Complete Works of William Faulkner

by William Faulkner

  So they had lived quietly then, their women’s life in the big house without men. Now and then she had urged Narcissa to marry again. But the other had refused, quietly, and they had gone on so for years, the two of them and the child whom she persisted in calling after his dead uncle. Then one evening a week ago, Narcissa had a guest for supper; when she learned that the guest was to be a man, she sat quite still in her chair for a time. “Ah,” she thought, quietly. “It’s come. Well. But it had to; she is young. And to live out here alone with a bedridden old woman. Well. But I wouldn’t have her do as I did. Would not expect it of her. After all, she is not a Sartoris. She is no kin to them, to a lot of fool proud ghosts.” The guest came. She did not see him until she was wheeled in to the supper table. Then she saw a bald, youngish man with a clever face and a Phi Beta Kappa key on his watch chain. The key she did not recognize, but she knew at once that he was a Jew, and when he spoke to her her outrage became fury and she jerked back in the chair like a striking snake, the motion strong enough to thrust the chair back from the table. “Narcissa,” she said, “what is this Yankee doing here?”

  There they were, about the candle-lit table, the three rigid people. Then the man spoke: “Madam,” he said, “there’d be no Yankees left if your sex had ever taken the field against us.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that, young man,” she said. “You can thank your stars it was just men your grandfather fought.” Then she had called Isom and had herself wheeled from the table, taking no supper. And even in her bedroom she would not let them turn on the light, and she refused the tray which Narcissa sent up. She sat beside her dark window until the stranger was gone.

  Then three days later Narcissa made her sudden and mysterious trip to Memphis and stayed two nights, who had never before been separated overnight from her son since he was born. She had gone without explanation and returned without explanation, and now the old woman had just watched her and the boy cross the garden, their garments still damp upon them, as though they had been in the creek.

  It was the boy who told her. He came into the room in fresh clothes, his hair still damp, though neatly combed now. She said no word as he entered and came to her chair. “We been in the creek,” he said. “Not swimming, though. Just sitting in the water. She wanted me to show her the swimming hole. But we didn’t swim. I don’t reckon she can. We just sat in the water with our clothes on. All evening. She wanted to do it.”

  “Ah,” the old woman said. “Oh. Well. That must have been fun. Is she coming down soon?”

  “Yessum. When she gets dressed.”

  “Well. . . . You’ll have time to go outdoors a while before supper, if you want to.”

  “I just as soon stay in here with you, if you want me to.”

  “No. You go outdoors. I’ll be all right until Saddie comes.”

  “All right.” He left the room.

  The window faded slowly as the sunset died. The old woman’s silver head faded too, like something motionless on a sideboard. The sparse colored panes which framed the window dreamed, rich and hushed. She sat there and presently she heard her nephew’s wife descending the stairs. She sat quietly, watching the door, until the young woman entered.

  She wore white: a large woman in her thirties, within the twilight something about her of that heroic quality of statuary. “Do you want the light?” she said.

  “No,” the old woman said. “No. Not yet.” She sat erect in the wheel chair, motionless, watching the young woman cross the room, her white dress flowing slowly, heroic, like a caryatid from a temple façade come to life. She sat down.

  “It was those let—” she said.

  “Wait,” the old woman said. “Before you begin. The jasmine. Do you smell it?”

  “Yes. It was those—”

  “Wait. Always about this time of day it begins. It has begun about this time of day in June for fifty-seven years this summer. I brought them from Carolina, in a basket. I remember how that first March I sat up all one night, burning newspapers about the roots. Do you smell it?”

  “Yes.”

  “If it’s marriage, I told you. I told you five years ago that I wouldn’t blame you. A young woman, a widow. Even though you have a child, I told you that a child would not be enough. I told you I would not blame you for not doing as I had done. Didn’t I?”

  “Yes. But it’s not that bad.”

  “Not? Not how bad?” The old woman sat erect, her head back a little, her thin face fading into the twilight with a profound quality. “I won’t blame you. I told you that. You are not to consider me. My life is done; I need little; nothing the Negroes can’t do. Don’t you mind me, do you hear?” The other said nothing, motionless too, serene; their voices seemed to materialize in the dusk between them, unsourced of either mouth, either still and fading face. “You’ll have to tell me, then,” the old woman said.

  “It was those letters. Thirteen years ago: don’t you remember? Before Bayard came back from France, before you even knew that we were engaged. I showed you one of them and you wanted to give it to Colonel Sartoris and let him find out who sent it and I wouldn’t do it and you said that no lady would permit herself to receive anonymous love letters, no matter how badly she wanted to.”

  “Yes. I said it was better for the world to know that a lady had received a letter like that, than to have one man in secret thinking such things about her, unpunished. You told me you burned it.”

  “I lied. I kept it. And I got ten more of them. I didn’t tell you because of what you said about a lady.”

  “Ah,” the old woman said.

  “Yes. I kept them all. I thought I had them hidden where nobody could ever find them.”

  “And you read them again. You would take them out now and then and read them again.”

  “I thought I had them hidden. Then you remember that night after Bayard and I were married when somebody broke into our house in town; the same night that book-keeper in Colonel Sartoris’ bank stole that money and ran away? The next morning the letters were gone, and then I knew who had sent them.”

  “Yes,” the old woman said. She had not moved, her fading head like something inanimate in silver.

  “So they were out in the world. They were somewhere. I was crazy for a while. I thought of people, men, reading them, seeing not only my name on them, but the marks of my eyes where I had read them again and again. I was wild. When Bayard and I were on our honeymoon, I was wild. I couldn’t even think about him alone. It was like I was having to sleep with all the men in the world at the same time.

  “Then it was almost twelve years ago, and I had Bory, and I supposed I had got over it. Got used to having them out in the world. Maybe I had begun to think that they were gone, destroyed, and I was safe. Now and then I would remember them, but it was like somehow that Bory was protecting me, that they couldn’t pass him to reach me. As though if I just stayed out here and was good to Bory and you — And then, one afternoon, after twelve years, that man came out to see me, that Jew. The one who stayed to supper that night.”

  “Ah,” the old woman said. “Yes.”

  “He was a Federal agent. They were still trying to catch the man who had robbed the bank, and the agent had got hold of my letters. Found them where the book-keeper had lost them or thrown them away that night while he was running away, and the agent had had them twelve years, working on the case. At last he came out to see me, trying to find out where the man had gone, thinking I must know, since the man had written me letters like that. You remember him: how you looked at him and you said, ‘Narcissa, who is this Yankee?’”

  “Yes. I remember.”

  “That man had my letters. He had had them for twelve years. He—”

  “Had had?” the old woman said. “Had had?”

  “Yes. I have them now. He hadn’t sent them to Washington yet, so nobody had read them except him. And now nobody will ever read them.” She ceased; she breathed quietly, tranquil. “You don’t understand yet, do yo
u? He had all the information the letters could give him, but he would have to turn them in to the Department anyway and I asked him for them but he said he would have to turn them in and I asked him if he would make his final decision in Memphis and he said why Memphis and I told him why. I knew I couldn’t buy them from him with money, you see. That’s why I had to go to Memphis. I had that much regard for Bory and you, to go somewhere else. And that’s all. Men are all about the same, with their ideas of good and bad. Fools.” She breathed quietly. Then she yawned, deep, with utter relaxation. Then she stopped yawning. She looked again at the rigid, fading silver head opposite her. “Don’t you understand yet?” she said. “I had to do it. They were mine; I had to get them back. That was the only way I could do it. But I would have done more than that. So I got them. And now they are burned up. Nobody will ever see them. Because he can’t tell, you see. It would ruin him to ever tell that they even existed. They might even put him in the penitentiary. And now they are burned up.”

  “Yes,” the old woman said. “And so you came back home and you took Johnny so you and he could sit together in the creek, the running water. In Jordan. Yes, Jordan at the back of a country pasture in Missippi.”

  “I had to get them back. Don’t you see that?”

  “Yes,” the old woman said. “Yes.” She sat bolt upright in the wheel chair. “Well, my Lord. Us poor, fool women — Johnny!” Her voice was sharp, peremptory.

  “What?” the young woman said. “Do you want something?”

  “No,” the other said. “Call Johnny. I want my hat.” The young woman rose. “I’ll get it.”

  “No. I want Johnny to do it.”

  The young woman stood looking down at the other, the old woman erect in the wheel chair beneath the fading silver crown of her hair. Then she left the room. The old woman did not move. She sat there in the dusk until the boy entered, carrying a small black bonnet of an ancient shape. Now and then, when the old woman became upset, they would fetch her the hat and she would place it on the exact top of her head and sit there by the window. He brought the bonnet to her. His mother was with him. It was full dusk now; the old woman was invisible save for her hair. “Do you want the light now?” the young woman said.

  “No,” the old woman said. She set the bonnet on the top of her head. “You all go on to supper and let me rest awhile. Go on, all of you.” They obeyed, leaving her sitting there: a slender, erect figure indicated only by the single gleam of her hair, in the wheel chair beside the window framed by the sparse and defunctive Carolina glass.

  IV

  Since the boy’s eighth birthday, he had had his dead grandfather’s place at the end of the table. Tonight however his mother rearranged things. “With just the two of us,” she said. “You come and sit by me.” The boy hesitated. “Please. Won’t you? I got so lonesome for you last night in Memphis. Weren’t you lonesome for me?”

  “I slept with Aunt Jenny,” the boy said. “We had a good time.”

  “Please.”

  “All right,” he said. He took the chair beside hers.

  “Closer,” she said. She drew the chair closer. “But we won’t ever again, ever. Will we?” She leaned toward him, taking his hand.

  “What? Sit in the creek?”

  “Not ever leave one another again.”

  “I didn’t get lonesome. We had a good time.”

  “Promise. Promise, Bory.” His name was Benhow, her family name.

  “All right.”

  Isom, in a duck jacket, served them and returned to the kitchen.

  “She ain’t coming to supper?” Elnora said.

  “Nome,” Isom said. “Setting yonder by the window, in the dark. She say she don’t want no supper.”

  Elnora looked at Saddie. “What was they doing last time you went to the library?”

  “Her and Miss Narcissa talking.”

  “They was still talking when I went to ‘nounce supper,” Isom said. “I tole you that.”

  “I know,” Elnora said. Her voice was not sharp. Neither was it gentle. It was just peremptory, soft, cold. “What were they talking about?”

  “I don’t know’m,” Isom said. “You the one taught me not to listen to white folks.”

  “What were they talking about, Isom?” Elnora said. She was looking at him, grave, intent, commanding.

  “‘Bout somebody getting married. Miss Jenny say ‘I tole you long time ago I ain’t blame you. A young woman like you. I want you to marry. Not do like I done,’ what she say.”

  “I bet she fixing to marry, too,” Saddie said.

  “Who marry?” Elnora said. “Her marry? What for? Give up what she got here? That ain’t what it is. I wished I knowed what been going on here this last week. . . .” Her voice ceased; she turned her head toward the door as though she were listening for something. From the dining-room came the sound of the young woman’s voice. But Elnora appeared to listen to something beyond this. Then she left the room. She did not go hurriedly, yet her long silent stride carried her from sight with an abruptness like that of an inanimate figure drawn on wheels, off a stage.

  She went quietly up the dark hall, passing the dining-room door unremarked by the two people at the table. They sat close. The woman was talking, leaning toward the boy. Elnora went on without a sound: a converging of shadows upon which her lighter face seemed to float without body, her eyeballs faintly white. Then she stopped suddenly. She had not reached the library door, yet she stopped, invisible, soundless, her eyes suddenly quite luminous in her almost-vanished face, and she began to chant in faint sing-song: “Oh, Lawd; oh, Lawd,” not loud. Then she moved, went swiftly on to the library door and looked into the room where beside the dead window the old woman sat motionless, indicated only by that faint single gleam of white hair, as though for ninety years life had died slowly up her spare, erect frame, to linger for a twilit instant about her head before going out, though life itself had ceased. Elnora looked for only an instant into the room. Then she turned and retraced her swift and silent steps to the dining-room door. The woman still leaned toward the boy, talking. They did not remark Elnora at once. She stood in the doorway, tall, not touching the jamb on either side. Her face was blank; she did not appear to be looking at, speaking to, any one.

  “You better come quick, I reckon,” she said in that soft, cold, peremptory voice.

  Mountain Victory

  THROUGH THE CABIN window the five people watched the cavalcade toil up the muddy trail and halt at the gate. First came a man on foot, leading a horse. He wore a broad hat low on his face, his body shapeless in a weathered gray cloak from which his left hand emerged, holding the reins. The bridle was silvermounted, the horse a gaunt, mudsplashed, thoroughbred bay, wearing in place of saddle a navy blue army blanket bound on it by a piece of rope. The second horse was a shortbodied, bigheaded, scrub sorrel, also mudsplashed. It wore a bridle contrived of rope and wire, and an army saddle in which, perched high above the dangling stirrups, crouched a shapeless something larger than a child, which at that distance appeared to wear no garment or garments known to man.

  One of the three men at the cabin window left it quickly. The others, without turning, heard him cross the room swiftly and then return, carrying a long rifle.

  “No, you don’t,” the older man said.

  “Don’t you see that cloak?” the younger said. “That rebel cloak?”

  “I wont have it,” the other said. “They have surrendered. They have said they are whipped.”

  Through the window they watched the horses stop at the gate. The gate was of sagging hickory, in a rock fence which straggled down a gaunt slope sharp in relief against the valley and a still further range of mountains dissolving into the low, dissolving sky.

  They watched the creature on the second horse descend and hand his reins also into the same left hand of the man in gray that held the reins of the thoroughbred. They watched the creature enter the gate and mount the path and disappear beyond the angle of the window.
Then they heard it cross the porch and knock at the door. They stood there and heard it knock again.

  After a while the older man said, without turning his head, “Go and see.”

  One of the women, the older one, turned from the window, her feet making no sound on the floor, since they were bare. She went to the front door and opened it. The chill, wet light of the dying April afternoon fell in upon her — upon a small woman with a gnarled expressionless face, in a gray shapeless garment. Facing her across the sill was a creature a little larger than a large monkey, dressed in a voluminous blue overcoat of a private in the Federal army, with, tied tentlike over his head and falling about his shoulders, a piece of oilcloth which might have been cut square from the hood of a sutler’s wagon; within the orifice the woman could see nothing whatever save the whites of two eyes, momentary and phantomlike, as with a single glance the Negro examined the woman standing barefoot in her faded calico garment, and took in the bleak and barren interior of the cabin hall.

  “Marster Major Soshay Weddel send he compliments en say he wishful fo sleeping room fo heself en boy en two hawses,” he said in a pompous, parrot-like voice. The woman looked at him. Her face was like a spent mask. “We been up yonder a ways, fighting dem Yankees,” the Negro said. “Done quit now. Gwine back home.”

  The woman seemed to speak from somewhere behind her face, as though behind an effigy or a painted screen: “I’ll ask him.”

  “We ghy pay you,” the Negro said.

  “Pay?” Pausing, she seemed to muse upon him. “Hit aint near a ho-tel on the mou-tin.”

  The Negro made a large gesture. “Don’t make no diffunce. We done stayed de night in worse places den whut dis is. You just tell um it Marse Soshay Weddel.” Then he saw that the woman was looking past him. He turned and saw the man in the worn gray cloak already halfway up the path from the gate. He came on and mounted the porch, removing with his left hand the broad slouched hat bearing the tarnished wreath of a Confederate field officer. He had a dark face, with dark eyes and black hair, his face at once thick yet gaunt, and arrogant. He was not tall, yet he topped the Negro by five or six inches. The cloak was weathered, faded about the shoulders where the light fell strongest. The skirts were bedraggled, frayed, mudsplashed: the garment had been patched again and again, and brushed again and again; the nap was completely gone.