A JESUIT’S TASK
Of all armies on earth, there is none with a discipline so perfect as
exists in the ranks of the Jesuits. No similar brotherhood embraces
so extensive a scheme; no society spreads its ramifications so wide
and deep. The soldier who enlists under that black banner abandons
at once and for ever his own affections, his own opinions, his own
responsibilities; nay, his very identity becomes fused in the general
organisation of his order. Florian de St. Croix, with his warm,
impulsive disposition, his tendency to self-sacrifice, and his romantic
temperament, had better have hanged round his neck any other millstone
than this.
As he walked rapidly down a long perspective of paved road, between
two lofty rows of poplars, his head bent low, his hands clenched, his
lips muttering, and his swift unequal strides denoting both impetuosity
and agitation, he seemed strangely and sadly altered from the bright
enthusiastic youth who sat with Abbé Malletort under the limes at
Versailles.
His very name had been put off, with every other association that could
connect the past life of the layman with the future labours of the
priest. He was known as Brother Ambrose now in the muster-rolls of the
order; though, out of it, he was still addressed as Florian by his former
friends. It was supposed, perhaps, in the wisdom of his superiors, that
the devoted knight could fight best under a plain shield on which no
achievements might ever be emblazoned, but which, in theory at least, was
to be preserved pure and stainless, until he was carried home on it from
his last field.
For Florian, indeed, the battle had already commenced. He was fighting
it now, fiercely, under that smiling summer sky, between those fragrant
meadows, fringed with flowering hedges, amongst the clustering orchards
and smiling farms, the green nooks, the gleaming waters, and the free,
fresh range of wooded hill and dale in pleasant Normandy. Little thought
the buxom peasant-woman, with her clean white cap, long earrings, and
handsome weather-beaten face, as she crossed herself in passing, and
humbly received the muttered benediction—how much of war was in his
breast who proffered peace to her and hers; or the prosperous farmer
riding by on his stamping grey stallion, with tail tied up, broad,
well-fed back, huge brass-bound saddle, and red-fronted bridle—how
enviable was his own contented ignorance compared with the learning
and imagination and aspirations running riot in the brain of that wan
hurrying priest. The fat curé, thinking of his dinner, his duties, and
the stone-fruit ripening on his wall, greeted him with professional
friendliness, tempered by profound respect; for in his person he beheld
the principle of self-devotion which constitutes the advance, the
vanguard, the very forlorn hope of an army in which he felt himself a
mere suttler or camp-follower at the best; but his sleep that afternoon
over a bottle of light wine in his leafy arbour would have been none the
sounder could he have known the horror of doubt and darkness that weighed
like lead on his brother’s spirit—the fears, the self-reproaches, the
anxieties that tore at his brother’s heart.
Yet the same sun was shining on them all; the same glorious landscape
of wood and water, waving corn and laughing upland—gold, and silver,
and blue, and green, and purple—spread out for their enjoyment; the
same wild-flowers blooming, the same wild-birds carolling, to delight
their senses; the same heaven looking down in tender pity on the wilful
blindness and reckless self-torture of mankind.
Florian had entered the order, believing that in so doing he adopted
the noblest career of chivalry below, to end in the proudest triumph of
victory above. Like the crusaders of the Middle Ages, he turned to his
profession, and beheld in it a means of ambition, excitement, influence
over his fellow-men, purchased—not at the sacrifice—but in the salvation
of his soul. Like them, he was to have the best of it both for earth
and heaven; like them, he was to submit to labour, privation, all the
harassing exigencies of warfare; but, like them, he was upheld by the
consciousness of power which springs from discipline and cohesion, by
an unselfish sentiment of professional pride, not more peculiar to the
soldier than the priest.
He took the vows of obedience—the blind, unreasoning, unhesitating
obedience exacted by the order—with a thrill of exultation. As a Jesuit,
he must henceforth know neither friendship nor affection; neither
sentiment, passion, nor self-regard. His brain must be always clear, his
eye keen, his hand ready; but brain must think, eye see, and hand strike
only in conformity with the will of a superior. He was to preserve every
faculty of nature except volition. He was to become a galvanised corpse
rather than a living man.
And now these hideous vows, this impossible obedience, must be put to the
test. Like the demoniacs of old, he writhed in torture as he walked. It
seemed that the evil spirit rent and tore the man because it could not
come out of him.
He was hurrying on foot to the convent of our Lady of Succour. He knew
every stone in that paved road as he knew the fingers on his own hand.
His superior had lately installed him confessor to the establishment;
_him_, young, handsome, impressionable, with his dark eyes and his loving
smile. There was another confessor, too, a stout old man, with a rosy
face and a kind heart, altogether, as it would seem, a far more judicious
appointment; but Florian’s duties brought him little in contact with the
nuns and lay amongst the young ladies, several of whom were daughters of
noble families, receiving their education in a pension attached to the
convent.
Of these, Brother Ambrose had been specially enjoined to turn his
attention to Mademoiselle de Montmirail; to obtain all the influence in
his power over the frank, innocent mind of that engaging girl; to win her
affections as much as possible from earthly vanities, to which, as she
was on the verge of womanhood, it is probable she was not disinclined;
and to lead her gradually into a train of thought that might at last
bring her home to the bosom of the Church as a nun. That Church would
at the same time protect her from temptation, by relieving her of the
earthly dross with which she would be encumbered, and which would pass
into its holy keeping the day the heiress should assume the black veil.
Besides the reversion of her mother’s wealth, she would inherit
considerable property of her own when she came of age. Had it been
otherwise, it is possible the same interest might not have been shown
for the insurance of her salvation, and Brother Ambrose might have been
making fires of camel’s dung in Tartary, or bearing witness by martyrdom
in Morocco, instead of hurrying through the shade of those quivering
poplars in homely, happy Normandy.
But as he approached the convent of our Lady of Succour, Brother
Ambrose—or Florian, as we shall call him for the present—reduced his walk
to a much slower step, and became conscious of a hot feeling about his
eyes, a cold moisture in the palms of his hands, that had no connection
with theology, polemics, or the usual duties of a priest. There are
proverbs used in the world, such as “Tit-for-tat;” “The biter bit;” “Go
for wool, and come back shorn,” which are applicable to ecclesiastics as
to laymen. It is no safer to play with edged tools in a convent than in
a ball-room, and it is a matter of the merest hazard who shall get the
best of an encounter in which the talents and education of a clever but
susceptible man are pitted against the bright looks and fresh roses of
girlhood at eighteen.
Florian had been enjoined to use every effort for the subjugation of
Mademoiselle de Montmirail. He was to be restricted by no considerations
such as hamper the proceedings of ordinary minds, for was not this one
of the fundamental principles of his order—“It is lawful to do evil
that good may come”? He had not, indeed, swallowed this maxim without
considerable repulsion, so utterly at variance, as it seemed, not only
with reason, but with that instinctive sentiment of right which is often
a surer guide than even reason itself; but he had been convinced against
his will by those under whose feet he had chosen to place his neck, and
had at last brought his opinions, if not his feelings, to the necessary
state of control. A few interviews with Mademoiselle de Montmirail in the
cool dark convent parlour—a few calm, still evenings in the quiet convent
garden, under the shade of the trellised beeches, amidst the fragrance
of the flower-beds and the heavy perfume of the syringa, waiting for the
rustle of that white dress along the gravel-walk—a few questions and
misgivings from the penitent—a few phrases of advice or encouragement
from the priest—and Florian found himself wildly, hopelessly, wickedly
in love with the girl whom it was his duty, his sacred duty on which
his soul’s salvation depended, to persuade, or lure, or force into a
cloister. These things come by degrees. No man can complain that timely
warning is not given him; yet the steps are so gradual, so easy, so
imperceptible, by which he descends into the pleasant flood, that it is
only when his footing is lost he becomes really aware of danger, or knows
he is sentenced, and must swim about in it till he drowns.
Florian’s task was to obtain influence over the girl. Thus he salved
his conscience till it was too late, and thus excused himself for the
eagerness with which he caught every glance of her eye and drank in
every tone of her voice. It was only when his own looks fell before
hers, when he trembled and turned pale at the sound of her step—when her
image—serene, and fair, and gracious—rose between him and the Cross at
which he knelt, that he knew his peril, his weakness and his sin.
But it was too late then; though he wrestled with the phantom, it
overcame him time by time. Prostrate, bleeding, vanquished, he would
confess with something of the bitterness of spirit and plaintive proud
self-sacrifice of a lost angel, that he had given his soul to Cerise and
did not grudge her the gift.
Not even though she refused to love him in return. Perhaps, after all,
this was the poisoned edge of the weapon—the bitter drop in the cup; and
yet had it been otherwise, it may be the young Jesuit could have found
strength to conquer his infatuation, self-sacrifice, to give up freely
that which was freely his own.
It was not so, however. The very innocence that guarded the girl, while
it lured him irresistibly to destruction, was the most insurmountable
barrier in his path; and so he hovered on, hoping that which he dared
not realise—wishing for all he felt he would yet be unwilling to accept;
striving for a prize unspeakably precious, though, perhaps I should say,
_because_ impossible of attainment, and which, even if he could win it,
he might not wear it so much as an hour. No wonder his heart beat and his
breath came quick, while he passed with stealthy gait into the convent
garden, a pitfall for the feet that walked in innocence—a black sheep in
a stainless flock—a leper where all the rest were clean.
But Cerise, radiant in her white dress, crossed the sunny lawn and came
down the accustomed path with more than their usual light shining in her
blue eyes, with a fresher colour than common on her soft young cheeks.
To him she had never looked so beautiful, so womanly, so attractive. The
struggle had been very fierce during his solitary walk; the defeat was
flagrant in proportion. He ought to have known a bitter disappointment
must be in store to balance the moment of rapture in which he became
conscious of her approach. Some emanation seemed to glorify the air all
around her, and to warn him of her presence long before she came. To the
lady-superior of the convent, to her elders and instructors, Mademoiselle
de Montmirail was nothing more than a well-grown damsel, with good eyes
and hair, neither more nor less frivolous and troublesome than her
fellows, with much room for improvement in the matters of education,
music, manners, and deportment; but to the young Jesuit she was simply—an
angel.
Cerise held both hands out to her director, with a greeting so frank
and cordial that it should have undeceived him on the spot. The
lady-superior, from her shaded windows, might or might not be a witness
to their interview, and there is no retreat perhaps of so much seclusion,
yet so little privacy, as a convent garden; but Cerise did not care
though nuns and lay-sisters and all overlooked her every gesture and
overheard every word she spoke.
“I am so pleased!” she burst out, clapping her hands, as soon as he
released them. “Wish me joy, good father! I have such happy news! My dear
kind mamma! And she writes to me herself! I knew the silk that fastened
it even before I saw her hand on the cover. Such good news! Oh, I am so
pleased! so pleased!”
She would have danced for pure joy had she not remembered she was nearly
eighteen. Also perhaps—for a girl’s heart is very pitiful—she may have
had some faint shadowy conception that the news so delightful to herself
would be less welcome to her companion.
He was looking at her with the admiration in his heart shining out of his
deep dark eyes.
“You have not told me what your good news is, my daughter,” he observed,
in a tone that made her glance into and away from his face, but that
sobered the effervescence of her gaiety like a charm.
“It is a long letter from mamma!” she said, “and a whole month before I
expected one. Judge if that is not charming. But, better still, I am to
go back to her very soon. I am to live with her at the Hôtel Montmirail.
She is fitting up my apartment already. I am to quit the convent when my
quarter is out!”
He knew it was coming. There is always consciousness of a blow for a
moment before it falls.
“Then you have but a few more days to remain in Normandy,” replied the
young priest; and again the change in his voice arrested her attention.
“My daughter, will you not regret the happy hours you have spent here,
the quiet, the repose of the convent, and—and—the loving friends you
leave behind?”
He glanced round while he spoke, and thought how different the white
walls, the drooping branches, the lawn, the flower-beds, and the walk
beneath the beeches would look when she was gone.
“Of course I shall never cease to love all those I have known here,” she
answered; and her eye met his own fearlessly, while there was no tinge
of sorrow such as he would have liked to detect in her voice. “But I am
going home, do you see! home to my dear mamma; and I shall be in Paris,
and assist at operas, and balls, and fêtes. My father! I fear, I shall
like it—oh! so much!”
There remained little time for further explanations. The refectory
bell was ringing, and Cerise must hurry in and present herself for her
ration of fruit and chocolate; to which refreshment, indeed, she seemed
more than usually inclined. Neither her surprise nor her feelings had
taken away her appetite, and she received her director’s benediction
with a humility respectful, edifying, and filial, as if he had been her
grandfather.
“I shall perhaps not visit you at the convent again, my daughter,” he
had said, revolving in his own mind a thousand schemes, a thousand
impossibilities, tinged alike with fierce, bitter disappointment; and to
this she had made answer meekly—
“But you will think of me very often, my father; and, oh, remember me, I
entreat of you, in your prayers!”
Then Florian knew that the edifice he had taken such pains to rear was
crumbling away before his eyes, because, in his anxiety to build it for
his own habitation, he had laid its foundations in the sand.