[Footnote 1: ] Sir Edward Clarke was in error. The story was published anonymously, being signed “X” only, though the author’s real name was more or less an open secret in Oxford at the time.] [Return to text]
THE PRIEST AND THE ACOLYTE[27]
Honi soit qui mal y pense
PART I
PRAY, father, give
me thy blessing, for I have sinned.”
The priest started; he was tired in mind and body; his soul was sad and his heart heavy as he sat in the terrible solitude of the confessional ever listening to the same dull round of oft-repeated sins. He was weary of the conventional tones and matter-of-fact expressions. [28] ]Would the world always be the same? For nearly twenty centuries the Christian priests had sat in the confessional and listened to the same old tale. The world seemed to him no better; always the same, the same. The young priest sighed to himself, and for a moment almost wished people would be worse. Why could they not escape from these old wearily-made paths and be a little original in their vices, if sin they must? But the voice he now listened to aroused him from his reverie. It was so soft and gentle, so diffident and shy.
He gave the blessing, and listened. Ah, yes! he recognized the voice now. It was the voice he had heard for the first time only that very morning: [29] ]the voice of the little acolyte that had served his Mass.
He turned his head and peered through the grating at the little bowed head beyond. There was no mistaking those long soft curls. Suddenly, for one moment, the face was raised, and the large moist blue eyes met his; he saw the little oval face flushed with shame at the simple boyish sins he was confessing, and a thrill shot through him, for he felt that here at least was something in the world that was beautiful, something that was really true. Would the day come when those soft scarlet lips would have grown hard and false? when the soft shy treble would have become careless and conventional? His [30] ]eyes filled with tears, and in a voice that had lost its firmness he gave the absolution.