The Essential Faulkner

by William Faulkner

  “Nonsense,” Father said. “We won’t be long.”

  Nancy had her hat on. We came to the lane. “Jesus always been good to me,” Nancy said. “Whenever he had two dollars, one of them was mine.” We walked in the lane. “If I can just get through the lane,” Nancy said, “I be all right then.”

  The lane was always dark. “This is where Jason got scaired on Hallowe’en,” Caddy said.

  “I didn’t,” Jason said.

  “Can’t Aunt Rachel do anything with him?” Father said. Aunt Rachel was old. She lived in a cabin beyond Nancy’s, by herself. She had white hair and she smoked a pipe in the door, all day long; she didn’t work any more. They said she was Jesus’ mother. Sometimes she said she was and sometimes she said she wasn’t any kin to Jesus.

  “Yes you did,” Caddy said. “You were scairder than Frony. You were scairder than T.P. even. Scairder than niggers.”

  “Can’t nobody do nothing with him,” Nancy said. “He say I done woke up the devil in him and ain’t but one thing going to lay it down again.”

  “Well, he’s gone now,” Father said. “There’s nothing for you to be afraid of now. And if you’d just let white men alone.”

  “Let what white men alone?” Caddy said. “How let them alone?”

  “He ain’t gone nowhere,” Nancy said. “I can feel him. I can feel him now, in this lane. He hearing us talk, every word, hid somewhere, waiting. I ain’t seen him, and I ain’t going to see him again but once more, with that razor in his mouth. That razor on that string down his back, inside his shirt. And then I ain’t going to be even surprised.”

  “I wasn’t scaired,” Jason said.

  “If you’d behave yourself, you’d have kept out of this,” Father said. “But it’s all right now. He’s probably in Saint Louis now. Probably got another wife by now and forgot all about you.”

  “If he has, I better not find out about it,” Nancy said. “I’d stand there right over them, and every time he wropped her, I’d cut that arm off. I’d cut his head off and I’d slit her belly and I’d shove—”

  “Hush,” Father said.

  “Slit whose belly, Nancy?” Caddy said.

  “I wasn’t scaired,” Jason said. “I’d walk right down this lane by myself.”

  “Yah,” Caddy said. “You wouldn’t dare to put your foot down in it if we were not here too.”

  II

  Dilsey was still sick, so we took Nancy home every night until Mother said, “How much longer is this going on? I to be left alone in this big house while you take home a frightened Negro?”

  We fixed a pallet in the kitchen for Nancy. One night we waked up, hearing the sound. It was not singing and it was not crying, coming up the dark stairs. There was a light in Mother’s room and we heard Father going down the hall, down the back stairs, and Caddy and I went into the hall. The floor was cold. Our toes curled away from it while we listened to the sound. It was like singing and it wasn’t like singing, like the sounds that Negroes make.

  Then it stopped and we heard Father going down the back stairs, and we went to the head of the stairs. Then the sound began again, in the stairway, not loud, and we could see Nancy’s eyes halfway up the stairs, against the wall. They looked like cat’s eyes do, like a big cat against the wall, watching us. When we came down the steps to where she was, she quit making the sound again, and we stood there until Father came back up from the kitchen, with his pistol in his hand. He went back down with Nancy and they came back with Nancy’s pallet.

  We spread the pallet in our room. After the light in Mother’s room went off, we could see Nancy’s eyes again. “Nancy,” Caddy whispered, “are you asleep, Nancy?”

  Nancy whispered something. It was oh or no, I don’t know which. Like nobody had made it, like it came from nowhere and went nowhere, until it was like Nancy was not there at all; that I had looked so hard at her eyes on the stairs that they had got printed on my eyeballs, like the sun does when you have closed your eyes and there is no sun. “Jesus,” Nancy whispered. “Jesus.”

  “Was it Jesus?” Caddy said. “Did he try to come into the kitchen?”

  “Jesus,” Nancy said. Like this: Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesus, until the sound went out, like a match or a candle does.

  “It’s the other Jesus she means,” I said.

  “Can you see us, Nancy?” Caddy whispered. “Can you see our eyes too?”

  “I ain’t nothing but a nigger,” Nancy said. “God knows. God knows.”

  “What did you see down there in the kitchen?” Caddy whispered. “What tried to get in?”

  “God knows,” Nancy said. We could see her eyes. “God knows.”

  Dilsey got well. She cooked dinner. “You’d better stay in bed a day or two longer,” Father said.

  “What for?” Dilsey said. “If I had been a day later, this place would be to rack and ruin. Get on out of here now, and let me get my kitchen straight again.”

  Dilsey cooked supper too. And that night, just before dark, Nancy came into the kitchen.

  “How do you know he’s back?” Dilsey said. “You ain’t seen him.”

  “Jesus is a nigger,” Jason said.

  “I can feel him,” Nancy said. “I can feel him laying yonder in the ditch.”

  “Tonight?” Dilsey said. “Is he there tonight?”

  “Dilsey’s a nigger too,” Jason said.

  “You try to eat something,” Dilsey said.

  “I don’t want nothing,” Nancy said.

  “I ain’t a nigger,” Jason said.

  “Drink some coffee,” Dilsey said. She poured a cup of coffee for Nancy. “Do you know he’s out there tonight? How come you know it’s tonight?”

  “I know,” Nancy said. “He’s there, waiting. I know. I done lived with him too long. I know what he is fixing to do fore he know it himself.”

  “Drink some coffee,” Dilsey said. Nancy held the cup to her mouth and blew into the cup. Her mouth pursed out like a spreading adder’s, like a rubber mouth, like she had blown all the color out of her lips with blowing the coffee.

  “I ain’t a nigger,” Jason said. “Are you a nigger, Nancy?”

  “I hellborn, child,” Nancy said. “I won’t be nothing soon. I going back where I come from soon.”

  III

  She began to drink the coffee. While she was drinking, holding the cup in both hands, she began to make the sound again. She made the sound into the cup and the coffee sploshed out onto her hands and her dress. Her eyes looked at us and she sat there, her elbows on her knees, holding the cup in both hands, looking at us across the wet cup, making the sound.

  “Look at Nancy,” Jason said. “Nancy can’t cook for us now. Dilsey’s got well now.”

  “You hush up,” Dilsey said. Nancy held the cup in both hands, looking at us, making the sound, like there were two of them: one looking at us and the other making the sound. “Whyn’t you let Mr. Jason telefoam the marshal?” Dilsey said. Nancy stopped then, holding the cup in her long brown hands. She tried to drink some coffee again, but it sploshed out of the cup, onto her hands and her dress, and she put the cup down. Jason watched her.

  “I can’t swallow it,” Nancy said. “I swallows but it won’t go down me.”

  “You go down to the cabin,” Dilsey said. “Frony will fix you a pallet and I’ll be there soon.”

  “Won’t no nigger stop him,” Nancy said.

  “I ain’t a nigger,” Jason said. “Am I, Dilsey?”

  “I reckon not,” Dilsey said. She looked at Nancy. “I don’t reckon so. What you going to do, then?”

  Nancy looked at us. Her eyes went fast, like she was afraid there wasn’t time to look, without hardly moving at all. She looked at us, at all three of us at one time. “You member that night I stayed in yawls’ room?” she said. She told about how we waked up early the next morning, and played. We had to play quiet, on her pallet, until Father woke up and it was time to get breakfast. “Go and ask your maw to let me stay here tonight,” Nancy sai
d. “I won’t need no pallet. We can play some more.”

  Caddy asked Mother. Jason went too. “I can’t have Negroes sleeping in the bedrooms,” Mother said. Jason cried. He cried until Mother said he couldn’t have any dessert for three days if he didn’t stop. Then Jason said he would stop if Dilsey would make a chocolate cake. Father was there.

  “Why don’t you do something about it?” Mother said. “What do we have officers for?”

  “Why is Nancy afraid of Jesus?” Caddy said. “Are you afraid of father, mother?”

  “What could the officers do?” father said. “If Nancy hasn’t seen him, how could the officers find him?”

  “Then why is she afraid?” mother said.

  “She says he is there. She says she knows he is there tonight.”

  “Yet we pay taxes,” Mother said. “I must wait here alone in this big house while you take a Negro woman home.”

  “You know that I am not lying outside with a razor,” Father said.

  “I’ll stop if Dilsey will make a chocolate cake,” Jason said. Mother told us to go out and Father said he didn’t know if Jason would get a chocolate cake or not, but he knew what Jason was going to get in about a minute. We went back to the kitchen and told Nancy.

  “Father said for you to go home and lock the door, and you’ll be all right,” Caddy said. “All right from what, Nancy? Is Jesus mad at you?” Nancy was holding the coffee cup in her hands again, her elbows on her knees and her hands holding the cup between her knees. She was looking into the cup. “What have you done that made Jesus mad?” Caddy said. Nancy let the cup go. It didn’t break on the floor, but the coffee spilled out, and Nancy sat there with her hands still making the shape of the cup. She began to make the sound again, not loud. Not singing and not unsinging. We watched her.

  “Here,” Dilsey said. “You quit that, now. You get aholt of yourself. You wait here. I going to get Versh to walk home with you.” Dilsey went out.

  We looked at Nancy. Her shoulders kept shaking, but she quit making the sound. We stood and watched her.

  “What’s Jesus going to do to you?” Caddy said. “He went away.”

  Nancy looked at us. “We had fun that night I stayed in yawls’ room, didn’t we?”

  “I didn’t,” Jason said. “I didn’t have any fun.”

  “You were asleep in Mother’s room,” Caddy said. “You were not there.”

  “Let’s go down to my house and have some more fun,” Nancy said.

  “Mother won’t let us,” I said. “It’s too late now.”

  “Don’t bother her,” Nancy said. “We can tell her in the morning. She won’t mind.”

  “She wouldn’t let us,” I said.

  “Don’t ask her now,” Nancy said. “Don’t bother her now.”

  “She didn’t say we couldn’t go,” Caddy said.

  “We didn’t ask,” I said.

  “If you go, I’ll tell,” Jason said.

  “We’ll have fun,” Nancy said. “They won’t mind, just to my house. I been working for yawl a long time. They won’t mind.”

  “I’m not afraid to go,” Caddy said. “Jason is the one that’s afraid. He’ll tell.”

  “I’m not,” Jason said.

  “Yes, you are,” Caddy said. “You’ll tell.”

  “I won’t tell,” Jason said. “I’m not afraid.”

  “Jason ain’t afraid to go with me,” Nancy said. “Is you, Jason?”

  “Jason is going to tell,” Caddy said. The lane was dark. We passed the pasture gate. “I bet if something was to jump out from behind that gate, Jason would holler.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Jason said. We walked down the lane. Nancy was talking loud.

  “What are you talking so loud for, Nancy?” Caddy said.

  “Who, me?” Nancy said. “Listen at Quentin and Caddy and Jason saying I’m talking loud.”

  “You talk like there was five of us here,” Caddy said. “You talk like Father was here too.”

  “Who; me talking loud, Mr. Jason?” Nancy said.

  “Nancy called Jason ‘Mister,’ ” Caddy said.

  “Listen how Caddy and Quentin and Jason talk,” Nancy said.

  “We’re not talking loud,” Caddy said. “You’re the one that’s talking like Father—”

  “Hush,” Nancy said; “hush, Mr. Jason.”

  “Nancy called Jason ‘Mister’ aguh—”

  “Hush,” Nancy said. She was talking loud when we crossed the ditch and stooped through the fence where she used to stoop through with the clothes on her head. Then we came to her house. We were going fast then. She opened the door. The smell of the house was like the lamp and the smell of Nancy was like the wick, like they were waiting for one another to begin to smell. She lit the lamp and closed the door and put the bar up. Then she quit talking loud, looking at us.

  “What’re we going to do?” Caddy said.

  “What do yawl want to do?” Nancy said.

  “You said we would have some fun,” Caddy said.

  There was something about Nancy’s house; something you could smell besides Nancy and the house. Jason smelled it, even. “I don’t want to stay here,” he said. “I want to go home.”

  “Go home, then,” Caddy said.

  “I don’t want to go by myself,” Jason said.

  “We’re going to have some fun,” Nancy said.

  “How?” Caddy said.

  Nancy stood by the door. She was looking at us, only it was like she had emptied her eyes, like she had quit using them. “What do you want to do?” she said.

  “Tell us a story,” Caddy said. “Can you tell a story?”

  “Yes,” Nancy said.

  “Tell it,” Caddy said. We looked at Nancy. “You don’t know any stories.”

  “Yes,” Nancy said. “Yes I do.”

  She came and sat in a chair before the hearth. There was a little fire there. Nancy built it up, when it was already hot inside. She built a good blaze. She told a story. She talked like her eyes looked, like her eyes watching us and her voice talking to us did not belong to her. Like she was living somewhere else, waiting somewhere else. She was outside the cabin. Her voice was inside and the shape of her, the Nancy that could stoop under a barbed wire fence with a bundle of clothes balanced on her head as though without weight, like a balloon, was there. But that was all. “And so this here queen come walking up to the ditch, where that bad man was hiding. She was walking up to the ditch, and she say, ‘If I can just get past this here ditch,’ was what she say …”

  “What ditch?” Caddy said. “A ditch like that one out there? Why did a queen want to go into a ditch?”

  “To get to her house,” Nancy said. She looked at us. “She had to cross the ditch to get into her house quick and bar the door.”

  “Why did she want to go home and bar the door?” Caddy said.

  IV

  Nancy looked at us. She quit talking. She looked at us. Jason’s legs stuck straight out of his pants where he sat on Nancy’s lap. “I don’t think that’s a good story,” he said. “I want to go home.”

  “Maybe we had better,” Caddy said. She got up from the floor. “I bet they are looking for us right now.” She went toward the door.

  “No,” Nancy said. “Don’t open it.” She got up quick and passed Caddy. She didn’t touch the door, the wooden bar.

  “Why not?” Caddy said.

  “Come back to the lamp,” Nancy said. “We’ll have fun. You don’t have to go.”

  “We ought to go,” Caddy said. “Unless we have a lot of fun.” She and Nancy came back to the fire, the lamp.

  “I want to go home,” Jason said. “I’m going to tell.”

  “I know another story,” Nancy said. She stood close to the lamp. She looked at Caddy, like when your eyes look up at a stick balanced on your nose. She had to look down to see Caddy, but her eyes looked like that, like when you arc balancing a stick.

  “I won’t listen to it,” Jason said. “I’ll bang on the
floor.”

  “It’s a good one,” Nancy said. “It’s better than the other one.”

  “What’s it about?” Caddy said. Nancy was standing by the lamp. Her hand was on the lamp, against the light, long and brown.

  “Your hand is on that hot globe,” Caddy said. “Don’t it feel hot to your hand?”

  Nancy looked at her hand on the lamp chimney. She took her hand away, slow. She stood there, looking at Caddy, wringing her long hand as though it were tied to her wrist with a string.

  “Let’s do something else,” Caddy said.

  “I want to go home,” Jason said.

  “I got some popcorn,” Nancy said. She looked at Caddy and then at Jason and then at me and then at Caddy again. “I got some popcorn.”

  “I don’t like popcorn,” Jason said. “I’d rather have candy.”

  Nancy looked at Jason. “You can hold the popper.” She was still wringing her hand; it was long and limp and brown.

  “All right,” Jason said. “I’ll stay a while if I can do that. Caddy can’t hold it. I’ll want to go home again if Caddy holds the popper.”

  Nancy built up the fire. “Look at Nancy putting her hands in the fire,” Caddy said. “What’s the matter with you, Nancy?”

  “I got popcorn,” Nancy said. “I got some.” She took the popper from under the bed. It was broken. Jason began to cry.

  “Now we can’t have any popcorn,” he said.

  “We ought to go home, anyway,” Caddy said. “Come on, Quentin.”

  “Wait,” Nancy said; “wait. I can fix it. Don’t you want to help me fix it?”

  “I don’t think I want any,” Caddy said. “It’s too late now.”

  “You help me, Jason,” Nancy said. “Don’t you want to help me?”

  “No,” Jason said. “I want to go home.”

  “Hush,” Nancy said; “hush. Watch. Watch me. I can fix it so Jason can hold it and pop the corn.” She got a piece of wire and fixed the popper.

  “It won’t hold good,” Caddy said.