“Because you are unhappy,” she said. “I dont like unhappy people. They’re a nuisance. Especially when it can—”
“Yes,” I said, cried, “this easy, at no more cost than this. When nobody will even miss it, least of all Manfred since we both agree that Gavin Stevens cant possibly hurt Manfred de Spain even by cuckolding him on his mistress. So you came just from compassion, pity: not even from honest fear or even just decent respect. Just compassion. Just pity.” Then I saw all of it. “Not just to prove to me that having what I think I want wont make me happy, but to show me that what I thought I wanted is not even worth being unhappy over. Does it mean that little to you? I dont mean with Flem: even with Manfred?” I said, cried: “Dont tell me next that this is why Manfred sent you: to abate a nuisance!”
But she just stood there looking at me with that blue serene terrible envelopment. “You spend too much time expecting,” she said. “Dont expect. You just are, and you need, and you must, and so you do. That’s all. Dont waste time expecting,” moving again toward me where I was trapped not just by the door but by the corner of the desk too.
“Dont touch me!” I said. “So if I had only had sense enough to have stopped expecting, or better still, never expected at all, never hoped at all, dreamed at all; if I had just had sense enough to say I am, I want, I will and so here goes —— If I had just done that, it might have been me instead of Manfred? But dont you see? cant you see? I wouldn’t have been me then?” No: she wasn’t even listening: just looking at me: the unbearable and unfathomable blue, speculative and serene.
“Maybe it’s because you’re a gentleman and I never knew one before.”
“So is Manfred!” I said. “And that other one, that first one — your child’s father — —” the only other one I thought because, yes, oh yes, I knew now: Snopes himself was impotent. I even said it: “The only other one besides Manfred. Back there in Frenchman’s Bend, that Ratliff told me about, that fought off the five or six men who tried to ambush you in the buggy that night, fought them off with the buggy whip and one hand because he had to use the other to shield you with, whipped them all off even with one arm broken where I couldn’t even finish the fight I started myself with just one opponent?” And still not moving: just standing there facing me so that what I smelled was not even just woman but that terrible, that drowning envelopment. “Both alike,” I said. “But not like me. All three gentlemen but only two were men.”
“Lock the door,” she said. “I’ve already drawn the shade. Stop being afraid of things,” she said. “Why are you afraid?”
“No,” I said, cried. I might — would — have struck her with my out-flung arm, but there was room: out of the trap now and even around her until I could reach the door knob and open it. Oh yes, I knew now. “I might buy Manfred from you but I wont buy Flem,” I said.
“Because it is Flem, isn’t it? Isn’t it?” But there was only the blue envelopment and the fading Wagner, trumpet and storm and rich brasses diminuendo toward the fading arm and hand and the rainbow-fading ring. “You told me not to expect; why dont you try it yourself? We’ve all bought Snopeses here, whether we wanted to or not; you of all people should certainly know that.
I dont know why we bought them. I mean, why we had to: what coin and when and where we so recklessly and improvidently spent that we had to have Snopeses too. But we do. But nothing can hurt you if you refuse it, not even a brass-stealing Snopes.
And nothing is of value that costs nothing so maybe you will value this refusal at what I value it cost me.” She moved then and only then did I notice that she had evidently brought nothing with her: none of the scatter of gloves, bags, veils, this and that which women bring into a room with them so that the first minute of their quitting it is a problem resembling scavenging. “Dont worry about your husband,” I said. “Just say I represent Jefferson and so Flem Snopes is my burden too. You see, the least I can do is to match you: to value him as highly as your coming here proves you do. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” she said. The cold invisible cloud leaned in again. Again I closed it.
SIX
V.K. Ratliff
SO NEXT MORNING first thing we heard was that Judge Dukinfield had recused his-self and designated Judge Stevens, Lawyer’s paw, to preside in his stead. And they ought to rung the courthouse bell this time sholy, because whether or not it was a matter of communal interest and urgency last night, it was now. But it was to be in chambers this time and what Judge Dukinfield called his chambers wouldn’t a helt us. So all we done this time was just to happen to be somewhere about the Square, in the store doors or jest looking by chance and accident out of the upstairs doctors’ and suches’ windows while old man Job, that had been Judge Dukinfield’s janitor for longer than anybody in Jefferson, including Job and Judge Dukinfield too, knowed, in a old cast-off tailcoat of Judge Dukinfield’s that he wore on Sundays, bustled in and out of the little brick house back of the courthouse that Judge Dukinfield called his chambers, sweeping and dusting it until it suited him enough to let folks in it.
Then we watched Judge Stevens cross the Square from his office and go through the door and then we watched the two bonding fellers come out of the hotel and cross the Square with their little lawyers’ grips, the young one toting his own grip but Samson, the hotel porter, walking behind the white vest one toting his, and Samson’s least boy walking behind Samson toting what I reckon was the folded Memphis paper the white vest one had been reading while they et breakfast and they, except Samson and his boy, went in too.
Then Lawyer come up by his-self and went in, and sho enough before extra long we heard the car and then Mayor de Spain druv up and parked and got out and says,
“Morning, Gentlemen.
Any of you fellers looking for me? Excuse me a minute while I step inside and pass good morning with our out-of-town guests and I’ll be right with you.” Then he went in too and that was about all: Judge Stevens setting behind the desk with his glasses on and the paper open in his hand, and the two bonding fellers setting quiet and polite and anxious across from him, and Lawyer setting at one end of the table and Manfred de Spain that hadn’t even set down: jest leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets and that-ere dont-give-a-durn face of hisn already full of laughing even though it hadn’t moved yet.
Until Judge Stevens folded the paper up slow and deliberate and laid it to one side and taken off his glasses and folded them too and then laid his hands one in the other on the desk in front of him and says:
“The plaintiff in this suit has of this date withdrawn his charge and his bill of particulars.
The suit — if it was a suit — no longer exists. The litigants — plaintiff, defendant and prisoner — if there was a prisoner — are discharged. With the Court’s apologies to the gentlemen from Saint Louis that their stay among us was marred, and its hope and trust that their next one will not be. Court is adjourned.
Good morning, gentlemen,” and the two bonding fellers got up and begun to thank Judge Stevens for a little spell, until they stopped and taken up their grips and kind of tiptoed out; and now there wasn’t nobody but just Lawyer still setting with his paper-colored face bent a little and Judge Stevens still setting there not looking at nothing in particular yet and Manfred de Spain still leaning with his feet crossed against the wall and his face still full of that laughing that was still jest waiting for a spell too. Then Judge Stevens was looking at him.
“Manfred,” he says. “Do you want to resign?”
“Certainly, sir,” De Spain says. “I’ll be glad to. But not for the city: for Gavin. I want to do it for Gavin. All he’s got to do is say Please.”
And still Lawyer didn’t move: jest setting there with that still paper-colored face like it was froze stiff and his hands too laying on the table in front of him: not clenched one inside the other like his paw’s: jest laying there. Then Manfred begun to laugh, not loud, not even in no hurry: jest standing there laughing with his feet still crossed and his hands still in his pockets, jest laughing even while he turned and went across to the door and opened it and went out and closed
