There was no hope for him this time: it was the third stroke. Night

after night I had passed the house (it was vacation time) and studied

the lighted square of window: and night after night I had found it

lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly. If he was dead, I thought,

I would see the reflection of candles on the darkened blind for I knew

that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse. He had often said

to me: “I am not long for this world,” and I had thought his words

idle. Now I knew they were true. Every night as I gazed up at the

window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always

sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and

the word simony in the Catechism. But now it sounded to me like the

name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and

yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work.

Old Cotter was sitting at the fire, smoking, when I came downstairs to

supper. While my aunt was ladling out my stirabout he said, as if

returning to some former remark of his:

“No, I wouldn’t say he was exactly … but there was something queer

… there was something uncanny about him. I’ll tell you my

opinion….”

He began to puff at his pipe, no doubt arranging his opinion in his

mind. Tiresome old fool! When we knew him first he used to be rather

interesting, talking of faints and worms; but I soon grew tired of him

and his endless stories about the distillery.

“I have my own theory about it,” he said. “I think it was one of those

… peculiar cases…. But it’s hard to say….”

He began to puff again at his pipe without giving us his theory. My

uncle saw me staring and said to me:

“Well, so your old friend is gone, you’ll be sorry to hear.”

“Who?” said I.

“Father Flynn.”

“Is he dead?”

“Mr Cotter here has just told us. He was passing by the house.”

I knew that I was under observation so I continued eating as if the

news had not interested me. My uncle explained to old Cotter.

“The youngster and he were great friends. The old chap taught him a

great deal, mind you; and they say he had a great wish for him.”

“God have mercy on his soul,” said my aunt piously.

Old Cotter looked at me for a while. I felt that his little beady black

eyes were examining me but I would not satisfy him by looking up from

my plate. He returned to his pipe and finally spat rudely into the

grate.

“I wouldn’t like children of mine,” he said, “to have too much to say

to a man like that.”

“How do you mean, Mr Cotter?” asked my aunt.

“What I mean is,” said old Cotter, “it’s bad for children. My idea is:

let a young lad run about and play with young lads of his own age and

not be…. Am I right, Jack?”

“That’s my principle, too,” said my uncle. “Let him learn to box his

corner. That’s what I’m always saying to that Rosicrucian there: take

exercise. Why, when I was a nipper every morning of my life I had a

cold bath, winter and summer. And that’s what stands to me now.

Education is all very fine and large…. Mr Cotter might take a pick of

that leg mutton,” he added to my aunt.

“No, no, not for me,” said old Cotter.

My aunt brought the dish from the safe and put it on the table.

“But why do you think it’s not good for children, Mr Cotter?” she

asked.

“It’s bad for children,” said old Cotter, “because their minds are so

impressionable. When children see things like that, you know, it has an

effect….”

I crammed my mouth with stirabout for fear I might give utterance to my

anger. Tiresome old red-nosed imbecile!

It was late when I fell asleep. Though I was angry with old Cotter for

alluding to me as a child, I puzzled my head to extract meaning from

his unfinished sentences. In the dark of my room I imagined that I saw

again the heavy grey face of the paralytic. I drew the blankets over my

head and tried to think of Christmas. But the grey face still followed

me. It murmured; and I understood that it desired to confess something.

I felt my soul receding into some pleasant and vicious region; and

there again I found it waiting for me. It began to confess to me in a

murmuring voice and I wondered why it smiled continually and why the

lips were so moist with spittle. But then I remembered that it had died

of paralysis and I felt that I too was smiling feebly as if to absolve

the simoniac of his sin.

The next morning after breakfast I went down to look at the little

house in Great Britain Street. It was an unassuming shop, registered

under the vague name of _Drapery_. The drapery consisted mainly of

children’s bootees and umbrellas; and on ordinary days a notice used to

hang in the window, saying: _Umbrellas Re-covered_. No notice was

visible now for the shutters were up. A crape bouquet was tied to the

door-knocker with ribbon. Two poor women and a telegram boy were

reading the card pinned on the crape. I also approached and read:

     July 1st, 1895

     The Rev. James Flynn (formerly of S. Catherine’s

     Church, Meath Street), aged sixty-five years.

     _R. I. P._

The reading of the card persuaded me that he was dead and I was

disturbed to find myself at check. Had he not been dead I would have

gone into the little dark room behind the shop to find him sitting in

his arm-chair by the fire, nearly smothered in his great-coat. Perhaps

my aunt would have given me a packet of High Toast for him and this

present would have roused him from his stupefied doze. It was always I

who emptied the packet into his black snuff-box for his hands trembled

too much to allow him to do this without spilling half the snuff about

the floor. Even as he raised his large trembling hand to his nose

little clouds of smoke dribbled through his fingers over the front of

his coat. It may have been these constant showers of snuff which gave

his ancient priestly garments their green faded look for the red

handkerchief, blackened, as it always was, with the snuff-stains of a

week, with which he tried to brush away the fallen grains, was quite

inefficacious.

I wished to go in and look at him but I had not the courage to knock. I

walked away slowly along the sunny side of the street, reading all the

theatrical advertisements in the shop-windows as I went. I found it

strange that neither I nor the day seemed in a mourning mood and I felt

even annoyed at discovering in myself a sensation of freedom as if I

had been freed from something by his death. I wondered at this for, as

my uncle had said the night before, he had taught me a great deal. He

had studied in the Irish college in Rome and he had taught me to

pronounce Latin properly. He had told me stories about the catacombs

and about Napoleon Bonaparte, and he had explained to me the meaning of

the different ceremonies of the Mass and of the different vestments

worn by the priest. Sometimes he had amused himself by putting

difficult questions to me, asking me what one should do in certain

circumstances or whether such and such sins were mortal or venial or

only imperfections. His questions showed me how complex and mysterious

were certain institutions of the Church which I had always regarded as

the simplest acts. The duties of the priest towards the Eucharist and

towards the secrecy of the confessional seemed so grave to me that I

wondered how anybody had ever found in himself the courage to undertake

them; and I was not surprised when he told me that the fathers of the

Church had written books as thick as the _Post Office Directory_ and as

closely printed as the law notices in the newspaper, elucidating all

these intricate questions. Often when I thought of this I could make no

answer or only a very foolish and halting one upon which he used to

smile and nod his head twice or thrice. Sometimes he used to put me

through the responses of the Mass which he had made me learn by heart;

and, as I pattered, he used to smile pensively and nod his head, now

and then pushing huge pinches of snuff up each nostril alternately.

When he smiled he used to uncover his big discoloured teeth and let his

tongue lie upon his lower lip—a habit which had made me feel uneasy in

the beginning of our acquaintance before I knew him well.

As I walked along in the sun I remembered old Cotter’s words and tried

to remember what had happened afterwards in the dream. I remembered

that I had noticed long velvet curtains and a swinging lamp of antique

fashion. I felt that I had been very far away, in some land where the

customs were strange—in Persia, I thought…. But I could not remember

the end of the dream.

In the evening my aunt took me with her to visit the house of mourning.

It was after sunset; but the window-panes of the houses that looked to

the west reflected the tawny gold of a great bank of clouds. Nannie

received us in the hall; and, as it would have been unseemly to have

shouted at her, my aunt shook hands with her for all. The old woman

pointed upwards interrogatively and, on my aunt’s nodding, proceeded to

toil up the narrow staircase before us, her bowed head being scarcely

above the level of the banister-rail. At the first landing she stopped

and beckoned us forward encouragingly towards the open door of the

dead-room. My aunt went in and the old woman, seeing that I hesitated

to enter, began to beckon to me again repeatedly with her hand.

I went in on tiptoe. The room through the lace end of the blind was

suffused with dusky golden light amid which the candles looked like

pale thin flames. He had been coffined. Nannie gave the lead and we

three knelt down at the foot of the bed. I pretended to pray but I

could not gather my thoughts because the old woman’s mutterings

distracted me. I noticed how clumsily her skirt was hooked at the back

and how the heels of her cloth boots were trodden down all to one side.

The fancy came to me that the old priest was smiling as he lay there in

his coffin.

But no. When we rose and went up to the head of the bed I saw that he

was not smiling. There he lay, solemn and copious, vested as for the

altar, his large hands loosely retaining a chalice. His face was very

truculent, grey and massive, with black cavernous nostrils and circled

by a scanty white fur. There was a heavy odour in the room—the flowers.

We blessed ourselves and came away. In the little room downstairs we

found Eliza seated in his arm-chair in state. I groped my way towards

my usual chair in the corner while Nannie went to the sideboard and

brought out a decanter of sherry and some wine-glasses. She set these

on the table and invited us to take a little glass of wine. Then, at

her sister’s bidding, she filled out the sherry into the glasses and

passed them to us. She pressed me to take some cream crackers also but

I declined because I thought I would make too much noise eating them.

She seemed to be somewhat disappointed at my refusal and went over

quietly to the sofa where she sat down behind her sister. No one spoke:

we all gazed at the empty fireplace.

My aunt waited until Eliza sighed and then said:

“Ah, well, he’s gone to a better world.”

Eliza sighed again and bowed her head in assent. My aunt fingered the

stem of her wine-glass before sipping a little.

“Did he … peacefully?” she asked.

“Oh, quite peacefully, ma’am,” said Eliza. “You couldn’t tell when the

breath went out of him. He had a beautiful death, God be praised.”

“And everything…?”

“Father O’Rourke was in with him a Tuesday and anointed him and

prepared him and all.”

“He knew then?”

“He was quite resigned.”

“He looks quite resigned,” said my aunt.

“That’s what the woman we had in to wash him said. She said he just

looked as if he was asleep, he looked that peaceful and resigned. No

one would think he’d make such a beautiful corpse.”

“Yes, indeed,” said my aunt.

She sipped a little more from her glass and said:

“Well, Miss Flynn, at any rate it must be a great comfort for you to

know that you did all you could for him. You were both very kind to

him, I must say.”

Eliza smoothed her dress over her knees.

“Ah, poor James!” she said. “God knows we done all we could, as poor as

we are—we wouldn’t see him want anything while he was in it.”

Nannie had leaned her head against the sofa-pillow and seemed about to

fall asleep.

“There’s poor Nannie,” said Eliza, looking at her, “she’s wore out. All

the work we had, she and me, getting in the woman to wash him and then

laying him out and then the coffin and then arranging about the Mass in

the chapel. Only for Father O’Rourke I don’t know what we’d have done

at all. It was him brought us all them flowers and them two

candlesticks out of the chapel and wrote out the notice for the

_Freeman’s General_ and took charge of all the papers for the cemetery

and poor James’s insurance.”

“Wasn’t that good of him?” said my aunt.

Eliza closed her eyes and shook her head slowly.

“Ah, there’s no friends like the old friends,” she said, “when all is

said and done, no friends that a body can trust.”

“Indeed, that’s true,” said my aunt. “And I’m sure now that he’s gone

to his eternal reward he won’t forget you and all your kindness to

him.”

“Ah, poor James!” said Eliza. “He was no great trouble to us. You

wouldn’t hear him in the house any more than now. Still, I know he’s

gone and all to that….”

“It’s when it’s all over that you’ll miss him,” said my aunt.

“I know that,” said Eliza. “I won’t be bringing him in his cup of

beef-tea any more, nor you, ma’am, sending him his snuff. Ah, poor

James!”

She stopped, as if she were communing with the past and then said

shrewdly:

“Mind you, I noticed there was something queer coming over him

latterly. Whenever I’d bring in his soup to him there I’d find him with

his breviary fallen to the floor, lying back in the chair and his mouth

open.”

She laid a finger against her nose and frowned: then she continued:

“But still and all he kept on saying that before the summer was over

he’d go out for a drive one fine day just to see the old house again

where we were all born down in Irishtown and take me and Nannie with

him. If we could only get one of them new-fangled carriages that makes

no noise that Father O’Rourke told him about, them with the rheumatic

wheels, for the day cheap—he said, at Johnny Rush’s over the way there

and drive out the three of us together of a Sunday evening. He had his

mind set on that…. Poor James!”

“The Lord have mercy on his soul!” said my aunt.

Eliza took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes with it. Then she

put it back again in her pocket and gazed into the empty grate for some

time without speaking.

“He was too scrupulous always,” she said. “The duties of the priesthood

was too much for him. And then his life was, you might say, crossed.”

“Yes,” said my aunt. “He was a disappointed man. You could see that.”

A silence took possession of the little room and, under cover of it, I

approached the table and tasted my sherry and then returned quietly to

my chair in the corner. Eliza seemed to have fallen into a deep revery.

We waited respectfully for her to break the silence: and after a long

pause she said slowly:

“It was that chalice he broke…. That was the beginning of it. Of

course, they say it was all right, that it contained nothing, I mean.

But still…. They say it was the boy’s fault. But poor James was so

nervous, God be merciful to him!”

“And was that it?” said my aunt. “I heard something….”

Eliza nodded.

“That affected his mind,” she said. “After that he began to mope by

himself, talking to no one and wandering about by himself. So one night

he was wanted for to go on a call and they couldn’t find him anywhere.

They looked high up and low down; and still they couldn’t see a sight

of him anywhere. So then the clerk suggested to try the chapel. So then

they got the keys and opened the chapel and the clerk and Father

O’Rourke and another priest that was there brought in a light for to

look for him…. And what do you think but there he was, sitting up by

himself in the dark in his confession-box, wide-awake and laughing-like

softly to himself?”

She stopped suddenly as if to listen. I too listened; but there was no

sound in the house: and I knew that the old priest was lying still in

his coffin as we had seen him, solemn and truculent in death, an idle

chalice on his breast.

Eliza resumed:

“Wide-awake and laughing-like to himself…. So then, of course, when

they saw that, that made them think that there was something gone wrong

with him….”