one among us but did not want to know: who, already realising that we would never defend Jefferson from Snopeses, let us then give, relinquish Jefferson to Snopeses, banker mayor aldermen church and all, so that, in defending themselves from Snopeses, Snopeses must of necessity defend and shield us, their vassals and chattels, too.
The quiver borne on Manfred de Spain’s back, but the arrows drawn in turn by the hand, that damned incredible woman, that Frenchman’s Bend Helen, Semiramis—no: not Helen nor Semiramis: Lilith: the one before Eve herself whom earth’s Creatorerforce in desperate and amazed alarm in person to efface, remove, obliterate, that Adam might create a progeny to populate it; and we were in my office now where I had not sent for him nor even invited him: he had just followed, entered, to sit across the desk in his neat faded tieless blue shirt and the brown smooth bland face and the eyes watching me too damned shrewd, too damned intelligent.
“You used to laugh at them too,” he said.
“Why not?” I said. “What else are we going to do about them? Of course you’ve got the best joke: you dont have to fry hamburgers any more. But give them time; maybe they have got one taking a correspondence-school law course. Then I wont have to be acting city attorney any more either.”
“I said ‘too,’ ”Ratliff said.
“What?” I said.
“At first you laughed at them too,” he said. “Or maybe I’m wrong, and this here is still laughing?”—looking at me, watching me, too damned shrewd, too damned intelligent. “Why dont you say it?”
“Say what?” I said.
“ ‘Get out of my office, Ratliff,’ ” he said.
“Get out of my office, Ratliff,” I said.
THREE
We were all living with Grandfather then. I mean Grandfather was still alive then and he and Uncle Gavin had one side of the house, Grandfather in his bedroom and what we all called the office downstairs, and Uncle Gavin on the same side upstairs, where he had built an outside stairway so he could go and come from the side yard, and Mother and Father and Cousin Gowan on the other side while Gowan was going to the Jefferson high school while he was waiting to enter the prep school in Washington to get ready for the University of Virginia.
So Mother would sit at the end of the table where Grandmother used to sit, and Grandfather opposite at the other end, and Father on one side and Uncle Gavin and Gowan (I wasn’t born then and even if I had been I would have been eating in the kitchen with Aleck Sander yet) on the other and, Gowan said, Uncle Gavin not even pretending any more to eat: just sitting there talking about Snopeses like he had been doing now through every meal for the last two weeks. It was almost like he was talking to himself, like something wound up that couldn’t even run down, let alone stop, like there wasn’t anybody or anything that wished he would stop more than he did. It wasn’t snarling. Gowan didn’t know what it was. It was like something Uncle Gavin had to tell, but it was so funny that his main job in telling it was to keep it from being as funny as it really was, because if he ever let it be as funny as it really was, everybody and himself too would be laughing so hard theyng sldn’t hear him. And Mother not eating either now: just sitting there perfectly still, watching Uncle Gavin, until at last Grandfather took his napkin out of his collar and stood up and Father and Uncle Gavin and Gowan stood up too and Grandfather said to Mother like he did every time:
“Thank you for the meal, Margaret,” and put the napkin on the table and Gowan went and stood by the door while he went out like I was going to have to do after I got born and got big enough. And Gowan would have stood there while Mother and Father and Uncle Gavin went out too. But not this time. Mother hadn’t even moved, still sitting there and watching Uncle Gavin; she was still watching Uncle Gavin when she said to Father:
“Dont you and Gowan want to be excused too?”
“Nome,” Gowan said. Because he had been in the office that day when Ratliff came in and said,
“Evening, Lawyer. I just dropped in to hear the latest Snopes news,” and Uncle Gavin said:
“What news?” and Ratliff said:
“Or do you jest mean what Snopes?” and sat there too looking at Uncle Gavin, until at last he said, “Why dont you go on and say it?” and Uncle Gavin said,
“Say what?” and Ratliff said,
“ ‘Get out of my office, Ratliff.’ ” So Gowan said,
“Nome.”
“Then maybe you’ll excuse me,” Uncle Gavin said, putting his napkin down. But still Mother didn’t move.
“Would you like me to call on her?” she said.
“Call on who?” Uncle Gavin said. And even to Gowan he said it too quick. Because even Father caught on then. Though I dont know about that. Even if I had been there and no older than Gowan was, I would have known that if I had been about twenty-one or maybe even less when Mrs Snopes first walked through the Square, I not only would have known what was going on, I might even have been Uncle Gavin myself. But Gowan said Father sounded like he had just caught on. He said to Uncle Gavin:
“I’ll be damned. So that’s what’s been eating you for the past two weeks.” Then he said to Mother: “No, by Jupiter. My wife call on that—”
“That what?” Uncle Gavin said, hard and quick. And still Mother hadn’t moved: just sitting there between them while they stood over her.
“ ‘Sir,’ ” she said.
“What?” Uncle Gavin said.
“ ‘That what, sir?’ ” she said. “Or maybe just ‘sir’ with an inflection.”
