* * * *

--I used to wonder how Christ could really have been tempted, if He was sinless, and rejected the first, and the second, and the third temptation, how was He tempted? . . . how did He know what it was, the way we do, to be tempted? No, He was Christ. But for us, with it there from the start, and possible all the time, to go on knowing it's possible and pretend to avoid it? Or . . . to have lived it through, and live it through, and deliberately go on living it through.

He took a few steps down the hill, and stood looking over the valley, where smoke was rising from the drift of roofs of the town, and further down the mountainsides.

He looked fragile enough there, blocking the path before the figure in Irish thorn-proof, which loomed larger for being slightly uphill. Still Ludy saw no way to get round him, but stood unsteadily awkward waiting, trapped once more, seeking some detail of sight or sound, threatened again with the torment of loss tolling his senses one by one, while somewhere unseen the bell against the ruminating jaw jogged the silence. --You can't go on this way, he broke out at the back turned to him, --this wandering . . . and he amended, --I mean, I travel a good deal myself, but . . .

--Listen! there's a moment, traveling . . .

--But I . . .

--Offered shelter, there they were, all the family at dinner . . .

--Usually working on something . . .

--But she didn't wear her breasts around to be chewed by strangers, when she said . . .

--Without . . . reproach . . .

--her daughter . . .

--What? Ludy came down upon him, --You said, you have a daughter somewhere? . . .
At that he came round so quickly in the path that Ludy startled off it and the instant his foot went into the deep grass a commotion burst there. Another step back, Ludy stumbled and fell, and the bird which had fluttered up was caught in Stephen's hand above him, where it beat its wings frantically.

--A daughter, yes.

--I've cut myself, Ludy said from the ground.

--Yes, Stephen laughed suddenly over him, holding the bird, looking down, where a streak formed on Ludy's hand.

--But, I'm bleeding . . . don't, why are you laughing?

--Yes, who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him . . . ? Stephen stood there looking down, and he covered the bird in his hand with the hand mounting the diamonds. --But you can't quiet it, you can't comfort it, it would die of fright.

--It frightened me, so close . ..

--See, how it's made . . .

--No, no . . . from far off, flying, yes, they're beautiful . . . Ludy struggled up on his elbows. --But no, not this close, like that, they make my blood run cold . . . He looked at the faint streak on his hand and repeated, --I'm bleeding.

--Stephen burst into laughter again, more loudly, standing there with the bird. --Yes, yes, who would have thought, the old man . . . he laughed more loudly, at the slight and so faintly colored streak, --to have had so much blood in him! . . .

--But what is it . . . no, Ludy shuddered on the ground and unable to rise while the bird was held over him there.

--A daughter, yes! and born out of, no love but borne out of love, when it happened, the bearing, the present reshaped the past. And the suitor? Oh Christ! not slaying the suitor, no never, but to supersede where they failed, lie down where they left. Where they lost their best moments, and went on, to confess them in repetition somewhere else without living them through where they happened, trying to reshape the future without daring to reshape the past. Oh the lives! that are lost in confession . . .

--I'm bleeding . . .

--To run back looking for every one of them? every one of them, no, it's too easy, Penelope spinning a web somewhere, and tearing it out at night, and waiting? or to marry someone else's mistake, to atone for one of your own somewhere else, dull and dead the day it begins. You'd see, listen, listen, listen here if the prospect of sin, draws us on but the sin is only boring and dead the moment it happens, it's only the living it through that redeems it. (pp. 896-98)