Jewel Bundren Quotes

In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I don't know what I am. I don't know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not. He cannot empty himself for sleep because he is not what he is and he is what he is not. Beyond the unlamped wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is no longer theirs that felled and sawed it nor yet theirs that bought it and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though it does, since only the wind and the rain shape it only to Jewel and me, that are not asleep. And since sleep is is-not and rain and wind are was, it is not. Yet the wagon is, because when the wagon is was, Addie Bundren will not be. And Jewel is, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not emptied yet, I am is. How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.

It's Cash and Jewel and Varadaman and Dewey Del', pa says kind of hangdog and proud too, with this teeth and all, even if he wouldn't look at us. 'Meet Mrs Bundren', he says.

Idegen szobában előbb megüresíted magad az álomnak. És mielőtt megüresednél az álomnak, akkor mi vagy. És miután megüresedtél az álomnak, akkor már nem is vagy. És mikor megteltél álommal, akkor nem is voltál soha. Nem tudom, mi vagyok. Nem tudom, hogy vagyok-e vagy nem. Jewel tudja, hogy van, mert nem tudja, hogy nem tudja, vajon van-e vagy nincs. Nem tudja megüresíteni magát az álomnak, mert nem az ami, így hát az ami nem. Hallom, ahogy odakint, túl a lámpátlan falon az eső kiformázza a szekeret, ami a miénk, meg a terü fát, ami már nem azoké, akik kivágták és felfűrészelték, s még nem is azoké, akik megvették, de a miénk se, hiába van a szekerünkön, mert csak az eső meg a szél formázza ki, az is csak Jewelnek meg nekem, akik nem alszunk. S mivel az álom nincs, és az eső meg a szél volt, hát nincs. De a szekér mégiscsak van, mert amikor a szekér már csak volt, Addie Bundren nem lesz. Jewel pedig van, így hát Addie Bundrennek lennie kell. És akkor nekem is lennem kell, mert másképp hogy tudnám megüresíteni magam az álomnak egy idegen szobában. Így hát, ha még nem üresedtem meg, akkor én is van vagyok.

In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I don't know what I am. I don't know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not. He cannot empty himself for sleep because he is not what he is and he is what he is not. Beyond the unlamped wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is no longer theirs that felled and sawed it nor yet theirs that bought it and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though it does, since only the wind and the rain shape it only to Jewel and me, that are not asleep. And since sleep is is-not and rain and wind are was, it is not. Yet the wagon is, because when the wagon is was, Addie Bundren will not be. And Jewel is, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not emptied yet, I am is. How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.

Jewel and I come up from the field, following the path in single file. Although I am fifteen feet ahead of him, anyone watching us from the cottonhouse can see Jewel’s frayed and broken straw hat a full head above my own. The path runs straight as a plumb-line, worn smooth by feet and baked brick-hard by July, between the green rows of laidby cotton, to the cottonhouse in the center of the field, where it turns and circles the cottonhouse at four soft right angles and goes on across the field again, worn so by feet in fading precision. The cottonhouse is of rough logs, from between which the chinking has long fallen. Square, with a broken roof set at a single pitch, it leans in empty and shimmering dilapidation in the sunlight, a single broad window in two opposite walls giving onto the approaches of the path. When we reach it I turn and follow the path which circles the house. Jewel, fifteen feet behind me, looking straight ahead, steps in a single stride through the window. Still staring straight ahead, his pale eyes like wood set into his wooden face, he crosses the floor in four strides with the rigid gravity of a cigar store Indian dressed in patched overalls and endued with life from the hips down, and steps in a single stride through the opposite window and into the path again just as I come around the corner. In single file and five feet apart and Jewel now in front, we go on up the path toward the foot of the bluff. Tull’s wagon stands beside the spring, hitched to the rail, the reins wrapped about the seat stanchion. In the wagon bed are two chairs. Jewel stops at the spring and takes the gourd from the willow branch and drinks. I pass him and mount the path, beginning to hear Cash’s saw. When I reach the top he has quit sawing. Standing in a litter of chips, he is fitting two of the boards together. Between the shadow spaces they are yellow as gold, like soft gold, bearing on their flanks in smooth undulations the marks of the adze blade: a good carpenter, Cash is. He holds the two planks on the trestle, fitted along the edges in a quarter of the finished box. He kneels and squints along the edge of them, then he lowers them and takes up the adze. A good carpenter. Addie Bundren could not want a better one, a better box to lie in. It will give her confidence and comfort. I go on to the house, followed by the                                     Chuck.   Chuck.   Chuck.of the adze.

Num quarto estranho você tem que ficar vazio para dormir. E antes de estar vazio para dormir, o que é você. E quando você não está vazio, você não é. E quando você se enche de sono, nunca foi. Não sei o que sou. Não sei se sou ou não. Jewel sabe que ele é, porque ele não sabe que ele não sabe se é ou não. Ele não pode ficar vazio para dormir porque ele não é o que é e ele é o que não é. Além da parede não-iluminada posso ouvir a chuva modelar a carroça que é nossa, a carga que já não é mais deles que a derrubaram e serraram nem deles que a compraram e não é nossa também, que continua em nossa carroça no entanto, continua, já que apenas o vento e a chuva a modelam só para Jewel e eu, que não dormimos. E posto que o sono é não-ser e a chuva e o vento são 'era', a carroça não é. Mesmo assim a carroça 'é', porque quando a carroça é 'era', Addie Bundren não será. E Jewel 'é', então Addie Bundren deve ser. Então eu devo ser, ou eu não poderia ficar vazio para dormir num quarto estranho. E se eu ainda não estou vazio, eu 'sou'. Quantas vezes me deito debaixo da chuva numa casa estranha, pensando em minha casa.