Knight's Gambit

by William Faulkner

  And now it was time to go; they had already pulled the express hand-truck away from the baggage car door, and the express clerk was even leaning out the door looking back, and Mr McWilliams, the conductor, was standing at the vestibule steps with his watch in his hand, but at least he was not hollering at him, Charles, yet, because he, Charles, wore a uniform and this was still early in 1942 and civilians hadn’t got used to war yet. So he said,

  ‘And one more thing. Those letters. Two letters. Two wrong envelopes.’

  His uncle looked at him. ‘You dont like coincidence?’

  ‘I love it,’ he said. ‘It’s one of the most important things in life. Like maidenhead. Only, like maidenhead, you only use it once. I’m going to save mine a while yet.’

  His uncle looked at him, quizzical, fantastical, grave. ‘All right,’ his uncle said. ‘Try this. A street. In Paris. Within, as we Yoknapatawphians say, a medium spit of the Bois de Boulogne, so recent in nomenclature that its name is no older than the last battles of 1918 and the Versailles peace table—less than five years then; so select and so discreet that its location was known only to garbage collectors and employment bureaus for upper servants and the under secretaries of embassys. But no matter; it doesn’t exist any more now, and besides, you’d never get there to see it if it did.’

  ‘Maybe I will,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’ll look at where it used to be.’

  ‘You can do that here,’ his uncle said. ‘In the library. Simply by opening the right page in Conrad: the same waxed red-and-black tiled floor, the ormolu, the faience, the buhl; even to the long mirror which seemed to hold as in a silver dish the whole condensation of light, of afternoon, in whose depths seemed to float, like the lily upon its own concordant repetition, that forehead innocent and smooth of thought, ravaged only by grief and fidelity—’

  ‘How did you know she was there?’ he said.

  ‘I seen it in the paper,’ his uncle said. ‘The Paris Herald. The United States government (given a little time) did very well in keeping up with its own first American Expeditionary Force in France. But theirs was nothing to how the Paris Herald kept cases on the second one which began to land in Europe in 1919.—But this one was not ravaged at all by anything: just sitting there looking still exactly like a little girl whom all the world was helping now in the make-believe that she was a queen; and no caller this time come to do justice to a dead man because the man, creature, whose message this caller bore was anything but dead; he had sent his envoy all that distance from Heidelberg not to deliver a message but a demand: he wanted to know. So I asked it.

  ‘ “But why didn’t you wait for me?” I said. “Why didn’t you cable?” ’

  ‘Did she answer it?’ he said.

  ‘Didn’t I say that brow was unravaged, even by indecision?’ his uncle said. ‘She answered it. “You didn’t want me,” she said. “I wasn’t smart enough for you.” ’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I answered correctly too,’ his uncle said. ‘I said, “Good afternoon, Mrs Harriss.” Will that one do?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. And now it was time. The engineer even blew the whistle at him. Mr McWilliams had never once shouted, ‘Come on here, boy, if you’re going with us’ as he would have five years ago (or for that matter, five months ago): only the two short deep impatient blasts of steam; simply because of the yet untried uniform he wore, a creature whose constant waking habit was talk, who would not even have missed or been aware of the breath passing over his vocal cords necessary to holler at him, had made no sound; instead, simply because he wore the uniform, a trained expert in a hundred-ton machine costing a hundred thousand dollars had expended three or four dollars’ worth of coal and pounds of hard-earned steam to tell an eighteen-year-old boy that he had spent enough time gossiping with his uncle: and he thought how perhaps that country, that nation, that way of living really was invincible which could not only accept war but even assimilate it in stride by compromising with it; with the left hand so to speak, without really impeding or even deflecting, aberrating, even compelling the attention of the right hand still engaged in the way’s old prime durable business.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s better. I might even buy that one. And that was twenty years ago. And it was true then or at least enough then or at least enough for you then. And now it’s twenty years later and it’s not true now or at least not enough now or at least not enough for you now. How did just years do all that?’

  ‘They made me older,’ his uncle said. ‘I have improved.’

  WILLIAM FAULKNER

  (1897–1962)

  William Cuthbert Faulkner was born in 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi, the first of four sons of Murry and Maud Butler Falkner (he later added the “u” to the family name himself). In 1904 the family moved to the university town of Oxford, Mississippi, where Faulkner was to spend most of his life. He was named for his great-grandfather “The Old Colonel,” a Civil War veteran who built a railroad, wrote a bestselling romantic novel called The White Rose of Memphis, became a Mississippi state legislator, and was eventually killed in what may or may not have been a duel with a disgruntled business partner. Faulkner identified with this robust and energetic ancestor and often said that he inherited the “ink stain” from him.

  Never fond of school, Faulkner left at the end of football season his senior year of high school, and began working at his grandfather’s bank. In 1918, after his plans to marry his sweetheart Estelle Oldham were squashed by their families, he tried to enlist as a pilot in the U.S. Army but was rejected because he did not meet the height and weight requirements. He went to Canada, where he pretended to be an Englishman and joined the RAF training program there. Although he did not complete his training until after the war ended and never saw combat, he returned to his hometown in uniform, boasting of war wounds. He briefly attended the University of Mississippi, where he began to publish his poetry.

  After spending a short time living in New York, he again returned to Oxford, where he worked at the university post office. His first book, a collection of poetry, The Marble Faun, was published at Faulkner’s own expense in 1924. The writer Sherwood Anderson, whom he met in New Orleans in 1925, encouraged him to try writing fiction, and his first novel, Soldier’s Pay, was published in 1926. It was followed by Mosquitoes. His next novel, which he titled Flags in the Dust, was rejected by his publisher and twelve others to whom he submitted it. It was eventually published in drastically edited form as Sartoris (the original version was not issued until after his death). Meanwhile, he was writing The Sound and the Fury, which, after being rejected by one publisher, came out in 1929 and received many ecstatic reviews, although it sold poorly. Yet again, a new novel, Sanctuary, was initially rejected by his publisher, this time as “too shocking.” While working on the night shift at a power plant, Faulkner wrote what he was determined would be his masterpiece, As I Lay Dying. He finished it in about seven weeks, and it was published in 1930, again to generally good reviews and mediocre sales.

  In 1929 Faulkner had finally married his childhood sweetheart, Estelle, after her divorce from her first husband. They had a premature daughter, Alabama, who died ten days after birth in 1931; a second daughter, Jill, was born in 1933.

  With the eventual publication of his most sensational and violent (as well as, up untill then, most successful) novel, Sanctuary (1931), Faulkner was invited to write scripts for MGM and Warner Brothers, where he was responsible for much of the dialogue in the film versions of Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not and Chandler’s The Big Sleep, and many other films. He continued to write novels and published many stories in popular magazines. Light in August (1932) was his first attempt to address the racial issues of the South, an effort continued in Absalom, Absalom! (1936), and Go Down, Moses (1942). By 1946, most of Faulkner’s novels were out of print in the United States (although they remained well-regarded in Europe), and he was seen as a minor, regional writer. But then the influential editor and critic Mal
colm Cowley, who had earlier championed Hemingway and Fitzgerald and others of their generation, put together The Portable Faulkner, and once again Faulkner’s genius was recognized, this time for good. He received the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature as well as many other awards and accolades, including the National Book Award and the Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and France’s Legion of Honor.

  In addition to several collections of short fiction, his other novels include Pylon (1935), The Unvanquished (1938), The Wild Palms (1939), The Hamlet (1940), Intruder in the Dust (1948), A Fable (1954), The Town (1957), The Mansion (1959), and The Reivers (1962).

  William Faulkner died of a heart attack on July 6, 1962, in Oxford, Mississippi, where he is buried.

  “He is the greatest artist the South has produced.… Indeed, through his many novels and short stories, Faulkner fights out the moral problem which was repressed after the nineteenth century [yet] for all his concern with the South, Faulkner was actually seeking out the nature of man. Thus we must turn to him for that continuity of moral purpose which made for the greatness of our classics.”

  —RALPH ELLISON

  “Faulkner, more than most men, was aware of human strength as well of human weakness. He knew that the understanding and the resolution of fear are a large part of the writer’s reason for being.”

  —JOHN STEINBECK

  “For range of effect, philosophical weight, originality of style, variety of characterization, humor, and tragic intensity, [Faulkner’s works] are without equal in our time and country.”

  —ROBERT PENN WARREN

  “No man ever put more of his heart and soul into the written word than did William Faulkner. If you want to know all you can about that heart and soul, the fiction where he put it is still right there.”

  —EUDORA WELTY

  ALSO BY WILLIAM FAULKNER

  ABSALOM, ABSALOM!

  One of Faulkner’s finest achievements, Absalom, Absalom! is the story of Thomas Sutpen and the ruthless, single-minded pursuit of his grand design—to forge a dynasty in Jefferson, Mississippi, in 1830—which is ultimately destroyed (along with Sutpen himself) by his two sons.

  AS I LAY DYING

  As I Lay Dying is the harrowing account of the Bundren family’s odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Told by each of the family members—including Addie herself—the novel ranges from dark comedy to deepest pathos.

  A FABLE

  Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, this allegorical novel about World War I is set in the trenches of France and deals with a mutiny in a French regiment.

  FLAGS IN THE DUST

  The complete text, published for the first time in 1973, of Faulkner’s third novel, written when he was twenty-nine, which appeared, with his reluctant consent, in a much cut version in 1929 as Sartoris.

  LIGHT IN AUGUST

  A novel about hopeful perseverance in the face of mortality, Light in August tells the tales of guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower, who is plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen; and Joe Christmas, an enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry.

  THE REIVERS

  One of Faulkner’s comic masterpieces and winner of a Pulitzer Prize, The Reivers is a picaresque tale that tells of three unlikely car thieves from rural Mississippi and their wild misadventures in the fast life of Memphis—from horse smuggling to bawdy houses.

  REQUIEM FOR A NUN

  The sequel to Faulkner’s most sensational novel Sanctuary, was written twenty years later but takes up the story of Temple Drake eight years after the events related in Sanctuary. Temple is now married to Gowan Stevens. The book begins when the death sentence is pronounced on the nurse Nancy for the murder of Temple and Gowan’s child. In an attempt to save her, Temple goes to see the judge to confess her own guilt. Told partly in prose, partly in play form, Requiem for a Nun is a haunting exploration of the impact of the past on the present.

  THE SOUND AND THE FURY

  One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in American literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the man-child Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant.

  THE UNVANQUISHED

  The Unvanquished is a novel of the Sartoris family, who embody the ideal of Southern honor and its transformation through war, defeat, and Reconstruction: Colonel John Sartoris, who is murdered by a business rival after the war; his son Bayard, who finds an alternative to bloodshed; and Granny Millard, the matriarch, who must put aside her code of gentility in order to survive.

  Snopes Trilogy

  THE HAMLET

  The Hamlet, the first novel of Faulkner’s Snopes trilogy, is both an ironic take on classical tragedy and a mordant commentary on the grand pretensions of the antebellum South and the depths of its decay in the aftermath of war and Reconstruction. It tells of the advent and the rise of the Snopes family in Frenchman’s Bend, a small town built on the ruins of a once-stately plantation. Flem Snopes—wily, energetic, a man of shady origins—quickly comes to dominate the town and its people with his cunning and guile.

  THE TOWN

  This is the second volume of Faulkner’s trilogy about the Snopes family, his symbol for the grasping, destructive element in the post-bellum South. Like its predecessor The Hamlet, and its successor The Mansion, The Town is completely self-contained, but it gains resonance from being read with the other two. The story of Flem Snopes’ ruthless struggle to take over the town of Jefferson, Mississippi, the book is rich in typically Faulknerian episodes of humor and of profundity.

  THE MANSION

  The Mansion completes Faulkner’s great trilogy of the Snopes family in the mythical county of Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi, which also includes The Hamlet and The Town. Beginning with the murder of Jack Houston and ending with the murder of Flem Snopes, it traces the downfall of the indomitable post-bellum family who managed to seize control of the town of Jefferson within a generation.

  BIG WOODS

  The best of William Faulkner’s hunting stories are woven together brilliantly in Big Woods. First published in 1955 and now available in paperback for the first time, the volume includes Faulkner’s most famous story, “The Bear” (in its original version), together with “The Old People,” “A Bear Hunt,” and “Race at Morning.” Each of the stories is introduced by a prelude, and the final one is followed by an epilogue, which serve as almost musical bridges between them. Together, these pieces create a seamless whole, a work that displays the full eloquence, emotional breadth, and moral complexity of Faulkner’s vision.

  COLLECTED STORIES

  “A Bear Hunt,” “A Rose for Emily,” “Two Soldiers,” “Victory,” “The Brooch,” “Beyond”—these are among the forty-two stories that make up this magisterial collection by the writer who stands at the pinnacle of modern American fiction. Compressing an epic expanse of vision into narratives as hard and wounding as bullets, William Faulkner’s stories evoke the intimate textures of place, the deep strata of history and legend, and all the fear, brutality, and tenderness of which human beings are capable. These tales are set not only in Yoknapatawpha County but in Beverly Hills and in France during World War I; they are populated by such characters as the Faulknerian archetypes Flem Snopes and Quentin Compson (‘A Justice’) as well as ordinary men and women who emerge in these pages so sharply and indelibly that they dwarf the protagonists of most novels.

  GO DOWN, MOSES

  Go Down, Moses is composed of seven interrelated stories, all of them set in Faulkner’s mythic Yoknapatawpha County. From a variety of perspectives, Faulkner examines the complex, changing relationships between blacks and whites, between man and nature, weaving a cohesive novel rich in implication and insight.

  INTRUDER IN THE DUST

&
nbsp; Intruder in the Dust is at once engrossing murder mystery and unflinching portrait of racial injustice: it is the story of Lucas Beauchamp, a black man wrongly arrested for the murder of Vinson Gowrie, a white man. Confronted by the threat of lynching, Lucas sets out to prove his innocence, aided by a white lawyer, Gavin Stevens, and his young nephew, Chick Mallison.

  KNIGHT’S GAMBIT

  Gavin Stevens, the wise and forbearing student of crime and the folk ways of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, plays the major role in these six stories of violence. In each, Stevens’ sharp insights and ingenious detection uncover the underlying motives.

  PYLON

  One of the few of William Faulkner’s works to be set outside his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Pylon, first published in 1935, takes place at an air show in a thinly disguised New Orleans named New Valois. An unnamed reporter for a local newspaper tries to understand a very modern ménage a trois of flyers on the brainstorming circuit. These characters, Faulkner said, ‘were a fantastic and bizarre phenomenon on the face of the contemporary scene.… That is, there was really no place for them in the culture, in the economy, yet they were there, at that time, and everyone knew that they wouldn’t last very long, which they didn’t.… That they were outside the range of God, not only of respectability, of love, but of God too.’ In Pylon Faulkner set out to test their rootless modernity to see if there is any place in it for the old values of the human heart that are the central concerns of his best fiction.