PILGRIMS
It is not often that nature takes the trouble to stir the heart of man
into any emotion stronger than a quiet admiration or a peaceful wonder.
Here and there on the face of the earth, however, the astonishing work of
God gives pause to the most casual observer, the most thoughtless
traveler.
"Why did He do this?" one wonders. And no geologist--not even a French
geologist with his quick imagination and lively sense of the
picturesque--can answer the question.
On first perceiving the sudden, uncouth height of Montserrat the traveler
must assuredly ask in his own mind, "Why?"
The mountain is of granite, where no other granite is. It belongs to no
neighbouring formation. It stands alone, throwing up its rugged peaks
into a cloudless sky. It is a piece from nothing near it---from nothing
nearer, one must conclude, than the moon. No wonder it stirred the
imagination of mediæval men dimly groping for their God.
Ignatius de Loyola solved the question with that unbounded assurance
which almost always accompanies the greatest of human blunders. It is the
self-confident man who compasses the finest wreck, Loyola, wounded in the
defense of that strongest little city in Europe, Pampeluna--wounded,
alas! and not killed--jumped to the conclusion that God had reared up
Montserrat as a sign. For it was here that the Spanish soldier, who was
to mould the history of half the world, dedicated himself to Heaven.
Within sight of the Mediterranean and of the Pyrenees, towering above the
brown plains of Catalonia, this shrine is the greatest in Christendom
that bases its greatness on nothing but tradition. Thousands of pilgrims
flock here every year. Should they ask for history, they are given a
legend. Do they demand a fact, they are told a miracle. On payment of a
sufficient fee they are shown a small, ill-carved figure in wood. The
monastery is not without its story; for the French occupied it and burnt
it to the ground. For the rest, its story is that of Spain, torn hither
and thither in the hopeless struggle of a Church no longer able to meet
the demands of an enlightened religious comprehension, and endeavouring
to hold back the inevitable advance of the human understanding.
To-day a few monks are permitted to live in the great houses teaching
music and providing for the wants of the devout pilgrims. Without the
monastery gate, there is a good and exceedingly prosperous restaurant
where the traveler may feed. In the vast houses, is accommodation for
rich and poor; a cell and clean linen, a bed and a monastic basin. The
monks keep a small store, where candles may be bought and matches, and
even soap, which is in small demand.
Evasio Mon arrived at Montserrat in the evening, having driven in open
carriage from the small town of Monistrol in the valley below. It was the
hour of the table d'hôte, and the still evening air was ambient with
culinary odours. Mon went at once to the office of the monastery, and
there received his sheets and pillow-case, his towel, his candle, and the
key of his cell in the long corridor of the house of Santa Maria de Jesu.
He knew his way about these holy houses, and exchanged a nod of
recognition with the lay brother on duty in the office.
Then this traveler hurried across the courtyard and out of the great gate
to join the pilgrims of the richer sort at table in the dining-room of
the restaurant. There were four who looked up from their plates and bowed
in the grave Spanish way when he entered the room. Then all fell to their
fish again in silence; for Spain is a silent country, and only babbles in
that home of fervid eloquence and fatal verbosity, the Cortes. It is
always dangerous to enter into conversation with a stranger in Spain, for
there is practically no subject upon which the various nationalities are
unable to quarrel. A Frenchman is a Frenchman all the world over, and
politics may be avoided by a graceful reference to the Patrie, for which
Republican and Legitimist are alike prepared to die. But the Spaniard may
be an Aragonese or a Valencian, an Andalusian or a Guipuzcoan, and
patriotism is a flower of purely local growth and colour.
Thus men, meeting in public places have learnt to do so in silence; and a
table d'hôte is a wordless function unless the inevitable Andalusian--he
who takes the place of the Gascon in France--is present with his babble
and his laugh, his fine opinion of himself, and his faculty for making a
sacrifice of his own dignity at that over-rated altar--the shrine of
sociability.
There was no Andalusian at this small table to serve at once as a link of
sympathy between the quiet men, who would fain silence him, and a means
of making unsociable persons acquainted with each other. The five men
were thus permitted to dine in a silence befitting their surroundings and
their station in life. For they were obviously gentlemen, and obviously
of a thoughtful and perhaps devout habit of mind. A keen observer who has
had the cosmopolitan education, say, of an attaché, is usually able to
assign a nationality to each member of a mixed assembly; but there was a
subtle resemblance to each other in these diners, which would have made
the task a hard one. These were citizens of the world, and their likeness
lay deeper than a mere accident of dress. In fact, the most remarkable
thing about them was that they were all alike studiously unremarkable.
After the formal bow, Evasio Mon gave his attention to the fare set
before him. Once he raised his narrow gaze, and, with a smile of
recognition, acknowledged the grave and very curt nod of a man seated
opposite. A second time he met the glance of another diner, a stout,
puffy man, who breathed heavily while he ate. Both men alike averted
their eyes at once, and both looked towards a little wizened man, doubled
up in his chair, who ate sparingly, and bore on his wrinkled face and
bent form, the evidence of such a weight of care as few but kings and
ministers ever know.
So absorbed was he that after one glance at Evasio Mon he lapsed again
into his own thoughts. The very manner in which he crumbled his bread and
handled his knife and fork showed that his mind was as busy as a mill. He
was oblivious to his surroundings; had forgotten his companions. His mind
had more to occupy it than one brief lifetime could hope to compass. Yet
he was so clearly a man in authority that a casual observer could
scarcely have failed to perceive that these devout pilgrims, from Italy,
from France, from far-off Poland, and Saragossa close at hand in
Catalonia, had come to meet him and were subordinate to him.
It was probably no small task to command such men as Evasio Mon--and the
other four seemed no less pliable behind their gentle smile.
When the dessert had been placed on the table and one or two had
reflectively eaten a baked almond, more from habit than desire, the
little wizened man looked round the table with the manner of a rather
absent-minded host.
"It is eight o'clock," he said in French. "The monastery gate closes at
half-past. We have no time to discuss our business at this table. Shall
we go within the monastery gates? There is a seat by the wall, near the
fountain, in the courtyard--"
He rose as he spoke, and it became at once apparent that this was a great
man. For all stood aside as he passed out, and one opened the door as to
a prince; of which amenities he took no heed.
The monastery is built against the sheer side of the mountain, perched on
a cornice, like a huge eagle's nest. The buildings have no pretense to
architectural beauty, and consist of barrack-like houses built around a
quadrangle. The chapel is at the farther end, and is, of course, the
centre of interest. Here is kept the sacred image, which has survived so
many chances and changes; which, hidden for a hundred and fifty years in
a cavern on the mountainside, made itself known at last by a miraculous
illumination at night, and for the further guidance of the faithful gave
forth a sweet scent. It, moreover, selected this spot for its shrine by
jibbing under the immediate eye of a bishop, and refusing to be carried
further up the mountain.
The house of Santa Maria de Jesu has the advantage of being at the outer
end of the quadrangle, and thus having no house opposite to it, faces a
sheer fall of three thousand feet. A fountain splashes in the courtyard
below, and a low wall forms a long seat where the devout pass the evening
hours in that curt and epigrammatic conversation, which is more peaceful
than the quick talk of Frenchmen, and deeper than the babble of Italy.
It was to this wall that the little wizened man led the way, and here
seated himself with a gesture, inviting his companions to do the same.
Had any idle observer been interested in their movements he would have
concluded that these were four travelers, probably pilgrims of the better
class, who had made acquaintance at the table d'hôte.
"I have come a long way," said the little man at once, speaking in the
rather rounded French of the Italian born, "and have left Rome at a time
when the Church requires the help of even the humblest of her servants--I
hope our good Mon has something important and really effective this time
to communicate."
Mon smiled at the implied reproach.
"And I, too, have come from far--from Warsaw," said the stout man,
breathing hard, as if to illustrate the length of his journey. "Let us
hope that there is something tangible this time."
He spoke with the gaiety and lightness of a Frenchman; for this was that
Frenchman of the North, a Pole.
Mon lighted a cigarette, with a gay jerk of the match towards the last
speaker, indicative of his recognition of a jest.
"Something," continued the Pole, "more than great promises--something
more stable than a castle--in Spain. Ha, ha! You have not taken Pampeluna
yet, my friend. One does not hear that Bilboa has fallen into the hands
of the Carlists. Every time we meet you ask for money. You must arrange
to give us something--for our money, my friend."
"I will arrange," answered Mon in his quiet, neat enunciation, "to give
you a kingdom."
And he inclined his head forward to look at the Pole through the upper
half of his gold-rimmed glasses.
"And not a vague republic in the region of the North Pole," said the
stout man with a laugh. "Well, who lives shall see."
"You want more money--is that it?" inquired the little wizened man, who
seemed to be the leader though he spoke the least--a not unusual
characteristic.
"Yes," replied the Spaniard.
"Your country has cost us much this year," said the little man, blinking
his colourless eyes and staring at the ground as if making a mental
calculation. "You have forced Germany and France into war. You have made
France withdraw her troops from Rome, and you gave Victor Emmanuel the
chance he awaited. You have given all Europe--the nerves."
"And now is the moment to play on those nerves," said Mon.
"With your clumsy Don Carlos?"
"It is not the man--it is the Cause. Remember that we are an ignorant
nation. It is the ignorant and the half educated who sacrifice all for a
cause."
"It is a pity you cannot buy a new Don Carlos with our money," put in the
Pole.
"This one will serve," was the reply. "One must look to the future. Many
have been ruined by success, because it took them by surprise. In case we
succeed, this one will serve. The Church does not want its kings to be
capable--remember that."
"But what does Spain want?" inquired the leader.
"Spain doesn't know."
"And this Prince of ours, whom you have asked to be your king. Is not
that a spoke in your wheel?" asked the man of few words.
"A loose spoke which will drop out. No one--not even Prim--thinks that he
will last ten years. He may not last ten months."
"But you have to reckon with the man. This son of Victor Emmanuel is
clever and capable. One can never tell what may arise in a brain that
works beneath a crown."
"We have reckoned with him. He is honest. That tells his tale. No honest
king can hope to reign over this country in their new Constitution. It
needs a Bourbon or a woman."
The quick, colourless eyes rested on Mon's face for a moment, and--who
knows?--perhaps they picked up Mon's secret in passing.
"Something dishonest, in a word," put in the Pole.
But nobody heeded him; for the word was with the leader.
"When last we met," he said at length, "and you received a large sum of
money, you made a distinct promise; unless my memory deceives me."
He paused, and no one suggested that his memory had ever made slip or
lapse in all his long career.
"You said you would not ask for money again unless you could show
something tangible--a fortress taken and held, a great General bought, a
Province won. Is that so?"
"Yes," answered Mon.
"Or else," continued the speaker, "in order to meet the very just
complaint from other countries, such as Poland for instance, that Spain
has had more than her share of the common funds--you would lay before us
some proposal of self-help, some proof that Spain in asking for help is
prepared to help herself by a sacrifice of some sort."
"I said that I would not ask for any sum that I could not double," said
Mon.
The little man sat blinking for some minutes silent in that absolute
stillness which is peculiar to great heights--and is so marked at
Montserrat that many cannot sleep there.
"I will give you any sum that you can double," he said, at length.
"Then I will ask you for three million pesetas."
All turned and looked at him in wonder. The fat man gave a gasp. With
three million pesetas he could have made a Polish republic. Mon only
smiled.
"For every million pesetas that you show me," said the little man, "I
will hand you another million--cash for cash. When shall we begin?"
"You must give me time," answered Mon, reflectively. "Say six months
hence."
The little man rose in response to the chapel bell, which was slowly
tolling for the last service of the day.
"Come," he said, "let us say a prayer before we go to bed."