But they couldn’t catch him. They could hear him; he didn’t seem to ever get any further away but they couldn’t get any nearer and maybe in time they could not even locate the direction any more of the howling. They—the driver and the deputy—held Miss Coldfield as she struggled: he (Quentin) could see her, them; he had not been there but he could see her, struggling and fighting like a doll in a nightmare, making no sound, foaming a little at the mouth, her face even in the sunlight lit by one last wild crimson reflection as the house collapsed and roared away, and there was only the sound of the idiot Negro left.
‘And so it was the Aunt Rosa that came back to town inside the ambulance,’ Shreve said. Quentin did not answer; he did not even say, Miss Rosa. He just lay there staring at the window without. even blinking, breathing the chill heady pure snowgleamed darkness. ‘And she went to bed because it was all finished now, there was nothing left now, nothing out there now but that idiot boy to lurk around those ashes and those four gutted chimneys and howl until someone came and drove him away.
They couldn’t catch him and nobody ever seemed to make him go very far away, he just stopped howling for a little while. Then after awhile they would begin to hear him again. And so she died.” Quentin did not answer, staring at the window; then he could not tell if it was the actual window or the window’s pale rectangle upon his eyelids, though after a moment it began to emerge. It began to take shape in its same curious, light, gravity-defying attitude—the oncefolded sheet out of the wistaria Mississippi summer, the cigar smell, the random blowing of the fireflies. ‘The South,’ Shreve said.
‘The South. Jesus. No wonder you folks all outlive yourselves by years and years and years.” It was becoming quite distinct; he would be able to decipher the words soon, in a moment; even almost now, now, now.
‘I am older at twenty than a lot of people who have died,’ Quentin said.
‘And more people have died than have been twenty-one,’ Shreve said. Now he (Quentin) could read it, could finish it—the sloped whimsical ironic hand out of Mississippi attenuated, into the iron snow: —or perhaps there is. Surely it can harm no one to believe that perhaps she has escaped not at all the privilege of being outraged and dreaded and of not forgiving but on the contrary has herself gained that place or bourne where the objects of the outrage and of the commiseration also are no longer ghosts but are actual people to be actual recipients of the hatred and the pity.
It will do no harm to hope—You see I have written hope, not think. So let it be hope. —that the one cannot escape the censure which no doubt he deserves, that the other no longer lack the commiseration which let us hope (while we are hoping) that they have longed for, if only for the reason that they are about to receive it whether they will or no. The weather was beautiful though cold and they had to use picks to break the earth for the grave yet in one of the deeper clods I saw a redworm doubtless alive when the clod was thrown up though by afternoon it was frozen again.
‘So it took Charles Bon and his mother to get rid of old Tom, and Charles Bon and the octoroon to get rid of Judith, and Charles Bon and Clytie to get rid of Henry; and Charles Bon’s mother and Charles Bon’s grandmother got rid of Charles Bon. So it takes two niggers to get rid of one Sutpen, don’t it?” Quentin did not answer; evidently Shreve did not want an answer now; he continued almost without a pause: ‘Which is all right, it’s fine; it clears the whole ledger, you can tear all the pages out and burn them, except for one thing. And do you know what that is?”
Perhaps he hoped for an answer this time, or perhaps he merely paused for emphasis, since he got no answer. ‘You’ve got one nigger left. One nigger Sutpen left. Of course you can’t catch him and you don’t even always see him and you never will be able to use him. But you’ve got him there still.
You still hear him at night sometimes. Don’t you?”
‘Yes,’ Quentin said.
‘And so do you know what I think?” Now he did expect an answer, and now he got one: ‘No,’ Quentin said.
‘Do you want to know what I think?”
‘No,’ Quentin said.
‘Then I’ll tell you. I think that in time the Jim Bonds are going to conquer the western hemisphere. Of course it won’t quite be in our time and of course as they spread toward the poles they will bleach out again like the rabbits and the birds do, so they won’t show up so sharp against the snow. But it will still be Jim Bond; and so in a few thousand years, I who regard you will also have sprung from the loins of African kings. Now I want you to tell me just one thing more. Why do you hate the South?”
‘I don’t hate it,’ Quentin said, quickly, at once, immediately; ‘I don’t hate it,’ he said. I don’t hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark; I don’t. I don’t!
I don’t hate it! I don’t hate it!
CHRONOLOGY
1807 Thomas Sutpen born in West Virginia mountains. Poor whites of Scottish-English stock. Large family.
1817 Sutpen family moved down into Tidewater Virginia, Sutpen ten years old.
1818 Ellen Coldfield born in Tennessee.
1820 Sutpen ran away from home. Fourteen years old.
1827 Sutpen married first wife in Haiti.
1828 Goodhue Coldfield moved to Yoknapatawpha County (Jefferson) Mississippi: mother, sister, wife and daughter Ellen.
1829 Charles Bon born, Haiti.
1831 Sutpen learns his wife has negro blood, repudiates her and child.
1833 Sutpen appears in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, takes up land, builds his house.
1834 Clytemnestra (Clytie) born to slave woman.
1838 Sutpen married Ellen Coldfield.
1839 Henry Sutpen born, Sutpen’s Hundred.
1841 Judith Sutpen born.
1845 Rosa Coldfield born.
1850 Wash Jones moves into abandoned fishing camp on Sutpen’s plantation, with his daughter.
1853 Milly Jones born to Wash Jones’ daughter.
1859 Henry Sutpen and Charles Bon meet at University of Mississippi. Judith and Charles meet that Xmas. Charles Etienne St. Velery Bon born, New Orleans.
1860 Xmas, Sutpen forbids marriage between Judith and Bon. Henry repudiates his birthright, departs with Bon.
1861 Sutpen, Henry, and Bon depart for war.
1862 Ellen Coldfield dies.
1864 Goodhue Coldfield dies.
1865 Henry kills Bon at gates. Rosa Coldfield moves out to Sutpen’s Hundred.
1866 Sutpen becomes engaged to Rosa Coldfield, insults her. She returns to Jefferson.
1867 Sutpen takes up with Milly Jones.
1869 Milly’s child is born. Wash Jones kills Sutpen.
1870 Charles E. St. V. Bon appears at Sutpen’s Hundred.
1871 Clytie fetches Charles E. St. V. Bon to Sutpen’s Hundred to live.
1881 Charles E. St. V. Bon returns with negro wife.
1882 Jim Bond born.
1884 Judith and Charles E. St. V. Bon die of smallpox.
1909 September, Rosa Coldfield and Quentin find Henry Sutpen hidden in the house.
1909 December, Rosa Coldfield goes out to fetch Henry to town, Clytie sets fire to the house.
GENEALOGY
THOMAS SUTPEN
Born in West Virginia mountains, 1807. One of several children of poor whites, Scotch-English stock. Established plantation of Sutpen’s Hundred in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, 1833. Married (1) Eulalia Bon, Haiti, 1827. (2) Ellen Coldfield, Jefferson, Mississippi, 1838. Major, later Colonel, th Mississippi Infantry, C.S.A. Died, Sutpen’s Hundred, 1869.
EULALIA BON.
Born in Haiti. Only child of Haitian sugar planter of French descent. Married Thomas Sutpen, 1827, divorced from him, 1831. Died in New Orleans, date unknown.
CHARLES BON.
Son of Thomas and Eulalia Bon Sutpen. Only child. Attended University of Mississippi, where he met Henry Sutpen and became engaged to Judith. Private, later lieutenant, th Company, (University Greys) ——th Mississippi Infantry, C.S.A. Died, Sutpen’s Hundred, 1865.
GOODHUE COLDFIELD.
Born in Tennessee. Moved to Jefferson, Miss., 1828, established small mercantile business. Died, Jefferson, 1864.
ELLEN COLDFIELD.
Daughter of Goodhue Coldfield. Born in Tennessee, 1818. Married Thomas Sutpen, Jefferson, Miss., 1838. Died, Sutpen’s Hundred, 1862.
ROSA COLDFIELD.
Daughter of Goodhue Coldfield. Born, Jefferson, 1845. Died, Jefferson, 1910.
HENRY SUTPEN.
Born, Sutpen’s Hundred, 1839, son of Thomas and Ellen Coldfield Sutpen. Attended University of Mississippi. Private, ——th Company, (University Greys) ——th Mississippi Infantry, C.S.A. Died, Sutpen’s Hundred, 1910.
JUDITH SUTPEN.
Daughter of Thomas and Ellen Coldfield Sutpen. Born, Sutpen’s Hundred, 1841. Became engaged to Charles Bon, 1860. Died, Sutpen’s Hundred, 1884.
CLYTEMNESTRA SUTPEN.
Daughter of Thomas Sutpen and a negro slave. Born, Sutpen’s Hundred, 1834. Died, Sutpen’s Hundred, 1910.
WASH JONES.
Date and location of birth unknown. Squatter, residing in an abandoned fishing camp belonging to Thomas Sutpen, hanger-on of Sutpen, handy man about Sutpen’s place while Sutpen was away between ’61-65. Died, Sutpen’s Hundred, 1869.
MELICENT JONES.
Daughter of Wash Jones. Date of birth unknown. Rumored to have died in a Memphis brothel.
MILLY JONES.
Daughter of Melicent Jones. Born 1853. Died, Sutpen’s Hundred, 1869.
UNNAMED INFANT.
Daughter of
