Fable, A - William Faulkner [179]
'What's he doing in that uniform?' the corporal said.
'Ah, the sons of bitches scared him,' the first said. 'I dont mean Germans either. You dont mean they are going to be satisfied to shoot just one of you out of that whole regiment,'
'I dont know,' the corporal said. 'He hasn't always been like this?'
'Got a fag?' the other said. 'I'm out,' The corporal produced a pack of cigarettes. The other spat the stub from his mouth without even moving his head, and took one from the pack. Thanks,' The corporal produced a lighter. 'Thanks,' the other said. He took the lighter and snapped it on and lit the cigarette, already-or still-talking, the cigarette bobbing, his arms now crossed in front of him, each hand grasping lightly the opposite elbow. What was that you said? Has he always been like this? Naah. A few flies up-stairs, but he was all right until-What?' The corporal stood facing him, his hand extended.
'The lighter,' the corporal said.
'I beg pardon?'
'My lighter,' the corporal said. They looked at each other. Lapin made a slight motion with his wrists and up-turned his empty palms. The corporal faced him, his hand extended.
'Jesus,' Lapin said. 'Dont break my heart. Dont tell me you even saw what I did with it. If you did, then they are right; they just waited one day too late,' He made another rapid movement with one hand; when it opened again, the lighter was in it. The corporal took it.
'Beats hell, dont it?' Lapin said. 'A man aint even the sum of his vices: just his habits. Here we are, after tomorrow morning neither one of us will have any use for it and until then it wont matter which one of us has it. Yet you've got to have it back just because you are in the habit of owning it, and I have to try to cop it just because that's one of my natural habits too. Maybe that's what all the bother and trouble they're getting ready to go to tomorrow morning is for-parading a whole garrison just to cure three lousy bastards of the bad habit of breathing. Hey, Horse?' he said to the second man.
'Paris,' the second man said hoarsely.
'You bet,' Lapin said. 'That's the one they're going to cure us of tomorrow: the bad habit of not getting to Paris after working for four years at it. We'll make it this time though; the corporal here is going with us to see that we do,'
'What did he do?' the corporal said.
'That's all right,' Lapin said. 'Say we. Murder. It was the old dame's fault; all she had to do was just tell us where the money was hidden and then behave herself, keep her mouth shut. Instead she had to lay there in the bed yelling her head off until we had to choke her or we never would have got to Paris-'
'Paris,' the second said in his wet voice.
'Because that's all we wanted,' Lapin said. 'All we were trying to do: just get to Paris. Only folks kept on steering him wrong, sending him off in the wrong direction, sicking the dogs on him, cops always saying Move on, move on-you know how it is. So when we threw in together that day-that was at Clermont Fer-rand in '-he didn't know how long he had been on the road because we didn't know how old he was. Except that it had been a good while, he hadn't been nothing but a kid then-You found out you were going to have to go to Paris before you even found out you were going to have to have a woman, hey, Horse?'
'Paris,' the second said hoarsely.
'-working a little wherever he could find it, sleeping in stables and hedgerows until they would set the dogs or the police on him again, telling him to move on without even bothering to tell him which way he wanted to go until you would have thought nobody else in France ever heard of Paris, let alone wanted-had-to go there. Hey, Horse?'
'Paris,' the second said.
'Then we run into one another that day in Clermont and decided to throw in together and then it was all right, there was a war on then and all you had to do was get yourself inside a government