William Faulkner - Flags in the Dust

Round and round the mule went, setting its narrow, deerlike feet delicately down in the hissing cane-pith, its neck bobbing limber as a section of rubber hose in the collar, with its trace-galled flanks and flopping, lifeless ears, and its half-closed eyes drowsing venomously behind pale lids, apparently asleep with the monotony of its own motion. Some Cincinnatus of the cotton fields should contemplate the lowly destiny, some Homer should sing the saga, of the mule and of his place in the South. He it was, more than any one creature or thing, who, steadfastto the land when all else faltered before the hopeless juggernaut of circumstance, impervious to conditions that broke men’s hearts because of his venomous and patient preoccupation with the immediate present, won the prone South from beneath the iron heel of Reconstruction and taught it pride again through humility and courage through adversity overcome; who accomplished the well-nigh impossible despite hopeless odds, by sheer and vindictive patience. Father and mother he does not resemble, sons and daughters he will -never have; vindictive and patient (it is a known fact that he will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once); solitary but without pride, self-sufficient but without vanity; his voice is his own derision. Outcast and pariah, he has neither friend, wife, mistress nor sweetheart; celibate, he is unscarred, possesses neither pillar nor desert cave, he is not assaulted by temptations nor flagellated by dreams nor assuaged by visions; faith, hope and charity are not his. Misanthropic, he labors six days without reward for one creature whom he hates, bound with chains to another whom he despises, and spends the seventh day kicking or being kicked by his fellows. Misunderstood even by that creature (the nigger who.drives him) whose impulses and mental processes most closely resemble his, he performs alien actions among alien surroundings; he finds bread not only for a race, but for an entire form of behavior; meek, his inheritance is cooked away from him along with his soul in a glue factory. Ugly, untiring and perverse, he can be moved neither by reason, flattery, nor promise of reward; he performs his humble monotonous duties without complaint, and his meed is blows. Alive, he is haled through the world, an object of general execration; unwept, unhonored and unsung, he bleacheshis awkward, accusing bones among rusting cans and broken crockery and worn-out automobile tires on lonely hillsides, while his flesh soars unawares against the blue in the craws of buzzards.

As they approached, the groaning; and creaking of the mill would be the first intimation^ unless the wind happened to blow toward them. Then it would be the sharp, subtly exciting odor of fermentation and of cooking molasses to greet them. Bayard liked the smell of it, and they would drive up and sit for a time while the boy rolled his eyes covertly at them as he fed the mill, watching the patient unceasing mule and the old man stooped above the simmering pot. Sometimes Bayard got out and went over and talked to him, leaving Narcissa alone in the car, lapped in the ripe odors of the failing year and all its vague, rich sadness, her gaze brooding quietly upon Bayard and the old negro—the one lean and tall and fatally young and the other stooped with time, while her spirit went out in serene and steady waves, surrounding him unawares.

Then he would return and get in beside her, and she would touch his rough clothing but so lightly that he was not conscious of it, and they would drive back along the faint road, beside the flaunting woods, and soon, above turning oaks and locusts, the white house simple and huge and steadfast, and the orange disc of the harvest moon beyond the trees, halved like a cheese by the ultimate hills.

Sometimes they went back after dark. The mill was still then, its long motionless arm like a gesture across the firelit scene. The mulewas munching somewhere in stable, or stamping and nuzzling its empty manger, or asleep standing, boding not of tomorrow; and against the .firelight many forms moved. The negroes had gathered now: old men andwomen sitting on crackling cushions of cane about the blaze which one of their number fed with pressed stalks until its incense-laden fury swirled licking at the boughs overhead, making more golden still the twinkling golden leaves; and young men and girls, and children squatting and still as animals, staring into the fire. Sometimes they sang—quavering, wordless chords in which sad monotonous minors blent with mellow bass in passionless suspense and faded along the quivering golden air, to be renewed. But whenthe white folks arrived the singing ceased, and they sat or lay about the crackling scented blaze on which the blackened pot simmered, talking in broken phrases murmurous with overtones ready with sorrowful mirth, while in shadowy beds among the dry whispering canestalks youths and girls murmured and giggled.

Always one of them, and sometimes both, stopped in the “office” where old Bayard and Miss Jenny sat. There was a fire of logs on the hearth now, and they would sit in the glow of it—Miss Jenny beneath the light with her lurid daily paper; old Bayard with his slippered feet propped against the fireplace, his head wreathed in smoke and the old setter dreaming fitfully beside his chair, reliving proud and ancient stands perhaps, or further back still, the lean, gawky days of his young doghood, when the world was full . of scents that maddened the blood in him and pride had not yet taught him self-restraint; Narcissa and Bayard between them—Narcissa dreaming too in the firelight, grave and still and serene, and young Bayard smoking his cigarettes in his leashed and moody repose.

At last old Bayard would throw his cigar into the fire and drop his feet to the floor, and the dog would raise its head and blink and yawn with such gapingdeliberation that Narcissa, watching him, invariably yawned also. “Well, Jenny?”

Then Miss Jenny would lather paper aside andrise. “Let me,” Narcissa would say.“Let me go.” ButMiss Jenny never would, and presently she would return with a tray and three glasses, and old Bayardwould unlock his desk and fetch the silver-stoppereddecanter and compound three toddies with ritualistic care.

Once Bayard persuaded Narcissa into khaki and boots and carried her ‘possum hunting. Caspey with a streaked and blackened lantern and a cow’s horn slung over his shoulder, and Isom with a gunny sack and an axe, and four shadowy, restless hounds waited for them at the lot gate and they set off among ghostly shocks of corn, where every day almost Bayard kicked up a covey of quail, toward the woods.

“Where we going to start tonight, Caspey?” Bayard asked.

“Back of Unc’ Henry’s. Day’s one in dat grape vine behind de cotton house. Blue treed ‘im down dar las’ night.”

“How do you know he’s there tonight, Caspey?” Narcissa asked.

“He be back,” Caspey answered confidently. “He right dar now, watchin’ dis lantern wid his eyes scrooched up, listenin’ to hear ef de dawgs wid us.”

They climbed through a fence and Caspey stooped and set the lantern on the ground. The dogs moiled and tugged about his legs with sniffings and throaty growls at one another as he unleashed them. “You, Ruby! Stan’ still, dar. Hole up here, you potlickin’ fool.” They whimpered and surged, their eyes melting in fluid brief gleams, then they faded soundlessly and swiftly into the darkness. “Give ‘um a little time,” Caspey said. “Let ‘um see ef he dar yit.” Fromthe darkness ahead a dog yapped three times on a high note. “Dat’s dat young dawg,” Caspey explained. “Jes’ showin’off. He ain’t smelt nothin’.” Overhead the stars swam vaguely in the hazy sky; the air was not yet chill, and theearth was warm yet. They stood in a steady oasis of lantern light in a world with but one dimension, a vague cistern of darkness filled with meagre light and topped with an edgeless canopy of ragged stars. It was smoking and emanating a faint odor of heat. Caspey lifted it and turned the wick down and set it at his feet again. Then from tie darkness there came a single note, resonant and low and grave.