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

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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 <strong>com</strong>er, 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 sunbonnet. "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
house. Instead he went on across the lawn and into the cedars until he was hidden from the house. Then he turned and crossed the garden and the weed-choked lot and entered the barn from the rear. Tommy squatted on his heels beside the crib door, looking toward the house. Popeye looked at him a while, smoking. Then he snapped the cigarette away and entered a stall quietly. Above the manger was a wooden rack for hay, just under an opening in the loft floor. Popeye climbed the rack and drew himself silently into the loft, his tight coat strained into thin ridges across his narrow shoulders and back. XIII Tommy was standing in the hallway of the barn when Temple at last got the door of the crib open. When she recognised him she was half spun, leaping back, then she whirled and ran toward him and sprang down, clutching his arm. Then she saw Goodwin standing in the back door of the house and she whirled and leaped back into the crib and leaned her head around the door, her voice making a thin eeeeeeeeeeeee sound like bubbles in a bottle. She leaned there, scrabbling her hands on the door, trying to pull it to, hearing Tommy's voice. ". . . Lee says hit wont hurt you none. All you got to do is lay down . . ." It was a dry sort of sound, not in her consciousness at all, nor his pale eyes beneath the shaggy thatch. She leaned in the door, wailing, trying to shut it. Then she felt his hand clumsily on her thigh. ". . . says hit wont hurt you none. All you got to do is . . ." She looked at him, his diffident, hard hand on her hip. "Yes," she said, "all right. Dont you let him in here." "You mean fer me not to let none of them in hyer?" "All right. I'm not scared of rats. You stay there and dont let him in." "All right. I'll fix hit so caint nobody git to you. I'll be right hyer." "All right. Shut the door. Dont let him in here." "All right." He shut the door. She leaned in it, looking toward the house. He pushed her back so he could close the door. 'Hit aint goin' to hurt you none, Lee says. All you got to do is lay down." "All right. I will. Dont you let him in here." The door closed. She heard him drive the hasp to. Then he shook the door. "Hit's fastened," he said. "Caint nobody git to you now. I'll be right hyer." He squatted on his heels in the chaff, looking at the house. After a while he saw Goodwin <strong>com</strong>e to the back door and look toward him, and squatting, clasping his knees, Tommy's eyes glowed again, the pale irises appearing for an instant to spin on the pupils like tiny wheels. He squatted there, his lip lifted a little, until Goodwin went back into the house. Then he sighed, expelling his breath, and he looked at the blank door of the crib and again his eyes glowed with a diffident, groping, hungry fire and he began to rub his hands slowly on his shanks, rocking a little from side to side. Then he ceased, became rigid, and watched Goodwin move swiftly across the corner of the house and into the cedars. He squatted rigid, his lip lifted a little upon his ragged teeth.
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 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: Temple sprang back into the kitchen
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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