William Faulkner, SANCTUARY â WordPress.com - literature save 2
William Faulkner, SANCTUARY â WordPress.com - literature save 2
William Faulkner, SANCTUARY â WordPress.com - literature save 2
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shoulders and his gestures. The train whistled. The two youths got on. Horace stepped<br />
back around the <strong>com</strong>er of the station.<br />
When his train came he saw Snopes get on ahead of him and enter the smoker.<br />
Horace knocked out his pipe and entered the day coach and found a seat at the rear,<br />
facing backward.<br />
XX<br />
As Horace was leaving the station at Jefferson. A townward-bound car slowed beside<br />
him. It was the taxi which he used to go out to his sister's. "I'll give you a ride, this time,"<br />
the driver said.<br />
"Much obliged," Horace said. He got in. When the car entered the square, the<br />
courthouse clock said only twenty minutes past eight, yet there was no light in the hotel<br />
room window. "Maybe the child's asleep," Horace said. He said, "If you'll just drop me at<br />
the hotel-" Then he found that the driver was watching him, with a kind of discreet<br />
curiosity.<br />
"You been out of town today," the driver said.<br />
"Yes," Horace said. "What is it? What happened here today?"<br />
"She aint staying at the hotel anymore. I heard Mrs. Walker taken her in at the<br />
jail."<br />
"Oh," Horace said. "I'll get out at the hotel."<br />
The lobby was empty. After a moment the proprietor appeared: a tight, iron-gray<br />
man with a toothpick, his vest open upon a neat paunch. The woman was not there. "It's<br />
these church ladies," he said. He lowered his voice, the toothpick in his fingers. "They<br />
<strong>com</strong>e in this morning. A <strong>com</strong>mittee of them. You know how it is, I reckon."<br />
"You mean to say you let the Baptist church dictate who your guests shall be?"<br />
"It's them ladies. You know how it is, once they get set on a thing. A man might<br />
just as well give up and do like they say. Of course, with me--"<br />
"By God, if there was a man--"<br />
"Shhhhhh," the proprietor said. 'You know how it is when them--"<br />
"But of course there wasn't a man who would--And you call yourself one, that'll<br />
let--"<br />
"I got a certain position to keep up myself," the proprietor said in a placative tone.<br />
"If you <strong>com</strong>e right down to it." He stepped back a little, against the desk. "I reckon I can<br />
say who'll stay in my house and who won't," he said. "And I know some more folks<br />
around here that better do the same thing. Not no mile off, neither. I aint beholden to no<br />
man. Not to you, noways."<br />
"Where is she now? or did they drive her out of town?"<br />
"That aint my affair, where folks go after they check out," the proprietor said,<br />
turning his back. He said: "I reckon somebody took her in, though."<br />
"Yes," Horace said. "Christians. Christians." He turned toward the door. The<br />
proprietor called him. He turned. The other was taking a paper down from a pigeon-hole.<br />
Horace returned to the desk. The paper lay on the desk. The proprietor leaned with his<br />
hands on the desk, the toothpick tilted in his mouth.