William Faulkner - Absalom, Absalom!

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Title: Absalom, Absalom!

Date of first publication: 1936

Author: William Faulkner (1897-1962)

Date first posted: Mar. 12, 2019

Date last updated: Mar. 12, 2019

Faded Page eBook #20190331

This eBook was produced by: Delphine Lettau, Al Haines, Cindy Beyer& the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net

ABSALOM,

ABSALOM!

WILLIAM

FAULKNER

RANDOM HOUSE

New York

PUBLISHERS NOTE

The text of this edition of Absalom, Absalom! is reproduced

photographically from a copy of the first printing.

Publication date was October 26, 1936.

ABSALOM,

ABSALOM!

F rom a little after two oclock until almost sundownof the long still hot weary dead September afternoon theysat in what Miss Coldfield still called the office because herfather had called it thata dim hot airless room with theblinds all closed and fastened for forty-three summers becausewhen she was a girl someone had believed that lightand moving air carried heat and that dark was always cooler,and which (as the sun shone fuller and fuller on that side ofthe house) became latticed with yellow slashes full of dustmotes which Quentin thought of as being flecks of the deadold dried paint itself blown inward from the scaling blindsas wind might have blown them. There was a wistaria vineblooming for the second time that summer on a woodentrellis before one window, into which sparrows came nowand then in random gusts, making a dry vivid dusty soundbefore going away: and opposite Quentin, Miss Coldfieldin the eternal black which she had worn for forty-three yearsnow, whether for sister, father, or nothusband none knew,sitting so bolt upright in the straight hard chair that was sotall for her that her legs hung straight and rigid as if she hadiron shinbones and ankles, clear of the floor with that air of impotentand static rage like childrens feet, and talking in thatgrim haggard amazed voice until at last listening would renegeand hearing-sense self-confound and the long-dead objectof her impotent yet indomitable frustration would appear,as though by outraged recapitulation evoked, quietinattentive and harmless, out of the biding and dreamy andvictorious dust.

Her voice would not cease, it would just vanish. Therewould be the dim coffin-smelling gloom sweet and over-sweetwith the twice-bloomed wistaria against the outerwall by the savage quiet September sun impacted distilledand hyperdistilled, into which came now and then the loudcloudy flutter of the sparrows like a flat limber stick whippedby an idle boy, and the rank smell of female old flesh longembattled in virginity while the wan haggard face watchedhim above the faint triangle of lace at wrists and throat fromthe too tall chair in which she resembled a crucified child;and the voice not ceasing but vanishing into and then out ofthe long intervals like a stream, a trickle running from patchto patch of dried sand, and the ghost mused with shadowydocility as if it were the voice which he haunted where amore fortunate one would have had a house. Out of quietthunderclap he would abrupt (man-horse-demon) upon ascene peaceful and decorous as a schoolprize water color,faint sulphur-reek still in hair clothes and beard, with groupedbehind him his band of wild niggers like beasts half tamed towalk upright like men, in attitudes wild and reposed, andmanacled among them the French architect with his airgrim, haggard, and tatter-ran. Immobile, bearded and handpalm-lifted the horseman sat; behind him the wild blacksand the captive architect huddled quietly, carrying in bloodlessparadox the shovels and picks and axes of peaceful conquest.Then in the long unamaze Quentin seemed to watchthem overrun suddenly the hundred square miles of tranquiland astonished earth and drag house and formal gardens violentlyout of the soundless Nothing and clap them down likecards upon a table beneath the up-palm immobile and pontific,creating the Sutpens Hundred, the Be Sutpens Hundred like the oldentime Be Light . Then hearing would reconcileand he would seem to listen to two separate Quentins nowtheQuentin Compson preparing for Harvard in the South,the deep South dead since 1865 and peopled with garrulousoutraged baffled ghosts, listening, having to listen, to one ofthe ghosts which had refused to lie still even longer thanmost had, telling him about old ghost-times; and the QuentinCompson who was still too young to deserve yet to be aghost, but nevertheless having to be one for all that, since hewas born and bred in the deep South the same as she wasthetwo separate Quentins now talking to one another in thelong silence of notpeople, in notlanguage, like this: It seemsthat this demonhis name was Sutpen(Colonel Sutpen)ColonelSutpen. Who came out of nowhere and without warningupon the land with a band of strange niggers and built a plantation(Toreviolently a plantation, Miss Rosa Coldfield says)toreviolently. And married her sister Ellen and begot a son and a daughterwhich(Without gentleness begot, Miss Rosa Coldfield says)withoutgentleness. Which should have been the jewels of hispride and the shield and comfort of his old age, only(Only theydestroyed him or something or he destroyed them or something.And died)and died. Without regret, Miss Rosa Coldfield says(Saveby her) Yes, save by her. (And by Quentin Compson) Yes.And by Quentin Compson.

Because you are going away to attend the college atHarvard they tell me, Miss Coldfield said. So I dont imagineyou will ever come back here and settle down as acountry lawyer in a little town like Jefferson, since Northernpeople have already seen to it that there is little left in theSouth for a young man. So maybe you will enter the literaryprofession as so many Southern gentlemen and gentlewomentoo are doing now and maybe some day you will rememberthis and write about it. You will be married then I expectand perhaps your wife will want a new gown or a new chairfor the house and you can write this and submit it to themagazines. Perhaps you will even remember kindly then theold woman who made you spend a whole afternoon sittingindoors and listening while she talked about people andevents you were fortunate enough to escape yourself whenyou wanted to be out among young friends of your ownage.