Part 11 (2/2)
”In spite of these tokens, we are, in fact, standing on s.h.i.+fting ground in which we may sink at every step, but in his turn Saint John of the Cross intervenes, and tells you not to move. What then is to be done?
”'No one,' he says, 'ought to aspire to these supernatural communications and rest there, for two motives; first, humility, the perfect abnegation of refusing to believe in them; the second, that in acting thus, we deliver ourselves from the labour necessary to a.s.sure ourselves whether these vocal visions are true or false, and so we are dispensed from an examination which has no other profit for the soul than loss of time and anxiety.'
”Good--but if these words are really p.r.o.nounced by G.o.d, we rebel against His will if we remain deaf to them. And then, as Saint Teresa declares, it is not in our power not to listen to them, and the soul can only think of what it hears when Jesus speaks to it. Moreover, all the discussions on this subject are uncertain, for one does not enter of one's own will into the strait way, as the Church calls it, we are led, and even thrown into it often against the will, and resistance is impossible, phenomena occur, and nothing in the world has power to check them; witness Saint Teresa, who, resist as she would by humility, fell into ecstasy under the divine breath, and was raised from the ground.
”No, these superhuman conditions alarm me, and I do not hold to knowing them by experience. As to Saint John of the Cross, the abbe is not wrong in calling him unique, but though he sounds the lowest strata of the soul, and reaches where human auger has never penetrated, he wearies me all the same in my admiration, for his work is full of nightmares which repel me; I am not certain that his h.e.l.l is correct, and some of his a.s.sertions do not convince me. What he calls the 'night obscure' is incomprehensible; 'The sufferings of that darkness surpa.s.s what is possible,' he cries on each page. Here I lose foothold. I can imagine, though I have not experienced them, the moral and terrible pangs, of the deaths of friends and relations, love betrayed, hopes which failed, spiritual sorrows of all kinds, but such a martyrdom as he proclaims as superior to all others, is beyond me, for it is outside our human interests, beyond our affections; he moves in an inaccessible sphere, in an unknown world very far off.
”I am certainly afraid that this terrible saint, a true man of the south, abuses metaphor, and is full of Spanish affectation.
”Moreover I am astonished at the abbe on another point. He, who is so gentle, shows a certain leaning to the dry bread of Mysticism; the effusions of Ruysbrock, of Saint Angela, of Saint Catherine of Genoa, touch him less than the arguments of saints who are hard reasoners; yet by the side of these he has advised me to read Marie d'Agreda, whom he ought not to fancy, for she has none of those qualities which are admired in the works of Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross.
”Ah! he may flatter himself that he has inflicted on me a complete disillusion, by lending me her 'Cite Mystique.'
”From the renown of this Spanish woman, I expected the breath of prophecy, wide outlooks, extraordinary visions. Not at all; her book is simply strange and pompous, wearisome and cold. Then the phraseology of her book is intolerable. All the expressions which swarm in those ponderous volumes, 'my divine princess,' 'my great queen,' when she addresses Our Lady, who in her turn speaks to her as 'my dearest,' just as Christ calls her 'my spouse,' 'my well-beloved,' and speaks of her continually as 'the object of my pleasure and delight,' the way in which she speaks of the angels as 'the courtiers of the great King,' set my nerves on edge and weary me.
”They smell of perriwigs and ruffles, bows and dances like Versailles, a sort of court mysticism in which Christ pontificates, attired in the costume of Louis XIV.
”Moreover Marie d'Agreda enters into most extravagant details. She tells us of the milk of Our Lady which cannot grow sour, of female complaints from which she was exempt, she explains the mystery of the conception by three drops of blood which fell from the heart into the womb of Mary, and which the Holy Ghost used to form the child; lastly, she declares that Saint Michael and Saint Gabriel played the part of midwives, and stood living, under human forms, at the lying-in of the Virgin.
”This is too strong. I know well that the abbe would say that we need not concern ourselves with these singularities and these errors, but that the 'Cite Mystique' is to be read in relation to the inner life of the Blessed Virgin. Yes, but then the book of M. Ollier, which treats of the same subject, seems to me curious and trustworthy in quite a different way.”
Was the priest forcing the note, playing a part? Durtal asked himself this, when he saw how determined he was not to avoid the same questions during a certain time. He tried now and then, in order to see how the matter was, to turn the conversation, but the abbe smiled, and brought it back to the point he wished.
When he thought that he had saturated Durtal with mystical works, he spoke of them less, and seemed to attach himself mainly to the religious Orders, and especially to that of Saint Benedict. He very cleverly induced Durtal to become interested in this inst.i.tution, and to ask him about it, and when once he had entered on this ground, he did not depart from it.
It began one day when Durtal was talking with him about plain chant.
”You have reason to like it,” said the abbe, ”for even independently of the liturgy and of art, this chant, if I may believe Saint Justin, appeases the desires and concupiscences of the flesh, 'affectiones et concupiscentias carnis sedat,' but let me a.s.sure you, you only know it by hearsay, there is no longer any true plain chant in the churches, these are like the products of therapeutics, only more or less audacious adulterations presented to you.
”None of the chants which are to some extent respected by choirs, the 'Tantum ergo,' for example, are now exact. It is given almost faithfully till the verse 'Praestet fides,' and then it runs off the rails, taking no account of the shades, which are, however, quite perceptible, that the Gregorian melody introduces when the text declares the impotence of reason and the powerful aid of Faith; these adulterations are still more apparent, if you listen to the 'Salve Regina' after Compline. This is abridged more than half, is enervated, blanched, half its pauses are taken away, it is reduced to a mere stump of ign.o.ble music, if you had even heard this magnificent chant among the Trappists, you would weep with disgust at hearing it bawled in the churches at Paris.
”But besides the textual alteration of the melody as we now have it, the way in which the plain chant is bellowed is everywhere absurd. One of the first conditions for rendering it well, is that the voices should go together, that they should all chant in the same time syllable for syllable and note for note, in one word it must be in unison.
”Now, you can verify it yourself, the Gregorian melody is not thus treated; every voice takes its own part, and is isolated. Next, plain music allows no accompaniment, it must be chanted alone, without organ, it bears at most that the instrument should give the intonation and accompany it very softly, just enough if need be to sustain the pitch taken by the voices; it is not so that you will hear it given in the churches.”
”Yes, I know it well,” said Durtal. ”When I hear it at St. Sulpice, St.
Severin, or Notre Dame des Victoires, I am aware that it is sophisticated, but you must admit that it is even then superb. I do not defend the tricks, the addition of fiorituri, the falseness of the musical pauses, the felonious accompaniment, the concert-room tone inflicted on you at Saint Sulpice, but what can I do? in default of the original I must be content with a more or less worthless copy, and I repeat, even executed in that fas.h.i.+on the music is so admirable that I am enchanted by it.”
”But,” said the abbe quietly, ”nothing obliges you to listen to the false plain chant, when you can hear the true, for saving your presence, there exists, even in Paris, a chapel where it is intact, and given according to the rules of which I have spoken.”
”Indeed, and where is that?”
”At the Benedictine nuns of the Blessed Sacrament in the Rue Monsieur.”
”And can anyone enter the convent and be present at the offices?”
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