Louis had been his secretary for some years. In idle moments, Louis had amused him. Too, he had amused himself often at Louis’ expense, as a man teases a humble dog, or a caged and clawless bird. He had played with Louis. And Louis, after a very few moments, had completely bored him, as the unstable, the inflexible, inevitably bored him. Even Louis’ occasional vehemence, his narrow theological passions, had caused him to yawn and smile. Only when Louis had manifested the strength and vastness of the hatred which devoured him had the Cardinal become interested. He was always interested in tremendous human passions, though it was a cynical interest in which his own hatred was the dominant ingredient. He confessed, candidly, that only those passions which duplicated his own could command his respect and attention. I am an egotist, he would think, and would be pleased. What man, even Jesus, had ever succeeded, except by virtue of his powerful egotism? To become the center of things, it was necessary that a man convince himself that he was already the center. The easier move, thereafter, was to convince others.
He meditated upon these things, as he lay in his chair, and was consoled that a pleasant drowsiness was overcoming him. His thoughts drifted away from him like great shadowy ships putting out in gray silence upon misty and boundless seas. The allegory pleased him; it was his favorite method of putting himself to sleep. He liked to watch the vague and majestic star-shine gleaming among the ghostly folds of the sails, and the sliding mountains of the waters that had their source in his own soul.
And then he heard a sigh. The waters and the ships vanished, and he was acutely and angrily aware once more of his mind, his consciousness, the aching confines of his own flesh. The acrid feverishness of his body tormented him again with its old insistence. He refused to open his eyes. He heard the sigh once more, and all at once it had a terrible sound, overwhelming in its desolation. He remained inert. Louis thought he slept, as usual. The sigh had come from a naked spirit, believing itself alone.
The Cardinal partially lifted his eyelids, and looked at his secretary. The twilight had become thicker. A single golden taper burned on the table at which Louis had been writing. The windows were shrouded in their heavy draperies. All was silence, heavy and brooding. Louis sat in his chair, his elbows in the table, his head in his hands. The sigh came from him repeatedly, and it had in it the essence of the last breathing of a dying man.
Louis had a strong body, full of the rigid grace of the humorless but handsome man. His back was straight and firm, in its black garments. He had a certain lofty splendor of shoulder, carriage and bodily formation. Always, he had carried himself with a stately and princely air, not affected, but a manifestation of the glacial quality of his frigid spirit and hard virginal mind. The Cardinal, in his idler moments, had often amused himself with speculations as to what might happen to that carriage, that large frozen countenance, that blue and icy eye, when the mind and heart behind them was smitten and utterly undone.
Now, he needed not to speculate, or to wonder, with smiling cynicism. He knew, and saw. For the young man before him had the appearance of a marble statue that had been crushed and distorted under the hammer blows of a destroyer. His outlines were misshapen; the cold grandeur of his body was dissolved, as a statue of ice is dissolved under a devastating sun. His head was bowed, sunken between his shoulders. The strong white hands, which in their cold formation had seemed incapable of any latent tenderness or softness, were clenched in agony against his eyes. His back writhed; he rocked on his chair. And from his hidden lips came those long dying sighs, like heavy gusts.
The Cardinal understood that agony. Since Marguerite de Tremblant’s death he had observed the almost imperceptible disintegration of Louis de Richepin. He had been like a mountain, apparently changeless on the surface, which was disintegrating and collapsing within, dissolving into dust, giving only to the most observant eye the faint manifestations of an occasional falling stone, a slight shifting against the sky, a far muffled murmur, though its outlines remained the same. And, as to the inner ear of that astute observer had come the profound inner whisper of immense dissolution, and to his eye the dim fog of drifting dust that mantled that mountain, so to the Cardinal’s ear and eye had come the signals of the inner collapsing, the ruin, that was taking place under the immovable and motionless surface of Louis de Richepin.
He had been regretful. But, at the end, he had been bored, as he was always bored by those things which did not imminently concern himself and his enormous designs. Too, he had that contemptuous impatience for the wretchedness of little humanity which is an attribute of the man who hates his kind, and furiously resents being identified with it, even to sharing the formation of its members. After his first pang of compassion for his priestly secretary, he had been annoyed at what he saw. Good God, the fate of France, of Europe, depended on his, the Cardinal’s plots and intrigues for the next few years, and this miserable pale man could be so absorbed in his petty yearnings and achings, his mewlings over an insignificant girl whose passing had not evoked a single word at Court!
But, for some strange reason, as he watched Louis now through his secret eyelids, he could not feel annoyance or impatience. An unfathomable sadness pervaded him, a nameless warmth and terrible sorrow. And that sadness, that sorrow, was like a violent convulsion in him, a breaking-down of walls and barricades. He could pause, even then, for wonder that he could feel so, for he had had no love for Louis, and hardly anything even so strong as occasional liking.
He had so despised mankind that the sight of its suffering had seemed to him a petty and shameful thing, much below the suffering of a noble and humble dog. But all at once Louis de Richepin’s agony was no longer petty and shameful to the Cardinal. All at once, the Cardinal reflected that no agony was mean, whether it was the agony of a man or a woman. In suffering, all things attained grandeur, fatefulness and dignity, commanding the respect even of God. Man, and worms, participated not at all in the ecstatic transports of God, in His mighty cognizance of the future, nor in His joy and peace and sublime satisfaction. Blindly wandering, and mute, they had no prescience, no encompassing comprehension. They lived outside the glowing and fiery circle of knowledge. But in suffering, they were one with God. The tendrils of universal pain quivered in God and man and worms, and the last despairing convulsion of the last was felt in the heart of the first.
These were strange thoughts for his Eminence, the Duc de Richelieu, to be entertaining, and a curious excitation pervaded a body which had believed it had experienced all emotions, and was tired of them. It had been so long since he had felt sadness, or gentleness, or sorrow. Echoes of his early manhood resounded in his ears; the strong compassion he had once known for all living things stirred his heart once more, and it ached, as an unused and atrophied muscle aches upon violent exertion.
With compassion comes the impulse to alleviate, to console, to comfort. This, the Cardinal felt. His mouth opened to utter gentle words, and then was dumb. For it suddenly overwhelmed him that he, a prelate of the Church, a prince of Rome, a priest who was first of all a minister to men, had no words of consolation or comfort to give this suffering man before him. He had too much knowledge! He was too wise! Sanctimonious words, however impelled by sincerity, had, even in rehearsal, too much puerility, a childish and mean quality, a foolishness. How, in the face of this anguish, could he say: “God will give you comfort, my son?” All the trite and worn phrases of priests sounded shameful to his inner ear. Who but a fool, or a cynic, would have the effrontery to insult such anguish with silly words?
Words of comfort implied a smug superiority on the part of the utterer, a detachment from the pain of the recipient. Insult was implicit in them, a self-satisfaction. Unless they came from the deepest faith and humility.
And Armand-Jean de Plessis, Cardinal and Duc de Richelieu, prelate of Rome, vested in holy garments and standing before the monstrance of gilded religion, had no faith, no humility. He had known this for a long time, but had not felt it. Now, he felt it in its full e
normity. He was moved by an impulse to bitter laughter. I have no true words, for I have no faith, he thought.
Had he ever had any faith? He ran back through the long dim corridors of the years, and opened a thousand doors, querying, seeking. But he found nothing at all, nothing but expediency, ambition, hatred and cunning, nothing but a contemptible knowledge of other men. Where, even in the most narrow and obscure chamber, had he dwelt even for an hour with pure faith and humility? He could find no such chamber.
And now he asked himself: Do I believe in God? And after a long moment he answered himself: No. I do not know.
And then he confessed to himself that he had believed that faith was a convenient attribute for the fool, an idiot’s gesture, the mumbling of medicine men. It had no part in the character of the wise man. Intelligence was above faith. Remembering, with acuteness, Père Joseph, the Cardinal came to the penetrating conclusion that the Capuchin had no faith, either. He had rapture, he had orisons, he had convulsions, he had ecstasy. But these were self-intoxication. He had no true faith.
And now he knew that only those with faith could speak words of comfort, without insult. For in faith was an awareness of universal anguish and grief, the oneness of all creatures in the all-pervading agony of living. Faith cried out: “I have no consolation for you, but I have no consolation for myself. I have only my tears, which, while shedding them for you, I shed them for myself, also. In weeping, we weep for God, who weeps for us.” Thus, in the universal participation of mutual grief, man approached God, and they clasped hands together.
Sunken in his thoughts, the Cardinal forgot all else. He sighed deeply. There was a floating and dimness in his vision.
He looked at Louis again, and his tigerish eyes no longer held in them their usual baleful gleam, but were soft and diffused. He called out, gently: “Louis.”
The young priest stirred, as a tree stirs at the movement of wind, but without conscious motion. He dropped his clenched hands from his eyes. But his profile, frozen and rigid, remained turned away. He looked blindly before him.
Again the Cardinal sighed, and again he called out. And this time, Louis turned his face towards him. The Cardinal’s heart plunged downwards on the sword of pain. For Louis’ countenance was empty and stark, fixed in the rigidity of agony. It was like one of those Greek masks, fleshless, but bearing in the gaping eyeless sockets and the stark and open arch which was the lipless mouth, all anguish, all tragedy, and all dreadfulness. In its every emptiness, soundlessness, was the epitome of mankind, which, in the final moment, could open its bloodless lips only on speechless horror.
The two looked at each other in the awful silence of that moment. And they saw each other completely. They could not move, could not speak.
And after a long time, the Cardinal lifted his hands, and let them drop heavily and impotently on his knee.
He said, and his voice was hoarse and low: “Louis, I know. And I have nothing to say to you. Nothing at all. I have no consolation, no words. I cannot tell you of God, for I know nothing of God. I cannot comfort you, for there is no comfort in me. I can only offer you my sorrow.” He added, in a still lower tone: “Forgive me.”
Humility, sadness, sat strangely on the delicate and bloodless face of that terrible man. He seemed smaller and feebler, as he sat in his great crimson chair. He appeared to attain enormous and fruitless age, and somber futility. And yet, in the loss of his terribleness, in his humility and despair, he attained grandeur.
Louis listened. And then, very slowly, the hard mask of tragedy softened, crumpled, and the bleeding flesh overcame the layer of cracking plaster, and a cry issued from his lips. He rose, and staggering, caught the back of his chair. Slowly, painful step after painful step, he approached the Cardinal, weaving from side to side as a wounded man walks. He held out his hands, as if feeling his way in impenetrable darkness. And then, reaching the Cardinal, he fell suddenly before him and dropped his stricken head on the Cardinal’s knee.
The Cardinal was silent. His hand had automatically risen to lay itself on that tragic head. Now words of rote had risen to his lips: “Be comforted, my son. God understands your grief, and will send you consolation.”
But he quelled the foolish words before they could be spoken. Even in that moment he could smile at them with heavy bitterness. How easily habit could destroy the dignity of truth! How easily words rose to insult that dignity!
At length, he said, in such a gentle voice: “Louis, I, too, have suffered. I, too, have known the deepest of sorrow. This is all I can offer you. This is the only comfort I can give you: that all men have known this pain.”
And then, after these words, he could raise Louis’ head, and lay it on his own breast. And he could embrace him, in the simple communion, the voiceless sadness, of all that has suffered.
Had he comforted this poor priest? He felt that he had. For in Louis he had perceived that devastating loneliness and terror which had always dwelt in him. In this embrace of another sufferer, he came again into the communication with humanity which Marguerite de Tremblant had given him. The Cardinal heard the sound of his weeping.
CHAPTER XLVI
Arsène established Cecile Grandjean and the young Roselle in Paul de Vitry’s small hôtel in Paris. The servants, grief-stricken over the tragic death of their kind master, were eager and delighted to administer to the young girl who had suffered in that calamity. There, in the house of the young and ingenuous man who had loved her, guarded by the dim portraits of hisancestors, the girl fought her slow and painful way back to life.
Each day, a discreet messenger came to Arsène and told him of the girl’s progress. But he did not go to her.
He was fighting an heroic and desperate struggle in himself. Until, in his confusion, he had come to the place where he could endure himself, where he could clarify the turbulent passions and dark chaos that devastated him, he dared see no one. He locked himself in his apartments, receiving only the messenger from the Hôtel de Vitry and those who were secretly admitted to him by Pierre, his lackey, to convey to him plans for the impending campaign to defend La Rochelle.
Simple and ruthless and unsubtle of temperament, he found himself assailed by a thousand passions and doubts. The affair at Chantilly had shown him to what depths the human heart could plunge. He regarded himself with heavy distrust and vehement disgust. Nevertheless, he could not persuade himself that he had been unjust or unduly vengeful. He knew that the first reaction to attack was a violent counter-attack. But doubts came to him that he had been inspired by an impulse to justice. Justice and vengeance, he perceived, were entirely opposed to each other. But where did one begin and the other end? Did not all the virtues, after all, have their roots in the vices? Did mercy rise from weakness and expediency? Was compassion the attribute of those who were abysmally selfish?
He could not rid himself of hatred. Now he knew that in all men lived hatred for all other men. From the single root of hate blossomed the poisonous fruit of all the vices. But how could a man destroy natural hatred in himself? He saw that man’s great conquest, great crusade, great adventure, was in the destruction of the hatred which was born in his own heart.
To a man of his kidney, it was an appalling thing to be precipitated into a country of a thousand lights and shadows, filled with obscure whispers, and the gestures of countless doubts and bewilderments. This world which once to him was a thing of sharp blacks and whites, shadowless and firm of outline, and very simple and uncomplex, was revealed to him to be a world of endless shades and tints, in which the human soul questioned in perplexity and at length gave up in impotent despair, overwhelmed with unanswerable enigmas.
Had Paul de Vitry confronted these enigmas and had he known the answers? For a brief dazzling moment Arsène conjectured that men like. Paul refused to see the tints and the shades, closed their ears to the whispers of devious and clever doubts. In much questioning, he saw, was much confusion. One must look clearly and steadfastly at the simple necessity: to c
onquer hatred in oneself. With that shining and fragile thread in the hand, one could walk safely through the labyrinths, guided along the edges of pits and chasms.
But still, he could not rid himself of that hatred which was part of the blood and bone and spirit of man. He struggled with it, but at every subduing, it sprang up in another area in his heart, as strong and triumphant as ever. He found himself regretting that he had been so weak as to be diverted from his purpose at Chantilly. At these moments, the fire roared up in him again, and he longed to destroy all mankind.
I know the truth, he would say to himself, but I cannot force myself to believe in it. If I destroy my own hatred, I shall be destroyed as were Paul, the Abbé Mourion, the Duc de Tremblant and François Grandjean. It seemed to him that the world was the graveyard of all noble and selfless souls. To survive, one must build hatred like a fortress.
It was not for some days that the thought came to him like a whisper from the graveyard: The world of men shall be saved from their hatred only by those who have conquered hatred.
I care nothing for saving men, he thought, in the midst of his grief for his friend. But his new knowledge, like a feeble but living plant, struggled for life in the midst of poisonous weeds.
In some obscure way, he realized that this battle must be fought in himself before he could undertake objective battles. The campaign at La Rochelle, his whole subsequent life, must await the ordering of his own passions and the formulation of his own unshakable philosophy.