With most of us, even when we are lucky enough to get our revenge, we must pay for it, sometimes in actual dollars. While you are not only in a position to get your revenge, clear your mother's name, but the balm with which you will assuage her injury will have a collateral value which can be translated into the things which a young man needs, which are his due and which, whether we like it or not, may he had only in exchange for hard dollars — " and Bon not saying What do you mean? and not moving yet; that is, the lawyer would not be aware that he was beginning to move, continuing (the lawyer) smooth and easy: "And more than this, than the revenge, as lagniappe to the revenge as it were, this nosegay of an afternoon, this scentless prairie flower which will not be missed and which might as well bloom in your lapel as in another's; this — How do you young men put it? — a nice little piece — " and then he would see Bon, maybe the eyes, maybe he would just hear the feet moving. And then, pistol (derringer, horse pistol, revolver, whatever it was) and all, he would be crouched back against the wall behind the overturned chair, snarling, "Stand back! Stop!" then screaming "Help! Help! He — !" then just screaming, because he would hear and feel his own wrenching bones before he could free his fingers of the pistol, and his neck bone too as Bon would strike him with the palm on one cheek and then with the back of the hand on the other; maybe he could even hear Bon too saying, "Stop it. Hush. I'm not going to hurt you" or maybe it was the lawyer in him that said the Hush which he obeyed, who got him back into the righted chair again, half lying upon the desk; the lawyer in him that warned him not to say You will pay for this but instead to half lie there, nursing his wrenched hand in his handkerchief while Bon stood looking down at him, holding the pistol by the barrel against his leg, saying, "If you feel that you require satisfaction, of course you know — " and the lawyer, sitting back now, dabbing the handkerchief at his cheek now: "I was wrong. I misunderstood your feeling about the matter. I ask your pardon" and Bon: "Granted. As you wish. I will accept either an apology or a bullet, as you prefer" and the lawyer (there would be a faint fading red in his cheek, but that would be all: nothing in the voice or in the eyes): "I see you are going to collect full measure for my unfortunate misconception — even ridicule. Even if I felt that right was on my side (which I do not) I would still have to decline your offer. I would not be your equal with pistols" and Bon: "Nor with knives or rapiers too?" and the lawyer, smooth and easy: "Nor knives or rapiers too." So that now the lawyer wouldn't even need to say You will pay for this because Bon would be saying that for him, who would stand there with the lax pistol, thinking But only with knives or pistols or rapiers. So I cant beat him. I could shoot him. I would shoot him with no more compunction than I would a snake or a man who cuckolded me. But he would still beat me. Thinking Yes. He did beat me while he — he — (“Listen,” Shreve said, cried. 'It would be while he would be lying in a bedroom of that private house in Corinth after Pittsburg Landing while his shoulder got well two years later and the letter from the octoroon (maybe even the one that contained the photograph of her and the child) finally overtaking him, wailing for money and telling him that the lawyer had departed for Texas or Mexico or somewhere at last and that she (the octoroon) could not find his mother either and so without doubt the lawyer had murdered her before he stole the money, since it would be just like both of them to flee or get themselves killed without providing for her at all.) — Yes, they knew now. And Jesus, think of him, Bon, who had wanted to know, who had had the most reason to want to know, who as far as he knew had never had any father but had been created somehow between that woman who wouldn't let him play with other children, and that lawyer who even told the woman whether or not each time she bought a piece of meat or a loaf of bread — two people neither of whom had taken pleasure or found passion in getting him or suffered pain and travail in horning him — who perhaps if one of the two had only told him the truth, none of what happened would ever have come to pass; while there was Henry who had father and security and contentment and all, yet was told the truth by both of them while he (Bon) was told by neither. And think of Henry, who had said at first it was a lie and then when he knew it was not a lie had still said "I don't believe it," who had found even in that "I don't believe it" enough of strength to repudiate home and blood in order to champion his defiance, and in which championing he proved his contention to be the false one and was more than ever interdict against returning home; Jesus, think of the load he had to carry, born of two Methodists (or of one long invincible line of Methodists) and raised in provincial North Mississippi, faced with incest, incest of all things that might have been reserved for him, that all his heredity and training had to rebel against on principle, and in a situation where he knew that neither incest nor training was going to help him solve it. So that maybe when they left and walked the streets that night and at last Bon said, "Well? Now what?" Henry said, "Wait. Wait. Let me get used to it."
