A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller [15]
“I think I lost my senses for a moment,” he said finally.
Cheroki opened his mouth, apparently meaning to pursue the matter, then thought better of it. “I see. What next then?”
“Gluttonous thoughts,” Francis said after a moment.
The priest sighed. “I thought we were through with that. Or is this another time?”
“Yesterday. There was this lizard, Father. It had blue and yellow stripes, and such magnificent hams-thick as your thumb and plump, and I kept thinking how it would taste like chicken, roasted all brown and crisp outside, and-”
“All right,” the priest interrupted. Only a hint of revulsion crossed his aged face. After all, the boy was spending a lot of time in the sun. “You took pleasure in these thoughts? You didn’t try to get rid of the temptation?”
Francis reddened. “I-I tried to catch it. It got away.”
“So, not merely thought-deed as well. Just that one time?”
“Well-yes, just that.”
“All right, in thought and deed, willfully meaning to eat meat during Lent. Please be as specific as you can after this. I thought you had examined your conscience properly. Is there anything else?’
“Quite a lot.”
The priest winced. He had several hermitages to visit; it was a long hot ride, and his knees were hurting. Please get on with it as quickly as you can,” he sighed.
“Impurity, once.”
“Thought, word, or deed?”
“Well, there was this succubus, and she-”
“Succubus? Oh-nocturnal. You were asleep?”
“Yes, but-”
“Then why confess it?”
“Because afterwards.”
“Afterwards what? When you woke up?”
“Yes. I kept thinking about her. Kept imagining it all over again.”
“All right, concupiscent thought, deliberately entertained. You’re sorry? Now, what next?”
All this was the usual sort of thing that one kept hearing time after endless time from postulant after postulant, novice after novice, and it seemed to Father Cheroki that the least Brother Francis could do would be to bark out his self-accusations one, two, three, in a neat orderly manner, without all this prodding and prompting. Francis seemed to find difficulty in formulating whatever he was about to say; the priest waited.
“I think my vocation has come to me, Father, but-” Francis moistened his cracked lips and stared at a bug on a rock.
“Oh, has it?” Cheroki’s voice was toneless
“Yes, I think-but would it be a sin, Father, if when I first got it, I thought rather scornfully of the handwriting? I mean?”
Cheroki blinked. Handwriting? Vocation? What kind of a question was-He studied the novice’s serious expression for a few seconds, then frowned.
“Have you and Brother Alfred been passing notes to each other?” he asked ominously.
“Oh, no, Father!”
“Then whose handwriting are you talking about?”
“The Blessed Leibowitz.”
Cheroki paused to think. Did there, or did there not, exist in the abbey’s collection of ancient documents, any manuscript penned personally by the founder of the Order?-an original copy? After a moment’s reflection, he decided in the affirmative; yes, there were a few scraps of it left, carefully kept under lock and key.
“Are you talking about something that happened back at the abbey? Before you came out here?”
“No, Father. It happened right over there-” He nodded toward the left. “Three mounds over, near the tall cactus.”
“Involving your vocation, you say?”
“Y-yes, but-”
“Of course,” Cheroki said sharply, “you could NOT POSSIBLY be trying to say that-you have received-from the Blessed Leibowitz, dead now, lo, the last six hundred years-a handwritten invitation to profess your solemn vows? And you, uh, deplored his handwriting?-Forgive me, but that’s the impression I was getting.”
“Well, it’s something like that, Father.”
Cberoki sputtered. Becoming alarmed, Brother Francis produced a scrap of paper from his sleeve and handed it to the priest. It was brittle with age and stained. The ink was faded.
“Pound pastrami,” Father Cheroki pronounced, slurring over some of the unfamiliar words, “can kraut, six bagels-bring home for Emma.” He stared fixedly at Brother Francis for several seconds “This was