MARS
525
turned it the same way, wounding her nape, her throat and her
brazen shoulders, while his gaze was fixed on the picture as if for
instruction. The woman reached for the loose old frame, extracted
the picture and wiped the glass. Both of them were reflected against
a background of rough cardboard. They diverted themselves, their
cheeks close together, by making grimaces of a terrifying bestiality;
but the host crossed himself lest the faces be graven on them.
Getting tired of this they used the brandy to draw sticky figures
on the glass and on each other's palms, graffiti such as are found
in soldier's canteens, always illustrating the same theme.
Johanna- a tempest in her soul and a feeling of release stabbing
through her womb as if the fruit were loosening- took the brandy
bottle, broke it against the wall and collected the splinters. Greedily
she licked tPe sharp edges until her tongue began dripping blood;
):
e man wrested the glass from her. She begged him to give back
a fragment, cutting her hands as she took it, and tossed it to
him–
he ught it bravely and they played ball with it until their pain
became unbearable and all bounds were left behind. . . .
When the naked man in the steel helmet came toward her,
Johanna was frightened once more and tore shoes, stockings, bodice
and shirt off, throwing them into his path, as though the husks that
had concealed the prey from his wild eyes could now hold him off.
But he pushed the rags aside; he saw before him in flickering ribbons
of flame the alien French woman, exposing her wounded neck; as
she tripped and fell backward he caught her in his hairy arms. He
placed the steel helmet on her bulging belly, looked martially into
her melting face-and vomited over her.
At four in the morning the unclean woman rose feeling the
poweJiul signs of approaching birth. She washed herself with cold
water, put on a shirt and a coat and left the room like an animal
going to its lair. On the stairs she stopped, shaken by the onrush of
pain--as though her body were trying to throw off something. In
the d.)orway the wind took her: the air was pure and clear, pale
blue toward the east where the tympanum with the hooded man stood
again 'It the dawn sky. The hopeless cattle stirred dumbly in the stables
and somewhere a wide-awake cock cried out his lament.
The woman proceeded with difficulty, groping her way along
the wall toward the chapel room which was unlocked. There she
