The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner [53]
“I’ll h-have to qu-quit,” I said. “It’ll stop in a mu-minute. The other time it said ah ah ah,” I said, laughing. “Let me sit down a while.” I sat down, they watching me, and the little girl with her streaked face and the gnawed looking loaf, and the water swift and peaceful below the path. After a while the laughter ran out. But my throat wouldn’t quit trying to laugh, like retching after your stomach is empty.
“Whoa, now,” Anse said. “Get a grip on yourself.”
“Yes,” I said, tightening my throat. There was another yellow butterfly, like one of the sunflecks had come loose. After a while I didn’t have to hold my throat so tight. I got up. “I’m ready. Which way?”
We followed the path, the two others watching Julio and the little girl and the boys somewhere in the rear. The path went along the river to the bridge. We crossed it and the tracks, people coming to the doors to look at us and more boys materialising from somewhere until when we turned into the main street we had quite a procession. Before the drug store stood an auto, a big one, but I didn’t recognise them until Mrs Bland said,
“Why, Quentin! Quentin Compson!” Then I saw Gerald, and Spoade in the back seat, sitting on the back of his neck. And Shreve. I didn’t know the two girls.
“Quentin Compson!” Mrs Bland said.
“Good afternoon,” I said, raising my hat. “I’m under arrest. I’m sorry I didn’t get your note. Did Shreve tell you?”
“Under arrest?” Shreve said. “Excuse me,” he said. He heaved himself up and climbed over their feet and got out. He had on a pair of my flannel pants, like a glove. I didn’t remember forgetting them. I didn’t remember how many chins Mrs Bland had, either. The prettiest girl was with Gerald in front, too. They watched me through veils, with a kind of delicate horror. “Who’s under arrest?” Shreve said. “What’s this, mister?”
“Gerald,” Mrs Bland said. “Send these people away. You get in this car, Quentin.”
Gerald got out. Spoade hadn’t moved.
“What’s he done, Cap?” he said. “Robbed a hen house?”
“I warn you,” Anse said. “Do you know the prisoner?”
“Know him,” Shreve said. “Look here——”
“Then you can come along to the squire’s. You’re obstructing justice. Come along.” He shook my arm.
“Well, good afternoon,” I said. “I’m glad to have seen you all. Sorry I couldn’t be with you.”
“You, Gerald,” Mrs Bland said.
“Look here, constable,” Gerald said.
“I warn you you’re interfering with an officer of the law,” Anse said. “If you’ve anything to say, you can come to the squire’s and make cognizance of the prisoner.” We went on. Quite a procession now, Anse and I leading. I could hear them telling them what it was, and Spoade asking questions, and then Julio said something violently in Italian and I looked back and saw the little girl standing at the curb, looking at me with her friendly, inscrutable regard.
“Git on home,” Julio shouted at her. “I beat hell outa you.”
We went down the street and turned into a bit of lawn in which, set back from the street, stood a one storey building of brick trimmed with white. We went up the rock path to the door, where Anse halted everyone except us and made them remain outside. We entered, a bare room smelling of stale tobacco. There was a sheet iron stove in the center of a wooden frame filled with sand, and a faded map on the wall and the dingy plat of a township. Behind a scarred littered table a man with a fierce roach of iron gray hair peered at us over steel spectacles.
“Got him, did ye, Anse?” he said.
“Got him, Squire.”
He opened a huge dusty book and drew it to him and dipped a foul pen into an inkwell filled with what looked like coal dust.
“Look here, mister,” Shreve said.
“The prisoner’s name,” the squire said. I told him. He wrote it slowly into the book, the pen scratching with excruciating deliberation.
“Look here, mister,” Shreve said. “We know this fellow. We——”
“Order in the court,” Anse said.
“Shut up, bud,” Spoade said. “Let him do it his way. He’s going to anyhow.”
“Age,” the squire said. I told him. He wrote that, his mouth moving as he wrote. “Occupation.” I told