The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [165]
Father Doneggan blessed himself at the completion of the sermon, and turned back towards the altar.
Studs determined that he would be more attentive. He would have to be, or it would be just the same as not having heard mass, and that, after last night, would be flying too flagrantly in the face of God Almighty. His belly was upset. His head throbbed. He was almost overpowered with thirst. His back was heavy. His ankle pained. He had just about ruined himself like a goddamn fool. He had to smile, remembering Vinc Curley, and that snake-room full of drunks.
Credo in unum Deum...
Somehow, somehow inexplicably, her thigh seemed to brush against him, and it seemed to remain pressed an instant longer that it would have if she had done it without intention, and maybe, maybe it meant she wanted to break the ice. A nervous tremor signalled through him, an exultation flowed from-nerve to nerve, and that pressure, like a deft finger, made him feel as if he were on the verge of great happiness and excitement. The pressure relaxed, and a sense of sin came into his thoughts like vomit. He silently muttered an Our Father. The future seemed opening up to him like a new land, and he could see himself and her going together, making each other happy, surprising everybody who knew them, making the guys all jealous, and he could hear them saying, she must have been stewed when she picked him, she’s the keenest girl in the parish, she’s hot, boy, Studs got himself a woman and I don’t mean maybe.
And he would take her places, and the future was before him like a new land, and he felt like Columbus might have felt when he discovered America.
Father Doneggan kissed the Altar. He turned and saluted the people:
Dominus vobiscum.
Et cum spiritu tuo.
Oremus.
The choir sang the appointed psalm. A sense of solemnity came upon Studs. He bowed his head as Father Doneggan reverently lifted the paten before the crucifix. Studs’ head remained bowed. A vision of Heaven, with God enthroned in red on a golden throne, came to him as through a mist. He was unaware of the sacred progress of the mass, and he knelt with his head still bowed, filled with vague thoughts of adoration, until he heard the choir:
The shepherds were watching, the whole night through,
Under the starry sky...
As a boy, he had sung the song in the children’s choir at five o’clock mass on Christmas morning. The feeling of Christmas, a feeling of joy and reverence suffused upon him, and he remembered boyhood Christmas days, with the snow coming down as he dashed to five o’clock mass, wearing high, laced boots like those lumberjacks wore in movies, kicking chunks of ice with them, hoping to meet Lucy, meeting Dan and Bill, hunching his face forwards and hurrying into a raw wind. He remembered himself, Dan and Bill running to church to be there on time. He remembered them singing, with Lucy, standing with the girls, singing, now and then seeming to dart a glance at him, and TB McCarthy in front of him, goofily singing:
The shepherds were guzzling the whole night through,
Under the beery sky...
Jim Clayburn came towards him with the collection box, a small, square, wooden container attached to a long pole. Jim pushed it by Studs, smiling a trifle, and Studs dropped in a Christmas envelope, containing five dollars. Studs noticed that the box was packed with bills and envelopes. He hoped she’d noticed that he was making a good offering. She put in a dollar bill.
The offertory bell sounded a warning that the Canon or Sacrificial part of the Mass was beginning. Heads bowed, and hands beat on chest.
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus...
Studs muttered the words of the Act of Contrition over and over again. He wished last night undone, like he had almost never wished for anything. The bell, the sudden feeling of change in everyone at Mass, the knowledge