Read Online As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: William Faulkner
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must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not emptied yet, I am is .
How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.
CASH
I made it on the bevel.
There is more surface for the nails to grip.
There is twice the gripping-surface to each seam.
The water will have to seep into it on a slant. Water moves easiest up and down or straight across.
In a house people are upright two thirds of the time. So the seams and joints are made up-and-down. Because the stress is up-and-down.
In a bed where people lie down all the time, the joints and seams are made sideways, because the stress is sideways.
Except.
A body is not square like a crosstie.
Animal magnetism.
The animal magnetism of a dead body makes the stress come slanting, so the seams and joints of a coffin are made on the bevel.
You can see by an old grave that the earth sinks down on the bevel.
While in a natural hole it sinks by the center, the stress being up-and-down.
So I made it on the bevel.
It makes a neater job.
VARDAMAN
My mother is a fish.
TULL
It was ten oclock when I got back, with Peabody’s team hitched on to the back of the wagon. They had already dragged the buckboard back from where Quick found it upside down straddle of the ditch about a mile from the spring. It was pulled out of the road at the spring, and about a dozen wagons was already there. It was Quick found it. He said the river was up and still rising. He said it had already covered the highest water-mark on the bridge-piling he had ever seen. “That bridge wont stand awhole lot of water,” I said. “Has somebody told Anse about it?”
“I told him,” Quick said. “He says he reckons them boys has heard and unloaded and are on the way back by now. He says they can load up and get across.”
“He better go on and bury her at New Hope,” Armstid said. “That bridge is old. I wouldn’t monkey with it.”
“His mind is set on taking her to Jefferson,” Quick said.
“Then he better get at it soon as he can,” Armstid said.
Anse meets us at the door. He has shaved, but not good. There is a long cut on his jaw, and he is wearing his Sunday pants and a white shirt with the neckband buttoned. It is drawn smooth over his hump, making it look bigger than ever, like a white shirt will, and his face is different too. He looks folks in the eye now, dignified, his face tragic and composed, shaking us by the hand as we walk up onto the porch and scrape our shoes, a little stiff in our Sunday clothes, our Sunday clothes rustling, not looking full at him as he meets us.
“The Lord giveth,” we say.
“The Lord giveth.”
That boy is not there. Peabody told about how he come into the kitchen, hollering, swarming and clawing at Cora when he found her cooking that fish, and how Dewey Dell taken him down to the barn. “My team all right?” Peabody says.
“All right,” I tell him. “I give them a bait this morning. Your buggy seems all right too. It aint hurt.”
“And no fault of somebody’s,” he says. “I’d give a nickelto know where that boy was when that team broke away.”
“If it’s broke anywhere, I’ll fix it,” I say.
The women folks go on into the house. We can hear them, talking and fanning. The fans go whish. whish. whish and them talking, the talking sounding kind of like bees murmuring in a water bucket. The men stop on the porch, talking some, not looking at one another.
“Howdy, Vernon,” they say. “Howdy, Tull.”
“Looks like more rain.”
“It does for a fact.”
“Yes, sir. It will rain some more.”
“It come up quick.”
“And going away slow. It dont fail.”
I go around to the back. Cash is filling up the holes he bored in the top of it. He is trimming out plugs for them, one at a time, the wood wet and hard to work. He could cut up a tin can and hide the holes and nobody wouldn’t know the difference. Wouldn’t mind, anyway. I have seen him spend a hour trimming out a
How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.
CASH
I made it on the bevel.
There is more surface for the nails to grip.
There is twice the gripping-surface to each seam.
The water will have to seep into it on a slant. Water moves easiest up and down or straight across.
In a house people are upright two thirds of the time. So the seams and joints are made up-and-down. Because the stress is up-and-down.
In a bed where people lie down all the time, the joints and seams are made sideways, because the stress is sideways.
Except.
A body is not square like a crosstie.
Animal magnetism.
The animal magnetism of a dead body makes the stress come slanting, so the seams and joints of a coffin are made on the bevel.
You can see by an old grave that the earth sinks down on the bevel.
While in a natural hole it sinks by the center, the stress being up-and-down.
So I made it on the bevel.
It makes a neater job.
VARDAMAN
My mother is a fish.
TULL
It was ten oclock when I got back, with Peabody’s team hitched on to the back of the wagon. They had already dragged the buckboard back from where Quick found it upside down straddle of the ditch about a mile from the spring. It was pulled out of the road at the spring, and about a dozen wagons was already there. It was Quick found it. He said the river was up and still rising. He said it had already covered the highest water-mark on the bridge-piling he had ever seen. “That bridge wont stand awhole lot of water,” I said. “Has somebody told Anse about it?”
“I told him,” Quick said. “He says he reckons them boys has heard and unloaded and are on the way back by now. He says they can load up and get across.”
“He better go on and bury her at New Hope,” Armstid said. “That bridge is old. I wouldn’t monkey with it.”
“His mind is set on taking her to Jefferson,” Quick said.
“Then he better get at it soon as he can,” Armstid said.
Anse meets us at the door. He has shaved, but not good. There is a long cut on his jaw, and he is wearing his Sunday pants and a white shirt with the neckband buttoned. It is drawn smooth over his hump, making it look bigger than ever, like a white shirt will, and his face is different too. He looks folks in the eye now, dignified, his face tragic and composed, shaking us by the hand as we walk up onto the porch and scrape our shoes, a little stiff in our Sunday clothes, our Sunday clothes rustling, not looking full at him as he meets us.
“The Lord giveth,” we say.
“The Lord giveth.”
That boy is not there. Peabody told about how he come into the kitchen, hollering, swarming and clawing at Cora when he found her cooking that fish, and how Dewey Dell taken him down to the barn. “My team all right?” Peabody says.
“All right,” I tell him. “I give them a bait this morning. Your buggy seems all right too. It aint hurt.”
“And no fault of somebody’s,” he says. “I’d give a nickelto know where that boy was when that team broke away.”
“If it’s broke anywhere, I’ll fix it,” I say.
The women folks go on into the house. We can hear them, talking and fanning. The fans go whish. whish. whish and them talking, the talking sounding kind of like bees murmuring in a water bucket. The men stop on the porch, talking some, not looking at one another.
“Howdy, Vernon,” they say. “Howdy, Tull.”
“Looks like more rain.”
“It does for a fact.”
“Yes, sir. It will rain some more.”
“It come up quick.”
“And going away slow. It dont fail.”
I go around to the back. Cash is filling up the holes he bored in the top of it. He is trimming out plugs for them, one at a time, the wood wet and hard to work. He could cut up a tin can and hide the holes and nobody wouldn’t know the difference. Wouldn’t mind, anyway. I have seen him spend a hour trimming out a
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