Soul of a Bishop | Page 6

in the bishop's career. It was the
afternoon for his fortnightly address to the Shop-girls' Church
Association, and he had been seized with a panic fear, entirely

irrational and unjustifiable, that he would not be able to deliver the
address. The fear had arisen after lunch, had gripped his mind, and then
as now had come the thought, "If only I could smoke!" And he had
smoked. It seemed better to break a vow than fail the Association. He
had fallen to the temptation with a completeness that now filled him
with shame and horror. He had stalked Dunk, his valet-butler, out of
the dining-room, had affected to need a book from the book-case
beyond the sideboard, had gone insincerely to the sideboard humming
"From Greenland's icy mountains," and then, glancing over his
shoulder, had stolen one of his own cigarettes, one of the fatter sort.
With this and his bedroom matches he had gone off to the bottom of the
garden among the laurels, looked everywhere except above the wall to
be sure that he was alone, and at last lit up, only as he raised his eyes in
gratitude for the first blissful inhalation to discover that dreadful little
boy peeping at him from the crotch in the yew-tree in the next garden.
As though God had sent him to be a witness!
Their eyes had met. The bishop recalled with an agonized distinctness
every moment, every error, of that shameful encounter. He had been
too surprised to conceal the state of affairs from the pitiless scrutiny of
those youthful eyes. He had instantly made as if to put the cigarette
behind his back, and then as frankly dropped it....
His soul would not be more naked at the resurrection. The little boy had
stared, realized the state of affairs slowly but surely, pointed his
finger....
Never had two human beings understood each other more completely.
A dirty little boy! Capable no doubt of a thousand kindred
scoundrelisms.
It seemed ages before the conscience-stricken bishop could tear himself
from the spot and walk back, with such a pretence of dignity as he
could muster, to the house.
And instead of the discourse he had prepared for the Shop-girls' Church
Association, he had preached on temptation and falling, and how he
knew they had all fallen, and how he understood and could sympathize
with the bitterness of a secret shame, a moving but unsuitable discourse
that had already been subjected to misconstruction and severe reproof
in the local press of Princhester.
But the haunting thing in the bishop's memory was the face and gesture

of the little boy. That grubby little finger stabbed him to the heart.
"Oh, God!" he groaned. "The meanness of it! How did I bring
myself--?"
He turned out the light convulsively, and rolled over in the bed, making
a sort of cocoon of himself. He bored his head into the pillow and
groaned, and then struggled impatiently to throw the bed-clothes off
himself. Then he sat up and talked aloud.
"I must go to Brighton-Pomfrey," he said. "And get a medical
dispensation. If I do not smoke--"
He paused for a long time.
Then his voice sounded again in the darkness, speaking quietly,
speaking with a note almost of satisfaction.
"I shall go mad. I must smoke or I shall go mad."
For a long time he sat up in the great bed with his arms about his knees.
(5)
Fearful things came to him; things at once dreadfully blasphemous and
entirely weak-minded.
The triangle and the eye became almost visible upon the black
background of night. They were very angry. They were spinning round
and round faster and faster. Because he was a bishop and because really
he did not believe fully and completely in the Trinity. At one and the
same time he did not believe in the Trinity and was terrified by the
anger of the Trinity at his unbelief.... He was afraid. He was aghast....
And oh! he was weary....
He rubbed his eyes.
"If I could have a cup of tea!" he said.
Then he perceived with surprise that he had not thought of praying.
What should he say? To what could he pray?
He tried not to think of that whizzing Triangle, that seemed now to be
nailed like a Catherine wheel to the very centre of his forehead, and yet
at the same time to be at the apex of the universe. Against that--for
protection against that--he was praying. It was by a great effort that at
last he pronounced the words:
"Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord ...."
Presently be had turned up his light, and was prowling about the room.
The clear inky dinginess that comes before the raw dawn of a spring
morning, found