Only a few minutes after both had chewed the gum, the man strangled his wife, heaved her body into the river, picked up another woman in his arms, and run off into the darkness of the woods with her.
Another man had leaped upon a grailstone and delivered a speech that lasted all night, even through the rain. To the few who could hear, and the even fewer who listened, he had demonstrated the principles of a perfect society and how these could be carried out in practice. By dawn, he was so hoarse he could only croak a few words. On Earth, he had seldom bothered to vote.
A man and a woman, outraged at the public display of carnality, had forcefully tried to separate couples. The results bruises, bloody noses, split lips, and two concussions, all theirs, Some men and women had spent the night on their knees praying and confessing their sins.
Some children had been badly beaten, raped, or murdered, or all three. But not everybody had succumbed to the madness. A number of adults had protected the children, or tried to.
Ruach described the despair and disgust of a Croat Moslem and an Austrian Jew because their grails contained pork. A Hindu screamed obscenities because his grail offered him meat.
A fourth man, crying out that they were in the hands of devils, had hurled his cigarettes into the river.
Several had said to him, “Why didn’t you give us the cigarettes if you didn’t want them?”
“Tobacco is the invention of the devil; it was the weed created by Satan in the Garden of Eden!”
A man said, “At least you could have shared the cigarettes with us. It wouldn’t hurt you.”
“I would like to throw all the evil stuff into the river!” he had shouted.
“You’re an insufferable bigot and crazy to boot,” another had replied, and struck him in the mouth. Before the tobacco-hater could get up off the ground, he was hit and kicked by four others.
Later, the tobacco-hater had staggered up and, weeping with rage, cried, “What have I done to deserve this, O Lord, my God! I have always been a good man. I gave thousands of Pounds to charities, I worshipped in Thy temple three times a week, I waged a lifelong war against sin and corruption, I . .
“I know you!” a woman had shouted. She was a tall blue-eyed 62 girl with a handsome face and well-curved figure. “I know you! Sir Robert Smithson!”
He had stopped talking and had blinked at her. “I don’t know you!”
“You wouldn’t! But you should! I’m one of the thousands of girls who had to work sixteen hours a day, six and a half days a week, so you could live in your big house on the hill and dress in fine clothes and so your horses and dogs could eat far better than I could! I was one of your factory girls! My father slaved for you, my mother slaved for you, my brothers and sisters, those who weren’t too sick or who didn’t die because of too little or too bad food, dirty beds, drafty windows, and rat bites, slaved for you. My father lost a hand in one of your machines, and you kicked him out without a penny. My mother died of the white plague. I was coughing out my life, too, my fine baronet, while you stuffed yourself with rich foods and sat in easy chairs and dozed off in your big expensive church pew and gave thousands to feed the poor unfortunates in Asia and to send missionaries to convert the poor heathens in Africa. I coughed out my lungs, and I had to go a-whoring to make enough money to feed my kid sisters and brothers. And I caught syphilis, you bloody pious bastard, because you wanted to wring out every drop of sweat and blood I had and those poor devils like me had! I died in prison because you told the police they should deal harshly with prostitution. You . . . you . . .!”
Smithson had gone red at first, then pale. Then he had drawn himself up straight, scowling at the woman, and said, “You whores always have somebody to blame for your unbridled lusts, your evil ways. God knows that I followed His ways.” He had turned and had walked off, but the woman ran after him and swung her grail at him. It came around swiftly; somebody shouted; he spun and ducked. The grail almost grazed the top of his head.
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