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

the bed and clawed the covers to her chin and lay there, listening t6 the secret whisper of
her blood.
They knocked at the door for some time before she made any sound. "It's the
doctor, honey," Miss Reba panted harshly. "Come on, now. Be a good girl."
"I cant." Temple said, her voice faint and small. "I'm in bed."
"Come on, now. He wants to fix you up." She panted harshly. "My God, if I could
just get one full breath again. I aint had a full breath since . . ." Low down beyond the
door Temple could hear the dogs. "Honey."
She rose from the bed, holding the towel about her. She went to the door, silently.
"Honey," Miss Reba said.
"Wait," Temple said, "Let me get back to the bed."
"There's a good girl," Miss Reba said. "I knowed she was going to be good."
"Count ten, now," Temple said. "Will you count ten, now?" she said against the
wood. She slipped the bolt soundlessly, then she turned and sped back to the bed, her
naked feet in pattering diminuendo.
The doctor was a fattish man with thin, curly hair. He wore horn-rimmed glasses
which lent to his eyes no distortion at all, as though they were of clear glass and worn for
decorum's sake. Temple watched him across the covers, holding them to her throat.
"Make them go out," she whispered; "if they'll just go out."
"Now, now," Miss Reba said, "he's going to fix you up."
Temple clung to the covers.
"If the little lady will just let. . ." the doctor said. His hair evaporated finely from
his brow. His mouth nipped in at the corners, his lips full and wet and red. Behind the
glasses his eyes looked like little bicycle wheels at dizzy speed; a metallic hazel. He put
out a thick, white hand bearing a masonic ring, haired over with fine reddish fuzz to the
second knuckle-joints. Cold air slipped down her body, below her thighs; her eyes were
closed. Lying on her back, her legs close together, she began to cry, hopelessly and
passively, like a child in a dentist's waiting room.
"Now, now," Miss Reba said, "take another sup of gin, honey. It'll make you feel
better."
In the window the cracked shade, yawning now and then with a faint rasp against
the frame, let twilight into the room in fainting surges. From beneath the shade the
smoke-colored twilight emerged in slow puffs like signal smoke from a blanket,
thickening in the room. The china figures which supported the clock gleamed in hushed
smooth flexions: knee, elbow, flank, arm and breast in attitudes of voluptuous lassitude.
The glass face, become mirror-like, appeared to hold all reluctant light, holding in its
tranquil depths a quiet gesture of moribund time, one-armed like a veteran from the wars.
Half past ten o'clock. Temple lay in the bed, looking at the clock, thinking about halfpast-ten-o'clock.
She wore a too-large gown of cerise crepe, black against the linen. Her hair was a
black sprawl, combed out now; her face, throat and arms outside the covers were gray.
After the others left the room. she lay for a time, head and all beneath the covers. She lay
so until she heard the door shut and the descending feet, the doctor's light, unceasing
voice and Miss Reba's labored breath grow twilight-colored in the dingy hall and die
away. Then she sprang from the bed and ran to the door and shot the bolt and ran back