Requiem for a Nun

244 WILLIAM FAULKNER

husband and I took out of the gutter to nurse our children. She murdered

one of them and is to be hung tomorrow morning. We-her lawyer and I-have

come to ask you to save her.

GOVERNOR

Yes. I know all that. Why?

TEMPLE

Why am 1, the mother whose child she murdered, asking you to save her?

Because I have forgiven her.

(the Governor watches her, he and Stevens both do, waiting. She stares

back at the Governor steadily, not defiant: just alert) Because she was

crazy.

(the Governor watches her: she stares back, puffing rapidly

at the cigarette)

All right. You dont mean why I am asking you to save her, but why 1-we

hired a whore and a tramp and a dopefiend to nurse our children.

(she puffs rapidly, talking

through the smoke)

To give her another chance-a human being too, even a nigger dopefiend

whore-

STEVENS

Nor that, either.

TEMPLE

(rapidly, with a sort of despair) Oh yes, not even stalling

now. Why cant you stop lying? You know: just stop for a

while or a time like you can stop playing tennis or running

or dancing or drinking or eating sweets during Lent. You

know: not to reform: just to quit for a while, clear your

system, rest up for a new tune or set or lie? All right. It

was to have someone to talk to. And now you see? I'll have

to tell the rest of it in order to tell you why I had to

have a dopefiend whore to talk to, why Temple Drake, the

white woman, the all-Mississippi debutante, descendant of

long lines of statesmen and soldiers high and proud in the

high proud annals of our sovereign state, couldn't find

anybody except a nigger dopefiend whore that could speak her

language-