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

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"May I have that blind down, your Eminence? . . . Ah! that's better. Now then."

He bent closely over the square box on the table, and seemed to peer at something inside. The others kept silence.

"Well?" asked the Cardinal at last.

"Perfectly satisfactory, your Eminence. There is a very faint discoloration, but no more than is usual in a man of Monsignor's temperament at any excitement. There is absolutely nothing wrong, and--Monsignor," he continued, looking straight at the wire-bedecked invalid, "not the very faintest indication of anything even approaching insanity or imbecility."

The man who had lost his memory drew a swift breath.

"May I see, doctor?" asked the Cardinal suavely.

"Certainly, your Eminence; and Monsignor can look himself, if he likes."

When the other two had looked, the sick man himself was given the box.

"(Carefully with that wire, please.) There!" said the doctor. "Look down there."

In the centre of the box, shielded by a little plate of glass, there appeared a small semi-luminous globe. This globe seemed tinted with slightly wavering colours, in which a greyish blue predominated; but, almost like a pulse, there moved across it from time to time a very pale red tint, suffusing it, and then dying away again.

"What is it?" asked the man in the chair hoarsely, lifting his head.

"That, my dear Monsignor," explained the doctor carefully, "is a reflection of your physical condition. It is an exceedingly simple, though of course very delicate instrument. The method was discovered---"

"Is it anything to do with magnetism?"

"They used to call it that, I think. It's got several names now. All mental disturbance has, of course, a physical side to it, and that is how we are able to record it physically. It was discovered by a monk, of course."

"But . . . but it's marvellous."

"Everything is marvellous, Monsignor. Certainly this, however, caused a revolution. It became the symbol of the whole modern method of medicine."

"What's that?" The doctor laughed.

"That's a large question," he said.

"But . . ."

"Well, in a word, it's the old system turned upside down. A century ago when a man was ill they began by doctoring his body. Now, when a man's ill, they begin by doctoring his mind. You see the mind is much more the man than the body is, as Theology always taught us. Therefore by dealing with the mind----"

"But that's Christian Science!"

The doctor looked bewildered.

"It was an old heresy, doctor," put in the Cardinal, smiling, "that denied the reality of matter. No, Monsignor, we don't deny the reality of matter. It's perfectly real. Only, as the doctor says, we prefer to attack the real root of the disease, rather than its physical results. We still use drugs; but only to remove painful symptoms."

"That . . . that sounds all right," stammered the man, bewildered by the simplicity of it. "Then . . . then do you mean, your Eminence, that physical diseases are treated---?"

"There are no physical diseases left," put in the doctor. "Of course there are accidents and external physical injuries; but practically all the rest have disappeared. Very nearly all of them were carried by the blood, and, by dealing with this, the tissues are made immune. Our discoveries also in the region of innervation----"

"But . . . but . . . are there no diseases then?"

"Why, yes, Monsignor," interrupted the Cardinal, with the patient air of one talking to a child, "there are hundreds of those; and they are very real indeed; but they are almost entirely mental--or psychical, as some call them. And there are specialists on all of these. Bad habits of thought, for example, always set up some kind of disease; and there are hospitals for these; and even isolation homes."

"Forgive me, your Eminence," put in the doctor, with a certain imperiousness, "but I think we ought not to talk to Monsignor too much on this subject. May I put a question or two?"

"I beg your pardon, doctor. Certainly. Put any question you wish."

The doctor sat down again.

"Have you been in the habit of saying Mass every day, Monsignor?"

"I . . . I don't know," said the invalid.

"Yes, doctor," put in Father Jervis.

"And confession once a week?"

"Twice a week," said Father Jervis. "I am Monsignor's confessor."

"Very good," said the doctor. "For the present, as far as I am concerned, I should recommend confession only once a fortnight as a general rule. Mass can be as before. Then Monsignor may say half of his office every day, or the rosary; but not both. And no other devotions of any kind, except the particular Examen. If Monsignor and Father Jervis both consent, I should like the Examen to be forwarded to a priest-doctor for a few weeks."

An exclamation broke from the invalid.

"Well, Monsignor?"

"I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

The Cardinal leaned forward.

"Monsignor, listen to me. In these cases the doctor always gives his advice. You see even the sacraments have their mental side; and on this mental side the doctor speaks. But the whole decision rests entirely with the patient and his confessor; or they can call in an expert priest-doctor. Only a priest can possibly decide finally the relations between the grace of the sacraments and their reactionary effect upon the mind. A lay doctor only recommends. Are you satisfied?"

The man nodded. It seemed very simple, so stated.

"For the rest," continued the doctor, with a certain stateliness of manner, "I order a complete change of scene. This must be for a fortnight at least, if not longer. If the priest-doctor's report--to whom the Examen may be sent--is not satisfactory, it will have to be for longer. The patient must engage in no business that does not honestly interest him."

"May he travel to-night?" asked the Cardinal.

"The sooner the better," said the doctor, rising.

"What is the matter with me?" asked the invalid hoarsely.

"It is a small mental explosion, but it has not affected the mechanism of the brain. There is not, as I have said, a trace of insanity or of loss of balance. I cannot promise that the injury will be repaired; but defects that may follow from this can easily be remedied by study. It simply depends upon yourself, Monsignor, as to in how long you can be at your post again here. As soon as you have learned the threads of business, you will be able to apply yourself as before. I shall look for a report in a fortnight's time at the latest. Good day, your Eminence."


(II)

The clocks of London were all striking the single stroke of midnight as the two priests stood on the wind-sheltered platform of the volor, waiting for the start.

To Monsignor Masterman the scene was simply overwhelming. There was hardly a detail that was not new and unfamiliar. From where he stood on the upper deck, grasping the rail before him, his eyes looked out over a luminous city as lovely as fairyland. There were no chimneys, of course (these, he had just learnt, had altogether disappeared more than fifty years ago), but spires and towers and pinnacles rose before him like a dream, glowing against the dark sky, lit by the soft radiance of the streets beneath. To the right, not a hundred yards away, rose Saint Edward's tower, mellowed now to clear orange by the lapse of three-quarters of a century; to the left a flight of buildings, of an architectural design which he did not understand, but which gave him a sense of extreme satisfaction; in front towered the masses of Buckingham Palace as he seemed always to have known it.

The platform of the flying ship on which he stood hung in dock at least three hundred feet high above the roads beneath. He had examined the whole vessel just now from stem to stern, and had found it vaguely familiar; he determined to examine it again presently. There was no gas-bag to sustain it--so much he had noticed--though he could not say whence he had the idea that gas-bags were usual. But it seemed to him as if the notion of airships did carry some faint association to his mind, although far less distinct than that of motor-cars and even trains. He had enquired of his companion an hour or two earlier as they had discussed their journey as to whether they would not go by train and steamer, and had received the answer that these were never used except for very short journeys.

Here, then, he stood and stared.

It was very quiet up here; but he listened with considerable curiosity to the strange humming sound that filled the air, rising and falling, as of a beehive. At first he thought it was the working of engines in the ship; but he presently perceived it to be the noise of the streets rising from below; and it was then that he saw for the first time that foot-passengers were almost entirely absent, and that practically the whole roadway, so far as he could make out from the high elevation at which he stood, was occupied by cars of all descriptions going this way and that. They sounded soft horns as they went, but they bore no lights, for the streets were as light as day with a radiance that seemed to fall from beneath the eaves of all the buildings that lined them. This effect of lighting had a curious result of making the city look as if it were seen through glass or water--a beautifully finished, clean picture, moving within itself like some precise and elaborate mechanism.

He turned round at a touch on his arm.

"You would like to see the start, perhaps," said the old priest. "We are a little late to-night. The country mails have only just arrived. But we shall be off directly now. Come this way."

The upper deck, as the two turned inwards, presented an extremely pleasant and reassuring picture. From stem to stern it ran clear, set out, however, with groups of tables and chairs clamped to the floor, at which sat a dozen parties or so, settling themselves down comfortably. There were no funnels, no bridge, no break at all to the delightful vista. The whole was lighted by the same device as were the streets, for round the upper edges of the transparent walls that held out the wind shone a steady, even glow from invisible lights.

In the very centre of the deck, however, was a low railing that protected the head of a staircase, and down this well the two looked.

"Shall I explain?" asked the old priest, smiling. "This is the latest model, you know. It has not been in use for more than a few months."

The other nodded.

"Tell me everything, please."

"Well, look right down there, below the second flight. The first flight leads to the second-class deck, and the flight below to the working parts of the ship. Now do you see that man's head, straight in the middle, in the bright light?--yes, immediately under. Well, that's the first engineer. He's in a glass compartment, you see, and can look down passages in every direction. The gas arrangements are all in front of him, and the----"

"Stop, please. What power is it that drives the ship? Is it lighter than air, or what?"

"Well, you see the entire framework of the ship is hollow. Every single