by George Moore
It was at the third knock that the Mother Abbess poked her head out of a window, and not three minutes afterwards there were three other heads poking out of other windows. Good, decent women they are, and of my own race, the monk said. They won’t be grudging me the bit to eat and the sup that washes it down. He wasn’t wrong there, for as soon as the Abbess heard his story and his tale she bid him wait till she had got some clothes on her back. We’ve been in bed, young youth, this half-hour, she said; but I’ll let you in. When she had slung a cloak on she opened the door and let himself and his dogs in, and she saying: the blessing of God on yourself and on these three fine dogs that are sniffing at my feet this minute. Badly they’re wanted. The boys up the hill will be glad to have them three the way the wolves have been making havoc and destruction amongst the flocks. There isn’t a flock left in the country, my son, not a shepherd but has his share, some of them two, and some of them three, and some of them the good half of a flock, but with the help of God and these three fine dogs, we’ll have mutton to our bread on Sundays and holidays and odd times as well. We haven’t tasted much meat lately, but here’s a bit left, she continued, from last night, and we depriving ourselves of it, little thinking that you would be wanting it more than we do after your long travel, my poor young man. Was it Marban you said you were called? A good name it is surely in this country.
Such was her canter while she cut the bread and poured him out a noggin of ale. We don’t drink ale ourselves, she said, but we have it for strangers, the ones that do be wanting it. While talking she kept on looking at the lad, taking stock of his size and his shape, and from what father told me and what he heard from his father before him, Marban was a fine young fellow when he was in it, a long-legged lad with spreading shoulders to him, with red lips, and a mouthful of teeth as white and as strong as the ones inside the faces of his hounds that were already stretched and snoring by the hearth, too tired for even their feed.
She seemed to be well pleased with the traveller, and kept on putting questions to him about himself and the ways of the monastery he had left behind in foreign parts. She wasn’t a woman you would be calling young, and she wasn’t an old woman either: a youngish woman falling into flesh as the roses will be doing in a month’s time, when they open out like small cabbages. She only had a few clothes on, being in a hurry to open the door to him, one of the long blue cloaks you might have seen worn by the married women when you were a boy, and it slipped on over the gown she’d gone to bed in. Well, she was so full of the lad eating at her table that she had no heed of herself, more often than not showing herself away up her legs and down into her bosom, puzzling the young monk, who did not know how to let on he wasn’t taking notice of her. You will understand how this was right well, your honour, when I tell you that one of the questions she was haggling at was the distance between his monastery and the nearest nunnery; and great was her surprise when she heard that there wasn’t a nunnery closer to him than twenty miles. Sure that’s ridiculous, said she. How do you be getting your temptation? said she. Tell me that now, said she. What good are we doing here if we be not overcoming strong temptations? she said. And barring the women, what temptations are there in this world for monks who have the height of eating and drinking, and aren’t called away to fight for any king? There aren’t any, said she. And the young man not answering her, she went on that way all the time, until at last, by dint of arguing, she got him to fall in with her way of thinking instead of the one he was used to, and he told her that all she said seemed to be true enough, and that the sticking of yourself into the way of temptation so that you’d get a prize for standing out against it used to be practised in the monastery of the Pyrenees long ago, but had been renaged by the Church because lots of the folk hadn’t been able to shove back the temptation quick enough to save their souls from the danger. But as I’ve been telling ye, the Mother Abbess answered him: what good is it to be living at all if it isn’t to be overcrowding the devil? And if a few should fall back into his claws, isn’t that their own sin and their own folly and their own lookout? Is there to be no thought for the ones that be striving to get a place up in heaven and they not having any longer the ways and means, temptation having been forbidden by the Church. ’Tis a poor thing, I say, and a hard thing when the strongest are held back by the weakest, and the fine places in heaven are empty, there being no person to win them.
As the remark came the door opened and Sister Blathnat came, and she so tidily dressed that the Mother Abbess couldn’t keep her tongue quiet and snapped out that she had been too long delaying to bid the stranger welcome. And when will the rest of the sisters be coming in? They’ll be here, Sister Blathnat answered, inside a minute or two minutes. And strange things they will be hearing when they do come. And when all had forgathered the Abbess repeated all the monk had just told her: that there wasn’t a nunnery with a female in it within twenty miles of his monastery in the Pyrenees, and that they didn’t want one, it having come to pass that a man is forbidden to put himself into temptation for fear he might be bet. Did you ever hear the like of that story before, Sister? And isn’t it the great nonsense? As I was telling Brother Marban here, our work in the world is the overcoming of the devil, and if we aren’t at it all our lives, what chance is there for us to get a place in heaven at all, to say nothing of a fine easy one?
Sister Blathnat was a tall, sloping woman, with soft eyes, such as one sees in a deer. Her hair was like silk, brown with a yellow shine in it, and the longest legs a woman ever had, measuring them from the knee to the ankle, and wonderfully sweet were they, the sort that would stir up the heart of any man to be at her. And she gained great advancement with her legs, moving them while she spoke, her eyes fixed on the monk, crossing and uncrossing them as she’d a right to do, for all this was her business, and his business was to think of our Lord Jesus, who had died for him on the cross, and she too would have to think of the same thing, and be saying prayers while all this was going on.
The nun sitting beside her, Sister Muirgil, was a small woman, with round, inquisitive eyes, which she kept raising and lowering as if she’s set the monk thinking that it might be harder for him if he were put to it to resist her than Sister Blathnat. After her there came another nun, Sister Brigit, a thin woman that at first sight you might be taking for a girl, so rosy were her cheeks, and the finest head of hair she had in the county of Mayo, it ringletting about her neck like the ferns in May, and her eyes were kindly, yet she was in no way good-looking, barring that she made a fine shape through her gown.
Other men found that they were better helped up the difficult way to heaven by Sister Eorann, a girl as brown as a berry she was, with crinkly hair and merry eyes and with much pleasant talk. She was the last but one to get out of bed and come down, and Marban guessed that she was someone in the nunnery, for she joined in with the Mother Abbess, interrupting her telling Marban that God allowed the devil to test men with temptations, but measuring these always to their strength. The women, said she, are the best temptation of all the temptations; everybody knows that, and it is only the great and good, the ones that are worthy of high places in the kingdom of heaven, that can resist the women without going to the tub. The monks from Crith Gaille come down and they stretch beside us as quiet and gentle as lambs beside their ewes, and no evil in them at all. Of course they are burning all the while, and well they may, but it is only by burning here that we escape the burning and the blazes of hell. Is it not the same with you women? Brother Marban asked. And the Mother Abbess answered him: it’s the same for us as for them. Burning we do be, and mighty uneasy, for are we not always tempting each other, and together overcoming our temptations, thereby winning great rewards? ’Tis like going up the ladder, we begin at the lowest step and end at the top one. For myself, being forty years of age, the young men lie with me, who, though no longer young, am still able to stir their blood; but the old monks lie with the sisters until they contrive power over themselves and great resistance t
o any of us. Any, Sister Blathnat said, except Sister Luachet, who hasn’t yet lain with a man. The Abbot, said the Abbess, picking her up, will lie with Sister Luachet if he recovers from the sickness that is on him. He’s very sick, the poor man, and he’s as old as the hills. It will be his last temptation. He’ll not be long with us, and I’d like to have him high up in heaven, ready to receive us all when the time of temptation is over and done with.
The talk went on about Sister Luachet till she came into the room, and when she came in the monk saw the prettiest girl he ever did see. Her hair was the colour of the corn before the reaper goes in with his sickle, and her eyes were well set in her head, and round and blue and pleading, and her shape was pretty throughout. Small breasts she had, and straightened flanks, and round thighs, and ankles as pretty as a young donkey’s. She had a live smile on her face, something that put one in mind of a bird and of a flower, and of pleasant harmless things. The Mother Abbess told Luachet to strip herself, so that Marban might see what a trial she would be to the devil in times to come, and she winning high places in heaven for the monks, and he not getting one monk of the monks for his realm below.
Isn’t that so, my little Luachet? said she, and the girl clapped her hands, saying: it is, Mother; I’ll be making saints and saving saints in the times to come. The Mother Abbess continued her canter: but we’ll wait till she fades a little, the girl, before we allow her to lie with the monks at Bregen, only with the Abbot himself if he comes out of the sickness, and it will take little Luachet to stir up a flame in him, poor old man, and he seventy-five if he’s a day, so that he may win a place in heaven will do honour to Ireland. And now, the Reverend Mother continued, slip into your gown, child, and your cloak, for the night is chilly.
In the Pyrenean monastery, the place this man comes from, there is no nunnery within twenty miles, and the monks live there without temptation from a woman year’s end to year’s end, eating their fill and drinking their load, but not a chance nor the ghost of a chance for them to conquer themselves. Strange ways the Church has fallen into, and strange times for the world. Ah! it’s only in holy Ireland, I’m thinking, that the saints are still living.
Mother, interrupted Brother Marban, in the South the blood is hotter than it is in the North. Ah! the Mother Abbess grunted; true for you. It’s in holy Ireland only that strength is given to man to best temptation, and now, for it’s getting late, which of us is going to lie with Brother Marban to-night, and he not having had a temptation to strive with for this long while back? Any one of you might strike up a flare in that kind of flesh. Brother, though you do look like a virtuous and a holy young man, I’ll lie with you myself this night, for I’m older and wiser and better able to be staunch if the devil tries to cut any capers beyond ones that we expect from him and are used to. We’ve managed to keep him out of this place up to now, so don’t be worried or frightened, for he won’t pass the doors and windows, sprayed as they are with holy water, nor will he try the chimney, for the vane itself is the form and shape of a holy cross, protection enough. Maybe you have an extra crucifix handy, Mother, said Marban, and there is great virtue in that indeed. I have, she answered. I will put this one round your neck, the way you’ll hold it in your hand and be kissing it while you’re in the bed, for that’s what will give you courage to hold out against the temptation. And now, my children, good-night to the lot of you, she said to the other nuns. Out with you, and leave me here to my troubles with this young man.
When she had the door shut behind them she came over to Marban and told him to kneel down alongside herself and say a prayer; so they did that, but she prayed so long that the boy thought his knees would break away from under him. Tender you do be about the knees when you’re young. First he lifted up one knee and then he lifted up the other one and there wasn’t the smell of a prayer left in him when the nun got up with a grunt and gave her leg a shake. Now, said herself, we’ll be getting into bed. Do you begin to strip, and I’ll not be long behind you.
The young man was in travelling dress, and there were boots to be unlaced, and brooches to be unhooked, and many other things, and while he was laying his clothes aside and folding them up, he had his back to the Abbess, for he wasn’t used to this kind of thing; but she had little on her, barring the cloak and the shift, and when the cloak was off she says to him: now, Brother Marban, none of this dodging your lawful temptations; turn round here and take a look at me and don’t be afraid, for God will give you grace to resist me. He found she was very like what he thought she would be, like one of those big cabbage roses, all pink and white, thick about the thighs, too big in the belly for sightliness, or, as they say, beef to the heels like a Mullingar heifer. But a fine woman all the same, and when they were side by side together, she gave him a prod and said she again: face round here to your temptations and face them bravely, for your guardian angel is always beside you. But, says he, if the devil should be stronger in me and overcome the angel? You mustn’t talk like that, said she. The monks in the monastery above would come down here and drive you out into the wilderness with clouts of a stick if they thought They’d kill me, he interrupted. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that, she said, but they would do a damage to you, and they’d have no further truck with you. The wilderness is a bad place at night, the way it’s so full of bears and wolves. Be thinking of that now and you’re safe. But you mustn’t be thinking of the other things, for everything comes out of your head, and if you don’t let the thought into your head, you’re as safe as I am. You’re quiet enough as it is. There’s nothing to fear, my good boy, and the nun passed her hand over him, and finding him slack everywhere, she said: there’s not much temptation in you, young man, so let you lie now in my arms, and look into my eyes, and whatever temptation there may be about will rise up and you have the chance to scoop it out of yourself.
If I get away from this place with my life, said the young man to himself, they won’t catch me here again for ever, and I won’t stop running either until my feet give out, and until there are nine twisting miles of scrub between myself and themselves here in this house of God. The monks up yonder would be hard men with no pity in them for them that tumble. God be praised that I did my forty miles this day through tough country, and me with three healthy dogs pulling out of me, for the same journey would leave the sinfullest man with little humour for a bit of tallow at the end of it, to say nothing of a cleric and he guaranteed by the grace of God. But never a word of all this to the nun that was in his arms, and she thinking that nothing but the power of God could make him so like a dish-cloth. You’ve conquered your temptation before you came here, said she. But we must find a better one to rouse you. The devil a one here will do that, said the lad to himself. At daybreak I’m away to the monastery, and maybe I’ll be safer there.
CHAPTER 19.
HE WAS ASLEEP the minute after the door closed behind her, and he didn’t rouse or budge until the sun was high up in the heavens and the nuns had been knocking at his door more times than once. Nor was it till the third or fourth knock that he opened his eyes, but at the fifth or the sixth; and seeing the sun that strong in the room, he said to himself: I’m done for; I’ve slept it out. I’ll be kept here by the women, and if I’m fresh and vigorous, and lying with one of the younger ones in the night that’s coming, the lord will be put to the pin of his collar to save me from the devil. I’d do well to kiss the crucifix, said he, and dragged on his clothes, for he could hear a gathering of them beyond his door, and thinking they might be coming in upon him, he bounced out into the very middle of them and very soon Sister Eorann was stuck on him like a burr. You remember, your honour, the almost crooked little figure with crinkly hair and grey eyes, a babbling little nun, that was soon telling Marban to his face of his grand success last night. As quiet as a lamb you were, said the mother to me, and you inside her arms and well in, and that we’d have our work cut out to work a temptation in you. But it’s grand work, indeed, getting the better of the devil.
Before Marban could answer her she was telling him the story of their nunnery: how a hundred years ago Suibhne MacCalmain, king of Dal Ariadhe, was mad and distracted by a great sickness that was on his wife, and no one could cure her, though all the wise women in Connaught had been by her bed-side giving her every kind of medicine, and no good coming to her out of it. Sorra one of them could tell what was the matter with her, only that she was wasting away, and she was no more than a dead bird at the bottom of a cage with its legs poked up when MacCalmain came running out of the house to throw himself into the river and drown himself therein. On the way he met three nuns, and said they to the king: where are you off to, MacCalmain? I’m off to throw myself into the water. What’s that for? said they. It’s to drown myself, said he; for the wife is dead, said he, or she’s dying on me. How do you make that out? said a nun of the nuns, and MacCalmain said: there’s hardly a grip of her left. All the same, said the nuns, her life isn’t done with yet. How is that? said the king. What do you mean by that? said he. Do you not know, said the nun, that the angels are gathering this minute of the minutes above there in the clouds, blue and white they be, to bear her soul to God? I know that same, said the king; I know it well. Good for you, MacCalmain, said the nun. And tell me this now, said she: do you want to separate yourself from herself for ever? Is that it? Separate myself from herself, it is not that, said he; and he stood gazing and gaping without a word in him. As soon as he got hold of a few odd words he said that he was off to his drowning in the river because he couldn’t live without her. Live! said a nun of the three nuns. We don’t live on this earth at all, it’s a dream; our own life is heaven itself, close to the Lord God, and he in the middle of the holy saints. Come away from the river, MacCalmain, and pray to have your sins forgiven and you to be restored to your wife when she’s wearing a better crown than the one you gave her. Don’t say a word against the crown, says the king, for he was a proud man, and he got the crown made himself; but all the same the words of the nuns struck him as being wise words, and he was going off to do their bidding when one of the three nuns called him back. We are going to pray to God the way you’ll get back your wife. Do that same, said he, for heaven itself would be a poor place to me if I couldn’t plant my seat alongside the seat of Etain, the one I gave my crown to and my heart, and all my wishes and my wants. And now tell me, he said, since you understand these things so well, will he be giving her to me plump and hearty, the way she was last year, or will she be all skin and bone, the way she is this year? A foolish question, to be sure, but the man was ruined with the grief, and even the holy faces of the nuns, and they looking sideways at him, could only pacify him bit by bit, until the truth dawned on him that life on this earth is no more than a shadow of the long life that’s stored up for us in heaven. If it’s that way, said he to himself, the less I think about earth the better, for I’m getting on and there can’t be many more years in front of me. But if I get to heaven I’ll have an eternity with Etain, and that’s a long time. So here goes for Etain.
