STEVENS
Then you really dont want her to die. You did invent the coincidence.
TEMPLE
Didn't I just say so? At least, let's for God's sake stop that, cant we?
STEVENS
Done. So Temple Drake will have to save her.
TEMPLE
Mrs Gowan Stevens will.
STEVENS
Temple Drake.
226 WILLIAM FAULKNER
She stares at him, smoking, deliberately now. Deliberately she removes the
cigarette and, still watching him, reaches and snubs it out in the ashtray.
STEVENS
All right. Tell me again. Maybe I'll even understand this time, let
alone listen. We produce-turn up with -a sworn affidavit that this
murderess was crazy when she committed the crime.
TEMPLE
You did listen, didn't you? Who knows-
STEVENS
Based on what?
TEMPLE
-What?
STEVENS
The affidavit. Based on what?
(she stares at him) On what proof?
TEMPLE
Proof?
STEVENS
Proof. What will be in the affidavit? What are we going to affirm now
that for some reason, any reason, we-you-we didn't see fit to bring up
or anyway didn't bring up until after she-
TEMPLE
How do I know? You're the lawyer. What do you want in it? What do such
affidavits have in them, need to have in them, to make them work, make
them sure to work? Dont you have samples in your law booksreports,
whatever you call them-that you can copy and have me swear to? Good
ones, certain ones? At least, while we're committing whatever this is,
pick out a good one, such a good one that nobody, not even an untrained
lawyer, can punch holes in it....
Her voice ceases. She stares at him, while he continues to look steadily
back at her, saying nothing, just looking at her, until at last she draws a
loud harsh breath; her voice is harsh too.
TEMPLE
What do you want then? What more do you want?
REQUIEM FOR A NUN 227
STEVENS
Temple Drake.
TEMPLE
(quick, harsh, immediate) No. Mrs Gowan Stevens.
STEVENS
(implacable and calm) Temple Drake. The truth.
TEMPLE
Truth? We're trying to save a condemned murderess whose lawyer has already
admitted that he has failed. What has truth got to do with that?
(rapid, harsh)
We? 1, 1, the mother of the baby she murdered; not you, Gavin Stevens. the
lawyer, but 1, Mrs Gowan Stevens, the mother. Cant you get it through your
head that I will do anything, anything?
STEVENS
Except one. Which is all. We're not concerned with death. That's nothing:
any handful of petty facts and sworn documents can cope with that. That's
all finished now; we can forget it. What we are trying to deal with now
is injustice. Only truth can cope with that. Or love.
TEMPLE
(harshly) Love. Oh, God. Love.
STEVENS
Call it pity then. Or courage. Or simple honor, honesty, or a simple
desire for the right to sleep at night.
TEMPLE
You prate of sleep, to me, who learned six years ago how not even to
realise any more that I didn't mind not sleeping at night?
STEVENS
Yet you invented the coincidence.
TEMPLE
Will you for Christ's sake stop? Will you . . . All right. Then if her
dying is nothing, what do you want? What in God's name do you want?
STEVENS
I told you. Truth.
228 WILLIAM FAULKNER
TEMPLE
And I told you that what you keep on harping at as truth has nothing to
do with this. When you go before the- What do you call this next
collection of trained lawyers? supreme court?-what you will need will be
facts, papers, documents, sworn to, incontrovertible, that no other
lawyer trained or untrained either can punch holes in, find any flaw in.
STEVENS
We're not going to the supreme court.
(she stares at him)
That's all finished. If that could have been done, would have sufficed,
I would have thought of that, attended to that, four months ago. We're
going to the Governor. Tonight.
TEMPLE
The Governor?
STEVENS
Perhaps he wont save her either. He probably wont.
TEMPLE
Then why ask him? Why?
STEVENS
I've told you. Truth.
TEMPLE
(in quiet amazement)
For no more than that. For no better reason than that. Just to get it
told, breathed aloud, into words, sound. Just to be heard by, told to,
someone, anyone, any stranger none of whose business it is, can possibly
be, simply because he is capable of hearing, comprehending it. Why blink
your own rhetoric? Why dont you go and tell me it's for the good of my
soul-if I have one?
STEVENS
I did. I said, so you can sleep at night.
TEMPLE
And I told you I forgot six years ago even what it was to miss the
sleep.
She stares at him. He doesn't answer, looking at her. Still watching him,
she reaches her hand to the table, toward the cigarette box, then stops, is
motionless, her hand suspended, staring at him.
REQUIEM FOR A NUN 229
TEMPLE
There is something else, then. We're even going to get the true one
this time. All right. Shoot.
He doesn't answer, makes no sign, watching her. A moment: then she turns
her head and looks toward the sofa and the sleeping child. Still looking
at the child, she rises and crosses to the sofa and stands looking down
at the child; her voice is quiet.
TEMPLE
So it was a plant, after all; I just didn't seem to know for who.
(she looks down at the child) I threw my remaining child
at you. Now you threw him back.
STEVENS
But I didn't wake him.
TEMPLE
Then I've got you, lawyer. What would be better for his peace and
sleep than to hang his sister's murderer?
STEVENS
No matter by what means, in what lie?
TEMPLE
Nor whose.
STEVENS
Yet you invented the coincidence.
TEMPLE
Mrs Gowan Stevens did.
STEVENS
Temple Drake did. Mrs Gowan Stevens is not even fightiDg in this
class. This is Temple Drake's.
TEMPLE
Temple Drake is dead.
STEVENS
The past is never dead. It's not even past.
She comes back to the table, takes a cigarette from the box, puts it in
her mouth and reaches for the lighter. He leans as though to hand it to
her, but she has already found it, snaps it on and lights the cigarette,