Requiem for a Nun

328 WILLIAM FAULKNER

unchanged. She is dressed exactly as before, except for the apron; she

still wears the hat.

NANCY

(to Temple)

You been to California, they tell me. I used to think maybe I would

get there too, some day. But I waited too late to get around to it.

TEMPLE

So did 1. Too late and too long. Too late when I went to California,

and too late when I came back. That's it: too late and too long, not

only for you, but for me too; already too late when both of us should

have got around to running, like from death itself, from the very air

anybody breathed named Drake or Mannigoe.

NANCY

Only, we didn't. And you come back, yesterday evening. I heard that

too. And I know where you were last night, you and him both.

(indicating Stevens) You went to see the Mayor.

TEMPLE

Oh, God, the mayor. No: the Governor, the Big Man himself, in Jackson.

Of course; you knew that as soon as you realised that Mr Gavin

wouldn't be here last night to help you sing, didn't you? In fact, the

only thing you cant know about it is what the Governor told us. Yon

cant know that yet, no matter how clairvoyant you are, because we-the

Governor and Mr Gavin and 1-were not even talking about you; the

reason 1--we had to go and see him was not to beg or plead or bind or

loose, but because it would be my right, my duty, my privilege-Dont

look at me, Nancy.

NANCY

I'm not looking at you. Besides, it's all right. I know what the

Governor told you. Maybe I could have told you last night what he

would say, and saved you the trip. Maybe I ought to have-sent you the

word as soon as I heard you were back home, and knowed what you and

him-

(again she indicates Stevens with that barely discernible

movement of her head, her hands still folded across her

middle as though