It was the last day of the Passion Play, and the great dramatic mission
was drawing to a close. The confidence of the Cure and the Seigneur was
restored. The prohibition against strangers had had its effect, and for
three whole days the valley had been at rest again. Apparently there was
not a stranger within its borders, save the Seigneur’s brother, the Abbe
Rossignol, who had come to see the moving spectacle.
The Abbe, on his arrival, had made inquiries concerning the tailor of
Chaudiere and Jo Portugais, as persistently about the one as the other.
Their secrets had been kept inviolate by him.
It was disconcerting to hear the tales people told of the tailor’s
charity and wisdom. It was all dangerous, for what was, accidentally,
no evil in this particular instance, might be the greatest disaster
in another case. Principle was at stake. He heard in stern silence the
Cure’s happy statement that Jo Portugais had returned to the bosom of
the Church, and attended Mass regularly.
“So it may be, my dear Abbe,” said M. Loisel, “that the friendship
between him and our ‘infidel’ has been the means of helping Portugais. I
hope their friendship will go on unbroken for years and years.”
“I have no idea that it will,” said the Abbe grimly. “That rope of
friendship may snap untimely.”
“Upon my soul, you croak like a raven!” testily broke in M. Rossignol,
who was present. “I didn’t know there was so much in common between you
and my surly-jowled groom. He gets his pleasure out of croaking. ‘Wait,
wait, you’ll see--you’ll see! Death, death, death--every man must die!
The devil has you by the hair--death--death--death!’ Bah! I’m heartily
sick of croakers. I suppose, like my grunting groom, you’ll say about
the Passion Play, ‘No good will come of it--wait--wait--wait!’ Bah!”
“It may not be an unmixed good,” answered the ascetic.
“Well, and is there any such thing on earth as an unmixed good? The
play yesterday was worth a thousand sermons. It was meant to serve Holy
Church, and it will serve it. Was there ever anything more real--and
touching--than Paulette Dubois as Mary Magdalene yesterday?”
“I do not approve of such reality. For that woman to play the part is to
destroy the impersonality of the scene.”
“You would demand that the Christus should be a good man, and the St.
John blameless--why shouldn’t the Magdalene be a repentant woman?”
“It might impress the people more, if the best woman in your parish were
to play the part. The fall of virtue, the ruin of innocence, would be
vividly brought home. It does good to make the innocent feel the
terror and shame of sin. That is the price the good pay for the fall of
man--sorrow and shame for those who sin.” The Seigneur, rising quickly
from the table, and kicking his chair back, said angrily: “Damn
your theories!” Then, seeing the frozen look on his brother’s face,
continued, more excitedly: “Yes, damn, damn, damn your theories! You
always took the crass view. I beg your pardon, Cure--I beg your pardon.”
He then went to the window, threw it open, and called to his groom.
“Hi, there, coffin-face,” he said, “bring round the horses--the quietest
one in the stable for my brother--you hear? He can’t ride,” he added
maliciously.
This was his fiercest stroke, for the Abbe’s secret vanity was the
belief that he looked well on a horse, and rode handsomely.
CHAPTER LV. ROSALIE PLAYS A PART
From a tree upon a little hill rang out a bell--a deep-toned bell,
bought by the parish years before for the missions held at this very
spot. Every day it rang for an instant at the beginning of each of the
five acts. It also tolled slowly when the curtain rose upon the scene of
the Crucifixion. In this act no one spoke save the abased Magdalene, who
knelt at the foot of the cross, and on whose hair red drops fell when
the Roman soldier pierced the side of the figure on the cross. This had
been the Cure’s idea. The Magdalene should speak for mankind, for the
continuing world. She should speak for the broken and contrite heart in
all ages, should be the first-fruits of the sacrifice, a flower of the
desert earth, bedewed by the blood of the Prince of Peace.
So, in the long nights of the late winter and early spring, the Cure had
thought and thought upon what the woman should say from the foot of the
cross. At last he put into her mouth that which told the whole story of
redemption and deliverance, so far as his heart could conceive it--the
prayer for all sorts and conditions of men and the general thanksgiving
of humanity.
During the last three days Paulette Dubois had taken the part of Mary
Magdalene. As Jo Portugais had confessed to the Abbe that notable day in
the woods at Vadrome Mountain, so she had confessed to the Cure after
so many years of agony--and the one confession fitted into the other: Jo
had once loved her, she had treated him vilely, then a man had wronged
her, and Jo had avenged her--this was the tale in brief. She it was who
laughed in the gallery of the court-room the day that Joseph Nadeau was
acquitted.
It had pained and shocked the Cure more than any he had ever heard, but
he urged for her no penalty as Portugais had set for himself with the
austere approval of the Abbe. Paulette’s presence as the Magdalene had
had a deep effect upon the people, so that she shared with Mary the
Mother the painfully real interest of the vast audience.
Five times had the bell rung out in the perfect spring air, upon which
the balm of the forest and the refreshment of the ardent sun were
poured. The quick anger of M. Rossignol had passed away long before the
Cure, the Abbe, and himself had reached the lake and the great plateau.
Between the acts the two brothers walked up and down together, at peace
once more, and there was a suspicious moisture in the Seigneur’s eyes.
The demeanour of the people had been so humble and rapt that the place
and the plateau and the valley seemed alone in creation with the lofty
drama of the ages.
The Cure’s eyes shone when he saw on a little knoll in the trees, apart
from the worshippers and spectators, Charley and Jo Portugais. His cup
of content was now full. He had felt convinced that if the tailor had
but been within these bounds during the past three days, a work were
begun which should end only at the altar of their parish church. To-day
the play became to him the engine of God for the saving of a man’s soul.
Not long before the last great tableau was to appear he went to his own
little tent near the hut where the actors prepared to go upon the stage.
As he entered, some one came quickly forward from the shadow of the
trees and touched him on the arm.
“Rosalie!” he cried in amazement, for she wore the costume of Mary
Magdalene.
“It is I, not Paulette, who will appear,” she said, a deep light in her
eyes.
“You, Rosalie?” he asked dumfounded. “You are distrait. Trouble and
sorrow have put this in your mind. You must not do it.”
“Yes, I am going there,” she said, pointing towards the great stage.
“Paulette has given me these to wear”--she touched the robe--“and I only
ask your blessing now. Oh, believe, believe me, I can speak for those
who are innocent and those who are guilty; for those who pray and those
who cannot pray; for those who confess and those who dare not! I can
speak the words out of my heart with gladness and agony, Monsieur,” she
urged, in a voice vibrating with feeling.
A luminous look came into the Cure’s face. A thought leapt up in his
heart. Who could tell!--this pure girl, speaking for the whole sinful,
unbelieving, and believing world, might be the one last conquering
argument to the man.
He could not read the agony of spirit which had driven Rosalie to
this--to confess through the words of Mary Magdalene her own woe, to say
it out to all the world, and to receive, as did Paulette Dubois, every
day after the curtain came down, absolution and blessing. She longed for
the old remembered peace.
The Cure could not read the struggle between her love for a man and the
ineradicable habit of her soul; but he raised his hand, made the sacred
gesture over leer, and said: “Go, my child, and God be with you.”
He could not see her for tears as she hurried away to where Paulette
Dubois awaited her--the two at peace now. At the hands of the lately
despised and injurious woman Rosalie was made ready to play the part
in the last act, none knowing save the few who appeared in the final
tableau, and they at the last moment only.
The bell began to toll.
A thousand people fell upon their knees, and with fascinated yet abashed
and awe-struck eyes saw the great tableau of Christendom: the three
crosses against the evening sky, the Figure in the centre, the Roman
populace, the trembling Jews, the pathetic groups of disciples. A cloud
passed across the sky, the illusion grew, and hearts quivered in piteous
sympathy. There was no music now--not a sound save the sob of some
overwrought woman. The woe of an oppressed world absorbed them. Even the
stolid Indians, as Roman soldiers, shrank awe-stricken from the sacred
tragedy. Now the eyes of all were upon the central Figure, then they
shifted for a moment to John the Beloved, standing with the Mother.
“Pauvre Mere! Pauvre Christ!” said a weeping woman aloud.
A Roman soldier raised a spear and pierced the side of the Hero of the
World. Blood flowed, and hundreds gasped. Then there was silence--a
strange hush as of a prelude to some great event.
“It is finished. Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,” said the
Figure.
The hush was broken by such a sound as one hears in a forest when a
wind quivers over the earth, flutters the leaves, and then sinks
away--neither having come nor gone, but only lived and died.
Again there was silence, and then all eyes were fixed upon the figure at
the foot of the cross-Mary the Magdalene.
Day after day they had seen this figure rise, come forward a step, and
speak the epilogue to this moving miracle-drama. For the last three days
Paulette Dubois had turned a sorrowful face upon them, and with one
hand upraised had spoken the prayer, the prophecy, the thanksgiving, the
appeal of humanity and the ages. They looked to see the same figure now,
and waited. But as the Magdalene turned, there was a great stir in the
multitude, for the face bent upon them was that of Rosalie Evanturel.
Awe and wonder moved the people.
Apart from the crowd, under a clump of trees, knelt a woodsman from
Vadrome Mountain, and the tailor of Chaudiere stood beside him.
When Charley, touched by the heavy scene, saw the figure of the
Magdalene rise, he felt a curious thrill of fascination. When she
turned, and he saw the face of Rosalie, the blood rushed to his face;
then his heart seemed to stand still. Pain and shame travelled to the
farthest recesses of his nature. Jo Portugais rose to his feet with a
startled exclamation.
Rosalie began to speak. “This is the day of which the hours shall never
cease--in it there shall be no night. He whom ye have crucified hath
saved you from the wrath to come. He hath saved others, Himself He
would not save. Even for such as I, who have secretly opened, who have
secretly entered, the doors of sin--”
With a gasp of horror and a mad desire to take her away from the sight
of this gaping, fascinated crowd, Charley made to rush forward, but Jo
Portugais held him back.
“Be still. You will ruin her, M’sieu’!” said Jo.
“--even for such as I am,” the beautiful voice went on, “hath He died.
And in the ages to come, women such as I, and all women who sorrow, and
all men who err and are deceived, and all the helpless world, will
know that this was the Friend of the human soul.” Not a gesture, not a
movement, only that slight, pathetic figure, with pale, agonised face,
and eyes that looked--looked--looked beyond them, over their heads to
the darkening east, the clouded light of evening behind her. Her voice
rang out now valiant and clear, now searching and piteous, yet reaching
to where the farthermost person knelt, and was lost upon the lake and in
the spreading trees.
“What ye have done may never be undone; what He hath said shall never
be unsaid. His is the Word which shall unite all languages, when ye that
are Romans shall be no more Romans, and ye that are Jews shall still be
Jews, reproached and alone. No longer shall men faint in the glare--the
shadow of the Cross shall screen them. No more shall woman bear her
black sorrows, alone; the Light of the World shall cheer her.”
As she spoke, the cloud drew back from the sunset, and the saffron glow
behind lighted the cross, and shone upon her hair, casting her face in
a gracious shadow. Her voice rose higher. “I, the Magdalene, am the
first-fruits of this sacrifice: from the foot of the cross I come. I
have sinned more than all. I have shamed all women. But I have confessed
my sin, and He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Her voice now became lower, but clear and even, pathetically exulting:
“O world, forgive, as He hath forgiven you! Fall, dark curtain, and hide
this pain, and rise again upon forgiven sin and a redeemed people!”
She stood still, with her eyes upraised, and the curtain came slowly
down.
For a long time no one in all the gathered multitude stirred. Far over
under the trees a man sat upon the ground, his head upon his arms, and
his arms upon his knees, in a misery unmeasurable. Beside him stood a
woodsman, who knew of no word to say that might comfort him.
A girl, in the garb of the Magdalene, entered the tent of the Cure, and,
speaking no word, knelt and received absolution of her sins.