Page:Requiem for a Nun (1919) Faulkner.djvu/242

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REQUIEM FOR A NUN


No: how to do it. I know what to do, what I must do, what I’ve got to do. But how? We— I thought that all I could have to do would be to come back and go to the Big Man and tell him that it wasn’t you who killed my baby, but I did it five years ago that day when I slipped out the back door of that train, and that would be all. But we were wrong. Then I — we thought that all it would be "Was, for me just to come back here and tell you you had to die; to come all the way two thousand miles from California, to sit up all night driving to Jackson and talking for an hour or two and then driving back, to tell you had to die; not just to bring you the news that you had to die, because any messenger could do that, but just so it could be me that would have to sit up all night and talk for the hour or two hours and then bring you the news back. You know: not to save you, that wasn’t really concerned in it: but just for me, just for the suffering and the paying: a little more suffering simply because there was a little more time left for a little more of it, and we might as well use it since we were already paying for it; and that would be all; it would be finished then. But we were wrong again. That was all, only for you. You wouldn’t be any worse off if I had never come back from California. You wouldn’t even be any worse off. And this time tomorrow, you won’t be anything at all. But not me. Because there’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. All you’ve got to do is, just to die. But let Him tell me what to do. No: that’s wrong; I know

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