Dilsey tied a cloth about his neck and wiped his mouth with the end of it. "And see kin you keep fum messin up his clothes one time," she said, handing Luster a spoon.
Ben ceased whimpering.
He watched the spoon as it rose to his mouth.
It was as if even eagerness were musclebound in him too, and hunger itself inarticulate, not knowing it is hunger.
Luster fed him with skill and detachment.
Now and then his attention would return long enough to enable him to feint the spoon and cause Ben to close his mouth upon the empty air, but it was apparent that Luster's mind was elsewhere. His other hand lay on the back of the chair and upon that dead surface it moved tentatively, delicately, as if he were picking an inaudible tune out of the dead void, and once he even forgot to tease Ben with the spoon while his fingers teased out of the slain wood a soundless and involved arpeggio until Ben recalled him by whimpering again.
In the diningroom Dilsey moved back and forth.
Presently she rang a small clear bell, then in the kitchen Luster heard Mrs Compson and Jason descending, and Jason's voice, and he rolled his eyes whitely with listening.
"Sure, I know they didn't break it," Jason said. "Sure, I know that.
Maybe the change of weather broke it."
"I dont see how it could have," Mrs Compson said. "Your room stays locked all day long, just as you leave it when you go to town.
None of us ever go in there except Sunday, to clean it.
I dont want you to think that I would go where I'm not wanted, or that I would permit anyone else to."
"I never said you broke it, did I?" Jason said.
"I dont want to go in your room," Mrs Compson said. "I respect anybody's private affairs.
I wouldn't put my foot over the threshold, even if I had a key."
"Yes," Jason said. "I know your keys wont fit.
That's why I had the lock changed.
What I want to know is, how that window got broken."
"Luster say he didn't do hit," Dilsey said.
"I knew that without asking him," Jason said. "Where's Quentin?" he said.
"Where she is ev'y Sunday mawnin," Dilsey said. "Whut got into you de last few days, anyhow?"
"Well, we're going to change all that," Jason said. "Go up and tell her breakfast is ready."
"You leave her alone now, Jason," Dilsey said. "She gits up fer breakfast ev'y week mawnin, en Miss Cahline lets her stay in bed ev'y Sunday.
You knows dat."
"I cant keep a kitchen full of niggers to wait on her pleasure, much as I'd like to," Jason said.
"Go and tell her to come down to breakfast."
"Aint nobody have to wait on her," Dilsey said. "I puts her breakfast in de warmer en she--"
"Did you hear me?" Jason said.
"I hears you," Dilsey said. "All I been hearin, when you in de house.
Ef hit aint Quentin er yo maw, hit's Luster en Benjy.
Whut you let him go on dat way fer, Miss Cahline?"
"You'd better do as he says," Mrs Compson said. "He's head of the house now.
It's his right to require us to respect his wishes.
I try to do it, and if I can, you can too."
"'Taint no sense in him bein so bad tempered he got to make Quentin git up jes to suit him," Dilsey said. "Maybe you think she broke dat window."
"She would, if she happened to think of it," Jason said. "You go and do what I told you."
"En I wouldn't blame her none ef she did," Dilsey said, going toward the stairs. "Wid you naggin at her all de blessed time you in de house."
"Hush, Dilsey," Mrs Compson said. "It's neither your place nor mine to tell Jason what to do.
Sometimes I think he is wrong, but I try to obey his wishes for you all's sakes.
If I'm strong enough to come to the table, Quentin can too."
Dilsey went out.
They heard her mounting the stairs.
They heard her a long while on the stairs.
"You've got a prize set of servants," Jason said. He helped his mother and himself to food. "Did you ever have one that was worth killing? You must have had some before I was big enough to remember."
"I have to humor them," Mrs Compson said. "I have to depend on them so completely.
It's not as if I were strong.
I wish I were.
I wish I could do all the house work myself.
I could at least take that much off your shoulders."