Three Cheers for the Paraclete
“It was as if he wanted to add sacramental dimensions to the bare human fact that they shared a secret.
‘Bless me, father, for I have sinned,’ Egan muttered. ‘It is five days since my last confession.’ Maitland, sitting stoled at the prie-dieu where Egan knelt, blushed at the formalities. But to Egan a confession was a confession, that is, a sacrament and a tribunal. He would take no liberties with the judge, whatever the judge intended.
‘Why I came tonight, father – James – is that now Nora is ...going, I see that my motives for continuing to meet her over the past months, and in a variety of places, were not always for the best, for her sanity or mine.’ Maitland, keeping his head averted, said, ‘Come off it, Maurice! Do you really see yourself as guilty? Or do you simply want to talk things out?’ ‘I see myself as guilty,’ Maurice insisted.
‘Very well. I’ll absolve you. That’s simple. I wish that idiot would quieten down.’ Once more the sound of the broadcasting van that had plagued the suburb downhill for the past half-hour, penetrated the ill-fitting windows; the sound of gear-changing, and of spoken but indistinct things to do with some fête or festival or fair.MoreLess
‘Bless me, father, for I have sinned,’ Egan muttered. ‘It is five days since my last confession.’ Maitland, sitting stoled at the prie-dieu where Egan knelt, blushed at the formalities. But to Egan a confession was a confession, that is, a sacrament and a tribunal. He would take no liberties with the judge, whatever the judge intended.
‘Why I came tonight, father – James – is that now Nora is ...going, I see that my motives for continuing to meet her over the past months, and in a variety of places, were not always for the best, for her sanity or mine.’ Maitland, keeping his head averted, said, ‘Come off it, Maurice! Do you really see yourself as guilty? Or do you simply want to talk things out?’ ‘I see myself as guilty,’ Maurice insisted.
‘Very well. I’ll absolve you. That’s simple. I wish that idiot would quieten down.’ Once more the sound of the broadcasting van that had plagued the suburb downhill for the past half-hour, penetrated the ill-fitting windows; the sound of gear-changing, and of spoken but indistinct things to do with some fête or festival or fair.MoreLess
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