University of Virginia Library

The Textual Development of William Faulkner's "Wash": An Examination of Manuscripts in the Brodsky Collection
by
Louis Daniel Brodsky

On my discovery of the materials on which this article is based, it seemed plausible that they had remained in the same sequences Faulkner had given them almost fifty years before. Three distinct groups of manuscripts, each secured by and separated from each other with contemporary squarish paper clips, were all enclosed in an accordian-like, terra-cotta-hued pocket folder with flap and cloth ties.[1] One set of gatherings, carrying the twice-lined-through title "Wash," consisted of eight numbered holograph pages, 10frac1516 x 8½ inches, in Faulkner's fastidious blue-ink scrawl; all eight sheets were characterized by black horizontal and vertical margin rules and no watermarks. A second set of holograph leaves, also entitled "Wash," comprised twelve pages of similarly margined and unwatermarked 10frac1516 x 8½ inch paper. A third sheaf consisted of twenty-two numbered pages of ribbon typescript on Howard Bond watermarked paper, 10⅞ x 8⅜ inches, the first page of which bore the title "Wash" and the typed superscription in the upper left-hand margin: "William Faulkner | Oxford, Mississippi". Unfortunately, nowhere on any of the holographic or typescript sheets was the date of composition recorded.

On closer scrutiny, the assumption that these materials had been left just as William Faulkner must have arranged them before clipping and inserting them into the folder became more probable; all pages of the typescript, numbered 1-22 at the bottom of each page, were in perfect order. All eight pages of one holograph version of the short story ran in perfect sequence, with the exception that the first page carried the pagination of both numerals "1" and "2", the numeral "2" being superimposed over the numeral "1", causing the sequence of this draft to run in the following manner: "2(ov. 1)", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9". This draft will subsequently be referred to as the "Revised Complete Holograph."[2] Finally, the remaining holographic group of twelve pages also appeared to be in sequential order, despite the fact that there was a preponderance of similarly-paginated leaves. The sequence of these pages runs as follows: "1", "2", "(2 del.) 3", "3", "4", "5", "5", "6", "7", "(8 del.) 7", "7", "8". Also, from the outset, it was visually evident that this series of pages comprised Faulkner's outtakes, those drafts which had been written, then, supplanted by revised drafts, set aside. Generally, in contradistinction to the eight-page draft (RCH), these pages were characterized by various interlineations, transpositions of entire paragraphs and sentences, deletions, marginal insertions, partial pages containing "false starts." This group will be referred to henceforth as the "Holograph Working Draft."[3]

And in working through the holograph collation which follows, the fundamental assumption was borne out; all twelve pages were indeed in proper sequence, possibly even the order in which Faulkner reworked each page, then neatly discarded it, rendering all the discards or outtakes sequential in their own right. An alternative to this assumption is that even if Faulkner may not have composed his story in a cumulative manner, at some point he apparently ordered the various random drafts in the narrative sequence he intended to impose finally on all the outtakes before clipping and placing them securely into their folder.

Once the actual collation of holographic drafts was undertaken, a number of startling revelations surfaced. Most notably, it seemed clear that Faulkner had in mind from the beginning the essential narrative elements of his story: namely, Wash staying home from the War while Sutpen goes off to fight, then returns to a ruined plantation, a widower, having also lost his son; Wash being turned away from the "Cunnel's" house by a negro servant; Wash drinking with Sutpen on Sundays in the scuppernong arbor, frequently carrying him to bed in a drunken stupor; Wash tending Sutpen's store, discovering the ribbon, then the dress Sutpen gives Wash's granddaughter, confronting Sutpen and being assuaged temporarily; Wash, the proud grandfather, remaining devoted to Sutpen through Milly's "obvious" pregnancy and birthing of a daughter; Wash's blind admiration and trust in Sutpen

right up to the moment of Sutpen's pivotal rejection and debasement of Milly by relegating her to the status of a creature less valuable than a "mare" in a stall; Wash's retaliatory, stark, swift murder of Sutpen with the latter's rusty scythe, and ultimate performing of genocide on his granddaughter and newborn; the climactic conflagration of Wash's "fish-shack" house and his frenzied self-immolation before the posse's bullets.

Yet, despite these apparent "knowns" or "givens," Faulkner demonstrates a decided groping not only for the most dramatic beginning for his tale, but, more significantly, an appropriate setting and dynamically justified motivational urgency for the ending to which he subjects his central protagonist and his foe. That Wash Jones would, by turns, worship, become disenchanted with, then finally murder Sutpen with the scythe seems clear enough; these notions are consistent from draft to draft, typescript to published story. Nor do the circumstances motivating Sutpen's effrontery and Jones's subsequent outrage change decidedly within the evolving story. However, what does change is the location of the revelation by which the information of Sutpen's inhumanity, his outrageous insult to Jones's granddaughter, gets transmitted to Wash Jones. This transmission of information and the revised mode of discovery are what affect the aesthetic choices from which Faulkner finally selects for his beginning and for the climax of the short story "Wash."

One of the essential questions with which Faulkner, as story teller, had to grapple was how and where he should apply the emphasis for the central scene (that of Sutpen's relegating Jones's granddaughter to a level beneath that of a "mare" in a stable), from which Wash Jones emerges to set in motion a triple homicide. Should the immediate focus be placed on Wash or on Sutpen? And, in either case, where should the initial action of the story take place and when? An understanding of these choices, and of how Faulkner arrived at them, becomes available through close study of the various manuscript drafts of "Wash."

Initially, Faulkner seems to have had two basic notions regarding emphasis on character and place and time, and he tried them both in alternative introductory settings. In one conception, he would introduce Wash Jones and relate in relatively chronological fashion a narrative spanning twenty years. This he attempted to do on page "2(ov. 1)" of the RCH, beginning: "He did not go away to fight the Yankees." Interestingly, he struck the entire first paragraph, as well as his working title, "Wash." It seems likely that Faulkner then set this sheet aside, penned the title "Wash" once more on a clean sheet, and began anew with what eventually became page "1" of the HWD, marking the shift from time past to time immediate with the following opening sentence: "He was probably watching, hidden, when Sutpen walked out of the house that a.m."

However, Faulkner apparently soon discovered the need for his narrative to revert to earlier events, rather than treating either the immediate reason for Wash's "hidden" presence or Sutpen's leaving his own house so early on a Sunday morning; a Sunday the reader will soon learn is time immediate, the very immediate present in which Sutpen and Wash will confront each

other for the last time. Having written all of page "1" and partially into page "2" of the HWD, it seems Faulkner then discarded these pages and returned to his original page "1" (RCH); then, presumably because he had already written two pages of outtakes, "1" and "2" (HWD), he superimposed a "2" over the "1" (RCH), reinstating, also, the cancelled title as well as the initial paragraph which he had formerly emphatically lined out, and set about telling the narrative in more or less chronological manner. Thus, Faulkner had decidedly opted to place the emphasis almost completely on Wash instead of on Sutpen. The central event, undeveloped as it was in the first page of the HWD, would not be finally arrived at and revealed until page "6" in both the RCH and the HWD.

As one proceeds through the various discarded sheets, Faulkner's technique of composition begins to clarify itself; it appears that he would write as far as he could before realizing the existence of a specific problem, then take up a new sheet, number it similarly, and, usually, begin again with the material which had begun the discarded sheet, always trying to filter in and retain in the newer version whatever of the previous material he might still find instrumental before heading off in a new direction. This process appears to be one characterized by advancement and retreat, regrouping, then charging forward again. Such is the case, for example, as Faulkner composed "(2 del.)3" of the HWD; sensing his direction was inappropriate as he finished writing the last paragraph on the page, he vigorously lined it completely out, began to develop his thought again on a clean sheet (page "3" HWD), and stopped. In the first abandoned paragraph, as in the first one on the clean sheet, Faulkner found himself describing a scene in which Wash "looked down at the quilt pallet on which his granddaughter lay with a newborn child." Faulkner, compellingly aware that his timing for the introduction of this information was premature, took up another clean sheet, and, this time, omitting the entire scene in which Wash encounters his granddaughter and her newborn, recycled in more compressed form the material he had fashioned on page "(2 del.)3" of the HWD. In fact, he even started the clean sheet with the exact sentence that began the discarded sheet: "a man whose own company bored him."

However, Faulkner did pick up and retain one strand from the "postponed" material; in both discarded paragraphs, the transition employed was a temporal one. On page "(2 del.)3" (HWD), the opening sentence reads: "And even 5 years later, when . . ." On page "3" (HWD), the unused paragraph opens: "5 years later, . . ." Catching his stride and timing, Faulkner realized he must further develop the relationship between Sutpen and Wash. Having described Sutpen's return to the ruined plantation on page "3" (RCH), Faulkner wrote: "That was the tenor of their talk for the next 5 years." This picks up the initial transitional strand while keeping the narrative in line. In fact, the abandoned narrative scene does appear in the RCH, but not until page "6": "He entered the house. He moved clumsily. . . . But even above the pallet he could see little save the blur of his granddaughter's exhausted face in a frame of hair." Ultimately, what one discovers

in working through all the drafts is that most of what Faulkner conceived, if temporarily deleted, would eventually find its way back into the narrative, either as a germ or in expanded form. So often, Faulkner simply had to wait for the elements to coalesce, then pause briefly on his own aesthetic judgment to locate them in a more appropriate temporal and dramatic context.

On the other hand, one major substantive change that does occur in moving from the HWD to the RCH seems actually to hark back, perhaps, to one of the initial notions which Faulkner experienced when he considered beginning the story with Sutpen leaving his house on that fated Sunday morning. Faulkner tells the reader on page "1" (HWD) that Wash was "probably watching, hidden, when Sutpen walked out of the house that a.m." The operative word here is "hidden"; indeed, it may even be the "creative synapse," that linkage or junction point at which intuition, imagination, conception, and the rudiments of execution conjoin for any author. At this inchoate point, Faulkner, quite possibly, may have had flash across his imaginative screen, or envisioned inexorably the fundamental insight on which the entire story would turn. Principally, the germ of that word, "hidden," actually may have contained for Faulkner hints not only of the murder to come but the inherent notion of Wash's flight from the scene of the crime. Foreshadowed in this first sentence, in this key word, may have been all the main events antecedent to the story's originally-conceived climax.

And even after Faulkner decided against initially disclosing the convulsive climactic murder, which surely he recognized would destroy the dramatic tension of his narrative, shifting instead to a straightforward relation of events focusing on Wash mainly, rather than on Sutpen, Faulkner did eventually develop his original vision in which Wash, having indeed committed the balefully foreshadowed murder, does flee. In the first of three separate attempts to delineate Wash's flight from the crime scene (pages "7", "(8 del.) 7", "7", and "8" HWD), Faulkner writes: "He was lying hidden now . . . he was safe enough there, back in the swamp then at the site of an abandoned sawmill, . . ." (the first page "7" of the HWD). Here he imagined the men with their horses and dogs and guns coming to hunt him down. All three versions of page "7" in the HWD stipulate that Wash hides carefully the scythe because he might have use for it again, and contain qualifying statements to reassure the reader that Wash is not fleeing: "as tho the act itself symbolised the fact that he was not fleeing." From the outset, it appears that Faulkner had ambivalent feelings about the direction and outcome of his character, Wash. Ultimately, the author resolves his dilemma, realizes that he need not attempt to qualify Wash's apparent flight as one motivated by cowardice; he aborts these attempts completely. Matter-of-factly, finishing the scene in which Wash annihilates Sutpen by having the murderer reenter the fish shack, Faulkner drops altogether the concept of having Wash flee and take refuge in the abandoned sawmill in the swamp. This strategy is clearly arrived at after intensive working through of the alternative scenario.

Its presence allows the story to progress inexorably toward its intended dénouement without ambivalent or inconsistent character developments.

Tangential to these matters is the slightly more perplexing existence of the 22-page ribbon typescript that accompanied these holograph manuscripts. For one thing, even though there are approximately 138 presumable editorial revisions in the print which distinguish this typescript version from the one published in the February, 1934 issue of Harper's Magazine, the two versions are almost identical substantively. In almost all cases, the published changes amount to what seem to be the magazine editor's alterations in the accidentals and minor substantives, such as: correcting typographical errors; occasional transpositions of words, providing omitted letters or punctuation marks (most notably, commas, apostrophes, periods, hyphens, and double quotation marks in place of single marks); replacement of indefinite pronouns with specific referents; and, occasionally, the supplying of a lapsed word. Because these corrections exist nowhere on the pages of this 22-page typescript, it would seem unlikely that this specific ribbon manuscript served as the setting copy for the published version.

However, this 22-page typescript is not identical with the 8-page RCH; although with one major exception it does not deviate narratively, many of its sentences and phrases evidence further revisionary tightening, rewording to heighten and intensify the texture of the prose context. The following five corresponding passages from the RCH and 22-page typescript both exemplify and typify the revisionary compression and heightening to which Faulkner subjected his prose as it progressed toward a finished state:

At this point, it is worth postulating a theory relative to the existence of this 22-page typescript. Namely, from the comprehensive nature of the "adjustments" Faulkner made in his syntax and grammar, diction and imagery, it seems highly plausible that there may have been an intervening holograph or typescript draft which advanced the story from the RCH toward this 22-page script typed by Faulkner. Of utmost significance in this extant typescript is the two-page "set-piece" which, at some point after completing his story in manuscript, Faulkner conceived and added to the story's ultimate beginning. The scene in which Sutpen stands above the pallet on which Milly and her new-born child lie is redolent of Faulkner's earliest intuition of having Sutpen exit from his house, with Wash, hidden, watching him; it seems to return to the original alternative of focusing on Sutpen, rather than on Wash, after all, to heighten the starkness of his cruelty. Only now, Wash is not watching Sutpen, but listening to him while tending to his horse just outside the fish shack in which Sutpen monstrously refuses to claim paternity of the girl he has sired by Wash's granddaughter, Milly Jones. This same passage also transposes and intensifies dramatically the similar scene described on page "6" of both the RCH and the HWD. Clearly, Faulkner's intention is to bring the reader into the most immediate time possible, and make him not only aware of the central dilemma Wash has had to contend with, but actually to make the reader a participant in the crisis with Wash as the story unfolds. In the process, Faulkner also successfully fractures the otherwise rather straightforward chronology of the narrative.

Although this event will still be narrated as it had been in both the RCH and the HWD, its inclusion as a dramatic "set-piece" in the beginning of the story helps create an active, rather than a passive telling of the event; although related omnisciently in all three instances, it now achieves a directness that the reader must carry with him throughout the entire unfolding of the drama. A visual review of this typescript would seem to preclude the notion that Faulkner, in a flash of inspiration, had hit upon the idea of the "set-piece" scene and composed it directly onto the paper. The first two pages are typed too cleanly; there are relatively few typographical mistakes. Yet, the one instance of lengthy holographic correction at the end of the "set-piece" (page "2"), in which Faulkner compresses two sentences into one, indeed might suggest the likelihood of there having been another typescript

precedent to this one; one which contained the "new" beginning for the first time, while advancing the previously-worked prose one more stage beyond the limits reached in the RCH. That this conceivable typescript did not exist with the other drafts in the pocket folder may have been the result of Faulkner's having given it as a gift to someone at some time prior to his finally presenting the three drafts in the Brodsky Collection to Professor James W. Silver in the mid-Fifties.

To facilitate use of the comparison of the two holograph drafts which follow immediately below, I have resorted to placing a bracketed letter beside each page number in both the HWD and the RCH; running from A through T, each letter places its corresponding page in the sequence in which presumably Faulkner originally composed "Wash." Also, square brackets containing material followed by the phrase "del." have been employed for denoting words, sentences, and entire paragraphs that were deleted in the evolutionary process of composing "Wash." Square brackets also are used with the term "MARGIN:" to encapsulate words and sentences which had been cribbed into the inner left margin of the writing paper; materials which Faulkner obviously intended to be interpolated into the narrative at a particular juncture by means of a line drawn from the marginal entry to that point of insertion in the text. Square brackets containing the phrase "illeg." are used sparingly to justify exclusion of a recalcitrant letter or word. Angle brackets have been designated to denote interlineated words and phrases; these usually occur where Faulkner was merely replacing one word above another which he had struck through.

In addition to the holograph drafts, I have included a complete transcription of Faulkner's 22-page typescript of "Wash." It contains an internal collation of the alterations the author himself made in the script both by pen and typewriter. The complete transcription, printed here exactly as Faulkner typed it, is followed by a separate, external collation keyed to the February, 1934 issue of Harper's Magazine in which "Wash" was first published.

The comparison of the two extant holograph manuscript drafts of the story "Wash" and the transcription of the 22-page typescript which follow vividly illuminate the evolutionary creative process of composition Faulkner experienced in developing this story. Above all, they highlight and underscore the fastidious and methodical concentration Faulkner gave to detail and narrative consistency and character development; they demonstrate a marvelous architectonic devotion to texture and structure. They do, in fact, expose the author's superstructure and fretwork simultaneously, and, as such, remain as blueprints which provide a unique opportunity to see from without the inner workings of a masterbuilder.

         

Holograph Working Draft	Revised Complete Holograph
(Page) "1" [A] Wash ======================== [He was probably watching, hidden, when Sutpen walked out of the house that a.m. He may have been in the scuppernong arbor, where he and Sutpen often sat with a pail of spring water and a demi-john between them. Thru the long, empty, barren, bitter afternoons of the 4 summers since 1865; until at last [he would practically carry Sutpen into the house and del.] Sutpen would reach that state of impotent undefeat [where, swaying, plunging, he would del.] when he would rise, swaying and plunging, — an old man, 58 in years but 10 years older thru [illeg.] marching on his violent dream —and declare again that he would take his pistol and horse and ride singlehanded into Washington and kill Lincoln, already dead, and Sherman, now a private citizen with a monument in New York city. "Kill them!" he would shout. "Shoot them down like dogs, the —" del.]
[That was the end. A moment later Wash would practically carry him into the house del.]	(Page) "2(ov. 1)" [C]
["Sho, Colonel; sho, Colonel," Wash would say, catching Sutpen as he fell. del.]	========================= [Wash del.]
He did not go away to fight the Yankees. "I got a daughter <and family> to keep up," he told anyone who would ask him, [MARGIN: especially to the negroes on the Sutpen place.] "I aint got no niggers to take care of mine. [MARGIN: like some have.]" Then the thot seemed to strike him: a thot gleeful and vindictive: "I aint got no niggers to lose." "Nor nothing else but dat shack down yon in de slough dat Cunnel wouldn't leave none of us live in," the slave would reply; whereupon Wash—a gaunt man, appearing without age, tho the father of a woman with an 8 year old girl child—would glare and curse the negro house servant, who never looked at him, laughing, until the white man rushed at the black, sometimes grasping up a stick, whereupon the negro would retreat,	[He did not go away to fight the Yankees. "I'm looking after Colonel Sutpen's place and niggers," he would tell those who asked —a gaunt, malariaridden man with pale, questioning eyes, who [might have been any age between 35 and 50, tho it was known that he del.] looked to be about [40 del.] <35>, tho it was known about the countryside that he had not only a grown daughter but an 8 year-old granddaughter. del.] Which was a lie, as most of those — the few remaining men between 18 and 50 — to whom he told it knew, [particularly the Sutpen slaves themselves del.] tho there were some who believed that he really believed it, tho these also believed that he had better sense than to put it to the test with Mrs Supen or the Sutpen slaves. Knew better, or was just too lazy to attempt it, they said,

     

Holograph Working Draft	Revised Complete Holograph
still laughing. Sometimes, as time went on and bitter news began to come down from the Tennessee mountains and from Vicksburg in the west and then Sherman passed thru the plantation itself and most of the slaves followed him, this would occur in the very back yard of the big house itself. There the negro would retreat up the kitchen steps and turn again in the door. "Stop right dar, man. Stop right whar you is. You aint never crossed dese steps when Cunnel here, and you aint ghy do it now."	knowing that his sole connection with the Sutpen plantation lay in the fact that Colonel Sutpen had for years allowed him to squat in a crazy shack on a slough in the river bottom on the Sutpen place, which Sutpen had built for a fishing lodge in his [younger del.] [MARGIN: bachelor] days and [abandoned del.] which had since fallen into disuse and dilapidation until now it looked like an aged or sick wild beast crawled terrifically there to drink [before dying del.] in the act of dying.
This was true. [He had never tried to enter the house del.] But there was this of a sort of pride: he had never tried to enter the house, tho he believed that Sutpen himself would permit him. "I aint going to give no black nigger the chance to tell me I cant go nowhere,' he told himself. 'I aint even going to give Cunnel the chance to have to cuss a nigger on my account'; tho he and Sutpen had spent many an afternoon together; usually on a Sunday when there were no company in the house. Perhaps his mind knew even then that Sutpen condescended so thru boredom. [MARGIN: thru lack of that companionship of what [illeg.] half thot of as the Colonel: squatting alone] Yet the fact remained that the 2 of them would spend whole p.m.s in the scuppernong arbor, [He del.] Sutpen in the [single del.] hammock and Wash squatting against a post, a pail of spring water between them, taking drink for drink from the same demijohn. Meanwhile on week days, he would [see del.] <watch del.> <watch> the fine figure of the man [MARGIN:—they were almost the same age to a day, tho none, including themselves (perhaps because while Wash had a grandchild, Sutpen's oldest child was still in school.) would have known it—] on the fine figure of a black thoroughbred galloping about the plantation, [with a pride in which there was very little envy. Yet with actual pride for Wash had never ever found it necessary to think in [illeg.]. If God was on this earth, that's what he would be like. He once thot: 'A fine proud man.'; thinking too, [illeg.] a little now, seeming to come about him, impotent, the ridicule and laughter of negros: 'I'm a proud man too.' del.] <and for the moment his	The Sutpen slaves themselves heard of his statement. They laughed. It was not the first time they had laughed at him, calling him white trash behind his back. [one da del.] They began to ask him themselves, in groups, [MARGIN: a ring of black faces and white eyes and teeth [illeg.] for laughing del.] meeting him in the [field del.] faint road which led up from the bayou and the old fish camp. "Why aint you at de war, white folks?" Pausing, he looked quick, defensive about the ring of black faces and white eyes and teeth behind which derision lurked. "Because I got a daughter and family to keep," he said. "Git out of my way, niggers." "Niggers?" they repeated. "Niggers?" laughing now. "Who him, calling us niggers?" "Yes," he said. "I aint got no niggers to look after my folks when I'm gone." "Nor nothing else but dat shack down yon dat Cunnel wouldn't let none of us live in." Now he cursed them; sometimes, goaded so, he rushed at them, grasping a stick up from the ground while they scattered before him, tho seeming to surround him still with that black laughing derisive, evasive, inescapable. Once it occurred in the very back yard of the big house itself. This was after bitter news had come down from the Tennessee mountains and from Vicksburg in the west, and Sherman had passed thru the plantation and most of the negros had followed him. Almost everything else went with the Federal troops and Mrs Sutpen sent word to Wash that he could have the scuppernongs

     

Holograph Working Draft	Revised Complete Holograph
heart would be quiet and proud del.> And for the moment his heart would be quiet and proud. It would seem to him that that world in which negroes, whom the bible said were [beasts of burden del.] [MARGIN: doomed to be the servants of men of white skin] were better found and housed than himself, in which he sensed always about him [illeg.] and ridiculing echoes of black laughter, was but a dream and that the actual world was this across which his own (Page) 2 [B] lonely apotheosis seemed to gallop free upon the black horse, thinking how the bible said too that man was made in the image of God, and hence all men were in the same image, [thinking del.] thus quieting his heart so that he could say as tho speaking of himself: 'A fine proud man. If God [rode the natural earth, that is what He would want to look like.' del.] himself <was to> come down to ride the natural earth, that's what He would aim to look like.'	from the arbor. This time it was a house servant, one of the few negros who remained and hence privileged. This time the negro had to retreat up the kitchen steps, where she paused and turned. "Stop right dar, man. Stop right whar you is. You aint crossed dese steps when Cunnel here, and you aint ghy do it now." This was true. But there was [of del.] this of a kind of pride: he had never tried to enter the big house, tho he believed that if he had, Sutpen would have permitted him. 'But I aint going to give no black nigger the chance to tell me I cant go nowhere,' he used to tell himself. 'I aint ever going to give Kernal the chance to have to cuss a nigger on my account.' This, tho he and Sutpen had spent more than one p.m. together, on those rare Sundays when there would be no company in the house. Perhaps his mind knew even then that it was because Sutpen had nothing else to do, being
(Page) "(2 del.) 3" [D] a man whose own company bored him. Yet the fact remained that the 2 of them would spend whole p.ms [together del.] in the scuppernong arbor, Sutpen in the hammock and Wash squatting against a post, a pail of spring water between them, taking drink for drink from the same demijohn. Meanwhile on week days he would watch the fine figure of the man —they were the same age almost to a day, tho neither of them (perhaps because Wash had a grandchild while [his del.] Sutpen's oldest child was still in school) [knew it del.] thot it —on the fine figure of a black thoroughbred galloping about the plantation. [And del.] <Then del.> For that moment his heart would be quiet and proud. It would seem to him that that world in which negroes, whom the Bible told him were cursed [MARGIN: and created] by God to be the inferior of all men of white skin, were better found and housed than he and his blood — that world in which he sensed always about him [ec del.] mocking echoes of black laughter —was but a dream and an illusion, and that the actual world was this across which his own lonely apotheosis seemed to gallop on the black horse, thinking how the Book [said del.] also	(Page) "3" [F] a man whose own company bored him. Yet the fact remained that the 2 of them would spend whole p.ms. in the scuppernong arbor, Sutpen in the hammock and Wash squatting against a post, a pail of [spring del.] [well water between del.] cistern water between them, taking drink for drink from the same demijohn. Meanwhile on week days he would watch the fine figure of the man —they were the same age almost to a day, tho neither of them (perhaps because Wash had a grandchild while Sutpen's oldest child was a youth in school) thot [it del.] of themselves as being so —on the fine figure of a black [thoroughbred del.] <stallion> galloping about the plantation. For that moment his heart would be quiet and proud. It would seem to him that that world in which negroes, whom the Bible told him had been created and cursed by God to be brute and vassal to all men of white skin, were better found and housed and even clothed than him and his — that world in which he sensed always about him mocking echoes of black laughing — was but a dream and an illusion, and that the actual world was this one across which his own lonely apotheosis seemed to gallop on the black thoroughbred, thinking

     

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said how man was made in God's own image and hence all men had the same image in the eyes of God at least, so that he could say, as tho speaking of himself: "A fine proud man. If Go Himself was to come down and ride the natural earth, that's what He would aim to look like."	how the Book said also that all men were created in the image of God and hence all men made the same image in God's eyes at least; so that he could say, as tho speaking of himself: "A fine proud man. If God Himself was to come down and ride the natural earth, that's what He would aim to look like."
[When in 1865 Sutpen came home, looking like he had aged 10 years, wifeless and sonless [the son had been killed in action] [MARGIN: [and del.] <then> his wife had died of a combination of pneumonia and grief in the same year del.] bringing with him nothing but his saber and the black horse and finding a ruined plantation and a daughter who had been living [by the bounty of a few negroes. del.] Wash was there to meet him. "Well, Kernel," he said, "they kilt us but they aint whupped us yit, air they?" del.] When in 1865 Sutpen returned home, looking 10 years older, [wifeless del.] a widower [and sonle del.] (his wife had died of pneumonia the same winter in which his son was killed in action) bringing with him nothing but his [saber del.] [MARGIN: citation for gallantry signed by General Lee] and the black thoroughbred, finding a ruined plantation and a daughter who had been subsisting partially on the meagre bounty of the man to whom 15 years ago he had granted the use of a tumbledown fishcamp whose very existence he had at the time forgotten, Wash was there to meet him. ------------------------ "Well, Kernel," Wash said, "they kilt us but they aint whupped us yit, air they?" ------------------------ [And even 5 years later, when on the graying dawn he looked down at the quilt pallet on which his granddaughter lay with a newborn child, his heart was still quiet. An old negro woman had tended the girl (she was just 17) [and the negress, [now sq del.] her duty done, now squatted above the rusted slip scraps which served them for warmth, putting a coal into her pipe del.] tho for the time he had forgot her presence as he looked down at the wan, spent face of his granddaughter and the del.]	Sutpen returned in 1865, [bringing with him del.] on the black [thoroughbred del.] <stallion>, the 2 of them looking 10 years older. His son had been killed in action in the same winter in which his wife had died; he returned [to a del.] with his citation for gallantry at the hand of General Lee to a ruined plantation, where for a year now his daughter had subsisted partially on the [bounty del.] meagre bounty of the man to whom 15 years ago he had granted permission to squat in a tumbledown fish camp whose very existence he had at the time forgotten. Wash was there to meet him. "Well, Kernel," Wash said, "they kilt us but they aint whupped us yit, air they?" That was the tenor of their talk for the next 5 years. It was inferior whiskey which they drank together now, and it was not in the scuppernong arbor [: del.]. It was in the rear of the tiny store which Sutpen had contrived to set up on the highroad: a frame [room del.] shelved room where, with Wash for clerk, he dispensed meagrely kerosene and staple food and stale gaudy [candy del.] [a del.] sweets and cheap beads and ribbons to negroes [and del.] <or> poor whites [stock del.] of Wash's [kind del.] own kind, who came afoot to haggle tediously [with them del.] for dimes and quarters with the man who at one time could gallop (Sutpen still had the black stallion; the stable in which the stallion's [get [illeg.] del.] jealous get lived was in better repair than the house where the owner lived) for 10 miles on his own fertile land who had led troops gallantly in battle, until Sutpen in fury would empty the store, close and lock the doors from the inside. Then he and Wash would repair to the rear and the jug. But the talk would not be quiet now, as when Sutpen lay in the hammock [talking del.] delivering [a monologue del.] an arrogant monologue while Wash squatted guffawing against his

     

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(Page) "3" [E] 5 years later, <when> in a gray dawn he looked down at the quilt pallet on which his granddaughter, now 17, lay with a newborn child, his heart was still quiet. An old negro woman had officiated; she now stooped above the rusted slip scraps which served them for warmth, [and cast del.] lifting a coal into her pipe. He watched her as she [began to del.] puffed the pipe into life. "Well?" he said. He spoke harsher than he intended, because he would have to ask her, a negro, to wait for her money. "Will she —hit —Will they be all right now?" "Dat's for [Him del.] Lord to say," the negress answered. "I done all I kin."	post. They both sat now, tho Sutpen had the single chair while Wash used whatever box or keg was handy, and this for just a little while because soon Sutpen would reach that stage of impotent undefeat [and [illeg.] del.] when he would rise, swaying and plunging, and declare again that he would take his pistol and the black stallion [(now a year dead) del.] and ride singlehanded into Washington and kill Lincoln, [also del.] dead now, and Sherman, now a private citizen. "Kill them!" he would shout. "Shoot them down like dogs —" "Sho, Kernel; sho, Kernel," Wash would say, catching Sutpen as he fell. Then he would commandeer the first passing wagon, or lacking that, he would walk a mile down the road and borrow one and take
(Page) "4" [G] Sutpen home. He entered the house now. He had been doing so for some years, taking Sutpen home thus, actually carrying him, talking him into locomotion with cajoling murmurs as tho he almost were a horse, a stallion himself, being met by Sutpen's daughter who without a word would hold open the door for them to enter. He would carry his [half wit del.] burden through a once white [doorw del.] entrance [surrounded by a fanlight del.] surmounted by a fanlight imported piece by piece from France and with a board now nailed over a missing pane, across a velvet carpet from which all knap was now gone, and up a stairway where carpet, runner, was now but a fading ghost of bare board between 2 strips of fading paint, and into a bedroom. It was usually dusk by now and he would help his burden to sprawl onto the bed and straighten its legs and then he would sit quietly in a chair beside it. After a time the daughter would come to the door. "Nome," Wash would tell her. "We're all right. Dont you worry none." Then it would be dark and after a while he would lie on the floor beside the bed, tho not to sleep, because after a time — maybe before midnight — the man in the bed would stir. "Wash?" Sutpen would say. "Hyer I am, Kernel. You go back to sleep. We aint whupped yit. Me and you kin do hit."	(Page) "4" [H] Sutpen home. He entered the house now. He had been doing so for some years, taking Sutpen home in whatever borrowed wagon, talking him into locomotion with cajoling murmurs as tho he were a horse, a stallion himself. The daughter would meet them and hold <open> the paintless door without a word. He would carry his burden thru the once white formal entrance surmounted by a fanlight [brot del.] imported piece by piece from Europe and with a board now nailed over a missing pane, across a velvet carpet from which all nap was gone, and up a formal stair where carpet, runner, was now but a fading ghost of bare boards between 2 strips of fading paint, and into the bedroom. It would be dusk by now and he would help his burden to sprawl onto the bed and undress it and then he would sit quietly in a chair beside. After a time the daughter would enter. "We're all right now," Wash would say. "Dont you worry none, Miss Judith." Then it would be dark and after a while he would lie on the floor beside the bed, tho not to sleep, because after a time — [per del.] sometimes before midnight — the man on the bed would stir: "Wash?" "Hyer I am, Kernel. You go back to sleep. We aint whupped yit, air we. Me and you kin do hit."

   

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That is what he thot when he saw the first ribbon on his granddaughter. She was now a girl of 15, already mature, after the way of her kind. He knew where the ribbon came from, even if the girl had lied about where she got it, which she did not. Yet his heart did not surge then with triumph or pride, nor yet with fear. [He was merely quite grave when he approached Sutpen when the store was closed that p.m. del.] He just waited. [until he saw the del.] He didn't try to spy on the girl or Sutpen, not even when after 3 or 4 ["Get the jug, Wash," Sutpen directed. del.] pms, when Sutpen quitted the store in midafternoon, directing him to lock up at sundown. He waited until he saw the new dress, [until she just showed it to him del.] ["Wait," Wash said. "Not yit for a minute." del.] "Miss Judith help me to make hit," she said, almost too quietly. "Sho, now," Wash said. "Hit's right pretty." Then he approached Sutpen, waiting until he had closed the store for the day. "Get the jug." Sutpen directed. "Wait," Wash said. "Not for a minute yit." Neither did Sutpen deny the dress; perhaps he realised it would be fruitless. "What about it?" he said. "I'm 5 [o[ov. 8] del.] <50> years old, Wash. You and me are old men. Too old to [illeg.] any [illeg.], even if I wanted to." "That's hit. Any other man your age would be old. But you air different from other men." "How different?" (Page) "5" [I] Now it was Sutpen who looked away, turning suddenly, almost brusquely. "Get the jug," he said, sharply. "Sho, Kernel," Wash said.

Even then, he had already seen the ribbon about his daughter's waist. She was now 15, already mature, after the way of her kind. He knew where the ribbon came from; he had been seeing it and its kind daily for [4 del.] 3 [superimposed over deleted "4"] years, [He knew now del.] even if she had lied about where she got it, which she did not, with a kind of defiant watchfulness. "Sho now," he said. "Efn Kernel wants to give hit to you, I hope you thanked him." His heart did not surge with triumph or pride, nor yet with fear; not even when he saw the dress, saw her secret, defensive, almost frightened face when she told him that Miss Judith, the daughter, had helped her to make it. He was merely quite grave when he approached Sutpen when he closed the store that p.m. "Get the jug," Sutpen [said del.] directed. "Wait," Wash said. "Not right yit, for a minute." Neither did Sutpen deny the dress. "What about it?" he said. But Wash met his arrogant stare. "I've knowed you going on 20 years. I aint never [yet failed del.] yit denied to do what you told me to. And I'm a man. And she aint nothing but a 15 year old gal." "Meaning that I'd harm a girl? [Me. I'm 50 years old. del.] I, a man more than 50 years old, as old as you are?" "If you was any other, I would say you was as old as me. And old or no old, I wouldn't let her keep that dress or nothing else that came from you. But you are different." "How different? But the other never looked at him with his pale, questioning, [illeg. del.] sober eyes. ["Then, if I am different, what are you afraid of del.] "So that's why you are afraid of me?" [Now Wash's gaze no longer questioned. It was tranquil, serene. "I aint afraid. Because you air brave. Hit dont need no ticket from

     

   

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There were some, negroes, others poor whites like himself, who believed that Wash was watching his granddaughter's presently changing shape with triumph and even glee. "Wash Jones has fixed old Sutpen at last," they said. "Hit taken him 20 years, but he has done hit at last."	General Lee for me to know that. And I know that whatever you handle or tech, if hit's a regiment or a gal or even a dog, you will make hit right." del.]
(Page) "5" [J] [Now it was Sutpen who looked away, turning suddenly, brusquely. "Get the jug," he said, sharply. del.] ["Sho, Kernel," Wash said. del.] [There were some, negroes, other poor whites, who believed that Wash was watching his granddaughter's presently changing shape with triumph and even glee. They said, "Wash Jones has fixed old Sutpen at last. It taken him 20 years to do hit, but he has done hit at last." del.]	(Page) "5" [K]
Now Wash's gaze no longer questioned. It was tranquil, serene. "I aint afraid. Because you air brave. It aint that you were a brave man and got a paper to show hit from General Lee. But you air brave. That's where hit's different. Hit dont need no ticket from nobody to know that. And I know that whatever you handle or tech, whether hit's a regiment or a ignorant gal or a hound dog, you will make hit right." Now it was Sutpen who looked away, turning suddenly, brusquely. "Get the jug," he said sharply. "Sho, Kernel," Wash said. [It was 2 years before the girl's shape began to change and become obvious. del.]	Now Wash's gaze no longer questioned. It was tranquil, serene. "I aint afraid. Because you air brave. It aint that you were a brave man once and got a paper to show hit from General Lee. But you air brave, the same like you air breathing. That's where hit's different. Hit dont need no ticket from nobody to know that. And I know that whatever you handle and tech, whether hit's a regiment of men or a ignorant gal or just a hound dog, you will make hit right." Now it was Sutpen who looked away, turning suddenly, brusquely. "Get the jug," he said sharply.
[Two years later <[when the girl's shape began to change a del.]> there were some, negroes or poor whites like himself, who believed that he was watching Two years later, when the girl's shape began to change and become [apparent del.] obvious, there were some, negroes or poor whites like himself, who believe that Wash was del.] It was 2 years before the girl's shape began to change and become obvious. Then the occasional negro [MARGIN: who passed] and the half drunk poor whites of Wash's kind who loafed all day before the store, [to watch the 3 of them del.] [began to watch the 3 of them like	"Sho, Kernel," Wash said. So [when del.] on that <Sunday> dawn 2 years later, watching the negro midwife which he had walked 3 miles to fetch enter the crazy [house del.] door beyond which he could hear his granddaughter's wailing, his heart was concerned tho still not troubled. He knew what they had been saying — the occasional negro who passed, the poor whites of his own kind who loafed all day long about the store, watching quietly the 3 of them — Sutpen, himself, his granddaughter with her air of brazen and shrinking defiance

   

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[figures del.] actors that came and went upon a stage: the grandfather, the old [illeg.], the girl with her air half brazen and half shrinking del.] believed that Wash contemplated his granddaughter with triumph and glee. They said: "Wash Jones has fixed old Sutpen at last. Hit taken him 20 years, but he has done hit at last."

as her condition daily became more and more obvious — like 3 actors that came and went upon a stage. 'I know what they say to one another,' he thot. 'I can almost hyer them: Wash Jones has fixed old Sutpen at last. Hit taken him 20 years, but he has done hit at last. [Durn yapping dogs that dont know. That dont know . . . . . . del.] 'Durn yapping dogs.' It would be dawn after a while, tho not yet. From the house, where the lamp shined [bey del.] dim beyond the warped door frame, his granddaughter's voice came steadily as tho run by a clock, while thinking went slowly and terrifically, fumbling, involved somehow with a sound of galloping hooves until there broke suddenly free in gallops the fine proud figure of the man on the fine proud stallion, galloping; and then that at which thinking fumbled broke free too and quite clear, not in justification nor even in explanation, but as the apotheosis, lonely, explicable, beyond all fouling by human touch: 'He is bigger than all them Yankees that kilt his son and his wife and [ruined his pla del.] taken his niggers and ruined his land, bigger than this hyer durn country that he fit for and that denied him, bigger than the denial hit helt to his lips like the cup the Book tells about. And how could I have lived this nigh to him for 20 years without being teched [by del.] and changed by him? I aint as big as him. But I done been drug along. 'Hit's like I telt him and telt Miss Judith: We aint whupped yet. Me and him kin do hit.' [So when it was dawn (he realized it by the fact that he could now see the house itself and the old negress standing in the door) and [she del.] his granddaughter's voice had ceased del.] He realised it was dawn suddenly, by the fact that he could now see the house and the old negress in the door looking at him. Then he realised that his granddaughter's voice had ceased. "It's a girl," the negress said. "You can [tell him del.] go tell him if you wants to." She reentered the house. ["A girl," he repeated. "A girl. Sho, now." It was getting light fast; soon the sun of Miss. latitudes. He turned and looked toward the east. "Hit'll ketch me before I

     

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	git thar,' he thot, moving on, passing the corner of the porch where the scythe leaned which he had borrowed 3 months ago to cut away the weeds which choked the steps. He looked at it, passing. 'In a way, you might say that he was represented, anyhow.' Then he paused; his pale eyes filled with a sort of pleased and infantile astonishment; he said aloud: "Be dawg if I aint a great-grandpaw now. I just thot of that." del.]
(Page) "6" [L] "A girl," he repeated. "A girl," in astonishment, hearing the galloping hooves, [thinking del.] <seeing> for an astonished moment [of del.] the proud galloping figure beneath a brandished saber and a shot torn rushing flag; thinking of the other for the first time as being perhaps an old man like himself, after all. [MARGIN: 'Yes, sir,' he thot in a kind of infantile astonishment: "be dawg if I aint a great grandpaw now for sho.'] He entered the house. He moved clumsily, as tho he no longer lived there, as tho the infant which had just [cried del.] drawn breath and cried had dispossessed him, be it his own blood too tho it might. But even above the pallet he could see little save the blur of his granddaughter's exhausted face in a frame of hair, yet even then it took the negress' voice to [illeg.] him. "You better gawn tell him efn you going to." Hit's daylight already." ["I reckon I had," he said del.]. <"I reckon I had," he said.> It was daylight; light had come while he stood above the pallet; soon the swift sun of Miss. latitudes. It seemed to lie just beyond the swamp across the slough like the yolk of an egg about to break and spurt where he descended [the crazy steps del.] <into the weeds> and passed the end of the porch where the scythe still leaned which he had borrowed 3 months ago to cut them away. 'You might say that he was represented in a way, anyhow,' he thot, going on. Almost at once he heard the horse. He stepped out of the path to let the old stallion pass, his face lifted, [bright, weary, del.] ------------------------ [Hi del.] "Hit's a gal, Kernel," he shouted. But Sutpen only lifted his whip hand and	(Page) "6" [M] "A girl," he repeated; "a girl"; in astonishment, hearing the galloping hooves, [seeing for an instant the proud galloping del.] seeing the proud galloping figure emerge again and seem to pass before his eyes thru avatars culminating in [that del.] one where it galloped beneath a brandished saber and a shot torn flag rushing down a sky in color like sulphur, thinking for the first time in his life that perhaps Sutpen was an old man like himself, after all. 'Gittin a gal,' he thot in that astonishment; then he thot [in del.] with the pleased surprise of a child: 'Yes, sir. Be dawg if I aint lived to be a great grandpaw, after all.' He entered the house. He moved clumsily, on tiptoe, as tho he no longer lived there, as tho the infant which had just drawn breath and cried had dispossessed him, be it his own blood too tho it might. But even above the pallet he could see little save the blur of his granddaughter's exhausted face in a frame of hair. Then the negress squating on the [illeg.] fire spoke. "You better gawn tell him ef you going to. Hit' [it del.]s daylight now." But this was not necessary. He had no more than turned the corner of the porch where the scythe leaned which he had borrowed 3 months ago to cut away the weeds thru which he walked, when Supten rode up on the old stallion. He did not wonder how Sutpen had got the word. He merely took it for granted that this was what had got the other out at this hour, and he stood while Sutpen dismounted and he [handed him the reins del.] took the reins from the other with on his gaunt face an expression almost imbecile with a kind of weary triumph, saying, "Hit's a gal, Kernel. I be dawg if

   

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went on. He looked as tho he too had not slept much. So Wash followed. He could not keep up with the horse and he passed it already tethered to the end of the porch, [and he reached the door just in time to hear Sutpen say, "Too bad you're not a del.] But he reached the door in time to hear Sutpen's voice as he straddled his legs above the pallet. He was standing in the path when Sutpen emerged, tho they were not 5 feet apart when Sutpen seemed to notice him. "Well?" Sutpen said. "You called [my grand del.] her a mare. You said if she was a mare, you would give her a stall in the stable." "Well?" Wash advanced toward him. "Stand back. Dont touch me, Wash." "I'm going to tech you, Kernel," [illeg. del.] Wash said. Sutpen struck him across the face with the whip. Wash fell back. When he advanced this time, he held the scythe in his hands. "I'm going to tech you, Kernel," he said.

you aint as old as I am —" until Sutpen passed him without a word and entered the house. He was standing there and heard what Sutpen said as he looked down at the pallet. Something seemed to stop in him for an instant before going on. The sun was now up, the swift sun of Mississippi latitudes, and [he del.] it seemed to him that he stood beneath a strange sky, in a strange scene, familiar only as things are familiar in dream, like the dream of falling to one who has never climbed. 'I kaint have heard what I thot I heard,' he thot quietly. 'I know I kaint.' Yet the voice, the known voice which had spoken the words was going on, talking now to the old negress about a colt foaled that a.m. 'That's why he was up so early,' he thot. 'That was hit. Hit aint me and mine. Hit aint even hisn that got him outen bed and down hyer—' Sutpen emerged. He descended into the weeds, moving with that heavy deliberation which would have been haste [if he del.] when he was young. He hardly looked at Wash stooped a little among the weeds beside the house. "Dicey will stay and tend to her. You better —" Then he seemed to see Wash. He paused. "What?" he said. "You said —" To his own ears Wash's voice sounded flat, ducklike, like a deaf man's. "You said efn she was a mare, you could give her a better stall than thisn." "Well?" Sutpen said. [Wash del.] His eyes widened and narrowed, almost like a man's fists flexing and shuting, as Wash, still stooping, advanced toward him — that [illeg.], equable, servile man whom in 20 years he had never known to make an unhidden volitional movement beyond that necessary to walk. "Stand back," Sutpen said suddenly, sharply: "dont you touch me." "I'm going to tech you, Kernel." Wash said in that flat voice, advancing. Sutpen did not retreat; he did not glance behind him, tho the old negress now peered around the crazy

   

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(Page) "7" [N] door with the black gargoyle face of a worn gnome. He raised the hand which held the riding whip. "Stand back, Wash," he said. Then he struck. The old negress sprang down into the weeds as nimble as a goat, and fled. Neither of them saw her. Sutpen slashed Wash again across the face, the force of the blow knocking Wash to his knees. But he rose again, turning toward the porch beside him. When he turned back he held in his hands the scythe which he had borrowed from Sutpen 3 months ago and which Sutpen would never need again. ------------------------ He hid the scythe carefully before he departed, as tho he intended to need it again, as tho the act itself symbolised the fact that he was not fleeing [he thot without self pity, 'I aint got nowhere to run to. [Besides, I del.] No matter how far I was to run, hit would be this same land and these same people. That aint worth running from. Hyer hit is 5 years and I am just seeing [what hit del.] how hit was the Yankees whupped us, since ef his kind was the best we had to fight, then who am I and my kind? del.] It seemed to him that he had nowhere to run to, even if he would. He could see himself an old man, too old to flee very far, to flee beyond the boundaries of this same land in which [these del.] this same kind of man lived, set the order and rule of living. He seemed to see for the first time now, after 5 years, how it was that the Yankees had whupped them: the gallant, the proud, the brave: the thot struck him with a kind of despair: Maybe if I'd a went to hit, I'd a learned sooner. and then thinking: But what would I have done with my life since; how could I a borne to remember what my life had been before? He was lying hidden now, thru a long bright sunny day, not so far but he could see, feel them galloping with their horses and guns and dogs, to pursue him and hunt him down. He even knew what they were saying: Old Wash Jones he come a craping at last. He thot he had Sutpen but Sutpen fooled him. He thot he had Kernel where he would have to marry the gal or pay up

   

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and Kernel refused. "But I never expected that, Kernel," he said, cried, aloud (he was safe enough there, back in the swamp then at the site of an abandoned sawmill, squatting among sawdust piles, a mute and rusty stiff shaft with a rusty wheel half buried in the [illeg.] undergrowth.) "You know that. You know that I aint never expected nothing from no man in my life, least of all from you. That I aint never asked you for nothing. For me to do for you was enough, was all I wanted. You knew that." (Page) "(8 del).7" [O] door with the black gargoyle face of a worn gnome. He raised the hand which held the riding whip. "Stand back, Wash," he said. Then he struck. The old negress leaped down into the weeds with the agility of a goat, and fled. [Neither of them even saw her. del.] Sutpen slashed Wash again across the face, striking him to his knees. When he rose and advanced once more he held in his hands the scythe which he had borrowed from Sutpen 3 months ago and which Sutpen would never need again. Before he departed he hid it carefully beneath the porch, as tho he knew even then that he would require it once more. It was as tho the very act itself symbolised or stipulated the fact that he was not fleeing. ------------------------ During all that long, bright, sunny day he was never so far away but he could see, sense, feel, the men gathering with horses and guns and dogs to hunt him down — men mostly of Sutpen's own kind, who had made the company about his table in the time when Wash had yet to approach nearer to the house than the scuppernong arbor — men who had also led soldiers in battles, who maybe also had signed papers from the generals like as not to say that they were among the best of the brave; who had also galloped in the old days arrogant and proud on the fine horses over the fine plantations — symbols of admiration and desire, instruments of despair and grief. That was who they thot that he would run from. It seemed to him that he had no more to run from than he had to run to. He saw now that he must flee (if he were

     

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to flee) bragging and evil shadows, into and across other bragging and evil shadows just like them, since they were all of a kind and he was old, too old to flee far, even if he were to flee. He could never escape them, no matter how much or how far he ran: a man going on 60 could not run that far. Not far enough to escape beyond the boundaries of earth where such men lived, set the order and the rule for living. He [believed that del.] saw now for the first time, after 5 years, how it was that Yankees or any other living men had managed to whip them: the gallant, the proud, the brave; the acknowledged and chosen best among them all to carry courage and honor and pride. Maybe if he had gone to the war with them he would have discovered them without having to see all that he had believed in stripped from him like shucks from an ear of corn. But if he had discovered them sooner, what would he have done with his life since? how could he have born for 5 years to remember what his life had been before? At first he had been worried about his granddaughter.
(Page) "7" [P] door with the black gargoyle face of a worn gnome. He raised the hand which held the riding whip. "Stand back, Wash," he said. Then he struck. The old negress leaped down into the weeds with the agility of a goat and fled. Neither of them saw her. Sutpen slashed Wash again across the face, [the del.] striking him to his knees. When he rose and advanced again he held in his hands the scythe which he had borrowed from Sutpen 3 months ago and which Sutpen would never need again, and which Wash hid carefully before he departed, as tho he knew even then that he would require it once more, it was as tho the very act itself symbolised or stipulated the fact that he was not fleeing. ------------------------ All during the long, bright, sunny day he was never so far away but he could see, sense, feel the men gathering with horses and guns and dogs to hunt him down — men mostly of Sutpen's own kind, who had made the company about his table in the time	(Page) "7" [R] door with the black gargoyle face of a worn gnome. He raised the hand which held the riding whip. "Stand back, Wash," he said. Then he struck. The old negress leaped down into the weeds with the agility of a goat, and fled. Sutpen slashed Wash again across the face, knocking him to his knees. When he rose and advanced once more, he held in his hands the scythe which he had borrowed from Sutpen 3 months ago and which Sutpen would never need again. ------------------------ When he reentered the house his granddaughter stirred on the pallet and called his name fretfully. "What was that?" "What was what, honey?" [he sa del.] "That ere racket out there." "T'warnt nothing," he said gently. He touched her forehead clumsily. "Do you want ara thing?"

   

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when Wash had not yet approached nearer to the house than the scuppernong arbor — men who had led soldiers in the war alive, who maybe also had signed papers from the generals like as not, who had also galloped in the old days arrogant and proud on the fine horses across the fine plantations. That was who they thot he would run from. It seemed to him that he had no more to run from than to run to. He could not escape them, no matter how much or how far he ran: a man going on to 60 [h del.] could not run that far. Not far enough to escape beyond the boundaries of [the land w del.] earth where such men lived, set the order and the rule of living. He seemed to see for the first time now, after 5 years, how it was that Yankees or any other men had managed to whip them: the gallant, the proud, the brave, [Maybe if he had gone to the war with them he would have discovered them sooner. But if he had discovered sooner, what would he have done with since if they were the self acknowledged best, and he and his kind were less, apparently designated so by God Himself to be. del.] the acknowledged and the chosen best to carry courage and honor and pride. Maybe if he had gone to the war with them he would have discovered them sooner. But if he had discovered them sooner, what would he have done with his life since; how could he have born for 5 years to remember what his life had been before? He had sat thru most of the long p.m. not a half mile from [his home del.] what for 20 years he had called home, squatting on his heels after the timeless fashion of his kind among the sawdust piles of an abandoned sawmill in the swamp — a pale gray bowl of sandlike substance as tho he might be on the edge of the sea; squatting so he heard them ride past along the very logging road itself not 50 yards away. He did not attempt to better his position, tho men came to look into the bowl. They rode on, talking quiet: he could almost hear what they were saying because he already knew what it was, what they had been saying and thinking ever since the old negress reached the first [cabin: del.] house: Old Wash Jones he come a tumble at last. He thot he had

"I want a sup of water," she said querulously. "I been laying here wanting a sup of water for a long time, but dont nobody pay me no mind." "Sho now," he said soothingly. He fetched the dipper and raised her head to drink and laid her back and watched her turn to the child with an absolutely stonelike face. But a moment later he saw that she was crying quietly. "Now, now," he said. "I wouldn't do that. Old Dicey says hit's a right fine gal." But she continued to cry quietly, almost sullenly, and he rose and stood uncomfortably above the pallet for a time, [before he moved away and drew a chair up to the window and sat down. del.] thinking as he had thot when his own wife lay so and then his daughter in turn: 'Women. Hit's a mystery to me. To ara man. They seem to want em and yit when they git em they cry about hit.' Then he moved away and drew a chair up to the window and sat down. Through all that long, bright, sunny forenoon he sat there, waiting. Now and then he rose and tiptoed to the pallet. But his granddaughter slept now, her face sullen and calm, the [child del.] bundle which was the child in the chook of her arm. Then he returned to the chair and sat again, waiting. [MARGIN: wondering why it was so long, until he remembered that it was Sunday] He was sitting there at [better than noon del.] <midafternoon> when they found the body, when a halfgrown white boy came around the corner of the house upon it and gave a choked cry and looked up and saw Wash sitting in the window and gave him a wild mesmerised glare before he turned and fled. [Then Wash rose again and tiptoed to the pallet and stood for a while, and returned. del.] [MARGIN: Then he rose again and tiptoed to the pallet. "Milly," he said. "Air you hungry?" She didn't answer. Nevertheless, he built up the fire and prepared what food there was: [sowbelly, del.] fatback, cold corn pone; he poured water into the stale coffee pot and heated it. But she would not eat when he carried her [and he found that he too ha del.] so he ate quietly, alone, and left the soiled [illeg.] dish where it lay and returned to the chair]

   

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Sutpen but Sutpen fooled him. He thot he had Kernel where he would have to marry old Wash's gal or pay up. And Kernel refused. "But I never expected that, Kernel!" he cried, aloud suddenly, his voice so sudden and so loud in the bright silence as to cause him to start, to leave him a little aghast at his own voice, tho still without alarm yet or fear. Nevertheless some old instinct of hiding and flight held him [illeg.], looking this way and that while thinking went smoothly on: 'You know I never. You know how I aint never expected [ara thing from ara man in my life but you. That what I expected from you wasn't nothing that could be teched or helt in the hand del.] or asked are thing from ara living man but what (Page) "8" [Q] I expected from you. And I didn't ask that. I didn't think hit would need. I says to myself, I dont need to. What need has a fellow like Wash Jones to question [MARGIN: or doubt] the man that General Lee himself says in a handwrote ticket that he was brave? Now it was almost sunset. It would be dark [before he del.] by the time he reached home, and he was stiffening, his old man's joints stiff from long squatting. [Yes, home. The closest word to it for a mistake that had lasted 20 years. del.] Home. The closest word to it for a mistake that had lasted 20 years. 'His kind looked on my kind as less than niggers,' he thot, walking. ['But hit waited for him to look on me and mine, ay hisn too, as less than mares in a stall del.] 'All right. He was born so. Hit's times watching him when I thot maybe he was right. But hit waited for him to look on me and mine —ay, hisn too — as less than mares in a stall. Better if his kind and mine too had never drawn breath on this earth. Better if nara a one of them had ever rid home in '65: Better if all of us that's left was blasted from the face of the earth than that another Wash Jones should see his whole life enter him and [throwd del.] [illeg.] away like a [illeg.] throwed into the john.' It was dark when he neared home, because he moved cautious, listening as he moved. He believed that there would be some of

Now he seemed to sense, feel, the men who would gather, with horses and dogs and the guns which they would not need. [They would be led, directed, by men del.] — the curious, and the vengeful: men of Sutpen's own kind, who had made the company about his table in the time when he had yet to approach nearer to the house than the scuppernong arbor — men who had also shown the lesser men like him how to fight in battle, who maybe also had signed papers from the generals saying that they were among the first of the brave; who had also galloped in the old days arrogant and proud on the fine horses on the fine plantations — symbols also of admiration and hope; instruments <too> of despair and grief. That was who they would expect him to run from. It seemed to him that he had no more to run from (Page) "8" [S] than he had to run to. If he ran, he would merely be fleeing one set of bragging and evil shadows for another just like them, since they were all of a kind throughout all the earth which he knew, and he was old, too old to flee far even if he were to flee. He could never escape them, no matter how much or how far he ran: a man going on 60 could not run that far. Not far enough to escape beyond the boundaries of earth where such men lived, set the order and the rule of living. He saw now for the first time, after 5 years, how it was that Yankees or any other living men had managed to whip them: the gallant, the proud, the brave; the acknowledged and chosen best among them all to carry courage and honor and pride. Maybe if he had gone to the war with them he would have discovered them [without having to see all that he had del.] sooner. But if he had discovered them sooner, what would he have done with his life since? how could he have borne for 5 years to remember what his life had been before? Now it was getting toward sunset. The child had whimpered and wailed; when he [tiptoed del.] went to the pallet he saw that his granddaughter was feeding it, her face still

   

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them concealed about the house; he was a little surprised when he reached it and heard his granddaughter whimpering and moaning in the darkness. He had forgotten about her. 'I reckon she's been here alone all day,' he thot. 'Hit's plenty of them can spend the day on the chance of getting a shot at me, but nara a one of them had time to see that she had a sup of water even.' He entered the house. Now that he had penetrated where the line of pistols would be, he ceased trying for stealth, tho moving quietly. His granddaughter [heard him and spoke in the pale darkness, her del.] continued to whimper and moan. "Milly," he said quietly, "Milly." She continued to whimper and moan. He moved carefully and found the pallet and knelt beside it, and fumbled and found her face. It was hot and dry.

bemused, sullen, inscrutable. "Air you hungry yit?" he said. "I dont want nothing." "You ought to eat." She didn't answer, musing upon the child. He returned to his chair and found that the sun had set. 'Hit kaint be much longer,' he thot. He could sense them quite near now, the curious and the vengeful. He could even seem to hear what they were saying about him: Old Wash Jones he come a tumble at last. He thot he had Sutpen but Sutpen fooled him. He thot he had Kernel where [Kernel del.] he would have to marry the gal or pay up. And Kernel refused. "But I never expected that, Kernel!" he cried aloud, catching himself at the sound of his own voice, looking quickly to see his granddaughter looking at him. "Kernel?" she said. "Is he —" "Hit aint nothing," he said. "I was just thinking and talked out before I knowed hit." She looked down again, bemused, sullen, indistinct now. "I reckon so. I reckon you'll have to talk louder than that before he'll hyer you." "Sho now," he said. "Dont you worry now." But already thinking was going smoothly on: "You know I never. You know how I aint never expected or asked ara thing from ara living man but what I expected from you. And I never asked that. I didn't think it would need. I said, I dont need to. What need has a fellow like Wash Jones to question or doubt that man that General Lee himself says in a handwrote ticket that he was brave? [His kind looked on my kind as less than niggers,' he thot. 'All right. He was born to do it. Hit's times when I thot myself that maybe they was right. But hit waited for him to look Brave,' he thot. 'Better if his kind and my kind too —' He became still, motionless del.] Brave,' he thot. [Better if his kind and mine too had never drawn the breath of life on this earth. del.] 'Better if nara a one of them had ever rid

   

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back home in '65': thinking Better if his kind and mine too had never drawn the breath of life on this earth. Better that all who remain of us be blasted from the face of earth than that another Wash Jones should see his whole life shredded from him and shrivel away like shucks thrown into the fire. He ceased, became still, motionless. He heard the horses, suddenly and plainly; presently he saw the lantern. Yet he did not stir. He listened to the voices and the sounds of underbrush as they [illeg.] about the house. He watched the lantern come on until the light fell upon Sutpen's body, where the group halted, the horses tall, the men on foot shadowy — legs, horse and man, the glint and shadow of guns. A voice said, "Jones." (Page) "9" [T] "I'm here," he said quietly. "That you, Major?" "Come out." "I'm coming. I just want to see to my granddaughter." "We'll see to her. Come out." "Sho, Major. Just a minute." "Show a light, then. Light your lamp." "Sho. In just a minute." He was already moving, swift and silent. From the pallet his granddaughter spoke, fretfully: "What is it? Why dont you light the lamp." "Sho," he said, soothingly, quietly; ["Hit wont need no light." del.] He went unerringly to the crack in the chimney where he kept the butcher knife. His hand touched it; the one thing in his sloven life and house in which he took care and pride, since it was razor sharp. He approached the pallet, his granddaughter's voice. "Light the lamp, grandpaw." "Hit wont need no light, honey. Hit wont

   

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take but a minute," he said, kneeling, fumbling, whispering now. "Where air you?" "Right here," she said fretfully. "What —" Then his hand touched her face. "Grandpaw!" she said. "Grand —" "Jones!" the man outside said. "Come out of there!" "In just a minute, Major," he said. Now he moved swiftly. He knew where in the dark the kerosene can was, just as he knew that it was full, since it was not 2 days back that he had fetched it home, [waiting for del.] holding it at the store until he got a ride, since the 5 gallons were heavy. It took him no time at all to empty it; besides the rather crazy house itself was like tinder: the coals on the hearth, the walls, [seemed to del.] exploded in a single blue glare against which the waiting men saw him in a wild instant springing toward them with the scythe in his hands before the horses reared and whirled. They checked the horses and turned them, yet still against the now blazing [hou del.] shack the gaunt figure ran toward them, swinging the scythe. "Jones!" ["Wash! the Major shouted. "Stop! Stop, or I'll shoot! "Jones! Wash!" Yet still, against the furious glare of the fire, the gaunt figure running toward the wild eyes of the horses and the guns del.] ["Shoot!" Wash shouted. "Hit's done been purified." del.] "Jones!" the sheriff shouted; stop! Stop, or I'll shoot. Jones! Jones!" Yet still the gaunt, wild figure came on, against the furious glare of the blazing shack. With the scythe lifted it bore down upon them, upon the wild glinting eyes of the plunging horses and the last gleaming of gun barrels, without a word, without a sound.

WASH

Sutpen stood above the pallet bed on which the mother and child lay. Between the shrunken planking of the wall the early sunlight fell in long pencil strokes, breaking upon his straddled legs and upon the riding whip in his hand, and lay across the still shape of the mother who lay looking up at him from still, inscrutable, sullen eyes, the child at her side wrapped in a piece of dingy though clean cloth.

Behind them an old negro woman squatted beside the rough hearth where a meagre fire smoldered. "Well, Milly," Sutpen said, "too bad you're not a mare. Then I could give you a decent stall in the stable."

Still the girl on the pallet did not move. She merely continued to look up at him without expression, with a young, sullen, inscrutable face still pale from recent travail. Sutpen moved, bringing into the splintered pencils of sunlight the face of a man of sixty. He said quietly to the squatting negress: "Griselda foaled this morning."

"Horse or mare?" the negress said.

"A horse. A damned fine colt-----What's this?" He indicated the pallet with the hand which held the whip.

"That un's a mare, I reckon."

"Hah," Sutpen said. "A damned fine colt. Going to be the spit and image of old Rob Roy when I rode him North in '61. Do you remember?"

"Yes, Marster."

"Hah." He glanced back toward[1] the pallet. None could have said if the girl still watched him or not. Again his whiphand indicated the pallet. "Do whatever they need with whatever we've got to do it with." He went out, passing out the crazy doorway and stepping down into the rank weeds (there yet leaned rusting against the corner of the porch the scythe which Wash had borrowed from him three months ago to cut them with) where the horse [was tethered. <waited. del.> Wash <still del.> was standing there, holding the reins in his hand. del.] waited, where Wash stood holding the reins.

When Colonel Sutpen rode away to fight the Yankees, Wash didn't[2] go. "I'm looking after the Kernel's place and niggers," he would tell all who asked him and some who had not asked---a gaunt, malariaridden man with pale, questioning eyes, who looked about thirty-five though it was known that he had not only a daughter but an eight-year-old granddaughter as well.

Which[3] was a lie, as most of them---the few remaining men between eighteen and fifty---to whom he told it, knew, though there were some who believed that he himself really believed it, though even these believed that he had better sense than to put it to the test with Mrs Sutpen or the Sutpen slaves. Knew better or was just too lazy and shiftless to try it, they said, knowing that his sole connection with the Sutpen plantation lay in the fact that for years now Colonel Sutpen had allowed him to squat in a crazy shack on a slough in[4] the river bottom on the Sutpen place, which Sutpen had built for a fishing lodge in his bachelor days and which had since fallen into[5] dilapidation from disuse so that now it looked like an aged or sick wild beast crawled terrifically there to drink in the act of dying.

The Sutpen slaves themselves heard of his statement. They laughed. It was not the first time they had laughed at him, calling him white trash behind his back. They began to ask him themselves, in groups, meeting him in the faint road which led up from the slough and the old fish camp: "Why aint you at de war, white man?"

Pausing, he would look about the ring of black faces and white eyes and teeth behind which derision lurked. "Because I got a daughter and family to keep," he said. "Git out of my road, niggers."

"Niggers?" theτ repeated; "niggers?" laughing now. "Who him, calling us niggers?"

"Yes," he said. "I aint got no niggers to look after my folks if I was gone."

"Nor nothing else but dat shack down yon dat Cunnel wouldn't let none of us live in."

Now he cursed them; sometimes he rushed at them, snatching up a stick from the ground while they scattered before him yet seeming to surround him still with that black laughing derisive, evasive, inescapable, leaving him panting and impotent and raging. Once it happened in the very back yard of the big house itself. This was after bitter news had come down from the Tennessee mountains and from

Vicksburg and Sherman had passed through the plantation and most of the negroes had followed him. Almost everything else had gone with the Federal troops and Mrs Sutpen had sent word to Wash that he could have the scuppernongs ripening in the arbor in the back yard. This time it was a house servant, one of the few negroes who remained; this time the negress had to retreat up the kitchen steps, where she turned. "Stop right dar, white man. Stop right whar you is. You aint never crossed dese steps whilst Cunnel here, and you aint ghy do hit now."

This was true. But there was this of a kind of pride: he had never tried to enter the big house, even though he believed that if he had, Sutpen would have received him, permitted him. 'But I aint going to give no black nigger the chance to tell me I cant go nowhere,' he told[6] himself. 'I aint even going to give Kernel the chance to have to cuss [one del.] a nigger on my account.' This, though he and Sutpen had spent more than one afternoon together on those rare Sundays when there would be no company in the house. Perhaps his mind knew that it was because Sutpen had nothing else to do, being a man who could not bear his own company. Yet the fact remained that the two of them would spend whole afternoons in the scuppernong arbor, Sutpen in the hammock and Wash squatting against a post, a pail of cistern water between them, taking drink for drink from the same demijohn. Meanwhile on week days he would see the fine figure of the man---they were the same age almost to a day, though neither of them (perhaps because Wash had a grandchild while Sutpen's son was a youth in school) ever thought of themselves[7] as being so---on the fine figure of the black stallion, galloping about the plantation. For that moment his heart would be quiet and proud. It would seem to him that that world in which negroes, whom the Bible told him had been created and cursed by God to be brute and vassal to all men of white skin, were better found and housed and even clothed than [him del.] <he> and his---that world in which he sensed always about him mocking echoes of black laughter---was but a dream and an illusion and that the actual world was this one across which his own lonely apotheosis seemed to gallop on the black thoroughbred, thinking how the Book said also that all men were created in the image of God and hence all men made the same image in God's eyes at least; so that he could say, as though speaking of himself: 'A fine proud man. If God Himself was to come down and ride the natural earth, that's what He would aim to look like.'

Sutpen returned in 1865, on the black stallion. He seemed to have aged ten years. His son had been killed in action the same winter in which his wife had died. He returned with his citation for gallantry from the hand of General Lee to a ruined plantation, where for a year now his daughter had subsisted partially on the meagre bounty of the man to whom fifteen years ago he had granted permission to live in that tumbledown fishing camp whose very existence he had at the time forgot.[8] Wash was there to meet him, unchanged: still gaunt, still ageless, with his pale, questioning gaze, his air diffident, a little servile, a little familiar. "Well, Kernel," Wash said, "they kilt us but they aint whupped us yit, air they?"

That was the tenor of their conversation for the next five years. It was inferior whiskey which they drank now together from a stoneware jug, and it was not in the scuppernong arbor. It was in the rear of the little store which Sutpen managed to set up on the highroad: a frame shelved room where with Wash for clerk and porter he dispensed kerosene and staple foodstuffs and stale gaudy candy and cheap beads and ribbons to negroes or poor whites of Wash's own kind, who came afoot or on gaunt mules to haggle tediously for dimes and quarters with the[9] man who at one time could gallop (the black stallion was still alive; the stable in which his [get del.] jealous get lived was in better repair than the house where the master himself lived) for ten miles across his own fertile land and who had led troops gallantly in battle; until Sutpen in fury would empty the store, close and lock the doors from the inside. Then he and Wash would repair to the rear and the jug. But the talk would not be quiet now, as when Sutpen lay in the hammock, delivering an arrogant monologue while Wash squatted guffawing against his post. They both

sat now, though Sutpen had the single chair while Wash used whatever box or keg was handy, and even this for just a little while because soon Sutpen would reach that stage of impotent and furious undefeat in which he would rise, swaying and plunging, and declare again that he would take his pistol and the black stallion and ride singlehanded into Washington and kill Lincoln, dead now, and Sherman, now a private citizen. "Kill them!" he would shout. "Shoot them down like the dogs they are---------"

"Sho, Kernel; sho, Kernel," Wash would say, catching Sutpen as he fell. Then he would commandeer the first passing wagon, or lacking that, he would walk the mile to the nearest neighbor and borrow one and return and carry Sutpen home. He entered the house now. He had been doing so for a long time, taking Sutpen home in whatever borrowed wagon,[10] talking him into locomotion with cajoling murmurs as though he were a horse, a stallion himself. The daughter would meet them and hold open the door without a word. He would carry his burden through the once white formal entrance surmounted by a fanlight imported piece by piece from Europe and with a board now nailed over a missing pane, across a velvet carpet from which all nap was now gone, and up a formal stairs where carpet, runner, was[11] now but a fading ghost of bare boards between two strips of fading paint, and into the bedroom. It would be dusk by now and he would let his burden sprawl onto the bed and undress it and then he would sit quietly in a chair beside. After a time the daughter would come to the door. "We're all right now," he would tell her. "Dont you worry none, Miss Judith."

Then it would become dark and after a while he would lie down on the floor beside the bed, though not to sleep, because after a time---sometimes before midnight---the man on the bed would stir and groan and then speak: "Wash?"

"Hyer I am, Kernel/.τ You go back to sleep. We aint whupped yit, air we? Me and you kin do hit."

Even then he had already seen the ribbon about his granddaughter's waits.τ She was now fifteen, already mature, after the early way of her kind. He knew where the ribbon came from; he had been seeing it and its kind daily for three years, even if she had lied about where she got it, which she did not, at once bold, sullen, and fearful. "Sho now," he said. "Ef Kernel wants to give hit to you, I hope [d del.] you minded to thank him."

His heart was quiet, even when he saw the dress, watching her secret, defiant, frightened face when she told him that [she del.] Miss Judith, the daughter, had helped her to make it. But he was quite grave when he approached Sutpen after they closed the store that afternoon, following the other to the rear.

"Get the jug," Sutpen directed.

"Wait," Wash said. "Not yit for a minute."

Neither did Sutpen deny the dress. "What about it?" he said.

But Wash met his arrogant stare; he spoke quietly. "I've knowed you for going on twenty years. I aint never yit denied to do what you told me to do. And I'm a man, nigh sixty. And she aint nothing but a fifteen-year-old gal."

"Meaning that I'd harm a girl? I, a man as old as you are?"

"If you was ara other man, I'd say you was as old as me. And old or no old, I wouldn't let her keep that dress nor nothing else that come from your hand. But you are different."

"How different?" But Wash merely looked at him with his pale, questioning, sober eyes. "So that's why you are afraid of me?"

Now Wash's gaze no longer questioned. It was tranquil, serene. "I aint afraid. Becaueτ you air brave. It aint that you were a brave man at one minute or day of your life and got a paper to show hit from General Lee. But you air brave, the same as you air alive and breathing. That's where hit's different. Hit dont need no ticket from nobody to tell me that. And I know that whatever you handle or tech, whether hits a regiment of men or a ignorant gal or just a hound dog, that you will make hit right."

Now it was Sutpen who looked away, turning suddenly, brusquely. "Get the jug," he said sharply.

"Sho, Kernel," Wash said.

So[12] on that Sunday dawn two years later, having watched the negro midwife which he had walked three miles to fetch enter the crazy door beyond which his granddaughter lay wailing, his heart was still quiet though concerned. He knew what they had been saying---the negroes in cabins about the land, the white men who loafed all day long about the store, watching quietly the three of them: Sutpen, himself, his granddaughter with her air of brazen and shrinking defiance as her condition became daily more and more obvious, like three actors that came and went upon a stage. 'I know what they say to one another,' he thought. 'I can almost hyear them: Wash Jones has fixed old Sutpen at last. Hit taken him twenty years, but he has done hit at last'

It would be dawn after a while, though not yet. From the house, where the lamp shown dim beyond the warped doorframe, his granddaughter's voice came steadily as though run by a clock, while thinking went slowly and terrifically, fumbling, involved somehow with a sound of galloping hooves, until there broke suddenly free in midgallop the fine proud figure of the man on the fine proud stallion, galloping; and then that at which thinking fumbled broke free too and quite clear, not in justification nor even explanation, but as the apotheosis, lonely, explicable, beyond all fouling by human touch: 'He is bigger than all them Yankees that kilt his son and his wife and taken his niggers and ruined his land, bigger than this hyer durn country that he fit for and that has denied him into keeping a little country store; bigger than the denial which hit helt to his lips like the bitter cup in the Book. And how could I have lived this nigh to him for twenty years without being teched and changed by him? Maybe I aint as big as him and maybe I aint done none of the galloping. But at least I done been drug along. Me and him kin do hit, if so be he will show me what he aims for me to do.'

Then it was dawn. Suddenly he could see the house, and the old negress in the door looking at him. Then he realised that his granddaughter's voice had ceased. "It's a girl," the negress said. "You can go tell him if you want to." She reentered the house.

"A girl," he repeated; "a girl"; in astonishment, hearing the galloping hooves, seeing the proud galloping figure emerge again. He seemed to watch it pass galloping through avatars which marked the accumulation of years, time, to the climax where it galloped beneath a brandished sabre and a shottorn flag rushing down a sky in color like thunderous sulphur, thinking for the first time in his life that perhaps Sutpen was an old man like himself. 'Gittin a gal,' he thought in that astonishment; then he thought with the pleased surprise of a child: 'Yes sir. Be dawg if I aint lived to be a great-grandpaw, after all.'

He entered the house. He moved clumsily, on tiptoe, as if he no longer lived there, as if the infant which had just drawn breath and cried in light had dispossessed him, be it of his own blood too though it might. But even above the pallet he could see little save the blur of his granddaughter's [face del.] exhausted face. Then the negress squatting at the hearth spoke. "You better gawn tell him if you going to. Hit's daylight now."

But this was not necessary. He had no more than turned the corner of the porch where the scythe leaned which he had borrowed three months ago to clear away the weeds through which he walked, when Sutpen himself rode up on the old stallion. He did not wonder how Sutpen had got the word. He took it for granted that this was what had brought the other out at this hour on Sunday morning, and he stood while the other dismounted and he took the reins from Sutpen's hand with on his gaunt face an expression almost[13] imbecile with a kind of weary triumph, saying, "Hit's a gal, Kernel. I be dawg if you aint as old as I am------" until Sutpen passed him and entered the house. He stood there with the reins in his hand and heard Sutpen cross the floor to the pallet. He heard

what Sutpen said, and something seemed to stop dead in him before going on.

The sun was now up, the swift sun of Mississippi latitudes, and it seemed to him that he stood beneath a strange sky, in a strange scene, familiar only as things are familiar in dream, like the dreams of falling to one who has never climbed. 'I kaint have heard what I thought I heard,' he thought quietly. 'I know I kaint.' Yet the voice, the familiar voice which had said the words was still speaking, talking now to the old negress about a colt foaled that morning. 'That's why he was up so early,' he thought. 'That was hit. Hit aint me and mine. Hit aint even hisn that got him outen bed.'

Sutpen emerged. He descended into the weeds, moving with that heavy deliberation which would have been haste when he was younger. He had not yet looked full at Wash. He said, "Dicey will stay and tend to her. You better-------" Then he seemed to see Wash facing him; he[14] paused. "What?" he said.

You said-------" To his own ears Wash's voice sounded flat and ducklike, like a deaf man's. "You said if she was a mare, you could give her a good stall in the stable."

"Well?" Sutpen said. His eyes widened and narrowed, almost like a man's fists flexing and shutting, as Wash began to advance toward[1] him, stopping a little. Very astonishment kept Sutpen still for the moment, watching that man whom in twenty years he had [never del.] <no more> known to make any motion save at command than he had the horse which he rode. Again his eyes narrowed and widened; without moving he seemed to rear suddenly upright. "Stand back," he said [. del.] suddenly and sharply. "Dont you touch me."

"I'm going to tech you, Kernel," Wash said in that flat, quiet, almost soft voice, advancing.

Sutpen raised the hand which held the riding whip; [At that moment del.] the old negress peered around the crazy door with her black gargoyle face of a worn gnome. "Stand back, Wash," Sutpen said. Then he struck. The old negress leaped down into the weeds with the agility of a goat, and fled. Sutpen slashed Wash again across the face with the whip, striking him to his knees. When he rose and advanced once more he held in his hands the scythe which he had borrowed from Sutpen three months ago and which Sutpen would never need again.

When he reentered the house his granddaughter stirred on the pallet bed and called his name fretfully. "What was that?" she said.

"What was what, honey?"

"That ere racket out there."

"'Twarn't nothing," he said gently. He knelt and touched her hot forehead clumsily. "Do you want ara thing?"

"I want a sup of water," she said querulously. "I been laying here wanting a sup of water a long time, but dont nobody care enough to pay me no mind."

"Sho now," he said soothingly. He rose stiffly and fetched the dipper of water and raised her head to drink and laid her back and watched her turn to the child with an absolutely[15] stonelike face. But a moment later he saw that she was crying quietly. "Now, now," he said; "I wouldn't do that. Old Dicey says hit's a right fine gal. Hit's all right now. Hit's all over now. Hit aint no need to cry now." But she continued to cry quietly, almost sullenly, and he rose again and stood uncomfortably above the pallet for a time, thinking as he had thought when his own wife lay so and then his daughter in turn: 'Women. Hit's a mystery[16] to me. they† seem to want em, and yit when they git em they cry about hit. Hit's a mystery[16] to me. To ara man.' Then he moved away and drew a chair up to the window and sat down.

Through all that long, bright, sunny forenoon he sat at the window, waiting. Now and then he rose and tiptoed to the pallet. But his granddaughter slept now, her face sullen and calm and weary, the child in the crook of her arm. Then he returned to the chair and sat again, waiting, wondering for a time[17] why it took

them so long until he remembered that it was Sunday. He was sitting there at midafternoon when a halfgrown white boy came around the corner of the house upon the body and gave a choked cry and looked up and glared for a mesmerised instant at Wash in the window before he turned and fled. Then Was† rose and tiptoed again to the pallet. The granddaughter was awake now, wakened perhaps by the boy's cry without hearing it. "Milly," he said, "air you hungry?" She didn't answer, turning her face away. He built up the fire on the hearth and cooked the food which he had brought home the day before: fatback it was, and cold corn pone; he poured water into the stale coffe† pot and heated it. But she would not eat when he carried the plate to her, so he ate himself, quietly, alone, and left the dishes as they were and returned to the window.

Now he seemed to sense, feel, the men who would be gathering with horses and guns and dogs---the curious, and the vengeful: men of Sutpen's own kind, who had made the company about his[18] table in the time when he[19] had yet to approach nearer to the house than the scuppernong arbor---men who had also shown the lesser ones how to fight in battle, who maybe also had signed papers from the generals saying that they were among the first of the brave; who had also galloped in the old days arrogant and proud on the fine horses across the fine plantations---symbols also of admiration and hope; instruments too of despair and grief.

That was who they would expect him to run from. It seemed to him that he had no more to run from than he had to run to. If he ran, he would merely be fleeing one set of bragging and evil shadows for another just like them, since they were all of a kind throughout all the earth which he knew and he was old, too old to flee far even if he were to flee. He could never escape them [. del.], no matter how much or how far he ran: a man going on sixty could not run that far. Not far enough to escape beyond the boundaries of earth where such men lived, set the order and the rule of living. It seemed to him that he now saw for the first time, after five years, how it was that Yankees or any other living armies had managed to whip them: the gallant, the proud, the brave; the acknowledged and chosen best among them all to carry courage and honor and pride. Maybe if he had gone to the war with them, he would have discovered them sooner. But if he had discovered them sooner, what would he have done with his life since? how† could he have borne to remember for five years what his life had been before?

Now it was getting toward sunset. The child had been crying; when he went to the pallet he saw his granddaughter nursing it, her face still bemused, sullen, inscrutable. "Air you hungy† yit?" he said.

"I dont want nothing."

"You ought to eat."

This time she did not answer at all, looking down at the child. He returned to his chair and found that the sun had set. 'Hit kaint be much longer,' he thought. He could feel them quite near now, the curious and the vengeful. He could even seem to hear what they were saying about him, the undercurrent of believing beyond the immediate fury: Old Wash Jones he come a tumble at last. He thought he had Sutpen but Sutpen fooled him. He thought he had Kernel where he would have to marry the gal or pay up. And Kernel refused † "But I never expected that, Kernel!" he cried aloud, catching himself at the sound of his own voice, glancing quickly back to find his granddaughter watching him.

"Who are[20] you talking to now?" she said.

"Hit aint nothing. I was just thinking and talked out before I knowed hit."

Her face was becoming indistinct again, again a sullen blur in the twilight. "I reckon so. I reckon you'll have to holler louder than that before he'll hear you [. del.], up yonder at that house. And I reckon you'll need to do more than holler before you get him down here, too."

"Sho now," he said. "Dont you worry none." But already thinking was going smoothly on: 'You know I never. You know how I aint never expected [nothing

del.] or asked nothing from ara living man but what I expected from you. And I never asked that. I didn't think hit would need. I said, I dont need to. What need has a fellow like Wash Jones to question or doubt the man that General Lee himself says in a handwrote [note del.] ticket that he was brave? Brave,' τ'he thought. 'Better if nara one of them had ever[21] rid back home in '65'; thinking Better if his kind and mine too had never drawn the breath of life on this earth. Better that all who remain of us be blasted from the face of earth than that another Wash Jones should see his whole life shredded from him and shrivel away like a dried shuck thrown onto the fire †

He ceased, became still. He heard the horses, suddenly and plainly; presently he saw the lantern and the movement of men, the glint of gun barrels, in its moving light. Yet he did not [move del.] <stir>. It was quiet dark now and he listened to the voices and the sounds of underbrush as they surrounded the house. The lantern itself came on; its light fell upon the quiet body in the weeds and stopped, the horses tall and shadowy. A man descended and stooped in the lantern,[22] above the body. He held a pistol; he rose and faced the house. "Jones," he said.

"I'm here," Wash said quietly from the window. "That you, Major?"

"Come out."

"Sho," he said quietly. "I just want to see to my granddaughter."

"We'll see to her. Come on out."

"Sho, Major. Just a minute."

"Show a light. Light your lamp."

"Sho. In just a minute." They could hear his voice retreat into the house, though they could not tell what he was doing. They could not[23] see him as he went swiftly and unerringly[24] to the crack in the chimney where he kept the butcher knife: the one thing in his sloven life and house in which he took pride, since it was razor sharp. He approached the pallet, his granddaughter's voice:

"Who is it? Light the lamp, grandpaw."

"Hit wont need no light, honey. Hit wont take but a minute," he said, kneeling, fumbling toward her voice, whispering now. "Where air you?"

"Right here," she said fretfully. "Where would I be? What is------" His hand touched her face. "What is-----Grandpaw! Grand--------"

"Jones!" the sheriff said. "Come out of there!"

"In just a minute, Major," he said. Now he rose and moved swiftly. He knew where in the dark the can of kerosene was, just as he knew that it was full, since it was not two days ago that he had filled it at the store and held it there until[25] he got a ride home with it, since the five gallons were heavy. There were still coals on the hearth; besides the crazy building itself was like tinder: the coals, the hearth, the walls exploded[26] in a single blue glare. Against it the waiting men saw him in a wild instant springing toward them with the lifted scythe before the horses reared and whirled. They checked the horses and turned them back toward the glare, yet still in [savage del.] wild relief against it the gaunt figure ran toward them with the lifted scythe.

"Jones!" the sheriff shouted; "stop! Stop, or I'll shoot. Jones! Jones!† Yet still the gaunt, furious figure came on against the glare and roar of the flames. With the scythe lifted it bore down upon them, upon the wild glaring eyes of the horses and the swinging glints of gun barrels, without any cry, any sound.

The following collation between the typescript and Harper's lists only the substantive variants, some of which are undoubtedly Faulkner's own revisions in the hypothesized lost typescript that he made to serve as printer's copy but some of which may also represent editorial interposition. The accidentals variants have been omitted since they would normally represent the markings of the Harper's copyreader, with the odds against very many going back to variants in the lost typescript. Specialists interested in these variants can readily recover them from the Harper's print. However, the substantive variants are

provided here for their inherent interest to readers as affecting the final form of the story in the magazine. For convenience, the substantive variants have been keyed to numbered references in the text. As a space-saver, and an attempt to avoid the recording of the obvious, a superior dagger in the text indicates a typescript error that was automatically corrected in the magazine version and is not listed in the collation. The reading to the left of the bracket is that of the typescript: to the right the reading is that of Harper's.

Notes