Requiem for a Nun

REQUIEM FOR A NUN 217

STEVENS

Stop it. Stop it, now. Here.

He takes the bottle from Gowan, sets it down, takes the tumbler and tilts

part of its contents into the other empty one, leaving at least a

reasonable, a believable, drink, and hands it to Gowan. Gowan takes it,

stopping the crazy laughter, gets hold of himself again.

GOWAN

(holding the glass untasted)

Eight years. Eight years on the wagon-and this is what I got for it:

my child murdered by a dope-fiend nigger whore that wouldn't even run

so that a cop or somebody could have shot her down like the maddog-You

see? Eight years without the drink, and so I got whatever it was I was

buying by not drinking, and now I've got whatever it was I was paying

for and it's paid for and so I can drink again. And now I dont want

the drink. You see? Like whatever it was I was buying I not only

didn't want, but what I was paying for it wasn't worth anything,

wasn't even any loss. So I have a laugh coming. That's triumph. Be-

cause I got a bargain even in what I didn't want. I got a cut rate.

I had two children. I had to pay only one of them to find out it

wasn't really costing me anything- Half price: a child, and a

dope-fiend nigger whore on a public gallows: that's all I had to pay

for immunity.

STEVENS

There's no such thing.

GOWAN

From the past. From my folly. My drunkenness.

My cowardice, if you like

STEVENS

There's no such thing as past either.

GOWAN

That is a laugh, that one. Only, not so loud, huh? to disturb the

ladies-disturb Miss Drake-Miss Temple Drake.-Sure, why not cowardice.

Only, for euphony, call it simple over-training. You know? Gowan

Stevens, trained at Virginia to drink like a gentleman, gets drunk as

ten gentlemen, takes a country college girl, a maiden: who knows?

maybe even a