'Do you want to know what I think?"
'No,' Quentin said.
'Then I'll tell you. I think that in time the Jim Bonds are going to conquer the western hemisphere. Of course it won't quite be in our time and of course as they spread toward the poles they will bleach out again like the rabbits and the birds do, so they won't show up so sharp against the snow. But it will still be Jim Bond; and so in a few thousand years, I who regard you will also have sprung from the loins of African kings. Now I want you to tell me just one thing more. Why do you hate the South?"
'I don't hate it,' Quentin said, quickly, at once, immediately; 'I don't hate it,' he said. I don't hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark; I don't. I don't!
I don't hate it! I don't hate it!
CHRONOLOGY
1807 Thomas Sutpen born in West Virginia mountains. Poor whites of Scottish‐English stock. Large family.
1817 Sutpen family moved down into Tidewater Virginia, Sutpen ten years old.
1818 Ellen Coldfield born in Tennessee.
1820 Sutpen ran away from home. Fourteen years old.
1827 Sutpen married first wife in Haiti.
1828 Goodhue Coldfield moved to Yoknapatawpha County (Jefferson) Mississippi: mother, sister, wife, and daughter Ellen.
1829 Charles Bon born, Haiti.
1831 Sutpen learns his wife has Negro blood, repudiates her and child.
1833 Sutpen appears in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, takes up land, builds his house.
1834 Clytemnestra (Clytie) born to slave woman.
1838 Sutpen married Ellen Coldfield.
1839 Henry Sutpen born, Sutpen's Hundred .1841 Judith Sutpen born.
1845 Rosa Coldfield born.
1850 Wash Jones moves into abandoned fishing camp on Sutpen's plantation, with his daughter.
1853 Milly Jones born to Wash Jones' daughter.
1859 Henry Sutpen and Charles Bon meet at University of Mississippi. Judith and Charles meet that Christmas.
Charles Etienne Saint Valery Bon born, New Orleans.
1860 Christmas, Sutpen forbids marriage between Judith and Bon. Henry repudiates his birthright, departs with Bon.
1861 SSutpen, Henry, and Bon depart for war.
1862 Ellen Coldfield dies.
1864 Goodhue Coldfield dies.
1865 Henry kills Bon at gates. Rosa Coldfield moves out to Sutpen's Hundred.
1866 Sutpen becomes engaged to Rosa Coldfield, insults her. She returns to Jefferson.
1867 Sutpen takes up with Milly Jones.
1869 Milly's child is born. Wash Jones kills Sutpen.
1870 Charles E. St V. Bon appears at Sutpen's Hundred.
1871 Clytie fetches Charles E. St V. Bon to Sutpen's Hundred to live.
1881 Charles E. St V. Bon returns with Negro wife.
1882 Jim Bond born.
1884 Judith and Charles E. St V. Bon die of smallpox.
1910 September
December
Rosa Coldfield and Quentin find Henry Sutpen hidden in the house.
Rosa Coldfield goes out to fetch Henry to town, Clytie sets fire to the house.
GENEALOGY
THOMAS SUTPEN Born in West Virginia mountains, 1807. One of several children of poor whites, Scotch‐English stock. Established plantation of Sutpen's Hundred in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, 1833. Married (x) Eulalia Bon, Haiti, 1827.
(2) Ellen Coldfield, Jefferson, Mississippi, 1838. Mayor, later Colonel,‐‐th Mississippi Infantry, C.S.A. Died, Sutpen's Hundred, 1869.
EULALIA BON Born in Haiti. Only child of Haitian sugar planter of French descent.
Married Thomas Sutpen, 1827, divorced from him, 1831. Died in New Orleans, date unknown.
CHARLES BON Son of Thomas and Eulalia Bon Sutpen. Only child.
Attended University of Mississippi, where he met Henry Sutpen and became engaged to Judith Private, later lieutenant,‐‐th Company, (University Grays)‐‐th Mississippi Infantry, C. S. A.
Died, Sutpen's Hundred, 1865.
GOODHUE COLDFIELD Born in Tennessee. Moved to Jefferson, Miss 1828, established small mercantile business. Died, Jefferson, 1864.
ELLEN COLDFIELD Daughter of Goodhue Coldfield. Born in Tennessee, 1818. Married Thomas Sutpen, Jefferson, Miss 1838. Died, Sutpen's Hundred, 1862.
ROSA COLDFIELD Daughter of Goodhue Coldfield. Born, Jefferson, 1845. Died, Jefferson, 1910.
HENRY SUTPEN Born, Sutpen's Hundred, 1839, son of Thomas and Ellen Coldfield Sutpen.
Attended University of Mississippi. Private,‐‐th Company, (University Grays)‐‐th Mississippi Infantry, C.S.A. Died, Sutpen's Hundred, 1910.
JUDITH SUTPEN Daughter o£ Thomas and Ellen Coldfield Sutpen. Born, Sutpen's.Hundred, I$4I.
Became engaged to Charles Bon, I$6o. Died, Sutpen's hundred, 1884. CLYTEMNESTRA SUTPEN Daughter of Thomas Sutpen and a Negro slave. Born, Sutpen's Hundred, I834. Died, Sutpen's Hundred, 9o.
WASH JONES Date and location of birth unknown. Squatter, residing in an abandoned fishing camp belonging to Thomas Sutpen, hanger‐on of Sutpen, handy man about Sutpen's place while Sutpen was away between '6I and '65. Died, Sutpen's Hundred, x869. MELICENT JONES Daughter of Wash Jones. Date of birth unknown.
. 'Why did she do that?" Quentin didn't answer. He lay still and rigid on his back with the cold New England night on his face and the blood running warm in his rigid body and limbs, breathing hard but slow, his eyes wide open upon the window, thinking "Nevermore of peace. Nevermore of peace.
Nevermore Nevermore Nevermore." 'Do you suppose it was because she knew what was going to happen when she told it, took any steps, that it would be over then, finished, and that hating is like drink or drugs and she had used it so long that she did not dare risk cutting off the supply, destroying the source, the very poppy's root and seed?" Still Quentin didn't answer. ' But at last she did reconcile herself to it, for his sake, to save him, to bring him into town where the doctors could save him, and so she told it then, got the ambulance and the men and went out there. And old Clytie maybe watching for just that out of the upstairs window for three months now: and maybe even your old man was right this time and when she saw the ambulance turn into the gate she believed it was that same black wagon for which she probably had had that nigger boy watching for three months now, coming to carry Henry into town for the white folks to hang him for shooting Charles Bon. And I guess it had been him who had kept that closet under the stairs full of tinder and trash all that time too, like she told him to, maybe he not getting it then either but keeping it full just like she told him, the kerosene and all, for three months now, until the hour when he could begin to howl ‐' Now the chimes began, ringing for one o'clock. Shreve ceased, as if he were waiting for them to cease or perhaps were even listening to them. Quentin lay still too, as if he were listening too, though he was not; he just heard them without listening as he heard Shreve without listening or answering, until they ceased, died away into the icy air delicate and faint and musical as struck glass.
And he, Quentin, could see that too, though he had not been there ‐ the ambulance with Miss Coldfield between the driver and the second man, perhaps a deputy sheriff, in the shawl surely and perhaps even with the umbrella too, though probably no hatchet nor flashlight in it now, entering the gate and picking its way gingerly up the rutted and frozen (and now partially thawed) drive; and it may have been the howling or it may have been the deputy or the driver or it may have been she who cried first: "It's on fire!" though she would not have cried that; she would have said, 'Faster.