Sanctuary

stranger talking and to the thick, soft sound of the jug as they passed

it among themselves. "That fool," the woman said. "What does he want. .

. ." She listened to the stranger's voice; a quick, faintly outlandish

voice, the voice of a man given to much talk and not much else. "Not to

drinking, anyway," the woman said, quiet inside the door. "He better get

SANCTUARY 11

on to where he's going, where his women folks can take care of him."

She listened to him. "From my window I could see the grape arbor, and in

the winter I could see the hammock too. That's why we know nature is a she;

because of that conspiracy between female flesh and female season. So each

spring I could watch the reaffirmation of the old ferment hiding the

hammock; the green-snared promise of unease. What blossoms grapes have,

this is. It's not much: a wild and waxlike bleeding less of bloom than

leaf, hiding and hiding the hammock, until along in late May, in the

twilight, her-Little Belle's-voice would be like the murmur of the wild

grape itself. She never would say, 'Horace, this is Louis or Paul or

Whoever' but 'It's just Horace.' Just, you see; in a little white dress in

the twilight, the two of them all demure and quite alert and a little

impatient. And I couldn't have felt any more foreign to her flesh if I had

begot it myself.

"So this morning-no; that was four days ago; it was Thursday she got home

from school and this is Tuesday-1 said, 'Honey, if you found him on the

train, he probably belongs to the railroad company. You cant take him from

the railroad company; that's against the law, like the insulators on the

poles.'

'He's as good as you are. He goes to Tulane.'

'But on a train, honey,' I said.

'I've found them in worse places than on the train.'

'I know,' I said. 'So have 1. But you don't bring them home, you know. You

just step over them and go on. You don't soil your slippers, you know.'

"We were in the living-room then; it was just before dinner; just the two

of us in the house then. Belle had gone down town.

" 'What business is it of yours who comes to see me? You're not my father.

You're just-just-'

:6 'WhatT I said. 'Just whatT

"Tell Mother, thenl Tell her. That's what you're going to do. Tell herl'

"'But on the train, honey,' I said. 'If he'd walked into your room in a

hotel, I'd just kill him. But on the train, I'm disgusted. Let's send him

along and start all over again.'

" 'You're a fine one to talk about finding things on the train! You're a

fine onel Shrimp! Shrimp!'"

"He's crazy," the woman said, motionless inside the door. The stranger's

voice went on tumbling over itself rapid and diffuse.

"Then she was saying 'Nol No!' and me holding her and she clinging to me.

'I didn't mean thatl Horacel Horacel' And

12 WILLIAM FAULKNER

I was smelling the slain flowers, the delicate dead flowers and tears, and

then I saw her face in the mirror. There was a mirror behind her and

another behind me, and she was watching herself in the one behind me

forgetting about the other one in which I could see her face, see her

watching the back of my head with pure dissimulation. That's why nature

is 'she' and Progres~i is 'he'; nature made the grape arbor, but Progress

invented the mirror."

"He's crazy," the woman said inside the door listening.

"But that wasn't quite it. I thought that maybe the spring, or maybe

being forty-three years old, had upset me. I thought that maybe I would

be all right if I just had a hill to lie on for a while- It was that

country. Flat and rich and foul, so that the very winds seem to engender

money out of it. Like you wouldn't be surprised to find that you could

turn in the leaves off the trees, into the banks for cash. That Delta.

Five thousand square miles, without any hill save the bumps of dirt the

Indians made to stand on when the River overflowed.

"So I thought it was just a hill I wanted; it wasn't Little Belle that

set me off. Do you know what it was?"

"He is," the woman said inside the door. "Lee ought not to let-"

Benbow had not waited for any answer. "It was a rag with rouge on it. I

knew I would find it before I went into Belle's room. And there it was,

stuffed behind the mirror; a handkerchief where she had wiped off the

surplus paint when she dressed and stuck it behind the mantel. I put it

into the clothesbag and took my hat and walked out. I had got a lift on

a truck before I found that I had no money with me. That was part of it

too, you see; I couldn't cash a check. I couldn't get off the truck and

go back to town and get some money. I couldn't do that. So I have been

walking and bumming rides ever since. I slept one night in a sawdust pile

at a mill, one night at a negro cabin, one night in a freight car on a

siding. I just wanted a hill to lie on, you see. Then I would be all

right. When you marry your own wife, you start off from scratch . . .

maybe scratching. When you marry somebody else's wife, you start off

maybe ten years behind, from somebody else's scratch and scratching. I

just wanted a hill to lie on for a while."