“Oh, no. To the contrary. I think many people are decidedly evil. It is sometimes necessary to pretend that they are nice. To make it more deplorable many are often evil of their own volition.”
“What’s volition?”
“Of their own free will. Because they want to.”
“I’m glad you like me and Ronnie,” she said. “I guess because we have plenty of volition, eh? Wait till I pull that on Ronnie. When she comes in I’ll say, ‘You’ve too much volition to-night,’ and she’ll think I’m insulting her.”
“You two girls are very precious to me, almost more than the rest of my work,” he said. “I want you to understand that. I think you do.” He saw her relaxing; he felt her lazy good humor. It seemed to him that she ought to have a slow drawling charm. It seemed to him that already she had a little more contentment in her face and he really loved the way she was apt to burst out laughing, as if the faintest incident touched her deeply, as if the sensation of the most fleeting moment had to be savored fully. “That attitude in her is really Christian in the best sense of the word,” he thought. “That desire to make each moment precious, to make the immediate eternal, or rather to see the eternal in the immediate.”
And she was watching him lazily, thinking, “If he keeps on staying, I won’t be able to go out. What does he want to say? There’s something on his mind. He’s a very nice man. Maybe I don’t really want to go out. Maybe I could get him to come over here and sit beside me.”
“Where’s Ronnie?” he said at last. He had been trying not to seem worried. He had kept on pretending to himself that she would burst into the room in the way a girl comes rushing into the warmth from the cold night air. “Where’s Ronnie?” he repeated. “Aren’t you expecting her?”
“No. She’s out with Lou.”
“Who is Lou, Midge?”
“Lou’s her fellow. She goes around with him.”
“What kind of a fellow is he, a decent type, has he some character?”
“You’d better not take my word for it, Father. As far as I’m concerned he can go and jump in the lake. But then he doesn’t like me.”
“Is she in love with him?”
“She’s nuts about him.”
“Then I’d like to meet Lou some day.”
“Don’t worry, you will if you keep hanging around here.”
“What time will she come?”
“Very late. Very, very late. You won’t want to wait for her. You better forget about her for to-night.”
Father Dowling rose and began to walk up and down the room. Several times he took out his watch, looked at it and sighed. He kept thinking he ought to go home, but then he would whisper to himself, “I’ll wait twenty minutes more.” He was almost afraid to go without seeing Ronnie, fearing that if he missed her he would lose track of her for a while and would not know what was happening to her. At last he stopped, smiled at Midge, took from his pocket an envelope containing the money he had borrowed, and with a strangely diffident apologetic nod, he slipped it under the cloth cover on the dresser. “I don’t want you to have to worry about how you’re going to live, do you see,” he said.
Midge stiffened and craned her neck, longing to look in the envelope, but she held herself there, full of wonder at him, following him with her eyes as he went up and down the floor with the worried expression growing more severe. He kept taking out his watch. Finally he said, almost humbly, “Midge, would you do a small favor for me? Come around to the church some time. Just of an evening when the church is full. Will you do that?”
“I guess so,” she said, looking upset and a bit resentful. He loved to have this response and see that indignant expression. It made him feel there was a depth to her that could be touched, some kind of feeling, even if only resentment, and he was much encouraged. “There’s passion still there,” he thought. “Just say you’ll come,” he said.
“All right, Father,” she said awkwardly. “I’ll do that for you. It won’t cost me nothing, will it?”
“Bring Ronnie, too,” he said.
He wanted to wait till Ronnie came in. The longer he waited the more he wondered where she was and what she was doing. He began to make uneasy, sporadic conversation with Midge, but whenever she began to get interested he would become thoughtful and silent. He saw that Midge was getting sleepy. Once he yawned himself. They both lay back and began to doze. Then Father Dowling sat up abruptly, saw Midge’s eyes closed, saw how long her lashes were, and how her lips were parted and her breast was softly swelling, and he went out without disturbing her.
EIGHT
The two girls often used to think that Father Dowling might actually be in love with them, he was so patient and tender. Sometimes he would pat one of them on the head, or hold out his hands to them. They used to try and sit on his knee or put their arms around him and looked puzzled when he pushed them away. They could not understand the nature of his feeling for them. They could not believe that sooner or later he would not want either one of them.
He met many of their friends, street girls, who came very late, regarded him with hostility and got used to him and talked as if he weren’t there. There were two girls, Marge and Annie, who liked him and wanted to joke with him. Marge was a very heavy old blonde girl with wide hips and deep breasts and a loud, boisterous laugh that always startled him, and she used to say, “I’ll bet you more men go to confession to me than to you. Sometimes you can’t stop them telling the family dirt when they get into bed.” Annie was a slender, hot-eyed, bad-tempered Mulatto. She tried many times to arouse Father Dowling and refused to accept his celibacy. One night, growing vicious, she stood in front of him and lifted her dark breast out of her dress and held it out to him, jeering and teasing. “Ain’t that nice? Come on, change your luck, big boy,” she said. The blood surged into his face, he looked uneasy, but he stood up and said, “You’ll have to go, Annie. You should not have done that.”
“You liked it, you know you liked it.”
“You must never do anything like that again, do you hear?”
“Leave him alone, Annie,” Midge said jealously. “Did no one ever turn you down before? You’ve been turned down by everybody in this burg that wears pants.”
Father Dowling had a man’s passion, and as he sat there looking furtively at the dark girl, and at Midge and Ronnie, he suddenly saw them just as young women, making him full of longing as they used to do when he was a boy. He wanted to take their soft bodies and hold them while his arms trembled. He wanted to put his head down on white warm softness. The blood seemed to be swelling into his loins. Their laughter, their bawdily relaxed bodies which he saw now magnified by his longing into loveliness, brought a tension into his own limbs which he could not break. But then his forehead began to perspire, his whole body relaxed and he trembled and felt ashamed. “I ought not to be ashamed of being tempted,” he thought. “I am not a eunuch. The Church will not accept a eunuch for a priest. I’m a normal man and I wouldn’t be normal if I wasn’t tempted. But I’ll never be tempted like this again.”
There were other nights when he dreamed and woke up feeling wretched, almost willing to decide not to go to the hotel again. But he always realized that to stay away for such a reason would be an act of weakness and lack of faith. Therefore, he remained patient and friendly with all these girls till they all got used to him. They began to ask his advice on many matters. They had more problems than he had ever heard in the confessional. They used to like the way he reasoned with them considerately.
Lou would never believe Ronnie when she insisted that the priest was not getting something from the girls. He used to jeer and tell stories about tunnels that ran underground from monasteries to convents, and he hoped to come into the room some time and embarrass Father Dowling, whom he had never really met.
One night Lou came in when the priest was there, but he walked past him, with his derby hat far over on one side of his head, as if he had not seen him and stood idly at the window, whistling t
hrough his teeth and sometimes snapping his fingers. Father Dowling, who had not taken off his coat because he had come in a great hurry, sat in the chair regarding Lou shrewdly. Lou turned, stared at the priest’s spotless, shining white collar and smiled sarcastically. Father Dowling smiled, too, so that the skin around his eyes was all wrinkled up, and Lou did not know what to say.
“This is Lou. You’ve heard me speak of Lou, my fellow,” Ronnie said. Looking at Lou, she pleaded with her eyes as she scraped her foot in a small circle on the carpet. Father Dowling got up and put out his hand with so much heartiness that Lou was surprised into shaking hands limply. The mildness in the priest’s eyes and yet the strength in his big hands disturbed Lou. Lou respected strength. Father Dowling said, “I’ve heard all about you, Lou. You’ve got a splendid girl in Ronnie. Be good to her, eh? A man would never want a better girl.”
“Oh, I treat her pretty good as it is,” Lou said. “Of course, I don’t give her jewels and take her horseback riding, but I always give her what I call a good break.”
“I’m glad to hear it. You’re a good fellow, we’ll be friends, I know.”
“All right with me,” Lou said. Then he added awkwardly, making a sharp swoop with his left hand, “But I don’t want you interfering between me and the girl, see.”
“Of course not. I’m glad to hear you speak like that. Lots of fine manly fibre, eh? We’ll see more of each other.”
As the priest turned to pick up his hat, Lou wanted to insult him. But Father Dowling had so much assurance, such an imperturbable smile that Lou felt it necessary to be careful. At last he blurted out the words he had been wanting to say. “How long have you been here with Ronnie?”
“About twenty minutes. Why?” Father Dowling asked.
Lou tried desperately to say, “Well, you’re going to pay her something, aren’t you? What do you think she does for a living?” but he faltered, his face reddened. “I was glad to meet you. That’s all, Father.”
“There wasn’t something else you wanted to say?”
“That’s all.”
As Father Dowling went out he was thinking, “Lou’s a bad actor, a bad character, I can see that.” But he felt, too, that Ronnie loved Lou, and he did not want to say anything to him in front of her that might hurt her.
NINE
The time when Father Dowling went to meet Charlie Stewart’s girl, he found that as soon as he got to the apartment house by the schoolyard he had become shy. As he looked up at the lighted apartment window and saw the shadow of a woman moving on the shade he remembered how he had at first been angry because a woman had become important in his young friend’s life. Now he knew he had dreaded to meet the girl. Walking away a little piece, he turned around and saw her form again passing the lighted window. In his own celibate life he had always been content, but now he wondered if that contentment had made him dry and wooden, so he could not understand Charlie’s longing for happiness with this girl. She was a Catholic. Perhaps it was his duty, he thought suddenly, to go in and tell her that she ought not to marry a man like Charlie who was without faith, no matter how much he loved her. But supposing he went in there and saw that they were both very much in love. “Perhaps through her influence Charlie might learn to think differently,” he thought.
As he looked up at the lighted window, he was afraid it might be better to try and understand the happiness the young man and girl might be seeking so eagerly before he spoke against their marriage. “I won’t say anything to her to-night,” he thought. This was a compromise. He excused himself because he knew the girl would look at him shrewdly, maybe with dislike, and remember that he had advised Charlie not to marry her. In going in to meet them, when they loved each other in a way that he could not comprehend, because for him their marriage could hardly be sanctioned, he felt he might be going where he had no right to go. He felt the girl might look at him and hate him. “I’ll go in very cheerfully and pretend I’ve never thought about the matter at all,” he said.
But when Father Dowling was in the apartment, shaking hands, with his face red and smiling, the girl, Pauline, who understood so well why Father Dowling did not want the marriage, smiled at him warmly as if she had been wanting to meet him for a long time; she could not believe from what she had heard about him that he would say Charlie ought not to marry her. She was a very tall, fair girl with an elegant manner, who wore fine expensive clothes.
Charlie was talking to her now as if Father Dowling was not a priest but an old friend, and she kept turning her head and looking at the priest’s embarrassed face, hardly able to conceal a slight amusement. But as soon as Father Dowling looked at the girl’s blue eyes and saw her smile suddenly, he knew she had wondered maybe many nights whether she could get a priest to marry her to Charlie.
As the priest sat opposite the two of them the girl’s face was radiant. They both seemed very much in love, and she said, “I’ve heard so much about you, Father. Charlie keeps saying he wants you to marry us.” The priest liked her and couldn’t help thinking she would make a fine wife. “If she’s a good Catholic, and if Charlie’s intuitions are so often traditionally Catholic, even if he thinks he’s Communistic, maybe it’s in the hands of God whether he has faith or not. Faith is the gift of God. It is in God’s hands, especially if they are determined to marry,” and after this thought he smiled as though he had suddenly freed himself of the problem.
“I’ve heard so much about your conversation. I’d just love to listen to the two of you talking,” she said.
“No, not to-night,” he said. “I’m happy to be here with you and Charlie. I know you’ll make him a splendid wife.” He blushed, remembering that the last argument had been about celibacy, and Charlie had yelled, “Faith, hope and celibacy, and the greatest of these is celibacy, says St. Paul.” He nodded his head with the diffidence of a man who feels he may be intruding, but who wants to stay. “I’d be very happy to-night if we didn’t become intellectual, but if you’d just let me sit here and listen, and maybe you’d talk about your plans or what you’ve been doing and where you’ve been going, and perhaps what you expect to do when you get married.”
The medical student started to talk solemnly about his plans for the future; he was going away to another city. His thin, clever face lit up as he told how he wanted to specialize in nervous diseases: he would like to go to Vienna, he said, and study in the hospitals there. When he paused, the tall girl who had been listening intently, with her head leaning forward, her face full of sincerity, began to speak rapidly, carrying on just from the point where Charlie had left off, making more plans, telling how they would go to Vienna because they both were saving their money. When she, too, had to stop to get her breath, Charlie went on slowly, explaining that he loved and respected his work, and wanted to keep growing into it, that he would work like a dog and still remain very willing. “Pauline understands the situation perfectly,” he said. “We know just what we want to do. The whole thing is there before us if we’ll only do it,” and they smiled confidently, as if their souls remained open to each other. Father Dowling, watching and listening, did not know why he felt so joyful at one moment, so inexpressibly sad at another. It filled him with joy to be there, close to these two young people who were so much in love, and yet it was a kind of love he would never be able to realize completely, although he assured himself it was just a part of a greater, more comprehensive love that he often felt very deeply. In a moment of wistfulness, he rubbed his plump hand nervously over his face, listening like a child, but he was thinking that this beautiful girl who was so well dressed lived comfortably, while the two girls who most concerned him in the world, and who were now his special care, looked shabby, lived in mean rooms and probably were often hungry.
The student and his girl were still talking, having almost forgotten that he was there. He stole a nervous glance at Pauline’s fine kid shoes, at her black crêpe dress, so rich-looking and probably so expensive, and then, with the color mounting in his
smooth cheeks, he glanced quickly at her legs in the sheerest of fine crêpe hose. Sighing, he leaned back and closed his eyes. But they did not notice him. At that moment he was feeling more love for the two girls than he had ever felt before because their lives were so wretched, because their clothes were so shabby, and even when they bought new things they were in poor taste. “Midge bought a new hat but it did not really look like this girl’s hat,” he thought. Suddenly Father Dowling was full of such eagerness that he leaned forward, waiting for Charlie to stop talking. He was moistening his lips, smiling, hardly hearing the conversation at all. “I wonder,” he said. “I wonder if you would do something for me, Pauline?”
“I’d do anything I could, Father.”
“I’m sure you would, but I don’t want to impose on you.”
“I won’t let you do that, Father. I’m pretty ruthless.”
“This is a matter that would only take up a little of your time. It’s like this. I know two girls, sort of nieces, not in very good circumstances. I was wanting them to have new clothes for the spring….”
“Go on, Father.”
“That’s where you come in.”
“You want me to help you with the clothes.”
“Well, as you can see, I can’t very well go and buy them clothes. I’d have no skill in such matters. Besides, they mightn’t want to wear what I’d buy. If you would do this for me….” He began to look terribly embarrassed. He felt his face getting hot while they smiled broadly, and then he, too, began to laugh with great heartiness, his face all red and full of open enthusiasm now, and when he got his breath at last, he said, “It no doubt must seem a bit funny to take advantage of you immediately in this way, Pauline, but that’s the kind of person I am. Ask Charlie. I’ve been taking advantage of him ever since I’ve known him.”
“I don’t believe it, Father,” she said. “I’d be glad to help you if you’d just tell me what sort of thing, what kind of dress, how much you want to pay and so on. Just give me something to go on. What are the girls like?”
Such Is My Beloved Page 6