own agony? Why do you and my little baby both have to suffer just because I
decided to go to a baseball game eight years ago? Do you have to suffer
everybody else's anguish just to believe in God? What kind of God is it that
has to blackmail His customers with the whole world's grief and ruin?
NANCY
He dont want you to suffer. He dont like suffering neither. But He cant help
Himself. He's like a man that's got too many mules. All of a sudden one
morn-
332 WILLIAM FAULKNER
ing, he looks around and sees more mules than he can count at one time
even, let alone find work for, and all he knows is that they are his,
because at least dont nobody else want to claim them, and that the
pasture fence was still holding them last night where they cant harm
themselves nor nobody else the least possible. And that when Monday
morning comes, he can walk in there and hem some of them up and even
catch them if he's careful about not never turning his back on the ones
he aint hemmed up. And that, once the gear is on them, they will do his
work and do it good, only he's still got to be careful about getting too
close to them, or forgetting that another one of them is behind him, even
when he is feeding them. Even when it's Saturday noon again, and he is
turning them back into the pasture, where even a mule can know it's got
until Monday morning anyway to run free in mule sin and mule pleasure.
STEVENS You have got to sin, too?
NANCY
You aint got to. You cant help it. And He knows that. But you can suffer.
And He knows that too. He dont tell you not to sin, He just asks you not
to. And He dont tell you to suffer. But He gives you the chance. He gives
you the best He can think of, that you are capable of doing. And He will
save you.
STEVENS You too? A murderess? In heaven?
NANCY I can work.
STEVENS
"ne harp, the raiment, the singing, may not be for Nancy Mannigoe-not
now. But there's still the work to be done-the washing and sweeping,
maybe even the children to be tended and fed and kept from hurt and harm
and out from under the grown folks' feet? (he pauses a moment. Nancy says
nothing, immobile, looking at no one)
Maybe even that baby?
(Nancy doesn't move, stir, not looking at anything
apparently, her face still, bemused, expressionless)
REQUIEM FOR A NUN 333
That one too, Nancy? Because you loved that baby, even at the very moment
when you raised your hand against it, knew that there was nothing left but
to raise your hand?
(Nancy dosen't answer nor stir) A heaven where that little
child will remember nothing of your hands but gentleness
because now this earth will have been nothing but a dream that
didn't matter? Is that it?
TEMPLE
Or maybe not that baby, not mine, because, since I destroyed mine myself
when I slipped out the back end of that train that day eight years ago,
I will need about all the forgiving and forgetting that one sixmonths-old
baby is capable of. But the other one: yours: that you told me about, that
you were carrying six months gone, and you went to the picnic or dance or
frolic or fight or whatever it was, and the man kicked you in the stomach
and you lost it? That one too?
STEVENS
(to Nancy)
What? Its father kicked you in the stomach while you were pregnant?
NANCY I dont know.
STEVENS You dont know who kicked you?
NANCY
I know that. I thought you meant its pa.
STEVENS
You mean, the man who kicked you wasn't even its
father?
NANCY
I dont know. Any of them might have been.
STEVENS
Any of them? You dont have any idea who its father
was?
NANCY
(looks at Stevens impatiently)
If you backed your behind into a buzz-saw, could you tell which tooth hit
you first?
(to Temple) What about that one?
334 WILLIAM FAULKNER
TEMPLE
Will that one be there too, that never had a father and never was even
born, to forgive you? Is there a heaven for it to go to so it can forgive
you? Is there a heaven, Nancy?
NANCY
I dont know. I believes.
TEMPLE
Believe what?
NANCY
I dont know. But I believes.
They all pause at the sound of feet approaching beyond the exit door, all
are looking at the door as the key clashes again in the lock and the door
swings out and the Jailor enters, drawing the door to behind him.
JAILOR
(locking the door)
Thirty minutes, Lawyer. You named it, you know: not me.
STEVENS
I'll come back later.
JAILOR
(turns and crosses toward them) Provided you dont put it off
too late. What I mean, if you wait until tonight to come
back, you might have some company; and if you put it off
until tomorrow, you wont have no client.
(to Nancy)
I found that preacher you want. He'll be here about sundown, he said. He
sounds like he might even be another good baritone. And you cant have too
many, especially as after tonight you wont need none, huh? No hard
feelings, Nancy. You committed about as horrible a crime as this county
ever seen, but you're fixing to pay the law for it, and if the child's
own mother-
(he falters, almost pauses, catches himself and continues briskly, moving
again) There, talking too much again. Come on, if Lawyer's through with
you. You can start taking your time at daylight tomorrow morning, because
you might have a long hard trip.
REQUIEM FOR A NUN 335
He passes her and goes briskly on toward the alcove at rear. Nancy turns
to follow.
TEMPLE
(quickly) Nancy.
(Nancy doesn't pause. Temple continues, rapidly)
What about me? Even if there is one and somebody waiting in it to
forgive me, there's still tomorrow and tomorrow. And suppose tomorrow
and tomorrow, and then nobody there, nobody waiting to forgive me-
NANCY
(moving on after the Jailor) Believe.
TEMPLE
Believe what, Nancy? Tell me.
NANCY
Believe.
She exits into the alcove behind the Jailor. The steel door off-stage
clangs, the key clashes. Then the Jailor reappears, approaches, and
crosses toward the exit. He unlocks the door and opens it out again,
pauses.
JAILOR
Yes, sir. A long hard way. If I was ever fool enough to commit a
killing that would get my neck into a noose, the last thing I would
want to see would be a preacher. I'd a heap rather believe there
wasn't nothing after death than to risk the station where I was
probably going to get off.
(he waits, holding the door, looking back at them. Temple
stands motionless until Stevens touches her arm slightly.