Faulkner Reader

by William Faulkner

  COPYRIGHT, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1934, 1938, 1939,

  1951, 1954 BY WILLIAM FAULKNER

  COPYRIGHT, 1931, 1939, 1946, BY RANDOM HOUSE, INC.

  COPYRIGHT, 1932, 1942, 1943 BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING CO.

  COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY FORUM

  COPYRIGHT RENEWED, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961,

  BY WILLIAM FAULKNER

  COPYRIGHT RENEWED 1966, 1967, 1970, 1971

  BY ESTELLE FAULKNER AND JILL FAULKNER SUMMERS

  All rights reserved under

  International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  Published in New York by Random House, Inc.,

  and simultaneously in Toronto, Canada, by Random House of Canada, Limited.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-79989-0

  Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 59-5911.

  THE MODERN LIBRARY

  is published by RANDOM HOUSE, INC.

  New York, New York

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  FOREWORD

  Nobel Prize Address

  The Sound and the Fury

  The Bear (Go Down, Moses)

  Old Man (The Wild Palms)

  Spotted Horses (The Hamlet)

  A Rose for Emily

  Barn Burning

  Dry September

  That Evening Sun

  Turnabout

  Shingles for the Lord

  A Justice

  Wash

  An Odor of Verbena (The Unvanquished)

  Percy Grimm (Light in August)

  The Courthouse (Requiem for a Nun)

  Foreword

  MY GRANDFATHER had a moderate though reasonably diffuse and catholic library; I realize now that I got most of my early education in it. It was a little limited in its fiction content, since his taste was for simple straightforward romantic excitement like Scott or Dumas. But there was a heterogeneous scattering of other volumes, chosen apparently at random and by my grandmother, since the flyleaves bore her name and the dates in the 1880’s and ’90’s of that time when even in a town as big as Memphis, Tennessee, ladies stopped in their carriages in the street in front of the stores and shops, and clerks and even proprietors came out to receive their commands—that time when women did most of the book-buying and the reading too, naming their children Byron and Clarissa and St. Elmo and Lothair after the romantic and tragic heroes and heroines and the even more romantic creators of them.

  One of these books was by a Pole, Sienkiewicz—a story of the time of King John Sobieski, when the Poles, almost single-handed, kept the Turks from overrunning Central Europe. This one, like all books of that period, at least the ones my grandfather owned, had a preface, a foreword. I never read any of them; I was too eager to get on to what the people themselves were doing and anguishing and triumphing over. But I did read the foreword in this one, the first one I ever took time to read; I don’t know why now. It went something like this:

  This book was written at the expense of considerable effort, to uplift men’s hearts, and I thought: What a nice thing to have thought to say. But no more than that. I didn’t even think, Maybe some day I will write a book too and what a shame I didn’t think of that first so I could put it on the front page of mine. Because I hadn’t thought of writing books then. The future didn’t extend that far. This was 1915 and ’16; I had seen an aeroplane and my mind was filled with names: Ball, and Immelman and Boelcke, and Guynemer and Bishop, and I was waiting, biding, until I would be old enough or free enough or anyway could get to France and become glorious and beribboned too.

  Then that had passed. It was 1923 and I wrote a book and discovered that my doom, fate, was to keep on writing books: not for any exterior or ulterior purpose: just writing the books for the sake of writing the books; obviously, since the publisher considered them worth the financial risk of being printed, someone would read them. But that was unimportant too as measured against the need to get them written, though naturally one hopes that who read them would find them true and honest and even perhaps moving. Because one was too busy writing the books during the time while the demon which drove him still considered him worthy of, deserving of, the anguish of being driven, while the blood and glands and flesh still remained strong and potent, the heart and the imagination still remained undulled to follies and lusts and heroisms of men and women; still writing the books because they had to be written after the blood and glands began to slow and cool a little and the heart began to tell him, You don’t know the answer either and you will never find it, but still writing the books because the demon was still kind; only a little more severe and unpitying: until suddenly one day he saw that that old half-forgotten Pole had had the answer all the time.

  To uplift man’s heart; the same for all of us: for the ones who are trying to be artists, the ones who are trying to write simple entertainment, the ones who write to shock, and the ones who are simply escaping themselves and their own private anguishes.

  Some of us don’t know that this is what we are writing for. Some of us will know it and deny it, lest we be accused and self-convicted and condemned of sentimentality, which people nowadays for some reason are ashamed to be tainted with; some of us seem to have curious ideas of just where the heart is located, confusing it with other and baser glands and organs and activities. But we all write for this one purpose.

  This does not mean that we are trying to change man, improve him, though this is the hope—maybe even the intention—of some of us. On the contrary, in its last analysis, this hope and desire to uplift man’s heart is completely selfish, completely personal. He would lift up man’s heart for his own benefit because in that way he can say No to death. He is saying No to death for himself by means of the hearts which he has hoped to uplift, or even by means of the mere base glands which he has disturbed to that extent where they can say No to death on their own account by knowing, realizing, having been told and believing it: At least we are not vegetables because the hearts and glands capable of partaking in this excitement are not those of vegetables, and will, must, endure.

  So he who, from the isolation of cold impersonal print, can engender this excitement, himself partakes of the immortality which he has engendered. Some day he will be no more, which will not matter then, because isolated and itself invulnerable in the cold print remains that which is capable of engendering still the old deathless excitement in hearts and glands whose owners and custodians are generations from even the air he breathed and anguished in; if it was capable once, he knows that it will be capable and potent still long after there remains of him only a dead and fading name.

  New York

  November, 1953

  William Faulkner’s Speech of Acceptance

  upon the award of the

  Nobel Prize for Literature,

  delivered in Stockholm on the tenth of December,

  nineteen hundred fifty

  I FEEL THAT THIS AWARD WAS NOT MADE TO ME AS A MAN, BUT TO MY work—a life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.

  Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems o
f the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

  He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed—love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

  Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

  The Sound and the Fury

  APRIL 7, 1928

  Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. They were coming toward where the flag was and I went along the fence. Luster was hunting in the grass by the flower tree. They took the flag out, and they were hitting. Then they put the flag back and they went to the table, and he hit and the other hit. Then they went on, and I went along the fence. Luster came away from the flower tree and we went along the fence and they stopped and we stopped and I looked through the fence while Luster was hunting in the grass.

  “Here, caddie.” He hit. They went away across the pasture. I held to the fence and watched them going away.

  “Listen at you, now.” Luster said. “Aint you something, thirty-three years old, going on that way. After I done went all the way to town to buy you that cake. Hush up that moaning. Aint you going to help me find that quarter so I can go to the show tonight.”

  They were hitting little, across the pasture. I went along the fence to where the flag was. It flapped on the bright grass and the trees.

  “Come on.” Luster said. “We done looked there. They aint no more coming right now. Lets go down to the branch and find that quarter before them niggers finds it.”

  It was red, flapping on the pasture. Then there was a bird slanting and tilting on it. Luster threw. The flag flapped on the bright grass and the trees. I held to the fence.

  “Shut up that moaning.” Luster said. “I cant make them come if they aint coming, can I. If you dont hush up, mammy aint going to have no birthday for you. If you dont hush, you know what I going to do. I going to eat that cake all up. Eat them candles, too. Eat all them thirty-three candles. Come on, let’s go down to the branch. I got to find my quarter. Maybe we can find one of they balls. Here. Here they is. Way over yonder. See.” He came to the fence and pointed his arm. “See them. They aint coming back here no more. Come on.”

  We went along the fence and came to the garden fence, where our shadows were. My shadow was higher than Luster’s on the fence. We came to the broken place and went through it.

  “Wait a minute.” Luster said. “You snagged on that nail again. Cant you never crawl through here without snagging on that nail.”

  Caddy uncaught me and we crawled through. Uncle Maury said to not let anybody see us, so we better stoop over, Caddy said. Stoop over, Benjy. Like this, see. We stooped over and crossed the garden, where the flowers rasped and rattled against us. The ground was hard. We climbed the fence, where the pigs were grunting and snuffing. I expect they’re sorry because one of them got killed today, Caddy said. The ground was hard, churned and knotted.

  Keep your hands in your pockets, Caddy said. Or they’ll get froze. You don’t want your hands froze on Christmas, do you.

  “It’s too cold out there.” Versh said. “You dont want to go out doors.”

  “What is it now.” Mother said.

  “He want to go out doors.” Versh said.

  “Let him go.” Uncle Maury said.

  “It’s too cold.” Mother said. “He’d better stay in. Benjamin. Stop that, now.”

  “It wont hurt him.” Uncle Maury said.

  “You, Benjamin.” Mother said. “If you dont be good, you’ll have to go to the kitchen.”

  “Mammy say keep him out the kitchen today.” Versh said. “She say she got all that cooking to get done.”

  “Let him go, Caroline.” Uncle Maury said. “You’ll worry yourself sick over him.”

  “I know it.” Mother said. “It’s a judgment on me. I sometimes wonder.”

  “I know, I know.” Uncle Maury said. “You must keep your strength up. I’ll make you a toddy.”

  “It just upsets me that much more.” Mother said. “Dont you know it does.”

  “You’ll feel better.” Uncle Maury said. “Wrap him up good, boy, and take him out for a while.”

  Uncle Maury went away. Versh went away.

  “Please hush.” Mother said. “We’re trying to get you out as fast as we can. I dont want you to get sick.”

  Versh put my overshoes and overcoat on and we took my cap and went out. Uncle Maury was putting the bottle away in the side-board in the dining-room.

  “Keep him out about half an hour, boy.” Uncle Maury said. “Keep him in the yard, now.”

  “Yes, sir.” Versh said. “We dont never let him get off the place.”

  We went out doors. The sun was cold and bright.

  “Where you heading for.” Versh said. “You dont think you going to town, does you.” We went through the rattling leaves. The gate was cold. “You better keep them hands in your pockets.” Versh said, “You get them froze onto that gate, then what you do. Whyn’t you wait for them in the house.” He put my hands into my pockets. I could hear him rattling in the leaves. I could smell the cold. The gate was cold.

  “Here some hickeynuts. Whooey. Git up that tree. Look here at this squirl, Benjy.”

  I couldn’t feel the gate at all, but I could smell the bright cold.

  “You better put them hands back in your pockets.”

  Caddy was walking. Then she was running, her booksatchel swinging and jouncing behind her.

  “Hello, Benjy.” Caddy said. She opened the gate and came in and stooped down. Caddy smelled like leaves. “Did you come to meet me.” she said. “Did you come to meet Caddy. What did you let him get his hands so cold for, Versh.”

  “I told him to keep them in his pockets.” Versh said. “Holding onto that ahun gate.”

  “Did you come to meet Caddy.” she said, rubbing my hands. “What is it. What are you trying to tell Caddy.” Caddy smelled like trees and like when she says we were asleep.

  What are you moaning about, Luster said. You can watch them again when we get to the branch. Here. Here’s you a jimson weed. He gave me the flower. We went through the fence, into the lot.

  “What is it.” Caddy said. “What are you trying to tell Caddy. Did they send him out, Versh.”

  “Couldn’t keep him in.” Versh said. “He kept on until they let him go and he come right straight down here, lo
oking through the gate.”

  “What is it.” Caddy said. “Did you think it would be Christmas when I came home from school. Is that what you thought. Christmas is the day after tomorrow. Santy Claus, Benjy. Santy Claus. Come on, let’s run to the house and get warm.” She took my hand and we ran through the bright rustling leaves. We ran up the steps and out of the bright cold, into the dark cold. Uncle Maury was putting the bottle back in the sideboard. He called Caddy. Caddy said,

  “Take him in to the fire, Versh. Go with Versh.” she said. “I’ll come in a minute.”

  We went to the fire. Mother said,

  “Is he cold, Versh.”

  “Nome.” Versh said.

  “Take his overcoat and overshoes off.” Mother said. “How many times do I have to tell you not to bring him into the house with his overshoes on.”

  “Yessum.” Versh said. “Hold still, now.” He took my overshoes off and unbuttoned my coat. Caddy said,

  “Wait, Versh. Cant he go out again, Mother. I want him to go with me.”

  “You’d better leave him here.” Uncle Maury said. “He’s been out enough today.”

  “I think you’d both better stay in.” Mother said. “It’s getting colder, Dilsey says.”

  “Oh, Mother.” Caddy said.

  “Nonsense.” Uncle Maury said. “She’s been in school all day. She needs the fresh air. Run along, Candace.”

  “Let him go, Mother.” Caddy said. “Please. You know he’ll cry.”

  “Then why did you mention it before him.” Mother said. “Why did you come in here. To give him some excuse to worry me again. You’ve been out enough today. I think you’d better sit down here and play with him.”

  “Let them go, Caroline.” Uncle Maury said. “A little cold wont hurt them. Remember, you’ve got to keep your strength up.”

  “I know.” 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.”