And for two days he had endured the torments of hell-fire, battling
against himself--in vain. The heavy lines beneath his eyes grew blacker
than the night, his lips were pale with agony and fasting. He had not
dared to speak to anyone, he could not tell them, and in him was the
impulse to shout out, 'Why should there be?' Now he could bear it no
longer. In the morning he went to the prior's cell, and, falling on his
knees, buried his face in the old man's lap.
'Oh, father, help me! help me!'
The prior was old and wasted; for fifty years he had lived in the desert
Castilian plain in the little monastery--all through his youth and
manhood, through his age; and now he was older than anyone at San
Lucido. White haired and wrinkled, but with a clear, rosy skin like a
boy's; his soft blue eyes had shone with light, but a cataract had
developed, and gradually his sight had left him till he could barely see
the crucifix in his cell and the fingers of his hand; at last he could
only see the light. But the prior did not lose the beautiful serenity of
his life; he was always happy and kind; and feeling that his death could
not now be very distant, he was filled with a heavenly joy that he would
shortly see the face of God. Long hours he sat in his chair looking at
the light with an indescribably charming smile hovering on his lips.
His voice broken by sobs, Brother Jasper told his story, while the prior
gently stroked the young man's hands and face.
'Oh, father, make me believe!'
'One cannot force one's faith, my dear. It comes, it goes, and no man
knows the wherefore. Faith does not come from reasoning; it comes from
God.... Pray for it and rest in peace.'
'I want to believe so earnestly. I am so unhappy!'
'You are not the only one who has been tried, my son. Others have
doubted before you and have been saved.'
'But if I died to-night--I should die in mortal sin.'
'Believe that God counts the attempt as worthy as the achievement.'
'Oh, pray for me, father, pray for me! I cannot stand alone. Give me
your strength.'
'Go in peace, my son; I will pray for you, and God will give you
strength!'
Jasper went away.
Day followed day, and week followed week; the spring came, and the
summer; but there was no difference in the rocky desert of San Lucido.
There were no trees to bud and burst into leaf, no flowers to bloom and
fade; biting winds gave way to fiery heat, the sun beat down on the
plain, and the sky was cloudless, cloudless--even the nights were so hot
that the monks in their cells gasped for breath. And Brother Jasper
brooded over the faith that was dead; and in his self-torment his cheeks
became so hollow that the bones of his face seemed about to pierce the
skin, the flesh shrunk from his hands, and the fingers became long and
thin, like the claws of a vulture. He used to spend long hours with the
prior, while the old man talked gently, trying to bring faith to the
poor monk, that his soul might rest. But one day, in the midst of the
speaking, the prior stopped, and Jasper saw an expression of pain pass
over his face.
'What is it?'
'Nothing, my son,' he replied, smiling.... 'We enter the world with
pain, and with pain we leave it!'
'What do you mean? Are you ill? Father! father!'
The prior opened his mouth and showed a great sloughing sore; he put
Jasper's fingers to his neck and made him feel the enlarged and hardened
glands.
'What is it? You must see a surgeon.'
'No surgeon can help me, Brother Jasper. It is cancer, the Crab--it is
the way that God has sent to call me to Himself.'
Then the prior began to suffer the agonies of the disease, terrible
pains shot through his head and neck; he could not swallow. It was a
slow starvation; the torment kept him awake through night after night,
and only occasionally his very exhaustion gave him a little relief so
that he slept. Thinner and thinner he became, and his whole mouth was
turned into a putrid, horrible sore. But yet he never murmured. Brother
Jasper knelt by his bed, looking at him pitifully.
'How can you suffer it all? What have you done that God should give you
this? Was it not enough that you were blind?'
'Ah, I saw such beautiful things after I became blind--all heaven
appeared before me.'
'It is unjust--unjust!'
'My son, all is just.'
'You drive me mad!... Do you still believe in the merciful goodness of
God?'
A beautiful smile broke through the pain on the old man's face.
'I still believe in the merciful goodness of God!'
There was a silence. Brother Jasper buried his face in his hands and
thought brokenheartedly of his own affliction. How happy he could be if
he had that faith.... But the silence in the room was more than the
silence of people who did not speak. Jasper looked up suddenly.
The prior was dead.
Then the monk bent over the body and looked at the face into the opaque
white eyes; there was no difference, the flesh was warm--everything was
just the same, and yet ... and yet he was dead. What did they mean by
saying the soul had fled? What had happened? Jasper understood nothing
of it. And afterwards, before the funeral, when he looked at the corpse
again, and it was cold and a horrible blackness stained the lips, he
felt sure.
Brother Jasper could not believe in the resurrection of the dead. And
the soul--what did they mean by the soul?