William Faulkner - Flags in the Dust

“And, Bayard,” old man Falls said, “I sort of envied them two nawthuners, be damned ef I didn’t. A feller kin take a wife and live with her a long time, but after all they ain’t no kin. But the feller that brings you into the world or sends you outen hit...”

Lurking behind the pantry door Simon could hear the steady storming of Miss Jenny’s and old Bayard’s voices; later when they had removed to the office and Elnora and Isom and Caspey sat about the table in the kitchen waiting for Simon, the concussion ofMiss Jenny’s raging and old Bayard’s rock-like stubbornness came in muffled surges, as of faraway surf.

“What dey quoilin, about now?” Caspey asked. “Is you been and done something?” he demanded of his nephew.

Isom rolled his eyes quietly above his steady jaws. “Naw’ suh,” he mumbled. “I ain’t done nothin’.”

“Seems like dey’d git wo’ out, after a while. What’s pappy doin’, Elnora?”

“Up dar in de hall, listenin’. Go tell ‘im to come on and git his supper, so I kin git done, Isom.”

Isom slid from his chair, still chewing, and left the kitchen. The steady raging of the two voices increased; where the shapeless figure of his grandfather stood like a disreputable and ancient bird in the dark hallway Isom could distinguish words:...poison...blood...think you can cat your head off and cure it?...fool put it on your foot, but...face, head...dead and good riddance...fool of you dying because of your own bullheaded folly...you first sitting in a chair, though...

“you and that damn doctor are going to worry me to death.” Old Bayard’s voice drowned the other temporarily. “Will Falls won’thave a chance to kill me. I can’t sit in my chair in town without that damn squirt sidling around me and looking disappointed because I’m still alive on my feet. And when I come home to get away from him, you can’t even let me eat sapper in peace. Have to show me a lot of damn colored pictures of what some fool thinks a man’s insides look like.”

“Who gwine die, pappy?” Isom whispered.

Simon turned his head. “What you hangin’ eround here fer, boy? Go’n back to dat kitchen whar you belongs.”

“Supper waitin’,” Isom said. “Who dyin’, pappy?”

“Ain’t nobody dyin’. Does anybody soun’ dead? You git on outende house, now,”

Together they returned down the hall and entered the kitchen. Behind them the voices raged and stormed, blurred a little by walls, but dominant and unequivocal.

“Whut dey fighfin’ erbout, now?” Caspey, chewing, asked.

“Dat’s white folks’ bizness,” Simon told him. “You tend to yo’n, and dey’ll git erlong all right.” He sat down and Elnora rose and filled a cup from the coffee pot on the stove and brought it to him. “White folks got dey troubles same as niggers is. Gimme dat dish o’ meat, boy.”

In the house the storm ran its nightly course, ceased as though by mutual consent, both parties still firmly entrenched; resumed at the supper table the next evening. And so on, day after day, until the second week in July and six days after young Bayard had been fetched home with his chest crushed, Miss Jenny and old Bayard and Dr. Alford went to Memphis to consult a well-knownauthority on blood and glandular diseases with whom Dr. Alford, with some difficulty, had made a formal engagement. Young Bayard lay upstairs in his cast, but Simon and Elnora would be about the house ill day, and Narcissa Benbow had agreed to come out and keep him company.

Between the two of them they got old Bayard on the early train, still pro testing profanely like a stubborn and bewildered ox. There were others who knew them in the car. These stopped and spoke to them, and remarking Dr. Alford’s juxtaposition, became curious and solicitous. Old Bayard took these opportunities to assert himself again, with violent rumbling, but Miss Jenny hushed him coldly and implacably.

They took him, like a sullen small boy, in a cab to the clinic where the specialist waited them, and in a room resembling an easy and informal hotel lobby they sat among other consultants and an untidy clutter of magazines and papers, waiting for the specialist to arrive. They waited a long time. Meanwhile Dr. Alford from time to time assaulted the impregnable affability of the woman at the telephone switchboard, was repulsed and returned and sat stiffly beside his patient, aware that with every minute they waited, he was losing ground in Miss Jenny’s opinion of him. Old Bayard was cowed too, by this time, though occasionally he rumbled at Miss Jenny with stubborn and hopeless optimism. “Oh, stop swearing at me,” she interrupted him. “You can’t walk out now. Here, here’s the morning paper—take it and be quiet.”

Then the specialist entered briskly and crossed to the switchboard woman, where Dr. Alford saw him and rose and crossed to him. The specialist turned—a brisk, dapper man, who moved with arrogant jerky motions, as though he were exercising with a small sword, and who in turning, almost stepped on Dr. Alford. He shook Dr. Alford’s hand and broke into a high, desiccated stream of rapid words. “On the dot, I see. Promptness. Promptness. That’s good. Patient here? Asked for a room yet?”

“Yes, Doctor, he’s—”

“Good, good. Undressed her already, eh?”

“The patient is a m—”

“Just a moment.’’ The specialist turned. “Oh, Mrs. Smith?”

“Yes, Doctor “ The woman at the switchboard did not raise her head, and at that moment another specialist of some sort, a large one, with a profound, surreptitious air like a royal undertaker, entered andstopped Dr. Alford’s, and for a while the two of them alternately rumbled and rattled at one another while Dr. Alford stood ignored nearby, fuming stiffly and politely, feeling himself sinking lower and lower in Miss Jenny’s opinion of his professional status. Thai the two specialists had done, and Dr. Alford led his man toward his patient.

“Got the patient all ready, you say? Good, good; save time. Lunching down town today. Had lunch yourself?”

“No, Doctor. But the patient is a—”

“Daresay not,” the specialist agreed. “Plenty of time, though.” He turned briskly toward a curtained exit, but Dr. Alford took his arm firmly but courteously and halted him. Old Bayard was reading the paper. Miss Jenny was watching them with cold and smoldering disapproval

“Mrs. Du Pre, Colonel Sartoris,”Dr. Alford said, “this is Dr. Brandt. Colonel Sartoris is your p—”

“How d’ye do? How d’ye do?” the specialist said affably. “Come along with the patient, eh? Daughter? Granddaughter?” Old Bayard looked up.

“What?” he said, cupping his ear, and found the specialist staling at his face with abrupt interest.

“What’s that on your face?” he demanded, jerking his hand forth and touching the blackened scabby excrescence. When he did so, the thing came off in his fingers, leaving on old Bayard’s withered but unblemished cheek a round spot of skin rosy and fair as anybaby’s.

On the train that evening old Bayard, who had sat for a long time in deep thought, spoke suddenly.

“Jenny, what day of the month is this?”

“The ninth,” Miss Jenny answered. “Why?”

Old Bayard sat for a while longer. Then he rose. “Think I’ll go up and smoke a cigar,” he said. “Ireckon a little tobacco won’t hurt me, will it, Doctor?”

Three weeks later they got a bill from the specialist for fifty dollars. “Now I know why he’s so well known,” Miss Jenny said acidly. Then to old Bayard: “You’d better thank your stars it wasn’t your hat he lifted off.”

Toward Dr. Alford her manner is fiercely and belligerently protective; to old man Falls she gives the briefest and coldest nod and sails on with her nose in air; but to Loosh Peabody she does not speak at all.