It's just incredible. It just does not explain. Or perhaps that's it: they don't explain and we are not supposed to know. We have a few old mouth-to-mouth tales$$$ we exhume from old trunks and boxes and drawers letters without salutation or signature$$$

It's just incredible. It just does not explain. Or perhaps that's it: they don't explain and we are not supposed to know. We have a few old mouth-to-mouth tales$$$ we exhume from old trunks and boxes and drawers letters without salutation or signature$$$ in which men and women who once lived and breathed are now merely initials or nicknames out of some now incomprehensible affection which sound to us like Sanskrit or Chocktaw; we see dimly people$$$ the people in whose living blood and seed we ourselves lay dormant and waiting$$$ in this shadowy attenuation of time possessing now heroic proportions$$$ performing their acts of simple passion and simple violence$$$ impervious to time and inexplicable - Yes$$$ Judith$$$ Bon$$$ Henry$$$ Sutpen: all of them. They are there$$$ yet something is missing; they are like a chemical formula exhumed along with the letters from that forgotten chest$$$ carefully$$$ the paper old and faded and falling to pieces$$$ the writing faded$$$ almost indecipherable$$$ yet meaningful$$$ familiar in shape and sense$$$ the name and presence of volatile and sentient forces; you bring them together in the proportions called for$$$ but nothing happens; you re-read$$$ tedious and intent$$$ poring$$$ making sure that you have forgotten nothing$$$ made no miscalculation; you bring them together again and again nothing happens: just the words$$$ the symbols$$$ the shapes themselves$$$ shadowy inscrutable and serene$$$ against that turgid background of a horrible and bloody mischancing of human affairs.