Les Guerilleres by Monique Wittig Read Free Book Online Page B

a young peasant girl and Lei Zu learned of it. It may also be imagined that Lei Zu is an empress without followers and without pomp, that she has acquired by observation experimental knowledge of the bombyx. Indeed it is written that after having discovered the silkworm Lei Zu brought their cultivation and the manufacture of their silk to a fine art. As a first step Lei Zu discovers the material that can be extracted from the threadlike substance secreted by the bombyxes when they surround themselves with a cocoon. As a second step she realizes the need to produce artificially great concentrations of bombyxes. As a third step she determines the several operations essential for the production of silk thread: sorting the cocoons, asphyxiating the chrysalises, emptying the cocoons to obtain the raw silk, drawing the raw silk out into threads or else spinning it mechanically using a jenny furnished with spindles.
    The women say that they could carry out great ceremonies of mourning. For example they could bewail the death of Julie. One of them asks if she has been strangled and if this was done with a violet material. Another says that she was publicly hanged on a gibbet, her feet protruding beyond her long tunic, her head shorn in sign of infamy. They say that perhaps she was decapitated, the neck being severed from the head and letting a wave of blood escape from the carotid. It may also be that she was broken alive on the wheel in the public square. To her who asks the nature of her crime they answer that it was identical with that of the woman of whom it is written that she saw that the tree of the garden was good to eat, tempting to see, and that it was the tree requisite for gaining understanding.
    When there are no high trees beside the avenues thickets of willows birches apples bushes of box hedges or even very tall flowers, the eye can trace their extent in its entirety. In whatever part of the garden one may happen to be, one can ascertain by turning completely around the geometric forms that govern the network of figures. If the system is rigorous one can combine multiple itineraries. The limits and the proportions of the figures are related to a hypothetical infinity in the same way as the diverse series of numbers.

    VASA FABIANA BELISSUNU
    NEBKA MAUD ARETE MAAT
    ATALANTA DIOMEDE URUK
    OM FRANCOISE NAUSICAA
    PUDUHEPA KUWATALLA
    AGATHOCLEA BOZENA NADA

    The two armies confront each other. The embattled women stand motionless, awaiting the order to move forward. In their hands they hold kites the colour of their army. One lot is red, the others are blue. The kites are stationary, aligned vertically above their heads. The trumpets are sounded. They attack. All at once there is a confusion of red and blue kites, of red and blue bodies. The kites collide violently. Some escape with a great rustling. A red kite is motionless over the sea. A combatant runs along the beach trying to gain possession of it. A band of blue kites escape towards the dunes, they are pursued by red kites. Laughter and singing are heard. Some of the women, deprived of their kites, are stretched out in the middle of the battlefield, bleeding.
    The women incite with their laughs and shouts those who fight in the grass. They fight until they bring each other down. Their thighs, their knees, are seen in motion. Their strength is based on the firm seating of the trunk on the pelvis. They have straight backs that bend vigorously and are lissome at the loins. Later, stiffly erect, they march towards the hills. They find closed villages, stoutly walled. Then, addressing themselves to the walls, they ask which of them possesses the greatest strength.
    The women say they have learned to rely on their own strength. They say they are aware of the force of their unity. They say, let those who call for a new language first learn violence. They say, let those who want to change the world first seize all the rifles. They say that they are starting from zero. They