CHAPTER
VI
I
The Syrian awoke
from a dream that a myriad faces were looking into his own, eager, attentive
and horrible, in his corner of the roof-top, and sat up sweating and gasping
aloud for breath. For an instant he thought that he was really dying, and that
the spiritual world was about him. Then, as he struggled, sense came back, and
he stood up, drawing long breaths of the stifling night air.
Above him the sky
was as the pit, black and empty; there was not a glimmer of light, though the
moon was surely up. He had seen her four hours before, a red sickle, swing
slowly out from Thabor. Across the plain, as he looked from the parapet, there
was nothing. For a few yards there lay across the broken ground a single
crooked lance of light from a half-closed shutter; and beneath that, nothing.
To the north again, nothing; to the west a glimmer, pale as a moth's wing, from
the house-roofs of Nazareth; to the east, nothing. He might be on a tower-top
in space, except for that line of light and that grey glimmer that evaded the
eye.
On the roof,
however, it was possible to make out at least outlines, for the dormer trap had
been left open at the head of the stairs, and from somewhere within the depths
of the house there stole up a faint refracted light.
There was a white
bundle in that corner; that would be the pillow of the Benedictine abbot. He
had seen him lay himself down there some time - was it four hours or four
centuries ago? There was a grey shape stretched along that pale wall - the
Friar, he thought; there were other irregular outlines breaking the face of the
parapet, here and there along the sides.
Very softly, for
he knew the caprices of sleep, he stepped across the paved roof to the opposite
parapet and looked over, for there yet hung about him a desire for reassurance
that he was still in company with flesh and blood. Yes, indeed he was still on
earth; for there was a real and distinct light burning among the tumbled rocks,
and beside it, delicate as a miniature, the head and shoulders of a man,
writing. And in the circle of light were other figures, pale, broken patches on
which men lay; a pole or two, erected with the thought of a tent to follow; a
little pile of luggage with a rug across it; and beyond the circle other
outlines and shapes faded away into the stupendous blackness.
Then the writing
man moved his head, and a monstrous shadow fled across the ground; a yelp as of
a strangling dog broke out suddenly close behind him, and, as he turned, a
moaning figure sat up on the roof, sobbing itself awake. Another moved at the
sound, and then as, sighing, the former relapsed heavily against the wall, once
more the priest went back to his place, still doubtful as to the reality of all
that he saw, and the breathless silence came down again as a pall.
* * * * *
He woke again from dreamless sleep, and there was a
change. From his corner, as he raised his heavy eyes, there met them what
seemed an unbearable brightness; then, as he looked, it resolved itself into a
candle-flame, and beyond it a white sleeve, and higher yet a white face and
throat. He understood, and rose reeling; it was the messenger come to fetch him
as had been arranged.
As he passed
across the space, once he looked round him, and it seemed that the dawn must
have come, for that appalling sky overhead was visible at last. An enormous
vault, smoke-coloured and opaque, seemed to curve away to the ghostly horizons
on either side where the far-away hills raised sharp shapes as if cut in paper.
Carmel was before him; at least he thought it was that - a bull head and
shoulders thrusting itself forward and ending in an abrupt descent, and beyond
that again the glimmering sky. There were no clouds, no outlines to break the
huge, smooth, dusky dome beneath the centre of which this house-roof seemed
poised. Across the parapet, as he glanced to the right before descending the
steps, stretched Esdraelon, sad-coloured and sombre, into the metallic
distance. It was all as unreal as some fantastic picture by one who had never
looked upon clear sunlight. The silence was complete and profound.
Straight down
through the wheeling shadows he went, following the white-hooded head and
figure down the stairs, along the tiny passage, stumbling once against the feet
of one who slept with limbs tossed loose like a tired dog; the feet drew back
mechanically, and a little moan broke from the shadows. Then he went on,
passing the servant who stood aside, and entered.
There were
half-a-dozen men gathered here, silent, white figures standing apart one from
the other, who genuflected as the Pope came in simultaneously through the
opposite door, and again stood white-faced and attentive. He ran his eyes over
them as he stopped, waiting behind his master's chair - there were two he knew,
remembering them from last night - dark-faced Cardinal Ruspoli, and the lean
Australian Archbishop, besides Cardinal Corkran, who stood by his chair at the
Pope's own table, with papers laid ready.
Silvester sat
down, and with a little gesture caused the others to sit too. Then He began at
once in that quiet tired voice that his servant knew so well.
"Eminences-we
are all here, I think. We need lose no more time, then… Cardinal Corkran has
something to communicate -" He turned a little. "Father, sit down, if
you please. This will occupy a little while."
The priest went
across to the stone window-seat, whence he could watch the Pope's face in the
light of the two candles that now stood on the table between him and the
Cardinal-Secretary. Then the Cardinal began, glancing up from his papers.
"Holiness. I
had better begin a little way back. Their Eminences have not heard the details
properly…
"I received
at Damascus, on last Friday week, inquiries from various prelates in different
parts of the world, as to the actual measure concerning the new policy of
persecution. At first I could tell them nothing positively, for it was not
until after twenty o'clock that Cardinal Ruspoli, in Turin, informed me of the
facts. Cardinal Malpas confirmed them a few minutes later, and the Cardinal
Archbishop of Pekin at twenty-three. Before mid-day on Saturday I received
final confirmation from my messengers in London.
"I was at
first surprised that Cardinal Dolgorovski did not communicate it; for almost
simultaneously with the Turin message I received one from a priest of the Order
of Christ Crucified in Moscow, to which, of course, I paid no attention. (It is
our rule, Eminences, to treat unauthorised communications in that way.) His
Holiness, however, bade me make inquiries, and I learned from Father Petrovoski
and others that the Government placards published the news at twenty o'clock - by
our time. It was curious, therefore, that the Cardinal had not seen it; if he
had seen it, it was, of course, his duty to acquaint me immediately.
"Since that
time, however, the following facts have come out. It is established beyond a
doubt that Cardinal Dolgorovski received a visitor in the course of the
evening. His own chaplain, who, your Eminences are perhaps aware, has been very
active in Russia on behalf of the Church, informs me of this privately. Yet the
Cardinal asserts, in explanation of his silence, that he was alone during those
hours, and had given orders that no one was to be admitted to his presence
without urgent cause. This, of course, confirmed His Holiness's opinion, but I
received orders from Him to act as if nothing had happened, and to command the
Cardinal's presence here with the rest of the Sacred College. To this I
received an intimation that he would be present. Yesterday, however, a little
before mid-day, I received a further message that his Eminency had met with a
slight accident, but that he yet hoped to present himself in time for the
deliberations. Since then no further news has arrived."
There was a dead
silence.
Then the Pope
turned to the Syrian priest.
"Father,"
he said, "it was you who received his Eminency's messages. Have you
anything to add to this?"
"No,
Holiness."
He turned again.
"My
son," he said, "report to Us publicly what you have already reported
to Us in private."
A small,
bright-eyed man moved out of the shadows.
"Holiness,
it was I who conveyed the message to Cardinal Dolgorovski. He refused at first
to receive me. When I reached his presence and communicated the command he was
silent; then he smiled; then he told me to carry back the message that he would
obey."
Again the Pope
was silent.
Then suddenly the
tall Australian stood up.
"Holiness,"
he said, "I was once intimate with that man. It was partly through my
means that he sought reception into the Catholic Church. This was not less than
fourteen years ago, when the fortunes of the Church seemed about to prosper… Our friendly relations ceased two years ago,
and I may say that, from what I know of him, I find no difficulty in believing -"
As his voice
shook with passion and he faltered, Silvester raised his hand.
"We desire
no recriminations. Even the evidence is now useless, for what was to be done
has been done. For ourselves, we have no doubt as to its nature…. It was to
this man that Christ gave the morsel through our hands, saying Quod faces, fac
cities. Cum ergo accepisset Me buccellam, exivit continuo. Erat autem
nox."
Again fell the
silence, and in the pause sounded a long half-vocal sigh from without the door.
It came and went as a sleeper turned, for the passage was crowded with
exhausted men - as a soul might sigh that passed from light to darkness.
Then Silvester
spoke again. And as He spoke He began, as if mechanically, to tear up a long
paper, written with lists of names, that lay before Him.
"Eminences,
it is three hours after dawn. In two hours more We shall say mass in your
presence, and give Holy Communion. During those two hours We commission you to
communicate this news to all who are assembled here; and further, We bestow on
each and all of you jurisdiction apart from all previous rules of time and
place; we give a Plenary Indulgence to all who confess and communicate this
day. Father -" he turned to the Syrian -"Father, you will now expose
the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel, after which you will proceed to the
village and inform the inhabitants that if they wish to save their lives they
had best be gone immediately - immediately, you understand."
The Syrian
started from his daze.
"Holiness,"
he stammered, stretching out a hand, "the lists, the lists!"
(He had seen what
these were.)
But Silvester
only smiled as He tossed the fragments on to the table. Then He stood up.
"You need
not trouble, my son… We shall not need these any more…
"One last
word, Eminences… If there is one heart here that doubts or is afraid, I have a
word to say."
He paused, with
an extraordinarily simple deliberateness, ran the eyes round the tense faces
turned to Him.
"I have had
a Vision of God," He said softly. "I walk no more by faith, but by
sight."
II
An hour later the
priest toiled back in the hot twilight up the path from the village, followed
by half-a-dozen silent men, twenty yards behind, whose curiosity exceeded their
credulousness. He had left a few more standing bewildered at the doors of the
little mud-houses; and had seen perhaps a hundred families, weighted with
domestic articles, pour like a stream down the rocky path that led to Khaifa.
He had been cursed by some, even threatened; stared upon by others; mocked by a
few. The fanatical said that the Christians had brought God's wrath upon the
place, and the darkness upon the sky: the sun was dying, for these hounds were
too evil for him to look upon and live. Others again seemed to see nothing
remarkable in the state of the weather…
There was no
change in that sky from its state an hour before, except that perhaps it had
lightened a little as the sun climbed higher behind that impenetrable dusky
shroud. Hills, grass, men's faces - all bore to the priest's eyes the look of
unreality; they were as things seen in a dream by eyes that roll with sleep
through lids weighted with lead. Even to other physical senses that unreality
was present; and once more he remembered his dream, thankful that that horror
at least was absent. But silence seemed other than a negation of sound, it was
a thing in itself, an affirmation, unruffled by the sound of footsteps, the thin
barking of dogs, the murmur of voices. It appeared as if the stillness of
eternity had descended and embraced the world's activities, and as if that
world, in a desperate attempt to assert its own reality, was braced in a set,
motionless, noiseless, breathless effort to hold itself in being. What
Silvester had said just now was beginning to be true of this man also. The
touch of the powdery soil and the warm pebbles beneath the priest's bare feet
seemed something apart from the consciousness that usually regards the things
of sense as more real and more intimate than the things of spirit. Matter still
had a reality, still occupied space, but it was of a subjective nature, the
result of internal rather than external powers. He appeared to himself already to
be scarcely more than a soul, intent and steady, united by a thread only to the
body and the world with which he was yet in relations. He knew that the
appalling heat was there; once even, before his eyes a patch of beaten ground
cracked and lisped as water that touches hot iron, as he trod upon it. He could
feel the heat upon his forehead and hands, his whole body was swathed and
soaked in it; yet he regarded it as from an outside standpoint, as a man with
neuritis perceives that the pain is no longer in his hand but in the pillow
which supports it. So, too, with what his eyes looked upon and his ears heard;
so, too, with that faint bitter taste that lay upon his lips and nostrils.
There was no longer in him fear or even hope - he regarded himself, the world,
and even the enshrouding and awful Presence of spirit as facts with which he
had but little to do. He was scarcely even interested; still less was he
distressed. There was Thabor before him - at least what once had been Thabor,
now it was no more than a huge and dusky dome-shape which impressed itself upon
his retina and informed his passive brain of its existence and outline, though
that existence seemed no better than that of a dissolving phantom.
It seemed then
almost natural - or at least as natural as all else - as he came in through the
passage and opened the chapel-door, to see that the floor was crowded with
prostrate motionless figures. There they lay, all alike in the white burnous
which he had given out last night; and, with forehead on arms, as during the
singing of the Litany of the Saints at an ordination, lay the figure he knew
best and loved more than all the world, the shoulders and white hair at a
slight elevation upon the single altar step. Above the plain altar itself
burned the six tall candles; and in the midst, on the mean little throne, stood
the white-metal monstrance, with its White Centre…
Then he, too,
dropped, and lay as he was…
* * * * *
He did not know how long it was before the circling
observant consciousness, the flow of slow images, the vibration of particular
thoughts, ceased and stilled as a pool rocks quietly to peace after the dropped
stone has long lain still. But it came at last - that superb tranquillity,
possible only when the senses are physically awake, with which God, perhaps
once in a lifetime, rewards the aspiring trustful soul - that point of complete
rest in the heart of the Fount of all existence with which one day He will
reward eternally the spirits of His children. There was no thought in him of
articulating this experience, of analysing its elements, or fingering this or
that strain of ecstatic joy. The time for self-regarding was passed. It was
enough that the experience was there, although he was not even self-reflective
enough to tell himself so. He had passed from that circle whence the soul looks
within, from that circle, too, whence it looks upon objective glory, to that
very centre where it reposes - and the first sign to him that time had passed
was the murmur of words, heard distinctly and understood, although with that
apartness with which a drowsy man perceives a message from without - heard as
through a veil through which nothing but thinnest essence could transpire.
Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum… The
Spirit of the Lord hath fulfilled all things, alleluia: and that which contains
all things hath knowledge of the voice, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Exsurgat Deus
(and the voice rose ever so slightly). "Let God arise and let His enemies
be scattered; and let them who hate Him flee before His face."
Gloria Patri…
Then he raised
his heavy head; and a phantom figure stood there in red vestments, seeming to
float rather than to stand, with thin hands outstretched, and white cap on
white hair seen in the gleam of the steady candle-flames; another, also in
white, kneeled on the step…
Kyrie eleison…
Gloria in excelsis Deo… those things passed like a shadow-show, with movements
and rustlings, but he perceived rather the light which cast them. He heard Deus
qui in hodierna die… but his passive mind gave no pulse of reflex action, no
stir of understanding until these words. Cum complerentur dies Pentecostes…
"When the day of Pentecost was fully come, all
the disciples were with one accord in the same place; and there came from
heaven suddenly a sound, as of a mighty wind approaching, and it filled the
house where they were sitting…"
Then he
remembered and understood… It was Pentecost then! And with memory a shred of
reflection came back. Where then was the wind, and the flame, and the
earthquake, and the secret voice? Yet the world was silent, rigid in its last
effort at self-assertion: there was no tremor to show that God remembered; no
actual point of light, yet, breaking the appalling vault of gloom that lay over
sea and land to reveal that He burned there in eternity, transcendent and
dominant; not even a voice; and at that he understood yet more. He perceived
that that world, whose monstrous parody his sleep had presented to him in the
night, was other than that he had feared it to be; it was sweet, not terrible;
friendly, not hostile; clear, not stifling; and home, not exile. There were
presences here, but not those gluttonous, lustful things that had looked on him
last night… He dropped his head again upon his hands, at once ashamed and
content; and again he sank down to depths of glimmering inner peace…
* * * * *
Not again, for a while, did he perceive what he did
or thought, or what passed there, five yards away on the low step. Once only a
ripple passed across that sea of glass, a ripple of fire and sound like a
rising star that flicks a line of light across a sleeping lake, like a thin
thread of vibration streaming from a quivering string across the stillness of a
deep night - and be perceived for an instant as in a formless mirror that a
lower nature was struck into existence and into union with the Divine nature at
the same moment… And then no more again but the great encompassing hush, the
sense of the innermost heart of reality, till he found himself kneeling at the
rail, and knew that That which alone truly existed on earth approached him with
the swiftness of thought and the ardour of Divine Love…
Then, as the mass
ended, and he raised his passive happy soul to receive the last gift of God,
there was a cry, a sudden clamour in the passage, and a man stood in the
doorway, gabbling Arabic.
III
Yet even at that
sound and sight his soul scarcely tightened the languid threads that united it
through every fibre of his body with the world of sense. He saw and heard the
tumult in the passage, frantic eyes and mouths crying aloud, and, in strange
contrast, the pale ecstatic faces of those princes who turned and looked; even
within the tranquil presence-chamber of the spirit where two beings, Incarnate
God and all but Discarnate Man, were locked in embrace, a certain mental
process went on. Yet all was still as apart from him as a lighted stage and its
drama from a self-contained spectator. In the material world, now as attenuated
as a mirage, events were at hand; but to his soul, balanced now on reality and
awake to facts, these things were but a spectacle…
He turned to the
altar again, and there, as he had known it would be, in the midst of clear
light, all was at peace: the celebrant, seen as through molten glass, adored as
He murmured the mystery of the Word-made-Flesh, and once more passing to the
centre, sank upon His knees.
Again the priest
understood; for thought was no longer the process of a mind, rather it was the
glance of a spirit. He knew all now; and, by an inevitable impulse, his throat
began to sing aloud words that, as he sang, opened for the first time as
flowers telling their secret to the sun.
O Salutaris Hostia Qui coeli pandis ostium...
They were all singing now; even the Mohammedan
catechumen who had burst in a moment ago sang with the rest, his lean head
thrust out and his arms tight across his breast; the tiny chapel rang with the
forty voices, and the vast world thrilled to hear it…
Still singing,
the priest saw the veil laid as by a phantom upon the Pontiff's shoulders;
there was a movement, a surge of figures - shadows only in the midst of
substance,
…Uni Trinoque Domino…
- and the Pope
stood erect, Himself a pallor in the heart of light, with spectral folds of
silk dripping from His shoulders, His hands swathed in them, and His down-bent
head hidden by the silver-rayed monstrance and That which it bore…
…Qui vitam sine termino
Nobis donet in patria…
…They were moving
now, and the world of life swung with them; of so much was he aware. He was out
in the passage, among the white, frenzied faces that with bared teeth stared up
at that sight, silenced at last by the thunder of Pange Lingua, and the radiance
of those who passed out to eternal life… At the corner he turned for an instant
to see the six pale flames move along a dozen yards behind, as spear-heads
about a King, and in the midst the silver rays and the White Heart of God… Then
he was out, and the battle lay in array…
That sky on which
he had looked an hour ago had passed from darkness charged with light to light
overlaid with darkness - from glimmering night to Wrathful Day - and that light
was red…
From behind
Thabor on the left to Carmel on the far right, above the hills twenty miles
away rested an enormous vault of colour; here were no gradations from zenith to
horizon; all was the one deep smoulder of crimson as of the glow of iron. It
was such a colour as men have seen at sunsets after rain, while the clouds,
more translucent each instant, transmit the glory they cannot contain. Here,
too, was the sun, pale as the Host, set like a fragile wafer above the Mount of
Transfiguration, and there, far down in the west where men had once cried upon
Baal in vain, hung the sickle of the white moon. Yet all was no more than
stained light that lies broken across carven work of stone…
…In suprema nocte
coena,
sang
the myriad voices,
Recumbens cum
fratribus
Observata lege
plena
Cibis in legalibus
Cibum turbae
duodenae
Se dat suis
minibus…
He saw, too, poised as motes in light, that ring of
strange fish-creatures, white as milk, except where the angry glory turned
their backs to flame, white-winged like floating moths, from the tiny shape far
to the south to the monster at hand scarcely five hundred yards away; and even
as he looked, singing as he looked, he understood that the circle was nearer,
and perceived that these as yet knew nothing…
- Verbum
caro, panem verum Verbo carnem efficit...
They were nearer still, until now even at his
feet there slid along the ground the shadow of a monstrous bird, pale and
undefined, as between the wan sun and himself moved out the vast shape that a moment
ago hung above the Hill… Then again it backed across and waited…
Et si census
deficit Ad formandum cor sincerum Sola fides sufficit…
He had halted and
turned, going in the midst of his fellows, hearing, he thought, the thrill of
harping and the throb of heavenly drums; and, across the space, moved now the
six flames, steady as if cut of steel in that stupendous poise of heaven and
earth; and in their centre the silver-rayed glory and the Whiteness of God made
Man…
…Then, with a
roar, came the thunder again, pealing in circle beyond circle of those
tremendous Presences - Thrones and Powers - who, themselves to the world as
substance to shadow, are but shadows again beneath the apex and within the ring
of Absolute Deity… The thunder broke loose, shaking the earth that now cringed
on the quivering edge of dissolution…
TANTUM
ERGO SACRAMENTUM VENEREMUR CERNUI ET ANTIQUUM DOCUMENTUM NOVO CEDAT RITUI.
Ah! yes; it was He for whom God waited now - He
who far up beneath that trembling shadow of a dome, itself but the piteous core
of unimagined splendour, came in His swift chariot, blind to all save that on
which He had fixed His eyes so long, unaware that His world corrupted about
Him, His shadow moving like a pale cloud across the ghostly plain where Israel
had fought and Sennacherib boasted - that plain lighted now with a yet deeper
glow, as heaven, kindling to glory beyond glory of yet fiercer spiritual flame,
still restrained the power knit at last to the relief of final revelation, and
for the last time the voices sang…
PRAESTET FIDES
SUPPLEMENTUM SENSUUM DEFECTUI ….
…He was coming now, swifter than ever, the heir of
temporal ages and the Exile of eternity, the final piteous Prince of rebels,
the creature against God, blinder than the sun which paled and the earth that
shook; and, as He came, passing even then through the last material stage to
the thinness of a spirit-fabric, the floating circle swirled behind Him,
tossing like phantom birds in the wake of a phantom ship… He was coming, and
the earth, rent once again in its allegiance, shrank and reeled in the agony of
divided homage…
…He was coming - and
already the shadow swept off the plain and vanished, and the pale netted wings
were rising to the cheek; and the great bell clanged, and the long sweet chord
rang out - not more than whispers heard across the pealing storm of everlasting
praise…
...GENITORI
GENITOQUE LAUS ET JUBILATIO SALUS HONOR VIRTUS QUOQUE SIT ET BENEDICTIO
PROCEDENTI AB UTROQUE COMPAR SIT LAUDATIO.
and once more
PROCEDENTI AB
UTROQUE COMPAR SIT LAUDATIO…
Then this world passed, and the glory of it.
THE END
