A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
_Being a Collection of Tales told at
an Unprofessional Symposium_
By
Rev. Robert Hugh Benson
Author of “The Sentimentalists,” etc.
_Primus est deorum cultus deos credere_
NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO
BENZIGER BROTHERS
PRINTERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE
1907
Copyright, 1907, by BENZIGER BROTHERS
Contents
PAGE
PROLOGUE 7
I MONSIGNOR MAXWELL’S TALE 21
II FATHER MEURON’S TALE 43
III FATHER BRENT’S TALE 67
IV THE FATHER RECTOR’S TALE 87
V FATHER GIRDLESTONE’S TALE
(i), (ii), (iii) 109
VI FATHER BIANCHI’S TALE 167
VII FATHER JENKS’ TALE 183
VIII FATHER MARTIN’S TALE 205
IX MR. BOSANQUET’S TALE 229
X FATHER MACCLESFIELD’S TALE 259
XI FATHER STEIN’S TALE 277
XII MR. PERCIVAL’S TALE 289
XIII MY OWN TALE 313
PROLOGUE
“I maintain,” said Monsignor with a brisk air of aggressiveness, and
holding his pipe a moment from his mouth, “I maintain that agnosticism
is the only reasonable position in these matters. Your common agnostic
is no agnostic at all; he is the most dogmatic of sectarians. He
declares that such things do not happen, or that they can be explained
always on a materialistic basis. Now, your Catholic----”
Father Bianchi bristled and rolled his black eyes fiercely. If he had
had a moustache he would have twirled it.
We were sitting in the upstairs _sala_ of the presbytery attached
to the Canadian Church of S. Filippo in Rome. It had been a large,
comfortless room, stone floored, stone walled, and plaster ceilinged,
but it had been made possible by numerous rugs, a number of armchairs,
and an English fireplace. Above, in the cold plaster, dingy,
flesh-colored gods and nymphs attempted to lounge on cotton clouds
with studied ease, looking down dispiritedly upon seven priests and
myself, a layman, who sat in a shallow semicircle round the red logs.
In 1871 the house had fallen into secular hands, whence issued the gods
and nymphs, but in 1897 the Church had come by her own again, and had
not yet banished Olympus. There was no need to annihilate the conquered.
In the centre sat the Father Rector, a placid old man, and round
about him were the rest of us--Monsignor Maxwell, a French priest, an
English, an Italian, a Canadian, a German, and myself. This was five
years ago. I do not know where these people are now--one I think is in
heaven, two I should suppose in purgatory, four on earth. In spite of
my feelings toward Padre Bianchi, I should assign him to purgatory. He
made a good death two years later in the Naples epidemic.
We had begun at supper by discussing modern miracles. The second
nocturn had furnished the text to the mouth of Monsignor, and we had
passed on by natural channels to levitation, table-turning, family
curses, ghosts, and banshees. The Italian was sceptical and scornful.
Such things, in his opinion, did not take place; he excepted only the
incidents recorded in the lives of the saints. I did not mind his
scepticism (that, after all, injures no one but the sceptic), but scorn
and contumely is another matter, and I was glad that Canon Maxwell
had taken him in hand, for that priest has a shrewd and acrid tongue,
and wears purple, besides, round his person and on his buttons, so he
speaks with authority.
“You have some tale, then, no doubt, Monsignor?” sneered the Italian.
The Englishman smiled with tight lips.
“Every one has,” he said briefly. “Even you, Padre Bianchi, if you will
but tell it.”
The other shook his head indulgently.
“I will swear,” he said, “that none here has such a tale at first hand.”
It was Father Meuron’s turn to bristle.
“But yes!” he exclaimed.
Canon Maxwell drew on his pipe a moment or two and regarded the fire.
“I have a proposition to make,” he said. “Father Bianchi is right. I
have one tale, and Father Meuron has another. With the Father Rector’s
permission we will tell our tales, one each night. On Sunday two or
three of us are supping at the French College, so that shall be a
holiday, and by Monday night these other gentlemen will no doubt have
remembered experiences--even Father Bianchi, I believe. And Mr. Benson
shall write them all down, if he wishes to, and make an honest penny or
two, if he can get any publisher to take the book.”
I hastened to express my approval of the scheme.
The Father Rector moved in his chair.
“That will be very amusing, Monsignor. I am entirely in favor of it,
though I doubt my own capacity. I propose that Canon Maxwell takes the
chair.”
“Then I understand that all will contribute one story,” said Monsignor
briskly, “on those terms----?”
There was a chorus of assent.
“One moment, Monsignor,” interrupted Father Brent; “would it not be
worth while to have a short discussion first as to the whole affair? I
must confess that my own ideas are not clear.”
“Well,” said Monsignor shortly, “on what point?”
The younger priest mused a moment.
“It is like this,” he said; “half at least of the stories one hears
have no point--no reason. Take the ordinary haunted-house tale or the
appearances at the time of death. Now, what is the good of all that?
They tell us nothing; they don’t generally ask for prayers. It is just
a white woman wringing her hands, or a groaning or something. At the
best one only finds a skeleton behind the panelling. Now, my story, if
I tell it, has absolutely no point at all.”
“No point?” said Monsignor; “you mean that you don’t understand the
point, or that no one does; is that it?”
“Well, yes; but there is more, too. How do you square these things
with purgatory? How can spirits go wandering about, and be so futile
at the end of it, too? Then why is everything so vague? Why don’t
they give us a hint? I’m not wanting precise information, but a kind
of hint of the way things go. Then the whole thing is mixed up with
such childish nonsense. Look at the spiritualists, and the tambourine
business, and table-rapping. Either those things are true, even if
they’re diabolical--and in that case people in the spiritual world seem
considerably sillier even than people in this--or they’re not true; and
in that case the whole thing is so fraudulent that it seems useless to
inquire. Do you see my point?”
“I see about twenty,” said Monsignor; “and it would take all night to
answer them. But let me take two. Firstly, I am entirely willing to
allow that half the stories one hears are fraudulent or hysterical--I’m
quite ready to allow that. But it seems to me that there remain a good
many others; and if one doesn’t accept those to some extent, I don’t
know what becomes of the value of human evidence. Now, one of your
points, I take it, is that even these seem generally quite pointless
and useless; is that it?”
“More or less,” said Father Brent.
“Well, first I would say this: It seems perfectly clear that these
other stories aren’t sent to help our faith, or anything like that.
I don’t believe that for one instant. We have got all we need in the
Catholic Church, and the moral witness, and the rest. But what I don’t
understand in your position is this: What earthly right have you got to
think that they’re sent just for your benefit?”
The other demurred.
“I don’t,” he said; “but I suppose they’re sent for somebody’s benefit.”
“Somebody still on earth, you mean?”
“Well--yes.”
Monsignor leaned forward.
“My dear Father, how very provincial you are--if I may say so! Here
is this exceedingly small earth, certainly with a very fair number of
people living on it, but absolutely a mere fraction of the number of
intelligences that are in existence. And all about us--since we must
use that phrase--is a spiritual world compared with which the present
generation is as a family of ants in the middle of London. Things
happen; this spiritual world is crammed full of energy and movement and
affairs.... We know practically nothing of it all, except those few
main principles which are called the Catholic Faith--nothing else. What
conceivable right have we to demand that the little glimpses that we
seem to get sometimes of the spiritual world are given to us for our
benefit or information?”
“Then why are they given?”
Monsignor made a disdainful sound with closed lips.
“My dear Father, a boy drops a piece of orange peel into the middle
of the ants’ nest one day. The ants summon a council at once and sit
on it. They discuss the lesson that is to be learned from the orange
peel; they come to the conclusion that Buckingham Palace must be built
entirely of orange peel, and that the reason why it was sent to them
was that they were to learn that great and important lesson.”
Father Brent sat up suddenly.
“My dear Monsignor, you seem to me to strike at the root of Revelation.
If we aren’t to deduce things from supernatural incidents, why should
we believe in our religion?”
Monsignor lifted a hand.
“Next day there is slid into the ants’ nest a box divided into
compartments, containing exactly that which the ants need for the
winter--food and so forth. The ants hold another Parliament. Two-thirds
of them who have determined in the last hour or two to reject the
Buckingham-Palace-orange-peel theory reject this, too. All is
fortuitous, they say. The orange peel was, therefore the box is.”
Father Brent relapsed, smiling.
“That is all right,” he said; “I was a fool.”
“One-third,” continued the Canon severely, “come to the not
unreasonable conclusion that a box which shows such evident signs of
intelligence, and of knowledge and care for their circumstances,
proceeds from an Intelligence which wishes them well. But there
is a further schism. Half of those who accept Revelation remain
agnostic about most other things, and say frankly that they don’t
know--especially as regards the orange peel. The other half rages
on about the orange peel; some are inclined to think that there was
no orange peel--it was no more than an hallucination; others think
that there is some remarkable lesson to be learned from it, and these
differ evidently as to what the lesson is. Others, again, regard it
unintelligently and say to one another, ‘Look, a piece of orange peel!
How very beautiful and important!’”
I laughed softly to myself. Monsignor spoke with such earnestness. I
would like him to be my advocate if I ever get into trouble.
“Now, my dear Father,” he went on, “I take up the first position of
those who accept Revelation, and I acknowledge the fact of the orange
peel; but really nothing more. My religion teaches me that there is a
spiritual world of indefinite size; and that things not only may, but
must, go on there which have nothing particular to do with me. Every
now and then I get a glimpse of some of these things--an orange pip
at the very least. But I don’t immediately demand an explanation. It
probably isn’t deliberately meant for me at all. It has something to do
with affairs of which I know nothing, and which manage to get on quite
well without me.”
Father Brent, still smiling, protested once more.
“Very ingenious, Monsignor; but then why does it happen to happen to
you?”
“I have not the slightest idea, any more than I have the slightest idea
why Providence made me break a tooth this morning. I accept the fact;
I believe that somehow it works into the scheme. But I do not for that
reason desire to understand it.... And as for purgatory--well, I ask
you, what in the world do we know about purgatory except that there is
such a thing, and that the souls of the faithful detained there are
assisted by our suffrages? What conceivable possibility is there that
we should understand the details of its management? My dear Father, no
one in this world has a greater respect for, or confidence in, dogmatic
theology than myself; in fact, I may say that it is the only thing
which I do have confidence in. But I respect the limits which it itself
has laid down.”
“Then you are an agnostic as regards everything but the Faith?”
“Certainly I am. Well, possibly, except mathematics, too. And so is
every wise man. I have my ideas, of course, and I make guesses
sometimes; but I really do not think that they have any value.”
There was silence a moment.
“Then there is this, too,” he continued; “it really is important to
remember that the spiritual world exists in another mode from that
in which the material world exists. That is where the ant simile
breaks down. It is more as if an ant went to the Royal Academy.... Of
course, in the Faith we have an adequate and guaranteed translation
of the supernatural into the natural and _vice versa_; and in these
ghost stories, or whatever we call them, we have a certain sort of
translation, too. The real thing, whatever it is, expresses itself in
material terms, more or less. But in these we have no sort of guarantee
that the translation is adequate, or that we are adequate to understand
it. We can try, of course; but we really don’t know. Therefore it
seems to me that in all ghost stories the best thing is to hear it, to
satisfy ourselves that the evidence is good or bad--and then to hold
our tongues. We don’t want elaborate commentaries on what may be, after
all, an utterly corrupt text.”
“But some of them do support the Faith,” put in Father Brent.
“So much the better, then. But it is much safer not to lean your weight
on them. You never can tell. Now, with the Faith you can.”
There was another silence.
Then the Rector stood up, smiling.
“Night prayers, reverend Fathers,” he said.
I
_Monsignor Maxwell’s Tale_
I was still thinking over the Canon’s remarks as I came up into the
_sala_ on the following evening. They seemed to me eminently sensible;
or, in other words, they exactly represented what I had always held
myself, though I had never so expressed them even to my own mind.
I felt some interest, therefore, in the question as to the class to
which Monsignor’s own story would be found to belong--whether to that
which contains merely a series of phenomena or to that which appeared
to corroborate the Christian Religion.
The rest of the company, with two or three strangers, were already in
their places when I arrived, and Monsignor was enthroned in the centre
chair, staring with a preoccupied look at the blazing fire. The Rector
was on his right.
The conversation died away at last; there was a shifting of attitudes.
Then the Canon looked at his watch, bending his sleek gray head
sideways.
“We have twenty minutes,” he said in his terse way. Then he crossed his
buckled feet and began without any preliminary comment.
“This happened to me in England. Naturally I shall not mention where
it took place, nor how long ago. I knew a man, a Catholic from birth,
of a remarkable faith and piety. He had tried his vocation in Religion
again and again, for he seemed a born Religious, but his health had
always broken down, and he had finally married. He had been told by his
Director that his vocation was evidently to live in the world and as a
layman. Whether I agree or disagree with the latter part of his advice
is not to the point, but there was no question as to the former part
of it. The man’s health simply could not stand it. But he led a most
mortified and interior life with his wife in his London house, with a
servant or two to look after them, and was present daily at mass at
the church that I served then. His wife, too, was a very exceptional
woman, utterly devoted to her husband, and I may say that I never paid
them a visit without being very much the better for it.
“Now, he had a brother, a solicitor in a town in the North, also a
Catholic, of course, whom I never saw, but who enters very materially
into the story. We will call the brothers, if you please, Mr. James and
Mr. Herbert, though I need not say that these were not their names.
“One morning after mass Mr. James came to me in the sacristy and said
he wished to have a word with me, so I took him through into the
presbytery and up into my own room. I could see that something was very
much the matter with him.
“He took a letter out and gave it to me to read. It was from his
brother, Mr. Herbert, and contained very sad news indeed--nothing else,
in fact, than an announcement of his intention to secede from the
Church. There was a story of a marriage difficulty, too, as there so
often is in such cases. He had fallen in love with a woman of strong
agnostic convictions, and nothing would induce her to marry him unless
he conformed to her religion, such as it was. But, to do Mr. Herbert
justice, I could see that there was a real loss of faith as well. There
were two or three sheets filled with arguments that I could see were
real to the man--or statements, perhaps, rather than arguments--against
the Incarnation and the inspiration of the Scriptures and the authority
of the Church, and so on, and I must confess that they were not
mere clap-trap. The woman was plainly capable and shrewd, and had
been talking to him, and both his heart and his head were seriously
entangled.
“Well, I handed the letter back to Mr. James, and said what I
could--recommended a book or two, promised to get him prayers, and so
on, but the man waved it aside.
“‘Yes, yes, Father,’ he said; ‘I know, and I thank you, but I must do
more than that. You don’t know what this means to me. I got the letter
yesterday at midday, and I may say that I have done nothing but pray
since, and this morning at mass I saw a light; at least, I think so,
and I want your advice.’
“He was terribly excited, his eyes were bright and the lines in his
face deeper than I had ever seen them, for he was only just entering
middle age, and the papers shook in his hands. I did my best to quiet
him, but it was no good. All his tranquillity, which had been one of
his most striking virtues, was gone, and I could see that his whole
being was rent.
“‘You don’t know what this means to me,’ he said again. ‘There is only
one thing to be done. I must offer myself for him.’
“Well, I didn’t understand him at first, but we talked a little, and at
last I found that the idea of mystical substitution had seized on his
mind. He was persuaded that he must make an offering of himself to God,
and ask to be allowed to bear the temptation instead of his brother. Of
course, we know that that is one of the claims of the Contemplative,
but, to tell the truth, I had never come across it before in my own
experience.
“Well, he didn’t want my opinion upon the doctrine, and, indeed, I was
glad he didn’t, for I knew nothing about it myself; but he wanted to
know if I thought him justified in running the risk--for he seemed to
take it as a matter of course that I believed it.
“‘Am I strong enough, Father?’ he asked. ‘Can I bear it? I cannot
imagine my losing my faith,’ and a smile just flickered on his mouth
and vanished again in trembling; ‘but--but God knows how weak I am.’
“Well, I reassured him on that point, at any rate, and told him that so
far as his faith was concerned I considered it robust enough. To tell
the truth, I suppose I was a little careless, because--because”--and
Monsignor shifted a little in his chair and looked around--“well it was
all so bewildering.
“Well, he soon went after that, saying that he would tell his wife, and
imploring me to get prayers for him in his struggle, and I was left
alone to think it over.
“For the next day or two he appeared at mass as usual, and just waited
for me one morning to tell me that he had made the offering of himself
before God. Then I had to go into the country on some business or other
and was away from Monday to Saturday.
“Now, to tell the truth, I did not think of him very much; I was
harassed and bothered myself about my business, and scarcely did more
than just mention his name at the altar, and I am ashamed to say I
completely forgot to get prayers elsewhere for his brother or himself,
and I was entirely unprepared for what was waiting for me when I
reached home on the Saturday evening.”
Monsignor paused a moment or two. He was evidently speaking with a
certain difficulty. His brisk, business-like way of talking had just
a tinge of feeling in it which it generally lacked, and he moved in
his chair now and then with something almost like nervousness. The
other priests were silent. The young Englishman was bending forward in
the firelight with his chin on his hands, and old Father Stein had
sat back in his chair very quiet and was shading his face from the
candlelight.
“My housekeeper heard my key in the lock of the front door,” went on
Canon Maxwell, “and was waiting for me in the hall. She told me that
Mr. James’ wife had sent round four times for me that afternoon, saying
she must have me at once on my return, and that any delay might be
fatal. But it was not a case for the Last Sacraments, apparently. I was
astonished by such phrases, but they were evidently word for word what
she had said, for my housekeeper apologized for repeating them.
“‘There is something terribly the matter, Father,’ she said; ‘the last
time the servant was crying, and said that her master was out of his
mind.’
“Well, I ran into church and told my penitents there that they must
wait, or go to my colleague, and that I had had a sick call and did
not know how long I should be away; and then I ran straight out of the
church and down to the house, which was three or four streets off.
(You must forgive my telling you this story with so many details; but
somehow it is the only way I can do it; it is all as vivid and clear as
if it had happened last week.)...
“It was a November evening; all the lamps were lit as I passed out
of the thoroughfare down the side road where his house was; here the
pavements were empty, and I ran again as fast as I could down the
street and up the steps that led to his front door. Even as I stood
there out of breath I knew that something was seriously wrong.
“Down in the kitchen below, as I could see plainly through the lighted
windows, the Irish cook had been kneeling with her face hidden on the
table; and she was now staring up at me with her eyes red and her hair
disordered as the peal of the bell died away. Then she was out in the
area almost screaming:
“‘Oh, God bless you, Father!’ and then the door opened and I was in the
hall.
“‘Where is he?’ I asked the maid, all panting with my run; and she
told me, ‘In his study,’ and then I was up at the door in a moment,
knocking, and then, without waiting, I went in.
“It was one of those little back rooms that you see sometimes in London
houses, just at the top of the stairs that lead down to the servants’
quarters. There was a little garden at the back of the house and a side
street beyond that. The curtains over the window had not been drawn,
and a lamp shone into the room from the lane outside. But I did not
understand that at the time. I was only aware that the room was dark,
except for a pale light that lay across the floor and wall and on the
door that I closed behind me.
“But the horror of the room was beyond anything that I have ever felt.
It--it”--Monsignor hesitated--“it was almost physical, and yet I knew
it was not, but it was the sense of some extraordinary influence,
spiritual and on the point of--” He stopped again. “You must forgive
me,” he said, “but I can put it in no way but this--it seemed on the
point of expressing itself visibly or tangibly; at any rate, I felt my
hair rise slowly as I stood there, and then I leaned back against the
door and groped for the handle.”
Old Father Stein nodded gravely.
“I know, I know,” he said in his heavy voice; “it was so with me at
Benares.”
“It was so dark at first,” went on Monsignor, “that I could see nothing
but the outlines of the furniture. There was the writing table, and so
on, immediately on my left, the fireplace beyond it in the left-hand
wall, a tall bureau beside the window opposite me. Then I felt my hand
seized and gripped in the dark, and I looked down, horribly startled,
and saw that his wife had been kneeling at his _prie-dieu_ on the
right, and had turned and clutched my hand as she saw me in the light
of the street lamp, but she said nothing, and her silence was the worst
of all.
“I looked again round the room and then suddenly gasped and, I must
confess, nearly screamed, because quite close to me the man sat and
stared up at me. I had been confused as I came in, and I believe now
that I only had not seen him, because I had taken the dark outline of
his body and the whiteness of his face to be a little side-table with
papers upon it that often stood by his writing-place.
“Well, however that was, here was the man quite close to me, sitting
bolt upright, with the lamplight falling on that deadly face, all lined
as it was, with patches of dark beneath those awful, bright eyes.”
Monsignor stopped again, and I could see that the hand on his chair arm
twitched sharply once or twice.
“Well, two or three times, I should think, I opened my mouth to speak,
and I have never known before or since what it was literally not to
be able to do it. It was as if a hand gripped my throat each time.
I suppose it was a kind of hysterical contraction of the muscles. I
understood then why the wife could not speak. The only emotion I was
conscious of was an insane desire to get out of the room and the house,
away from that terrifying silence and oppressiveness; and, under God, I
believe that the one thing that kept me there was that frightful grip
on my fingers, that tightened as if the wife read my thoughts even as
the desire surged up.
“I stood there, I suppose, half a minute more before I moved or spoke,
and then I made a little motion, and drew my fingers out of hers, and
made the sign of the cross, and even then I dared not speak. But the
face remained still in that tense quietness and the bright, sunken eyes
never flinched or stirred.
“Then I dropped on my knees; and at last with really an extraordinary
effort, as if I was breaking something, I managed to speak and say a
prayer or two--the _Our Father_ and the _Hail, Mary_; I could remember
nothing else. Then I glanced at him quickly, and he had not stirred,
but was watching me with a kind of bitter indifference--that is all I
can say of it. I went on with the creed, finished it, said Amen, and
then one loud, harsh bark of laughter broke from him, and--and--I could
swear that something else laughed, too.”
A sharp exclamation broke from Father Brent, and a kind of sigh from
the French priest as Monsignor suddenly sat up and struck his hand on
his knee at his last word, and my own heart leaped and stood still,
while my nerves jangled like struck wires.
“There, there,” said the Rector; “our nerves are out of order; be kind
to us, Monsignor.”
He shook his head.
“But I must tell you,” he said, “though I hardly know what words
to use.... This other laughter was not like his. I could not swear
that--that there was a vibration of sound. It might have been interior,
but it was there; it was objective and external to me.... Only I was
absolutely convinced that there was laughter, neither mine, nor the
man’s, nor his wife’s. There; that is all I can say of it.”
He paused a moment.
“Well,” he went on, “we got him upstairs at last, and on his bed. I
tell you it was a very odd relief to get out of the room downstairs.
He had not slept, his wife whispered to me as we went up, for four
nights--not since the Monday, in fact, and had scarcely eaten, either.
There was no time to hear more, for he turned round as he walked up
and looked at us as we held him, and there was no more talking with
that face before us. And there we sat beside him in his bedroom--he lay
quiet with closed eyes--and I did not dare to leave him till three or
four in the morning, when I was nearly dead with weariness. His wife
made me go then, and promised to send again if there was any change.
“Well, during the sung mass, at which I was not officiating, the
message came, and I was back at his house directly. There had been a
change; he was now willing to talk. He looked ghastly, but his wife
told me that she thought he had slept an hour or two after I had left.
“Well, we talked, and I found that the man’s faith was gone--or perhaps
it is safer to say completely obscured. I scarcely know how to express
it, but it was as if he had practically no conception of what I was
talking about.
“‘I believed it once,’ he said; ‘yes, I am sure I did, but I can’t
imagine why or how.’”
“‘Then what is all this trouble of mind about?’ I asked.
“‘Why,’ he said, ‘why, if it is not true, what is left?’
“I didn’t quite see what he meant, and asked him.
“‘You,’ he said, and just touched me with his finger; ‘you and I,’ and
he touched himself, ‘and--and--all this,’ and he tapped the table,
‘and--all that,’ and he flung his arm out toward the window and the
chimney-pots and the bustling thoroughfare. ‘All of it--all of it--what
does it all mean; what is the good of it?’
“It was a piteous thing to see his face, the blackness and the misery
of his despair at an empty, meaningless world and a self that could do
nothing but writhe and cry in the dark.
“You see the whole thing for him stood or fell by God, lived and moved
in Him; now God was gone, and what was left?
“Well, of course I reminded him of his offering of himself to God for
his brother. God had accepted it, I told him; and he just laughed
miserably in my face.
“‘Do you think Herbert suffered like this?’ he asked.
“Well, I was tired and bewildered, and this seemed to me an answer. Of
course you all see the explanation.”
“The other suffered less because his faith was less,” put in Father
Brent instantly.
“Exactly,” said Monsignor. “Well, I am ashamed to say I didn’t see
that, at least not clearly enough to put it to him; but I did point out
that it was of the very essence of his contract that he should suffer
severely in the very manner in which he was suffering, and that the
coincidence was remarkable; and, further, that the fact that he was in
such distress showed that God was something to him after all. I don’t
know even then that I accepted the whole thing as being quite real. But
what else could I say?... Well, he smiled again at that.
“‘Have you never regretted a happy dream?’ he said.
“Well, I am wearying you,” said Monsignor, looking at his watch, “but I
am just at the end. I went to that man every day for, I suppose, two or
three hours for five or six weeks, and it seemed practically useless.
I had never realized before so completely that faith was a gift which
can be given or withdrawn; that it is something infused into us, not
produced by us. Finally the man died of congestion of the brain.”
“Good Lord!” said a voice.
“Yes,” said Canon Maxwell, blowing down his pipe, “those--those were my
sentiments.”
“Monsignor! Do you mean he died without faith?”
“Father Jenks, I gave him the sacraments. He asked for them. I did not
press too many questions; I thought it best to leave well alone.”
“And the brother?”
“Oh, the brother--Mr. Herbert--was at the funeral, and informed me that
the marriage was broken off, and I never heard of his apostasy. And
there was one other person who contributed to the interest of the whole
affair, and that was the wife.”
“What happened to her?”
“She became a Poor Clare. She told me that self-immolation was the only
possible act for her after what she had seen and known.”
There was a long silence.
“Well, well, well,” said Father Bianchi.
II
_Father Meuron’s Tale_
Father Meuron was very voluble at supper on the Saturday. He exclaimed;
he threw out his hands; his bright black eyes shone above his rosy
cheeks, and his hair appeared to stand more on end than I had ever
known it.
He sat at the further side of the horse-shoe table from myself, and I
was able to remark on his gaiety to the English priest who sat beside
me without fear of being overheard.
Father Brent smiled.
“He is drunk with _la gloire_,” he said. “He is to tell the story
to-night.”
This explained everything.
I did not look forward, however, to his recital. I was confident that
it would be full of tinsel and swooning maidens who ended their days in
convents under Father Meuron’s spiritual direction; and when we came
upstairs I found a shadowy corner, a little back from the semicircle,
where I could fall asleep if I wished without provoking remark.
In fact, I was totally unprepared for the character of his narrative.
When we had all taken our places, and Monsignor’s pipe was properly
alight, and himself at full length in his deck chair, the Frenchman
began. He told his story in his own language; but I am venturing to
render it in English as nearly as I am able.
* * * * *
“My contribution to the histories,” he began, seated in his upright
arm-chair in the centre of the circle, a little turned away from
me--“my contribution to the histories which these good priests are
to recite is an affair of exorcism. That is a matter with which we
who live in Europe are not familiar in these days. It would seem, I
suppose, that grace has a certain power, accumulating through the
centuries, of saturating even physical objects with its force. However,
men may rebel, yet the sacrifices offered and the prayers poured out
have a faculty of holding Satan in check and preventing his more
formidable manifestations. Even in my own poor country at this hour,
in spite of widespread apostasy, in spite even of the deliberate
worship of Satan, yet grace is in the air; and it is seldom indeed that
a priest has to deal with a case of possession. In your respectable
England, too, it is the same; the simple piety of Protestants has kept
alive to some extent the force of the Gospel. Here in this country
of Italy it is somewhat different. The old powers have survived the
Christian assault, and while they cannot live in Holy Rome, there are
corners where they do so.”
From my place I saw Padre Bianchi turn a furtive eye upon the speaker,
and I thought I read in it an unwilling assent.
“However,” went on the Frenchman with a superb dismissory gesture,
“my recital does not concern this continent, but the little island
of La Souffrière. There circumstances are other than here. It was a
stronghold of darkness when I was there in 1891. Grace, while laying
hold of men’s hearts, had not yet penetrated the lower creation.
Do you understand me? There were many holy persons whom I knew, who
frequented the Sacraments and lived devoutly, but there were many of
another manner. The ancient rites survived secretly among the negroes,
and darkness--how shall I say it?--dimness made itself visible.
“However, to our history.”
The priest resettled himself in his chair and laid his fingers together
like precious instruments. He was enjoying himself vastly, and I could
see that he was preparing himself for a revelation.
“It was in 1891,” he repeated, “that I went there with another of our
Fathers to the mission-house. I will not trouble you, gentlemen, with
recounting the tale of our arrival, nor of the months that followed
it, except perhaps to tell you that I was astonished by much that I
saw. Never until that time had I seen the power of the Sacraments so
evident. In civilized lands, as I have suggested to you, the air is
charged with grace. Each is no more than a wave in the deep sea. He
who is without God’s favor is not without His grace at each breath he
draws. There are churches, religions, pious persons about him; there
are centuries of prayers behind him. The very buildings he enters, as
M. Huysmann has explained to us, are browned by prayer. Though a wicked
child, he is yet in his father’s house: and the return from death to
life is not such a crossing of the abyss, after all. But there in La
Souffrière all is either divine or Satanic, black or white, Christian
or devilish. One stands, as it were, on the seashore to watch the
breakers of grace, and each is a miracle. I tell you I have seen holy
Catechumens foam at the mouth and roll their eyes in pain, as the
saving water fell on them, and that which was within went out. As the
Gospel relates, ‘_Spiritus conturbavit illum: et elisus in terram,
volutabatur spumans._’”
Father Meuron paused again.
* * * * *
I was interested to hear this corroboration of evidence that had come
before me on other occasions. More than one missionary had told me the
same thing; and I had found in their tales a parallel to those related
by the first preachers of the Christian religion in the early days of
the Church.
“I was incredulous at first,” continued the priest, “until I saw these
things for myself. An old father of our mission rebuked me for it.
‘You are an ignorant fellow,’ he said; ‘your airs are still of the
seminary.’ And what he said was just, my friends.
“On one Monday morning as we met for our council I could see that this
old priest had somewhat to say. M. Lasserre was his name. He kept very
silent until the little businesses had been accomplished, and then he
turned to the Father Rector.
“‘Monseigneur has written,’ he said, ‘and given me the necessary
permission for the matter you know, my father. And he bids me take
another priest with me. I ask that Father Meuron may accompany me. He
needs a lesson, this zealous young missionary.’
“The Father Rector smiled at me as I sat astonished, and nodded at
Father Lasserre to give permission.
“‘Father Lasserre will explain all to you,’ he said as he stood up for
the prayer.
* * * * *
“The good priest explained all to me as the Father Rector had directed.”
* * * * *
“It appeared that there was a matter of exorcism on hand. A woman who
lived with her mother and husband had been affected by the devil,
Father Lasserre said. She was a Catechumen, and had been devout for
several months, and all seemed well until this--this assault had been
made on her soul. Father Lasserre had visited the woman and examined
her, and had made his report to the Bishop, asking permission to
exorcise the creature, and it was this permission that had been sent
on that morning.
“I did not venture to tell the priest that he was mistaken and that
the affair was one of epilepsy. I had studied a little in books for
my medical training, and all that I heard now seemed to confirm me in
the diagnosis. There were the symptoms, easy to read. What would you
have?”--the priest again made his little gesture--“I knew more in my
youth than all the Fathers of the Church. Their affairs of devils were
nothing but an affection of the brain--dreams and fancies! And if the
exorcisms had appeared to be of direct service, it was from the effect
of the solemnity upon the mind. It was no more.”
He laughed with a fierce irony.
“You know it all, gentlemen!”
I had lost all desire to sleep now. The French priest was more
interesting than I had thought. His elaborateness seemed dissipated;
his voice trembled a little as he arraigned his own conceit, and I
began to wonder how his change of mind had been wrought.
* * * * *
“We set out that afternoon,” he continued. “The woman lived on the
further side of the island, perhaps a couple of hours’ travel, for it
was rough going; and as we went up over the path Father Lasserre told
me more.
“It seemed that the woman blasphemed. (The subconscious self, said I to
myself, as M. Charcot has explained. It is her old habit reasserting
itself.)
“She foamed and rolled her eyes. (An affection of the brain, said I.)
“She feared holy water; they dared not throw it on her, her struggles
were so fierce. (Because she has been taught to fear it, said I.)
“And so the good father talked, eyeing me now and again, and I smiled
in my heart, knowing that he was a simple old fellow who had not
studied the new books.
“She was quieter after sunset, he told me, and would take a little food
then. Her fits came on her for the most part at midday. And I smiled
again at that. Why it should be so I knew. The heat affected her. She
would be quieter, science would tell us, when evening fell. If it were
the power of Satan that held her she would surely rage more in the
darkness than in the light. The Scriptures tell us so.
“I said something of this to Father Lasserre, as if it were a question,
and he looked at me.
“‘Perhaps, brother,’ he said, ‘she is more at ease in the darkness and
fears the light, and that she is quieter therefore when the sun sets.’
“Again I smiled to myself. What piety, said I, and what foolishness!
* * * * *
“The house where the three lived stood apart from any others. It was
an old shed into which they had moved a week before, for the neighbors
could no longer bear the woman’s screaming. And we came to it toward
sunset.
“It was a heavy evening, dull and thick, and as we pushed down the path
I saw the smoking mountain high on the left hand between the tangled
trees. There was a great silence round us, and no wind, and every leaf
against the rosy sky was as if cut of steel.
“We saw the roof below us presently, and a little smoke escaped from a
hole, for there was no chimney.
“‘We will sit here a little, brother,’ said my friend. ‘We will not
enter till sunset.’
“And he took out his office book and began to say his Matins and Lauds,
sitting on a fallen tree-trunk by the side of the path.
“All was very silent about us. I suffered terrible distractions, for
I was a young man and excited; and though I knew it was no more than
epilepsy that I was to see, yet epilepsy is not a good sight to regard.
But I was finishing the first Nocturn when I saw that Father Lasserre
was looking off his book.
“We were sitting thirty yards from the roof of the hut, which was built
in a scoop of the ground, so that the roof was level with the ground on
which we sat. Below it was a little open space, flat, perhaps twenty
yards across, and below that yet further was the wood again, and far
over that was the smoke of the village against the sea. There was the
mouth of a well with a bucket beside it; and by this was standing a
man, a negro, very upright, with a vessel in his hand.
“This fellow turned as I looked, and saw us there, and he dropped the
vessel, and I could see his white teeth. Father Lasserre stood up and
laid his finger on his lips, nodded once or twice, pointed to the west,
where the sun was just above the horizon, and the fellow nodded to us
again and stopped for his vessel.
“He filled it from the bucket and went back into the house.
“I looked at Father Lasserre and he looked at me.
“‘In five minutes,’ he said; ‘that is the husband. Did you not see his
wounds?’
“I had seen no more than his teeth, I said, and my friend nodded again
and proceeded to finish his Nocturn.”
* * * * *
Again Father Meuron paused dramatically. His ruddy face seemed a little
pale in the candle-light, and yet he had told us nothing yet that could
account for his apparent horror. Plainly, something was coming soon.
The Rector leaned back to me and whispered behind his hand in reference
to what the Frenchman had related a few minutes before, that no priest
was allowed to use exorcism without the special leave of the Bishop. I
nodded and thanked him.
Father Meuron flashed his eyes dreadfully round the circle, clasped his
hands and continued:
“When the sun showed only a red rim above the sea we went down to the
house. The path ran on high ground to the roof and then dipped down the
edge of the cutting past the window to the front of the shed.
“I looked through this window sideways as I went after Father Lasserre,
who was carrying his bag with the book and the holy water, but I could
see nothing but the light of the fire. And there was no sound. That was
terrible to me!
“The door was closed as we came to it, and as Father Lasserre lifted
his hand to knock there was a howl of a beast from within.
“He knocked and looked at me.
“‘It is but epilepsy!’ he said, and his lips wrinkled as he said it.”
The priest stopped again, and smiled ironically at us all. Then he
clasped his hands beneath his chin like a man in terror.
“I will not tell you all that I saw,” he went on, “when the candle was
lighted and set on the table, but only a little. You would not dream
well, my friends--as I did not that night.
“But the woman sat in a corner by the fireplace, bound with cords by
her arms to the back of the chair and her feet to the legs of it.
“Gentlemen, she was like no woman at all.... The howl of a wolf came
from her lips, but there were words in the howl. At first I could not
understand till she began in French, and then I understood. My God!
“The foam dripped from her mouth like water, and her eyes--but there! I
began to shake when I saw them until the holy water was spilled on the
floor, and I set it down on the table by the candle. There was a plate
of meat on the table, roasted mutton, I think, and a loaf of bread
beside it. Remember that, gentlemen--that mutton and bread! And as I
stood there I told myself, like making acts of faith, that it was but
epilepsy, or at the most madness.
“My friends, it is probable that few of you know the form of exorcism.
It is neither in the Ritual or the Pontifical, and I cannot remember it
all myself. But it began thus:”
The Frenchman sprang up and stood with his back to the fire, with his
face in the shadow.
“Father Lasserre was here where I stand, in his cotta and stole, and I
beside him. There where my chair stands was the square table, as near
as that, with the bread and meat and the holy water and the candle.
Beyond the table was the woman; her husband stood beside her on the
left hand, and the old mother was there”--he flung out a hand to the
right, “on the floor telling her beads and weeping--but weeping.
“When the Father was ready and had said a word to the others, he
signed to me to lift the holy water again--she was quiet at the
moment--and then he sprinkled her.
“As he lifted his hand she raised her eyes, and there was a look in
them of terror, as if at a blow, and as the drops fell she leaped
forward in the chair, and the chair leaped with her. Her husband was at
her and dragged the chair back. But my God! it was terrible to see him;
his teeth shone as if he smiled, but the tears ran down his face.
“Then she moaned like a child in pain. It was as if the holy water
burned her; she lifted her face to her man as if she begged him to wipe
off the drops.
“And all the while I still told myself that it was the terror of
her mind only at the holy water--that it could not be that she was
possessed by Satan--it was but madness--madness and epilepsy!
“Father Lasserre went on with the prayers, and I said Amen, and there
was a psalm--_Deus in nomine tuo salvum me fac_--and then came the
first bidding to the unclean spirit to go out, in the name of the
Mysteries of the Incarnation and Passion.
“Gentlemen, I swear to you that something happened then, but I do
not know what. A confusion fell on me and a kind of darkness. I saw
nothing--it was as if I were dead.”
The priest lifted a shaking hand to wipe off the sweat from his
forehead. There was a profound silence in the room. I looked once at
Monsignor, and he was holding his pipe an inch off his mouth, and his
lips were slack and open as he stared.
“Then when I knew where I was, Father Lasserre was reading out of the
Gospels; how Our Lord gave authority to his Church to cast out unclean
spirits, and all this while his voice never trembled.”
“And the woman?” said a voice hoarsely from Father Brent’s chair.
“Ah! the woman! My God! I do not know. I did not look at her. I stared
at the plate on the table; but at least she was not crying out now.
“When the Scripture was finished Father Lasserre gave me the book.
“‘Bah, Father!’ he said; ‘it is but epilepsy, is it not?’
“Then he beckoned me, and I went with him, holding the book till we
were within a yard of the woman. But I could not hold the book still,
it shook, it shook----”
Father Meuron thrust out his hand. “It shook like that, gentlemen.
“He took the book from me, sharply and angrily. ‘Go back, sir,’ he
said, and he thrust the book into the husband’s hand.
“‘There,’ he said.
“I went back behind the table and leaned on it.
“Then Father Lasserre--my God! the courage of this man!--he set his
hands on the woman’s head. She writhed up her teeth to bite, but he
was too strong for her, and then he cried out from the book the second
bidding to the unclean spirit.
“‘_Ecce crucem Domini!_ Behold the Cross of the Lord! Flee ye adverse
hosts! The lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed!’
“Gentlemen”--the Frenchman flung out his hands--“I who stand here tell
you that something happened. God knows what. I only know this, that as
the woman cried out and scrambled with her feet on the floor, the flame
of the candle became smoke-coloured for one instant. I told myself it
was the dust of her struggling and her foul breath.... Yes, gentlemen,
as you tell yourselves now.... Bah! it is but epilepsy, is it not so,
sir?”
The old Rector leaned forward with a deprecating hand, but the
Frenchman glared and gesticulated; there was a murmur from the room,
and the old priest leaned back again and propped his head on his hand.
“Then there was a prayer. I heard _Oremus_, but I did not dare to
look at the woman. I fixed my eyes so on the bread and meat; it was
the one clean thing in that terrible room. I whispered to myself,
‘Bread and mutton, bread and mutton.’ I thought of the refectory at
home--anything. You understand me, gentlemen--anything familiar to
quiet myself.
“Then there was the third exorcism....”
* * * * *