Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion

by Faulkner, William

  “Or I dont know. He may have suggested it, even told her how to word it; what does it matter now? It’s done, there: Papa storming into the house at four this morning and flinging it down on my bed before I was even awake—Wait,” she said, “I know all that too; I’ve already done all that myself. It was legal, all regular—What do they call it?”

  “Drawn up,” I said.

  “—drawn up by a lawyer in Oxford, Mr Stone—not the old one: the young one. I telephoned him this morning. He was very nice. He—”

  “I know him,” I said. “Even if he did go to New Haven.”

  “—said he had wanted to talk to me about it, but there was the …”

  “Inviolacy,” I said.

  “Inviolacy—between client and lawyer. He said she came to him, it must have been right after she reached Oxford—Wait,” she said. “I asked him that too: why she came to him, and he said—He said she was a delightful young lady who would go far in life even after she ran out of—of—”

  “Contingencies,” I said.

  “—contingencies to bequeath people—she said that she had just asked someone who was the nicest lawyer for her to go to and they told her him. So she told him what she wanted and he wrote it that way; oh yes, I saw it: ‘my share of whatever I might inherit from my mother, Eula Varner Snopes, as distinct and separate from whatever her husband shall share in her property, to my father Flem Snopes.’ Oh yes, all regular and legal though he said he tried to explain to her that she was not bequeathing a quantity but merely devising a—what was it? contingency, and that nobody would take it very seriously probably since she might die before she had any inheritance or get married or even change her mind without a husband to help her or her mother might not have any inheritance beyond the one specified or might spend it or her father might die and she would inherit half of his inheritance from herself plus the other half which her mother would inherit as her father’s relict, which she would heir in turn back to her father’s estate to pass to her mother as his relict to be inherited once more by her; but she was eighteen years old and competent and he, Mr Stone, was a competent lawyer or at least he had a license saying so, and so it was at least in legal language and on the right kind of paper. He—Mr Stone—even asked her why she felt she must make the will and she told him: Because my father has been good to me and I love and admire and respect him—do you hear that? Love and admire and respect him. Oh yes, legal. As if that mattered, legal or illegal, contingency or incontingency—”

  Nor did she need to tell me that either: that old man seething out there in his country store for eighteen years now over the way his son-in-law had tricked him out of that old ruined plantation and then made a profit out of it, now wild with rage and frustration at the same man who had not only out-briganded him in brigandage but since then had even out-usury-ed him in sedentary usury, and who now had used the innocence of a young girl, his own granddaughter, who could repay what she thought was love with gratitude and generosity at least, to disarm him of the one remaining weapon which he still held over his enemy. Oh yes, of course it was worth nothing except its paper but what did that matter, legal or valid either. It didn’t even matter now if he destroyed it (which of course was why Flem ever let it out of his hand in the first place); only that he saw it, read it, comprehended it: took one outraged incredulous glance at it, then came storming into town—

  “I couldn’t make him hush,” she said. “I couldn’t make him stop, be quiet. He didn’t even want to wait until daylight to get hold of Manfred.”

  “De Spain?” I said. “Then? At four in the morning?”

  “Didn’t I tell you I couldn’t stop him, make him stop or hush? Oh yes, he got Manfred there right away. And Manfred attended to everything. It was quite simple to him. That is, when I finally made him and Papa both believe that in another minute they would wake up, rouse the whole neighborhood and before that happened I would take Papa’s—-Jody’s car and drive to Oxford and get Linda and none of them would ever see us again. So he and Papa hushed then—”

  “But Flem,” I said.

  “He was there for a little while, long enough—”

  “But what was he doing?” I said.

  “Nothing,” she said. “What was he supposed to do? What did he need to do now?”

  “Oh,” I said. “‘long enough’ to—”

  “—enough for Manfred to settle everything: we would simply leave, go away together, he and I, which was what we should have done eighteen years ago—”

  “What?” I said, cried. “Leave—elope?”

  “Oh yes, it was all fixed; he stopped right there with Papa still standing over him and cursing him—cursing him or cursing Flem; you couldn’t tell now which one he was talking to or about or at—and wrote out the bill of sale. Papa was—what’s that word?—neutral. He wanted both of them out of the bank, intended to have both of them out of it, came all the way in from home at four o’clock in the morning to fling both of them out of Jefferson and Yoknapatawpha County and Mississippi all three—Manfred for having been my lover for eighteen years, and Flem for waiting eighteen years to do anything about it. Papa didn’t know about Manfred until this morning. That is, he acted like he didn’t. I think Mamma knew. I think she has known all the time. But maybe she didn’t. Because people are really kind, you know. All the people in Yoknapatawpha County that might have made sure Mamma knew about us, for her own good, so she could tell Papa for his own good. For everybody’s own good. But I dont think Papa knew. He’s like you. I mean, you can do that too.”

  “Do what?” I said.

  “Be able to not have to believe something just because it might be so or somebody says it is so or maybe even it is so.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Wait. What bill of sale?”

  “For his bank stock. Manfred’s bank stock. Made out to Flem. To give Flem the bank, since that was what all the trouble and uproar was about.—And then the check for Flem to sign to buy it with, dated a week from now to give Flem time to have the money ready when we cashed the check in Texas—when people are not married, or should have been married but aren’t yet, why do they still think Texas is far enough? or is it just big enough?—or California or Mexico or wherever we would go.”

  “But Linda,” I said. “Linda.”

  “All right,” she said. “Linda.”

  “Dont you see? Either way she is lost? Either to go with you, if that were possible, while you desert her father for another man; or stay here in all the stink without you to protect her from it and learn at last that he is not her father at all and so she has nobody, nobody?”

  “That’s why I sent the note. Marry her.”

  “No. I told you that before. Besides, that wont save her. Only Manfred can save her. Let him sell Flem his stock, or give Flem the damned bank; is that too high a price to pay for what—what he—he—”

  “I tried that,” she said. “No.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” I said. “I’ll tell him. He must. He’ll have to; there’s no other—”

  “No,” she said, “Not Manfred.” Then I watched her hands, not fast, open the bag and take out the pack of cigarettes and the single kitchen match and extract the cigarette and put the pack back into the bag and close it and (no, I didn’t move) strike the match on the turned sole of her shoe and light the cigarette and put the match into the tray and put her hands again on the bag. “Not Manfred. You dont know Manfred. And so maybe I dont either. Maybe I dont know about men either. Maybe I was completely wrong that morning when I said how women are only interested in facts because maybe men are just interested in facts too and the only difference is, women dont care whether they are facts or not just so they fit, and men dont care whether they fit or not just so they are facts. If you are a man, you can lie unconscious in the gutter bleeding and with most of your teeth knocked out and somebody can take your pocketbook and you can wake up and wash the blood off and it’s all right; you can always get some more teeth and even another pocke
tbook sooner or later. But you cant just stand meekly with your head bowed and no blood and all your teeth too while somebody takes your pocketbook because even though you might face the friends who love you afterward you never can face the strangers that never heard of you before. Not Manfred. If I dont go with him, he’ll have to fight. He may go down fighting and wreck everything and everybody else, but he’ll have to fight. Because he’s a man. I mean, he’s a man first. I mean, he’s got to be a man first. He can swap Flem Snopes his bank for Flem Snopes’s wife, but he cant just stand there and let Flem Snopes take the bank away from him.”

  “So Linda’s sunk,” I said. “Finished. Done. Sunk.” I said, cried: “But you anyway will save something! To get away yourself at least, out of here, never again to … never again Flem Snopes, never again, never—”

  “Oh, that,” she said. “You mean that. That doesn’t matter. That’s never been any trouble. He … cant. He’s—what’s the word?—impotent. He’s always been. Maybe that’s why, one of the reasons. You see? You’ve got to be careful or you’ll have to pity him. You’ll have to. He couldn’t bear that, and it’s no use to hurt people if you dont get anything for it. Because he couldn’t bear being pitied. It’s like V.K.’s Vladimir. Ratliff can live with Ratliff’s Vladimir, and you can live with Ratliff’s Vladimir. But you mustn’t ever have the chance to, the right to, the choice to. Like he can live with his impotence, but you mustn’t have the chance to help him with pity. You promised about the Vladimir, but I want you to promise again about this.”

  “I promise,” I said. Then I said: “Yes. You’re going tonight. That’s why the beauty parlor this afternoon: not for me but for Manfred. No: not even for Manfred after eighteen years: just to elope with, get on the train with. To show your best back to Jefferson. That’s right, isn’t it? You’re leaving tonight.”

  “Marry her, Gavin,” she said. I had known her by sight for eighteen years, with time out of course for the war; I had dreamed about her at night for eighteen years including the war. We had talked to one another twice: here in the office one night fourteen years ago, and in her living room one morning two years back. But not once had she ever called me even Mister Stevens. Now she said Gavin. “Marry her, Gavin.”

  “Change her name by marriage, then she wont miss the name she will lose when you abandon her.”

  “Marry her, Gavin,” she said.

  “Put it that I’m not too old so much as simply discrepant; that having been her husband once, I would never relinquish even her widowhood to another. Put it that way then.”

  “Marry her, Gavin,” she said. And now I stopped, she sitting beyond the desk, the cigarette burning on the tray, balancing its muted narrow windless feather where she had not touched it once since she lit it and put it down, the hands still quiet on the bag and the face now turned to look at me out of the half-shadow above the rim of light from the lamp—the big broad simple still unpainted beautiful mouth, the eyes not the hard and dusty blue of fall but the blue of spring blooms, all one inextricable mixture of wistaria cornflowers larkspur bluebells weeds and all, all the lost girls’ weather and boys’ luck and too late the grief, too late.

  “Then this way. After you’re gone, if or when I become convinced that conditions are going to become such that something will have to be done, and nothing else but marrying me can help her, and she will have me, but have me, take me. Not just give up, surrender.”

  “Swear it then,” she said.

  “I promise. I have promised. I promise again.”

  “No,” she said. “Swear.”

  “I swear,” I said.

  “And even if she wont have you. Even after that. Even if she w—you cant marry her.”

  “How can she need me then?” I said. “Flem—unless your father really does get shut of the whole damned boiling of you, runs Flem out of Jefferson too—will have his bank and wont need to swap, sell, trade her any more; maybe he will even prefer to have her in a New England school or even further than that if he can manage it.”

  “Swear,” she said.

  “All right,” I said. “At any time. Anywhere. No matter what happens.”

  “Swear,” she said.

  “I swear,” I said.

  “I’m going now,” she said and rose and picked up the burning cigarette and crushed it carefully out into the tray and I rose too.

  “Of course,” I said. “You have some packing to do even for an elopement, dont you? I’ll drive you home.”

  “You dont need to,” she said.

  “A lady, walking home alone at—it’s after midnight. What will Otis Harker say? You see, I’ve got to be a man too; I cant face Otis Harker otherwise since you wont stop being a lady to him until after tomorrow’s southbound train; I believe you did say Texas, didn’t you?” Though Otis was not in sight this time, though with pencil, paper and a watch I could have calculated about where he would be now. Though the figures could have been wrong and only Otis was not in sight, not we, crossing the shadow-bitten Square behind the flat rapid sabre-sweep of the headlights across the plate-glass storefronts, then into the true spring darkness where the sparse street lights were less than stars. And we could have talked if there had been more to talk about or maybe there had been more to talk about if we had talked. Then the small gate before the short walk to the small dark house not rented now of course and of course not vacant yet with a little space yet for decent decorum, and I wondered, thought Will Manfred sell him his house along with his bank or just abandon both to him—provided of course old Will Varner leaves him time to collect either one? and stopped.

  “Dont get out,” she said and got out and shut the door and said, stooping a little to look at me beneath the top: “Swear again.”

  “I swear,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Good night,” and turned and I watched her, through the gate and up the walk, losing dimension now, onto or rather into the shadow of the little gallery and losing even substance now. And then I heard the door and it was as if she had not been. No, not that; not not been, but rather no more is, since was remains always and forever, inexplicable and immune, which is its grief. That’s what I mean: a dimension less, then a substance less, then the sound of a door and then, not never been but simply no more is since always and forever that was remains, as if what is going to happen to one tomorrow already gleams faintly visible now if the watcher were only wise enough to discern it or maybe just brave enough.

  The spring night, cooler now, as if for a little while, until tomorrow’s dusk and the new beginning, somewhere had suspired into sleep at last the amazed hushed burning of hope and dream two-and-two engendered. It would even be quite cold by dawn, daybreak. But even then not cold enough to chill, make hush for sleep the damned mockingbird for three nights now keeping his constant racket in Maggie’s pink dogwood just under my bedroom window. So the trick of course would be to divide, not him but his racket, the having to listen to him: one Gavin Stevens to cross his dark gallery too and into the house and up the stairs to cover his head in the bedclothes, losing in his turn a dimension of Gavin Stevens, an ectoplasm of Gavin Stevens impervious to cold and hearing too to bear its half of both, bear its half or all of any other burdens anyone wanted to shed and shuck, having only this moment assumed that one of a young abandoned girl’s responsibility.

  Because who would miss a dimension? Who indeed but would be better off for having lost it, who had nothing in the first place to offer but just devotion, eighteen years of devotion, the ectoplasm of devotion too thin to be crowned by scorn, warned by hatred, annealed by grief. That’s it: unpin, shed, cast off the last clumsy and anguished dimension, and so be free. Unpin: that’s the trick, remembering Vladimir Kyrilytch’s “He aint unpinned it yet”—the twenty-dollar gold piece pinned to the undershirt of the country boy on his first trip to Memphis, who even if he has never been there before, has as much right as any to hope he can be, may be, will be tricked or trapped into a whorehouse before he has to g
o back home again. He has unpinned it now I thought.

  TWENTY-ONE

  CHARLES MALLISON

  You know how it is, you wake in the morning and you know at once that it has already happened and you are already too late. You didn’t know what it was going to be, which was why you had to watch so hard for it, trying to watch in all directions at once. Then you let go for a second, closed your eyes for just one second, and bang! it happened and it was too late, not even time to wake up and still hold off a minute, just to stretch and think What is it that makes today such a good one? then to let it come in, flow in: Oh yes, there’s not any school today. More: Thursday and in April and still there’s not any school today.

  But not this morning. And halfway down the stairs I heard the swish of the pantry door shutting and I could almost hear Mother telling Guster: “Here he comes. Quick. Get out,” and I went into the dining room and Father had already had breakfast, I mean even when Guster has moved the plate and cup and saucer you can always tell where Father has eaten something; and by the look of his place Uncle Gavin hadn’t been to the table at all and Mother was sitting at her place just drinking coffee, with her hat already on and her coat over Uncle Gavin’s chair and her bag and gloves by her plate and the dark glasses she wore in the car whenever she went beyond the city limits as if light didn’t have any glare in it except one mile from town. And I reckon she wished for a minute that I was about three or four because then she could have put one arm around me against her knee and held the back of my head with the other hand. But now she just held my hand and this time she had to look up at me. “Mrs Snopes killed herself last night,” she said. “I’m going over to Oxford with Uncle Gavin to bring Linda home.”