Part 17 (1/2)
”You would like to hear the story?--ah, take care, mon ange!” he cried, as he perceived Manuel standing lightly near the brink of the platform, and stretching out his arms towards the city, ”Thou art not a bird to fly from that edge in the air! What dost thou see?”
”Paris!” replied the boy in strangely sorrowful accents, turning his young, wistful face towards the Cardinal, his hair blown back in the light wind, ”All Paris!”
”Ah!--'tis a fine sight, all Paris!” said the old guide--”one of the finest in the world, to judge by the outside of it. But the inside is a very different matter; and if Paris is not a doomed city, then there is no G.o.d, and I know nothing of the Bible. It has got all the old sins in a new shape, and revels in them. And of the story of the priest, if you would hear it;--ah!--that is well!” he said, as Manuel left the giddy verge of the platform where he had been standing, and drew near. ”It is safer to be away from that edge, my child! And for the poor priest, it happened in this way,--it was a fair night, and the moon was high--I was dozing off in a chair in my room below, when the bell rang quickly, yet softly. I got up with pleasure, for I said to myself, 'here is an artist or a poet,--one of those persons who are unlike anyone else'--just as I am myself unlike anyone else--'and so we two shall have a pleasant evening.' But when I opened the door there was no one but a priest, and poor-looking even at that; and he was young and pale, and very uneasy in his manner, and he said to me, 'Jean Lapui'--(that is my name)--'let me pa.s.s up to the platform.' 'Willingly,' said I, 'if I may go with you.' 'Nay, I would rather be alone,' he answered. 'That may not be,' I told him, 'I am as pleased to see the moonbeams s.h.i.+ning on the beasts and devils as any man,--and I shall do you no harm by my company.' Well, he agreed to have me then, and up we went the three hundred and seventy-eight steps,--(it is a long way, Monseigneur;--)and he mounted quickly, I slowly,--but always keeping my eye upon him. At last we reached this platform, and the moonlight was beautiful, and clear as day. Then my little priest sat down and began to laugh. 'Ha, my Lapui!' he said, 'Is it not droll that this should be all a lie! All this fine building, and all the other fine buildings of the kind in Paris! Strange, my Lapui, is it not, that this Cathedral should be raised to the wors.h.i.+p of a G.o.d whom no one obeys, or even thinks of obeying! All show, my good Lapui! All to feed priests like me, and keep them going--but G.o.d has nothing to do with it--nothing at all, I swear to you!'--'You may be right, mon reverend,' I said, (for I saw he was not in a mood to be argued with)--”Yet truly the Cathedral has not always been a place of holiness. In seventeen ninety-three there was not much of our Lord or the blessed Saints in it.' 'No, you are right, Lapui!' he cried, 'Down came the statue of the Virgin, and up went the statue of Liberty! There was the crimson flare of the Torch of Truth!--and the effigies of the ape Voltaire and the sensualist Rousseau, took the places of St. Peter and St. Paul! Ha!--And they wors.h.i.+pped the G.o.ddess of Reason--Reason, impersonated by Maillard the ballet-dancer! True to the life, my Lapui!--that kind of wors.h.i.+p has lasted in Paris until now!--it goes on still--Reason,--man's idea of Reason,--impersonated by a ballet dancer! Yes,--the shops are full of that G.o.ddess and her portraits, Jean Lapui! And the jewellers can hardly turn out sufficient baubles to adorn her shrine!' He laughed again, and I took hold of him by the arm. 'See here, pet.i.t pere,' I said, 'I fancy all is not well with you.' 'You are right,' he answered, 'all is very ill!' 'Then will you not go home and to bed?' I asked him.
'Presently--presently;' he said, 'if I may tell you something first!'
'Do so by all means, reverend pere,' said I, and I sat down near him.
'It is just this, Lapui,' and he drew out a crucifix from his breast and looked at it very earnestly, 'I am a priest, as you see; and this symbol represents my faith. My mother told me that to be a priest and to serve G.o.d was the highest happiness that could befall a man. I believed it,--and when I look at the stars up there crowding around us in such vast circles,--when I look at all this moonlight and the majesty of creation around me, I believe it still! Up here, it seems there MAY be a G.o.d; down there,' and he pointed towards the streets, 'I know there is a devil! But I have discovered that it is no use telling the people about G.o.d, because they do not believe in Him. They think I am telling them a lie because it is my metier to tell lies. And also because they think I have neither the sense nor the ability to do anything else. They know they are telling lies themselves all day and every day. Some of them pretend to believe, because they think it best to be on the safe side even by feigning,--and they are the worst hypocrites. It drives me mad, Lapui, to perform Ma.s.s for liars! If it were only unbelievers! but liars!--liars! Liars who lie on their death-beds, telling me with mock sighs of penitence that they believe in G.o.d when they do not! I had a dream last night--you shall tell me if I was mistaken in it,--it was a dream of this very tower of Notre Dame.
I was up here as I am now--and the moonlight was around me as it is now--and I thought that just behind the wing of that third angel's head carved yonder--do you see?' and he got up and made me get up too, and turned me round with his hand on my shoulder--'a white dove had made its resting-place. Is there a white dove there, Lapui? If there is I shall be a happy man and all my griefs will be at an end! Will you go and look--and tell me if there is a white dove nestling there? Then I will say good-night to you and go home.' G.o.d forgive me!--I thought to humor him in his fancy, and so I left him to walk those five steps--only five at the utmost--and see if perhaps among the many doves that fly about the towers, it might not be that a white one, as he said, should have chosen to settle in the place he pointed out to me, 'for,' thought I, 'he will be quiet then and satisfied.' And like a blind fool I went--and when I came back the platform was empty!--Ah, Monseigneur!--he had said good-night indeed, and gone home!”
”You mean that he flung himself from this parapet?” said Bonpre, in a low, horrified tone.
”That was the way of it, Monseigneur,” said Lapui commiseratingly,--”His body was found next day crushed to bits on the pavement below; but somehow no one troubled much about it, or thought he had thrown himself from the tower of Notre Dame. It was said that he had been murdered and thrown out of a window, but n.o.body knew how or when. Of course I could have spoken, but then I should have got into trouble. And I avoid trouble whenever I can. A very strange thing it is that no one has ever been suspected of leaping from Notre Dame into the next world since Victor Hugo's great story was written. 'It is against the rules,' say the authorities, 'to mount the towers at night.' True, but rules are not always kept. Victor Hugo's 'Quasimodo,' who never lived, is the only person the wiseacres a.s.sociate with such a deed. And I,--I could tell many a strange story; only it is better to be silent!
Life is hard living,--and when a priest of the Church feels there is no G.o.d in this world, why what is there left for him except to try and find out if there is in the next?”
”Suicide is not the way to find Heaven,” said the Cardinal gravely.
”Maybe not,--maybe not,” and the old custodian turned to lead the way down the steps of the tower, ”But when the brain is gone all through grief at losing G.o.d, it may chance that G.o.d sees the conditions of things, and has mercy. Events happen in this world of such a kind as to make anyone who is not a saint, doubt the sense as well as the goodness of the Creator,--of course that is a wicked thing to say, for we make our own evils, no doubt--”
”That is very certain,” said the Cardinal, ”The unhappy man you have told me of should have trusted G.o.d to the end, whether those whom he preached to, believed his message or not. Their conduct was not his business,--his task was to declare, and not to judge.”
”Now that is very well put!” and the old man paused on the stairway and looked round approvingly. ”Of course that is said as only a wise man could say it, for after all, Christ Himself did not judge any one in any case. He came to save us all, not to punish us.”
”Then why does not everyone remember that, and try to save one another rather than to condemn?” asked Manuel suddenly.
They had reached the bottom of the tower stairway, and old Jean Lapui, shading his eyes from the glare of the daylight with one wrinkled hand, looked at the boy with a smile of compa.s.sionate interest.
”Why does not everyone remember? Why does not everyone do as He did?
Ah, that is a question! You are young, and you will find out many answers to it before you are much older. One fact is sure,--that if everybody did remember Him and lived exactly as He wished, we should have a new Heaven and a new Earth; and I will tell you something else,”
and the old fellow looked sly and mischievous, ”No offence meant--no offence!--but there would be no churches and no priests! Believe me, I speak the truth! But this would be a great happiness; and is not to be our portion yet! Good-day, Monseigneur!--A thousand pardons for my wicked speech! Good-day!”
”Good-day!” responded the Cardinal gently, ”Be careful of your night visitors, my friend! Do not for the future leave them alone to plunge into the Infinite without a warning!”
The old man smiled deprecatingly.
”Truly, Monseigneur, I am generally careful. I do not know when I have spoken so freely to anyone as I have to you; for I am generally in a bad humour with all Church dignitaries,--and of course I know you for a Cardinal by your dress, while you might truly be a saint from your manner;--so I should have held my tongue about the flight into the air of the little priest. But you will say nothing, for you are discreet; and even if you did, and I were asked about it, I should know nothing.
Oh, yes, I can tell lies as fast as anybody else!--Yes, truly! I do not suppose anyone, not even an Archbishop himself, could surpa.s.s me in lying!”
”And are you not ashamed to lie?” asked Bonpre, with an intense vibration of pain in his voice as he put the question.
”Heaven bless you, no, Monseigneur!” replied Lapui cheerfully, ”For is not the whole world kept going by lies? Dear me, if we all told the truth there would be an end of everything! I am a philosopher in my way, Monseigneur,--and I a.s.sure you that a real serious truth told in Paris without any gloss upon it, would be like an earthquake in the city,--great houses would come down and numbers of people would be killed by it! Good-day, Monseigneur!--Good-day.”
And still smiling and chuckling, the custodian of the North tower retired into his den there to await fresh visitors. The Cardinal walked slowly to the corner of the street where his carriage awaited him,--his head bent and his eyes downcast; Manuel stepped lightly along beside him, glancing at his pale face from time to time with a grave and tender compa.s.sion. When they were seated in the vehicle and driving homewards the boy spoke gently--
”You grieve too much for others, dear friend! You are now distressed because you have heard the story of one unhappy man who sought to find G.o.d by self-destruction, and you are pained also lest another man should lose G.o.d altogether by the deliberate telling of lies. All such mistakes and follies of the world weigh heavily on your heart, but they should not do so,--for did not Christ suffer all this for you when He was crucified?”
The Cardinal sighed deeply.