Chapter III

The swift December dusk had come tumbling clownishly after its dull day

and as he stared through the dull square of the window of the

schoolroom he felt his belly crave for its food. He hoped there would

be stew for dinner, turnips and carrots and bruised potatoes and fat

mutton pieces to be ladled out in thick peppered flour-fattened sauce.

Stuff it into you, his belly counselled him.

It would be a gloomy secret night. After early nightfall the yellow

lamps would light up, here and there, the squalid quarter of the

brothels. He would follow a devious course up and down the streets,

circling always nearer and nearer in a tremor of fear and joy, until

his feet led him suddenly round a dark corner. The whores would be just

coming out of their houses making ready for the night, yawning lazily

after their sleep and settling the hairpins in their clusters of hair.

He would pass by them calmly waiting for a sudden movement of his own

will or a sudden call to his sin-loving soul from their soft perfumed

flesh. Yet as he prowled in quest of that call, his senses, stultified

only by his desire, would note keenly all that wounded or shamed them;

his eyes, a ring of porter froth on a clothless table or a photograph

of two soldiers standing to attention or a gaudy playbill; his ears,

the drawling jargon of greeting:

—Hello, Bertie, any good in your mind?

—Is that you, pigeon?

—Number ten. Fresh Nelly is waiting on you.

—Good night, husband! Coming in to have a short time?

The equation on the page of his scribbler began to spread out a

widening tail, eyed and starred like a peacock’s; and, when the eyes

and stars of its indices had been eliminated, began slowly to fold

itself together again. The indices appearing and disappearing were eyes

opening and closing; the eyes opening and closing were stars being born

and being quenched. The vast cycle of starry life bore his weary mind

outward to its verge and inward to its centre, a distant music

accompanying him outward and inward. What music? The music came nearer

and he recalled the words, the words of Shelley’s fragment upon the

moon wandering companionless, pale for weariness. The stars began to

crumble and a cloud of fine stardust fell through space.

The dull light fell more faintly upon the page whereon another equation

began to unfold itself slowly and to spread abroad its widening tail.

It was his own soul going forth to experience, unfolding itself sin by

sin, spreading abroad the balefire of its burning stars and folding

back upon itself, fading slowly, quenching its own lights and fires.

They were quenched: and the cold darkness filled chaos.

A cold lucid indifference reigned in his soul. At his first violent sin

he had felt a wave of vitality pass out of him and had feared to find

his body or his soul maimed by the excess. Instead the vital wave had

carried him on its bosom out of himself and back again when it receded:

and no part of body or soul had been maimed but a dark peace had been

established between them. The chaos in which his ardour extinguished

itself was a cold indifferent knowledge of himself. He had sinned

mortally not once but many times and he knew that, while he stood in

danger of eternal damnation for the first sin alone, by every

succeeding sin he multiplied his guilt and his punishment. His days and

works and thoughts could make no atonement for him, the fountains of

sanctifying grace having ceased to refresh his soul. At most, by an

alms given to a beggar whose blessing he fled from, he might hope

wearily to win for himself some measure of actual grace. Devotion had

gone by the board. What did it avail to pray when he knew that his soul

lusted after its own destruction? A certain pride, a certain awe,

withheld him from offering to God even one prayer at night though he

knew it was in God’s power to take away his life while he slept and

hurl his soul hellward ere he could beg for mercy. His pride in his own

sin, his loveless awe of God, told him that his offence was too

grievous to be atoned for in whole or in part by a false homage to the

Allseeing and Allknowing.

—Well now, Ennis, I declare you have a head and so has my stick! Do you

mean to say that you are not able to tell me what a surd is?

The blundering answer stirred the embers of his contempt of his

fellows. Towards others he felt neither shame nor fear. On Sunday

mornings as he passed the church door he glanced coldly at the

worshippers who stood bareheaded, four deep, outside the church,

morally present at the mass which they could neither see nor hear.

Their dull piety and the sickly smell of the cheap hairoil with which

they had anointed their heads repelled him from the altar they prayed

at. He stooped to the evil of hypocrisy with others, sceptical of their

innocence which he could cajole so easily.

On the wall of his bedroom hung an illuminated scroll, the certificate

of his prefecture in the college of the sodality of the Blessed Virgin

Mary. On Saturday mornings when the sodality met in the chapel to

recite the little office his place was a cushioned kneeling-desk at the

right of the altar from which he led his wing of boys through the

responses. The falsehood of his position did not pain him. If at

moments he felt an impulse to rise from his post of honour and,

confessing before them all his unworthiness, to leave the chapel, a

glance at their faces restrained him. The imagery of the psalms of

prophecy soothed his barren pride. The glories of Mary held his soul

captive: spikenard and myrrh and frankincense, symbolising her royal

lineage, her emblems, the late-flowering plant and late-blossoming

tree, symbolising the agelong gradual growth of her cultus among men.

When it fell to him to read the lesson towards the close of the office

he read it in a veiled voice, lulling his conscience to its music.

_Quasi cedrus exaltata sum in Libanon et quasi cupressus in monte Sion.

Quasi palma exaltata sum in Gades et quasi plantatio rosae in Jericho.

Quasi uliva speciosa in campis et quasi platanus exaltata sum juxta

aquam in plateis. Sicut cinnamomum et balsamum aromatizans odorem dedi

et quasi myrrha electa dedi suavitatem odoris._

His sin, which had covered him from the sight of God, had led him

nearer to the refuge of sinners. Her eyes seemed to regard him with

mild pity; her holiness, a strange light glowing faintly upon her frail

flesh, did not humiliate the sinner who approached her. If ever he was

impelled to cast sin from him and to repent the impulse that moved him

was the wish to be her knight. If ever his soul, re-entering her

dwelling shyly after the frenzy of his body’s lust had spent itself,

was turned towards her whose emblem is the morning star, “bright and

musical, telling of heaven and infusing peace,” it was when her names

were murmured softly by lips whereon there still lingered foul and

shameful words, the savour itself of a lewd kiss.

That was strange. He tried to think how it could be but the dusk,

deepening in the schoolroom, covered over his thoughts. The bell rang.

The master marked the sums and cuts to be done for the next lesson and

went out. Heron, beside Stephen, began to hum tunelessly.

My excellent friend Bombados.

Ennis, who had gone to the yard, came back, saying:

—The boy from the house is coming up for the rector.

A tall boy behind Stephen rubbed his hands and said:

—That’s game ball. We can scut the whole hour. He won’t be in till

after half two. Then you can ask him questions on the catechism,

Dedalus.

Stephen, leaning back and drawing idly on his scribbler, listened to

the talk about him which Heron checked from time to time by saying:

—Shut up, will you. Don’t make such a bally racket!

It was strange too that he found an arid pleasure in following up to

the end the rigid lines of the doctrines of the church and penetrating

into obscure silences only to hear and feel the more deeply his own

condemnation. The sentence of saint James which says that he who

offends against one commandment becomes guilty of all had seemed to him

first a swollen phrase until he had begun to grope in the darkness of

his own state. From the evil seed of lust all other deadly sins had

sprung forth: pride in himself and contempt of others, covetousness in

using money for the purchase of unlawful pleasures, envy of those whose

vices he could not reach to and calumnious murmuring against the pious,

gluttonous enjoyment of food, the dull glowering anger amid which he

brooded upon his longing, the swamp of spiritual and bodily sloth in

which his whole being had sunk.

As he sat in his bench gazing calmly at the rector’s shrewd harsh face

his mind wound itself in and out of the curious questions proposed to

it. If a man had stolen a pound in his youth and had used that pound to

amass a huge fortune how much was he obliged to give back, the pound he

had stolen only or the pound together with the compound interest

accruing upon it or all his huge fortune? If a layman in giving baptism

pour the water before saying the words is the child baptised? Is

baptism with a mineral water valid? How comes it that while the first

beatitude promises the kingdom of heaven to the poor of heart, the

second beatitude promises also to the meek that they shall possess the

land? Why was the sacrament of the eucharist instituted under the two

species of bread and wine if Jesus Christ be present body and blood,

soul and divinity, in the bread alone and in the wine alone? Does a

tiny particle of the consecrated bread contain all the body and blood

of Jesus Christ or a part only of the body and blood? If the wine

change into vinegar and the host crumble into corruption after they

have been consecrated, is Jesus Christ still present under their

species as God and as man?

—Here he is! Here he is!

A boy from his post at the window had seen the rector come from the

house. All the catechisms were opened and all heads bent upon them

silently. The rector entered and took his seat on the dais. A gentle

kick from the tall boy in the bench behind urged Stephen to ask a

difficult question.

The rector did not ask for a catechism to hear the lesson from. He

clasped his hands on the desk and said:

—The retreat will begin on Wednesday afternoon in honour of saint

Francis Xavier whose feast day is Saturday. The retreat will go on from

Wednesday to Friday. On Friday confession will be heard all the

afternoon after beads. If any boys have special confessors perhaps it

will be better for them not to change. Mass will be on Saturday morning

at nine o’clock and general communion for the whole college. Saturday

will be a free day. But Saturday and Sunday being free days some boys

might be inclined to think that Monday is a free day also. Beware of

making that mistake. I think you, Lawless, are likely to make that

mistake.

—I sir? Why, sir?

A little wave of quiet mirth broke forth over the class of boys from

the rector’s grim smile. Stephen’s heart began slowly to fold and fade

with fear like a withering flower.

The rector went on gravely:

—You are all familiar with the story of the life of saint Francis

Xavier, I suppose, the patron of your college. He came of an old and

illustrious Spanish family and you remember that he was one of the

first followers of saint Ignatius. They met in Paris where Francis

Xavier was professor of philosophy at the university. This young and

brilliant nobleman and man of letters entered heart and soul into the

ideas of our glorious founder and you know that he, at his own desire,

was sent by saint Ignatius to preach to the Indians. He is called, as

you know, the apostle of the Indies. He went from country to country in

the east, from Africa to India, from India to Japan, baptising the

people. He is said to have baptised as many as ten thousand idolaters

in one month. It is said that his right arm had grown powerless from

having been raised so often over the heads of those whom he baptised.

He wished then to go to China to win still more souls for God but he

died of fever on the island of Sancian. A great saint, saint Francis

Xavier! A great soldier of God!

The rector paused and then, shaking his clasped hands before him, went

on:

—He had the faith in him that moves mountains. Ten thousand souls won

for God in a single month! That is a true conqueror, true to the motto

of our order: _ad majorem Dei gloriam!_ A saint who has great power in

heaven, remember: power to intercede for us in our grief; power to

obtain whatever we pray for if it be for the good of our souls; power

above all to obtain for us the grace to repent if we be in sin. A great

saint, saint Francis Xavier! A great fisher of souls!

He ceased to shake his clasped hands and, resting them against his

forehead, looked right and left of them keenly at his listeners out of

his dark stern eyes.

In the silence their dark fire kindled the dusk into a tawny glow.

Stephen’s heart had withered up like a flower of the desert that feels

the simoom coming from afar.

—_Remember only thy last things and thou shalt not sin for ever_—words

taken, my dear little brothers in Christ, from the book of

Ecclesiastes, seventh chapter, fortieth verse. In the name of the

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Stephen sat in the front bench of the chapel. Father Arnall sat at a

table to the left of the altar. He wore about his shoulders a heavy

cloak; his pale face was drawn and his voice broken with rheum. The

figure of his old master, so strangely rearisen, brought back to

Stephen’s mind his life at Clongowes: the wide playgrounds, swarming

with boys, the square ditch, the little cemetery off the main avenue of

limes where he had dreamed of being buried, the firelight on the wall

of the infirmary where he lay sick, the sorrowful face of Brother

Michael. His soul, as these memories came back to him, became again a

child’s soul.

—We are assembled here today, my dear little brothers in Christ, for

one brief moment far away from the busy bustle of the outer world to

celebrate and to honour one of the greatest of saints, the apostle of

the Indies, the patron saint also of your college, saint Francis

Xavier. Year after year for much longer than any of you, my dear little

boys, can remember or than I can remember the boys of this college have

met in this very chapel to make their annual retreat before the feast

day of their patron saint. Time has gone on and brought with it its

changes. Even in the last few years what changes can most of you not

remember? Many of the boys who sat in those front benches a few years

ago are perhaps now in distant lands, in the burning tropics or

immersed in professional duties or in seminaries or voyaging over the

vast expanse of the deep or, it may be, already called by the great God

to another life and to the rendering up of their stewardship. And still

as the years roll by, bringing with them changes for good and bad, the

memory of the great saint is honoured by the boys of this college who

make every year their annual retreat on the days preceding the feast

day set apart by our Holy Mother the Church to transmit to all the ages

the name and fame of one of the greatest sons of catholic Spain.

—Now what is the meaning of this word _retreat_ and why is it allowed

on all hands to be a most salutary practice for all who desire to lead

before God and in the eyes of men a truly christian life? A retreat, my

dear boys, signifies a withdrawal for a while from the cares of our

life, the cares of this workaday world, in order to examine the state

of our conscience, to reflect on the mysteries of holy religion and to

understand better why we are here in this world. During these few days

I intend to put before you some thoughts concerning the four last

things. They are, as you know from your catechism, death, judgement,

hell and heaven. We shall try to understand them fully during these few

days so that we may derive from the understanding of them a lasting

benefit to our souls. And remember, my dear boys, that we have been

sent into this world for one thing and for one thing alone: to do God’s

holy will and to save our immortal souls. All else is worthless. One

thing alone is needful, the salvation of one’s soul. What doth it

profit a man to gain the whole world if he suffer the loss of his

immortal soul? Ah, my dear boys, believe me there is nothing in this

wretched world that can make up for such a loss.

—I will ask you, therefore, my dear boys, to put away from your minds

during these few days all worldly thoughts, whether of study or

pleasure or ambition, and to give all your attention to the state of

your souls. I need hardly remind you that during the days of the

retreat all boys are expected to preserve a quiet and pious demeanour

and to shun all loud unseemly pleasure. The elder boys, of course, will

see that this custom is not infringed and I look especially to the

prefects and officers of the sodality of Our Blessed Lady and of the

sodality of the holy angels to set a good example to their

fellow-students.

—Let us try, therefore, to make this retreat in honour of saint Francis

with our whole heart and our whole mind. God’s blessing will then be

upon all your year’s studies. But, above and beyond all, let this

retreat be one to which you can look back in after years when, maybe,

you are far from this college and among very different surroundings, to

which you can look back with joy and thankfulness and give thanks to

God for having granted you this occasion of laying the first foundation

of a pious honourable zealous christian life. And if, as may so happen,

there be at this moment in these benches any poor soul who has had the

unutterable misfortune to lose God’s holy grace and to fall into

grievous sin, I fervently trust and pray that this retreat may be the

turning point in the life of that soul. I pray to God through the

merits of His zealous servant Francis Xavier, that such a soul may be

led to sincere repentance and that the holy communion on saint

Francis’s day of this year may be a lasting covenant between God and

that soul. For just and unjust, for saint and sinner alike, may this

retreat be a memorable one.

—Help me, my dear little brothers in Christ. Help me by your pious

attention, by your own devotion, by your outward demeanour. Banish from

your minds all worldly thoughts and think only of the last things,

death, judgement, hell and heaven. He who remembers these things, says

Ecclesiastes, shall not sin for ever. He who remembers the last things

will act and think with them always before his eyes. He will live a

good life and die a good death, believing and knowing that, if he has

sacrificed much in this earthly life, it will be given to him a

hundredfold and a thousandfold more in the life to come, in the kingdom

without end—a blessing, my dear boys, which I wish you from my heart,

one and all, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy

Ghost. Amen!

As he walked home with silent companions a thick fog seemed to compass

his mind. He waited in stupor of mind till it should lift and reveal

what it had hidden. He ate his dinner with surly appetite and when the

meal was over and the grease-strewn plates lay abandoned on the table,

he rose and went to the window, clearing the thick scum from his mouth

with his tongue and licking it from his lips. So he had sunk to the

state of a beast that licks his chaps after meat. This was the end; and

a faint glimmer of fear began to pierce the fog of his mind. He pressed

his face against the pane of the window and gazed out into the

darkening street. Forms passed this way and that through the dull

light. And that was life. The letters of the name of Dublin lay heavily

upon his mind, pushing one another surlily hither and thither with slow

boorish insistence. His soul was fattening and congealing into a gross

grease, plunging ever deeper in its dull fear into a sombre threatening

dusk, while the body that was his stood, listless and dishonoured,

gazing out of darkened eyes, helpless, perturbed and human for a bovine

god to stare upon.

The next day brought death and judgement, stirring his soul slowly from

its listless despair. The faint glimmer of fear became a terror of

spirit as the hoarse voice of the preacher blew death into his soul. He

suffered its agony. He felt the deathchill touch the extremities and

creep onward towards the heart, the film of death veiling the eyes, the

bright centres of the brain extinguished one by one like lamps, the

last sweat oozing upon the skin, the powerlessness of the dying limbs,

the speech thickening and wandering and failing, the heart throbbing

faintly and more faintly, all but vanquished, the breath, the poor

breath, the poor helpless human spirit, sobbing and sighing, gurgling

and rattling in the throat. No help! No help! He—he himself—his body to

which he had yielded was dying. Into the grave with it. Nail it down

into a wooden box, the corpse. Carry it out of the house on the

shoulders of hirelings. Thrust it out of men’s sight into a long hole

in the ground, into the grave, to rot, to feed the mass of its creeping

worms and to be devoured by scuttling plump-bellied rats.

And while the friends were still standing in tears by the bedside the

soul of the sinner was judged. At the last moment of consciousness the

whole earthly life passed before the vision of the soul and, ere it had

time to reflect, the body had died and the soul stood terrified before

the judgement seat. God, who had long been merciful, would then be

just. He had long been patient, pleading with the sinful soul, giving

it time to repent, sparing it yet awhile. But that time had gone. Time

was to sin and to enjoy, time was to scoff at God and at the warnings

of His holy church, time was to defy His majesty, to disobey His

commands, to hoodwink one’s fellow men, to commit sin after sin and to

hide one’s corruption from the sight of men. But that time was over.

Now it was God’s turn: and He was not to be hoodwinked or deceived.

Every sin would then come forth from its lurking-place, the most

rebellious against the divine will and the most degrading to our poor

corrupt nature, the tiniest imperfection and the most heinous atrocity.

What did it avail then to have been a great emperor, a great general, a

marvellous inventor, the most learned of the learned? All were as one

before the judgement seat of God. He would reward the good and punish

the wicked. One single instant was enough for the trial of a man’s

soul. One single instant after the body’s death, the soul had been

weighed in the balance. The particular judgement was over and the soul

had passed to the abode of bliss or to the prison of purgatory or had

been hurled howling into hell.

Nor was that all. God’s justice had still to be vindicated before men:

after the particular there still remained the general judgement. The

last day had come. Doomsday was at hand. The stars of heaven were

falling upon the earth like the figs cast by the figtree which the wind

has shaken. The sun, the great luminary of the universe, had become as

sackcloth of hair. The moon was bloodred. The firmament was as a scroll

rolled away. The archangel Michael, the prince of the heavenly host,

appeared glorious and terrible against the sky. With one foot on the

sea and one foot on the land he blew from the archangelical trumpet the

brazen death of time. The three blasts of the angel filled all the

universe. Time is, time was, but time shall be no more. At the last

blast the souls of universal humanity throng towards the valley of

Jehosaphat, rich and poor, gentle and simple, wise and foolish, good

and wicked. The soul of every human being that has ever existed, the

souls of all those who shall yet be born, all the sons and daughters of

Adam, all are assembled on that supreme day. And lo, the supreme judge

is coming! No longer the lowly Lamb of God, no longer the meek Jesus of

Nazareth, no longer the Man of Sorrows, no longer the Good Shepherd, He

is seen now coming upon the clouds, in great power and majesty,

attended by nine choirs of angels, angels and archangels,

principalities, powers and virtues, thrones and dominations, cherubim

and seraphim, God Omnipotent, God Everlasting. He speaks: and His voice

is heard even at the farthest limits of space, even in the bottomless

abyss. Supreme Judge, from His sentence there will be and can be no

appeal. He calls the just to His side, bidding them enter into the

kingdom, the eternity of bliss prepared for them. The unjust He casts

from Him, crying in His offended majesty: _Depart from me, ye cursed,

into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels._

O, what agony then for the miserable sinners! Friend is torn apart from

friend, children are torn from their parents, husbands from their

wives. The poor sinner holds out his arms to those who were dear to him

in this earthly world, to those whose simple piety perhaps he made a

mock of, to those who counselled him and tried to lead him on the right

path, to a kind brother, to a loving sister, to the mother and father

who loved him so dearly. But it is too late: the just turn away from

the wretched damned souls which now appear before the eyes of all in

their hideous and evil character. O you hypocrites, O you whited

sepulchres, O you who present a smooth smiling face to the world while

your soul within is a foul swamp of sin, how will it fare with you in

that terrible day?

And this day will come, shall come, must come; the day of death and the

day of judgement. It is appointed unto man to die and after death the

judgement. Death is certain. The time and manner are uncertain, whether

from long disease or from some unexpected accident: the Son of God

cometh at an hour when you little expect Him. Be therefore ready every

moment, seeing that you may die at any moment. Death is the end of us

all. Death and judgement, brought into the world by the sin of our

first parents, are the dark portals that close our earthly existence,

the portals that open into the unknown and the unseen, portals through

which every soul must pass, alone, unaided save by its good works,

without friend or brother or parent or master to help it, alone and

trembling. Let that thought be ever before our minds and then we cannot

sin. Death, a cause of terror to the sinner, is a blessed moment for

him who has walked in the right path, fulfilling the duties of his

station in life, attending to his morning and evening prayers,

approaching the holy sacrament frequently and performing good and

merciful works. For the pious and believing catholic, for the just man,

death is no cause of terror. Was it not Addison, the great English

writer, who, when on his deathbed, sent for the wicked young earl of

Warwick to let him see how a christian can meet his end? He it is and

he alone, the pious and believing christian, who can say in his heart:

O grave, where is thy victory?

O death, where is thy sting?

Every word of it was for him. Against his sin, foul and secret, the

whole wrath of God was aimed. The preacher’s knife had probed deeply

into his disclosed conscience and he felt now that his soul was

festering in sin. Yes, the preacher was right. God’s turn had come.

Like a beast in its lair his soul had lain down in its own filth but

the blasts of the angel’s trumpet had driven him forth from the

darkness of sin into the light. The words of doom cried by the angel

shattered in an instant his presumptuous peace. The wind of the last

day blew through his mind; his sins, the jeweleyed harlots of his

imagination, fled before the hurricane, squeaking like mice in their

terror and huddled under a mane of hair.

As he crossed the square, walking homeward, the light laughter of a

girl reached his burning ear. The frail gay sound smote his heart more

strongly than a trumpet-blast, and, not daring to lift his eyes, he

turned aside and gazed, as he walked, into the shadow of the tangled

shrubs. Shame rose from his smitten heart and flooded his whole being.

The image of Emma appeared before him, and under her eyes the flood of

shame rushed forth anew from his heart. If she knew to what his mind

had subjected her or how his brutelike lust had torn and trampled upon

her innocence! Was that boyish love? Was that chivalry? Was that

poetry? The sordid details of his orgies stank under his very nostrils.

The sootcoated packet of pictures which he had hidden in the flue of

the fireplace and in the presence of whose shameless or bashful

wantonness he lay for hours sinning in thought and deed; his monstrous

dreams, peopled by apelike creatures and by harlots with gleaming jewel

eyes; the foul long letters he had written in the joy of guilty

confession and carried secretly for days and days only to throw them

under cover of night among the grass in the corner of a field or

beneath some hingeless door in some niche in the hedges where a girl

might come upon them as she walked by and read them secretly. Mad! Mad!

Was it possible he had done these things? A cold sweat broke out upon

his forehead as the foul memories condensed within his brain.

When the agony of shame had passed from him he tried to raise his soul

from its abject powerlessness. God and the Blessed Virgin were too far

from him: God was too great and stern and the Blessed Virgin too pure

and holy. But he imagined that he stood near Emma in a wide land and,

humbly and in tears, bent and kissed the elbow of her sleeve.

In the wide land under a tender lucid evening sky, a cloud drifting

westward amid a pale green sea of heaven, they stood together, children

that had erred. Their error had offended deeply God’s majesty though it

was the error of two children; but it had not offended her whose beauty

“is not like earthly beauty, dangerous to look upon, but like the

morning star which is its emblem, bright and musical.” The eyes were

not offended which she turned upon him nor reproachful. She placed

their hands together, hand in hand, and said, speaking to their hearts:

—Take hands, Stephen and Emma. It is a beautiful evening now in heaven.

You have erred but you are always my children. It is one heart that

loves another heart. Take hands together, my dear children, and you

will be happy together and your hearts will love each other.

The chapel was flooded by the dull scarlet light that filtered through

the lowered blinds; and through the fissure between the last blind and

the sash a shaft of wan light entered like a spear and touched the

embossed brasses of the candlesticks upon the altar that gleamed like

the battle-worn mail armour of angels.

Rain was falling on the chapel, on the garden, on the college. It would

rain for ever, noiselessly. The water would rise inch by inch, covering

the grass and shrubs, covering the trees and houses, covering the

monuments and the mountain tops. All life would be choked off,

noiselessly: birds, men, elephants, pigs, children: noiselessly

floating corpses amid the litter of the wreckage of the world. Forty

days and forty nights the rain would fall till the waters covered the

face of the earth.

It might be. Why not?

—_Hell has enlarged its soul and opened its mouth without any

limits_—words taken, my dear little brothers in Christ Jesus, from the

book of Isaias, fifth chapter, fourteenth verse. In the name of the

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The preacher took a chainless watch from a pocket within his soutane

and, having considered its dial for a moment in silence, placed it

silently before him on the table.

He began to speak in a quiet tone.

—Adam and Eve, my dear boys, were, as you know, our first parents, and

you will remember that they were created by God in order that the seats

in heaven left vacant by the fall of Lucifer and his rebellious angels

might be filled again. Lucifer, we are told, was a son of the morning,

a radiant and mighty angel; yet he fell: he fell and there fell with

him a third part of the host of heaven: he fell and was hurled with his

rebellious angels into hell. What his sin was we cannot say.

Theologians consider that it was the sin of pride, the sinful thought

conceived in an instant: _non serviam: I will not serve._ That instant

was his ruin.

He offended the majesty of God by the sinful thought of one instant and

God cast him out of heaven into hell for ever.

—Adam and Eve were then created by God and placed in Eden, in the plain

of Damascus, that lovely garden resplendent with sunlight and colour,

teeming with luxuriant vegetation. The fruitful earth gave them her

bounty: beasts and birds were their willing servants: they knew not the

ills our flesh is heir to, disease and poverty and death: all that a

great and generous God could do for them was done. But there was one

condition imposed on them by God: obedience to His word. They were not

to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree.

—Alas, my dear little boys, they too fell. The devil, once a shining

angel, a son of the morning, now a foul fiend came in the shape of a

serpent, the subtlest of all the beasts of the field. He envied them.

He, the fallen great one, could not bear to think that man, a being of

clay, should possess the inheritance which he by his sin had forfeited

for ever. He came to the woman, the weaker vessel, and poured the

poison of his eloquence into her ear, promising her—O, the blasphemy of

that promise!—that if she and Adam ate of the forbidden fruit they

would become as gods, nay as God Himself. Eve yielded to the wiles of

the arch tempter. She ate the apple and gave it also to Adam who had

not the moral courage to resist her. The poison tongue of Satan had

done its work. They fell.

—And then the voice of God was heard in that garden, calling His

creature man to account: and Michael, prince of the heavenly host, with

a sword of flame in his hand, appeared before the guilty pair and drove

them forth from Eden into the world, the world of sickness and

striving, of cruelty and disappointment, of labour and hardship, to

earn their bread in the sweat of their brow. But even then how merciful

was God! He took pity on our poor degraded parents and promised that in

the fullness of time He would send down from heaven One who would

redeem them, make them once more children of God and heirs to the

kingdom of heaven: and that One, that Redeemer of fallen man, was to be

God’s only begotten Son, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity,

the Eternal Word.

—He came. He was born of a virgin pure, Mary the virgin mother. He was

born in a poor cowhouse in Judea and lived as a humble carpenter for

thirty years until the hour of His mission had come. And then, filled

with love for men, He went forth and called to men to hear the new

gospel.

—Did they listen? Yes, they listened but would not hear. He was seized

and bound like a common criminal, mocked at as a fool, set aside to

give place to a public robber, scourged with five thousand lashes,

crowned with a crown of thorns, hustled through the streets by the

jewish rabble and the Roman soldiery, stripped of his garments and

hanged upon a gibbet and His side was pierced with a lance and from the

wounded body of our Lord water and blood issued continually.

—Yet even then, in that hour of supreme agony, Our Merciful Redeemer

had pity for mankind. Yet even there, on the hill of Calvary, He

founded the holy catholic church against which, it is promised, the

gates of hell shall not prevail. He founded it upon the rock of ages

and endowed it with His grace, with sacraments and sacrifice, and

promised that if men would obey the word of His church they would still

enter into eternal life; but if, after all that had been done for them,

they still persisted in their wickedness, there remained for them an

eternity of torment: hell.

The preacher’s voice sank. He paused, joined his palms for an instant,

parted them. Then he resumed:

—Now let us try for a moment to realise, as far as we can, the nature

of that abode of the damned which the justice of an offended God has

called into existence for the eternal punishment of sinners. Hell is a

strait and dark and foulsmelling prison, an abode of demons and lost

souls, filled with fire and smoke. The straitness of this prison house

is expressly designed by God to punish those who refused to be bound by

His laws. In earthly prisons the poor captive has at least some liberty

of movement, were it only within the four walls of his cell or in the

gloomy yard of his prison. Not so in hell. There, by reason of the

great number of the damned, the prisoners are heaped together in their

awful prison, the walls of which are said to be four thousand miles

thick: and the damned are so utterly bound and helpless that, as a

blessed saint, saint Anselm, writes in his book on similitudes, they

are not even able to remove from the eye a worm that gnaws it.

—They lie in exterior darkness. For, remember, the fire of hell gives

forth no light. As, at the command of God, the fire of the Babylonian

furnace lost its heat but not its light so, at the command of God, the

fire of hell, while retaining the intensity of its heat, burns

eternally in darkness. It is a neverending storm of darkness, dark

flames and dark smoke of burning brimstone, amid which the bodies are

heaped one upon another without even a glimpse of air. Of all the

plagues with which the land of the Pharaohs were smitten one plague

alone, that of darkness, was called horrible. What name, then, shall we

give to the darkness of hell which is to last not for three days alone

but for all eternity?

—The horror of this strait and dark prison is increased by its awful

stench. All the filth of the world, all the offal and scum of the

world, we are told, shall run there as to a vast reeking sewer when the

terrible conflagration of the last day has purged the world. The

brimstone, too, which burns there in such prodigious quantity fills all

hell with its intolerable stench; and the bodies of the damned

themselves exhale such a pestilential odour that, as saint Bonaventure

says, one of them alone would suffice to infect the whole world. The

very air of this world, that pure element, becomes foul and

unbreathable when it has been long enclosed. Consider then what must be

the foulness of the air of hell. Imagine some foul and putrid corpse

that has lain rotting and decomposing in the grave, a jellylike mass of

liquid corruption. Imagine such a corpse a prey to flames, devoured by

the fire of burning brimstone and giving off dense choking fumes of

nauseous loathsome decomposition. And then imagine this sickening

stench, multiplied a millionfold and a millionfold again from the

millions upon millions of fetid carcasses massed together in the

reeking darkness, a huge and rotting human fungus. Imagine all this,

and you will have some idea of the horror of the stench of hell.

—But this stench is not, horrible though it is, the greatest physical

torment to which the damned are subjected. The torment of fire is the

greatest torment to which the tyrant has ever subjected his fellow

creatures. Place your finger for a moment in the flame of a candle and

you will feel the pain of fire. But our earthly fire was created by God

for the benefit of man, to maintain in him the spark of life and to

help him in the useful arts whereas the fire of hell is of another

quality and was created by God to torture and punish the unrepentant

sinner. Our earthly fire also consumes more or less rapidly according

as the object which it attacks is more or less combustible so that

human ingenuity has even succeeded in inventing chemical preparations

to check or frustrate its action. But the sulphurous brimstone which

burns in hell is a substance which is specially designed to burn for

ever and for ever with unspeakable fury. Moreover, our earthly fire

destroys at the same time as it burns so that the more intense it is

the shorter is its duration; but the fire of hell has this property

that it preserves that which it burns and though it rages with

incredible intensity it rages for ever.

—Our earthly fire again, no matter how fierce or widespread it may be,

is always of a limited extent: but the lake of fire in hell is

boundless, shoreless and bottomless. It is on record that the devil

himself, when asked the question by a certain soldier, was obliged to

confess that if a whole mountain were thrown into the burning ocean of

hell it would be burned up in an instant like a piece of wax. And this

terrible fire will not afflict the bodies of the damned only from

without, but each lost soul will be a hell unto itself, the boundless

fire raging in its very vitals. O, how terrible is the lot of those

wretched beings! The blood seethes and boils in the veins, the brains

are boiling in the skull, the heart in the breast glowing and bursting,

the bowels a redhot mass of burning pulp, the tender eyes flaming like

molten balls.

—And yet what I have said as to the strength and quality and

boundlessness of this fire is as nothing when compared to its

intensity, an intensity which it has as being the instrument chosen by

divine design for the punishment of soul and body alike. It is a fire

which proceeds directly from the ire of God, working not of its own

activity but as an instrument of divine vengeance. As the waters of

baptism cleanse the soul with the body, so do the fires of punishment

torture the spirit with the flesh. Every sense of the flesh is tortured

and every faculty of the soul therewith: the eyes with impenetrable

utter darkness, the nose with noisome odours, the ears with yells and

howls and execrations, the taste with foul matter, leprous corruption,

nameless suffocating filth, the touch with redhot goads and spikes,

with cruel tongues of flame. And through the several torments of the

senses the immortal soul is tortured eternally in its very essence amid

the leagues upon leagues of glowing fires kindled in the abyss by the

offended majesty of the Omnipotent God and fanned into everlasting and

ever-increasing fury by the breath of the anger of the Godhead.

—Consider finally that the torment of this infernal prison is increased

by the company of the damned themselves. Evil company on earth is so

noxious that the plants, as if by instinct, withdraw from the company

of whatsoever is deadly or hurtful to them. In hell all laws are

overturned—there is no thought of family or country, of ties, of

relationships. The damned howl and scream at one another, their torture

and rage intensified by the presence of beings tortured and raging like

themselves. All sense of humanity is forgotten. The yells of the

suffering sinners fill the remotest corners of the vast abyss. The

mouths of the damned are full of blasphemies against God and of hatred

for their fellow sufferers and of curses against those souls which were

their accomplices in sin. In olden times it was the custom to punish

the parricide, the man who had raised his murderous hand against his

father, by casting him into the depths of the sea in a sack in which

were placed a cock, a monkey, and a serpent. The intention of those

law-givers who framed such a law, which seems cruel in our times, was

to punish the criminal by the company of hurtful and hateful beasts.

But what is the fury of those dumb beasts compared with the fury of

execration which bursts from the parched lips and aching throats of the

damned in hell when they behold in their companions in misery those who

aided and abetted them in sin, those whose words sowed the first seeds

of evil thinking and evil living in their minds, those whose immodest

suggestions led them on to sin, those whose eyes tempted and allured

them from the path of virtue. They turn upon those accomplices and

upbraid them and curse them. But they are helpless and hopeless: it is

too late now for repentance.

—Last of all consider the frightful torment to those damned souls,

tempters and tempted alike, of the company of the devils. These devils

will afflict the damned in two ways, by their presence and by their

reproaches. We can have no idea of how horrible these devils are. Saint

Catherine of Siena once saw a devil and she has written that, rather

than look again for one single instant on such a frightful monster, she

would prefer to walk until the end of her life along a track of red

coals. These devils, who were once beautiful angels, have become as

hideous and ugly as they once were beautiful. They mock and jeer at the

lost souls whom they dragged down to ruin. It is they, the foul demons,

who are made in hell the voices of conscience. Why did you sin? Why did

you lend an ear to the temptings of friends? Why did you turn aside

from your pious practices and good works? Why did you not shun the

occasions of sin? Why did you not leave that evil companion? Why did

you not give up that lewd habit, that impure habit? Why did you not

listen to the counsels of your confessor? Why did you not, even after

you had fallen the first or the second or the third or the fourth or

the hundredth time, repent of your evil ways and turn to God who only

waited for your repentance to absolve you of your sins? Now the time

for repentance has gone by. Time is, time was, but time shall be no

more! Time was to sin in secrecy, to indulge in that sloth and pride,

to covet the unlawful, to yield to the promptings of your lower nature,

to live like the beasts of the field, nay worse than the beasts of the

field, for they, at least, are but brutes and have no reason to guide

them: time was, but time shall be no more. God spoke to you by so many

voices, but you would not hear. You would not crush out that pride and

anger in your heart, you would not restore those ill-gotten goods, you

would not obey the precepts of your holy church nor attend to your

religious duties, you would not abandon those wicked companions, you

would not avoid those dangerous temptations. Such is the language of

those fiendish tormentors, words of taunting and of reproach, of hatred

and of disgust. Of disgust, yes! For even they, the very devils, when

they sinned, sinned by such a sin as alone was compatible with such

angelical natures, a rebellion of the intellect: and they, even they,

the foul devils must turn away, revolted and disgusted, from the

contemplation of those unspeakable sins by which degraded man outrages

and defiles the temple of the Holy Ghost, defiles and pollutes himself.

—O, my dear little brothers in Christ, may it never be our lot to hear

that language! May it never be our lot, I say! In the last day of

terrible reckoning I pray fervently to God that not a single soul of

those who are in this chapel today may be found among those miserable

beings whom the Great Judge shall command to depart for ever from His

sight, that not one of us may ever hear ringing in his ears the awful

sentence of rejection: _Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting

fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels!_

He came down the aisle of the chapel, his legs shaking and the scalp of

his head trembling as though it had been touched by ghostly fingers. He

passed up the staircase and into the corridor along the walls of which

the overcoats and waterproofs hung like gibbeted malefactors, headless

and dripping and shapeless. And at every step he feared that he had

already died, that his soul had been wrenched forth of the sheath of

his body, that he was plunging headlong through space.

He could not grip the floor with his feet and sat heavily at his desk,

opening one of his books at random and poring over it. Every word for

him. It was true. God was almighty. God could call him now, call him as

he sat at his desk, before he had time to be conscious of the summons.

God had called him. Yes? What? Yes? His flesh shrank together as it

felt the approach of the ravenous tongues of flames, dried up as it

felt about it the swirl of stifling air. He had died. Yes. He was

judged. A wave of fire swept through his body: the first. Again a wave.

His brain began to glow. Another. His brain was simmering and bubbling

within the cracking tenement of the skull. Flames burst forth from his

skull like a corolla, shrieking like voices:

—Hell! Hell! Hell! Hell! Hell!

Voices spoke near him:

—On hell.

—I suppose he rubbed it into you well.

—You bet he did. He put us all into a blue funk.

—That’s what you fellows want: and plenty of it to make you work.

He leaned back weakly in his desk. He had not died. God had spared him

still. He was still in the familiar world of the school. Mr Tate and

Vincent Heron stood at the window, talking, jesting, gazing out at the

bleak rain, moving their heads.

—I wish it would clear up. I had arranged to go for a spin on the bike

with some fellows out by Malahide. But the roads must be kneedeep.

—It might clear up, sir.

The voices that he knew so well, the common words, the quiet of the

classroom when the voices paused and the silence was filled by the

sound of softly browsing cattle as the other boys munched their lunches

tranquilly, lulled his aching soul.

There was still time. O Mary, refuge of sinners, intercede for him! O

Virgin Undefiled, save him from the gulf of death!

The English lesson began with the hearing of the history. Royal

persons, favourites, intriguers, bishops, passed like mute phantoms

behind their veil of names. All had died: all had been judged. What did

it profit a man to gain the whole world if he lost his soul? At last he

had understood: and human life lay around him, a plain of peace whereon

antlike men laboured in brotherhood, their dead sleeping under quiet

mounds. The elbow of his companion touched him and his heart was

touched: and when he spoke to answer a question of his master he heard

his own voice full of the quietude of humility and contrition.

His soul sank back deeper into depths of contrite peace, no longer able

to suffer the pain of dread, and sending forth, as he sank, a faint

prayer. Ah yes, he would still be spared; he would repent in his heart

and be forgiven; and then those above, those in heaven, would see what

he would do to make up for the past: a whole life, every hour of life.

Only wait.

—All, God! All, all!

A messenger came to the door to say that confessions were being heard

in the chapel. Four boys left the room; and he heard others passing

down the corridor. A tremulous chill blew round his heart, no stronger

than a little wind, and yet, listening and suffering silently, he

seemed to have laid an ear against the muscle of his own heart, feeling

it close and quail, listening to the flutter of its ventricles.

No escape. He had to confess, to speak out in words what he had done

and thought, sin after sin. How? How?

—Father, I...

The thought slid like a cold shining rapier into his tender flesh:

confession. But not there in the chapel of the college. He would

confess all, every sin of deed and thought, sincerely; but not there

among his school companions. Far away from there in some dark place he

would murmur out his own shame; and he besought God humbly not to be

offended with him if he did not dare to confess in the college chapel

and in utter abjection of spirit he craved forgiveness mutely of the

boyish hearts about him.

Time passed.

He sat again in the front bench of the chapel. The daylight without was

already failing and, as it fell slowly through the dull red blinds, it

seemed that the sun of the last day was going down and that all souls

were being gathered for the judgement.

—_I am cast away from the sight of Thine eyes:_ words taken, my dear

little brothers in Christ, from the Book of Psalms, thirtieth chapter,

twentythird verse. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the

Holy Ghost. Amen.

The preacher began to speak in a quiet friendly tone. His face was kind

and he joined gently the fingers of each hand, forming a frail cage by

the union of their tips.

—This morning we endeavoured, in our reflection upon hell, to make what

our holy founder calls in his book of spiritual exercises, the

composition of place. We endeavoured, that is, to imagine with the

senses of the mind, in our imagination, the material character of that

awful place and of the physical torments which all who are in hell

endure. This evening we shall consider for a few moments the nature of

the spiritual torments of hell.

—Sin, remember, is a twofold enormity. It is a base consent to the

promptings of our corrupt nature to the lower instincts, to that which

is gross and beastlike; and it is also a turning away from the counsel

of our higher nature, from all that is pure and holy, from the Holy God

Himself. For this reason mortal sin is punished in hell by two

different forms of punishment, physical and spiritual.

Now of all these spiritual pains by far the greatest is the pain of

loss, so great, in fact, that in itself it is a torment greater than

all the others. Saint Thomas, the greatest doctor of the church, the

angelic doctor, as he is called, says that the worst damnation consists

in this that the understanding of man is totally deprived of divine

light and his affection obstinately turned away from the goodness of

God. God, remember, is a being infinitely good, and therefore the loss

of such a being must be a loss infinitely painful. In this life we have

not a very clear idea of what such a loss must be, but the damned in

hell, for their greater torment, have a full understanding of that

which they have lost, and understand that they have lost it through

their own sins and have lost it for ever. At the very instant of death

the bonds of the flesh are broken asunder and the soul at once flies

towards God as towards the centre of her existence. Remember, my dear

little boys, our souls long to be with God. We come from God, we live

by God, we belong to God: we are His, inalienably His. God loves with a

divine love every human soul and every human soul lives in that love.

How could it be otherwise? Every breath that we draw, every thought of

our brain, every instant of life proceeds from God’s inexhaustible

goodness. And if it be pain for a mother to be parted from her child,

for a man to be exiled from hearth and home, for friend to be sundered

from friend, O think what pain, what anguish it must be for the poor

soul to be spurned from the presence of the supremely good and loving

Creator Who has called that soul into existence from nothingness and

sustained it in life and loved it with an immeasurable love. This,

then, to be separated for ever from its greatest good, from God, and to

feel the anguish of that separation, knowing full well that it is

unchangeable: this is the greatest torment which the created soul is

capable of bearing, _pœna damni_, the pain of loss.

The second pain which will afflict the souls of the damned in hell is

the pain of conscience. Just as in dead bodies worms are engendered by

putrefaction, so in the souls of the lost there arises a perpetual

remorse from the putrefaction of sin, the sting of conscience, the

worm, as Pope Innocent the Third calls it, of the triple sting. The

first sting inflicted by this cruel worm will be the memory of past

pleasures. O what a dreadful memory will that be! In the lake of

alldevouring flame the proud king will remember the pomps of his court,

the wise but wicked man his libraries and instruments of research, the

lover of artistic pleasures his marbles and pictures and other art

treasures, he who delighted in the pleasures of the table his gorgeous

feasts, his dishes prepared with such delicacy, his choice wines; the

miser will remember his hoard of gold, the robber his illgotten wealth,

the angry and revengeful and merciless murderers their deeds of blood

and violence in which they revelled, the impure and adulterous the

unspeakable and filthy pleasures in which they delighted. They will

remember all this and loathe themselves and their sins. For how

miserable will all those pleasures seem to the soul condemned to suffer

in hellfire for ages and ages. How they will rage and fume to think

that they have lost the bliss of heaven for the dross of earth, for a

few pieces of metal, for vain honours, for bodily comforts, for a

tingling of the nerves. They will repent indeed: and this is the second

sting of the worm of conscience, a late and fruitless sorrow for sins

committed. Divine justice insists that the understanding of those

miserable wretches be fixed continually on the sins of which they were

guilty, and moreover, as saint Augustine points out, God will impart to

them His own knowledge of sin, so that sin will appear to them in all

its hideous malice as it appears to the eyes of God Himself. They will

behold their sins in all their foulness and repent but it will be too

late and then they will bewail the good occasions which they neglected.

This is the last and deepest and most cruel sting of the worm of

conscience. The conscience will say: You had time and opportunity to

repent and would not. You were brought up religiously by your parents.

You had the sacraments and grace and indulgences of the church to aid

you. You had the minister of God to preach to you, to call you back

when you had strayed, to forgive you your sins, no matter how many, how

abominable, if only you had confessed and repented. No. You would not.

You flouted the ministers of holy religion, you turned your back on the

confessional, you wallowed deeper and deeper in the mire of sin. God

appealed to you, threatened you, entreated you to return to Him. O,

what shame, what misery! The Ruler of the universe entreated you, a

creature of clay, to love Him Who made you and to keep His law. No. You

would not. And now, though you were to flood all hell with your tears

if you could still weep, all that sea of repentance would not gain for

you what a single tear of true repentance shed during your mortal life

would have gained for you. You implore now a moment of earthly life

wherein to repent: in vain. That time is gone: gone for ever.

—Such is the threefold sting of conscience, the viper which gnaws the

very heart’s core of the wretches in hell, so that filled with hellish

fury they curse themselves for their folly and curse the evil

companions who have brought them to such ruin and curse the devils who

tempted them in life and now mock them in eternity and even revile and

curse the Supreme Being Whose goodness and patience they scorned and

slighted but Whose justice and power they cannot evade.

—The next spiritual pain to which the damned are subjected is the pain

of extension. Man, in this earthly life, though he be capable of many

evils, is not capable of them all at once, inasmuch as one evil

corrects and counteracts another just as one poison frequently corrects

another. In hell, on the contrary, one torment, instead of

counteracting another, lends it still greater force: and, moreover, as

the internal faculties are more perfect than the external senses, so

are they more capable of suffering. Just as every sense is afflicted

with a fitting torment, so is every spiritual faculty; the fancy with

horrible images, the sensitive faculty with alternate longing and rage,

the mind and understanding with an interior darkness more terrible even

than the exterior darkness which reigns in that dreadful prison. The

malice, impotent though it be, which possesses these demon souls is an

evil of boundless extension, of limitless duration, a frightful state

of wickedness which we can scarcely realise unless we bear in mind the

enormity of sin and the hatred God bears to it.

—Opposed to this pain of extension and yet coexistent with it we have

the pain of intensity. Hell is the centre of evils and, as you know,

things are more intense at their centres than at their remotest points.

There are no contraries or admixtures of any kind to temper or soften

in the least the pains of hell. Nay, things which are good in

themselves become evil in hell. Company, elsewhere a source of comfort

to the afflicted, will be there a continual torment: knowledge, so much

longed for as the chief good of the intellect, will there be hated

worse than ignorance: light, so much coveted by all creatures from the

lord of creation down to the humblest plant in the forest, will be

loathed intensely. In this life our sorrows are either not very long or

not very great because nature either overcomes them by habits or puts

an end to them by sinking under their weight. But in hell the torments

cannot be overcome by habit, for while they are of terrible intensity

they are at the same time of continual variety, each pain, so to speak,

taking fire from another and re-endowing that which has enkindled it

with a still fiercer flame. Nor can nature escape from these intense

and various tortures by succumbing to them for the soul is sustained

and maintained in evil so that its suffering may be the greater.

Boundless extension of torment, incredible intensity of suffering,

unceasing variety of torture—this is what the divine majesty, so

outraged by sinners, demands; this is what the holiness of heaven,

slighted and set aside for the lustful and low pleasures of the corrupt

flesh, requires; this is what the blood of the innocent Lamb of God,

shed for the redemption of sinners, trampled upon by the vilest of the

vile, insists upon.

—Last and crowning torture of all the tortures of that awful place is

the eternity of hell. Eternity! O, dread and dire word. Eternity! What

mind of man can understand it? And remember, it is an eternity of pain.

Even though the pains of hell were not so terrible as they are, yet

they would become infinite, as they are destined to last for ever. But

while they are everlasting they are at the same time, as you know,

intolerably intense, unbearably extensive. To bear even the sting of an

insect for all eternity would be a dreadful torment. What must it be,

then, to bear the manifold tortures of hell for ever? For ever! For all

eternity! Not for a year or for an age but for ever. Try to imagine the

awful meaning of this. You have often seen the sand on the seashore.

How fine are its tiny grains! And how many of those tiny little grains

go to make up the small handful which a child grasps in its play. Now

imagine a mountain of that sand, a million miles high, reaching from

the earth to the farthest heavens, and a million miles broad, extending

to remotest space, and a million miles in thickness; and imagine such

an enormous mass of countless particles of sand multiplied as often as

there are leaves in the forest, drops of water in the mighty ocean,

feathers on birds, scales on fish, hairs on animals, atoms in the vast

expanse of the air: and imagine that at the end of every million years

a little bird came to that mountain and carried away in its beak a tiny

grain of that sand. How many millions upon millions of centuries would

pass before that bird had carried away even a square foot of that

mountain, how many eons upon eons of ages before it had carried away

all? Yet at the end of that immense stretch of time not even one

instant of eternity could be said to have ended. At the end of all

those billions and trillions of years eternity would have scarcely

begun. And if that mountain rose again after it had been all carried

away, and if the bird came again and carried it all away again grain by

grain, and if it so rose and sank as many times as there are stars in

the sky, atoms in the air, drops of water in the sea, leaves on the

trees, feathers upon birds, scales upon fish, hairs upon animals, at

the end of all those innumerable risings and sinkings of that

immeasurably vast mountain not one single instant of eternity could be

said to have ended; even then, at the end of such a period, after that

eon of time the mere thought of which makes our very brain reel

dizzily, eternity would scarcely have begun.

—A holy saint (one of our own fathers I believe it was) was once

vouchsafed a vision of hell. It seemed to him that he stood in the

midst of a great hall, dark and silent save for the ticking of a great

clock. The ticking went on unceasingly; and it seemed to this saint

that the sound of the ticking was the ceaseless repetition of the

words: ever, never; ever, never. Ever to be in hell, never to be in

heaven; ever to be shut off from the presence of God, never to enjoy

the beatific vision; ever to be eaten with flames, gnawed by vermin,

goaded with burning spikes, never to be free from those pains; ever to

have the conscience upbraid one, the memory enrage, the mind filled

with darkness and despair, never to escape; ever to curse and revile

the foul demons who gloat fiendishly over the misery of their dupes,

never to behold the shining raiment of the blessed spirits; ever to cry

out of the abyss of fire to God for an instant, a single instant, of

respite from such awful agony, never to receive, even for an instant,

God’s pardon; ever to suffer, never to enjoy; ever to be damned, never

to be saved; ever, never; ever, never. O, what a dreadful punishment!

An eternity of endless agony, of endless bodily and spiritual torment,

without one ray of hope, without one moment of cessation, of agony

limitless in intensity, of torment infinitely varied, of torture that

sustains eternally that which it eternally devours, of anguish that

everlastingly preys upon the spirit while it racks the flesh, an

eternity, every instant of which is itself an eternity of woe. Such is

the terrible punishment decreed for those who die in mortal sin by an

almighty and a just God.

—Yes, a just God! Men, reasoning always as men, are astonished that God

should mete out an everlasting and infinite punishment in the fires of

hell for a single grievous sin. They reason thus because, blinded by

the gross illusion of the flesh and the darkness of human

understanding, they are unable to comprehend the hideous malice of

mortal sin. They reason thus because they are unable to comprehend that

even venial sin is of such a foul and hideous nature that even if the

omnipotent Creator could end all the evil and misery in the world, the

wars, the diseases, the robberies, the crimes, the deaths, the murders,

on condition that he allowed a single venial sin to pass unpunished, a

single venial sin, a lie, an angry look, a moment of wilful sloth, He,

the great omnipotent God could not do so because sin, be it in thought

or deed, is a transgression of His law and God would not be God if He

did not punish the transgressor.

—A sin, an instant of rebellious pride of the intellect, made Lucifer

and a third part of the cohort of angels fall from their glory. A sin,

an instant of folly and weakness, drove Adam and Eve out of Eden and

brought death and suffering into the world. To retrieve the

consequences of that sin the Only Begotten Son of God came down to

earth, lived and suffered and died a most painful death, hanging for

three hours on the cross.

—O, my dear little brethren in Christ Jesus, will we then offend that

good Redeemer and provoke His anger? Will we trample again upon that

torn and mangled corpse? Will we spit upon that face so full of sorrow

and love? Will we too, like the cruel jews and the brutal soldiers,

mock that gentle and compassionate Saviour Who trod alone for our sake

the awful winepress of sorrow? Every word of sin is a wound in His

tender side. Every sinful act is a thorn piercing His head. Every

impure thought, deliberately yielded to, is a keen lance transfixing

that sacred and loving heart. No, no. It is impossible for any human

being to do that which offends so deeply the divine Majesty, that which

is punished by an eternity of agony, that which crucifies again the Son

of God and makes a mockery of Him.

—I pray to God that my poor words may have availed today to confirm in

holiness those who are in a state of grace, to strengthen the wavering,

to lead back to the state of grace the poor soul that has strayed if

any such be among you. I pray to God, and do you pray with me, that we

may repent of our sins. I will ask you now, all of you, to repeat after

me the act of contrition, kneeling here in this humble chapel in the

presence of God. He is there in the tabernacle burning with love for

mankind, ready to comfort the afflicted. Be not afraid. No matter how

many or how foul the sins if you only repent of them they will be

forgiven you. Let no worldly shame hold you back. God is still the

merciful Lord who wishes not the eternal death of the sinner but rather

that he be converted and live.

—He calls you to Him. You are His. He made you out of nothing. He loved

you as only a God can love. His arms are open to receive you even

though you have sinned against Him. Come to Him, poor sinner, poor vain

and erring sinner. Now is the acceptable time. Now is the hour.

The priest rose and, turning towards the altar, knelt upon the step

before the tabernacle in the fallen gloom. He waited till all in the

chapel had knelt and every least noise was still. Then, raising his

head, he repeated the act of contrition, phrase by phrase, with

fervour. The boys answered him phrase by phrase. Stephen, his tongue

cleaving to his palate, bowed his head, praying with his heart.

_ —O my God!—

—O my God!—

—I am heartily sorry—

—I am heartily sorry—

—for having offended Thee—

—for having offended Thee—

—and I detest my sins—

—and I detest my sins—

—above every other evil—

—above every other evil—

—because they displease Thee, my God—

—because they displease Thee, my God—

—Who art so deserving—

—Who art so deserving—

—of all my love—

—of all my love—

—and I firmly purpose—

—and I firmly purpose—

—by Thy holy grace—

—by Thy holy grace—

—never more to offend Thee—

—never more to offend Thee—

—and to amend my life—

—and to amend my life—_

He went up to his room after dinner in order to be alone with his soul,

and at every step his soul seemed to sigh; at every step his soul

mounted with his feet, sighing in the ascent, through a region of

viscid gloom.

He halted on the landing before the door and then, grasping the

porcelain knob, opened the door quickly. He waited in fear, his soul

pining within him, praying silently that death might not touch his brow

as he passed over the threshold, that the fiends that inhabit darkness

might not be given power over him. He waited still at the threshold as

at the entrance to some dark cave. Faces were there; eyes: they waited

and watched.

—We knew perfectly well of course that though it was bound to come to

the light he would find considerable difficulty in endeavouring to try

to induce himself to try to endeavour to ascertain the spiritual

plenipotentiary and so we knew of course perfectly well—

Murmuring faces waited and watched; murmurous voices filled the dark

shell of the cave. He feared intensely in spirit and in flesh but,

raising his head bravely, he strode into the room firmly. A doorway, a

room, the same room, same window. He told himself calmly that those

words had absolutely no sense which had seemed to rise murmurously from

the dark. He told himself that it was simply his room with the door

open.

He closed the door and, walking swiftly to the bed, knelt beside it and

covered his face with his hands. His hands were cold and damp and his

limbs ached with chill. Bodily unrest and chill and weariness beset

him, routing his thoughts. Why was he kneeling there like a child

saying his evening prayers? To be alone with his soul, to examine his

conscience, to meet his sins face to face, to recall their times and

manners and circumstances, to weep over them. He could not weep. He

could not summon them to his memory. He felt only an ache of soul and

body, his whole being, memory, will, understanding, flesh, benumbed and

weary.

That was the work of devils, to scatter his thoughts and overcloud his

conscience, assailing him at the gates of the cowardly and sincorrupted

flesh: and, praying God timidly to forgive him his weakness, he crawled

up on to the bed and, wrapping the blankets closely about him, covered

his face again with his hands. He had sinned. He had sinned so deeply

against heaven and before God that he was not worthy to be called God’s

child.

Could it be that he, Stephen Dedalus, had done those things? His

conscience sighed in answer. Yes, he had done them, secretly, filthily,

time after time, and, hardened in sinful impenitence, he had dared to

wear the mask of holiness before the tabernacle itself while his soul

within was a living mass of corruption. How came it that God had not

struck him dead? The leprous company of his sins closed about him,

breathing upon him, bending over him from all sides. He strove to

forget them in an act of prayer, huddling his limbs closer together and

binding down his eyelids: but the senses of his soul would not be bound

and, though his eyes were shut fast, he saw the places where he had

sinned and, though his ears were tightly covered, he heard. He desired

with all his will not to hear or see. He desired till his frame shook

under the strain of his desire and until the senses of his soul closed.

They closed for an instant and then opened. He saw.

A field of stiff weeds and thistles and tufted nettle-bunches. Thick

among the tufts of rank stiff growth lay battered canisters and clots

and coils of solid excrement. A faint marshlight struggling upwards

from all the ordure through the bristling greygreen weeds. An evil

smell, faint and foul as the light, curled upwards sluggishly out of

the canisters and from the stale crusted dung.

Creatures were in the field; one, three, six: creatures were moving in

the field, hither and thither. Goatish creatures with human faces,

hornybrowed, lightly bearded and grey as indiarubber. The malice of

evil glittered in their hard eyes, as they moved hither and thither,

trailing their long tails behind them. A rictus of cruel malignity lit

up greyly their old bony faces. One was clasping about his ribs a torn

flannel waistcoat, another complained monotonously as his beard stuck

in the tufted weeds. Soft language issued from their spittleless lips

as they swished in slow circles round and round the field, winding

hither and thither through the weeds, dragging their long tails amid

the rattling canisters. They moved in slow circles, circling closer and

closer to enclose, to enclose, soft language issuing from their lips,

their long swishing tails besmeared with stale shite, thrusting upwards

their terrific faces...

Help!

He flung the blankets from him madly to free his face and neck. That

was his hell. God had allowed him to see the hell reserved for his

sins: stinking, bestial, malignant, a hell of lecherous goatish fiends.

For him! For him!

He sprang from the bed, the reeking odour pouring down his throat,

clogging and revolting his entrails. Air! The air of heaven! He

stumbled towards the window, groaning and almost fainting with

sickness. At the washstand a convulsion seized him within; and,

clasping his cold forehead wildly, he vomited profusely in agony.

When the fit had spent itself he walked weakly to the window and,

lifting the sash, sat in a corner of the embrasure and leaned his elbow

upon the sill. The rain had drawn off; and amid the moving vapours from

point to point of light the city was spinning about herself a soft

cocoon of yellowish haze. Heaven was still and faintly luminous and the

air sweet to breathe, as in a thicket drenched with showers; and amid

peace and shimmering lights and quiet fragrance he made a covenant with

his heart.

He prayed:

—_He once had meant to come on earth in heavenly glory but we sinned:

and then He could not safely visit us but with a shrouded majesty and a

bedimmed radiance for He was God. So He came Himself in weakness not in

power and He sent thee, a creature in His stead, with a creature’s

comeliness and lustre suited to our state. And now thy very face and

form, dear mother, speak to us of the Eternal; not like earthly beauty,

dangerous to look upon, but like the morning star which is thy emblem,

bright and musical, breathing purity, telling of heaven and infusing

peace. O harbinger of day! O light of the pilgrim! Lead us still as

thou hast led. In the dark night, across the bleak wilderness guide us

on to our Lord Jesus, guide us home._

His eyes were dimmed with tears and, looking humbly up to heaven, he

wept for the innocence he had lost.

When evening had fallen he left the house, and the first touch of the

damp dark air and the noise of the door as it closed behind him made

ache again his conscience, lulled by prayer and tears. Confess!

Confess! It was not enough to lull the conscience with a tear and a

prayer. He had to kneel before the minister of the Holy Ghost and tell

over his hidden sins truly and repentantly. Before he heard again the

footboard of the housedoor trail over the threshold as it opened to let

him in, before he saw again the table in the kitchen set for supper he

would have knelt and confessed. It was quite simple.

The ache of conscience ceased and he walked onward swiftly through the

dark streets. There were so many flagstones on the footpath of that

street and so many streets in that city and so many cities in the

world. Yet eternity had no end. He was in mortal sin. Even once was a

mortal sin. It could happen in an instant. But how so quickly? By

seeing or by thinking of seeing. The eyes see the thing, without having

wished first to see. Then in an instant it happens. But does that part

of the body understand or what? The serpent, the most subtle beast of

the field. It must understand when it desires in one instant and then

prolongs its own desire instant after instant, sinfully. It feels and

understands and desires. What a horrible thing! Who made it to be like

that, a bestial part of the body able to understand bestially and

desire bestially? Was that then he or an inhuman thing moved by a lower

soul? His soul sickened at the thought of a torpid snaky life feeding

itself out of the tender marrow of his life and fattening upon the

slime of lust. O why was that so? O why?

He cowered in the shadow of the thought, abasing himself in the awe of

God Who had made all things and all men. Madness. Who could think such

a thought? And, cowering in darkness and abject, he prayed mutely to

his guardian angel to drive away with his sword the demon that was

whispering to his brain.

The whisper ceased and he knew then clearly that his own soul had

sinned in thought and word and deed wilfully through his own body.

Confess! He had to confess every sin. How could he utter in words to

the priest what he had done? Must, must. Or how could he explain

without dying of shame? Or how could he have done such things without

shame? A madman! Confess! O he would indeed to be free and sinless

again! Perhaps the priest would know. O dear God!

He walked on and on through ill-lit streets, fearing to stand still for

a moment lest it might seem that he held back from what awaited him,

fearing to arrive at that towards which he still turned with longing.

How beautiful must be a soul in the state of grace when God looked upon

it with love!

Frowsy girls sat along the curbstones before their baskets. Their dank

hair hung trailed over their brows. They were not beautiful to see as

they crouched in the mire. But their souls were seen by God; and if

their souls were in a state of grace they were radiant to see: and God

loved them, seeing them.

A wasting breath of humiliation blew bleakly over his soul to think of

how he had fallen, to feel that those souls were dearer to God than

his. The wind blew over him and passed on to the myriads and myriads of

other souls on whom God’s favour shone now more and now less, stars now

brighter and now dimmer, sustained and failing. And the glimmering

souls passed away, sustained and failing, merged in a moving breath.

One soul was lost; a tiny soul: his. It flickered once and went out,

forgotten, lost. The end: black, cold, void waste.

Consciousness of place came ebbing back to him slowly over a vast tract

of time unlit, unfelt, unlived. The squalid scene composed itself

around him; the common accents, the burning gasjets in the shops,

odours of fish and spirits and wet sawdust, moving men and women. An

old woman was about to cross the street, an oilcan in her hand. He bent

down and asked her was there a chapel near.

—A chapel, sir? Yes, sir. Church Street chapel.

—Church?

She shifted the can to her other hand and directed him; and, as she

held out her reeking withered right hand under its fringe of shawl, he

bent lower towards her, saddened and soothed by her voice.

—Thank you.

—You are quite welcome, sir.

The candles on the high altar had been extinguished but the fragrance

of incense still floated down the dim nave. Bearded workmen with pious

faces were guiding a canopy out through a side door, the sacristan

aiding them with quiet gestures and words. A few of the faithful still

lingered praying before one of the sidealtars or kneeling in the

benches near the confessionals. He approached timidly and knelt at the

last bench in the body, thankful for the peace and silence and fragrant

shadow of the church. The board on which he knelt was narrow and worn

and those who knelt near him were humble followers of Jesus. Jesus too

had been born in poverty and had worked in the shop of a carpenter,

cutting boards and planing them, and had first spoken of the kingdom of

God to poor fishermen, teaching all men to be meek and humble of heart.

He bowed his head upon his hands, bidding his heart be meek and humble

that he might be like those who knelt beside him and his prayer as

acceptable as theirs. He prayed beside them but it was hard. His soul

was foul with sin and he dared not ask forgiveness with the simple

trust of those whom Jesus, in the mysterious ways of God, had called

first to His side, the carpenters, the fishermen, poor and simple

people following a lowly trade, handling and shaping the wood of trees,

mending their nets with patience.

A tall figure came down the aisle and the penitents stirred; and at the

last moment, glancing up swiftly, he saw a long grey beard and the

brown habit of a capuchin. The priest entered the box and was hidden.

Two penitents rose and entered the confessional at either side. The

wooden slide was drawn back and the faint murmur of a voice troubled

the silence.

His blood began to murmur in his veins, murmuring like a sinful city

summoned from its sleep to hear its doom. Little flakes of fire fell

and powdery ashes fell softly, alighting on the houses of men. They

stirred, waking from sleep, troubled by the heated air.

The slide was shot back. The penitent emerged from the side of the box.

The farther side was drawn. A woman entered quietly and deftly where

the first penitent had knelt. The faint murmur began again.

He could still leave the chapel. He could stand up, put one foot before

the other and walk out softly and then run, run, run swiftly through

the dark streets. He could still escape from the shame. Had it been any

terrible crime but that one sin! Had it been murder! Little fiery

flakes fell and touched him at all points, shameful thoughts, shameful

words, shameful acts. Shame covered him wholly like fine glowing ashes

falling continually. To say it in words! His soul, stifling and

helpless, would cease to be.

The slide was shot back. A penitent emerged from the farther side of

the box. The near slide was drawn. A penitent entered where the other

penitent had come out. A soft whispering noise floated in vaporous

cloudlets out of the box. It was the woman: soft whispering cloudlets,

soft whispering vapour, whispering and vanishing.

He beat his breast with his fist humbly, secretly under cover of the

wooden armrest. He would be at one with others and with God. He would

love his neighbour. He would love God who had made and loved him. He

would kneel and pray with others and be happy. God would look down on

him and on them and would love them all.

It was easy to be good. God’s yoke was sweet and light. It was better

never to have sinned, to have remained always a child, for God loved

little children and suffered them to come to Him. It was a terrible and

a sad thing to sin. But God was merciful to poor sinners who were truly

sorry. How true that was! That was indeed goodness.

The slide was shot to suddenly. The penitent came out. He was next. He

stood up in terror and walked blindly into the box.

At last it had come. He knelt in the silent gloom and raised his eyes

to the white crucifix suspended above him. God could see that he was

sorry. He would tell all his sins. His confession would be long, long.

Everybody in the chapel would know then what a sinner he had been. Let

them know. It was true. But God had promised to forgive him if he was

sorry. He was sorry. He clasped his hands and raised them towards the

white form, praying with his darkened eyes, praying with all his

trembling body, swaying his head to and fro like a lost creature,

praying with whimpering lips.

—Sorry! Sorry! O sorry!

The slide clicked back and his heart bounded in his breast. The face of

an old priest was at the grating, averted from him, leaning upon a

hand. He made the sign of the cross and prayed of the priest to bless

him for he had sinned. Then, bowing his head, he repeated the

_Confiteor_ in fright. At the words _my most grievous fault_ he ceased,

breathless.

—How long is it since your last confession, my child?

—A long time, father.

—A month, my child?

—Longer, father.

—Three months, my child?

—Longer, father.

—Six months?

—Eight months, father.

He had begun. The priest asked:

—And what do you remember since that time?

He began to confess his sins: masses missed, prayers not said, lies.

—Anything else, my child?

Sins of anger, envy of others, gluttony, vanity, disobedience.

—Anything else, my child?

There was no help. He murmured:

—I... committed sins of impurity, father.

The priest did not turn his head.

—With yourself, my child?

—And... with others.

—With women, my child?

—Yes, father.

—Were they married women, my child?

He did not know. His sins trickled from his lips, one by one, trickled

in shameful drops from his soul, festering and oozing like a sore, a

squalid stream of vice. The last sins oozed forth, sluggish, filthy.

There was no more to tell. He bowed his head, overcome.

The priest was silent. Then he asked:

—How old are you, my child?

—Sixteen, father.

The priest passed his hand several times over his face. Then, resting

his forehead against his hand, he leaned towards the grating and, with

eyes still averted, spoke slowly. His voice was weary and old.

—You are very young, my child, he said, and let me implore of you to

give up that sin. It is a terrible sin. It kills the body and it kills

the soul. It is the cause of many crimes and misfortunes. Give it up,

my child, for God’s sake. It is dishonourable and unmanly. You cannot

know where that wretched habit will lead you or where it will come

against you. As long as you commit that sin, my poor child, you will

never be worth one farthing to God. Pray to our mother Mary to help

you. She will help you, my child. Pray to Our Blessed Lady when that

sin comes into your mind. I am sure you will do that, will you not? You

repent of all those sins. I am sure you do. And you will promise God

now that by His holy grace you will never offend Him any more by that

wicked sin. You will make that solemn promise to God, will you not?

—Yes, father.

The old and weary voice fell like sweet rain upon his quaking parching

heart. How sweet and sad!

—Do so, my poor child. The devil has led you astray. Drive him back to

hell when he tempts you to dishonour your body in that way—the foul

spirit who hates Our Lord. Promise God now that you will give up that

sin, that wretched wretched sin.

Blinded by his tears and by the light of God’s mercifulness he bent his

head and heard the grave words of absolution spoken and saw the

priest’s hand raised above him in token of forgiveness.

—God bless you, my child. Pray for me.

He knelt to say his penance, praying in a corner of the dark nave; and

his prayers ascended to heaven from his purified heart like perfume

streaming upwards from a heart of white rose.

The muddy streets were gay. He strode homeward, conscious of an

invisible grace pervading and making light his limbs. In spite of all

he had done it. He had confessed and God had pardoned him. His soul was

made fair and holy once more, holy and happy.

It would be beautiful to die if God so willed. It was beautiful to live

in grace a life of peace and virtue and forbearance with others.

He sat by the fire in the kitchen, not daring to speak for happiness.

Till that moment he had not known how beautiful and peaceful life could

be. The green square of paper pinned round the lamp cast down a tender

shade. On the dresser was a plate of sausages and white pudding and on

the shelf there were eggs. They would be for the breakfast in the

morning after the communion in the college chapel. White pudding and

eggs and sausages and cups of tea. How simple and beautiful was life

after all! And life lay all before him.

In a dream he fell asleep. In a dream he rose and saw that it was

morning. In a waking dream he went through the quiet morning towards

the college.

The boys were all there, kneeling in their places. He knelt among them,

happy and shy. The altar was heaped with fragrant masses of white

flowers; and in the morning light the pale flames of the candles among

the white flowers were clear and silent as his own soul.

He knelt before the altar with his classmates, holding the altar cloth

with them over a living rail of hands. His hands were trembling and his

soul trembled as he heard the priest pass with the ciborium from

communicant to communicant.

—_Corpus Domini nostri_.

Could it be? He knelt there sinless and timid; and he would hold upon

his tongue the host and God would enter his purified body.

—_In vitam eternam. Amen._

Another life! A life of grace and virtue and happiness! It was true. It

was not a dream from which he would wake. The past was past.

—_Corpus Domini nostri_.

The ciborium had come to him.