The parsonage was near a century old, and it was not strange that the wind should set it creaking so. Inside, however, and well in, beyond other evidences, the wind provided an arbitrary explanation and no more: as well say that the sharp angles of wall and wainscot, molding and baseboard complained so at the relentless obtrusion of one another's extremities where they were forced to meet; or that they creaked with effort, supporting the cross, and with vigilance for its prey, suspended there in the near darkness before the small mirrors which looked shined with work as though, leaving Sor Patrocinio stigmatized, they had begun again here. How John Huss would have vilipended the thing! as Aunt May had ruefully noted; but she had not prevailed against it, and inclined to avoid it. Gwyon, passing it many times a day, shocked it and banged the study door in its face before a fragment of his motion could be isolated and fixed. (True, more than once he had surprised Janet there; and often, when he thought of it, attempted stealthy glances at her ungloved palms, but in vain.) The creaking continued; still nothing moved in the dark hallway until the thin lips cracked apart, but still silent, — What was it? What am I supposed to ask? Am I the. . Homoousian or Homoiousian? Am I the man that. . What holds me back?. . for whom. . for whom. . What was it?. .
Reverend Gwyon gripped the lapels of his coat and peered at the inside of the door. — Damnation, he muttered, — what holds me back? And he commenced to rummage among the books and papers before him. The Old Testament and the Letters of Julian the Apostate were thrust aside, Origen's Contra Celsum, one after another he pushed the books back until they mounted in an unsteady pile about the gold bull figure. — Volume eighteen, he muttered, — PLANTS to RAYM. . where… He paused, holding Ter-tullian's De Corona. Then he started through the discarded pile, muttering — Cathemerinon, but when he found it, and stood with it open, he spoke without looking at the page.
— Kindly Guide, Reverend Gwyon said to the sky without, — creator of the radiant light, who controllest the seasons in their fixed courses, if thy sun is hidden, grim chaos encompasses us, restore thy light O Christ to thy faithful followers. . Gwyon paused, as though he had heard a sound. The sky before him darkened as he watched it; and as he watched, the book in his hand closed slowly, and the nails of his hand went white against the covers.
The knocks on the door were faint. Reverend Gwyon planted Prudentius firmly on the desk and turned; but when he reached the door he paused with a hand to the knob and stood that way, listening, the more intently, for something he had not heard.
On either side of the door they stood, a hand raised and a hand held forth, their extended arms abscissa and ordinate for the point of ordination where their eyes met on the inordinate curve of doubt.
There was a crash in the hallway. Reverend Gwyon threw the study door open. The cruz-con-espejos lay on the floor. Streaks of light pierced him from the sharp silvered fragments around it, and held him, blinded for a moment.
Rounding the corner from the kitchen, Janet collided with the figure coming in the other direction. She drew back aghast. — Has it begun? she managed to say, clutching one gloved hand in the other.
— Begun? Good God, I… I didn't. .
— Is it time? she asked eagerly. -Time to tell them. . you have come back?
— Yes, tell them, he said, getting round her with the speed of a shadow when a light is moved, — I came back to preach, but I…
— They doubted, she said drawing her upper lip down with the sudden modesty of veiling, — but I…
— Janet! Reverend Gwyon emerged, and pushed the cross aside with his foot. — Lunch, he said, advancing.
— Father. . father, I…
Janet was gone. Reverend Gwyon, coming forth from the dark hallway, seemed to become larger as he approached the light, and the figure dancing backwards, still like a shadow retreating, went on, — Something I have to ask you, I… what was it?… you
In this fashion they reached the dining room. With expletive — Thank God, once or twice, the voice had risen and went on more rapidly, drawing Gwyon on with the expression on his face of a man tormented by a question to which everyone else in the room knows the answer.
— You look like Valerian, very much, yes very much like the Emperor Valerian. . the words came on, every syllable expletive and the more rapid, the sound sustaining itself in nimble surprise, alert for the right words, the right question when it came out to be rescued and repeated.
Reverend Gwyon reached the head of the table, and stood at his place. His nostrils worked for an instant. There did, in fact, issue from the kitchen the smell of frying fish.
— In the painting by Memlinc you know, the painting by Mem-ling, Valerian in the painting by Memlinc…
— How many kings are there left in the world, then? Right now, today, how many kings are there left? The blue woman was drawn to full length, as her master extended an empty glass across the bar.
— I'd rather work for a living, said the small man with beer, staring up at the sign Law forbids cashing welfare checks on these premises.
— Counting the Pope of Rome? asked the man furthest from the storm, at the end of the bar.
— I said kings. He's no more king than that coconut, the Pope isn't.
— He's a kind of a king, the Pope is. Anyone who holds a temporal sway is a king, so the Reverend said.
— And when did he say that?
— In his sermon speaking on the Druids. That is why the Druids made the oak tree the king of trees, because it was so often struck by lightning, and that was a sign of divine favor. — And when was the Pope of Rome struck by lightning?
— The divine right of kings, have you never heard tell of that? You may ask the sexton.
The Town Carpenter, who had been silent for some minutes, snared the word kings from somewhere, and lowered his eyes from the buck to find other, less dusty, glances directed toward him. — Kings, he responded, — second-hand kings and all sorts of useless people you find at it today. There now, just look at the way people travel today, they've no sense of voyages at all. I set off on a voyage myself a while ago, a voyage of discovery, you might say. The train was going a good sixty miles an hour and I got to my feet and pulled the emergency cord. You could see nothing at that speed. And do you know, they put me in prison? Yes they did, without a word of apology. It was in prison I lost these, he went on, motioning to his empty mouth. — I went to sleep, and the man in the prison with me, a dangerous man you could see in his eyes, he stole my teeth while I slept. Let him choke on them!
— Do you know how he holds his temporal power, the Pope of Rome? the strangler demanded, having choked the blue lady dry while the Town Carpenter spoke, taking advantage, now, of the gap while the Town Carpenter drank. — Money from right here in America, money from right here in the United States is what keeps him in power.
— Donations. .
— Donations! Do you think he heats his fine Vatican palace, all the eleven hundred rooms of it, with donations? For one thing, he's sponsored by an American bread company, I know for a fact.
— Go to a train station yourself, the Town Carpenter continued, pushing forward his empty glass, — or a bus station. Go to an airport and look at them, the miserable lot of them with their empty eyes and their empty faces, and no idea what they're doing but getting out of one pot into another, weary and worried only for the comforts of the body, frightened only that they may discover something between now and the minute they get where they think they are going. There now, I've been to the airport myself, where the airplanes leave for Cairo and Damascus, and would you believe it to look at the people who go to Cairo and Damascus, the washed-out faces, and you see them come in from Cairo and Damascus and do they look any different? They might have been around to the corner grocer and no more, from the look of them. What they can tell of Cairo and Damascus is no more than I can tell of my train trip, sixty miles an hour and no toilet in sight, that is what they know of Cairo and Damascus. He recovered his glass, full, and raised it. — Have you ever had trench mouth? asked the small man with beer. — At first I thought it was only a sore throat. .