THE JAIL
503
the gro.und floor still intact behind the patterned and symmetric
sheathe); no. IDnger even watching now, merely cDgnizant, remem–
bering: only yesterday was a wilderness ordinary, a stDre, a smithy,
and already tDday was no.t a town, a city, but the
tDwn
and city:
named;
nDt
a cDurthDuse but
the
cDurthDuse, rising surging like the
fixed blast
Df
a rocket, not even finished yet but already IDo.ming,
beacon fo.cus and lo.destar, already taller than anything else, o.ut
o.f the rapid and fading wilderness- no.t the wilderness receding
fro.m the rich and arable fields as tide recedes, but rather the fields
themselves, rich and inexhaustible to. the pIDW, rising sunward and
airward out o.f swamp and mo.rass, themselves thrusting back and
do.wn brake and thicket, bayDu and bo.ttDm and fo.rest, alo.ng with
the co.peless denizens- the wild men and animals-which o.nce
haunted them, waiting, dreaming, imagining, no. Dther-IDdestar
and pole, drawing the peo.ple- the men and wo.men and children,
the maidens, the marriageable girls and the yo.ung men, flDwing,
pouring in with their to.o.ls and goods and cattle and slaves and go.ld
mDney,
behind o.x- Dr mule-teams, by steambo.at up IkkemDtubbe's
DId river
frDm
the Mississippi; o.nly yesterday Pettigrew's pony ex–
press had been displaced by a stage-co.ach, yet already there was
talk o.f a railro.ad less than a hundred miles to. the nDrth, to' run all
the way fro.m Memphis to. the Atlantic Ocean;
Go.ing fast
nDW:
o.nly seven years, and no.t o.nly w.as the co.urtho.use
finished, but the jail to.o.: no.t a new jail
Df
co.urse but the DId o.ne
veneered o.ver with brick, into. two sto.reys, with white trim and iro.n–
barred windo.ws: o.nly its face lifted, because behind the veneer were
still the DId ineradicable bones, the DId ineradicable remembering:
the DId lo.gs immured intact and lightless between the tiered sym–
metric bricks and the whitewashed plaster, immune no.w even to'
having to' IDo.k, see, watch that new time which
in
a few years
mDre
wo.uld
nDt
even remember that the DId lo.gs were there behind the
brick Dr had ever been, an age
frDm
which the drunken Indian
had vanished, leaving Dnly the highwayman, who. had wagered his
liberty
Dn
his luck, and the runaway nigger who, having no. freedDm
to. stake, had wagered merely his milieu; that rapid, that fast: Sutpen's
untameable Paris architect IDng since departed, vanished (one hDped)
back to' wherever it was he had made that abDrted midnight try
