How to pronounce desiree in english

177

Désirée’s Baby

1892

as the day was Pleasant, Madame Valmondé drove over to L’Abri to see Désirée and the baby. It made her laugh to think of Désirée with a baby. Why, it seemed but yes- terday that Désirée was little more than a baby herself; when Monsieur in rid- ing through the gateway of Valmondé had found her lying asleep in the shadow of the big stone pillar. The little one awoke in his arms and began to cry for “Dada.” That was as much as she could do or say. Some people thought she might have strayed there of her own accord, for she was of the toddling age. The prevailing belief was that she had been purposely left by a party of Texans, whose canvas- covered wagon, late in the day, had crossed the ferry that Coton Maïs kept, just below the planta- tion. In time Madame Valmondé abandoned every speculation but the one that Désirée had been sent to her by a beneficent Providence to be the child of her affection, seeing that she was without child of the flesh. For the girl grew to be beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere, — the idol of Valmondé. It was no wonder, when she stood one day against the stone pillar in whose shadow she had lain asleep, eighteen years before, that Armand Aubigny rid- ing by and seeing her there, had fallen in love with her. That was the way all the Aubignys fell in love, as if struck by a pistol shot. The wonder was that he had not loved her before; for he had known her since his father brought him home from Paris, a boy of eight, after his mother died there. The passion that awoke in him that day, when he saw her at the gate, swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like anything that drives headlong over all obstacles. Monsieur Valmondé grew practical and wanted things well considered: that is, the girl’s obscure origin. Armand looked into her eyes and did not care. He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana? He ordered the corbeille1 from Paris, and contained himself with what patience he could until it arrived; then they were married. Madame Valmondé had not seen Désirée and the baby for four weeks. When she reached L’Abri she shuddered at the first sight of it, as she always did. It was a sad looking place, which for many years had not known the gentle presence of a mistress, old Monsieur Aubigny having married and buried his wife in France, and she having loved her own land too well ever to leave it. The roof came down steep and black like a cowl, reaching out beyond the wide galleries that encircled the yellow stuccoed house. Big, solemn oaks grew close to it, and their thick- leaved, far-reaching branches shadowed it like a pall. Young Aubigny’s rule was a strict one, too, and under it his negroes had forgotten how to be gay, as they had been during the old master’s easy-going and indulgent lifetime.

1 Wedding presents (French).

04_CHA_6555_pt01_pp0087-0252.indd 177 30/05/14 10:22 AM 10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The

Story and Its Writer, Compact

178 K A T E C H O P I N

The young mother was recovering slowly, and lay full length, in her soft white muslins and laces, upon a couch. The baby was beside her, upon her arm, where he had fallen sleep, at her breast. The yellow nurse woman sat beside a window fanning herself. Madame Valmondé bent her portly figure over Désirée and kissed her, holding her an instant tenderly in her arms. Then she turned to the child. “This is not the baby!” she exclaimed, in startled tones. French was the lan- guage spoken at Valmondé in those days. “I knew you would be astonished,” laughed Désirée, “at the way he has grown. The little cochon de lait!2 Look at his legs, mamma, and his hands and fingernails, — real fingernails. Zandrine had to cut them this morning. Isn’t it true, Zandrine?” The woman bowed her turbaned head majestically, “Mais si, Madame.” “And the way he cries,” went on Désirée, “is deafening. Armand heard him the other day as far away as La Blanche’s cabin.” Madame Valmondé had never removed her eyes from the child. She lifted it and walked with it over to the window that was lightest. She scanned the baby narrowly, then looked as searchingly at Zandrine, whose face was turned to gaze across the fields. “Yes, the child has grown, has changed,” said Madame Valmondé, slowly, as she replaced it beside its mother. “What does Armand say?” Désirée’s face became suffused with a glow that was happiness itself. “Oh, Armand is the proudest father in the parish, I believe, chiefly because it is a boy, to bear his name; though he says not, — that he would have loved a girl as well. But I know it isn’t true. I know he says that to please me. And mamma,” she added, drawing Madame Valmondé’s head down to her and speaking in a whisper, “he hasn’t punished one of them — not one of them — since baby is born. Even Négrillon, who pretended to have burnt his leg that he might rest from work — he only laughed, and said Négrillon was a great scamp. Oh, mamma, I’m so happy; it frightens me.” What Désirée said was true. Marriage, and later the birth of his son had softened Armand Aubigny’s imperious and exacting nature greatly. This was what made the gentle Désirée so happy, for she loved him desperately. When he frowned she trembled, but loved him. When he smiled, she asked no greater blessing of God. But Armand’s dark, handsome face had not often been disfig- ured by frowns since the day he fell in love with her. When the baby was about three months old, Désirée awoke one day to the conviction that there was something in the air menacing her peace. It was at first too subtle to grasp. It had only been a disquieting suggestion; an air of mystery among the blacks; unexpected visits from far-off neighbors who could hardly account for their coming. Then a strange, an awful change in her hus- band’s manner, which she dared not ask him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from which the old love-light seemed to have gone

2 An endearment (literally, “suckling pig” in French).

04_CHA_6555_pt01_pp0087-0252.indd 178 30/05/14 10:22 AM 10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The

Story and Its Writer, Compact

Désirée’s Baby 179

out. He absented himself from home; and when there, avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse. And the very spirit of Satan seemed sud- denly to take hold of him in his dealings with the slaves. Désirée was miserable enough to die. She sat in her room, one hot afternoon, in her peignoir, listlessly drawing through her fingers the strands of her long, silky brown hair that hung about her shoulders. The baby, half naked, lay asleep upon her own great mahogany bed, that was like a sumptuous throne, with its satin-lined half-canopy. One of La Blanche’s little quadroon boys — half naked too — stood fanning the child slowly with a fan of peacock feathers. Désirée’s eyes had been fixed absently and sadly upon the baby, while she was striving to penetrate the threaten- ing mist that she felt closing about her. She looked from her child to the boy who stood beside him, and back again; over and over. “Ah!” It was a cry that she could not help; which she was not conscious of having uttered. The blood turned like ice in her veins, and a clammy moisture gathered upon her face. She tried to speak to the little quadroon boy; but no sound would come, at first. When he heard his name uttered, he looked up, and his mistress was pointing to the door. He laid aside the great, soft fan, and obediently stole away, over the polished floor, on his bare tiptoes. She stayed motionless, with gaze riveted upon her child, and her face the picture of fright. Presently her husband entered the room, and without noticing her, went to a table and began to search among some papers which covered it. “Armand,” she called to him, in a voice which must have stabbed him, if he was human. But he did not notice. “Armand,” she said again. Then she rose and tottered towards him. “Armand,” she panted once more, clutching his arm, “look at our child. What does it mean? Tell me.” He coldly but gently loosened her fingers from about his arm and thrust the hand away from him. “Tell me what it means!” she cried despairingly. “It means,” he answered lightly, “that the child is not white; it means that you are not white.” A quick conception of all that this accusation meant for her nerved her with unwonted courage to deny it. “It is a lie; it is not true, I am white! Look at my hair, it is brown; and my eyes are gray, Armand, you know they are gray. And my skin is fair,” seizing his wrist. “Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand,” she laughed hysterically. “As white as La Blanche’s,” he returned cruelly; and went away leaving her alone with their child. When she could hold a pen in her hand, she sent a despairing letter to Madame Valmondé. “My mother, they tell me I am not white. Armand has told me I am not white. For God’s sake tell them it is not true. You must know it is not true. I shall die. I must die. I cannot be so unhappy, and live.” The answer that came was as brief: “My own Désirée: Come home to Valmondé; back to your mother who loves you. Come with your child.”

04_CHA_6555_pt01_pp0087-0252.indd 179 30/05/14 10:22 AM 10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The

Story and Its Writer, Compact

180 K A T E C H O P I N

When the letter reached Désirée she went with it to her husband’s study, and laid it open upon the desk before which he sat. She was like a stone image: silent, white, motionless after she placed it there. In silence he ran his cold eyes over the written words. He said nothing. “Shall I go, Armand?” she asked in tones sharp with agonized suspense. “Yes, go.” “Do you want me to go?” “Yes, I want you to go.” He thought Almighty God had dealt cruelly and unjustly with him; and felt, somehow, that he was paying Him back in kind when he stabbed thus into his wife’s soul. Moreover he no longer loved her, because of the unconscious injury she had brought upon his home and his name. She turned away like one stunned by a blow, and walked slowly towards the door, hoping he would call her back. “Good-by, Armand,” she moaned. He did not answer her. That was his last blow at fate. Désirée went in search of her child. Zandrine was pacing the sombre gal- lery with it. She took the little one from the nurse’s arms with no word of expla- nation, and descending the steps, walked away, under the live-oak branches. It was an October afternoon; the sun was just sinking. Out in the still fields the negroes were picking cotton. Désirée had not changed the thin white garment nor the slippers which she wore. Her hair was uncovered and the sun’s rays brought a golden gleam from its brown meshes. She did not take the broad, beaten road which led to the far-off plantation of Valmondé. She walked across a deserted field, where the stubble bruised her tender feet, so delicately shod, and tore her thin gown to shreds. She disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thick along the banks of the deep, sluggish bayou; and she did not come back again.

Some weeks later there was a curious scene enacted at L’Abri. In the centre of the smoothly swept back yard was a great bonfire. Armand Aubigny sat in the wide hallway that commanded a view of the spectacle; and it was he who dealt out to a half dozen negroes the material which kept this fire ablaze. A graceful cradle of willow, with all its dainty furbishings, was laid upon the pyre, which had already been fed with the richness of a priceless layette. Then there were silk gowns, and velvet and satin ones added to these; laces, too, and embroideries; bonnets and gloves; for the corbeille had been of rare quality. The last thing to go was a tiny bundle of letters; innocent little scribblings that Désirée had sent to him during the days of their espousal. There was the remnant of one back in the drawer from which he took them. But it was not Désirée’s; it was part of an old letter from his mother to his father. He read it. She was thanking God for the blessing of her husband’s love: — “But, above all,” she wrote, “night and day, I thank the good God for having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of sla very.”

04_CHA_6555_pt01_pp0087-0252.indd 180 30/05/14 10:22 AM 10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The

Story and Its Writer, Compact

181

The Story of an Hour

1894

knowIng that mrs. mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death. It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of “killed.” He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message. She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a par- alyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul. She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window. She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who had cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams. She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought. There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air. Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will — as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes.

04_CHA_6555_pt01_pp0087-0252.indd 181 30/05/14 10:22 AM 10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The

Story and Its Writer, Compact

182 K A T E C H O P I N

They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body. She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome. There would be no one to live for her during those coming years: she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination. And yet she had loved him — sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this posses- sion of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being! “Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering. Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. “Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door — you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.” “Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window. Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long. She arose at length and opened the door to her sister’s importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister’s waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom. Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his gripsack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry; at Richards’ quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife. But Richards was too late. When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease — of joy that kills.

04_CHA_6555_pt01_pp0087-0252.indd 182 30/05/14 10:22 AM 10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The

Story and Its Writer, Compact

That Evening Sun 323

That Evening Sun

1931

I

Monday is no different from any other weekday in Jefferson now. The streets are paved now, and the telephone and electric companies are cutting down more and more of the shade trees — the water oaks, the maples and locusts and elms — to make room for iron poles bearing clusters of bloated and ghostly and bloodless grapes, and we have a city laundry which makes the rounds on Monday morn- ing, gathering the bundles of clothes into bright-colored, specially-made motor cars: the soiled wearing of a whole week now flees apparitionlike behind alert and irritable electric horns, with a long diminishing noise of rubber and asphalt like tearing silk, and even the Negro women who still take in white people’s washing after the old custom, fetch and deliver it in automobiles.

05_6555_pt01_pp0253-0384.indd 323 30/05/14 10:26 AM

This selection has been omitted intentionally in this electronic edition.

William Faulkner: "That Evening Sun" copyright 1931 and renewed 1959 by William Faulkner,

From Collected Stories of William Faulkner by William Faulkner. Used by permission of Random

House, an imprint and division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Any third party use

of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly

to Random House LLC for permission. Electronic rights to "That Evening Sun" granted by

permission of W. W. Norton & Company.

10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The Story and Its Writer, Compact

324 W I L L I A M F A U L K N E r

But fifteen years ago, on Monday morning the quiet, dusty, shady streets would be full of Negro women with, balanced on their steady, turbaned heads, bundles of clothes tied up in sheets, almost as large as cotton bales, carried so without touch of hand between the kitchen door of the white house and the blackened washpot beside a cabin door in Negro Hollow. Nancy would set her bundle on the top of her head, then upon the bundle in turn she would set the black straw sailor hat which she wore winter and summer. She was tall, with a high, sad face sunken a little where her teeth were missing. Sometimes we would go a part of the way down the lane and across the pasture with her, to watch the balanced bundle and the hat that never bobbed nor wavered, even when she walked down into the ditch and up the other side and stooped through the fence. She would go down on her hands and knees and crawl through the gap, her head rigid, uptilted, the bundle steady as a rock or a balloon, and rise to her feet again and go on. Sometimes the husbands of the washing women would fetch and deliver the clothes, but Jesus never did that for Nancy, even before father told him to stay away from our house, even when Dilsey was sick and Nancy would come to cook for us. And then about half the time we’d have to go down the lane to Nancy’s cabin and tell her to come on and cook breakfast. We would stop at the ditch, because father told us to not have anything to do with Jesus — he was a short black man, with a razor scar down his face — and we would throw rocks at Nancy’s house until she came to the door, leaning her head around it without any clothes on. “What yawl mean, chunking my house?” Nancy said. “What you little dev- ils mean?” “Father says for you to come on and get breakfast,” Caddy said. “Father says it’s over a half an hour now, and you’ve got to come this minute.” “I aint studying no breakfast,” Nancy said. “I going to get my sleep out.” “I bet you’re drunk,” Jason said. “Father says you’re drunk. Are you drunk, Nancy?” “Who says I is?” Nancy said. “I got to get my sleep out. I ain’t studying no breakfast.” So after a while we quit chunking the cabin and went back home. When she finally came, it was too late for me to go to school. So we thought it was whisky until that day they arrested her again and they were taking her to jail and they passed Mr Stovall. He was the cashier in the bank and a deacon in the Baptist church, and Nancy began to say: “When you going to pay me, white man? When you going to pay me, white man? It’s been three times now since you paid me a cent —” Mr Stovall knocked her down, but she kept on saying, “When you going to pay me, white man? It’s been three times now since —” until Mr Stovall kicked her in the mouth with his heel and the marshal caught Mr Stovall back, and Nancy lying in the street, laughing. She turned her head and spat out some blood and teeth and said, “It’s been three times now since he paid me a cent.” That was how she lost her teeth, and all that day they told about Nancy and Mr Stovall, and all that night the ones that passed the jail could hear Nancy

05_6555_pt01_pp0253-0384.indd 324 30/05/14 10:26 AM 10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The

Story and Its Writer, Compact

That Evening Sun 325

singing and yelling. They could see her hands holding to the window bars, and a lot of them stopped along the fence, listening to her and to the jailer trying to make her stop. She didn’t shut up until almost daylight, when the jailer began to hear a bumping and scraping upstairs and he went up there and found Nancy hanging from the window bar. He said that it was cocaine and not whisky, because no nigger would try to commit suicide unless he was full of cocaine, because a nigger full of cocaine wasn’t a nigger any longer. The jailer cut her down and revived her; then he beat her, whipped her. She had hung herself with her dress. She had fixed it all right, but when they arrested her she didn’t have on anything except a dress and so she didn’t have anything to tie her hands with and she couldn’t make her hands let go of the window ledge. So the jailer heard the noise and ran up there and found Nancy hanging from the window, stark naked, her belly already swelling out a little, like a little balloon. When Dilsey was sick in her cabin and Nancy was cooking for us, we could see her apron swelling out; that was before father told Jesus to stay away from the house. Jesus was in the kitchen, sitting behind the stove, with his razor scar on his black face like a piece of dirty string. He said it was a watermelon that Nancy had under her dress. “It never come off of your vine, though,” Nancy said. “Off of what vine?” Caddy said. “I can cut down the vine it did come off of,” Jesus said. “What makes you want to talk like that before these chillen?” Nancy said. “Whyn’t you go on to work? You done et. You want Mr Jason to catch you hanging around his kitchen, talking that way before these chillen?” “Talking what way?” Caddy said. “What vine?” “I cant hang around white man’s kitchen,” Jesus said. “But white man can hang around mine. White man can come in my house, but I cant stop him. When white man want to come in my house, I aint got no house. I cant stop him, but he cant kick me outen it. He cant do that.” Dilsey was still sick in her cabin. Father told Jesus to stay off our place. Dilsey was still sick. It was a long time. We were in the library after supper. “Isn’t Nancy through in the kitchen yet?” mother said. “It seems to me that she has had plenty of time to have finished the dishes.” “Let Quentin go and see,” father said. “Go and see if Nancy is through, Quentin. Tell her she can go on home.” I went to the kitchen. Nancy was through. The dishes were put away and the fire was out. Nancy was sitting in a chair, close to the cold stove. She looked at me. “Mother wants to know if you are through,” I said. “Yes,” Nancy said. She looked at me. “I done finished.” She looked at me. “What is it?” I said. “What is it?” “I aint nothing but a nigger,” Nancy said. “It aint none of my fault.” She looked at me, sitting in the chair before the cold stove, the sailor hat on her head. I went back to the library. It was the cold stove and all, when you think of a kitchen being warm and busy and cheerful. And with a cold stove and the dishes all put away, and nobody wanting to eat at that hour.

05_6555_pt01_pp0253-0384.indd 325 30/05/14 10:26 AM 10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The

Story and Its Writer, Compact

326 W I L L I A M F A U L K N E r

“Is she through?” mother said. “Yessum,” I said. “What is she doing?” mother said. “She’s not doing anything. She’s through.” “I’ll go and see,” father said. “Maybe she’s waiting for Jesus to come and take her home,” Caddy said. “Jesus is gone,” I said. Nancy told us how one morning she woke up and Jesus was gone. “He quit me,” Nancy said. “Done gone to Memphis, I reckon. Dodging them city po-lice for a while, I reckon.” “And a good riddance,” father said. “I hope he stays there.” “Nancy’s scaired of the dark,” Jason said. “So are you,” Caddy said. “I’m not,” Jason said. “Scairy cat,” Caddy said. “I’m not,” Jason said. “You, Candace!” mother said. Father came back. “I am going to walk down the lane with Nancy,” he said. “She says that Jesus is back.” “Has she seen him?” mother said. “No. Some Negro sent her word that he was back in town. I wont be long.” “You’ll leave me alone, to take Nancy home?” mother said. “Is her safety more precious to you than mine?” “I wont be long,” father said. “You’ll leave these children unprotected, with that Negro about?” “I’m going too,” Caddy said. “Let me go, Father.” “What would he do with them, if he were unfortunate enough to have them?” father said. “I want to go, too,” Jason said. “Jason!” mother said. She was speaking to father. You could tell that by the way she said the name. Like she believed that all day father had been trying to think of doing the thing she wouldn’t like the most, and that she knew all the time that after a while he would think of it. I stayed quiet, because father and I both knew that mother would want him to make me stay with her if she just thought of it in time. So father didn’t look at me. I was the oldest. I was nine and Caddy was seven and Jason was five. “Nonsense,” father said. “We wont be long.” Nancy had her hat on. We came to the lane. “Jesus always been good to me,” Nancy said. “Whenever he had two dollars, one of them was mine.” We walked in the lane. “If I can just get through the lane,” Nancy said, “I be all right then.” The lane was always dark. “This is where Jason got scared on Hallowe’en,” Caddy said. “I didn’t,” Jason said. “Cant Aunt Rachel do anything with him?” father said. Aunt Rachel was old. She lived in a cabin beyond Nancy’s, by herself. She had white hair and she smoked a pipe in the door, all day long; she didn’t work any more. They said

05_6555_pt01_pp0253-0384.indd 326 30/05/14 10:26 AM 10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The

Story and Its Writer, Compact

That Evening Sun 327

she was Jesus’ mother. Sometimes she said she was and sometimes she said she wasn’t any kin to Jesus. “Yes, you did,” Caddy said. “You were scairder than Frony. You were scairder than T.P. even. Scairder than niggers.” “Cant nobody do nothing with him,” Nancy said. “He say I done woke up the devil in him and aint but one thing going to lay it down again.” “Well, he’s gone now,” father said. “There’s nothing for you to be afraid of now. And if you’d just let white men alone.” “Let what white men alone?” Caddy said. “How let them alone?” “He aint gone nowhere,” Nancy said. “I can feel him. I can feel him now, in this lane. He hearing us talk, every word, hid somewhere, waiting. I aint seen him, and I aint going to see him again but once more, with that razor in his mouth. That razor on that string down his back, inside his shirt. And then I aint going to be even surprised.” “I wasn’t scaired,” Jason said. “If you’d behave yourself, you’d have kept out of this,” father said. “But it’s all right now. He’s probably in St. Louis now. Probably got another wife by now and forgot all about you.” “If he has, I better not find out about it,” Nancy said. “I’d stand there right over them, and every time he wropped her, I’d cut that arm off. I’d cut his head off and I’d slit her belly and I’d shove —” “Hush,” father said. “Slit whose belly, Nancy?” Caddy said. “I wasn’t scaired,” Jason said. “I’d walk right down this lane by myself.” “Yah,” Caddy said. “You wouldn’t dare to put your foot down in it if we were not here too.”

II

Dilsey was still sick, so we took Nancy home every night until mother said, “How much longer is this going on? I to be left alone in this big house while you take home a frightened Negro?” We fixed a pallet in the kitchen for Nancy. One night we waked up, hearing the sound. It was not singing and it was not crying, coming up the dark stairs. There was a light in mother’s room and we heard father going down the hall, down the back stairs, and Caddy and I went into the hall. The floor was cold. Our toes curled away from it while we listened to the sound. It was like singing and it wasn’t like singing, like the sounds that Negroes make. Then it stopped and we heard father going down the back stairs, and we went to the head of the stairs. Then the sound began again, in the stairway, not loud, and we could see Nancy’s eyes halfway up the stairs, against the wall. They looked like cat’s eyes do, like a big cat against the wall, watching us. When we came down the steps to where she was, she quit making the sound again, and we stood there until father came back up from the kitchen, with his pistol in his hand. He went back down with Nancy and they came back with Nancy’s pallet. We spread the pallet in our room. After the light in mother’s room went off, we could see Nancy’s eyes again. “Nancy,” Caddy whispered, “are you asleep, Nancy?”

05_6555_pt01_pp0253-0384.indd 327 30/05/14 10:26 AM 10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The

Story and Its Writer, Compact

328 W I L L I A M F A U L K N E r

Nancy whispered something. It was oh or no, I dont know which. Like nobody had made it, like it came from nowhere and went nowhere, until it was like Nancy was not there at all; that I had looked so hard at her eyes on the stairs that they had got printed on my eyeballs, like the sun does when you have closed your eyes and there is no sun. “Jesus,” Nancy whispered. “Jesus.” “Was it Jesus?” Caddy said. “Did he try to come into the kitchen?” “Jesus,” Nancy said. Like this: Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesus, until the sound went out, like a match or a candle does. “It’s the other Jesus she means,” I said. “Can you see us, Nancy?” Caddy whispered. “Can you see our eyes too?” “I aint nothing but a nigger,” Nancy said. “God knows. God knows.” “What did you see down there in the kitchen?” Caddy whispered. “What tried to get in?” “God knows,” Nancy said. We could see her eyes. “God knows.” Dilsey got well. She cooked dinner. “You’d better stay in bed a day or two longer,” father said. “What for?” Dilsey said. “If I had been a day later, this place would be to rack and ruin. Get on out of here now, and let me get my kitchen straight again.” Dilsey cooked supper too. And that night, just before dark, Nancy came into the kitchen. “How do you know he’s back?” Dilsey said. “You aint seen him.” “Jesus is a nigger,” Jason said. “I can feel him,” Nancy said. “I can feel him laying yonder in the ditch.” “Tonight?” Dilsey said. “Is he there tonight?” “Dilsey’s a nigger too,” Jason said. “You try to eat something,” Dilsey said. “I dont want nothing,” Nancy said. “I aint a nigger,” Jason said. “Drink some coffee,” Dilsey said. She poured a cup of coffee for Nancy. “Do you know he’s out there tonight? How come you know it’s tonight?” “I know,” Nancy said. “He’s there, waiting. I know. I done lived with him too long. I know what he is fixing to do fore he know it himself.” “Drink some coffee,” Dilsey said. Nancy held the cup to her mouth and blew into the cup. Her mouth pursed out like a spreading adder’s, like a rubber mouth, like she had blown all the color out of her lips with blowing the coffee. “I aint a nigger,” Jason said. “Are you a nigger, Nancy?” “I hellborn, child,” Nancy said. “I wont be nothing soon. I going back where I come from soon.”

III

She began to drink the coffee. While she was drinking, holding the cup in both hands, she began to make the sound again. She made the sound into the cup and the coffee sploshed out onto her hands and her dress. Her eyes looked at us and she sat there, her elbows on her knees, holding the cup in both hands, looking at us across the wet cup, making the sound. “Look at Nancy,” Jason said. “Nancy cant cook for us now. Dilsey’s got well now.”

05_6555_pt01_pp0253-0384.indd 328 30/05/14 10:26 AM 10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The

Story and Its Writer, Compact

That Evening Sun 329

“You hush up,” Dilsey said. Nancy held the cup in both hands, looking at us, making the sound, like there were two of them: one looking at us and the other making the sound. “Whyn’t you let Mr Jason telefoam the marshal?” Dilsey said. Nancy stopped then, holding the cup in her long brown hands. She tried to drink some coffee again, but it sploshed out of the cup, onto her hands and her dress, and she put the cup down. Jason watched her. “I cant swallow it,” Nancy said. “I swallows but it wont go down me.” “You go down to the cabin,” Dilsey said. “Frony will fix you a pallet and I’ll be there soon.” “Wont no nigger stop him,” Nancy said. “I aint a nigger,” Jason said. “Am I, Dilsey?” “I reckon not,” Dilsey said. She looked at Nancy. “I dont reckon so. What you going to do, then?” Nancy looked at us. Her eyes went fast, like she was afraid there wasn’t time to look, without hardly moving at all. She looked at us, at all three of us at one time. “You member that night I stayed in yawls’ room?” she said. She told about how we waked up early the next morning, and played. We had to play quiet, on her pallet, until father woke up and it was time to get breakfast. “Go and ask your maw to let me stay here tonight,” Nancy said. “I wont need no pallet. We can play some more.” Caddy asked mother. Jason went too. “I cant have Negroes sleeping in the bedrooms,” mother said. Jason cried. He cried until mother said he couldn’t have any dessert for three days if he didn’t stop. Then Jason said he would stop if Dilsey would make a chocolate cake. Father was there. “Why dont you do something about it?” mother said. “What do we have officers for?” “Why is Nancy afraid of Jesus?” Caddy said. “Are you afraid of father, mother?” “What could the officers do?” father said. “If Nancy hasn’t seen him, how could the officers find him?” “Then why is she afraid?” mother said. “She says he is there. She says she knows he is there tonight.” “Yet we pay taxes,” mother said. “I must wait here alone in this big house while you take a Negro woman home.” “You know that I am not lying outside with a razor,” father said. “I’ll stop if Dilsey will make a chocolate cake,” Jason said. Mother told us to go out and father said he didn’t know if Jason would get a chocolate cake or not, but he knew what Jason was going to get in about a minute. We went back to the kitchen and told Nancy. “Father said for you to go home and lock the door, and you’ll be all right,” Caddy said. “All right from what, Nancy? Is Jesus mad at you?” Nancy was holding the coffee cup in her hands again, her elbows on her knees and her hands holding the cup between her knees. She was looking into the cup. “What have you done that made Jesus mad?” Caddy said. Nancy let the cup go. It didn’t break on the floor, but the coffee spilled out, and Nancy sat there with her hands still making the shape of the cup. She began to make the sound again, not loud. Not singing and not unsinging. We watched her.

05_6555_pt01_pp0253-0384.indd 329 30/05/14 10:26 AM 10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The

Story and Its Writer, Compact

330 W I L L I A M F A U L K N E r

“Here,” Dilsey said. “You quit that, now. You get aholt of yourself. You wait here. I going to get Versh to walk home with you.” Dilsey went out. We looked at Nancy. Her shoulders kept shaking, but she quit making the sound. We watched her. “What’s Jesus going to do to you?” Caddy said. “He went away.” Nancy looked at us. “We had fun that night I stayed in yawls’ room, didn’t we?” “I didn’t,” Jason said. “I didn’t have any fun.” “You were asleep in mother’s room,” Caddy said. “You were not there.” “Let’s go down to my house and have some more fun,” Nancy said. “Mother wont let us,” I said. “It’s too late now.” “Dont bother her,” Nancy said. “We can tell her in the morning. She wont mind.” “She wouldn’t let us,” I said. “Dont ask her now,” Nancy said. “Dont bother her now.” “She didn’t say we couldn’t go,” Caddy said. “We didn’t ask,” I said. “If you go, I’ll tell,” Jason said. “We’ll have fun,” Nancy said. “They won’t mind, just to my house. I been working for yawl a long time. They won’t mind.” “I’m not afraid to go,” Caddy said. “Jason is the one that’s afraid. He’ll tell.” “I’m not,” Jason said. “Yes, you are,” Caddy said. “You’ll tell.” “I won’t tell,” Jason said. “I’m not afraid.” “Jason ain’t afraid to go with me,” Nancy said. “Is you, Jason?” “Jason is going to tell,” Caddy said. The lane was dark. We passed the pas- ture gate. “I bet if something was to jump out from behind that gate, Jason would holler.” “I wouldn’t,” Jason said. We walked down the lane. Nancy was talking loud. “What are you talking so loud for, Nancy?” Caddy said. “Who; me?” Nancy said. “Listen at Quentin and Caddy and Jason saying I’m talking loud.” “You talk like there was five of us here,” Caddy said. “You talk like father was here too.” “Who; me talking loud, Mr Jason?” Nancy said. “Nancy called Jason ‘Mister,’ ” Caddy said. “Listen how Caddy and Quentin and Jason talk,” Nancy said. “We’re not talking loud,” Caddy said. “You’re the one that’s talking like father —” “Hush,” Nancy said; “hush, Mr Jason.” “Nancy called Jason ‘Mister’ aguh —” “Hush,” Nancy said. She was talking loud when we crossed the ditch and stooped through the fence where she used to stoop through with the clothes on her head. Then we came to her house. We were going fast then. She opened the door. The smell of the house was like the lamp and the smell of Nancy was

05_6555_pt01_pp0253-0384.indd 330 30/05/14 10:26 AM 10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The

Story and Its Writer, Compact

That Evening Sun 331

like the wick, like they were waiting for one another to begin to smell. She lit the lamp and closed the door and put the bar up. Then she quit talking loud, looking at us. “What’re we going to do?” Caddy said. “What do yawl want to do?” Nancy said. “You said we would have some fun,” Caddy said. There was something about Nancy’s house; something you could smell besides Nancy and the house. Jason smelled it, even. “I don’t want to stay here,” he said. “I want to go home.” “Go home, then,” Caddy said. “I don’t want to go by myself,” Jason said. “We’re going to have some fun,” Nancy said. “How?” Caddy said. Nancy stood by the door. She was looking at us, only it was like she had emp- tied her eyes, like she had quit using them. “What do you want to do?” she said. “Tell us a story,” Caddy said. “Can you tell a story?” “Yes,” Nancy said. “Tell it,” Caddy said. We looked at Nancy. “You don’t know any stories.” “Yes,” Nancy said. “Yes, I do.” She came and sat in a chair before the hearth. There was a little fire there. Nancy built it up, when it was already hot inside. She built a good blaze. She told a story. She talked like her eyes looked, like her eyes watching us and her voice talking to us did not belong to her. Like she was living somewhere else, waiting somewhere else. She was outside the cabin. Her voice was inside and the shape of her, the Nancy that could stoop under a barbed wire fence with a bundle of clothes balanced on her head as though without weight, like a bal- loon, was there. But that was all. “And so this here queen come walking up to the ditch, where that bad man was hiding. She was walking up to the ditch, and she say, ‘If I can just get past this here ditch,’ was what she say . . .” “What ditch?” Caddy said. “A ditch like that one out there? Why did a queen want to go into a ditch?” “To get to her house,” Nancy said. She looked at us. “She had to cross the ditch to get into her house quick and bar the door.” “Why did she want to go home and bar the door?” Caddy said.

IV

Nancy looked at us. She quit talking. She looked at us. Jason’s legs stuck straight out of his pants where he sat on Nancy’s lap. “I don’t think that’s a good story,” he said. “I want to go home.” “Maybe we had better,” Caddy said. She got up from the floor. “I bet they are looking for us right now.” She went toward the door. “No,” Nancy said. “Don’t open it.” She got up quick and passed Caddy. She didn’t touch the door, the wooden bar. “Why not?” Caddy said. “Come back to the lamp,” Nancy said. “We’ll have fun. You don’t have to go.”

05_6555_pt01_pp0253-0384.indd 331 30/05/14 10:26 AM 10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The

Story and Its Writer, Compact

332 W I L L I A M F A U L K N E r

“We ought to go,” Caddy said. “Unless we have a lot of fun.” She and Nancy came back to the fire, the lamp. “I want to go home,” Jason said. “I’m going to tell.” “I know another story,” Nancy said. She stood close to the lamp. She looked at Caddy, like when your eyes look up at a stick balanced on your nose. She had to look down to see Caddy, but her eyes looked like that, like when you are balancing a stick. “I won’t listen to it,” Jason said. “I’ll bang on the floor.” “It’s a good one,” Nancy said. “It’s better than the other one.” “What’s it about?” Caddy said. Nancy was standing by the lamp. Her hand was on the lamp, against the light, long and brown. “Your hand is on that hot globe,” Caddy said. “Don’t it feel hot to your hand?” Nancy looked at her hand on the lamp chimney. She took her hand away, slow. She stood there, looking at Caddy, wringing her long hand as though it were tied to her wrist with a string. “Let’s do something else,” Caddy said. “I want to go home,” Jason said. “I got some popcorn,” Nancy said. She looked at Caddy and then at Jason and then at me and then at Caddy again. “I got some popcorn.” “I don’t like popcorn,” Jason said. “I’d rather have candy.” Nancy looked at Jason. “You can hold the popper.” She was still wringing her hand; it was long and limp and brown. “All right,” Jason said. “I’ll stay a while if I can do that. Caddy can’t hold it. I’ll want to go home again if Caddy holds the popper.” Nancy built up the fire. “Look at Nancy putting her hands in the fire,” Caddy said. “What’s the matter with you, Nancy?” “I got popcorn,” Nancy said. “I got some.” She took the popper from under the bed. It was broken. Jason began to cry. “Now we can’t have any popcorn,” he said. “We ought to go home, anyway,” Caddy said. “Come on, Quentin.” “Wait,” Nancy said; “wait. I can fix it. Don’t you want to help me fix it?” “I don’t think I want any,” Caddy said. “It’s too late now.” “You help me, Jason,” Nancy said. “Don’t you want to help me?” “No,” Jason said. “I want to go home.” “Hush,” Nancy said; “hush. Watch. Watch me. I can fix it so Jason can hold it and pop the corn.” She got a piece of wire and fixed the popper. “It won’t hold good,” Caddy said. “Yes, it will,” Nancy said. “Yawl watch. Yawl help me shell some corn.” The popcorn was under the bed too. We shelled it into the popper and Nancy helped Jason hold the popper over the fire. “It’s not popping,” Jason said. “I want to go home.” “You wait,” Nancy said. “It’ll begin to pop. We’ll have fun then.” She was sitting close to the fire. The lamp was turned up so high it was beginning to smoke. “Why don’t you turn it down some?” I said.

05_6555_pt01_pp0253-0384.indd 332 30/05/14 10:26 AM 10/22/2015 - RS0000000000000000000000115248 (New User) - The

Story and Its Writer, Compact

That Evening Sun 333

“It’s all right,” Nancy said. “I’ll clean it. Yawl wait. The popcorn will start in a minute.” “I don’t believe it’s going to start,” Caddy said. “We ought to start home, anyway. They’ll be worried.” “No,” Nancy said. “It’s going to pop. Dilsey will tell um yawl with me. I been working for yawl long time. They won’t mind if yawl at my house. You wait, now. It’ll start popping any minute now.” Then Jason got some smoke in his eyes and he began to cry. He dropped the popper into the fire. Nancy got a wet rag and wiped Jason’s face, but he didn’t stop crying. “Hush,” she said. “Hush.” But he didn’t hush. Caddy took the popper out of the fire. “It’s burned up,” she said. “You’ll have to get some more popcorn, Nancy.” “Did you put all of it in?” Nancy said. “Yes,” Caddy said. Nancy looked at Caddy. Then she took the popper and opened it and poured the cinders into her apron and began to sort the grains, her hands long and brown, and we watching her. “Haven’t you got any more?” Caddy said. “Yes,” Nancy said; “yes. Look. This here ain’t burnt. All we need to do is —” “I want to go home,” Jason said. “I’m going to tell.” “Hush,” Caddy said. We all listened. Nancy’s head was already turned toward the barred door, her eyes filled with red lamplight. “Somebody is com- ing,” Caddy said. Then Nancy began to make that sound again, not loud, sitting there above the fire, her long hands dangling between her knees; all of a sudden water began to come out on her face in big drops, running down her face, carrying in each one a little turning ball of firelight like a spark until it dropped off her chin. “She’s not crying,” I said. “I ain’t crying,” Nancy said. Her eyes were closed. “I ain’t crying. Who is it?” “I don’t know,” Caddy said. She went to the door and looked out. “We’ve got to go now,” she said. “Here comes father.” “I’m going to tell,” Jason said. “Yawl made me come.” The water still ran down Nancy’s face. She turned in her chair. “Listen. Tell him. Tell him we going to have fun. Tell him I take good care of yawl until in the morning. Tell him to let me come home with yawl and sleep on the floor. Tell him I won’t need no pallet. We’ll have fun. You member last time how we had so much fun?” “I didn’t have fun,” Jason said. “You hurt me. You put smoke in my eyes. I’m going to tell.”