William Faulkner - Sanctuary

The broad double doors at the head of the cramped stair were open. From beyond them came a steady preliminary stir of people settling themselves. Above the seat-backs Horace could see their heads—bald heads, gray heads, shaggy heads and heads trimmed to recent feather-edge above sunbaked necks, oiled heads above urban collars and here and there a sunbonnet or a flowered hat.

The hum of their voices and movements came back upon the steady draft which blew through the door. The air entered the open windows and blew over the heads and back to Horace in the door, laden with smells of tobacco and stale sweat and the earth and with that unmistakable odor of courtrooms; that musty odor of spent lusts and greeds and bickerings and bitterness, and withal a certain clumsy stability in lieu of anything better. The windows gave upon balconies close under the arched porticoes. The breeze drew through them, bearing the chirp and coo of sparrows and pigeons that nested in the eaves, and now and then the sound of a motor horn from the square below, rising out of and sinking back into a hollow rumble of feet in the corridor below and on the stairs.

The Bench was empty. At one side, at the long table, he could see Goodwin’s black head and gaunt brown face, and the woman’s gray hat. At the other end of the table sat a man picking his teeth. His skull was capped closely by tightly-curled black hair thinning upon a bald spot. He had a long, pale nose. He wore a tan palm beach suit; upon the table near him lay a smart leather brief-case and a straw hat with a red-and-tan band, and he gazed lazily out a window above the ranked heads, picking his teeth. Horace stopped just within the door. “It’s a lawyer,” he said. “A Jew lawyer from Memphis.” Then he was looking at the backs of the heads about the table, where the witnesses and such would be. “I know what I’ll find before I find it,” he said. “She will have on a black hat.”

He walked up the aisle. From beyond the balcony window where the sound of the bell seemed to be and where beneath the eaves the guttural pigeons crooned, the voice of the bailiff came:

“The honorable Circuit Court of Yoknapatawpha county is now open according to law.……”

Temple had on a black hat. The clerk called her name twice before she moved and took the stand. After a while Horace realised that he was being spoken to, a little testily, by the Court.

“Is this your witness, Mr Benbow?”

“It is, your Honor.”

“You wish her sworn and recorded?”

“I do, your Honor.”

Beyond the window, beneath the unhurried pigeons, the bailiff’s voice still droned, reiterant, importunate, and detached, though the sound of the bell had ceased.

28

The district attorney faced the jury. “I offer as evidence this object which was found at the scene of the crime.” He held in his hand a corn-cob. It appeared to have been dipped in dark brownish paint. “The reason this was not offered sooner is that its bearing on the case was not made clear until the testimony of the defendant’s wife which I have just caused to be read aloud to you gentlemen from the record.

“You have just heard the testimony of the chemist and the gynecologist—who is, as you gentlemen know, an authority on the most sacred affairs of that most sacred thing in life: womanhood—who says that this is no longer a matter for the hangman, but for a bonfire of gasoline—”

“I object!” Horace said: “The prosecution is attempting to sway—”

“Sustained,” the Court said. “Strike out the phrase beginning ‘who says that’, mister clerk. You may instruct the jury to disregard it, Mr Benbow. Keep to the matter in hand, Mr District Attorney.”

The District Attorney bowed. He turned to the witness stand, where Temple sat. From beneath her black hat her hair escaped in tight red curls like clots of resin. The hat bore a rhinestone ornament. Upon her black satin lap lay a platinum bag. Her pale tan coat was open upon a shoulder knot of purple. Her hands lay motionless, palm-up on her lap. Her long blonde legs slanted, lax-ankled, her two motionless slippers with their glittering buckles lay on their sides as though empty. Above the ranked intent faces white and pallid as the floating bellies of dead fish, she sat in an attitude at once detached and cringing, her gaze fixed on something at the back of the room. Her face was quite pale, the two spots of rouge like paper discs pasted on her cheek bones, her mouth painted into a savage and perfect bow, also like something both symbolical and cryptic cut carefully from purple paper and pasted there.

The District Attorney stood before her.

“What is your name?” She did not answer. She moved her head slightly, as though he had obstructed her view, gazing at something in the back of the room. “What is your name?” he repeated, moving also, into the line of her vision again. Her mouth moved. “Louder,” he said. “Speak out. No one will hurt you. Let these good men, these fathers and husbands, hear what you have to say and right your wrong for you.”

The Court glanced at Horace, his eyebrows raised. But Horace made no move. He sat with his head bent a little, his hands clutched in his lap.

“Temple Drake,” Temple said.

“Your age?”

“Eighteen.”

“Where is your home?”

“Memphis,” she said in a scarce distinguishable voice.

“Speak a little louder. These men will not hurt you. They are here to right the wrong you have suffered. Where did you live before you went to Memphis?”

“In Jackson.”

“Have you relations there?”

“Yes.”

“Come. Tell these good men—”

“My father.”

“Your mother is dead?”

“Yes.”

“Have you any sisters?”

“No.”

“You are your father’s only daughter?”

Again the Court looked at Horace; again he made no move.

“Yes.”

“Where have you been living since May twelfth of this year?” Her head moved faintly, as though she would see beyond him. He moved into her line of vision, holding her eyes. She stared at him again, giving her parrotlike answers.

“Did your father know you were there?”

“No.”

“Where did he think you were?”

“He thought I was in school.”

“You were in hiding, then, because something had happened to you and you dared not—”

“I object!” Horace said. “The question is lead—”

“Sustained,” the Court said. “I have been on the point of warning you for some time, Mr Attorney, but defendant would not take exception, for some reason.”

The District Attorney bowed toward the Bench. He turned to the witness and held her eyes again.

“Where were you on Sunday morning, May twelfth?”

“I was in the crib.”

The room sighed, its collective breath hissing in the musty silence. Some newcomers entered, but they stopped at the rear of the room in a clump and stood there. Temple’s head had moved again. The District Attorney caught her gaze and held it. He half turned and pointed at Goodwin.

“Did you ever see that man before?” She gazed at the District Attorney, her face quite rigid, empty. From a short distance her eyes, the two spots of rouge and her mouth, were like five meaningless objects in a small heart-shaped dish. “Look where I am pointing.”

“Yes.”

“Where did you see him?”

“In the crib.”

“What were you doing in the crib?”

“I was hiding.”

“Who were you hiding from?”

“From him.”

“That man there? Look where I am pointing.”

“Yes.”

“But he found you.”

“Yes.”