The Essential Faulkner Read online

  Faulkner keeps looking back nostalgically to the old order, but he presents its virtues as being moral rather than material. There is no baronial pomp in his novels; no profusion of silk and silver, mahogany and moonlight and champagne. All the planters lived comfortably, with plenty of servants, but Faulkner never lets us forget that they were living on what had recently been the frontier. What he admires about them is not their wealth or hospitality or florid manners, but rather their unquestioning acceptance of a moral code that taught them “courage and honor and pride, and pity and love of justice and of liberty.” The code was the secret lost by their heirs and successors.

  “A Justice” is a story of the old days as told to Quentin Compson, who will reappear with Caddy and Jason in The Sound and the Fury and who will be the narrator of Absalom, Absalom! Besides presenting the Compson children, the story also introduces Sam Fathers, the Chickasaw hunter who lived among the Negroes. He too will reappear in later stories, but with other dates assigned to his birth and death; that is one of the inconsistencies mentioned in the Introduction. “The Courthouse” is from the printed version of Faulkner’s play, Requiem for a Nun (1951), where it serves as a prologue to the first act. It introduces all the founders of Jefferson, including Thomas Sutpen (of Absalom, Absalom!), his French architect, and his wild Negroes from the jungle. “Red Leaves” is the most powerful of Faulkner’s four stories that deal with the Chickasaws (the others are “Lo!” and “A Courtship”). With “A Justice” it was included in These 13, his first collection of stories, published in 1931. “Was” is the opening chapter of Go Down, Moses (1942). It introduces Uncle Buck and Uncle Buddy McCaslin, the two poker-playing bachelors who lived in a cabin built with their own hands, because—although they had inherited a big plantation—they refused to profit from the fruits of slavery.

  1820

  A Justice

  I

  Until Grandfather Compson died, we would go out to the farm every Saturday afternoon. We would leave home right after dinner in the surrey, I in front with Roskus, and Grandfather and Candace (Caddy, we called her) and Jason in the back. Grandfather and Roskus would talk, with the horses going fast, because it was the best team in the county. They would carry the surrey fast along the levels and up some of the hills even. But this was in north Mississippi, and on some of the hills Roskus and I could smell Grandfather’s cigar.

  The farm was four miles away. There was a long, low house in the grove, not painted but kept whole and sound by a clever carpenter from the quarters named Sam Fathers, and behind it the barns and smokehouses, and further still, the quarters themselves, also kept whole and sound by Sam Fathers. He did nothing else, and they said he was almost a hundred years old. He lived with the Negroes and they—the white people; the Negroes called him a blue-gum—called him a Negro. But he wasn’t a Negro. That’s what I’m going to tell about.

  When we got there, Mr. Stokes, the manager, would send a Negro boy with Caddy and Jason to the creek to fish, because Caddy was a girl and Jason was too little, but I wouldn’t go with them. I would go to Sam Fathers’ shop, where he would be making breast-yokes or wagon wheels, and I would always bring him some tobacco. Then he would stop working and he would fill his pipe—he made them himself, out of creek clay with a reed stem—and he would tell me about the old days. He talked like a nigger—that is, he said his words like niggers do, but he didn’t say the same words—and his hair was nigger hair. But his skin wasn’t quite the color of a light nigger and his nose and his mouth and chin were not nigger nose and mouth and chin. And his shape was not like the shape of a nigger when he gets old. He was straight in the back, not tall, a little broad, and his face was still all the time, like he might be somewhere else all the while he was working or when people, even white people, talked to him, or while he talked to me. It was just the same all the time, like he might be away up on a roof by himself, driving nails. Sometimes he would quit work with something half-finished on the bench, and sit down and smoke. And he wouldn’t jump up and go back to work when Mr. Stokes or even Grandfather came along.

  So I would give him the tobacco and he would stop work and sit down and fill his pipe and talk to me.

  “These niggers,” he said. “They call me Uncle Blue-Gum. And the white folks, they call me Sam Fathers.”

  “Isn’t that your name?” I said.

  “No. Not in the old days. I remember. I remember how I never saw but one white man until I was a boy big as you are; a whiskey trader that came every summer to the Plantation. It was the Man himself that named me. He didn’t name me Sam Fathers, though.”

  “The Man?” I said.

  “He owned the Plantation, the Negroes, my mammy too. He owned all the land that I knew of until I was grown. He was a Chickasaw chief. He sold my mammy to your greatgrandpappy. He said I didn’t have to go unless I wanted to, because I was a warrior too then. He was the one who named me Had-Two-Fathers.”

  “Had-Two-Fathers?” I said. “That’s not a name. That’s not anything.”

  “It was my name once. Listen.”

  II

  This is how Herman Basket told it when I was big enough to hear talk. He said that when Doom came back from New Orleans, he brought this woman with him. He brought six black people, though Herman Basket said they already had more black people in the Plantation than they could find use for. Sometimes they would run the black men with dogs, like you would a fox or a cat or a coon. And then Doom brought six more when he came home from New Orleans. He said he won them on the steamboat, and so he had to take them. He got off the steamboat with the six black people, Herman Basket said, and a big box in which something was alive, and the gold box of New Orleans salt about the size of a gold watch. And Herman Basket told how Doom took a puppy out of the box in which something was alive, and how he made a bullet of bread and a pinch of the salt in the gold box, and put the bullet into the puppy and the puppy died.

  That was the kind of a man that Doom was, Herman Basket said. He told how, when Doom got off the steamboat that night, he wore a coat with gold all over it, and he had three gold watches, but Herman Basket said that even after seven years, Doom’s eyes had not changed. He said that Doom’s eyes were just the same as before he went away, before his name was Doom, and he and Herman Basket and my pappy were sleeping on the same pallet and talking at night, as boys will.

  Doom’s name was Ikkemotubbe then, and he was not born to be the Man, because Doom’s mother’s brother was the Man, and the Man had a son of his own, as well as a brother. But even then, and Doom no bigger than you are, Herman Basket said that sometimes the Man would look at Doom and he would say: “O Sister’s Son, your eye is a bad eye, like the eye of a bad horse.”

  So the Man was not sorry when Doom got to be a young man and said that he would go to New Orleans, Herman Basket said. The Man was getting old then. He used to like to play mumble-peg and to pitch horseshoes both, but now he just liked mumble-peg. So he was not sorry when Doom went away, though he didn’t forget about Doom. Herman Basket said that each summer when the whiskey trader came, the Man would ask him about Doom. “He calls himself David Callicoat now,” the Man would say. “But his name is Ikkemotubbe. You haven’t heard maybe of a David Callicoat getting drowned in the Big River, or killed in the white man’s fight at New Orleans?”

  But Herman Basket said they didn’t hear from Doom at all until he had been gone seven years. Then one day Herman Basket and my pappy got a written stick from Doom to meet him at the Big River. Because the steamboat didn’t come up our river any more then. The steamboat was still in our river, but it didn’t go anywhere any more. Herman Basket told how one day during the high water, about three years after Doom went away, the steamboat came and crawled up on a sand-bar and died.

  That was how Doom got his second name, the one before Doom. Herman Basket told how four times a year the steamboat would come up our river, and how the People would go to the river and camp and wait to see the steamboat pass, and he said tha
t the white man who told the steamboat where to swim was named David Callicoat. So when Doom told Herman Basket and pappy that he was going to New Orleans, he said, “And I’ll tell you something else. From now on, my name is not Ikkemotubbe. It’s David Callicoat. And some day I’m going to own a steamboat, too.” That was the kind of man that Doom was, Herman Basket said.

  So after seven years he sent them the written stick and Herman Basket and pappy took the wagon and went to meet Doom at the Big River, and Doom got off the steamboat with the six black people. “I won them on the steamboat,” Doom said. “You and Craw-ford (my pappy’s name was Crawfish-ford, but usually it was Craw-ford) can divide them.”

  “I don’t want them,” Herman Basket said that pappy said.

  “Then Herman can have them all,” Doom said.

  “I don’t want them either,” Herman Basket said.

  “All right,” Doom said. Then Herman Basket said he asked Doom if his name was still David Callicoat, but instead of answering, Doom told one of the black people something in the white man’s talk, and the black man lit a pine knot. Then Herman Basket said they were watching Doom take the puppy from the box and make the bullet of bread and the New Orleans salt which Doom had in the little gold box, when he said that pappy said:

  “I believe you said that Herman and I were to divide these black people.”

  Then Herman Basket said he saw that one of the black people was a woman.

  “You and Herman don’t want them,” Doom said.

  “I wasn’t thinking when I said that,” pappy said. “I will take the lot with the woman in it. Herman can have the other three.”

  “I don’t want them,” Herman Basket said.

  “You can have four, then,” pappy said. “I will take the woman and one other.”

  “I don’t want them,” Herman Basket said.

  “I will take only the woman,” pappy said. “You can have the other five.”

  “I don’t want them,” Herman Basket said.

  “You don’t want them, either,” Doom said to pappy. “You said so yourself.”

  Then Herman Basket said that the puppy was dead. “You didn’t tell us your new name,” he said to Doom.

  “My name is Doom now,” Doom said. “It was given me by a French chief in New Orleans. In French talking, Doo-um; in our talking, Doom.”

  “What does it mean?” Herman Basket said.

  He said how Doom looked at him for a while. “It means, the Man,” Doom said.

  Herman Basket told how they thought about that. He said they stood there in the dark, with the other puppies in the box, the ones that Doom hadn’t used, whimpering and scuffing, and the light of the pine knot shining on the eyeballs of the black people and on Doom’s gold coat and on the puppy that had died.

  “You cannot be the Man,” Herman Basket said. “You are only on the sister’s side. And the Man has a brother and a son.”

  “That’s right,” Doom said. “But if I were the Man, I would give Craw-ford those black people. I would give Herman something, too. For every black man I gave Craw-ford, I would give Herman a horse, if I were Man.”

  “Craw-ford only wants this woman,” Herman Basket said.

  “I would give Herman six horses, anyway,” Doom said. “But maybe the Man has already given Herman a horse.”

  “No,” Herman Basket said. “My ghost is still walking.”

  It took them three days to reach the Plantation. They camped on the road at night. Herman Basket said that they did not talk.

  They reached the Plantation on the third day. He said that the Man was not very glad to see Doom, even though Doom brought a present of candy for the Man’s son. Doom had something for all his kinsfolk, even for the Man’s brother. The Man’s brother lived by himself in a cabin by the creek. His name was Sometimes-Wakeup. Sometimes the People took him food. The rest of the time they didn’t see him. Herman Basket told how he and pappy went with Doom to visit Sometimes-Wakeup in his cabin. It was at night, and Doom told Herman Basket to close the door. Then Doom took the puppy from pappy and set it on the floor and made a bullet of bread and the New Orleans salt for Sometimes-Wakeup to see how it worked. When they left, Herman Basket said how Sometimes-Wakeup burned a stick and covered his head with the blanket.

  That was the first night that Doom was at home. On the next day Herman Basket told how the Man began to act strange at his food, and died before the doctor could get there and burn sticks. When the Willow-Bearer went to fetch the Man’s son and tell him that he was to be the Man, they found that he had acted strange and then died too.

  “Now Sometimes-Wakeup will have to be the Man,” pappy said.

  So the Willow-Bearer went to fetch Sometimes-Wakeup to come and be the Man. The Willow-Bearer came back soon. “Sometimes-Wakeup does not want to be the Man,” the Willow-Bearer said. “He is sitting in his cabin with his head in his blanket.”

  “Then Ikkemotubbe will have to be the Man,” pappy said.

  So Doom was the Man. But Herman Basket said that pappy’s ghost would not be easy. Herman Basket said he told pappy to give Doom a little time. “I am still walking,” Herman Basket said.

  “But this is a serious matter with me,” pappy said.

  He said that at last pappy went to Doom, before the Man and his son had entered the earth, before the eating and the horse-racing were over. “What woman?” Doom said.

  “You said that when you were the Man,” pappy said. Herman Basket said that Doom looked at pappy but that pappy was not looking at Doom.

  “I think you don’t trust me,” Doom said. Herman Basket said how pappy did not look at Doom. “I think you still believe that that puppy was sick,” Doom said. “Think about it.”

  Herman Basket said that pappy thought.

  “What do you think now?” Doom said.

  But Herman Basket said that pappy still did not look at Doom. “I think it was a well dog,” pappy said.

  III

  At last the eating and the horse-racing were over and the Man and his son had entered the earth. Then Doom said, “Tomorrow we will go and fetch the steamboat.” Herman Basket told how Doom had been talking about the steamboat ever since he became Man, and about how the House was not big enough. So that evening Doom said, “Tomorrow we will go and fetch the steamboat that died in the river.”

  Herman Basket said how the steamboat was twelve miles away, and that it could not even swim in the water. So the next morning there was no one in the Plantation except Doom and the black people. He told how it took Doom all that day to find the People. Doom used the dogs, and he found some of the People in hollow logs in the creek bottom. That night he made all the men sleep in the House. He kept the dogs in the House, too.

  Herman Basket told how he heard Doom and pappy talking in the dark. “I don’t think you trust me,” Doom said.

  “I trust you,” pappy said.

  “That is what I would advise,” Doom said.

  “I wish you could advise that to my ghost,” pappy said.

  The next morning they went to the steamboat. The women and the black people walked. The men rode in the wagons, with Doom following behind with the dogs.

  The steamboat was lying on its side on the sand-bar. When they came to it, there were three white men on it. “Now we can go back home,” pappy said.

  But Doom talked to the white men. “Does this steamboat belong to you?” Doom said.

  “It does not belong to you,” the white men said. And though they had guns, Herman Basket said they did not look like men who would own a boat.

  “Shall we kill them?” he said to Doom. But he said that Doom was still talking to the men on the steamboat.

  “What will you take for it?” Doom said.

  “What will you give for it?” the white men said.

  “It is dead,” Doom said. “It’s not worth much.”

  “Will you give ten black people?” the white men said.

  “All right,” Doom said. “Let the black people
who came with me from the Big River come forward.” They came forward, the five men and the woman. “Let four more black people come forward.” Four more came forward. “You are now to eat of the corn of those white men yonder,” Doom said. “May it nourish you.” The white men went away, the ten black people following them. “Now,” Doom said, “let us make the steamboat get up and walk.”

  Herman Basket said that he and pappy did not go into the river with the others, because pappy said to go aside and talk. They went aside. Pappy talked, but Herman Basket said that he said he did not think it was right to kill white men, but pappy said how they could fill the white men with rocks and sink them in the river and nobody would find them. So Herman Basket said they overtook the three white men and the ten black people, then they turned back toward the boat. Just before they came to the steamboat, pappy said to the black men: “Go on to the Man. Go and help make the steamboat get up and walk. I will take this woman on home.”

  “This woman is my wife,” one of the black men said. “I want her to stay with me.”

  “Do you want to be arranged in the river with rocks in your inside too?” pappy said to the black man.

  “Do you want to be arranged in the river yourself?” the black man said to pappy. “There are two of you, and nine of us.”

  Herman Basket said that pappy thought. Then pappy said, “Let us go to the steamboat and help the Man.”

  They went to the steamboat. But Herman Basket said that Doom did not notice the ten black people until it was time to return to the Plantation. Herman Basket told how Doom looked at the black people, then looked at pappy. “It seems that the white men did not want these black people,” Doom said.