DEWEY DELL (normal voice)
Stop that.
VARDAMAN (no longer crying)
My mother is a fish.
PEABODY as narrator
Yes, Addie Bundren was dead but to get her into her grave how many miles away in Jefferson where she asked to be buried with her kinfolk—that was another matter. As one of the neighbours said, “It's just like Anse to marry a woman born a day's hard ride away and have her die on him.” A day's hard ride! With the rain falling and rivers rising up over the bridges who knows how many days.
ANSE (as if looking out over the land, rubbing his knees)
No man mislikes it more than me. And me without a tooth in my head, hoping to get ahead enough to get my mouth fixed where I could eat God's own victuals as a man should. And her hale and well as ere a woman in the land until that day, ten days ago.
PEABODY as narrator
Jewel, Darl and Cash came home. We ate. Cash started making the box.
Sound of sawing and, occasionally, nailing.
ANSE (to Cash)
I aint much help carpentering, Cash.
CASH
Darl is here.
DARL
Next thing it'll do, Cash, is rain. Think you'll get the coffin made tonight? Here's a lantern. (To himself): It takes two people to make you, and one people to die. That's how the world is going to end. Dewey Dell wanted her to die because then she'd get to town.
DEWEY DELL (as if to herself)
God gave woman a sign when something has happened bad.
DARL (to himself)
Yes. Cash is nailing her up. Jewel sitting there looking disconsolate. (To Jewel): It's not your horse that's dead, Jewel.
JEWEL
Goddam you. You always were a queer one.
DARL (as narrator but as though to himself)
The air smells like sulphur. Cash works on, arm bared. Below the sky sheet-lightning slumbers lightly; against it the trees, motionless, are ruffled out to the last twig, swollen, increased as tho quick with young. It begins to rain. The first harsh, sparse, swift drops rush through the leaves and across the ground in a long sigh, as though of relief from intolerable suspense. They are as big as buckshot, warm as though fired from a gun; they sweep across the lantern in a vicious hissing. From behind Pa's slack-faced astonishment he muses as though from beyond time, upon the ultimate outrage. (To Cash) The lantern's getting wet. (Sound of saw ceases.) Here, you'd better put on Mrs. Tull's raincoat. (Again as narrator): Cash hunts the saw. After awhile we find it in Pa's hand. (To Cash) Going to bevel all those boards? It'll take more time.
CASH
Yuh. The animal magnetism of a dead body makes the stress come slanting, so the seams and joints of a coffin are made on the bevel. It makes a neater job.
Sound of sawing and nailing and rain and then fade out.
PEABODY as narrator
It's almost day when Cash finishes. Four of us carry the coffin to the house. Addie could not want a better box, Cash is a good carpenter. And why not? Didn't she pick out these boards herself? Before she died, Cash brought each board to her for her approval. Darl lies down for a couple of hours.
DARL
I know. I know. In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I don't know if I am or not. How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.
Silence
PEABODY as narrator
On the day of the funeral Brother Whitfield came in wet and muddy to the waist. He had swum the river on his horse. The rain washed the bridge out.
WHITFIELD (chants)
The Lord comfort this house. The Lord giveth…The Lord put his grace on this house. May she rest in peace. I went down to the old ford and swam my horse over, the Lord protecting me.
SEVERAL MEN (chanting)
The Lord giveth. The Lord giveth. The Lord giveth…
NEIGHBOR (rough drawl)
That ere bridge was built, let's see, in 1888. I mind it because the first man to cross it was Doc Peabody coming to my house when Jody was born.
PEABODY
If I'd crossed it every time your wife littered since it'd a been wore out long before this.
Sudden laughter at this remark as release, then sudden quiet as they realize indiscretion and take sidelong glances at each other.
NEIGHBOR
Only the Lord can get Addie Bundren across the river after this rain. A misdoubtful night last night with the storm making. I knowed it was an evil day when I seen that team of Peabody's come up lathered, with the broke harness dragging and the neck-yoke betwixt the off critter's legs. Not too bad a wind but the rain. It'll take Anse a week to go to Jefferson and back. It's the cotton and corn I mind. Washed clean outen the ground it will be. A fellow wouldn't mind seeing it washed up if he could just turn on the rain himself. Who is that man can do that? Where is the colour of his eyes? Ay, the Lord made it to grow, the Lord giveth….
MEN CHANTING (not quite in unison)
The Lord giveth. The Lord giveth. The Lord giveth…
PEABODY as narrator
And the next day they should have started off. I said, “Anse, how about the wheel for the wagon, will Jewel get it fixed?”
ANSE
Jewel will git back with it, I reckon, Doc.
NEIGHBOR
Take my wagon, Anse.
ANSE
Thank yuh, but I'll wait for ourn. She'll want it so. She was ever a particular woman.
NEIGHBOR
You'll have to go way around by Samson's bridge. It'll take you a day to get there. Then you'll be 40 miles from Jefferson. Take my team and get started right away, Anse.
ANSE
We'll wait for ourn. I'm goin fishin in the slough.
NEIGHBOR
That slough aint had a fish in it never that I knowed. Aint no good day to fish anyhow.
ANSE
It's one in here. Dewey Dell seen it.
NEIGHBOR
Tell you what—let's all get started to where you're goin and when we get to the river me and you'll take our poles and catch some fish.
ANSE
One in here. Dewey Dell seen it.
VARDAMAN
Pa shaves every day now because my mother is a fish.
Sound of wagon creaking fading in and occasionally mules snorting. Then sudden stop.
PEABODY as narrator
At long last the wagon was ready, the mules hitched to it. Everybody gathered in the yard ready to go. Dewey Dell climbs onto the wagon, her leg coming along from beneath her tightening dress: that lever which moves the world; one of that caliper which measures the length and breadth of life. She sits on the seat beside Vardaman, drops a basket of lunch in the bottom of the wagon and holds a square package on her lap.
ANSE
You, Jewel, leave that horse behind and come sit with us in the wagon. It aint respectful to your Ma to ride that horse like you wuz goin to a circus. A durn spotted critter of a horse, wilder than a catty-mount, a deliberate flouting of her and me. Her wanting us all to be in the wagon with her that sprang from her flesh and blood.
JEWEL (evenly but staunchly)
I'm taking my horse.
Sound of Darl laughing.
JEWEL
I didn't laugh, that was Darl.
ANSE
How many times I got to tell you, Darl, it's laughing like that that makes folks talk about yuh. Right on the plank where she's laying.
DARL (toning down his laughter)
All right, let's go. Good-bye Doc, see you some day.
PEABODY
Good-bye, good-bye. (Lowering voice) And time, I'd say. (Wagon creaking fades in and then fades out). (As narrator) I heard the rest of the story from Darl later.
Sound of wagon creaking and mules.
DARL as narrator
Kind of nice, the mud whispe
ring on the wheels. And Jewel's horse moving with a light, high-kneed driving gait just back of us.
CASH
It'll be smelling in a couple of days now.
ANSE
It's a hard country on a man; it's hard. Eight miles of the sweat of the body washed up outen the Lord's earth, where the Lord himself told him to put it. Nowhere in this sinful world can a honest hard-working man profit. And the towns live off them that sweats. It's only in heaven every man will be equal and it will be taken from them that have and given to them that have not by the Lord.
CHANT OF MEN'S VOICES WHISPERING
Nowhere in this sinful world can a honest hard-working man profit.
Nowhere in this sinful world…
VARDAMAN
There's the river, Pa, there's the river. See?
ANSE
We're getting to Samson's at dusk-dark. How's the bridge?
DARL
Washout out, just like Tull's. No, just under in the middle, out at both ends but swaying back and forth like a grass carpet.
ANSE
We'll stay at Samson's for the night and if it don't rain cross over in the morning.
SAMSON
Howdy, folks. Unhitch your mules, Anse, and come in to supper.
ANSE
We'll stay in the barn, thank yuh, we've got something in the basket.
SAMSON'S WIFE
Look here, come on in to supper and then go to sleep in a bed. You've got to get your rest. I believe in respect for the dead but you need your sleep.
ANSE
No thank yuh, ma'm, I wouldn't be beholden.
SAMSON
The best respect you can pay her now is to get her in the ground the quickest you can. You better give up going to Jefferson, Anse, and go over here to New Hope, only three miles, bury her there.
DEWEY DELL (with great urgency)
Pa, you promised, you gotta take her to Jefferson—if you don't do it, it will be a curse on you. You promised, you've got to.
ANSE
Did I say no?
SAMSON (lowers his voice as if to himself)
Stubborn, the lot of em. Those bone-gaunted mules of theirn…and that girl watching me. If her eyes had a been pistols I wouldn't be talking now. (Raises his voice to speak directly to them) Well, come in later on to sleep just as my wife said.
ANSE
I thank yuh but I'll stay up with her. I don't begrudge her it.
DEWEY DELL (to herself)
I took the knife from the steaming fish and killed Darl. Darl's eyes. Because he knows.
ANSE (to himself)
Now I can get them teeth. That will be a comfort, it will.
DARL
Look up in the sky.
VARDAMAN
Buzzard.
Silence.
Sound of rooster crowing. Noises of dawn. Sound of wagon creaking along.
DARL
Yes, the bridge submerged in the middle. Sagging and swaying.
Sound of wagon creaking gives over to water swirling.
CASH
Well—a fellow could walk across yonder on the planks and logs that have caught up on the ford past the jam—showing nothing under em though—might be quicksand built up there. What you think, Darl?
DARL
Let Pa, Dewey Dell and Vardaman walk across on the bridge, the water won't be too high for that. And then we'll go in the wagon over the ford best we can.
PEABODY as narrator
Sure, there they were, ready to go through the water. That girl, too, with the lunch basket on one arm and that package under the other. Just going to town. Bent on it. They would risk the fire and the earth and the water and all just to eat a sack of bananas.
DARL
Jewel—
JEWEL
I'll go ahead on the horse. You can follow me in the wagon.
DARL
Right. And Jewel, take the end of the rope upstream and brace it. Will you do that, Jewel?
JEWEL
I don't give a damn. (Voice in high tension above increasing sound of water swirling and logs jamming): Just so we do something. Sitting here, not lifting a goddam hand…
DARL (above the noise)
The motion of the wasted world accelerates just before the final precipice. Doc Peabody, would you have gone over?
PEABODY as narrator
An irrevocable quality. I can see it—the mules stand, their forequarters already sloped a little, their rumps high.
Sound of mules breathing with a deep groaning sound.
DARL
Jewel's horse is sinking. No, there he is again. Cash, steady the coffin. Wait—here comes a log! Cash! We're gone!
PEABODY as narrator
I know just how it was—a log surged up out of the water and stood for an instant upright upon that surging and heaving desolation like Christ.
CASH (yelling)
Darl, get out. (Frantically): Look out! Jump!
Sound of crash and destruction and animal cries. Then dead silence.
PEABODY as narrator
The wagon, the box with the dead, Darl, Jewel, Cash's carpenter tools, Cash himself, did you think they wouldn't get out of it? Cash had a broken leg but he claimed it bothered him none. They hitched up somebody's team, laid Cash on top of Addie and here they go again.
Sound of wagon creaking along and perhaps sounds of life along the road—car passes sounding its horn, etc….
DEWEY DELL
Pa, I gotta stop.
ANSE
Can't you wait till we get to town—we aint got time if we want to get there by dark and get the hole dug.
DEWEY DELL
No, I gotta go in the bushes. I won't be long.
Sound of wagon ceases.
JEWEL
Taint nothing to dig a hole. Who the hell can't dig a hole.
DARL
I'll bet Dewey Dell changes clothes. Sure, there she is already. Sunday dress, beads and shoes and stockings.
ANSE (long suffering)
I thought I told her to leave them clothes to home.
DARL (to himself)
I wonder what she'll accomplish in town.
Sound of creaking of wagon fades out and city street noises fade in. Sound of footsteps and a screen door opening and closing. A small bell sound as of door or ringing of cash register.
MALE VOICE, drug store clerk
Yes ma'm? Silence.
DRUG CLERK
Yes, ma'm?
DEWEY DELL
I want something, suh…can we talk private…
DRUG CLERK
What is your trouble?
DEWEY DELL
Well—female trouble, suh. I've got ten dollars. Lafe said I could get it at a drug store.
DRUG CLERK
But ma'm, you've come to the wrong place—
DEWEY DELL
This is a drug store, aint it? We'll never tell you sold it to us, never, suh.
DRUG CLERK
Listen, you go on home, buy yourself a marriage license with that ten dollars.
DEWEY DELL (pleading)
If you've got something, let me have it.
DRUG CLERK (to himself)
It's a hard life they have, sometimes a man…(Raises his voice and speaks directly to her): Look here, the Lord gave you what you have even if He did use the devil to do it. (Lowered voice again as if to himself): Funny looking set, that's her family out there on the street I guess, in the wagon. I heard somebody say they were running around getting cement—cement— for the boy's broken leg. And the wagon smells as though there was something dead in it. They'll all hole up in jail the lot of em. This girl's not bad looking, though—I might as well play along with her. (Normal voice again but with a reckless, philandering quality): Well, here's something then—
DEWEY DELL
It smells like turpentine. You sho this will work? Is this all there's to it?
DRUG CLERK
I tell you what you do. You com
e back at ten o'clock tonight, I'll give you the rest of it.
Silence. Then montage of voices, each as if talking to himself.
VARDAMAN
Hurry up, Dewey Dell. Hit smells.
DARL
How does your leg feel, Cash?
CASH
Fine. The stuff is cool on it.
VARDAMAN
Jewel hasn't got a horse anymore.
ANSE
I wouldn't be beholden.
CASH
It don't bother me none.
DEWEY DELL
I just know it won't work. I just know it won't.
VARDAMAN
We can sleep on the straw tonight with our legs in the moon. Jefferson is no longer a far place.
CASH
Ah—go easy. For the sake of Christ.
Now they speak directly to each other.
PEABODY
Go easy! (Snorts) Raw cement! Don't you lie there, Cash and try to tell me you rode six days on a wagon without springs with a broken leg and it never bothered you.
CASH
It never bothered me much.
PEABODY
Raw cement! You mean it never bothered Anse much. Don't tell me. And don't tell me it aint going to bother you to have to limp around on one short leg for the balance of your life—if you walk at all again. God Amighty, why didn't Anse carry you to the nearest sawmill and stick your leg in the saw? That would have cured it. Then you all could have stuck his head into the saw and cured a whole family…Well, now you've got her in the ground, where is Anse, anyhow, what's he up to now?
CASH
He's taking back them spades he borrowed.
PEABODY
Of course he'd have to borrow a spade to bury his wife with. Unless he could borrow a hole in the ground. Too bad you all didn't put him in it too…
DARL
Here comes Pa now.
VARDAMAN
Who's she coming with him? Who's she?
CASH
Looks like the woman he borrowed the spades of.
Sounds of footsteps fading in.
ANSE
Young uns, meet Mrs. Bundren.
PEABODY as narrator
And damned if he didn't have teeth too.
from TASTE AND TENDERNESS
a two-act play about the Jameses
ACT I, SCENE 3
William's room. He is now 30, Alice is 24.
WILLIAM (writing in his journal at table)
She's gone. A part of myself was lowered into the grave with her today. Minny—Minny Temple is dead. (Rises with gesture of futility) Death or life—it's all one meaning. What about that part of me left here to fight through this nothingness—the nothingness of this egotistical fury! William James, what about it? All the years of study—introspection—give it all up! Restrict myself to anatomy. What then?—count vertebrae for the rest of my life? I read Biblical texts to console myself these days.
Collecte Works Page 18