The Private Wound Read Online Free PDF Page A

interested me a good deal. He spoke with authority, with a calm assumption that, if there was a last word, he would have it: like a benevolent but firm father with his children. But, beneath this calm, I seemed to feel a temper held on the leash, or perhaps it was a capacity for spiritual torment: the haggard, ascetic face twitched from time to time.
    Presently Flurry brought in a tray—tarnished Georgian silver, Woolworth tumblers—and put glasses of whiskey in our hands. Father Bresnihan moved over to Harry: Maire Leeson beckoned to Flurry. Kevin Leeson turned to me.
    â€œSlainthe. Tell me now, what does London think about the international situation?” he asked in his self-important way.
    â€œWell, I suppose most people were ashamed by the Hitler-Chamberlain meeting, but don’t like to admit they felt relieved.”
    â€œYou think war’s inevitable, though?”
    â€œYes, I do.”
    â€œAnd I suppose the English say we’ll be stabbing them in the back by staying neutral?”
    â€œSome will say that, no doubt. You don’t help things by throwing bombs at us in the meanwhile, you know.”
    Kevin Leeson blinked: his eyes took on a guarded look. The I.R.A. bomb outrages in England had started last January; and the worst were yet to come.
    â€œWhat’s the point of it?” I went on; then, seized by an irrational desire to shake Kevin’s complacence, added, “Of course, they’re only pin-pricks: but they’ve meant the death of innocent people.”
    â€œAh, that’s the wild men. It’s their protest against Partition. I suppose they’re trying to create a situation where Dev. will have to implement the ideals of the men who rose in 1916. Mind you, I don’t hold with it at all, but—”
    â€œâ€˜England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity’?”
    â€œThat’s true enough. Don’t you think so?”
    â€œI do. But I still don’t see that killing innocent people is a good way of seizing an opportunity.”
    His face darkened. “And how many innocent Irish people—women and children even—did you kill in the Tan war? Tell me that now?”
    â€œI know enough about the Tans, and the Auxiliaries. But two wrongs don’t make a right.”
    The room had fallen silent. Father Bresnihan was looking at me quizzically: Harry had returned to her magazine.
    â€œI hold no brief for the I.R.A. extremists,” said Kevin, “but their objectives in England have been power-stations, and the like.”
    â€œThen they’re madly inefficient. All they seem to blow up is pillar-boxes and bystanders.”
    â€œWell, Mr. Eyre, at least that proves there’s been no collusion with the Germans. They’d have seen it was done more efficiently,” put in the Father.
    â€œI dare say. But—”
    â€œYou’re a humanist, Mr. Eyre?”
    â€œI don’t think so, Father. Not in the theologian’s sense, anyway.”
    â€œBut you think we hold human lives too cheap over here? Maybe we do. But it’s a question of values. When you believe the end of his human life is not the end of a man’s life, your position is altered.”
    â€œYou have him there, Father,” exclaimed Maire Leeson.
    â€œBut that does not condone murder,” I replied, annoyed by her sycophancy. “The Communists liquidate hundreds of thousands—sacrifice them to the future good of humanity. It’s still murder.”
    â€œI agree, Mr. Eyre. Murder can never be condoned,” said Father Bresnihan soberly. “It can only be forgiven.”
    Kevin Leeson was studying me in a puzzled way. His brother rose abruptly. “I’m going to see if they’re rising.It’s overcast again. If you’ve done with the fisher of men, Dominic, come and see a fisher of fish at work.”
    I followed him into the room on the opposite side of the hall. It was