The Plumed Serpent by D. H. Lawerence

Author:D. H. Lawerence [Lawerence, D. H.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: epubBooks Classics
Published: 2015-03-13T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XV

The Written Hymns of Quetzalcoatl

The electric light in Sayula was as inconstant as everything else. It would come on at half–past six in the evening, and it MIGHT bravely burn till ten at night, when the village went dark with a click. But usually it did no such thing. Often it refused to sputter into being till seven, or half–past, or even eight o'clock. But its worst trick was that of popping out just in the middle of supper, or just when you were writing a letter. All of a sudden, the black Mexican night came down on you with a thud. And then everybody running blindly for matches and candles, with a calling of frightened voices. Why were they always frightened? Then the electric light, like a wounded thing, would try to revive, and a red glow would burn in the bulbs, sinister. All held their breath— was it coming or not? Sometimes it expired for good, sometimes it got its breath back and shone, rather dully, but better than nothing.

Once the rainy season had set in, it was hopeless. Night after night it collapsed. And Kate would sit with her weary, fluttering candle, while blue lightning revealed the dark shapes of things in the patio. And half–seen people went swiftly down to Juana's end of the patio, secretly.

On such a night Kate sat on her veranda facing the deepness of the black night. A candle shone in her desert salon. Now and again she saw the oleanders and the papaya in the patio garden, by the blue gleam of lightning that fell with a noiseless splash into the pitch darkness. There was a distant noise of thunder, several storms prowling round like hungry jaguars, above the lake.

And several times the gate clicked, and crunching steps came along the gravel, someone passed on the gravel walk, saluting her, going down to Juana's quarters, where the dull light of a floating oil– wick shone through the grated window–hole. Then there was a low, monotonous sound of a voice, reciting or reading. And as the wind blew and the lightning alighted again like a blue bird among the plants, there would come the sharp noise of the round cuentas falling from the cuenta–tree.

Kate was uneasy and a bit forlorn. She felt something was happening down in the servants' corner, something secret in the dark. And she was stranded in her isolation on her terrace.

But, after all, it was her house, and she had a right to know what her own people were up to. She rose from her rocking–chair and walked down the veranda and round the dining–room bay. The dining– room, which had its own two doors on the patio, was already locked up.

In the far corner beyond the well she saw a group sitting on the ground, outside the doorway of Juana's kitchen–hole. Out of this little kitchen–shed shone the light of the floating–wick lamp, and a voice was slowly intoning, all the faces were looking into the

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