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Cleary’s lips began to tremble and tears came to his eyes, but he could not speak. The gentle sadness of the priest’s voice knocked down the wall of defence at one blow, and Cleary felt himself an utter miscreant. The enormity of his sin appeared so terrible that he abandoned all hope and he was ready to do anything, anything in order to lighten the grief of the priest. And yet, at the same time, his over-whelmed mind simmered with revolt against this appeal to his heart. He could not speak, and he was glad that he could not speak.

“Tell me Francis. Open your mind to me. Then this demon of temptation will be overcome. I am certain that you have been led astray by your companions. I have no doubt of it. I could not be so mistaken in your character.
Others older and less pure in mind than yourself have been the cause of this. Speak, Francis.”

“I can’t speak, father,” blubbered Cleary, bursting completely into tears.”I have done nothing. I have done nothing.”

“But my child, I have just spent an hour with the Father-Superior. An hour. And I tell you it was very hard on me. Very hard. You went to the town this morning to visit the dentist. Father Moran saw you coming out of a tobacconist’s shop. He stopped you to ask you what you had bought and found a packet of cigarettes in your pocket. Do you call that nothing?”

Cleary wept, and in weeping he found relief from the load of grief and terror that oppressed his heart. It seemed too that all his pity for the priest had been washed away with the tears. And when the father director mentioned Father Moran, the superior, Cleary knew immediately that he loathed the Father-Superior with a terrible loathing. He loathed his paunch, his fat hands, his fat red neck, his little ferret-like eyes and the syrupy tone of his voice, like the soft loathsome voice of some reptile, hissing and snake-like. And this terrible hatred, so new to his soul, made him cold and hard, so that his mind became clear and active again.

“They were not for myself,” he said.”I don’t smoke.”

“I am glad, Francis,” said the priest.”I am very glad. But you must tell me now who they were for. It is your duty to tell me.”

The priest sat up suddenly and his face hardened.

“That would not be honourable,” muttered Cleary.

“Honourable!” cried the priest.”My God! Where have you been hearing these words? In religious life there is nothing honourable but the love of God and obedience to his holy rules. Do you think it’s honourable to shield the sinful acts of your fellow postulants? My child, I command you to tell who those cigarettes were for. As your director I command you. You know what disobedience of my order means.”

The priest had risen to his feet. Standing he looked enormous in the gloom. Cleary shrunk away in terror. In his terror he thought that the priest was God himself, the terrible avenging God of the testament, who cried: “Spare neither women nor children.” His terror had become physical, and he thought that he would immediately be struck dead if he did not speak. But even in that moment of terror, when his lips were going to utter the words that would kill all love in his soul, his mind exulted, for it had become relieved of fear. Henceforth it would be free to exult in thought, free and hidden from observation, with a wall around it, formed by cunning and deceit, to protect it from these terrible exponents of dogmas that were now its enemies.