Document Information
- Chapter: Chapter 31
- Scene: Grant notices the butterfly
- Draft: Typescript
- File location: Box 10, folder 55
Discussion Questions
- In this version of the scene, Grant does not mention God, but in the published version, he says, “Don’t tell me to believe in the same God or laws that men believe in who commit these crimes. Don’t tell me to believe that God can bless this country and that men are judged by their peers.” How does this addition change the mood of the scene? What does it add?
Don’t tell me to believe. Don’t tell me to believe in the same things men believe in who commit these murders. Don’t tell me to believe that men are judged by their peers. Who of his peers judged him? Was I there? Was the minister there? Was Harry there? Was Clarence? Was my aunt? Was Vivvian there? No, his peers did not judge him--and I will not believe.
Yet I want them to believe. They must believe. They must believe.
I looked back. But there was no movement at Henri Pichot’s house. It must have been close to twelve-thirty.
Several feet away from where I sat under the tree was a hill of bullgrass. I doubted that I had looked at it once all the time that I had been sitting there. I probably would not have noticed it at all had not a butterfly, a yellow butterfly with dark specks like ink-dots in its wings had not lit there. What had brought it there? There was no odor that I could detect could to have attracted it. There were other places where it could have rested, there was the fences on either side of the road, there were weeds along both ditches with strong fragrances, there were flowers just a short distance away in Pichot’s yard, so why did it light on a hill of bull grass that offered it nothing? I watched it closely, the way it opened its wings and closed them, the way it opened its wings again, fluttered, closed the wings for a second or two, then opened them and flew away. I watched it fly along the ditch down into the quarter. I watched it until I could not see it any more.
Yes, I told myself. It is finally over.