Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion

And Lawyer that tended to the rest of it too: arranged for the funeral and sent out to Frenchman’s Bend for Miz Varner and the old Methodist preacher that had baptised Eula, and then seen to the grave. Because naturally the bereaved husband couldn’t be expected to break into his grief jest to do chores. Not to mention having to be ready to take over the bank after a decent interval, being as Manfred de Spain hisself had packed up and departed from Jefferson right after the burying. And then, after another decorious interval, a little longer this time beg as a bank aint like jest a house because a bank deals with active cash money and cant wait, getting ready to move into De Spain’s house too since De Spain had give ever evident intention of not aiming to return to Jefferson from this last what you might still call Varner trip and there wasn’t no use in letting a good sound well-situated house stand vacant and empty. Which—De Spain’s house—was likely a part of that same swapping and trading between Flem and Will Varner that included Varner’s bank-stock votes and thatere financial Midsummer Night’s Dream masque or rondeau that Linda and that Oxford lawyer composed betwixt them that had Linda’s signature on it. Not to mention Lawyer being appointed by old man Will to be trustee of Linda’s money since it was now finally safe from Flem until he thought up something that Lawyer would believe too this time, Will appointing Lawyer for the reason that likely he couldn’t pass by Lawyer to get to no one else, Lawyer being not only in the middle of that entire monetary and sepulchrial crisis but all around ever part of it too, like one of them frantic water bugs skating and rushing immune and unwettable on top of a stagnant pond.

I mean, Lawyer was now busy over the headstone Flem had decided on. Because it would have to be made in Italy, which would take time, and so would demand ever effort on Lawyer’s part before Linda could pack up and leave Jefferson too, being as Flem felt that that same filial decorum demanded that Linda wait until her maw’s headstone was up and finished before leaving. Only I dont mean jest headstone: I mean monument: Lawyer combing and currying not jest Jefferson and Frenchman’s Bend but most of the rest of Yoknapatawpha County too, hunting out ever photograph of Eula he could locate to send to Italy so they could carve Eula’s face in stone to put on it. Which is when I noticed again how there aint nobody quite as temerious as a otherwise timid feller that finds out that his moral standards and principles is now demanding him to do something that, if all he had to depend on was jest his own satisfaction and curiosity, he wouldn’t a had the brass to do, penetrating into ever house that not only might a knowed Eula but that jest had a Brownie Kodak, thumbing through albums and intimate photographic family records, courteous and polite of course but jest a man obviously not in no condition to be said No to, let alone merely Please dont.

He could keep busy now. Because he was contented and happy now, you see. He never had nothing to worry him now. Eula was safely gone now and now he could be safe forevermore from ever again having to chew his bitter poetic thumbs over the constant anticipation of who would turn up next named McCarron or De Spain. And now Linda was not only safe for good from Flem, he, Lawyer, even had the full charge and control of her money from her maw and grandpaw, so that now she could go anywhere she wanted—providing of course he could nag and harry them folks across the water to finish carving that face before the millennium or judgment day come, gathering up all the pictures of Eula he could find and sending them to Italy and then waiting until a drawing or a photograph of how the work was coming along would get back for him to see jest how wrong it was, and he would send me word to be at his office at a certain hour for the conference, with the newest fresh Italian sketch or photograph laid out on the desk with a special light on it and him saying, “It’s the ear, or the line of the jaw, or the mouth—right here: see what I mean?” and I would say,

“It looks all right to me. It looks beautiful to me.” And he would say,