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

"Where is it?" she said.
"I aint straightened your room up this mawnin," Minnie said.
"Give it here," Temple said, reaching her hand through the crack. She took the
glass from the tray.
"You better make that un last," Minnie said. "Miss Reba say you aint ghy git no
more. . . . What you want to treat him this-a-way, fer? Way he spend his money on you,
you ought to be ashamed. He a right pretty little man, even if he aint no John Gilbert, and
way he spendin his money--" Temple shut the door and shot the bolt. She drank the gin
and drew a chair up to the bed and lit a cigarette and sat down with her feet on the bed.
After a while she moved the chair to the window and lifted the shade a little so she could
see the street beneath. She lit another cigarette.
At five o'clock she saw Miss Reba emerge, in the black silk and flowered hat, and
go down the street. She sprang up and dug the hat from the mass of clothes in the corner
and put it on. At the door she turned and went back to the comer and exhumed the
platinum purse and descended the stairs. Minnie was in the hall.
"I'll give you ten dollars," Temple said. "I wont be gone ten minutes."
"I caint do it, Miss Temple. Hit be worth my job if Miss Reba find it out, and my
th'oat too, if Mist Popeye do."
"I swear I'll be back in ten minutes. I swear I will. Twenty dollars." She put the
bill in Minnie's hand.
"You better come back," Minnie said, opening the door. "If you aint back here in
ten minutes, I aint going to be, neither."
Temple opened the lattice and peered out. The street was empty save for a taxi at
the curb across the way, and a man in a cap standing in a door beyond it. She went down
the street, walking swiftly. At the corner a cab overtook her, slowing, the driver looking
at her interrogatively. She turned into the drug store at the corner and went back to the
telephone booth. Then she returned to the house. As she turned the corner she met the
man in the cap who had been leaning in the door. She entered the lattice. Minnie opened
the door.
"Thank goodness," Minnie said. "When that cab over there started up, I got ready
to pack up too. If you aint ghy say nothing about it, I git you a drink."
When Minnie fetched the gin Temple started to drink it. Her hand was trembling
as she stood again just inside the door, listening, the glass in her hand. I'll need it later,
she said. I'll need more than that. She covered the glass with a saucer and hid it carefully.
Then she dug into the mass of garments in the corner and found a dancing-frock and
shook it out and hung it back in the closet. She looked at the other things a moment, but
she returned to the bed and lay down again. At once she rose and drew the chair up and
sat down, her feet on the unmade bed. While daylight died slowly in the room she sat
smoking cigarette after cigarette, listening to every sound on the stairs.
At half-past six Minnie brought her supper up. On the tray was another glass of
gin. "Miss Reba sent this un," she said. "She say, how you feelin?"
"Tell her, all right," Temple said. "I'm going to have a bath and then go to bed, tell
her."
When Minnie was gone Temple poured the two drinks into a tumbler and gloated
over it, the glass shaking in her hands. She set it carefully away and covered it and ate her
supper from the bed. When she finished she lit a cigarette. Her movements were jerky;