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

"There wasn't any lock on the door, but I thought that pretty soon they'd have to
go and see about the truck and then I could do something. Then Lee made me go out too,
and he took the lamp out, so I had to wait until they went back to the porch before I could
go back. I stood just inside the door. The fellow was snoring, in the bed there, breathing
hard, with his nose and mouth all battered up again, and I could hear them on the porch.
Then they would be outdoors, around the house and at the back too I could hear them.
Then they got quiet.
"I stood there, against the wall. He would snore and choke and catch his breath
and moan, sort of, and I would think about that girt lying there in the dark, with her eyes
open, listening to them, and me having to stand there, waiting for them to go away so I
could do something. I told her to go away. I said 'What fault is it of mine if you're not
married? I dont want you here a bit more than you want to be here.' I said 'I've lived my
life without any help from people of your sort; what right have you got to look to me for
help?' Because I've done everything for him. I've been in the dirt for him. I've put
everything behind me and all I asked was to be let alone.
"Then I heard the door open. I could tell Lee by the way he breathes. He went to
the bed and said 'I want the raincoat. Sit up and take it off' and I could hear the shucks
rattling while he took it off her, then he went out. He just got the raincoat and went out. It
was Van's coat.
"And I have walked around that house so much at night, with those men there,
men living off of Lee's risk, men that wouldn't lift a finger for him if he got caught, until I
could tell any of them by the way they breathed, and I could tell Popeye by the smell of
that stuff on his hair. Tommy was following him. He came in the door behind Popeye and
looked at me and I could see his eyes, like a cat. Then his eyes went away and I could
feel him sort of squatting against me, and we could hear Popeye over where the bed was
and that fellow snoring and snoring.
"I could just hear little faint sounds, from the shucks. so I knew it was all right
yet, and in a minute Popeye carne on back, and Tommy followed him out, creeping along
behind him, and I stood there until I heard them go down to the truck. Then I went to bed.
When I touched her she be-an to fight. I was trying to put my hand over her mouth so she
couldn't make a noise, but she didn't, anyway. She just lay there, thrashing about, rolling
her head from one side to the other, holding to the coat.
"'You fool!' I says 'It's me--the woman.'"
"But that girl," Horace said. "She was all right. When you were coming back to
the house the next morning after the baby's bottle, you saw her and knew she was all
right." The room gave onto the square. Through the window he could see the young men
pitching dollars in the courthouse yard, and the wagons passing or tethered about the
hitching chains, and he could hear the footsteps and voices of people on the slow and
unhurried pavement below the window. The people buying comfortable things to take
home and eat at quiet tables. "You know she was all right."
That night Horace went out to his sister's, in a hired car; he did not telephone. He
found Miss Jenny in her room. "Well," she said. "Narcissa will--"
"I dont want to see her," Horace said. "Her nice, well-bred young man. Her
Virginia gentleman. I know why he didn't come back."
"Who? Gowan?"