by George Moore
“I don’t think Father McCabe would have done that; he has got me into a great deal of trouble, but you are wronging him. He would not get a ruffian to break into your studio.”
Rodney and Lucy stood looking at each other, and she had spoken with such conviction that he felt she might be right.
“But who else could do it except the priest? No one had any interest in having it done except the priest. He as much as told me that he would never get any pleasure from the statue now that he knew it had been done from a naked woman. He went away thinking it out. Ireland is emptying before them. By God, it must have been he. Now it all comes back to me. He has as much as said that something of the temptation of the naked woman would transpire through the draperies. He said that. He said that it would be a very awful thing if the temptations of the flesh were to transpire through the draperies of the Virgin. From the beginning they have looked upon women as unclean things. They have hated woman. Woman have to cover up their heads before they go into the churches. Everything is impure in their eyes, in their impure eyes, whereas I saw nothing in you but loveliness. He was shocked by those round tapering legs; and would have liked to curse them; and the dainty design of the hips, the beautiful little hips, and the breasts curved like shells, that I modelled so well. It is he who blasphemes. They blaspheme against Life.... My God, what a vile thing is the religious mind. And all the love and veneration that went into that statue! There it is: only a lump of clay.”
“I am sure you are wronging Father Tom; he has his faults, but he would not do such a thing as that.”
“Yes,” said Rodney, “he would. I know them better than you. I know the creed. But you did not finish your story. Tell me what happened when he began to suspect that you sat for the statue.”
“He asked me if I had seen the statue of the Virgin in your studio. I grew red all over. I could not answer him, and mother said, ‘Why don’t you answer Father Tom?’ I could see from his manner that he knew that I had sat for the statue. And then he said he wanted to speak to father and mother. Mother said I had read enough, that I had better go to bed.”
“And you went out of the room knowing what the priest was going to say?” said Rodney, melting into sympathy for the first time. “And then?”
“I waited on the stairs for a little while, long enough to make sure that he was telling them that I had sat for the statue. I heard the door open, father came out, they talked on the landing. I fled into my room and locked the door, and just as I locked the door I heard father say, ‘My daughter! you’re insulting my daughter!’ You know father is suffering from stone, and mother said, ‘If you don’t stop I shall be up with you all night,’ and so she was. All the night I heard father moaning, and to-day he is so ill the doctor is with him, and he has been taken to the hospital, and mother says when he leaves the hospital he will turn me out of the house.”
“Well,” said Rodney, “great misfortunes have happened us both. It was a cruel thing of the priest to tell your father that you sat for me. But to pay someone to wreck my studio!”
Lucy begged of him not to believe too easily that Father McCabe had done this. He must wait a little while, and he had better communicate with the police. They would be able to find out who had done it.
“Now,” she said, “I must go.”
He glanced at the rags that had once covered his statue, but he had not the courage to undo them. If his statue had been cast the ruin would not be so irreparable. It could be put together in some sort of way.
Who would have done it but the priest? It was difficult to believe that a priest could do such a thing, that anyone could do such a thing, it was an inhuman thing to do. He might go to the police as Lucy had suggested, and the police would inquire the matter out. But would that be of any satisfaction; a wretched fine, a few days’ imprisonment. Of one thing he was sure, that nowhere except in Ireland could such a thing happen. Thank God he was going! There was at least satisfaction in knowing that only twelve hours of Ireland remained. To-morrow evening he would be in Paris. He would leave the studio as it was. Maybe he might take a few busts and sketches, a few books, and a few pictures; he must take some of them with him, and he tried to formulate some plan. But he could not collect his thoughts sufficiently to think out the details. Would there be time to have a case made, or should he leave them to be sold, or should he give orders that they should be sent after him?
At that moment his eyes went towards the lump of clay, and he wished that he had asked the charwoman to take it out of his studio. He thought of it as one thinks of a corpse, and he took down a few books and tied them up with a string, and then forgot what he was doing. He and his country were two thousand years apart, and would always be two thousand years apart, and then growing superstitious, he wondered if his country had punished him for his contempt. There was something extraordinarily fateful in the accident that had happened to him. Such an accident had never happened to anyone before. A most singular accident! He stood looking through the studio unable to go on with his packing, thinking of what Harding and he had been saying to each other. The “Celtic renaissance!” Harding believed, or was inclined to believe, that the Gael was not destined to disappear, that in making the Cross of Cong he had not got as far as he was intended to get. But even Harding had admitted that no race had taken to religion quite so seriously as the Celt. The Druids had put aside the oak leaves and put on the biretta. There had never been a religious revolution in Ireland. In the fifth and sixth centuries all the intelligence of Ireland had gone into religion. “Ireland is immersed in the religious vocation, and there can be no renaissance without a religious revolt.” The door of the studio opened. It was Lucy; and he wondered what she had come back for.
“It wasn’t Father Tom. I knew it wasn’t,” she said.
“Do you know who it was then?”
“Yes, my brothers, Pat and Taigdh.”
“Pat and Taigdh broke my statue! But what did they do that for? What did I ever do to them?”
“I saw them whispering together. I could see they had a secret, something inspired me, and when Taigdh went out I got Pat by himself and I coaxed him and I frightened him. I told him that things had been broken in your studio, and that the police were making inquiries. I saw at once that he knew all about it. He got frightened and he told me that last night when I went to my room he and Taigdh came out of their room and had listened on the stairs. They did not understand everything that was said, they only understood that I had sat for a statue, and that the priest did not wish to put it up in his church, and that perhaps he would have to pay for it, and if he did not the Bishop would suspend him — you know there has always been talk about Father Tom’s debts. They got talking, and Taigdh said he would like to see the statue, and he persuaded Pat to follow him, and they climbed along the wall and dropped into the mews, and got the hasp off the door with the kitchen poker.”
“But why did they break the statue?” said Rodney.
“I don’t think they know why themselves. I tried to get Pat to tell me, but all he could tell me was that he had bumped against a woman with a cloak on.”
“My lay figure.”
“And in trying to get out of the studio they had knocked down a bust, and after they had done that Taigdh said: ‘We had better have down this one. The priest does not like it, and if we have it down he won’t have to pay for it.’”
“They must have heard the priest saying that he did not want the statue.”
“Very likely they did, but I am sure the priest never said that he wanted the statue broken.”
“Oh, it is a great muddle,” said Rodney. “But there it is. My statue is broken. Two little boys have broken it. Two little boys who overheard a priest talking nonsense, and did not quite understand. I am going away to-night.”
“Then I shall not see you again,... and you said I was a good model.”
Her meaning was clear to him. He remembered how he had stood in the midst of his sculpture asking himself
what a man is to do when a girl, walking with a walk at once idle and rhythmical, stops suddenly and puts her hand on his shoulder and looks up in his face. He had sworn he would not kiss her again and he had broken his oath, but the desire of her as a model had overborne every other desire. Now he was going away for ever, and his heart told him that she was as sweet a thing as he would find all the world over. But if he took her with him he would have to look after her till the end of his life. This was not his vocation. His hesitation endured but a moment, if he hesitated at all.
“You’d like to go away with me, but what should I do with you. I’m thirty-five and you’re sixteen.” He could see that the difference of age did not strike her — she was not looking into the remote future.
“I don’t think, Lucy, your destiny is to watch me making statues. Your destiny is a gayer one than that. You want to play the piano, don’t you?”
“I should have to go to Germany to study, and I have no money. Well,” she said, “I must go back now. I just came to tell you who had wrecked your studio. Good-bye. It has all been an unlucky business for both of us.”
“A beautiful model,” Rodney said to himself, as he watched her going up the mews. “But there are other girls just as good in Paris and in Rome.” And he remembered one who had sat to him in Paris, and this gave him courage. “So it was two little boys,” he said, “who wrecked my studio. Two stupid little boys; two little boys who have been taught their Catechism, and will one day aspire to the priesthood.” And that it should be two stupid little boys who had broken his statue seemed significant. “Oh, the ignorance, the crass, the patent ignorance! I am going. This is no place for a sculptor to live in. It is no country for an educated man. It won’t be fit for a man to live in for another hundred years. It is an unwashed country, that is what it is!”
SOME PARISHIONERS
I
THE WAY BEFORE him was plain enough, yet his uncle’s apathy and constitutional infirmity of purpose seemed at times to thwart him. Some two or three days ago, he had come running down from Kilmore with the news that a baby had been born out of wedlock, and Father Stafford had shown no desire that his curate should denounce the girl from the altar.
“The greatest saints,” he said, “have been kind, and have found excuses for the sins of others.”
And a few days later, when Father Maguire told his uncle that the Salvationists had come to Kilmore, and that he had walked up the village street and slit their drum with a carving knife, his uncle had not approved of his conduct, and what had especially annoyed Father Tom was that his uncle seemed to deplore the slitting of the drum in the same way as he deplored that the Kavanaghs had a barrel of porter in every Saturday, namely, as one of those regrettable excesses to which human nature is liable. On being pressed he had agreed with his nephew that dancing and drinking were no preparation for the Sabbath, but he would not agree that evil could be suppressed by force. He had even hinted that too strict a rule brought about a revolt against the rule, and when Father Tom had expressed his disbelief at any revolt against the authority of the priest, Father Stafford said: —
“They may just leave you, they may just go to America.”
“Then you think that it is our condemnation of sin that is driving the people to America.”
“My dear Tom, you told me the other day that you met a lad and a lass walking along the roadside, and that you drove them home. You told me you were sure they were talking about things they should not talk about; you have no right to assume these things. You’re asking of the people an abstinence you don’t practice yourself. Sometimes your friends are women.”
“Yes. But—”
Father Tom’s anger prevented him from finding an adequate argument. Father Stafford pushed the tobacco bowl towards his nephew.
“You’re not smoking, Tom.”
“Your point is that a certain amount of vice is inherent in human nature, and that if we raise the standard of virtuous living our people will escape from us to New York or London.”
“The sexes mix freely everywhere in western Europe; only in Ireland and Turkey is there any attempt made to separate them.”
Later in the evening Father Tom insisted that the measure of responsibility was always the same.
“I should be sorry,” said his uncle, “to say that those who inherit drunkenness bear the same burden of responsibility as those who come of parents who are quite sane—”
“You cannot deny, uncle John, that free will and predestination—”
“My dear Tom, I really must go to bed. It is after midnight.”
As he walked home, Father Maguire thought of the great change he perceived in his uncle. Father Stafford liked to go to bed at eleven, the very name of St. Thomas seemed to bore him; fifteen years ago he would sit up till morning. Father Maguire remembered the theological debates, sometimes prolonged till after three o’clock, and the passionate scholiast of Maynooth seemed to him unrecognisable in the esurient Vicar-General, only occasionally interested in theology, at certain hours and when he felt particularly well. He could not reconcile the two ages, his mind not being sufficiently acute to see that after all no one can discuss theology for more than five-and-twenty years without wearying of the subject.
The moon was shining among the hills and the mystery of the landscape seemed to aggravate his sensibility, and he asked himself if the guardians of the people should not fling themselves into the forefront of the battle. Men came to preach heresy in his parish — was he not justified in slitting their drum?
He had recourse to prayer, and he prayed for strength and for guidance. He had accepted the Church, and in the Church he saw only apathy, neglect, and bad administration on the part of his superiors.... He had read that great virtues are, like large sums of money, deposited in the bank, whereas humility is like the pence, always at hand, always current. Obedience to our superiors is the sure path. He could not persuade himself that it was right for him to allow the Kavanaghs to continue a dissolute life of drinking and dancing. They were the talk of the parish; and he would have spoken against them from the altar, but his uncle had advised him not to do so. Perhaps his uncle was right; he might be right regarding the Kavanaghs. In the main he disagreed with his uncle, but in this particular instance it might be well to wait and pray that matters might improve.
Father Tom believed Ned Kavanagh to be a good boy. Ned was going to marry Mary Byrne, and Father Tom had made up this marriage. The Byrnes did not care for the marriage — they were prejudiced against Ned on account of his family. But he was not going to allow them to break off the marriage. He was sure of Ned, but in order to make quite sure he would get him to take the pledge. Next morning when the priest had done his breakfast, and was about to unfold his newspaper, his servant opened the door, and told him that Ned Kavanagh was outside and wanted to see him.
It was a pleasure to look at this nice, clean boy, with his winning smile, and the priest thought that Mary could not wish for a better husband. Ned’s smile seemed a little fainter than usual, and his face was paler; the priest wondered, and presently Ned told the priest that he had come to confession, and going down on his knees, he told the priest that he had been drunk last Saturday night, and that he had come to take the pledge. He would never do any good while he was at home, and one of the reasons he gave for wishing to marry Mary Byrne was his desire to leave home. The priest asked him if matters were mending, and if his sister showed any signs of wishing to be married.
“Sorra sign,” said Ned.
“That’s bad news you’re bringing me,” said the priest, and he walked up and down the room, and they talked over Kate’s wilful character.
“From the beginning she did not like living at home,” said the priest.
“I don’t care about living at home,” said Ned.
“But for a different reason,” remarked the priest. “You want to leave home to get married, and have a wife and children, if God is pleased to give you children.”
&nbs
p; Kate had been in numerous services, and the priest sat thinking of the stories he had heard. He had heard that Kate had come back from her last situation in a cab, wrapped up in blankets, saying she was ill. On inquiry it was found that she had only been three or four days in her situation; three weeks had to be accounted for. He had questioned her himself regarding this interval, but had not been able to get any clear and definite answer from her.
“She and mother never stop quarrelling about Pat Connex.”
“It appears,” said the priest, “that your mother went out with a jug of porter under her apron, and offered a sup of it to Pat Connex, who was talking with Peter M’Shane, and now he is up at your cabin every Saturday.”
“That’s it,” said Ned.
“Mrs. Connex was here the other day, and I can tell you that if Pat marries your sister he will find himself cut off with a shilling.”
“She’s been agin us all the while,” said Ned. “Her money has made her proud, but I don’t blame her. If I had the fine house she has, maybe I would be as proud as she.”
“Maybe you would,” said the priest. “But what I am thinking of is your sister Kate. She will never get Pat Connex. Pat will never go against his mother.”
“Well, you see he comes up and plays the melodion on Saturday night,” said Ned, “and she can’t stop him from doing that.”
“Then you think,” said the priest, “that Pat will marry your sister?”
“I don’t think she wants to marry him.”
“If she doesn’t want to marry him, what’s all this talk about?”
“She likes to meet Pat in the evenings and go for a walk with him, and she likes him to put his arm round her waist and kiss her, saving your reverence’s pardon.”
“It is strange that you should be so unlike. You come here and ask me to speak to Mary Byrne’s parents for you, and that I’ll do, Ned, and it will be all right. You will make a good husband, and though you were drunk last night, you have taken the pledge to-day, and I will make a good marriage for Kate, too, if she’ll listen to me.”
