I’m not going to hurt you” or maybe it was the lawyer in him that said the Hush which he obeyed, who got him back into the righted chair again, half lying upon the desk; the lawyer in him that warned him not to say You will pay for this but instead to half lie there, nursing his wrenched hand in his handkerchief while Bon stood looking down at him, holding the pistol by the barrel against his leg, saying, “If you feel that you require satisfaction, of course you know—” and the lawyer, sitting back now, dabbing the handkerchief at his cheek now: “I was wrong.
I misunderstood your feeling about the matter. I ask your pardon” and Bon: “Granted. As you wish. I will accept either an apology or a bullet, as you prefer” and the lawyer (there would be a faint fading red in his cheek, but that would be all: nothing in the voice or in the eyes): “I see you are going to collect full measure for my unfortunate misconception—even ridicule.
Even if I felt that right was on my side (which I do not) I would still have to decline your offer. I would not be your equal with pistols” and Bon: “Nor with knives or rapiers too?” and the lawyer, smooth and easy: “Nor knives or rapiers too.” So that now the lawyer wouldn’t even need to say You will pay for this because Bon would be saying that for him, who would stand there with the lax pistol, thinking But only with knives or pistols or rapiers.
So I cant beat him. I could shoot him. I would shoot him with no more compunction than I would a snake or a man who cuckolded me. But he would still beat me. Thinking Yes. He did beat me while he—he—(“Listen,” Shreve said, cried. ‘It would be while he would be lying in a bedroom of that private house in Corinth after Pittsburg Landing while his shoulder got well two years later and the letter from the octoroon (maybe even the one that contained the photograph of her and the child) finally overtaking him, wailing for money and telling him that the lawyer had departed for Texas or Mexico or somewhere at last and that she (the octoroon) could not find his mother either and so without doubt the lawyer had murdered her before he stole the money, since it would be just like both of them to flee or get themselves killed without providing for her at all.)—Yes, they knew now.
And Jesus, think of him, Bon, who had wanted to know, who had had the most reason to want to know, who as far as he knew had never had any father but had been created somehow between that woman who wouldn’t let him play with other children, and that lawyer who even told the woman whether or not each time she bought a piece of meat or a loaf of bread—two people neither of whom had taken pleasure or found passion in getting him or suffered pain and travail in horning him—who perhaps if one of the two had only told him the truth, none of what happened would ever have come to pass; while there was Henry who had father and security and contentment and all, yet was told the truth by both of them while he (Bon) was told by neither.
And think of Henry, who had said at first it was a lie and then when he knew it was not a lie had still said “I don’t believe it,” who had found even in that “I don’t believe it” enough of strength to repudiate home and blood in order to champion his defiance, and in which championing he proved his contention to be the false one and was more than ever interdict against returning home; Jesus, think of the load he had to carry, born of two Methodists (or of one long invincible line of Methodists) and raised in provincial North Mississippi, faced with incest, incest of all things that might have been reserved for him, that all his heredity and training had to rebel against on principle, and in a situation where he knew that neither incest nor training was going to help him solve it. So that maybe when they left and walked the streets that night and at last Bon said, “Well? Now what?” Henry said, “Wait. Wait. Let me get used to it.”
And maybe it was two days or three days, and Henry said, “You shall not. Shall not” and then it was Bon that said, “Wait. I am your older brother: do you say shall not to me?” And maybe it was a week, maybe Bon took Henry to see the octoroon and Henry looked at her and said, “Aint that enough for you?” and Bon said, “Do you want it to be enough?” and Henry said, “Wait. Wait. I must have time to get used to it.
You will have to give me time.” Jesus, think how Henry must have talked during that winter and then that spring with Lincoln elected and the Alabama convention and the South began to draw out of the Union, and then there were two presidents in the United States and the telegraph brought the news about Charleston and Lincoln called out his army and it was done, irrevocable now, and Henry and Bon already decided to go without having to consult one another, who would have gone anyway even if they had never seen one another but certainly now, because after all you don’t waste a war—think how they must have talked, how Henry would say, “But must you marry her? Do you have to do it?” and Bon would say, “He should have told me.
He should have told me, myself, himself. I was fair and honorable with him. I waited. You know now why I waited. I gave him every chance to tell me himself. But he didn’t do it. If he had, I would have agreed and promised never to see her or you or him again.
But he didn’t tell me. I thought at first it was because he didn’t know. Then I knew that he did know, and still I waited. But he didn’t tell me. He just told you, sent me a message like you send a command by a nigger servant to a beggar or a tramp to clear out. Dont you see that?” and Henry would say, “But Judith. Our sister. Think of her” and Bon: “All right. Think of her.
Then what?” because they both knew what Judith would do when she found it out because they both knew that women will show pride and honor about almost anything except love, and Henry said, “Yes. I see. I understand. But you will have to give me time to get used to it. You are my older brother; you can do that little for me.” Think of the two of them: Bon who didn’t know what he was going to do and had to say, pretend, he did; and Henry who knew what he was going to do and had to say he didn’t.
Then it was Christmas again, then 1861, and they hadn’t heard from Judith because Judith didn’t know for sure where they were because Henry wouldn’t let Bon write to her yet; then they heard about the company, the University Grays, organizing up at Oxford and maybe they had been waiting for that. So they took the steamboat North again, and more gaiety and excitement on the boat now than Christmas even, like it always is when a war starts, before the scene gets cluttered up with bad food and wounded soldiers and widows and orphans, and them taking no part in it now either but standing at the rail again above the churning water, and maybe it would be two or three days, then Henry said suddenly, cried suddenly: “But kings have done it! Even dukes! There was that Lorraine duke named John something that married his sister.
The Pope excommunicated him but it didn’t hurt! It didn’t hurt! They were still husband and wife. They were still alive. They still loved!” then again, loud, fast: “But you will have to wait! You will have to give me time! Maybe the war will settle it and we wont need to!” And maybe this was one place where your old man was right: and they rode into Oxford without touching Sutpen’s Hundred and signed the company roster and then hid somewhere to wait, and Henry let Bon write Judith one letter; they would send it by hand, by a nigger that would steal into the quarters by night and give it to Judith’s maid, and Judith sent the picture in the metal case and they rode on ahead to wait until the company got through making flags and riding about the state telling girls farewell and started for the front.
‘Jesus, think of them. Because Bon would know what Henry was doing, just as he had always known what Henry was thinking since that first day when they had looked at one
