(to Nancy)
Not that I wouldn't like to, you know. For less than fifty bucks even.
For old lang syne.
He transfers the bags to one hand, opens the french window, starts to
exit, pauses half way out and looks back at Temple.
REQUIEM FOR A NUN 279
I'll be listening, in case you change your mind about the cigarette.
He goes on out, draws the door to after him. Just before it closes, Nancy
speaks.
NANCY
Wait.
Pete stops, begins to open the door again.
TEMPLE
(quickly: to Pete) Go on! Go on! For God's sake go on!
Pete exits, shuts the door after him. Nancy and Temple face each other.
NANCY
Maybe I was wrong to think that just hiding that money and diamonds was
going to stop you. Maybe I ought to have give it to him yesterday as soon
as I found where you had hid it. Then wouldn't nobody between here and
Chicago or Texas seen anything of him but his dust.
TEMPLE
So you did steal it. And you saw what good that did, didn't you?
NANCY
If you can call it stealing, then so can 1. Because wasn't but part of
it yours to begin with. Just the diamonds was yours. Not to mention that
money is almost two thousand dollars, that you told me was just two
hundred and that you told him was even less than that, just fifty. No
wonder he wasn't worried -about just fifty dollars. He wouldn't even be
worried if he knowed it was even the almost two thousand it is, let alone
the two hundred you told me it was. He aint even worried about whether
or not you'll have any money at all when you get out to the car. He knows
that all he's got to do is, just wait and keep his hand on you and maybe
just mash hard enough with it, and you'll get another passel of money and
diamonds too out of your husband or your pa. Only, this time he'll have
his hand on you and you'll have a little trouble telling him it's just
fifty dollars instead of almost two thousand-
280 WILLIAM FAULKNER
Temple steps quickly forward and slaps Nancy across the face.
Nancy steps back. As she does so, the packet of money and
the jewel box fall to the floor from inside her topcoat. Temple
stops, looking down at the money and jewels. Nancy recovers.
Yes, there it is, that caused all the grief and ruin. If you hadn't been
somebody that would have a box of diamonds and a husband that you could
find almost two thousand dollars in his britches pocket while he was
asleep, that man wouldn't have tried to sell you them letters. Maybe if
I hadn't taken and hid it, you would have give it to him before you come
to this. Or maybe if I had just give it to him yesterday and got the
letters, or maybe if I was to take it out to where he's waiting in that
car right now, and say, Here, man, take your money-
TEMPLE
Try it. Pick it up and take it out to him, and see. If you'll wait until
I finish packing, you can even carry the bag.
NANCY
I know. It aint even the letters any more. Maybe it never was. It was
already there in whoever could write the kind of letters that even eight
years afterward could still make grief and ruin. The letters never did
matter. You could have got them back at any time; he even tried to give
them to you twice-
TEMPLE
How much spying have you been doing?
NANCY
All of it.-You wouldn't even needed money and
diamonds to get them back. A woman dont need it.
All she needs is womanishness to get anything she
wants from men. You could have done that right
here in the house, without even tricking your husband
into going off fishing.
TEMPLE
A perfect example of whore morality. But then, if I can say whore, so can
you, cant you? Maybe the difference is, I decline to be one in my
husband's house.
NANCY
I aint talking about your husband. I aint even talking about you. I'm
talking about two little children.
REQUIEM FOR A NUN 281
TEMPLE
So am 1. Why else do you think I sent Bucky on to his grandmother, except
to get him out of a house where the man he has been taught to call his
father, may at any moment decide to tell him he has none? As clever a spy
as you must surely have heard my husband-
NANCY
(interrupts)
I've heard him. And I heard you too. You fought back-that time. Not for
yourself, but for that little child. But now you have quit.
TEMPLE
Quit?
NANCY
Yes. You gave up. You gave up the child too. Willing to risk never seeing
him again maybe.
(Temple doesn't answer)
That's right. You don't need to make no excuses to me. Just tell me what
you must have already strengthened your mind up to telling all the rest
of the folks that are going to ask you that. You are willing to risk it.
Is that right?
(Temple doesn't answer)
All right. We'll say you have answered it. So that settles Bucky. Now
answer me this one. Who are you going to leave the other one with?
TEMPLE
Leave her with? A six-months-old baby?
NANCY
That's right. Of course you cant leave her. Not with nobody. You cant no
more leave a six-months-old baby while you run away from your husband with
another man, than you can take a six-months-old baby with you on that
trip. That's what I'm talking about. So maybe you'll just leave it in
there in th',it cradle; it'll cry for a while, but it's too little to cry
very loud and so maybe wont nobody hear it and come meddling, especially
with the house shut up and locked until Mr Gowan gets back next week, and
probably by that time it will have hushed-
TEMPLE
Are you really trying to make me hit you again?
282 WILLIAM FAULKNER
NANCY
Or maybe taking her with you will be just as easy, at least until the
first time you write Mr Gowan or your pa for money and they dont send
it as quick as your new man thinks they ought to, and he throws you
and the baby both out. Then you can just drop it into a garbage can
and no more trouble to you or anybody, because then you will be rid
of both of them-
(Temple makes a convulsive movement, then catches herself) Hit me.
Light you a cigarette too. I told you and him both I brought my foot.
Here it is.
(she raises her foot slightly)
I've tried everything else; I reckon I can try that too.
TEMPLE
(repressed, furious) Hush. I tell you for the last time.
Hush.
NANCY I've hushed.
She doesn't move. She is not looking at Temple. There is a slight change
in her voice or manner, though we only realise later that she is not
addressing Temple.
I've tried. I've tried everything I know. You can see that.