He looked fragile enough there, blocking the path before the figure in Irish thorn-proof, which loomed larger for being slightly uphill. Still Ludy saw no way to get round him, but stood unsteadily awkward waiting, trapped once more, seeking some detail of sight or sound, threatened again with the torment of loss tolling his senses one by one, while somewhere unseen the bell against the ruminating jaw jogged the silence. — You can't go on this way, he broke out at the back turned to him, — this wandering. . and he amended, — I mean, I travel a good deal myself, but. .
— Listen! there's a moment, traveling. .
— But I…
— Offered shelter, there they were, all the family at dinner. .
— Usually working on something. .
— But she didn't wear her breasts around to be chewed by strangers, when she said…
— Without. . reproach. .
— her daughter. .
— What? Ludy came down upon him, — You said, you have a daughter somewhere?. .
At that he came round so quickly in the path that Ludy startled off it and the instant his foot went into the deep grass a commotion burst there. Another step back, Ludy stumbled and fell, and the bird which had fluttered up was caught in Stephen's hand above him, where it beat its wings frantically.
— A daughter, yes.
— I've cut myself, Ludy said from the ground.
— Yes, Stephen laughed suddenly over him, holding the bird, looking down, where a streak formed on Ludy's hand.
— But I'm bleeding. . don't, why are you laughing?
— Yes, who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him. .? Stephen stood there looking down, and he covered the bird in his hand with the hand mounting the diamonds. — But you can't quiet it, you can't comfort it, it would die of fright.
— It frightened me, so close. .
— See, how it's made. .
— No, no… from far off, flying, yes, they're beautiful. . Ludy struggled up on his elbows. — But no, not this close, like that, they make my blood run cold. . He looked at the faint streak on his hand and repeated, — I'm bleeding. .
Stephen burst into laughter again, more loudly, standing there with the bird. — Yes, yes, who would have thought, the old man. . he laughed more loudly, at the slight and so faintly colored streak, — to have had so much blood in him!. .
— But what is it… no, Ludy shuddered on the ground and unable to rise while the bird was held over him there.
— A daughter, yes! and born out of, not love but borne out of love, when it happened, the bearing, the present reshaped the past. And the suitor? Oh Christ! not slaying the suitors, no never, but to supersede where they failed, lie down where they left. Where they lost their best moments, and went on, to confess them in repetition somewhere else without living them through where they happened, trying to reshape the future without daring to reshape the past. Oh the lives! that are lost in confession. . — I'm bleeding…
— To run back looking for every one of them? every one of them, no, it's too easy, Penelope spinning a web somewhere, and tearing it out at night, and waiting? or to marry someone else's mistake, to atone for one of your own somewhere else, dull and dead the day it begins'. You'd see, listen, listen, listen here if the prospect of sin, draws us on but the sin is only boring and dead the moment it happens, it's only the living it through that redeems it.
— Where are you going?
— I've an early start, I've come this far. Hear the bells! the old man, ringing me on.
— But the bird. .?
— There are stories, I could tell you about Saint Dominic plucking alive the sparrow that interrupted his preaching. .
— Just take it away, just, and let me get up, I'm bleeding.
— I told you, there was, a moment in travel when love and necessity become the same thing. And now, if the gods themselves cannot recall their gifts, we must live them through, and redeem them.
Stephen had knelt slowly beside the older man down on his back in the path who had retreated as best he could, shifting his weight away elbow to elbow, still prone with the bird's brittle torment so close, bursting out, — But why are you doing this to me?
— Doing? what. You asked me, where am 1 going?
— But I'm bleeding.
— Listen, whoever started a journey, without the return in the front of his mind? The bird fluttered there in the austere hand almost closed on it. Stephen watched it with calm, as he spoke only instants of intensity in his voice showed hardening lines stand out on the hand, which the man on the ground watched, the hand's shape broken only by the darting beaked head of the bird while from above Stephen watched its soft fluttering mantle, and his hand only a shape to contain it. — If it leads back into the wind blowing in off the desert, there's Biskra. Or Nalut, and the crescent moon hung in the sky there, it's all mine, I remember. When something you hadn't planned happens, where you hadn't planned it to happen. . from north the Atlas stands up out of the earth, at sundown all of it looks like the world after the Deluge, then the dark-
'ness comes in. There's no horizon to separate fires on the mountainside from the low stars in the sky. The only way you know, a man passes between you if it's fires there, you've that moment's witness of goat hair passing between you it wasn't a star.
— Please. . said the man on the ground, making movement to rise, but his own eyes pinioned him on that bird, — don't. . you'll kill it holding it, that tight? And as he watched, Stephen's hand closed, only enough to stand out its tendons, and a whisper as tense,
— Yes yes yet should I kill thee? with, much cherishing?
And as the bird stilled in his hand, Stephen looked down, before him, at the old man on the ground. — What was it? he asked.
— But what, was what. .
— Yes, something you wanted to ask me? Oh, remember? varé tava soskei me puchelas. . much I wondered. . but no. Stephen smiled down at him.
— Nothing, but. . nothing, you see I I've been writing something here but I it's it concerns an experience of a an a religious nature and the prayers, I wanted something from the service but the Latin… of course I studied Latin, I went through Vergil but hearing it, since I'm not Catholic, the Latin, I wanted something to, sort of round things off? And that old man, the prior? at the end of the service? whatever…
— From the service?
— But Latin. .
— That ex-Manichee bishop of Hippo…
— Oh? is that the old man? the prior?
— Do you have a pencil? Then write this. Dilige et quod vis fac.
Stephen rose slowly above him, standing, watching the pencil move.
— e. t. qu. o. d. v. i. s. fac, and what does it mean? I studied Vergil but I've forgotten…
— Love, and do what you want to.
— What. .?
Stephen stood, looking down at him.
— What? is that part of the service?
The bird was still warm in his hand. He opened it, and the bird moved against his fingers, as he stood looking down.
— I can look it up later. Dilige. . The man on the ground moved up on his elbows.
— Yes, much I pondered, why you came here to ask me those questions, Stephen laughed above him, stepping away. He opened his hand. The bird struck it and went free. — Hear. .? Bells sounded, far down the hill there. — Goodbye. — You're going? The man on the ground raised himself from his elbows, staring at the slight streak of his blood.
— Yes, they're waiting, Stephen said to him. — They're waiting for me now, they. . With his own eye, in the dawn, he caught the sparkle of the diamonds. — Her earrings, he said, — that's where these are for. Did I tell you?
Stephen's throat caught, looking down at the figure on the ground struggling to get up. — Yes. . His eyes blurred on the figure older each instant of looking down at that struggle, and the hand where the blood lost all saturation. — Goodbye, hear? the bells, the old man ringing me on. Now at last, to live deliberately.