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

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This was on week nights. On alternate Saturday evenings, at the Letter Club dances, or on the occasion of the three formal yearly balls, the town boys, lounging in attitudes of belligerent casualness with their identical hats and upturned collars watched her enter the gymnasium upon black collegiate arms and vanish in a swirling blitter upon a glittering swirl of music with her high delicate head and her bold painted mouth and soft chin, her eyes blankly right and left looking, cool, predatory and discreet. Later, the music wailing beyond the glass, they would watch her through the windows as she passed in swift rotation from one pair of black sleeves to the next, her waist shaped slender and urgent in the interval, her feet filling the rhythmic gap with music. Stooping they would drink from flasks and light cigarettes, then erect again, motionless against the light, the upturned collars, the hatted heads, would be like a row of hatted and muffled busts cut from black tin and nailed to the window-sills. There would always be three or four of them there when the band played Home, Sweet Home, lounging near the exit, their faces cold, bellicose, a little drawn with sleeplessness, watching the couples emerge in a wan aftermath of motion and noise. Three of them watched Temple and Gowan Stevens come out, into the chill presage of spring dawn. Her face was quite pale, dusted over with recent powder, her hair in spent red curls. Her eyes, all pupils now, rested upon them for a blank moment. Then she lifted her hand in a wan gesture, whether at them or not, none could have said. They did not respond, no flicker in their cold eyes. They watched Gowan slip his arm into hers, and the fleet revelation of flank and thigh as she got into his car. It was a long, low roadster, with a jacklight. "Who's that son bitch?" one said. "My father's a judge," the second said in a bitter, lilting falsetto. "Hell. Let's go to town." They went on. Once they yelled at a car, but it did not stop. On the bridge across the railroad cutting they stopped and drank from a bottle. The last made to fling it over the railing. The second caught his arm. "Let me have it," he said. He broke the bottle carefully and spread the fragments across the road. They watched him. "You're not good enough to go to a college dance," the first said. "You poor bastard." "My father's a judge," the other said propping the jagged shards upright in the road. "Here comes a car," the third said. It had three headlights. They leaned against the railing, slanting their hats against the light, and watched Temple and Gowan pass. Temple's head was low and close. The car moved slowly. "You poor bastard," the first said. "Am I?" the second said. He took something from his pocket and flipped it out, whipping the sheer, faintly scented web across their faces. "Am I?" "That's what you say." "Doc got that step-in in Memphis," the third said. "Off a damn whore." "You're a lying bastard," Doc said. They watched the fan of light, the diminishing ruby tail lamp, come to a stop at the Coop. The lights went off. After a while the car door slammed. The lights came on; the car moved away. It approached again. They leaned against the rail in a row, their hats
slanted against the glare. The broken glass glinted in random sparks. The car drew up and stopped opposite them. "You gentlemen going to town?" Gowan said, opening the door. They leaned against the rail, then the first said, "Much obliged," gruffly and they got in, the two others in the rumble seat, the first beside Gowan. "Pull over this way," he said. "Somebody broke a bottle there." "Thanks," Gowan said. The car moved on. "You gentlemen going to Starkville tomorrow to the game?" The ones in the rumble seat said nothing. "I dont know," the first said. "I dont reckon so." "I'm a stranger here," Gowan said. "I ran out of liquor tonight, and I've got a date early in the morning. Can you gentlemen tell me where I could get a quart?" "It's mighty late," the first said. He turned to the others. "You know anybody he can find this time of night, Doc?" "Luke might," the third said. "Where does he live?" Gowan said. "Go on," the first said. "I'll show you." They crossed the square and drove out of town about a half mile. "This is the road to Taylor, isn't it?" Gowan said. "Yes," the first said. "I've got to drive down there early in the morning," Gowan said. "Got to get there before the special does. You gentlemen not going to the game, you say." "I reckon not," the first said. "Stop here." A steep slope rose, crested by stunted blackjacks. "You wait here," the first said. Gowan switched off the lights. They could hear the other scrambling the slope. "Does Luke have good liquor?" Gowan said. "Pretty good. Good as any, I reckon," the third said. "If you dont like it, you dont have to drink it," Doc said. Gowan turned fatly and looked at him. "It's as good as that you had tonight," the third said. "You didn't have to drink that, neither," Doc said. "They cant seem to make good liquor down here like they do up at school," Gowan said. "Where you from?" the third said. "Virgin--oh, Jefferson. I went to school at Virginia. Teach you how to drink, there." The other two said nothing. The first returned, preceded by a minute shaling of earth down the slope. He had a fruit jar. Gowan lifted it against the sky. It was pale, innocent looking. He removed the cap and extended it. "Drink." The first took it and extended it to them in the rumble. "Drink." The third drank, but Doc refused. Gowan drank. "Good God," he said, "how do you fellows drink this stuff?" "We dont drink rotgut at Virginia," Doc said. Gowan turned in the seat and looked at him.
Page 1 and 2: William Faulkner SANCTUARY First pu
Page 3 and 4: "Through all them trees?" Popeye sa
Page 5 and 6: and stooped above an open packing c
Page 7 and 8: somebody else's wife, you start off
Page 9 and 10: Tommy guffawed, in undertone. The r
Page 11: "Some women want a man to marry a c
Page 15 and 16: small clouds rosy with sunlight dro
Page 17 and 18: "Putty hard walkin', aint it?" he s
Page 19 and 20: stand fer nobody drinkin' hyer cep
Page 21 and 22: They went on in the path. Popeye wa
Page 23 and 24: we stopped at Dumfries and he went
Page 25 and 26: worth, and all the rest of it you t
Page 27 and 28: "Here," Gowan said across the table
Page 29 and 30: there, he said, stopping, then he s
Page 31 and 32: They swung Gowan onto the bed. His
Page 33 and 34: at her with a quality furious and q
Page 35 and 36: "A rat?" she wailed, "a rat? Open t
Page 37 and 38: The blind man's stick clattered aga
Page 39 and 40: Temple sprang back into the kitchen
Page 41 and 42: house. Instead he went on across th
Page 43 and 44: she was about halfway back to the h
Page 45 and 46: "Goodwin and I were both talking. H
Page 47 and 48: him who was already dead singing ab
Page 49 and 50: "And go on back to Kinston until th
Page 51 and 52: "You dont think I am lawyer enough,
Page 53 and 54: kept on talking, sitting there in h
Page 55 and 56: "No," he said, "I didn't. I didn't
Page 57 and 58: together, listening to the hot minu
Page 59 and 60: They reached Memphis in mid-afterno
Page 61 and 62: glared with choleric ferocity, thei
Page 63 and 64:
and hurled the covers over her head
Page 65 and 66:
owl and pitcher and a row of towels
Page 67 and 68:
"But that girl," Horace said. "she
Page 69 and 70:
"Yes; Gowan. And, by the Lord, he'd
Page 71 and 72:
Horace. He could hear them breathin
Page 73 and 74:
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
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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
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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
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man is going to let me walk out of
Page 121 and 122:
"Sustained," the Court said. "Strik
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"He had the pistol in his hand. Wha
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loomed. In the yard, beneath the ba
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he said, when Horace descended from
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"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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