THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER.
WILLIAM STYRON.
Foreword
A novel of shocking power and magnificent rage, William Styron"s The Confessions of Nat Turner The Confessions of Nat Turner remains one of the boldest and most moving explorations in American fiction of the horror of slavery. Styron puts himself inside the mind of Nat Turner, a real historical figure who led a slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831, to understand the anguish and bitterness that are bred into a people by such inhuman treatment. The author"s premise is so audacious that it drew bitter criticism in the midst of remarkable acclaim -- a sure sign that a literary work has made its point. The African-American novelist James Baldwin said of Styron"s achievement, "He has begun the common history -- remains one of the boldest and most moving explorations in American fiction of the horror of slavery. Styron puts himself inside the mind of Nat Turner, a real historical figure who led a slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831, to understand the anguish and bitterness that are bred into a people by such inhuman treatment. The author"s premise is so audacious that it drew bitter criticism in the midst of remarkable acclaim -- a sure sign that a literary work has made its point. The African-American novelist James Baldwin said of Styron"s achievement, "He has begun the common history -- ours."
Virginia-born novelist William Styron (b. 1922) is one of the finest American novelists of his time, a Southern writer who has made surprising and immensely rewarding choices in the subjects about which he has chosen to write. Though Styron has not been prolific -- four novels and various other writings -- his work has had a powerful impact on readers for some 50 years, beginning with the novel Lie Down in Darkness Lie Down in Darkness, published in 1951. He won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 1967 for his novel The Confessions of Nat Turner The Confessions of Nat Turner, a powerful historical novel that was so successful and acclaimed that it drew a backlash of criticism. Much the same thing happened when Sophie"s Choice Sophie"s Choice was published in 1979. A National Book Award winner in 1980, was published in 1979. A National Book Award winner in 1980, Sophie"s Choice Sophie"s Choice was recently named one of the 100 greatest novels of the century written in English by both the Modern Library and the Radcliffe Publishing Course. was recently named one of the 100 greatest novels of the century written in English by both the Modern Library and the Radcliffe Publishing Course.
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Part I
Judgment Day
Above the barren, sandy cape where the river joins the sea, there is a promontory or cliff rising straight up hundreds of feet to form the last outpost of land. One must try to visualize a river estuary below this cliff, wide and muddy and shallow, and a confusion of choppy waves where the river merges with the sea and the current meets the ocean tide. It is afternoon. The day is clear, sparkling, and the sun seems to cast no shadow anywhere. It may be the commencement of spring or perhaps the end of summer; it matters less what the season is than that the air is almost seasonless-benign and neutral, windless, devoid of heat or cold. As always, I seem to be approaching this place alone in some sort of boat (it is a small boat, a skiff or maybe a canoe, and I am reclining in it comfortably; at least I have no sense of discomfort nor even of exertion, for I do not row-the boat is moving obediently to the river"s sluggish seaward wallow), floating calmly toward the cape past which, beyond and far, deep blue, stretches the boundless sea. The sh.o.r.es of the river are unpeopled, silent; no deer run through the forests, nor do any gulls rise up from the deserted, sandy beaches. There is an effect of great silence and of an even greater solitude, as if life here had not so much perished as simply disappeared, leaving all-river sh.o.r.e and estuary and rolling sea-to exist forever unchanged like this beneath the light of a motionless afternoon sun.
Now as I drift near the cape I raise my eyes to the promontory facing out upon the sea. There again I see what I know I will see, as always. In the sunlight the building stands white-stark white and serene against a blue and cloudless sky. It is square and formed of marble, like a temple, and is simply designed, possessing no columns or windows but rather, in place of them, recesses whose purpose I cannot imagine, flowing in a series of arches around its two visible sides. The building has no door, at 7.least there is no door that I can see. Likewise, just as this building possesses neither doors nor windows, it seems to have no purpose, resembling, as I say, a temple-yet a temple in which no one worships, or a sarcophagus in which no one lies buried, or a monument to something mysterious, ineffable, and without name. But as is my custom whenever I have this dream or vision, I don"t dwell upon the meaning of the strange building standing so lonely and remote upon its ocean promontory, for it seems by its very purposelessness to be endowed with a profound mystery which to explore would yield only a profusion of darker and perhaps more troubling mysteries, as in a maze.
And so again it comes to me, this vision, in the same haunting and recurrent way it has for many years. Again I am in the little boat, floating in the estuary of a silent river toward the sea. And again beyond and ahead of me, faintly booming and imminent yet without menace, is the sweep of sunlit ocean. Then the cape, then the lofty promontory, and finally the stark white temple high and serene above all, inspiring in me neither fear nor peace nor awe, but only the contemplation of a great mystery, as I move out toward the sea. . . .
Never, from the time I was a child until the present-and I am just past thirty-was I able to discover the meaning behind this dream (or vision; vision; for though it occurred mainly as I awoke from sleep, there would be random waking moments when, working in the fields or out trapping rabbits in the woods, or while I was at some odd task or other, the whole scene would flash against my mind with the silence and clearness and fixity of absolute reality, like a picture in the Bible, and in an instant"s dumb daydream all would be re-created before my eyes, river and temple and promontory and sea, to dissolve almost as swiftly as it had come), nor was I ever able to understand the emotion it caused me-this emotion of a tranquil and abiding mystery. I have no doubt, however, that it was all connected with my childhood, when I would hear white people talk of Norfolk and of "going to the seaside." For Norfolk was only forty miles eastward from Southampton and the ocean only a few miles past Norfolk, where some of the white people would go to trade. Indeed, I had even known a few Negroes from Southampton who had gone to Norfolk with their masters and then seen the ocean, and the picture they recalled-that of an infinite vastness of blue water stretching out to the limit of the eye, and past that, as if to the uttermost boundaries of the earth-inflamed my imagination in such a way that my desire to see this sight became a kind of The Confessions of Nat Turner for though it occurred mainly as I awoke from sleep, there would be random waking moments when, working in the fields or out trapping rabbits in the woods, or while I was at some odd task or other, the whole scene would flash against my mind with the silence and clearness and fixity of absolute reality, like a picture in the Bible, and in an instant"s dumb daydream all would be re-created before my eyes, river and temple and promontory and sea, to dissolve almost as swiftly as it had come), nor was I ever able to understand the emotion it caused me-this emotion of a tranquil and abiding mystery. I have no doubt, however, that it was all connected with my childhood, when I would hear white people talk of Norfolk and of "going to the seaside." For Norfolk was only forty miles eastward from Southampton and the ocean only a few miles past Norfolk, where some of the white people would go to trade. Indeed, I had even known a few Negroes from Southampton who had gone to Norfolk with their masters and then seen the ocean, and the picture they recalled-that of an infinite vastness of blue water stretching out to the limit of the eye, and past that, as if to the uttermost boundaries of the earth-inflamed my imagination in such a way that my desire to see this sight became a kind of 8.fierce, inward, almost physical hunger, and there were days when my mind seemed filled with nothing but fantasies of the waves and the distant horizon and the groaning seas, the free blue air like an empire above arching eastward to Africa-as if by one single glimpse of this scene I might comprehend all the earth"s ancient, oceanic, preposterous splendor. But since luck was against me in this regard, and I was never allowed the opportunity of a trip to Norfolk and the ocean, I had to content myself with the vision which existed in my imagination; hence the recurring phantasm I have already described, even though the temple on the promontory still remained a mystery-and more mysterious this morning than ever before in all the years I could reckon. It lingered for a while, half dream, half waking vision as my eyes came open in the gray dawn, and I shut them again, watching the white temple dwindle in the serene and secret light, fade out, removed from recollection.
I rose up from the cedar plank I"d been sleeping on and sathalfway erect, in the same somnolent motion duplicating the instinctive mistake I"d made four times in as many mornings: swinging my legs sideways off the plank as if to plant them on the floor, only to feel metal bite into my ankles as the chain of the leg irons reached the limit of its slack, holding my feet suspended slantwise in midair. I drew my feet back and let them fall on the plank, then I sat upright and reached down and rubbed my ankles underneath the irons, aware of the flow of blood returning warm beneath my fingers. There was for the first time this year a wintry touch about the morning, damp and cold, and I could see a line of pale frost where the hard clay of the floor met the bottom plank of the jail wall. I sat there for several minutes, rubbing my ankles and shivering some. Suddenly I was very hungry, and I felt my stomach churn and heave. For a while all was still. They had put Hark in the cell next to me the evening before, and now through the planks I could hear his heavy breathing-a choked, clotted sound as if air were escaping through his very wounds. For an instant I was on the verge of waking him with a whisper, for we had had no chance to speak, but the sound of his breathing was slow and heavy with exhaustion. I thought, Let him sleep, and the words I had already formed on my lips went unspoken. I sat still on the board, watching the dawn light grow and fill the cell like a cup, stealthily, blossoming with the color of pearl. Far off in the distance now I heard a rooster crow, a faint call like a remote hurrah, echoing, fading into silence. Then another rooster crowed, nearer now.
9.For a long while I sat there, listening and waiting. Save for Harks breathing there was no sound at all for many minutes, until at last I heard a distant horn blow, mournful and familiar-sounding, a hollow soft diminishing cry in the fields beyond Jerusalem, rousing up the Negroes on some farm or other.
After a bit I manipulated the chain so that I could slide my legs off the board and stand up. The chain allowed my feet a yard or so of movement, and by shuffling to the length of the chain and then stretching myself forward I could see out the open barred window into the dawn. Jerusalem was waking. From where I was standing I could see two houses nearby, perched at the edge of the riverbank where the cypress bridge began. Through one house someone moved with a candle, a flickering light which pa.s.sed from bedroom to living room to hallway to kitchen, where it finally came to rest on some table and stood still, yellow and wavering. Behind the other house, closer to the bridge, an old woman covered with a greatcoat came out with a chamber pot; holding the steaming pot before her like a crucible, she hobbled across the frozen yard toward a whitewashed wooden privy, the breath coming from her mouth in puffs of smoke. She opened the door of the privy, went in, and the sound of the hinges grated with a small shriek on the frosty air until abruptly and with a crack like that of a gun the door slammed shut behind her. Suddenly, more from hunger than anything else, I felt dizzy and closed my eyes. Tiny freckles of light danced across my vision and I thought for an instant I was going to fall but I caught myself against the sill of the window; when I opened my eyes again, I saw that the candle in the first house had gone out, and gray smoke was pluming upward from the chimney.
Just then from afar I heard a distant drumming noise, a plunging of hoofbeats in erratic m.u.f.fled tattoo which grew louder and louder as it approached from the west across the river. I raised my eyes to the far riverbank fifty yards away, where the tangled forest wall of cypress and gum trees loomed high over waters flowing muddy and cold and sluggish in the dawn. A rent in the wall marked the pa.s.sage of the county road, and now through this rent a horse at an easy gallop appeared, carrying a cavalryman, followed closely by another, then still another, three soldiers in all: like a collision of barrels they struck the cypress bridge in a thunderous uproar of hooves and squealing timber, pa.s.sed swiftly across the river into Jerusalem, guns glinting in the pale light. I watched until they had galloped out of sight and until the noise of hoofbeats faded into a soft dim drumming 10.behind me in the town. Then it was still again. I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the window sill. The darkness was comforting to my eyes. It had for many years been my custom to pray at this hour of the day, or to read from the Bible; but during the five days that I had been made prisoner I had been refused the Bible, and as for prayer-well, it was no surprise to me any longer that I was totally unable to force a prayer from my lips. I still had this craving to perform a daily act which for the years of my grown-up life had become as simple and as natural as a bodily function, but which now seemed so incapable of accomplishment as to resemble a problem in geometry or some other mysterious science beyond my understanding. I now could not even recall when the ability to pray had left me-one month, two months, perhaps even more.
It might have been some consolation, at least, had I known the reason why this power had deserted me; but I was denied even this knowledge and there seemed no way at all to bridge the gulf between myself and G.o.d. So for a moment, as I stood with my eyes closed and with my head pressed against the cold wood sill, I felt a terrible emptiness. Again I tried to pray but my mind was a void, and all that filled my consciousness was the still fading echo of plunging hoofbeats and roosters crowing far off in the fields beyond Jerusalem.
Suddenly I heard a rattling at the bars behind me and I opened my eyes, turning to see Kitchen"s face in the lantern light. It was a young face, eighteen perhaps nineteen, pimpled and pockmarked and slack-jawed, quite stupid and so pitifully scared as to make me feel that I had perhaps wreaked upon him some irreversible mental change. For what had begun five days ago as apprehension had changed to constant fright, and this finally, it was plain to see, to a hopeless and demoralizing terror as each day pa.s.sed and I slept and ate and breathed, still unclaimed by death. I heard his voice behind the bars, aquiver with dread.
"Nat," he said. Then, "Hey, old Nat," in a skittish hesitant voice.
"Nat, wake up!"
For a moment I wanted to shout out, yell "Scat!" and watch him fly out of his britches, but I said only: "I"m awake now."
He was obviously confounded to find me at the window. "Nat," he said quickly. "The lawyer"s coming. Remember? He wants to see you. You awake?" He stammered a bit as he spoke, and by the lantern"s glow I could see his white drawn young face with bulging eyes and a bloodless area of fright around the mouth.
Just then I again felt a great empty aching in my stomach.
11."Ma.r.s.e Kitchen," I said, "I"m hungry. Please. I wonder if you could fetch me a little bite to eat. Kindly please, young mastah."
"Breakfast ain"t until eight," he replied in a croak.
I said nothing for a moment, watching him. Maybe it was hunger alone which stirred up a last breath, the ultimate gasp of a fury I thought I had safely laid to rest six weeks before. I looked back into the infantine slack-jawed face, thinking: Mooncalf, you are just a lucky child. You are the kind of sweet meat Will was after .
. . And for no reason at all a vision of mad Will came back, and I thought in spite of myself, the moment"s rage persisting: Will, Will. How that mad black man would have relished this simpleton"s flesh . . . The rage shriveled, died within me, leaving me with a momentary sense of waste and shame and exhaustion. "Maybe you could fetch me just a little piece of pone," I said, pleading, thinking: Big talk will fetch you nothing but n.i.g.g.e.r talk might work. Certainly I had nothing to lose, least of all my pride. "Just a little bitty piece of pone," I coaxed, coa.r.s.e and wheedling. "Please, young mastah. I"m most dreadful hungry."
"Breakfast ain"t until eight!" he blurted in a voice too loud, a shout, his breath making the lantern flame tremble and flicker.
Then he darted off and I was standing in the dawn, shivering, listening to the growling in my guts. After a moment I shuffled back over to the plank and sat down and thrust my head into my hands and closed my eyes. Prayer again hovered at the margin of my consciousness, prowling there restlessly like some great gray cat yearning for entry into my mind. Yet once again prayer remained outside and apart from me, banned, excluded, unattainable, shut out as decisively as if walls as high as the sun had been interposed between myself and G.o.d. So instead of prayer I began to whisper aloud: "It is a good thing to give thanks "It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High. unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High.
To show forth thy lovingkindness in the morning . . ." But even these harmless words came out wrong, and as quickly as I had begun I ceased, the familiar diurnal Psalm foul and sour in my mouth and as meaningless and empty as all my blighted attempts at prayer. Beyond my maddest imaginings I had never known it possible to feel so removed from G.o.d-a separation which had nothing to do with faith or desire, for both of these I still possessed, but with a forsaken solitary apartness so beyond hope that I could not have felt more sundered from the divine spirit had I been cast alive like some wriggling insect beneath the largest rock on earth, there to live in hideous, perpetual dark. But even these harmless words came out wrong, and as quickly as I had begun I ceased, the familiar diurnal Psalm foul and sour in my mouth and as meaningless and empty as all my blighted attempts at prayer. Beyond my maddest imaginings I had never known it possible to feel so removed from G.o.d-a separation which had nothing to do with faith or desire, for both of these I still possessed, but with a forsaken solitary apartness so beyond hope that I could not have felt more sundered from the divine spirit had I been cast alive like some wriggling insect beneath the largest rock on earth, there to live in hideous, perpetual dark.
12.The chill and damp of the morning began to spread out like ooze through my bones. Hark"s breathing came through the wall like the sound of an old dog dying, all gurgles and shudders and unholy vibrations, st.i.tched together by a sickly thread of air.
A person who has lived as I have for many years-close to the ground, so to speak, in the woods and the swamp, where no animal sense is superior to another-eventually comes to own a supremely good nose; thus I smelled Gray almost before I saw him. Not that the odor that Gray put out demanded great sensiblity: suddenly the cold dawn was a May morning, rank with the odor of apple blossoms, his sweet fragrance preceding him as he approached the cell. Kitchen was carrying two lanterns this time. He put one down on the floor and unlocked the door. Then he came in, holding both lanterns high, followed by Gray. The slop bucket was inside by the door and Kitchen jarred it with one of his uncertain, nervous feet, setting the whole bucket to gulping and sloshing. Gray caught a hint of Kitchen"s terror, because at that instant I heard him say: "Calm yourself, boy, for pity"s sake!
What on earth do you think he can do do to you?" It was a round, hearty voice, jovial even, booming with voracious good will. At this hour I was unable to tell which I resented more, that doughty voice or the honeyed, overpowering perfume. "Lawd amercy, you"d think he was going to eat you alive!" Kitchen made no reply, set a lamp down on the other plank which stuck out, like the one I was sitting on, at right angles from the opposite wall, then picked up the slop bucket and fled, banging the door behind him and throwing the bolt home with a slippery chunking noise. to you?" It was a round, hearty voice, jovial even, booming with voracious good will. At this hour I was unable to tell which I resented more, that doughty voice or the honeyed, overpowering perfume. "Lawd amercy, you"d think he was going to eat you alive!" Kitchen made no reply, set a lamp down on the other plank which stuck out, like the one I was sitting on, at right angles from the opposite wall, then picked up the slop bucket and fled, banging the door behind him and throwing the bolt home with a slippery chunking noise.
For a moment, after Kitchen was gone, Gray said nothing, standing near the door and blinking slow, tentative blinks past me-I had already noticed he was a bit near-sighted-then he eased himself down on the board beside the lantern. We would not need the lantern long: even as he seated himself morning was pouring with a cool white glow through the window, and I had begun to hear outside beyond the jail a slow-moving fuss and clatter of creaking pumps and banging windows and yapping dogs as the town came awake. Gray was a fleshy, red-faced man-he must have been fifty or a little more-and his eyes were hollow and bloodshot as if he needed sleep. He stirred about to find a comfortable resting place on the plank, then threw open his greatcoat abruptly, revealing beneath a fancy brocaded waistcoat, now more grease-stained than ever and with the lower b.u.t.ton unloosened to accommodate his paunch. Again he gazed toward me, blinking past me as if still unable to see or find his focus; then he yawned and removed, finger by delicate pudgy 13.finger, his gloves, which must once have been pink but now were seedy and begrimed.
"Mornin", Reverend," he said finally. When I made no reply, he reached inside his waistcoat and took out a sheaf of papers, unfolding and flattening them against his lap. He said nothing more for a bit as he held the papers close to the lantern, shuffling them in and out, humming to himself, pausing from time to time to stroke his mustache, which was gray and indecisive, a faint shadow. His jaw was in need of a shave. With such an empty feeling in my stomach the over sweet smell of him almost made me puke as I sat there watching him, saying nothing. I was worn out from talking to him and seeing him, and for the first time- perhaps it was my hunger or the cold or a combination of both, or my general frustration about prayer-I felt my dislike of him begin to dominate my better nature, my equanimity. For although I had disliked him at the very beginning five full days before, disliked the mode and method of the trickery behind his very presence, despised his person and the mellifluous sugarplum stench of him, I quickly understood how foolish it would be not to yield, not to be acquiescent and blab everything now that it all was over-fully aside from his bribery and threat, what else had I to lose? Thus even at the outset I figured that hostility would avail me nothing and I managed if not completely to stifle my dislike (and dislike it was, not hatred, which I have only once felt for any single man) then to mask it, to submerge it beneath the general polite compliance which the situation demanded.
For I had said nothing when first I laid eyes on him, and he had slouched there in the yellow autumnal light (an afternoon, hazy with smoke; I recall the curled and brittle sycamore leaves drifting through the window bars), sluggish and sleepy-eyed, the words coming wearily deliberate while with pink-gloved fingers he sc.r.a.ped at his crotch: "Well now, looky here, Reverend, ain"t nothin" good goin" to come of you shuttin" up like a old walnut."
He paused, but again I said nothing. "Except maybe-" And he hesitated. "Except maybe a pack of misery. For you and the other n.i.g.g.e.r." I remained silent. The day before, when they had brought me up by foot from Cross Keys, there had been two women-banshees in sunbonnets, egged on by the men-who had p.r.i.c.ked my back deep with hatpins a dozen times, perhaps more; the tiny wounds along my shoulders had begun fiercely to itch and I yearned to scratch them, with a hopeless craving which brought tears to my eyes, but I was prevented from doing so by the manacles. I thought if I could get off those manacles 14.and scratch I"d be able to think clearly, I"d be relieved of a great affliction, and for an instant I was on the verge of capitulating to Gray if he"d allow me this concession-nonetheless, I kept my mouth shut, saying nothing. This immediately proved wise.
"Know what I mean by a pack of misery?" he persisted, deliberately, patiently, not unkindly, as if I were the most responsive of company, instead of a worn-out and beaten sack.
Outside I could hear the thudding and clash of cavalry and a dull babble of hundreds of distant voices: it was the first day, the presence of my body in custody had been verified, and hysteria hung over Jerusalem like thunder. "What I mean about a pack of misery is this, Nat. Is two items. Now listen. Item in the first part: the con-tin-u-ation con-tin-u-ation of the misery you already got. For example, all that unnecessary junk the sheriff got wound around you there, those chains there around your neck and them quadruple leg irons, and that big ball of iron they hung onto your ankle there. of the misery you already got. For example, all that unnecessary junk the sheriff got wound around you there, those chains there around your neck and them quadruple leg irons, and that big ball of iron they hung onto your ankle there.
Lord G.o.d Almighty, you"d think they"d figured you was old Samson himself, fixing to break down the place with one big mighty jerk. Plain foolishness, I call it. That kind of rig, a man"d die settin" in his own, uh, ordure long before they got around to stretching his neck." He leaned forward toward me, sweat like minute pale blisters against his brow; in spite of his easy manner I could not help but feel that he exhaled eagerness and ambition.
"Such things as that, what I might call, as I have already stated, the con-tin-u-ation con-tin-u-ation of the misery you already got. Now then . . . of the misery you already got. Now then . . .
Of two items, the item in the second part. Namely, the pro-mul-gation pro-mul-gation of more misery over and above and of more misery over and above and in addition in addition to the misery you already got-" to the misery you already got-"
"Excuse me." For the first time I spoke, and his voice abruptly ceased. He was of course working up to the idea that if I did not tell him everything, he would find a way of getting at me through some sort of villainous monkey business with Hark. But he had misjudged everything. He had at once misinterpreted my silence and unwittingly antic.i.p.ated my most nagging, imminent need: to scratch my back. If I was to be hung come what may, what purpose could be served by withholding a "confession,"
especially when it might augment in some small way my final physical relief? Thus I felt I had gained a small, private initial victory. Had I opened up at the outset it would have been I who had to ask for indulgences, and I might not have gotten them.
But by remaining quiet I had allowed him to feel that only by small favors could he get me to talk; now already he had expressed the nature of those favors, and we had each taken the first step toward getting me unwound from my coc.o.o.n of iron and 15.bra.s.s. There is no doubt about it. White people often undo themselves by such running off at the mouth, and only G.o.d knows how many n.i.g.g.e.r triumphs have been won in total silence.
"Excuse me," I said again. I told him there was no reason to go any further. And I watched his face flush and his eyes grow round and wide with sudden surprise, also with a glint of disappointment, as if my quick surrender had scattered all the beautiful possibilities of threat and cajolery and intimidation he was spoiling for in his tiresome harangue. Then I told him quite simply that I was most willing to make a confession.
"You are are?" he said. "You mean-"
"Hark"s the last one left, except for myself. They tell me he is mighty bad hurt. Hark and I growed up together. I wouldn"t want anybody to hurt a hair on his head. No sir, not old Hark. But that ain"t all-"
"Well sir," Gray broke in, "that"s a right intelligent decision, Nat. I thought you"d come round to that decision."
"Also, there"s something else, Mr. Gray," I said, speaking very slowly. "Last night, after they carried me up here from Cross Keys and I sat here in the dark in these chains, I tried to sleep.
And as I tried to sleep, the Lord seemed to appear to me in a vision. For a while I didn"t feel it was the Lord, because long ago I thought the Lord had failed me, had deserted me. But as I sat here in these chains, with this neck iron and these leg irons and these here manacles eating at my wrists, as I sat here in the hopeless agony of the knowledge of what was going to befall me, why, Mr. Gray, I"ll swear that the Lord came to me in a vision. And the Lord said this to me. The Lord said: Confess, that Confess, that all the nations may know. Confess, that thy acts may be known all the nations may know. Confess, that thy acts may be known to all men." to all men." I paused, gazing at Gray in the swarming, dusty fall light. For a brief instant I thought the falsity of these words would reveal itself, but Gray was lapping it up, intent now, even as I spoke scrabbling at his waistcoat for paper, groping for the walnut writing box at his knee, all fussy anxiety now, as if he risked being left in the lurch. "When the Lord said that to me," I continued, "Mr. Gray, I knowed there was no other course. Now sir, I"m a tired man, but I"m ready to confess, because the Lord has given this n.i.g.g.e.r a sign." I paused, gazing at Gray in the swarming, dusty fall light. For a brief instant I thought the falsity of these words would reveal itself, but Gray was lapping it up, intent now, even as I spoke scrabbling at his waistcoat for paper, groping for the walnut writing box at his knee, all fussy anxiety now, as if he risked being left in the lurch. "When the Lord said that to me," I continued, "Mr. Gray, I knowed there was no other course. Now sir, I"m a tired man, but I"m ready to confess, because the Lord has given this n.i.g.g.e.r a sign."
And already the quill pen was out, the paper laid flat on the lid of 16.the writing box, and the sound of scratching as Gray hastened to get down to business. "What"d the Lord say to you again, Nat?
"Confess your sins, that"-what?"
"Not confess your sins, sir," I replied. "He said confess. Just that.
Confess. That is important to relate. There was no your sins your sins at all. at all. Confess, that all nations may know . . ." Confess, that all nations may know . . ."
"Confess, that all nations may know," he repeated beneath his breath, the pen scratching away. "And what else?" he said, looking up. he repeated beneath his breath, the pen scratching away. "And what else?" he said, looking up.
"Then the Lord told me: Confess, that thy acts may be known to all men."
Gray paused, the quill in midair; still sweating, his face wore a look of such pleasure that it verged on exaltation, and for an instant I almost expected to see his eyes water. He let the pen fall slowly to the writing box. "I can"t tell you, Nat," he said in a voice full of emotion, "I honestly can"t tell you what a splendid- what a really splendid decision you"ve made. It"s what I call an honorable choice."
"What you mean by honorable?" I said.
"To make a confession, that is."
"The Lord commanded me," I replied. "Besides, I ain"t got anything to conceal any more. What have I got to lose by telling all I know?" I hesitated for a moment; the desire to scratch my back had driven me to the edge of a kind of tiny, separate madness. "I"d feel like I could say a whole lot more to you though, Mr. Gray, if you"d get them to take off these here manacles. I itch up along my neck somethin" powerful."
"I think that can be arranged without too much trouble," he said in an amicable voice. "As I have already intimated at some length, I have been authorized by the court to, within reason, ameliorate any such continuation of present misery that might obtain, providin" you cooperate to a degree as would make such amelioration, uh, mutually advantageous. And I am happy- indeed, I might say I am overpowered overpowered with delight-to see that you feel that cooperation is desirable." He leaned forward toward me, surrounding the two of us with the smell of spring and blossoms. "So the Lord told you: with delight-to see that you feel that cooperation is desirable." He leaned forward toward me, surrounding the two of us with the smell of spring and blossoms. "So the Lord told you: Confess, that all nations may Confess, that all nations may know? know? Reverend, I don"t think you realize what divine justice lies in that phrase. For near about onto ten weeks now there"s been The Confessions of Nat Turner Reverend, I don"t think you realize what divine justice lies in that phrase. For near about onto ten weeks now there"s been 17.a mighty clamor to know know, not onlyin the Virginia region but all over America. For ten weeks, while you were a-hidin" out and a-scamperin" around Southampton like a fox, the American people have been in a sweat to know how come you started a calamity like you done. All over America, the North as well as the South, the people have asked theirselves: How could the darkies get organized like that, how could they ever evolve and promulgate not to say coordinate and carry out such a plan? plan? But the people didn"t know, the truth was not available to them. They were in the profoundest dark. Them other n.i.g.g.e.rs didn"t know. But the people didn"t know, the truth was not available to them. They were in the profoundest dark. Them other n.i.g.g.e.rs didn"t know.
Either that or they were too dumb. Dumb-a.s.sed! Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!
They couldn"t talk, even that other one we ain"t hung yet. The one they call Hark." He paused. "Say, I"ve been meanin" to ask.
How"d he ever get a name like that?"
"I believe he was born Hercules," I said. "I think Hark is short for that. But I ain"t sure. n.o.body"s sure. He"s always been called Hark."
"Well, even him. Brighter than most of the others, I reckon. But stubborn. Craziest n.i.g.g.e.r I ever saw in my life." Gray bent closer to me. "Even he he wouldn"t say anything. Had a load of buckshot in his shoulder that would of felled an ox. We nursed him along-I"ll be frank with you, Nat, frank and level. We thought he"d tell where you were hidin" out at. Anyway, we nursed him along. He was tougher"n rawhide, I"ll have to hand him that. But ask him a question and he"d set there right here in this jail, he"d set there crackin" chicken bones with his teeth and just rare back and laugh like a hoot owl. And them other n.i.g.g.e.rs, they didn"t know nothin"." Gray drew back for an instant, silent, wiping his brow, while I sat there listening to the humming and murmuration of people outside the jail-a boy"s call, a whistle, a sudden thudding of hooves, and beneath it all a rise and fall of many voices like the distant rushing of water. "No sir," he resumed, slower, softer now, "Nat and Nat alone had the key to all this ruction." He paused again, then said in a voice almost a whisper: wouldn"t say anything. Had a load of buckshot in his shoulder that would of felled an ox. We nursed him along-I"ll be frank with you, Nat, frank and level. We thought he"d tell where you were hidin" out at. Anyway, we nursed him along. He was tougher"n rawhide, I"ll have to hand him that. But ask him a question and he"d set there right here in this jail, he"d set there crackin" chicken bones with his teeth and just rare back and laugh like a hoot owl. And them other n.i.g.g.e.rs, they didn"t know nothin"." Gray drew back for an instant, silent, wiping his brow, while I sat there listening to the humming and murmuration of people outside the jail-a boy"s call, a whistle, a sudden thudding of hooves, and beneath it all a rise and fall of many voices like the distant rushing of water. "No sir," he resumed, slower, softer now, "Nat and Nat alone had the key to all this ruction." He paused again, then said in a voice almost a whisper: "Don"t you see how you"re the key, Reverend?"
Through the window I watched the curled and golden sifting of sycamore leaves. The immobility in which I had sat for so many hours had caused oblong shadowy images to flutter across the margin of my consciousness like the dim beginning of hallucinations. I began to get these mixed up with the leaves. I didn"t reply to his question, finally saying only: "Did you say there was a trial for the others?"
18."Trial?" he said. "Trials, you mean. h.e.l.l, we had a million trials.
Had a trial pretty near every day. September and this past month, we had trials runnin" out our ears."
"But trials? Then you mean-" An image came to mind like an explosion of light: myself, the day before, hurried toward Jerusalem along the road from Cross Keys, the booted feet thudding into my back and behind and spine and the fierce sting of the hatpins in my shoulders, the blurred infuriated faces and the dust in my eyes and the gobs of their spit stringing from my nose and cheek and neck (even now I could feel it on my face like an enormous scab, dried and encrusted), and, above all, one anonymous wild voice high and hysterical over the furious uproar: "Burn him! Burn him! Burn the black devil right here!" And through the six-hour stumbling march my own listless hope and wonder, curiously commingled: I wish they would get it over with, but whatever it is they"re going to do, burn me, hang me, put out my eyes, why don"t they get it over with right now? But they had done nothing. Their spit seemed everlasting, its sourness a part of me. But save for this and the kicks and the hatpins, I had come out unharmed, wondrously so, thinking even as they chained me up and hurled me into this cell: The Lord is preparing for me a special salvation. Either that, or they are working up to some exquisite retribution quite beyond my power of comprehension. But no. I was the key to the riddle, and was to be tried. As for the rest-the other Negroes, as for their their trials- trials- suddenly as I gazed back at Gray it became more orless clear.
"Then it was to separate the wheat from the chaff," I said.
"Bien sure, as the Frenchies put it. You couldn"t be more correct.
Also you might say it was to protect the rights of property."
"Rights of property?" I said.
"Bien sure again," he replied. "You might say it was a combination of both." He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and drew out a fresh plug of dark brown tobacco, examined it between the tips of his fingers, then gnawed off a cheekful.
"Offer you a chaw," he said after a moment, "except I imagine a man of the cloth like you don"t indulge in Lady Nicotine. Very good idea too, rot the tongue right out of your head. No, I"ll tell you somethin", Nat, and that somethin" is this. Speakin" as a lawyer-indeed, speakin" as your your lawyer, which to some degree I am-it"s my duty to point out a few jurisprudential details which it might be a good idea to tuck under your bonnet. Now, of two The Confessions of Nat Turner lawyer, which to some degree I am-it"s my duty to point out a few jurisprudential details which it might be a good idea to tuck under your bonnet. Now, of two 19.items, item in the first part is this. Namely: rights of property."
I stared at him, saying nothing.
"Allow me to put it crudely. Take a dog, which is a kind of a chattel. No, first take a wagon-I want to evolve this a.n.a.logy by logical degrees. Now let"s take some farmer who"s got a wagon-a common, ordinary dray wagon-and he"s got it out in the fields somewhere. Now, this farmer has loaded up this wagon with corn shucks or hay or firewood or somethin" and he"s got it restin" on a kind of slope. Well, this here is a rickety old wagon and all of a sudden without him knowin" it the brake gives way. Pretty soon that old wagon is careerin" off down the road and across hill and dale and before you can say John Henry- kerblam! -it fetches up against the porch of a house, and there"s a little girl peaceably settin" on the porch-and -it fetches up against the porch of a house, and there"s a little girl peaceably settin" on the porch-and kerblam! kerblam! the wagon plows right on across the porch and the poor little girl is mashed to death beneath the wagon wheels right before her stricken mother"s eyes. Matter of fact, I heard of this very thing happenin" not long ago, somewhere up in Dinwiddie. Well, there"s a lot of boo-hooin" around, and a funeral, and so on, but pretty soon thoughts inevitably turn back to that old wagon. How come it happened? How come little Clarinda got mashed to death by that old wagon? Who"s responsible for such a horrible dereliction? Well, who do you think"s responsible?" the wagon plows right on across the porch and the poor little girl is mashed to death beneath the wagon wheels right before her stricken mother"s eyes. Matter of fact, I heard of this very thing happenin" not long ago, somewhere up in Dinwiddie. Well, there"s a lot of boo-hooin" around, and a funeral, and so on, but pretty soon thoughts inevitably turn back to that old wagon. How come it happened? How come little Clarinda got mashed to death by that old wagon? Who"s responsible for such a horrible dereliction? Well, who do you think"s responsible?"
This last question was addressed to me, but I didn"t choose to answer. Perhaps it was boredom or exasperation or exhaustion, or all three. At any rate, I didn"t reply, watching him shift the quid in his jaws, then send a coppery jet of tobacco juice to the floor between our feet.
"I"ll tell you what," he went on. "I"ll tell you where responsibility lies. Responsibility lies clean and square with the farmer.
Because a wagon is an in-an-i-mate in-an-i-mate chattel. A wagon can"t be held culpable for its acts. You can"t punish that old wagon, you can"t take it and rip it apart and throw it on a fire and say: "There, that"ll teach you, you miserable misbegotten wagon!" No, responsibility lies with the unfortunate chattel. A wagon can"t be held culpable for its acts. You can"t punish that old wagon, you can"t take it and rip it apart and throw it on a fire and say: "There, that"ll teach you, you miserable misbegotten wagon!" No, responsibility lies with the unfortunate owner owner of the wagon. It"s of the wagon. It"s him him that"s got to pay the piper, it"s that"s got to pay the piper, it"s him him that"s got to stand for whatever damages the court adjudicates against him-for the demolished porch and the deceased little girl"s funeral expenses, plus possibly whatever punitive compensation the court sees fit to award. Then, poor b.u.g.g.e.r, if he"s got any money left, he fixes the brake on the wagon and goes back and minds his land-a The Confessions of Nat Turner that"s got to stand for whatever damages the court adjudicates against him-for the demolished porch and the deceased little girl"s funeral expenses, plus possibly whatever punitive compensation the court sees fit to award. Then, poor b.u.g.g.e.r, if he"s got any money left, he fixes the brake on the wagon and goes back and minds his land-a 20.sadder but a wiser man. Do you follow me?"
"Yes," I said. "That"s clear."
"Well then, now we come to the heart of the matter-which is to say, an-i-mate an-i-mate chattel. Now, animate chattel poses a particularly tricky and subtle jurisprudential problem when it comes to adjudicating damages for loss of life and destruction of property. chattel. Now, animate chattel poses a particularly tricky and subtle jurisprudential problem when it comes to adjudicating damages for loss of life and destruction of property.
I need not say that the problem becomes surpa.s.sin surpa.s.sin" tricky and subtle in a case like that of you and your cohorts, whose crimes are unprecedented in the annals of this nation-and tried in an atmosphere, I might add, where the public pa.s.sions are somewhat, uh, inflamed to say the least. What"re you fidgetin"
for?"
"It"s my shoulders," I said. "I"d be mighty grateful if you could get them to ease off these chains. My shoulders pain something fierce."
"I told you I"d have them take care of that." His voice was impatient. "I"m a man of my word, Reverend. But to get back to chattel, there are both similarities and differences between animate chattel and a wagon. The major and manifest similarity similarity is, of course, that animate chattel is, of course, that animate chattel is is property like a wagon and is regarded as such in the eyes of the law. By the same token-am I speakin" too complex for you?" property like a wagon and is regarded as such in the eyes of the law. By the same token-am I speakin" too complex for you?"
"No sir," I said.
"By the same token, the major and manifest difference difference is that animate chattel, unlike inanimate chattel such as a wagon, is that animate chattel, unlike inanimate chattel such as a wagon, can can commit and may be tried for a felony, the owner being absolved of responsibility in the eyes of the law. I don"t know if this seems a contradiction to you. Does it?" commit and may be tried for a felony, the owner being absolved of responsibility in the eyes of the law. I don"t know if this seems a contradiction to you. Does it?"
"A what?" I said.
"Contradiction." He paused. "I guess you don"t comprehend."