"There, there, Monsignor," said the monk. ". . . I didn"t expect this. There"s nothing to----"
"But . . . but----"
"It"s a shock to you, I see. . . . It"s very kind. . . . But I knew it all along. Surely you must have known----"
"I never dreamt of it. I never thought it conceivable. It"s abominable; it"s----"
"Monsignor, this isn"t kind to me," rang out the young voice sternly; and the elder man recovered himself sharply. "Please talk to me quietly. Father Abbot tells me you will see the Cardinal."
"I"ll do anything--anything in my power. Tell me what I can do."
He had recovered himself, as under a douche of water, at the sharpness of the monk"s tone just now. He felt but one thing at this instant, that he would strain every force he had to hinder this crime. He remained motionless, conscious of that sensation of intense tightness of nerve and sinew in which an overpressed mind expresses itself.
The monk sat down, on the farther side of the table.
"That"s better, Monsignor," he said, smiling. . . . "Well, there"s really not much to do. Insanity seems the only possible plea."
He smiled again, brilliantly.
"Tell me the whole thing," said the prelate suddenly and hoa.r.s.ely. "Just the outline. I don"t understand; and I can do nothing unless I do."
"You haven"t followed the case?"
Monsignor shook his head. The monk considered again.
"Well," he said. "This is the outline; I"ll leave out technical details. I have written a book (which will never see the light now) and I sent an abstract of it to Rome, giving my main thesis.
It"s on the miraculous element in Religion. I"m a Doctor in Physical Science, you know, as well as in Theology. Now there"s a certain cla.s.s of cure (I won"t bother you with details, but a certain cla.s.s of cure) that has always been claimed by theologians as evidently supernatural. And I"ll acknowledge at once that one or two of the decrees of the Council of 1960 certainly seem to support them. But my thesis is, first, that these cures are perfectly explicable by natural means, and secondly, that therefore these decrees must be interpreted in a sense not usually received by theologians, and that they do not cover the cases in dispute. I"m not a wilful heretic, and I accept absolutely therefore that these decrees, as emanating from an ec.u.menical council, are infallibly true. But I repudiate entirely--since I am forced to do so by scientific fact (or, we will say, by what I am persuaded is scientific fact)--the usual theological interpretation of the wording of the decrees. Well, my judges take the other view. They tell me that I am wrong in my second point, and therefore wrong also in my first. They tell me that the decrees do categorically cover the cla.s.s of cure I have dealt with; that such cures have been p.r.o.nounced by the Church therefore to be evidently supernatural; and that therefore I am heretical in both my points. On my side, I refuse to submit, maintaining that I am differing, not from the Catholic Church as she really is, (which would be heretical), but from the Catholic Church as interpreted by these theologians. I know it"s rash of me to set myself against a practically universal and received interpretation; but I feel myself bound in conscience to do so.
Very well; that is the point we have now reached. I could not dream of separating myself from Catholic Unity, and therefore that way of escape is barred. There was nothing for it, then, but for my judges to p.r.o.nounce sentence; and that they did, ten minutes before you came in. (I saw you come in, Monsignor.) I am sentenced, that is to say, as an obstinate heretic--as refusing to submit to the plain meaning of an ec.u.menical decree. There remains Rome. The whole trial must go there _verbatim_. Three things may happen. Either I am summoned to explain any statements that may seem obscure. (That certainly will not happen. I have been absolutely open and clear.) Or the sentence may be quashed or modified. And that I do not think will happen, since I have, as I know, all the theologians against me."
There was a pause.
The prelate heard the words, and indeed followed their sense with his intellect; but it appeared to him as if this concise a.n.a.lysis had no more vital connection with the real facts than a doctor"s diagnosis with the misery of a mourner. He did not want a.n.a.lysis; he wanted rea.s.surance. Then he braced himself up to meet the unfinished sentence. "Or----" he murmured.
"Or the sentence will be ratified," said the monk quietly. And again there was silence. It was the monk again who broke it.
"Where Father Abbot seems to think you can help me perhaps, Monsignor, is in persuading the Cardinal to write to Rome. I do not quite know what he can do for me; but I suppose the idea is that he may succeed in urging that the point is a disputed one, and that the case had better wait for further scientific as well as theological investigation."
Monsignor flung out his hands suddenly. The strain had reached breaking-point.
"What"s the good!" he cried. "It"s the system--the whole system that"s so hateful . . . hateful and impossible."
"What?"
"It"s the system," he cried again. "From beginning to end it"s the system that"s wrong. I hate it more every day. It"s brutal, utterly brutal and unchristian." He stared miserably at the young monk, astonished at the cold look in his eyes.
The monk looked at him questioningly--without a touch of answering sympathy, it seemed--merely with an academic interest.
"I don"t understand, Monsignor. What is it that you----"
"You don"t understand! You tell me you don"t understand! You who are suffering under it! Why----"
"You think I"m being unjustly treated? Is that it? Of course I too don"t think that----"
"No, no, no," cried the elder man. "It"s not you in particular. I don"t know about that--I don"t understand. But it"s that any living being can live under such tyranny--such oppression of free thought and judgment! What becomes of science and discovery under a system like this? What becomes of freedom--of the right to think for oneself? Why----"
The young monk leaned a little over the table.
"Monsignor, you don"t know what you are saying. Tell me quietly what it is that"s troubling you. Quietly, if you please. I can"t bear much more strain."
The man who had lost his memory mastered himself with an effort.
His horror had surged up just now and overwhelmed him altogether, but the extraordinary quiet of the other man and his apparently frank inability to understand what was the matter brought him down again to reality. Subconsciously, too, he perceived that it would be a relief to himself to put his developing feeling into words to another.
"You wish me to say? Very well---"
He hesitated again for words.
"You are sure you"d better? I know you"ve been ill. I don"t want to---"
Monsignor waved it away with a little gesture.
"That"s all right," he said. "I"m not ill now. I wish to G.o.d I were!"
"Quietly, please," said the young man.
He swallowed in his throat and rearranged himself in his chair.
He felt himself alone and abandoned, even where he had been certain of an emotional sympathy.
"I know I"m clean against public opinion in what I think. I"ve learnt that at last. I thought at first that it was the other way, as . . . as I think it must have been a hundred years ago.
But I see now that all the world is against me--all except perhaps the people who are called infidels."
"You mean the Socialists?"
"Yes, I suppose so. Well, it seems to me that the Church is . . ."
(he hesitated, to pick his words) "is a.s.suming an impossible att.i.tude. Take your own case; though that"s only one: it"s the same everywhere. There are the sumptuary and domestic laws; there"s the "repression," as they call it, of the Socialists. But take your own case. You are perfectly satisfied that your conclusions are scientific, aren"t you?"
"Yes."
"You"re a Christian and a Catholic. And yet, because these conclusions of yours are condemned--not answered, mind you, or refuted by other scientists--but just condemned--condemned by ecclesiastics as contrary to what they a.s.sume to be true--you . . . you care----"
He broke off, struggling again with fierce emotion. He felt a hand on his arm.
"Monsignor, you"re too excited. May I ask you some questions instead?"
Monsignor nodded.
"Well, don"t take my case only. Take the system, as you said just now. I really want to know.... You think that the Socialists ought not to be repressed--that every man ought to be free to utter his opinions, whatever they may be. Is that it?"
"Yes."
"However revolutionary they may be?"