‘I hope, one day, He won’t forget to let me have my fee.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
As time went on I came to know the convent well. How can I describe the peace of this little citadel of goodness – quiet, ordered, immaculate, with its tiny courtyard garden shaded by two lime trees, placed in the very heart of the great and bustling city. In crossing its threshold one entered a world of brooding and mysterious tranquility. The chapel was small but of singular beauty, the interior panelled in unpainted wood, the altar of rose marble, surmounted by a large plain crucifix. The candles flickered and shed a soft radiance on the brass doors of the tabernacle and on the white flowers on either side. Against the walls, the Stations of the Cross showed vaguely, and dim, too, were the black figures of the nuns, kneeling in silence, which is felt nowhere so intensely as in a convent church, a stillness which might flood the pure in heart with a delirious ecstasy of calm and joy, but which, at this stage of my life, always pierced me with a stabbing remorse. Then, indeed, I was conscious, although perhaps incompletely, of a lack of purpose in my existence, of a void which no amount of five-guinea fees could fill. I realised that there were certain vital questions and inner promptings which I was evading, throwing conveniently into the discard of the future, and at such moments, filled with self-dissatisfaction, I would swear passionately to reform, a resolution which, unfortunately, once I returned to the diversions of the outside world and the exciting rush of practice, I failed lamentably to carry out.
Despite my lack of virtue, I became friendly with all the good Sisters, who did their best for me by offering the one gift that was theirs to give – prayer. They were of all nationalities. Mother Cécile was, of course, the one who had captured my heart. Yet I loved also old Sister Josephine, stout and voluminously robed, with myopic eyes reduced by steel-rimmed spectacles, the mistress of novices; and the cherry-cheeked Belgian sister, Marie Emmanuel, who controlled the kitchen, and was always smiling; nor must I omit young Sister Bridget, pale and hollow-cheeked, from Limerick in Ireland, afflicted, poor child, with tuberculosis of the lungs, whose sad yet calm blue eyes revealed to me her knowledge that she soon must die.
But if these good sisters had earned my affection, it was Sister Caterina, the Italian nun, who caught and held my hand. Blackhaired and saffron-skinned, with visionary, yet intelligent sloe-black eyes, Caterina was a pure romantic, a throwback to the past, who had her being exclusively in quattrocento Italy. Her knowledge of this period was encyclopaedic, and when we had the opportunity to talk together she would tell me how the Della Scala dynasty arose in Verona and the Estensi in Ferrara, how Ravenna had fought Padua, and Lucca defeated Florence.
Then she would talk of the Renaissance painters: Pinturicchio, the saintly Fra Angelico, Fra Bartolommeo, a little less holy, alas; then Michelangelo, lying on his back for seven years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; and Raphael, poor fellow, misled by a bad woman, La Fornarina, but decorating the loggia of the Vatican, just before his untimely death.
There were the sculptors too, and the great architects, Donatello and Brunelleschi, constructing the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, and the great Bramante, studying the Pantheon and Constantine’s basilica, the better to design St Peter’s. And, of course, the poets, Cavalcanti, Lapo Gianni, and Dante, whom she would quote by the hour. Then came the saints of sunny Italy – she knew all of them, all the good deeds they had done, the miracles they had performed. Familiar with all the medieval legends, she had also, I fancy, a vivid imagination which, I assure you, did not diminish the interest of her stories. Of these there remains vividly in my mind one which might, perhaps, better acquaint you with Sister Caterina than any description I could give of her. I can still hear her warm yet dreamy voice as she began: ‘Di un monaco che audo allò servizio di Dio.’
Over two hundred years ago, in a remote country district in southern Italy, there lived two boys who were inseparable companions. Mario, clever and self-assured, son of a prosperous land-owner, was the leader. His faithful follower was Anselmo, not very forward at his books, whose father was the village cobbler.
As the two roamed the countryside, Mario would discourse gravely upon his future. His pious parents had destined him for the Church, a prospect which did not displease him, since he was of a ceremonious disposition and had often been fired by the dignity and splendour of the ritual. In particular, he aspired to be a great preacher. One day, as the two boys lay among the vines on a sun-bleached hillside, Mario exclaimed:
‘Truly, I would give much to have the gift of tongues.’
Anselmo looked at his friend with loyal and loving eyes, and mumbled:
‘I will pray, Mario, every day, that you may have that gift.’
Struck by the incongruity of the remark – for Anselmo was not noticeably devout – Mario burst out laughing. In condescending affection he threw his arm across his companion’s narrow shoulders.
‘Amico mio, I am deeply obliged. But, all the same, I think I shall study rhetoric.’
In due course Mario entered the abbey of the Capuchins, For a few lonely months Anselmo hung about the village. Then, unable to bear the separation, he followed his friend to the monastery, where he became a lay brother, a servant of the Order, carrying out the menial duties of the house. The difference in their spheres kept the two friends apart, but at least Anselmo was under the same roof as Mario, and as he laboured in the fields, tended the animals, or scrubbed the refectory floor, he was able to exchange a speaking glance, even a few words with his beloved comrade.
In the fullness of time, Mario was ordained. On the eve of Easter Sunday, when he was to preach his inaugural sermon, as he passed through the cloisters a shadowy figure lay in wait for him.
‘Good luck, Mario …! I shall be there … and praying for you.’
Next morning, when Mario mounted the pulpit, the first person he saw, immediately beneath him, squeezed against a pillar in the corner of the nave, gazing up at him with ardent and expectant eyes, was Anselmo.
Encouraged by that silent tribute, Mario gave of his best. It was a spirited sermon; few better had been heard in that old monastery church. And it was followed, at intervals, by sermons of greater fluency and power, sermons which stirred the members of the chapter and brought tears of pride to the eyes of the lay brother, always pressed in obscurity against the pillar beneath the pulpit.
Gradually, Mario’s fame as a preacher grew. When invitations came for him to preach at other churches in the province his Superior bade him accept, and since it was the custom that none should journey unattended from the abbey, he readily acceded to Mario’s request that Anselmo should accompany him.
The years passed, and together these two travelled throughout the length and breadth of Italy. Inevitably, preferment came to Father Mario. He was made preacher in ordinary to the king, finally Lord Bishop of the Abruzzi. Here, in his episcopal palace, Bishop Mario lived in lordly style. Flattered by society, sought out by princes of the Church, courted by nobles, he had become a power. His figure was turned portly, his bearing dignified. Now, indeed, he barely deigned to notice that submissive, ever-willing little brother who, though grown bowed and shrunken, still served him with self-effacing docility, tending with loving care his splendid vestments, polishing his jewelled shoe-buckles, brewing to perfection that cup of French chocolate which broke the episcopal fast.
But one Sunday, as he preached, Bishop Mario was conscious of a vague deficiency in his surroundings. It was an odd, unsettling sensation, and, gazing down, he became aware that Anselmo was not in his accustomed place. Taken aback, the bishop paused for a moment, and had difficulty in picking up the thread of his discourse. Fortunately, the sermon was nearly over. At its close he hastened to the sacristy and demanded that Anselmo be sent for immediately.
There was a pause. Then an old priest quietly answered:
‘He died a quarter of an hour ago.’
A look of shocked incredulity came, into the bishop’s fa
ce as he was told:
‘For months he has been suffering from an incurable complaint. He did not wish to trouble Your Grace with the knowledge of it.’
A wave of sorrow welled up within Mario, but sharper than his grief was that strange sense of personal deprivation.
In an altered voice he said:
‘Take me to him.’
Silently, he was led out behind the stables to a small, bare, narrow cell where, on the straw-covered plank bed, wrapped in his worn habit, lay all that was left of Mario’s boyhood friend.
The bishop seemed to meditate. Could it be that he weighed against this naked poverty the grandeur of his own apartments? He glanced inquiringly towards the priest.
‘This is where he lived?’
‘Yes, my Lord.’
‘And how … how did he spend his days?’
‘My Lord Bishop,’ said the old priest, looking surprised, ‘ he served you.’
‘But beyond that?’
‘My Lord, he had little time to spare. But every day, in the garden, he fed the birds from his own platter. He spoke often to the little children at the palace gates. I fear he fostered a crew of beggars at the palace kitchen. And then … he prayed.’
‘Prayed?’ as though the word was strange to him.
‘Yes, my Lord, for a lay brother he prayed prodigiously. And always, when I asked him why, he would smile and whisper, “ For a good intention.”’
The bishop’s expression was inscrutable, but a knife was striking at his heart. Yet if he had not properly appreciated Anselmo’s worth, if his manner towards him in these last years had been haughty, he could not stay to reproach himself. He must leave immediately for Rome, where in St Peter’s he was to preach before a gathering of archbishops.
On the following day when he slowly ascended to the pulpit, the vast basilica was crowded. It was an honour long anticipated, a glowing moment in his proud career. But when, in the bated hush, he began to speak, the dullest platitudes issued from his lips. He could read the surprise and disappointment in the congregation. The sweat broke upon his brow. He glanced beneath him, but those rapt eyes were no longer in the shadow of the pulpit. In confusion, Mario hurried through his discourse. Then, hot with shame, he left the precincts of St Peter’s.
Deeply injured in his pride, furious that he should have permitted so imbecile a fancy to disconcert him, he set to work to prepare his next sermon with meticulous care. That he, the Bishop of the Abruzzi, the greatest preacher in Italy, should owe it all to a dull, obscure lay brother … Why, the thing was madness! And yet, when he came to deliver the address the words were lifeless. This ruinous obsession went on, from bad to worse, until one day Bishop Mario broke down completely and had to be assisted from the pulpit. To those who helped him he turned and muttered brokenly:
‘It’s true … He was the substance … I am the empty husk.’
His physicians agreed that he had been working too hard, was in need of a change; and, that he might more readily regain his health and powers, a visit to the high Pyrenees was proposed. But Mario demurred. He preferred, instead, to go to the monastery where he had been ordained, where Anselmo had first come to serve him, where, indeed, the little lay brother now was buried.
There Mario spent his time in seclusion, walking in solitary meditation in the garden of the abbey, visiting every day the shady graveyard beneath the olive trees. A great change had taken place in him – the fleshly arrogance had melted from him, his manner was subdued. One afternoon the Prior came unexpectedly upon him kneeling beside Anselmo’s grave. As Mario rose the Superior placed his hand upon his shoulder.
‘Well, my son …’ He smiled, between deference and affection. ‘Do you pray that eloquence may be restored to you?’
‘No, Father,’ Mario replied gravely. ‘I ask for a greater blessing.’ In a low voice he added, ‘Humility.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
If I found in the convent a pleasant oasis of virtue, the world without seemed at times, by contrast, a veritable desert of depravity. In a city such as London the busy doctor is constantly confronted with life’s more sordid aspects, with painful examples of the weakness and folly, the selfishness and shabby self-indulgence of human nature. Behind closed doors, in the privacy of my consulting-room, I saw men without their masks, and often the sight was not a pretty one. To what sad ends were brought those who ‘ with unbashful forehead, wooed the means of weakness and debility’!
At this particular period, through prejudice, lack of educational and public effort, the incidence of social disorders was appallingly heavy in the city. Statistics compiled by one of the great insurance companies showed that in the year 1925 the death rate from syphilis, locomotor ataxia, and general paralysis of the insane attained an all-time high. It is not my purpose to engage in moral dialectic, or harrow the feelings of my readers with the sorrowful history of these patients who found their way in shame and suffering to my consulting-room. Yet there is one tragic case which I venture to record, since it was so different, in its beginning and in its end, from all the others.
On a warm June afternoon, when the practice was in a quiet phase and I sat debating whether I might steal an hour from duty to visit the tennis championships as Wimbledon, the doorbell rang and presently a young man and woman were shown to my consulting-room. A pleasant sight they made together, as they entered, sustaining each other with a sidelong glance, half-humorous and intimate. There was about them something of the promise of this early summer day, and instinctively my glance sought out the engagement ring which sparkled on the third finger of the girl’s left hand.
One does not readily get to know one’s neighbours in a London terrace, yet I recognised her as one of a family named Anderson living a few doors down the street. She was fair and pretty, not over-tall, with blue eyes and a certain simplicity, an artlessness of manner which was attractive. She could not have been more than nineteen.
Her companion was about twenty-three, I judged, slight of figure and sensitive-featured, but alert and active. He introduced himself as Harry Charvet; then, after a short silence, he gave me a rather, sheepish look.
‘It’s ridiculous to trouble you, Doctor … but, well, Lucy insisted that I should come.’ He smiled boyishly at his fiancée. ‘She’s ordering me about already, you see.’
‘You are to be married then?’ I gazed from one to the other.
‘Yes, Doctor. In a month.’
‘And he’s been doing too much lately,’ Lucy interposed. ‘ He had quite a nasty turn this afternoon.’
‘Oh, it was nothing, really,’ Charvet protested. ‘We were walking in the park when I suddenly felt giddy … The sun perhaps … or too much lunch. I know it’s nothing. I’ve had the same sort of thing before.’
‘Come along, then. We’ll put you through your paces. You’re run-down, perhaps. You may want a tonic, or something simple like that. At any rate, we can’t let it be the cause of the first family quarrel!’
I asked Miss Anderson if she would go for a few minutes to the waiting-room. But she excused herself, saying that she was expected at home. Some friends were arriving for tea – for that matter, she hoped I would not keep Harry too long.
When she had gone I sat on the edge of my desk in a friendly and unprofessional manner.
‘Now, young fellow. What kind of turn did you have?’
‘Oh, just as I told you,’ he answered with a half-laugh. ‘ I seemed to come over groggy. My head felt dizzy and I had to sit down. I suspect it was the heat.’
I nodded.
‘We’ll just make sure. Suppose you stand out in the middle of the floor. That’s right. Hands by your sides, feet together, head up.’
I waited while Charvet carried out these instructions; then I added:
‘Now, close your eyes.’
Standing erect and unsupported in the centre of the floor, he obeyed this injunction. And immediately swayed like a reed in the wind. A drunken man could have balanced better. In fact
he threatened to fall flat upon his face, and soon, with a little gasp, he opened his eyes and clutched at the wall for support.
‘There!’ he exclaimed, as though astounded at having so aptly demonstrated his odd complaint. ‘That’s exactly how it takes me.’ And rather doubtfully he smiled.
But now I could give him no answering smile. I had used the Romberg test merely as a matter of routine, never expecting anything but a negative result. Yet the test was positive. Slowly I got up from the desk, and, taking Charvet’s wrist, drew him back to the window. In the strong light I examined his eyes carefully, extremely carefully, covering one, then the other, with my hand and sharply withdrawing it. Then in a manner even more altered I said:
‘Sit down a moment and cross your legs. Here, in this chair.’
He sat down, and taking a small, rubber-capped percussion hammer, I tapped each knee in its turn, sharply.
There was no answering jerk. The reflex was dead.
‘What’s all this fuss about, Doctor?’
At first I did not answer. I walked up and down the room for a moment, and then, with a serious air, I said:
‘As you’ve taken the trouble to come in, Harry, I want you to let me have a real look at you.’
He gazed at me in amazement, but there was something in my tone which compelled obedience. He submitted, and slowly peeled off his clothing. Then, with an impassive face, I made a complete examination of the now disturbed young man. It was extraordinary with what scrupulous intensity I made my examination, which must have seemed to Charvet both singular and alarming.
I examined his hands. I examined the reaction and condition of his muscles. For a full fifteen minutes, using the ophthalmoscope this time, I examined his eyes, and finally, asking him to repeat certain difficult words, I made a close investigation of his speech. When at last I had finished, something like a sigh rose and was stifled in my throat.
Silently, I put away my instruments and sat down in my chair by the desk with my eyes fixed upon the prescription pad in front of me. A long time I sat like this. But at length I lifted my eyes and looked straight at young Charvet.