Liam O'Flaherty - The Black Soul

He jumped up in bed and cried in an awed whisper, ‘By God, I’ve found it!’ He judged the world in the light of his discovery, that life was motion without purpose. His brain had a weird faculty for presenting things to him vividly, as clearly as if they were filmed. He watched the tens of millions of people in cities striving for wealth, power and fame, sacrificing everything to gain honour and property. He laughed outright, heartily. It was the most ridiculous farce he had ever looked at. He held his sides laughing. He began to imitate them. He saw a fat-bellied man rising at a Business Dinner. ‘Gentlemen!’ he said, ‘I can confidently assert that James Buchanan is a man who will leave his mark on the pages of the world’s history. His self-sacrifice, his indomitable courage, his business acumen, his untiring energy, his …’ ‘Oh hell,’ gurgled the Stranger, ‘now I understand Rabelais!’ He saw others, lean-faced men, with anger in their eyes and hunger in their stomachs, shouting at the fat-bellied men, agitating for revolution and liberty, shouting about ideals and principles, honour, self-sacrifice, brotherly love! They were still more ridiculous. Did the sea have principles? Did the wind rise and tear down houses inspired by ideas? Did the rain flood towns, inspired by the spirit of self-sacrifice? Did the waves consider themselves in honour bound to wreck ships? ‘Pish! It’s motion without purpose,’ he said, turning on his side to have a better view of the idiots. He nestled his hands between his thighs. And now the world presented the appearance of a lunatic asylum. Demented people were running about, grinning like apes, shouting at one another, puffing out their chests, turning somersaults like small boys from school on a holiday. One man came running with a manuscript in his hand. ‘I am a genius,’ he cried. ‘See this book I have written!’ The manuscript rolled page after page before the Stranger’s eyes. He read every word in a trice. He saw vermin crawling on the beautiful heroine’s corpse even before she had fallen into her lover’s arms in the last paragraph. Then another man appeared, with something in a little glass tube. ‘Hey! you people,’ he cried, ‘hey you, look at me. I’m the devil of a scientist! I have discovered a cure for all diseases. Man will soon be immortal.’ And he had scarcely finished speaking when he got run over by a motor-car and got killed. A fat general with bandy legs, a fierce moustache and a sloping forehead came along. He stood squat and roared like a bull until his lungs almost burst and his face was red and choleric. ‘This is General Dictator speaking,’ he shouted. ‘I have killed a million of the enemy. Now let liberty reign and peace.’ The millions flung their hats in the air, when a huge wave rose playfully and enveloped all the millions! Then the whole world froze up and skidded off through space. Another planet had collided with it.

The Stranger was laughing at his vision when he suddenly became vexed with the folly of the world. ‘What a scoundrelly farce!’ he muttered. ‘And look at all the good men it deceives!’ There was no end, no goal, no certainty, except in living aimlessly. Nothing was assured but the air, the earth and the sea. He fancied that he could see the cormorants sitting stupidly on the jagged Rock, bobbing their heads lazily. ‘We have lived here five hundreds of years,’ they croaked sardonically. ‘And we have heard it all, all before now! but tell us what does it end in? In ashes and oblivion?’

Then having torn the veil of sanity from the face of the mad world he turned on himself. He had been just as insane as the others whom he despised, trying to create a purpose in life. He had considered himself a genius and was enraged with his fellows for ignoring him. ‘Fancy being vexed with people whom you despise!’ Ha, he could laugh at them all now!

Then, having satisfied his vanity, he stopped thinking. He listened for sounds in the house. He felt a slight thirst and thought he would call out for some brandy. But he immediately found that he did not feel thirsty but hungry. He was so glad at feeling hungry that he flopped down flat in the bed, snored and fell asleep immediately.

Little Mary, sitting by the kitchen fire, keeping vigil over him, heard the creaking of the bed and tiptoed to the room door.

‘Do you want anything?’ she whispered.

Hearing no reply she moved softly to the bed and heard him sleeping calmly. She brushed her hand lightly over his hair and went back to the fire again. She sat half-sleeping, half-dreaming of love, arranging the minutest detail of her future life with her lover. Her dreams all began with the day they would fly from Inverara together. Before that day there was a vast wilderness in which she could see nothing.

When the Stranger awoke next morning he felt better. There was nothing but a slight twitching at the knees when, in spite of himself, his mind scurried into the past for a fleeting moment. He ate ravenously. Little Mary stood beside him while he ate, hoping that he would give her a glance of recognition. But he had forgotten all about her as soon as his fit had vanished. She was again to him but a peasant woman who was handing him his food. Her eyelashes drooped. Her lips quivered. She was debating in her mind whether she hated or loved him. She wanted to hate him, but she couldn’t. But she made an irritated gesture as she swept away the remains of his breakfast. He did not notice it. He noticed nothing but himself. He lay back and smoked a pipe.

‘I am a new man,’ he thought. ‘I’m finished with the past. I think I will get up and walk around the shore. I will look at the sea.’ He put on his clothes and walked into the kitchen. But then he got dizzy and Little Mary had to help him to a seat.

Little Mary was arranging a couch for him by the fire when Red John came in.

‘How does the sea look to-day?’ asked the Stranger.

Red John growled, ‘It looks very well,’ and spat into the fire. He sat in the opposite corner with his head between his hands. Since he had seen his wife by the Stranger’s bedside with the bewitched look in her eyes, his mind was troubled with queer and terrible thoughts. He wanted to kill his wife, but he was afraid to do so. The good God forbade it. And in what other way could he get rid of her? What were the neighbours saying about him? Great Virgin of the Valiant Deeds! how they’d laugh at him if they found his wife was in love with the Stranger! As he sat by the fire he thought of the fat widow in Kilmillick who had fifteen acres of land, whom he knew was willing to marry him. Had she not whispered to him one night in Kilmurrage that it was lonely sleeping alone in winter. And Kilmillick was a better village in every way than Rooruck. He had heard Sean Mor prove it one night in Mulligan’s publichouse. But how was he to get rid of his wife? Eh? He looked at the Stranger furtively over his beard and then jumped to his feet and muttered as he went out of the door, ‘To the devil with it for a story.’

‘What is that he said, Little Mary?’ said the Stranger.

‘Oh, don’t mind him,’ she said, fussing anxiously about the room. She swore to herself that she would thrash her husband at the first opportunity.

But the Stranger felt uneasy. He realized that Red John was jealous of him. He thought that he was making a fool of himself with Little Mary. ‘But good God! I have done nothing,’ he told himself. It was ridiculous to think that he would have ‘an affair’ with her. ‘She is good to me and that is all,’ he thought. But even as he thought that his passion became slightly aroused. But it died again immediately. His body was very weak. He laughed lowly and thought, ‘What a fool I am!’ Little Mary looked at him and he said to her with a laugh, ‘Oh well, of course I know he didn’t mean anything.’ But they both blushed as they looked at one another, as if they were conscious of having something to hide from Red John.