Sanctuary

you gwine to, nigger?"

Each morning Isom fetched in a bottle of milk, which Horace delivered to

the woman at the hotel, for the child. On Sunday afternoon he went out

to his sister's. He left the woman sitting on the cot in Goodwin's cell,

the child on her lap. Heretofore it had lain in that drugged apathy, its

eyelids closed to thin crescents, but today it moved now and then in

frail, galvanic jerks, whimpering.

Horace went up to Miss Jenny's room. His sister had not appeared. "He

won't talk," Horace said. "He just says they will have to prove he did

it. He said they had nothing on him, no more than on the child. He

wouldn't even consider bond, if he could have got it. He says he is

better off in the jail. And I suppose he is. His business out there is

finished now, even if the sheriff hadn't found his kettles and

destroyed-"

:'Kettles?"

'His still. After he surrendered, they hunted around until they found the

still. They knew what he was doing, but they waited until he was down.

Then they all jumped on him. The good customers, that had been buying

whiskey from him and drinking all that he would give them free and maybe

trying

72 WILLIAM FAULKNER

to make love to his wife behind his back. You should hear them down town.

This morning the Baptist minister took him for a text. Not only as a

murderer, but as an adulterer; a polluter of the free

Democratic-Protestant atmosphere of Yoknapatawpha county. I gathered that

his idea was that Goodwin and the woman should both be burned as a sole

example to that child; the child to be reared and taught the English

language for the sole end of being taught that it was begot in sin by two

people who suffered by fire for having begot it. Good God, can a man, a

civilised man, seriously . . ."

"They're just Baptists," Miss Jenny said. "What about the money?"

"He had a little, almost a hundred and sixty dollars. It was buried in

a can in the barn. They let him dig that up. 'That'll keep her' he says

'until it's over. Then we'll clear out. We've been intending to for a

good while. If I'd listened to her, we'd have gone already. You've been

a good girl' he says. She was sitting on the cot beside him, holding the

baby, and he took her chin in his hands and shook her head a little."

"It's a good thing Narcissa aint going to be on that jury," Miss Jenny

said.

"Yes. But the fool wont even let me mention that that gorilla was ever

on the place. He said 'They can't prove anything on me. I've been in a

jam before. Everybody that knows anything about me knows that I wouldn't

hurt a feeb.' But that wasn't the reason he doesn't want it told about

that thug. And he knew I knew it wasn't, because he kept on talking,

sitting there in his overalls, rolling his cigarettes with the sack

hanging in his teeth. 'I'll just stay here until it blows over. I'll be

better off here; can't do anything outside, anyway. And this will keep

her, with maybe something for you until you're better paid.'

"But I knew what he was thinking. 'I didn't know you were a coward' I

said.

" 'You do like I say' he said. 'I'll be all right here.' But he doesn't

. . ." He sat forward, rubbing his hands slowly. "He doesn't realize. .

. . Dammit, say what you want to, but there's a corruption about even

looking upon evil, even by accident; you cannot haggle, traffic, with

putrefactionYou've seen how Narcissa, just hearing about it, how it's

made her restless and suspicious. I thought I had come back here of my

own accord, but now I see that- Do you suppose she thought I was bringing

that woman into the house at night, or something like that?"

"I did too, at first," Miss Jenny said. "But I reckon now she's learned

that you'll work harder for whatever reason you

SANCTUARY 73

think you have, than for anything anybody could offer you or give you."

"You mean she'd let me think they never had any moneywhen she-"

"Why not? Aint you doing all right without it?" Narcissa entered.

"We were just talking about murder and crime," Miss Jenny said. "I hope

you're through, then," Narcissa said. She did not sit down.

"Narcissa has her sorrows too," Miss Jenny said. "Dont you, Narcissa?"

"What now?" Horace said. "She hasn't caught Bory with alcohol on his

breath, has she?"

"She's been jilted. Her beau's gone and left her."

"You're such a fool," Narcissa said.

"Yes, sir," Miss Jenny said, "Gowan Stevens has thrown her down. He

didn't even come back from that Oxford dance to say goodbye. He just

wrote her a letter." She began to search about her in the chair. "And now

I flinch everytime the doorbell rings, thinking that his mother-"

"Miss Jenny," Narcissa said, "you give me my letter."

"Wait," Miss Jenny said, "here it is. Now, what do you think of that for

a delicate operation on the human heart without anaesthetics? I'm

beginning to believe all this I hear, about how young folks learn all the

things in order to get married, that we had to get married in order to

learn."

Horace took the single sheet.

Narcissa my dear

This has no heading. I wish it could have no date. But if