"I cold," Luster said.
"You ought to thought about dat whiles you was down dar in dat cellar," Dilsey said. "Whut de matter wid Jason?"
"Sayin me en Benjy broke dat winder in his room."
"Is dey one broke?" Dilsey said.
"Dat's whut he sayin," Luster said. "Say I broke hit."
"How could you, when he keep hit locked all day en night?"
"Say I broke hit chunkin rocks at hit," Luster said.
"En did you?"
"Nome," Luster said.
"Dont lie to me, boy," Dilsey said.
"I never done hit," Luster said. "Ask Benjy ef I did. I aint stud'in dat winder."
"Who could a broke hit, den?" Dilsey said. "He jes tryin hisself, to wake Quentin up," she said, taking the pan of biscuits out of the stove.
"Reckin so," Luster said. "Dese funny folks. Glad I aint none of em."
"Aint none of who?" Dilsey said. "Lemme tell you somethin, nigger boy, you got jes es much Compson devilment in you es any of em. Is you right sho you never broke dat window?"
"Whut I want to break hit fur?"
"Whut you do any of yo devilment fur?" Dilsey said. "Watch him now, so he cant burn his hand again swell I git de table set."
She went to the diningroom, where they heard her moving about, then she returned and set a plate at the kitchen table and set food there. Ben watched her, slobbering, making a faint, eager sound.
"All right, honey," she said. "Here yo breakfast. Bring his chair, Luster." Luster moved the chair up and Ben sat down, whimpering and slobbering. 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."
"And a fine pigsty we'd live in, too," Jason said. "Hurry up, Dilsey," he shouted.
"I know you blame me," Mrs Compson said, "for letting them off to go to church today."
"Go where?" Jason said. "Hasn't that damn show left yet?"
"To church," Mrs Compson said. "The darkies are having a special Easter service. I promised Dilsey two weeks ago that they could get off."
"Which means we'll eat cold dinner," Jason said, "or none at all."
"I know it's my fault," Mrs Compson said. "I know you blame me."
"For what?" Jason said. "You never resurrected Christ, did you?"
They heard Dilsey mount the final stair, then her slow feet overhead.
"Quentin," she said. When she called the first time Jason laid his knife and fork down and he and his mother appeared to wait across the table from one another in identical attitudes; the one cold and shrewd, with close-thatched brown hair curled into two stubborn hooks, one on either side of his forehead like a bartender in caricature, and hazel eyes with black-ringed irises like marbles, the other cold and querulous, with perfectly white hair and eyes pouched and baffled and so dark as to appear to be all pupil or all iris.
"Quentin," Dilsey said. "Get up, honey. Dey waitin breakfast on you."
"I cant understand how that window got broken," Mrs Compson said. "Are you sure it was done yesterday? It could have been like that a long time, with the warm weather. The upper sash, behind the shade like that."
"I've told you for the last time that it happened yesterday," Jason said. "Dont you reckon I know the room I live in? Do you reckon I could have lived in it a week with a hole in the window you could stick your hand…." his voice ceased, ebbed, left him staring at his mother with eyes that for an instant were quite empty of anything. It was as though his eyes were holding their breath, while his mother looked at him, her face flaccid and querulous, interminable, clairvoyant yet obtuse. As they sat so Dilsey said,
"Quentin. Dont play wid me, honey. Come on to breakfast, honey. Dey waitin fer you."
"I cant understand it," Mrs Compson said. "It's just as if somebody had tried to break into the house--" Jason sprang up. His chair crashed over backward. "What--" Mrs Compson said, staring at him as he ran past her and went jumping up the stairs, where he met Dilsey. His face was now in shadow, and Dilsey said,