The Dawn of All

by Robert Hugh Benson

  (IV)

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

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

  He had told everything straight out to this quiet, fatherlyman--his terrors, his shrinking from the unfamiliar atmosphere ofthought 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 realizedit even to himself.

  The Cardinal put one question.

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

  "I suppose so."

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

  "This afternoon."

  The old man was silent for a moment.

  "As to the unreality, the feeling that the Church is heartless, Ithink that is natural. You had a violent mental shock in yourillness. That means that your emotions are very sensitive, almostto the point of morbidness. Well, the heart of the Church is verydeep, and you have not found it yet. That does not greatlymatter. You must keep your _will_ fixed. That is all that Godasks. . . . I think it is true that the Church is hard, in acertain sense; or shall we call it a Divine strength? It islargely a matter of words. She has had that strength always. Onceit nerved her to suffer; now it nerves her to rule. But I thinkyou would find that she could suffer again."

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

  The Cardinal lifted his hand.

  "Of myself we need not speak. I am an old man, and I do not expectto 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 hiscase 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 wholived or died. . . ."

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

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

  "Christ wept."

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

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

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

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

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

  Monsignor felt a wave of disappointment. He had expected a revelationof 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 thatyou and I are going. That should occupy us. Come, let us lookthrough 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, andMonsignor became conscious of an overpowering weariness. Heyawned 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 forour interview."

  Monsignor said nothing. He stepped across to the other couch, andslipped off his shoes, took off his cincture, and lay downwithout a word. Almost before he had finished wondering at themarvellous steadiness of this flying arrow of a ship, he had sunkdown into complete unconsciousness.