Complete Works of William Faulkner

by William Faulkner

  Nor did Lawyer look up even then. “Kohl,” he says.

  “That’s what I said,” Chick says. “Mrs Cole.”

  This time Lawyer spelled it. “K-o-h-l,” he says. But even before he spelled it, it had a different sound from the way Chick said it. “He was a sculptor, not a poet. The shell didn’t kill him. It was an aeroplane.”

  “Oh well, no wonder, if he was just a sculptor,” Chick says. “Naturally a sculptor wouldn’t have the footwork to dodge machine-gun bullets like a poet. A sculptor would have to stay in one place too much of his time. Besides, maybe it wasn’t Saturday so he didn’t have his hat on.”

  “He was in the aeroplane,” Lawyer says. “It was shot down. It crashed and burned.”

  “What?” Chick says. “A Greenwich Village sculptor named K-o-h-l actually in an aeroplane where it could get shot down by an enemy?” He was looking more or less at the top of his uncle’s head. “Not Cole,” he says: “K-o-h-l. I wonder why he didn’t change it. Don’t they, usually?”

  Now Lawyer closed the papers without no haste a-tall and laid them on the desk and pushed the swivel chair back and set back in it and clasped his hands behind his head. His hair had done already started turning grey when he come back from the war in France in 1919. Now it was pretty near completely white, and him setting there relaxed and easy in the chair with that white mop of it and the little gold key he got when he was at Harvard on his watch chain and one of the cob pipes stuck upside down in his shirt pocket like it was a pencil or a toothpick, looking at Chick for about a half a minute. “You didn’t find that at Harvard,” he says. “I thought that maybe after two years in Cambridge, you might not even recognise it again when you came back to Mississippi.”

  “All right,” Chick says. “I’m sorry.” But Lawyer just sat there easy in the chair, looking at him. “Damn it,” Chick says, “I said I’m sorry.”

  “Only you’re not sorry yet,” Lawyer says. “You’re just ashamed.”

  “Ain’t it the same thing?” Chick says.

  “No,” Lawyer says. “When you are just ashamed of something, you don’t hate it. You just hate getting caught.”

  “Well, you caught me,” Chick says. “I am ashamed. What more do you want?” Only Lawyer didn’t even need to answer that. “Maybe I can’t help it yet, even after two years at Harvard,” Chick says. “Maybe I just lived too long a time among what us Mississippi folks call white people before I went there. You can’t be ashamed of me for what I didn’t know in time, can you?”

  “I’m not ashamed of you about anything,” Lawyer says.

  “All right,” Chick says. “Sorry, then.”

  “I’m not sorry over you about anything either,” Lawyer says.

  “Then what the hell is all this about?” Chick says.

  So a stranger that never happened to be living in Jefferson or Yoknapatawpha County ten or twelve years ago might have thought it was Chick that was the interested party. Not only interested enough to be jealous of his uncle, but interested enough to already be jealous even when the subject or bone of contention not only hadn’t even got back home yet, he wouldn’t even seen her since ten years ago. Which would make him jealous not only over a gal he hadn’t even seen in ten years, but that he wasn’t but twelve or thirteen years old and she was already nineteen, a growed woman, when he seen her that last time — a insurmountable barrier of difference in age that would still been a barrier even with three or four more years added on to both of them, providing of course it was the gal that still had the biggest number of them. In fact you would think how a boy jest twelve or thirteen years old couldn’t be man-jealous yet; wouldn’t have enough fuel yet to fire jealousy and keep it burning very long or even a-tall over a gal nineteen years old or any other age between eight and eighty for that matter, except that how young does he have to be before he can dare to risk not having that fuel capable of taking fire and combusting? Jest how young must he be to be safe for a little while longer yet, as the feller says, from having his heart strangled as good as any other man by that one strand of Lilith’s hair? Or how old either, for the matter of that. Besides, this time when she come back, even though she would still be the same six or seven years older, this time they would be jest six or seven years older than twenty-two or twenty-three instead of six or seven years older than twelve or thirteen, and that ain’t no barrier a-tall. This time he wouldn’t be no innocent infantile by-standing victim of that loop because this time he would be in there fighting for the right and privilege of being lassoed; fighting not jest for the right and privilege of being strangled too, but of being strangled first.

  Which was exactly what he looked like he was trying to do: nudging and whetting at his uncle, reaching around for whatever stick or club or brickbat come to his hand like he was still jest twelve or thirteen years old or even less than that, grabbing up that one about Linda’s husband being a Jew for instance, because even at jest twelve, if he had stopped long enough to think, he would a knowed that that wouldn’t even be a good solid straw as far as his present opponent or rival was concerned.

  Maybe that — swinging that straw at his uncle about how Lawyer had been the main one instrumental in getting Linda up there in New York where couldn’t no homefolks look after her and so sho enough she had went and married a Jew — was what give Chick away. Because he ain’t even seen her again yet; he couldn’t a knowed all that other yet. I mean, knowed that even at jest twelve he already had all the jealousy he would ever need at twenty-two or eighty-two either. He would need to actively see her again to find out he had jest as much right as any other man in it to be strangled to death by this here new gal coming to town, and wasn’t no man wearing hair going to interfere in the way and save him. When he thought about her now, he would have to remember jest what that twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy had seen: not a gal but a woman growed, the same general size and shape of his own maw, belonging to and moving around in the same alien human race the rest of the world except twelve-year-old boys belonged to. And, if it hadn’t been for his uncle finally stopping long enough his-self to look at her and then you might say ketching Chick by the scruff of the neck and grinding his attention on to her by conscripting up half his out-of-school time toting notes back and forth to her for them after-school ice-cream-parlour dates her and Lawyer started to having, nowhere near as interesting.

  So when Chick remembered her now, he would still have to see what twelve or thirteen years old had seen: Hell fire, she’s durn nigh old as maw. He would have to actively look at her again to see what twenty-two or twenty-three would see: Hell fire, suppose she is a year or two older than me, jest so it’s me that’s the man of the two of us. So you and that stranger both would a thought how maybe it taken a boy of twelve or thirteen; maybe only a boy of twelve or thirteen is capable of pure and undefiled, what you might call virgin, jealousy toward a man of thirty over a gal of nineteen — or of any other age between eight and eighty for that matter, jest as it takes a boy of twelve or thirteen to know the true anguish and passion and hope and despair of love; you and that stranger both thinking that right up to that last final moment when Chick give his-self away free-for-nothing by grabbing up that one about Linda’s husband being not only a poet but a Jew too to hit at his uncle with. Then even that stranger would a realised Chick wasn’t throwing it at Linda a-tall: he was throwing it at his uncle; that it wasn’t his uncle he was jealous of over Linda Snopes: he was jealous of Linda over his uncle. Then even that stranger would a had to say to Chick in his mind: Maybe you couldn’t persuade me on to your side at first, but we’re sholy in the same agreement now.

  Leastways if that stranger had talked to me a little. Because I could remember, I was actively watching it, that time back there when Lawyer first got involved into Linda’s career as the feller says. I don’t mean when Lawyer thought her career got mixed up into hisn, nor even when he first thought he actively noticed her. Because she was already twelve or thirteen herself then and so Lawyer had al
ready knowed her all her life or anyway since she was them one or two years old or whatever it is when hit’s folks begin to bring it out into the street in a baby buggy or toting it and you first notice how it not only is beginning to look like a human being, hit even begins to look like some specific family of folks you are acquainted with. And in a little town like Jefferson where not only ever body knows ever body else but ever body has got to see ever body else in town at least once in the twenty-four hours whether he wants to or not, except for the time Lawyer was away at the war likely he had to see her at least once a week. Not to mention having to know even before he could recognise her to remember, that she was Eula Varner’s daughter that all Jefferson and Yoknapatawpha County both that had ever seen Eula Varner first, couldn’t help but look at Eula Varner’s child with a kind of amazement, like at some minute-sized monster, since anybody, any man anyhow, that ever looked at Eula once couldn’t help but believe that all that much woman in jest one simple normal-sized chunk couldn’t a possibly been fertilised by anything as frail and puny in comparison as jest one single man; that it would a taken that whole generation of young concentrated men to seeded them, as the feller says, splendid — no: he would a said magnificent — loins.

  And I don’t mean when Lawyer voluntarily went outen his way and adopted Linda’s career into a few spare extra years of hisn like he thought he was doing. What I mean is, when Eula Varner taken that first one look of hern at Lawyer — or let him take that first one look of hisn at her, whichever way you want to put it — and adopted the rest of his life into that of whatever first child she happened to have, providing of course it’s a gal. Like when you finally see the woman that had ought to been yourn all the time, only it’s already too late. The woman that ought to been sixteen maybe at this moment and you not more than nineteen (which at that moment when he first seen Eula Lawyer actively was; it was Eula that was out of focus, being as she was already a year older than Lawyer to start with) and you look at her that first one time and in the next moment says to her: “You’re beautiful. I love you. Let’s don’t never part again,” and she says, “Yes, of course” — no more concerned than that: “Of course I am. Of course you do. Of course we won’t.” Only it’s already too late. She is already married to somebody else. Except it wasn’t too late. It ain’t never too late and won’t never be, providing, no matter how old you are, you still are that-ere nineteen-year-old boy that said that to that sixteen-year-old gal at that one particular moment outen all the moments you might ever call yourn. Because how can it ever be too late to that nineteen-year-old boy, because how can that sixteen-year-old gal you had to say that to ever be violated, it don’t matter how many husbands she might a had in the meantime, providing she actively was the one that had to say “Of course” right back at you? And even when she is toting the active proof of that violation around in her belly or even right out in plain sight on her arm or dragging at the tail of her skirt, immolating hit and her both back into virginity wouldn’t be no trick a-tall to that nineteen-year-old boy, since naturally that sixteen-year-old gal couldn’t possibly be fertilised by no other seed except hisn, I don’t care who would like to brag his-self as being the active instrument.

  Except that Lawyer didn’t know all that yet neither. Mainly because he was to busy. I mean, that day when Eula first walked through the Jefferson Square where not jest Lawyer but all Jefferson too would have to see her. That time back there when Flem had finally grazed up Uncle Billy Varner and Frenchman’s Bend and so he would have to move on somewhere, and Jefferson was as good a place as any since, as the feller says, any spoke leads sooner or later to the rim. Or in fact maybe Jefferson was for the moment unavoidable, being as Flem had done beat me outen my half of that café me and Grover Winbush owned, and since there wasn’t no easy quick practical way to get Grover out to Frenchman’s Bend, Flem would simply have to make a stopover at least in Jefferson while he evicted Grover outen the rest of it.

  Anyhow, Lawyer seen her at last. And there he was, entering not jest bare-handed but practically nekkid too, that engagement that he couldn’t afford to do anything but lose it — Lawyer, a town-raised bachelor that was going to need a Master of Arts from Harvard and a Doctor of Philosophy from Heidelberg jest to stiffen him up to where he could cope with the natural normal Yoknapatawpha County folks that never wanted nothing except jest to break a few aggravating laws that was in their way or get a little free money outen the country treasury; and Eula Varner that never needed to be educated nowhere because jest what the Lord had already give her by letting her stand up and breathe and maybe walk around a little now and then was trouble and danger enough for ever male man in range. For Lawyer to win that match would be like them spiders, that the end of the honeymoon is when she finally finishes eating up his last drumstick. Which likely enough Lawyer knowed too, being nineteen years old and already one year at Harvard. Though even without Harvard, a boy nineteen years old ought to know that much about women jest by instinct, like a child or a animal knows fire is hot without having to actively put his hand or his foot in it. Even when a nineteen-year-old-boy says “You’re beautiful and I love you,” even he ought to know whether it’s a sixteen-year-old gal or a tiger that says “Certainly” back at him.

  Anyhow, there Lawyer was, rushing headlong into that engagement that not only the best he could expect and hope for but the best he could want would be to lose it, since losing it wouldn’t do nothing but jest knock off some of his hide here and there. Rushing in with nothing in his hand to fight with but that capacity to say nineteen years old the rest of his life, to take on that McCarron boy that had not only cuckolded him before he ever seen Eula, but that was going to keep on cuckolding him in one or another different name and shape even after he would finally give up. Because maybe Flem never had no reason to pick out Jefferson to come to; maybe one spoke was jest the same as another to him since all he wanted was a rim. Or maybe he jest didn’t know he had a reason for Jefferson. Or maybe married men don’t even need reasons, being as they already got wives. Or maybe it’s women that don’t need reasons, for the simple reason that they never heard of a reason and wouldn’t recognise it face to face, since they don’t function from reasons but from necessities that couldn’t nobody help nohow and that don’t nobody but a fool man want to help in the second place, because he don’t know no better; it ain’t women, it’s men that takes ignorance seriously, getting into a skeer over something for no more reason than that they don’t happen to know what it is.

  So it wasn’t Grover Winbush and what you might call that dangling other half of mine and his café that brought Miz Flem Snopes to Jefferson so she could walk across the Square whatever that afternoon was when Lawyer had to look at her. It wasn’t even Eula herself. It was that McCarron boy. And I seen some of that too and heard about all the rest of it. Because that was about all folks within five miles of Varner’s store talked about that spring. The full unchallenged cynosure you might say of the whole Frenchman’s Bend section, from sometime in March to the concluding dee-neweyment or meelee which taken place jest beyond the creek bridge below Varner’s house one night in the following July — that McCarron boy coming in to Frenchman’s Bend that day without warning out of nowhere like a cattymount into a sheep pen among them Bookwrights and Binfords and Quicks and Tulls that for about a year now had been hitching their buggies and saddle mules to Will Varner’s fence. Like a wild buck from the woods jumping the patch fence and already trompling them tame domestic local carrots and squashes and eggplants that until that moment was thinking or leastways hoping that Eula’s maiden citadel was actively being threatened and endangered, before they could even blench, let alone cover their heads. Likely — in fact, they had done a little local bragging to that effect — they called theirselves pretty unbitted too, until he come along that day, coming from nowhere jest exactly like a wild buck from the woods, like he had done located Eula from miles and even days away outen the hard unerring air itself and come as straigh
t as a die to where she was waiting, not for him especially but maybe for jest any wild strong buck that was wild and strong enough to deserve and match her.

  Yes sir. As the feller says, the big buck: the wild buck right off the mountain itself, with his tail already up and his eyes already flashing. Because them Bookwrights and Quicks and Tulls was pretty fair bucks theirselves, on that-ere home Frenchman’s Bend range and reservation you might say, providing them outside boundary limits posted signs wasn’t violated by these here footloose rambling uninvited strangers. In fact, they was pretty good at kicking and gouging and no holts barred and no bad feelings afterward, in all innocent friendliness and companionship not jest among one another but with that same friendly willingness to give and take when it was necessary to confederate up and learn him a lesson on some foreigner from four or five or six miles away that ought to stayed at home, had no business there, neither needed nor wanted, that had happened to see Eula somewhere once or maybe jest heard about her from somebody else that had watched her walk ten or fifteen feet. So he had to come crowding his buggy or mule up to Varner’s picket fence some Sunday night, then coming innocently back down the road toward the gum and cypress thicket where the road crossed the creek bridge, his head still filled with female Varner dreams until the unified corporation stepped outen the thicket and bushwhacked them outen it and throwed creek water on him and put him back in the buggy or on the mule and wrapped the lines around the whipstock or the horn and headed him on toward wherever it was he lived and if he’d a had any sense he wouldn’t a left it in the first place or at least in this direction.