The Case Against Satan Read Online Free Page A

saint and it was as recent as 1954 that it made the Assumption of the Virgin Mary a definite dogma. So it couldn’t be expected to come out for or against something as comparatively brand-new as psychiatry—but he knew these arguments would fall upon heedless ears, for Garth was shaking his head stubbornly again, his mouth and eyes closed. So, instead, he said: “What’s the difference, Mr. Garth, between the psychiatrist’s office and the confessional box?”
    â€œWhy—”
    â€œA great deal of difference, to be sure—I’m not trying to pretend they’re one and the same or that psychiatry can replace the Church, but when you speak of—”
    â€œFather,” Garth cut in, “I guess I should tell you why I brought Susie here.”
    â€œYes,” agreed Gregory, “I guess you should.”
    Garth cleared his throat and began. “Tonight, soon after youand Father Halloran left our place, I walked into her room—and do you know what I caught her doing?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œPacking!” cried Garth. “Packing a suitcase! Getting ready to run off! ‘Where do you think you’re going,’ I says. ‘Anyplace,’ she says; ‘anyplace you can’t find me.’ ‘Why,’ I says. ‘Because I want to see a psychiatrist,’ she says, ‘and you won’t let me!’ How do you like that? No money, not a dime to her name, gonna run off and
walk the streets I suppose
to get enough money to pay some headshrinker—” Garth stopped for breath. “I finally got her to agree to come here and talk to you. I know it’s late, and I wouldn’t bother you like this if it wasn’t an emergency, but I think she’d listen to you.” Turning to his daughter, he said sternly, “Now you listen to the Father here.
He’ll
tell you I’m right.”
    Those direct blue eyes again. “
Is
he right, Father?”
    Gregory smiled at her. Garth was about as unright as a person could be, but it would accomplish nothing to say so now. “He certainly is right,” Gregory therefore said, “about this business of running away. With no money, all alone, it
would
be pretty silly, wouldn’t it?”
    â€œBut somebody has to help me, Father,” she said.
    â€œThat’s my job. If we talk this over, all three of us, maybe we can come to an understanding. My brother-in-law, for instance—”
    â€œThere’ll be none of that!” said Garth.
    Gregory fought down an impulse to insult the man. Soothingly, he said, “Mr. Garth, I’m just trying to help . . .”
    But Garth did not permit him to finish. He had gone crazy on the subject. “I tell you that’s the one thing she don’t need!” he said. “There’s been enough filth—” He caught himself and stopped cold.
    But Gregory had heard the word. “Filth? What do you mean?”
    â€œNever mind . . .”
    â€œDad,” Susan quietly said, “I think you’d better tell him. If you don’t, I will.”
    â€œHow can you?”
Garth asked with astonishment. “How can you tell it yourself?
I
can’t even tell it, and I’m a man, a man fifty years old. How can
you
tell it—a little girl?”
    â€œI’m not so little. Tell the Father.”
    Garth’s face was flushed and glistening: he wiped it with a handkerchief. “Oh God,” he said, and then, in a toneless voice, he told the story.
    He told of the whiteness of Father Halloran’s face—“People talk about faces turning white, but they don’t really mean white,” he said. “But that time in the rectory here, Father Halloran’s face was
white
. White as his collar.” He told of Father Halloran’s difficulty in speaking, of how he kept swallowing, of how his voice shook, of how his hands shook, of how he looked out the