Savage Holiday by Richard Wright

Author:Richard Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Phocion Publishing
Published: 2019-10-30T16:00:00+00:00

PART THREE: ATTACK

We must obey the gods, whatever those gods are.

—Euripides’ Orestes

...This cup is the new testament in my blood; this do ye, as oft ye drink it, in remembrance of me.

—St. Paul, I Cor. 11:25

See, see where Christ’s blood streams in the firmament!

One drop would save my soul—

—Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus

* * * * *

STILL seething because of Mabel’s flightiness, and suffering from the stabbing pain in his left palm, he mopped the blood from the floor, cleaned up the feathers, and rebandaged his hand with a thin strip of adhesive tape. He didn’t want Mabel to see his wound when he ate dinner with her tonight...

His anger finally ebbed and he sat hunched, ashamed at how far he had let his emotions sweep him. What was wrong? It was plain that the woman was a simple slut; that’s all...All right. Okay. Why, then, didn’t he forget her? But, even in asking the question, he knew that he couldn’t leave her alone. Mabel was still his agent provocateur mysteriously inciting him, provoking him onwards towards—what deed? There were fleeting, frightening moments when he seemed on the verge of knowing just what she was silently urging him to do, and then the sense of it would suddenly elude him, would evaporate, leaving him anxious and perturbed. And at once, as though to protect himself against something which he had to know but didn’t want to know, he’d remember that she knew something about those “naked feet dangling” on the balcony, that she was still puzzled over that blot of blood on the newspapers, and he’d suspect that she knew something about that phone call...It always seemed that he was expecting one kind of reaction from her and she kept bewildering him with actions that were completely contrary.

He was willing to forget whatever she had done in the past, but her past could not, must not follow her into his life. Hadn’t she sense enough to know that? Didn’t she know a good man when she saw one? At dinner tonight he’d be strict with her. She’s just a little spoilt fool...And her prettiness has turned her silly...

Fatigued, he stretched upon his bed and fell into a sleep that was troubled by dreams. He thought that he was a child again and was in a huge and empty church which had row upon row of pews extending towards a tall pulpit and he was walking down the center aisle with slow and measured steps and to the sound of low, sad organ music and he was wondering why he was alone and walking like this and then suddenly he saw ahead of him a coffin beautifully wrought in shining silver and surrounded by heaping banks of flowers and as he neared the gleaming coffin something urgent compelled him to look down and he saw a dead woman who was lovely and young and lying in a flowing white muslin dress and it seemed that she was not really dead but just

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