Sanctuary

6'Tell her, all right," Temple said. "I'm going to have a bath and then go

to bed, tell her."

When Minnie was gone Temple poured the two drinks into a tumbler and

gloated over it, the glass shaking in her hands. She set it carefully away

and covered it and ate her supper from the bed. When she finished she lit

a cigarette. Her movements were jerky; she smoked swiftly, moving about the

room. She stood for a moment at the window, the shade lifted aside, then

she dropped it and turned into the room again, spying herself in the

mirror. She turned before it, studying herself puffing at the cigarette.

130 WILLIAM FAULKNER

She snapped it behind her, toward the fireplace, and went to the mirror and

combed her hair. She ripped the curtain aside and took the dress down and

laid it on the bed and returned and drew out a drawer in the dresser and

took a garment out. She paused with the garment in her hand, then she

replaced it and closed the drawer and caught up the frock swiftly and hung

it back in the closet. A moment later she found herself walking up and down

the room, another cigarette burning in her hand, without any recollection

of having lit it. She flung it away and went to the table and looked at her

watch and propped it against the pack of cigarettes so she could see it

from the bed, and lay down. When she did so she felt the pistol through her

pillow. She slipped it out and looked at it, then she slid it under her

flank and lay motionless, her legs straight, her hands behind her head, her

eyes focussing into black pinheads at every sound of the stairs.

At nine she rose. She picked up the pistol again; after a moment she thrust

it beneath the mattress and undressed and in a spurious Chinese robe

splotched with gold dragons and jade and scarlet flowers she left the room.

When she returned her hair curled damply about her face. She went to the

washstand and took up the tumbler, holding it in her hands, but she set it

down again.

She dressed, retrieving the bottles and jars from the corner. Her motions

before the glass were furious yet painstaking. She went to the washstand

and took up the glass, but again she paused and went to the corner, got her

coat and put it on and put the platinum bag in the pocket and leaned once

more to the mirror. Then she went, took up the glass, gulped the gin and

left the room, walking swiftly.

A single light burned in the hall. It was empty. She could hear voices in

Miss Reba's room but the lower hall was deserted. She descended swiftly and

silently and gained the door. She believed that it would be at the door

that they would stop her and she thought of the pistol with acute regret,

almost pausing, knowing that she would use it without any compunction

whatever, with a kind of pleasure. She sprang to the door and pawed at the

bolt, her head turned over her shoulder.

it opened. She sprang out and out the lattice door and ran down the walk

and out the gate. As she did so a car, moving slowly along the curb,

stopped opposite her. Popeye sat at the wheel. Without any apparent

movement from him the door swung open. He made no movement, spoke no word.

He just sat there, the straw hat slanted a little aside.

"I wont!" Temple said. "I wont!"

He made no movement, no sound. She came to the car.

SANCTUARY 131

"I wont, I tell you!" Then she cried wildly: "You're scared of him! You're

scared to!"

"I'm giving him his chance," he said. "Will you go back in that house, or

will you get in this car?"

"You're scared tol"

"I'm giving him his chance," he said, in his cold soft voice. "Come on.

Make up your mind."

She leaned forward, putting her hand on his arm. "Popeye," she said;

"daddy." His arm felt frail, no larger than a child's, dead and hard and

light as a stick,

"I dont care which you do," he said. "But do it. Come on."

She leaned toward him, her hand on his arm. Then she got into the car. "You

wont do it. You're afraid to. He's a better man than you are."

He reached across and shut the door. "Where?" he said. "Grotto?"

"He's a better man than you are!" Temple said shrilly. "You're not even a

man! He knows it. Who does know it if he dont?" The car was in motion. She

began to shriek at him. "You, a man, a bold bad man, when you cant evenWhen

you had to bring a real man in to- And you hanging over the bed, moaning

and slobbering like a- You couldn't fool me once, could you? No wonder I

bled and bluh-" his hand came over her mouth, hard, his nails going into

her flesh. With the other hand he drove the car at reckless speed. When

they passed beneath lights she could see him watching her as she struggled,

tugging at his hand, whipping her head this way and that.

She ceased struggling, but she continued to twist her head from side to

side, tugging at his hand. One finger, ringed with a thick ring, held her

lips apart, his finger-tips digging into he.cheek. With the other hand he

whipped the car in and out of traffic, bearing down upon other cars until

they slewed aside with brakes squealing, shooting recklessly across