Fable, A - William Faulkner [150]
The hand, the closed one, flicked, jerked, so fast that the eye almost failed to register it and the object seemed to gleam once in the air before it even appeared, already tumbling across the vacant top of the desk until it sprang open as though of its own accord and came to rest-a small locket of chased worn gold, opening like a hunting-case watch upon twin medallions, miniatures painted on ivory. 'So you actually had a mother. You really did. When I first saw the second face inside it that night, I thought it was your wife or sweetheart or mistress, and I hated you. But I know better now and I apologise for imputing to your character a capacity so weak as Night to have earned the human warmth of hatred,' She looked down at him. 'So I did wait too late to produce it, after all. No, that's wrong too. Any moment would have been too late; any moment I might have chosen to use it as a weapon, the pistol would have misfired, the knife-blade shattered at the stroke. So of course you know what my next request will be,'
'I know it,' the old general said.
'And granted in advance of course, since then he can no longer threaten you. But at least it's not too late for him to receive the locket, even though it cannot save him. At least you can tell me that. Come. Say it: At least it's not too late for him to receive it,'
'It's not too late,' the old general said. 'He will receive it,'
'So he must die,' They looked at each other. 'Your own son,'
'Then will he not merely inherit from me at thirty-three what I had already bequeathed to him at birth?'
By its size and location, the room which the old general called his study had probably been the chamber, cell of the old marquise's favorite lady-in-waiting or perhaps tiring-woman, though by its appearance now it might have been a library lifted bodily from an English country home and then reft of the books and furnishings. The shelves were empty now except for one wall, and those empty too save for a brief row of the textbooks and manuals of the old general's trade, stacked neatly at one end of one shelf. Beneath this, against the wall, was a single narrow army cot pillowless beneath a neatly and immaculately drawn gray army blanket; at the foot of it sat the old general's battered field desk. Otherwise the room contained a heavyish, Victorian-looking, almost American-looking table surrounded by four chairs in which the four generals were sitting. The table had been cleared of the remains of the German general's meal; an orderly was just going out with the final tray of soiled dishes. Before the old general were a coffee service and a tray of decanters and glasses. The old general filled the cups and passed them. Then he took up one of the decanters.
'Schnapps, General, of course,' he said to the German general.
Thanks,' the German general said. The old general filled and passed the glass. The old general didn't speak to the British general at all; he simply passed the port decanter and an empty glass to him, then a second empty glass.
'Since General (he called the American general's name) is already on your left,' He said to no one directly, calling the American general's name again: '-doesn't drink after dinner, as a rule. Though without doubt he will void it tonight,' Then to the American: 'Unless you will have brandy too?'
Tort, thank you, General,' the American said. 'Since we are only recessing an alliance: not abrogating it,'
'Bah,' the German general said. He sat rigid, bright with medals, the ground glass monocle (it had neither cord nor ribbon; it was not on his face, his head, like an ear, but set as