Dawn of All by Robert Hugh Benson

R >> Robert Hugh Benson >> Dawn of All

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

It was one more of that string of golden days, of which they had
already enjoyed so many, and the splendour of that amazing
landscape was complete.

They had passed below the enclosure known as the "King's Garden,"
and were going in the direction of the Trianon, which Monsignor
had expressed a desire to see, and had just emerged into the
immense central avenue which runs straight from the palace to the
lake. Above them rose the forest trees, enormous now, yet tamed
by Lenotre's marvellous art, resembling a regiment of giants
perfectly drilled; the grass was like carpets on all sides; the
sky blazed like a blue jewel overhead; the noise of singing birds
and falling water was in the air. But above all there towered on
their right, beyond the almost endless terraces, the splendid
palace of the kings of France, royal at last once more. And
there, as symbol of the Restoration, there hung round the
flagstaff as he had seen it yesterday the blue folds and the
lilies of the monarchy.

It was no good trying to frame words as to what he felt. He had
said all he could, and it was useless. Father Jervis seemed
unable to understand the fierce enthusiasm of a man who now
experienced all this, as it appeared, for the first time. He
walked silently--exulting.

There seemed not many people abroad this morning. The two had
presented an order, obtained through Monsignor Allet, at the gates
below the Orange Gardens, and had learned from the sentry that
until the afternoon this part of the park was closed to the public.
Here and there, however, in the distance a single figure made its
appearance, walking in the shade or hurrying on some errand.

The priests had just come out from the line of trees and had
set foot in the avenue itself, when, twenty yards farther up,
from the entrance to some other path parallel to their own, a
group came out, and an instant later they heard themselves
hailed and saw Monsignor Allet himself, in all his purple,
hurrying towards them.

"You are the very men," he cried, again stretching out his
hands in a welcoming French gesture. "His Majesty was speaking
of you not five minutes ago. He is here, in the garden. Shall I
present you now?"

Father Jervis glanced at his friend.

"His Majesty is very kind----" he began.

"Not a word more! If you will follow me and wait an instant at
the entrance, I will speak with His Majesty and bring you in."

"I have not my ferraiuola---" began Monsignor.

"The King will excuse travellers," smiled the Frenchman.

The entrance to the "King's Garden" on this side passes beneath an
arch of yew, and here the two waited.

Somewhere beyond the green walls they could hear talking, and now
and again a burst of laughter. Then the talking ceased, and they
heard a single voice.

"In what language----" began Monsignor Masterman nervously.

"Oh! English, no doubt. You can't talk French?"

Monsignor shook his head.

"Not a hundred words," he said.

Again came the quick footstep, and the French priest appeared,
still gay, but with a certain solemnity. "Come this way,
gentlemen," he said. "The King will see you." (He glanced at the
prelate.) "You won't forget to kneel, Monsignor."

To the English prelate the scene that he saw, on emerging at last
into the open space in the middle, protected by the ancient
yews--even though he should have been prepared for it by all that
he had already seen--simply once more dazed and stupefied him.

The centre of the space was occupied by a round pond, perhaps
thirty yards across, of absolutely still water, and in this
mirror, shaded by the masses of foliage overhead, was reflected a
picture that might have been taken straight from some painting
two hundred years old. For, on the semicircle of marble seats
that stood beyond the water, sat a company of figures dressed
once more in all the bravery of real colour and splendour, as
from days when men were not ashamed to use publicly and commonly
these glittering gifts of God.

Monsignor hardly noticed the rest (there were perhaps twelve or
fifteen all told, with half a dozen women amongst them); he
looked only, as he came round the pond, at the central figure
that advanced to meet him. Twice he had seen him yesterday--yet
those occasions had been public. But to see the King now, at ease
amongst his friends, yet still royally dressed in his brilliant
blue suit and feathered hat, with his tall cane--to see the whole
company, gay and brilliant, talking and laughing, taking their
pleasure in the air before breakfast--the whole thing somehow
brought home to him the reality of what appeared to him as a
change, more than had all the pomps and glories of the day
before. Splendour no longer seemed ceremonial, but natural.

Monsignor Allet was explaining something in rapid French in the
King's ear, and as the two came up, the face that listened smiled
suddenly with intelligence.

"I give you welcome," he said in excellent English. "Come,
gentlemen" (he turned to the others, who had risen to their feet
as he rose), "we must be getting homewards. Monsignor!" (and he
beckoned to the two English priests to walk with him.)

That walk seemed like a dream.

They went leisurely upwards towards the palace, through yew alley
after yew alley, French chattering sounding behind them as they
went; and the King, still in fluent English, though with an
accent that increased as he talked, questioned them courteously
as to England, spoke of the disputation of yesterday, discussed
frankly enough the situation in Germany, and listened with
attention to the remarks of Father Jervis; for Monsignor
Masterman was discreetly silent for the most part.

It was not until the great doors of the palace flew open at last,
and the rows of liveried men showed within, that the King dismissed
them. He turned on the steps and gave them his hand to kiss. Then
he raised them from their knees with a courteous gesture.

"And you go to Rome, you say?"

"Almost immediately, sire. We shall be there for SS. Peter and Paul."

"Present my homage at the feet of the Holy Father," smiled the
King. "You are fortunate indeed. I have not seen His Holiness for
three months. Good day--gentlemen."

The two passed again in silence down the terraces on their way
to the Trianon.

"It is amazing," burst out Monsignor suddenly. "And the people.
What of them? Is there no resentment?"

"Why should there be?" asked the other.

"But they are excluded from the palace and the park. It was not
so a hundred years ago."

"Do you think they are any the less happy?" asked Father Jervis.
"My dear Monsignor, surely you know human nature better than
that! They have lost the vulgarity of Versailles, and they have
regained its royalty. Don't you see that?"

"Well!"--Monsignor paused. "It's simply medievalism back again,
it seems to me."

"Exactly!" said the other. "You have hit it at last. It is
medievalism--that is to say, human nature with faith and
reverence, and without cant."

He paused again, and his eyes twinkled.

"You know honours and privileges are worth nothing if every one
has them. If we all wore crowns, the kings would go bareheaded."

CHAPTER V

(I)

He awoke suddenly, at some movement, and for an instant did not
remember where he was.

For nearly a week they had stayed on at Versailles; and each day
that had passed had done its share in making this fairyland seem
more like a reality. But that strange subconscious self of his,
for which even now there seemed no accounting, was still
obstinate; it still assured him that the world ought not to be
like this, that religion ought not to be so concrete and
effective--that he would awake soon and find himself in some
desolate state of affairs where Faith, hemmed in by enemies,
still fought for very life against irresistible odds. It was at
night and at morning that the mood came on him most forcibly;
when instinct, free from facts, and ranging clear of the will's
dominion, asserted itself most strongly, and as he awoke this
night it was on him again.

He looked round the dark little room with bewildered eyes; then
he fumbled with a button, and all was flooded with light.

He was lying in a little spring-bed, set within two padded sides,
like a berth in a steamship. And beside him was the closed bureau
which he perceived to be washing arrangements in disguise;
overhead protruded a broad shelf; on the wall, above a little
couch, hung silk curtains over a window; and, as they swayed
slightly with some movement he caught sight of glass beyond. On
the door, at the foot of his bed, hung his cassock, and the
purple cincture that lay across it recalled him to at least a
part of the facts. The cabin was upholstered and painted in clean
white, and an electric globe emerged from the ceiling.

He was next conscious of cold, and instinctively leaned forward to
draw the quilt farther over his knees. Then, with a flash, he
remembered, and, in spite of the cold, was out of bed in a moment,
kneeling on the couch and peering out through the curtains.

At first he could see nothing at all. There was but an
unfathomable gulf beyond the glass. He stood up on the couch, and
drawing the curtains behind his head to shut out the light, he
once more stared out. Then he began to see.

At first he could see nothing at all. There was but an unfathomable
gulf beyond the glass. He stood up on the couch, and drawing the
curtains behind his head to shut out the light, he once more stared
out. Then he began to see.

Immediately opposite him glimmered a huge white outline--in the
incalculable night it might be a hundred yards or a mile away. It
was of irregular outline, for the star-strewn sky showed in patches
and rifts above it. And this white mass curved away beneath, under
the ship in which he travelled, till it met, at a point which he
could but just discern, a blackness that rose to meet it.

Then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he began to see
that the huge whiteness was flitting past, steadily and
leisurely, from right to left; that it was streaked with shadows
or clefts; and that following it, as in a sliding procession,
came another, like it, yet (it seemed) more distant.

All this time, too, the silence was profound. There was but a
soft humming note somewhere in the air, and the faintest sense of
vibration in the metal-work on which his hands were pressed. Once
too he heard a footstep pass softly and rhythmically overhead, as
if some watcher moved up and down the length of the upper deck.

The man dropped the curtains and sat back on his heels, trying
to force into his imagination the facts that he now perceived
and remembered.

They had left St. Germains last night, after dining at
Versailles. They were now crossing the Alps. They would be in
Rome for Mass and breakfast. . . . They were traversing at this
moment, no doubt, only a thousand feet high, one of those passes
up which (he thought he remembered from history) the old
railway-trains had been accustomed to climb, yard by yard and
spiral by spiral, a hundred years before . . .

In a minute or two he leaned forward and stared again, once more
closing the curtains behind his head.

The sky seemed a little brighter, he thought, than when he had
looked just now. Perhaps the moon was hiding somewhere. And
certainly the sky was more in evidence. Far away to the left
behind, passing even as he looked, moved those gigantic horns
of white, as if the ship stood still and the earth turned
beneath; and below now, sloping to the right, lay long lines of
darkness, jutting here and there with a sudden crag against the
blaze of stars. It was marvellous, he thought, how still all
lay; there was a steady hiss, now heard for the first time, as
the air tore past the glassy sides of the bird-shaped ship, as
thin as the cry of a bat.

He shifted on his knees a little, and staring forwards, saw far
ahead and at what seemed an incalculable distance something that
baffled him entirely, for it changed its aspect every instant
that he watched.

At first it was no more than a patch of luminosity; and he thought
it to be, perhaps, a lighted town. But the character of it was
changed as he formulated his thought and three brilliant spots
like blue stars broke out on a sudden, and these three stars
shifted their positions. He kept his eyes on these, marvelling;
and, with something very like fear, saw that they were approaching
upwards and onwards with the swiftness of thought.

Up and on they came. He shrank back a little, instinctively; and
then, as he leaned forward once more, determined to understand,
shrank back with a sharp indrawing of breath, as there whirled
past, it appeared only a few yards away, a flare of brilliant
blue lines, in the midst of which passed a phantom-like body in a
mist and accompanied by a musical sound (it seemed) of
extraordinary clarity and beauty, that rose from a deep
organ-note to the shrill of a flute, and down again Into a bass
and a silence. . . .

He smiled to himself as he climbed back into bed a minute or two
later, when he had reconstructed the phenomena and interpreted
them. It was but another volor, bound northwards, and it had
probably passed at least half a mile away.

Well, he must sleep again if he could. They would be in
Rome by morning.

* * * * *

They had delayed their departure from Versailles to the last
possible moment, since France was, after all, under the
circumstances, one of the best places in the world for Monsignor
to pick up again the threads of life. For one thing, it was near
to England--English was spoken there amongst the educated almost
as frequently as French; yet it was not England, and Monsignor's
plight would not cause him any great inconvenience. Further,
France was at present the theatre of the world's interest, since
the Emperor was there, and on the Emperor's future depended
largely the destinies of Europe: his conversion, it was thought,
might be the final death-blow to Socialism in his dominions.

Monsignor had employed his time well. Not only had he learned
accurately the general state of the world, but morning by morning
he had familiarized himself with his own work, and felt, by now,
very nearly competent to finish his lessons in England. Cardinal
Bellairs communicated with him almost every day, and professed
himself delighted with the progress made. Finally he had talked
Latin continually with Father Jervis in preparation for Rome, and
would have passed muster, at least, in general conversation.

* * * * *

The two motored into the city from the volor-station outside, and
everywhere as they went through the streets and crossed the Tiber
on their way to the Leonine City, where they were to lodge, were
evidences of the feast.

For the whole route from Vatican to Lateran, which they crossed
more than once, was one continual triumphal way. Masts had been
erected, swathed in the Papal colours and crowned with garlands;
barriers ran from mast to mast, behind which already the crowds
were beginning to gather, though it was hardly past six o'clock
in the morning; and from every window hung carpets, banners, and
tapestries. The motor was stopped at least half a dozen times;
but the prelate's insignia passed them through quickly; and it
was just half-past six as they drew up before an old palace
situated on the right in the road leading from the Tiber to the
Vatican, and scarcely a quarter of a mile away from St. Peter's.

Monsignor glanced up at the carved and painted arms above the
doorway and smiled.

"I did not know you were bringing me here," he said.

"You know it?"

"Why, it's the old palace where the kings of England
lodged, isn't it?"

Father Jervis smiled.

"Your memory's improving," he said.

Then a magnificent servant came out, bowed profoundly, and opened
the door of the car.

"By the way," said Father Jervis as they went in, "I'd better go and
enquire the details at the Vatican. You might give me your card.
I'll go at once, and then come back and join you at breakfast."

It was a pleasant little suite of rooms, not unlike in
arrangements to those of Versailles. The windows looked out on
the central court, where a fountain played, and the rooms
themselves were furnished in the usual Roman fashion--painted
ceilings, stone floors, and a few damask hangings.

Monsignor turned to the servant who was superintending the two
Englishmen they had brought.

"I've not been in Rome for some time," he said in Latin. "Tell me
what this house is now?"

"Monsignor, it is the English palace. Monsignor is in the
apartment of His Eminence Cardinal Bellairs."

"The King himself stays here?"

"It is His Majesty's palace," said the man. "The Prince George
arrived two days ago. His Highness is in the apartment below."

Monsignor smiled. He understood now Father Jervis' evasions as to
where they were to stay in Rome. Plainly it was determined that
he should have a front seat at all ceremonies.

Ten minutes later, as he came out of his bedroom, Father Jervis
himself came in.

"You have your choice, Monsignor," he said. "As a Domestic
Prelate you have the right to walk in the procession (here is the
permit), or as occupying rooms here we can, if you prefer, see
the procession from the front windows."

"Tell me what the programme is."

"At nine the procession leaves St. Peter's to go to the
Lateran--at least they call it nine. There the Holy Father sings
Mass, as bishop in his own cathedral. On the return of the
procession, I suppose about midday, the Holy Father visits the
tomb of St. Peter. Then this afternoon he is present at Vespers
in St. Peter's; and afterwards gives the blessing _Urbi et Orbi_
from the window as usual."

"What would you advise?"

"Well, I should advise your remaining here till mid-day.
There's no use in overdoing it. We can see everything
admirably. Then we can go into St. Peter's for the visit to the
tomb, and come back here to dejeuner. After that we can arrange
about the rest of the day."

"Very good. Then let us have something to eat at once."

"Who's Prince George of England?" demanded Monsignor presently as
they sat over coffee.

Father Jervis laughed.

"You've found that out, have you? Yes, he's here, of course.
Well, he's the second son: he's only a boy. He's over here to
represent the King. Every sovereign sends a prince of the
blood-royal for to-day. Even the German Emperor."

"Do you mean from Europe?"

"I mean from the whole world. You see the East is scarcely three
days away by the fast volors; so even the Chinese----"

"Do you mean that China and Japan send representatives?"

"Certainly. Japan is Christian of course, anyhow; and China has
at least one or two Christian princes of the blood."

"By the way, what about Russia?"

"Well, what about it?"

"Is it Catholic?"

"My dear Monsignor, it's been Catholic for thirty years."

"Oh dear me! You must lend me some more histories. . . . What
made it Catholic?"

"Common sense, I suppose. How they could have stood out for so
long is the only thing that puzzles me."

"But the Petrine claims----"

"Why, the Petrine claims were the very point. Facts were too
strong. If you look back over history you can't help seeing that
the only Christian body that was ever able to resist Erastianism
on the one side and endless division on the other has been the
Church built on Peter. They began to see it nearly a hundred
years ago in Russia and Greece. Then the Emperor of Russia was
secretly reconciled in 1930; and ten or twelve years later his
people followed him."

"Then there's no more dispute? What about the _Filioque_ clause?"

"Why, when Peter is accepted, the rest follows."

"Then you may say that the entire civilized world is represented
in Rome to-day?"

"Certainly. You'll see the princes in the procession."

(II)

An hour later they took their places at the central window of the
long sala on the third floor, looking out immediately upon the
narrow street, which, opposite, fell back into a tiny square, and
further up to the right, upon the enormous piazza of St. Peter's
and the basilica itself behind.

It was a real Roman day--not yet at its full heat, but intensely
clear and bright; and Monsignor congratulated himself on having
elected to remain as a spectator. The return journey from the
Lateran about noon would be something of an ordeal.

The street and the piazza presented an astonishingly brilliant
appearance. Beneath, the roadway was now one sheet of
greenery--box, myrtle, and bay. The houses opposite, as well as
within the little square, of which every window was packed with
heads, were almost completely hidden under the tapestries, the
carpets, the banners. Behind the barriers on either side of the
garlanded masts was one mass of heads resembling a cobbled
pavement. So much for sight. For sound, the air was filled with
one steady low roar of voices; for down to where the street opened
far away to the left into the space above the river, the same
vista presented itself. The Campagna since twenty-four hours
before had been emptying every living inhabitant into Rome; and
there was not a town in Italy, and scarcely in Europe, whence
special volors and trains had not carried the fervent to the Feast
of the Apostles in Holy Rome. And, for scent, the air was sweet
and fragrant with the aromatic herbs of the roadway, already
bruised a little by the feet of the galloping horses of those that
went up and down to guard the route or to carry messages.

It was a little hard to make out the arrangements of the vast
circular piazza in front of St. Peter's. The front of the
basilica was hung, in usual Roman fashion, with gigantic garlands
and red cloth; and the carpet of greenery lined with troops ran
straight up the centre of the space, rippled over the steps, and
ceased only beneath the towering portico of the church. But on
either side of this, with spaces between, stood enormous groups
of men and horses, marshalled, no doubt, in order to take their
places at the proper moment in the procession.

At the right, immovable and tremendous, rose up the great palace
of the Vatican itself, unadorned except where a glint of some
colour showed itself at the Bronze Doors; and above all, like a
benediction in stone, against the vivid blue of the sky, hung the
dome of the basilica.

Monsignor Masterman made a long, keen survey of all this. Then he
leaned back and sighed.

"What was the first year that the Pope came out of the
Vatican like this?"

"The year after the conquest of United Italy. It was Austria that----"

"I know all that. And you mean he never came out so long as the
old state of affairs continued?"

"How could he? Don't you see that the one thing, humanly
speaking, absolutely necessary if the world was to have
confidence in the Church, was that the Pope should be really
supra-national? Of course, for many years he had to be an
Italian--that's obvious, since he was at the mercy of Italy, and
the Romans would never have stood a foreigner; and that made it
all the more essential that he should be cut clean off, in
everything else, from Italian sympathies. He had to be two
things simultaneously, so to speak--emphatically an Italian for
the sake of Italy and indeed his own existence in Rome; and
emphatically not an Italian for the sake of the rest of
Christendom. And can you suggest any other way of accomplishing
this paradox? I can't."

Monsignor sighed again and began to meditate.

For somewhere at the back of his mind there ran an undercurrent
of thought, or as of some one talking, to the effect that the
Pope's old method of remaining as a prisoner in the Vatican was a
foolish and unhumble pose. (He supposed he must have read it all
somewhere in history.) Surely even Catholics used to talk like
that! They used to say how much more spiritual and Christian it
would have been, had the Vicar of Christ acquiesced and been
content to live as a simple Italian subject, neither claiming nor
desiring a position such as Peter had never enjoyed. Why all this
fuss, it used to be asked, about a Temporal Power on behalf of a
"Kingdom that was not of this world"?

Yet, somehow, now as he looked back on it all, with his friend's
comment in his mind, he began to see, not how clever or
diplomatic had been the old attitude, but how absolutely and
obviously essential. It was possible indeed for Peter to be a
subject of Nero in things pertaining to Caesar; but how could
that be possible to Peter's successor when the Kingdom of Christ
which he ruled on earth had become a Supra-national Society to
which the nations of the earth looked for guidance?

The phrase he had just heard ran in his mind.

"An Italian for the sake of Italy and his own existence in Rome.
Not an Italian for the sake of the rest of Christendom."

It seemed simple, somehow, just like that.

He was roused by a touch on his knee, and simultaneously was
aware of a new sound from the piazza.

"Look," said the old priest sharply. "They're beginning to move."

(III)

A curious seething movement had broken out in the piazza,
resembling the stir of a troubled ant-hill, on either side of the
broad green way down which the Pope would come; and already into
the head of the street up which the priests looked figures were
emerging. Simultaneously a crash of brazen music had filled the
air. A movement of attention, exactly like the lift of a swell
along the foot of a cliff, passed down the crowded street to the
left and lost itself round the corner towards S. Angelo.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20