Μπορώ;
"But why did you stay?"
"Once," the priest said, "I asked myself that. The fact is, a man isn't presented suddenly with two courses to follow. One good and one bad. He gets caught up. The first year—well, I didn't believe there was really any cause to run. Churches have been burnt before now. You know how often. It doesn't mean much. I thought I'd stay till next month, say, and see if things were better. Then—oh, you don't know how time can slip by." It was quite light again now: the afternoon rain was over: life had to go on. A policeman passed the entrance of the hut and looked in curiously at the pair of them. "Do you know I suddenly realized that I was the only priest left for miles around? The law which made priests marry finished them. They went: they were quite right to go. There was one priest in particular—who had always disapproved of me. I have a tongue, you know, and it used to wag. He said—quite rightly—that I wasn't a firm character. He escaped. It felt—you'll laugh at this—just as it did at school when a bully I had been afraid of—for years—got too old for any more teaching and was turned out. You see, I didn't have to think about anybody's opinion any more. The peoples—they didn't worry me. They liked me." He gave a weak smile, sideways, towards the humped Yankee.
"Go on," the lieutenant said moodily.
"You'll know all there is to know about me, at this rate," the priest said, with a nervous giggle, "by the time I get to, well, prison."
"It's just as well. To know an enemy, I mean."
"That other priest was right. It was when he left I began to go to pieces. One thing went after another. I got careless about my duties. I began to drink. It would have been much better, I think, if I had gone too. Because pride was at work all the time. Not love of God." He sat bowed on the packing-case, a small plump man in Mr. Lehr's cast-off clothes. He said: "Pride was what made the angels fall. Pride's the worst thing of all. I thought I was a fine fellow to have stayed when the others had gone. And then I thought I was so grand I could make my own rules. I gave up fasting, daily Mass. I neglected my prayers—and one day because I was drunk and lonely—well, you know how it was, I got a child. It was all pride. Just pride because I'd stayed. I wasn't any use, but I stayed. At least, not much use. I'd got so that I didn't have a hundred communicants a month. If I'd gone I'd have given God to twelve times that number. It's a mistake one makes—to think just because a thing is difficult or dangerous ..." He made a flapping motion with his hands.
The lieutenant said in a tone of fury: "Well, you're going to be a martyr—you've got that satisfaction."
"Oh, no. Martyrs are not like me. They don't think all the time—if I had drunk more brandy I shouldn't be so afraid.
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