Requiem for a Nun

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)