Halfway down the last flight he paused and tried to think. But he drew his hand over his eyes and shook his head.
“It’s no use. It’s no use,” he said aloud.
There was a great din of disturbed people in the house above him.
He reached the hallway. Through the open door he could see the street outside. The dawn had come. The air was grey, cold, empty and silent. He marched steadily to the door. His body was very cold. And his mind was dead. Cold and dead. Dead and cold.
A stream of red blood trickled down over his right boot from the wound in his thigh. Another stream trickled along his right ribs. He did not know. He was cold and dead. Dead and very cold.
He stopped in the doorway. His eyes expanded. A last passion made his body rigid. He roared. He had seen Gallagher standing against the church railings across the road, with his hands in his raincoat pockets, smiling insolently.
Gypo descended the five steps to the street at one bound. Then as his right foot landed on the pavement there was a rapid succession of shots. They came from all sides. Three of them entered his body. Without bringing his left foot to the pavement he jumped again into the air, with his two hands reaching out and his face turned upwards, in the earnest attitude of a symbolic dancer.
He hurtled out into the street, hopping on staggering feet, writhing and contorting. Then he fell to his knees. He groaned and fell prone.
He struggled up again, looking wildly around him, holding his bowels with his hands. Gallagher was there in front of him, smiling dreamily now, with distant, melancholy eyes.
Gallagher shrugged himself and turned away sharply to the right.
Gypo wanted to go after him. But he no longer knew why he wanted to go after him. His eyes were getting dim. His body was cold. Cold and dead.
Grinding his teeth he got to his feet. He threw out his chest, shrugged his shoulders and walked ahead like a drunken man. He walked slowly straight ahead, straight, stiff, swinging his limp hands slowly.
He walked through the iron gateway of the church, along the concrete path to the door. He had to crawl up the steps on his knees. Blood was coming up his throat.
Reverently he dipped his hand into the holy-water font. He wet his hand to the wrist. He tried to take off his hat in order to cross himself. His hand pawed about his skull, but his fingers were already dead. They could not grip the tattered hat. He tried to cross himself. Impossible. His hand could not reach his forehead. It went up halfway and then fell lifelessly. It was a ton weight. He strode to the left. He staggered through a narrow Roman door. He was in the church.
It was a great high room, curtained with silence. At the altar, away in the lamp-lit dimness of the dawn, a priest was saying Mass. The droning sound of the words came down the silent church, peaceful, laden with the quaint odour of mystery, the mysterious calm of souls groping after infinite things. All round the church the people knelt with bent heads and faces wrapt in prayer for infinite things. Sad, haggard, hungry faces wrapt in the contemplation of infinity, wafted out of the sordidness of their lives by the contemplation of infinite things.
Peace and silence and the quaint odour of mystery and of infinite things.
Deep, long, soft words murmured endlessly in a silent place. Mystery and the phantoms of death breathing faint breaths.
Mercy and pity. Pity and peace. Pity and mercy and peace, three eternal gems in the tabernacle of life, burnished ceaselessly with human dust.
From dust to dust.
Gypo’s eyes roamed around the church. His eyes were very dim. There was a blur before them. He thought he saw somebody whom he knew. He was not sure. Yes. They were looking at him. There, on the left, on the other side of the aisle. It was a long way off. What? Frankie McPhillip’s mother!
He set out, with a great sigh, towards her. He fell in a heap in front of her seat. He raised his head to her face. He saw her face, a great, white, sad face, with tears running down the fat cheeks. He struggled to his knees in the aisle before her. People were rushing to him talking. He waved his hands to keep them away. It was very dark. He swallowed the blood in his mouth and he cried out in a thick whisper:
“Mrs. McPhillip, ’twas I informed on yer son Frankie. Forgive me. I’m dyin’.”
“I forgive ye,” she sighed in a sad, soft whisper. “Ye didn’t know what ye were doin’.”
He shivered from head to foot and bowed his head.
He felt a great mad rush of blood to his head. A great joy filled him. He became conscious of infinite things.
Pity and mercy and peace and the phantoms of death breathing faint breaths. Mercy and pity and peace.
“Lemme go!” he cried, struggling to his feet.
He stood up straight, in all the majesty of his giant stature, towering over all, erect and majestic, with his limbs like pillars, looking towards the altar.
He cried out in a loud voice:
“Frankie, yer mother has forgiven me.”
Then with a gurgling sound he fell forward on his face. His hat rolled off. Blood gushed from his mouth. He stretched out his limbs in the shape of a cross. He shivered and lay still.
Colophon
The Informer
was published in 1925 by
Liam O’Flaherty.
This ebook was transcribed and produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Alex Cabal,
and is based on digital scans from
