Hans made the responses in a meek voice, his little silvery voice an echo skipping along beside the deep bass of the officiating priest, a humble brook alongside the river of the other voice, a feeble tributary mingling with it…
Hans was happy. And his mother saw that quite clearly when she went to the college high mass at Christmas to see, from a distance, her son in his new role as altar boy. He was so charming! Even his shaven head no longer upset Mevr. Cadzand.
It gave him a somewhat more clerical look, an angelic air. He moved forward so reverently, fingers together, at the head of the large group of altar boys going through their set movements round the altar in sinuous choreography: some holding a candle, others a palm or a thurible, a cross, a censer, all the subtle emblems of the ritual. They walked, they knelt, they intertwined in slow procession.
It was truly a heavenly choir, a religious mime-show, with gestures and steps loaded with significance, a sacred, hieratic ballet unfolding among the blue trails of incense.
Mevr. Cadzand had eyes for no one but Hans. Instinctive selfishness. When one has dedicated a candle and it is lit on the wrought-iron taper-hearse, one only looks at one’s own, anxious for that one alone, for its flame as it falters, struggles, then flares up, outshining the others.
Hans was this fine candle that had been consecrated. Mevr. Cadzand followed him with her gaze, admiring, with a mother’s naïve pride, his grace, his noble bearing, the radiance of his inner purity… The others have a muddy deposit at the bottom of their soul; even when they are pure, a little of the original mire settles within them and some always comes up into their face. He must have a pool of clear water at the bottom of his soul, for it was nothing but light that emanated from him, the reflection of an inner well in which the sky is mirrored and becomes aware of itself…
IV
And Hans’s piety was contagious. With the zeal of a disciple he insisted God be honoured in his mother’s house with the same assiduity as at the college. He was a day-boy, which meant he went home in the evening, at seven o’clock, had his supper and slept there. He persuaded Mevr. Cadzand to decorate the rooms with religious pictures, as in a presbytery. She too had been pious, in the past, but she had cooled a little towards God after the calamity that had left her a widow. Could there be a God, a truly good God, who carried out such designs? A jealous God! Did being happy offend Him? Yet to love helps one to believe and how can one believe if one can no longer love? Eyes veiled by tears can no longer see the sky.
But little by little her son’s example had brought her back. They said their evening prayers together; Hans had asked her if they could. In that way, he said, their prayers would be more pleasing to God.
One single voice praying is like one single candle placed by the altar. Many candles are lit by the altar, there must be many voices, as many voices as possible, uniting, interweaving to create a great path of prayer up to Heaven by which God can come down. Thus evening prayers in the old house in Blinde-Ezelstraat had become a true little family service. The servants were present as well, kneeling behind their master and mistress at the back of the large first-floor room, which Hans’s efforts had turned into a kind of chapel.
That was especially so in May, Mary’s month, so bright and pretty. Then a statue of the Virgin stood in the middle of the mantelpiece, which was decorated to look like an altar, an altar of repose during a procession.
Warm evenings full of liturgical emotion: the painted statue smiling; the flowers of white and pink azaleas which, quivering like lips in the light breeze from the window, seemed to be joining in the prayers; then some relics: a consecrated boxwood bough, some taffeta posies under glass covers, framed pictures, silver-gilt religious mementos, some fine Brussels lace laid out like an altar cloth on the mantelpiece, all facing the mirror, which gave this artificial garden greater depth, making it recede into the distance of an enchanted grotto, into the infinity where reflections glinting on a pool vanish. Hans prayed, full of fervour. He was the one who recited out loud the litanies: ‘Mary, mystical rose—Morning star—Tower of ivory—Gate of Heaven’ and Mevr. Cadzand and the servants responded each time in unison, ‘Pray for us.’
Indescribable moments in which one’s life already has a touch of eternity!
And in the intervals of silence between the voices there was the sputtering of innumerable candles, whose flames, the window being open, flickered more than ever, sending huge shadows in waves across the walls, across the ceiling of the room, making it seem larger and crowded with anonymous figures in black mantles, kneeling, moving…
V
One day Hans said to his mother, ‘I love the Virgin above all, because she’s a woman…’ He had given this answer in all simplicity, in all innocence, because Mevr. Cadzand had expressed her astonishment at his exclusive devotion to Mary, as if God didn’t exist, as if Heaven consisted of her alone. This explanation, which at first seemed sweet and harmless, came back to Mevr. Cadzand several times during the following days when, her frequent migraine having returned, she was unable to go out and spent them dozing in her room, resting her head on the soft cushion of hair. It was so soft and soothing to rest her forehead on its warm smoothness. Her son was far away, in the dreary classrooms of the college, consulting heavy dictionaries, scarring blackboards with chalk. Concentrating so much on his studies he didn’t even take the time to look at the big clock in the yard, to work out the distance the hands had to move round the face before the going-home bell would sound. But she, his mother, followed the game of hide-and-seek the hands on her little clock played. She counted the long hours, she missed Hans. At least she had something of him with her all the time: the soft cushion in which it had been such a good idea to keep Hans’s hair. It was a sachet of fragrance, the constant companion of her solitude, the sure pillow for her periods of indisposition. It seemed to caress her through the cover, to give off an effluvium from the locks filtered through the cloth, a subtle perfume with the immediacy of a presence. For minutes on end she would bury her throbbing face in the little cushion, as one does in water to wash off make-up, as Jesus did in the handkerchief of St Veronica, leaving his blood and thorns on it.
She needed its comfort at that time particularly because Hans’s words kept coming back to mind to make her aching head a little worse, disturbing, worrying her: ‘I love the Virgin above all, because she’s a woman.’ True, he’d spoken them without knowing, her dear innocent, still in the full panoply of purity, even in thought. But his words were a portent. The idea of woman was worming its way in. Her child was going to suffer under the advance of puberty. A critical point—and one to be feared! Perhaps his pious transports, his devotion to the Virgin, his ardent prayers, were nothing but the upsurge of the desire to love in his heart, in his blood.
Mevr. Cadzand contemplated the time that was approaching with apprehension. Oh, if only Hans could stop growing, could remain the artless adolescent he was! From now on his every step would take him away from her. And she had dreamt so much, still dreamt, that he would never leave her. Perhaps, since she was a widow, alone, since he was all she had, he would stay with her for ever. How touching it was, a mother and son forming a couple, living together, needing no one else for company. It must be so good to hear oneself called ‘my child’, even when grown-up, even when old. Several times she had mentioned this idea of never parting, of staying together for ever, and Hans had joyfully agreed.
‘Because she’s a woman.’ Now these words suddenly appeared in all their menace. Yes, it was the love of woman that was the danger, the obstacle on which her dearest wish might founder. How it grieves mothers to tell themselves that, at the very moment it has occurred to them, there already exists a woman who is making her way towards their son from the depths of eternity. How it grieves them to think that they will not be the best loved, that they will not even be the ones who loved him most. It is the other woman who will be the best loved; it is the other woman who will love him most, since her love is a gift.
Mevr. Cadzand viewed this mysterious future with concern. If at least it was just one woman, good and pure, who would come to share Hans’s destiny with her. But she was aware of the dangers, the pitfalls into which the free and unrestricted life of men leads them, the temptation of women—all the sinful women who are the mothers’ enemies and who cause the mothers’ faces to fade from the mirror of the hearts which carry their reflections.
Mevr. Cadzand feared for her son who, with his responsive nature, as sensitive as a hothouse plant, was more exposed. Fortunately religion is a means of protection, of diverting energies into other channels. Hans’s mother was glad that they had cultivated his piety at the college and that she herself, with altars in the month of Mary, novenas, candles lit, rosaries recited and pilgrimages made, had further developed this faith, which keeps men safe through the fear of Hell.
Thus he would be armed against loose living and any future traps laid by passion.
Is not piety itself passion, but passion ennobled, sanctified? The whole of the Catholic liturgy, with its scenery and props, of which every one is an inspired invention, is enough to satisfy those suffering the obscure torments of a conflict between the ideal and sensuality.
The organ can embrace; incense is wafted like the fragrance from flowing tresses; then there is the miracle of love that is communion: first of all a kiss on the lips, then incorporation, possession, long desired, now consummated, in which one feels another being, who is a God, entering into, living inside oneself…
Mevr. Cadzand recovered her composure. What good fortune to have brought up her son in the faith, to have nurtured his piety! In it he would find, he would always find, a safeguard against sin, against the temptation of the flesh. Thanks to this deep-rooted faith, she would be able to shield him from other women, keep him with her for ever, realise her plan—and that without acting out of selfishness!
Did he not feel, in the church, an intoxication that was almost physical, the sole sensual pleasure that was not followed by sadness? And his passionate susceptibility, his sensuous, loving heart would find their best employment, an almost transcendent employment in loving God, in loving the Virgin above all, ‘because she’s a woman,’ yes, the woman who, perhaps, would take the place of all the others, the only one of whom his mother would not be jealous.
VI
Now Hans was older, he had been through all the classes in the college, of which he was the pride, their model pupil. His teachers made much of him, would dearly love to capture him, a valuable recruit for the orders. Had Hans, with his quite exceptional piety, not been heading for the religious life since the approach of adolescence? There was no doubt that God had granted him the grace of such fervour as a sign that He was calling him, that He wanted him in His service. Hans believed this when he meditated on his future, when his teachers, in their frequent discussions with him, encouraged him to pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit to obtain the essential, the decisive grace in life: to recognise his vocation.
A vocation! It is the great concept behind all religious education. Elsewhere one has only the world in which to choose a career. There one has the world and God. A truly momentous decision. In the one case, it is simply a matter of one’s temporal happiness. In the other one’s eternal salvation itself is at stake. The apprehension of the young faithful is understandable when the college priests, the convent nuns tell the pupils who are nearing the end of their studies, ‘Beware, don’t be in a hurry to leave. Wait. God may have given you a sign which you haven’t seen. It is from among you that God recruits His servants of the future. He takes His tithe of the children we educate. Beware. It is less a question of God’s interest than of your own.’
And it is true. Perhaps the only people to be genuinely unhappy are those who have missed their vocation. This word from the lips of churchmen can also apply to the lives of the laity. Even they can have a vocation: to be a soldier, a sailor, an artist, a doctor; to remain a virgin or become a mother—inborn tastes, an irresistible inclination, an instinct which would suffer if turned into other channels, forced into the opposite direction. How they are to be pitied—the enterprising man chained to a desk, the man with no talent who has taken up art, the woman born for family life wasting away behind the wimple of celibacy.
Even more so, then, when it is not simply a matter of choosing from among several similar careers, from among the parallel paths of the world, but to come out, from the start, on the side of either the world or Heaven.
Therefore it was an annual custom for the final-year class, as the school year approached its end, to make a strict retreat devoted to the important question of vocation. Each year, following lectures and exercises, several pupils would declare their intention of joining the priesthood or one of the orders. Hans took part with a fervour more rapturous, more exultant than ever. An outside preacher had been brought in for this retreat, a Dominican with florid, wily eloquence which wormed its way into the soul, like a bee whose sting still bears a memory of roses. How well he knew their souls! How clear his guidance, how sure his diagnosis of their inner turmoil, their indecision! How he piled on his words of advice about the choice of vocation, repeating that noble word ceaselessly, setting it alight in letters of fire to help each and every one of them see their situation clearly.
He mostly preached in the evening, when the college church was already shrouded in shadow. And he chose subjects that filled the imagination with salutary fear—sin, Hell, death—painting pictures that were sometimes cajoling, more often harrowing, evoking the effects of the fire on the damned. The little group of pupils listened, apprehensive, sometimes terrified, a distraught flock whose black shepherd is gesticulating towards distant flames.
He also gave special sermons on vocation, since that was the point of the retreat for the young men, who had reached the end of their time at the college and were about to leave. He described the world they were soon to enter, its dangers, its deceptive voices, its treacheries, its pleasures, whose superficial gloss quickly dissolves in the tears it brings.
Then, by contrast, he showed them the religious life, a safe refuge from which the passions and, consequently, the sorrows are banished, an oasis of faith, an archipelago of peace where God was waiting for some of them to teach them how to serve at His altars and in His pulpits.
The whole time he was speaking, Hans felt he was looking at him, that it was to him above all that this warning cry was addressed. His indecision was swept away, the mist enveloping his soul dispersed. He felt as if a great veil had suddenly been rent, as if the darkness inside him had faded.
An absolute conviction had shone forth. All at once his religious vocation, long dreamt of, anticipated, had become crystal clear, had appeared as if written in the air of the church. Glory be to God who had called him! He would go, his mind was finally made up—and since it was a Dominican who had come to preach at the retreat and had convinced him, it must surely be a sign that he must enter that glorious order himself. Yes! Saint Dominic’s garb: a white habit and a black cloak, the colour of a seabird, to fly up to God! From that moment Hans’s decision was irrevocable. He had been granted the grace of recognising his vocation.
He talked about it to his mother. Not straight away, but several days later, after the prize-giving, at which he won all the prizes. Now, having been through all the classes, he had finished his schooling, had said farewell to the college where he had spent his happy and pious adolescence within its white walls. What was he going to do? Mevr. Cadzand had not asked him, had not even thought about it, simply assuming he would tie his life to hers with no other desire than to love her and to continue his praying. He was sufficiently well-off to live a life of leisure, chatting, going to mass, reading, perhaps pursuing some scholarly study, continuing his father’s work of throwing light on the history and on the great figures of the country.
Hans was aware of the dream of a life together cherished by his mother. She had often expressed it and he had always acqu
iesced, so as not to grieve her, awaiting the hour and the sign from God. Now God had given him a conclusive sign during the final retreat. It had suddenly been so obvious, a great light breaking, and he’d clearly seen his soul as a parlour where Jesus had come down to talk to him.
He made up his mind and told his mother, who burst into tears at his very first words. What was this? What more was God demanding of her? It was like the announcement of another death. She was going to be alone once more. Now it was Hans, pale from his confession, who looked like a second waxen statue after the first—that of her husband—that she had seen one night stretched out between her and the cradle. He too was already frozen, silent. Hans said nothing more; he had stated the will of God, simply, firmly, and now Mevr. Cadzand felt the icy cold of something irremediable.
‘But Hans, it’s impossible. What will become of me? At least wait until I’m dead.’
‘God will give you the strength you need, Mother. It’s a great blessing for us.’
‘No, it’s a great misfortune, Hans, for me and for you as well. You’re still a child, you don’t know, you can’t know. Try to live first. Oh, how unhappy I am!’
Again the tears came. ‘Hans! My poor Hans!’ Mevr. Cadzand sobbed, repeating his name passionately, bathing it in her tears, her lips kissing it as it passed between them. She paced up and down the room, wild-eyed, distraught, repeating all the time, ‘Hans! Hans!’ as if it were already the name of something lost, a poor little bird that had flown away from her heart and that she was calling, trying to recapture it.
Hans Cadzand's Vocation & Other Stories Page 3