(as Temple reacts)
Oh yes, I'm still playing; I'm going to ride this one too. Go ahead.
(prompting) Temple Drake-
TEMPLE
-Temple Drake, the foolish virgin; that is, a virgin as far as anybody
went on record to disprove, but a fool certainly by anybody's standards
and computation; seventeen, and more of a fool than simply being a virgin
or even being seventeen could excuse or account for; indeed, showing
herself capable of a height of folly which even seven or three, let alone
mere virginity, could scarcely have matched-
STEVENS
Give the brute a chance. Try at least to ride him at the fence and not
just through it.
TEMPLE
You mean the Virginia gentleman.
(to Governor)
That's my husband. He went to the University of Virginia, trained, Uncle
Gavin would say, at Virginia not only in drinking but in gentility
too-
STEVENS
-and ran out of both at the same instant that day eight years ago when
he took her off the train and wrecked the car at the moonshiner's house.
REQUIEM FOR A NUN 251
TEMPLE
But relapsed into one of them at least because at
least he married me as soon as he could.
(to Stevens)
You dont mind my telling his excellency that, do
you7
STEVENS
A relapse into both of them. He hasn't had a drink since that day either.
His excellency might bear that in mind too.
GOVERNOR
I will. I have.
(he makes just enough of a pause to cause them both to stop and
look at him)
I almost wish-
(they are both watching him; this is the first intimation we
have that something is going on here, an undercurrent: that the
Governor and Stevens know something which Temple doesn't: to
Temple)
He didn't come with you.
STEVENS
(mildly yet quickly)
Wont there be time for that later, Henry?
TEMPLE
(quick, defiant, suspicious, hard)
Who didn't7
GOVERNOR
Your husband.
TEMPLE
(quick and hard)
Why?
GOVERNOR
You have come here to plead for the life of the mur
deress of your child. Your husband was its parent too.
TEMPLE
You're wrong. We didn't come here at two o'clock in
the morning to save Nancy Mannigoe. Nancy Man
nigoe is not even concerned in this because Nancy
252 WILLIAM FAULKNER
Mannigoe's lawyer told me before we ever left Jefferson that you were not
going to save Nancy Mannigoe. What we came here and waked you up at two
o'clock in the morning for is just to give Temple Drake a good fair
honest chance to suffer-you know: just anguish for the sake of anguish,
like that Russian or somebody who wrote a whole book about suffering, not
suffering for or about anything, just suffering, like somebody
unconscious not really breathing for anything but just breathing. Or
maybe that's wrong too and nobody really cares, suffers, any more about
suffering than they do about truth or justice or Temple Drake's shame or
Nancy Mannigoe's worthless nigger life-
She stops speaking, sitting quite still, erect in the chair, her face raised
slightly, not looking at either of them while they watch her.
GOVERNOR
Give her the handkerchief now.
Stevens takes a fresh handkerchief from his pocket, shakes it out and
extends it toward Temple. She does not move, her hands still clasped in her
lap. Stevens rises, crosses, drops the handkerchief into her lap, returns to
his chair.
TEMPLE
Thanks really. But it doesn't matter now; we're too near the end; you
could almost go on down to the car and start it and have the engine
warming up while I finish.
(to Governor)
You see? All you'll have to do now is just be still and listen. Or not
even listen if you dont want to: but just be still, just wait. And not
long either now, and then we can all go to bed and turn off the light.
And then, night: dark: sleep even maybe, when with the same arm you turn
off the light and pull the covers up with, you can put away forever
Temple Drake and whatever it is you have done about her, and Nancy
Mannigoe and whatever it is you have done about her, if you're going to
do anything, if it even matters anyhow whether you do anything or not,
and none of it will ever have to bother us any more. Because Uncle Gavin
was only partly right. It's not that you must never even look on evil and
corruption; sometimes you cant help that, you are not always
REQUIEM FOR A NUN 253
warned. It's not even that you must resist it always. Because you've
got to start much sooner than that. You've got to be already prepared
to resist it, say no to it, long before you see it; you must have
already said no to it long before you even know what it is. I'll have
the cigarette now, please.
Stevens takes up the pack, rising and working the end of a cigarette free,
and extends the pack. She takes the cigarette, already speaking again
while Stevens puts the pack on the desk and takes up the lighter which the
Governor, watching Temple, shoves back across the desk where Stevens can
reach it. Stevens snaps the lighter on and holds it out. Temple makes no
effort to light the cigarette, holding the cigarette in her hand and
talking. Then she lays the cigarette unlighted on the ashtray and Stevens
closes the lighter and sits down again, putting the lighter down beside
the pack of cigarettes.
TEMPLE
Because Temple Drake liked evil. She only went to the ball game
because she would have to get on a train to do it, so that she could
slip off the train the first time it stopped, and get into the car to
drive a hundred miles with a man-
STEVENS
-who couldn't hold his drink.
TEMPLE
(to Stevens) All right. Aren't I just saying that?
(to Governor)
An optimist. Not the young man; he was just doing the best he knew,
could. It wasn't him that suggested the trip: it was Temple-
STEVENS
It was his car though. Or his mother's.
TEMPLE
(to Stevens) All right. All right.
(to Governor)
No, Temple was the optimist: not that she had foreseen, planned ahead
either: she just had unbounded faith that her father and brothers
would know evil when they saw it, so all she had to do was, do the one
thing which she knew they would forbid her to do if
254 WILLIAM FAULKNER
they had the chance. And they were right about the evil, and so of course
she was right too, though even then it was not easy: she even had to
drive the car for a while after we began to realize that the young man
was wrong, had graduated too soon in the drinking part of his Virginia