The Cathedral. J.-K. HuysmansЧитать онлайн книгу.
strings of silver-gilt hearts became visible in the semicircle all along the walls, reflecting the blaze of flames, and forming a glory for a statue of the Virgin sitting, stiff and dark, with a Child on Her knees. This was the famous Virgin of the Cavern, or rather a copy of it, for the original was burnt in 1793 in front of the great porch of the Cathedral, amid the delirious raving of sans-culottes.
A choir-boy came in, followed by an old priest; and then, for the first time, Durtal saw the Mass really as a service, and understood the wonderful beauty that lies inherent in a devout commemoration of the Sacrifice.
The boy on his knees, his soul aspiring and his hands clasped, spoke aloud and slowly, rehearsing the responses of the Psalm with such deep attention and respect, that the meaning of this noble liturgy, which has ceased to amaze us, because we are so used to hearing it stammered out in hot haste, was suddenly revealed to Durtal.
And the priest himself, unconsciously, whether he would or no, took up the child's tone, imitating him, speaking slowly, not merely tripping the verses off the tip of his tongue, but absorbed in the words he had to repeat; and he seemed overwhelmed, as though it were his first Mass, by the grandeur of the rite of which he was to be the instrument.
In fact, Durtal heard the celebrant's voice tremble when standing before the altar in the presence of the Father, like the Son Himself whom he represented, and imploring forgiveness for all the sins of the world which He bore on His shoulders, supported in his grief and hope by the innocence of the child whose loving care was less mature and less lively than the man's.
And as he spoke the despairing words, "My God, my God, wherefore is my spirit heavy, and why dost Thou afflict me?" the priest was indeed the image of Jesus suffering on the hill of Calvary, but the man remained in the celebrant—the man, conscious of himself, and himself experiencing, in behoof of his personal sins and his own shortcomings, the impressions of sorrow contained in the inspired text.
Meanwhile his little acolyte had words of comfort, bid him hope; and after repeating the Confiteor in the face of the congregation, who on their part purified their souls by the same ablution of confession, the priest with revived assurance went up the altar steps and began the Mass.
Positively, in this atmosphere of prayers crushed in by the heavy roof, Durtal, in the midst of kneeling Sisters and women, was struck with a sense as of some early Christian rite buried in the catacombs. Here were the same ecstatic tenderness, the same faith; and it was possible even to imagine some apprehension of surprise, and some eagerness to profess the faith in the face of danger. And thus, as in a vague image, this sacred cellar held the dim picture of the neophytes assembled so long since in the underground caverns of Rome.
The service proceeded before Durtal's eyes, and he was amazed to watch the boy, who, with half closed eyes and the reserve of timid emotion, kissed the flagons of wine and of water before presenting them to the priest.
Durtal would look no more; he tried to concentrate his mind while the priest was wiping his hands, for the only prayers he could honestly offer up to God were verses and texts repeated in an undertone.
This only had he in his favour, but this he had: that he passionately loved mysticism and the liturgy, plain-song and cathedrals. Without falsehood or self-delusion, he could in all truth exclaim, "Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thy house, and the place where Thine honour dwelleth." This was all he had to offer to the Father in expiation of his contumely and refractoriness, his errors and his falls.
"Oh!" thought he, "how could I dare to pour out the ready-made collects of which the prayer-books are full, how say to God, while addressing Him as 'Lovely Jesus,' that He is the beloved of my heart, that I solemnly vow never to love anything but Him, that I would die rather than ever displease Him?
"Love none but Him!—If I were a monk and alone, possibly; but living in the world!—And then who but the Saints would prefer death to the smallest sin? Why then humbug Him with these feints and grimaces?
"No," said Durtal, "apart from the personal outpourings, the secret intimacy in which we are bold to tell Him everything that comes into our head, the prayers of the liturgy alone can be uttered with impunity by any man, for it is the peculiarity of these inspirations that they adapt themselves in all ages to every state of the mind and every phase of life. And with the exception of the time-honoured prayers of certain Saints, which are as a rule either supplications for pity or for help, appeals to God's mercy or laments, all other prayers sent forth from the cold insipid sacristies of the seventeenth century, or, worse still, composed in our own day by the piety-mongers who insert in our books of prayer the pious cant of the Rue Bonaparte—all these inflated and pretentious petitions should be avoided by sinners who, in default of every other virtue, at least wish to be sincere.
"Only that wonderful child could thus address the Lord without hypocrisy," he went on, looking at the little acolyte, and understanding truly for the first time what innocent childhood meant—the little sinless soul, purely white.
"The Church, which tries to find beings absolutely ingenuous and immaculate to wait upon the altar, had succeeded at Chartres in moulding souls and transforming ordinary boys on their admission to the sanctuary into exquisite angels. There must certainly be, above and besides their special training, some blessing and goodwill from Our Lady, to mould these little rogues to the service, to make them so unlike others, and endow them in the middle of the nineteenth century with the fire of chastity and primitive fervour of the middle age."
The service proceeded slowly, soaking into the abject silence of the worshippers, and the child, more reverent and attentive than ever, rang the bell; it was like a shower of sparks tinkling under the smoky vault, and the silence seemed deeper than ever behind the kneeling boy, upholding with one hand the chasuble of the celebrant, who bowed over the altar. The Host was elevated amid the shower of silver sound; and then, above the prostrate heads, in the clear sparkle of bells, the golden tulip of a chalice flashed out till, to a final hurried peal, the gilded flower was lowered, and the prostrate worshippers looked up.
And Durtal was thinking—
"If only He to whom we refused shelter when the Mother who bore Him was in travail, could find a loving refuge in our souls to-day! But alas! apart from these nuns, these children, these priests, and these peasant women who cherish Him so truly, how many here present are, like me, embarrassed by His presence, and at all times incapable of making ready the chamber He requires, of receiving Him in a room swept and garnished?
"Alas! to think that things are always the same, always going back to the beginning! Our souls are still the crafty synagogues who betrayed Him, and the vile Caiaphas that lurks within us rises up at the very moment when we fain would be humble and love Him while we pray! My God! My God! Would it not be better to depart than to drag myself thus, with such a bad grace, into Thy presence? For, after all, it is all very well for the Abbé Gévresin to insist that I should communicate, he is not I—he is not in me; he does not know the wild doings in my hidden lairs, or the turmoil in my ruins. He believes it to be mere nervelessness, indolence. Alas! That is not all. There is a dryness, a coldness, which are not altogether free from a certain amount of irritation and rebelliousness against the rules he insists on."
The moment of Communion was at hand. The little boy had gently thrown the white napkin back on the table; the nuns and poor women and peasants went forward, all with clasped hands and bowed heads, and the child took a taper and passed in front of the priest, his eyes almost shut for fear of seeing the Host.
There was in this little creature such a glow of love and reverence that Durtal gazed with admiration and trembled with awe. Without in the least knowing why, in the midst of the darkness that fell on his soul, of the impotent and wavering feeling that thrilled it without there being any word to describe them, he felt a tide bearing him to the Saviour, and then a recoil.
The comparison was inevitably forced upon him between that child's soul and his own. "Why, it is he, not I, who should take the Sacrament!" cried he to himself; and he crouched there inert, his hands folded, not knowing how to decide, in a frame at once beseeching and terrified, when he felt himself gently drawn to the table and received the Sacrament. And meanwhile he was trying to collect