Read "Soldiers' Pay" by William Faulkner online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Jones, Januarius Jones, born of whom he knew and cared not, becoming Jones alphabetically, January through a conjunction of calendar and biology, Januarius through the perverse conjunction of his own star and the compulsion of food and clothing -- Januarius Jones baggy in gray tweed, being lately a fellow of Latin in a small college, leaned upon a gate of iron grillwork breaking a levee of green and embryonically starred honeysuckle, watching April busy in a hyacinth bed. Dew was on the grass and bees broke apple bloom in the morning sun while swallows were like plucked strings against a pale windy sky. A face regarded him across a suspended trowel and the metal clasps of crossed suspenders made a cheerful glittering.
The rector said: "Good morning, young man. " His shining dome was friendly against an ivy-covered wall above which the consummate grace of a spire and a gilded cross seemed to arc across motionless young clouds.