Sanctuary

them both out on the street and you can have them arrested there."

On the night of the nineteenth he telephoned her again. He had some trouble

in getting in touch with her.

" They're gone," she said. "Both of them. Dont you read no papers?"

"What papers?" Horace said. "Hello. Hello!"

"They aint here no more, I said," Miss Reba said. "I dont

152 WILLIAM FAULKNER

know nuttin about them and I dont want to know nuttin except who's going to

pay me a week's room rent on-"

"But cant you find where she went to? I may need her."

"I dont know nuttin and I dont want to know nuttin," Miss Reba said. He

heard the receiver click. Yet the disconnection was not made at once. He

heard the receiver thud onto the table where the telephone sat, and he

could hear Miss Reba shouting for Minnie: "Minnie. Minnie!" Then some hand

lifted the receiver and set it onto the hook; the wire clicked in his ear.

After a while a detached Delsarteish voice said: "Pine Bluff dizzent . . .

Enkyewl"

The trial opened the next day. On the table lay the sparse objects which

the District Attorney was offering: the bullet from Tommy's skull, a

stoneware jug containing corn whisky.

"I will call Mrs. Goodwin to the stand," Horace said. He did not look back.

He could feel Goodwin's eyes on his back as he helped the woman into the

chair. She was sworn, the child lying on her lap. She repeated the story as

she had told it to him on the day after the child was ill. Twice Goodwin

tried to interrupt and was silenced by the Court. Horace would not look at

him.

The woman finished her story. She sat erect in the chair, in her neat, worn

gray dress and hat with the darned veil, the purple ornament on her

shoulder. The child lay on her lap, its eyes closed in that drugged

immobility. For a while her hand hovered about its face, performing those

needless maternal actions as though unawares.

Horace went and sat down. Then only did he look at Goodwin. But the other

sat quietly now, his arms folded and his head bent a little, but Horace

could see that his nostrils were waxy white with rage against his dark

face. He leaned toward him and whispered, but Goodwin did not move.

The District Attorney now faced the woman.

"Mrs. Goodwin," he said, "what was the date of your marriage to Mr.

Goodwin?"

"I object!" Horace said, on his feet.

"Can the prosecution show this question is relevant?" the Court said.

"I waive, your Honor," the District Attorney said, glancing at the jury.

When court adjourned for the day Goodwin said bitterly: "Well, you've said

you would kill me someday, but I didn't think you meant it. I didn't think

that you 11

"Dont be a fool," Horace said. "Dont you see your case is won? That they

are reduced to trying to impugn the character of your witness?" But when

they left the jail he found the

SANCTUARY 153

woman still watching him from some deep reserve of foreboding. "You mustn't

worry at all, I tell you. You may know more about making whiskey or love

than I do, but I know more about criminal procedure than you, remember."

"You dont think I made a mistake?"

"I know you didn't. Dont you see how that explodes their case? The best

they can hope for now is a hung jury. And the chances of that are not one

in fifty. I tell you, he'll walk out of that jail tomorrow a free man."

"Then I guess it's time to think about paying you."

"Yes," Horace said, "all right. I'll come out tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Yes. He may call you back to the stand tomorrow. We'd better prepare for

it, anyway."

At eight o'clock he entered the mad woman's yard. A single light burned in

the crazy depths of the house, like a firefly caught in a brier patch, but

the woman did not appear when he called. He went to the door and knocked.

A shrill voice shouted something; he waited a moment. He was about to knock

again when he heard the voice again, shrill and wild and faint, as though

from a distance, like a reedy pipe buried by an avalanche. He circled the

house in the rank, waist-bigh weeds. The kitchen door was open. The lamp

was there, dim in a smutty chimney, filling the room-a jumble of looming

shapes rank with old foul female flesh-not with light but with shadow.

White eyeballs rolled in a high, tight bullet head in brown gleams above a

torn singlet strapped into overalls. Beyond the negro the mad woman turned

in an open cupboard, brushing her lank hair back with her forearm.

"Your bitch has gone to jail," she said. "Go on with her."

"Jail?" Horace said.

"That's what I said. Where the good folks live. When you get a husband,

keep him in jail where he cant bother you." She turned to the negro, a

small flask in her hand. "Come on, dearie. Give me a dollar for it. You got

plenty money."

Horace returned to town, to the jail. They admitted him. He mounted the

stairs; the jailer locked a door behind him.

The woman admitted him to the cell. The child lay on the cot. Goodwin sat

beside it, his arms crossed, his legs extended in the attitude of a man in

the last stage of physical exhaustion.

"Why are you sitting there, in front of that slit?" Horace said. "Why not