The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner [68]
“Do you think it will do any good?” she says.
“Not if you come down there interfering just when I get started,” I says. “If you want me to control her, just say so and keep your hands off. Everytime I try to, you come butting in and then she gives both of us the laugh.”
“Remember she’s your own flesh and blood,” she says.
“Sure,” I says, “that’s just what I’m thinking of—flesh. And a little blood too, if I had my way. When people act like niggers, no matter who they are the only thing to do is treat them like a nigger.”
“I’m afraid you’ll lose your temper with her,” she says.
“Well,” I says. “You haven’t had much luck with your system. You want me to do anything about it, or not? Say one way or the other; I’ve got to get on to work.”
“I know you have to slave your life away for us,” she says. “You know if I had my way, you’d have an office of your own to go to, and hours that became a Bascomb. Because you are a Bascomb, despite your name. I know that if your father could have foreseen——”
“Well,” I says, “I reckon he’s entitled to guess wrong now and then, like anybody else, even a Smith or a Jones.” She begun to cry again.
“To hear you speak bitterly of your dead father,” she says.
“All right,” I says, “all right. Have it your way. But as I haven’t got an office, I’ll have to get on to what I have got. Do you want me to say anything to her?”
“I’m afraid you’ll lose your temper with her,” she says.
“All right,” I says. “I wont say anything, then.”
“But something must be done,” she says. “To have people think I permit her to stay out of school and run about the streets, or that I cant prevent her doing it.… Jason, Jason,” she says. “How could you. How could you leave me with these burdens.”
“Now, now,” I says. “You’ll make yourself sick. Why dont you either lock her up all day too, or turn her over to me and quit worrying over her?”
“My own flesh and blood,” she says, crying. So I says,
“All right. I’ll tend to her. Quit crying, now.”
“Dont lose your temper,” she says. “She’s just a child, remember.”
“No,” I says. “I wont.” I went out, closing the door.
“Jason,” she says. I didn’t answer. I went down the hall. “Jason,” she says beyond the door. I went on down stairs. There wasn’t anybody in the diningroom, then I heard her in the kitchen. She was trying to make Dilsey let her have another cup of coffee. I went in.
“I reckon that’s your school costume, is it?” I says. “Or maybe today’s a holiday?”
“Just a half a cup, Dilsey,” she says. “Please.”
“No, suh,” Dilsey says. “I aint gwine do it. You aint got no business wid mo’n one cup, a seventeen year old gal, let lone whut Miss Cahline say. You go on and git dressed for school, so you kin ride to town wid Jason. You fixin to be late again.”
“No she’s not,” I says. “We’re going to fix that right now.” She looked at me, the cup in her hand. She brushed her hair back from her face, her kimono slipping off her shoulder. “You put that cup down and come in here a minute,” I says.
“What for?” she says.
“Come on,” I says. “Put that cup in the sink and come in here.”
“What you up to now, Jason?” Dilsey says.
“You may think you can run over me like you do your grandmother and everybody else,” I says. “But you’ll find out different. I’ll give you ten seconds to put that cup down like I told you.”
She quit looking at me. She looked at Dilsey. “What time is it, Dilsey?” she says. “When it’s ten seconds, you whistle. Just a half a cup. Dilsey, pl——”
I grabbed her by the arm. She dropped the cup. It broke on the floor and she jerked back, looking at me, but I held her arm. Dilsey got up from her chair.
“You, Jason,” she says.
“You turn me loose,” Quentin says. “I’ll slap you.”
“You will, will you?” I says. “You will will you?” She slapped at me. I caught that hand too and held her like a wildcat. “You will, will you?” I says. “You think you will?”
“You, Jason!” Dilsey says. I dragged her into the diningroom. Her kimono came unfastened, flapping about her, dam near naked. Dilsey