Davis spoke for his last time in public at the old Capitol; in 1890 the
state's greatest convention drew up the present constitution;
And still the people and the railroads: the New Orleans and Great Northern
down the Pearl River valley, the Gulf Mobile and Northern northeast;
Alabama and the eastern black prairies were almost a commuter's leap and
a line to Yazoo City and the upper river towns made of the Great Lakes
five suburban ponds; the Gulf and Ship Island opened the south Mississippi
lumber boom and Chicago voices spoke among the magnolias and the odor of
jasmine and oleander; population doubled and trebled in a decade, in 1892
Millsaps College opened its doors to assume its place among the first
establishments for higher learning; then the natural gas and the oil,
Texas and Oklahoma license plates flitted like a migration of birds about
the land and the tall flames from the vent-pipes stood like incandescent
plumes above the century-cold ashes of Choctaw camp-fires and the vanished
imprint of deer; and in 1903.the new Capitol was completed-the golden
dome, the knob, the gleamy crumb, the gilded pustule longer than the
miasma and the gigantic ephemeral saurians, more durable than the ice and
the pre-night cold, soaring, hanging as one blinding spheroid above the
center of the Commonwealth, incapable of being either looked full or
evaded, peremptory, irrefragible, and reassuring.
In the roster of Mississippi names: Claiborne. Humphries. Dickson.
McLaurin. Barksdale. Lamar. Prentiss. Davis. Sartoris. Compson;
In the roster of cities:
JACKSON. Alt, 294 ft. Pop. (A.D.1950) 201,092.
Railroads: Illinois Central, Yazoo & Mississippi Valley, Alabama & Vicksburg,
Gulf & Ship Island.
Bus: Tri-State Transit, Vanardo, Thomas, Greyhound, DixieGreyhound, Tech e-Gr
reyhound, Oliver.
Air: Delta, Chicago & Southern.
Transport: Street buses, Taxis.
Accommodations: Hotels, Tourist camps, Rooming houses. Radio: WJDX, WTJS.
240 WILLIAM FAULKNER
Diversions- chronic: S.I.A.A., Basketball Tournament, Music Festival, Junior
Auxiliary Follies, May Day Festival, State Tennis Tournament, Red Cross
Water Pageant, State Fair, Junior Auxiliary Style Show, Girl Scouts Horse
Show, Feast of Carols.
Diversions: acute: Religion, Politics.
Scene One
Office of the Governor of the State. 2:00 A.M. March twelfth.
The whole bottom of the stage is in darkness, as in Scene I, Act One, so
that the visible scene has the effect of being held in the beam of a
spotlight. Suspended too, since it is upper left and even higher above the
shadow of the stage proper than the pme in Scene 1, Act One, carrying still
further the symbolism of the still higher, the last, the ultimate seat of
judgment.
It is a corner or section of the office of the Governor of the Commonwealth,
late at night, about two A.m.-a clock on the wall says two minutes past
two-, a massive flat-topped desk bare except for an ashtray and a telephone,
behind it a highbacked heavy chair like a throne; on the wall behind and
above the chair, is the emblem, official badge, of the State, sovereignty (a
mythical one, since this is rather the State of which Yoknapatawpha County
is a unit)-an eagle, the blind scales of justice, a device in Latin perhaps,
against a flag. There are two other chairs in front of the desk, turned
slightly to face each other, the length of the desk between them.
The Governor stands in front of the high chair, between it and the desk,
beneath the emblem on the wall. He is symbolic too: no known person, neither
old nor young; he might be someone's idea not of God but of Gabriel perhaps,
the Gabriel not before the Crucifixion but after it. He has obviously just
been routed out of bed or at least out of his study or dressingroom; he
wears a dressing gown, though there is a collar and tie beneath it, and his
hair is neatly combed.
Temple and Stevens have just entered. Temple wears the same fur coat, hat,
bag, gloves etc. as in Act One, Scene 11, Stevens is dressed exactly as he
was in Scene 111, Act One, is carrying his hat. They are moving toward the
two chairs at either end of the desk.
REQUIEM FOR A NUN 241
STEVENS
Good morning, Henry. Here we are.
GOVERNOR
Yes. Sit down. (as Temple sits down) Does Mrs Stevens smoke?
STEVENS
Yes. Thank you.
He takes a pack of cigarettes from his topcoat pocket, as though he had come
prepared for the need, emergency. He works one of them free and extends the
pack to Temple. The Governor puts one hand into his dressing-gown pocket and
withdraws it, holding something in his closed fist.
TEMPLE
(takes the cigarette) What, no blindfold?
(the Governor extends his hand across the desk. It contains
a lighter. Temple puts the cigarette into her mouth. The
Governor snaps on the lighter)
But of course, the only one waiting execution is back there in
Jefferson. So all we need to do here is fire away, and hope that at
least the volley rids us of the metaphor.
GOVERNOR
Metaphor?
TEMPLE
The blindfold. The firing squad. Or is metaphor wrong? Or maybe it's the
joke. But dont apologise; a joke that has to be diagrammed is like
trying to excuse an egg, isn't it? The only thing you can do is, bury
them both, quick.
(the Governor approaches the flame to Temple's cigarette.
She leans and accepts the light, then sits back)
Thanks.
The Governor closes the lighter, sits down in the tall chair behind the
desk, still holding the lighter in his hand, his hands resting on the desk
before him. Stevens sits down in the other chair across from Temple, laying
the pack of cigarettes on the desk beside him.
242 WILLIAM FAULKNER
GOVERNOR
What has Mrs Gowan Stevens to tell me?
TEMPLE
Not tell you: ask you. No, that's wrong. I could have
asked you to revoke or commute or whatever you do
to a sentence to hang when we-Uncle Gavin tele
phoned you last night.
(to Stevens)
Go on. Tell him. Aren't you the mouthpiece?-isn't that how you say it?
Dont lawyers always tell their patients-1 mean clients-never to say
anything at alclass="underline" to let them do all the talking?
GOVERNOR
That's only before the client enters the witness stand.
TEMPLE
So this is the witness stand.
GOVERNOR
You have come all the way here from Jefferson at two o'clock in the
morning. What would you call it?
TEMPLE
All right. Touchg then. But not Mrs Gowan Stevens: Temple Drake. You
remember Temple: the allMississippi debutante whose finishing school
was the Memphis sporting house? About eight years ago, remember? Not
that anyone, certainly not the sovereign state of Mississippi's first
paid servant, need be reminded of that, provided they could read
newspapers eight years ago or were kin to somebody who could read