Dawn of All by Robert Hugh Benson

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They halted above Dublin, and he watched, as weeks ago at Brighton,
the lighted stage swing outside the windows. He noted a couple of
white-frocked monks or friars, hooded in black, standing among the
rest. Then he watched the stage drop out of sight, and the lights
of Dublin spin eastwards and vanish. Then he turned listlessly to
the book his friend had given him, and began to read.

As he stood himself on the platform at Thurles, bag in hand (they
brought no servants to Ireland), it seemed to him that already
there was a certain sense of quietness about him. He told himself
it was probably the result of self-suggestion. But, for all that,
it seemed curiously still. Beneath he saw great buildings,
flattened under the height at which he stood--court after court,
it appeared, each lighted invisibly and as clear as day. Yet no
figures moved across them; and in the roadways that ran here and
there was no crawling stream of ant-like beings such as he had
seen elsewhere. Even the officials seemed to speak in undertones;
and Father Jervis said no word at all. Then, as he felt the swift
dropping movement beneath his feet, he saw the great lighted ship
he had just left whirl off westwards, resembling a gigantic
luminous moth, yet without bell or horn to announce its journey.

He followed his friend out through the doorway of the
ground-platform to which the stage descended, and into the
interior of a great white car that waited--still with a strange
sense of irresponsibility and heaviness. He supposed that all was
well--as well as could be in a world such as this. Then he leaned
back and closed his eyes. There were three or four others in the
great car, he noticed; but all were silent.

He opened them again as the car stopped. But the priest beside
him made no movement. He looked out and saw that the car was
halted between two high walls and in front of a great arched
gateway. Even as he looked the gates rolled back noiselessly and
the car moved through. (The others had got out, he noticed.)

It seemed, as they sped on, as if they were going through the
streets of some strange dead city. All through which they passed
was perfectly visible in the white artificial light. Now they ran
between high walls; now along the side of a vast courtyard; now a
structure resembling the side of a cloister slid by them swiftly
and steadily--gone again in an instant. It was not until
afterwards that he realized that there had hardly been one window
to be seen; and not one living being.

And then at last the car stopped, and a monk in brown opened the
door of the car.

(III)

Monsignor woke next morning, already conscious of a certain sense
of well-being, and looked round the little white room in which he
lay, agreeably expectant.

* * * * *

Last night had helped to soothe him a little. He had supped with
his friend in a small parlour downstairs, after having been
warned not to speak, except in case of absolute necessity, to
the lay-brother who waited on them; and after supper had had
explained to him more at length what the object of the
expedition really was. It was the custom, he heard, for persons
suffering from overstrain or depression, whether physical,
mental, or spiritual, to come across to Ireland to one of those
Religious Houses with which the whole country was covered. The
only thing demanded of these retreatants was that they should
obey, absolutely and implicitly, the directions given to them
during their stay, and that their stay should not be less than
for three full days.

"We shall not meet after to-night," said Father Jervis, smiling,
"I shall be under as strict orders as you."

After they had parted for the night, the man who had lost his
memory had studied the little book given to him, and had learned
more or less the system under which Ireland lay. The whole
island, he learned, was the absolute and inalienable possession,
held under European guarantees, of the enclosed Religious Orders,
with whose dominion no interference was allowed. All the business
offices of the country and the ports of the enormous agricultural
industries were concentrated in Dublin and Belfast; the rest of
the island was cultivated, ruled, and cared for by the monks
themselves. (He read drearily through the pages of statistics
showing how once again, as in medieval days, under the labour of
monks the land had blossomed out into material prosperity; and
how this prosperity still increased, year by year, beyond all
reckoning.) Of men, there were the Carthusians, the Carmelites,
the Trappists, and certain sections of Benedictines; of women,
there were the Carmelites, the Poor Clares, the Augustinian
canonesses, and certain other Benedictines. Special arrangements
between these regulated the division of the land and of the
responsibilities; and the Central Council consisted of the
Procurators and other representatives of the various bodies.

In return for the possession of the land, and for the protection
guaranteed by the European governments, one, and one only demand
was made--namely, that a certain accommodation should be
offered--the amount determined by agreement year by year--both
for these Retreat-houses in general, and for what were called
"Hospitals-of-God" in particular. These hospitals were nothing
else in reality than enormous establishments for the treatment of
the mentally unbalanced; for it had been found by recent
experience that the atmosphere supremely successful in such
cases--especially those of certain well-marked types--was the
atmosphere of the strongest and most intense religion. Statistics
had shown without a doubt that, even apart from cases of actual
possession (a phenomenon perfectly recognized now by all
scientists), minds that were merely weak or subject to mental
delusions recovered incalculably more quickly and surely in the
atmosphere of a Religious House than in any other. These cases
too were isolated with the greatest care, owing to the
extraordinary discoveries recently made, and verified over and
over again in the realm of "mental infection."

So Monsignor had learned last night; and as he lay in his little
white room this morning, waiting for the instructions that, he
had been informed, would arrive before he need get up, it seemed
that even to his own tortured brain some breath of relief had
already come. The world seemed perfectly still. Once from far
away he heard the note of a single deep-toned bell; but, for the
rest, there was silence. There was no footstep in the house, no
footstep outside. From where he lay he could see out through his
low window into a tiny high-walled court, white like his own
room, except where the level lawn ran to the foot of the wall and
a row of tawny autumn flowers rose against it. Above the white
carved parapet opposite ran skeins of delicate cloud against the
soft blue sky. It was strange, he thought, to be conscious in
this utter solitude and silence of an incomparable peace. . . .

When he opened his eyes again, he saw that the hooded lay brother
had come in while he dozed, and had begun to set the room to
rights. A door, white like the wall, which he had not noticed
last night, stood open opposite his bed, and he caught sight of a
tiny bathroom beyond. A little fire of wood was leaping in the
white-tiled chimney; and before it stood a table. The window too
was set open, and the pleasant autumn air streamed in.

Then the brother came up to the bedside, his face invisible under
the peaked hood that hung over it. He uttered a sentence or two in
Latin, bidding him get up and dress. He was not to say Mass this
morning. "Father" would come in as soon as he had breakfasted and
give him his instructions for the day. That was all.

Monsignor got out of bed and went into the bathroom, where his
clothes were already arranged. When he came back a quarter of an
hour later, he found a tray set out with simple food and milk on
the table beside the fire. As he finished and said grace the door
opened noiselessly, and a priest in the Carthusian habit came in,
closing the door behind him.

(IV)

As the two faced one another for an instant, the Englishman
perceived in a glance that this monk was one of the most
impressive-looking men he had ever set eyes on. He was well over
six feet in height, and, in his rough, clumsy white dress, he
seemed enormously muscular and powerful. He carried himself
loosely, with an air of strength, almost swinging in his gait.
But it was his face that above all was remarkable. His hood lay
back on his shoulders, and from its folds rose his strong throat
and head, all as hairless as a statue's; and as the priest
glanced at him he saw that strange suggestion as of a bird's
head which some types convey. His nose was long, thin, and
curved; his lips colourless and compressed; his cheeks modelled
in folds and hollows over the bones beneath; and his eyes, of an
extraordinary light grey, looked out under straight upper lids,
as of an eagle.

So much for the physical side.

But, stranger than all this, was the unmistakable atmosphere that
seemed to enter with him--an atmosphere that from one side
produced a sense of great fear and helplessness, and on the other
of a kind of security. In an instant Monsignor felt as a wounded
child might feel in the presence of a surgeon. And, throughout the
interview that followed, this sensation deepened incalculably.

The man said nothing--not even a word of greeting--as he came
across the room. He just inclined his head a little, with a grave
and business-like courtesy, and waved the other back into his
chair. Then, still standing himself, he began to speak in a deep
but quite quiet voice, and very slowly and distinctly.

"You understand, Monsignor, the terms on which you are here? Yes.
Very well. I do not wish you to say Mass until your last morning.
I have spoken to Father Jervis about you. . . .

"Meanwhile, for to-day you are at liberty to walk in the court
outside as much as you wish, to read as you wish--in fact, to
occupy yourself as you like in this room, the ambulatory
downstairs, the roof overhead, and the garden. You are to write
no letters, and to speak to no one. You will have your meals in
the next room alone, where you will also find a few books. I wish
you to get as quiet and controlled as you can. Tomorrow morning I
will come in again at the same time and give you further
directions. You will find a tribune opening out at the end of
this corridor, looking into a chapel where the Blessed Sacrament
is reserved. But I do not wish you to spend there more than one
hour in the course of the day."

The monk was silent again, and did not even raise his eyes.
Monsignor said nothing. There was really nothing to say. He felt
entirely powerless, and not even desirous to speak. He
understood that to obey was simply inevitable, and that silence
was what was wished.

"I do not wish you to rehearse at all what you intend to say to
me to-morrow," went on the monk suddenly. "You are here to show
me yourself and your wounds, and there must be no false shame.
You will say what you feel to-morrow; and I shall say what I
think. I wish you a happy retreat."

Then, again without a word, but with that same inclination of his
head, he went swiftly across the room and was gone.

It was all completely unexpected, and Monsignor sat a few
minutes, astonished, without moving. He had not uttered a
syllable; and yet, in a sense, that seemed quite natural. He had
seen the monk look at him keenly as he came in, and was aware
that this had been an inspection by some new kind of expert.
Probably the monk had heard the outlines of the case from Father
Jervis, and had just looked in this morning, not only to give his
instructions, but to ratify by some peculiar kind of intuition
the account he had heard. Yet the ignominy of it all did not
touch him in the least. He felt more than ever like a child in
the hands of an expert, and, like a child, content to be so.
Conventions and the mutual little flatteries of the world outside
appeared meaningless here. . . .

He said some Office presently, and then set out to explore his ground.

The room he was in communicated with a lobby outside, from which
a staircase descended to a little cloistered and glazed
ambulatory opening on to the garden. Another staircase rose to a
door obviously leading to the roof. Besides the bedroom door
there were two others: the one which he entered first took him
into a little sitting-room also looking on to the garden, and
furnished simply with a table, an easy chair, and a few books;
the other opened directly on to a tiny gallery looking out
sideways upon a perfectly plain sanctuary, with a stone altar, a
lamp, and a curtained tabernacle, which seemed to be a chapel of
some church whose roof only was visible beyond a high closed
screen. He knelt here a minute or two, then he passed back again
to the lobby and ascended the staircase leading to the roof. He
thought that from here he might form some idea as to the place
in which he was.

The flat roof, tiled across, and guttered so as to allow the
rainwater to escape, at first seemed closed in on all sides with
walls over six feet high. Then he perceived that each wall was
pierced with a tiny double window, so contrived that it was
possible to see out easily and comfortably without being seen. He
went straight to one of these and looked through.

As far as he could see stretched what looked like the roofs of a
great town, for the most part flattish, but broken here and
there, and especially towards the horizon, by tall buildings
pierced with windows, and in three or four cases by church
towers. Immediately beneath him lay a vast courtyard like that of
a college, with a cluster of elms, ruddy with autumn colours, in
the midst of the central lawn. There was no human being in sight
on this side; the roofs, many of them parapeted like his own,
stretched out into the distance, their ranks here and there
broken by lines which appeared to indicate roadways running
beneath. He saw a couple of cats on the grass below.

On all sides, as he went from window to window of the little
roofless space, there was the same kind of prospect. In one
direction he thought he recognized the way he must have come
last night; and, looking more carefully, noticed that the town
seemed to be less extended in that direction. Half a mile away
the roofs ceased, standing up against a mass of foliage that
blotted out all beyond. It was here that he caught sight of a
man--a white figure that crossed a patch of road that curved
into sight and out again.

It was extraordinarily still in this Religious town. Certainly
there were a few sounds; a noise of far-off hammering came from
somewhere and presently ceased. Once he heard a door close and
footsteps on stone that faded into silence; once he heard the
cry of a cat, three or four times repeated; and once, all
together, from every direction at once, sounded bells, each
striking one stroke.

He began to walk up and down after a while, marvelling, trying to
reconstruct his ideas once more, and to take in the astonishing
system and organization whose signs were so evident about him.
Certainly it was thorough and efficient. There must be countless
institutions--hospitals, retreat-houses, cloisters, besides all
the offices and business centres necessary for carrying on this
tremendous work; and yet practically no indication of any
movement or bustle made itself apparent. So far as solitude was
concerned, he might be imprisoned in a dead city. And all this
deepened his impressions of peace and recuperation. The silence,
through his knowledge, was alive to him. There must be, almost
within sound of a shout, hundreds of living persons like himself,
yet all intent, in some form or another, upon that same
overwhelming silence in which facts could be received and
relations readjusted.

Yet even this, as he reflected upon it, had certain elements of
terror. Here again, under another disguise, was the force that
he had feared in London--the force that had sent Dom Adrian
noiselessly out of life, that proposed to deal with refractory
instincts in human nature--such as manifested themselves in
Socialism--as a householder might deal with a plague of mice,
drastically and irresistibly; the force that moved the wheels
and drove the soundless engines of that tremendous
social-religious machine of which he too was a part. It was here
too then; it was this that had closed him in here for three days
in his tiny domicile in this great dumb city; it was this that
held the whole under an invisible discipline; it was this that
had looked at him out of the hawk's-eyes, and spoken to him
through the colourless lips of the monk who had given him his
instructions this morning. . . .

Once more then his individuality began to reassert itself, and to
attempt to cast off the spell even of this peace that promised
relief. He became aware of an extraordinary loneliness of soul,
an isolation in the deepest regions of his soul from all others.
The rest of the world, it seemed, had an understanding about
these matters. Father Jervis and the Carthusian no doubt had
talked him over; they accepted as an established and self-evident
philosophy this universal unity and authority; they regarded
himself, who could not yet so accept it, as a spiritual, if not
an actual mental invalid. . . . He had been brought here to be
treated. . . . Well, he would hold his own.

And then another mood came on him--a temptation, as it seemed to
him then, to fling personal responsibility overboard; to accept
this tremendous claim of authority to control even the thoughts
of the heart. Surely peace lay this way. To submit to this
crowned and sceptred Christ; to reject for ever the other--this
meant relief and sanity. . . .

He walked more and more quickly and abruptly up and down the
little tiled space. He was conscious of a conflict all confused
with dust and smoke. He began to hesitate as to which was the
higher, even which was the tolerable course--to sink his
individuality, to throw up his hands and drown, or to assert that
individuality openly and defiantly, and to take the consequences.

(V)

He awoke the next morning after a troubled night, conscious
instantly of a sense of crisis. In one way or another, it seemed,
he would have to come to a decision. The monk would be with him
in less than an hour.

He dressed as before and breakfasted. Then, as the monk did not
come, he went out to the tribune to pray and to prepare himself.

Ten minutes later the door opened quietly, and the lay-brother
who had attended on him bowed to him as he turned, in sign that
he was to come.

The monk was standing by the fireplace as he came in; he bowed
very slightly. Then the two sat down.

* * * * *

"Tell me why you have come here, Monsignor."

The prelate moistened his lips. He was aware again of an emotion
that was partly terror and partly confidence. And there was mixed
with it, too, an extraordinary sense of simplicity.
Conventionalities were useless here, he saw; he was expected to
say what was in his heart, but at first he dared not.

"I . . . I was recommended to come," he said. "My friends thought
I needed a little rest."

The other nodded gently. He was no longer looking straight at
him, the secular priest was relieved to see.

"Yes? And what form does it take?"

Still the patient hesitated. He began a sentence or two,
and stopped again.

Then the monk lifted his great head and looked straight at him.

"Be quite simple, Monsignor," he said, "you need fear nothing.
You are here to be helped, are you not? Then tell me plainly."

Monsignor got up suddenly. It seemed to him that he must move
about. He felt restless, as a man who has lived in twilight might
feel upon coming out into sudden brilliant and healthful
sunlight. He began to walk to and fro. The other said nothing,
but the restless man felt that the eyes were watching and
following every movement. He reflected that it was unfair to be
stared at by eyes that were grey, outlined in black, and crossed
by straight lids. Then he summoned his resolution.

"Father," he said, "I am unhappy altogether."

"Yes? (Sit down, please, Monsignor.)"

He sat down, and leaned his forehead on his hands.

"You are unhappy altogether," repeated the monk. "And what form
does that unhappiness take?"

Monsignor lifted his face.

"Father," he said, "you know about me? You know about my
history? . . . My memory?"

"Yes, I know all that. But it is not that which makes you unhappy?"

"No," cried the priest suddenly and impulsively, "it is not
that. I wish to God it were! I wish to God my memory would
leave me again!"

"Quietly, please."

But the other paid no attention.

"It is . . . it is the world I am living in--this brutal
world.... Father, help me."

The monk drew a breath and leaned back, and his movement had the
effect of a call for silence. Neither spoke for a moment.

Then----

"Just tell me quite simply, from the beginning," said the monk.

(VI)

It was nearly half an hour later that Monsignor ended, and leaned
back, at once exhausted and excited. He had said it all--he had
said even more than he had previously formulated to himself. Now
and then, as he paused, the monk with a word or two, or a
strangely compelling look, had soothed or encouraged him. And he
had told the whole thing--the sense that there was no longer any
escape from Christianity, that it had dominated the world, and
that it was hateful and tyrannical in its very essence. He
confessed that logic was against him, that a wholly Christian
society must protect itself, that he saw no way of evading the
consequences that he had witnessed; and yet that his entire moral
sense revolted against the arguments of his head. It seemed to
him, he said in effect, as if he were held in a grip which
outraged his whole sentiment; as if the universe itself were in a
conspiracy against him. For there was wanting, he said, exactly
that which was most characteristic of Christianity, exactly that
which made it divine--a heavenly patience and readiness to
suffer. The cross had been dropped by the Church, he said, and
shouldered by the world.

The monk sat silent a moment or two, as motionless as he had been
at the beginning. Monsignor perceived by now, even through his
fierce agitation, that this man never moved except for a purpose;
he made no gestures when he spoke; he turned his head or lifted
his eyes only when it was necessary. Then the monk's voice began
again, level and unemotional:

* * * * *

"A great deal of what you say, Monsignor, is merely the effect of
a nervous strain. A nervous strain means that the emotional or
the receptive faculties gain an undue influence over the
reasonable intelligence. You admit that the logic is flawless,
yet that fact does not reassure you, as it would if you were in a
normal condition."

"But----"

"Wait, please, till I have done. I know what you wish to say. It
is that your sense of protest is not merely sentimental, but
rather moral; is it not so?"

Monsignor nodded. It was precisely what he had wished to say.

"That is not true, however. It is true that your moral sense seems
outraged, but the reason is that you have not yet all the data
(the moral sense is a department of the reason, remember). Well,
you admit the logic of society's defending itself; but it seems to
you that that which is, as you very properly said, the divine
characteristic of Christianity--I mean, readiness to suffer rather
than to inflict suffering--is absent from the world; that the
cross, as you said again, has been dropped by the Church.

"Now, if you will reflect a moment, you will see that it is very
natural that that should appear so, in a world that is
overwhelmingly Christian. It is very natural that there should not
be persecution of Christians, for example, since there is no one
to persecute them; and therefore that you should see only the
rights of the Church to rule, and not its divine prerogative of
pain. But I suppose that if you saw the opposite, if you were to
watch the other process, and see that the Church is still able to
suffer, and to accept suffering, in a manner in which the world is
never capable of suffering, I imagine you would be reassured."

Monsignor drew a long breath.

"I thought so. . . . Well, does not the Contemplative Life
reassure you? And are you aware that in Ireland alone there are
four millions of persons wholly devoted to the Contemplative
Life? And that, so great is the rush of vocations, the
continent of Europe----"

"No," cried the priest harshly. "Voluntary suffering is not the
same thing. . . . I . . . I long to see Christians suffering at
the hands of the world."

"You mean that you are doubtful as to how they would bear it?"

"Yes."

The monk smiled, slowly and brilliantly, and there was a look of
such serene confidence in his face that the other was amazed.

"Well . . ." he paused again. "Well, I take it that we have laid
our finger upon what it is that troubles you. You admit that the
Christian States have a right to punish all who attack the very
foundations of their stability----"

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