was about to close the door when the other spoke.
'Well?' she said. 'What is it?'
'Hit's me,' Dilsey said. 'You want anything?'
Mrs Compson didn't answer. After a while, without moving her head at all, she said: 'Where's Jason?'
'He aint come back yit,' Dilsey said. 'Whut you want?'
Mrs Compson said nothing. Like so many cold, weak people, when faced at last by the incontrovertible disaster she exhumed from somewhere a sort of fortitude, strength. In her case it was an unshakable conviction regarding the yet unplumbed event. 'Well,' she said presently. 'Did you find it?'
'Find whut? Whut you talkin about?'
'The note. At least she would have enough consideration to leave a note. Even Quentin did that.'
'Whut you talkin about?' Dilsey said. 'Dont you know she all right? I bet she be walkin right in dis do befo dark.'
'Fiddlesticks,' Mrs Compson said. 'It's in the blood. Like uncle, like niece. Or mother. I dont know which would be worse. I dont seem to care.'
'Whut you keep on talkin that way fur?' Dilsey said. 'Whut she want to do anything like that fur?'
'I dont know. What reason did Quentin have? Under God's heaven what reason did he have? It cant be simply to flout and hurt me. Whoever God is, He would not permit that. I'm a lady. You might not believe that from my offspring, but I am.'
'You des wait en see,' Dilsey said. 'She be here by night, right dar in her bed.' Mrs Compson said nothing. The camphor soaked cloth lay upon her brow. The black robe lay across the foot of the bed. Dilsey stood with her hand on the door knob.
'Well,' Mrs Compson said. 'What do you want? Are you going to fix some dinner for Jason and Benjamin, or not?'
'Jason aint come yit,' Dilsey said. 'I gwine fix somethin. You sho you dont want nothin? Yo bottle still hot enough?'
'You might hand me my bible.'
'I give hit to you dis mawnin, befo I left.'
'You laid it on the edge of the bed. How long did you expect it to stay there?'
Dilsey crossed to the bed and groped among the shadows beneath the edge of it and found the bible, face down. She smoothed the bent pages and laid the book on the bed again. Mrs Compson didn't open her eyes. Her hair and the pillow were the same color, beneath the wimple of the medicated cloth she looked like an old nun praying. 'Dont put it there again,' she said, without opening her eyes. 'That's where you put it before. Do you want me to have to get out of bed to pick it up?'
Dilsey reached the book across her and laid it on the broad side of the bed. 'You cant see to read, noways,' she said. 'You want me to raise de shade a little?'
'No. Let them alone. Go on and fix Jason something to eat.'
Dilsey went out. She closed the door and returned to the kitchen. The stove was almost cold. While she stood there the clock above the cupboard struck ten times. 'One oclock,' she said aloud. 'Jason aint comin home. Ise seed de first en de last,' she said, looking at the cold stove. 'I seed de first en de last.' She set out some cold food on a table. As she moved back and forth she sang, a hymn. She sang the first two lines over and over to the complete tune. She arranged the meal and went to the door and called Luster, and after a time Luster and Ben entered. Ben was still moaning a little, as to himself.
'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 hands in his pockets.
'And when I come to you, a commissioned officer of the law,' Jason said.
'That show's in Mottson this week,' the sheriff said.
'Yes,' Jason said. 'And if I could find a law officer that gave a solitary damn about protecting the people that elected him to office, I'd be there too by now.' He repeated his story, harshly recapitulant, seeming to get an actual pleasure out of his outrage and impotence. The sheriff did not appear to be listening at all.
'Jason,' he said. 'What were you doing with three thousand dollars hid in the house?'
'What?' Jason said. 'That's my business where I keep my money. Your business is to help me get it back.'
'Did your mother know you had that much on the place?'
'Look here,' Jason said. 'My house has been robbed. I know who did it and I know where they are. I come to you as the commissioned officer of the law, and I ask you once more, are you going to make any effort to recover my property, or not?'
'What do you aim to do with that girl, if you catch them?'
'Nothing,' Jason said. 'Not anything. I wouldn't lay my hand on her. The bitch that cost me a job, the one
