A short time later the lay brother reappeared and was now the reverse of what he had been before, completely cordial; he served the guest thick porridge in a bowl and fried eggs on a platter, strawberries, salad and bread, and poured sour wine into a glass. Then Steinn discovered that he was as hungry as a horse left outside in the winter, remembered that he hadn’t eaten since this morning when he had coffee with wheat bread at the train station in Basel. But he was so befuddled that he started with the salad and ended with the eggs, and did not have the sense to cut them into pieces and transfer an appropriate portion over to his plate according to good manners, but rather pulled the platter over, strewed salt and pepper over the eggs, and emptied the platter in an instant. When this was finished he was full, and he stood up. The lay brother waited a bit for him to give thanks to God at the close of the meal, but when this did not happen he picked up the lantern once more and asked the guest to follow him. The hallways seemed endless again; they were like a labyrinth; finally came a stairway; Steinn followed the brother; the echo of their footsteps once again became a discordant concert that disturbed the nighttime silence of the house; more hallways and stairs followed, and finally the door of the room intended for Steinn.
The weather was cold and raw although it was only slightly past midsummer, and Steinn was drenched. When he stepped over the threshold and saw Father Alban on his knees before the fireplace, he was seized with a feeling of gratitude so deep that it struck him speechless. The burning sticks crackled. The room had been prepared in haste; a broom stood by the door, a witness to the fact that Father Alban had just finished sweeping, the bedcovers white on the bed. Against one wall stood a padded prie-dieu, and over it hung Christ made of white plaster on a cross of ebony, with a green garland stuck behind it. On another wall was a portrait of “S. Benoist, Abbé, Fondateur et Patriarche de L’ordre des Bénédictins.” He was wearing the same kind of cloak as Father Alban, and offered his hands to Heaven and prayed to God; around the head of the saint beamed rays of light.
The glimmer from the hearth fluttered through the half-dark room, and everything had an air of antiquity. Life did not change here with the years and centuries; the mottoes were still the same as in Subiaco: “Pax” and “Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus.” Outside the rain poured down. Father Alban stood up, turned to Steinn, and smiled.
“Eh bien!” he said. “You see that we have laid dry underclothes there on your bed. You should hang your outer garments on the back of the chair and let them dry by the fire. We hope that you won’t be too cold. Now sleep deeply and well. Tout ira mieux! May God send his angels to keep watch over you, my good lad! I look forward to seeing you in the morning. God give you holy dreams!”
And the monk took both of his hands and pressed them, then left and shut the door quietly. This house was like the heart of a good man. Such quiet, such peace! Steinn Elliði wept like a little girl.
64.
He woke to the ringing of bells early in the morning, dressed quickly, emerged from his room, and lost his way for a long time in the labyrinth of twisting passageways and spiral staircases. Black-clad beings in long robes, whom he dared not address since their hoods were drawn over their faces, appeared before him now and then; they hurried silently past and disappeared. But through the windows, which were set so high in the wall that he could barely reach them with his outstretched arm, he could see the clear blue summer sky, innocent and deep like a child’s eyes.
Finally he came to a door at the end of the lowest hallway, large, broad, and sturdy, with this inscription written above it: “Hæc est domus Domini” – “This is the house of the Lord.” Finally, was his first thought as he stood before the door of this house, and his heart began beating hard. Should he turn away or dare to open it? Either choice could be dangerous. He was like a rheumatic old geezer who racks his brain over whether he should pick up his staff or let it lie. And finally, what would the Lord say if such a man, the son of waywardness, dared to step over the threshold of his house? Wouldn’t such a man profane the company of the blessed and God’s saints?
He had never set foot in a more astonishing house than the Lord’s. Down from the dome peered long-faced beings, beardless and alien, with closed eyes and palms pressed together; it was difficult to guess whether they were dead or living; perhaps both at once, or rather, neither; but they gazed beyond life and death into the depths of themselves and the Almighty. Around their faces grew the most astonishing plants, like those on the flutes of Ljónharður Pípín. On the columns to the right stood tall bearded men in Roman togas; one held a key, another a sword, a third a book, a fourth a crosier, a fifth a house, and so on: these were various saints of God. One thing was astonishing: the key in the hands of the first was much larger than the house in the hands of the fifth; it seemed supernatural that such a little house could be opened with such a huge key. To the left stood noblewomen in long gowns that covered everything except for their toes. Veils covered their hair, and their necks and breasts were enwrapped in bright cloths, but their bright and blessed faces were thrust forward from their head coverings and their long, slender fingers from their sleeves. Here was Scholastica, holding a dove as if she believed in the virtues of birds. Hildegard also held a feather (“It takes only one feather to make me die of laughter,” says Joseph Delteil), Gertrude, Valborg, and Mechtilde, all brides of Christ, and long since gone to Heaven. At the far end stood a great altar on a marble platform, and over it a white canopy set with golden rhombuses and other adornments, standing on four pillars, with a green velvet cloth stretched between the rear pillars; on the altar stood a variety of shining objects whose meaning no one understands, with a crucifix above. High, high up in the vault over the altar was a golden triangle, a symbol of the Holy Trinity, and within the triangle a white lamb with a pennant under its feet, lying on a large, old-fashioned clasped book. How in Heaven was the blessed lamb supposed to flip through the pages of the book if it wanted to read? Because with two cloven hooves it is impossible to turn the pages of a book; and what would happen to the pennant if the lamb were to stand up? Because a lamb walks on four legs and is absolutely unable to hold on to a pennant. Along the side walls were numerous small vaults, and beneath each of them one altar, and over each altar events depicted from the life of God and his saints here on Earth, some carved from wood and painted with glistening colors, others painted on limestone, still others sculpted in stone, with the altars made of polished marble the color of chocolate pudding. The most distinctive things in the house of the Lord were the mysterious men standing before each altar, with their backs turned, their faces toward the wall. They were wearing ornate chasubles, and under these, snow-white gowns. Some of the chasubles were red as blood newly dripped from a wound, others bright gold like the noonday sun, still others green like a field glittering with sun between showers of rain, others purple like Mount Etna at five o’clock on a July morning, and finally one could see chasubles black as tarred coffins; and on the altars burned three-stemmed king’s candles. And all of these supernatural beings spoke in half tones, each before his own altar: they said “Gloria,” “Misericordia,” and “Secula seculorum,”88 and their chatter was blended into a continuous purl that sounded throughout the vaults like a westerly breeze in the leaves. Sometimes little bells were rung, with weak voices like newborn lambs, and the vaults echoed like forests, and at the foot of each altar behind the magicians knelt a little brown-cloaked being that beat its breast and repeated “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”77 And Steinn felt as if he were standing at the bottom of the sea among divine mermen who could neither sin nor die, and who had stood there since the creation of the world and read from the Psalter to the glory of God while mankind sinned and died. Everything was magnificent in the house of the Lord, and he threw himself onto his knees before one of the altars and gazed with tearful eyes at the cross.
65.
I.
Si me vis esse in tenebris, sis benedictus, et si me vis esse in
luce, sis iterum benedictus. Si me dignaris consolari, sis benedictus: et si me vis tribulari, sis æque et semper benedictus.
If it is your will that I remain in darkness, may you be blessed. And if it is your will that I come into the light, may you again be blessed. If it pleases you to comfort me, may you be blessed. And if it is your will that I be afflicted, may you again and always be blessed.
God, I approach your altar and kneel; I throw myself down prostrate. I cast myself down onto my face before your altar and cry out. I cry out to you and implore you. In manu tua sum; gyra et reversa me per circuitum! I am in your hands; turn me this way and push me back that way, just as it pleases you. If it is your will that I remain in darkness, may you be blessed. And if it pleases you to lead my soul into great light, may you lead my soul into great light. Praised be the name of the Lord now and forever.
II.
It is my soul that cries out. It cries out loudly like a little child, when other voices have become weak and hoarse. For so long, so long have I stifled this child’s voice, but now it cries out. It cries out in the darkness, asking, “Are you there? Answer me only this one thing, whether you are there!” And all will be answered. Then I will know that it was you who poured the darkness over my soul and held the cup of despair to my lips. And I bless your will. Because if you are there, then you are my God, and if you are my God, then your will is holy, and it is my salvation, and my afflictions gifts of grace. And whether you turn me this way or push me back that way, I am in your hands. My soul cries out in the darkness and longs to know this one thing: are you there?
Listen! The voice that speaks is prodigious, deep and steady, and answers with these old words of wisdom: If you had not known that I was there, you would never have thought to call on me.
Yes, my God, I have always known that you were there. I had a suspicion of you always in the unknown. And I mocked you precisely because I believed that you existed. And although I mocked you, my conscious life never actually had any other pillar of support than the suspicion that you existed. Perhaps it was never more clear to me who you were than precisely when I exalted the merits of men over your omnipotence; I was never more near to falling at your feet than when I mocked your name most bitterly, never more terrified in the consciousness of my shame than when I had silenced your voice with the most pandemoniac acts of my intellect. My revolt against you was the lowest level of my cowardice.
III.
Now I have come before your altar. Do you see me? Do you see this ludicrous worm in the dust; do you see this dust of the dust? And I, who am nothing but dust, dare to speak! I dare to speak to you!
I have come before your face so that your eyes can see my heart. Look into my heart! This is who I am, exactly as you see me. Respice in me, Deus, et miserere mei, quia unicus et pauper sum ego;90 I am precisely this: indigent and alone. I am the husk where impotence took up its abode. I beg you to crush me. I beg that it might be your will, and not mine. I pray that your will be done on Earth as in Heaven. I pray that I might be nothing from now on, and everything nothing but you. Blessed be your will! I beg to be lost in you.
IV.
I peer into the darkness that envelops me. Yes, I know that you are there! I believe nothing except that you are there. There can be nothing there but you! What indeed should be there but you? And still I bless you; I know that your holy decrees have not led me for nothing into the darkness. I believe that you have prepared for me a brighter light than ever my darkness was dark.
Look! My breast waits for you to lay your healing hand upon it. Yes, it is true: sometimes I have suffered. Sometimes I have even started to bleed again from a wound healed long ago, and I have often felt as if seven arrows of steel had been shot through my heart. Why should I not confess to you that I have wept? As soon as night fell I was alone. I felt so ill; I was destitute and alone. My God, I wept all those long winter nights because I was destitute and alone. I felt that nothing existed except for me. I was too selfish to have friends, too arrogant to call to you.
I have never told anyone that I wept. And I shall tell no one else, only you. I am telling you everything because I believe in you. Tell me whether you are listening to me, so that I conceal nothing from you. Will you permit me to forget that my heart is completely covered with scars from old wounds? Help me to rejoice in the one thing that I learned from this, that it was you who created my heart.
V.
I thank you for inviting me home. What fortune to be allowed to speak with you! What unspeakable abundance of joy to know that I am with you! All despair is diminished to know that you see me and hear me. My God, my God, I have found you and have come to you!
The world lies behind me full of deluding enchantments and enchanting delusions. Help me to forget these horrific visions! Allow me to love you and to forget all else. Allow me to be near you always; let me never again lose the certain knowledge that you are near me. Will you watch over me? Will you be everything to me? Take your little senseless child in your arms and comfort it.
See, my God, I come to you like a little senseless child. I know nothing, want nothing, am nothing. You, Creator of the worlds, Heaven of the heavens, God of the gods, are my father. My father, I have come to you.
VI.
If it is your will to lead my soul into great light, then lead my soul into great light, for I am a little child, and all that I desire is the great light. And now I have thrown myself down before your altar, where your servants worship the truth. And I beg you with the humility of a little child: will you tell me whether it is your truth, the only truth, that your servants worship, or is there some other truth? I know you wish me to know nothing but the truth. And I know that you have created me to live in the truth, because I will never be free and will never come to you unless I know the truth, because you are the truth. You are the only truth and all is untrue but you. Will you whisper to me whether what they teach is the truth? Did you found a Church among men as your apostles say? And why did you found this Church? Is it true that you have founded it to preach to them the truth, and to free them? Whisper, whisper! My ears thirst! For if it is true then I will enter your Church and devote my life to the truth from this moment on.
And if it is not the truth that your apostles preach and your servants worship, and if it is untrue that you founded the Church or gave it the task of preaching the truth, and if the Church is fallible and no more knowledgeable of the way than any other human establishment, then I beg you to lead me away from this altar. I beg you to lead me to the other altar, where the only truth, your truth, can be found. If you tell me that your truth can be found on the far side of the world, then I am ready to set out today.
Father, are you there? Hear your child!
VII.
Is it true that in the beginning you created the world and made man in your image? And is it true that afterward man directed his will toward things that are of less worth than you? Is it true that man’s will is inclined toward things that are at variance with your will? Is it true that sin exists, and that sin is a revolt against your will? Is it true? If the opposite is true, that man’s will is in complete unity with your holy will, then tell me so, my God, because I cannot endure this uncertainty.
Only this, and I will start a new life. Is it true that you are displeased when a man turns his longing toward the created, but that you find it most pleasing when he bends all the energies of his being toward his Creator, the eternal reality behind the created world? Is it true that the man who pushes God away and dedicates his life to delusions is eternally lost; and that he who dedicates his spirit to his Creator and fetters his physical desires with asceticism celebrates eternal life? Is it true that he who lives according to nature is on the road to perdition, but that he who lives according to the demands of the spirit shall see your glory? Is it true? If it is true then I shall, from this moment on, live according to the demands of the spirit, for I long only to behold your glory.
VIII.
Take
uncertainty from me. Does this Church tell the truth? Is it true that there once lived a man named Jesus Christ? Is it true that he was the envoy of perfection, the Adam of the highest humanity, as your wise men say? Is it true that Jesus Christ is raised over all creation?
I have never asked such huge questions before; now I ask in childish earnestness; I know that you hear the expectation of a child in my voice when I ask. Is it true, my God: was it you? Was Jesus Christ, this son of sorrow, this homeless child among men, this outcast from everything, whom they spat on and scourged – was he you? Is it true that you have taken upon yourself man’s tatters in order to conquer man; that you have clothed yourself in man’s weakness in order to teach man to conquer the world? Or is the opposite true, that you have always hidden yourself in your Heaven and that it is not possible for man to know you, not even whether you exist? What is true, what is false?
Who was this Jesus Christ if he was something other than you? I do not understand Jesus Christ if he was something other than you. And if he was not you, then I beg you to teach me to understand Jesus Christ.
IX.
I have read the Gospels in one sitting; read them time and again without intermission; read them backward and forward and yet have not dared to trust, in any way, the one conclusion that I felt could be drawn from them: that Jesus Christ was you. For the longest time I have shunned placing any faith in such a glorious message. Imagine what disappointment I would have felt if I had later realized that I had been mistaken.
I have tried to convince myself that Jesus Christ was a liar. I have read all of the Gospels under the presupposition that he was a false prophet. But how unfortunate is the liar who lets himself be crucified for his lies! When has that ever been done before? In spite of all of my prudent attempts to convince myself that it must be a lie that he and you were one, no sooner had I finished my reading of the Gospels when this conclusion cleared all the rest out of the way: yes, he and the Father are one. It is not possible to read the Gospels otherwise; one must come to this conclusion. The beginning of the New Testament and the end are precisely this: he and the Father are one. What a joyous message if it is true.
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