Lord of the World 8

Lord of the World 8

"John!" cried Percy. "You see that, do you not? How can we pretend

anything when you do not believe in God? For I do you the honour of

thinking that you do not."

 

Francis sprang up.

 

"Well---" he snapped. "I could not have believed--I am going."

 

He wheeled towards the door.

 

"John!" said Percy again. "Are you going like this? Can you not shake

hands?"

 

The other wheeled again, with heavy anger in his face.

 

"Why, you said you could not be friends with me!"

 

Percy's mouth opened. Then he understood, and smiled. "Oh! that is all

you mean by friendship, is it?--I beg your pardon. Oh! we can be polite

to one another, if you like."

 

He still stood holding out his hand. Father Francis looked at it a

moment, his lips shook: then once more he turned, and went out without a

word.

 

 

 

II

 

Percy stood motionless until he heard the automatic bell outside tell

him that Father Francis was really gone, then he went out himself and

turned towards the long passage leading to the Cathedral. As he passed

out through the sacristy he heard far in front the murmur of an organ,

and on coming through into the chapel used as a parish church he

perceived that Vespers were not yet over in the great choir. He came

straight down the aisle, turned to the right, crossed the centre and

knelt down.

 

It was drawing on towards sunset, and the huge dark place was lighted

here and there by patches of ruddy London light that lay on the gorgeous

marble and gildings finished at last by a wealthy convert. In front of

him rose up the choir, with a line of white surpliced and furred canons

on either side, and the vast baldachino in the midst, beneath which

burned the six lights as they had burned day by day for more than a

century; behind that again lay the high line of the apse-choir with the

dim, window-pierced vault above where Christ reigned in majesty. He let

his eyes wander round for a few moments before beginning his deliberate

prayer, drinking in the glory of the place, listening to the thunderous

chorus, the peal of the organ, and the thin mellow voice of the priest.

There on the left shone the refracted glow of the lamps that burned

before the Lord in the Sacrament, on the right a dozen candles winked

here and there at the foot of the gaunt images, high overhead hung the

gigantic cross with that lean, emaciated Poor Man Who called all who

looked on Him to the embraces of a God.

 

Then he hid his face in his hands, drew a couple of long breaths, and

set to work.

 

He began, as his custom was in mental prayer, by a deliberate act of

self-exclusion from the world of sense. Under the image of sinking

beneath a surface he forced himself downwards and inwards, till the peal

of the organ, the shuffle of footsteps, the rigidity of the chair-back

beneath his wrists--all seemed apart and external, and he was left a

single person with a beating heart, an intellect that suggested image

after image, and emotions that were too languid to stir themselves. Then

he made his second descent, renounced all that he possessed and was, and

became conscious that even the body was left behind, and that his mind

and heart, awed by the Presence in which they found themselves, clung

close and obedient to the will which was their lord and protector. He

drew another long breath, or two, as he felt that Presence surge about

him; he repeated a few mechanical words, and sank to that peace which

follows the relinquishment of thought.

 

There he rested for a while. Far above him sounded the ecstatic music,

the cry of trumpets and the shrilling of the flutes; but they were as

insignificant street-noises to one who was falling asleep. He was within

the veil of things now, beyond the barriers of sense and reflection, in

that secret place to which he had learned the road by endless effort, in

that strange region where realities are evident, where perceptions go to

and fro with the swiftness of light, where the swaying will catches now

this, now that act, moulds it and speeds it; where all things meet,

where truth is known and handled and tasted, where God Immanent is one

with God Transcendent, where the meaning of the external world is

evident through its inner side, and the Church and its mysteries are

seen from within a haze of glory.

 

So he lay a few moments, absorbing and resting.

 

Then he aroused himself to consciousness and began to speak.

 

"Lord, I am here, and Thou art here. I know Thee. There is nothing else

but Thou and I.... I lay this all in Thy hands--Thy apostate priest, Thy

people, the world, and myself. I spread it before Thee--I spread it

before Thee."

 

He paused, poised in the act, till all of which he thought lay like a

plain before a peak.

 

... "Myself, Lord--there but for Thy grace should I be going, in

darkness and misery. It is Thou Who dost preserve me. Maintain and

finish Thy work within my soul. Let me not falter for one instant. If

Thou withdraw Thy hand I fall into utter nothingness."

 

So his soul stood a moment, with outstretched appealing hands, helpless

and confident. Then the will flickered in self-consciousness, and he

repeated acts of faith, hope and love to steady it. Then he drew another

long breath, feeling the Presence tingle and shake about him, and began

again.

 

"Lord; look on Thy people. Many are falling from Thee. _Ne in aeternum

irascaris nobis. Ne in aeternum irascaris nobis_.... I unite myself with

all saints and angels and Mary Queen of Heaven; look on them and me, and

hear us. _Emitte lucem tuam et veritatem tuam._ Thy light and Thy truth!

Lay not on us heavier burdens than we can bear. Lord, why dost Thou not

speak!"

 

He writhed himself forward in a passion of expectant desire, hearing his

muscles crack in the effort. Once more he relaxed himself; and the swift

play of wordless acts began which he knew to be the very heart of

prayer. The eyes of his soul flew hither and thither, from Calvary to

heaven and back again to the tossing troubled earth. He saw Christ dying

of desolation while the earth rocked and groaned; Christ reigning as a

priest upon His Throne in robes of light, Christ patient and inexorably

silent within the Sacramental species; and to each in turn he directed

the eyes of the Eternal Father....

 

Then he waited for communications, and they came, so soft and delicate,

passing like shadows, that his will sweated blood and tears in the

effort to catch and fix them and correspond....

 

He saw the Body Mystical in its agony, strained over the world as on a

cross, silent with pain; he saw this and that nerve wrenched and

twisted, till pain presented it to himself as under the guise of flashes

of colour; he saw the life-blood drop by drop run down from His head and

hands and feet. The world was gathered mocking and good-humoured

beneath. "_He saved others: Himself He cannot save.... Let Christ come

down from the Cross and we will believe._" Far away behind bushes and

in holes of the ground the friends of Jesus peeped and sobbed; Mary

herself was silent, pierced by seven swords; the disciple whom He loved

had no words of comfort.

 

He saw, too, how no word would be spoken from heaven; the angels

themselves were bidden to put sword into sheath, and wait on the eternal

patience of God, for the agony was hardly yet begun; there were a

thousand horrors yet before the end could come, that final sum of

crucifixion.... He must wait and watch, content to stand there and do

nothing; and the Resurrection must seem to him no more than a dreamed-of

hope. There was the Sabbath yet to come, while the Body Mystical must

lie in its sepulchre cut off from light, and even the dignity of the

Cross must be withdrawn and the knowledge that Jesus lived. That inner

world, to which by long effort he had learned the way, was all alight

with agony; it was bitter as brine, it was of that pale luminosity that

is the utmost product of pain, it hummed in his ears with a note that

rose to a scream ... it pressed upon him, penetrated him, stretched him

as on a rack.... And with that his will grew sick and nerveless.

 

"Lord! I cannot bear it!" he moaned....

 

In an instant he was back again, drawing long breaths of misery. He

passed his tongue over his lips, and opened his eyes on the darkening

apse before him. The organ was silent now, and the choir was gone, and

the lights out. The sunset colour, too, had faded from the walls, and

grim cold faces looked down on him from wall and vault. He was back

again on the surface of life; the vision had melted; he scarcely knew

what it was that he had seen.

 

But he must gather up the threads, and by sheer effort absorb them. He

must pay his duty, too, to the Lord that gave Himself to the senses as

well as to the inner spirit. So he rose, stiff and constrained, and

passed across to the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament.

 

As he came out from the block of chairs, very upright and tall, with his

biretta once more on his white hair, he saw an old woman watching him

very closely. He hesitated an instant, wondering whether she were a

penitent, and as he hesitated she made a movement towards him.

 

"I beg your pardon, sir," she began.

 

She was not a Catholic then. He lifted his biretta.

 

"Can I do anything for you?" he asked.

 

"I beg your pardon, sir, but were you at Brighton, at the accident two

months ago?"

 

"I was."

 

"Ah! I thought so: my daughter-in-law saw you then."

 

Percy had a spasm of impatience: he was a little tired of being

identified by his white hair and young face.

 

"Were you there, madam?"

 

She looked at him doubtfully and curiously, moving her old, eyes up and

down his figure. Then she recollected herself.