The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner [41]
I’ve heard that too keep your damned money
Call it a loan then just shut your eyes a minute and you’ll be fifty
Keep your hands off of me you’d better get that cigar off the mantel
Tell and be damned then see what it gets you if you were not a damned fool you’d have seen that I’ve got them too tight for any half-baked Galahad of a brother your mother’s told me about your sort with your head swelled up come in oh come in dear Quentin and I were just getting acquainted talking about Harvard did you want me cant stay away from the old man can she
Go out a minute Herbert I want to talk to Quentin
Come in come in let’s all have a gabfest and get acquainted I was just telling Quentin
Go on Herbert go out a while
Well all right then I suppose you and bubber do want to see one another once more eh
You’d better take that cigar off the mantel
Right as usual my boy then I’ll toddle along let them order you around while they can Quentin after day after tomorrow it’ll be pretty please to the old man wont it dear give us a kiss honey
Oh stop that save that for day after tomorrow
I’ll want interest then dont let Quentin do anything he cant finish oh by the way did I tell Quentin the story about the man’s parrot and what happened to it a sad story remind me of that think of it yourself ta-ta see you in the funnypaper
Well
Well
What are you up to now
Nothing
You’re meddling in my business again didn’t you get enough of that last summer
Caddy you’ve got fever You’re sick how are you sick
I’m just sick. I cant ask.
Shot his voice through the
Not that blackguard Caddy
Now and then the river glinted beyond things in sort of swooping glints, across noon and after. Good after now, though we had passed where he was still pulling upstream majestical in the face of god gods. Better. Gods. God would be canaille too in Boston in Massachusetts. Or maybe just not a husband. The wet oars winking him along in bright winks and female palms. Adulant. Adulant if not a husband he’d ignore God. That blackguard, Caddy The river glinted away beyond a swooping curve.
I’m sick you’ll have to promise
Sick how are you sick
I’m just sick I cant ask anybody yet promise you will
If they need any looking after it’s because of you how are you sick Under the window we could hear the car leaving for the station, the 8:10 train. To bring back cousins. Heads. Increasing himself head by head but not barbers. Manicure girls. We had a blood horse once. In the stable yes, but under leather a cur. Quentin has shot all of their voices through the floor of Caddy’s room
The car stopped. I got off, into the middle of my shadow. A road crossed the track. There was a wooden marquee with an old man eating something out of a paper bag, and then the car was out of hearing too. The road went into trees, where it would be shady, but June foliage in New England not much thicker than April at home. I could see a smoke stack. I turned my back to it, tramping my shadow into the dust. There was something terrible in me sometimes at night I could see it grinning at me I could see it through them grinning at me through their faces it’s gone now and I’m sick
Caddy
Dont touch me just promise
If you’re sick you cant
Yes I can after that it’ll be all right it wont matter dont let them send him to Jackson promise
I promise Caddy Caddy
Dont touch me dont touch me
What does it look like Caddy
What
That that grins at you that thing through them
I could still see the smoke stack. That’s where the water would be, healing out to the sea and the peaceful grottoes. Tumbling peacefully they would, and when He said Rise only the flat irons. When Versh and I hunted all day we wouldn’t take any lunch, and at twelve oclock I’d get hungry. I’d stay hungry until about one, then all of a sudden I’d even forget that I wasn’t hungry anymore. The street lamps go down the hill then heard the car go down the hill. The chair-arm flat cool smooth under my forehead