As I walked home with Owen next day after school I wanted to tell him
what I had done, but it was somehow difficult to do so quite abruptly.
I turned the conversation to Roman Catholicism, and from that to the
general subject of confession to a priest, but to Owen this idea
appeared to be so distasteful that I did not attempt to introduce my
own particular case.
On our way we met his mother, who told me to go on in and get something
to eat now, and to stay and dine with them at seven. I refused, having
an idea Owen didn’t particularly want me. I knew it was only because he
wished to finish an epitome he was making of Herbert Spencer’s “First
Principles” (he had told me he had reached the last chapter) and as I
had a strong desire to stay I felt annoyed. I came to the door with him.
“You’d better come in,” he said.
“What’s the use of my coming in when you don’t want me?” I replied.
He laughed. “Of course I want you; don’t be an ass.”
I came in. While we were having tea I looked over the epitome. It
represented a good deal of work, and I remembered having asked him to
read Blake’s “Songs,” and his refusing because he hadn’t time. It was
the same with nearly everything I recommended to him, though I was
always reading books to please him. He offered now to lend me the
“First Principles” as soon as he should have finished it.
“I don’t want it,” I answered, discontentedly. “I’m sick of all that
stodgy stuff. You’re always complaining about not being able to be
religious, yet you’re never happy unless you’re reading something
against religion.”
“I’m not anxious for a religion that won’t bear examination,” replied
Owen, coldly.
“No religion _will_ bear it,” I said, and both speeches had that
infinite priggishness which not infrequently characterized our
conversation.
“People who have read a hundred times more philosophy than I have have
been able to remain Christians,” Owen continued, with a naïveté that
was quite lost on me. He was particularly fond just now of talking
about people who had or had not read philosophy.
“You’re thinking of Levine in ‘A.K.,’” I answered disrespectfully, a
decreasing enthusiasm having led me to abbreviate the title of this
work.
“I’m not,” said Owen.
“You are. And Levine doesn’t remain a Christian. He drops it and then
takes it up again, and, as he hasn’t any more reason for doing one than
the other, I don’t see what it proves.”
“Why do you say he has no reason?”
“I don’t call half a dozen words spoken by an ignorant peasant a
reason. If you claim religion to be the most valuable thing in life, it
oughtn’t to be at the mercy of a chance phrase. At any rate the words
that affected Levine seem far from wonderful to me.”
“I don’t know that they aren’t wonderful,” Owen declared.
“‘One man lives for his stomach,’” I jeeringly quoted, “‘another for
his soul, for God, in truth.’ You’d find the same thing in any tract.
And why should it turn you to Christianity particularly? A man who
believed in Pan could live just as much for his soul as a Christian.”
“I don’t believe anybody ever believed in Pan,” said Owen, “any more
than they believe in Father Christmas. Because certain words happened
to help Levine, Tolstoy does not mean that they will help everyone.”
“He does. Only you’re nearly as bad as Levine yourself.”
Owen was not listening; he was working out an argument he would produce
as soon as I had done; but I was beginning to be tired of Tolstoy, and
I wanted to express my own point of view. “If one were to see a ghost,
it would make an enormous difference,” I admitted. “It would open your
eyes to a new world, to a deeper, finer world.”
“Isn’t this one deep enough for you? And I don’t see that it
would necessarily be any finer. It might very well be extremely
objectionable. All that would happen if you saw a ghost is that it
would frighten you very much at the time, and afterwards you wouldn’t
believe in it.”
“I don’t think it would frighten me. I don’t think it would frighten
anybody, if it were the ghost of somebody they had cared for a great
deal.”
Owen considered this. “I don’t suppose the ghost of your mother would
frighten you. _Your_ mother is dead, isn’t she?” he added, and then
stopped short. “I’m awfully sorry,” he stammered, “I wasn’t thinking of
what I was saying.”
I laughed. “It’s all right. My mother isn’t dead. Shall we go out
before dinner?”
Owen got up.
We walked by the road as far as Shaw’s Bridge, where we branched off
on to the river bank. It was already well on in April. The brilliant
tender green of the opening leaves had spread like a delicate green
flame over the black branches of the trees. The sky was clear, and
there was a sharpness in the air that made us walk quickly. Owen’s
dogs, two rough-haired Irish terriers, ran along the bank, sniffing
among the coarse grass, alert, eager to hunt anything, whether a rat or
a stick.
Owen’s remark about my mother had reminded me that I had told him
singularly little about myself, or rather, about my people. He did not
know anything beyond the fact that we lived at Newcastle, and, from the
way I had spoken of it, he might easily have imagined that Derryaghy
was my home. I’m afraid an unconscious snobbery had kept me from
revealing the obscurity of my origin, and I was suddenly struck by the
stupidity and odiousness of this, especially with Owen, for whom such
things meant nothing.
“Why did you think my mother was dead?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. I suppose because you never――I don’t know, I’m sure.”
“I want to tell you about my people.”
Curiously enough, though I had been so reluctant to mention that my
father was a National schoolmaster, it did not trouble me in the least
to talk about my mother. I even had some dim notion that it made me
rather interesting; so I told him all I knew. “I have not seen her
since,” I wound up, “and perhaps my father is not my real father.” Why
I should have thrown in this after-touch I cannot conceive, as I had
never in my life had the faintest doubts concerning my legitimacy; but
I suppose it was to heighten the romance.
“Do you think I ought to try to find out something more?” I asked.
“You never did try!” exclaimed Owen.
“Never very much. I don’t know who to ask. I can’t very well ask my
father.”
“Why?”
“I can’t.”
“There must be somebody else who knows. Your friend, Mrs. Carroll.”
“She won’t tell me.”
“Have you asked her?”
“I asked her the last time I was at home.”
“And what did she say?”
“She doesn’t like her.”
“She said she didn’t like her?”
“No, of course not; but I know it all the same.”
“The whole thing,” Owen began, but tailed off abruptly “――it seems
rather queer.”
We walked on for a long time in silence. I was determined to tell him
about Mr. Applin, but it was not till we were coming home that I began
my explanation.
“And you’re really going to him!” Owen marvelled.
“I’ll have to go now. That is, if he does not tell me not to.”
“He can hardly do that. You’re not making fun?”
“Fun?”
Owen was silent.
“I didn’t know whether you meant it,” he said. “What are you going
_for_?” he suddenly asked. “Just to talk to him?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“But what about?”
“About?... Do you remember talking of confession?”
“But it’s not that, is it?” said Owen, very seriously. “You’re not――――”
“Why not?” I smiled dimly.
“But what is the matter? Why should you? What have you done? And if you
have done anything, what is it to him?”
We had come to a standstill on the lonely river bank. Owen’s eyes were
fixed upon me questioningly. I had nothing to say, or, rather, I could
not say it. I stood before him, looking on the ground, my hands in my
trouser pockets.
Owen hesitated. He put his hands on my shoulders, but I did not look up.
Presently I raised my head, but I looked away from him, and across the
fields. “Come along,” I said, quietly. “It’s getting late, and we must
hurry.”
* * * * *
When I reached home at about half-past nine little Alice came running
to meet me. Her white face, her bright black eyes, and long straight
black hair, brushed back from her forehead and spreading out on either
side of her face in the shape of a fan, were vivid in the gas-light,
under which she stood looking up at me while I opened the letter she
had brought me. It was from Mr. Applin, asking me to call on Wednesday
evening between nine and ten, or on Friday between the same hours, if
Wednesday did not suit me.