April brought to Hadrian an experience of one of those periods of
psychical disturbance which are incidental to the weakness of humanity,
and inevitable by a man of His particular temper. Things lost their
significance to Him, persons lost their personality, events their
importance; and time was not. He kept a straight face, and forced
Himself to courteous demeanour: but He was living in a world in which
He felt Himself to be just off the floor and floating, a world in which
everything was strange and everybody was quite strange, a world where
nobody and nothing mattered the least little bit. He had the sense at
the beginning to include Himself in secret behind guarded doors; and
also to hold His tongue when His attendants were in the Presence. He
simply sat and wondered--wondered who He was, how He came there, who
dressed Him like that, and when;--and decided that it did not matter.
He nursed His cat, cooing and mewing and talking cat-language in a most
enjoyable manner. When the creature went away,--it did not matter. He
used to gaze at His cross by the hour together, planning combinations
of lights and shades and backgrounds of book-backs: placing the golden
symbol there, and revelling in the supple splendour of the Form, its
dignity, its grace, the majestic youth of the Face, noble and grave.
He would close His eyes and learn the lovely planes and contours with
delicate reverent touch. It pleased Him to think that He had created
a type of incarnate divinity, which neither was the Orpheys of the
catacombs, nor the Tragic Mask of the Vernicle, nor the gross sexless
indecencies wherewith pious Catholics in their churches insult the One
among ten thousand, the Altogether Lovely. That thought brought Him
back to Space and Time. Indignation at images at least eleven heads
long, proportioned like female fashion-plates, visaged like emasculate
noodles whom you would slap in the face on sight, simply for their
tepid attenuate silliness, if you met them in the flesh--this drew
down Hadrian to realities and life.--He felt utterly exhausted. An
exposition of sleep seized Him. He was always drowsy; and would fall
asleep in the day-time over the writing and reading which He put
Himself to do, in His armchair by the window, in His favourite seat
by the old wall in the garden where He spent the vivid afternoons of
spring. Only toward night-fall, was He able to write that beautiful
clear script of His, to bring any of His usual alertness to bear upon
affairs: even then that alertness was extraordinarily diluted. His
intellect was nebulous, uncertain. He could not select saliencies,
could not concentrate his thoughts: His constructive faculty was in
abeyance: His imagination was in chains. He spent a long time over
His scanty meals, chewing, chewing, reading, reading, and remembering
nothing which He read. In an inert perfunctory way, He blamed Himself
for waste of time; and continued to waste it. No doubt it was divine
nature's will. Let it be understood that He was not slothful in the
confessional sense of the word. He was merely lethargic, dulled,
blunted, listless, eager for nothing, except to flee away and be at
rest--at rest.
From this stupor, He awoke in panic, as though nympholeptose,
lymphatic, driven to phrenzy by some unknown external agency. He became
inspired with an appalling consciousness of the absolute necessity
for instant active continuous exertion,--if He were to continue alive
upon this earth. He felt that, if He were to permit Himself to relax
for one instant, if for one instant He were to abdicate command of
His physical forces, to let Himself go,--that instant would be His
last. With this in His mind, He prepared for momentary unconscious
lapses from violent activity. He posed with care, so that, if Death
should seize Him unawares, He might not present a disedifying or untidy
spectacle to the finders of His corpse. He carefully avoided postures
from which, when He should be reft from the body, His form would fall
indecorously. He did not trouble His confessor more often than twice
a week as usual: but His one prayer, His incantation, always was on
His lips, "Dear Jesus, be not to me a Judge, but a Saviour." He was
losing hold of the world. Continually, through every hour of the day
and night, His head rang with the reverberating boom--boom--boom--boom
of His strong heart's beating. The rhythm was maddening. He used to
count the pulsations, wondering, after "fourteen," whether He would be
able to say "fifteen": after "ninety-seven," whether He would be in
Rome to say "ninety-eight": expecting the sudden wrench of self from
body: conjecturing the nature of that unique experience. Once, He put
Himself to the question "Was He afraid?" He answered, No, because He
dared to hope; and, Yes, because He had not been there before. But
Sokrates had said that death was our greatest possession on earth; and
Seneca said that death was the best of the inventions of life; and
Seneca's friend Saint Paul said "to die is gain." On the whole, He was
not afraid, afraid, of death. But, He did not dare to go--to go--to
sleep now. At night, He used to lie in bed, first on His right side,
then at full length on His back with the pillow under His neck, and His
hands crossed on the breast which had been tattoed with a cross when He
was a boy, and His ankles crossed like a crusader, rigid, as He wished
to lie in His coffin,--and His brain active, active, counting physical
pulsations, meditating on the future, scheming, planning, counting each
breath, and waiting for the last--and death.
Sometimes He wondered whether it was all worth while: whether it was in
accordance with God's Will that He should be so will-full. He decided
to risk an affirmative to that, on the ground of the existence of His
will. He knew that He tried rightly to use it. He hoped for mercy on
account of lapses. One point He determined. With all due respect to
Sokrates and Seneca, Death came by Sin, and Sin was God's enemy, and
God's friends must fight God's enemies to the bitter end. To relax
was suicide, and suicide was sin; and, tired with conflict as He was,
eager for rest and peace as He was, it certainly was not worth while
to add to His tale of sin: it was not worth while to exchange tiresome
earth for untiring hell: to lose, what Petrarch calls 'the splendour
of the angelic smile.' He had no steel in His possession except
safety-razors: knives and scissors He had abolished long ago; and now
He had light strong gratings fixed to all His windows. He would not go
into temptation. 'I am fawned upon by hope. Ah, would that she had a
voice which I could understand, a voice like that of a herald, that I
might not be agitated by distracting thought,' He said to Himself in
the words of Elektra at the tomb of Agamemnōn. Had He been trained in
boyhood at a public-school, in adolescence at an university, had His
lines been cast in service, He would not have had to put so severe
restraint upon Himself. The occasion would not have arisen. A simple
and perhaps a stolid character would have been formed of His temper,
potent and brilliant enough to distinguish Him from the mob, but
incapable of hypersensation. Instead, His frightfully self-concentrated
and lonely life, denied the ordinary opportunities of action, had
developed this heart-rending complexity: had trained him in mental
gymnastics to a degree of excellence which was inhuman, abominable,
(in the first intention of the words), in its facile flexible solert
dexterity. He was not restrained by any sense whatever of modesty or of
decorum. He had no sense of those things. He knew it; and regretted
it. He was Himself. He distrusted that self, rejoiced in it, and
determined to deal well and righteously with it. Dr Guido Cabelli, at
length summoned, found Him positively furious with the pain of physical
and intellectual struggles. The physician exhibited Pot. Brom., Tinct.
Valerian. Am., Tinct. Zinzil., Sp. Chlorof., Aq. Menth. Pip., once
every three hours. It made the Pontiff conscious that He stank like
a male cat in early summer: but He heard no more boom-booming in his
ears. It strung-up His nervous system for the time. He put on His
pontifical mask; and addressed Himself from the ideal to the real.
He put the affairs of nations on one side. They, the nations all were
tumbling over one another in their eagerness to re-arrange themselves
upon the pattern which He had devised for them. If He adopted the
Pythagorean rôle of an uninterested spectator, either He would be
annoyed by something ugly or something silly, or He would have a chance
of glorifying Himself on account of some success. And He wished to do
otherwise than that. "In this world, God and His angels only may be
spectators."
The affairs of religion, as far as He could see, amounted to the
service of others and the cultivation of personal holiness, the
correspondence with Divine Love. Someone had told Him that--yes,
Talacryn in confession, of course,--that the key to all His
difficulties, present and to come, was Love. That was all very pretty
and theological on the part of the bishop, the cardinal-archbishop:
but it was the baby who had taught Him the secret of the method. He
would, He really would keep His troubles to Himself. His office was the
office of leader and exemplar. Nothing must interfere. He put Himself
to review the first year of His pontificate: and a black enough tale it
seemed to Him. Without surprize, without emotion, He noted the blurs
of impatience, pride,--pride,--humanity.--Retrospection was the most
wearisome most fatuous banality. Onward!
Leader and exemplar! One thing was clear. He must come down among the
led and following. He must be seen of men. And He was not seen. No.
Peculiar personal preference kept Him apart, mysterious. He rather
enjoyed (not the being misunderstood but) the not being understood;
and, at the same time, He had been doing a lot of people the gross
injustice of crediting them with the possession of intelligence similar
to His Own, of perspicacity equal to His Own, of the ability to keep
up with His rapid pace and abrupt manœuvres. That was unrighteous. No
doubt it had been all very fine and noble and so forth to sit down
silent under calumny, for example. One could afford to do that when one
was innocent. But, when millions of people (to give the devils their
due) actually wanted to believe one innocent, and would be grieved
and perhaps injured because the opportunity to believe innocence was
withheld, was it righteous to refuse to condescend? No, such a pose was
mere pride. The Servant of the servants of God must not fear to soil
the whiteness of His robe in any kind of ordure. Also, to save others
was the best way of retrieving oneself.
He sent for the nearest cardinals. Ragna, Saviolli, Semphill, Sterling,
Talacryn, Carvale, Van Kristen, Gentilotto, Leighton, Whitehead,
responded to the summons. Hadrian received them in the throne-room,
but without formality; and contrived to give them an easy and genial
greeting. They thought Him to be looking seriously ill. There was the
dead whiteness of a gardenia in the hue of His face and hands: His
reddish-brown hair was going grey over the left ear: His intense and
rigid mask was the sign of pain. His whole aspect also was diaphanous,
wasted. But His manner was vivid: He was not inaccessible. Their
Eminencies gave Him their attention; and wondered what He was going to
bring-out of the dispatch box by His side. He was extremely glad to
see the Secretary of State: for He knew how antipathetic He was to that
one; and now He was going to try to give him satisfaction. At least it
should not be His fault if Ragna's ordinary attitude of discreet and
convulsive brutality remained unmitigated.
"Lord Cardinals," the Supreme Pontiff said, "it has occurred to Us that
ye have many things to say: that there be many things which ye desire
to know. We, on Our part, are ready to hear; and We are willing to
respond to questions."
Questions instantly were born in each man's brain. Ragna was the first
to deliver Himself of his. "Holiness, will You answer a question about
the _Epistle to the Princes_?"
"Yes."
Ragna collected himself. "I am curious to know why the rights of France
in Egypt were not even named. I can see that the very nature of Your
Holiness's counsels demanded that Africa as a whole should pass to
England: but I cannot understand why Germany, in taking over France,
should not also have taken-over the condominium of Egypt. Why did that
fall to England; and why did Germany consent to its falling to England?"
Hadrian made an effort to conquer His natural incapacity for coming
near a subject at the first attempt; and put Himself to be concise.
"Your Eminency knows that since--We forget the exact date--but since a
very short time ago, no international obligations have existed which
could restrain Egypt from legitimate attempts at emancipation. Nothing
but Ottoman firmans held her. Very well. We discovered that when the
King of England and the Sultan, last October, made alliance, the
latter issued a firman in which England was named Protector of Egypt.
Then (the speaker slightly smiled), when the task of arbitration was
submitted to Us, We found that the German colonies in Africa, not only
did not pay their way but, required a yearly subsidy of £1,500,000;
and therefore, taking one thing with another, We arranged to give
Germany sufficient employment for a century nearer home. She promptly
recognized that 'megli' è fringuello in man' che tordo in frasca.'
The fact is that she was only too glad to be rid of her own parasitic
colonies, which had severed their connection from the parent stem, and
derived their nutriment from other states: while the colonies of France
which were epiphytic, having no existence apart from the source from
which they sprang, were wiped out (as French colonies) when France was
wiped out."
"And no doubt Germany, in her pretty Gothic way, was in such a
desperate hurry to grab France, that she forgot all about Egypt. D'ye
know they say she's going to call her conquest Gallia again?" Semphill
put in with a sniff. "And now I'll ask a question. Holy Father, may I
smoke?"
"But smoke!" Hadrian assented with pleasure; and held-out His Own hand
for a cigarette. Some of the others did likewise; and the gear began to
run much more easily. Van Kristen expressed joy that the Germans were
not to have chances of doing more monkey business on the Erechtheion
and the Akropolis at Athens.
"Yes," Ragna meditatively continued: "I suppose I ought to have
understood all that. But now, Holiness, there's another thing: why did
the Sultan consent to evacuate Europe?"
"Simply because, with all the examples which he has had lately, he goes
in mortal terror of assassination. He has managed to persuade himself
that he only can be warranted against that, as long as he is under
the ægis of England. Well: seeing England and Turkey allied, We moved
England and England moved Ismail. The former had sense: the latter,
sentiment. But Ismail really is not half bad: in fact he's rather
decent. If We only had another dear charming child-like naked Christian
like Blessed Brother Francis----"
"What?" said Carvale with animation. He happened to have noted that,
when Hadrian rioted in superlatives, it meant no more than positives:
but, when He negligently drawled comparatives, "not half bad" or
"rather decent," the ultimate of praise was signified. "What?" the
cardinal repeated.
"We would send him to give points to Ismail's mollahs and dervishes."
"St. Francis has innumerable sons, Holiness," Saviolli put in.
"And We only know one who in the slightest degree resembles his
father," the Pope responded, waving away the subject.
"One would like to know," said Sterling, "whether Your Holiness is not
really of the opinion that the _Epistle to the Princes_ was perhaps a
trifle too sentimental and----"
"Sentimental? Yes. The Ruler, who rules sentiment out of his
calculations, ignores one of the most potent forces in human affairs.
Too sentimental? No. And what else was Your Eminency about to say--a
trifle too sentimental and----"
"One would have said perhaps a trifle too arbitrary."
"Dear man----" the Pope gleefully began.
But Ragna interrupted "Nothing of the kind. That particular _Epistle_
was replete with pontifical dignity: it was the finest thing----"
Hadrian stopped him "We were about to remind Cardinal Sterling that
when the Ruler of the World geographically rules the world, He is
accustomed to do His ruling with a ruler. Our predecessor Alexander VI.
used a ruler on a celebrated occasion on the Atlantic Ocean."
Everybody burst out laughing: laughed for a few moments; and returned
to a serious demeanour. There was a question, an important question,
which sat upon all tongues, wing-preened, ready to fly. But His
Holiness already had refused to discuss it. Those, who had tried to
persuade, so seriously had been hurt by His icy reticence or by His
blunt aloofness, that no one now was temerarious enough to attempt
the re-opening of so unsavoury and so personal a matter, except upon
explicit invitation. Knowing what he did of men, Hadrian had expected
hesitation: but, seeing that His purpose was likely to fail of
completion; and, being determined that it should not fail, He slowly
and significantly drew-off the pontifical ring from His first finger,
and put it in His pocket. "Gentlemen," He said with quite a change
of manner, "some of you would like to put George Arthur Rose to the
question?"
They would indeed. They would whatever. They would like it so much
that they all spoke in unison. The sum of their words amounted to a
request that George Arthur Rose would give them some sort of statement
concerning newspaper calumnies, some sort of statement by way of
support to their contention that he had been grossly wronged and
mispresented.
It was George the Digladiator who responded. He seemed to step down
into the arena, naked, lithe, agile, with bright open eyes, and ready
to fight for life. "Very well," he said--"I will give that statement to
you: but understand that I will not defend myself in the newspapers.
If I were a layman, I should have whipped in a writ for libel, and
have given my damages to Nazareth House. I should have preferred to
trust my reputation rather to an English judge and jury, than to the
nameless editors of Erse or Radical newspapers. Fancy having one's
letters edited by the _Catholic Hour_, for example: fancy having one's
letters, which are one's defence, nefariously garbled by a nameless
creature who is one's prosecutor, and one's judge, and one's jury, all
in one! However, not being a layman, I cannot go to law; and I will not
condescend to have dealings with those newspapers. Understand also,
that I tell you what I am about to tell you, not because I have been
provoked, abused, calumniated, traduced, assailed with insinuation,
innuendo, mispresentation, lies: not because my life has been held
up to ridicule, and to most inferior contempt: not because the most
preposterous stories to my detriment have been invented, hawked about,
believed. No. Please understand that I am not going to speak in my
own defence, even to you. I personally and of predilection, can be
indifferent to opinions. But officially I must correct error. So I will
give you some information. You may take it, or leave it: believe it or
disbelieve it. You shall have as photographic a picture as I can give
you of my life, and of the majestic immobility by which you clergy tire
out--assassinate a man's body--perhaps his soul. You are free to use it
or abuse it. When I shall have finished speaking, I never will return
to this subject."
"Of course we shall believe what you say," Semphill rather nervously
intercalated. "I'm sure we believe it unsaid. We take it as said, you
know. But if you could see your way to give us details, say on half a
dozen points, that would be quite enough."
"The _Daily Anagraph_ has not apologized for its latest slander,"
Carvale put in.
"Why should it?" George inquired.
"Well, I sent an authenticated account of what happened in the last
consistory. The other papers printed it; and I should have thought the
least the _Daily Anagraph_ could have done would be----"
"Carvale, you're making a mistake. The _Daily Anagraph_ has no personal
grudge against me: although the last editor had, because I once
innocently asked him whether historical accuracy came within the scope
of a Radical periodical. That was years ago, at the time of the second
Dreyfus case. I know that he was furious; because Bertram Blighter,
the novel-man, told me that that editor in revenge was going to put
me on the newspaper black-list, whatever that may be. No, it is not a
personal matter, a matter in which an apology is customary. It's simply
an example of the ethics of commercial journalism. The man wanted to
increase the sale of his paper. I happened by chance to be before the
world just then. And he took the liberty of increasing his circulation
at my expense. Actually that is all. You can't (at least I don't),
expect an editor, who is capable of doing such a thing, to apologize
for doing it. The case of the other papers is verisimilar: except
of course the _Catholic Hour_. That simply exists on sycophanty by
sycophants for sycophantophagists, as Semphill knows."
"Yes I know," said Semphill. "And I don't allow the thing to enter my
house."
"But the others--in their case it's not lurid malignance, but legal
malfeasance. Did you say that they apologized?"
"No. None of those, which printed the calumnies, apologized. They just
kept silence. But all the respectable papers, which had not calumniated
you, printed my refutation of the _Daily Anagraph_."
George made a gesture of scorn, of satisfaction, of dismissal. "Then
the Pope is clear;" he said. "Now I will try to tell you, as briefly as
possible, what you want to know about the other person." He produced
a sheaf of newspaper-cuts. He was in such a white rage at having to
do what he was about to do, that he wreaked his anger on those who
listened to him, piercingly eyeing them, speaking with swift fury as
one would speak to foes. "The _Catholic Hour_ states that in 1886 I
was under an under-master at Grandholme School: that I had to leave
my master-ship because I became Catholic. That is true in substance
and absolutely false in connotation. I was an under-master: but as I
also had charge of the school-house, I was called the house-master.
You also perhaps may be aware that there is only one head-master in a
school; and that all the rest are under-masters. But, when slander is
your object, 'under-master' is a nice disgraceful dab of mud to sling
at your victim for a beginning. Well: I resigned my house-mastership
of my own free and unaided will for the reason alleged; and I have yet
to learn that the becoming Catholic is an extraordinarily slimy deed.
Further, note this, far from my resignation being the dishonourable
affair which the _Catholic Hour_ implies, the head-master of Grandholme
School remained my dear and intimate and honoured friend through thick
and thin, for more than twenty years, and is my only dear and intimate
friend at this moment."
Semphill and Carvale looked up, and then down. Sterling looked down,
down. Van Kristen looked up. The others, anywhere. Talacryn looked
annoyed. The taunt was flung out; and the flying voice went-on. "The
_Catholic Hour_ thus casts its diatribe in a key of depreciation. Next,
I am said to have gone to a school for outcasts, to have quarrelled
with the two priest-chaplains; and presently to have been 'again out.'
The idea being to infer evil, it is rather cleverly done in that
statement of the case. But here are the facts. The school perhaps
might be called a school for outcasts. But I, a young inexperienced
Catholic of six months, was lured by innumerable false pretences, on
the part of the eccentric party who offered me the post, to accept
what he called the Head-mastership of a Cathedral Choir School. He did
not tell me that he was forcing the establishment on the bishop of
the diocese, nor that the Head-mastership had been refused by several
distinguished priests simply on account of the impossible conditions.
I bought my experience. That I quarrelled with the chaplains is quite
true. I did not quarrel effectually though. They were a Belgian and
a Frenchman. They drank themselves drunk on beer, out of decanters,
chased each other round the refectory tables in a tipsy fight, defied
my authority and compelled the ragamuffins of the school to do the
same. I naturally resigned that post as quickly as possible. Then
follows a pseudo-history of the beginning of my ecclesiastical career
at Maryvale. Talacryn knows all about that; and can tell you at your
leisure. Afterwards, I came across, (I am quoting), 'came across a
certain Pictish lairdie, and was maintained by him for three or four
months----'"
"And I know all about that," Semphill interrupted: "You gave a great
deal more than you got."
"The fallacies connected with my career at and expulsion from St.
Andrew's College are known?"
"Thoroughly," assented Semphill, Talacryn, and Carvale in a breath.
"The statement that I contracted large debts there----"
"What about those debts?" Ragna asked.
Carvale told him. "They all were contracted under the personal
supervision of the Vice-Rector. They were quite insignificant. Besides
that, they would not have been contracted but for the promise of
Archbishop Smithson and the advice of Canon Dugdale----"
"And the advice of me," Semphill added in a low tone.
"Oh, you at length acknowledge it?" George fiercely thrust at him.
"Yes, I acknowledge it."
"Well then, we're quits now:" George quietly and mysteriously mewed.
"One confesses that the question of the pseudonym interests one,"
Sterling judicially said.
"I had half-a-dozen. You see when I was kicked out from college,
without a farthing or a friend at hand, I literally became an
adventurer. Thank God Who gave me the pluck to face my adventures. I
was obliged to live by my wits. Thank God again Who gave me wits to
live by."
Cardinal Leighton was standing-up, blinking and blushing with
indignation which distorted his honest placid features. "Holy
Father, don't say another word." He twitched round towards his
fellow-collegians. "How can you torture the man so!" he cried. "Can't
you see what you're doing, wracking the poor soul like this, pulling
him in little pieces all over again? Shame on ye!--Holy Father don't
say another word."
"Oh if I had only known!" cried Van Kristen.
"You did! I told you myself; and you didn't believe me!" George
fulminated.
The youngest cardinal wept into his handkerchief, shaking with sobs.
George neither saw nor noted anyone. He was glaring like a python.
Demurrers to Leighton's remarks arose. No one wanted to wrack anybody.
Questions had been invited. Of course no one believed. But it would be
so much more satisfactory--Ragna added. George sat violently still in
his chair while they talked: let them talk; and prepared to resume.
"If Your Holiness would condescend----" Carvale began.
"There is no Holiness here," George interrupted, in that cold white
candent voice which was more caustic than silver nitrate and more
thrilling than a scream.
"If you would do us the favour of just noticing a few heads."
"As you please," George chucked at him: "agree among yourselves as to
those heads; and you shall have bodies and limbs and finger-nails and
teeth to fit them."
Their Eminencies began agreeing. George meanwhile went into the secret
chamber for ten minutes or so: and returned with his cat on his neck,
and his own tobacco-pouch. He was beginning a cigarette; and his gait
was the gait of a challenged lion. Sterling presented him with a
pencilled slip of paper. He read aloud "Pseudonym: begging letters:
debts: luxurious living: idleness: false pretences as to means and
position."
"I think it right to say that I myself am perfectly satisfied on all
those points," said Semphill. "I've read the calumnies--and I call them
dastardly calumnies--in the light of my own knowledge of the facts; and
I can only say that the worst thing which they've alleged against you
is that you've been used to go-about bilking landlords. All the rest is
excusable, not to say harmless."
"Gracious Heavens!" George exclaimed in a rictus of rage. "Do you
suppose that a man of my description goes-about bilking landlords for
the sake of the fun of the thing? It's no such deliriously jolly work,
I can tell you. However, I've never bilked any landlords if that's
what you want to know. Never. They saw that I worked like nineteen
galley-slaves; and they offered to trust me. I voluminously explained
my exact position and prospects to them. I was foolish enough to
believe that you Catholics would keep your promises and pay me for
the work which I did at your orders. So I accepted credit. I wish I
had died. When at length I was defrauded, legally, mind!--for, as my
employers were Catholics and sometimes priests, I trusted to their
honour, and obtained no stamped agreement:--when I was defrauded of my
wages, my landlords lost patience (poor things--I don't blame them,)
harried me, reproached me, at length turned me out, and so prevented
me from paying them. I dug myself out of the gutter with these bare
hands again and again; and started anew to earn enough to pay my
debts. Debts! They never were off my chest for twenty years, no matter
what these vile liars say. Debts! They say that I incurred them for
luxurious living, unjustifiably----"
His passionate voice subsided: he became frightfully cool and tense
and terse, analytical, quite merciless to himself. Their Eminencies
never before had seen a surgical knife at work in a human heart
and brain. They sat all vigilant and attentive, as self-dissection
proceeded. "They say that I gorged myself with sumptuous banquets at
grand hotels. Once, after several days' absolute starvation, I got
a long earned guinea; and I went and had an omelette and a bed at a
place which called itself a grand hotel. It wasn't particularly grand
in the ordinary sense of the term; and my entertainment there cost me
no more than it would have cost me elsewhere, and it was infinitely
cleaner and tastier. They say that I ate daintily, and had elaborate
dishes made from a cookery book of my own. The recipes, (there may
have been a score of them,) were cut-out of a penny weekly, current
among the working classes. The dishes were lentils, carrots, anything
that was cheapest, cleanest, easiest, and most filling--nourishing--at
the price. Each dish cost something under a penny; and I sometimes
had one each day. As I was living on credit, I tried to injure no
one but myself. That's the story of my luxurious living. Let me add
though that I was extravagant, in proportion to my means, in one thing.
Whenever I earned a little bit, I reserved some of it for apparatus
conducing to personal cleanliness, soap, baths, tooth-things, and so
on. I'm not a bit ashamed of that. Why did I use credit? Because it
was offered: because I hoped: because---- That I did not abuse it you
may see, actually see, by my style of living,--here are the receipted
bills;--and by the number and quantity and quality of the works of
my hands. I never was idle. I worked at one thing after another. The
_Catholic Hour_ admits my skill; and mispresents that as a crime. At
the same time, I myself don't claim my indefatigability as a virtue.
Nothing of the kind. It's something lower than that. It's comical to
say it: but my indefatigability was nothing but a purely selfish pose,
put-on solely to make philanthropists look unspeakably silly, to give
the lie direct to all their idiotic iniquitous shibboleths. It wasn't
that I _couldn't_ stop working: but that I _wouldn't_. The fact is
that I long, I burn, I yearn, I thirst, I most earnestly desire, to do
absolutely nothing. I am so tired. I have such a genius for elaborate
repose. But convention always alleges idleness, or drunkenness, or
lechery, or luxury, to be the causa causans of scoundrelism and of
poverty. That's a specimen of the 'Eidola Specus,' the systematizing
spirit which damns half the world. People never stop to think that
there may be other causes--that men of parts become rakes, or
scoundrels, or paupers, for lack of opportunity to live decently and
cleanly. Look at François Villon, and Christopher Marlowe, and Sir
Richard Steele, and Leo di Giovanni, and heaps of others. Well: I
resolutely determined that you never righteously should allege those
things of me. Simply to deprive you of that excuse for your failure to
do your duty to your neighbour--simply to deprive you of the chance
of classifying me among the ruck which your neglect has made--I
courted semi-starvation and starvation, I scrupulously avoided drink,
I hardly ever even spoke civilly to a woman; and I laboured like a
driven slave. No: I never was idle. But I was a most abject fool. I
used to think that this diligent ascetic life eventually would pay
me best. I made the mistake of omitting to give its due importance to
the word 'own' in the adage 'Virtue is its own reward.' I had no other
reward, except my unwillingly cultivated but altogether undeniable
virtue. A diabolic brute once said to me 'If I had your brains I would
be earning a thousand a year.' I replied 'Take them: tell me what to
do: give me orders, and I implicitly will obey you. Then, take that
thousand a year, and give me two hundred; and I'll bless you all my
days.' He said nothing; and he did nothing. He was just a fatuous
liar. I mocked him: caught him stealing my correspondence--there is
his written confession;--and, he wrote these anonymous calumnies in
long cherished revenge." The dreadful lambent voice flickered for a
moment;--and more rapidly flashed-on. "I repeat, I never was idle. I
did work after work. I designed furniture, and fire-irons. I delineated
saints and seraphim, and sinners, chiefly the former: a series of
rather interesting and polyonomous devils in a period of desperate
revolt. I slaved as a professional photographer, making (from French
prints) a set of negatives for lantern-slides of the Holy Land which
were advertised as being 'from original negatives'--'messing about' the
_Catholic Hour_ elegantly denominates that portion of my purgatory.
Well I admit it was messy, and insanitary within the meaning of the act
too--but then you see I was working for a Catholic. I did journalism,
reported inquests for eighteen pence. I wrote for magazines. I wrote
books. I invented a score of things. Experts used to tell me that
there was a fortune waiting for me in these inventions: that any
capitalist would help me to exploit them. They were small people
themselves, these experts,--small, in that they were not obliged to
pay income tax: they had no capital to invest: but they recommended
me, and advised me, to apply to lots of people who had:--gave me
their names and addresses, dictated the letters of application which
I wrote. I trusted them, for they were 'business men' and I knew
that I was not of that species. I quieted my repugnance; and I laid
invention after invention, scheme after scheme, work after work,
before capitalist after capitalist. I was assured that it was correct
to do so. I despised and detested myself for doing it. I scoured the
round world for a 'patron.' These were my 'begging letters.'--At that
time I was totally ignorant of the fact that there are thousands of
people who live by inviting patronage; and that most of them really
have nothing to be patronized: while the rest are cranks. I knew
that I had done such and such a new thing: that I had exhausted
myself and my resources in doing it: that my deed was approved by
specialists who thoroughly knew the subject. I was very ashamed
to ask for help to make my invention profitable: but I was quite
honest--generous: I always offered a share in the profits--always. I
did not ask for, and I did not expect, something for nothing. I had
done so much; and I wanted so little: but I did want that little,--for
my creditors,--for giving ease to some slaves of my acquaintance.
I was a fool, a sanguine ignorant abject fool! I never learned by
experience. I still kept on. A haggard shabby shy priestly-visaged
individual, such as I was, could not hope to win the confidence of men
who daily were approached by splendid plausible cadgers. My requests
were too diffident, too modest. I made the mistake of appealing to
brains rather than to bowels, to reason rather than to sentiment. I
wanted hundreds, or thousands--say two: others wanted and got tens
and hundreds of thousands. A cotton-waste merchant could not risk
fifteen-hundred on my work, although he liked me personally and said
that he believed in the value of my inventions: but, at the same time,
he cheerfully lost twelve-thousand in a scheme for 'ventilated boots.'
I myself was wearing ventilated boots, then: but the ventilated-boot
man wore resplendent patent leather Cardinals' secretaries could
live at the rate of two-thousand-two-hundred-and-ninety pounds
a year and borrow three-thousand-and-sixty pounds, on a salary
of two-hundred pounds a year; and they could become bankrupt for
four-thousand-one-hundred-and-twenty pounds with one-hundred-and-eighty
pounds worth of assets. But I,--I could not get my due from that man,
one of whose secretaries wrote his business to me on the franked
note-paper of the late Queen of England's Treasury: while the other,
the bankrupt, gave me a winter of starvation, because his lord had
altered his mind, quoth he, about the job on which I was working,
and had determined to put his money into a cathedral. No. I never
accomplished the whole art and mystery of mendicity. I perfectly could
see what was required of him who would be a successful swindler. I was
not that one. I was playing another kind of game--unfortunately an
honest one. Take that 'unfortunately' for irony, please. I mean--but
you perfectly know what I mean.--I made nothing of my inventions.
By degrees, I had the mortification of seeing others arrive at the
discovery which I had made years before. They contrived to turn it
into gold and fame. That way, one after another of my inventions
became nulled to me. I think I am right in saying that there are
only four remaining at the present moment. Finance them now? Engage
in trade like a monk or a nun? No. No. I shall give them to--that
doesn't matter. It shall be done to-day.--Idle? Idle? When I think of
all the violently fatuous frantic excellent things I've done in the
course of my struggles for an honest living--ouf! It makes me sick!
Oh yes, I have been helped. God forgive me for bedaubing myself with
that indelible blur. I had not the courage to sit-down and fold my
hands and die. A brute once said that he supposed that I looked upon
the world as mine oyster. I did not. I worked; and I wanted my wages.
When they were withheld, people encouraged me to hope on; and offered
me a guinea for the present. I took the filthy guinea. God forgive
me for becoming so degraded. Not because I wanted to take it: but
because they said that they would be so pained at my refusal. But one
can't pay all one's debts, and lead a godly righteous sober life for
ever after on a guinea. I was offered help: but help in teaspoonfuls:
just enough to keep me alive and chained in the mire: never enough to
enable me to raise myself out of it. I asked for work, and they gave
me a guinea,--and a tacit request to go and agonize elsewhere. My
weakness, my fault was that I did not die murdered at Maryvale, at St.
Andrew's College. The normal man, treated as I was ill-treated, would
have made no bones whatever about doing so. But I was abnormal. I took
help, when it was offered gently. I'm thankful to say that I flung
it back when it was offered charitably, as the Bishop of Claughton
offered it, and Monsignor--you know whom I mean, Talacryn,--and John
Newcastle of the _Weekly Tabule_. I'll tell you about the last. He
said that, being anxious to do me a good turn, he had deposited ten
pounds with a printer-man, who would be a kind friend to me, and would
consult me as to how that sum could be expended in procuring permanent
employment for me. I took seven specimens of my handicraft to that
printer-man. He admired them: offered me a loan of five pounds on
their security. With that, I fulfilled a temporary engagement. Then
I consulted the printer-man, the 'kind friend.' He proposed to give
me a new suit of clothes, (I was to do without shirts or socks), to
accept my services at no salary, and to teach me the business of a
printer's reader for three months; and, then, to recommend me for a
situation as reader to some other printer. But, I said, why waste
three months in learning a new trade when I already had four trades
at my fingers' ends? But, I said, what was I to live on during those
three months? But, I said, what certainty was there at the end of
those three months? But, he said, that he would 'have none of' my
'lip, for' he 'knew all' my 'capers'; and he bade me begone and take
away my drawings. Those were ruined: he had let them lie on his dirty
office floor for months. Oh I admit that I have been helped--quite
brutally and quite uselessly. Helped? Yes. Once, when they told me at
the hospital that I was on the verge of a nervous collapse, a Jesuit
offered to help me. He would procure my admission to a certain House of
Rest, if I would consent to go there. By the Mercy of God I remembered
that it was a licensed madhouse, where they imprisoned you by force
and tortured you. Fact! There had been a fearful disclosure of their
methods in the _P.M.G._ Well: I refused to go. Rather than add that
brand to what I had incurred through being Catholic, I made an effort
of will; and contrived to escape that danger: contrived to recover
my nerves; and I continued my battle.--Regarding my pseudonyms--my
numerous pseudonyms--think of this: I was a tonsured clerk, intending
to persist in my Divine Vocation, but forced for a time, to engage in
secular pursuits both to earn my living and to pay my debts. I had
a shuddering repugnance from associating my name, the name by which
I certainly some day should be known in the priesthood, with these
secular pursuits. I think that was rather absurd: but I am quite sure
that it was not dishonourable. However, for that reason I adopted
pseudonyms. I took advice about adopting them: for, in those days,
I used to take advice about everything, not being man enough to act
upon my own responsibility. Also, the idea of using pseudonyms was
suggested to me; and the first one was selected for me. As time went
on, and Catholic malfeasance drove me from one trade to another--for
you know--Talacryn--Carvale--Semphill--Sterling--that two excellent
priests declared in so many words that they would prevent me from
ever earning a living--legal assassination, you see definitely was
contemplated--I say as Catholic malfeasance drove me from one trade, I
invented another, and another; and I carried on each of these under a
separate pseudonym. In fact I split up my personality. As Rose I was a
tonsured clerk: as King Clement, I wrote and painted and photographed:
as Austin White, I designed decorations: as Francis Engle, I did
journalism. There were four of me at least. I always have thought it
so inexplicable that none of the authorities--you, Talacryn, with
your pretended confidence in me and your majestic immobility towards
me,--that none of you ever realized the tremendous amount of energy
which was being expended, misdirected, if you like. Certainly no one of
you ever made a practical attempt to direct that energy. I was a like
a wild colt careering round and round a large meadow. You all looked
on and sneered 'Erratic!' Of course I was erratic, for you all did
your very best, by stolidity, hints, insinuations, commands, to create
obstacles over which I had to jump, through which I had to tear a way;
and there was no one to bit and bridle me, to ride me, and to share his
couch with me. And of course my pseudonymity has been misunderstood
by the stupid, as well as mispresented by the invidious. Most people
have only half developed their single personalities. That a man should
split his into four and more; and should develop each separately and
perfectly, was so abnormal that many normals failed to understand it.
So when 'false pretences' and similar shibboleths were shrieked, they
also took alarm and howled. But, there were no false pretences. I told
my name to everyone whom it concerned. I am not the only person who
has traded under pseudonyms or technikryms. Take, for example, the
man whose shop I am said to have offered to buy. He himself used a
trade-name. He begged for my acquaintance when I was openly living as a
tonsured clerk, about a couple of years before my first pseudonym even
was thought of. Take, for another example, those priests, Fr. Aleck of
Beal, and the Order of Divine Love, who are alleged to have 'charitably
maintained' me. By the way, they never did that. They always were paid
for my entertainment, in hard coin, and their own price--always. And
the Fathers of Divine Love refused me shelter for one night in 1892
at the very time when they are said to have 'charitably maintained'
me. They did suggest a common lodging-house at fourpence, though; and
I flung back the suggestion in their faces and walked the streets all
night. But all these people knew all about me and my pseudonyms. In
fact, the very priest who suggested the common lodging-house, was the
man on whose advice I adopted my first pseudonym. It was invented by
an old lady who chose to call herself my grandmother: she was that
priest's patron and penitent. It was approved by him and adopted by me.
And there you have the blind and naked truth on that point. It now is
pretended that 'King Clement' was a jesuitical machiavellian device of
mine, implying royalty, dominions, wealth, and interminable nonsense.
I think that the pretension is due to malice and imbecillity. It is
malignant now: but I firmly believe that it began by being imbecile. I
confess that the name, taken together with my domineering manner, my
pedantic diction, my austere and (shall I say) exclusive habit, was
liable to misconstruction by the low coarse half-educated uncultured
boors among whom I lived. It's an example of the 'Eidola Fori,' the
strange power of words and phrases over the mind. I think it really was
believed, in some vague way, that I was an exiled sovereign or some
rot of that sort. I believe that I perceived it; and laughed to myself
about it. But I did my best to disabuse the fools of their foolery.
That made things worse. Liars themselves, they could not conceive of
a man speaking truth to his own detriment. My disclaimer was taken
for a lie; and they honoured me the more for it; and chuckled at the
thought of their own perspicacity:--that is to say, when what I said
was intelligible to them. You see I used to be a great talker. I have
had many experiences; and I used freely to talk of them. It amused and
instructed; and I like to amuse and to instruct. You will understand
that my voice and my manner of speech did not resemble the voice and
the manner of speech of the ruffians with whom I worked and lived.
Live as poorly as I would, dress as shabbily as I would, the moment I
opened my mouth I was discovered to be different to those people. They
perceived it; and I never could disguise my speech. Also, I'm quite
sure that they could not understand my speech--follow my argument. I
used words which were strange to them to express ideas unimagined by
them, while their half-developed minds were more than half occupied,
not in listening to me but, in contemplating me, and in trying to form
their particular idea of me by the aid of the 'Vulgi sensus imperiti,'
the imperfection of undisciplined senses, at their disposal. I called
that Imbecillity. Perhaps Ignorance is the apter term. The Malice is
to be found among people who ought to know better: people to whom I
have told the exact truth about myself, exact at the time of telling:
people, who being possessed by a desire to think evil, think evil:
people who read between, instead of on, the lines: people, prone to
folly, whom I have not helped to avoid their predilection. I tried to
be simple and plain, to sulk (if you like) in my own corner by myself.
It was no good. Anyhow, I told no tales of realms or wealth as mine.
I made no false pretences. I myself was grossly deceived: barbarously
man-woman-and-priest-handled. I was foolish to try to explain myself. I
was foolish to try to work with, to live with, to equal myself in every
respect with, verminous persons within the meaning of the act. I ought
to have died. But I did not die. That is all. It is not half. Now you
know. Make what you please of it."
"Tell me," Gentilotto instantly said: "Why did you never go to the
Trappists?"
"Because I went to something worse, to something infinitely terribly
more ghastly. Trappists live in beautiful silent solitude; they
have clean water, beds, regular meals, and peace. I went to live in
intellectual silence and solitude in an ugly obscene mob, where clean
water was a difficulty, food and a bed an uncertainty, and where I had
the inevitable certainty of ceaseless and furious conflict."
He hurled the words like javelins, and drew back in his chair. The old
bitter feeling of disgust with himself inspired him. He feared lest
perhaps he might have seemed to be pleading for sympathy. So he angrily
watched to detect any signs of a wish to insult him with sympathy. But
he really had gone far, far beyond the realm of human sympathy. _There
was not a man on the earth who would have dared to risk rebuff, to
persist against rebuff, to soar to him with that blessed salve of human
sympathy--for which,--underneath his armour,--and behind his warlike
mien,--he yearned._ Pity perhaps, horror perhaps, dislike perhaps,
might have met him. But he only had emphasized his own fastidious
aloofness. He had cleared-off the mire: but he had disclosed the cold
of marble, not the warmth of human flesh.
The cardinals remained silent for a minute. Then Ragna said "'An enemy
hath done this!' Who is it?"
George blazed with vigorous candid delight. "That is the first genuine
word which I have had from the heart of Your Eminency!"--He returned to
his repellent manner. "I gave the names of my calumniators to Cardinal
Leighton."
"Jerry Sant the Liblab, aided by the woman and a clot of worms who had
turned;" Leighton said to Ragna.
"Let them be smothered in the dung-hill. Anathema sint." Ragna growled.
Again there was an exposition of silence in the throne-room. George was
frozen hard and white. Ragna and Leighton continued to look at each
other. Carvale's eyes had the blue brilliance of wet stars. Saviolli,
Semphill, Talacryn, Whitehead, were as though they had seen the
saxificous head of the Medoysa. Stirling gazed straight before him, in
the manner of the sphinx carven of black basalt. George was watching
them with half-shut eyes from the illimitable distance of his psychic
altitude. Presently, the pure pale old face of Gentilotto and the pure
pale young face of Van Kristen simultaneously were lifted; and their
eyes met His. He blushed: slowly drew out the pontifical ring: and put
it on His finger.
"Lord Cardinals, it is Our will to be alone:" the Supreme Pontiff said.
They came one by one and kissed His ring; and retired in silence.