Sanctuary

dancers, the music swirling slowly about her in a bright myriad wave. The

table where the two men had sat was empty, but she did not even glance

at it. She entered the corridor. A waiter met her.

"Room," she said. "Hurry."

The room contained a table and four chairs. The waiter turned on the

light and stood in the door. She jerked her hand at him; he went out. She

leaned against the table on her braced arms, watching the door, until Red

entered.

He came toward her. She did not move. Her eyes began to grow darker and

darker, lifting into her skull above a half moon of white, without focus,

with the blank rigidity of a statue's eyes. She began to say

Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah in an expiring voice, her body arching slowly backward as

though faced by an exquisite torture. When he touched her she sprang like

a bow, hurling herself upon him, her mouth gaped and ugly like that of

a dying fish as she writhed her loins against him.

He dragged his face free by main strength. With her hips grinding against

him, her mouth gaping in straining protrusion, bloodless, she began to

speak. "Let's hurry. Any-

136 WILLIAM FAULKNER

where. I've quit him. I told him so. It's not my fault. Is it my fault? You

dont need your hat and I dont either. He came here to kill you but I said I

gave him his chance. It wasn't my fault. And now it'll just be us. Without

him there watching. Come on. What're you waiting for?" She strained her

mouth toward him, dragging his head down, making a whimpering moan. He held

his face free. "I told him I was. I said if you bring me here. I gave you

your chance I said. And now he's got them there to bump you off. But you're

not afraid. Are you?"

"Did you know that when you telephoned me?" he said.

"What? He said I wasn't to see you again. He said he'd kill you. But he had

me followed when I telephoned. I saw him. But you're not afraid. He's not

even a man, but you are. You're a man. You're a man." She began to grind

against him, dragging at his head, murmuring to him in parrotlike

underworld epithet, the saliva running pale over her bloodless lips. "Are

you afraid?"

"Of that dopey bastard?" Lifting her bodily he turned so that he faced the

door, and slipped his right hand free. She did not seem to be aware that he

had moved.

"Please. Please. Please. Please. Don't make me wait. I'm burning up."

"All right. You go on back. You wait till I give you the sign. Will you go

on back?"

"I can't wait. You've got to. I'm on fire, I tell you." She clung to him.

Together they blundered across the room toward the door, he holding her

clear of his right side; she in a voluptuous swoon, unaware that they were

moving, straining at him as though she were trying to touch him with all of

her body-surface at once. He freed himself and thrust her into the passage.

"Go on," he said. "I'll be there in a minute."

"You won't be long? I'm on fire. I'm dying, I tell you."

"No. Not long. Go on, now."

The music was playing. She moved up the corridor, staggering a little. She

thought that she was leaning against the wall, when she found that she was

dancing again; then that she was dancing with two men at once; then she

found that she was not dancing but that she was moving toward the door

between the man with the chewing gum and the one with the buttoned coat.

She tried to stop, but they bad her under the arms; she opened her mouth to

scream, taking one last despairing look about the swirling room.

"Yell," the man with the buttoned coat said. "Just try it once."

Red was at the crap-table. She saw his head turned, the

SANCTUARY 137

cup in his lifted hand. With it he made her a short, cheery salute. He

watched her disappear through the door, between the two men. Then he

looked briefly about the room. His face was bold and calm, but there were

two white lines at the base of his nostrils and his forehead was damp. He

rattled the cup and threw the dice steadily.

"Eleven," the dealer said.

"Let it lay," Red said. "I'll pass a million times tonight."

They helped Temple into the car. The man in the buttoned coat took the

wheel. Where the drive joined the lane that led to the highroad a long

touring car was parked. When they passed it Temple saw, leaning to a

cupped match, Popeye's delicate hooked profile beneath the slanted hat

as he lit the cigarette. The match flipped outward like a dying star in

miniature, sucked with the profile into darkness by the rush of their

passing.

XXV

"THE TABLES HAD BEEN MOVED TO ONE END OF THE DANCE floor. On each one was

a black table-cloth. The curtains were still drawn; a thick,

salmon-colored light fell through them. Just beneath the orchestra

platform the coffin sat. It was an expensive one: black, with silver

fittings, the trestles hidden by a mass of flowers. In wreaths and crosses

and other shapes of ceremonial mortality, the mass appeared to break in

a symbolical wave over the bier and on upon the platform and the piano,

the scent of them quickly oppressive.

The proprietor of the place moved about among the tables, speaking to the