Part 20 (2/2)
He remembered that a review had recently estimated the number of nuns and monks in France at two hundred thousand.
”Two hundred thousand persons, who, in such an epoch, have understood the wickedness of the struggle for life, the filth of s.e.xual relations, the horror of lyings-in, those are they who save the honour of the country,” he thought.
Then, pa.s.sing at a bound from cloistered souls to the treatises he had put in his portmanteau, he went on: ”It is, all the same, curious how completely the temperament of French art rebels against Mysticism!
”All exalted writers are foreigners. Saint Denys the Areopagite was a Greek; Eckhart, Tauler, Suso, Sister Emmerich, were Germans; Ruysbrock came from Flanders; Saint Teresa, Saint John of the Cross, Saint Marie d'Agreda, were Spaniards; Father Faber was English; Saint Bonaventure, Angela of Foligno, Magdalen of Pazzi, Catherine of Genoa, Jacopo de Voragine, were Italians....
”Ah!” he said, struck by the last name he had cited, ”I ought to have brought his Golden Legend in my bag; how was it I did not remember it, for that book is, in fact, the very crowning work of the Middle Ages, the stimulant for hours rendered languid by the prolonged uneasiness of fasting, the simple aid of pious vigils? For the most incredulous souls of our time, the Golden Legend at least still seems like one of those pure parchments, on which simple illuminators painted the faces of saints with gum water, or white of egg on golden backgrounds. Jacopo de Voragine is the Jehan Fouquet, the Andre Beaunevue, of literary miniature, of mystic prose!
”It is quite absurd to have forgotten that book, for it would have made me pa.s.s precious days, like those of old, in La Trappe.
”Yes, it is strange,” he thought, returning on his thoughts, and coming back to his first idea; ”France can count religious authors, more or less celebrated, but very few mystical writers, properly so-called, and it is just the same also in painting. The true Early Masters are Flemish, German or Italian, none are French, for our Burgundian School descended from the Flemish.
”No, it cannot be denied, the genius of our race cannot easily follow and explain how G.o.d acts when He works in the central depths of the soul, which is the ovary of thought, the very source of conception; it is refractory at explaining, by the expressive power of words, the crash or the silence of grace; bursting forth in the domain which is wasted by sin, it is inapt at extracting from that secret world, works of psychology like those of Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross, works of art, like those of Voragine or Sister Emmerich.
”Besides that our field is scarcely arable, and our soil harsh, where shall we now find the labourer who sows and harrows it, who prepares not even a mystical harvest, but even any spiritual fruit, capable of a.s.suaging the hunger of the few who stray and are lost, and fall from inanition in the icy desert of our time?
”He who should be the cultivator of that land, the farmer of souls, the priest, has not strength to clear the ground.
”The seminary has made him arbitrary and puerile, life outside has made him lukewarm. Therefore it seems that G.o.d has withdrawn Himself from him, and the proof of this is that He has taken away all ability from the priesthood. There are no priests now who have talent, either in the pulpit or in books; the laity have inherited that grace which was so common in the Church of the Middle Ages. Another example proves it still more, priests make so few conversions. In these days the being who pleases Heaven does without them, the Saviour Himself strikes him down, handles him, works directly on him.
”The ignorance of the clergy, their want of education, their unintelligence of their surroundings, their dislike for Mysticism, their incomprehension of art, have taken away all their influence on the aristocracy of souls. Their only action is now on the childish brains of bigots and pretenders; and this is no doubt providential; it is better so, for if the priest became the master, if he succeeded in raising and vivifying the wearisome tribe he manages, it would be like a waterspout of clerical stupidity beating down on a country, would be the end of all literature and all art in France.
”To save the Church there remains the monk, whom the priest detests, for the life of the cloister is a constant reproach to his own existence,”
continued Durtal; ”always supposing that my illusions are not again destroyed when I see a monastery ... but no, I am lucky; I have discovered in Paris one of those few abbes who is neither indifferent nor a pedant; why should I not, in an abbey, come into contact with authentic monks?”
He lighted a cigarette, and looked at the landscape from the carriage window; the train was pa.s.sing through fields in front of which the telegraph wires danced in puffs of steam; the landscape was flat and uninteresting. Durtal fell back sulkily in his corner.
”The arrival at the convent disturbs me,” he murmured; ”since there are no useless words to proffer, I shall confine myself to giving his letter to the Father Guestmaster; ah! and then all will arrange itself.”
He felt, in fact, a perfect calm, and was astonished at not finding in himself any disgust or fear, at being almost in high spirits: ”Well, my good priest was right in declaring that I was creating monsters in advance;” and he thought of the Abbe Gevresin, was surprised that long as he had visited him, he knew nothing whatever of his antecedents, that he was no more intimate with him than on the very first day; ”In fact, it only rested with me to question him discreetly, but the idea never entered my head: it is true that our intercourse has been strictly limited to matters of religion and art; this perpetual reserve does not create very thrilling friends.h.i.+ps, but it inst.i.tutes a sort of Jansenism of the affections which is not without charm.
”In any case that ecclesiastic is a holy man; he has not even that manner at once caressing and reserved of other priests. Apart from certain gestures, his habit of rolling his arms in his cincture, of wrapping his hands in his sleeves, of liking to walk backwards when in conversation; apart from his innocent mania of interlarding his phrases with Latin, he does not recall either the att.i.tude or the unfas.h.i.+onable speech of his brethren. He loves mysticism and plain song; he is exceptional, and therefore he must have been also carefully chosen for me in heaven.
”Ah well! we must be getting near,” he sighed, looking at his watch, ”I am beginning to feel hungry; come, that is all right, we shall be at Saint Landry in a quarter of an hour.”
He strummed on the windows of the carriage, saw the fields and woods fly past, smoked a cigarette or two, took his bag from the rack, at last arrived at the station and got out.
Close to the tiny station he recognized the inn of which the abbe had told him. He found a good woman in the kitchen who said, ”All right, sir, sit down, they will put the horse to while you breakfast.”
He fed himself on uneatable things, they brought him a calf's head forgotten in a tub, some cutlets that were high, vegetables blackened with gravy from the stove.
In his present mood he was amused at this infamous meal, fell back upon a thin wine which rasped his throat, and resignedly drank coffee which left a sediment of peat at the bottom of the cup.
<script>