It is Saturday night, and Miss Minnie is preparing to go downtown with her friends, who are anxious to see the effects, if any, of the rape on her. Their baiting her with questions demonstrates that they are more interested in juicy, sensational gossip than with genuine concern and affection for her: "When you have had time to get over the shock, you must tell us what happened. What he said and did, everything." She has aroused the interest of the curiosity seekers, but this section reemphasizes her many frustrations despite having regained all kinds of attention.
As Miss Minnie and her friends walk downtown, young people observe her with sexual curiosity. The image of her friends talking in voices that sound like "long, hovering sighs of hissing exultation" recalls the snake-like lust of Will's killers and suggests that these "friends" are little better than McLendon and his gang.
Knowledge of Will's disappearance has become widespread, for Miss Minnie's friends note, "There's not a Negro on the square. Not one." Here, Faulkner is commenting on a unique Southern phenomenon: Saturday is traditionally the day that many Southern blacks spend in town. But when something violent occurs, such as a rape or a murder, the entire black community reacts by disappearing, or, in Southern idiom, by becoming invisible.
