Dubliners
distillers and brewers. He had opened a small shop on Glasnevin Road
where, he flattered himself, his manners would ingratiate him with the
housewives of the district. He bore himself with a certain grace,
complimented little children and spoke with a neat enunciation. He was
not without culture.
Mr Fogarty brought a gift with him, a half-pint of special whisky. He
inquired politely for Mr Kernan, placed his gift on the table and sat
down with the company on equal terms. Mr Kernan appreciated the gift
all the more since he was aware that there was a small account for
groceries unsettled between him and Mr Fogarty. He said:
“I wouldn’t doubt you, old man. Open that, Jack, will you?”
Mr Power again officiated. Glasses were rinsed and five small measures
of whisky were poured out. This new influence enlivened the
conversation. Mr Fogarty, sitting on a small area of the chair, was
specially interested.
“Pope Leo XIII.,” said Mr Cunningham, “was one of the lights of the
age. His great idea, you know, was the union of the Latin and Greek
Churches. That was the aim of his life.”
“I often heard he was one of the most intellectual men in Europe,” said
Mr Power. “I mean, apart from his being Pope.”
“So he was,” said Mr Cunningham, “if not _the_ most so. His motto, you
know, as Pope, was _Lux upon Lux—Light upon Light_.”
“No, no,” said Mr Fogarty eagerly. “I think you’re wrong there. It was
_Lux in Tenebris_, I think—_Light in Darkness_.”
“O yes,” said Mr M’Coy, “_Tenebrae_.”
“Allow me,” said Mr Cunningham positively, “it was _Lux upon Lux_. And
Pius IX. his predecessor’s motto was _Crux upon Crux_—that is, _Cross
upon Cross_—to show the difference between their two pontificates.”
The inference was allowed. Mr Cunningham continued.
“Pope Leo, you know, was a great scholar and a poet.”
“He had a strong face,” said Mr Kernan.
“Yes,” said Mr Cunningham. “He wrote Latin poetry.”
“Is that so?” said Mr Fogarty.
Mr M’Coy tasted his whisky contentedly and shook his head with a double
intention, saying:
“That’s no joke, I can tell you.”
“We didn’t learn that, Tom,” said Mr Power, following Mr M’Coy’s
example, “when we went to the penny-a-week school.”
“There was many a good man went to the penny-a-week school with a sod
of turf under his oxter,” said Mr Kernan sententiously. “The old system
was the best: plain honest education. None of your modern trumpery....”
“Quite right,” said Mr Power.
“No superfluities,” said Mr Fogarty.
He enunciated the word and then drank gravely.
“I remember reading,” said Mr Cunningham, “that one of Pope Leo’s poems
was on the invention of the photograph—in Latin, of course.”
“On the photograph!” exclaimed Mr Kernan.
“Yes,” said Mr Cunningham.
He also drank from his glass.
“Well, you know,” said Mr M’Coy, “isn’t the photograph wonderful when
you come to think of it?”
“O, of course,” said Mr Power, “great minds can see things.”
“As the poet says: _Great minds are very near to madness_,” said Mr
Fogarty.
Mr Kernan seemed to be troubled in mind. He made an effort to recall
the Protestant theology on some thorny points and in the end addressed
Mr Cunningham.
“Tell me, Martin,” he said. “Weren’t some of the popes—of course, not
our present man, or his predecessor, but some of the old popes—not
exactly ... you know ... up to the knocker?”
There was a silence. Mr Cunningham said:
“O, of course, there were some bad lots.... But the astonishing thing
is this. Not one of them, not the biggest drunkard, not the most ...
out-and-out ruffian, not one of them ever preached _ex cathedra_ a word
of false doctrine. Now isn’t that an astonishing thing?”
“That is,” said Mr Kernan.
“Yes, because when the Pope speaks _ex cathedra_,” Mr Fogarty
explained, “he is infallible.”
“Yes,” said Mr Cunningham.
“O, I know about the infallibility of the Pope. I remember I was
younger then.... Or was it that——?”
Mr Fogarty interrupted. He took up the bottle and helped the others to
a little more. Mr M’Coy, seeing that there was not enough to go round,
pleaded that he had not finished his first measure. The others accepted
under protest. The light music of whisky falling into glasses made an
agreeable interlude.
“What’s that you were saying, Tom?” asked Mr M’Coy.
“Papal infallibility,” said Mr Cunningham, “that was the greatest scene
in the whole history of the Church.”
“How was that, Martin?” asked Mr Power.
Mr Cunningham held up two thick fingers.
“In the sacred college, you know, of cardinals and archbishops and
bishops there were two men who held out against it while the others
were all for it. The whole conclave except these two was unanimous. No!
They wouldn’t have it!”
“Ha!” said Mr M’Coy.
“And they were a German cardinal by the name of Dolling ... or Dowling
... or——”
“Dowling was no German, and that’s a sure five,” said Mr Power,
laughing.
“Well, this great German cardinal, whatever his name was, was one; and
the other was John MacHale.”
“What?” cried Mr Kernan. “Is it John of Tuam?”
“Are you sure of that now?” asked Mr Fogarty dubiously. “I thought it
was some Italian or American.”
“John of Tuam,” repeated Mr Cunningham, “was the man.”
He drank and the other gentlemen followed his lead. Then he resumed:
“There they were at it, all the cardinals and bishops and archbishops
from all the ends of the earth and these two fighting dog and devil
until at last the Pope himself stood up and declared infallibility a
dogma of the Church _ex cathedra_. On the very moment John MacHale, who
had been arguing and arguing against it, stood up and shouted out with
the voice of a lion: ‘_Credo!_’”
“_I believe!_” said Mr Fogarty.
“_Credo!_” said Mr Cunningham. “That showed the faith he had. He
submitted the moment the Pope spoke.”
“And what about Dowling?” asked Mr M’Coy.
“The German cardinal wouldn’t submit. He left the church.”
Mr Cunningham’s words had built up the vast image of the church in the
minds of his hearers. His deep raucous voice had thrilled them as it
uttered the word of belief and submission. When Mrs Kernan came into
the room drying her hands she came into a solemn company. She did not
disturb the silence, but leaned over the rail at the foot of the bed.
“I once saw John MacHale,” said Mr Kernan, “and I’ll never forget it as
long as I live.”
He turned towards his wife to be confirmed.
“I often told you that?”
Mrs Kernan nodded.
“It was at the unveiling of Sir John Gray’s statue. Edmund Dwyer Gray
was speaking, blathering away, and here was this old fellow,
crabbed-looking old chap, looking at him from under his bushy
eyebrows.”
Mr Kernan knitted his brows and, lowering his head like an angry bull,
glared at his wife.
“God!” he exclaimed, resuming his natural face, “I never saw such an
eye in a man’s head. It was as much as to say: _I have you properly
taped, my lad_. He had an eye like a hawk.”
“None of the Grays was any good,” said Mr Power.
There was a pause again. Mr Power turned to Mrs Kernan and said with
abrupt joviality:
“Well, Mrs Kernan, we’re going to make your man here a good holy pious
and God-fearing Roman Catholic.”
He swept his arm round the company inclusively.
“We’re all going to make a retreat together and confess our sins—and
God knows we want it badly.”
“I don’t mind,” said Mr Kernan, smiling a little nervously.
Mrs Kernan thought it would be wiser to conceal her satisfaction. So
she said:
“I pity the poor priest that has to listen to your tale.”
Mr Kernan’s expression changed.
“If he doesn’t like it,” he said bluntly, “he can ... do the other
thing. I’ll just tell him my little tale of woe. I’m not such a bad
fellow——”
Mr Cunningham intervened promptly.
“We’ll all renounce the devil,” he said, “together, not forgetting his
works and pomps.”
“Get behind me, Satan!” said Mr Fogarty, laughing and looking at the
others.
Mr Power said nothing. He felt completely out-generalled. But a pleased
expression flickered across his face.
“All we have to do,” said Mr Cunningham, “is to stand up with lighted
candles in our hands and renew our baptismal vows.”
“O, don’t forget the candle, Tom,” said Mr M’Coy, “whatever you do.”
“What?” said Mr Kernan. “Must I have a candle?”
“O yes,” said Mr Cunningham.
“No, damn it all,” said Mr Kernan sensibly, “I draw the line there.
I’ll do the job right enough. I’ll do the retreat business and
confession, and ... all that business. But ... no candles! No, damn it
all, I bar the candles!”
He shook his head with farcical gravity.
“Listen to that!” said his wife.
“I bar the candles,” said Mr Kernan, conscious of having created an
effect on his audience and continuing to shake his head to and fro. “I
bar the magic-lantern business.”
Everyone laughed heartily.
“There’s a nice Catholic for you!” said his wife.
“No candles!” repeated Mr Kernan obdurately. “That’s off!”
The transept of the Jesuit Church in Gardiner Street was almost full;
and still at every moment gentlemen entered from the side door and,
directed by the lay-brother, walked on tiptoe along the aisles until
they found seating accommodation. The gentlemen were all well dressed
and orderly. The light of the lamps of the church fell upon an assembly
of black clothes and white collars, relieved here and there by tweeds,
on dark mottled pillars of green marble and on lugubrious canvases. The
gentlemen sat in the benches, having hitched their trousers slightly
above their knees and laid their hats in security. They sat well back
and gazed formally at the distant speck of red light which was
suspended before the high altar.
In one of the benches near the pulpit sat Mr Cunningham and Mr Kernan.
In the bench behind sat Mr M’Coy alone: and in the bench behind him sat
Mr Power and Mr Fogarty. Mr M’Coy had tried unsuccessfully to find a
place in the bench with the others and, when the party had settled down
in the form of a quincunx, he had tried unsuccessfully to make comic
remarks. As these had not been well received he had desisted. Even he
was sensible of the decorous atmosphere and even he began to respond to
the religious stimulus. In a whisper Mr Cunningham drew Mr Kernan’s
attention to Mr Harford, the moneylender, who sat some distance off,
and to Mr Fanning, the registration agent and mayor maker of the city,
who was sitting immediately under the pulpit beside one of the newly
elected councillors of the ward. To the right sat old Michael Grimes,
the owner of three pawnbroker’s shops, and Dan Hogan’s nephew, who was
up for the job in the Town Clerk’s office. Farther in front sat Mr
Hendrick, the chief reporter of _The Freeman’s Journal_, and poor
O’Carroll, an old friend of Mr Kernan’s, who had been at one time a
considerable commercial figure. Gradually, as he recognised familiar
faces, Mr Kernan began to feel more at home. His hat, which had been
rehabilitated by his wife, rested upon his knees. Once or twice he
pulled down his cuffs with one hand while he held the brim of his hat
lightly, but firmly, with the other hand.
A powerful-looking figure, the upper part of which was draped with a
white surplice, was observed to be struggling up into the pulpit.
Simultaneously the congregation unsettled, produced handkerchiefs and
knelt upon them with care. Mr Kernan followed the general example. The
priest’s figure now stood upright in the pulpit, two-thirds of its
bulk, crowned by a massive red face, appearing above the balustrade.
Father Purdon knelt down, turned towards the red speck of light and,
covering his face with his hands, prayed. After an interval, he
uncovered his face and rose. The congregation rose also and settled
again on its benches. Mr Kernan restored his hat to its original