by Sax Rohmer
“There are seven degrees in the holy sphere
That girdles the outer skies; There are seven hues in the atmosphere
Of the Spirit Paradise; And the seven lamps burn bright and clear
In the mind, the heart, and the eyes Of the angel-spirits from every world
That ever and ever arise. There are seven ages the angels know
In the courts of the Spirit Heaven: And seven joys through the spirit flow
From the morn of the heart till even; Seven curtains of light wave to and fro Where the seven great trumpets the angels blow, And the throne of God hath a seven-fold glow,
And the angel hosts are seven. And a spiral winds from the worlds to the suns,
And every star that shines In the path of degrees for ever runs,
And the spiral octave climbs; And a seven-fold heaven round every one
In the spiral order twines. There are seven links from God to man,
There are seven links and a threefold span; And seven spheres in the great degree
Of one created immensity. There are seven octaves of spirit love In the heart, the mind, and the heavens above: And seven degrees in the frailest thing, Though it hath but a day for its blossoming.”
It seemed as though all mysticism had culminated in Paul Mario, and so immense was his influence that the English Church was forced into action. Such heterodox views had been expressed from the pulpit since The Gates had cast its challenge at the feet of orthodoxy that the bishops unanimously pronounced its teachings to be heretical, and forbade their adoption under divers pains and penalties. A certain brilliant and fashionable preacher resigned his living, and financed by a society established for the purpose, prepared to build a great church upon a site adjoining the Strand, to be called the New Temple. A definite schism thereupon was created, and so insistent became the demand for more light, for a personal message, that Paul was urged by a committee, including some of the foremost thinkers of the day, to deliver a series of addresses at the Albert Hall. He had lighted a veritable bonfire, and its flames were spreading to the four points of the compass. Even Islâm, that fanatic rock against which reform dashes itself in vain, was stirred at last, and the Sherîf of Mecca issued a firmân to the mosques within his province authorising an intensive campaign against the Korân Inglîsi — for Paul had embraced the tenets of the Moslem faith within his new Catholic creed.
At one of his clubs, which he visited rarely, he met one evening a bishop famed as a religious educationalist, a large red cleric having bristling eyebrows resembling shrimps and the calculating glance of a judge of good port. This astute man of the world attacked him along peculiar lines. “There must always be a hierarchy, Mr. Mario,” he said. “Buddha — if such a personage ever existed — endeavoured to dispense with a priesthood and a ritual, but his followers have been unable to do so. You aver that the Kingdom of God is within ourselves, but if every man were able to find the Kingdom of God within himself he would have no occasion to pay others to find it for him. What would become of the poor churchman?”
“I have not proposed the abolition of the old priesthood,” Paul replied. “I have proposed the establishment of a new. Only by appreciation of the fact that Man is the supreme Mystery can man solve the Riddle of the Universe, and what is there of mystery about your tennis-playing curate? The gossiper whom we have seen nibbling buttered scones at five o’clock tea mounts the pulpit and addresses us upon the subject of the Holy Trinity. On this subject naturally he has nothing to tell us, and naturally we are bored. Rather than abolish ritual I would embellish it, calling to my aid all the resources of art and music. I would invest my ritual with awe and majesty, and my priests should be a class apart.”
“Such an appeal is not for every man, Mr. Mario. Your New Temple would be designed to inculcate the truth upon minds which have already received it; a thankless task. We seek the good of the greatest number, and you must bring your gods to earth if you would raise your worshippers to heaven. After all, simplicity rather than knowledge is the keynote of happiness.”
“You would trick your penitents into paradise?”
“Perhaps I am obtuse, but it seems to me that this is your design, not mine.”
“What does the Church offer,” said Paul, “that the human mind can grasp? What hope do you extend to the sorrowing widow of a man who has died unrepentant and full of sin? Eternal loss. Is this to be her reward for years of faithful love? If, upon her death-bed, the woman of atrocious life can be bullied into uttering words of penitence she is ‘saved.’ If she die as she lived, if a shot, a knife, a street accident cut her off in the midst of her sinning, she is ‘lost.’ A moment of panic wins salvation for the one; a life-time of self-denial counts for nothing in the case of another. If I go out into the street and strike down a bawd — a thing lower than the lowest animal and more noxious — I hang. If I don the King’s uniform and accept the orders of an officer, I may slay good men and bad, come who may, and die assured of heaven. It is war. Why is it war? Simply because it is slaughter as opposed to slaying. Our cause, you will say, is just. So is my cause against the pander.”
“You are, then, a novel sort of conscientious objector?”
“Not at all. If at the price of my life I could exterminate every living thing that is Prussian I should do it. But I know why I should do it, and why I should be justified. If one troubled with doubts upon such a score were to ask your cloth to resolve them, he would be told that he fought for King and Country, or something equally beside the point. Patriotism, my lord, becomes impossible when we realise that in turn we have inhabited many countries. You were once perhaps an Austrian, and may yet be a Turk.”
“The theory of re-incarnation, Mr. Mario, helps to people our lunatic asylums. I was assured recently by a well-known brain specialist that the claimants to the soul of Cleopatra would out-number the Hippodrome ‘Beauty Chorus.’”
“You speak of the ‘theory’ of re-incarnation, yet it was taught by Christ.”
“There we arrive at a definite point of divergence, Mr. Mario,” said his lordship. “Let us agree to differ, for I perceive that no other form of agreement is possible between us.”
* * * * * *
“There is something frightfully unsatisfactory about bishops,” declared Thessaly, when Paul spoke of this conversation to him. “Many vicars and deans are quite romantic people, but immediately they are presented with a mitre they become uninteresting and often begin to write to the Times. Besides, no one but Forbes Robertson could hope to look impressive in a mitre. It is most unsuitable headgear for an elderly gentleman.”
V
Don remained in London for several months, performing light duties at the War Office. No one but Paul ever knew how far he had penetrated into the grim valley, how almost miraculous had been his recovery. And not even Paul knew that if Flamby’s heart had been free Don might never have returned to France. In despite of his shattered health he refused the staff appointment which was offered to him and volunteered for active service, unfit though he was to undertake it.
“We don’t seem to be able to realise, Paul,” he said, “that the possession of an artificial leg and a Victoria Cross does not constitute a staff officer. My only perceptible qualification for the post offered is my crocky condition. The brains of the Army should surely be made up not of long pedigrees and gallant cripples, but of genius fit to cope with that of the German High Command. A cowardly criminal with a capacity for intrigue would probably be a greater acquisition than that of the most gallant officer who ever covered a strategic ‘withdrawal.’”
Poor Flamby smiled and jested until the very moment of Don’s departure and cried all day afterwards. Then she sat down at the little oak bureau and wrote a long letter declaring that she had quite definitely and irrevocably decided to forget Paul, and that she should have something “very particular” to confide to Don when he returned. Whilst searching for a stamp she chanced upon a photograph of Paul cut from a weekly jour
nal. Very slowly she tore the letter up into tiny pieces and dropped them in a Japanese paper-basket. She went to bed and read The Gates until she fell asleep, leaving the light burning.
The fear of which she had spoken to Don oppressed her more and more. That Paul had grasped the Absolute Key she could not doubt, but it seemed to Flamby that he had given life to something which had lain dormant, occult, for untold ages, that he had created a thing which already had outgrown his control. In art, literature and music disciples proclaimed themselves. One of France’s foremost composers produced a symphony, Dawn, directly inspired by the gospel of Paul Mario; in The Gates painters found fresh subjects for their brushes, and the literature of the world became a mirror reflecting Paul’s doctrine. Here was no brilliant spark to dazzle for a moment and die, but a beacon burning ever brighter on which humanity, race by race, fixed a steadfast gaze. Theosophy acclaimed him the new Buddha, and in Judaism a sect arose who saw, in Paul, Isaiah reborn.
But Flamby was afraid. Paul’s theory that the arts had taken the place of the sibyls, that man was only an instrument of higher powers which shaped the Universe, dismayed her; for upon seeking to analyse the emotions which The Gates aroused she thought that she could discern the origin of this fear in an unfamiliar note which now and again intruded, a voice unlike the voice of Paul Mario. He was sometimes dominated by an alien influence, perhaps was so dominated throughout save that the control did not throughout reveal its presence. His own work proved his theory to be true. It was a concept of life beyond human ken revealed through the genius of a master mind. Such revelations in the past had only been granted to mystics who had sought them in a life of self-abnegation far from the world. It was no mere reshuffling of the Tarot of the Initiates, but in many respects was a new gospel, and because that which is unknown is thought to be wonderful, in questing the source of Paul’s inspiration Flamby constantly found her thoughts to be focussed upon Jules Thessaly.
At this time she had won recognition from the artistic coterie, or mutual admiration society, which stands for English art, although her marked independence of intellect had held her to some extent aloof from their ever-changing “cults.” But she had met those painters, illustrators, sculptors, critics, dealers and art editors who “mattered.” Practically all of them seemed to know Thessaly; many regarded him as the most influential living patron of art; yet Flamby had never met Thessaly, had never even seen him. She had heard that he possessed a striking personality, she knew that he often lunched at Regali’s and sometimes visited the Café Royal. People had said to her, “There goes Jules Thessaly” — and she had turned just too late, always too late. Orlando James had arranged for her to meet him at luncheon one day, and Thessaly had been summoned to Paris on urgent business. At first Flamby had thought little of the matter, but latterly she had thought much. To Don she had refrained from speaking of this, for it seemed to savour of that feminine jealousy which regards with suspicious disfavour any living creature, man, woman or dog, near to a beloved object. But she was convinced that Thessaly deliberately avoided her and she suspected that he influenced Paul unfavourably, although of this latter fact she had practically no evidence.
Similar doubts respecting the motive which might be attributed to her had prevented Flamby from telling Don why she wished to keep in touch with Orlando James. Paul’s philosophy was a broad one, and imposed few trammels upon social intercourse between the sexes. He regarded early-Victorian prudery with frank horror, and counted the narrowness of middle-class suburban life as directly traceable to this tainted spring. Don had once declared a suburban Sunday to be “hell’s delight. Rock of Ages,” he said, “(arrangement for piano) has more to answer for than the entire ritual of the Black Mass.” Paul applauded breadth of outlook; nevertheless Flamby doubted if Paul would have approved certain clandestine visits to James’s studio. It was Flamby’s discovery of the identity of the tall lady, closely veiled, whom she had seen one night descending from a cab and hurrying under the arch into the little courtyard of the faun, which first had awakened that indefinite fear whereof she had spoken to Don. On several successive evenings she had invented reasons for remaining late at Chauvin’s, and at last had been rewarded by seeing the veiled visitor admitted to James’s studio. The light shining out upon her face had revealed the features of Yvonne Mario. Flamby had spied and had counted her espionage justified. Any other woman in like circumstances would have spied also, justified or otherwise. For women in some respects are wiser than men, and he who counts woman supine has viewed his world awry; but the true deeps of a woman’s soul may only be stirred by passion. Honour and those other temporal shadows at whose beck men lay down life leave women unstirred. What man of honour would tear open a letter addressed to another, though he suspected it to contain his death-warrant? What woman, in like case, would hesitate to steam it?
VI
High Mass in Westminster Cathedral was about to conclude. The air was heavy with incense, and the organ notes seemed to float upon it buoyantly, rebounding from marble wall and Byzantine pillar to remain indefinitely suspended ere sinking into silence. The voice of the officiating priest fascinated Paul Mario strangely. He found himself following the rhythm but not the meaning of the words. That solitary human voice was the complement of a theme whereof the incense and the monotonous music made up the other parts. Comprehension of words and syllables was unnecessary. Detached, no portion of the ritual had meaning; its portent lay in the whole. The atmosphere which it created was not that of the Mount, but was purely mediaeval, nor had the Roman fashion of the vast interior power to hold one’s imagination enchained to the Cross of Calvary. The white robes of the altar servants, broidered vestments of the priests and pallid torches of a hundred candles belonged to the Rome of Caesar Borgia and not to the Rome of Caesar Nero. Into that singular building, impressive in its incompleteness, crept no echo of the catacombs, and the sighing of the reed notes was voluptuous as a lover’s whisper, and as far removed from the murmurs of the Christian martyrs. Here were pomp and majesty with all their emotional appeal. Mystery alone was lacking. The robes of Cardinal Pescara lent a final touch of colour to the mediaeval opulence of the scene.
It was to hear the cardinal speak that Paul had come. The occasion was an impressive one, and the great church was sombre with mourning. Men of a famous Irish regiment occupied row after row of seats, and from the galleries above must have looked like a carpet of sand spread across the floor. The sermon had proved to be worthy of the master of rhetoric who had delivered it. The silvern voice of the Cardinal, from the pronouncement of his opening words to the close of his peroration when he stood with outstretched arms and eyes uplifted pitifully in illustration of the Agony of Golgotha, charmed his hearers as of old the lyre of Apollo had power to charm. His genius invested the consolation of the church with a new significance, exalting the majesty of bereavement to a higher sovereignty. His English was faultless, beautified by a soft Italian intonation, and his sense of the dramatic and of the value of sudden silences reminded Paul of Sir Henry Irving, whom he had seen once during his first term at Oxford and had never forgotten. Dramatically it was a flawless performance; intellectually it was masterful. That crucified pitiful figure stood majestic above a weeping multitude dominating them by the sheer genius of oratory. Chord after chord of his human instrument he had touched unerringly, now stirring the blood with exquisite phrases, now steeping the mind in magnetic silence. Paul recognised, and was awe-stricken, that this white-haired ascetic man wielded a power almost as great as his own.
When finally he passed out from the Cathedral, the impression of the Mass had lost much of its hold upon him, but the haunting cadences of that suave Italian voice followed him eerily. Near the open doors a priest, wearing cassock and biretta, stood narrowly scrutinising each face, and as Paul was about to pass he extended his hand, detaining him. “Mr. Paul Mario?” he said.
“I am Paul Mario, yes.”
“His Eminence, Cardinal Pescara, begs
the favour of a few moments’ conversation.”
* * * * * *
Opening a private door the priest led Paul along a bare, tiled corridor. Paul followed his guide in silence, his brain busy with conjectures respecting how and by whom his presence in the Cathedral had been detected. His appearance was familiar to most people, he was aware, but he had entered unostentatiously among a group of black-clad women, and had thought himself unrecognised. In the mode of making his acquaintance adopted by the Cardinal he perceived the working of that subtle Italian intellect. The unexpected summons whilst yet his mind was under the influence of ceremonial, the direct appeal to the dramatic which never fails with one of artistic temperament; it was well conceived to enslave the imagination of the man who had written Francesca of the Lilies. He was conscious of nervousness, of an indefinable apprehension, and ere he had come to the end of the bare corridor, the poet, deserting the man, had posted halberdiers outside the door which the priest had unlocked and had set a guard over that which they were approaching. His guide became a cowled familiar of the Holy Office, and beyond the second door in an apartment black-draped and sepulchral and lighted by ghostly candles, inquisitors awaited him who, sweetly solicitous for his spiritual well-being, would watch men crush his limbs in iron boots, suspend him by his thumbs from a beam and tear out his tongue with white-hot pincers. Then if spark of life remained in his mutilated body, they would direct, amid murmured Aves, that his eyes be burned from their sockets in order that he might look upon heresy no more. His guide rapped upon the door, opened it and permitted Paul to enter the room, closing the door behind him. He found himself in a small square apartment panelled in dark wood. A long narrow oak table was set against the wall facing the entrance, and upon it were writing materials, a scarlet biretta and a large silver crucifix. On the point of rising from a high-backed chair before this table was a man wearing the red robe of a Cardinal. He turned to greet his visitor and Paul looked into the eyes of Giovanni Pescara. There was a clash definite as that of blade upon blade, then the Cardinal inclined his head with gentle dignity and extended a delicate white hand. A padded armchair stood beside the end of the table.
