by George Moore
He sat at the further end of the railway carriage, his face bent upon his breviary and almost hidden in the shadow of a large-brimmed hat. It was this partial view of his face, a silhouette in which little appeared but a long, finely cut nose, that reminded me of a face I had seen many years ago; and in the shadow of a hat, I said. I never knew more of the face that I am trying to remember, only the pointed oval and the long, finely cut nose. The eyes I never saw, they were always averted from me, just like the priest’s eyes are now. If it should be the same priest! The word “priest” stirred my memory, and of a sudden it became certain that the old man reading his breviary at the further end of the railway carriage was none other than Cunningham’s spiritual director; the priest who used to wait on Cunningham’s doorstep when I lived in Upper Ely Place — a tiny cul de sac — five little eighteenth-century houses built on a sort of terrace overlooking a garden, a square, about a rood of ground belonging to No. 4, the house I lived in. A quiet little old-world spot shut off from the grand houses of Ely Place by tall iron gates; marked off, I should have said, for the gates were always open, and the rare sight-seer led by chance into this forgotten corner of the city must have often wondered why the gates were ever put there, for what purpose — to defend Ely Place against the robbers that used to descend from the Dublin mountains to raid the city as late as the eighteenth century? The sightseer’s fancy may have wandered into this explanation of the gates and out of it into another equally absurd, but it could not have occurred to anybody in the twentieth century that the gates were merely ornamental, designed with no other view than beauty; he may, however, have failed to notice that they added to the seclusion, and were never shut for the reason that it were vain to shut gates on a forgotten corner.
Often from my windows have I watched the vagrant sight-seer pace the little pavement the length of my garden and seen him stop perplexed by the old-world beauty of the place, by the little alley of lilac bushes, the laburnums, hawthorns and the great apple-trees; the flower walk filled with old-fashioned flowers, and the pump by the elder bush under the fig-trees, could not fail to stir even the most sluggish imagination. Myself, too, pacing the sward, my hands behind my back, composing, or idly at work in the flower beds on either side of the gravel walk, or listening to the sparrows quarrelling in the hawthorns or flying from the bees that often pursued me, or thinking of my neighbours whilst sitting under the great apple-tree, must have added to the romance.
At No. 5, a household of elderly women with a boy destined for the Church, already morose. At No. 4, myself. At No. 3, Cunningham, the man whose story I am about to relate; at No. 2, a couple of noisy girls with a taste for brogue, dogs, bicycles and whistling. At No. 1, a celebrated lawyer of retiring presence, without a story, if that be possible. We all no doubt have stories, and death is a tragedy which finds its way into every life sooner or later, slowly or swiftly, and I know of no more moving tragedy than the death of my next-door neighbour.
I often guessed him to be a retired tradesman, without however being able to fit him into any trade. He would not do for a grocer — grocers are men of serious mien, and Cunningham, to put it bluntly, was a comic little fellow, suited to the music hall stage, one whose turn could be relied upon to revive the drooping spirits of an audience after a sentimental song with harp accompaniment. A butt of a man, as we say in Ireland; thick-set, with a large head and the rolling gait of a dwarf when he fared forth after his dinner about three o’clock, always dressed the same, in a yellow overcoat and wide grey trousers, a corpulent cigar always in his mouth and a white flower in his button-hole, a jolly little fellow to the casual observer, but to me, who saw him every day, his humour seemed superficial and to overlie a deep-set melancholy — the melancholy of the dwarf, somebody once said, and the words put a thought of Velasquez’s dwarfs into my mind. In earlier centuries he would have drifted into the palace, but how did he escape the music hall, I often murmured, and set to snail hunting while considering the little man whose life was as strange as his appearance, for he seemed to be without any friends, nobody ever crossed his threshold except his servant, an old woman who always bade me the hour of the day; and it was from her I learnt that when Cunningham went forth in the afternoon he would not return until seven in the evening: and all that while he’ll be walking round Phoenix Park, she said, talking to the many people he meets with on the way, for the master is well known to everybody in the city of Dublin. But he never asks anybody to his house, I said. No, she answered; no one comes here. But he’s well known and respected in the city of Dublin.
When we passed each other in the street he always averted his eyes, and if I had been polite I should have imitated him, but I could not keep myself from looking into his comical eyes turned up at the corners, and wondering at the great roll of flesh from ear to ear, and at the chins descending step by step into his bosom. But my knowledge of Cunningham did not exceed the facts observed by myself and related by his housekeeper: till one day, some months later, I was kept waiting at Sir Thornley Stoker’s, my presence causing the doctor some embarrassment, for there was some shutting of doors and a hurried exit through the hall that set me wondering who the man or woman could be that Sir Thornley Stoker did not wish me to see. The faint surprise this caused was increased by the doctor’s hilarity when I was admitted into his study. He lay back in his Chippendale arm-chair overcome by some uncontrollable mirth. At last in reply to my demands of an explanation he blurted out: you’ve just missed seeing Cunningham. I asked him to stay to meet you but at the moment your name was mentioned he snatched up his hat. It’s a pity you don’t know Cunningham. Cunningham is Dublin in essence. You see, read and understand Dublin in Cunningham. An epitome, an abridgement, a compendium of Dublin. But why won’t he know me? The doctor seemed unwilling to answer my question, and this made me very curious to hear the reason, but I soon began to perceive that the doctor did not know exactly the reason of Cunningham’s aversion. Very likely because we’re next-door neighbours, I said. There may be something of that in it, the doctor answered, and all the while his lips trembled with laughter. At last he could control his hilarity no longer, and I watched him roll over in his wonderful Chippendale chair. Now what is it? I asked, and he began to tell me that Cunningham was possessed of all the drollery of the world and could control any meeting, do what he liked with it, and then the doctor began to repeat himself, telling me that Cunningham knew everybody and was always overflowing with comicality, and seized by a sudden memory the doctor exploded with laughter. If you had only heard him just now telling — But do tell me. I can’t tell you. It’s the Dublin accent and the Dublin idiom. It was all about Evelyn Innés. You don’t know what you’ve missed, and he turned over in his chair to laugh again. No, there’s no use my trying to tell it; you should hear Cunningham. But I can’t hear Cunningham; he won’t know me. At last, apologising for spoiling the story, Sir Thornley told me that I must take for granted the racy description of two workmen who had come to Upper Ely Place to mend the drains in front of my house.
After having dug a hole, they took a seat at either end, and sat spitting into it from time to time in solemn silence, until at last one said to the other: do you know the fellow that lives in the house forninst us? You don’t? Well, I’ll tell you who he is; he’s the fellow that wrote Evelyn Innés. And who was she? She was a great opera singer. And the story is all about the ould hat. She was lying on a crimson sofa with mother-of-pearl legs when the baronet came into the room, his eyes jumping out of his head and he as hot as be damned. Without as much as a good-morrow, he jumped down on his knees alongside of her, and the next chapter’s in Italy.
The crimson sofa, I said, with the mother-of-pearl legs, and the baronet “as hot as be damned” would be about as much of the story as a Dublin workman would be likely to gather from the book.
But if you had heard himself tell it, the doctor chortled. He always speaks of you as “George,” the doctor added, and he again became speechless. Thompson, h
e said at last, knows Cunningham better than I; he pulled him through a long and serious illness when he was landlord of the Blue Anchor in Abbey Street. So he’s a retired publican, I answered. I always saw a retired tradesman in him but — But what? the doctor said. Only this, that he reminded me more often of the chairman in a music hall; he can troll out a song, I hear him sometimes of a Sunday morning through the wall; and behind the bar he would be as popular as in front of the footlights. A dangerous trade his for an Irishman, the doctor said, for the host must drink with his customers, a sort of assurance that the quality of the whisky is all right. So he’s a retired publican, I continued. And a very successful publican, Stoker interjected. He brought seventeen thousand pounds out of the business. But Thompson will tell you more about him than I can.
Sir William Thompson was Sir Thornley Stoker’s brother-in-law, and on my next visit to 54 Stephen’s Green heard that there was nobody like Cunningham to raise a laugh against the clergy. Our clergy? I said. His own clergy, Thompson answered, and he recalled some of Cunningham’s sallies.
But if he knows Catholicism to be so unworthy, how is it that he has not discovered himself to be a Protestant?
Ah! Sir William answered, you ask that question because you haven’t yet learnt to understand Ireland. Cunningham was sent to confession when he was seven years of age, and his confessor so kneaded hell into his mind that neither drink nor women could enable him to forget it afterwards. There’s too much punishment in our theology, and it is even more prominent in Catholic religious education, for the Catholics have purgatory. I don’t know where they get it from, but purgatory is the boy that robs the widow and the orphan for them, and purgatory and hell work together in Catholic picture books and prayers — red-hot devils stoking the fire, lakes of boiling pitch, and with the excellent result, from the priest’s point of view, that the Catholic mind is paralysed. With the front of his mind Cunningham sees that his clergy think more of possessing themselves of the property of their parishioners than of anything else; that they haunt death-beds and despoil widows and orphans without mercy. Every month a will in which a man leaves all his money for masses for the repose of his soul is contested in the Law Courts. Cunningham knows all this; he’s a shrewd man, he would not have brought seventeen thousand pounds out of the Blue Anchor if he hadn’t been a shrewd man, but at the back of his mind there is fear of hell and purgatory. The doctor stopped speaking, his face becoming grave and thoughtful. A moment after he broke into a smile. To appreciate Cunningham, he said, you must hear him talk; a spring of natural humour which you say you have never met with in Ireland and which you deny exists. I’d like you to meet Cunningham, but he’s afraid of you, I think. But why, I asked, should he be afraid of me? He’s a little queer, but nothing serious, the doctor answered.
A little later Stoker returned to Cunningham’s humour and tried to explain it, telling that it flowed along like a brook, as spontaneous and as natural, rising up out of himself without artifice. Yes, I think I understand; with the smack of spring water on it, I answered, and the doctor told of Cunningham’s power over an audience; how he captivated it and held it by the raciness of his wit. I should like you to meet him, he repeated. But if he won’t meet me there’s no help for it, I answered. And bidding the doctor good-bye I returned home, remembering more distinctly than anything else what the doctor had said about Cunningham’s fear of hell.
Yes, I said to myself, that is the characteristic of Ireland, fear of hell, and I fell to thinking of the Irish publican, saying to myself, his seventeen thousand pounds may develop easily into scruples of conscience, I wonder!
CHAPTER 9.
THE DAYS MELTED into weeks, as their wont is, and the weeks accumulated, and from my doorstep this year as last year I saw Cunningham start forth every afternoon, rolling down the pavement as one of Velasquez’s dwarfs might, a white flower in his button-hole, a corpulent cigar in his mouth. He returned after having accomplished several miles to a lonely dinner and a long evening by himself. Sometimes, I said, he has the old woman up in the drawing-room and chats with her. And little by little the desire to discover a theme in which Cunningham would display himself began to fidget me, and when the sanitary inspector condemned my drains I sent his report to Cunningham, who returned the report just as if he were able to see into my mind and had read there that I could not do else than look upon him as a type. If we met in the street coming from different directions he avoided my look, and he never stopped to gaze into my pretty garden, and there were times when my garden was a very pretty one, especially in early spring when the apple-trees were in bloom, and later the hawthorns, and afterwards in late summer, when the sweet-pea was in flower. But he never looked at my flowers, and nobody ever came to see him, until one day I saw the grey stony face of the priest sitting opposite to me in the train on Cunningham’s doorstep, and fell to wondering what his errand might be. A few days after I caught sight of the priest again, and henceforth not many days passed without my seeing him; every week he appeared on the doorstep, and the stony face put thoughts into my mind of the terrors it was the duty of the priest to foster: however much he might deprecate as a man the despoiling of widows and orphans he must not impugn the advantage it is to the sinner to leave money for masses for the salvation of his soul.
The priest’s face never changed expression, nor did he look up at me; and though I often passed by him and strove to attract his eyes, they remained fixed on the doorstep whilst he waited for the servant to open the door for him. And the grey, stony face of the priest on the doorstep pursued me during my walks, setting me thinking of the drama in progress, only a wall, I said, separating me from it: a poor little man of unbalanced mind rapidly losing his wits at the thought of the almost endless ages he will have to spend in purgatory, expiating the sins of his youth, unless he leaves the money he acquired in the Blue Anchor to the Church for masses for the repose of his soul. Sad alternatives: to despoil one’s relations or remain in purgatory, and in imagination I could see the twain sitting opposite each other; a look of horror on the publican’s face, the priest’s grey and immovable.
CHAPTER 10.
ONE DAY AS I came down to breakfast I heard a woman talking to my servants and there was from time to time a great wail of grief in her voice, and in grave apprehension I asked myself: what strange and doleful story can she be telling, and my heart beat faster as I descended the kitchen stairs.
What is this, what is this I cried, and a moment after I recognised in our visitor the woman who looked after poor Cunningham.
Oh, sir, she exclaimed; O Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the master is after hanging himself this morning out of the banisters, and she continued her story, sobbing and wailing from time to time, and by degrees I learnt that on not finding him in his bedroom when she took up his cup of tea in the morning, she waited, expecting that he was in the closet, but as he did not return, and not hearing him about she began to be alarmed and started looking for him, and it was from the banisters of the top storey that she found him hanging.
You don’t sleep in the top storey?
No, sir, I sleep in the basement.
Was he dead when you found him?
Maybe he wasn’t; he must have gone up the stairs to hang himself only a minute or so before I brought him up his tea.
And he was dead before you could get a knife to cut him down?
There was a knife on the tray, sir; but I didn’t like to cut him down for fear that he would hurt himself in the fall, and I ran out without my cap or anything to fetch the police.
But for what reason did he hang himself? I asked. He wasn’t in want of money?
No, sir, that wasn’t it. He left the money a while back to the Church for masses to be said for his soul. But you see, sir, the priest used to be telling him that he couldn’t keep himself from the drink. Maybe you saw the priest standing on our doorstep, sir?
Yes, yes, I answered.
The poor master often fancied himself a bit queer in
his mind, though, indeed, he was not, sir. He was not indeed; he was as sane as you or I. It was easy to twist him so that he’d go out of his wits, and he afraid that he might lose the wits when there wasn’t a priest next or near him to hear his confession; it was that was troubling his mind. And that’s what they would be talking about upstairs, the priest urging him to go into John-o’-God’s and be looked after there.
John-o’-God’s, I repeated; what a strange name.
Yes, sir, but you must know it, the asylum up in the woods by the Scalp. And it was fear of going there that drove him to the hanging, I’m sure of that. For only the night before, when I was sitting in the drawingroom with him, he said to me: they’ll never get me as long as I have this hand, and they’ll never get me there.
It was at that moment that the front door bell rang. My secretary, I said. She came down to the kitchen and heard the story over again from the old woman, and going upstairs together she said to me: I saw Mr. Cunningham last night returning home, carrying something under his coat, and his face frightened me. He must have been planning it then.
Carrying something under his coat?
Yes, one end of it was showing; a rope it seemed to me to be.
No, it wasn’t a rope, a strap, I said. He must have gone down to buy it and returned home as you were leaving, about seven o’clock. Afraid of John-o’-God’s he hanged himself — only in John-o’-God’s could he escape from temptation, and only there could he be sure of having a priest to shrive him at the last moment, and only in death could he escape John-o’-God’s. And once in John-o’-God’s he could not unmake his will. It’s neat, I said, and the girl’s eyes returned to me as we stood looking at each other.
