"Higgins, Jack - Prayer For The Dying" - читать интересную книгу автора (Higgins Jack)

"Is that all?" he prompted her in the silence.

It wasn't, of course, and out it came. An affair with her employer, a married man.

"How long has this been going on?" da Costa asked her.

"For three months, Father."

The exact period since she had last been to Mass.

"This man has made love to you?"

"Yes, Father."

"How often?"

"Two or three times a week. At the office. When everyone else has gone home."

There was a confidence in her voice now, a calmness. Of course bringing things out into the open often made people feel like that, but this was different.

"He has children?"

"Three, Father." There was a pause. "What can I do?"

"The answer is so obvious. Must be. Leave this place - find another job. Put him out of your mind."

"I can't do that."

"Why?" he said, and added with calculated brutality, "Because you enjoy it?"

"Yes, Father," she said simply.

"And you're not prepared to stop?"

"I can't!" For the first time she cracked, just a little, but there was panic there now.

"Then why have you come here?"

"I haven't been to Mass in three months, Father."

He saw it all then and it was really so beautifully simple, so pitifully human.

"I see," he said. "You can't do without God either."

She started to cry quietly. "This is a waste of time, Father, because I can't say I won't go with him again when I know damn well my body will betray me every time I see him. God knows that. If I said any different I'd be lying to him as well as you and I couldn't do that."

How many people were that close to God? Father da Costa was filled with a sense of incredible wonder. He took a deep breath to hold back the lump that rose in his throat and threatened to choke him.

He said in a firm, clear voice, "May Our Lord Jesus Christ absolve you, and I, by his authority, absolve you from every bond of excommunication and interdict, so far as I can, and you have need. Therefore, I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"