Requiem for a Nun

REQUIEM FOR A NUN 293

STEVENS Yes. He cant.

TEMPLE

Cant? The Governor of a state, with all the legal power to pardon or at

least reprieve, cant?

STEVENS

That's just law. If it was only law, I could have plead insanity for her

at any time, without bringing you here at two o'clock in the morning-

TEMPLE

And the other parent too; dont forget that. I dont know yet how you did

it.... Yes, Gowan was here first; he was just pretending to be asleep when

I carried Bucky in and put him in his bed; yes, that was what you called

that leaking valve, when we stopped at the filling station to change the

wheel: to let him get ahead of us-

STEVENS

All right. He wasn't even talking about justice. He was talking about a

child, a little boy-

TEMPLE

That's right. Make it good: the same little boy to hold whose normal and

natural home together, the murderess, the nigger, the dopefiend whore,

didn't hesitate to cast the last gambit-and maybe that's the wrong word

too, isn't W-she knew and had: her own debased and worthless life. Oh yes,

I know that answer too; that was brought out here tonight too: that a

little child shall not suffer in order to come unto Me. So good can come

out of evil.

STEVENS

It not only can, it must.

TEMPLE

So touchg, then. Because what kind of natural and normal home can that

little boy have where his father may at any time tell him he has no

father?

STEVENS

Haven't you been answering that question every day for six years? Didn't

Nancy answer it for you when she told you how you had fought back, not for

yourself, but for that little boy? Not to show the father that he was

wrong, nor even to prove to the little boy