"The Sins Against the Blessed Sacrament and the Need of a Crusade of Eucharistic Reparation" by Bishop Athanasius Schneider (in English)

There has never been in the history of the Church a time, where the sacrament of the Eucharist has been abused and outraged to such an alarming and grievous extent as in the past five decades, especially since the official introduction and Papal approval in 1969 of the practice of Communion in the hand. These abuses are aggravated, furthermore, by the widespread practice in many countries of faithful who, not having received the sacrament of Penance for many years, nevertheless regularly receive Holy Communion. The height of the abuses of the Holy Eucharist is seen in the admittance to Holy Communion of couples who are living in a public and objective state of adultery, violating thereby their indissoluble valid sacramental marriage bonds, as in the case of the so-called “divorced and remarried”, such admittance being in some regions officially legalized by specific norms, and, in the case of the Buenos Aires region in Argentina, norms even approved by the Pope. Additionally to these abuses comes the practice of an official admittance of Protestant spouses in mixed marriages to Holy Communion, e.g., in some dioceses in Germany.

To say that the Lord is not suffering because of the outrages committed against Him in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist can lead to a minimizing of the great atrocities committed. Some people say: God is offended by the abuse of the Blessed Sacrament, but the Lord does not personally suffer. This is, however, theologically and spiritually too narrow a view. Although Christ is now in His glorious state and hence no more subject to suffering in a human way, He nevertheless is affected and touched in His Sacred Heart by the abuses and outrages against the Divine majesty and the immensity of His Love in the Blessed Sacrament. Our Lord has expressed to some Saints His complaints and His sorrow about the sacrileges and outrages with which men offend Him. One can understand this truth from the words of the Lord spoken to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, as Pope Pius XI reports in his Encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor:

 

“When Christ manifested Himself to Margaret Mary, and declared to her the infinitude of His love, at the same

ti.me, in the manner of a mourner, He complained that so many and such great injuries were done to Him by

ungrateful men—and we would that these words in which He made this complaint were fixed in the minds of the

faithful, and were never blotted out by oblivion: “Behold this Heart”—He said—”which has loved men so much and

has loaded them with all benefits, and for this boundless love has had no return but neglect, and contumely,

and this often from those who were bound by a debt and duty of a more special love.” (n. 12)

 

Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité gave a profound theological explanation of the meaning of the “suffering” or “sadness” of God because of the offenses the sinners commit against Him:

 

This “‘suffering,’” this “‘sadness’” of the Heavenly Father, or of Jesus since His Ascension, are to be

understood analogically. They are not suffered passively as with us, but on the contrary freely willed and

chosen as the ultimate expression of Their mercy towards sinners called to conversion. They are only a

manifestation of God’s love for sinners, a love which is sovereignly free and gratuitous, and which is not

irrevocable.” (The Whole Truth About Fatima, vol. I, pp. 1311-1312)

 

This analogical spiritual meaning of the “sadness” or the “suffering” of Jesus in the Eucharistic mystery is confirmed by the words of the Angel in his apparition in 1916 to the children of Fatima and especially by the words and the example of the life of St. Francisco Marto. The children were invited by the Angel to make reparation for offenses against the Eucharistic Jesus and to console Him, as we can read in the Memoirs of Sister Lucia:

While we were there, the Angel appeared to us for the third time, holding a chalice in his hands, with a host above it from which some drops of blood were falling into the sacred vessel. Leaving the chalice and the host suspended in the air, the Angel prostrated himself on the ground and repeated this prayer three times: ‘“Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit…’ Then, rising, he once more took the chalice and the host in his hands. He gave the host to me, and to Jacinta and Francisco he gave the contents of the chalice to drink, saying as he did so: “Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Repair their crimes and console your God.” (Fatima in Lucia’s Own Words. Sister Lucia’s Memoirs, Fatima 2007, p. 172)

Reporting about the third Apparition on July 13, 1917, Sister Lucia stressed how Francisco perceived the mystery of God and the necessity to console Him because of the offenses of the sinners:

What made the most powerful impression on him [Francisco] and what wholly absorbed him, was God, the Most Holy Trinity, perceived in that light which penetrated our inmost souls. Afterwards, he said: “We were on fire in that light which is God, and yet we were not burnt! What is God?… We could never put it into words. Yes, that is something indeed which we could never express! But what a pity it is that He is so sad! If only I could console Him!” (Sister Lucia’s Memoirs, p. 147)

Sister Lucia wrote how Francisco perceived the necessity to console God, whom he understood to be “sad” because of the sins of men:

I asked him one day: “Francisco, which do you like better—to console Our Lord, or to convert sinners, so that no more souls will go to hell?” “I would rather console Our Lord. Didn’t you notice how sad Our Lady was that last month, when she said that people must not offend Our Lord any more, for He is already much offended? I would like to console Our Lord, and after that convert sinners so that they won’t offend Him any more.” (Sister Lucia’s Memoirs, p. 156)

In his prayers and in the offering of his sufferings St. Francisco Marto gave priority to the intention of “consoling the Hidden Jesus,” i.e. the Eucharistic Lord. Sister Lucia reported these words of Francisco, which he said to her: “When you come out of school, go and stay for a little while near the Hidden Jesus, and afterwards come home by yourself.” When Lucia asked Francisco about his sufferings, he answered: “I’m suffering to console Our Lord. First I make it to console Our Lord and Our Lady, and then, afterwards, for sinners and for the Holy Father. … More than anything else I want to console Him.” (Sister Lucia’s Memoirs, p. 157; 163)

Jesus Christ continues in a mysterious way his Passion in Gethsemane throughout the ages in the mystery of His Church and also in the Eucharistic mystery, the mystery of His immense Love. Known is the expression of Blaise Pascal: “Jesus will be in agony even to the end of the world. We must not sleep during that time.” (Pensées, n. 553) Cardinal Karol Wojtyła left us a profound reflection on the mystery of Christ’s sufferings in Gethsemane, which in a certain sense continue in the life of the Church. Cardinal Wojtyła spoke also about the duty of the Church to console Christ:

And now the Church seeks to recover that hour in Gethsemane—the hour lost by Peter, James and John—so as to compensate for the Master’s lack of companionship which increased his soul’s suffering. The desire to recover that hour has become a real need for many hearts, especially for those who live as fully as they can the mystery of the divine heart. The Lord Jesus allows us to meet him in that hour [and] he invites us to share the prayer of his heart. Faced with all the trials that man and the Church have to undergo, there is a constant need to return to Gethsemane and undertake that sharing in the prayer of Christ our Lord.” (Sign of Contradiction, chapter 17, “The prayer in Gethsemane”)

Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic mystery is not indifferent and insensitive towards the behavior which men show in His regard in this Sacrament of Love. Christ is present in this Sacrament also with His soul, which is hypostatically united with His Divine Person. The Roman theologian Antonio Piolanti presented a sound theological explanation in this regard. Even if the body of Christ in the Eucharist cannot see nor sensibly feel what happens or what is said in the place of his sacramental presence, Christ in the Eucharist “hears all and sees with superior knowledge.” Piolanti then quotes Cardinal Franzelin:

The blessed humanity of Christ sees all things in themselves by virtue of the abundant infused knowledge due to the Redeemer of mankind, to the Judge of the living and the dead, to the Firstborn of every creature, to the Center of all celestial and earthly history. All these treasures of the beatific vision and of the infused knowledge are certainly in the soul of Christ, also in so far as it is present in the Eucharist. In addition to these reasons, by another special title, precisely as the soul of Christ is formally in the Eucharist, for the same purpose of the institution of the mystery, it sees all men’s hearts, all thoughts and affections, all virtues and all sins, all the needs of the whole Church and of the individual members, the labors, the anxieties, the persecutions, the triumphs—in a word, all the internal and external life of the Church, His Bride, nourished with His flesh and with His Precious Blood. So by a threefold title (if we can say so) Christ in the sacramental state sees and in a certain divine way perceives all the thoughts and affections, the worship, the homages and also the insults and sins of all men in general, of all his faithful specifically and his priests in particular; He perceives homages and sins that directly refer to this ineffable mystery of love. (De Eucharistia, pp. 199-200, cited in Il Mistero Eucaristico, Firenze 1953, pp. 225-226)

One of the greatest apostles of the Eucharist of modern times, St. Peter Julian Eymard, left us the following profound reflections on the affections of the sacrificial love of Christ in the Eucharist:

By instituting His Sacrament, Jesus perpetuated the sacrifices of His Passion. … He was acquainted with all the new Judases; He counted them among His own, among His well-beloved children. But nothing of all this could stop Him; He wanted His love to go further than the ingratitude and malice of man; He wanted to outlive man’s sacrilegious malice. He knew beforehand the lukewarmness of His followers: He knew mine; He knew what little fruit we would derive from Holy Communion. But He wanted to love just the same, to love more than He was loved, more than man could make return for. Is there anything else? But is it nothing to have adopted this state of death when He has the fullness of life, a glorified and supernatural life? Is it nothing to be treated and considered as one dead? In this state of death Jesus is without beauty, motion or defense; He is wrapped in the Sacred Species as in a shroud and laid in the tabernacle as in a tomb. He is there, however; He sees everything and hears everything. He submits to everything as though He were dead. His love casts a veil over His power, His glory, His hands, His feet, His beautiful face and His sacred lips; it has hidden everything. It has left Him only His Heart to love us and His state of victim to intercede in our behalf. (The Real Presence, 29. The Most Blessed Sacrament is not Loved!, III)

St. Peter Julian Eymard wrote the following moving and almost mystical profession of the Eucharistic love of Christ, with an ardent appeal for Eucharistic reparation:

The Heart which endured the sufferings with so much love is here in the Blessed Sacrament; it is not dead, but living and active; not insensible, but still more affectionate. Jesus can no longer suffer, it is true; but alas! man can still be guilty towards Him of monstrous ingratitude. We see Christians despise Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament and show contempt for the Heart which has so loved them and which consumes itself with love for them. To spurn Him freely they take advantage of the veil that hides Him. They insult Him with their irreverences, their sinful thoughts, and their criminal glances in His presence. To express their disdain for Him they avail themselves of His patience, of the kindness that suffers everything in silence as it did with the impious soldiery of Caiphas, Herod, and Pilate. They blaspheme sacrilegiously against the God of the Eucharist. They know that His love renders Him speechless. They crucify Him even in their guilty souls. They receive Him. They dare take this living Heart and bind it to a foul corpse. They dare deliver it to the devil who is their lord! No! Never even in the days of His Passion has Jesus received so many humiliations as in His Sacrament! Earth for Him is a Calvary of ignominy. In His agony He sought a consoler; on the Cross He asked for someone to sympathize with His afflictions. Today, more than ever, we must make amends, a reparation of honor, to the adorable Heart of Jesus. Let us lavish our adorations and our love on the Eucharist. To the Heart of Jesus living in the Most Blessed Sacrament be honor, praise, adoration, and kingly power for ever and ever! (The Real Presence, 43. The Sacred Heart of Jesus, III)

In his last encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Pope John Paul II left us luminous exhortations with which he stressed the extraordinary sanctity of the Eucharistic mystery and the duty of the faithful to treat this sacrament with utmost reverence and ardent love. Of all his exhortations, this statement stands out: “There can be no danger of excess in our care for this mystery, for ‘in this sacrament is recapitulated the whole mystery of our salvation’ (Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q. 83, a. 4c).” (n. 61)

It would be a pastorally urgent and spiritually fruitful measure for the Church to establish in all dioceses of the world an annual “Day of Reparation for the crimes against the Most Holy Eucharist.” Such a day could be the octave day of the Feast of Corpus Christi. The Holy Spirit will give special graces of renewal to the Church in our days when, and only when, the Eucharistic Body of Christ will be adored with all Divine honors, will be loved, will be carefully treated and defended as really the Holiest of Holies. Saint Thomas Aquinas says in the hymn Sacris sollemniis: “O Lord, visit us to the extent that we venerate you in this sacrament” (sic nos Tu visita, sicut Te colimus). And we can say without doubt: O Lord, you will visit your Church in our days to the extent that the modern practice of Communion in the hand will recede and to the extent that we offer to you acts of reparation and love.

In the current so-called “COVID-19 Pandemic Emergency,” horrible abuses of the Most Blessed Sacrament have increased still more. Many dioceses around the world mandated Communion in the hand, and in those places the clergy, in an often humiliating manner, deny the faithful the possibility to receive the Lord kneeling and on the tongue, thus demonstrating a deplorable clericalism and exhibiting the behavior of rigid neo-Pelagians. Furthermore, in some places the adorable Eucharistic Body of Christ is distributed by the clergy and received by the faithful with household or disposable gloves. The treating of the Blessed Sacrament with gloves suitable for treating garbage is an unspeakable Eucharistic abuse.

In view of the horrible maltreatments of Our Eucharistic Lord—He being continuously trampled under foot because of Communion in the hand, during which almost always little fragments of the host fall on the floor; He being treated in a minimalistic manner, deprived of sacredness, like a cookie, or treated like garbage by the use of household gloves—no true Catholic bishop, priest or lay faithful can remain indifferent and simply stand by and watch.

There must be initiated a world-wide crusade of reparation to and consolation of the Eucharistic Lord. As a concrete measure to offer to the Eucharistic Lord urgently needed acts of reparation and consolation, each Catholic could promise to offer monthly at least one full hour of Eucharistic adoration, either before the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle or before the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the monstrance. The Holy Scripture says: “Where sin abounded, grace did more abound” (Rm. 5:20) and we can add analogously: “Where Eucharistic abuses abounded, acts of reparation will more abound.”

The day when, in all the churches of the Catholic world, the faithful will receive the Eucharistic Lord, veiled under the species of the little sacred host, with true faith and a pure heart, in the biblical gesture of adoration (proskynesis), that is, kneeling, and in the attitude of a child, opening the mouth and allowing oneself to be fed by Christ Himself in the spirit of humility, then undoubtedly will the authentic spiritual springtime of the Church come closer. The Church will grow in the purity of the Catholic Faith, in the missionary zeal of salvation of souls, and in the holiness of the clergy and the faithful. In deed, the Lord will visit His Church with His graces to the extent that we venerate Him in His ineffable sacrament of love (sic nos Tu visita, sicut Te colimus).

God grant that through the Eucharistic crusade of reparation, there may increase the number of adorers, lovers, defenders, and consolers of the Eucharistic Lord. May the two little Eucharistic apostles of our time, St. Francisco Marto and the soon-to-be-Blessed Carlo Acutis (beatification on October 10, 2020), and all of the Eucharistic saints, be the protectors of this Eucharistic crusade. For, as St. Peter Julian Eymard reminds us, the irrevocable truth is this: “An age prospers or dwindles in proportion to its devotion to the Eucharist. This is the measure of its spiritual life, faith, charity, and virtue.”

 July 22, 2020  

+ Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of the archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana

Thursday's Serial: "Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley (first version, 1818) (in English) - I

VOLUME I

 

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay

To mould me man? Did I solicit thee

From darkness to promote me?——

Paradise Lost.

 

TO

WILLIAM GODWIN,

AUTHOR OF POLITICAL JUSTICE, CALEB WILLIAMS, &c.

THESE VOLUMES

⁠Are respectfully inscribed

 

⁠        by the Author.

 

PREFACE.

The event on which this fiction is founded has been supposed, by Dr. Darwin, and some of the physiological writers of Germany, as not of impossible occurrence. I shall not be supposed as according the remotest degree of serious faith to such an imagination; yet, in assuming it as the basis of a work of fancy, I have not considered myself as merely weaving a series of supernatural terrors. The event on which the interest of the story depends is exempt from the disadvantages of a mere tale of spectres or enchantment. It was recommended by the novelty of the situations which it developes; and, however impossible as a physical fact, affords a point of view to the imagination for the delineating of human passions more comprehensive and commanding than any which the ordinary relations of existing events can yield.

I have thus endeavoured to preserve the truth of the elementary principles of human nature, while I have not scrupled to innovate upon their combinations. The Iliad, the tragic poetry of Greece,—Shakespeare, in the Tempest and Midsummer Night's Dream,—and most especially Milton, in Paradise Lost, conform to this rule; and the most humble novelist, who seeks to confer or receive amusement from his labours, may, without presumption, apply to prose fiction a licence, or rather a rule, from the adoption of which so many exquisite combinations of human feeling have resulted in the highest specimens of poetry.

The circumstances on which my story rests was suggested in casual conversation. It was commenced, partly as a source of amusement, and partly as an expedient for exercising any untried resources of mind. Other motives were mingled with these, as the work proceeded. I am by no means indifferent to the manner in which whatever moral tendencies exist in the sentiments or characters it contains shall affect the reader; yet my chief concern in this respect has been limited to the avoiding the enervating effects of the novels of the present day, and to the exhibition of the amiableness of domestic affection, and the excellence of universal virtue. The opinions which naturally spring from the character and situation of the hero are by no means to be conceived as existing always in my own conviction; nor is any inference justly to be drawn from the following pages as prejudicing any philosophical doctrine of whatever kind.

It is a subject also of additional interest to the author, that this story was begun in the majestic region where the scene is principally laid, and in society which cannot cease to be regretted. I passed the summer of 1816 in the environs of Geneva. The season was cold and rainy, and in the evenings we crowded around a blazing wood fire, and occasionally amused ourselves with some German stories of ghosts, which happenened to fall into our hands. These tales excited in us a playful desire of imitation. Two other friends (a tale from the pen of one of whom would be far more acceptable to the public than any thing I can ever hope to produce) and myself agreed to write each a story, founded on some supernatural occurrence.

The weather, however, suddenly became serene; and my two friends left me on a journey among the Alps, and lost, in the magnificent scenes which they present, all memory of their ghostly visions. The following tale is the only one which has been completed.

     1818.

Monday's Illustrated Word: "The Phantom Ship" by Unknown Writer (in English)

  art by Alex Toth and Mike Peppe - Out of the Shadows #6 - Standard Comics, October 1952. 

 

 

Good Reading: "The Mummy's Foot" by Théophile Gautier (translated into English by Lafcadio Hearn)

I had entered, in an idle mood, the shop of one of those curiosity-venders, who are called marchands de bric-à-brac in that Parisian argot which is so perfectly unintelligible elsewhere in France.

You have doubtless glanced occasionally through the windows of some of these shops, which have become so numerous now that it is fashionable to buy antiquated furniture, and that every petty stockbroker thinks he must have his chambre au may en âge.

There is one thing there which clings alike to the shop of the dealer in old iron, the wareroom of the tapestry-maker, the laboratory of the chemist, and the studio of the painter:—in all those gloomy dens where a furtive daylight filters in through the window-shutters, the most manifestly ancient thing is dust;—the cobwebs are more authentic than the guimp laces; and the old pear-tree furniture on exhibition is actually younger than the mahogany which arrived but yesterday from America.

The warehouse of my bric-à-brac dealer was a veritable Capharnaum; all ages and all nations seemed to have made their rendezvous there; an Etruscan lamp of red clay stood upon a Boule cabinet, with ebony panels, brightly striped by lines of inlaid brass; a duchess of the court of Louis XV. nonchalantly extended her fawn-like feet under a massive table of the time of Louis XIII. with heavy spiral supports of oak, and carven designs of chimeras and foliage intermingled.

Upon the denticulated shelves of several sideboards glittered immense Japanese dishes with red and blue designs relieved by gilded hatching; side by side with enamelled works by Bernard Palissy, representing serpents, frogs, and lizards in relief.

From disembowelled cabinets escaped cascades of silver-lustrous Chinese silks and waves of tinsel, which an oblique sunbeam shot through with luminous beads; while portraits of every era, in frames more or less tarnished, smiled through their yellow varnish.

The striped breastplate of a damascened suit of Milanese armor glittered in one corner; Loves and Nymphs of porcelain; Chinese Grotesques, vases of céladon and crackle-ware; Saxon and old Sèvres cups, encumbered the shelves and nooks of the apartment.

The dealer followed me closely through the tortuous way contrived between the piles of furniture; warding off with his hand the hazardous sweep of my coat-skirts; watching my elbows with the uneasy attention of an antiquarian and a usurer.

It was a singular face, that of the merchant:—an immense skull, polished like a knee, and surrounded by a thin aureole of white hair, which brought out the clear salmon tint of his complexion all the more strikingly, lent him a false aspect of patriarchal bonhomie, counteracted, however, by the scintillation of two little yellow eyes which trembled in their orbits like two louis-d'or upon quicksilver. The curve of his nose presented an aquiline silhouette, which suggested the Oriental or Jewish type. His hands—thin, slender, full of nerves which projected like strings upon the finger-board of a violin, and armed with claws like those on the terminations of bats' wings—shook with senile trembling; but those convulsively agitated hands became firmer than steel pincers or lobsters' claws when they lifted any precious article,—an onyx cup, a Venetian glass, or a dish of Bohemian crystal. This strange old man had an aspect so thoroughly rabbinical and cabalistic that he would have been burnt on the mere testimony of his face three centuries ago.

"Will you not buy something from me to-day, sir? Here is a Malay kreese with a blade undulating like flame: look at those grooves contrived for the blood to run along, those teeth set backward so as to tear out the entrails in withdrawing the weapon,—it is a fine character of ferocious arm, and will look well in your collection: this two-handed sword is very beautiful,—it is the work of Josepe de la Hera; and this colichemarde, with its fenestrated guard,—what a superb specimen of handicraft!"

"No; I have quite enough weapons and instruments of carnage;—I want a small figure, something which will suit me as a paper-weight, for I cannot endure those trumpery bronzes which the stationers sell, and which may be found on everybody's desk."

The old gnome foraged among his ancient wares, and finally arranged before me some antique bronzes,—so-called, at least; fragments of malachite; little Hindoo or Chinese idols,—a kind of poussah toys in jade-stone, representing the incarnations of Brahma or Vishnoo, and wonderfully appropriate to the very undivine office of holding papers and letters in place.

I was hesitating between a porcelain dragon, all constellated with warts,—its mouth formidable with bristling tusks and ranges of teeth,—and an abominable little Mexican fetish, representing the god Vitziliputzili au naturel, when I caught sight of a charming foot, which I at first took for a fragment of some antique Venus.

It had those beautiful ruddy and tawny tints that lend to Florentine bronze that warm living look so much preferable to the gray-green aspect of common bronzes, which might easily be mistaken for statues in a state of putrefaction: satiny gleams played over its rounded forms, doubtless polished by the amorous kisses of twenty centuries; for it seemed a Corinthian bronze, a work of the best era of art,—perhaps moulded by Lysippus himself.

"That foot will be my choice," I said to the merchant, who regarded me with an ironical and saturnine air, and held out the object desired that I might examine it more fully.

I was surprised at its lightness; it was not a foot of metal, but in sooth a foot of flesh,—an embalmed foot,—a mummy's foot: on examining it still more closely the very grain of the skin, and the almost imperceptible lines impressed upon it by the texture of the bandages, became perceptible. The toes were slender and delicate, and terminated by perfectly formed nails, pure and transparent as agates; the great toe, slightly separated from the rest, afforded a happy contrast, in the antique style, to the position of the other toes, and lent it an aerial lightness,—the grace of a bird's foot;—the sole, scarcely streaked by a few almost imperceptible cross lines, afforded evidence that it had never touched the bare ground, and had only come in contact with the finest matting of Nile rushes, and the softest carpets of panther skin.

"Ha, ha!—you want the foot of the Princess Hermonthis,"—exclaimed the merchant, with a strange giggle, fixing his owlish eyes upon me "ha, ha, ha!—for a paper-weight!—an original idea!—artistic idea! Old Pharaoh would certainly have been surprised had some one told him that the foot of his adored daughter would be used for a paper-weight after he had had a mountain of granite hollowed out as a receptacle for the triple coffin, painted and gilded,—covered with hieroglyphics and beautiful paintings of the Judgment of Souls,"—continued the queer little merchant, half audibly, as though talking to himself!

"How much will you charge me for this mummy fragment?"

"Ah, the highest price I can get; for it is a superb piece: if I had the match of it you could not have it for less than five hundred francs;—the daughter of a Pharaoh! nothing is more rare."

"Assuredly that is not a common article; but, still, how much do you want? In the first place let me warn you that all my wealth consists of just five louis: I can buy anything that costs five louis, but nothing dearer;—you might search my vest pockets and most secret drawers without even finding one poor five-franc piece more."

"Five louis for the foot of the Princess Hermonthis! that is very little, very little indeed; 't is an authentic foot," muttered the merchant, shaking his head, and imparting a peculiar rotary motion to his eyes. "Well, take it, and I will give you the bandages into the bargain," he added, wrapping the foot in an ancient damask rag—' very fine! real damask—Indian damask which has never been redyed; it is strong, and yet it is soft," he mumbled, stroking the frayed tissue with his fingers, through the trade-acquired habit which moved him to praise even an object of so little value that he himself deemed it only worth the giving away.

He poured the gold coins into a sort of mediæval alms-purse hanging at his belt, repeating:

"The foot of the Princess Hermonthis, to be used for a paper-weight!"

Then turning his phosphorescent eyes upon me, he exclaimed in a voice strident as the crying of a cat which has swallowed a fish-bone:

"Old Pharaoh will not be well pleased; he loved his daughter,—the dear man!"

"You speak as if you were a contemporary of his: you are old enough, goodness knows! but you do not date back to the Pyramids of Egypt," I answered, laughingly, from the threshold.

I went home, delighted with my acquisition.

With the idea of putting it to profitable use as soon as possible, I placed the foot of the divine Princess Hermonthis upon a heap of papers scribbled over with verses, in themselves an undecipherable mosaic work of erasures; articles freshly begun; letters forgotten, and posted in the table drawer instead of the letter-box,—an error to which absent-minded people are peculiarly liable. The effect was charming, bizarre, and romantic.

Well satisfied with this embellishment, I went out with the gravity and pride becoming one who feels that he has the ineffable advantage over all the passers-by whom he elbows, of possessing a piece of the Princess Hermonthis, daughter of Pharaoh.

I looked upon all who did not possess, like myself, a paper-weight so authentically Egyptian, as very ridiculous people; and it seemed to me that the proper occupation of every sensible man should consist in the mere fact of having a mummy's foot upon his desk.

Happily I met some friends, whose presence distracted me in my infatuation with this new acquisition: I went to dinner with them; for I could not very well have dined with myself.

When I came back that evening, with my brain slightly confused by a few glasses of wine, a vague whiff of Oriental perfume delicately titillated my olfactory nerves: the heat of the room had warmed the natron, bitumen, and myrrh in which the paraschistes, who cut open the bodies of the dead, had bathed the corpse of the princess;—it was a perfume at once sweet and penetrating,—a perfume that four thousand years had not been able to dissipate.

The Dream of Egypt was Eternity: her odors have the solidity of granite, and endure as long.

I soon drank deeply from the black cup of sleep: for a few hours all remained opaque to me; Oblivion and Nothingness inundated me with their sombre waves.

Yet light gradually dawned upon the darkness of my mind; dreams commenced to touch me softly in their silent flight.

The eyes of my soul were opened; and I beheld my chamber as it actually was; I might have believed myself awake, but for a vague consciousness which assured me that I slept, and that something fantastic was about to take place.

The odor of the myrrh had augmented in intensity: and I felt a slight headache, which I very naturally attributed to several glasses of champagne that we had drunk to the unknown gods and our future fortunes.

I peered through my room with a feeling of expectation which I saw nothing to justify: every article of furniture was in its proper place; the lamp, softly shaded by its globe of ground crystal, burned upon its bracket; the water-color sketches shone under their Bohemian glass; the curtains hung down languidly; everything wore an aspect of tranquil slumber.

After a few moments, however, all this calm interior appeared to become disturbed; the woodwork cracked stealthily; the ash-covered log suddenly emitted a jet of blue flame; and the disks of the pateras seemed like great metallic eyes, watching, like myself, for the things which were about to happen.

My eyes accidentally fell upon the desk where I had placed the foot of the Princess Hermonthis.

Instead of remaining quiet—as behooved a foot which had been embalmed for four thousand years,—it commenced to act in a nervous manner; contracted itself, and leaped over the papers like a startled frog;—one would have imagined that it had suddenly been brought into contact with a galvanic battery: I could distinctly hear the dry sound made by its little heel, hard as the hoof of a gazelle.

I became rather discontented with my acquisition, inasmuch as I wished my paper-weights to be of a sedentary disposition, and thought it very unnatural that feet should walk about without legs; and I commenced to experience a feeling closely akin to fear.

Suddenly I saw the folds of my bed-curtain stir; and heard a bumping sound, like that caused by some person hopping on one foot across the floor. I must confess I became alternately hot and cold; that I felt a strange wind chill my back; and that my suddenly rising hair caused my nightcap to execute a leap of several yards.

The bed-curtains opened and I beheld the strangest figure imaginable before me.

It was a young girl of a very deep coffee-brown complexion, like the bayadere Amani, and possessing the purest Egyptian type of perfect beauty: her eyes were almond-shaped and oblique, with eyebrows so black that they seemed blue; her nose was exquisitely chiselled, almost Greek in its delicacy of outline; and she might indeed have been taken for a Corinthian statue of bronze, but for the prominence of her cheekbones and the slightly African fulness of her lips, which compelled one to recognize her as belonging beyond all doubt to the hieroglyphic race which dwelt upon the banks of the Nile.

Her arms, slender and spindle-shaped, like those of very young girls, were encircled by a peculiar kind of metal bands and bracelets of glass beads; her hair was all twisted into little cords; and she wore upon her bosom a little idol-figure of green paste, bearing a whip with seven lashes, which proved it to be an image of Isis: her brow was adorned with a shining plate of gold; and a few traces of paint relieved the coppery tint of her cheeks.

As for her costume, it was very odd indeed.

Fancy pagne or skirt all formed of little strips of material bedizened with red and black hieroglyphics, stiffened with bitumen, and apparently belonging to a freshly unbandaged mummy.

In one of those sudden flights of thought so common in dreams I heard the hoarse falsetto of the bric-à-brac dealer, repeating like a monotonous refrain the phrase he had uttered in his shop with so enigmatical an intonation:

"Old Pharaoh will not be well pleased: he loved his daughter, the dear man!"

One strange circumstance, which was not at all calculated to restore my equanimity, was that the apparition had but one foot; the other was broken off at the ankle!

She approached the table where the foot was starting and fidgeting about more than ever, and there supported herself upon the edge of the desk. I saw her eyes fill with pearly-gleaming tears.

Although she had not as yet spoken, I fully comprehended the thoughts which agitated her: she looked at her foot—for it was indeed her own—with an exquisitely graceful expression of coquettish sadness; but the foot leaped and ran hither and thither, as though impelled on steel springs.

Twice or thrice she extended her hand to seize it, but could not succeed.

Then commenced between the Princess Hermonthis and her foot—which appeared to be endowed with a special life of its own—a very fantastic dialogue in a most ancient Coptic tongue, such as might have been spoken thirty centuries ago in the syrinxes of the land of Ser: luckily, I understood Coptic perfectly well that night.

The Princess Hermonthis cried, in a voice sweet and vibrant as the tones of a crystal bell:

"Well, my dear little foot, you always flee from me; yet I always took good care of you. I bathed you with perfumed water in a bowl of alabaster; I smoothed your heel with pumice-stone mixed with palm oil; your nails were cut with golden scissors and polished with a hippopotamus tooth; I was careful to select tatbebs for you, painted and embroidered and turned up at the toes, which were the envy of all the young girls in Egypt: you wore on your great toe rings bearing the device of the sacred Scarabæus; and you supported one of the lightest bodies that a lazy foot could sustain."

The foot replied, in a pouting and chagrined tone:

"You know well that I do not belong to myself any longer;—I have been bought and paid for; the old merchant knew what he was about; he bore you a grudge for having refused to espouse him;—this is an ill turn which he has done you. The Arab who violated your royal coffin in the subterranean pits of the necropolis of Thebes was sent thither by him: he desired to prevent you from being present at the reunion of the shadowy nations in the cities below. Have you five pieces of gold for my ransom?"

"Alas, no!—my jewels, my rings, my purses of gold and silver, were all stolen from me," answered the Princess Hermonthis, with a sob.

"Princess," I then exclaimed, "I never retained anybody's foot unjustly;—even though you have not got the five louis which it cost me, I present it to you gladly: I should feel unutterably wretched to think that I were the cause of so amiable a person as the Princess Hermonthis being lame."

I delivered this discourse in a royally gallant, troubadour tone, which must have astonished the beautiful Egyptian girl.

She turned a look of deepest gratitude upon me; and her eyes shone with bluish gleams of light.

She took her foot—which surrendered itself willingly this time—like a woman about to put on her little shoe, and adjusted it to her leg with much skill.

This operation over, she took a few steps about the room, as though to assure herself that she was really no longer lame.

"Ah, how pleased my father will be!—he who was so unhappy because of my mutilation, and who from the moment of my birth set a whole nation at work to hollow me out a tomb so deep that he might preserve me intact until that last day, when souls must be weighed in the balance of Amenthi! Come with me to my father;—he will receive you kindly; for you have given me back my foot."

I thought this proposition natural enough. I arrayed myself in a dressing-gown of large-flowered pattern, which lent me a very Pharaonic aspect; hurriedly put on a pair of Turkish slippers, and informed the Princess Hermonthis that I was ready to follow her.

Before starting, Hermonthis took from her neck the little idol of green paste, and laid it on the scattered sheets of paper which covered the table.

"It is only fair," she observed smilingly, "that I should replace your paper-weight."

She gave me her hand, which felt soft and cold, like the skin of a serpent; and we departed.

We passed for some time with the velocity of an arrow through a fluid and grayish expanse, in which half-formed silhouettes flitted swiftly by us, to right and left.

For an instant we saw only sky and sea.

A few moments later obelisks commenced to tower in the distance: pylons and vast flights of steps guarded by sphinxes became clearly outlined against the horizon.

We had reached our destination.

The princess conducted me to the mountain of rose-colored granite, in the face of which appeared an opening so narrow and low that it would have been difficult to distinguish it from the fissures in the rock, had not its location been marked by two stelæe wrought with sculptures.

Hermonthis kindled a torch, and led the way before me.

We traversed corridors hewn through the living rock: their walls, covered with hieroglyphics and paintings of allegorical processions, might well have occupied thousands of arms for thousands of years in their formation;—these corridors, of interminable length, opened into square chambers, in the midst of which pits had been contrived, through which we descended by cramp-irons or spiral stairways;—these pits again conducted us into other chambers, opening into other corridors, likewise decorated with painted sparrow-hawks, serpents coiled in circles, the symbols of the tau and pedum,—prodigious works of art which no living eye can ever examine,—interminable legends of granite which only the dead have time to read through all eternity.

At last we found ourselves in a hall so vast, so enormous, so immeasurable, that the eye could not reach its limits; files of monstrous columns stretched far out of sight on every side, between which twinkled livid stars of yellowish flame;—points of light which revealed further depths incalculable in the darkness beyond.

The Princess Hermonthis still held my hand, and graciously saluted the mummies of her acquaintance.

My eyes became accustomed to the dim twilight, and objects became discernible.

I beheld the kings of the subterranean races seated upon thrones,—grand old men, though dry, withered, wrinkled like parchment, and blackened with naphtha and bitumen,—all wearing pshents of gold, and breastplates and gorgets glittering with precious stones; their eyes immovably fixed like the eyes of sphinxes, and their long beards whitened by the snow of centuries. Behind them stood their peoples, in the stiff and constrained posture enjoined by Egyptian art, all eternally preserving the attitude prescribed by the hieratic code. Behind these nations, the cats, ibixes, and crocodiles cotemporary with them,—rendered monstrous of aspect by their swathing bands,—mewed, flapped their wings, or extended their jaws in a saurian giggle.

All the Pharaohs were there—Cheops, Chephrenes, Psammetichus, Sesostris, Amenotaph—all the dark rulers of the pyramids and syrinxes:—on yet higher thrones sat Chronos and Xixouthros,—who was contemporary with the deluge; and Tubal Cain, who reigned before it.

The beard of King Xixouthros had grown seven times around the granite table, upon which he leaned, lost in deep reverie,—and buried in dreams.

Further back, through a dusty cloud, I beheld dimly the seventy-two Pre-adamite Kings, with their seventy-two peoples—for ever passed away.

After permitting me to gaze upon this bewildering spectacle a few moments, the Princess Hermonthis presented me to her father Pharaoh, who favored me with a most gracious nod.

"I have found my foot again!—I have found my foot!" cried the Princess, clapping her little hands together with every sign of frantic joy: "it was this gentleman who restored it to me."

The races of Kemi, the races of Nahasi,—all the black, bronzed, and copper-colored nations repeated in chorus:

"The Princess Hermonthis has found her foot again!"

Even Xixouthros himself was visibly affected.

He raised his heavy eyelids, stroked his moustache with his fingers, and turned upon me a glance weighty with centuries.

"By Oms, the dog of Hell, and Tmei, daughter of the Sun and of Truth! this is a brave and worthy lad!" exclaimed Pharaoh, pointing to me with his sceptre, which was terminated with a lotus-flower.

"What recompense do you desire?"

Filled with that daring inspired by dreams in which nothing seems impossible, I asked him for the hand of the Princess Hermonthis;—the hand seemed to me a very proper antithetic recompense for the foot.

Pharaoh opened wide his great eyes of glass in astonishment at my witty request.

"What country do you come from? and what is your age?"

"I am a Frenchman; and I am twenty-seven years old, venerable Pharaoh."

"——Twenty-seven years old! and he wishes to espouse the Princess Hermonthis, who is thirty centuries old!" cried out at once all the Thrones and all the Circles of Nations.

Only Hermonthis herself did not seem to think my request unreasonable.

"If you were even only two thousand years old," replied the ancient King, "I would willingly give you the Princess; but the disproportion is too great; and, besides, we must give our daughters husbands who will last well: you do not know how to preserve yourselves any longer; even those who died only fifteen centuries ago are already no more than a handful of dust;—behold! my flesh is solid as basalt; my bones are bars of steel!

"I shall be present on the last day of the world, with the same body and the same features which I had during my lifetime: my daughter Hermonthis will last longer than a statue of bronze.

"Then the last particles of your dust will have been scattered abroad by the winds; and even Isis herself, who was able to find the atoms ot Osiris, would scarce be able to recompose your being.

"See how vigorous I yet remain, and how mighty is my grasp," he added, shaking my hand in the English fashion with a strength that buried my rings in the flesh of my fingers.

He squeezed me so hard that I awoke, and found my friend Alfred shaking me by the arm to make me get up.

"O you everlasting sleeper!—must I have you carried out into the middle of the street, and fireworks exploded in your ears? It is after noon; don't you recollect your promise to take me with you to see M. Aguado's Spanish pictures?"

"God! I forgot all, all about it," I answered, dressing myself hurriedly; "we will go there at once; I have the permit lying there on my desk."

I started to find it;—but fancy my astonishment when I beheld, instead of the mummy's foot I had purchased the evening before, the little green paste idol left in its place by the Princess Hermonthis!

Friday's Sung Word: "Envio Estas Mal Traçadas Linhas" by Noel Rosa (in Portuguese)

This song is a parody of "Cordiais Saudações" for the operetta "O Barbeiro de Niterói".

Cordiais saudações!

Envio estas mal traçadas linhas
Que escrevi à lápis
Por não ter caneta
Andas perseguido
Para que escapes
Corta o teu cabelo
E põe barba preta

Em vão te procurei
Notícias tuas não encontrei
Mas ontem te escutei
E este bilhete ao Fígaro entreguei

Sem mais para acabar
Recebe o beijo
Que eu vou mandar
Eu amo, com amor não brinco
Niterói, trinta de outubro de trinta e cinco 

Responde que eu pago o selo?

 

 You can listen "Envio Estas Mal Traçadas Linhas" sung by Ná Ozzetti here.

You can listen "Cordiais Saudações" here.