210
PARTISAN
R'EVIEW
not
go
away, for they might say more about
him.
He could hear George
saying, "Oh, he's a good kid" or even just "Oh, he's all right," and it
made everything much better, he could almost have gone in; but
George didn't say anything of the kiIld, or anything at all, he just
seemed to accept it as a fact everybody knew; and after a little Lee
said, "I got to thin out them candles some
if
they're goana last
through"; and George did not answer, and Lee said, "I thought there
was a whole box more of them," and George said, "Not that I know
of": and Lee did not answer, and George said,
"If
you
thin
out the
candles some maybe it'll give the flowers a chance, anyhow. I sure do
hate to see dead flowers"; and suddenly, frightened because he was
spying, Richard shrank as small against the wall as he could, for
someone had come out of the Lady Chapel and now he could make
out that it was Claude and realized thankfully, He sleeps in St. Joseph's,
he'll go out the front. And sure enough Claude came to the middle 'as
if
to bow or genuflect and stood there a moment and then tossed his
head upward to one side in a peculiar, saucy way, and turned his back
on the Altar and walked back up the middle aisle and through the
vestibule door; and after a moment Richard could hear the outside
door; and then notlling; and after his breathing was quiet again, he
crossed the transept without pausing to bow, and went back into the
Lady Chapel.
The prayer-desks were all taken; he knelt at the rear on the bare
floor and crossed himself, and closed his eyes, and bowed his head. Lord
make my mind not to wander, he prayed, successfully driving from
his mind Claude's impudent head. This is the last chance, he told him–
self. By leaning a little he could just see the clock. Already\
it
was nearly
quarter of. He felt fury against himself and subdued it, for it iwas
evil.
God
be merciful unto me a sinner, he prayed, shutting his eyes
~gain.
He waited carefully with his eyes closed but nothing came to him
except his emptiness of soul and the pain of his knees and of his back.
Hail Mary, he whispered to himself, and went through the prayer
twice. He repeated five more Hail Marys rather rapidly and then
three very slowly,trying to allow each word its full weight, and still
there was nothing, not even through the words Pray for us sinners now
and in the hour of our death. What's wrong with me, he wondered. He
kept his eyes shut. Perhaps exactly beca.use he had given his knees a
rest, they now hurt worse than ever. Or it was because they were now on
the flat floor, instead of braced against the edge of a board. The
grooves where they had been against the board hurt badly, the bones just
