第75章

Well then, let her go and be damned to her! She could love some clean athlete who washed himself every morning to the waist and had black hair on his chest. Let her.

Cranly had taken another dried fig from the supply in his pocket and was eating it slowly and noisily. Temple sat on the pediment of a pillar, leaning back, his cap pulled down on his sleepy eyes. A squat young man came out of the porch, a leather portfolio tucked under his armpit. He marched towards the group, striking the flags with the heels of his boots and with the ferrule of his heavy umbrella. Then, raising the umbrella in salute, he said to all:

-- Good evening, sirs.

He struck the flags again and tittered while his head trembled with a slight nervous movement. The tall consumptive student and Dixon and O'Keeffe were speaking in Irish and did not answer him. Then, turning to Cranly, he said:

-- Good evening, particularly to you.

He moved the umbrella in indication and tittered again. Cranly, who was still chewing the fig, answered with loud movements of his jaws.

-- Good? Yes. It is a good evening.

The squat student looked at him seriously and shook his umbrella gently and reprovingly.

-- I can see, he said, that you are about to make obvious remarks.

-- Um, Cranly answered, holding out what remained of the half chewed fig and jerking it towards the squat student's mouth in sign that he should eat.

The squat student did not eat it but, indulging his special humour, said gravely, still tittering and prodding his phrase with his umbrella:

-- Do you intend that ?

He broke off, pointed bluntly to the munched pulp of the fig, and said loudly:

-- I allude to that.

Um, Cranly said as before.

-- Do you intend that now, the squat student said, as ipso facto or, let us say, as so to speak?

Dixon turned aside from his group, saying:

-- Goggins was waiting for you, Glynn. He has gone round to the Adelphi to look for you and Moynihan. What have you there? he asked, tapping the portfolio under Glynn's arm.

-- Examination papers, Glynn answered. I give them monthly examinations to see that they are profiting by my tuition.

He also tapped the portfolio and coughed gently and smiled.

-- Tuition! said Cranly rudely. I suppose you mean the barefooted children that are taught by a bloody ape like you. God help them!

He bit off the rest of the fig and flung away the butt.

-- I suffer little children to come unto me, Glynn said amiably.

-- A bloody ape, Cranly repeated with emphasis, and a blasphemous bloody ape!

Temple stood up and, pushing past Cranly, addressed Glynn:

-- That phrase you said now, he said, is from the new testament about suffer the children to come to me.

-- Go to sleep again, Temple, said O'Keeffe.

-- Very well, then, Temple continued, still addressing Glynn, and if Jesus suffered the children to come why does the church send them all to hell if they die unbaptized? Why is that?

-- Were you baptized yourself, Temple? the consumptive student asked.

-- But why are they sent to hell if Jesus said they were all to come?

Temple said, his eyes searching Glynn's eyes.

Glynn coughed and said gently, holding back with difficulty the nervous titter in his voice and moving his umbrella at every word:

-- And, as you remark, if it is thus, I ask emphatically whence comes this thusness.

-- Because the church is cruel like all old sinners, Temple said.

-- Are you quite orthodox on that point, Temple? Dixon said suavely.

-- Saint Augustine says that about unbaptized children going to hell, Temple answered, because he was a cruel old sinner too.

-- I bow to you, Dixon said, but I had the impression that limbo existed for such cases.

-- Don't argue with him, Dixon, Cranly said brutally. Don't talk to him or look at him. Lead him home with a sugan the way you'd lead a bleating goat.

-- Limbo! Temple cried. That's a fine invention too. Like hell.

-- But with the unpleasantness left out, Dixon said. He turned smiling to the others and said:

-- I think I am voicing the opinions of all present in saying so much.

-You are, Glynn said in a firm tone. On that point Ireland is united.

He struck the ferrule of his umbrella on the stone floor of the colonnade.

-- Hell, Temple said. I can respect that invention of the grey spouse of Satan. Hell is Roman, like the walls of the Romans, strong and ugly.

But what is limbo?

-- Put him back into the perambulator, Cranly, O'Keeffe called out.

Cranly made a swift step towards Temple, halted, stamping his foot, crying as if to a fowl:

-- Hoosh!

Temple moved away nimbly.

-- Do you know what limbo is? he cried. Do you know what we call a notion like that in Roscommon?

-- Hoosh! Blast you! Cranly cried, clapping his hands.

-- Neither my arse nor my elbow! Temple cried out scornfully. And that's what I call limbo.

-- Give us that stick here, Cranly said.

He snatched the ashplant roughly from Stephen's hand and sprang down the steps: but Temple, hearing him move in pursuit, fled through the dusk like a wild creature, nimble and fleet-footed. Cranly's heavy boots were heard loudly charging across the quadrangle and then returning heavily, foiled and spurning the gravel at each step.

His step was angry and with an angry abrupt gesture he thrust the stick back into Stephen's hand. Stephen felt that his anger had another cause but, feigning patience, touched his arm slightly and said quietly:

-- Cranly, I told you I wanted to speak to you. Come away. Cranly looked at him for a few moments and asked:

-- Now?

-- Yes, now, Stephen said. We can't speak here. Come away.

They crossed the quadrangle together without speaking. The bird call from Sigfried whistled softly followed them from the steps of the porch. Cranly turned, and Dixon, who had whistled, called out:

-- Where are you fellows off to? What about that game, Cranly?