The Poor Mouth (3 page)

–I was only joking, for goodness’ sake.

–
Joking?
I hope you’ll keep on joking like that. I’ll see Father Fahrt about this.

–To bless you before you risk your life?

–Balls! I’ll need an organizer, a manager. Father Fahrt knows a lot of those young teachers and I’ll get him to put me on to one of them. They’re a sporty crowd. Do you remember Frank Corkey, N.T.? He was in this house once, a spoilt Jesuit. That man would blow up the walls of Jerusalem for two quid. He’d be the very man.

–And get sacked from his school for helping a young madman to kill himself?

–I’ll get him. You wait and see.

That ended that day’s surprising disputation. I was secretly amused at the idea of the brother getting on to Father Fahrt about organizing a walk across the Liffey on a tight-wire, with Mr Collopy sprawled in his cane armchair a few feet away listening to the appeal. I had heard of earthquakes and the devastation attending them. Here surely would be a terrible upheaval.

But once more I reckoned without the brother. Without saying a word he slipped off one day up to 35, Lower Leeson Street and saw Father Fahrt privately. He said so when he returned that evening, looking slightly daunted.

–The holy friar, he said, won’t hear of it. Asked did I think I was a cornerboy or had I no respect for my family. Public pranks is what he called walking the high wire. Threatened to tell ould Collopy if I didn’t put the idea out of my head. Asked me to promise. I promised, of course. But I’ll find Corkey on my own and we’ll make a damn fine day of it, believe you me. Had I no respect for my family, ah? What family?

–No Jesuit likes being mistaken for a Barnum, I pointed out.

Rather bitterly he said: You’ll hear more about this.

I felt sure I would.

I
T
had become evident to me that one of the brother’s schemes was in operation, for a considerable stream of letters addressed to him began to arrive at the house, and he had become more secretive than ever. I refused to give him the satisfaction of asking him what he had been up to. I will tell all about that later but just now I wish to give an account of the sort of evening we had in our kitchen, not once but very many times, and the type of talk that went on. As usual, the subject under discussion was never named.

The brother and myself were at the table, struggling through that wretched homework, cursing Wordsworth and Euclid and Christian Doctrine and all similar scourges of youth. Mr Collopy was slumped in his cane armchair, the steel-rimmed glasses far down his nose. In an easy chair opposite was Father Kurt Fahrt who was a very tall man, thin, ascetic, grey-haired, blue about the jaws with a neck so slender that there would be room, so to speak, for two of them inside his priestly collar. On the edge of the range, handy to the reach of those philosophers, was a glass. On the floor beside Mr Collopy’s chair was what was known as ‘the crock’. It was in fact a squat earthenware container, having an ear on each side, in which the Kilbeggan Distillery marketed its wares. The Irish words for whiskey—
UisgeBeatha
—were burnt into its face. This vessel was, of course, opaque and therefore mysterious; one could not tell how empty or full it was, nor how much Mr Collopy had been drinking. The door of Mrs Crotty’s bedroom was, as usual, very slightly ajar.

–What the devil ails you, Father, Mr Collopy asked almost irritably.

–Oh it’s nothing much, Collopy, Father Fahrt said.

–But heavens above, this scrabbling and scratching—

–Forgive me. I have a touch of psoriasis about the back and chest.

–The sore
what?

–Psoriasis. A little skin ailment.

–Lord save us, I thought you said you had sore eyes. Is there any question of scabs or that class of thing?

–Oh not at all. I am taking treatment. An ointment containing stuff known as chrysarobin.

–Well, this sore-whatever-it-is causes itching?

Father Fahrt laughed softly.

–Sometimes it feels more like etching, he smiled.

–The man for that is sulphur. Sulphur is one of the great sovereign remedies of the world. Bedamn but a friend of mine uses a lot of sulphur even in his garden.

Here Father Fahrt unconsciously scratched himself.

–Let us forget about such trivial things, he said, and thank God it is not something serious. So you’re getting worked up again about your plan?

–It’s a shame, Father, Mr Collopy said warmly. It’s a bloody shame and that’s what it is.

–Well, Collopy, what are we for in this world? We are here to suffer. We must sanctify ourselves. That’s what suffering is for.

–Do you know, Father, Mr Collopy said testily, I am getting a bit sick in my intesteens at all this talk of yours about suffering. You seem to be very fond of suffering when other people do it. What would you do if you had the same situation in your own house?

–In my own house I would do what my Superior instructs me to do. My Order is really an army. We are under orders.

–Give me your glass, Your Holiness.

–Not much now, Collopy.

There was a small silence here that seemed portentous, though I did not raise my head to look.

–Father, said Mr Collopy at last, you would go off your bloody head if you had the same situation in your own house. You would make a show of yourself. You would tell Father Superior to go to hell, lep out the front door and bugger off down to Stephen’s Green. Oh, I’m up to ye saints. Well up to ye. Do you not think that women have enough suffering, as you call it, bringing babbies into the world? And why do they do that? Is it because they’re mad to sanctify themselves? Well faith no! It’s because the husband is one great torch ablaze with the fires of lust!

–Collopy, please, Father Fahrt said in mild remonstrance. That attitude is quite wrong. Procreation is the
right
of a married man. Indeed it is his duty for the greater glory of God. It is a duty enjoined by the sacrament of marriage.

–Oh is that so, Mr Collopy said loudly, is that so indeed. To bring unfortunate new bosthoons into this vale of tears for more of this suffering of yours, ah? Another woman maybe. Sweet Lord!

–Now, now, Collopy.

–Tell me this, Father. Would you say it’s
natural
for a woman to have children?

–Provided she is married in a union blessed by the Church—yes. Most natural and most desirable. It is a holy thing to raise children to the greater glory of God. Your catechism will tell you that. The celibate and priestly state is the holiest of all but the station of the married man is not ignoble. And of course the modest married woman is the handmaid of the Lord.

–Very good, Mr Collopy said warmly. Then tell me this. Is the other business natural?

–Certainly. Our bodies are sacred temples. It is a function.

–Very well. What name have you for the dirty ignoramuses who more or less ban that function?

–It is, ah, thoughtlessness, Father Fahrt said in his mildest voice. Perhaps if a strong hint were dropped …

–
If a hint were dropped
, Mr Collopy exploded.
If a hint were dropped!
Well the dear knows I think you are trying to destroy my temper, Father, and put me out of my wits and make an unfortunate shaughraun out of me. If a hint were dropped, my hat and parsley! Right well you know that I have the trotters wore off me going up the stairs of that filthy Corporation begging them, telling them, ordering them to do something. I have shown you copies of the letters I have sent to that booby the Lord Mayor. That’s one man that knows all about chains, anyhow. What result have I got? Nothing at all but abuse from cornerboys and jacks in office.

–Has it ever entered your head, Collopy, that perhaps you are not the most tactful of men?

–Tact, is it? Is that the latest? Give me your glass.

Another pause for decantation and recollection.

–What I would like to do, Mr Collopy said sententiously, is write and publish a long storybook about your theories in favour of suffering. Damn the thing you know about suffering yourself. Only people of no experience have theories. Of course you are only spewing out what you were taught in the holy schools. ‘By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou mourn.’ Oh the grand old Catholic Church has always had great praise for sufferers.

–That phrase you quoted was inaccurate, Collopy.

–Well, am I supposed to be a deacon or a Bible scholar or what? You won’t find Quakers or swaddlers coming out with any of this guff about suffering. They treat their employees right, they have proper accommodation for them, they know how to make plenty of money honestly and they are as holy—every man-jack of them—as any blooming Jesuit or the Pope of Rome himself.

–Let us leave the Holy Father out of this dispute, whatever about humble members of my Society, Father Fahrt said piously.

Suddenly he scratched himself earnestly.

–Did I hear you right when you said ‘humble’, Father? An humble Jesuit would be like a dog without a tail or a woman without a knickers on her. Did you ever hear tell of the Spanish Inquisition?

–I did of course, Father Fahrt said unperturbed. The faith was in danger in Spain. If a bad wind will blow out your candle, you will protect your candle with the shade of your hand. Or perhaps some sort of cardboard shield.

–Cardboard shield? Mr Collopy echoed scornfully. Well, damn the cardboard shields the Dominicans used in Spain, those blood-stained bowsies.

–My own Order, Father Fahrt said modestly, was under the thumb of the Suprema in Madrid and yet I make no complaint.

–Well, isn’t that very good of you, Father? Your own Order was kicked about by those barbarian hooligans in the cowls and
you
make no complaint, sitting there with a glass of malt in your hand. Faith but you’re the modest, dacent man, God bless you.

–I merely meant, Collopy, that in a scheme to eradicate serious evil, sometimes we must all suffer.

–And what’s wrong with that, Father? Isn’t suffering grand?

–It is not pleasant but it is salutary.

–You have a smart answer for everything. ‘Do you believe in the true faith?’ ‘No.’ ‘Very well. Eight hundred lashes’. If that’s the Catholic Church for you, is it any wonder there was a Reformation? Three cheers for Martin Luther!

Father Fahrt was shocked.

–Collopy, please remember that you belong to the true fold yourself. That talk is scandalous.

–True fold? Do I? And doesn’t the Lord Mayor and the other gougers in the City Hall? And look at the way they’re behaving—
killing
unfortunate women?

–Never mind that subject.

–Till the day I die I’ll mind that subject, Mr Collopy retorted excitedly. Eight hundred lashes for telling the truth according to your conscience? What am I talking about—the holy friars in Spain propagated the true faith by driving red hot nails into the backs of unfortunate Jewmen.

–Nonsense.

–And scalding their testicles with boiling water.

–You exaggerate, Collopy.

–And ramming barbed wire or something of the kind up where-you-know. And all
A.M.D.G.,
to use your own motto, Father.

–For heaven’s sake Collopy have sense, Father Fahrt said calmly and sadly. I do not know where you have read those lurid and silly things.

–Father Fahrt, Mr Collopy said earnestly, you don’t like the Reformation. Maybe I’m not too fond of it myself, either. But it was our own crowd, those ruffians in Spain and all, who provoked it. They called decent men heretics and the remedy was to put a match to them. To say nothing of a lot of crooked Popes with their armies and their papal states, putting duchesses and nuns up the pole and having all Italy littered with their bastards, and up to nothing but backstairs work and corruption at the courts of God knows how many decent foreign kings. Isn’t that a fact?

–It is not a fact, Collopy. The Reformation was a doctrinal revolt, inspired I have no doubt by Satan. It had nothing to do with human temporal weaknesses in the Papacy or elsewhere.

–Well now, do you tell me, Mr Collopy sneered.

–Yes, I do. I hate no man, not even Luther. Indeed, by his translation of the Bible, he can take credit for having in effect invented my own language,
die schöne deutsche Sprache
. But he was possessed by the Devil. He was a heretic. Heresiarch would be a better word. And when he died in I545——

–Excuse me, Father Fahrt.

I was profoundly startled to hear the brother interjecting. He had been undisguisedly following this heated colloquy but it seemed to me unthinkable and provocative that he should intervene. Clearly Mr Collopy and Father Fahrt were equally surprised as they swung round their necks to look at him.

–Yes, my lad? Father Fahrt said.

–Luther did not die in 1545, said the brother. It was 1546.

–Well, well, now, maybe you are right, Father Fahrt said good-humouredly. Maybe you are right. Alas, my old head was never very good for figures. Well, Collopy, I see you have a theologian in the family.

–An historian, the brother said.

–And I’ll correct that correction, Mr Collopy said acidly. A bloody young gurrier that won’t apply himself with application to his studies, that’s what we have. Give me that glass of yours, Father.

There was another intermission while the brother with great elaboration of manner reapplied himself to his studies. After taking a long draught from his new drink, Mr Collopy sank farther back in his shapeless chair and sighed very deeply.

–I’m afraid, Father Fahrt, he said at last, we are only wasting time and just annoying each other with these arguments. These things have been argued out years ago. You’d imagine we here were like Our Lord disputing with the doctors in the temple. The real question is this: What action can we take?
What can be done?

–Well, that’s certainly a more reasonable approach, Collopy. Much more reasonable. And much more practical.

–
Quod faciamemus,
ah?

–Have you thought about a public meeting at all?

–By the jappers I have, many a time, Mr Collopy said with some sadness. I gave it my best considerations. It would be no good. And do you know why? Only men go to public meetings. No lady would be found dead at a public meeting. You know that? You would find only prostitutes hanging around. And men? What good are
they?
Sure they don’t give a goddam if women were dying like flies in the street. They have only two uses for women, Father—either go to bed with them or else thrash the life out of them. I was half thinking of trying to enlist the support of this new Gaelic League but I’m afraid they’re nothing only a crowd of thooleramawns. They wouldn’t understand this crisis in our national life. They would think I was a dirty old man and send for the D.M.P.