of the glass out of the rim with a towel.