Liam O'Flaherty - Irish Portraits - 14 Short Stories

“They were for Michael O’Connor and John Hourigan and Paddy O’Kelly,” cried Cleary, almost in a scream.

“Michael O’Connor, John Hourigan and Paddy O’Kelly,” repeated the priest slowly, as he sat down again in his chair, groaning as he sat.

Then he placed his hands again on his temples and rubbed them slowly down over his face, as if he were erasing some picture from his memory. A phantom.

Cleary’s eyes now shone wildly. His body was rigid and he was ready to jump, he thought. His face twitched. But he felt a great relief. He had come to a decision. Nothing mattered to him now. He felt a great strength in his jaws where they joined the muscles of his neck and he didn’t have to blink his eyes, as he was in the habit of doing. His eyes remained wide open without effort and the lids seemed to be very cold and rigid.

The priest’s attitude changed again. He began to lecture.

Cleary thoughtlessly repeated the words of the lecture to himself after the priest, while his newly functioning mind planned other things.

“In the first place, it’s against the rules to go into a shop. Secondly, it’s a grave sin to procure the means of sin for another soul. Thirdly, ’tis a …”

And his mind exulted, ravenously devouring all sorts of new ideas, let loose into the whole cosmos of things without restraint. Free now and cunning and deceitful and securely hidden behind a thick wall of deceit, through which nothing could pierce. Free and alone and hating everything. Free to found a new cosmos, to fashion a new order of thought and a new God. Through hatred to a new love. Through terrible suffering in loneliness to a new light. Through agony to a new peace. The man was growing in him.

The priest ceased. Then he said:

“Send Michael O’Connor in to me. I will speak to you later about your penance.”

Cleary bowed and left the room. He was no longer afraid entering the study. He went to the auxiliary desk and asked permission to speak to Michael O’Connor. He went to O’Connor and said: “Fr. Harty wants you.” He paid no heed to the threat that O’Connor uttered, He went to his desk and, covering his face with his hands, he smiled.

In the morning he would run away, he thought.

“I am the Good Shepherd” (JESUS CHRIST)

The parish priest returned to the parochial house at Drom-ullen, after a two months’ holiday at the seaside resort of Lisdoonvarna.

He returned fatter than he went, with immense red gills and crimson flakes on his undulating cheeks, with pale blue eyes scowling behind mountainous barricades of darkening flesh and a paunch that would have done credit to a Roman emperor.

He sank into the old easy chair in the library with a sumptuous groan. He was tired after the journey. He filled the chair and overflowed it. His head sank into his neck as he leaned back and the neck-flesh eddied turbulently over the collar of his black coat, toppling down behind in three neat billowing waves. He felt the elbow-rests with his fat white palms caressingly. Great chair! It had borne his weight for ten years without a creak. Great chair! Great priest!

His housekeeper stood timorously on the other side of the table, with her hands clasped in front of her black skirt, a lean, sickly woman with a kind white face, She had followed him in. But she was afraid to disturb the great man so soon after his arrival.

He sighed, grunted, groaned, and made a rumbling internal noise from his throat to his midriff. Then he said “Ha!” and shifted his weight slightly. He suddenly raised his eyebrows. His little eyes rested on the housekeeper’s twitching hands. They shot upwards to her pale face. His mouth fell open slightly.

“Well?” he grunted in a deep, pompous voice. “Trouble again? What is it?”

“Kitty Manion wants to see ye, Father?” whispered the housekeeper.

“Foo!” said the priest. He made a noise in his mouth as if he were chewing something soft. He grunted. “I heard about her,” he continued in a tone of oppressed majesty. “I heard about the slut…. Yes, indeed…. Ough!… Show her in.”

The housekeeper curtsied and disappeared. The door closed without a sound. The white handle rolled backwards with a faint squeak. There was silence in the library. The priest clasped his paunch with both hands. His paunch rose and fell as he breathed. He kept nodding his head at the ground. Two minutes passed.

The door opened again without a sound. The housekeeper pushed Kitty Manion gently into the library. Then the door closed again. The white handle squeaked. There was a tense pause. The parish priest raised his eyes. Kitty Manion stood in front of him, at the other side of the table, two paces within the door.

She had a month-old male child at her breast. His head emerged from the thick, heavy cashmere shawl that enveloped his mother. His blue eyes stared impassively, contentedly. The mother’s eyes were distended and bloodshot. Her cheeks were feverishly red. Her shawl had fallen back on to her shoulders like a cowl, as she shifted it from one hand to another in order to rearrange her child. Her great mass of black hair was disordered, bound loosely on the nape of her neck. Her neck was long, full, and white. Her tall, slim figure shivered. These shivers passed down her spine, along her black-stockinged, tapering calves and disappeared into her high-heeled little shoes. She looked very beautiful and innocent as only a young mother can look.

The priest stared at her menacingly. She stared back at him helplessly. Then she suddenly lost control of herself and sank to her knees.

“Have pity on me, Father.” she cried. “Have pity on me child.”

She began to sob…. The priest did not speak. A minute passed. Then she rose to her feet once more. The priest spoke.

“You are a housemaid at Mr. Burke’s, the solicitor.”

“I was, Father. But he dismissed me this morning. I have no place to go to. No shelter for me child. They’re afraid to take me in in the village for fear ye might… Oh! Father, I don’t mind about mesef, but me child. It…”

“Silence!” cried the priest sternly. “A loose tongue is an ill omen. How did this happen?’

She began to tremble violently. She kept silent.

“Who is the father of yer child, woman?” said the priest slowly, lowering his voice and leaning forward on his elbows.

Her lips quivered. She looked at the ground. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She did not speak.

“Ha!” he cried arrogantly. “I thought so. Obstinate slut. I have noticed you this long while. I knew where you were drifting. Ough! The menace to my parish that a serpent like you … Out with it!” he roared, striking the table. “Let me know who has aided you in your sin. Who is he? Name him. Name the father of your child.”

She blubbered, but she did not speak.

“For the sake of your immortal soul,” he thundered, “I command you to name the father of your child.”

“I can’t,” she moaned hysterically. “I can’t, Father. There was more than one man. I don’t know who…”

“Stop, wretch,” screamed the priest, seizing his head with both hands. “Silence! Silence, I command you. Oh my! Oh! Oh!”

The child began to whimper.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” muttered the girl in a quiet whisper.

The priest’s face was livid. His eyes were bloodshot. His paunch trembled. He drew in a deep breath to regain control of himself. Then he stretched his right hand to the door with the forefinger pointed.

“Go!” he thundered, in a melancholy voice. “Begone from me, accursed one. Begone with the child of your abomination. Begone.”

She turned slowly, on swaying hips, to the door, with the foot movements of one sinking in a quagmire. She threw back her head helplessly on her neck and seized the doorhandle. The handle jingled noisily. The door swung open and struck her knee. She tottered into the hall.