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“And I became as a man that heareth not, and that hath no reproofs in his mouth.”

The voices of the mother and sweetheart throbbed, broke. Tears streamed down their faces. Breathless, tired, their backs straining, their knees hurting, they recited, smearing their faces by hastily wiping their tears with the backs of their hands. As if through tear-dimmed eyes, Mrs. Lonigan saw her boy in the cradle, saw him receiving his first Holy Communion in a Buster Brown collar and a blue suit, and Catherine saw herself and Bill again walking in Jackson Park on a Sunday, and the nurse, beginning to tire, wished this Catholic mumble-jumble would end.

“But my enemies live and are stronger than I; and they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied.”

And the priest signed the cross on the blistered lips of Studs Lonigan.

“—nem, et suam piissimam misericordiam.. .”

“Forsake me not, O Lord! my God! do not Thou depart from me.”

And mechanically the priest’s voice intoned while a fierce pride of justification swept like a torrent within him, repaying him in this moment of the exercise of his powers to succor the dying, for all his struggles with the world, the flesh, the devil, the temptations arising out of his own nature.

“per gustum et locutionem deliquisti. Amen.”

Envisioning Heaven in an unclear sense of perfect happiness flying about like an unseen bird, Heaven and God Whose ministrations he was performing on this dying man, the priest wiped his thumb with an additional clean ball of cotton, dropped it into the saucer containing the previously used balls of cotton. Contrite for the false pride that had stirred him with this exercising of his mysterious powers, he thought of God, an Unseen Spirit, looking down upon this little scene, preparing Himself to receive another soul redeemed at death from the clutches of Satan. Again he dipped his finger in the Holy Oil.

“Per istam sanctam Unctio— .. .”

He pressed the sign of the cross on the backs of the wasted hands of Studs Lonigan, observing the bony protuberances of wrists, knowing that it must be the Will of God taking this suffering sinner’s life.

“For behold! I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins did my mother conceive me.”

Her face distorted with tears, Mrs. Lonigan brokenly read the Psalms, thinking that in sin did she conceive him, her own flesh and blood dying while ‘she was powerless to die for him, protect him, help him; and Catherine sobbed, and told herself that in sin had she conceived Bill’s fatherless baby. Oh, God, no, please, please God, no!

The curtain waved, the burning candle flickered, and the radio crooning from outside drifted into the room, causing an expression of annoyance to cut the priest’s face.

Just a gigolo,

Everywhere I go..

“..per tactum deliquisti. Amen.”

“Turn not away Thy face from me; in the day when I am in trouble, incline Thine ear to me.”

The telephone rang. Catherine and Mrs. Lonigan looked at the closed door. The nurse, glad to get out of the room, signalled to Mrs. Lonigan, arose and tiptoed out of the room.

With the sheets drawn down from him, Studs felt a cooling draft on his legs and body, and he wanted to sleep, and to end this joke of them thinking he was dying when he wasn’t. A joke was a joke, but he wanted to sleep, and his limbs were so tired and there was such a dragging ache in his back, and he wasn’t dying, only sleepy and weak. He felt the touch of something oily on his feet, heard voices as an indistinct blur of sound, told them he wanted no more of this joke, but they wanted to torture him and wouldn’t listen. A sudden smile twisted on his emaciated fevered face. Or was he playing the joke on them?

“For the stones thereof have pleased Thy servants, and they shall have pity on the earth thereof.”

“.. per gressum deliquisti.”

And after this final anointment the priest wiped his thumb with bread crumbs, washed his hands in the cut-glass bowl, dried them with a linen napkin, the women looking hopefully at his tall back, thinking, as if in unison,