"I bound you would." Dilsey said.
"And see what you got by it." Caddy said. "Tattletale."
"What did I get by it." Jason said.
"Whyn't you get your nightie on." Dilsey said.
She went and helped Caddy take off her bodice and drawers. "Just look at you." Dilsey said.
She wadded the drawers and scrubbed Caddy behind with them. "It done soaked clean through onto you." she said.
"But you wont get no bath this night. Here." She put Caddy's nightie on her and Caddy climbed into the bed and Dilsey went to the door and stood with her hand on the light. "You all be quiet now, you hear." she said.
"All right." Caddy said. "Mother's not coming in tonight." she said.
"So we still have to mind me."
"Yes." Dilsey said. "Go to sleep, now."
"Mother's sick." Caddy said. "She and Damuddy are both sick."
"Hush." Dilsey said. "You go to sleep."
The room went black, except the door.
Then the door went black.
Caddy said,
"Hush, Maury" putting her hand on me.
So I stayed hushed.
We could hear us.
We could hear the dark.
It went away, and Father looked at us.
He looked at Quentin and Jason, then he came and kissed Caddy and put his hand on my head.
"Is Mother very sick." Caddy said.
"No." Father said. "Are you going to take good care of Maury."
"Yes." Caddy said.
Father went to the door and looked at us again.
Then the dark came back, and he stood black in the door, and then the door turned black again.
Caddy held me and I could hear us all, and the darkness, and something I could smell.
And then I could see the windows, where the trees were buzzing.
Then the dark began to go in smooth, bright shapes, like it always does, even when Caddy says that I have been asleep.
June 2, 1910
When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight oclock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch.
It was Grandfather's and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it's rather excruciating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father's.
I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it.
Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought.
The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.
It was propped against the collar box and I lay listening to it.
Hearing it, that is.
I dont suppose anybody ever deliberately listens to a watch or a clock.
You dont have to.
You can be oblivious to the sound for a long while, then in a second of ticking it can create in the mind unbroken the long diminishing parade of time you didn't hear.
Like Father said down the long and lonely light-rays you might see Jesus walking, like.
And the good Saint Francis that said Little Sister Death, that never had a sister.
Through the wall I heard Shreve's bed-springs and then his slippers on the floor hishing.
I got up and went to the dresser and slid my hand along it and touched the watch and turned it face-down and went back to bed.
But the shadow of the sash was still there and I had learned to tell almost to the minute, so I'd have to turn my back to it, feeling the eyes animals used to have in the back of their heads when it was on top, itching.
It's always the idle habits you acquire which you will regret. Father said that.
That Christ was not crucified: he was worn away by a minute clicking of little wheels.
That had no sister.
And so as soon as I knew I couldn't see it, I began to wonder what time it was.
Father said that constant speculation regarding the position of mechanical hands on an arbitrary dial which is a symptom of mind-function.