THE THORN AND THE FLESH
I
The next day Prince Max received a letter written by the hand which had
become for him the dearest in the world. It was very simple and
straightforward and methodical: it began with the word "Beloved" and
asked whether certain things were true. It seemed, then, that for the
first time his confession was understood. Not a single one of the
questions put to him contained anything that was untrue, but they did
not go much into detail, and no commentary was made upon the facts
indicated.
Max sat down and wrote a very beautiful letter in reply, and got no
answer.
For three days he put up with this rebuff to his honesty of character
and his literary ability; then not finding his lady where he expected
her to be, he went and called upon her father.
The Archbishop was out; but Max, not to be denied, sat down and waited
for his return. He waited for over two hours. It was getting towards
dusk when his Grace entered, a reverend, high-shouldered figure, showing
a stoop and beginning now to look old.
The Archbishop's very formal greeting told Max that here was the enemy.
This did not at all dismay him; at that time, indeed, he was full of
confidence. The temporary separation between himself and his beloved,
brought about in a conventional way which he thoroughly despised, was
for the moment a hindrance; but it had not yet taken to itself the
colors of doom. He knew that Jenifer's heart was entirely his, and that
they, with their common honesty, had only to meet again to be made one.
What he wanted to know, therefore, was not so much the opinion of
Jenifer's father about himself and the engagement, as to find out her
present whereabouts. From the first moment of their meeting he knew that
he did not stand in the Archbishop's good graces; but that hardly
concerned him; and so it was almost without circumlocution that he asked
for Jenifer's address.
The Archbishop, by a simultaneous depression of the head and raising of
the eyebrows, managed to convey his just sense of the honor which was
being done him and the liberty that was being taken.
"I wrote the other day," explained Max, "asking her to arrange a time
when I might come and see you. In strict etiquette I believe that your
Grace ought first to call upon me; but we have so few precedents to go
by. She has, I trust, done me the honor to tell you that we are
engaged?"
"I have been informed of the circumstance," replied the Archbishop with
stately formality.
The Prince took the matter boldly in hand. "From your manner I have to
presume that we have not the happiness of your consent?"
"My consent was not asked."
"Had it been?"
"I could not have given it."
"That I think," said the Prince, "would have been the perfectly correct
attitude until such time as the King gave his. It is for that we have
been waiting; had it not been so I should have come to you earlier."
"Early or late, my answer to your Highness would always be the same."
"May I ask upon what grounds?"
"I would ask, sir, in return, upon what grounds is it suitable that you
should marry my daughter?"
"It so happens," replied Max, "that I am in love with her."
"What precisely, sir, to your mind does the phrase 'being in love'
convey?"
The Prince saw that the tussle was coming; he gathered his thoughts
together, then said, "An intense personal desire to endow a certain
woman with motherhood."
The Archbishop flushed: sharp enmity showed itself in his eyes; he made
a gesture of repulsion.
"Ah!" cried Max, "does that shock the Church?"
The challenge went unanswered; instead came question.
"Have you not had this desire before--in other directions?"
"Never!" exclaimed Max. "No, never!"
The Archbishop eyed him keenly. "You have had experience."
"I have lived my life openly," said the Prince.
"I was aware of that," returned his Grace. "Need I trouble your Highness
with any further grounds for my refusal? Not with my consent shall my
daughter marry a libertine."
"Great Judge of Heaven!" cried Max, springing to his feet. "Hark to this
old man!"
"Don't shout," said the Archbishop; "He hears you."
Max's scorn dropped back like a rocket to earth.
"Yes," he retorted, "no doubt! The question is, are you capable of
hearing Him?"
"I am always ready to be instructed," replied his Grace sarcastically.
"I must remind you," said the Prince, "that as a Doctor of Divinity I
have some claim. Yes," he went on in answer to the Archbishop's look of
astonishment, "though you have forgotten the circumstance, you yourself
dubbed me Theologian by hitting me over the head with a Greek
Testament."
The Archbishop accepted the reminiscence.
"In that case," said he, "I bow to your Highness's authority."
"Yes: you were a shepherd of that fold, yet you let me in? I was the
clever one of my family; and the title was given me when, with three
lives standing between, there was little likelihood of my becoming Head
of the Church. Was I to wear it, then, as an ornament, or as an amulet
to guide me into right doctrine? Whatever faith I still hold, I fear me
that miracle has not been wrought."
"In these days," said the Archbishop, "faith itself is the great
miracle."
"That people should have any faith in the Church is indeed a miracle,"
said Max. "Yet I suppose it is but another instance of how easily the
world accepts what it finds. I myself remain outwardly a Churchman;
merely because it seems to me hardly to matter, and because any overt
act on my part would hurt those whom I love. And what spiritual
experience have I acquired as the result of my outward conformity? I
have found the pulpit the most polished of all social institutions: and
never once have I heard from it any word troublesome to a conscience
which has still, I can assure you, its waking moments. The eloquence
that flows from it never trespasses beyond the bounds of polite
conversation; and as regards 'unpleasant subjects' it deals faithfully
only with the lives of those who do not form the bulk of its
congregations. If it dealt faithfully with them, those polite
congregations would get up and walk out."
"I do not think, sir, that your experience puts you in a position to
know how the Church deals with the consciences of the faithful."
"You mean," said Max, "that in the ears of royalty uncomfortable
subjects are avoided? That merely indicates the system. As the snail
withdraws first his horns into his head, then his body into his shell,
so your Church adapts itself to its surroundings. Let me give you a case
in point--it touches on our present discussion. I have heard often
enough the cheaper forms of prostitution decorously alluded to; but when
did I ever hear dealt with, either for approval or reprobation, the
established practice among the unmarried youth of our aristocracy of
keeping mistresses?"
"I think, sir, that you must have been often inattentive. The virtue of
purity is, I am sure, constantly inculcated by our clergy."
"In such a form," replied the Prince, "that we need not apply it to
ourselves. The betrayal of innocency, yes, I have heard of that, for
that only touches a small minority. But these mistresses whom most of us
keep are no more innocent than ourselves, nor are we more innocent than
they. And yet, while to them all social entrances are barred, we men are
allowed to go in free."
"Society cannot act on mere rumor and suspicion," said the Archbishop.
"In the woman's case it does," replied the Prince. "And I wonder whether
it has ever occurred to any one to connect that fact with the
cheapening of our modern definition of chivalry. Are you ever
chivalrous; am I?"
"Charity is a greater thing than chivalry."
"I am not so sure of that," said the Prince. "You had forgotten just now
that I was a Doctor of Divinity; have you also forgotten that we share
the honors of one of the most ancient knighthoods in the world?"
"Will your Highness be so good as to explain?"
"Your Grace will perhaps remember--since you officiated upon the
occasion as prelate of the Order--my investiture rather more than two
years ago as a Knight of the Holy Thorn?"
The Archbishop bowed assent.
"Your discourse upon that occasion was both learned and eloquent; but it
did not really touch the subject that had brought us together."
"How would you define the subject?" inquired his Grace.
"The subject on which I hoped to be instructed," said the Prince, "was
the real meaning of Chivalry as expressed in the Order of the Thorn, and
the reason why I was deemed worthy to be made a knight of it. There had
already been some comment owing to the fact that the honor was not
conferred immediately on the attainment of my majority. Perhaps my
shortened career at college had something to do with it--perhaps the
fact that I had brothers who were older and worthier than myself. I am
not in the least blaming my father for the delay; rather am I now
inclined to be grateful. But that year the death of my two brothers
created more than a vacancy: and any further postponement would, I
suppose, have made the omission too pointed. I stepped into those dead
shoes."
"What a talker the man is!" said the Archbishop to himself. But
etiquette held him bound, and there he was obliged to sit, looking
interested and attentive, while Max went on.
II
"For some reason or another--perhaps because it was the one thing for
which, in spite of legitimate expectations, I had been kept waiting--I
conceived for the honor, when it was bestowed on me, a sentimental
regard which I did not experience toward my other titles. They had all
dropped upon me without any merit on my part; for this one honor I felt
in some curious way that I was not worthy. It may have been that feeling
of unworthiness which made me, before the date of my investiture, study
the history of the Order and the legend of its origin. I had hoped that
you would touch upon that legend, and give it some modern application. I
wonder now whether your Grace is aware of the legend; or whether I,
indeed, am not the only Knight of the Order who has troubled to think
anything about it."
"I fancy," said the Archbishop, "that the legend you refer to has a
flavor of medieval Romanism that would hardly commend itself to modern
ears."
The Prince smiled bitterly. "Your Grace persuades me," he said, "to tell
the story myself. At the point where it does not commend itself I shall
be glad to hear your criticism.
"The Founder--or ought I not rather to say the first Knight?--of the
Order was (if the story be true) a certain ancestor of our royal house
who had spent the greater part of his life in wars of unjust aggression.
To atone for them--or for other things which weighed more heavily on his
conscience--he went late in life on a crusade to the Holy Land; and
after being there handsomely trounced by the infidel, was returning in
dejection to the sea-coast with the mutinous remnant of his following,
when the founding of the Order of the Thorn occurred to him.
"It occurred to him thus: this at all events was his own account of it.
He had become separated from his company of knights, darkness was coming
on--when, as he spurred his tired steed with little mercy for its
exhausted condition, he passed by the roadside a beggar who cried out to
him for charity. But the charity asked for was not alms, but only the
withdrawal from the mendicant's foot of a thorn which troubled him.
"My ancestor, softened by some accent of gentleness or patience in the
suppliant's voice, dismounted to do the service required of him, and in
the growing darkness drew out the thorn. But when he had got it free
from the flesh it seemed no more a thorn but an iron nail; and the wound
out of which he had drawn it shone with celestial radiance. Then was
founded the Order. The Mendicant bade him bind the Thorn upon his heel
in the place of his spur, so that whenever thereafter he should be
tempted to goad or oppress whether man or beast the Thorn should remind
him of pity and mercy. I wait for your Grace's criticism of that
legend?"
The Archbishop made no reply: with a courteous gesture of the hand he
invited the Prince to continue.
"I hoped," said the young man, "to be instructed in the connection
between that Founding and the continuance of the Order. You spoke of
chivalry and loyalty; but the chivalry which you invited us to emulate
was merely the physical daring of our ancestors as proved in war
(wherein I am no longer allowed to take part); and the loyalty was to a
form of monarchy which modern conditions now threaten with change. And
I, looking at all my brother Knights around me, and at myself, wondered
by what right we wore that iron thorn upon our heels.
"Among us--I need not mention names--were men whose lives were far more
notoriously evil than mine--men whose wealth had been gained for them by
the grinding of sweated humanity; men who received enormous rents from
houses not fit for human habitation--men who opposed every act of
remedial legislation which disturbed their own vested interests, and who
did these things with an untroubled conscience because the conditions
they fought for were all the outcome of custom or of law.
"And I remembered that some day I should be required to become their
Grand Master--the titular head of that dead Order of Chivalry; and I
wondered what would happen if I acted honestly upon my conscience and
refused."
"Yet you say, sir, that for this Order, of which you now speak so
slightingly, you had sentiments of reverence?"
"For the Order--yes; but none for the men--including myself--who make up
its membership."
"Surely," said the Archbishop, "your Highness must admit that they are
all men of mark; many of them have spent their lives in the public
service--leaders of the people in peace and war. You cannot regard these
things as nothing."
"For these things they already have their titles," said the Prince,
"their state-pensions, or the wealth personally acquired on which their
power and influence are based. Has the Order of the Thorn ever once in
its history been given to a man because he was conspicuously good, or
gentle, or forbearing, or unselfishly thoughtful for others? Has it ever
once been given to a successful philanthropist who was not also of high
lineage and title? I have looked through the lists; I can find none.
Your Grace is the only one among us whose profession is to serve God
rather than to be served by men."
The Archbishop glanced uneasily at the Prince; but there was no sarcasm
in his look or tone. Max was never more of an artist than in his
adaption of manner to theme. Sadly, almost dejectedly he went on.
"And now let us come to myself. It seems that I am not accounted worthy
to receive your daughter's hand in marriage. In a certain sense I admit
it. That he is unworthy seems true to every man who ever loved a woman
well; and perhaps the woman feels the same of herself. But I do not
admit that the reasons for your judgment are just. You deny me my claim
because, during my early manhood, I have had illicit connection with one
woman. Tell me--do you propose that your daughter shall ever marry at
all?"
The Archbishop looked at the Prince with a half-pitying surmise and drew
himself up as though he had some statement to make. Then putting the
inclination aside he said: "That is for her to choose."
"From her own rank in life?" persisted Max,--"not limited, I mean, to
the clerical profession?"
"I impose no limits on my daughter's freedom," said the Archbishop.
"And do you mean to tell me," inquired the Prince, "that of every
suitor for your daughter's hand--lawyer, soldier, politician, man of
letters--you will make it your business to inquire--and will expect to
be told the truth--whether they have not at some period of their career
had illicit connection with women?"
"I could recommend no suitor," said the Archbishop, "who had been at so
little pains as your Highness to avoid the setting of a bad example to
others."
"Is it, then, merely secrecy that you advocate?"
"A respect for moral observances is in itself a ground of
recommendation," answered his Grace; "though at times a man may fall
short of what he knows to be right."
"You mean," said the Prince, "that I have flagrantly committed myself in
the upkeep of an establishment, where others have only paid an
extravagant price for a night's lodging?"
"Your Highness puts the matter in a way that makes it impossible for me
to discuss."
"I beg your pardon; I really was trying to be delicately indirect. But
that you should beg off discussion because my way of putting things
seems to you indelicate is yet another count in my quarrel with your
established ministry. You seem to me to be amateurs where you ought to
be professionals. How can you possibly deal with poor weak humanity in
kid gloves? Like the surgeon before he can hope to bring healing in his
wings, you too must be anatomical in your researches. It is the
anatomical your civil churchmen fight shy of. Well, I will endeavor to
get at the matter from another and a more accessible side. Your Grace
is, I take it, a man of the world?"
The Archbishop was inclined to demur; humbly but firmly he deprecated
the imputation.
"But surely!" protested the Prince, "had you not been, you would not now
be in the place which you occupy; every one knows that an Archbishop's
appointment is political. I ask you then, as a man of the world,
how--short of a miracle--could you expect a man in my position and
circumstances to have kept a technically unblemished record? Surrounded
with luxuries from my birth, disciplined by no real hardship, having to
make no struggle for my existence; brought up to eat meat and drink
wine; athletic, but without any reason or opportunity for leading a
strenuously athletic life; with brains, but with no compulsion to use
them; passed, for the perfecting of my education, from one privileged
grade to another; from the University to the Army, and from thence to
sport and the race-course; from where on God's earth, in this modern
curriculum for kings, was the idea to have occurred to me that I should
do this thing, in attempting to do which your early hermits went
hullabalooing to the desert?
"I am now nearly twenty-six. My father, for reasons of State, married at
twenty-one: I, for similar reasons, have been kept unmarried, no
sufficiently eligible partner could be found for me. And I solved the
time of waiting by contracting a non-legal conjugal relationship with a
woman for whom I had a very real affection, who was considerably my
senior in years, and who knew quite well that the arrangement could only
be temporary. My Lord Archbishop, I ask you--could you in my
circumstances have shown a better, a more blameless record? I was even
punctilious enough to tell your daughter--an excessive scruple, I
think,--she did not understand."
"She understands now," said the Archbishop.
"And who is it," inquired the Prince sharply, "who has thus played
bo-peep with her intelligence--first shutting and now opening her eyes?"
"When evil is encountered," said his Grace, "instruction has to be
extended."
"And still you have stopped halfway, just at the point where it serves
you best. What does her pure soul know of these problems which to her
are only a few hours old?"
"She is a daughter of the Church; and she knows what the Church's answer
has always been."
"She knows, then," said Max, "what no school of historians has yet been
able to decide! See over in England to-day how the Church, clinging to
its establishment, has to dodge and shuffle over the changes in the
moral law arising out of national habit. Is the Church of Jingalo so
greatly superior, think you, that it can boast?"
At that moment a clock upon the chimney-piece intoned the hour; and the
Archbishop, reduced to extremity in order to get rid of his
distinguished but unwelcome visitor, permitted himself to throw an
involuntary glance in the direction of the sound.
The Prince, perceiving the indication, rose at once to his feet.
"Pardon me," he said, "for having kept you so long."
"Pardon _me_," returned his Grace; "unfortunately I have to dine."
"Of course. I ought not to have forgotten."
"I mean that I have guests."
"They shall not be kept waiting by me," said the Prince. He moved to the
door. Then he stopped.
"Your Grace," he said, "I know that we cannot be friends, still----"
He paused; and there was silence.
"I greatly wish to see your daughter. Surely you cannot deny me that
right."
"_I_ cannot," said the Archbishop. "She does."
This pulled Max up with a jerk: not that he yet believed it, however.
"Where is she now?" he inquired.
"She has joined the Sisterhood of Poverty. To-day she entered her
profession."
The Prince choked.
"That is horrible!" he said. "You mean she has taken vows?"
The Archbishop of Ebury bowed his head. "For the remainder of _my_ life
at all events," he said in a stricken tone. "She will not return here.
My house is left desolate to me--because of you."
"You still have guests," said the Prince.
"That is an unworthy gibe," retorted his Grace. "My work has still to go
on."
"I beg your pardon," said Max.
"I have written to her," he added after a pause; "and she has not
answered. Will your Grace be good enough----"
"I do not think she will. She prays for you. If you came, I was to tell
you that."
Again there was silence for a time.
"When I was a child," said the Prince, "I had an old nurse, who whenever
I did anything wrong--as whipping was not allowed--used to go down on
her knees and pray for me; and she always did it against a blank wall. I
suppose it helped her. That has always remained my vision of prayer. And
now I shall always think of your daughter with her dear face turned to a
blank wall, praying for you and me--her murderers."
He went out.
"Upon my word!" thought the Archbishop, "that is a dangerous man to be
heir to a throne."