Lord of the World
Page 59
II
An hour later the priest toiled back in the hot twilight up the pathfrom the village, followed by half-a-dozen silent men, twenty yardsbehind, whose curiosity exceeded their credulousness. He had left a fewmore standing bewildered at the doors of the little mud-houses; and hadseen perhaps a hundred families, weighted with domestic articles, pourlike a stream down the rocky path that led to Khaifa. He had been cursedby some, even threatened; stared upon by others; mocked by a few. Thefanatical said that the Christians had brought God's wrath upon theplace, and the darkness upon the sky: the sun was dying, for thesehounds were too evil for him to look upon and live. Others again seemedto see nothing remarkable in the state of the weather....
There was no change in that sky from its state an hour before, exceptthat perhaps it had lightened a little as the sun climbed higher behindthat impenetrable dusky shroud. Hills, grass, men's faces--all bore tothe priest's eyes the look of unreality; they were as things seen in adream by eyes that roll with sleep through lids weighted with lead. Evento other physical senses that unreality was present; and once more heremembered his dream, thankful that that horror at least was absent. Butsilence seemed other than a negation of sound, it was a thing in itself,an affirmation, unruffled by the sound of footsteps, the thin barking ofdogs, the murmur of voices. It appeared as if the stillness of eternityhad descended and embraced the world's activities, and as if that world,in a desperate attempt to assert its own reality, was braced in a set,motionless, noiseless, breathless effort to hold itself in being. WhatSilvester had said just now was beginning to be true of this man also.The touch of the powdery soil and the warm pebbles beneath the priest'sbare feet seemed something apart from the consciousness that usuallyregards the things of sense as more real and more intimate than thethings of spirit. Matter still had a reality, still occupied space, butit was of a subjective nature, the result of internal rather thanexternal powers. He appeared to himself already to be scarcely more thana soul, intent and steady, united by a thread only to the body and theworld with which he was yet in relations. He knew that the appallingheat was there; once even, before his eyes a patch of beaten groundcracked and lisped as water that touches hot iron, as he trod upon it.He could feel the heat upon his forehead and hands, his whole body wasswathed and soaked in it; yet he regarded it as from an outsidestandpoint, as a man with neuritis perceives that the pain is no longerin his hand but in the pillow which supports it. So, too, with what hiseyes looked upon and his ears heard; so, too, with that faint bittertaste that lay upon his lips and nostrils. There was no longer in himfear or even hope--he regarded himself, the world, and even theenshrouding and awful Presence of spirit as facts with which he had butlittle to do. He was scarcely even interested; still less was hedistressed. There was Thabor before him--at least what once had beenThabor, now it was no more than a huge and dusky dome-shape whichimpressed itself upon his retina and informed his passive brain of itsexistence and outline, though that existence seemed no better than thatof a dissolving phantom.
It seemed then almost natural--or at least as natural as all else--as hecame in through the passage and opened the chapel-door, to see that thefloor was crowded with prostrate motionless figures. There they lay, allalike in the white burnous which he had given out last night; and, withforehead on arms, as during the singing of the Litany of the Saints atan ordination, lay the figure he knew best and loved more than all theworld, the shoulders and white hair at a slight elevation upon thesingle altar step. Above the plain altar itself burned the six tallcandles; and in the midst, on the mean little throne, stood thewhite-metal monstrance, with its White Centre....
Then he, too, dropped, and lay as he was....
* * * * *
He did not know how long it was before the circling observantconsciousness, the flow of slow images, the vibration of particularthoughts, ceased and stilled as a pool rocks quietly to peace after thedropped stone has long lain still. But it came at last--that superbtranquillity, possible only when the senses are physically awake, withwhich God, perhaps once in a lifetime, rewards the aspiring trustfulsoul--that point of complete rest in the heart of the Fount of allexistence with which one day He will reward eternally the spirits of Hischildren. There was no thought in him of articulating this experience,of analysing its elements, or fingering this or that strain of ecstaticjoy. The time for self-regarding was passed. It was enough that theexperience was there, although he was not even self-reflective enough totell himself so. He had passed from that circle whence the soul lookswithin, from that circle, too, whence it looks upon objective glory, tothat very centre where it reposes--and the first sign to him that timehad passed was the murmur of words, heard distinctly and understood,although with that apartness with which a drowsy man perceives a messagefrom without--heard as through a veil through which nothing but thinnestessence could transpire.
_Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum.... The Spirit of the Lord hathfulfilled all things, alleluia: and that which contains all things hathknowledge of the voice, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia._
_Exsurgat Deus_ (and the voice rose ever so slightly). "_Let God ariseand let His enemies be scattered; and let them who hate Him flee beforeHis face._"
_Gloria Patri...._
Then he raised his heavy head; and a phantom figure stood there in redvestments, seeming to float rather than to stand, with thin handsoutstretched, and white cap on white hair seen in the gleam of thesteady candle-flames; another, also in white, kneeled on the step....
_Kyrie eleison ... Gloria in excelsis Deo ..._ those things passed likea shadow-show, with movements and rustlings, but he perceived rather thelight which cast them. He heard _Deus qui in hodierna die ..._ but hispassive mind gave no pulse of reflex action, no stir of understandinguntil these words. _Cum complerentur dies Pentecostes...._
"_When the day of Pentecost was fully come, all the disciples were withone accord in the same place; and there came from heaven suddenly asound, as of a mighty wind approaching, and it filled the house wherethey were sitting...._"
Then he remembered and understood.... It was Pentecost then! And withmemory a shred of reflection came back. Where then was the wind, and theflame, and the earthquake, and the secret voice? Yet the world wassilent, rigid in its last effort at self-assertion: there was no tremorto show that God remembered; no actual point of light, yet, breaking theappalling vault of gloom that lay over sea and land to reveal that Heburned there in eternity, transcendent and dominant; not even a voice;and at that he understood yet more. He perceived that that world, whosemonstrous parody his sleep had presented to him in the night, was otherthan that he had feared it to be; it was sweet, not terrible; friendly,not hostile; clear, not stifling; and home, not exile. There werepresences here, but not those gluttonous, lustful things that had lookedon him last night.... He dropped his head again upon his hands, at onceashamed and content; and again he sank down to depths of glimmeringinner peace....
* * * * *
Not again, for a while, did he perceive what he did or thought, or whatpassed there, five yards away on the low step. Once only a ripple passedacross that sea of glass, a ripple of fire and sound like a rising starthat flicks a line of light across a sleeping lake, like a thin threadof vibration streaming from a quivering string across the stillness of adeep night--and be perceived for an instant as in a formless mirror thata lower nature was struck into existence and into union with the Divinenature at the same moment.... And then no more again but the greatencompassing hush, the sense of the innermost heart of reality, till hefound himself kneeling at the rail, and knew that That which alone trulyexisted on earth approached him with the swiftness of thought and theardour of Divine Love....
Then, as the mass ended, and he raised his passive happy soul to receivethe last gift of God, there was a cry, a sudden clamour in the passage,and a man stood in the doorway, gabbling Arabic.