The Absolute at Large

by Karel Čapek

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE PROCESS OF CANONIZATION

  YOU will readily understand that the admission of the Absolute to the bosom of the Church afforded, under the given circumstances, a great surprise. It was carried out by virtue of the Papal Brief alone, and the College of Cardinals, being faced with the accomplished fact, merely deliberated whether the sacrament of baptism should be conferred upon the Absolute. It was decided to dispense with this. There was certainly well-known ecclesiastical precedent for the baptism of a God (vide John the Baptist); but even in such a case the candidate for baptism must be present in person. Besides, it was a very delicate political question to decide which reigning potentate was to be godfather to the Absolute. The Sacred Congregation therefore recommended that at the next Pontifical Mass the Holy Father should pray for the new member of the Church, and this was duly carried out in very solemn form. It was also made part of the body of Church doctrine that in addition to the sacrament of baptism and baptism by blood the Church also recognized baptism through works of meritoriousness, and virtue.

  It must also be recorded that three days before the publication of the Papal Brief the Pope gave a lengthy audience to G. H. Bondy, who was afterwards in conference with the Papal Secretary, Monsignor Cullatti, for twenty-four hours.

  Almost simultaneously the summary beatification of the Absolute was enacted under the rule super cultu immemorabili in recognition of the virtuous life of the Absolute, now declared Blessed, and a regular but expedited process of canonization was arranged for. There was, however, one highly important innovation: the Absolute was to be declared, not a Saint, but a God. A Deification Commission was immediately appointed from among the best of the Church’s scholars and pastors. Varesi, the Cardinal Archbishop of Venice, was appointed Procurator Dei, while Monsignor Cullatti was to act as Advocatus Diaboli.

  Cardinal Varesi presented seventeen thousand testimonies to miracles performed, signed by nearly all the cardinals, patriarchs, primates, metropolitans, princes of the Church, archbishops, principals of Orders, and abbots. To each testimonial were appended expert reports by medical authorities and members of faculties, opinions from professors of natural sciences, technicians, and economists, as well as the signatures of eye-witnesses and legal authentications. These seventeen thousand documents, Monsignor Varesi stated, represented but an insignificant fraction of the miracles actually performed by the Absolute, their number having already at a conservative estimate exceeded thirty millions.

  In addition to this the Procurator Dei secured detailed expert opinions from the greatest scientific specialists in the world. Professor Gardien, Rector of the medical faculty in Paris, for example, after exhaustive researches, wrote as follows: “Seeing that innumerable cases presented to us for examination were from a medical standpoint completely hopeless and scientifically incurable (paralysis, cancer of the throat, blindness after surgical removal of both eyes, lameness following on amputation of both the lower extremities, death following on complete separation of the head from the trunk, strangulation in a subject hanged two days before, etc.), the medical faculty of the Sorbonne is of the opinion that the so-called miraculous cures in such cases can only be ascribed either to complete ignorance of anatomical and pathological conditions, clinical inexperience, and utter incompetence in medical practice, or—a possibility we do not wish to exclude—to the interference of higher powers not limited by the laws of nature or any knowledge thereof.”

  Professor Meadow of Glasgow, the psychologist, wrote: “ . . . . Since in these activities there is manifest what is obviously a thinking being, capable of association, memory, and even of logical judgment, a being which performs these psychic operations without the medium of a brain and nervous system, it affords a striking corroboration of my crushing criticism of the psychophysical parallelism advocated by Professor Meyer. I affirm that the so-called Absolute is a psychic, conscious, and intelligent being, albeit our scientific knowledge of its nature is as yet but small.”

  Professor Lupen of the Brno Technical Institute wrote: “From the standpoint of effective performance, the Absolute is a force deserving of the highest respect.”

  The famous chemist, Willibald of Tubingen, wrote: “The Absolute possesses all the requisite conditions of existence and scientific evolution, as it is in admirable conformity with Einstein’s theory of Relativity.”

  The present chronicler will no longer detain you with the pronouncements of the world’s scientific luminaries; in any case they were all published in the Acts of the Holy See.

  The process of canonization went forward in quick time. In the meantime a committee of eminent authorities on dogma and exegesis had completed a statement in which the identity of the Absolute with the Third Person of the Trinity was definitely established on the basis of the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers of the Church.

  But before the ceremony of deification took place, the Patriarch of Constantinople declared, as head of the Eastern Church, the identity of the Absolute with the First Person of the Trinity, the Creator. This undeniably heretical teaching was espoused by the Old Catholics, the circumcised Christians of Abyssinia, the Evangelicals of the Helvetian Confession, the Nonconformists, and several of the larger American sects. This brought about a lively theological dispute. As for the Jews, a secret doctrine spread among them to the effect that the Absolute was Baal of old; the Liberal Jews announced that they would in that case recognize Baal.

  The Free Thought Society assembled in Basle. In the presence of two thousand delegates the Absolute was proclaimed as the God of the Freethinkers, and this was followed by an incredibly violent attack upon clerics of all denominations, who, in the terms of the resolution, “are eager to seek their own advantage with the one scientific God and to drag Him down into the filthy cage of ecclesiastical dogma and priestly deception, and leave Him there to starve.” But the God who has made Himself manifest to the eyes of every progressive modern thinker “has nothing to do with the mediæval traffic of these Pharisees; the Free Thought Association alone is His congregation, and only the Basle Congress has the right to set forth the doctrine and the ritual of the Free Religion.”

  At about the same time the German Monist Association laid in Leipzig, with great pomp and ceremony, the foundation-stone of the future Cathedral of the Atomic God. There was some disturbance, in which sixteen persons were injured and Lüttgen, the famous physicist, had his spectacles smashed.

  News was also received that autumn of some religious phenomena in the Belgian Congo and in French Senegambia. The negroes quite unexpectedly slaughtered and ate the missionaries and bowed down to a new idol which they called Ato or Alolto. It afterwards appeared that these idols were atomic motors, and that German officers and agents were in some way implicated in the matter. On the other hand, during the Moslem rising which broke out at Mecca in December of the same year, several French emissaries were found to have been present, who had concealed twelve light atomic motors of the Aero pattern in the neighbourhood of the Kaaba. The ensuing rebellion of the Mohammedans in Egypt and Tripoli, and the massacres in Arabia, cost the lives of about thirty thousand Europeans.

  The deification of the Absolute was at length accomplished in Rome on the twelfth of December.

  Seven thousand priests with lighted candles escorted the Holy Father to St. Peter’s, where the largest twelve-ton Karburator, a gift from the M.E.C. to the Holy See, had been erected behind the high altar. The ceremony lasted five hours, and twelve hundred of the faithful and the spectators were crushed to death. At the stroke of noon, the Pope intoned the “In nomine Dei Deus,” and at the same moment the bells of all the Catholic churches in the world were set ringing as all the bishops and priests turned from the altars and announced to the world of believers: “Habemus Deum.”

  CHAPTER XX

  ST. KILDA

  ST. KILDA is a little island, practically nothing more than a rock of pliocene tufa far to the west of the Hebrides. A few stunted birch
es, a handful of heather and dry grass, flocks of nesting seagulls and semi-arctic butterflies of the order Polyommatus are all that lives on this lost outpost of our hemisphere, out amid the endless beating of the seas and the equally endless procession of clouds for ever laden with rain. For that matter, St. Kilda has always been uninhabited, is now, and will for ever be so.

  Nevertheless it was there that His Majesty’s ship Dragon dropped anchor, towards the end of autumn. Carpenters came off the ship with timbers and planks, and by evening they had built a large, low wooden house. The next day upholsterers arrived, bringing with them the finest and most comfortable furniture. On the third day stewards, cooks, and waiters emerged from the depths of the ship and carried into the building crockery, wine, preserves, and everything that civilization has provided for rich, fastidious, and powerful men.

  On the morning of the fourth day there arrived on H.M.S. Edwin the English Premier, the Right Hon. Sir W. O’Patterney; half an hour later came the American Ambassador, Mr. Horatio Bumm; and there followed him, each on a warship, the Chinese plenipotentiary, Mr. Kei; the French Premier, Dudieu; the Imperial Russian General, Buchtin; the Imperial German Chancellor, Dr. Wurm; the Italian Minister, Prince Trivelino; and the Japanese Ambassador, Baron Yanato. Sixteen English torpedo-boats cruised around St. Kilda to prevent newspaper reporters from landing; for this Conference of the Supreme Council of the Great Powers, which had been summoned in great haste by the all-powerful Sir W. O’Patterney, was to take place under conditions of the strictest secrecy. In fact, the large Danish whaling schooner Nyls Hans was torpedoed while attempting to slip through the cordon of destroyers by night. The losses included, in addition to the twelve men of the crew, Mr. Joe Hashek, political correspondent of the Chicago Tribune. Nevertheless, the representative of the New York Herald, Mr. I. Sawitt, spent the whole time on St. Kilda disguised as a waiter, and we are indebted to his pen for the scanty accounts of that memorable assembly which survived even the subsequent historic catastrophes.

  Mr. I. Sawitt was of the opinion that this Conference on high politics was being held in this lonely spot in order to eliminate any direct influence of the Absolute on its decisions. In any other place the Absolute might well make its way into this gathering of serious statesmen in the guise of inspiration, enlightenment, or even miracle-working—which would certainly be something utterly unprecedented in high politics.

  The primary purpose of the Conference was ostensibly to reach an agreement on colonial policy. The States were to come to an agreement not to support or assist religious movements on the territory of other States. The incentive to this step was the German agitation in the Congo and Senegambia, as well as the subterranean French influence behind the outbreak of Mahdism in Moslem countries under British rule, and particularly the shipments of Karburators from Japan to Bengal, where a furious revolt of the most diverse sects was raging.

  The deliberations were held behind closed doors. The only news given out for publication was that spheres of interest had been allotted to Germany in Kurdistan and to Japan on certain Greek islands. It would seem that the Anglo-Japanese and the Franco-German-Russian alliances were on this occasion unusually cordial.

  In the afternoon Mr. G. H. Bondy arrived on a special torpedo-boat, and was received in audience by the Supreme Council.

  Not until about five o’clock (Greenwich time) did the illustrious diplomats sit down to luncheon, and it was here that I. Sawitt had the first opportunity of hearing with his own ears the representatives of the high contracting parties. After the meal they discussed sport and actresses. Sir W. O’Patterney, with his poet’s head with its white mane and soulful eyes, talked enthusiastically about salmon-fishing with His Excellency the French Premier, Dudieu, whose energetic gestures, loud voice, and a certain je ne sais quoi, revealed the former lawyer. Baron Yanato, refusing all liquid refreshment, listened silently and smiled as though his mouth were full of water. Dr. Wurm turned over his papers, General Buchtin walked up and down the room with Prince Trivelino, Horatio Bumm was making cannons all by himself on the billiard-table (I have myself seen his lovely overhand massé stroke, which would win the admiration of any expert), while Mr. Kei, looking like a very yellow and very withered old lady, fingered some kind of Buddhist rosary. He was a mandarin in his own Flowery Land.

  Suddenly all the diplomats grouped themselves round M. Dudieu, who was explaining: “Yes, gentlemen, c’est ca. We cannot remain indifferent to Him. We must either recognize Him or deny Him. We Frenchmen are in favour of the latter course!”

  “That’s because He’s showing himself such an anti-militarist in your country,” said Prince Trivelino with a certain malicious pleasure.

  “No, gentlemen,” cried Dudieu, “don’t deceive yourselves on that point. The French army is quite unaffected. Such an anti-militarist! Bah! We already had any number of anti-militarists! Beware of Him, gentlemen. He is a demagogue, a communist, a bigot, Heaven knows what not, but always a radical. Oui, un rabouliste, c’est ca. He sticks to the wildest popular catch-words. He goes with the mob. Now in your Highness’s country”—he turned suddenly to Prince Trivelino—“He is a nationalist, intoxicating Himself with dreams of a great Roman Empire. But take care, your Highness: that’s what He does in the cities, but in the country districts He hobnobs with the parsons and performs miracles at the shrines of the Virgin. He works for the Vatican with one hand and for the Quirinal with the other. Either there is some design in it or . . . I don’t know what. Gentlemen, we can quite frankly admit it: He is making things difficult for us all.”

  “In my country,” said Horatio Bumm thoughtfully, leaning on his cue, “He goes in for sport as well. He’s a real big sportsman. He goes in for all sorts of games. He’s made amazing records in sports even among chapel-folk. He’s a Socialist. He’s on the side of the Wets. He changes water into drink. Why, just lately, at a White House banquet, everybody present, everybody, mind you, got frightfully drunk. They didn’t take anything but water, you see, but He changed it into drink after it was down.”

  “That’s queer,” said Sir W. O’Patterney. “In my country He strikes one as much more of a Conservative. He behaves like an omnipotent clergyman. Holds meetings, processions, sermons in the streets, and such things. I think He is opposed to us Liberals.

  Baron Yanato then said smilingly: “In my country He is quite at home. A very, very nice God. He has adapted Himself very well. Indeed, a very great Japanese.”

  “What do you mean, Japanese?” croaked out General Buchtin. “What are you talking about, batushko? He’s a Russian, a genuine Russian, a Slav. With the great Russian soul, your Excellency. He’s on the side of us moujiks. Not long ago our Archimandrite arranged a procession in his honour: ten thousand candles, and people, gospodin, thick as poppy seeds. All the Christian souls of Mother Russia had gathered together for it. He even performed miracles for us. For He is our Father,” added the General, crossing himself and bowing low.

  The German Imperial Chancellor approached, and after listening for a while in silence, he said: “Yes, He knows just how to appeal to the people. In every case, He adopts the mentality of the country He is in. Considering His age, He is . . . hm . . . astoundingly elastic. We notice it in the countries just around us. In Czechoslovakia, for instance, He behaves like a colossal individualist. Everyone there has his own Absolute all to himself, so to speak. We ourselves have a State Absolute. With us the Absolute immediately developed into the higher consciousness of the State. In Poland He acts like a kind of alcohol; with us He acts like . . . like . . . a sort of Higher Command, verstehen sie mich?”

  “Even in your Catholic provinces?” asked Prince Trivelino with a smile.

  “Those are mere local differences,” replied Dr. Wurm. “Don’t attach any importance to them, gentlemen. Germany is more united that ever before. But I must thank you, Prince, for the Catholic Karburators that you are smuggling over to us. Fortunately they are poorly made, like all Italian products.”

/>   “Come, come, gentlemen,” interrupted Sir W. O’Patterney. “Neutrality in religious questions, please. For my own part, I use a double hook for salmon. The other day I caught one as long as that, look! Fourteen pounds.”

  “And what about the Papal Nuncio?” asked Dr. Wurm quietly.

  “The Holy See requests us to maintain order at all costs. It wants us to have mysticism prohibited by the police. That wouldn’t do in England, and altogether. . . . Well, I assure you it weighed quite fourteen pounds. Heavens, I had all I could do to keep from falling into the water!”

  Baron Yanato smiled still more politely. “But we do not wish for neutrality. He is a great Japanese. The whole world can adopt the Japanese faith. We, too, would like to send out missionaries for once, and teach religion.”

  “Baron,” said Sir W. O’Patterney gravely, “you know that the excellent relations existing between our Governments . . .”

  “England can adopt the Japanese faith,” smiled Baron Yanato, “and our relations will be even better.”

  “Stop, batushko,” cried General Buchtin. “We’ll have no Japanese faith. If there’s to be any faith, then it must be the Orthodox faith. And do you know why? First, because it is orthodox, and secondly, because it is Russian, and thirdly, because our Czar so wills it, and fourthly, because we, my friend, have the biggest army. I do everything like a soldier, gentlemen: downright frankly and openly. If there’s to be a religion, then it’s to be our Orthodox religion.”

  “But, gentlemen, that is not the question,” cried Sir W. O’Patterney excitedly. “That isn’t what we’re here for!”

  “Quite right,” said Dr. Wurm. “We have to agree upon a common line of conduct with regard to God.”