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

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"Oh," Horace said, "you have a son." Then she showed him her hands, flung them out in a gesture at once spontaneous and diffident and self-conscious and proud, and told him he might bring her an orange-stick. She returned, with something wrapped discreetly in a piece of newspaper. He knew that it was a diaper, freshly washed, even before she said: "I made a fire in the stove. I guess I overstepped." "Of course not," he said. "It's merely a matter of legal precaution, you see," he said. "Better to put everybody to a little temporary discomfort than to jeopardize our case." She did not appear to be listening. She spread the blanket on the bed and lifted the child onto it. "You understand how it is," Horace said. "If the judge suspected that I knew more about it than the facts would warrant-I mean, we must try to give everybody the idea that holding Lee for that killing is just--" "Do you live in Jefferson?" she said, wrapping the blanket about the child. "No. I live in Kinston. I used to--I have practised here, though." "You have kinfolks here, though. Women. That used to live n this house." She lifted the child, tucking the blanket about it. Then she looked at him. "It's all right. I know how it is. You've been kind." "Damn it," he said, "do you think--Come on. Let's go on to the hotel. You get a good night's rest, and I'll be in early in the morning. Let me take it." "I've got him," she said. She started to say something else, looking at him quietly for a moment, but she went on. He turned out the light and followed and locked the door. She was already in the car. He got in. "Hotel, Isom," he said. "I never did learn to drive one," he said. "Sometimes, when I think of all the time I have spent not learning to do things . . ." The street was narrow, quiet. It was paved now, though he could remember when, after a rain, it had been a canal of blackish substance half earth, half water, with murmuring gutters in which he and Narcissa paddled and splashed with tucked-up garments and muddy bottoms, after the crudest of whittled boats, or made lob lollies by treading and treading in one spot with the intense oblivion of alchemists. He could remember when, innocent of concrete, the street was bordered on either side by paths of red brick tediously and unevenly laid and worn in rich, random maroon mosaic into the black earth which the noon sun never reached; at that moment pressed into the concrete near the entrance of the drive, were the prints of his and his sister's naked feet in the artificial stone. The infrequent lamps mounted to crescendo beneath the arcade of a filling-station at the comer. The woman leaned suddenly forward. "Stop here, please, boy," she said. Isom put on the brakes. "I'll get out here and walk," she said. "You'll do nothing of the kind," Horace said. "Go on, Isom." "No; wait," the woman said. "We'll be passing people that know you. And then on the square." "Nonsense," Horace said. "Go on, Isom." "You get out and wait, then," she said. "He can come straight back." "You'll do no such thing," Horace said. "By heaven, I--Drive on, Isom!" "You'd better," the woman said. She sat back in the seat. Then she leaned forward again. "Listen. You've been kind. You mean all right, but--"
"You dont think I am lawyer enough, you mean?" "I guess I've got just what was coming to me. There's no use fighting it." "Certainly not, if you feel that way about it. But you dont. Or you'd have told Isom to drive you to the railroad station. Wouldn't you?" She was looking down at the child, fretting the blanket about its face. "You get a good night's rest and I'll be in early tomorrow." They passed the jail--a square building slashed harshly by pale slits of light. Only the central window was wide enough to be called a window, criss-crossed by slender bars. In it the negro murderer leaned; below along the fence a row of heads hatted and bare above work-thickened shoulders, and the blended voices swelled rich and sad into the soft, depthless evening, singing of heaven and being tired. "Dont you worry at all, now. Everybody knows Lee didn't do it." They drew up to the hotel, where the drummers sat in chairs along the curb, listening to the singing. "I must--" the woman said. Horace got down and held the door open. She didn't move. "Listen. I've got to tell--" "Yes," Horace said, extending his hand. "I know. I'll be in early tomorrow." He helped her down. They entered the hotel, the drummers turning to watch her legs, and went to the desk. The singing followed them, dimmed by the walls, the lights. The woman stood quietly nearby, holding the child, until Horace had done. "Listen," she said. The porter went on with the key, toward the stairs. Horace touched her arm, turning her that way. "I've got to tell you," she said. "In the morning," he said. "I'll be in early," he said, guiding her toward the stairs. Still she hung back, looking at him; then she freed her arm by turning to face him. "All right, then," she said. She said, in a low, level tone, her face bent a little toward the child: "We haven't got any money. I'll tell you now. That last batch Popeye didn't--" "Yes, yes," Horace said; "first thing in the morning. I'll be in by the time you finish breakfast. Goodnight." He returned to the car, into the sound of the singing. "Home, Isom," he said. They turned and passed the jail again and the leaning shape beyond the bars and the heads along the fence. Upon the barred and slitted wall the splotched shadow of the heaven tree shuddered and pulsed monstrously in scarce any wind; rich and sad, the singing fell behind. The car went on, smooth and swift, passing the narrow street. "Here," Horace said, " where are you--" Isom clapped on the brakes. "Miss Narcissa say to bring you back out home," he said. "Oh, she did?" Horace said. "That was kind of her. You can tell her I changed her mind." Isom backed and turned into the narrow street and then into the cedar drive, the lights lifting and boring ahead into the unpruned tunnel as though into the most profound blackness of the sea, as though among straying rigid shapes to which not even light could give color. The car stopped at the door and Horace got out. "You might tell her it was not to her I ran," he said. "Can you remember that?" XVII
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 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 go on back to Kinston until th
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
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"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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