Liam O'Flaherty: Land

Raoul and Father Francis stood with their hands on one another’s shoulders. They were both trembling.

“So we have work to do, you and I,” Raoul said.

“So it seems,” Father Francis said. “In God’s name, we have the young generation to train.”

“It will be wonderful work,” Raoul said.

Arm in arm, they went out on to the terrace, babbling about the future like excited children.

Elizabeth sat down at her desk to enter the new birth into the family record. As she dipped her pen into the ink, tears of joy came into her eyes. She had to drop the pen and put her hands to her face, in an effort to contain her emotion.

As she listened with her face covered to the happy talk of the two men on the terrace, it was made manifest to her that all the tragedy and tumult of the past year had been brought to an end by the miracle of birth.

It was also made manifest to her that suffering, which she had feared so much in her barren loneliness, is a dark tournament that must always precede the enjoyment of life’s fullness.

This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

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Copyright © 1946 by Liam O’Flaherty

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ISBN: 9781448204472/eISBN: 9781448203888

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