150
PARTISAN R'EVIEW
Pay attention, he told himself. Mind your own business.
He looked at the veiled monstrance; the brightest threads of
the veil sparkled like mica, gold-white on silver-white, and in one
place a rigid shaft of metal radiance almost pierced the fabric. One
azalea bloom strayed against it as if it were straining
to
be
near it.
Tmy threads sprang out of the flare of the blossom, the way small
straight lines are drawn in a funny-paper to show music coming out
of a horn. An apple-blossom fell. Looking at the tired sleepless flames
of the candles, Richard felt as if he could almost hear them burning.
Soul of Christ sanctify me, he prayed silently; Body of Christ
save me; but he was just saying it mechanically, and too fast. Slowly
now, thinking carefully of each word, he began again.
Soul of Christ sanctify me: make mo holy: absolve me from all
spot of sin:
Body of Christ save me: save me: Thy Body which has already
begun to suHer and die:
He braced his mind.
Blood of Christ inebriate me:
Carefully as he tried, he could not avoid it. Inebriate meant just
plain drunken, or meant a drunken person, especially habitual
drunkard, and as it was used here, it meant to make drunk, to in–
toxicate. And inebriety meant drunkenness and the habit of drunk–
enness. He had been fond of the word for a long time before he
knew, or realized that he did not know, its meaning-which must of
course be simply what the Blood of Christ might most naturally be
expected to do: but what would that be, that sounded as nice as
inebriate? During the past winter it had occurred to him to look it up
in a dictionary. Since then the correct and disconcerting meanings had
been indelible, and that part of the prayer had become thin ice. He
could only get past it without irreverent or skeptical thoughts by say–
ing it so fast or so shallowly that it was impossible to bear its mean–
ing in mind, and that was no way to pray. He had asked Father Fish
about it and Father Fish had shown
him
that it was possible to be
amused by the word without feeling irreverent. He had said that
some of these ancient prayers were rather extravagant in their way
of putting things, and that there was no need to take them with abso–
lute literalness. Although he had no way of being sure, Richard ha!l
a feeling that Father Fish had been as amused at him, as at the
