Requiem for a Nun

by William Faulkner

  She stops speaking, presses both hands to her face for an instant, then removes them.

  Temple

  No, no handkerchief; Lawyer Stevens and I made a dry run on handkerchiefs before we left home tonight. Where was I?

  Governor

  (quotes her) ‘It was already two dollars’—

  Temple

  So now I’ve got to tell all of it. Because that was just Nancy Mannigoe. Temple Drake was in more than just a two-dollar Saturday-night house. But then, I said touché, didn’t I?

  She leans forward and starts to take up the crushed cigarette from the ashtray. Stevens picks up the pack from the desk and prepares to offer it to her. She withdraws her hand from the crushed cigarette and sits back.

  Temple

  (to the proffered cigarette in Stevens’ hand)

  No, thanks; I wont need it, after all. From here out, it’s merely anticlimax. Coup de grace. The victim never feels that, does he?—Where was I?

  (quickly)

  Never mind. I said that before too, didn’t I?

  (she sits for a moment, her hands gripped in her lap, motionless)

  There seems to be some of this, quite a lot of this, which even our first paid servant is not up on; maybe because he has been our first paid servant for less than two years yet. Though that’s wrong too; he could read eight years ago, couldn’t he? In fact, he couldn’t have been elected Governor of even Mississippi if he hadn’t been able to read at least three years in advance, could he?

  Stevens

  Temple.

  Temple

  (to Stevens)

  Why not? It’s just stalling, isn’t it?

  Governor

  (watching Temple)

  Hush, Gavin.

  (to Temple)

  Coup de grace not only means mercy, but is. Deliver it. Give her the cigarette, Gavin.

  Temple

  (sits forward again)

  No, thanks. Really.

  (after a second)

  Sorry.

  (quickly)

  You’ll notice, I always remember to say that, always remember my manners,—‘raising’ as we put it. Showing that I really sprang from gentlefolks, not Norman knights like Nancy did, but at least people who dont insult the host in his own house, especially at two oclock in the morning. Only, I just sprang too far, where Nancy merely stumbled modestly: a lady again, you see.

  (after a moment)

  There again. I’m not even stalling now: I’m faulting—what do they call it? burking. You know: here we are at the fence again; we’ve got to jump it this time, or crash. You know: slack the snaffle, let her mouth it a little, take hold, a light hold, just enough to have something to jump against; then touch her. So here we are, right back where we started, and so we can start over. So how much will I have to tell, say, speak out loud so that anybody with ears can hear it, about Temple Drake that I never thought that anything on earth, least of all the murder of my child and the execution of a nigger dope-fiend whore, would ever make me tell? That I came here at two o’clock in the morning to wake you up to listen to, after eight years of being safe or at least quiet? You know: how much will I have to tell, to make it good and painful of course, but quick too, so that you can revoke or commute the sentence or whatever you do to it, and we can all go back home to sleep or at least to bed? Painful of course, but just painful enough—I think you said ‘euphoniously’ was right, didn’t you?

  Governor

  Death is painful. A shameful one, even more so—which is not too euphonious, even at best.

  Temple

  Oh, death. We’re not talking about death now. We’re talking about shame. Nancy Mannigoe has no shame; all she has is, to die. But touché for me too; haven’t I brought Temple Drake all the way here at two o’clock in the morning for the reason that all Nancy Mannigoe has, is to die?

  Stevens

  Tell him, then.

  Temple

  He hasn’t answered my question yet.

  (to Governor)

  Try to answer it. How much will I have to tell? Don’t just say ‘everything.’ I’ve already heard that.

  Governor

  I know who Temple Drake was: the young woman student at the University eight years ago who left the school one morning on a special train of students to attend a baseball game at another college, and disappeared from the train somewhere during its run, and vanished, nobody knew where, until she reappeared six weeks later as a witness in a murder trial in Jefferson, produced by the lawyer of the man who, it was then learned, had abducted her and held her prisoner—

  Temple

  —in the Memphis sporting house: don’t forget that.

  Governor

  —in order to produce her to prove his alibi in the murder—

  Temple

  —that Temple Drake knew had done the murder for the very good reason that—

  Stevens

  Wait. Let me play too. She got off the train at the instigation of a young man who met the train at an intermediate stop with an automobile, the plan being to drive on to the ball game in the car, except that the young man was drunk at the time and got drunker, and wrecked the car and stranded both of them at the moonshiner’s house where the murder happened, and from which the murderer kidnapped her and carried her to Memphis, to hold her until he would need his alibi. Afterward he—the young man with the automobile, her escort and protector at the moment of the abduction—married her. He is her husband now. He is my nephew.

  Temple

  (to Stevens, bitterly)

  You too. So wise too. Why can’t you believe in truth? At least that I’m trying to tell it. At least trying now to tell it.

  (to Governor)

  Where was I?

  Governor

  (quotes)

  That Temple Drake knew had done the murder for the very good reason that—

  Temple

  Oh yes. —for the very good reason that she saw him do it, or at least his shadow: and so produced by his lawyer in the Jefferson courtroom so that she could swear away the life of the man who was accused of it. Oh yes, that’s the one. And now I’ve already told you something you nor nobody else but the Memphis lawyer knew, and I haven’t even started. You see? I can’t even bargain with you. You haven’t even said yes or no yet, whether you can save her or not, whether you want to save her or not, will consider saving her or not; which, if either of us, Temple Drake or Mrs Gowan Stevens either, had any sense, would have demanded first of you.

  Governor

  Do you want to ask me that first?

  Temple

  I can’t. I don’t dare. You might say no.

  Governor

  Then you wouldn’t have to tell me about Temple Drake.

  Temple

  I’ve got to do that. I’ve got to say it all, or I wouldn’t be here. But unless I can still believe that you might say yes, I don’t see how I can. Which is another touché for somebody: God, maybe—if there is one. You see? That’s what’s so terrible. We don’t even need Him. Simple evil is enough. Even after eight years, it’s still enough.

  It was eight years ago that Uncle Gavin said—oh yes, he was there too; didn’t you just hear him? He could have told you all of this or anyway most of it over the telephone and you could be in bed asleep right this minute—said how there is a corruption even in just looking at evil, even by accident; that you can’t haggle, traffic, with putrefaction—you can’t, you don’t dare—

  (she stops, tense, motionless)

  Governor

  Take the cigarette now.

  (to Stevens)

  Gavin—

  (Stevens takes up the pack and prepares to offer the cigarette)

  Temple

  No, thanks. It’s too late now. Because here we go. If we can’t jump the fence, we can at least break through it—

  Stevens

  (interrupts
)

  Which means that anyway one of us will get over standing up.

  (as Temple reacts)

  Oh yes, I’m still playing; I’m going to ride this one too. Go ahead.

  (prompting)

  Temple Drake—

  Temple

  —Temple Drake, the foolish virgin; that is, a virgin as far as anybody went on record to disprove, but a fool certainly by anybody’s standards and computation; seventeen, and more of a fool than simply being a virgin or even being seventeen could excuse or account for; indeed, showing herself capable of a height of folly which even seven or three, let alone mere virginity, could scarcely have matched—

  Stevens

  Give the brute a chance. Try at least to ride him at the fence and not just through it.

  Temple

  You mean the Virginia gentleman.

  (to Governor)

  That’s my husband. He went to the University of Virginia, trained, Uncle Gavin would say, at Virginia not only in drinking but in gentility too—

  Stevens

  —and ran out of both at the same instant that day eight years ago when he took her off the train and wrecked the car at the moonshiner’s house.

  Temple

  But relapsed into one of them at least because at least he married me as soon as he could.

  (to Stevens)

  You don’t mind my telling his excellency that, do you?

  Stevens

  A relapse into both of them. He hasn’t had a drink since that day either. His excellency might bear that in mind too.

  Governor

  I will. I have.

  (he makes just enough of a pause to cause them both to stop and look at him)

  I almost wish—

  (they are both watching him; this is the first intimation we have that something is going on here, an undercurrent: that the Governor and Stevens know something which Temple doesn’t: to Temple)

  He didn’t come with you.

  Stevens

  (mildly yet quickly)

  Won’t there be time for that later, Henry?

  Temple

  (quick, defiant, suspicious, hard)

  Who didn’t?

  Governor

  Your husband.

  Temple

  (quick and hard)

  Why?

  Governor

  You have come here to plead for the life of the murderess of your child. Your husband was its parent too.

  Temple

  You’re wrong. We didn’t come here at two o’clock in the morning to save Nancy Mannigoe. Nancy Mannigoe is not even concerned in this because Nancy Mannigoe’s lawyer told me before we ever left Jefferson that you were not going to save Nancy Mannigoe. What we came here and waked you up at two o’clock in the morning for is just to give Temple Drake a good fair honest chance to suffer—you know: just anguish for the sake of anguish, like that Russian or somebody who wrote a whole book about suffering, not suffering for or about anything, just suffering, like somebody unconscious not really breathing for anything but just breathing. Or maybe that’s wrong too and nobody really cares, suffers, any more about suffering than they do about truth or justice or Temple Drake’s shame or Nancy Mannigoe’s worthless nigger life—

  She stops speaking, sitting quite still, erect in the chair, her face raised slightly, not looking at either of them while they watch her.

  Governor

  Give her the handkerchief now.

  Stevens takes a fresh handkerchief from his pocket, shakes it out and extends it toward Temple. She does not move, her hands still clasped in her lap. Stevens rises, crosses, drops the handkerchief into her lap, returns to his chair.

  Temple

  Thanks really. But it doesn’t matter now; we’re too near the end; you could almost go on down to the car and start it and have the engine warming up while I finish.

  (to Governor)

  You see? All you’ll have to do now is just be still and listen. Or not even listen if you dont want to: but just be still, just wait. And not long either now, and then we can all go to bed and turn off the light. And then, night: dark: sleep even maybe, when with the same arm you turn off the light and pull the covers up with, you can put away forever Temple Drake and whatever it is you have done about her, and Nancy Mannigoe and whatever it is you have done about her, if you’re going to do anything, if it even matters anyhow whether you do anything or not, and none of it will ever have to bother us anymore. Because Uncle Gavin was only partly right. It’s not that you must never even look on evil and corruption; sometimes you can’t help that, you are not always warned. It’s not even that you must resist it always. Because you’ve got to start much sooner than that. You’ve got to be already prepared to resist it, say no to it, long before you see it; you must have already said no to it long before you even know what it is. I’ll have the cigarette now, please.

  Stevens takes up the pack, rising and working the end of a cigarette free, and extends the pack. She takes the cigarette, already speaking again while Stevens puts the pack on the desk and takes up the lighter which the Governor, watching Temple, shoves across the desk where Stevens can reach it. Stevens snaps the lighter on and holds it out. Temple makes no effort to light the cigarette, holding the cigarette in her hand and talking. Then she lays the cigarette unlighted on the ashtray and Stevens closes the lighter and sits down again, putting the lighter down beside the pack of cigarettes.

  Temple

  Because Temple Drake liked evil. She only went to the ball game because she would have to get on a train to do it, so that she could slip off the train the first time it stopped, and get into the car to drive a hundred miles with a man—

  Stevens

  —who couldn’t hold his drink.

  Temple

  (to Stevens)

  All right. Aren’t I just saying that?

  (to Governor)

  An optimist. Not the young man; he was just doing the best he knew, could. It wasn’t him that suggested the trip: it was Temple—

  Stevens

  It was his car though. Or his mother’s.

  Temple

  (to Stevens)

  All right. All right.

  (to Governor)

  No, Temple was the optimist: not that she had foreseen, planned ahead either: she just had unbounded faith that her father and brothers would know evil when they saw it, so all she had to do was, do the one thing’ which she knew they would forbid her to do if they had the chance. And they were right about the evil, and so of course she was right too, though even then it was not easy: she even had to drive the car for a while after we began to realize that the young man was wrong, had graduated too soon in the drinking part of his Virginia training—

  Stevens

  It was Gowan who knew the moonshiner and insisted on going there.

  Temple

  —and even then—

  Stevens

  He was driving when you wrecked.

  Temple

  (to Stevens: quick and harsh)

  And married me for it. Does he have to pay for it twice? It wasn’t really worth paying for once, was it?

  (to Governor)

  And even then—

  Governor

  How much was it worth?

  Temple

  Was what worth?

  Governor

  His marrying you.

  Temple

  You mean to him, of course. Less than he paid for it.

  Governor

  Is that what he thinks too?

  (they stare at one another, Temple alert, quite watchful, though rather impatient than anything else)

  You’re going to tell me something that he doesn’t know, else you would have brought him with you. Is that right?