Ceremony of the Innocent by Taylor Caldwell Read Free Book Online

among the rubbish in my cellar this morning. Thought you’d like it. You’ll like it better as you grows. I did, long ago.” She smiled at Ellen with a wry fondness. “‘Daughter of Toscar,’” she repeated.
    “Why do you call me that?” asked Ellen.
    “Because you are, seems to me.” She looked at the pink cotton dress on the line, and heaved a gusty sigh and for a moment dropped her head. Then she stared at Ellen and her formidable eyes, so compelling and insistent, so knowing, moistened. “Ach,” she muttered. “Those damned gnats.” She rubbed her furrowed eyelids. “What an innocent you are. Probably nobody can help you, not even me. Doomed—that’s what you are. Innocent.”
    Ellen looked at her in baffled silence. Mrs. Schwartz returned the lucent gaze piercingly. “I know your aunt don’t cotton to fortune-telling. She thinks it’s heathen or something even worse. She won’t fight ‘less she’s pushed to the wall. Not genteel, she thinks. Well, poor woman. A good woman, too. Very sad. Ellen, don’t you ever trust nobody, and keep your love careful, like gold too valuable to spend on the worthless. That means almost everybody. Know what the Bible says? ‘None save God is good,’ and sometimes I don’t believe that either. Or the world wouldn’t be so stinking a place. Never mind. I’m a heathen, a Romany they calls me, though I come of German stock. But I got eyes to see and ears to hear. Read something by a heathen poet:

    “O Thou who man of basest earth did make,
    And e’en with Paradise devised the snake,
    For all the sins the face of man is black with,
    Man’s forgiveness give, and take.”

    She chuckled at Ellen’s young face, so suddenly alarmed and sober. “Gets down to your heart, don’t it? It’s something to remember, always. That’s why I got my doubts about God. But not about the Devil! He’s real. What does the Bible call him? ‘Prince of this world.’ Couldn’t be righter. I’m telling you this, Ellen, because I’m scared about you. Give me your left hand,” she added abruptly.
    Ellen hesitated. Was Mrs. Schwartz “of the Devil,” as the neighbors said? Then she gave Mrs. Schwartz her long and slender hand, so lovingly formed, and Mrs. Schwartz looked at the calluses on it and she no longer grinned.
    “Yes, a borned innocent,” she said, and her voice roughened as if she were attempting to restrain some anguish. “An innocent-cursed. But that was always true. The innocent are cursed. They never learn what this world is, and all the people in it. Kill ‘em, and they’ll only look surprised—never learning. Stupid, I call it. And yet”—she paused a moment—“maybe if there’s a God He put the innocent here as a ‘reproach,’ as the Bible calls it. He don’t have real sympathy for them, seems like. Just kind of victims to prove something we don’t understand, and never will.” Her lips contorted as if she had tasted something infinitely acrid. “Maybe the Devil, and God, understands. Nobody else will.”
    She began to scrutinize Ellen’s work-scarred hand. Ellen said, “The minister today said we’ve got to love and trust.”
    Mrs. Schwartz glanced up and her eyes were fiery and her grin was malevolent.
    “He did, eh? What does he know about it? ‘Love and trust.’ Formula, as I would say, for death. Cruel death—in this world. Yes, it’s right here in your palm, my child. Written out clear, and terrible. Terrible. Hate and suspect—that’s how you can prosper in this world, and it’s the only way. Afraid you’ll never find out, and that’s what’s terrible, for somebody like you.”
    Again she studied Ellen’s palm. “Not all bad. You got some luck here, and very soon, too. But won’t lead to what the silly world calls happiness. And, money! Lots of money, lots and lots. That’s one consolation. Ain’t no substitute for money, ever. Not love, not joy. Just money. Well, that kind of satisfies me. But money can be a curse,