—Yes, sir, Henry says.
He is about to say Charles carried me back but he does not, because already he knows what is coming.
He does not even think Surely Judith didn't write him about that letter or It was Clytie who sent him word somehow that Charles has written her.
He thinks neither of these.
To him it is logical and natural that their father should know of his and Bon's decision: that rapport of blood which should bring Bon to decide to write, himself to agree to it and their father to know of it at the same identical instant, after a period of four years, out of all time.
Now it does come, almost exactly as he had known that it will: —I have seen Charles Bon, Henry.
Henry says nothing.
It is coming now.
He says nothing, he merely stares at his father—the two of them in leaf-faded graff, a single candle, a crude tent walling them away from a darkness where alert pickets face one another and where weary men sleep without shelter, waiting for dawn and the firing, the weary backward walking to commence again: yet in a second tent candle gray and all are gone and it is the hollydecked Christmas library at Sutpen's Hundred four years ago and the table not a camp table suitable for the spreading of maps but the heavy carved rosewood one at home with the group photograph of his mother and sister and himself sitting upon it, his father behind the table and behind his father the window above the garden where Judith and Bon strolled in that slow rhythm where the heart matches the footsteps and the eyes need only look at one another.
—You are going to let him marry Judith, Henry.
Still Henry does not answer.
It has all been said before, and now he has had four years of bitter struggle following which, whether it be victory or defeat which he has gained, at least he has gained it and has peace now, even if the peace be mostly despair.
—He cannot marry her, Henry.
Now Henry speaks.
—You said that before.
I told you then.
And now, and now it wont be much longer now and then we wont have anything left: honor nor pride not God since God quit us four years ago only He never thought it necessary to tell us; no shoes nor clothes and no need for them; not only no land to make food out of but no need for the food and when you don't have God and honor and pride, nothing matters except that there is the old mindless meat that don't even care if it was defeat or victory, that wont even die, that will be out in the woods and fields, grubbing up mots and weeds. —Yes.
I have decided, Brother or not, I have decided.
I will.
I will.
—He must not marry her, Henry.
—Yes.
I said Yes at first, but I was not decided then.
I didn't let him.
But now I have had four years to decide in.
I will.
I am going to.
—He must not marry her, Henry.
His mother's father told me that her mother had been a Spanish woman.
I believed him; it was not until after he was born that I found out that his mother was part Negro.
Nor did Henry ever say that he did not remember leaving the tent.
He remembers all of it.
He remembers stooping through the entrance again and passing the sentry again; he remembers walking back down the cut and rutted road, stumbling in the dark among the ruts on either side of which the fires have now died to embers, so that he can barely distinguish the men sleeping on the earth about them.
It must be better than eleven oclock, he thinks.
And another eight miles tomorrow.
If it were only not for those damned guns.
Why doesn't Old Joe give the guns to Sherman.
Then we could make twenty miles a day.
We could join Lee then.
At least Lee stops and fights some of the time.
He remembers it.
He remembers how he did not return to his fire but stopped presently in a lonely place and leaned against a pine, leaning quietly and easily, with his head back so he could look up at the shabby shaggy branches like something in wrought iron spreading motionless against the chill vivid stars of early spring, thinking I hope he remembers to thank Colonel Willow for letting us use his tent, thinking not what he would do but what he would have to do.
Because he knew what he would do; it now depended on what Bon would do, would force him to do, since he knew that he would do it.
So I must go to him, he thought, thinking, Now it is better than two o'clock and it will be dawn soon.
Then it was dawn, or almost, and it was cold: a chill which struck through the worn patched thin clothing, through the something of weariness and undernourishment; the passive ability, not the volitional will, to endure; there was light somewhere, enough of it for him to distinguish Bon's sleeping face from among the others where he lay wrapped in his blankets, beneath his spread cloak; enough light for him to wake Bon by and for Bon to distinguish his face (or perhaps something communicated by Henry's hand) because Bon does not speak, demand to know who it is: he merely rises and puts the cloak about his shoulders and approaches the smoldering fire and is kicking it into a blaze when Henry speaks: —Wait.
Bon pauses and looks at Henry; now he can see Henry's face.
He says, —You will be cold.
You are cold now.
You haven't been asleep, have you?
Here.