Where There is Nothing

Paul Ruttledge. Good-bye, Paddy. Good-bye, Tommy. My mother Earth will have none of me and I will go look for my father that is in heaven.

Paddy Cockfight. Come along, Sibby.

[Takes her hand and hurries off.

Charlie Ward. [Rings bell.] Are they sure to let you in, Paul? Have you got your story ready?

Paul Ruttledge. No fear, they won't refuse a sick man. No one knows me but Father Jerome, and he won't tell on me.

Charlie Ward. There's a step inside. I'll cut for it.

[He goes out. Paul is left sitting on steps.

Scene 2. —The crypt under the Monastery church. A small barred window high up in the wall, through which the cold dawn is breaking. Altar in a niche at the back of stage; there are seven unlighted candles on the altar. A little hanging lamp near the altar. Paul Ruttledgeis lying on the altar steps. Friars are dancing slowly before him in the dim light. Father Aloysiusis leaning against a pillar.

Some Friars come in carrying lanterns.

First Friar. What are they doing? Dancing?

Second Friar. I told you they were dancing, and you would not believe me.

First Friar. What on earth are they doing it for?

Third Friar. I heard them saying Father Paul told them to do it if they ever found him in a trance again. He told them it was a kind of prayer and would bring joy down out of heaven, and make it easier for him to preach.

Second Friar. How still he is lying; you would nearly think him to be dead.

A Friar. It is just a twelvemonth to-day since he was in a trance like this.

Second Friar. That was the time he gave his great preaching. I can't blame those that went with him, for he all but persuaded me.

First Friar. They think he is going to preach again when he awakes, that's why they are dancing. When he wakes one of them will go and call the others.

Third Friar. We were all in danger when one so pious was led away. It's five years he has been with us now, and no one ever went so quickly from lay brother to novice, and novice to friar.

First Friar. The way he fasted too! The Superior bade me watch him at meal times for fear he should starve himself.

Third Friar. He thought a great deal of Brother Paul then, but he isn't so well pleased with him now.

Second Friar. What is Father Aloysius doing there? standing so quiet and his eyes shut.

Third Friar. He is meditating. Didn't you hear Brother Paul gives meditations of his own.

First Friar. Colman was telling me about that. He gives them a joyful thought to fix their minds on. They must not let their minds stray to anything else. They must follow that single thought and put everything else behind them.

Third Friar. Colman fainted the other day when he was at his meditation. He says it is a great labour to follow one thought always.

Second Friar. What do they do it for?

First Friar. To escape what they call the wandering of nature. They say it was in the trance Brother Paul got the knowledge of it. He says that if a man can only keep his mind on the one high thought he gets out of time into eternity, and learns the truth for itself.

Third Friar. He calls that getting above law and number, and becoming king and priest in one's own house.

Second Friar. A nice state of things it would be if every man was his own priest and his own king.

First Friar. I wonder will he wake soon. I thought I saw him stir just now. Father Aloysius, will he wake soon?

Aloysius. What did you say?

First Friar. Will he wake soon?

Aloysius. Yes, yes, he will wake very soon now.

Second Friar. What are they going to do now; are they going to dance?

Third Friar. He was too patient with him. He would have made short work of any of us if we had gone so far.

First Dancer.

Nam, et si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis,

Non timebo mala, quoniam tu mecum es.

First Friar. They are singing the twenty-second Psalm. What madness to sing!

Second Dancer.

Virga tua, et baculus tuus,

Ipsa me consolata sunt.

First Dancer.

Parasti in conspectu meo mensam

Adversus eos qui tribulant me.

Second Dancer.

Impinguasti in oleo caput meum;

Et calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est.

Second Friar. Here is the Superior. There'll be bad work now.

Superior comes in.

Superior. [Holding up his hand.] Silence!

[They stop singing and dancing.

First Dancer. It's the Superior.

Superior. Stop this blasphemy! Leave the chapel at once! I will deal with you by-and-by. [Dancing Friars go out.

Jerome. [Stooping over Paul.] He has not wakened from the trance yet.

Aloysius. [Who still remains perfectly motionless.] Not yet, but he will soon awake – Paul!

Superior. It is hardly worth while being angry with those poor fools whose heads he has turned with his talk. [Stoops and touches his hand.] It is quite rigid. I will wait till he is alive again, there is no use wasting words on a dead body.

Jerome. [Stooping over him.] His eyes are beginning to quiver. Let me be the first to speak to him. He may say some wild things when he awakes, not knowing who is before him.

Superior. He must not preach. I must have his submission at once.

Jerome. I will do all I can with him. He is most likely to listen to me. I was once his close friend.

Superior. Speak to him if you like, but entire submission is the only thing I will accept. [To the other Monks.] Come with me, we will leave Father Jerome here to speak to him. [Superiorand Friars go to the door.] Such desecration, such blasphemy. Remember, Father Jerome, entire submission, and at once. [Superiorand Friars go out.

Jerome. Where are the rest of his friends, Father Aloysius? Bartley and Colman ought to be with him when he is like this.

Aloysius. They are resting, because, when he has given his message, they may never be able to rest again.

Jerome. [Bending over him.] My poor Paul, this will wear him out; see how thin he has grown!

Aloysius. He is hard upon his body. He does not care what happens to his body.

Jerome. He was like this when he was a boy; some wild thought would come on him, and he would not know day from night, he would forget even to eat. It is a great pity he was so hard to himself; it is a pity he had not always someone to look after him.

Aloysius. God is taking care of him; what could men like us do for him? We cannot help him, it is he who helps us.

Jerome. [Going on his knee and taking his hand.] He is awaking. Help me to lift him up. [They lift him into a chair.

Aloysius. I will go and call the others now.

Jerome. Do not let them come for a little time, I must speak to him first.

Aloysius. I cannot keep them away long. One cannot know when the words may be put in his mouth.

[Aloysiusgoes out. Jeromestands by Paul Ruttledge, holding his hand.

Paul Ruttledge. [Raising his head.] Ah, you are there, Jerome. I am glad you are there. I could not get up to drive away the mouse that was eating the wax that dropped from the candles. Have you driven it away?

Jerome. It is not evening now. It is almost morning. You were on your knees praying for a great many hours, and then I think you fainted.

Paul Ruttledge. I don't think I was praying. I was among people, a great many people, and it was very bright – I will remember presently.

Jerome. Do not try to remember. You are tired, you must be weak, you must come and have food and rest.

Paul Ruttledge. I do not think I can rest. I think there is something else I have to do, I forget what it is.

Jerome. I am afraid you are thinking of preaching again. You must not preach. The Superior says you must not. He is very angry; I have never seen him so angry. He will not allow you to preach again.

Paul Ruttledge. Did I ever preach?

Jerome. Yes. It was in the garden you got the trance last time. We found you like this, and we lifted you to the bench under the yew tree, and then you began to speak. You spoke about getting out of the body while still alive, about getting away from law and number. All the friars came to listen to you. We had never heard such preaching before, but it was very like heresy.

Paul Ruttledge. [Getting up.] Jerome, Jerome, I remember now where I was. I was in a great round place, and a great crowd of things came round me. I couldn't see them very clearly for a time, but some of them struck me with their feet, hard feet like hoofs, and soft cat-like feet; and some pecked me, and some bit me, and some clawed me. There were all sorts of beasts and birds as far as I could see.

Jerome. Were they devils, Paul, were they the deadly sins?

Paul Ruttledge. I don't know, but I thought, and I don't know how the thought came to me, that they were the part of mankind that is not human; the part that builds up the things that keep the soul from God.

Jerome. That was a terrible vision.

Paul Ruttledge. I struggled and I struggled with them, and they heaped themselves over me till I was unable to move hand or foot; and that went on for a long, long time.

Jerome. [Crossing himself.] God have mercy on us.

Paul Ruttledge. Then suddenly there came a bright light, and all in a minute the beasts were gone, and I saw a great many angels riding upon unicorns, white angels on white unicorns. They stood all round me, and they cried out, "Brother Paul, go and preach; get up and preach, Brother Paul." And then they laughed aloud, and the unicorns trampled the ground as though the world were already falling in pieces.

Jerome. It was only a dream. Come with me. You will forget it when you have had food and rest.

Paul Ruttledge. [Looking at his arm.] It was there one of them clawed me; one that looked at me with great heavy eyes.

Jerome. The Superior has been here; try and listen to me. He says you must not preach.

Paul Ruttledge. Great heavy eyes and hard sharp claws.

Jerome. [Putting his hands on his shoulders.] You must awake from this. You must remember where you are. You are under rules. You must not break the rules you are under. The brothers will be coming in to hear you, you must not speak to them. The Superior has forbidden it.

Paul Ruttledge. [Touching Jerome'shand.] I have always been a great trouble to you.

Jerome. You must go and submit to the Superior. Go and make your submission now, for my sake. Think of what I have done for your sake. Remember how I brought you in, and answered for you when you came here. I did not tell about that wild business. I have done penance for that deceit.

Paul Ruttledge. Yes, you have always been good to me, but do not ask me this. I have had other orders.

Jerome. Last time you preached the whole monastery was upset. The Friars began to laugh suddenly in the middle of the night.

Paul Ruttledge. If I have been given certain truths to tell, I must tell them at once before they slip away from me.

Jerome. I cannot understand your ideas; you tell them impossible things. Things that are against the order of nature.

Paul Ruttledge. I have learned that one needs a religion so wholly supernatural, that is so opposed to the order of nature that the world can never capture it.

[Some Friars come in. They carry green branches in their hands.

Paul Ruttledge. They are coming. Will you stay and listen?

Jerome. I must not stay. I must not listen.

Paul Ruttledge. Help me over to the candles. I am weak, my knees are weak. I shall be strong when the words come. I shall be able to teach. [He lights a taper at the hanging lamp and tries to light the candles with a shaking hand. Jerometakes the taper from him and lights the candles.] Why are you crying, Jerome?

Jerome. Because we that were friends are separated now. We shall never be together again.

Paul Ruttledge. Never again? The love of God is a very terrible thing.

Jerome. I have done with meddling. I must leave you to authority now. I must tell the Superior you will not obey. [He goes out.

First Friar. Father Jerome had a very dark look going out.

Second Friar. He was shut up with the Superior this morning. I wonder what they were talking about.

First Friar. I wonder if the Superior will mind our taking the branches. They are only cut on Palm Sunday other years. What will he tell us, I wonder? It seems as if he was going to tell us how to do some great thing. Do you think he will teach us to do cures like the friars used at Esker?

Second Friar. Those were great cures they did there, and they were not strange men, but just the same as ourselves. I heard of a man went to them dying on a cart, and he walked twenty miles home to Burren holding the horses head.

First Friar. Maybe we'll be able to see visions the same as were seen at Knock. It's a great wonder all that was seen and all that was done there.

Third Friar. I was there one time, and the whole place was full of crutches that had been thrown away by people that were cured. There was a silver crutch there some rich man from America had sent as an offering after getting his cure. Speak to him, Brother Colman. He seems to be in some sort of a dream. Ask if he is going to speak to us now.

Colman. We are all here, Brother Paul.

Paul Ruttledge. Have you all been through your meditations? [They all gather round him.

Bartley. We have all tried; we have done our best; but it is hard to keep our mind on the one thing for long.

Paul Ruttledge. "He ascended into heaven." Have you meditated upon that? Did you reject all earthly images that came into your mind till the light began to gather?

Third Friar. I could not fix my mind well. When I put out one thought others came rushing in.

Colman. When I was meditating, the inside of my head suddenly became all on fire.

Aloysius. While I was meditating I felt a spout of fire going up between my shoulders.

Paul Ruttledge. That is the way it begins. You are ready now to hear the truth. Now I can give you the message that has come to me. Stand here at either side of the altar. Brother Colman, come beside me here. Lay down your palm branches before this altar; you have brought them as a sign that the walls are beginning to be broken up, that we are going back to the joy of the green earth. [Goes up to the candles and speaks.] Et calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est. For a long time after their making men and women wandered here and there, half blind from the drunkenness of Eternity; they had not yet forgotten that the green Earth was the Love of God, and that all Life was the Will of God, and so they wept and laughed and hated according to the impulse of their hearts. [He takes up the green boughs and presses them to his breast.] They gathered the green Earth to their breasts and their lips, as I gather these boughs to mine, in what they believed would be an eternal kiss. [He remains a little while silent.

Second Friar. I see a light about his head.

Third Friar. I wonder if he has seen God.

Paul Ruttledge. It was then that the temptation began. Not only the Serpent who goes upon his belly, but all the animal spirits that have loved things better than life, came out of their holes and began to whisper. The men and women listened to them, and because when they had lived according to the joyful Will of God in mother wit and natural kindness, they sometimes did one another an injury, they thought that it would be better to be safe than to be blessèd, they made the Laws. The Laws were the first sin. They were the first mouthful of the apple, the moment man had made them he began to die; we must put out the Laws as I put out this candle.

[He puts out the candle with an extinguisher, still holding the boughs with his left hand. Two orthodox Friars have come in.

First Orthodox Friar. You had better go for the Superior.

Second Orthodox Friar. I must stop and listen.

[The First Orthodox Friar listens for a minute or two and then goes out.

Paul Ruttledge. And when they had lived amidst the green Earth that is the Love of God, they were sometimes wetted by the rain, and sometimes cold and hungry, and sometimes alone from one another; they thought it would be better to be comfortable than to be blessèd. They began to build big houses and big towns. They grew wealthy and they sat chattering at their doors; and the embrace that was to have been eternal ended, lips and hands were parted. [He lets the boughs slip out of his arms.] We must put out the towns as I put out this candle. [Puts out another candle.

A Friar. Yes, yes, we must uproot the towns.

Paul Ruttledge. But that is not all, for man created a worse thing, yes, a worse defiance against God. [The Friars groan.] God put holiness into everything that lives, for everything that desires is full of His Will, and everything that is beautiful is full of His Love; but man grew timid because it had been hard to find his way amongst so much holiness, and though God had made all time holy, man said that only the day on which God rested from life was holy, and though God had made all places holy, man said, "no place but this place that I put pillars and walls about is holy, this place where I rest from life"; and in this and like ways he built up the Church. We must destroy the Church, we must put it out as I put out this candle. [Puts out another candle.

Friars. [Clasping one another's hands.] He is right, he is right. The Church must be destroyed. [The Superiorcomes in.

First Friar. Here is the Superior.

A Friar. He has been saying —

Superior. Hush! I will hear him to the end.

Paul Ruttledge. That is not all. These things may be accomplished and yet nothing be accomplished. The Christian's business is not reformation but revelation, and the only labours he can put his hand to can never be accomplished in Time. He must so live that all things shall pass away. [He stands silent for a moment and then cries, lifting his hand above his head.] Give me wine out of thy pitchers; oh, God, how splendid is my cup of drunkenness. We must become blind, and deaf, and dizzy. We must get rid of everything that is not measureless eternal life. We must put out hope as I put out this candle. [Puts out a candle.] And memory as I put out this candle. [As before.] And thought, the waster of Life, as I put out this candle. [As before.] And at last we must put out the light of the Sun and of the Moon, and all the light of the World and the World itself. [He now puts out the last candle, the chapel is very dark. The only light is the faint light of morning coming through the window.] We must destroy the World; we must destroy everything that has Law and Number, for where there is nothing, there is God.

[The Superiorcomes forward. One of Paul's Friars makes as if to speak to him. The Superiorstrikes at him with the back of his hand.

Superior. [To Paul Ruttledge.] Get out of this, rebel, blasphemous rebel!

Paul Ruttledge. Do as you like to me, but you cannot silence my thoughts. I learned them from Jesus Christ, who made a terrible joy, and sent it to overturn governments, and all settled order.

[Paul's Friars rush to save him from the Superior.

Paul Ruttledge. There is no need for violence. I am ready to go.

Colman. [Taking his hand.] I will go with you.

Aloysius. I will go with you too.

Several other Friars. And I, and I, and I.

Superior. Whoever goes with this heretic goes straight into the pit.

Bartley. Do not leave us behind you. Let us go with you.

Colman. Teach us! teach us! we will help you to teach others.

Paul Ruttledge. Let me go alone, the one more, the one nearer falsehood.

Bartley. We will go with you! We will go with you! We must go where we can hear your voice.

A Friar. [Who stands behind the Superior.] God is making him speak against himself.

Paul Ruttledge. No, the time has not come for you. You would be thinking of your food at midday and listening for the bells at prayer time. You have not yet heard the voices and seen the faces.

Superior. A miracle! God is making the heretic speak against himself. Listen to him!

Aloysius. We will not stay behind, we will go with you.

Bartley. We cannot live without hearing you!

Paul Ruttledge. I am led by hands that are colder than ice and harder than diamonds. They will lead me where there will be hard thoughts of me in the hearts of all that love me, and there will be a fire in my heart that will make it as bare as the wilderness.

Aloysius. We will go with you. We too will take those hands that are colder than ice and harder than diamonds.

Several Monks. We too! we too!

Patrick. Bring us to the hands that are colder than ice and harder than diamonds.

Other Monks. Pull them away! pull them away from him!

[They are about to seize the Monks who are with Paul Ruttledge.

Superior. [Going between them.] Back! back! I will have no scuffling here. Let the devil take his children if he has a mind to. God will call His own.

[The Monks fall back. Superiorgoes up to altar, takes the cross from it and turns, standing on the steps.

Superior. Father Aloysius, come to me here. [Aloysiustakes Paul Ruttledge'shand.] Father Bartley, Father Colman. [They go nearer to Paul Ruttledge.] Father Patrick! [A Friar comes towards him.] Kneel down! [Father Patrickkneels.] Father Clement, Father Nestor, Father James … leave the heretic – you are on the very edge of the pit. Your shoes are growing red hot.

A Friar. I am afraid, I am afraid. [He kneels.

Superior. Kneel down; return to your God. [Several Monks kneel.

Colman. They have deserted us.

Paul Ruttledge. Many will forsake the truth before the world is pulled down. [Stretching out his arms over his head.] I pulled down my own house, now I go out to pull down the world.

Superior. Strip off those holy habits.

Paul Ruttledge. [Taking off his habit.] One by one I am plucking off the rags and tatters of the world.