Part 8 (2/2)
”As to the third Person, He is even more disconcerting than the first.
He is especially the unknowable. How can we imagine this G.o.d formless and bodiless, this Substance equal to the two others, who, as it were, breathe Him forth? We think of Him as a brightness, a fluid, a breath; we cannot even lend to Him as to the Father the face of a man, since on the two occasions that He took to Himself a body, He showed Himself under the likenesses of a dove and of tongues of fire, and these two different aspects do not help to a suggestion of the new appearance He might a.s.sume.
”Certainly the Trinity is terrible, and makes the brain reel. Ruysbrock has moreover said admirably, 'Let those who would know and study what G.o.d is, know that it is forbidden; they will go mad.'
”So,” he continued, looking at the two Little Sisters, who were now telling their beads, ”these good women are right not to try to understand, and to confine themselves to praying with all their heart to the Mother and the Son.
”Moreover, in all the lives of the saints which they have read, they have made certain that Jesus and Mary always appeared to the elect to console and strengthen them.
”In fact, how stupid I am. To pray to the Son is to pray to the two others, for in praying to one among them I pray at the same time to the three, since the three make but one. And the Substances are, however, special, because if the divine Essence is one and simple, it is so in the threefold distinction of the Persons; but, again, what is the use of fathoming the Impenetrable?
”Yet,” he continued, remembering the interview he had just had with the priest, ”how will all this end? If the abbe be right, I no longer belong to myself; I am about to enter the unknown, which frightens me.
If only the sound of my vices consents to be silent, but I feel that they rise furiously within me. Ah, that Florence”--and he thought of a woman to whose vagaries he was riveted--”continues to walk about in my brain. I see her behind the lowered curtain of my eyes, and when I think of her I am a terrible coward.”
He endeavoured once more to put her away, but his will was overcome at the sight of her.
He hated, despised, and even cursed her, but the madness of his illusions excited him; he left her disgusted with her and with himself; he swore he would never see her again, but did not keep his resolve.
He saw her now in vision extend her hand to him.
He recoiled, struggling to free himself; but his dream continued mingling her with the form of one of the sisters whose gentle profile he saw.
Suddenly he started, returned to the real world, and saw that he was at St. Sulpice, in the chapel. ”It is disgusting that I should come here to soil the church with my horrible dreams; I had better go.”
He went out in confusion, thinking, ”Perhaps if I visit Florence once again, I may perhaps put an end to this haunting sense of her presence, seeing and knowing the reality.”
And he was obliged to answer himself that he was becoming idiotic, for he knew by experience that past desire grows in proportion as it is nourished. ”No, the abbe was right; I have to become and to remain penitent. But how? Pray? How can I pray, when evil imaginations pursue me even in church? Evil dreams followed me to La Glaciere; here they appear again, and smite me to the ground. How can I defend myself? for indeed it is frightful to be thus alone, to know nothing and have no proof, to feel the prayers which one tears out of oneself fall into the silence and the void without a gesture to answer, without a word of encouragement, without a sign. I do not even know if He be there, and if He listens. The abbe tells me to wait an indication, an order from on high; but, alas! they come to me from below.”
CHAPTER VI.
Many months pa.s.sed. Durtal continued his alternation of wanton and pious ideas. Without power to resist, he saw himself slipping. ”All this is far from clear,” he cried, one day, in a rage, when, less apathetic than usual, he forced himself to take stock. ”Now, Monsieur l'Abbe, what does this mean? Whenever my sensual obsessions are weaker, so also are my religious impressions.”
”That means,” said the priest, ”that your adversary is holding out to you the most treacherous of his baits. He seeks to persuade you that you will never attain to anything unless you will give yourself up to the most repugnant excesses. He tries to convince you that satiety and disgust of these acts alone will bring you back to G.o.d; he incites you to commit them that they may, so to speak, bring about your deliverance; he leads you into sin under pretext of delivering you from it. Have a little energy, despise these sophistries and resist him.”
He went to see the Abbe Gevresin every week. He liked the patient discretion of the old priest, who let him talk when he was in a confidential humour, listened to him carefully, manifested no surprise at his frequent temptations and his falls. Only the abbe always returned to his first advice, insisted on regular prayer, and that Durtal should each day, if possible, visit a church. He also now said, ”The hour is important for the success of these practices. If you wish that the chapels should be favourable to you, get up in time to be present at daybreak at the first ma.s.s, the servants' ma.s.s, and also be very often in the sanctuaries at nightfall.”
The priest had evidently formed a plan; Durtal did not yet wholly understand it, but he was bound to admit that this discipline of temporizing, this constant call to thought always directed to G.o.d, by his daily visits to the churches, acted upon him at last, and little by little softened his soul. One fact proved it: that he who for so long a time had been unable to meditate in the morning, now prayed as soon as he awoke. Even in the afternoon he found himself on some days seized with the need of speaking humbly with G.o.d, with an irresistible desire to ask His pardon and implore His help.
It seemed then that the Lord knocked at his door with gentle touches, wis.h.i.+ng so to recall his attention, and draw him to Him; but when, softened and troubled, Durtal would enter into himself to seek G.o.d, he wandered vaguely, not knowing what he said, and thinking of other things while speaking to Him.
He complained of these wanderings and distractions to the priest, who answered,--
”You are on the threshold of the probationary life; you cannot yet experience the sweet and familiar friends.h.i.+p of prayer. Do not sadden yourself because you cannot close behind you the gate of your senses.
Watch and wait; pray badly if you can do nothing else, but pray all the same.
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