Read "The Flight to Lucifer" by Harold Bloom online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Perscors woke to his second morning on Lucifer. His dreams had been of the woman-of her straight-combed, long, black hair, parted in the middle; of her black eyes detachedly contemplating him; of the red bow of her mouth suddenly transformed into an arch that became the mouth of a sea monster. He had been thrown into that mouth, to find himself reposing at sea bottom. In a coral-walled sphere, he had lain helpless while watching pages drift by him, pages torn from a scripture he needed to have read. Sometimes a page sailed near enough for him to read some phrases, and these fingered in him now as he brushed river water into his eyes.
"Ruha and the stars forged plans. They took the living water and poured turbid water into it. the mystery of drunkenness. They took the head of the tribe and practiced on him the mystery of love and of lust, through which all the worlds are inflamed. They practiced on him seduction, by which all the worlds are seduced."