TEMPLE
Which nobody will dispute. You threatened me with my children, and
even with my husband-if you can call my husband a threat. You even
stole my elopement money. Oh yes, nobody will dispute that you tried,
Though at least you brought the money back. Pick it up.
NANCY You said you dont need it.
TEMPLE I dont. Pick it up.
NANCY No more do I need it.
TEMPLE
Pick it up, anyway. You can keep your next week's pay out of it when
you give it back to Mr Gowan.
Nancy stoops and gathers up the money, and gathers the jewelry back into
its box, and puts them on the table.
(quieter)
REQUIEM FOR A NUN 283
Nancy.
(Nancy looks at her)
I'm sorry. Why do you force me to this-hitting and screaming at you, when
you have always been so good to my children and me-my husband too-all of
us-trying to hold us together in a household, a family, that anybody
should have known all the time couldn't possibly hold together? even in
decency, let alone happiness?
NANCY
I reckon I'm ignorant. I dont know that yet. Besides, I aint talking about
any household or happiness neither-
TEMPLE
(with sharp command) Nancyl
NANCY
-I'm talking about two little children-
TEMPLE
I said, hush.
NANCY
I cant hush. I'm going to ask you one more time. Are you going to do it?
TEMPLE
Yes!
NANCY
Maybe I am ignorant. You got to say it out in words yourself, so I can
hear them. Say, I'm going to do it.
TEMPLE
You heard me. I'm going to do it.
NANCY
Money or no money.
TEMPLE
Money or no money.
NANCY
Children or no children.
(Temple doesn't answer)
To leave one with a man that's willing to believe the child aint got no
father, willing to take the other one to a man that dont even want no
children-
(They stare at one another) If you can do it, you can say
it.
284 WILLIAM FAULKNER
TEMPLE
Yes! Children or no children! Now get out of here.
Take your part of that money, and get out. Here-
Temple goes quickly to the table, removes two or three bills from the mass
of banknotes, and hands them to Nancy, who takes them. Temple takes up the
rest of the money, takes up her bag from the table and opens it. Nancy
crosses quietly toward the nursery, picking up the milk bottle from the
table as she passes, and goes on. With the open bag in one hand and the
money in the other, Temple notices Nancy's movement.
What are you doing?
NANCY
(still moving)
This bottle has got cold. I'm going to warm it in the bathroom.
Then Nancy stops and looks back at Temple, with something so strange in
her look that Temple, about to resume putting the money into the bag,
pauses too, watching Nancy. When Nancy speaks, it is like the former
speech: we dont realise until afterward what it signifies.
I tried everything I knowed. You can see that.
TEMPLE
(peremptory, commanding)
Nancy.
NANCY
(quietly, turning on)
I've hushed.
She exits through the door into the nursery. Temple finishes putting the
money into the bag, and closes it and puts it back on the table. Then she
turns to the baby's bag. She tidies it, checks rapidly over its contents,
takes up the jewel box and stows it in the box and closes the bag. All
this takes about two minutes; she has just closed the bag when Nancy
emerges quietly from the nursery, without the milk bottle, and crosses,
pausing at the table only long enough to put back on it the money Temple
gave her, then starts on toward the opposite door through which she first
entered the room.
TEMPLE
Now what?
Nancy goes on toward the other door. Temple watches her.
Nancy.
(Nancy pauses, still not looking
back)
REQUIEM FOR A NUN 285
Dont think too hard of me.
(Nancy waits, immobile, looking at nothing. When Temple
doesn't continue, she moves again toward the door)
If I-it ever comes up, I'll tell everybody you did
your best. You tried. But you were right. It wasn't
even the letters. It was me.
(Nancy moves on)
Good-bye, Nancy.
(Nancy reaches the door)
You've got your key. I'll leave your money here on
the table. You can get it
(Nancy exits)
Nancyl
There is no answer. Temple looks a moment longer at the empty door, shrugs,
moves, takes up the money Nancy left, glances about, crosses to the littered
desk and takes up a paperweight and returns to the table and puts the money
beneath the weight; now moving rapidly and with determination, she takes up
the blanket from the table and crosses to the nursery door and exits through
it. A second or two, then she screams. The lights flicker and begin to dim,
fade swiftly into complete darkness, over the scream.
The stage is in complete darkness.
Scene Three
Same as Scene 1. Governor's Office. 3:09 A.M. March twelfth.
The lights go on upper left. The scene is the same as before, Scene 1,
except that Gowan Stevens now sits in the chair behind the desk where the
Governor had been sitting and the Governor is no longer in the room. Temple
now kneels before the desk, facing it, her arms on the desk and her face
buried in her arms. Stevens now stands beside and over her. The hands of the
clock show nine minutes past three.
Temple does not know that the Governor has gone and that her husband is now
in the room.
TEMPLE
(her face still hidden)
And that's all. The police came, and the murderess
still sitting in a chair in the kitchen in the dark, saying
286 WILLIAM FAULKNER
'Yes, Lord, I done it,' and then in the cell at the jail still saying
it-
(Stevens leans and touches her arm, as if to help her up. She
resists, though still not raising her head)
Not yet. It's my cue to stay down here until his honor or excellency
grants our plea, isn't it? Or have I already missed my cue forever even
if the sovereign state should offer me a handkerchief right out of its
own elected public suffrage dressing-gown pocket? Because see?
(she raises her face, quite blindly, tearless, still not
looking toward the chair where she could see Gowan instead
of the Governor, into the full glare of the light)
Still no tears.
STEVENS
Get up, Temple.
(he starts to lift her again, but before he can do so, she
rises herself, standing, her face still turned away from the
desk, still blind; she puts her arm up almost in the gesture
of a little girl about to cry, but instead she merely shields