Intruder in the Dust (28 page)

‘Maybe not three the other night. One and two halves would be nearer right:’ and his uncle:

‘I said it’s all right to be proud. It’s all right even to boast. Just dont stop.’)——and came to the table and laid the hat on it and took from the inside coat pocket a leather snap-purse patina-ed like old silver and almost as big as Miss Habersham’s handbag and said,

‘I believe you got a little bill against me.’

‘What for?’ his uncle said.

‘For representing my case,’ Lucas said. ‘Name whatever your fee is within reason. I want to pay it.’

‘Not me,’ his uncle said. ‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘I sent for you,’ Lucas said. ‘I authorised you. How much do I owe you?’

‘Nothing,’ his uncle said. ‘Because I didn’t believe you. That boy there is the reason you’re walking around today.’

Now Lucas looked at him, holding the purse in one hand and the other hand poised to unsnap it—the same face to which it was not that nothing had happened but which had simply refused to accept it; now he opened the purse. ‘All right. I’ll pay him.’

‘And I’ll have you both arrested,’ his uncle said, ‘you for corrupting a minor and him for practising law without a license.’

Lucas looked back to his uncle; he watched them staring
at one another. Then once more Lucas blinked twice. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll pay the expenses then. Name your expenses at anything within reason and let’s get this thing settled.’

‘Expenses?’ his uncle said. ‘Yes, I had an expense sitting here last Tuesday trying to write down all the different things you finally told me in such a way that Mr Hampton could get enough sense out of it to discharge you from the jail and so the more I tried it the worse it got and the worse it got the worse I got until when I came to again my fountain pen was sticking up on its point in the floor down here like an arrow. Of course the paper belongs to the county but the fountain pen was mine and it cost me two dollars to have a new point put in it. You owe me two dollars.’

‘Two dollars?’ Lucas said. He blinked twice again. Then he blinked twice again. ‘Just two dollars?’ Now he just blinked once, then he did something with his breath: not a sigh, simply a discharge of it, putting his first two fingers into the purse: ‘That dont sound like much to me but then I’m a farming man and you’re a lawing man and whether you know your business or not I reckon it aint none of my red wagon as the music box says to try to learn you different:’ and drew from the purse a worn bill crumpled into a ball not much larger than a shriveled olive and opened it enough to read it then opened it out and laid it on the desk and from the purse took a half dollar and laid it on the desk then counted onto the desk from the purse one by one four dimes and two nickels and then counted them again with his forefinger, moving them one by one about half an inch, his lips moving under the moustache, the purse still open in the other hand, then he picked up two of the dimes and a nickel and put them into the hand holding the open purse and took from
the purse a quarter and put it on the desk and looked down at the coins for a rapid second then put the two dimes and the nickel back on the desk and took up the half dollar and put it back into the purse.

‘That aint but six bits,’ his uncle said.

‘Nemmine that,’ Lucas said and took up the quarter and dropped it back into the purse and closed it and watching Lucas he realised that the purse had at least two different compartments and maybe more, a second almost elbow-deep section opening beneath Lucas’ fingers and for a time Lucas stood looking down into it exactly as you would look down at your reflection in a well then took from the compartment a knotted soiled cloth tobacco sack bulging and solid looking which struck on the desk top with a dull thick chink.

‘That makes it out,’ he said. ‘Four bits in pennies. I was aiming to take them to the bank but you can save me the trip. You want to count um?’

‘Yes,’ his uncle said. ‘But you’re the one paying the money. You’re the one to count them.’

‘It’s fifty of them,’ Lucas said.

‘This is business,’ his uncle said. So Lucas unknotted the sack and dumped the pennies out on the desk and counted them one by one moving each one with his forefinger into the first small mass of dimes and nickels, counting aloud, then snapped the purse shut and put it back inside his coat and with the other hand shoved the whole mass of coins and the crumpled bill across the table until the desk blotter stopped them and took a bandana handkerchief from the side pocket of the coat and wiped his hands and put the handkerchief back and stood again intractable and calm and not looking at either of them now while the fixed blaring of the radios and the blatting creep of the automobile horns and all the rest of the whole
County’s Saturday uproar came up on the bright afternoon.

‘Now what?’ his uncle said. ‘What are you waiting for now?’

‘My receipt,’ Lucas said.

W
illiam Cuthbert Faulkner was born in 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi, the first of four sons of Murry and Maud Butler Falkner (he later added the ‘u’ to the family name himself). In 1904 the family moved to the university town of Oxford, Mississippi, where Faulkner was to spend most of his life. He was named for his great-grandfather ‘The Old Colonel,’ a Civil War veteran who built a railroad, wrote a bestselling romantic novel called
The White Rose of Memphis
, became a Mississippi state legislator, and was eventually killed in what may or may not have been a duel with a disgruntled business partner. Faulkner identified with this robust and energetic ancestor and often said that he inherited the ‘ink stain’ from him.

Never fond of school, Faulkner left at the end of football season his senior year of high school, and began working at his grandfather’s bank. In 1918, after his plans to marry his sweetheart Estelle Oldham were squashed by their families, he tried to enlist as a pilot in the U.S. Army but was rejected because he did not meet the height and weight requirements. He went to Canada, where he pretended to be an Englishman and joined the RAF training program there. Although he did not complete his training until after the war ended and never saw combat, he returned to his hometown in uniform, boasting of war wounds. He briefly attended the University of Mississippi, where he began to publish his poetry.

After spending a short time living in New York, he again returned to Oxford, where he worked at the university post office. His first book, a collection of poetry,
The Marble Faun
, was published at Faulkner’s own expense in 1924. The writer Sherwood Anderson, whom he met in New Orleans in 1925, encouraged him to try writing fiction, and his first novel,
Soldier’s Pay
, was published in 1926. It was followed by
Mosquitoes
. His next novel, which he titled
Flags in the Dust
, was rejected by his publisher and twelve others to whom he submitted it. It was eventually published in drastically edited form as
Sartoris
(the original version was not issued until after his death). Meanwhile, he was writing
The Sound and the Fury
, which, after being rejected by one publisher, came out in 1929 and received many ecstatic reviews, although it sold poorly. Yet again, a new novel,
Sanctuary
, was initially rejected by his publisher, this time as ‘too shocking.’ While working on the night shift at a power plant, Faulkner wrote what he was determined would be his masterpiece,
As I Lay Dying
. He finished it in about seven weeks, and it was published in 1930, again to generally good reviews and mediocre sales.

In 1929 Faulkner had finally married his childhood sweetheart, Estelle, after her divorce from her first husband. They had a premature daughter, Alabama, who died ten days after birth in 1931; a second daughter, Jill, was born in 1933.

With the eventual publication of his most sensational and violent (as well as, up till then, most successful) novel,
Sanctuary
(1931), Faulkner was invited to write scripts for MGM and Warner Brothers, where he was responsible for much of the dialogue in the film versions of Hemingway’s
To Have and Have Not
and Chandler’s
The Big Sleep
, and many other films. He continued to write novels and published many stories in the popular magazines.
Light in August
(1932) was his first attempt to address the racial issues of the South, an effort continued in
Absalom, Absalom!
(1936), and
Go Down, Moses
(1942). By 1946, most of Faulkner’s novels were out of print in the United States (although they remained well-regarded in Europe), and he was seen as a minor, regional writer. But then the influential editor and critic Malcolm Cowley, who had earlier championed Hemingway and Fitzgerald and others of their generation, put together
The Portable Faulkner
, and once again Faulkner’s genius was recognized, this time for good. He received the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature as well as many other awards and accolades, including the National Book Award and the Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and France’s Legion of Honor.

In addition to several collections of short fiction, his other novels include
Pylon
(1935),
The Unvanquished
(1938),
The Wild Palms
(1939),
The Hamlet
(1940),
Intruder in the Dust
(1948),
A Fable
(1954),
The Town
(1957),
The Mansion
(1959), and
The Reivers
(1962).

William Faulkner died of a heart attack on July 6, 1962, in Oxford, Mississippi, where he is buried.