Page 142 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

them under cover of night among the grass in the corner of
a field or beneath some hingeless door in some niche in the
hedges where a girl might come upon them as she walked by
and read them secretly. Mad! Mad! Was it possible he had
done these things? A cold sweat broke out upon his forehead
as the foul memories condensed within his brain.
When the agony of shame had passed from him he tried
to raise his soul from its abject powerlessness. God and the
Blessed Virgin were too far from him: God was too great
and stern and the Blessed Virgin too pure and holy. But he
imagined that he stood near Emma in a wide land and, hum-
bly and in tears, bent and kissed the elbow of her sleeve.
In the wide land under a tender lucid evening sky, a
cloud drifting westward amid a pale green sea of heaven,
they stood together, children that had erred. Their error had
offended deeply God’s majesty though it was the error of
two children; but it had not offended her whose beauty IS
NOT LIKE EARTHLY BEAUTY, DANGEROUS TO LOOK
UPON, BUT LIKE THE MORNING STAR WHICH IS ITS
EMBLEM, BRIGHT AND MUSICAL. The eyes were not
offended which she turned upon him nor reproachful. She
placed their hands together, hand in hand, and said, speak-
ing to their hearts:
—Take hands, Stephen and Emma. It is a beautiful eve-
ning now in heaven. You have erred but you are always my
children. It is one heart that loves another heart. Take hands
together, my dear children, and you will be happy together
and your hearts will love each other.
The chapel was flooded by the dull scarlet light that fil-

142 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man