William Faulkner - Flags in the Dust

The music tinkled and faltered, hesitated, corrected itself to the intent nodding of little Belle’s head and the strained meagre gestures of the teacher, tinkled monotonously and tunelessly on while the . assembled guests sat in a sort of bland, waiting inattention; and Horace speculated on that persevering and senseless urge of parents (and of all adults) for making children a little ridiculous in their own eyes and in the eyes of other children. The clothes they make them wear, the stupid mature things they make them do. And he found himself wondering if to be cultured did not mean to be purged of all taste; civilized, to be robbed of all fineness of objective judgment regarding oneself. Then he remembered that little Belle also had been born a woman.

The music tinkled thinly, ceased; the teacher leaned forward with a passionate movement and removed the sheet from the rack, and the room swelled with a polite adulation of bored palms. Horace too; and little Belle turned on the bench, with her flying eyes, and Horace grinned faintly at his own masculine vanity. Sympathy here, when she was answering one of the oldest compulsions of her sex, a compulsion that taste nor culture nor anything else would ever cause to appear ridiculous to her. Then the teacher spoke to her and the turned on the bench again, with her rapt laborious fingers and the brown, intent nodding of her head.

Belle sat sideways in her chair. Her head was bent and her hands lay idle upon her lap and she sat brooding and remote. Horace watched her, the fine of her neck, the lustrous stillness of her arm; trying to project himself into that region of rich and smoldering immobility into which she had withdrawn for the while. But he could not; she did not seem to be aware of him at all; the corridors where he sought her were empty, and he moved quietly in his seat beneath the tim tinkling of the music and looked about at the other politely attentive-heads and beyond them, in the doorway, Harry making significant covert signs in his direction. Harry jerked his thumb toward his mouth and moved his head meaningly, but Horace flipped his hand briefly in reply, without moving. When he looked doorward again Harry was gone.

Little Belle ceased again. When the clapping died the heavy thump-thump-thump of Harry’s heels sounded on the ceiling above. Ridiculous, like the innocent defenseless backside of a small boy caught delving into an apple barrel, and a few of the guests cast their eyes upward in polite astonishment. Belle raised her head sharply, with an indescribable gesture, then she looked at Horace with cold and blazing irritation, enveloping, savage, disdainful of who might see. The thumping ceased, became a cautious clumsy, tipping, and Belle’s anger faded, though her gaze was still full upon him. Little Belle played again and Horace looked away from the cold fixity of Belle’s gaze, a little uncomfortably, and so saw Harry and one of the men guests enter surreptitiously and seat themselves; he turned his head again. Beneath the heavy shadow of her hair Belle still watched him, and he shaped three words with his lips. But Belle’s mouth did not change its sullen repose, nor her eyes, and then he realized that she was not looking at him at all, perhaps had never been.

Later Belle herself went to the piano and played a trite saccharine waltz and little Belle danced to it with studied, meaningless gestures top thinly conceived and too airily executed to be quite laughable, and stood with her diffident shining among the smug palms. She would have danced again, but Belle rose from the piano, and the guests rose also with prompt unanimity and surrounded her in laudatory sibilance. Belle stood-moodily beside her daughter in the center of it, and little Belle pleasurably. Horace rose also. Above the gabbling of the women he could hear Harry again overhead: thump-thump-thump, and he knew that Belle was also listening although she responded faultlessly to the shrill indistinguishable compliments of her guests. Beside little Belle the teacher stood, with her cold, sad eyes, proprietorial and deprecatory, touching little Belle’s hair with a meagre passionate hand.

Then they drifted doorward, with their shrill polite uproar. Little Belle slid from among them and came, a little drunk with all the furor and her central figuring in it, and took Horace’s hand “What do you think was the best,” she asked, “when I played, or when I danced?”

“I think they both were,” he answered.

“I know. But what do you think was the best?”

“Well, I think the dancing was, because your mamma was playing for you.”

“So do I,” little Belle agreed. “They could see all of me when I was dancing, couldn’t they? When you are playing, they can’t see but your back.”

“Yes,” Horace agreed. He moved toward the door, little Belle still clinging to his hand.

“I wish they wouldn’t go. Why do they have to go now? Can’t you stay a while?”

“I must take Narcissa home. She can’t go home by herself, you know.”

“Yes,” little Belle agreed. “Daddy could take her home in our car.”

“I expect I’d better do it. But I’ll be coming back soon.”

“Well, all right, then.” Little Belle sighed with weary contentment. “I certainly do like parties; I certainly do. I wish we had one every night.” The guests clotted at the door, evacuating with politely trailing phrases into the darkness. Belle stood responding to their recapitulations with smoldering patience. Narcissa stood slightly aside, waiting for~ him, and Harry was among them again, strident and affable.

“Daddy’s gal,” he said. “Did Horace see her playing the piano and dancing? Want to go up andtake one before you leave?” he asked Horace in a jarring undertone.

“No, thanks. Narcissi’s waiting for me. Some other time.”

“Sure, sure,” Harry agreed, and Horace was aware of Belle beside him, speaking to little Belle, but when he turned his head she was moving away with her silken swishing and her heavy, feint scent. Harry was still talking. “How about a couple of sets tomorrow? Let’s get over early, before Belle’s gang comes, and get in a couple of fast ones, then let ‘em have the court.”

“All right,” Horace agreed; as he always did to this arrangement, wondering as usual if that boy’s optimism of Harry’s really permitted him to believe that they could or would follow it out, or if he had just said the phrase so many times that the juxtaposition of the words no longer had any meaning in his liquor-fuddled brain. Then Narcissa was beside him, and they were saying Goodnight, and the door closed upon little Belle, and Harry’s glazed squat dome and upon Belle’s smoldering and sullen rage. She had said no word to him all evening.

He turned away and found that his sister had descended the steps and was half way -down the dark walk to the street. “If you’re going my way, I’ll walk along with you,” he called to her. She made no reply, neither did she slacken her pace, nor did she increase it when he joined her.

“Why is it,” he began, “that grown people will go to so much trouble to make children do ridiculous things, do you suppose? Belle had a house full of people she doesn’t care anything about and most of whom don’t approve of her, and kept little Belle up three hours past her bedtime; and the result isHarry’s about half tight, and Belle is in a bad humor, and little Belle is too excited to go to sleep, and you and I wish we were home and are sorry we didn’t stay there.”

“Why do you go there, then?” Narcissa asked coldly. Horace was suddenly stilled. They walked on through the darkness, toward the next street light. Against it branches hung like black coral in a silver sea.

“Oh,” Horace said. Then: “I saw that old cat talking with you.”