As I Lay Dying

by William Faulkner

  He set that way all the time we was in front of Mrs Bundren’s house, hearing the music, watching the back of Darl’s head with them hard white eyes of hisn.

  The music was playing in the house. It was one of them graphophones. It was natural as a music-band.

  “Do you want to go to Peabody’s?” Darl said. “They can wait here and tell pa, and I’ll drive you to Peabody’s and come back for them.”

  “No,” I said. It was better to get her underground, now we was this close, just waiting until pa borrowed the shovel. He drove along the street until we could hear the music.

  “Maybe they got one here,” he said. He pulled up at Mrs Bundren’s. It was like he knowed. Sometimes I think that if a working man could see work as far ahead as a lazy man can see laziness. So he stopped there like he knowed, before that little new house, where the music was. We waited there, hearing it. I believe I could have dickered Suratt down to five dollars on that one of his. It’s a comfortable thing, music is. “Maybe they got one here,” pa says.

  “You want Jewel to go,” Darl says, “or do you reckon I better?”

  “I reckon I better,” pa says. He got down and went up the path and around the house to the back. The music stopped, then it started again.

  “He’ll get it, too,” Darl said.

  “Ay,” I said. It was just like he knowed, like he could see through the walls and into the next ten minutes.

  Only it was more than ten minutes. The music stopped and never commenced again for a good spell, where her and pa was talking at the back. We waited in the wagon.

  “You let me take you back to Peabody’s,” Darl said.

  “No,” I said. “We’ll get her underground.”

  “If he ever gets back,” Jewel said. He begun to cuss. He started to get down from the wagon. “I’m going,” he said.

  Then we saw pa coming back. He had two spades, coming around the house. He laid them in the wagon and got in and we went on. The music never started again. Pa was looking back at the house. He kind of lifted his hand a little and I saw the shade pulled back a little at the window and her face in it.

  But the curiousest thing was Dewey Dell. It surprised me. I see all the while how folks could say he was queer, but that was the very reason couldn’t nobody hold it personal. It was like he was outside of it too, same as you, and getting mad at it would be kind of like getting mad at a mud-puddle that splashed you when you stepped in it. And then I always kind of had a idea that him and Dewey Dell kind of knowed things betwixt them. If I’d a said it was ere a one of us she liked better than ere a other, I’d a said it was Darl. But when we got it filled and covered and drove out the gate and turned into the lane where them fellows was waiting, when they come out and come on him and he jerked back, it was Dewey Dell that was on him before even Jewel could get at him. And then I believed I knowed how Gillespie knowed about how his barn taken fire.

  She hadn’t said a word, hadn’t even looked at him, but when them fellows told him what they wanted and that they had come to get him and he throwed back, she jumped on him like a wild cat so that one of the fellows had to quit and hold her and her scratching and clawing at him like a wild cat, while the other one and pa and Jewel throwed Darl down and held him lying on his back, looking up at me.

  “I thought you would have told me,” he said. “I never thought you wouldn’t have.”

  “Darl,” I said. But he fought again, him and Jewel and the fellow, and the other one holding Dewey Dell and Vardaman yelling and Jewel saying,

  “Kill him. Kill the son of a bitch.”

  It was bad so. It was bad. A fellow cant get away from a shoddy job. He cant do it. I tried to tell him, but he just said, “I thought you’d a told me. It’s not that I,” he said, then he begun to laugh. The other fellow pulled Jewel off of him and he sat there on the ground, laughing.

  I tried to tell him. If I could have just moved, even set up. But I tried to tell him and he quit laughing, looking up at me.

  “Do you want me to go?” he said.

  “It’ll be better for you,” I said. “Down there it’ll be quiet, with none of the bothering and such. It’ll be better for you, Darl,” I said.

  “Better,” he said. He begun to laugh again. “Better,” he said. He couldn’t hardly say it for laughing. He sat on the ground and us watching him, laughing and laughing. It was bad. It was bad so. I be durn if I could see anything to laugh at. Because there just aint nothing justifies the deliberate destruction of what a man has built with his own sweat and stored the fruit of his sweat into.

  But I aint so sho that ere a man has the right to say what is crazy and what aint. It’s like there was a fellow in every man that’s done a-past the sanity or the insanity, that watches the sane and the insane doings of that man with the same horror and the same astonishment.

  PEABODY

  I said, “I reckon a man in a tight might let Bill Varner patch him up like a damn mule, but I be damned if the man that’d let Anse Bundren treat him with raw cement aint got more spare legs than I have.”

  “They just aimed to ease hit some,” he said.

  “Aimed, hell,” I said. “What in hell did Armstid mean by even letting them put you on that wagon again?”

  “Hit was gittin right noticeable,” he said. “We never had time to wait.” I just looked at him. “Hit never bothered me none,” he said.

  “Dont you lie there and try to tell me you rode six days on a wagon without springs, with a broken leg and it never bothered you.”

  “It never bothered me much,” he said.

  “You mean, it never bothered Anse much,” I said. “No more than it bothered him to throw that poor devil down in the public street and handcuff him like a damn murderer. Dont tell me. And dont tell me it aint going to bother you to lose sixty-odd square inches of skin to get that concrete off. And dont tell me it aint going to bother you to have to limp around on one short leg for the balance of your life—if you walk at all again. Concrete,” I said. “God Almighty, why didn’t Anse carry you to the nearest sawmill and stick your leg in the saw? That would have cured it. Then you all could have stuck his head into the saw and cured a whole family.…… Where is Anse, anyway? What’s he up to now?”

  “He’s taking back them spades he borrowed,” he said.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Of course he’d have to borrow a spade to bury his wife with. Unless he could borrow a hole in the ground. Too bad you all didn’t put him in it too.…… Does that hurt?”

  “Not to speak of,” he said, and the sweat big as marbles running down his face and his face about the color of blotting paper.

  “Course not,” I said. “About next summer you can hobble around fine on this leg. Then it wont bother you, not to speak of.….… If you had anything you could call luck, you might say it was lucky this is the same leg you broke before,” I said.

  “Hit’s what paw says,” he said.

  MacGOWAN

  It happened I am back of the prescription case, pouring up some chocolate sauce, when Jody comes back and says, “Say, Skeet, there’s a woman up front that wants to see the doctor and when I said What doctor you want to see, she said she wants to see the doctor that works here and when I said There aint any doctor works here, she just stood there, looking back this way.”

  “What kind of a woman is it?” I says. “Tell her to go upstairs to Alford’s office.”

  “Country woman,” he says.

  “Send her to the courthouse,” I says. “Tell her all the doctors have gone to Memphis to a Barbers’ Convention.”

  “All right,” he says, going away. “She looks pretty good for a country girl,” he says.

  “Wait,” I says. He waited and I went and peeped through the crack. But I couldn’t tell nothing except she had a good leg against the light. “Is she young, you say?” I says.

  “She looks like a pretty hot mamma, for a country girl,” he says.

  “Take this,” I says, giving him the ch
ocolate. I took off my apron and went up there. She looked pretty good. One of them black eyed ones that look like she’d as soon put a knife in you as not if you two-timed her. She looked pretty good. There wasn’t nobody else in the store; it was dinner time.

  “What can I do for you?” I says.

  “Are you the doctor?” she says.

  “Sure,” I says. She quit looking at me and was kind of looking around.

  “Can we go back yonder?” she says.

  It was just a quarter past twelve, but I went and told Jody to kind of watch out and whistle if the old man come in sight, because he never got back before one.

  “You better lay off of that,” Jody says. “He’ll fire your stern out of here so quick you cant wink.”

  “He dont never get back before one,” I says. “You can see him go into the postoffice. You keep your eye peeled, now, and give me a whistle.”

  “What you going to do?” he says.

  “You keep your eye out. I’ll tell you later.”

  “Aint you going to give me no seconds on it?” he says.

  “What the hell do you think this is?” I says; “a stud-farm? You watch out for him. I’m going into conference.”

  So I go on to the back. I stopped at the glass and smoothed my hair, then I went behind the prescription case, where she was waiting. She is looking at the medicine cabinet, then she looks at me.

  “Now, madam,” I says; “what is your trouble?”

  “It’s the female trouble,” she says, watching me. “I got the money,” she says.

  “Ah,” I says. “Have you got female troubles or do you want female troubles? If so, you come to the right doctor.” Them country people. Half the time they dont know what they want, and the balance of the time they cant tell it to you. The clock said twenty past twelve.

  “No,” she says.

  “No which?” I says.

  “I aint had it,” she says. “That’s it.” She looked at me. “I got the money,” she says.

  So I knew what she was talking about.

  “Oh,” I says. “You got something in your belly you wish you didn’t have.” She looks at me. “You wish you had a little more or a little less, huh?”

  “I got the money,” she says. “He said I could git something at the drugstore for hit.”

  “Who said so?” I says.

  “He did,” she says, looking at me.

  “You dont want to call no names,” I says. “The one that put the acorn in your belly? He the one that told you?” She dont say nothing. “You aint married, are you?” I says. I never saw no ring. But like as not, they aint heard yet out there that they use rings.

  “I got the money,” she says. She showed it to me, tied up in her handkerchief: a ten spot.

  “I’ll swear you have,” I says. “He give it to you?”

  “Yes,” she says.

  “Which one?” I says. She looks at me. “Which one of them give it to you?”

  “It aint but one,” she says. She looks at me.

  “Go on,” I says. She dont say nothing. The trouble about the cellar is, it aint but one way out and that’s back up the inside stairs. The clock says twenty-five to one. “A pretty girl like you,” I says.

  She looks at me. She begins to tie the money back up in the handkerchief. “Excuse me a minute,” I says. I go around the prescription case. “Did you hear about that fellow sprained his ear?” I says. “After that he couldn’t even hear a belch.”

  “You better get her out from back there before the old man comes,” Jody says.

  “If you’ll stay up there in front where he pays you to stay, he wont catch nobody but me,” I says.

  He goes on, slow, toward the front. “What you doing to her, Skeet?” he says.

  “I cant tell you,” I says. “It wouldn’t be ethical. You go on up there and watch.”

  “Say, Skeet,” he says.

  “Ah, go on,” I says. “I aint doing nothing but filling a prescription.”

  “He may not do nothing about that woman back there, but if he finds you monkeying with that prescription case, he’ll kick your stern clean down them cellar stairs.”

  “My stern has been kicked by bigger bastards than him,” I says. “Go back and watch out for him, now.”

  So I come back. The clock said fifteen to one. She is tying the money in the handkerchief. “You aint the doctor,” she says.

  “Sure I am,” I says. She watches me. “Is it because I look too young, or am I too handsome?” I says. “We used to have a bunch of old water-jointed doctors here,” I says; “Jefferson used to be a kind of Old Doctors’ Home for them. But business started falling off and folks stayed so well until one day they found out that the women wouldn’t never get sick at all. So they run all the old doctors out and got us young good-looking ones that the women would like and then the women begun to get sick again and so business picked up. They’re doing that all over the country. Hadn’t you heard about it? Maybe it’s because you aint never needed a doctor.”

  “I need one now,” she says.

  “And you come to the right one,” I says. “I already told you that.”

  “Have you got something for it?” she says. “I got the money.”

  “Well,” I says, “of course a doctor has to learn all sorts of things while he’s learning to roll calomel; he cant help himself. But I dont know about your trouble.”

  “He told me I could get something. He told me I could get it at the drugstore.”

  “Did he tell you the name of it?” I says. “You better go back and ask him.”

  She quit looking at me, kind of turning the handkerchief in her hands. “I got to do something,” she says.

  “How bad do you want to do something?” I says. She looks at me. “Of course, a doctor learns all sorts of things folks dont think he knows. But he aint supposed to tell all he knows. It’s against the law.”

  Up front Jody says, “Skeet.”

  “Excuse me a minute,” I says. I went up front. “Do you see him?” I says.

  “Aint you done yet?” he says. “Maybe you better come up here and watch and let me do that consulting.”

  “Maybe you’ll lay a egg,” I says. I come back. She is looking at me. “Of course you realise that I could be put in the penitentiary for doing what you want,” I says. “I would lose my license and then I’d have to go to work. You realise that?”

  “I aint got but ten dollars,” she says. “I could bring the rest next month, maybe.”

  “Pooh,” I says, “ten dollars? You see, I cant put no price on my knowledge and skill. Certainly not for no little paltry sawbuck.”

  She looks at me. She dont even blink. “What you want, then?”

  The clock said four to one. So I decided I better get her out. “You guess three times and then I’ll show you,” I says.

  She dont even blink her eyes. “I got to do something,” she says. She looks behind her and around, then she looks toward the front. “Gimme the medicine first,” she says.

  “You mean, you’re ready to right now?” I says. “Here?”

  “Gimme the medicine first,” she says.

  So I took a graduated glass and kind of turned my back to her and picked out a bottle that looked all right, because a man that would keep poison setting around in a unlabelled bottle ought to be in jail, anyway. It smelled like turpentine. I poured some into the glass and give it to her. She smelled it, looking at me across the glass.

  “Hit smells like turpentine,” she says.

  “Sure,” I says. “That’s just the beginning of the treatment. You come back at ten o’clock tonight and I’ll give you the rest of it and perform the operation.”

  “Operation?” she says.

  “It wont hurt you. You’ve had the same operation before. Ever hear about the hair of the dog?”

  She looks at me. “Will it work?” she says.

  “Sure it’ll work. If you come back and get it.”

  So she drunk whatever
it was without batting a eye, and went out. I went up front.

  “Didn’t you get it?” Jody says.

  “Get what?” I says.

  “Ah, come on,” he says. “I aint going to try to beat your time.”

  “Oh, her,” I says. “She just wanted a little medicine. She’s got a bad case of dysentery and she’s a little ashamed about mentioning it with a stranger there.”

  It was my night, anyway, so I helped the old bastard check up and I got his hat on him and got him out of the store by eight-thirty. I went as far as the corner with him and watched him until he passed under two street lamps and went on out of sight. Then I came back to the store and waited until nine-thirty and turned out the front lights and locked the door and left just one light burning at the back, and I went back and put some talcum powder into six capsules and kind of cleared up the cellar and then I was all ready.

  She come in just at ten, before the clock had done striking. I let her in and she come in, walking fast. I looked out the door, but there wasn’t nobody but a boy in overalls sitting on the curb. “You want something?” I says. He never said nothing, just looking at me. I locked the door and turned off the light and went on back. She was waiting. She didn’t look at me now.

  “Where is it?” she said.

  I gave her the box of capsules. She held the box in her hand, looking at the capsules.

  “Are you sure it’ll work?” she says.

  “Sure,” I says. “When you take the rest of the treatment.”

  “Where do I take it?” she says.

  “Down in the cellar,” I says.

  VARDAMAN

  Now it is wider and lighter, but the stores are dark because they have all gone home. The stores are dark, but the lights pass on the windows when we pass. The lights are in the trees around the courthouse. They roost in the trees, but the courthouse is dark. The clock on it looks four ways, because it is not dark. The moon is not dark too. Not very dark. Darl he went to Jackson is my brother Darl is my brother Only it was over that way, shining on the track.