Sanctuary

sat reading one evening, he thought it was Narcissa until, across a remote

113

114 WILLIAM FAULKNER

blaring of victrola or radio music, a man's voice spoke in a guarded,

tornblike tone.

"This is Snopes," he said. "How're you, Judge?"

"What?" Horace said. "Who is it?"

"Senator Snopes, Cla'ence Snopes." The victrola blared, faint, far away; he

could see the man, the soiled hat, the thick shoulders, leaning above the

instrument-in a drugstore or a rest a u rant-wh ispe ring into it behind a

soft, huge, ringed hand, the telephone toylike in the other.

"Oh," Horace said. "Yes? What is it?"

"I got a piece of information that might interest you."

"Information that would interest me?"

"I reckon so. That would interest a couple of parties." Against Horace's

ear the radio or the victrola performed a reedy arpeggio of saxophones.

Obscene, facile, they seemed to be quarreling with one another like two

dexterous monkeys in a cage. He could hear the gross breathing of the man

at the other end of the wire.

"All right," he said. "What do you know that would interest me?"

"I'll let you judge that."

"All right. I'll be down town in the morning. You can find me somewhere."

Then he said immediately: "Hello!" The man sounded as though he were

breathing in Horace's ear: a placid, gross sound, suddenly portentous

somehow. "Hello!" Horace said.

"It evidently dont interest you, then. I reckon I'll dicker with the other

party and not trouble you no more. Goodbye."

"No; wait," Horace said. "Hello! Hello!"

"Yeuh?"

"I'll come down tonight. I'll be there in about fifteen-"

" 'Taint no need of that," Snopes said. "I got my car. IT drive up there."

He walked down to the gate. There was a moon tonight. Within the

black-and-silver tunnel of cedars fireflies drifted in fatuous pinpricks.

The cedars were black and pointed on the sky like a paper silhouette; the

sloping lawn had a faint sheen, a patina like silver. Somewhere a

whippoorwill called, reiterant, tremulous, plaintful above the insects.

Three cars passed. The fourth slowed and swung toward the gate. Horace

stepped into the light. Behind the wheel Snopes loomed bulkily, giving the

impression of having been inserted into the car before the top was put on.

He extended his hand.

"How're you tonight, Judge? Didn't know you was living in town again until

I tried to call you out to Mrs. Sartorises."

"Well, thanks," Horace said. He freed his hand. "What's this you've got

hold of?"

SANCTUARY 115

Snopes creased himself across the wheel and peered out beneath the top,

toward the house.

"We'll talk here," Horace said. "Save you having to turn around."

"It aint very private here," Snopes said. "But that's for you to say."

Huge and thick he loomed, hunched, his featureless face moonlike itself

in the refraction of the moon. Horace could feel Snopes watching him,

with that sense of portent which had come over the wire; a quality

calculating and cunning and pregnant. It seemed to him that he watched

his mind flicking this way and that, striking always that vast, soft,

inert bulk, as though it were caught in an avalanche of cottonseedhulls.

"Let's go into the house," Horace said. Snopes opened the door. "Go on,"

Horace said, "I'll walk up." Snopes drove on. He was getting out of the

car when Horace overtook him. "Well, what is it?" Horace said.

Again Snopes looked at the house. "Keeping batch, are you?" he said.

Horace said nothing. "Like I always say, every married man ought to have

a little place of his own, where he can git off to himself without it

being nobody's business what he does. 'Course a man owes something to his

wife, but what they dont know caint hurt them, does it? Long's he does

that, I caint see where she's got ere kick coming. Aint that what you

say?"

"She's not here," Horace said, "if that's what you're hinting at. What

did you want to see me about?"

Again he felt Snopes watching him, the unabashed stare calculating and

completely unbelieving. "Well, I always say, caint nobody tend to a man's

private business but himself. I aint blaming you. But when you know me

better, you'll know I aint loose-mouthed. I been around I been there. .

. . Have a cigar?" His big hand flicked to his breast and offered two

cigars.

"No, thanks."

Snopes lit a cigar, his face coming out of the match like a pie set on

edge.

"What did you want to see me about?" Horace said.

Snopes puffed the cigar. "Couple days ago I come onto a piece of

information which will be of value to you, if I aint mistook."

"Oh. Of value. What value?"

"I'll leave that to you. I got another party I could dicker with, but

being as me and you was fellow-townsmen and all that."

Here and there Horace's mind flicked and darted. Snopes' family

originated somewhere near Frenchman's Bend and

116 WILLIAM FAULKNER

still lived there. He knew of the devious means by which infoi-ination

passed from man to man of that illiterate race w..ich populated that section

of the country. But surely it cant be something he'd try to sell to the

State, he thought. Even he is not that big a fool.