“I cant understand it,” Mrs Compson said, “It’s just as if somebody had tried to break into the house—” Jason sprang up. His chair crashed over backward. “What—” Mrs Compson said, staring at himas he ran past her and went jumping up the stairs, where he met Dilsey. His face was now in shadow, and Dilsey said, “She sullin. Yo ma aint unlocked—” But Jason ran on past her and along the corridor to a door.
He didn’t call. He grasped the knob and tried it, then he stood with the knob in his hand and his head bent a little, as if he were listening to something much further away than the dimensioned room beyond the door, and which he already heard. His attitude was that of one who goes through the motions of listening in order to deceive himself as to what he already hears. Behind himMrs Compson mounted the stairs, calling his name. Then she saw Dilsey and she quit calling himand began to callDilsey instead.
“I told you she aint unlocked dat do’yit,” Dilsey said.
When she spoke he turned and ran toward her, but his voice was quiet, matter of fact. “She carry the key with her?” he said. “Has she got it now, I mean, or willshe have—”
“Dilsey,” Mrs Compson said on the stairs. “Is which?” Dilsey said. “Whyn’t you let—”
“The key,” Jason said, “To that room. Does she carry it with her all the time. Mother.” Then he saw Mrs Compson and he went down the stairs and met her. “Give me the key,” he said. He fellto pawing at the pockets of the rusty black dressing sacque she wore. She resisted.
“Jason,” she said, “Jason! Are you and Dilsey trying to put me to bed again?” she said, trying to fend himoff, “Cant you even let me have Sunday in peace?”
“The key,” Jason said, pawing at her, “Give it here.” He looked back at the door, as if he expected it to fly open before he could get back to it with the key he did not yet have.
“You, Dilsey!” Mrs Compson said, clutching her sacque about her.
“Give me the key, you old fool!” Jason cried suddenly. From her pocket he tugged a huge bunch of rusted keys on an iron ring like a mediaeval jailer’s and ran back up the hall with the two women behind him.
“You, Jason!” Mrs Compson said. “He will never find the right one,” she said, “You know I never let anyone take my keys, Dilsey,” she said. She began to wail.
“Hush,” Dilsey said, “He aint gwine do nothin to her. I aint gwine let him.”
“But on Sunday morning, in my own house,” Mrs Compson said, “When I’ve tried so hard to raise them Christians. Let me find the right key, Jason,” she said. She put her hand on his arm. Then she began to struggle with him, but he flung her aside with a motion of his elbow and looked around at her for a moment, his eyes cold and harried, then he turned to the door again
and the unwieldy keys.
“Hush,” Dilsey said, “You, Jason!”
“Something terrible has happened,” Mrs Compson said, wailing again, “I know it has. You, Jason,” she said, grasping at himagain. “He wont even let me find the key to a roomin my own house!”
“Now, now,” Dilsey said, “Whut kin happen? I right here. I aint gwine let him hurt her. Quentin,” she said, raising her voice, “dont you be skeered, honey, I’se right here.”
The door opened, swung inward. He stood in it for a moment, hiding the room, then he stepped aside. “Go in,” he said in a thick, light voice. They went in. It was not a girl’s room. It was not anybody’s room, and the faint scent of cheap cosmetics and the few feminine objects and the other evidences of crude and hopeless efforts to feminize it but added to its anonymity, giving it that dead and stereotyped transience of rooms in assignation houses.
The bed had not been disturbed. On the floor lay a soiled undergarment of cheap silk a little too pink; froma half open bureau drawer dangled a single stocking. The window was open. A pear tree grew there, close against the house. It was in bloom and the branches scraped and rasped against the house and the myriad air, driving in the window, brought into the room the forlorn scent of the blossoms.
“Dar now,” Dilsey said, “Didn’t I told you she allright?”
“Allright?” Mrs Compson said. Dilsey followed her into the roomand touched her. “You come on and lay down, now,” she said. “I find her in ten minutes.”
Mrs Compson shook her off. “Find the note,” she said. “Quentin left a note when he did it.” “Allright,” Dilsey said, “I’llfind hit. You come on to yo room, now.”
“I knew the minute they named her Quentin this would happen,” Mrs Compson said. She went to the bureau and began to turn over the scattered objects there—scent bottles, a boxof powder, a chewed pencil, a pair of scissors with one broken blade lying upon a darned scarf dusted with powder and stained with rouge. “Find the note,” she said.
“I is,” Dilsey said. “You come on, now. Me and Jason’llfind hit. You come on to yo room.” “Jason,” Mrs Compson said, “Where is he?” She went to the door. Dilsey followed her on down the hall, to another door. It was closed. “Jason,” she called through the door. There was no answer. She tried the knob, then she called him again. But there was still no answer, for he was hurling things backward out of the closet: garments, shoes, a suitcase. Then he emerged carrying a sawn section of tongue-and-groove planking and laid it down and entered the closet again and emerged with a metal box.
He set it on the bed and stood looking at the broken lock while he dug a key ring fromhis pocket and selected a key, and for a time longer he stood with the selected key in his hand, looking at the broken lock, then he put the keys back in his pocket and carefully tilted the contents of the box out upon the bed. Still carefully he sorted the papers, taking themup one at a time and shaking them. Then he upended the boxand shook it too and slowly replaced the papers and stood again, looking at the broken lock, with the boxin his hands and his head bent. Outside the window he heard some jaybirds swirl shrieking past, and away, their cries whipping away along the wind, and an automobile passed somewhere and died away also.
His mother spoke his name again beyond the door, but he didn’t move. He heard Dilsey lead her away up the hall, and then a door closed. Then he replaced the boxin the closet and flung the garments back into it and went down stairs to the telephone. While he stood there with the receiver to his ear, waiting, Dilsey came down the stairs. She looked at him, without stopping, and went on.
The wire opened. “This is Jason Compson,” he said, his voice so harsh and thick that he had to repeat himself. “Jason Compson,” he said, controlling his voice. “Have a car ready, with a deputy, if you cant go, in ten minutes. I’ll be there—What?—Robbery. My house. I know who it—Robbery, I say. Have a car read—What? Aren’t you a paid law enforcement—Yes, I’ll be there in five minutes. Have that car ready to leave at once. If you dont, I’ll report it to the governor.”
He clapped the receiver back and crossed the diningroom, where the scarce-broken meal now lay cold on the table, and entered the kitchen. Dilsey was filling the hot water bottle. Ben sat, tranquil and empty. Beside him Luster looked like a fice dog, brightly watchful. He was eating something. Jason went on across the kitchen.
“Aint you going to eat no breakfast?” Dilsey said. He paid her no attention. “Go on and eat yo breakfast, Jason.” He went on. The outer door banged behind him. Luster rose and went to the window and looked out.
“Whoo,” he said, “Whut happenin up dar? He been beatin’Miss Quentin?”
“You hush yo mouf,” Dilsey said. “You git Benjy started now en I beat yo head off. You keep him quiet es you kin twell I get back, now.” She screwed the cap on the bottle and went out. They heard her go up the stairs, then they heard Jason pass the house in his car. Then there was no sound in the kitchen save the simmering murmur of the kettle and the clock.
“You know whut I bet?” Luster said. “I bet he beat her. I bet he knock her in de head en now he gone fer de doctor. Dat’s whut I bet.” The clock tick-tocked, solemn and profound. It might have been the dry pulse of the decaying house itself; after a while it whirred and cleared its throat and struck six times. Ben looked up at it, then he looked at the bullet-like silhouette of Luster’s head in the window and he begun to bob his head again, drooling. He whimpered.
“Hush up, loony,” Luster said without turning. “Look like we aint gwine
