Complete Works of William Faulkner

by William Faulkner

  He was not running. But he was walking fast, and in a direction that was taking him further yet from home, from the house five miles away which he had left by climbing from a window and which he had not yet planned any way of reentering. He went on down the road fast and turned from it and sprang over a fence, into plowed earth. Something was growing in the furrows. Beyond were woods, trees. He reached the woods and entered, among the hard trunks, the branchshadowed quiet, hardfeeling, hardsmelling, invisible. In the notseeing and the hardknowing as though in a cave he seemed to see a diminishing row of suavely shaped urns in moonlight, blanched. And not one was perfect. Each one was cracked and from each crack there issued something liquid, deathcolored, and foul. He touched a tree, leaning his propped arms against it, seeing the ranked and moonlit urns. He vomited.

  On the next Monday night he had the rope. He was waiting at the same corner; he was quite early again. Then he saw her. She came up to where he stood. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t be here,” she said.

  “Did you?” He took her arm, drawing her on down the road.

  “Where are we going?” she said. He didn’t answer, drawing her on. She had to trot to keep up. She trotted clumsily: an animal impeded by that which distinguished her from animals: her heels, her clothes, her smallness. He drew her from the road, toward the fence which he had crossed a week ago. “Wait,” she said, the words jolting from her mouth. “The fence — I cant—” As she stooped to go through, between the strands of wire which he had stepped over, her dress caught. He leaned and jerked it free with a ripping sound.

  “I’ll buy you another one,” he said. She said nothing. She let herself be half carried and half dragged among the growing plants, the furrows, and into the woods, the trees.

  He kept the rope, neatly coiled, behind the same loose board in his attic room where Mrs McEachern kept her hoard of nickels and dimes, with the difference that the rope was thrust further back into the hole than Mrs McEachern could reach. He had got the idea from her. Sometimes, with the old couple snoring in the room beneath, when he lifted out the silent rope he would think of the paradox. Sometimes he thought about telling her; of showing her where he kept hidden the implement of his sin, having got the idea, learned how and where to hide it, from her. But he knew that she would merely want to help him conceal it; that she would want him to sin in order that she could help him hide it; that she would at last make such a to-do of meaningful whispers and signals that McEachern would have to suspect something despite himself.

  Thus he began to steal, to take money from the hoard. It is very possible that the woman did not suggest it to him, never mentioned money to him. It is possible that he did not even know that he was paying with money for pleasure. It was that he had watched for years Mrs McEachern hide money in a certain place. Then he himself had something which it was necessary to hide. He put it in the safest place which he knew. Each time he hid or retrieved the rope, he saw the tin can containing money.

  The first time he took fifty cents. He debated for some time between fifty cents and a quarter. Then he took the fifty cents because that was the exact sum he needed. With it he bought a stale and flyspecked box of candy from a man who had won it for ten cents on a punching board in a store. He gave it to the waitress. It was the first thing which he had ever given her. He gave it to her as if no one had ever thought of giving her anything before. Her expression was a little strange when she took the tawdry, shabby box into her big hands. She was sitting at the time on her bed in her bedroom in the small house where she lived with the man and woman called Max and Mame. One night about a week before the man came into the room. She was undressing, sitting on the bed while she removed her stockings. He came in and leaned against the bureau, smoking.

  “A rich farmer,” he said. “John Jacob Astor from the cowshed.”

  She had covered herself, sitting on the bed, still, downlooking. “He pays me.”

  “With what? Hasn’t he used up that nickel yet?” He looked at her. “A setup for hayseeds. That’s what I brought you down here from Memphis for. Maybe I’d better start giving away grub too.”

  “I’m not doing it on your time.”

  “Sure. I cant stop you. I just hate to see you. A kid, that never saw a whole dollar at one time in his life. With this town full of guys making good jack, that would treat you right.”

  “Maybe I like him. Maybe you hadn’t thought of that.”

  He looked at her, at the still and lowered crown of her head as she sat on the bed, her hands on her lap. He leaned against the bureau, smoking. He said, “Mame!” After a while he said again, “Mame! Come in here.” The walls were thin. After a while the big blonde woman came up the hall, without haste. They could both hear her. She entered. “Get this,” the man said. “She says maybe she likes him best. It’s Romeo and Juliet. For sweet Jesus!”

  The blonde woman looked at the dark crown of the waitress’ head. “What about that?”

  “Nothing. It’s fine. Max Confrey presenting Miss Bobbie Allen, the youth’s companion.”

  “Go out,” the woman said.

  “Sure. I just brought her change for a nickel.” He went out. The waitress had not moved. The blonde woman went to the bureau and leaned against it, looking at the other’s lowered head.

  “Does he ever pay you?” she said.

  The waitress did not move. “Yes. He pays me.”

  The blonde woman looked at her, leaning against the bureau as Max had done. “Coming all the way down here from Memphis. Bringing it all the way down here to give it away.”

  The waitress did not move. “I’m not hurting Max.”

  The blonde woman looked at the other’s lowered head. Then she turned and went toward the door. “See that you dont,” she said. “This wont last forever. These little towns wont stand for this long. I know. I came from one of them.”

  Sitting on the bed, holding the cheap, florid candy box in her hands, she sat as she had sat while the blonde woman talked to her. But it was now Joe who leaned against the bureau and looked at her. She began to laugh. She laughed, holding the gaudy box in her bigknuckled hands. Joe watched her. He watched her rise and pass him, her face lowered. She passed through the door and called Max by name. Joe had never seen Max save in the restaurant, in the hat and the dirty apron. When Max entered he was not even smoking. He thrust out his hand. “How are you, Romeo?” he said.

  Joe was shaking hands almost before he had recognised the man. “My name’s Joe McEachern,” he said. The blonde woman had also entered. It was also the first time he had even seen her save in the restaurant. He saw her enter, watching her, watching the waitress open the box. She extended it.

  “Joe brought it to me,” she said.

  The blonde woman looked at the box, once. She did not even move her hand. “Thanks,” she said. The man also looked at the box, without moving his hand.

  “Well, well, well,” he said. “Sometimes Christmas lasts a good while. Hey, Romeo?” Joe had moved a little away from the bureau. He had never been in the house before. He was looking at the man, with on his face an expression a little placative and baffled though not alarmed, watching the man’s inscrutable and monklike face. But he said nothing. It was the waitress who said,

  “If you dont like it, you dont have to eat it.” He watched Max, watching his face, hearing the waitress’ voice; the voice downlooking: “Not doing you nor nobody else any harm. . . . Not on his time . . .” He was not watching her nor the blonde woman either. He was watching Max, with that expression puzzled, placative, not afraid. The blonde woman now spoke; it was as though they were speaking of him and in his presence and in a tongue which they knew that he did not know.

  “Come on out,” the blonde woman said.

  “For sweet Jesus,” Max said. “I was just going to give Romeo a drink on the house.”

  “Does he want one?” the blonde woman said. Even when she addressed Joe directly it was as if she still spoke to Max. “Do you want a drink?”
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br />   “Dont hold him in suspense because of his past behavior. Tell him it’s on the house.”

  “I dont know,” Joe said. “I never tried it.”

  “Never tried anything on the house,” Max said. “For sweet Jesus.” He had not looked at Joe once again after he entered the room. Again it was as if they talked at and because of him, in a language which he did not understand.

  “Come on,” the blonde woman said. “Come on, now.”

  They went out. The blonde woman had never looked at him at all, and the man, without looking at him, had never ceased. Then they were gone. Joe stood beside the bureau. In the middle of the floor the waitress stood, downlooking, with the open box of candy in her hand. The room was close, smelling of stale scent. Joe had never seen it before. He had not believed that he ever would. The shades were drawn. The single bulb burned at the end of a cord, shaded by a magazine page pinned about it and already turned brown from the heat. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s all right.” She didn’t answer nor move. He thought of the darkness outside, the night in which they had been alone before. “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Go?” she said. Then he looked at her. “Go where?” she said. “What for?” Still he did not understand her. He watched her come to the bureau and set the box of candy upon it. While he watched, she began to take her clothes off, ripping them off and flinging them down.

  He said, “Here? In here?” It was the first time he had ever seen a naked woman, though he had been her lover for a month. But even then he did not even know that he had not known what to expect to see.

  That night they talked. They lay in the bed, in the dark, talking. Or he talked, that is. All the time he was thinking, ‘Jesus. Jesus. So this is it.’ He lay naked too, beside her, touching her with his hand and talking about her. Not about where she had come from and what she had even done, but about her body as if no one had ever done this before, with her or with anyone else. It was as if with speech he were learning about women’s bodies, with the curiosity of a child. She told him about the sickness of the first night. It did not shock him now. Like the nakedness and the physical shape, it was like something which had never happened or existed before. So he told her in turn what he knew to tell. He told about the negro girl in the mill shed on that afternoon three years ago. He told her quietly and peacefully, lying beside her, touching her. Perhaps he could not even have said if she listened or not. Then he said, “You noticed my skin, my hair,” waiting for her to answer, his hand slow on her body.

  She whispered also. “Yes. I thought maybe you were a foreigner. That you never come from around here.”

  “It’s different from that, even. More than just a foreigner. You cant guess.”

  “What? How more different?”

  “Guess.”

  Their voices were quiet. It was still, quiet; night now known, not to be desired, pined for. “I cant. What are you?”

  His hand was slow and quiet on her invisible flank. He did not answer at once. It was not as if he were tantalising her. It was as if he just had not thought to speak on. She asked him again. Then he told her. “I got some nigger blood in me.”

  Then she lay perfectly still, with a different stillness. But he did not seem to notice it. He lay peacefully too, his hand slow up and down her flank. “You’re what?” she said.

  “I think I got some nigger blood in me.” His eyes were closed, his hand slow and unceasing. “I dont know. I believe I have.”

  She did not move. She said at once: “You’re lying.”

  “All right,” he said, not moving, his hand not ceasing.

  “I dont believe it,” her voice said in the darkness.

  “All right,” he said, his hand not ceasing.

  The next Saturday he took another half dollar from Mrs McEachern’s hiding place and gave it to the waitress. A day or two later he had reason to believe that Mrs McEachern had missed the money and that she suspected him of having taken it. Because she lay in wait for him until he knew that she knew that McEachern would not interrupt them. Then she said, “Joe.” He paused and looked at her, knowing that she would not be looking at him. She said, not looking at him, her voice flat, level: “I know how a young man growing up needs money. More than p — Mr McEachern gives you. . . .” He looked at her, until her voice ceased and died away. Apparently he was waiting for it to cease. Then he said,

  “Money? What do I want with money?”

  On the next Saturday he earned two dollars chopping wood for a neighbor. He lied to McEachern about where he was going and where he had been and what he had done there. He gave the money to the waitress. McEachern found out about the work. Perhaps he believed that Joe had hidden the money. Mrs McEachern may have told him so.

  Perhaps two nights a week Joe and the waitress went to her room. He did not know at first that anyone else had ever done that. Perhaps he believed that some peculiar dispensation had been made in his favor, for his sake. Very likely until the last he still believed that Max and Mame had to be placated, not for the actual fact, but because of his presence there. But he did not see them again in the house, though he knew that they were there. But he did not know for certain if they knew that he was there or had ever returned after the night of the candy.

  Usually they met outside, went somewhere else or just loitered on the way to where she lived. Perhaps he believed up to the last that he had suggested it. Then one night she did not meet him where he waited. He waited until the clock in the courthouse struck twelve. Then he went on to where she lived. He had never done that before, though even then he could not have said that she had ever forbidden him to come there unless she was with him. But he went there that night, expecting to find the house dark and asleep. The house was dark, but it was not asleep. He knew that, that beyond the dark shades of her room people were not asleep and that she was not there alone. How he knew it he could not have said. Neither would he admit what he knew. ‘It’s just Max,’ he thought. ‘It’s just Max.’ But he knew better. He knew that there was a man in the room with her. He did not see her for two weeks, though he knew that she was waiting for him. Then one night he was at the corner when she appeared. He struck her, without warning, feeling her flesh. He knew then what even yet he had not believed. “Oh,” she cried. He struck her again. “Not here!” she whispered. “Not here!” Then he found that she was crying. He had not cried since he could remember. He cried, cursing her, striking her. Then she was holding him. Even the reason for striking her was gone then. “Now, now,” she said. “Now, now.”

  They did not leave the corner even that night. They did not walk on loitering nor leave the road. They sat on a sloping grass-bank and talked. She talked this time, telling him. It did not take much telling. He could see now what he discovered that he had known all the time: the idle men in the restaurant, with their cigarettes bobbing as they spoke to her in passing, and she going back and forth, constant, downlooking, and abject. Listening to her voice, he seemed to smell the odor reek of all anonymous men above dirt. Her head was a little lowered as she talked, the big hands still on her lap. He could not see, of course. He did not have to see. “I thought you knew,” she said.

  “No,” he said. “I reckon I didn’t.”

  “I thought you did.”

  “No,” he said. “I dont reckon I did.”

  Two weeks later he had begun to smoke, squinting his face against the smoke, and he drank too. He would drink at night with Max and Mame and sometimes three or four other men and usually another woman or two, sometimes from the town, but usually strangers who would come in from Memphis and stay a week or a month, as waitresses behind the restaurant counter where the idle men gathered all day. He did not always know their names, but he could cock his hat as they did; during the evenings behind the drawn shades of the diningroom at Max’s he cocked it so and spoke of the waitress to the others, even in her presence, in his loud, drunken, despairing young voice, calling her his whore. Now and then in Max’s car he took her to d
ances in the country, always careful that McEachern should not hear about it. “I dont know which he would be madder at,” he told her; “at you or at the dancing.” Once they had to put him to bed, helpless, in the house where he had not even ever dreamed at one time that he could enter. The next morning the waitress drove him out home before daylight so he could get into the house before he was caught. And during the day McEachern watched him with dour and grudging approval.

  “But you have still plenty of time to make me regret that heifer,” McEachern said.

  9

  MCEACHERN LAY IN bed. The room was dark, but he was not asleep. He lay beside Mrs McEachern, whom he did believe to be sleeping, thinking fast and hard, thinking, ‘The suit has been worn. But when. It could not have been during the day, because he is beneath my eyes, except on Saturday afternoons. But on any Saturday afternoon he could go to the barn, remove and hide the fit clothing which I require him to wear, and then don apparel which he would and could need only as some adjunct to sinning.’ It was as if he knew then, had been told. That would infer then that the garments were worn in secret, and therefore in all likelihood, at night. And if that were so, he refused to believe that the boy had other than one purpose: lechery. He had never committed lechery himself and he had not once failed to refuse to listen to anyone who talked about it. Yet within about thirty minutes of intensive thinking he knew almost as much of Joe’s doings as Joe himself could have told him, with the exception of names and places. Very likely he would not have believed those even from Joe’s mouth, since men of his kind usually have just as firmly fixed convictions about the mechanics, the theatring of evil as about those of good. Thus bigotry and clairvoyance were practically one, only the bigotry was a little slow, for as Joe, descending on his rope, slid like a fast shadow across the open and moonfilled window behind which McEachern lay, McEachern did not at once recognise him or perhaps believe what he saw, even though he could see the very rope itself. And when he got to the window Joe had already drawn the rope back and made it fast and was now on his way toward the barn. As McEachern watched him from the window, he felt something of that pure and impersonal outrage which a judge must feel were he to see a man on trial for his life lean and spit on the bailiff’s sleeve.