DY Header CLOSE WINDOW

Sanctuary
Manuscript, page 131. Transcription follows image.
Page 131, Sanctuary Ms
William Faulkner Foundation Collection, 1918-1959, Accession #6074 to 6074-d, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections,
University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.   [Item Metadata: IA:6) SANCTUARY Autograph manuscript. 138 p. (137 R, 1 V) on 137 l. Slipcase. ]


TRANSCRIPTION

no longer subject this defenseless child to the agony of — " He ceased; the heads turned as one and
watched a man come stalking up the aisle toward the Bench.

Sanctuary
Chapter One

<From beneath her small brimless black hat red hair curled in small, tight bursts. The hat bore a rhinestone orna-
ment. Upon her>
[margin: black satin]
lap lay a platinum bag, her hands motionless, palm up upon the bag, her pale tan coat open upon the
[stark?] square neck of the dress and a shoulder knot of imitation purple flowers on the left shoulder. Her <blonde> thin
blonde legs appeared to [cringe?] one to the other, lax ankled, her two motionless slippers lying on their sides like empty slippers,
and in the witness chair, above the <gaping> white small faces like the floating bellies of dead fish, <she sat> looking like a
<child> playacting child in her new and expensive finery, she sat in an attitude at once aloof and cringing. Her face was quite
white, the two spots of rouge like paper discs pasted to her cheek bones, her mouth painted into a savage
[margin: and painted]
cupid's bow,
like something also cut carefully from purple paper and pasted there. She seemed to stare without vision at
something in the back of the room and the old man walked up the aisle and quite through her line of vision like a
runner crossing a tape, but she did not move.>

The old man walked steadily up the aisle, followed, paced by a slow gaping of the small white faces, a slow hissing of
collars. He had neat white hair and a clipped moustache like a bar of <[illegible]> hammered silver against his dark
skin. He eyes were pouched a little. A small paunch buttoned snugly into his immaculate white linen suit, and
he carried a panama hat in one hand and a slender black stick in the other. He walked steadily up the aisle
in a slow suspiration of silence like a prolonged sigh, looking to neither side. He passed the witness chair without a
glance at the girl
[margin: who still gazed at something in the back of the room, walking right through her line of vision like a runner crossing a tape,]
and stopped before the bar above which the Court, his robes like half-[furled?] black wings, leaned
forward, half risen, in a sudden hissing silence like a held breath.

"Your Honor," the old man said, "is the court done with this witness?"

"Yes, sir, Judge," the Court said, <his> the muffled flurry of his movement stirring his robes in sombre [obesiance?], "Yes, sir.
<Mister District Attorney,> Defendant, do you waive . . . . . . . . . . . . " The old man turned slowly, erect above the held breaths, the
little white faces, and looked <at> down at <the prisoner, <<a>> the woman with a child, an infant in her arms, and 4 men> 6 people who sat <at> <around> at a long table
on which papers and books, <and two hats lay.>
[margin: a pistol, a stoneware jug, a corncob that appeared to have been <dipped into dark paint, lay>] thrust half
its length into dark colored paint, lay
Behind him the witness had not moved. She sat in her attitude of
childish immobility, gazing <at something in the rear of the> above the faces at something in the rear of the room, <her eyes all pupil
and quite black,> like a drugged person, <the 3 savage spots of paint like 3 stark and meaningless shapes coming out
of a print in a photographer's developing solution.> The old man turned to her and extended his hand. The <gird> girl did
not move. The <spec> room expelled its breath slowly, the Court still half risen in his [illegible] colors, looking down on the bar.
He touched her arm <; the room> She turned her head <and looked at him> toward him, her eyes blanks and all pupil and
quite black, the 3 savage spots of rouge like 3 stark and meaningless shapes emerging from a photographer's solution.
She put her hand into his in a blind movement and in the continuation of it she rose, the platinum bag slipping from
her lap <in a> to the floor with a thin clash, gazing again at something in the back of the room. With the < toe gl>
toe of his small gleaming shoe the old man flipped the bag into the corner where the jury box formed an angle with
the bar, where a spittoon sat, and <led the> steadied the girl down from the chair. The room sighed again.

The girl stopped again, slender in her smart open coat, her blank face <fixed> rigid, then she moved obediently, her hand
still in the old man's. They returned down the aisle, the old man erect beside her, looking to neither side, paced
by that slow whisper of collars. Halfway down the girl stopped. She began to cringe back, her body arching slowly, her
arm tautening in her pale sleeve. The old man bent toward her. He said something to her; she moved again, in that
attitude of rapt abasement. 4 young men now stood stiffly erect near the door. They stood like soldiers on parade,
<until the old m> gazing straight ahead until the old man and the girl reached them. Then they moved, and in a
close body, <the 5 people> the girl's figure hidden among them, the 5 men moved on to the door. Here they stopped
again; <amid them> between their clotting the girl could be seen. She was shrunk against the wall inside the door, her
body arched again. She appeared to be clinging there by some means, then the 5 bodies hid her again, and again [in?] a
close body the group [passed?] through the door and disappeared. The room sighed again, a buzzing sound like that of a wind
getting up; <At the long table> the whispers of collars swept forward a like a <[illegible]> slow rush of sand, on and across
the long table where the prisoner, <in overalls, a stained felt hat on his knee and his arms folded and> the woman
margin: <in a gray, clumsy, [illegible], clean, faintly outmoded street dress of ash colored crepe [illegible] and a gray hat> ]
car-
<rying an infant wrapped in a square cut from a faded clean blanket>,
margin: with the child in her arms,]
and Horace Benbow <and the District Attorney> and