GOWAN
That is a laugh, that one. Only, not so loud, huh? to disturb the
ladies-disturb Miss Drake-Miss Temple Drake.-Sure, why not cowardice.
Only, for euphony, call it simple over-training. You know? Gowan
Stevens, trained at Virginia to drink like a gentleman, gets drunk as
ten gentlemen, takes a country college girl, a maiden: who knows?
maybe even a
218 WILLIAM FAULKNER
virgin, cross country by car to another country college ball game,
gets drunker than twenty gentlemen, gets lost, gets still drunker than
forty gentlemen, wrecks the car, passes eighty gentlemen now, passes
completely out while the maiden the virgin is being kidnapped into a
Memphis whorehouse-
(He mumbles an indistinguish-
able word)
STEVENS
What?
GOWAN
Sure; cowardice. Call it cowardice; what's a little euphony between
old married people?
STEVENS
Not the marrying her afterward, at least. What-
GOWAN
Sure. Marrying her was purest Old Virginia. That was indeed the
hundred and sixty gentlemen.
STEVENS
The intent was, by any other standards too. The prisoner in the
whorehouse; I didn't quite hear-
GOWAN
(quickly: reaching for it) Where's your glass? Dump that
slop-here-
STEVENS
(holds glass)
This will do. What was that you said about held prisoner in the
whorehouse?
GOWAN
(harshly) That's all. You heard it.
STEVENS
You said 'and loved it.'
(they stare at each other)
Is that what you can never forgive her for?- not for having been the
instrument creating that moment in your life which you can never
recall nor forget nor explain nor condone nor even stop thinking
about, but because she herself didn't even suffer, but on the
contrary, even liked it-that month or whatever it was like the episode
in the old movie of the white
REQUIEM FOR A NUN 219
girl held prisoner in the cave by the Bedouin prince? -That you had to
lose not only your bachelor freedom, but your man's self-respect in the
chastity of his wife and your child too, to pay for something your wife
hadn't even lost, didn't even regret, didn't even miss? Is that why this
poor lost doomed crazy Negro woman must die?
GOWAN
(tensely) Get out of here. Go on.
STEVENS
In a minute.-Or else, blow your own brains out:
stop having to remember, stop having to be forever
unable to forget: nothing; to plunge into nothing and
sink and drown forever and forever, never again to
have to remember, never again to wake in the ni ' ght
writhing and sweating because you cannot, can never
not, stop remembering? What else happened during
that month, that time while that madman held her
prisoner there in that Memphis house, that nobody
but you and she knew about, maybe not even you
know about?
Still staring at Stevens, slowly and deliberately Gowan sets the glass of
whiskey back on the tray and takes up the bottle and swings it bottom up
back over his head. The stopper is out, and at once the whiskey begins to
pour out of it, down his arm and sleeve and onto the floor. He does not seem
to be aware of it even. His voice is tense, barely articulate.
GOWAN
So help me, Christ ... So help me, Christ.
A moment, then Stevens moves, without haste, sets his own
glass back on the tray and turns, taking his hat as he passes
the sofa, and goes on to the door and exits. Gowan stands a
moment longer with the poised bottle, now empty. Then he
draws a long shuddering breath, seems to rouse, wake, sets
the empty bottle back on the tray, notices his untasted whiskey
glass, takes it up, a moment: then turns and throws the glass
crashing into the fireplace, against the burning gas logs, and
stands, his back to the audience, and draws another long
shuddering breath and then draws both hands hard down his
face, then turns, looking at his wet sleeve, takes out his hand
kerchief and dabs at his sleeve as he comes back to the table,
puts the handkerchief back in his pocket and takes the folded
napkin from the small tray beside the saltcellar and wipes his
220 WILLIAM FAULKNER
sleeve with it, sees he is doing no good, tosses the crumpled napkin back
onto the whiskey tray; and now, outwardly quite c,91m again, as though
nothing had happened, he gathers the gl-sses back onto the big tray, puts
the small tray and the napkin onto it too and takes up the tray and walks
quietly toward the dining-room door as the lights begin to go down.
The lights go completely down. The stage is dark.
The lights go up.
Scene Three
Stevens living room. 10:00 P.m. March eleventh
The room is exactly as it was four months ago, except that the only light
buming is the lamp on the table, and the sofa has been moved so that it
partly faces the audience, with a smqll motionless blanket-wrapped object
lying on it, and one of the chairs placed between the lamp and the sofa so
that the shadow of its back falls across the object on the sofa, making it
more or less indistinguishable, and the dining-room doors are now closed.
The telephone sits on the small stand in the corner right as in Scene Two.
The hall door opens. Temple enters, followed by Stevens. She now wears a
long housecoat; her hair is tied back with a ribbon as though prepared for
bed. This time Stevens carries the topcoat and the hat too; his suit is
different. Apparently she has already warned Stevens to be quiet; his air
anyway shows it. She enters, stops, lets him pass her. He pauses, looks
about the room, sees the sofa, stands looking at it.
STEVENS
This is what they call a plant.
He crosses to the sofa, Temple watching him, and stops, looking down at the
shadowed object. He quietly draws aside the shadowing chair and reveals a
little boy, about four, wrapped in the blanket, asleep.
TEMPLE
Why not? Don't the philosophers and other gynecologists tell us that
women will strike back with any weapon, even their children?
STEVENS
(watching the child)
Including the sleeping pill you told me you gave Gowan?
REQUIEM FOR A NUN. 221
TEMPLE
All right.
(approaches table)
If I would just stop struggling: how much time we would save. I came
all the way back from California, but I still cant seem to quit. Do
you believe in coincidence?
STEVENS
(turns) Not unless I have to.
TEMPLE
(at table, takes up a folded yellow telegraph form, opens
it, reads)
Dated Jefferson, March sixth. 'You have a week yet until the