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

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eneath his nightshirt, a tousled fringe of hair standing wildly about his bald head; three other men passed the hotel running. They appeared to <strong>com</strong>e from nowhere, to emerge in midstride out of nothingness, fully dressed in the middle of the street, running. "It is a fire," Horace said. He could see the glare; against it the jail loomed in stark and savage silhouette. "It's in that vacant lot," the proprietor said, clutching his trousers. "I cant go because there aint anybody on the desk . . . " Horace ran. Ahead of him he saw other figures running, turning into the alley beside the jail; then he heard the sound of the fire; the furious sound of gasoline. He turned into the alley. He could see the blaze, in the center of a vacant lot where on market days wagons were tethered. Against the flames black figures showed, antic; he could hear panting shouts; through a fleeting gap he saw a man turn and run, a mass of flames, still carrying a five-gallon coal oil can which exploded with a rocket-like glare while he carried it, running. He ran into the throng, into the circle which had formed about a blazing mass in the middle of the lot. From one side of the circle came the screams of the man about whom the coal oil can had exploded, but from the central mass of fire there came no sound at all. It was now indistinguishable, the flames whirling in long and thunderous plumes from a white-hot mass out of which there defined themselves faintly the ends of a few posts and planks. Horace ran among them; they were holding him, but he did not know it; they were talking, but he could not hear the voices. "It's his lawyer." "Here's the man that defended him. That tried to get him clear." "Put him in, too. There's enough left to burn a lawyer." "Do to the lawyer what we did to him. What he did to her. Only we never used a cob. We made him wish we had used a cob." Horace couldn't hear them. He couldn't hear the man who had got burned screaming. He couldn't hear the fire, though it still swirled upward unabated, as though it were living upon itself, and soundless: a voice of fury like in a dream, roaring silently out of a peaceful void. XXX The trains at Kinston were met by an old man who drove a seven passenger car. He was thin, with gray eyes and a gray moustache with waxed ends. In the old days, before the town boomed suddenly into a lumber town, he was a planter, a landholder, son of one of the first settlers. He lost his property through greed and gullibility, and he began to drive a hack back and forth between town and the trains, with his waxed moustache, in a top hat and a worn Prince Albert coat, telling the drummers how he used to lead Kinston society; now he drove it. After the horse era passed, he bought a car, still meeting the trains. He still wore his waxed moustache, though the top hat was replaced by a cap, the frock coat by a suit of gray striped with red made by Jews in the New York tenement district. "Here you are,"
he said, when Horace descended from the train. "Put your bag into the car," he said. He got in himself. Horace got into the front seat beside him. "You are one train late," he said. "Late?" Horace said. "She got in this morning. I took her home. Your wife." "Oh," Horace said. "She's home?" The other started the car and backed and turned. It was a good, powerful car, moving easily. "When did you expect her? . . ." They went on. "I see where they burned that fellow over at Jefferson. I guess you saw it." "Yes," Horace said. "Yes. I heard about it." "Served him right," the driver said. "We got to protect our girls. Might need them ourselves." They turned. following a street. There was a corner, beneath an arc light. "I'll get out here," Horace said. "I'll take you on to the door," the driver said. "I'll get out here," Horace said. "Save you having to turn." "Suit yourself," the driver said. "You're paying for it, anyway. Horace got out and lifted out his suit case; the driver did not offer to touch it. The car went on. Horace picked up the suit case, the one which had stayed in the closet at his sister's home for ten years and which he had brought into town with him on the morning when she had asked him the name of the District Attorney. His house was new, on a fairish piece of lawn, the trees, the poplars and maples which he had set out, still new. Before he reached the house, he saw the rose colored shade at his wife's windows. He entered the house from the back and came to her door and looked into the room. She was reading in bed, a broad magazine with a colored back. The lamp had a rose colored shade. On the table sat a box of chocolates. "I came back," Horace said. She looked at him across the magazine. "Did you lock the back door?" she said. "Yes, I knew she would be," Horace said. "Have you tonight . . ." "Have I what?" "Little Belle. Did you telephone. . .?" "What for? She's at that house party. Why shouldn't she be? Why should she have to disrupt her plans, refuse an invitation?" "Yes," Horace said. "I knew she would be. Did you. . .?" "I talked to her night before last. Go lock the back door." "Yes," Horace said. "She's all right. Of course she is. I'll just . . ." The telephone sat on a table in the dark hall. The number was on a rural line; it took some time. Horace sat beside the telephone. He had left the door at the end of the hall open. Through it the light airs of the summer night drew, vague, disturbing. "Night is hard on old people," he said quietly, holding the receiver. "Summer nights are hard on them. Something should be done about it. A law." From her room Belle called his name, in the voice of a reclining person. "I called her night before last. Why must you bother her?" "I know," Horace said. "I wont be long at it."
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William Faulkner SANCTUARY First pu
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"Through all them trees?" Popeye sa
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and stooped above an open packing c
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somebody else's wife, you start off
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Tommy guffawed, in undertone. The r
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"Some women want a man to marry a c
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slanted against the glare. The brok
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small clouds rosy with sunlight dro
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"Putty hard walkin', aint it?" he s
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stand fer nobody drinkin' hyer cep
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They went on in the path. Popeye wa
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we stopped at Dumfries and he went
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worth, and all the rest of it you t
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"Here," Gowan said across the table
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there, he said, stopping, then he s
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They swung Gowan onto the bed. His
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at her with a quality furious and q
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"A rat?" she wailed, "a rat? Open t
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The blind man's stick clattered aga
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Temple sprang back into the kitchen
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house. Instead he went on across th
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she was about halfway back to the h
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"Goodwin and I were both talking. H
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him who was already dead singing ab
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"And go on back to Kinston until th
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"You dont think I am lawyer enough,
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kept on talking, sitting there in h
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"No," he said, "I didn't. I didn't
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together, listening to the hot minu
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They reached Memphis in mid-afterno
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glared with choleric ferocity, thei
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and hurled the covers over her head
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owl and pitcher and a row of towels
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"But that girl," Horace said. "she
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"Yes; Gowan. And, by the Lord, he'd
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Horace. He could hear them breathin
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delicate paradox, as though the Cre
Page 75 and 76: shoulders and his gestures. The tra
Page 77 and 78: She took shape vaguely, approaching
Page 79 and 80: As the train neared Memphis Virgil
Page 81 and 82: "Caint be her husband," Fonzo said.
Page 83 and 84: When they reached home Fonzo stoppe
Page 85 and 86: "This is Snopes," he said. "How're
Page 87 and 88: "And what's your price?" Horace sai
Page 89 and 90: special bed made and sent down here
Page 91 and 92: to herself sitting on the bed, list
Page 93 and 94: teacher in school and it was a litt
Page 95 and 96: Temple turned from the door and sto
Page 97 and 98: she smoked swiftly, moving about th
Page 99 and 100: toward his armpit. He caught her wr
Page 101 and 102: still alive; she felt long shudderi
Page 103 and 104: and black and navy blue, and glitte
Page 105 and 106: "Beer? Beer? Is somebody--" "Put th
Page 107 and 108: They began to talk politely, in dec
Page 109 and 110: "I knew it all the time," Miss Reba
Page 111 and 112: "Going down to Jackson for a couple
Page 113 and 114: Two days before it opened Snopes em
Page 115 and 116: "Then I guess it's time to think ab
Page 117 and 118: "Yes," she said. She held the bon-b
Page 119 and 120: man is going to let me walk out of
Page 121 and 122: "Sustained," the Court said. "Strik
Page 123 and 124: "He had the pistol in his hand. Wha
Page 125: loomed. In the yard, beneath the ba
Page 129 and 130: "The strikers. I dont care a damn w
Page 131 and 132: "What's your name? Calvin Coolidge?
Page 133 and 134: "Sure. Tell it to them. I dont know
Page 135: he quit jerking his neck and stood
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