Hadrian the Seventh

by Frederick Rolfe

  “Did it strike you that he was acting a part?”

  “Indeed yes: I think he was acting a part nearly all the time. But I’m sure he wasn’t conscious of it. He’s as transparent and guileless as a child, whatever.”

  “It seemed to me that he had all these pungent little speeches cut and dried. He said them like a lesson.”

  “Well, poor fellow, he’s thought of nothing else for years; and I find, Yrmnts, that mental concentration, carried to anything like that extreme, gives a sort of power of prevision. I really believe that he had foreseen something, and was quite prepared for us.”

  “Strange,” said the cardinal, whose supercilious oblique regard indicated dearth of interest in ideas that were out of his depth.

  “He behaved very well about the money though?”

  “Very well indeed. But, what a fool! Well, Frank, we can only pray that he may turn out well. I think he will. I really think he will. I hope and trust that we shall find the material of sanctity there. An unpleasant kind of sanctity perhaps. He will be difficult. That singular character, and the force which all those self-concentrated years have given him:—oh, he’ll never submit to management, depend upon it. Frank, I’ve seen just that type of face among academic anarchists. It will be our business to watch him, for he will go his own way; and his way will have to be our way. It won’t be the wrong way: but—oh yes, he will be very difficult. Well:—God only knows! Will you be on the look-out for a telegraph office, Frank, while I get through my Little Hours? Perhaps we had better——”

  The cardinal opened his breviary at Sext; and made the sign of the cross.

  * * * * *

  George returned to the dining-room; and sat down in the cane folding-chair which the cardinal had vacated. He lighted the cigarette rolled during conversation. Flavio had taken possession of the seat lately occupied by the bishop, a deep-cushioned wickerwork armchair; and was very majestically posed, haunches broad and high and yellow as a cocoon, the beautiful brush displayed at length, fore-paws daintily tucked inward under the paler breast, the grand head guardant.

  A shameless female began to shriek scales and roulades in an opposite house. George made plans for blasting her with a mammoth gramophone which should bray nothing but trumpet-choruses out of his open windows. He smoked his cigarette to the butt, eyeing the cat. Then he said,

  “Boy, where are we?”

  Flavio winked and turned away his head, as who should say,

  “Obviously here.”

  George accepted the hint. He went upstairs, and changed into black serge: borrowed a few sovereigns from his landlord: ate his lunch of bread and milk; and took the L. and N.W. Rail to Highbury. Walking away from the station amid the blatant and vivacious inurbanity of Islington Upper Street, he kept his mental processes inactive—the higher mental processes of induction and deduction, the faculties of criticism and judgment. His method was Aristotelean, in that he drew his universals from a consideration of numerous particulars. He had plenty of material for thought; and he stored it till the time for thinking came. Now, he was out of doors for the sake of physical exercise. Also, he was getting the morning’s events into perspective. At present his mind resembled warm wax on a tablet, wherein externals inscribed but transient impressions—an obese magenta Jewess with new boots which had a white line round their idiotic high heels—a baby with neglected nostrils festooned over the side of a mail-cart—a neat boy’s leg, long and singularly well-turned, extended in the act of mounting a bicycle—an Anglican sister-of-mercy displaying side-spring prunellos and one eye in a haberdasher’s violent window—a venerable shy drudge of a piano-tuner whose left arm was dragged down by the weight of the unmistakable little bag of tools—the weary anxious excruciating asking look in the eyes of all. He made his way south-westward, walking till he was tired for an hour and a half.

  Anon, he was lying face downward in the calidarium of the bath, a slim white form, evenly muscular, boyishly fine and smooth. His forehead rested on his crossed arms, veiling his eyes. He came here, because here he was unknown: the place, with its attendants and frequenters, was quite strange to him: he would not be bored by the banalities of familiar tractators; and an encounter with any of his acquaintance was out of the question. From time to time he refreshed himself in the shower: but, while his procumbent body was at rest in the hot oxygenated air, he let his mind work easily and quickly. After two hours, he concluded his bath with a long cold plunge; and retired rosily tingling to the unctuarium to smoke. Here he made the following entries in his pocket-book:

  “Have I been fair to them? Yes: but unmerciful. N.B. For an act to be really good and meritorious, it must be performed noluntarily and with self-compulsion.

  What have I gained? A verbal promise of priesthood, and a verbal promise of five thousand pounds. M-ym-ym-ym-ym-ym-ym.

  What has he gained? If he’s honest, the evacuation of a purulent abscess, the allegiance of a man who wants to be faithful, and perhaps the merit of saving a soul. N.B. There was unwillingness and self-compulsion in him.

  Why was he so timid?

  A great part of what I said was gratuitously exasperating. Why did he stand it?

  What does he know that I don’t know?

  What do I know that he doesn’t know?

  What salient things have I, in my usual manner, left unsaid?

  Did I say more than enough?

  Have I given myself away again?

  Is he honest?

  What was his real motive?

  Oh why did he humiliate himself so?

  Don’t know. Don’t know. Don’t know.

  Now what shall I do? Advance one pace. ‘Do ye nexte thynge.’ ”

  As he was powdering his vaccinated arm with borax before dressing, he said to himself, “Go into Berners Street, and buy a gun-metal stock and two dozen Roman collars (with a seam down the middle if you can get them); and then go to Scott’s and buy a flat hat. The black serge will have to do as it is. If they don’t like a jacket, let them dislike it. And then go home and examine your conscience.”

  * * * * *

  The bishop locked the parlour-door: took the crucifix from the mantel and stood it on the table: kissed the cross embroidered on the little violet stole which he had brought with him, and put it over his shoulders. He sat down rectangularly to the end of the table, his left cheek toward the crucifix, his back to the penitent. George kneeled on the floor by the side of the table, in face of the crucifix: made the sign of the cross; and began,

  “Bless me, O father, for I have sinned.”

  “May The Lord be in thine heart and on thy lips, that thou with truth and with humility mayest confess thy sins, ✠ in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

  “I confess to God Almighty, to Blessed Mary Ever-Virgin, to Blessed Michael Archangel, to Blessed John Baptist, to the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, to all Saints, and to thee, O Father, that I excessively have sinned in thought, in word, and in deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my very great fault. I last confessed five days ago: received absolution: performed my penance. Since then I broke the first commandment, once, by being superstitiously silly enough to come downstairs in socks because I accidentally put on my left shoe before my right: twice, by speaking scornfully of and to God’s ministers. I broke the third commandment, once, by omitting to hear mass on Sunday: twice, by permitting my mind to be distracted by the brogue of the priest who said mass on Saturday. I broke the fourth commandment, once, by being pertly pertinacious to my superior: twice, by saying things to grieve him——”

  “Was that wilful?”

  “Partly. But I was annoyed by his manner to me.”

  “What had you to complain of in his manner?”

  “Side. He had used me rather badly: he came to make amends: I took umbrage at what I considered to be the arrogance of his manner. I was wrong. I confess an ebullition of my own critical intolerant impatient temper, which I ought to have curbed.”
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  “Is there anything more on your conscience, my son?”

  “Lots. I confess that I have broken the sixth commandment, once, by continuing to read an epigram in the Anthology after I had found out that it was obscene. I have broken the eighth commandment, once, by telling a story defamatory of a royal personage now dead: I don’t know whether it was true or false: it was a common story, which I had heard; and I ought not to have repeated it. I have broken the third commandment of the Church, once, by eating dripping-toast at tea on Friday: I was hungry: it was very nice: I made a good meal of it and couldn’t eat any dinner: this was thoughtless at first, then wilful.”

  “Are you bound to fast this Lent?”

  “Yes, Father. . . . Those are all the sins of which I am conscious since my last confession. I should like to make a general confession of the chief sins of my life as well. I am guilty of inattention and half-heartedness in my spiritual exercises. Sometimes I can concentrate upon them: sometimes I allow the most paltry things to distract me. My mind has a twist towards frivolity, towards perversity. I know the sane; and I love and admire it: but I don’t control myself as I ought to do. I say my prayers at irregular hours. Sometimes I forget them altogether.”

  “How many times a week on an average?”

  “Not so often as that: not more than once a month, I think. The same with my Office.”

  “What Office? You haven’t that obligation?”

  “Well no: not in a way. But several years ago, when I received the tonsure, I immediately began to say the Divine Office——”

  “Did you make any vow?”

  “No, Father: it was one of my private fads. I was awfully anxious to get on to the priesthood as quickly as possible; and, as soon as I was admitted to the clerical estate, I busied myself in acquiring ecclesiastical habits. I wrote the necessary parts of the Liturgy on large sheets of paper, and pinned them on my bedroom walls; and I used to learn them by heart while I was dressing. The Office was another thing. I said it fairly regularly for about three years. Sometimes a bit of nasty vulgar Latin, for which someone merited a swishing, shocked me; and I stopped in the middle of a lection—it generally was a lection:—but I never relinquished the practice for more than a day. Circumstances deprived me of my breviary: but I kept a little book-of-hours; and I went on, saying all but mattins and lauds. It wasn’t satisfactory; and I had no Ordo; and, after a month or two I gave it up. Then I began to say the Little Office; and that is of obligation, because I have made my profession in the Third Order of St. Francis. I added to it the Office for the Dead to make up a decent quantity. But I have not been regular. The same with my duties. Generally, I go to confession and communion once a week: but sometimes I don’t go on the proper days. Sometimes I miss mass on holidays for absurd reasons. Yes, often. I generally hear mass every day; and, when I fail, it always is on a holiday——”

  “Explain, my son.”

  “I live between two churches: the one is half an hour away: the other, a quarter——”

  “Have you been obliged to live where you do?”

  “Yes: as far as one is obliged to do a detestable inconvenient thing. I did not choose the place. A false friend enticed me there, absconded with some papers of mine and obliged me to stay there, and rot there——”

  “Continue, my son.”

  “When I am well disposed, I go to the distant church. When I am lazy, I don’t go at all—this only refers to holidays:—because at the near one I should have to encounter the scowls of a purse-proud family who knew me when I was well-off, and who glare at me now as though I committed some impertinence in using a church which they have decorated with a chromolithograph. Also I detest kneeling in a pew like a protestant, with somebody’s breath oozing down the back of my collar. I can hear Mass with devotion as well as with aesthetic pleasure in a church which has dark corners and no pews. I’ve never seen one in this country where I can be unconscious of the hideous persons and outrageous costumes of the congregation, the appalling substitute for ecclesiastical music, the tawdry insolence of the place, the pretentious demeanour of the ministers. Things like these distract me; and sometimes keep me away altogether. I like to worship my Maker, alone, from a distance, unseen of all save Him. You see, among the laity, I am as a fish out of water: because I am a clerk, whose place is not without but within the cancelli. However, I confess that I habitually more or less am guilty of neglect of duty, on grounds which I know to be fantastic and sensuous and indefensible. I confess that I have used irreverent expletives, such as O my God and Damn. Not very often. . . . I confess that I am imperfectly resigned to the Will of God. I very often think that I do not know and cannot know what is God’s Will. I generally follow my instincts: not, of course, when I know them to be sinful. I generally resist those. But, in planning my life, in trial, when I really want to know God’s Will, I have no test which I can apply to the operations of my intellect. I am not alluding to dogma. I implicitly take that from the Church. I mean life’s little quandaries. Years ago, I used to consult my confessor. I never got an apt or an illuminating or even an intelligent response. Time was short: there were a lot of people waiting outside the confessional: or His Reverence had been interrupted in the middle of his Office. An inapplicable platitude was pitched at me; and of course I went away in a rage. Later, I grew to think that a man ought not to shirk his personal responsibility: that he ought to be prepared to decide for himself and face the consequence. I gave up consulting the clergy, except upon technical points. I do my best, by myself; and I pray God to be merciful to my mistakes. I earnestly desire to do His Will in all things: but I often fail. For example, I can’t stand pain. It makes me savage, literally. I don’t bear chastisement submissively. I confess all my failures. I was lacking in filial respect towards my parents. I have been irreverent and disobedient to my superiors. I have argued with them, instead of meekly submitting my will to theirs. I have given them nicknames, labels that stick, that annoy them by revealing mental and corporeal characteristics of which they are not proud. For example, I said that the violet-legs of my college-rector were formed like little Jacobean communion-rails; and I nicknamed a certain domestic prelate the Greek for Muddy-Mind, βορβοροθυμος. I haven’t done these things out of really vicious wanton cruelty: but out of pride in my own powers of penetration and perception, or out of culpable frivolity. I confess that I have been wanting in love, patience, sincerity, justice, towards my neighbour. Selfishness, self-will, and a fatuous desire to be distinct from other people, have caused these breaches of God’s law. That desire nearly always is unconscious or subconscious: seldom deliberate. I am unkind with my bitter tongue and pen: for example, I made a jibe of the scrofula of a publisher. I am impatient with mental or natural weakness: for example I brought tears into a schoolboy’s eyes by my remarks when he recorded Edward III.’s words to Philippa in reference to the six burgesses of Calais as ‘Dam, I can deny you nothing, but I wish you had been otherwhere.’ I am insincere, sinfully not criminally. I mean that I delight in bewildering others by posing as a monument of complex erudition, when I really am a very silly simpleton. I am unjust, in my readiness to judge on insufficient evidence: by my habit of believing all I hear,—that’s a tremendously salient fault of mine:—and by telling or repeating detrimental stories. I confess the sin of detraction. I have told improper stories: not of the ordinary revolting kind, but those which are exquisite or witty or recondite. The koprolalian kind, those which are common in colleges and among the clergy, I have had the injustice to label Roman Catholic Stories. If it were necessary to designate them with particularity, the classic epithet Milesian would serve: but it is never necessary. I have not often offended in this way: but now and then, according to the company in which I have happened to be. I confess that I have sinned against myself—for example, I have not avoided ease and luxury. I have only been too glad to enjoy them when they came in my way. I have been fastidious in my person, my tastes, my dress, affecting delicate habits,
likes, and dislikes. I hate getting up early in the morning; and do it with a bad grace. I am dainty in my diet. I never have conquered my natural antipathy to flesh-meat, especially to entrails such as sweet-breads and kidneys. I abhor fish-meat on account of its abominable stench. Formerly, I never would sit at a table where fish-meat was served. I can do that now, with an effort of will: but I could not eat fish without physical nausea. I never will eat it. Once I made a man sick by the filthy comparison which I used in regard to some oysters which he was about to eat. . . . I have not avoided dangerous occasions of sin: I have not been prompt to resist temptation. For example, my desire to improve my knowledge leads me to minute appreciation and analysis of everything which interests me. In regard to the fine arts, I study the nude, human anatomy, generally with no emotion beyond passionate admiration for beauty. I never have been able to find beauty shameful: ugliness, yes. In regard to literature, I have read prohibited books and magazines—the Nineteenth Century, and books ancient and modern which are of a certain kind. My motive always has been to inform myself. I perfectly have known into what areas of temptation I was straying. As a rule, no effect has been produced on me, save the feeling of disgust at writers who write grossly for the sake of writing grossly, like Straton, or Pontano. I confess that two or three times in my life I have delighted in impure thoughts inspired by some lines in Cicero’s Oration for M. Coelius: and, perhaps half a dozen times by a verse of John Addington Symonds in the Artist. I confess that I have dallied with these thoughts for an instant before dismissing them. There is one thing which I never have mentioned in confession to my satisfaction. I mean that I have mentioned it in vague terms only. I have not felt quite sure about it. I know that I cannot think of it and of the stainless purity of the Mother-Maid at the same time. Hence I conclude that I am guilty——”