“Drop them,” Paul said.
“Oh, no, I’ll go on organizing. I think my sympathy for Trotsky had something to do with it. I advocated what we call Trotskyism because I can’t help thinking he’s a great man. He’s the biggest man in the movement. It wasn’t so much that I wanted the comrades to agree with me; I merely thought something ought to be said for Trotsky.”
“Have a drink now.”
“No, I don’t touch it at all, but you fellows go ahead.”
They talked to Gibbons as though anxious to rid him of his oppressors, he was such a nice fellow. They both had a drink, and John said to Gibbons: “Doesn’t it make you feel that you’ll kill somebody?”
“Oh, no.”
“Don’t you ever feel that way?”
“No, I try to be dispassionate about it.”
“You know, Gibbons, it’s a thing John can’t help talking about. You were at the war and saw it was different, didn’t you?”
“I know,” Gibbons said. “But I don’t believe in capital punishment, for example, but I do think the lives of a few individuals are unimportant when the good of society is involved.”
Paul, who had been drinking too rapidly, examined the bottom of his empty glass, and said: “Of course, the first time you knew you actually had killed someone it was a little different than simply firing away, not knowing who you were hitting. It reminds me of the time Fred Thompson had to stand close to someone for the first time and shoot him. Fred was a lieutenant in charge of a party that had taken some prisoners. A few Germans were lying there dead and wounded in a big jagged hole. We were all standing there resting, surprised at the size of the shell hole. One of the Germans, who had been knocked down and badly wounded, an old gray-haired square-headed man over fifty, got up suddenly, and swaying and grabbing his rifle, fired at some of us. He was only a few feet away and didn’t hit anybody, because he could hardly hold the gun at his shoulder. He was an old fellow with a puzzled, stupid, bewildered expression on his face, who had gone a little crazy, and kept swinging his head, trying to fire. He was apt to hit someone, too. The men all stood there looking at Fred, who was the officer in charge, instead of taking a shot at the old fellow. Fred looked at the old German, hesitated, and pulling out his revolver shot him through the side of the head. The bewildered expression never went off the fellow’s face. Fred looked at the man lying there dead and looked at his own men, and felt sick. He did not know what he ought to have done, but the men were so disgusted they turned their backs on him. Some of them wouldn’t speak to him for days. It was just a cold execution by an inexperienced officer who had nothing against the poor old fellow.”
“That was bad. There was not excuse for it,” John said.
“But Fred didn’t know what to do, and the men were looking at him.”
“What would you have done?” John said.
“Just about the same. There are no heroes; some get medals, some don’t. I would have wanted to do the right thing and would have done what he did.”
Paul, who had been drinking too rapidly, took another one quickly, looking at the color of it against the electric light. “I smell gas in here,” he said.
“It’s always here.”
“It’s not a good smell.”
Fumbling in his inside pocket he brought out two small medals with bits of colored ribbon attached and tossed them on the table. “I make them work for me, but I’m through with them now,” he said. The medals made a small sharp sound on the table. Paul, looking at them, smiled, and waved his arm in a wide circle. His eyes were bright, his arms still waving, and his lips were drawn back, though he hadn’t said anything. “Fred oughtn’t to have done that,” he said, and crouching down in the middle of the floor, his eyes staring, mumbled: “The trench is a gash, a wound. I can’t run, I can’t run, I got to stay here. I can’t run. They’re coming, but I can’t see them and I can’t run.” He moved slowly toward Gibbons, who backed away from him to the other side of the table. Paul, straightening up suddenly, stood stiffly, his mouth open, staring at the bright light, then lurched toward Gibbons, swearing, muttering, and sure he had to kill him.
John and Gibbons held him, pushing him slowly toward the bed. They held onto him while he breathed heavily, his eyes blinking, looking vaguely at both of them, shaking his head slowly, smiling stupidly.
“He’ll probably go to sleep now,” John said, walking away from him. Gibbons sat on the bed beside him, and finally said: “I think I’ll go now.”
“All right.”
Gibbons went out. John looked out the window, down the street as far as the cathedral. The base of the cathedral was dark and wide and heavy, all shadowed, but the silvered steeple shone in the moonlight and the illuminated cross was bright. The talk of the war had made John uneasy and taken some confidence out of him. He was afraid of his own thoughts, though assuring himself he was simply standing at the window waiting to feel strong again. Looking out, he felt vaguely that something would occur, so it would not be necessary to go on with his plan, and he was weaker than he had been all day. Then, looking at the base of the cathedral, he thought it would be quite reasonable to go over there, inside the church. People still hurrying up the walk to the door. It was something to do at the moment and it wasn’t necessary to feel he was trying to resist the strong emotion making him go on with his plan.
Before going out the door he glanced at Paul Ross, who was dozing lightly.
Chapter Seventeen
Downstairs he opened the front door, standing on the steps and feeling cool air striking his hot forehead. There was no wind, the air was crisp and cool, and on cracks in the steps were thin strips of ice from the snow melting at noontime and frozen now. On the steps he slipped, but held his balance by lurching forward, stumbling along the sidewalk to the lamppost on the street.
The cathedral was across the street and down half a block. A small light was burning at the peak of the Gothic arch and two women went in, closing the door carefully. John, standing by the lamppost, looking across the road, smiled confidently, nodded his head twice and walked over to the cathedral, smiling because he had a splendid notion of a joke in his head. In the shadow of the cathedral he stopped smiling, almost ashamed of himself, and sure he had thought of it as a joke merely because it had humorous possibilities, when really he was going into the cathedral out of fairness, anxious to expose himself in every way to orthodox ethics. In his own room, looking out the window at the cathedral tower, it had occurred to him to cross the road and go to confession, and explain simply that he was ready to kill a woman because it was necessary for his own salvation. Such a notion contributed to his dignity.
Without admitting it, John was anxious to go into the cathedral and talk with someone sensible and steady, so he would forget all about having to go to Isabelle Thompson’s house tonight. He wanted something to happen that would prevent him going on with a plan, and yet leave him feeling strong and important.
For years he had never thought himself a Catholic, and unable to feel religious it was nearly ten years since he had gone to confession. Now the cathedral had suggested a whole system of ethics and he had muttered, deceiving himself, that he would offer his own notions in opposition and retain the feeling he had not been in a hurry at all. It was a Saturday night and many people were going to confession in the cathedral. Women sitting on one bench along the wall and men on another one were not interested in each other, bowing their heads, muttering prayers and patiently waiting in turn. It was a large cathedral and only the altar candles and a few lights were lit, so people in the aisles, kneeling before pictures of the Stations of the Cross, were one with the shadows of the pillars and the pews.
John sat down in a pew with three men and a woman who were leaning back reading prayer books. He ought to have knelt down and said a few prayers; instead he tried to feel comfortable, smiling slightly at the man next to him, who nodded formally without looking up. John, a little self-conscious, sitting in the pew, feeling he
did not have the same motive as the other people around him, picked up a prayer book out of the rack, attached to the back of the pew ahead, and began to read a preparation for making a good confession. The prayers and interrogations all interested him, and mechanically he began answering questions, getting ready a decent confession, only he never submitted his main plan and purpose to any of these questions. There wasn’t any relation between anything he was reading, the list of all the sins, venial and mortal, and the one act he was getting ready to commit. Restive at last, he dropped the prayer book and stepped out of the pew to sit on the penitents’ bench beside a handsomely dressed man with manicured fingers folded around fat knees. John was so restive he was sweating, his head hot again, and trembling, ready to rush out and go ahead at once. This feeling, getting the better of his judgment, terrified him, because he had been trying to repress it all day, and it left him cold and dizzy after it had passed away.
He went into the confessional and was alone, the curtain drawn behind him. The panel behind the wire grating was drawn and it was very quiet, but listening intently he heard faintly a woman’s voice mumbling on the other side of the confessional. His lips were dry, his heart beating so loudly he could feel it in his throat and thought he would not be able to get his breath. He became calm again, wondering whether he was excited from being in the confessional or from the same emotion that had been exciting him all day. Though calm, wondering about it, he was uncertain, and yet curious about the confessional, as he got ready to hear the panel moving.
Before the panel swung back he heard the priest whispering rapidly, and imagined the woman had finished her confession, and soon the priest, giving her absolution, would be making the sign of the cross over her, praying and blessing her, and reaching with one hand to swing back the panel and incline his ear to the penitent on the other side. Then the panel moved, swinging back, and John was alone with the priest, and trying to see whether he was young or an old man he leaned forward, pressing his nose against the wire. The wire felt cold against the tip of his nose. The priest, waiting patiently, said in an old tired voice: “Yes, my son.”
John, moving his lips rapidly to get into the rhythm of a good confession, could not remember the prayers and said simply: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
All the questions he had read in the prayer book were in his mind as he enunciated many small venial sins that could not be expected to interest the old priest, who was leaning back, his hand over his eyes, his elbow resting on a ledge underneath the wire grating.
Then John said finally: “What I want to talk about is this, Father: it’s in my mind to kill somebody. It’s been in my mind many hours now, but I didn’t want to move rashly or just be carried away by a violent passion.”
The priest was silent. John, expecting him to lean forward, pressing his face against the wicker, was disappointed when the priest hardly moved his head, an old priest, accustomed to many peculiar penitents. John was offended, sure that he was extraordinarily interesting to anybody who knew some of the thoughts in his head. The priest ought to look at him, startled. He was suddenly angry.
“You did quite right to come to confession,” the priest said.
“Yes, Father.”
“How long is it, you say, since you were at confession?”
“About ten years.”
“Hmm. It’s not surprising, is it, that you have such violent thoughts? What do you expect if you never go to communion in a decade?”
“That’s not the point, Father. I mean going to communion has nothing whatever to do with it. I’m here now. I felt I wanted to come here and see what you’d say . . .”
“Now don’t argue with me.”
“But you must understand, I want to listen patiently to you.”
“You mean the idea is still in your head?”
“Yes.”
“Goodness. You’re a strange fellow. Why come to confession if you’re not in a penitent mood?”
They were whispering too loudly and the priest stopped suddenly, leaning away from the wire. John was sure he was waiting for time to think. Leaning toward him again the priest said: “The thought is still in your head, is it? All right, then. Have you been drinking at all?”
“Just a glass.”
“Yes. But you sound like a sensible fellow. See here now, look at it this way: is there any single emotion in life strong enough to make you want to kill a fellow man? Are you feeling well? Do you really have the thought? In the first place, what has anyone done to you . . . ?”
“She took possession of my whole life. She got hold of all my feelings, trying to own me, and then tried to take everything away from me. She would be better dead.”
“A woman, eh? I thought so. That’s a little different. It’s bad to be carried away by any feeling about a woman. Of course, men want women. God has foreseen it, and so marriage is a sacrament, though not even all marriages are happy, because the principals are human. Outside of that, how often have they been a temptation from time immemorial? And if you, my dear boy, think you are undergoing any kind of a temptation compare it for a moment with the temptations the martyrs endured, glowing with zeal from thinking of Jesus Christ hanging on the cross. Feel how puny and weak your own temptation is. What temptation can you possibly have that hasn’t been dwarfed by the temptation of blessed men who died in agony, refusing relief?” The priest was talking rapidly, trying to get hold of a single idea he could use effectively. Pausing, he said eagerly: “You’re an educated man, aren’t you?”
“I suppose so.”
“Of course. Well then you understand something of the dignity of the human spirit. All the nonsense ever written by the wise men of today can’t destroy the fundamental dignity of the human spirit. It should be the aim of every Christian to preserve that dignity and be ever watchful of any temptation, which if yielded to, might destroy it. Does that appeal to you?”
“Yes, Father, go on.”
“Certainly you can’t have any Christian dignity, nor can you have pride in your own spirit, if you are a murderer. The chances are you would never commit such a crime. Still, you have had the thought and it’s a sin and that’s why I’m talking to you. I’m talking to you as one reasonable man to another. How would you feel afterward? Penitent, of course, and you’d come right back here to me. Even though your crime were never detected, all the years of your life you’d be struggling to make some atonement, always looking for a sedative, something to restore your own feeling of decency and dignity. If you commit ed such a crime do you know what it would be like? It would be like a bombshel exploding underneath your ego and you would destroy yourself. Your soul would be damned in the next world, but yourself, your ego, that gives you the force to hold up your head, would be destroyed now, I tell you.”
“That’s it, my ego has been destroyed now, I tell you.”
“It has not been destroyed. You’re here now, in the arms of the church. The Mother of God will sustain you if you need her. All the strength of the Church and all the goodness she has stored up in heaven for two thousand years is there to support you.”
“I can’t think that far, Father.”
“Have you a feeling of sorrow for letting yourself go this far?”
“No, Father.”
“Then what can I do for you?”
“I wanted to be fair.”
“You’re a decent fellow. Tell me, will you come and see me again? I won’t give you absolution now. Don’t try and banish that violent feeling: let it come out and then consider it like a reasonable man. Come and see me soon, will you?”
“I’ll try to.”
The priest began to pray. John’s knees on the stool where hurting him. Some of the priest’s talk had made his head get hot again. His legs were twitching. Getting up he walked out of the confessional, still hearing the priest praying.
At the pew he got his hat and walked down the aisle. Turning, he saw the priest come out of the confessional, and hesitating look after
him, an old priest with white hair holding his head on one side, hardly knowing whether to hurry down the aisle after him or regard it as a conversation with a man whose eagerness for violence had been tempered by good counsel. The priest, watching the short, thick-set man, who was hurrying too rapidly down the aisle, shook his head twice and went back to the confessional, wondering if he ought to have another conversation with a policeman. John felt sorry, for the priest had agreed with him that his own importance had been destroyed. His own soul had been denied to him, but he had a plan that would restore his own feeling of decency and dignity. He had not expected to get such an explanation of the strong feeling from the priest. He swung open the door, stepping out into the cold, exalted, excited, thinking of doing the act that would restore to him all the dignity and decency of the spirit, he, a man of talent, anxious for all the good things, was entitled to.
Chapter Eighteen
Now that he was ready, all the resentment he had ever had for Isabelle was strong inside him. The feeling was so strong he was a little dizzy, walking along the street, clenching his fists tightly and slowly relaxing the fingers. It was not a dizziness making him sway on his feet, only objects on the street had no meaning for him; the streetlights had fading, many-colored rings of light around them. The air was cool, but the light breeze simply dried the perspiration and then his forehead got hotter. For several blocks he walked rapidly, carrying his hat in his hand. Since he wasn’t thinking of anything at all, just holding the feeling, his legs moved faster as he breathed jerkily, heavily. Alert, suddenly he glanced around, wondering if people were noticing him.
It's Never Over Page 14