The Thibaults
Page 96
The priest gave a start. “But surely even that science of yours, whether it wants to or not, has to take its stand on universal order. (I deliberately avoid using the more correct term: a Divine Purpose.) Don’t you see that if we ventured to deny that higher Intelligence which controls phenomena and whose signature is visible on all things here below; if we refused to admit that everything in nature has its purpose and all has been created to fit into a harmonious whole— don’t you see it would be impossible to make sense of anything at all?”
“Well, why not admit it? The universe is incomprehensible for us. I accept that as a premise.”
“That ‘incomprehensible,’ my friend, is God.”
“Not as I see it. I haven’t yet succumbed to the temptation of labelling all I can’t understand as ‘God.’ ”
He smiled and fell silent for some moments. The Abbé watched his face, on the defensive. Still smiling, Antoine spoke again:
“In any case, for the majority of Catholics, their idea of the Divine resolves itself into the rather puerile conception of a paternal God, a small private deity who has his eye on each of us, who follows with sympathetic interest each flicker of the tiny flame of individual conscience, and whom each of us can perpetually consult in prayers beginning: ‘Enlighten me, O Lord,’ or: ‘Merciful God, grant me Thy aid,’ and the like.
“Please don’t mistake me. I haven’t the least wish to wound your feelings by cheap sneers at religion. But I can’t bring myself to imagine how anyone can seriously think there is the slightest mental intercourse, the least exchange of question and answer, between any given man—a tiny by-product of universal life—or even this Earth of ours, a speck of dust amid how many myriad others, and the great Whole, the Scheme of Things. How can we ascribe to it such anthropomorphic emotions as paternal love and kindliness of heart? How can we take seriously the functions of the sacraments, the rosary, and—only think of it!—a mass paid for and celebrated for the special benefit of a soul provisionally interned in Purgatory? When you come to think of it, there’s little real difference between these rites, these practices of Catholicism, and those of any primitive religion, the sacrifices and the offerings made by savages to their gods.”
The Abbé was on the point of replying that there certainly existed a natural religion common to mankind; a fact which, as it happened, was an article of faith. But once more he held his peace. Huddled in his corner, his arms folded, his fingers tucked inside his sleeves, he was a figure of sage, mildly ironic patience, as he waited for the young man to conclude his tirade.
Moreover, they were approaching Paris; the train was already swaying upon the switches of the suburban lines. Across the misted panes the darkness glittered with pinpoint lights.
Antoine, who had still something to say, made haste to continue:
“By the way, sir, I hope you won’t misconstrue certain terms I employed. I admit that I’m a mere amateur in metaphysics and I’m not in the least qualified to discuss such matters; still, I’d rather speak my mind out frankly. I talked ^just now about Universal Order and a Scheme of Things; but that was merely to talk like everyone else. Actually it seems to me that we’ve as many reasons to question the existence of a Scheme of Things as to take it for granted. From his actual viewpoint the human animal I am observes an immense tangle of conflicting forces. But do these forces obey a universal law outside themselves, distinct from them?l Or do they, rather, obey—so to speak— internal laws, each atom being a law unto itself, that compels it to work out a kind of ‘personal’ destiny? I see these forces obeying laws which do not control them from outside, but join up with them, which do nothing more than in some way stimulate them… . And anyhow, what a jumble it is, the course of natural phenomena! I’d just as soon believe that causes spring from each other ad infinitum, each cause being the effect of another cause, and each effect the cause of other effects. Why should one want to assume at all costs a Scheme of Things? It’s only another bait for our logic-ridden minds. Why try to find a common ‘purpose in the movements of atoms endlessly clashing and glancing off each other? Personally, I’ve often told myself that everything happens just a^ if nothing led to anything, as if nothing had a meaning.”
The priest looked silently at Antoine, then lowered his eyes and remarked with an icy smile:
“That said, I doubt if it’s possible for a man to sink lower.”
Rising, he began to button his overcoat.
Antoine was feeling genuinely remorseful. “I hope you’ll forgive me, sir, for telling you all this. This sort of conversation never leads to anything, and I can’t think what came over me this evening.”
They were standing side by side. The Abbé gazed sadly at the young man.
“You’ve spoken to me frankly, as a man speaks to his friend. For that, at least, I’m grateful.”
He seemed on the brink of adding something. But the train was stopping.
“May I take you to your place?” Antoine suggested in a different tone.
“Thanks, that would be kind of you.”
In the taxi Antoine said little; his mind was once again engrossed by the difficult problems of the immediate future. And his companion, who seemed in a brown study, was equally taciturn. When, however, they had crossed the Seine, the priest bent towards Antoine.
“You’re—how old exactly? Thirty?”
“Nearly thirty-three.”
“You are still a young man. Wait and see! Others have ended by understanding. Your turn will come. There are hours in every life when a man can’t dispense with God; one hour especially, the most terrible of all, the last… .”
“Yes,” Antoine mused. “That dread of death, how heavily it weighs on every civilized European! So much so that it more or less ruins his zest for life.”
The priest had been on the point of alluding to M. Thibault’s death, but checked the impulse.
“Can you imagine what it’s like,” he continued, “coming to the brink of eternity without faith in God, without discerning, on the further shore, an almighty, merciful Father stretching out His arms in welcome? Do you realize what it means, dying in utter darkness, without a single gleam of hope?”
“All that,” Antoine put in briskly, “I know as well as you do.” He too had been thinking of his father’s death. After a momentary hesitation, he went on: “My profession, like yours, takes me to the bedside of the dying. I, perhaps, have seen more unbelievers die than you have, and I’ve such hideous recollections of those deathbeds, that I wish I could give my patients in extremis an injection of belief. I’m not one of those who feel a mystical veneration for the stoic’s way of facing death. And, quite sincerely, I wish for myself that, at that moment, I may be open to all the consolations faith can give. I dread a death without hope as much as a death-agony without morphine.”
He felt the priest’s hand touch his; it was trembling a little. Probably the Abbé was trying to construe this frank admission as a hopeful sign.
“How right you are!” The priest squeezed Antoine’s arm with a warmth that seemed almost akin to gratitude. “Well, take my advice, don’t seal up every way of approach to this Consoler whose help you’ll need, like all of us, one day. What I mean is: don’t give up prayer.”
“Prayer?” Antoine shook his head. “That blind appeal—to what? To that problematic Scheme of Things! To a deaf and dumb abstraction, that takes no heed of us!”
“Call it what you will, but that ‘blind appeal,’ believe me, tells. Yes, Antoine, whatever may be the name which for the moment you assign to it, whatever form this notion of an Immanent Will behind phenomena, a Law of which you have brief glimpses, may now take in your mind, you should, however much it goes against the grain, turn towards it—and pray. Ah, do anything, I implore you, anything rather than immure yourself in’ blank aloofness. Keep in touch with the Infinite, address it in whatever terms you can, even if for the moment there’s no reciprocity, if you seem to hear no answering voice. Call it what you like—inscrut
able mystery, impersonal force, immeasurable darkness—but pray to it. Pray to the Unknowable. Only pray! Don’t disdain that ‘blind appeal,’ for to that appeal, as one day you will know, there answers suddenly a still small voice, a miraculous consolation.”
Antoine said nothing. “Our minds,” he thought, “are in water-tight compartments.” But, realizing the priest was deeply moved, he decided to say nothing further that might wound his feelings. In any case, they had reached his house and the car was slowing up.
The Abbé Vécard took Antoine’s proffered hand and clasped it. Before stepping out, he leaned forward in the darkness and murmured in a tone Antoine had not yet heard him use:
“The Catholic religion, my friend, is very different from what you think; believe me, it means far, far more than what you’ve been given to see of it up till now.”
Table of Contents
The Thibaults
PART I
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
PART II
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
PART III
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
PART IV
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
PART V
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
PART VI
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV