Sanctuary

of those bright, chatty monologues which women can carry on when they

realise that they have the center of the stage; suddenly Horace realised

that she was recounting the experience with actual pride, a sort of naive

and impersonal vanity, as though she were making it up, looking from him

to Miss Reba with quick, darting glances like a dog driving two cattle

along a lane.

"And so whenever I breathed I'd hear those shucks. I dont see how anybody

ever sleeps on a bed like that. But maybe you get used to it. Or maybe

they're tired at night. Because when I breathed I could hear them, even

when I was just sitting on the bed. I didn't see how it could be just

breathing, so I'd sit as still as I could, but I could still hear them.

That's because breathing goes down. You think it goes up, but it doesn't.

It goes down you, and I'd hear them getting drunk on the porch. I got to

thinking I could see where their heads were leaning back against the wall

and I'd say Now this one's drinking out of the jug. Now that one's

drinking. Like the mashed-in place on the pillow after you got up, you

know.

"That was when I got to thinking a funny thing. You know how you do when

you're scared. I was looking at my legs and I'd try to make like I was

a boy. I was thinking about if I just was a boy and then I tried to make

myself into one by thinking. You know how you do things like that. Like

when you know one problem in class and when they came to that you look

at him and think right hard, Call on me. Call on me. Call on me. I'd

think about what they tell children, about kissing your elbow, and I

tried to. I actually did. I was that scared, and I'd wonder if I could

tell when it happened. I mean, before I looked, and I'd think I had and

how I'd go out and show them-you know. I'd strike a match and say Look.

See? Let me alone, now. And then I could go back to bed. I'd think how

I could go to bed and go to sleep then, because I was sleepy. I simply

couldn't hardly hold my eyes open.

"So I'd hold niy eyes tight shut and say Now I am. I am now. I'd look at

my legs and I'd think about how much I had done for them. I'd think about

how many dances I had taken them to-crazy, like that. Because I thought

how much I'd

SANCTUARY 123

done for them, and now they'd gotten me into this. So I'd think about

praying to be changed into a boy and I would pray and then I'd sit right

still and wait. Then I'd think maybe I couldn't tell it and I'd get ready

to look. Then I'd think maybe it was too soon to look; that if I looked

too soon I'd spoil it and then it wouldn't, sure enough. So I'd count. I

said to count fifty at first, then I thought it was still too soon, and

I'd say to count fifty more. Then I'd think if I didn't look at the right

time, it would be too late.

"Then I thought about fastening myself up some way. There was a girl went

abroad one summer that told me about a kind of iron belt in a museum a

king or something used to lock the queen up in when he had to go away,

and I thought if I just had that. That was why I got the raincoat and put

it on. The canteen was hanging by it and I got it too and put it in the-"

"Canteen?" Horace said. "Why did you do that?"

"I dont know why I took it. I was just scared to leave it there, I guess.

But I was thinking if I just had that French thing. I was thinking maybe

it would have long sharp spikes on it and he wouldn't know it until too

late and I'd jab it into him. I'd jab it all the way through him and

think about the blood running on me and how I'd say I guess that'll teach

you! I guess you'll let me alone now! I'd say. I didn't know it was going

to be just the other way . . . I want a drink."

"I'll get you one in a minute," Miss Reba said. "Go on and tell him."

"Oh, yes; this was something else funny I did." She told about lying in

the darkness with Gowan snoring beside her, listening to the shucks and

hearing the darkness full of movement, feeling Popeye approaching. She

could hear the blood in her veins, and the little muscles at the corners

of her eyes cracking faintly wider and wider, and she could feel her nos-

trils going alternately cool and warm. Then he was standing over and she

was saying Come on. Touch me. Touch me! You're a coward if you don't.

Coward! Coward!

"I wanted to go to sleep, you see. And he just kept on standing there.

I thought if he'd just go on and get it over with, I could go to sleep.

So I'd say You're a coward if you dont! You're a coward if you dont! and

I could feel my mouth getting fixed to scream, and that little hot ball

inside you that screams. Then it touched me, that nasty little cold band,

fiddling around inside the coat where I was naked. It was like alive ice

and my skin started jumping away from it like those little flying fish

in front of a boat. It was like my skin knew which way it was going to

go before it started moving, and my

124 WILLIAM FAULKNER

skin would keep on jerking just ahead of it like there wouldn't be

anything there when the hand got there.