There was a cold night smell in the chapel.  But it was a holy smell.  It was not like the smell of the old peasants who knelt at the back of the chapel at Sunday mass.  That was a smell of air and rain and turf and corduroy.  But they were very holy peasants.  They breathed behind him on his neck and sighed as they prayed.  They lived in Clane, a fellow said:  there were little cottages there and he had seen a woman standing at the half-door of a cottage with a child in her arms as the cars had come past from Sallins.  It would be lovely to sleep for one night in that cottage before the fire of smoking turf, in the dark lit by the fire, in the warm dark, breathing the smell of the peasants, air and rain and turf and corduroy.  But O, the road there between the trees was dark!  You would be lost in the dark.  It made him afraid to think of how it was.

He heard the voice of the prefect of the chapel saying the last prayers.  He prayed it too against the dark outside under the trees.

Visit, we beseech Thee, O lord, this habitation and drive
away from it all the snares of the enemy.  May thy holy
angels dwell herein to preserve us in peace and may thy
blessings be always upon us through Christ our lord. 
Amen.

His fingers trembled as he undressed himself in the dormitory.  He told his fingers to hurry up.  He had to undress and then kneel and say his own prayers and be in bed before the gas was lowered so that he might not go to hell when he died.  He rolled his stockings off and put on his nightshirt quickly and knelt trembling at his bedside and repeated his prayers quickly, fearing that the gas would go down.  He felt his shoulders shaking as he murmured: 

    God bless my father and my mother and spare them to me! 
    God bless my little brothers and sisters and spare them to me! 
    God bless Dante and Uncle Charles and spare them to me!

He blessed himself and climbed quickly into bed and, tucking the end of the nightshirt under his feet, curled himself together under the cold white sheets, shaking and trembling.  But he would not go to hell when he died; and the shaking would stop.  A voice bade the boys in the dormitory good night.  He peered out for an instant over the coverlet and saw the yellow curtains round and before his bed that shut him off on all sides.  The light was lowered quietly.