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

the child. He walked toward her. "Stand back," she said, lifting her hand slightly,
bringing the butcher knife into view. "Stand back." He came steadily toward her, then she
struck at him with the knife.
He caught her wrist. She began to struggle. He plucked the child from her and laid
it on the table and caught her other hand as it flicked at his face, and holding both wrists
in one hand, he slapped her. It made a dry, flat sound. He slapped her again, first on one
cheek, then the other, rocking her head from side to side. "That's what I do to them," he
said, slapping her. "See?" He released her. She stumbled backward against the table and
caught up the child and half crouched between the table and the wall, watching him as he
turned and left the room.
She knelt in the comer, holding the child. It had not stirred. She laid her palm first
on one cheek, then on the other. She rose and laid the child in the box and took a
sunbonnet from a nail and put it on. From another nail she took a coat trimmed with what
had once been white fur, and took up the child and left the room.
Tommy was standing in the barn, beside the crib, looking toward the house. The
old man sat on the front porch, in the sun. She went down the steps and followed the path
to the road and went on without looking back.
When she came to the tree and the wrecked car she turned from the road, into a
path. After a hundred yards or so she reached the spring and sat down beside it, the child
on her lap and the hem of her skirt turned back over its sleeping face.
Popeye came out of the bushes, walking gingerly in his muddy shoes, and stood
looking down at her across the spring. His hand flicked to his coat and be fretted and
twisted a cigarette and put it into his mouth and snapped a match with his thumb. "Jesus
Christ," he said, "I told him about letting them sit around all night, swilling that goddarn
stuff. There ought to be a law." He looked away in the direction in which the house lay.
Then he looked at the woman, at the top of her sunbonnet, "Goofy house," he said.
"That's what it is. It's not four days ago I find a bastard squatting here, asking me if I read
books. Like he would jump me with a book or something. Take me for a ride with the
telephone directory." Again he looked off toward the house, jerking his neck forth as if
his collar were too tight. He looked down at the top of her sun- bonnet. "I'm going to
town, see?" he said. "I'm clearing out. I've got enough of this." She did not look up. She
adjusted the hem of the skirt above the child's face. Popeye went on, with light, finicking
sounds in the underbrush. Then they ceased. Somewhere in the swamp a bird sang.
Before he reached the house Popeye left the road and followed a wooded slope.
When he emerged he saw Goodwin standing behind a tree in the orchard, looking toward
the barn. Popeye stopped at the edge of the wood and looked at Goodwin's back. He put
another cigarette into his mouth and thrust his fingers into his vest. He went on across the
orchard, walking gingerly. Goodwin heard him and looked over his shoulder. Popeye
took a match from his vest, flicked it into flame and lit the cigarette. Goodwin looked
toward the barn again; Popeye stood at his shoulder, looking toward the barn.
"Who's down there?" he said. Goodwin said nothing. Popeye jetted smoke from
his nostrils. "I'm clearing out," he said. Goodwin said nothing, watching the barn. "I said
I'm getting out of here," Popeye said. Without turning his head Goodwin cursed him.
Popeye smoked quietly, the cigarette wreathing across his still, soft, black gaze. Then he
turned and went toward the house. The old man sat in the sun. Popeye did not enter the