Dawn of All, Robert Hugh Benson [ebook reader with highlighter txt] 📗

zouaves marched in single file on either side of the procession. But within there was just one packed army, going eight abreast, of seminarians and clerics. These were just passing as the priest looked again, and close on their heels came the Court and the Cardinals; the latter an indescribable glory of scarlet, riding four abreast in broad hats and ample cloaks. But he gave scarcely more than a glance at these; for, full in sight for at least half a minute, advancing straight towards him down the roaring street, moved a canopy held by figures he could not clearly make out, and beneath it, detached and perfectly visible, on a white horse, a white figure, its shoulders just draped in scarlet and its head shadowed by a great scarlet hat, came slowly towards him.


(IV)

And so the day went by like a dream; and the man who still seemed to himself as one risen from the dead into a new and wholly bewildering world, watched and gathered impressions and assimilated them. Once or twice during the day he found himself at meals with Father Jervis; he asked questions now and then and scarcely heard the answers; he talked with ecclesiastics a little who came and went; but, for the most part almost unknown to himself, he worked interiorly, busy as a bee, building up, not so much facts as realizations, into the new and strange world-edifice that was gradually forming about him. He was present at the visit of the Pope to the tomb of the Apostle, and watched from a tribune, even then so concentrated on observation that he was hardly conscious of connected thought, as the vast doors rolled back and a vision as of such a celestial troop as was dreamed of by the old Italian painters came up out of the vivid sunlight into the cool darkness of the basilica, as the roofs gave back the roaring of the fervent thousands and the clear cry of the silver trumpets; watched as the army of ecclesiastics deployed this way and that, and the Father of Princes and Kings came on between his royal children to the gates of the Confession ringed by the golden lamps, and went down to kneel by the body of the first Fisherman-King.

And again at Vespers, from the same tribune, he heard the peal of the new great organs in the dome, and the psalm-melodies rocking from side to side between the massed choirs; he glanced now and again at the royal tribune opposite, where, each beneath a canopy, the rulers of the earth sat together to do honour to the Lord and His Anointed. And, above all, he watched, still with that steady set face that made Father Jervis look at him once or twice, the central figure of all, now on his throne, with his assistants beside him, now passing up to the altar to incense it, and finally passing out again on the sedia gestatoria to the palace where at last he ruled indeed.

Last of all, as the sun began to sink behind the monstrous dome, and Rome stood out like an Oriental city of dreams, and the purple lights came out on the low-lying hills, and the illuminations glowed from every window, and blazed beneath the feet and round the heads of the gigantic apostolic figures gathered round their Lord--there, watching again from his window, he saw, in a sudden hush over the heads of the countless crowds the tiny white figure standing above the tapestries with the Papal triple cross glinting beside him like a thread, and heard the thin voice, gnat-like and clear, declare the "help of the Lord who," as the thunder of the square answered him, "hath made heaven and earth," and then invoke upon the city and the world, before the tremendous Amen, the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.


CHAPTER VI


(I)

It was a few minutes after they had finished their almost silent meal that evening, that Monsignor suddenly leaned forward from his chair in the great cool loggia and passed his hands over his eyes like a sleepy man. From the streets outside still came the murmur of innumerable footsteps and voices and snatches of music.

"Tired?" asked the other gently. (He had not spoken for some minutes, and remembering the long silence, had wondered if, after all, it had been wise to bring a man with such an experience behind him to such a rush and excitement as that through which they had passed to-day.)

Monsignor said nothing for an instant. He looked round the room, opened and closed his lips, and then, leaning back again, suddenly smiled. Then he took up the pipe he had laid aside just now and blew through it.

"No," he said. "Exactly the opposite. I feel awake at last."

"Eh?"

"It seems to have got into me at last. All this . . . all this very odd world. I have begun to see."

"Please explain."

Monsignor began to fill his pipe slowly.

"Well, Versailles, even, didn't quite do it," he said. "It seemed to me a kind of game--certainly a very pleasant one; but----" (He broke off.) "But what we've seen to-day seems somehow the real thing."

"I don't quite understand."

"Well, I can see for myself now that all that you've told me is real--that the world's really Christian, and so on. It was those Chinese guards, I think, which as much as anything----"

"Chinese? . . . I don't remember them."

The prelate smiled again.

"Well, I scarcely noticed them at the time, either. But I've been thinking about them. And then all the rest of it . . . and the Pope. . . . By the way, I couldn't make out his face very well. Is that a picture of him?"

He stood up suddenly and stepped across to where the portrait hung. There was nothing very startling about the picture. It showed just a very ordinary face with straight closed lips, of a man seated in an embossed chair, with the familiar white cap, cassock, and embroidered stole with spade-ends.

"He looks quite ordinary," mused Monsignor aloud. "It's . . . it's like the face of a business man."

"Oh yes, he's ordinary. He's an extremely good man and quite intelligent. He's never had any very great crisis to face, you know. They say he's a good financier. . . . You look disappointed."

"I hadn't expected him to look like that," said the prelate, musing.

"Why not?"

"Well, he seems to have an extraordinary position in the world. I should have expected more of a----"

"More of a great man? Monsignor, don't you think that the Average Man makes the best ruler?"

"But that's rank Democracy!"

"Not at all. Democracy doesn't give the Average Man any real power at all. It swamps him among his fellows--that is to say, it kills his individuality; and his individuality is the one thing he has which is worth anything."

Monsignor sat down again, sighing.

"Well, I think it's got into me at last," he repeated. "I mean, I think I really realize what the world's like now. But I want to see a great deal more, you know."

"What sort of things?"

"Well, I don't quite know. . . . You might call it the waterline between Faith and Science. I see the Faith side. I understand that the life of the world moves on Catholicism now; but I don't quite realize yet how all that joins on to Science. In my day----" (he broke off) "I mean I had a kind of idea that there was a gap between Faith and Science--if not actual contradictions. How do they join on to one another? What's the average scientific attitude towards religion? Do people on both sides just say that each must pursue its own line, even if they never meet?"

Father Jervis looked puzzled.

"I don't quite understand. There's no conflict between Faith and Science. A large proportion of the scientists are ecclesiastics."

"But what's the meeting-point? That's what I don't see."

The priest shook his head, smiling.

"I simply don't know what you mean, Monsignor. Give me an example."

"Well . . . er . . . what about Faith-healing? The dispute used to be, I think, as to the explanation of certain cures. (Mr. Manners spoke of it, you know.) Psychologists used to say that the cures happened by suggestion; and Catholics used to say that they were supernatural. How have they become reconciled?"

Father Jervis considered a moment.

"I don't think I've ever thought of it like that," he said. "I think I should say--" (he hesitated) "I think I should say that everybody believes now that the power of God does everything; and that in some cases He works through suggestion, and in some through supernatural forces about which we don't know very much. But I don't think it matters much (does it?), if you believe in God."

"That doesn't explain what I mean."

The door opened abruptly and a servant came in. He bowed.

"The Bishop of Sebaste enquires whether you are at home, Monsignor?"

Monsignor glanced at Father Jervis.

"He's come out as chaplain to Prince George," explained the priest in rapid Latin. "We'd better see him."

"Very good. . . . Yes," said Monsignor.

He turned to the priest again.

"Hadn't you better tell him about me?"

"You don't mind?"

"Of course not."

Father Jervis got up and slipped quickly out of the room.

"I'm delighted to see you again, Monsignor," began the Bishop, coming in, followed by Father Jervis three minutes later.

Monsignor straightened himself after the kissing of the ring.

"You're very kind, my lord," he said.

As the Bishop sat down, he examined him carefully, noticing that there was nothing noticeable about him. He seemed a characteristic prelate--large, genial, ruddy and smiling, with bright eyes and well-cut mouth. He was in his purple and ferraiuola, and carried himself briskly and cheerfully.

"I came to see if you were going to the reception to-night. If so, we might go together. But it's rather late!"

"We haven't heard about that."

"Oh! it's purely informal. The Holy Father probably won't appear himself, except perhaps for a moment."

"Oh! At the Vatican?"

"Yes. There will be an enormous crowd, of course. . . . The Prince has gone to bed, poor little chap! He's done up altogether; and I thought of slipping over for a half-hour or so."

Monsignor glanced at his friend.

"I think it would be an excellent thing," observed the old priest.

"Well, there's a carriage waiting," said the Bishop, rising. "I think we'd better go, if we're going. We shall be back within the hour."


(II)

It was within ten minutes of the time that the three had arranged to meet again at the foot of the Scala Regia that Monsignor suddenly realized that he had lost himself.

He had wandered for half an hour, after making his salutations to the Master of the Apostolic Palace, who, in the Pope's absence, was receiving the visitors; and, at first with Father Jervis and the Bishop, who had pointed out to him the notabilities, and presently drifting from them in the crowds, by himself, had gone up and down and in and out through endless corridors, courts, loggie, and great reception-rooms of the enormous place, watching the amazing crowds, and exchanging bows and nods with persons who bowed and nodded to him.

The