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

and attention.

He glanced once more round the court, once more at the judges. Then he allowed himself to look full at the prisoner, whom he had not seen since his departure from Lourdes.

Dom Adrian was just as he remembered him, perhaps a shade paler from the fierce attention of the last three days, but he had the same serene, confident air; his eyes were bright and luminous, and his voice (for he was speaking at this moment) perfectly natural and controlled.

It was hard at first to pick up the thread of what he was saying. He had a sheet or two of paper before him, to which he referred as he spoke, and he seemed to be summing up, in a very allusive manner, some earlier speeches of his. Technical terms made their appearance from time to time, and decrees were quoted by their initial Latin words--decrees which conveyed nothing to the listener in the gallery. It was difficult too, at this distance, to understand the very swift Latin which he spoke in a conversational voice that was almost casual. His whole air was of one who is interested, but not overwhelmingly concerned, in the subject under debate.

He ended at last, and bowed.

Obviously they were not at a very critical part of the trial, thought Monsignor. He felt extraordinarily reassured. He had expected more of a scene.

The Dominican opened his eyes and took up a pen. He glanced at his companions, but they made no sign or movement.

"You have made it perfectly clear," he said. "Nothing could be clearer. I see" (he turned slightly to right and left, and his fellow-judges nodded gently in acquiescence)--"I see no reason to modify what I said just now, and the judgment of the court must stand. Nothing can be clearer to my mind--and I must say that my assessors wholly concur, as you heard just now--nothing can be clearer than that you have contradicted in the most express terms the decrees in question, and that you have refused to modify or to withdraw any of the theses under dispute. Further, you have refused to avail yourself of any of the releases which are perfectly open to you by law. You declined all those openings which I indicated to you, and you appear determined to push the matter to extremes. I must tell you then plainly that I see nothing for it but the forwarding of our opinions to Rome, and I cannot hold out to you the smallest prospect that you will meet with a different judgment from the highest court."

He paused a moment.

There was a profound silence in the court. As Monsignor Masterman glanced round, unable to understand what it was that caused this sense of tremendous tension, he noticed a head or two in that array of faces drop suddenly as if in overwhelming emotion. He looked at the prisoner; but there was no movement there. The young monk had put his papers neatly together, and was standing, upright and motionless, with his hands clasped upon them. The Dominican's voice went on abruptly:

"Have you anything further to say before the court dissolves?"

"I should like to express my sense of the extreme fairness and considerateness of my judges," said the monk, "and to say again, as at the beginning, that I commit my cause unreservedly into the hands of God."

The three judges rose together; a door opened behind and they disappeared. Instantly a buzz of tongues began and the sound of shifting feet. As Monsignor glanced back again at the dock, amazed at the sudden change of scene, he saw the monk's head disappearing down the staircase that led below from the dock. He still did not understand what had happened. He still thought that it was some minor stage of the process that was finished, probably on some technical point.


(II)

He still sat there wondering, thinking that he would let the corridors clear a little before he went out again, and asking himself what it was that had caused that obvious sensation during the judge's last words. To all outward appearance, nothing could be less critical than what he had seen and heard. Plainly the trial was going against the prisoner, but there had been no decision, no sentence. The inquisitors and the prisoner had talked together almost like friends discussing a not very vital matter. And yet the sensation had been overwhelming. . . .

As he rose at last, still watching the emptying court, he heard a tap on the door, and before he could speak, the Abbot of Westminster rustled up the steps, in his habit and cross and gold chain. His face looked ominously strained and pale.

"I . . . I saw you from the court, Monsignor. For God's sake . . . sit down again an instant. Let me speak with you."

Monsignor said nothing. He could not even now understand.

"I must thank you for your kind offices, Monsignor. I know you did what you could. His Eminence sent for me after he had seen you. And . . . and I must ask you to help us again . . . at Rome."

"Certainly--anything . . . . But----"

"I fear it's hopeless," went on the abbot, staring out into the empty court, where an usher was moving quickly about from table to table setting papers straight. "But any chance that there is must be taken. . . . Will you write for us, Monsignor? or better still, urge the Cardinal? There is no time to lose."

"I don't understand, my lord," said the prelate abruptly, suddenly convinced that more had happened than he knew. "I was only here just at the end, and . . . . what is it I can do?"

The abbot looked at him.

"That was the end," he said quietly. "Did you not hear the sentence?"

Monsignor shook his head. A kind of sickness seemed to rise from his heart and envelop him.

"I heard nothing," he said. "I came in during Dom Adrian's last speech."

The abbot licked his dry lips; there was a wondering sort of apprehensiveness in his eyes.

"That was the last formality," he said. "Sentence was given twenty minutes ago."

"And----"

The abbot bowed his head, plucking nervously at his cross.

"It has to go to Rome to be ratified," he said hurriedly. "There will be a week or two of delay. Dom Adrian refused any release. But . . . but he knows there is no hope."

Monsignor Masterman leaned back and drew a long breath. He understood now. But he perceived he must give no sign. The abbot talked on rapidly; the other caught sentences and names here and there: he grasped that there was no real possibility of a reversal of the judgment, but that yet every effort must be made. But it was only with one part of his mind, and that the most superficial, that he attended to all this. Interiorly he was occupied wholly with facing the appalling horror that, with the last veil dropped at last, now looked him in the eyes.

He stood up at last, promising he would see the Cardinal that night; and then his resolve leapt to the birth.

"I should like to see Dom Adrian alone," he said quietly; "and I had better see him at once. Can you arrange that?" The abbot stopped at the door of the gallery.

"Yes," he said, "I think so. Will you wait here, Monsignor?"


(III)

Monsignor Masterman lifted his eyes as the door closed, and saw the young monk standing before him, beside the little table.

He had sat down again in the gallery while the abbot was gone, watching mechanically the ushers come into the court and remove the recording-boxes one by one; and meantime in his soul he watched also, rather than tried to arrange, the thoughts that fled past in ceaseless repetition. He could plan nothing, formulate nothing. He just perceived, as a man himself sentenced to death might perceive, that the Supreme Horror was a reality at last. The very ordinariness of the scene he had witnessed, the familiarity of some of the faces (he had sat next at dinner, not a week ago, the brown-faced Canon-Theologian), the conversational manner of the speakers, the complete absence of any dramatic solemnity--these things increased the terror and repugnance he felt. Were the preliminaries of Death for Heresy so simple as all that? Was the point of view that made it possible so utterly accepted by everyone as to allow the actual consummation to come about so quietly? . . .

The thing seemed impossible and dreamlike. He strove to hold himself quiet till he could understand. . . . But at the sight of the young monk, paled and tired-looking, yet perfectly serene, his self-control broke down. A spasm shook his face; he stretched out his hands blindly and helplessly, and some sound broke from his mouth.

He felt himself taken by the arm and led forward. Then he slipped into a chair, and dropped his face in his hands upon the table.

It was a few moments before he recovered and looked up.

"There, there, Monsignor," said the monk. ". . . I didn't expect this. There's nothing to----"

"But . . . but----"

"It's a shock to you, I see. . . . It's very kind. . . . But I knew it all along. Surely you must have known----"

"I never dreamt of it. I never thought it conceivable. It's abominable; it's----"

"Monsignor, this isn't kind to me," rang out the young voice sternly; and the elder man recovered himself sharply. "Please talk to me quietly. Father Abbot tells me you will see the Cardinal."

"I'll do anything--anything in my power. Tell me what I can do."

He had recovered himself, as under a douche of water, at the sharpness of the monk's tone just now. He felt but one thing at this instant, that he would strain every force he had to hinder this crime. He remained motionless, conscious of that sensation of intense tightness of nerve and sinew in which an overpressed mind expresses itself.

The monk sat down, on the farther side of the table.

"That's better, Monsignor," he said, smiling. . . . "Well, there's really not much to do. Insanity seems the only possible plea."

He smiled again, brilliantly.

"Tell me the whole thing," said the prelate suddenly and hoarsely. "Just the outline. I don't understand; and I can do nothing unless I do."

"You haven't followed the case?"

Monsignor shook his head. The monk considered again.

"Well," he said. "This is the outline; I'll leave out technical details. I have written a book (which will never see the light now) and I sent an abstract of it to Rome, giving my main thesis. It's on the miraculous element in Religion. I'm a Doctor in Physical Science, you know, as well as in Theology. Now there's a certain class of cure (I won't bother you with details, but a certain class of cure) that has always been claimed by theologians as evidently supernatural. And I'll acknowledge at once that one or two of the decrees of the Council of 1960 certainly seem to support them. But my thesis is, first, that these cures are perfectly explicable by natural means, and secondly, that therefore these decrees must be interpreted in a sense not usually received by theologians, and that they do not cover the cases in dispute. I'm not a wilful heretic, and I accept