CHAPTER I
I
The little room where the new Pope sat reading was a model ofsimplicity. Its walls were whitewashed, its roof unpolished rafters, andits floor beaten mud. A square table stood in the centre, with a chairbeside it; a cold brazier laid for lighting, stood in the wide hearth; abookshelf against the wall held a dozen volumes. There were three doors,one leading to the private oratory, one to the ante-room, and the thirdto the little paved court. The south windows were shuttered, but throughthe ill-fitting hinges streamed knife-blades of fiery light from the hotEastern day outside.
It was the time of the mid-day siesta, and except for the brisk scythingof the _cicade_ from the hill-slope behind the house, all was in deepsilence.
* * * * *
The Pope, who had dined an hour before, had hardly shifted His attitudein all that time, so intent was He upon His reading. For the while, allwas put away, His own memory of those last three months, the bitteranxiety, the intolerable load of responsibility. The book He held was acheap reprint of the famous biography of Julian Felsenburgh, issued amonth before, and He was now drawing to an end.
It was a terse, well-written book, composed by an unknown hand, and someeven suspected it to be the disguised work of Felsenburgh himself. More,however, considered that it was written at least with Felsenburgh'sconsent by one of that small body of intimates whom he had admitted tohis society--that body which under him now conducted the affairs of Westand East. From certain indications in the book it had been argued thatits actual writer was a Westerner.
The main body of the work dealt with his life, or rather with those twoor three years known to the world, from his rapid rise in Americanpolitics and his mediation in the East down to the event of five monthsago, when in swift succession he had been hailed Messiah in Damascus,had been formally adored in London, and finally elected by anextraordinary majority to the Tribuniciate of the two Americas.
The Pope had read rapidly through these objective facts, for He knewthem well enough already, and was now studying with close attention thesummary of his character, or rather, as the author rather sententiouslyexplained, the summary of his self-manifestation to the world. He readthe description of his two main characteristics, his grasp upon wordsand facts; "words, the daughters of earth, were wedded in this man tofacts, the sons of heaven, and Superman was their offspring." His minorcharacteristics, too, were noticed, his appetite for literature, hisastonishing memory, his linguistic powers. He possessed, it appeared,both the telescopic and the microscopic eye--he discerned world-widetendencies and movements on the one hand; he had a passionate capacityfor detail on the other. Various anecdotes illustrated these remarks,and a number of terse aphorisms of his were recorded. "No man forgives,"he said; "he only understands." "It needs supreme faith to renounce atranscendent God." "A man who believes in himself is almost capable ofbelieving in his neighbour." Here was a sentence that to the Pope's mindwas significant of that sublime egotism that is alone capable ofconfronting the Christian spirit: and again, "To forgive a wrong is tocondone a crime," and "The strong man is accessible to no one, but allare accessible to him."
There was a certain pompousness in this array of remarks, but it lay, asthe Pope saw very well, not in the speaker but in the scribe. To him whohad seen the speaker it was plain how they had been uttered--with nopontifical solemnity, but whirled out in a fiery stream of eloquence, orspoken with that strangely moving simplicity that had constituted hisfirst assault on London. It was possible to hate Felsenburgh, and tofear him; but never to be amused at him.
But plainly the supreme pleasure of the writer was to trace the analogybetween his hero and nature. In both there was the same apparentcontradictoriness--the combination of utter tenderness and utterruthlessness. "The power that heals wounds also inflicts them: thatclothes the dungheap with sweet growths and grasses, breaks, too, intofire and earthquake; that causes the partridge to die for her young,also makes the shrike with his living larder." So, too, withFelsenburgh; He who had wept over the Fall of Rome, a month later hadspoken of extermination as an instrument that even now might bejudicially used in the service of humanity. Only it must be used withdeliberation, not with passion.
The utterance had aroused extraordinary interest, since it seemed soparadoxical from one who preached peace and toleration; and argumenthad broken out all over the world. But beyond enforcing the dispersal ofthe Irish Catholics, and the execution of a few individuals, so far thatutterance had not been acted upon. Yet the world seemed as a whole tohave accepted it, and even now to be waiting for its fulfilment.
As the biographer pointed out, the world enclosed in physical natureshould welcome one who followed its precepts, one who was indeed thefirst to introduce deliberately and confessedly into human affairs suchlaws as those of the Survival of the Fittest and the immorality offorgiveness. If there was mystery in the one, there was mystery in theother, and both must be accepted if man was to develop.
And the secret of this, it seemed, lay in His personality. To see Himwas to believe in Him, or rather to accept Him as inevitably true. "Wedo not explain nature or escape from it by sentimental regrets: the barecries like a child, the wounded stag weeps great tears, the robin killshis parents; life exists only on condition of death; and these thingshappen however we may weave theories that explain nothing. Life must beaccepted on those terms; we cannot be wrong if we follow nature; ratherto accept them is to find peace--our great mother only reveals hersecrets to those who take her as she is." So, too, with Felsenburgh. "Itis not for us to discriminate: His personality is of a kind that doesnot admit it. He is complete and sufficing for those who trust Him andare willing to suffer; an hostile and hateful enigma to those who arenot. We must prepare ourselves for the logical outcome of this doctrine.Sentimentality must not be permitted to dominate reason."
Finally, then, the writer showed how to this Man belonged properly allthose titles hitherto lavished upon imagined Supreme Beings. It was inpreparation for Him that these types came into the realms of thought andinfluenced men's lives.
He was the _Creator_, for it was reserved for Him to bring into beingthe perfect life of union to which all the world had hitherto groaned invain; it was in His own image and likeness that He had made man.
Yet He was the _Redeemer_ too, for that likeness had in one sense alwaysunderlain the tumult of mistake and conflict. He had brought man out ofdarkness and the shadow of death, guiding their feet into the way ofpeace. He was the _Saviour_ for the same reason--the _Son of Man_, forHe alone was perfectly human; He was the _Absolute_, for He was thecontent of Ideals; the _Eternal_, for He had lain always in nature'spotentiality and secured by His being the continuity of that order; the_Infinite_, for all finite things fell short of Him who was more thantheir sum.
He was _Alpha_, then, and _Omega_, the beginning and the end, the firstand the last. He was _Dominus et Deus noster_ (as Domitian had been, thePope reflected). He was as simple and as complex as life itself--simplein its essence, complex in its activities.
And last of all, the supreme proof of His mission lay in the immortalnature of His message. There was no more to be added to what He hadbrought to light--for in Him all diverging lines at last found theirorigin and their end. As to whether or no He would prove to bepersonally immortal was an wholly irrelevant thought; it would be indeedfitting if through His means the vital principle should disclose itslast secret; but no more than fitting. Already His spirit was in theworld; the individual was no more separate from his fellows; death nomore than a wrinkle that came and went across the inviolable sea. Forman had learned at last that the race was all and self was nothing; thecell had discovered the unity of the body; even, the greatest thinkersdeclared, the consciousness of the individual had yielded the title ofPersonality to the corporate mass of man--and the restlessness of theunit had sunk into the peace of a common Humanity, for nothing but thiscould explain the cessation of party strife and nationalcompetition--and this, above all, had been the work of F
elsenburgh.
"_Behold I am with you always_," quoted the writer in a passionateperoration, "_even now in the consummation of the world; and, theComforter is come unto you. I am the Door--the Way, the Truth and theLife--the Bread of Life and the Water of Life. My name is Wonderful, thePrince of Peace, the Father Everlasting. It is I who am the Desire ofall nations, the fairest among the children of men--and of my Kingdomthere shall be no end_."
The Pope laid down the book, and leaned back, closing his eyes.
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