P. 37, Scene 37 (1910) When we looked around . . .
P. 37, Scene 38 (1898) A snake crawled out . . .
P. 37, Scene 39 (1910) You aint got to start . . .
P. 38, Scene 40 (1898) We stopped under the tree . . .
Beginning with Scene 37, Benjy's mind will juxtapose the "sassprilluh" drinking on the night of Caddy's wedding in 1910 with another episode connected with Damuddy's death in 1898. The central connecting image is that of peeping through the window to see either the funeral or the wedding. This image causes Benjy to combine the two scenes in his memory.
P. 38, Scene 41 (1910) They getting ready to start . . .
P. 38, Scene 42 (1898) "They haven't started because the band . . ."
Scene 41 begins in italics and refers to the "sassprilluh" drinking on the night of Caddy's wedding. Here in this scene, there is considerable indication that Faulkner or the printers made an error since one can contend that the entire scene should be completely in italics and return only to roman type with Scene 42. Note that there is absolutely no indication of the time change in the scene, and the reader must scrutinize closely in order to detect the time change. A clue lies in Benjy's remembering that they have not started the wedding and immediately his mind jumps back in time to when they had not started the funeral. Thus the short Scene 41 should probably be italicized and the time change to Scene 42 should be indicated by a return to ordinary print.
P. 39, Scene 43 (1910) I saw them.
P. 40, Scene 44 (1905—around Christmas) Benjy, Caddy said, Benjy.
Scene 43 returns to images of the wedding and Benjy's loss of his sister, Caddy. Throughout the section, Benjy correlates Caddy with the smell of trees. Significally, when Caddy uses perfume or when she has been sexually promiscuous, Benjy senses these deviations and reacts to them through sense impressions by noting that she doesn't smell like trees. He can sense various deviations from the norm, but he can do nothing but howl or bellow about any situation. His howling here, in Scenes 43 and 44, is over the loss of Caddy and anticipates his howling when the ordered pattern is broken at the end of the novel.
The memory of Caddy's wedding in Scene 43 carries Benjy's memory back in Scene 44 to the first time when he sensed that he was losing Caddy—to the first time when she did not smell like trees because she was using perfume. The scene would be around Christmas 1905 since Caddy is referred to as being fourteen, and she gives Benjy some tinsel stars to play with. At this age, Caddy is still a virgin. Faulkner has symbolically depicted this fact by Caddy's ability to go into the bathroom and wash away her deviation (that is, the odor of her perfume). In later scenes, particularly when Caddy loses her virginity, Benjy will sense the change and will try to force Caddy into the bathroom again to wash. Each of these washing scenes is connected to the branch scene in 1898, when Caddy gets her drawers muddy, and also to the scene in the Quentin section when Caddy goes to the branch and lies in the water up to her hips just after she has lost her virginity.
P. 43, Scene 45 (1908) "Come on, now."
P. 43, Scene 46 (Spring 1903) Uncle Maury was sick.
P. 44, Scene 47 (1908) "You a big boy."
Scene 45 (only one short paragraph) and Scene 46 give no indication that there is a shift in time. Scene 45 is dated as 1908 because Benjy's age is referred to. His memory of Uncle Maury causes him to remember an earlier episode concerning Uncle Maury. Scene 46 is the concluding scene to the Patterson episode (see Scenes 2, 3, 5, 9, and 10). Stuart and Backus date Scene 46 as 1908, but if Mr. Patterson discovered the letter from Uncle Maury in 1903 (see Scene 10), then the fight between Uncle Maury and Mr. Patterson would have been shortly afterwards. However, if Backus and Stuart's assumption is correct, then Scene 10 and Scene 46, both occurring in 1908, would indicate that Uncle Maury and Mrs. Patterson have been carrying on their affair for over five years, which is highly unlikely given the nature of such a small town as Jefferson. Therefore, it is best to assume that Scenes 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, and 46 make one unit and occur in 1902-03.
The connecting link between Scenes 45, 46, and 47 is that of Benjy's being put to bed in Uncle Maury's room at various times and of Caddy smelling like trees. Notice also that Faulkner gives no indication of a time change between Scenes 46 and 47.
