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20. Light Is God’s Shadow
- The University of Tennessee Press
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20 LigHT iS god’S SHadoW ‘When my captain forced me off the ship, i stood on the dock, and Morgan pointed his finger at me, saying, “in the world ye shall have tribulations. But be of good cheer. i have overcome the world.” did he refer to me or to himself? But an acoustic shadow must have been in effect—as when quite close we see the smoke of a ship’s cannon but hear nothing—so that i could not clearly hear, and i assumed it was an accusation. Perhaps not. ‘god, name the sin in lightning on the dark sky over the Bridge so that i may know it is written that i do what i do. That You willed it. not Satan. i don’t love Satan in spite. i hate god. i hate you, god, for allowing such as Satan—me—to live. i am happy only when i am darkness—darkness in the night, darkness in broad daylight, undistinguishable , ever undiminished. ‘in the swaying hammock above Morgan, listening to his murmuring voice, i saw Blythe before they paid me to sacrifice her. in a dream we were children playing together, singing, dancing on the Bridge. i remember her only in the dream now, but i mock it, i sneer. ‘Morgan writing, remembering, often in the margins of his books. The Chronicler, his history of the Bridge, and, as poet, forging words to capture the spirit of the Bridge. LigHT iS god’S SHadoW 332 ‘Look at the goodness my heinous act, like Judas’s, has wrought. Without Judas, Christ is not. The evil act is always double, as evil and as inspiration to good. The war, the plague, a malicious action of nature, and fire, a malicious act of providence, brought out both the best and the worst in mankind, but my act, but my act brings out only goodness and mercy, while only I, all the days of my life, must suffer evil. The good to whom evil is done do not suffer evil, they suffer harm, loss, grief, but it is only the evil-doer who is condemned to suffer evil itself. My suffering is in the Word (in the beginning, Lucien, was the Word). i must put into words all day and all night long, talking silently, how i think and feel about my enormous act, my act more intense than any ordinary man’s daily act. i am unique. ‘Before i die, mayhap i will write a confession—to Lucifer—my failure to do even greater evil than i have done.’ “Lucifer, you above all, more than Judas, suffer evil. Compassion! Forgive me.” ‘i am a ship with a false keel. My soul has a false bottom. ‘even when i make music my pitch is false. ‘Words are armament. ‘i am half-asleep. The night air over the Bridge chills, to the bone. ‘Half-asleep, with the water roaring in my ears, a fine rain, whispering rain, struck up against the starling in my face stinging my eyes. and now curl back my imaginary covers and roll myself up in a thick blanket of deep sleep.’ an inspiration stopped Lucien dead. ‘i will remove her from the starling of the desecrated Chapel and bury her in the arms of Peter de Colechurch in his crypt in the undercroft of Saint Thomas Chapel, among the stacks of paper and the multitude of rags.’ “Lucifer, do you look upon this act as re-consecrating that ancient fabric into a chapel again? Turn your head.” under cover of the inky shadows of midnight, Lucien used his bare fingertips to locate the cracks, his fingers to dislodge, his hands to remove the stones and pull her body out of the tomb he had made into his arms, the exertion of stealth, the stone heavier this time. Lifting up [34.226.141.207] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 09:35 GMT) 333 LigHT iS god’S SHadoW his burden again, he carried gilda through the fishermen’s door to the chapel, to desecrate it, Henry Viii having failed. ‘For i feel the spirit of this place.’ He handled hammer and spike to break into the wall and then into the tomb and open the arm bones of what he assumed to be the almost four-centuries-old skeleton of Peter de Colechurch and with a slowness he had never felt in his body placed gilda’s body, speaking to it all the while, up against...