Narrative 1 from Virgie Rainey -- Two Narratives, Judith Zaimont

Ji-Hyang Gwak, piano Ryu-Kyung Kim, mezzosoprano Jennifer Sydor, dancer Andrea Chenoweth Wells, soprano Text by Eudora Welty …Always wishing for a little more…. The day Miss Katie died, Virgie was kneeling on the floor of her bedroom cutting out a dress from some plaid material. She was sewing on Sunday…. Virgie walked down the hill…. and made her way through the old MacLain place, through pasture and down to the river. She stood on the willow bank. It was bright as mid-afternoon in the openness of water, quiet and peaceful. She took off her clothes and let herself into the river. She saw her waist disappear into reflectionless water; it was like walking in to sky, some impurity of skies. All was one; all seemed one. One weight, one matter, one warmth, air, and her own body. – Until as she put down her head and closed her eyes and light slipped under her lids, she felt this matter a translucent one; the river, herself, the sky, all vessels which the sun filled. She began to swim in the river, forcing it gently. … She hung suspended in the Big Black River as she would know to hang suspended in felicity. A wood thrush, which had begun to sing, hushed its long moment and began again. Virgie put her clothes back on – always wishing for a little more of what had just been.