1The day dawned bleak and chill, a moving wall of grey light out of the northeast which, instead of dissolving into moisture, seemed to disintegrate into minute and venomous particles, like dust that, when Dilsey opened the door of the cabin and emerged, needled laterally into her flesh, precipitating not so much a moisture as a substance partaking of the quality of thin, not quite congealed oil. She wore a stiff black straw hat perched upon her turban, and a maroon velvet cape with a border of mangy and anonymous fur above a dress of purple silk, and she stood in the door for awhile with her myriad and sunken face lifted to the weather, and one gaunt hand flac-soled as the belly of a fish, then she moved the cape aside and examined the bosom of her gown.

2The gown fell gauntly from her shoulders, across her fallen breasts, then tightened upon her paunch and fell again, ballooning a little above the nether garments which she would remove layer by layer as the spring accomplished and the warm days, in colour regal and moribund. She had been a big woman once but now her skeleton rose, draped loosely in unpadded skin that tightened again upon a paunch almost dropsical, as though muscle and tissue had been courage or fortitude which the days or the years had consumed until only the indomitable skeleton was left rising like a ruin or a landmark above the somnolent and impervious guts, and above that the collapsed face that gave the impression of the bones themselves being outside the flesh, lifted into the driving day with an expression at once fatalistic and of a child’s astonished disappointment, until she turned and entered the house again and closed the door.

3The earth immediately about the door was bare. It had a patina, as though from the soles of bare feet in generations, like old silver or the walls of Mexican houses which have been plastered by hand. Beside the house, shading it in summer, stood three mulberry trees, the fledged leaves that would later be broad and placid as the palms of hands streaming flatly undulant upon the driving air. A pair of jaybirds came up from nowhere, whirled up on the blast like gaudy scraps of cloth or paper and lodged in the mulberries, where they swung in raucous tilt and recover, screaming into the wind that ripped their harsh cries onward and away like scraps of paper or of cloth in turn. Then three more joined them and they swung and tilted in the wrung branches for a time, screaming. The door of the cabin opened and Dilsey emerged once more, this time in a man’s felt hat and an army overcoat, beneath the frayed skirts of which her blue gingham dress fell in uneven balloonings, streaming too about her as she crossed the yard and mounted the steps to the kitchen door.

4A moment later she emerged, carrying an open umbrella now, which she slanted ahead into the wind, and crossed to the woodpile and laid the umbrella down, still open. Immediately she caught at it and arrested it and held to it for a while, looking about her. Then she closed it and laid it down and stacked stovewood into her crooked arm, against her breast, and picked up the umbrella and got it open at last and returned to the steps and held the wood precariously balanced while she contrived to close the umbrella, which she propped in the corner just within the door. She dumped the wood into the box behind the stove. Then she removed the overcoat and hat and took a soiled apron down from the wall and put it on and built a fire in the stove. While she was doing so, rattling the grate bars and clattering the lids, Mrs Compson began to call her from the head of the stairs.

5She wore a dressing gown of quilted black satin, holding it close under her chin. In the other hand she held a red rubber hot water bottle and she stood at the head of the back stairway, calling “Dilsey” at steady and inflectionless intervals into the quiet stairwell that descended into complete darkness, then opened again where a grey window fell across it. “Dilsey,” she called, without inflection or emphasis or haste, as though she were not listening for a reply at all. “Dilsey.”

6Dilsey answered and ceased clattering the stove, but before she could cross the kitchen Mrs Compson called her again, and before she crossed the diningroom and brought her head into relief against the grey splash of the window, still again.

7“All right,” Dilsey said, “All right, here I is. I’ll fill hit soon ez I git some hot water.” She gathered up her skirts and mounted the stairs, wholly blotting the grey light. “Put hit down dar en g’awn back to bed.”

8“I couldn’t understand what was the matter,” Mrs Compson said. “I’ve been lying awake for an hour at least, without hearing a sound from the kitchen.”

9“You put hit down and g’awn back to bed,” Dilsey said. She toiled painfully up the steps, shapeless, breathing heavily. “I’ll have de fire gwine in a minute, en de water hot in two mo.”

10“I’ve been lying there for an hour, at least,” Mrs Compson said. “I thought maybe you were waiting for me to come down and start the fire.”

11Dilsey reached the top of the stairs and took the water bottle. “I’ll fix hit in a minute,” she said. “Luster overslep dis mawnin, up half de night at dat show. I gwine build de fire myself. Go on now, so you wont wake de others twell I ready.”

12“If you permit Luster to do things that interfere with his work, you’ll have to suffer for it yourself,” Mrs Compson said. “Jason wont like this if he hears about it. You know he wont.”

13“Twusn’t none of Jason’s money he went on,” Dilsey said. “Dat’s one thing sho.” She went on down the stairs. Mrs Compson returned to her room. As she got into bed again she could hear Dilsey yet descending the stairs with a sort of painful and terrific slowness that would have become maddening had it not presently ceased beyond the flapping diminishment of the pantry door.

14She entered the kitchen and built up the fire and began to prepare breakfast. In the midst of this she ceased and went to the window and looked out toward her cabin, then she went to the door and opened it and shouted into the driving weather.

15“Luster!” she shouted, standing to listen, tilting her face from the wind, “You, Luster?” She listened, then as she prepared to shout again Luster appeared around the corner of the kitchen.

16“Ma’am?” he said innocently, so innocently that Dilsey looked down at him, for a moment motionless, with something more than mere surprise.

17“Whar you at?” she said.

18“Nowhere,” he said. “Jes in de cellar.”

19“Whut you doin in de cellar?” she said. “Dont stand dar in de rain, fool,” she said.

20“Aint doin nothin,” he said. He came up the steps.

21“Dont you dare come in dis do widout a armful of wood,” she said. “Here I done had to tote yo wood en build yo fire bofe. Didn’t I tole you not to leave dis place last night befo dat woodbox wus full to de top?”

22“I did,” Luster said, “I filled hit.”

23“Whar hit gone to, den?”

24“I dont know’m. I aint teched hit.”

25“Well, you git hit full up now,” she said. “And git on up den en see bout Benjy.”

26She shut the door. Luster went to the woodpile. The five jaybirds whirled over the house, screaming, and into the mulberries again. He watched them. He picked up a rock and threw it. “Whoo,” he said, “Git on back to hell, whar you belong at. ’Taint Monday yit.”

27He loaded himself mountainously with stove wood. He could not see over it, and he staggered to the steps and up them and blundered crashing against the door, shedding billets. Then Dilsey came and opened the door for him and he blundered across the kitchen. “You, Luster!” she shouted, but he had already hurled the wood into the box with a thunderous crash. “Hah!” he said.

28“Is you tryin to wake up de whole house?” Dilsey said. She hit him on the back of his head with the flat of her hand. “Go on up dar and git Benjy dressed, now.”

29“Yessum,” he said. He went toward the outer door.

30“Whar you gwine?” Dilsey said.

31“I thought I better go round de house en in by de front, so I wont wake up Miss Cahline en dem.”

32“You go on up dem backstairs like I tole you en git Benjy’s clothes on him,” Dilsey said. “Go on, now.”

33“Yessum,” Luster said. He returned and left by the diningroom door. After awhile it ceased to flap. Dilsey prepared to make biscuit. As she ground the sifter steadily above the bread board, she sang, to herself at first, something without particular tune or words, repetitive, mournful and plaintive, austere, as she ground a faint, steady snowing of flour onto the bread board. The stove had begun to heat the room and to fill it with murmurous minors of the fire, and presently she was singing louder, as if her voice too had been thawed out by the growing warmth, and then Mrs Compson called her name again from within the house. Dilsey raised her face as if her eyes could and did penetrate the walls and ceiling and saw the old woman in her quilted dressing gown at the head of the stairs, calling her name with machinelike regularity.

34“Oh, Lawd,” Dilsey said. She set the sifter down and swept up the hem of her apron and wiped her hands and caught up the bottle from the chair on which she had laid it and gathered her apron about the handle of the kettle which was now jetting faintly. “Jes a minute,” she called, “De water jes dis minute got hot.”

35It was not the bottle which Mrs Compson wanted, however, and clutching it by the neck like a dead hen Dilsey went to the foot of the stairs and looked upward.

36“Aint Luster up dar wid him?” she said.

37“Luster hasn’t been in the house. I’ve been lying here listening for him. I knew he would be late, but I did hope he’d come in time to keep Benjamin from disturbing Jason on Jason’s one day in the week to sleep in the morning.”

38“I dont see how you expect anybody to sleep, wid you standin in de hall, holl’in at folks fum de crack of dawn,” Dilsey said. She began to mount the stairs, toiling heavily. “I sont dat boy up dar half hour ago.”

39Mrs Compson watched her, holding the dressing gown under her chin. “What are you going to do?” she said.

40“Gwine git Benjy dressed en bring him down to de kitchen, whar he wont wake Jason en Quentin,” Dilsey said.

41“Haven’t you started breakfast yet?”

42“I’ll tend to dat too,” Dilsey said. “You better git back in bed twell Luster make yo fire. Hit cold dis mawnin.”

43“I know it,” Mrs Compson said. “My feet are like ice. They were so cold they waked me up.” She watched Dilsey mount the stairs. It took her a long while. “You know how it frets Jason when breakfast is late,” Mrs Compson said.

44“I cant do but one thing at a time,” Dilsey said. “You git on back to bed, fo I has you on my hands dis mawnin too.”

45“If you’re going to drop everything to dress Benjamin, I’d better come down and get breakfast. You know as well as I do how Jason acts when it’s late.”

46“En who gwine eat yo messin?” Dilsey said. “Tell me dat. Go on now,” she said, toiling upward. Mrs Compson stood watching her as she mounted, steadying herself against the wall with one hand, holding her skirts up with the other.

47“Are you going to wake him up just to dress him?” she said.

48Dilsey stopped. With her foot lifted to the next step she stood there, her hand against the wall and the grey splash of the window behind her, motionless and shapeless she loomed.

49“He aint awake den?” she said.

50“He wasn’t when I looked in,” Mrs Compson said. “But it’s past his time. He never does sleep after half past seven. You know he doesn’t.”

51Dilsey said nothing. She made no further move, but though she could not see her save as a blobby shape without depth, Mrs Compson knew that she had lowered her face a little and that she stood now like a cow in the rain, as she held the empty water bottle by its neck.

52“You’re not the one who has to bear it,” Mrs Compson said. “It’s not your responsibility. You can go away. You dont have to bear the brunt of it day in and day out. You owe nothing to them, to Mr Compson’s memory. I know you have never had any tenderness for Jason. You’ve never tried to conceal it.”

53Dilsey said nothing. She turned slowly and descended, lowering her body from step to step, as a small child does, her hand against the wall. “You go on and let him alone,” she said. “Dont go in dar no mo, now. I’ll send Luster up soon as I find him. Let him alone, now.”

54She returned to the kitchen. She looked into the stove, then she drew her apron over her head and donned the overcoat and opened the outer door and looked up and down the yard. The weather drove upon her flesh, harsh and minute, but the scene was empty of all else that moved. She descended the steps, gingerly, as if for silence, and went around the corner of the kitchen. As she did so Luster emerged quickly and innocently from the cellar door.

55Dilsey stopped. “Whut you up to?” she said.

56“Nothin,” Luster said, “Mr Jason say fer me to find out whar dat water leak in de cellar fum.”

57“En when wus hit he say fer you to do dat?” Dilsey said. “Last New Year’s day, wasn’t hit?”

58“I thought I jes be lookin whiles dey sleep,” Luster said. Dilsey went to the cellar door. He stood aside and she peered down into the obscurity odorous of dank earth and mould and rubber.

59“Huh,” Dilsey said. She looked at Luster again. He met her gaze blandly, innocent and open. “I dont know whut you up to, but you aint got no business doin hit. You jes tryin me too dis mawnin cause de others is, aint you? You git on up dar en see to Benjy, you hear?”

60“Yessum,” Luster said. He went on toward the kitchen steps, swiftly.

61“Here,” Dilsey said, “You git me another armful of wood while I got you.”

62“Yessum,” he said. He passed her on the steps and went to the woodpile. When he blundered again at the door a moment later, again invisible and blind within and beyond his wooden avatar, Dilsey opened the door and guided him across the kitchen with a firm hand.

63“Jes thow hit at dat box again,” she said, “Jes thow hit.”

64“I got to,” Luster said, panting, “I cant put hit down no other way.”

65“Den you stand dar en hold hit a while,” Dilsey said. She unloaded him a stick at a time. “Whut got into you dis mawnin? Here I sont you fer wood en you aint never brought mo’n six sticks at a time to save yo life twell today. Whut you fixin to ax me kin you do now? Aint dat show lef town yit?”

66“Yessum. Hit done gone.”

67She put the last stick into the box. “Now you go on up dar wid Benjy, like I tole you befo,” she said. “And I dont want nobody else yellin down dem stairs at me twell I rings de bell. You hear me.”

68“Yessum,” Luster said. He vanished through the swing door. Dilsey put some more wood in the stove and returned to the bread board. Presently she began to sing again.

69The room grew warmer. Soon Dilsey’s skin had taken on a rich, lustrous quality as compared with that as of a faint dusting of wood ashes which both it and Luster’s had worn, as she moved about the kitchen, gathering about her the raw materials of food, coordinating the meal. On the wall above a cupboard, invisible save at night, by lamp light and even then evincing an enigmatic profundity because it had but one hand, a cabinet clock ticked, then with a preliminary sound as if it had cleared its throat, struck five times.

70“Eight oclock,” Dilsey said. She ceased and tilted her head upward, listening. But there was no sound save the clock and the fire. She opened the oven and looked at the pan of bread, then stooping she paused while someone descended the stairs. She heard the feet cross the diningroom, then the swing door opened and Luster entered, followed by a big man who appeared to have been shaped of some substance whose particles would not or did not cohere to one another or to the frame which supported it. His skin was dead looking and hairless; dropsical too, he moved with a shambling gait like a trained bear. His hair was pale and fine. It had been brushed smoothly down upon his brow like that of children in daguerreotypes. His eyes were clear, of the pale sweet blue of cornflowers, his thick mouth hung open, drooling a little.

71“Is he cold?” Dilsey said. She wiped her hands on her apron and touched his hand.

72“Ef he aint, I is,” Luster said. “Always cold Easter. Aint never seen hit fail. Miss Cahline say ef you aint got time to fix her hot water bottle to never mind about hit.”

73“Oh, Lawd,” Dilsey said. She drew a chair into the corner between the woodbox and the stove. The man went obediently and sat in it. “Look in de dinin room and see whar I laid dat bottle down,” Dilsey said. Luster fetched the bottle from the diningroom and Dilsey filled it and give it to him. “Hurry up, now,” she said. “See ef Jason wake now. Tell em hit’s all ready.”

74Luster went out. Ben sat beside the stove. He sat loosely, utterly motionless save for his head, which made a continual bobbing sort of movement as he watched Dilsey with his sweet vague gaze as she moved about. Luster returned.

75“He up,” he said, “Miss Cahline say put hit on de table.” He came to the stove and spread his hands palm down above the firebox. “He up, too,” He said, “Gwine hit wid bofe feet dis mawnin.”

76“Whut’s de matter now?” Dilsey said. “Git away fum dar. How kin I do anything wid you standin over de stove?”

77“I cold,” Luster said.

78“You ought to thought about dat whiles you wus down dar in dat cellar,” Dilsey said. “Whut de matter wid Jason?”

79“Sayin me en Benjy broke dat winder in his room.”

80“Is dey one broke?” Dilsey said.

81“Dat’s whut he sayin,” Luster said. “Say I broke hit.”

82“How could you, when he keep hit locked all day en night?”

83“Say I broke hit chunkin rocks at hit,” Luster said.

84“En did you?”

85“Nome,” Luster said.

86“Dont lie to me, boy,” Dilsey said.

87“I never done hit,” Luster said. “Ask Benjy ef I did. I aint stud’in dat winder.”

88“Who could a broke hit, den?” Dilsey said. “He jes tryin hisself, to wake Quentin up,” she said, taking the pan of biscuits out of the stove.

89“Reckin so,” Luster said. “Dese is funny folks. Glad I aint none of em.”

90“Aint none of who?” Dilsey said. “Lemme tell you somethin, nigger boy, you got jes es much Compson devilment in you es any of em. Is you right sho you never broke dat window?”

91“Whut I want to break hit fur?”

92“Whut you do any of yo devilment fur?” Dilsey said. “Watch him now, so he cant burn his hand again twell I git de table set.”

93She went to the diningroom, where they heard her moving about, then she returned and set a plate at the kitchen table and set food there. Ben watched her, slobbering, making a faint, eager sound.

94“All right, honey,” she said, “Here yo breakfast. Bring his chair, Luster.” Luster moved the chair up and Ben sat down, whimpering and slobbering. Dilsey tied a cloth about his neck and wiped his mouth with the end of it. “And see kin you kep fum messin up his clothes one time,” she said, handing Luster a spoon.

95Ben ceased whimpering. He watched the spoon as it rose to his mouth. It was as if even eagerness were muscle-bound in him too, and hunger itself inarticulate, not knowing it is hunger. Luster fed him with skill and detachment. Now and then his attention would return long enough to enable him to feint the spoon and cause Ben to close his mouth upon the empty air, but it was apparent that Luster’s mind was elsewhere. His other hand lay on the back of the chair and upon that dead surface it moved tentatively, delicately, as if he were picking an inaudible tune out of the dead void, and once he even forgot to tease Ben with the spoon while his fingers teased out of the slain wood a soundless and involved arpeggio until Ben recalled him by whimpering again.

96In the diningroom Dilsey moved back and forth. Presently she rang a small clear bell, then in the kitchen Luster heard Mrs Compson and Jason descending, and Jason’s voice, and he rolled his eyes whitely with listening.

97“Sure, I know they didn’t break it,” Jason said. “Sure, I know that. Maybe the change of weather broke it.”

98“I dont see how it could have,” Mrs Compson said. “Your room stays locked all day long, just as you leave it when you go to town. None of us ever go in there except Sunday, to clean it. I dont want you to think that I would go where I’m not wanted, or that I would permit anyone else to.”

99“I never said you broke it, did I?” Jason said.

100“I dont want to go in your room,” Mrs Compson said. “I respect anybody’s private affairs. I wouldn’t put my foot over the threshold, even if I had a key.”

101“Yes,” Jason said, “I know your keys wont fit. That’s why I had the lock changed. What I want to know is, how that window got broken.”

102“Luster say he didn’t do hit,” Dilsey said.

103“I knew that without asking him,” Jason said. “Where’s Quentin?” he said.

104“Where she is ev’y Sunday mawnin,” Dilsey said. “Whut got into you de last few days, anyhow?”

105“Well, we’re going to change all that,” Jason said. “Go up and tell her breakfast is ready.”

106“You leave her alone now, Jason,” Dilsey said. “She gits up fer breakfast ev’y week mawnin, en Cahline lets her stay in bed ev’y Sunday. You knows dat.”

107“I cant keep a kitchen full of niggers to wait on her pleasure, much as I’d like to,” Jason said. “Go and tell her to come down to breakfast.”

108“Aint nobody have to wait on her,” Dilsey said. “I puts her breakfast in de warmer en she—”

109“Did you hear me?” Jason said.

110“I hears you,” Dilsey said. “All I been hearin, when you in de house. Ef hit aint Quentin er yo maw, hit’s Luster en Benjy. Whut you let him go on dat way fer, Miss Cahline?”

111“You’d better do as he says,” Mrs Compson said, “He’s head of the house now. It’s his right to require us to respect his wishes. I try to do it, and if I can, you can too.”

112“’Taint no sense in him bein so bad tempered he got to make Quentin git up jes to suit him,” Dilsey said. “Maybe you think she broke dat window.”

113“She would, if she happened to think of it,” Jason said. “You go and do what I told you.”

114“En I wouldn’t blame her none ef she did,” Dilsey said, going toward the stairs. “Wid you naggin at her all de blessed time you in de house.”

115“Hush, Dilsey,” Mrs Compson said, “It’s neither your place nor mine to tell Jason what to do. Sometimes I think he is wrong, but I try to obey his wishes for you alls’ sakes. If I’m strong enough to come to the table, Quentin can too.”

116Dilsey went out. They heard her mounting the stairs. They heard her a long while on the stairs.

117“You’ve got a prize set of servants,” Jason said. He helped his mother and himself to food. “Did you ever have one that was worth killing? You must have had some before I was big enough to remember.”

118“I have to humour them,” Mrs Compson said. “I have to depend on them so completely. It’s not as if I were strong. I wish I were. I wish I could do all the house work myself. I could at least take that much off your shoulders.”

119“And a fine pigsty we’d live in, too,” Jason said. “Hurry up, Dilsey,” he shouted.

120“I know you blame me,” Mrs Compson said, “for letting them off to go to church today.”

121“Go where?” Jason said. “Hasn’t that damn show left yet?”

122“To church,” Mrs Compson said. “The darkies are having a special Easter service. I promised Dilsey two weeks ago that they could get off.”

123“Which means we’ll eat cold dinner,” Jason said, “or none at all.”

124“I know it’s my fault,” Mrs Compson said. “I know you blame me.”

125“For what?” Jason said. “You never resurrected Christ, did you?”

126They heard Dilsey mount the final stair, then her slow feet overhead.

127“Quentin,” she said. When she called the first time Jason laid his knife and fork down and he and his mother appeared to wait across the table from one another, in identical attitudes; the one cold and shrewd, with close-thatched brown hair curled into two stubborn hooks, one on either side of his forehead like a bartender in caricature, and hazel eyes with black-ringed irises like marbles, the other cold and querulous, with perfectly white hair and eyes pouched and baffled and so dark as to appear to be all pupil or all iris.

128“Quentin,” Dilsey said, “Get up, honey. Dey waitin breakfast on you.”

129“I cant understand how that window got broken,” Mrs Compson said. “Are you sure it was done yesterday? It could have been like that a long time, with the warm weather. The upper sash, behind the shade like that.”

130“I’ve told you for the last time that it happened yesterday,” Jason said. “Dont you reckon I know the room I live in? Do you reckon I could have lived in it a week with a hole in the window you could stick your hand—” his voice ceased, ebbed, left him staring at his mother with eyes that for an instant were quite empty of anything. It was as though his eyes were holding their breath, while his mother looked at him, her face flaccid and querulous, interminable, clairvoyant yet obtuse. As they sat so Dilsey said,

131“Quentin. Dont play wid me, honey. Come on to breakfast, honey. Dey waitin fer you.”

132“I cant understand it,” Mrs Compson said, “It’s just as if somebody had tried to break into the house—” Jason sprang up. His chair crashed over backward. “What—” Mrs Compson said, staring at him as he ran past her and went jumping up the stairs, where he met Dilsey. His face was now in shadow, and Dilsey said,

133“She sullin. Yo ma aint unlocked—” But Jason ran on past her and along the corridor to a door. He didn’t call. He grasped the knob and tried it, then he stood with the knob in his hand and his head bent a little, as if he were listening to something much further away than the dimensioned room beyond the door, and which he already heard. His attitude was that of one who goes through the motions of listening in order to deceive himself as to what he already hears. Behind him Mrs Compson mounted the stairs, calling his name. Then she saw Dilsey and she quit calling him and began to call Dilsey instead.

134“I told you she aint unlocked dat do’ yit,” Dilsey said.

135When she spoke he turned and ran toward her, but his voice was quiet, matter of fact. “She carry the key with her?” he said. “Has she got it now, I mean, or will she have—”

136“Dilsey,” Mrs Compson said on the stairs.

137“Is which?” Dilsey said. “Whyn’t you let—”

138“The key,” Jason said, “To that room. Does she carry it with her all the time. Mother.” Then he saw Mrs Compson and he went down the stairs and met her. “Give me the key,” he said. He fell to pawing at the pockets of the rusty black dressing sacque she wore. She resisted.

139“Jason,” she said, “Jason! Are you and Dilsey trying to put me to bed again?” she said, trying to fend him off, “Cant you even let me have Sunday in peace?”

140“The key,” Jason said, pawing at her, “Give it here.” He looked back at the door, as if he expected it to fly open before he could get back to it with the key he did not yet have.

141“You, Dilsey!” Mrs Compson said, clutching her sacque about her.

142“Give me the key, you old fool!” Jason cried suddenly. From her pocket he tugged a huge bunch of rusted keys on an iron ring like a mediaeval jailer’s and ran back up the hall with the two women behind him.

143“You, Jason!” Mrs Compson said. “He will never find the right one,” she said, “You know I never let anyone take my keys, Dilsey,” she said. She began to wail.

144“Hush,” Dilsey said, “He aint gwine do nothin to her. I aint gwine let him.”

145“But on Sunday morning, in my own house,” Mrs Compson said, “When I’ve tried so hard to raise them Christians. Let me find the right key, Jason,” she said. She put her hand on his arm. Then she began to struggle with him, but he flung her aside with a motion of his elbow and looked around at her for a moment, his eyes cold and harried, then he turned to the door again and the unwieldy keys.

146“Hush,” Dilsey said, “You, Jason!”

147“Something terrible has happened,” Mrs Compson said, wailing again, “I know it has. You, Jason,” she said, grasping at him again. “He wont even let me find the key to a room in my own house!”

148“Now, now,” Dilsey said, “Whut kin happen? I right here. I aint gwine let him hurt her. Quentin,” she said, raising her voice, “dont you be skeered, honey, I’se right here.”

149The door opened, swung inward. He stood in it for a moment, hiding the room, then he stepped aside. “Go in,” he said in a thick, light voice. They went in. It was not a girl’s room. It was not anybody’s room, and the faint scent of cheap cosmetics and the few feminine objects and the other evidences of crude and hopeless efforts to feminize it but added to its anonymity, giving it that dead and stereotyped transience of rooms in assignation houses. The bed had not been disturbed. On the floor lay a soiled undergarment of cheap silk a little too pink; from a half open bureau drawer dangled a single stocking. The window was open. A pear tree grew there, close against the house. It was in bloom and the branches scraped and rasped against the house and the myriad air, driving in the window, brought into the room the forlorn scent of the blossoms.

150“Dar now,” Dilsey said, “Didn’t I told you she all right?”

151“All right?” Mrs Compson said. Dilsey followed her into the room and touched her.

152“You come on and lay down, now,” she said. “I find her in ten minutes.”

153Mrs Compson shook her off. “Find the note,” she said. “Quentin left a note when he did it.”

154“All right,” Dilsey said, “I’ll find hit. You come on to yo room, now.”

155“I knew the minute they named her Quentin this would happen,” Mrs Compson said. She went to the bureau and began to turn over the scattered objects there—scent bottles, a box of powder, a chewed pencil, a pair of scissors with one broken blade lying upon a darned scarf dusted with powder and stained with rouge. “Find the note,” she said.

156“I is,” Dilsey said. “You come on, now. Me and Jason’ll find hit. You come on to yo room.”

157“Jason,” Mrs Compson said, “Where is he?” She went to the door. Dilsey followed her on down the hall, to another door. It was closed. “Jason,” she called through the door. There was no answer. She tried the knob, then she called him again. But there was still no answer, for he was hurling things backward out of the closet: garments, shoes, a suitcase. Then he emerged carrying a sawn section of tongue-and-groove planking and laid it down and entered the closet again and emerged with a metal box. He set it on the bed and stood looking at the broken lock while he dug a key ring from his pocket and selected a key, and for a time longer he stood with the selected key in his hand, looking at the broken lock, then he put the keys back in his pocket and carefully tilted the contents of the box out upon the bed. Still carefully he sorted the papers, taking them up one at a time and shaking them. Then he upended the box and shook it too and slowly replaced the papers and stood again, looking at the broken lock, with the box in his hands and his head bent. Outside the window he heard some jaybirds swirl shrieking past, and away, their cries whipping away along the wind, and an automobile passed somewhere and died away also. His mother spoke his name again beyond the door, but he didn’t move. He heard Dilsey lead her away up the hall, and then a door closed. Then he replaced the box in the closet and flung the garments back into it and went down stairs to the telephone. While he stood there with the receiver to his ear, waiting, Dilsey came down the stairs. She looked at him, without stopping, and went on.

158The wire opened. “This is Jason Compson,” he said, his voice so harsh and thick that he had to repeat himself. “Jason Compson,” he said, controlling his voice. “Have a car ready, with a deputy, if you cant go, in ten minutes. I’ll be there—What?—Robbery. My house. I know who it—Robbery, I say. Have a car read—What? Aren’t you a paid law enforcement—Yes, I’ll be there in five minutes. Have that car ready to leave at once. If you dont, I’ll report it to the governor.”

159He clapped the receiver back and crossed the diningroom, where the scarce-broken meal now lay cold on the table, and entered the kitchen. Dilsey was filling the hot water bottle. Ben sat, tranquil and empty. Beside him Luster looked like a fice dog, brightly watchful. He was eating something. Jason went on across the kitchen.

160“Aint you going to eat no breakfast?” Dilsey said. He paid her no attention. “Go on and eat yo breakfast, Jason.” He went on. The outer door banged behind him. Luster rose and went to the window and looked out.

161“Whoo,” he said, “Whut happenin up dar? He been beatin’ Miss Quentin?”

162“You hush yo mouf,” Dilsey said. “You git Benjy started now en I beat yo head off. You keep him quiet es you kin twell I get back, now.” She screwed the cap on the bottle and went out. They heard her go up the stairs, then they heard Jason pass the house in his car. Then there was no sound in the kitchen save the simmering murmur of the kettle and the clock.

163“You know whut I bet?” Luster said. “I bet he beat her. I bet he knock her in de head en now he gone fer de doctor. Dat’s whut I bet.” The clock tick-tocked, solemn and profound. It might have been the dry pulse of the decaying house itself; after a while it whirred and cleared its throat and struck six times. Ben looked up at it, then he looked at the bullet-like silhouette of Luster’s head in the window and he begun to bob his head again, drooling. He whimpered.

164“Hush up, loony,” Luster said without turning. “Look like we aint gwine git to go to no church today.” But Ben sat in the chair, his big soft hands dangling between his knees, moaning faintly. Suddenly he wept, a slow bellowing sound, meaningless and sustained. “Hush,” Luster said. He turned and lifted his hand. “You want me to whup you?” But Ben looked at him, bellowing slowly with each expiration. Luster came and shook him. “You hush dis minute!” he shouted. “Here,” he said. He hauled Ben out of the chair and dragged the chair around facing the stove and opened the door to the firebox and shoved Ben into the chair. They looked like a tug nudging at a clumsy tanker in a narrow dock. Ben sat down again facing the rosy door. He hushed. Then they heard the clock again, and Dilsey slow on the stairs. When she entered he began to whimper again. Then he lifted his voice.

165“Whut you done to him?” Dilsey said. “Why cant you let him lone dis mawnin, of all times?”

166“I aint doin nothin to him,” Luster said. “Mr Jason skeered him, dat’s whut hit is. He aint kilt Miss Quentin, is he?”

167“Hush, Benjy,” Dilsey said. He hushed. She went to the window and looked out. “Is it quit rainin?” she said.

168“Yessum,” Luster said. “Quit long time ago.”

169“Den y’all go out do’s awhile,” she said. “I jes got Miss Cahline quiet now.”

170“Is we gwine to church?” Luster said.

171“I let you know bout dat when de time come. You keep him away fum de house twell I calls you.”

172“Kin we go to de pastuh?” Luster said.

173“All right. Only you keep him away fum de house. I done stood all I kin.”

174“Yessum,” Luster said. “Whar Mr Jason gone, mammy?”

175“Dat’s some mo of yo business, aint it?” Dilsey said. She began to clear the table. “Hush, Benjy. Luster gwine take you out to play.”

176“Whut he done to Miss Quentin, mammy?” Luster said.

177“Aint done nothin to her. You all git on outen here?”

178“I bet she aint here,” Luster said.

179Dilsey looked at him. “How you know she aint here?”

180“Me and Benjy seed her clamb out de window last night. Didn’t us, Benjy?”

181“You did?” Dilsey said, looking at him.

182“We sees her doin hit ev’y night,” Luster said, “Clamb right down dat pear tree.”

183“Dont you lie to me, nigger boy,” Dilsey said.

184“I aint lyin. Ask Benjy ef I is.”

185“Whyn’t you say somethin about it, den?”

186“’Twarn’t none o my business,” Luster said. “I aint gwine git mixed up in white folks’ business. Come on here, Benjy, les go out do’s.”

187They went out. Dilsey stood for awhile at the table, then she went and cleared the breakfast things from the diningroom and ate her breakfast and cleaned up the kitchen. Then she removed her apron and hung it up and went to the foot of the stairs and listened for a moment. There was no sound. She donned the overcoat and the hat and went across to her cabin.

188The rain had stopped. The air now drove out of the southeast, broken overhead into blue patches. Upon the crest of a hill beyond the trees and roofs and spires of town sunlight lay like a pale scrap of cloth, was blotted away. Upon the air a bell came, then as if at a signal, other bells took up the sound and repeated it.

189The 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 awhile, 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.

190“Dat’s de way he done hit,” Luster said. “I jes aint foun de right thing to hit it wid.”

191“Dat’s whut you doin, is it?” Dilsey said. “Bring me dat mallet,” she said.

192“I aint hurt hit,” Luster said.

193“Bring hit here,” Dilsey said. “Put dat saw whar you got hit first.”

194He 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.

195“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.”

196“Bring him here,” Dilsey said.

197“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.

198“Run and git his cap,” Dilsey said. “Dont make no noise Miss Cahline kin hear. Hurry, now. We already late.”

199“She gwine hear him anyhow, ef you dont stop him.” Luster said.

200“He stop when we git off de place,” Dilsey said. “He smellin hit. Dat’s whut hit is.”

201“Smell whut, mammy?” Luster said.

202“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.