thick air in the courtyard, as Beth sank to her knees on the
ruined flower boxes.
She was half-conscious, and could not be sure she saw it
just that way, but up he went, end over end, whirling and
spinning like a charred leaf.
And the form took firmer shape. Enormous paws with
claws and shapes that no animal she had ever seen had ever
possessed, and the burglar, black, poor, terrified, whimpering like a whipped dog, was stripped of his flesh. His body was opened with a thin incision, and there was a rush as all
the blood poured from him like a sudden cloudburst, and yet
he was still alive, twitching with the involuntary horror of a
frog’s leg shocked with an electric current. Twitched, and
twitched again as he was tom piece by piece to shreds. Pieces
of flesh and bone and half a face with an eye blinking furiously, cascaded down past Beth, and hit the cement below with sodden thuds. And still he was alive, as his organs were
squeezed and musculature and bile and shit and skin were
rubbed, sandpapered together and let fall. It went on and on,
as the death of Leona Ciarelli had gone and on, and she
understood with the blood-knowledge of survivors at any cost
that the reason the witnesses to the death of Leona Ciarelli
had done nothing was not that they had been frozen with
horror, that they didn’t want to get involved, or that they were
inured to death by years of television slaughter.
They were worshippers at a black mass the city had demanded be staged; not once, but a thousand times a day in this insane asylum of steel and stone.
Now she was on her feet, standing half-naked in her ripped
nightgown, her hands tightening on the wrought-iron railing,
begging to see more, to drink deeper.
Now she was one of them, as the pieces of the night’s
sacrifice fell past her, bleeding and screaming.
Tomorrow the police would come again, and they would
question her, and she would say how terrible it had been, that
burglar, and how she fought, afraid he would rape her and
kill her, and how he had fallen, and she had no idea how he
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had been so hideously mangled and ripped apart, but a seven-
storey fall, after all . . .
Tomorrow she would not have to worry about walking in
the streets, because no harm could come to her. Tomorrow
she could even remove the police lock. Nothing in the city
could do her any further evil, because she had made the only
choice. She was now a dweller in the city, now wholly and
richly a part of it. Now she was taken to the bosom of her
God.
She felt Ray beside her, standing beside her, holding her,
protecting her, his hand on her naked backside, and she
watched the fog swirl up and fill the courtyard, fill the city,
fill her eyes and her soul and her heart with its power. As
Ray’s naked body pressed tightly inside her, she drank deeply
of the night, knowing whatever voices she heard from this
moment forward would be the voices not of whipped dogs,
but those of strong, meat-eating beasts.
At last she was unafraid, and it was so good, so very good
not to be afraid.
“ When inward life dries up, when feeling decreases
and apathy increases, when one cannot affect or even
genuinely touch another person, violence flares up as a
daimonic necessity for contact, a mad drive forcing
touch in the most direct way possible.’’
—Roily May, Love and Will
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Young Goodman Brown
Perhaps the original horror in American myth grows out
of the witchcraft trials in Puritan New England, our own
regional version of the Spanish Inquisition. Nathaniel
Hawthorne was the greatest American writer drawn to
the matter of the Puritans and their moral horrors. It has
been pointed out that the Puritan sermon, with its hair-
raising images of hell and damnation, was the characteristic mode of horror literature in the U.S. before the invention of the short story. Hawthorne's awareness of
horror and its effects underpins one of the great allegories of good and evil, “Young Goodman Brown." The irony that the new world of God's chosen few nurtured
in its bosom its opposite, devil worship, literally or metaphorically, endures. There is more than a hint of the world of Hawthorne in Stephen King’s “The Reach."
Young Goodman Brown, came forth at sunset into the
street at Salem village; but put his head back, after
crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his
young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust
her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with
the pink ribbons of her cap while she called to Goodman
Brown.
“ Dearest heart,” whispered she, softly and rather sadly,
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199
when her lips were close to his ear, “ prithee put off your
journey until sunrise and sleep in your own bed tonight. A
lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts
that she’s afeard of herself sometimes. Pray tarry with me
this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year.’’
“ My love and my Faith,” replied young Goodman Brown,
“ of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away
from thee. My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back
again, must needs be done ’twixt now and sunrise. What, my
sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but
three months married?”
“ Then God bless you!” said Faith, with the pink ribbons,
“ and may you find all well when you come back.”
“ Amen!” cried Goodman Brown. “ Say thy prayers, dear
Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to
thee.”
So they parted; and the young man pursued his way until,
being about to turn the comer by the meetinghouse, he looked
back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him with a
melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons.
“ Poor little Faith!” thought he, for his heart smote him.
“ What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand! She
talks of dreams, too. Methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight. But no, no; ’twould kill her to think it.
Well, she’s a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night
I ’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven.”
With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown
felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil
purpose. He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the
gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let
the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveler knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick
boughs overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be
passing through an unseen multitude.
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“ There may be a devilish India
n behind every tree," said
Goodman Brown to himself; and he glanced fearfully behind
him as he added, “ What if the devil himself should be at my
very elbow!”
His head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road,
and, looking forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in
grave and decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He
arose at Goodman Brown’s approach and walked onward side
by side with him.
“ You are late, Goodman Brown," said he. “ The clock of
the Old South was striking as I came through Boston, and
that is full fifteen minutes agone."
“ Faith kept me back awhile," replied the young man, with
a tremor in his voice, caused by die sudden appearance of
his companion, though not wholly unexpected.
It was now deep dusk in the forest, and deepest in that part
of it where these two were journeying. As nearly as could be
discerned, the second traveler was about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps
more in expression than features. Still they might have been
taken for father and son. And yet, though the elder person
was as simply clad as the younger, and as simple in manner,
too, he had an indescribable air of one who knew the world,
and who would not have felt abashed at the Governor’s dinner
table or in King William’s court, were it possible that his
affairs should call him thither. But the only thing about him
that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff, which
bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought
that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a
living serpent. This, of course, must have been an ocular
deception, assisted by the uncertain light.
“ Come, Goodman Brown,” cried his fellow traveler, “ this
is a dull pace for the beginning of a journey. Take my staff,
if you are so soon weary.”
“ Friend,” said the other, exchanging his slow pace for a
full stop, “ having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is
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201
my purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples
touching the matter thou wot’st of.”
‘‘Sayest thou so?” replied he of the serpent, smiling apart.
“ Let us walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go; and if I
convince thee not, thou shalt turn back. We are but a little
way in the forest yet.”
“ Too far! too far!” exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously
resuming his walk. “ My father never went into the woods
on such an errand, nor his father before him. We have been
a race of honest men and good Christians since the days of
the martyrs; and shall I be the first of the name of Brown
that ever took this path and kept—”
“ Such company, thou wouldst say,” observed the elder
person, interpreting his pause. “ Well said, Goodman Brown!
I have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever
a one among the Puritans; and that’s no trifle to say. I helped
your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed die Quaker
woman so smartly through the streets of Salem; and it was I
that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own
hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip’s war.
They were my good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk
have we had along this path, and returned merrily after midnight. I would fain be friends with you for their sake.”
“ If it be as thou sayest,” replied Goodman Brown, “ I
marvel they never spoke of these matters; or, verily, I marvel
not, seeing that the least rumor of the sort would have driven
them from New England. We are a people of prayer, and
good works to boot, and abide no such wickedness.”
“ Wickedness or not,” said the traveler with the twisted
staff, “ I have a very general acquaintance here in New England. The deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with me; the selectmen of divers towns make me their chairman; and a majority of the Great and General
Court are firm supporters of my interest. The Governor and
I, too—But these are state secrets.”
“ Can this be so?” cried Goodman Brown, with a stare of
amazement at his undisturbed companion. “ Howbeit, I have
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Nathaniel Hawthorne
nothing to do with the Governor and council; they have their
own ways, and are no rule for a simple husbandman like me.
But, were I to go on with thee, how should I meet the eye of
that good old man, our minister, at Salem village? Oh, his
voice would make me tremble both Sabbath day and lecture
day.”
Thus far the elder traveler had listened with due gravity;
but now burst into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself
so violently that his snakelike staff actually seemed to wriggle
in sympathy.
‘‘Ha! ha! ha!” shouted he again and again; then composing himself, ‘‘Well, go on, Goodman Brown, go on; but, prithee, don’t kill me with laughing.”
“ Well, then, to end the matter at once,” said Goodman
Brown, considerably nettled, “ there is my wife, Faith. It
would break her dear little heart; and I ’d rather break my
own.”
“ Nay, if that be the case,” answered the other, “ e’en go
thy ways, Goodman Brown. I would not for twenty old
women like die one hobbling before us that Faith should come
to any harm.”
As he spoke, he pointed his staff at a female figure on the
path, in whom Goodman Brown recognized a very pious and
exemplary dame, who had taught him his catechism in youth,
and was still his moral and spiritual adviser, joindy with the
minister and Deacon Gookin.
“ A marvel, truly, that Goody Cloyse should be so far in
the wilderness at nightfall,” said he. “ But with your leave,
friend, I shall take a cut through the woods until we have left
this Christian woman behind. Being a stranger to you, she
might ask whom I was consorting with and whither I was
going.”
“ Be it so ,” said his fellow traveler. “ Betake you to the
woods, and let me keep the path.”
Accordingly, the young man turned aside, but took care to
watch his companion, who advanced sofdy along the road
until he had come within a staff’s length of the old dame.
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203
She, meanwhile, was making the best of her way, with singular speed for so aged a woman, and mumbling some indistinct words—a prayer, doubtless—as she went. The traveler put forth his staff and touched her withered neck with what
seemed the serpent’s tail.
“ The devil!” screamed the pious old lady.
“ Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend?” observed the
traveler, confronting her and leaning on his writhing stick.
“ Ah, forsooth, and is it your worship indeed?” cried the
good dame. “ Yea, truly is it, and in the very image of my
old gossip Goodman Brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. But—would your worship beli
eve it?—my broomstick hath strangely disappeared, stolen, as I suspect,
by that unhanged witch, Goody Cory, and that, too, when I
was all anointed with the juice of smallage, and cinquefoil,
and wolfsbane—”
“ Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a newborn babe,”
said the shape of old Goodman Brown.
“ Ah, your worship knows the recipe,” cried the old lady,
cackling aloud. “ So, as I was saying, being all ready for the
meeting, and no horse to ride on, I made up my mind to foot
it; for they tell me there is a nice young man to be taken into
communion tonight. But now your good worship will lend
me your arm, and we shall be there in a twinkling.”
“ That can hardly b e,” answered her friend. “ I may not
spare you my arm, Goody Cloyse; but here is my staff, if
you will.”
So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it
assumed life, being one of the rods which its owner had formerly lent to the Egyptian magi. Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could not take cognizance. He had cast up
his eyes in astonishment, and, looking down again, beheld
neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his fellow
traveler alone, who waited for him as calmly as if nothing
had happened.
“ That old woman taught me my catechism,” said the
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Nathaniel Hawthorne
young man; and there was a world of meaning in this simple
comment.
They continued to walk onward, while the elder traveler
exhorted his companion to make good speed and persevere
in the path, discoursing so aptly that his arguments seemed
rather to spring up in the bosom of his auditor than to be
suggested by himself. As they went, he plucked a branch of
maple to serve for a walking stick, and began to strip it of
the twigs and little boughs, which were wet with evening
dew. The moment his fingers touched them, they became
strangely withered and dried up as with a week’s sunshine.
Thus the pair proceeded, at a good free pace, until suddenly,
in a gloomy hollow of the road, Goodman Brown sat himself
down on the stump of a tree and refused to go any farther.
“ Friend,” said he, stubbornly, “ my mind is made up. Not
another step will I budge on this errand. What if a wretched
old woman do choose to go to the devil when I thought she
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