The Dawn of All
Page 53
(IV)
It was three or four days before he could again form any coherentpicture to himself of what this new life would mean when once itwas really under way.
He was lodged in the Government buildings, adapted a few yearsbefore from the old temple of the Christian Scientists; and eachday in the rotunda he sat hour after hour with keen-facedAmericans, and the few Europeans who had accompanied theemigration boats that now streamed in continually.
He flung himself into the dreary work, such as it was, with allhis power; for though he had little responsibility, he was thereas the accredited agent of the English ecclesiasticalauthorities, and his business was to show as much alacrity andsympathy as possible.
The city was, indeed, a scene of incredible confusion; and avery strong force of police was needed to prevent open frictionbetween the belated and aggrieved Catholics for whom Bostonwould in future be impossible as a home, and who had not yetfaced the need of migrating, and the new, very dogmaticinhabitants who already regarded the city as their own. Alllegal arrangements had, of course, been made before the firstemigrants set foot on the continent; but the redistribution ofthe city, the sale of farms, the settling of interminabledisputes between various nationalities--all these things, siftedalthough they were through agents and officials, yet came up tothe central board in sufficient numbers to occupy the membersfor a full nine hours a day.
* * * * *
It was at the end of the fourth day that Monsignor went round thecity in a car, partly to get some air, and partly to see forhimself how things were settling down.
Of course, as he told himself afterwards, he scarcely had a fairopportunity of judging how a Socialist State would be when themachinery was in running order. Yet it seemed to him that, makingall allowances for confusion and noise and choked streets and therest, underneath it all was a spirit strangely and drearilyunlike that to which he was becoming accustomed in Europe. Thevery faces of the people seemed different.
He stopped for a while in the quarter to which the English hadbeen assigned--that which in old Boston had been, he learned,the Italian quarter. Here, in the little square where he halted,everything was surprisingly in order. The open space, paved withconcrete, was unoccupied by any signs of moving in; the houseswere trim and neat, new painted for the most part; and peopleseemed to be going about their business with an air of quietorderliness. Certainly American arrangements, he thought, weremarvellously efficient, enabling as they did some fifteenhundred persons to settle down into new houses within the spaceof four days. (He had learned something, while he sat on thecentral board, of the elaborate system of tickets and officialsand enquiry offices by which such miraculous swiftness had beenmade possible.)
Here at least they were an orderly population, going in and out ofthe houses, visiting in one corner of the square the vast generalstore that had been provided beforehand, presenting their pledges,which, at any rate for the present, were to take the place of theEuropean money that the emigrants had brought with them.
He halted the car here, and leaning forward, began to lookround him carefully.
The first thing that struck him was a negative emotion--asense that something external was lacking. He presentlyperceived what this was.
In European towns, one of the details to which he had become bynow altogether accustomed was the presence, in every street orsquare at which he looked, of some emblem or statue or picture ofa religious nature. Here there was nothing. The straightpavements ran round the square; the straight houses rose fromthem, straight-windowed and straight-doored. All was admirablysanitary and clean and wholesome. He could see through thewindows of the house opposite which his car was drawn up theclean walls within, the decent furniture, and the rest. But therewas absolutely nothing to give a hint of anything beyond bodilyhealth and sanitation and decency. In London, or Lourdes, or Romethere would at least have been a reminder--to put it verymildly--of other possibilities than these: of a Heavenly Mother,a Suffering Man; a hint that solid animal health was not the onlyconceivable ideal. It was a tiny detail; he blamed himself fornoticing it. He reminded himself that here, at any rate, was realliberty as he had conceived it.
He began to scrutinize the faces of the passers-by, shelteringhimself behind his elbow that he might not be noticed--appearingas if he were waiting for some one. Women passed by, strong-facedand business-like; men came up and passed, talking in twos orthrees. He even watched for some while a couple of children whosat gravely together on a doorstep. (That reminded him of themeeting of to-morrow, when certain educational matters had to befinally decided; he remembered the proposed _curriculum_,sketched out in some papers that he had to study this evening--anexceedingly sound and useful _curriculum_, calculated to make thepupils satisfactorily informed persons.)
Again and again he told himself that it was fancy that made himsee in the faces of these people--people, it must be remembered,who were not commonplace, but rather enthusiasts for their cause,since they preferred exile to a life under the Christiansystem--that made him see a kind of blankness and heavinesscorresponding to that which the aspect of their street presented.Many of the faces were intellectual, especially of the men--therewas no doubt of that; and all were wholesome-looking and healthy,just as this little square was sensibly built and planned, andthe houses soundly constructed.
Yet, as he looked at them _en masse_, and compared them with hisgeneral memories of the type of face that he saw in Londonstreets, there was certainly a difference. He could conceivethese people making speeches, recording votes, discussingmatters of public interest with great gravity and consideration;he could conceive them distributing alms to the needy aftercareful and scientific enquiry, administering justice; he couldimagine them even, with an effort, inflamed with politicalpassion, denouncing, appealing. . . . But it appeared to him (tohis imagination rather, as he angrily told himself) that hecould not believe them capable of any absolutely reckless crimeor reckless act of virtue. They could calculate, they couldplan, they had almost mechanically perfect ideas of justice;they could even love and hate after their kind. But it wasinconceivable that their passion, either for good or evil, couldwholly carry them away. In one word, _there was no light behindthese faces_, no indication of an incomprehensible Power greaterthan themselves, no ideal higher than that generated by thecommon sense of the multitude. In short, they seemed to him tohave all the impassivity of the Christian atmosphere, with noneof its hidden fire.
He gave the signal presently for the driver to move on, andhimself leaned back in his seat with closed eyes. He feltterribly alone in a terrible world. Was the whole human race,then, utterly without heart? Had civilization reached such apitch of perfection--one part through supernatural forces, andthe other through human evolution--that there was no longer anyroom for a man with feelings and emotions and an individuality ofhis own? Yet he could no longer conceal from himself that theother was better than this--that it was better to be heartlessthrough too vivid a grasp of eternal realities, than through anequally vivid grasp of earthly facts.
* * * * *
As he reached the door of the great buildings where he lodged,and climbed wearily out, the porter ran out, hat in hand, holdinga little green paper.
"Monsignor," he said, "this arrived an hour ago. We did not knowwhere you were."
He opened it there and then. It contained half a dozen words incode. He took it upstairs with him, strangely agitated, and theredeciphered it. It bade him leave everything, come instantly toRome, and join the Cardinal.
CHAPTER II