The Prodigal Son

by Sir Hall Caine

XI

The paper slipped from Oscar's fingers and his transport of rapture passed. He told himself that this report would go far, that it would reach Iceland, that his mother would hear of it, and that his child would be told that she was fatherless.

Little Elin was too young to feel grief, but could he allow his mother to believe that he was dead and to weep for him as for one who was lost to her forever? That would be too cruel; it would be impossible; he would write to his mother immediately; he would write privately saying he was still alive and that part of the report was untrue.

But then came the chilling thought that though he might dispose of the fiction of his death he could not get rid of the fact of his offense, and that when his mother pictured him as one who was flying from the consequences of his conduct, skulking in a slum and hiding his face from the faces of his friends, there would be something in the shame of that end more bitter than death itself, and even his own mother would wish that he had died.

He had not thought of this before, and in the confusion and pain of it he got up from the table at the café and began to walk the streets again. After a while he found himself ascending the steps of the Madeline, hardly knowing what he was doing, except that he was trying to pass the time by following a stream of people into the building.

It was the hour of Benediction, the most beautiful, the most tender, the most moving of all the offices of the Catholic Church. The congregation were chiefly women, and among ladies in silks, whose carriages stood outside, were some flower-sellers from the flower-market round the corner, for there is only one caste in the commune of the Cross. One poor woman who took a chair and knelt close beside Oscar, had the sad and storm-beaten face that the Cross draws to it in every church in the country, for its empire is the empire of the oppressed and bereaved and broken-hearted.

"Somebody's mother," thought Oscar, as she crossed herself and sighed. But when she raised her weary eyes to the figure of the world-mother above the altar, her sad face softened and smiled and it was almost as if an angel had come down and whispered to her.

Then as the sweet music swelled through the great church the hard lump rose to Oscar's throat, and thinking of his own mother so far away, he told himself that if she believed he was really dead the angel of Death would comfort her. His faults would be forgiven, his errors would be forgotten, and the dust of death would cover all his transgressions. She would be happier in his death than she had ever been in his life, and though it was a sore thing to think of that, the pain would be his, not hers, and her poor heart would be at ease.

He thought of Magnus, too, how his hatred would be appeased when he heard that his brother was dead, and all the flames of his rage extinguished. Then he thought of his enemies at home, how they would cease to revile him, and how he would pass out of shame, reproach, and contempt into the charity of silence and the peace of forgetfulness. Finally he thought of his little Elin, his sweet motherless daughter, how she would hear no more hard words spoken of her father, but would grow up to think of him merely as one who had died early. Oh, blessed and merciful death which can make those who hate us hate us less and those who love us love us more!

It was bitter to comfort himself with the thought that he was dead--dead in disgrace and in a foreign country, with no mother's tears falling on his face and no child weeping by his side, that tragic consolation of the dying. But just at that moment the music ceased, the bell tinkled at the altar, and raising his eyes as the priest elevated the host the awe deepened about him, and he told himself that it was not he who was dead at all but only his sin and misery, and that he might rise, if he would, out of the shadow of death into another and better life.