“And Eupheus was gone. The man that owned the mill didn’t know where he had gone to. And he got a new foreman, but he let me stay in the house a while longer because we didn’t know where Eupheus was, and it coming winter and me with the baby to take care of. And I didn’t know where Eupheus was any more than Mr Gillman did, until the letter came. It was from Memphis and it had a postoffice moneypaper in it, and that was all. So I still didn’t know. And then in November another moneypaper came, without any letter or anything. And I was that tired, and then two days before Christmas I was out in the back yard, chopping wood, and I come back into the house and the baby was gone. I hadn’t been out of the house an hour, and it looked like I could have seen him when he come and went. But I didn’t. I just found the letter where Eupheus had left it on the pillow that I would put between the baby and the edge of the bed so he couldn’t roll off, and I was that tired. And I waited, and after Christmas Eupheus come home, and he wouldn’t tell me. He just said that we were going to move, and I thought that he had already took the baby there and he had come back for me. And he wouldn’t tell me where we were going to move to but it didn’t take long and I was worried nigh crazy how the baby would get along until we got there and he still wouldn’t tell me and it was like we wouldn’t ever get there. Then we got there and the baby wasn’t there and I said, ‘You tell me what you have done with Joey. You got to tell me,’ and he looked at me like he looked at Milly that night when she laid on the bed and died and he said, ‘It’s the Lord God’s abomination, and I am the instrument of His will.’ And he went away the next day and I didn’t know where he had gone, and another moneypaper came, and the next month Eupheus come home and said he was working in Memphis. And I knew he had Joey hid somewhere in Memphis and I thought that that was something because he could be there to see to Joey even if I wasn’t. And I knew that I would have to wait on Eupheus’ will to know, and each time I would think that maybe next time he will take me with him to Memphis. And so I waited. I sewed and made clothes for Joey and I would have them all ready when Eupheus would come home and I would try to get him to tell me if the clothes fit Joey and if he was all right and Eupheus wouldn’t tell me. He would sit and read out of the Bible, loud, without nobody there to hear it but me, reading and hollering loud out of the Bible like he believed I didn’t believe what it said. But he would not tell me for five years and I never knew whether he took Joey the clothes I made or not. And I was afraid to ask, to worry at him, because it was something that he was there where Joey was, even if I wasn’t. And then after five years he came home one day and he said, ‘We are going to move,’ and I thought that now it would be, I will see him again now; if it was a sin, I reckon we have all paid it out now, and I even forgave Eupheus. Because I thought that we were going to Memphis this time, at last. But it was not to Memphis. We come to Mottstown. We had to pass through Memphis, and I begged him. It was the first time I had ever begged him. But I did then, just for a minute, a second; not to touch him or talk to him or nothing. But Eupheus wouldn’t. We never even left the depot. We got off of one train and we waited seven hours without even leaving the depot, until the other train come, and we come to Mottstown. And Eupheus never went back to Memphis to work anymore, and after a while I said, ‘Eupheus,’ and he looked at me and I said, ‘I done waited five years and I aint never bothered you. Cant you tell me just once if he is dead or not?’ and he said, ‘He is dead,’ and I said, ‘Dead to the living world, or just dead to me? If he is just dead to me, even. Tell me that much, because in five years I have not bothered you,’ and he said, ‘He is dead to you and to me and to God and to all God’s world forever and ever more.’ ”
She ceases again. Beyond the desk Hightower watches her with that quiet and desperate amazement. Byron too is motionless, his head bent a little. The three of them are like three rocks above a beach, above ebbtide, save the old man. He has been listening now, almost attentively, with that ability of his to flux instantaneously between complete attention that does not seem to hear, and that comalike bemusement in which the stare of his apparently inverted eye is as uncomfortable as though he held them with his hand. He cackles, suddenly, bright, loud, mad; he speaks, incredibly old, incredibly dirty. “It was the Lord. He was there. Old Doc Hines give God His chance too. The Lord told old Doc Hines what to do and old Doc Hines done it. Then the Lord said to old Doc Hines, ‘You watch, now. Watch My will a-working.’ And old Doc Hines watched and heard the mouths of little children, of God’s own fatherless and motherless, putting His words and knowledge into their mouths even when they couldn’t know it since they were without sin yet, even the girl ones without sin and bitchery yet: Nigger! Nigger! in the innocent mouths of little children. ‘What did I tell you?’ God said to old Doc Hines. ‘And now I’ve set My will to working and now I’m gone. There aint enough sin here to keep Me busy because what do I care for the fornications of a slut, since that is a part of My purpose too,’ and old Doc Hines said, ‘How is the fornications of a slut a part of Your purpose too?’ and God said, ‘You wait and see. Do you think it is just chanceso that I sent that young doctor to be the one that found My abomination laying wrapped in that blanket on that doorstep that Christmas night? Do you think it was just chanceso that the Madam should have been away that night and give them young sluts the chance and call to name him Christmas in sacrilege of My son? So I am gone now, because I have set My will a-working and I can leave you here to watch it.’ So old Doc Hines he watched and he waited. From God’s own boiler room he watched them children, and the devil’s walking seed unbeknownst among them, polluting the earth with the working of that word on him. Because he didn’t play with the other children no more now. He stayed by himself, standing still, and then old Doc Hines knew that he was listening to the hidden warning of God’s doom, and old Doc Hines said to him, ‘Why dont you play with them other children like you used to?’ and he didn’t say nothing and old Doc Hines said, ‘Is it because they call you nigger?’ and he didn’t say nothing and old Doc Hines said, ‘Do you think you are a nigger because God has marked your face?’ and he said, ‘Is God a nigger too?’ and old Doc Hines said, ‘He is the Lord God of wrathful hosts, His will be done. Not yours and not mine, because you and me are both a part of His purpose and His vengeance.’ And he went away and old Doc Hines watched him hearing and listening to the vengeful will of the Lord, until old Doc Hines found out how he was watching the nigger working in the yard, following him around the yard while he worked, until at last the nigger said, ‘What you watching me for, boy?’ and he said, ‘How come you are a nigger?’ and the nigger said, ‘Who told you I am a nigger, you little white trash bastard?’ and he says, ‘I aint a nigger,’ and the nigger says, ‘You are worse than that. You dont know what you are. And more than that, you wont never know. You’ll live and you’ll die and you wont never know,’ and he says, ‘God aint no nigger,’ and the nigger says, ‘I reckon you ought to know what God is, because dont nobody but God know what you is.’ But God wasn’t there to say, because He had set His will to working and left old Doc Hines to watch it. From that very first night, when He had chose His own Son’s sacred anniversary to set it a-working on, He set old Doc Hines to watch it. It was cold that night, and old Doc Hines standing in the dark just behind the corner where he could see the doorstep and the accomplishment of the Lord’s will, and he saw that young doctor coming in lechery and fornication stop and stoop down and raise the Lord’s abomination and tote it into the house. And old Doc Hines he followed and he seen and heard. He watched them young sluts that was desecrating the Lord’s sacred anniversary with eggnog and whiskey in the Madam’s absence, open the blanket. And it was her, the Jezebel of the doctor, that was the Lord’s instrument, that said, ‘We’ll name him Christmas,’ and another one said, ‘What Christmas. Christmas what,’ and God said to old Doc Hines, ‘Tell them,’ and they all looked at old Doc Hines with the reek of pollution on them, hollering, ‘Why, it’s Uncle Doc. Look what Santa Claus brought us
and left on the doorstep, Uncle Doc,’ and old Doc Hines said, ‘His name is Joseph,’ and they quit laughing and they looked at old Doc Hines and the Jezebel said, ‘How do you know?’ and old Doc Hines said, ‘The Lord says so,’ and then they laughed again, hollering, ‘It is so in the Book: Christmas, the son of Joe. Joe, the son of Joe. Joe Christmas,’ they said, ‘To Joe Christmas,’ and they tried to make old Doc Hines drink too, to the Lord’s abomination, but he struck the cup aside. And he just had to watch and to wait, and he did and it was in the Lord’s good time, for evil to come from evil. And the doctor’s Jezebel come running from her lustful bed, still astink with sin and fear. ‘He was hid behind the bed,’ she says, and old Doc Hines said, ‘You used that perfumed soap that tempted your own undoing, for the Lord’s abomination and outrage. Suffer it,’ and she said, ‘You can talk to him. I have seen you. You could persuade him,’ and old Doc Hines said, ‘I care no more for your fornications than God does,’ and she said, ‘He will tell and I will be fired. I will be disgraced.’ Stinking with her lust and lechery she was then, standing before old Doc Hines with the working of God’s will on her that minute, who had outraged the house where God housed His fatherless and motherless. ‘You aint nothing,’ old Doc Hines said. ‘You and all sluts. You are a instrument of God’s wrathful purpose that nere a sparrow can fall to earth. You are a instrument of God, the same as Joe Christmas and old Doc Hines.’ And she went away and old Doc Hines he waited and he watched and it wasn’t long before she come back and her face was like the face of a ravening beast of the desert. ‘I fixed him,’ she said, and old Doc Hines said, ‘How fixed him,’ because it was not anything that old Doc Hines didn’t know because the Lord did not keep His purpose hid from His chosen instrument, and old Doc Hines said, ‘You have served the foreordained will of God. You can go now and abominate Him in peace until the Day,’ and her face looked like the ravening beast of the desert, laughing out of her rotten colored dirt at God. And they come and took him away. Old Doc Hines saw him go away in the buggy and he went back to wait for God and God come and He said to old Doc Hines, ‘You can go too now. You have done My work. There is no more evil here now but womanevil, not worthy for My chosen instrument to watch.’ And old Doc Hines went when God told him to go. But he kept in touch with God and at night he said, ‘That bastard, Lord,’ and God said, ‘He is still walking My earth,’ and old Doc Hines kept in touch with God and at night he said, ‘That bastard, Lord,’ and God said, ‘He is still walking My earth,’ and old Doc Hines kept in touch with God and one night he wrestled and he strove and he cried aloud, ‘That bastard, Lord! I feel! I feel the teeth and the fangs of evil!’ and God said, ‘It’s that bastard. Your work is not done yet. He’s a pollution and a abomination on My earth.’ ”
The sound of music from the distant church has long since ceased. Through the open window there comes now only the peaceful and myriad sounds of the summer night. Beyond the desk Hightower sits, looking more than ever like an awkward beast tricked and befooled of the need for flight, brought now to bay by those who tricked and fooled it. The other three sit facing him; almost like a jury. Two of them are also motionless, the woman with that stonevisaged patience of a waiting rock, the old man with a spent quality like a charred wick of a candle from which the flame has been violently blown away. Byron alone seems to possess life. His face is lowered. He seems to muse upon one hand which lies upon his lap, the thumb and forefinger of which rub slowly together with a kneading motion while he appears to watch with musing absorption. When Hightower speaks, Byron knows that he is not addressing him, not addressing anyone in the room at all. “What do they want me to do?” he says. “What do they think, hope, believe, that I can do?”
Then there is no sound; neither the man nor the woman have heard, apparently. Byron does not expect the man to hear. ‘He dont need any help,’ he thinks. ‘Not him. It’s hindrance he needs’; thinking remembering the comastate of dreamy yet maniacal suspension in which the old man had moved from place to place a little behind the woman since he had met them twelve hours ago. ‘It’s hindrance he needs. I reckon it’s a good thing for more folks than her that he is wellnigh helpless.’ He is watching the woman. He says quietly, almost gently: “Go on. Tell him what you want. He wants to know what you want him to do. Tell him.”
“I thought maybe—” she says. She speaks without stirring. Her voice is not tentative so much as rusty, as if it were being forced to try to say something outside the province of being said aloud, of being anything save felt, known. “Mr Bunch said that maybe—”
“What?” Hightower says. He speaks sharply, impatiently, his voice a little high; he too has not moved, sitting back in the chair, his hands upon the armrests. “What? That what?”
“I thought . . .” The voice dies again. Beyond the window the steady insects whirr. Then the voice goes on, flat, toneless, she sitting also with her head bent a little, as if she too listened to the voice with the same quiet intentness: “He is my grandson, my girl’s little boy. I just thought that if I . . . if he . . .” Byron listens quietly, thinking It’s right funny. You’d think they had done got swapped somewhere. Like it was him that had a nigger grandson waiting to be hung The voice goes on. “I know it aint right to bother a stranger. But you are lucky. A bachelor, a single man that could grow old without the despair of love. But I reckon you couldn’t never see it even if I could tell it right. I just thought that maybe if it could be for one day like it hadn’t happened. Like folks never knew him as a man that had killed . . .” The voice ceases again. She has not stirred. It is as though she listened to it cease as she listened to it begin, with the same interest, the same quiet unastonishment.
“Go on,” Hightower says, in that high impatient voice; “go on.”
“I never saw him when he could walk and talk. Not for thirty years I never saw him. I am not saying he never did what they say he did. Ought not to suffer for it like he made them that loved and lost suffer. But if folks could maybe just let him for one day. Like it hadn’t happened yet. Like the world never had anything against him yet. Then it could be like he had just went on a trip and grew man grown and come back. If it could be like that for just one day. After that I would not interfere. If he done it, I would not be the one to come between him and what he must suffer. Just for one day, you see. Like he had been on a trip and come back, telling me about the trip, without any living earth against him yet.”
“Oh,” Hightower says, in his shrill, high voice. Though he has not moved, though the knuckles of the hands which grip the chairarms are taut and white, there begins to emerge from beneath his clothing a slow and repressed quivering. “Ah, yes,” he says. “That’s all. That’s simple. Simple. Simple.” Apparently he cannot stop saying it. “Simple. Simple.” He has been speaking in a low tone; now his voice rises. “What is it they want me to do? What must I do now? Byron! Byron? What is it? What are they asking of me now?” Byron has risen. He now stands beside the desk, his hands on the desk, facing Hightower. Still Hightower does not move save for that steadily increasing quivering of his flabby body. “Ah, yes. I should have known. It will be Byron who will ask it. I should have known. That will be reserved for Byron and for me. Come, come. Out with it. Why do you hesitate now?”
Byron looks down at the desk, at his hands upon the desk. “It’s a poor thing. A poor thing.”
“Ah. Commiseration? After this long time? Commiseration for me, or for Byron? Come; out with it. What do you want me to do? For it is you: I know that. I have known that all along. Ah, Byron, Byron. What a dramatist you would have made.”
“Or maybe you mean a drummer, a agent, a salesman,” Byron says. “It’s a poor thing. I know that. You dont need to tell me.”
“But I am not clairvoyant, like you. You seem to know already what I could tell you, yet you will not tell me what you intend for me to know. What is it you want me to do? Shall I go plead guilty to the murder? Is that it?”
Byron’s face cracks with that grima
ce faint, fleeting, sardonic, weary, without mirth. “It’s next to that, I reckon.” Then his face sobers; it is quite grave. “It’s a poor thing to ask. God knows I know that.” He watches his slow hand where it moves, preoccupied and trivial, upon the desk top. “I mind how I said to you once that there is a price for being good the same as for being bad; a cost to pay. And it’s the good men that cant deny the bill when it comes around. They cant deny it for the reason that there aint any way to make them pay it, like a honest man that gambles. The bad men can deny it; that’s why dont anybody expect them to pay on sight or any other time. But the good cant. Maybe it takes longer to pay for being good than for being bad. And it wont be like you haven’t done it before, haven’t already paid a bill like it once before. It oughtn’t to be so bad now as it was then.”
“Go on. Go on. What is it I am to do?”
Byron watches his slow and ceaseless hand, musing. “He aint never admitted that he killed her. And all the evidence they got against him is Brown’s word, which is next to none. You could say he was here with you that night. Every night when Brown said he watched him go up to the big house and go in it. Folks would believe you. They would believe that, anyway. They would rather believe that about you than to believe that he lived with her like a husband and then killed her. And you are old now. They wouldn’t do anything to you about it that would hurt you now. And I reckon you are used to everything else they can do.”
“Oh,” Hightower says. “Ah. Yes. Yes. They would believe it. That would be very simple, very good. Good for all. Then he will be restored to them who have suffered because of him, and Brown without the reward could be scared into making her child legitimate and then into fleeing again and forever this time. And then it would be just her and Byron. Since I am just an old man who has been fortunate enough to grow old without having to learn the despair of love.” He is shaking, steadily; he looks up now. In the lamplight his face looks slick, as if it had been oiled. Wrung and twisted, it gleams in the lamplight; the yellowed, oftwashed shirt which was fresh this morning is damp with sweat. “It’s not because I cant, dont dare to,” he says; “it’s because I wont! I wont! do you hear?” He raises his hands from the chairarms. “It’s because I wont do it!” Byron does not move. His hand on the desk top has ceased; he watches the other, thinking It aint me he is shouting at. It’s like he knows there is something nearer him than me to convince of that Because now Hightower is shouting, “I wont do it! I wont!” with his hands raised and clenched, his face sweating, his lip lifted upon his clenched and rotting teeth from about which the long sagging of flabby and puttycolored flesh falls away. Suddenly his voice rises higher yet. “Get out!” he screams. “Get out of my house! Get out of my house!” Then he falls forward, onto the desk, his face between his extended arms and his clenched fists. As, the two old people moving ahead of him, Byron looks back from the door, he sees that Hightower has not moved, his bald head and his extended and clenchfisted arms lying full in the pool of light from the shaded lamp. Beyond the open window the sound of insects has not ceased, not faltered.
Complete Works of William Faulkner Page 162
