Sanctuary

back and came to her door and looked into the room. She was reading in bed,

a broad magazine with a colored back. The lamp had a rose colored shade. On

the table sat a box of chocolates.

"I came back," Horace said.

She looked at him across the magazine.

"Did you lock the back door?" she said.

SANCTUARY 169

"Yes, I knew she would be," Horace said. "Have you tonight . . ."

"Have I what?"

"Little Belle. Did you telephone

"What for? She's at that house party. Why shouldn't she be? Why should she

have to disrupt her plans, refuse an invitation?"

"Yes," Horace said. "I knew she would be. Did you

"I talked to her night before last. Go lock the back door."

"Yes," Horace said. "She's all right. Of course she is. I'll just . . ."

The telephone sat on a table in the dark hall. The number was on a rural

line; it took some time. Horace sat beside the telephone. He had left the

door at the end of the hall open. Through it the light airs of the summer

night drew, vague, disturbing. "Night is hard on old people," he said

quietly, holding the receiver. "Summer nights are hard on them. Something

should be done about it. A law."

From her room Belle called his name, in the voice of a reclining person. "I

called her night before last. Why must you bother her?"

"I know," Horace said. "I wont be long at it."

He held the receiver, looking at the door through which the vague,

troubling wind came. He began to say something out of a book he had read:

"Less oft is peace. Less oft is peace," he said.

The wire answered. "Hellol Hello! Belle?" Horace said.

"Yes?" her voice came back thin and faint. "What is it? Is anything wrong?"

"No, no." Horace said. "I just wanted to tell you hello and good-night."

"Tell what? What is it? Who is speaking?" Horace held the receiver, sitting

in the dark hall.

"It's me, Horace. Horace. I just wanted to-2'

Over the thin wire came a scuffling sound; he could hear Little Belle

breathe. Then a voice said, a masculine voice: "Hello, Horace; I want you

to meet a-"

"Hush!" Little Belle's voice said, thin and faint; again Horace heard them

scuffling; a breathless interval. "Stop it!" Little Belle's voice said.

"It's Horace! I live with him!" Horace held the receiver to his ear. Little

Belle's voice was breathless, controlled, cool, discreet, detached. "Hello,

Horace. Is Mamma all right?"

"Yes. We're all right. I just wanted to tell you

"Oh. Good-night."

"Good-night. Are you having a good time?"

"Yes. Yes. I'll write tomorrow. Didn't Mamma get my letter today?"

170 WILLIAM FAULKNER

"I dont know. I just-"

"Maybe I forgot to mail it. I wont forget tomorrow, though. I'll write

tomorrow. Was that all you wanted?"

"Yes. Just wanted to tell you . . ."

He put the receiver back; he heard the wire die. The light from his

wife's room fell across the haH. "Lock the back door," she said.

xxxi

WHILE ON HIS WAY TO PENSACOLA TO VISIT HIS MOTHER, Popeye was arrested in

Birmingham for the murder of a policeman in a small Alabama town on June

17 of that year. He was arrested in August. It was on the night of June

17 that Temple had passed him sitting in the parked car beside the road

house on the night when Red had been killed.

Each summer Popeye went to see his mother. She thought he was a night

clerk in a Memphis hotel.

His mother was the daughter of a boarding house keeper. His father had

been a professional strike-breaker hired by the street railway company

to break a strike in 1900. His mother at that time was working in a

department store downtown. For three nights she rode home on the car

beside the motorman's seat on which Popeye's father rode. One night the

strike-breaker got off at her corner with her and walked to her home.

"Wont you get fired?" she said.

"By who?" the strike-breaker said. They walked along together. He was

well-dressed. "Them others would take me that quick. They know it, too."

"Who would take you?"

"The strikers. I dont care a damn who is running the car, see. I'll ride

with one as soon as another. Sooner, if I could make this route every

night at this time."

She walked beside him. "You dont mean that," she said.

"Sure I do." He took her arm.

"I guess you'd just as soon be married to one as another, the same way."

"Who told you that?" he said. "Have them bastards been talking about me?"

A month later she told them that they would have to be married. "How do

you mean, have to?" he said.

"I dont dare tell them. I have to go away. I dont dare."

"Well, dont get upset. I'd just as lief. I have to pass here every night

anyway."

They were married. He would pass the corner at night. He would ring the

foot-bell. Sometimes he would come home. He would give her money. Her

mother liked him; he would

SANCTUARY 171

come roaring into the house at dinner time on Sunday, calling the other

clients, even the old ones, by their first names. Then one day he didn't

come back; he didn't ring the foot-bell when the trolley passed. The strike

was over by then. She had a Christmas card from him; a picture, with a bell