on her lap. Her long blonde legs slanted, lax-ankled, her two motionless slippers with their glittering buckles lay on their sides as though empty. Above the ranked intent faces white and pallid as the floating bellies of dead fish, she sat in an attitude at once detached and cringing, her gaze fixed on something at the back of the room. Her face was quite pale, the two spots of rouge like paper discs pasted on her cheek bones, her mouth painted into a savage and perfect bow, also like something both symbolical and cryptic cut carefully from purple paper and pasted there.
The District Attorney stood before her.
“What is your name?” She did not answer. She moved her head slightly, as though he had obstructed her view, gazing at something in the back of the room. “What is your name?” he repeated, moving also, into the line of her vision again. Her mouth moved. “Louder,” he said. “Speak out. No one will hurt you. Let these good men, these fathers and husbands, hear what you have to say and right your wrong for you.”
The Court glanced at Horace, his eyebrows raised. But Horace made no move. He sat with his head bent a little, his hands clutched in his lap.
“Temple Drake,” Temple said.
“Your age?”
“Eighteen.”
“Where is your home?”
“Memphis,” she said in a scarce distinguishable voice.
“Speak a little louder. These men will not hurt you. They are here to right the wrong you have suffered. Where did you live before you went to Memphis?”
“In Jackson.”
“Have you relations there?”
“Yes.”
“Come. Tell these good men—”
“My father.”
“Your mother is dead?”
“Yes.”
“Have you any sisters?”
“No.”
“You are your father’s only daughter?”
Again the Court looked at Horace; again he made no move.
“Yes.”
“Where have you been living since May twelfth of this year?” Her head moved faintly, as though she would see beyond him. He moved into her line of vision, holding her eyes. She stared at him again, giving her parrotlike answers.
“Did your father know you were there?”
“No.”
“Where did he think you were?”
“He thought I was in school.”
“You were in hiding, then, because something had happened to you and you dared not—”
“I object!” Horace said. “The question is lead—”
“Sustained,” the Court said. “I have been on the point of warning you for some time, Mr Attorney, but defendant would not take exception, for some reason.”
The District Attorney bowed toward the Bench. He turned to the witness and held her eyes again.
“Where were you on Sunday morning, May twelfth?”
“I was in the crib.”
The room sighed, its collective breath hissing in the musty silence. Some newcomers entered, but they stopped at the rear of the room in a clump and stood there. Temple’s head had moved again. The District Attorney caught her gaze and held it. He half turned and pointed at Goodwin.
“Did you ever see that man before?” She gazed at the District Attorney, her face quite rigid, empty. From a short distance her eyes, the two spots of rouge and her mouth, were like five meaningless objects in a small heart- shaped dish. “Look where I am pointing.”
“Yes.”
“Where did you see him?”
“In the crib.”
“What were you doing in the crib?”
“I was hiding.”
“Who were you hiding from?”
“From him.”
