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Maurice Harte 269
Maurice comes home for the summer vacation,
looking pale and emaciated. His mother ascribes
his condition to the bad city air and hard study at
school. But Maurice suffers from a different
cause. His is a mental struggle : the maddening
struggle of doubt, the realization that he has lost
his faith, that he has no vocation, and that he must
give up his divinity studies. He knows how fa
natically bent his people are on having him or
dained, and he is tortured by the grief his decision
will cause his parents. His heart is breaking as he
at last determines to inform them.
He reasons and pleads with his parents and im
plores them not to drive him back to college. But
they cannot understand. They remain deaf to his
arguments; pitifully they beg him not to fail them,
not to disappoint the hope of a lifetime. When it
all proves of no avail, they finally disclose to
Maurice their gnawing secret: the farm has been
mortgaged and many debts incurred for the sake
of enabling him to attain to the priesthood.
Michael. Maurice, would you break our hearts?
Maurice. Father, would you have your son live a life
of sacrilege? Would you, Father? Would you?
Mrs. Harte. That s only foolish talk. Aren t you
every bit as good as the next?
Maurice. I may be, but I haven t a vocation. . . .
My mind is finally made up.
Mrs. Harte. Maurice, listen to me listen to me!
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