"At this monastery I was to spend the night. The good monks entertain
all travellers, and in summer-time their hospitalities are lavishly
exercised. But in winter, wanderers are few, and these holy men are left
almost undisturbed in their meditative solitudes. My mule paused upon a
rocky plateau before the door of the narrow grey building. The guide
struck upon the heavy wood. After a while we were admitted by a robed
figure, who greeted us kindly and made us welcome. Within, the place was
bare and poor enough, but scrupulously clean. I was led through long,
broad, and bitterly cold corridors to a big chamber in which I was to
pass the night. Here were ranged in a row four large beds with white
curtains. I occupied one bed, my servant another. The rest were
untenanted. The walls were lined with light wood. The wooden floor was
uncarpeted. I threw open the narrow window. Dimly I could see a mountain
of rocks, on which snow lay in patches, towering up into the clouds in
front of me. And to the left there was a glimmer of water. On the
morrow, by that water, I should ride down into the land of flowers to
which I was bound. Till then I would allow my imagination to luxuriate
in the bleak romance of this wild home of prayer. The pathos of the
night, shivering in the snow, and of this brotherhood of aspiring souls,
detached from the excitement of the world for ever, seeking restlessly
their final salvation day by day, night by night, in clouds of mountain
vapour and sanctified incense, entered into my soul. And I thought of
that imagined companion of mine. If he were with me now, surely he would
feel that he had led me to his home at length. Surely he would secretly
long to remain here.
"I smiled, as I said to myself--'Monk, to-morrow, if, indeed, you are
fated to be my eternal attendant, you must come with me from this cold
station of the cross down into the sunshine, where the blood of men is
hot, where passions sing among the vineyards, where the battle is not of
souls but of flowers. To-morrow you must come with me. But to-night be
at peace!'
"And I smiled to myself again as I fancied that my visionary companion
was glad.
"Then I went down into the refectory.
"That night, before I retired to my room of the four beds, I asked if I
might go into the chapel of the monastery. My request was granted. I
shall never forget the curious sensation which overtook me as my guide
led me down some steps past a dim, little, old, painted window set in
the wall, to the chapel. That there should be a church here, that the
deep tones of an organ should ever sound among these rocks and clouds,
that the Host should be elevated and the censer swung, and litanies and
masses be chanted amid these everlasting snows, all this was wonderful
and quickening to me. When we reached the chapel, I begged my kind guide
to leave me for a while. I longed to meditate alone. He left me, and
instinctively I sank down upon my knees.
"I could just hear the keening of the wind outside. A dim light
glimmered near the altar, and in one of the oaken stalls I saw a bent
form praying. I knelt a long time. I did not pray. At first I scarcely
thought definitely. Only, I received into my heart the strange,
indelible impression of this wonderful place; and, as I knelt, my eyes
were ever upon that dark praying figure near to me. By degrees I
imagined that a wave of sympathy flowed from it to me, that in this
monk's devotions my name was not forgotten.
"'What absurd tricks our imaginations can play us!' you will say.
"I grew to believe that he prayed for me, there, under the dim light
from the tall tapers.
"What blessing did he ask on me? I could not tell; but I longed that his
prayer might be granted.
"And then, Bernard, at last he rose. He lifted his face from his hands
and stood up. Something in his figure seemed so strangely familiar to
me, so strangely that, on a sudden, I longed, I craved to see his face.
"He seemed about to retreat through a side door near to the altar; then
he paused, appeared to hesitate, then came down the chapel towards me.
As he drew near to me--I scarcely knew why--but I hid my face deep in my
hands, with a dreadful sense of overwhelming guilt which dyed my cheeks
with blood. I shrank--I cowered. I trembled and was afraid. Then I felt
a gentle touch on my shoulder. I looked up into the face of the monk.
"Bernard, it was the face of my invisible companion--it was my own
face.
"The monk looked down into my eyes searchingly. He recoiled.
"'_Mon demon!_' he whispered in French. '_Mon demon!_'
"For a moment he stood still, like one appalled. Then he turned and
abruptly quitted the chapel.
"I started up to follow him, but something held me back. I let him go,
and I listened to hear if his tread sounded upon the chapel floor as a
human footstep, if his robe rustled as he went.
"Yes. Then he was, indeed, a living man, and it was a human voice which
had reached my ears, not a voice of imagination. He was a living man,
this double of my body, this antagonist of my soul, this being who
called me demon, who fled from me, who, doubtless, hated me. He was a
living man.
"I could not sleep that night. This encounter troubled me. I felt that
it had a meaning for me which I must discover, that it was not chance
which had led me to take this cold road to the sunshine. Something had
bound me with an invisible thread, and led me up here into the clouds,
where already I--or the likeness of me--dwelt, perhaps had been dwelling
for many years. I had looked upon my living wraith, and my living wraith
had called me demon.
"How could I sleep?
"Very early I got up. The dawn was bitterly cold, but the snow had
ceased, though a coating of ice covered the little lake. How delicate
was the dawn here! The gathering, growing light fell upon the rocks,
upon the snow, upon the ice of the lake, upon the slate walls of the
monastery. And upon each it lay with a pretty purity, a thin refinement,
an austerity such as I had never seen before. So, even Nature, it
seemed, was purged by the continual prayers of these holy men. She, too,
like men, has her lusts, and her hot passions, and her wrath of warfare.
She, too, like men, can be edified and tended into grace. Nature among
these heights was a virgin, not a wanton, a fit companion for those who
are dedicated to virginity.
"I dressed by the window, and went out to see the entrance of the
morning. There was nobody about. I had to find my own way. But when I
had gained the refectory, I saw a monk standing by the door.
"It was my wraith waiting for me.
"Silently he went before me to the great door of the building. He opened
it, and we stepped out upon the rocky plateau on which the snow lay
thickly. He closed the door behind us, and motioned me to attend him
among the rocks till we were out of sight of the monastery. Then he
stopped, and we faced one another, still without a word, the grey light
of the wintry dawn clothing us so wearily, so plaintively.
"We gazed at each other, dark face to dark face, brown eyes to brown
eyes. The monk's pale hands, my hands, were clenched. The monk's strong
lips, my lips, were set. The two souls looked upon each other, there, in
the dawn.
"And then at last he spoke in French, and with the beautiful voice I
knew.
"'Whence have you come?' he said.
"'From England, father.'
"'From England? Then you live! you live. You are a man, as I am! And I
have believed you to be a spirit, some strange spirit of myself, lost to
my control, interrupting my prayers with your cries, interrupting my
sleep with your desires. You are a man like myself?'
"He stretched out his hand and touched mine.
"'Yes; it is indeed so,' he murmured.
"'And you,' I said in my turn, 'are no spirit. Yet, I, too, believed you
to be a wraith of myself, interrupting my sins with your sorrow,
interrupting my desires with your prayers. I have seen you. I have
imagined you. And now I find you live. What does it mean? For we are as
one and yet not as one.'
"'We are as two halves of a strangely-mingled whole,' he answered. 'Do
you know what you have done to me?'
"'No, father.'
"'Listen,' he said. 'When a boy I dedicated myself to God. Early, early
I dedicated myself, so that I might never know sin. For I had heard
that the charm of sin is so great and so terrible that, once it is
known, once it is felt, it can never be forgotten. And so it can make
the holiest life hideous with its memories. It can intrude into the very
sanctuary like a ghost, and murmur its music with the midnight mass.
Even at the elevation of the Host will it be present, and stir the heart
of the officiator to longing so keen that it is like the Agony of the
Garden, the Agony of Christ. There are monks here who weep because they
dare not sin, who rage secretly like beasts--because they will not sin.'
"He paused. The grey light grew over the mountains.
"'Knowing this, I resolved that I would never know sin, lest I, too,
should suffer so horribly. I threw myself at once into the arms of God.
Yet I have suffered--how I have suffered!'
"His face was contorted, and his lips worked. I stood as if under a
spell, my eyes upon his face. I had only the desire to hear him. He went
on, speaking now in a voice roughened by emotion:
"'For I became like these monks. You'--and he pointed at me with
outstretched fingers--'you, my wraith, made in my very likeness, were
surely born when I was born, to torment me. For, while I have prayed, I
have been conscious of your neglect of prayer as if it were my own. When
I have believed, I have been conscious of your unbelief as if it were
my own. Whatever I have feebly tried to do for God, has been marred and
defaced by all that you have left undone. I have wrestled with you; I
have tried to hold you back; I have tried to lead you with me where I
want to go, where I must go. All these years I have tried, all these
years I have striven. But it has seemed as if God did not choose it.
When you have been sinning, I have been agonising. I have lain upon the
floor of my cell in the night, and I have torn at my evil heart.
For--sometimes--I have longed--how I have longed!--to sin your sin.'
"He crossed himself. Sudden tears sprang into his eyes.
"'I have called you my demon,' he cried. 'But you are my cross. Oh,
brother, will you not be my crown?'
"His eyes, shadowed with tears, gazed down into mine. Bernard, in that
moment, I understood all--my depression, my unreasoning despair, the
fancied hatred of others, even my few good impulses, all came from him,
from this living holy wraith of my evil self.
"'Will you not be my crown?' he said.
"Bernard, there, in the snow, I fell at his feet. I confessed to him. I
received his absolution.
"And, as the light of the dawn grew strong upon the mountains, he, my
other self, my wraith, blessed me."
* * * * *