There had been a continuous stream of penitents from eight to ten-two hours of the worst evil a small place like this could produce after three years. It hadn't amounted to very much-a city would have made a better show-or would it? There isn't much a man can do. Drunkenness, adultery, uncleanness: he sat there tasting the brandy all the while, sitting on a rocking-chair in a horse-box, not looking at the face of the one who knelt at his side. The others had waited, kneeling in an empty stall-Mr. Lehr's stable had been depopulated these last few years. He had only one old horse left, which blew windily in the dark as the sins came whispering out.
How many times?
Twelve, father. Perhaps more, and the horse blew. It is astonishing the sense of innocence that goes with sin-only the hard and careful man and the saint are free of it. These people went out of the stable clean: he was the only one left who hadn't repented, confessed, and been absolved. He wanted to say to this man: Love is not wrong, but love should be happy and open-it is only wrong when it is secret, unhappy ... it can be more unhappy than anything but the loss of God. It is the loss of God. You don't need a penance, my child, you have suffered quite enough, and to this other: Lust is not the worst thing. It is because any day, any time, lust may turn into love that we have to avoid it. And when we love our sin then we are damned indeed. But the habit of the confessional reasserted itself: it was as if he was back in the little stuffy wooden boxlike coffin in which men bury their uncleanness with their priest. He said: Mortal sin ... danger ... self-control, as if those words meant anything at all. He said: Say three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys.
He said wearily: Drink is only the beginning … He [164] found he had no lesson he could draw against even that common vice except himself smelling of brandy in the stable. He gave out the penance quickly, harshly, mechanically. The man would go away, saying: A bad priest, feeling no encouragement, no interest. …
He said: Those laws were made for man. The Church doesn't expect ... if you can't fast, you must eat, that's all. The old woman prattled on and on, while the penitents stirred restlessly in the next stall and the horse whinnied, prattled of abstinence days broken, of evening prayers curtailed. Suddenly, without warning, with an odd sense of homesickness, he thought of the hostages in the prison yard, waiting at the water-tap, not looking at him-the suffering and the endurance which went on everywhere the other side of the mountains. He interrupted the woman savagely: Why don't you confess properly to me? I'm not interested in your fish supply or in how sleepy you are at night ... remember your real sins.
But I'm a good woman, father, she squeaked at him with astonishment.
Then what are you doing here, keeping away the bad people? He said: Have you any love for anyone but yourself?
I love God, father, she said haughtily. He took a quick look at her in the light of the candle burning on the floor-the hard old raisin eyes under the black shawl-another of the pious-like himself.
How do you know? Loving God isn't any different from loving a man-or a child. It's wanting to be with Him, to be near Him. He made a hopeless gesture with his hands. It's wanting to protect Him from yourself.
When the last penitent had gone away he walked back across the yard to the bungalow: he could see the lamp burning, and Miss Lehr knitting, and he could smell the grass in the paddock, wet with the first rains. It ought to be possible for a man to be happy here, if he were not so tied to fear and suffering-unhappiness too can become a habit like piety. Perhaps it was his duty to break it, his duty to discover peace. He felt an immense envy of all those people who had confessed to him and been absolved. In six days, he told himself, in Las Casas, I too ... but he couldn't believe that anyone anywhere would rid [165] him of his heavy heart. Even when he drank he felt bound to his sin by love. It was easier to get rid of hate.
Miss Lehr said: Sit down, father. You must be tired. I've never held, of course, with confession. Nor has Mr. Lehr.
No?
I don't know how you can stand sitting there, listening to all the horrible things. ... I remember in Pittsburgh once ...
The two mules had been brought in overnight, so that he could start early immediately after Mass-the second that he had said in Mr. Lehr's barn. His guide was sleeping somewhere, probably with the mules, a thin nervous creature, who had never been to Las Casas: he simply knew the route by hearsay. Miss Lehr had insisted the night before that she must call him, although he woke of his own accord before it was light. He lay in bed and heard the alarm go off in another room-dinning like a telephone; and presently he heard the slop-slop of Miss Lehr's s bedroom slippers in the passage outside and a knock-knock on the door. Mr. Lehr slept on undisturbed upon his back with the thin rectitude of a bishop upon a tomb.
The priest had lain down in his clothes and he opened the door before Miss Lehr had time to get away: she gave a small squeal of dismay, a bunchy figure in a hairnet.
Excuse me.
Oh, it's quite all right. How long will Mass take, father?
There will be a great many communicants. Perhaps three-quarters of an hour.
I will have some coffee ready for you-and sandwiches.
You must not bother.
Oh, we can't send you away hungry.
She followed him to the door, standing a little behind him, so as not to be seen by anything or anybody in the wide empty early world. The grey light uncurled across the pastures: at the gate the tulipan tree bloomed for yet another day: very far off, beyond the little stream where he had bathed, the people were walking up from the village on the way to Mr. Lehr's barn; they were too small at that distance to be human. He had a sense of expectant happiness all round him, waiting for him to take part, like an audience of children at a cinema or a [166] rodeo: he was aware of how happy he might have been if he had left nothing behind him across the range except a few bad memories. A man should always prefer peace to violence, and he was going towards peace.
You have been very good to me, Miss Lehr.
How odd it had seemed at first to be treated as a guest, not as a criminal or a bad priest. These were heretics-it never occurred to them that he was not a good man: they hadn't the prying insight of fellow Catholics.
We've enjoyed having you, father. But you'll be glad to be away. Las Casas is a fine city. A very moral place, as Mr. Lehr always says. If you meet Father Quintana you must remember us to him-he was here three years ago.
A bell began to ring: they had brought the church bell down from the tower and hung it outside Mr. Lehr's s barn: it sounded like any Sunday anywhere.
I've sometimes wished, Miss Lehr said, that I could go to church.
Why not?
Mr. Lehr wouldn't like it. He's very strict. But it happens so seldom nowadays-I don't suppose there'll be another service now for another three years.
I will come back before then.
Oh, no, Miss Lehr said. You won't do that. It's a hard journey and Las Casas is a fine city. They have electric light in the streets: there are two hotels. Father Quintana promised to come back-but there are Christians everywhere, aren't there? Why should he come back here? It isn't even as if we were really badly off.
A little group of Indians passed the gate: gnarled tiny creatures of the Stone Age: the men in short smocks walked with long poles, and the women with black plaits and knocked-about faces carried their babies on their backs. The Indians have heard you are here, Miss Lehr said. They've walked fifty miles-I shouldn't be surprised.
They stopped at the gate and watched him: when he looked at them they went down on their knees and crossed themselves-the strange elaborate mosaic touching the nose and ears and chin. My brother gets so angry, Miss Lehr said, if he sees [167] somebody go on his knees to a priest-but I don't see that it does any harm.