The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner [110]
The cabin door opened and Dilsey emerged, again in the maroon cape and the purple gown, and wearing soiled white elbow-length gloves and minus her headcloth now. She came into the yard and called Luster. She waited a while, then she went to the house and around it to the cellar door, moving close to the wall, and looked into the door. Ben sat on the steps. Before him Luster squatted on the damp floor. He held a saw in his left hand, the blade sprung a little by pressure of his hand, and he was in the act of striking the blade with the worn wooden mallet with which she had been making beaten biscuit for more than thirty years. The saw gave forth a single sluggish twang that ceased with lifeless alacrity, leaving the blade in a thin clean curve between Luster’s hand and the floor. Still, inscrutable, it bellied.
“Dat’s de way he done hit,” Luster said. “I jes aint foun de right thing to hit it wid.”
“Dat’s whut you doin, is it?” Dilsey said. “Bring me dat mallet,” she said.
“I aint hurt hit,” Luster said.
“Bring hit here,” Dilsey said. “Put dat saw whar you got hit first.”
He put the saw away and brought the mallet to her. Then Ben wailed again, hopeless and prolonged. It was nothing. Just sound. It might have been all time and injustice and sorrow become vocal for an instant by a conjunction of planets.
“Listen at him,” Luster said. “He been gwine on dat way ev’y since you sont us outen de house. I dont know whut got in to him dis mawnin.”
“Bring him here,” Dilsey said.
“Come on, Benjy,” Luster said. He went back down the steps and took Ben’s arm. He came obediently, wailing, that slow hoarse sound that ships make, that seems to begin before the sound itself has started, seems to cease before the sound itself has stopped.
“Run and git his cap,” Dilsey said. “Dont make no noise Miss Cahline kin hear. Hurry, now. We already late.”
“She gwine hear him anyhow, ef you dont stop him,” Luster said.
“He stop when we git off de place,” Dilsey said. “He smellin hit. Dat’s whut hit is.”
“Smell whut, mammy?” Luster said.
“You go git dat cap,” Dilsey said. Luster went on. They stood in the cellar door, Ben one step below her. The sky was broken now into scudding patches that dragged their swift shadows up out of the shabby garden, over the broken fence and across the yard. Dilsey stroked Ben’s head, slowly and steadily, smoothing the bang upon his brow. He wailed quietly, unhurriedly. “Hush,” Dilsey said. “Hush, now. We be gone in a minute. Hush, now.” He wailed quietly and steadily.
Luster returned, wearing a stiff new straw hat with a colored band and carrying a cloth cap. The hat seemed to isolate Luster’s skull, in the beholder’s eye as a spotlight would, in all its individual planes and angles. So peculiarly individual was its shape that at first glance the hat appeared to be on the head of someone standing immediately behind Luster. Dilsey looked at the hat.
“Whyn’t you wear yo old hat?” she said.
“Couldn’t find hit,” Luster said.
“I bet you couldn’t. I bet you fixed hit last night so you couldn’t find hit. You fixin to ruin dat un.”
“Aw, mammy,” Luster said. “Hit aint gwine rain.”
“How you know? You go git dat old hat en put dat new un away.”
“Aw, mammy.”
“Den you go git de umbreller.”
“Aw, mammy.”
“Take yo choice,” Dilsey said. “Git yo old hat, er de umbreller. I dont keer which.”
Luster went to the cabin. Ben wailed quietly.
“Come on,” Dilsey said. “Dey kin ketch up wid us. We gwine to hear de singin.” They went around the house, toward the gate. “Hush,” Dilsey said from time to time as they went down the drive. They reached the gate. Dilsey opened it. Luster was coming down the drive behind them, carrying the umbrella. A woman was with him. “Here dey come,” Dilsey said. They passed out the gate. “Now, den,” she said. Ben ceased. Luster and his mother overtook them. Frony wore a dress of bright blue silk and a flowered hat. She was a thin woman, with a flat, pleasant face.
“You got six weeks’ work right dar on yo back,” Dilsey said. “Whut you gwine do ef hit rain?”
“Git wet,