Requiem for a Nun

206 WILLIAM FAULKNER

a drunkard, a casual prostitute, being beaten by some man or cutting or

being cut by his wife or his other sweetheart. She has probably been

married, at least once. Her name-or so she calls it and would probably spell

it if she could spell-is Nancy Mannigoe.

There is a dead silence in the room while everybody watches her.

JUDGE

Have you anything to say before the sentence of the court is pronounced

upon you?

Nancy neither answers nor moves; she doesn't even seem to be listening.

That you, Nancy Mannigoe, did on the thirteenth day of June, wilfully and

with malice aforethought kill and murder the infant child of Mr and Mrs

Gowan Stevens in the town of Jefferson and the County of Yoknapatawpha

...

It is the sentence of this court that you be taken from hence back to the

county jail of Yoknapatawpha County and there on the thirteenth day of

March be hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may God have mercy

on your soul.

NANCY

(quite loud in the silence, to no one, quite calm, not moving) Yes, Lord.

There is a gasp, a sound, from the invisible spectators in the room, of

shock at this unheard-of violation of procedure: the beginning of something

which might be consternation and even uproar, in the midst of, or rather

above which, Nancy herself does not move. The judge bangs his gavel, the

bailiff springs up, the curtain starts hurriedly and jerkily down as if the

judge, the officers, the court itself were jerking frantically at it to hide

this disgraceful business; from somewhere among the unseen spectators thrre

comes the sound of a woman's voice-a moan, wail, sob perhaps.

BAILIFF

(loudly)

Orderl Order in the courtl Orderl

The curtain descends rapidly, hiding the scene, the lights fade rapidly into

darkness: a moment of darkness: then the curtain rises smoothly and normally

on: