The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner [106]
“I never said you broke it, did I?” Jason said.
“I dont want to go in your room,” Mrs Compson said. “I respect anybody’s private affairs. I wouldn’t put my foot over the threshold, even if I had a key.”
“Yes,” Jason said. “I know your keys wont fit. That’s why I had the lock changed. What I want to know is, how that window got broken.”
“Luster say he didn’t do hit,” Dilsey said.
“I knew that without asking him,” Jason said. “Where’s Quentin?” he said.
“Where she is ev’y Sunday mawnin,” Dilsey said. “Whut got into you de last few days, anyhow?”
“Well, we’re going to change all that,” Jason said. “Go up and tell her breakfast is ready.”
“You leave her alone now, Jason,” Dilsey said. “She gits up fer breakfast ev’y week mawnin, en Miss Cahline lets her stay in bed ev’y Sunday. You knows dat.”
“I cant keep a kitchen full of niggers to wait on her pleasure, much as I’d like to,” Jason said. “Go and tell her to come down to breakfast.”
“Aint nobody have to wait on her,” Dilsey said. “I puts her breakfast in de warmer en she——”
“Did you hear me?” Jason said.
“I hears you,” Dilsey said. “All I been hearin, when you in de house. Ef hit aint Quentin er yo maw, hit’s Luster en Benjy. Whut you let him go on dat way fer, Miss Cahline?”
“You’d better do as he says,” Mrs Compson said. “He’s head of the house now. It’s his right to require us to respect his wishes. I try to do it, and if I can, you can too.”
“ ’Taint no sense in him bein so bad tempered he got to make Quentin git up jes to suit him,” Dilsey said. “Maybe you think she broke dat window.”
“She would, if she happened to think of it,” Jason said. “You go and do what I told you.”
“En I wouldn’t blame her none ef she did,” Dilsey said, going toward the stairs. “Wid you naggin at her all de blessed time you in de house.”
“Hush, Dilsey,” Mrs Compson said. “It’s neither your place nor mine to tell Jason what to do. Sometimes I think he is wrong, but I try to obey his wishes for you all’s sakes. If I’m strong enough to come to the table, Quentin can too.”
Dilsey went out. They heard her mounting the stairs. They heard her a long while on the stairs.
“You’ve got a prize set of servants,” Jason said. He helped his mother and himself to food. “Did you ever have one that was worth killing? You must have had some before I was big enough to remember.”
“I have to humor them,” Mrs Compson said. “I have to depend on them so completely. It’s not as if I were strong. I wish I were. I wish I could do all the house work myself. I could at least take that much off your shoulders.”
“And a fine pigsty we’d live in, too,” Jason said. “Hurry up, Dilsey,” he shouted.
“I know you blame me,” Mrs Compson said, “for letting them off to go to church today.”
“Go where?” Jason said. “Hasn’t that damn show left yet?”
“To church,” Mrs Compson said. “The darkies are having a special Easter service. I promised Dilsey two weeks ago that they could get off.”
“Which means we’ll eat cold dinner,” Jason said, “or none at all.”
“I know it’s my fault,” Mrs Compson said. “I know you blame me.”
“For what? ” Jason said. “You never resurrected Christ, did you?”
They heard Dilsey mount the final stair, then her slow feet overhead.
“Quentin,” she said. When she called the first time Jason laid his knife and fork down and he and his mother appeared to wait across the table from one another in identical attitudes; the one cold and shrewd, with close-thatched brown hair curled into two stubborn hooks, one on either side of his forehead like a bartender in caricature, and hazel eyes with black-ringed irises like marbles, the other cold and querulous, with perfectly white hair and eyes pouched and baffled and so dark as to appear to be all pupil or all iris.
“Quentin,” Dilsey said. “Get up, honey. Dey waitin breakfast on you.