3
As Olva was changing into his football things, Cardillac appeared.
"Come up to the field with me, will you? I've got a hansom."
Olva finished tying his boots and stood up. Cardillac looked at him.
"My word, you seem fit."
"Yes, I'm splendid, thanks."
He felt splendid. Never before had he been so conscious of the right to be alive. His football clothes smelt of the earth and the air. He moved his arms and legs with wonderful freedom. His blood was pumping through his body as though death, disease, infirmity such things—-were of another planet.
For such a man as he there should only be air, love, motion, the begetting of children, the surprising splendour of a sudden death. Now already Craven was waiting for him.
He had sent a note round to Craven's rooms; he had said, "Come in to see me after the match—-five o'clock. I have something to tell you."
At five o'clock then. . . .
Meanwhile it was nice of Cardillac to come. They exchanged no words about it, but they understood one another entirely. It was as though Cardillac had said—-"I expect that you're going to knock me out of this Rugger Blue as you knocked me out of the Wolves, and I want to show you that we're pals all the way through."
What Cardillac really said was—-"Have a cigarette? These are Turkish. Feel like playing a game to-day?"
"Never felt better in my life."
"Well, these Dublin fellows haven't had their line crossed yet this season. May one of us have the luck to do it."
"Pretty hefty lot of forwards."
"Yes, O'Brien's their spot Three I believe."
Olva and Cardillac attracted much attention as they walked through the College. Miss Annett, watching them from a little window where she washed plates, gulped in her thin throat with pride for "that Mr. Dune. There's a gentleman!" The sun above the high grey buildings broke slowly through yellow clouds. The roads were covered with a thin fine mud and, from the earth, faint clouds of mist rose and vanished into a sky that was slowly crumbling from thick grey into light watery blue.
The cold air beat upon their faces as the hansom rattled past Dunstan's, over the bridge, and up the hill towards the field.
Cardillac talked. "There goes Braff. He doesn't often come up to a game nowadays—must be getting on for seventy—the greatest half the 'Varsity's ever had, I suppose."
"It's a good thing this mud isn't thicker. It won't make the ball bad. That game against Monkstown the other day! My word. . . ."
But Olva was not listening. It seemed to him now that two separate personalities were divided in him so sharply that it was impossible to reconcile them.
There was Olva Dune concentrating all his will, his mentality, upon the game that he was about to play. This was his afternoon. After it there would be darkness, death, what you will—parting from Margaret—all purely physical emotions.
The other Olva felt nothing physical. The game, confession to Rupert, trial, imprisonment, even separation from Margaret, all these things were nothing in comparison with some great business that was in progress behind it all, as real life may go on behind the painted back cloth of a stage. Here were amazing happenings, although at present he was confused and bewildered by them. It was not that Olva was, actually, at the instant conscious of actual impressions, but rather that great emotions, great surprising happiness, seemed to shine on some horizon. It was as though something had said to his soul, "Presently you will feel a joy, a splendour, that you had never in your wildest thoughts imagined."
The pursuit was almost at an end. He was now enveloped, enfolded. Already everything to him—even his love for Margaret—was trivial in comparison with the effect of some atmosphere that was beginning to hem him in on every side.
But against all this was the other Olva—the Olva who desired physical strength, love, freedom, health.
Well, let it all be as confusing as it might, he would play his game. But as he walked into the Pavilion he knew that the prelude to his real life had only a few more hours to run. . . .