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

to herself sitting on the bed, listening to the men on the porch, or lying in the dark while
they entered the room and came to the bed and stood there above her.
"Yes; that," she would say. "It just happened. I dont know. I had been scared so
long that I guess I had just gotten used to being. So I just sat there in those cottonseeds
and watched him. I thought it was the rat at first. There were two of them there. One was
in the corner looking at me and the other was in the corner. I dont know what they lived
on, because there wasn't anything there but corncobs and cottonseeds. Maybe they went
to the house to eat. But there wasn't any in the house. I never did hear one in the house. I
thought it might have been a rat when I first heard them, but you can feel people in a dark
room: did you know that? You dont have to see them. You can feel them like you can in a
car when they begin to look for a good place to stop--you know: park for a while." She
went on like that, in one of those bright, chatty monologues which women can carry on
when they realise that they have the center of the stage; suddenly Horace realised that she
was recounting the experience with actual pride, a sort of naive and impersonal vanity, as
though she were making it up, looking from him to Miss Reba with quick, darting
glances like a dog driving two cattle along a lane.
"And so whenever I breathed I'd hear those shucks. I dont see how anybody ever
sleeps on a bed like that. But maybe you get used to it. Or maybe they're tired at night.
Because when I breathed I could hear them, even when I was just sitting on the bed. I
didn't see how it could be just breathing, so I'd sit as still as I could, but I could still hear
them. That's because breathing goes down. You think it goes up, but it doesn't. It goes
down you, and I'd hear them getting drunk on the porch. I got to thinking I could see
where their heads were leaning back against the wall and I'd say Now this one's drinking
out of the jug. Now that one's drinking. Like the mashed-in place on the pillow after you
got up, you know.
"That was when I got to thinking a funny thing. You know how you do when
you're scared. I was looking at my legs and I'd try to make like I was a boy. I was
thinking about if I just was a boy and then I tried to make myself into one by thinking.
You know how you do things like that. Like when you know one problem in class and
when they came to that you look at him and think right hard, Call on me. Call on me. Call
on me. I'd think about what they tell children, about kissing your elbow, and I tried to. I
actually did. I was that scared, and I'd wonder if I could tell when it happened. I mean,
before I looked, and I'd think I had and how I'd go out and show them--you know. I'd
strike a match and say Look. See? Let me alone, now. And then I could go back to bed.
I'd think how I could go to bed and go to sleep then, because I was sleepy. I simply
couldn't hardly hold my eyes open.
"So I'd hold my eyes tight shut and say Now I am. I am now. I'd look at my legs
and I'd think about how much I had done for them. I'd think about how many dances I
had taken them to--crazy, like that. Because I thought how much I'd done for them, and
now they'd gotten me into this. So I'd think about praying to be changed into a boy and I
would pray and then I'd sit right still and wait. Then I'd think maybe I couldn't tell it and
I'd get ready to look. Then I'd think maybe it was too soon to look; that if I looked too
soon I'd spoil it and then it wouldn't, sure enough. So I'd count. I said to count fifty at
first, then I thought it was still too soon, and I'd say to count fifty more. Then I'd think if I
didn't look at the right time, it would be too late.