Dawn of All - Robert Hugh Benson (the read aloud family txt) 📗

of the disused flying stages on the hill behind the Vatican--no one else, in the crowds that swarmed now in the streets and squares of Rome, was even certain that an envoy was going, still less of his identity.

Monsignor found himself, ten minutes before the start, standing alone on the alighting-stage, while the Cardinal still talked below.

As he stood there, now looking out over the city, where beneath the still luminous sky the lights were already beginning to kindle, and where in one or two of the larger squares he could make out the great crowds moving to and fro--now staring at the long and polished sides of the racing boat that swayed light as a flower with the buoyancy of the inrushing gas--as he saw all these things with his outward eyes, he was trying to understand something of the new impulses and thoughts that surged through him. He could have given little or no account of the reasons why he was here; of his hopes or fears or expectations. He was as one who watches on a sheet shadow-figures whirl past confusedly, catching a glimpse here of a face or body, now of a fragmentary movement, that appeared to have some meaning--yet grasping nothing of the intention or plan of the whole. Or, even better, he was as one caught in a mill-race, tossed along and battered, yet feeling nothing acutely, curious indeed as to what the end would be, and why it had had a beginning, yet fundamentally unconcerned. The thing was so: there was no more to be said. He knew that it was necessary that he should be here, about to start for almost certain death, as that his soul should be inhabiting his body.

But even all these recent happenings had not as yet illuminated him in the slightest as to the real character of the world that he found so bewildering. He felt, vaguely, that he ought to have by now all the pieces of the puzzle, but he was still as far as ever from being able to fit them into a coherent whole. He just perceived this--and no more--that the extraordinary tranquillity of these Catholics in the presence of death was a real contribution to the problem--as much as the dull earthliness of the Socialist colony in America. It was not merely Dom Adrian in particular who had been willing to die without perturbation or protest; his judges and accusers seemed just as ready when their turn came. And he--he who had cried out at Christian brutality, who had judged the world's system by his own and found it wanting--he feared death; although, so far his fear had not deterred him from facing it.

He took his place in the narrow cabin in the same mood, following the Cardinal in after the last good-byes had been said. It was a tiny place, fitted with a single padded seat on either side covered with linen and provided with pillows; a narrow table ran up the centre; and strong narrow windows looked directly from the sides of the boat. A stern platform, railed in and provided with sliding glass shutters, gave room to take a few steps of exercise; but the front of the boat was entirely occupied with the driver's arrangements. It was a comparatively new type of boat, he learned from some one with whom he had talked just now, used solely for racing purposes; and its speed was such that they would find themselves in Berlin before morning.

The stern door was swung to by one who leaned from the stage. Still through the glass the Cardinal smiled out at his friends and waved his hand. Then a bell struck, a vibration ran through the boat, the stage outside lined with faces suddenly swayed and then fell into space.

The Cardinal laid his hand on the priest's knee.

"Now let us have a talk," he said.


(IV)

The air that breathed down from the Alps was beginning to cloud the windows of the cabin before they had finished talking.

The man who had lost his memory, under the tremendous stress of an emotion of which he was hardly directly conscious at all--the emotion generated by the knowledge that every whistling mile that fled past brought him nearer an almost certain death--had experienced a kind of sudden collapse of his defences such as he had never contemplated.

He had told everything straight out to this quiet, fatherly man--his terrors, his shrinking from the unfamiliar atmosphere of thought to which he had awakened, it seemed, a few months before, his sense that Christianity had lost its spirit, and, above all, the strange absence of any definite religious emotion in himself. He found this difficult to put into words; he had hardly realized it even to himself.

The Cardinal put one question.

"And yet you are facing death on the understanding that it is all true?"

"I suppose so."

"Very well, then. That is faith. You need say no more. You have been to confession?"

"This afternoon."

The old man was silent for a moment.

"As to the unreality, the feeling that the Church is heartless, I think that is natural. You had a violent mental shock in your illness. That means that your emotions are very sensitive, almost to the point of morbidness. Well, the heart of the Church is very deep, and you have not found it yet. That does not greatly matter. You must keep your will fixed. That is all that God asks. . . . I think it is true that the Church is hard, in a certain sense; or shall we call it a Divine strength? It is largely a matter of words. She has had that strength always. Once it nerved her to suffer; now it nerves her to rule. But I think you would find that she could suffer again."

"Your Eminence!" cried the priest lamentably, "I am beginning to see that. . . . Yourself. . . . Prince Otteone. . . ."

The Cardinal lifted his hand.

"Of myself we need not speak. I am an old man, and I do not expect to suffer. Prince Otteone was another matter. He was a young man, full of life; and he knew to what he was going. Well, does not his case impress you? He went quite cheerfully, you know."

The priest was silent.

"What are you thinking of, my son?"

The priest shivered a little.

"Tell me," said the Cardinal again.

"It is the Holy Father," burst out the other impulsively. "He was terrible: so unconcerned, so careless as to who lived or died. . . ."

He looked up in an agony, and saw a look almost of amusement in the old man's eyes fixed on him.

"Yes, do not be afraid," murmured the old man. "You think he was unconcerned? Well, ought he not to be? Is not that what we should expect of the Vicar of Christ?"

"Christ wept."

"Yes, yes, and his Vicar too has wept. I have seen it. But Christ went to death without tears."

"But . . . but this man is not going," cried the priest. "He is sending others. If he went himself----"

He stopped suddenly; not at a sound, but at a kind of mental vibration from the other. Up here in these heights, under the pressure of these thoughts, every nerve and fibre seemed stretched to an amazing pitch of sensitiveness. It seemed to him as if he had never before lived at such a pitch.

But the other said nothing. Once his lips opened, but they closed again. The priest said nothing. He waited.

"I think no one would expect the Holy Father to go himself under such circumstances," said the Cardinal gently and blandly. "Do you not think that it might be harder for him to remain?"

Monsignor felt a wave of disappointment. He had expected a revelation of some kind, or a vivid sentence that would make all plain.

The old man leaned forward again smiling.

"Do not be impatient and critical," he said. "It is enough that you and I are going. That should occupy us. Come, let us look through these papers again."

It was an hour later that they swept down into the French plains. The glass cleared again as they reached the warmer levels, and Monsignor became conscious of an overpowering weariness. He yawned uncontrollably once or twice. His companion laughed.

"Lie down a little, Monsignor. You have had a hard day of it. I must have some sleep too. We must be as fresh as we can for our interview."

Monsignor said nothing. He stepped across to the other couch, and slipped off his shoes, took off his cincture, and lay down without a word. Almost before he had finished wondering at the marvellous steadiness of this flying arrow of a ship, he had sunk down into complete unconsciousness.


(V)

He awoke with a start, coming up, as is common after the deep sleep of exhaustion, into a state in which, although the senses are awake, the intellect is still in a kind of paralysis of slumber. He threw his feet off the couch and sat up, staring about him.

The first thing which he noticed was that the cabin was full of a pale morning light, cold and cheerless, although the shaded lights still burned in the roof. Then he saw that the Cardinal was sitting at the farther end of the opposite couch, looking intently out; that one of the glass shutters was slid back, and that a cold, foggy air was visibly pouring in past the old man's head. Then he saw the head of the driver through the glass panes in the door; his hand rested on the grip of some apparatus connected with the steering, he believed.

But beyond this there was nothing to be seen through the windows opposite, of which the curtains had been drawn back; he saw nothing but white driving mist. He tore back the curtains behind him, and there also was the mist. It was plain then that they were not at rest at any stage; and yet the slight humming vibration, of which he had been conscious before he fell asleep, and even during one or two moments of semi-wakefulness during the night, this had ceased. The car hung here, like a floating balloon, motionless, purposeless--far up out of sight of land, and an absolute silence hung round it.

He moved a little as these things began to arrange themselves in his mind, and at the movement the Cardinal turned round. He looked old and worn in this chilly light, and his unshaven chin sparkled like frost. But he spoke in his ordinary voice, without any sign of discomposure.

"So you are awake, Monsignor? I thought I would let you have your sleep out."

"What has happened? Where are we?"

"We arrived half an hour ago. They signalled to us to remain where we were until they came up."

"We have arrived!"

"Certainly. We passed the first Berlin signalling light nearly three-quarters of an hour ago. We slowed down after that, of course."

The priest turned his head suddenly and made a movement with it downwards. The Cardinal leaned forward again and peered through the open shutter.

"I think they are coming up at last," he said, drawing his head back. "Hush! Listen, Monsignor."

The priest listened with all his might. At first he heard nothing except the faint whistle of the wind somewhere in the roof. Then he heard three or four metallic noises, as