The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner [83]
“I hate to do it,” she says. “To increase your burden by adding Quentin.……”
“I guess we’ll get along,” I says. “Come on. Get it over with.”
But she just sat there, holding the check.
“This one is on a different bank,” she says. “They have been on an Indianapolis bank.”
“Yes,” I says. “Women are allowed to do that too.”
“Do what?” she says.
“Keep money in two different banks,” I says.
“Oh,” she says. She looked at the check a while. “I’m glad to know she’s so … she has so much.… God sees that I am doing right,” she says.
“Come on,” I says. “Finish it. Get the fun over.”
“Fun?” she says. “When I think——”
“I thought you were burning this two hundred dollars a month for fun,” I says. “Come on, now. Want me to strike the match?”
“I could bring myself to accept them,” she says. “For my children’s sake. I have no pride.”
“You’d never be satisfied,” I says. “You know you wouldn’t. You’ve settled that once, let it stay settled. We can get along.”
“I leave everything to you,” she says. “But sometimes I become afraid that in doing this I am depriving you all of what is rightfully yours. Perhaps I shall be punished for it. If you want me to, I will smother my pride and accept them.”
“What would be the good in beginning now, when you’ve been destroying them for fifteen years?” I says. “If you keep on doing it, you have lost nothing, but if you’d begin to take them now, you’ll have lost fifty thousand dollars. We’ve got along so far, haven’t we?” I says. “I haven’t seen you in the poorhouse yet.”
“Yes,” she says. “We Bascombs need nobody’s charity. Certainly not that of a fallen woman.”
She struck the match and lit the check and put it in the shovel, and then the envelope, and watched them burn.
“You dont know what it is,” she says. “Thank God you will never know what a mother feels.”
“There are lots of women in this world no better than her,” I says.
“But they are not my daughters,” she says. “It’s not myself,” she says. “I’d gladly take her back, sins and all, because she is my flesh and blood. It’s for Quentin’s sake.”
Well, I could have said it wasn’t much chance of anybody hurting Quentin much, but like I say I dont expect much but I do want to eat and sleep without a couple of women squabbling and crying in the house.
“And yours,” she says. “I know how you feel toward her.”
“Let her come back,” I says, “far as I’m concerned.”
“No,” she says. “I owe that to your father’s memory.”
“When he was trying all the time to persuade you to let her come home when Herbert threw her out?” I says.
“You dont understand,” she says. “I know you dont intend to make it more difficult for me. But it’s my place to suffer for my children,” she says. “I can bear it.”
“Seems to me you go to a lot of unnecessary trouble doing it,” I says. The paper burned out. I carried it to the grate and put it in. “It just seems a shame to me to burn up good money,” I says.
“Let me never see the day when my children will have to accept that, the wages of sin,” she says. “I’d rather see even you dead in your coffin first.”
“Have it your way,” I says. “Are we going to have dinner soon?” I says. “Because if we’re not, I’ll have to go on back. We’re pretty busy today.” She got up. “I’ve told her once,” I says. “It seems she’s waiting on Quentin or Luster or somebody. Here, I’ll call her. Wait.” But she went to the head of the stairs and called.
“Quentin aint come yit,” Dilsey says.
“Well, I’ll have to get on back,” I says. “I can get a sandwich downtown. I dont want to interfere with Dilsey’s arrangements,” I says. Well, that got her started again, with Dilsey hobbling and mumbling back and forth, saying,
“All right, all right, Ise puttin hit on fast as I kin.”
“I try to please you all,” Mother says. “I try to make things as easy for you as I can.”
“I’m not complaining, am I?” I says. “Have I said a word except I had to go back to work?”
“I know,” she says. “I know you haven’t had the chance the others had, that you’ve had to bury yourself in a little country store. I wanted you to get