Sanctuary

shove them aside. "Get back down there," she said, shaking the rosary at

them. They snarled at her in vicious falsetto, baring their teeth, and

she leaned against the wall in a thin aroma of beer, her hand to her

breast, her mouth open, her eyes fixed in a glare of sad terror of all

breathing as she sought breath, the tankard a squat soft gleam like dull

silver lifted in the gloom.

The narrow stair-well turned back upon itself in a succession of niggard

reaches. The light, falling through a thicklycurtained door at the front

and through a shuttered window at the rear of each stage, had a weary

quality. A spent quality: defunctive, exhausted-a protracted weariness

like a vitiated backwater beyond sunlight and the vivid noises of sun-

light and day. There was a defunctive odor of irregular food, vaguely

alcoholic, and Temple even in her ignorance seemed to be surrounded by

a ghostly promiscuity of intimate garments, of discreet whispers of flesh

stale and oft-assailed and impregnable beyond each silent door which they

passed. Be-

82 WILLIAM FAULKNER

hind her, about hers and Miss Reba's feet the two dogs scrabblc,l 'n nappy

gleams, their claws clicking on the metal strips which bound the carpet

to the stairs.

Later, lying in bed, a towel wrapped about her naked loins, she could

hear them sniffin. and whining outside the door. Her coat and hat hung

on nails on the door, her dress and stockings lay upon a chair, and it

seemed to her that she COU d Ilear the rhythmic splush-splush of the

washing-board somewhere and she flung herself again in an agony for con-

cealment as she had when they took her knickers off.

"Now, now," Miss Reba s-!id. "I bled for four days, myself. It aint

nothing. Doctor Quinn'll stop it in two minutes, and Minnie'll have them

all washed and pressed and you won't never know it. That blood'11 be

worth a thousand dollars to you honey." She lifted the tankard, the

flowers on her hat rigidly moribund, nodding in macabre wassail. "Us poor

girls," she said. The drawn shades, cracked into a myriad pattern like

old skin, bl--w faintly on the bright air, breathing into the room on

w~,ning surges the sound of Sabbath traffic, festive, steady, evanescent.

Temple lay motionless in the bed, her legs straight and close, in covers

to her chin and her face sm~dl and wan, framed in the rich sprawl of her

hair. Miss Reba lowered the tankard, gasping for breath. In her hoarse,

fainting voice she beg;~n to tell Temple how lucky she was.

"Every girt in the district has been trying to get him, honey. There's

one, a little married woman slips down here sometimes, she offered Minnie

twenty-five dollars just to get him into the room, that's all. But do you

think he'd so much as look at one of them'? Girls that have took a

hundred dollars a night. No, sir. Spend his money like water, but do you

think he'd look at one of them except to dance with her? I always knowed

it wasn't going to be none of these here common whores he'd take. I'd

tell them, I'd say, the one of yez that gets him'll wear diamonds, I

says, but it aint going to be none of you common whores, and now

Minnie'll have them washed and pressed until you wont know it."

"I cant wear it again," Temple whispered. "I cant."

"No more you'll have to, if you don't want, You can give them to Minnie,

though I don't know what she'll do with them except maybe-" At the door

the dogs began to whimper louder. Feet approached. The door opened. A

negro maid entered, carrying a tray bearing a quart bottle of beer and

a glass of gin, the dogs surging in around her feet. "And tomorrow the

stores'll be open and me and you'll go shopping, like he said for us to.

Like I said, the girl that gets him'll wear diamonds: you just see if I

wasn't-" she turned, mountainous, the tankard lifted, as the two dogs

scrambled onto the

SANCTUARY 83

bed and then onto her lap, snapping viciously at one another. From their

curled shapeless faces bead-like eyes glared with choleric ferocity, their

mouths gaped pinkly upon needle-like teeth. "Reba!" Miss Reba said, "get

down! You, Mr. Binford!" Hinging them down, their teeth clicking about her

hands. "You just bite me, you- Did you get Miss- What's your name, honey?

I didn't quite catch it."

"Temple," Temple whispered.

"I mean, your first name, honey. We don't stand on no ceremony here."

"That's it. Temple. Temple Drake."

"You got a boy's name, aint you?-Miss Temple's things washed, Minnie?"

"Yessum," the maid said. "Hit's dryin' now hind the stove." She came with

the tray, shoving the dogs gingerly aside while they clicked their teeth

at her ankles.

"You wash it out good?"

"I had a time with it," Minnie,said. "Seem like that the most hardest

blood of all to get-" With a convulsive movement Temple flopped over,

ducking her head beneath the covers. She felt Miss Reba's hand.

"Now, now. Now, now. Here, take your drink. This one's on me. I aint

going to let no girl of Popeye's-"

"I dont want anymore," Temple said.

"Now, now," Miss Reba said. "Drink it and you'll feel better." She lifted