Free American Ghosts & Old World Wonders by Angela Carter Page A

herself hastily in the shadows when an Indian on a pony comes riding down the street.
                Her lover waits for her by the scummy pond. Take me away. Save me! He strokes her hair with the first sign of tenderness. Perhaps he will take her away, if she can bear to look at him after the holocaust. Perhaps. . .
                It's very late, now. Only the Count stays up. He's gazing at the recumbent form of a wedding guest passed out on the floor, snoring. The whores have stuck a feather hat on the visitor's head, taken off his trousers, daubed his face with rouge.
                When Johnny comes in, the Count silently pours him a drink. He looks at the boy with, almost, love -- certainly with some emotion.
                "I could almost ask you. . ."
                Johnny smiles, shakes his head, whistles a few bars of Chopin's "Funeral March".
                "But then. . . be good to the little Teresa. 'The prince of darkness is a gentleman. . .' "
                Maybe. Maybe not. But, maybe. . .
     
                How Teresa's hair tangles in the comb! A great bustle in the Mendoza encampment; they've got a carriage for her, decked it with exuberant paper flowers. But she herself is nervous, anxious; she chews at her underlip, she lets the women dress her as if she were a doll. Her mother, oddly respectable in black, weeps copiously. Teresa, in her wedding-dress and veil, suddenly turns to her mother and hugs her convulsively. The woman returns the embrace fiercely.
     
                Johnny kisses the photographs of his father and mother. It's time. Unhandily carrying the rifle, in his music student's black velvet jacket, elegant, deadly, mad, he goes towards the church.
                They've put back the rococo, suffering Christ; Johnny crouches beneath him, hiding under the skirts of the altar cloth. He tests the weight of the gun in his hand, peers through the sights.
                The Count won't go to the wedding. No, he won't! He won't get out of bed. Please, Roxana, don't you go to the wedding, either! What? Not see my little niece Teresa get married? And you should come, too, you irreligious old man. Aren't you fond of Teresa?
                But the Count is sick this morning. He can't crawl out of bed. He coughs, stares at the ominous bloodstains on his handkerchief.
                "I'm dying, Roxana. Don't leave me."
                Though the bridegroom has arrived already, a huge brute, the image of Teresa's father. He takes his place before the altar. The congregation rustles. The organ plays softly.
                Roxana, late, troubled, untidily dressed, slips in at the back of the church.
                Teresa steps out of the flower-decorated carriage in front of the church. She's really worried, now, looking desperately around for Johnny. Her mother kisses her, again; this time, the girl doesn't respond, she's got too much on her mind. Her mother and the Mendoza women folk enter the church. Her father, a little dressed up, boots polished, offers her his arm.
                Traditional gasps as she walks down the aisle -- isn't she lovely! Even if her eyes search round and round the church for her rescuer. Where can he be? What will he do to save me?
                The organ rings out.
                Teresa arrives beside her bridegroom. From beneath her veil, she gives him a swift glance of furious dislike. The priest says the first words of the wedding service.
                Johnny flings back the altar cloth, leaps on the altar, shoots point-blank the wide-eyed, open-mouthed Mendoza.
                Mendoza tumbles backwards down the altar steps.
                Silence. Then, shouting. Then, gunfire. Havoc!
                But no bullet can touch Johnny; he shoots the bridegroom as the