THE
MORNING WATCH
211
below the kneecaps hurt even worse. And within another minute or so,
the small of his ·back ached worse than it had before. He bent over a
little, and though that hurt his back in a new way, it also gave it a
sort of rest. He let himself slacken down so that his buttocks sat on his
heels, and that at least changed the pressure on the bones of his knees.
He leaned forward so that his 'chest almost rested against his knees, and
that helped his back. It'll just look like at Adoration, he reflected;
and was ashamed of his hypocrisy. All the same, he thought, if it'll help
me pray. Hail
Mary,
he prayed again. But still there was nothing.
His heart was empty and his mind was idle, and he could not forget
his discomfort.
He opened his eyes and looked around for a kneeling-pad and he
saw one, skated against the baseboard, ahead of him and across the
Chapel. He would have to get up and go in front of Julian to get it, and
Julian was not using one. He hasn't been kneeling as long as I have, he
reflected. What of it. He'll ,think I came in late. Just now. What of it.
But the more he thought about it the more clearly he decided he would
not go over and get the pad.
If
I can't say my prayers right, he told
himself, why anyhow I can do this. He felt proudly and calmly vindic–
tive against himself. Closely attentive to everything he was doing, he
raised himself straight onto his knees and he straightened his spine
so that his knees and the small of
his
back should hurt as much as
possible, and he put the heels of his hands together, the fingers extended,
edge to edge, tips touching, and the right thumb crossed over the left,
as he had been taught when he was learning to be an acolyte. Ordinarily
this strange and careful position of the hands embarrassed
him,
for
it seemed sissy. Only a few of the servers kept to it; most of them,
like Richard, simply folded their hands, and so did most of the priests;
but now it seemed no more sissy than being on your knees in the first
place. It was just the right way to hold your hands to pray, that was
all. For all the aching in his knees and his back he was now even
~ore
clearly aware of
his
hands in this unaccustomed position, the palps of the
fingers touching so lightly and competently, the locked thumbs, the
cleanly hollow of shaded light within the palms; his hands felt fun
of goodness and quiet and they made
him
think of pictures of
Cathedrals.
He tried to breathe so quietly that he could not feel his chest
go
in and out or even any air moving in his nostrils, and he gazed studiously
at the monstrance, visualizing through
the
veil the spangling sunlike
gold and the white center, and upon that center Christ Crucified,
Whom he saw first in metal and then in wood and then in flesh; but he
began to wonder whether these efforts at visualization were not mere
