Status: In progress
Confessions From The Confessional
The Portrait Of A Lady
Dear Father, Almighty Lord, exultant God of all!
I have been expressly troubled in my heart to-day, as you know – for you know all, loving Father – but I must transpose my thoughts on the matter in paper and ink, for I have been sorely tempted in judgement to let slip the confession of a troubled young woman who came to my confessional after Mass today – oh, what a terrible confession she had! Were I a sinner, I would find her most becoming facially, and I make no bones about the fact that I briefly sinned in thought and ask for your forgiveness for this; but it was unavoidable – such marble cheekbones like a Roman goddess statue, and such vivacious eyes: walking, talking temptation. I ask once more for your eternal forgiveness.
It was simple to see that she was a sinner, for her hair was as black as the ashes of Sodom and her eyes glittered with the Devil’s impulse, but part of her natural allure was that of her softly-spoken articulacy and obvious intelligence – sin was magnetised to her, that was plain to see, but I digress – even this warning could not prepare me for the gravity of her sin and the abhorrence of her deeds!
The Lord she had exiled since her younger years; I knew her family by name, I had baptised her younger sister, and from memory I recalled her name to be Catherine Selby, of the esteemed middle-class Selby family – her mother and father, both sadly now passed into your eternal realm, Father, were regular Catholics, as pious as the next family, and they brought along their daughters to the cathedral every Sunday morn. And if they missed the service, as they were wont to do in their teenage years – for the years of parties, temptation and sin befell them – they would be dragged forth to the Church in the evening to see its magnificence, and they were able to recite the catechisms by heart, having always had eager memories and intellects. You, Father, must know that she bore the cross many years ago, when her father fell fatally ill, and after his passing she visited the cathedral for a year as though seeking comfort – as many do, for it is your purpose, O Father.
Miss Selby abandoned you, Father – so I assume, for her face became absent from this house of worship for ten years after her mother died when she was a mere eighteen years old, and a mature one at that – and so to see her face in the congregation, and to see her rise after the service and head towards the confessional box, unperturbed by the cake sale occurring in one of the chambers, was to know that she had an intention of confessing to her sin. The devil was incarnate in human flesh in her – the charisma, appearance and so on. But I tried to see her as a human – oh, you know it to be true, my Lord! – and failed; she was too ethereal, too corrupt. Her confession served this vision further.
I shall relate now the details of our conversation, from what my memory can summon: but I, as you know, Father, am elderly and details may have lost themselves, though the vast majority of the conversation is burnt into my memory forever. The wickedness gleaned in her eyes over the years, the tarnished piety, the immoral peals of laughter – o, it was abhorrent, and I must rest prior to writing it, for the wrists of an old man are easily ached.
I have been expressly troubled in my heart to-day, as you know – for you know all, loving Father – but I must transpose my thoughts on the matter in paper and ink, for I have been sorely tempted in judgement to let slip the confession of a troubled young woman who came to my confessional after Mass today – oh, what a terrible confession she had! Were I a sinner, I would find her most becoming facially, and I make no bones about the fact that I briefly sinned in thought and ask for your forgiveness for this; but it was unavoidable – such marble cheekbones like a Roman goddess statue, and such vivacious eyes: walking, talking temptation. I ask once more for your eternal forgiveness.
It was simple to see that she was a sinner, for her hair was as black as the ashes of Sodom and her eyes glittered with the Devil’s impulse, but part of her natural allure was that of her softly-spoken articulacy and obvious intelligence – sin was magnetised to her, that was plain to see, but I digress – even this warning could not prepare me for the gravity of her sin and the abhorrence of her deeds!
The Lord she had exiled since her younger years; I knew her family by name, I had baptised her younger sister, and from memory I recalled her name to be Catherine Selby, of the esteemed middle-class Selby family – her mother and father, both sadly now passed into your eternal realm, Father, were regular Catholics, as pious as the next family, and they brought along their daughters to the cathedral every Sunday morn. And if they missed the service, as they were wont to do in their teenage years – for the years of parties, temptation and sin befell them – they would be dragged forth to the Church in the evening to see its magnificence, and they were able to recite the catechisms by heart, having always had eager memories and intellects. You, Father, must know that she bore the cross many years ago, when her father fell fatally ill, and after his passing she visited the cathedral for a year as though seeking comfort – as many do, for it is your purpose, O Father.
Miss Selby abandoned you, Father – so I assume, for her face became absent from this house of worship for ten years after her mother died when she was a mere eighteen years old, and a mature one at that – and so to see her face in the congregation, and to see her rise after the service and head towards the confessional box, unperturbed by the cake sale occurring in one of the chambers, was to know that she had an intention of confessing to her sin. The devil was incarnate in human flesh in her – the charisma, appearance and so on. But I tried to see her as a human – oh, you know it to be true, my Lord! – and failed; she was too ethereal, too corrupt. Her confession served this vision further.
I shall relate now the details of our conversation, from what my memory can summon: but I, as you know, Father, am elderly and details may have lost themselves, though the vast majority of the conversation is burnt into my memory forever. The wickedness gleaned in her eyes over the years, the tarnished piety, the immoral peals of laughter – o, it was abhorrent, and I must rest prior to writing it, for the wrists of an old man are easily ached.