Part 43 (1/2)
”Have I no rights as a man?” demanded he warmly.
The other sighed once more, and a look of genuine pain came into his face.
”My son,” he said with a gentleness which touched Maurice in spite of himself, ”when you gave yourself to the church, did you keep back part of the price? Was not your gift all you were and all you might possess?”
Maurice was silent. He could not for shame answer, that he did not then know that he had so much to give, and he realized too that this would then have made no difference. He felt as if he were now being held to a pledge which he had never meant to make, yet he could not see what reply there was to the words of the Superior. He cast down his eyes, but he said in his heart that he would not yield his claim; that the demand was unjust.
”I have for some time,” Father Frontford went on, ”in fact ever since your return, seen with pain that your heart is no longer single to the good of the church. An earthly pa.s.sion has eaten into your soul. Your confessions are evidently attempts to satisfy your own conscience by telling as little as possible of the doubts which you have been harboring in your heart. Now there is given you an opportunity to see for yourself, without the possibility of disguise, what your true feeling is. The question now is whether you are seeking your own will or the good of religion. Will you fail us and yourself?”
Maurice was touched by the tone in which this was said. While he had been growing to be less and less in sympathy with Father Frontford and with the ideals which the brotherhood represented, he had never for an instant ceased to believe in the sincerity of the Superior. He might think him narrow, mistaken, even at times so blinded by desire for the success of the brotherhood as to become almost Jesuitical in method; but he felt that the Father lived faithful to his belief, ready, if the cause required, to sacrifice himself utterly. He could not but be moved by the appeal which the priest made, and by the genuine feeling which rang through every word.
”Father,” he said, raising his eyes to the face of the other, ”I cannot deny that I am less satisfied about our faith than I used to be. I can see now that I perhaps have not been entirely frank in confession, though I hadn't recognized it before. I cannot go into a discussion of my doubts now. I am not in a mood to talk with you when we must look at so many things from different points of view. I haven't hidden from you anything that has happened, and you could not be persuaded that all the change in me has not come from the fact that I--has not come from my feeling toward--my feeling about marriage. This is not true. Everything has changed; and while I may be wrong, I have been trying to act conscientiously. I feel that it is right for me to follow up this matter of my aunt's will; and if I cannot make you share my feeling, I can only say that I don't wish to do anything that seems to me wrong.”
The other smiled sadly.
”What does that mean in plainer words?” asked he. ”It means that you do not wish to do wrong because whatever you desire will seem to you right.”
”You are unjust!” Maurice retorted, flus.h.i.+ng.
The face of the Father grew stern. ”Since when did the rule of the order allow you to use such language to your superiors? If you are not thinking of evading your vows, you do evade them daily; and the throwing them off can be nothing but an affair of time.”
Maurice felt that he could not endure this longer without breaking out into words which he should afterward repent. He rose at once.
”Will you permit me to retire?” he said. ”I shall be glad of your answer to my request for leave of absence, but I cannot go on with this conversation.”
The other stretched out his hand with a gesture infinitely tender.
”My son!” he entreated. ”Do not stray into the wilderness!”
Maurice looked at the outstretched hand. His eyes moistened, but he could not yield. He felt tenderness for Father Frontford, but he was more and more at war with the Father Superior. For an instant they remained thus, and then the thin hand dropped.
”You are then still resolute in asking leave?” the Father said, in his coldest voice.
”It seems to me my duty to see that if possible the last wishes of my aunt be carried out.”
”Is that your only motive?”
Maurice flushed hotly, but he looked the other boldly in the face.
”I must allow you to impute to me any motive you please. The point is whether I am to have your permission.”
”Under the circ.u.mstances I do not feel justified in granting it. We will speak of the matter again, when you have examined your heart more carefully.”
Maurice bowed and left the room in silence, his spirit hot within him.
That he should be denied had not entered his mind. He was now confused by the conflict in his thoughts. To disobey would be equivalent to nothing less than a defiance of the authority of the Father Superior.
To a.s.sert his right to decide this matter could only mean a resolve to break away from the brotherhood altogether. He was hardly prepared for a step so extreme; yet he could not but ask himself whether he were willing to accept the conditions involved in remaining. He realized for the first time what the vow of obedience meant. He had received the slight sacrifices involved thus far in his novitiate as right and proper; simple things which had marked his willingness to yield to the authority which by his own choice was above him. Now he said to himself that to continue this life was to become a mere puppet; to give up independence and manhood itself.
On the other hand, he had not been bred in theological subtilties without having come to see that the act cannot be judged without the motive, and he had been more nearly touched by the words of Father Frontford than he would have been willing to confess. He knew that he had been hiding from his confessor the extent to which a longing for the world had taken possession of him; that there was in this wish to secure the will and through it the property an eagerness to be independent of control and to take his place in the world as a man among men. The thought that the money was now in the hands of the church to which he had pledged himself tormented him. There came into his mind the question what he would do with the wealth if he obtained it. He had vowed himself to poverty, at least in his intention. If he had this fortune and became a priest, he would be pledged to endow the church with all his worldly goods.
He faced his inner self with sudden defiance, as if he had thrown off a disguise cunningly but weakly worn. He confessed with frankness that he had secretly desired this money that he might be in a position to gain Berenice. He pleaded with himself that he did not mean to abandon the priesthood; that he had simply discovered that he had not a vocation for the existence he had contemplated. He tried to see some way in which he might gain the end he desired without giving up the faith he professed; and in the end he succeeded only in getting his mind into a confusion so great that it seemed impossible to think of anything clearly.