She ceases again. Beyond the desk Hightower watches her with that quiet and desperate amazement. Byron too is motionless, his head bent a little. The three of them are like three rocks above a beach, above ebbtide, save the old man. He has been listening now, almost attentively, with that ability of his to flux instantaneously between complete attention that does not seem to hear, and that comalike bemusement in which the stare of his apparently inverted eye is as uncomfortable as though he held them with his hand. He cackles, suddenly, bright, loud, mad; he speaks, incredibly old, incredibly dirty. “It was the Lord. He was there. Old Doc Hines give God His chance too. The Lord told Old Doc Hines what to do and Old Doc Hines done it. Then the Lord said to Old Doc Hines, ‘You watch, now. Watch My will a-working.’ And Old Doc Hines watched and heard the mouths of little children, of God’s own fatherless and motherless, putting His words and knowledge into their mouths even when they couldn’t know it since they were without sin yet, even the girl ones without sin and bitchery yet: Nigger! Nigger! in the innocent mouths of little children. ‘What did I tell you?’ God said to Old Doc Hines. ‘And now I’ve set My will to working and now I’m gone. There ain’t enough sin here to keep Me busy because what do I care for the fornications of a slut, since that is a part of My purpose too,’ and Old Doc Hines said, ‘How is the fornications of a slut a part of Your purpose too?’ and God said, ‘You wait and see. Do you think it is just chanceso that I sent that young doctor to be the one that found My abomination laying wrapped in that blanket on that doorstep that Christmas night? Do you think it was just chanceso that the Madam should have been away that night and give them young sluts the chance and call to name him Christmas in sacrilege of My son? So I am gone now, because I have set My will a-working and I can leave you here to watch it. So Old Doc Hines he watched. and he waited. From God’s own boiler room he watched them children, and the devil’s walking seed unbeknownst among them, polluting the earth with the working of that word on him. Because he didn’t play with. the other children no more now. He stayed by himself, standing still, and then Old Doc Hines knew that he was listening to the hidden warning of God’s doom, and Old Doc Hines said to him, ‘Why don’t you play with them other children like you used to?’ and he didn’t say nothing and Old Doc Hines said, ‘Is it because they call you nigger?’ and he didn’t say nothing and Old Doc Hines said, ‘Do you think you are a nigger because God has marked your face?’ and he said, ‘Is God a nigger too?’ and Old Doc Hines said, ‘He is the Lord God of wrathful hosts, His will be done. Not yours and not mine, because you and me are both a part of His purpose and His vengeance.’ And he went away and Old Doc Hines watched him hearing and listening to the vengeful will of the Lord, until Old Doc Hines found out how he was watching the nigger working in the yard, following him around the yard while he worked, until at last the nigger said, ‘What you watching me for, boy?’ and he said, ‘How come you are a nigger?’ and the nigger said, ‘Who told you I am a nigger, you little white trash bastard?’ and he says, ‘I ain’t a nigger,’ and the nigger says, ‘You are worse than that. You don’t know what you are. And more than that, you won’t never know. You’ll live and you’ll die and you won’t never know,’ and he says, ‘God ain’t no nigger,’ and the nigger says, ‘I reckon you ought to know what God is, because don’t nobody but God know what you is.’ But God wasn’t there to say, because He had set His will to working and left Old Doc Hines to watch it. From that very first night, when He had chose His own Son’s sacred anniversary to set it a-working on, He set Old Doc Hines to watch it. It was cold that night, and Old Doc Hines standing in the dark just behind the corner where he could see the doorstep and the accomplishment of the Lord’s will, and he saw that young doctor coming in lechery and fornication stop and stoop down and raise the Lord’s abomination and tote it into the house. And Old Doc Hines he followed and he seen and heard., He watched them young sluts that was desecrating the Lord’s sacred anniversary with eggnog and whiskey in the Madam’s absence, open the blanket. And it was her, the Jezebel of the doctor, that was the Lord’s instrument, that said, ‘We’ll name him Christmas,’ and another one said, ‘What Christmas. Christmas what,’ and God said to Old Doc Hines, ‘Tell them,’ and they all looked at Old Doc Hines with the reek of pollution on them, hollering, ‘Why, it’s Uncle Doc. Look what Santa Claus brought us and left on the doorstep, Uncle Doc,’ and Old Doc Hines said, ‘His name is Joseph,’ and they quit laughing and they looked at Old Doc Hines and the Jezebel said, ‘How do you know?’ and Old Doc Hines said, ‘The Lord says so,’ and then they laughed again, hollering, ‘It is so in the Book: Christmas, the son of Joe. Joe, the son of Joe. Joe Christmas,’ they said, ‘To Joe Christmas,’ and they tried to make Old Doc Hines drink too, to the Lord’s abomination, but he struck the cup aside. And he just had to watch and to wait, and he did and it was in the Lord’s good time, for evil to come from evil. And the doctor’s Jezebel come running from her lustful bed, still astink with sin and fear. ‘He was hid behind the bed,’ she says, and Old Doc Hines said, ‘You used that perfumed soap that tempted your own undoing, for the Lord’s abomination and outrage. Suffer it,’ and she said, ‘You can talk to him. I have seen you. You could persuade him,’ and Old Doc Hines said, ‘I care no more for your fornications than God does,’ and she said, ‘He will tell and I will be fired. I will be disgraced.’ Stinking with her lust and lechery she was then, standing before Old Doc Hines with the working of God’s will on her that minute, who had outraged the house where God housed His fatherless and motherless. ‘You ain’t nothing,’ Old Doc Hines said. ‘You and all sluts. You are a instrument of God’s wrathful purpose that nere a sparrow can fall to earth. You are a instrument of God, the same as Joe Christmas and Old Doc Hines. And she went away and Old Doc Hines he waited and he watched and it wasn’t long before she come back and her face was like the face of a ravening beast of the desert. ‘I fixed him,’ she said, and Old Doc Hines said, ‘How fixed him,’ because it was not anything that Old Doc Hines didn’t know because the Lord did not keep His purpose hid from His chosen instrument, and Old Doc Hines said, ‘You have served the foreordained will of God. You can go now and abominate Him in peace until the Day,’ and her face looked like the ravening beast of the desert; laughing out of her rotten colored dirt at God. And they come and took him away. Old Doc Hines saw him go away in the buggy and he went back to wait for God and God come and He said to Old Doc Hines, ‘You can go too now. You have done My work. There is no more evil here now but womanevil, not worthy for My chosen instrument to watch.’ And Old Doc Hines went when God told him to go. But he kept in touch with God and at night he said, ‘That bastard, Lord,’ and God said, ‘He is still walking My earth,’ and Old Doc Hines kept in touch with God and at night he said, ‘That bastard, Lord,’ and God said, ‘He is still walking My earth,’ and Old Doc Hines kept in touch with God and one night he wrestled and he strove and he cried aloud, ‘That bastard, Lord! I feel! I feel the teeth and the fangs of evil!’ and God said, ‘It’s that bastard. Your work is not done yet. He’s a pollution and a abomination on My earth.’ ”
The sound of music from the distant church has long since ceased. Through the open window there comes now only the peaceful and myriad sounds of the summer night. Beyond the desk Hightower sits, looking more than ever like an awkward beast tricked and befooled of the need for flight, brought now to bay by those who tricked and fooled it. The other three sit facing him; almost like a jury. Two of them are also motionless, the woman with that stonevisaged patience of a waiting rock, the old man with a spent quality like a charred wick of a candle from which the flame has been violently blown away. Byron alone seems to possess life. His face is lowered. He seems to muse upon one hand which lies upon his lap, the thumb and forefinger of which rub slowly together with a kneading motion while he appears to watch with musing absorption. When Hightower speaks, Byron knows that he is not addressing him, not addressing anyone in the room at all. “What do they want me to do?” he says. “What do they think, hope, believe, that I can do?”