Because he was sitting there when the half-grown boy came around the corner of the house whistling and saw him. And Father said he must have realized then that it would not be much after dark when it would happen; that he must have sat there and sensed, felt them gathering with the horses and dogs and guns—the curious and the vengeful men of Sutpen’s own kind, who used to eat at his table with him back when he (Wash) had yet to approach nearer the house than the scuppernong arbor—men who had led the way, shown the other and lesser ones how to fight in battles, who might also possess signed papers from the generals saying that they were among the first and foremost of the brave—who had galloped also in the old days arrogant and proud on the fine horses about the fine plantations—symbol also of admiration and hope, instruments too of despair and grief; these it was whom he was expected to run from and it seeming to him probably that he had no less to run from than he had to run to; that if he ran he would be fleeing merely one set of bragging and evil shadows for another, since they (men) were all of a kind throughout all of earth which he knew, and he old, too old to run far even if he were to run who could never escape them, no matter how much or how far he ran; a man past sixty could not expect to run that far, far enough to escape beyond the boundaries of earth where such men lived, set the order and the rule of living: and Father said that maybe for the first time in his life he began to comprehend how it had been possible for Yankees or any other army to have whipped them the gallant, the proud, the brave; the acknowledged and chosen best among them all to bear the courage and honor and pride.
It would probably be about sunset now and probably he could feel them quite near now; Father said it probably seemed to him that he could even hear them: all the voices, the murmuring of tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow beyond the immediate fury: Old Wash Jones come a tumble at last. He thought he had Sutpen, but Sutpen fooled him. He thought he had him, but old Wash Jones got fooled and then maybe even saying it aloud, shouting it Father said: “But I never expected that, Kernel! You know I never?” until maybe the granddaughter stirred and spoke querulously again and he went and quieted her and returned to talk to himself again but careful now, quiet now since Sutpen was close enough to hear him easy, without shouting: “You know I never. You know I never expected or asked or wanted nothing from any living man but what I expected from you. And I never asked that. I didn’t think hit would need: I just said to myself I don’t need to.
What need has a fellow like Wash Jones to question or doubt the man that General Lee himself said in a hand-wrote ticket that he was brave? Brave” (and maybe it would be loud again, forgetting again) “Brave!
Better if narra one of them had ever rid back in ’65” thinking Better if his kind and mine too had never drawn the breath of life on this earth. Better that all who remain of us be blasted from the face of it than that another Wash Jones should see his whole life shredded from him and shrivel away like a dried shuck thrown onto the fire Then they rode up. He must have been listening to them as they came down the road, the dogs and the horses, and seen the lanterns since it was dark now. And Mayor de Spain who was sheriff then got down and saw the body, though he said he did not see Wash nor know that he was there until Wash spoke his name quietly from the window almost in his face: “That you, Mayor?” De Spain told him to come on out and he said how Wash’s voice was quite quiet when he said he would be out in just a minute; it was too quiet, too calm; so much too quiet and calm that de Spain said he did not realize for a moment that it was too calm and quiet: “In just a minute. Soon as I see about my granddaughter.”
“We’ll see to her,” de Spain said. “You come on out.”
“Sho, Mayor,” Wash said, “In just a minute.” So they waited in front of the dark house, and the next day Father said there were a hundred that remembered about the butcher knife that he kept hidden and razor-sharp—the one thing in his sloven life that he was ever known to take pride in or care of—only by the time they remembered all this it was too late. So they didn’t know what he was about. They just heard him moving inside the dark house, then they heard the granddaughter’s voice, fretful and querulous: “Who is it? Light the lamp, Grandpaw” then his voice: “Hit wont need no light, honey. Hit wont take but a minute” then de Spain drew his pistol and said, “You, Wash! Come out of there!” and still Wash didn’t answer, murmuring still to the granddaughter: “Wher air you?” and the fretful voice answering, “Right here. Where else would I be?
What is—” then de Spain said, “Jones?” and he was already fumbling at the broken steps when the granddaughter screamed; and now all the men there claimed that they heard the knife on both the neckbones, though de Spain didn’t. He just said he knew that Wash had come out onto the gallery and that he sprang back before he found out that it was not toward him Wash was running but toward the end of the gallery, where the body lay, but that he did not think about the scythe: he just ran backward a few feet when he saw Wash stoop and rise again and now Wash was running toward him.
Only he was running toward them all, de Spain said, running into the lanterns so that now they could see the scythe raised above his head; they could see his face, his eyes too, as he ran with the scythe above his head, straight into the lanterns and the gun barrels, making no sound, no outcry while de Spain ran backward before him, saying, “Jones! Stop! Stop, or I’ll kill you.
Jones! Jones! Jones!”‘
‘Wait,’ Shreve said. ‘You mean that he got the son he wanted, after all that trouble, and then turned right around and—’
‘Yes. Sitting in Grandfather’s office that afternoon, with his head kind of flung back a little, explaining to Grandfather like he might have been explaining arithmetic to Henry back in the fourth grade: “You see, all I wanted was just a son. Which seems to me, when I look about at my contemporary scene, no exorbitant gift from nature or circumstance to demand—”
‘will you wait?” Shreve said. ‘—that with the son he went to all that trouble to get lying right there behind him in the cabin, he would have to taunt the grandfather into killing first him and then the child too ?”
‘—What?” Quentin said. ‘It wasn’t a son. It was a girl.”
‘Oh,’ Shreve said.
‘—Come on. Let’s get out of this damn icebox and go to bed.”
VIII
THERE would be no deep breathing tonight. The window would remain closed above the frozen and empty quad beyond which the windows in the opposite wall were, with two or three exceptions, already dark; soon the chimes would ring for midnight, the notes melodious and tranquil, faint and clear as glass in the fierce (it had quit snowing) still air.
‘So the old man sent the nigger for Henry,’ Shreve said. ‘And Henry came in and the old man said “They cannot marry because he is your brother” and Henry said “You lie” like that, that quick: no space, no interval, no nothing between like when you press the button and get light in the room.
And the old man just sat there, didn’t even move and strike him and so Henry didn’t say “You lie” again because he knew now it was so; he just said “It’s not true,” not “I don’t believe it” but “It’s not true” because he could maybe see the old man’s face again now and demon or no it was a kind of grief and pity, not for himself but for Henry, because Henry was just young while he (the old man) knew that he still had the courage and even all the shrewdness too—’ Shreve stood beside the table, facing Quentin again though not seated now.
In the overcoat buttoned awry over the bathrobe he looked huge and shapeless like a disheveled bear as he stared at Quentin (the Southerner, whose blood ran quick to cool, more supple to compensate for violent changes of temperature perhaps, perhaps merely nearer the surface) who sat hunched in his chair, his hands thrust into his pockets as if he were trying to hug himself warm between his arms, looking somehow fragile and even wan in the lamplight, the rosy glow which now
