No More Learning

If I had
not, you might have died. I wonder what it all meant? The unicorns--what
did the French monk tell me? --strength they meant, virginal strength, a
rushing, lasting, tireless strength.

MARTIN.

They were strong. Oh, they made a great noise with their trampling.

FATHER JOHN.

And the grapes, what did they mean? It puts me in mind of the psalm,
_Et calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est_. It was a strange vision,
a very strange vision, a very strange vision.

MARTIN.

How can I get back to that place?

FATHER JOHN.

You must not go back, you must not think of doing that.
That life of
vision, of contemplation, is a terrible life, for it has far more of
temptation in it than the common life. Perhaps it would have been best
for you to stay under rules in the monastery.

MARTIN.

I could not see anything so clearly there. It is back here in my own
place the visions come, in the place where shining people used to laugh
around me, and I a little lad in a bib.

FATHER JOHN.

You cannot know but it was from the Prince of this world the vision
came. How can one ever know unless one follows the discipline of the
Church? Some spiritual director, some wise learned man, that is what
you want. I do not know enough. What am I but a poor banished priest,
with my learning forgotten, my books never handled and spotted with the
damp!

MARTIN.

I will go out into the fields where you cannot come to me to awake me.
I will see that townland again; I will hear that command. I cannot
wait, I must know what happened, I must bring that command to mind
again.

FATHER JOHN.