Sanctuary

not see Popeye at all when he entered and passed her; she did not know he

had entered yet; she was waiting for him; until Tommy entered, following

Popeye. Tommy crept into the room, also soundless; she would have been no

more aware of his entrance than of Popeye's, if it hadn't been for his

eyes. They glowed, breast-high, with a profound interrogation, then they

disappeared and the woman could then feel him, squatting beside her; she

knew that he too was looking toward the bed over which Popeye stood in the

darkness, upon which Temple and Gowan lay, with Gowan snoring and choking

and snoring. The woman stood just inside the door.

She could hear no sound from the shucks, so she remained motionless beside

the door, with Tommy squatting beside her, his face toward the invisible

bed. Then she smelled the brilliantine again. Or rather, she felt Tommy

move from beside her, without a sound, as though the stealthy evacuation of

his position blew soft and cold upon her in the black silence; without

seeing or hearing him, she knew that he had crept

48 WILLIAM FAULKNER

again from the room, following Popeye. She heard them go down the hall;

the last sound died out of the house.

She went to the bed. Temple did not move until the woman touched her.

Then she began to struggle. The woman found Temple's mouth and put her

hand over it, though Temple had not attempted to scream. She lay on the

shuck mattress, turning and thrashing her body from side to side, rolling

her head, holding the coat together across her breast but making no

sound.

"You fool!" the woman said in a thin, fierce whisper. "It's me. It's just

me."

Temple ceased to roll her head, but she still thrashed from side to side

beneath the woman's hand. "I'll tell my fatherl" she said. "I'll tell my

father!"

The woman held her. "Get up," she said. Temple ceased to struggle. She

lay still, rigid. The woman could hear her wild breathing. "Will you get

up and walk quiet?" the woman said.

"Yes!" Temple said. "Will you get me out of here? Will you? Will you?"

"Yes," the woman said. "Get up." Temple got up, the shucks whispering.

In the further darkness Gowan snored, savage and profound. At first

Temple couldn't stand alone. The woman held her up. "Stop it," the woman

said. "You've got to stop it. You've got to be quiet."

"I want my clothes," Temple whispered. "I haven't got anything on but .

. ."

"Do you want your clothes," the woman said, "or do you want to get out

of here?"

"Yes," Temple said. "Anything. If you'll just get me out of here."

On their bare feet they moved like ghosts. They left the house and

crossed the porch and went on toward the barn. When they were about fifty

yards from the house the woman stopped and turned and jerked Temple up

to her, and gripping her by the shoulders, their faces close together,

she cursed Temple in a whisper, a sound no louder than a sigh and filled

with fury. Then she flung her away and they went on. They entered the

hallway. It was pitch black. Temple heard the woman fumbling at the wall.

A door creaked open; the woman took her arm and guided her up a single

step into a floored room where she could feel walls and smell a faint,

dusty odor of grain, and closed the door behind them. As she did so

something rushed invisibly nearby in a scurrying scrabble, a dying

whisper of fairy feet. Temple whirled, treading on something that rolled

under her foot, and sprang toward the woman.

"It's just a rat," the woman said, but Temple hurled herself

SANCTUARY 49

upon the other, Ilinging her arms about her, trying to snatch both feet from

the floor.

"A rat?" she wailed, "a rat? Open the door! Quick!"

"Stop it! Stop it!" the woman hissed. She held Temple until she ceased.

They they knelt side by side against the wall. After a while the woman

whispered: "There's some cottonseed-hulls over there. You can lie down."

Temple didn't answer. She crouched against the woman, shaking slowly, and

they squatted there in the black darkness, against the wall.

X

WHILE THE WOMAN WAS COOKING BREAKFAST, THE CHILD still-or already-asleep in

the box behind the stove, she heard a blundering sound approaching across

the porch and stop at the door. When she looked around she saw the wild and

battered and bloody apparition which she recognized as Gowan. His face,

beneath a two days' stubble, was marked, his lip cut. One eye was closed and

the front of his shirt and coat were blood-stained to the waist. Through his

swollen and stiffened lips he was trying to say something. At first the

woman could not understand a word. "Go and bathe your face," she said.

"Wait. Come in here and sit down. I'll get the basin."

He looked at her, trying to talk. "Oh," the woman said. "She's all right.

She's down there in the crib, asleep." She had to repeat it three or four

times, patiently. "In the crib, Asleep. I stayed with her until daylight.

Go wash your face, now!"

Gowan got a little calmer then. He began to talk about getting a car.

"The nearest one is at Tull's, two miles away," the woman said. "Wash your

face and eat some breakfast."