A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Chapter 3 Part 1

In which a boy’s conflicted soul roams between hunger, desire, and religious awe under the dimming light of a winter evening, as the solemn retreat and its fearful sermons consecrate thoughts of sin, judgement, and the eternal horrors of hell. Through fervent prayers and haunting memories, he contemplates his frailty and the inscrutable mercy of saints, while the shadow of divine justice and mortal doom gathers quietly about him.