Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  Adam came to her full of God and unsuspicious, saying that after prayer he had bethought himself of the house they had lived in last winter, and how it might be repaired. If the wind comes under the door thou’lt come to the river and cry aloud for me, and it will not be long before I’m swimming to thee, though the floods be great in winter-time. The words came to Eve’s lips to thank him, but she kept them back, and they walked to the house in silence. Thou’lt be building a house, she said, for thyself as good as this one, one that will be rain and wind tight, and he answered that it was as likely as not he would be building something, but he did not mind the wind and rain, he was pretty tough, he said. But thou’lt find the cold weather hard to bear, and his eyes going round the store of fruit she had laid in, he said: thou hast not gotten enough of this fruit to feed thee through the winter, more should be gathered; and they went through the garden shaking the boughs and gathering the fruit till the kindling of the evening star.

  It was then in the dusk that Adam showed Eve how she should store the fruit, and when it was laid by for the winter the perplexed twain wandered from the house to the bank under the fig-tree, and with Adam by her side Eve was moved to tell him she had discovered the secret, but she withheld it from him, afraid to speak to him, so easily was he led away by words; but in spite of her silence, perhaps because of it, he began to speak once more of Iahveh’s providence and his design, saying: Eve, if it be within his design that we beget children the secret how we shall beget them will not be withheld from us. Adam, she answered, I cannot talk any more, and fell back amid the mosses and he over her. Thou’rt not upon my back for that is forbidden, yet we are mingled; belly to belly we lie, and guiding him a little she said: therein is the secret, art pleased with it? His ardour was her answer, and his joy was so great that he could not get a word past his teeth, and when relief came they lay side by side, enchanted lovers, listening to the breeze that raised the leaves of the fig-tree, letting the moonlight through.

  May we not, he asked, discover the secret again? Will the delight be as great? And she answered: we shall know that presently, and her arms went about him; and their delight was greater than before, and when they returned to rediscover the secret for a third time, Eve screamed she knew not whether it was from pain or pleasure, and her scream was so heartrending that Adam was frightened, and thinking he had killed his wife he sat up on the bank of delight and began to pray. But seeing he had done her no harm at all, he said: it is against God I have sinned, and my sin might never have been known if Eve hadn’t yelled that terrible, awful yell, that may have awakened Iahveh dozing in his golden chair, and that misfortune has surely befallen us, he will be sending his angels with flaming swords to sever off our heads. You see, Adam was well learned in the ways of God. But Lucifer, too, had had a long experience of heaven; and while Michael, Gabriel and Raphael were girding on their flaming swords he said: we must hide Adam and Eve from God’s angels, who will destroy them and the seed of the new race that will bring about Iahveh’s downfall in the years to come. Lilith answered: master, as thou wilt.

  CHAPTER 42.

  BEFORE THE RING of day Adam and Eve were hidden beyond the walls of the garden in deep caves, where they could not be discovered by the angels in search of them, for when the angels came into one cave, Adam and Eve found outlets into other caves, and as every cave had two they went hither and thither, escaping the angels always, suffering hunger and thirst, for outside of the garden was all wilderness; only a few berries and roots could they find, but fruits nowhere. So it came to pass that in their flight from the pursuing angels they were several days without even a bilberry or a handful of cress wherewith to quench their longing: we can go no farther, Eve, the angels must take us here, Adam said. And Eve answered: there is a way out of our trouble; and he asked her: which way is that? and Eve replied: the way that we came into it. And Adam said: I understand thee not, and Eve said: was it not I that brought all this trouble upon thee? Was it not I that loved God not at all and would not live according to his commands? But, Eve, thou earnest with me to the altar and prayed, and we made offerings of fruit to Iahveh. But my heart was not in prayer, Adam, and the offerings to Iahveh always seemed to me a waste. Iahveh had no place in my heart nor in my thoughts, and it was to divide thee from Iahveh that I listened to Lilith; for in my foolishness I said: if I bring the secret to Adam he will forget Iahveh. But Iahveh is all-powerful and we are overwhelmed with hunger and thirst. I would give thee back to Iahveh.... How can I be given back to Iahveh? Adam asked, and Eve answered: my thoughts are not wandering, Adam, but I would undo the wrong I have done, and the undoing can be accomplished in that river if we can reach it. In the pool from which thou didst save me I will drown, and thereby Iahveh’s fallen angel will be restored to grace; he will be put back into the garden; he will be happy again amid flowers and fruits, and the pleasant rays that fall upon the altar at noon will draw him unto prayer. Prayers are dearer to thee, Adam, than I ever could be. Lead me to the river, Adam, let one be happy if both may not be. I am nothing, I was made out of one of thy ribs or out of a handful of mould by Iahveh for thy companionship. I am nothing, but thou wast once God’s angel. God is all-powerful. Let my death give thee back to Iahveh. But, Eve, there is no happiness for me on this earth except with thee, and hast no thought of the child in the womb? And hast thou no love for him? I have love for my child, but my love of thee, Adam, is greater, and my child must die with me that the world be redeemed from sin. So it would seem. Iahveh will accept my death as an atonement. Lead me to the river, Adam.

  As we have lived so we must die, Adam replied; and the twain sat side by side against the rocks, and folded their arms and waited for the power of Iahveh to fall upon them. And they did not know how long they had waited, for time seemed at a standstill, but in the midst of their stupor they were awakened by a voice, and Adam said to Eve: that is no angel’s voice, and Eve said: whosoever’s voice it be concerns us not, for the end is nigh. Thy will be done, Adam, if it be that thou shouldst die with me unrepentant. But the voice brought them life in the shape of a lamb, one of the mountain sheep that the angels had frightened with their flaming swords. He had become lost in the caves, or maybe had been sent thither, Alec, by Lucifer himself, who looked to the race of men to bring about the overthrow of lahveh. Whosoever sent the lamb, it was the lamb’s blood that saved the twain in the cave and assured the victory, accomplishing slowly, but always accomplishing from that day to ours, Alec.

  Since there be no fruit in the wilderness, we must kill and eat always, Adam said, and from henceforth his days were spent fashioning weapons, and Eve’s in weaving nets, wherewith they were able to encompass beasts and birds. So did the twain live flying, from the angels of the lord from cave to cave, Eve bringing forth Cain in the first year of banishment, and Abel in the second. And when daughters were born to them, Cain took one sister to lie with him; she conceived and bore Enoch, with whom Cain was so well pleased that he named the city he built after his son. After Enoch came Irad, and Irad begat Mehujael; and Mehujael begat Methusael; and Methusael begat Lamech; and Lamech took unto him two wives, the name of one was Adah and the name of the other was Zillah, and Adah bore Jabal. He was the father of those that dwelt in tents, and his brother’s name was Jubal, and he was the father of harp and organ players; and Jubal bore Tubal-cain, the craftsman in brass and iron, and the sister of Tubal-cain was Maamah.

  Very soon the earth was covered with men, and the angels looked down from heaven, and seeing that the daughters of men were fair, they lusted after them, and the children that were born of woman and angel kind were giants, and God said: the children of these giants will join with Satan’s legions and rise up against me. My power will be overthrown! So he called together his cohorts, and gave the command unto Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, and these going forth drove against the celestial lechers, surrounded, overpowered and bound them, and threw them into the centre of the earth for time everlasting. And Iahveh said unto his arch
angels: you have done well, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, you have redeemed my heaven of lewd angels; but, he said, the giants still abound, and ye are tired of long wars, so we will open the sources of the sea and drown the world, and make an end of man and his evil deeds. And the angels replied: thy will be done, Lord, on earth as it is in heaven, and the sources of the seas were opened.

  But one man built an ark and it was with his progeny that the earth was again replenished. God said, perhaps fire will succeed better than water, and he showered brimstone and fire all over the world, and burned out every man but one, Lot, and his daughters, and with these the world was again replenished, the first daughter saying to the younger: our father is old, there’s not a man to come in unto us after the manner of all the world. Come, let us make our father drink wine and we will lie with him that we may preserve the seed of our father. And what the older had done the younger did the next night. And seeing how all his designs had failed him, and that the race of man was indestructible, Iahveh bowed his head, saying: my years are numbered. I am dying and shall die, for the years are coming when men will no longer believe in God.

  CHAPTER 43.

  NOW, ALEC, THAT is the end of the story that I composed last week, and you being the shanachie of old Connaught I should like to hear my story criticised by you, to hear it blamed or praised, if there be anything in it that seems worthy to you of praise or blame. Well, your honour, there are fine things in your story, but I’m sure Father Kennedy wouldn’t have any truck with any story about Adam and Eve that isn’t in the Bible. The Talmud, I interjected. But forget Father Tom and tell me what you think of my story. A wonderful story, your honour, for if I rightly understand you, it isn’t more than a week old; the best I’ve ever heard at that age, and when it has been seven or eight years in your head it will be as good as ten-year-old John Jamieson. That’s how it is with mine. At first they are poisonous stuff but year by year they mellow, and after sleeping and dreaming in my head, like the whisky in the wood, they come out good, sociable and kind, and them that listen become as good and kind and gentle as the whisky itself.

  You think that my story will improve on keeping? I do, your honour. I think you’re right, I felt that I was relating only a rough and ready version. As I told you, my stories are eye stories, yours are ear stories, but I would not have your honour thinking that I was making little of your story; it’s a grand story as you have told it: Adam praying on his two knees in front of Eve: I have killed her, I have killed her, she is dead and all; all is done and damn the deed! But of course he soon saw that he had not done her a bit of harm, and that she was ready for some more of the same trouble.

  Faith, I give in to your honour; the shanachie of London has pounded the shanachie of Westport. There are grand things in it, the great squeal of a screech that Eve let off, and himself frightened out of his very life, and every cat of the cats, and ever creature of the creatures, in the same fright — a grand hullabaloo — a squeal, a whoop and a whistle, and then all silent again.

  Faith and troth, Alec, it’s yourself that should have been the storyteller, for you have put a polish on Eve’s love cry that raises a black envy of you up into my heart, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Synge himself were stirring in his grave at this very moment.

  CHAPTER 44.

  A FEW DAYS after the relation of the Garden of Eden I caught sight of Alec under the walls of the old mill, looking out for a safe place to cross the river. There’s not much water in the river, I said to myself; he can step from boulder to boulder, and my heart quickened a little at the thought of the new story he was coming to tell me. Is it a long one? I asked, as soon as he had scrambled up the high bank. His puzzled face was sufficient answer; he had not come to tell me a story, but to bid me good-bye, having heard in the town that I was leaving Westport at the end of the week.

  But maybe I’m interfering with your honour in coming to you now; you may be composing another story, and on asking him why he thought that he said there was no place for the unravelling of stories like a sea by a brawling brook; like water they come foaming and swirling by, as if they couldn’t get on fast enough. Yes, Alec, it’s like that by a brook, sometimes. But I’m sorry you haven’t come to tell me a story. Are you sure you haven’t one about you? Well, no, your honour, it’s just the other way round; I thought I’d come to you for another one; I’d like to hear a story from you — one of them stories the publishers do be ferreting in their pockets for the notes and the gold to pay you for. I’d like to hear one of them as it comes out of your head. I think you must take me for a keg, Alec, always on tap as soon as the spigot has been driven in. Isn’t every shanachie like that? he answered, and don’t the country people be asking me for stories till the last sod of turf has melted away into ashes? A real story, Alec, without Iahveh or fairies, not even a priest in it nor devils nor serpents, an English or an Irish story, which, Alec? I wouldn’t be sticking you to any one country, Alec answered, but I think I’d be feeling more at home listening to an Irish story than to an English one. And sure an Irishman the like of yourself wouldn’t be put to the pin of his collar to tell an Irish story, for there must be many’s the one going the rounds inside your head, and you this many a year away from us. True enough, I answered, so many years that it ill becomes me to be telling an Irish story to the shanachie of Connaught. Didn’t you come out of Connaught yourself? he asked, and from the heart of it, from the county of Mayo like I did myself? Faith, it will be the Ballinrobe cock against the Westport rooster. I don’t know that I can think of an Irish story, I said, unless — Unless what, your honour? Unless I start out of an old memory. The best stories babble themselves out of them old memories, he said. But now I come to think of it, Alec, the story I’d be telling you is Irish only because it all happened in Morrison’s Hotel. Isn’t that the hotel Parnell used to be staying in? Alec interjected. It is so, I answered; and the story has been muttering in me ever since; but I’m no way sure that it won’t tangle on me in the telling. You’ll bear in mind, Alec, that this is the first telling. You said, yourself that stories ripen in the mouth. They do, faith, he answered. The tongue’s the fellow to put a good skin on a story. In the third or fourth telling the pink do be showing out upon it, and ever afterwards it do be as juicy in the mouth as a blackberry in Samhain.

  CHAPTER 45.

  WHEN WE WENT up to Dublin in the sixties, Alec, we always put up at Morrison’s Hotel, a big family hotel at the corner of Dawson Street, one that was well patronised by the gentry from all over Ireland, and fine big bills they would be running up in it, my father paying his every six months when he was able, which wasn’t very often, for what with racing stables and elections following one after the other, Moore Hall wasn’t what you’d call overflowing with money. Now that I come to think of it, I can see Morrison’s as clearly almost as I do Moore Hall: the front door opening into a short passage, with some half-dozen steps leading up into the house. A dark entrance, so it was, the glass doors of the coffee-room showing through the dimness, and in front of the visitor a big staircase running up to the second landing. I don’t think the grand staircase went any higher; I think I can see it looping somehow about the head of the staircase, and I’m sure I’m right; it was always being drummed into me that I mustn’t climb onto the banisters, a thing I was wishing to do, but was always afraid to get astride of them, so deep was it down to the ground floor. I think I can see the long passage leading from the stair-head so far into the house that I didn’t dare to follow it for fear of losing my way. I think there was a little staircase at the end of it, and I used to wonder whither it went. A very big building was Morrison’s Hotel, with passages running hither and thither and little flights of steps in all kinds of odd corners. So it was on the second floor and on the third — But we needn’t be thinking what was above the second floor, for we were always on the second in a big sitting-room that overlooked College Green. I can remember the pair of windows, their lace curtains, and their repp curtains, better than
the passages, and better than the windows I can remember myself looking through the pane interested in the coal carts going by; the bell hitched on to the horse’s collar jangling all the way down the street; the coalman himself sitting, his legs hanging over the shafts, driving from the wrong side and looking up at the windows to see if he could spy out an order. Fine horses were in these coal carts, stepping out as well as those in our own carriage. I’m telling you these things for the pleasure of looking back and nothing else. I can see the sitting-room and myself as plainly as I can see the mountains beyond, in some ways plainer; and the waiter that used to attend on us, I can see him, though not as plainly as I see you, Alec; but I’m more knowledgeable of him, if you’d be understanding me rightly; and to this day I can recall the awful frights he gave me when he came behind me awaking me from my dream of a coalman’s life; what he said is forgotten, but his squeaky voice remains in my ears. He seemed to be always laughing at me, showing long yellow teeth, and I used to be afraid to open the sitting-room door, for I’d be sure to find him waiting on the landing, his napkin thrown over his right shoulder. I think I was afraid he’d pick me up and kiss me. As the whole of my story is about him, perhaps I’d better describe him more fully, and to do that I will tell you that he was a tall, scraggy fellow, with big hips sticking out and a long thin throat. It was his throat that frightened me as much as anything about him, unless it was his nose, which was a great high one, or his melancholy eyes, which were pale blue and very small, deep in the head. He was old, but how old I cannot say, for everybody except children seems old to children. He seemed the ugliest thing I’d ever seen out of a fairy-book, and I’d beg not to be left alone in the sitting-room; and I’m sure I often asked my father and mother to take another set of rooms, which they never did, for they liked Albert Nobbs; and the guests liked him, and the proprietress liked him, as well she might, for he was the most dependable servant in the hotel: no running round to public-houses and coming back with the smell of whisky and tobacco upon him; no rank pipe in his pocket, and of all no playing the fool with the maid-servants. Nobody had ever been heard to say he had seen Albert out with one of them. A queer hobgoblin sort of fellow that they mightn’t have cared to be seen with, but all the same it seemed to them funny that he should never propose to walk out with one of them. I’ve heard the hall porter say it was hard to understand a man living without taking pleasure in something outside of his work. Holidays he never asked for, and when Mrs Baker pressed him to go to the salt water for a week he’d try to rake up an excuse for not going away, asking if it wasn’t true that the Blakes, the Joyces and the Ruttledges were coming up to town, saying that he didn’t like to be away, so used were they to him and he to them. A strange life his was, and mysterious, though every hour of it was before them, saving the hours he was asleep, which wasn’t many, for he was no great sleeper. From the time he got up in the morning till he went to bed at night he was before their eyes, running up and down the staircase, his napkin over his arm, taking orders with cheerfulness, as if an order were as good as a half-crown tip to him; always good-humoured, and making amends for his lack of interest in other people by his willingness to oblige. No one had ever heard him object to doing anything he was asked to do or even to put forward an excuse for not being able to do it. In fact his willingness to oblige was so notorious in the hotel that Mrs Baker (the proprietress of Morrison’s Hotel at the time) could hardly believe she was listening to him when he began to stumble from one excuse to another for not sharing his bed with Hubert Page, and this after she had told him that his bed was Page’s only chance of getting a stretch that night. All the other waiters were married men and went home to their wives. You see, Alec, it was Punchestown week, and beds are as scarce in Dublin that week as diamonds are on the slopes of Croagh Patrick. But you haven’t told us yet who Page was, Alec interjected, and I thought reprovingly. I’m just coming to him, I answered: Hubert Page was a house-painter, well known and well liked by Mrs Baker. He came over every season, and was always welcome at Morrison’s Hotel, and so pleasant were his manners that one forgot the smell of his paint. It is hardly saying too much to say that when Hubert Page had finished his job everybody in the hotel, men and women alike, missed the pleasant sight of this young man going to and fro in his suit of hollands, the long coat buttoned loosely to his figure with large bone buttons, going to and fro about his work, up and down the passages, with a sort of lolling idle gait that attracted and pleased the eye — a young man that would seem preferable to most men if a man had to choose a bedfellow, yet seemingly the very one that Albert Nobbs couldn’t abide lying down with, a dislike that Mrs Baker could understand so little that she stood staring at her confused and embarrassed waiter, who was still seeking excuses for his dislike to share his bed with Hubert Page. I suppose you fully understand, she said, that Page is leaving for Belfast by the morning train, and has come over here to ask us for a bed, there not being one at the hotel in which he is working? Albert answered that he understood well enough, but was thinking — He be gan again to fumble with words. Now what are you trying to say? Mrs Baker asked, and rather sharply; my bed is full of lumps, Albert answered. Your mattress full of lumps! the proprietress rapped out; why, your mattress was repicked and buttoned six months ago, and came back as good as any mattress in the hotel; what kind of story are you telling me? So it was, ma’am, so it was, Albert mumbled, and it was some time before he got out his next excuse; he was a very light sleeper and had never slept with anybody before and was sure he wouldn’t close his eyes; not that that would matter much, but his sleeplessness might keep Mr Page awake. Mr Page would get a better stretch on one of the sofas in the coffee-room than in his bed, I’m thinking, Mrs Baker. A better stretch on the sofa in the coffee-room? Mrs Baker, repeated angrily. I don’t understand you, not a little bit, and she stood staring at the two men, so dissimilar. But, ma’am, I wouldn’t be putting Mr Nobbs to the inconvenience of my company, the house-painter began. The night is a fine one, I’ll keep myself warm with a sharp walk, and the train starts early. You’ll do nothing of the kind, Page, she answered; and seeing that Mrs Baker was now very angry Albert thought it time to give in, and without more ado he began to assure them both that he’d be glad of Mr Page’s company in his bed. I should think so, indeed, interjected Mrs Baker. But, Albert continued, I’m a lighter sleeper. We’ve had enough of that, Albert. If Mr Page is pleased to share my bed, Albert continued, I shall be very glad. If Mr Nobbs doesn’t like my company I should — Don’t say another word, Albert whispered, you’ll only set her against me. Come upstairs at once. It’ll be all right. Come along.