“Yes,–and he is becoming rather an alarming personage in England, so I hear,–” returned the Abbe–“He writes books that are distinctly dangerous, because true. He wants to upset shams like our Socialist writer Gys Grandit. Gys Grandit, you know, will never be satisfied till, like Rousseau, he has brought about another French Revolution. He is only a peasant, they say, but he writes with the pen of a prophet. And this Englishman is of the same calibre,–only his work is directed against religious hypocrisies more than social ones. I daresay that is why I always feel so uneasy in his presence!” And Vergniaud laughed lightly. “For the rest, he is a brilliant creature enough, and thoroughly manly. The other evening at the Club that little Vicomte de Lorgne was chattering in his usual offensive manner about women, and Leigh astonished everyone by the way in which he pulled him up. There was almost a very pretty quarrel,–but a stray man happened to mention casually,–that Leigh was considered one of the finest shots in England. After that the dear Vicomte vanished, and did not return.”
Angela laughed.
“Poor de Lorgne! Yes–I have heard that Mr. Leigh excels in everything that is distinctly English–riding, shooting, and all that kind of thing. He is not effeminate.”
“Few Englishmen are,” said the Abbe,–“And yet to my mind there is something not altogether English in this man. He has none of the heavy British mental and physical stolidity. He is strong and muscular certainly,–but also light and supple,–and with that keen, intellectual delicate face of his, he is more of the antique Greek type than like a son of Les Isles Sans-Soleil.”
“Sans-Soleil,” echoed Angela, “But there is plenty of sunshine in England!”
“Is there? Well, I have been unfortunate,–I have never seen any,–” and the Abbe gave a shrug of half regret, half indifference. “It is very curious the effect that this so brave England has upon me! In crossing to its shores I suffer of course from the mal de mer–then when I arrive exhausted to the white cliffs, it is generally raining–then I take train to London, where it is what is called black fog; and I find all the persons that I meet either with a cold, or going to have a cold, or just recovering from a cold! It is not lively–the very funerals are dull. And you–this is not your experience?”
“No–frankly I cannot say it is,” replied Angela, “I have seen rain and fog in Rome that cannot be surpassed for wretchedness anywhere. Italy is far more miserable in cold weather than England. I passed a summer once in England, and it was to me like a glimpse of Paradise. I never saw so many flowers–I never heard so many birds–(you know in Italy we kill all the singing birds and eat them), and I never met so many kind and gentle people.”
“Well!–perhaps the religious sects in England are responsible for the general feeling of depression in the English atmosphere,” said the Abbe with a light laugh, “They are certainly foggy! The one round Sun of one Creed is unknown to them. I assure you it is best to have one light of faith, even though it be only a magic lantern,- -a toy to amuse the children of this brief life before their everlasting bedtime comes–” He broke off abruptly as a slow step was heard approaching along the passage, and in another moment Cardinal Bonpre entered the room.
“Ah, le bien aime Felix!” cried Vergniaud, hastening to meet him and clasp his outstretched hand, bowing slightly over it as he did so, “I have taken the liberty to wait for you, cher Monseigneur, being anxious to see you–and I understand your stay in Paris will not be long?”
“A few days at most, my dear Abbe”,–replied the Cardinal, gently pressing the hand of Vergniaud and smiling kindly. “You are well? But surely I need not ask–you seem to be in the best of health and spirits.”
“Ah, my seeming is always excellent,” returned the Abbe, “However, I do not fare badly. I have thrown away all hard thinking!”
“And you are happier so?”
“Well, I am not quite sure! There is undoubtedly a pleasure in analysing the perplexities of one’s own mind. Still, on the whole, it is perhaps better to enjoy the present hour without any thought at all.”
“Like the butterflies!” laughed Angela.
“Yes,–if butterflies DO enjoy their hour,–which I am not at all prepared to admit. In my opinion they are very dissatisfied creatures,–no sooner on one flower than off they go to another. Very like human beings after all! But I imagine they never worry themselves with philosophical or religious questions.”
“And do you?” enquired Bonpre, smiling, as he sat down in the easy chair his niece placed for him.
“Not as a rule!–” answered Vergniaud frankly, with a light laugh– “But I confess I have done a little in that way lately. Some of the new sciences puzzle me,–I am surprised to find how closely they approach to the fulfilment of old prophecies. One is almost inclined to believe that there must be a next world and a future life.”
“I think such belief is now placed beyond mere inclination,” said the Cardinal–“There is surely no doubt of it.”
Vergniaud gave him a quick side-glance of earnest scrutiny.
“With you, perhaps not–” he replied–“But with me,–well!–it is a different matter. However, it is really no use worrying one’s self with the question of ‘To be, or not to be.’ It drove Hamlet mad, just as the knotty point as to whether Hamlet himself was fat or lean nearly killed our hysterical little boy, Catullus Mendes. It’s best to leave eternal subjects like God and Shakespeare alone.”
He laughed again, but the Cardinal did not smile.
“I do not agree with you, Vergniaud,” he said–“I fear it is because we do not think sufficiently for ourselves on the One eternal subject that so much mischief threatens us at the present time. To take gifts and ignore the Giver is surely the blackest ingratitude, yet that is what the greater part of humanity is guilty of in these days. Never was there so much beholding and yet ignoring of the Divine as now. Science is searching for God, and is getting closer to Him every day;–the Church remains stationary and refuses to look out beyond her own pale of thought and conventional discipline. I know,–” and the Cardinal hesitated a moment, “I know I can speak quite plainly to you, for you are what is called a freethinker–yet I doubt whether you are really as free as you imagine!”
The Abbe shrugged his shoulders.
“I imagine nothing!” he declared airily, “Everything is imagined for me nowadays,–and imagination itself is like a flying Geni which overtakes and catches the hair of some elusive Reality and turns its face round, full-shining on an amazed world!”
“A pretty simile!” said Angela Sovrani, smiling.
“Is it not? Almost worthy of Paul Verlaine who was too ‘inspired’ to keep either his body or his soul clean. Why was I not a poet! Helas!–Fact so much outweighs fancy that it is no longer any use penning a sonnet to one’s mistress’s eyebrow. One needs to write with thunderbolts in characters of lightning, to express the wonders and discoveries of this age. When I find I can send a message from here to London across space, without wires or any visible means of communication,–and when I am told that probably one of these days I shall be able at will to SEE the person to whom I send the message, reflected in space while the message is being delivered,–I declare myself so perfectly satisfied with the fairy prodigies revealed to me, that I have really no time, and perhaps no inclination to think of any other world than this one.”
“You are wrong, then,” said the Cardinal, “Very wrong, Vergniaud. To me these discoveries of science, this apparent yielding of invisible forces into human hands, are signs and portents of terror. You remember the line ‘the powers of heaven shall be shaken’? Those powers are being shaken now! We cannot hold them back;–they are here, with us;–but they mean much more than mere common utility to our finite selves. They are the material declarations of what is spiritual. They are the scientific proofs that Christ’s words to ‘THIS generation,’ namely, this particular phase of creation,–are true. ‘Blessed are they which have not seen and yet believed,’ He said;–and many there are who have passed away from us in rapt faith and hope, believing not seeing, and with whom we may rejoice in spirit, knowing that all must be well with them. But now–now we are come upon an age of doubt in the world–doubt which corrodes and kills the divine spirit in man, and therefore we are being forced to SEE that we may believe,–but the seeing is terrible!”
“Why?”
“Because in the very beholding of things we remain blind!” answered the Cardinal, “Our intense selfishness obscures the true light of every fresh advance. We accept new marvels of knowledge, as so much practical use to us, and to the little planet we live on,–but we do not see that they are merely reflections of the Truth from which they emanate. The toy called the biograph, which reflects pictures for us in a dazzling and moving continuity, so that we can see scenes of human life in action, is merely a hint to us that every scene of every life is reflected in a ceaseless moving panorama SOMEWHERE in the Universe, for the beholding of SOMEONE,–yes!– there must be Someone who so elects to look upon everything, or such possibilities of reflected scenes would not be,–inasmuch as nothing exists without a Cause for existence. The wireless telegraphy is a stupendous warning of the truth that ‘from God no secrets are hid’, and also of the prophecy of Christ ‘there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed’–and, ‘whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be revealed in light.’ The latter words are almost appalling in their absolute accord with the latest triumphant discoveries of science.”
Abbe Vergniaud looked at the Cardinal, and slightly raised his eyebrows in a kind of wondering protest.
“TRES-SAINT Felix!” he murmured, “Are you turning into a mystic? One of those doubtful personages who are seeking to reconcile science with the Church?–“
“Stop!” interposed the Cardinal, raising his hand with an eloquent gesture, “Science is, or should be, the Church!–science is Truth, and Truth is God! God cannot be found anywhere in a lie; and the Church in many ways would make our Divine Redeemer Himself a lie were it not that His words are every day taking fresh meaning, and bringing new and solemn conviction to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear!”
He spoke as if carried beyond himself,–his pale cheeks glowed,–his eyes flashed fire,–and the combined effect of his words and manner was startling to the Abbe, and in a way stupefying to his niece Angela. She had never heard him give utterance to such strong sentiments and she shrank a little within herself, wondering whether as a Cardinal of the Roman Church he had not been too free of speech. She glanced apprehensively at Vergniaud, who however only smiled a little.
“If you should be disposed to express yourself in such terms at the Vatican,–” he began.
The Cardinal relapsed into his usual calm, and met the Abbe’s questioning, half cynical glance composedly. “I have many things to speak of at the Vatican,” he answered,–“This matter will probably be one of them.”
“Then–” But whatever Vergniaud was about to say was interrupted by the entrance of the boy Manuel, who at that moment came into the room and stood beside the Cardinal’s chair. The Abbe gave him an upward glance of surprise and admiration.
“Whom have we here?” he exclaimed, “One of your acolytes, Monseigneur?”
“No,” replied the Cardinal, his eyes resting on the fair face of the lad with a wistful affection, “A little stray disciple of our Lord,- -to whom I have ventured to offer protection. There is none to question my right to do so, for he is quite alone in the world.”
And in a few words he related how he had discovered the boy on the previous night, weeping outside the Cathedral in Rouen. Angela Sovrani listened attentively, her violet eyes darkening and deepening as she heard,–now and then she raised them to look at the youthful waif who stood so quietly while the story of his troubles was told in the gentle and sympathetic way which was the Cardinal’s usual manner of speech, and which endeared him so much to all. “And for the present,” finished Bonpre, smiling–“he stays with me, and already I have found him skilled in the knowledge of many things,– he can read Scripture with a most musical and clear emphasis,–and he is a quick scribe, so that he will be valuable to me in more ways than one.”
“Ah!” and the Abbe turned himself round in his chair to survey the boy more attentively, “You can read Scripture? But can you understand it? If you can, you are wiser than I am!”
Manuel regarded him straightly.
“Was it not once said in Judaea that “IT IS THE SPIRIT THAT QUICKENETH’?” he asked.
“True!–And from that you would infer . . . ?”
“That when one cannot understand Scripture, it is perhaps for the reason that ‘THE LETTER KILLETH, BECAUSE LACKING THE SPIRIT THAT GIVETH LIFE.”
The boy spoke gently and with grace and modesty,–but something in the tone of his voice had a strange effect on the cynical temperament of Abbe Vergniaud.
“Here,” he mused, “is a lad in whom the principle of faith is strong and pure,–shall I drop the poison of doubt into the open flower of his mind, or leave it uncontaminated?” Aloud he said, kindly,
“You speak well,–you have evidently thought for yourself. Who taught you to recognise ‘the Spirit that giveth life’?”
Manuel smiled.
“Does that need teaching?” he asked.
Radiance shone in his eyes,–the look of purity and candour on his young face was infinitely touching to the two men who beheld it,– the one worn with age and physical languors, the other equally worn in mind, if not in body. In the brief silence which followed,–a silence of unexpressed feeling,–a soft strain of organ-music came floating deliciously towards them,–a delicate thread of grave melody which wove itself in and out the airspaces, murmuring suggestions of tenderness and appeal. Angela smiled, and held up one finger, listening.
“That is Mr. Leigh!” she said, “He is in my studio improvising.”
“Happy Mr. Leigh!” said the Abbe with a little malicious twinkle in his eyes, “To be allowed to improvise at all in the studio of the Sovrani!”
Angela flushed, and lifted her fair head with a touch of pride.
“Mr. Leigh is a friend,” she said, “He is welcome in the studio always. His criticism of a picture is valuable,–besides–he is a celebrated Englishman!” She laughed, and her eyes flashed.
“Ah! To a celebrated Englishman all things are conceded!” said the Abbe satirically, “Even the right to enter the sanctum of the most exclusive lady in Europe! Is it not a curious thing that the good Britannia appears to stick her helmet on the head, and put her sceptre in the hand of every one of her sons who condescends to soil his boots by walking on foreign soil? With the helmet he defies the gemdarme,–with the sceptre he breaks open every door,–we prostrate ourselves before his face and curse him behind his back,–c’est drole!–yet we are all alike, French, Germans, Austrians, and Italians;–we hate the Englishman, but we black his boots all the same,–which is contemptible of us,–MAIS, QUE FAIRE! He is so overwhelming in sheer impudence! With culture and politeness we might cross swords in courtly duel,–but in the presence of absolute bluff, or what is called ‘cheek’, we fall flat in sheer dismay! What delicious music! I see that it charms our young friend,–he is fond of music.”
“Yes,” said Manuel speaking for himself before any question could be put to him, “I love it! It is like the fresh air,–full of breath and life.”
“Come then with me,” said Angela, “Come into the studio and we will hear it more closely. Dearest uncle,” and she knelt for a moment by the Cardinal’s chair, “Will you come there also when Monsieur l’Abbe has finished talking with you?”
Cardinal Bonpre’s hand rested lovingly on her soft hair.
“Yes, my child, I will come.” And in a lower tone he added,–“Do not speak much to Manuel,–he is a strange lad; more fond of silence and prayer than other things,–and if such is his temperament I would rather keep him so.”
Angela bowed her head in acquiescence to this bidding,–then rising, left the room with a gentle gesture of invitation to the boy, who at once followed her. As the two disappeared a chill and a darkness seemed to fall upon the air, and the Cardinal sank back among the cushions of his fauteuil with a deep sigh of utter exhaustion. Abbe Vergniaud glanced at him inquisitively.
“You are very tired, I fear?” he said.
“Physically, no,–mentally, yes. Spiritually, I am certainly fatigued to the death.”
The Abbe shrugged his shoulders.
“Helas! There is truly much in spiritual matters to engender weariness!” he said.
With a sudden access of energy the Cardinal gripped both arms of his chair and sat upright.
“For God’s sake, do not jest,” he said earnestly, “Do not jest! We have all been jesting too long, and the time is near when we shall find out the bitter cost of it! Levity–carelessness–doubt and final heresy–I do not mean heresy against the Church, for that is nothing–“
“Nothing!” exclaimed the Abbe, “YOU say this?”
“I say it!” And Bonpre’s thin worn features grew transfigured with the fervour of his thought. “I am a priest of the Church–but I am also a man!–with reason, with brain, and with a love of truth;–and I can faithfully say I have an almost jealous honour for my Master– but I repeat, heresy against the Church is nothing,–it is heresy against Christ which is the crime of the age,–and in that, the very Church is heretic! Heresy against Christ!–Heresy against Christ! A whole system of heresy! ‘I never knew you,–depart from me, ye workers of iniquity,’ will be our Lord’s words at the Last Judgment!”
The Abbe’s wonderment increased. He looked down a moment, then looked up, and a quizzical, half-melancholy expression filled his eyes.
“Well, I am very much concerned in all this,” he said, “I wanted to have a private talk with you on my own account, principally because I know you to be a good man, while I am a bad one. I have a trouble here,–” and he touched the region of his heart, “which the wise doctors say may end my days at any moment; two years at the utmost is the ultimatum of my life, so I want to know from you, whom I know to be intelligent and honest, whether you believe I am going to another existence,–and if so, what sort of a one you think is in prospect for such a man as I am? Now don’t pity me, my dear Bonpre,- -don’t pity me!–” and he laughed a little huskily as the Cardinal took his hand and pressed it with a silent sympathy more eloquent than words, “We must all die,–and if I am to go somewhat sooner than I expected, that is nothing to compassionate me for. But there is just a little uncertainty in my mind,–I am not at all sure that death is the end–I wish I could be quite positive of the fact. I was once–quite positive. But science, instead of giving me this absolute comfort has in its later progress upset all my former calculations, and I am afraid I must own that there is indubitably Something Else,–which to my mind seems distinctly disagreeable!”
Though the Abbe spoke lightly, the troubled look remained in his eyes and the Cardinal saw it.
“My dear Vergniaud,” he began gently, “I am grieved at what you tell me–“
“No, don’t be grieved,” interrupted Vergniaud, “because that is not it. Talk to me! Tell me what you truly think. That this life is only a schoolroom where we do our lessons more or less badly?–That death is but the name for another life? Now do not FORCE your faith for me. Tell me your own honest conviction. Do we end?–or do we begin again? Be frank and fair and true; according to the very latest science, remember!–not according to the latest hocus-pocus of twelfth-century mandate issued from Rome. You see how frank I am, and how entirely I go with you. But I am going further than you,–I am bound for the last voyage–so you must not offer me the wrong pass-word to the shore!”
“No, I will give you the right pass-word,” said the cardinal, a fervid glow of enthusiasm lighting up his features. “It is CHRIST in all, and through all! Christ only;–Christ, the friend and brother of man;–the only Divine Teacher this world has ever had, or ever will have!”
“You believe in Him really,–truly,–then?” exclaimed the Abbe wonderingly.
“Really–truly, and with all my heart and soul!” responded the Cardinal firmly,–“Surely, you too, believe?”
“No,” said the Abbe firmly, “I do not! I would as soon believe that the lad you have just rescued from the streets of Rouen is divine, as that there is any divinity in the Man of Nazareth!”
He rose up as he spoke in a kind of petulance,–then started slightly as he found himself face to face with Manuel. The boy had entered noiselessly and stood for a moment glancing from one priest of the Church to the other. A faint smile was on his face,–his blue eyes were full of light.
“Did you call me, my lord Cardinal?” he asked.
The Cardinal looked up.
“No, my child!”
“I thought I heard you. If you should need me, I am close at hand.”
He went away as quietly as he had entered; and the same silence followed his departure as before,–a silence which was only disturbed by the occasional solemn and sweet vibrations of the distant music from the studio.
VIII.
“A strange lad!” said Abbe Vergniaud, abruptly.
“Strange? In what way do you find him so?” asked the Cardinal with a touch of anxiety.
The Abbe knitted his brows perplexedly, and took a short turn up and down the room. Then he laughed.
“Upon my word, I cannot tell you!” he declared, with one of those inimitable gestures common to Frenchmen, a gesture which may mean anything or nothing,–“But he speaks too well, and, surely, thinks too much for his years. Is there nothing further to tell of him save what you have already said? Nothing that you know of him, beyond the plain bare fact of having found him weeping alone outside the doors of the Cathedral?”
“Nothing indeed!” replied the Cardinal bewildered. “What else should there be?”
The Abbe hesitated a moment, and when he spoke again it was in a softer and graver tone. “Forgive me! Of course there could be nothing else with you. You are so different to all other Churchmen I have ever known. Still, the story of your foundling is exceptional;- -you will own that it is somewhat out of the common course of things, for a Cardinal to suddenly constitute himself the protector and guardian of a small tramp–for this boy is nothing else. Now, if it were any other Cardinal-Archbishop than yourself, I should at once say that His Eminence knew exactly where to find the mother of his protege!”
“Vergniaud!” exclaimed the Cardinal.
“Forgive me! I said ‘forgive me’ as a prelude to my remarks,” resumed Vergniaud, “I am talking profanely, sceptically, and cynically,–I am talking precisely as the world talks, and as it always will talk.”
“The world may talk itself out of existence, before it can hinder me from doing what I conceive to be my duty,” said Felix Bonpre, calmly, “The lad is alone and absolutely friendless,–it is but fitting and right that I should do what I can for him.”
Abbe Vergniaud sat down, and for a moment appeared absorbed in thought.
“You are a curious man;” he at length observed, “And a more than curious priest! Here you are, assuming the guardianship of a boy concerning whom you know nothing,–when you might as well have handed him over to one of the orphanages for the poor, or have paid for his care and education with some of the monastic brethren established near Rouen,–but no!–you being eccentric, feel as if you were personally responsible to God for the child, simply because you found him lost and alone, and therefore you have him with you. It is very good of you,–we will call it great of you–but it is not usual. People will say you have a private motive;–you must remember that the world never gives you credit for doing a good action simply for the pure sake of doing it,–‘There must be something behind it all,’ they say. When the worst cocotte of the age begins to lose her beauty, the prospect is so alarming that she thinks there may be a possible hell, after all, and she straightway becomes charitable and renowned for good works;–precisely in the same way as our famous stage ‘stars’, knowing their lives to be less clean than the lives of their horses and their dogs, give subscriptions and altar-cloths and organs to the clergy. It is all very amusing!–I assure you I have often laughed at it. It is as if they took Heaven by its private ear in confidence, and said, ‘See now, I want to put things straight with you if I can!–and if a few church-ornaments, and candlesticks will pacify you, why, take them and hold your tongue!'”
He paused, but the Cardinal was silent.
“I know,” went on the Abbe, “that you think I am indulging in the worst kind of levity to talk in this way. It sounds horrible to you. And you perhaps think I cannot be serious. My dear Saint Felix, there never was a more serious man than I. I would give worlds– universes–to believe as you do! I have written books of religious discussion,–not because I wanted the notice of the world for them,- -for that I do not care about,–but for the sake of wrestling out the subject for myself, and making my pen my confidant. I tell you I envy the woman who can say her rosary with the simple belief that the Virgin Mary hears and takes delight in all those repetitions. Nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to have composed a volume of prayers,–a ‘Garland of Flowers’–such as an innocent girl could hold in her hands, and bend her sweet eyes over. It would have been a taste of the sensual-spiritual, or the spiritual-sensual,– which is the most exquisite of all human sensations.”
“There is no taint of sensuality in the purely spiritual,” said the Cardinal reprovingly.
“Not for your nature,–no! You have made your body like a transparent scabbard through which the glitter of the soul-sword is almost visible. But I am different. I am so much of a materialist that I like to pull down Heaven to the warm bosom of Earth and make them mingle. You would lift up Earth to Heaven! Ah, that is difficult! Even Christ came down! It is the chief thing I admire in Him, that He ‘descended from Heaven and was made Man’. TRES CHER Felix, I shall bewilder you to death with my specious and frivolous reasoning,–and after all, I had much better come to the main fact of what I intended to tell you,–a sort of confession out of church. You know I have already told you I am going to die soon, and that I am a bad man confessedly and hopelessly,–but among other things is this, (and if you can give me any advice upon it I will take it,) that for the last four or five years I have been dodging about to escape being murdered,–not because I particularly mind being murdered, because I probably deserve it,–and one way of exit is as good as another,–but because I want to save the would-be murderer from committing his crime. Is not that a good motive?”
Cardinal Bonpre gazed at him in astonishment. Vergniaud appeared to him in an entirely new light. He had always known him as a careless, cynical-tempered man;–a close thinker,–a clever writer, and a brilliant talker,–and he had been inclined to consider him as a “society” priest,–one of those amiable yet hypocritical personages, who, by the most jesuitical flatteries and studied delicacies of manner, succeed in influencing weak-minded persons of wealth, (especially women) to the end of securing vast sums of money to the Church,–obtaining by these means such rank and favour for themselves as would otherwise never have been granted to them. But now the Abbe’s frank admission of his own sins and failings seemed a proof of his inherent sincerity,–and sincerity, whether found in orthodoxy or heterodoxy, always commanded the Cardinal’s respect.
“Are you speaking in parables or in grave earnest?” he asked. “Do you really mean that you are shadowed by some would-be assassin? An assassin, too, whom you actually wish to protect?”
“Exactly!” And Vergniaud smiled with the air of one who admits the position to be curious but by no means alarming. “I want to save him from the guillotine; and if he murders me I cannot! It is a question of natural instinct merely. The would-be assassin is my son!”
Cardinal Bonpre raised his clear blue eyes and fixed them full on the Abbe.
“This is a very serious matter,” he said gently, “Surely it is best to treat it seriously?”
“Oh, I am serious enough, God knows!” returned Vergniaud, with a heavy but impatient sigh, “I suppose there is, there must be, some terribly exact Mathematician concerned in the working of things, else a man’s past sins and failings being done with and over, would not turn up any more. But they DO turn up,–the unseen Mathematician counts every figure;–and of course trouble ensues. My story is simply this;–Some twenty-five years ago I was in Touraine;–I was a priest as I am now–Oh, yes!–the sin is as black as the Church can make it!–and one mid-summer evening I strolled into a certain quaint old church of a certain quaint old town,–I need not name it- -and saw there a girl, as sweet as an apple blossom, kneeling in front of the altar. I watched her,–I see her now!–the late sunlight through the stained glass window fell like a glory on her pretty hair, and on the little white kerchief folded so daintily across her bosom, and on her small hands and the brown rosary that was twisted round her fingers. She was praying, so she told me afterwards, to her guardian angel,–I wonder what that personage was about just then, Bonpre! Anyhow, to her petition came no answer but a devil,–a devil personified in me,–I made her love me,–I tempted her by ever subtle and hellish persuasion I could think of,–I can never even now think of that time without wondering where all the eloquent evil of my tongue came from–and–well!–she never was able to ask the guardian angel any more favours! And I?–I think I loved her for a while,–but no, I am not sure;–I believe there is no such good thing as absolute love in my composition. Anyway, I soon left Touraine, and had almost forgotten her when she wrote to tell me of the birth of her child–a son. I gave her no reply, and then she wrote again,–such a letter!–such words! At the moment they burnt me,–stabbed me–positively hurt me,–and I was not then easily hurt. She swore she would bring the boy up to curse his father,– and, to put it quite briefly,–she did. She died when he was twenty, and it now appears the lad took an oath by her death-bed that he would never rest till he had killed the man who had dishonoured his mother, and broken her heart, and brought him into the world with a stigma on his name. No filial respect, you see!” And Vergniaud tried to force a smile. “To do the boy justice, he apparently means to keep his oath,–he has not rested; he has been at infinite pains to discover me; he has even been at the trouble to write me a warning letter, and is now in Paris watching me. I, in my turn, take care to protect myself;–I am followed by detectives, and am at enormous pains to guard my life; not for my own sake but for his. An odd complication of circumstances, is it not? I cannot have him arrested because he would at once relate his history, and my name would be ruined. And that would be quite as good a vengeance for him as the other thing. You will admit that it is a very dramatic situation!”
“It is a retribution!” said the Cardinal in a low voice, “And a terrible one!”
“Yes, I suppose it is. I imagined you would consider it in that light,” and Vergniaud half closed his eyes, leaning back in his chair languidly, “But here I am, willing to set things as straight as I can, and it really seems impossible to arrange matters. I am to die soon, according to the doctors;–and so I have made my willleaving everything I possess to this ridiculous boy who wishes to kill me; and it is more than probable that he,–considering how he has been brought up and educated–will cast all the money into the dirt, and kick at my grave. But what can I do?”
“Nothing,” said the Cardinal, “You can do nothing, Vergniaud! That is the worst of having inflicted a wrong upon the innocent,–you can never by any means retrieve it. You can repent,–and it is probable that your very repentance ensures your forgiveness at a higher tribunal than that of earth’s judgment,–but the results of wrong cannot be wiped out or done away with in this life;–they continue to exist, and alas!–often multiply. Even the harsh or unjust word cannot be recalled, and however much we may regret having uttered it, somehow it is never forgotten. But–” here leaning forward, he laid one hand gently on Vergniaud’s arm, “My dear friend–my dear brother–you have told me of your sin;–it is a great sin,–but God forbid that I should presume to judge you harshly when our Lord Himself declared that ‘He came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance’. It may be that I can find a way to help you. Arrange for me to see this misguided son of yours,–and I will endeavour to find a means of restitution to him and to the memory of his mother before you pass away from us,–if indeed you are to pass away so soon. Under the levity you assume I perceive you have deep feeling on this matter;–you shall not die with a wrong on your soul, Vergniaud!–you shall not if I can prevent it! For there undoubtedly is another life; you must go into it as purely as prayer and penitence can make you.”
“I thought,” said the Abbe, speaking somewhat unsteadily, “that you might when you heard all, hurl some of Rome’s thunderous denunciations upon me . . .”
“What am I, and what is Rome, compared with the Master’s own word?” said the Cardinal gently. “If our brothers sin against us seventy times seven we are still to forgive, and they are still our brothers! Denunciations, judgments and condemnations of one another are not any part of our Lord’s commands.”
Vergniaud rose up and held out his hand.
“Will you take it,” he said, “as a pledge that I will faithfully do whatever you may see fitting and right to retrieve the past?–and to clear my son’s soul from the thirst of vengeance which is consuming it?”
Cardinal Bonpre clasped the extended hand warmly.
“There is your answer!” he said, with a smile which irradiated his fine countenance with an almost supernatural beauty and tenderness, “You have sinned against Heaven, and you have sinned against the Church and your own calling,–but the greatest sinner can do no more than repent and strive to make amends. For I see you fully know and comprehend the extent of your sin.”
“Yes, I know it,” and Vergniaud’s eyes were clouded and his brows knitted, “I know it only too well! Greater than any fault of Church- discipline is a wrong to human life,–and I wronged and betrayed an innocent woman who loved me! Her soul was as sweet as the honey-cup of a flower,–I poisoned it. That was as bad as poisoning the Sacrament! I should have kept it sweet and pure; I should have let the Church go, and been honest! I should have seen to it that the child of my love grew up to honour his father,–not to merely live for the murder of him! Yes!–I know what I should have done–I know what I have not done–and I am afraid I shall always know! Unless I can do something to atone I have a strange feeling that I shall pass from this world to the next–and that the first thing I shall see will be her face! Her face as I saw it when the sunshine made a halo round her hair, and she prayed to her guardian angel.”
He shuddered slightly, and his voice died away in a half whisper. The Cardinal pressed his hand again warmly and tenderly.
“Courage, courage!” he said. “It is true we cannot do away with our memories,–but we can try and make them sweet. And who knows how much God may help us in the task? Never forget the words that tell us how ‘the angels rejoice more over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons.'”
“Ah!” and the Abbe smiled, recovering somewhat of his usual manner, “And that is so faithfully enforced upon us, is it not? The Churches are all so lenient? And Society is so kind?–so gentle in its estimate of its friends? Our Church, for example, has never persecuted a sinner?–has never tortured an unbeliever? It has been so patient, and so unwearying in searching for stray sheep and bringing them back with love and tenderness and pity to the fold? And Churchmen never say anything which is slanderous or cruel? And we all follow Christ’s teaching so accurately? Yes!–Ah well–I wonder! I wonder what will be the end! I wonder why we came into life at all–I wonder why we go! Fortunately for me, by and by, there will be an end of all wondering, and you can write above my tomb, ‘Implora pace’! The idea of commencing a new life is to me, horrible,–I prefer ‘Nirvana’ or nothingness. Never have I read truer words than those of Byron,
‘Count o’er the joys thine hours have seen, Count o’er thy days from anguish free, And know whatever thou hast been,
‘Tis something better not to be.'”
“I cannot think that is either true or good philosophy,” said the Cardinal, “It is merely the utterance of a disappointed man in a misanthropic mood. There is no ‘not to be’ in creation. Each morning that lights the world is an expression of ‘to be’! And however much we may regret the fact, my dear Vergniaud, we find ourselves in a state of BEING and we must make the best of it,–not the worst. Is that not so?”
His look was gentle and commanding,–his voice soft yet firm,–and the worldly Abbe felt somewhat like a chidden child as he met the gaze of those clear true eyes that were undarkened by any furtive hypocrisies or specious meanings.
“I suppose it is, but unfortunately I have made the worst of it,” he answered, “and having made the worst I see no best. Who is that singing?”
He lifted his hand with a gesture of attention as a rich mezzo- soprano rang out towards them,–
“Per carita
Mostrami il cielo;
Tulto e un velo,
E non si sa
Dove e il cielo.
Se si sta
Cosi cola,
Non si sa
Se non si va
Ahi me lontano!
Tulto e in vano!
Prendimi in mano
Per carita!”
“It is Angela,” said the Cardinal, “She has a wonderfully sweet voice.”
“Prendimi in mano,
Per carita!”
murmured Abbe Vergniaud, still listening, “It is like the cry of a lost soul!”
“Or a strayed one,” interposed the Cardinal gently, and rising, he took Vergniaud’s arm, and leaned upon it with a kindly and familiar grace, an action which implied much more than the mere outward expression of confidence,–“Nothing is utterly lost, my dear friend. ‘The very hairs of our head are numbered,’–not a drop of dew escapes to waste,–how much more precious than a drop of dew is the spirit of a man!”
“It is not so unsullied,” declared Vergniaud, who loved controversy,–“Personally, I think the dew is more valuable than the soul, because so absolutely clean!”
“You must not bring every line of discussion to a pin’s point,” said Bonpre smiling, as he walked slowly across the room still leaning on the Abbe’s arm. “We can reduce our very selves to the bodiless condition of a dream if we take sufficient pains first to advance a theory, and then to wear it threadbare. Nothing is so deceptive as human reasoning,–nothing so slippery and reversible as what we have decided to call ‘logic.’ The truest compass of life is spiritual instinct.”
“And what of those who have no spiritual instinct?” demanded Vergniaud.
“I do not think there are any such. To us it certainly often seems as if there were masses of human beings whose sole idea of living is to gratify their bodily needs,–but I fancy it is only because we do not know them sufficiently that we judge them thus. Few, if any, are so utterly materialistic as never to have had some fleeting intuition of the Higher existence. They may lack the force to comprehend it, or to follow its teaching,–but in my opinion, the Divine is revealed to all men once at least in their lives.”
They had by this time passed out of the drawing-room, and now, ascending three steps, they went through a curtained recess into Angela Sovrani’s studio,–a large and lofty apartment made beautiful by the picturesque disorder and charm common to a great artist’s surroundings. Here, at a grand piano sat Angela herself, her song finished, her white hands straying idly over the keys,–and near her stood the gentleman whom the Abbe Vergniaud had called “a terrible reformer and Socialist” and who was generally admitted to be something of a remarkable character in Europe. Tall and fair, with very bright flashing eyes, and a wonderfully high bred air of concentrated pride and resolution, united to a grace and courtesy which exhaled from him, so to speak, with his every movement and gesture, he was not a man to pass by without comment, even in a crowd. A peculiar distinctiveness marked him,–out of a marching regiment one would have naturally selected him as the commanding officer, and in any crisis of particular social importance or interest his very appearance would have distinguished him as the leading spirit of the whole. On perceiving the Cardinal he advanced at once to be presented, and as Angela performed the ceremony of introduction he slightly bent one knee, and bowed over the venerable prelate’s extended hand with a reverence which had in it something of tenderness. His greeting of Abbe Vergniaud was, while perfectly courteous, not quite so marked by the grace of a strong man’s submission.
“Ah, Mr. Leigh! So you have not left Paris as soon as you determined?” queried the Abbe with a smile, “I thought you were bound for Florence in haste?”
“I go to Florence to-morrow,” answered Leigh briefly.
“So soon! I am indeed glad not to have missed you,” said Cardinal Bonpre cordially. “Angela, my child, let me see what you have been doing. All your canvases are covered, or turned with their faces to the wall;–are we not permitted to look at any of them?”
Angela immediately rose from the piano, and wheeled a large oaken chair with a carved and gilded canopy, into the centre of the studio.
“Well, if you want to see my sketches–and they are only sketches,” she said,–“you must come and sit here. Now,” as her uncle obeyed her, “you look enthroned in state,–that canopy is just fitted for you, and you are a picture in yourself!–Yes, you are, dearest uncle! And not all the artists in the world could ever do you justice I Monsieur l’Abbe, will you sit just where you please?–And Mr. Leigh, you have seen everything, so it does not matter.”
“It matters very much,” said Leigh with a smile, “For I want to see everything again. If I may, I will stand here.”
And he took up his position close to the Cardinal’s chair.
“But where is the boy?” asked Vergniaud, “Where is the foundling of the Cathedral?”
“He left us some minutes ago,” said Angela, “He went to your room, uncle.”
“Was he pleased with the music?” asked the Cardinal.
“I think he enjoyed every note of it,” said Leigh, “A thoughtful lad! He was very silent while I played,–but silence is often the most eloquent appreciation.”
“Are we to be silent then over the work of Donna Sovrani?” enquired the Abbe gaily. “Must we not express our admiration?”
“If you have any admiration to express,” said Angela carelessly, setting, as she spoke, an easel facing the Cardinal; “but I am afraid you will greatly disapprove of me and condemn all my work this year. I should explain to you first that I am composing a very large picture,–I began it in Rome some three years ago, and it is in my studio there,–but I require a few French types of countenance in order to quite complete it. The sketches I have made here are French types only. They will all be reproduced in the larger canvas- -but they are roughly done just now. This is the first of them. I call it ‘A Servant of Christ, at the Madeleine, Paris.'”
And she placed the canvas she held on the easel and stood aside, while all three men looked at it with very different eyes,–one with poignant regret and pain,–the other with a sense of shame,–and the third with a thrill of strong delight in the power of the work, and of triumph in the lesson it gave.
IX.
Low beetling brows,–a sensual, cruel mouth with a loosely projecting under-lip,–eyes that appeared to be furtively watching each other across the thin bridge of nose,–a receding chin and a narrow cranium, combined with an expression which was hypocritically humble, yet sly,–this was the type Angela Sovrani had chosen to delineate, sparing nothing, softening no line, and introducing no redeeming point,–a type mercilessly true to the life; the face of a priest,–“A servant of Christ,” as she called him. The title, united with that wicked and repulsive countenance, was a terribly significant suggestion. For some minutes no one spoke,–and the Cardinal was the first to break the silence.
“Angela,–my dear child”–he said, in low, strained tones, “I am sorry you have done this! It is powerful–so powerful that it is painful as well. It cuts me to the heart that you should find it necessary to select such an example of the priesthood, though of course I am not in the secret of your aims–I do not understand your purpose . . .”
He broke off,–and Angela, who had stood silent, looking as though she were lost in a dream, took up his unfinished sentence.
“You do not understand my purpose?–Dearest uncle, I hardly understand it myself! Some force stronger than I am, is urging me to paint the picture I have begun,–some influence more ardent and eager than my own, burns like a fever in me, persuading me to complete the design. You blame me for choosing such an evil type of priest? But there is no question of choice! These faces are ordinary among our priests. At all the churches, Sunday after Sunday I have looked for a good, a noble face;–in vain! For an even commonly- honest face,–in vain! And my useless search has ended by impressing me with profound sorrow and disgust that so many low specimens of human intellect are selected as servants of our Lord. Do not judge me too severely! I feel that I have a work to do,–and a lesson to give in the work, when done. I may fail;–I may be told that as a woman I have no force, and no ability to make any powerful or lasting impression on this generation;–but at any rate I feel that I must try! If priests of the Church were like you, how different it would all be! But you always forget that you are an exception to the rule,–you do not realise how very exceptional you are! I told you before I showed you this sketch that you would probably disapprove of it and condemn me,–but I really cannot help it. In this matter nothing–not even the ban of the Church itself, can deter me from fulfilling what I have designed to do in my own soul!”
She spoke passionately and with ardour,–and the Cardinal looked at her with something of surprise and trouble. The fire of genius is as he knew, a consuming one,–and he had never entirely realized how completely it filled and dominated this slight feminine creature for whom he felt an almost paternal tenderness. Before he could answer her the Abbe Vergniaud spoke.
“Donna Sovrani is faithful to the truth in her sketch,” he said, “therefore, as a lover of truth I do not see, my dear Bonpre, why you should object! If she has,–as she says,–some great aim in view, she must fulfil it in her own way. I quite agree with her in her estimate of the French priests,–they are for the most part despicable-looking persons,–only just a grade higher than their brothers of Italy and Spain. But what would you have? The iron hand of Rome holds them back from progress,–they are speaking and acting lies; and like the stagemimes, have to put on paint and powder to make the lies go down. But when the paint and powder come off, the religious mime is often as ill-looking as the stage one! Donna Sovrani has caught this particular example, before he has had time to put on holy airs and turn up the footlights. What do you think about it, Mr. Leigh?”
“I think, as I have always thought,” said Leigh quietly, “that Donna Sovrani is an inspired artist,–and that being inspired it follows that she must carry out her own convictions whether they suit the taste of others or not. ‘A Servant of Christ’ is a painful truth, boldly declared.”
Angela was unmoved by the compliment implied. She only glanced wistfully at the Cardinal, who still sat silent. Then without a word she withdrew the offending sketch from the easel and set another in its place.
“This,” she said gently, “is the portrait of an Archbishop. I need not name his diocese. He is very wealthy, and excessively selfish. I call this, ‘LORD, _I_ THANK THEE THAT I AM NOT AS OTHER MEN’.”
Vergniaud laughed as he looked,–he knew the pictured dignitary well. The smooth countenance, the little eyes comfortably sunken in small rolls of fat, the smug smiling lips, the gross neck and heavy jaw,–marks of high feeding and prosperous living,–and above all the perfectly self-satisfied and mock-pious air of the man,–these points were given with the firm touch of a master’s brush, and the Abbe, after studying the picture closely, turned to Angela with a light yet deferential bow.
“Chere Sovrani, you are stronger than ever! Surely you have improved much since you were last in Paris? Your strokes are firmer, your grasp is bolder. Have your French confreres seen your work this year?”
“No,” replied Angela, “I am resolved they shall see nothing till my picture is finished.”
“May one ask why?”
A flash of disdain passed over the girl’s face.
“For a very simple reason! They take my ideas and use them,–and then, when my work is produced they say it is _I_ who have copied from THEM, and that women have no imagination! I have been cheated once or twice in that way,–this time no one has any idea what I am doing.”
“No one? Not even Signer Varillo?”
“No,” said Angela, smiling a little, “Not even Signor Varillo. I want to surprise him.”
“In what way?” asked the Cardinal, rousing himself from his pensive reverie.
Angela blushed.
“By proving that perhaps, after all, a woman can do a great thing in art,–a really great thing!” she said, “Designed greatly, and greatly executed.”
“Does he not admit that, knowing you?” asked Aubrey Leigh suggestively.
“Oh, he is most kind and sympathetic to me in my work,” explained Angela quickly, vexed to think that she had perhaps implied some little point that was not quite in her beloved one’s favour. “But he is like most men,–they have a preconceived idea of women, and of what their place should be in the world–“
“Unchanged since the early phases of civilization, when women were something less valuable than cattle?” said Leigh smiling.
“Oh, the cattle idea is not exploded, by any means!” put in Vergniaud. “In Germany and Switzerland, for example, look at the women who are ground down to toil and hardship there! The cows are infinitely prettier and more preferable, and lead much pleasanter lives. And the men for whom these poor wretched women work, lounge about in cafes all day, smoking and playing dominoes. The barbaric arrangement that a woman should be a man’s drudge and chattel is quite satisfactory, I think, to the majority of our sex. It is certainly an odd condition of things that the mothers of men should suffer most from man’s cruelty. But it is the work of an all-wise Providence, no doubt; and you, Mr. Leigh, will swear that it is all right!”
“It is all right,” said Leigh quietly, “or rather I should say, it WILL be all right,–and it would have been all right long ago, if we had, as Emerson puts it, ‘accepted the hint of each new experience.’ But that is precisely what we will not do. Woman is the true helpmate of man, and takes a natural joy in being so whenever we will allow it,–whenever we will give her scope for her actions, freedom for her intelligence, and trust for her instincts. But for the present many of us still prefer to play savage,–the complete savage in low life,–the civilized savage in high. The complete savage is found in the dockyard labourer, who makes a woman bear his children and then kicks her to death,–the savage in high life is the man who equally kills the mother of his children, but in another way, namely, by neglect and infidelity, while he treats his numerous mistresses just as the Turk treats the creatures of his harem– merely as so many pretty soft animals, requiring to be fed with sweets and ornamented with jewels, and then to be cast aside when done with. All pure savagery! But we are slowly evolving from it into something better. A few of us there are, who honour womanhood,- -a few of us believe in women as guiding stars in our troubled sky,- -a few of us would work and climb to greatness for love of the one woman we adore,–would conquer all obstacles,–ay, would die for her if need be, of what is far more difficult, would live for her the life of a hero and martyr! Yes–such things are done,–and men can be found who will do such things–all for a woman’s sake.”
There was a wonderful passion in his voice,–a deep thrill of earnestness which carried conviction with sweetness. Cardinal Bonpre looked at him with a smile.
“You are perhaps one of those men, Mr. Leigh?” he said.
“I do not know,–I may be,” responded Leigh, a flush rising to his cheeks;–“but,–so far, no woman has ever truly loved me, save my mother. But apart from all personalities, I am a great believer in women. The love of a good woman is a most powerful lever to raise man to greatness,–I do not mean by ‘good’ the goody-goody creature,–no, for that is a sort of woman who does more mischief in her so-called ‘blameless’ life than a very Delilah. I mean by ‘good’, a strong, pure, great soul in woman,–sincere, faithful, patient, full of courage and calm,–and with this I maintain she must prove a truly God-given helpmate to man. For we are rough creatures at best,–irritable creatures too!–you see,” and here a slight smile lighted up his delicate features, “we really do try more or less to reach heights that are beyond us–we are always fighting for a heaven of some sort, whether we make it of gold, or politics, or art;–it is a ‘heaven’ or a ‘happiness’ that we want;– we would be as gods,–we would scale Olympus,–and sometimes Olympus refuses to be scaled! And then we tumble down, very cross, very sore, very much ruffled;–and it is only a woman who can comfort us then, and by her love and tenderness mend our broken limbs and put salve on our wounded pride.”
“Well, then, surely the Church is in a very bad way,” said Vergniaud smiling, “Think of the vow of perpetual celibacy!”
“Celibacy cannot do away with woman’s help or influence,” said Leigh, “There are always mothers and sisters, instead of sweethearts and wives. I am in favour of celibacy for the clergy. I think a minister of Christ should be free to work for and serve Christ only.”
“You are quite right, Mr. Leigh;” said the Cardinal, “There is more than enough to do in every day of our lives if we desire to truly follow His commands. But in this present time, alas!–religion is becoming a question of form–not of heart.”
“Dearest uncle, if you think that, you will not judge me too severely for my pictures,” said Angela quickly, throwing herself on her knees beside him. “Do you not see? It is just because the ministers of Christ are so lax that I have taken to studying them in my way,–which is, I know, not your way;–still, I think we both mean one and the same thing!”
“You are a woman, Angela,” said the Cardinal gently, “and as a woman you must be careful of offences–“
“Oh, a woman!” exclaimed Angela, her beautiful eyes flashing with mingled tenderness and scorn, and her whole face lighting up with animation, “Only a woman! SHE must not give a grand lesson to the world! SHE must not, by means of brush or pen, point out to a corrupt generation the way it is going! Why? Because God has created her to be the helpmate of man! Excellent reason! Man is taking a direct straight road to destruction, and she must not stop him by so much as lifting a warning finger! Again, why? Only because she is a woman! But I–were I twenty times a woman, twenty times weaker than I am, and hampered by every sort of convention and usage,–I would express my thoughts somehow, or die in the attempt!”
“BRAVISSIMA!” exclaimed Vergniaud, “Well said, chere Sovrani!–Well said! But I am the mocking demon always, as you know–and I should almost be tempted to say that you WILL die in the attempt! I do not mean that you will die physically,–no, you will probably live to a good old age; people who suffer always do!–but you will die in the allegorical sense. You will grow the stigmata of the Saviour in your hands and feet–you will bear terrible marks of the nails hammered into your flesh by your dearest friends! You will have to wear a crown of thorns, set on your brows no doubt by those whom you most love . . . and the vinegar and gall will be very quickly mixed and offered to you by the whole world of criticism without a moment’s hesitation! And will probably have to endure your agony alone,–as nearly everyone runs away from a declared Truth, orif they pause at all, it is only to spit upon it and call it a Lie!”
“Do not prophesy so cruel a fate for the child!” said the Cardinal tenderly, taking Angela’s hand and drawing her towards him. “She has a great gift,–I am sure she will use it greatly. And true greatness is always acknowledged in the end.”
“Yes, when the author or the artist has been in the grave for a hundred years or more;” said Vergniaud incorrigibly. “I am not sure that it would not be better for Donna Sovrani’s happiness to marry the amiable Florian Varillo at once rather than paint her great picture! Do you not agree with me, Mr. Leigh?”
Leigh was turning over an old volume of prints in a desultory and abstracted fashion, but on being addressed, looked up quickly.
“I would rather not presume to give an opinion,” he said somewhat coldly, “It is only on the rarest occasions that a woman’s life is balanced between love and fame,–and the two gifts are seldom bestowed together. She generally has to choose between them. If she accepts love she is often compelled to forego fame, because she merges herself too closely into the existence of another to stand by her own individuality. If on the other hand, she chooses fame, men are generally afraid of or jealous of her, and leave her to herself. Donna Sovrani, however, is a fortunate exception,–she has secured both fame–and love.”
He hesitated a moment before saying the last words, and his brows contracted a little. But Angela did not see the slight cloud of vexation that darkened his eyes,–his words pleased her, and she smiled.
“Ah, Mr. Leigh sees how it is with me!” she said, “He knows what good cause I have to be happy and to do the best work that is in me! It is all to make Florian proud of me!–and he IS proud–and he will be prouder! You must just see this one more sketch taken from life,- -it is the head of one of our most noted surgeons,–I call it for the present ‘A Vivisectionist’.”
It was a wonderful study,–perhaps the strongest of the three she had shown. It was the portrait of a thin, fine, intellectual face, which in its every line suggested an intense, and almost dreadful curiosity. The brows were high, yet narrow,–the eyes clear and cold, and pitiless in their straight regard,–the lips thin and compressed,–the nose delicate, with thin open nostrils, like those of a trained sleuth-hound on the scent of blood. It was a three- quarter-length picture, showing the hand of the man slightly raised, and holding a surgeon’s knife,–a wonderful hand, rather small, with fingers that are generally termed “artistic”–and a firm wrist, which Angela had worked at patiently, carefully delineating the practised muscles employed and developed in the vivisectiomst’s ghastly business.
Aubrey Leigh stood contemplating it intently.
“I think it is really the finest of all the types,” he said presently, “One can grasp that man’s character so thoroughly! There is no pity in him,–no sentiment–there is merely an insatiable avidity to break open the great treasure-house of Life by fair means or foul! It is very terrible–but very powerful.”
“I know the man,” said Abbe Vergniaud, “Did he sit to you willingly?”
“Very willingly indeed!” replied Angela, “He was quite amused when I told him frankly that I wanted him as a type of educated and refined cruelty.”
“Oh, these fellows see nothing reprehensible in their work,” said Leigh, “And such things go on among them as make the strongest man sick to think of! I know of two cases now in a hospital; the patients are incurable, but the surgeons have given them hope of recovery through an ‘operation’ which, however, in their cases, will be no ‘operation’ at all, but simply vivisection. The poor creatures have to die anyhow, it is true, but death might come to them less terribly,–the surgeons, however, will ‘operate’, and kill them a little more quickly, in order to grasp certain unknown technicalities of their disease.”
Angela looked at him with wide-open eyes of pain and amazement.
“Horrible!” she murmured, “Absolutely horrible! Can nothing be done to interfere with, or to stop such cruelty?”
“Nothing, I fear,” said Leigh, “I have been abroad some time, studying various ‘phases’, of its so-called intellectual and scientific life, and have found many of these phases nothing but an output of masked barbarity. The savages of Thibet are more pitiful than the French or Italian vivisectionist,–and the horrors that go on in the laboratories would not be believed if they were told. Would not be believed! They would be flatly denied, even by the men who are engaged in them! And were I to write a plain statement of what I know to be true, and send it to an English journal, it would not be put in, not even in support of the Anti-Vivisection Society, lest it might ‘offend’ the foreign schools of surgery, and also perhaps lest English schools might prove not altogether free from similar crimes. If, however, by chance, such a statement were published, it would be met with an indignant chorus of denial from every quarter of accusation! How, then, can justice be obtained from what I call the New Inquisition? The old-time Inquisitors tortured their kind for Religion’s sake,–the modern ones do it in the name of Science,–but the inhumanity, the callousness, the inborn savage love of cruelty–are all the same in both instances.”
Cardinal Bonpre shuddered as he heard.
“Lord Christ, where art thou!” he thought, “Where is Thy spirit of unfailing tenderness and care? How is Thy command of ‘love one another’ obeyed!” Aloud he said, “Surely such deeds, even in the cause of surgical science, ought not to be permitted in a Christian city?”
“Christian city!” and Vergniaud laughed, “You would not apply that designation to Paris, would you? Paris is hopelessly, riotously pagan;–nay, not even pagan, for the pagans had gods and Paris has none! Neither Jove–nor Jupiter–nor Jehovah! As for the Christ,–He is made the subject of many a public caricature,–yes!–you may see them in the side-streets pasted upon the walls and hoardings!–and also of many a low lampoon;–but He is not accepted as a Teacher, nor even as an Example. His reign is over, in Paris at least!”
“Stop!” said the Cardinal, rising suddenly, “I forbid you, Vergniaud, to tell me these things! If they are true, then shame upon you and upon all the clergy of this unhappy city to stand by and let such disgrace to yourselves, and blasphemy to our Master, exist without protest!”
His tall spare figure assumed a commanding grandeur and authority,– his pale face flushed and his eyes sparkled–he looked inspired– superb–a very apostle burning with righteous indignation. His words seemed to have the effect of an electric shock on the Abbe,–he started as though stung by the lash of a whip, and drew himself up haughtily . . . then meeting the Cardinal’s straight glance, his head drooped, and he stood mute and rigid. Leigh, though conscious of embarrassment as the witness of a strong reproof administered by one dignitary of the Church to another, yet felt deeply interested in the scene,–Angela shrank back trembling,–and for a few moments which, though so brief, seemed painfully long, there was a dead silence. Then Verginaud spoke in low stifled accents.
“You are perfectly right, Monseigneur! It IS shame to me!–and to the priesthood of France! I am no worse than the rest of my class,– but I am certainly no better! Your reproach is grand,–and just! I accept it, and ask your pardon!”
He bent one knee, touched the Cardinal’s ring with his lips, and then without another word turned and left the room. The Cardinal gazed after his retreating figure like a man in a dream, then he said gently,
“Angela, go after him!–Call him back!–“
But it was too late. Vergniaud had left the house before Angela could overtake him. She came back hurriedly to say so, with a pale face and troubled look. Her uncle patted her kindly on the shoulder.
“Well, well!–It will not hurt him to have seen me angry,” he said smiling, “Anger in a just cause is permitted. I seem to have frightened you, Angela? Of a truth I have rather frightened myself! There, we will not talk any more of the evils of Paris. Mr. Leigh perhaps thinks me an intolerant Christian?”
“On the contrary I think you are one of the few ‘faithful’ that I have ever met,” said Leigh, “Of course I am out of it in a way, because I do not belong to the Roman Church. I am supposed–I say ‘supposed’ advisedly–to be a Church of England man, or to put it more comprehensively, a Protestant, and I certainly am so much of the latter that I protest against all our systems altogether!”
“Is that quite just?” asked Bonpre gently.
“Perhaps not!–but what is one to do? I am not alone in my ideas! One of our English bishops has been latterly deploring the fact that out of a thousand lads in a certain parish nine-hundred-and-ninety- nine of them never go to church! Well, what can you expect? I do not blame those nine-hundred and-ninety-nine at all. I am one with them. _I_ never go to church.”
“Why?”
“Simply because I never find any touch of the true Spirit of Christ there–and the whole tone of the place makes me feel distinctly un- Christian. The nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine youths possibly would sympathise with me. A church is a building more or less beautiful or ugly as the case may be, and in the building there is generally a man who reads prayers in a sing-song tone of voice, and perhaps another man who preaches without eloquence on some text which he utterly fails to see the true symbolical meaning of. There are no Charles Kingsleys nowadays,–if there were, I should call myself a ‘Kingsleyite’. But as matters stand I am not moved by the church to feel religious. I would rather sit quietly in the fields and hear the gentle leaves whispering their joys and thanksgivings above my head, than listen to a human creature who has not even the education to comprehend the simplest teachings of nature, daring to assert himself as a teacher of the Divine. My own chief object in life has been and still is to speak on this and similar subjects to the people who are groping after lost Christianity. They need helping, and I want to try in my way to help them.”
“Groping after lost Christianity!” echoed the Cardinal, “Those words are a terrible indictment, Mr. Leigh!”
“Yet in your own soul your Eminence admits it to be true,” returned Leigh quickly,–“I can see the admission in your eyes,–in the very expression of your face! You feel in yourself that the true spirit of Christ is lacking in all the churches of the present day,–that the sheep are straying for lack of the shepherd, and that the wolf is in the fold! You know it,–you feel it,–you see it!”
Cardinal Bonpre’s head drooped.
“God help me and forgive me, I am afraid I do!” he said sorrowfully. “I see the shadow of the storm before it draws nigh,–I feel the terror of the earthquake before it shakes down the edifice! No, the world is not with Christ to-day!–and unhappily it is a fact that Christ’s ministers in recent years have done more to sever Him from Humanity than any other power could ever have succeeded in doing. Not by action, but by inertia!–dumbness–lack of protest,–lack of courage! Only a few stray souls stand out firm and fair in the chaos,–only a few!”
“‘I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot,–I would thou wert cold or hot! So because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot I will spew thee out of my mouth!'” quoted Leigh, his eyes flashing and his voice trembling with repressed earnestness, “That is the trouble all through! Apathy,–dead, unproductive apathy and laissez-faire!–Ah, I believe there are some of us living now who are destined to see strange and terrible things in this new century!”
“For myself,” said the Cardinal slowly, “I think there is not much time left us! I feel a premonition of Divine wrath threatening the world, and when I study the aspect of the times and see the pride, licentiousness, and wealth-worship of men, I cannot but think the days are drawing near when our Master will demand of us account of our service. It is just the same as in the case of the individual wrong-doer, when it seems as if punishment were again and again retarded, and mercy shown,–yet if all benefits, blessings and warnings are unheeded, then at last the bolt falls suddenly and with terrific effect. So with nations–so with churches–so with the world!”
His voice grew feeble, and his eyes were clouded with pain.
“You are fatigued,” said Leigh gently, “And I ought not to have stayed so long. I will bid you farewell now. If I am in Rome when you are there, I trust you will permit me to pay my respects to you?”
“It will be a pleasure to see you, my son,” answered the Cardinal, pressing his hand and courteously preventing him from making the formal genuflection, “And let me add that it will help me very much to hear from you what progress you make in your intention of working for Christ. For,–when you speak to the people as a teacher, it is in His name, is it not?”
“In His name, and I pray in His spirit,” said Leigh, “But not through any church.”
The Cardinal sighed, but said no more, and Leigh turned to Angela.
“Good-bye,” he said, “I may come and see the picture in Rome?”
“You may indeed,” and Angela gave him her hand in frank friendliness, “I shall feel the necessity of your criticism and the value of your opinion.”
He looked at her intently for a moment.
“Be of good courage,” he then said in a low tone, “‘Work out your own salvation’, it is the only way! Fulfil the expression of your whole heart and soul and mind, and never heed what opposing forces may do to hinder you. You are so clear-brained, so spiritually organised, that I cannot imagine your doing anything that shall not create a power for good. You are sometimes inclined to be afraid of the largeness of your own conceptions in the picture you are dreaming of,–I can see that,–but do not fear! The higher influences are with you and in you;–give yourself up to them with absolute confidence! Good-bye–God bless you!” He stooped and kissed her hand,–then left the room.
Angela looked after him, and a half sigh escaped her lips unconsciously. The Cardinal watched her with rather a troubled look. After a little silence he said,
“You must pardon me, my child, if I seemed over hasty in my judgment of your work . . .”
“Dearest uncle, do not speak of it!” exclaimed Angela, “You were pained and sorry to see such a ‘servant of Christ’ as the type I chose,–you could not help expressing your feeling–it was natural . . .”
“Yes, I was vexed,–I own it!–” went on Bonpre, “For I know many priests, poor, patient, simple men, who do their best for our Lord according to their measure and capability,–men who deserve all honour, all love, all respect, for the integrity of their lives,– still–I am aware that these are in the minority, and that men of the kind your sketch depicts, compose alas!–the majority. There is a frightful preponderance of evil influences in the world! Industry, and commerce, and science have advanced, and yet a noble and upright standard of conduct among men is sadly lacking. Men are seeking for happiness in Materialism, and find nothing but satiety and misery,– satiety and misery which become so insupportable that very often suicide presents itself as the only way out of such a tangle of wretchedness! Yes, child!–all this is true–and if you think you have a lesson to give which will be useful in these dark days, no one,–I least of all–should presume to hinder you from giving it. Still, remember that the results of work are not with the worker to determine–they rest with God.”
“Truly I hope they do,” said Angela fervently, “For then all bad work will pass away and only the good and necessary remain.”
“That always is the rule,” said the Cardinal, “No criticism can kill good work or vivify bad. So be happy, Angela mia! Paint your great picture with courage and hope–I will neither judge nor condemn, and if the world’s verdict should be cruel, mine shall be kind!”
He smiled and stroked her soft hair, then taking her arm he leaned upon it affectionately as they left the studio together.
X.
The next day, and the next after that, were passed by the Cardinal in gratifying a certain eagerness shown by his young foundling, Manuel, to see the churches and great public buildings of Paris. The boy had a quiet, straightforward way of expressing his wishes and opinions, and a certain marked individuality in his manner–in fact, so simple and straight were his words, and so much to the point, that they sometimes caused confusion to his hearers. Once or twice he gave offence, as for example, on visiting a great church where there were numerous jewelled relics and priceless treasures of old lace and embroidery, when he said suddenly:
“There is a woman just outside the door, very ill and poor, with two little starving children;–would it not be well to sell some of the jewels here and give her the money?”
The custodian looked amazed, and the attendant priest who was escorting Cardinal Bonpre through the building, frowned.
“The treasures of the Church are not to be sold,” he said curtly. “The beggar outside is no doubt a trained hypocrite.”
“Christ would not say so,” answered Manuel softly,–“He would not, even if He knew her to be a hypocrite, retain anything of value for Himself, if by giving it to her, He could ease her pain and poverty. I cannot understand why the Church should keep jewels.”
“That is because you are ignorant,” said the priest roughly.
Manuel raised his grave blue eyes and fixed them steadily upon him.
“That may be,” he said, “Yet I think it is nowhere written in the Gospel that Christ cared for the world’s wealth or the world’s possessions. When they are offered to Him did he not say, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan’! The only gem he prized was the ‘pearl of great price,’–the pure and perfect human soul.”
“The Church is the manufactory of those pearls,” said the priest, with something between a grin and a sneer.
“Then the Church needs no other jewels” returned Manuel quietly, with a little gesture of his hand, “These glittering baubles you show, are out of place.”
The priest glanced him over with angry contempt. Then he said to the Cardinal,
“Your Eminence will have trouble with that boy,” he said. “His opinions are heretic.”
The Cardinal smiled a little.
“You think so? Nay, there is something of truth in what he says, notwithstanding his simplicity of utterance, which is not perhaps in accordance with convention. I confess that I share his opinions somewhat. Certainly I esteem myself happy that in my far-off diocese there are none of the world’s precious things, but only the unprized prayers of the faithful.”
The priest said nothing in reply,–but he was conscious of discomfort and uneasiness, and hurried through the rest of his duties with an ill-grace, annoyed, though he knew not why, by the very presence of Manuel. The boy, however, paid no heed to his angry glances, and noted everything in his own quiet meditative way,–a way which was a singularly winning one, graced as it was by an almost scholarly thoughtfulness united to the charm of youth. Once, before a magnificent priest’s garment of lace, he paused, and touched the substance lightly.
“See,” he said softly, looking wistfully up in the Cardinal’s face, “See all the leaves and rosebuds worked in, this by the needle,–and think how many human eyes have strained at it, and grown dull and blind over it! If one could only believe that the poor eyes were comforted at all in the following of the difficult thread!–but no,- -the sunshine must have lessened and the days grown darker and darker, till death came and gently shut up the lids of the tired orbs of earthy vision, and opened those of the soul to Light indeed! This work speaks with a thousand tongues! I can hear them! Torture,- -poverty,–pain,–pitilessness,–long hours,–scant reward,–tired fingers,–weary hearts!–and a priest of Christ wears this to perform Christ’s service! Clad in a garment of human suffering, to preach mercy! Is it not strange?”
“You think too deeply, my child,” said the Cardinal, moved by the tender pity in Manual’s voice, “Nothing is accomplished without pain in this world,–our dear Lord Himself suffered pain.”
“True,” said Manuel, “But His pain was endured that there might be less of it for others! He asked His children in this world to love one another for His sake–not to grind each other down! Not to make unnecessary hardships for each other! But it seems as if He had asked in vain!”
He was silent after this, and refrained from remark even when, during their visit to Notre Dame, the treasury was unlocked for the Cardinal’s inspection, and the relics formerly contained in the now disused “Sainte Chapelle,” were shown,–including the fragments of the “crown of thorns,” and a nail from the “true cross.” The Cardinal was silent too. He had no remark to offer on these obvious “imaginations” of the priesthood. Then they went up together to the platform on the summit of the Cathedral, and looked at the great bell known as the “Bourdon de Notre Dame”;–and here they found a little wizened old man sitting carelessly on the edge of a balustrade, in a seemingly very dangerous position, who nodded and smiled familiarly as they appeared. He acted as cicerone of the summit of the North Tower, and was soon at their side explaining volubly all that was of interest.
“Tired,–oh yes, one gets tired!” he admitted, in response to a query from the Cardinal as to whether he did not find his duties fatiguing at his age, “But after all, I like the griffins and dragons and devils’ faces up here, better than the griffins and dragons and devils down there,–below on the Boulevards! I call this Heaven, and down there in the streets, Hell. Yes, truly! It is wholesome up here,–the sky seems very near, and the sculptured beasts do no harm. But down in the streets one feels and smells the dirt and danger directly. I sit here all by myself for hours thinking, when no one comes to visit the tower,–for sometimes a whole day passes and no one wishes to ascend. And there is a moral in that, Monseigneur, if one has eyes to see it;–days pass, years, in the world,–and no one wishes to ascend!–to Heaven, I mean!–to go down to Hell is delightful, and everyone is ready for it! It is at night that the platform here is most beautiful,–oh yes, at night it is very fine, Monseigneur!–but it is only madmen and dreamers who call me up in the night hours, yet when they do I never refuse to go with them, for look you, I am a light sleeper and have no wife to bid me keep my bed. Yes,–if the authorities knew that I took anybody up to the tower at night they would probably dismiss me,” and he chuckled like an old schoolboy with a sense of his own innate mischief and disobedience, “But you see they do not know! And I learn a great deal from the strange persons who come at night,–much more than from the strange persons who come by day. Now, the last so strange person that came here by night–you would not perhaps believe it, Monseigneur, but it was a priest! Yes,” and the old fellow laughed, “a priest who had suddenly found out that the Church was not following its Master! Yes, yes! . . . just fancy killing himself for that!”
“Killing himself!” cried the Cardinal, “What do you mean?”
“You would like to hear the story?–ah, take care, mon ange!” he cried, as he perceived Manuel standing lightly near the brink of the platform, and stretching out his arms towards the city, “Thou art not a bird to fly from that edge in the air! What dost thou see?”
“Paris!” replied the boy in strangely sorrowful accents, turning his young, wistful face towards the Cardinal, his hair blown back in the light wind, “All Paris!”
“Ah!–’tis a fine sight, all Paris!” said the old guide–“one of the finest in the world, to judge by the outside of it. But the inside is a very different matter; and if Paris is not a doomed city, then there is no God, and I know nothing of the Bible. It has got all the old sins in a new shape, and revels in them. And of the story of the priest, if you would hear it;–ah!–that is well!” he said, as Manuel left the giddy verge of the platform where he had been standing, and drew near. “It is safer to be away from that edge, my child! And for the poor priest, it happened in this way,–it was a fair night, and the moon was high–I was dozing off in a chair in my room below, when the bell rang quickly, yet softly. I got up with pleasure, for I said to myself, ‘here is an artist or a poet,–one of those persons who are unlike anyone else’–just as I am myself unlike anyone else–‘and so we two shall have a pleasant evening.’ But when I opened the door there was no one but a priest, and poor- looking even at that; and he was young and pale, and very uneasy in his manner, and he said to me, ‘Jean Lapui’–(that is my name)–‘let me pass up to the platform.’ ‘Willingly,’ said I, ‘if I may go with you.’ ‘Nay, I would rather be alone,’ he answered. ‘That may not be,’ I told him, ‘I am as pleased to see the moonbeams shining on the beasts and devils as any man,–and I shall do you no harm by my company.’ Well, he agreed to have me then, and up we went the three hundred and seventy-eight steps,–(it is a long way, Monseigneur;– )and he mounted quickly, I slowly,–but always keeping my eye upon him. At last we reached this platform, and the moonlight was beautiful, and clear as day. Then my little priest sat down and began to laugh. ‘Ha, my Lapui!’ he said, ‘Is it not droll that this should be all a lie! All this fine building, and all the other fine buildings of the kind in Paris! Strange, my Lapui, is it not, that this Cathedral should be raised to the worship of a God whom no one obeys, or even thinks of obeying! All show, my good Lapui! All to feed priests like me, and keep them going–but God has nothing to do with it–nothing at all, I swear to you!’–‘You may be right, mon reverend,’ I said, (for I saw he was not in a mood to be argued with)–“Yet truly the Cathedral has not always been a place of holiness. In seventeen ninety-three there was not much of our Lord or the blessed Saints in it.’ ‘No, you are right, Lapui!’ he cried, ‘Down came the statue of the Virgin, and up went the statue of Liberty! There was the crimson flare of the Torch of Truth!–and the effigies of the ape Voltaire and the sensualist Rousseau, took the places of St. Peter and St. Paul! Ha!–And they worshipped the goddess of Reason–Reason, impersonated by Maillard the ballet- dancer! True to the life, my Lapui!–that kind of worship has lasted in Paris until now!–it goes on still–Reason,–man’s idea of Reason,–impersonated by a ballet dancer! Yes,–the shops are full of that goddess and her portraits, Jean Lapui! And the jewellers can hardly turn out sufficient baubles to adorn her shrine!’ He laughed again, and I took hold of him by the arm. ‘See here, petit pere,’ I said, ‘I fancy all is not well with you.’ ‘You are right,’ he answered, ‘all is very ill!’ ‘Then will you not go home and to bed?’ I asked him. ‘Presently–presently;’ he said, ‘if I may tell you something first!’ ‘Do so by all means, reverend pere,’ said I, and I sat down near him. ‘It is just this, Lapui,’ and he drew out a crucifix from his breast and looked at it very earnestly, ‘I am a priest, as you see; and this symbol represents my faith. My mother told me that to be a priest and to serve God was the highest happiness that could befall a man. I believed it,–and when I look at the stars up there crowding around us in such vast circles,–when I look at all this moonlight and the majesty of creation around me, I believe it still! Up here, it seems there MAY be a God; down there,’ and he pointed towards the streets, ‘I know there is a devil! But I have discovered that it is no use telling the people about God, because they do not believe in Him. They think I am telling them a lie because it is my metier to tell lies. And also because they think I have neither the sense nor the ability to do anything else. They know they are telling lies themselves all day and every day. Some of them pretend to believe, because they think it best to be on the safe side even by feigning,–and they are the worst hypocrites. It drives me mad, Lapui, to perform Mass for liars! If it were only unbelievers! but liars!–liars! Liars who lie on their death-beds, telling me with mock sighs of penitence that they believe in God when they do not! I had a dream last night–you shall tell me if I was mistaken in it,–it was a dream of this very tower of Notre Dame. I was up here as I am now–and the moonlight was around me as it is now–and I thought that just behind the wing of that third angel’s head carved yonder–do you see?’ and he got up and made me get up too, and turned me round with his hand on my shoulder–‘a white dove had made its resting-place. Is there a white dove there, Lapui? If there is I shall be a happy man and all my griefs will be at an end! Will you go and look–and tell me if there is a white dove nestling there? Then I will say good-night to you and go home.’ God forgive me!–I thought to humor him in his fancy, and so I left him to walk those five steps–only five at the utmost- -and see if perhaps among the many doves that fly about the towers, it might not be that a white one, as he said, should have chosen to settle in the place he pointed out to me, ‘for,’ thought I, ‘he will be quiet then and satisfied.’ And like a blind fool I went–and when I came back the platform was empty!–Ah, Monseigneur!–he had said good-night indeed, and gone home!”
“You mean that he flung himself from this parapet?” said Bonpre, in a low, horrified tone.
“That was the way of it, Monseigneur,” said Lapui commiseratingly,– “His body was found next day crushed to bits on the pavement below; but somehow no one troubled much about it, or thought he had thrown himself from the tower of Notre Dame. It was said that he had been murdered and thrown out of a window, but nobody knew how or when. Of course I could have spoken, but then I should have got into trouble. And I avoid trouble whenever I can. A very strange thing it is that no one has ever been suspected of leaping from Notre Dame into the next world since Victor Hugo’s great story was written. ‘It is against the rules,’ say the authorities, ‘to mount the towers at night.’ True, but rules are not always kept. Victor Hugo’s ‘Quasimodo,’ who never lived, is the only person the wiseacres associate with such a deed. And I,–I could tell many a strange story; only it is better to be silent! Life is hard living,–and when a priest of the Church feels there is no God in this world, why what is there left for him except to try and find out if there is in the next?”
“Suicide is not the way to find Heaven,” said the Cardinal gravely.
“Maybe not,–maybe not,” and the old custodian turned to lead the way down the steps of the tower, “But when the brain is gone all through grief at losing God, it may chance that God sees the conditions of things, and has mercy. Events happen in this world of such a kind as to make anyone who is not a saint, doubt the sense as well as the goodness of the Creator,–of course that is a wicked thing to say, for we make our own evils, no doubt–“
“That is very certain,” said the Cardinal, “The unhappy man you have told me of should have trusted God to the end, whether those whom he preached to, believed his message or not. Their conduct was not his business,–his task was to declare, and not to judge.”
“Now that is very well put!” and the old man paused on the stairway and looked round approvingly. “Of course that is said as only a wise man could say it, for after all, Christ Himself did not judge any one in any case. He came to save us all, not to punish us.”
“Then why does not everyone remember that, and try to save one another rather than to condemn?” asked Manuel suddenly.
They had reached the bottom of the tower stairway, and old Jean Lapui, shading his eyes from the glare of the daylight with one wrinkled hand, looked at the boy with a smile of compassionate interest.
“Why does not everyone remember? Why does not everyone do as He did? Ah, that is a question! You are young, and you will find out many answers to it before you are much older. One fact is sure,–that if everybody did remember Him and lived exactly as He wished, we should have a new Heaven and a new Earth; and I will tell you something else,” and the old fellow looked sly and mischievous, “No offence meant–no offence!–but there would be no churches and no priests! Believe me, I speak the truth! But this would be a great happiness; and is not to be our portion yet! Good-day, Monseigneur!–A thousand pardons for my wicked speech! Good-day!”
“Good-day!” responded the Cardinal gently, “Be careful of your night visitors, my friend! Do not for the future leave them alone to plunge into the Infinite without a warning!”
The old man smiled deprecatingly.
“Truly, Monseigneur, I am generally careful. I do not know when I have spoken so freely to anyone as I have to you; for I am generally in a bad humour with all Church dignitaries,–and of course I know you for a Cardinal by your dress, while you might truly be a saint from your manner;–so I should have held my tongue about the flight into the air of the little priest. But you will say nothing, for you are discreet; and even if you did, and I were asked about it, I should know nothing. Oh, yes, I can tell lies as fast as anybody else!–Yes, truly! I do not suppose anyone, not even an Archbishop himself, could surpass me in lying!”
“And are you not ashamed to lie?” asked Bonpre, with an intense vibration of pain in his voice as he put the question.
“Heaven bless you, no, Monseigneur!” replied Lapui cheerfully, “For is not the whole world kept going by lies? Dear me, if we all told the truth there would be an end of everything! I am a philosopher in my way, Monseigneur,–and I assure you that a real serious truth told in Paris without any gloss upon it, would be like an earthquake in the city,–great houses would come down and numbers of people would be killed by it! Good-day, Monseigneur!–Good-day.”
And still smiling and chuckling, the custodian of the North tower retired into his den there to await fresh visitors. The Cardinal walked slowly to the corner of the street where his carriage awaited him,–his head bent and his eyes downcast; Manuel stepped lightly along beside him, glancing at his pale face from time to time with a grave and tender compassion. When they were seated in the vehicle and driving homewards the boy spoke gently–
“You grieve too much for others, dear friend! You are now distressed because you have heard the story of one unhappy man who sought to find God by self-destruction, and you are pained also lest another man should lose God altogether by the deliberate telling of lies. All such mistakes and follies of the world weigh heavily on your heart, but they should not do so,–for did not Christ suffer all this for you when He was crucified?”
The Cardinal sighed deeply.
“Yes, my child, but He told us plainly WHY He suffered. It was that we might learn to follow Him, and that there should be less suffering for the future. And surely we have not obeyed Him, or there could not be so much pain and difficulty in the world as there is now.”
“If He come again, you think He would be grieved and disappointed in His followers?” queried Manuel softly.
“If He came again, I fear He would not find much of His teaching in any of the creeds founded on His name! If He came again, then indeed might the churches tremble, totter and fall!”
“If He came again,” pursued Manuel, still in the same soft, even voice, “how do you think He would come?”
“‘Watch ye therefore for ye know not when He cometh,'” murmured the Cardinal,–” My dear child, I think if He came again it would be perhaps in the disguise of one who is poor and friendless ‘despised and rejected of men,’ as when He first glorified the earth by His presence; and I fear that in such plight He would find Himself, as before, unwelcome.”
Manuel made no reply just then, as they had arrived at home. The servant who admitted them told them that Donna Sovrani had a visitor in her studio,–so that the Cardinal and his young attendant went straight to their own apartments.
“Read to me, Manuel,” then said Bonpre, seating himself near the window, and looking out dreamily on the rich foliage of the woods and grassy slopes that stretched before him, “Find something in the Gospels that will fit what we have seen to-day. I am tired of all these temples and churches!–these gorgeous tombs and reliquaries; they represent penances and thank-offerings no doubt, but to me they seem useless. A church should not be a shrine for worldly stuff, unless indeed such things are used again for the relief of poverty and suffering; but they are not used; they are simply kept under lock and key and allowed to accumulate,–while human creatures dwelling perhaps quite close to these shrines, are allowed to die of starvation. Did you think this when you spoke to the priest who was offended with you to-day?”
“Yes, I thought it,” replied Manuel gently, “But then he said I was a heretic. When one loves God better than the Church is one called a heretic?”
Cardinal Bonpre looked earnestly at the boy’s inspired face,–the face of a dreaming angel in its deep earnestness.
“If so, then I am heretic,” he answered slowly, “I love the Creator as made manifest to me in His works,–I love Him in every flower which I am privileged to look upon,–I find Him in every art and science,–I worship Him in a temple not made with hands,–His own majestic Universe! Above all churches,–above all formulated creeds and systems I love Him! And as declared in the divine humanity of Christ I believe in, and adore Him! If this makes me unworthy to be His priest and servant then I confess my unworthiness!”
He had spoken these words more to himself than Manuel, and in his fervour had closed his eyes and clasped his hands,–and he almost fancied that a soft touch, light as a falling rose-leaf, had for a second rested on his brow. He looked up quickly, wondering whether it was Manuel who had so touched him,–the boy was certainly near him,–but was already seated with the Testament open ready to read as requested. The Cardinal raised himself in his chair,–a sense of lightness, and freedom, and ease, possessed him,–the hopeless and tired feeling which had a few minutes since weighed him down with an undefinable languor was gone,–and his voice had gained new strength and energy when he once more spoke.
“You have found words of our Lord which will express what we have seen to-day?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Manuel, and he read in a clear vibrating tone, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because ye build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous.” Here he paused and said, while the Cardinal gazed at him wonderingly, “Is not that true of Paris? There is their great Pantheon where most of their prophets lie,–their poets and their teachers whom they wronged and slandered in their lifetime–“
“My child,” interrupted Bonpre gently, “Poets and so-called teachers are not always good men. One named Voltaire, who scoffed at God, and enunciated the doctrine of materialism in France, is buried there.”
“Nevertheless he also was a prophet,” persisted Manuel, in his quiet, half-childlike, half-scholarly way, “A prophet of evil. He was the incarnation of the future spirit of Paris. He lived as a warning of what was to come,–a warning of the wolves that were ready to descend upon the Master’s fold. But Paris was then perhaps in the care of those ‘hirelings’ who are mentioned here as caring not for the sheep.”
He turned a few pages and continued reading.
“‘Well hath Esais prophesied of you, hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, TEACHING FOR DOCTRINE THE COMMANDMENTS OF MAN.'”
He emphasised the last few words and looked up at the Cardinal, then he went on.
“‘Whosoever will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake the same shall save it.'”
“Yes,” said Cardinal Bonpre fervently, “It is all there!–‘Whosoever will come after me let him deny himself,’ LET HIM DENY HIMSELF! That is the secret of it. Self-denial! And this age is one of self- indulgence. We are on the wrong road, all of us, both Church and laity,–and if the Master should come He will not find us watching, but sleeping.”
He broke off, as at that moment a knock came at the door and a servant entered the room bringing him a letter. It was from the Abbe Vergniaud, and ran as follows:–
“TRES CHER MONSIGNEUR! I preach the day after tomorrow at Notre Dame de Lorette, and if you wish to do a favour to a dying man you will come and hear me. I am moved to say things I have never said before, and it is possible I may astonish and perchance scandalise Paris. What inspires me I do not know,–perhaps your well-deserved reproach of the other day–perhaps the beautiful smile of the angel that dwells in Donna Sovrani’s eyes,–perhaps the chance meeting with your Rouen foundling on the stairs as I was flying away from your just wrath. He had been gathering roses in the garden, and gave me one with a grace in the giving which made the flower valuable. It still lives and blooms in a glass on my writing-table at which I have been jotting down the notes of what I mean to say. WHAT I MEAN TO SAY! There is more in those words than there seems, if you could but guess all! I shall trust to the day itself for the necessary eloquence. The congregation that assembles at the Lorette is a curious and a mixed one. ‘Artistes’ of the stage and the cafe chantant are among the worshippers;–dames of rank and fashion who worship the male ‘artistes,’ and the golden youth of Paris who adore the very points of the shoes of the female ones,–are generally there also. It is altogether what ‘perfide Albion,’ or Dame Grundee would call a ‘fast’ audience. And the fact that I have arranged to preach there will draw a still greater mixture and ‘faster’ quality, as I am, alas!–a fashion in preachers. I pray you to come, or I shall think you have not forgiven me!
“VERGNIAUD.”
Cardinal Bonpre folded the letter and put it aside with a curious feeling of compassion for the writer.
“Yes, I will go,” he thought, “I have never heard him preach, though I know by report that he is popular. I was told once that he seems to be possessed by a very demon of mockery, and that it is this spirit which makes his attraction for the people; but I hope it is something more than that–I hope–” Here interrupting his meditations he turned to Manuel.
“So you gave the Abbe Vergniaud a rose the other day, my child?”
“Yes,” replied Manuel, “He looked sad when I met him,–and sometimes a flower gives pleasure to a person in sorrow.”
The Cardinal thought of his own roses far away, and sighed with a sensation of longing and homesickness.
“Flowers are like visible messages from God,” he said, “Messages written in all the brightest and loveliest colours! I never gather one without finding out that it has something to say to me.”
“There is a legend,” said Manuel, “which tells how a poor girl who