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

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speaking. "I'll send you clothes. I have a new fur coat. I just wore it since Christmas. It's as good as new." The woman laughed. Her mouth laughed, with no sound, no movement of her face. "Clothes? I had three fur coats once. I gave one of them to a woman in an alley by a saloon. Clothes? God." She turned suddenly. "I'll get a car. You get away from here and dont you ever <strong>com</strong>e back. Do you hear?" "Yes," Temple whispered. Motionless, pale, like a sleepwalker she watched the woman transfer the meat to the platter and pour the gravy over it. From the oven she took a pan of biscuits and put them on a plate. "Can I help you?" Temple whispered. The woman said nothing. She took up the two plates and went out. Temple went to the table and took a cigarette from the pack and stood staring stupidly at the lamp. One side of the chimney was blackened. Across it a crack ran in a thin silver curve. She lit hers at the lamp, someway, Temple thought, holding the cigarette in her hand, staring at the uneven flame. The woman returned. She caught up the corner of her skirt and lifted the smutty coffee-pot from the stove. "Can I take that?" Temple said. "No. Come on and get your supper." She went out. Temple stood at the table, the cigarette in her hand. The shadow of the stove fell upon the box where the child lay. Upon the lumpy wad of bedding it could be distinguished only by a series of pale shadows in soft small curves, and she went and stood over the box and looked down at its putty-colored face and bluish eyelids. A thin whisper of shadow cupped its head and lay moist upon its brow; one thin arm, upflung, lay curl-palmed beside its cheek. Temple stooped above the box. "He's going to die," Temple whispered. Bending, her shadow loomed high upon the wall, her coat shapeless, her hat tilted monstrously above a monstrous escaping of hair. "Poor little baby," she whispered, "poor little baby." The men's voices grew louder. She heard a trampling of feet in the hall, a rasping of chairs, the voice of the man who had laughed above them, laughing again. She turned, motionless again, watching the door. The woman entered. "Go and eat your supper," she said. "The car," Temple said. "I could go now, while they're eating." "What car?" the woman said. "Go on and eat. Nobody's going to hurt you." "I'm not hungry. I haven't eaten today. I'm not hungry at all." "Go and eat your supper," she said. "I'll wait and eat when you do." "Go on and eat your supper. I've got to get done here some time tonight." VIII Temple entered the dining-room from the kitchen, her face fixed in a cringing, placative expression; she was quite blind when she entered, holding her coat about her, her hat thrust upward and back at that dissolute angle. After a moment she saw Tommy. She went straight toward him, as if she had been looking for him all the while. Something intervened: a hard forearm; she attempted to evade it, looking at Tommy.
"Here," Gowan said across the table, his chair rasping back, you <strong>com</strong>e around here." "Outside, brother," the one who had stopped her said, whom she recognised then as the one who had laughed so often; "you're drunk. Come here, kid." His hard forearm came across her middle. She thrust against it, grinning rigidly at Tommy. "Move down, Tommy," the man said. "Aint you got no manners, you mat-faced bastard?" Tommy guffawed, scraping his chair along the floor. The man drew her toward him by the wrist. Across the table Gowan stood up, propping himself on the table. She began to resist, grinning at Tommy, picking at the man's fingers. "Quit that, Van," Goodwin said. "Right on my lap here," Van said. "Let her go," Goodwin said. "Who'll make me?" Van said. "Who's big enough?" "Let her go," Goodwin said. Then she was free. She began to back slowly away. Behind her the woman, entering with a dish, stepped aside. Still smiling her aching, rigid grimace, Temple backed from the room. In the hall she whirled and ran. She ran right off the porch, into the weeds and sped on. She ran to the road and down it for fifty yards in the darkness, then without a break she whirled and ran back to the house and sprang onto the porch and crouched against the door just as someone came up the hall. It was Tommy. "Oh, hyer you are," he said. He thrust something awkwardly at her. "Hyer," he said. "What is it?" she whispered. "Little bite of victuals. I bet you aint et since mawnin'." "No. Not then, even," she whispered. "You eat a little mite and you'll feel better," he said, poking the plate at her. "You set down hyer and eat a little bite wher wont nobody bother you. Durn them fellers." Temple leaned around the door, past his dim shape, her face wan as a small ghost in the refracted light from the dining-room. "Mrs--Mrs. . ." she whispered. "She's in the kitchen. Want me to go back there with you?" In the dining-room a chair scraped. Between blinks Tommy saw Temple in the path, her body slender and motionless for a moment as though waiting for some laggard part to catch up. Then she was gone like a shadow around the corner of the house. He stood in the door, the plate of food in his hand. Then he turned his head and looked down the hall just in time to see her flit across the darkness toward the kitchen. "Durn them fellers." He was standing there when the others returned to the porch. "He's got a plate of grub," Van said. "He's trying to get his with a plate full of ham." "Git my whut?" Tommy said. "Look here," Gowan said. Van struck the plate from Tommy's hand. He turned to Gowan. "Dont you like it?" "No," Gowan said, "I dont." "What are you going to do about it?" Van said. "Van," Goodwin said. "Do you think you're big enough to not like it?" Van said. "I am," Goodwin said.
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 and 12: "Some women want a man to marry a c
Page 13 and 14: slanted against the glare. The brok
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: worth, and all the rest of it you t
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
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 and 126:
loomed. In the yard, beneath the ba
Page 127 and 128:
he said, when Horace descended from
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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