Free Requiem for a Nun by William Faulkner Page B

Drake. The truth.

    Temple
    Truth? We’re trying to save a condemned murderess whose lawyer has already admitted that he has failed. What has truth got to do with that?

    (rapid, harsh)

    We?
I,
I
, the mother of the baby she murdered; not you, Gavin Stevens, the lawyer, but I, Mrs Gowan Stevens, the mother. Cant you get it through your head that I will do anything,
any
thing?

    Stevens
    Except one. Which is all. We’re not concerned with death. That’s nothing: any handful of petty facts and sworn documents can cope with that. That’s all finished now; we can forget it. What we are trying to deal with now is injustice. Only truth can cope with that. Or love.

    Temple
    (harshly)

    Love. Oh, God. Love.

    Stevens
    Call it pity then. Or courage. Or simple honor honesty, or a simple desire for the right to sleep at night.

    Temple
    You prate of sleep, to me, who learned six years ago how not even to realise any more that I didn’t mind not sleeping at night?

    Stevens
    Yet you invented the coincidence.

    Temple
    Will you for Christ’s sake stop? Will you . . . All right. Then if her dying is nothing, what do you want? What in God’s name do you want?

    Stevens
    I told you. Truth.

    Temple
    And I told you that what you keep on harping at as truth has nothing to do with this. When you go before the—What do you call this next collection of trained lawyers? supreme court?—what you will need will be facts, papers, documents, sworn to, incontrovertible, that no other lawyer trained or untrained either can punch holes in, find any flaw in.

    Stevens
    We’re not going to the supreme court.

    (she stares at him)

    That’s all finished. If that could have been done, would have sufficed, I would have thought of that, attended to that, four months ago. We’re going to the Governor. Tonight.

    Temple
    The Governor?

    Stevens
    Perhaps he wont save her either. He probably wont.

    Temple
    Then why ask him? Why?

    Stevens
    I’ve told you. Truth.

    Temple
    (in quiet amazement)

    For no more than that. For no better reason than that. Just to get it told, breathed aloud, into words, sound. Just to be heard by, told to, someone, anyone, any stranger none of whose business it is, can possibly be, simply because he is capable of hearing, comprehending it. Why blink your own rhetoric? Why dont you go on and tell me it’s for the good of my soul—if I have one?

    Stevens
    I did. I said, so you can sleep at night.

    Temple
    And I told you I forgot six years ago even what it was to miss the sleep.
    She stares at him. He doesn’t answer, looking at her. Still watching him, she reaches her hand to the table, toward the cigarette box, then stops, is motionless, her hand suspended, staring at him.

    Temple
    There is something else, then. We’re even going to get the true one this time. All right. Shoot.
    He doesn’t answer, makes no sign, watching her. A moment: then she turns her head and looks toward the sofa and the sleeping child. Still looking at the child, she rises and crosses to the sofa and stands looking down at the child; her voice is quiet.

    Temple
    So it was a plant, after all; I just didn’t seem to know for who.

    (she looks down at the child)

    I threw my remaining child at you. Now you threw him back.

    Stevens
    But I didn’t wake him.

    Temple
    Then I’ve got you, lawyer. What would be better for his peace and sleep than to hang his sister’s murderer?

    Stevens
    No matter by what means, in what lie?

    Temple
    Nor whose.

    Stevens
    Yet you invented the coincidence.

    Temple
    Mrs Gowan Stevens did.

    Stevens
    Temple Drake did. Mrs Gowan Stevens is not even fighting in this class. This is Temple Drake’s.

    Temple
    Temple Drake is dead.

    Stevens
    The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
    She comes back to the table, takes a cigarette from the box, puts it in her mouth and reaches for the lighter. He leans as though to hand it to her, but