The Sermon on the Fall of Rome

by Jérôme Ferrari

  “I suppose you think that’s funny. Why can’t you leave him in peace?”

  “Oh! Fuck off! We’re having a good laugh! we’re very fond of him, our Virgile.”

  Oh yes, they were very fond of him, but he was giving them a poor return for their affection, he was being secretive, he could at least tell them about his fiancée, he must surely have a fiancée, up there in the mountains, to keep him warm in winter, a big, fat, greasy shepherdess, for example, who smelled of goat, he must have one of those in reserve, Virgile, no? unless he doesn’t like fat women, quite apart from the problem of body hair, ah well, if you’re a bit choosy, and she’s a fat shepherdess who smells of goat and doesn’t wax her pussy, there’s nothing to be done, but maybe you’d rather have her hanging around your neck all the same, you don’t want to screw just anything that comes along, that’s very understandable, that’s how it is when you’re fussy, you prefer fresh young girls, with everything shaved, their thighs, calves, pussy, everything, yes, that’s much better, and Pierre-Emmanuel embarked on the praises of Izaskun, a truly fantastic, well-shaved pussy, smooth as your hand, like a baby’s skin, and so warm, quite out of this world, especially at the fold of her thigh, where the skin is so soft, did Virgile see what he meant, such soft skin, so you could feel the warmth of it when you touched it with your lips? and Virgile laughed nervously and began looking down and became hunched up in his corner, Libero banged his fist on the counter, but Pierre-Emmanuel went on, leaning over Virgile and speaking into his ear, it was out of this world how soft Izaskun was, and it was especially out of this world when she took your dick in her mouth, you wanted to shout out, could Virgile imagine that? could he imagine? and one of the fellows from Corte gave a cry of ecstasy and another of them burst out laughing and said,

  “How do you expect him to imagine it? Goats don’t suck you off, you know!” and they all began laughing while Virgile subsided on his stool with the remnants of his own laughter trapped in his throat like a groan. It was almost two o’clock. The bar had emptied. The girls were sponging the tables. Libero bellowed:

  “That’s enough.”

  His eyes were standing out on stalks. Pierre-Emmanuel did not at once get the measure of what was happening. He grasped Virgile by the shoulder, the latter did not stir.

  “Are you his mother, or something? Virgile doesn’t need you, you know! He’s perfectly . . .”

  “You stupid little bastard!”

  Matthieu drew closer. He saw Libero’s right hand half opening the drawer beneath the till.

  “You’re a stupid little bastard, and you’re going to fuck off out of here right now along with your stupid fucking friends . . .”

  “Hey! Watch your language!”

  “. . . I said, with your stupid fucking friends, that’s you, you and you, in case I’ve not made myself clear, those three little bastards there, you’re going to fuck off out of here, and as for you, take a good look at this bar, take a good look now, because once you’ve left it, and as long as I’m here, you’ll never set foot in here again, and if you ever do think of coming through that door, do you understand, as soon as you set your foot in here, I’ll smash your face in, and if you think I’m joking, just try it now, go out and try coming back in again, you little fucker! just try it!”

  Pierre Emmanuel and his friends stood there for a moment facing Libero, who now had his hand in the drawer.

  “O.K., let’s go.”

  Pierre-Emmanuel put his arms around Izaskun and gave her a lingering kiss, just beside Virgile.

  “I’ll see you at the apartment in a minute.”

  As he was walking to the door Matthieu saw that his hands were shaking slightly. At the door, however, Pierre-Emmanuel turned and looked back at Libero.

  “I know what’s in that drawer. I’d keep your hand on it, if I were you. O.K.?”

  “If you come back without your friends, I won’t need it. Don’t you worry about me.”

  Libero placed both hands on the counter and took a deep breath.

  “Right. Let’s clear up and close.”

  Izaskun came back into the bar carrying a tray laden with dirty glasses which she set down on the bar. Virgile stared at her open-mouthed, his eyes blank. She met his gaze and started shouting at him in Spanish. Libero told her to go to bed, he came around the counter and took Virgile by the arm.

  “Here, come along. Come with me.”

  He made him sit out on the terrace in the fresh air and brought him a bottle of eau de vie. Virgile did not stir. Libero crouched down beside him and talked to him for a long time, he spoke in the language Matthieu would never understand, for it was not his own, he spoke in a voice filled with tenderness and warmth, clasping his hand, and it was a warmth that had no beginning and no end. From time to time Virgile shifted his head. Libero left him alone on the terrace. He told Gratas he could go home to be with Virginie and poured out two glasses. He gave one to Matthieu.

  “I don’t know if it was such a good idea to humiliate him like that.”

  “What else could I do? I don’t give a fuck about that idiot. If he wants a fight, I’ll give him a fight and that’ll be that. I’ll give it to him even if he doesn’t want it.”

  The night when the world came to an end was tranquil. Not one Vandal horseman. Not one Visigoth warrior. Not one virgin with her throat cut amid burning houses. Libero cashed up, with the pistol laid on the counter. Perhaps he was thinking nostalgically about his student years, about those texts he had sought to make a bonfire of on the altar of the world’s stupidity, echoes of which nevertheless still came back to him.

  For all God has made for you is a perishable world, and you yourself are destined to die.

  A car stopped outside the bar. Pierre-Emmanuel got out. He was alone. He paused on the terrace and looked at Libero through the open door. But he did not try to come in. He passed close to Virgile Ordioni, ruffled his hair and remarked in genial tones,

  “It’s time to go in and give her one,”

  and he walked toward the waitresses’ apartment. Libero looked down at the till. Outside there were dull thuds, and a squeal more strident than the screaming of the rattles at the Tenebrae service. Libero came running out of the bar, pistol in hand, followed by Matthieu. The streetlights were switched off but by the light of the moon, right in the middle of the road, they could see the vast, shadowy figure of Virgile Ordioni crouched over Pierre-Emmanuel who was squealing and squealing. Virgile was seated on his chest, clamping his arms beside his body, while his legs beat frenziedly against the pavement, he had lost one shoe and was giving desperate heaves with his hips to break free, while Virgile snorted violently through his nose, like an enraged bull, pulling Pierre-Emmanuel’s pants down along his thighs before ripping the thin fabric of his underpants, Matthieu was unable to move, he watched the spectacle frozen to the spot, and Libero threw himself at Virgile’s shoulders, trying to tip him over, shouting out,

  “Virgile! Stop! Stop!”

  but Virgile did not tip over and did not stop, and it was as if he were giving himself a heavy shake, swinging an arm around behind him, and Libero fell flat on the road, his face turned up toward the stars, and Virgile dealt blows with his big clenched fists at Pierre-Emmanuel’s legs and pinned his knees to the ground with one hand, while with the other he opened the knife he had taken from his pocket, Libero began shouting,

  “Stop! Stop!”

  but the incessant whirling of the knife kept him at bay, he went behind Virgile just as Pierre-Emmanuel began squealing louder than ever, at the cold touch of the blade against his lower abdomen and Libero was now hammering on Virgile’s shoulders and the back of his neck with the butt of the pistol, but the latter remained unshakeable and contented himself with making sweeping gestures, as if he were chasing away a fly, before starting to rummage with his fingers between Pierre-Emmanuel’s legs, where he was bringing in the knife once more, prior to breaking off, for Libero was getting in his way, and knocking him to the ground on
ce more with a back thrust of his arm, and Libero got to his knees, hearing Pierre-Emmanuel uttering a squeal that no longer had anything human about it which froze his blood, threw an imploring glance at the still unmoving Matthieu and began shouting once more,

  “Virgile! I beg you! I beg you!”

  but his shouting was in vain, the squealing rent the night and Libero stood up in one movement, cocking the pistol and holding out his arm, straight in front of him. He fired at Virgile Ordioni’s head and Virgile crumpled on his side. Pierre-Emmanuel crawled away as if he were escaping from a fire and remained sitting there, his pants lowered, shaking in all his limbs and groaning without being able to stop. He had grazed legs and a bloody gash on his pubis. Libero went up to Virgile and fell to his knees. There were brains and blood on the pavement and the corpse was still shuddering with convulsions that soon came to an end. Libero covered his eyes and repressed a sob. He got up for a moment to look at Pierre-Emmanuel’s wound and went back to sit beside Virgile, taking his hand and raising it to his lips. Pierre-Emmanuel was still groaning and, from time to time Libero would say to him quietly,

  “Shut your mouth. There’s nothing wrong with you. Shut up,”

  and he put his hands over his eyes and sobbed, before saying again,

  “Shut your mouth,”

  and waving his pistol vaguely at Pierre-Emmanuel, who was repeating,

  “Shit, shit, shit, shit,”

  without being able to stop, and Matthieu stared at them, unmoving in the moonlight. Once again the world had been overcome by darkness and nothing would remain of it, no trace. Once more the voice of blood rose up toward God from the earth below in the rejoicing of broken bones, for no man is his brother’s keeper, and soon it became still enough for the melancholy hooting of the owl to be heard in the summer night.

  The sermon on the fall of Rome

  Aurélie sits beside the bed where her grandfather lies at rest. He can let himself go without fear into his obscure dreams of a dying man as she is keeping watch for death’s approach on his behalf and her sentinel’s eyes are not dimmed by weariness. The doctors have granted Marcel Antonetti the remarkable privilege of dying at home. They could fight against his illness but not against the demon of extreme old age, the ineluctable falling apart of an already ruined body. Blood rushes to his stomach. The heart gives way before the assault of its own beating. At each intake of breath the pure air sets the dried-out flesh on fire and it is slowly being consumed like resinous crystals of myrrh. Twice a day a nurse comes to change the drip and assess the rate of his decline. Virginie Susini brings meals from the bar that Bernard Gratas has prepared for Aurélie. Since yesterday Marcel has completely given up eating. Claudie and Matthieu have caught the plane and will be arriving during the course of the day. Aurélie would have preferred them not to come but Matthieu insisted. Judith would remain alone in Paris with the children for as long as was necessary. In eight years he has only returned to Corsica once, to give evidence at Libero’s trial, at the court in Ajaccio, but has never set foot in the village. He has not changed. He still believes looking the other way suffices to dispatch whole sections of his own life into nothingness. He still believes that what one does not see ceases to exist. If Aurélie had listened to her churlish heart she would have told him to stay put. It was all too late now. There was no need for him to bother coming here to act out the masquerade of redemption. But she said nothing and now she waits. In the bedroom the shutters are half closed. She does not want the excessively bright light to hurt her grandfather’s eyes. But nor does she want him to die in darkness. From time to time he opens his eyes and turns his head toward her. She takes his hand.

  “My dear girl. My dear girl.”

  He is not afraid. He knows she is there keeping watch on his behalf for death’s tranquil coming, and he sinks back into his pillow. Aurélie does not let go of his hand. Death may arrive sooner than Matthieu and Claudie, thus favoring this intimate communion of theirs, and, when it comes, along with Marcel, it will carry away the world that now lives on only in him. All that will remain of this world will be a photograph, taken in the summer of 1918, but Marcel will no longer be there to look at it. No child in a sailor suit now, no little girl of four, no mysterious absence, only a pattern of lifeless marks, with no one left to make sense of them. The truth is that we do not know what worlds are. But we can watch out for the signs of their coming to an end. The release of a shutter in summer sunlight, a tired young woman’s delicate hand resting on that of her grandfather, or the square sail of a ship sailing into the harbor at Hippo, bringing with it, from Italy, the inconceivable news that Rome has fallen.

  For three days Alaric’s Visigoths had pillaged the city and trailed their long blue cloaks in the blood of virgins. When Augustine learns of this he barely pays attention to it. He has been battling for years against the fury of the Donatist heretics and is dedicating all his efforts, now that they are overcome, to bringing them back into the bosom of the Catholic Church. To those of the faithful who are still animated by the spirit of vengeance, he preaches the virtues of forgiveness. He is not interested in the collapse of masonry. For although he has cast out far away from himself, with horror, the heresies of his own culpable youth, he may yet have retained from the teachings of Manichaeus the profound inner conviction that this world is bad and does not merit the shedding of tears over its ending. Yes, the world is filled with the darkness of evil, he still believes this, but he now knows that no spirit animates this darkness, for that would challenge the unity of the eternal God, since darkness is only the absence of light, just as evil is simply the trace left when God withdraws from the world, an infinite distance separating the two, which only His grace can bridge in the pure waters of baptism. If men’s hearts will open to the light of God, let the world pass into darkness. But refugees are daily bringing the poison of their despair into Africa. The pagans accuse God of failing to protect a city even though it had turned Christian. From his monastery in Bethlehem Jerome immodestly broadcasts his lamentations throughout Christendom, unreservedly bemoaning the fate of Rome, now overcome by fire and the assaults of the barbarians, and in his blasphemous sorrow he forgets that Christians do not belong to the world, but to the eternity of the things eternal. In the churches at Hippo the faithful share their distresses and doubts and turn to their bishop to learn from his lips what black sin it is that has brought such a terrible punishment upon them. The shepherd must not reproach his flock for their fruitless fears. He must simply allay them. And it is for this purpose that in December 410 Augustine comes to his flock in the cathedral nave and takes his place in the pulpit. An immense crowd has come to listen to him, squeezed up against the chancels, waiting in the soft light of winter for the voice to arise that will release them from their pain.

  Hear me, you who are dear to me,

  We Christians believe in the eternity of the things eternal to which we ourselves belong. God has promised us only death and resurrection. The foundations of our cities are not embedded in the earth but in the heart of the Apostle upon whom the Lord chose to build his Church, for God does not raise citadels of stone, flesh and marble for us, outside of this world He raises the citadel of the Holy Spirit for us, a citadel of love that will never collapse and will forever stand in its glory when the things of this world have been reduced to ashes. Rome has been captured and your hearts are outraged by this. But I ask you, you who are dear to me, is not despairing of God, who has promised you the salvation of His grace, is that not the true outrage? Do you weep because Rome has succumbed to the fire? Did God ever promise that the world would live forever? The walls of Carthage fell, the fire of Baal was extinguished, and Massinissa’s warriors who brought low Cirta’s ramparts have vanished in their turn, like sands before the wind. You knew that, yet you believed Rome would not fall. Was not Rome built by men like yourself? Since when do you believe men have the power to build things that are eternal? Man builds upon sand. If you seek to cling fast to what ma
n has built you are clinging only to the wind. Your hands are left empty and your heart is afflicted. And if you love the world you will perish with it.

  You are dear to me.

  You are my brothers and sisters and I am sad to see you thus afflicted. But I am yet more sad to find you deaf to the word of God. What is born in the flesh dies in the flesh. Worlds perish, passing from darkness into darkness, one after the other, and however glorious Rome may be, it still belongs to the world and it must perish with the world. But your soul, filled with the light of God, will not perish. The darkness will not swallow it. Do not shed tears over the darkness of the world. Do not shed tears over palaces and theaters destroyed. That is not worthy of your faith. Do not shed tears over the brothers and sisters whom Alaric’s sword has taken from us. How can you bring God to account for their deaths, He who gave His only son in sacrifice for the remission of our sins? God spares whom He wishes. And those whom He has chosen to leave to die as martyrs rejoice today that they have not been spared in the flesh, for they live forever in the eternal blessedness of His light. It is this and this alone which is promised, to us, who are Christians.

  You who are dear to me,

  Do not grieve either over these attacks by the pagans. So many cities that were not Christian have fallen and their idols could not save them. But as for you, is it a stone idol that you worship? Remember who is your God. Remember what He has foretold unto you. He has foretold that the world will be destroyed by fire and the sword, He has promised you destruction and death. How can you be made fearful by the fulfillment of these prophecies? And He has also promised that His son will return in glory amid these fields of destruction, so that the eternal reign of light may be established, in which you will take part. Why do you weep instead of rejoicing, you who live only in anticipation of the end of the world, at least if you are a Christian? But perhaps it is neither seemly to weep, nor to rejoice. Rome has fallen. It has been captured, but the earth and the heavens have not been shaken by this. Look around you, you who are dear to me. Rome has fallen but is it not, in truth, as if nothing had happened? The stars are not troubled in their courses, night gives way to day, which is followed by night, at every moment the present arrives from nothingness and returns to nothingness, you are here, before me and the world is still traveling toward its end but it has not yet reached it and we do not know when it will reach it, for God does not reveal everything to us. But what He reveals suffices to fill our hearts and helps us to find strength in the test, for our faith in His love is such that it saves us from the torments that must be endured by those who have not known this love. And it is thus that we keep a pure heart, in the joy of Christ.