Hate that–I’m racing through an action scene in the last few pages and I need to stop and get this down:
But the other still struggled, and Jason freed one hand and struck him on the head. A clumsy, hurried blow, and not hard, but the other slumped immediately and slid clattering among pans and buckets to the floor. Jason stood above him, panting, listening. Then he turned and ran from the car. At the door he restrained himself and descended more slowly and stood there again. His breath made a hah hah hah sound and he stood there trying to repress it, darting his gaze this way and that, when at a scuffling sound behind him he turned in time to see the little old man leaping awkwardly and furiously from the vestibule, a rusty hatchet high in his hand. (p. 310)
Faulkner quickens the pace in Jason’s search for his niece, Quentin, who has robbed him of cash and taken off with a man connected to a traveling show. Jason’s bullying isn’t working against this wild little old man he questions, coming up against someone finally who can’t be verbally intimidated as he’s done with Caddy, Quentin, his mother, the servants, even his employer. The "hah hah hah sound" of Jason’s breath is exquisitely in step with the aftermath of the encounter, and yet carries us through to the next action as we breath with him in a heightened state of panic and anger.
And in the next sequence, as Jason is "rescued" by other show workers and pushed along his way, he sees a sign in electric lights, "Keep your eye on Mottson." In the middle of this sentence is a drawn eye–a visual among the text, along with "the gap filled by a human eye with an electric pupil." This in itself must have been innovative in fiction, and Faulkner’s inclusion of it can serve many purposes. It is stark upon the page. It is an invitation. It is the story looking back at the reader as if to say we’ve come through a long journey together, remember this tale.
Back in ten pages.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology