The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner.mobi [120]
“He aint never quit,” Luster said.
“Y’all come on en eat,” Dilsey said. “Jason aint comin to dinner.” They sat down at the table. Ben could manage solid food pretty well for himself, though even now, with cold food before him, Dilsey tied a cloth about his neck. He and Luster ate. Dilsey moved about the kitchen, singing the two lines of the hymn which she remembered. “Y’all kin g’awn en eat,” she said. “Jason aint comin home.”
He was twenty miles away at that time. When he left the house he drove rapidly to town, overreaching the slow sabbath groups and the peremptory bells along the broken air. He crossed the empty square and turned into a narrow street that was abruptly quieter even yet, and stopped before a frame house and went up the flower bordered walk to the porch.
Beyond the screen door people were talking. As he lifted his hand to knock he heard steps, so he withheld his hand until a big man in black broadcloth trousers and a stiff bosomed white shirt without collar opened the door. He had vigorous untidy iron-gray hair and his gray eyes were round and shiny like a little boy’s. He took Jason’s hand and drew him into the house, still shaking it.
“Come right in,” he said. “Come right in.”
“You ready to go now?” Jason said.
“Walk right in,” the other said, propelling him by the elbow into a room where a man and a woman sat. “You know Myrtle’s husband, dont you? Jason Compson, Vernon.”
“Yes,” Jason said. He did not even look at the man, and as the sheriff drew a chair across the room the man said,
“We’ll go out so you can talk. Come on, Myrtle.”
“No, no,” the sheriff said. “You folks keep your seat. I reckon it aint that serious, Jason? Have a seat.”
“I’ll tell you as we go along,” Jason said. “Get your hat and coat.”
“We’ll go out,” the man said, rising.
“Keep your seat,” the sheriff said. “Me and Jason will go out on the porch.”
“You get your hat and coat,” Jason said. “They’ve already got a twelve hour start.” The sheriff led the way back to the porch. A man and a woman passing spoke to him. He responded with a hearty florid gesture. Bells were still ringing, from the direction of the section known as Nigger Hollow. “Get your hat, Sheriff,” Jason said. The sheriff drew up two chairs.
“Have a seat and tell me what the trouble is.”
“I told you over the phone,” Jason said, standing. “I did that to save time. Am I going to have to go to law to compel you to do your sworn duty?”
“You sit down and tell me about it,” the sheriff said. “I’ll take care of you all right.”
“Care, hell,” Jason said. “Is this what you call taking care of me?”
“You’re the one that’s holding us up,” the sheriff said. “You sit down and tell me about it.”
Jason told him, his sense of injury and impotence feeding upon its own sound, so that after a time he forgot his haste in the violent cumulation of his self justification and his outrage. The sheriff watched him steadily with his cold shiny eyes.
“But you dont know they done it,” he said. “You just think so.”
“Dont know?” Jason said. “When I spent two damn days chasing her through alleys, trying to keep her away from him, after I told her what I’d do to her if I ever caught her with him, and you say I dont know that that little b——”
“Now, then,” the sheriff said. “That’ll do. That’s enough of that.” He looked out across the street, his