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

She took shape vaguely, approaching the bed. She came and looked down at him. "How
much longer are you going to keep this up?" she said.
"Just until morning," he said. "I'm going back to town. You need not see me
again."
She stood beside the bed, motionless. After a moment her cold unbending voice
came down to him: "You know what I mean."
"I promise not to bring her into your house again. You can send Isom in to hide in
the canna bed." She said nothing. "Surely you dont object to my living there, do you?"
"I dont care where you live. The question is, where I live. I live here, in this town.
I'll have to stay here. But you're a man. It doesn't matter to you. You can go away."
"Oh," he said. He lay quite still. She stood above him, motionless. They spoke
quietly, as though they were discussing wall-paper, food.
"Dont you see, this is my home, where I must spend the rest of my life. Where I
was born. I dont care where else you go nor what you do. I dont care how many women
you have nor who they are. But I cannot have my brother mixed up with a woman people
are talking about. I dont expect you to have consideration for me; I ask you to have
consideration for our father and mother. Take her to Memphis. They say you refused to
let the man have bond to get out of jail; take her on to Memphis. You can think of a lie to
tell him about that, too."
"Oh. So you think that, do you?"
"I dont think anything about it. I dont care. That's what people in town think. So it
doesn't matter whether it's true or not. What I do mind is, everyday you force me to have
to tell lies for you. Go away from here, Horace. Anybody but you would realise it's a case
of cold-blooded murder."
"And over her, of course. I suppose they say that too, out of their odorous and
omnipotent sanctity. Do they say yet that it was I killed him?"
"I dont see that it makes any difference who did it. The question is, are you going
to stay mixed up with it? When people already believe you and she are slipping into my
house at night." Her cold, unbending voice shaped the words in the darkness above her.
Through the window, upon the blowing darkness came the drowsy dissonance of cicada
and cricket.
"Do you believe that?" he said.
"It doesn't matter what I believe. Go on away, Horace. I ask it."
"And leave her--them, flat?"
"Hire a lawyer, if he still insists he's innocent. I'll pay for it. You can get a better
criminal lawyer than you are. She wont know it. She wont even care. Cant you see that
she is just leading you on to get him out of jail for nothing? Dont you know that woman
has got money hidden away somewhere? You're going back into town tomorrow, are
you?" She turned, began to dissolve into the blackness. "You wont leave before
breakfast."
The next morning at breakfast, his sister said: "Who will be the lawyer on the
other side of the case?"
"District Attorney. Why?"
She rang the bell and sent for fresh bread. Horace watched her. "Why do you ask
that?" Then he said: "Damn little squirt." He was talking about the district attorney, who