remble around me.

FATHER JOHN. Did you awake then?

MARTIN. I do not think I did ... it all changed ... it was terrible,
wonderful. I saw the unicorns trampling, trampling ... but not in the
wine troughs.... Oh, I forget! Why did you waken me?

FATHER JOHN. I did not touch you. Who knows what hands pulled you away?
I prayed; that was all I did. I prayed very hard that you might awake.
If I had not, you might have died. I wonder what it all meant. The
unicorns ... what did the French monk tell me ... strength they meant
... virginal strength, a rushing, lasting, tireless strength.

MARTIN. They were strong.... Oh, they made a great noise with their
trampling!

FATHER JOHN. And the grapes ... what did they mean?... It puts me in
mind of the psalm ... _Ex calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est._ It
was a strange vision, a very strange vision, a very strange vision.

MARTIN. How can I get back to that place?

FATHER JOHN. You must not go back, you must not think of doing that;
that life of vision, of contemplation, is a terrible life, for it has
far more of temptation in it than the common life. Perhaps it would
have been best for you to stay under rules in the monastery.

MARTIN. I could not see anything so clearly there. It is back here in
my own place the visions come, in the place where shining people used
to laugh around me and I a little lad in a bib.

FATHER JOHN. You cannot know but it was from the Prince of this world
the vision came. How can one ever know unless one follows the
discipline of the church? Some spiritual director, some wise, learned
man, that is what you want. I do not know enough. What am I but a poor
banished priest with my learning forgotten, my books never handled, and
spotted with the damp?

MARTIN. I will go out into the fields where you cannot come to me to
awake me ... I will see that townland again ... I will hear that
command. I cannot wait, I must know what happened, I must bring that
command to mind again.

FATHER JOHN [_putting himself between_ MARTIN _and the door_]. You
must have patience as the saints had it. You are taking your own way.
If there is a command from God for you, you must wait His good time to
receive it.

MARTIN. Must I live here forty years, fifty years ... to grow as old as
my uncles, seeing nothing but common things, doing work ... some
foolish work?

FATHER JOHN. Here they are coming. It is time for me to go. I must
think and I must pray. My mind