“I’mwell. Is you well?” “I’mright well, I thank you.”
They emerged fromthe cabins and struggled up the shading levee to the road-men in staid, hard brown or black, with gold watch chains and now and then a stick; young men in cheap violent blues or stripes and swaggering hats; women a little stiffly sibilant, and children in garments bought second hand of white people, who looked at Ben with the covertness of nocturnalanimals:
“I bet you wont go up en tech him.” “How come I wont?”
“I bet you wont. I bet you skeered to.” “He wont hurt folks. He des a loony.” “How come a loony wont hurt folks?” “Dat un wont. I teched him.”
“I bet you wont now.” “Case Miss Dilsey lookin.” “You wont no ways.”
“He dont hurt folks. He des a loony.”
And steadily the older people speaking to Dilsey, though, unless they were quite old, Dilsey permitted Frony to respond.
“Mammy aint feelin welldis mawnin.”
“Dat’s too bad. But Rev’un Shegog’llcure dat. He’llgive her de comfort en de unburdenin.” The road rose again, to a scene like a painted backdrop. Notched into a cut of red clay crowned with oaks the road appeared to stop short off, like a cut ribbon. Beside it a weathered church lifted its crazy steeple like a painted church, and the whole scene was as flat and without perspective as a painted cardboard set upon the ultimate edge of the flat earth, against the windy sunlight of space and April and a midmorning filled with bells.
Toward the church they thronged with slow sabbath deliberation. The women and children went on in, the men stopped outside and talked in quiet groups untilthe bellceased ringing. Then they too entered. The church had been decorated, with sparse flowers fromkitchen gardens and hedgerows, and with streamers of coloured crepe paper. Above the pulpit hung a battered Christmas bell, the accordian sort that collapses. The pulpit was empty, though the choir was already in place, fanning themselves although it was not warm.
Most of the women were gathered on one side of the room. They were talking. Then the bell struck one time and they dispersed to their seats and the congregation sat for an instant, expectant. The bell struck again one time. The choir rose and began to sing and the congregation turned its head as one, as sixsmall children—four girls with tight pigtails bound with small scraps of cloth like butterflies, and two boys with close napped heads, entered and marched up the aisle, strung together in a harness of white ribbons and flowers, and followed by two men in single file.
The second man was huge, of a light coffee colour, imposing in a frock coat and white tie. His head was magisterialand profound, his neck rolled above his collar in rich folds. But he was familiar to them, and so the heads were still reverted when he had passed, and it was not until the choir ceased singing that they realised that the visiting clergyman had already entered, and when they saw the man who had preceded their minister enter the pulpit still ahead of him an indescribable sound went up, a sigh, a sound of astonishment and disappointment.
The visitor was undersized, in a shabby alpaca coat. He had a wizened black face like a small, aged monkey. And all the while that the choir sang again and while the sixchildren rose and sang in thin, frightened, tuneless whispers, they watched the insignificant looking man sitting dwarfed and countrified by the minister’s imposing bulk, with something like consternation. They were still looking at himwith consternation and unbelief when the minister rose and introduced him in rich, rolling tones whose very unction served to increase the visitor’s insignificance.
“En dey brung dat allde way fumSaint Looey,” Frony whispered.
“I’ve knowed de Lawd to use cuiser tools dan dat,” Dilsey said. “Hush, now,” she said to Ben, “Dey fixin to sing again in a minute.”
When the visitor rose to speak he sounded like a white man. His voice was leveland cold. It sounded too big to have come from him and they listened at first through curiosity, as they would have to a monkey talking. They began to watch himas they would a man on a tight rope. They even forgot his insignificant appearance in the virtuosity with which he ran and poised and swooped upon the cold inflectionless wire of his voice, so that at last, when with a sort of swooping glide he came to rest again beside the reading desk with one arm resting upon it at shoulder height and his monkey body as reft of all motion as a mummy or an emptied vessel, the congregation sighed as if it waked from a collective dream and moved a little in its seats. Behind the pulpit the choir fanned steadily. Dilsey whispered, “Hush, now. Dey fixin to sing in a minute.”
Then a voice said, “Brethren.”
The preacher had not moved. His arm lay yet across the desk, and he still held that pose while the voice died in sonorous echoes between the walls. It was as different as day and dark fromhis former tone, with a sad, timbrous quality like an alto horn, sinking into their hearts and speaking there again when it had ceased in fading and cumulate echoes.
“Brethren and sisteren,” it said again. The preacher removed his arm and he began to walk back and forth before the desk, his hands clasped behind him, a meagre figure, hunched over upon itself like that of one long immured in striving with the implacable earth, “I got the recollection and the blood of the Lamb!” He tramped steadily back and forth beneath the twisted paper and the Christmas bell, hunched, his hands clasped behind him. He was like a worn small rock whelmed by the successive waves of his voice.
With his body he seemed to feed the voice that, succubus like, had fleshed its teeth in him. And the congregation seemed to watch with its own eyes while the voice consumed him, until he was nothing and they were nothing and there was not even a voice but instead their hearts were speaking to one another in chanting measures beyond the need for words, so that when he came to rest against the reading desk, his monkey face lifted and his whole attitude that of a serene, tortured crucifix that transcended its shabbiness and insignificance and made it of no moment, a long moaning expulsion of breath rose fromthem, and a woman’s single soprano:“Yes, Jesus!”
As the scudding day passed overhead the dingy windows glowed and faded in ghostly retrograde. A car passed along the road outside, labouring in the sand, died away. Dilsey sat bolt upright, her hand on Ben’s knee. Two tears slid down her fallen cheeks, in and out of the myriad coruscations of immolation and abnegation and time.
“Brethren,” the minister said in a harsh whisper, without moving. “Yes, Jesus!” the woman’s voice said, hushed yet.
“Breddren en sistuhn!” His voice rang again, with the horns. He removed his armand stood erect and raised his hands. “I got de ricklickshun en de blood of de Lamb!” They did not mark just when his intonation, his pronunciation, became negroid, they just sat swaying a little in their seats as the voice took theminto itself.
“When de long, cold—Oh, I tells you, breddren, when de long, cold—I sees de light en I sees de word, po sinner! Dey passed away in Egypt, de swingin chariots; de generations passed away. Wus a rich man: whar he now, O breddren? Wus a po man: whar he now, O sistuhn? Oh I tells you, ef you aint got de milk en de dew of de old salvation when de long, cold years rolls away!”
“Yes, Jesus!”
“I tells you, breddren, en I tells you, sistuhn, dey’ll come a time. Po sinner sayin Let me lay down wid de Lawd, lemme lay down my load. Den whut Jesus gwine say, O breddren? O sistuhn? Is you got de ricklickshun en de Blood of de Lamb? Case I aint gwine load down heaven!”
He fumbled in his coat and took out a handkerchief and mopped his face. A low concerted sound rose from the congregation: “Mmmmmmmmmmmmm!” The woman’s voice said, “Yes, Jesus! Jesus!”
“Breddren! Look at demlittle chillen settin dar. Jesus wus like dat once. He mammy suffered de glory en de pangs. Sometime maybe she helt himat de nightfall, whilst de angels singin him to sleep; maybe she look out de do’ en see de Roman po-lice passin.” He tramped back and forth, mopping his face. “Listen, breddren! I sees de day. Ma’y settin in de do’wid Jesus on her lap, de little Jesus. Like dem chillen dar, de little Jesus. I hears de angels singin de peaceful songs en de glory; I sees de closin eyes; sees Mary jump up, sees de sojer face: We gwine to kill! We gwine to kill! We gwine to kill yo little Jesus! I hears de weepin en de lamentation of de po mammy widout de salvation en de word of God!”
“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Jesus! Little Jesus!” and another voice, rising:
“I sees, O Jesus! Oh I sees!” and stillanother, without words, like bubbles rising in water.
“I sees hit, breddren! I sees hit! Sees de blastin, blindin sight! I sees Calvary, wid de sacred trees, sees de thief en de murderer en de least of dese; I hears de boasting en de braggin: Ef you be Jesus, lif up yo tree en walk! I hears de wailin of women en de evenin lamentations; I
hears de weepin en de cryin
