Such Is My Beloved

by Morley Callaghan

  It seemed terrible to Father Dowling that he had been neglecting to send money to his mother, who was so deserving of his love, and it seemed just as terrible that he had no money, either, for those whom he most wanted to help.

  That evening he was hearing confessions. People who came to him at this time every week felt a strange aloofness in his manner. It was true that he listened as patiently as ever and sometimes even sighed sorrowfully, but his sighs hardly seemed to be for the sins of his penitents. And it did not occur to him to-night to scold them or work himself into an ardent passion in the way some of the women loved. Up until the time one young man came into the confessional he had actually let many penitents go away feeling that their sins were trifling and unimportant, and even this young man, for the first part of his confession, did not arouse the priest. He was a university student who was worrying about losing his faith: it seemed that he could not pray when he went into a church, for his soul seemed to dry up and he felt uncomfortable and bored and sat in the pew arguing with the priest in the pulpit, and in his imagination making the priest appear stupid. There were times, too, when he felt that the Church, the visible church and the mystical body, was rotten at the core and always socially delinquent.

  Father Dowling whispered, “Are you sure you’re not getting your notions from authors of books. Are you sure your reading doesn’t tend to destroy your faith? What have you been reading?”

  “I’ve been reading Marx and Engels and Nietzsche, Father.”

  “And you like Marx and Engels?”

  “They have sometimes filled me with enthusiasm, Father.”

  Father Dowling hesitated, not knowing quite what to say, for he did not know these authors very well, but he began by saying, “What a great pity Marx was not a Christian. There’s no reason why a Christian should not thirst after social justice. The Church is not tied up to any one economic system, in fact, all systems tend to degrade the Church by using it to pacify discontented people. They would make religion an opium for the people, and we must be ever on our guard to see that the laity and the clergy, too, are not becoming the tools of designing rulers and the class interests. There is nothing to prevent a priest speaking stupidly on matters that he does not understand. It is only in the confessional and on the altar that he must be heeded and his instructions followed. But for heaven’s sake, have a little Christian charity; if you are at mass and you hear a priest in the pulpit talking nonsense, or what you feel sure is nonsense, don’t sit there sneering at him. You don’t have to listen to him. Get up and walk out. Smoke a cigarette outside and then go back when he’s finished. Ah, my dear young Christian friend, it is indeed a disordered world. God help us all. There are so many remedies offered. Try Our Lord, why don’t you? And there is no reason why you should be worried by Nietzsche, my son. I know he is not a Christian, but are you sure you are understanding him? Are you sure that there is not an emphatic spiritual declaration in Nietzsche? There is, my boy. He hates paleness. Man, for him, is not an end, he is a bridge. His was a martial spirit. Remember how he writes with passion and how he hates spiritual inertia. He hates paleness, too, I have said, and he would surely think that your mean shallow contemporary skeptics and atheists were dreadfully pale and woebegone. Perhaps even his lack of Catholicity is a disguise, and underneath this disguise there’s much that a Christian can learn. Do you follow me?” Father Dowling, whispering rapidly, began to make the young man believe that he had not read the German writer correctly. When he had finished the priest thrust his face close against the wire grating and said, “Now do you understand?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “That’s good. The grace of God will help you to see much further into the matter. Go on with your confession,” Father Dowling said, leaning back.

  “I committed fornication, Father.”

  “How many times?”

  “Twice, Father.”

  “With a young girl that you seduced?”

  “No, Father.”

  “Not with another man’s wife, I hope?”

  “No, Father. With a prostitute.”

  “Dear, dear, dear. Well, better with a street woman than with an innocent young girl or a married woman. You saw the same woman twice?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “You picked her up off the streets?”

  “In the first place, Father. Then I liked her and went to see her again.”

  The next question came slow and hesitant from Father Dowling: he did not even know whether he should ask the question. “Was it in this neighborhood, my son? On the streets around here?”

  “Yes, Father. It was.”

  As he sat up stiffly, Father Dowling felt absolutely sure that the young man had picked up either Midge or Ronnie; then he could not prevent his head from going forward and his eyes peering through the wire wicket into the dark corner where the boy was kneeling. But he could not see more than the back of the boy’s head, so hidden he was, and as he breathed deeply, and heard the boy breathing steadily, too, it began to seem inevitable that those two girls should have been touching the life and soul of this young fellow and perhaps many others like him, touching in this piercing way the life of the whole parish. How close they all were together. Yet it was not until he had seen the girls apart from others and separately, that he had realized how united was all the life of his congregation, students, the mothers and fathers of students, prostitutes, priests, the rich and the poor who passed girls on the street and desired them. This exciting thought, which at first filled him with wonder, began to make him feel eager to be kind to the young man, who was whispering, “For these and all other sins which I cannot remember, I am heartily sorry, Father.”

  “For your penance say ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys, and now make a good Act of Contrition.”

  While the young fellow was muttering his prayer, Father Dowling was making the sign of the cross over him, and this motion with his hand in the air as he granted absolution became almost a caress, he was feeling such extraordinary tenderness for this penitent. Then he swung the panel across the grating and he was alone. He sat in the darkness, waiting for some one to come into the confessional, still hearing the scraping of the young man’s feet, smelling the odors of stale face-powder, cheap perfumes, the mixed breath of many strangers, the smell of bodies confined in that small space, and as he listened, it all seemed good to him, like the teeming richness of living things.

  And he began to realize more clearly than before, after having listened to the student, how important the souls of the two girls were to him. He realized that they required all his love, because he alone understood them, and saw that through them he could love the young man too, and every one else who touched them. “It certainly was better for that boy to have been with Ronnie or Midge than some pure young girl. It was probably Midge. Maybe there is some purpose in their life after all,” he thought.

  No one else came into the confessional, so he removed his purple stole from around his neck and put it into his pocket, and he swung aside the curtain and walked out to the church aisle. He went out and stood on the Cathedral steps, feeling the cool night air and looking over toward the main streets where the sky was glowing bright with the electric sign reflections, where the traffic was rumbling, where the crowds were streaming out of the theatres and into the restaurants and dance halls. And in the small hotel room on the other side of the block, Ronnie and Midge were maybe waiting for him to bring them a little money.

  He felt dreadfully tired. As he went into the rectory he passed Father Anglin’s door, and he thought, “If something does not turn up by to-morrow, I’ll speak to Father Anglin.”

  Upstairs, he talked for a few moments with Father Jolly about the ball teams in the spring training camps in the far south. In the summer time the two priests went to the ball games together, and tried to arrange it so they could motor to the city where the world series was being played. Father Jolly knew the pitching record of every pitcher who had been in the big
leagues for at least two years. His small, eager, dark face, with big glasses, was full of animation as he talked. “Come on into my room and I’ll give you a shot of rye and maybe we can get worked up to singing some songs,” he said. “Not to-night. I feel restless,” Father Dowling said, and Father Jolly, eyeing him shrewdly, knew that he was unhappy.

  There was a sermon that still had to be prepared for the eleven o’clock mass to-morrow, and Father Dowling did not look forward to it with much enthusiasm. The pulpit had lost some of its attraction for him since he had been advised to avoid controversial social problems. But as he sat in his room with the night air coming in so freshly through the open window, he opened his Bible and found himself reading the Song of Solomon. And it began to seem to him as he leaned forward breathlessly that he understood some of the secret rich feeling of this love song, sung so marvellously that it transcended human love and became divine. Then he forgot how he had been worrying about borrowing money. He began to write rapidly. He smiled with exaltation. He prepared his sermon on human and divine love. The bold sensual phrases of the love song startled him, stirred him and were full of such meaning that he read them over and over again.

  And in the morning he preached on the Song of Songs, only he made it a song of love that all people ought to have for one another. Words rolled out of him with passion, and his ardor was so great that many who listened felt uneasy. He had got thinner. His deep-set blue eyes were no longer mild, but full of defiance as he shouted out, “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.”

  When mass was over he stood by the church entrance, bowing to men and women with a little more warmth in his smile than there had been for many weeks, for he was searching into their faces, wondering, “Which one of them will I speak to? Which one will be kind enough to give me something for Ronnie and Midge?”

  Young men of the parish sauntered past him to the street, looked around to see who among their friends was at this mass and then went down to stand by the curb and light their cigarettes. Soon there was a long line of young men along the curb, all wearing their best clothes, all smoking and talking to each other. In the course of a year a priest gets to know the faces of many of his parishioners even when he forgets their names, he gets to know their voices, their thoughts, the little things that worry them. At the Cathedral there were, of course, a great many strangers from all over the city and from out of town, too, who just came once and never even noticed Father Dowling, but the old parishioners, like Mrs. Haley, the white-haired widow who wore the oddest bonnet with artificial pink flowers and who had such a rosy face, bowed very low to him. And Hahn, the doctor, with a morning coat on his hungry-looking body, squinted his sharp fanatical eyes and smiled coldly, too. And there were three young girls with arms linked, who glanced up charmingly, half flirting with Father Dowling without knowing it. There was a little boy with an Eton collar, holding the hand of his sister, with long golden curls. They all kept coming out, hundreds of strange faces and a few he saw every Sunday; the rich ones at once began to look around for their cars; the jolly, poor women formed little groups on the pavement and began to chatter. A cripple, a Frenchman who had had rheumatism for twenty years, was being helped into his wheel chair. Father Dowling had never smiled more patiently, or looked at these people more shrewdly than this morning.

  Then Mr. James Robison and his daughter passed by; the daughter, a slim, tall, dark girl who smiled good-naturedly at Father Dowling and nodded her head shyly. The lawyer, florid-faced and handsome in his morning coat and very amiable, with his face wreathed in smiles and a bit of morning sunlight touching his white hair, put out his hand heartily and said, “Good morning, Father. It was a great pleasure to listen to you this morning. Seldom have I heard such eloquence. Seldom have I been so moved.”

  “Then we don’t disagree about the subject matter of the sermon this morning, Mr. Robison?”

  “Oh, tut, tut, come now, Father. Who am I to disagree with you about such matters? All I can say is that love and charity always will seem to me to be the divine themes, the most powerful themes for affecting the human heart.”

  “I’m glad you were moved. I hope many others were, too.”

  “You may be sure they were. You gave us all something to think about,” Mr. Robison said.

  The handsome lawyer was more gracious, more humble this morning than he had ever been. Both he and his daughter seemed to be full of admiration for the young priest. A strange confidence, a sudden joyfulness surged through Father Dowling. Putting back his head, he laughed out so loud that everybody standing on the steps turned and smiled. It was always exhilarating to hear one of the young priests laughing in this way.

  Father Dowling bent over and whispered to Mr. Robison. “I’ve a little matter I’d like to talk to you about. It would only take a few minutes this evening. I wonder…”

  “Come around, Father. We’ll all be glad to see you.”

  “If it’s possible I’d like if we were alone.”

  “Fine, fine, fine,” Mr. Robison said, shaking his white head in agreement.

  For a few moments longer Father Dowling stood on the steps, smiling, looking down at the cement sidewalk, noticing no one, then he turned, the skirt of his soutane swung out like a sail, and he went hurrying up through the church.

  FOURTEEN

  That evening Father Dowling came down the path by the church, stood a moment on the sidewalk, as though making sure for the last time of an explanation, and started to walk rapidly up the street. When he passed under the light his red lips were still moving in time with his thoughts. It was a very fine night. At dinner-time he had hardly eaten anything; he had kept going over and over his plan.

  The lawyer lived in an old, vine-covered stone house, one of the oldest houses in the neighborhood. As Father Dowling stood on the sidewalk looking up at all the lighted windows, he felt afraid, for he seemed to be risking so much. “If he will not come, or if he does come and won’t help them, what will I do?” he wondered.

  When James Robison came into the drawing-room, Father Dowling was walking up and down, his hands clasped behind his back, the excitement so strong in him that he smiled vaguely at the lawyer, trying to find great kindliness in his healthy face. He had decided to discuss the matter in an impersonal way, but as soon as he heard James Robison saying, “Gracious, Father, you look very uneasy. Won’t you sit down and smoke a cigar?” he turned with his young face full of his intense eagerness and said, “Mr. Robison, you’ll have to forgive my eagerness, but I want you to help some one. I want you to give some one a little money, just as much as you think is deserved. Are you in a position…do you think you might be willing?”

  Far from being startled, Mr. Robison said, “Tut, tut,” and beamed rosily, for as soon as the priest had spoken to him in the morning he had imagined that a contribution of some kind for some worthy charity was being solicited. On the way home from church he had even made up in his mind how much he might give; if it was a small, unobtrusive charity, he had thought he might suggest fifty, or a hundred dollars, a check he would write while chuckling to himself, glancing occasionally over his shoulder at the delighted face of the young priest. After that was done he had intended to offer Father Dowling a drink of very old, expensive wine and send him away full of good humor and praise.

  So as he chuckled at Father Dowling now, he said, “Dear me, Father, what is it that I’m expected to give? Has Father Anglin something in mind? You know you don’t give us folk much rest. But it’s a blessing in a way to have you think of me. What is it, Father?”

  “Do you remember those two girls I once spoke to you about?”

  “You asked me to get jobs for them, I believe.”

  “Yes, they’re the ones. They’re the ones again to-night.”

  The smiling, ruddy-cheeked assurance which made Father Dowling’s manner so agreeable, vanished as soon as he mentioned the girls; he was so desperately serious now that he was making James Robison uncomforta
ble, for the lawyer preferred the way the older priest asked for contributions, with a splendid aplomb, a fine, gracious exchange of compliments that set them both rolling with hearty laughter. “I’ve kept them in mind, Father. I’ve asked about jobs for them but there is little work these days,” Mr. Robison said defensively.