Liam O'Flaherty - The Black Soul

The Stranger, on the other hand, looked upon the peasants with the interest that a lazy man might take in the horseplay of a number of puppies. On the pier he was at rest, lulled to sleep by the languorous sound of everything about him, for in summer there is nothing so languorous as the sound of other people working. The turf boats came in in the morning, sails flapped, blocks creaked, anchor chains ran out, shaggy-breasted men began to swear, horses galloped, and the sea murmured dreamily. And he listened to these sounds, as if he could never again arouse himself to take an interest in life, or make an effort. While he was on the pier he could laugh cynically when he thought of Little Mary, for it is only when the mind is restless and dissatisfied that men desire love that is more than mere sexual passion. The sun and the sea and the unexciting companionship of the men about him murmured, ‘Sleep, rest, dream, for ever and for ever.’ Even O’Daly, who came down to the pier every day, did not arouse in him the former interest. ‘He is a boring fellow,’ he would think, listening to O’Daly’s interminable stories. Several times he went home with O’Daly in the evening, and met Kathleen, and even she did not arouse him. She was like a stranger to him now, and he wondered what he had seen in her before to make him desire her. ‘If she only had Little Mary’s beauty,’ he would think, as he sat talking to her, ‘what a wonderful woman she would be.’ And because he was indifferent to her, he talked freely to her. But strange to say it was when he was with her that he felt his love for Little Mary most. And, inspired by that feeling, he often grew enthusiastic in praise of fine feelings and a high standard of honour and clean living, those things that are so dear to the hearts of all modern Irish, in discussion. For since no single one of the three are entirely attainable, they are ideal subjects for discussion. So absorbed was he in the contemplation of his own difficulties and his love, which, however, he would not admit to himself, that he never noticed Kathleen, or the marked change in her attitude towards him. And what a change! Was it the languor of summer that caused her cheeks to flush when she heard his step approaching? What caused her to tremble when she touched him in passing? It was fear of herself, of surrendering to the passion that she had always repressed. She prayed and fasted, trying to overcome it, that love which she considered impure because it was for another being than God. And except for the slight occasional flush and the trembling, no one would have guessed that the proud cold face concealed such furious passions. Least of all the Stranger, since he no longer took any interest in her as a woman.

Then one evening he and she were alone in the sitting-room together. She sat playing her violin in the niche by the window. A blackbird was singing on a rose-bush outside as if his throat would burst. He sat near her in the black mood that music always evoked in him, listening to the intermingling of the blackbird’s voice with that of the violin. ‘How impossible it is to be happy,’ he mused. ‘Music only makes me sad. Beauty hurts me. Beauty and the sunset. Sadness grins like an ape grinning at the futility of life. And yet men find joy in music. I must indeed be mad.’ And covering his head in his hands he sighed. She stopped playing. She sat waiting for him to speak to her. At that moment she knew that she could not resist the evening, the sweet scent, the desire for … life. But he made no movement. He was thinking of himself. And at length her pride gained the mastery, and she left the room, banging the door behind her. The noise startled him, and he sat up. Then with his eyes half- closed, as if to hide his sadness, he went out by the window.

When summer had softened the wild beauty of Inverara, so that neither the calm sea stretching about its shores, nor the breezes sweeping its crags, disturbed the peaceful silence of nature by their clamour, the eye turned by day to the majestic sun, that stood all day in the cloudless sky, and by night to the stars, that shone forth in myriads, vast star streams with constellations wheeling slowly over the night sea. Inverara was no longer a gaunt rock, whose crude strength made the mind fierce. It was a platform from which the beauty of the heavens was visible. The fathomless blue sky, dotted by clouds that looked like washed wool tossed by a smooth wind, seemed so near that men kept looking at it with narrowed eyes, as if trying to see insects moving on its face. The island seemed to lie in the sea, dreaming of the vastness of the universe.

But the silence filled Red John with horror. He had no longer anything to distract him. The crop that he had sown in spring had withered, choked by weeds. He often looked in over the fence into his potato gardens and laughed emptily, wondering what had possessed him to spend so much labour to no purpose. Then he would catch up stones from the fence and hurl them in among the weeds, saying with a chuckle, ‘Ha, I’ll settle you.’ He found great satisfaction in being mischievous. Everybody and everything inspired hatred in him. When a man or a woman passed him he would stare at their throats and long to draw a knife across them. And his right hand would clench the cloth of his waistcoat pocket. He often spent hours at night chasing his two black sheep, until he was lathered with sweat, his eyes blazing, furiously desiring to kill them. But when they stopped in the middle of the crag panting, and each trying to hide her head under the other’s belly, he would merely claw at their wool, mumbling, wondering why he had chased them. And all the while he was unable to think. And yet it was impossible for him not to try to think.

Each day the heat of the sun and the empty vastness of the blue sky urged him to inconceivable tortures of aimless thinking. ‘What is this?’ he would say, looking at the sky and holding his head between his hands, with the knuckles of his fingers white with the pressure. ‘What is it at all, at all? My sweet Virgin, what is it?’ And the blue sky eddied towards him in monotonous blue balls, advancing first slowly, then with the rapidity of thought, until everything became a blur and something commenced to sing within his skull, and the soles of his feet itched. He would then sit down and begin to tear up the grass and count the blades aloud.

He shunned all grown-up people, but he would sit among the children and play with them at marbles or making fences with mud, chattering foolishly. And sometimes, when they made fun of him, he would grin evilly and try to entice them to follow him away from the village, desiring to kill them. That was the only persistent desire, to kill somebody. He felt that desire especially at night when he lay awake, breathing heavily. His hands would grasp his own throat and crush until the gasping of his lungs filled him with terror and he listened anxiously for the beating of his heart. But he pulled out all his front teeth and found great pleasure in the pain it caused. Then he hid them in an old mug in his barn.

He only stayed in the cabin to sleep a short while at night and to eat his meals. He never spoke to either his wife or the Stranger. He never looked at them. But he twitched spasmodically, and sometimes laughed aloud suddenly. He would open his mouth and utter a loud peal that was more like a yell than a laugh, and then shut his mouth just as suddenly, with a despairing look in his eyes as if he had resigned himself to a terrible death. Both the Stranger and Little Mary knew now that he was mad, but they never spoke of it. It made each of them miserable. Each pitied Red John, and blamed the other for being the cause of his illness. Little Mary often had fits of weeping and melancholy, when she wanted to drown herself. All sorts of fancies oppressed her. Not even her love offered her any solace. Instead of appealing to the Stranger for comfort, she shrank from him. Something seemed to have arisen between them that drove them apart. It was as if the languorous silence of nature exposed them on a wild desert, and each hated the other for being the cause of the exposure. And the neighbours, seeing the state of affairs in the cabin, whispered to one another that something should be done about it. But they did nothing but whisper, for in summer at Rooruck nobody does anything but look at the vast empty sky and whisper and dream about vast things that are unfathomable.