Requiem for a Nun by William Faulkner

perhaps.

    Bailiff
    (loudly)

    Order! Order in the court! Order!
    The curtain descends rapidly, hiding the scene, the lights fade rapidly into darkness: a moment of darkness: then the curtain rises smoothly and normally on:
Scene II
    Stevens living room. 6:00 P.M. November thirteenth.
    Living room, a center table with a lamp, chairs, a sofa left rear, floor lamp, wall-bracket lamps, a door left enters from the hall, double doors rear stand open on a dining room, a fireplace right with gas logs. The atmosphere of the room is smart, modern, up-to-date, yet the room itself has the air of another time—the high ceiling, the cornices, some of the furniture; it has the air of being in an old house, an antebellum house descended at last to a spinster survivor who has modernised it (vide the gas fire and the two overstuffed chairs) into apartments rented to young couples or families who can afford to pay that much rent in order to live on the right street among other young couples who belong to the right church and the country club.
    Sound of feet, then the lights come on as if someone about to enter had pressed a wall switch, then the door left opens and Temple enters, followed by Gowan, her husband, and the lawyer, Gavin Stevens. She is in the middle twenties, very smart, soignée, in an open fur coat, wearing a hat and gloves and carrying a handbag. Her air is brittle and tense, yet controlled. Her face shows nothing as she crosses to the center table and stops. Gowan is three or four years older. He is almost a type; there were many of him in America, the South, between the two great wars: only children of financially secure parents living in city apartment hotels, alumni of the best colleges, South or East, where they belonged to the right clubs; married now and raising’ families yet still alumni of their schools, performing acceptably jobs they themselves did not ask for, usually concerned with money: cotton futures, or stocks, or bonds. But this face is a little different, a little more than that. Something has happened to it—tragedy—something, against which it had had no warning, and to cope with which (as it discovered) no equipment, yet which it has accepted and is trying, really and sincerely and selflessly (perhaps for the first time in its life) to do its best with according to its code. He and Stevens wear their overcoats, carrying their hats. Stevens stops just inside the room. Gowan drops his hat onto the sofa in passing and goes on to where Temple stands at the table, stripping off one of her gloves.

    Temple
    (takes cigarette from box on the table: mimics the prisoner; her voice, harsh, reveals for the first time repressed, controlled, hysteria)

    Yes, God. Guilty, God. Thank you, God. If that’s your attitude toward being hung, what else can you expect from a judge and jury except to accommodate you?

    Gowan
    Stop it, Boots. Hush now. Soon as I light the fire, I’ll buy a drink.

    (to Stevens)

    Or maybe Gavin will do the fire while I do the butler.

    Temple
    (takes up lighter)

    I’ll do the fire. You get the drinks. Then Uncle Gavin wont have to stay. After all, all he wants to do is say good-bye and send me a postcard. He can almost do that in two words, if he tries hard. Then he can go home.
    She crosses to the hearth and kneels and turns the gas valve, the lighter ready in her other hand.

    Gowan
    (anxiously)

    Now, Boots.

    Temple
    (snaps lighter, holds flame to the jet)

    Will you for God’s sake please get me a drink?

    Gowan
    Sure, honey.

    (he turns: to Stevens)

    Drop your coat anywhere.
    He exits into the dining room. Stevens does not move, watching Temple as the log takes fire.

    Temple
    (still kneeling, her back to Stevens)

    If you’re going to stay, why don’t you sit down? Or vice versa. Backward. Only, it’s the first one that’s backward: if you’re not sitting down, why don’t you go? Let me be bereaved and vindicated, but at least let