Wise Blood (20 page)

Authors: Flannery O’Connor

BOOK: Wise Blood

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Two days later, two young policemen cruising in a squad car found him lying in a drainage
ditch near an abandoned construction project. The driver drew the squad car up to
the edge of the ditch and looked into it for some time. “Ain’t we been looking for
a blind one?” he asked.

The other consulted a pad. “Blind and got on a blue suit and ain’t paid his rent,”
he said.

“Yonder he is,” the first one said, and pointed into the ditch. The other moved up
closer and looked out of the window too.

“His suit ain’t blue,” he said.

“Yes it is blue,” the first one said. “Quit pushing up so close to me. Get out and
I’ll show you it’s blue.” They got out and walked around the car and squatted down
on the edge of the ditch. They both had on tall new boots and new policemen’s clothes;
they both had yellow hair with sideburns, and they were both fat, but one was much
fatter than the other.

“It might have uster been blue,” the fatter one admitted.

“You reckon he’s daid?” the first one asked.

“Ast him,” the other said.

“No, he ain’t daid. He’s moving.”

“Maybe he’s just unconscious,” the fatter one said, taking out his new billy. They
watched him for a few seconds. His hand was moving along the edge of the ditch as
if it were hunting something to grip. He asked them in a hoarse whisper where he was
and if it was day or night.

“It’s day,” the thinner one said, looking at the sky. “We got to take you back to
pay your rent.”

“I want to go on where I’m going,” the blind man said.

“You got to pay your rent first,” the policeman said. “Ever’ bit of it!”

The other, perceiving that he was conscious, hit him over the head with his new billy.
“We don’t want to have no trouble with him,” he said. “You take his feet.”

He died in the squad car but they didn’t notice and took him on to the landlady’s.
She had them put him on her bed and when she had pushed them out the door, she locked
it behind them and drew up a straight chair and sat down close to his face where she
could talk to him. “Well, Mr. Motes,” she said, “I see you’ve come home!”

His face was stern and tranquil. “I knew you’d come back,” she said. “And I’ve been
waiting for you. And you needn’t to pay any more rent but have it free here, any way
you like, upstairs or down. Just however you want it and with me to wait on you, or
if you want to go on somewhere, we’ll both go.”

She had never observed his face more composed and she grabbed his hand and held it
to her heart. It was resistless and dry. The outline of a skull was plain under his
skin and the deep burned eye sockets seemed to lead into the dark tunnel where he
had disappeared. She leaned closer and closer to his face, looking deep into them,
trying to see how she had been cheated or what had cheated her, but she couldn’t see
anything. She shut her eyes and saw the pin point of light but so far away that she
could not hold it steady in her mind. She felt as if she were blocked at the entrance
of something. She sat staring with her eyes shut, into his eyes, and felt as if she
had finally got to the beginning of something she couldn’t begin, and she saw him
moving farther and farther away, farther and farther into the darkness until he was
the pin point of light.

BOOKS BY
FLANNERY O’CONNOR

NOVELS

Wise Blood

The Violent Bear It Away

STORIES

A Good Man Is Hard to Find

Everything That Rises Must Converge

with an introduction by Robert Fitzgerald

The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor

edited and with an introduction

by Robert Giroux

NON-FICTION

Mystery and Manners

edited and with an introduction

by Robert and Sally Fitzgerald

The Habit of Being

edited and with an introduction

by Sally Fitzgerald

AUTHOR’S NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION

W
ISE
B
LOOD
has reached the age of ten and is still alive. My critical powers are just sufficient
to determine this, and I am gratified to be able to say it. The book was written with
zest and, if possible, it should be read that way. It is a comic novel about a Christian
malgré lui,
and as such, very serious, for all comic novels that are any good must be about matters
of life and death.
Wise Blood
was written by an author congenitally innocent of theory, but one with certain preoccupations.
That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block
for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. For them
Hazel Motes’ integrity lies in his trying with such vigor to get rid of the ragged
figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind. For the author Hazel’s
integrity lies in his not being able to. Does one’s integrity ever lie in what he
is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will,
but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a
mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen.