I was totally resigned to letting my body, that fragile shell for breath that lasts for a length of time that insistently and cruelly belies its weakness, remain in that place, while bits of my soul, my life, departed like Yanks from Lee, to remain in the house that I had been for the last four years after not laying eyes on it nor setting foot in it for several decades, during which time I had been living with the indomitable image of that haughty, handsome, but dying face etched to the back of my eyelids as if determined to taunt me and be with me, to be with me at my death, my defeated end, as I had been with him for his as a good friend should—standing over him, watching as his face grew paler than his lineage suggested, his mouth gaping open in an almost satisfied, tender smile, and then I knew. I knew, and it was at that precise moment that I cemented my vow, my ironclad unshakable resolution, never to surrender to the beauty, the lies, the oaths, the companionship so open that it swallowed you whole, anything to make me feel wanted, needed, cherished, respected—loved. I, Henry Sutpen, am dying as a man in utter, absolute, and damnable love.
I was ready to be rid of that face, that day, that family, when I saw an image in the doorway that made my eyes flicker with both fear and welcome, thinking it was him at last coming to drag me to hell with him—but I knew that any circle of hell I would be thrown into, any lashes endured, fire braved, or the gnashing of Satan's teeth on my head would have been heaven if he were the one being chewed next to me. But then as the ghost, the shadow, the image moved closer to my bedside, I could see that its steps were timid, reluctant, uncertain, fearful—words that are never associated with him. Charles.
"Who…are you?" I choked out, hoping that it would be just a passing looter, drawn like a vulture to the decrepit rotting house whose façade was elegantly in distress, in hopes that it might contain some lost treasure, some grail left behind by the man who had more than likely stolen it from someone else. I hoped he would be disappointed enough to leave at once in finding a hacking, dying man in place of riches. But he didn't.
"My name is Qu-quentin Compson. I…I'm here with Miss Rosa Coldfield. I though…I thought Clytie and Jim were the only ones living here. And you are-?"
"Henry Sutpen." He went on asking me questions about how long I'd been here and why I came here, until it eventually went in a circle leading back to "Henry Sutpen. I am a weak, dried up carcass without much meat left to indulge in or juice left to squeeze out—and I'd rather not be bothered."
"But please, are you here because…of what happened? After the War? When he came back to collect your sister?" His nervous persistence was commendable.
"I came back," I said, "because it was where he died. And I'd rather that we die in the same place, so at least we can finally have some semblance of a life, even a deathly one. I wanted to at least give him that much comfort, in knowing that his killer will die in the same place—not as violent or agonizing, to be sure, but our blood will be seeping into the same soil, to help grow something new out of this decaying house, which is ripe and ready to fertilize…something new."
Something new. That was always something we would talk about, as if we actually had some power, any power to achieve what we wanted. Two of our kind in the South trying to challenge the sensitive reactions of the strongly upheld world of dowries, courtship, and power-broking that is love—or at least that's what they think is love. We used to talk about love: in the common rooms at Ole Miss, in the long rides from Oxford to Jefferson, to New Orleans, in spare moments in the garden at Sutpen's Hundred, in wet and worn army tents, in between our clamoring for stove polish and collecting our rations . Charles was just an all-around pan-lover, who saw beauty in everything and took great pleasure in seeing the effect he had on everyone—men who would turn their heads in half-wondering, half-jealousy, and women who would giggle and hide their mouths with their summer fans to sigh their approval to a friend—I knew this from the first time I saw him, in his dapper attire and confident stride, his long legs making their way across the Oxford green with his contingent of sycophants, a group of which I would soon be a member. Noticing my awed expression and not wanting to let the opportunity of reveling in it pass him by, he stopped, politely tipped his head. "Charles Bon of New Awlins. And you are-?"And that's how it started.
"But, could you please tell me—why you killed him?"
"It's because I was different. And I knew that this difference was fatal and sinful. And I didn't want to be looked at that way anymore—not by my father, Judith, Mama…even Clytie. Charles was the only one who understood me, who accepted me, who encouraged me. Then I realized that I shouldn't be encouraged, because I know that it could never be, never would be in my lifetime. But Papa…he knew very well, ever since I was a boy and couldn't hold a candle to Judith in a fight. He was disappointed in a way I had never seen a man disappointed before, not even a farmer in a drought. I daresay I was the biggest disappointment of his life."
I was in the barn, retching from the gruesome scene before me in which Papa bludgeoned his niggers to the point of death, one eye swollen shut, blood gushing from a toothless mouth—while Judie leaned excitedly over the railing and Clytie sat still with her face looking straight at the wall. Papa turned, not caring that his behavior was miles beyond inappropriate for children, his face hopeful and seeking our approval of what he had done, wanting us to run up into his bruised arms covered by tattered sleeves and say "My Papa is the biggest and strongest and bravest and worthiest in the world! Glory to Papa!" What greeted him instead was my puddle of Mama's sweet potato pie and Judie's intense and adoring look, but Judie being Judie, she repressed any hysterical urge to jump at him like he wanted her to. Papa stalked over to me, clutched the back of my shirt collar, lifted me onto a feeding trough so I would be at his eye-level (because he stooped for no one), and brought his shiny dripping and slashed face within a centimeter of mine. "Boy, why don't you go and show one of them nigger children who they'll be pickin' cotton for in twenty years, huh? Rough 'em up a bit, redeem yourself from that disgusting and cowardly mess you've made in my barn." Just then, Mama burst in with her hair sticking every which way from the Mississippi humidity and berated Papa for letting me and Judie watch. She said nothing about Clytie.
That was hardly the only time that Papa may have had suspicions, though. His sagging face whenever I returned from Oxford without a prospective wife in tow, and my admission that I was not looking for one; the added insult of bringing Charles instead; my unwavering love of reading poetry with Mama rather than hunting with him and his niggers –all of this was a disappointment more for himself than me, as now I would not have a wife to bear more links in his dynastic chain, and a son that was not worthy of his namesake. All of that frustration, disappointment, anger, and a most potent shame culminated during that fateful Christmas which was neither merry nor holy.
I had come back with Charles, who with Mama's and my own blind coaxing had began to eye Judith—not that he needed any help. She was beautiful, and Charles already had a keen eye for all beautiful creatures and partook in the sensual delights of them all. We had talked so fervently of love that we wanted to see its fulfillment—and so we looked to Judith. Charles saw in Judith what he saw in me—he saw, like I did, that marrying her would be the next best thing to having me as his own, and that Judith was simply a socially acceptable substitute, a stage play meant to distract from the true marriage that would be occurring in the wings. His mistress in New Orleans, tucked away in her velvet room, was simply another pawn in his game of fulfilling his social goals of acceptance and equality as well as his personal one of loving whomever he chose.
And Charles was mixed himself—high yellow, as they call it. A product of a relationship between the married daughter of one of Louisiana's richest farmers and his right-hand slave. His mother, telling her husband that the child was his, had meant to birth him in the presence of only a few trusted nigger women, who would then promptly take him and raise him as their own and inform the woman's husband that it was a stillbirth, as she expected a lamentable brown head to surface—but then the unforeseen miracle of Charles' blinding and peculiar whiteness stunned them all. And so he was raised with all of the clout, respect, and wealth that was deserving if his mother's name. I, of course, did not care whether he carried a single drop of negro blood—I loved him obsessively before I even knew his heritage, and I didn't see why that my feelings would need to change because of the revelation of this knowledge.
"But sir…what is the difference that you speak of? I don't understand it."
"You know, boy, I can't even begin to explain it. It's the difference that makes men men and women women. And why they love and how they love. And who they love. That's all I can say." This boy's trembling eyes, his caring manner, his soft-spokenness and aversion to confrontation, was like seeing myself as I was in Ole Miss. I would be lying if I said I didn't detect a bit of the difference in him as well.
We had our plan set, Charles and I did. We would go to Sutpen's Hundred, arrange Judith's marriage, and we would light out the next morning to celebrate—we did light out the next morning, but there was no celebration, as Papa made sure of that. After Christmas dinner, he pulled me aside, albeit more gently than that time in the barn, and told me I was to meet him in his lounge, which I begrudgingly did—needless to say, our personalities went together like pickles and tea cakes. I entered his lounge, lit by a single lamp that cast one half of his face in shadow, and distorting his features to look older than they actually were. "This Charles…what's he to you, Henry?"
"What do you mean, Papa?" I said, knowing full well where this conversation was going, and that its conclusion would be one of two possibilities: my submission and his satisfaction, or my protest and his rage.
"I mean, why do I get the horrible, disgusted feeling that my son is a -?"
That was Papa's way—to be blunt and unerringly direct in his interrogations, which continued torturously.
"Don't even try to lie to me Henry, your face reveals everything and you were never good at lying anyway. I see the way you look at him, the way you look at each other—I'll be damned if you aren't pleased as punch to be following him around like one of my hounds on the scent of a buck. Ever since that day in the barn, for years, I have put up with your lily-livered nonsense and I've just about had it. I'll have you know that this family, this house, can't be run by a -. I need someone with more gumption, more resolve—I need a stallion, not a mare. And if you can't put your mare-ing days behind you, then so help me God get out of this house."
I did Papa an even bigger favor—I got out of his family, and it was the only aggressive thing I had ever done. Papa, not wanting the entire state to know of his shameful feminine son, spread the story that it was I who had denounced him for Charles' sake—which was true. But what he didn't want everyone to know was that he himself had wanted that very result to occur—whether it was to save himself from the blame or the guilt he would feel afterwards, after losing his only blood son and his only hope at local immortality, driven away by his own agency.
And so we left, and I didn't intend to come back. Through it all, Charles knew what it was that made me leave—and yet we still planned to get our revenge on Papa in following through with Judith's marriage to Charles, whose true nature Papa knew and could not expose, fearing the destruction of his own reputation and his infernal house. It would have grated on his conscience like no other imaginable situation, to have a - like Charles be married to his only daughter. Charles continued to write letters to Judith, preying on any inclination she had to be happily settled and married, and to avoid questioning from Mama about whether she would ever attract a man with such stifling sensibilities. To this day I don't believe she ever wanted to marry Charles, or anybody for that matter, Judith being Judith—she simply wanted Mama to hush.
It wasn't until the war in which both of us did not want to be fighting heaved its last breaths that I saw the true consequences of my choice to live family-less: I was homeless, and after years of living within the confines in the largest, wealthiest, home in Jefferson I was completely at a loss as to how to go about living independently, by the skin of my teeth, like Papa had done; and Charles and I had joined the Confederate Army mostly due to the fact that I had no other place to go. Desolate, hungry, and tired, disillusioned and horrified by the war, I had begun to lose all coherent thought, all sense of morality and goodness. I was homeless, family-less, penniless, and friendless save for Charles—for whom I had given up the entirety of the comforts of life—and yet I was still happy. "How could this be logically true?" I thought, "How could this man who has only brought me troubles also brought me so much happiness?" It was then that I began to question whether they were right—whether they were all right about me, how my difference was unnatural, unacceptable, untenable, and abominable. I thought about how Charles had surely brought the judgment of God as well as my kin on my head, and that the first step out of the gates of Sutpen's Hundred was the first step into hell. All of my anger at my situation was not directed at Charles but at myself, at my own stupid self for succumbing to his influence, his beauty and charm—and then I realized that it was Charles, who consciously or not, had precipitated my fall, and that if he were gone my fall would be halted, and then I began to have envious thoughts of Judith, how I knew Charles was not averse to indulging her own whims—and I did not want my sister to be knowledgeable of My Charles, because I had known him first, and I sorrowfully regretted my decision to let myself arrange, even mastermind her engagement, and I wanted so fiercely to prove Papa wrong, to show him I could be the powerful, peerless man that he wanted me to be. And then I had the most dangerous thought of all—if I couldn't have My Charles in peace, as my own, then no one could have him; not even myself. So I killed him on his way to collect Judith for their sham, paper doll marriage, not even telling him my qualms about it out of fear that he would leave me—a funny thought, I know, for someone who knew that he himself would bring about Charles' leaving anyway; it seems that I truly was madly in love. What had sealed my despair, however, was the smile, the smile that said "I forgive you, you crazy son of a bitch, because I love you."
I went away, to the swamps and forests surrounding Sutpen's Hundred and lay under the trees in the mud for seven days, not crying, not howling (and I would do no such a thing until a month later, when I had the first dream about Charles—and he was just standing there peacefully, looking beautiful), not doing much of anything, because I knew that I had no soul, not since Charles was gone, not since I had been diabolic enough to rip my own heart from my chest, split it ventricle from atrium, and throw it into the incinerator of my madness. I had weightily contemplated my own descent to follow Charles—I was ready to barter with Hades to secure his safe release back into the mortal world, if he would take myself instead. No, I thought—it would be a much more fitting punishment for me to be in a living death without any comfort of humanity, soulless and heartless, waiting in agony to die and be comforted by that ultimate moment.
"Please," I said, not even trying to coerce the tears from my eyes. "Give me this one comfort and leave me."
The boy leaves me, backing away, eyes wide and comprehending, seeming to regret his decision to ever see my face, to recognize my name, to have heard any part of the story of this house, and then he turns, horrified, and disappears as quickly and without ceremony as he had arrived. I wish him luck, as I know he'll need it.