William Faulkner, SANCTUARY – WordPress.com - literature save 2

with that unmistakable odor of courtrooms; that musty odor of spent lusts and greeds and
bickerings and bitterness, and withal a certain clumsy stability in lieu of anything better.
The windows gave upon balconies close under the arched porticoes. The breeze drew
through them, bearing the chirp and coo of sparrows and pigeons that nested in the eaves,
and now and then the sound of a motor horn from the square below, rising out of and
sinking back into a hollow rumble of feet in the corridor below and on the stairs.
The Bench was empty. At one side, at the long table, he could see Goodwin's
black head and gaunt brown face, and the woman's gray hat. At the other end of the table
sat a man picking his teeth. His skull was capped closely by tightly curled black hair
thinning upon a bald spot. He had a long, pale nose. He wore a tan palm beach suit; upon
the table near him lay a smart leather brief-case and a straw hat with a red-and-tan band,
and he gazed lazily out a window above the ranked heads, picking his teeth. Horace
stopped just within the door. "It's a lawyer," he said. "A Jew lawyer from Memphis."
Then he was looking at the backs of the heads about the table, where the witnesses and
such would be. "I know what I'll find before I find it," he said. "She will have on a black
hat."
He walked up the aisle. From beyond the balcony window where the sound of the
bell seemed to be and where beneath the eaves the guttural pigeons crooned, the voice of
the bailiff came:
"The honorable Circuit Court of Yoknapatawpha county is now open according to
law. . . ."
Temple had on a black hat. The clerk called her name twice before she moved and
took the stand. After a while Horace realised that he was being spoken to, a little testily,
by the Court.
"Is this your witness, Mr. Benbow?"
"It is, your Honor."
"You wish her sworn and recorded?"
"I do, your Honor."
Beyond the window, beneath the unhurried pigeons, the bailiff's voice still
droned, reiterant, importunate, and detached, though the sound of the bell had ceased.
XXVIII
The district attorney faced the jury. "I offer as evidence this object which was found at
the scene of the crime." He held in his hand a corn-cob. It appeared to have been dipped
in dark brownish paint. "The reason this was not offered sooner is that its bearing on the
case was not made clear until the testimony of the defendant's wife which I have just
caused to be read aloud to you gentlemen from the record.
"You have just heard the testimony of the chemist and the gynecologist--who is,
as you gentlemen know, an authority on the most sacred affairs of that most sacred thing
in life: womanhood--who says that this is no longer a matter for the hangman, but for a
bonfire of gasoline--"
"I object!" Horace said: "The prosecution is attempting to sway--"