The Heart of the Matter (Vintage classics)

by Graham Greene

‘I don’t know how to put it, Father, but I feel—tired of my religion. It seems to mean nothing to me. I’ve tried to love God, but—’he made a gesture which the priest could not see, turned sideways through the grille. ‘I’m not sure that I even believe.’ ‘It’s easy,’ the priest said, ‘to worry too much about that. Especially here. The penance I would give to a lot of people if I could is six months’ leave. The climate gets you down. It’s easy to mistake tiredness for—well, disbelief.’ ‘I don’t want to keep you, Father. There are other people waiting. I know these are just fancies. But I feel—empty. Empty.’ ‘That’s sometimes the moment God chooses,’ the priest said. ‘Now go along with you and say a decade of your rosary.’ ‘I haven’t a rosary. At least …’ ‘Well, five Our Father’s and five Hail Marys then.’ He began to speak the words of absolution, but the trouble is, Scobie thought, there’s nothing to absolve. The words brought no sense of relief because there was nothing to relieve. They were a formula: the Latin words hustled together—a hocus pocus. He went out of the box and knelt down again, and this too was part of a routine. It seemed to him for a moment that God was too accessible. There was no difficulty in approaching Him. Like a popular demagogue He was open to the least of His followers at any hour. Looking up at the cross he thought, He even suffers in public.