married, at least once. Her name-or so she calls it and would probably spell
it if she could spell-is Nancy Mannigoe.
There is a dead silence in the room while everybody watches her.
JUDGE
Have you anything to say before the sentence of the court is pronounced
upon you?
Nancy neither answers nor moves; she doesn't even seem to be listening.
That you, Nancy Mannigoe, did on the thirteenth day of June, wilfully and
with malice aforethought kill and murder the infant child of Mr and Mrs
Gowan Stevens in the town of Jefferson and the County of Yoknapatawpha
...
It is the sentence of this court that you be taken from hence back to the
county jail of Yoknapatawpha County and there on the thirteenth day of
March be hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may God have mercy
on your soul.
NANCY
(quite loud in the silence, to no one, quite calm, not moving) Yes, Lord.
There is a gasp, a sound, from the invisible spectators in the room, of
shock at this unheard-of violation of procedure: the beginning of something
which might be consternation and even uproar, in the midst of, or rather
above which, Nancy herself does not move. The judge bangs his gavel, the
bailiff springs up, the curtain starts hurriedly and jerkily down as if the
judge, the officers, the court itself were jerking frantically at it to hide
this disgraceful business; from somewhere among the unseen spectators thrre
comes the sound of a woman's voice-a moan, wail, sob perhaps.
BAILIFF
(loudly)
Orderl Order in the courtl Orderl
The curtain descends rapidly, hiding the scene, the lights fade rapidly into
darkness: a moment of darkness: then the curtain rises smoothly and normally
on:
Scene Two
Stevens living-room 6:00 P.m. November thirteenth.
Living-room, a center table with a lamp, chairs, a sofa left rear,
floor-lamp, wall-bracket lamps, a door left enters from the hall, double
doors rear stand open on a dining-room, a fireplace right with gas logs. The
atmosphere of the room is smart, modern, up-to-date, yet the room itself has
the air of another time-the high ceiling, the cornices, some of the furni-
ture; it has the air of being in an old house, an ante-bellum house
descended at last to a spinster survivor who has modernised it (vide the gas
fire and the two overstuffed chairs) into apartments rented to young couples
or families who can afford to pay that much rent in order to live on the
right street among other young couples who belong to the right church and
the country club.
Sound of feet, then the lights come on as if someone about to enter had
pressed a wall switch, then the door left opens and Temple enters, followed
by Gowan, her husband, and the lawyer, Gavin Stevens. She is in the middle
twenties, very smart, soign6e, in an open fur coat, wearing a hat and
gloves and carrying a handbag. Her air is brittle and tense, yet con-
trolled. Her face shows nothing as she crosses to the center table and
stops. Gowan is three or four years older. He is almost a type; there were
many of him in America, the South, between the two great wars: only
children of financially secure parents living in city apartment hotels,
alumni of the best colleges, South or East, where they belonged to the
right clubs; married now and raising families yet still alumni of their
schools, performing acceptably jobs they themselves did not ask for,
usually concerned with money: cotton futures, or stocks, or bonds. But this
face is a little different, a little more than that. Something has happened
to it-tragedy-something, against which it had had no warning, and to cope
with which (as it discovered) no equipment, yet which it has accepted and
is trying, really and sincerely and selflessly (perhaps for the first time
in its life) to do its best with according to its code. He and Stevens wear
their overcoats, carrying their hats. Stevens stops just inside the room.
Gowan drops his hat onto the sofa in passing and goes on to where Temple
stands at the table, stripping off one of her gloves.
207
208 WILLIAM FAULKNER
TEMPLE
(takes cigarette from box on the table: mimics the prisoner; her
voice, harsh, reveals for the first time repressed, controlled, hys-
teria) Yes, God. Guilty, God. Thank you, God. If that's your attitude
toward being hung, what else can you expect from a judge and jury
except to accommodate you?
COWAN
Stop it, Boots. Hush now. Soon as I light the fire, I'll buy a drink.
(to Stevens)
Or maybe Gavin will do the fire while I do the butler.
TEMPLE
(takes up lighter)
I'll do the fire. You get the drinks. Then Uncle Gavin won't have to
stay. After all, all he wants to do is say good-bye and send me a
postcard. He can almost do that in two words, if he tries hard, Then
he can go home.
She crosses to the hearth and kneels and turns the gas valve, the lighter
ready in her other hand.
GOWAN
(anxiously) Now, Boots.
TEMPLE
(snaps lighter, holds flame to the
jet)
Will you for God's sake please get me a drink?
GOWAN
Sure, honey.
(he turns: to Stevens) Drop your coat anywhere.
He exits into the dining-room. Stevens does not move, watching Temple as
the log takes fire.
TEMPLE
(still kneeling, her back to Stevens) If you're going to stay, why
dont you sit down? Or vice versa. Backward. Only, it's the first one
that's
REQUIEM FOR A NUN 209
backward: if you're not sitting down, why dont you go? Let me be
bereaved and vindicated, but at least let me do it in privacy, since
God knows if any one of the excretions should take place in privacy,
triumph should be the one-
Stevens watches her. Then he crosses to her, taking the handkerchief from
his breast pocket, stops behind her and extends the handkerchief down
where she can see it. She looks at it, then up at him. Her face is quite
calm.
TEMPLE
What's that for?
STEVENS
It's all right. It's dry too.
(still extending the bandkerchief)
For tomorrow, then.
TEMPLE
(rises quickly)
Oh, for cinders. On the train. We're going by air; hadn't Gowan told
you? We leave from the Memphis airport at midnight; we're driving up
after supper. Then California tomorrow morning; maybe we'll even go on
to Hawaii in the spring. No; wrong season: Canada, maybe. Lake Louise
in May and June-
(she stops, listens a moment toward the dining-room doors)
So why the handkerchief? Not a threat, because you dont have anything
to threaten me with, do you? And if you dont have anything to threaten
me with, I must not have anything you want, so it cant be a bribe
either, can it?
(they both hear the sound from beyond the dining-room