Published in 1952, WISE BLOOD is the first of two novels written by Flannery O'Connor. THE VIOLENT BEAR IT AWAY, her second novel, was published in 1960.

WISE BLOOD
by Flannery O'Connor

After encountering an old blind man and young girl handing out religious tracts in Taulkinham, Hazel Motes remembers the penance he did as a child after seeing a naked woman at the carnival.

"What you seen," She said, using the same tone of voice all the time. She hit him across the legs with the stick, but he was like part of the tree. "Jesus died to redeem you," she said.

"I never ast him," he muttered.

She didn't hit him again but she stood looking at him, shut-mouthed, and he forgot the guilt that was in him. In a minute she threw the stick away from her and went back to the washpot, still shut-mouthed.

The next day he took his shoes in secret out into the woods. He didn't wear them except for revivals and in the winter. He took them out of the box and filled the bottoms of them with stones and small rocks and then he put them on. He laced them up tight and walked in them through the woods for what he knew to be a mile, until he come to a creek, and then he sat down and took then off and eased his feet in the wet sand. He thought, that ought to satisfy Him. Nothing happened. If a stone had fallen he would have taken it as a sign. After a while he drew his feet out of the sand and let them dry, and then he put the shoes on again with the rocks still in them and he walked a half-mile back before he took them off.