Sanctuary

She looked at him briefly. "It wouldn't have done you any good if you

hadn't waited."

"What? Oh. Well. But you would have tonight?"

"I thought that was what-"

"You would now, then?" She looked around at Goodwin. He was snoring a

little. "Oh, I dont mean right this minute," he whispered. "But you'll pay

on demand."

"I thought that was what you meant. I told you we didn't have- If that aint

enough pay, I dont know that I blame you.

"It's not that. You know it's not that. But cant you see that perhaps a man

might do something just because he knew it was right, necessary to the

harmony of things that it be done?"

The woman turned the bon-bon slowly in her hand. "I thought you were mad

about him."

"Lee?"

"No. Him." She touched the child. "Because I'd have to bring him with us."

"You mean, with him at the foot of the bed, maybe? perhaps you holding him

by the leg all the time, so he wouldn't fall off?"

She looked at him, her eyes grave and blank and contemplative. Outside the

clock struck twelve.

"Good God," he whispered. "What kind of men have you known?"

"I got him out of jail once that way. Out of Leavenworth, too. When they

knew he was guilty."

"You did?" Horace said. "Here. Take another piece. That one's about worn

out." She looked down at her chocolatestained fingers and the shapeless

bon-bon. She dropped it behind the cot. Horace extended his handkerchief.

"It'll soil it," she said. "Wait." She wiped her fingers on the child's

discarded garment and sat again, her hands clasped in her lap. Goodwin was

snoring regularly. "When he went to the Philippines he left me in San

Francisco. I got a job and I lived in a hall room, cooking over a gas-jet,

because I told him I would. I didn't know how long he'd be gone, but I

promised him I would and he knew I would. When he killed that other soldier

over that nigger woman, I didn't even know it. I didn't get a letter from

him for five months. It was just when I happened to see an old newspaper I

was spreading on a closet shelf in the place where I worked that I saw the

regiment was coming home, and when I looked at the calendar it was that

day. I'd been good all that time. I'd had good chances; every day I had

them with the men coming in the restaurant.

"They wouldn't let me off to go and meet the ship, so I had to quit. Then

they wouldn't let me see him, wouldn't even let

SANCTUARY 157

me on the ship. I stood there while they came marching off it, watching

for him and asking the ones that passed if they kne'Ov where he was and

them kidding me if I had a date that night, telling me they never heard

of him or that he was dead or he had run off to Japan with the colonel's

wife. I tried to get on the ship again, but they wouldn't let me. So that

night I dressed up and went to the cabarets until I found one of them and

let him pick me up, and he told me. It was like I had died. I sat there

with the music playing and all, and that drunk soldier pawing at me, and

me wondering why I didn't let go, go on with him, get drunk and never

sober up again and me thinking And this is the sort of animal I wasted a

year over. I guess that was why I didn't.

"Anyway, I didn't. I went back to my room and the next day I started

looking for him. I kept on, with them telling me lies and trying to make

me, until I found he was in Leavenworth. I didn't have enough money for

a ticket, so I had to get another job. It took two months to get enough

money. Then I went to Leavenworth. I got another job as waitress, in

Childs', nightshifts, so I could see Lee every other Sunday afternoon.

We decided to get a lawyer. We didn't know that a lawyer couldn't do

anything for a federal prisoner. The lawyer didn't tell me, and I hadn't

told Lee how I was getting the lawyer. He thought I had saved some money.

I lived with the lawyer two months before I found it out.

"Then the war came and they let Lee out and sent him to France. I went

to New York and got a job in a munitions plant. I stayed straight too,

with the cities full of soldiers with money to spend, and even the little

ratty girls wearing silk, But I stayed straight. Then he came home. I was

at the ship to meet him. He got off under arrest and they sent him back

to Leavenworth for killing that soldier three years ago. Then I got a

lawyer to get a Congressman to get him out. I gave him all the money I

had saved too. So when Lee got out, we had nothing. He said we'd get

married, but we couldn't afford it. And when I told him about the lawyer,

he beat me."

Again she dropped a shapeless piece of eandy behind the cot and wiped her

hands on the garment. She chose another piece from the box and ate it.

Chewing, she looked at Horace, turning upon him with a blank, musing gaze

for an unhurried moment. Through the slotted window the darkness came

chill and dead.

Goodwin ceased snoring. He stirred and sat up.

"What time is it?" he said.

"What?" Horace said. He looked at his watch. "Half-past two."

158 WILLIAM FAULKNER

"He must have had a puncture," Goodwin said.