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The Untilled Field

G >> George Moore >> The Untilled Field




"I know them," said Rodney.

"And the room--"

"I know it," said Rodney.

"The horse-hair chairs full of holes."

"I know the rails," said Rodney, "they catch you about here,
across the thighs."

"The table in the middle of the room; the smell of the petroleum
lamp and the great chair--"

"I know," said Rodney, "the Buddah seated! An enormous head! The
smoking-cap and the tassel hanging out of it!"

"The great cheeks hanging and the little eyes, intelligent eyes,
too, under the eyebrows, the only animation in his face. He must
be sixteen stone!"

"He is eighteen."

"The long clay pipe and the fat hands with the nails bitten."

"I see you have been observing him," said Rodney.

"The brown waistcoat with the white bone buttons, curving over the
belly, and the belly shelving down into the short fat thighs, and
the great feet wrapped in woollen slippers!"

"He suffers terribly, and hardly dares to stir out of that chair
on account of the stone in the bladder, which he won't have
removed."

"How characteristic the room seemed to me," said Harding. "The
piano against the wall near the window."

"I know," said Rodney. "Lucy used to sit there playing. She plays
beautifully."

"Yes, she plays very well."

"Go on," said Rodney, "what happened?"

"You know the mother, the thin woman with a pretty figure and the
faded hair and the features like Lucy's,"

"Yes."

"I had just begun my little explanation about the top of Berkeley
Square, how a girl came up to me and asked me the way to the
Gaiety Theatre, when this little woman rushed forward and, taking
hold of both my hands, said: 'We are so much obliged to you; and
we do not know how much to thank you.' A chair was pushed
forward--"

"Which chair?" said Rodney. "I know them all. Was it the one with
the hole in the middle, or was the hole in the side?"

"'If it hadn't been for you,' said Mrs. Delaney, 'I don't know
what would have happened.' 'We've much to thank you for,' said the
big man, and he begged to be excused for not getting up. His wife
interrupted him in an explanation regarding his illness, and
gradually I began to see that, from their point of view, I was
Lucy's saviour, a white Knight, a modern Sir Galahad. They hoped I
had suffered no inconvenience when the detectives called at the
Club. They had communicated with Scotland Yard, not because they
suspected me of wishing to abduct their daughter, but because they
wished to recover their daughter, and it was important that she
should be recovered at once, for she was engaged to be married to
a mathematical instrument maker who was on his way from Chicago;
he was expected in a few days; he was at that moment on the
Atlantic, and if it had not been for my admirable conduct, Mrs.
Delaney did not know what story she could have told Mr.
Wainscott."

"So Lucy is going to marry a mathematical instrument maker in
Chicago?"

"Yes," said Harding, "and she is probably married to him by now.
It went to my heart to tell her that her mother was coming over to
fetch her, and that the mathematical instrument maker would arrive
early next week. But I had to tell her these unpleasant things,
for I could not take her away in Owen Asher's yacht, her age and
the circumstances forbade an agreeable episode among the Greek
Islands. She is charming.... Poor Lucy! She slipped down on the
floor very prettily and her hair fell on my knees. 'It isn't fair,
you're going away on a yacht, and I am going to Chicago.' And when
I lifted her up she sat upon my knees and wept. 'Why don't you
take me away?' she said. 'My dear Lucy, I'm forty and you're
seventeen.' Her eyes grew enigmatic. 'I shall never live with
him,' she said."

"Did you kiss her?"

"We spent the evening together and I was sorry for her."

"But you don't know for certain that she married Wainscott."

"Yes. Wainscott wrote me a letter," and after some searching in
his pockets Harding found the letter.

"'DEAR SIR,--Mr. and Mrs. Delaney have told me of your kindness to
Lucy, and Lucy has told me of the trouble you took trying to get
her an engagement, and I write to thank you. Lucy did not know at
the time that I had become a partner in the firm of Sheldon &
Flint, and she thought that she might go on the stage and make
money by singing, for she has a pretty voice, to help me to buy a
partnership in the business of Sheldon & Flint. It was a kind
thought. Lucy's heart is in the right place, and it was kind of
you, sir, to take her to different managers. She has given me an
exact account of all you did for her.

"'We are going to be married to-morrow, and next week we sail for
the States. I live, sir, in Chicago City, and if you are ever in
America Lucy and myself will esteem it an honour if you will come
to see us.

"'Lucy would write to you herself if she were not tired, having
had to look after many things.

"'I am, dear sir,

"'Very sincerely yours,

"'JAMES WAINSCOTT.'"

"Lucy wanted life," said Rodney, "and she will find her adventure
sooner or later. Poor Lucy!"

"Lucy is the stuff the great women are made of and will make a
noise in the world yet."

"It is well she has gone; for it is many years since there was
honour in Ireland for a Grania."

"Maybe you'll meet her in Paris and will do another statue from
her."

"It wouldn't be the same thing. Ah! my statue, my poor statue.
Nothing but a lump of clay. I nearly went out of my mind. At first
I thought it was the priest who ordered it to be broken. But no,
two little boys who heard a priest talking. They tell strange
stories in Dublin about that statue. It appears that, after seeing
it, Father McCabe went straight to Father Brennan, and the priests
sat till midnight, sipping their punch and considering this fine
point of theology--if a man may ask a woman to sit naked to him;
and then if it would be justifiable to employ a naked woman for a
statue of the Virgin. Father Brennan said, 'Nakedness is not a
sin,' and Father McCabe said, 'Nakedness may not be in itself a
sin, but it leads to sin, and is therefore unjustifiable.' At
their third tumbler of punch they had reached Raphael, and at the
fourth Father McCabe held that bad statues were more likely to
excite devotional feelings than good ones, bad statues being
further removed from perilous Nature."

"I can see the two priests, I can hear them. If an exception be
made in favour of the Virgin, would the sculptor be justified in
employing a model to do a statue of a saint?"

"No one supposes that Rubens did not employ a model for his
descent from the Cross," said Rodney.

"A man is different, that's what the priests would say."

"Yet, that slender body, slipping like a cut flower into women's
hands, has inspired more love in woman than the Virgin has in
men."

"I can see these two obtuse priests. I can hear them. I should
like to write the scene," said Harding.

The footman brought in the tea, and Harding told him that if Mr.
Carmady called he was to show him in, and it was not long after
that a knock came at the front door.

"You have come in time for a cup of tea, Carmady. You know
Rodney?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Carmady used to come to my studio. Many's the time we've had
about the possibility of a neo-pagan Celtic renaissance. But I did
not know you were in London. When did you arrive?"

"Yesterday. I'm going to South Africa. There's fighting going on
there, and it is a brand new country."

"Three Irishmen meet," said Rodney; "one seeking a country with a
future, one seeking a country with a past, and one thinking of
going back to a country without past or future."

"Is Harding going back to Ireland?" said Carmady.

"Yes," said Rodney. "You tried to snuff out the Catholic candle,
but Harding hopes to trim it."

"I'm tired of talking about Ireland. I've talked enough."

"This is the last time, Carmady, you'll be called to talk about
Ireland. We'd like to hear you."

"There is no free thought, and where there is no free thought
there is no intellectual life. The priests take their ideas from
Rome cut and dried like tobacco and the people take their ideas
from the priests cut and dried like tobacco. Ireland is a
terrifying example of what becomes of a country when it accepts
prejudices and conventions and ceases to inquire out the truth."

"You don't believe," said Harding, "in the possibility of a Celtic
renaissance--that with the revival of the languages?"

"I do not believe in Catholics. The Catholic kneels like the camel
that burdens may be laid upon him. You know as well as I do,
Harding, that the art and literature of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries were due to a sudden dispersal, a sudden
shedding of the prejudices and conventions of the middle ages; the
renaissance was a joyous returning to Hellenism, the source of all
beauty. There is as little free love in Ireland as there is free
thought; men have ceased to care for women and women to care for
men. Nothing thrives in Ireland but the celibate, the priest, the
nun, and the ox. There is no unfaith, and the violence of the
priest is against any sensual transgression. A girl marries at
once or becomes a nun--a free girl is a danger. There is no
courtship, there is no walking out, and the passion which is the
direct inspiration of all the world's music and art is reduced to
the mere act of begetting children."

"Love books his passage in the emigrant ship," said Rodney. "You
speak truly. There are no bastards in Ireland; and the bastard is
the outward sign of inward grace."

"That which tends to weaken life is the only evil, that which
strengthens life the only good, and the result of this puritanical
Catholicism will be an empty Ireland."

"Dead beyond hope of resurrection," said Rodney.

"I don't say that; a wave of paganism may arise, and only a pagan
revival can save Ireland."

"Ah, the beautiful pagan world!" said Rodney; "morality is but a
dream, an academic discussion, but beauty is a reality."

"Out of the billions of men that have been born into the world,"
said Carmady, "I am only sure that two would have been better
unborn; and the second was but a reincarnation of the first."

"And who were they?" said Rodney.

"St. Paul and Luther. Had it not been for Paul, the whole ghostly
theory would have been a failure, and had it not been for Luther
the name of Christ would be forgotten now. When the acetic monk,
barefooted, ragged, with prayer-haunted eyes, went to Rome, Rome
had reverted to her ancient paganism, statues took the place of
sacraments, and the cardinals drove about Rome with their
mistresses."

"The Pope, too," said Rodney.

"Everything was for the best when the pilgrim monk turned in shame
and horror from the awakening; the kingdom of the earth was
cursed. We certainly owe the last four hundred years of
Christianity to Luther."

"I wonder if that is so," said Rodney.

After a pause, Carmady continued, "Belief is declining, but those
who disavow the divinity of Christ eagerly insist that they retain
his morality--the cowardly morality of the weak who demand a
redeemer to redeem them. The morality of the Ghetto prevails;
Christians are children of the Ghetto."

"It is given to men to choose between sacraments and statues,"
said Rodney. "Beauty is a reality, morality is a myth, and Ireland
has always struck me as a place for which God had intended to do
something, but He changed his mind and that change of mind
happened about a thousand years ago. Quite true that the Gael was
hunted as if he were vermin for centuries, and had to think how to
save his life. But there is no use thinking what the Gael might
have done. It is quite certain he'll never do it now--the time has
gone by; everything has been done and gloriously."

And for a long while Rodney spoke of Italy.

"I'll show you a city," he said, "no bigger than Rathmines, and in
it Michael Angelo, Donatello, Del Sarto, and Da Vinci lived, and
lived contemporaneously. Now what have these great pagans left the
poor Catholic Celt to do? All that he was intended to do he did in
the tenth century. Since then he has produced an incredible number
of priests and policemen, some fine prize-fighters, and some
clever lawyers; but nothing more serious. Ireland is too far
north. Sculpture does not get farther north than Paris--oranges
and sculpture! the orange zone and its long cigars, cigars eight
inches long, a penny each, and lasting the whole day. They are
lighted from a taper that is passed round in the cafes. The fruit
that one can buy for three halfpence, enough for a meal! And the
eating of the fruit by the edge of the canal--seeing beautiful
things all the while. But, Harding, you sit there saying nothing.
No, you're not going back to Ireland. Before you came in, Carmady,
I was telling Harding that he was not acting fairly towards his
biographer. The poor man will not be able to explain this Celtic
episode satisfactorily. Nothing short of a Balzac could make it
convincing."

Rodney laughed loudly; the idea amused him, and he could imagine a
man refraining from any excess that might disturb and perplex or
confuse his biographer.

"How did the Celtic idea come to you, Harding? Do you remember?"

"How do ideas come to anyone?" said Harding. "A thought passes. A
sudden feeling comes over you, and you're never the same again.
Looking across a park with a view of the mountains in the
distance, I perceived a pathetic beauty in the country itself that
I had not perceived before; and a year afterwards I was driving
about the Dublin mountains, and met two women on the road; there
was something pathetic and wistful about them, something dear,
something intimate, and I felt drawn towards them. I felt I should
like to live among these people again. There is a proverb in Irish
which says that no man ever wanders far from his grave sod. We are
thrown out, and we circle a while in the air, and return to the
feet of the thrower. But what astonished me is the interest that
everybody takes in my departure. Everyone seems agreed that
nothing could be more foolish, nothing more mad. But if I were to
go to meet Asher at Marseilles, and cruise with him in the Greek
Islands, and go on to Cairo, and spend the winter talking to
wearisome society, everyone would consider my conduct most
rational. You, my dear friend, Rodney, you tempt me with Italy and
conversations about yellowing marbles; and you won't be angry with
me when I tell you that all your interesting utterances about the
Italian renaissance would not interest me half so much as what
Paddy Durkin and Father Pat will say to me on the roadside."

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