Page 126 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

of body or soul had been maimed but a dark peace had
been established between them. The chaos in which his ar-
dour extinguished itself was a cold indifferent knowledge
of himself. He had sinned mortally not once but many
times and he knew that, while he stood in danger of eternal
damnation for the first sin alone, by every succeeding sin
he multiplied his guilt and his punishment. His days and
works and thoughts could make no atonement for him, the
fountains of sanctifying grace having ceased to refresh his
soul. At most, by an alms given to a beggar whose bless-
ing he fled from, he might hope wearily to win for himself
some measure of actual grace. Devotion had gone by the
board. What did it avail to pray when he knew that his soul
lusted after its own destruction? A certain pride, a certain
awe, withheld him from offering to God even one prayer at
night, though he knew it was in God’s power to take away
his life while he slept and hurl his soul hellward ere he could
beg for mercy. His pride in his own sin, his loveless awe of
God, told him that his offence was too grievous to be atoned
for in whole or in part by a false homage to the All-seeing
and All-knowing.
—Well now, Ennis, I declare you have a head and so has
my stick! Do you mean to say that you are not able to tell me
what a surd is?
The blundering answer stirred the embers of his con-
tempt of his fellows. Towards others he felt neither shame
nor fear. On Sunday mornings as he passed the church door
he glanced coldly at the worshippers who stood barehead-
ed, four deep, outside the church, morally present at the

126 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man