Complete Works of William Faulkner Read online

  The Complete Works of

  WILLIAM FAULKNER

  (1897-1962)

  Contents

  The Snopes Trilogy

  The Novels

  Soldiers’ Pay

  Mosquitoes

  The Sound and the Fury

  As I Lay Dying

  Sanctuary

  Light in August

  Pylon

  Absalom, Absalom!

  The Unvanquished

  The Wild Palms

  Go Down, Moses

  The Hamlet

  Intruder in the Dust

  Knight’s Gambit

  Requiem for a Nun

  A Fable

  The Town

  The Mansion

  The Reivers

  The Short Story Collections

  These 13

  Collected Stories

  Uncollected Stories

  The Short Stories

  List of Short Stories in Chronological Order

  List of Short Stories in Alphabetical Order

  The Poetry Collections

  The Marble Faun

  A Green Bough

  The Delphi Classics Catalogue

  © Delphi Classics 2019

  Version 1

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  The Complete Works of

  WILLIAM FAULKNER

  By Delphi Classics, 2019

  COPYRIGHT

  Complete Works of William Faulkner

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Delphi Classics.

  © Delphi Classics, 2019.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

  ISBN: 978 1 78877 950 0

  Delphi Classics

  is an imprint of

  Delphi Publishing Ltd

  Hastings, East Sussex

  United Kingdom

  Contact: [email protected]

  www.delphiclassics.com

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  The Snopes Trilogy

  The Hamlet (1940)

  The Town (1957)

  The Mansion (1959)

  The Novels

  New Albany, Mississippi – William Faulkner was born in a single-storey clapboard house in New Albany in 1897.

  The plaque commemorating the site of the birthplace

  Union County Heritage Museum in New Albany features a literary garden devoted to the author, with a large number of plants mentioned in Faulkner’s work, as well as markers showing the appropriate quotations. The garden stands close to the location of the birthplace site.

  Soldiers’ Pay

  In his youth William Faulkner exclusively wrote poetry and he did not complete his first novel until 1925, at the age of twenty-eight. His literary influences were varied and he later stated that he modelled his early writing on the Romantic era in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century England. He attended the University of Mississippi (“Ole Miss”) in Oxford, enrolling in 1919, going three semesters before deciding to drop out in November 1920. Faulkner had been permitted to attend classes at the university as his father had a job there as a business manager. He often skipped classes and received a “D” grade in English. However, some of his poems were published in campus publications.

  Although today Faulkner is largely identified with the state of Mississippi, he was residing in New Orleans, Louisiana, when he finished work on what is generally considered to be his first novel, Soldiers’ Pay. The influence of Sherwood Anderson’s modern experimental approach to fiction is clearly discernible in this work. Indeed, Anderson was a close friend and assisted Faulkner in his work, recommending his work to his own publisher.

  Soldier’s Pay is one of only a few of the author’s novels that is not set in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. Originally released by the New York-based publishing house Boni & Liveright on 25 February 1926, the narrative revolves around a wounded aviator, who returns home to a small town in Georgia following the conclusion of the First World War. He is escorted by a veteran of the war, as well as a widow whose husband was killed in the conflict. The aviator has suffered a horrendous head injury, leaving him in a state of almost perpetual silence, as well as blindness. Several conflicts revolving around his return include the state of his engagement to his fiancée, the desire of the widow to break the engagement in order to marry him herself and the romantic intrigue surrounding the fiancée who had been less than faithful to the aviator in his absence.

  By the standards of the day, Soldiers’ Pay and Faulkner’s second novel Mosquitoes were commercial failures, as neither sold more than 1,200 copies after their initial release. However, since Faulkner was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature, Soldiers’ Pay has remained in print. First edition copies are valuable among collectors, often selling for upwards of $35,000.

  The first edition

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  The first edition’s title page

  Faulkner serving as a cadet in Toronto, 1918

  SOLDIER

  ‘The hushèd plaint of wind in stricken trees

    Shivers the grass in path and lane

  And Grief and Time are tideless golden seas —

    Hush, hush! He’s home again.’

  CHAPTER ONE

  1

  ACHILLES: DID YOU shave this morning, Cadet?

  MERCURY: Yes, Sir.

  ACHILLES: What with, Cadet?

  MERCURY: Issue, Sir.

  ACHILLES: Carry on, Cadet.

  Old Play (about 19 —— ?)

  Lowe, Julian, number — , late a Flying Cadet, Umptieth Squadron, Air Service, known as ‘One Wing’ by the other embryonic aces of his flight, regarded the world with a yellow and disgruntled eye. He suffered the same jaundice that many a more booted one than he did, from Flight Commanders through Generals to the ambrosial single-barred (not to mention that inexplicable beast of the field which the French so beautifully call an aspiring aviator); they had stopped the war on him.

  So he sat in a smouldering of disgusted sorrow, not even enjoying his Pullman prerogatives, spinning on his thumb his hat with its accursed white band.

  ‘Had your nose in the wind, hey, buddy?’ said Yaphank, going home and smelling to high heaven of bad whisky.

  ‘Ah, go to hell,’ he returned sourly and Yaphank doffed his tortured hat.

  ‘Why, sure, General — or should I of said Lootenant? Excuse me, madam. I got gassed doing k.p. and my sight ain’t been the same since. On to Berlin! Yeh, sure, we’re on to Berlin. I’m on to you, Berlin. I got your number. Number no thousand no hundred and naughty naught Private (very private) Joe Gilligan, late for parade, late for fatigue, late for breakfast when breakfast is late. The Statue of Liberty ain’t never seen me, and if she do, she’ll have to ‘bout face.’

  Cadet Lowe raised a sophisticated eye. ‘Say, whatcher drinking, anyway?�
��

  ‘Brother, I dunno. Fellow that makes it was gave a Congressional medal last Chuesday because he has got a plan to stop the war. Enlist all the Dutchmen in our army and make ’em drink so much of his stuff a day for forty days, see? Ruin any war. Get the idea?’

  ‘I’ll say. Won’t know whether it’s a war or a dance, huh?’

  ‘Sure, they can tell. The women will all be dancing. Listen, I had a swell jane and she said, “for Christ’s sake, you can’t dance”. And I said, “like hell I can’t”. And we was dancing and she said, “what are you, anyways?” And I says, “what do you wanta know for? I can dance as well as any general or major or even a sergeant, because I just win four hundred in a poker game,” and she said, “oh, you did?” and I said, “sure, stick with me, kid,” and she said, “where is it?” Only I wouldn’t show it to her and then this fellow come up to her and said, “are you dancing this one?” And she said, “sure, I am. This bird don’t dance.” Well, he was a sergeant, the biggest one I ever seen. Say, he was like that fellow in Arkansaw that had some trouble with a nigger and a friend said to him, “well, I hear you killed a nigger yesterday.” And he said, “yes, weighed two hundred pounds.” Like a bear.’ He took the lurching of the train limberly and Cadet Lowe said, ‘For Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Sure,’ agreed the other. ‘She won’t hurt you, though. I done tried it. My dog won’t drink none of it of course, but then he got bad ways hanging around Brigade H.Q. He’s the one trophy of the war I got: something that wasn’t never bawled out by a shave-tail for not saluting. Say, would you kindly like to take a little something to keep off the sumniferous dews of this goddam country? The honour is all mine and you won’t mind it much after the first two drinks. Makes me homesick: like a garage. Ever work in a garage?’

  Sitting on the floor between two seats was Yaphank’s travelling companion, trying to ignite a splayed and sodden cigar. Like devasted France, thought Cadet Lowe, swimming his memory through the adenoidal reminiscences of Captain Bleyth, an R.A.F. pilot delegated to temporarily reinforce their democracy.

  ‘Why, poor soldier,’ said his friend, tearfully, ‘all alone in no man’s land and no matches. Ain’t war hell? I ask you.’ He tried to push the other over with his leg, then he fell to kicking him, slowly. ‘Move over, you ancient mariner. Move over, you goddam bastard. Alas, poor Jerks or something (I seen that in a play, see? Good line) come on, come on; here’s General Pershing come to have a drink with the poor soldiers.’ He addressed Cadet Lowe. ‘Look at him: ain’t he sodden in depravity?’

  ‘Battle of Coonyak,’ the man on the floor muttered. ‘Ten men killed. Maybe fifteen. Maybe hundred. Poor children at home saying “Alice, where art thou?” ’

  ‘Yeh, Alice. Where in hell are you? That other bottle. What’n’ell have you done with it? Keeping it to swim in when you get home?’

  The man on the floor weeping said: ‘You wrong me as ever man wronged. Accuse me of hiding mortgage on house? Then take this soul and body; take all. Ravish me, big boy.’

  ‘Ravish a bottle of vinegar juice out of you, anyway,’ the other muttered, busy beneath the seat. He rose triumphant, clutching a fresh bottle. ‘Hark! the sound of battle and the laughing horses draws near. But shall they dull this poor unworthy head? No! But I would like to of seen one of them laughing horses. Must of been lady horses all together. Your extreme highness’ — with ceremony, extending the bottle— ‘will you be kind enough to kindly condescend to honour these kind but unworthy strangers in a foreign land?’

  Cadet Lowe accepted the bottle, drank briefly, gagged and spat his drink. The other supporting him massaged his back. ‘Come on, come on, they don’t nothing taste that bad.’ Kindly cupping Lowe’s opposite shoulder in his palm he forced the bottle mouthward again. Lowe released the bottle, defending himself. ‘Try again. I got you. Drink it, now.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Cadet Lowe, averting his head.

  Passengers were interested and Yaphank soothed him. ‘Now, now. They won’t nothing hurt you. You are among friends. Us soldiers got to stick together in a foreign country like this. Come on, drink her down. She ain’t worth nothing to no one, spit on his legs like that.’

  ‘Hell, man, I can’t drink it.’

  ‘Why, sure you can. Listen: think of flowers. Think of your poor grey-haired mother banging on the front gate and sobbing her grey-haired heart out. Listen, think of having to go to work again when you get home. Ain’t war hell? I would of been a corporal at least, if she had just hung on another year.’

  ‘Hell, I can’t.’

  ‘Why, you got to,’ his new friend told him kindly, pushing the bottle suddenly in his mouth and tilting it. To be flooded or to swallow were his choices so he drank and retained it. His belly rose and hung, then sank reluctant.

  ‘There now, wasn’t so bad, was it? Remember, this hurts me to see my good licker going more than it does you. But she do kind of smack of gasoline, don’t she?’

  Cadet Lowe’s outraged stomach heaved at its muscular moorings like a captive balloon. He gaped and his vitals coiled coldly in a passionate ecstasy. His friend again thrust the bottle in his mouth.

  ‘Drink, quick! You got to protect your investment, you know.’

  His private parts, flooded, washed back to his gulping and a sweet fire ran through him, and the Pullman conductor came and regarded them in helpless disgust.

  ‘Ten-shun,’ said Yaphank, springing to his feet. ‘Beware of officers! Rise, men, and salute the admiral here.’ He took the conductor’s hand and held it. ‘Boys, this man commanded the navy,’ he said. ‘When the enemy tried to capture Coney Island he was there. Or somewhere between there and Chicago, anyway, wasn’t you, Colonel?’

  ‘Look out, men, don’t do that.’ But Yaphank had already kissed his hand.

  ‘Now, run along, Sergeant. And don’t come back until dinner is ready.’

  ‘Listen, you must stop this. You will ruin my train.’

  ‘Bless your heart, Captain, your train couldn’t be no safer with us if it was your own daughter.’ The man sitting on the floor moved and Yaphank cursed him. ‘Sit still, can’t you? Say, this fellow thinks it’s night. Suppose you have your hired man bed him down? He’s just in the way here.’

  The conductor, deciding Lowe was the sober one, addressed him.

  ‘For God’s sake, soldier, can’t you do something with them?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Cadet Lowe. ‘You run along; I’ll look after them. They’re all right.’

  ‘Well, do something with them. I can’t bring a train into Chicago with the whole army drunk on it. My God, Sherman was sure right.’

  Yaphank stared at him quietly. Then he turned to his companions. ‘Men,’ he said solemnly, ‘he don’t want us here. And this is the reward we get for giving our flesh and blood to our country’s need. Yes, sir, he don’t want us here; he begrudges us riding on his train, even. Say, suppose we hadn’t sprang to the nation’s call, do you know what kind of a train you’d have? A train full of Germans. A train full of folks eating sausage and drinking beer, all going to Milwaukee, that’s what you’d have.’

  ‘Couldn’t be worse than a train full of you fellows not knowing where you’re going,’ the conductor replied.

  ‘All right,’ Yaphank answered. ‘If that’s the way you feel, we’ll get off your goddam train. Do you think this is the only train in the world?’

  ‘No, no,’ the conductor said hastily, ‘not at all. I don’t want you to get off. I just want you to straighten up and not disturb the other passengers.’

  The sitting man lurched clumsily and Cadet Lowe met interested stares.

  ‘No,’ said Yaphank, ‘no! You have refused the hospitality of your train to the saviours of your country. We could have expected better treatment than this in Germany, even in Texas.’ He turned to Lowe. ‘Men, we will get off his train at the next station. Hey, General?’

  ‘My God,’ repeated the conductor. ‘If we ever have another peace I don’t know wh
at the railroads will do. I thought war was bad, but my God.’

  ‘Run along,’ Yaphank told him, ‘run along. You probably won’t stop for us, so I guess we’ll have to jump off. Gratitude! Where is gratitude, when trains won’t stop to let poor soldiers off? I know what it means. They’ll fill trains with poor soldiers and run ’em off into the Pacific Ocean. Won’t have to feed ’em any more. Poor soldiers! Woodrow, you wouldn’t of treated me like this.’

  ‘Hey, what you doing?’ But the man ignored him, tugging the window up and dragging a cheap paper suit-case across his companion’s knees. Before either Lowe or the conductor could raise a hand he had pushed the suit-case out the window. ‘All out, men!’

  His sodden companion heaved clawing from the floor. ‘Hey! That was mine you throwed out?’

  ‘Well, ain’t you going to get off with us? We are going to throw ’em all off, and when she slows down we’ll jump ourselves.’

  ‘But you throwed mine off first,’ the other said.

  ‘Why, sure. I was saving you the trouble, see? Now don’t you feel bad about it; you can throw mine off if you want, and then Pershing here, and the admiral can throw each other’s off the same way. You got a bag, ain’t you?’ he asked the conductor. ‘Get yours, quick, so we won’t have so damn far to walk.’

  ‘Listen, soldiers,’ said the conductor, and Cadet Lowe, thinking of Elba, thinking of his coiling guts and a slow alcoholic fire in him, remarked the splayed official gold breaking the man’s cap. New York swam flatly past; Buffalo was imminent, and sunset.

  ‘Listen, soldiers,’ repeated the conductor. ‘I got a son in France. Sixth Marines he is. His mother ain’t heard from him since October. I’ll do anything for you boys, see, but for God’s sake act decent.’