Liam O'Flaherty - The Black Soul

Kathleen came into the kitchen looking for her father. She was about to begin to scold him when she saw the Stranger and she stopped short.

‘Hallo! my treasure,’ said O’Daly, ‘ye got-eh-rid of them at last.’

Kathleen stared at the two of them blinking with drunkenness, and then she turned on her heel and went out.

‘Huh!’ said O’Daly. Then he laughed and fell asleep in his chair.

The Stranger jumped to his feet and ran into the hall, shouting, ‘Miss O’Daly, Miss O’Daly.’

‘Yes,’ she said sharply, coming up to him in the hall.

Under the influence of the whisky he felt quite brave and gallant.

‘I hope I have done nothing to irritate you,’ he said; ‘I can assure you that –’

‘Oh, it’s quite all right,’ she said coldly; ‘I don’t like to see men make beasts of themselves in my presence. Good night,’ and she walked into the sitting-room.

‘Oh, good Lord, what a razor tongue!’ he murmured, going down the road. ‘Now I see what she’s like. My word, wasn’t I lucky to have found her out. I bet Little Mary is as bad. But they won’t catch me. I’m going to live my life freely.’ Then he felt sure that all the women in the world were engaged in a conspiracy to trap him. He thrust out his chest and drew deep breaths and swung his arms, very proud of himself. He felt his muscles as he walked along and patted his thighs. His body was strong and supple after the wind of spring, good food and healthy living. His bodily strength made him feel independent and selfish. But on the top of these discoveries he suddenly felt a desire for Kathleen and he stopped in the road, vexed with himself.

‘I’m becoming coarse,’ he muttered disgustedly. ‘After all, my only hope is to be faithful to Little Mary if I want to keep straight.’ He was passing the Monks’ Well, where all the ghosts were seen. A stream ran across the road. They said that if a sinner stepped in the stream that the devils would devour him immediately. He stopped, looking at the dark rivulet. ‘Wait now,’ he said, ‘I’ll see whether I’m a sinner or not,’ and he waded through it. Nothing happened, and he walked on quite cheered.

The guests were returning home noisily from Bartly’s wedding as he passed through Rooruck. Men were singing songs and quarrelling. He vaulted over the fence into Red John’s yard, and then he heard screams coming from the cabin. He stood still, looking at the curtained kitchen window where a candle was flickering. Then he heard Red John yell and a banging sound followed the yell, as of something being hurled against the door. Then Little Mary’s shriek reached him. He rushed to the door and tried to open it. It was bolted on the inside.

‘Hey there, hey there, open the door,’ he shouted.

There was a moment’s silence and then Little Mary screamed ‘Help, help!’

He thrust his shoulder against the door. The wooden bolt smashed, the door swung open with a bang and he stumbled into the kitchen.

For a few moments he was dazed by the light and the excitement. Then he saw Red John standing near the fire, clothed only in his trousers and a strip of his woollen shirt on his right shoulder. There was froth on his red beard. He grinned savagely and gripped a tongs in his left hand. Little Mary was crouching in the corner by the back door, barefooted, with a red frieze petticoat thrown over her shift about her shoulders. Her teeth chattered with fright and shame.

Red John had come back from the wedding mad with whisky, and had attempted to embrace her. He sat by the fire mumbling that he would no longer let her treat him like a dog, trying to screw up his courage to take her. At one moment he feared her strength. At the next moment he forgot everything in his passion. Then he went into her room. She was asleep. He rushed to the bed and seized her. She jumped up with a scream and clawed at him. He drew back snarling. But when she saw his face, her strength and courage deserted her. Catching up her petticoat she fled into the kitchen. Seeing that she was afraid of him he pursued her and caught her in his arms as she was entering the Stranger’s room. They struggled. She tore at his clothes and beard, while he tried to embrace her, growling like a dog. Then she broke from him and he fell on his back on the floor. She crouched at the back door, unable to escape in her terror. He got to his feet and hurled a sod of turf at her. Then he had grabbed the tongs from the hearth, when the Stranger came to the door.

The Stranger and he looked at one another in silence. They both trembled with passion, yet each feared the other. The Stranger felt that he was guilty of having stolen Red John’s wife, and on the other hand felt that he must defend Little Mary. Red John was afraid that he had committed a crime by assaulting his wife, and yet he was enraged against the Stranger, whom he suspected of having seduced her. So they stood facing one another, each afraid to attack. They each tried to terrify the other. They curled up their lips. They expanded their chests and clenched their fists. They stepped about the floor threatening one another with their heads. Then the Stranger suddenly realized that the situation was ludicrous. He told himself that he was afraid of Red John and that he was in the wrong. Red John saw him hesitate and rushed at him. Then the Stranger forgot his reasoning, and shot out his hands to preserve himself. He was just in time to prevent the tongs from smashing his skull. Then he closed with Red John. Their faces were close together as they strained against each other. Then Red John thrust his head forward and tried to grip the Stranger’s throat with his teeth. He missed the throat and tore at the coat lapel. Letting go his hands from the Stranger’s waist he gripped at the throat like a dog. Then the Stranger, terrified into an equal fury, swung out blindly with both hands at Red John’s head. Red John began to scream with pain. Gradually he let go his hold and then tried to stagger away. Another blow sent him down to the floor in a heap. ‘Let me alone, let me alone,’ he gasped, ‘don’t kill me, I didn’t mean any-uh-harm to anybody.’ And the Stranger, feeling disgusted with himself for having hurt the poor fellow after stealing his wife, staggered to a stool in the hearth corner, and hiding his face in his hands he wept.

He fell into a kind of thoughtless stupor. He heard Little Mary put Red John to bed. Red John was still whining ‘Leave me alone, leave me alone, I’m not hurting anybody.’ Then he felt Little Mary’s arms about his waist and her lips to his cheek. ‘My darling,’ she kept saying, as she pressed him to her bosom.

Inverara lay in the bosom of the sea, like a maiden sleeping in the arms of her lover. As the sun rose each morning, the night mists rolled away before it to the West in pale blue columns. They rolled up the steep slope of Coillnamhan Fort, and then banked along the high ridge that runs athwart Inverara from south to north between Rooruck and Coillnamhan. They lay there at dawn, a pale blue wall dividing the east from the west. Then the sun rose clear above the Head of Crom, and they vanished into space as it shone through them.

A million rays then danced on every crag. The tall clover grass in the fields beneath the crags sparkled, each blade an emerald. The roof of the old church at Coillnamhan could be seen for miles, a pool of light lit up by the sun. The trees behind O’Daly’s cottage were in bloom, an oasis in a treeless desert. Each tilled field was big with crops. The dark green potato stalks were covered with pink and white and red blossoms, and tall poppies and sunflowers waved above the stalks, scattered here and there like soldiers on sentry. Each glen along the south of Inverara was a flower garden. Sheltered by the ivy-covered hills where the sparrows chirped, the valleys were covered with pure simple little flowers, primroses, bluebells, daisies and buttercups. On the cliff-tops over the sea, where the salt air smelt like an elixir from a fairy-land, other flowers grew, whose names nobody knew. They were tender little flowers; they grew in a night and died in a day. They were as delicate to the touch as a butterfly’s wing, and as multi-coloured as a rockbird’s egg. Down in the crevices among the crags, where the wind never came and where the sun was only reflected by slanting dim shadows, the maidenhair ferns grew from the black earth. Their roots were moistened by water from the very heart of Inverara. Their green heads stood silent and beautiful like living poems.