Sanctuary

"They cant seem to make good liquor down here like they do up at school,"

Gowan said.

"Where you from?" the third said.

6'Virgin-oh, -Jefferson. I went to school at Virginia. Teach you how to

drink, there."

The other two said nothing. The first returned, preceded by a minute

shaling of earth down the slope. He had a fruit jar. Gowan lifted it

against the sky. It was pale, innocent looking. He removed the cap and

extended it.

"Drink."

The first took it and extended it to them in the rumble.

"Drink."

The third drank, but Doc refused. Gowaii drank.

"Good God," he said, "how do you fellows drink this stuff?"

"We dont drink rotgut at Virginia," Doc said. Gowan turned in the seat

and looked at him.

"Shut up, Doc," the third said. "Dont mind him," he said. "He's had a

bellyache all night."

:'Son bitch," Doc said.

'Did you call me that?" Gowan said.

"' Course he didn't," the third said. "Doc's all right. Come on Doc. Take

a drink."

"I dont give a damn," Doc said. "Hand it here."

They returned to town. "The shack'll be open," the first said. "At the

depot."

It was a confectionery-lunchroom. It was empty save for a man in a soiled

apron. They went to the rear and entered an alcove with a table and four

chairs. The man brought four glasses and coca-colas. "Can I have some

sugar and water and a lemon, Cap?" Gowan said. The man brought them. The

others watched Gowan make a whisky sour. "They taught

22 WILLIAM FAULKNER

me to drink it this way," he said. They watched him drink. "Hasn't got

much kick, to me," he said, filling his glass from the jar. He drank that.

"You sure do drink it," the third said.

I learned in a good school." There was a high window. Beyond it the sky

was paler, fresher. "Have another, gentlemen," he said, filling his glass

again. The others helped themselves moderately. "Up at school they

consider it better to go down than to hedge," he said. They watched him

drink that one. They saw his nostrils bead suddenly with sweat.

"That's all for him, too," Doc said.

"Who says so?" Gowan said. He poured an inch into the glass. "If we just

had some decent liquor. I know a man in my county named Goodwin that

makes-"

"That's what they call a drink up at school," Doc said.

Gowan looked at him. "Do you think so? Watch this." He poured into the

glass. They watched the liquor rise.

"Look out fellow," the third said. Gowan filled the glass level full and

lifted it and emptied it steadily. He remembered setting the glass down

carefully, then be became aware simultaneously of open air, of a chill

gray freshness and an engine panting on a siding at the head of a dark

string of cars, and that he was trying to tell someone that he had

learned to drink like a gentleman. He was still trying to tell them, in

a cramped dark place smelling of ammonia and cresote, vomiting into a

receptacle, trying to tell them that he must be at Taylor at six-thirty,

when the special arrived. The paroxysm passed; he felt extreme lassitude,

weakness, a desire to lie down which was forcibly restrained, and in the

flare of a match he leaned against the wall, his eyes focusing slowly

upon a name written there in pencil. He shut one eye, propped against the

wall, swaying and drooling, and read the name. Then he looked at them,

wagging his head.

"Girl name ... Name girl I know. Good girl. Good sport. Got date take her

to Stark . . . Starkville. No chap'rone, see?" Leaning there, drooling,

mumbling, he went to sleep.

At once he began to fight himself out of sleep. It seemed to him that it

was immediately, yet he was aware of time passing all the while, and that

time was a factor in his need to wake; that otherwise he would be sorry.

For a long while he knew that his eyes were open, waiting for vision to

return. Then he was seeing again, without knowing at once that he was

awake.

He lay quite still. It seemed to him that, by breaking out of sleep, he

had accomplished the purpose that he had waked himself for. He was lying

in a cramped position under a low canopy, looking at the front of an

unfamiliar building above

SANCTUARY 23

which small clouds rosy with sunlight drove, quite empty of any sense. Then

his abdominal muscles completed the retch upon which he had lost

consciousness and he heaved himself up and sprawled into the foot of the

car, banging his head on the door. The blow fetched him completely to and he

opened the door and half fell to the ground and dragged himself up and

turned toward the station at a stumbling run. He fell. On hands and knees he

looked at the empty siding and up at the sunfilled sky with unbelief and

despair. He rose and ran on, in his stained dinner jacket, his burst collar

and broken hair. I passed out, he thought in a kind of rage, I passed out.

I passed out.

The platform was deserted save for a negro with a broom. "Gret Gawd, white

folks," he said.

"The train," Gowan said, "the special. The one that was on that track."

"Hit done lef. But five minutes ago." With the broom still in the arrested

gesture of sweeping he watched Gowan turn and run back to the car and

tumble into it.