Bare feet and chamomile sap.

　　Took off my shoes; took off my hat.

　　Bare feet and chamomile sap,Gimme back my shoes; gimme back my hat.

　　Lay my head on a potato sack,Devil sneak up behind my back.

　　Steam engine got a lonesome whine;Love that woman till you go stone blind.

　　Stone blind; stone blind.

　　Sweet Home gal make you lose your mind.

　　HIS COMING is the reverse route of his going. First the cold house,the storeroom, then thekitchen before he tackles the beds. Here Boy, feeble and shedding his coat in patches, is asleep bythe pump, so Paul D knows Beloved is truly gone. Disappeared, some say, exploded right before their eyes. Ella is not so sure. "Maybe," she says, "maybe not. Could be hiding in the trees waitingfor another chance." But when Paul D sees the ancient dog, eighteen years if a day, he is certain124 is clear of her. But he opens the door to the cold house halfway expecting to hear her. "Touchme. Touch me. On the inside part and call me my name."There is the pallet spread with old newspapers gnawed at the edges by mice. The lard can. Thepotato sacks too, but empty now, they lie on the dirt floor in heaps. In daylight he can't imagine itin darkness with moonlight seeping through the cracks. Nor the desire that drowned him there andforced him to struggle up, up into that girl like she was the clear air at the top of the sea. Couplingwith her wasn't even fun. It was more like a brainless urge to stay alive.

　　Each time she came, pulled up her skirts, a life hunger overwhelmed him and he had no morecontrol over it than over his lungs. And afterward, beached and gobbling air, in the midst ofrepulsion and personal shame, he was thankful too for having been escorted to some ocean-deepplace he once belonged to.

　　Sifting daylight dissolves the memory, turns it into dust motes floating in light. Paul D shuts thedoor. He looks toward the house and, surprisingly, it does not look back at him. Unloaded, 124 isjust another weathered house needing repair. Quiet, just as Stamp Paid said.

　　"Used to be voices all round that place. Quiet, now," Stamp said.

　　"I been past it a few times and I can't hear a thing. Chastened, I reckon, 'cause Mr. Bodwin say heselling it soon's he can.""That the name of the one she tried to stab? That one?""Yep. His sister say it's full of trouble. Told Janey she was going to get rid of it.""And him?" asked Paul D.

　　"Janey say he against it but won't stop it.""Who they think want a house out there? Anybody got the money don't want to live out there.""Beats me," Stamp answered. "It'll be a spell, I guess, before it get took off his hands.""He don't plan on taking her to the law?""Don't seem like it. Janey say all he wants to know is who was the naked blackwoman standing onthe porch. He was looking at her so hard he didn't notice what Sethe was up to. All he saw wassome coloredwomen fighting. He thought Sethe was after one of them, Janey say.""Janey tell him any different?""No. She say she so glad her boss ain't dead. If Ella hadn't clipped her, she say she would have.

　　Scared her to death have that woman kill her boss. She and Denver be looking for a job.""Who Janey tell him the naked woman was?""Told him she didn't see none.""You believe they saw it?""Well, they saw something. I trust Ella anyway, and she say she looked it in the eye. It wasstanding right next to Sethe. But from the way they describe it, don't seem like it was the girl I sawin there.

　　The girl I saw was narrow.............