"But I sometimes come to see you in your room, Ellen."
"Sometimes," she said, sadly, "but that is not my idea of marriage, nor is it the custom of the country, nor is it what the Church wishes."
"I think, Ellen, you are very unreasonable, and you are generally so reasonable."
"Well, don't let us argue any more," she said. "We shall never agree, I'm afraid."
Ned remembered that he once used to say to her, "Ellen, we are agreed in everything."
"If I had only known that it was going to turn out so disagreeable as this," Ned said to himself, "I should have held my tongue," and he was sorry for having displeased Ellen, so pretty did she look in her white dress and her hat trimmed with china roses; and though he did not care much for flowers he liked to see Ellen among her flowers; he liked to sit with her under the shady apple-tree, and the hollyhocks were making a fine show up in the air.
"I think I like the hollyhocks better than any flowers, and the sunflowers are coming out," he said.
He hesitated whether he should speak about the swallows, Ellen did not care for birds. The swallows rushed round the garden in groups of six and seven filling the air with piercing shrieks. He had never seen them so restless. He and Ellen walked across the sward to their seat and then Ellen asked him if he would like to see the child.
"I've kept him out of bed and thought you might like to see him."
"Yes," he said, "go fetch the baby and I will shake the boughs, and it will amuse him to run after the apples."
"Differences of opinion arise," he said to himself, "for the mind changes and desire wanes, but the heart is always the same, and what an extraordinary bond the child is," he said, seeing Ellen leading the child across the sward. He forgot Ireland, forgot priests, and forgot politics, forgot everything. He lifted his little son in his arms and shook the boughs and saw the child run after the falling apples, stumbling and falling but never hurting himself.
The quarrels of the day died down; the evening grew more beautiful under the boughs, and this intimate life round their apple-tree was strangely intense, and it grew more and more intense as the light died. Every now and then the child came to show them an apple he had picked up, and Ned said: "He thinks he has found the largest apples that have ever been seen." The secret of their lives seemed to approach and at every moment they expected to hear it. The tired child came to his mother and asked to be taken on her lap. An apple fell with a thud, the stars came out, and Ned carried his son, now half asleep, into the house, and they undressed him together, having forgotten, seemingly, their differences of opinion.
But after dinner when they were alone in the drawing-room their relations grew strained again. Ned wanted to explain to Ellen that his movement was not anti-clerical, but he could see she did not wish to hear. He watched her take up her work and wondered what he could say to persuade her, and after a little while he began to think of certain pieces of music. But to go to the piano would be like a hostile act. The truth was that he had looked forward to the evening he was going to spend with her, he had imagined an ideal evening with her and could not reconcile himself to the loss. "The hour we passed in the garden was extraordinarily intense," he said to himself, and he regretted ever having talked to her about anything except simple things. "It is unwise of a man to make a comrade of his wife.... Now I wonder if she would be angry with me if I went to the piano—if I were to play something very gently? Perhaps a book would seem less aggressive." He went into his study and fetched his book, and very soon forgot Ellen. But she had not forgotten him, and she raised her eyes to look at him from time to time, knowing quite well that he was reading the book out of which he drew the greater part of his doctrine that he had alluded to on his way home, and that he had called the Gospel of Life.
He turned the pages, and seeing that his love of her had been absorbed by the book, she stuck her needle in her work, folded it up, and put it into the work-basket.
"I am going to bed, Ned." He looked up, and she saw he had returned from a world that was unknown to her, a world in which she had no part, and did not want to have a part, knowing it to be wicked. "You have been reading all the evening. You prefer your book to me. Good-night."
She had never spoken to him so rudely before. He wondered awhile and went to the piano. She had gone out of the room very rudely. Now he was free to do what he liked, and what he liked most was to play Bach. The sound of the piano would reach her bedroom! Well, if it did—he had not played Bach for four weeks and he wanted to play Bach. Yes, he was playing Bach to please himself. He knew the piano would annoy her. And he was right.
She had just lighted the candles on her dressing-table, and she paused and listened. It annoyed her that he should go to the piano the moment she left him, and that he should play dry intellectual Bach, for he knew that Bach did not interest her. She was tempted to ring for her maid, and would have sent down word to Ned that she would be obliged if he would stop playing, had it not seemed undignified to do so.
As she undressed she lost control over herself, and lying in bed it seemed to her that Ned had hidden himself in a veil of kindness and good humour, and that the man she had married was a man without moral qualities, a man who would leave her without resentment, without disgust, who would say good-by to her as to some brief habit. She could hear Bach's interminable twiddles, and this exasperated her nerves and she wept through many preludes and fugues. Later on she must have heard the fugues in a dream, for the door opened; it passed over the carpet softly; and she heard Ned saying that he hoped the piano had not kept her awake. She heard him lay the candle on the table and come over to her bedside, and, leaning over her, he begged of her to turn round and speak to him.
"My poor little woman, I hope I have not been cross with you this evening."
She turned away petulantly, but he took her hand and held it and whispered to her, and gradually tempted her out of her anger, and taking some of her red hair from the pillow he kissed it. She still kept her head turned from him, but she could not keep back her happiness; it followed her like fire, enfolding her, and at last, raising herself up in the bed, she said:—
"Oh, Ned, do you still love me?"
When he came into her bed she slipped down so that she could lie upon his breast, and they fell asleep thinking of the early train he would have to catch in the morning.
He was going to Dublin, and the servant knocked at the door at seven o'clock; Ellen roused a little asking if he must go to Dublin. She would like him to stay with her. But he could not stay, and she felt she must give him his breakfast. While tying her petticoats she went to the door of Ned's dressing-room asking him questions, for she liked to talk to him while he was shaving. After breakfast they walked to the station together, and she stood on the platform smiling and waving farewells.
She turned home, her thoughts chattering like the sunshine among the trees; she leaned over the low, crumbling walls and looked across the water meadows. Two women were spending the morning under the trees; they were sewing. A man was lying at length talking to them. This group was part of external nature. The bewitching sunlight found a way into her heart, and it seemed to her that she would never be happy again.
Ned had told her that he was not going to say anything about the priests at this meeting. Ah, if she were only sure he would not attack religion she would not mind him criticising the priests. They were not above criticism; they courted criticism, approving of a certain amount of lay criticism. But it was not the priests that Ned hated; it was religion; and his hatred of religion had increased since he began to read those books—she had seen him put one into his bag, and the rest of the set were in his study. When she got home she paused a moment, and, without knowing exactly why, she turned aside and did not go into his study.
But next day the clock in the drawing-room stopped, and, wanting to know the time, she went into the study and looked at the clock, trying to keep her eyes from the bookcase. But in spite of herself she looked. The books were there: they had been thrust so far back that she could not read the name of the writer. Well, it did not matter, she did not care to know the name of the writer—Ned's room interested her more than the books. There was his table covered with his papers; and the thought passed through her mind that he might be writing the book he had promised her not to write. What he was writing was certainly for the printer—he was writing only on one side of the paper—and one of these days what he was writing would be printed.
The study was on the ground floor, its windows overlooking the garden, and she glanced to see if the gardener were by, but her wish to avoid observation reminded her that she was doing a dishonourable action, and, standing with the papers in her hand, she hoped she would go out of the study without reading them. She began to read.
The papers in her hand were his notes for the book he was writing, and the title caught her eye, "A Western Thibet." "So he is writing the book he promised me not to write," she said. But she could feel no anger, so conscious was she of her own shame. And she did not forget her shame until she remembered that it was her money that was supporting the agitation. He had been spending a great deal of money lately—they were rich now; her father had died soon after their marriage and all his money had come to her, and Ned was spending it on an anti-religious agitation. She had let Ned do what he liked; she had not cared what happened so long as she kept his love, and her moral responsibility became clearer and clearer. She must tell Ned that she could give him no more money unless he promised he would not say anything against the priests. He would make no such promise, and to speak about her money would exhibit her in a mean light, and she would lose all her influence. Now that they were reconciled she might win him back to religion; she had been thinking of this all yesterday. How could she tell him that she would take all her money away from him? Ned was the last person in the world who would be influenced by a threat.
And looking round the room she asked herself why she had ever come into it to commit a dishonourable act! and much trouble had come upon her. But two thousand a year of her money was being spent in robbing the people of Ireland of their religion! Maybe thousands of souls would be lost—and through her fault.
Ellen feared money as much as her father had loved it.
"Good Heavens," she murmured to herself, "what am I to do?" Confession.... Father Brennan. She must consult him. The temptation to confide her secret became more decisive. Confession! She could ask the priest what she liked in confession, and without betraying Ned. And it was not ten o'clock yet. She would be in time for eleven o'clock Mass. Father Brennan would be hearing confessions after Mass, and she could get to Dublin on her bicycle in an hour. In three-quarters of an hour she was at the presbytery, and before the attendant could answer she caught sight of Father Brennan running down-stairs.
"I only want to speak to you for a few minutes."
"I am just going into church."
"Can't I say a word to you before you go in?"
And seeing how greatly agitated she was, he took her into the parlour, and she told him that though she trusted him implicitly she could not consult him on this particular question except in the confessional.
"I shall be hearing confessions after Mass."
If the priest told her she must withdraw her money from Ned, her marriage was a broken one. It was she who had brought Ned into politics; she had often spoken of her money in order to induce him to go into politics, and now it was her money that was forcing her to betray him. She had not thought of confession in her present difficulty as a betrayal, but it was one, and a needless one; Father Brennan could only tell her to withdraw her money; yet she must consult the priest—nothing else would satisfy her. She lacked courage: his advice would give her courage. But when she had told Ned that she could give him no more money, she would have to tell him she was acting on the priest's advice, for she could not go on living with him and not tell him everything. A secret would poison her life, and she had no difficulty in imagining how she would remember it; she could see it stopping her suddenly as she crossed the room when she was thinking of something quite different. The hardest confession of all would be to tell Ned that she had consulted the priest, and she did not think he would ever love her again. But what matter, so long as she was not weak and contemptible in the eyes of God. That is what she had to think of. The love of one's husband is of this world and temporary, but the love of God is for all eternity. All things are in the will of God. It was God that had sent her into Ned's room. She had been compelled, and now she was compelled again. It was God that had sent her to the priest; she was a mere puppet in the hands of God, and she prayed that she might be reconciled to His will, only daring to implore His mercy with one "Our Father" and one "Hail Mary." Further imploration would be out of place, she must not insist too much. God was all wisdom, and would know if the love of her husband might be spared to her, and she hoped she would be reconciled to His will even if her child should be taken from her.
There were two penitents before her. One a woman, faded by time and deformed by work. From the black dress, come down to her through a succession of owners and now as nondescript as herself, Ellen guessed the woman to be one of the humblest class of servants, one of those who get their living by going out to work by the day. She leaned over the bench, and Ellen could see she was praying all the while, and Ellen wondered how Ned could expect this poor woman, earning a humble wage in humble service, to cultivate what he called "the virtue of pride." Was it not absurd to expect this poor woman to go through life trying to make life "exuberant and triumphant"? And Ellen wished she could show Ned this poor woman waiting to go into the confessional. In the confessional she would find a refined and learned man to listen to her, and he would have patience with her. Where else would she find a patient listener? Where else would she find consolation? "The Gospel of Life," indeed! How many may listen to the gospel of life, and for how long may anyone listen? Sooner or later we are that poor woman waiting to go into the confessional; she is the common humanity.
The other penitent was a girl about sixteen. Her hair was not yet pinned up, and her dress was girlish even for her age, and Ellen judged her to be one of the many girls who come up to Dublin from the suburbs to an employment in a shop or in a lawyer's office, and who spend a few pence in the middle of the day in tea-rooms. The girl looked round the church so frequently that Ellen could not think of her as a willing penitent, but as one who had been sent to confession by her father and mother. At her age sensuality is omnipresent, and Ellen thought of the check confession is at such an age. If that girl overstepped the line she would have to confess everything, or face the frightful danger of a bad confession, and that is a danger that few Catholic girls are prepared to face.
The charwoman spent a long time in the confessional, and Ellen did not begrudge her the time she spent, for she came out like one greatly soothed, and Ellen remembered that Ned had once described the soothed look which she noticed on the poor woman's face as "a look of foolish ecstasy, wholly divorced from the intelligence." But what intellectual ecstasy did he expect from this poor woman drifting towards her natural harbour—the poor-house?
It was extraordinary that a man so human as Ned was in many ways should become so inhuman the moment religion was mentioned, and she wondered if the sight of that poor woman leaving the confessional would allay his hatred of the sacrament. At that moment the young girl came out. She hurried away, and Ellen went into the confessional to betray her husband.
She was going to betray Ned, but she was going to betray him under the seal of confession, and entertained no thought that the priest would avail himself of any technicality in her confession to betray her. She was, nevertheless, determined that her confession should be technically perfect. She went into the confessional to confess her sins, and one of the sins she was going to confess was her culpable negligence regarding the application of her money. There were other sins. She had examined her conscience, and had discovered many small ones. She had lost her temper last night, and her temper had prevented her from saying her prayers, her temper and her love of Ned; for it were certainly a sin to desire anything so fervidly that one cannot give to God the love, the prayers, that belong to Him.
During Mass the life of her soul had seemed to her strange and complex, and she thought that her confession would be a long one; but on her knees before the priest her soul seemed to vanish, and all her interesting scruples and phases of thought dwindled to almost nothing—she could not put her soul into words. The priest waited, but the matter on which she had come to consult him had put everything else out of her head.
"I am not certain that what I am going to tell you is a sin, but I consider it as part of my confession," and she told him how she had given Ned her money and allowed him to apply it without inquiring into the application. "Since my child was born I have not taken the interest I used to take in politics. I don't think my husband is any longer interested in my ideas, and now he has told me that some kind of religious reformation is necessary in Ireland."
"When did he tell you that?"
"Yesterday—the day before. I went to the station to meet him and he told me as we walked home. For a long time I believed him: I don't mean that he told me falsehoods; he may have deceived himself. Anyhow he used to tell me that though his agitation might be described as anti-clerical no one could call it anti-religious. But this morning something led me into his room and I looked through his papers. I daresay I had no right to do so, but I did."
"And you discovered from his papers that his agitation was directed against religion?"
Ellen nodded.
"I cannot think of anything more unfortunate," said the priest.
Father Brennan was a little fat man with small eyes and a punctilious deferential manner, and his voice was slightly falsetto.
"I cannot understand how your husband can be so unwise. I know very little of him, but I did not think he was capable of making so grave a mistake. The country is striving to unite itself, and we have been uniting, and now that we have a united Ireland, or very nearly, it appears that Mr. Carmady has come from America to divide us again. What can he gain by these tactics? If he tells the clergy that the moment Home Rule is granted an anti-religious party will rise up and drive them out of the country, he will set them against Home Rule, and if the clergy are not in favour of Home Rule who, I would ask Mr. Carmady, who will be in favour of it? And I will ask you, my dear child, to ask him—I suggest that you should ask him to what quarter he looks for support."
"Ned and I never talk politics; we used to, but that is a long time ago."
"He will only ruin himself. But I think you said you came to consult me about something."
"Yes. You see a very large part of my money is spent in politics and I am not certain that I should not withdraw my money. It is for that I have come to consult you."
Ellen had been addressing the little outline of the priest's profile, but when he heard the subject on which she had come to consult him he turned and she saw his large face, round and mottled. A little light gathered in his wise and kindly eyes, and Ellen guessed that he had begun to see his way out of the difficulty, and she was glad of it, for she reckoned her responsibility at a number of souls. The priest spoke very kindly, he seemed to understand how difficult it would be for her to tell her husband that she could not give him any more money unless he promised not to attack the clergy or religion, but she must do so. He pointed out that to attack one was to attack the other, for the greater mass of mankind understands religion only through the clergy.
"You must not only withdraw your money," he said, "but you must use your influence to dissuade him."
"I am afraid," said Ellen, "that when I tell him that I must withdraw my money, and that you have told me to do so—"
"You need not say that I told you to do so."
"I cannot keep anything back from my husband. I must tell him the whole truth," she said. "And when I tell him everything, I shall not only lose any influence that may remain, but I doubt very much if my husband will continue to live with me."
"But your marriage was a love marriage?"
"Yes, but that is a long time ago. It is four years ago."
"I don't think your husband will separate himself from you, but even so I think—"
"You will give me absolution?"
She said this a little defiantly, and the priest wondered, and she left the confessional perplexed and a little ashamed and very much terrified.
There was nothing for her to do in Dublin, she must go home and wait for her husband. He was not coming home until evening, and she rode home wondering how the day would pass, thinking the best time to tell him would be after dinner when he left the piano. If he were very angry with her she would go to her room. He would not go on living with her, she was sure of that, and her heart seemed to stand still when she entered the house and saw the study door open and Ned looking through the papers.
"I have come back to look for some papers," he said. "It is very annoying. I have lost half the day," and he went on looking among his papers and she could see that he suspected nothing. "Do you know when is the next train?"
She looked out the trains for him, and after he had found the papers he wanted they went into the garden.
She talked of her flowers with the same interest as she had done many times before, and when he asked her to go for a walk with him on the hill she consented, although it was almost unbearable to walk with him for the last time through the places where they had walked so often, thinking that their lives would move on to the end unchanged; and they walked about the hill talking of Irish history, their eyes often resting on the slender outlines of Howth, until it was time for Ned to go to the station.
"I shall be back in time for dinner. You will wait dinner a little for me, I may have to come back by a later train."
And they walked down the hill together, Ned bidding her good-bye at the garden gate, saying she had walked enough that day, and she feeling the moment was at hand.
"But, Ned, why are you going to Dublin? You are only going to see people who are anti-Catholic, who hate our religion, who are prejudiced against it."
"But," he said, "why do you talk of these things. We have got on very much better since we have ceased to discuss politics together. We are agreed in everything else."
She did not answer for a long time and then she said:—
"But I don't see how we are to avoid discussing them, for it is my money that supports the agitation."
"I never thought of that. So it is. Do you wish to withdraw it?"
"You are not angry with me, Ned? You won't think it mean of me to withdraw my money? How are you going to go on without my money? You see I am wrecking your political career."
"Oh," he said, "I shall be able to get on without it. Now, good-bye."
"May I go to the station with you?"
"If you like, only let us talk of something else. Everyone's conscience is his own law and you must act accordingly."
She trotted by his side, and she begged of him not to laugh at her when he said that to be truly logical she would have to turn him out of the house, or at least to charge him for his board and lodging.
The intonation of his voice laid her heart waste; she felt she was done for, and she walked home repeating the words, "I am done for."
As she passed through her garden she saw that her flowers were dying for want of water, and she gave them a few cans of water; but she could not do much work, and though the cans were heavy, they were not as heavy as her heart. She sat down under the apple-tree and remembered her life. Her best days were her school-days. Then life was beginning. Now it seemed to her nearly over, and she only five-and-twenty. She never could take the same interest in politics as she had once taken, nor in books. She felt that her intelligence had declined. She was cleverer as a girl than she was as a woman.
Ned was coming home for dinner, and some time that evening she would have to tell him that she had read his manuscript. She would have liked to meet him at the station, but thought it would be better not to go. The day wore away. Ned was in his best humour, and when she told him why she did not go to the station to meet him, he said it was foolish of her not to have come, for there was nothing he liked better than to stroll home with her in the evening, the road was so pleasant, etc.
She could see that he had not noticed her dress or what he was eating, and it was irritating to see him sitting there with his spoon full of soup telling her how the Irish people would have to reduce their expenditure and think a little less of priests—for a while, at least—unless they were minded to pass away, to become absorbed in America.
"I like Brennan," he said, throwing himself back in his chair. "He is a clever man. Brennan knows as well as I do there's too much money spent upon religion in Ireland. But, tell me, did he tell you explicitly that you should give me no more money?"
"Yes. But, Ned—"
"No, no, I am not in the least angry," he said, "I shall always get money to carry on politics. But what a game it is! And I suppose, Ellen, you consult him on every detail of your life?"
Her admission that Father Brennan had taken down books and put on his spectacles delighted him.
"Taking down tomes!" he said. "Splendid! Some of these gentlemen would discuss theology with God. I can see Father Brennan getting up: 'Sire, my reason for entering the said sin as a venal sin, etc.'"
Very often during the evening the sewing dropped from her hands, and she sat thinking. Sooner or later she would nave to tell Ned she had read his manuscript. He would not mind her reading his manuscript, and though he hated the idea that anyone should turn to a priest and ask him for his interpretation regarding right and wrong, he had not, on the whole, been as angry as she had expected.
At last she got up. "I am going to bed, Ned."
"Isn't it very early?"
"There is no use my stopping here. You don't want to talk to me; you'll go on playing till midnight."
"Now, why this petulancy, Ellen? I think it shows a good deal of forgiveness for me to kiss you after the way you have behaved."
She held a long string of grease in her fingers, and was melting it, and when she could no longer hold it in her fingers, she threw the end into the flame.
"I've forgiven you, Ellen.... You never tell me anything of your ideas now; we never talk to each other, and if this last relation is broken there will be nothing ... will there?"
"I sought Father Brennan's advice under the seal of confession, that was all. You don't think that—"
"There are plenty of indirect ways in which he will be able to make use of the information he has got from you."
"You have not yet heard how it happened, and perhaps when you do you will think worse of me. I went into your room to see what books you were reading. There was no harm in looking at a book; but you had put the books so far into the bookcase that I could not see the name of the author. I took up the manuscript from the table and glanced through it. I suppose I ought not to have done that: a manuscript is not the same as a book. And now goodnight."
She had gone to her room and did not expect him. Well, the sensual coil was broken, and if he did not follow her now she would understand that it was broken. He had wanted freedom this long while. They had come to the end of the second period, and there are three—a year of mystery and passion, and then some years of passion without mystery. The third period is one of resignation. The lives of the parents pass into the children, and the mated journey on, carrying their packs. Seldom, indeed, the man and the woman weary of the life of passion at the same time and turn instinctively into the way of resignation like animals. Sometimes it is the man who turns first, sometimes it is the woman. In this case it was the man. He had his work to do, and Ellen had her child to think of, and each must think of his and her task from henceforth. Their tasks were not the same. Each had a different task; she had thrown, or tried to throw, his pack from his shoulders. She had thwarted him, or, tried to thwart him. He grew angry as he thought of what she had done. She had gone into his study and read his papers, and she had then betrayed him to a priest. He lay awake thinking how he had been deceived by Ellen; thinking that he had been mistaken; that her character was not the noble character he had imagined. But at the bottom of his heart he was true to the noble soul that religion could not extinguish nor even his neglect.
She said one day: "Is it because I read your manuscript and told the priest, that you would not come to my room, or is it because you are tired of me?"
"I cannot tell you; and, really, this conversation is very painful. I am engaged upon my work, and I have no thoughts for anything but it." Another time when he came from the piano and sat opposite to her she raised her eyes from her sewing and sat looking at him, and then getting up suddenly she put her hands to her forehead and said to herself: "I will conquer this," and she went out of the room.
And from that day she did not trouble him with love. She obtained control over herself, and he remembered a mistress who had ceased to love him, and he had persecuted her for a long while with supplication. "She is at one with herself always," he said, and he tried to understand her. "She is one of those whose course through life is straight, and not zig-zag, as mine is." He liked to see her turn and look at the baby, and he said, "That love is the permanent and original element of things, it is the universal substance;" and he could trace Ellen's love of her child in her love of him; these loves were not two loves, but one love. And when walking one evening through the shadows, as they spoke about the destiny we can trace in our lives, about life and its loneliness, the conversation verged on the personal, and she said, with a little accent of regret, but not reproachfully:—
"But, Ned, you could not live with anyone, at least not always. I think you would sooner not live with anyone."
He did not dare to contradict her; he knew that she had spoken the truth; and Ned was sorry he was giving pain to Ellen, for there was no one he would have liked to please better. He regretted that he was what he was, that his course was zig-zag. For a moment he regretted that such a fate should have befallen Ellen. "I am not the husband that would have suited her," he said.... And then, after a moment's reflection, "I was her instinct; another would not have satisfied her instinct; constancy is not everything. It's a pity I cannot love her always, for none is more worthy of being loved."
They became friends; he knew there was no danger of her betraying him again. Her responsibility ended with her money, and he told her how the agitation was progressing.
"Oh, Ned, if I were only sure that your agitation was not directed against religion I would follow you. But you will never believe in me."
"Yes, I believe in you. Come to Dublin with me; come to the meeting. I'd like you to hear my speech."
"I would like to hear you speak, Ned; but I don't think I can go to the meeting."
They were on their way to the station, and they walked some time without speaking. Then, speaking suddenly and gravely as if prompted by some deep instinct, Ellen said:—
"But if you fail, Ned, you will be an outcast in Ireland, and if that happens you will go away, and I shall never see you again."
He turned and stood looking at her. That he should fail and become an outcast were not at all unlikely. Her words seemed to him like a divination! But it is the unexpected that happens, she said to herself, and the train came up to the station, and he bade her good-bye, and settled himself down in a seat to consider his speech for the last time.
"I shall say everything I dare, the moment is ripe; and the threat to hold out is that Ireland is becoming a Protestant country. And the argument to use is that the Catholics are leaving because there is no joy in Ireland."
He went through the different sections of his speech introducing the word joy: Is Ireland going to become joyous? She has dreamed long enough among dead bones and ancient formulae. The little stations went by and the train rolled into Harcourt Street. He called a car. He was speaking at the Rotunda.
He was speaking on the depopulation question, and he said that this question came before every other question. Ireland was now confronted with the possibility that in five-and-twenty years the last of Ireland would have disappeared in America. There were some who attributed the Irish emigration to economic causes: that was a simple and obvious explanation, one that could be understood by everybody; but these simple and obvious explanations are not often, if they are ever, the true ones. The first part of Ned's speech was taken up with the examination of the economic causes, and proving that these were not the origin of the evil. The country was joyless; man's life is joyless in Ireland. In every other country there were merry-makings. "You have only to go into the National Gallery," he said, "to see how much time the Dutch spent in merry-makings." All their pictures with the exception of Rembrandt's treated of joyful subjects, of peasants dancing under trees, peasants drinking and singing songs in taverns, and caressing servant girls. Some of their merry-makings were not of a very refined character, but the ordinary man is not refined, and in the most refined men there is often admiration and desire for common pleasure. In the country districts Irish life is one of stagnant melancholy, the only aspiration that comes into their lives is a religious one. "Of course it will be said that the Irish are too poor to pay for pleasure, but they are not too poor to spend fifteen millions a year upon religion." He was the last man in the world who would say that religion was not necessary, but if he were right in saying that numbers were leaving Ireland because Ireland was joyless he was right in saying that it was the duty of every Irishman to spend his money in making Ireland a joyful country. He was speaking now in the interests of religion. A country is antecedent to religion. To have religion you must first have a country, and if Ireland was not made joyful Ireland would become a Protestant country in about twenty-five years. In support of this contention he produced figures showing the rate at which the Catholics were emigrating. But not only were the Catholics emigrating—those who remained were becoming nuns and priests. As the lay population declined the clerics became more numerous. "Now," he said, "there must be a laity. It is a very commonplace thing to say, but this very commonplace truth is forgotten or ignored, and I come here to plead to-day for the harmless and the necessary laity." He knew that these words would get a laugh, and that the laugh would get him at least two or three minutes' grace, and these two or three minutes could not be better employed than with statistics, and he produced some astonishing figures. These figures were compiled, he said, by a prelate bearing an Irish name, but whose object in Ireland was to induce Irishmen and Irishwomen to leave Ireland. This would not be denied, though the pretext on which he wished Irish men and women to leave Ireland would be pleaded as justification. "But of this I shall speak," Ned said, "presently. I want you first to give your attention to the figures which this prelate produced, and with approbation. According to him there were ten convents and one hundred nuns in the beginning of the century, now there were twelve hundred convents and twenty thousand nuns. The prelate thinks that this is a matter for us to congratulate ourselves on. In view of our declining population I cannot agree, and I regret that prelates should make such thoughtless observations. Again I have to remind you of a fact that cannot be denied, but which is ignored, and it is that a celibate clergy cannot continue the population, and that if the population be not continued the tail of the race will disappear in America in about twenty-five years.... Not only does this prelate think that we should congratulate ourselves on the fact that while the lay population is decreasing the clerical population is increasing, but he thinks that Ireland should still furnish foreign missions. He came to Ireland to get recruits, to beseech Irishmen and Irishwomen to continue their noble work of the conversion of the world. No doubt the conversion of the world is a noble work. My point now is that Ireland has done her share in this noble work, and that Ireland can no longer spare one single lay Irishman or cleric or any Irishwoman. If the foreign mission is to be recruited it must be recruited at the expense of some other country."
Ned suggested Belgium as the best recruiting ground. But it was the prelate's own business to find recruits, it was only Ned's business to say that Ireland had done enough for the conversion of the world. And this prelate with the Irish name and cosmopolitan heart, who thought it an admirable thing that the clerical population should increase, while the lay population declined; who thought that with the declining population Ireland should still send out priests and nuns to convert the world—was no true Irishman. He cared not a jot what became of his country, so long as Ireland continued to furnish him with priests and nuns for the foreign mission. This prelate was willing to bleed Ireland to death to make a Roman holiday. Ireland did not matter to him, Ireland was a speck—Ned would like to have said, a chicken that the prelate would drop into the caldron which he was boiling for the cosmopolitan restaurant; but this would be an attack upon religion, it would be too direct to be easily understood by the audience, and as the words came to his lips he changed the phrase and said, "a pinch of snuff in the Roman snuff-box." After this, Ned passed on to perhaps the most important part of his speech—to the acquisition of wealth by the clergy. He said that if the lay population had declined, and if the clerical population had increased, there was one thing that had increased with the clergy, and that was the wealth of the clergy. "I wish the cosmopolitan prelate had spoken upon this subject. I wonder if he inquired how much land has passed into the hands of the clergy in the last twenty years, and how many mortgages the religious hold upon land. I wonder if he inquired how many poultry-farms the nuns and the friars are adding to their convents and their monasteries; and now they are starting new manufactories for weaving—the weaving industry is falling into their hands. And there are no lay teachers in Ireland, now all the teaching is done by clerics. The Church is very rich in Ireland. If Ireland is the poorest country in the world, the Irish Church is richer than any other. All the money in Ireland goes into religion. There is only one other trade that can compete with it. Heaven may be for the laity, but this world is certainly for the clergy."
More money was spent upon religion in Ireland than in any other country. Too much money was spent for the moment in building churches, and the great sums of money that were being spent on religion were not fairly divided. And passing rapidly on, Ned very adroitly touched upon the relative positions of the bishops and the priests and the curates. He told harrowing stories of the destitution of the curates, and he managed so well that his audience had not time to stop him. Everything he thought that they could not agree with he sandwiched between things that he knew they would agree with.
Father Murphy stood a little distance on his right, a thick-set man, and as the sentences fell from Ned's lips he could see that Father Murphy was preparing his answer, and he guessed what Father Murphy's answer would be like. He knew Father Murphy to be an adroit speaker, and the priest began in a low key as Ned had expected him to do. He began by deploring the evils of emigration, and Mr. Carmady deserved their best thanks for attracting popular attention to this evil. They were indebted to him for having done this. Others had denounced the evil, but Mr. Carmady's eloquence had enabled him to do so as well, perhaps even better than it had been done before. He complimented Mr. Carmady on the picturesque manner in which he described the emptying of the country, but he could not agree with Mr. Carmady regarding the causes that had brought about this lamentable desire to leave the fatherland. Mr. Carmady's theory was that the emptying of Ireland was due to the fact that the Irish priests had succeeded in inducing men to refrain from the commission of sin. Mr. Carmady did not reproach the priests with having failed; he reproached them with having succeeded. A strange complaint. The cause of the emigration, which we all agreed in deploring, was, according to Mr. Carmady, the desire of a sinless people for sin. A strange accusation. The people, according to Mr. Carmady, were leaving Ireland because they wished to indulge in indecent living. Mr. Carmady did not use these words; the words he used were "The joy of life," but the meaning of the words was well known.
"No race," he said, "had perhaps ever been libelled as the Irish race had been, but of all the libels that had ever been levelled against it, no libel had ever equalled the libel which he had heard uttered to-day, that the Irish were leaving Ireland in search of sin.
"They had heard a great deal about the dancing-girl, and according to Mr. Carmady it would seem that a nation could save itself by jigging."
"He is speaking very well, from his point of view," said Ned to himself.
Father Murphy was a stout, bald-headed man with small pig-like eyes, and a piece seemed to have been taken from the top of his bony forehead. He was elegantly dressed in broadcloth and he wore a gold chain and he dangled his chain from time to time. He was clearly the well-fed, well-housed cleric who was making, in this world, an excellent living of his advocacy for the next, and Ned wondered how it was that the people did not perceive a discrepancy between Father Murphy's appearance and the theories he propounded. "The idealism of the Irish people," said the priest, "was inveterate," and he settled himself on his short legs and began his peroration.
Ned had begun to feel that he had failed, he began to think of his passage back to America. Father Murphy was followed by a young curate, and the curate began by saying that Mr. Carmady would be able to defend his theories, and that he had no concern with Mr. Carmady's theories, though, indeed, he did not hear Mr. Carmady say anything which was contrary to the doctrine of our "holy religion." Father Murphy had understood Mr. Carmady's speech in quite a different light, and it seemed to the curate that he, Father Murphy, had put a wrong interpretation upon it; at all events he had put one which the curate could not share. Mr. Carmady had ventured, and, he thought, very properly, to call attention to the number of churches that were being built and the number of people who were daily entering the orders. He did not wish to criticise men and women who gave up their lives to God, but Mr. Carmady was quite right when he said that without a laity there could be no country. In Ireland the clergy were apt to forget this simple fact that celibates do not continue the race. Mr. Carmady had quoted from a book written by a priest in which the distinguished author had said he looked forward to the day when Ireland would be one vast monastery, and the curate agreed with Mr. Carmady that no more foolish wish had ever found its way into a book. He agreed with Mr. Carmady that a real vocation is a rare thing. No country had produced many painters or many sculptors or many poets, and a true religious vocation was equally rare. Mr. Carmady had pointed out that although the population had diminished the nuns and priests had increased, and Father Murphy must hold that Ireland must become one vast monastery, and the laity ought to become extinct, or he must agree with Mr. Carmady that there was a point when a too numerous clergy would overbalance the laity.
Altogether an unexpected and plucky little speech, and long before it closed Ned saw that Father Murphy's triumph was not complete. Father Murphy's face told the same tale.
The curate's argument was taken up by other curates, and Ned began to see he had the youth of the country on his side.
He was speaking at the end of the week at another great meeting, and received even better support at this meeting than he had done at the first, and he returned home wondering what his wife was thinking of his success. But what matter? Ireland was waking from her sleep.... The agitation was running from parish to parish, it seemed as if the impossible were going to happen, and that the Gael was going to be free.
The curates had grievances, and he applied himself to setting the inferior clergy against their superiors, and as the agitation developed he told the curates that they were no better than ecclesiastical serfs, that although the parish priests dozed in comfortable arm-chairs and drank champagne, the curates lived by the wayside and ate and drank very little and did all the work.
But one day at Maynooth it was decided that curates had legitimate grievances, and that the people had grievances that were likewise legitimate. And at this great council it was decided that the heavy marriage fees and the baptismal fees demanded by the priests should be reduced. Concessions were accompanied by threats. Even so it required all the power of the Church to put down the agitation. Everyone stood agape, saying the bishops must win in the end. An indiscretion on Ned's part gave them the victory. In a moment of excitement he was unwise enough to quote John Mitchel's words "that the Irish would be free long ago only for their damned souls." A priest wrote to the newspapers pointing out that after these words there could be no further doubt that it was the doctrine of the French Revolution that Mr. Carmady was trying to force upon a Christian people. A bishop wrote saying that the words quoted were fit words for Anti-Christ. After that it was difficult for a priest to appear on the same platform, and the curates whose grievances had been redressed deserted, and the fight became an impossible one.
Very soon Ned's meetings were interrupted, disagreeable scenes began to happen, and his letters were not admitted to the newspapers. A great solitude formed about him.
"Well," he said one morning, "I suppose you have read the account in the paper of my ignominious escape. That is what they called it."
"The wheel," Ellen said, "is always going round. You may be at the bottom now, but the wheel is going round, only there is no use opposing the people in their traditions, in their instinct... . And whether the race is destined to disappear or to continue it is certain that the last Gael will die a Catholic."
"And the Red Indian will die with the scalp at his girdle."
"We won't talk about religion, we'll talk about things we are agreed upon. I have heard you say yourself that you would not go back to America again, that you never enjoyed life until you came here."
"That was because I met you, Ellen."
"I have heard you praise Ireland as being the most beautiful and sympathetic country in the world."
"It is true that I love these people, and I wish I could become one of them."
"You would become one of them, and yet you would tear them to pieces because they are not what you want them to be."
Sometimes he thought he would like to write "A Western Thibet," but he was more a man of action than of letters. His writings had been so long confined to newspaper articles that he could not see his way from chapter to chapter. He might have overcome the difficulty, but doubt began to poison his mind. "Every race," he said, "has its own special genius. The Germans have or have had music. The French and Italians have or have had painting and sculpture. The English have or have had poetry. The Irish had, and alas! they still have their special genius, religious vocation."
He used to go for long walks on the hills, and one day, lying in the furze amid the rough grass, his eyes following the course of the ships in the bay, he said: "Was it accident or my own fantastic temperament that brought me back from Cuba?" It seemed as if a net had been thrown over him and he had been drawn along like a fish in a net. "For some purpose," he said. "But for what purpose? I can perceive none, and yet I cannot believe that an accident brought me to Ireland and involved me in the destiny of Ireland for no purpose."
And he did not need to take the book from his pocket, he knew the passage well, and he repeated it word for word while he watched the ships in the bay.
"We were friends and we have become strangers, one to the other. Ah, yes; but it is so, and we do not wish to hide our strangerhood, or to dissemble as if we were ashamed of it. We are two ships each with a goal and a way; and our ways may draw together again and we may make holiday as before. And how peacefully the good ships used to lie in the same harbour, under the same sun; it seemed as if they had reached their goal, and it seemed as if there was a goal. But soon the mighty sway of our tasks laid on us as from of old sundered and drove us into different seas and different zones; and it may be that we shall never meet again and it may be that we shall meet and not know each other, so deeply have the different seas and suns changed us. The law that is over us decreed that we must become strangers one to the other; and for this we must reverence each other the more, and for this the memory of our past friendship becomes more sacred. Perhaps there is a vast invisible curve and orbit and our different goals and ways are parcel of it, infinitesimal segments. Let us uplift ourselves to this thought! But our life is too short and our sight too feeble for us to be friends except in the sense of this sublime possibility. So, let us believe in our stellar friendship though we must be enemies on earth."
"A deep and mysterious truth," he said, "I must go, I must go," he said to himself. "My Irish life is ended. There is a starry orbit, and Ireland and I are parts of it, 'and we must believe in our stellar friendship though we are enemies upon earth.'"
He wandered about admiring the large windless evening and the bright bay. Great men had risen up in Ireland and had failed before him, and it were easy to account for their failure by saying they were not close enough to the tradition of their race, that they had just missed it, but some of the fault must be the fault of Ireland.... The anecdote varies, but substantially it is always the same story: The interests of Ireland sacrificed to the interests of Rome.
There came a whirring sound, and high overhead he saw three great birds flying through the still air, and he knew them to be wild geese flying south....
War had broken out in South Africa, Irishmen were going out to fight once again; they were going to fight the stranger abroad when they could fight him at home no longer. The birds died down on the horizon, and there was the sea before him, bright and beautiful, with ships passing into the glimmering dusk, and among the hills a little mist was gathering. He remembered the great pagans who had wandered over these hills before scapulars and rosaries were invented. His thoughts came in flashes, and his happiness grew intense. He had wanted to go and the birds had shown him where he might go. His instinct was to go, he was stifling in Ireland. He might never find the country he desired, but he must get out of Ireland, "a mean ineffectual atmosphere," he said, "of nuns and rosaries."
A mist was rising, the lovely outlines of Howth reminded him of pagan Ireland. "They're like music," he said, and he thought of Usheen and his harp. "Will Usheen ever come again?" he said. "Better to die than to live here." And the mist thickened—he could see Howth no longer. "The land is dolorous," he said, and as if in answer to his words the most dolorous melody he had ever heard came out of the mist. "The wailing of an abandoned race," he said. "This is the soul-sickness from which we are fleeing." And he wandered about calling to the shepherd, and the shepherd answered, but the mist was so thick in the hollows that neither could find the other. After a little while the shepherd began to play his flageolet again; and Ned listened to it, singing it after him, and he walked home quickly, and the moment he entered the drawing-room he said to Ellen, "Don't speak to me; I am going to write something down," and this is what he wrote:—
[musical excerpt]
"A mist came on suddenly, and I heard a shepherd playing this folk-tune. Listen to it. Is it not like the people? Is it not like Ireland? Is it not like everything that has happened? It is melancholy enough in this room, but no words can describe its melancholy on a flageolet played by a shepherd in the mist. It is the song of the exile; it is the cry of one driven out in the night—into a night of wind and rain. It is night, and the exile on the edge of the waste. It is like the wind sighing over bog water. It is a prophetic echo and final despair of a people who knew they were done for from the beginning. A mere folk-tune, mere nature, raw and unintellectual; and these raw folk-tunes are all that we shall have done: and by these and these alone, shall we be remembered."
"Ned," she said at last, "I think you had better go away. I can see you're wearing out your heart here."
"Why do you think I should go? What put that idea into your head?"
"I can see you are not happy."
"But you said that the wheel would turn, and that what was lowest would come to the top."
"Yes, Ned; but sometimes the wheel is a long time in turning, and maybe it would be better for you to go away for a while."
He told her that he had seen wild geese on the hill.
"And it was from you I heard about the wild geese. You told me the history of Ireland, sitting on a Druid stone?"
"You want to go, Ned? And the desire to go is as strong in you as in the wild geese."
"Maybe; but I shall come back, Ellen."
"Do you think you will, Ned? How can you if you go to fight for the Boers?"
"There's nothing for me to do here. I want new life. It was you who said that I should go."
"For five years you have been devoted to Ireland, and now you and Ireland are separated like two ships."
"Yes, like two ships. Ireland is still going Rome-ward, and Rome is not my way."
"You are the ship, Ned, and you came to harbour in Ireland. But you and I are like two ships that have lain side by side in the harbour, and now—"
"And now what, Ellen? Go on!"
"It seemed to me that we were like two ships."
"That is the very thing I was thinking on the hills. The comparison of two ships rose up in my mind on the hill, and then I remembered a passage." And when he had repeated it she said:—
"So there is no hope for us on earth. We are but segments of a starry curve, and must be content with our stellar friendship. But, Ned, we shall never be enemies on earth. I am not your enemy, and never shall be. So we have nothing to think of now but our past friendship. The memory of our past—is all that remains? And it was for that you left America after the Cuban war? There is our child. You love the little boy, don't you, Ned?"
"Yes," he said, "I love the little boy.... But you'll bring him up a Catholic. You'll bring him up to love the things that I hate."
"Let there be no bitterness between us to-night, Ned dear. Let there be only love. If not love, affection at least. This is our last night."
"How is that?"
"Because, Ned, when one is so bent upon going as you are it is better he should go at once. I give you your freedom. You can go in the morning or when you please. But remember, Ned, that you can come back when you please, that I shall be always glad to see you."
They went up-stairs and looked for some time on the child, who was sleeping. Ellen took him out of his bed, and she looked very pretty, Ned thought, holding the half-awakened child, and she kept the little quilt about him so that he might not catch cold.
He put his hands into his eyes and looked at his father, and then hid his face in his mother's neck, for the light blinded him and he wished to go to sleep.
"Let me put him back in his bed," Ned said, and he took his son and put him back, and he kissed him. As he did so he wondered how it was that he could feel so much affection for his son and at the same time desire to leave his home.
"Now, Ned, you must kiss me, and do not think I am angry with you for going. I know you are dull here, that you have got nothing further to do in Ireland, but it will be different when you come back."
"And is it possible that you aren't angry with me, Ellen, for going?"
"I am sorry you are going, Ned—in a way, but I should be more sorry to see you stay here and learn to hate me."
"You are very wise, Ellen. But why did you read that manuscript?"
"I suppose because God wished me to."
One thing Ireland had done for him, and for that he would be always grateful to Ireland—Ireland had revealed a noble woman to him; and distance would bring a closer and more intimate appreciation of her.
He left early next morning before she was awake in order to save her the pain of farewells, and all that day in Dublin he walked about, possessed by the great joyful yearning of the wild goose when it rises one bright morning from the warm marshes, scenting the harsh north through leagues of air, and goes away on steady wing-beats. But he did not feel he was a free soul until the outlines of Howth began to melt into the grey drift of evening. There was a little mist on the water, and he stood watching the waves tossing in the mist thinking that it were well that he had left home—if he had stayed he would have come to accept all the base moral coinage in circulation; and he stood watching the green waves tossing in the mist, at one moment ashamed of what he had done, at the next overjoyed that he had done it.