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

"Caint be her husband," Fonzo said. "I wouldn't a never left. Come on." He
entered the gate.
"Wait," Virgil said.
"You can," Fonzo said. Virgil took his bag and followed. He stopped while Fonzo
opened the lattice gingerly and peered in. "Aw, hell," he said. He entered. There was
another door, with curtained glass. Fonzo knocked.
"Why didn't you push that ere button?" Virgil said. "Dont you know city folks
dont answer no knock?"
"All right," Fonzo said. He rang the bell. The door opened. It was the woman in
the mother hubbard; they could hear the dogs behind her.
"Got ere extra room?" Fonzo said.
Miss Reba looked at them, at their new hats and the suit cases.
"Who sent you here?" she said.
"Didn't nobody. We just picked it out." Miss Reba looked at him. "Them hotels is
too high."
Miss Reba breathed harshly. "What you boys doing?"
"We come hyer on business," Fonzo said. "We aim to stay a good spell."
"If it aint too high," Virgil said.
Miss Reba looked at him. "Where you from, honey?"
They told her, and their names. "We aim to be hyer a month or more, if it suits
us."
"Why, I reckon so," she said after a while. She looked at them. "I can let you have
a room, but I'll have to charge you extra whenever you do business in it. I got my living
to make like everybody else."
"We aint, we'll do our business at the college," Fonzo said.
"What college?" Miss Reba said.
"The barber's college," Fonzo said.
"Look here," Miss Reba said, "you little whipper-snapper." Then she began to
laugh, her hand at her breast. They watched her soberly while she laughed in harsh gasps.
"Lord, Lord," she said. "Come in here."
The room was at the top of the house, at the back. Miss Reba showed them the
bath. When she put her hand on the door a woman's voice said: "Just a minute, dearie"
and the door opened and she passed them, in a kimono. They watched her go up the hall,
rocked a little to their young foundations by a trail of scent which she left. Fonzo nudged
Virgil surreptitiously. In their room again he said:
"That was another one. She's got two daughters. Hold me, big boy; I'm heading
for the henhouse."
They didn't go to sleep for some time that first night, what with the strange bed
and room and the voices. They could hear the city, evocative and strange, imminent and
remote; threat and promise both--a deep, steady sound upon which invisible lights
glittered and wavered: colored coiling shapes of splendor in which already women were
beginning to move in suave attitudes of new delights and strange nostalgic promises.
Fonzo thought of himself surrounded by tier upon tier of drawn shades, rose-colored,
beyond which, in a murmur of silk, in panting whispers, the apotheosis of his youth
assumed a thousand avatars. Maybe it'll begin tomorrow, he thought; maybe by tomorrow
night . . . A crack of light came over the top of the shade and sprawled in a spreading fan