Graham Greene: Brighton Rock

She listened with astonishment. He said: "This man decided that if any soul was going to be damned, he would be damned too. He never took the sacraments, he never married his wife in church. I don't know, my child, but some people think he was well, a saint.

I think he died in what we are told is mortal sin I'm not sure; it was in the war--perhaps..."He sighed and whistled, bending his old head. He said: "You can't conceive, my child, nor can I or anyone the... appalling... strangeness of the mercy of God."

Outside the chairs creaked again and again people impatient to get their own repentance, absolution, penance finished for the week. . He said: "It was a case of greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his soul for his friend."

He shivered and sneezed. "We must hope and pray," he said, "hope and pray. The Church does not demand that we believe any soul is cut off from mercy."

She said with sad conviction: "He's damned. He knew what he was about. He was a Catholic too."

He said gently: "Corruptio optimi est pessima."

"Yes, Father?"

"I mean a Catholic is more capable of evil than anyone. I think perhaps because we believe in him we are more in touch with the devil than other people. But we must hope," he said mechanically, "hope and pray."

"I want to hope," she said, "but I don't know how."

"If he loved you, surely," the old man said, "that shows... there was some good..."

"Even love like that?"

"Yes."

She brooded on the idea in the little dark box. He said: "And come back soon I can't give you absolution now but come back tomorrow."

She said weakly: "Yes, Father.... And if there's ababy...?"

He said: "With your simplicity and his force...

Make him a saint to pray for his father .1 '

A sudden feeling of immense gratitude broke through the pain it was as if she had been given the sight a long way off of life going on again. He said: "Pray for me, my child."

She said: "Yes, oh, yes."

Outside she looked up at the name on the confessional box it wasn't any name she remembered.

Priests come and go.

She went out into the street the pain was still there } you couldn't shake it off with a word; but the worst horror, she thought, was over the horror, of the complete circle--to be back at home, back at Snow's they'd take her back just as if the Boy had never existed at all. He had existed and would always exist.

She had a sudden conviction that she carried life and she thought proudly: Let them get over that if they can; let them get over that. She turned out onto the front opposite the Palace Pier and began to walk firmly away from the direction of her home towards Billy's. There was something to be salvaged from that house and room, something else they wouldn't be able to get over his voice speaking a message to her: if there was a child, speaking to the child. "If he loved you," the priest had said, "that shows..." She walked rapidly in the thin June sunlight towards the worst horror of all.

The End