Fable, A - William Faulkner [198]
The digging was easier here, into the bank, all of them taking turns, the girl too though Marthe tried once to dissuade her. 'No,' she said. 'Let me. Let me be doing something,' Though even then it took them a long time until the excavation was deep enough into the bank to contain the coffin, the four of them now shoving and sliding the box back into the cave they had made.
'The medal,' the husband said. 'You dont want to put that in too? can open the box,' But Marthe didn't even answer, taking the shovel herself first until the husband relieved her of it and at last the bank was smooth again save for the shovel marks; afternoon then and almost evening when they returned to the house and (the three women) entered it while the husband went on to the stable to put the horse up for the night. She had not seen it in almost four years, nor did she pause to examine it now. She crossed the room and dropped, almost tossed, the medal onto the vacant mantel and then turned, not really examining the room now. The house had not been damaged: merely eviscerated. They had moved out what the cart would carry that day in, and the husband had fetched that back with him yesterday-enough dishes and bedding, the objects of no value which she had insisted on saving at the expense of things they would actually need when they returned; she could not even remember now what she had felt, thought, then: whether they would ever return or not, if perhaps that anguished day had not been the actual end of home and hope. Nor did she try to remember now, going on to the kitchen; the husband had brought food and fuel for the stove and Marya and the girl were already starting a fire in the stove; again she said to the girl: 'Why dont you rest?'
'No,' the girl said again. 'Let me be doing something,' The lamp was lighted now; it was that near to darkness before she noticed that the husband had not yet come in from the stable. She knew at once where he would be: motionless, almost invisible in the faint last of light, looking at his ruined land. This time she approached and touched him.
'Come now,' she said. 'Supper is ready,' checking him again with her hand at the open lamplit door until he had seen the older sister and the girl moving between the stove and the table. 'Look at her,' she said. 'She has nothing left. She was not even kin to him. She only loved him,'
But he seemed incapable of remembering or grieving over anything but his land; they had eaten the meal and he and she lay again in the familiar bed between the familiar walls beneath the Sunday familiar rafters; he had gone to sleep at once though even as she lay rigid and sleepless beside him he flung his head suddenly and muttered, cried, The farm. The land:' waking himself. 'What?' he said. 'What is it?'
'It's all right,' she said. 'Go back to sleep,' Because suddenly she knew that he was right. Stefan was gone; all that was over, done, finished, never to be recalled. He had been her brother but she had been his mother too, who knew now that she would have no children of her own and who had raised him from infancy; France, England, America too by now probably, were full of women who had given the lives of their sons to defend their countries and preserve justice and right; who was she to demand uniqueness for grieving? He was right: it was the farm, the land which was immune even to the blast and sear of war. It would take work of course, it might even take years of work, but the four of them were capable of work. More: their palliation and their luck was the work they faced, since work is the only anesthetic to which grief is vulnerable. More still: restoring