Fable, A - William Faulkner [185]
Took it?' the man said.
'Demanded it,' the priest said, his hand still steadily out. 'Come,' Then the hand moved, not fast, and drew the bayonet from the man's belt. Tell them I took it,' the priest said, already turning. 'Good night,' Or perhaps the man even answered; perhaps even in the silent and empty alley again one last fading echo of one last warm and human voice speaking in warm and human protest or amazement or simple unquestioning defence of an is simply because it is; and then no more, thinking It was a spear, so I should have taken the rifle too, and then no more: thinking The left side, and I'm right handed, thinking But at least He wasn't wearing an infantryman s overcoat and a Magazin du Louvre shirt and so at least I can do that, opening the coat and throwing it back and then opening the shirt until he could feel the blade's cold minuscule point against his flesh and then the cold sharp whisper of the blade itself entering, beginning to make a sort of thin audible cry as though of astonishment at its own swiftness yet when he looked down at it barely the point itself had disappeared and he said aloud, quietly: 'Now what? But He was not standing either, he thought He was nailed there and He will forgive me and cast himself sideways and downward, steadying the bayonet so that the end of the hilt should strike the bricks first, and turned a little until his cheek lay against the still-warm bricks and now he began to make a thin sweet crying of frustration and despair until the pinch of his hand between the bayonet's cross guard and his own flesh told him better and so he could stop the crying now-the sweet thick warm murmur of it pouring suddenly from his mouth.
Beeping its horn steadily-not pettishly nor fretfully nor even irri-tatedly but in fact with a sort of unwearyable blasé Gallic detachment-the French staff-car crept through the Place de Ville as though patting the massed crowd gently and firmly to either side with the horn itself to make room for its passage. It was not a big car. It flew no general's pennon nor in fact any insignia of any kind; it was just a small indubitable French army motorcar driven by a French soldier and containing three more soldiers, three American privates who until they met in the Blois orderly room where Thursday Night the French car had picked them up four hours ago had never laid eyes on one another before, who sat two in the back and one in front with the driver while the car bleated its snaillike passage through the massed spent wan and sleepless faces.
One of the two Americans in the back seat was leaning out of the car, looking eagerly about, not at the faces but at the adjacent buildings which enclosed the Place. He held a big much-folded and -unfolded and -refolded map open between his hands. He was quite young, with brown eyes as trustful and unalarmed as those of a cow, in an open reliant incorrigibly bucolic face-a farmer's face fated to love his peaceful agrarian heritage (his father, as he would after him, raised hogs in Iowa and rich corn to feed and fatten them for market) for the simple reason that to the end of his eupeptic days (what was going to happen to him inside the next thirty minutes would haunt him of course from time to time but only in dreams, as nigh'I'mares haunt) it would never occur to him that he could possibly have found anything more worthy to be loved-leaning eagerly out of the car and completely ignoring the massed faces through which he crept, saying eagerly: 'Which one is it? Which one is it?'
'Which one is what?' the American beside the driver said.
The Headquarters,' he said. 'The Ho-tel de Villy.'
'Wait till you get inside,' the other said. That's what you volunteered to look at,'
'I want to see it from the outside too,' the first said. "That's why I volunteered for this whatever-it-is. Ask him,' he said, indicating the driver. 'You can speak Frog,'
'Not this time,' the other said. 'My French dont use this kind of a house,' But it wasn't necessary anyway because at the same moment they both saw the three