Book
II
Eileen Ni Cooley
XIII
Early in the morning the sun had been shining gloriously, and there was a thump of a wind blowing across the road that kept everything gay; the trees were in full leaf and every bough went jigging to its neighbour, but on the sky the clouds raced so fast that they were continually catching each other up and getting so mixed that they could not disentangle themselves again, and from their excessive gaiety black misery spread and the sun took a gloomy cast.
Mac Cann screwed an eye upwards like a bird and rubbed at his chin.
“There will be rain soon,” said he, “and the country wants it.”
“It will be heavy rain,” said his daughter.
“It will so,” he replied; “let us be getting along now the way we’ll be somewhere before the rain comes, for I never did like getting wetted by rain, and nobody ever did except the people of the County Cork, and they are so used to it that they never know whether it’s raining or whether it isn’t.”
So they encouraged the ass to go quicker and he did that.
As they hastened along the road they saw in front of them two people marching close together, and in a little time they drew close to these people.
“I know the look of that man’s back,” said Patsy, “but I can’t tell you where I saw it. I’ve a good memory for faces, though, and I’ll tell you all about him in a minute.”
“Do you know the woman that is with him?” said Caeltia.
“You can’t tell a woman by her back,” replied Patsy, “and nobody could, for they all have the same back when they have a shawl on.”
Mary turned her head to them:
“Every woman’s back is different,” said she, “whether there’s a shawl on it or not, and I know from the way that woman is wearing her shawl that she is Eileen Ni Cooley and no one else.”
“If that is so,” said her father hastily, “let us be going slower the way we won’t catch up on her. Mary, a grah, whisper a word in the ass’s ear so that he won’t be going so quick, for he is full of fun this day.”
“I’ll do that,” said Mary, and she said “whoa” into the ear of the little ass, and he stopped inside the quarter of a pace.
“Do you not like that woman?” Caeltia enquired.
“She’s a bad woman,” replied Patsy.
“What sort of a bad woman is she?”
“She’s the sort that commits adultery with every kind of man,” said he harshly.
Caeltia turned over that accusation for a moment.
“Did she ever commit adultery with yourself?” said he.
“She did not,” said Patsy, “and that’s why I don’t like her.”
Caeltia considered that statement also, and found it reasonable:
“I think,” said he, “that the reason you don’t like that woman is because you like her too much.”
“It’s so,” said Patsy, “but there is no reason for her taking on with every kind of man and not taking on with me at all.”
He was silent for a moment.
“I tell you,” said he furiously, “that I made love to that woman from the dawn to the dark, and then she walked off with a man that came down a little road.”
“That was her right,” said Caeltia mildly.
“Maybe it was, but for the weight of a straw I would have killed the pair of them that night in the dark place.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“She had me weakened. My knees gave under me when she walked away and there wasn’t even a curse in my mouth.”
Again he was silent, and again he broke into angry speech!
“I don’t want to see her at all, for she torments me, so let the pair of them walk their road until they come to a ditch that is full of thorns and is fit for them to die in.”
“I think,” said Caeltia, “that the reason you don’t want to see her is because you want to see her too much.”
“It’s so,” growled Mac Cann, “and it’s so too that you are a prying kind of a man and that your mouth is never at rest, so we’ll go on now to the woman yonder, and let you talk to her with your tongue and your nimble questions.”
Thereupon he rushed forward and kicked the ass so suddenly in the belly that it leaped straight off the ground and began to run before its legs touched earth again.
When they had taken a few dozen steps Mac Cann began to roar furiously:
“What way are you, Eileen Ni Cooley? What sort of a man is it that’s walking beside yourself?”
And he continued roaring questions such as that until they drew on the people.
The folk stopped at his shouts.
The woman was big and thin and she had red hair. Her face was freckled all over so that one could only see her delicate complexion in little spots, and at the first glance the resemblance between herself and Finaun was extraordinary. In the sweep of the brow, the set of the cheekbones, a regard of the eyes, that resemblance was seen, and then the look vanished in a poise of the head and came again in another one.
At the moment her blue eyes seemed the angriest that ever were in a woman’s head. She stood leaning on a thick ash-plant and watched the advancing company, but she did not utter a word to them.
The man by her side was tall also and as thin as a pole; he was ramshackle and slovenly; there was not much pith in his body, for he was weak at the knees and his big feet splayed outwards at a curious angle; but his face was extraordinary intelligent, and when he was younger must have been beautiful. Drink and ill-health had dragged and carved his flesh, and nothing of comeliness remained to him but his eyes, which were timid and tender as those of a fawn, and his hands which had never done anything but fumble with women. He also leaned quietly on a cudgel and watched Patsy Mac Cann.
And it was to him that Patsy came. He did not look once at the woman, though all the time he never ceased shouting salutations and questions at her by her name.
He walked directly to the man, eyeing him intently.
“And how is yourself?” he roared with horrible heartiness. “It’s a while since I saw you, and it was the pitch night that time.”
“I’m all right,” said the man.
“So you are,” said Patsy, “and why wouldn’t you be? Weren’t you born in the wide lap of good luck, and didn’t you stay there? Ah, it’s the way that the men that come down little, narrow paths do have fortune, and the ones that tramp the wide roads do have nothing but their broken feet. Good luck to you, my soul, and long may you wave—Eh!”
“I didn’t say a word,” said the man.
“And there’s a stick in your hand that would crack the skull of a mountain, let alone a man.”
“It’s a good stick,” said the man.
“Would you be calling it the brother or the husband of the one that the woman has in her happy hands.”
“I would be calling it a stick only,” replied the man.
“That’s the name for it surely,” said Patsy, “for a stick hasn’t got a soul any more than a woman has, and isn’t that a great mercy and a great comfort, for heaven would be full of women and wood, and there would be no room for the men and the drink.”
The red-haired woman strode to Patsy and, putting her hand against his breast, she gave him a great push:
“If you’re talking,” said she, “or if you’re fighting, turn to myself, for the man doesn’t know you.”
Patsy did turn to her with a great laugh:
“It’s the one pleasure of my life to have your hands on me,” he gibed. “Give me another puck now, and a hard one, the way I’ll feel you well.”
The woman lifted her ash-plant threateningly and crouched towards him, but the look on his face was such that she let her hand fall again.
“You’re full of fun,” said Patsy, “and you always were, but we’re going to be the great friends from now on, yourself and myself and the man with the stick; we’ll be going by shortcuts everywhere in the world, and having a gay time.”
“We’re not going with you, Padraig,” said the woman, “and whatever road you are taking this day the man and myself will be going another road.”
“Whoo!” said Patsy, “there are roads everywhere, so you’re all right, and there are men on every one of the roads.”
XIV
While this conversation had been taking place the others stood in a grave semicircle, and listened intently to their words.
Caeltia, regarding the sky, intervened:
“The rain will be here in a minute, so we had better walk on and look for shelter.”
Mac Cann detached his heavy regard from Eileen Ni Cooley, and swept the sky and the horizon.
“That is so,” said he. “Let us go ahead now, for we’ve had our talk, and we are all satisfied.”
“There is a broken-down house stuck up a bohereen,” he continued. “It’s only a few perches up this road, for I remember passing the place the last time I was this way; that place will give us shelter while the rain spills.”
He turned his stubborn face to the woman:
“You can come with us if you like, and you can stay where you are if you like, or you can go to the devil,” and, saying so, he tramped after his daughter.
The woman had just caught sight of Art the cherub, and was regarding him with her steady eyes.
“Whoo!” said she, “I’m not the one to be frightened and I never was, so let us all go along and talk about our sins in the wet weather.”
They started anew on the road, Patsy’s company in advance, and behind marched the woman and the man and Art the cherub.
The sun had disappeared; wild clouds were piling themselves in rugged hills along the sky, and the world was growing dull and chill. Against the grey atmosphere Art’s face was in profile, an outline sharp and calm and beautiful.
Eileen Ni Cooley was regarding him curiously as they walked together, and the strange man, with a wry smile on his lips, was regarding her with a like curiosity.
She pointed towards Patsy Mac Cann, who was tramping vigorously a dozen yards ahead.
“Young boy,” said she, “where did you pick up with the man yonder, for the pair of you don’t look matched?”
Art had his hands in his pockets; he turned and looked at her tranquilly.
“Where did you pick up with that man”—he nodded towards her companion—“and where did the man pick up with you, for you don’t look matched either?”
“We’re not,” said the woman quickly; “we’re not matched a bit. That man and myself do be quarrelling all day and all night, and threatening to walk away from each other every minute of the time.”
The man stared at her.
“Is that how it is with us?” said he.
“It is,” said she to Art—“that’s the way it is with us, honey. The man and myself have no love for each other now, and we never had.”
The man halted suddenly; he changed the cudgel to his left hand and thrust out his right hand to her.
“Put your own hand there,” said he, “and shake it well, and then be going along your road.”
“What are you talking about?” said she.
He replied, frowning sternly from his wild eyes:
“I wouldn’t hold the grace of God if I saw it slipping from me, so put your hand into my hand and go along your road.”
Eileen Ni Cooley put her hand into his with some awkwardness and turned away her head.
“There it is for you,” said she.
Then the man turned about and flapped quickly along the path they had already travelled; his cudgel beat the ground with a sharp noise, and he did not once look back.
Before he had taken an hundred paces the rain came, a fine, noiseless drizzle.
“It will be heavy in a minute,” said the woman, “let us run after the cart.”
With a quick movement she tucked her shawl about her head and shoulders and started to run, and Art went after her in alternate long hops of each foot.
They had reached a narrow path running diagonally from the main road.
“Up this way,” shouted Patsy, and the company trooped after him, leaving the ass and cart to the storm.
Two minutes’ distance up the road stood a small, dismantled house. There was a black gape where the window had been, and there were holes in the walls. In these holes grass and weeds were waving, as they were along the window ledge. The roof was covered with a rusty thatch and there were red poppies growing on that.
Patsy climbed through the low window space, and the others climbed in after him.
XV
Inside the house was an earthen floor, four walls, and plenty of air. There were breezes blowing in the empty house, for from whatever direction a wind might come it found entrance there. There were stones lying everywhere on the floor; some of them had dropped from the walls, but most had been jerked through the window by passing children. There were spider’s webs in that house; the roof was covered with them, and the walls were covered with them too. It was a dusty house, and when it would be wet enough it would be a muddy house, and it was musty with disuse and desolation.
But the company did not care anything about dust or stones or spiders. They kicked the stones aside and sat on the floor in the most sheltered part of the place where there had once been a fireplace, and if a spider walked on any of them it was permitted.
Patsy produced a clay pipe and lit it, and Caeltia took a silver-mounted briar from his pocket and he lit that and smoked it.
Outside the rain suddenly began to fall with a low noise and the room grew dark. Within there was a brooding quietness, for none of the people spoke; they were all waiting for each other to speak.
Indeed, they had all been agitated when they came in, for the wrung face of Patsy and the savage eyes of Eileen Ni Cooley had whipped their blood. Tragedy had sounded her warning note on the air, and they were each waiting to see had they a part in the play.
But the sudden change of atmosphere wrought like a foreign chemical in their blood, the sound of the falling rain dulled their spirits, the must of that sleeping house went to their brains like an opiate, and the silence of the place folded them about, compelling them to a similar quietude.
We are imitative beings; we respond to the tone and colour of our environment almost against ourselves, and still have our links with the chameleon and the moth; the sunset sheds its radiant peace upon us and we are content; the silent mountaintop lays a finger on our lips and we talk in whispers; the clouds lend us of their gaiety and we rejoice. So for a few moments they sat wrestling with the dull ghosts of that broken house, the mournful phantasms that were not dead long enough to be happy, for death is sorrowful at first and for a long time, but afterwards the dead are contented and learn to shape themselves anew.
Patsy, drawing on his pipe, looked around the people.
“Eh!” he exclaimed with heavy joviality, “where has the man got to, the man with the big stick? If he’s shy let him come in, and if he’s angry let him come in too.”
Eileen Ni Cooley was sitting close beside Art. She had let her shawl droop from her head, and her hair was showing through the dusk like a torch.
“The man has gone away, Padraig,” said she; “he got tired of the company, and he’s gone travelling towards his own friends.”
Patsy regarded her with shining eyes. The must of the house was no longer in his nostrils; the silence lifted from him at a bound.
“You are telling me a fine story, Eileen,” said he, “tell me this too, did the man go away of his own will, or did you send him away?”
“It was a bit of both, Padraig.”
“The time to get good news,” said Patsy, “is when it’s raining, and that is good news, and it’s raining now.”
“News need not be good or bad, but only news,” she replied, “and we will leave it at that.”
Caeltia spoke to her:
“Do you have a good life going by yourself about the country and making acquaintances where you please?”
“I have the life I like,” she answered, “and whether it’s good or bad doesn’t matter.”
“Tell me the reason you never let himself make love to you when he wants to make it?”
“He is a domineering man,” said she, “and I am a proud woman, and we would never give in to each other. When one of us would want to do a thing the other one wouldn’t do it, and there would be no living between us. If I said black he would say white, and if he said yes I would say no, and that’s how we are.”
“He has a great love for you.”
“He has a great hate for me. He loves me the way a dog loves bones, and in a little while he’d kill me in a lonely place with his hands to see what I would look like and I dying.”
She turned her face to Mac Cann:
“That’s the kind of man you are to me, Padraig, although you’re different to other people.”
“I am not that sort of man, but it’s yourself is like that. I tell you that if I took a woman with me I’d be staunch to her the way I was with the mother of the girl there, and if you were to come with me you wouldn’t have any complaint from now on.”
“I know everything I’m talking about,” she replied sternly, “and I won’t go with you, but I’ll go with the young man here beside me.”
With the words she put her hand on Art’s arm and kept it there.
Mary Mac Cann straightened up where she was sitting and became deeply interested.
Art turned and burst into a laugh as he looked critically at Eileen.
“I will not go with you,” said he. “I don’t care for you a bit.”
She gave a hard smile and removed her hand from his arm.
“It’s all the worse for me,” said she, “and it’s small harm to you, young boy.”
“That’s a new answer for yourself,” said Patsy, grinning savagely.
“It is, and it’s a new day for me, and a poor day, for it’s the first day of my old age.”
“You’ll die in a ditch,” cried Patsy, “you’ll die in a ditch like an old mare with a broken leg.”
“I will,” she snarled, “when the time comes, but you’ll never have the killing of me, Padraig.”
Finaun was sitting beside Mary with her hand in his, but she snatched her hand away and flared so fiercely upon Eileen that the woman looked up.
“Don’t be angry with me, Mary,” said she; “I never did you any harm yet and I’ll never be able to do it now, for there are years between us, and they’re going to break my back.”
Finaun was speaking, more, it seemed, to himself than to the company. He combed his white beard with his hand as he spoke, and they all looked at him.
“He is talking in his sleep,” said Eileen pensively, “and he an old man, and a nice old man.”
“My father,” said Caeltia, in an apologetic voice; “there is no need to tell about that.”
“There is every need, my beloved,” replied Finaun with his slow smile.
“I would rather you did not,” murmured Caeltia, lifting his hand a little.
“I ask your permission, my son,” said Finaun gently.
Caeltia spread out his open palms and dropped them again.
“Whatever you wish to do is good, my father,” and, with a slight blush, he slid the pipe into his pocket.
Finaun turned to Eileen Ni Cooley:
“I will tell you a story,” said he.
“Sure,” said Eileen, “I’d love to hear you, and I could listen to a story for a day and a night.”
Mac Cann pulled solemnly at his pipe and regarded Finaun who was looking at him peacefully from a corner.
“You’re full of fun,” said he to the archangel.
XVI
Said Finaun:
“While generation succeeds generation a man has to fight the same fight. At the end he wins, and he never has to fight that battle again, and then he is ready for Paradise.
“Every man from the beginning has one enemy from whom he can never escape, and the story of his lives is the story of his battles with that enemy whom he must draw into his own being before he can himself attain to real being, for an enemy can never be crushed, but every enemy can be won.
“Long before the foundations of this world were laid, when the voice was heard and the army of the voice went through the darkness, two people came into being with the universe that was their shell. They lived through myriad existences knowing star after star grow hot and cold in the broad sky, and they hated each other through the changing of the stars and the ebbing and flooding of their lives.
“At a time this one of them would be a woman and that other would be a man, and again in due period the one that had been a woman would be a man and the other would be a woman, that their battle might be joined in the intimacy which can only come through difference and the distance that is attraction.
“No one can say which of these did most harm to the other; no one can say which was the most ruthless, the most merciless, for they were born, as all enemies are, equal in being and in power.
“Through their lives they had many names and they lived in many lands, but their names in eternity were Finaun Mac Dea and Caeltia Mac Dea, and when the time comes, their name will be Mac Dea and nothing else: then they will become one in each other, and one in Infinite Greatness, and one in the unending life of Eternity which is God: but still, in world under world, in star under flaming star, they pursue each other with a hate which is slowly changing into love.
“It was not on earth, nor in any planet, that the beginning of love came to these two, it was in the hell that they had fashioned for themselves in terror and lust and cruelty. For, as they sat among their demons, a seed germinated in the soul of one, the seed of knowledge which is the parent of love and the parent of every terrible and beautiful thing in the worlds and the heavens.
“While that one looked on his companion, writhing like himself in torment, he grew conscious, and although he looked at the other with fury it was with a new fury, for with it came contempt, and they were no longer equal in power or in hate.
“Now, for the first time, that one in whom knowledge had been born desired to escape from his companion; he wished to get away so that he might never behold that enemy again; suddenly the other appeared to him hideous as a toad that couches in slime and spits his poison at random, but he could not escape, and he could never escape.
“As that one increased in knowledge so he increased in cruelty and power, so his lust became terrible, for now there was fear in his contempt because he could never escape. Many a time they fled from one another, but always, and however they fled, it was towards each other their steps were directed. At the feast, in the camp, and in the wilderness they found themselves and undertook anew the quarrel which was their blood and their being.
“And that other in whom knowledge had not awakened—He raged like a beast; he thought in blood and fever; his brains were his teeth and the nails of his hands. Cunning came creepingly to his aid against knowledge; he lay in wait for his enemy in gloomy places; he spread snares for him in the darkness and baited traps. He feigned humility to get closer to his vengeance, but he could not combat knowledge.
“Time and again he became the slave of that other, and as slave and master their battle was savagely joined, until at last knowledge stirred also in that mind and he grew conscious.
“Then the age-long enmity drew to its change. For him there was no contempt possible, the other was older than he and wiser, for to be wise is to be old; there was no vantage for contempt, but envy sharpened his sword, it salted his anger, and they fought anew and unceasingly.
“But now their hands were not seeking each other’s throats with such frank urgency; they fought subterraneously, with smiles and polite words and decent observances, but they did not cease for an instant to strive and never did they forsake an advantage or lift up the one that had fallen.
“Again the change: and now they battled not in the name of hate but under the holy superscription of love; again and again, life after life, they harried and ruined each other; their desire for one another was a madness, and in that desire they warred more bitterly than before. They blasted each other’s lives, they dashed their honour to the mud, they slew one another. Than this none of their battles had been so terrible. Here there was no let, no respite even for an instant. They knew each other with that superficial knowledge which seems so clear although it shows no more than the scum floating upon existence; they knew the scumminess of each other and exhausted to the dregs their abundant evil until of evil they could learn no further, and their lives, alternating in a fierce energy and a miserable weariness, came towards but could not come to stagnation.
“The horizon vanished from them; there were irons on the feet of the winds; the sun peered from a hood through a mask, and life was one room wherein dull voices droned dully, wherein something was forever uttered and nothing was said, where hands were forever lifted and nothing was done, where the mind smouldered and flared to lightning and no thought came from the spark.
“They had reached an end, and it was a precipice down which they must spin giddily to the murk, or else shape wings for themselves and soar from that completion, for completion is a consciousness, and once again they were powerfully aware of themselves. They were vice-conscious, and virtue did not abide in their minds than as a dream which was an illusion and a lie.
“Then—and this too was long ago! how long! When the moon was young; when she gathered rosy clouds about her evening and sang at noon from bush and mountain-ledge; when she folded her breasts in dewy darkness and awakened with cries of joy to the sun; then she tended her flowers in the vale; she drove her kine to deep pasture: she sang to her multitudes of increase and happiness while her feet went in the furrow with the plough and her hand guided the sickle and the sheaf. Great love didst thou give when thou wast a mother, O Beautiful! who art now white as silver and hath ice upon thine ancient head.
“Again they lived and were wed.
“Which of them was which in that sad pilgrimage it is not now possible to know. Memory faints at the long tale of it, and they were so intermingled, so alike through all their difference that they were becoming one in the great memory. Again they took up the time-long burden, and again desire drew them wildly to the embrace which was much repugnance and very little love. So, behold these two, a man and a woman, walking through the pleasant light, taking each other’s hands in a kindness that had no roots, speaking words of affection that their souls groaned the lie to.
“The woman was fair—she was fair as one star that shines on the void and is not abashed before immensity; she was beautiful as a green tree by a pool that bows peacefully to the sun; she was lovely as a field of mild corn waving to the wind in one slow movement. Together they plumbed their desire and found wickedness glooming at the bottom, and they were conscious of themselves and of all evil.
“There was a demon in the pit that they had digged, and always, when they founded anew their hell, he tormented them; he was the accumulation of their evil; age after age they recreated him until he showed gigantic and terrible as a storm, and as they lusted after each other so he lusted after them.
“On a time that Misery shaped itself as a man and came privily to the woman while she walked under heavy apple boughs in a garden. Their feet went to and fro closely together in the grass and their voices communed together, until one day the woman cried bitterly that there were no wings, and with the Spectre she leaped forthright to the chasm and went down shrieking a laughter that was woe. There she found herself and her demon and was the concubine of that one; and there, in the gulf and chasm of evil, she conjured virtue to her tortured soul and stole energy from the demon.
“She sat among the rocks of her place.
“Old Misery beside her laughed his laugh, and while she looked at him her eyes went backwards in her head, and when she looked again she saw differently, for in that space knowledge had put forth a bud and a blossom and she looked through knowledge. She saw herself and the demon and the man, and she prayed to the demon. As she prayed she gathered small blue flowers that peered sparsely among the crags, and she made a chaplet of these. She wove them with tears and sighs, and when the chaplet was made she put it to the demon’s hand, praying him to bear it to the man.
“He did that for her because he loved to laugh at their trouble, and he divined laughter for his iron chaps.
“So the demon came terribly to the man as he walked under the swaying and lifting of green boughs in the long grass of an orchard, and he put the chaplet in the man’s hand, saying:
“ ‘My concubine, your beloved, sends a greeting to you with her love and this garland of blue flowers which she has woven with her two hands in hell.’
“The man, looking on these flowers, felt his heart move within him like water.
“ ‘Bring her to me,’ said he to the demon.
“ ‘I will not do so,’ replied the Misery.
“And, suddenly, the man leaped on the Spectre. He locked his arms about that cold neck, and clung furiously with his knees.
“ ‘Then I will go to her with you,’ said he.
“And together they went headlong down the pit, and as they fell they battled frightfully in the dark pitch.”
XVII
Mac Cann was asleep, but when Finaun’s voice ceased he awakened and stretched himself with a loud yawn.
“I didn’t hear a word of that story,” said he.
“I heard it,” said Eileen Ni Cooley; “it was a good story.”
“What was it about?”
“I don’t know,” she replied.
“Do you know what it was about, Mary?”
“I do not, for I was thinking about other things at the time.”
Finaun took her hand.
“There was no need for any of you to know what that story was about, excepting you only,” and he looked very kindly at Eileen Ni Cooley.
“I listened to it,” said she; “and it was a good story. I know what it was about, but I would not know how to tell what it was about.”
“It must have been the queer yarn,” said Patsy regretfully; “I wish I hadn’t gone to sleep.”
“I was awake for you,” said Caeltia.
“What’s the use of that?” said Patsy testily.
It was still raining.
The day was far advanced and evening was spinning her dull webs athwart the sky. Already in the broken house the light had diminished to a brown gloom, and their faces looked watchful and pale to each other as they crouched on the earthen floor. Silence was again seizing on them, and each person’s eyes were focusing on some object or point on the wall or the floor as their thoughts began to hold them.
Mac Cann roused himself.
“We are here for the night; that rain won’t stop as long as there’s a drop left in its can.”
Mary bestirred herself also.
“I’ll slip down to the cart and bring back whatever food is in it. I left everything covered and I don’t think they’ll be too wet.”
“Do that,” said her father.
“There’s a big bottle rolled up in a sack,” he continued; “it’s in a bucket at the front of the cart by the right shaft, and there’s a little sup of whisky in the big bottle.”
“I’ll bring that too.”
“You’re a good girl,” said he.
“What will I do with the ass this night?” said Mary.
“Hit him a kick,” said her father.
XVIII
The ass stood quietly where he had been left.
Rain was pouring from him as though he were the father of rivers and supplied the world with running water. It dashed off his flanks; it leaped down his tail; it foamed over his forehead to his nose, and hit the ground from there with a thump.
“I’m very wet,” said the ass to himself, “and I wish I wasn’t.”
His eyes were fixed on a brown stone that had a knob on its back. Every drop of rain that hit the stone jumped twice and then spattered to the ground. After a moment he spoke to himself again:
“I don’t care whether it stops raining or not, for I can’t be any wetter than I am, however it goes.”
Having said this, he dismissed the weather and settled himself to think. He hung his head slightly and fixed his eyes afar off, and he stared distantly like that without seeing anything while he gathered and revolved his thoughts.
The first thing he thought about was carrots.
He thought of their shape, their colour, and the way they looked in a bucket. Some would have the thick end stuck up, and some would have the other end stuck up, and there were always bits of clay sticking to one end or the other. Some would be lying on their sides as though they had slipped quietly to sleep, and some would be standing in a slanting way as though they were leaning their backs against a wall and couldn’t make up their minds what to do next. But, however they looked in the bucket, they all tasted alike, and they all tasted well. They are a companionable food; they make a pleasant, crunching noise when they are bitten, and so, when one is eating carrots, one can listen to the sound of one’s eating and make a story from it.
Thistles make a swishing noise when they are bitten; they have their taste.
Grass does not make any noise at all; it slips dumbly to the sepulchre, and makes no sign.
Bread makes no sound when it is eaten by an ass; it has an interesting taste, and it clings about one’s teeth for a long time.
Apples have a good smell and a joyful crunch, but the taste of sugar lasts longer in the mouth, and can be remembered for longer than anything else; it has a short, sharp crunch that is like a curse, and instantly it blesses you with the taste of it.
Hay can be eaten in great mouthfuls. It has a chip and a crack at the first bite, and then it says no more. It sticks out of one’s mouth like whiskers, and you can watch it with your eye while it moves to and fro according as your mouth moves. It is a friendly food, and very good for the hungry.
Oats are not a food; they are a great blessing; they are a debauch; they make you proud, so that you want to kick the front out of a cart, and climb a tree, and bite a cow, and chase chickens.
Mary came running and unyoked him from the cart. She embraced him on the streaming nose. “You poor thing, you!” said she, and she took a large paper bag from the cart and held it to his muzzle. There was soft sugar in the bag, and half a pound of it clove to his tongue at the first lick.
As she went back to the house with the bundle of food the ass regarded her.
“You are a good girl,” said the ass.
He shook himself and dissipated his thoughts; then he trotted briskly here and there on the path to see if there was anything worth looking for.
XIX
They shared the food: there was little of it, and some of it was wet; but they each had a piece of bread, a knuckle of cheese, and three cold potatoes.
Mary said there was something wrong with her, and she passed two of her cold potatoes to the cherub Art, who ate them easily.
“I wish you had given them to me,” said her father.
“I’ll give you one of mine,” said Eileen Ni Cooley, and she thrust one across to him.
Mac Cann pushed it entire into his mouth, and ate it as one who eats in a trance: he stared at Eileen.
“Why did you give me your potato?” said he.
Eileen blushed until not a single freckle in her face was visible.
“I don’t know,” she answered.
“You don’t seem to know anything at all this day,” he complained. “You’re full of fun,” said he.
He lit his pipe, and, after pulling for a while at it, he handed it to the woman.
“Take a draw at that pipe,” he commanded, “and let us be decent with each other.”
Eileen Ni Cooley did take a draw at the pipe, but she handed it back soon.
“I never was much at the smoking,” said she.
Caeltia had his pipe going at full blast. He was leaning against the wall with his eyes half closed, and was thinking deeply between puffs.
Finaun had a good grip on Mary’s hair, which he was methodically plaiting and unloosening again. He was sunken in reverie.
Mary was peeping from beneath her lids at Art, and was at the same time watching everybody else to see that she was not observed.
Art was whistling to himself in a low tone, and he was looking fixedly at a spider.
The spider was hauling on a loose rope of his tent, and he was very leisurely. One would have thought that he was smoking also.
“What did you have for dinner?” said Art to the spider.
“Nothing, sir, but a little, thin, wisp of a young fly,” said the spider.
He was a thickset, heavy kind of spider, and he seemed to be middle-aged, and resigned to it.
“That is all I had myself,” said Art. “Are the times bad with you now, or are they middling?”
“Not so bad, glory be to God! The flies do wander in through the holes, and when they come from the light outside to the darkness in here, sir, we catch them on the wall, and we crunch their bones.”
“Do they like that?”
“They do not, sir, but we do. The lad with the stout, hairy legs, down there beside your elbow, caught a bluebottle yesterday; there was eating on that fellow, I tell you, and he’s not all eaten yet, but that spider is always lucky, barring the day he caught the wasp.”
“That was a thing he didn’t like?” queried Art.
“Don’t mention it to him, sir, he doesn’t care to talk about it.”
“What way are you going to fasten up your rope?” said Art.
“I’ll put a spit on the end of it, and then I’ll thump it with my head to make it stick.”
“Well, good luck to yourself.”
“Good luck to your honour.”
Said Patsy to Caeltia, pointing to Finaun:
“What does he be thinking about when he gets into them fits?”
“He does be talking to the hierarchy,” replied Caeltia.
“And who are themselves?”
“They are the people in charge of this world.”
“Is it the kings and the queens and the Holy Pope?”
“No, they are different kinds of people.”
Patsy yawned.
“What does he be talking to them about?”
“Every kind of thing,” replied Caeltia, and yawned also. “They are asking him for advice now.”
“What is he saying?”
“He is talking about love,” said Caeltia.
“He is always talking about that,” said Patsy.
“And,” said Caeltia, “he is talking about knowledge.”
“It’s another word of his.”
“And he is saying that love and knowledge are the same thing.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” said Patsy.
For he was in a bad temper. Either the close confinement, or the dull weather, or the presence of Eileen Ni Cooley, or all of these, had made him savage.
He arose and began striding through the narrow room, kicking stones from one side of the place to the other and glooming fiercely at everybody. Twice he halted before Eileen Ni Cooley, staring at her, and twice, without a word said, he resumed his marching.
Suddenly he leaned his back against the wall facing her, and shouted:
“Well, Eileen a grah, the man went away from you, the man with the big stick and the lengthy feet. Ah! that’s a man you’d be crying out for and you all by yourself in the night.”
“He was a good man,” said Eileen; “there was no harm in that man, Padraig.”
“Maybe he used to be putting his two arms around you now and then beside a hedge and giving you long kisses on the mouth?”
“He used to be doing that.”
“Aye did he, indeed, and he wasn’t the first man to do that, Eileen.”
“Maybe you’re right, Padraig.”
“Nor the twenty-first.”
“You’ve got me here in the house, Padraig, and the people around us are your own friends.”
Caeltia also had arisen to his feet and was staring morosely at Eileen. Suddenly he leaped to her, wrenched the shawl from her head with a wide gesture, and gripped her throat between his hands; as her head touched the ground she gasped, and then, and just as suddenly, he released her. He stood up, looking wildly at Patsy, who stared back at him grinning like a madman, then he stumbled across to Finaun and took his hands between his own.
“You must not hurt me, my dear,” said Finaun, smiling gravely at him.
Mary had leaped to Art, whose arm she took, and they backed to the end of the room.
Eileen stood up; she arranged her dress and wrapped the shawl about her head again; she gazed fearlessly at Mac Cann.
“The house is full of your friends, Padraig, and there’s nobody here with me at all; there’s no man could want better than that for himself.”
Patsy’s voice was hoarse.
“You’re looking for fight?”
“I’m looking for whatever is coming,” she replied steadily.
“I’m coming, then,” he roared, and he strode to her. He lifted his hands above his head, and brought them down so heavily on her shoulders that she staggered.
“Here I am,” said he, staring into her face.
She closed her eyes.
“I knew it wasn’t love you wanted, Padraig; it was murder you wanted, and you have your wish.”
She was swaying under his weight as she spoke; her knees were giving beneath her.
“Eileen,” said Patsy, in a small voice, “I’m going to tumble; I can’t hold myself up, Eileen; my knees are giving way under me, and I’ve only got my arms round your neck.”
She opened her eyes and saw him sagging against her, with his eyes half closed and his face gone white.
“Sure, Padraig!” said she.
She flung her arms about his body and lifted him, but the weight was too much, and he went down.
She crouched by him on the floor, hugging his head against her breast.
“Sure, listen to me, Padraig; I never did like anyone in the world but yourself; there wasn’t a man of them all was more to me than a blast of wind; you were the one I liked always. Listen to me now, Padraig. Don’t I be wanting you day and night, and saying prayers to you in the darkness and crying out in the dawn; my heart is sore for you, so it is: there’s a twist in us, O my dear. Don’t you be minding the men; whatever they did it was nothing, it was nothing more than beasts playing in a field and not caring anything. We are beside one another for a minute now. When I would put my hand on my breast in the middle of a laugh it was you I was touching, and I do never stop thinking of you in any place under the sky.”
They were kissing each other like lost souls; they babbled and clung to each other; they thrust one another’s head back to stare at it, and pursued the head with their violent lips.
It was a time before they all got to sleep that night, but they did sleep at the end of it.
They stretched in the darkness with their eyes closed, and the night folded them around, separating each one from his fellow, and putting on each the enchantment of silence and blindness. They were no longer together although they were lying but a few inches apart; there was only the darkness that had no inches to it; the darkness that has no beginning and no end; that appears and disappears, calling hush as it comes and goes, and holding peace and terror in either invisible hand; there was no silver moon in the sky and no sparkle of white stars; there was only darkness and silence and the steady hushing of the rain.
When he awoke in the morning Mac Cann rolled urgently on his elbow and stared to where Eileen Ni Cooley had stretched herself for sleep—but she was not there, she was not anywhere.
He shouted, and the company sprang to their feet.
“She got out through the window,” he roared.
“The devil damn the soul of her,” said he.