2383	----	None 
43886	----	[Transcriber's Note: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic text is surrounded by _underscores_.] [Illustration: At last there came a grave man to the gate, whose name was Goodwill. (_Page 15_) (_The Pilgrim's Progress._)] BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. IN WORDS OF ONE SYLLABLE. BY SAMUEL PHILLIPS DAY, AUTHOR OF "THE RARE ROMANCE OF REYNARD THE FOX," IN WORDS OF ONE SYLLABLE. _ILLUSTRATED._ A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK. COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. _All rights reserved._ Contents I. THE DEN AND THE DREAM 5 II. THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND 8 III. WORLDLY-WISEMAN 10 IV. THE WICKET-GATE 15 V. THE INTERPRETER'S HOUSE 18 VI. THE CROSS AND THE CONTRAST 19 VII. THE HILL DIFFICULTY 28 VIII. THE PALACE BEAUTIFUL 30 IX. APOLLYON 39 X. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH 42 XI. CHRISTIAN AND FAITHFUL 44 XII. TALKATIVE 50 XIII. VANITY FAIR 56 XIV. CHRISTIAN AND HOPEFUL 64 XV. DOUBTING CASTLE AND GIANT DESPAIR 69 XVI. THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS 77 XVII. THE ENCHANTED GROUND AND THE WAY DOWN TO IT 81 XVIII. THE LAND OF BEULAH--THE FORDS OF THE RIVER--AT HOME 87 THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. CHAPTER I. THE DEN AND THE DREAM. AS I went through the wilds of this world, I came to a place where was a den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep; and as I slept I dreamt a dream; and lo, I saw a man clad in rags, with a book in his hand, and a great load on his back! I saw him read in the book, and as he read, he wept and shook. In this plight, then, he went home, and kept calm as long as he could, that his wife and bairns should not see his grief; but he could not long hold his speech, for that his woe grew more hard to bear. "Oh, my dear wife," said he, "and you, the bairns of my heart, I am quite lost, for a load lies hard on me. More than this, I am told that this our town will be burnt with fire from the skies, and you, my sweet babes, shall come to grief, save some way can be found to get clear of harm." At this his kin were in sore fear; for that they had just cause to dread some dire ill had got hold of his head. So, when morn was come, they would know how he did: and he told them, "Worse and worse." He spoke to them once more, but they gave no heed to his words. Hence he went to his room to pray for them, and to ease his grief. He would, too, take long walks in the fields, and read and pray at times: and thus for some days he spent his time. Now I saw on a time, when he took a stray walk in the fields, that he was bent on his book and in deep grief of mind; and as he read he burst out, "What shall I do?" I saw, too, that his eyes went this way and that way, as if he would run: yet he could not tell which way to go. I then saw a man whose name was Evangelist come to him and ask, "Why dost thou cry?" Quoth he, "Sir, I see by the book in my hand that death is my doom, and that I am then to meet my Judge: and I find that I do not will to do the first, while I dread the last." Then said Evangelist, "Why not will to die, since this life is full of ills?" The man said, "The cause is I fear that this load that is on my back will sink me more low than the grave, and I shall go down to hell." Then said Evangelist, "If this be thy state, why dost thou stand still?" Said he, "It is for that I know not where to go." Then he gave him a roll of smooth skin, on which were writ the plain words, "Flee from the wrath to come." The man read it, and said, "To what place must I flee?" Then said Evangelist, "Do you see yon small gate?" The man said, "I think I do." Then said his guide, "Go up at once to it; at which, when thou dost knock, it shall be told thee what thou shalt do." So I saw in my dream that the man did run. Now he had not run far from his own door, but his wife and bairns saw it, and in a loud voice they strove to get him to come back; but the man put the tips of his thumbs in his ears and ran on. His friends also came out, and some bade him haste back. Of those who did so, there were two that sought to fetch him back by force. The name of the one was Obstinate; and the name of the next, Pliable. Now by this time the man was a good way off; but they went in quest of him, and in a short time came up with him. Then said he, "Friends, for what are ye come?" Quoth they, "To urge you to go back with us": but he said, "That can by no means be. You dwell in the City of Destruction: and when you die there, you will sink down to a place that burns with fire. Take heed, good friends, and go with me." [Illustration: OBSTINATE GOES BACK TO THE CITY OF DESTRUCTION.] "What!" said Obstinate, "and leave our friends and all that brings us joy and ease?" "Yes," said Christian (for that was his name); "I seek a life that fades not. Read it so, if you will, in my book." "Tush!" said Obstinate, "I heed not your book: will you go back with us or no?" "No, not I," said Christian. _Obs._--"Come then, friend Pliable, let us go home." Then said Pliable, "The things he looks for are of more worth than ours. My heart urges me to go with him." _Obs._--"What! Be led by me and go back." _Chr._--"Come with me, friend Pliable; there are such things to be had which I spoke of, and much more bliss. If you heed not what I say, read here in this book." "Well, friend Obstinate," said Pliable, "I mean to go with this good man, and to cast in my lot with him. But, my good mate, do you know the way to this place?" _Chr._--"I am told by a man, whose name is Evangelist, to speed me to a small gate that is in front of us, where we shall be put in the right way." "And I will go back to my place," said Obstinate. "I will not make one of such flat fools." CHAPTER II. THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND. NOW Christian and Pliable spoke as they did walk on the plain; and this was what they said: _Chr._--"Come, friend Pliable. I am glad you have been led to go with me. Had but Obstinate felt what I have felt, he would not have set his back on us." _Pli._--"And do you think that your book is true?" _Chr._--"Yes: there is a realm where we shall not taste of death, that we may dwell in it for aye." _Pli._--"This is right good; and what else?" _Chr._--"There we shall not weep or grieve more; for he that owns the place will wipe all tears from our eyes." _Pli._--"To hear this doth fill one's heart with joy. But are these things to form our bliss? How shall we get to share in them?" _Chr._--"The Lord hath set down _that_ in this book, the pith of which is, if we in truth seek to have it, he will, of his free grace, grant it to us." _Pli._--"Well, my good friend, glad am I to hear of these things. Come on, let us mend our pace." Now I saw in my dream that just as they had put an end to this talk they drew up nigh to a deep slough that was in the midst of the plain; and as they did not heed it, both fell swap in the bog. The name of the slough was Despond. Then said Pliable, "Ah, friend Christian, where are you now?" "In sooth," said Christian, "I do not know." At this Pliable said in sharp tones, "Is this the bliss you have told me all this while of? If we have such ill speed as we first set out, what may we not look for ere the time we get to the end of our road? May I once get out with my life, you shall hold the brave land for me." And with that he gave a bold stride or two, and got out of the mire on that side of the slough which was next his own house. So off he went, and Christian saw him no more. Hence Christian was left to sprawl in the Slough of Despond. But I saw in my dream that a man came to him whose name was Help, and did ask him what he did there. "Sir," said Christian, "I was bade go this way by a man known as Evangelist, who sent me in like way to yon gate, that I might scape the wrath to come." So he gave him his hand, and drew him out, and set him on sound ground, and let him go on his way. Then I went to him that did pluck him out, and said, "Sir, whence is it that this plat is not made whole, that those who pass this way may run no risk?" And he said to me, "This slough is such a place that none can mend it. It goes by the name of the Slough of Despond; for still, as he who sins is wrought up to a sense of his lost state, there spring forth in his soul fears, and doubts, and dark thoughts that scare, which all of them form in a heap and fix in this place; and this is the cause why the road is so bad. True, there are, by the help of him who frames the laws, some stout and firm steps found through the midst of this slough; these steps are all but hid, or if they be seen, men step on one side, and then they get all grime with mire, though the steps be there; but the ground is good when they are once got in at the gate." CHAPTER III. WORLDLY-WISEMAN. AS Christian took his lone walk he saw one cross the field to meet him, and their hap was to meet just as they did cross the same way. The man's name was Mr. Worldly-wiseman. Hence Mr. Worldly-wiseman thus held some talk with Christian. _Wor._--"How now, good friend; where dost thou go bent down with such a weight?" [Illustration: CHRISTIAN AND WORLDLY-WISEMAN] _Chr._--"As big a load, in sooth, as I think a poor wight had in his life! I am bound for yon small gate in front of me; for there, as I am told, I shall be put in a way to be rid of my huge load." _Wor._--"Wilt thou give heed to me, if I tell thee what course to take?" _Chr._--"If what you say be good, I will; for I stand in need of a wise guide." _Wor._--"Who bid thee go this way to be rid of thy load?" _Chr._--"A man that I thought was high and great; his name, as my mind serves me, is Evangelist." _Wor._--"There is not a more rough way to be found in the world than is that he hath bade thee take; and that thou shalt find if thou wilt be led by him. Hear me: I have seen more years than thou. Thou art like to meet with, on the way which thou dost go, great griefs, pain, lack of food and clothes, sword, fierce beasts, gloom, and, in a word, death, and what not! And why should a man run such risks, just on the word of a strange guide?" _Chr._--"Why, sir, I think I care not what things I meet with in the way, if so be I can get ease from my pack." _Wor._--"But why wilt thou seek for ease this way, as such dire ills go with it? the more so, hadst thou but borne with me, I could aid thee to get what thou dost wish, free from the risks that thou in this way wilt run." _Chr._--"Pray, sir, make known this boon to me." _Wor._--"Why, in yon town (the town is known as Morality) there dwells a squire whose name is Legality, a man of good name, that has skill to help men off with such loads as thine from their backs. To him, as I said, thou canst go and get help in a trice; and if he should not be at home, he hath a fair young son, whose name is Civility, that can do it as well as his sage sire." Now was Christian at a stand what to do; but soon he thought, "If this be true which this squire hath said, my best course is to be led by him"; and with that he thus spake more. _Chr._--"Sir, which is the way to this good man's house?" _Wor._--"By that hill you must go, and the first house you come at is his." So Christian went out of his way to go to Mr. Legality's house for help. But lo, when he was got now hard by the hill, that side of it that was next the path did hang so much, that Christian durst not move on, lest the hill should fall on his head: for which cause there he stood still, and he wot not what to do. But soon there came fierce flames of fire out of the hill, each flash of which made Christian dread he should be burnt. And now he was wroth for the heed he gave to Mr. Worldly-wiseman's words. And with that he saw Evangelist come forth to meet him; and thus did he speak with Christian: "What dost thou here?" said he. At which words Christian knew not what to say. Then said Evangelist to him, "Art not thou the man that I found in tears back of the walls of the City of Destruction?" _Chr._--"Yes, dear sir, I am the man. I met with a squire, so soon as I had got clear of the Slough of Despond, who made me think that I might, in the town which did face me, find a man that could take off my load." _Evan._--"What said that squire to you?" _Chr._--"He bid me with speed get rid of my load; and said I, 'I am hence bound for yon gate to gain more news how I may get to the place where my load may be cast off.' So he said that he would show me the best way: 'which way,' said he, 'will take you to a squire's house that hath skill to take off these loads.' So I put faith in him, and set out of that way till I came to this, if so be I might soon get ease from my load." Then said Evangelist, "Stand still a short time, that I may show thee the words of God." Then Christian fell down at his feet as dead, and did cry, "Woe is me, for I am lost!" At the sight of which Evangelist caught him by the right hand, and said, "Be not frail, but have faith." Then Evangelist went on, and said, "Give heed to the things that I shall tell thee of. The man that met thee is one Worldly-wiseman, and he bears a fit name; in part, for that his creed is what the world holds; and in part, for that he loves such faith best, for it saves him from the cross. Now, there are three things in this man's words that thou must be sure and shun--his scheme to turn thee out of the way; his wish to make the cross a shame to thee; and his guile, which did tempt thee to set thy feet in that way that leads to death. "And for this thou must bear in mind to whom he sent thee, no less than his lack of skill to rid thee of thy load. He to whom thou wast sent for ease, by name Legality, has not the gift to set thee free from thy load. No man, as yet, got rid of his load by him: no, nor till the end of time is like to be. 'By the works of the law none can be made just,' for by the deeds of the law no man that lives can be rid of his load; and as for his son, Civility, though he wears soft looks, he is but a knave, and must fail to help thee. Trust me, there is naught else in all this noise that thou hast heard of this spot but a scheme to lure thee of thy soul's bliss." Now Christian felt sure fear of death, and burst out in a shrill cry, full of woe, as he did curse the time in which he met with Mr. Worldly-wiseman. Still did he say he was the chief of fools for the heed he gave to him. This done, he spoke to Evangelist in words and sense thus: _Chr._--"Sir, what think you? Is there hope? May I now go back and go up to the small gate? Shall I not be sent back from thence in shame?" Then said Evangelist to him, "Thy sin is most great, for by it thou hast done two bad deeds: thou hast left the way that is good to tread in wrong paths, yet will the man at the gate let thee pass, for he has _good-will_ for men." Then did Christian make up his mind to go back, and Evangelist, when he did kiss his cheek, gave him a smile, and bid him God speed. CHAPTER IV. THE WICKET-GATE. SO Christian went on with haste, nor spake he to a man by the way; nor if a man spoke to him, would he deign him a word; so in course of time Christian got up to the gate. Now at the top of the gate there were writ these words: ="Knock, and it shall ope to you."= Hence he did knock more than once or twice. At last there came a grave man to the gate, whose name was Goodwill, who sought to know who was there? and whence he came? and what he would have? _Chr._--"Here is a poor vile wight; I come from the City of Destruction, but am bound for Mount Zion, that I may get safe from the wrath to come. I would, for this cause, sir, know if you will let me in." "I will, with all my heart," said he; and with that he drew back the gate. So when he was got in, the man of the gate said to him, "Who told him to come to that place?" _Chr._--"Evangelist bid me come here and knock, as I did; and he said that you, sir, would tell me what I must do." _Good._--"But how is it that no one came with you?" _Chr._--"For that none of those who dwelt near me saw their plight as I saw mine." _Good._--"Did one or more of them know that you meant to come here?" _Chr._--"Yes; my wife and bairns saw me at the first, and did call to me to turn round." _Good._--"But did none of them go in quest of you, to urge you to go back?" _Chr._--"Yes, both Obstinate and Pliable; but when they saw that they could not gain their end, Obstinate went back, and did rail the while, but Pliable came with me a short way." _Good._--"But why did he not come through?" _Chr._--"We, in truth, came on side by side till we came to the Slough of Despond, in the which he fell souse. But as he got out on that side next to his own house, he told me I should hold the brave land for him. So he went his way, and I came mine." Then said Goodwill, "Ah, poor man!" "In sooth," said Christian, "I have said the truth of Pliable; but I, too, did turn on one side to go in the way of death, and I was led to this by the base arts of one Mr. Worldly-wiseman." [Illustration: CHRISTIAN AT THE WICKET-GATE.] _Good._--"Oh, did he light on you? What! he would have had you seek for ease at the hands of Mr. Legality: they are both of them true cheats. But were you led by him?" _Chr._--"Yes, as far as I durst. I went to find out Mr. Legality, till I thought the mount that stands by his house would have come down on my head." _Good._--"That mount has been the death of a host, and will be the death of still more." _Chr._--"Why, in truth, I do not know what hap had come to me there, had not Evangelist by good luck met me once more, while I did muse in the midst of my dumps: but it was God's grace that he came to me twice, for else I could not have got to this place." _Good._--"We shut out none, and take no note of what they have done up to the time they come here: 'they in no wise are cast out': and hence, good Christian, come a wee way with me, and I will teach thee in what way thou must go. Look right in front of thee; dost thou see this strait way? That is the way thou must go." "But," said Christian, "are there no turns or bends by which one who has not trod it may lose his way?" _Good._--"Yes, there are some ways butt down on this; and they are bent and wide: but thus thou canst judge the right from the wrong, that the first is straight and not broad." Then Christian strove to gird up his loins, and to set out on his way. So he with whom he had held speech told him, "That by that he had gone some way from the gate he would come at the house of the Interpreter, at whose door he should knock, and he would show him good things." CHAPTER V. THE INTERPRETER'S HOUSE. THEN he went on till he came to the house of the Interpreter, at which he gave some smart knocks. At last one came to the door, and did ask who was there? "Sir," said Christian, "I am a man that am come from the City of Destruction, and am bound for the Mount Zion; and I was told by the man that stands at the gate at the head of this way, that if I came here you would show me good things, such as would be a help to one on the road." Then said the Interpreter, "Come in; I will show thee that which will be of use to thee." So he told his man to light the lamp, and bid Christian go in his track. Then he had him in a room where none else could come, and bid his man fold back the door, the which when he had done Christian saw the print of one, most grave of look, hung up on the wall, and this was the style of it: It had eyes that did stare at the sky, the best of books in its hand, and the law of truth was writ on its lips; the world was at its back, it stood as if it did plead with men, and a crown of gold did hang nigh its head. Then said Christian, "What means this?" _Inter._--"I have shown thee this print first for this cause, that the man whose print this is, is the sole man whom the Lord of the place where thou dost go hath sent as thy guide through all the twists and turns thou wilt meet with in the way; hence take good heed to what I have shown thee, and bear well in thy mind what thou hast seen, lest, in thy route, thou meet with some that say they can lead thee right; but their way goes down to death." Then he took him by the hand, and led him to a large room on the ground floor that was full of dust; the which the Interpreter did call for a man to sweep. Then said the Interpreter to a girl that stood by, "Bring hence from yon brook the means to lay this dust." Then said Christian, "What means this?" The Interpreter thus spoke: "This room on the ground floor is the heart of man that has not been made pure by the sweet grace of Christ's Word. The _dust_ is the sin that cleaves to him through the Fall, and the lust that hath made foul the whole man. He who at first swept is the Law; but she that brought the means to lay the dust is the Gospel." I saw too, in my dream, that the Interpreter took him by the hand, and had him in a small room, where sat two youths, each one in his chair. The name of the most grown was Passion, and of the next, Patience: Passion did not seem at rest, but Patience was quite still. Then I saw that one came to Passion and brought him a bag of rich gifts, and did pour it down at his feet; the which he took up and felt joy in it, while at Patience he gave a laugh of scorn. But I saw but a time, and he had got rid of all, and had naught left but rags. Then said Christian to the Interpreter, "I would have you make this thing more clear to me." So he said, "These two lads are signs: Passion of the men of this world, and Patience of the men of that which is to come; for, as here thou dost see, Passion will have all now, this year, that is to say in this world, so are the men of this world; they must have all their good things now; they durst not stay till next year, that is till the next world, for their share of good." Then said Christian, "Now I see that Patience has the best sense, and that on more grounds than one; for that he stays for the best things, and in like way for that he will have the gain of his when Passion has naught but rags." [Illustration: INTERPRETER SHOWS CHRISTIAN THE ROOM FULL OF DUST] _Inter._--"Nay, you may add one more, to wit, the joys of the next world will not wear out, but these are soon gone." I saw, in like way, that the Interpreter took him once more by the hand, and led him to a choice place, where was built a great house, fine to look at; at the sight of which Christian felt much joy; he saw, too, on the top of it some folk that did walk to and fro, who were clad all in gold. Then the Interpreter took him, and led him up nigh to the door of the great house; and lo, at the door stood a host of men as did wish to go in, but durst not. There, too, sat a man a short way from the door, at the side of a board, with a book and his desk in front of him, to take the name of him that should come in. More than this, he saw that in the porch stood groups of men, clad in coats of mail, to keep it, who meant to do all the hurt and harm they could to the man that would go in. Now was Christian in a sore maze. At last, when all the men did start back for fear of the men who bore arms, Christian saw a man of a bold face come up to the man that sat there to write, and say, "Set down my name, sir"; the which when he had done, he saw the man draw his sword, and put a casque on his head, and rush to the door on the men who had arms, who laid on him with fierce force; but the man, not at all put out of the way, fell to, and did cut and hack with all his might: so, when he had got and dealt scores of wounds to those that strove to keep him out, he cut his way through them all, and made straight for the great house. "Now," said Christian, "let me go hence." "Nay, stay," said the Interpreter, "till I have shown thee some more; and then thou shalt go on thy way." [Illustration: Just as Christian came up with the cross, his load got loose from his neck, and fell from off his back. (_Page 25_) (_The Pilgrim's Progress._)] So he took him by the hand once more, and led him to a room dark as pitch, where there sat a man in a steel cage. Now the man to look on was most sad; and he gave sighs as if he would break his heart. The man said, "I once did seem to be what I was not fair in mine own eyes, and in the eyes of those that knew me. I was once, as I thought, fair for the Celestial City, and went so far as to have joy at the thoughts that I should get there." _Chr._--"Well, but what art thou now?" _Man._--"I am now a man lost to hope." _Chr._--"But how didst thou get in this state?" _Man._--"I did sin in face of the light of the World, and the grace of God. I made the Spirit grieve, and he is gone." Then said Christian, "Is there no hope, but you must be kept in the steel cage of gloom?" _Man._--"None at all." _Chr._--"But canst thou not now grieve and turn?" _Man._--"God hath not let me; his Word gives me no aid to faith; yea, he hath shut me up in this steel cage; nor can all the men in the world let me out." Then said the Interpreter to Christian, "Let this man's wails be dwelt on by thee, and cease not to teach thee how to act." So he took Christian and led him to a room where one did rise out of bed; and as he put on his clothes he did shake and quake. Then said Christian, "Why doth this man thus shake?" So he spoke and said, "This night as I was in my sleep I dreamt, and lo, the sky grew black as ink, when flame flit from the clouds; on which I heard a dread noise, that put me in throes of pain. So I did lift up my eyes in my dream, and saw a man sit on a cloud, with a huge host near to him. I heard, then, a voice that said, 'Come forth, ye dead, and meet your Judge!' And with that the rocks rent, the graves did gape, and the dead that were in them came forth. Then I saw the man that sat on the cloud fold back the book and bid the world draw near. I heard it, in like way, told to them that were near the man that sat on the cloud, 'Bind up the tares, and the chaff, and the stalks, and cast them in the lake that burns with fire.' Then said the voice to the same men, 'Put up my wheat in the barn!' and with that I saw a host caught up in the clouds, but I was left stay." _Chr._--"But what was it that made you so quake at this sight?" _Man._--"Why, I thought that the day of doom had come, and that I was not fit to meet it. But this made me fear most, that some were caught up while I was left." Then said the Interpreter to Christian, "Hast thou thought well on all these things?" _Chr._--"Yes; and they put me in hope and fear." _Inter._--"Well, keep all things so in thy mind that they may be as a goad in thy sides, to prick thee on in the way thou must go." Then Christian girt up his loins, and thought but of the long road he had to tread. [Illustration: So I saw that just as Christian came up to the cross, his load got loose from his neck, and fell from off his back.--Page 25. _Pilgrim's Progress._] CHAPTER VI. THE CROSS AND THE CONTRAST. NOW I saw in my dream that the high road had on each side a wall for a fence, and that wall went by the name of Salvation. Up this way, then, did Christian run with his load, till he came to a place where was a high slope, and on that place stood a cross, and a short way from it in the vale, a tomb. So I saw in my dream that just as Christian came up with the cross, his load got loose from his neck, and fell from off his back, and did roll till it came to the mouth of the grave, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. Then was Christian full glad, and said, with a gay heart, "He hath brought me rest by his grief, and life by his death." Then he stood still for a short time to look with awe, for it was a strange thing to him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his load. I saw then in my dream that he went on thus till he came to a vale, where he saw three men in deep sleep, with gyves on their heels. The name of the one was Simple; the next, Sloth; and the third, Presumption. Christian went to them, if so be he might rouse them; so he said in a loud voice, "You are like them that sleep on the top of a mast, for the Dead Sea is low down at your feet, a gulf that no plumb line can sound; get up, hence and come on." With this they gave a glum look at him, and spoke in this sort: Simple said, "I see no cause for fear"; Sloth said, "Yet some more sleep"; and Presumption said, "Each tub must stand on its own end." And so they lay down to sleep once more, and Christian went on his way. [Illustration: FORMALIST AND HYPOCRISY COMING INTO THE WAY OVER THE WALL.] Yet felt he grief to think that men in that sad plight should so spurn the kind act of him that of his own free will sought to help them. And as he did grieve from this cause, he saw two men roll off a wall, on the left hand of the strait way. The name of the one was Formalist, and the name of the next Hypocrisy. So they drew up nigh him, who thus held speech with them: _Chr._--"Sirs, whence came you, and where do you go?" _Form. and Hyp._--"We were born in the land of Vainglory, and are bent for praise to Mount Zion." _Chr._--"Why came you not in at the gate which stands at the head of the way?" They said, "That to go to the gate to get in was by all their horde thought too far round." _Chr._--"But will it not be thought a wrong done to the Lord of the town where we are bound, thus to break his law which he hath made known to us?" They told him, "That this act of theirs, as it stood for so long a time, would no doubt be thought good in law by a just judge; and more than this," said they, "if we get in the way, what boots it which way we get in? If we are in, we are in. Thou art but in the way, who, as we see, came in at the gate; and we too are in the way, that fell from the top of the wall. In what, now, is thy state a whit more good than ours?" _Chr._--"I walk by the rule of my Lord; you walk by the rude quirks of your vague whims. At this time you count but as thieves in the sight of the Lord of the way hence I doubt you will not be found true men at the end of the way. By laws and rules you will not get safe, since you came not in by the door. I have, too, a mark on my brow, which you may not have seen, which one of my Lord's most stanch friends put there, in the day that my load fell from off my back. More than this, I will tell you that I then got a roll with a seal on it, to cheer me while I read it, as I go on the way: I was told to give it in at the Celestial Gate, as a sure sign that I, too, should go in at the right time: all which things I doubt you want, and want them for that you came not in at the gate." CHAPTER VII. THE HILL DIFFICULTY. I SAW then that they all went on till they came to the foot of the Hill Difficulty, at the end of which was a spring. There were in the same place two ways more than that which came straight from the gate: one bent to the left hand, and the next to the right, at the base of the hill; but the strait way lay right up the hill; and the name of that path up the side of the hill is known as Difficulty. Christian now went to the spring and drank of it to cool his blood and quench his thirst, and then he set forth to go up the hill. The two with whom he had held speech in like way came to the foot of the hill; but when they saw that the hill was steep and high, and that there were two more ways to go, and as they thought that these two ways might meet in the long run with that up which Christian went, on the rear side of the hill,--hence they made up their minds to go in those ways. Now the name of one of those ways was Danger, and the name of the next Destruction. So the one took the way which is known as Danger, which led him to a great wood; and he who was with him took straight up the way to Destruction, which led to a wide field full of dark cliffs, where he made a slip, and fell, and rose no more. I then cast my eyes on Christian, and I saw that from a run he came to a walk, and at last had to climb on his hands and his knees, so steep was the place. [Illustration: Timorous was afraid of wild beasts and ran down the hill.--Page 29. _Pilgrim's Progress._] Now half the way to the top of the hill was a nook made of trees, fair to look on, made by the Lord of the hill for the good of such as trod that place. There, then, Christian got; there, too, he sat down to rest him. Thus sought he cheer a while, when he fell to doze, and then went off in a fast sleep. Now as he slept there came one to him, who woke him and said, "Go to the ant, thou man of sloth; think of her ways, and be wise." And with that Christian did start up, and went on till he came to the top of the hill. Now when he was got up to the top of the hill, there came two men who ran right up to him so as to push him. The name of the one was Timorous, and of the next Mistrust; to whom Christian said, "Sirs, what doth ail you? You run the wrong way." Timorous said that they were bound to the City of Zion, and had got up to that hard place; "but," said he, "the more we go on the more risks we meet with; hence did we turn, and mean not to go back." "Yes," said Mistrust, "for just in front of us lie a brace of wild beasts in the way--that they sleep or wake we know not--and we could not think if we came in their reach but they would at once pull us in bits." Then Mistrust and Timorous ran down the hill, and Christian went on his way. But as he dwelt on what he heard from the men, the sun went down; and this made him once more think how vain it was for him to have sunk to sleep. Now, he brought to mind the tale that Mistrust and Timorous had told him of how they took fright at the sight of the wild beasts. Then did Christian muse thus: "These beasts range in the night for their prey; and if they should meet with me in the dark, how should I shift them? how should I get free from their fangs? they would tear me to bits." Thus he went on his way. But, while he did mourn his dire hap, he lift up his eyes, and lo, there was a grand house in front of him, the name of which was Beautiful, and it stood just on the side of the high road. CHAPTER VIII. THE PALACE BEAUTIFUL. SO I saw in my dream that he made haste and went forth, that, if so be, he might get a place to lodge there. Now ere he had gone far, he saw two wild beasts in the way. (The beasts were made fast, but he saw not the chains.) Then he took fright, and thought to go back; for he thought death of a truth did face him. But when the man at the lodge, whose name is Watchful, saw that Christian made a halt, he did cry to him and say, "Is thy strength so small? Fear not the wild beasts, for they are in chains, and are put there for test of faith where it is, and to make known those that have none: keep in the midst of the path, and no hurt shall come to thee." Then did he clap his hands, and went on till he came and stood in front of the gate where the Porter was. Then said Christian to the Porter, "Sir, what house is this? and may I lodge here this night?" The Porter said, "This house was built by the Lord of the hill, and he built it to aid and guard such as speed this way." The Porter, in like way, sought to know whence he was; and to what place he was bound? [Illustration: This is Mistrust, whom Christian met going the wrong way.--Page 29. _Pilgrim's Progress._] _Chr._--"I am come from the City of Destruction; and am on my way to Mount Zion; but as the sun is now set, I wish, if I may, to lodge here this night." _Por._--"But how doth it hap that you come so late? The sun is set." _Chr._--"I had been here ere this, but that, mean man that I am, I slept in the nook that stands on the side of the hill." _Por._--"Well, I will call out one of the maids of this place, who will, if she likes your talk, bring you in to the rest of the folk, as such are the rules of the house." So Watchful rang a bell, at the sound of which came out at the door of the house a grave and fair maid, whose name was Discretion, who would know why she had got a call. The Porter said, "This man is in the way from the City of Destruction to Mount Zion, but as he doth tire, and as night came on, he sought to know if he might lodge here for the night: so I told him I would call for thee, who, when thou dost speak with him, may do as seems to thee good, and act up to the law of the house." Then she would know whence he was, and to what place he was bound, and his name. So he said, "It is Christian." So a smile sat on her lips, but the tears stood in her eyes; and, when she gave a short pause, she said, "I will call forth two or three more of those who dwell here." So she ran to the door, and did call out Prudence, Piety, and Charity; and when she had held more speech with him, he was brought in, and made known to all who dwelt in the house, some of whom met him at the porch, and said, "Come in, thou whom the Lord doth bless; this house was built by the Lord of the hill, to give good cheer to such who, like you, grow faint by the way." Then he bent his head, and went in with them to the house. So when he was come in and set down, they gave him to drink, and then they thought that till the last meal was brought up, some of them should have some wise talk with Christian, so as to make good use of time. [Illustration: CHRISTIAN IS QUESTIONED BY DISCRETION.] _Pi._--"Come, good Christian, since we have shown such love for you as to make you our guest this night, let us, if so be we may each get good by it, talk with you of all things that you have met with on your way." [Illustration: This is Formalist, whom Christian saw roll from the top of a wall, as if to go to Zion.--Page 33. _Pilgrim's Progress._] _Chr._--"With a right good will; and I am glad your mind is so well bent." _Pi._--"How was it that you came out of your land in this way?" _Chr._--"It was as God would have it; for when I was full of the fears of doom, I did not know where to go; but by chance there came a man then to me, whilst I shook and wept, whose name is Evangelist, and he told me how to reach the small gate, which else I should not have found, and so set me in the way that hath led me straight to this house." _Pi._--"But did you not come by the house of the Interpreter?" _Chr._--"Yes, and did see such things there, the thoughts of which will stick by me as long as I live; in chief, three things; to wit, how Christ, in spite of the Foe of Man, keeps up his work of grace in the heart; how the man, through sin, had got quite out of hopes of God's ruth; and, in like way, the dream of him that thought in his sleep the day of doom was come." _Pi._--"And what saw you else in the way?" _Chr._--"Saw! Why, I went but a wee way and I saw One, as I thought in my mind, hang and bleed on a tree; and the sheer sight of him made my load fall off my back; for I did groan through the great weight, but then it fell down from off me." _Pi._--"But you saw more than this, did you not?" _Chr._--"The things that I have told you were the best; yet some more things I saw, as, first of all, I saw three men, Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, lie in sleep, not far out of the way as I came, with gyves on their heels; but do you think I could rouse them? I saw, in like way, Formalist and Hypocrisy come and roll from the top of a wall, to go, as they fain would have me think, to Zion; but they were lost in a trice, just as I did tell them; but they would not heed my words." _Pr._--"Do you think at times of the land from whence you came?" _Chr._--"Yes, but with much shame and hate." _Pr._--"Do you not yet bear hence with you some of the things that you well knew there?" _Chr._--"Yes, but much in strife with my will; the more so the crass thoughts of my heart, with which all the folk of my land, as well as I, would find joy; but now all those things are my grief, and might I but choose mine own things, I would choose not to think of those things more; but when I would do that which is best, that which is worst is with me." _Pr._--"And what is it that makes you so long to go to Mount Zion?" _Chr._--"Why, there I hope to see Him live that did hang dead on the cross; and there I hope to be rid of all those things that to this day are in me and do vex me: there they say there is no death; and there I shall dwell with such folk as I like best." Then said Charity to Christian, "Have you bairns, and have you a wife?" _Chr._--"I have a wife and four small bairns." _Char._--"And why did you not bring them on with you?" Then Christian wept and said, "Oh, fain would I have done it! but they were all of them loath to let me leave them." _Char._--"But you should have sought to show them the risks they ran when they held back." [Illustration: Hypocrisy would fain have Christian think he was on the way to Zion.--Page 34. _Pilgrim's Progress._] _Chr._--"So I did; and told them, too, that God had shown to me how that our town would come to wrack; but they thought I did but mock, and they put no faith in what I said." _Char._--"But what could they say to show cause why they came not?" [Illustration: CHRISTIAN TELLS CHARITY AND HER SISTERS ABOUT HIS FAMILY.] _Chr._--"Why, my wife was loath to lose this world; and my bairns were bent on the rash joys of youth; so, what by this thing, and what by that thing, they left me to roam in this lone way." _Char._--"But did you not with your vain life damp all that you by words made use of as force to bring them off with you?" _Chr._--"In sooth, I must not say aught for my life, as I know full well what blurs there are in it. I know, too, that a man by his deeds may soon set at naught what by sound speech and wit of words he doth strive to fix on some for their good. Yet this I can say, I took heed not to give them cause, by a false act, to shirk the step I took, and not set out with me. Yea, for this sole thing they would tell me I was too nice; and that I would not touch of things in which they saw no guile." _Char._--"In truth, Cain did hate him who came of the same blood, for that his works were bad, and Abel's not so; and if thy wife and bairns have thought ill of thee for this, they show by it that they are foes to good; and thou hast set free thy soul from their blood." Now I saw in my dream that thus they sat and spoke each to each till the meal was laid on the board; and all their talk while they ate was of the Lord of the hill; as, in sooth, of what he had done, and why it was he did what he did, and why he had built that house. They, in like way, gave prompt proof of what they said, and that was, he had stript him of his rich robes, that he might do this for the poor; and that they heard him say, with stern stress, that he would not dwell in the Mount of Zion in a lone way. They said, too, that he made a host of poor ones kings, though by the law of their birth they were born to live on bare alms, and their first state had been low and bad. Thus they spoke, this one to that one, till late at night; and when they had put them in the Lord's care they went to rest. [Illustration: Then he set forth: but Discretion, Piety, Charity, and Prudence would go with him down to the foot of the hill. (_Page 38_) (_The Pilgrim's Progress._)] The next day they took him and had him in the place in which arms were kept, where he was shown all sorts of things which their Lord had put there for such as he, as sword, shield, casque, plate for breast, _All-prayer_, and shoes that would not wear out. And there was here as much of this as would fit out a host of men to serve the Lord. In like way did they show him some of the means with which some of his friends had done things that strike one with awe. He was shown the jaw-bone of the ass with which Samson did such great feats. More than this, he was shown the sling and stone with which David slew Goliath of Gath. But more things still were shown to him, in all of which Christian felt much joy. This done, they went to their rest once more. Then I saw in my dream that on the morn he got up to go forth, but they fain would have him stay till the next day; "and then," said they, "we will, if the day be clear, show you the Delectable Mountains, which," they said, "would yet the more add to his bliss, for that they were yet more nigh the port than the place where at that time he was." So he thought it well to stay. When the morn was up, they had him to the top of the house, and bid him look south; so he did, and lo, a long way off, he saw a fair land, full of high hills, clad with woods, vine grounds, fruits of all sorts, plants as well, with springs and founts, most bright to look on. They said it was Immanuel's Land; "and it is as free," said they, "as this hill is to and for all that are in the way. And when thou dost come there from thence," said they, "thou canst see to the gate of the Celestial City, as those who watch their flocks and live there will show thee." Now he thought it was due time to set forth, and they were glad that he should. "But first," said they, "let us go once more to where the arms are kept." So they did. And when he came there they clad him in coat of mail, which was of proof, from head to foot, lest he should chance meet with foes in the way. He then, in this gear, came out with his friends to the gate, and there he would know of the Porter "if he saw one pass by?" Then the Porter said "Yes." _Chr._--"Pray did you know him?" _Por._--"I did ask his name, and he told me it was Faithful." "Oh," said Christian, "I know him: he is from the same town, and lives nigh to where I dwell: he comes from the place where I was born. How far do you think he may be on the road?" _Por._--"He has got by this time more than to the foot of the hill." Then he set forth: but Discretion, Piety, Charity, and Prudence would go with him down to the foot of the hill. Then said Christian, "As it was _hard_ to come up, so, so far as I can see, it is a _risk_ to go down." "Yes," said Prudence, "so it is; for it is a hard thing for a man to go down in the Vale of Humiliation, as thou art now, and to catch no slip by the way; hence," said they, "we are come out to see thee safe down the hill." So he strove to go down, but with great heed; yet he caught a slip or two. Then I saw in my dream that these good friends, when Christian was gone down to the foot of the hill, gave him a loaf of bread, a flask of wine, and a bunch of dry grapes; and then he went on his way. CHAPTER IX. APOLLYON. BUT now, in this Vale of Humiliation, poor Christian was hard put to it; for he had gone but a short way, when he saw a foul fiend come through the field to meet him: his name is Apollyon. So he went on, and Apollyon met him. Now the ghoul did shock one's eyes to look on: he was clad with scales like a fish; he had wings like a huge bat, feet like a bear, and out of his throat came fire and smoke, and his mouth was as the mouth of the king of beasts. When he came up to Christian he gave him a look of scorn, and thus sought to sift him. _Apol._--"Whence came you? and to what place are you bound?" _Chr._--"I am come from the City of Destruction, which is the place of all ill, and am on my way to Mount Zion." _Apol._--"By this I know thou art one of my serfs; for all that land is mine; and I am the prince and god of it. How is it, then, that thou hast run off from thy king? Were it not that I hope thou wilt serve me yet more, I would strike thee now at one blow to the ground." _Chr._--"I was born, in sooth, in your realm, but to serve thee was hard, and your pay such as a man could not live on; 'for the meed of sin is death': for this cause, when I was come to years, I did, as some who think do, look out if so be I might mend my state. I have let my help to some one else; and to no less than the King of Kings." _Apol._--"Think yet, while thou art in cool blood, what thou art like to meet with in the way that thou dost go. Thou art not blind that for the most part those who serve him come to an ill end, for that they spurn my laws and walk not in my paths. What a host of them have been put to deaths of shame! And still thou dost count that to serve him is best; when, in sooth, he has not yet come from the place where he is, to save one that stood by his cause, out of my hands." _Chr._--"He does not seek so soon to save them, so as to try their love, and find if they will cleave to him to the end; and as for the ill end thou dost say they come to, that tells for their good: for to be set free now they do not much look for it; for they stay for their meed; and they shall have it when their Prince comes in the might of the bright hosts that wait on him." _Apol._--"Thou hast erst been false in thy turns to serve him; and how dost thou think to get pay of him?" _Chr._--"All this is true; but the Prince whom I serve and love is sure to show ruth. But, let me say, these faults held hold of me in thy land; for there I did suck them in, and they have made me groan and grieve for them; whence I have got the grace of my Prince." Then Apollyon broke out in a sore rage, and said, "I am a foe to this Prince: I hate him, his laws, and they who serve him. I am come out with the view to make thee yield." _Chr._--"Apollyon, take heed what you do; for I am on the King's high road, the way of grace; for which cause mind how you act." Then did Christian draw; for he saw it was time for him to stir; and Apollyon as fast made at him, and threw darts as thick as hail, by the which, in spite of all that Christian could do to shift it, Apollyon hit him in his head, his hand, and foot. This made Christian give some back: Apollyon then went to his work with heart, and Christian once more took heart, and met his foe as well as he could. Then Apollyon, as he saw his time had come, made up close to Christian, and as he strove to throw him gave him a dread fall; and with that Christian's sword flew out of his hand. Then said Apollyon, "I am sure of thee now!" and with that he did nigh press him to death; so that Christian had slight hope of life. But, as God would have it, while Apollyon dealt his last blow, by that means to make a full end of this good man, Christian at once put out his hand for his sword, caught it, and said, "When I fall, I shall then rise"; and with that gave him a fierce thrust, which made him give back as one that had got his death wound. Christian saw that, and made at him once more, while he said, "Nay, in all these things we more than gain the prize through him that loves us"; and with that Apollyon spread forth his foul wings and sped him off, that Christian saw no more of him. So when the fight came to a close, Christian said, "I will here give thanks to him that hath kept me out of the mouth of the chief of beasts, to him that did help me in the strife with Apollyon." Then there came to him a hand with some of the leaves of the "tree of life," the which Christian took and laid them on the wounds that he had got in the strife, and was made whole at once. CHAPTER X. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. NOW at the end of this vale was one more, known as the Vale of the Shade of Death, and Christian must needs go through it, for this cause, that the way to the Celestial City lay through the midst of it. I saw then in my dream, so far as the bounds of the vale, there was on the right hand a most deep ditch; that ditch is it to which the blind have led the blind in each age, and have both there lost their lives. Once more, lo, on the left hand there was a fell quag, in the which, strange to say, if a good man falls he finds no ground for his foot to stand on. The path was here quite strait, and hence good Christian was the more put to it; for when he sought in the dark to shun the ditch on the one hand, he was prone to tip on one side souse in the mire on the next. Nigh the midst of the vale I saw the mouth of hell to be, and it stood, too, hard by the side of the way. And at times the flame and smoke would come out so thick and with such force, that he had to put up his sword and seize more fit arms, known as _All-prayer_; so I heard him cry, "O Lord, I pray thee save my soul!" Thus he went on a great while; and as he came to a place where he thought he heard a band of fiends come forth to meet him, he stopt, and did muse what he had best to do. He brought to mind how he had of late held his foes at bay, and that the risk to go back might be much more than to go on. So he made up his mind to go on: yet the fiends did seem to come near and more near. But when they were come just at him he did cry with a loud voice, "I will walk in the strength of the Lord God": so they gave back, and came on no more. When Christian had trod on in this lorn state some length of time, he thought he heard the voice of a man, as if in front of him, say thus: "Though I walk through the vale of the shade of death I will fear no ill: for Thou art with me." Then was he glad for that he learnt from thence that some who fear God were in this vale as well as he; that God was with them, though in that dark and dire state. So he went on. And by and by the day broke. Then said Christian, "He doth turn the shade of death to morn." Now as morn had come, he gave a look back to see by the light of the day what risks he had gone through in the dark. So he had a more clear view of the ditch that was on the one hand, and the quag that was on the next; in like way he saw how strait the way was which lay twixt them both. And just at this time the sun rose; and this was one more boon to Christian: for, from the place where he now stood as far as to the end of the vale, the way was all through set so full of snares, traps, gins, and nets, here; and so full of pits, falls, deep holes, and slopes, down there; that had it now been dark, as it was when he came the first part of the way, had he had five times ten score souls, they had for this cause been cast off. But, as I said just now, the sun did rise. In this light hence he came to the end of the vale. CHAPTER XI. CHRISTIAN AND FAITHFUL. NOW as Christian went on his way he came to a small height, which was cast up so that those who came that way might see in front of them. Up there, then, Christian went: and, with a glance, saw Faithful some way on the road. At this Christian set out with all his strength, and soon got up with Faithful, and did, in sooth, leave him lag, so that the last was first. Then did Christian wear a proud smile, for that he had got the start of his friend: but as he did not take good heed to his feet, he soon struck some tuft and fell, and could not rise till Faithful came up to help him. Then I saw in my dream, they went on with good will side by side, and had sweet talk of all things that they had met with on their way: and thus Christian first spoke: "My most dear friend Faithful, I am glad I have come up with you; and that God hath so made us of one mind that we can walk as friends in this so fair a path. Tell me now what you have met with in the way as you came: for I know you have met with some things, or else it may be writ for a strange pass." [Illustration: FAITHFUL COMES TO THE HELP OF CHRISTIAN] _Fai._--"I got clear of the slough that I see you fell in, and came up to the gate free from that risk. When I came to the foot of the hill known as Difficulty, I met with an old man, who would know what I was, and to what place I was bound? Then said the old man, 'Thou dost look like a frank soul: wilt thou stay and dwell with me for the pay that I shall give thee?' Then I did ask his name, and where he dwelt? He said, 'His name was Adam the First, and he dwelt in the Town of Deceit.' He told me, 'That his work was fraught with joys, and his pay, that I should be his heir at last.' I then would know what kin he had? He said, 'He had but three maids, "the Lust of the flesh, the Lust of the eyes, and the Pride of life," and that I should wive with one of them, if I would.'" _Chr._--"Well, and what close came the old man and you to at last?" _Fai._--"Why, at first I would lief go with the man, for I thought he spake full fair; but when I gave a look in his brow, as I spoke with him, I saw there writ, 'Put off the old man with his deeds.' Then it came red hot to my mind, that spite of all he said, and his smooth ways, when he got me home to his house he would sell me for a slave. So I went off from him: but just as I set round to go thence, I felt him take hold of my flesh, and give me such a dread twitch back, that I thought he did pull part of me with him. So I went on my way up the hill. "Now, when I had got nigh half way up, I gave a look back, and saw one move on in my steps, swift as the wind; so he came up with me just by the place where the bench stands. So soon as the man came up with me, it was but a word and a blow, for down he flung me, and laid me for dead. But, when I got free from the shock, I would know why it was he dealt with me so? He said, 'For that I did in my heart cleave to Adam the First': and with that he struck me one more fierce blow on the breast, and beat me down on the back. He had, no doubt, made an end of me, but that one came by and bid him stay his hand." [Illustration: This is Discontent, who would fain have Christian go back with him once more.--Page 47. _Pilgrim's Progress._] _Chr._--"Who was that that bid him stay his hand?" _Fai._--"I did not know him at first, but as he went by I saw the holes in his hands and in his side: then I felt sure that he was our Lord. So I went up the hill." _Chr._--"That man that came up with you was Moses. He spares not, nor knows he how to show grace to those that break his law. But did you not see the house that stood there on the top of the hill, on the side of which Moses met you?" _Fai._--"Yes, and the wild beasts, too, ere I came at it: but, as I had so much of the day to spend, I came by the man at the lodge, and then down the hill." _Chr._--"But, pray tell me, did you meet with no one in the Vale of Humility?" _Fai._--"Yes, I met with one Discontent, who would fain have me to go back once more with him: his cause was, for that the vale did not bear a good name." _Chr._--"Met you with naught else in that vale?" _Fai._--"Yes, I met with Shame: but of all men that I met with in my way, he, I think, bears the wrong name." _Chr._--"Why, what did he say to you?" _Fai._--"What! Why, he did flout at faith. He said it was a poor, low, mean thing for a man to mind faith; he said that a soul that shrinks from sin is not fit for a man. He said, too, that but few of the great, rich, or wise held my views; nor did those till they were led to be fools, and to be of a free mind to run the loss of all for none else knows what. More than this, he said such were of a base and low caste, and knew naught of those things which are the boast of the wise. Yea, he did hold me to it that it was a shame to ask grace of folk for slight faults, or to give back that which I did take. He said, too, that faith made a man grow strange to the great, and made him own and prize the base: 'and is not this,' said he, 'a shame?'" _Chr._--"And what did you say to him?" [Illustration: FAITHFUL RESISTS SHAME.] _Fai._--"Say! I could not tell what to say at first. Yea, he put me so to it that my blood came up in my face; aye, this Shame did fetch it up, and had, too, beat me quite off. But at last I thought that that which men prize was base in the sight of God. Hence, thought I, what God says is best, _is_ best, though all the men in the world are foes to it. As, then, God likes his faith; as God likes a soul that shrinks from sin; and as they are most wise who wear the guise of fools to gain a crown: and that the poor man that loves Christ more rich than the man that sways a world, that hates him; Shame, go thy way, thou art a foe to my soul's weal. But, in sooth, this Shame was a bold knave; I could scarce shake him out of my way: but at last I told him it was but in vain to strive with me from that time forth. And when I shook him off, then I sang-- "The tests that those men meet, with all men else That bow their wills to the high call of God, Are great; and well, I wist, do suit the flesh, And come, and come, and come e'en yet once more; That now, or some time else, we by them may Be held in thrall, flung down, and cast sheer off: O, let those in the way, let all such, then, Be sharp, and quick, and quit them like true men." _Chr._--"I am glad, my friend, that thou didst strive with this knave in so brave a way; for he is so bold as to trace our steps in the streets, and to try to put us to shame in the sight of all men; that is, to make us feel shame in that which is good." _Fai._--"I think we must cry to Him for help in our frays with Shame, that would have us 'Stand up for truth on the earth.'" _Chr._--"You say true: but did you meet none else in that vale?" _Fai._--"No, not I; for I had the sun with me all the rest of the way through that, as well as through the Vale of the Shade of Death." _Chr._--"It was well for you; I am sure it did fare far worse with me. I thought I should have lost my life there more than once: but at last day broke, and the sun rose, and I went through that which was to the front of me with far more ease and peace." CHAPTER XII. TALKATIVE. MORE than this, I saw in my dream, that as they went on, Faithful saw a man whose name is Talkative, walk some way off by the side of them: for in this place there was full room for them all to walk. To this man Faithful spoke in such wise: "Friend, to what place dost thou go? dost thou go to the blest land?" _Talk._--"I am bound to that same place." _Fai._--"Come on then, and let us go side by side, and let us spend our time well, by wise speech that tends to use." _Talk._--"To talk of things that are good, I like much, with you or with some one else. For, to speak the truth, there are but few that care thus to spend their time, as they are on their way." _Fai._--"That is, in sooth, a thing to mourn; for what thing so meet for the use of the tongue and mouth of men on earth, as are the things of the great God on high?" _Talk._--"I like you right well, for what you say is full of force; and, I will add, what thing doth so please or what brings such a boon as to talk of the things of God?" _Fai._--"That is true; but to gain good by such things in our talk, should be that which we seek." [Illustration: Faithful saw a man whose name is Talkative, who said, "Friend, to what place dost thou go? dost thou go to the blest land?"--Page 50. _Pilgrim's Progress._] _Talk._--"That is it that I said; for to talk of such things is of great use: for by this means a man may get to know a fair share of things; as how vain are the things of earth; and how good are the things that fail not. Then, by this, a man may learn by talk what it is to mourn for sin, to have faith, to pray, to bear grief, or the like. By this, too, a man may learn what it is that soothes, and what are the high hopes set forth in the Word of the Grace of God; to his own peace." "Well, then," said Faithful, "what is that one thing that we shall at this time found our speech on?" _Talk._--"What you will: I will talk of things not of earth, or of things of earth; things of life, or things of grace; things pure, or things of the world; so that we but gain good by it." Now did Faithful think this strange; so he came up to Christian, and said to him in a soft voice, "What a brave friend have we got! Of a truth, this man will do well in the way." At this Christian gave a meek smile, and said, "This man, whom you so take to, will cheat with this tongue of his a score of them that know him not." _Fai._--"Do you know him then?" _Chr._--"Know him! Yes; his name is Talkative; he dwells in our town. I wist not how you should be strange to him." _Fai._--"Well, he seems to be a man of good looks." _Chr._--"That is, to them that know him not through and through: for he is best out of doors; near home his looks are as bad as you could find." _Fai._--"But I fain think you do but jest, as I saw you smile." _Chr._--"God grant not that I should jest in this case, or that I should speak false of one. I will let you see him in a clear light. This man cares not with whom he picks up, or how he talks: as he talks now with you, so will he talk when he is on the bench, with ale by his side; and the more drink he has in his crown, the more of these things he hath in his mouth." _Fai._--"Say you so? then am I wrong in my thoughts of this man." _Chr._--"Wrong! You may be sure of it. He talks of what it is to pray; to mourn for sin; of faith, and of the new birth; but he knows but how to talk of them. I have been in his home, and have seen him both in and out of doors, and I know what I say of him is the truth. His house is as void of the fear of God as the white of an egg is of taste. They pray not there, nor is there a sign of grief for sin: yea, the brute, in his kind, serves God more than he." _Fai._--"Well, my friend, I am bound to trust you; not for that you say you know him, but in like way, for that, like one who has the mind of Christ, you judge of men." _Chr._--"Had I known him no more than you I might, it may be, have thought of him as at the first you did; but all these things, yea, and much more as bad, which I do bring to mind, I can prove him to have the guilt of." _Fai._--"Well, I see that _to say_ and _to do_ are two things; and by and by I shall take more note of this." _Chr._--"They are two things, in sooth, and are no more like than are the soul and flesh; for, as the flesh void of the soul is but a dead lump: so to _say_, if it stand loose, is but a dead lump too. This Talkative does not know. He thinks that to _hear_ and to _say_ will make a good man, and thus he cheats his own soul. To hear is but to sow the seed; to talk is not full proof that fruit is deep in the heart and life; and let us feel sure that at the day of doom men shall reap just as they have sown. It will not be said then, 'Did you have faith?' but 'Did you _do_ or _talk_?' when they shall have their due meed." _Fai._--"Well, I was not so fond to be with him at first, but am as sick of him now. What shall we do to be rid of him?" _Chr._--"Be led by me, and do as I bid you, and you shall find that he will soon be sick of you, too, save God shall touch his heart and turn it." _Fai._--"What would you have me to do?" _Chr._--"Why, go to him, and take up some grave theme on the _might_ of faith." Then Faithful gave a step forth once more, and said to Talkative, "Come, what cheer? how is it now?" _Talk._--"Thank you, well; I thought we should have had a great deal of talk by this time." _Fai._--"Well, if you will, we will fall to it now; and since you left it with me to state the theme, let it be this: How doth the grace of God that saves, show forth signs when it is in the heart of man?" _Talk._--"I see, then, that our talk must be of the _might_ of things. Well, it is a right good theme, and I shall try to speak on it; and take what I say in brief, thus: First, where the grace of God is in the heart it makes one cry out on sin. In the next place----" _Fai._--"Nay, hold; let us dwell on one at once: I think you should say in lieu of this, it shows by the way in which the soul loathes its sin. A man may cry out on sin to aid his own ends, but he fails to loathe it, save God makes him do so. Some cry out on sin, just as the dame doth cry out on her child in her lap, when she calls it bad girl, and then falls to hug and kiss it." _Talk._--"You lie at the catch, I see." _Fai._--"No, not I; I but try to set things right. But what is the next thing by which you would prove to make known the work of grace in the heart?" _Talk._--"To know much of the deep things of God." _Fai._--"This sign should have been first; but, first or last, it too is false: for to know, and know well, the deep things in God's Word, may still be, and yet no work of grace in the soul. Yea, if a man know all things he may yet be naught; and so, for this cause, be no child of God. When Christ said, 'Do you know all these things?' and those who heard him said, 'Yes'; he did add, 'Blest are ye if ye do them.' He doth not lay the grace in that one _knows_, but in that one _does_ them." _Talk._--"You lie at the catch, once more: this is not for good." _Fai._--"Well, if you please, give one more sign how this work of grace doth show where it is." _Talk._--"Not I, for I see we shall not be of one mind." _Fai._--"Well, if you will not, will you give me leave to do it?" _Talk._--"You may do just as you like." _Fai._--"A work of grace in the soul doth show quite clear to him that hath it or to those that stand by. To him that hath it, thus: it gives him a deep sense of sin, of the ill that dwells in him. This sight and sense of things work in him grief and shame for sin; he finds, too, brought to view the Saviour of the world, and he feels he must close with him for life; at the which he finds he craves and thirsts for a pure life, pure at heart, pure with his kin, and pure in speech in the world: which in the broad sense doth teach him in his heart to hate his sin, to spurn it from his home, and to shed his light in the world; not by mere talk, as a false knave, or one with a glib tongue, may do, but by the force of faith and love to the might of the Word. And now, sir, as to these brief thoughts on the work of grace, if you have aught to say, say on; if not, then give me leave to ask one thing more of you." _Talk._--"Nay, my part is not now to say aught, but to hear; let me hence hear what you have got to speak." _Fai._--"It is this: do you in your heart feel this first part of what I said of it? and doth your life and walk bear proof of the same?" Then Talkative at first did blush, but when he got through this phase, thus he said: "You come now to what one feels in his heart, to the soul, and God. But I pray, will you tell me why you ask me such things?" _Fai._--"For that I saw you prone to talk, and for that I knew not that you had aught else but vague views. More than this, to tell you all the truth, I have heard of you that you are a man whose faith lies in talk, and that what you do gives the lie to what you say." _Talk._--"Since you are so quick to take up tales, and to judge in so rash a way as you do, I would lief think that you are some cross or dull mope of a man, not fit to hold talk with; and so, I take my leave." Then came up Christian, and said to his friend, "I told you how it would hap; your words and his lusts could not suit. He thought it best to leave you, than change his life." _Fai._--"But I am glad we had this brief talk; it may hap that he will think of it some time." _Chr._--"You did well to talk so plain to him as you did; there is not much of this straight course with men in these days. I wish that all men would deal with such as you have done: then should they have to change their ways, or the guild of saints would be too hot for them." Thus they went on and told of what they had seen by the way, and so made that way light which would, were not this the case, no doubt have been slow to them; for now they went through a wild. CHAPTER XIII. VANITY FAIR. NOW when they were got all but quite out of this wild, Faithful by chance cast his eye back, and saw one come in his wake, and he knew him. "Oh!" said Faithful to his friend, "who comes yon?" Then Christian did look, and said, "It is my good friend Evangelist." "Ay, and my good friend, too," said Faithful, "for it was he that set me the way to the gate." Then said Evangelist, "How did it fare with you, my friends, since the time we last did part? what have you met with, and what has been your life?" Then Christian and Faithful told him of all things that did hap to them in the way; and how, and with what toil, they had got to that place. "Right glad am I," said Evangelist, "not that you met with straits, but that you have come safe through them, and for that you have, in spite of some faults, kept in the way to this day. The crown is in sight of you, and it is one that will not rust; 'so run that you may gain it.' You are not yet out of the range of the foul fiend: let the joy of the Lord be not lost sight of, and have a firm faith in things not seen." [Illustration: CHRISTIAN AND FAITHFUL ENTER THE TOWN OF VANITY] Then did Christian thank him for his sage words, but told him at the same time, that they would have him speak more to them for their help the rest of the way. So Evangelist spoke thus: "My sons, you have heard in the truth of God's Word, that you must pass through sharp straits to reach the realm of bliss; for now as you see you are just out of this wild, and hence you will ere long come to a town that you will by and by see in front of you; and in that town you will be set round with foes, who will strain hard but they will kill you: and be you sure that one or both of you must seal the faith, which you hold, with blood. But when you are come to the town, and shall find what I have said come to pass, then think of your friend, and quit you both like men." Then I saw in my dream that, when they were got out of the wild, they soon saw a town in front of them; the name of that town is Vanity; and at the town there is a fair kept, known as Vanity Fair; at this fair are all such goods sold as lands, trades, realms, lusts, and gay things of all sorts, as lives, blood, souls, gold, pearls, stones of great worth, and what not. Now, as I said, the way to the Celestial City lies just through this town where this huge fair is kept: and he that will go there, and yet not go through this town, "must needs go out of the world." The Lord of Lords, when here, went through this town to his own realm, and that, too, on a day when a fair was held: yea, and as I think, it was Beelzebub, the chief lord of this fair, that sought of him to buy of his vain wares. But he had no mind to the goods, and hence left the town, nor did he lay out so much as a mite on these wares. Now these folk, as I said, must needs go through this fair. Well, so they did; but lo, just as they got to the fair, all the crowd in the fair rose up, and the town, too, as it were, and made much noise and stir for that they came there; they, of course, spoke the tongue of Canaan; but they that kept the fair were the men of this world; so that, from end to end of the fair, they did seem strange each to each. But that which made the crowd most laugh was, that these men set quite light by all their wares: they did not care so much as to look on them; and, if they sought for them to buy, they would stop their ears, and cry, "Turn off mine eyes, lest they see vain things," and look up, to show that their trade and wares were in the skies. At last things came to a sad pass, which led to great stir in the fair, so that all was noise and din, and law was set at naught. Now was word soon brought to the great one of the fair, who at once came down, and sent some of his best friends to sift those men by whom the fair was put in such a state. So the men were brought in their sight. But they that were sent to sift them did not think them to be aught than fools and mad, or else such as came to put all things out of gear in the fair. Hence they took them and beat them, and made them grime with dirt, and then put them in the cage, that they might be made a foul sight to all the men of the fair. But as the men bore up well, and gave good words for bad, some men in the fair, that were more just than the rest, sought to check and chide the base sort for the vile acts done by them to the men. One said, "That for aught they could see, the men were mild, and of sound mind, and sought to do harm to no one: and that there were some, that did trade in their fair, that ought far more to be put in the cage, than the men to whom they had done such ill." Thus, as soon as hot words did pass on both sides, they fell to some blows, and did harm each to each. Then were these two poor men brought up once more, when a charge was made that it was they who had got up the row that had been made at the fair. But Christian and Faithful bore the shame and the slur that was cast on them in so calm and meek a way that it won to their side some of the men of the fair. This put one part of the crowd in a still more fierce rage, so that they were bent on the death of these two men. Then were they sent back to the cage once more, till it was told what should be done with them. So they put them in, and made their feet fast in the stocks. Here, then, they once more brought to mind what they had heard from their true friend Evangelist, and were the more strong in their way and woes by what he told them would fall out to them. They, too, now sought to cheer the heart of each, that whose lot it was to die that he should have the best of it: hence each man did wish in the depth of his soul that he might have the crown. Then in due time they brought them forth to court, so that they might meet their doom. The name of the judge was Lord Hate-good; their plaint was "that they had made broils and feuds in the town, and had won some to their own most vile views, in scorn of the law of their prince." Then Faithful said "that he did but spurn that which had set up in face of Him that is the Most High. And," said he, "as for broils, I make none, as I am a man of peace; those that were won to us were won by their view of our truth and pure lives and they are but gone from the worst to the best." [Illustration: Then Superstition said: "My lord, I know not much of this man; but he is a most vile knave."--Page 61. _Pilgrim's Progress._] Then was it made known that they that had aught to say for their lord the king, to prove the guilt of him at the bar, should at once come forth and give in their proof. So there came in three men, to wit, Envy, Superstition, and Pickthank. Then stood forth Envy and said in this strain: "My lord, this man, in spite of his fair name, is one of the most vile men in our land. He does all that he can to fill all men with some of his wild views, which tend to the bane of our realm, and which he for the most part calls 'grounds of faith and a pure life.' And in chief I heard him once say that the faith of Christ and the laws of our town of Vanity could not be at one, as they were foes each to each." Then did they call Superstition, and sware him: so he said: "My lord, I know not much of this man, nor do I care to know more of him; but he is a most vile knave; I heard him say that our faith was naught, and such by which no man could please God. Which words of his, my lord, you quite well know what they mean, to wit, that we still work in vain, are yet in our sins, and at last shall be lost. And this is that which I have to say." Then was Pickthank sworn, and bid say what he knew in the cause of their lord the king to the hurt of the rogue at the bar. _Pick._--"My lord, and you great folk all, this wight I have known of a long time, and have heard him speak things that ought not to be said; for he did rail on our great prince, Beelzebub, and spoke ill of his firm friends; and he hath said, too, that if all men were of his mind, if so be there is not one of these great men should from that time forth stay in this town. More than this, he hath not felt dread to rail on you, my lord, who are now sent to be his judge." When this Pickthank had told his tale, the judge spoke to the man at the bar, and said, "Thou vile, base wretch, hast thou heard what those just and true men have sworn to thy bane?" _Fai._--"I say then, as a set off to what Mr. Envy hath said, I spoke not a word but this, 'That what rule, or laws, or rights, or men, are flat down on the Word of God, are foes to the faith of Christ.' "As to the next, to wit, Mr. Superstition, and his charge to my hurt, I said but this, 'That to serve God one needs a faith from on high; but there can be no faith from on high void of the will of God made known from the same source. Hence, all that is thrust on us that does not square with this will of God, is but of man's faith; which faith will not serve the life that is to come.' "As to what Mr. Pickthank hath said, 'That the prince of this town, with all the roughs, his slaves, are more fit for one in hell than in this town and land'; and so the Lord be good to me." Then the judge said to those who were to bind or loose him from the charge: "Ye who serve here to weigh this case, you see this man of whom so great a din hath been made in this town. It doth lie now on your souls to hang him, or save his life; but yet I think meet to teach you a few points of our law. [Illustration: Then stood forth Envy and said: "My lord, this man in spite of his fair name, is one of the most vile men in our land."--Page 61. _Pilgrim's Progress._] "There was an act made in the days of Pharaoh the great, friend to our prince, that, lest those of a wrong faith should spread and grow too strong for him, their males should be thrown in the stream. There was, in like way, an act made in the days of Nebuchadnezzar the great, who, too, did serve him, that such as would not fall down and laud the form he had set up, should be flung in a pit of fire. Now the pith of these laws this rogue has set at naught, not in mere thought but in word and deed as well. Twice, nay thrice, he speaks of our creed as a thing of naught; and for this, on his own words, he needs must die the death." Then went out those who had to weigh the case, whose names were Mr. Blind-man, Mr. No-good, Mr. Malice, Mr. Love-lust, Mr. Live-loose, Mr. Heady, Mr. High-mind, Mr. Enmity, Mr. Liar, Mr. Cruelty, Mr. Hate-light, and Mr. Implacable; who each one gave in his voice to Faithful's hurt, in his own mind; and then meant to make known his doom in face of the judge. And Mr. Blind-man, the chief, said, "I see, most plain, that this man is a foe; let us at once doom him to death." And so they did. The judge then put on the black cap, and said, "That he should be led from the place where he was to the place from whence he came, and there to be put to the worst death that could be thought off." They then brought him out to do with him as the law set forth: and first they whipt him; then they did pelt him with stones; and, last of all, they burnt him to dust at the stake. Thus came Faithful to his end. Now I saw that there stood in the rear of the crowd a state car, with two steeds, that did wait for Faithful; who, as soon as his foes had got rid of him, was caught up in it and straight sent off through the clouds, with sound of trump, the most near way to the Celestial Gate. But as for Christian, he was put back to jail; so there he lay for a space: but He that rules all things, in whose hand was the might of their rage, so wrought it that Christian, for that time got free from them and went his way. CHAPTER XIV. CHRISTIAN AND HOPEFUL. NOW I saw in my dream that Christian went not forth with none to cheer him; for there was one whose name was Hopeful, who set out with him, and made a grave pact that he would be his friend. So I saw that when they were just got out of the fair they came up with one that had gone on in front of them, whose name was By-ends. He told them that he came from the town of Fair-speech, and was bound for the Celestial City; but he told them not his name. _Chr._--"Pray, sir, what may I call you?" _By._--"I know not you, nor you me: if you mean to go this way, I shall be glad to go with you: if not, I must take things as they come." Then Christian stept on one side to his friend Hopeful, and said, "It runs in my mind that this is one By-ends, of Fair-speech, and if it be he, we have as keen a knave in our midst as dwells in all these parts." Then said Hopeful, "Ask him; I think he should not blush at his name." So Christian came up with him once more, and said, "Sir, is not your name Mr. By-ends, of Fair-speech?" _By._--"This is not my name; but, in sooth, it is a name I got in scorn from some that do not like me." _Chr._--"I thought, in sooth, that you were the man that I had heard of; and, to tell you what I think, I fear this name suits you more than you would wish we should think it doth." [Illustration: HOPEFUL joins company with CHRISTIAN] _By._--"Well, if you will thus think, I durst not help it: you shall find me a fair man, if you will make me one of you." _Chr._--"If you will go with us, you must go in the teeth of wind and tide; you must, in like wise, own Faith in his rags, as well as when in his sheen shoes; and stand by him, too, when bound in chains, as well as when he walks the streets with praise." _By._--"You must not curb my faith, nor lord it in this way: leave me free to think, and let me go with you." _Chr._--"Not a step more, save you will do in what I shall speak as we." Then said By-ends, "I shall not cast off my old views, since they bring no harm, and are of use. If I may not go with you, I must do as I did ere you came up with me, that is, go on with no one, till some will come on who will be glad to meet me." Now I saw in my dream that Christian and Hopeful left him, and went on in front of him: but one of them did chance to look back, and saw three men in the wake of Mr. By-ends, and lo, as they came up with him, he made them quite a low bow. The men's names were Mr. Hold-the-world, Mr. Money-love, and Mr. Save-all; men that Mr. By-ends had erst known; for when boys they were mates at school, and were taught by one Mr. Gripeman, who keeps a school in Love-gain, which is a large town in the shire of Coveting, in the north. Well, when they, as I said, did greet in turn, Mr. Money-love said to Mr. By-ends, "Who are they on the road right in front of us?" _By._--"They are a pair from a land far off, that, in their mode, are bent on a long route." [Illustration: Then Christian saw three men in the wake of Mr. By-ends, and lo, as they came up with him he made them a very low bow.--Page 66. _Pilgrim's Progress._] _Money._--"Ah! why did they not stay; that we might have gone on with them? for they, and we, and you, sir, I hope, are all bent on the same road." _By._--"Why, they, in their fierce mood, think that they are bound to rush on their way at all times; while I wait for wind and tide. They like to risk all for God at a clap; while I like to seize all means to make safe my life and lands. They are for Faith when in rags and scorn; but I am for him when he walks in his sheen shoes in the sun, and with praise." _Hold._--"Ay, and hold you there still, good Mr. By-ends: for my part I can count him but a fool, that with the means to keep what he has, he shall be so lack of sense as to lose it. For my part, I like that faith best that will stand with the pledge of God's good gifts to us. Abraham and Solomon grew rich in faith: and Job says that a good man 'shall lay up gold as dust.' But he must not be such as the men in front of us, if they be as you have said of them." _Save._--"I think that we are all of one mind in this thing; and hence there need no more words be said of it." Mr. By-ends and his friends did lag and keep back, that Christian and Hopeful might go on in front of them. Then Christian and Hopeful went till they came to a nice plain known as Ease; which did please them much: but that plain was but strait, so they were soon got through it. Now at the far side of that plain was a small hill, which went by the name of Lucre, and in that hill a gold mine, which some of them that had been that way had gone on one side to see; but, as they got too near the brink of the pit, the ground, as it was not sound, broke when they trod on it, and they were slain. Then I saw in my dream that a short way off the road, nigh to the gold mine, stood Demas, a man of fair looks, to call to such as went that way to come and see; who said to Christian and his friend, "Ho! turn hence on this side, and I will show you a thing. Here is a gold mine, and some that dig in it for wealth: if you will come, with slight pains you may gain a rich store for your use." [Illustration: DEMAS TEMPTS CHRISTIAN AND HOPEFUL.] Then Christian did call to Demas, and said, "Is not the way rife with risks? Hath it not let some in their way?" _Dem._--"Not so much so, save to those that take no care." But a blush came on his face as he spake. Then said Christian to Hopeful, "Let us not stir a step, but still keep on our way." By this time By-ends and those who were with him came once more in sight, and they, at the first beck, went straight to Demas. Now, that they fell in the pit, as they stood on the brink of it, or that they went down to dig, or that they lost their breath at the base by the damps that, as a rule, rise from it, of these things I am not sure; but this I saw, that from that time forth they were not seen once more in the way. Which strange sight gave them cause for grave talk. CHAPTER XV. DOUBTING CASTLE AND GIANT DESPAIR. I SAW then, that they went on their way to a fair stream. Here then Christian and his friend did walk with great joy. They drank, too, of the stream, which was sweet to taste, and like balm to their faint hearts. More than this, on the banks of this stream, on each side, were green trees with all kinds of fruit: and the leaves they ate to ward off ills that come of too much food and heat of blood, while on the way. On each side of the stream was a mead, bright with white plants; and it was green all the year long. In this mead they lay down and slept. When they did wake they felt a wish to go on, and set out. Now the way from the stream was rough, and their feet soft, for that they came a long road so the souls of the men were sad, from the state of the way. Now, not far in front of them, there was on the left hand of the road a mead, and a stile to get right to it: and that mead is known as By-path Meadow. Then said Christian to his friend, "If this mead doth lie close by the side of our way, let us go straight to it." Then said Christian to his friends, "If this mead doth lie close by the side of our way, let us go straight to it." Then he went to the stile to see, and lo, a path lay close by the way on the far off side of the fence. "It is just as I wish," said Christian; "come, good Hopeful, and let us cross to it." _Hope._--"But how if this path should lead us out of the way?" "That is not like to be," said the next. "Look, doth it not go straight on by the side of the way?" So Hopeful, when he thought on what his friend said, went in his steps, and did cross the stile; and at the same time, while they cast their eyes in front of them, they saw a man that did walk as they did, and his name was Vain-Confidence: so they did call to him, and ask him to what place that way led. He said, "To the Celestial Gate." "Look," said Christian, "did not I tell you so? by this you may see we are right." So they went in his wake, and he went in front of them. But, lo, the night came on, and it grew quite dark; so that they that were in the rear lost the sight of him that went in front. He then that went in front, as he did not see the way clear, fell in a deep pit, which was there made by the prince of those grounds to catch such vain fools with the rest, and was torn in bits by his fall. Now Christian and his friend heard him fall: so they did call to know the cause: but there was none to speak. Then Hopeful gave a deep groan, and said, "Oh, that I had kept on my way!" [Illustration: This is Vain-Confidence whom Christian and Hopeful saw in the way as they did walk.--Page 70. _Pilgrim's Progress._] _Chr._--"Good friend, do not feel hurt. I grieve I have brought thee out of the way, and that I have put thee in no slight strait; pray, my friend, let this pass; I did not do it of a bad will." _Hope._--"Be of good cheer, my friend, for I give thee shrift; and trust, too, this shall be for our good." Then, so as to cheer them, they heard the voice of one that said, "Let thine heart be set on the high road; and the way that thou didst go turn once more." But by this time the way that they should go back was rife with risk. Then I thought that we get more quick out of the way when we are in it, than in it when we are out. Nor could they, with all the skill they had, get once more to the stile that night. For which cause, as they at last did light neath a slight shed, they sat down there till day broke: but as they did tire they fell to sleep. Now there was not far from the place where they lay a fort, known as Doubting Castle, and he who kept it was Giant Despair: and it was on his grounds that they now slept. Hence, as he got up at dawn, and did walk up and down in his fields, he caught Christian and Hopeful in sound sleep on his grounds. They told him they were poor wights, and that they had lost their way. Then said the Giant, "You have this night come where you should not; you did tramp in, and lie on, my grounds, and so you must go hence with me." So they were made to go, for that he had more strength than they. They, too, had but few words to say, for they knew they were in a fault. The Giant hence drove them in front of him, and put them in his fort, in a dank, dark cell, that was foul and stunk to the souls of these two men. Here then they lay for full four days, and had not one bit of bread, or drop of drink, or light, or one to ask how they did: they were, hence, here in bad case, and were far from friends and all who knew them. Now in this place Christian had more than his own share of grief, for it was through his bad words that they were brought to such dire bale. Now Giant Despair had a wife, and her name was Diffidence: so when he was gone to bed he told his wife what he had done. Then he did ask her, too, what he had best do more to them. Then she said to him that when he got up in the morn he should beat them, and show no ruth. So when he rose he gets him a huge stick of crab, and goes down to the cell to them, and falls on them and beats them in such sort that they could do naught to ward off his blows, or to turn them on the floor. This done, he goes off and leaves them there to soothe each one his friend, and to mourn their grief. The next night, she spoke with her lord more as to their case, and when she found that they were not dead, did urge him to tell them to take their own lives. So when morn was come he told them that since they were not like to come out of that place, their best way would be at once to put an end to their lives, with knife, rope, or drug. But they did pray him to let them go; with that he gave a frown on them, ran at them, and had no doubt made an end of them with his own hand, but that he fell in one of his fits. From which cause he went off, and left them to think what to do. Then did the men talk of the best course to take; and thus they spoke: "Friend," said Christian, "what shall we do? The life that we now live is fraught with ill: for my part, I know not if it be best to live thus, or die out of hand: the grave has more ease for me than this cell." _Hope._--"Of a truth, our state is most dread, and death would be more of a boon to me than thus hence to stay: but let us not take our own lives." With these words Hopeful then did soothe the mind of his friend: so they did stay each with each in the dark that day, in their sad and drear plight. Well, as dusk came on the Giant goes down to the cell once more, to see if those he held bound there had done as he had bid them: but when he came there he found they still did live, at which he fell in a great rage, and told them that, as he saw they had lent a deaf ear to what he said, it should be worse for them than if they had not been born. At this they shook with dread, and I think that Christian fell in a swoon; but as he came round once more, they took up the same strain of speech as to the Giant's words, and if it were best give heed to them or no. Now Christian once more did seem to wish to yield, but Hopeful made his next speech in this wise: "My friend," said he, "dost thou not know how brave thou hast been in times past? The foul fiend could not crush thee; nor could all that thou didst hear, or see, or feel in the Vale of the Shade of Death; what wear and tear, grief and fright, hast thou erst gone through, and art thou naught but fears? Thou dost see that I am in the cell with thee, and I am a far more weak man to look at than thou art: in like way, this Giant did wound me as well as thee, and hath, too, cut off the bread and drink from my mouth, and with thee I mourn void of the light. But let us try and grow more strong: call to mind how thou didst play the man at Vanity Fair, and wast not made blench at the chain or cage, nor yet at fierce death; for which cause let us, at least to shun the shame that looks not well for a child of God to be found in, bear up with calm strength as well as we can." Now night had come once more, and his wife spoke to him of the men, and sought to know if they had done as he had told them. To which he said, "They are stout rogues; they choose the more to bear all hard things than to put an end to their lives." Then said she, "Take them to the garth next day, and show them the bones and skulls of those that thou hast put to death, and make them think thou wilt tear them in shreds, as thou hast done to folk like to them." So when the morn was come the Giant takes them to the garth, and shows them as his wife had bade him: "These," said he, "were wights, as you are, once, and they trod on my ground, as you have done; and when I thought fit I tore them in bits, and so in the space of ten days I will do you: go, get you down to your den once more." And with that he beat them all the way to the place. They lay for this cause all day in a sad state, just as they had done. Now, when night was come, and when Mrs. Diffidence and her spouse the Giant were got to bed, they once more spoke of the men; and, with this, the Giant thought it strange that he could not by his blows or words bring them to an end. And with that his wife said, "I fear that they live in hopes that some will come to set them free, or that they have things to pick locks with them, by the means of which they hope to scape." "And dost thou say so, my dear?" said the Giant; "I will hence search them in the morn." Well, in the depth of night they strove hard to pray, and held it up till just break of day. [Illustration: CHRISTIAN & HOPEFUL escape from DOUBTING CASTLE] Now, not long ere it was day, good Christian, as one half wild, brake out in this hot speech: "What a fool," quoth he, "am I, thus to lie in a foul den when I may as well walk in the free air: I have a key in my breast known as Promise, that will, I feel sure, pick each lock in Doubting Castle." Then said Hopeful, "That is good news, my friend; pluck it out of thy breast and try." Then Christian took it out of his breast, and did try at the cell door, whose bolt as he did turn the key gave back, and the door flew back with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the front door that leads to the yard of the fort, and with this key did ope that door in like way. Then he went to the brass gate (for that he must ope too), but that lock he had hard work to move; yet did the key pick it. Then they thrust wide the gate to make their scape with speed. But that gate as it went back did creak so, that it woke Giant Despair, who, as he rose in haste to go in search of the men, felt his limbs to fail, for his fits took him once more, so that he could by no means go in their track. Then they went on, and came to the King's high road once more, and so were safe, for that they were out of his grounds. Now, when they had got clear of the stile, they thought in their minds what they should do at that stile, to keep those that should come in their wake from the fell hands of Giant Despair. So they built there a pile and wrote on the side of it these words: "To cross this stile is the way to Doubting Castle, which is kept by Giant Despair, who spurns the King of the good land, and seeks to kill such as serve him." CHAPTER XVI. THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS. THEY went then till they came to the Delectable Mountains, which mounts the Lord of that hill doth own of whom we erst did speak: so they went up to the mounts, to see the plants, trees rife with fruit, the vines and founts; where, too, they drank, did wash, and eat of the grapes till no gust was left for more. Now there were on the top of these mounts, Shepherds that fed their flocks, and they stood by the side of the high road. Christian and Hopeful then went to them, and while they leant on their staves (as is the case with wights who tire when they stand to talk with folk by the way), they said, "Whose Delectable Mountains are these? and whose be the sheep that fed on them?" _Shep._--"These mounts are Immanuel's Land, and they can be seen from this town: and the sheep in like way are his, and he laid down his life for them." _Chr._--"Is this the way to the Celestial City?" _Shep._--"You are just in your way." I saw, too, in my dream that when the Shepherds saw that they were men on the road, they in like way did ask them things, to which they spoke, as was their wont: as, "Whence came you? and how got you in the way? and by what means have you so held on in it? for but few of them that set out to come hence do show their face on these mounts." But when the Shepherds heard their speech, which did please them, they gave them looks of love, and said, "Good come with thee to the Mounts of Joy." The Shepherds, I say, whose names were Knowledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere, took them by the hand and had them to their tents, and made them eat and drink of that which was there at the time. They said, too, "We would that you should stay here a short time, to get known to us, and yet more to cheer your heart with the good of these Mounts of Joy." They told them that they would much like to stay; and so they went to their rest that night, for that it was so late. Then I saw in my dream, that in the morn the Shepherds did call on Christian and Hopeful to walk with them on the mounts. Then said the Shepherds, each to his friend, "Shall we show these wights with staves some strange sights?" So they had them first to the top of a hill, known as Error, and bid them look down to the base. So Christian and Hopeful did look down, and saw at the foot a lot of men rent all to bits, by a fall that they had from the top. Then said Christian, "What doth this mean?" The Shepherds said, "Have you not heard of them that were made to err, in that they gave heed to Hymeneus and Philetus, who held not the faith that the dead shall rise from the grave? Those that you see lie rent in bits at the base of this mount are they; and they have lain to this day on the ground as you see, so that those who come this way may take heed how they climb too high, or how they come too near the brink of this mount." Then I saw that they had them to the top of the next mount, and the name of that is Caution, and bid them look as far off as they could; which when they did they saw, as they thought, a group of men that did walk up and down through the tombs that were there: and they saw that the men were blind, for that they fell at times on the tombs, and for that they could not get out from the midst of them. Then said Christian, "What means this?" [Illustration: THE HILL ERROR.] The Shepherds then said, "Did you not see, a short way down these mounts, a stile that leads to a mead on the left hand of this way?" They said, "Yes." Then said the Shepherds, "From that stile there goes a path that leads straight to Doubting Castle, which is kept by Giant Despair, and these men (as he did point to them in the midst of the tombs) came once on the way, as you do now--ay, till they came to that same stile! And as they found the right way was rough in that place, they chose to go out of it to that mead, and there were caught by Giant Despair and shut up in Doubting Castle; where, when they had a while been kept in a cell, he at last did put out their eyes, and led them in the thick of those tombs, where he has left them to stray till this day: that the words of the Wise Man might be brought to pass, 'He that strays out of the way of truth shall dwell in the homes of the dead.'" Then did Christian and Hopeful look each on each, while tears came from their eyes; but yet said they not a word to the Shepherds. Then I saw in my dream, that the Shepherds had them to one more place, in a steep, where was a door in the side of a hill; and they flung wide the door and bid them look in. They did look in, hence, and saw that it was dark and full of smoke; they thought, too, that they heard a hoarse noise, as of fire, and a cry of some in pain. Then said Christian, "What means this?" The Shepherds told them, "This is a nigh way to Hell; a way that such as seem to be what they are not go in at: to wit, such as sell the right they had at birth, with Esau; such as sell their Lord, with Judas; such as speak ill of God's Word, with Alexander; and that lie and shift, with Ananias, and Sapphira his wife." Then said Hopeful to the Shepherds, "I see that these had on them, each one, a show of the road, as we have now, had they not?" _Shep._--"Yes, and held it a long time too." _Hope._--"How far might they go on in the way, in their days, since they, in spite of this, were thus cast off?" _Shep._--"Some yon, and some not so far as these mounts." By this time Christian and Hopeful had a wish to go forth, and the Shepherds meant that they should: so they sped side by side till they got nigh the end of the mounts. Then said the Shepherds, each to his friend, "Let us here show these wights the gates of the Celestial City, if they have skill to look through our kind of glass." The men then did like the hint: so they had them to the top of a high hill, the name of which was Clear, and gave them the glass to look. Then did they try to look, but the thought of that last thing that the Shepherds had shown them made their hands shake; by means of which let they could not look well through the glass; yet they thought they saw a thing like the gate, and, in like way, some of the sheen of the place. Just ere they set out, one of the Shepherds gave them _a note of the way_; the next bid them _take heed of such as fawn_; the third bid them _take heed that they slept not on ground that had a spell_; and the fourth bid them God speed. So I did wake from my dream. CHAPTER XVII. THE ENCHANTED GROUND AND THE WAY DOWN TO IT. AND I slept and dreamt once more, and saw the same two wights go down the mounts, by the high road that led to the town. Now nigh the base of these mounts, on the left hand, lies the land of Conceit, from which land there comes, right in the way in which the men trod, a small lane with twists and turns. Here, then, they met with a brisk lad that came out of that land, and his name was Ignorance. So Christian would know from what parts he came, and whence he was bound. _Ignor._--"Sir, I was born in the land that lies off there a short way on the left hand, and I am bound to the Celestial City." _Chr._--"But how do you think to get in at the gate? for you may find some let there." "As some good folk do," said he. _Chr._--"But what have you to show at that gate, that the gate should be flung wide to you?" _Ignor._--"I know my Lord's will, and have led a good life; I pay each man his own; I pray, fast, pay tithes, and give alms; and have left my land for the place to which I go." _Chr._--"But thou didst not come in at the Wicket-gate that is at the head of this way; thou didst come in here through that same lane with the twists and turns; and hence, I fear, in spite of what thou dost think of thy right, when the last day shall come, thou wilt have laid to thy charge that thou art a thief, in lieu of a free pass to the town." _Ignor._--"Sirs, ye be not known to me in the least; I know you not; you be led by the faith of your land, and I will be led by the faith of mine. I hope all will be well. And as for the gate that you talk of, all the world knows that that is a great way off our land. I do not think that one man in all our parts doth so much as know the way to it; nor need they care if they do or no; since we have, as you see, a fine, gay, green lane, that comes down from our land, the next road that leads to the way." [Illustration: Then Christian met with a brisk lad who said his name was Ignorance.--Page 82. _Pilgrim's Progress._] When Christian saw that the man was wise in his own eyes, he said to Hopeful in a soft voice, "'There is more hope of a fool than of him'"; and said, in like way, "'When he that is a fool walks by the way, his sense fails him, and he saith to each one that he is a fool.' What! shall we talk more with him, or move on now, and so leave him to think of what he hath erst heard, and then stop once more for him in a while, and see if by slow steps we can do aught of good to him?" Then said Hopeful, "It is not good, I think, to say so to him all at once; let us pass him by, if you will, and talk to him by and by, just as he has 'strength to bear it.'" So they both went on, and Ignorance came in their track. Now, when they had left him a short way, they came to a dark lane, where they met a man whom some fiends had bound with strong cords, and took back to the door that they saw on the side of the hill. Now good Christian could not help but shake, and so did Hopeful, who was with him; yet, as the fiends led off the man, Christian did look to see if he knew him; and he thought it might be one Turnaway, that dwelt in the town of Apostacy. But he did not well see his face, for he did hang his head like a thief that is found. But when he had gone past, Hopeful gave a look at him, and saw on his back a card, with these words, "Vile cheat, that has left his faith." So they went on, and Ignorance went in their track. They went till they came at a place where they saw a way put right in their way, and did seem, at the same time, to lie as straight as the way which they should go. And here they knew not which of the two to take, for both did seem straight in front of them: hence they stood to think. And as they thought of the way, lo, a man black of flesh, but clad with a light robe, came to them, and did ask them why they stood there. They said they were bound to the Celestial City, but knew not which of these ways to take. "Go with me," said the man; "it is to that place I am bent." So they went with him in the way that but now came to the road, which each step they took did turn and turn them so far from the town that they sought to go to, that in a short time their heads did turn off from it; yet they went with him. But by and by, ere they well knew of it, he led them both in the bounds of a net, in which they were both so caught that they knew not what to do; and with that the white robe fell off the black man's back: then they saw where they were. For which cause there they lay in tears some time, for they could not get their limbs out. Then said Christian to his friend, "Now do I see that I am wrong. Did not the Shepherds bid us take heed of the Flatterer? As are the words of the Wise Man, so we have found it this day, 'A man that fawns on his friend spreads a net for his feet.'" _Hope._--"They, too, gave us some notes as to the way, so that we may be the more sure to find it; but in that we have not thought to read." [Illustration: Then did Hopeful tell Christian his experience, and Christian said: "Let us not sleep, as some do; but let us watch and pray."--Page 86. _Pilgrim's Progress._] Thus they lay in sad plight in the net. At last they saw a Bright One come nigh to where they were, with a whip of small cords in his hand. When he was come to the place where they were, he did ask them whence they came, and what they did there? They told him they were poor wights bound to Zion, but were led out of their way by a black man clad in white, "who bid us," said they, "go with him, for he was bound to that place too." Then said he with the whip, "It is one who fawns, a false guide who wore the garb of a sprite of light." So he rent the net, and let the men out. Then said he to them, "Come with me, that I may set you in your way once more": so he led them back to the way they had left to go with the Flatterer. Then he did ask them and said, "Where did you lie the last night?" They said, "With the Shepherds on the Mounts of Joy." He did ask, then, if they had not of those men a note as a guide for the way. They said, "Yes." "But did you not," said he, "when you were at a stand, pluck out and read your note?" Quoth they, "No." He did ask them, "Why?" They said, "They did not think of it." He would know, too, "If the Shepherds did not bid them take heed of the Flatterer?" They said, "Yes; but we thought not," said they, "that this man of fine speech had been he." Then I saw in my dream that he told them to lie down; which when they did, he gave them sore stripes, to teach them the good way in which they should walk. This done, he bids them go on their way, and take good heed to the next hints of the Shepherds. I then saw in my dream, that they went on till they came to a land whose air did tend to make one sleep. And here Hopeful grew quite dull and nigh fell to sleep: for which cause he said to Christian: "I do now grow so dull that I can scarce hold ope mine eyes; let us lie down here and take one nap." "By no means," said Christian, "lest if we sleep we wake not more." _Hope._--"Why, my friend? Sleep is sweet to the man that toils: it may give us strength if we take a nap." _Chr._--"Do you not know that one of the Shepherds bid us take heed of the Enchanted Ground? He meant by that, that we should take care and not go to sleep. 'Let us not sleep, as do some; but let us watch and be of sound mind.'" _Hope._--"I know I am in fault; and, had not you been with me here, I had gone to sleep and run the risk of death. I see it is true that the wise man saith, 'Two are more good than one.' Up to this time thou hast been my ruth and thou shalt 'have a good meed for thy pains.'" [Illustration: HOPEFUL TELLS CHRISTIAN HIS EXPERIENCE.] I saw then in my dream, that Hopeful gave a look back, and saw Ignorance, whom they had left in their wake, come in their track. "Look," said he to Christian, "how far yon youth doth lag in the rear." [Illustration: "Come on, man, why do you stay back so?" said Christian. "I like to walk alone," said Ignorance.--Page 87. _Pilgrim's Progress._] _Chr._--"Ay, ay, I see him: he cares not to be with us." _Hope._--"But I trow it would not have hurt him had he kept pace with us to this time." _Chr._--"That is true: but I wot he doth not think so." _Hope._--"That I think he doth: but, be it so or no, let us wait for him." So they did. Then Christian did call to him, "Come you on, man: why do you stay back so?" _Ignor._--"I like to walk in this lone way; ay, more a great deal than with folk: that is, save I like them much." Then said Christian to Hopeful (but in a soft voice), "Did I not tell you he sought to shirk us? But, be this as it may, come up, and let us talk off the time in this lone place." Then, when he had a long speech with Ignorance, Christian spoke thus to his friend, "Well, come, my good Hopeful, I see that thou and I must walk side by side once more." So I saw in my dream, that they went on fast in front, and Ignorance, he came with lame gait in their track. Then said Christian to his friend, "I feel much for this poor man: it will of a truth go hard with him at last." CHAPTER XVIII. THE LAND OF BEULAH--THE FORDS OF THE RIVER--AT HOME. NOW I saw in my dream that by this time the wights had got clear of the Enchanted Ground, and had come to the land of Beulah, whose air was most sweet: as the way did lie straight through it, they took rest there for a while. Yea, here they heard at all times "the songs of birds," and saw each day the plants bud forth in the earth, and heard "the voice of the dove" in the land. In this realm the sun shines night and day: for this was far from the Vale of the Shade of Death, and, in like way, out of the reach of Giant Despair; nor could they from this place so much as see Doubting Castle. Here they were in sight of the City to which they were bound: here, too, met them some of the folk who dwelt there, for in this land the Bright Ones did walk, for that it was on the verge of bliss. [Illustration: CHRISTIAN AND HOPEFUL ENTER THE LAND OF BEULAH.] Now as they did walk in this land they had more joy than in parts not so nigh the realm to which they were bound: and as they drew near the City they had yet a more clear view of it. It was built of pearls and rare gems: its streets, too, were of gold: so that, from the sheen of the place, and the glow of the sun on it, Christian did long so much that he fell sick. Hopeful, in like way, had a fit or two of the same kind. But when they got some strength, and could bear their sick state, they went on their way, and came near and yet more near where were grounds that bore fruits, vines, and plants; and their gates did ope on the high road. Now, as they came up to these parts, lo, the Gardener stood in the way; to whom the men said, "Whose fine vine and fruit grounds are these?" He said, "They are the King's, and are put there for his own joy, as well as to cheer such as come this way." So he took them to where the vines grew, and bid them wet their mouths with the fruit: he, too, did show them there the King's walks, and the shades that he sought: and here they staid and slept. Now I saw in my dream that they spoke more in their sleep at this time than erst they did in all their way: and as I did muse on it, the Gardener said to me, "Why dost thou muse at this? It is a charm in the fruit of the grapes of these grounds 'to go down in so sweet a way as to cause the lips of them that sleep to speak.'" So I saw that when they did wake they girt up their loins to go up to the City. So as they went on, there met them two men in robes that shone like gold, while the face of each was bright as the light. These men did ask them whence they came; and they told them. They would know, too, where they did lodge, and what straits and risks and joys they had met with in the way; and they told them. Then said the men that met them, "You have but two straits more to meet with, and then you are in the City." Christian then, and his friend, did ask the men to go with them: so they told them that they would; but said they, "You must gain it by your own faith." So I saw in my dream that they went on each with each, till they came in sight of the gate. Now I saw still more, that a stream ran in front of them and the gate; but there was no bridge to cross, and the stream was deep. At the sight of this stream, the wights with staves took fright; but the men that went with them said, "Thou must go through, or thou canst not come at the gate." The wights then sought to know if there was no way but that to the gate. To which they said, "Yes; but none, save two--to wit, Enoch and Elijah--hath been let to tread that path since the world was made, nor shall till the last trump shall sound." The wights then (and Christian in chief) grew as if they would give up hope, and did look this way and that, but no way could be found by which they might get clear of the stream. Then they did ask the men if it was all the same depth. They said, "No"; yet they could not help them in that case: "for," said they, "you shall find it more or less deep as you trust in the King of the place." Then they did wade in the stream, and as Christian sank he did cry to his good friend Hopeful, and said, "I sink." [Illustration] Then said Hopeful, "Be of good cheer, my friend: I feel the ground, and it is good." Then said Christian, "Ah! my friend, I shall not see the land I seek." And with that all grew dark, and fear fell on Christian, so that he could not see in front of him. All the words that he spoke still did tend to show that he had dread of mind and fears of heart that he should die in that stream, and fail to go in at the gate. Hopeful, from this cause, had here hard work to hold up the head of his friend; yea, at times he would be quite gone down, and then, ere a while, he would rise up once more half dead. Hopeful would try to cheer him, and said, "Friend, I see the gate, and men stand by to greet us": but Christian would say, "'Tis you, 'tis you they wait for; you have had hope since the time I knew you." Then said Hopeful, "These fears and griefs that you go through are no sign that God has left you, but are sent to try you; if you will call to mind that which of yore you have had from him, and live on him in your griefs." Then I saw in my dream that Christian was in a muse for a while. To whom, too, Hopeful did add these words, "Be of good cheer, Christ doth make thee whole." And with that Christian brake out with a loud voice, "Oh, I see Him once more! and he tells me, 'When thou dost pass through the stream, I will be with thee.'" Then they both took heart, and the foe then grew as still as a stone, till they were gone through. Christian then straight found ground to stand on, and so it came to pass that the rest of the stream was but of slight depth: thus they did ford it. Now on the bank of the stream, on the far off side, they saw the two Bright Men once more, who there did wait for them. When they came out of the stream these did greet them, and said: "We are sprites sent forth to aid them who shall be heirs of Christ." Thus they went on to the gate. Now you must note that the City stood on a high hill: but the wights went up that hill with ease, for that they had these two men to lead them up by the arms: more than this, they had left the garb they wore in the stream; for though they went in with them they came out freed from them. They hence went up here with much speed, though the rise on which the City was built was more high than the clouds. They then went up through the realms of air, and held sweet talk as they went, as they felt joy for that they had got safe through the stream, and had such Bright Ones to wait them. The talk that they had with the Bright Ones was of the place; who told them that no words could paint it. "You go now," said they, "to the sphere where God dwells, in which you shall see the Tree of Life, and eat of the fruits of it that fade not: and when you come there you shall have white robes to wear, and your walk and talk shall be each day with the King, while time shall be known no more. There you shall not see such things as you saw when low on earth, to wit, grief, pain, and death; for these things are gone. You now go to Abraham, to Isaac, and Jacob, and to men that God 'took from the woe to come.'" These men then did ask, "What must we do in this pure place?" To whom it was said, "You must there get the meed of all your toil, and have joy for all your grief; you must reap what you have sown, ay, the fruit of all your tears and toils for the King by the way. In that place you must wear crowns of gold, and bask for aye in the sight of the Lord of Hosts, for there you 'shall see Him as he is.' There, too, you shall serve Him with praise, with shouts, with joy, whom you sought to serve in the world, though with much pain, for that your flesh was weak. There you shall join with your friends once more that are gone there ere you; and there you shall with joy greet each one that comes in your wake. When the King shall come with sound of trump in the clouds, as on the wings of the wind, you shall come with Him; and, when He shall sit on the Throne to judge all the realms of the earth, you shall sit by Him: yea, and when He shall pass doom on all that did work ill, let them be sprites or men, you shall too have a voice in that doom, for that they are His and your foes. More than this, when He shall go back to the City, you shall go too, with sound of trump, and be for aye with Him." Now while they thus drew nigh to the gate, lo a troop of the Bright Host came to meet them; to whom it was said by the first two Bright Ones, "These are the men that did love our Lord, when they were in the world, and that have left all for His name, and He hath sent us to fetch them, and we have brought them thus far on their way, that they may go in and look their Lord in the face with joy." There came, too, at this time to meet them a group of the King's men with trumps, clad in white and sheen robes, who, with sweet and loud notes, made the whole arch of the sky full of the sound. These men did greet Christian and his friend with much warmth; and this they did with shouts and sound of trump. [Illustration: "'Tis you, 'tis you they wait for; you have had hope since the time I knew you." (_Page 92_) (_The Pilgrim's Progress._)] This done, they went round them on each side; some went in front, some in the rear, and some on the right hand, some on the left (as it were to guard them through the vast realms), and did sound as they went, with sweet noise, in notes on high; so that the bare sight was to them that could look on it as if all the blest were come down to meet them. Thus then did they walk on side by side. And now were these two men, as it were, in bliss ere they came at it. Here, too, they had the City in view; and they thought they heard all the bells in it to ring, so as to greet them. But, more than all, the warm and rare thoughts that they had of the place to which they went, and of those that dwelt there, and that for aye; oh! by what tongue or pen can such vast joy be told? Thus they came up to the gate. Then I saw in my dream that the Bright Men bid them call at the gate: the which when they did, some from on high did look down, to wit, Enoch, Moses, and Elijah, and so forth, to whom it was said, "These wights are come from the City of Destruction, for the love that they bear to the King of this place"; and then the wights gave in to them each man his roll, which they had got at first: those, then, were brought in to the King, who, when he had read them, said, "Where are the men?" To whom it was told, "They are at the porch of the gate." Then spoke the King, "Ope the gate, that the just land that keeps truth may come in." Now I saw in my dream, that these two men went in at the gate: and lo! as they did so, a change came on them; and they had robes put on that shone like gold. There were, too, that met them with harps and crowns, and gave them to them; the harps to praise with, the crowns in sign of rank. Then I heard in my dream that all the bells of the place rang for joy, and that it was said to them, "Come ye to the joy of our Lord." Now, just as the gates did ope to let in the men, did I peer at them, and lo, the place shone like the sun: the streets, too, were of gold; and in them did walk men with crowns on their heads, palms in their hands, and gold harps to aid in songs of praise. There were some of them that had wings, and they sang, with not a pause, songs to the "Lamb that was slain!" Then they shut up the gates; which when I had seen I did wish to be with them. Now, while I did gaze on all these things, I saw Ignorance come up to the side of the stream: but he soon got through, and that void of half the toil which the two men that I of late saw met with. So he did climb the hill to come up to the gate; but none came with him, nor did one man meet or greet him. When he was come up to the gate, he gave a look up at what was writ in front of it, and then gave a knock. So they told the King, but he would not come down to see him; but told the two Bright Ones, that led Christian and Hopeful to the City, to go out and take Ignorance, and bind him hand and foot, and have him off. Then they took him up, and bore him through the air to the door that I saw in the side of the hill, and put him in there. Then I saw that there was a way to Hell, ay, from the gates of bliss, as well as from the City of Destruction! So I did wake, and lo, it was a dream! THE END. BURT'S SERIES of ONE SYLLABLE BOOKS 14 Titles. Handsome Illuminated Cloth Binding. A series of Classics, selected specially for young people's reading, and told in simple language for youngest readers. Printed from large type, with many illustrations. Price 65 Cents per Volume. Aesop's Fables. Retold in words of one syllable for young people. By MARY GODOLPHIN. With 41 illustrations. Illuminated cloth. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Retold in words of one syllable for young people. By MRS. J. C. GORHAM. With many illustrations. Illuminated cloth. Andersen's Fairy Tales. (Selections.) Retold in words of one syllable for young people. By HARRIET T. COMSTOCK. With many illustrations. Illuminated cloth. Bible Heroes. Told in words of one syllable for young people. By HARRIET T. COMSTOCK. With many illustrations. Illuminated cloth. [Illustration] Black Beauty. Retold in words of one syllable for young people. By MRS. J. C. GORHAM. With many illustrations. Illuminated cloth. Grimm's Fairy Tales. (Selections.) Retold in words of one syllable. By JEAN S. REMY. 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By MARY GODOLPHIN. With 20 illustrations. Illuminated cloth. Swiss Family Robinson. Retold in words of one syllable for young people. Adapted from the original. With 32 illustrations. Illuminated cloth. * * * * * For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers, A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23rd Street, New York. Burt's One Syllable Histories A series of Popular Histories written in words of One Syllable for young people's reading. Bound in handsome cloth binding. Covers in Colors. Quarto Size. Profusely Illustrated. 12 Titles. Price $1.00 per Copy. =History of the United States.= Told In Words of One Syllable. By MRS. HELEN W. PIERSON. Profusely Illustrated. =History of England.= Told in Words of One Syllable. By MRS. HELEN W. PIERSON. Profusely Illustrated. =History Of France.= Told in Words of One Syllable. By MRS. HELEN W. PIERSON. Profusely Illustrated. =History of Germany.= Told in Words of One Syllable. By MRS. HELEN W. PIERSON. 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BURT COMPANY. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: The original text did not contain a table of contents. One was created by the transcriber to aid the reader. Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Page 14, "Heto" changed to "He to" (He to whom thou) Page 52, "Cha." changed to "Chr." (_Chr._--"They are two) Page 76, "their" changed to "they" (So they built there) Page 89, "bonnd" changed to "bound" (bound: and as they drew near) 
7088	----	THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS IN WORDS OF ONE SYLLABLE by Mary Godolphin AUTHOR'S PREFACE In offering to the public another volume on my plan of reducing popular tales into words of One Syllable exclusively, I wish it to be clearly understood that it is intended for Adult Beginners, no less than for Children. There is a large class of persons who do not begin to acquire the art of reading till somewhat late in life, and it is for such that I think a book of this Character is peculiarly applicable. It may be objected that my system involves the use of words which, though short, are difficult to understand and might be made more intelligible in polysyllabic language. But I have endeavored as far as possible to avoid hard and technical expressions, and I cannot but think that the mere fact of the brevity of the words must be a great attraction to beginners of all ages. By this method the labor of dividing and accentuating words is avoided: a difficulty which pupils who have only attained to the knowledge of monosyllables cannot conquer by independent effort. I take this opportunity of acknowledging the great favor with which my previous books of the same character have been received, and I am glad to hear that they have been found useful as Prizes in Schools. I have thought it necessary to retain all the names of Persons and Places in their original form, but this is the only exception to my general rule. PILGRIM'S PROGRESS PART I. As I went through the wild waste of this world, I came to a place where there was a den, and I lay down in it to sleep. While I slept I had a dream, and lo! I saw a man whose clothes were in rags and he stood with his face from his own house, with a book in his hand, and a great load on his back. I saw him read from the leaves of a book, and as he read, he wept and shook with fear; and at length he broke out with a loud cry, and said, What shall I do to save my soul? So in this plight he went home, and as long as he could he held his peace, that his wife and babes should not see his grief. But at length he told them his mind, and thus he spoke, O my dear wife, and you my babes, I, your dear friend, am full of woe, for a load lies hard on me; and more than this, I have been told that our town will be burnt with fire, in which I, you my wife, and you my sweet babes, shall be lost, if means be not found to save us. This sad tale struck all who heard him with awe, not that they thought what he said to them was true, but that they had fears that some weight must be on his mind; so, as night now drew near, they were in hopes that sleep might soothe his brain, and with all haste they got him to bed. When the morn broke, they sought to know how he did? He told them, Worse and worse; and he set to talk once more in the same strain as he had done; but they took no heed of it. By and by, to drive off his fit, they spoke harsh words to him; at times they would laugh, at times they would chide, and then set him at nought. So he went to his room to pray for them, as well as to nurse his own grief. He would go, too, into the woods to read and muse, and thus for some weeks he spent his time. Now I saw, in my dream, that one day as he took his walk in the fields with his book in his hand, he gave a groan,--for he felt as if a cloud were on his soul,--and he burst out as he was wont to do, and said, Who will save me? I saw, too, that he gave wild looks this way and that, as if he would rush off; yet he stood still, for he could not tell which way to go. At last, a man, whose name was Evangelist, came up to him and said, Why dost thou weep? He said, Sir, I see by this book in my hand that I am to die, and that then God will judge me. Now I dread to die. Evangelist.--Why do you fear to die, since this life is fraught with woe? The man said, I fear lest a hard doom should wait me, and that this load on my back will make me sink down, till at last, I shall find I am in Tophet. If this be your case, said Evangelist, why do you stand still? But the man said, I know not where to go. Then he gave him a scroll with these words on it, Fly from the wrath to come. When the man read it he said, Which way must I fly? Evangelist held out his hand to point to a gate in the wide field, and said, Do you see the Wicket Gate? The man said, No. Do you see that light? He then said, I think I do. Keep that light in your eye, quoth Evangelist, and go straight up to it; so shall you see the gate, at which, when you knock, it shall be told you what you are to do. Then I saw in my dream that Christian--for that was his name--set off to run. Now he had not gone far from his own door, when his wife and young ones, who saw him, gave a loud wail to beg of him to come back; but the man put his hands to his ears, and ran on with a cry of Life! Life! The friends of his wife, too, came out to see him run, and as he went, some were heard to mock him, some to use threats, and there were two who set off to fetch him back by force, the names of whom were Obstinate and Pliable. Now, by this time, the man had gone a good way off, but at last they came up to him. Then said Christian, Friends, why are you come? To bid you go back with us, said they. But, quoth he, that can by no means be; you dwell in the City of Destruction, the place where I, too, was born. I know it to be so, and there you will die and sink down to a place which burns with fire; be wise, good friends, and come with me. What! and leave our good, and all out kith and kin? Yes, said Christian, for that all which you might leave is but a grain to that which I seek, and if you will go with me and hold it firm, you shall fare as well as I; for there, where I go, you will find all you want and to spare. Come with me, and prove my words. Obstinate.--What are the things you seek, since you leave all the world to find them? Christian.--I seek those joys that fade not, which are laid up in a place of bliss--safe there for those who go in search of them. Read it so, if you will, in my book. Obstinate.--Tush! Off with your book. Will you go back with us or no? Christian.--No, not I, for I have laid my hand to the plough. Obstinate.--Come, friend Pliable, let us turn back and leave him; there is a troop of such fools who, when they take up with a whim by the end, are more wise in their own eyes than ten men who know how to think. Pliable.--Nay, do not scorn him; if what the good Christian says is true, the things he looks to are of more worth than ours: my heart leans to what he says. Obstinate.--What! more fools still! Go back, go back, and be wise. Christian.--Nay, but do you come with your friend Pliable; there are such things to be had as those I just spoke of, and more too. If you give no heed to me, read here in this book which comes to us from God, who could not lie. Pliable.--Well, friend Obstinate, I think now I have come to a point; and I mean to go with this good man, and to cast my lot in with his. Then said he to Christian, Do you know the way to the place you speak of? Christian.--I am told by a man whose name is Evangelist, to do my best to reach a gate that is in front of us, where I shall be told how to find the way. So they went on side by side. Obstinate.--And I will go back to my place; I will not be one of such vain folk. Now I saw in my dream, that when Obstinate was gone back, Christian and Pliable set off to cross the plain, and they spoke thus as they went:-- Christian.--Well, Pliable, how do you do now? I am glad you have a mind to go with me. Pliable.--Come, friend Christian, since there are none but we two here, tell me more of the things of which we go in search. Christian.--I can find them in my heart, though I know not how to speak of them with my tongue; but yet, since you wish to know, this book tells us of a world that hast no bounds, and a life that has no end. Pliable.--Well said, and what else? Christian.--That there are crowns of light in store for us, and robes that will make us shine like the sun. Pliable.--This, too, is good; and what else? Christian.--That there shall be no more care nor grief for he that owns the place will wipe all tears from our eyes. Pliable.--And what friends shall we find there? Christian.--There we shall be with all the saints, in robes so bright that our eyes will grow dim to look on them. There shall we meet those who in this world have stood out for the faith, and have been burnt on the stake, and thrown to wild beasts, for the love they bore to the Lord. They will not harm us, but will greet us with love, for they all walk in the sight of God. Pliable.--But how shall we get to share all this? Christian.--The Lord of that land saith, if we wish to gain that world we shall be free to have it. Pliable.--Well, my good friend, glad am I to hear of these thing: come on, let us mend our pace. Christian.--I can not go so fast as I would, for this load on my back. Then I saw in my dream that just as they had come to an end of this talk, they drew near to a slough that was in the midst of the plain, and as they took no heed, they both fell in. The name of the slough was Despond. Here they lay for a time in the mud; and the load that Christian had on his back made him sink all the more in the mire. Pliable.--Ah! friend Christian, where are you now? Christian.--In truth, I do no know. Then Pliable said to his friend, Is this the bliss of which you have told me all this while? If we have such ill speed when we first set out, what may we look for twixt this and the end of our way? And with that he got out of the mire on that side of the slough which was next to his own house; then off he went, and Christian saw him no more. So Christian was left to strive in the Slough of Despond as well as he could; yet his aim was to reach that side of the slough that was next The Wicket Gate, which at last he did, but he could not get out for the load that was on his back; till I saw in my dream that a man came to him whose name was Help. What do you do here? said Help. Christian.--I was bid to go this way by Evangelist, who told me to pass up to yon gate, that I might flee from the wrath to come, and on my way to it I fell in here. Help.--But why did you not look for the steps? Christian.--Fear came so hard on me that I fled the next way and fell in. Help.--Give me your hand. So he gave him his hand, and he drew him out, and set him on firm ground, and bade him go on his way. Then in my dream I went up to Help and said to him, Sir, since this place is on the way from The City of Destruction to The Wicket Gate, how is it that no one mends this patch of ground, so that those who come by may not fall in the slough? Help.--This slough is such a place as no one can mend. It is the spot to which doth run the scum and filth that wait on sin, and that is why men call it the Slough of Despond. When the man of sin wakes up to a sense of his own lost state, doubts and fears rise up in his soul, and all of them drain down and sink in this place: and it is this that makes the ground so bad. True there are good and sound steps in the midst of the slough, but at times it is hard to see them; or if they be seen, men's heads are so dull that they step on one side, and fall in the mire. But the ground is good when they have once got in at the gate. Now I saw in my dream that by this time Pliable had gone back to his house once more, and that his friends came to see him: some said how wise it was to come home, and some that he was a fool to have gone. Some, too, were found to mock him, who said--Well, had I set out, I would not have been so base as to come back for a slough in the road. So Pliable was left to sneak off; but at last he got more heart, and then all were heard to turn their taunts, and laugh at poor Christian. Thus much for Pliable. Now as Christian went on his way he saw a man come through the field to meet him, whose name was Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and he dwelt in the town of Carnal Policy, which was near that whence Christian came. He had heard some news of Christian; for his flight from The City of Destruction had made much noise, and was now the talk far and near. So he said, How now, good Sir, where do you go with such a load on your back? Christian.--In truth, it is a load; and if you ask me where I go, I must tell you, Sir, I must go the The Wicket Gate in front of me, for there I shall be put in a way to get quit of my load. Worldly Wiseman.--Have you not a wife and babes? Christian.--Yes, but with this load I do not seem to care for them as I did; and, in truth, I feel as if I had none. Worldly Wiseman.--Will you hear me if I speak my mind to you? Christian.--If what you say be good, I will, for I stand much in need of help. Worldly Wiseman.--I would urge you then, with all speed, to get rid of your load; for you will not be at rest till then. Christian.--That is just what I seek to do. But there is no man in our land who can take if off me. Worldly Wiseman.--Who bade you go this way to be rid of it? Christian.--One that I took to be a great and true man; his name is Evangelist. Worldly Wiseman.--Hark at what I say: there is no worse way in the world than that which he has sent you, and that you will find if you take him for your guide. In this short time you have met with bad luck, for I see the mud of the Slough of Despond is on your coat. Hear me, for I have seen more of the world than you; in the way you go, you will meet with pain, woe, thirst, the sword too,--in a word, death! Take no heed of what Evangelist tells you. Christian.--Why, Sir, this load on my back is worse to me than all those things which you speak of; nay, I care not what I meet with in the way, if I can but get rid of my load. Worldly Wiseman.--How did you come by it at first? Christian.--Why, I read this book. Worldly Wiseman.--Like more weak men I know, who aim at things too high for them you have lost heart, and run in the dark at great risk, to gain you know not what. Christian.--I know what I would gain, it is ease for my load. Worldly Wiseman.--But why will you seek for ease thus, when I could put you in the way to aid it where there would be no risk; and the cure is at hand. Christian.--Pray, Sir, tell me what that way is. Worldly Wiseman.--Well, in yon town, which you can see from hence--the name of which is Morality--there dwells a man whose name is Legality, a wise man, and a man of some rank, who has skill to help men off with such loads as yours from their backs; I know he has done a great deal for good in that way; aye, and he has the skill to cure those who, from the loads they bear, are not quite sound in their wits. To him as I said, you may go and get help. His house in but a mile from this place, and should he not be at home, he has a son whose name is Civility, who can do it just as well as his sire. There, I say, you may go to get rid of your load. I would not have you go back to your old home, but you can send for your wife and babes, and you will find that food there is cheap and good. Now was Christian brought to a stand; but by and by he said, Sir, which is my way to this good man's house? Worldly Wiseman.--Do you see that hill? Christian.--Yes, I do. Worldly Wiseman.--By that hill you must go, and the first house you come to is his. So Christian went out of his way to find Mr. Legality's house to seek for help. But, lo, when he had got close up to the hill, it was so steep and high that he had fear lest it should fall on his head; so he stood still, for he knew not what to do. His load, too, was of more weight to him than when he was on the right road. Then came flames of fire out of the hill, that made him quake for fear lest he should be burnt. And now it was a great grief to him that he had lent his ear to Worldly Wiseman; and it was well that he just then saw Evangelist come to meet him; though at the sight of him he felt a deep blush on his face for shame. So Evangelist drew near, and when he came up to him, he said, with a sad look; What dost thou here, Christian? To these words Christian knew not what to say, so he stood quite mute. Then Evangelist went on thus: Art not thou the man that I heard cry in The City of Destruction? Christian.--Yes, dear Sir, I am the man. Evangelist.--Did not I point out to thee the way to the Wicket Gate? Christian.--Yes, you did, Sir. Evangelist.--How is it, then, that thou hast so soon gone out of the way? Christian.--When I had got out of the Slough of Despond I met a man who told me that in a town near, I might find one who could take off my load. Evangelist.--What was he? Christian.--He had fair looks, and said much to me, and got me at last to yield; so I came here. But when I saw this hill, and how steep it was, I made a stand, lest it should fall on my head. Evangelist.--What said the man to thee? When Evangelist had heard from Christian all that took place, he said: Stand still a while, that I may show thee the words of God. So Evangelist went on to read, 'Now the just shall live by faith, but if a man draw back, my soul shall have no joy in him.' Is not this the case with thee? said he: Hast not thou drawn back thy feet from the way of peace, to thine own cost; and dost thou not spurn the most high God? Then Christian fell down at his feet as dead, and said: Woe is me! Woe is me! At the sight of which, Evangelist caught him by the right hand, and said: Faith hopes all things. Then did Christian find some peace, and stood up. Evangelist.--I pray thee give more heed to the things that I shall tell thee of. The Lord says, 'Strive to go in at the strait gate, the gate to which I send thee, for strait is the gate that leads to life, and few there be that find it.' Why didst thou set at nought the words of God, for the sake of Mr. Worldly Wiseman? That is, in truth, the right name for such as he. The Lord hath told thee that he who will save his life shall lose it.' He to whom thou wast sent for ease, Legality by name, could not set thee free; no man yet has got rid of his load through him; he could but show thee the way to woe, for by the deeds of the law no man can be rid of his load. So that Mr. Worldly Wiseman and his friend Mr. Legality are false guides; and as for his son Civility, he could not help thee. Now Christian, in great dread, could think of nought but death, and sent forth a sad cry in grief that he had gone from the right way. Then he spoke once more to Evangelist in these words:--Sir, what think you? Is there hope? May I now go back, and strive to reach The Wicket Gate? I grieve that I gave ear to this man's voice; but may my sin find grace? Evangelist.--Thy sin is great, for thou hast gone from the way that is good, to tread in false paths, yet will the man at the gate let thee through, for he has love and good will for all men; but take heed that thou turn not to the right hand or to the left. Then did Christian make a move to go back, and Evangelist gave him a kiss and one smile, and bade him God speed. So he went on with haste, nor did he speak on the road; and could by no means feel safe till he was in the path which he had left. In time, he got up to the gate. And as he saw by the words which he read on it, that those who would knock could go in, he gave two or three knocks, and said: May I go in here? At last there came a great man to the gate, whose name was Good-will, and he said: Who is there; whence come you, and what would you have? Christian.--I come from The City of Destruction with a load of Sins on my back; but I am on my way to Mount Zion, that I may be free from the wrath to come; and as I have been told that my way is through this gate, I would know, Sir, if you will let me in? Good-will.--With all my heart. So he flung back the gate. But just as Christian went in, he gave him a pull. Then said Christian: What means that? Good-will told him that a short way from this gate there was a strong fort, of which Beelzebub was the chief, and that from thence he and the rest that dwelt there shot darts at those that came up to the gate to try if they could kill them ere they got in. Then said Christian: I come in with joy and with fear. So when he had gone in, the man at the gate said: Who sent you here? Christian.--Evangelist bade me come and knock (as I did); and he said that you, Sir, would tell me what I must do. Good-will.--The door is thrown back wide for you to come in, and no man can shut it. Christian.--Now I seem to reap the good of all the risks I have met with on the way. Good-will.--But how is it that no one comes with you? Christian.--None of my friends saw that there was cause of fear, as I did. Good-will.--Did they know of your flight? Christian.--Yes, my wife and young ones saw me go, and I heard their cries as they ran out to try and stop me. Some of my friends, too, would have had me come home, but I put my hands to my ears, and so came on my way. Good-will.--But did none of them come out to beg of you to go back? Christian.--Yes, both Obstinate and Pliable came, but when they found that I would not yield, Obstinate went home, but Pliable came with me as far as the Slough of Despond. Good-will.--Why did he not come through it? When Christian told him the rest, he said: Ah, poor man! Is a world of bliss such a small thing to him, that he did not think it worth while to run a few risks to gain it? Sir, said Christian, there is not much to choose twixt him and me. Then he told Good-will how he had been led from the straight path by Mr. Worldly Wiseman. Good-will.--Oh, did he light on you? What! He would have had you seek for ease at the hands of Mr. Legality. They are, in truth, both of them cheats. And did you take heed of what he said? Christian then told him all. But now that I am come, said he, I am more fit for death, than to stand and talk to my Lord. But oh, the joy it is to me to be here! Good-will.--We keep none out that knock at this gate, let them have done what they may ere they came here; for they are 'in no wise cast out.' So, good Christian, come with me, and I will teach you the way you must go. Look in front. That is the way which was laid down by Christ and the wise men of old, and it is as straight as a rule can make it. Christian.--But is there no turn or bend by which one who knows not the road might lose his way? Good-will.--My friend, there are not a few that lead down to it, and these paths are wide: yet by this you may judge the right from the wrong--the right are straight and are by no means wide. Then I saw in my dream that Christian said: Could you not help me off with this load on my back?--for as yet he had not got rid of it. He was told: As to your load, you must bear it till you come to the place of Deliverance, for there it will fall from your back. Then Christian would have set off on the road; but Good-will said: Stop a while and let me tell you that when you have gone through the gate you will see the house of Mr. Interpreter, at whose door you must knock, and he will show you good things. Then Christian took leave of his friend, who bade him God speed. He now went on till he came to the house at the door of which he was to knock; this he did two or three times. At last one came to the door and said: Who is there? Christian.--I have come to see the good man of the house. So in a short time Mr. Interpreter came to him and said: What would you have? Christian.--Sir, I am come from The City of Destruction, and am on my way to Mount Zion. I was told by the man that stands at the gate, that if I came here you would show me good things that would help me. Then Interpreter took Christian to a room, and bade his man bring a light, and there he saw on the wall the print of one who had a grave face, whose eyes were cast up to the sky, and the best of books was in His hand, the law of truth was on His lips, and the world was at His back. He stood as if He would plead for men, and a crown of gold hung near his head. Christian.--What does this mean? Interpreter.--I have shown you this print first, for this is He who is to be your sole guide when you can not find your way to the land to which you go; so take good heed to what I have shown you, lest you meet with some who would feign to lead you right; but their way goes down to death. Then he took him to a large room that was full of dust, for it had not been swept; and Interpreter told his man to sweep it. Now when he did so, such clouds of dust flew up, that it made Christian choke. Then said Interpreter to a maid that stood by; Make the floor moist that the dust may not rise; and when she had done this, it was swept with ease. Christian.--What means this? Interpreter.--This room is the heart of that man who knows not the grace of God. The dust is his first sin and the vice that is in him. He that swept first is the Law, but she who made the floor moist is The Book which tells Good News to Man. Now as soon as you saw the first of these sweep, the dust did so fly that the room could not be made clean by him; this is to show you that the law as it works does not cleanse the heart from sin, but gives strength to sin, so as to rouse it up in the soul. Then you next saw the maid come in to lay the dust; so is sin made clean and laid low by faith in The Book. Now, said Christian, let me go hence. Well, said Interpreter, keep all things so in thy mind that they may be a goad in thy sides; and may faith guide thee! Then I saw in my dream that the high way which Christian was to tread, had a wall on each side, and the name of that wall was Salvation. Up this high way did Christian run, but with great toil for the load on his back. He ran thus till he drew near to a place on which stood a cross, and at the foot of it a tomb. Just as Christian came up to the cross, his load slid from his back, close to the mouth of the tomb, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. Then was Christian glad, and said with a gay heart: He gives me rest by his grief, and life by his death. Yet he stood still for a while, for he was struck with awe to think that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his load. Three or four times did he look on the cross and the tomb, and the tears rose to his eyes. As he stood thus and wept, lo, three Bright Ones came to him, and one of them said: Peace be to thee! thou hast grace from thy sins. And one came up to him to strip him of his rags and put a new robe on him, while the third set a mark on his face, and gave him a roll with a seal on it, which he bade him look on as he went, and give it at The Celestial Gate; and then they left him. Christian gave three leaps for joy, and sang as he went: Ah, what a place is this! Blest cross! Blest tomb! Nay, blest is the Lord that was put to shame for me! He went on thus till he came to a vale where he saw three men who were in a sound sleep, with chains on their feet. The name of one was Simple, one Sloth, and the third Presumption. As Christian saw them lie in this case, he went to wake them, and said: You are like those that sleep on the top of a mast, for the Dead Sea is at your feet. Wake, rise, and come with me. Trust me, and I will help you off with your chains. With that they cast their eyes up to look at him, and Simple said: I would fain take more sleep. Presumption said: Let each man look to his own. And so they lay down to sleep once more. Then I saw in my dream that two men leapt from the top of the wall and made great haste to come up to him. Their names were Formalist and Hypocrisy. Christian.--Sirs, whence come you, and where do you go? Formalist and Hypocrisy.--We were born in the land of Vain-glory, and are on our way to Mount Zion for praise. Christian.--Why came you not in at the Gate? Know you not that he that comes not in at the door, but climbs up to get in, the same is a thief? They told him that to go through the gate was too far round; that the best way was to make a short cut of it, and climb the wall, as they had done. Christian.--But what will the Lord of the town to which we are bound think of it, if we go not in the way of his will? They told Christian that he had no need for care on that score, for long use had made it law, and they could prove that it had been so for years. Christian.--But are you quite sure that your mode will stand a suit at law? Yes, said they, no doubt of it. And if we get in the road at all, pray what are the odds? If we are in, we are in; you are but in the way, who come in at the gate, and we too are in the way that choose to climb the wall. Is not our case as good as yours? Christian.--I walk by the rule of my Lord, but you walk by the rule of your own lusts. The Lord of the way will count you as thieves, and you will not be found true men in the end. I saw then that they all went on till they came to the foot of the Hill of Difficulty, where there was a spring. There were in the same place two more ways, one on the left hand and one on the right; but the path that Christian was told to take went straight up the hill, and its name is Difficulty, and he saw that the way of life lay there. Now when Christian got as far as the Spring of Life he drank of it, and then went up the hill. But when the two men saw that it was steep and high, and that there were three ways to choose from, one of them took the path the name of which is Danger, and lost his way in a great wood, and one of them went by the road of Destruction, which led him to a wide field full of dark rocks, where he fell, and rose no more. I then saw Christian go up the hill, where at first I could see him run, then walk, and then go on his hands and knees, so steep was it. Now half way up was a cave made by the Lord of that hill, that those who came by might rest there. So here Christian sat down, and took out the scroll and read it, till at last he fell off in a deep sleep which kept him there till it was dusk; and while he slept his scroll fell from his hand. At length a man came up to him and woke him, and said: Go to the ant, thou man of sloth, and learn of her to be wise. At this Christian gave a start, and sped on his way, and went at a quick pace. When he had got near to the top of the hill, two men ran up to meet him, whose names were Timorous and Mistrust, to whom Christian said, Sirs, what ails you? You run the wrong way. Timorous said that Zion was the hill they meant to climb, but that when they had got half way they found that they met with more and more risk, so that great fear came on them, and all they could do was to turn back. Yes, said Mistrust, for just in front of us there lay two beasts of prey in our path; we knew not if they slept or not, but we thought that they would fall on us and tear our limbs. Christian.--You rouse my fears. Where must I fly to be safe? If I go back to my on town (Destruction) I am sure to lose my life, but if I can get to The Celestial City, there shall I be safe. To turn back is death; to go on is fear of death, but when I come there, a life of bliss that knows no end. I will go on yet. So Mistrust and Timorous ran down the hill and Christian went on his way. Yet he thought once more of what he had heard from the men, and then he felt in his cloak for his scroll, that he might read it and find some peace. He felt for it but found it not. Then was Christian in great grief, and knew not what to do for the want of that which was to be his pass to The Celestial City. At last, thought he: I slept in the cave by the side of the hill. So he fell down on his knees to pray that God would give him grace for this act; and then went back to look for his scroll. But as he went, what tongue can tell the grief of Christian's heart? Oh, fool that I am! said he, to sleep in the day time; so to give way to the flesh as to use for ease that rest which the Lord of the hill had made but for the help of the soul! Thus, then, with tears and sighs, he went back, and with much care did he look on this side and on that for his scroll. At length he came near to the cave where he had sat and slept. How far, thought Christian, have I gone in vain! Such was the lot of the Jews for their sin; they were sent back by the way of the Red Sea; and I am made to tread those steps with grief which I might have trod with joy, had it not been for this sleep. How far might I have been on my way by this time! I am made to tread those steps thrice which I need not to have trod but once; yea, now too I am like to be lost in the night, for the day is well nigh spent. O that I had not slept! Now by this time he had come to the vale once more, where for a spell he sat down and wept; but at last, as he cast a sad glance at the foot of the bench, he saw his scroll, which he caught up with haste, and put in his cloak. Words are too weak to tell the joy of Christian when he had got back his scroll. He laid it up in the breast of his coat and gave thanks to God. With what a light step did he now climb the hill! But, ere he got to the top, the sun went down on Christian, and he soon saw that two wild beast stood in his way. Ah, thought he, these beasts range in the night for their prey; and if they should meet with me in the dark, how should I fly from them? I see now the cause of all those fears that drove Mistrust and Timorous back. Still Christian went on, and while he thought thus on this sad lot he cast up his eyes and saw a great house in front of him, the name of which was Beautiful, and it stood just by the side of the high road. So he made haste and went on in the hope that he could rest there a while. The name of the man who kept the lodge of that house was Watchful, and when he saw that Christian made a halt as if he would go back, he came out to him and said: Is thy strength so small? Fear not the two wild beasts, for they are bound by chains, and are put here to try the faith of those that have it, and to find out those that have none. Keep in the midst of the path and no harm shall come to thee. Then I saw, in my dream, that still he went on in great dread of the wild beasts; he heard them roar, yet they did him no harm; but when he had gone by them he went on with joy, till he came and stood in front of the lodge where Watchful dwelt. Christian.--Sir, what house is this? May I rest here to night? Watchful.--This house was built by the Lord of the Hill to give aid to those who climb up it for the good cause. Tell me, whence come you? Christian.--I am come from the Town of Destruction, and am on my way to Mount Zion; but the day is far spent, and I would, with your leave, pass the night here. Watchful.--What is your name? Christian.--My name is now Christian, but at first it was Graceless. Watchful.--How is it you came so late? The sun is set. Christian then told him why it was. Watchful.--Well, I will call one that lives here, who, if she like your talk, will let you come in, for these are the rules of the house. So he rang a bell, at the sound of which there came out at the door a grave and fair maid, whose name was Discretion. When Watchful told her why Christian had come there, she said: What is your name? It is Christian, said he, and I much wish to rest here to night, and the more so for I see this place was build by the Lord of the Hill, to screen those from harm who come to it. So she gave a smile, but the tears stood in her eyes; and in a short time she said: I will call forth two or three more of our house, and then she ran to the door and brought in Prudence, Piety, and Charity, who met him and said: Come in, thou blest of the Lord; this house was built by the King of the Hill for such as you. Then Christian bent down his head, and went with them to the house. Piety.--Come, good Christian, since our love prompts us to take you in to rest, let us talk with you of all that you have seen on your way. Christian.--With a right good will, and I am glad that you should ask it of me. Prudence.--And, first, say what is it that makes you wish so much to go to Mount Zion? Christian.--Why there I hope to see Him that did die on the Cross; and there I hope to be rid of all those thing that to this day grieve and vex me. There, they say, is no death; and there I shall dwell with such as love the Lord. Charity.--Have you a wife and babes? Christian.--Yes, I have. Charity.--And why did you not bring them with you? Christian then wept, and said: Oh, how glad should I have been to do so! but they would not come with me, nor have me leave them. Charity.--And did you pray to God to put it in their hearts to go with you? Christian.--Yes, and that with much warmth, for you may think how dear they were to me. Thus did Christian talk with these friends till it grew dark, and then he took his rest in a large room, the name of which was Peace; there he slept till break of day, and then he sang a hymn. They told him that he should not leave till they had shown him all the rare things that were in that place. There were to be seen the rod of Moses, the nail with which Jail slew Sisera, the lamps with which Gideon put to flight the host of Midian, and the ox goad with which Shamgar slew his foes. And they brought out the jaw bone of an ass with which Samson did such great feats, and the sling and stone with which David slew Goliath of Gath. Then I saw in my dream that Christian rose to take his leave of Discretion, and of Prudence, Piety, and Charity, but they said that he must stay till the next day, that they might show him The Delectable Mountains; so they took him to the top of the house, and bade him look to the South, which he did, and lo, a great way off, he saw a rich land, full of hills, woods, vines, shrubs, and streams. What is the name of this land? said Christian. Then they told him it was Immanuel's Land. And, said they, It is as much meant for you, and the like of you, as this hill is; and when you reach the place, there you may see the gate of The Celestial City. Then they gave him a sword, and put on him a coat of mail, which was proof from head to foot, lest he should meet some foe in the way; and they went with him down the hill. Of a truth, said Christian, it is as great a toil to come down the hill as it was to go up. Prudence.--So it is, for it is a hard thing for a man to go down to The Vale of Humiliation, as thou dost now, and for this cause have we come with you to the foot of the hill. So, though he went with great care, yet he caught a slip or two. Then in my dream I saw that when they had got to the foot of the hill, these good friends of Christian's gave him a loaf of bread, a flask of wine, and a bunch of dry grapes; and then they left him to go on his way. But now in this Vale of Humiliation poor Christian was hard put to it, for he had not gone far, ere he saw a foe come in the field to meet him, whose name was Apollyon. Then did Christian fear, and he cast in his mind if he would go back or stand his ground. But Christian thought that as he had no coat of mail on his back, to turn round might give Apollyon a chance to pierce it with his darts. So he stood his ground, For, thought he, if but to save my life were all I had in view, still the best way would be to stand. So he went on, and Apollyon met him with looks of scorn. Apollyon.--Whence come you, and to what place are you bound? Christian.--I am come from The City of Destruction, which is a place of all sin, and I am on my way to Zion. Apollyon.--By this I see you are mine, for of all that land I am the Prince. How is it, then, that you have left your king? Were it not that I have a hope that you may do me more good, I would strike you to the ground with one blow. Christian.--I was born in your realm, it is true, but you drove us too hard, and your wage was such as no man could live on. Apollyon.--No prince likes to lose his men, nor will I as yet lose you; so if you will come back, what my realm yields I will give you. Christian.--But I am bound by vows to the King of Kings; and how can I, to be true, go back with you? Apollyon.--You have made a change, it seems, from bad to worse; but why not give Him the slip, and come back with me? Christian.--I gave Him my faith, and swore to be true to Him: how can I go back from this? Apollyon.--You did the same to me, and yet I will pass by all, if you will but turn and go back. Then, when Apollyon saw that Christian was stanch to his Prince, he broke out in a great rage, and said, I hate that Prince, and I hate his laws, and I am come out to stop you. Christian.--Take heed what you do. I am on the King's high way to Zion. Apollyon.--I am void of fear, and to prove that I mean what I say, here on this spot I will put thee to death. With that he threw a dart of fire at his breast, but Christian had a shield on his arm, with which he caught it. Then did Christian draw his sword, for he saw it was time to stir; and Apollyon as fast made at him, and threw darts as thick as hail; with which, in spite of all that Christian could do, Apollyon gave him wounds in his head, hand, and foot. This made Christian pause in the fight for a time, but Apollyon still came on, and Christian once more took heart. They fought for half a day, till Christian, weak from his wounds, was well nigh spent in strength. When Apollyon saw this, he threw him down with a great force; on which Christian's sword fell out of his hand. Then said Apollyon, I am sure of thee now. But while he strove to make an end of Christian, that good man put out his hand in haste to feel for his sword, and caught it. Boast not, oh Apollyon! said he, and with that he struck him a blow which made his foe reel back as one that had had his last wound. Then he spread out his wings and fled, so that Christian for a time saw him no more. Then there came to him a hand which held some of the leaves of the tree of life; some of them Christian took, and as soon as he had put them to his wounds, he saw them heal up. Now near this place was the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and Christian must needs go through it to get to The Celestial City. It was a land of drought and full of pits, a land that none but such as Christian could pass through, and where no man dwelt. So that here he was worst put to it than in his fight with Apollyon, which by and by we shall see. As he drew near the Shadow of Death he met with two men, to whom Christian thus spoke: To what place do you go? Men.--Back! Back! and we would have you do the same if you prize life and peace. Christian.--But why? Men.--We went on as far as we durst. Christian.--What then have you seen? Men.--Seen! Why the Valley of the Shadow of Death; but by dint of good luck we caught sight of what lay in front of it, ere we came up. Death doth spread out his wings there. In a word it is a place full of bad men, where no law dwells. Christian.--I see not yet, by what you have told me, but that this is my way to Zion. Men.--Be it thy way then; we will not choose it for ours. So they took their leave, and Christian went on, but still with his drawn sword in his hand, for fear lest he should meet once more with a foe. I saw then in my dream that so far as this vale went, there was on the right hand a deep ditch; that ditch to which the blind have led the blind as long as the world has been made. And, lo, on the left hand there was a quag. in which if a man fall, he will find no firm ground for his foot to stand on. The path way was not broad, and so good Christian was the more put to it. This went on for miles, and in the midst of that vale was a deep pit. One thing which I saw in my dream I must not leave out; it was this:--Just as Christian had come to the mouth of the pit, one of those who dwelt in it swept up to him, and in a soft tone spoke bad things to him, and took God's name in vain, which Christian thought must have come from his own mind. This put him out more than all the rest had done; to think that he should take that name in vain for which he felt so deep a love, was a great grief to him. Yet there was no help for it. Then he thought he heard a voice which said: Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no harm for thou art with me. Now as Christian went on, he found there was a rise in the road, which had been thrown up that that path might be clear to those who were bound for Zion. Up this road Christian went, and saw his old friend Faithful a short way off. Then said Christian: Ha, my friend, are you here? Stay, and I will join you. This ere long he did, and they spoke of all that had come to pass since they had last met. In course of time the road they took brought them to a town, the name of which is Vanity, where there is a fair kept through the whole year, and all that is bought or sold there is vain and void of worth. There, too, are to be seen at all times games, plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues. Yet he that will go to The Celestial City must needs pass through this fair. As soon as Christian and Faithful came to the town, a crowd drew round them, and some said they had lost their wits, to dress and speak as they did, and to set no store by the choice goods for sale in Vanity Fair. When Christian spoke, his words brought from these folks fierce taunts and jeers, and soon the noise and stir grew to such a height that the chief man of the fair sent his friends to take up these two strange men, and he bade them tell him whence they came, and what they did there in such a garb. Christian and Faithful told them all; but those who sat to judge the case thought that they must be mad, or else that they had come to stir up strife at the fair; so they beat them with sticks, and put them in a cage, that they might be a sight for all the men at the fair. Then the worse sort of folks set to pelt them with mud out of spite, and some threw stones at them for mere sport; but Christian and Faithful gave good words for bad, and bore all in such a meek way, that not a few took their part. This led to blows and fights, and the blame was laid on Christian and Faithful, who were then made to toil up and down the fair in chains, till, faint with stripes, they were at length set with their feet in the stocks. But they bore their griefs and woes with joy, for they saw in them a pledge that all should be well in the end. By and by a court sat to try them: the name of the judge was Lord Hate-good; and the crime laid to their charge was that they had come to Vanity Fair to spoil its trade, and stir up strife in the town; and had won not a few men to their side, in spite of the prince of the place. Faithful said to the Judge: I am a man of peace, and did but wage war on Sin. As for the prince they speak of, since he is Beelzebub, I hold him in scorn. Those who took Faithful's part were won by the force of plain truth and right in his words; but the judge said, Let those speak who know aught of this man. So three men, whose names were Envy, Superstition, and Pick-thank, stood forth and swore to speak the truth, and tell what they knew of Faithful. Envy said: My lord, this man cares nought for kings or laws, but seeks to spread his own views, and to teach men what he calls faith. I heard him say but just now that the ways of our town of Vanity are vile. And does he not in that speak ill of us? Then Superstition said: My lord, I know not much of this man, and have no wish to know more, but of this I am sure, that he is a bad man, for he says that our creeds are vain. Pick-thank was then bid to say what he knew, and his speech ran thus: My lord, I have known this man for a long time, and have heard him say things that ought not to be said. He rails at our great Prince Beelzebub, and says that if all men were of his mind, that prince should no more hold sway here. More than this, he hath been heard to rail on you, my lord, who are now his judge. Then said the Judge to Faithful: Thou base man! Hast though heard what these folk have said of thee? Faithful.--May I speak a few words in my own cause? Judge.--Thy just doom would be to die on the spot; still, let us hear what thou hast to say. Faithful.--I say, then, to Mr. Envy, that all laws and modes of life in which men heed not the Word of God are full of sin. As to the charge of Mr. Superstition, I would urge that nought can save us if we do not the will of God. To Mr. Pick-thank, I say that men should flee from the Prince of this town and his friends, as from the wrath to come and so, I pray the Lord to help me. Then the Judge, to sum up the case, spoke thus: You see this man who has made such a stir in our town. You have heard what these good men have said of him, which he owns to be true. It rests now to you to save his life or hang him. The twelve men who had Faithful's life in their hands spoke in a low tone thus: This man is full of schisms, said Mr. Blind-man. Out of the world with him, said Mr. No-good. I hate the mere look of him, said Mr. Malice. From the first I could not bear him, said Mr. Love-ease. Nor I, for he would be sure to blame my ways, said Mr. Live-loose. Hang him, hang him! said Mr. Heady. A low wretch! said Mr. High-mind. I long to crush him, said Mr. Enmity. He is a rogue, said Mr. Liar. Death is too good for him, said Mr. Cruelty. Let us kill him, that he may be out of the way, said Mr. Hate-light. Then said Mr. Implacable: Not to gain all the world would I make peace with him, so let us doom him to death. And so they did, and in a short time he was led back to the place from whence he came, there to be put to the worst death that could be thought of; for the scourge, the sword, and the stake brought Faithful to his end. Now I saw that there stood near the crowd a strange car with two bright steeds, which, as soon as his foes had slain him, took Faithful up through the clouds straight to The Celestial City, with the sound of the harp and lute. As for Christian, for this time he got free; and there came to him one Hopeful, who did so from what he had heard and seen of Christian and Faithful. Thus, while one lost his life for the truth, a new man rose from his death, to tread the same way with Christian. And Hopeful said there were more men of the fair who would take their time, and then come too. By and by their way lay just on the bank of a pure stream, from which they drank. On each side of it were green trees that bore fruit, and in a field through which it ran they lay down to sleep. When they woke up they sat for a while in the shade of the boughs; thus they went on for three or four days, and to pass the time they sang: He that can tell What sweet fresh fruit, yea leaves these trees do yield, Will soon sell all, that he may buy this field. Now on the left hand of the road was By-path Meadow, a fair green field with a path through it, and a stile. Come, good Hopeful, said Christian, let us walk on the grass. Hopeful.--But what if this path should lead us wrong? Christian.--How can it? Look, doth it not go by the way side? So they set off through the field. But they had not gone far when they saw in front of them a man, Vain-confidence by name, who told them that the path led to The Celestial Gate. So the man went first; but lo, the night came on, and it grew so dark that they lost sight of their guide, who, as he did not see the path in front of him, fell in a deep pit, and was heard of no more. Where are we now? said Hopeful. Then was Christian mute, as he thought he had led his friend out of the way. And now light was seen to flash from the sky, and rain came down in streams. Hopeful (with a groan) Oh, that I had kept on my way! Christian.--Who could have thought that this path should lead us wrong? Hopeful.--I had my fears from the first, and so gave you a hint. Christian.--Good friend, I grieve that I have brought you out of the right path. Hopeful.--Say no more, no doubt it is for our good. Christian.--We must not stand thus; let us try to go back. Hopeful.--But, good Christian, let me go first. Then they heard a voice say: Set thine heart to the high way, the way thou hast been: turn once more. But by this time the stream was deep from the rain that fell, and to go back did not seem safe; yet they went back, though it was so dark and the stream ran so high that once or twice it was like to drown them. Nor could they, with all their skill, get back that night. So they found a screen from the rain, and there they slept till break of day. Now, not far from the place where they lay was Doubting Castle, the lord of which was Giant Despair; and it was on his ground that they now slept. There Giant Despair found them, and with a gruff voice he bade them wake. Whence are you? said he; and what brought you here? They told him that they had lost the path. Then said Giant Despair: You have no right to force your way in here; the ground on which you lie is mine. They had not much to say, as they knew that they were in fault. So Giant Despair drove them on, and put them in a dark and foul cell in a strong hold. Here they were kept for three days, and they had no light nor food nor a drop to drink all that time, and no one to ask them how they did. Now Giant Despair had a wife, whose name was Diffidence, and he told her what he had done. Then said he, What will be the best way to treat them? Beat them well, said Diffidence. So when he rose he took a stout stick from a crab tree, and went down to the cell where poor Christian and Hopeful lay, and beat them as if they had been dogs, so that they could not turn on the floor; and they spent all that day in sighs and tears. The next day he came once more, and found them sore from the stripes, and said that since there was no chance for them to be let out of the cell, their best way would be to put an end to their own lives: For why should you wish to live, said he, with all this woe? But they told him they did hope he would let them go. With that he sprang up with a fierce look, and no doubt would have made an end of them, but that he fell in a fit for a time, and lost the use of his hand; so he drew back, and left them to think of what he had said. Christian.--Friend, what shall we do? The life that we now lead is worse than death. For my part I know not which is best, to live thus, or to die at our own hand, as I feel that the grave would be less sad to me than this cell. Shall we let Giant Despair rule us? Hopeful.--In good truth our case is a sad one, and to die would be more sweet to me than to live here; yet let us bear in mind that the Lord of that land to which we go hath said: 'Thou shalt not kill.' And by this act we kill our souls as well. My friend Christian, you talk of ease in the grave, but can a man go to bliss who takes his own life? All the law is not in the hands of Giant Despair. Who knows but that God, who made the world, may cause him to die, or lose the use of his limbs as he did at first. I have made up my mind to pluck up the heart of a man, and to try to get out of this strait. Fool that I was not to do so when first he came to the cell. But let us not put an end to our own lives, for a good time may come yet. By these words did Hopeful change the tone of Christian's mind. Well, at night the Giant went down to the cell to see if life was still in them, and in good truth that life was in them was all that could be said, for from their wounds and want of food they did no more than just breathe. When Giant Despair found they were not dead, he fell in a great rage, and said that it should be worse with them if they had not been born. At this they shook with fear, and Christian fell down in a swoon; but when he came to, Hopeful said: My friend, call to mind how strong in faith you have been till now. Say, could Apollyon hurt you, or all that you heard, or saw, or felt in the Valley of the Shadow of Death? Look at the fears, the griefs, the woes that you have gone through. And now to be cast down! I, too, am in this cell, far more weak a man than you, and Giant Despair dealt his blows at me as well as you, and keeps me from food and light. Let us both (if but to shun the shame) bear up as well as we can. When night came on, the wife of Giant Despair said to him: Well, will the two men yield? To which he said: No; they choose to stand firm, and will not put an end to their lives. Then said Mrs. Diffidence: At dawn of day take them to the yard, and show them the graves where all those whom you have put to death have been thrown, and make use of threats this time. So Giant Despair took them to this place, and said: In ten days time you shall be thrown in here if you do not yield. Go; get you down to your den once more. With that he beat them all the way back, and there they lay the whole day in a sad plight. Now, when night was come, Mrs. Diffidence said to Giant Despair: I fear much that these men live on in hopes to pick the lock of the cell and get free. Dost thou say so, my dear? quoth Giant Despair to his wife; then at sun rise I will search them. Now, on that night, as Christian and Hopeful lay in the den, they fell on their knees to pray, and knelt till the day broke; when Christian gave a start, and said: Fool that I am thus to lie in this dark den when I might walk at large! I have a key in my pouch, the name of which is Promise, that, I feel sure, will turn the lock of all the doors in Doubting Castle. Then said Hopeful: That is good news; pluck it from thy breast, and let us try it. So Christian put it in the lock, when the bolt sprang back, the door flew wide, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. When they got to the yard door the key did just as well; but the lock of the last strong gate of Doubting Castle went hard, yet it did turn at last, though the hinge gave so loud a creak that it woke up Giant Despair, who rose to seek for the two men. But just then he felt his limbs fail, for a fit came on him, so that he could by no means reach their cell. Christian and Hopeful now fled back to the high way, and were safe out of his grounds. When they sat down to rest on a stile, they said they would warn those who might chance to come on this road. So they cut these words on a post: This is the way to Doubting Castle, which is kept by Giant Despair, who loves not the King of the Celestial Country, and seeks to kill all who would go there. Then they came to The Delectable Mountains, which the Lord of the Hill owns. Here they saw fruit trees, vines, shrubs, woods, and streams, and drank and ate of the grapes. Now there were men at the tops of these hills who kept watch on their flocks, and as they stood by the high way, Christian and Hopeful leant on their staves to rest, while thus they spoke to the men: Who owns these Delectable Mountains, and whose are the sheep that feed on them? Men.--These hills are Immanuel's, and the sheep are His too, and He laid down his life for them. Christian.--Is this the way to The Celestial City? Men.--You are in the right road. Christian.--How far is it? Men.--Too far for all but those that shall get there, in good truth. Christian.--Is the way safe? Men.--Safe for those for whom it is to be safe; but the men of sin shall fall there. Christian.--Is there a place of rest here for those that faint on the road? Men.--The Lord of these Hills gave us a charge to help those that came here, should they be known to us or not; so all the good things of the place are yours. I then saw in my dream that the men said: Whence come you, and by what means have you got so far? For but few of those that set out come here to show their face on these hills. So when Christian and Hopeful told their tale, the men cast a kind glance at them, and said: With joy we greet you on The Delectable Mountains! Their names were Knowledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere, and they led Christian and Hopeful by the hand to their tents, and bade them eat of that which was there, and they soon went to their rest for the night. When the morn broke, the men woke up Christian and Hopeful, and took them to a spot whence they saw a bright view on all sides. Then they went with them to the top of a high hill, the name of which was Error; it was steep on the far off side, and they bade them look down to the foot of it. So Christian and Hopeful cast their eyes down, and saw there some men who had lost their lives by a fall from the top; men who had been made to err, for they had put their trust in false guides. Have you not heard of them? said the men. Christian.--Yes, I have. Men.--These are they, and to this day they have not been put in a tomb, but are left here to warn men to take good heed how they come too near the brink of this hill. Then I saw that they had led them to the top of Mount Caution, and bade them look far off. From that stile, said they, there goes a path to Doubting Castle, which is kept by Giant Despair, and the men whom you see there came as you do now, till they got up to that stile; and, as the right way was rough to walk in, they chose to go through a field, and there Giant Despair took them, and shut them up in Doubting Castle, where they were kept in a den for a while, till he at last sent them out quite blind, and there they are still. At this Christian gave a look at Hopeful, and they both burst out with sobs and tears, but yet said not a word. Then the four men took them up a high hill, the name of which was Clear, that they might see the gates of The Celestial City, with the aid of a glass to look through, but their hands shook, so they could not see well. When Christian and Hopeful thought they would move on, one of the men gave them a note of the way, and the next (Experience by name) bade them take heed that they slept not on The Enchanted Ground, and the fourth bade them God Speed. Now it was that I woke from my dream. Then I slept, and dreamt once more, and saw Christian and Hopeful go down near the foot of these hills, where lies the land of Conceit, which joins the way to Mount Zion, by a small lane. Here they met a brisk lad, whose name was Ignorance, to whom Christian said: Whence come you, and to what place do you go? Ignorance.--Sir, I was born in the land that lies off there on the left, and I wish to go to The Celestial City. Christian.--How do you think to get in at the gate? Ignorance.--Just as the rest of the world do. Christian.--But what have you to show at that gate to pass you through it? Ignorance.--I know my Lord's will, and I have led a good life; I pay for all that I have, I give tithes, and give alms, and have left my own land for that to which I now go. Christian.--But you came not in at the gate that is at the head of this way, you came in through a small lane; so that I fear, though you may think well of all you have done, that when the time shall come, you will have this laid to your charge, that you are a thief and so you will not get in. Ignorance.--Well, since I know you not; you keep to your own creed, and I will keep to mine, and I hope all will be well. And as for the gate that you talk of, all the world knows that it is far from our land, and I do not think that there is a man in all our parts who does so much as know the way to it, and I see not what need there is that he should, since we have, as you see, a fine green lane at the next turn that comes down from our part of the world. Christian said in a low tone of voice to Hopeful: There is more hope of a fool than of him. Hopeful.--Let us pass on if you will, and talk to him by and by, when, may be, he can bear it. So they went on, and Ignorance trod in their steps a short way from them, till they saw a road branch off from the one they were in, and they knew not which of the two to take. As they stood to think of it, a man whose skin was black, but who was clad in a white robe, came to them and said: Why do you stand here? They told him that they were on their way to The Celestial City, but knew not which of the two roads to take. Come with me, then, said the man, for it is there that I mean to go. So they went with him, though it was clear that the road must have made a bend, for they found they would soon turn their backs on The Celestial City. Ere long, Christian and Hopeful were both caught in a net, and knew not what to do; and with that the white robe fell off the black man's back. Then they saw where they were. So there they sat down and wept. Christian.--Did not one of the four men who kept guard on their sheep tell us to take heed lest Flatterer should spread a net for out feet? Hopeful.--Those men, too, gave us a note of the way, but we have not read it, and so have not kept in the right path. Thus they lay in the net to weep and wail. At last they saw a Bright One come up to them with a whip of fine cord in his hand, who said: What do you here? Whence come you? They told him that their wish was to go to Zion, but that they had been led out of the way by a black man with a white cloak on, who, as he was bound for the same place, said he would show them the road. Then said he: It is Flatterer, a false man, who has put on the garb of a Bright One for a time. So he rent the net and let the men out. Then he bade them come with him, that he might set them on the right way once more. He said: Where were you last night? Quoth they: With the men who kept watch of their sheep on The Delectable Mountains. Then he said: But when you were at a stand why did you not read your note? They told him they had not thought of it. Now I saw in my dream that he bade them lie down, and whipt them sore, to teach them the good way in which they should walk; and he said: Those whom I love I serve thus. So they gave him thanks for what he had taught them, and went on the right way up the hill with a song of joy. At length they came to a land the air of which made men sleep, and here the lids of Hopeful's eyes dropped, and he said: Let us lie down here and take a nap. Christian.--By no means, lest if we sleep we wake no more. Hopeful.--Nay, friend Christian, sleep is sweet to the man who has spent the day in toil. Christian.--Do you not call to mind that one of the men who kept watch of the sheep bade us take care of The Enchanted Ground? He meant by that that we should take heed not to sleep; so let us not sleep, but watch. Hopeful.--I see I am in fault. Christian.--Now then, to keep sleep from our eyes I will ask you, as we go, to tell me how you came at first to do as you do now? Hopeful.--Do you mean how came I first to look to the good of my soul? Christian.--Yes. Hopeful.--For a long time the things that were seen and sold at Vanity Fair were a great joy to me. Christian.--What things do you speak of? Hopeful.--All the good of this life; such as lies, oaths, drink; in a word, love of self and all that tend to kill the soul. But I heard from you and Faithful that the end of these things is death. Thus did they talk as they went on their way. But I saw in my dream that by this time Christian and Hopeful had got through The Enchanted Ground and had come to the land of Beulah, where the air is sweet; and as their way lay through this land, they made no haste to quit it, for here they heard the birds sing all day long, and the sun shone day and night; the Valley of Death was on the left, and it was out of the reach of Giant Despair; nor could they from this place so much as see Doubting Castle. Now were they in sight of Zion, and here some of the Bright Ones came to meet them. Here, too, they heard the voice of those who dwelt in Zion, and had a good view of this land of bliss, which was built of rare gems of all hues, and the streets were laid with gold. So that the rays of light which shone on Christian were too bright for him to bear, and he fell sick, and Hopeful had a fit of the same kind. So they lay by for a time, and wept, for their joy was too much for them. At length, step by step, they drew near to Zion, and saw that the gates were flung back. A man stood in the way, to whom Christian and Hopeful said: Whose vines and crops are these? He told them they were the king's and were put there to give joy to those who should go on the road. So he bade them eat what fruit they chose, and took them to see the king's walks; where they slept. Now I saw in my dream that they spoke more in their sleep than they had done all the rest of the way, and I could but muse at this, but the man said: Why do you muse at it? The juice from the grapes of this vine is so sweet as to cause the lips of them that sleep to speak. I then saw that when they woke, they would fain go up to Zion; but as I said, the sun threw off such bright rays from The Celestial City, which was built of pure gold, that they could not, as yet, look on it, save through a glass made for that end. Now as they went, they met with two men in white robes, and the face of each shone bright as the light. These men said: Whence come you? And when they had been told they said: You have but one thing more to do, which is a hard one, and then you are in Zion. Christian and Hopeful did then beg of the two men to go with them; which they did. But, said they, It is by your own faith that you must gain it. Now 'twixt them and the gate was a fierce stream which was broad and deep; it had no bridge, and the mere sight of it did so stun Christian and Hopeful that they could not move. But the men who went with them said: You can not come to the gate but through this stream. Is there no way but this one to the gate? said poor Christian. Yes, quoth they, but there have been but two men, to wit, Enoch and Elijah who have trod that path since the world was made. When Christian and Hopeful cast their eyes on the stream once more, they felt their hearts sink with fear, and gave a look this way and that in much dread of the waves. Yet through it lay the way to Zion. Is the stream all of one depth? said Christian. He was told that it was not, yet that in that there was no help, for he would find the stream more or less deep, as he had faith in the King of the place. So they set foot on the stream, but Christian gave a loud cry to his good friend Hopeful, and said: The waves close round my head, and I sink. Then said Hopeful: Be of good cheer; my feet feel the bed of the stream, and it is good. But Christian said: Ah, Hopeful, the pains of death have got hold of me; I shall not reach the land that I long for. And with that a cloud came on his sight, so that he could not see. Hopeful had much to do to keep Christian's head out of the stream; nay, at times he had quite sunk, and then in a while he would rise up half dead. Then said Hopeful: My friend, all this is sent to try if you will call to mind all that God has done for you, and live on Him in your heart. At these words Hopeful saw that Christian was in deep thought; so he said to him: Be of good cheer, Christ will make thee whole. Then Christian broke out with a loud voice: Oh, I see Him, and He speaks to me and says, When you pass through the deep streams, I will be with you. And now they both got strength, and the stream was as still as a stone, so that Christian felt the bed of it with his feet, and he could walk through it. Thus they got to the right bank, where the two men in bright robes stood to wait for them, and their clothes were left in the stream. Now you must bear in mind that Zion was on a steep hill, yet did Christian and Hopeful go up with ease and great speed, for they had these two men to lead them by the arms. The hill stood in the sky, for the base of it was there. So in sweet talk they went up through the air. The Bright Ones told them of the bliss of the place, which they said was such as no tongues could tell, and that there they would see the Tree of Life, and eat of the fruit of it. When you come there, said they, white robes will be put on you, and your talk from day to day shall be with the King for all time. There you shall not see such things as you saw on earth, to wit, care and want, and woe and death. You now go to be with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Christian and Hopeful.--What must we do there? They said: You will have rest for all your toil, and joy for all your grief. You will reap what you have sown--the fruit of all the tears you shed for the King by the way. In that place you will wear crowns of gold, and have at all times a sight of Him who sits on the throne. There you shall serve Him with love, with shouts of joy and with songs of praise. Now, while they thus drew up to the gate, lo, a host of saints came to meet them, to whom the two Bright Ones said: These are men who felt love for our Lord when they were in the world, and left all for His name; and He sent us to bring them far on their way, that they might go in and look on their Lord with joy. Then the whole host with great shouts came round on all sides (as it were to guard them); so that is would seem to Christian and Hopeful as if all Zion had come down to meet them. Now, when Christian and Hopeful went in at the gate a great change took place in them, and they were clad in robes that shone like gold. There were bright hosts that came with harps and crowns, and they said to them: Come, ye, in the joy of the Lord. And then I heard all the bells in Zion ring. Now, just as the gates were flung back for the men to pass in, I had a sight of Zion, which shone like the sun; the ground was of gold, and those who dwelt there had love in their looks, crowns on their heads, and palms in their hands, and with one voice they sent forth shouts of praise. But the gates were now once more shut, and I could but wish that I, too, had gone in to share this bliss. Then I woke, and, lo, it was a dream. END OF FIRST PART. PART II. Once more I had a dream, and it was this:--Christiana, the wife of Christian, had been on her knees to pray, and as she rose, she heard a loud knock at the door. If you come in God's name, said she, come in. Then I thought in my dream that a form, clad in robes as white as snow, threw back the door, and said, Peace be to this house. At a sight so new to her, Christiana at first grew pale with fear, but in a short time took heart and told him she would fain know whence he came, and why. So he said his name was Secret, and that he dwelt with those that are on high. Then said her guest: Christiana, here is a note for thee, which I have brought from Christian. So she took it, broke the seal, and read these words, which were in gold:--"To her who was my dear wife. The King would have you do as I have done, for that was the way to come to this land, and to dwell with Him in joy." When Christiana read this, she shed tears, and said to him who brought the note, Sir, will you take me and my sons with you, that we, too, may bow down to this king? But he said, Christiana, joy is born of grief: care must come first, then bliss. To reach the land where I dwell, thou must go through toils, as well as scorn and taunts. But take the road that leads up to the field gate which stands in the head of the way; and I wish you all good speed. I would have thee wear this note in thy breast, that it may be read by thee till thou must give it up at the last gate that leads to The Celestial City. Then Christiana spoke to her boys, and said: My sons, I have of late been sad at the death of Christian, your dear sire. But I feel sure now that it is well with him, and that he dwells in the land of life and peace. I have, too, felt deep grief at the thoughts of my own state and yours; for we were wrong to let our hearts grow cold, and turn a deaf ear to him in the time of his woe, and hold back from him when he fled from this City of Destruction. The thought of these things would kill me, were it not for a dream which I had last night, and for what a guest who came here at dawn has told me. So come, my dear ones, let us make our way at once to the gate that leads to The Celestial City, that we may see your sire and be there with him and his friends. Then her first two sons burst out in tears of joy that Christiana's heart was set that way. Now while they put all things right to go, two friends of Christiana's came up to her house, and gave a knock at the door. To them she said, If you come in God's name, come in. This mode of speech from the lips of Christiana struck them as strange. Yet they came in, and said, Pray what do you mean by this? I mean to leave my home, said she to Mrs. Timorous--for that was the name of one of these friends. Timorous:--To what end, pray tell me? Christiana:--To go to my dear Christian. And with that she wept. Timorous:--Nay, can it be so? Who or what has brought you to this state of mind? Christiana:--Oh, my friend, if you did but know as much as I do, I doubt not that you would be glad to go with me. Timorous:--Pray what new lore have you got hold of that draws your mind from your friends, and tempts you to go no one knows where? Christiana:--I dreamt last night that I saw Christian. Oh, that my soul were with him now! The Prince of the place has sent for me, through one who came to me at sun rise, and brought this note to bid me go there; read it, I pray you. Timorous:--Ah, how mad to run such risks! You have heard, I am sure, from our friend Obstinate, what Christian met with on the way, for he went with him; yea, and Pliable, too, till they, like wise men, came back through fear. You heard how he met with the beasts of prey and Apollyon, what he saw in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and more still that makes my hair stand on end to hear of; think, too, of these four sweet boys who are your own flesh and bone; and, though you should be so rash as to wish to go, yet for their sale, I pray you keep at home. But Christiana said: Tempt me not. I have now a chance put in my hand to get gain, and in truth I should be a fool if I had not the heart to grasp it. And these toils and snares that you tell me of shall not keep me back; no, they serve but to show me that I am in the right. Care must first be felt, then joy. So since you came not to my house in God's name, as I said, I pray you to be gone, and tempt me no more. Then Timorous said to Mercy (who had come with her): Let us leave her in her own hands, since she scorns all that I say. But Mercy thought that if her friend Christiana must be gone, she would go part of the way with her to help her. She took some thought, too, of her own soul, for what Christiana had said had laid hold on her mind, and she felt she must have some talk with this friend; and if she found that truth and life were in her words, she would join her with all her heart. So Mercy said to Timorous: I came with you to see Christiana, and since on this day she takes leave of the town, I think the least I can do would be to walk a short way with her to help her on. But the rest she kept from Timorous. Timorous:--Well, I see you have a mind to play the fool, too; but take heed in good time, and be wise. So Mrs. Timorous went to her own house; and Christiana, with her four boys and Mercy, went on their way. Mercy, said Christiana, I take this as a great boon that you should set foot out of doors to start me on my way. Then said young Mercy (for she was quite young): If I thought it would be good to join you, I would not go back at all to the town. Christiana:--Well, Mercy, cast your lot in with mine; I know what will be the end of our toils. Christian is where he would not fail to be for all the gold in the mines of Spain. Nor shall you be sent back, though there be no one but I to ask it for you; for the King who has sent for me and my boys is One who turns not from those who seek Him. If you like I will hire you, and you shall go as my maid, and yet shall share all things with me, so that you do but go. Mercy:--But how do I know that I shall be let in? If I thought I should have help from Him from whom all help comes, I would make no pause, but would go at once, let the way be as rough as it might. Christiana:--Well, Mercy, I will tell you what I would have you do. Go with me as far as to the field gate, and there I will ask; and if no hopes should be held out to you by Him who keeps the gate, you can but go back to your home. Mercy: Well, I will go with you, and the Lord grant that my lot may be cast to dwell in the land for which my heart yearns. Christiana then felt glad that she had a friend to join her, and that her friend should have so great a care for her soul. So they went on their way; but the face of Mercy wore so sad a mien that Christiana said to her, What ails you? Why do you weep? Mercy:--Oh, who could but weep to think of the state of my poor friends near and dear to me, in our had town? Christiana:--You feel for your friends as my good Christian did for me when he left me, for it went to his heart to find that I would not see these things in the same light as he did. And now, you, I, and these dear boys, reap the fruits of all his woes. I hope, Mercy, these tears of yours will not be shed in vain, for He who could not lie, has said that they who sow in tears shall reap in joy. Now when Christiana came up to the Slough Of Despond, she and her sons made a stand, and Christiana told them that this was the place in which her dear Christian fell. But Mercy said, Come, let us try; all we have to do is to keep the steps well in view. Yet Christiana made a slip or two in the mud; but at last they got through the slough, and then they heard a voice say to them: Blest is she who hath faith, for those things which were told her of the Lord shall come to pass. So now they went on once more, and Mercy said, Had I as good grounds to hope to get in at the gate as you have, I think no Slough Of Despond would keep me back. Well, said Christiana, you know your sore, and I know mine, and hard toil will it be for both of us to get to the end of the way; for how can we think that they who set out on a scheme of so much bliss, should steer clear of frights and fears on their way to that bright bourn which it is their aim to reach? When they came to the gate, it took them some time to make out a plan of what they should say to Him who stood there; and as Mercy was not so old as her friend, she said that it must rest with Christiana to speak for all of them. So, she gave a knock, and then (like Christian) two more; but no one came. Now they heard the fierce bark of a dog, which made them shake with fear, nor did they dare for a while to knock a third time, lest the dog should fly at them. So they were put to their wits' end to know what to do: to knock they did not dare, for fear of the dog; to go back they did not dare, lest He who kept the gate should see them as they went, and might not like it. At last they gave a knock four times as loud as the first. Then He who stood at the gate said, Who is there? The dog was heard to bark no more, and the gate swung wide for them to come in. Christiana sank on her knees, and said, Let not our Lord be wroth that we have made this loud noise at His gate. At this He said: Whence come you, and what is it that you would have? Quoth Christiana: We are come from the town whence Christian came, to beg to be let in at this gate, that we may go on our way to The Celestial City. I was once the wife of Christian, who now is in the land of bliss. With that, He who kept the gate threw up His arms and said, What! is she on her road to The Celestial City who, but a short time since, did hate the life of that place? Then Christiana bent her head, and said, Yes, and so are these, my dear sons. So He took her by the hand and led her in; and when her four sons had gone through, He shut the gate. This done, He said to a man hard by, Sound the horn for joy. But now that Christiana was safe through the gate with her boys, she thought it time to speak a word for Mercy, so she said, My Lord, I have a friend who stands at the gate, who has come here with the same trust that I did; one whose heart is sad to think that she comes, it may be, when she is not sent for; while I had word from Christian's King to come. The time did so lag with poor Mercy while she stood to be let in, that though it was but a short space, yet through fear and doubt did it seem to her like an hour at least; and Christiana could not say more for Mercy to Him who kept the gate for the knocks, which came so fast, and were at last so loud that they made Christiana start. Then He said, Who is there? Quoth Christiana: It is my friend. So He threw back the gate to look out, but Mercy was in a swoon, from the fear that she should not be let in. Then He took her by the hand and said, Fear not; stand firm on thy feet, and tell me whence thou art come, and for what end? Mercy:--I do not come as my friend Christiana does, for I was not sent for by the King, and I fear I am too bold. Yet if there is grace to share, I pray Thee let me share it. Then He took her once more by the hand and led her in, and said, All may come in who put their trust in me, let the means be what they may that brought them here. Then He told those that stood by to bring her some myrrh, and in a while she got well. Now I saw in my dream that he spoke good words to Mercy, Christiana, and her boys, so as to make glad their hearts. And He took them up to the top of the gate, where He left them for a while, and Christiana said: Oh my dear friend, how glad am I that we have all got in! Mercy:--So you may well be; but most of all have I cause for joy. Christiana:--I thought at one time as I stood at the gate, and none came to me, that all our pains had been lost. Mercy:--But my worst fears came when I saw Him who kept the gate grant you your wish, and take no heed of me. And this brought to my mind the two who ground at the same mill, and how I was the one who was left; and I found it hard not to cry out, I am lost! I am lost! Christiana:--I thought you would have come in by rude force. Mercy:--Ah me! You saw that the door was shut on me, and that a fierce hound was not far off. Who, with so faint a heart as mine, would not give loud knocks with all her might? But, pray, what said my Lord at this rude noise? Was He not wroth with me? Christiana:--When He heard your loud thumps at the door He gave a smile; and to my mind, what you did would seem to please Him well. But it is hard to guess why He keeps such a dog. Had I known of it, I fear I should not have had the wish to come. But now we are in, we are safe; and I am glad with all my heart. One of Christiana's boys said: Pray ask to have a chain put on the dog, for it will bite us when we go hence. Then He who kept the gate came down to them once more, and Mercy fell with her face to the ground, and said, Oh, let me bless and praise the Lord with my lips! So He said to her, Peace be to thee; stand up. But she would not rise till she had heard from Him why He kept so fierce a dog in the yard. He told her He did not own the dog, but that it was shut up in the grounds of one who dwelt near. In truth, said He, it is kept from no good will to me or mine, but to cause those who come here to turn back from my gate by the sound of its voice. But hadst thou known more of me thou wouldst not have felt fear of a dog. The poor man who goes from door to door will, for the sake of alms, run the risk of a bite from a cur; and shall a dog keep thee from me? Mercy:--I spoke of what I knew not; but, Lord, I know that Thou dost all things well. Then Christiana rose as if she would go on her way. So He fed them, and set them in the right path, as He had done to Christian. And as they went, Christiana sang a hymn: "We turn our tears to joy, and our fears to faith." They had not gone far when they saw some fruit trees, the boughs of which hung from the top of a wall that was built around the grounds of him who kept the fierce hound, and at times those that came that way would eat them to their cost. So as they were ripe, Christiana's boys threw them down and ate some of them; though Christiana chid them for it, and said, That fruit is not ours. But she knew not then whose it was. Still the boys would eat of it. Now when they had gone but a bow shot from the place, they saw two men, who with bold looks came fast down the hill to meet them. With that, Christiana and her friend Mercy, drew down their veils, and so kept on their way, and the boys went on first. Then the men came up to them, but Christiana said: Stand back, or go by in peace, as you should. Yet they took no more heed of her words than if they had been deaf. Christiana, who did not like their looks, said, We are in haste, and can not stay; our work is a work of life and death. With that she and the rest made a fresh move to pass, but the men would not let them. So with one voice they all set up a loud cry. Now, as they were not far from the held gate, they were heard from that place, and some of those in the lodge came out in haste to catch these bad men; when they soon leapt the wall, and got safe to the grounds where the dog was kept. Reliever:--How was it that when you were at the gate you did not ask Him who stood there to take you on your way, and guard you from harm? Had you done so you would not have gone through these frights, for He would have been sure to grant you your wish. Christiana:--Ah, Sir, the joy we felt when we were let in, drove from our thoughts all fears to come. And how could we think that such had men could lurk in such a place as that? True, it would have been well for us if we had thought to ask Him; but since our Lord knew it would be for our good, how came it to pass that He did not send some one with us? Reliever:--You did not ask. When the want of a thing is felt, that which we wish for is worth all the more. Christiana:--Shall we go back to my Lord and tell Him we wish we had been more wise, and ask for a guard? Reliever:--Go back you need not, for in no place where you go will you find a want at all. When he had said this he took his leave, and the rest went on their way. Mercy:--What a blank is here! I made sure we had been past all risk, and that we should see no more care. Christiana:--Your youth may plead for you, my friend, and screen you from blame; but as for me, my fault is so much the worse in so far as I knew what would take place ere I came out of my door. Mercy:--But how could you know this ere you set out? Christiana:--Why, I will tell you. One night as I lay in bed, I had a dream, in which I saw the whole scene as it took place just now. By this time Christiana, Mercy and the four boys had come to the house of Interpreter. Now when they drew near to the door they heard the sound of Christiana's name; for the news of her flight had made a great stir; but they knew not that she stood at the door. At last she gave a knock, as she had done at the gate, when there came to the door a young maid, Innocent by name. Innocent:--With whom would you speak in this place? Christiana:--As we heard that this is a place of rest for those that go by the way, we pray that we may be let in, for the day, as you see, is far spent, and we are loth to go on by night. Innocent:--Pray what is your name, that I may tell it to my Lord? Christiana:--My name is Christiana; I was the wife of Christian, who some time since came by this way, and these are his four sons. Innocent then ran in and said to those there, Can you guess who is at the door? There are Christiana, her boys and her friend! So they leapt for joy, and went to tell it to their Lord, who came to the door and said, Art thou that Christiana whom Christian left in the town of Destruction, when he set out for The Celestial City? Christiana:--I am she, and my heart was so hard as to slight his woes, and leave him to make his way as he could; and these are his four sons. But I, too, am come, for I feel sure that no way is right but this. Interpreter:--But why do you stand at the door? Come in; it was but just now that we spoke of you, for we heard that you were on your way. Come, my dear boys, come in; come, my sweet maid, come in. So he took them to the house, and bade them sit down and rest. All in the house wore a smile of joy to think that Christiana was on her way to The Celestial City, and they were glad to see the young ones walk in God's ways, and gave them a kind of clasp of the hand to show their good will. They said soft words, too, to Mercy, and bade them all be at their ease. To fill up the time till they could sup, Interpreter took them to see all those things that had been shown to Christian. This done, they were led to a room in which stood a man with a prong in his hand, who could look no way but down on the ground; and there stood one with a crown in his hand, which he said he would give him for his prong; yet the first man did not look up, but went on to rake the straws, dust, and stocks which lay on the floor. Then said Christiana: I think I know what this means. It is a sketch of a man of this world, is it not, good Sir? Interpreter:--Thou art right, and his prong shows that his mind is of the earth, and that he thinks life in the next world is a mere song; take note that he does not so much as look up; and straws, sticks, and dust, with most, are the great things to live for. At that Christiana and Mercy wept, and said, Ah, yes, it is too true! Interpreter then took them to a room where were a hen and her chicks, and bade them look well at them for a while. So one of the chicks went to the trough to drink, and each time she drank would she lift up her head and her eyes to the sky. See, said he, what this bird does, and learn of her to know whence all good comes, and to give to the Lord who dwells on high, the praise and thanks for it. Look once more, and see all the ways that the hen has with her young brood. There is her call that goes on all day long; and there is her call that comes but now and then; she has a third call to shield them with her wings; and her fourth is a loud cry, which she gives when she spies a foe. Now, said he, set her ways by the side of your King's, and the ways of these chicks by the side of those who love to do His will, and then you will see what I mean. For He has a way to walk in with His saints. By the call that comes all day He gives nought; by a call that is rare He is sure to have some good to give; then there is a call, too, for those that would come to His wings, which He spreads out to shield them; and He has a cry to warn men from those who might hurt their souls. I choose scenes from real life, as they are not too hard for you to grasp, when I fit them to your own case; and it is the love I have for your souls that prompts me to show you these things. Christiana:--Pray let us see some more. Interpreter then took them to his field, which was sown with wheat and corn; but when they came to look, the ears were cut off, and there was nought but the straw left. Interpreter:--What shall we do with the crop? Christiana:--Burn some, and use the rest to dress the ground with. Interpreter:--Fruit, you see, is the thing you look for, and for want of that you cast off the whole crop. Take heed that in this you do not seal your own doom; for by fruit I mean works. Now when they came back to the house the meal was not yet spread, so did Christiana beg of Interpreter to show or tell them some more things. Interpreter:--So much the more strong a man's health is, so much the more prone is he to sin. The more fat the sow is, the more she loves the mire. It is not so hard to sit up a night or two, as to watch for a whole year; just as it is not so hard to start well as it is to hold out to the end. One leak will sink a ship, and one sin will kill a man's soul. If a man would live well, let him keep his last day in mind. Now when Christiana, Mercy and the boys bad all had a good night's rest, they rose with the sun, and made a move to leave; but Interpreter told them to wait a while. For, said he, you must go hence in due form, such is the rule of the house. Then he told Innocent to take them to the bath, and there wash the dust from them. This done, they came forth fresh and strong, and as Interpreter said, Fair as the moon. Next he told those near him to bring the seal, and when it was brought he set his mark on them that they might be known in each place where they went. Then said Interpreter: Bring vests for them. And they were clad in robes as white as snow, so that it made each start to see the rest shine with so bright a light. Interpreter then sent for one of his men whose name was Great-heart, and bade that he should be clad in a coat of mail, with sword and shield, and that he should take them to a house, the name of which was Beautiful, where they would rest. Then Interpreter took his leave of them, with a good wish for each. So they went on their way, and thus they sang:-- "O move me, Lord, to watch and pray, From sin my heart to clear; To take my cross up day by day, And serve the Lord with fear." They next came to the place where Christian's load had been lost in the tomb. Here they made a pause, and gave thanks to Him who laid down His life to save theirs. So now they went up the hill, which was so steep that the toil made Christiana pant for breath. How can we doubt, said she, that they who love rest more than their souls would choose some way on which they could go with more ease than this? Then Mercy said, Come what may, I must rest for a while. And James, who was the least of the boys, gave way to tears. Come, Come! said Great-heart, sit not down here; for there is a seat near us put there by the Prince. With this he took the young child by the hand, and led him to it; and they were all glad to sit down, and to be out of the heat of the sun's rays. Then said Mercy: How sweet is rest to them that work! And how good is the Prince to place this seat here that such as we may rest! Of this spot I have heard much, but let us take heed that we sleep not, for that once cost poor Christian dear. Then said Mr. Great-heart: Well, my brave boys, how do you do? What think you of this hill? Sir, said James, this hill beats me out of heart! And I see now that what I have been told is true; the land of bliss is up steps; but still, Sir, it is worse to go down hill to death than up hill to life. You are a good boy, said Great-heart. At this Mercy could but smile, and it made James blush. Christiana:--Come, will you not drink of this flask, and eat some fruit, while we sit here to rest? For Mr. Interpreter put these in my hand as I came out of his door. Now when they had sat there a while, their guide said to them: The day runs on, and if you think well of it, let us now go on our way. So they all set out, the boys first, then the rest; but they had not gone far when Christiana found she had left the flask, so she sent James back to fetch it. Mercy:--I think this is the place where Christian lost his scroll. How was this, Sir? Great-heart:--We may trace it to two things; one is sleep, and one is that you cease to think of that which you cease to want; and when you lose sight of a boon you lose sight of Him who grants it, and the joy of it will end in tears. By and by they came to a small mound with a post on it, where these words were cut, Let him who sees this post take heed of his heart and his tongue that they be not false. Then they went on till they came up to two large beasts of prey. Now Great-heart was a strong man, so he had no fear; but their fierce looks made the boys start, and they all clung round Great-heart. How now, my boys! You march on first, as brave as can be, when there is no cause for fear; but when a test of your strength comes, you shrink. Now when Great-heart drew his sword to force a way, there came up one Giant Grim, who said in a gruff voice, What right have you to come here? Great-heart:--These folk are on their way to The Celestial City, and this is the road they shall go, in spite of thee and the wild beasts. Grim:--This is not their way, nor shall they go on it. I am come forth to stop them, and to that end will back the wild beasts. Now, to say the truth, so fierce were these beasts, and so grim the looks of them that the road was grown with weeds and grass from want of use. And still Grim bade them turn, For, said he, you shall not pass. But their guide came up, and struck so hard at him with his sword as to force him to fall back. Giant Grim:--Will you slay me on my own ground? Great-heart:--It is the King's high way on which we stand, and in His way it is that you have put these beasts. But these, who are in my charge, though weak, shall hold on in spite of all. And with that he dealt him a blow that brought him to the ground; so Giant Grim was slain. Then Great-heart said, Come now with me, and you shall take no harm from the two beasts. So they went by, but shook from head to foot at the mere sight of their teeth and claws. At length they came in sight of the lodge, to which they soon went up, but made the more haste to get there as it grew dusk. So when they were come to the gate the guide gave a knock, and the man at the lodge said in a loud voice, Who is there? Great-heart:--It is I Mr. Watchful:--How now, Mr. Great-heart? What has brought you here at so late an hour? Then Great-heart told him that he had come with some friends on their way to Zion. Mr. Watchful:--Will you go in and stay till the day dawns? Great-heart:--No, I will go back to my Lord to night. Christiana:--Ah, Sir, I know not how we can part with you, for it is to your stout heart that we owe our lives. You have fought for us, you have taught us what is right, and your faith and your love have known no bounds. Mercy:--O that we could have you for our guide all the rest of the way! For how can such weak folk as we are hold out in a path fraught with toils and snares, if we have no friends to take us? James:--Pray, Sir, keep with us and help us, when the way we go is so hard to find. Great-heart:--As my Lord wills, so must I do; if He send me to join you once more, I shall be glad to wait on you. But it was here that you were in fault at first, for when He bade me come thus far with you, if you had said, We beg of you to let him go quite through with us, He would have let me do so. But now I must go back; and so good Christiana, Mercy and my dear boys, fare ye all well. Then did Watchful, who kept the lodge, ask Christiana whence she had come and who her friends were. Christiana:--I come from The City of Destruction, and I was the wife of one Christian, who is dead. Then Watchful rang the hell, as at such times he is wont, and there came to the door a maid, to whom he said: Go, make it known that Christiana, the wife of Christian, and her four boys are come on their way to The Celestial City.. So she went in and told all this. And, oh, what shouts of joy were sent forth when those words fell from her mouth! So all came with haste to Watchful; for Christiana still stood at the door. Some of the most grave said to her, Christiana, come in, thou wife of that good man, come in, thou blest one, come in, with all that are with thee. So she went in, and the rest with her. They then bade them sit down in a large room, where the chief of the house came to see them and to cheer his guests. Then he gave each of them a kiss. But as it was late, and Christiana and the rest were faint with the great fright they had had, they would fain have gone to rest. Nay, said those of the house, take first some meat; for as Watchful had heard that they were on their way, a lamb had been slain for them When the meal had come to an end, and they had sung a psalm, Christiana said, If we may be so bold as to choose, let us be in that room which was Christian's when he was here. So they took them there, but ere she went to sleep, Christiana said, I did not think when my poor Christian set off with his load on his back that I should do the same thing. Mercy:--No, nor did you think then that you should rest in the same room as he had done. Christiana:--And less still to see his dear face once more who was dead and gone, and to praise the Lord the King with him; and yet now I think I shall. Mercy:--Do you not hear a noise? Christiana:--Hark! as far as I can make out, the sounds we hear come from the lute, the pipe, and the horn. Mercy:--Sweet sounds in the house, sweet sounds in the air, sweet sounds in the heart, for joy that we are here. Thus did Christiana and Mercy chat, and they, then slept. Now at dawn when they woke up, Christiana said to Mercy: What was it that made you laugh in your sleep last night? Were you in a dream? Mercy:--Yes, and a sweet dream it was. But are you sure that I did laugh? Christiana:--Yes, you gave a laugh as if from your heart of hearts. Do pray, Mercy, tell it to me. Mercy:--I dreamt that I lay in some lone wood to weep and wail, for that my heart should be so hard a one. Now I had not been there long when I thought there were some who had come to hear me speak in my sleep; but I went on with my moans. At this they said with a laugh that I was a fool. Then I saw a Bright One with wings come up to me, who said, Mercy, what ails you? And when he heard the cause Of my grief, he said, Peace be to thee. He then came up to wipe off my tears and had me clad in robes of gold, and put a chain on my neck, and a crown on my head. Then he took me by the hand and said, Mercy, come this way. So he went up with me till we came to a gate, at which he gave a knock and then he took me to a throne on which one sat. The place was as bright as the stars, nay more like the sun. And I thought that I saw Christian there. So I woke from my dream. But did I laugh? Christiana:--Laugh! Yes, and so you might, to see how well off you were! For you must give me leave to tell you, that as you find the first part true, so you will find true the last. Mercy:--Well, I am glad of my dream, for I hope ere long to see it come to pass, so as to make me laugh once more. Christiana:--I think it is now high time to rise, and to know what we must do. Mercy:--Pray, if they should ask us to stay, let us by all means do so; for I should much like to know more of these maids. I think Prudence, Piety, and Charity have, each of them, a most choice mien. Christiana:--We shall see what they will do. So they came down. Then Prudence and Piety: If you will stay, here you shall have what the house will yield. Charity:--Yes, and that with a good will. So they were there some time, much to their good. Prudence:--Christiana, I give you all praise, for you have brought your boys up well. With James I have had a long chat; he is a good boy, and has learnt much that will bring peace to his mind, while he lives on this earth, and in the world to come it will cause him to see the face of Him who sits on the throne. For my own part, I will teach all your sons. At the same time, said she to them: You must still give heed to all that Christiana can teach you, but more than all, you must read the Book of God's Word, which sent your dear sire on his way to the land of bliss. By the time that Christiana and the rest had been in this place a week, a man, Mr. Brisk by name, came to woo Mercy, with the wish to wed her. Now Mercy was fair to look on and her mind was at all times set on work and the care of those round her. She would knit hose for the poor, and give to all those things of which they stood in need. She will make me a good house wife, thought Brisk. Mercy one day said to those of the house: Will you tell me what you think of Mr. Brisk? They then told her that the young man would seem to have a great sense of the love of God, but that they had fears it did not reach his soul, which they thought did cleave too much to this world. Nay then, said Mercy, I will look no more on him, for I will not have a clog to my soul. Prudence:--If you go on as you have set out, and work so hard for the poor, he will soon cool. So the next time he came, he found her at her work. What, still at it? said he. Mercy:--Yes. Mr. Brisk:--How much can you earn in the day. Mercy:--I work at these things for the good of those for whom I do them; and more than this, to do the will of Him who was slain on the cross for me. With that his face fell, and he came no more to see her. Prudence:--Did I not tell you that Mr. Brisk would soon flee from you? Yea, he may seem to love Mercy, but Mercy and he should not tread the same road of life side by side. Now Matthew, the son of Christiana, fell sick, so they sent to Mr. Skill to cure him. Then said he: Tell me what he eats. Christiana:--Well, there is no food here but what is good. Mr. Skill:--This boy has in him a crude mass of food, which if I do not use the means to get rid of, he will die. Samuel said to Christiana, What was it that you saw Matthew pick up and eat when we came from the gate which is at the head of this way? Christiana:--It was some of the fruit that grows there; I chid him for it. Skill:--I felt sure that it was some bad food; now that fruit hurts more than all, for it is the fruit from Beelzebub's grounds. Did no one warn you of it? Some fall down dead when they eat it. Then Christiana wept and said, What shall I do for my son? Pray, Sir, try your best to cure him, let it cost what it may. Then Skill gave strange drugs to him, which he would not take. So Christiana put one of them to the tip of her tongue. Oh, Matthew, said she, it is sweet, sweet as balm; if you love me, if you love Mercy, if you love your life, do take it! So in time he did, and felt grief for his sin. He quite lost the pain, so that with a staff he could walk, and went from room to room to talk with Mercy, Prudence, Piety and Charity. Christiana:--Pray, Sir, what else are these Pills good for? Skill:--They are good for all those that go on their way to The Celestial City. Christiana:--I pray of you to make me up a large box full of them, for if I can get these, I will take none else. Skill:--I make no doubt that if a man will but use them as he should, he could not die. But good Christiana, these pills will be of no use if you do not give them as I have done, and that is, in a glass of grief for the sins of those who take them. So he gave some to Christiana and the rest of her boys, and to Mercy; he bade Matthew, too, keep a good look out that he ate no more green plums; then he gave them a kiss, and went his way. Now, as they had spent some time here, they made a move to go. Then Joseph, who was Christiana's third, son, said to her: You were to send to the house of Mr. Interpreter to beg him to grant that Mr. Great-heart should go with us as our guide. Good boy! said Christiana, I had not thought of it. So she wrote a note, and Interpreter said to the man who brought it: Go, tell them that I will send him. Great-heart soon came, and he said to Christiana and Mercy, My Lord has sent you some wine and burnt corn, and to the boys figs and dry grapes. They then set off, and Prudence and Piety went with them. But first Christiana took leave of Watchful, who kept the gate, and put a small coin in his hand while she gave him her thanks for all that he had done for her and her dear boys. She then said to him, Have you seen men go by since we have been here? Watchful:--Yes, I have, and there has been a great theft on this high way; but the thieves were caught. Then Christiana and Mercy said they felt great fear to go on that road. Matthew:--Fear not, as long as we have Mr. Great-heart with us to guide us. I now saw in my dream that they went on till they came to the brow of the hill, when Piety said: O, I must go back to fetch that which I meant to give to Christiana and Mercy, and it was a list of all those things which they had seen at the house where we live. On these, said she, I beg of you to look from time to time, and call them to mind for your good. They now went down the hill to the Vale of Humiliation. It was a steep hill, and their feet slid as they went on; but they took great care, and when they had got to the foot of it, Piety said to Christiana: This is the vale where Christian met with Apollyon and where they had that fierce fight which I know you must have heard of. But be of good cheer, as long as we have Mr. Great-heart to guide us, there is nought here that will hurt us, save those sights that spring from our own fears. And as to Apollyon, the good folk of the town, who tell us that such a thing fell out in such a place, to the hurt of such a one, think that some foul fiend haunts that place, when lo! it is from the fruit of their own ill deeds that such things do fall on them. For they that make slips must look for frights. And hence it is that this vale has so bad a name. James:--See, there is a post with words on it, I will go and read them. So he went, and found that these words were cut on it: Let the slips which Christian met with ere he came here, and the fights he had in this place, warn all those who come to the Vale of Humiliation. Mr. Great-heart:--It is not so hard to go up as down this hill, and that can be said of but few hills in this part of the world. But we will leave the good man, he is at rest, and he had a brave fight with the foe; let Him who dwells on high grant that we fare no worse when our strength comes to be put to the test. This vale brings forth much fruit. Now, as they went on, they met a boy who was clad in mean clothes and kept watch on some sheep. He had a fine fresh face, and as he sat on the bank he sang a song. Hark, said Great-heart, to the words of that boy's song. So they gave ear to it. "He that is down need fear no fall, He that is low, no pride, He that is meek at all times shall Have God to be his guide." Then said Great-heart: Do you hear him? I dare say this boy leads as gay a life as he that is clad in silk, and that he wears more of that plant which they call heart's ease. Samuel:--Ask Great-heart in what part of this vale it was that Apollyon came to fight Christian? Great-heart:--The fight took place at that part of the plain which has the name of Forgetful Green. And if those who go on their way, meet with a shock, it is when they lose sight of the good which they have at the hand of Him who dwells on high. Mercy:--I think I feel as well in this place as I have done in all the rest of our way. This vale has a sweet grace, and just suits my mind; for I love to be in such a spot as this, where there are no coach wheels to make a din. Here one may think a while what he is, whence he came, and for what the King has made him; here one may muse and pray. Just then they thought that the ground they trod on shook. But the guide bade them be of good cheer, and look well to their feet, lest by chance they should meet with some snare. Then James felt sick, but I think the cause of it was fear, and Christiana gave him some of the wine which Mr. Interpreter had put in her hands, and three of the pills which Mr. Skill had made up, and the boy soon got well. They then went on a while, and Christiana said, What is that thing on the road? A thing of such a shape I have not seen in all my life! Joseph said, What is it? A vile thing, child, a vile thing! said she. Joseph:--But what is it like? Christiana:--It is like--I can't tell what. Just then it was far off, now it is nigh. Great-heart:--Well, let them that have the most fear keep close to me. Then it went out of sight of all of them. But they had not gone far when Mercy cast a look back, and saw a great beast come fast up to them with a loud roar. This noise made them all quail with fright save their guide, who fell back and put the rest in front of him. But when the brute saw that Great-heart meant to fight him, he drew back and was seen no more. Now they had not left the spot long when a great mist fell on them, so that they could not see. What shall we do? said they. Their guide told them not to fear, but to stand still, and see what an end he would put to this too. Then said Christiana to Mercy: Now I see what my poor dear Christian went through; I have heard much of this place. Poor man, he went here in the dead of the night, and no one with him; but who can tell what the Valley of the Shadow of Death should mean, till they come to see it? To be here fills my breast with awe! Great-heart: It seems now as if the earth and its bars were round us. I would not boast, but I trust we shall still make our way. Come, let us pray for light to Him that can give it. So did they weep and pray. And as the path was now more smooth, they went straight on. Mercy:--To be here is not so sweet as it was at The Gate, or at Mr. Interpreter's, or at the good house where we were last. Oh, said one of the boys, it is not so bad to go through this place as it is to dwell here for all time; for aught I know we have to go this way that our last home may seem to us the more blest. Great-heart:--Well said, Samuel; thou dost now speak like a man. Samuel:--Why, if I do in truth get out of this place, I think I shall prize that which is light and good more than I have done all my life. Great-heart:--We shall be out by and by. So on they went. Joseph:--Can we not see to the end of this vale yet? Great-heart:--Look to your feet, for you will soon be where the snares are. So they took good heed. Great-heart:--Men come here and bring no guide with them; hence it is they die from the snares they meet with in the way. Poor Christian! it is strange he should have got out of this place, and been safe. But God dwelt in his soul, and he had a stout heart, of his own, or else he could not have done it. Christiana:--I wish that there were some inn here where we could all take rest. I Well, said Mr. Honest--one whom they had just met--there is such a place not far off. So there they went, and the host, whose name was Gaius, said: Come in, for my house was built for none but such as you. Great-heart:--Good Gaius, let us sup. What have you for us to eat? We have gone through great toils, and stand much in want of food. Gaius:--It is too late for us to go out and seek food; but of such as we have you shall eat. The meal was then spread, and near the end of the feast all sat round the board to crack nuts, when old Honest said to Gaius, Tell me what this verse means: A man there was, and some did count him mad; The more that this man gave the more he had. Then all the youths gave a guess as to what Gaius would say to it; so he sat still a while, and then said: He that gives his goods to the poor, Shall have as much and ten times more. Joseph:--I did not think, Sir, that you would have found it out. Gaius:--Ah! I have learnt of my Lord to be kind, and I find I gain by it. Then Samuel said in a low tone to Christiana, This is a good man's house; let us make a long stay, and why should not Matthew wed Mercy here? When Gaius heard him say this, quoth he: With all my heart. And he gave Mercy to Matthew to wife. By this time Christiana's son James had come of age, and Gaius gave Phebe (who was his child) to be his wife. They spent ten days at the house of Gaius, and then took their leave. But on the last day he made them a feast, of which they all ate and drank. Great-heart:--Now, Gaius, the hour has come that we must be gone; so tell me what I owe you for this long stay at your inn, for we have been here some years. Gaius:--At my house no one pays; for the good Samaritan told me that I was to look to him for all the cost I was put to. They now took leave of him and went on their way, when they met with all kinds of frights and fears, till they came to a place which bore the name of Vanity Fair. There they went to the house of Mr. Mnason, who said to his guests: If there be a thing that you stand in need of, do but say so, and we will do what we can to get it for you. Well, then, said they, we should like much to see some of the good folk in this town. So Mnason gave a stamp with his foot, at which Grace came up, and he sent her to fetch some of his friends who were in the house, and they all sat down to a meal. Then said Mr. Mnason, as he held out his hand to point to Christiana: My friends, I have guests here who are on their way to Zion. But who do you think this is? This is the wife of Christian whom (with his friend Faithful) the men of this town did treat so ill. Well, said they, go who would have thought to meet Christiana at this place! May The King whom you love and serve bring you where He is, in peace! They then told her that the blood of Faithful had lain like a load on their hearts; and that since, they had burnt him no more men had been sent to the Stake at Vanity Fair. In those days, said they, good men could not walk the streets, but now they can show their heads. Christiana and her sons and Mercy made this place their home for some years, and in course of time Mr. Mnason, who had a wife and two girls, gave his first born, whose name was Grace, to Samuel to wife, and Martha to Joseph. Now, one day, a huge snake came out of the woods and slew some of the folk of the town. None of these were so bold as to dare to face him, but all fled when they heard that he came near, for he took off the babes by scores. But Great-heart and the rest of the men who were at Mr. Mnason's house, made up their minds to kill this snake, and so rid the town of him. So they went forth to meet him, and at first the snake did not seem to heed them; but as they were strong men at arms, they drove him back. Then they lay in wait for him, and fell on him, till at last they knew he must die of his wounds. By this deed Mr. Great-heart and the rest won the good will of the whole town. The time now drew near for them to go on their way. Mr. Great-heart went first as their guide; and I saw in my dream that they came to the stream on this side of The Delectable Mountains, where fine trees grew on each bank, the leaves of which were good for the health, and the fields were green all the year round; and here they might lie down and be safe. Here, too, there were folds for sheep, and a house was built in which to rear the lambs, and there was One who kept watch on them, who would take them in His arms and lay them in His breast. Now Christiana bade the four young wives place their babes by the side of this stream, so that they might lack nought in time to come. For, said she, if they should stray or be lost, He will bring them back; He will give strength, to the sick, and here they shall not want meat, drink, or clothes. So they left their young ones to Him. When they went to By-Path Meadow they sat on the stile to which Christian had gone with Hopeful, when Giant Despair shut the two up in Doubting Castle. They sat down to think what would be the best thing to do, now that they were so strong a force, and had such a man as Mr. Great-heart to guide them; to wit, if it would not be well to pull down Doubting Castle, and should there be poor souls shut up there who were on their way to The Celestial City, to set them free. One said this thing and one said that; at last quoth Mr. Great-heart: We are told in the book of God's Word, that we are to fight the good fight. And, I pray, with whom should we fight if not with Giant Despair? So who will go with me? Christiana's four sons said: We will; for they were young and strong; so they left their wives and went. When they gave their knock at the gate, Giant Despair and his wife Diffidence, came to them. Giant Despair:--Who and what is he that is so bold as to come to the gate of Giant Despair? Great-heart:--It is I, a guide to those who are on their way to Zion. And I charge thee to throw wide thy gates and stand forth, for I am come to slay thee and pull down thy house. Giant Despair:--What, shall such as Great-heart make me fear? No! So he put a cap of steel on his head, and with a breast plate of fire, and a club in his hand, he came out to fight his foes. Then these six men made up to him, and they fought for their lives, till Despair was brought to the ground and put to death by Great-heart. Next they fell on his house, but it took six days to pull it down. They found there Mr. Despondency and one Much-afraid, his child, and set them free. Then they all went onto The Delectable Mountains. They made friends with the men that kept watch on their flocks, who were as kind to them as they had been to Christian and Hopeful. You have brought a good train with you, said they. Pray, where did you find them? So their guide told them how it had come to pass. By and by they got to The Enchanted Ground, where the air makes men sleep. Now they had not gone far, when a thick mist fell on them, so that for a while they could not see; and as they could not walk by sight, they kept near their guide by the help of words. But one fell in a bush, while one stuck fast in the mud, and some of the young ones lost their shoes in the mire. Oh, I am down! said one. Where are you? cried the next; while a third said, I am held fast in the bush! Then they came to a bench, Slothful's Friend by name, which had shrubs and plants round it, to screen those who sat there from the sun. But Christiana and the rest gave such good heed to what their guide told them, that though they were worn out with toil, yet there was not one of them that had so much as a wish to stop there; for they knew that it would be death to sleep but for a short time on The Enchanted Ground. Now as it was still dark, their guide struck a light that he might look at his map (the book of God's Word); and had he not done so, they would all have been lost, for just at the end of the road was a pit, full of mud, and no one can tell how deep. Then thought I: Who is there but would have one of these maps or books in which he may look when he is in doubt, and knows not which way he should take? They soon came to a bench, on which sat two men, Heedless and Too-bold; and Christiana and the rest shook their heads for they saw that these men were in a bad case. They knew not what they ought to do: to go on and leave them in their sleep, or to try to wake them. Now the guide spoke to them by name; but not a sound could he hear from their lips. So Great-heart at last shook them, and did all he could to wake them. One of the two, whose name was Heedless, said, Nay: I will pay you when I get in my debts. At this the guide shook his head. Then Too-bold spoke out: I will fight as long as I can hold my sword. When he had said this all who stood round gave a laugh. Christiana:--'What does this mean? Great-heart:--They talk in their sleep. If you strike or shake them, they will still talk in the same way, for their sleep is like that of the man on the mast of a ship, when the waves of the sea beat on him. Then did Christiana, Mercy and their train go on with fear, and they sought from their guide a light for the rest of the way. But as the poor babes' cries were loud for want of rest, all fell on their knees to pray for help. And, by the time that they had gone but a short way, a wind sprang up which drove off the fog; so, now that the air was clear, they made their way. Then they came to the land of Beulah, where the sun shines night and day. Here they took some rest, and ate of the fruit that hung from the boughs round them. But all the sleep that they could wish for in such a land as this was but for a short space of time; for the bells rang to such sweet tunes, and such a blaze of lights burst on their eyes, that they soon rose to walk to and fro on this bright way, where no base feet dare to tread. And now they heard shouts rise up, for there was a noise in the town that a post was come from The Celestial City with words of great joy for Christiana, the wife of Christian. So search was made for her, and the house was found in which she was. Then the post put a note in her hands, the words of which were: Hail, good Christiana! I bring thee word that the Lord calls for thee, to stand near His throne in robes of white, in ten days' time. When he who brought the note had read it to her, he gave her a sign that they were words of truth and love, and said he had come to bid her make haste to be gone. The sign was a shaft with a sharp point, which was to tell her, that at the time the note spoke of, she must die. Christiana heard with joy that her toils would so soon he at an end, and that she should once more live with her dear Christian. She then sent for her sons and their wives to come to her. To these she gave words of good cheer. She told them how glad she was to have them near her at such a time. She sought, too, to make her own death, now close at hand, of use to them, from this time up to the hour when they should each of them have to quit this world. Her hope was that it might help guide them on their path; that the Faith which she had taught them to cling to, would have sunk deep in their hearts; and that all their works should spring from love to God. She could but pray that they would bear these words in mind, and put their whole trust in Him who had borne their sins on the Cross, and had been slain to save them. When the day came that she must go forth to the world of love and truth, the road was full of those who would fain see her start on her way; and the last words that she was heard to say were: I come, Lord, to be with Thee. THE END. 
131	----	Notes: 1. Legends: = Sidenotes [Bible reference] = Bible references 2. Sections are numbered for future reference. These sections have been chosen arbitrarily, i.e., {1}, {2} 3. This is 'Part 1', but is a complete work in itself. Bunyan wrote a sequel ('Part 2') some years after the first part, hence the 'Parts'. THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS From This World To That Which Is To Come by John Bunyan Part One DELIVERED UNDER THE SIMILITUDE OF A DREAM BY JOHN BUNYAN The Author's Apology for his Book {1} When at the first I took my pen in hand Thus for to write, I did not understand That I at all should make a little book In such a mode; nay, I had undertook To make another; which, when almost done, Before I was aware, I this begun. And thus it was: I, writing of the way And race of saints, in this our gospel day, Fell suddenly into an allegory About their journey, and the way to glory, In more than twenty things which I set down. This done, I twenty more had in my crown; And they again began to multiply, Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly. Nay, then, thought I, if that you breed so fast, I'll put you by yourselves, lest you at last Should prove ad infinitum, and eat out The book that I already am about. Well, so I did; but yet I did not think To shew to all the world my pen and ink In such a mode; I only thought to make I knew not what; nor did I undertake Thereby to please my neighbour: no, not I; I did it my own self to gratify. {2} Neither did I but vacant seasons spend In this my scribble; nor did I intend But to divert myself in doing this From worser thoughts which make me do amiss. Thus, I set pen to paper with delight, And quickly had my thoughts in black and white. For, having now my method by the end, Still as I pulled, it came; and so I penned It down: until it came at last to be, For length and breadth, the bigness which you see. Well, when I had thus put mine ends together, I shewed them others, that I might see whether They would condemn them, or them justify: And some said, Let them live; some, Let them die; Some said, JOHN, print it; others said, Not so; Some said, It might do good; others said, No. Now was I in a strait, and did not see Which was the best thing to be done by me: At last I thought, Since you are thus divided, I print it will, and so the case decided. {3} For, thought I, some, I see, would have it done, Though others in that channel do not run: To prove, then, who advised for the best, Thus I thought fit to put it to the test. I further thought, if now I did deny Those that would have it, thus to gratify. I did not know but hinder them I might Of that which would to them be great delight. For those which were not for its coming forth, I said to them, Offend you I am loth, Yet, since your brethren pleased with it be, Forbear to judge till you do further see. If that thou wilt not read, let it alone; Some love the meat, some love to pick the bone. Yea, that I might them better palliate, I did too with them thus expostulate:-- {4} May I not write in such a style as this? In such a method, too, and yet not miss My end--thy good? Why may it not be done? Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none. Yea, dark or bright, if they their silver drops Cause to descend, the earth, by yielding crops, Gives praise to both, and carpeth not at either, But treasures up the fruit they yield together; Yea, so commixes both, that in her fruit None can distinguish this from that: they suit Her well when hungry; but, if she be full, She spews out both, and makes their blessings null. You see the ways the fisherman doth take To catch the fish; what engines doth he make? Behold how he engageth all his wits; Also his snares, lines, angles, hooks, and nets; Yet fish there be, that neither hook, nor line, Nor snare, nor net, nor engine can make thine: They must be groped for, and be tickled too, Or they will not be catch'd, whate'er you do. How does the fowler seek to catch his game By divers means! all which one cannot name: His guns, his nets, his lime-twigs, light, and bell: He creeps, he goes, he stands; yea, who can tell Of all his postures? Yet there's none of these Will make him master of what fowls he please. Yea, he must pipe and whistle to catch this, Yet, if he does so, that bird he will miss. If that a pearl may in a toad's head dwell, And may be found too in an oyster-shell; If things that promise nothing do contain What better is than gold; who will disdain, That have an inkling of it, there to look, That they may find it? Now, my little book, (Though void of all these paintings that may make It with this or the other man to take) Is not without those things that do excel What do in brave but empty notions dwell. {5} 'Well, yet I am not fully satisfied, That this your book will stand, when soundly tried.' Why, what's the matter? 'It is dark.' What though? 'But it is feigned.' What of that? I trow? Some men, by feigned words, as dark as mine, Make truth to spangle and its rays to shine. 'But they want solidness.' Speak, man, thy mind. 'They drown the weak; metaphors make us blind.' Solidity, indeed, becomes the pen Of him that writeth things divine to men; But must I needs want solidness, because By metaphors I speak? Were not God's laws, His gospel laws, in olden times held forth By types, shadows, and metaphors? Yet loth Will any sober man be to find fault With them, lest he be found for to assault The highest wisdom. No, he rather stoops, And seeks to find out what by pins and loops, By calves and sheep, by heifers and by rams, By birds and herbs, and by the blood of lambs, God speaketh to him; and happy is he That finds the light and grace that in them be. {6} Be not too forward, therefore, to conclude That I want solidness--that I am rude; All things solid in show not solid be; All things in parables despise not we; Lest things most hurtful lightly we receive, And things that good are, of our souls bereave. My dark and cloudy words, they do but hold The truth, as cabinets enclose the gold. The prophets used much by metaphors To set forth truth; yea, who so considers Christ, his apostles too, shall plainly see, That truths to this day in such mantles be. Am I afraid to say, that holy writ, Which for its style and phrase puts down all wit, Is everywhere so full of all these things-- Dark figures, allegories? Yet there springs From that same book that lustre, and those rays Of light, that turn our darkest nights to days. {7} Come, let my carper to his life now look, And find there darker lines than in my book He findeth any; yea, and let him know, That in his best things there are worse lines too. May we but stand before impartial men, To his poor one I dare adventure ten, That they will take my meaning in these lines Far better than his lies in silver shrines. Come, truth, although in swaddling clouts, I find, Informs the judgement, rectifies the mind; Pleases the understanding, makes the will Submit; the memory too it doth fill With what doth our imaginations please; Likewise it tends our troubles to appease. Sound words, I know, Timothy is to use, And old wives' fables he is to refuse; But yet grave Paul him nowhere did forbid The use of parables; in which lay hid That gold, those pearls, and precious stones that were Worth digging for, and that with greatest care. Let me add one word more. O man of God, Art thou offended? Dost thou wish I had Put forth my matter in another dress? Or, that I had in things been more express? Three things let me propound; then I submit To those that are my betters, as is fit. {8} 1. I find not that I am denied the use Of this my method, so I no abuse Put on the words, things, readers; or be rude In handling figure or similitude, In application; but, all that I may, Seek the advance of truth this or that way Denied, did I say? Nay, I have leave (Example too, and that from them that have God better pleased, by their words or ways, Than any man that breatheth now-a-days) Thus to express my mind, thus to declare Things unto thee that excellentest are. 2. I find that men (as high as trees) will write Dialogue-wise; yet no man doth them slight For writing so: indeed, if they abuse Truth, cursed be they, and the craft they use To that intent; but yet let truth be free To make her sallies upon thee and me, Which way it pleases God; for who knows how, Better than he that taught us first to plough, To guide our mind and pens for his design? And he makes base things usher in divine. 3. I find that holy writ in many places Hath semblance with this method, where the cases Do call for one thing, to set forth another; Use it I may, then, and yet nothing smother Truth's golden beams: nay, by this method may Make it cast forth its rays as light as day. And now before I do put up my pen, I'll shew the profit of my book, and then Commit both thee and it unto that Hand That pulls the strong down, and makes weak ones stand. This book it chalketh out before thine eyes The man that seeks the everlasting prize; It shews you whence he comes, whither he goes; What he leaves undone, also what he does; It also shows you how he runs and runs, Till he unto the gate of glory comes. {9} It shows, too, who set out for life amain, As if the lasting crown they would obtain; Here also you may see the reason why They lose their labour, and like fools do die. This book will make a traveller of thee, If by its counsel thou wilt ruled be; It will direct thee to the Holy Land, If thou wilt its directions understand: Yea, it will make the slothful active be; The blind also delightful things to see. Art thou for something rare and profitable? Wouldest thou see a truth within a fable? Art thou forgetful? Wouldest thou remember From New-Year's day to the last of December? Then read my fancies; they will stick like burs, And may be, to the helpless, comforters. This book is writ in such a dialect As may the minds of listless men affect: It seems a novelty, and yet contains Nothing but sound and honest gospel strains. Wouldst thou divert thyself from melancholy? Wouldst thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly? Wouldst thou read riddles, and their explanation? Or else be drowned in thy contemplation? Dost thou love picking meat? Or wouldst thou see A man in the clouds, and hear him speak to thee? Wouldst thou be in a dream, and yet not sleep? Or wouldst thou in a moment laugh and weep? Wouldest thou lose thyself and catch no harm, And find thyself again without a charm? Wouldst read thyself, and read thou knowest not what, And yet know whether thou art blest or not, By reading the same lines? Oh, then come hither, And lay my book, thy head, and heart together. JOHN BUNYAN. THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS In the Similitude of a Dream {10} As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep: and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. [Isa. 64:6; Luke 14:33; Ps. 38:4; Hab. 2:2; Acts 16:30,31] I looked, and saw him open the book, and read therein; and, as he read, he wept, and trembled; and, not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry, saying, "What shall I do?" [Acts 2:37] {11} In this plight, therefore, he went home and refrained himself as long as he could, that his wife and children should not perceive his distress; but he could not be silent long, because that his trouble increased. Wherefore at length he brake his mind to his wife and children; and thus he began to talk to them: O my dear wife, said he, and you the children of my bowels, I, your dear friend, am in myself undone by reason of a burden that lieth hard upon me; moreover, I am for certain informed that this our city will be burned with fire from heaven; in which fearful overthrow, both myself, with thee my wife, and you my sweet babes, shall miserably come to ruin, except (the which yet I see not) some way of escape can be found, whereby we may be delivered. At this his relations were sore amazed; not for that they believed that what he had said to them was true, but because they thought that some frenzy distemper had got into his head; therefore, it drawing towards night, and they hoping that sleep might settle his brains, with all haste they got him to bed. But the night was as troublesome to him as the day; wherefore, instead of sleeping, he spent it in sighs and tears. So, when the morning was come, they would know how he did. He told them, Worse and worse: he also set to talking to them again; but they began to be hardened. They also thought to drive away his distemper by harsh and surly carriages to him; sometimes they would deride, sometimes they would chide, and sometimes they would quite neglect him. Wherefore he began to retire himself to his chamber, to pray for and pity them, and also to condole his own misery; he would also walk solitarily in the fields, sometimes reading, and sometimes praying: and thus for some days he spent his time. {12} Now, I saw, upon a time, when he was walking in the fields, that he was, as he was wont, reading in his book, and greatly distressed in his mind; and, as he read, he burst out, as he had done before, crying, "What shall I do to be saved?" {13} I saw also that he looked this way and that way, as if he would run; yet he stood still, because, as I perceived, he could not tell which way to go. I looked then, and saw a man named Evangelist coming to him and asked, Wherefore dost thou cry? [Job 33:23] {14} He answered, Sir, I perceive by the book in my hand, that I am condemned to die, and after that to come to judgement [Heb. 9:27]; and I find that I am not willing to do the first [Job 16:21], nor able to do the second. [Ezek. 22:14] CHRISTIAN no sooner leaves the World but meets EVANGELIST, who lovingly him greets With tidings of another: and doth show Him how to mount to that from this below. {15} Then said Evangelist, Why not willing to die, since this life is attended with so many evils? The man answered, Because I fear that this burden is upon my back will sink me lower than the grave, and I shall fall into Tophet. [Isa. 30:33] And, Sir, if I be not fit to go to prison, I am not fit, I am sure, to go to judgement, and from thence to execution; and the thoughts of these things make me cry. {16} Then said Evangelist, If this be thy condition, why standest thou still? He answered, Because I know not whither to go. Then he gave him a parchment roll, and there was written within, Flee from the wrath to come. [Matt. 3.7] {17} The man therefore read it, and looking upon Evangelist very carefully, said, Whither must I fly? Then said Evangelist, pointing with his finger over a very wide field, Do you see yonder wicket-gate? [Matt. 7:13,14] The man said, No. Then said the other, Do you see yonder shining light? [Ps. 119:105; 2 Pet. 1:19] He said, I think I do. Then said Evangelist, Keep that light in your eye, and go up directly thereto: so shalt thou see the gate; at which, when thou knockest, it shall be told thee what thou shalt do. {18} So I saw in my dream that the man began to run. Now, he had not run far from his own door, but his wife and children, perceiving it, began to cry after him to return; but the man put his fingers in his ears, and ran on, crying, Life! life! eternal life! [Luke 14:26] So he looked not behind him, but fled towards the middle of the plain. [Gen. 19:17] {19} The neighbours also came out to see him run [Jer. 20:10]; and, as he ran, some mocked, others threatened, and some cried after him to return; and, among those that did so, there were two that resolved to fetch him back by force. The name of the one was Obstinate and the name of the other Pliable. Now, by this time, the man was got a good distance from them; but, however, they were resolved to pursue him, which they did, and in a little time they overtook him. Then said the man, Neighbours, wherefore are ye come? They said, To persuade you to go back with us. But he said, That can by no means be; you dwell, said he, in the City of Destruction, the place also where I was born: I see it to be so; and, dying there, sooner or later, you will sink lower than the grave, into a place that burns with fire and brimstone: be content, good neighbours, and go along with me. {20} OBST. What! said Obstinate, and leave our friends and our comforts behind us? CHR. Yes, said Christian, for that was his name, because that ALL which you shall forsake is not worthy to be compared with a little of that which I am seeking to enjoy [2 Cor. 4:18]; and, if you will go along with me, and hold it, you shall fare as I myself; for there, where I go, is enough and to spare. [Luke 15:17] Come away, and prove my words. {21} OBST. What are the things you seek, since you leave all the world to find them? CHR. I seek an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away [1 Pet. 1:4], and it is laid up in heaven, and safe there [Heb. 11:16], to be bestowed, at the time appointed, on them that diligently seek it. Read it so, if you will, in my book. OBST. Tush! said Obstinate, away with your book; will you go back with us or no? CHR. No, not I, said the other, because I have laid my hand to the plough. [Luke 9:62] {22} OBST. Come, then, neighbour Pliable, let us turn again, and go home without him; there is a company of these crazy-headed coxcombs, that, when they take a fancy by the end, are wiser in their own eyes than seven men that can render a reason. [Prov. 26:16] PLI. Then said Pliable, Don't revile; if what the good Christian says is true, the things he looks after are better than ours: my heart inclines to go with my neighbour. OBST. What! more fools still! Be ruled by me, and go back; who knows whither such a brain-sick fellow will lead you? Go back, go back, and be wise. {23} CHR. Nay, but do thou come with thy neighbour, Pliable; there are such things to be had which I spoke of, and many more glorious besides. If you believe not me, read here in this book; and for the truth of what is expressed therein, behold, all is confirmed by the blood of Him that made it. [Heb. 9:17-22; 13:20] PLI. Well, neighbour Obstinate, said Pliable, I begin to come to a point; I intend to go along with this good man, and to cast in my lot with him: but, my good companion, do you know the way to this desired place? {24} CHR. I am directed by a man, whose name is Evangelist, to speed me to a little gate that is before us, where we shall receive instructions about the way. PLI. Come, then, good neighbour, let us be going. Then they went both together. OBST. And I will go back to my place, said Obstinate; I will be no companion of such misled, fantastical fellows. {25} Now, I saw in my dream, that when Obstinate was gone back, Christian and Pliable went talking over the plain; and thus they began their discourse. {26} CHR. Come, neighbour Pliable, how do you do? I am glad you are persuaded to go along with me. Had even Obstinate himself but felt what I have felt of the powers and terrors of what is yet unseen, he would not thus lightly have given us the back. PLI. Come, neighbour Christian, since there are none but us two here, tell me now further what the things are, and how to be enjoyed, whither we are going. {27} CHR. I can better conceive of them with my mind, than speak of them with my tongue. God's things unspeakable: but yet, since you are desirous to know, I will read of them in my book. PLI. And do you think that the words of your book are certainly true? CHR. Yes, verily; for it was made by Him that cannot lie. [Titus 1:2] PLI. Well said; what things are they? CHR. There is an endless kingdom to be inhabited, and everlasting life to be given us, that we may inhabit that kingdom for ever. [Isa. 45:17; John 10:28,29] PLI. Well said; and what else? CHR. There are crowns and glory to be given us, and garments that will make us shine like the sun in the firmament of heaven. [2 Tim. 4:8; Rev. 3:4; Matt. 13:43] PLI. This is very pleasant; and what else? CHR. There shall be no more crying, nor Sorrow: for He that is owner of the place will wipe all tears from our eyes. [Isa. 25.6-8; Rev. 7:17, 21:4] {28} PLI. And what company shall we have there? CHR. There we shall be with seraphims and cherubims, creatures that will dazzle your eyes to look on them. [Isa. 6:2] There also you shall meet with thousands and ten thousands that have gone before us to that place; none of them are hurtful, but loving and holy; every one walking in the sight of God, and standing in his presence with acceptance for ever. [1 Thess. 4:16,17; Rev. 5:11] In a word, there we shall see the elders with their golden crowns [Rev. 4:4], there we shall see the holy virgins with their golden harps [Rev. 14:1-5], there we shall see men that by the world were cut in pieces, burnt in flames, eaten of beasts, drowned in the seas, for the love that they bare to the Lord of the place, all well, and clothed with immortality as with a garment. [John 12:25; 2 Cor. 5:4] PLI. The hearing of this is enough to ravish one's heart. But are these things to be enjoyed? How shall we get to be sharers thereof? CHR. The Lord, the Governor of the country, hath recorded that in this book; the substance of which is, If we be truly willing to have it, he will bestow it upon us freely. PLI. Well, my good companion, glad am I to hear of these things: come on, let us mend our pace. CHR. I cannot go so fast as I would, by reason of this burden that is on my back. {29} Now I saw in my dream, that just as they had ended this talk they drew near to a very miry slough, that was in the midst of the plain; and they, being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was Despond. Here, therefore, they wallowed for a time, being grievously bedaubed with the dirt; and Christian, because of the burden that was on his back, began to sink in the mire. {30} PLI. Then said Pliable; Ah! neighbour Christian, where are you now? CHR. Truly, said Christian, I do not know. PLI. At this Pliable began to be offended, and angrily said to his fellow, Is this the happiness you have told me all this while of? If we have such ill speed at our first setting out, what may we expect betwixt this and our journey's end? May I get out again with my life, you shall possess the brave country alone for me. And, with that, he gave a desperate struggle or two, and got out of the mire on that side of the slough which was next to his own house: so away he went, and Christian saw him no more. {31} Wherefore Christian was left to tumble in the Slough of Despond alone: but still he endeavoured to struggle to that side of the slough that was still further from his own house, and next to the wicket-gate; the which he did, but could not get out, because of the burden that was upon his back: but I beheld in my dream, that a man came to him, whose name was Help, and asked him, What he did there? CHR. Sir, said Christian, I was bid go this way by a man called Evangelist, who directed me also to yonder gate, that I might escape the wrath to come; and as I was going thither I fell in here. {32} HELP. But why did not you look for the steps? CHR. Fear followed me so hard, that I fled the next way, and fell in. HELP. Then said he, Give me thy hand: so he gave him his hand, and he drew him out, and set him upon sound ground, and bid him go on his way. [Ps. 40:2] {33} Then I stepped to him that plucked him out, and said, Sir, wherefore, since over this place is the way from the City of Destruction to yonder gate, is it that this plat is not mended, that poor travellers might go thither with more security? And he said unto me, This miry slough is such a place as cannot be mended; it is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore it is called the Slough of Despond; for still, as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there ariseth in his soul many fears, and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place. And this is the reason of the badness of this ground. {34} It is not the pleasure of the King that this place should remain so bad. [Isa. 35:3,4] His labourers also have, by the direction of His Majesty's surveyors, been for above these sixteen hundred years employed about this patch of ground, if perhaps it might have been mended: yea, and to my knowledge, said he, here have been swallowed up at least twenty thousand cart-loads, yea, millions of wholesome instructions, that have at all seasons been brought from all places of the King's dominions, and they that can tell, say they are the best materials to make good ground of the place; if so be, it might have been mended, but it is the Slough of Despond still, and so will be when they have done what they can. {35} True, there are, by the direction of the Law-giver, certain good and substantial steps, placed even through the very midst of this slough; but at such time as this place doth much spew out its filth, as it doth against change of weather, these steps are hardly seen; or, if they be, men, through the dizziness of their heads, step beside, and then they are bemired to purpose, notwithstanding the steps be there; but the ground is good when they are once got in at the gate. [1 Sam. 12:23] {36} Now, I saw in my dream, that by this time Pliable was got home to his house again, so that his neighbours came to visit him; and some of them called him wise man for coming back, and some called him fool for hazarding himself with Christian: others again did mock at his cowardliness; saying, Surely, since you began to venture, I would not have been so base to have given out for a few difficulties. So Pliable sat sneaking among them. But at last he got more confidence, and then they all turned their tales, and began to deride poor Christian behind his back. And thus much concerning Pliable. {37} Now, as Christian was walking solitarily by himself, he espied one afar off, come crossing over the field to meet him; and their hap was to meet just as they were crossing the way of each other. The gentleman's name that met him was Mr. Worldly Wiseman, he dwelt in the town of Carnal Policy, a very great town, and also hard by from whence Christian came. This man, then, meeting with Christian, and having some inkling of him,--for Christian's setting forth from the City of Destruction was much noised abroad, not only in the town where he dwelt, but also it began to be the town talk in some other places,--Mr. Worldly Wiseman, therefore, having some guess of him, by beholding his laborious going, by observing his sighs and groans, and the like, began thus to enter into some talk with Christian. {38} WORLD. How now, good fellow, whither away after this burdened manner? CHR. A burdened manner, indeed, as ever, I think, poor creature had! And whereas you ask me, Whither away? I tell you, Sir, I am going to yonder wicket-gate before me; for there, as I am informed, I shall be put into a way to be rid of my heavy burden. WORLD. Hast thou a wife and children? CHR. Yes; but I am so laden with this burden that I cannot take that pleasure in them as formerly; methinks I am as if I had none. [1 Cor 7:29] WORLD. Wilt thou hearken unto me if I give thee counsel? CHR. If it be good, I will; for I stand in need of good counsel. {39} WORLD. I would advise thee, then, that thou with all speed get thyself rid of thy burden; for thou wilt never be settled in thy mind till then; nor canst thou enjoy the benefits of the blessing which God hath bestowed upon thee till then. CHR. That is that which I seek for, even to be rid of this heavy burden; but get it off myself, I cannot; nor is there any man in our country that can take it off my shoulders; therefore am I going this way, as I told you, that I may be rid of my burden. WORLD. Who bid thee go this way to be rid of thy burden? CHR. A man that appeared to me to be a very great and honourable person; his name, as I remember, is Evangelist. {40} WORLD. I beshrew him for his counsel! there is not a more dangerous and troublesome way in the world than is that unto which he hath directed thee; and that thou shalt find, if thou wilt be ruled by his counsel. Thou hast met with something, as I perceive, already; for I see the dirt of the Slough of Despond is upon thee; but that slough is the beginning of the sorrows that do attend those that go on in that way. Hear me, I am older than thou; thou art like to meet with, in the way which thou goest, wearisomeness, painfulness, hunger, perils, nakedness, sword, lions, dragons, darkness, and, in a word, death, and what not! These things are certainly true, having been confirmed by many testimonies. And why should a man so carelessly cast away himself, by giving heed to a stranger? CHR. Why, Sir, this burden upon my back is more terrible to me than all these things which you have mentioned; nay, methinks I care not what I meet with in the way, if so be I can also meet with deliverance from my burden. {41} WORLD. How camest thou by the burden at first? CHR. By reading this book in my hand. WORLD. I thought so; and it is happened unto thee as to other weak men, who, meddling with things too high for them, do suddenly fall into thy distractions; which distractions do not only unman men, as thine, I perceive, have done thee, but they run them upon desperate ventures to obtain they know not what. CHR. I know what I would obtain; it is ease for my heavy burden. {42} WORLD. But why wilt thou seek for ease this way, seeing so many dangers attend it? especially since, hadst thou but patience to hear me, I could direct thee to the obtaining of what thou desirest, without the dangers that thou in this way wilt run thyself into; yea, and the remedy is at hand. Besides, I will add, that instead of those dangers, thou shalt meet with much safety, friendship, and content. CHR. Pray, Sir, open this secret to me. {43} WORLD. Why, in yonder village--the village is named Morality-- there dwells a gentleman whose name is Legality, a very judicious man, and a man of very good name, that has skill to help men off with such burdens as thine are from their shoulders: yea, to my knowledge, he hath done a great deal of good this way; ay, and besides, he hath skill to cure those that are somewhat crazed in their wits with their burdens. To him, as I said, thou mayest go, and be helped presently. His house is not quite a mile from this place, and if he should not be at home himself, he hath a pretty young man to his son, whose name is Civility, that can do it (to speak on) as well as the old gentleman himself; there, I say, thou mayest be eased of thy burden; and if thou art not minded to go back to thy former habitation, as, indeed, I would not wish thee, thou mayest send for thy wife and children to thee to this village, where there are houses now stand empty, one of which thou mayest have at reasonable rates; provision is there also cheap and good; and that which will make thy life the more happy is, to be sure, there thou shalt live by honest neighbours, in credit and good fashion. {44} Now was Christian somewhat at a stand; but presently he concluded, if this be true, which this gentleman hath said, my wisest course is to take his advice; and with that he thus further spoke. {45} CHR. Sir, which is my way to this honest man's house? WORLD. Do you see yonder hill? CHR. Yes, very well. WORLD. By that hill you must go, and the first house you come at is his. {46} So Christian turned out of his way to go to Mr. Legality's house for help; but, behold, when he was got now hard by the hill, it seemed so high, and also that side of it that was next the wayside did hang so much over, that Christian was afraid to venture further, lest the hill should fall on his head; wherefore there he stood still and wotted not what to do. Also his burden now seemed heavier to him than while he was in his way. There came also flashes of fire out of the hill, that made Christian afraid that he should be burned. [Ex. 19:16, 18] Here, therefore, he sweat and did quake for fear. [Heb. 12:21] When Christians unto carnal men give ear, Out of their way they go, and pay for 't dear; For Master Worldly Wiseman can but shew A saint the way to bondage and to woe. {47} And now he began to be sorry that he had taken Mr. Worldly Wiseman's counsel. And with that he saw Evangelist coming to meet him; at the sight also of whom he began to blush for shame. So Evangelist drew nearer and nearer; and coming up to him, he looked upon him with a severe and dreadful countenance, and thus began to reason with Christian. {48} EVAN. What dost thou here, Christian? said he: at which words Christian knew not what to answer; wherefore at present he stood speechless before him. Then said Evangelist further, Art not thou the man that I found crying without the walls of the City of Destruction? CHR. Yes, dear Sir, I am the man. EVAN. Did not I direct thee the way to the little wicket-gate? CHR. Yes, dear Sir, said Christian. EVAN. How is it, then, that thou art so quickly turned aside? for thou art now out of the way. {49} CHR. I met with a gentleman so soon as I had got over the Slough of Despond, who persuaded me that I might, in the village before me, find a man that would take off my burden. EVAN. What was he? CHR. He looked like a gentleman, and talked much to me, and got me at last to yield; so I came hither; but when I beheld this hill, and how it hangs over the way, I suddenly made a stand lest it should fall on my head. EVAN. What said that gentleman to you? CHR. Why, he asked me whither I was going, and I told him. EVAN. And what said he then? CHR. He asked me if I had a family? And I told him. But, said I, I am so loaden with the burden that is on my back, that I cannot take pleasure in them as formerly. EVAN. And what said he then? {50} CHR. He bid me with speed get rid of my burden; and I told him that it was ease that I sought. And said I, I am therefore going to yonder gate, to receive further direction how I may get to the place of deliverance. So he said that he would shew me a better way, and short, not so attended with difficulties as the way, Sir, that you set me in; which way, said he, will direct you to a gentleman's house that hath skill to take off these burdens, so I believed him, and turned out of that way into this, if haply I might be soon eased of my burden. But when I came to this place, and beheld things as they are, I stopped for fear (as I said) of danger: but I now know not what to do. {51} EVAN. Then, said Evangelist, stand still a little, that I may show thee the words of God. So he stood trembling. Then said Evangelist, "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven." [Heb. 12:25] He said, moreover, "Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." [Heb. 10:38] He also did thus apply them: Thou art the man that art running into this misery; thou hast begun to reject the counsel of the Most High, and to draw back thy foot from the way of peace, even almost to the hazarding of thy perdition. {52} Then Christian fell down at his feet as dead, crying, "Woe is me, for I am undone!" At the sight of which Evangelist caught him by the right hand, saying, "All manner of sin and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto men." [Matt. 12:31, Mark 3:28] "Be not faithless, but believing." [John 20:27] Then did Christian again a little revive, and stood up trembling, as at first, before Evangelist. {53} Then Evangelist proceeded, saying, Give more earnest heed to the things that I shall tell thee of. I will now show thee who it was that deluded thee, and who it was also to whom he sent thee. --The man that met thee is one Worldly Wiseman, and rightly is he so called; partly, because he savoureth only the doctrine of this world, [1 John 4:5] (therefore he always goes to the town of Morality to church): and partly because he loveth that doctrine best, for it saveth him best from the cross. [Gal 6:12] And because he is of this carnal temper, therefore he seeketh to pervert my ways, though right. Now there are three things in this man's counsel, that thou must utterly abhor. 1. His turning thee out of the way. 2. His labouring to render the cross odious to thee. And, 3. His setting thy feet in that way that leadeth unto the administration of death. {54} First, Thou must abhor his turning thee out of the way; and thine own consenting thereunto: because this is to reject the counsel of God for the sake of the counsel of a Worldly Wiseman. The Lord says, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate" [Luke 13:24], the gate to which I sent thee; for "strait is the gate that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." [Matt. 7:14] From this little wicket-gate, and from the way thereto, hath this wicked man turned thee, to the bringing of thee almost to destruction; hate, therefore, his turning thee out of the way, and abhor thyself for hearkening to him. {55} Secondly, Thou must abhor his labouring to render the cross odious unto thee; for thou art to prefer it "before the treasures in Egypt." [Heb. 11:25,26] Besides the King of glory hath told thee, that he that "will save his life shall lose it." [Mark 8:35; John 12:25; Matt. 10:39] And, "He that cometh after me, and hateth not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." [Luke 14:26] I say, therefore, for man to labour to persuade thee, that that shall be thy death, without which, THE TRUTH hath said, thou canst not have eternal life; this doctrine thou must abhor. {56} Thirdly, Thou must hate his setting of thy feet in the way that leadeth to the ministration of death. And for this thou must consider to whom he sent thee, and also how unable that person was to deliver thee from thy burden. {57} He to whom thou wast sent for ease, being by name Legality, is the son of the bond-woman which now is, and is in bondage with her children [Gal 4:21-27]; and is, in a mystery, this Mount Sinai, which thou hast feared will fall on thy head. Now, if she, with her children, are in bondage, how canst thou expect by them to be made free? This Legality, therefore, is not able to set thee free from thy burden. No man was as yet ever rid of his burden by him; no, nor ever is like to be: ye cannot be justified by the works of the law; for by the deeds of the law no man living can be rid of his burden: therefore, Mr. Worldly Wiseman is an alien, and Mr. Legality is a cheat; and for his son Civility, notwithstanding his simpering looks, he is but a hypocrite and cannot help thee. Believe me, there is nothing in all this noise, that thou hast heard of these sottish men, but a design to beguile thee of thy salvation, by turning thee from the way in which I had set thee. After this, Evangelist called aloud to the heavens for confirmation of what he had said: and with that there came words and fire out of the mountain under which poor Christian stood, that made the hair of his flesh stand up. The words were thus pronounced: 'As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.' [Gal. 3:10] {58} Now Christian looked for nothing but death, and began to cry out lamentably; even cursing the time in which he met with Mr. Worldly Wiseman; still calling himself a thousand fools for hearkening to his counsel; he also was greatly ashamed to think that this gentleman's arguments, flowing only from the flesh, should have the prevalency with him as to cause him to forsake the right way. This done, he applied himself again to Evangelist in words and sense as follow: {59} CHR. Sir, what think you? Is there hope? May I now go back and go up to the wicket-gate? Shall I not be abandoned for this, and sent back from thence ashamed? I am sorry I have hearkened to this man's counsel. But may my sin be forgiven? EVAN. Then said Evangelist to him, Thy sin is very great, for by it thou hast committed two evils: thou hast forsaken the way that is good, to tread in forbidden paths; yet will the man at the gate receive thee, for he has goodwill for men; only, said he, take heed that thou turn not aside again, 'lest thou perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.' [Ps. 2:12] Then did Christian address himself to go back; and Evangelist, after he had kissed him, gave him one smile, and bid him God-speed. So he went on with haste, neither spake he to any man by the way; nor, if any asked him, would he vouchsafe them an answer. He went like one that was all the while treading on forbidden ground, and could by no means think himself safe, till again he was got into the way which he left, to follow Mr. Worldly Wiseman's counsel. So, in process of time, Christian got up to the gate. Now, over the gate there was written, 'Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.' [Matt 7:8] {60} "He that will enter in must first without Stand knocking at the Gate, nor need he doubt That is A KNOCKER but to enter in; For God can love him, and forgive his sin." He knocked, therefore, more than once or twice, saying-- "May I now enter here? Will he within Open to sorry me, though I have been An undeserving rebel? Then shall I Not fail to sing his lasting praise on high." At last there came a grave person to the gate, named Good-will, who asked who was there? and whence he came? and what he would have? {61} CHR. Here is a poor burdened sinner. I come from the City of Destruction, but am going to Mount Zion, that I may be delivered from the wrath to come. I would therefore, Sir, since I am informed that by this gate is the way thither, know if you are willing to let me in? GOOD-WILL. I am willing with all my heart, said he; and with that he opened the gate. {62} So when Christian was stepping in, the other gave him a pull. Then said Christian, What means that? The other told him. A little distance from this gate, there is erected a strong castle, of which Beelzebub is the captain; from thence, both he and them that are with him shoot arrows at those that come up to this gate, if haply they may die before they can enter in. Then said Christian, I rejoice and tremble. So when he was got in, the man of the gate asked him who directed him thither? {63} CHR. Evangelist bid me come hither, and knock, (as I did); and he said that you, Sir, would tell me what I must do. GOOD-WILL. An open door is set before thee, and no man can shut it. CHR. Now I begin to reap the benefits of my hazards. GOOD-WILL. But how is it that you came alone? CHR. Because none of my neighbours saw their danger, as I saw mine. GOOD-WILL. Did any of them know of your coming? CHR. Yes; my wife and children saw me at the first, and called after me to turn again; also, some of my neighbours stood crying and calling after me to return; but I put my fingers in my ears, and so came on my way. GOOD-WILL. But did none of them follow you, to persuade you to go back? CHR. Yes, both Obstinate and Pliable; but when they saw that they could not prevail, Obstinate went railing back, but Pliable came with me a little way. GOOD-WILL. But why did he not come through? {64} CHR. We, indeed, came both together, until we came at the Slough of Despond, into the which we also suddenly fell. And then was my neighbour, Pliable, discouraged, and would not venture further. Wherefore, getting out again on that side next to his own house, he told me I should possess the brave country alone for him; so he went his way, and I came mine--he after Obstinate, and I to this gate. GOOD-WILL. Then said Good-will, Alas, poor man! is the celestial glory of so small esteem with him, that he counteth it not worth running the hazards of a few difficulties to obtain it? {65} CHR. Truly, said Christian, I have said the truth of Pliable, and if I should also say all the truth of myself, it will appear there is no betterment betwixt him and myself. It is true, he went back to his own house, but I also turned aside to go in the way of death, being persuaded thereto by the carnal arguments of one Mr. Worldly Wiseman. GOOD-WILL. Oh, did he light upon you? What! he would have had you a sought for ease at the hands of Mr. Legality. They are, both of them, a very cheat. But did you take his counsel? CHR. Yes, as far as I durst; I went to find out Mr. Legality, until I thought that the mountain that stands by his house would have fallen upon my head; wherefore there I was forced to stop. GOOD-WILL. That mountain has been the death of many, and will be the death of many more; it is well you escaped being by it dashed in pieces. CHR. Why, truly, I do not know what had become of me there, had not Evangelist happily met me again, as I was musing in the midst of my dumps; but it was God's mercy that he came to me again, for else I had never come hither. But now I am come, such a one as I am, more fit, indeed, for death, by that mountain, than thus to stand talking with my lord; but, oh, what a favour is this to me, that yet I am admitted entrance here! {66} GOOD-WILL. We make no objections against any, notwithstanding all that they have done before they came hither. They are in no wise cast out [John vi.37]; and therefore, good Christian, come a little way with me, and I will teach thee about the way thou must go. Look before thee; dost thou see this narrow way? THAT is the way thou must go; it was cast up by the patriarchs, prophets, Christ, and his apostles; and it is as straight as a rule can make it. This is the way thou must go. {67} CHR. But, said Christian, are there no turnings or windings by which a stranger may lose his way? GOOD-WILL. Yes, there are many ways butt down upon this, and they are crooked and wide. But thus thou mayest distinguish the right from the wrong, the right only being straight and narrow. [Matt 7:14] {68} Then I saw in my dream that Christian asked him further if he could not help him off with his burden that was upon his back; for as yet he had not got rid thereof, nor could he by any means get it off without help. He told him, As to thy burden, be content to bear it, until thou comest to the place of deliverance; for there it will fall from thy back of itself. {69} Then Christian began to gird up his loins, and to address himself to his journey. So the other told him, That by that he was gone some distance from the gate, he would come at the house of the Interpreter, at whose door he should knock, and he would show him excellent things. Then Christian took his leave of his friend, and he again bid him God-speed. {70} Then he went on till he came to the house of the Interpreter, where he knocked over and over; at last one came to the door, and asked who was there. {71} CHR. Sir, here is a traveller, who was bid by an acquaintance of the good-man of this house to call here for my profit; I would therefore speak with the master of the house. So he called for the master of the house, who, after a little time, came to Christian, and asked him what he would have. CHR. Sir, said Christian, I am a man that am come from the City of Destruction, and am going to the Mount Zion; and I was told by the man that stands at the gate, at the head of this way, that if I called here, you would show me excellent things, such as would be a help to me in my journey. {72} INTER. Then said the Interpreter, Come in; I will show that which will be profitable to thee. So he commanded his man to light the candle, and bid Christian follow him: so he had him into a private room, and bid his man open a door; the which when he had done, Christian saw the picture of a very grave person hang up against the wall; and this was the fashion of it. It had eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books in his hand, the law of truth was written upon his lips, the world was behind his back. It stood as if it pleaded with men, and a crown of gold did hang over his head. CHR. Then said Christian, What meaneth this? {73} INTER. The man whose picture this is, is one of a thousand; he can beget children [1 Cor. 4:15], travail in birth with children [Gal. 4:19], and nurse them himself when they are born. And whereas thou seest him with his eyes lift up to heaven, the best of books in his hand, and the law of truth writ on his lips, it is to show thee that his work is to know and unfold dark things to sinners; even as also thou seest him stand as if he pleaded with men: and whereas thou seest the world as cast behind him, and that a crown hangs over his head, that is to show thee that slighting and despising the things that are present, for the love that he hath to his Master's service, he is sure in the world that comes next to have glory for his reward. Now, said the Interpreter, I have showed thee this picture first, because the man whose picture this is, is the only man whom the Lord of the place whither thou art going, hath authorised to be thy guide in all difficult places thou mayest meet with in the way; wherefore, take good heed to what I have shewed thee, and bear well in thy mind what thou hast seen, lest in thy journey thou meet with some that pretend to lead thee right, but their way goes down to death. {74} Then he took him by the hand, and led him into a very large parlour that was full of dust, because never swept; the which after he had reviewed a little while, the Interpreter called for a man to sweep. Now, when he began to sweep, the dust began so abundantly to fly about, that Christian had almost therewith been choked. Then said the Interpreter to a damsel that stood by, Bring hither the water, and sprinkle the room; the which, when she had done, it was swept and cleansed with pleasure. {75} CHR. Then said Christian, What means this? INTER. The Interpreter answered, This parlour is the heart of a man that was never sanctified by the sweet grace of the gospel; the dust is his original sin and inward corruptions, that have defiled the whole man. He that began to sweep at first, is the Law; but she that brought water, and did sprinkle it, is the Gospel. Now, whereas thou sawest, that so soon as the first began to sweep, the dust did so fly about that the room by him could not be cleansed, but that thou wast almost choked therewith; this is to shew thee, that the law, instead of cleansing the heart (by its working) from sin, doth revive, put strength into, and increase it in the soul, even as it doth discover and forbid it, for it doth not give power to subdue. [Rom. 7:6; 1 Cor. 15:56; Rom. 5:20] {76} Again, as thou sawest the damsel sprinkle the room with water, upon which it was cleansed with pleasure; this is to show thee, that when the gospel comes in the sweet and precious influences thereof to the heart, then, I say, even as thou sawest the damsel lay the dust by sprinkling the floor with water, so is sin vanquished and subdued, and the soul made clean through the faith of it, and consequently fit for the King of glory to inhabit. [John 15:3; Eph. 5:26; Acts 15:9; Rom. 16:25,26; John 15:13] {77} I saw, moreover, in my dream, that the Interpreter took him by the hand, and had him into a little room, where sat two little children, each one in his chair. The name of the eldest was Passion, and the name of the other Patience. Passion seemed to be much discontented; but Patience was very quiet. Then Christian asked, What is the reason of the discontent of Passion? The Interpreter answered, The Governor of them would have him stay for his best things till the beginning of the next year; but he will have all now: but Patience is willing to wait. Then I saw that one came to Passion, and brought him a bag of treasure, and poured it down at his feet, the which he took up and rejoiced therein, and withal laughed Patience to scorn. But I beheld but a while, and he had lavished all away, and had nothing left him but rags. {78} CHR. Then said Christian to the Interpreter, Expound this matter more fully to me. INTER. So he said, These two lads are figures: Passion, of the men of this world; and Patience, of the men of that which is to come; for as here thou seest, Passion will have all now this year, that is to say, in this world; so are the men of this world, they must have all their good things now, they cannot stay till next year, that is until the next world, for their portion of good. That proverb, 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush', is of more authority with them than are all the Divine testimonies of the good of the world to come. But as thou sawest that he had quickly lavished all away, and had presently left him nothing but rags; so will it be with all such men at the end of this world. CHR. Then said Christian, Now I see that Patience has the best wisdom, and that upon many accounts. First, because he stays for the best things. Second, and also because he will have the glory of his, when the other has nothing but rags. {79} INTER. Nay, you may add another, to wit, the glory of the next world will never wear out; but these are suddenly gone. Therefore Passion had not so much reason to laugh at Patience, because he had his good things first, as Patience will have to laugh at Passion, because he had his best things last; for first must give place to last, because last must have his time to come; but last gives place to nothing; for there is not another to succeed. He, therefore, that hath his portion first, must needs have a time to spend it; but he that hath his portion last, must have it lastingly; therefore it is said of Dives, "Thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented." [Luke 16:25] CHR. Then I perceive it is not best to covet things that are now, but to wait for things to come. INTER. You say the truth: "For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." [2 Cor. 4:18] But though this be so, yet since things present and our fleshly appetite are such near neighbours one to another; and again, because things to come, and carnal sense, are such strangers one to another; therefore it is, that the first of these so suddenly fall into amity, and that distance is so continued between the second. {80} Then I saw in my dream that the Interpreter took Christian by the hand, and led him into a place where was a fire burning against a wall, and one standing by it, always casting much water upon it, to quench it; yet did the fire burn higher and hotter. Then said Christian, What means this? {81} The Interpreter answered, This fire is the work of grace that is wrought in the heart; he that casts water upon it, to extinguish and put it out, is the Devil; but in that thou seest the fire notwithstanding burn higher and hotter, thou shalt also see the reason of that. So he had him about to the backside of the wall, where he saw a man with a vessel of oil in his hand, of the which he did also continually cast, but secretly, into the fire. Then said Christian, What means this? {82} The Interpreter answered, This is Christ, who continually, with the oil of his grace, maintains the work already begun in the heart: by the means of which, notwithstanding what the devil can do, the souls of his people prove gracious still. [2 Cor. 12:9] And in that thou sawest that the man stood behind the wall to maintain the fire, that is to teach thee that it is hard for the tempted to see how this work of grace is maintained in the soul. I saw also, that the Interpreter took him again by the hand, and led him into a pleasant place, where was builded a stately palace, beautiful to behold; at the sight of which Christian was greatly delighted. He saw also, upon the top thereof, certain persons walking, who were clothed all in gold. Then said Christian, May we go in thither? {83} Then the Interpreter took him, and led him up towards the door of the palace; and behold, at the door stood a great company of men, as desirous to go in; but durst not. There also sat a man at a little distance from the door, at a table-side, with a book and his inkhorn before him, to take the name of him that should enter therein; he saw also, that in the doorway stood many men in armour to keep it, being resolved to do the men that would enter what hurt and mischief they could. Now was Christian somewhat in amaze. At last, when every man started back for fear of the armed men, Christian saw a man of a very stout countenance come up to the man that sat there to write, saying, Set down my name, Sir: the which when he had done, he saw the man draw his sword, and put a helmet upon his head, and rush toward the door upon the armed men, who laid upon him with deadly force; but the man, not at all discouraged, fell to cutting and hacking most fiercely. So after he had received and given many wounds to those that attempted to keep him out, he cut his way through them all [Acts 14:22], and pressed forward into the palace, at which there was a pleasant voice heard from those that were within, even of those that walked upon the top of the palace, saying-- "Come in, come in; Eternal glory thou shalt win." So he went in, and was clothed with such garments as they. Then Christian smiled and said; I think verily I know the meaning of this. {84} Now, said Christian, let me go hence. Nay, stay, said the Interpreter, till I have shewed thee a little more, and after that thou shalt go on thy way. So he took him by the hand again, and led him into a very dark room, where there sat a man in an iron cage. Now the man, to look on, seemed very sad; he sat with his eyes looking down to the ground, his hands folded together, and he sighed as if he would break his heart. Then said Christian, What means this? At which the Interpreter bid him talk with the man. Then said Christian to the man, What art thou? The man answered, I am what I was not once. {85} CHR. What wast thou once? MAN. The man said, I was once a fair and flourishing professor, both in mine own eyes, and also in the eyes of others; I once was, as I thought, fair for the Celestial City, and had then even joy at the thoughts that I should get thither. [Luke 8:13] CHR. Well, but what art thou now? MAN. I am now a man of despair, and am shut up in it, as in this iron cage. I cannot get out. Oh, now I cannot! CHR. But how camest thou in this condition? MAN. I left off to watch and be sober. I laid the reins, upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light of the Word and the goodness of God; I have grieved the Spirit, and he is gone; I tempted the devil, and he is come to me; I have provoked God to anger, and he has left me: I have so hardened my heart, that I cannot repent. {86} Then said Christian to the Interpreter, But is there no hope for such a man as this? Ask him, said the Interpreter. Nay, said Christian, pray, Sir, do you. INTER. Then said the Interpreter, Is there no hope, but you must be kept in the iron cage of despair? MAN. No, none at all. INTER. Why, the Son of the Blessed is very pitiful. MAN. I have crucified him to myself afresh [Heb. 6:6]; I have despised his person [Luke 19:14]; I have despised his righteousness; I have "counted his blood an unholy thing"; I have "done despite to the Spirit of grace". [Heb. 10:28-29] Therefore I have shut myself out of all the promises, and there now remains to me nothing but threatenings, dreadful threatenings, fearful threatenings, of certain judgement and fiery indignation, which shall devour me as an adversary. {87} INTER. For what did you bring yourself into this condition? MAN. For the lusts, pleasures, and profits of this world; in the enjoyment of which I did then promise myself much delight; but now every one of those things also bite me, and gnaw me like a burning worm. INTER. But canst thou not now repent and turn? {88} MAN. God hath denied me repentance. His Word gives me no encouragement to believe; yea, himself hath shut me up in this iron cage; nor can all the men in the world let me out. O eternity, eternity! how shall I grapple with the misery that I must meet with in eternity! INTER. Then said the Interpreter to Christian, Let this man's misery be remembered by thee, and be an everlasting caution to thee. CHR. Well, said Christian, this is fearful! God help me to watch and be sober, and to pray that I may shun the cause of this man's misery! Sir, is it not time for me to go on my way now? INTER. Tarry till I shall show thee one thing more, and then thou shalt go on thy way. {89} So he took Christian by the hand again, and led him into a chamber, where there was one rising out of bed; and as he put on his raiment, he shook and trembled. Then said Christian, Why doth this man thus tremble? The Interpreter then bid him tell to Christian the reason of his so doing. So he began and said, This night, as I was in my sleep, I dreamed, and behold the heavens grew exceeding black; also it thundered and lightened in most fearful wise, that it put me into an agony; so I looked up in my dream, and saw the clouds rack at an unusual rate, upon which I heard a great sound of a trumpet, and saw also a man sit upon a cloud, attended with the thousands of heaven; they were all in flaming fire: also the heavens were in a burning flame. I heard then a voice saying, "Arise, ye dead, and come to judgement"; and with that the rocks rent, the graves opened, and the dead that were therein came forth. Some of them were exceeding glad, and looked upward; and some sought to hide themselves under the mountains. [1 Cor. 15:52; 1 Thes. 4:16; Jude 14; John 5:28,29; 2 Thes. 1:7,8; Rev. 20:11-14; Isa. 26:21; Micah 7:16,17; Ps. 95:1-3; Dan. 7:10] Then I saw the man that sat upon the cloud open the book, and bid the world draw near. Yet there was, by reason of a fierce flame which issued out and came from before him, a convenient distance betwixt him and them, as betwixt the judge and the prisoners at the bar. [Mal. 3:2,3; Dan. 7:9,10] I heard it also proclaimed to them that attended on the man that sat on the cloud, Gather together the tares, the chaff, and stubble, and cast them into the burning lake. [Matt. 3:12; 13:30; Mal. 4:1] And with that, the bottomless pit opened, just whereabout I stood; out of the mouth of which there came, in an abundant manner, smoke and coals of fire, with hideous noises. It was also said to the same persons, "Gather my wheat into the garner." [Luke 3:17] And with that I saw many catched up and carried away into the clouds, but I was left behind. [1 Thes. 4:16,17] I also sought to hide myself, but I could not, for the man that sat upon the cloud still kept his eye upon me; my sins also came into my mind; and my conscience did accuse me on every side. [Rom. 3:14,15] Upon this I awaked from my sleep. {90} CHR. But what is it that made you so afraid of this sight? MAN. Why, I thought that the day of judgement was come, and that I was not ready for it: but this frighted me most, that the angels gathered up several, and left me behind; also the pit of hell opened her mouth just where I stood. My conscience, too, afflicted me; and, as I thought, the Judge had always his eye upon me, shewing indignation in his countenance. {91} Then said the Interpreter to Christian, Hast thou considered all these things? CHR. Yes, and they put me in hope and fear. INTER. Well, keep all things so in thy mind that they may be as a goad in thy sides, to prick thee forward in the way thou must go. Then Christian began to gird up his loins, and to address himself to his journey. Then said the Interpreter, The Comforter be always with thee, good Christian, to guide thee in the way that leads to the City. So Christian went on his way, saying-- "Here I have seen things rare and profitable; Things pleasant, dreadful, things to make me stable In what I have begun to take in hand; Then let me think on them, and understand Wherefore they showed me were, and let me be Thankful, O good Interpreter, to thee." {92} Now I saw in my dream, that the highway up which Christian was to go, was fenced on either side with a wall, and that wall was called Salvation. [Isa. 26:1] Up this way, therefore, did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back. {93} He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending, and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do, till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. {94} Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said, with a merry heart, "He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death." Then he stood still awhile to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him, that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden. He looked therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks. [Zech. 12:10] Now, as he stood looking and weeping, behold three Shining Ones came to him and saluted him with "Peace be unto thee". So the first said to him, "Thy sins be forgiven thee" [Mark 2:5]; the second stripped him of his rags, and clothed him with change of raiment [Zech. 3:4]; the third also set a mark on his forehead, and gave him a roll with a seal upon it, which he bade him look on as he ran, and that he should give it in at the Celestial Gate. [Eph. 1:13] So they went their way. "Who's this? the Pilgrim. How! 'tis very true, Old things are past away, all's become new. Strange! he's another man, upon my word, They be fine feathers that make a fine bird. Then Christian gave three leaps for joy, and went on singing-- "Thus far I did come laden with my sin; Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in Till I came hither: What a place is this! Must here be the beginning of my bliss? Must here the burden fall from off my back? Must here the strings that bound it to me crack? Blest cross! blest sepulchre! blest rather be The Man that there was put to shame for me!" {95} I saw then in my dream, that he went on thus, even until he came at a bottom, where he saw, a little out of the way, three men fast asleep, with fetters upon their heels. The name of the one was Simple, another Sloth, and the third Presumption. {96} Christian then seeing them lie in this case went to them, if peradventure he might awake them, and cried, You are like them that sleep on the top of a mast, for the Dead Sea is under you--a gulf that hath no bottom. [Prov. 23:34] Awake, therefore, and come away; be willing also, and I will help you off with your irons. He also told them, If he that "goeth about like a roaring lion" comes by, you will certainly become a prey to his teeth. [1 Pet. 5:8] With that they looked upon him, and began to reply in this sort: Simple said, "I see no danger"; Sloth said, "Yet a little more sleep"; and Presumption said, "Every fat must stand upon its own bottom; what is the answer else that I should give thee?" And so they lay down to sleep again, and Christian went on his way. {97} Yet was he troubled to think that men in that danger should so little esteem the kindness of him that so freely offered to help them, both by awakening of them, counselling of them, and proffering to help them off with their irons. And as he was troubled thereabout, he espied two men come tumbling over the wall on the left hand of the narrow way; and they made up apace to him. The name of the one was Formalist, and the name of the other Hypocrisy. So, as I said, they drew up unto him, who thus entered with them into discourse. {98} CHR. Gentlemen, whence came you, and whither go you? FORM. and HYP. We were born in the land of Vain-glory, and are going for praise to Mount Zion. CHR. Why came you not in at the gate which standeth at the beginning of the way? Know you not that it is written, that he that cometh not in by the door, "but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber?" [John 10:1] FORM. and HYP. They said, That to go to the gate for entrance was, by all their countrymen, counted too far about; and that, therefore, their usual way was to make a short cut of it, and to climb over the wall, as they had done. CHR. But will it not be counted a trespass against the Lord of the city whither we are bound, thus to violate his revealed will? {99} FORM. and HYP. They told him, that, as for that, he needed not to trouble his head thereabout; for what they did they had custom for; and could produce, if need were, testimony that would witness it for more than a thousand years. CHR. But, said Christian, will your practice stand a trial at law? FORM. and HYP. They told him, That custom, it being of so long a standing as above a thousand years, would, doubtless, now be admitted as a thing legal by any impartial judge; and besides, said they, if we get into the way, what's matter which way we get in? if we are in, we are in; thou art but in the way, who, as we perceive, came in at the gate; and we are also in the way, that came tumbling over the wall; wherein, now, is thy condition better than ours? CHR. I walk by the rule of my Master; you walk by the rude working of your fancies. You are counted thieves already, by the Lord of the way; therefore, I doubt you will not be found true men at the end of the way. You come in by yourselves, without his direction; and shall go out by yourselves, without his mercy. {100} To this they made him but little answer; only they bid him look to himself. Then I saw that they went on every man in his way without much conference one with another, save that these two men told Christian, that as to laws and ordinances, they doubted not but they should as conscientiously do them as he; therefore, said they, we see not wherein thou differest from us but by the coat that is on thy back, which was, as we trow, given thee by some of thy neighbours, to hide the shame of thy nakedness. {101} CHR. By laws and ordinances you will not be saved, since you came not in by the door. [Gal. 2:16] And as for this coat that is on my back, it was given me by the Lord of the place whither I go; and that, as you say, to cover my nakedness with. And I take it as a token of his kindness to me; for I had nothing but rags before. And besides, thus I comfort myself as I go: Surely, think I, when I come to the gate of the city, the Lord thereof will know me for good since I have this coat on my back--a coat that he gave me freely in the day that he stripped me of my rags. I have, moreover, a mark in my forehead, of which, perhaps, you have taken no notice, which one of my Lord's most intimate associates fixed there in the day that my burden fell off my shoulders. I will tell you, moreover, that I had then given me a roll, sealed, to comfort me by reading as I go on the way; I was also bid to give it in at the Celestial Gate, in token of my certain going in after it; all which things, I doubt, you want, and want them because you came not in at the gate. {102} To these things they gave him no answer; only they looked upon each other, and laughed. Then, I saw that they went on all, save that Christian kept before, who had no more talk but with himself, and that sometimes sighingly, and sometimes comfortably; also he would be often reading in the roll that one of the Shining Ones gave him, by which he was refreshed. {103} I beheld, then, that they all went on till they came to the foot of the Hill Difficulty; at the bottom of which was a spring. There were also in the same place two other ways besides that which came straight from the gate; one turned to the left hand, and the other to the right, at the bottom of the hill; but the narrow way lay right up the hill, and the name of the going up the side of the hill is called Difficulty. Christian now went to the spring, and drank thereof, to refresh himself [Isa. 49:10], and then began to go up the hill, saying-- "The hill, though high, I covet to ascend, The difficulty will not me offend; For I perceive the way to life lies here. Come, pluck up heart, let's neither faint nor fear; Better, though difficult, the right way to go, Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe." {104} The other two also came to the foot of the hill; but when they saw that the hill was steep and high, and that there were two other ways to go, and supposing also that these two ways might meet again, with that up which Christian went, on the other side of the hill, therefore they were resolved to go in those ways. Now the name of one of these ways was Danger, and the name of the other Destruction. So the one took the way which is called Danger, which led him into a great wood, and the other took directly up the way to Destruction, which led him into a wide field, full of dark mountains, where he stumbled and fell, and rose no more. "Shall they who wrong begin yet rightly end? Shall they at all have safety for their friend? No, no; in headstrong manner they set out, And headlong will they fall at last no doubt." {105} I looked, then, after Christian, to see him go up the hill, where I perceived he fell from running to going, and from going to clambering upon his hands and his knees, because of the steepness of the place. Now, about the midway to the top of the hill was a pleasant arbour, made by the Lord of the hill for the refreshing of weary travellers; thither, therefore, Christian got, where also he sat down to rest him. Then he pulled his roll out of his bosom, and read therein to his comfort; he also now began afresh to take a review of the coat or garment that was given him as he stood by the cross. Thus pleasing himself awhile, he at last fell into a slumber, and thence into a fast sleep, which detained him in that place until it was almost night; and in his sleep, his roll fell out of his hand. Now, as he was sleeping, there came one to him, and awaked him, saying, Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise. [Prov. 6:6] And with that Christian started up, and sped him on his way, and went apace, till he came to the top of the hill. {106} Now, when he was got up to the top of the hill, there came two men running to meet him amain; the name of the one was Timorous, and of the other, Mistrust; to whom Christian said, Sirs, what's the matter? You run the wrong way. Timorous answered, that they were going to the City of Zion, and had got up that difficult place; but, said he, the further we go, the more danger we meet with; wherefore we turned, and are going back again. Yes, said Mistrust, for just before us lie a couple of lions in the way, whether sleeping or waking we know not, and we could not think, if we came within reach, but they would presently pull us in pieces. {107} CHR. Then said Christian, You make me afraid, but whither shall I fly to be safe? If I go back to mine own country, that is prepared for fire and brimstone, and I shall certainly perish there. If I can get to the Celestial City, I am sure to be in safety there. I must venture. To go back is nothing but death; to go forward is fear of death, and life-everlasting beyond it. I will yet go forward. So Mistrust and Timorous ran down the hill, and Christian went on his way. But, thinking again of what he had heard from the men, he felt in his bosom for his roll, that he might read therein, and be comforted; but he felt, and found it not. Then was Christian in great distress, and knew not what to do; for he wanted that which used to relieve him, and that which should have been his pass into the Celestial City. Here, therefore, he begun to be much perplexed, and knew not what to do. At last he bethought himself that he had slept in the arbour that is on the side of the hill; and, falling down upon his knees, he asked God's forgiveness for that his foolish act, and then went back to look for his roll. But all the way he went back, who can sufficiently set forth the sorrow of Christian's heart? Sometimes he sighed, sometimes he wept, and oftentimes he chid himself for being so foolish to fall asleep in that place, which was erected only for a little refreshment for his weariness. Thus, therefore, he went back, carefully looking on this side and on that, all the way as he went, if happily he might find his roll, that had been his comfort so many times in his journey. He went thus, till he came again within sight of the arbour where he sat and slept; but that sight renewed his sorrow the more, by bringing again, even afresh, his evil of sleeping into his mind. [Rev. 2:5; 1 Thes. 5:7,8] Thus, therefore, he now went on bewailing his sinful sleep, saying, O wretched man that I am that I should sleep in the day-time! that I should sleep in the midst of difficulty! that I should so indulge the flesh, as to use that rest for ease to my flesh, which the Lord of the hill hath erected only for the relief of the spirits of pilgrims! {108} How many steps have I took in vain! Thus it happened to Israel, for their sin; they were sent back again by the way of the Red Sea; and I am made to tread those steps with sorrow, which I might have trod with delight, had it not been for this sinful sleep. How far might I have been on my way by this time! I am made to tread those steps thrice over, which I needed not to have trod but once; yea, now also I am like to be benighted, for the day is almost spent. O, that I had not slept! {109} Now, by this time he was come to the arbour again, where for a while he sat down and wept; but at last, as Christian would have it, looking sorrowfully down under the settle, there he espied his roll; the which he, with trembling and haste, catched up, and put it into his bosom. But who can tell how joyful this man was when he had gotten his roll again! for this roll was the assurance of his life and acceptance at the desired haven. Therefore he laid it up in his bosom, gave thanks to God for directing his eye to the place where it lay, and with joy and tears betook himself again to his journey. But oh, how nimbly now did he go up the rest of the hill! Yet, before he got up, the sun went down upon Christian; and this made him again recall the vanity of his sleeping to his remembrance; and thus he again began to condole with himself: O thou sinful sleep; how, for thy sake, am I like to be benighted in my journey! I must walk without the sun; darkness must cover the path of my feet; and I must hear the noise of the doleful creatures, because of my sinful sleep. [1 Thes. 5:6,7] Now also he remembered the story that Mistrust and Timorous told him of; how they were frighted with the sight of the lions. Then said Christian to himself again, These beasts range in the night for their prey; and if they should meet with me in the dark, how should I shift them? How should I escape being by them torn in pieces? Thus he went on his way. But while he was thus bewailing his unhappy miscarriage, he lift up his eyes, and behold there was a very stately palace before him, the name of which was Beautiful; and it stood just by the highway side. {110} So I saw in my dream that he made haste and went forward, that if possible he might get lodging there. Now, before he had gone far, he entered into a very narrow passage, which was about a furlong off the porter's lodge; and looking very narrowly before him as he went, he espied two lions in the way. Now, thought he, I see the dangers that Mistrust and Timorous were driven back by. (The lions were chained, but he saw not the chains.) Then he was afraid, and thought also himself to go back after them, for he thought nothing but death was before him. But the porter at the lodge, whose name is Watchful, perceiving that Christian made a halt as if he would go back, cried unto him, saying, Is thy strength so small? [Mark 8:34-37] Fear not the lions, for they are chained, and are placed there for trial of faith where it is, and for discovery of those that had none. Keep in the midst of the path, no hurt shall come unto thee. "Difficulty is behind, Fear is before, Though he's got on the hill, the lions roar; A Christian man is never long at ease, When one fright's gone, another doth him seize." {111} Then I saw that he went on, trembling for fear of the lions, but taking good heed to the directions of the porter; he heard them roar, but they did him no harm. Then he clapped his hands, and went on till he came and stood before the gate where the porter was. Then said Christian to the porter, Sir, what house is this? And may I lodge here to-night? The porter answered, This house was built by the Lord of the hill, and he built it for the relief and security of pilgrims. The porter also asked whence he was, and whither he was going. {112} CHR. I am come from the City of Destruction, and am going to Mount Zion; but because the sun is now set, I desire, if I may, to lodge here to-night. POR. What is your name? CHR. My name is now Christian, but my name at the first was Graceless; I came of the race of Japheth, whom God will persuade to dwell in the tents of Shem. [Gen. 9:27] POR. But how doth it happen that you come so late? The sun is set. {113} CHR. I had been here sooner, but that, "wretched man that I am!" I slept in the arbour that stands on the hillside; nay, I had, notwithstanding that, been here much sooner, but that, in my sleep, I lost my evidence, and came without it to the brow of the hill and then feeling for it, and finding it not, I was forced with sorrow of heart, to go back to the place where I slept my sleep, where I found it, and now I am come. POR. Well, I will call out one of the virgins of this place, who will, if she likes your talk, bring you into the rest of the family, according to the rules of the house. So Watchful, the porter, rang a bell, at the sound of which came out at the door of the house, a grave and beautiful damsel, named Discretion, and asked why she was called. {114} The porter answered, This man is in a journey from the City of Destruction to Mount Zion, but being weary and benighted, he asked me if he might lodge here to-night; so I told him I would call for thee, who, after discourse had with him, mayest do as seemeth thee good, even according to the law of the house. {115} Then she asked him whence he was, and whither he was going, and he told her. She asked him also how he got into the way; and he told her. Then she asked him what he had seen and met with in the way; and he told, her. And last she asked his name; so he said, It is Christian, and I have so much the more a desire to lodge here to-night, because, by what I perceive, this place was built by the Lord of the hill for the relief and security of pilgrims. So she smiled, but the water stood in her eyes; and after a little pause, she said, I will call forth two or three more of the family. So she ran to the door, and called out Prudence, Piety, and Charity, who, after a little more discourse with him, had him into the family; and many of them, meeting him at the threshold of the house, said, Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; this house was built by the Lord of the hill, on purpose to entertain such pilgrims in. Then he bowed his head, and followed them into the house. So when he was come in and sat down, they gave him something to drink, and consented together, that until supper was ready, some of them should have some particular discourse with Christian, for the best improvement of time; and they appointed Piety, and Prudence, and Charity to discourse with him; and thus they began: {116} PIETY. Come, good Christian, since we have been so loving to you, to receive you in our house this night, let us, if perhaps we may better ourselves thereby, talk with you of all things that have happened to you in your pilgrimage. CHR. With a very good will, and I am glad that you are so well disposed. {117} PIETY. What moved you at first to betake yourself to a pilgrim's life? CHR. I was driven out of my native country by a dreadful sound that was in mine ears: to wit, that unavoidable destruction did attend me, if I abode in that place where I was. PIETY. But how did it happen that you came out of your country this way? CHR. It was as God would have it; for when I was under the fears of destruction, I did not know whither to go; but by chance there came a man, even to me, as I was trembling and weeping, whose name is Evangelist, and he directed me to the wicket-gate, which else I should never have found, and so set me into the way that hath led me directly to this house. {118} PIETY. But did you not come by the house of the Interpreter? CHR. Yes, and did see such things there, the remembrance of which will stick by me as long as I live; especially three things: to wit, how Christ, in despite of Satan, maintains his work of grace in the heart; how the man had sinned himself quite out of hopes of God's mercy; and also the dream of him that thought in his sleep the day of judgement was come. PIETY. Why, did you hear him tell his dream? CHR. Yes, and a dreadful one it was. I thought it made my heart ache as he was telling of it; but yet I am glad I heard it. {119} PIETY. Was that all that you saw at the house of the Interpreter? CHR. No; he took me and had me where he shewed me a stately palace, and how the people were clad in gold that were in it; and how there came a venturous man and cut his way through the armed men that stood in the door to keep him out, and how he was bid to come in, and win eternal glory. Methought those things did ravish my heart! I would have stayed at that good man's house a twelvemonth, but that I knew I had further to go. {120} PIETY. And what saw you else in the way? CHR. Saw! why, I went but a little further, and I saw one, as I thought in my mind, hang bleeding upon the tree; and the very sight of him made my burden fall off my back, (for I groaned under a very heavy burden,) but then it fell down from off me. It was a strange thing to me, for I never saw such a thing before; yea, and while I stood looking up, for then I could not forbear looking, three Shining Ones came to me. One of them testified that my sins were forgiven me; another stripped me of my rags, and gave me this broidered coat which you see; and the third set the mark which you see in my forehead, and gave me this sealed roll. (And with that he plucked it out of his bosom.) {121} PIETY. But you saw more than this, did you not? CHR. The things that I have told you were the best; yet some other matters I saw, as, namely--I saw three men, Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, lie asleep a little out of the way, as I came, with irons upon their heels; but do you think I could awake them? I also saw Formality and Hypocrisy come tumbling over the wall, to go, as they pretended, to Zion, but they were quickly lost, even as I myself did tell them; but they would not believe. But above all, I found it hard work to get up this hill, and as hard to come by the lions' mouths, and truly if it had not been for the good man, the porter that stands at the gate, I do not know but that after all I might have gone back again; but now I thank God I am here, and I thank you for receiving of me. {122} Then Prudence thought good to ask him a few questions, and desired his answer to them. PRUD. Do you not think sometimes of the country from whence you came? Christian's thoughts of his native country CHR. Yes, but with much shame and detestation: "Truly, if I had been mindful of that country from whence I came out, I might have had opportunity to have returned; but now I desire a better country, that is, an heavenly." [Heb. 11:15,16] PRUD. Do you not yet bear away with you some of the things that then you were conversant withal? CHR. Yes, but greatly against my will; especially my inward and carnal cogitations, with which all my countrymen, as well as myself, were delighted; but now all those things are my grief; and might I but choose mine own things, Christian's choice I would choose never to think of those things more; but when I would be doing of that which is best, that which is worst is with me. [Rom 7:16-19] {123} PRUD. Do you not find sometimes, as if those things were vanquished, which at other times are your perplexity? Christian's golden hours CHR. Yes, but that is seldom; but they are to me golden hours in which such things happen to me. PRUD. Can you remember by what means you find your annoyances, at times, as if they were vanquished? CHR. Yes, when I think what I saw at the cross, that will do it; and when I look upon my broidered coat, that will do it; also when I look into the roll that I carry in my bosom, that will do it; and when my thoughts wax warm about whither I am going, that will do it. {124} PRUD. And what is it that makes you so desirous to go to Mount Zion? CHR. Why, there I hope to see him alive that did hang dead on the cross; and there I hope to be rid of all those things that to this day are in me an annoyance to me; there, they say, there is no death; and there I shall dwell with such company as I like best. [Isa. 25:8; Rev. 21:4] For, to tell you truth, I love him, because I was by him eased of my burden; and I am weary of my inward sickness. I would fain be where I shall die no more, and with the company that shall continually cry, "Holy, Holy, Holy!" {125} Then said Charity to Christian, Have you a family? Are you a married man? CHR. I have a wife and four small children. CHAR. And why did you not bring them along with you? Christian's love to his wife and children CHR. Then Christian wept, and said, Oh, how willingly would I have done it! but they were all of them utterly averse to my going on pilgrimage. CHAR. But you should have talked to them, and have endeavoured to have shown them the danger of being behind. CHR. So I did; and told them also of what God had shown to me of the destruction of our city; "but I seemed to them as one that mocked", and they believed me not. [Gen. 19:14] CHAR. And did you pray to God that he would bless your counsel to them? CHR. Yes, and that with much affection: for you must think that my wife and poor children were very dear unto me. CHAR. But did you tell them of your own sorrow, and fear of destruction? for I suppose that destruction was visible enough to you. Christian's fears of perishing might be read in his very countenance CHR. Yes, over, and over, and over. They might also see my fears in my countenance, in my tears, and also in my trembling under the apprehension of the judgement that did hang over our heads; but all was not sufficient to prevail with them to come with me. CHAR. But what could they say for themselves, why they came not? {126} CHR. Why, my wife was afraid of losing this world, and my children were given to the foolish delights of youth: so what by one thing, and what by another, they left me to wander in this manner alone. CHAR. But did you not, with your vain life, damp all that you by words used by way of persuasion to bring them away with you? {127} Christian's good conversation before his wife and children CHR. Indeed, I cannot commend my life; for I am conscious to myself of many failings therein; I know also that a man by his conversation may soon overthrow what by argument or persuasion he doth labour to fasten upon others for their good. Yet this I can say, I was very wary of giving them occasion, by any unseemly action, to make them averse to going on pilgrimage. Yea, for this very thing they would tell me I was too precise, and that I denied myself of things, for their sakes, in which they saw no evil. Nay, I think I may say, that if what they saw in me did hinder them, it was my great tenderness in sinning against God, or of doing any wrong to my neighbour. CHAR. Indeed Cain hated his brother, "because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous" [1 John 3:12]; and if thy wife and children have been offended with thee for this, they thereby show themselves to be implacable to good, and "thou hast delivered thy soul from their blood". [Ezek. 3:19] {128} Now I saw in my dream, that thus they sat talking together until supper was ready. So when they had made ready, they sat down to meat. Now the table was furnished "with fat things, and with wine that was well refined": and all their talk at the table was about the Lord of the hill; as, namely, about what he had done, and wherefore he did what he did, and why he had builded that house. And by what they said, I perceived that he had been a great warrior, and had fought with and slain "him that had the Power of death", but not without great danger to himself, which made me love him the more. [Heb. 2:14,15] {129} For, as they said, and as I believe (said Christian), he did it with the loss of much blood; but that which put glory of grace into all he did, was, that he did it out of pure love to his country. And besides, there were some of them of the household that said they had been and spoke with him since he did die on the cross; and they have attested that they had it from his own lips, that he is such a lover of poor pilgrims, that the like is not to be found from the east to the west. {130} They, moreover, gave an instance of what they affirmed, and that was, he had stripped himself of his glory, that he might do this for the poor; and that they heard him say and affirm, "that he would not dwell in the mountain of Zion alone." They said, moreover, that he had made many pilgrims princes, though by nature they were beggars born, and their original had been the dunghill. [1 Sam 2:8; Ps. 113:7] {131} Christian's bedchamber Thus they discoursed together till late at night; and after they had committed themselves to their Lord for protection, they betook themselves to rest: the Pilgrim they laid in a large upper chamber, whose window opened towards the sun-rising: the name of the chamber was Peace; where he slept till break of day, and then he awoke and sang-- "Where am I now? Is this the love and care Of Jesus for the men that pilgrims are? Thus to provide! that I should be forgiven! And dwell already the next door to heaven!" {132} So in the morning they all got up; and, after some more discourse, they told him that he should not depart till they had shown him the rarities of that place. And first they had him into the study, where they showed him records of the greatest antiquity; in which, as I remember my dream, they showed him first the pedigree of the Lord of the hill, that he was the son of the Ancient of Days, and came by that eternal generation. Here also was more fully recorded the acts that he had done, and the names of many hundreds that he had taken into his service; and how he had placed them in such habitations that could neither by length of days, nor decays of nature, be dissolved. {133} Then they read to him some of the worthy acts that some of his servants had done: as, how they had "subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens." [Heb 11:33,34] {134} They then read again, in another part of the records of the house, where it was shewed how willing their Lord was to receive into his favour any, even any, though they in time past had offered great affronts to his person and proceedings. Here also were several other histories of many other famous things, of all which Christian had a view; as of things both ancient and modern; together with prophecies and predictions of things that have their certain accomplishment, both to the dread and amazement of enemies, and the comfort and solace of pilgrims. {135} The next day they took him and had him into the armoury, where they showed him all manner of furniture, which their Lord had provided for pilgrims, as sword, shield, helmet, breastplate, ALL-PRAYER, and shoes that would not wear out. And there was here enough of this to harness out as many men for the service of their Lord as there be stars in the heaven for multitude. {136} They also showed him some of the engines with which some of his servants had done wonderful things. They shewed him Moses' rod; the hammer and nail with which Jael slew Sisera; the pitchers, trumpets, and lamps too, with which Gideon put to flight the armies of Midian. Then they showed him the ox's goad wherewith Shamgar slew six hundred men. They showed him also the jaw-bone with which Samson did such mighty feats. They showed him, moreover, the sling and stone with which David slew Goliath of Gath; and the sword, also, with which their Lord will kill the Man of Sin, in the day that he shall rise up to the prey. They showed him, besides, many excellent things, with which Christian was much delighted. This done, they went to their rest again. {137} Then I saw in my dream, that on the morrow he got up to go forward; but they desired him to stay till the next day also; and then, said they, we will, if the day be clear, show you the Delectable Mountains, which, they said, would yet further add to his comfort, because they were nearer the desired haven than the place where at present he was; so he consented and stayed. When the morning was up, they had him to the top of the house, and bid him look south; so he did: and behold, at a great distance, he saw a most pleasant mountainous country, beautified with woods, vineyards, fruits of all sorts, flowers also, with springs and fountains, very delectable to behold. [Isa. 33:16,17] Then he asked the name of the country. They said it was Immanuel's Land; and it is as common, said they, as this hill is, to and for all the pilgrims. And when thou comest there from thence, said they, thou mayest see to the gate of the Celestial City, as the shepherds that live there will make appear. {138} Now he bethought himself of setting forward, and they were willing he should. But first, said they, let us go again into the armoury. So they did; and when they came there, they harnessed him from head to foot with what was of proof, lest, perhaps, he should meet with assaults in the way. He being, therefore, thus accoutred, walketh out with his friends to the gate, and there he asked the porter if he saw any pilgrims pass by. Then the porter answered, Yes. {139} CHR. Pray, did you know him? said he. POR. I asked him his name, and he told me it was Faithful. CHR. Oh, said Christian, I know him; he is my townsman, my near neighbour; he comes from the place where I was born. How far do you think he may be before? POR. He is got by this time below the hill. CHR. Well, said Christian, good Porter, the Lord be with thee, and add to all thy blessings much increase, for the kindness that thou hast showed to me. {140} Then he began to go forward; but Discretion, Piety, Charity, and Prudence would accompany him down to the foot of the hill. So they went on together, reiterating their former discourses, till they came to go down the hill. Then said Christian, As it was difficult coming up, so, so far as I can see, it is dangerous going down. Yes, said Prudence, so it is, for it is a hard matter for a man to go down into the Valley of Humiliation, as thou art now, and to catch no slip by the way; therefore, said they, are we come out to accompany thee down the hill. So he began to go down, but very warily; yet he caught a slip or two. {141} Then I saw in my dream that these good companions, when Christian was gone to the bottom of the hill, gave him a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, and a cluster of raisins; and then he went on his way. But now, in this Valley of Humiliation, poor Christian was hard put to it; for he had gone but a little way, before he espied a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him; his name is Apollyon. Then did Christian begin to be afraid, and to cast in his mind whether to go back or to stand his ground. But he considered again that he had no armour for his back; and therefore thought that to turn the back to him might give him the greater advantage with ease to pierce him with his darts. Christian's resolution at the approach of Apollyon Therefore he resolved to venture and stand his ground; for, thought he, had I no more in mine eye than the saving of my life, it would be the best way to stand. {142} So he went on, and Apollyon met him. Now the monster was hideous to behold; he was clothed with scales, like a fish, (and they are his pride,) he had wings like a dragon, feet like a bear, and out of his belly came fire and smoke, and his mouth was as the mouth of a lion. When he was come up to Christian, he beheld him with a disdainful countenance, and thus began to question with him. {143} APOL. Whence come you? and whither are you bound? CHR. I am come from the City of Destruction, which is the place of all evil, and am going to the City of Zion. APOL. By this I perceive thou art one of my subjects, for all that country is mine, and I am the prince and god of it. How is it, then, that thou hast run away from thy king? Were it not that I hope thou mayest do me more service, I would strike thee now, at one blow, to the ground. {144} CHR. I was born, indeed, in your dominions, but your service was hard, and your wages such as a man could not live on, "for the wages of sin is death" [Rom 6:23]; therefore, when I was come to years, I did, as other considerate persons do, look out, if, perhaps, I might mend myself. Apollyon's flattery APOL. There is no prince that will thus lightly lose his subjects, neither will I as yet lose thee; but since thou complainest of thy service and wages, be content to go back: what our country will afford, I do here promise to give thee. CHR. But I have let myself to another, even to the King of princes; and how can I, with fairness, go back with thee? {145} APOL. Thou hast done in this, according to the proverb, "Changed a bad for a worse"; but it is ordinary for those that have professed themselves his servants, after a while to give him the slip, and return again to me. Do thou so too, and all shall be well. CHR. I have given him my faith, and sworn my allegiance to him; how, then, can I go back from this, and not be hanged as a traitor? APOL. Thou didst the same to me, and yet I am willing to pass by all, if now thou wilt yet turn again and go back. {146} CHR. What I promised thee was in my nonage; and, besides, I count the Prince under whose banner now I stand is able to absolve me; yea, and to pardon also what I did as to my compliance with thee; and besides, O thou destroying Apollyon! to speak truth, I like his service, his wages, his servants, his government, his company, and country, better than thine; and, therefore, leave off to persuade me further; I am his servant, and I will follow him. {147} APOL. Consider, again, when thou art in cool blood, what thou art like to meet with in the way that thou goest. Thou knowest that, for the most part, his servants come to an ill end, because they are transgressors against me and my ways. How many of them have been put to shameful deaths! and, besides, thou countest his service better than mine, whereas he never came yet from the place where he is to deliver any that served him out of their hands; but as for me, how many times, as all the world very well knows, have I delivered, either by power, or fraud, those that have faithfully served me, from him and his, though taken by them; and so I will deliver thee. CHR. His forbearing at present to deliver them is on purpose to try their love, whether they will cleave to him to the end; and as for the ill end thou sayest they come to, that is most glorious in their account; for, for present deliverance, they do not much expect it, for they stay for their glory, and then they shall have it when their Prince comes in his and the glory of the angels. APOL. Thou hast already been unfaithful in thy service to him; and how dost thou think to receive wages of him? CHR. Wherein, O Apollyon! have I been unfaithful to him? {148} APOL. Thou didst faint at first setting out, when thou wast almost choked in the Gulf of Despond; thou didst attempt wrong ways to be rid of thy burden, whereas thou shouldst have stayed till thy Prince had taken it off; thou didst sinfully sleep and lose thy choice thing; thou wast, also, almost persuaded to go back at the sight of the lions; and when thou talkest of thy journey, and of what thou hast heard and seen, thou art inwardly desirous of vain-glory in all that thou sayest or doest. CHR. All this is true, and much more which thou hast left out; but the Prince whom I serve and honour is merciful, and ready to forgive; but, besides, these infirmities possessed me in thy country, for there I sucked them in; and I have groaned under them, been sorry for them, and have obtained pardon of my Prince. {149} APOL. Then Apollyon broke out into a grievous rage, saying, I am an enemy to this Prince; I hate his person, his laws, and people; I am come out on purpose to withstand thee. CHR. Apollyon, beware what you do; for I am in the King's highway, the way of holiness; therefore take heed to yourself. APOL. Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter: prepare thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal den, that thou shalt go no further; here will I spill thy soul. {150} And with that he threw a flaming dart at his breast; but Christian had a shield in his hand, with which he caught it, and so prevented the danger of that. Then did Christian draw, for he saw it was time to bestir him; and Apollyon as fast made at him, throwing darts as thick as hail; by the which, notwithstanding all that Christian could do to avoid it, Apollyon wounded him in his head, his hand, and foot. This made Christian give a little back; Apollyon, therefore, followed his work amain, and Christian again took courage, and resisted as manfully as he could. This sore combat lasted for above half a day, even till Christian was almost quite spent; for you must know that Christian, by reason of his wounds, must needs grow weaker and weaker. {151} Then Apollyon, espying his opportunity, began to gather up close to Christian, and wrestling with him, gave him a dreadful fall; and with that Christian's sword flew out of his hand. Then said Apollyon, I am sure of thee now. And with that he had almost pressed him to death, so that Christian began to despair of life; but as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching of his last blow, thereby to make a full end of this good man, Christian nimbly stretched out his hand for his sword, and caught it, saying, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; when I fall I shall arise" [Micah 7:8]; Christian's victory over Apollyon and with that gave him a deadly thrust, which made him give back, as one that had received his mortal wound. Christian perceiving that, made at him again, saying, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us". [Rom. 8:37] And with that Apollyon spread forth his dragon's wings, and sped him away, that Christian for a season saw him no more. [James 4:7] {152} In this combat no man can imagine, unless he had seen and heard as I did, what yelling and hideous roaring Apollyon made all the time of the fight--he spake like a dragon; and, on the other side, what sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. I never saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged sword; then, indeed, he did smile, and look upward; but it was the dreadfullest sight that ever I saw. A more unequal match can hardly be,--CHRISTIAN must fight an Angel; but you see, The valiant man by handling Sword and Shield, Doth make him, tho' a Dragon, quit the field. {153} So when the battle was over, Christian said, "I will here give thanks to him that delivered me out of the mouth of the lion, to him that did help me against Apollyon." And so he did, saying-- Great Beelzebub, the captain of this fiend, Design'd my ruin; therefore to this end He sent him harness'd out: and he with rage That hellish was, did fiercely me engage. But blessed Michael helped me, and I, By dint of sword, did quickly make him fly. Therefore to him let me give lasting praise, And thank and bless his holy name always. {154} Then there came to him a hand, with some of the leaves of the tree of life, the which Christian took, and applied to the wounds that he had received in the battle, and was healed immediately. He also sat down in that place to eat bread, and to drink of the bottle that was given him a little before; so, being refreshed, he addressed himself to his journey, with his sword drawn in his hand; for he said, I know not but some other enemy may be at hand. But he met with no other affront from Apollyon quite through this valley. {155} Now, at the end of this valley was another, called the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and Christian must needs go through it, because the way to the Celestial City lay through the midst of it. Now, this valley is a very solitary place. The prophet Jeremiah thus describes it: "A wilderness, a land of deserts and of pits, a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, a land that no man" (but a Christian) "passed through, and where no man dwelt." [Jer. 2:6] Now here Christian was worse put to it than in his fight with Apollyon, as by the sequel you shall see. {156} I saw then in my dream, that when Christian was got to the borders of the Shadow of Death, there met him two men, children of them that brought up an evil report of the good land [Num. 13], making haste to go back; to whom Christian spake as follows:-- {157} CHR. Whither are you going? MEN. They said, Back! back! and we would have you to do so too, if either life or peace is prized by you. CHR. Why, what's the matter? said Christian. MEN. Matter! said they; we were going that way as you are going, and went as far as we durst; and indeed we were almost past coming back; for had we gone a little further, we had not been here to bring the news to thee. CHR. But what have you met with? said Christian. MEN. Why, we were almost in the Valley of the Shadow of Death; but that, by good hap, we looked before us, and saw the danger before we came to it. [Ps. 44:19; 107:10] CHR. But what have you seen? said Christian. {158} MEN. Seen! Why, the Valley itself, which is as dark as pitch; we also saw there the hobgoblins, satyrs, and dragons of the pit; we heard also in that Valley a continual howling and yelling, as of a people under unutterable misery, who there sat bound in affliction and irons; and over that Valley hangs the discouraging clouds of confusion. Death also doth always spread his wings over it. In a word, it is every whit dreadful, being utterly without order. [Job 3:5; 10:22] CHR. Then, said Christian, I perceive not yet, by what you have said, but that this is my way to the desired haven. [Jer. 2:6] MEN. Be it thy way; we will not choose it for ours. So, they parted, and Christian went on his way, but still with his sword drawn in his hand, for fear lest he should be assaulted. {159} I saw then in my dream, so far as this valley reached, there was on the right hand a very deep ditch; that ditch is it into which the blind have led the blind in all ages, and have both there miserably perished. [Ps. 69:14,15] Again, behold, on the left hand, there was a very dangerous quag, into which, if even a good man falls, he can find no bottom for his foot to stand on. Into that quag King David once did fall, and had no doubt therein been smothered, had not HE that is able plucked him out. {160} The pathway was here also exceeding narrow, and therefore good Christian was the more put to it; for when he sought, in the dark, to shun the ditch on the one hand, he was ready to tip over into the mire on the other; also when he sought to escape the mire, without great carefulness he would be ready to fall into the ditch. Thus he went on, and I heard him here sigh bitterly; for, besides the dangers mentioned above, the pathway was here so dark, and ofttimes, when he lift up his foot to set forward, he knew not where or upon what he should set it next. Poor man! where art thou now? thy day is night. Good man, be not cast down, thou yet art right, Thy way to heaven lies by the gates of Hell; Cheer up, hold out, with thee it shall go well. {161} About the midst of this valley, I perceived the mouth of hell to be, and it stood also hard by the wayside. Now, thought Christian, what shall I do? And ever and anon the flame and smoke would come out in such abundance, with sparks and hideous noises, (things that cared not for Christian's sword, as did Apollyon before), that he was forced to put up his sword, and betake himself to another weapon called All-prayer. [Eph. 6:18] So he cried in my hearing, "O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul!" [Ps. 116:4] Thus he went on a great while, yet still the flames would be reaching towards him. Also he heard doleful voices, and rushings to and fro, so that sometimes he thought he should be torn in pieces, or trodden down like mire in the streets. This frightful sight was seen, and these dreadful noises were heard by him for several miles together; and, coming to a place where he thought he heard a company of fiends coming forward to meet him, he stopped, and began to muse what he had best to do. Sometimes he had half a thought to go back; then again he thought he might be half way through the valley; he remembered also how he had already vanquished many a danger, and that the danger of going back might be much more than for to go forward; so he resolved to go on. Yet the fiends seemed to come nearer and nearer; but when they were come even almost at him, he cried out with a most vehement voice, "I will walk in the strength of the Lord God!" so they gave back, and came no further. {162} One thing I would not let slip. I took notice that now poor Christian was so confounded, that he did not know his own voice; and thus I perceived it. Just when he was come over against the mouth of the burning pit, one of the wicked ones got behind him, and stepped up softly to him, and whisperingly suggested many grievous blasphemies to him, which he verily thought had proceeded from his own mind. This put Christian more to it than anything that he met with before, even to think that he should now blaspheme him that he loved so much before; yet, if he could have helped it, he would not have done it; but he had not the discretion either to stop his ears, or to know from whence these blasphemies came. {163} When Christian had travelled in this disconsolate condition some considerable time, he thought he heard the voice of a man, as going before him, saying, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me." [Ps. 23:4] {164} Then he was glad, and that for these reasons: First, Because he gathered from thence, that some who feared God were in this valley as well as himself. Secondly, For that he perceived God was with them, though in that dark and dismal state; and why not, thought he, with me? though, by reason of the impediment that attends this place, I cannot perceive it. [Job 9:11] Thirdly, For that he hoped, could he overtake them, to have company by and by. So he went on, and called to him that was before; but he knew not what to answer; for that he also thought to be alone. And by and by the day broke; then said Christian, He hath turned "the shadow of death into the morning". [Amos 5:8] {165} Now morning being come, he looked back, not out of desire to return, but to see, by the light of the day, what hazards he had gone through in the dark. So he saw more perfectly the ditch that was on the one hand, and the mire that was on the other; also how narrow the way was which led betwixt them both; also now he saw the hobgoblins, and satyrs, and dragons of the pit, but all afar off, (for after break of day, they came not nigh;) yet they were discovered to him, according to that which is written, "He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death." [Job 12:22] {166} Now was Christian much affected with his deliverance from all the dangers of his solitary way; which dangers, though he feared them more before, yet he saw them more clearly now, because the light of the day made them conspicuous to him. And about this time the sun was rising, and this was another mercy to Christian; for you must note, that though the first part of the Valley of the Shadow of Death was dangerous, yet this second part which he was yet to go, was, if possible, far more dangerous; for from the place where he now stood, even to the end of the valley, the way was all along set so full of snares, traps, gins, and nets here, and so full of pits, pitfalls, deep holes, and shelvings down there, that, had it now been dark, as it was when he came the first part of the way, had he had a thousand souls, they had in reason been cast away; but, as I said just now, the sun was rising. Then said he, "His candle shineth upon my head, and by his light I walk through darkness." [Job 29:3] {167} In this light, therefore, he came to the end of the valley. Now I saw in my dream, that at the end of this valley lay blood, bones, ashes, and mangled bodies of men, even of pilgrims that had gone this way formerly; and while I was musing what should be the reason, I espied a little before me a cave, where two giants, POPE and PAGAN, dwelt in old time; by whose power and tyranny the men whose bones, blood, and ashes, &c., lay there, were cruelly put to death. But by this place Christian went without much danger, whereat I somewhat wondered; but I have learnt since, that PAGAN has been dead many a day; and as for the other, though he be yet alive, he is, by reason of age, and also of the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints, that he can now do little more than sit in his cave's mouth, grinning at pilgrims as they go by, and biting his nails because he cannot come at them. {168} So I saw that Christian went on his way; yet, at the sight of the Old Man that sat in the mouth of the cave, he could not tell what to think, especially because he spake to him, though he could not go after him, saying, "You will never mend till more of you be burned." But he held his peace, and set a good face on it, and so went by and catched no hurt. Then sang Christian: O world of wonders! (I can say no less), That I should be preserved in that distress That I have met with here! O blessed be That hand that from it hath deliver'd me! Dangers in darkness, devils, hell, and sin Did compass me, while I this vale was in: Yea, snares, and pits, and traps, and nets, did lie My path about, that worthless, silly I Might have been catch'd, entangled, and cast down; But since I live, let JESUS wear the crown. {169} Now, as Christian went on his way, he came to a little ascent, which was cast up on purpose that pilgrims might see before them. Up there, therefore, Christian went, and looking forward, he saw Faithful before him, upon his journey. Then said Christian aloud, "Ho! ho! So-ho! stay, and I will be your companion!" At that, Faithful looked behind him; to whom Christian cried again, "Stay, stay, till I come up to you!" But Faithful answered, "No, I am upon my life, and the avenger of blood is behind me." {170} At this, Christian was somewhat moved, and putting to all his strength, he quickly got up with Faithful, and did also overrun him; so the last was first. Then did Christian vain-gloriously smile, because he had gotten the start of his brother; but not taking good heed to his feet, he suddenly stumbled and fell, and could not rise again until Faithful came up to help him. Christian's fall makes Faithful and he go lovingly together Then I saw in my dream they went very lovingly on together, and had sweet discourse of all things that had happened to them in their pilgrimage; and thus Christian began: {171} CHR. My honoured and well-beloved brother, Faithful, I am glad that I have overtaken you; and that God has so tempered our spirits, that we can walk as companions in this so pleasant a path. FAITH. I had thought, dear friend, to have had your company quite from our town; but you did get the start of me, wherefore I was forced to come thus much of the way alone. CHR. How long did you stay in the City of Destruction before you set out after me on your pilgrimage? FAITH. Till I could stay no longer; for there was great talk presently after you were gone out that our city would, in short time, with fire from heaven, be burned down to the ground. CHR. What! did your neighbours talk so? FAITH. Yes, it was for a while in everybody's mouth. CHR. What! and did no more of them but you come out to escape the danger? FAITH. Though there was, as I said, a great talk thereabout, yet I do not think they did firmly believe it. For in the heat of the discourse, I heard some of them deridingly speak of you and of your desperate journey, (for so they called this your pilgrimage), but I did believe, and do still, that the end of our city will be with fire and brimstone from above; and therefore I have made my escape. {172} CHR. Did you hear no talk of neighbour Pliable? FAITH. Yes, Christian, I heard that he followed you till he came at the Slough of Despond, where, as some said, he fell in; but he would not be known to have so done; but I am sure he was soundly bedabbled with that kind of dirt. CHR. And what said the neighbours to him? FAITH. He hath, since his going back, been had greatly in derision, and that among all sorts of people; some do mock and despise him; and scarce will any set him on work. He is now seven times worse than if he had never gone out of the city. CHR. But why should they be so set against him, since they also despise the way that he forsook? FAITH. Oh, they say, hang him, he is a turncoat! he was not true to his profession. I think God has stirred up even his enemies to hiss at him, and make him a proverb, because he hath forsaken the way. [Jer. 29:18,19] CHR. Had you no talk with him before you came out? FAITH. I met him once in the streets, but he leered away on the other side, as one ashamed of what he had done; so I spake not to him. {173} CHR. Well, at my first setting out, I had hopes of that man; but now I fear he will perish in the overthrow of the city; for it is happened to him according to the true proverb, "The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire." [2 Pet. 2:22] FAITH. These are my fears of him too; but who can hinder that which will be? CHR. Well, neighbour Faithful, said Christian, let us leave him, and talk of things that more immediately concern ourselves. Tell me now, what you have met with in the way as you came; for I know you have met with some things, or else it may be writ for a wonder. {174} FAITH. I escaped the Slough that I perceived you fell into, and got up to the gate without that danger; only I met with one whose name was Wanton, who had like to have done me a mischief. CHR. It was well you escaped her net; Joseph was hard put to it by her, and he escaped her as you did; but it had like to have cost him his life. [Gen. 39:11-13] But what did she do to you? FAITH. You cannot think, but that you know something, what a flattering tongue she had; she lay at me hard to turn aside with her, promising me all manner of content. CHR. Nay, she did not promise you the content of a good conscience. FAITH. You know what I mean; all carnal and fleshly content. CHR. Thank God you have escaped her: "The abhorred of the Lord shall fall into her ditch." [Ps. 22:14] FAITH. Nay, I know not whether I did wholly escape her or no. CHR. Why, I trow, you did not consent to her desires? FAITH. No, not to defile myself; for I remembered an old writing that I had seen, which said, "Her steps take hold on hell." [Prov. 5:5] So I shut mine eyes, because I would not be bewitched with her looks. [Job 31:1] Then she railed on me, and I went my way. CHR. Did you meet with no other assault as you came? {175} FAITH. When I came to the foot of the hill called Difficulty, I met with a very aged man, who asked me what I was, and whither bound. I told him that I am a pilgrim, going to the Celestial City. Then said the old man, Thou lookest like an honest fellow; wilt thou be content to dwell with me for the wages that I shall give thee? Then I asked him his name, and where he dwelt. He said his name was Adam the First, and that he dwelt in the town of Deceit. [Eph. 4:22] I asked him then what was his work, and what the wages he would give. He told me that his work was many delights; and his wages that I should be his heir at last. I further asked him what house he kept, and what other servants he had. So he told me that his house was maintained with all the dainties in the world; and that his servants were those of his own begetting. Then I asked if he had any children. He said that he had but three daughters: The Lust of the Flesh, The Lust of the Eyes, and The Pride of Life, and that I should marry them all if I would. [1 John 2:16] Then I asked how long time he would have me live with him? And he told me, As long as he lived himself. CHR. Well, and what conclusion came the old man and you to at last? FAITH. Why, at first, I found myself somewhat inclinable to go with the man, for I thought he spake very fair; but looking in his forehead, as I talked with him, I saw there written, "Put off the old man with his deeds." CHR. And how then? {176} FAITH. Then it came burning hot into my mind, whatever he said, and however he flattered, when he got me home to his house, he would sell me for a slave. So I bid him forbear to talk, for I would not come near the door of his house. Then he reviled me, and told me that he would send such a one after me, that should make my way bitter to my soul. So I turned to go away from him; but just as I turned myself to go thence, I felt him take hold of my flesh, and give me such a deadly twitch back, that I thought he had pulled part of me after himself. This made me cry, "O wretched man!" [Rom. 7:24] So I went on my way up the hill. Now when I had got about half-way up, I looked behind, and saw one coming after me, swift as the wind; so he overtook me just about the place where the settle stands. CHR. Just there, said Christian, did I sit down to rest me; but being overcome with sleep, I there lost this roll out of my bosom. {177} FAITH. But, good brother, hear me out. So soon as the man overtook me, he was but a word and a blow, for down he knocked me, and laid me for dead. But when I was a little come to myself again, I asked him wherefore he served me so. He said, because of my secret inclining to Adam the First; and with that he struck me another deadly blow on the breast, and beat me down backward; so I lay at his foot as dead as before. So, when I came to myself again, I cried him mercy; but he said, I know not how to show mercy; and with that he knocked me down again. He had doubtless made an end of me, but that one came by, and bid him forbear. CHR. Who was that that bid him forbear? FAITH. I did not know him at first, but as he went by, I perceived the holes in his hands and in his side; then I concluded that he was our Lord. So I went up the hill. {178} CHR. That man that overtook you was Moses. He spareth none, neither knoweth he how to show mercy to those that transgress his law. FAITH. I know it very well; it was not the first time that he has met with me. It was he that came to me when I dwelt securely at home, and that told me he would burn my house over my head if I stayed there. CHR. But did you not see the house that stood there on the top of the hill, on the side of which Moses met you? FAITH. Yes, and the lions too, before I came at it: but for the lions, I think they were asleep, for it was about noon; and because I had so much of the day before me, I passed by the porter, and came down the hill. CHR. He told me, indeed, that he saw you go by, but I wish you had called at the house, for they would have showed you so many rarities, that you would scarce have forgot them to the day of your death. But pray tell me, Did you meet nobody in the Valley of Humility? {179} FAITH. Yes, I met with one Discontent, who would willingly have persuaded me to go back again with him; his reason was, for that the valley was altogether without honour. He told me, moreover, that there to go was the way to disobey all my friends, as Pride, Arrogancy, Self-conceit, Worldly-glory, with others, who he knew, as he said, would be very much offended, if I made such a fool of myself as to wade through this valley. CHR. Well, and how did you answer him? {180} Faithful's answer to Discontent FAITH. I told him, that although all these that he named might claim kindred of me, and that rightly, for indeed they were my relations according to the flesh; yet since I became a pilgrim, they have disowned me, as I also have rejected them; and therefore they were to me now no more than if they had never been of my lineage. I told him, moreover, that as to this valley, he had quite misrepresented the thing; for before honour is humility, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Therefore, said I, I had rather go through this valley to the honour that was so accounted by the wisest, than choose that which he esteemed most worthy our affections. CHR. Met you with nothing else in that valley? {181} FAITH. Yes, I met with Shame; but of all the men that I met with in my pilgrimage, he, I think, bears the wrong name. The others would be said nay, after a little argumentation, and somewhat else; but this bold-faced Shame would never have done. CHR. Why, what did he say to you? FAITH. What! why, he objected against religion itself; he said it was a pitiful, low, sneaking business for a man to mind religion; he said that a tender conscience was an unmanly thing; and that for a man to watch over his words and ways, so as to tie up himself from that hectoring liberty that the brave spirits of the times accustom themselves unto, would make him the ridicule of the times. He objected also, that but few of the mighty, rich, or wise, were ever of my opinion [1 Cor. 1:26; 3:18; Phil. 3:7,8]; nor any of them neither [John 7:48], before they were persuaded to be fools, and to be of a voluntary fondness, to venture the loss of all, for nobody knows what. He, moreover, objected the base and low estate and condition of those that were chiefly the pilgrims of the times in which they lived: also their ignorance and want of understanding in all natural science. Yea, he did hold me to it at that rate also, about a great many more things than here I relate; as, that it was a shame to sit whining and mourning under a sermon, and a shame to come sighing and groaning home: that it was a shame to ask my neighbour forgiveness for petty faults, or to make restitution where I have taken from any. He said, also, that religion made a man grow strange to the great, because of a few vices, which he called by finer names; and made him own and respect the base, because of the same religious fraternity. And is not this, said he, a shame? {182} CHR. And what did you say to him? FAITH. Say! I could not tell what to say at the first. Yea, he put me so to it, that my blood came up in my face; even this Shame fetched it up, and had almost beat me quite off. But at last I began to consider, that "that which is highly esteemed among men, is had in abomination with God." [Luke 16:15] And I thought again, this Shame tells me what men are; but it tells me nothing what God or the Word of God is. And I thought, moreover, that at the day of doom, we shall not be doomed to death or life according to the hectoring spirits of the world, but according to the wisdom and law of the Highest. Therefore, thought I, what God says is best, indeed is best, though all the men in the world are against it. Seeing, then, that God prefers his religion; seeing God prefers a tender conscience; seeing they that make themselves fools for the kingdom of heaven are wisest; and that the poor man that loveth Christ is richer than the greatest man in the world that hates him; Shame, depart, thou art an enemy to my salvation! Shall I entertain thee against my sovereign Lord? How then shall I look him in the face at his coming? Should I now be ashamed of his ways and servants, how can I expect the blessing? [Mark 8:38] But, indeed, this Shame was a bold villain; I could scarce shake him out of my company; yea, he would be haunting of me, and continually whispering me in the ear, with some one or other of the infirmities that attend religion; but at last I told him it was but in vain to attempt further in this business; for those things that he disdained, in those did I see most glory; and so at last I got past this importunate one. And when I had shaken him off, then I began to sing-- The trials that those men do meet withal, That are obedient to the heavenly call, Are manifold, and suited to the flesh, And come, and come, and come again afresh; That now, or sometime else, we by them may Be taken, overcome, and cast away. Oh, let the pilgrims, let the pilgrims, then Be vigilant, and quit themselves like men. {183} CHR. I am glad, my brother, that thou didst withstand this villain so bravely; for of all, as thou sayest, I think he has the wrong name; for he is so bold as to follow us in the streets, and to attempt to put us to shame before all men: that is, to make us ashamed of that which is good; but if he was not himself audacious, he would never attempt to do as he does. But let us still resist him; for notwithstanding all his bravadoes, he promoteth the fool and none else. "The wise shall inherit glory, said Solomon, but shame shall be the promotion of fools." [Prov. 3:35] FAITH. I think we must cry to Him for help against Shame, who would have us to be valiant for the truth upon the earth. CHR. You say true; but did you meet nobody else in that valley? FAITH. No, not I; for I had sunshine all the rest of the way through that, and also through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. {184} CHR. It was well for you. I am sure it fared far otherwise with me; I had for a long season, as soon almost as I entered into that valley, a dreadful combat with that foul fiend Apollyon; yea, I thought verily he would have killed me, especially when he got me down and crushed me under him, as if he would have crushed me to pieces; for as he threw me, my sword flew out of my hand; nay, he told me he was sure of me: but I cried to God, and he heard me, and delivered me out of all my troubles. Then I entered into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and had no light for almost half the way through it. I thought I should have been killed there, over and over; but at last day broke, and the sun rose, and I went through that which was behind with far more ease and quiet. {185} Moreover, I saw in my dream, that as they went on, Faithful, as he chanced to look on one side, saw a man whose name is Talkative, walking at a distance beside them; for in this place there was room enough for them all to walk. He was a tall man, and something more comely at a distance than at hand. To this man Faithful addressed himself in this manner: FAITH. Friend, whither away? Are you going to the heavenly country? TALK. I am going to the same place. FAITH. That is well; then I hope we may have your good company. TALK. With a very good will will I be your companion. {186} FAITH. Come on, then, and let us go together, and let us spend our time in discoursing of things that are profitable. Talkative's dislike of bad discourse TALK. To talk of things that are good, to me is very acceptable, with you or with any other; and I am glad that I have met with those that incline to so good a work; for, to speak the truth, there are but few that care thus to spend their time, (as they are in their travels), but choose much rather to be speaking of things to no profit; and this hath been a trouble for me. FAITH. That is indeed a thing to be lamented; for what things so worthy of the use of the tongue and mouth of men on earth as are the things of the God of heaven? TALK. I like you wonderful well, for your sayings are full of conviction; and I will add, what thing is so pleasant, and what so profitable, as to talk of the things of God? What things so pleasant (that is, if a man hath any delight in things that are wonderful)? For instance, if a man doth delight to talk of the history or the mystery of things; or if a man doth love to talk of miracles, wonders, or signs, where shall he find things recorded so delightful, and so sweetly penned, as in the Holy Scripture? {187} FAITH. That is true; but to be profited by such things in our talk should be that which we design. Talkative's fine discourse TALK. That is it that I said; for to talk of such things is most profitable; for by so doing, a man may get knowledge of many things; as of the vanity of earthly things, and the benefit of things above. Thus, in general, but more particularly by this, a man may learn the necessity of the new birth, the insufficiency of our works, the need of Christ's righteousness, &c. Besides, by this a man may learn, by talk, what it is to repent, to believe, to pray, to suffer, or the like; by this also a man may learn what are the great promises and consolations of the gospel, to his own comfort. Further, by this a man may learn to refute false opinions, to vindicate the truth, and also to instruct the ignorant. FAITH. All this is true, and glad am I to hear these things from you. TALK. Alas! the want of this is the cause why so few understand the need of faith, and the necessity of a work of grace in their soul, in order to eternal life; but ignorantly live in the works of the law, by which a man can by no means obtain the kingdom of heaven. {188} FAITH. But, by your leave, heavenly knowledge of these is the gift of God; no man attaineth to them by human industry, or only by the talk of them. TALK. All this I know very well; for a man can receive nothing, except it be given him from Heaven; all is of grace, not of works. I could give you a hundred scriptures for the confirmation of this. FAITH. Well, then, said Faithful, what is that one thing that we shall at this time found our discourse upon? TALK. What you will. I will talk of things heavenly, or things earthly; things moral, or things evangelical; things sacred, or things profane; things past, or things to come; things foreign, or things at home; things more essential, or things circumstantial; provided that all be done to our profit. {189} FAITH. Now did Faithful begin to wonder; and stepping to Christian, (for he walked all this while by himself), he said to him, (but softly), What a brave companion have we got! Surely this man will make a very excellent pilgrim. CHR. At this Christian modestly smiled, and said, This man, with whom you are so taken, will beguile, with that tongue of his, twenty of them that know him not. FAITH. Do you know him, then? {190} CHR. Know him! Yes, better than he knows himself. FAITH. Pray, what is he? CHR. His name is Talkative; he dwelleth in our town. I wonder that you should be a stranger to him, only I consider that our town is large. FAITH. Whose son is he? And whereabout does he dwell? CHR. He is the son of one Say-well; he dwelt in Prating Row; and is known of all that are acquainted with him, by the name of Talkative in Prating Row; and notwithstanding his fine tongue, he is but a sorry fellow. {191} FAITH. Well, he seems to be a very pretty man. CHR. That is, to them who have not thorough acquaintance with him; for he is best abroad; near home, he is ugly enough. Your saying that he is a pretty man, brings to my mind what I have observed in the work of the painter, whose pictures show best at a distance, but, very near, more unpleasing. {192} FAITH. But I am ready to think you do but jest, because you smiled. CHR. God forbid that I should jest (although I smiled) in this matter, or that I should accuse any falsely! I will give you a further discovery of him. This man is for any company, and for any talk; as he talketh now with you, so will he talk when he is on the ale-bench; and the more drink he hath in his crown, the more of these things he hath in his mouth; religion hath no place in his heart, or house, or conversation; all he hath lieth in his tongue, and his religion is, to make a noise therewith. {193} FAITH. Say you so! then am I in this man greatly deceived. CHR. Deceived! you may be sure of it; remember the proverb, "They say and do not." [Matt. 23:3] But the kingdom of God is not in word, but in Power. [1 Cor 4:20] He talketh of prayer, of repentance, of faith, and of the new birth; but he knows but only to talk of them. I have been in his family, and have observed him both at home and abroad; and I know what I say of him is the truth. His house is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is of savour. There is there neither prayer nor sign of repentance for sin; yea, the brute in his kind serves God far better than he. He is the very stain, reproach, and shame of religion, to all that know him; it can hardly have a good word in all that end of the town where he dwells, through him. [Rom. 2:24,25] Thus say the common people that know him, A saint abroad, and a devil at home. His poor family finds it so; he is such a churl, such a railer at and so unreasonable with his servants, that they neither know how to do for or speak to him. Men that have any dealings with him say it is better to deal with a Turk than with him; for fairer dealing they shall have at their hands. This Talkative (if it be possible) will go beyond them, defraud, beguile, and overreach them. Besides, he brings up his sons to follow his steps; and if he findeth in any of them a foolish timorousness, (for so he calls the first appearance of a tender conscience,) he calls them fools and blockheads, and by no means will employ them in much, or speak to their commendations before others. For my part, I am of opinion, that he has, by his wicked life, caused many to stumble and fall; and will be, if God prevent not, the ruin of many more. {194} FAITH. Well, my brother, I am bound to believe you; not only because you say you know him, but also because, like a Christian, you make your reports of men. For I cannot think that you speak these things of ill-will, but because it is even so as you say. CHR. Had I known him no more than you, I might perhaps have thought of him, as, at the first, you did; yea, had he received this report at their hands only that are enemies to religion, I should have thought it had been a slander,--a lot that often falls from bad men's mouths upon good men's names and professions; but all these things, yea, and a great many more as bad, of my own knowledge, I can prove him guilty of. Besides, good men are ashamed of him; they can neither call him brother, nor friend; the very naming of him among them makes them blush, if they know him. {195} FAITH. Well, I see that saying and doing are two things, and hereafter I shall better observe this distinction. CHR. They are two things, indeed, and are as diverse as are the soul and the body; for as the body without the soul is but a dead carcass, so saying, if it be alone, is but a dead carcass also. The soul of religion is the practical part: "Pure religion and undefiled, before God and the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." [James 1:27; see vv. 22-26] This Talkative is not aware of; he thinks that hearing and saying will make a good Christian, and thus he deceiveth his own soul. Hearing is but as the sowing of the seed; talking is not sufficient to prove that fruit is indeed in the heart and life; and let us assure ourselves, that at the day of doom men shall be judged according to their fruits. [Matt. 13, 25] It will not be said then, Did you believe? but, Were you doers, or talkers only? and accordingly shall they be judged. The end of the world is compared to our harvest; and you know men at harvest regard nothing but fruit. Not that anything can be accepted that is not of faith, but I speak this to show you how insignificant the profession of Talkative will be at that day. {196} FAITH. This brings to my mind that of Moses, by which he describeth the beast that is clean. [Lev. 11:3-7; Deut. 14:6-8] He is such a one that parteth the hoof and cheweth the cud; not that parteth the hoof only, or that cheweth the cud only. The hare cheweth the cud, but yet is unclean, because he parteth not the hoof. And this truly resembleth Talkative; he cheweth the cud, he seeketh knowledge, he cheweth upon the word; but he divideth not the hoof, he parteth not with the way of sinners; but, as the hare, he retaineth the foot of a dog or bear, and therefore he is unclean. CHR. You have spoken, for aught I know, the true gospel sense of those texts. And I will add another thing: Paul calleth some men, yea, and those great talkers, too, sounding brass and tinkling cymbals; that is, as he expounds them in another place, things without life, giving sound. [1 Cor. 13:1-3; 14:7] Things without life, that is, without the true faith and grace of the gospel; and consequently, things that shall never be placed in the kingdom of heaven among those that are the children of life; though their sound, by their talk, be as if it were the tongue or voice of an angel. FAITH. Well, I was not so fond of his company at first, but I am as sick of it now. What shall we do to be rid of him? CHR. Take my advice, and do as I bid you, and you shall find that he will soon be sick of your company too, except God shall touch his heart, and turn it. FAITH. What would you have me to do? CHR. Why, go to him, and enter into some serious discourse about the power of religion; and ask him plainly (when he has approved of it, for that he will) whether this thing be set up in his heart, house, or conversation. {197} FAITH. Then Faithful stepped forward again, and said to Talkative, Come, what cheer? How is it now? TALK. Thank you, well. I thought we should have had a great deal of talk by this time. {198} FAITH. Well, if you will, we will fall to it now; and since you left it with me to state the question, let it be this: How doth the saving grace of God discover itself when it is in the heart of man? Talkative's false discovery of a work of grace TALK. I perceive, then, that our talk must be about the power of things. Well, it is a very good question, and I shall be willing to answer you. And take my answer in brief, thus: First, Where the grace of God is in the heart, it causeth there a great outcry against sin. Secondly-- FAITH. Nay, hold, let us consider of one at once. I think you should rather say, It shows itself by inclining the soul to abhor its sin. TALK. Why, what difference is there between crying out against, and abhorring of sin? {199} FAITH. Oh, a great deal. A man may cry out against sin of policy, but he cannot abhor it, but by virtue of a godly antipathy against it. I have heard many cry out against sin in the pulpit, who yet can abide it well enough in the heart, house, and conversation. Joseph's mistress cried out with a loud voice, as if she had been very holy; but she would willingly, notwithstanding that, have committed uncleanness with him. Some cry out against sin even as the mother cries out against her child in her lap, when she calleth it slut and naughty girl, and then falls to hugging and kissing it. TALK. You lie at the catch, I perceive. {200} FAITH. No, not I; I am only for setting things right. But what is the second thing whereby you would prove a discovery of a work of grace in the heart? TALK. Great knowledge of gospel mysteries. FAITH. This sign should have been first; but first or last, it is also false; for knowledge, great knowledge, may be obtained in the mysteries of the gospel, and yet no work of grace in the soul. [1 Cor. 13] Yea, if a man have all knowledge, he may yet be nothing, and so consequently be no child of God. When Christ said, "Do you know all these things?" and the disciples had answered, Yes; he addeth, "Blessed are ye if ye do them." He doth not lay the blessing in the knowing of them, but in the doing of them. For there is a knowledge that is not attended with doing: He that knoweth his masters will, and doeth it not. A man may know like an angel, and yet be no Christian, therefore your sign of it is not true. Indeed, to know is a thing that pleaseth talkers and boasters, but to do is that which pleaseth God. Not that the heart can be good without knowledge; for without that, the heart is naught. There is, therefore, knowledge and knowledge. Knowledge that resteth in the bare speculation of things; and knowledge that is accompanied with the grace of faith and love; which puts a man upon doing even the will of God from the heart: the first of these will serve the talker; but without the other the true Christian is not content. "Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart." [Ps. 119:34] TALK. You lie at the catch again; this is not for edification. FAITH. Well, if you please, propound another sign how this work of grace discovereth itself where it is. TALK. Not I, for I see we shall not agree. FAITH. Well, if you will not, will you give me leave to do it? TALK. You may use your liberty. {201} FAITH. A work of grace in the soul discovereth itself, either to him that hath it, or to standers by. To him that hath it thus: It gives him conviction of sin, especially of the defilement of his nature and the sin of unbelief, (for the sake of which he is sure to be damned, if he findeth not mercy at God's hand, by faith in Jesus Christ [John 16:8, Rom. 7:24, John 16:9, Mark 16:16]). This sight and sense of things worketh in him sorrow and shame for sin; he findeth, moreover, revealed in him the Saviour of the world, and the absolute necessity of closing with him for life, at the which he findeth hungerings and thirstings after him; to which hungerings, &c., the promise is made. [Ps. 38:18, Jer. 31:19, Gal. 2:16, Acts 4:12, Matt. 5:6, Rev. 21:6] Now, according to the strength or weakness of his faith in his Saviour, so is his joy and peace, so is his love to holiness, so are his desires to know him more, and also to serve him in this world. But though I say it discovereth itself thus unto him, yet it is but seldom that he is able to conclude that this is a work of grace; because his corruptions now, and his abused reason, make his mind to misjudge in this matter; therefore, in him that hath this work, there is required a very sound judgement before he can, with steadiness, conclude that this is a work of grace. {202} To others, it is thus discovered: 1. By an experimental confession of his faith in Christ. [Rom. 10:10, Phil. 1:27, Matt. 5:19] 2. By a life answerable to that confession; to wit, a life of holiness, heart-holiness, family-holiness, (if he hath a family), and by conversation-holiness in the world which, in the general, teacheth him, inwardly, to abhor his sin, and himself for that, in secret; to suppress it in his family and to promote holiness in the world; not by talk only, as a hypocrite or talkative person may do, but by a practical subjection, in faith and love, to the power of the Word. [John 14:15, Ps. 50:23, Job 42:5-6, Eze. 20:43] And now, Sir, as to this brief description of the work of grace, and also the discovery of it, if you have aught to object, object; if not, then give me leave to propound to you a second question. {203} TALK. Nay, my part is not now to object, but to hear; let me, therefore, have your second question. FAITH. It is this: Do you experience this first part of this description of it? and doth your life and conversation testify the same? or standeth your religion in word or in tongue, and not in deed and truth? Pray, if you incline to answer me in this, say no more than you know the God above will say Amen to; and also nothing but what your conscience can justify you in; for not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth. Besides, to say I am thus and thus, when my conversation, and all my neighbours, tell me I lie, is great wickedness. {204} TALK. Then Talkative at first began to blush; but, recovering himself, thus he replied: You come now to experience, to conscience, and God; and to appeal to him for justification of what is spoken. This kind of discourse I did not expect; nor am I disposed to give an answer to such questions, because I count not myself bound thereto, unless you take upon you to be a catechiser, and, though you should so do, yet I may refuse to make you my judge. But, I pray, will you tell me why you ask me such questions? {205} FAITH. Because I saw you forward to talk, and because I knew not that you had aught else but notion. Besides, to tell you all the truth, I have heard of you, that you are a man whose religion lies in talk, and that your conversation gives this your mouth-profession the lie. Faithful's plain dealing with Talkative They say, you are a spot among Christians; and that religion fareth the worse for your ungodly conversation; that some have already stumbled at your wicked ways, and that more are in danger of being destroyed thereby; your religion, and an ale-house, and covetousness, and uncleanness, and swearing, and lying, and vain-company keeping, &c., will stand together. The proverb is true of you which is said of a whore, to wit, that she is a shame to all women; so are you a shame to all professors. TALK. Since you are ready to take up reports and to judge so rashly as you do, I cannot but conclude you are some peevish or melancholy man, not fit to be discoursed with; and so adieu. {206} CHR. Then came up Christian, and said to his brother, I told you how it would happen: your words and his lusts could not agree; he had rather leave your company than reform his life. But he is gone, as I said; let him go, the loss is no man's but his own; he has saved us the trouble of going from him; for he continuing (as I suppose he will do) as he is, he would have been but a blot in our company: besides, the apostle says, "From such withdraw thyself." FAITH. But I am glad we had this little discourse with him; it may happen that he will think of it again: however, I have dealt plainly with him, and so am clear of his blood, if he perisheth. {207} CHR. You did well to talk so plainly to him as you did; there is but little of this faithful dealing with men now-a-days, and that makes religion to stink so in the nostrils of many, as it doth; for they are these talkative fools whose religion is only in word, and are debauched and vain in their conversation, that (being so much admitted into the fellowship of the godly) do puzzle the world, blemish Christianity, and grieve the sincere. I wish that all men would deal with such as you have done: then should they either be made more conformable to religion, or the company of saints would be too hot for them. Then did Faithful say, How Talkative at first lifts up his plumes! How bravely doth he speak! How he presumes To drive down all before him! But so soon As Faithful talks of heart-work, like the moon That's past the full, into the wane he goes. And so will all, but he that HEART-WORK knows. {208} Thus they went on talking of what they had seen by the way, and so made that way easy which would otherwise, no doubt, have been tedious to them; for now they went through a wilderness. {209} Now, when they were got almost quite out of this wilderness, Faithful chanced to cast his eye back, and espied one coming after them, and he knew him. Oh! said Faithful to his brother, who comes yonder? Then Christian looked, and said, It is my good friend Evangelist. Ay, and my good friend too, said Faithful, for it was he that set me in the way to the gate. Now was Evangelist come up to them, and thus saluted them: {210} EVAN. Peace be with you, dearly beloved; and peace be to your helpers. CHR. Welcome, welcome, my good Evangelist, the sight of thy countenance brings to my remembrance thy ancient kindness and unwearied labouring for my eternal good. FAITH. And a thousand times welcome, said good Faithful. Thy company, O sweet Evangelist, how desirable it is to us poor pilgrims! EVAN. Then said Evangelist, How hath it fared with you, my friends, since the time of our last parting? What have you met with, and how have you behaved yourselves? {211} Then Christian and Faithful told him of all things that had happened to them in the way; and how, and with what difficulty, they had arrived at that place. {212} EVAN. Right glad am I, said Evangelist, not that you have met with trials, but that you have been victors; and for that you have, notwithstanding many weaknesses, continued in the way to this very day. I say, right glad am I of this thing, and that for mine own sake and yours. I have sowed, and you have reaped: and the day is coming, when both he that sowed and they that reaped shall rejoice together; that is, if you hold out: "for in due season ye shall reap, if ye faint not." [John 4:36, Gal. 6:9] The crown is before you, and it is an incorruptible one; so run, that you may obtain it. [1 Cor. 9:24-27] Some there be that set out for this crown, and, after they have gone far for it, another comes in, and takes it from them: hold fast, therefore, that you have; let no man take your crown. [Rev. 3:11] You are not yet out of the gun-shot of the devil; you have not resisted unto blood, striving against sin; let the kingdom be always before you, and believe steadfastly concerning things that are invisible. Let nothing that is on this side the other world get within you; and, above all, look well to your own hearts, and to the lusts thereof, "for they are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked"; set your faces like a flint; you have all power in heaven and earth on your side. {213} CHR. Then Christian thanked him for his exhortation; but told him, withal, that they would have him speak further to them for their help the rest of the way, and the rather, for that they well knew that he was a prophet, and could tell them of things that might happen unto them, and also how they might resist and overcome them. To which request Faithful also consented. So Evangelist began as followeth:-- EVAN. My sons, you have heard, in the words of the truth of the gospel, that you must, through many tribulations, enter into the kingdom of heaven. And, again, that in every city bonds and afflictions abide in you; and therefore you cannot expect that you should go long on your pilgrimage without them, in some sort or other. You have found something of the truth of these testimonies upon you already, and more will immediately follow; for now, as you see, you are almost out of this wilderness, and therefore you will soon come into a town that you will by and by see before you; and in that town you will be hardly beset with enemies, who will strain hard but they will kill you; and be you sure that one or both of you must seal the testimony which you hold, with blood; but be you faithful unto death, and the King will give you a crown of life. {214} He that shall die there, although his death will be unnatural, and his pain perhaps great, he will yet have the better of his fellow; not only because he will be arrived at the Celestial City soonest, but because he will escape many miseries that the other will meet with in the rest of his journey. But when you are come to the town, and shall find fulfilled what I have here related, then remember your friend, and quit yourselves like men, and commit the keeping of your souls to your God in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator. {215} Then I saw in my dream, that when they were got out of the wilderness, they presently saw a town before them, and the name of that town is Vanity; and at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair: it is kept all the year long. It beareth the name of Vanity Fair because the town where it is kept is lighter than vanity; and, also because all that is there sold, or that cometh thither, is vanity. As is the saying of the wise, "all that cometh is vanity." [Eccl. 1; 2:11,17; 11:8; Isa. 11:17] {216} This fair is no new-erected business, but a thing of ancient standing; I will show you the original of it. Almost five thousand years agone, there were pilgrims walking to the Celestial City, as these two honest persons are: and Beelzebub, Apollyon, and Legion, with their companions, perceiving by the path that the pilgrims made, that their way to the city lay through this town of Vanity, they contrived here to set up a fair; a fair wherein, should be sold all sorts of vanity, and that it should last all the year long: therefore at this fair are all such merchandise sold, as houses, lands, trades, places, honours, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures, and delights of all sorts, as whores, bawds, wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not. And, moreover, at this fair there is at all times to be seen juggling cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues, and that of every kind. Here are to be seen, too, and that for nothing, thefts, murders, adulteries, false swearers, and that of a blood-red colour. {217} And as in other fairs of less moment, there are the several rows and streets, under their proper names, where such and such wares are vended; so here likewise you have the proper places, rows, streets, (viz. countries and kingdoms), where the wares of this fair are soonest to be found. Here is the Britain Row, the French Row, the Italian Row, the Spanish Row, the German Row, where several sorts of vanities are to be sold. But, as in other fairs, some one commodity is as the chief of all the fair, so the ware of Rome and her merchandise is greatly promoted in this fair; only our English nation, with some others, have taken a dislike thereat. {218} Now, as I said, the way to the Celestial City lies just through this town where this lusty fair is kept; and he that will go to the city, and yet not go through this town, must needs go out of the world. [1 Cor. 5:10] The Prince of princes himself, when here, went through this town to his own country, and that upon a fair day too; yea, and as I think, it was Beelzebub, the chief lord of this fair, that invited him to buy of his vanities; yea, would have made him lord of the fair, would he but have done him reverence as he went through the town. [Matt. 4:8, Luke 4:5-7] Yea, because he was such a person of honour, Beelzebub had him from street to street, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a little time, that he might, if possible, allure the Blessed One to cheapen and buy some of his vanities; but he had no mind to the merchandise, and therefore left the town, without laying out so much as one farthing upon these vanities. This fair, therefore, is an ancient thing, of long standing, and a very great fair. {219} Now these pilgrims, as I said, must needs go through this fair. Well, so they did: but, behold, even as they entered into the fair, all the people in the fair were moved, and the town itself as it were in a hubbub about them; and that for several reasons: for-- {220} First, The pilgrims were clothed with such kind of raiment as was diverse from the raiment of any that traded in that fair. The people, therefore, of the fair, made a great gazing upon them: some said they were fools, some they were bedlams, and some they are outlandish men. [1 Cor. 2:7-8] {221} Secondly, And as they wondered at their apparel, so they did likewise at their speech; for few could understand what they said; they naturally spoke the language of Canaan, but they that kept the fair were the men of this world; so that, from one end of the fair to the other, they seemed barbarians each to the other. {222} Thirdly, But that which did not a little amuse the merchandisers was, that these pilgrims set very light by all their wares; they cared not so much as to look upon them; and if they called upon them to buy, they would put their fingers in their ears, and cry, Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity, and look upwards, signifying that their trade and traffic was in heaven. [Ps. 119:37, Phil. 3:19-20] {223} One chanced mockingly, beholding the carriage of the men, to say unto them, What will ye buy? But they, looking gravely upon him, answered, "We buy the truth." [Prov. 23:23] At that there was an occasion taken to despise the men the more; some mocking, some taunting, some speaking reproachfully, and some calling upon others to smite them. At last things came to a hubbub and great stir in the fair, insomuch that all order was confounded. Now was word presently brought to the great one of the fair, who quickly came down, and deputed some of his most trusty friends to take these men into examination, about whom the fair was almost overturned. So the men were brought to examination; and they that sat upon them, asked them whence they came, whither they went, and what they did there, in such an unusual garb? The men told them that they were pilgrims and strangers in the world, and that they were going to their own country, which was the heavenly Jerusalem, [Heb. 11:13-16] and that they had given no occasion to the men of the town, nor yet to the merchandisers, thus to abuse them, and to let them in their journey, except it was for that, when one asked them what they would buy, they said they would buy the truth. But they that were appointed to examine them did not believe them to be any other than bedlams and mad, or else such as came to put all things into a confusion in the fair. Therefore they took them and beat them, and besmeared them with dirt, and then put them into the cage, that they might be made a spectacle to all the men of the fair. Behold Vanity Fair! the Pilgrims there Are chain'd and stand beside: Even so it was our Lord pass'd here, And on Mount Calvary died. {224} There, therefore, they lay for some time, and were made the objects of any man's sport, or malice, or revenge, the great one of the fair laughing still at all that befell them. But the men being patient, and not rendering railing for railing, but contrariwise, blessing, and good words for bad, and kindness for injuries done, some men in the fair that were more observing, and less prejudiced than the rest, began to check and blame the baser sort for their continual abuses done by them to the men; they, therefore, in angry manner, let fly at them again, counting them as bad as the men in the cage, and telling them that they seemed confederates, and should be made partakers of their misfortunes. The other replied that, for aught they could see, the men were quiet, and sober, and intended nobody any harm; and that there were many that traded in their fair that were more worthy to be put into the cage, yea, and pillory too, than were the men they had abused. Thus, after divers words had passed on both sides, the men behaving themselves all the while very wisely and soberly before them, they fell to some blows among themselves, and did harm one to another. Then were these two poor men brought before their examiners again, and there charged as being guilty of the late hubbub that had been in the fair. So they beat them pitifully, and hanged irons upon them, and led them in chains up and down the fair, for an example and a terror to others, lest any should speak in their behalf, or join themselves unto them. But Christian and Faithful behaved themselves yet more wisely, and received the ignominy and shame that was cast upon them, with so much meekness and patience, that it won to their side, though but few in comparison of the rest, several of the men in the fair. This put the other party yet into greater rage, insomuch that they concluded the death of these two men. Wherefore they threatened, that the cage nor irons should serve their turn, but that they should die, for the abuse they had done, and for deluding the men of the fair. Then were they remanded to the cage again, until further order should be taken with them. So they put them in, and made their feet fast in the stocks. {225} Here, therefore, they called again to mind what they had heard from their faithful friend Evangelist, and were the more confirmed in their way and sufferings by what he told them would happen to them. They also now comforted each other, that whose lot it was to suffer, even he should have the best of it; therefore each man secretly wished that he might have that preferment: but committing themselves to the all-wise disposal of Him that ruleth all things, with much content, they abode in the condition in which they were, until they should be otherwise disposed of. {226} Then a convenient time being appointed, they brought them forth to their trial, in order to their condemnation. When the time was come, they were brought before their enemies and arraigned. The judge's name was Lord Hate-good. Their indictment was one and the same in substance, though somewhat varying in form, the contents whereof were this:-- {227} "That they were enemies to and disturbers of their trade; that they had made commotions and divisions in the town, and had won a party to their own most dangerous opinions, in contempt of the law of their prince." Now, FAITHFUL, play the man, speak for thy God: Fear not the wicked's malice; nor their rod: Speak boldly, man, the truth is on thy side: Die for it, and to life in triumph ride. {228} Faithful's answer for himself Then Faithful began to answer, that he had only set himself against that which hath set itself against Him that is higher than the highest. And, said he, as for disturbance, I make none, being myself a man of peace; the parties that were won to us, were won by beholding our truth and innocence, and they are only turned from the worse to the better. And as to the king you talk of, since he is Beelzebub, the enemy of our Lord, I defy him and all his angels. {229} Then proclamation was made, that they that had aught to say for their lord the king against the prisoner at the bar, should forthwith appear and give in their evidence. So there came in three witnesses, to wit, Envy, Superstition, and Pickthank. They were then asked if they knew the prisoner at the bar; and what they had to say for their lord the king against him. {230} Then stood forth Envy, and said to this effect: My Lord, I have known this man a long time, and will attest upon my oath before this honourable bench, that he is-- JUDGE. Hold! Give him his oath. (So they sware him.) Then he said-- ENVY. My Lord, this man, notwithstanding his plausible name, is one of the vilest men in our country. He neither regardeth prince nor people, law nor custom; but doth all that he can to possess all men with certain of his disloyal notions, which he in the general calls principles of faith and holiness. And, in particular, I heard him once myself affirm that Christianity and the customs of our town of Vanity were diametrically opposite, and could not be reconciled. By which saying, my Lord, he doth at once not only condemn all our laudable doings, but us in the doing of them. JUDGE. Then did the Judge say to him, Hast thou any more to say? ENVY. My Lord, I could say much more, only I would not be tedious to the court. Yet, if need be, when the other gentlemen have given in their evidence, rather than anything shall be wanting that will despatch him, I will enlarge my testimony against him. So he was bid to stand by. Then they called Superstition, and bid him look upon the prisoner. They also asked, what he could say for their lord the king against him. Then they sware him; so he began. {231} SUPER. My Lord, I have no great acquaintance with this man, nor do I desire to have further knowledge of him; however, this I know, that he is a very pestilent fellow, from some discourse that, the other day, I had with him in this town; for then, talking with him, I heard him say, that our religion was naught, and such by which a man could by no means please God. Which sayings of his, my Lord, your Lordship very well knows, what necessarily thence will follow, to wit, that we do still worship in vain, are yet in our sins, and finally shall be damned; and this is that which I have to say. {232} Then was Pickthank sworn, and bid say what he knew, in behalf of their lord the king, against the prisoner at the bar. Pickthank's testimony PICK. My Lord, and you gentlemen all, This fellow I have known of a long time, and have heard him speak things that ought not to be spoke; for he hath railed on our noble prince Beelzebub, and hath spoken contemptibly of his honourable friends, whose names are the Lord Old Man, the Lord Carnal Delight, the Lord Luxurious, the Lord Desire of Vain Glory, my old Lord Lechery, Sir Having Greedy, with all the rest of our nobility; and he hath said, moreover, That if all men were of his mind, if possible, there is not one of these noblemen should have any longer a being in this town. Besides, he hath not been afraid to rail on you, my Lord, who are now appointed to be his judge, calling you an ungodly villain, with many other such like vilifying terms, with which he hath bespattered most of the gentry of our town. {233} When this Pickthank had told his tale, the Judge directed his speech to the prisoner at the bar, saying, Thou runagate, heretic, and traitor, hast thou heard what these honest gentlemen have witnessed against thee? FAITH. May I speak a few words in my own defence? JUDGE. Sirrah! sirrah! thou deservest to live no longer, but to be slain immediately upon the place; yet, that all men may see our gentleness towards thee, let us hear what thou, vile runagate, hast to say. {234} Faithful's defence of himself FAITH. 1. I say, then, in answer to what Mr. Envy hath spoken, I never said aught but this, That what rule, or laws, or customs, or people, were flat against the Word of God, are diametrically opposite to Christianity. If I have said amiss in this, convince me of my error, and I am ready here before you to make my recantation. {235} 2. As to the second, to wit, Mr. Superstition, and his charge against me, I said only this, That in the worship of God there is required a Divine faith; but there can be no Divine faith without a Divine revelation of the will of God. Therefore, whatever is thrust into the worship of God that is not agreeable to Divine revelation, cannot be done but by a human faith, which faith will not be profitable to eternal life. {236} 3. As to what Mr. Pickthank hath said, I say (avoiding terms, as that I am said to rail, and the like) that the prince of this town, with all the rabblement, his attendants, by this gentleman named, are more fit for a being in hell, than in this town and country: and so, the Lord have mercy upon me! {237} Then the Judge called to the jury (who all this while stood by, to hear and observe): Gentlemen of the jury, you see this man about whom so great an uproar hath been made in this town. You have also heard what these worthy gentlemen have witnessed against him. Also you have heard his reply and confession. It lieth now in your breasts to hang him or save his life; but yet I think meet to instruct you into our law. {238} There was an Act made in the days of Pharaoh the Great, servant to our prince, that lest those of a contrary religion should multiply and grow too strong for him, their males should be thrown into the river. [Exo. 1:22] There was also an Act made in the days of Nebuchadnezzar the Great, another of his servants, that whosoever would not fall down and worship his golden image, should be thrown into a fiery furnace. [Dan. 3:6] There was also an Act made in the days of Darius, that whoso, for some time, called upon any god but him, should be cast into the lions' den. [Dan. 6] Now the substance of these laws this rebel has broken, not only in thought, (which is not to be borne), but also in word and deed; which must therefore needs be intolerable. {239} For that of Pharaoh, his law was made upon a supposition, to prevent mischief, no crime being yet apparent; but here is a crime apparent. For the second and third, you see he disputeth against our religion; and for the treason he hath confessed, he deserveth to die the death. {240} Then went the jury out, whose names were, Mr. Blind-man, Mr. No-good, Mr. Malice, Mr. Love-lust, Mr. Live-loose, Mr. Heady, Mr. High-mind, Mr. Enmity, Mr. Liar, Mr. Cruelty, Mr. Hate-light, and Mr. Implacable; who every one gave in his private verdict against him among themselves, and afterwards unanimously concluded to bring him in guilty before the Judge. And first, among themselves, Mr. Blind-man, the foreman, said, I see clearly that this man is a heretic. Then said Mr. No-good, Away with such a fellow from the earth. Ay, said Mr. Malice, for I hate the very looks of him. Then said Mr. Love-lust, I could never endure him. Nor I, said Mr. Live-loose, for he would always be condemning my way. Hang him, hang him, said Mr. Heady. A sorry scrub, said Mr. High-mind. My heart riseth against him, said Mr. Enmity. He is a rogue, said Mr. Liar. Hanging is too good for him, said Mr. Cruelty. Let us despatch him out of the way, said Mr. Hate-light. Then said Mr. Implacable, Might I have all the world given me, I could not be reconciled to him; therefore, let us forthwith bring him in guilty of death. And so they did; therefore he was presently condemned to be had from the place where he was, to the place from whence he came, and there to be put to the most cruel death that could be invented. {241} They therefore brought him out, to do with him according to their law; and, first, they scourged him, then they buffeted him, then they lanced his flesh with knives; after that, they stoned him with stones, then pricked him with their swords; and, last of all, they burned him to ashes at the stake. Thus came Faithful to his end. {242} Now I saw that there stood behind the multitude a chariot and a couple of horses, waiting for Faithful, who (so soon as his adversaries had despatched him) was taken up into it, and straightway was carried up through the clouds, with sound of trumpet, the nearest way to the Celestial Gate. Brave FAITHFUL, bravely done in word and deed; Judge, witnesses, and jury have, instead Of overcoming thee, but shown their rage: When they are dead, thou'lt live from age to age*. *In the New Heaven and New Earth. {footnote from one edition} {243} But as for Christian, he had some respite, and was remanded back to prison. So he there remained for a space; but He that overrules all things, having the power of their rage in his own hand, so wrought it about, that Christian for that time escaped them, and went his way. And as he went, he sang, saying-- Well, Faithful, thou hast faithfully profest Unto thy Lord; with whom thou shalt be blest, When faithless ones, with all their vain delights, Are crying out under their hellish plights: Sing, Faithful, sing, and let thy name survive; For though they kill'd thee, thou art yet alive! {244} Now I saw in my dream, that Christian went not forth alone, for there was one whose name was Hopeful (being made so by the beholding of Christian and Faithful in their words and behaviour, in their sufferings at the fair), who joined himself unto him, and, entering into a brotherly covenant, told him that he would be his companion. Thus, one died to bear testimony to the truth, and another rises out of his ashes, to be a companion with Christian in his pilgrimage. This Hopeful also told Christian, that there were many more of the men in the fair, that would take their time and follow after. {245} So I saw that quickly after they were got out of the fair, they overtook one that was going before them, whose name was By-ends: so they said to him, What countryman, Sir? and how far go you this way? He told them that he came from the town of Fair-speech, and he was going to the Celestial City (but told them not his name). From Fair-speech! said Christian. Is there any good that lives there? [Prov. 26:25] BY-ENDS. Yes, said By-ends, I hope. CHR. Pray, Sir, what may I call you? said Christian. BY-ENDS. I am a stranger to you, and you to me: if you be going this way, I shall be glad of your company; if not, I must be content. CHR. This town of Fair-speech, said Christian, I have heard of; and, as I remember, they say it is a wealthy place. BY-ENDS. Yes, I will assure you that it is; and I have very many rich kindred there. {246} CHR. Pray, who are your kindred there? if a man may be so bold. BY-ENDS. Almost the whole town; and in particular, my Lord Turn-about, my Lord Time-server, my Lord Fair-speech, (from whose ancestors that town first took its name), also Mr. Smooth-man, Mr. Facing-both-ways, Mr. Any-thing; and the parson of our parish, Mr. Two-tongues, was my mother's own brother by father's side; and to tell you the truth, I am become a gentleman of good quality, yet my great-grandfather was but a waterman, looking one way and rowing another, and I got most of my estate by the same occupation. CHR. Are you a married man? BY-ENDS. Yes, and my wife is a very virtuous woman, the daughter of a virtuous woman; she was my Lady Feigning's daughter, therefore she came of a very honourable family, and is arrived to such a pitch of breeding, that she knows how to carry it to all, even to prince and peasant. It is true we somewhat differ in religion from those of the stricter sort, yet but in two small points: first, we never strive against wind and tide; secondly, we are always most zealous when religion goes in his silver slippers; we love much to walk with him in the street, if the sun shines, and the people applaud him. {247} Then Christian stepped a little aside to his fellow, Hopeful, saying, It runs in my mind that this is one By-ends of Fair-speech; and if it be he, we have as very a knave in our company as dwelleth in all these parts. Then said Hopeful, Ask him; methinks he should not be ashamed of his name. So Christian came up with him again, and said, Sir, you talk as if you knew something more than all the world doth; and if I take not my mark amiss, I deem I have half a guess of you: Is not your name Mr. By-ends, of Fair-speech? BY-ENDS. This is not my name, but indeed it is a nick-name that is given me by some that cannot abide me: and I must be content to bear it as a reproach, as other good men have borne theirs before me. {247} CHR. But did you never give an occasion to men to call you by this name? BY-ENDS. Never, never! The worst that ever I did to give them an occasion to give me this name was, that I had always the luck to jump in my judgment with the present way of the times, whatever it was, and my chance was to get thereby; but if things are thus cast upon me, let me count them, a blessing; but let not the malicious load me therefore with reproach. {248} CHR. I thought, indeed, that you were the man that I heard of; and to tell you what I think, I fear this name belongs to you more properly than you are willing we should think it doth. BY-ENDS. Well, if you will thus imagine, I cannot help it; you shall find me a fair company-keeper, if you will still admit me your associate. CHR. If you will go with us, you must go against wind and tide; the which, I perceive, is against your opinion; you must also own religion in his rags, as well as when in his silver slippers; and stand by him, too, when bound in irons, as well as when he walketh the streets with applause. BY-ENDS. You must not impose, nor lord it over my faith; leave me to my liberty, and let me go with you. CHR. Not a step further, unless you will do in what I propound as we. Then said By-ends, I shall never desert my old principles, since they are harmless and profitable. If I may not go with you, I must do as I did before you overtook me, even go by myself, until some overtake me that will be glad of my company. {249} Now I saw in my dream that Christian and Hopeful forsook him, and kept their distance before him; but one of them looking back, saw three men following Mr. By-ends, and behold, as they came up with him, he made them a very low conge {conge'}; and they also gave him a compliment. The men's names were Mr. Hold-the-world, Mr. Money-love, and Mr. Save-all; men that Mr. By-ends had formerly been acquainted with; for in their minority they were schoolfellows, and were taught by one Mr. Gripe-man, a schoolmaster in Love-gain, which is a market town in the county of Coveting, in the north. This schoolmaster taught them the art of getting, either by violence, cozenage, flattery, lying, or by putting on the guise of religion; and these four gentlemen had attained much of the art of their master, so that they could each of them have kept such a school themselves. {250} Well, when they had, as I said, thus saluted each other, Mr. Money-love said to Mr. By-ends, Who are they upon the road before us? (for Christian and Hopeful were yet within view). By-ends' character of the pilgrims BY-ENDS. They are a couple of far countrymen, that, after their mode, are going on pilgrimage. MONEY-LOVE. Alas! Why did they not stay, that we might have had their good company? for they, and we, and you, Sir, I hope, are all going on pilgrimage. BY-ENDS. We are so, indeed; but the men before us are so rigid, and love so much their own notions, and do also so lightly esteem the opinions of others, that let a man be never so godly, yet if he jumps not with them in all things, they thrust him quite out of their company. {251} SAVE-ALL. That is bad, but we read of some that are righteous overmuch; and such men's rigidness prevails with them to judge and condemn all but themselves. But, I pray, what, and how many, were the things wherein you differed? BY-ENDS. Why, they, after their headstrong manner, conclude that it is duty to rush on their journey all weathers; and I am for waiting for wind and tide. They are for hazarding all for God at a clap; and I am for taking all advantages to secure my life and estate. They are for holding their notions, though all other men are against them; but I am for religion in what, and so far as the times, and my safety, will bear it. They are for religion when in rags and contempt; but I am for him when he walks in his golden slippers, in the sunshine, and with applause. {252} HOLD-THE-WORLD. Ay, and hold you there still, good Mr. By-ends; for, for my part, I can count him but a fool, that, having the liberty to keep what he has, shall be so unwise as to lose it. Let us be wise as serpents; it is best to make hay when the sun shines; you see how the bee lieth still all winter, and bestirs her only when she can have profit with pleasure. God sends sometimes rain, and sometimes sunshine; if they be such fools to go through the first, yet let us be content to take fair weather along with us. For my part, I like that religion best that will stand with the security of God's good blessings unto us; for who can imagine, that is ruled by his reason, since God has bestowed upon us the good things of this life, but that he would have us keep them for his sake? Abraham and Solomon grew rich in religion. And Job says, that a good man shall lay up gold as dust. But he must not be such as the men before us, if they be as you have described them. SAVE-ALL. I think that we are all agreed in this matter, and therefore there needs no more words about it. MONEY-LOVE. No, there needs no more words about this matter, indeed; for he that believes neither Scripture nor reason (and you see we have both on our side) neither knows his own liberty, nor seeks his own safety. {253} BY-ENDS. My brethren, we are, as you see, going all on pilgrimage; and, for our better diversion from things that are bad, give me leave to propound unto you this question:-- Suppose a man, a minister, or a tradesman, &c., should have an advantage lie before him, to get the good blessings of this life, yet so as that he can by no means come by them except, in appearance at least, he becomes extraordinarily zealous in some points of religion that he meddled not with before, may he not use these means to attain his end, and yet be a right honest man? {254} MONEY-LOVE. I see the bottom of your question; and, with these gentlemen's good leave, I will endeavour to shape you an answer. And first, to speak to your question as it concerns a minister himself: Suppose a minister, a worthy man, possessed but of a very small benefice, and has in his eye a greater, more fat, and plump by far; he has also now an opportunity of getting of it, yet so as by being more studious, by preaching more frequently and zealously, and, because the temper of the people requires it, by altering of some of his principles; for my part, I see no reason but a man may do this, (provided he has a call), ay, and more a great deal besides, and yet be an honest man. For why-- {255} 1. His desire of a greater benefice is lawful, (this cannot be contradicted), since it is set before him by Providence; so then, he may get it, if he can, making no question for conscience' sake. {256} 2. Besides, his desire after that benefice makes him more studious, a more zealous preacher, &c., and so makes him a better man; yea, makes him better improve his parts, which is according to the mind of God. {257} 3. Now, as for his complying with the temper of his people, by dissenting, to serve them, some of his principles, this argueth, (1) That he is of a self-denying, temper; (2) Of a sweet and winning deportment; and so (3) more fit for the ministerial function. {258} 4. I conclude, then, that a minister that changes a small for a great, should not, for so doing, be judged as covetous; but rather, since he has improved in his parts and industry thereby, be counted as one that pursues his call, and the opportunity put into his hands to do good. {259} And now to the second part of the question, which concerns the tradesman you mentioned. Suppose such a one to have but a poor employ in the world, but by becoming religious, he may mend his market, perhaps get a rich wife, or more and far better customers to his shop; for my part, I see no reason but that this may be lawfully done. For why-- 1. To become religious is a virtue, by what means soever a man becomes so. 2. Nor is it unlawful to get a rich wife, or more custom to my shop. 3. Besides, the man that gets these by becoming religious, gets that which is good, of them that are good, by becoming good himself; so then here is a good wife, and good customers, and good gain, and all these by becoming religious, which is good; therefore, to become religious, to get all these, is a good and profitable design. {260} This answer, thus made by this Mr. Money-love to Mr. By-ends's question, was highly applauded by them all; wherefore they concluded upon the whole, that it was most wholesome and advantageous. And because, as they thought, no man was able to contradict it, and because Christian and Hopeful were yet within call, they jointly agreed to assault them with the question as soon as they overtook them; and the rather because they had opposed Mr. By-ends before. So they called after them, and they stopped, and stood still till they came up to them; but they concluded, as they went, that not Mr. By-ends, but old Mr. Hold-the-world, should propound the question to them, because, as they supposed, their answer to him would be without the remainder of that heat that was kindled betwixt Mr. By-ends and them, at their parting a little before. {260} So they came up to each other, and after a short salutation, Mr. Hold-the-world propounded the question to Christian and his fellow, and bid them to answer it if they could. CHR. Then said Christian, Even a babe in religion may answer ten thousand such questions. For if it be unlawful to follow Christ for loaves, (as it is in the sixth of John), how much more abominable is it to make of him and religion a stalking-horse to get and enjoy the world! Nor do we find any other than heathens, hypocrites, devils, and witches, that are of this opinion. {261} 1. Heathens; for when Hamor and Shechem had a mind to the daughter and cattle of Jacob, and saw that there was no way for them to come at them, but by becoming circumcised, they say to their companions, If every male of us be circumcised, as they are circumcised, shall not their cattle, and their substance, and every beast of theirs, be ours? Their daughter and their cattle were that which they sought to obtain, and their religion the stalking-horse they made use of to come at them. Read the whole story. [Gen. 34:20-23] {262} 2. The hypocritical Pharisees were also of this religion; long prayers were their pretence, but to get widows' houses was their intent; and greater damnation was from God their judgment. [Luke 20:46-47] {263} 3. Judas the devil was also of this religion; he was religious for the bag, that he might be possessed of what was therein; but he was lost, cast away, and the very son of perdition. {264} 4. Simon the witch was of this religion too; for he would have had the Holy Ghost, that he might have got money therewith; and his sentence from Peter's mouth was according. [Acts 8:19-22] {265} 5. Neither will it out of my mind, but that that man that takes up religion for the world, will throw away religion for the world; for so surely as Judas resigned the world in becoming religious, so surely did he also sell religion and his Master for the same. To answer the question, therefore, affirmatively, as I perceive you have done, and to accept of, as authentic, such answer, is both heathenish, hypocritical, and devilish; and your reward will be according to your works. Then they stood staring one upon another, but had not wherewith to answer Christian. Hopeful also approved of the soundness of Christian's answer; so there was a great silence among them. Mr. By-ends and his company also staggered and kept behind, that Christian and Hopeful might outgo them. Then said Christian to his fellow, If these men cannot stand before the sentence of men, what will they do with the sentence of God? And if they are mute when dealt with by vessels of clay, what will they do when they shall be rebuked by the flames of a devouring fire? {266} Then Christian and Hopeful outwent them again, and went till they came to a delicate plain called Ease, where they went with much content; but that plain was but narrow, so they were quickly got over it. Now at the further side of that plain was a little hill called Lucre, and in that hill a silver mine, which some of them that had formerly gone that way, because of the rarity of it, had turned aside to see; but going too near the brink of the pit, the ground being deceitful under them, broke, and they were slain; some also had been maimed there, and could not, to their dying day, be their own men again. {267} Then I saw in my dream, that a little off the road, over against the silver mine, stood Demas (gentlemanlike) to call to passengers to come and see; who said to Christian and his fellow, Ho! turn aside hither, and I will show you a thing. CHR. What thing so deserving as to turn us out of the way to see it? DEMAS. Here is a silver mine, and some digging in it for treasure. If you will come, with a little pains you may richly provide for yourselves. {268} HOPE. Then said Hopeful, Let us go see. CHR. Not I, said Christian, I have heard of this place before now; and how many have there been slain; and besides that, treasure is a snare to those that seek it; for it hindereth them in their pilgrimage. Then Christian called to Demas, saying, Is not the place dangerous? Hath it not hindered many in their pilgrimage? [Hos. 14:8] DEMAS. Not very dangerous, except to those that are careless, (but withal, he blushed as he spake). CHR. Then said Christian to Hopeful, Let us not stir a step, but still keep on our way. HOPE. I will warrant you, when By-ends comes up, if he hath the same invitation as we, he will turn in thither to see. CHR. No doubt thereof, for his principles lead him that way, and a hundred to one but he dies there. DEMAS. Then Demas called again, saying, But will you not come over and see? {269} CHR. Then Christian roundly answered, saying, Demas, thou art an enemy to the right ways of the Lord of this way, and hast been already condemned for thine own turning aside, by one of His Majesty's judges [2 Tim. 4:10]; and why seekest thou to bring us into the like condemnation? Besides, if we at all turn aside, our Lord and King will certainly hear thereof, and will there put us to shame, where we would stand with boldness before him. Demas cried again, that he also was one of their fraternity; and that if they would tarry a little, he also himself would walk with them. {270} CHR. Then said Christian, What is thy name? Is it not the same by the which I have called thee? DEMAS. Yes, my name is Demas; I am the son of Abraham. CHR. I know you; Gehazi was your great-grandfather, and Judas your father; and you have trod in their steps. [2 Kings 5:20, Matt. 26:14,15, 27:1-5] It is but a devilish prank that thou usest; thy father was hanged for a traitor, and thou deservest no better reward. Assure thyself, that when we come to the King, we will do him word of this thy behaviour. Thus they went their way. {271} By this time By-ends and his companions were come again within sight, and they, at the first beck, went over to Demas. Now, whether they fell into the pit by looking over the brink thereof, or whether they went down to dig, or whether they were smothered in the bottom by the damps that commonly arise, of these things I am not certain; but this I observed, that they never were seen again in the way. Then sang Christian-- By-ends and silver Demas both agree; One calls, the other runs, that he may be A sharer in his lucre; so these do Take up in this world, and no further go. {272} Now I saw that, just on the other side of this plain, the pilgrims came to a place where stood an old monument, hard by the highway side, at the sight of which they were both concerned, because of the strangeness of the form thereof; for it seemed to them as if it had been a woman transformed into the shape of a pillar; here, therefore they stood looking, and looking upon it, but could not for a time tell what they should make thereof. At last Hopeful espied written above the head thereof, a writing in an unusual hand; but he being no scholar, called to Christian (for he was learned) to see if he could pick out the meaning; so he came, and after a little laying of letters together, he found the same to be this, "Remember Lot's Wife". So he read it to his fellow; after which they both concluded that that was the pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was turned, for her looking back with a covetous heart, when she was going from Sodom for safety. [Gen. 19:26] Which sudden and amazing sight gave them occasion of this discourse. {273} CHR. Ah, my brother! this is a seasonable sight; it came opportunely to us after the invitation which Demas gave us to come over to view the Hill Lucre; and had we gone over, as he desired us, and as thou wast inclining to do, my brother, we had, for aught I know, been made ourselves like this woman, a spectacle for those that shall come after to behold. HOPE. I am sorry that I was so foolish, and am made to wonder that I am not now as Lot's wife; for wherein was the difference betwixt her sin and mine? She only looked back; and I had a desire to go see. Let grace be adored, and let me be ashamed that ever such a thing should be in mine heart. {274} CHR. Let us take notice of what we see here, for our help for time to come. This woman escaped one judgment, for she fell not by the destruction of Sodom; yet she was destroyed by another, as we see she is turned into a pillar of salt. HOPE. True; and she may be to us both caution and example; caution, that we should shun her sin; or a sign of what judgment will overtake such as shall not be prevented by this caution; so Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with the two hundred and fifty men that perished in their sin, did also become a sign or example to others to beware. [Num. 26:9,10] But above all, I muse at one thing, to wit, how Demas and his fellows can stand so confidently yonder to look for that treasure, which this woman, but for looking behind her after, (for we read not that she stepped one foot out of the way) was turned into a pillar of salt; especially since the judgment which overtook her did make her an example, within sight of where they are; for they cannot choose but see her, did they but lift up their eyes. {275} CHR. It is a thing to be wondered at, and it argueth that their hearts are grown desperate in the case; and I cannot tell who to compare them to so fitly, as to them that pick pockets in the presence of the judge, or that will cut purses under the gallows. It is said of the men of Sodom, that they were sinners exceedingly, because they were sinners before the Lord, that is, in his eyesight, and notwithstanding the kindnesses that he had showed them [Gen. 13:13]; for the land of Sodom was now like the garden of Eden heretofore. [Gen. 13:10] This, therefore, provoked him the more to jealousy, and made their plague as hot as the fire of the Lord out of heaven could make it. And it is most rationally to be concluded, that such, even such as these are, that shall sin in the sight, yea, and that too in despite of such examples that are set continually before them, to caution them to the contrary, must be partakers of severest judgments. HOPE. Doubtless thou hast said the truth; but what a mercy is it, that neither thou, but especially I, am not made myself this example! This ministereth occasion to us to thank God, to fear before him, and always to remember Lot's wife. {276} I saw, then, that they went on their way to a pleasant river; which David the king called "the river of God", but John, "the river of the water of life". [Ps. 65:9, Rev. 22, Ezek. 47] Now their way lay just upon the bank of the river; here, therefore, Christian and his companion walked with great delight; they drank also of the water of the river, which was pleasant, and enlivening to their weary spirits: besides, on the banks of this river, on either side, were green trees, that bore all manner of fruit; and the leaves of the trees were good for medicine; with the fruit of these trees they were also much delighted; and the leaves they eat to prevent surfeits, and other diseases that are incident to those that heat their blood by travels. On either side of the river was also a meadow, curiously beautified with lilies, and it was green all the year long. In this meadow they lay down, and slept; for here they might lie down safely. When they awoke, they gathered again of the fruit of the trees, and drank again of the water of the river, and then lay down again to sleep. [Ps. 23:2, Isa. 14:30] Thus they did several days and nights. Then they sang-- Behold ye how these crystal streams do glide, To comfort pilgrims by the highway side; The meadows green, beside their fragrant smell, Yield dainties for them; and he that can tell What pleasant fruit, yea, leaves, these trees do yield, Will soon sell all, that he may buy this field. So when they were disposed to go on, (for they were not, as yet, at their journey's end,) they ate and drank, and departed. {277} Now, I beheld in my dream, that they had not journeyed far, but the river and the way for a time parted; at which they were not a little sorry; yet they durst not go out of the way. Now the way from the river was rough, and their feet tender, by reason of their travels; so the souls of the pilgrims were much discouraged because of the way. [Num. 21:4] Wherefore, still as they went on, they wished for better way. Now, a little before them, there was on the left hand of the road a meadow, and a stile to go over into it; and that meadow is called By-path Meadow. Then said Christian to his fellow, If this meadow lieth along by our wayside, let us go over into it. Then he went to the stile to see, and behold, a path lay along by the way, on the other side of the fence. It is according to my wish, said Christian. Here is the easiest going; come, good Hopeful, and let us go over. {278} HOPE. But how if this path should lead us out of the way? CHR. That is not like, said the other. Look, doth it not go along by the wayside? So Hopeful, being persuaded by his fellow, went after him over the stile. When they were gone over, and were got into the path, they found it very easy for their feet; and withal, they, looking before them, espied a man walking as they did, (and his name was Vain-confidence); so they called after him, and asked him whither that way led. He said, To the Celestial Gate. Look, said Christian, did not I tell you so? By this you may see we are right. So they followed, and he went before them. But, behold, the night came on, and it grew very dark; so that they that were behind lost the sight of him that went before. {279} He, therefore, that went before, (Vain-confidence by name), not seeing the way before him, fell into a deep pit [Isa. 9:16], which was on purpose there made, by the Prince of those grounds, to catch vain-glorious fools withal, and was dashed in pieces with his fall. {280} Now Christian and his fellow heard him fall. So they called to know the matter, but there was none to answer, only they heard a groaning. Then said Hopeful, Where are we now? Then was his fellow silent, as mistrusting that he had led him out of the way; and now it began to rain, and thunder, and lighten in a very dreadful manner; and the water rose amain. Then Hopeful groaned in himself, saying, Oh, that I had kept on my way! {281} CHR. Who could have thought that this path should have led us out of the way? HOPE. I was afraid on it at the very first, and therefore gave you that gentle caution. I would have spoken plainer, but that you are older than I. Christian's repentance for leading of his brother out of the way CHR. Good brother, be not offended; I am sorry I have brought thee out of the way, and that I have put thee into such imminent danger; pray, my brother, forgive me; I did not do it of an evil intent. HOPE. Be comforted, my brother, for I forgive thee; and believe, too, that this shall be for our good. CHR. I am glad I have with me a merciful brother; but we must not stand thus: let us try to go back again. HOPE. But, good brother, let me go before. CHR. No, if you please, let me go first, that if there be any danger, I may be first therein, because by my means we are both gone out of the way. {282} HOPE. No, said Hopeful, you shall not go first; for your mind being troubled may lead you out of the way again. Then, for their encouragement, they heard the voice of one saying, "Set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest; turn again." [Jer. 31:21] But by this time the waters were greatly risen, by reason of which the way of going back was very dangerous. (Then I thought that it is easier going out of the way, when we are in, than going in when we are out.) Yet they adventured to go back, but it was so dark, and the flood was so high, that in their going back they had like to have been drowned nine or ten times. {283} Neither could they, with all the skill they had, get again to the stile that night. Wherefore, at last, lighting under a little shelter, they sat down there until the daybreak; but, being weary, they fell asleep. Now there was, not far from the place where they lay, a castle called Doubting Castle, the owner whereof was Giant Despair; and it was in his grounds they now were sleeping: wherefore he, getting up in the morning early, and walking up and down in his fields, caught Christian and Hopeful asleep in his grounds. Then, with a grim and surly voice, he bid them awake; and asked them whence they were, and what they did in his grounds. They told him they were pilgrims, and that they had lost their way. Then said the Giant, You have this night trespassed on me, by trampling in and lying on my grounds, and therefore you must go along with me. So they were forced to go, because he was stronger than they. They also had but little to say, for they knew themselves in a fault. The Giant, therefore, drove them before him, and put them into his castle, into a very dark dungeon, nasty and stinking to the spirits of these two men. [Ps. 88:18] Here, then, they lay from Wednesday morning till Saturday night, without one bit of bread, or drop of drink, or light, or any to ask how they did; they were, therefore, here in evil case, and were far from friends and acquaintance. Now in this place Christian had double sorrow, because it was through his unadvised counsel that they were brought into this distress. The pilgrims now, to gratify the flesh, Will seek its ease; but oh! how they afresh Do thereby plunge themselves new griefs into! Who seek to please the flesh, themselves undo. {284} Now, Giant Despair had a wife, and her name was Diffidence. So when he was gone to bed, he told his wife what he had done; to wit, that he had taken a couple of prisoners and cast them into his dungeon, for trespassing on his grounds. Then he asked her also what he had best to do further to them. So she asked him what they were, whence they came, and whither they were bound; and he told her. Then she counselled him that when he arose in the morning he should beat them without any mercy. So, when he arose, he getteth him a grievous crab-tree cudgel, and goes down into the dungeon to them, and there first falls to rating of them as if they were dogs, although they never gave him a word of distaste. Then he falls upon them, and beats them fearfully, in such sort that they were not able to help themselves, or to turn them upon the floor. This done, he withdraws and leaves them there to condole their misery and to mourn under their distress. So all that day they spent the time in nothing but sighs and bitter lamentations. The next night, she, talking with her husband about them further, and understanding they were yet alive, did advise him to counsel them to make away themselves. So when morning was come, he goes to them in a surly manner as before, and perceiving them to be very sore with the stripes that he had given them the day before, he told them, that since they were never like to come out of that place, their only way would be forthwith to make an end of themselves, either with knife, halter, or poison, for why, said he, should you choose life, seeing it is attended with so much bitterness? But they desired him to let them go. With that he looked ugly upon them, and, rushing to them, had doubtless made an end of them himself, but that he fell into one of his fits, (for he sometimes, in sunshiny weather, fell into fits), and lost for a time the use of his hand; wherefore he withdrew, and left them as before, to consider what to do. Then did the prisoners consult between themselves whether it was best to take his counsel or no; and thus they began to discourse:-- {285} CHR. Brother, said Christian, what shall we do? The life that we now live is miserable. For my part I know not whether is best, to live thus, or to die out of hand. "My soul chooseth strangling rather than life", and the grave is more easy for me than this dungeon. [Job 7:15] Shall we be ruled by the Giant? {286} HOPE. Indeed, our present condition is dreadful, and death would be far more welcome to me than thus for ever to abide; but yet, let us consider, the Lord of the country to which we are going hath said, Thou shalt do no murder: no, not to another man's person; much more, then, are we forbidden to take his counsel to kill ourselves. Besides, he that kills another, can but commit murder upon his body; but for one to kill himself is to kill body and soul at once. And, moreover, my brother, thou talkest of ease in the grave; but hast thou forgotten the hell, for certain the murderers go? "For no murderer hath eternal life," &c. And let us consider, again, that all the law is not in the hand of Giant Despair. Others, so far as I can understand, have been taken by him, as well as we; and yet have escaped out of his hand. Who knows, but the God that made the world may cause that Giant Despair may die? or that, at some time or other, he may forget to lock us in? or that he may, in a short time, have another of his fits before us, and may lose the use of his limbs? and if ever that should come to pass again, for my part, I am resolved to pluck up the heart of a man, and to try my utmost to get from under his hand. I was a fool that I did not try to do it before; but, however, my brother, let us be patient, and endure a while. The time may come that may give us a happy release; but let us not be our own murderers. With these words Hopeful at present did moderate the mind of his brother; so they continued together (in the dark) that day, in their sad and doleful condition. {287} Well, towards evening, the Giant goes down into the dungeon again, to see if his prisoners had taken his counsel; but when he came there he found them alive; and truly, alive was all; for now, what for want of bread and water, and by reason of the wounds they received when he beat them, they could do little but breathe. But, I say, he found them alive; at which he fell into a grievous rage, and told them that, seeing they had disobeyed his counsel, it should be worse with them than if they had never been born. {288} At this they trembled greatly, and I think that Christian fell into a swoon; but, coming a little to himself again, they renewed their discourse about the Giant's counsel; and whether yet they had best to take it or no. Now Christian again seemed to be for doing it, but Hopeful made his second reply as followeth:-- {289} HOPE. My brother, said he, rememberest thou not how valiant thou hast been heretofore? Apollyon could not crush thee, nor could all that thou didst hear, or see, or feel, in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. What hardship, terror, and amazement hast thou already gone through! And art thou now nothing but fear! Thou seest that I am in the dungeon with thee, a far weaker man by nature than thou art; also, this Giant has wounded me as well as thee, and hath also cut off the bread and water from my mouth; and with thee I mourn without the light. But let us exercise a little more patience; remember how thou playedst the man at Vanity Fair, and wast neither afraid of the chain, nor cage, nor yet of bloody death. Wherefore let us (at least to avoid the shame, that becomes not a Christian to be found in) bear up with patience as well as we can. {290} Now, night being come again, and the Giant and his wife being in bed, she asked him concerning the prisoners, and if they had taken his counsel. To which he replied, They are sturdy rogues, they choose rather to bear all hardship, than to make away themselves. Then said she, Take them into the castle-yard to-morrow, and show them the bones and skulls of those that thou hast already despatched, and make them believe, ere a week comes to an end, thou also wilt tear them in pieces, as thou hast done their fellows before them. {291} So when the morning was come, the Giant goes to them again, and takes them into the castle-yard, and shows them, as his wife had bidden him. These, said he, were pilgrims as you are, once, and they trespassed in my grounds, as you have done; and when I thought fit, I tore them in pieces, and so, within ten days, I will do you. Go, get you down to your den again; and with that he beat them all the way thither. They lay, therefore, all day on Saturday in a lamentable case, as before. Now, when night was come, and when Mrs. Diffidence and her husband, the Giant, were got to bed, they began to renew their discourse of their prisoners; and withal the old Giant wondered, that he could neither by his blows nor his counsel bring them to an end. And with that his wife replied, I fear, said she, that they live in hope that some will come to relieve them, or that they have picklocks about them, by the means of which they hope to escape. And sayest thou so, my dear? said the Giant; I will, therefore, search them in the morning. {292} Well, on Saturday, about midnight, they began to pray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day. Now a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out in passionate speech: What a fool, quoth he, am I, thus to lie in a stinking Dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty. I have a Key in my bosom called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any Lock in Doubting Castle. Then said Hopeful, That's good news; good Brother pluck it out of thy bosom and try. A key in Christian's bosom, called Promise, opens any lock in Doubting Castle Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the Dungeon door, whose bolt (as he turned the Key) gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outward door that leads into the Castle-yard, and with his Key opened that door also. After he went to the iron Gate, for that must be opened too, but that Lock went damnable hard, yet the Key did open it. Then they thrust open the Gate to make their escape with speed; but that Gate as it opened made such a creaking, that it waked Giant Despair, who hastily rising to pursue his Prisoners, felt his limbs to fail, for his Fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and came to the King's High-way again, and so were safe, because they were out of his jurisdiction {294} Now, when they were over the stile, they began to contrive with themselves what they should do at that stile to prevent those that should come after from falling into the hands of Giant Despair. So they consented to erect there a pillar, and to engrave upon the side thereof this sentence--"Over this stile is the way to Doubting Castle, which is kept by Giant Despair, who despiseth the King of the Celestial Country, and seeks to destroy his holy pilgrims." Many, therefore, that followed after read what was written, and escaped the danger. This done, they sang as follows:-- Out of the way we went, and then we found What 'twas to tread upon forbidden ground; And let them that come after have a care, Lest heedlessness makes them, as we, to fare. Lest they for trespassing his prisoners are, Whose castle's Doubting, and whose name's Despair. {295} They went then till they came to the Delectable Mountains, which mountains belong to the Lord of that hill of which we have spoken before; so they went up to the mountains, to behold the gardens and orchards, the vineyards and fountains of water; where also they drank and washed themselves, and did freely eat of the vineyards. Now there were on the tops of these mountains Shepherds feeding their flocks, and they stood by the highway side. The Pilgrims therefore went to them, and leaning upon their staves, (as is common with weary pilgrims when they stand to talk with any by the way), they asked, Whose Delectable Mountains are these? And whose be the sheep that feed upon them? Mountains delectable they now ascend, Where Shepherds be, which to them do commend Alluring things, and things that cautious are, Pilgrims are steady kept by faith and fear. {296} SHEP. These mountains are Immanuel's Land, and they are within sight of his city; and the sheep also are his, and he laid down his life for them. [John 10:11] CHR. Is this the way to the Celestial City? SHEP. You are just in your way. CHR. How far is it thither? SHEP. Too far for any but those that shall get thither indeed. CHR. Is the way safe or dangerous? SHEP. Safe for those for whom it is to be safe; but the transgressors shall fall therein. [Hos. 14:9] CHR. Is there, in this place, any relief for pilgrims that are weary and faint in the way? SHEP. The Lord of these mountains hath given us a charge not to be forgetful to entertain strangers, therefore the good of the place is before you. [Heb. 13:1-2] {297} I saw also in my dream, that when the Shepherds perceived that they were wayfaring men, they also put questions to them, to which they made answer as in other places; as, Whence came you? and, How got you into the way? and, By what means have you so persevered therein? For but few of them that begin to come hither do show their face on these mountains. But when the Shepherds heard their answers, being pleased therewith, they looked very lovingly upon them, and said, Welcome to the Delectable Mountains. {298} The Shepherds, I say, whose names were Knowledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere, took them by the hand, and had them to their tents, and made them partake of that which was ready at present. They said, moreover, We would that ye should stay here awhile, to be acquainted with us; and yet more to solace yourselves with the good of these Delectable Mountains. They then told them, that they were content to stay; so they went to their rest that night, because it was very late. {299} Then I saw in my dream, that in the morning the Shepherds called up to Christian and Hopeful to walk with them upon the mountains; so they went forth with them, and walked a while, having a pleasant prospect on every side. Then said the Shepherds one to another, Shall we show these pilgrims some wonders? So when they had concluded to do it, they had them first to the top of a hill called Error, which was very steep on the furthest side, and bid them look down to the bottom. So Christian and Hopeful looked down, and saw at the bottom several men dashed all to pieces by a fall that they had from the top. Then said Christian, What meaneth this? The Shepherds answered, Have you not heard of them that were made to err by hearkening to Hymeneus and Philetus as concerning the faith of the resurrection of the body? [2 Tim. 2:17,18] They answered, Yes. Then said the Shepherds, Those that you see lie dashed in pieces at the bottom of this mountain are they; and they have continued to this day unburied, as you see, for an example to others to take heed how they clamber too high, or how they come too near the brink of this mountain. {300} Then I saw that they had them to the top of another mountain, and the name of that is Caution, and bid them look afar off; which, when they did, they perceived, as they thought, several men walking up and down among the tombs that were there; and they perceived that the men were blind, because they stumbled sometimes upon the tombs, and because they could not get out from among them. Then said Christian, What means this? {301} The Shepherds then answered, Did you not see a little below these mountains a stile, that led into a meadow, on the left hand of this way? They answered, Yes. Then said the Shepherds, From that stile there goes a path that leads directly to Doubting Castle, which is kept by Giant Despair, and these, pointing to them among the tombs, came once on pilgrimage, as you do now, even till they came to that same stile; and because the right way was rough in that place, they chose to go out of it into that meadow, and there were taken by Giant Despair, and cast into Doubting Castle; where, after they had been a while kept in the dungeon, he at last did put out their eyes, and led them among those tombs, where he has left them to wander to this very day, that the saying of the wise man might be fulfilled, "He that wandereth out of the way of understanding, shall remain in the congregation of the dead." [Pro. 21:16] Then Christian and Hopeful looked upon one another, with tears gushing out, but yet said nothing to the Shepherds. {302} Then I saw in my dream, that the Shepherds had them to another place, in a bottom, where was a door in the side of a hill, and they opened the door, and bid them look in. They looked in, therefore, and saw that within it was very dark and smoky; they also thought that they heard there a rumbling noise as of fire, and a cry of some tormented, and that they smelt the scent of brimstone. Then said Christian, What means this? The Shepherds told them, This is a by-way to hell, a way that hypocrites go in at; namely, such as sell their birthright, with Esau; such as sell their master, with Judas; such as blaspheme the gospel, with Alexander; and that lie and dissemble, with Ananias and Sapphira his wife. Then said Hopeful to the Shepherds, I perceive that these had on them, even every one, a show of pilgrimage, as we have now; had they not? {303} SHEP. Yes, and held it a long time too. HOPE. How far might they go on in pilgrimage in their day, since they notwithstanding were thus miserably cast away? SHEP. Some further, and some not so far, as these mountains. Then said the Pilgrims one to another, We have need to cry to the Strong for strength. SHEP. Ay, and you will have need to use it, when you have it, too. {304} By this time the Pilgrims had a desire to go forward, and the Shepherds a desire they should; so they walked together towards the end of the mountains. Then said the Shepherds one to another, Let us here show to the Pilgrims the gates of the Celestial City, if they have skill to look through our perspective glass. The Pilgrims then lovingly accepted the motion; so they had them to the top of a high hill, called Clear, and gave them their glass to look. {305} Then they essayed to look, but the remembrance of that last thing that the Shepherds had shown them, made their hands shake; by means of which impediment, they could not look steadily through the glass; yet they thought they saw something like the gate, and also some of the glory of the place. Then they went away, and sang this song-- Thus, by the Shepherds, secrets are reveal'd, Which from all other men are kept conceal'd. Come to the Shepherds, then, if you would see Things deep, things hid, and that mysterious be. {306} When they were about to depart, one of the Shepherds gave them a note of the way. Another of them bid them beware of the Flatterer. The third bid them take heed that they sleep not upon the Enchanted Ground. And the fourth bid them God-speed. So I awoke from my dream. {307} And I slept, and dreamed again, and saw the same two Pilgrims going down the mountains along the highway towards the city. Now, a little below these mountains, on the left hand, lieth the country of Conceit; from which country there comes into the way in which the Pilgrims walked, a little crooked lane. Here, therefore, they met with a very brisk lad, that came out of that country; and his name was Ignorance. So Christian asked him from what parts he came, and whither he was going. {308} IGNOR. Sir, I was born in the country that lieth off there a little on the left hand, and I am going to the Celestial City. CHR. But how do you think to get in at the gate? for you may find some difficulty there. IGNOR. As other people do, said he. CHR. But what have you to show at that gate, that may cause that the gate should be opened to you? IGNOR. I know my Lord's will, and I have been a good liver; I pay every man his own; I pray, fast, pay tithes, and give alms, and have left my country for whither I am going. {309} CHR. But thou camest not in at the wicket-gate that is at the head of this way; thou camest in hither through that same crooked lane, and therefore, I fear, however thou mayest think of thyself, when the reckoning day shall come, thou wilt have laid to thy charge that thou art a thief and a robber, instead of getting admittance into the city. IGNOR. Gentlemen, ye be utter strangers to me, I know you not; be content and follow the religion of your country, and I will follow the religion of mine. I hope all will be well. And as for the gate that you talk of, all the world knows that that is a great way off of our country. I cannot think that any man in all our parts doth so much as know the way to it, nor need they matter whether they do or no, since we have, as you see, a fine, pleasant green lane, that comes down from our country, the next way into the way. {310} When Christian saw that the man was "wise in his own conceit", he said to Hopeful, whisperingly, "There is more hope of a fool than of him." [Prov. 26:12] And said, moreover, "When he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool." [Eccl. 10:3] What, shall we talk further with him, or out-go him at present, and so leave him to think of what he hath heard already, and then stop again for him afterwards, and see if by degrees we can do any good to him? Then said Hopeful-- Let Ignorance a little while now muse On what is said, and let him not refuse Good counsel to embrace, lest he remain Still ignorant of what's the chiefest gain. God saith, those that no understanding have, Although he made them, them he will not save. HOPE. He further added, It is not good, I think, to say all to him at once; let us pass him by, if you will, and talk to him anon, even as he is able to bear it. {311} So they both went on, and Ignorance he came after. Now when they had passed him a little way, they entered into a very dark lane, where they met a man whom seven devils had bound with seven strong cords, and were carrying of him back to the door that they saw on the side of the hill. [Matt. 12:45, Prov. 5:22] Now good Christian began to tremble, and so did Hopeful his companion; yet as the devils led away the man, Christian looked to see if he knew him; and he thought it might be one Turn-away, that dwelt in the town of Apostasy. But he did not perfectly see his face, for he did hang his head like a thief that is found. But being once past, Hopeful looked after him, and espied on his back a paper with this inscription, "Wanton professor and damnable apostate". Then said Christian to his fellow, Now I call to remembrance, that which was told me of a thing that happened to a good man hereabout. The name of the man was Little-faith, but a good man, and he dwelt in the town of Sincere. The thing was this:--At the entering in at this passage, there comes down from Broad-way Gate, a lane called Dead Man's Lane; so called because of the murders that are commonly done there; and this Little-faith going on pilgrimage, as we do now, chanced to sit down there, and slept. Now there happened, at that time, to come down the lane, from Broad-way Gate, three sturdy rogues, and their names were Faint-heart, Mistrust, and Guilt, (three brothers), and they espying Little-faith, where he was, came galloping up with speed. Now the good man was just awake from his sleep, and was getting up to go on his journey. So they came up all to him, and with threatening language bid him stand. At this Little-faith looked as white as a clout, and had neither power to fight nor fly. Then said Faint-heart, Deliver thy purse. But he making no haste to do it (for he was loath to lose his money), Mistrust ran up to him, and thrusting his hand into his pocket, pulled out thence a bag of silver. Then he cried out, Thieves! Thieves! With that Guilt, with a great club that was in his hand, struck Little-faith on the head, and with that blow felled him flat to the ground, where he lay bleeding as one that would bleed to death. All this while the thieves stood by. But, at last, they hearing that some were upon the road, and fearing lest it should be one Great-grace, that dwells in the city of Good-confidence, they betook themselves to their heels, and left this good man to shift for himself. Now, after a while, Little-faith came to himself, and getting up, made shift to scrabble on his way. This was the story. {312} HOPE. But did they take from him all that ever he had? Chr. No; the place where his jewels were they never ransacked, so those he kept still. But, as I was told, the good man was much afflicted for his loss, for the thieves got most of his spending-money. That which they got not (as I said) were jewels, also he had a little odd money left, but scarce enough to bring him to his journey's end [1 Peter 4:18]; nay, if I was not misinformed, he was forced to beg as he went, to keep himself alive; for his jewels he might not sell. But beg, and do what he could, he went (as we say) with many a hungry belly the most part of the rest of the way. {313} HOPE. But is it not a wonder they got not from him his certificate, by which he was to receive his admittance at the Celestial Gate? CHR. It is a wonder; but they got not that, though they missed it not through any good cunning of his; for he, being dismayed with their coming upon him, had neither power nor skill to hide anything; so it was more by good Providence than by his endeavour, that they missed of that good thing. {314} HOPE. But it must needs be a comfort to him, that they got not his jewels from him. CHR. It might have been great comfort to him, had he used it as he should; but they that told me the story said, that he made but little use of it all the rest of the way, and that because of the dismay that he had in the taking away his money; indeed, he forgot it a great part of the rest of his journey; and besides, when at any time it came into his mind, and he began to be comforted therewith, then would fresh thoughts of his loss come again upon him, and those thoughts would swallow up all. [1 Peter 1:9] {315} HOPE. Alas! poor man! This could not but be a great grief to him. CHR. Grief! ay, a grief indeed. Would it not have been so to any of us, had we been used as he, to be robbed, and wounded too, and that in a strange place, as he was? It is a wonder he did not die with grief, poor heart! I was told that he scattered almost all the rest of the way with nothing but doleful and bitter complaints; telling also to all that overtook him, or that he overtook in the way as he went, where he was robbed, and how; who they were that did it, and what he lost; how he was wounded, and that he hardly escaped with his life. {316} HOPE. But it is a wonder that his necessity did not put him upon selling or pawning some of his jewels, that he might have wherewith to relieve himself in his journey. CHR. Thou talkest like one upon whose head is the shell to this very day; for what should he pawn them, or to whom should he sell them? In all that country where he was robbed, his jewels were not accounted of; nor did he want that relief which could from thence be administered to him. Besides, had his jewels been missing at the gate of the Celestial City, he had (and that he knew well enough) been excluded from an inheritance there; and that would have been worse to him than the appearance and villainy of ten thousand thieves. {317} HOPE. Why art thou so tart, my brother? Esau sold his birthright, and that for a mess of pottage, and that birthright was his greatest jewel; and if he, why might not Little-faith do so too? [Heb. 12:16] CHR. Esau did sell his birthright indeed, and so do many besides, and by so doing exclude themselves from the chief blessing, as also that caitiff did; but you must put a difference betwixt Esau and Little-faith, and also betwixt their estates. Esau's birthright was typical, but Little-faith's jewels were not so; Esau's belly was his god, but Little-faith's belly was not so; Esau's want lay in his fleshly appetite, Little-faith's did not so. Besides, Esau could see no further than to the fulfilling of his lusts; "Behold, I am at the point to die, (said he), and what profit shall this birthright do me?" [Gen. 25:32] But Little-faith, though it was his lot to have but a little faith, was by his little faith kept from such extravagances, and made to see and prize his jewels more than to sell them, as Esau did his birthright. You read not anywhere that Esau had faith, no, not so much as a little; therefore, no marvel if, where the flesh only bears sway, (as it will in that man where no faith is to resist), if he sells his birthright, and his soul and all, and that to the devil of hell; for it is with such, as it is with the ass, who in her occasions cannot be turned away. [Jer. 2:24] When their minds are set upon their lusts, they will have them whatever they cost. But Little-faith was of another temper, his mind was on things divine; his livelihood was upon things that were spiritual, and from above; therefore, to what end should he that is of such a temper sell his jewels (had there been any that would have bought them) to fill his mind with empty things? Will a man give a penny to fill his belly with hay; or can you persuade the turtle-dove to live upon carrion like the crow? Though faithless ones can, for carnal lusts, pawn, or mortgage, or sell what they have, and themselves outright to boot; yet they that have faith, saving faith, though but a little of it, cannot do so. Here, therefore, my brother, is thy mistake. {318} HOPE. I acknowledge it; but yet your severe reflection had almost made me angry. CHR. Why, I did but compare thee to some of the birds that are of the brisker sort, who will run to and fro in untrodden paths, with the shell upon their heads; but pass by that, and consider the matter under debate, and all shall be well betwixt thee and me. HOPE. But, Christian, these three fellows, I am persuaded in my heart, are but a company of cowards; would they have run else, think you, as they did, at the noise of one that was coming on the road? Why did not Little-faith pluck up a greater heart? He might, methinks, have stood one brush with them, and have yielded when there had been no remedy. CHR. That they are cowards, many have said, but few have found it so in the time of trial. As for a great heart, Little-faith had none; and I perceive by thee, my brother, hadst thou been the man concerned, thou art but for a brush, and then to yield. And, verily, since this is the height of thy stomach, now they are at a distance from us, should they appear to thee as they did to him they might put thee to second thoughts. {319} But, consider again, they are but journeymen thieves, they serve under the king of the bottomless pit, who, if need be, will come into their aid himself, and his voice is as the roaring of a lion. [1 Pet. 5:8] I myself have been engaged as this Little-faith was, and I found it a terrible thing. These three villains set upon me, and I beginning, like a Christian, to resist, they gave but a call, and in came their master. I would, as the saying is, have given my life for a penny, but that, as God would have it, I was clothed with armour of proof. Ay, and yet, though I was so harnessed, I found it hard work to quit myself like a man. No man can tell what in that combat attends us, but he that hath been in the battle himself. {320} HOPE. Well, but they ran, you see, when they did but suppose that one Great-grace was in the way. CHR. True, they have often fled, both they and their master, when Great-grace hath but appeared; and no marvel; for he is the King's champion. But, I trow, you will put some difference betwixt Little-faith and the King's champion. All the King's subjects are not his champions, nor can they, when tried, do such feats of war as he. Is it meet to think that a little child should handle Goliath as David did? Or that there should be the strength of an ox in a wren? Some are strong, some are weak; some have great faith, some have little. This man was one of the weak, and therefore he went to the wall. {321} HOPE. I would it had been Great-grace for their sakes. CHR. If it had been, he might have had his hands full; for I must tell you, that though Great-grace is excellent good at his weapons, and has, and can, so long as he keeps them at sword's point, do well enough with them; yet, if they get within him, even Faint-heart, Mistrust, or the other, it shall go hard but they will throw up his heels. And when a man is down, you know, what can he do? {322} Whoso looks well upon Great-grace's face, shall see those scars and cuts there, that shall easily give demonstration of what I say. Yea, once I heard that he should say, (and that when he was in the combat), "We despaired even of life." How did these sturdy rogues and their fellows make David groan, mourn, and roar? Yea, Heman, and Hezekiah, too, though champions in their day, were forced to bestir them, when by these assaulted; and yet, notwithstanding, they had their coats soundly brushed by them. Peter, upon a time, would go try what he could do; but though some do say of him that he is the prince of the apostles, they handled him so, that they made him at last afraid of a sorry girl. {323} Leviathan's sturdiness Besides, their king is at their whistle. He is never out of hearing; and if at any time they be put to the worst, he, if possible, comes in to help them; and of him it is said, The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon; he esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. The arrow cannot make him flee; sling stones are turned with him into stubble. Darts are counted as stubble: he laugheth at the shaking of a spear. [Job 41:26-29] What can a man do in this case? It is true, if a man could, at every turn, have Job's horse, and had skill and courage to ride him, he might do notable things; for his neck is clothed with thunder, he will not be afraid of the grasshopper; the glory of his nostrils is terrible: he paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength, he goeth on to meet the armed men. He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted, neither turneth he back from the sword. The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear, and the shield. He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage, neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha! and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting. [Job 39:19-25] {324} But for such footmen as thee and I are, let us never desire to meet with an enemy, nor vaunt as if we could do better, when we hear of others that they have been foiled, Nor be tickled at the thoughts of our own manhood; for such commonly come by the worst when tried. Witness Peter, of whom I made mention before. He would swagger, ay, he would; he would, as his vain mind prompted him to say, do better, and stand more for his Master than all men; but who so foiled, and run down by these villains, as he? When, therefore, we hear that such robberies are done on the King's highway, two things become us to do: {325} 1. To go out harnessed, and to be sure to take a shield with us; for it was for want of that, that he that laid so lustily at Leviathan could not make him yield; for, indeed, if that be wanting, he fears us not at all. Therefore, he that had skill hath said, "Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." [Eph. 6:16] {326} 2. It is good, also, that we desire of the King a convoy, yea, that he will go with us himself. This made David rejoice when in the Valley of the Shadow of Death; and Moses was rather for dying where he stood, than to go one step without his God. [Exo. 33:15] Oh, my brother, if he will but go along with us, what need we be afraid of ten thousands that shall set themselves against us? [Ps. 3:5-8, 27:1-3] But, without him, the proud helpers "fall under the slain". [Isa. 10:4] {327} I, for my part, have been in the fray before now; and though, through the goodness of him that is best, I am, as you see, alive, yet I cannot boast of my manhood. Glad shall I be, if I meet with no more such brunts; though I fear we are not got beyond all danger. However, since the lion and the bear have not as yet devoured me, I hope God will also deliver us from the next uncircumcised Philistine. Then sang Christian-- Poor Little-faith! Hast been among the thieves? Wast robb'd? Remember this, whoso believes, And gets more faith, shall then a victor be Over ten thousand, else scarce over three. {328} So they went on and Ignorance followed. They went then till they came at a place where they saw a way put itself into their way, and seemed withal to lie as straight as the way which they should go: and here they knew not which of the two to take, for both seemed straight before them; therefore, here they stood still to consider. And as they were thinking about the way, behold a man, black of flesh, but covered with a very light robe, came to them, and asked them why they stood there. They answered they were going to the Celestial City, but knew not which of these ways to take. Follow me, said the man, it is thither that I am going. So they followed him in the way that but now came into the road, which by degrees turned, and turned them so from the city that they desired to go to, that, in little time, their faces were turned away from it; yet they followed him. But by and by, before they were aware, he led them both within the compass of a net, in which they were both so entangled that they knew not what to do; and with that the white robe fell off the black man's back. Then they saw where they were. Wherefore, there they lay crying some time, for they could not get themselves out. {329} CHR. Then said Christian to his fellow, Now do I see myself in error. Did not the Shepherds bid us beware of the flatterers? As is the saying of the wise man, so we have found it this day. A man that flattereth his neighbour, spreadeth a net for his feet. [Prov. 29:5] HOPE. They also gave us a note of directions about the way, for our more sure finding thereof; but therein we have also forgotten to read, and have not kept ourselves from the paths of the destroyer. Here David was wiser than we; for, saith he, "Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips, I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer." [Ps. 17:4] Thus they lay bewailing themselves in the net. At last they espied a Shining One coming towards them with a whip of small cord in his hand. When he was come to the place where they were, he asked them whence they came, and what they did there. They told him that they were poor pilgrims going to Zion, but were led out of their way by a black man, clothed in white, who bid us, said they, follow him, for he was going thither too. Then said he with the whip, It is Flatterer, a false apostle, that hath transformed himself into an angel of light. [Prov. 29:5, Dan. 11:32, 2 Cor. 11:13,14] So he rent the net, and let the men out. Then said he to them, Follow me, that I may set you in your way again. So he led them back to the way which they had left to follow the Flatterer. Then he asked them, saying, Where did you lie the last night? They said, With the Shepherds upon the Delectable Mountains. He asked them then if they had not of those Shepherds a note of direction for the way. They answered, Yes. But did you, said he, when you were at a stand, pluck out and read your note? They answered, No. He asked them, Why? They said, they forgot. He asked, moreover, if the Shepherds did not bid them beware of the Flatterer? They answered, Yes, but we did not imagine, said they, that this fine-spoken man had been he. [Rom. 16:18] {330} Then I saw in my dream that he commanded them to lie down; which, when they did, he chastised them sore, to teach them the good way wherein they should walk [Deut. 25:2]; and as he chastised them he said, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous, therefore, and repent." [2 Chron. 6:26,27, Rev. 3:19] This done, he bid them go on their way, and take good heed to the other directions of the shepherds. So they thanked him for all his kindness, and went softly along the right way, singing-- Come hither, you that walk along the way; See how the pilgrims fare that go astray. They catched are in an entangling net, 'Cause they good counsel lightly did forget: 'Tis true they rescued were, but yet you see, They're scourged to boot. Let this your caution be. {331} Now, after a while, they perceived, afar off, one coming softly and alone, all along the highway to meet them. Then said Christian to his fellow, Yonder is a man with his back towards Zion, and he is coming to meet us. HOPE. I see him; let us take heed to ourselves now, lest he should prove a flatterer also. So he drew nearer and nearer, and at last came up unto them. His name was Atheist, and he asked them whither they were going. CHR. We are going to Mount Zion. Then Atheist fell into a very great laughter. CHR. What is the meaning of your laughter? {332} ATHEIST. I laugh to see what ignorant persons you are, to take upon you so tedious a journey, and you are like to have nothing but your travel for your pains. CHR. Why, man, do you think we shall not be received? ATHEIST. Received! There is no such place as you dream of in all this world. CHR. But there is in the world to come. {333} ATHEIST. When I was at home in mine own country, I heard as you now affirm, and from that hearing went out to see, and have been seeking this city this twenty years; but find no more of it than I did the first day I set out. [Jer. 22:12, Eccl. 10:15] CHR. We have both heard and believe that there is such a place to be found. ATHEIST. Had not I, when at home, believed, I had not come thus far to seek; but finding none, (and yet I should, had there been such a place to be found, for I have gone to seek it further than you), I am going back again, and will seek to refresh myself with the things that I then cast away, for hopes of that which, I now see, is not. {334} CHR. Then said Christian to Hopeful his fellow, Is it true which this man hath said? Hopeful's gracious answer Hope. Take heed, he is one of the flatterers; remember what it hath cost us once already for our hearkening to such kind of fellows. What! no Mount Zion? Did we not see, from the Delectable Mountains the gate of the city? Also, are we not now to walk by faith? Let us go on, said Hopeful, lest the man with the whip overtake us again. [2 Cor. 5:7] You should have taught me that lesson, which I will round you in the ears withal: "Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge." [Prov. 19:27] I say, my brother, cease to hear him, and let us "believe to the saving of the soul". [Heb. 10:39] {335} CHR. My brother, I did not put the question to thee for that I doubted of the truth of our belief myself, but to prove thee, and to fetch from thee a fruit of the honesty of thy heart. As for this man, I know that he is blinded by the god of this world. Let thee and I go on, knowing that we have belief of the truth, "and no lie is of the truth". [1 John 2:21] HOPE. Now do I rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So they turned away from the man; and he, laughing at them, went his way. {336} I saw then in my dream, that they went till they came into a certain country, whose air naturally tended to make one drowsy, if he came a stranger into it. And here Hopeful began to be very dull and heavy of sleep; wherefore he said unto Christian, I do now begin to grow so drowsy that I can scarcely hold up mine eyes, let us lie down here and take one nap. CHR. By no means, said the other, lest sleeping, we never awake more. HOPE. Why, my brother? Sleep is sweet to the labouring man; we may be refreshed if we take a nap. CHR. Do you not remember that one of the Shepherds bid us beware of the Enchanted Ground? He meant by that that we should beware of sleeping; "Therefore let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch and be sober." [1 Thess. 5:6] {337} HOPE. I acknowledge myself in a fault, and had I been here alone I had by sleeping run the danger of death. I see it is true that the wise man saith, Two are better than one. Hitherto hath thy company been my mercy, and thou shalt have a good reward for thy labour. [Eccl. 9:9] CHR. Now then, said Christian, to prevent drowsiness in this place, let us fall into good discourse. HOPE. With all my heart, said the other. CHR. Where shall we begin? HOPE. Where God began with us. But do you begin, if you please. CHR. I will sing you first this song:-- When saints do sleepy grow, let them come hither, And hear how these two pilgrims talk together: Yea, let them learn of them, in any wise, Thus to keep ope their drowsy slumb'ring eyes. Saints' fellowship, if it be managed well, Keeps them awake, and that in spite of hell. {338} CHR. Then Christian began and said, I will ask you a question. How came you to think at first of so doing as you do now? HOPE. Do you mean, how came I at first to look after the good of my soul? CHR. Yes, that is my meaning. HOPE. I continued a great while in the delight of those things which were seen and sold at our fair; things which, I believe now, would have, had I continued in them, still drowned me in perdition and destruction. CHR. What things are they? Hopeful's life before conversion HOPE. All the treasures and riches of the world. Also, I delighted much in rioting, revelling, drinking, swearing, lying, uncleanness, Sabbath-breaking, and what not, that tended to destroy the soul. But I found at last, by hearing and considering of things that are divine, which indeed I heard of you, as also of beloved Faithful that was put to death for his faith and good living in Vanity Fair, that "the end of these things is death". [Rom. 6:21-23] And that for these things' sake "cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience". [Eph. 5:6] CHR. And did you presently fall under the power of this conviction? {339} HOPE. No, I was not willing presently to know the evil of sin, nor the damnation that follows upon the commission of it; but endeavoured, when my mind at first began to be shaken with the Word, to shut mine eyes against the light thereof. CHR. But what was the cause of your carrying of it thus to the first workings of God's blessed Spirit upon you? {340} HOPE. The causes were, 1. I was ignorant that this was the work of God upon me. I never thought that, by awakenings for sin, God at first begins the conversion of a sinner. 2. Sin was yet very sweet to my flesh, and I was loath to leave it. 3. I could not tell how to part with mine old companions, their presence and actions were so desirable unto me. 4. The hours in which convictions were upon me were such troublesome and such heart-affrighting hours that I could not bear, no not so much as the remembrance of them, upon my heart. CHR. Then, as it seems, sometimes you got rid of your trouble. HOPE. Yes, verily, but it would come into my mind again, and then I should be as bad, nay, worse, than I was before. CHR. Why, what was it that brought your sins to mind again? {341} HOPE. Many things; as, 1. If I did but meet a good man in the streets; or, 2. If I have heard any read in the Bible; or, 3. If mine head did begin to ache; or, 4. If I were told that some of my neighbours were sick; or, 5. If I heard the bell toll for some that were dead; or, 6. If I thought of dying myself; or, 7. If I heard that sudden death happened to others; 8. But especially, when I thought of myself, that I must quickly come to judgment. {342} CHR. And could you at any time, with ease, get off the guilt of sin, when by any of these ways it came upon you? HOPE. No, not I, for then they got faster hold of my conscience; and then, if I did but think of going back to sin, (though my mind was turned against it), it would be double torment to me. CHR. And how did you do then? HOPE. I thought I must endeavour to mend my life; for else, thought I, I am sure to be damned. {343} CHR. And did you endeavour to mend? HOPE. Yes; and fled from not only my sins, but sinful company too; and betook me to religious duties, as prayer, reading, weeping for sin, speaking truth to my neighbours, &c. These things did I, with many others, too much here to relate. CHR. And did you think yourself well then? HOPE. Yes, for a while; but at the last, my trouble came tumbling upon me again, and that over the neck of all my reformations. {344} CHR. How came that about, since you were now reformed? HOPE. There were several things brought it upon me, especially such sayings as these: "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." [Isa. 64:6] "By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." [Gal. 2:16] "When ye shall have done all those things, say, We are unprofitable", [Luke 17:10] with many more such like. From whence I began to reason with myself thus: If ALL my righteousnesses are filthy rags; if, by the deeds of the law, NO man can be justified; and if, when we have done ALL, we are yet unprofitable, then it is but a folly to think of heaven by the law. I further thought thus: If a man runs a hundred pounds into the shopkeeper's debt, and after that shall pay for all that he shall fetch; yet, if this old debt stands still in the book uncrossed, for that the shopkeeper may sue him, and cast him into prison till he shall pay the debt. CHR. Well, and how did you apply this to yourself? HOPE. Why; I thought thus with myself. I have, by my sins, run a great way into God's book, and that my now reforming will not pay off that score; therefore I should think still, under all my present amendments, But how shall I be freed from that damnation that I have brought myself in danger of by my former transgressions? {345} CHR. A very good application: but, pray, go on. HOPE. Another thing that hath troubled me, even since my late amendments, is, that if I look narrowly into the best of what I do now, I still see sin, new sin, mixing itself with the best of that I do; so that now I am forced to conclude, that notwithstanding my former fond conceits of myself and duties, I have committed sin enough in one duty to send me to hell, though my former life had been faultless. CHR. And what did you do then? {346} HOPE. Do! I could not tell what to do, until I brake my mind to Faithful, for he and I were well acquainted. And he told me, that unless I could obtain the righteousness of a man that never had sinned, neither mine own, nor all the righteousness of the world could save me. CHR. And did you think he spake true? HOPE. Had he told me so when I was pleased and satisfied with mine own amendment, I had called him fool for his pains; but now, since I see mine own infirmity, and the sin that cleaves to my best performance, I have been forced to be of his opinion. {347} CHR. But did you think, when at first he suggested it to you, that there was such a man to be found, of whom it might justly be said that he never committed sin? HOPE. I must confess the words at first sounded strangely, but after a little more talk and company with him, I had full conviction about it. CHR. And did you ask him what man this was, and how you must be justified by him? HOPE. Yes, and he told me it was the Lord Jesus, that dwelleth on the right hand of the Most High. And thus, said he, you must be justified by him, even by trusting to what he hath done by himself, in the days of his flesh, and suffered when he did hang on the tree. I asked him further, how that man's righteousness could be of that efficacy to justify another before God? And he told me he was the mighty God, and did what he did, and died the death also, not for himself, but for me; to whom his doings, and the worthiness of them, should be imputed, if I believed on him. [Heb. 10, Rom. 6, Col. 1, 1 Pet. 1] {348} CHR. And what did you do then? HOPE. I made my objections against my believing, for that I thought he was not willing to save me. CHR. And what said Faithful to you then? HOPE. He bid me go to him and see. Then I said it was presumption; but he said, No, for I was invited to come. [Matt. 11:28] Then he gave me a book of Jesus, his inditing, to encourage me the more freely to come; and he said, concerning that book, that every jot and tittle thereof stood firmer than heaven and earth. [Matt. 24:35] Then I asked him, What I must do when I came; and he told me, I must entreat upon my knees, with all my heart and soul, the Father to reveal him to me. [Ps. 95:6, Dan. 6:10, Jer. 29:12,13] Then I asked him further, how I must make my supplication to him? And he said, Go, and thou shalt find him upon a mercy-seat, where he sits all the year long, to give pardon and forgiveness to them that come. I told him that I knew not what to say when I came. And he bid me say to this effect: God be merciful to me a sinner, and make me to know and believe in Jesus Christ; for I see, that if his righteousness had not been, or I have not faith in that righteousness, I am utterly cast away. Lord, I have heard that thou art a merciful God, and hast ordained that thy Son Jesus Christ should be the Saviour of the world; and moreover, that thou art willing to bestow him upon such a poor sinner as I am, (and I am a sinner indeed); Lord, take therefore this opportunity and magnify thy grace in the salvation of my soul, through thy Son Jesus Christ. Amen. [Exo. 25:22, Lev. 16:2, Num. 7:89, Heb. 4:16] {349} CHR. And did you do as you were bidden? HOPE. Yes; over, and over, and over. CHR. And did the Father reveal his Son to you? HOPE. Not at the first, nor second, nor third, nor fourth, nor fifth; no, nor at the sixth time neither. CHR. What did you do then? HOPE. What! why I could not tell what to do. CHR. Had you not thoughts of leaving off praying? HOPE. Yes; an hundred times twice told. CHR. And what was the reason you did not? HOPE. I believed that that was true which had been told me, to wit, that without the righteousness of this Christ, all the world could not save me; and therefore, thought I with myself, if I leave off I die, and I can but die at the throne of grace. And withal, this came into my mind, "Though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." [Heb. 2:3] So I continued praying until the Father showed me his Son. {350} CHR. And how was he revealed unto you? HOPE. I did not see him with my bodily eyes, but with the eyes of my understanding; [Eph. 1:18,19] and thus it was: One day I was very sad, I think sadder than at any one time in my life, and this sadness was through a fresh sight of the greatness and vileness of my sins. And as I was then looking for nothing but hell, and the everlasting damnation of my soul, suddenly, as I thought, I saw the Lord Jesus Christ look down from heaven upon me, and saying, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." [Acts 16:30,31] {351} But I replied, Lord, I am a great, a very great sinner. And he answered, "My grace is sufficient for thee." [2 Cor.12:9] Then I said, But, Lord, what is believing? And then I saw from that saying, "He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst", that believing and coming was all one; and that he that came, that is, ran out in his heart and affections after salvation by Christ, he indeed believed in Christ. [John 6:35] Then the water stood in mine eyes, and I asked further. But, Lord, may such a great sinner as I am be indeed accepted of thee, and be saved by thee? And I heard him say, "And him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out." [John 6:37] Then I said, But how, Lord, must I consider of thee in my coming to thee, that my faith may be placed aright upon thee? Then he said, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." [1 Tim. 1:15] "He is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." [Rom. 10:4] "He died for our sins, and rose again for our justification." [Rom. 4:25] "He loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood." [Rev. 1:5] "He is mediator betwixt God and us." [1 Tim. 2:5] "He ever liveth to make intercession for us." [Heb. 7:24,25] From all which I gathered, that I must look for righteousness in his person, and for satisfaction for my sins by his blood; that what he did in obedience to his Father's law, and in submitting to the penalty thereof, was not for himself, but for him that will accept it for his salvation, and be thankful. And now was my heart full of joy, mine eyes full of tears, and mine affections running over with love to the name, people, and ways of Jesus Christ. {352} CHR. This was a revelation of Christ to your soul indeed; but tell me particularly what effect this had upon your spirit. HOPE. It made me see that all the world, notwithstanding all the righteousness thereof, is in a state of condemnation. It made me see that God the Father, though he be just, can justly justify the coming sinner. It made me greatly ashamed of the vileness of my former life, and confounded me with the sense of mine own ignorance; for there never came thought into my heart before now that showed me so the beauty of Jesus Christ. It made me love a holy life, and long to do something for the honour and glory of the name of the Lord Jesus; yea, I thought that had I now a thousand gallons of blood in my body, I could spill it all for the sake of the Lord Jesus. {353} I saw then in my dream that Hopeful looked back and saw Ignorance, whom they had left behind, coming after. Look, said he to Christian, how far yonder youngster loitereth behind. CHR. Ay, ay, I see him; he careth not for our company. HOPE. But I trow it would not have hurt him had he kept pace with us hitherto. CHR. That is true; but I warrant you he thinketh otherwise. HOPE. That, I think, he doth; but, however, let us tarry for him. So they did. {354} Then Christian said to him, Come away, man, why do you stay so behind? IGNOR. I take my pleasure in walking alone, even more a great deal than in company, unless I like it the better. Then said Christian to Hopeful, (but softly), Did I not tell you he cared not for our company? But, however, said he, come up, and let us talk away the time in this solitary place. Then directing his speech to Ignorance, he said, Come, how do you? How stands it between God and your soul now? {355} Ignorance's hope, and the ground of it IGNOR. I hope well; for I am always full of good motions, that come into my mind, to comfort me as I walk. CHR. What good motions? pray, tell us. IGNOR. Why, I think of God and heaven. CHR. So do the devils and damned souls. IGNOR. But I think of them and desire them. CHR. So do many that are never like to come there. "The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing." [Prov. 13:4] IGNOR. But I think of them, and leave all for them. CHR. That I doubt; for leaving all is a hard matter: yea, a harder matter than many are aware of. But why, or by what, art thou persuaded that thou hast left all for God and heaven. {356} IGNOR. My heart tells me so. CHR. The wise man says, "He that trusts his own heart is a fool." [Prov. 28:26] IGNOR. This is spoken of an evil heart, but mine is a good one. CHR. But how dost thou prove that? IGNOR. It comforts me in hopes of heaven. CHR. That may be through its deceitfulness; for a man's heart may minister comfort to him in the hopes of that thing for which he yet has no ground to hope. IGNOR. But my heart and life agree together, and therefore my hope is well grounded. CHR. Who told thee that thy heart and life agree together? IGNOR. My heart tells me so. CHR. Ask my fellow if I be a thief! Thy heart tells thee so! Except the Word of God beareth witness in this matter, other testimony is of no value. {357} IGNOR. But is it not a good heart that hath good thoughts? and is not that a good life that is according to God's commandments? CHR. Yes, that is a good heart that hath good thoughts, and that is a good life that is according to God's commandments; but it is one thing, indeed, to have these, and another thing only to think so. IGNOR. Pray, what count you good thoughts, and a life according to God's commandments? CHR. There are good thoughts of divers kinds; some respecting ourselves, some God, some Christ, and some other things. IGNOR. What be good thoughts respecting ourselves? CHR. Such as agree with the Word of God. {358} IGNOR. When do our thoughts of ourselves agree with the Word of God? CHR. When we pass the same judgment upon ourselves which the Word passes. To explain myself--the Word of God saith of persons in a natural condition, "There is none righteous, there is none that doeth good." [Rom. 3] It saith also, that "every imagination of the heart of man is only evil, and that continually." [Gen. 6:5] And again, "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." [Rom. 8:21] Now then, when we think thus of ourselves, having sense thereof, then are our thoughts good ones, because according to the Word of God. IGNOR. I will never believe that my heart is thus bad. CHR. Therefore thou never hadst one good thought concerning thyself in thy life. But let me go on. As the Word passeth a judgment upon our heart, so it passeth a judgment upon our ways; and when OUR thoughts of our hearts and ways agree with the judgment which the Word giveth of both, then are both good, because agreeing thereto. {359} IGNOR. Make out your meaning. CHR. Why, the Word of God saith that man's ways are crooked ways; not good, but perverse. [Ps. 125:5, Prov. 2:15] It saith they are naturally out of the good way, that they have not known it. [Rom. 3] Now, when a man thus thinketh of his ways,--I say, when he doth sensibly, and with heart-humiliation, thus think, then hath he good thoughts of his own ways, because his thoughts now agree with the judgment of the Word of God. {360} IGNOR. What are good thoughts concerning God? CHR. Even as I have said concerning ourselves, when our thoughts of God do agree with what the Word saith of him; and that is, when we think of his being and attributes as the Word hath taught, of which I cannot now discourse at large; but to speak of him with reference to us: Then we have right thoughts of God, when we think that he knows us better than we know ourselves, and can see sin in us when and where we can see none in ourselves; when we think he knows our inmost thoughts, and that our heart, with all its depths, is always open unto his eyes; also, when we think that all our righteousness stinks in his nostrils, and that, therefore, he cannot abide to see us stand before him in any confidence, even in all our best performances. {361} IGNOR. Do you think that I am such a fool as to think God can see no further than I? or, that I would come to God in the best of my performances? CHR. Why, how dost thou think in this matter? IGNOR. Why, to be short, I think I must believe in Christ for justification. CHR. How! think thou must believe in Christ, when thou seest not thy need of him! Thou neither seest thy original nor actual infirmities; but hast such an opinion of thyself, and of what thou dost, as plainly renders thee to be one that did never see a necessity of Christ's personal righteousness to justify thee before God. How, then, dost thou say, I believe in Christ? {362} IGNOR. I believe well enough for all that. CHR. How dost thou believe? IGNOR. I believe that Christ died for sinners, and that I shall be justified before God from the curse, through his gracious acceptance of my obedience to his law. Or thus, Christ makes my duties, that are religious, acceptable to his Father, by virtue of his merits; and so shall I be justified. {363} CHR. Let me give an answer to this confession of thy faith:-- 1. Thou believest with a fantastical faith; for this faith is nowhere described in the Word. 2. Thou believest with a false faith; because it taketh justification from the personal righteousness of Christ, and applies it to thy own. 3. This faith maketh not Christ a justifier of thy person, but of thy actions; and of thy person for thy actions' sake, which is false. 4. Therefore, this faith is deceitful, even such as will leave thee under wrath, in the day of God Almighty; for true justifying faith puts the soul, as sensible of its condition by the law, upon flying for refuge unto Christ's righteousness, which righteousness of his is not an act of grace, by which he maketh for justification, thy obedience accepted with God; but his personal obedience to the law, in doing and suffering for us what that required at our hands; this righteousness, I say, true faith accepteth; under the skirt of which, the soul being shrouded, and by it presented as spotless before God, it is accepted, and acquit from condemnation. {364} IGNOR. What! would you have us trust to what Christ, in his own person, has done without us? This conceit would loosen the reins of our lust, and tolerate us to live as we list; for what matter how we live, if we may be justified by Christ's personal righteousness from all, when we believe it? CHR. Ignorance is thy name, and as thy name is, so art thou; even this thy answer demonstrateth what I say. Ignorant thou art of what justifying righteousness is, and as ignorant how to secure thy soul, through the faith of it, from the heavy wrath of God. Yea, thou also art ignorant of the true effects of saving faith in this righteousness of Christ, which is, to bow and win over the heart to God in Christ, to love his name, his word, ways, and people, and not as thou ignorantly imaginest. HOPE. Ask him if ever he had Christ revealed to him from heaven. {365} IGNOR. What! you are a man for revelations! I believe that what both you, and all the rest of you, say about that matter, is but the fruit of distracted brains. HOPE. Why, man! Christ is so hid in God from the natural apprehensions of the flesh, that he cannot by any man be savingly known, unless God the Father reveals him to them. {366} IGNOR. That is your faith, but not mine; yet mine, I doubt not, is as good as yours, though I have not in my head so many whimsies as you. CHR. Give me leave to put in a word. You ought not so slightly to speak of this matter; for this I will boldly affirm, even as my good companion hath done, that no man can know Jesus Christ but by the revelation of the Father; [Matt. 11:27] yea, and faith too, by which the soul layeth hold upon Christ, if it be right, must be wrought by the exceeding greatness of his mighty power; the working of which faith, I perceive, poor Ignorance, thou art ignorant of. [1 Cor. 12:3, Eph. 1:18,19] Be awakened, then, see thine own wretchedness, and fly to the Lord Jesus; and by his righteousness, which is the righteousness of God, for he himself is God, thou shalt be delivered from condemnation. {367} IGNOR. You go so fast, I cannot keep pace with you. Do you go on before; I must stay a while behind. Then they said-- Well, Ignorance, wilt thou yet foolish be, To slight good counsel, ten times given thee? And if thou yet refuse it, thou shalt know, Ere long, the evil of thy doing so. Remember, man, in time, stoop, do not fear; Good counsel taken well, saves: therefore hear. But if thou yet shalt slight it, thou wilt be The loser, (Ignorance), I'll warrant thee. Then Christian addressed thus himself to his fellow:-- CHR. Well, come, my good Hopeful, I perceive that thou and I must walk by ourselves again. {368} So I saw in my dream that they went on apace before, and Ignorance he came hobbling after. Then said Christian to his companion, It pities me much for this poor man, it will certainly go ill with him at last. HOPE. Alas! there are abundance in our town in his condition, whole families, yea, whole streets, and that of pilgrims too; and if there be so many in our parts, how many, think you, must there be in the place where he was born? CHR. Indeed the Word saith, "He hath blinded their eyes, lest they should see", &c. But now we are by ourselves, what do you think of such men? Have they at no time, think you, convictions of sin, and so consequently fears that their state is dangerous? HOPE. Nay, do you answer that question yourself, for you are the elder man. CHR. Then I say, sometimes (as I think) they may; but they being naturally ignorant, understand not that such convictions tend to their good; and therefore they do desperately seek to stifle them, and presumptuously continue to flatter themselves in the way of their own hearts. {369} HOPE. I do believe, as you say, that fear tends much to men's good, and to make them right, at their beginning to go on pilgrimage. CHR. Without all doubt it doth, if it be right; for so says the Word, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." [Prov. 1:7, 9:10, Job 28:28, Ps. 111:10] {370} HOPE. How will you describe right fear? CHR. True or right fear is discovered by three things:-- 1. By its rise; it is caused by saving convictions for sin. 2. It driveth the soul to lay fast hold of Christ for salvation. 3. It begetteth and continueth in the soul a great reverence of God, his Word, and ways, keeping it tender, and making it afraid to turn from them, to the right hand or to the left, to anything that may dishonour God, break its peace, grieve the Spirit, or cause the enemy to speak reproachfully. HOPE. Well said; I believe you have said the truth. Are we now almost got past the Enchanted Ground? CHR. Why, art thou weary of this discourse? HOPE. No, verily, but that I would know where we are. {371} CHR. We have not now above two miles further to go thereon. But let us return to our matter. Now the ignorant know not that such convictions as tend to put them in fear are for their good, and therefore they seek to stifle them. HOPE. How do they seek to stifle them? {372} CHR. 1. They think that those fears are wrought by the devil, (though indeed they are wrought of God); and, thinking so, they resist them as things that directly tend to their overthrow. 2. They also think that these fears tend to the spoiling of their faith, when, alas, for them, poor men that they are, they have none at all! and therefore they harden their hearts against them. 3. They presume they ought not to fear; and, therefore, in despite of them, wax presumptuously confident. 4. They see that those fears tend to take away from them their pitiful old self-holiness, and therefore they resist them with all their might. {373} HOPE. I know something of this myself; for, before I knew myself, it was so with me. CHR. Well, we will leave, at this time, our neighbour Ignorance by himself, and fall upon another profitable question. HOPE. With all my heart, but you shall still begin. CHR. Well then, did you not know, about ten years ago, one Temporary in your parts, who was a forward man in religion then? HOPE. Know him! yes, he dwelt in Graceless, a town about two miles off of Honesty, and he dwelt next door to one Turnback. {374} CHR. Right, he dwelt under the same roof with him. Well, that man was much awakened once; I believe that then he had some sight of his sins, and of the wages that were due thereto. HOPE. I am of your mind, for, my house not being above three miles from him, he would ofttimes come to me, and that with many tears. Truly I pitied the man, and was not altogether without hope of him; but one may see, it is not every one that cries, Lord, Lord. CHR. He told me once that he was resolved to go on pilgrimage, as we do now; but all of a sudden he grew acquainted with one Save-self, and then he became a stranger to me. {375} HOPE. Now, since we are talking about him, let us a little inquire into the reason of the sudden backsliding of him and such others. CHR. It may be very profitable, but do you begin. HOPE. Well, then, there are in my judgment four reasons for it:-- {376} 1. Though the consciences of such men are awakened, yet their minds are not changed; therefore, when the power of guilt weareth away, that which provoked them to be religious ceaseth, wherefore they naturally turn to their own course again, even as we see the dog that is sick of what he has eaten, so long as his sickness prevails he vomits and casts up all; not that he doth this of a free mind (if we may say a dog has a mind), but because it troubleth his stomach; but now, when his sickness is over, and so his stomach eased, his desire being not at all alienate from his vomit, he turns him about and licks up all, and so it is true which is written, "The dog is turned to his own vomit again." [2 Pet. 2:22] Thus I say, being hot for heaven, by virtue only of the sense and fear of the torments of hell, as their sense of hell and the fears of damnation chills and cools, so their desires for heaven and salvation cool also. So then it comes to pass, that when their guilt and fear is gone, their desires for heaven and happiness die, and they return to their course again. {377} 2. Another reason is, they have slavish fears that do overmaster them; I speak now of the fears that they have of men, for "the fear of man bringeth a snare". [Prov. 29:25] So then, though they seem to be hot for heaven, so long as the flames of hell are about their ears, yet when that terror is a little over, they betake themselves to second thoughts; namely, that it is good to be wise, and not to run (for they know not what) the hazard of losing all, or, at least, of bringing themselves into unavoidable and unnecessary troubles, and so they fall in with the world again. {378} 3. The shame that attends religion lies also as a block in their way; they are proud and haughty; and religion in their eye is low and contemptible, therefore, when they have lost their sense of hell and wrath to come, they return again to their former course. {379} 4. Guilt, and to meditate terror, are grievous to them. They like not to see their misery before they come into it; though perhaps the sight of it first, if they loved that sight, might make them fly whither the righteous fly and are safe. But because they do, as I hinted before, even shun the thoughts of guilt and terror, therefore, when once they are rid of their awakenings about the terrors and wrath of God, they harden their hearts gladly, and choose such ways as will harden them more and more. {380} CHR. You are pretty near the business, for the bottom of all is for want of a change in their mind and will. And therefore they are but like the felon that standeth before the judge, he quakes and trembles, and seems to repent most heartily, but the bottom of all is the fear of the halter; not that he hath any detestation of the offence, as is evident, because, let but this man have his liberty, and he will be a thief, and so a rogue still, whereas, if his mind was changed, he would be otherwise. {381} HOPE. Now I have showed you the reasons of their going back, do you show me the manner thereof. CHR. So I will willingly. 1. They draw off their thoughts, all that they may, from the remembrance of God, death, and judgment to come. 2. Then they cast off by degrees private duties, as closet prayer, curbing their lusts, watching, sorrow for sin, and the like. 3. Then they shun the company of lively and warm Christians. 4. After that they grow cold to public duty, as hearing, reading, godly conference, and the like. 5. Then they begin to pick holes, as we say, in the coats of some of the godly; and that devilishly, that they may have a seeming colour to throw religion (for the sake of some infirmity they have espied in them) behind their backs. 6. Then they begin to adhere to, and associate themselves with, carnal, loose, and wanton men. 7. Then they give way to carnal and wanton discourses in secret; and glad are they if they can see such things in any that are counted honest, that they may the more boldly do it through their example. 8. After this they begin to play with little sins openly. 9. And then, being hardened, they show themselves as they are. Thus, being launched again into the gulf of misery, unless a miracle of grace prevent it, they everlastingly perish in their own deceivings. {382} Now I saw in my dream, that by this time the Pilgrims were got over the Enchanted Ground, and entering into the country of Beulah, whose air was very sweet and pleasant, the way lying directly through it, they solaced themselves there for a season. Yea, here they heard continually the singing of birds, and saw every day the flowers appear on the earth, and heard the voice of the turtle in the land. [Isa. 62:4, Song of Solomon 2:10-12] In this country the sun shineth night and day; wherefore this was beyond the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and also out of the reach of Giant Despair, neither could they from this place so much as see Doubting Castle. Here they were within sight of the city they were going to, also here met them some of the inhabitants thereof; for in this land the Shining Ones commonly walked, because it was upon the borders of heaven. In this land also, the contract between the bride and the bridegroom was renewed; yea, here, "As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so did their God rejoice over them." [Isa. 62:5] Here they had no want of corn and wine; for in this place they met with abundance of what they had sought for in all their pilgrimage. [Isa. 62:8] Here they heard voices from out of the city, loud voices, saying, "'Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh! Behold, his reward is with him!' Here all the inhabitants of the country called them, 'The holy people, The redeemed of the Lord, Sought out'", etc. [Isa. 62:11,12] {383} Now as they walked in this land, they had more rejoicing than in parts more remote from the kingdom to which they were bound; and drawing near to the city, they had yet a more perfect view thereof. It was builded of pearls and precious stones, also the street thereof was paved with gold; so that by reason of the natural glory of the city, and the reflection of the sunbeams upon it, Christian with desire fell sick; Hopeful also had a fit or two of the same disease. Wherefore, here they lay by it a while, crying out, because of their pangs, If ye find my beloved, tell him that I am sick of love. {384} But, being a little strengthened, and better able to bear their sickness, they walked on their way, and came yet nearer and nearer, where were orchards, vineyards, and gardens, and their gates opened into the highway. Now, as they came up to these places, behold the gardener stood in the way, to whom the Pilgrims said, Whose goodly vineyards and gardens are these? He answered, They are the King's, and are planted here for his own delight, and also for the solace of pilgrims. So the gardener had them into the vineyards, and bid them refresh themselves with the dainties. [Deut. 23:24] He also showed them there the King's walks, and the arbours where he delighted to be; and here they tarried and slept. {385} Now I beheld in my dream that they talked more in their sleep at this time than ever they did in all their journey; and being in a muse thereabout, the gardener said even to me, Wherefore musest thou at the matter? It is the nature of the fruit of the grapes of these vineyards to go down so sweetly as to cause the lips of them that are asleep to speak. {386} So I saw that when they awoke, they addressed themselves to go up to the city; but, as I said, the reflection of the sun upon the city (for the city was pure gold) was so extremely glorious that they could not, as yet, with open face behold it, but through an instrument made for that purpose. So I saw, that as I went on, there met them two men, in raiment that shone like gold; also their faces shone as the light. [Rev. 21:18, 2 Cor. 3:18] {387} These men asked the Pilgrims whence they came; and they told them. They also asked them where they had lodged, what difficulties and dangers, what comforts and pleasures they had met in the way; and they told them. Then said the men that met them, You have but two difficulties more to meet with, and then you are in the city. {388} Christian then, and his companion, asked the men to go along with them; so they told them they would. But, said they, you must obtain it by your own faith. So I saw in my dream that they went on together, until they came in sight of the gate. {389} Now, I further saw, that betwixt them and the gate was a river, but there was no bridge to go over: the river was very deep. At the sight, therefore, of this river, the Pilgrims were much stunned; but the men that went in with them said, You must go through, or you cannot come at the gate. {390} The Pilgrims then began to inquire if there was no other way to the gate; to which they answered, Yes; but there hath not any, save two, to wit, Enoch and Elijah, been permitted to tread that path since the foundation of the world, nor shall, until the last trumpet shall sound. [1 Cor. 15:51,52] The Pilgrims then, especially Christian, began to despond in their minds, and looked this way and that, but no way could be found by them by which they might escape the river. Then they asked the men if the waters were all of a depth. They said: No; yet they could not help them in that case; for, said they, you shall find it deeper or shallower as you believe in the King of the place. *In the Resurrection of the Righteous. [Rev. 20:4-6] {391} They then addressed themselves to the water and, entering, Christian began to sink, and crying out to his good friend Hopeful, he said, I sink in deep waters; the billows go over my head, all his waves go over me! Selah. {392} Christian's conflict at the hour of death Then said the other, Be of good cheer, my brother, I feel the bottom, and it is good. Then said Christian, Ah! my friend, the sorrows of death hath compassed me about; I shall not see the land that flows with milk and honey; and with that a great darkness and horror fell upon Christian, so that he could not see before him. Also here he in great measure lost his senses, so that he could neither remember nor orderly talk of any of those sweet refreshments that he had met with in the way of his pilgrimage. But all the words that he spake still tended to discover that he had horror of mind, and heart fears that he should die in that river, and never obtain entrance in at the gate. Here also, as they that stood by perceived, he was much in the troublesome thoughts of the sins that he had committed, both since and before he began to be a pilgrim. It was also observed that he was troubled with apparitions of hobgoblins and evil spirits, for ever and anon he would intimate so much by words. Hopeful, therefore, here had much ado to keep his brother's head above water; yea, sometimes he would be quite gone down, and then, ere a while, he would rise up again half dead. Hopeful also would endeavour to comfort him, saying, Brother, I see the gate, and men standing by to receive us: but Christian would answer, It is you, it is you they wait for; you have been Hopeful ever since I knew you. And so have you, said he to Christian. Ah! brother! said he, surely if I was right he would now arise to help me; but for my sins he hath brought me into the snare, and hath left me. Then said Hopeful, My brother, you have quite forgot the text, where it is said of the wicked, "There are no bands in their death, but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like other men. [Ps. 73:4,5] These troubles and distresses that you go through in these waters are no sign that God hath forsaken you; but are sent to try you, whether you will call to mind that which heretofore you have received of his goodness, and live upon him in your distresses. {393} Then I saw in my dream, that Christian was as in a muse a while. To whom also Hopeful added this word, Be of good cheer, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole; and with that Christian brake out with a loud voice, Oh, I see him again! and he tells me, "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee." [Isa. 43:2] Then they both took courage, and the enemy was after that as still as a stone, until they were gone over. Christian therefore presently found ground to stand upon, and so it followed that the rest of the river was but shallow. Thus they got over. Now, upon the bank of the river, on the other side, they saw the two shining men again, who there waited for them; wherefore, being come out of the river, they saluted them, saying, We are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for those that shall be heirs of salvation. Thus they went along towards the gate. {394} Now you must note that the city stood upon a mighty hill, but the Pilgrims went up that hill with ease, because they had these two men to lead them up by the arms; also, they had left their mortal garments behind them in the river, for though they went in with them, they came out without them. They, therefore, went up here with much agility and speed, though the foundation upon which the city was framed was higher than the clouds. They therefore went up through the regions of the air, sweetly talking as they went, being comforted, because they safely got over the river, and had such glorious companions to attend them. Now, now, look how the holy pilgrims ride, Clouds are their chariots, angels are their guide: Who would not here for him all hazards run, That thus provides for his when this world's done? {395} The talk they had with the Shining Ones was about the glory of the place; who told them that the beauty and glory of it was inexpressible. There, said they, is the Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect. [Heb. 12:22-24] You are going now, said they, to the paradise of God, wherein you shall see the tree of life, and eat of the never-fading fruits thereof; and when you come there, you shall have white robes given you, and your walk and talk shall be every day with the King, even all the days of eternity. [Rev. 2:7, 3:4, 21:4,5] There you shall not see again such things as you saw when you were in the lower region upon the earth, to wit, sorrow, sickness, affliction, and death, for the former things are passed away. You are now going to Abraham, to Isaac, and Jacob, and to the prophets--men that God hath taken away from the evil to come, and that are now resting upon their beds, each one walking in his righteousness. [Isa. 57:1,2, 65:17] The men then asked, What must we do in the holy place? To whom it was answered, You must there receive the comforts of all your toil, and have joy for all your sorrow; you must reap what you have sown, even the fruit of all your prayers, and tears, and sufferings for the King by the way. [Gal. 6:7] In that place you must wear crowns of gold, and enjoy the perpetual sight and vision of the Holy One, for there you shall see him as he is. [1 John 3:2] There also you shall serve him continually with praise, with shouting, and thanksgiving, whom you desired to serve in the world, though with much difficulty, because of the infirmity of your flesh. There your eyes shall be delighted with seeing, and your ears with hearing the pleasant voice of the Mighty One. There you shall enjoy your friends again that are gone thither before you; and there you shall with joy receive, even every one that follows into the holy place after you. There also shall you be clothed with glory and majesty, and put into an equipage fit to ride out with the King of Glory. When he shall come with sound of trumpet in the clouds, as upon the wings of the wind, you shall come with him; and when he shall sit upon the throne of judgment; you shall sit by him; yea, and when he shall pass sentence upon all the workers of iniquity, let them be angels or men, you also shall have a voice in that judgment, because they were his and your enemies. [1 Thes. 4:13-16, Jude 1:14, Dan. 7:9,10, 1 Cor. 6:2,3] Also, when he shall again return to the city, you shall go too, with sound of trumpet, and be ever with him. {396} Now while they were thus drawing towards the gate, behold a company of the heavenly host came out to meet them; to whom it was said, by the other two Shining Ones, These are the men that have loved our Lord when they were in the world, and that have left all for his holy name; and he hath sent us to fetch them, and we have brought them thus far on their desired journey, that they may go in and look their Redeemer in the face with joy. Then the heavenly host gave a great shout, saying, "Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb." [Rev. 19:9] There came out also at this time to meet them, several of the King's trumpeters, clothed in white and shining raiment, who, with melodious noises, and loud, made even the heavens to echo with their sound. These trumpeters saluted Christian and his fellow with ten thousand welcomes from the world; and this they did with shouting, and sound of trumpet. {397} This done, they compassed them round on every side; some went before, some behind, and some on the right hand, some on the left, (as it were to guard them through the upper regions), continually sounding as they went, with melodious noise, in notes on high: so that the very sight was, to them that could behold it, as if heaven itself was come down to meet them. Thus, therefore, they walked on together; and as they walked, ever and anon these trumpeters, even with joyful sound, would, by mixing their music with looks and gestures, still signify to Christian and his brother, how welcome they were into their company, and with what gladness they came to meet them; and now were these two men, as it were, in heaven, before they came at it, being swallowed up with the sight of angels, and with hearing of their melodious notes. Here also they had the city itself in view, and they thought they heard all the bells therein to ring, to welcome them thereto. But above all, the warm and joyful thoughts that they had about their own dwelling there, with such company, and that for ever and ever. Oh, by what tongue or pen can their glorious joy be expressed! And thus they came up to the gate. {398} Now, when they were come up to the gate, there was written over it in letters of gold, "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." [Rev. 22:14] {399} Then I saw in my dream that the Shining Men bid them call at the gate; the which, when they did, some looked from above over the gate, to wit, Enoch, Moses, and Elijah, &c., to whom it was said, These pilgrims are come from the City of Destruction, for the love that they bear to the King of this place; and then the Pilgrims gave in unto them each man his certificate, which they had received in the beginning; those, therefore, were carried in to the King, who, when he had read them, said, Where are the men? To whom it was answered, They are standing without the gate. The King then commanded to open the gate, "That the righteous nation," said he, "which keepeth the truth, may enter in." [Isa. 26:2] {400} Now I saw in my dream that these two men went in at the gate: and lo, as they entered, they were transfigured, and they had raiment put on that shone like gold. There was also that met them with harps and crowns, and gave them to them--the harps to praise withal, and the crowns in token of honour. Then I heard in my dream that all the bells in the city rang again for joy, and that it was said unto them, "ENTER YE INTO THE JOY OF YOUR LORD." I also heard the men themselves, that they sang with a loud voice, saying, "BLESSING AND HONOUR, AND GLORY, AND POWER, BE UNTO HIM THAT SITTETH UPON THE THRONE, AND UNTO THE LAMB, FOR EVER AND EVER." [Rev. 5:13] {401} Now, just as the gates were opened to let in the men, I looked in after them, and, behold, the City shone like the sun; the streets also were paved with gold, and in them walked many men, with crowns on their heads, palms in their hands, and golden harps to sing praises withal. {402} There were also of them that had wings, and they answered one another without intermission, saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord." [Rev. 4:8] And after that they shut up the gates; which, when I had seen, I wished myself among them. {403} Now while I was gazing upon all these things, I turned my head to look back, and saw Ignorance come up to the river side; but he soon got over, and that without half that difficulty which the other two men met with. For it happened that there was then in that place, one Vain-hope, a ferryman, that with his boat helped him over; so he, as the other I saw, did ascend the hill, to come up to the gate, only he came alone; neither did any man meet him with the least encouragement. When he was come up to the gate, he looked up to the writing that was above, and then began to knock, supposing that entrance should have been quickly administered to him; but he was asked by the men that looked over the top of the gate, Whence came you, and what would you have? He answered, I have eat and drank in the presence of the King, and he has taught in our streets. Then they asked him for his certificate, that they might go in and show it to the King; so he fumbled in his bosom for one, and found none. Then said they, Have you none? But the man answered never a word. So they told the King, but he would not come down to see him, but commanded the two Shining Ones that conducted Christian and Hopeful to the City, to go out and take Ignorance, and bind him hand and foot, and have him away. Then they took him up, and carried him through the air to the door that I saw in the side of the hill, and put him in there. Then I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven, as well as from the City of Destruction. So I awoke, and behold it was a dream. {404} The Conclusion. Now, Reader, I have told my dream to thee; See if thou canst interpret it to me, Or to thyself, or neighbour; but take heed Of misinterpreting; for that, instead Of doing good, will but thyself abuse: By misinterpreting, evil ensues. Take heed, also, that thou be not extreme, In playing with the outside of my dream: Nor let my figure or similitude Put thee into a laughter or a feud. Leave this for boys and fools; but as for thee, Do thou the substance of my matter see. Put by the curtains, look within my veil, Turn up my metaphors, and do not fail, There, if thou seekest them, such things to find, As will be helpful to an honest mind. What of my dross thou findest there, be bold To throw away, but yet preserve the gold; What if my gold be wrapped up in ore?-- None throws away the apple for the core. But if thou shalt cast all away as vain, I know not but 'twill make me dream again. 
44684	----	THE PILGRIMS' WAY FROM WINCHESTER TO CANTERBURY [Illustration] THE PILGRIMS' WAY FROM WINCHESTER TO CANTERBURY BY JULIA CARTWRIGHT [Illustration] ILLUSTRATED BY A. H. HALLAM MURRAY NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 1911 "From every shire's ende Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, The holy blissful martyr for to seeke, That them hath holpen when that they were sicke." ALL RIGHTS RESERVED [Illustration: THE APPROACH TO WINCHESTER FROM THE SOUTH] PREFACE This account of the Way trodden by the pilgrims of the Middle Ages through the South of England to the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury originally appeared in the _Art Journal_ for 1892, with illustrations by Mr. A. Quinton. It was published in the following year as a separate volume, and reprinted in 1895 and 1901. Now by the courtesy of Messrs. Virtue's representatives, and in response to a continued demand, it appears again in a new and revised form, with the additional attraction of illustrations from original drawings by Mr. Hallam Murray. During the twenty years which have elapsed since these pages were first written, a whole literature has grown up round the Pilgrims' Way. Not only have scholarly papers on separate sections of the road appeared in the Journals of Archæological Societies, but several valuable works on the subject have been issued by writers of authority. Mr. H. Snowden-Ward has written a book on "The Canterbury Pilgrimages," in Messrs. A. & C. Black's Pilgrimage Series, in which he deals at length with the life and death, the cult and miracles of St. Thomas, and the different routes taken by pilgrims to his shrine. Mr. Palmer has described a considerable portion of the Way in his treatise on "Three Surrey Churches," and only last autumn Mr. Elliston-Erwood published an excellent little guide-book called "The Pilgrims' Road," for the use of cyclists and pedestrians, in Messrs. Warne's Homeland Pocket-book Series. But the most thorough and systematic attempt to reconstruct the route taken by pilgrims from Winchester to Canterbury has been made by Mr. Belloc in his admirable work, "The Old Road." The author himself walked along the ancient track, and succeeded in filling up many gaps where the road had been lost, and in recovering almost the whole of the Way, "yard by yard from the capital of Hampshire to the capital of Kent." This intimate knowledge of the road and its characteristics have led him to make several alterations in the line of the Way marked on the Ordnance Map, which had hitherto served as the basis of most descriptions. But as Mr. Belloc himself recognises, it is clear that pilgrims often left the original road to visit churches and shrines in the neighbourhood. Thus, in several places, new tracks sprang up along the downs to which local tradition has given the name of the Pilgrims' Way, and which it is not always easy to distinguish from the main road. Like Bunyan's pilgrims, when they came to the foot of the hill Difficulty, "one turned to the left hand, and the other to the right, but the narrow way lay right up the hill." In this edition of my book some obvious errors have been corrected, and certain doubtful points have been cleared up with the help of experience gained by other workers in the same field. But, as a rule, my object has been not so much to draw attention to the actual road as to describe the antiquities and objects of interest which arrest the traveller's notice on his journey. From whatever side we approach it, the subject is a fascinating one. All of these different studies, varied in aims and scope as they may be, bear witness to the perennial interest which the Pilgrims' Way inspires. The beauty of the country through which the old road runs, its historic associations and famous memories, the ancient churches and houses which lie on its course, will always attract those who love and reverence the past, and will lead many to follow in the footsteps of the mediæval pilgrims along the Way to Canterbury. JULIA CARTWRIGHT. OCKHAM, _Nov. 1, 1911_. [Illustration: THE RIVER ITCHEN WHERE IT LEAVES THE TOWN.] CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE PILGRIMS' WAY 1 II. WINCHESTER TO ALTON 20 III. ALTON TO COMPTON 44 IV. COMPTON TO SHALFORD 63 V. SHALFORD TO ALBURY 75 VI. SHERE TO REIGATE 87 VII. REIGATE TO CHEVENING 103 VIII. OTFORD TO WROTHAM 125 IX. WROTHAM TO HOLLINGBOURNE 137 X. HOLLINGBOURNE TO LENHAM 153 XI. CHARING TO GODMERSHAM 167 XII. CHILHAM TO HARBLEDOWN 182 XIII. HARBLEDOWN TO CANTERBURY 193 XIV. THE MARTYR'S SHRINE 203 INDEX 217 NOTE ON THE BINDING The "Canterbury Bell" and the Badges, represented on the cover of the book, were worn by the Pilgrims on their return from the Shrine of St. Thomas. The Badges were made of lead. [Illustration: NEAR WROTHAM WATER.] LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS COLOURED PLATES THE NORMAN TOWER AND SOUTH TRANSEPT, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTH 32 CHAWTON HOUSE 50 THE MOTE, IGHTHAM 136 AYLESFORD BRIDGE 146 COTTAGE AT BOARLEY, NEAR BOXLEY 152 CHARING 170 CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH-WEST 192 HALF-TONES FACING PAGE WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL, SOUTH AISLE OF CHOIR 25 KING'S GATE, WINCHESTER, FROM THE CLOSE 28 LOSELEY 67 THE HOSPITAL, GUILDFORD 72 OLD YEWS AND OAK IN EASTWELL PARK 176 THE WEST GATE, CANTERBURY 194 MERCERY LANE, CANTERBURY 199 THE MARTYRDOM, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL 205 LINE BLOCKS ON "THE WAY" BETWEEN KEMSING AND OTFORD _Title-page_ THE APPROACH TO WINCHESTER FROM THE SOUTH v THE RIVER ITCHEN WHERE IT LEAVES THE TOWN ix NEAR WROTHAM WATER xi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llustration: ST. CROSS AND ST. KATHERINE'S HILL.] CHAPTER I THE PILGRIMS' WAY Three hundred and seventy years have passed since the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury was swept away, and the martyr's ashes were scattered to the winds. The age of pilgrimages has gone by, the conditions of life have changed, and the influences which drew such vast multitudes of men and women to worship at the murdered Archbishop's tomb have long ago ceased to work on the popular mind. No longer does the merry cavalcade of Chaucer's lay ride forth in the freshness of the spring morning, knight and merchant, scholar and lawyer, Prioress and Wife of Bath, yeoman and priest and friars, a motley company from all parts of the realm, "ready to wenden on their pilgrimage with full devout courage" to Canterbury. The days of pilgrimages are over, their fashion has passed away, but still some part of the route which the travellers took can be traced, and the road they trod still bears the name of the Pilgrims' Way. Over the Surrey hills and through her stately parks the dark yews which lined the path may yet be seen. By many a quiet Kentish homestead the grassy track still winds its way along the lonely hill-side overlooking the blue Weald, and, if you ask its name, the labourer who guides the plough, or the waggoner driving his team, will tell you that it is the Pilgrims' Road to Canterbury. So the old name lives, and the memory of that famous pilgrimage which Chaucer sang has not yet died out of the people's heart. And although strangers journey no longer from afar to the martyrs shrine, it is still a pleasant thing to ride out on a spring or summer morning and follow the Pilgrims' Way. For the scenes through which it leads are fair, and the memories that it wakes belong to the noblest pages of England's story. In those old days the pilgrims who came to Canterbury approached the holy city by one of the three following routes. There was first of all the road taken by Chaucer's pilgrims from London, through Deptford, Greenwich, Rochester, and Sittingbourne; the way trodden by all who came from the North, the Midlands, and the Eastern Counties, and by those foreigners who, like Erasmus, had first visited London. But the greater number of the foreign pilgrims from France, Germany, and Italy landed at Sandwich Haven or Dover, and approached Canterbury from the south; while others, especially those who came from Normandy and Brittany, landed at Southampton and travelled through the southern counties of Hampshire, Surrey, and Kent. Many of these doubtless stopped at Winchester, attracted by the fame of St. Swithun, the great healing Bishop; and either here or else at Guildford, they would be joined by the pilgrims from the West of England on their way to the Shrine of Canterbury. This was the route taken by Henry II. when, landing at Southampton on his return from France, he made his first memorable pilgrimage to the tomb of the murdered Archbishop, in the month of July, 1174. And this route it is, which, trodden by thousands of pilgrims during the next three centuries, may still be clearly defined through the greater part of its course, and which in Surrey and Kent bears the historic name of the Pilgrims' Way. A very ancient path it is, older far than the days of Plantagenets and Normans, of shrines and pilgrimages. For antiquarian researches have abundantly proved this road to be an old British track, which was in use even before the coming of the Romans. It may even have been, as some writers suppose, the road along which caravans of merchants brought their ingots of tin from Cornwall to be shipped at what was then the great harbour of Britain, the Rutupine Port, afterwards Sandwich Haven, and then borne overland to Massilia and the Mediterranean shores. Ingots of tin, buried it may be in haste by merchants attacked on their journey by robbers, have, it is said, been dug up at various places along this route, and British earthworks have been found in its immediate neighbourhood. The road was, there can be no doubt, used by the Romans; and all along its course remains of Roman villas, baths, and pavements have been brought to light, together with large quantities of Roman coins, cinerary urns, and pottery of the most varied description. In mediæval days this "tin road," as Mr. Grant Allen calls it, still remained the principal thoroughfare from the West to the East of England. It followed the long line of hills which runs through the north of Hampshire, and across Surrey and Kent, that famous chalk ridge which has for us so many different associations, with whose scenery William Cobbett, for instance, has made us all familiar in the story of his rides to and from the Wen. And it lay outside the great trackless and impassable forest of Anderida, which in those days still covered a great part of the south-east counties of England. Dean Stanley, in his eloquent account of the Canterbury pilgrimage, describes this road as a byway, and remarks that the pilgrims avoided the regular roads, "probably for the same reason as in the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, the highways were unoccupied, and the traveller walked through byways." But the statement is misleading, and there can be little doubt that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries this road was, if not the only means of communication between West and East, at least the principal thoroughfare across this part of England, and was as such the route naturally chosen by pilgrims to Canterbury. Certain peculiarities, it is interesting to notice, mark its course from beginning to end. It clings to the hills, and, wherever it is possible, avoids the marshy ground of the valleys. It runs, not on the summit of the downs, but about half-way down the hill-side, where there is shelter from the wind, as well as sunshine to be had under the crest of the ridge. And its course is marked by rows of yew trees, often remarkable for their size and antiquity. Some of these are at least seven or eight hundred years old, and must have reared their ancient boughs on the hill-side before the feet of pilgrims ever trod these paths. So striking is this feature of the road, and so fixed is the idea that some connection exists between these yew trees and the Pilgrims' Way, that they are often said to have been planted with the express object of guiding travellers along the road to Canterbury. This, however, we need hardly say, is a fallacy. Yews are by no means peculiar to the Pilgrims' Way, but are to be found along every road in chalk districts. They spring up in every old hedgerow on this soil, and are for the most part sown by the birds. But the presence of these venerable and picturesque forms does lend an undeniable charm to the ancient track. And in some places where the line of cultivation gradually spreading upwards has blotted out every other trace of the road, where the ploughshare has upturned the sod, and the hedgerows have disappeared, three or four of these grand old trees may still be seen standing by themselves in the midst of a ploughed field, the last relics of a bygone age. [Illustration: DOORWAY IN CANTERBURY CLOISTERS THROUGH WHICH BECKET PASSED ON HIS WAY TO VESPERS.] The murder of Becket took place on the 29th of December, 1170. At five o'clock on that winter evening, as the Archbishop was on his way to vespers, the King's men, Reginald Fitz Urse and three knights who had accompanied him from Saltwood Castle, rushed upon him with their swords and murdered him in the north transept of his own Cathedral. The tragic circumstance of Becket's end made a profound impression on the people of England, and universal horror was excited by this act of sacrilege. Whatever his faults may have been, the murdered Archbishop had dared to stand up against the Crown for the rights of the Church, and had died rather than yield to the Kings demands. "For the name of Jesus and the defence of the Church I am ready to die," were his last words, as he fell under the assassins' blows. When he landed at Sandwich, on his return from France, the country folk crowded to meet him and hailed him as the father of orphans and deliverer of the oppressed, crying, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." His journey to Canterbury was one long triumphal procession.[1] The poor looked to him as their champion and defender, who had laid down his life in the cause of freedom and righteousness. Henceforth Thomas became a national hero, and was everywhere honoured as the Martyr of the English. The popular belief in his holiness was confirmed by the miracles that were wrought in his name from the moment of his death. A violent storm broke over the Cathedral when the fatal deed was done, and was followed by a red glow, which illuminated the choir where the dead man's body was laid before the altar. The next day the monks buried the corpse in a marble tomb behind Our Lady's altar in the under-croft. For nearly a year no mass was said in the Cathedral, no music was heard, no bells were rung; the altars were stripped of their ornaments, and the crucifixes and images were covered over. Meanwhile, reports reached Canterbury of the wonderful cures performed by the martyred Archbishop. On the third day after the murder, the wife of a Sussex knight, who suffered from blindness, invoked the blessed martyr's help, and was restored to sight. And on the very night of the burial the paralytic wife of a citizen of Canterbury was cured by a garment which her husband had dipped in the murdered saint's blood. These marvels were followed by a stream of devout pilgrims who came to seek healing at the martyr's tomb or to pay their vows for the mercies which they had received. A monk was stationed at the grave to receive offerings and report the miracles that were wrought to the Chapter. At first these wonders were kept secret, for fear of the King, and of Becket's enemies, the De Brocs, whose men guarded the roads to Canterbury. The doors of the crypt were kept bolted and barred, and only the poor in the town and the neighbouring villages crept to the tomb.[2] But on Easter Day, 1171, the crowds rushed in to see a dumb man who was said to have recovered his speech; and on the following Friday the crypt was thrown open to the public. From that time, writes Benedict, the monk of Canterbury, "the scene of the Pool of Bethesda was daily renewed in the Cathedral, and numbers of sick and helpless persons were to be seen lying on the pavement of the great church."[3] "These great miracles are wrought," wrote John of Salisbury, an intimate friend of Becket, who became Bishop of Chartres in 1176, and was an able statesman and scholar, "in the place of his passion and in the place where he lay before the great altar before his burial, and in the tomb where he was laid at last, the blind see, the deaf hear, the dumb speak, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and, a thing unheard of since the days of our fathers, the dead are raised to life."[4] From all parts of England the sick and suffering now crowded to Canterbury, telling the same marvellous tale, how Thomas had appeared to them robed in white, with the thin red streak of blood across his face, bringing healing and peace. "In towns and villages, in castles and cottages, throughout the kingdom," writes another contemporary chronicler, "every one from the highest to the lowest wishes to visit and honour his tomb. Clerks and laymen, rich and poor, nobles and common people, fathers and mothers with their children, masters with their servants, all come hither, moved by the same spirit of devotion. They travel by day and night in winter and summer, however cold the weather may be, and the inns and hostelries on the road to Canterbury are as crowded with people as great cities are on market days."[5] [Illustration: ST. CROSS FROM THE MEADOWS.] On the 21st of February, 1173, Pope Alexander III. pronounced the decree of canonisation, and fixed the Feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury on the day of the Archbishop's martyrdom. In July, 1174, King Henry II., moved by the reports which reached him in Normandy of the popular enthusiasm for Becket, and fearing the effects of the divine wrath, came himself to do penance at the martyr's tomb. Three months after the King of the English had given this public proof of his penitence and obtained release from the Church's censures, "the glorious choir of Conrad" was destroyed by fire, on the night of September 5, 1174. The rebuilding of the church, which was largely assisted by offerings at Becket's tomb, was not finished until 1220, when the Saint's body was removed to its final resting-place in the new apse at the East end of the Chapel of the Blessed Trinity, where the Archbishop had said his first mass. [Illustration: THE ENTRANCE TO ST. CROSS HOSPITAL.] On Tuesday, July 7, an immense concourse of people of all ranks and ages assembled at Canterbury. "The city and villages round," writes an eye-witness, "were so filled with folk that many had to abide in tents or under the open sky."[6] Free hospitality was given to all, and the streets of Canterbury literally flowed with wine. A stately procession, led by the young King Henry III. and the patriot Archbishop Stephen Langton, entered the crypt, and bore the Saint's remains with solemn ceremonial to their new resting-place. Here a sumptuous shrine, adorned with gold plates and precious gems, wrought "by the greatest master of the craft" that could be found in England, received the martyr's relics, and the new apse became known as "Becket's Crown." The fame of St. Thomas now spread into all parts of the world during the next two centuries, and the Canterbury pilgrimage was the most popular in Christendom. The 7th of July was solemnly set apart as the Feast of the Translation of St. Thomas, and henceforth the splendour of this festival threw the anniversary of the actual martyrdom into the shade. The very fact that it took place in summer and not in winter naturally attracted greater numbers of pilgrims from a distance. And on the jubilees or fiftieth anniversaries of the Translation, the concourse of people assembled at Canterbury was enormous. Besides the crowds attracted by these two chief festivals, pilgrims came to Canterbury in smaller parties at all seasons of the year, but more especially in the spring and summer months. Each year, as Chaucer sings, when the spring-time comes round, "When that Aprille with his showers sweete The drought of Marche had pierced to the roote.... When Zephyrus eke with his sweete breathe Inspired hath in every holt and heathe The tender croppes ... And small fowlës maken melodie, That sleepen all the night with open eye, Then longen folk to go on pilgrimages, And palmers for to seeken strange 'strandës' ... And specially, from every shire's ende Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, The holy blissful martyr for to seeke That them hath holpen when that they were sicke." [Illustration: BOX HILL.] The passage of these caravans of pilgrims could not fail to leave its mark on the places and the people along their path. The sight of these strange faces, the news they brought, and the tales they told must have impressed the dwellers in these quiet woodlands and lonely hills. And traces of their presence remain to this day on the Surrey downs and in the lanes of Kent. They may, or may not, have been responsible for the edible variety of large white snails, _Helix pomatia_, commonly called Roman snails, which are found in such abundance at Albury in Surrey, and at Charing in Kent, as well as at other places along the road, and which the Norman French pilgrims are traditionally said to have brought over with them. But the memory of their pilgrimage survives in the wayside chapels and shrines which sprung up along the track, in the churches which were built for their benefit, or restored and decorated by their devotion, above all in the local names still in common use along the countryside. Pilgrims' Lodge and Pilgrims' Ferry, Palmers' Wood, Paternoster Lane--these, and similar terms, still speak of the custom which had taken such fast hold of the popular mind during the three hundred and fifty years after the death of Becket, and recall the long processions of pilgrims which once wound over these lonely hills and through these green lanes on their way to the martyr's shrine. [Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH.] CHAPTER II WINCHESTER TO ALTON [Illustration: ROOF OF STRANGERS' HALL, WINCHESTER.] Few traces of the Pilgrims' Way are now to be found in Hampshire. But early writers speak of an old road which led to Canterbury from Winchester, and the travellers' course would in all probability take them through this ancient city. Here the foreign pilgrims who landed at Southampton, and those who came from the West of England, would find friendly shelter in one or other of the religious houses, and enjoy a brief resting-time before they faced the perils of the road. The old capital of Wessex, the home of Alfred, and favourite residence of Saxon and Norman kings, had many attractions to offer to the devout pilgrim. Here was the splendid golden shrine of St. Swithun, the gentle Bishop who had watched over the boyhood of Alfred. In A.D. 971, a hundred years after the Saint's death, his bones had been solemnly removed from their resting-place on the north side of the Minster, where he had humbly begged to be buried" so that the sun might not shine upon him," and laid by Edgar and Dunstan behind the altar of the new Cathedral which Bishop Ethelwold had raised on the site of the ancient church of Birinus. This was done, says the chronicler Wulfstan, although the Saint himself "protested weeping that his body ought not to be set in God's holy church amidst the splendid memorials of the ancient fathers," a legend which may have given rise to the popular tradition of the forty days' rain, and the supposed delay in the Saint's funeral. From that time countless miracles were wrought at the shrine of St. Swithun, and multitudes from all parts of England flocked to seek blessing and healing at the great church which henceforth bore his name. [Illustration: THE WEST GATE, WINCHESTER.] Under the rule of Norman and Angevin kings, the venerable city had attained the height of wealth and prosperity. In those days the population numbered some 20,000, and there are said to have been as many as 173 churches and chapels within its wall. In spite of the horrors of civil war, which twice desolated the streets, in the time of Stephen and Henry III., the frequent presence of the court and the energy of her prince-bishops had made Winchester a centre of religious and literary activity. And, although after the death of Henry III., who throughout his long life remained faithful to his native city, royal visits became few and far between, and the old capital lost something of its brilliancy, there was still much to attract strangers and strike the imagination of the wayfarer who entered her gates in the fifteenth century. Few mediæval cities could boast foundations of equal size and splendour. There was the strong castle of Wolvesey, where the bishops reigned in state, and the royal palace by the West gate, built by King Henry III., with the fair Gothic hall which he had decorated so lavishly. There was the Hospital of St. Cross, founded by the warrior-bishop, Henry de Blois, and the new College of St. Mary, which William of Wykeham, the great master-builder, had reared in the meadows known as the Greenery, or promenade of the monks of St. Swithun. Another venerable hospital, that of St. John's, claimed to have been founded by Birinus, and on Morne Hill, just outside the East gate, stood a hospital for lepers, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene. There, conspicuous among a crowd of religious houses by their wealth and antiquity, were the two great Benedictine communities of St. Swithun and Hyde. And there, too, was the grand Norman church which the Conqueror's kinsman, Bishop Walkelin, had raised on the ruins of Ethelwold's Minster, with its low massive tower and noble transepts, and the long nave roofed in with solid trees of oak cut down in Hempage Wood. Three centuries later, William of Wykeham transformed the nave after the latest fashion of architecture, cut through the old Norman work, carried up the piers to a lofty height, and replaced the flat wooden roof by fine stone groining. But the Norman tower and transepts of Bishop Walkelin's church still remain to-day almost unchanged. [Illustration: WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL, SOUTH AISLE OF CHOIR.] So great was the concourse of pilgrims to St. Swithun's shrine in the early part of the fourteenth century, that Bishop Godfrey Lucy enlarged the eastward portion of the church, and built, as it were, another church, with nave, aisles, and Lady Chapel of its own, under the same roof. The monks had no great love for the lower class of pilgrims who thronged their doors, and took good care to keep them out of the conventual precincts. They were only allowed to enter the Minster by a doorway in the north transept, and, once they had visited the shrine and duly made their offerings, they were jealously excluded from the rest of the church by those fine ironwork gates still preserved in the Cathedral, and said to be the oldest specimen of the kind in England. [Illustration: ON THE RIVER ITCHEN, WINCHESTER.] Towards the close of the century, in the reign of Edward I., the fine old building still known as the Strangers' Hall was built by the monks of St. Swithun at their convent gate, for the reception of the poorer pilgrims. Here they found food and shelter for the night. They slept, ate their meals, and drank their ale, and made merry round one big central fire. The hall is now divided, and is partly used as the Dean's stable, partly enclosed in a Canon's house, but traces of rudely carved heads, a bearded king, and a nun's face are still visible on the massive timbers of the vaulted roof, blackened with the smoke of bygone ages. In the morning the same pilgrims would wend their way to the doors of the Prior's lodging, and standing under the three beautiful pointed arches which form the entrance to the present Deanery, would there receive alms in money and fragments of bread and meat to help them on their journey. [Illustration: KING'S GATE, WINCHESTER, FROM THE CLOSE.] The route which they took on leaving Winchester is uncertain. It is not till we approach Alton that we find the first traces of the Pilgrims' Way, but in all probability they followed the Roman road which still leads to Silchester and London along the valley of the river Itchen. Immediately outside the city gates they would find themselves before another stately pile of conventual buildings, the great Abbey of Hyde. This famous Benedictine house, founded by Alfred, and long known as the New Minster, was first removed from its original site near the Cathedral in the twelfth century. Finding their house damp and unhealthy, and feeling themselves cramped in the narrow space close to the rival monastery of St. Swithun, the monks obtained a charter from Henry I. giving them leave to settle outside the North gate. In the year 1110, they moved to their new home, bearing with them the wonder-working shrine of St. Josse, the great silver cross given to the New Minster by Cnut, and a yet more precious relic, the bones of Alfred the Great. Here in the green meadows on the banks of the Itchen they reared the walls of their new convent and the magnificent church which, after being in the next reign burnt to the ground by fire-balls from Henry of Blois' Castle at Wolvesey, rose again from the flames fairer and richer than before. Here it stood till the Dissolution, when Thomas Wriothesley, Cromwell's Commissioner, stripped the shrine of its treasures, carried off the gold and jewels, and pulled down the abbey walls to use the stone in the building of his own great house at Stratton. "We intend," he wrote to his master, after describing the riches of gold and silver plate, the crosses studded with pearls, chalices, and emeralds on which he had lain sacrilegious hands, "both at Hyde and St. Mary to sweep away all the rotten bones that be called relics; which we may not omit, lest it be thought we came more for the treasure than for the avoiding of the abomination of idolatry." Considerable fragments of the building still remained. In Milner's time the ruins covered the whole meadow, but towards the end of the last century the city authorities fixed on the spot as the site of a new bridewell, and all that was left of the once famous Abbey was then destroyed. The tombs of the dead were rifled. At every stroke of the spade some ancient sepulchre was violated, stone coffins containing chalices, croziers, rings, were broken open and bones scattered abroad. Then the ashes of the noblest of our kings were blown to the winds, and the resting-place of Ælfred remains to this day unknown. A stone marked with the words, Ælfred Rex, DCCCLXXXI., was carried off by a passing stranger, and is now to be seen at Corby Castle, in Cumberland. To-day an old gateway near the church of St. Bartholomew and some fragments of the monastery wall are the only remains of Alfred's new Minster. From this spot an ancient causeway, now commonly known as the Nuns' Walk, but which in the last century bore the more correct title of the Monks' Walk, leads alongside of a stream which supplied Hyde Abbey with water, for a mile and a half up the valley to Headbourne[7] Worthy. The path is cool and shady, planted with a double row of tall elms, and as we look back we have beautiful views of the venerable city and the great Cathedral sleeping in the quiet hollow, dreaming of all its mighty past. Above, scarred with the marks of a deep railway cutting, and built over with new houses, is St. Giles' Hill, where during many centuries the famous fair was held each September. Foreign pilgrims would gaze with interest on the scene of that yearly event, which had attained a world-wide fame, and attracted merchants from all parts of France, Flanders, and Italy. The green hill-side from which we look down on the streets and towers of Winchester presented a lively spectacle during that fortnight. The stalls were arranged in long rows and called after the nationality of the vendors of the goods they sold. There was the Street of Caen, of Limoges, of the Flemings, of the Genoese, the Drapery, the Goldsmiths' Stall, the Spicery, held by the monks of St. Swithun, who drove a brisk trade in furs and groceries on these occasions. All shops in the city and for seven leagues round were closed during the fair, and local trade was entirely suspended. The mayor handed over the keys of the city for the time being to the bishop, who had large profits from the tolls and had stalls at the fair himself, while smaller portions went to the abbeys, and thirty marks a year were paid to St. Swithun's for the repair of the great church. The Red King first granted his kinsman, Bishop Walkelin, the tolls of this three days' fair at St. Giles' feast, which privilege was afterwards extended to a period of sixteen days by Henry III. The great fair lasted until modern times, but in due course was removed from St. Giles' Hill into the city itself. "As the city grew stronger and the fair weaker," writes Dean Kitchin, "it slid down St. Giles' Hill and entered the town, where its noisy ghost still holds revel once a year." [Illustration: WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTH] Leaving these historic memories behind us we follow the Monks' Walk until we reach Headbourne Worthy, the first of a group of villages granted by Egbert, in 825, to St. Swithun's Priory, and bearing this quaint name, derived from the Saxon _woerth_--a homestead. The church here dates from Saxon times, and claims to have been founded by St. Wilfred. The rude west doorway and chancel arch are said to belong to Edward the Confessor's time. Over the west archway, which now leads into a fifteenth-century chapel, is a fine sculptured bas-relief larger than life, representing the Crucifixion and the Maries, which probably originally adorned the exterior of the church. But the most interesting thing in the church is the brass to John Kent, a Winchester scholar, who died in 1434. The boy wears his college gown and his hair is closely cut, while a scroll comes out of his lips bearing the words: "Misericordiam Dni inetum cantabo." Next we reach Kingsworthy, so called because it was once Crown property, a pretty little village with low square ivy-grown church-tower and lych-gate, and a charming old-fashioned inn standing a little back from the road. [Illustration: THATCHED COTTAGE, MARTYR WORTHY.] The third of the Worthys, Abbotsworthy, is now united to Kingsworthy. Passing through its little street of houses, a mile farther on we reach Martyrsworthy, a still smaller village with another old Norman church and low thatched cottages, picturesquely placed near the banks of the river, which is here crossed by a wooden foot-bridge. But all this part of the Itchen valley has the same charm. Everywhere we find the same old farmhouses with mullioned windows and sundials and yew trees, the same straggling roofs brilliant with yellow lichen, and the same cottages and gardens gay with lilies and phloxes, the same green lanes shaded with tall elms and poplars, the same low chalk hills and wooded distances closing in the valley, and below the bright river winding its way through the cool meadows. "The Itchen--the beautiful Itchen valley," exclaims Cobbett, as he rides along this vale of meadows. "There are few spots in England more fertile, or more pleasant, none, I believe, more healthy. The fertility of this vale and of the surrounding country is best proved by the fact that, besides the town of Alresford and that of Southampton, there are seventeen villages, each having its parish church, upon its borders. When we consider these things, we are not surprised that a spot situated about half-way down this vale should have been chosen for the building of a city, or that that city should have been for a great number of years the place of residence for the kings of England." [Illustration: CHILLAND FARM, NEAR ITCHEN ABBAS.] Towards Itchen Abbas--of the Abbot--the valley opens, and we see the noble avenues and spreading beeches of Avington Park, long the property of the Dukes of Chandos, and often visited by Charles II. while Wren was building his red-brick palace at Winchester. Here the Merry Monarch feasted his friends in a banqueting-hall that is now a greenhouse, and a room in the old house bore the name of Nell Gwynne's closet. In those days it was the residence of the notorious Lady Shrewsbury, afterwards the wife of George Brydges, a member of the Chandos family, the lady whose first husband, Francis, Earl of Shrewsbury, was slain fighting in a duel with George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, while the Countess herself, disguised as a page, held her lover's horse. The river winds through the park, and between the over-arching boughs of the forest trees we catch lovely glimpses of wood and water. In the opposite direction, but also close to Itchen Abbas, is another well-known seat, Lord Ashburton's famous Grange, often visited by Carlyle. Here the dark tints of yew and fir mingle with the bright hues of lime and beech and silver birch on the banks of a clear lake, and long grassy glades lead up to wild gorse-grown slopes of open down. Still following the river banks we reach Itchen Stoke, another picturesque village with timbered cottages and mossy roofs. A little modern church, with high-pitched roof and lancet windows having a curiously foreign air, stands among the tall pines on a steep bank above the stream. But here our pleasant journey along the fair Itchen valley comes to an end, and, leaving the river-side, we climb the hilly road which leads us into Alresford. New Alresford, a clean, bright little town, with broad street, planted with rows of trees, boasts an antiquity which belies its name, and has been a market-town and borough from time immemorial. Like its yet more venerable neighbour, Old Alresford, it was given by a king of the West Saxons to the prior and monks of St. Swithun at Winchester, and formed part of the vast possessions of the monastery at the Conquest. Both places took their name from their situation on a ford of the Arle or Alre river, a considerable stream which joins the Itchen below Avington, and is called by Leland the Alresford river. In the eleventh century New Alresford had fallen into decay, and probably owes its present existence to Bishop Godfrey Lucy, who rebuilt the town, and obtained a charter from King John restoring the market, which had fallen into disuse. At the same time he gave the town the name of New Market, but the older one survived, and the Bishop's new title was never generally adopted. The same energetic prelate bestowed a great deal of care and considerable attention on the water supply of Winchester, and made the Itchen navigable all the way from Southampton to Alresford. In recognition of this important service, Bishop Lucy received from King John the right of levying toll on all leather, hides, and other goods which entered Winchester by the river Itchen through this canal, a right which descended to his successors in the see. South-west of the town is the large pond or reservoir which he made to supply the waters of the Itchen. This lake, which still covers about sixty acres, is a well-known haunt of moor-hens and other waterfowl, and the flags and bulrushes which fringe its banks make it a favourable resort of artists. Old Alresford itself, with its gay flower-gardens, tall elms, pretty old thatched cottages grouped round the village green, may well supply them with more than one subject for pen and pencil. [Illustration: NEW ALRESFORD.] New Alresford was at one time a flourishing centre of the cloth trade, in which the Winchester merchants drove so brisk a trade at St. Giles' Fair. The manufacture of woollen cloth was carried on till quite recent times, and Dean Kitchin tells us that there are old men still living who remember driving with their fathers to the fair at Winchester on St. Giles' day, to buy a roll of blue cloth to provide the family suits for the year. But New Alresford shared the decline as it had shared the prosperity of its more important neighbour, and suffered even more severely than Winchester in the Civil Wars, when the town was almost entirely burnt down by Lord Hopton's troops after their defeat in Cheriton fight. The scene of that hard-fought battle, which gave Winchester into Waller's hands and ruined the King's cause in the West of England, lies a few miles to the south of Alresford. Half-way between the two is Tichborne Park, the seat of a family which has owned this estate from the days of Harold, and which took its name from the stream flowing through the parish, and called the Ticceborne in Anglo-Saxon records. In modern times a well-known case has given the name of Tichborne an unenviable notoriety, but members of this ancient house have been illustrious at all periods of our history, and the legend of the Tichborne Dole so long associated with the spot deserves to be remembered. In the reign of Henry I., Isabella, the wife of Sir Roger Tichborne, a lady whose long life had been spent in deeds of mercy, prayed her husband as she lay dying to grant her as much land as would enable her to leave a dole of bread for all who asked alms at the gates of Tichborne on each succeeding Lady Day. Sir Roger was a knight of sterner stuff, and seizing a flaming brand from the hearth he told his wife jestingly that she might have as much land as she could herself walk over before the burning torch went out. Upon which the sick lady caused herself to be borne from her bed to a piece of ground within the manor, and crawled on her knees and hands until she had encircled twenty-three acres. The actual plot of ground still bears the name of Lady Tichborne's Crawles, and there was an old prophecy which said that the house of Tichborne would only last as long as the dying bequest of Isabella was carried out. During the next six centuries, nineteen hundred small loaves were regularly distributed to the poor at the gates on Lady Day, and a miraculous virtue was supposed to belong to bread thus bestowed. The custom was only abandoned a hundred years ago, owing to the number of idlers and bad characters which it brought into the neighbourhood, and a sum of money equal in amount to the Dole is given to the poor of the parish in its stead. Whether any of our Canterbury pilgrims stopped in their course to avail themselves of the Tichborne Dole we cannot say, but there was a manor-house of the Bishops of Winchester at Bishop Sutton, near Alresford, where they would no doubt find food and shelter. Nothing now remains of the episcopal palace, and no trace of its precincts is preserved but the site of the bishop's kennels. After crossing the river at Alresford the pilgrims turned north-east, and according to an old tradition their road led them through the parish of Ropley, a neighbouring village where Roman remains have been discovered. A little further on the same track, close to Rotherfield Park, where the modern mansion of Pelham now stands, was an ancient house which bore the name of Pilgrims' Place, and is indicated as such in old maps. [Illustration: THE HOG'S BACK.] CHAPTER III ALTON TO COMPTON A few miles to the right of the road is a place which no pilgrim of modern times can leave unvisited--Selborne, White's Selborne, the home of the gentle naturalist whose memory haunts these rural scenes. Here he lived in the picturesque house overgrown with creepers, with the sunny garden and dial at the back, and the great spreading oak where he loved to study the ways of the owls, and the juniper tree, which, to his joy, survived the Siberian winter of 1776. And here he died, and lies buried in the quiet churchyard in the shade of the old yew tree where he so often stood to watch his favourite birds. Not a stone but what speaks of him, not a turn in the village street but has its tale to tell. The play-stow, or village green, which Adam de Gurdon granted to the Augustinian Canons of Selborne in the thirteenth century, where the prior held his market of old, and where young and old met on summer evenings under the big oak, and "sat in quiet debate" or "frolicked and danced" before him; the farmhouse which now marks the site of the ancient Priory itself, founded by Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester, in 1232--he has described them all. How the good Canons grew lazy and secular in their ways after a time, how William of Wykeham found certain of them professed hunters and sportsmen, and tried in vain to reform them, and how the estates were finally handed over to the new college of St. Mary Magdalene at Oxford, by its founder, William of Waynflete--Gilbert White has already told us. The Hanger, with its wooded slopes, rising from the back of his garden, and that "noble chalk promontory" of Nore Hill, planted with the beeches which he called the most lovely of all forest trees, how familiar they seem to us! Still the swifts wheel to and fro round the low church-tower, and the crickets chirp in the long grass, and the white owl is heard at night, just as when he used to linger under the old walls and watch their manners with infinite care and love. [Illustration: JANE AUSTEN'S HOUSE, CHAWTON.] One of the "rocky hollow lanes" which lead towards Alton will take us back into the road, and bring us to Chawton, a village about a mile from that town. The fine Elizabethan manor-house at the foot of the green knoll, and the grey church peeping out of the trees close by, have been for centuries the home and burial-place of the Knights. On the south side of the chancel a black and white marble monument records the memory of that gallant cavalier, Sir Richard Knight, who risked life and fortune in the Royal cause, and was invested with the Order of the Royal Oak by Charles II. after the Restoration. But it is as the place where Jane Austen, in George Eliot's opinion, "the greatest artist that has ever written," composed her novels, that Chawton is memorable. The cottage where she lived is still standing a few hundred yards from the "great house," which was the home of the brother and nieces to whom she was so fondly attached. She and her sister, Cassandra, settled there in 1809, and remained there until May, 1817, when they moved to the corner house of College Street, Winchester, where three months afterwards she died. During the eight years spent in this quiet home, Jane Austen attained the height of her powers and wrote her most famous novels, those works which she herself said cost her so little, and which in Tennyson's words have given her a place in English literature "next to Shakespeare." "Sense and Sensibility," her first novel, was published two years after the move to Chawton. "Persuasion," the last and most finished of the immortal series, was only written in 1816, a year before her death. Seldom, indeed, has so great a novelist led so retired an existence. The life at Chawton, so smooth in its even flow, with the daily round of small excitements and quiet pleasures, the visits to the "great house," and walks with her nieces in the woods, the shopping expeditions to Alton, the talk about new bonnets and gowns, and the latest news as to the births, deaths, and marriages of the numerous relatives in Kent and Hampshire, are faithfully reflected in those pleasant letters of Jane Austen, which her great-nephew, Lord Brabourne, gave to the world. There is a good deal about her flowers, her chickens, her niece's love affairs, the fancy work on which she is engaged, the improvements in the house and garden--"You cannot imagine," she writes on one occasion, "it is not in human nature to imagine, what a nice walk we have round the orchard!"--but very little indeed about her books. Almost the only allusion we find to one of her characters is in 1816, when she writes to Fanny Knight of Anne Elliot in "Persuasion." "_You_ may perhaps like the heroine, as she is almost too good for me!" Anything like fame or publicity was positively distasteful to her. She owns to feeling absolutely terrified when a lady in town asked to be introduced to her, and then adds laughingly, "If I am a wild beast I cannot help it, it is not my fault!" Curiously enough, the Pilgrims' Way, in the later course of its path, brings us to Godmersham, that other and finer home of the Knights on the Kentish Downs, a place also associated with Jane Austen's life and letters, where she spent many pleasant hours in the midst of her family, enjoying the beauty of the spot and its cheerful surroundings. But Chawton retains the supremacy as her own home, and as the scene of those literary labours that were cut short, alas! too soon. "What a pity," Sir Walter Scott exclaimed, after reading a book of hers, "what a pity such a gifted creature died so early!" [Illustration: CHAWTON HOUSE] From Chawton it is a short mile to Alton, famous for its breweries and hop gardens, and its church door, riddled with the bullets of the Roundheads. Our way now leads us through the woods of Alice Holt--Aisholt--the Ash wood; like Woolmer, a royal forest from Saxon times. Alice Holt was renowned for the abundance of its fallow deer, which made it a favourite hunting ground with the Plantagenet kings, and on one occasion Edward II., it is said, gave one of his scullions, Morris Ken, the sum of twenty shillings because he fell from his horse so often out hunting, "which made the king laugh exceedingly." Here, too, after the battle of Evesham, Edward, Prince of Wales, defeated Adam de Gurdon, one of Simon de Montfort's chief followers. He is said to have challenged the rebel baron to a single combat, in which Gurdon was wounded and made prisoner, but the victor spared his life and afterwards obtained a royal pardon for his vanquished foe. A wild rugged tract of country, Alice Holt was a chosen haunt of robbers and outlaws, the terror of the wealthy London merchants who journeyed to St. Giles' Fair at Winchester, and in the fourteenth century the wardens of the fair kept five mounted serjeants-at-arms in the forest near Alton, for their protection at that season. Soon after leaving Alton the pilgrims would catch their first sight of the river Wey, which rises close to the town. Along the banks of this stream, flowing as it does through some of the loveliest Surrey scenery, their road was now to lie, and not until they crossed St. Katherine's ferry, at Guildford, were they finally to lose sight of its waters. The river itself, more than one writer has suggested, may owe its name to this circumstance, and have been originally called the Way river from the ancient road which followed the early part of its course. [Illustration: FARNHAM CASTLE.] Leaving Froyle Park, Sir Hubert Miller's fine Jacobean house, on our left, we pass Bentley Station, and, still following the river, join the Portsmouth road just before entering Farnham. This town, which takes its name from the commons overgrown with fern and heather still to be seen in the neighbourhood on the Surrey side, is now surrounded with hop gardens. It was among the earliest possessions of the Bishops of Winchester, and formed part of the land granted to St. Swithun, in 860, by Alfred's elder brother, Ethelbald, King of Wessex. The Castle-palace, which still looks proudly down on the streets of the little town, was first built by that magnificent prelate, Henry of Blois, but little of the original building now remains except the offices, where some round Norman pillars may still be seen. Farnham Castle was partly destroyed by Henry III. during his wars with the barons, and suffered greatly at the hands of the rebels in the time of Charles I., but was afterwards rebuilt by Bishop Morley. Queen Elizabeth paid frequent visits here, and on one occasion, while dining in the great hall with the Duke of Norfolk, who was suspected of planning a marriage with Mary Queen of Scots, pleasantly advised the Duke to be careful on what pillow he laid his head. The lawn, with its stately cedars and grass-grown moat, deserves a visit, but the most interesting part of the building is the fine old keep with its massive buttresses and thirteenth-century arches, commanding a wide view over the elm avenues of the park, and the commons which stretch eastward on the Surrey side. Prominent in the foreground are the picturesque heights of Crooksbury, crowned with those tall pines which Cobbett climbed when he was a boy, to take the nests of crows and magpies. Farnham, it must be remembered, was the birthplace of this remarkable man, and it was at Ash, a small town at the foot of the Hog's Back, that he died in 1835. All his life long he retained the fondest affection for these scenes of his youth. In 1825 he brought his son Richard, then a boy of eleven, to see the little old house in the street where he had lived with his grandmother, and showed him the garden at Waverley where he worked as a lad, the tree near the Abbey from which he fell into the river in a perilous attempt to take a crow's nest, and the strawberry beds where he gathered strawberries for Sir Robert Rich's table, taking care to eat the finest! Among these hills and commons, where he followed the hounds on foot at ten years old, and rode across country at seventy, we forget the political aspect of his life, his bitter invectives against the Poor-laws and Paper-money, the National Debt and the System, and think rather of his keen love of nature and delight in the heaths, the sandy coppices, and forests of Surrey and Hampshire. And now he sleeps in the church of Farnham, where he desired to be buried, in the heart of the wild scenery which he loved so well. [Illustration: CROOKSBURY FROM NEWLANDS CORNER.] Just under Crooksbury, that "grand scene" of Cobbett's "exploits," lies Moor Park, the retreat of Sir William Temple in his old age, which seemed to him, to quote his own words, "the sweetest place, I think, that I have ever seen in my life, either before or since, at home or abroad." There we may still see the gardens which the statesman of the Triple Alliance laid out after the fashion of those which he remembered in Holland, where he enjoyed the companionship of his beloved sister, Lady Giffard, and where his heart lies buried under the sundial. Here Swift lived as his secretary, and learnt from King William III. how to cut asparagus; here he wrote the "Tale of a Tub," and made love to Mrs. Hester Johnson, Lady Giffard's pretty black-eyed waiting-maid. The memory of that immortal love-story has not yet perished, and the house where she lived is still known as Stella's Cottage. Here, too, just beyond Moor Park, on the banks of the Wey, are the ruins of Waverley Abbey, the first Cistercian house ever founded in England, often described as "le petit Cîteaux," and the mother of many other abbeys. The more distinguished pilgrims who stopped at Farnham would taste the hospitality of the monks of Waverley, and Henry III. was on one occasion their guest. The Abbot of Waverley, too, was a great personage in these parts, and his influence extended over several parishes through which the pilgrims had to pass, although the privileges which he claimed were often disputed by the Prior of Newark, the other ecclesiastical magnate who reigned in this part of Surrey. Pilgrims of humbler rank would find ample accommodation in the ancient hostelries of Farnham, which was at that time a place of considerable importance, and returned two members to Edward II.'s Parliament. Their onward course now lay along the banks of the Wey until they reached the foot of the narrow, curiously shaped chalk ridge known as the Hog's Back. Here, at a place called Whiteway End, the end of the white chalk road, two roads divide. Both lead to Guildford, the one keeping on the crest of the ridge, the other along its southern slope. The upper road has become an important thoroughfare in modern times, and is now the main road from Farnham to Guildford; the lower is a grassy lane, not always easy to follow, and little used in places, which leads through the parishes of Seale, Puttenham, and Compton, the bright little villages which stud the sides of the Hog's Back. This green woodland path under the downs was the ancient British and Roman track along which the Canterbury pilgrims journeyed, and which is still in some places spoken of by the inhabitants as the Way. Other names in local use bear the same witness. Beggar's Corner and Robber's or Roamer's Moor are supposed to owe their appellations to the pilgrims: while the ivy-grown manor-house of Shoelands, bearing the date of 1616 on its porch, is said to take its name from the word "to shool," which in some dialects has the same meaning as "to beg." Another trace of the Pilgrimage is to be found in the local fairs which are still held in the towns and villages along the road, and which were fixed at those periods of the year when the pilgrims would be either going to Canterbury or returning from there. Thus we find that at Guildford the chief fair took place at Christmas, when the pilgrims would be on their way to the winter festival of St. Thomas, and was only altered to September in 1312, by which time the original day of the Saint's martyrdom had ceased to be as popular as the summer feast. Again the great fair at Shalford was fixed for the Feast of the Assumption, the 15th of August, so as to catch the stream of pilgrims which flowed back from Canterbury after the Feast of the Translation in July, and the seven days' fair there, that went by the name of Becket's fair. Fairs soon came to be held not only at towns such as Farnham, Guildford, and Shalford, but at the small villages along the Pilgrims' Road. There was one in the churchyard at Puttenham, and another at Wanborough, a church on the northern side of the hill, which belonged to Waverley Abbey, where the offerings made by the pilgrims formed part of the payments yearly received by the Abbot, while a third was held on St. Katharine's Hill during five days in September. Even the churches along the road often owed their existence to the Pilgrimage. The church of Seale was built early in the thirteenth century by the Abbots of Waverley, and that of Wanborough was rebuilt by the same Abbots, and was again allowed to fall into decay when the days of pilgrimages were over. Both the sister chapels of St. Katharine and St. Martha, we shall see, owed their restoration to the pilgrims' passage, and many more along the Way were either raised in honour of St. Thomas, or else adorned with frescoes and altar-pieces of the Martyrdom. Along this pleasant Surrey hill-side the old Canterbury pilgrims journeyed, going from church to church, from shrine to shrine, and more especially if their pilgrimage took place in summer, enjoying the sweet country air and leafy shades of this quiet woodland region. They lingered, we may well believe, at the village fairs, and stopped at every town to see the sights and hear the news; for the pilgrim of mediæval days was, as Dean Stanley reminds us, a traveller with the same adventures, stories, pleasures, pains, as the traveller of our own times, and men of every type and class set out on pilgrimages much as tourists to-day start on a foreign trip. Some, no doubt, undertook the journey from devotion, and more in a vague hope of reaping some profit, both material and spiritual, from a visit to the shrine of the all-powerful Saint, while a thousand other motives--curiosity, love of change and adventure, the pleasure of a journey--prompted the crowds who thronged the road at certain seasons of the year. Chaucer's company of pilgrims we know was a motley crew, and included men and women whose characters were as varied as their rank and trade. With them came a throng of jugglers and story-tellers and minstrels, who beguiled the way with music and laughter as they rode or walked along, so that "every town they came through, what with the noise of their singing, and with the sound of their piping, and with the jangling of their Canterbury bells, and with the barking of the dogs after them, they made more noise than if the king came there with all his clarions." In their train, too, a crowd of idle folk, of roving pedlars and begging friars and lazy tramps, who were glad of any excuse to beg a crust or coin. The presence of these last was by no means always welcome at the inns and religious houses on the road, where doubtful characters often craved admittance, knowing that if the hand of justice overtook them they could always find refuge in one of those churches where the rights of sanctuary were so resolutely claimed and so jealously defended by the Abbot of Waverley or the Prior of Newark. [Illustration: COMPTON VILLAGE.] CHAPTER IV COMPTON TO SHALFORD Following the Pilgrims' Way along the southern slopes of the Hog's Back, we cross Puttenham Heath, and reach the pretty little village of Compton. Here, nestling under the downs, a few hundred yards from the track, is a beautiful old twelfth-century church, which was there before the days of St. Thomas. This ancient structure, dedicated to St. Nicholas, still retains some good stained glass and boasts a unique feature in the shape of a double-storied chancel. The east end of the church is crossed by a low semicircular arch enriched with Norman zigzag moulding, and surmounted by a rude screen, which is said to be the oldest piece of wood-work in England. Both the upper and the lower sanctuaries have piscinas, and there is an Early English one in the south aisle. The massive bases of the chalk pillars, the altar-tomb north of the chancel--probably an Eastern sepulchre--and a hagioscope now blocked up, all deserve attention, as well as the fine Jacobean pulpit and chancel screen, which is now placed under the tower arch. [Illustration: COMPTON CHURCH.] [Illustration: LOSELEY.] A mile to the west of this singularly interesting church is Loseley, the historic mansion of the More and Molyneux family. This manor was Crown property in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and is described in Domesday Book as the property of the Norman Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, on whom it was bestowed by the Conqueror. After passing through many hands it was finally bought from the Earl of Gloucester, early in the sixteenth century, by Sir Christopher More, whose son, Sir William, built the present mansion. The grand old house with its grey-stone gables and mullioned windows is a perfect specimen of Elizabethan architecture. The broad grass terrace along the edge of the moat, the yew hedges with their glossy hues of green and purple, the old-fashioned borders full of bright flowers, and the low pigeon-houses standing at each angle, all remain as they were in the reign of James I., and agree well with Lord Bacon's idea of what a pleasance ought to be. Within, the walls are wainscoted with oak panelling throughout, and the ceilings and mantelpieces are richly decorated. The cross and mulberry tree of the Mores, with their mottoes, may still be seen in the stained-glass oriel of the great hall, and on the cornices of the drawing-room. Here too is a fine mantelpiece, carved in white chalk, which is said to have been designed by Hans Holbein. Many are the royal visitors who have left memorials of their presence at Loseley. Queen Elizabeth had an especial affection for the place, and was here three times. The cushioned seats of two gilt chairs were worked by her needle, and there is a painted panel bearing the quaint device of a flower-pot with the red and white roses of York and Lancaster, and the fleur-de-lis, with the words _Rosa Electa_ and _Felicior Phoenice_, a pretty conceit which would not fail to find favour in the eyes of the Virgin Queen. The hall contains portraits of James I. and his wife Anne of Denmark, painted by Mytens in honour of a visit which they paid to Loseley in the first year of this monarch's reign; and the ceiling of his Majesty's bedroom is elaborately patterned over with stucco reliefs of Tudor roses and lilies and thistles. A likeness of Anne Boleyn, and several fine portraits of members of the More family, also adorn the walls, and there is a beautiful little picture of the boy-king, Edward VI., wearing an embroidered crimson doublet and jewelled cap and feather, painted by some clever pupil of Holbein in 1547. This portrait was sent in 1890 to the Tudor Exhibition, which also contained many historical documents relating to different personages of this royal line, preserved among the Loseley manuscripts. There are warrants signed by Edward VI., the Lord Protector, by Queen Elizabeth and the Lord of her Council, including Hatton the Lord Chancellor, Cecil, Lord Burghley, Lord Effingham, and Lord Derby. There is one of 1540, signed by Henry VIII., commanding Christopher More, Sheriff of the County of Sussex, to deliver certain goods forfeited to the crown to "Katheryn Howarde, one of our quene's maidens," and another, signed by Elizabeth in the first year of her reign, commanding William More to raise and equip one hundred able men, for the defence of England against foreign invasion. There is also a curious sumptuary proclamation by Queen Elizabeth respecting the dress and ornaments of women, and, what is still more rare and interesting, a warrant from Lady Jane Grey, dated July 19, I. Jane, and signed "Jane the Quene." Among the more private and personal papers is an amusing letter from Robert Horne, Bishop of Winchester, giving Mr. More, of Loseley, advice as to stocking the new pond with the best kind of carp, "thes be of a little heade, broade side and not long; soche as be great headed and longe, made after the fashion of an herring, are not good, neither will ever be." Another from Bishop Day informs Sir William More, in 1596, that he intends to fish the little pond at Frensham; while one to the same gentleman from Alexander Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's, thanks him for his exertions to recover a stolen nag on his behalf. The treasures of Loseley, in fact, are as inexhaustible as its beauty. A pleasant walk through the forest trees and grassy glades of the park leads us back to Compton village and the green lanes through which the Pilgrims' Way now wanders. Skirting the grounds of Monk's Hatch, with their pine-groves and rose-gardens lying under the chalk hanger, the old road passes close to Limnerslease, the Surrey home of George Frederic Watts. To-day thousands of pilgrims from all parts of the world seek out this sylvan retreat where the great master spent his last years, and visit the treasures of art which adorn its galleries, and the fair chapel and cloister that mark the painter's grave. [Illustration: ST. KATHERINE'S, GUILDFORD.] [Illustration: ST. MARTHA'S CHAPEL.] From Compton a path known as "Sandy Lane" leads over the hill past Braboeuf Manor, and the site of the old roadside shrine of Littleton Cross, and comes out on the open down, close to the chapel of St. Katherine. This now ruined shrine, which stands on a steep bank near the road, was rebuilt on the site of a still older one in 1317, by Richard de Wauncey, Rector of St. Nicholas, Guildford, and was much frequented by pilgrims to Canterbury. So valuable were the revenues derived by the parson from their offerings that the original grant made to Richard de Wauncey was disputed, and for some years the Rector of St. Mary stepped into his rights. But in 1329 the Rector of St. Nicholas succeeded in ousting his rival, and the chapel was re-consecrated and attached to the parish of St. Nicholas. An old legend ascribes the building of this shrine and of the chapel on St. Martha's Hill to two giant sisters of primæval days, who raised the walls with their own hands and flung their enormous hammer backwards and forwards from one hill to the other. Unlike its more fortunate sister-shrine, St. Katherine's chapel has long been roofless and dismantled, but it still forms a very picturesque object in the landscape, and the pointed arches of its broken windows frame in lovely views of the green meadows of the winding Wey, with the castle and churches of Guildford at our feet, and the hills and commons stretching far away, to the blue ridge of Hindhead. [Illustration: THE HOSPITAL, GUILDFORD. p. 72] The ancient city of Guildford owes its name and much of its historic renown to its situation on the chief ford of the river Wey, which here makes a break in the ridge of chalk downs running across Surrey. Guildford is mentioned in his will by King Alfred, who left it to his nephew Ethelwold, and became memorable as the spot where another Alfred, the son of Knut and Emma, was treacherously seized and murdered by Earl Godwin, who, standing on the eastern slope of the Hog's Back above the city, bade the young prince look back and see how large a kingdom would be his. For seven centuries, from the days of the Saxon kings to those of the Stuarts, Guildford remained Crown property, and the Norman keep which still towers grandly above the city was long a royal palace. The strength of the castle and importance of the position made it famous in the wars of the barons, and the Waverley annalist records its surrender to Louis VIII. of France, when he marched against King John from Sandwich Haven to Winchester. To-day the picturesqueness of the streets, the gabled roofs and panelled houses, and even more the situation of the town in the heart of this fair district, attract many artists, and make it a favourite centre for tourists. [Illustration: THE HOG'S BACK.] In mediæval times Guildford was a convenient halting-place for pilgrims on their way from the south and west of England to the shrine of St. Thomas. Many of these, however, as the shrewd parson of St. Nicholas saw, when he thought it worth his while to buy the freehold of the site on which St. Katherine's chapel stood, would push on and cross the river by the ferry at the foot of the hill, which still bears the name of the Pilgrims' Ferry. On landing they found themselves in the parish of Shalford, in the meadows where the great fair was held each year in August. When the original charter was granted by King John, the fair took place in the churchyard, but soon the concourse of people became so great that it spread into the fields along the river, and covered as much as one hundred and forty acres of ground. Shalford Fair seems, in fact, to have been the most important one in this part of Surrey, and no doubt owed its existence to the passage of the Canterbury pilgrims. [Illustration: ST. MARTHA'S FROM THE HOG'S BACK.] CHAPTER V SHALFORD TO ALBURY The line of the Pilgrims' Way may be clearly followed from the banks of the Wey up the hill. It goes through Shalford Park, up Ciderhouse Lane, where the ancient Pesthouse or refuge for sick pilgrims and travellers, now called Ciderhouse Cottage, is still standing, and leads through the Chantrey Woods straight to St. Martha's Chapel. The district through which it takes us is one of the wildest and loveliest parts of Surrey. "Very few prettier rides in England," remarks Cobbett, who repeatedly travelled along this track, and the beauty of the views all along its course will more than repay the traveller who makes his way on foot over the hills from Guildford to Dorking. One of the most extensive is to be had from St. Martha's Hill, where the prospect ranges in one direction over South Leith Hill and the South Downs far away to the Weald of Sussex and the well-known clump of Chanctonbury Ring; and on the other over the commons and moors to the crests of Hindhead and the Hog's Back; while looking northward we have a wide view over the Surrey plains and the valley of the Thames, and Windsor Castle and the dome of St. Paul's may be distinguished on clear days. The ancient chapel on the summit, which gives its name to St. Martha's Hill, was originally built in memory of certain Christians who suffered martyrdom on the spot, and was formerly dedicated to all holy martyrs, while the hill itself was known as the Martyrs' Hill, of which, as Grose remarks,[8] "the present name is supposed to be a corruption." In the twelfth century it became peculiarly associated with the Canterbury pilgrims, and a new chancel was built for their use, and consecrated to St. Thomas à Becket in the year 1186. In 1262 this chapel was attached to the Priory of Newark, an Augustinian convent near Ripley, dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury by Ruald de Calva in the reign of Richard Coeur de Lion. The Prior already owned most of the hill-side, and the names of Farthing Copse and Halfpenny Lane, through which the pilgrims passed on their way to St. Martha's Chapel, remind us of the tolls which he levied from all who travelled along the road. We have already seen how in the earlier portions of the Way the Prior of Newark disputed the rights of the Abbot of Waverley. Here he reigned supreme. A priest from Newark Priory served St. Martha's Chapel, and is said to have lived at Tyting's Farm, an old gabled house with the remains of a small oratory close to the Pilgrims' Way. In latter days a colony of monks from Newark settled at Chilworth, where the present manor-house contains fragments of monastic building, and the fishponds of the friars may still be seen near the terraced gardens. During the troubled times of the Wars of the Roses the Chapel of St. Martha fell into ruins, and owed its restoration to Bishop William of Waynflete, who in 1463 granted forty days' indulgence to all pilgrims who should visit the shrine and there repeat a Pater Noster, an Ave, and a Credo, or contribute to its repair. After the dissolution of the monasteries both Newark Priory and St. Martha's shrine fell into ruins, and the chapel was only restored of late years. At Chilworth, south of St. Martha's Hill, lies the once fair valley which has been defaced by the powder-mills, first established there three centuries ago by an ancestor of John Evelyn, and now worked by steam. This is the place which Cobbett denounces in his "Rural Rides" with a vigour and eloquence worthy of Mr. Ruskin himself: "This valley, which seems to have been created by a bountiful Providence as one of the choicest retreats of man, which seems formed for a scene of innocence and happiness, has been by ungrateful man so perverted as to make it instrumental in effecting two of the most damnable of purposes, in carrying into execution two of the most damnable inventions that ever sprang from the mind of man under the influence of the devil! namely, the making of gunpowder and of bank-notes! Here, in this tranquil spot, where the nightingales are to be heard earlier and later in the year than in any other part of England; where the first budding of the buds is seen in spring; where no rigour of season can ever be felt; where everything seems formed for precluding the very thought of wickedness; here has the devil fixed on as one of the seats of this grand manufactory; and perverse and ungrateful man not only lends his aid, but lends it cheerfully. To think that the springs which God has commanded to flow from the sides of these happy hills for the comfort and delight of man--to think that these springs should be perverted into means of spreading misery over a whole nation!" One of these "inventions of the devil" has been removed. The paper-mills which made the bank-notes in Cobbett's time are silent now, but the powder-mills are in full activity, and Chilworth, with its coal-stores and railway-crossing, has a blackened and desolate look which not all the natural beauties of its surroundings can dispel. [Illustration: ST. MARTHA'S FROM CHILWORTH.] Once more upon the hills, we can follow the line of yews which are seen at intervals along the ridge from St. Martha's Chapel by Weston Wood and the back of Albury Park, turning a few steps out of our path to visit Newland's Corner, the highest point of Albury Downs, and one of the most beautiful spots in the whole of Surrey. The view is as extensive as that from St. Martha's Hill, and is even more varied and picturesque. Over broken ridges of heathery down and gently swelling slopes, clad with beech and oak woods, we look across to Ewhurst Mill, a conspicuous landmark in all this country, and farther westward to the towers of Charterhouse and the distant heights of Hindhead and Blackdown; while immediately in front, across the wooded valley, rises St. Martha's Hill, crowned by its ancient chapel. Here we can watch the changes of sun and shower over the wide expanse of level country, and see the long range of far hills veiled in the thin blue mists of morning, or turning purple under the gold of the evening sky. Some of the oldest and finest yew trees in all Surrey are close to Newland's Corner--the ancient yew grove there is mentioned in Domesday--and their dark foliage offers a fine contrast to the bright tints of the neighbouring woods and to the snowy masses of blossom which in early summer clothe the gnarled old hawthorn trees that are studded over the hill-side. We can follow the track over the springy turf of the open downs and up glades thick with bracken, till it becomes choked with bushes and brambles, and finally loses itself in the woods of Albury. Here, in the middle of the Duke of Northumberland's park, is the deep glen, surrounded by wooded heights, known as the Silent Pool. A dark tale, which Martin Tupper has made the subject of his "Stephen Langton," belongs to this lonely spot. King John, tradition says, loved a fair woodman's daughter who lived here, and surprised her in the act of bathing in the pool. The frightened girl let loose the branch by which she held, and was drowned in the water; and her brother, a goat-herd, who at the sound of her scream had rushed in after her, shared the same fate. And still, the legend goes, at midnight you may see a black-haired maiden clasping her arms round her brother in his cowhide tunic under the clear rippling surface of the Silent Pool. A little farther on is the old church of Albury--Eldeburie, mentioned in Domesday, and supposed to be the most ancient in Surrey. The low tower, with its narrow two-light windows, probably dates back to very early Norman times, but the rest of the church is considerably later. The south chapel was richly decorated by Mr. Drummond, who bought the place in 1819, and is now used as a mortuary chapel for his family. Albury formerly belonged to the Dukes of Norfolk. The gardens were originally laid out by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, the accomplished collector of the Arundel marbles, and whose fine portrait by Vandyck was exhibited at Burlington House in the winter of 1891. His friend and neighbour, Mr. Evelyn, helped him with his advice and taste, and designed the grotto under the hill, which still remains. "Such a Pausilippe," remarks the author of "The Sylva," "is nowhere in England besides." But the great ornament of Albury is the famous yew hedge, about ten feet high and a quarter of a mile long, probably the finest of its kind in England. So thick are the upper branches of the yew trees that, as William Cobbett writes, when he visited Albury in Mr. Drummond's time, they kept out both the rain and sun, and alike in summer and winter afford "a most delightful walk." The grand terrace under the hill, "thirty or forty feet wide, and a quarter of a mile long, of the finest green-sward, and as level as a die," particularly delighted him; and the careful way in which the fruit trees were protected from the wind, and the springs along the hill-side collected to water the garden, gratified his practical mind. "Take it altogether," he goes on, "this certainly is the prettiest garden that I ever beheld. There was taste and sound judgment at every step in the laying out of this place. Everywhere utility and convenience is combined with beauty. The terrace is by far the finest thing of the sort that I ever saw, and the whole thing altogether is a great compliment to the taste of the times in which it was formed." The honest old reformer's satisfaction in these gardens was increased by the reflection that the owner was worthy of his estate, seeing that he was famed for his justice and kindness towards the labouring classes--"who, God knows, have very few friends amongst the rich;" and adds, that he for one has no sympathy with "the fools" who want a revolution for the purpose of getting hold of other people's property. "There are others who like pretty gardens as well as I, and if the question were to be decided according to the laws of the strongest, or, as the French call it, _droit du plus fort_, my chance would be but a very poor one." [Illustration: ALBURY OLD CHURCH.] [Illustration: THE MILL, GOMSHALL.] CHAPTER VI SHERE TO REIGATE The Pilgrims' Way ran through Albury Park, passing close to the old church and under the famous yew hedge, and crossed the clear trout stream of the Tillingbourne by a ford still known as "Chantry Ford." Here a noble avenue of lime trees brings us to Shere church, a building as remarkable for the beauty of its situation as for its architectural interest. The lovely Early English doorway, the heavy transitional arches of the nave and the fourteenth-century chancel are still unhurt, and among the fragments of old glass we recognise the flax-breaker, which was the crest of the Brays, one of the oldest families in the county, who are, we rejoice to think, still represented here. Shere itself is one of the most charming villages in all this lovely neighbourhood. For many years now it has been a favourite resort of artistic and literary men, who find endless delight in the quiet beauty of the surrounding country. Subjects for pen and pencil abound in all directions; quaint old timbered houses, picturesque water-mills and barns, deep ferny lanes shaded by overhanging trees, and exquisite glimpses of heather-clad downs meet us at every turn. Fair as the scene is, travellers are seldom seen in these hilly regions; and so complete is the stillness, so pure the mountain air, that we might almost fancy ourselves in the heart of the Highlands, instead of thirty miles from town. Here it was, in the midst of the wild scenery of these Surrey Hills, that a sudden end closed the life of a great prelate of our own days, Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester. A granite cross at Evershed's Rough, just below Lord Farrer's house at Abinger Hall, now marks the spot where his horse stumbled and fell as he rode down the hill towards Holmbury on that summer afternoon. [Illustration: SHERE.] [Illustration: CROSSWAYS FARM, NEAR WOTTON.[9]] About a mile beyond Abinger we reach the home of John Evelyn, and see the grey tower of the church where he is buried. This is Wotton--the town of the woods, as he loved to call it--"sweetly environed" with "venerable woods and delicious streams;" Wotton where, after all his wanderings and all the turmoil of those troublous times, Evelyn found a peaceful haven wherein to end his days. There are the terraces, the "fountains and groves," in which he took delight; there, too, are the pine-woods which he planted, not only for ornament, and because they "create a perpetual spring," but because he held the air to be improved by their "odoriferous and balsamical emissions." Not only these trees, but the oak and ash, and all the different species which he studied so closely and has written about so well, were dear to him as his own children, and he speaks in pathetic language of the violent storm which blew down two thousand of his finest trees in a single night, and almost within sight of his dwelling, and left Wotton, "now no more Woodtonn, stripped and naked, and almost ashamed to own its name. Methinks that I still hear, and I am sure that I feel, the dismal groans of our forests, when that late dreadful hurricane, happening on the 26th of November, 1703, subverted so many thousands of goodly oaks, prostrating the trees, laying them in ghastly postures, like whole regiments fallen in battle by the sword of the conqueror, and crushing all that grew beneath them." Evelyn's descendants have bestowed the same care on the woods and plantations, and in spite of the havoc wrought by wind and tempest, Wotton is still remarkable for the beauty of its forest-trees and masses of flowering rhododendrons. [Illustration: WOTTON.] The red-brick house has been a good deal altered during the present century, but is still full of memorials of Evelyn. His portrait, and that of his wife and father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne, are there, and that of his "angelic friend," Mistress Blagge, the wife of Godolphin, whose beautiful memory he has enshrined in the pages of the little volume that bears her name. The drawings which he made on his foreign travels are there too; and better still, the books in which he took such pride and pleasure, carefully bound, bearing on their backs a device and motto which he chose, a spray of oak, palm, and olive entwined together, with the words, "Omnia explorate; meliora retinete." But the most precious relic of all is the Prayer Book used by Charles I. on the morning of his execution. It was saved from destruction by a devoted loyalist, Isaac Herault, brother of a Walloon minister in London, and afterwards given by him to Evelyn's father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne. The fly-leaf bears a Latin inscription with this note:--This is the Booke which Charles the First, _Martyr beatus_, did use upon the Scaffold, XXX Jan., 1649, being the Day of his glorious martyrdom." The exact course of the Pilgrims' Way here is uncertain. After leaving Shere church it disappears, and we must climb a steep lane past Gomshall station, to find the track again on Hackhurst Downs. The line of yews is to be seen at intervals all along these downs, and as we descend into the valley of the Mole, opposite the heights of Box Hill, we pass four venerable yew trees standing in a field by themselves. One of the group was struck by lightning many years ago, but still stretches its gaunt, withered arms against the sky, like some weather-beaten sign-post marking the way to Canterbury. [Illustration: BOX HILL AND DORKING CHURCH SPIRE.] The town of Dorking lies in the break here made in the chalk hills by the passage of the river Mole; Milton's "sullen Mole that windeth underground," or, as Spenser sings in his "Faërie Queen,"-- "Mole, that like a mousling mole doth make His way still underground, till Thames he overtake." [Illustration: THE WHITE HORSE, DORKING.] The Mole owes its fame to the fact that it is so seldom seen, and several of the swallows or gullies into which it disappears at intervals along its chalky bed are at Burford, close to Dorking. The ponds which supplied the perch for that _water-sousie_ which Dutch merchants came to eat at Dorking, are still to be seen in the fields under Redhill, and near them many an old timbered house and mill-wheel well worth painting. [Illustration: BETWEEN DORKING AND BETCHWORTH LOOKING WEST.] To-day Dorking is a quiet, sleepy little place, but its situation on the Stane Street, the great Roman road from Chichester to London, formerly made it a centre of considerable importance, and the size and excellence of the old-fashioned inns still bear witness to its departed grandeur. Whether, as seems most probable, the old road ran under the wall of Denbies Park, and across the gap now made by the Dorking lime works, or whether, as the Ordnance map indicates, it crossed the breezy heights of Ranmore Common, pilgrims to Canterbury certainly crossed the Mole at Burford Bridge about half a mile from the town. The remains of an ancient shrine known as the Pilgrims' Chapel are still shown in Westhumble Lane. The path itself bears the name of Paternoster Lane, and the fields on either side are called the Pray Meadows. From this point the path runs along under Boxhill, the steep down that rises abruptly on the eastern side of Dorking, and takes its name from the box-trees which here spring up so plentifully in the smooth green turf above the chalk. Boxhill is, we all know, one of the chief attractions which Dorking offers to Londoners. The other is to be found in the fine parks of Deepdene and Betchworth, immediately adjoining the town. The famous gardens and art collections of Deepdene, and the noble lime avenue of Betchworth, which now forms part of the same estate, have often been visited and described. The house at Deepdene is now closed to the public, but the traveller can still stroll under the grand old trees on the river bank, and enjoy a wealthy variety of forest scenery almost unrivalled in England. A picturesque bridge over the Mole leads back to the downs on the opposite side of the valley, where the old track pursues its way along the lower slope of the hills, often wending its course through ploughed fields and tangled thickets and disappearing altogether in places where chalk quarries and lime works have cut away the face of the down. But on the whole the line of yews which mark the road is more regular between Dorking and Reigate than in its earlier course, and at Buckland, a village two miles west of Reigate, a whole procession of these trees descends into the valley. [Illustration: ON "THE WAY" ABOVE BETCHWORTH.] All this part of the road is rich in Roman remains. Of these one of the most interesting was the building discovered in 1875, at Colley Farm, in the parish of Reigate, just south of the Way. Not only were several cinerary urns and fragments of Roman pottery dug up, but the walls of a Roman building were found under those of the present farmhouse. Some twenty years ago a similar building was discovered at Abinger, also in the immediate vicinity of the track, but unfortunately it was completely destroyed in the absence of the owner, Sir Thomas Farrer. Another Roman house came to light in 1813, at Bletchingley, and one chamber, which appeared to be a hypocaust, was excavated at the time. Lastly, considerable Roman remains have been discovered and carefully excavated by Mr. Leveson-Gower in the park at Titsey. Of these the most important are a Roman villa, which was thoroughly excavated in 1864, together with a group of larger buildings, apparently the farm belonging to the ancient house. These are only a few of the principal links in the chain of Roman buildings which lie along the course of this ancient trackway, and which all help to prove its importance as a thoroughfare at the time of the Roman occupation. Another point of interest regarding this part of the Pilgrims' Way is its connection with John Bunyan. When his peculiar opinions and open-air preachings had brought him into trouble with the authorities, he came to hide in these Surrey hills, and earned his living for some time as a travelling tinker. Two houses, one at Horn Hatch, on Shalford Common, the other at Quarry Hill, in Guildford, are still pointed out as having been inhabited by him at this time; and a recent writer[10] has suggested that in all probability the recollections of Pilgrimage days, then fresh in the minds of the people, first gave him the idea of his "Pilgrim's Progress." Certainly more than one incident in the history of the road bears a close resemblance to the tale of Christian's adventures. Thus, for instance, the swampy marshes at Shalford may have been the Slough of Despond, the blue Surrey hills seen from the distance may well have seemed to him the Delectable Mountains, and the name of Doubting Castle actually exists at a point of the road near Box Hill. Lastly, the great fair at Shalford corresponds exactly with Bunyan's description of Vanity Fair, no newly erected business, but "a thing of ancient standing," where "the ware of Rome and her merchandise is greatly promoted ... only our English nation have taken a dislike thereat." In the days when Bunyan wrote, the annual fair had degenerated into a lawless and noisy assembly, where little trade was done, and much drinking and fighting and rude horseplay went on, as he may have found to his cost. The wares of Rome, in fact, were commodities no longer in fashion, and soon the fair itself came to an end and passed away, like so many other things that had been called into being by the Canterbury Pilgrimage. [Illustration: WINDMILL ON REIGATE COMMON.] CHAPTER VII REIGATE TO CHEVENING Although the town of Reigate lies in the valley, it certainly takes its name from the Pilgrims' Road to Canterbury. In Domesday it is called Cherchfelle, and it is not till the latter part of the twelfth century that the comparatively modern name of Rigegate, the Ridge Road, was applied, first of all to the upper part of the parish, and eventually to the whole town. In those days a chapel dedicated to the memory of the blessed martyr, St. Thomas, stood at the east end of the long street, on a site now occupied by a market-house, built early in the last century, and part of the ancient foundations of this pilgrimage shrine were brought to light when the adjoining prison was enlarged some eighty or ninety years back. Another chapel, dedicated to St. Laurence the Martyr, stood farther down the street; and a third, the Chapel of Holy Cross, belonged to the Augustine Canons of the Priory founded by William of Warrenne, Earl of Surrey, in the thirteenth century. In Saxon days Reigate, or Holm Castle, as it was then termed, from its situation at the head of the valley of Holmesdale, was an important stronghold, and the vigour and persistence with which the incursions of the Danes were repelled by the inhabitants of this district gave rise to the rhyme quoted by Camden-- "The Vale of Holmesdale Never wonne, ne never shall." [Illustration: REIGATE COMMON.] At the Conquest the manor was granted to William of Warrenne, and from that time the castle became the most powerful fortress of the mighty Earls of Surrey. In the days of John it shared the fate of Guildford Castle, and was one of the strongholds which opened its gates to Louis VIII., King of France, on his march from the Kentish Coast to Winchester. The Fitzalans succeeded the Warrennes in the possession of Reigate, and in the reign of Edward VI., both the castle and the Priory were granted to the Howards of Effingham. Queen Elizabeth's Lord High Admiral, the victor of the Invincible Armada, lies buried in the vault under the chancel of Reigate Church. In Stuart times the castle gradually fell into decay, until it was finally destroyed by order of Parliament, during the Civil War, lest it should fall into the King's hands. Now only the mound of the ancient keep remains, and some spacious subterranean chambers which may have served as cellars or dungeons in Norman times. The Priory has also been replaced by a modern house, and is the property of Lady Henry Somerset, the representative of the Earl Somers, to whom William III. granted Reigate in 1697. Reigate is frequently mentioned in Cobbett's "Rural Rides," and it was the sight of the Priory that set him moralising over monasteries and asking himself if, instead of being, as we take it for granted, _bad things_, they were not, after all, better than _poor-rates_, and if the monks and nuns, who _fed the poor_, were not more to be commended than the rich pensioners of the State, who _feed upon the poor_. Close to this ancient foundation is the hilly common known as Reigate Park, a favourite haunt with artists, who find endless subjects in the fern-grown dells and romantic hollows, the clumps of thorn-trees with their gnarled stems and spreading boughs, their wealth of wild flowers and berries. The views over Reigate itself and the Priory grounds on one side, and over the Sussex Weald on the other, are very charming; but a still finer prospect awaits us on the North Downs on the opposite side of the valley, where the Pilgrims' Road goes on its course. The best way is to climb Reigate Hill as far as the suspension bridge, and follow a path cut in the chalk to the summit of the ridge. It leads through a beechwood on to the open downs, where, if the day is clear, one of the finest views in the whole of England--in the whole world, says Cobbett--breaks upon us. The Weald of Surrey and of Sussex, from the borders of Hampshire to the ridge of East Grinstead, and Crowborough Beacon, near Tunbridge Wells, lies spread out at our feet. Eastward, the eye ranges over the Weald of Kent and the heights above Sevenoaks; westward the purple ridge of Leith Hill and the familiar crest of Hindhead meet us; and far away to the south are the Brighton downs and Chanctonbury Ring. [Illustration: LOOKING EAST FROM GATTON PARK.] The line of yew trees appears again here, and after keeping along the top of the ridge for about a mile, the Pilgrims' Way enters Gatton Park, and passing through the woods near Lord Oxenbridge's house, joins the avenue that leads to Merstham. Gatton itself, which, like Reigate, takes its name from the Pilgrims' Road--Saxon, Gatetun, the town of the road--was chiefly famous for the electoral privileges which it so long enjoyed. From the time of Henry VI. until the Reform Bill of 1832, this very small borough returned two members to Parliament. In the reign of Henry VIII. Sir Roger Copley is described as the burgess and sole inhabitant of the borough and town of Gatton, and for many years the constituency consisted of one person, the lord of the manor. At the beginning of the present century there were only eight houses in the whole parish, a fact which naturally roused the ire of William Cobbett. "Before you descend the hill to go into Reigate," he writes in one of his Rural Rides, "you pass Gatton, which is a very rascally spot of earth." And when rainy weather detained him a whole day at Reigate, he moralises in this vein--"_In_ one rotten borough, one the most rotten too, and with another still more rotten _up upon the hill_, in Reigate and close by Gatton, how can I help reflecting, how can my mind be otherwise than filled with reflections on the marvellous deeds of the collective wisdom of the nation?" These privileges doubled the value of the property, and when Lord Monson bought Gatton Park in 1830, he paid a hundred thousand pounds for the place; but the days of close boroughs were already numbered, and less than two years afterwards the Reform Bill deprived Gatton of both its members. The little town hall of Gatton, where the important ceremony of electing two representatives to serve in Parliament was performed, is still standing, an interesting relic of bygone days, on a mound in the park, almost hidden by large chestnut trees. [Illustration: GATTON TOWN HALL.] Gatton House is chiefly remarkable for the marble hall built by the same Lord Monson in imitation of the Orsini Chapel at Rome, and adorned with rich marbles which he had brought from Italy. The collection of pictures, formed by the same nobleman, contains several good Dutch and Italian pictures, including the "Vierge au bas-relief," a graceful Holy Family, which takes its name from a small carved tablet in the background. It was long held to be an early work by the great Leonardo da Vinci, and was purchased by Lord Monson of Mr. Woodburn for £4,000, but is now generally attributed to his pupil, Cesare da Sesto. Like so many of the churches we have already mentioned, like Seale and Wanborough, and the chapels of St. Katherine and St. Martha, like the old church at Titsey and the present one at Chevening, Gatton was originally a Pilgrims' church. Now it has little that is old to show, for it was restored by Lord Monson in 1831, and adorned with a variety of treasures from all parts of the Continent. The stained glass comes from the monastery of Aerschot, near Louvain, the altar-rails from Tongres, the finely carved choir-stalls and canopies from Ghent, and the altar and pulpit from Nuremberg. Like most of the mediæval wood-work and glass which has come to England from that "Quaint old town of toil and traffic, Quaint old town of art and song," these last are said to have been designed by the great master of the Franconian city, Albert Dürer. [Illustration: MERSTHAM CHURCH.] The Pilgrims' Way, as has been already said, runs through Gatton Park, and brings us out close to Merstham, and through lanes shaded with fine oaks and beeches we reach the pretty little village, with its old timbered cottages and still older church buried in the woods. Local writers of the last century frequently allude to the Pilgrims' Road as passing through this parish, although its exact course is not easy to trace. It seems, however, certain that the track passed near Lord Hylton's house, and south of the church, which stands close by. In mediæval times, Merstham formed part of the vast estates held by the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, and was bestowed upon them by Athelstan, a son of Ethelred the Unready, in the tenth century. There was a church here at the time of the Norman Conquest, but the only portion of the present building dating from that period is a fine old square Norman font which, like several others in the neighbourhood, is of Sussex marble. Of later date, there is much that is extremely interesting. The tower and the west door are Early English, and the chancel arch is adorned with curious acanthus-leaf mouldings, while the porch and chancel are Late Perpendicular. After passing Merstham Church the track is lost in a medley of roads and railway cuttings, but soon the line of yews appears again, climbing the crest of the hill, and can be followed for some distance along White Hill, or Quarry Hangers, as these downs are commonly called. The next object of interest which it passes is the War Camp, or Cardinal's Cap, as it is sometimes termed, an old British earthwork on the face of the chalk escarpment. Then the path turns into a wood, and we leave it to descend on Godstone. This is a fascinating spot for artists. The low irregular houses are grouped round a spacious green and goose-pond, shaded by fine horse-chestnuts, and there is a charming inn, the White Hart or Clayton Arms, with gabled front and large bay-windows of the good old-fashioned type. "A beautiful village," wrote Cobbett, ninety years ago, "chiefly of one street, with a fine large green before it, and with a pond in the green;" and he goes on to speak of the neatness of the gardens and of the double violets, "as large as small pinks," which grew in the garden of this same inn, and of which the landlady was good enough to give some roots. Happily for his peace of mind, he adds, "The vile rotten borough of Bletchingley, which lies under the downs close by, is out of sight." [Illustration: THE WHITE HART, GODSTONE.] [Illustration: OLD HOUSE IN OXTED.] From Godstone it is a pleasant walk over the open commons, along the top of the ridge, looking over the Weald of Sussex and across the valleys of Sevenoaks and Tunbridge to the Kentish hills. Once more we track the line of the Pilgrims' Way as it emerges from the woods above the Godstone quarries and, passing under Winder's Hill and by Marden Park, reaches a wood called Palmers Wood. The name is significant, more especially since there is no record of any owner who bore that name. Here its course is very clearly defined, and when, in the autumn of 1890, pipes for carrying water out of the hill were laid down, a section of the old paved road was cut across. A little farther on, at Limpsfield Lodge Farm, just on the edge of Titsey park, it formed the farm road till 1875. At this point the path was ten feet wide, and the original hedges remained. Before entering the park of Titsey, the way runs through part of Oxted parish, where a spring still bears the name of St. Thomas's Well, and then reaches Titsey Place. [Illustration: OXTED CHURCH.] Few places in this part of Surrey are more attractive than this old home of the Greshams. The purity of the air, praised by Aubrey long ago for its sweet, delicate, and wholesome virtues, the health-giving breezes of the surrounding downs and commons, the natural loveliness of the place, and the taste with which the park and gardens have been laid out, all help to make Titsey a most delightful spot. Its beautiful woods stretch along the grassy slopes of Botley Hill, and the clump of trees on the heights known as Cold-harbour Green is 881 feet above the sea, and marks the loftiest point in the whole range of the North Downs. Wherever the eye rests, one ridge of wooded hill after the other seems to rise and melt away into the soft blue haze. Nor is there any lack of other attractions to invite the attention of scholar and antiquary. The place is full of historic associations. A whole wealth of antiquities, coins, urns, and pottery, have been dug up in the park, and some remains of Roman buildings were discovered there a few years ago, close to the Pilgrims' Way. After the conquest Titsey was given to the great Earls of Clare, who owned the property at the time of the Domesday Survey. In the fourteenth century it belonged to the Uvedale family, and two hundred years later was sold to Sir John Gresham, an uncle of Sir Thomas Gresham, the illustrious merchant of Queen Elizabeth's court, and the founder of the Royal Exchange. A fine portrait of Sir Thomas himself, by Antonio More, now hangs in the library of Titsey Place. Unfortunately the Greshams suffered for their loyalty to Charles I., and after the death of the second Sir Marmaduke Gresham in 1742, a large part of the property was sold. His son, Sir John, succeeded in partly retrieving the fortunes of the family, and rebuilt and enlarged the old manor-house, which had been allowed to fall into a ruinous state. But the Tudor arches of the east wing still remain, as well as much of the fine oak panelling which adorned its walls; and the crest of the Greshams, a grasshopper, may still be seen in the hall chimney-piece. The present owner, Mr. Leveson-Gower, is a lineal descendant of the last baronet, and inherited Titsey from his great-grandmother Katherine, the heiress of the Greshams. The fourteenth-century church was unluckily pulled down a hundred years ago, because Sir John Gresham thought it stood too near his own house, but an old yew in the garden and some tombstones of early Norman date still mark its site. The course of the Pilgrims' Way through the Park is clearly marked by a double row of fine ash trees, and the flint stones with which the road itself is paved may still be seen under the turf. Further along the road is a very old farmhouse, which was formerly a hostelry, and still bears the name of the Pilgrims' Lodge. From Titsey the Way runs along the side of the hills, under Tatsfield Church, which stands on the summit of the ridge, and about a mile above the pretty little towns of Westerham and Brasted. Here the boundary of the counties is crossed, and the traveller enters Kent. Soon we reach the gates of Chevening Park, where, as at Titsey, the Pilgrims' Way formerly passed very near the house, until it was closed by Act of Parliament in 1780. [Illustration: BRASTED.] The manor of Chevening, originally the property of the See of Canterbury, was held in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the family of Chevening, from whence it passed to the Lennards, who became Barons Dacre and Earls of Sussex. In the last century it was bought by General Stanhope, the distinguished soldier and statesman, who, after reducing the island of Minorca, served King George I. successively as Secretary of State and First Lord of the Treasury. Inigo Jones built the house for Richard Lennard, Lord Dacre, early in the seventeenth century, but since then it has undergone such extensive alterations that little of the original structure remains, and the chief interest lies in a valuable collection of historical portraits, including those of the Chesterfields, Stanhopes, and the great Lord Chatham. The last-named statesman, whose daughter Hester married Charles, Lord Stanhope, in 1774, was a frequent visitor at Chevening, and is said to have planned the beautiful drive which leads through the woods north of the house to the top of the downs. The little village of Chevening lies on the other side of the park, just outside Lord Stanhope's gates and close to the old church of St. Botolph, which was one of the shrines frequented by the pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. There are some good Early English arches in the nave and chancel, and a western tower of Perpendicular date. The south chapel contains many imposing sepulchral monuments to the different lords of the manor. Amongst them are those of John Lennard, who was sheriff of the county and held several offices under the crown in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and of his son Sampson, who with his wife Margaret, Lady Dacre in her own right, reposes under a sumptuous canopy of alabaster surrounded by kneeling effigies of their children. There is also a fine black marble monument to the memory of James, Earl of Stanhope, the prime minister of George I., who was buried here with great pomp in 1721. He was actually in office at the time of his death, and was taken ill in the House of Lords, and breathed his last the next day. But the most beautiful tomb here is Chantrey's effigy of Lady Frederica Stanhope sleeping with her babe in her arms, and an expression of deep content and peace upon her quiet face. [Illustration: CHEVENING CHURCH.] "Storms may rush in, and crimes and woes Deform the quiet bower; They may not mar the deep repose Of that immortal flower." [Illustration: OTFORD CHURCH.] CHAPTER VIII OTFORD TO WROTHAM We have followed the Pilgrims' Way over Hampshire Downs and Surrey hills and commons, through the woods which Evelyn planted, and along the ridge where Cobbett rode. We have seen the track become overgrown with tangled shrubs and underwood, and disappear altogether in places. We have lost the road at one point in the fields, to find it again half a mile further; we have noted the regular lines of yews climbing up the hill-side, and the lonely survivors which are left standing bare and desolate in the middle of the corn-fields. The part of the ancient road on which we are now entering differs in several important respects from its earlier course. From the time the Pilgrims' Way enters Kent its track is clearly marked. Already we have followed its line through Titsey and along the downs as far as Chevening, where the path, now closed, may be traced through Lord Stanhope's Park. A group of magnificent old yew trees arrests our attention just beyond Chevening, before the road from Sevenoaks to Bromley is crossed. Then the Way descends into the valley of the Darent, an excellent trout-stream which flows north through this chalk district to join the Thames near Dartford, and after crossing the ford over that river, regains the hills at Otford. From this place it runs along under the hill in one unbroken line all the way to Eastwell Park, between Ashford and Canterbury. It is a good bridle-way, somewhat grass-grown in places, in others enclosed by hedges, and still used by farmers for their carts. Before toll-bars were abolished there was a good deal of traffic along this part of the Pilgrims' Road, which, running as it does parallel with the turnpike road along the valley to Ashford, was much used as a means of evading the payment of toll. This cause is now removed, and excepting for an occasional hunting-man who makes use of the soft track along the hill-side, or a camp of gipsies sitting round their fire, waggoners and ploughmen are the only wayfarers to be met with along the Pilgrims' Road. But the old name still clings to the track, and as long as the squires of Kent have any respect for the traditions of the past, any particle of historic sense remaining, they will not allow the Pilgrims' Way to be wiped out. In actual beauty of scenery this portion of the Way may not equal the former part. We miss the wild loveliness of Surrey commons, the rare picturesqueness of the rolling downs round Guildford and Dorking, but this Kentish land has a charm of its own, which grows upon you the longer you know it. These steep slopes and wooded hollows, these grand old church towers and quaint village streets, these homesteads with their vast barns of massive timber and tall chimney-stacks overshadowed with oaks and beeches, cannot fail to delight the eyes of all who find pleasure in rural scenes. And all along our way we have that noble prospect over the wide plains of the dim blue Weald, which is seldom absent from our eyes, as we follow this narrow track up and down the rugged hill-side. In historic interest and precious memorials of the past, this part of the Pilgrims' Way, we need hardly say, is surpassingly rich. Endless are the great names and stirring events which these scenes recall: battlefields where memorable fights were fought in days long ago, churches and lands that were granted to the Archbishops or Abbots of Canterbury before the Conquest, manor-houses which our kings and queens have honoured with their presence in the days of yore. All these things, and many more of equal interest and renown, will the traveller find as he follows the Pilgrims' Way along the chalk hills which form the backbone of Kent. The first resting-place which the pilgrims would find on this part of their route would be the Archbishop's manor-house at Otford. There were no less than fifteen of these episcopal residences in different parts of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, and of these, three lay along the Kentish portion of the Pilgrims' Way. The palace at Otford possessed an especial sanctity in the eyes of wayfarers journeying to the shrine of St. Thomas, as having been a favourite residence of the martyred Archbishop himself. The manor was originally granted to the See of Canterbury in 791, by Offa, king of Mercia, who defeated Aldric, king of Kent, at Otford in 773, and conquered almost the whole province. More than two hundred years later, Otford was the scene of another battle, in which Edmund Ironside defeated the Danes under Knut, and to this day bones are dug up in the meadow which bears the name of Danefield. From the tenth century the Archbishops had a house here, and Otford is described in the Domesday Survey as _Terra Archiepi Cantuariensis_. So it remained until Cranmer surrendered the palace, with many other of his possessions, to Henry VIII. The mediæval Archbishops seem to have had an especial affection for Otford, and spent much of their time at this pleasant country seat. Archbishop Winchelsea entertained Edward I. in 1300, and was living here at the time of his death thirteen years later, when his remains were borne by the King's command to Canterbury, and buried there with great state. Simon Islip enclosed the park, and Archbishop Deane repaired the walls; but the whole was rebuilt on a grander scale by Warham, who spent upwards of thirty thousand pounds upon the house, and received Henry VIII. here several times in the first years of his reign. After Otford had become Crown property, the Archbishop's manor-house passed into the hands of the Sydneys and Smyths, who dismantled the castle, as it was then commonly called, and allowed the walls to fall into ruin. Two massive octagonal towers of three stories, with double square-headed windows, and a fragment of a cloister, now used as farm stables, are the only portions remaining. These evidently formed part of the outer court, and are good specimens of fifteenth-century brickwork. The tower was considerably higher a hundred years ago, and Hasted describes the ruins as covering nearly an acre of ground. The stones of the structure were largely used in the neighbouring buildings, and the Bull Inn contains a good deal of fine oak wainscoting, and several handsome carved mantelpieces, which originally belonged to the castle. Two heads in profile, carved in oak over one of the fireplaces, are said to represent Henry VIII. and Katherine of Aragon. A bath, or chamber, paved and lined with stone, about thirty feet long, and ten or twelve feet deep, not far from the ruins, still bears the name of Becket's Well. Tradition ascribes the birth of the spring which supplies it to St. Thomas, who, finding no water at Otford, struck the hill-side with his staff, and at once brought forth a clear stream, which since then has never been known to fail. Another legend tells how the Saint one day, being "busie at his prayers in the garden at Otford, was much disturbed by the sweete note and melodie of a nightingale that sang in a bush beside him, and in the might of his holinesse commanded all birds of this kind to be henceforth silent," after which the nightingale was never heard at Otford. But with the decay of the palace and the departure of the Archbishops, the spell was broken; and the Protestant Lambarde, when he was at Otford, takes pleasure in recording how many nightingales he heard singing thereabouts. [Illustration: THE PORCH, KEMSING CHURCH.] From Otford the Pilgrims' Way runs along the edge of the hills about half a mile above the villages of Kemsing and Wrotham, and passes close to St. Clere, a mansion built by Inigo Jones, where Mrs. Boscawen, the witty correspondent of Mrs. Delany and the friend of Johnson and Boswell, was born. Kemsing still retains its old church and well, both consecrated to the memory of the Saxon Princess, St. Edith, whose image in the churchyard was, during centuries, the object of the peasants' devout veneration. "Some seelie bodie," writes Lambarde, who visited these shrines in Queen Elizabeth's reign, and delights in pouring contempt on the old traditions of these country shrines, "brought a peche or two, or a bushelle of corne, to the churche after praiers made, offered it to the image of the saint. Of this offering the priest used to toll the greatest portion, and then to take one handful or little more of the residue (for you must consider he woulde bee sure to gaine by the bargaine), the which, after aspersion of holy water and the mumbling of a fewe words of conjuration, he first dedicated to the image of Saint Edith, and then delivered it backe to the partie that brought it; who departed with full persuasion that if he mingled that hallowed handfull with his seede corne, it would preserve from harme and prosper in growthe the whole heape that he should sowe, were it never so great a stacke." [Illustration: WROTHAM CHURCH.] Wrotham was the site of another of the Archbishops' manor-houses, and rivalled Otford in antiquity, having been granted to the See of Canterbury by Athelstan in 964. Wrotham was never as favourite a residence with the Archbishops as Otford, but they stopped here frequently on their progresses through Kent, until, in the fourteenth century, Simon Islip pulled down the house to supply materials for the building of his new palace at Maidstone. A terrace and some scanty remains of the offices are the only fragments now to be seen at Wrotham, but the charming situation of the village in the midst of luxuriant woods, and the beauty of the view over the Weald from Wrotham Hill, attract many visitors. The church has several features of architectural interest, including a handsome rood-screen of the fourteenth century, and a watching-chamber over the chancel, as well as a curious archway under the tower, which was probably used as a passage for processions from the Palace. It contains many tombs and brasses, chiefly of the Peckham family, who held the manor of Yaldham in this parish for upwards of five hundred years. Below the church is Wrotham Place, a fine old Tudor house with a corridor and rooms of the fifteenth century, and a charming garden front bearing the date 1560. Fairlawn, the ancestral home of the Vanes, also lies in a corner of Wrotham parish, and a terrace, bordered with close-clipped yew hedges, and surrounded by sunny lawns, where peacocks spread their tails over the grass, is still pointed out as a favourite walk of that stout old regicide, Sir Harry Vane. Ightham, with its famous Mote, so perfect a picture of an old English house, is close by, within a walk of Wrotham station, but lies, unluckily, on the opposite side from the line of hills along which our path takes us. [Illustration: THE MOTE, IGHTHAM] [Illustration: WROTHAM, LOOKING SOUTH.] CHAPTER IX WROTHAM TO HOLLINGBOURNE The Pilgrims' Way continues its course over Wrotham Hill and along the side of the chalk downs. This part of the track is a good bridle road, with low grass banks or else hedges on either side, and commands fine views over the rich Kentish plains, the broad valley of the Medway, and the hills on the opposite shore. The river itself glitters in the sun, but as we draw nearer the beauty of the prospect is sorely marred by the ugly chimneys and dense smoke of the Snodland limestone works. At one point on the downs, close to the Vigo Inn, a few hundred yards above our road, there is a very extensive view over the valley of the Thames, ranging from Shooters' Hill to Gravesend, and far away out to sea. In the daytime the masts of the shipping in the river are clearly seen. At night the Nore lights twinkle like stars in the distance. The height of these downs is close on 700 feet, that of Knockholt is 783 feet. On the other side of the Medway the chalk range is considerably lower, and the highest points are above Detling, 657 feet, Hollingbourne, 606 feet, and Charing, 640 feet. [Illustration: THE BULL, WROTHAM.] The Way now runs past Pilgrims' house, formerly the Kentish Drovers' Inn, above the old church and village of Trottescliffe (Trosley) and the megalithic stones known as Coldrum circle, one of the best preserved cromlechs along the road. Further on a short lane leads south to Birling Place, the ancient home of the Nevills, who have owned the estate since the middle of the fifteenth century, while in a group of old farm buildings at Paddlesworth (formerly Paulsford) we find the remains of a Norman Pilgrims' Chapel, with a fine Early English arch. The track now crosses a large field and enters Snodland, an old town containing many Roman remains, and an interesting church, but sadly disfigured by cement works and paper factories. [Illustration: TROTTESCLIFFE.] Here the pilgrims left the hills to descend into the valley below. Twice before, at Shalford and Dorking, they had crossed the rivers which make their way through the chalk range; now they had reached the third great break in the downs, and the broad stream of the Medway lay at their feet. They might, if they pleased, go on to Rochester, three miles higher up, and join the road taken by the London pilgrims along the Watling Street to Canterbury--the route of Chaucer's pilgrimage. But most of them, it appears, preferred to follow the hills to which they had clung so long. [Illustration: FORD PLACE, NEAR WROTHAM.] The exact point where they crossed the river has been often disputed. According to the old maps it was by the ford at Cuxton, where the river was shallow enough to allow of their passage. From Bunker's Farm, immediately above Birling, a road diverges northwards to Cuxton and Rochester, and was certainly used by many of the pilgrims. At Upper Halling, on this track, we may still see the lancet windows of a pilgrims' shrine formerly dedicated to St. Laurence, which have been built into some cottages known as Chapel houses. The Bishops of Rochester, who held this manor from Egbert's days, had "a right fair house" at Lower Halling, on the banks of the Medway, with a vineyard which produced grapes for King Henry III.'s table. This pleasant manor-house on the river was the favourite summer residence of Bishop Hamo de Hethe, who built a new hall and chapel in the reign of Edward I., and placed his own statue on a gateway which was still standing in the eighteenth century. Another interesting house, Whorne Place, lies a little higher up, on the banks of the Medway, where the grass-grown track leading from Bunker's Farm joins the main road to Cuxton and Rochester. This fine brick mansion formerly belonged to the Levesons, and the quarterings of Sir John Leveson and his two wives are to be seen above the central porch. [Illustration: THE FRIARY, AYLESFORD.] In the thirteenth century a great number of pilgrims seem to have stopped at Maidstone, where, in 1261, Archbishop Boniface built a hospital for their reception on the banks of the Medway. The funds which supported this hospital, the Newark--New-work, Novi operis, as it was called--were diverted by Archbishop Courtenay, a hundred and forty years later, to the maintenance of his new college of All Saints, on the opposite side of the river, but a remnant of the older foundation is still preserved in the beautiful Early English Chancel of St. Peter's Church, which was originally attached to Boniface's hospital, and is still known as the Pilgrims' Chapel. By the time that Archbishop Courtenay founded his college, the stream of pilgrims had greatly diminished, and the hostel which had been intended for their resting-place was rapidly sinking into a common almshouse. Maidstone, too, no doubt, lay considerably out of the pilgrims' course, and the great majority naturally preferred to cross the Medway by the ferry at Snodland. Others again might choose Aylesford, which lay a mile or two below. At this ancient town, the Eglesford of the Saxon Chronicle, there was a stone bridge across the river, and a Carmelite Priory founded in 1240 by Richard de Grey, on his return from the Crusades, where the pilgrims would be sure to find shelter. But even if they did not cross the Medway at this place, where the old church stands so picturesquely on its high bank overhanging river and red roofs, the pilgrims certainly passed through the parish of Aylesford. For on the opposite banks of the ferry at Snodland the familiar line of yew trees appears again, ascending the hill by Burham church, and runs through the upper part of Aylesford parish, close to the famous dolmen of Kits Coty House. This most interesting sepulchral monument, Kêd-coit--Celtic for the Tomb in the Wood--consists of three upright blocks of sandstone about eight feet high and eight feet broad, with a covering stone of eleven feet which forms the roof, and is one of a group of similar remains which lie scattered over the hill-side and are locally known as the Countless Stones. We have here, in fact, a great cemetery of the Druids which once extended for many miles on both sides of the river. Deep pits dug out in the chalk, filled with flints and covered with slabs of stone, have been discovered on Aylesford Common, and a whole avenue of stones formerly connected this burial place with the cromlechs at Addington, six miles off. Here, if the old legend be true, was fought the great battle which decided the fate of Britain, and gave England into the hands of the English. For at this place, the old chroniclers say, about the year 455, the Saxon invaders stopped on their march to the Castle of Rochester, and turning southwards met the Britons in that deadly fray, when both Kentigern and Horsa were left dead on the field of battle. Ancient military entrenchments are still visible on the hill-side near Kits Coty House, and a boulder on the top was long pointed out as the stone on which Hengist was proclaimed the first king of Kent. About a mile from this memorable spot, in the plains at the foot of the downs, was a shrine which no pilgrim of mediæval days would leave unvisited, the Cistercian Abbey of Boxley, then generally known as the Abbatia S. Crucis de Gracias, the Abbey of the Holy Rood of Grace. [Illustration: AYLESFORD BRIDGE] [Illustration: KITS COTY HOUSE.] Not only was Boxley, next to Waverley Abbey, the oldest Cistercian house founded on this side of the Channel, the _filia propria_ of the great house of Clairvaux, but the convent church rejoiced in the possession of two of the most celebrated wonder-working relics in all England. There was the image of St. Rumbold, that infant child of a Saxon prince who proclaimed himself a Christian the moment of his birth, and after three days spent in edifying his pagan hearers, departed this life. This image could only be lifted by the pure and good, and having a hidden spring, which could be worked by the hands or feet of the monks, was chiefly influenced by the amount of the coin that was paid into their hands. And there was that still greater marvel, the miraculous Rood, or winking image, a wooden crucifix which rolled its eyes and moved its lips in response to the devotees who crowded from all parts of England to see the wondrous sight. The clever mechanism of this image, said to have been invented by an English prisoner during his captivity in France, was exposed by Henry VIII.'s commissioners in 1538, who discovered "certayn ingyns of old wyer with olde roten stykkes in the back of the same," and showed them to the people of Maidstone on market-day, after which the Rood of Grace was taken to London and solemnly broken in pieces at Paul's Cross. The Abbey of Boxley owned vast lands, and the Abbots were frequently summoned to Parliament, and lived in great state. Among the royal guests whom they entertained was King Edward II., whose visit was made memorable by the letter which he addressed from Boxley Abbey to the Aldermen of the City of London, granting them the right of electing a Lord Mayor. At one time their extravagance brought them to the verge of ruin, as we learn from a letter which Archbishop Warham addressed to Cardinal Wolsey; but at the dissolution the Commissioners could find no cause of complaint against the monks, excepting the profusion of flowers in the convent garden, which made them comment on the waste of turning "the rents of the monastery into gillyflowers and roses." The foundations of the church where the Cistercians showed off their "sotelties" may still be traced in the gardens of the house built by Sir Thomas Wyatt on the site of the abbey. Here some precious fragments of the ruins are still preserved. The chapel of St. Andrew, which stood near the great gateway, has been turned into cottages, and the noble "guesten-house," where strangers were lodged, is now a barn. The old wall remains to show the once vast extent of the Abbey precincts. Now these grey stones are mantled with thick bushes of ivy, and a fine clump of elm trees overshadows the red-tiled roof of the ancient guest-house in the meadows, but we look in vain for poor Abbot John's gillyflowers and roses. [Illustration: LOOKING WEST FROM ABOVE BOXLEY ABBEY.] Between Boxley Abbey and Maidstone stretches the wide common of Penenden Heath, famous from time immemorial as the place where all great county meetings were held. Here the Saxons held their "gemotes," and here in 1076, was that memorable assembly before which Lanfranc pleaded the cause of the Church of Canterbury against Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, Earl of Kent, the Conqueror's half-brother, who had defrauded Christ Church of her rights, and laid violent hands on many of her manors and lands. Not only were the Kentish nobles and bishops summoned to try the cause, but barons and distinguished ecclesiastics, and many men "of great and good account," from all parts of England and Normandy, were present that day. Godfrey, Bishop of Coutances, represented the King, and Agelric, the aged Bishop of Chester, "an ancient man well versed in the laws and customs of the realm," was brought there in a chariot by the King's express command. Three days the trial lasted, during which Lanfranc pleaded his cause so well against the rapacious Norman that the see of Canterbury recovered its former possessions, and saw its liberties firmly established. The village and church of Boxley (Bose-leu in Domesday), so called from the box trees that grow freely along the downs, as at Box Hill, are about a mile and a half beyond the Abbey, and lie on the sloping ground at the foot of the hills, close to the Pilgrims' Way. Old houses and timbered barns, with lofty gables and irregular roofs, are grouped round the church, which is itself as picturesque an object as any, with its massive towers and curious old red-tiled Galilee porch. Next we reach Detling, a small village, prettily situated on the slope of the hills, with a church containing a rare specimen of mediæval wood-work in the shape of a carved oak reading-desk, enriched with pierced tracery of the Decorated period. We pass Thurnham, with the foundations of its Saxon castle high up on the downs, and then enter Hollingbourne. As Boxley reminds us of the box trees on the hill-side, and Thurnham of the thorn trees in the wood, so Hollingbourne owes its name to the hollies on the burn or stream which runs through the parish. William Cobbett, whose memory has followed us all the way from the Itchen valley, describes how he rode over Hollingbourne Hill on his return from Dover to the Wen, and from the summit of that down, one of the highest in this neighbourhood, looked down over the fair Kentish land, which in its richness and beauty seemed to him another Garden of Eden. [Illustration: COTTAGE AT BOARLEY, NEAR BOXLEY] CHAPTER X HOLLINGBOURNE TO LENHAM The village of Hollingbourne lies at the foot of the hill, and an old inn at the corner of the Pilgrims' Road, now called the King's Head, was formerly known by the name of the Pilgrims' Rest. The history of Hollingbourne is full of interest. The manor was granted to the church at Canterbury, "for the support of the monks," by young Athelstan, the son of Æthelred II., in the year 980, and was retained by the monastery when Lanfranc divided the lands belonging to Christ Church between the priory and the see. It is described in Domesday as _Terra Monachorum Archiepi_, the land of the monk and the Archbishop; in later records as _Manorium Monachorum et de cibo eorum_, a manor of the monks and for their food. The Priors of Christ Church held their courts here, and the convent records tell us that Prior William Sellyng greatly improved the Priory rooms at Hollingbourne. Their residence probably occupied the site of the present manor-house. This handsome red-brick building, rich in gables and mullions, in oak panelling and secret hiding-places, was built in Queen Elizabeth's reign by the great Kentish family of the Culpepers, who at that time owned most of the parish. More than one fragment of the earlier house, encased in the Elizabethan building, has been brought to light, and a pointed stone archway of the thirteenth century, and an old fireplace with herring-bone brickwork, have lately been discovered. Many are the interesting traditions which belong to this delightful old manor-house. The yews in the garden are said to have been planted by Queen Elizabeth on one of her royal progresses through Kent, when she stayed at Leeds Castle, and was the guest of Sir Henry Wotton at Boughton Malherbe. According to another very old local tradition, Katherine Howard, whose mother was a Culpeper, spent some years here as a girl, and the ghost of that unhappy queen is said to haunt one of the upper chambers of the house. Another room, called the Needle-Room, was occupied during the Commonwealth by the daughters of that faithful loyalist, John Lord Culpeper, Frances, Judith, and Philippa, who employed the weary years of their father's exile in embroidering a gorgeous altar-cloth and hangings, which they presented to the parish church on the happy day when the king came back to enjoy his own again. The tapestries, worked by the same deft fingers, which once adorned the chambers of the manor-house, are gone, and the hangings of the reading-desk in the church have been cut up into a frontal, but the altar-cloth remains absolutely intact, and is one of the finest pieces of embroidery of the kind in England. Both design and colouring are of the highest beauty. On a ground of violet velvet, bordered with a frieze of cherub heads, we see the twelve mystic fruits of the Tree of Life--the grape, orange, cherry, apple, plum, pear, mulberry, acorn, peach, medlar, quince, and pomegranate. The richest hues of rose and green are delicately blended together, and their effect is heightened by the gold thread in which the shading is worked. The lapse of two centuries and a half has not dimmed the brightness of their colours, which are as fresh as if the work had been finished yesterday. A needle which had been left in a corner of the altar-cloth all those long years ago was still to be seen sticking in the velvet early in the last century, but has now disappeared. [Illustration: HOLLINGBOURNE HOUSE.] This goodly manor-house was only one of several seats belonging to the Culpepers in this neighbourhood. They had a mansion at Greenway Court, which was burnt down in the last century, and another of imposing dimensions where Grove Court now stands. In the seventeenth century the Lords Culpeper also owned Leeds Castle, that noble moated house, a mile to the south, which was once a royal park, and is still one of the finest places in Kent. But the second Lord Culpeper died without a male heir in 1688, and this famous house passed by marriage into the Fairfax family. The Hollingbourne branch of the Culpepers died out in the course of the last century, and at the present time no member of this illustrious family is known to exist in England, although persons bearing this ancient name are still to be found in America. The church at Hollingbourne contains a whole series of Culpeper monuments. The most remarkable is the white marble altar-tomb, which bears the recumbent effigy of Elizabeth Lady Culpeper, who died in 1638, and is described in the inscription on her monument as _Optima Foemina, Optima Conjux, et Optima Mater_. This lady was the heiress of the Cheney family, whose arms, the ox's hide and horns, appear on the shield at the foot of the tomb, and are repeated in the stained glass of the chapel window. Tradition says that Sir John Cheney had his helmet struck off, when he fought by the victor's side on Bosworth Field, and fixed a bull's horns on his head in its place. Afterwards Henry VII. gave him this crest, when he made him a Baron and a Knight of the Garter, in reward for his valour on that hard-fought field. A monument on the north wall of the chancel records the memory of John Lord Culpeper, who was successively Chancellor of the Exchequer, Master of the Rolls, and Privy Councillor to Charles I. and Charles II. "For equal fidelity to the king and kingdome," says the epitaph on his tomb, "he was most exemplary." He followed the last-named king into exile and remained there until the Restoration, when "with him he returned tryumphant into England on the 29th of May, 1660," only to die six weeks afterwards, "to the irreparable losse of his family." Another descendant of the Culpepers is buried under the altar in this church, Dame Grace Gethin, a great grand-daughter of Sir Thomas Culpeper, and wife of Sir Richard Gethin, of Gethinge Grott, in Ireland, whose learning and virtues were so renowned that monuments were erected in her honour both at Bath and in Westminster Abbey. This youthful prodigy, who died at the age of twenty-one, is here represented kneeling between two angels, and holding in her hand the commonplace book which she filled with extracts from her favourite authors, and which was afterwards published under the title of "Reliquiæ Gethinianæ." Her piety was as great as her personal charms, and the inscription on her monument records how, "being adorned with all the Graces and Perfections of mind and body, crowned them all with exemplary Patience and Humility, and having the day before her death most devoutly received the Holy Communion, which she said she would not have omitted for Ten Thousand Worlds, she was vouchsafed in a miraculous manner an immediate prospect of her future Blisse, for the space of two hours, to the astonishment of all about her, and being, like St. Paul, in an unexpressible Transport of joy, thereby fully evincing her foresight of the Heavenly Glory, in unconceivable Raptures triumphing over Death, and continuing sensible to the last, she resigned her pious soul to God, and victoriously entered into rest, Oct. 11th, anno ætatis 21, D'ni: 1697. Her dear and affectionate Mother, whom God in mercy supported by seeing her glorious end, erected this monument, she being her last surviving issue." Soon after leaving Hollingbourne, the Pilgrims' Way enters the grounds of Stede Hill, and passes through the beech-woods that spread down the grassy slopes to the village and church of Harrietsham--Heriard's Home in Domesday--in the valley below. An altar-tomb, to the memory of Sir William Stede, who died in 1574, and several other monuments to members of the same family, may be seen in the south chapel of the church, a fine building of Early English and Perpendicular work, with a good rood-screen, standing in an open space at the foot of the Stede Hill grounds. The rectory of Harrietsham was formerly attached to the neighbouring Priory of Leeds, but was granted by Henry VI. to Archbishop Chichele's newly founded College of All Souls, Oxford, which still retains the patronage of this living. The manor was one of many in this neighbourhood given to Odo of Bayeux after the battle of Hastings, and afterwards formed part of the vast estates owned by Juliana de Leyborne, called the Infanta of Kent, who was married three times, but died without children, leaving her lands to become crown property. A mile farther the Pilgrims' Way enters the town of Lenham. This parish contains both the sources of the river Len--the _Aqua lena_ of the Romans--which flows through Harrietsham and by Leeds Castle into the Medway, and that of the Stour, which runs in the opposite direction towards Canterbury. Lenham has held a charter, and enjoyed the privileges of a town from mediæval times. The bright little market-square, full of old houses with massive oak beams, and quaint corners jutting out in all directions, hardly agrees with Hasted's description of Lenham as a dull, unfrequented place, where nothing thrives in the barren soil, and the inhabitants, when asked by travellers if this is Lenham, invariably reply, "Ah, sir, poor Lenham!" The picturesqueness of its buildings is undeniable, and its traditions are of the highest antiquity. The manor of Lenham was granted to the Abbey of St. Augustine at Canterbury by Cenulf, king of Mercia, more than a thousand years ago, and in the twelfth century the church was appropriated to the Refectory of St. Augustine; that is to say, the rectorial tithes were made to supply the monks' dinners. Some fragments of the original Norman church still exist, but the greater part of the present structure, the arcade of bays, the fine traceried windows of the aisle, and most of the chancel, belong to the Decorated period, and were rebuilt after the great fire in 1297, when not only the church, but the Abbot's barns and farm buildings were burnt to the ground by an incendiary. So great was the sensation produced by this act of wanton mischief, that Archbishop Winchelsea himself came to Lenham to see the ravages wrought by the fire, and fulminated a severe excommunication against the perpetrators of the wicked deed. The sixteen oak stalls for the monks, and an arched stone sedilia, of the fourteenth century, which served the Abbot for his throne when he visited his Lenham estates, are still to be seen in the chancel. Here, too, is a sepulchral effigy let into the north wall in a curious sideways position, representing a priest in his robes, supposed to be that of Thomas de Apulderfelde, who lived at Lenham in the reign of Edward II., and died in 1327. Both the western tower and the north chancel, dedicated to St. Edmund, and containing tombs of successive lords of East Lenham manor, are Perpendicular in style, and belong to the fourteenth or early part of the fifteenth century. Fragments of the fourteenth-century paintings, with which the walls of the whole church were once adorned, may still be distinguished in places. Among them are the figures of a bishop, probably St. Augustine, and of St. Michael weighing souls, with devils trying to turn the balance in their favour, on one side, and on the other the crowned Virgin throwing her rosary into the scale which holds the souls of the just. The church was dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, and her image formerly occupied the niche in the timbered porch which, with the old lych-gate, are such fine specimens of fifteenth-century wood-work. The beautiful Jacobean pulpit was given by Anthony Honywood in 1622, and is charmingly carved with festoons of grapes and vine-leaves. The Honywoods also built the almshouses, with carved bargeboards and door-posts, in the street at Lenham, and an inscription in the chancel floor records the memory of that long-lived Dame, Mary Honywood, who before her death in 1620 saw no less than three hundred and sixty-seven of her descendants! [Illustration: MARKET-PLACE, LENHAM.] Close to the church are the great tithe barns, built after the fire in the fourteenth century by the Abbots of St. Augustine. The largest measures 157 feet long by 40 feet wide, and, saving the low stone walls, is built entirely of oak from the forests of the Weald. The enormous timbers are as sound and strong to-day as they were six hundred years ago, and for solidity of material and beauty of construction, this Kentish barn deserves to rank among the grandest architectural works of the age. The monks are gone, and the proud Abbey itself has long been laid in ruins, but these buildings give us some idea of the wealth and resources of the great community who were the lords of Lenham during so many centuries. They could afford to lend a kindly ear to the prayer of the poor vicar when he humbly showed the poverty with which he had to contend, and the load of the burden that he had to bear. The Abbot, we are glad to learn, granted his request, and agreed to give him a roof over his head and to allow his two cows to feed with the monks' own herds in the pastures at Lenham, during the months between the feast of St. Philip and St. James and Michaelmas. [Illustration: IN CHARING VILLAGE.] CHAPTER XI CHARING TO GODMERSHAM From Lenham the Pilgrims' Road threads its lonely way along the hill-side, past one or two decayed farmhouses still bearing the name of the great families who once owned these manors--the Selves and the Cobhams; and the view over the level country grows wider, and extends farther to the south and east, until we reach Charing Hill, one of the highest points along this range of downs. The windmill, a few hundred yards above the track, commands a far-spreading view over the valley, stretching from the foot of the ridge to the Quarry Hills, where the towers of Egerton Church stand out on its steep mound above the hazy plains of the Weald. We look down upon Calehill, the home of the Darells for the last five centuries, and across the woods and park of Surrenden Dering, which has been held by the Dering family ever since the days of Earl Godwin, to the churches and villages of the Weald. Beyond a foreground of swelling hill and dale we see the flat expanse of Romney Marsh and Dungeness; and then for the first time we catch a glimpse of a pale blue line of sea--that sea across which Roman and Saxon and Norman all sailed in turn to land upon the Kentish shore. On clear days you can see the Sussex downs in the far horizon beyond the Weald, and near Hastings, the hill of Fairlight rising sharply from the sea. Down in the valley below, the tall tower of Charing Church lifts its head out of a confused mass of red roofs and green trees, with the ivy-grown ruins of the old palace at its feet. Many are the venerable traditions attached to the churches and villages which we have seen along our road through this pleasant land of Kent, but here is one older and more illustrious than them all. Here we have a record which goes back far beyond the days of Lanfranc and of Athelstan, and even that king of Mercia who gave Lenham to the Abbey of St. Augustine. For Charing, if not actually given, as the old legend says, by Vortigern to the ancient British Church, was at all events among the first lands bestowed on Augustine and his companions by Ethelbert, king of Kent. Saxon historians tell us how that this most ancient possession of the church of Canterbury was seized by Offa, king of Mercia, in 757, but restored again by his successor, Cenulph, in the year 788. [Illustration: CHARING] Long before the Conqueror's time, the Archbishops had a house here. In Domesday Book, Charing is styled "proprium manorium archiepiscopi," being reserved by those prelates for their private use, and from those days until the manor was surrendered by Cranmer to Henry VIII. it remained a favourite residence of the Archbishops. In the thirteenth century the Franciscan Archbishop John Peckham dates many letters from his house at Charing, and Stratford, as Dean Hook tells us, was often there, and found consolation in this quiet retreat for the troubles of those stormy days. Chichele, Kemp, and Bourchier were also frequently here. Stratford first obtained the grant of a three days' fair to be held at Charing twice a year, on the festivals of St. George and St. Luke. Leland tells us that Cardinal Morton made great buildings at Charing, and the red and black brickwork still to be seen under the ivy of the farmhouse walls may be ascribed to him, but the great gateway with the chamber and hooded fireplace above, belongs to an earlier period, and was probably the work of Stratford in the fourteenth century. Some of the older stonework is to be found in the stables and cottages now occupying the site of the offices on the west of the court. The chapel, with its pointed arches and large windows, which in Hasted's time stood behind the modern dwelling-house, was taken down eighty years ago, but the great dining-hall, with its massive walls and fine decorated window, still remains standing. This hall, where archbishops sat in state, and kingly guests were feasted; where Henry VII. was royally entertained by Archbishop Warham, on the 24th of March, 1507, and where Henry VIII. stayed with all his train on his way to the Field of Cloth of Gold, is now used as a barn. But in its decay, it must be owned, the old palace is singularly picturesque. The wallflowers grow in golden clusters high up the roofless gables and along the arches of the central gateway; masses of apple-blossom hang over the grey stone walls, and ring-necked doves bask in the sunshine on the richly coloured tiles of the old banqueting-hall. Close by is the church of Charing, famous in the eyes of mediæval pilgrims for the possession of one hallowed relic, the block on which St. John the Baptist was beheaded, brought back, an old tradition says, by Richard Coeur de Lion from the Holy Land, and given by him to Archbishop Baldwin, when the King paid his devotions at the shrine of St. Thomas. This precious relic went the way of all relics in the sixteenth century, and is not mentioned in the long list of costly vestments and frontals recorded in an inventory of Church property taken at Charing in 1552. But Charing Church is still, in the words of the old chronicler, "a goodly pile." It is cruciform in shape, and contains some traces of Early English work, but it is mostly of later date. The windows are interesting on account of their great variety. There are three narrow lancets, several of Transitional and Perpendicular style, and one large and very remarkable square-headed Decorated window. The chapel of Our Lady, on the south side of the chancel, was built, towards the close of the fifteenth century, by Amy Brent, whose family owned the charming old manor-house of Wickens in this parish. The porch and fine tower, which forms so marked a feature in the landscape, was also chiefly built by the Brents, whose crest, a wyvern, is carved on the doorway, together with a rose encircled with sun-rays, the badge of Edward IV., in whose reign the work was completed. Through this handsome doorway the Archbishop, attended by his cross-bearers and chaplains, would enter from the palace-gate hard by, and many must have been the stately processions which passed under the western arch and wound up the long nave in the days of Morton and of Warham. A hundred years later Charing Church narrowly escaped entire destruction. On the 4th of August, 1590, a farmer, one Mr. Dios, discharged a birding-piece at a pigeon roosting, as the pigeons do to this day, in the church tower, and "the day being extreme hot and the shingle very dry," a fire broke out in the night, and by morning nothing was left but the bare walls of the church, even the bells being melted by the heat of the fire. Happily the parishioners applied themselves with patriotic zeal to the restoration, and within two years the fine timber roof of the nave was completed. The date 1592, E.R. 34, is inscribed on the rafter above the chancel arch, while that of the chancel roof Ann. Dom. 1622, Anno Regni Jacobi xviii., appears on the beam immediately over the altar. The Pilgrims' Way winds on through Charing past the noble church tower and the ancient palace wall, with its thick clusters of ivy and trailing wreaths of travellers' joy, through the lovely woods of Pett Place, the home of Honywoods and Sayers for some hundreds of years. The track crosses the long avenue of stately limes which leads up to its gates, and through the meeting boughs we see the red gables and tall chimneys of the old Tudor house. In the fourteenth century the owners of Pett had a chapel of their own, served by a priest whose name appears in the Lambeth Register and other records as holding the living of Pette-juxta-Charing; and Geoffery de Newcourt, who owned this manor, together with the adjoining one of Newcourt, paid the king an aid on his lands of Pett, when the Black Prince was knighted. A pleasant part of the track this is dear to botanists for the wealth of ferns, flowers, and rare orchises which grow along the shady path; pleasant alike in May, when cowslips and violets grow thick in the grass and the nightingales are in full song, and in June, when the ripe red fruit of the wild strawberries peep out from under the moss and the hawthorns are in bloom, but perhaps best of all in autumn, when the beeches are crimson and the maples in the hedges are one fire of gold. For the next three miles, the way lies through the lower part of the great woods of Long Beech, which stretch all over these hills, and which from very early times belonged to the see of Canterbury. It brings us out at Westwell, close to another extremely interesting church, dating from the middle of the thirteenth century, and almost entirely of one period. The graceful steeple, nave, chancel, and aisles, are all Early English, but the most striking feature is the high open colonnade which forms the rood-screen. The effect of the chancel, with its side arcade, its groined roof, and beautiful lancet window filled with richly-coloured old glass, seen through these three lofty arches, is very imposing. There is another curious fragment of stained glass, bearing the arms of Queen Anne of Bohemia and of Edward the Confessor and his wife, in the north aisle, and the chancel contains six stone walls and a stone seat with a pointed arch, which were formerly used by the monks and prior of Christ Church, Canterbury. For the manor of Westwell, like so many others in this neighbourhood, belonged to the see of Canterbury before the Conquest, and at the division of property effected by Lanfranc was retained by the Priory. Its revenues were allotted to the supply of the monks' refectory, _ad cibum eorum_, just as the tithes of Lenham were used to provide meals for St. Augustine's Abbey. [Illustration: OLD YEWS AND OAK IN EASTWELL PARK.] Half a mile above Westwell Church the Pilgrims' Way reaches the gates of Eastwell. Here the track disappears for a time, but old maps show the line which it took across the southern slopes of the park, which extends for many miles, and is famous for the wild beauty of its scenery. The hills we have followed so long run through the upper part of the park, and magnificent are the views of the sea and Sussex downs which meet us in these forest glades, where stately avenues of beech and oak and chestnut throw long shadows over the grass, and antlered deer start up from the bracken at our feet. But the lower slopes are pleasant too, with the venerable yews and thorns and hornbeams dotted over the hill-side, and the heights above clad with a wealth of mingled foliage which is reflected in the bright waters of the still, clear lake. The old ivy-grown church stands close to the water's edge, and contains some fine tombs of the Earls of Winchelsea, and of their ancestors, the Finches. But the traveller will look with more interest on the sepulchral arch which is said to cover the ashes of the last of the Plantagenets. The burial registers indeed record that Richard Plantagenet, the illegitimate son of Richard III., died at Eastwell on the 22nd of December, 1550, and a well, which goes by the name of Plantagenet's Well, marks the site of the cottage where he lived in confinement after the defeat of his father on Bosworth Field. Eastwell House, for some years the residence of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, was originally built by Sir Thomas Moyle, Speaker of the House of Commons in the reign of Henry VIII., but has been completely altered and modernised since it passed into the Winchelsea family. Leaving it on our left, we come out of the Park at Boughton Lees, a group of houses on a three-cornered green, and follow in the steps of the old track to Boughton Aluph church, a large cruciform building with a spacious north aisle and massive central tower, standing in a very lonely situation. Boughton, called Bocton or Boltune in former times, belonged to Earl Godwin and his son Harold, before the Conquest, after which it was given to Eustace, Earl of Boulogne, and formed part of Juliana de Leybourne's vast inheritance. It took the name of Aluph from a Norman knight, Aluphus de Bocton, who held the manor in the reign of King John, and became thus distinguished from the other parishes of Boughton in the neighbourhood. From the church a grassy lane, shaded by trees, ascends the hill to Challock on the borders of Eastwell Park, and is probably the old track of the Pilgrims' Way which passed between these woods and the park of Godmersham. This was formerly the property of Jane Austen's brother, who took the name of Knight on succeeding to the estate, but it has now passed into the hands of another family. Until the Dissolution the manor and church of Godmersham belonged to Christ Church, and here, in mediæval days, the priors of the convent had a fine manor-house, where they frequently resided during the summer months. The hall was pulled down in 1810, and nothing of the old house is now left except a gable and doorway, adorned with a figure of a Prior wearing his mitre and holding his crozier in his hand, probably intended for Henry de Estria, the Prior who rebuilt the manor-house in 1290. The church of Godmersham is remarkable for its early tower and curious semicircular apse with small Norman lights, which are evidently remains of an older building, and in the churchyard are some very ancient yews, one of which is said to have been planted before the Conquest. Under the shadow of these venerable trees there sleeps a remarkable woman, Mary Sybilla Holland, whose father was at one time Vicar of Godmersham, and afterwards moved to Harbledown, a larger parish near Canterbury, a few miles further along the Pilgrims' Way. Both Mrs. Holland and her distinguished brother, the lamented Sir Alfred Lyall, retained a lifelong affection for this corner of East Kent. When Lyall was far away in India, ruling over millions of British subjects, in the north-west provinces, his verses tell us how passionately he yearned for his old Kentish home. "Ah! that hamlet in Saxon Kent, Shall I find it when I come home? With toil and travelling well-nigh spent, Tired with life in jungle and tent, Eastward never again to roam. Pleasantest corner the world can show In a vale which slopes to the English sea-- Where strawberries wild in the woodland grow, And the cherry-tree branches are bending low, No such fruit in the South countree." Sir Alfred died on the 10th of April, 1911, at Lord Tennyson's house at Farringford, in the Isle of Wight, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Michael's, Harbledown. Now brother and sister are both sleeping under the grassy sod of the Kentish land which they loved so well, "where the nightingales sing heart-piercing notes in the silence of the early summer night." "Shelter for me and for you, my friend, There let us settle when both are old, And whenever I come to my journey's end, There you shall see me laid, and blend Just one tear with the falling mould." [Illustration: THE PLACE, WROTHAM.] [Illustration: CHILHAM.] CHAPTER XII CHILHAM TO HARBLEDOWN The Pilgrims' Way skirted the wooded slopes of Godmersham Park for about a mile, and then entered Chilham Park. The park is now closed, but the old track lay right across the park, and in front of Chilham Castle. The position of this fortress, overlooking the valley of the Stour, has made it memorable in English history. Chilham has been in turn a Roman camp, a Saxon castle, and a Norman keep, and has played an eventful part in some of the fiercest struggles of those days. According to a generally received tradition recorded by Camden, Chilham was the scene of the battle on the river in Cæsar's second expedition; and the British barrow near the Stour, popularly known as Julaber's Grave, was believed to be the tomb of the Roman tribune, Julius Laberius, although, as a matter of fact, it contains no sepulchral remains. In the second century Chilham is said to have been the home of that traditional personage, the Christian King Lucius, and in Saxon days of the chief Cilla. The castle was strongly fortified to resist the invasion of the Danes, by whom it was repeatedly attacked. After the Norman Conquest it belonged to Fulbert de Dover, whose last descendant, Isabel, Countess of Atholl, died here in 1292, and is buried in the under-croft at Canterbury. Then it passed into the hands of the great Lord Badlesmere, of Leeds, who on one occasion gave Queen Isabel, the wife of Edward II., a splendid reception here, and afterwards astonished the peaceful citizens and monks of Canterbury by appearing at their gates, followed by nineteen armed knights, each with a drawn sword in his hand, to pay his devotions at the shrine of St. Thomas. As late as the sixteenth century Leland describes Chilham Castle as beautiful for pleasure, commodious for use, and strong for defence; but soon after he wrote these words, the greater part of the old house was pulled down by its owner, Sir Thomas Cheney, Warden of the Cinque Ports under Edward VI., to complete his new mansion in the Isle of Sheppey. The Norman keep, an octagonal fortress three stories high, is the only part of the mediæval structure that now remains, and can still be seen in the gardens of the new house built in 1616 by Sir Dudley Digges, Master of the Rolls in the reign of James I. This fine Jacobean manor-house stands well on the rising ground above the river, and both the garden terrace and the top of the old keep afford beautiful views of the vale of Ashford and the downs beyond the Wye. Still more picturesque is the market-place of Chilham itself. On one side we have the red brick walls and white stone doorway of the castle, seen at the end of its short avenue of tall lime trees on the other the quaint red roofs and timbered houses of the charming old square, with the grey church tower surrounded by the brilliant green of sycamores and beeches. On a bright spring morning, when the leaves are young and the meadows along the river-side are golden with buttercups, there can be no prettier picture than this of the old market square of Cilla's home. From the heights of Chilham the Pilgrims' Way descends into the valley of the Stour, and after following the course of the river for a short time, climbs the opposite hill and strikes into Bigberry Wood. Here we come suddenly upon the most ancient earthwork along the whole line of the road, an entrenchment which Professor Boyd Dawkins, who explored it thoroughly some years ago, has ascribed to the prehistoric Iron Age. For most of us, perhaps, Bigberry Camp has a still greater interest as the fort which the Britons held against the assault of the Roman invaders, and which was stormed and carried by Cæsar's legions. The memory of that desperate fight, which sealed the fate of Britain and her conquest by the great Proconsul, still lingers in the popular mind, and the shepherd who follows his flock and the waggoner who drives his team along the road, still talk of the famous battle that was fought here two thousand years ago. After this the path crosses the valley and runs through the hop-gardens to join Watling Street--the road by which Chaucer's pilgrims came to Canterbury--at Harbledown. This is the little village on the edge of the forest of Blean, which has been immortalised by Chaucer's lines-- "Wist ye not where standeth a little toun Which that ycleped is Bob-up-and-down, Under the Blee in Canterbury way." [Illustration: ON THE VILLAGE GREEN, CHARTHAM] And Bob-up-and-down is to this day a true and characteristic description of the rolling ground by which we approach Harbledown. Here the Pilgrims' Road, along which we have journeyed over hill and dale, fails to rise again. We climb the last hill, and on the summit of the rising ground we find ourselves close to the lazar-house founded at Harbledown by Lanfranc in 1084. The wooden houses built by the Norman Archbishop for the reception of ten brothers and seven sisters have been replaced by a row of modern almshouses; but the chapel still preserves its old Norman doorway, and the round arches and pillars of an arcade to the north of the nave, which formed part of the hospital church dedicated by Lanfranc to St. Nicholas. The devout pilgrim to St. Thomas's shrine never failed to visit this ancient leper-house. Not only did the antiquity of the charitable foundation and its nearness to the road attract him, but in the common hall of the hospital a precious relic was preserved in the shape of a crystal which had once adorned the leather of St. Thomas's shoe. Many were the royal personages and distinguished strangers who paused before these old walls and dropped their alms into the poor leper's outstretched hand. Here, we read in contemporary records, Henry II. came on his first memorable pilgrimage to the tomb of the martyred Archbishop, and Richard Coeur de Lion after his release from his long captivity. Edward I. stopped at Harbledown with his brave Queen, Eleanor of Castille, on their return from the Holy Land, and the Black Prince, accompanied by his royal captive, King John of France, and that monarch's young son Philip, also visited the leper-house. And when the French king visited Canterbury for the second time, on his return to his own kingdom, he did not forget to stop at Lanfranc's old lazar-house and leave ten gold crowns "pour les nonnains de Harbledoun." But it is a later and more sceptical traveller, Erasmus, who has left us the most vivid description of Harbledown and of the feelings which the sight of the relic aroused in the heart of his companion, Dean Colet. "Not far from Canterbury, at the left-hand side of the road," he writes, in the record of his pilgrimage, "there is a small almshouse for old people, one of whom ran out, seeming to hear the steps of the horses. He first sprinkled us with holy water, and then offered us the upper leather of a shoe bound in a brass rim, with a crystal set in its centre like a jewel. Gration (Dean Colet) rode on my left hand, nearer to the beggar man, and was duly sprinkled, bearing it with a tolerable amount of equanimity. But when the shoe was handed up, he asked the old man what he wanted. 'It is the shoe of St. Thomas,' was the answer. Upon this he fired up, and turning to me, exclaimed indignantly, 'What! do these cattle mean we should kiss the shoes of every good man?'" Erasmus, sorry for the old man's feelings, dropped a small coin into his hand, which made him quite happy, and the two pilgrims rode on to London, discussing the question of the worship of relics as they went. To this day a maple bowl, bound with a brass rim, containing a piece of crystal, is preserved in the hospital at Harbledown, the self-same relic, it may be, which was shown to Erasmus and Colet, and which Lambarde, writing half a century later, describes as "faire set in copper and chrystall"; while an old wooden box, with a slit in the lid for money, and a chain attached to it, is said to be the one into which Erasmus dropped his coin. Behind the ivy-mantled tower of Lanfranc's chapel is a clear spring which was supposed to possess healing virtues, and is still believed by the country folks to be of great benefit to the eyes. This spring still goes by the name of the Black Prince's Well, from an old tradition that the warrior of Crecy and Poitiers drank of its waters when he visited the hospital at Harbledown in 1357. Many, we know, are the memorials of this popular hero at Canterbury. Only three days after he landed at Sandwich he came, accompanied by his royal captive, to return thanks at St. Thomas's shrine for his victories, and six years afterwards he founded and decorated the beautiful chantry in the Cathedral crypt, which still bears his name, on the occasion of his marriage with his cousin Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent. The old legend of the Black Prince's Well goes on to tell how, when he lay dying of the wasting disease which carried him off in the flower of his life, he thought of the wonder-working spring near Canterbury, and sent to Harbledown for a draught of its pure waters. But even that could not save him, and on the 29th of September, 1376, a stately funeral procession wound its way down the hill-side at Harbledown, bearing the Black Prince to the grave which he had chosen for himself in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Undercroft at Canterbury. At Harbledown the pilgrims caught their first sight of the Cathedral; here they fell on their knees when they saw the golden angel on the top of the central tower, and knew that the goal of their pilgrimage was almost reached. Here Chaucer's goodly company made their last halt, and for the moment the noise of singing and piping and jingling of bells gave place to a graver and more solemn mood as the motley crowd of pilgrims pressed around, to hear this time not a Canterbury tale, but a sermon. Deep was the impression which that first sight of Canterbury made upon Erasmus. The cold, critical scholar becomes eloquent as he describes the great church of St. Thomas rearing itself up into the sky with a majesty that strikes awe into every heart, and the clanging of bells which, thrilling through the air, salute the pilgrims from afar. To-day the great cross is gone from the Westgate, the shining archangel no longer blesses the kneeling pilgrim from the topmost steeple, but the same glorious vision of the great Cathedral rising with all its towers into the sky meets the eyes of the traveller who looks down on Canterbury from the hill of Harbledown. [Illustration: CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH-WEST] [Illustration: ST. NICHOLAS', HARBLEDOWN.] CHAPTER XIII HARBLEDOWN TO CANTERBURY From Harbledown it is all downhill to Canterbury, and a short mile brings us to the massive round tower of Simon of Sudbury's noble Westgate, the only one remaining of the seven fortified gateways which once guarded the ancient city. Many are the pilgrims who have entered Canterbury by this gate: kings and queens of all ages, foreign emperors and princes, armed knights and humble scholars, good Queen Philippa and Edward Plantagenet, Henry of Agincourt, Margaret of Anjou, Chaucer and Erasmus. Many, too, are the long processions which have wound down this hill-side: newly created archbishops followed by a brilliant train of bishops and courtiers on their way to be enthroned in the chair of St. Augustine; solemn funerals, attended with all the pomp and circumstance, the funeral plumes and sable trappings, with which men honour the mighty dead. Through the Westgate went forth that gay company of monks and friars, of merchants and citizens crowned with garlands of flowers, and making joyous minstrelsy, as they rode out to welcome Archbishop Winchelsea, who, once a poor student in the school at Canterbury, now came to be enthroned in state in the presence of King Edward I. and all his court. And this way, too, they bore him with much state and pomp, eighteen years later, from the manor-house at Otford, where he died, to sleep in his own Cathedral after all the labours and struggles, the storms and changes of his troublous reign. [Illustration: THE WEST GATE, CANTERBURY.] Since these mediæval days Canterbury has seen many changes. The splendours of which Camden and Leland wrote have passed away, the countless number of its churches has been reduced, and their magnificence no longer strikes the eye of the stranger. The lofty walls and their twenty-one watch-towers, which encircled the city in a complete ring when Chaucer's knight, after paying his devotion at the shrine of St. Thomas, went out to see their strength, and "pointed to his son both the perill and the doubt," are all gone, and the Conqueror's mighty castle is turned into a coal-pit. But the old city is still full of quaint corners and picturesque buildings, timbered houses with carved corbels and oriel windows, hostelries with overhanging eaves and fantastic sign-boards of wrought-iron work, hospitals whose charters date from Norman times, and whose records give us many a curious peep into the byways of mediæval life. As we draw near the Martyr's shrine, memories of St. Thomas crowd upon us. The hill outside the Westgate, now occupied by the Clergy Orphan School, is still called St. Thomas's Hill, and was formerly the site of a chapel founded by Becket himself. A little way up the High Street we reach a bridge over the Stour, which winds its way through the heart of the city, and a low pointed doorway on our right leads into St. Thomas's Hospital. This ancient Spittle of East Bridge was founded, as a fourteenth-century charter records, by the "glorious St. Thomas the Martyr, to receive poor wayfaring men." Archbishop Hubert Walter increased its endowments in the twelfth century, and Stratford repaired the walls in the fourteenth, and drew up statutes for its government. From that time it was especially devoted to the use of poor pilgrims, for whom twelve beds were provided, and whose wants were supplied at the rate of fourpence a day. During those days, when the enthusiasm for St. Thomas was at its height, alms and legacies were lavished upon Eastbridge Hospital, and Edward III. bequeathed money to support a chaplain, whose duty it was to say daily masses for the founders of the hospital. After the days of pilgrimages were over, this hospital was applied to various uses until Archbishop Whitgift recovered the property and drew up fresh statutes for its management. Ten poor brothers and sisters still enjoy the fruit of St. Thomas's benevolence, and dwell in the old house built on arches across the bed of the river. The low level of the floor, which has sunk far below that of the street, and the vaulted roof and time-worn pillars, bear witness to its great antiquity. There can be little doubt that the round arches of the Norman crypt belong to St. Thomas's original foundation, while the pointed windows of the chapel and Early English arches of the refectory form part of Archbishop Stratford's improvements. In this hall some portions of frescoes, representing on the one hand the Last Supper, on the other the Martyrdom of the Saint, the penance of Henry II. at his tomb, with the central figure of Christ in Glory, have been lately recovered from under the coat of whitewash which had concealed them for more than two centuries. Twice a year, we know, at the summer festival of the Translation of St. Thomas, on the 7th of July, and at the winter festival of the Martyrdom, on the 29th of December, Canterbury was crowded with pilgrims, and a notice was placed in the High Street ordering the due provision of beds and entertainment for strangers. The concourse was still greater on the jubilees of the Translation, when indulgences were showered freely on all who visited the shrine, and the festival lasted for a whole fortnight. At the jubilee of the year 1420, just after the victory of Agincourt, no less than a hundred thousand pilgrims are said to have been present. On such occasions every available corner was occupied; the inns, which were exceedingly numerous, the hospitals, and, above all, the religious houses, were thronged with strangers. The most favourite, the most renowned, of all the hostelries was the Chequers of the Hope, the inn where Chaucer's twenty-nine pilgrims took up their quarters. "At Chekers of the Hope that every man doth know." This ancient inn, which Prior Chillenden rebuilt about 1400, stood at the corner of High Street and Mercery Lane, the old Merceria, which was formerly lined with rows of booths and stalls for the sale of pilgrimage tokens, such as are to be found in the neighbourhood of all famous shrines. Both ampullas, small leaden bottles containing a drop of the martyr's blood, which flowed perennially from a well in the precincts, and Caput Thomæ, or brooches bearing the saint's mitred head, were eagerly sought after by all Canterbury pilgrims. So too were the small metal bells which are said to have given their name to the favourite Kentish flower, the Canterbury bell. And we read that the French king, John, stopped at the Mercery stalls to buy a knife for the Count of Auxerre. The position of the inn close to the great gate of Christ Church naturally attracted many visitors, and the spacious cellars with vaulted roofs, which once belonged to the inn, may still be seen, although the inner courtyard and the great chamber upstairs occupied by the pilgrims, and known as the Dormitory of Hundred Beds, were burnt down forty years ago. But the old street front, with its broad eaves overhanging the narrow lane leading up to the great gateway at the other end, still remains, and renders Mercery Lane the most picturesque and interesting corner of the Cathedral city. The religious houses were open to all comers, and while royal visitors were lodged in St. Augustine's Abbey, the convents of the Mendicant orders were largely frequented by the poorer classes. There was also the house of the Whitefriars or Augustinians in the eastern part of the town, close to St. George's Gate, and the hospital of St. John in the populous Northgate, "that faire and large house of stone," built and endowed by Lanfranc in the eleventh century, besides that of Eastbridge, which has been already mentioned, and many other smaller foundations. But it was in the great Priory of Christ Church that by far the largest number of pilgrims found hospitable welcome. A considerable part of the convent buildings was set aside for their reception. The Prior himself entertained distinguished strangers, and lodged them in the splendid suite of rooms overlooking the convent garden, known as the Omers or Homers--Les Ormeaux--from a neighbouring grove of elms. This range of buildings, including the banqueting-hall, generally known as "Meister Omers," was broken up into prebendal houses after the Dissolution, and supplied three separate residences for members of the new Chapter, which gives us some idea of the size of these lodgings. For ordinary strangers there was the Guest Hall, near the kitchen, on the west side of the Prior's Court, which was under the especial charge of a cellarer appointed to provide for the needs of the guests. Prior Chillenden, whom Leland describes as "the greatest builder of a Prior that ever was in Christ Church," repaired and enlarged this Strangers' Hall early in the fifteenth century, and added a new chamber for hospitality, which bore the name of Chillenden's Guest Chamber, and now forms part of the Bishop of Dover's house. Finally, without the convent precincts, close to the court gateway, where the beautiful Norman stairway leads up to the Great Hall, or Aula Nova, was the Almonry. Here the statutes of Archbishop Winchelsea--he who had known what it was to hunger and thirst in his boyhood, and who remained all through his greatness the friend of the poor--provided that poor pilgrims and beggars should be fed daily with the fragments of bread and meat, "which were many and great," left on the monks' tables, and brought here by the wooden pentise or covered passage leading from the kitchen. This Almonry became richly endowed by wealthy pilgrims in course of years, and early in the fourteenth century Prior Henry of Estria built a chapel close by, which was dedicated to St. Thomas the Martyr, and much frequented by pilgrims. The Almony was turned into a mint-yard at the Dissolution, and the chapel and priests' lodgings attached to it, now belong to the King's School. Another privilege freely conceded by the prior and monks of this great community to pilgrims of all ranks and nationality who might die at Canterbury, was that of burial within the precincts of Christ Church, close to the blessed martyr's shrine, and under the shadow of the Cathedral walls. [Illustration: MERCERY LANE, CANTERBURY.] CHAPTER XIV THE MARTYR'S SHRINE Erasmus has described the imposing effect of the great Cathedral church on the stranger who entered its doors for the first time, and saw the nave "in all its spacious majesty." The vision which broke upon the eyes of those pilgrims who, like himself and Dean Colet, visited Canterbury in the early years of the sixteenth century, may well have filled all hearts with wonder. For then the work was well-nigh perfected. The long roll of master-builders, from Prior Wibert and De Estria to Chillenden and Sellyng, had faithfully accomplished their task. Prior Goldstone, the last but one who reigned before the Dissolution, had just completed the central tower, the great labour of his predecessor Prior Sellyng's life, and was in the act of building the noble Perpendicular gateway which forms a fitting entrance to the precincts. And now the great church stood complete. Without, "a very goodly, strong, and beautiful structure": the traceries and mouldings of the windows, the stone canopies and sculptured images of the portal, all perfect; the glorious towers in their might; Bell Harry Steeple, as we see it to-day, matchless in its strength and beauty; and beside it, rivalling its grace and majesty, the ancient Norman tower, which bore the name of Ethelbert, crowned with the Arundel spire. Within, a richness and splendour to which our eyes are wholly unaccustomed: chapels and chantries lining the great nave, fresh from Prior Chillenden's work; altars glittering with lighted tapers and gold and silver ornaments; roof and walls bright with painting and gilding, or decked with silken tapestry hangings; carved images covered with pearls and gems; stained windows throwing their hues of ruby and sapphire across the floor, and lighting up the clouds of incense as they rose heavenward. All this, and much more, met the pilgrims' wondering eyes. No wonder they stood "half amazed," as the Supplementary Tale to Chaucer's Pilgrimage describes "the gardener and the miller and the other lewd sets," gazing up at the painted windows, and forgetting to move on with the crowd. [Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL.] Then the show began. First of all the pilgrims were led up a vaulted passage and "many steps" to the Transept of the Martyrdom, where the wooden altar, at the foot of which the saint fell, remained to show the actual place of the murder, and its guardian priest--the _Custos Martyrum_--displayed the rusty sword of Richard le Breton. Next, descending the flight of steps on the right, they were led into the dark crypt, where more priests received them, and presented the saint's skull, encased in silver, to be kissed, and other relics, including the famous girdle and hair-shirt. This _Caput Thomæ_ was one of the chief stations at which offerings were made, and the altar on which it lay, mentioned in the Black Prince's will as "the altar where the head is," marked the site of the original grave where the saint was buried by the frightened monks on the day after the murder. The tomb stood in the eastern chapel of Ernulf's crypt, under the beautiful Pointed arches afterwards raised by that great architect, William the Englishman, whom Gervase describes as "small in body, but in workmanship skilled and honest." Soon it acquired a miraculous virtue, and the fame of the cures and wonders wrought there rang throughout the world. It was the scene of Henry II.'s penance, and during the next fifty years it remained the central object of interest to the crowds of pilgrims who came from all parts of Christendom. Coeur de Lion, accompanied by William, King of Scotland, knelt here on his way to the Crusades, to implore the martyr's blessing on his arms. Many were the Crusaders from all parts of France and England who came thither on the same errand. King John and his wife Isabella, who were crowned at Canterbury Cathedral by Archbishop Hubert Walter, at Easter, 1201, offered their coronation canopies at this tomb and vast sums of money were yearly offered here until 1220, when the body of St. Thomas was translated, in the presence of the young King Henry III., to the new Shrine in Trinity Chapel, immediately above the tomb in the crypt. In that year the offerings at the tomb, at the Altar of the Sword's Point, and at the new Shrine, reached the enormous amount of £1,071, a sum equal to more than £20,000 of money at the present time. After this, the offerings at the original tomb in the crypt diminished in number and value, but the altar and relics of the _Caput Thomæ_ remained an object of deep reverence until the Reformation. From the dark vaults of the subterranean church the pilgrims were led up the steps to the north aisle of the choir. Here the great mass of relics, including St. George's arm and no less than four hundred skulls, jaws, teeth, hands, and other bones, were displayed in gold, silver, or ivory caskets, and pilgrims were allowed a glimpse of the magnificent vessels and ornaments stored up under the high altar. "All the gold of Midas and Croesus," exclaims Erasmus, "would have been nothing by the side of these treasures!" and he confesses that he sighed to think he kept no such relics at home, and had to beg the saint's pardon for this very unholy emotion. The golden candlesticks and silken vestments of the sacristy in St. Andrew's tower, and the saint's pallium, which no ordinary pilgrims might see, were also shown to Erasmus and Colet, who brought with them a letter of introduction from Archbishop Warham. After duly inspecting these precious objects, they mounted the long flight of steps behind the high altar leading into Trinity Chapel; a continual ascent, "church, as it were, piled upon church," which seems to have greatly heightened the impression produced upon the awe-struck pilgrims. Now at last they stood within the holiest of holies. There, before their eyes, was the goal of all their journeyings, the object of their deepest devotion, the Shrine which held the body of the blessed martyr. [Illustration: SITE OF THE SHRINE OF ST. THOMAS, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL.] The Shrine itself, covered by a painted canopy of wood, rested on stone arches in the centre of the floor, exactly under the gilded crescent which is still to be seen in the Cathedral roof. On the right was the richly carved and canopied monument of Henry IV. and his Queen, Joan of Navarre, with its elaborate effigies of the royal pair wearing their crowns and robes of state; on the left the tomb of Edward the Black Prince. He had willed to sleep before the altar of Our Lady of the Under-croft, in the chapel adorned by his own gifts, but the people who had loved him so well would not allow their hero to remain buried out of sight in the dark crypt. So they brought him to rest by the great saint's Shrine, where all men could see his effigy of gilded bronze as he lay there, clad in armour, his sword by his side, his hands clasped in prayer, and read the pathetic lines which tell of his departed glories, and bid the passing stranger pray for his soul: "Pur Dieu, priez au Celestien Roy, Que mercy ait de l'âme de moy." His was the first tomb that was ever raised in the sacred precincts devoted to the martyr's Shrine, and to this day it remains there, unhurt by the hand of time or the more cruel violence of man. Up the worn stone steps which still bear the marks left by thousands of feet and knees, the pilgrims climbed, murmuring words of prayer or chanting the popular Latin hymns to St. Thomas: "Tu, per Thomæ sanguinem, Quem pro te impendit, Fac nos, Christe, scandere Quo Thomas ascendit." Here the Prior himself received them, and showed them first the corona or crown of Becket's head, preserved in a golden likeness of St. Thomas's face, ornamented with pearls and precious gems, which had been presented by Henry V. Then, at a given sign, the wooden canopy was drawn up by ropes, and the Shrine itself, embossed with gold and glittering with countless jewels that flashed and sparkled with light, was revealed to the eyes of the pilgrims. They all fell upon their knees and worshipped, while the Prior with his white wand pointed out the balass-rubies and diamonds, the sapphires and emeralds, which adorned the Shrine, and told the names of the royal persons by whom these gifts had been presented. There were rings and brooches and chains without end, golden and silver statues offered by kings and queens, the crown of Scotland brought back by Edward I. after his victory over John Baliol, and the _regale_ of France, that superb ruby presented at the tomb in the crypt by Louis VII., which shone like fire, and was as costly as a king's ransom. Full of awe and wonder the spectators gazed with admiring eyes on these treasures, which for beauty and splendour were beyond all they had ever dreamt, until the canopy slowly descended, and the Shrine was once more hidden from their sight. Then they went their way, some to visit the convent buildings, the noble chapter-house with its gabled roof and stained windows, and the glazed walk of the cloisters, glowing with bright colours and decorated with heraldic devices of benefactors to Christ Church painted on the bosses of the vaulting. Others made themselves fresh and gay, and went out to see the city, the Knight and his son to look at the walls, the Prioress and the Wife of Bath to walk in the herbary of the inn. But for Erasmus and his rather inconvenient companion there was still a sight in store, only reserved for very exalted personages, or such as had friends at court. Prior Goldstone, a gentle and well-bred man, not altogether ignorant, as Erasmus found, of the Scotian theology, himself took them back into the crypt, and lanterns were brought to illumine the dark vaults. By their light the Prior led the way into the church of Our Lady of the Undercroft, which was divided from the rest of the crypt by strong iron railings. Here the two friends saw what Erasmus might well call "a display of more than royal splendour." For here, surrounded by exquisitely carved stonework screens and a beautiful reredos with delicate traceries and mouldings, richly coloured and gilt, was the altar of Our Lady, adorned with precious ornaments and twinkling with hundreds of silver lamps. There in the central niche, under a crocketed and pinnacled canopy, stood the famous silver image of the Blessed Virgin herself. And there was the jewelled tabernacle and frontal, with its picture of the Assumption worked in gold, and the chalice and cruets in the form of angels, and the great silver candelabra with which the Black Prince had enriched his favourite shrine. There too were the costly gifts and jewels presented by his son, Richard II., the gold brooches offered yearly by Edward I., the white silk vestments, diapered with a vine pattern of blue, bequeathed by the Black Prince, and countless other rare and precious things, which filled Erasmus with envy and wonder. But then, as ill luck would have it, the Prior conducted his guests into the sacristy, where on bended knees he opened a black leathern chest, out of which he produced a parcel of ragged handkerchiefs with which St. Thomas used to wipe his face. This was too much for Dean Colet's patience, already sorely tried as it had been by what he had seen and heard. When the gentle Prior offered him one of the filthy rags as a present, he shrank back in evident disgust, and turned up his nose with an expression of contempt which filled Erasmus with shame and terror. Fortunately the Prior was a man of sense and courtesy, so he appeared to take no notice, and after giving his guests a cup of wine, politely bade them farewell. Before this Colet had alarmed his more timid friend by the bold way in which he had dared to question the priest who guarded the gilded head. He had even gone so far as to remark aloud that the saint who was so charitable in his lifetime, would surely be better pleased if some trifling part of these riches were spent in relieving the poor and destitute. Upon which the monk had glared at him with Gorgon eyes, and, Erasmus felt sure, would have turned them out of the church forthwith, had it not been for Archbishop Warham's letter. But in these words of the honest Dean we see a foreboding of the new and critical spirit that was fast undermining the old beliefs. Already the days of pilgrimages were numbered, and the glories of St. Thomas were on the wane. A few more years and the monks who guarded his treasures were rudely disturbed. The glorious Shrine was stripped of its priceless gems. The wrought gold and precious jewels were borne away in two enormous chests, such as six or seven men could barely lift. The wonderful ruby which flashed fire in the darkness was set in a ring and worn by King Harry himself on his thumb. Finally, to complete the sacrilege, the relics of the Saint were publicly burnt and his ashes scattered to the winds. Only the broken pavement and the marks of the pilgrims' knees in the stone floor were left to show future generations this spot, hallowed by the prayers and the worship of past ages. INDEX Abbotsworthy, 34 Abbott, E., "St. Thomas of Canterbury," 11 _note_ Abinger, 90; discovery of Roman remains at, 99 Addington, cromlechs at, 146 Æthelred II., 153 Agincourt, battle of, 198 Albury, 18, 82; yew hedge, 84; church, 83; Downs, 80; view from, 80; Park, 80, 87 Alexander III., Pope, 14 Alfred, King, 21, 72; founds the Abbey of Hyde, 28 Alice Holt forest, 50 Allen, Mr. Grant, 5 Alresford, 35, 38; New, cloth trade at, 39; result of the Civil Wars, 40; Old, 38 Alton, 28, 50 Anderida, forest of, 5 Apulderfelde, Thomas de, effigy of, 164 Aragon, Katherine of, portrait of, 131 Arle, ford of the, 38 Arundel, Thomas Howard, Earl of, 83; collector of the Arundel marbles, 83; portrait of, 83 Ash, 54 Ashburton, Lord, his famous Grange, 37 Ashford, 127; vale of, 184 Athelstan, 112, 134, 153, 169 Atholl, Isabel, Countess of, 183 Austen, Cassandra, 48 Austen, Jane, 46; her cottage at Chawton, 48; novels, 48; mode of life, 48; letters, 49 Avington Park, 36 Aylesford, 144; Common, 146 Badlesmere, Lord, of Leeds, 183 Baldwin, Archbishop, 172 Baliol, John, 212 Becket, St. Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, his murder, 7-9; championship for the rights of the Church, 9; journey to Canterbury, 9; miracles and cures wrought by, 10-12, 206; canonisation, 14; removal of his body, 15, 206; shrine, 16, 208-212; fame, 16; his house at Otford, 129; legends, 131; relics, 205, 207 Beggars' Corner, 58 Belloc, Hilaire, "The Old Road," vii Bentley Station, 52 Betchworth Park, 98 Bigberry Camp, 185; wood, 185 Birinus, church of, 22 Birling, 142; Place, 138 Bishop Sutton, 43 Black Prince, at Harbledown, 188; memorials of, 190; death, 191; tomb, 210 Black Prince's Well, 190 Blackdown, 80 Blagge, Mistress, portrait of, 92 Blean, forest of, 186 Bletchingley, discovery of Roman remains at, 100 Blois, Henry of, 24, 52 Bocton, Aluphus de, 178 Bohemia, Queen Anne of, the arms of, 175 Boleyn, Anne, portrait of, 67 Boniface, Archbishop, 143 Boscawen, Mrs., her birthplace, 132 Botley Hill, 118 Botolph, St., church of, 122; monuments, 122 Boughton Aluph church, 178 Boughton, Bocton or Boltune, 178 Boughton Lees, 178 Boughton Malherbe, 154 Boulogne, Eustace, Count of, 178 Box Hill, 94, 98 Boxley, the Cistercian Abbey of, 146; relics, 147 Boxley, 151; church, 152 Braboeuf Manor, 69 Brabourne, Lord, 49 Brent, Amy, 172 Brighton Downs, 107 Browne, Sir Richard, portrait of, 92 Brydges, George, 36 Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, 37 Buckland, 99 Bunker's Farm, 142 Bunyan, John, 101 Burford, 96 Burham church, 145 Calehill, 168 Calva, Ruald de, 77 Camden, W., 104, 195 Canterbury, routes taken by pilgrims, 3-6, 20, 28; number of, 16-18, 193, 198; characteristics, 195; the Chequers of the Hope Inn, 198; religious houses, 200; Priory of Christ Church, 200; the Omers or Homers, 200; Guest Hall, 201; the Almonry, 201 Canterbury Cathedral, the murder of Becket in, 9; "the choir of Conrad" destroyed by fire, 14; rebuilt, 14; number of pilgrims, 16-18, 193, 198; master-builders, 203; completion, 204; Transept of the Martyrdom, 205; relics, 205, 207; miracles and cures, 206; number of crusaders, 206; amount of offerings, 207; the Shrine, 208-212; the Church of Our Lady of the Undercroft, 213 Challock, 178 Chanctonbury Ring, 76, 107 Chantrey, Sir F. L., his effigy of Lady Frederica Stanhope, 124 Chantry Woods, 75 Chantry Ford, 87 Charing, 18; height of, 138; chapel, 170; church, 168, 171-173; traditions, 169; relic in, 171; destroyed by fire, 173; rebuilt, 173; fair at, 170; Hill, 168; manor, the residence of Archbishops, 170 Charles I., King, 53; Prayer Book used by, 94 Charles II., King, 36 Charterhouse 80 Chatham, Lord, his visits to Chevening, 122 Chaucer, G., lines from, 17, 186; his pilgrims, 61, 191 Chawton, 46 Cheney, Sir John, 158 Cheney, Sir Thomas, 184 Chequers of the Hope Inn, 198 Cheriton battle, 41 Chevening church, 122; monuments in, 122; manor, 121; Park, 121; village, 122 Chilham Castle, 182-184; manor-house, 184; Park, 182 Chillenden Prior, 198, 201 Chilworth, 78; powder-mills, 78-80 Ciderhouse Cottage, 75; Lane, 75 Clere, St., mansion, 132 Cobbett, Richard, 54 Cobbett, William, his "Rural Rides," 5, 35, 76, 78, 106, 109, 152; his birthplace, 54; at Albury, 84; Godstone, 114 Cold-harbour Green, 118 Colet, Dean, at Harbledown, 188-190; his visit to Canterbury Cathedral, 208; in the Church of Our Lady of the Undercroft, 213-215; treatment of the relics, 214 Colley Farm, 99; discovery of Roman remains at, 99 Compton, 58, 63, 69; church, 63 Copley, Sir Roger, 109 Corby Castle, 30 Courtenay, Archbishop, 143 Crooksbury, heights of, 54 St. Cross, Hospital of, 24 Crowborough Beacon, 107 Culpeper, Elizabeth, Lady, monument to, 158 Culpeper, John, Lord, the tapestries and altar-cloth worked by his daughters, 156; monument to, 158 Culpeper, Sir Thomas, 159 Cuxton ford, 141 Dacre, Lord, 121. _See_ Lennard Danefield, 129 Darent valley, 126 Dartford, 126 Dawkins, Prof. Boyd, 185 Day, Bishop, letter from, 68 Deane, Archbishop, 130 Deepdene Park, 98 Denbies Park, 97 Denmark, Anne of, 66; portrait of, 66 Deptford, 3 Detling, 152; height of, 138 Digges, Sir Dudley, 184 Dios, Mr., 173 Dorking, 95, 97 Dover, 3 Dover, Fulbert de, 183 Drummond, Mr., 83 Dungeness, 168 Dürer, Albert, 112 East Grinstead, 107 Eastbridge Hospital, 196 Eastwell, 176; church, 177; House, 177; Park, 126 Edinburgh, H.R.H. the Duke of, his residence Eastwell House, 177 Edward I., King, 26, 130, 142, 212; at Harbledown, 188 Edward II., King, 50; his visit to Boxley Abbey, 148 Edward III., King, 196 Edward IV., King, 173 Edward VI., King, 105; portrait of, 67 Edward, the Black Prince, at Harbledown, 188; memorials of, 190; death, 191; tomb, 210 Effingham, Lady Howard of, 105 Egbert, King, 33 Egerton Church, 168 Eleanor of Castille, Queen, 188 Elizabeth, Queen, 53; her visits to Loseley, 66; to Leeds Castle, 154 Elliston-Erwood, Mr., "The Pilgrims' Road," vi Erasmus, at Harbledown, 188-190; his impressions of Canterbury Cathedral, 192, 203; on the relics, 207; in the Church of Our Lady of the Undercroft, 213-215 Estria, Prior Henry of, 179, 202 Ethelbald, King of Wessex, 52 Ethelred the Unready, 113 Ethelwold, Bishop, 22 Evelyn, John, 78, 84; his home at Wotton, 90; portrait, 92 Evershed's Rough, 90 Ewhurst Mill, 80 Fairlawn House, 136 Fairlight hill, 168 Farnham, 52; Castle, 52 Farrer, Sir Thomas, 100 Farringford, 180 Farthing copse, 77 Fitz Urse, Reginald, 9 Froyle Park, 52 Gatton church, 111; House, 111; park, 108, 112; town hall, 110 George I., King, 121 Gethin, Dame Grace, inscription on her monument, 159 Gethin, Sir Richard, 159 Giffard, Lady, 56 St. Giles' Hill, fair at, 31 Godmersham, 50; church, 179; manor, 179; park, 178, 182 Godstone, 114; The White Hart or Clayton Arms, 114 Godwin, Earl, 168, 178 Goldstone, Prior, 203, 213 Gomshall station, 94 Gravesend, 138 Greenway Court, 157 Greenwich, 3 Gresham, Sir John, 119 Gresham, Sir Marmaduke, 119 Gresham, Sir Thomas, 119; founder of the Royal Exchange, 119; portrait, 119 Grey, Richard de, founds a Carmelite Priory, 145 Grose, F., "Antiquities of England and Wales," 77 _note_ Grove Court, 157 Guildford, 3, 51, 57, 72; fair at, 58 Gurdon, Adam de, 45, 51 Hackhurst Downs, 94 Halfpenny Lane, 77 Halling, Lower, 142; Upper, 142 Hampshire, 20 Harbledown, 179, 186; leper-house, 186; relic in, 187; royal visitors, 198; first sight of Canterbury Cathedral from, 191 Harrietsham, 160; church, monuments in, 161 Hastings, 168; Battle of, 161 Headbourne Worthy, 31; derivation of the name, 33; church, 33 _Helix pomatia_, 18 Hengist, proclaimed the first king of Kent, 146 Henry I., King, 29, 41 Henry II., King, his penance at Becket's tomb, 4, 14, 206; visit to the leper-house at Harbledown, 188 Henry III., King, 16, 24, 52, 57, 206 Henry IV., King, monument of, 208 Henry V., King, 211 Henry VI., King, 109, 161 Henry VII., King, 158; his visit to Charing, 171 Henry VIII., King, 109, 129, 130; portrait of, 131; visit to Charing, 171 Herault, Isaac, 94 Hethe, Bishop Hamo de, 142 Hindhead, 72, 76, 80, 107 Hog's Back, 54, 57, 63, 76 Holbein, Hans, 66 Holland, Mary Sybilla, 179 Hollingbourne, 152, 153; height of, 138; history, 153; church, monuments in the, 158; manor-house, 154; traditions, 154 Holm Castle, 104. _See_ Reigate Holmbury, 90 Holmesdale, valley of, 104 Honywood, Anthony, 165 Honywood, Dame Mary, 165 Horn Hatch, 101 Horne, Robert, Bishop of Winchester, letter from, 68 Hutton, W. H., "Thomas Becket," 9 _note_ Hyde, Abbey of, 28; history, 29; ruins, 30; desecration of tombs, 30 Ightham House, 136 Isabel, Queen, her reception at Chilham, 183 Islip, Simon, 130, 134 Itchen Abbas, 35, 37 Itchen river, 28, 29, 39; valley, 35 Itchen Stoke, 37 James I., King, 65; his visit to Loseley, 66; portrait, 66 James, Capt. E. Renouard, "Notes on the Pilgrims' Way in West Surrey," 101 _note_ John, King, 38, 73, 178; legend of, 82; coronation, 206 John, King of France, 188 Johnson, Mrs. Hester, 56 Jones, Sir Inigo, 121, 132 Josse, St., shrine of, 29 Julaber's grave, 183 Katherine's, St., Chapel, 69, 71; Hill, fair at, 59 Kemsing, 132; church and well, 132 Ken, Morris, 50 Kent, Aldric, king of, 129 Kent, John, brass to, 33 Kent, Pilgrims' Way through, 126 Kingsworthy, 33 Kitchin, Dean, on the fair at St. Giles' Hill, 32, 40 Kits Coty House, 145 Knight, Sir Richard, his monument in Chawton Church, 46 Knockholt down, height of, 138 Laberius, Julius, 183 Lambarde, W., 190; at Otford, 132 Lanfranc, Archbishop, 153, 169, 176; founds a lazar-house at Harbledown, 186 Langton, Stephen, Archbishop, 16 Leeds Castle, 154, 157 Leith Hill, 107 Leland, J., 170, 184, 195, 201 Len river, 161 Lenham, 161; church, 162-165; tithe barns, 165 Lennard, John, his monument, 122 Lennard, Richard, Lord Dacre, 121 Leveson, Sir John, quarterings of, 143 Leveson-Gower, Mr., 100, 119 Leyborne, Juliana de, 161, 178 Limnerslease, 69 Limpsfield Lodge Farm, 117 Littleton Cross, shrine of, 69 Long Beech Woods, 175 Loseley manor, 64; royal visitors, 66; portraits, 67; royal warrants, 67; letters, 68 Louis VII., King of France, 212 Louis VIII., King of France, 72, 105 Lucy, Bishop Godfrey, 25; rebuilds the town of Alresford, 38 Lyall, Sir Alfred, 180; his verses, 180; death, 180 Maidstone, 143 Marden Park, 116 Martha's, St., Hill, 80; chapel, 70, 76; view from, 76 Martyr's Hill, 76 Martyrsworthy, 34 Massilia, 4 Medway river, 140, 142; valley, 137, 138 Mercia, Cenulph, King of, 169 Mercia, Offa, King of, 129, 169 Meredith, G., "Diana of the Crossways," 91 _note_ Merstham, 108, 112; church, 113 Miller, Sir Hubert, 52 Milton, John, his line on the River Mole, 95 Mole river, 95, 99; valley, 94 Monks' Hatch, 69 Monks' Walk, Winchester, 31, 33 Monson, Lord, 109, 111 Moor Park, 55 More, Antonio, 119 More, Sir Christopher, 64 More, Sir William, 64 Morley, Bishop, 53 Morne Hill, 25 Morton, Cardinal, his buildings at Charing, 170 Moyle, Sir Thomas, Speaker of the House of Commons, 177 Mytens, D., his portraits, 66 Newark Hospital, 143; Priory, 77 Newcourt, Geoffery de, 174 Newcourt manor, 174 Newlands Corner, 80, 82 Nore, the, 138 Nore Hill, 46 Norfolk, Duke of, 53 North Downs, 107, 118 Nowell, Alexander, Dean of St. Paul's, letter from, 68 Nuns' Walk, Winchester, 31 Odo of Bayeux, 161 Otford, 126; manor-house, 129; battles at, 129; the Bull Inn, 131; legends, 131 Oxted, 117 Paddlesworth or Paulsford, 138 Palmer, Mr., his treatise on "Three Surrey Churches," vi Palmers Wood, 19, 116 Paternoster Lane, 19, 98 St. Paul's Cathedral, 76 Peckham, John, the Franciscan Archbishop, 170 Penenden Heath, 150; memorable assembly held at, 150 Pett Place, 174 Pette-juxta-Charing, 174 Pilgrims to Canterbury, routes taken by, 3-6, 20, 28; number of, 12, 16-18, 193, 198; traces of, 18, 58; characteristics, 60 Pilgrims' Chapel, 98 Pilgrims' Ferry, 19, 74 Pilgrims' House, 138 Pilgrims' Lodge, 19, 120 Pilgrims' Place, 43 Plantagenet, Richard, his death at Eastwell, 177 Plantagenet's Well, 177 Pray Meadows, 98 Puttenham, 58; fair at, 59; Heath, 63 Quarry Hangers, 114 Quarry Hills, 101, 168 Ranmore Common, 98 Redhill, 96 Reigate, 99, 103; chapels, 104; hill, 107; park, 106 Richard Coeur de Lion, his return from the Holy Land, 171; at Harbledown, 188; Canterbury, 206 Richard III., King, 177 Ripley, 77 Robbers' or Roamers Moor, 58 Robertson, T. C., "Materials for the History of Archbishop Becket," 12 _note_ Rochester, 3, 141 Romney Marsh, 168 Rood, the miraculous, or winking image, 148 Ropley, 43 Rotherfield Park, 43 Rumbold, St., the image of, 147 Rupibus, Peter de, 45 Rutupine, Port, 4 Salisbury, John of, Bishop of Chartres, 12 Saltwood Castle, 9 Sandwich Haven, 3, 4, 73 Sandy Lane, 69 Scott, Sir Walter, on the death of Jane Austen, 50 Seale, 58; church, 59 Selborne, 44 Sellyng, Prior William, 154, 203 Sesto, Cesare da, 111 Sevenoaks, 107 Shalford, 74; fair at, 59, 74; park, 75 Shere, 88; church, 87 Shoelands, manor-house of, 58 Shooters' Hill, 138 Shrewsbury, Francis, Earl of, 37 Shrewsbury, Lady, 36 Shrewsbury, Roger de Montgomery, Earl of, 64 Silchester, 28 Silent Pool, 82; legend of, 82 Sittingbourne, 3 Snails, or _Helix pomatia_, 18 Snodland, limestone works, 137, 140 Snowden-Ward, Mr. H., "The Canterbury Pilgrimages," vi Somers, Earl, 106 Somerset, Lady Henry, 106 South Downs, 76 South Leith Hill, 76 Southampton, 3, 20, 35 Spenser, Edmund, his lines on the Mole, 95 Stane Street, 97 Stanhope, Charles, Earl, 122 Stanhope, General, 121 Stanhope, Lady Frederica, effigy of, 124 Stanhope, Lady Hester, 122 Stanhope, James, Earl, monument to, 124 Stanley, Dean, 5; extract from his account of the Canterbury pilgrimage, 6; on the characteristics of pilgrims, 60 Stede, Sir William, monument to, 161 Stede Hill, 160 Stour river, 162, 196; valley, 182, 185 Strangers' Hall, Winchester, 26 Stratford, Archbishop, 196, 197; at Charing, 170 Sudbury, Simon of, 193 Surrenden Dering, 168 Sussex Downs, 168 Swift, J., 56 Swithun, St., Bishop of Winchester, 3; his shrine, 21; removal of his bones, 22; miracles wrought, 22; number of pilgrims to his shrine, 25 Tatsfield church, 120 Temple, Sir William, 56 Thames river, 126; valley, 76, 138 Thomas', St., Hill, 195; Hospital, 196; Well, 117 Thurnham, 152 Tichborne, Isabella, 41 Tichborne, Sir Roger, 41 Tichborne Park, 41; legend of the Dole, 41-43 Tillingbourne stream, 87 Titsey Park, 117; discovery of Roman remains at, 100; Place, 117 Trottescliffe (Trosley), 138 Tunbridge Wells, 107 Tupper, Martin, 82 Tyting's Farm, 77 Vandyck, A., portrait by, 83 Vane, Sir Harry, 136 Vigo Inn, 138 Vinci, Leonardo da, iii Walkelin, Bishop, his church, 25 Walter, Archbishop Hubert, 196, 206 Wanborough, 59; church, 60 War Camp or Cardinal's Cap, 114 Warham, Archbishop, 149, 171, 208 Warrenne, William of, 104 Watling Street, 141, 186 Watts, George Frederic, 69 Wauncey, Richard de, 69 Waverley Abbey, 56, 59 Waynflete, Bishop William of, 45, 78 Wen, the, 5 Wessex, 21 Westerham, 121 Westhumble Lane, 98 Weston Wood, 80 Westwell, 175; church, 175; manor, 176 Wey, river, 51, 57, 72, 75 White, Gilbert, his house at Selborne, 44 White Hill Downs, 114 Whiteway End, 57 Whitgift, Archbishop, 196 Whorne Place, 142 Wibert, Prior, 203 Wickens, manor-house, 172 Wilberforce, Samuel, Bishop of Winchester, place of his death, 90 William III., King, 56, 106 William, King of Scotland, at Canterbury, 206 Winchelsea, Archbishop, 130, 164; his enthronement, 194; death, 194; statutes, 201 Winchester, 3, 20; the shrine of St. Swithun, 21; number of churches and chapels, 22; buildings, 24; number of pilgrims, 25; Nuns' Walk, 31; St. Giles' Hill, fair at, 31 Winders' Hill, 116 Windsor Castle, 76 Wolsey, Cardinal, 149 Wolvesey, castle of, 24, 29 Wotton, 90 Wotton, Sir Henry, 154 Wren, Christopher, 36 Wriothesley, Thomas, his treatment of the Abbey of Hyde, 29 Wrotham, 132; church, 135; hill, 135; manor-house, 134; palace, 136 Wulfstan, on the removal of St. Swithun's bones, 22 Wykeham, William of, 24, 25, 45 Wye, the, 184 Yaldham, manor of, 136 Yew trees, 6, 82, 84, 94, 99, 108, 126 PRINTED BY HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., LONDON AND AYLESBURY, ENGLAND. FOOTNOTES: [1] W. H. Hutton, "Thomas Becket," p. 249. [2] E. Abbott, "St. Thomas of Canterbury," i. 223. [3] T. C. Robertson, "Materials for the History of Archbishop Becket," ii. 47, iv. 145. [4] _Op. cit._ p. 322. [5] "Anonymus Lambethiensis. Materials," ii. 140. [6] "Thomas Saga," ii. 202. [7] Hyde Bourne. [8] Grose, "Antiquities of England and Wales," v. 110. [9] Meredith's novel, "Diana of the Crossways," takes its name from this farm. [10] Captain E. Renouard James, whose "Notes on the Pilgrims' Way in West Surrey" will be found to supply much valuable local information. (London, Edward Stanford, 1871.) * * * * * Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: ten gold growns=> ten gold crowns {pg 188} Alresford, 35, 38; New, cloth frade at, 39;=> Alresford, 35, 38; New, cloth trade at, 39; {pg 217} 
8511	----	and David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] THE THREE CITIES LOURDES BY EMILE ZOLA Volume 1. TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY PREFACE BEFORE perusing this work, it is as well that the reader should understand M. Zola's aim in writing it, and his views--as distinct from those of his characters--upon Lourdes, its Grotto, and its cures. A short time before the book appeared M. Zola was interviewed upon the subject by his friend and biographer, Mr. Robert H. Sherard, to whom he spoke as follows: "'Lourdes' came to be written by mere accident. In 1891 I happened to be travelling for my pleasure, with my wife, in the Basque country and by the Pyrenees, and being in the neighbourhood of Lourdes, included it in my tour. I spent fifteen days there, and was greatly struck by what I saw, and it then occurred to me that there was material here for just the sort of novel that I like to write--a novel in which great masses of men can be shown in motion--/un grand mouvement de foule/--a novel the subject of which stirred up my philosophical ideas. "It was too late then to study the question, for I had visited Lourdes late in September, and so had missed seeing the best pilgrimage, which takes place in August, under the direction of the Peres de la Misericorde, of the Rue de l'Assomption in Paris--the National Pilgrimage, as it is called. These Fathers are very active, enterprising men, and have made a great success of this annual national pilgrimage. Under their direction thirty thousand pilgrims are transported to Lourdes, including over a thousand sick persons. "So in the following year I went in August, and saw a national pilgrimage, and followed it during the three days which it lasts, in addition to the two days given to travelling. After its departure, I stayed on ten or twelve days, working up the subject in every detail. My book is the story of such a national pilgrimage, and is, accordingly, the story of five days. It is divided into five parts, each of which parts is limited to one day. "There are from ninety to one hundred characters in the story: sick persons, pilgrims, priests, nuns, hospitallers, nurses, and peasants; and the book shows Lourdes under every aspect. There are the piscinas, the processions, the Grotto, the churches at night, the people in the streets. It is, in one word, Lourdes in its entirety. In this canvas is worked out a very delicate central intrigue, as in 'Dr. Pascal,' and around this are many little stories or subsidiary plots. There is the story of the sick person who gets well, of the sick person who is not cured, and so on. The philosophical idea which pervades the whole book is the idea of human suffering, the exhibition of the desperate and despairing sufferers who, abandoned by science and by man, address themselves to a higher Power in the hope of relief; as where parents have a dearly loved daughter dying of consumption, who has been given up, and for whom nothing remains but death. A sudden hope, however, breaks in upon them: 'supposing that after all there should be a Power greater than that of man, higher than that of science.' They will haste to try this last chance of safety. It is the instinctive hankering after the lie which creates human credulity. "I will admit that I came across some instances of real cure. Many cases of nervous disorders have undoubtedly been cured, and there have also been other cures which may, perhaps be attributed to errors of diagnosis on the part of doctors who attended the patients so cured. Often a patient is described by his doctor as suffering from consumption. He goes to Lourdes, and is cured. However, the probability is that the doctor made a mistake. In my own case I was at one time suffering from a violent pain in my chest, which presented all the symptoms of /angina pectoris/, a mortal malady. It was nothing of the sort. Indigestion, doubtless, and, as such, curable. Remember that most of the sick persons who go to Lourdes come from the country, and that the country doctors are not usually men of either great skill or great experience. But all doctors mistake symptoms. Put three doctors together to discuss a case, and in nine cases out of ten they will disagree in their diagnosis. Look at the quantities of tumours, swellings, and sores, which cannot be properly classified. These cures are based on the ignorance of the medical profession. The sick pretend, believe, that they suffer from such and such a desperate malady, whereas it is from some other malady that they are suffering. And so the legend forms itself. And, of course, there must be cures out of so large a number of cases. Nature often cures without medical aid. Certainly, many of the workings of Nature are wonderful, but they are not supernatural. The Lourdes miracles can neither be proved nor denied. The miracle is based on human ignorance. And so the doctor who lives at Lourdes, and who is commissioned to register the cures and to tabulate the miracles, has a very careless time of it. A person comes, and gets cured. He has but to get three doctors together to examine the case. They will disagree as to what was the disease from which the patient suffered, and the only explanation left which will be acceptable to the public, with its hankering after the lie, is that a miracle has been vouchsafed. "I interviewed a number of people at Lourdes, and could not find one who would declare that he had witnessed a miracle. All the cases which I describe in my book are real cases, in which I have only changed the names of the persons concerned. In none of these instances was I able to discover any real proof for or against the miraculous nature of the cure. Thus, in the case of Clementine Trouve, who figures in my story as Sophie--the patient who, after suffering for a long time from a horrid open sore on her foot, was suddenly cured, according to current report, by bathing her foot in the piscina, where the bandages fell off, and her foot was entirely restored to a healthy condition--I investigated that case thoroughly. I was told that there were three or four ladies living in Lourdes who could guarantee the facts as stated by little Clementine. I looked up those ladies. The first said No, she could not vouch for anything. She had seen nothing. I had better consult somebody else. The next answered in the same way, and nowhere was I able to find any corroboration of the girl's story. Yet the little girl did not look like a liar, and I believe that she was fully convinced of the miraculous nature of her cure. It is the facts themselves which lie. "Lourdes, the Grotto, the cures, the miracles, are, indeed, the creation of that need of the Lie, that necessity for credulity, which is a characteristic of human nature. At first, when little Bernadette came with her strange story of what she had witnessed, everybody was against her. The Prefect of the Department, the Bishop, the clergy, objected to her story. But Lourdes grew up in spite of all opposition, just as the Christian religion did, because suffering humanity in its despair must cling to something, must have some hope; and, on the other hand, because humanity thirsts after illusions. In a word, it is the story of the foundation of all religions." To the foregoing account of "Lourdes" as supplied by its author, it may be added that the present translation, first made from early proofs of the French original whilst the latter was being completed, has for the purposes of this new American edition been carefully and extensively revised by Mr. E. A. Vizetelly,--M. Zola's representative for all English-speaking countries. "Lourdes" forms the first volume of the "Trilogy of the Three Cities," the second being "Rome," and the third "Paris." LOURDES THE FIRST DAY I PILGRIMS AND PATIENTS THE pilgrims and patients, closely packed on the hard seats of a third-class carriage, were just finishing the "Ave maris Stella," which they had begun to chant on leaving the terminus of the Orleans line, when Marie, slightly raised on her couch of misery and restless with feverish impatience, caught sight of the Paris fortifications through the window of the moving train. "Ah, the fortifications!" she exclaimed, in a tone which was joyous despite her suffering. "Here we are, out of Paris; we are off at last!" Her delight drew a smile from her father, M. de Guersaint, who sat in front of her, whilst Abbe Pierre Froment, who was looking at her with fraternal affection, was so carried away by his compassionate anxiety as to say aloud: "And now we are in for it till to-morrow morning. We shall only reach Lourdes at three-forty. We have more than two-and-twenty hours' journey before us." It was half-past five, the sun had risen, radiant in the pure sky of a delightful morning. It was a Friday, the 19th of August. On the horizon, however, some small, heavy clouds already presaged a terrible day of stormy heat. And the oblique sunrays were enfilading the compartments of the railway carriage, filling them with dancing, golden dust. "Yes, two-and-twenty hours," murmured Marie, relapsing into a state of anguish. "/Mon Dieu/! what a long time we must still wait!" Then her father helped her to lie down again in the narrow box, a kind of wooden gutter, in which she had been living for seven years past. Making an exception in her favour, the railway officials had consented to take as luggage the two pairs of wheels which could be removed from the box, or fitted to it whenever it became necessary to transport her from place to place. Packed between the sides of this movable coffin, she occupied the room of three passengers on the carriage seat; and for a moment she lay there with eyes closed. Although she was three-and-twenty; her ashen, emaciated face was still delicately infantile, charming despite everything, in the midst of her marvellous fair hair, the hair of a queen, which illness had respected. Clad with the utmost simplicity in a gown of thin woollen stuff, she wore, hanging from her neck, the card bearing her name and number, which entitled her to /hospitalisation/, or free treatment. She herself had insisted on making the journey in this humble fashion, not wishing to be a source of expense to her relatives, who little by little had fallen into very straitened circumstances. And thus it was that she found herself in a third-class carriage of the "white train," the train which carried the greatest sufferers, the most woeful of the fourteen trains going to Lourdes that day, the one in which, in addition to five hundred healthy pilgrims, nearly three hundred unfortunate wretches, weak to the point of exhaustion, racked by suffering, were heaped together, and borne at express speed from one to the other end of France. Sorry that he had saddened her, Pierre continued to gaze at her with the air of a compassionate elder brother. He had just completed his thirtieth year, and was pale and slight, with a broad forehead. After busying himself with all the arrangements for the journey, he had been desirous of accompanying her, and, having obtained admission among the Hospitallers of Our Lady of Salvation as an auxiliary member, wore on his cassock the red, orange-tipped cross of a bearer. M. de Guersaint on his side had simply pinned the little scarlet cross of the pilgrimage on his grey cloth jacket. The idea of travelling appeared to delight him; although he was over fifty he still looked young, and, with his eyes ever wandering over the landscape, he seemed unable to keep his head still--a bird-like head it was, with an expression of good nature and absent-mindedness. However, in spite of the violent shaking of the train, which constantly drew sighs from Marie, Sister Hyacinthe had risen to her feet in the adjoining compartment. She noticed that the sun's rays were streaming in the girl's face. "Pull down the blind, Monsieur l'Abbe," she said to Pierre. "Come, come, we must install ourselves properly, and set our little household in order." Clad in the black robe of a Sister of the Assumption, enlivened by a white coif, a white wimple, and a large white apron, Sister Hyacinthe smiled, the picture of courageous activity. Her youth bloomed upon her small, fresh lips, and in the depths of her beautiful blue eyes, whose expression was ever gentle. She was not pretty, perhaps, still she was charming, slender, and tall, the bib of her apron covering her flat chest like that of a young man; one of good heart, displaying a snowy complexion, and overflowing with health, gaiety, and innocence. "But this sun is already roasting us," said she; "pray pull down your blind as well, madame." Seated in the corner, near the Sister, was Madame de Jonquiere, who had kept her little bag on her lap. She slowly pulled down the blind. Dark, and well built, she was still nice-looking, although she had a daughter, Raymonde, who was four-and-twenty, and whom for motives of propriety she had placed in the charge of two lady-hospitallers, Madame Desagneaux and Madame Volmar, in a first-class carriage. For her part, directress as she was of a ward of the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours at Lourdes, she did not quit her patients; and outside, swinging against the door of her compartment, was the regulation placard bearing under her own name those of the two Sisters of the Assumption who accompanied her. The widow of a ruined man, she lived with her daughter on the scanty income of four or five thousand francs a year, at the rear of a courtyard in the Rue Vanneau. But her charity was inexhaustible, and she gave all her time to the work of the Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation, an institution whose red cross she wore on her gown of carmelite poplin, and whose aims she furthered with the most active zeal. Of a somewhat proud disposition, fond of being flattered and loved, she took great delight in this annual journey, from which both her heart and her passion derived contentment. "You are right, Sister," she said, "we will organise matters. I really don't know why I am encumbering myself with this bag." And thereupon she placed it under the seat, near her. "Wait a moment," resumed Sister Hyacinthe; "you have the water-can between your legs--it is in your way." "No, no, it isn't, I assure you. Let it be. It must always be somewhere." Then they both set their house in order as they expressed it, so that for a day and a night they might live with their patients as comfortably as possible. The worry was that they had not been able to take Marie into their compartment, as she wished to have Pierre and her father near her; however neighbourly intercourse was easy enough over the low partition. Moreover the whole carriage, with its five compartments of ten seats each, formed but one moving chamber, a common room as it were which the eye took in at a glance from end to end. Between its wooden walls, bare and yellow, under its white-painted panelled roof, it showed like a hospital ward, with all the disorder and promiscuous jumbling together of an improvised ambulance. Basins, brooms, and sponges lay about, half-hidden by the seats. Then, as the train only carried such luggage as the pilgrims could take with them, there were valises, deal boxes, bonnet boxes, and bags, a wretched pile of poor worn-out things mended with bits of string, heaped up a little bit everywhere; and overhead the litter began again, what with articles of clothing, parcels, and baskets hanging from brass pegs and swinging to and fro without a pause. Amidst all this frippery the more afflicted patients, stretched on their narrow mattresses, which took up the room of several passengers, were shaken, carried along by the rumbling gyrations of the wheels; whilst those who were able to remain seated, leaned against the partitions, their faces pale, their heads resting upon pillows. According to the regulations there should have been one lady-hospitaller to each compartment. However, at the other end of the carriage there was but a second Sister of the Assumption, Sister Claire des Anges. Some of the pilgrims who were in good health were already getting up, eating and drinking. One compartment was entirely occupied by women, ten pilgrims closely pressed together, young ones and old ones, all sadly, pitifully ugly. And as nobody dared to open the windows on account of the consumptives in the carriage, the heat was soon felt and an unbearable odour arose, set free as it were by the jolting of the train as it went its way at express speed. They had said their chaplets at Juvisy; and six o'clock was striking, and they were rushing like a hurricane past the station of Bretigny, when Sister Hyacinthe stood up. It was she who directed the pious exercises, which most of the pilgrims followed from small, blue-covered books. "The Angelus, my children," said she with a pleasant smile, a maternal air which her great youth rendered very charming and sweet. Then the "Aves" again followed one another, and were drawing to an end when Pierre and Marie began to feel interested in two women who occupied the other corner seats of their compartment. One of them, she who sat at Marie's feet, was a blonde of slender build and /bourgeoise/ appearance, some thirty and odd years of age, and faded before she had grown old. She shrank back, scarcely occupying any room, wearing a dark dress, and showing colourless hair, and a long grief-stricken face which expressed unlimited self-abandonment, infinite sadness. The woman in front of her, she who sat on the same seat as Pierre, was of the same age, but belonged to the working classes. She wore a black cap and displayed a face ravaged by wretchedness and anxiety, whilst on her lap she held a little girl of seven, who was so pale, so wasted by illness, that she scarcely seemed four. With her nose contracted, her eyelids lowered and showing blue in her waxen face, the child was unable to speak, unable to give utterance to more than a low plaint, a gentle moan, which rent the heart of her mother, leaning over her, each time that she heard it. "Would she eat a few grapes?" timidly asked the lady, who had hitherto preserved silence. "I have some in my basket." "Thank you, madame," replied the woman, "she only takes milk, and sometimes not even that willingly. I took care to bring a bottleful with me." Then, giving way to the desire which possesses the wretched to confide their woes to others, she began to relate her story. Her name was Vincent, and her husband, a gilder by trade, had been carried off by consumption. Left alone with her little Rose, who was the passion of her heart, she had worked by day and night at her calling as a dressmaker in order to bring the child up. But disease had come, and for fourteen months now she had had her in her arms like that, growing more and more woeful and wasted until reduced almost to nothingness. She, the mother, who never went to mass, entered a church, impelled by despair to pray for her daughter's cure; and there she had heard a voice which had told her to take the little one to Lourdes, where the Blessed Virgin would have pity on her. Acquainted with nobody, not knowing even how the pilgrimages were organised, she had had but one idea--to work, save up the money necessary for the journey, take a ticket, and start off with the thirty sous remaining to her, destitute of all supplies save a bottle of milk for the child, not having even thought of purchasing a crust of bread for herself. "What is the poor little thing suffering from?" resumed the lady. "Oh, it must be consumption of the bowels, madame! But the doctors have names they give it. At first she only had slight pains in the stomach. Then her stomach began to swell and she suffered, oh, so dreadfully! it made one cry to see her. Her stomach has gone down now, only she's worn out; she has got so thin that she has no legs left her, and she's wasting away with continual sweating." Then, as Rose, raising her eyelids, began to moan, her mother leant over her, distracted and turning pale. "What is the matter, my jewel, my treasure?" she asked. "Are you thirsty?" But the little girl was already closing her dim eyes of a hazy sky-blue hue, and did not even answer, but relapsed into her torpor, quite white in the white frock she wore--a last coquetry on the part of her mother, who had gone to this useless expense in the hope that the Virgin would be more compassionate and gentle to a little sufferer who was well dressed, so immaculately white. There was an interval of silence, and then Madame Vincent inquired: "And you, madame, it's for yourself no doubt that you are going to Lourdes? One can see very well that you are ill." But the lady, with a frightened look, shrank woefully into her corner, murmuring: "No, no, I am not ill. Would to God that I were! I should suffer less." Her name was Madame Maze, and her heart was full of an incurable grief. After a love marriage to a big, gay fellow with ripe, red lips, she had found herself deserted at the end of a twelvemonth's honeymoon. Ever travelling, following the profession of a jeweller's bagman, her husband, who earned a deal of money, would disappear for six months at a stretch, deceive her from one frontier to the other of France, at times even carrying creatures about with him. And she worshipped him; she suffered so frightfully from it all that she had sought a remedy in religion, and had at last made up her mind to repair to Lourdes, in order to pray the Virgin to restore her husband to her and make him amend his ways. Although Madame Vincent did not understand the other's words, she realised that she was a prey to great mental affliction, and they continued looking at one another, the mother, whom the sight of her dying daughter was killing, and the abandoned wife, whom her passion cast into throes of death-like agony. However, Pierre, who, like Marie, had been listening to the conversation, now intervened. He was astonished that the dressmaker had not sought free treatment for her little patient. The Association of Our Lady of Salvation had been founded by the Augustine Fathers of the Assumption after the Franco-German war, with the object of contributing to the salvation of France and the defence of the Church by prayer in common and the practice of charity; and it was this association which had promoted the great pilgrimage movement, in particular initiating and unremittingly extending the national pilgrimage which every year, towards the close of August, set out for Lourdes. An elaborate organisation had been gradually perfected, donations of considerable amounts were collected in all parts of the world, sufferers were enrolled in every parish, and agreements were signed with the railway companies, to say nothing of the active help of the Little Sisters of the Assumption and the establishment of the Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation, a widespread brotherhood of the benevolent, in which one beheld men and women, mostly belonging to society, who, under the orders of the pilgrimage managers, nursed the sick, helped to transport them, and watched over the observance of good discipline. A written request was needed for the sufferers to obtain hospitalisation, which dispensed them from making the smallest payment in respect either of their journey or their sojourn; they were fetched from their homes and conveyed back thither; and they simply had to provide a few provisions for the road. By far the greater number were recommended by priests or benevolent persons, who superintended the inquiries concerning them and obtained the needful papers, such as doctors' certificates and certificates of birth. And, these matters being settled, the sick ones had nothing further to trouble about, they became but so much suffering flesh, food for miracles, in the hands of the hospitallers of either sex. "But you need only have applied to your parish priest, madame," Pierre explained. "This poor child is deserving of all sympathy. She would have been immediately admitted." "I did not know it, monsieur l'Abbe." "Then how did you manage?" "Why, Monsieur l'Abbe, I went to take a ticket at a place which one of my neighbours, who reads the newspapers, told me about." She was referring to the tickets, at greatly reduced rates, which were issued to the pilgrims possessed of means. And Marie, listening to her, felt great pity for her, and also some shame; for she who was not entirely destitute of resources had succeeded in obtaining /hospitalisation/, thanks to Pierre, whereas that mother and her sorry child, after exhausting their scanty savings, remained without a copper. However, a more violent jolt of the carriage drew a cry of pain from the girl. "Oh, father," she said, "pray raise me a little! I can't stay on my back any longer." When M. de Guersaint had helped her into a sitting posture, she gave a deep sigh of relief. They were now at Etampes, after a run of an hour and a half from Paris, and what with the increased warmth of the sun, the dust, and the noise, weariness was becoming apparent already. Madame de Jonquiere had got up to speak a few words of kindly encouragement to Marie over the partition; and Sister Hyacinthe moreover again rose, and gaily clapped her hands that she might be heard and obeyed from one to the other end of the carriage. "Come, come!" said she, "we mustn't think of our little troubles. Let us pray and sing, and the Blessed Virgin will be with us." She herself then began the rosary according to the rite of Our Lady of Lourdes, and all the patients and pilgrims followed her. This was the first chaplet--the five joyful mysteries, the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Purification, and Jesus found in the Temple. Then they all began to chant the canticle: "Let us contemplate the heavenly Archangel!" Their voices were lost amid the loud rumbling of the wheels; you heard but the muffled surging of that human wave, stifling within the closed carriage which rolled on and on without a pause. Although M. de Guersaint was a worshipper, he could never follow a hymn to the end. He got up, sat down again, and finished by resting his elbow on the partition and conversing in an undertone with a patient who sat against this same partition in the next compartment. The patient in question was a thick-set man of fifty, with a good-natured face and a large head, completely bald. His name was Sabathier, and for fifteen years he had been stricken with ataxia. He only suffered pain by fits and starts, but he had quite lost the use of his legs, which his wife, who accompanied him, moved for him as though they had been dead legs, whenever they became too heavy, weighty like bars of lead. "Yes, monsieur," he said, "such as you see me, I was formerly fifth-class professor at the Lycee Charlemagne. At first I thought that it was mere sciatica, but afterwards I was seized with sharp, lightning-like pains, red-hot sword thrusts, you know, in the muscles. For nearly ten years the disease kept on mastering me more and more. I consulted all the doctors, tried every imaginable mineral spring, and now I suffer less, but I can no longer move from my seat. And then, after long living without a thought of religion, I was led back to God by the idea that I was too wretched, and that Our Lady of Lourdes could not do otherwise than take pity on me." Feeling interested, Pierre in his turn had leant over the partition and was listening. "Is it not so, Monsieur l'Abbe?" continued M. Sabathier. "Is not suffering the best awakener of souls? This is the seventh year that I am going to Lourdes without despairing of cure. This year the Blessed Virgin will cure me, I feel sure of it. Yes, I expect to be able to walk about again; I now live solely in that hope." M. Sabathier paused, he wished his wife to push his legs a little more to the left; and Pierre looked at him, astonished to find such obstinate faith in a man of intellect, in one of those university professors who, as a rule, are such Voltairians. How could the belief in miracles have germinated and taken root in this man's brain? As he himself said, great suffering alone explained this need of illusion, this blossoming of eternal and consolatory hope. "And my wife and I," resumed the ex-professor, "are dressed, you see, as poor folks, for I wished to go as a mere pauper this year, and applied for /hospitalisation/ in a spirit of humility in order that the Blessed Virgin might include me among the wretched, her children--only, as I did not wish to take the place of a real pauper, I gave fifty francs to the Hospitalite, and this, as you are aware, gives one the right to have a patient of one's own in the pilgrimage. I even know my patient. He was introduced to me at the railway station. He is suffering from tuberculosis, it appears, and seemed to me very low, very low." A fresh interval of silence ensued. "Well," said M. Sabathier at last, "may the Blessed Virgin save him also, she who can do everything. I shall be so happy; she will have loaded me with favours." Then the three men, isolating themselves from the others, went on conversing together, at first on medical subjects, and at last diverging into a discussion on romanesque architecture, /a propos/ of a steeple which they had perceived on a hillside, and which every pilgrim had saluted with a sign of the cross. Swayed once more by the habits of cultivated intellect, the young priest and his two companions forgot themselves together in the midst of their fellow-passengers, all those poor, suffering, simple-minded folk, whom wretchedness stupefied. Another hour went by, two more canticles had just been sung, and the stations of Toury and Les Aubrais had been left behind, when, at Beaugency, they at last ceased their chat, on hearing Sister Hyacinthe clap her hands and intonate in her fresh, sonorous voice: "/Parce, Domine, parce populo tuo/." And then the chant went on; all voices became mingled in that ever-surging wave of prayer which stilled pain, excited hope, and little by little penetrated the entire being, harassed by the haunting thought of the grace and cure which one and all were going to seek so far away. However, as Pierre sat down again, he saw that Marie was very pale, and had her eyes closed. By the painful contraction of her features he could tell that she was not asleep. "Are you in great suffering?" he asked. "Yes, yes, I suffer dreadfully. I shall never last to the end. It is this incessant jolting." She moaned, raised her eyelids, and, half-fainting, remained in a sitting posture, her eyes turned on the other sufferers. In the adjoining compartment, La Grivotte, hitherto stretched out, scarce breathing, like a corpse, had just raised herself up in front of M. Sabathier. She was a tall, slip-shod, singular-looking creature of over thirty, with a round, ravaged face, which her frizzy hair and flaming eyes rendered almost pretty. She had reached the third stage of phthisis. "Eh, mademoiselle," she said, addressing herself in a hoarse, indistinct voice to Marie, "how nice it would be if we could only doze off a little. But it can't be managed; all these wheels keep on whirling round and round in one's head." Then, although it fatigued her to speak, she obstinately went on talking, volunteering particulars about herself. She was a mattress-maker, and with one of her aunts had long gone from yard to yard at Bercy to comb and sew up mattresses. And, indeed, it was to the pestilential wool which she had combed in her youth that she ascribed her malady. For five years she had been making the round of the hospitals of Paris, and she spoke familiarly of all the great doctors. It was the Sisters of Charity, at the Lariboisiere hospital, who, finding that she had a passion for religious ceremonies, had completed her conversion, and convinced her that the Virgin awaited her at Lourdes to cure her. "I certainly need it," said she. "The doctors say that I have one lung done for, and that the other one is scarcely any better. There are great big holes you know. At first I only felt bad between the shoulders and spat up some froth. But then I got thin, and became a dreadful sight. And now I'm always in a sweat, and cough till I think I'm going to bring my heart up. And I can no longer spit. And I haven't the strength to stand, you see. I can't eat." A stifling sensation made her pause, and she became livid. "All the same I prefer being in my skin instead of in that of the Brother in the compartment behind you. He has the same complaint as I have, but he is in a worse state that I am." She was mistaken. In the farther compartment, beyond Marie, there was indeed a young missionary, Brother Isidore, who was lying on a mattress and could not be seen, since he was unable to raise even a finger. But he was not suffering from phthisis. He was dying of inflammation of the liver, contracted in Senegal. Very long and lank, he had a yellow face, with skin as dry and lifeless as parchment. The abscess which had formed in his liver had ended by breaking out externally, and amidst the continuous shivering of fever, vomiting, and delirium, suppuration was exhausting him. His eyes alone were still alive, eyes full of unextinguishable love, whose flame lighted up his expiring face, a peasant face such as painters have given to the crucified Christ, common, but rendered sublime at moments by its expression of faith and passion. He was a Breton, the last puny child of an over-numerous family, and had left his little share of land to his elder brothers. One of his sisters, Marthe, older than himself by a couple of years, accompanied him. She had been in service in Paris, an insignificant maid-of-all-work, but withal so devoted to her brother that she had left her situation to follow him, subsisting scantily on her petty savings. "I was lying on the platform," resumed La Grivotte, "when he was put in the carriage. There were four men carrying him--" But she was unable to speak any further, for just then an attack of coughing shook her and threw her back upon the seat. She was suffocating, and the red flush on her cheek-bones turned blue. Sister Hyacinthe, however, immediately raised her head and wiped her lips with a linen cloth, which became spotted with blood. At the same time Madame de Jonquiere gave her attention to a patient in front of her, who had just fainted. She was called Madame Vetu, and was the wife of a petty clockmaker of the Mouffetard district, who had not been able to shut up his shop in order to accompany her to Lourdes. And to make sure that she would be cared for she had sought and obtained /hospitalisation/. The fear of death was bringing her back to religion, although she had not set foot in church since her first communion. She knew that she was lost, that a cancer in the chest was eating into her; and she already had the haggard, orange-hued mark of the cancerous patient. Since the beginning of the journey she had not spoken a word, but, suffering terribly, had remained with her lips tightly closed. Then all at once, she had swooned away after an attack of vomiting. "It is unbearable!" murmured Madame de Jonquiere, who herself felt faint; "we must let in a little fresh air." Sister Hyacinthe was just then laying La Grivotte to rest on her pillows, "Certainly," said she, "we will open the window for a few moments. But not on this side, for I am afraid we might have a fresh fit of coughing. Open the window on your side, madame." The heat was still increasing, and the occupants of the carriage were stifling in that heavy evil-smelling atmosphere. The pure air which came in when the window was opened brought relief however. For a moment there were other duties to be attended to, a clearance and cleansing. The Sister emptied the basins out of the window, whilst the lady-hospitaller wiped the shaking floor with a sponge. Next, things had to be set in order; and then came a fresh anxiety, for the fourth patient, a slender girl whose face was entirely covered by a black fichu, and who had not yet moved, was saying that she felt hungry. With quiet devotion Madame de Jonquiere immediately tendered her services. "Don't you trouble, Sister," she said, "I will cut her bread into little bits for her." Marie, with the need she felt of diverting her mind from her own sufferings, had already begun to take an interest in that motionless sufferer whose countenance was so thickly veiled, for she not unnaturally suspected that it was a case of some distressing facial sore. She had merely been told that the patient was a servant, which was true, but it happened that the poor creature, a native of Picardy, named Elise Rouquet, had been obliged to leave her situation, and seek a home with a sister who ill-treated her, for no hospital would take her in. Extremely devout, she had for many months been possessed by an ardent desire to go to Lourdes. While Marie, with dread in her heart, waited for the fichu to be moved aside, Madame de Jonquiere, having cut some bread into small pieces, inquired maternally: "Are they small enough? Can you put them into your mouth?" Thereupon a hoarse voice growled confused words under the black fichu: "Yes, yes, madame." And at last the veil fell and Marie shuddered with horror. It was a case of lupus which had preyed upon the unhappy woman's nose and mouth. Ulceration had spread, and was hourly spreading--in short, all the hideous peculiarities of this terrible disease were in full process of development, almost obliterating the traces of what once were pleasing womanly lineaments. "Oh, look, Pierre!" Marie murmured, trembling. The priest in his turn shuddered as he beheld Elise Rouquet cautiously slipping the tiny pieces of bread into her poor shapeless mouth. Everyone in the carriage had turned pale at sight of the awful apparition. And the same thought ascended from all those hope-inflated souls. Ah! Blessed Virgin, Powerful Virgin, what a miracle indeed if such an ill were cured! "We must not think of ourselves, my children, if we wish to get well," resumed Sister Hyacinthe, who still retained her encouraging smile. And then she made them say the second chaplet, the five sorrowful mysteries: Jesus in the Garden of Olives, Jesus scourged, Jesus crowned with thorns, Jesus carrying the cross, and Jesus crucified. Afterwards came the canticle: "In thy help, Virgin, do I put my trust." They had just passed through Blois; for three long hours they had been rolling onward; and Marie, who had averted her eyes from Elise Rouquet, now turned them upon a man who occupied a corner seat in the compartment on her left, that in which Brother Isidore was lying. She had noticed this man several times already. Poorly clad in an old black frock-coat, he looked still young, although his sparse beard was already turning grey; and, short and emaciated, he seemed to experience great suffering, his fleshless, livid face being covered with sweat. However, he remained motionless, ensconced in his corner, speaking to nobody, but staring straight before him with dilated eyes. And all at once Marie noticed that his eyelids were falling, and that he was fainting away. She thereupon drew Sister's Hyacinthe's attention to him: "Look, Sister! One would think that that gentleman is dangerously ill." "Which one, my dear child?" "That one, over there, with his head thrown back." General excitement followed, all the healthy pilgrims rose up to look, and it occurred to Madame de Jonquiere to call to Marthe, Brother Isidore's sister, and tell her to tap the man's hands. "Question him," she added; "ask what ails him." Marthe drew near, shook the man, and questioned him. But instead of an answer only a rattle came from his throat, and his eyes remained closed. Then a frightened voice was heard saying, "I think he is going to die." The dread increased, words flew about, advice was tendered from one to the other end of the carriage. Nobody knew the man. He had certainly not obtained /hospitalisation/, for no white card was hanging from his neck. Somebody related, however, that he had seen him arrive, dragging himself along, but three minutes or so before the train started; and that he had remained quite motionless, scarce breathing, ever since he had flung himself with an air of intense weariness into that corner, where he was now apparently dying. His ticket was at last seen protruding from under the band of an old silk hat which was hung from a peg near him. "Ah, he is breathing again now!" Sister Hyacinthe suddenly exclaimed. "Ask him his name." However, on being again questioned by Marthe, the man merely gave vent to a low plaint, an exclamation scarcely articulated, "Oh, how I suffer!" And thenceforward that was the only answer that could be obtained from him. With reference to everything that they wished to know, who he was, whence he came, what his illness was, what could be done for him, he gave no information, but still and ever continued moaning, "Oh, how I suffer--how I suffer!" Sister Hyacinthe grew restless with impatience. Ah, if she had only been in the same compartment with him! And she resolved that she would change her seat at the first station they should stop at. Only there would be no stoppage for a long time. The position was becoming terrible, the more so as the man's head again fell back. "He is dying, he is dying!" repeated the frightened voice. What was to be done, /mon Dieu/? The Sister was aware that one of the Fathers of the Assumption, Father Massias, was in the train with the Holy Oils, ready to administer extreme unction to the dying; for every year some of the patients passed away during the journey. But she did not dare to have recourse to the alarm signal. Moreover, in the /cantine/ van where Sister Saint Francois officiated, there was a doctor with a little medicine chest. If the sufferer should survive until they reached Poitiers, where there would be half an hour's stoppage, all possible help might be given to him. But on the other hand he might suddenly expire. However, they ended by becoming somewhat calmer. The man, though still unconscious, began to breathe in a more regular manner, and seemed to fall asleep. "To think of it, to die before getting there," murmured Marie with a shudder, "to die in sight of the promised land!" And as her father sought to reassure her she added: "I am suffering--I am suffering dreadfully myself." "Have confidence," said Pierre; "the Blessed Virgin is watching over you." She could no longer remain seated, and it became necessary to replace her in a recumbent position in her narrow coffin. Her father and the priest had to take every precaution in doing so, for the slightest hurt drew a moan from her. And she lay there breathless, like one dead, her face contracted by suffering, and surrounded by her regal fair hair. They had now been rolling on, ever rolling on for nearly four hours. And if the carriage was so greatly shaken, with an unbearable spreading tendency, it was from its position at the rear part of the train. The coupling irons shrieked, the wheels growled furiously; and as it was necessary to leave the windows partially open, the dust came in, acrid and burning; but it was especially the heat which grew terrible, a devouring, stormy heat falling from a tawny sky which large hanging clouds had slowly covered. The hot carriages, those rolling boxes where the pilgrims ate and drank, where the sick lay in a vitiated atmosphere, amid dizzying moans, prayers, and hymns, became like so many furnaces. And Marie was not the only one whose condition had been aggravated; others also were suffering from the journey. Resting in the lap of her despairing mother, who gazed at her with large, tear-blurred eyes, little Rose had ceased to stir, and had grown so pale that Madame Maze had twice leant forward to feel her hands, fearful lest she should find them cold. At each moment also Madame Sabathier had to move her husband's legs, for their weight was so great, said he, that it seemed as if his hips were being torn from him. Brother Isidore too had just begun to cry out, emerging from his wonted torpor; and his sister had only been able to assuage his sufferings by raising him, and clasping him in her arms. La Grivotte seemed to be asleep, but a continuous hiccoughing shook her, and a tiny streamlet of blood dribbled from her mouth. Madame Vetu had again vomited, Elise Rouquet no longer thought of hiding the frightful sore open on her face. And from the man yonder, breathing hard, there still came a lugubrious rattle, as though he were at every moment on the point of expiring. In vain did Madame de Jonquiere and Sister Hyacinthe lavish their attentions on the patients, they could but slightly assuage so much suffering. At times it all seemed like an evil dream--that carriage of wretchedness and pain, hurried along at express speed, with a continuous shaking and jolting which made everything hanging from the pegs--the old clothes, the worn-out baskets mended with bits of string--swing to and fro incessantly. And in the compartment at the far end, the ten female pilgrims, some old, some young, and all pitifully ugly, sang on without a pause in cracked voices, shrill and dreary. Then Pierre began to think of the other carriages of the train, that white train which conveyed most, if not all, of the more seriously afflicted patients; these carriages were rolling along, all displaying similar scenes of suffering among the three hundred sick and five hundred healthy pilgrims crowded within them. And afterwards he thought of the other trains which were leaving Paris that day, the grey train and the blue train* which had preceded the white one, the green train, the yellow train, the pink train, the orange train which were following it. From hour to hour trains set out from one to the other end of France. And he thought, too, of those which that same morning had started from Orleans, Le Mans, Poitiers, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Carcassonne. Coming from all parts, trains were rushing across that land of France at the same hour, all directing their course yonder towards the holy Grotto, bringing thirty thousand patients and pilgrims to the Virgin's feet. And he reflected that other days of the year witnessed a like rush of human beings, that not a week went by without Lourdes beholding the arrival of some pilgrimage; that it was not merely France which set out on the march, but all Europe, the whole world; that in certain years of great religious fervour there had been three hundred thousand, and even five hundred thousand, pilgrims and patients streaming to the spot. * Different-coloured tickets are issued for these trains; it is for this reason that they are called the white, blue, and grey trains, etc.--Trans. Pierre fancied that he could hear those flying trains, those trains from everywhere, all converging towards the same rocky cavity where the tapers were blazing. They all rumbled loudly amid the cries of pain and snatches of hymns wafted from their carriages. They were the rolling hospitals of disease at its last stage, of human suffering rushing to the hope of cure, furiously seeking consolation between attacks of increased severity, with the ever-present threat of death--death hastened, supervening under awful conditions, amidst the mob-like scramble. They rolled on, they rolled on again and again, they rolled on without a pause, carrying the wretchedness of the world on its way to the divine illusion, the health of the infirm, the consolation of the afflicted. And immense pity overflowed from Pierre's heart, human compassion for all the suffering and all the tears that consumed weak and naked men. He was sad unto death and ardent charity burnt within him, the unextinguishable flame as it were of his fraternal feelings towards all things and beings. When they left the station of Saint Pierre des Corps at half-past ten, Sister Hyacinthe gave the signal, and they recited the third chaplet, the five glorious mysteries, the Resurrection of Our Lord, the Ascension of Our Lord, the Mission of the Holy Ghost, the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin, the Crowning of the Most Blessed Virgin. And afterwards they sang the canticle of Bernadette, that long, long chant, composed of six times ten couplets, to which the ever recurring Angelic Salutation serves as a refrain--a prolonged lullaby slowly besetting one until it ends by penetrating one's entire being, transporting one into ecstatic sleep, in delicious expectancy of a miracle. II PIERRE AND MARIE THE green landscapes of Poitou were now defiling before them, and Abbe Pierre Froment, gazing out of the window, watched the trees fly away till, little by little, he ceased to distinguish them. A steeple appeared and then vanished, and all the pilgrims crossed themselves. They would not reach Poitiers until twelve-thirty-five, and the train was still rolling on amid the growing weariness of that oppressive, stormy day. Falling into a deep reverie, the young priest no longer heard the words of the canticle, which sounded in his ears merely like a slow, wavy lullaby. Forgetfulness of the present had come upon him, an awakening of the past filled his whole being. He was reascending the stream of memory, reascending it to its source. He again beheld the house at Neuilly, where he had been born and where he still lived, that home of peace and toil, with its garden planted with a few fine trees, and parted by a quickset hedge and palisade from the garden of the neighbouring house, which was similar to his own. He was again three, perhaps four, years old, and round a table, shaded by the big horse-chestnut tree he once more beheld his father, his mother, and his elder brother at /dejeuner/. To his father, Michel Froment, he could give no distinct lineaments; he pictured him but faintly, vaguely, renowned as an illustrious chemist, bearing the title of Member of the Institute, and leading a cloistered life in the laboratory which he had installed in that secluded, deserted suburb. However he could plainly see his first brother Guillaume, then fourteen years of age, whom some holiday had brought from college that morning, and then and even more vividly his mother, so gentle and so quiet, with eyes so full of active kindliness. Later on he learnt what anguish had racked that religious soul, that believing woman who, from esteem and gratitude, had resignedly accepted marriage with an unbeliever, her senior by fifteen years, to whom her relatives were indebted for great services. He, Pierre, the tardy offspring of this union, born when his father was already near his fiftieth year, had only known his mother as a respectful, conquered woman in the presence of her husband, whom she had learnt to love passionately, with the frightful torment of knowing, however, that he was doomed to perdition. And, all at once, another memory flashed upon the young priest, the terrible memory of the day when his father had died, killed in his laboratory by an accident, the explosion of a retort. He, Pierre, had then been five years old, and he remembered the slightest incidents--his mother's cry when she had found the shattered body among the remnants of the chemical appliances, then her terror, her sobs, her prayers at the idea that God had slain the unbeliever, damned him for evermore. Not daring to burn his books and papers, she had contented herself with locking up the laboratory, which henceforth nobody entered. And from that moment, haunted by a vision of hell, she had had but one idea, to possess herself of her second son, who was still so young, to give him a strictly religious training, and through him to ransom her husband--secure his forgiveness from God. Guillaume, her elder boy, had already ceased to belong to her, having grown up at college, where he had been won over by the ideas of the century; but she resolved that the other, the younger one, should not leave the house, but should have a priest as tutor; and her secret dream, her consuming hope, was that she might some day see him a priest himself, saying his first mass and solacing souls whom the thought of eternity tortured. Then between green, leafy boughs, flecked with sunlight, another figure rose vividly before Pierre's eyes. He suddenly beheld Marie de Guersaint as he had seen her one morning through a gap in the hedge dividing the two gardens. M. de Guersaint, who belonged to the petty Norman /noblesse/, was a combination of architect and inventor; and he was at that time busy with a scheme of model dwellings for the poor, to which churches and schools were to be attached; an affair of considerable magnitude, planned none too well, however, and in which, with his customary impetuosity, the lack of foresight of an imperfect artist, he was risking the three hundred thousand francs that he possessed. A similarity of religious faith had drawn Madame de Guersaint and Madame Froment together; but the former was altogether a superior woman, perspicuous and rigid, with an iron hand which alone prevented her household from gliding to a catastrophe; and she was bringing up her two daughters, Blanche and Marie, in principles of narrow piety, the elder one already being as grave as herself, whilst the younger, albeit very devout, was still fond of play, with an intensity of life within her which found vent in gay peals of sonorous laughter. From their early childhood Pierre and Marie played together, the hedge was ever being crossed, the two families constantly mingled. And on that clear sunshiny morning, when he pictured her parting the leafy branches she was already ten years old. He, who was sixteen, was to enter the seminary on the following Tuesday. Never had she seemed to him so pretty. Her hair, of a pure golden hue, was so long that when it was let down it sufficed to clothe her. Well did he remember her face as it had been, with round cheeks, blue eyes, red mouth, and skin of dazzling, snowy whiteness. She was indeed as gay and brilliant as the sun itself, a transplendency. Yet there were tears at the corners of her eyes, for she was aware of his coming departure. They sat down together at the far end of the garden, in the shadow cast by the hedge. Their hands mingled, and their hearts were very heavy. They had, however, never exchanged any vows amid their pastimes, for their innocence was absolute. But now, on the eve of separation, their mutual tenderness rose to their lips, and they spoke without knowing, swore that they would ever think of one another, and find one another again, some day, even as one meets in heaven to be very, very happy. Then, without understanding how it happened, they clasped each other tightly, to the point of suffocation, and kissed each other's face, weeping, the while, hot tears. And it was that delightful memory which Pierre had ever carried with him, which he felt alive within him still, after so many years, and after so many painful renunciations. Just then a more violent shock roused him from his reverie. He turned his eyes upon the carriage and vaguely espied the suffering beings it contained--Madame Maze motionless, overwhelmed with grief; little Rose gently moaning in her mother's lap; La Grivotte, whom a hoarse cough was choking. For a moment Sister Hyacinthe's gay face shone out amidst the whiteness of her coif and wimple, dominating all the others. The painful journey was continuing, with a ray of divine hope still and ever shining yonder. Then everything slowly vanished from Pierre's eyes as a fresh wave of memory brought the past back from afar; and nothing of the present remained save the lulling hymn, the indistinct voices of dreamland, emerging from the invisible. Henceforth he was at the seminary. The classrooms, the recreation ground with its trees, rose up clearly before him. But all at once he only beheld, as in a mirror, the youthful face which had then been his, and he contemplated it and scrutinised it, as though it had been the face of a stranger. Tall and slender, he had an elongated visage, with an unusually developed forehead, lofty and straight like a tower; whilst his jaws tapered, ending in a small refined chin. He seemed, in fact, to be all brains; his mouth, rather large, alone retained an expression of tenderness. Indeed, when his usually serious face relaxed, his mouth and eyes acquired an exceedingly soft expression, betokening an unsatisfied, hungry desire to love, devote oneself, and live. But immediately afterwards, the look of intellectual passion would come back again, that intellectuality which had ever consumed him with an anxiety to understand and know. And it was with surprise that he now recalled those years of seminary life. How was it that he had so long been able to accept the rude discipline of blind faith, of obedient belief in everything without the slightest examination? It had been required of him that he should absolutely surrender his reasoning faculties, and he had striven to do so, had succeeded indeed in stifling his torturing need of truth. Doubtless he had been softened, weakened by his mother's tears, had been possessed by the sole desire to afford her the great happiness she dreamt of. Yet now he remembered certain quiverings of revolt; he found in the depths of his mind the memory of nights which he had spent in weeping without knowing why, nights peopled with vague images, nights through which galloped the free, virile life of the world, when Marie's face incessantly returned to him, such as he had seen it one morning, dazzling and bathed in tears, while she embraced him with her whole soul. And that alone now remained; his years of religious study with their monotonous lessons, their ever similar exercises and ceremonies, had flown away into the same haze, into a vague half-light, full of mortal silence. Then, just as the train had passed though a station at full speed, with the sudden uproar of its rush there arose within him a succession of confused visions. He had noticed a large deserted enclosure, and fancied that he could see himself within it at twenty years of age. His reverie was wandering. An indisposition of rather long duration had, however, at one time interrupted his studies, and led to his being sent into the country. He had remained for a long time without seeing Marie; during his vacations spent at Neuilly he had twice failed to meet her, for she was almost always travelling. He knew that she was very ill, in consequence of a fall from a horse when she was thirteen, a critical moment in a girl's life; and her despairing mother, perplexed by the contradictory advice of medical men, was taking her each year to a different watering-place. Then he learnt the startling news of the sudden tragical death of that mother, who was so severe and yet so useful to her kin. She had been carried off in five days by inflammation of the lungs, which she had contracted one evening whilst she was out walking at La Bourboule, through having taken off her mantle to place it round the shoulders of Marie, who had been conveyed thither for treatment. It had been necessary that the father should at once start off to fetch his daughter, who was mad with grief, and the corpse of his wife, who had been so suddenly torn from him. And unhappily, after losing her, the affairs of the family went from bad to worse in the hands of this architect, who, without counting, flung his fortune into the yawning gulf of his unsuccessful enterprises. Marie no longer stirred from her couch; only Blanche remained to manage the household, and she had matters of her own to attend to, being busy with the last examinations which she had to pass, the diplomas which she was obstinately intent on securing, foreseeing as she did that she would someday have to earn her bread. All at once, from amidst this mass of confused, half-forgotten incidents, Pierre was conscious of the rise of a vivid vision. Ill-health, he remembered, had again compelled him to take a holiday. He had just completed his twenty-fourth year, he was greatly behindhand, having so far only secured the four minor orders; but on his return a sub-deaconship would be conferred on him, and an inviolable vow would bind him for evermore. And the Guersaints' little garden at Neuilly, whither he had formerly so often gone to play, again distinctly appeared before him. Marie's couch had been rolled under the tall trees at the far end of the garden near the hedge, they were alone together in the sad peacefulness of an autumnal afternoon, and he saw Marie, clad in deep mourning for her mother and reclining there with legs inert; whilst he, also clad in black, in a cassock already, sat near her on an iron garden chair. For five years she had been suffering. She was now eighteen, paler and thinner than formerly, but still adorable with her regal golden hair, which illness respected. He believed from what he had heard that she was destined to remain infirm, condemned never to become a woman, stricken even in her sex. The doctors, who failed to agree respecting her case, had abandoned her. Doubtless it was she who told him these things that dreary afternoon, whilst the yellow withered leaves rained upon them. However, he could not remember the words that they had spoken; her pale smile, her young face, still so charming though already dimmed by regretfulness for life, alone remained present with him. But he realised that she had evoked the far-off day of their parting, on that same spot, behind the hedge flecked with sunlight; and all that was already as though dead--their tears, their embrace, their promise to find one another some day with a certainty of happiness. For although they had found one another again, what availed it, since she was but a corpse, and he was about to bid farewell to the life of the world? As the doctors condemned her, as she would never be woman, nor wife, nor mother, he, on his side, might well renounce manhood, and annihilate himself, dedicate himself to God, to whom his mother gave him. And he still felt within him the soft bitterness of that last interview: Marie smiling painfully at memory of their childish play and prattle, and speaking to him of the happiness which he would assuredly find in the service of God; so penetrated indeed with emotion at this thought, that she had made him promise that he would let her hear him say his first mass. But the train was passing the station of Sainte-Maure, and just then a sudden uproar momentarily brought Pierre's attention back to the carriage and its occupants. He fancied that there had been some fresh seizure or swooning, but the suffering faces that he beheld were still the same, ever contracted by the same expression of anxious waiting for the divine succour which was so slow in coming. M. Sabathier was vainly striving to get his legs into a comfortable position, whilst Brother Isidore raised a feeble continuous moan like a dying child, and Madame Vetu, a prey to terrible agony, devoured by her disease, sat motionless, and kept her lips tightly closed, her face distorted, haggard, and almost black. The noise which Pierre had heard had been occasioned by Madame de Jonquiere, who whilst cleansing a basin had dropped the large zinc water-can. And, despite their torment, this had made the patients laugh, like the simple souls they were, rendered puerile by suffering. However, Sister Hyacinthe, who rightly called them her children, children whom she governed with a word, at once set them saying the chaplet again, pending the Angelus, which would only be said at Chatellerault, in accordance with the predetermined programme. And thereupon the "Aves" followed one after the other, spreading into a confused murmuring and mumbling amidst the rattling of the coupling irons and noisy growling of the wheels. Pierre had meantime relapsed into his reverie, and beheld himself as he had been at six-and-twenty, when ordained a priest. Tardy scruples had come to him a few days before his ordination, a semi-consciousness that he was binding himself without having clearly questioned his heart and mind. But he had avoided doing so, living in the dizzy bewilderment of his decision, fancying that he had lopped off all human ties and feelings with a voluntary hatchet-stroke. His flesh had surely died with his childhood's innocent romance, that white-skinned girl with golden hair, whom now he never beheld otherwise than stretched upon her couch of suffering, her flesh as lifeless as his own. And he had afterwards made the sacrifice of his mind, which he then fancied even an easier one, hoping as he did that determination would suffice to prevent him from thinking. Besides, it was too late, he could not recoil at the last moment, and if when he pronounced the last solemn vow he felt a secret terror, an indeterminate but immense regret agitating him, he forgot everything, saving a divine reward for his efforts on the day when he afforded his mother the great and long-expected joy of hearing him say his first mass. He could still see the poor woman in the little church of Neuilly, which she herself had selected, the church where the funeral service for his father had been celebrated; he saw her on that cold November morning, kneeling almost alone in the dark little chapel, her hands hiding her face as she continued weeping whilst he raised the Host. It was there that she had tasted her last happiness, for she led a sad and lonely life, no longer seeing her elder son, who had gone away, swayed by other ideas than her own, bent on breaking off all family intercourse since his brother intended to enter the Church. It was said that Guillaume, a chemist of great talent, like his father, but at the same time a Bohemian, addicted to revolutionary dreams, was living in a little house in the suburbs, where he devoted himself to the dangerous study of explosive substances; and folks added that he was living with a woman who had come no one knew whence. This it was which had severed the last tie between himself and his mother, all piety and propriety. For three years Pierre had not once seen Guillaume, whom in his childhood he had worshipped as a kind, merry, and fatherly big brother. But there came an awful pang to his heart--he once more beheld his mother lying dead. This again was a thunderbolt, an illness of scarce three days' duration, a sudden passing away, as in the case of Madame de Guersaint. One evening, after a wild hunt for the doctor, he had found her motionless and quite white. She had died during his absence; and his lips had ever retained the icy thrill of the last kiss that he had given her. Of everything else--the vigil, the preparations, the funeral--he remembered nothing. All that had become lost in the black night of his stupor and grief, grief so extreme that he had almost died of it--seized with shivering on his return from the cemetery, struck down by a fever which during three weeks had kept him delirious, hovering between life and death. His brother had come and nursed him and had then attended to pecuniary matters, dividing the little inheritance, leaving him the house and a modest income and taking his own share in money. And as soon as Guillaume had found him out of danger he had gone off again, once more vanishing into the unknown. But then through what a long convalescence he, Pierre, had passed, buried as it were in that deserted house. He had done nothing to detain Guillaume, for he realised that there was an abyss between them. At first the solitude had brought him suffering, but afterwards it had grown very pleasant, whether in the deep silence of the rooms which the rare noises of the street did not disturb, or under the screening, shady foliage of the little garden, where he could spend whole days without seeing a soul. His favourite place of refuge, however, was the old laboratory, his father's cabinet, which his mother for twenty years had kept carefully locked up, as though to immure within it all the incredulity and damnation of the past. And despite the gentleness, the respectful submissiveness which she had shown in former times, she would perhaps have some day ended by destroying all her husband's books and papers, had not death so suddenly surprised her. Pierre, however, had once more had the windows opened, the writing-table and the bookcase dusted; and, installed in the large leather arm-chair, he now spent delicious hours there, regenerated as it were by his illness, brought back to his youthful days again, deriving a wondrous intellectual delight from the perusal of the books which he came upon. The only person whom he remembered having received during those two months of slow recovery was Doctor Chassaigne, an old friend of his father, a medical man of real merit, who, with the one ambition of curing disease, modestly confined himself to the /role/ of the practitioner. It was in vain that the doctor had sought to save Madame Froment, but he flattered himself that he had extricated the young priest from grievous danger; and he came to see him from time to time, to chat with him and cheer him, talking with him of his father, the great chemist, of whom he recounted many a charming anecdote, many a particular, still glowing with the flame of ardent friendship. Little by little, amidst the weak languor of convalescence, the son had thus beheld an embodiment of charming simplicity, affection, and good nature rising up before him. It was his father such as he had really been, not the man of stern science whom he had pictured whilst listening to his mother. Certainly she had never taught him aught but respect for that dear memory; but had not her husband been the unbeliever, the man who denied, and made the angels weep, the artisan of impiety who sought to change the world that God had made? And so he had long remained a gloomy vision, a spectre of damnation prowling about the house, whereas now he became the house's very light, clear and gay, a worker consumed by a longing for truth, who had never desired anything but the love and happiness of all. For his part, Doctor Chassaigne, a Pyrenean by birth, born in a far-off secluded village where folks still believed in sorceresses, inclined rather towards religion, although he had not set his foot inside a church during the forty years he had been living in Paris. However, his conviction was absolute: if there were a heaven somewhere, Michel Froment was assuredly there, and not merely there, but seated upon a throne on the Divinity's right hand. Then Pierre, in a few minutes, again lived through the frightful torment which, during two long months, had ravaged him. It was not that he had found controversial works of an anti-religious character in the bookcase, or that his father, whose papers he sorted, had ever gone beyond his technical studies as a /savant/. But little by little, despite himself, the light of science dawned upon him, an /ensemble/ of proven phenomena, which demolished dogmas and left within him nothing of the things which as a priest he should have believed. It seemed, in fact, as though illness had renewed him, as though he were again beginning to live and learn amidst the physical pleasantness of convalescence, that still subsisting weakness which lent penetrating lucidity to his brain. At the seminary, by the advice of his masters, he had always kept the spirit of inquiry, his thirst for knowledge, in check. Much of that which was taught him there had surprised him; however, he had succeeded in making the sacrifice of his mind required of his piety. But now, all the laboriously raised scaffolding of dogmas was swept away in a revolt of that sovereign mind which clamoured for its rights, and which he could no longer silence. Truth was bubbling up and overflowing in such an irresistible stream that he realised he would never succeed in lodging error in his brain again. It was indeed the total and irreparable ruin of faith. Although he had been able to kill his flesh by renouncing the romance of his youth, although he felt that he had altogether mastered carnal passion, he now knew that it would be impossible for him to make the sacrifice of his intelligence. And he was not mistaken; it was indeed his father again springing to life in the depths of his being, and at last obtaining the mastery in that dual heredity in which, during so many years, his mother had dominated. The upper part of his face, his straight, towering brow, seemed to have risen yet higher, whilst the lower part, the small chin, the affectionate mouth, were becoming less distinct. However, he suffered; at certain twilight hours when his kindliness, his need of love awoke, he felt distracted with grief at no longer believing, distracted with desire to believe again; and it was necessary that the lighted lamp should be brought in, that he should see clearly around him and within him, before he could recover the energy and calmness of reason, the strength of martyrdom, the determination to sacrifice everything to the peace of his conscience. Then came the crisis. He was a priest and he no longer believed. This had suddenly dawned before him like a bottomless abyss. It was the end of his life, the collapse of everything. What should he do? Did not simple rectitude require that he should throw off the cassock and return to the world? But he had seen some renegade priests and had despised them. A married priest with whom he was acquainted filled him with disgust. All this, no doubt, was but a survival of his long religious training. He retained the notion that a priest cannot, must not, weaken; the idea that when one has dedicated oneself to God one cannot take possession of oneself again. Possibly, also, he felt that he was too plainly branded, too different from other men already, to prove otherwise than awkward and unwelcome among them. Since he had been cut off from them he would remain apart in his grievous pride; And, after days of anguish, days of struggle incessantly renewed, in which his thirst for happiness warred with the energies of his returning health, he took the heroic resolution to remain a priest, and an honest one. He would find the strength necessary for such abnegation. Since he had conquered the flesh, albeit unable to conquer the brain, he felt sure of keeping his vow of chastity, and that would be unshakable; therein lay the pure, upright life which he was absolutely certain of living. What mattered the rest if he alone suffered, if nobody in the world suspected that his heart was reduced to ashes, that nothing remained of his faith, that he was agonising amidst fearful falsehood? His rectitude would prove a firm prop; he would follow his priestly calling like an honest man, without breaking any of the vows he had taken; he would, in due accordance with the rites, discharge his duties as a minister of the Divinity, whom he would praise and glorify at the altar, and distribute as the Bread of Life to the faithful. Who, then, would dare to impute his loss of faith to him as a crime, even if this great misfortune should some day become known? And what more could be asked of him than lifelong devotion to his vow, regard for his ministry, and the practice of every charity without the hope of any future reward? In this wise he ended by calming himself, still upright, still bearing his head erect, with the desolate grandeur of the priest who himself no longer believes, but continues watching over the faith of others. And he certainly was not alone; he felt that he had many brothers, priests with ravaged minds, who had sunk into incredulity, and who yet, like soldiers without a fatherland, remained at the altar, and, despite, everything, found the courage to make the divine illusion shine forth above the kneeling crowds. On recovering his health Pierre had immediately resumed his service at the little church of Neuilly. He said his mass there every morning. But he had resolved to refuse any appointment, any preferment. Months and years went by, and he obstinately insisted on remaining the least known and the most humble of those priests who are tolerated in a parish, who appear and disappear after discharging their duty. The acceptance of any appointment would have seemed to him an aggravation of his falsehood, a theft from those who were more deserving than himself. And he had to resist frequent offers, for it was impossible for his merits to remain unnoticed. Indeed, his obstinate modesty provoked astonishment at the archbishop's palace, where there was a desire to utilise the power which could be divined in him. Now and again, it is true, he bitterly regretted that he was not useful, that he did not co-operate in some great work, in furthering the purification of the world, the salvation and happiness of all, in accordance with his own ardent, torturing desire. Fortunately his time was nearly all his own, and to console himself he gave rein to his passion for work by devouring every volume in his father's bookcase, and then again resuming and considering his studies, feverishly preoccupied with regard to the history of nations, full of a desire to explore the depths of the social and religious crisis so that he might ascertain whether it were really beyond remedy. It was at this time, whilst rummaging one morning in one of the large drawers in the lower part of the bookcase, that he discovered quite a collection of papers respecting the apparitions of Lourdes. It was a very complete set of documents, comprising detailed notes of the interrogatories to which Bernadette had been subjected, copies of numerous official documents, and police and medical reports, in addition to many private and confidential letters of the greatest interest. This discovery had surprised Pierre, and he had questioned, Doctor Chassaigne concerning it. The latter thereupon remembered that his friend, Michel Froment, had at one time passionately devoted himself to the study of Bernadette's case; and he himself, a native of the village near Lourdes, had procured for the chemist a portion of the documents in the collection. Pierre, in his turn, then became impassioned, and for a whole month continued studying the affair, powerfully attracted by the visionary's pure, upright nature, but indignant with all that had subsequently sprouted up--the barbarous fetishism, the painful superstitions, and the triumphant simony. In the access of unbelief which had come upon him, this story of Lourdes was certainly of a nature to complete the collapse of his faith. However, it had also excited his curiosity, and he would have liked to investigate it, to establish beyond dispute what scientific truth might be in it, and render pure Christianity the service of ridding it of this scoria, this fairy tale, all touching and childish as it was. But he had been obliged to relinquish his studies, shrinking from the necessity of making a journey to the Grotto, and finding that it would be extremely difficult to obtain the information which he still needed; and of it all there at last only remained within him a tender feeling for Bernadette, of whom he could not think without a sensation of delightful charm and infinite pity. The days went by, and Pierre led a more and more lonely life. Doctor Chassaigne had just left for the Pyrenees in a state of mortal anxiety. Abandoning his patients, he had set out for Cauterets with his ailing wife, who was sinking more and more each day, to the infinite distress of both his charming daughter and himself. From that moment the little house at Neuilly fell into deathlike silence and emptiness. Pierre had no other distraction than that of occasionally going to see the Guersaints, who had long since left the neighbouring house, but whom he had found again in a small lodging in a wretched tenement of the district. And the memory of his first visit to them there was yet so fresh within him, that he felt a pang at his heart as he recalled his emotion at sight of the hapless Marie. That pang roused him from his reverie, and on looking round he perceived Marie stretched on the seat, even as he had found her on the day which he recalled, already imprisoned in that gutter-like box, that coffin to which wheels were adapted when she was taken out-of-doors for an airing. She, formerly so brimful of life, ever astir and laughing, was dying of inaction and immobility in that box. Of her old-time beauty she had retained nothing save her hair, which clad her as with a royal mantle, and she was so emaciated that she seemed to have grown smaller again, to have become once more a child. And what was most distressing was the expression on her pale face, the blank, frigid stare of her eyes which did not see, the ever haunting absent look, as of one whom suffering overwhelmed. However, she noticed that Pierre was gazing at her, and at once desired to smile at him; but irresistible moans escaped her, and when she did at last smile, it was like a poor smitten creature who is convinced that she will expire before the miracle takes place. He was overcome by it, and, amidst all the sufferings with which the carriage abounded, hers were now the only ones that he beheld and heard, as though one and all were summed up in her, in the long and terrible agony of her beauty, gaiety, and youth. Then by degrees, without taking his eyes from Marie, he again reverted to former days, again lived those hours, fraught with a mournful and bitter charm, which he had often spent beside her, when he called at the sorry lodging to keep her company. M. de Guersaint had finally ruined himself by trying to improve the artistic quality of the religious prints so widely sold in France, the faulty execution of which quite irritated him. His last resources had been swallowed up in the failure of a colour-printing firm; and, heedless as he was, deficient in foresight, ever trusting in Providence, his childish mind continually swayed by illusions, he did not notice the awful pecuniary embarrassment of the household; but applied himself to the study of aerial navigation, without even realising what prodigious activity his elder daughter, Blanche, was forced to display, in order to earn the living of her two children, as she was wont to call her father and her sister. It was Blanche who, by running about Paris in the dust or the mud from morning to evening in order to give French or music lessons, contrived to provide the money necessary for the unremitting attentions which Marie required. And Marie often experienced attacks of despair--bursting into tears and accusing herself of being the primary cause of their ruin, as for years and years now it had been necessary to pay for medical attendance and for taking her to almost every imaginable spring--La Bourboule, Aix, Lamalou, Amelie-les-Bains, and others. And the outcome of ten years of varied diagnosis and treatment was that the doctors had now abandoned her. Some thought her illness to be due to the rupture of certain ligaments, others believed in the presence of a tumour, others again to paralysis due to injury to the spinal cord, and as she, with maidenly revolt, refused to undergo any examination, and they did not even dare to address precise questions to her, they each contented themselves with their several opinions and declared that she was beyond cure. Moreover, she now solely relied upon the divine help, having grown rigidly pious since she had been suffering, and finding her only relief in her ardent faith. Every morning she herself read the holy offices, for to her great sorrow she was unable to go to church. Her inert limbs indeed seemed quite lifeless, and she had sunk into a condition of extreme weakness, to such a point, in fact, that on certain days it became necessary for her sister to place her food in her mouth. Pierre was thinking of this when all at once he recalled an evening he had spent with her. The lamp had not yet been lighted, he was seated beside her in the growing obscurity, and she suddenly told him that she wished to go to Lourdes, feeling certain that she would return cured. He had experienced an uncomfortable sensation on hearing her speak in this fashion, and quite forgetting himself had exclaimed that it was folly to believe in such childishness. He had hitherto made it a rule never to converse with her on religious matters, having not only refused to be her confessor, but even to advise her with regard to the petty uncertainties of her pietism. In this respect he was influenced by feelings of mingled shame and compassion; to lie to her of all people would have made him suffer, and, moreover, he would have deemed himself a criminal had he even by a breath sullied that fervent pure faith which lent her such strength against pain. And so, regretting that he had not been able to restrain his exclamation, he remained sorely embarrassed, when all at once he felt the girl's cold hand take hold of his own. And then, emboldened by the darkness, she ventured in a gentle, faltering voice, to tell him that she already knew his secret, his misfortune, that wretchedness, so fearful for a priest, of being unable to believe. Despite himself he had revealed everything during their chats together, and she, with the delicate intuition of a friend, had been able to read his conscience. She felt terribly distressed on his account; she deemed him, with that mortal moral malady, to be more deserving of pity than herself. And then as he, thunderstruck, was still unable to find an answer, acknowledging the truth of her words by his very silence, she again began to speak to him of Lourdes, adding in a low whisper that she wished to confide him as well as herself to the protection of the Blessed Virgin, whom she entreated to restore him to faith. And from that evening forward she did not cease speaking on the subject, repeating again and again, that if she went to Lourdes she would be surely cured. But she was prevented from making the journey by lack of means and she did not even dare to speak to her sister of the pecuniary question. So two months went by, and day by day she grew weaker, exhausted by her longing dreams, her eyes ever turned towards the flashing light of the miraculous Grotto far away. Pierre then experienced many painful days. He had at first told Marie that he would not accompany her. But his decision was somewhat shaken by the thought that if he made up his mind to go, he might profit by the journey to continue his inquiries with regard to Bernadette, whose charming image lingered in his heart. And at last he even felt penetrated by a delightful feeling, an unacknowledged hope, the hope that Marie was perhaps right, that the Virgin might take pity on him and restore to him his former blind faith, the faith of the child who loves and does not question. Oh! to believe, to believe with his whole soul, to plunge into faith for ever! Doubtless there was no other possible happiness. He longed for faith with all the joyousness of his youth, with all the love that he had felt for his mother, with all his burning desire to escape from the torment of understanding and knowing, and to slumber forever in the depths of divine ignorance. It was cowardly, and yet so delightful; to exist no more, to become a mere thing in the hands of the Divinity. And thus he was at last possessed by a desire to make the supreme experiment. A week later the journey to Lourdes was decided upon. Pierre, however, had insisted on a final consultation of medical men in order to ascertain if it were really possible for Marie to travel; and this again was a scene which rose up before him, with certain incidents which he ever beheld whilst others were already fading from his mind. Two of the doctors who had formerly attended the patient, and one of whom believed in the rupture of certain ligaments, whilst the other asserted the case to be one of medullary paralysis, had ended by agreeing that this paralysis existed, and that there was also, possibly, some ligamentary injury. In their opinion all the symptoms pointed to this diagnosis, and the nature of the case seemed to them so evident that they did not hesitate to give certificates, each his own, agreeing almost word for word with one another, and so positive in character as to leave no room for doubt. Moreover, they thought that the journey was practicable, though it would certainly prove an exceedingly painful one. Pierre thereupon resolved to risk it, for he had found the doctors very prudent, and very desirous to arrive at the truth; and he retained but a confused recollection of the third medical man who had been called in, a distant cousin of his named De Beauclair, who was young, extremely intelligent, but little known as yet, and said by some to be rather strange in his theories. This doctor, after looking at Marie for a long time, had asked somewhat anxiously about her parents, and had seemed greatly interested by what was told him of M. de Guersaint, this architect and inventor with a weak and exuberant mind. Then he had desired to measure the sufferer's visual field, and by a slight discreet touch had ascertained the locality of the pain, which, under certain pressure, seemed to ascend like a heavy shifting mass towards the breast. He did not appear to attach importance to the paralysis of the legs; but on a direct question being put to him he exclaimed that the girl ought to be taken to Lourdes and that she would assuredly be cured there, if she herself were convinced of it. Faith sufficed, said he, with a smile; two pious lady patients of his, whom he had sent thither during the preceding year, had returned in radiant health. He even predicted how the miracle would come about; it would be like a lightning stroke, an awakening, an exaltation of the entire being, whilst the evil, that horrid, diabolical weight which stifled the poor girl would once more ascend and fly away as though emerging by her mouth. But at the same time he flatly declined to give a certificate. He had failed to agree with his two /confreres/, who treated him coldly, as though they considered him a wild, adventurous young fellow. Pierre confusedly remembered some shreds of the discussion which had begun again in his presence, some little part of the diagnosis framed by Beauclair. First, a dislocation of the organ, with a slight laceration of the ligaments, resulting from the patient's fall from her horse; then a slow healing, everything returning to its place, followed by consecutive nervous symptoms, so that the sufferer was now simply beset by her original fright, her attention fixed on the injured part, arrested there amidst increasing pain, incapable of acquiring fresh notions unless it were under the lash of some violent emotion. Moreover, he also admitted the probability of accidents due to nutrition, as yet unexplained, and on the course and importance of which he himself would not venture to give an opinion. However, the idea that Marie /dreamt/ her disease, that the fearful sufferings torturing her came from an injury long since healed, appeared such a paradox to Pierre when he gazed at her and saw her in such agony, her limbs already stretched out lifeless on her bed of misery, that he did not even pause to consider it; but at that moment felt simply happy in the thought that all three doctors agreed in authorising the journey to Lourdes. To him it was sufficient that she /might/ be cured, and to attain that result he would have followed her to the end of the world. Ah! those last days of Paris, amid what a scramble they were spent! The national pilgrimage was about to start, and in order to avoid heavy expenses, it had occurred to him to obtain /hospitalisation/ for Marie. Then he had been obliged to run about in order to obtain his own admission, as a helper, into the Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation. M. de Guersaint was delighted with the prospect of the journey, for he was fond of nature, and ardently desired to become acquainted with the Pyrenees. Moreover, he did not allow anything to worry him, but was perfectly willing that the young priest should pay his railway fare, and provide for him at the hotel yonder as for a child; and his daughter Blanche, having slipped a twenty-franc piece into his hand at the last moment, he had even thought himself rich again. That poor brave Blanche had a little hidden store of her own, savings to the amount of fifty francs, which it had been absolutely necessary to accept, for she became quite angry in her determination to contribute towards her sister's cure, unable as she was to form one of the party, owing to the lessons which she had to give in Paris, whose hard pavements she must continue pacing, whilst her dear ones were kneeling yonder, amidst the enchantments of the Grotto. And so the others had started on, and were now rolling, ever rolling along. As they passed the station of Chatellerault a sudden burst of voices made Pierre start, and drove away the torpor into which his reverie had plunged him. What was the matter? Were they reaching Poitiers? But it was only half-past twelve o'clock, and it was simply Sister Hyacinthe who had roused him, by making her patients and pilgrims say the Angelus, the three "Aves" thrice repeated. Then the voices burst forth, and the sound of a fresh canticle arose, and continued like a lamentation. Fully five and twenty minutes must elapse before they would reach Poitiers, where it seemed as if the half-hour's stoppage would bring relief to every suffering! They were all so uncomfortable, so roughly shaken in that malodorous, burning carriage! Such wretchedness was beyond endurance. Big tears coursed down the cheeks of Madame Vincent, a muttered oath escaped M. Sabathier usually so resigned, and Brother Isidore, La Grivotte, and Madame Vetu seemed to have become inanimate, mere waifs carried along by a torrent. Moreover, Marie no longer answered, but had closed her eyes and would not open them, pursued as she was by the horrible vision of Elise Rouquet's face, that face with its gaping cavities which seemed to her to be the image of death. And whilst the train increased its speed, bearing all this human despair onward, under the heavy sky, athwart the burning plains, there was yet another scare in the carriage. The strange man had apparently ceased to breathe, and a voice cried out that he was expiring. III POITIERS AS soon as the train arrived at Poitiers, Sister Hyacinthe alighted in all haste, amidst the crowd of porters opening the carriage doors, and of pilgrims darting forward to reach the platform. "Wait a moment, wait a moment," she repeated, "let me pass first. I wish to see if all is over." Then, having entered the other compartment, she raised the strange man's head, and seeing him so pale, with such blank eyes, she did at first think him already dead. At last, however, she detected a faint breathing. "No, no," she then exclaimed, "he still breathes. Quick! there is no time to be lost." And, perceiving the other Sister, she added: "Sister Claire des Anges, will you go and fetch Father Massias, who must be in the third or fourth carriage of the train? Tell him that we have a patient in very great danger here, and ask him to bring the Holy Oils at once." Without answering, the other Sister at once plunged into the midst of the scramble. She was small, slender, and gentle, with a meditative air and mysterious eyes, but withal extremely active. Pierre, who was standing in the other compartment watching the scene, now ventured to make a suggestion: "And would it not be as well to fetch the doctor?" said he. "Yes, I was thinking of it," replied Sister Hyacinthe, "and, Monsieur l'Abbe, it would be very kind of you to go for him yourself." It so happened that Pierre intended going to the cantine carriage to fetch some broth for Marie. Now that she was no longer being jolted she felt somewhat relieved, and had opened her eyes, and caused her father to raise her to a sitting posture. Keenly thirsting for fresh air, she would have much liked them to carry her out on to the platform for a moment, but she felt that it would be asking too much, that it would be too troublesome a task to place her inside the carriage again. So M. de Guersaint remained by himself on the platform, near the open door, smoking a cigarette, whilst Pierre hastened to the cantine van, where he knew he would find the doctor on duty, with his travelling pharmacy. Some other patients, whom one could not think of removing, also remained in the carriage. Amongst them was La Grivotte, who was stifling and almost delirious, in such a state indeed as to detain Madame de Jonquiere, who had arranged to meet her daughter Raymonde, with Madame Volmar and Madame Desagneaux, in the refreshment-room, in order that they might all four lunch together. But that unfortunate creature seemed on the point of expiring, so how could she leave her all alone, on the hard seat of that carriage? On his side, M. Sabathier, likewise riveted to his seat, was waiting for his wife, who had gone to fetch a bunch of grapes for him; whilst Marthe had remained with her brother the missionary, whose faint moan never ceased. The others, those who were able to walk, had hustled one another in their haste to alight, all eager as they were to escape for a moment from that cage of wretchedness where their limbs had been quite numbed by the seven hours' journey which they had so far gone. Madame Maze had at once drawn apart, straying with melancholy face to the far end of the platform, where she found herself all alone; Madame Vetu, stupefied by her sufferings, had found sufficient strength to take a few steps, and sit down on a bench, in the full sunlight, where she did not even feel the burning heat; whilst Elise Rouquet, who had had the decency to cover her face with a black wrap, and was consumed by a desire for fresh water, went hither and thither in search of a drinking fountain. And meantime Madame Vincent, walking slowly, carried her little Rose about in her arms, trying to smile at her, and to cheer her by showing her some gaudily coloured picture bills, which the child gravely gazed at, but did not see. Pierre had the greatest possible difficulty in making his way through the crowd inundating the platform. No effort of imagination could enable one to picture the living torrent of ailing and healthy beings which the train had here set down--a mob of more than a thousand persons just emerging from suffocation, and bustling, hurrying hither and thither. Each carriage had contributed its share of wretchedness, like some hospital ward suddenly evacuated; and it was now possible to form an idea of the frightful amount of suffering which this terrible white train carried along with it, this train which disseminated a legend of horror wheresoever it passed. Some infirm sufferers were dragging themselves about, others were being carried, and many remained in a heap on the platform. There were sudden pushes, violent calls, innumerable displays of distracted eagerness to reach the refreshment-room and the /buvette/. Each and all made haste, going wheresoever their wants called them. This stoppage of half an hour's duration, the only stoppage there would be before reaching Lourdes, was, after all, such a short one. And the only gay note, amidst all the black cassocks and the threadbare garments of the poor, never of any precise shade of colour, was supplied by the smiling whiteness of the Little Sisters of the Assumption, all bright and active in their snowy coifs, wimples, and aprons. When Pierre at last reached the cantine van near the middle of the train, he found it already besieged. There was here a petroleum stove, with a small supply of cooking utensils. The broth prepared from concentrated meat-extract was being warmed in wrought-iron pans, whilst the preserved milk in tins was diluted and supplied as occasion required. There were some other provisions, such as biscuits, fruit, and chocolate, on a few shelves. But Sister Saint-Francois, to whom the service was entrusted, a short, stout woman of five-and-forty, with a good-natured fresh-coloured face, was somewhat losing her head in the presence of all the hands so eagerly stretched towards her. Whilst continuing her distribution, she lent ear to Pierre, as he called the doctor, who with his travelling pharmacy occupied another corner of the van. Then, when the young priest began to explain matters, speaking of the poor unknown man who was dying, a sudden desire came to her to go and see him, and she summoned another Sister to take her place. "Oh! I wished to ask you, Sister, for some broth for a passenger who is ill," said Pierre, at that moment turning towards her. "Very well, Monsieur l'Abbe, I will bring some. Go on in front." The doctor and the abbe went off in all haste, rapidly questioning and answering one another, whilst behind them followed Sister Saint-Francois, carrying the bowl of broth with all possible caution amidst the jostling of the crowd. The doctor was a dark-complexioned man of eight-and-twenty, robust and extremely handsome, with the head of a young Roman emperor, such as may still be occasionally met with in the sunburnt land of Provence. As soon as Sister Hyacinthe caught sight of him, she raised an exclamation of surprise: "What! Monsieur Ferrand, is it you?" Indeed, they both seemed amazed at meeting in this manner. It is, however, the courageous mission of the Sisters of the Assumption to tend the ailing poor, those who lie in agony in their humble garrets, and cannot pay for nursing; and thus these good women spend their lives among the wretched, installing themselves beside the sufferer's pallet in his tiny lodging, and ministering to every want, attending alike to cooking and cleaning, and living there as servants and relatives, until either cure or death supervenes. And it was in this wise that Sister Hyacinthe, young as she was, with her milky face, and her blue eyes which ever laughed, had installed herself one day in the abode of this young fellow, Ferrand, then a medical student, prostrated by typhoid fever, and so desperately poor that he lived in a kind of loft reached by a ladder, in the Rue du Four. And from that moment she had not stirred from his side, but had remained with him until she cured him, with the passion of one who lived only for others, one who when an infant had been found in a church porch, and who had no other family than that of those who suffered, to whom she devoted herself with all her ardently affectionate nature. And what a delightful month, what exquisite comradeship, fraught with the pure fraternity of suffering, had followed! When he called her "Sister," it was really to a sister that he was speaking. And she was a mother also, a mother who helped him to rise, and who put him to bed as though he were her child, without aught springing up between them save supreme pity, the divine, gentle compassion of charity. She ever showed herself gay, sexless, devoid of any instinct excepting that which prompted her to assuage and to console. And he worshipped her, venerated her, and had retained of her the most chaste and passionate of recollections. "O Sister Hyacinthe!" he murmured in delight. Chance alone had brought them face to face again, for Ferrand was not a believer, and if he found himself in that train it was simply because he had at the last moment consented to take the place of a friend who was suddenly prevented from coming. For nearly a twelvemonth he had been a house-surgeon at the Hospital of La Pitie. However, this journey to Lourdes, in such peculiar circumstances, greatly interested him. The joy of the meeting was making them forget the ailing stranger. And so the Sister resumed: "You see, Monsieur Ferrand, it is for this man that we want you. At one moment we thought him dead. Ever since we passed Amboise he has been filling us with fear, and I have just sent for the Holy Oils. Do you find him so very low? Could you not revive him a little?" The doctor was already examining the man, and thereupon the sufferers who had remained in the carriage became greatly interested and began to look. Marie, to whom Sister Saint-Francois had given the bowl of broth, was holding it with such an unsteady hand that Pierre had to take it from her, and endeavour to make her drink; but she could not swallow, and she left the broth scarce tasted, fixing her eyes upon the man waiting to see what would happen like one whose own existence is at stake. "Tell me," again asked Sister Hyacinthe, "how do you find him? What is his illness?" "What is his illness!" muttered Ferrand; "he has every illness." Then, drawing a little phial from his pocket, he endeavoured to introduce a few drops of the contents between the sufferer's clenched teeth. The man heaved a sigh, raised his eyelids and let them fall again; that was all, he gave no other sign of life. Sister Hyacinthe, usually so calm and composed, so little accustomed to despair, became impatient. "But it is terrible," said she, "and Sister Claire des Anges does not come back! Yet I told her plainly enough where she would find Father Massias's carriage. /Mon Dieu!/ what will become of us?" Sister Saint-Francois, seeing that she could render no help, was now about to return to the cantine van. Before doing so, however, she inquired if the man were not simply dying of hunger; for such cases presented themselves, and indeed she had only come to the compartment with the view of offering some of her provisions. At last, as she went off, she promised that she would make Sister Claire des Anges hasten her return should she happen to meet her; and she had not gone twenty yards when she turned round and waved her arm to call attention to her colleague, who with discreet short steps was coming back alone. Leaning out of the window, Sister Hyacinthe kept on calling to her, "Make haste, make haste! Well, and where is Father Massias?" "He isn't there." "What! not there?" "No. I went as fast as I could, but with all these people about it was not possible to get there quickly. When I reached the carriage Father Massias had already alighted, and gone out of the station, no doubt." She thereupon explained, that according to what she had heard, Father Massias and the priest of Sainte-Radegonde had some appointment together. In other years the national pilgrimage halted at Poitiers for four-and-twenty hours, and after those who were ill had been placed in the town hospital the others went in procession to Sainte-Radegonde.* That year, however, there was some obstacle to this course being followed, so the train was going straight on to Lourdes; and Father Massias was certainly with his friend the priest, talking with him on some matter of importance. * The church of Sainte-Radegonde, built by the saint of that name in the sixth century, is famous throughout Poitou. In the crypt between the tombs of Ste. Agnes and St. Disciole is that of Ste. Radegonde herself, but it now only contains some particles of her remains, as the greater portion was burnt by the Huguenots in 1562. On a previous occasion (1412) the tomb had been violated by Jean, Duc de Berry, who wished to remove both the saint's head and her two rings. Whilst he was making the attempt, however, the skeleton is said to have withdrawn its hand so that he might not possess himself of the rings. A greater curiosity which the church contains is a footprint on a stone slab, said to have been left by Christ when He appeared to Ste. Radegonde in her cell. This attracts pilgrims from many parts.--Trans. "They promised to tell him and send him here with the Holy Oils as soon as they found him," added Sister Claire. However, this was quite a disaster for Sister Hyacinthe. Since Science was powerless, perhaps the Holy Oils would have brought the sufferer some relief. She had often seen that happen. "O Sister, Sister, how worried I am!" she said to her companion. "Do you know, I wish you would go back and watch for Father Massias and bring him to me as soon as you see him. It would be so kind of you to do so!" "Yes, Sister," compliantly answered Sister Claire des Anges, and off she went again with that grave, mysterious air of hers, wending her way through the crowd like a gliding shadow. Ferrand, meantime, was still looking at the man, sorely distressed at his inability to please Sister Hyacinthe by reviving him. And as he made a gesture expressive of his powerlessness she again raised her voice entreatingly: "Stay with me, Monsieur Ferrand, pray stay," she said. "Wait till Father Massias comes--I shall be a little more at ease with you here." He remained and helped her to raise the man, who was slipping down upon the seat. Then, taking a linen cloth, she wiped the poor fellow's face which a dense perspiration was continually covering. And the spell of waiting continued amid the uneasiness of the patients who had remained in the carriage, and the curiosity of the folks who had begun to assemble on the platform in front of the compartment. All at once however a girl hastily pushed the crowd aside, and, mounting on the footboard, addressed herself to Madame de Jonquiere: "What is the matter, mamma?" she said. "They are waiting for you in the refreshment-room." It was Raymonde de Jonquiere, who, already somewhat ripe for her four-and-twenty years, was remarkably like her mother, being very dark, with a pronounced nose, large mouth, and full, pleasant-looking face. "But, my dear, you can see for yourself. I can't leave this poor woman," replied the lady-hospitaller; and thereupon she pointed to La Grivotte, who had been attacked by a fit of coughing which shook her frightfully. "Oh, how annoying, mamma!" retorted Raymonde, "Madame Desagneaux and Madame Volmar were looking forward with so much pleasure to this little lunch together." "Well, it can't be helped, my dear. At all events, you can begin without waiting for me. Tell the ladies that I will come and join them as soon as I can." Then, an idea occurring to her, Madame de Jonquiere added: "Wait a moment, the doctor is here. I will try to get him to take charge of my patient. Go back, I will follow you. As you can guess, I am dying of hunger." Raymonde briskly returned to the refreshment-room whilst her mother begged Ferrand to come into her compartment to see if he could do something to relieve La Grivotte. At Marthe's request he had already examined Brother Isidore, whose moaning never ceased; and with a sorrowful gesture he had again confessed his powerlessness. However, he hastened to comply with Madame de Jonquiere's appeal, and raised the consumptive woman to a sitting posture in the hope of thus stopping her cough, which indeed gradually ceased. And then he helped the lady-hospitaller to make her swallow a spoonful of some soothing draught. The doctor's presence in the carriage was still causing a stir among the ailing ones. M. Sabathier, who was slowly eating the grapes which his wife had been to fetch him, did not, however, question Ferrand, for he knew full well what his answer would be, and was weary, as he expressed it, of consulting all the princes of science; nevertheless he felt comforted as it were at seeing him set that poor consumptive woman on her feet again. And even Marie watched all that the doctor did with increasing interest, though not daring to call him herself, certain as she also was that he could do nothing for her. Meantime, the crush on the platform was increasing. Only a quarter of an hour now remained to the pilgrims. Madame Vetu, whose eyes were open but who saw nothing, sat like an insensible being in the broad sunlight, in the hope possibly that the scorching heat would deaden her pains; whilst up and down, in front of her, went Madame Vincent ever with the same sleep-inducing step and ever carrying her little Rose, her poor ailing birdie, whose weight was so trifling that she scarcely felt her in her arms. Many people meantime were hastening to the water tap in order to fill their pitchers, cans, and bottles. Madame Maze, who was of refined tastes and careful of her person, thought of going to wash her hands there; but just as she arrived she found Elise Rouquet drinking, and she recoiled at sight of that disease-smitten face, so terribly disfigured and robbed of nearly all semblance of humanity. And all the others likewise shuddered, likewise hesitated to fill their bottles, pitchers, and cans at the tap from which she had drunk. A large number of pilgrims had now begun to eat whilst pacing the platform. You could hear the rhythmical taps of the crutches carried by a woman who incessantly wended her way through the groups. On the ground, a legless cripple was painfully dragging herself about in search of nobody knew what. Others, seated there in heaps, no longer stirred. All these sufferers, momentarily unpacked as it were, these patients of a travelling hospital emptied for a brief half-hour, were taking the air amidst the bewilderment and agitation of the healthy passengers; and the whole throng had a frightfully woeful, poverty-stricken appearance in the broad noontide light. Pierre no longer stirred from the side of Marie, for M. de Guersaint had disappeared, attracted by a verdant patch of landscape which could be seen at the far end of the station. And, feeling anxious about her, since she had not been able to finish her broth, the young priest with a smiling air tried to tempt her palate by offering to go and buy her a peach; but she refused it; she was suffering too much, she cared for nothing. She was gazing at him with her large, woeful eyes, on the one hand impatient at this stoppage which delayed her chance of cure, and on the other terrified at the thought of again being jolted along that hard and endless railroad. Just then a stout gentleman whose full beard was turning grey, and who had a broad, fatherly kind of face, drew near and touched Pierre's arm: "Excuse me, Monsieur l'Abbe," said he, "but is it not in this carriage that there is a poor man dying?" And on the priest returning an affirmative answer, the gentleman became quite affable and familiar. "My name is Vigneron," he said; "I am the head clerk at the Ministry of Finances, and applied for leave in order that I might help my wife to take our son Gustave to Lourdes. The dear lad places all his hope in the Blessed Virgin, to whom we pray morning and evening on his behalf. We are in a second-class compartment of the carriage just in front of yours." Then, turning round, he summoned his party with a wave of the hand. "Come, come!" said he, "it is here. The unfortunate man is indeed in the last throes." Madame Vigneron was a little woman with the correct bearing of a respectable /bourgeoise/, but her long, livid face denoted impoverished blood, terrible evidence of which was furnished by her son Gustave. The latter, who was fifteen years of age, looked scarcely ten. Twisted out of shape, he was a mere skeleton, with his right leg so wasted, so reduced, that he had to walk with a crutch. He had a small, thin face, somewhat awry, in which one saw little excepting his eyes, clear eyes, sparkling with intelligence, sharpened as it were by suffering, and doubtless well able to dive into the human soul. An old puffy-faced lady followed the others, dragging her legs along with difficulty; and M. Vigneron, remembering that he had forgotten her, stepped back towards Pierre so that he might complete the introduction. "That lady," said he, "is Madame Chaise, my wife's eldest sister. She also wished to accompany Gustave, whom she is very fond of." And then, leaning forward, he added in a whisper, with a confidential air: "She is the widow of Chaise, the silk merchant, you know, who left such an immense fortune. She is suffering from a heart complaint which causes her much anxiety." The whole family, grouped together, then gazed with lively curiosity at what was taking place in the railway carriage. People were incessantly flocking to the spot; and so that the lad might be the better able to see, his father took him up in his arms for a moment whilst his aunt held the crutch, and his mother on her side raised herself on tip-toe. The scene in the carriage was still the same; the strange man was still stiffly seated in his corner, his head resting against the hard wood. He was livid, his eyes were closed, and his mouth was twisted by suffering; and every now and then Sister Hyacinthe with her linen cloth wiped away the cold sweat which was constantly covering his face. She no longer spoke, no longer evinced any impatience, but had recovered her serenity and relied on Heaven. From time to time she would simply glance towards the platform to see if Father Massias were coming. "Look at him, Gustave," said M. Vigneron to his son; "he must be consumptive." The lad, whom scrofula was eating away, whose hip was attacked by an abscess, and in whom there were already signs of necrosis of the vertebrae, seemed to take a passionate interest in the agony he thus beheld. It did not frighten him, he smiled at it with a smile of infinite sadness. "Oh! how dreadful!" muttered Madame Chaise, who, living in continual terror of a sudden attack which would carry her off, turned pale with the fear of death. "Ah! well," replied M. Vigneron, philosophically, "it will come to each of us in turn. We are all mortal." Thereupon, a painful, mocking expression came over Gustave's smile, as though he had heard other words than those--perchance an unconscious wish, the hope that the old aunt might die before he himself did, that he would inherit the promised half-million of francs, and then not long encumber his family. "Put the boy down now," said Madame Vigneron to her husband. "You are tiring him, holding him by the legs like that." Then both she and Madame Chaise bestirred themselves in order that the lad might not be shaken. The poor darling was so much in need of care and attention. At each moment they feared that they might lose him. Even his father was of opinion that they had better put him in the train again at once. And as the two women went off with the child, the old gentleman once more turned towards Pierre, and with evident emotion exclaimed: "Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe, if God should take him from us, the light of our life would be extinguished--I don't speak of his aunt's fortune, which would go to other nephews. But it would be unnatural, would it not, that he should go off before her, especially as she is so ill? However, we are all in the hands of Providence, and place our reliance in the Blessed Virgin, who will assuredly perform a miracle." Just then Madame de Jonquiere, having been reassured by Doctor Ferrand, was able to leave La Grivotte. Before going off, however, she took care to say to Pierre: "I am dying of hunger and am going to the refreshment-room for a moment. But if my patient should begin coughing again, pray come and fetch me." When, after great difficulty, she had managed to cross the platform and reach the refreshment-room, she found herself in the midst of another scramble. The better-circumstanced pilgrims had taken the tables by assault, and a great many priests were to be seen hastily lunching amidst all the clatter of knives, forks, and crockery. The three or four waiters were not able to attend to all the requirements, especially as they were hampered in their movements by the crowd purchasing fruit, bread, and cold meat at the counter. It was at a little table at the far end of the room that Raymonde was lunching with Madame Desagneaux and Madame Volmar. "Ah! here you are at last, mamma!" the girl exclaimed, as Madame de Jonquiere approached. "I was just going back to fetch you. You certainly ought to be allowed time to eat!" She was laughing, with a very animated expression on her face, quite delighted as she was with the adventures of the journey and this indifferent scrambling meal. "There," said she, "I have kept you some trout with green sauce, and there's a cutlet also waiting for you. We have already got to the artichokes." Then everything became charming. The gaiety prevailing in that little corner rejoiced the sight. Young Madame Desagneaux was particularly adorable. A delicate blonde, with wild, wavy, yellow hair, a round, dimpled, milky face, a gay, laughing disposition, and a remarkably good heart, she had made a rich marriage, and for three years past had been wont to leave her husband at Trouville in the fine August weather, in order to accompany the national pilgrimage as a lady-hospitaller. This was her great passion, an access of quivering pity, a longing desire to place herself unreservedly at the disposal of the sick for five days, a real debauch of devotion from which she returned tired to death but full of intense delight. Her only regret was that she as yet had no children, and with comical passion, she occasionally expressed a regret that she had missed her true vocation, that of a sister of charity. "Ah! my dear," she hastily said to Raymonde, "don't pity your mother for being so much taken up with her patients. She, at all events, has something to occupy her." And addressing herself to Madame de Jonquiere, she added: "If you only knew how long we find the time in our fine first-class carriage. We cannot even occupy ourselves with a little needlework, as it is forbidden. I asked for a place with the patients, but all were already distributed, so that my only resource will be to try to sleep tonight." She began to laugh, and then resumed: "Yes, Madame Volmar, we will try to sleep, won't we, since talking seems to tire you?" Madame Volmar, who looked over thirty, was very dark, with a long face and delicate but drawn features. Her magnificent eyes shone out like brasiers, though every now and then a cloud seemed to veil and extinguish them. At the first glance she did not appear beautiful, but as you gazed at her she became more and more perturbing, till she conquered you and inspired you with passionate admiration. It should be said though that she shrank from all self-assertion, comporting herself with much modesty, ever keeping in the background, striving to hide her lustre, invariably clad in black and unadorned by a single jewel, although she was the wife of a Parisian diamond-merchant. "Oh! for my part," she murmured, "as long as I am not hustled too much I am well pleased." She had been to Lourdes as an auxiliary lady-helper already on two occasions, though but little had been seen of her there--at the hospital of Our Lady of Dolours--as, on arriving, she had been overcome by such great fatigue that she had been forced, she said, to keep her room. However, Madame de Jonquiere, who managed the ward, treated her with good-natured tolerance. "Ah! my poor friends," said she, "there will be plenty of time for you to exert yourselves. Get to sleep if you can, and your turn will come when I can no longer keep up." Then addressing her daughter, she resumed: "And you would do well, darling, not to excite yourself too much if you wish to keep your head clear." Raymonde smiled and gave her mother a reproachful glance: "Mamma, mamma, why do you say that? Am I not sensible?" she asked. Doubtless she was not boasting, for, despite her youthful, thoughtless air, the air of one who simply feels happy in living, there appeared in her grey eyes an expression of firm resolution, a resolution to shape her life for herself. "It is true," the mother confessed with a little confusion, "this little girl is at times more sensible than I am myself. Come, pass me the cutlet--it is welcome, I assure you. Lord! how hungry I was!" The meal continued, enlivened by the constant laughter of Madame Desagneaux and Raymonde. The latter was very animated, and her face, which was already growing somewhat yellow through long pining for a suitor, again assumed the rosy bloom of twenty. They had to eat very fast, for only ten minutes now remained to them. On all sides one heard the growing tumult of customers who feared that they would not have time to take their coffee. All at once, however, Pierre made his appearance; a fit of stifling had again come over La Grivotte; and Madame de Jonquiere hastily finished her artichoke and returned to her compartment, after kissing her daughter, who wished her "good-night" in a facetious way. The priest, however, had made a movement of surprise on perceiving Madame Volmar with the red cross of the lady-hospitallers on her black bodice. He knew her, for he still called at long intervals on old Madame Volmar, the diamond-merchant's mother, who had been one of his own mother's friends. She was the most terrible woman in the world, religious beyond all reason, so harsh and stern, moreover, as to close the very window shutters in order to prevent her daughter-in-law from looking into the street. And he knew the young woman's story, how she had been imprisoned on the very morrow of her marriage, shut up between her mother-in-law, who tyrannised over her, and her husband, a repulsively ugly monster who went so far as to beat her, mad as he was with jealousy, although he himself kept mistresses. The unhappy woman was not allowed out of the house excepting it were to go to mass. And one day, at La Trinite, Pierre had surprised her secret, on seeing her behind the church exchanging a few hasty words with a well-groomed, distinguished-looking man. The priest's sudden appearance in the refreshment-room had somewhat disconcerted Madame Volmar. "What an unexpected meeting, Monsieur l'Abbe!" she said, offering him her long, warm hand. "What a long time it is since I last saw you!" And thereupon she explained that this was the third year she had gone to Lourdes, her mother-in-law having required her to join the Association of Our Lady of Salvation. "It is surprising that you did not see her at the station when we started," she added. "She sees me into the train and comes to meet me on my return." This was said in an apparently simple way, but with such a subtle touch of irony that Pierre fancied he could guess the truth. He knew that she really had no religious principles at all, and that she merely followed the rites and ceremonies of the Church in order that she might now and again obtain an hour's freedom; and all at once he intuitively realised that someone must be waiting for her yonder, that it was for the purpose of meeting him that she was thus hastening to Lourdes with her shrinking yet ardent air and flaming eyes, which she so prudently shrouded with a veil of lifeless indifference. "For my part," he answered, "I am accompanying a friend of my childhood, a poor girl who is very ill indeed. I must ask your help for her; you shall nurse her." Thereupon she faintly blushed, and he no longer doubted the truth of his surmise. However, Raymonde was just then settling the bill with the easy assurance of a girl who is expert in figures; and immediately afterwards Madame Desagneaux led Madame Volmar away. The waiters were now growing more distracted and the tables were fast being vacated; for, on hearing a bell ring, everybody had begun to rush towards the door. Pierre, on his side, was hastening back to his carriage, when he was stopped by an old priest. "Ah! Monsieur le Cure," he said, "I saw you just before we started, but I was unable to get near enough to shake hands with you." Thereupon he offered his hand to his brother ecclesiastic, who was looking and smiling at him in a kindly way. The Abbe Judaine was the parish priest of Saligny, a little village in the department of the Oise. Tall and sturdy, he had a broad pink face, around which clustered a mass of white, curly hair, and it could be divined by his appearance that he was a worthy man whom neither the flesh nor the spirit had ever tormented. He believed indeed firmly and absolutely, with a tranquil godliness, never having known a struggle, endowed as he was with the ready faith of a child who is unacquainted with human passions. And ever since the Virgin at Lourdes had cured him of a disease of the eyes, by a famous miracle which folks still talked about, his belief had become yet more absolute and tender, as though impregnated with divine gratitude. "I am pleased that you are with us, my friend," he gently said; "for there is much in these pilgrimages for young priests to profit by. I am told that some of them at times experience a feeling of rebellion. Well, you will see all these poor people praying,--it is a sight which will make you weep. How can one do otherwise than place oneself in God's hands, on seeing so much suffering cured or consoled?" The old priest himself was accompanying a patient; and he pointed to a first-class compartment, at the door of which hung a placard bearing the inscription: "M. l'Abbe Judaine, Reserved." Then lowering his voice, he said: "It is Madame Dieulafay, you know, the great banker's wife. Their chateau, a royal domain, is in my parish, and when they learned that the Blessed Virgin had vouchsafed me such an undeserved favour, they begged me to intercede for their poor sufferer. I have already said several masses, and most sincerely pray for her. There, you see her yonder on the ground. She insisted on being taken out of the carriage, in spite of all the trouble which one will have to place her in it again." On a shady part of the platform, in a kind of long box, there was, as the old priest said, a woman whose beautiful, perfectly oval face, lighted up by splendid eyes, denoted no greater age than six-and-twenty. She was suffering from a frightful disease. The disappearance from her system of the calcareous salts had led to a softening of the osseous framework, the slow destruction of her bones. Three years previously, after the advent of a stillborn child, she had felt vague pains in the spinal column. And then, little by little, her bones had rarefied and lost shape, the vertebrae had sunk, the bones of the pelvis had flattened, and those of the arms and legs had contracted. Thus shrunken, melting away as it were, she had become a mere human remnant, a nameless, fluid thing, which could not be set erect, but had to be carried hither and thither with infinite care, for fear lest she should vanish between one's fingers. Her face, a motionless face, on which sat a stupefied imbecile expression, still retained its beauty of outline, and yet it was impossible to gaze at this wretched shred of a woman without feeling a heart-pang, the keener on account of all the luxury surrounding her; for not only was the box in which she lay lined with blue quilted silk, but she was covered with valuable lace, and a cap of rare valenciennes was set upon her head, her wealth thus being proclaimed, displayed, in the midst of her awful agony. "Ah! how pitiable it is," resumed the Abbe Judaine in an undertone. "To think that she is so young, so pretty, possessed of millions of money! And if you knew how dearly loved she was, with what adoration she is still surrounded. That tall gentleman near her is her husband, that elegantly dressed lady is her sister, Madame Jousseur." Pierre remembered having often noticed in the newspapers the name of Madame Jousseur, wife of a diplomatist, and a conspicuous member of the higher spheres of Catholic society in Paris. People had even circulated a story of some great passion which she had fought against and vanquished. She also was very prettily dressed, with marvellously tasteful simplicity, and she ministered to the wants of her sorry sister with an air of perfect devotion. As for the unhappy woman's husband, who at the age of five-and-thirty had inherited his father's colossal business, he was a clear-complexioned, well-groomed, handsome man, clad in a closely buttoned frock-coat. His eyes, however, were full of tears, for he adored his wife, and had left his business in order to take her to Lourdes, placing his last hope in this appeal to the mercy of Heaven. Ever since the morning, Pierre had beheld many frightful sufferings in that woeful white train. But none had so distressed his soul as did that wretched female skeleton, slowly liquefying in the midst of its lace and its millions. "The unhappy woman!" he murmured with a shudder. The Abbe Judaine, however, made a gesture of serene hope. "The Blessed Virgin will cure her," said he; "I have prayed to her so much." Just then a bell again pealed, and this time it was really the signal for starting. Only two minutes remained. There was a last rush, and folks hurried back towards the train carrying eatables wrapped in paper, and bottles and cans which they had filled with water. Several of them quite lost their heads, and in their inability to find their carriages, ran distractedly from one to the other end of the train; whilst some of the infirm ones dragged themselves about amidst the precipitate tapping of crutches, and others, only able to walk with difficulty, strove to hasten their steps whilst leaning on the arms of some of the lady-hospitallers. It was only with infinite difficulty that four men managed to replace Madame Dieulafay in her first-class compartment. The Vignerons, who were content with second-class accommodation, had already reinstalled themselves in their quarters amidst an extraordinary heap of baskets, boxes, and valises which scarcely allowed little Gustave enough room to stretch his poor puny limbs--the limbs as it were of a deformed insect. And then all the women appeared again: Madame Maze gliding along in silence; Madame Vincent raising her dear little girl in her outstretched arms and dreading lest she should hear her cry out; Madame Vetu, whom it had been necessary to push into the train, after rousing her from her stupefying torment; and Elise Rouquet, who was quite drenched through her obstinacy in endeavouring to drink from the tap, and was still wiping her monstrous face. Whilst each returned to her place and the carriage filled once more, Marie listened to her father, who had come back delighted with his stroll to a pointsman's little house beyond the station, whence a really pleasant stretch of landscape could be discerned. "Shall we lay you down again at once?" asked Pierre, sorely distressed by the pained expression on Marie's face. "Oh no, no, by-and-by!" she replied. "I shall have plenty of time to hear those wheels roaring in my head as though they were grinding my bones." Then, as Ferrand seemed on the point of returning to the cantine van, Sister Hyacinthe begged him to take another look at the strange man before he went off. She was still waiting for Father Massias, astonished at the inexplicable delay in his arrival, but not yet without hope, as Sister Claire des Anges had not returned. "Pray, Monsieur Ferrand," said she, "tell me if this unfortunate man is in any immediate danger." The young doctor again looked at the sufferer, felt him, and listened to his breathing. Then with a gesture of discouragement he answered in a low voice, "I feel convinced that you will not get him to Lourdes alive." Every head was still anxiously stretched forward. If they had only known the man's name, the place he had come from, who he was! But it was impossible to extract a word from this unhappy stranger, who was about to die there, in that carriage, without anybody being able to give his face a name! It suddenly occurred to Sister Hyacinthe to have him searched. Under the circumstances there could certainly be no harm in such a course. "Feel in his pockets, Monsieur Ferrand," she said. The doctor thereupon searched the man in a gentle, cautious way, but the only things that he found in his pockets were a chaplet, a knife, and three sous. And nothing more was ever learnt of the man. At that moment, however, a voice announced that Sister Claire des Anges was at last coming back with Father Massias. All this while the latter had simply been chatting with the priest of Sainte-Radegonde in one of the waiting-rooms. Keen emotion attended his arrival; for a moment all seemed saved. But the train was about to start, the porters were already closing the carriage doors, and it was necessary that extreme unction should be administered in all haste in order to avoid too long a delay. "This way, reverend Father!" exclaimed Sister Hyacinthe; "yes, yes, pray come in; our unfortunate patient is here." Father Massias, who was five years older than Pierre, whose fellow-student however he had been at the seminary, had a tall, spare figure with an ascetic countenance, framed round with a light-coloured beard and vividly lighted up by burning eyes, He was neither the priest harassed by doubt, nor the priest with childlike faith, but an apostle carried away by his passion, ever ready to fight and vanquish for the pure glory of the Blessed Virgin. In his black cloak with its large hood, and his broad-brimmed flossy hat, he shone resplendently with the perpetual ardour of battle. He immediately took from his pocket the silver case containing the Holy Oils, and the ceremony began whilst the last carriage doors were being slammed and belated pilgrims were rushing back to the train; the station-master, meantime, anxiously glancing at the clock, and realising that it would be necessary for him to grant a few minutes' grace. "/Credo in unum Deum/," hastily murmured the Father. "/Amen/," replied Sister Hyacinthe and the other occupants of the carriage. Those who had been able to do so, had knelt upon the seats, whilst the others joined their hands, or repeatedly made the sign of the cross; and when the murmured prayers were followed by the Litanies of the ritual, every voice rose, an ardent desire for the remission of the man's sins and for his physical and spiritual cure winging its flight heavenward with each successive /Kyrie eleison/. Might his whole life, of which they knew nought, be forgiven him; might he enter, stranger though he was, in triumph into the Kingdom of God! "/Christe, exaudi nos/." "/Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix/." Father Massias had pulled out the silver needle from which hung a drop of Holy Oil. In the midst of such a scramble, with the whole train waiting--many people now thrusting their heads out of the carriage windows in surprise at the delay in starting--he could not think of following the usual practice, of anointing in turn all the organs of the senses, those portals of the soul which give admittance to evil. He must content himself, as the rules authorised him to do in pressing cases, with one anointment; and this he made upon the man's lips, those livid parted lips from between which only a faint breath escaped, whilst the rest of his face, with its lowered eyelids, already seemed indistinct, again merged into the dust of the earth. "/Per istam sanctam unctionem/," said the Father, "/et suam piissimam misericordiam indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per visum, auditum, odoratum, gustum, tactum, deliquisti."* * Through this holy unction and His most tender mercy may the Lord pardon thee whatever sins thou hast committed by thy sight, hearing, etc. The remainder of the ceremony was lost amid the hurry and scramble of the departure. Father Massias scarcely had time to wipe off the oil with the little piece of cotton-wool which Sister Hyacinthe held in readiness, before he had to leave the compartment and get into his own as fast as possible, setting the case containing the Holy Oils in order as he did so, whilst the pilgrims finished repeating the final prayer. "We cannot wait any longer! It is impossible!" repeated the station-master as he bustled about. "Come, come, make haste everybody!" At last then they were about to resume their journey. Everybody sat down, returned to his or her corner again. Madame de Jonquiere, however, had changed her place, in order to be nearer La Grivotte, whose condition still worried her, and she was now seated in front of M. Sabathier, who remained waiting with silent resignation. Moreover, Sister Hyacinthe had not returned to her compartment, having decided to remain near the unknown man so that she might watch over him and help him. By following this course, too, she was able to minister to Brother Isidore, whose sufferings his sister Marthe was at a loss to assuage. And Marie, turning pale, felt the jolting of the train in her ailing flesh, even before it had resumed its journey under the heavy sun, rolling onward once more with its load of sufferers stifling in the pestilential atmosphere of the over-heated carriages. At last a loud whistle resounded, the engine puffed, and Sister Hyacinthe rose up to say: The /Magnificat/, my children! IV MIRACLES JUST as the train was beginning to move, the door of the compartment in which Pierre and Marie found themselves was opened and a porter pushed a girl of fourteen inside, saying: "There's a seat here--make haste!" The others were already pulling long faces and were about to protest, when Sister Hyacinthe exclaimed: "What, is it you, Sophie? So you are going back to see the Blessed Virgin who cured you last year!" And at the same time Madame de Jonquiere remarked: "Ah! Sophie, my little friend, I am very pleased to see that you are grateful." "Why, yes, Sister; why, yes, madame," answered the girl, in a pretty way. The carriage door had already been closed again, so that it was necessary that they should accept the presence of this new pilgrim who had fallen from heaven as it were at the very moment when the train, which she had almost missed, was starting off again. She was a slender damsel and would not take up much room. Moreover these ladies knew her, and all the patients had turned their eyes upon her on hearing that the Blessed Virgin had been pleased to cure her. They had now got beyond the station, the engine was still puffing, whilst the wheels increased their speed, and Sister Hyacinthe, clapping her hands, repeated: "Come, come, my children, the /Magnificat/." Whilst the joyful chant arose amidst the jolting of the train, Pierre gazed at Sophie. She was evidently a young peasant girl, the daughter of some poor husbandman of the vicinity of Poitiers, petted by her parents, treated in fact like a young lady since she had become the subject of a miracle, one of the elect, whom the priests of the district flocked to see. She wore a straw hat with pink ribbons, and a grey woollen dress trimmed with a flounce. Her round face although not pretty was a very pleasant one, with a beautifully fresh complexion and clear, intelligent eyes which lent her a smiling, modest air. When the /Magnificat/ had been sung, Pierre was unable to resist his desire to question Sophie. A child of her age, with so candid an air, so utterly unlike a liar, greatly interested him. "And so you nearly missed the train, my child?" he said. "I should have been much ashamed if I had, Monsieur l'Abbe," she replied. "I had been at the station since twelve o'clock. And all at once I saw his reverence, the priest of Sainte-Radegonde, who knows me well and who called me to him, to kiss me and tell me that it was very good of me to go back to Lourdes. But it seems the train was starting and I only just had time to run on to the platform. Oh! I ran so fast!" She paused, laughing, still slightly out of breath, but already repenting that she had been so giddy. "And what is your name, my child?" asked Pierre. "Sophie Couteau, Monsieur l'Abbe." "You do not belong to the town of Poitiers?" "Oh no! certainly not. We belong to Vivonne, which is seven kilometres away. My father and mother have a little land there, and things would not be so bad if there were not eight children at home--I am the fifth,--fortunately the four older ones are beginning to work." "And you, my child, what do you do?" "I, Monsieur l'Abbe! Oh! I am no great help. Since last year, when I came home cured, I have not been left quiet a single day, for, as you can understand, so many people have come to see me, and then too I have been taken to Monseigneur's,* and to the convents and all manner of other places. And before all that I was a long time ill. I could not walk without a stick, and each step I took made me cry out, so dreadfully did my foot hurt me." * The Bishop's residence. "So it was of some injury to the foot that the Blessed Virgin cured you?" Sophie did not have time to reply, for Sister Hyacinthe, who was listening, intervened: "Of caries of the bones of the left heel, which had been going on for three years," said she. "The foot was swollen and quite deformed, and there were fistulas giving egress to continual suppuration." On hearing this, all the sufferers in the carriage became intensely interested. They no longer took their eyes off this little girl on whom a miracle had been performed, but scanned her from head to foot as though seeking for some sign of the prodigy. Those who were able to stand rose up in order that they might the better see her, and the others, the infirm ones, stretched on their mattresses, strove to raise themselves and turn their heads. Amidst the suffering which had again come upon them on leaving Poitiers, the terror which filled them at the thought that they must continue rolling onward for another fifteen hours, the sudden advent of this child, favoured by Heaven, was like a divine relief, a ray of hope whence they would derive sufficient strength to accomplish the remainder of their terrible journey. The moaning had abated somewhat already, and every face was turned towards the girl with an ardent desire to believe. This was especially the case with Marie, who, already reviving, joined her trembling hands, and in a gentle supplicating voice said to Pierre, "Question her, pray question her, ask her to tell us everything--cured, O God! cured of such a terrible complaint!" Madame de Jonquiere, who was quite affected, had leant over the partition to kiss the girl. "Certainly," said she, "our little friend will tell you all about it. Won't you, my darling? You will tell us what the Blessed Virgin did for you?" "Oh, certainly! madame-as much as you like," answered Sophie with her smiling, modest air, her eyes gleaming with intelligence. Indeed, she wished to begin at once, and raised her right hand with a pretty gesture, as a sign to everybody to be attentive. Plainly enough, she had already acquired the habit of speaking in public. She could not be seen, however, from some parts of the carriage, and an idea came to Sister Hyacinthe, who said: "Get up on the seat, Sophie, and speak loudly, on account of the noise which the train makes." This amused the girl, and before beginning she needed time to become serious again. "Well, it was like this," said she; "my foot was past cure, I couldn't even go to church any more, and it had to be kept bandaged, because there was always a lot of nasty matter coming from it. Monsieur Rivoire, the doctor, who had made a cut in it, so as to see inside it, said that he should be obliged to take out a piece of the bone; and that, sure enough, would have made me lame for life. But when I got to Lourdes and had prayed a great deal to the Blessed Virgin, I went to dip my foot in the water, wishing so much that I might be cured that I did not even take the time to pull the bandage off. And everything remained in the water, there was no longer anything the matter with my foot when I took it out." A murmur of mingled surprise, wonder, and desire arose and spread among those who heard this marvellous tale, so sweet and soothing to all who were in despair. But the little one had not yet finished. She had simply paused. And now, making a fresh gesture, holding her arms somewhat apart, she concluded: "When I got back to Vivonne and Monsieur Rivoire saw my foot again, he said: 'Whether it be God or the Devil who has cured this child, it is all the same to me; but in all truth she /is/ cured.'" This time a burst of laughter rang out. The girl spoke in too recitative a way, having repeated her story so many times already that she knew it by heart. The doctor's remark was sure to produce an effect, and she herself laughed at it in advance, certain as she was that the others would laugh also. However, she still retained her candid, touching air. But she had evidently forgotten some particular, for Sister Hyacinthe, a glance from whom had foreshadowed the doctor's jest, now softly prompted her "And what was it you said to Madame la Comtesse, the superintendent of your ward, Sophie?" "Ah! yes. I hadn't brought many bandages for my foot with me, and I said to her, 'It was very kind of the Blessed Virgin to cure me the first day, as I should have run out of linen on the morrow.'" This provoked a fresh outburst of delight. They all thought her so nice, to have been cured like that! And in reply to a question from Madame de Jonquiere, she also had to tell the story of her boots, a pair of beautiful new boots which Madame la Comtesse had given her, and in which she had run, jumped, and danced about, full of childish delight. Boots! think of it, she who for three years had not even been able to wear a slipper. Pierre, who had become grave, waxing pale with the secret uneasiness which was penetrating him, continued to look at her. And he also asked her other questions. She was certainly not lying, and he merely suspected a slow distortion of the actual truth, an easily explained embellishment of the real facts amidst all the joy she felt at being cured and becoming an important little personage. Who now knew if the cicatrisation of her injuries, effected, so it was asserted, completely, instantaneously, in a few seconds, had not in reality been the work of days? Where were the witnesses? Just then Madame de Jonquiere began to relate that she had been at the hospital at the time referred to. "Sophie was not in my ward," said she, "but I had met her walking lame that very morning--" Pierre hastily interrupted the lady-hospitaller. "Ah! you saw her foot before and after the immersion?" "No, no! I don't think that anybody was able to see it, for it was bound round with bandages. She told you that the bandages had fallen into the piscina." And, turning towards the child, Madame de Jonquiere added, "But she will show you her foot--won't you, Sophie? Undo your shoe." The girl took off her shoe, and pulled down her stocking, with a promptness and ease of manner which showed how thoroughly accustomed she had become to it all. And she not only stretched out her foot, which was very clean and very white, carefully tended indeed, with well-cut, pink nails, but complacently turned it so that the young priest might examine it at his ease. Just below the ankle there was a long scar, whose whity seam, plainly defined, testified to the gravity of the complaint from which the girl had suffered. "Oh! take hold of the heel, Monsieur l'Abbe," said she. "Press it as hard as you like. I no longer feel any pain at all." Pierre made a gesture from which it might have been thought that he was delighted with the power exercised by the Blessed Virgin. But he was still tortured by doubt. What unknown force had acted in this case? Or rather what faulty medical diagnosis, what assemblage of errors and exaggerations, had ended in this fine tale? All the patients, however, wished to see the miraculous foot, that outward and visible sign of the divine cure which each of them was going in search of. And it was Marie, sitting up in her box, and already feeling less pain, who touched it first. Then Madame Maze, quite roused from her melancholy, passed it on to Madame Vincent, who would have kissed it for the hope which it restored to her. M. Sabathier had listened to all the explanations with a beatific air; Madame Vetu, La Grivotte, and even Brother Isidore opened their eyes, and evinced signs of interest; whilst the face of Elise Rouquet had assumed an extraordinary expression, transfigured by faith, almost beatified. If a sore had thus disappeared, might not her own sore close and disappear, her face retaining no trace of it save a slight scar, and again becoming such a face as other people had? Sophie, who was still standing, had to hold on to one of the iron rails, and place her foot on the partition, now on the right, now on the left. And she did not weary of it all, but felt exceedingly happy and proud at the many exclamations which were raised, the quivering admiration and religious respect which were bestowed on that little piece of her person, that little foot which had now, so to say, become sacred. "One must possess great faith, no doubt," said Marie, thinking aloud. "One must have a pure unspotted soul." And, addressing herself to M. de Guersaint, she added: "Father, I feel that I should get well if I were ten years old, if I had the unspotted soul of a little girl." "But you are ten years old, my darling! Is it not so, Pierre? A little girl of ten years old could not have a more spotless soul." Possessed of a mind prone to chimeras, M. de Guersaint was fond of hearing tales of miracles. As for the young priest, profoundly affected by the ardent purity which the young girl evinced, he no longer sought to discuss the question, but let her surrender herself to the consoling illusions which Sophie's tale had wafted through the carriage. The temperature had become yet more oppressive since their departure from Poitiers, a storm was rising in the coppery sky, and it seemed as though the train were rushing through a furnace. The villages passed, mournful and solitary under the burning sun. At Couhe-Verac they had again said their chaplets, and sung another canticle. At present, however, there was some slight abatement of the religious exercises. Sister Hyacinthe, who had not yet been able to lunch, ventured to eat a roll and some fruit in all haste, whilst still ministering to the strange man whose faint, painful breathing seemed to have become more regular. And it was only on passing Ruffec at three o'clock that they said the vespers of the Blessed Virgin. "/Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix/." "/Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi/."* * "Pray for us, O holy Mother of God, That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ." As they were finishing, M. Sabathier, who had watched little Sophie while she put on her shoe and stocking, turned towards M. de Guersaint. "This child's case is interesting, no doubt," he remarked. "But it is a mere nothing, monsieur, for there have been far more marvellous cures than that. Do you know the story of Pierre de Rudder, a Belgian working-man?" Everybody had again begun to listen. "This man," continued M. Sabathier, "had his leg broken by the fall of a tree. Eight years afterwards the two fragments of the bone had not yet joined together again--the two ends could be seen in the depths of a sore which was continually suppurating; and the leg hung down quite limp, swaying in all directions. Well, it was sufficient for this man to drink a glassful of the miraculous water, and his leg was made whole again. He was able to walk without crutches, and the doctor said to him: 'Your leg is like that of a new-born child.' Yes, indeed, a perfectly new leg." Nobody spoke, but the listeners exchanged glances of ecstasy. "And, by the way," resumed M. Sabathier, "it is like the story of Louis Bouriette, a quarryman, one of the first of the Lourdes miracles. Do you know it? Bouriette had been injured by an explosion during some blasting operations. The sight of his right eye was altogether destroyed, and he was even threatened with the loss of the left one. Well, one day he sent his daughter to fetch a bottleful of the muddy water of the source, which then scarcely bubbled up to the surface. He washed his eye with this muddy liquid, and prayed fervently. And, all at once, he raised a cry, for he could see, monsieur, see as well as you and I. The doctor who was attending him drew up a detailed narrative of the case, and there cannot be the slightest doubt about its truth." "It is marvellous," murmured M. de Guersaint in his delight. "Would you like another example, monsieur? I can give you a famous one, that of Francois Macary, the carpenter of Lavaur. During eighteen years he had suffered from a deep varicose ulcer, with considerable enlargement of the tissues in the mesial part of the left leg. He had reached such a point that he could no longer move, and science decreed that he would forever remain infirm. Well, one evening he shuts himself up with a bottle of Lourdes water. He takes off his bandages, washes both his legs, and drinks what little water then remains in the bottle. Then he goes to bed and falls asleep; and when he awakes, he feels his legs and looks at them. There is nothing left; the varicose enlargement, the ulcers, have all disappeared. The skin of his knee, monsieur, had become as smooth, as fresh as it had been when he was twenty." This time there was an explosion of surprise and admiration. The patients and the pilgrims were entering into the enchanted land of miracles, where impossibilities are accomplished at each bend of the pathways, where one marches on at ease from prodigy to prodigy. And each had his or her story to tell, burning with a desire to contribute a fresh proof, to fortify faith and hope by yet another example. That silent creature, Madame Maze, was so transported that she spoke the first. "I have a friend," said she, "who knew the Widow Rizan, that lady whose cure also created so great a stir. For four-and-twenty years her left side had been entirely paralysed. Her stomach was unable to retain any solid food, and she had become an inert bag of bones which had to be turned over in bed, The friction of the sheets, too, had ended by rubbing her skin away in parts. Well, she was so low one evening that the doctor announced that she would die during the night. An hour later, however, she emerged from her torpor and asked her daughter in a faint voice to go and fetch her a glass of Lourdes water from a neighbour's. But she was only able to obtain this glass of water on the following morning; and she cried out to her daughter: 'Oh! it is life that I am drinking--rub my face with it, rub my arm and my leg, rub my whole body with it!' And when her daughter obeyed her, she gradually saw the huge swelling subside, and the paralysed, tumefied limbs recover their natural suppleness and appearance. Nor was that all, for Madame Rizan cried out that she was cured and felt hungry, and wanted bread and meat--she who had eaten none for four-and-twenty years! And she got out of bed and dressed herself, whilst her daughter, who was so overpowered that the neighbours thought she had become an orphan, replied to them: 'No, no, mamma isn't dead, she has come to life again!'" This narrative had brought tears to Madame Vincent's eyes. Ah! if she had only been able to see her little Rose recover like that, eat with a good appetite, and run about again! At the same time, another case, which she had been told of in Paris and which had greatly influenced her in deciding to take her ailing child to Lourdes, returned to her memory. "And I, too," said she, "know the story of a girl who was paralysed. Her name was Lucie Druon, and she was an inmate of an orphan asylum. She was quite young and could not even kneel down. Her limbs were bent like hoops. Her right leg, the shorter of the two, had ended by becoming twisted round the left one; and when any of the other girls carried her about you saw her feet hanging down quite limp, like dead ones. Please notice that she did not even go to Lourdes. She simply performed a novena; but she fasted during the nine days, and her desire to be cured was so great that she spent her nights in prayer. At last, on the ninth day, whilst she was drinking a little Lourdes water, she felt a violent commotion in her legs. She picked herself up, fell down, picked herself up again and walked. All her little companions, who were astonished, almost frightened at the sight, began to cry out 'Lucie can walk! Lucie can walk!' It was quite true. In a few seconds her legs had become straight and strong and healthy. She crossed the courtyard and was able to climb up the steps of the chapel, where the whole sisterhood, transported with gratitude, chanted the /Magnificat/. Ah! the dear child, how happy, how happy she must have been!" As Madame Vincent finished, two tears fell from her cheeks on to the pale face of her little girl, whom she kissed distractedly. The general interest was still increasing, becoming quite impassioned. The rapturous joy born of these beautiful stories, in which Heaven invariably triumphed over human reality, transported these childlike souls to such a point that those who were suffering the most grievously sat up in their turn, and recovered the power of speech. And with the narratives of one and all was blended a thought of the sufferer's own ailment, a belief that he or she would also be cured, since a malady of the same description had vanished like an evil dream beneath the breath of the Divinity. "Ah!" stammered Madame Vetu, her articulation hindered by her sufferings, "there was another one, Antoinette Thardivail, whose stomach was being eaten away like mine. You would have said that dogs were devouring it, and sometimes there was a swelling in it as big as a child's head. Tumours indeed were ever forming in it, like fowl's eggs, so that for eight months she brought up blood. And she also was at the point of death, with nothing but her skin left on her bones, and dying of hunger, when she drank some water of Lourdes and had the pit of her stomach washed with it. Three minutes afterwards, her doctor, who on the previous day had left her almost in the last throes, scarce breathing, found her up and sitting by the fireside, eating a tender chicken's wing with a good appetite. She had no more tumours, she laughed as she had laughed when she was twenty, and her face had regained the brilliancy of youth. Ah! to be able to eat what one likes, to become young again, to cease suffering!" "And the cure of Sister Julienne!" then exclaimed La Grivotte, raising herself on one of her elbows, her eyes glittering with fever. "In her case it commenced with a bad cold as it did with me, and then she began to spit blood. And every six months she fell ill again and had to take to her bed. The last time everybody said that she wouldn't leave it alive. The doctors had vainly tried every remedy, iodine, blistering, and cauterising. In fact, hers was a real case of phthisis, certified by half a dozen medical men. Well, she comes to Lourdes, and Heaven alone knows amidst what awful suffering--she was so bad, indeed, that at Toulouse they thought for a moment that she was about to die! The Sisters had to carry her in their arms, and on reaching the piscina the lady-hospitallers wouldn't bathe her. She was dead, they said. No matter! she was undressed at last, and plunged into the water, quite unconscious and covered with perspiration. And when they took her out she was so pale that they laid her on the ground, thinking that it was certainly all over with her at last. But, all at once, colour came back to her cheeks, her eyes opened, and she drew a long breath. She was cured; she dressed herself without any help and made a good meal after she had been to the Grotto to thank the Blessed Virgin. There! there's no gainsaying it, that was a real case of phthisis, completely cured as though by medicine!" Thereupon Brother Isidore in his turn wished to speak; but he was unable to do so at any length, and could only with difficulty manage to say to his sister: "Marthe, tell them the story of Sister Dorothee which the priest of Saint-Sauveur related to us." "Sister Dorothee," began the peasant girl in an awkward way, "felt her leg quite numbed when she got up one morning, and from that time she lost the use of it, for it got as cold and as heavy as a stone. Besides which she felt a great pain in the back. The doctors couldn't understand it. She saw half a dozen of them, who pricked her with pins and burnt her skin with a lot of drugs. But it was just as if they had sung to her. Sister Dorothee had well understood that only the Blessed Virgin could find the right remedy for her, and so she went off to Lourdes, and had herself dipped in the piscina. She thought at first that the water was going to kill her, for it was so bitterly cold. But by-and-by it became so soft that she fancied it was warm, as nice as milk. She had never felt so nice before, it seemed to her as if her veins were opening and the water were flowing into them. As you will understand, life was returning into her body since the Blessed Virgin was concerning herself in the case. She no longer had anything the matter with her when she came out, but walked about, ate the whole of a pigeon for her dinner, and slept all night long like the happy woman she was. Glory to the Blessed Virgin, eternal gratitude to the most Powerful Mother and her Divine Son!" Elise Rouquet would also have liked to bring forward a miracle which she was acquainted with. Only she spoke with so much difficulty owing to the deformity of her mouth, that she had not yet been able to secure a turn. Just then, however, there was a pause, and drawing the wrap, which concealed the horror of her sore, slightly on one side, she profited by the opportunity to begin. "For my part, I wasn't told anything about a great illness, but it was a very funny case at all events," she said. "It was about a woman, Celestine Dubois, as she was called, who had run a needle right into her hand while she was washing. It stopped there for seven years, for no doctor was able to take it out. Her hand shrivelled up, and she could no longer open it. Well, she got to Lourdes, and dipped her hand into the piscina. But as soon as she did so she began to shriek, and took it out again. Then they caught hold of her and put her hand into the water by force, and kept it there while she continued sobbing, with her face covered with sweat. Three times did they plunge her hand into the piscina, and each time they saw the needle moving along, till it came out by the tip of the thumb. She shrieked, of course, because the needle was moving though her flesh just as though somebody had been pushing it to drive it out. And after that Celestine never suffered again, and only a little scar could be seen on her hand as a mark of what the Blessed Virgin had done." This anecdote produced a greater effect than even the miraculous cures of the most fearful illnesses. A needle which moved as though somebody were pushing it! This peopled the Invisible, showed each sufferer his Guardian Angel standing behind him, only awaiting the orders of Heaven in order to render him assistance. And besides, how pretty and childlike the story was--this needle which came out in the miraculous water after obstinately refusing to stir during seven long years. Exclamations of delight resounded from all the pleased listeners; they smiled and laughed with satisfaction, radiant at finding that nothing was beyond the power of Heaven, and that if it were Heaven's pleasure they themselves would all become healthy, young, and superb. It was sufficient that one should fervently believe and pray in order that nature might be confounded and that the Incredible might come to pass. Apart from that there was merely a question of good luck, since Heaven seemed to make a selection of those sufferers who should be cured. "Oh! how beautiful it is, father," murmured Marie, who, revived by the passionate interest which she took in the momentous subject, had so far contented herself with listening, dumb with amazement as it were. "Do you remember," she continued, "what you yourself told me of that poor woman, Joachine Dehaut, who came from Belgium and made her way right across France with her twisted leg eaten away by an ulcer, the awful smell of which drove everybody away from her? First of all the ulcer was healed; you could press her knee and she felt nothing, only a slight redness remained to mark where it had been. And then came the turn of the dislocation. She shrieked while she was in the water, it seemed to her as if somebody were breaking her bones, pulling her leg away from her; and, at the same time, she and the woman who was bathing her, saw her deformed foot rise and extend into its natural shape with the regular movement of a clock hand. Her leg also straightened itself, the muscles extended, the knee replaced itself in its proper position, all amidst such acute pain that Joachine ended by fainting. But as soon as she recovered consciousness, she darted off, erect and agile, to carry her crutches to the Grotto." M. de Guersaint in his turn was laughing with wonderment, waving his hand to confirm this story, which had been told him by a Father of the Assumption. He could have related a score of similar instances, said he, each more touching, more extraordinary than the other. He even invoked Pierre's testimony, and the young priest, who was unable to believe, contented himself with nodding his head. At first, unwilling as he was to afflict Marie, he had striven to divert his thoughts by gazing though the carriage window at the fields, trees, and houses which defiled before his eyes. They had just passed Angouleme, and meadows stretched out, and lines of poplar trees fled away amidst the continuous fanning of the air, which the velocity of the train occasioned. They were late, no doubt, for they were hastening onward at full speed, thundering along under the stormy sky, through the fiery atmosphere, devouring kilometre after kilometre in swift succession. However, despite himself, Pierre heard snatches of the various narratives, and grew interested in these extravagant stories, which the rough jolting of the wheels accompanied like a lullaby, as though the engine had been turned loose and were wildly bearing them away to the divine land of dreams, They were rolling, still rolling along, and Pierre at last ceased to gaze at the landscape, and surrendered himself to the heavy, sleep-inviting atmosphere of the carriage, where ecstasy was growing and spreading, carrying everyone far from the world of reality across which they were so rapidly rushing, The sight of Marie's face with its brightened look filled the young priest with sincere joy, and he let her retain his hand, which she had taken in order to acquaint him, by the pressure of her fingers, with all the confidence which was reviving in her soul. And why should he have saddened her by his doubts, since he was so desirous of her cure? So he continued clasping her small, moist hand, feeling infinite affection for her, a dolorous brotherly love which distracted him, and made him anxious to believe in the pity of the spheres, in a superior kindness which tempered suffering to those who were plunged in despair, "Oh!" she repeated, "how beautiful it is, Pierre! How beautiful it is! And what glory it will be if the Blessed Virgin deigns to disturb herself for me! Do you really think me worthy of such a favour?" "Assuredly I do," he exclaimed; "you are the best and the purest, with a spotless soul as your father said; there are not enough good angels in Paradise to form your escort." But the narratives were not yet finished. Sister Hyacinthe and Madame de Jonquiere were now enumerating all the miracles with which they were acquainted, the long, long series of miracles which for more than thirty years had been flowering at Lourdes, like the uninterrupted budding of the roses on the Mystical Rose-tree. They could be counted by thousands, they put forth fresh shoots every year with prodigious verdancy of sap, becoming brighter and brighter each successive season. And the sufferers who listened to these marvellous stories with increasing feverishness were like little children who, after hearing one fine fairy tale, ask for another, and another, and yet another. Oh! that they might have more and more of those stories in which evil reality was flouted, in which unjust nature was cuffed and slapped, in which the Divinity intervened as the supreme healer, He who laughs at science and distributes happiness according to His own good pleasure. First of all there were the deaf and the dumb who suddenly heard and spoke; such as Aurelie Bruneau, who was incurably deaf, with the drums of both ears broken, and yet was suddenly enraptured by the celestial music of a harmonium; such also as Louise Pourchet, who on her side had been dumb for five-and-twenty years, and yet, whilst praying in the Grotto, suddenly exclaimed, "Hail, Mary, full of grace!" And there were others and yet others who were completely cured by merely letting a few drops of water fall into their ears or upon their tongues. Then came the procession of the blind: Father Hermann, who felt the Blessed Virgin's gentle hand removing the veil which covered his eyes; Mademoiselle de Pontbriant, who was threatened with a total loss of sight, but after a simple prayer was enabled to see better than she had ever seen before; then a child twelve years old whose corneas resembled marbles, but who, in three seconds, became possessed of clear, deep eyes, bright with an angelic smile. However, there was especially an abundance of paralytics, of lame people suddenly enabled to walk upright, of sufferers for long years powerless to stir from their beds of misery and to whom the voice said: "Arise and walk!" Delannoy,* afflicted with ataxia, vainly cauterised and burnt, fifteen times an inmate of the Paris hospitals, whence he had emerged with the concurring diagnosis of twelve doctors, feels a strange force raising him up as the Blessed Sacrament goes by, and he begins to follow it, his legs strong and healthy once more. Marie Louise Delpon, a girl of fourteen, suffering from paralysis which had stiffened her legs, drawn back her hands, and twisted her mouth on one side, sees her limbs loosen and the distortion of her mouth disappear as though an invisible hand were severing the fearful bonds which had deformed her. Marie Vachier, riveted to her arm-chair during seventeen years by paraplegia, not only runs and flies on emerging from the piscina, but finds no trace even of the sores with which her long-enforced immobility had covered her body. And Georges Hanquet, attacked by softening of the spinal marrow, passes without transition from agony to perfect health; while Leonie Charton, likewise afflicted with softening of the medulla, and whose vertebrae bulge out to a considerable extent, feels her hump melting away as though by enchantment, and her legs rise and straighten, renovated and vigorous. * This was one of the most notorious of the recorded cases and had a very strange sequel subsequent to the first publication of this work. Pierre Delannoy had been employed as a ward-assistant in one of the large Paris hospitals from 1877 to 1881, when he came to the conclusion that the life of an in-patient was far preferable to the one he was leading. He, therefore, resolved to pass the rest of his days inside different hospitals in the capacity of invalid. He started by feigning locomotor ataxia, and for six years deceived the highest medical experts in Paris, so curiously did he appear to suffer. He stayed in turn in all the hospitals in the city, being treated with every care and consideration, until at last he met with a doctor who insisted on cauterisation and other disagreeable remedies. Delannoy thereupon opined that the time to be cured had arrived, and cured he became, and was discharged. He next appeared at Lourdes, supported by crutches, and presenting every symptom of being hopelessly crippled. With other infirm and decrepid people he was dipped in the piscina and so efficacious did this treatment prove that he came out another man, threw his crutches to the ground and walked, as an onlooker expressed it, "like a rural postman." All Lourdes rang with the fame of the miracle, and the Church, after starring Delannoy round the country as a specimen of what could be done at the holy spring, placed him in charge of a home for invalids. But this was too much like hard work, and he soon decamped with all the money he could lay his hands on. Returning to Paris he was admitted to the Hospital of Ste. Anne as suffering from mental debility, but this did not prevent him from running off one night with about $300 belonging to a dispenser. The police were put on his track and arrested him in May, 1895, when he tried to pass himself off as a lunatic; but he had become by this time too well known, and was indicted in due course. At his trial he energetically denied that he had ever shammed, but the Court would not believe him, and sentenced him to four years' imprisonment with hard labour. --Trans. Then came all sorts of ailments. First those brought about by scrofula--a great many more legs long incapable of service and made anew. There was Margaret Gehier, who had suffered from coxalgia for seven-and-twenty years, whose hip was devoured by the disease, whose left knee was anchylosed, and who yet was suddenly able to fall upon her knees to thank the Blessed Virgin for healing her. There was also Philomene Simonneau, the young Vendeenne, whose left leg was perforated by three horrible sores in the depths of which her carious bones were visible, and whose bones, whose flesh, and whose skin were all formed afresh. Next came the dropsical ones: Madame Ancelin, the swelling of whose feet, hands, and entire body subsided without anyone being able to tell whither all the water had gone; Mademoiselle Montagnon, from whom, on various occasions, nearly twenty quarts of water had been drawn, and who, on again swelling, was entirely rid of the fluid by the application of a bandage which had been dipped in the miraculous source. And, in her case also, none of the water could be found, either in her bed or on the floor. In the same way, not a complaint of the stomach resisted, all disappeared with the first glass of water. There was Marie Souchet, who vomited black blood, who had wasted to a skeleton, and who devoured her food and recovered her flesh in two days' time! There was Marie Jarlaud, who had burnt herself internally through drinking a glass of a metallic solution used for cleansing and brightening kitchen utensils, and who felt the tumour which had resulted from her injuries melt rapidly away. Moreover, every tumour disappeared in this fashion, in the piscina, without leaving the slightest trace behind. But that which caused yet greater wonderment was the manner in which ulcers, cancers, all sorts of horrible, visible sores were cicatrised as by a breath from on high. A Jew, an actor, whose hand was devoured by an ulcer, merely had to dip it in the water and he was cured. A very wealthy young foreigner, who had a wen as large as a hen's egg, on his right wrist, /beheld/ it dissolve. Rose Duval, who, as a result of a white tumour, had a hole in her left elbow, large enough to accommodate a walnut, was able to watch and follow the prompt action of the new flesh in filling up this cavity! The Widow Fromond, with a lip half decoyed by a cancerous formation, merely had to apply the miraculous water to it as a lotion, and not even a red mark remained. Marie Moreau, who experienced fearful sufferings from a cancer in the breast, fell asleep, after laying on it a linen cloth soaked in some water of Lourdes, and when she awoke, two hours later, the pain had disappeared, and her flesh was once more smooth and pink and fresh. At last Sister Hyacinthe began to speak of the immediate and complete cures of phthisis, and this was the triumph, the healing of that terrible disease which ravages humanity, which unbelievers defied the Blessed Virgin to cure, but which she did cure, it was said, by merely raising her little finger. A hundred instances, more extraordinary one than the other, pressed forward for citation. Marguerite Coupel, who had suffered from phthisis for three years, and the upper part of whose lungs is destroyed by tuberculosis, rises up and goes off, radiant with health. Madame de la Riviere, who spits blood, who is ever covered with a cold perspiration, whose nails have already acquired a violet tinge, who is indeed on the point of drawing her last breath, requires but a spoonful of the water to be administered to her between her teeth, and lo! the rattles cease, she sits up, makes the responses to the litanies, and asks for some broth. Julie Jadot requires four spoonfuls; but then she could no longer hold up her head, she was of such a delicate constitution that disease had reduced her to nothing; and yet, in a few days, she becomes quite fat. Anna Catry, who is in the most advanced stage of the malady, with her left lung half destroyed by a cavity, is plunged five times into the cold water, contrary to all the dictates of prudence, and she is cured, her lung is healthy once more. Another consumptive girl, condemned by fifteen doctors, has asked nothing, has simply fallen on her knees in the Grotto, by chance as it were, and is afterwards quite surprised at having been cured /au passage/, through the lucky circumstance of having been there, no doubt, at the hour when the Blessed Virgin, moved to pity, allows miracles to fall from her invisible hands. Miracles and yet more miracles! They rained down like the flowers of dreams from a clear and balmy sky. Some of them were touching, some of them were childish. An old woman, who, having her hand anchylosed, had been incapable of moving it for thirty years, washes it in the water and is at once able to make the sign of the Cross. Sister Sophie, who barked like a dog, plunges into the piscina and emerges from it with a clear, pure voice, chanting a canticle. Mustapha, a Turk, invokes the White Lady and recovers the use of his right eye by applying a compress to it. An officer of Turcos was protected at Sedan; a cuirassier of Reichsoffen would have died, pierced in the heart by a bullet, if this bullet after passing though his pocket-book had not stayed its flight on reaching a little picture of Our Lady of Lourdes! And, as with the men and women, so did the children, the poor, suffering little ones, find mercy; a paralytic boy of five rose and walked after being held for five minutes under the icy jet of the spring; another one, fifteen years of age, who, lying in bed, could only raise an inarticulate cry, sprang out of the piscina, shouting that he was cured; another one, but two years old, a poor tiny fellow who had never been able to walk, remained for a quarter of an hour in the cold water and then, invigorated and smiling, took his first steps like a little man! And for all of them, the little ones as well as the adults, the pain was acute whilst the miracle was being accomplished; for the work of repair could not be effected without causing an extraordinary shock to the whole human organism; the bones grew again, new flesh was formed, and the disease, driven away, made its escape in a final convulsion. But how great was the feeling of comfort which followed! The doctors could not believe their eyes, their astonishment burst forth at each fresh cure, when they saw the patients whom they had despaired of run and jump and eat with ravenous appetites. All these chosen ones, these women cured of their ailments, walked a couple of miles, sat down to roast fowl, and slept the soundest of sleeps for a dozen hours. Moreover, there was no convalescence, it was a sudden leap from the death throes to complete health. Limbs were renovated, sores were filled up, organs were reformed in their entirety, plumpness returned to the emaciated, all with the velocity of a lightning flash! Science was completely baffled. Not even the most simple precautions were taken, women were bathed at all times and seasons, perspiring consumptives were plunged into the icy water, sores were left to their putrefaction without any thought of employing antiseptics. And then what canticles of joy, what shouts of gratitude and love arose at each fresh miracle! The favoured one falls upon her knees, all who are present weep, conversions are effected, Protestants and Jews alike embrace Catholicism--other miracles these, miracles of faith, at which Heaven triumphs. And when the favoured one, chosen for the miracle, returns to her village, all the inhabitants crowd to meet her, whilst the bells peal merrily; and when she is seen springing lightly from the vehicle which has brought her home, shouts and sobs of joy burst forth and all intonate the /Magnificat/: Glory to the Blessed Virgin! Gratitude and love for ever! Indeed, that which was more particularly evolved from the realisation of all these hopes, from the celebration of all these ardent thanksgivings, was gratitude--gratitude to the Mother most pure and most admirable. She was the great passion of every soul, she, the Virgin most powerful, the Virgin most merciful, the Mirror of Justice, the Seat of Wisdom.* All hands were stretched towards her, Mystical Rose in the dim light of the chapels, Tower of Ivory on the horizon of dreamland, Gate of Heaven leading into the Infinite. Each day at early dawn she shone forth, bright Morning Star, gay with juvenescent hope. And was she not also the Health of the weak, the Refuge of sinners, the Comforter of the afflicted? France had ever been her well-loved country, she was adored there with an ardent worship, the worship of her womanhood and her motherhood, the soaring of a divine affection; and it was particularly in France that it pleased her to show herself to little shepherdesses. She was so good to the little and the humble; she continually occupied herself with them; and if she was appealed to so willingly it was because she was known to be the intermediary of love betwixt Earth and Heaven. Every evening she wept tears of gold at the feet of her divine Son to obtain favours from Him, and these favours were the miracles which He permitted her to work,--these beautiful, flower-like miracles, as sweet-scented as the roses of Paradise, so prodigiously splendid and fragrant. * For the information of Protestant and other non-Catholic readers it may be mentioned that all the titles enumerated in this passage are taken from the Litany of the Blessed Virgin.--Trans. But the train was still rolling, rolling onward. They had just passed Contras, it was six o'clock, and Sister Hyacinthe, rising to her, feet, clapped her hands together and once again repeated: "The Angelus, my children!" Never had "Aves" impregnated with greater faith, inflamed with a more fervent desire to be heard by Heaven, winged their flight on high. And Pierre suddenly understood everything, clearly realised the meaning of all these pilgrimages, of all these trains rolling along through every country of the civilised world, of all these eager crowds, hastening towards Lourdes, which blazed over yonder like the abode of salvation for body and for mind. Ah! the poor wretches whom, ever since morning, he had heard groaning with pain, the poor wretches who exposed their sorry carcasses to the fatigues of such a journey! They were all condemned, abandoned by science, weary of consulting doctors, of having tried the torturing effects of futile remedies. And how well one could understand that, burning with a desire to preserve their lives, unable to resign themselves to the injustice and indifference of Nature, they should dream of a superhuman power, of an almighty Divinity who, in their favour, would perchance annul the established laws, alter the course of the planets, and reconsider His creation! For if the world failed them, did not the Divinity remain to them? In their cases reality was too abominable, and an immense need of illusion and falsehood sprang up within them. Oh! to believe that there is a supreme Justiciar somewhere, one who rights the apparent wrongs of things and beings; to believe that there is a Redeemer, a consoler who is the real master, who can carry the torrents back to their source, who can restore youth to the aged, and life to the dead! And when you are covered with sores, when your limbs are twisted, when your stomach is swollen by tumours, when your lungs are destroyed by disease, to be able to say that all this is of no consequence, that everything may disappear and be renewed at a sign from the Blessed Virgin, that it is sufficient that you should pray to her, touch her heart, and obtain the favour of being chosen by her. And then what a heavenly fount of hope appeared with the prodigious flow of those beautiful stories of cure, those adorable fairy tales which lulled and intoxicated the feverish imaginations of the sick and the infirm. Since little Sophie Couteau, with her white, sound foot, had climbed into that carriage, opening to the gaze of those within it the limitless heavens of the Divine and the Supernatural, how well one could understand the breath of resurrection that was passing over the world, slowly raising those who despaired the most from their beds of misery, and making their eyes shine since life was itself a possibility for them, and they were, perhaps, about to begin it afresh. Yes, 't was indeed that. If that woeful train was rolling, rolling on, if that carriage was full, if the other carriages were full also, if France and the world, from the uttermost limits of the earth, were crossed by similar trains, if crowds of three hundred thousand believers, bringing thousands of sick along with them, were ever setting out, from one end of the year to the other, it was because the Grotto yonder was shining forth in its glory like a beacon of hope and illusion, like a sign of the revolt and triumph of the Impossible over inexorable materiality. Never had a more impassionating romance been devised to exalt the souls of men above the stern laws of life. To dream that dream, this was the great, the ineffable happiness. If the Fathers of the Assumption had seen the success of their pilgrimages increase and spread from year to year, it was because they sold to all the flocking peoples the bread of consolation and illusion, the delicious bread of hope, for which suffering humanity ever hungers with a hunger that nothing will ever appease. And it was not merely the physical sores which cried aloud for cure, the whole of man's moral and intellectual being likewise shrieked forth its wretchedness, with an insatiable yearning for happiness. To be happy, to place the certainty of life in faith, to lean till death should come upon that one strong staff of travel--such was the desire exhaled by every breast, the desire which made every moral grief bend the knee, imploring a continuance of grace, the conversion of dear ones, the spiritual salvation of self and those one loved. The mighty cry spread from pole to pole, ascended and filled all the regions of space: To be happy, happy for evermore, both in life and in death! And Pierre saw the suffering beings around him lose all perception of the jolting and recover their strength as league by league they drew nearer to the miracle. Even Madame Maze grew talkative, certain as she felt that the Blessed Virgin would restore her husband to her. With a smile on her face Madame Vincent gently rocked her little Rose in her arms, thinking that she was not nearly so ill as those all but lifeless children who, after being plunged in the icy water, sprang out and played. M. Sabathier jested with M. de Guersaint, and explained to him that, next October, when he had recovered the use of his legs, he should go on a trip to Rome--a journey which he had been postponing for fifteen years and more. Madame Vetu, quite calmed, feeling nothing but a slight twinge in the stomach, imagined that she was hungry, and asked Madame de Jonquiere to let her dip some strips of bread in a glass of milk; whilst Elise Rouquet, forgetting her sores, ate some grapes, with face uncovered. And in La Grivotte who was sitting up and Brother Isidore who had ceased moaning, all those fine stories had left a pleasant fever, to such a point that, impatient to be cured, they grew anxious to know the time. For a minute also the man, the strange man, resuscitated. Whilst Sister Hyacinthe was again wiping the cold sweat from his brow, he raised his eyelids, and a smile momentarily brightened his pallid countenance. Yet once again he, also, had hoped. Marie was still holding Pierre's fingers in her own small, warm hand. It was seven o'clock, they were not due at Bordeaux till half-past seven; and the belated train was quickening its pace yet more and more, rushing along with wild speed in order to make up for the minutes it had lost. The storm had ended by coming down, and now a gentle light of infinite purity fell from the vast clear heavens. "Oh! how beautiful it is, Pierre--how beautiful it is!" Marie again repeated, pressing his hand with tender affection. And leaning towards him, she added in an undertone: "I beheld the Blessed Virgin a little while ago, Pierre, and it was your cure that I implored and shall obtain." The priest, who understood her meaning, was thrown into confusion by the divine light which gleamed in her eyes as she fixed them on his own. She had forgotten her own sufferings; that which she had asked for was his conversion; and that prayer of faith, emanating, pure and candid, from that dear, suffering creature, upset his soul. Yet why should he not believe some day? He himself had been distracted by all those extraordinary narratives. The stifling heat of the carriage had made him dizzy, the sight of all the woe heaped up there caused his heart to bleed with pity. And contagion was doing its work; he no longer knew where the real and the possible ceased, he lacked the power to disentangle such a mass of stupefying facts, to explain such as admitted of explanation and reject the others. At one moment, indeed, as a hymn once more resounded and carried him off with its stubborn importunate rhythm, he ceased to be master of himself, and imagined that he was at last beginning to believe amidst the hallucinatory vertigo which reigned in that travelling hospital, rolling, ever rolling onward at full speed. V BERNADETTE THE train left Bordeaux after a stoppage of a few minutes, during which those who had not dined hastened to purchase some provisions. Moreover, the ailing ones were constantly drinking milk, and asking for biscuits, like little children. And, as soon as they were off again, Sister Hyacinthe clapped her hands, and exclaimed: "Come, let us make haste; the evening prayer." Thereupon, during a quarter of an hour came a confused murmuring, made up of "Paters" and "Aves," self-examinations, acts of contrition, and vows of trustful reliance in God, the Blessed Virgin, and the Saints, with thanksgiving for protection and preservation that day, and, at last, a prayer for the living and for the faithful departed. "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen." It was ten minutes past eight o'clock, the shades of night were already bedimming the landscape--a vast plain which the evening mist seemed to prolong into the infinite, and where, far away, bright dots of light shone out from the windows of lonely, scattered houses. In the carriage, the lights of the lamps were flickering, casting a subdued yellow glow on the luggage and the pilgrims, who were sorely shaken by the spreading tendency of the train's motion. "You know, my children," resumed Sister Hyacinthe, who had remained standing, "I shall order silence when we get to Lamothe, in about an hour's time. So you have an hour to amuse yourselves, but you must be reasonable and not excite yourselves too much. And when we have passed Lamothe, you hear me, there must not be another word, another sound, you must all go to sleep." This made them laugh. "Oh! but it is the rule, you know," added the Sister, "and surely you have too much sense not to obey me." Since the morning they had punctually fulfilled the programme of religious exercises specified for each successive hour. And now that all the prayers had been said, the beads told, the hymns chanted, the day's duties were over, and a brief interval for recreation was allowed before sleeping. They were, however, at a loss as to what they should do. "Sister," suddenly said Marie, "if you would allow Monsieur l'Abbe to read to us--he reads extremely well,--and as it happens I have a little book with me--a history of Bernadette which is so interesting--" The others did nor let her finish, but with the suddenly awakened desire of children to whom a beautiful story has been promised, loudly exclaimed: "Oh! yes, Sister. Oh! yes, Sister--" "Of course I will allow it," replied Sister Hyacinthe, "since it is a question of reading something instructive and edifying." Pierre was obliged to consent. But to be able to read the book he wished to be under the lamp, and it was necessary that he should change seats with M. de Guersaint, whom the promise of a story had delighted as much as it did the ailing ones. And when the young priest, after changing seats and declaring that he would be able to see well enough, at last opened the little book, a quiver of curiosity sped from one end of the carriage to the other, and every head was stretched out, lending ear with rapt attention. Fortunately, Pierre had a clear, powerful voice and made himself distinctly heard above the wheels, which, now that the train travelled across a vast level plain, gave out but a subdued, rumbling sound. Before beginning, however, the young priest had examined the book. It was one of those little works of propaganda issued from the Catholic printing-presses and circulated in profusion throughout all Christendom. Badly printed, on wretched paper, it was adorned on its blue cover with a little wood-cut of Our Lady of Lourdes, a naive design alike stiff and awkward. The book itself was short, and half an hour would certainly suffice to read it from cover to cover without hurrying. Accordingly, in his fine, clear voice, with its penetrating, musical tones, he began his perusal as follows:-- "It happened at Lourdes, a little town near the Pyrenees, on a Thursday, February 11, 1858. The weather was cold, and somewhat cloudy, and in the humble home of a poor but honest miller named Francois Soubirous there was no wood to cook the dinner. The miller's wife, Louise, said to her younger daughter Marie, 'Go and gather some wood on the bank of the Gave or on the common-land.' The Gave is a torrent which passes through Lourdes. "Marie had an elder sister, named Bernadette, who had lately arrived from the country, where some worthy villagers had employed her as a shepherdess. She was a slender, delicate, extremely innocent child, and knew nothing except her rosary. Louise Soubirous hesitated to send her out with her sister, on account of the cold, but at last, yielding to the entreaties of Marie and a young girl of the neighbourhood called Jeanne Abadie, she consented to let her go. "Following the bank of the torrent and gathering stray fragments of dead wood, the three maidens at last found themselves in front of the Grotto, hollowed out in a huge mass of rock which the people of the district called Massabielle." Pierre had reached this point and was turning the page when he suddenly paused and let the little book fall on his knees. The childish character of the narrative, its ready-made, empty phraseology, filled him with impatience. He himself possessed quite a collection of documents concerning this extraordinary story, had passionately studied even its most trifling details, and in the depths of his heart retained a feeling of tender affection and infinite pity for Bernadette. He had just reflected, too, that on the very next day he would be able to begin that decisive inquiry which he had formerly dreamt of making at Lourdes. In fact, this was one of the reasons which had induced him to accompany Marie on her journey. And he was now conscious of an awakening of all his curiosity respecting the Visionary, whom he loved because he felt that she had been a girl of candid soul, truthful and ill-fated, though at the same time he would much have liked to analyse and explain her case. Assuredly, she had not lied, she had indeed beheld a vision and heard voices, like Joan of Arc; and like Joan of Arc also, she was now, in the opinion of the devout, accomplishing the deliverance of France--from sin if not from invaders. Pierre wondered what force could have produced her--her and her work. How was it that the visionary faculty had become developed in that lowly girl, so distracting believing souls as to bring about a renewal of the miracles of primitive times, as to found almost a new religion in the midst of a Holy City, built at an outlay of millions, and ever invaded by crowds of worshippers more numerous and more exalted in mind than had ever been known since the days of the Crusades? And so, ceasing to read the book, Pierre began to tell his companions all that he knew, all that he had divined and reconstructed of that story which is yet so obscure despite the vast rivers of ink which it has already caused to flow. He knew the country and its manners and customs, through his long conversations with his friend Doctor Chassaigne. And he was endowed with charming fluency of language, an emotional power of exquisite purity, many remarkable gifts well fitting him to be a pulpit orator, which he never made use of, although he had known them to be within him ever since his seminary days. When the occupants of the carriage perceived that he knew the story, far better and in far greater detail than it appeared in Marie's little book, and that he related it also in such a gentle yet passionate way, there came an increase of attention, and all those afflicted souls hungering for happiness went forth towards him. First came the story of Bernadette's childhood at Bartres, where she had grown up in the abode of her foster-mother, Madame Lagues, who, having lost an infant of her own, had rendered those poor folks, the Soubirouses, the service of suckling and keeping their child for them. Bartres, a village of four hundred souls, at a league or so from Lourdes, lay as it were in a desert oasis, sequestered amidst greenery, and far from any frequented highway. The road dips down, the few houses are scattered over grassland, divided by hedges and planted with walnut and chestnut trees, whilst the clear rivulets, which are never silent, follow the sloping banks beside the pathways, and nothing rises on high save the small ancient romanesque church, which is perched on a hillock, covered with graves. Wooded slopes undulate upon all sides. Bartres lies in a hollow amidst grass of delicious freshness, grass of intense greenness, which is ever moist at the roots, thanks to the eternal subterraneous expanse of water which is fed by the mountain torrents. And Bernadette, who, since becoming a big girl, had paid for her keep by tending lambs, was wont to take them with her, season after season, through all the greenery where she never met a soul. It was only now and then, from the summit of some slope, that she saw the far-away mountains, the Pic du Midi, the Pic de Viscos, those masses which rose up, bright or gloomy, according to the weather, and which stretched away to other peaks, lightly and faintly coloured, vaguely and confusedly outlined, like apparitions seen in dreams. Then came the home of the Lagueses, where her cradle was still preserved, a solitary, silent house, the last of the village. A meadow planted with pear and apple trees, and only separated from the open country by a narrow stream which one could jump across, stretched out in front of the house. Inside the latter, a low and damp abode, there were, on either side of the wooden stairway leading to the loft, but two spacious rooms, flagged with stones, and each containing four or five beds. The girls, who slept together, fell asleep at even, gazing at the fine pictures affixed to the walls, whilst the big clock in its pinewood case gravely struck the hours in the midst of the deep silence. Ah! those years at Bartres; in what sweet peacefulness did Bernadette live them! Yet she grew up very thin, always in bad health, suffering from a nervous asthma which stifled her in the least veering of the wind; and on attaining her twelfth year she could neither read nor write, nor speak otherwise than in dialect, having remained quite infantile, behindhand in mind as in body. She was a very good little girl, very gentle and well behaved, and but little different from other children, except that instead of talking she preferred to listen. Limited as was her intelligence, she often evinced much natural common-sense, and at times was prompt in her /reparties/, with a kind of simple gaiety which made one smile. It was only with infinite trouble that she was taught her rosary, and when she knew it she seemed bent on carrying her knowledge no further, but repeated it all day long, so that whenever you met her with her lambs, she invariably had her chaplet between her fingers, diligently telling each successive "Pater" and "Ave." For long, long hours she lived like this on the grassy slopes of the hills, hidden away and haunted as it were amidst the mysteries of the foliage, seeing nought of the world save the crests of the distant mountains, which, for an instant, every now and then, would soar aloft in the radiant light, as ethereal as the peaks of dreamland. Days followed days, and Bernadette roamed, dreaming her one narrow dream, repeating the sole prayer she knew, which gave her amidst her solitude, so fresh and naively infantile, no other companion and friend than the Blessed Virgin. But what pleasant evenings she spent in the winter-time in the room on the left, where a fire was kept burning! Her foster-mother had a brother, a priest, who occasionally read some marvellous stories to them--stories of saints, prodigious adventures of a kind to make one tremble with mingled fear and joy, in which Paradise appeared upon earth, whilst the heavens opened and a glimpse was caught of the splendour of the angels. The books he brought with him were often full of pictures--God the Father enthroned amidst His glory; Jesus, so gentle and so handsome with His beaming face; the Blessed Virgin, who recurred again and again, radiant with splendour, clad now in white, now in azure, now in gold, and ever so amiable that Bernadette would see her again in her dreams. But the book which was read more than all others was the Bible, an old Bible which had been in the family for more than a hundred years, and which time and usage had turned yellow. Each winter evening Bernadette's foster-father, the only member of the household who had learnt to read, would take a pin, pass it at random between the leaves of the book, open the latter, and then start reading from the top of the right-hand page, amidst the deep attention of both the women and the children, who ended by knowing the book by heart, and could have continued reciting it without a single mistake. However, Bernadette, for her part, preferred the religious works in which the Blessed Virgin constantly appeared with her engaging smile. True, one reading of a different character amused her, that of the marvellous story of the Four Brothers Aymon. On the yellow paper cover of the little book, which had doubtless fallen from the bale of some peddler who had lost his way in that remote region, there was a naive cut showing the four doughty knights, Renaud and his brothers, all mounted on Bayard, their famous battle charger, that princely present made to them by the fairy Orlanda. And inside were narratives of bloody fights, of the building and besieging of fortresses, of the terrible swordthrusts exchanged by Roland and Renaud, who was at last about to free the Holy Land, without mentioning the tales of Maugis the Magician and his marvellous enchantments, and the Princess Clarisse, the King of Aquitaine's sister, who was more lovely than sunlight. Her imagination fired by such stories as these, Bernadette often found it difficult to get to sleep; and this was especially the case on the evenings when the books were left aside, and some person of the company related a tale of witchcraft. The girl was very superstitious, and after sundown could never be prevailed upon to pass near a tower in the vicinity, which was said to be haunted by the fiend. For that matter, all the folks of the region were superstitious, devout, and simple-minded, the whole countryside being peopled, so to say, with mysteries--trees which sang, stones from which blood flowed, cross-roads where it was necessary to say three "Paters" and three "Aves," if you did not wish to meet the seven-horned beast who carried maidens off to perdition. And what a wealth of terrifying stories there was! Hundreds of stories, so that there was no finishing on the evenings when somebody started them. First came the wehrwolf adventures, the tales of the unhappy men whom the demon forced to enter into the bodies of dogs, the great white dogs of the mountains. If you fire a gun at the dog and a single shot should strike him, the man will be delivered; but if the shot should fall on the dog's shadow, the man will immediately die. Then came the endless procession of sorcerers and sorceresses. In one of these tales Bernadette evinced a passionate interest; it was the story of a clerk of the tribunal of Lourdes who, wishing to see the devil, was conducted by a witch into an untilled field at midnight on Good Friday. The devil arrived clad in magnificent scarlet garments, and at once proposed to the clerk that he should buy his soul, an offer which the clerk pretended to accept. It so happened that the devil was carrying under his arm a register in which different persons of the town, who had already sold themselves, had signed their names. However, the clerk, who was a cunning fellow, pulled out of his pocket a pretended bottle of ink, which in reality contained holy water, and with this he sprinkled the devil, who raised frightful shrieks, whilst the clerk took to flight, carrying the register off with him. Then began a wild, mad race, which might last throughout the night, over the mountains, through the valleys, across the forests and the torrents. "Give me back my register!" shouted the fiend. "No, you sha'n't have it!" replied the clerk. And again and again it began afresh: "Give me back my register!"--"No, you sha'n't have it'!" And at last, finding himself out of breath, near the point of succumbing, the clerk, who had his plan, threw himself into the cemetery, which was consecrated ground, and was there able to deride the devil at his ease, waving the register which he had purloined so as to save the souls of all the unhappy people who had signed their names in it. On the evening when this story was told, Bernadette, before surrendering herself to sleep, would mentally repeat her rosary, delighted with the thought that hell should have been baffled, though she trembled at the idea that it would surely return to prowl around her, as soon as the lamp should have been put out. Throughout one winter, the long evenings were spent in the church. Abbe Ader, the village priest, had authorised it, and many families came, in order to economise oil and candles. Moreover, they felt less cold when gathered together in this fashion. The Bible was read, and prayers were repeated, whilst the children ended by falling asleep. Bernadette alone struggled on to the finish, so pleased she was at being there, in that narrow nave whose slender nervures were coloured blue and red. At the farther end was the altar, also painted and gilded, with its twisted columns and its screens on which appeared the Virgin and Ste. Anne, and the beheading of St. John the Baptist--the whole of a gaudy and somewhat barbaric splendour. And as sleepiness grew upon her, the child must have often seen a mystical vision as it were of those crudely coloured designs rising before her--have seen the blood flowing from St. John's severed head, have seen the aureolas shining, the Virgin ever returning and gazing at her with her blue, living eyes, and looking as though she were on the point of opening her vermilion lips in order to speak to her. For some months Bernadette spent her evenings in this wise, half asleep in front of that sumptuous, vaguely defined altar, in the incipiency of a divine dream which she carried away with her, and finished in bed, slumbering peacefully under the watchful care of her guardian angel. And it was also in that old church, so humble yet so impregnated with ardent faith, that Bernadette began to learn her catechism. She would soon be fourteen now, and must think of her first communion. Her foster-mother, who had the reputation of being avaricious, did not send her to school, but employed her in or about the house from morning till evening. M. Barbet, the schoolmaster, never saw her at his classes, though one day, when he gave the catechism lesson, in the place of Abbe Ader who was indisposed, he remarked her on account of her piety and modesty. The village priest was very fond of Bernadette and often spoke of her to the schoolmaster, saying that he could never look at her without thinking of the children of La Salette, since they must have been good, candid, and pious as she was, for the Blessed Virgin to have appeared to them.* On another occasion whilst the two men were walking one morning near the village, and saw Bernadette disappear with her little flock under some spreading trees in the distance, the Abbe repeatedly turned round to look for her, and again remarked "I cannot account for it, but every time I meet that child it seems to me as if I saw Melanie, the young shepherdess, little Maximin's companion." He was certainly beset by this singular idea, which became, so to say, a prediction. Moreover, had he not one day after catechism, or one evening, when the villagers were gathered in the church, related that marvellous story which was already twelve years old, that story of the Lady in the dazzling robes who walked upon the grass without even making it bend, the Blessed Virgin who showed herself to Melanie and Maximin on the banks of a stream in the mountains, and confided to them a great secret and announced the anger of her Son? Ever since that day a source had sprung up from the tears which she had shed, a source which cured all ailments, whilst the secret, inscribed on parchment fastened with three seals, slumbered at Rome! And Bernadette, no doubt, with her dreamy, silent air, had listened passionately to that wonderful tale and carried it off with her into the desert of foliage where she spent her days, so that she might live it over again as she walked along behind her lambs with her rosary, slipping bead by bead between her slender fingers. * It was on September 19, 1846, that the Virgin is said to have appeared in the ravine of La Sezia, adjacent to the valley of La Salette, between Corps and Eutraigues, in the department of the Isere. The visionaries were Melanie Mathieu, a girl of fourteen, and Maximin Giraud, a boy of twelve. The local clergy speedily endorsed the story of the miracle, and thousands of people still go every year in pilgrimage to a church overlooking the valley, and bathe and drink at a so-called miraculous source. Two priests of Grenoble, however, Abbe Deleon and Abbe Cartellier, accused a Mlle. de Lamerliere of having concocted the miracle, and when she took proceedings against them for libel she lost her case.--Trans. Thus her childhood ran its course at Bartres. That which delighted one in this Bernadette, so poor-blooded, so slight of build, was her ecstatic eyes, beautiful visionary eyes, from which dreams soared aloft like birds winging their flight in a pure limpid sky. Her mouth was large, with lips somewhat thick, expressive of kindliness; her square-shaped head had a straight brow, and was covered with thick black hair, whilst her face would have seemed rather common but for its charming expression of gentle obstinacy. Those who did not gaze into her eyes, however, gave her no thought. To them she was but an ordinary child, a poor thing of the roads, a girl of reluctant growth, timidly humble in her ways. Assuredly it was in her glance that Abbe Ader had with agitation detected the stifling ailment which filled her puny, girlish form with suffering--that ailment born of the greeny solitude in which she had grown up, the gentleness of her bleating lambs, the Angelic Salutation which she had carried with her, hither and thither, under the sky, repeating and repeating it to the point of hallucination, the prodigious stories, too, which she had heard folks tell at her foster-mother's, the long evenings spent before the living altar-screens in the church, and all the atmosphere of primitive faith which she had breathed in that far-away rural region, hemmed in by mountains. At last, on one seventh of January, Bernadette had just reached her fourteenth birthday, when her parents, finding that she learnt nothing at Bartres, resolved to bring her back to Lourdes for good, in order that she might diligently study her catechism, and in this wise seriously prepare herself for her first communion. And so it happened that she had already been at Lourdes some fifteen or twenty days, when on February 11, a Thursday, cold and somewhat cloudy-- But Pierre could carry his narrative no further, for Sister Hyacinthe had risen to her feet and was vigorously clapping her hands. "My children," she exclaimed, "it is past nine o'clock. Silence! silence!" The train had indeed just passed Lamothe, and was rolling with a dull rumble across a sea of darkness--the endless plains of the Landes which the night submerged. For ten minutes already not a sound ought to have been heard in the carriage, one and all ought to have been sleeping or suffering uncomplainingly. However, a mutiny broke out. "Oh! Sister!" exclaimed Marie, whose eyes were sparkling, "allow us just another short quarter of an hour! We have got to the most interesting part." Ten, twenty voices took up the cry: "Oh yes, Sister, please do let us have another short quarter of an hour!" They all wished to hear the continuation, burning with as much curiosity as though they had not known the story, so captivated were they by the touches of compassionate human feeling which Pierre introduced into his narrative. Their glances never left him, all their heads were stretched towards him, fantastically illumined by the flickering light of the lamps. And it was not only the sick who displayed this interest; the ten women occupying the compartment at the far end of the carriage had also become impassioned, and, happy at not missing a single word, turned their poor ugly faces now beautified by naive faith. "No, I cannot!" Sister Hyacinthe at first declared; "the rules are very strict--you must be silent." However, she weakened, she herself feeling so interested in the tale that she could detect her heart beating under her stomacher. Then Marie again repeated her request in an entreating tone; whilst her father, M. de Guersaint, who had listened like one hugely amused, declared that they would all fall ill if the story were not continued. And thereupon, seeing Madame de Jonquiere smile with an indulgent air, Sister Hyacinthe ended by consenting. "Well, then," said she, "I will allow you another short quarter of an hour; but only a short quarter of an hour, mind. That is understood, is it not? For I should otherwise be in fault." Pierre had waited quietly without attempting to intervene. And he resumed his narrative in the same penetrating voice as before, a voice in which his own doubts were softened by pity for those who suffer and who hope. The scene of the story was now transferred to Lourdes, to the Rue des Petits Fosses, a narrow, tortuous, mournful street taking a downward course between humble houses and roughly plastered dead walls. The Soubirous family occupied a single room on the ground floor of one of these sorry habitations, a room at the end of a dark passage, in which seven persons were huddled together, the father, the mother, and five children. You could scarcely see in the chamber; from the tiny, damp inner courtyard of the house there came but a greenish light. And in that room they slept, all of a heap; and there also they ate, when they had bread. For some time past, the father, a miller by trade, could only with difficulty obtain work as a journeyman. And it was from that dark hole, that lowly wretchedness, that Bernadette, the elder girl, with Marie, her sister, and Jeanne, a little friend of the neighbourhood, went out to pick up dead wood, on the cold February Thursday already spoken of. Then the beautiful tale was unfolded at length; how the three girls followed the bank of the Gave from the other side of the castle, and how they ended by finding themselves on the Ile du Chalet in front of the rock of Massabielle, from which they were only separated by the narrow stream diverted from the Gave, and used for working the mill of Savy. It was a wild spot, whither the common herdsman often brought the pigs of the neighbourhood, which, when showers suddenly came on, would take shelter under this rock of Massabielle, at whose base there was a kind of grotto of no great depth, blocked at the entrance by eglantine and brambles. The girls found dead wood very scarce that day, but at last on seeing on the other side of the stream quite a gleaning of branches deposited there by the torrent, Marie and Jeanne crossed over through the water; whilst Bernadette, more delicate than they were, a trifle young-ladyfied, perhaps, remained on the bank lamenting, and not daring to wet her feet. She was suffering slightly from humour in the head, and her mother had expressly bidden her to wrap herself in her /capulet/,* a large white /capulet/ which contrasted vividly with her old black woollen dress. When she found that her companions would not help her, she resignedly made up her mind to take off her /sabots/, and pull down her stockings. It was then about noon, the three strokes of the Angelus rang out from the parish church, rising into the broad calm winter sky, which was somewhat veiled by fine fleecy clouds. And it was then that a great agitation arose within her, resounding in her ears with such a tempestuous roar that she fancied a hurricane had descended from the mountains, and was passing over her. But she looked at the trees and was stupefied, for not a leaf was stirring. Then she thought that she had been mistaken, and was about to pick up her /sabots/, when again the great gust swept through her; but, this time, the disturbance in her ears reached her eyes, she no longer saw the trees, but was dazzled by a whiteness, a kind of bright light which seemed to her to settle itself against the rock, in a narrow, lofty slit above the Grotto, not unlike an ogival window of a cathedral. In her fright she fell upon her knees. What could it be, /mon Dieu/? Sometimes, during bad weather, when her asthma oppressed her more than usual, she spent very bad nights, incessantly dreaming dreams which were often painful, and whose stifling effect she retained on awaking, even when she had ceased to remember anything. Flames would surround her, the sun would flash before her face. Had she dreamt in that fashion during the previous night? Was this the continuation of some forgotten dream? However, little by little a form became outlined, she believed that she could distinguish a figure which the vivid light rendered intensely white. In her fear lest it should be the devil, for her mind was haunted by tales of witchcraft, she began to tell her beads. And when the light had slowly faded away, and she had crossed the canal and joined Marie and Jeanne, she was surprised to find that neither of them had seen anything whilst they were picking up the wood in front of the Grotto. On their way back to Lourdes the three girls talked together. So she, Bernadette, had seen something then? What was it? At first, feeling uneasy, and somewhat ashamed, she would not answer; but at last she said that she had seen something white. * This is a kind of hood, more generally known among the Bearnese peasantry as a /sarot/. Whilst forming a coif it also completely covers the back and shoulders.--Trans. From this the rumours started and grew. The Soubirouses, on being made acquainted with the circumstance, evinced much displeasure at such childish nonsense, and told their daughter that she was not to return to the rock of Massabielle. All the children of the neighbourhood, however, were already repeating the tale, and when Sunday came the parents had to give way, and allow Bernadette to betake herself to the Grotto with a bottle of holy water to ascertain if it were really the devil whom one had to deal with. She then again beheld the light, the figure became more clearly defined, and smiled upon her, evincing no fear whatever of the holy water. And, on the ensuing Thursday, she once more returned to the spot accompanied by several persons, and then for the first time the radiant lady assumed sufficient corporality to speak, and say to her: "Do me the kindness to come here for fifteen days." Thus, little by little, the lady had assumed a precise appearance. The something clad in white had become indeed a lady more beautiful than a queen, of a kind such as is only seen in pictures. At first, in presence of the questions with which all the neighbours plied her from morning till evening, Bernadette had hesitated, disturbed, perhaps, by scruples of conscience. But then, as though prompted by the very interrogatories to which she was subjected, she seemed to perceive the figure which she had beheld, more plainly, so that it definitely assumed life, with lines and hues from which the child, in her after-descriptions, never departed. The lady's eyes were blue and very mild, her mouth was rosy and smiling, the oval of her face expressed both the grace of youth and of maternity. Below the veil covering her head and falling to her heels, only a glimpse was caught of her admirable fair hair, which was slightly curled. Her robe, which was of dazzling whiteness, must have been of some material unknown on earth, some material woven of the sun's rays. Her sash, of the same hue as the heavens, was fastened loosely about her, its long ends streaming downwards, with the light airiness of morning. Her chaplet, wound about her right arm, had beads of a milky whiteness, whilst the links and the cross were of gold. And on her bare feet, on her adorable feet of virgin snow, flowered two golden roses, the mystic roses of this divine mother's immaculate flesh. Where was it that Bernadette had seen this Blessed Virgin, of such traditionally simple composition, unadorned by a single jewel, having but the primitive grace imagined by the painters of a people in its childhood? In which illustrated book belonging to her foster-mother's brother, the good priest, who read such attractive stories, had she beheld this Virgin? Or in what picture, or what statuette, or what stained-glass window of the painted and gilded church where she had spent so many evenings whilst growing up? And whence, above all things, had come those golden roses poised on the Virgin's feet, that piously imagined florescence of woman's flesh--from what romance of chivalry, from what story told after catechism by the Abbe Ader, from what unconscious dream indulged in under the shady foliage of Bartres, whilst ever and ever repeating that haunting Angelic Salutation? Pierre's voice had acquired a yet more feeling tone, for if he did not say all these things to the simple-minded folks who were listening to him, still the human explanation of all these prodigies which the feeling of doubt in the depths of his being strove to supply, imparted to his narrative a quiver of sympathetic, fraternal love. He loved Bernadette the better for the great charm of her hallucination--that lady of such gracious access, such perfect amiability, such politeness in appearing and disappearing so appropriately. At first the great light would show itself, then the vision took form, came and went, leant forward, moved about, floating imperceptibly, with ethereal lightness; and when it vanished the glow lingered for yet another moment, and then disappeared like a star fading away. No lady in this world could have such a white and rosy face, with a beauty so akin to that of the Virgins on the picture-cards given to children at their first communions. And it was strange that the eglantine of the Grotto did not even hurt her adorable bare feet blooming with golden flowers. Pierre, however, at once proceeded to recount the other apparitions. The fourth and fifth occurred on the Friday and the Saturday; but the Lady, who shone so brightly and who had not yet told her name, contented herself on these occasions with smiling and saluting without pronouncing a word. On the Sunday, however, she wept, and said to Bernadette, "Pray for sinners." On the Monday, to the child's great grief, she did not appear, wishing, no doubt, to try her. But on the Tuesday she confided to her a secret which concerned her (the girl) alone, a secret which she was never to divulge*; and then she at last told her what mission it was that she entrusted to her: "Go and tell the priests," she said, "that they must build a chapel here." On the Wednesday she frequently murmured the word "Penitence! penitence! penitence!" which the child repeated, afterwards kissing the earth. On the Thursday the Lady said to her: "Go, and drink, and wash at the spring, and eat of the grass that is beside it," words which the Visionary ended by understanding, when in the depths of the Grotto a source suddenly sprang up beneath her fingers. And this was the miracle of the enchanted fountain. * In a like way, it will be remembered, the apparition at La Salette confided a secret to Melanie and Maximin (see /ante/, note). There can be little doubt that Bernadette was acquainted with the story of the miracle of La Salette.--Trans. Then the second week ran its course. The lady did not appear on the Friday, but was punctual on the five following days, repeating her commands and gazing with a smile at the humble girl whom she had chosen to do her bidding, and who, on her side, duly told her beads at each apparition, kissed the earth, and repaired on her knees to the source, there to drink and wash. At last, on Thursday, March 4, the last day of these mystical assignations, the Lady requested more pressingly than before that a chapel might be erected in order that the nations might come thither in procession from all parts of the earth. So far, however, in reply to all Bernadette's appeals, she had refused to say who she was; and it was only three weeks later, on Thursday, March 25, that, joining her hands together, and raising her eyes to Heaven, she said: "I am the Immaculate Conception." On two other occasions, at somewhat long intervals, April 7 and July l6, she again appeared: the first time to perform the miracle of the lighted taper, that taper above which the child, plunged in ecstasy, for a long time unconsciously left her hand, without burning it; and the second time to bid Bernadette farewell, to favour her with a last smile, and a last inclination of the head full of charming politeness. This made eighteen apparitions all told; and never again did the Lady show herself. Whilst Pierre went on with his beautiful, marvellous story, so soothing to the wretched, he evoked for himself a vision of that pitiable, lovable Bernadette, whose sufferings had flowered so wonderfully. As a doctor had roughly expressed it, this girl of fourteen, at a critical period of her life, already ravaged, too, by asthma, was, after all, simply an exceptional victim of hysteria, afflicted with a degenerate heredity and lapsing into infancy. If there were no violent crises in her case, if there were no stiffening of the muscles during her attacks, if she retained a precise recollection of her dreams, the reason was that her case was peculiar to herself, and she added, so to say, a new and very curious form to all the forms of hysteria known at the time. Miracles only begin when things cannot be explained; and science, so far, knows and can explain so little, so infinitely do the phenomena of disease vary according to the nature of the patient! But how many shepherdesses there had been before Bernadette who had seen the Virgin in a similar way, amidst all the same childish nonsense! Was it not always the same story, the Lady clad in light, the secret confided, the spring bursting forth, the mission which had to be fulfilled, the miracles whose enchantments would convert the masses? And was not the personal appearance of the Virgin always in accordance with a poor child's dreams--akin to some coloured figure in a missal, an ideal compounded of traditional beauty, gentleness, and politeness. And the same dreams showed themselves in the naivete of the means which were to be employed and of the object which was to be attained--the deliverance of nations, the building of churches, the processional pilgrimages of the faithful! Then, too, all the words which fell from Heaven resembled one another, calls for penitence, promises of help; and in this respect, in Bernadette's case the only new feature was that most extraordinary declaration: "I am the Immaculate Conception," which burst forth--very usefully--as the recognition by the Blessed Virgin herself of the dogma promulgated by the Court of Rome but three years previously! It was not the Immaculate Virgin who appeared: no, it was the Immaculate Conception, the abstraction itself, the thing, the dogma, so that one might well ask oneself if really the Virgin had spoken in such a fashion. As for the other words, it was possible that Bernadette had heard them somewhere and stored them up in some unconscious nook of her memory. But these--"I am the Immaculate Conception"--whence had they come as though expressly to fortify a dogma--still bitterly discussed--with such prodigious support as the direct testimony of the Mother conceived without sin? At this thought, Pierre, who was convinced of Bernadette's absolute good faith, who refused to believe that she had been the instrument of a fraud, began to waver, deeply agitated, feeling his belief in truth totter within him. The apparitions, however, had caused intense emotion at Lourdes; crowds flocked to the spot, miracles began, and those inevitable persecutions broke out which ensure the triumph of new religions. Abbe Peyramale, the parish priest of Lourdes, an extremely honest man, with an upright, vigorous mind, was able in all truth to declare that he did not know this child, that she had not yet been seen at catechism. Where was the pressure, then, where the lesson learnt by heart? There was nothing but those years of childhood spent at Bartres, the first teachings of Abbe Ader, conversations possibly, religious ceremonies in honour of the recently proclaimed dogma, or simply the gift of one of those commemorative medals which had been scattered in profusion. Never did Abbe Ader reappear upon the scene, he who had predicted the mission of the future Visionary. He was destined to remain apart from Bernadette and her future career, he who, the first, had seen her little soul blossom in his pious hands. And yet all the unknown forces that had sprung from that sequestered village, from that nook of greenery where superstition and poverty of intelligence prevailed, were still making themselves felt, disturbing the brains of men, disseminating the contagion of the mysterious. It was remembered that a shepherd of Argeles, speaking of the rock of Massabielle, had prophesied that great things would take place there. Other children, moreover, now fell in ecstasy with their eyes dilated and their limbs quivering with convulsions, but these only saw the devil. A whirlwind of madness seemed to be passing over the region. An old lady of Lourdes declared that Bernadette was simply a witch and that she had herself seen the toad's foot in her eye. But for the others, for the thousands of pilgrims who hastened to the spot, she was a saint, and they kissed her garments. Sobs burst forth and frenzy seemed to seize upon the souls of the beholders, when she fell upon her knees before the Grotto, a lighted taper in her right hand, whilst with the left she told the beads of her rosary. She became very pale and quite beautiful, transfigured, so to say. Her features gently ascended in her face, lengthened into an expression of extraordinary beatitude, whilst her eyes filled with light, and her lips parted as though she were speaking words which could not be heard. And it was quite certain that she had no will of her own left her, penetrated as she was by a dream, possessed by it to such a point in the confined, exclusive sphere in which she lived, that she continued dreaming it even when awake, and thus accepted it as the only indisputable reality, prepared to testify to it even at the cost of her blood, repeating it over and over again, obstinately, stubbornly clinging to it, and never varying in the details she gave. She did not lie, for she did not know, could not and would not desire anything apart from it. Forgetful of the flight of time, Pierre was now sketching a charming picture of old Lourdes, that pious little town, slumbering at the foot of the Pyrenees. The castle, perched on a rock at the point of intersection of the seven valleys of Lavedan, had formerly been the key of the mountain districts. But, in Bernadette's time, it had become a mere dismantled, ruined pile, at the entrance of a road leading nowhere. Modern life found its march stayed by a formidable rampart of lofty, snow-capped peaks, and only the trans-Pyrenean railway--had it been constructed--could have established an active circulation of social life in that sequestered nook where human existence stagnated like dead water. Forgotten, therefore, Lourdes remained slumbering, happy and sluggish amidst its old-time peacefulness, with its narrow, pebble-paved streets and its bleak houses with dressings of marble. The old roofs were still all massed on the eastern side of the castle; the Rue de la Grotte, then called the Rue du Bois, was but a deserted and often impassable road; no houses stretched down to the Gave as now, and the scum-laden waters rolled through a perfect solitude of pollard willows and tall grass. On week-days but few people passed across the Place du Marcadal, such as housewives hastening on errands, and petty cits airing their leisure hours; and you had to wait till Sundays or fair days to find the inhabitants rigged out in their best clothes and assembled on the Champ Commun, in company with the crowd of graziers who had come down from the distant tablelands with their cattle. During the season when people resort to the Pyrenean-waters, the passage of the visitors to Cauterets and Bagneres also brought some animation; /diligences/ passed through the town twice a day, but they came from Pau by a wretched road, and had to ford the Lapaca, which often overflowed its banks. Then climbing the steep ascent of the Rue Basse, they skirted the terrace of the church, which was shaded by large elms. And what soft peacefulness prevailed in and around that old semi-Spanish church, full of ancient carvings, columns, screens, and statues, peopled with visionary patches of gilding and painted flesh, which time had mellowed and which you faintly discerned as by the light of mystical lamps! The whole population came there to worship, to fill their eyes with the dream of the mysterious. There were no unbelievers, the inhabitants of Lourdes were a people of primitive faith; each corporation marched behind the banner of its saint, brotherhoods of all kinds united the entire town, on festival mornings, in one large Christian family. And, as with some exquisite flower that has grown in the soil of its choice, great purity of life reigned there. There was not even a resort of debauchery for young men to wreck their lives, and the girls, one and all, grew up with the perfume and beauty of innocence, under the eyes of the Blessed Virgin, Tower of Ivory and Seat of Wisdom. And how well one could understand that Bernadette, born in that holy soil, should flower in it, like one of nature's roses budding in the wayside bushes! She was indeed the very florescence of that region of ancient belief and rectitude; she would certainly not have sprouted elsewhere; she could only appear and develop there, amidst that belated race, amidst the slumberous peacefulness of a childlike people, under the moral discipline of religion. And what intense love at once burst forth all around her! What blind confidence was displayed in her mission, what immense consolation and hope came to human hearts on the very morrow of the first miracles! A long cry of relief had greeted the cure of old Bourriette recovering his sight, and of little Justin Bouhohorts coming to life again in the icy water of the spring. At last, then, the Blessed Virgin was intervening in favour of those who despaired, forcing that unkind mother, Nature, to be just and charitable. This was divine omnipotence returning to reign on earth, sweeping the laws of the world aside in order to work the happiness of the suffering and the poor. The miracles multiplied, blazed forth, from day to day more and more extraordinary, like unimpeachable proof of Bernadette's veracity. And she was, indeed, the rose of the divine garden, whose deeds shed perfume, the rose who beholds all the other flowers of grace and salvation spring into being around her. Pierre had reached this point of his story, and was again enumerating the miracles, on the point of recounting the prodigious triumph of the Grotto, when Sister Hyacinthe, awaking with a start from the ecstasy into which the narrative had plunged her, hastily rose to her feet. "Really, really," said she, "there is no sense in it. It will soon be eleven o'clock." This was true. They had left Morceux behind them, and would now soon be at Mont de Marsan. So Sister Hyacinthe clapped her hands once more, and added: "Silence, my children, silence!" This time they did not dare to rebel, for they felt she was in the right; they were unreasonable. But how greatly they regretted not hearing the continuation, how vexed they were that the story should cease when only half told! The ten women in the farther compartment even let a murmur of disappointment escape them; whilst the sick, their faces still outstretched, their dilated eyes gazing upon the light of hope, seemed to be yet listening. Those miracles which ever and ever returned to their minds and filled them with unlimited, haunting, supernatural joy. "And don't let me hear anyone breathe, even," added Sister Hyacinthe gaily, "or otherwise I shall impose penance on you." Madame de Jonquiere laughed good-naturedly. "You must obey, my children," she said; "be good and get to sleep, so that you may have strength to pray at the Grotto to-morrow with all your hearts." Then silence fell, nobody spoke any further; and the only sounds were those of the rumbling of the wheels and the jolting of the train as it was carried along at full speed through the black night. Pierre, however, was unable to sleep. Beside him, M. de Guersaint was already snoring lightly, looking very happy despite the hardness of his seat. For a time the young priest saw Marie's eyes wide open, still full of all the radiance of the marvels that he had related. For a long while she kept them ardently fixed upon his own, but at last closed them, and then he knew not whether she was sleeping, or with eyelids simply closed was living the everlasting miracle over again. Some of the sufferers were dreaming aloud, giving vent to bursts of laughter which unconscious moans interrupted. Perhaps they beheld the Archangels opening their flesh to wrest their diseases from them. Others, restless with insomnia, turned over and over, stifling their sobs and gazing fixedly into the darkness. And, with a shudder born of all the mystery he had evoked, Pierre, distracted, no longer master of himself in that delirious sphere of fraternal suffering, ended by hating his very mind, and, drawn into close communion with all those humble folks, sought to believe like them. What could be the use of that physiological inquiry into Bernadette's case, so full of gaps and intricacies? Why should he not accept her as a messenger from the spheres beyond, as one of the elect chosen for the divine mystery? Doctors were but ignorant men with rough and brutal hands, and it would be so delightful to fall asleep in childlike faith, in the enchanted gardens of the impossible. And for a moment indeed he surrendered himself, experiencing a delightful feeling of comfort, no longer seeking to explain anything, but accepting the Visionary with her sumptuous /cortege/ of miracles, and relying on God to think and determine for him. Then he looked out through the window, which they did not dare to open on account of the consumptive patients, and beheld the immeasurable night which enwrapped the country across which the train was fleeing. The storm must have burst forth there; the sky was now of an admirable nocturnal purity, as though cleansed by the masses of fallen water. Large stars shone out in the dark velvet, alone illumining, with their mysterious gleams, the silent, refreshed fields, which incessantly displayed only the black solitude of slumber. And across the Landes, through the valleys, between the hills, that carriage of wretchedness and suffering rolled on and on, over-heated, pestilential, rueful, and wailing, amidst the serenity of the august night, so lovely and so mild. They had passed Riscle at one in the morning. Between the jolting, the painful, the hallucinatory silence still continued. At two o'clock, as they reached Vic-de-Bigorre, low moans were heard; the bad state of the line, with the unbearable spreading tendency of the train's motion, was sorely shaking the patients. It was only at Tarbes, at half-past two, that silence was at length broken, and that morning prayers were said, though black night still reigned around them. There came first the "Pater," and then the "Ave," the "Credo," and the supplication to God to grant them the happiness of a glorious day. "O God, vouchsafe me sufficient strength that I may avoid all that is evil, do all that is good, and suffer uncomplainingly every pain." And now there was to be no further stoppage until they reached Lourdes. Barely three more quarters of an hour, and Lourdes, with all its vast hopes, would blaze forth in the midst of that night, so long and cruel. Their painful awakening was enfevered by the thought; a final agitation arose amidst the morning discomfort, as the abominable sufferings began afresh. Sister Hyacinthe, however, was especially anxious about the strange man, whose sweat-covered face she had been continually wiping. He had so far managed to keep alive, she watching him without a pause, never having once closed her eyes, but unremittingly listening to his faint breathing with the stubborn desire to take him to the holy Grotto before he died. All at once, however, she felt frightened; and addressing Madame de Jonquiere, she hastily exclaimed, "Pray pass me the vinegar bottle at once--I can no longer hear him breathe." For an instant, indeed, the man's faint breathing had ceased. His eyes were still closed, his lips parted; he could not have been paler, he had an ashen hue, and was cold. And the carriage was rolling along with its ceaseless rattle of coupling-irons; the speed of the train seemed even to have increased. "I will rub his temples," resumed Sister Hyacinthe. "Help me, do!" But, at a more violent jolt of the train, the man suddenly fell from the seat, face downward. "Ah! /mon Dieu/, help me, pick him up!" They picked him up, and found him dead. And they had to seat him in his corner again, with his back resting against the woodwork. He remained there erect, his torso stiffened, and his head wagging slightly at each successive jolt. Thus the train continued carrying him along, with the same thundering noise of wheels, while the engine, well pleased, no doubt, to be reaching its destination, began whistling shrilly, giving vent to quite a flourish of delirious joy as it sped through the calm night. And then came the last and seemingly endless half-hour of the journey, in company with that wretched corpse. Two big tears had rolled down Sister Hyacinthe's cheeks, and with her hands joined she had begun to pray. The whole carriage shuddered with terror at sight of that terrible companion who was being taken, too late alas! to the Blessed Virgin. Hope, however, proved stronger than sorrow or pain, and although all the sufferings there assembled awoke and grew again, irritated by overwhelming weariness, a song of joy nevertheless proclaimed the sufferers' triumphal entry into the Land of Miracles. Amidst the tears which their pains drew from them, the exasperated and howling sick began to chant the "Ave maris Stella" with a growing clamour in which lamentation finally turned into cries of hope. Marie had again taken Pierre's hand between her little feverish fingers. "Oh, /mon Dieu!/" said she, "to think that poor man is dead, and I feared so much that it was I who would die before arriving. And we are there--there at last!" The priest was trembling with intense emotion. "It means that you are to be cured, Marie," he replied, "and that I myself shall be cured if you pray for me--" The engine was now whistling in a yet louder key in the depths of the bluish darkness. They were nearing their destination. The lights of Lourdes already shone out on the horizon. Then the whole train again sang a canticle--the rhymed story of Bernadette, that endless ballad of six times ten couplets, in which the Angelic Salutation ever returns as a refrain, all besetting and distracting, opening to the human mind the portals of the heaven of ecstasy:-- "It was the hour for ev'ning pray'r; Soft bells chimed on the chilly air. Ave, ave, ave Maria! "The maid stood on the torrent's bank, A breeze arose, then swiftly sank. Ave, ave, ave Maria! "And she beheld, e'en as it fell, The Virgin on Massabielle. Ave, ave, ave Maria! "All white appeared the Lady chaste, A zone of Heaven round her waist. Ave, ave, ave Maria! "Two golden roses, pure and sweet, Bloomed brightly on her naked feet. Ave, ave, ave Maria! "Upon her arm, so white and round, Her chaplet's milky pearls were wound. Ave, ave, ave Maria! "The maiden prayed till, from her eyes, The vision sped to Paradise. Ave, ave, ave Maria!" 
43660	----	Transcriber's note: A few obvious typographical errors have been corrected: they are listed at the end of the text. In this edition line numbers are displayed on every tenth line--in the printed work they were synchronised to the pagination, with sometimes only one number per page. Lines marked = were printed AND COUNTED as two lines. Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). In the main text of The Vision, the numbers of the original pages are enclosed in curly brackets to facilitate the use of the glossary. Project Gutenberg has the other volume of this work. Volume II: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43661 * * * * * Library of Old Authors. [Illustration: Spede the plough & send us korne enough] THE VISION AND CREED OF PIERS PLOUGHMAN. EDITED, FROM A CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT, WITH A HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND A GLOSSARY, BY THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A. F.S.A. &c. Corresponding Member of the Imperial Institute of France, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. _SECOND AND REVISED EDITION._ LONDON: REEVES AND TURNER, 196 STRAND. 1887. _PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION._ It is now thirteen years since the first edition of the following text of this important poem was published by the late Mr. Pickering, during which time the study of our old literature and history has undergone considerable development, and it is believed that a reprint at a more moderate price would be acceptable to the public. Holding still the same opinion which he has always held with regard to the superior character of the manuscript from which this text was taken, the editor has done no more than carefully reprint it, but, in order to make it as useful as he could, he has revised and made additions to both the Notes and the Glossary. The remarkable poem of The Vision of Piers Ploughman is not only so interesting a monument of the English language and literature, but it is also so important an illustration of the political history of our country during the fourteenth century, that it deserves to be read far more generally than it has been, and the editor will rejoice sincerely if he should have contributed by this new edition to render it more popular, and place it within the reach of a greater number of readers. Independent of its historical and literary importance, it contains many beauties which will fully repay the slight labour required to master its partially obsolete language, and, as one of the purest works in the English tongue as it existed during the century in which it was composed, it is to be hoped that, when the time shall at length arrive when English antiquities and English philology and literary history are at length to be made a part of the studies in our universities and in the higher classes of our schools, the work of the Monk of Malvern, as a link between the poetry and language of the Anglo-Saxon and those of modern England, will be made a prominent text-book. THOMAS WRIGHT. 14, SYDNEY STREET, BROMPTON, _Nov. 1855_. _INTRODUCTION._ The History of the Middle Ages in England, as in other countries, represents to us a series of great consecutive political movements, coexistent with a similar series of intellectual revolutions in the mass of the people. The vast mental development caused by the universities in the twelfth century led the way for the struggle to obtain religious and political liberty in the thirteenth. The numerous political songs of that period which have escaped the hand of time, and above all the mass of satirical ballads against the Church of Rome, which commonly go under the name of Walter Mapes, are remarkable monuments of the intellectual history of our forefathers. Those ballads are written in Latin; for it was the most learned class of the community which made the first great stand against the encroachments and corruptions of the papacy and the increasing influence of the monks. We know that the struggle alluded to was historically unsuccessful. The baronial wars ended in the entire destruction of the popular leaders; but their cause did not expire at Evesham; they had laid foundations which no storm could overthrow, not placed hastily on the uncertain surface of popular favour, but fixed deeply in the public mind. The barons, who had fought so often and so staunchly for the great charter, had lost their power; even the learning of the universities had faded under the withering grasp of monachism; but the remembrance of the old contest remained, and what was more, its literature was left, the songs which had spread abroad the principles for which, or against which, Englishmen had fought, carried them down (a precious legacy) to their posterity. Society itself had undergone an important change; it was no longer a feudal aristocracy which held the destinies of the country in its iron hand. The plant which had been cut off took root again in another (a healthier) soil; and the intelligence which had lost its force in the higher ranks of society began to spread itself among the commons. Even in the thirteenth century, before the close of the baronial wars, the complaints so vigorously expressed in the Latin songs, had begun, both in England and France, to appear in the language of the people. Many of the satirical poems of Rutebeuf and other contemporary writers against the monks, are little more than translations of the Latin poems which go under the name of Walter Mapes. During the successive reigns of the first three Edwards, the public mind in England was in a state of constant fermentation. On the one hand, the monks, supported by the popish church, had become an incubus upon the country. Their corruptness and immorality were notorious: the description of their vices given in the satirical writings of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries exceeds even the bitterest calumnies of the age of Rabelais or the reports of the commissioners of Henry the Eighth.[1] The populace, held in awe by the imposing appearance of the popish church, and by the religious belief which had been instilled into them from their infancy, were opposed to the monks and clergy by a multitude of personal griefs and jealousies: these frequently led to open hostility, and in the chronicles of those days we read of the slaughter of monks, and the burning of abbeys, by the insurgent towns-people or peasantry. At the same time, while the monks in revenge treated the commons with contempt, there were numerous people who, under the name of Lollards and other such appellations,--led sometimes by the love of mischief and disorder, but more frequently by religious enthusiasm,--whose doctrines were simple and reasonable (although the church would fain have branded them all with the title of heretics),--went abroad among the people preaching not only against the corruptions of the monks, but against the most vital doctrines of the church of Rome, and, as might be expected, they found abundance of listeners. On the other hand, a new political system, and the embarrassments of a continued series of foreign wars, were adding to the general ferment. Instead of merely calling together the great feudal barons to lead their retainers to battle, the king was now obliged to appeal more directly to the people; and at the same time the latter began to feel the weight of taxation, and consequently they began to talk of the defects and the corruptions of the government, and to raise the cries, which have since so often been heard, against the king's "evil advisers." These cries were justified by many real and great oppressions under which the commons, and more particularly the peasantry, suffered; and (as the king and aristocracy were too much interested in the continuance of the abuses complained of to be easily induced to agree to an effective remedy), the commons began to feel that their own interests were equally opposed to those of the church, of the aristocracy, and of the crown, and amidst the other popular doctrines none were more loudly or more violently espoused than those of levellers and democrats. These, though comparatively few, aggravated the evil, by affording a pretence for persecution. The history of England during the fourteenth century is a stirring picture; its dark side is the increasing corruption of the popish church; its bright side, the general spread of popular intelligence, and the firm stand made by the commons in the defence of their liberties, and in the determination to obtain a redress of grievances. Under these circumstances appeared PIERS PLOUGHMAN. It is not to be supposed that all the other classes of society were hostile to the commons. The people, with the characteristic attachment of the Anglo-Saxons to the family of their princes, wished to believe that their king was always their friend, when not actuated by the counsels of his "evil advisers;"[2] several of the most powerful barons stood forward as the champions of popular liberty; and many of the monks quitted their monasteries to advocate the cause of the reformation. It appears to be generally agreed that a monk was the author of the poem of Piers Ploughman; but the question, one perhaps but of secondary importance, as to its true writer, is involved in much obscurity.[3] Several local allusions and other circumstances seem to prove that it was composed on the borders of Wales, where had originated most of the great political struggles, and we can hardly doubt that its author resided in the neighbourhood of "Malverne hilles." We have less difficulty in ascertaining its date. At ll. 1735-1782, we have, without doubt, an allusion to the treaty of Bretigny, in 1360, and to the events which preceded it: in the earlier part of this passage there is an allusion to the sufferings of the English army in the previous winter campaign, to the retreat which followed, and the want of provisions which accompanied it, and to the tempest which they encountered near Chartres (the "dym cloude" of the poem). The "pestilences" mentioned at l. 2497 were the great plague which happened in 1348-9 (and which had previously been alluded to in the opening of the poem, l. 168), and that of 1361-2,--the first two of the three great pestilences which devastated our island in the fourteenth century. The south-western wind, mentioned in l. 2500, occurred on the fifteenth day of January 1362. It is probable that the poem of Piers Ploughman was composed in the latter part of this year, when the effects of the great wind were fresh in people's memory, and when the treaty of Bretigny had become a subject of popular discontent.[4] The poem was given to the world under a name which could not fail to draw the attention of the people. Amid the oppressive injustice of the great and the vices of their idle retainers, the corruptions of the clergy, and the dishonesty which too frequently characterised the dealings of merchants and traders, the simple unsophisticated heart of the ploughman is held forth as the dwelling of virtue and truth. It was the ploughman, and not the pope with his proud hierarchy, who represented on earth the Saviour who had descended into this world as the son of the carpenter, who had lived a life of humility, who had wandered on foot or ridden on an ass. "While God wandered on earth," says one of the political songs of the beginning of the fourteenth century,[5] "what was the reason that he would not ride?" The answer expresses the whole force of the popular sentiment of the age: "because he would not have a retinue of greedy attendants by his side, in the shape of grooms and servants, to insult and oppress the peasantry." At the period when this poem was first published, England, in common with the rest of Europe, had been struck with a succession of calamities. Little more than twelve years had passed since a terrible pestilence had swept away perhaps not less than one-half of the population.[6] The lower classes, ill fed and neglected, perished by thousands, while the higher ranks--the proud and pampered nobility--escaped; "he who was ill nourished with unsubstantial food," says a contemporary writer, "fell before the slightest breath of the destroyer; to the poor, death was welcome, for life is to them more cruel than death. But death respected princes, nobles, knights, judges, gentlemen; of these few die, because their life is one of enjoyment."[7] It was the general belief that this fearful visitation had been sent by God as a punishment for the sins which had more particularly characterised the higher orders of society; yet instead of profiting by the warning, they became, during the years which followed, prouder, more cruel and oppressive, and more licentious, than before. Another pestilence came, which visited the classes that had before escaped, and at the same time a tempest such as had seldom been witnessed seemed to announce the vengeance of heaven. The streets and roads were filled with zealots who preached and prophesied of other misfortunes, to people who had scarcely recovered from the terror of those which were past. At this moment the satirist stepped forth, and laid open with unsparing knife the sins and corruptions which provoked them. From what has been said, it will be seen that the Latin poems attributed to Walter Mapes, and the Collection of Political Songs, form an introduction to the Vision of Piers Ploughman. It seems clear that the writer was well acquainted with the former, and that he not unfrequently imitates them. The Poem on the Evil Times of Edward II. already alluded to (in the Political Songs) contains within a small compass all his chief points of accusation against the different orders of society. But a new mode of composition had been brought into fashion since the appearance of the famous "Roman de la Rose," and the author makes his attacks less directly, under an allegorical clothing. The condition of society is revealed to the writer in a dream, as in the singular poem just mentioned, and as in the still older satire, the _Apocalypsis Goliæ_; but in Piers Ploughman the allegory follows no systematic plot, it is rather a succession of pictures in which the allegorical painting sometimes disappears altogether, than a whole like the Roman de la Rose, and it is on that account less tedious to the modern reader, while the vigorous descriptions, the picturesque ideas, and numerous other beauties of different kinds, cause us to lose sight of the general defects of this class of writings. Piers Ploughman is, in fact, rather a succession of dreams, than one simple vision. The dreamer, weary of the world, falls asleep beside a stream amid the beautiful scenery of Malvern Hills. In his vision, the people of the world are represented to him by a vast multitude assembled in a fair meadow; on one side stands the tower of Truth, elevated on a mountain, the right aim of man's pilgrimage, while on the other side is the dungeon of Care, the dwelling place of Wrong. In the first sections (_passus_) of the poem are pictured the origin of society, the foundation and dignity of kingly power, and the separation into different classes and orders. In the midst of his astonishment at what he sees, a fair lady, the personification of "holy church," approaches, to instruct the dreamer. She explains to him the meaning of the different objects which had presented themselves to his view, and shows by exhortations and examples the merit of content and moderation, the danger of disobedience (exemplified in the story of Lucifer's fall), and the efficacy of love and charity. In the midst of his conversation with his instructor, a lady makes her appearance on the scene. This is lady Mede, the personification of that mistaken object at which so large a portion of mankind direct their aim--the origin of most of the corruptions and evil deeds in the world--not the just remuneration of our actions which we look forward to in a future life, but the reward which is sought by those who set all their hopes on the present. Holy Church now quits the dreamer, who is left to observe what is taking place amid the crowd in the field. (_Passus II._) They all pay their court to lady Mede, who, by the intermediation of Cyvyle, or the law, is betrothed in marriage to Falsehood. The marriage is forbidden by Theology, and Cyvyle agrees to carry the cause to London for judgment, contrary to the desire of Simony. Falsehood and Flattery bribe the lawyers to aid the former in his suit, but their designs are baffled by Conscience, at whose suggestion the king takes the lady into his own custody, and drives away Falsehood and his greedy followers. Mede soon finds favour at court (_Passus III._), and especially with the friars, who are ready to absolve her of all her sins for a proper consideration. The king proposes to marry her to Conscience; who, however, declines the match, and as a reason for his refusal gives a very unfavourable picture of the lady's previous life and private character. Mede defends herself, and accuses Conscience of thwarting and opposing the will and designs of kings and great people. The dispute becoming hot, the king interferes and orders Mede and Conscience to be reconciled and kiss each other. (_Passus IV._) This Conscience refuses to do, unless by the advice of Reason; on whose arrival, Peace comes into the parliament to make his complaint against the cruel oppressions of Wrong. Wrong is condemned, but Mede and the lawyers attempt to get him off with the payment of a sum of money. The king, however, allows himself to be guided by Reason and Conscience, expresses his dissatisfaction that law is influenced by Mede, and his determination to govern his realm by the counsel of Reason. In a second vision (_Passus V._), the dreamer is again carried to the "field full of folk," where Reason has taken upon himself the character of a preacher, and, fortified with the king's authority, induces the various classes of sinners to confess and repent. The personification of the different sins forms perhaps the most remarkable part of the whole poem. The multitude being thus converted from their evil courses, are persuaded by Repentance and Hope to set out on a pilgrimage in search of Truth. In their ignorance of the path which they must follow in this search, they apply to a palmer who had wandered over a large portion of the world in search of different saints; but they find him as little acquainted with the way as themselves. They are helped out of this dilemma by Piers the Ploughman, who, seeing them terrified by the difficulties of the road, offers to be their guide, if they will wait till he has sown his half acre. (_Passus VI._) In the mean time all the pilgrims who have strength and skill, are employed on some useful works, except the knight, who undertakes, in return for the support which he is to derive from the ploughman's labours, to watch and protect him against plunderers and foreign enemies. The peace of the labourers is first disturbed by Waster, who refuses to perform the conditions by which the others are bound: the aid of the knight being found inefficient against this turbulent gentleman, the Ploughman is obliged to send for Hunger, who effectually humbles him. This section of the poem is a continued allusion to the effects of the famine and pestilence, and a satire upon the luxurious and extravagant life of our forefathers in the fourteenth century. (_Passus VII._) Truth, hearing of the intentions of Piers the Ploughman to leave his labours in order to serve as a guide to the pilgrims in their journey, sends him a messenger, exhorting him to remain at home and continue his labours, and giving him a "pardon" which was to embrace all those who aided him honestly, by their works, and who should carry on their various avocations in purity of heart. The writer here takes occasion to sneer at the "pardons" of the pope, then so much in vogue; a priest questions the legitimacy of Piers' bull of pardon, and the altercation between them becomes so loud that the dreamer awakes. The pardon of Piers Ploughman is granted to those who do good works: the dreamer is lost in the speculation on the question as to what the good works are, and he becomes engaged in a new pilgrimage, in search of a person who has not appeared before,--Do-well. (_Passus VIII._) All his inquiries after Do-well are fruitless: even the friars, to whom he addresses himself, give but a confused account; and, weary with wandering about, the dreamer is again overtaken by slumber. Thought now appears to him, and recommends him to Wit, who describes to him the residence of Do-well, Do-better, and Do-best, and enumerates their companions and attendants. (_Passus IX._) The Castle of Do-well is an allegorical representation of man (the individual), in which lady Anima (the soul) is placed for safety, and guarded by a keeper named Kynde (nature). With Do-well, the representative of those who live according to truth in honest wedlock, are contrasted the people who live in lust and wickedness, the descendants of the murderer Cain, who was begotten by Adam in an evil hour. (_Passus X._) Wit has a wife named lady Study, who is angry that her spouse should lay open his high truths to those who are uninitiated--it is no better than "throwing pearls to swine, which would rather have hawes." Wit is daunted by his wife's long lecture, and leaves the dreamer to pursue his own suit. This he does with so much meekness and humility, that the wrath of dame Study is appeased, and she sends him to Clergy, with a token of recommendation from herself. Clergy receives the pilgrim, and entertains him with a long declamation on the character of Do-well, Do-better, and Do-best, and on the corruptions of the church and the monkish orders, in the course of which is uttered the remarkable prophecy of the king who was to "confess and beat" the monks, and give them an "incurable knock," which was after less than two centuries so exactly fulfilled in the dissolution of the monasteries. The wanderer confesses himself "little the wiser" for Clergy's lecture, and by his pertness of reply merits a reproof from Scripture. (_Passus XI._) In another vision the dreamer is exposed to the seductions of Fortune, whose two fair damsels, Concupiscentia-carnis and Covetousness-of-the-Eyes, persuade him to enjoy the present moment, and lead him entirely from his previous pursuit. He is only recalled from his error by the approach of Old Age, and then he falls into the contemplation of a series of subjects, the covetousness of the friars who gave absolution from motives of personal interest, predestination, &c. Then Kynde, or Nature, came and carried him to a mountain, which represented the world, and there showed him how all other animals but man followed Reason; and Imaginative came after, and told him that all his present doubt and anxiety had been brought upon him for contending with Reason and suffering himself to be led astray by Fortune. (_Passus XII._) The whole of the next section of the poem is occupied with a long exhortation by Imaginative, concerning God's chastisements, the merits of Charity and Mercy, the greater responsibility before God of those who are learned and cannot sin ignorantly, the difficulty for the rich man to enter heaven. (_Passus XIII._) In another vision, Conscience meets with the dreamer, and takes him to dine with Clergy. Patience comes to the feast in beggar's weeds, but is seated in the most honourable place at the table. A doctor of the church is of the party, and distinguishes himself by his gluttony; and by discussing theological questions after dinner. At length Conscience and Patience go on a pilgrimage. In their way they meet with a minstrel, named Activa Vita, or Haukyn the Active-man, with a coat covered with spots of dirt, whom they question on his mode of life. (_Passus XIV._) Haukyn the Active-man, the representative of that class of people who neglect their souls for their worldly affairs, excuses the dirtiness of his apparel on the ground that he has none to change, and that he has too many occupations to allow him time to have it cleaned. Conscience and Patience teach him a method to clean his coat, inform him where charity is to be found, and recommend patient poverty to him, showing him the advantage of poverty over riches. Haukyn's repentance and lamentation for the neglect of his duties awake the dreamer. (_Passus XV._) Amid his anxiety to know something more certain of Do-well, the dreamer has another vision, in which Soul appears to him, and enters into a long relation of the corruptions and negligence of the clergy. (_Passus XVI._) Soul finally sends him to Piers the Ploughman, who possesses the garden in which the tree of Charity grows, and which is rented under him by Free-will. Piers explains to him the nature of the tree, and of the props which support it; and shakes down some of the fruit for him. The allegory then changes, and we are introduced to the birth and passion of the Saviour, as arising out of the fruit of Charity. At this moment the dreamer awakes, and therewith loses sight of Piers the Ploughman; in his anxiety to find Piers, he meets with Faith, in the garb of Abraham, who was in search of God, now incarnate, and who waited for his passion in order to be delivered from hell. (_Passus XVII._) Then comes Spes, or Hope, who also was in search of the knight that was to vanquish the evil one. As they go along the way towards Jerusalem to the "justes," discoursing on the obligations of the old and new law and the abrogation of the former, they meet with a man who had been left helpless by thieves, wounded and naked: Faith and Hope passed by without helping him, but the Samaritan, who was also riding to the "justes," descended from his horse, bound his wounds, and deposited him in an inn at the grange named _Lex Christi_. The Samaritan gives the dreamer a singular explanation of the mysteries of the Trinity; and, after having represented to him the heinousness of sins against the different persons, and the necessity of making reparation, he pursues his way to Jerusalem. (_Passus XVIII._) The vision which forms the eighteenth section or _passus_, and in which the character of Piers the Ploughman is identified with that of the Saviour, is entirely occupied with an allegorical description of Christ's Passion, and his descent into Hell. (_Passus XIX._) In the next section the history of Christ's passion and victory, and his figurative representative Piers the Ploughman, is continued. Grace, through Piers the Ploughman, descends upon the people, and lays the foundation of the Church, which is cultivated by Piers with his four oxen (the four Evangelists). Piers is attacked by Pride, who gathers a great host to assail the Church. Conscience advises the people who follow Piers (the Church), to take shelter in the stronghold of Unity, and make preparations for their defence. By the counsel of Kind-wit and Conscience they dig a great ditch around Unity. The measures of Surety are embarrassed by the unreasonable opposition of some members or parts of the community, who oppose Pier's doctrine of restitution--the brewer will not repent of the tricks which he puts on his customers, the vicar adheres to his simony, the lord will continue to oppress his tenants, and the king will not be restrained by his laws. (__Passus XX.__) In the last section of the poem, the dreamer, after having been accosted by Need, who preaches on the virtues of temperance, has a vision of Antichrist, who comes to attack the Castle of Unity. It must be remembered that at this period many people supposed that Antichrist was already on the earth, and that he was the cause of all the evils with which mankind was then visited, so that this last notion brought the allegory home to people's feelings. The standard-bearer of Antichrist was Pride. Conscience called Kynde, or Nature, to his aid, who brought an army of diseases and pestilences. Death, one of his chief soldiers, made terrible havoc. At length Kynde ceased his ravages; and a horde of enemies immediately arose against Conscience, such as Fortune, Lechery, Covetousness, Simony. Life, with his mistress Fortune, indulged in all kinds of excess, until he was visited by Age and Despair, who treated him very roughly. The dreamer, forsaken by Fortune, and participating in the misfortunes of Life, by the advice of Kynde takes shelter with Conscience in the castle of Unity, which is threatened by an army of priests and monks. At length this stronghold is endangered by the entrance of Flattery, who is admitted in the disguise of a Physician. Conscience, unable to retain possession, embarks upon another pilgrimage in search of Piers the Ploughman, and the dreamer awakes. This is the conclusion of the poem. Whitaker thought that it should have had a more consoling end; but it must be remembered that the writer of Piers Ploughman designed to paint the world as it was, and to describe the numerous obstacles which lay in the way of the improvement and amelioration of mankind when he wrote. While one member of the monastic order was thus contributing by his satirical pen towards producing a reform among his countrymen, another monk was beginning to preach in a still bolder manner against the popish system. This was John Wycliffe, under whom the despised lollards became an important sect. This attempt at religious reformation only formed part of the great movement of the fourteenth century, which soon afterwards broke out in the popular commotions of the reign of Richard II. The writer of Piers Ploughman was neither a sower of sedition, nor one who would be characterised by his contemporaries as a heretic. The doctrines inculcated throughout the book are so far from democratic, that he constantly preaches the Christian doctrine of obedience to rulers. Yet its tendency to debase the great, and to raise the commons in public consideration, must have rendered it popular among the latter: and, although no single important doctrine of the popish religion is attacked, yet the unsparing manner in which the vices and corruptions of the church are laid open, must have helped in no small degree the cause of the Reformation. Of the ancient popularity of Piers Ploughman we have a proof in the great number of copies which still exist, most of them written in the latter part of the fourteenth century; and the circumstance that the manuscripts are seldom executed in a superior style of writing, and scarcely ever ornamented with painted initial letters, may perhaps be taken as a proof that they were not written for the higher classes of society. From the time when it was published, the name of Piers Ploughman became a favourite among the popular reformers.[8] The earliest instance of the adoption of that name for another satirical work is found in the Creed of Piers Ploughman, printed also in the present volume, and in which even the form of verse of the Vision is imitated. In this latter poem, which was undoubtedly written by a Wycliffite, Piers Ploughman is no longer an allegorical personage--he is the simple representative of the peasant rising up to judge and act for himself--the English _sans-culotte_ of the fourteenth century, if we may be allowed the comparison. When it was written, a period of great excitement had passed since the age of Langlande, the reputed author of the Vision--a period characterised by the turbulence of the peasantry--which had witnessed in France the fearful insurrection of the _Jacquerie_, and in England the rebellion of Wat Tyler and Jack Straw.[9] In Piers Ploughman's Creed it is the church simply, and not the state, which is the object of attack. The clergy--and more particularly the monks--are accused of having falsified religion, and of being actuated solely by worldly passions--pride, covetousness, self-love. The writer, placing himself in the position of one who has just learnt the first grounds of religious knowledge, is anxious to find a person capable of instructing him in his creed, and with this object he addresses himself to the different orders of friars. He applies first to the Minorites, who abuse the Carmelites, and pride themselves in their own holiness. Disgusted with their jealousies and self-sufficiency, the inquirer seeks the Preachers, or Dominicans; amid their stately buildings, and under their sleek and well filled skins, he finds the same want of Christian charity: their pride drives him to the order of St. Austin. The Austin Friars, as well as the Carmelites, will only instruct him for money, and, shocked at their covetousness, he continues his wanderings, until at last he meets with a poor Ploughman, in whom he finds the charity and knowledge after which he has been seeking. The Ploughman enters into a bitter attack on the vices of all the four orders of friars: he describes their spirit of persecution, exemplified in the case of Wycliffe and others, and their simony; speaks of Wycliffe and Walter Brute as preachers of the truth; and finishes by teaching the inquirer his simple creed. The Creed of Piers Ploughman was written by one who approved the opinions of Wycliffe, and it seems to have been carefully proscribed. There does not appear to exist any manuscript older than the first printed edition. The great popularity of the Vision of Piers Ploughman in the fourteenth century, and its political influence, are proved by another close imitation, which was composed immediately after the capture, and previous to the deposition, of king Richard II. This poem also appears to have been proscribed, and we have only a fragment left, which was printed from an unique manuscript for the Camden Society. It also is composed in alliterative verse, and its meaning is rendered obscure by a confused allegorical style. It was evidently written towards the Welsh Border, perhaps at Bristol, which is mentioned in the opening lines; and it appears to have been intended as a continuation of, or as a sequel to, Piers Ploughman, which it immediately follows in the only manuscript in which it is preserved. Another early poem, of which the Ploughman is the hero, was inserted in the works of Chaucer under the title of the Ploughman's Tale. This, like the Creed, is free from allegory; and it differs from the others also in being written in rhyme, and not in alliterative verse. The Ploughman's Tale was probably written in the earlier half of the fifteenth century.[10] It is a coarse attack on the different orders of the clergy, for their pride, covetousness, and other vices. Its versification has little merit; and there appears to be no good reason for inserting it among the Canterbury Tales. The vision of Piers Ploughman appears to have continued to enjoy a wide popularity down to the middle of the fifteenth century. We hear nothing of it from that period to the middle of the sixteenth, when it was printed by the reformers, and received with so much favour, that no less than three editions, or rather three impressions, are said to have been sold in the course of one year. Another edition was printed at the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and it appears to have been much read in the latter part of the sixteenth century, and even at the beginning of the seventeenth. The name of Piers Ploughman is not uncommon in the political tracts of that period.[11] The Poem of Piers Ploughman is peculiarly a national work. It is the most remarkable monument of the public spirit of our forefathers in the middle, or, as they are often termed, dark ages. It is a pure specimen of the English language at a period when it had sustained few of the corruptions which have disfigured it since we have had writers of "Grammars;" and in it we may study with advantage many of the difficulties of the language which these writers have misunderstood. It is, moreover, the finest example left of the kind of versification which was purely English, inasmuch as it had been the only one in use among our Anglo-Saxon progenitors, in common with the other people of the North. To many readers it will be perhaps necessary to explain that rhyming verse was not in use among the Anglo-Saxons. In place of rhyme, they had a system of verse of which the characteristic was a very regular _alliteration_, so arranged that, in every couplet, there should be two principal words in the first line beginning with the same letter, which letter must also be the initial of the first word on which the stress of the voice falls in the second line. There has, as yet, been discovered no system of foot-measure in Anglo-Saxon verse, but the common metre consists apparently in having two rises and two falls of the voice in each line. These characteristics are accurately preserved in the verse of Piers Ploughman; and the measure appears to be the same, if we make allowance for the change of the slow and impressive pronunciation of the Anglo-Saxon for the quicker pronunciation of Middle English, which therefore required a greater number of syllables to fill up the same space of time. We can trace the history of alliterative verse in England with tolerable certainty. The Anglo-Normans first brought in rhymes, which they employed in their own poetry. The adoption of this new system into the English language was gradual, but it appears to have commenced in the first half of the twelfth century. It was, at first, mixed with alliterative couplets: that is, in the same poem were used sometimes rhyming couplets, which were suddenly changed for alliterative couplets, and then, after awhile, rhyme was again brought in, and so on. Of this kind of poetry we have four very remarkable examples, the _Proverbs of King Alfred_, a poem which was certainly in existence in the first half of the twelfth century;[12] the _Early English Bestiary_;[13] the Poem on the _Debate between the Body and the Soul_;[14] and the grand work of Layamon.[15] The following lines from the Bestiary may serve as a specimen of the manner in which the two systems are intermixed; they form part of the account of the spider:-- "ðanne _r_enneð ge _r_apelike, for ge is ai _r_edi, _n_imeð anon to ðe _n_et, and _n_imeð hem ðere, _b_itterlike ge hem _b_it and here _b_ane wurðeð, _d_repeð and _d_rinkeð hire _blod_, _d_oð ge hire non oðer _god_, bute fret hire _fille_, and dareð siðen _stille_." . . . . . . "Cethegrande is a _fis_ ðe moste ðat in water _is_; ðat tu wuldes seien _get_, gef ðu it soge wan it _flet_," etc. This kind of poetry appears to have been common until the middle of the thirteenth century; after which period we only find alliteration in songs, not used in simple alliterative couplets, but mixed up in the same lines with rhyme in an irregular and playful manner.[16] But there appears little room for doubting that during the whole of this time the pure alliterative poetry was in use among the lower classes of society; and its revival towards the middle of the fourteenth century appears to have been a part of the political movement which then took place. In this point of view, the poem of Piers Ploughman becomes still more worthy of attention as a document of contemporary literary history. The old alliterative verse came so much into fashion at this period that it was adopted for the composition of long romances, of which several still remain.[17] The use of this kind of verse was continued in the fifteenth century, and was imitated in Scotland as late as the time of Dunbar, but the later writers were evidently unacquainted with the strict rules of this species of composition. The Anglo-Saxons, who used this kind of verse only, wrote their poetry invariably as prose. But the scribe was in the habit of indicating the division of the lines by a dot. Among modern scholars a question has arisen as to the propriety of printing the alliterative couplet in two short lines, or in one long one. It appears to me that the mode in which the dot is used in the manuscripts decides the question in favour of the short lines. The manner in which the alliterative couplet is intermixed with the rhyming couplet in the poems of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (which also are written in the manuscripts in the same form as prose), seems to me a strong confirmation of this opinion; at least in these last-mentioned cases, the verse must have been considered as written in short lines. As the scribes quitted the custom of writing poetry in their manuscripts as prose, with the divisions of lines indicated by dots, to adopt that of arranging them in lines as we do at present, these short lines were found very inconvenient because they were obliged either to waste a great deal of parchment, or to write in several narrow columns. To remedy this, they fell perhaps gradually into the custom of writing the two parts of the alliterative couplet in one line, always, however, marking the division by a dot. They followed the same method with the shorter rhyming lines, as is the case with the old English Metrical Romance of Horn in a manuscript in the Harleian Collection.[18] All the alliterative poetry of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is found written in these long lines, with the dot of division in the middle. In the fifteenth century the meaning of this dot appears to have been forgotten, and the system of alliteration so far misunderstood, that the writers thought it only necessary to have _at least_ three alliterative words in a long line, without any consideration of their position in the line. I say _at least_, because they not unfrequently inserted four or five alliterative words in the same line, which would certainly have been considered a defect in the earlier writers. It is my opinion, that a modern editor is wrong in printing the verses of Piers Ploughman in long lines, as they stand in the manuscripts, unless he profess to give them as a fac-simile of the manuscripts themselves, or he plead the same excuse of convenience from the shape of his book. In either case, he must carefully preserve the dots of separation in the middle of the lines, which are more inconvenient than the length of the lines, because they interfere with the punctuation of the modern editor. If, as appears to be the case, these dots are merely marks to indicate the division of the couplet, their purpose is much better served by printing the lines in couplets. The construction of the earlier Anglo-Saxon verse, the analogy of the mixed rhyming and alliterative verses of the semi-Saxon poems, and the use of these dots in the middle of the lines in the manuscripts of Piers Ploughman, appear to me convincing proofs that it ought to be printed so. I think moreover that the alliterative verse reads much more harmoniously in the short couplets than in the long lines. The manuscripts of the Vision of Piers Ploughman are extremely numerous both in public and in private collections. There are at least eight in the British Museum: there are ten or twelve in the Cambridge Libraries; and they are not less numerous at Oxford. As might be expected in a popular work like this, the manuscripts are in general full of variations; but there are two classes of manuscripts which give two texts that are widely different from each other, those variations commencing even with the first lines of the poem. One of these texts, which was adopted in the early printed editions, is given in the present volumes; the other text was selected for publication by Dr. Whitaker. The following extract, comprising the first lines of the poem,[19] will show how each text begins, and will enable those who possess manuscripts of Piers Ploughman to ascertain at once to which text they belong:-- TEXT I. TEXT II. In a somer seson In a somè seyson, Whan softe was the sonne, Whan softe was the sonne, I shop me into shroudes Y shop into shrobbis As I a sheep weere, As y shepherde were. In habite as an heremite In abit az an ermite Unholy of werkes, Unholy of werkes, Wente wide in this world That wente forthe in the worle Wonders to here, Wondres to hure, Ac on a May morwenynge And sawe meny cellis On Malverne hilles And selcouthe thynges. Me bifel a ferly, Ac on a May morwenyng Of fairye me thoghte. On Malverne hulles I was wery for-wandred, Me by-fel for to slepe, And wente me to reste For weyrynesse of wandryng, Under a broode bank And in a lande as ich lay By a bournes syde, Lenede ich and slepte, And as I lay and lenede, And merveylously me mette, And loked on the watres, As ich may yow telle. I slombred into a slepyng, Al the welthe of this worlde, It sweyed so murye. And the woo bothe, Thanne gan I meten Wynkyng as it were A merveillous swevene, Wyterly ich saw hyt, That I was in a wildernesse Of truyth and of tricherye, Wiste I nevere where; Of tresoun and of gyle, And as I biheld in to the eest Al ich saw slepyng, An heigh to the sonne, As ich shal yow telle. I seigh a tour on a toft, etc. Esteward ich behulde After the sonne, And sawe a tour as ich trowede, etc. Besides such variations as appear in the foregoing specimen, there are in the second text many considerable additions, omissions, and transpositions. It would not be easy to account for the existence of two texts differing so much; but it is my impression that the first was the one published by the author, and that the variations were made by some other person, who was perhaps induced by his own political sentiments to modify passages, and was gradually led on to publish a revision of the whole. It is certain that in some parts of Text II. the strong sentiments or expressions of the first text are softened down. We may give as an example of this, the statement of the popular opinion of the origin and purpose of kingly government:-- TEXT I. TEXT II. Thanne kam ther a kyng, Thanne cam ther a kyng, Knyghthod hym ladde, Knyghtod hym ladde, Might of the communes The meche myghte of the men Made hym to regne. Made hym to regne. And thanne cam kynde wit, And thanne cam a kynde witte, And clerkes he made, And clerkus he made, For to counseillen the kyng, And concience and kynde wit, And the commune save. And knyghthod to-gederes, The kyng and knyghthod, Caste that the comune And clergie bothe, Sholde hure comunes fynde. Casten that the commune Kynde wit and the comune Sholde hem self fynde. Contrevede alle craftes, The commune contreved And for most profitable to the puple, Of kynde wit craftes, A plouh thei gonne make, And for profit of al the peple Wit leil labour to lyve, Plowmen ordeyned, Wyl lyve and londe lasteth. To tilie and to travaille, As trewe lif asketh. The kyng and the commune, And kynde wit the thridde, Shopen lawe and leauté, Ech man to knowe his owene. Nobody, I think, can deny that in this instance the doctrine is stated far more distinctly and far more boldly in the first text than in the second. In general the first text is the best, whether we look at the mode in which the sentiments are stated, or at the poetry and language. As far as I have been able to examine the remaining manuscripts of Piers Ploughman, at London and in the Universities, I think that nearly two-thirds of those which remain are of the _fourteenth_ century; and the greater number, particularly of those written in the fourteenth century, present what I have distinguished as the first text, that given in the present volumes. I am by no means inclined to coincide in the reasons which led Dr. Whitaker to prefer the second text; if I were disposed to admit, as barely possible (the supposition is quite a gratuitous one), "that the first edition of this work appeared when its author was a young man, and that he lived and continued in the habit of transcribing to extreme old age" (Pref.), I cannot agree with an editor in adopting a copy which he believes to be "a faithful representation of the work as it came first from the author," and which not only abounds in words and idioms which he afterwards altered, but which contains also "many original passages which the greater maturity of the author's judgment induced him to expunge." I know only of two manuscripts of the Creed of Piers Ploughman, one in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 18, B. XVII.), the other in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, both on paper, and written long after the date of the printed editions, from which they appear to have been copied. The first printed edition of the Vision was that of Robert Crowley, in 1550; and it was so favourably received, that there is reason for believing that no less than three editions (or rather three impressions[20]) were sold in the course of the year. It is clear that Crowley had obtained an excellent manuscript; the printer has changed the orthography at will, and has evidently altered a word at times, but on the whole this printed text differs very little from the one we now publish. Three years after the appearance of the Vision, another printer, Reynold Wolfe, published the first edition of the Creed, in the same form as Crowley's edition of the Vision.[21] After the stormy reign of Mary was past, in the beginning of that of Elizabeth, the call for a new edition, and perhaps the destruction of many copies of the old one, led the well-known printer Owen Rogers to reprint the Vision and the Creed together.[22] The impression was probably large, for it is still by no means a rare book. It was evidently much read during the reign of Elizabeth, and is not unfrequently alluded to by the writers of that age. No other edition of this popular poem appeared, until it was published by Dr. Whitaker, in 1813,[23] from a manuscript then in the possession of Mr. Heber,[24] which contained the second text, written in a rather broad provincial dialect. This edition was printed in black-letter, in a very large and expensive form. In 1814, a reprint of the old edition of the Creed was published in the same form, as a companion to the Vision. It is not generally known that Dr. Whitaker projected an edition of the same text and paraphrase which are given in his 4to edition, in 8vo, with Roman type instead of black-letter. After a few sheets had been composed, the design was abandoned, as it is said, in favour of the larger form. A copy of the proof sheets, formerly belonging to Mr. Haslewood, is now in the possession of Sir Frederick Madden. I am told that a rival edition was also begun, but not persevered in. An attempt at a modernization, or rather a translation, of Piers Ploughman, was made in the earlier years of the present century, but only a few specimens appear to have been executed. The following lines, which possess some merit (though not very literal or correct), are the modern version the author proposed to give of ll. 2847-2870 of the poem. They were communicated to me by Sir Henry Ellis. "Next AVARICE came: but how he look'd, to say, Words do I want that rightly shall portray: Like leathern purse his shrivell'd cheeks did shew, Thick lipp'd, with two blear eyes and beetle brow: In a torn threadbare tabard was he clad, Which twelve whole winters now in wear he had; French scarlet 'twas, its colour well it kept, So smooth that louse upon its surface crept." It will be necessary, in conclusion, to say a few words on the edition now offered to the public. Without taking into consideration the inaccuracies and imperfections of Whitaker's edition, its inconvenient size and high price made it altogether inaccessible to the general reader; and there appeared to be a wish for one in a more convenient and less expensive form. At the same time it was desired that a good text of a work so important for the history of our language and literature should be selected. Dr. Whitaker was not well qualified for this undertaking; he also laboured under many disadvantages; he had access to only three manuscripts, and those not very good ones; and he has not chosen the best text even of those. Unless he had some reason to believe that the book was originally written in a particular dialect, he ought to have given a preference to that among the oldest manuscripts which presents the purest language; but we cannot allow that manuscript to be chosen on a ground so capricious as "that the orthography and dialect in which it is written approach very near to that semi-Saxon jargon in the midst of which the editor was brought up, and which he continues to hear daily spoken on the confines of Lancashire, and the West Riding of the county of York." (Pref.) This could not have been the language employed by a monk of Malvern. The present editor has endeavoured, in the leisure moments which he has been able to snatch from other employments, to supply the deficiency as well, and in as unassuming manner, as he could. He has chosen for his text a manuscript belonging to the valuable library of Trinity College, Cambridge (where its shelf-mark is B. 15, 17), because it appears to him to be the best and oldest manuscript now in existence. It is a fine folio manuscript, on vellum, written in a large hand, undoubtedly contemporary with the author of the poem, and in remarkably pure English, with ornamented initial letters. His object has been to give the poem as popular a form as is consistent with philological correctness. He has added a few notes which occurred to him in the course of editing the text, and which he hopes may render the meaning and allusions sometimes clearer to the general reader, for whom more especially they are intended. They might have been enlarged and rendered more complete, if he had been master of sufficient leisure to enable him to undertake extensive researches. But there are allusions, as well as words, in both poems to which it would be difficult at present to give any certain explanation. It has been thought advisable to give in the notes the important variations of the second text, from Dr. Whitaker's edition; and a few readings are added from a second manuscript in Trinity College Library (R. 3, 14). The editor has hoped to add to the utility of the book by a copious glossary. He has been unwillingly obliged to leave a few words without explanation; all our early alliterative poetry abounds in difficult words. In this point he has to acknowledge the kind assistance of Sir Frederick Madden, whom no person equals in profound knowledge of English glossography, and than whom no one is more generous to advise and assist those who are in need of his aid. To Sir Henry Ellis, who kindly lent him his own manuscript notes on Piers Ploughman, the editor also owes his grateful acknowledgments; and he regrets that at the time he received them the notes were already so far printed as to hinder him from making as much use of them as he could have wished. _London, June 1, 1842._ * * * * * THE VISION OF PIERS PLOUGHMAN * * * * * {1} THE VISION OF PIERS PLOUGHMAN. In a somer seson, 1 Whan softe was the sonne, I shoop me into shroudes As I a sheep weere, In habite as an heremite Unholy of werkes, Wente wide in this world Wondres to here; Ac on a May morwenynge On Malverne hilles 10 Me bifel a ferly, Of fairye me thoghte. I was wery for-wandred, And wente me to reste Under a brood bank By a bournes syde; And as I lay and lenede, And loked on the watres, I slombred into a slepyng, It sweyed so murye. 20 {2} Thanne gan I meten A merveillous swevene, That I was in a wildernesse, Wiste I nevere where, And as I biheeld into the eest An heigh to the sonne, I seigh a tour on a toft Trieliche y-maked, A deep dale bynethe, A dongeon therinne, 30 With depe diches and derke And dredfulle of sighte. A fair feeld ful of folk Fond I ther bitwene, Of alle manere of men, The meene and the riche, Werchynge and wandrynge, As the world asketh. Some putten hem to the plough, Pleiden ful selde, 40 In settynge and sowynge Swonken ful harde, And wonnen that wastours With glotonye destruyeth. And somme putten hem to pride, Apparailed hem therafter, In contenaunce of clothynge Comen degised. In preires and penaunces Putten hem manye, 50 Al for the love of oure Lord Lyveden ful streyte, In hope to have after Hevene riche blisse; {3} As ancres and heremites That holden hem in hire selles, And coveiten noght in contree To carien aboute, For no likerous liflode Hire likame to plese. 60 And somme chosen chaffare; Thei cheveden the bettre, As it semeth to our sight That swiche men thryveth. And somme murthes to make, As mynstralles konne, And geten gold with hire glee, Giltles, I leeve. Ac japeres and jangeleres, Judas children, 70 Feynen hem fantasies, And fooles hem maketh, And han hire wit at wille To werken, if thei wolde. That Poul precheth of hem I wol nat preve it here; But _Qui loquitur turpiloquium_ Is Luciferes hyne. Bidderes and beggeres Faste aboute yede, 80 With hire belies and hire bagges Of breed ful y-crammed; Faiteden for hire foode, Foughten at the ale. In glotonye, God woot, Go thei to bedde, And risen with ribaudie, Tho Roberdes knaves; {4} Sleep and sory sleuthe Seweth hem evere. 90 Pilgrymes and palmeres Plighten hem togidere, For to seken seint Jame, And seintes at Rome. They wenten forth in hire wey, With many wise tales, And hadden leve to lyen Al hire lif after. I seigh somme that seiden Thei hadde y-sought seintes; 100 To ech a tale that thei tolde Hire tonge was tempred to lye, Moore than to seye sooth, It semed bi hire speche. Heremytes on an heep With hoked staves Wenten to Walsyngham, And hire wenches after, Grete lobies and longe That lothe were to swynke; 110 Clothed hem in copes, To ben knowen from othere; And shopen hem heremytes, Hire ese to have. I fond there freres, Alle the foure ordres, Prechynge the peple For profit of hemselve; Glosed the gospel, As hem good liked; 120 For coveitise of copes, Construwed it as thei wolde. {5} Many of thise maistre freres Now clothen hem at likyng, For hire moneie and hire marchaundize Marchen togideres. For sith charité hath ben chapman, And chief to shryve lordes, Manye ferlies han fallen In a fewe yeres; 130 But holy chirche and hii Holde bettre togidres, The mooste meschief on molde Is mountynge wel faste. Ther preched a pardoner, As he a preest were; Broughte forth a bulle With many bisshopes seles, And seide that hymself myghte Assoillen hem alle, 140 Of falshede, of fastynge, Of avowes y-broken. Lewed men leved it wel, And liked hise wordes; Comen up knelynge To kissen hise bulles. He bouched hem with his brevet, And blered hire eighen, And raughte with his rageman Rynges and broches. 150 Thus thei gyven hire gold Glotons to kepe, And leveth in swiche losels As leccherie haunten. Were the bisshope y-blessed, And worth bothe hise eris, {6} His seel sholde noght be sent To deceyve the peple. Ac it is noght by the bisshope That the boy precheth; 160 For the parisshe preest and the pardoner Parten the silver, That the poraille of the parisshe Sholde have, if thei ne were. Parsons and parisshe preestes Pleyned hem to the bisshope, That hire parisshes weren povere Sith the pestilence tyme, To have a licence and leve At London to dwelle, 170 And syngen ther for symonie; For silver is swete. Bisshopes and bachelers, Bothe maistres and doctours, That han cure under Crist, And crownynge in tokene And signe that thei sholden Shryven hire parisshens, Prechen and praye for hem, And the povere fede, 180 Liggen at Londone In Lenten and ellis. Somme serven the kyng, And his silver tellen In cheker and in chauncelrie, Chalangen hise dettes Of wardes and of wardemotes, Weyves and streyves. And somme serven as servauntz Lordes and ladies, 190 {7} And in stede of stywardes Sitten and demen; Hire messe and hire matyns And many of hire houres Arn doon un-devoutliche; Drede is at the laste, Lest Crist in consistorie A-corse ful manye. I perceyved of the power That Peter hadde to kepe, 200 To bynden and unbynden, As the book telleth; How he it lefte with love, As oure Lord highte, Amonges foure vertues, The beste of alle vertues, That cardinals ben called, And closynge yates. There is Crist in his kingdom To close and to shette, 210 And to opene it to hem, And hevene blisse shewe. Ac of the cardinals at court That kaughte of that name, And power presumed in hem A pope to make, To han that power that Peter hadde, Impugnen I nelle; For in love and in lettrure The election bilongeth, 220 For-thi I kan and kan naught Of court speke moore. Thanne kam ther a kyng, Knyghthod hym ladde, {8} Might of the communes Made hym to regne. And thanne cam kynde wit, And clerkes he made, For to counseillen the kyng, And the commune save. 230 The kyng and knyghthod, And clergie bothe, Casten that the commune Sholde hemself fynde. The commune contreved Of kynde wit craftes, And for profit of al the peple Plowmen ordeyned, To tilie and to travaille, As trewe lif asketh. 240 The kyng and the commune, And kynde wit the thridde, Shopen lawe and leauté, Ech man to knowe his owene. Thanne loked up a lunatik, A leene thyng with-alle, And, knelynge to the kyng, Clergially he seide: "Crist kepe thee, sire kyng! And thi kyng-ryche, 250 And lene thee lede thi lond, So leauté thee lovye, And for thi rightful rulyng Be rewarded in hevene." And sithen in the eyr an heigh An aungel of hevene Lowed to speke in Latyn, For lewed men ne koude {9} Jangle ne jugge, That justifie hem sholde, 260 But suffren and serven; For-thi seide the aungel: _Sum rex, sum princeps, Neutrum fortasse deinceps; O qui jura regis Christi specialia regis, Hoc quod agas melius, Justus es, esto pius. Nudum jus a te Vestiri vult pietate; 270 Qualia vis metere, Talia grana sere. Si jus nudatur, Nudo de jure metatur; Si seritur pietas, De pietate metas._ Thanne greved hym a goliardeis, A gloton of wordes, And to the aungel an heigh Answerde after: 280 _Dum rex a regere Dicatur nomen habere; Nomen habet sine re, Nisi studet jura tenere._ Thanne gan al the commune Crye in vers of Latyn, To the kynges counseil; Construe who so wolde: _Præcepta regis Sunt nobis vincula legis._ 290 With that ran ther a route Of ratons at ones, {10} And smale mees myd hem Mo than a thousand, And comen to a counseil For the commune profit; For a cat of a contree Cam whan hym liked, And overleep hem lightliche, And laughte hem at his wille, 300 And pleide with hem perillousli, And possed aboute. "For doute of diverse dredes, We dar noght wel loke; And if we grucche of his gamen, He wol greven us alle, Cracchen us or clawen us, And in hise clouches holde, That us lotheth the lif Er he late us passe. 310 Mighte we with any wit His wille withstonde, We mighte be lordes o-lofte, And lyven at oure ese." A raton of renoun, Moost renable of tonge, Seide for a sovereyn Help to hymselve: "I have y-seyen segges," quod he "In the cité of Londone, 320 Beren beighes ful brighte Abouten hire nekkes, And somme colers of crafty werk; Uncoupled thei wenten Bothe in wareyne and in waast Where hemself liked. {11} And outher while thei arn ellis-where, As I here telle; Were ther a belle on hire beighe, By Jhesu, as me thynketh, 330 Men myghte witen wher thei wente, And awey renne!" "And right so," quod that raton, "Reson me sheweth, To bugge a belle of bras, Or of bright silver, And knytten it on a coler For oure commune profit, Wher he ryt or rest, Or renneth to pleye; 340 And if hym list for to laike, Thanne loke we mowen, And peeren in his presence The while him pleye liketh: And, if hym wratheth, be war, And his way shonye." Al this route of ratons To this reson thei assented. Ac tho the belle was y-brought, And on the beighe hanged, 350 Ther ne was raton in al the route, For al the reaume of Fraunce, That dorste have bounden the belle About the cattes nekke, Ne hangen it aboute the cattes hals, Al Engelond to wynne. Alle helden hem un-hardy, And hir counseil feble; And leten hire labour lost And al hire longe studie. 360 {12} A mous that muche good Kouthe, as me thoughte, Strook forth sternely, And stood bifore hem alle, And to the route of ratons Reherced thise wordes: "Though we killen the cat, Yet sholde ther come another To cacchen us and al oure kynde, Though we cropen under benches. 370 For-thi I counseille al the commune To late the cat worthe; And be we nevere bolde The belle hym to shewe; For I herde my sire seyn, Is seven yeer y-passed, Ther the cat is a kitone The court is ful elenge; That witnesseth holy writ, Who so wole it rede: 380 _Væ terræ ubi puer rex est! etc._ For may no renk ther reste have For ratons by nyghte; The while he caccheth conynges, He coveiteth noght youre caroyne, But fedeth hym al with venyson: Defame we hym nevere. For better is a litel los Than a long sorwe, The maze among us alle, 390 Theigh we mysse a sherewe; For many mennes malt We mees wolde destruye, And also ye route of ratons {13} Rende mennes clothes, Nere the cat of that court That can yow over-lepe; For hadde ye rattes youre wille, Ye kouthe noght rule yow selve." "I seye for me," quod the mous, 400 "I se so muchel after, Shal nevere the cat ne the kiton By my counseil be greved, Thorugh carpynge of this coler That costed me nevere And though it hadde costned me catel, Bi-knowen it I nolde, But suffren, as hymself wolde, To doon as hym liketh, Coupled and uncoupled 410 To cacche what thei mowe. For-thi ech a wis wight I warne, Wite wel his owene." What this metels by-meneth, Ye men that ben murye Devyne ye, for I ne dar, By deere God in hevene. Yet hoved ther an hundred In howves of selk, Sergeantz it bi-semed 420 That serveden at the barre, Pleteden for penyes And poundes the lawe; And noght for love of our Lord Unclose hire lippes ones. Thow myghtest bettre meete myst On Malverne hilles, Than gete a mom of hire mouth, {14} Til moneie be shewed. Barons and burgeises, 430 And bonde-men als, I seigh in this assemblee, As ye shul here after: Baksteres and brewesteres, And bochiers manye; Wollen webbesters, And weveres of lynnen, Taillours and tynkers, And tollers in markettes, Masons and mynours, 440 And many othere craftes. Of alle kynne lybbynge laborers Lopen forth somme, As dikeres and delveres, That doon hire dedes ille, And dryveth forth the longe day With _Dieu save dame Emme_. Cokes and hire knaves Cryden, "Hote pies, hote! Goode gees and grys! 450 Gowe, dyne, gowe!" Taverners until hem Trewely tolden the same, Whit wyn of Oseye, And reed wyn of Gascoigne, Of the Ryn and of the Rochel, The roost to defie. [Al this I saugh slepynge, And seve sithes more.] 459 * * * * * {15} _Passus Primus de Visione._ What this mountaigne by-meneth 460 And the merke dale, And the feld ful of folk, I shal yow faire shewe. A lovely lady of leere, In lynnen y-clothed, Cam doun from a castel And called me faire, And seide, "Sone, slepestow? Sestow this peple, How bisie thei ben 470 Alle aboute the maze? The mooste partie of this peple That passeth on this erthe, Have thei worship in this world, Thei wilne no bettre; Of oother hevene than here Holde thei no tale." I was a-fered of hire face, Theigh she fair weere, And seide, "Mercy, madame, 480 What is this to meene?" "The tour on the toft," quod she, "Truthe is therinne; {16} And wolde that ye wroughte, As his word techeth! For he is fader of feith, And formed yow alle Bothe with fel and with face, And yaf yow fyve wittes, For to worshipe hym therwith, 490 While that ye ben here. And therfore he highte the erthe To helpe yow echone, Of wollene, of lynnen, Of liflode at nede, In mesurable manere To make yow at ese; And comaunded of his curteisie In commune three thynges, Are none nedfulle but tho, 500 And nempne hem I thynke, And rekene hem by reson; Reherce thow hem after. "That oon vesture, From cold thee to save; And mete at meel For mysese of thiselve; And drynke whan thow driest; Ac do noght out of reson, That thow worthe the wers 510 Whan thow werche sholdest. "For Lot in hise lif-dayes, For likynge of drynke, Dide by hise doughtres That the devel liked, Delited hym in drynke As the devel wolde, {17} And leccherie hym laughte, And lay by hem bothe, And al he witte it the wyn 520 That wikked dede. _Inebriamus eum vino, dormiamusque cum eo, ut servare possimus de patre nostro semen._ Thorugh wyn and thorugh wommen Ther was Loth acombred, And there gat in glotonie Gerles that were cherles. "For-thi dred delitable drynke, And thow shalt do the bettre. 530 Mesure is medicine, Though thow muchel yerne. It is nought al good to the goost That the gut asketh, Ne liflode to thi likame; For a liere hym techeth, That is the wrecched world Wolde thee bitraye. For the fend and thi flesshe Folwen togidere. 540 This and that seeth thi soule, And seith it in thin herte; And for thow sholdest ben y-war, I wisse thee the beste." "Madame, mercy!" quod I, "Me liketh wel youre wordes; Ac the moneie of this molde That men so faste holdeth, Tel me to whom, madame, That tresour appendeth." 550 "Go to the gospel," quod she, {18} "That God seide hymselven; Tho the poeple hym apposede With a peny in the temple, Wheither thei sholde therwith Worshipe the kyng Cesar. "And God asked of hym, Of whom spak the lettre, And the ymage was lik That therinne stondeth. 560 "'Cesares,' thei seiden, 'We seen it wel echone.' "'_Reddite Cæsari_,' quod God, 'That _Cæsari_ bifalleth, _Et quæ sunt Dei Deo_,' Or ellis ye don ille; For rightfully reson Sholde rule yow alle, And kynde wit be wardeyn Youre welthe to kepe, 570 And tutour of youre tresor, And take it yow at nede, For housbondrie and hii Holden togidres." Thanne I frayned hire faire, For hym that me made, "That dongeon in the dale, That dredful is of sighte, What may it be to meene, Madame, I yow biseche?" 580 "That is the castel of Care; Who so comth therinne May banne that he born was, To bodi or to soule. Therinne wonyeth a wight {19} That Wrong is y-hote, Fader of falshede, And founded it hymselve. Adam and Eve He egged to ille; 590 Counseilled Kaym To killen his brother; Judas he japed With Jewen silver, And sithen on an eller Hanged hymselve. He is lettere of love, And lieth hem alle That trusten on his tresour; Bitrayeth he hem sonnest." 600 Thanne hadde I wonder in my wit What womman it weere, That swiche wise wordes Of holy writ shewed; And asked hire on the heighe name, Er she thennes yede, What she were witterly That wissed me so faire. "Holi chirche I am," quod she, "Thow oughtest me to knowe; 610 I underfeng thee first, And the feith taughte; And broughtest me borwes My biddyng to fulfille, And to loven me leelly The while thi lif dureth." Thanne I courbed on my knees, And cried hire of grace; And preide hire pitously {20} Preye for my sinnes, 620 And also kenne me kyndely On Crist to bi-leve, That I myghte werchen his wille That wroghte me to man. "Teche me to no tresor, But tel me this ilke, How I may save my soule, That seint art y-holden." "Whan alle tresors arn tried," quod she, "Treuthe is the beste; 630 I do it on _Deus caritas_, To deme the sothe, It is as dereworthe a drury As deere God hymselven. "Who is trewe of his tonge, And telleth noon oother, And dooth the werkes therwith, And wilneth no man ille, He is a God by the gospel A-grounde and o-lofte, 640 And y-lik to oure Lord, By seint Lukes wordes. The clerkes that knowen this, Sholde kennen it aboute, For cristen and un-cristen Cleymeth it echone. "Kynges and knyghtes Sholde kepen it by reson, Riden and rappen doun In reaumes aboute, 650 And taken _transgressores_, And tyen hem faste, Til treuthe hadde y-termyned {21} Hire trespas to the ende. And that is profession apertli That apendeth to knyghtes; And naught to fasten o friday In fyve score wynter, But holden with hym and with here That wolden alle truthe, 660 And nevere leve hem for love Ne for lacchynge of silver. For David in hise dayes Dubbed knyghtes, And dide hem sweren on hir swerdes To serven truthe evere; And who so passed that point Was apostata in the ordre. "But Crist kyngene kyng Knyghted ten, 670 Cherubyn and seraphyn, Swiche sevene and othere And yaf hem myght in his majestee, The murier hem thoughte, And over his meene meynee Made hem archangeles; Taughte hem by the Trinitee Treuthe to knowe; To be buxom at his biddyng, He bad hem nought ellis. 680 "Lucifer with legions Lerned it in hevene; But for he brak buxomnesse His blisse gan he tyne, And fel fro that felawshipe In a fendes liknesse, Into a deep derk helle, {22} To dwelle there for evere; And mo thousandes myd hym Than man kouthe nombre 690 Lopen out with Lucifer In lothliche forme, For thei leveden upon hym That lyed in this manere: _Ponam pedem in aquilone, et similis ero altissimo._ = "And alle that hoped it myghte be so, Noon hevene myghte hem holde, But fellen out in fendes liknesse Nyne dayes togideres, 700 Til God of his goodnesse Gan stablisse and stynte, And garte the hevene to stekie And stonden in quiete. "Whan thise wikkede wenten out, In wonder wise thei fellen; Somme in the eyr, somme in erthe, And somme in helle depe; Ac Lucifer lowest lith Yet of hem alle, 710 For pride that he putte out, His peyne hath noon ende. And alle that werchen with wrong, Wende thei shulle, After hir deth day And dwelle with that sherewe. "And tho that werche wel, As holy writ telleth, And enden as I er seide In truthe, that is the beste, 720 Mowe be siker that hire soules {23} Shul wende to hevene, Ther treuthe is in trinitee, And troneth hem alle. For-thi I seye, as I seyde er, By sighte of thise textes, Whan alle tresors arn tried, Truthe is the beste; Lereth it thise lewed men, For lettred men it knoweth, 730 That treuthe is tresor The trieste on erthe." "Yet have I no kynde knowyng." quod I, "Ye mote kenne me bettre, By what craft in my cors It comseth, and where." "Thow doted daffe," quod she, "Dulle are thi wittes; To litel Latyn thow lernedest, Leode, in thi youthe." 740 _Heu michi! quia sterilem duxi vitam juvenilem._ = "It is a kynde knowyng," quod she, "That kenneth in thyn herte, For to loven thi Lord Levere than thiselve, No dedly synne to do, Deye theigh thow sholdest; This I trowe be truthe. Who kan teche thee bettre, 750 Loke thow suffre hym to seye, And sithen lere it after; For truthe telleth that love Is triacle of hevene. May no synne be on hym seene, {24} That useth that spice, And alle hise werkes be wroughte With love as hym liste; And lered it Moyses for the leveste thyng, And moost lik to hevene, 760 And al so the plentee of pees Moost precious of vertues; For hevene myghte nat holden it, It was so hevy of hymself, Til it hadde of the erthe Eten his fille. "And whan it hadde of this fold Flesshe and blood taken, Was nevere leef upon lynde Lighter therafter, 770 And portatif and persaunt As the point of a nedle, That myghte noon armure it lette, Ne none heighe walles. "For-thi is love ledere Of the Lordes folk of hevene, And a meene, as the mair is Bitwene the kyng and the commune; Right so is love a ledere, And the law shapeth, 780 Upon man for hise mysdedes The mercyment he taxeth. And for to knowen it kyndely It comseth by myght, And in the herte there is the heed And the heighe welle; For in kynde knowynge in herte, Ther a myght bigynneth; And that falleth to the fader {25} That formed us alle, 790 Loked on us with love, And leet his sone dye Mekely for oure mysdedes, To amenden us alle. And yet wolde he hem no wo That wroughte hym that peyne, But mekely with mouthe Mercy bisoughte, To have pité of that peple That peyned hym to dethe. 800 "There myghtow sen ensample In hymself oone, That he was myghtful and meke, And mercy gan graunte To hem that hengen hym on heigh And his herte thirled. "For-thi I rede yow, riche, Haveth ruthe of the povere; Though ye be myghtful to mote, Beeth meke in youre werkes, 810 For the same mesures that ye mete, Amys outher ellis, Ye shulle ben weyen therwith Whan ye wenden hennes. _Eadem mensura qua mensi fueritis, remetietur vobis._ = "For though ye be trewe of youre tonge And treweliche wynne, And as chaste as a child That in chirche wepeth, 820 But if ye loven leelly And lene the povere, Swich good as God yow sent {26} Goodliche parteth, Ye ne have namoore merite In masse nor in houres, Than Malkyn of hire maydenhede That no man desireth. "For James the gentile Jugged in hise bokes, 830 That feith withouten the feet Is right no thyng worthi, And as deed as a dore-tree, But if the dedes folwe. _Fides sine operibus mortua est, etc._ "For-thi chastité withouten charité Worth cheyned in helle; It is as lewed as a lampe That no light is inne. Manye chapeleyns arn chaste, 840 Ac charité is aweye; Are no men avarouser than hii Whan thei ben avaunced, Unkynde to hire kyn, And to alle cristene Chewen hire charité, And chiden after moore; Swiche chastité withouten charité Worth cheyned in helle. "Manye curatours kepen hem 850 Clene of hire bodies; Thei ben acombred with coveitise, Thei konne noght doon it from hem, So harde hath avarice Y-hasped hem togideres; And that is no truthe of the Trinité, But tricherie of helle, {27} And lernynge to lewed men The latter for to deele. For-thi thise wordes 860 Ben writen in the gospel, _Date, et dabitur vobis_, For I deele yow alle, And that is the lok of love, And leteth out my grace, To conforten the carefulle A-combred with synne. "Love is leche of lif, And next oure Lord selve, And also the graithe gate 870 That goth into hevene; For-thi I seye, as I seide Er by the textes, Whan alle tresors ben tried, Treuthe is the beste. "Now have I told thee what truthe is, That no tresor is bettre; I may no lenger lenge thee with, Now loke thee oure Lorde." 879 * * * * * {28} _Passus Secundus de Visione, ut supra._ Yet I courbed on my knees, 880 And cried hire of grace, And seide, "Mercy, madame, For Marie love of hevene, That bar that blisful barn That boughte us on the rode, Kenne me by som craft To knowe the false." "Loke up on thi left half, And lo where he stondeth! Bothe Fals and Favel, 890 And hire feeres manye." I loked on my left half, As the lady me taughte, And was war of a womman Worthiliche y-clothed, Purfiled with pelure The fyneste upon erthe, Y-corouned with a coroune, The kyng hath noon bettre; Fetisliche hire fyngres 900 Were fretted with gold wyr, And theron rede rubies As rede as any gleede, {29} And diamaundes of derrest pris, And double manere saphires, Orientals and ewages, Envenymes to destroye. Hire robe was ful riche, Of reed scarlet engreyned, With ribanes of reed gold 910 And of riche stones. Hire array me ravysshed, Swich richesse saugh I nevere; I hadde wonder what she was, And whos wif she were. "What is this womman," quod I, "So worthili atired?" "That is Mede the mayde," quod she, "Hath noyed me ful ofte, And y-lakked my lemman 920 That Leautee is hoten, And bi-lowen hire to lordes That lawes han to kepe. "In the popes paleis She is pryvee as myselve; But soothnesse wolde noght so, For she is a bastarde; For fals was hire fader That hath a fikel tonge, And nevere sooth seide 930 Sithen he com to erthe; And Mede is manered after hym, Right as kynde asketh _Qualis pater talis filius. Bonus arbor bonum fructum facit._ "I oughte ben hyere than she, I kam of a bettre; {30} My fader the grete God is And ground of alle graces, So God withouten gynnyng, 940 And I his goode doughter, And hath yeven me mercy To marie with myselve, And what man be merciful And leelly me love, Shal be my lord and I his leef In the heighe hevene. "And what man taketh Mede, Myn heed dar I legge, That he shal lese for hire love 950 A lappe of _caritatis_. "How construeth David the king Of men that taketh Mede, And men of this moolde That maynteneth truthe, And how ye shul save yourself, The sauter bereth witnesse: _Domine, quis habitabit in tabernaculo tuo, etc._ = "And now worth this Mede y-maried 960 Unto a mansed sherewe, To oon fals fikel tonge, A fendes biyete; Favel thorugh his faire speche Hath this folk enchaunted, And al is Lieres ledynge, That she is thus y-wedded. "To-morwe worth y-maked The maydenes bridale, And there myghtow witen, if thow wilt, 970 Whiche thei ben alle {31} That longen to that lordshipe, The lasse and the moore. Knowe hem there, if thow kanst, And kepe thow thi tonge, And lakke hem noght, but lat hem worthe Till leauté be justice, And have power to punysshe hem, Thanne put forth thi reson. Now I bikenne thee Crist," quod she, 980 "And his clene moder, And lat no conscience acombre thee For coveitise of Mede." Thus lefte me that lady Liggynge a-slepe; And how Mede was y-maried In metels me thoughte, That al the riche retenaunce That regneth with the false, Were boden to the bridale 990 On bothe two sides, Of alle manere of men The meene and the riche; To marien this mayde Were many men assembled, As of knyghtes and of clerkes, And oother commune peple, As sisours and somonours, Sherreves and hire clerkes, Bedelles and baillifs, 1000 And brocours of chaffare, Forgoers and vitaillers, And advokettes of the arches; I kan noght rekene the route That ran aboute Mede. {32} Ac Symonie and Cyvylle, And sisours of courtes, Were moost pryvee with Mede Of any men, me thoughte. Ac Favel was the firste 1010 That fette hire out of boure, And as a brocour broughte hire To be with Fals enjoyned. Whan Symonye and Cyvylle Seighe hir bothe wille, Thei assented, for silver, To seye as bothe wolde. Thanne leep Liere forth, and seide, "Lo here a chartre!" That Gile with hise grete othes 1020 Gaf hem togidere, And preide Cyvylle to see, And Symonye to rede it. Thanne Symonye and Cyvylle Stonden forth bothe, And unfoldeth the feffement That Fals hath y-maked, And thus bigynnen thise gomes To greden ful heighe: _Sciant præsentes et futuri, etc._ 1030 Witeth and witnesseth, That wonieth upon this erthe, That Mede is y-maried Moore for hire goodes Than for any vertue or fairnesse, Or any free kynde. Falsnesse is fayn of hire, For he woot hire riche; And Favel with his fikel speche {33} Feffeth by this chartre, 1040 To be princes in pride And poverte to despise, To bakbite and to bosten, And bere fals witnesse, To scorne and to scolde, And sclaundre to make, Unbuxome and bolde To breke the ten hestes. And the erldom of Envye And Wrathe togideres, 1050 With the chastilet of Cheste, And Chaterynge out of reson. The countee of Coveitise, And alle the costes aboute, That is Usure and Avarice, Al I hem graunte, In bargaynes and in brocages, With al the burghe of Thefte, And al the lordshipe of Leccherie In lengthe and in brede, 1060 As in werkes and in wordes, And in waitynges with eighes, And in wedes and in wisshynges, And with ydel thoughtes, There as wil wolde And werkmanshipe fayleth. Glotonye he gaf hem ek, And grete othes togidere, And al day to drynken At diverse tavernes, 1070 And there to jangle and jape, And jugge hir even cristen; And in fastynge dayes to frete {34} Er ful tyme were, And thanne to sitten and soupen Til sleep hem assaille; And breden as burghe swyn, And bedden hem esily, Til sleuthe and sleep Sliken hise sydes, 1080 And thanne wanhope to awaken hem so With no wil to amende, For he leveth be lost, This is hir laste ende. And thei to have and to holde, And hire heires after, A dwellynge with the devel, And dampned be for evere, With alle the appurtinaunces of purgatorie = Into the pyne of helle. 1091 Yeldynge for this thyng, At one dayes tyme, Hire soules to Sathan, To suffre with hym peynes, And with hym to wonye with wo While God is in hevene. In witnesse of which thyng, Wrong was the firste, And Piers the pardoner 1100 Of Paulynes doctrine, Bette the bedel Of Bokyngham shire, Reynald the reve Of Rutland sokene, Maude the millere, And many mo othere. {35} In the date of the devel This dede I ensele, By sighte of Sire Symonie 1110 And Cyvyles leeve. Thanne tened hym Theologie, Whan he this tale herde; And seide unto Cyvyle, "Now sorwe mote thow have, Swiche weddynges to werche, To wrathe with truthe; And er this weddynge be wroght, Wo thee bitide! "For Mede is muliere 1120 Of Amendes engendred, And God graunteth to gyve Mede to Truthe; And thow hast gyven hire to a gilour; Now God gyve thee sorwe! Thi text telleth thee noght so, Truthe woot the sothe; For _Dignus est operarius_ His hire to have, And thow hast fest hire to Fals, 1130 Fy on thi lawe! For al bi lesynges thow lyvest And lecherouse werkes. Symonye and thiself Shenden holi chirche; The notaries and ye Noyen the peple; Ye shul a-biggen it bothe, By God that me made! "Wel ye witen, wernardes, 1140 But if youre wit faille, {36} That Fals is feithlees And fikel in hise werkes, And was a bastarde y-bore Of Belsabubbes kynne; And Mede is muliere, A maiden of goode, And myghte kisse the kyng For cosyn, and she wolde. "For-thi wercheth by wisdom, 1150 And by wit also; And ledeth hire to Londone, There it is y-shewed, If any lawe wol loke Thei ligge togideres; And though justices juggen hire To be joyned to Fals, Yet be war of weddynge; For witty is Truthe, And Conscience is of his counseil, 1160 And knoweth yow echone, And if he fynde yow in defaute And with the false holde, It shal bi-sitte youre soules Ful soure at the laste." Herto assenteth Cyvyle, Ac Symonye ne wolde, Til he hadde silver for his service, And also the notaries. Thanne fette Favel forth 1170 Floryns ynowe, And bad Gile to gyven Gold al aboute, And namely to the notaries That hem noon ne faille, {37} And feffe false witnesses With floryns ynowe, "For thei may Mede a-maistrye, And maken at my wille." Tho this gold was y-gyve, 1180 Gret was the thonkyng To Fals and to Favel For hire faire giftes, And comen to conforten From care the false, And seiden, "Certes, sire, Cessen shul we nevere, Til Mede be thi wedded wif Thorugh wittes of us alle; For we have Mede a-maistried 1190 With oure murie speche, That she graunteth to goon, With a good wille, To London, to loken If the lawe wolde Juggen yow joyntly In joie for evere." Thanne was Falsnesse fayn, And Favel as blithe, And leten somone alle segges 1200 In shires aboute, And bad hem alle be bown, Beggers and othere, To wenden with hem to Westmynstre To witnesse this dede. Ac thanne cared thei for caples To carien hem thider, And Favel fette forth thanne Foles ynowe, {38} And sette Mede upon a sherreve 1210 Shoed al newe. And Fals sat on a sisour, That softeli trotted; And Favel on a flaterere Fetisly atired. Tho hadde notaries none, Anoyed thei were, For Symonye and Cyvylle Sholde on hire feet gange. Ac thanne swoor Symonye, 1220 And Cyvylle bothe, That somonours sholde be sadeled And serven hem echone, And late apparaille thise provisours In palfreyes wise, Sire Symonye hymself Shal sitte upon hir bakkes. "Denes and southdenes, Drawe yow togideres, Erchdekenes and officials, 1230 And alle youre registrers, Lat sadle hem with silver Oure synne to suffre, As avoutrye and divorses, And derne usurie, To bere bisshopes aboute A-brood in visitynge. "Paulynes pryvees For pleintes in consistorie, Shul serven myself 1240 That Cyvyle is nempned. "And cart-sadle the commissarie, Oure cart shal he lede, {39} And fecchen us vitailles. At _Fornicatores_. And maketh of Lyere a lang cart To leden alle thise othere, As freres and faitours, That on hire feet rennen." And thus Fals and Favel 1250 Fareth forth togideres, And Mede in the middes, And alle thise men after. I have no tome to telle The tail that hire folwed; Ac Gyle was for-goer, And gyed hem alle. Sothnesse seigh hem wel, And seide but litel, And priked his palfrey, 1260 And passed hem alle, And com to the kynges court, And Conscience it tolde; And Conscience to the kyng Carped it after. "Now, by Crist," quod the kyng, "And I cacche myghte Fals or Favel, Or any of hise feeris, I wolde be wroken of tho wrecches 1270 That wercheth so ille, And doon hem hange by the hals, And alle that hem maynteneth; Shal nevere man of this molde Meynprise the leeste, But right as the lawe wol loke, Lat falle on hem alle." {40} And comaunded a constable That com at the firste, To attachen tho tyrauntz, 1280 "For any thyng I hote, And fettreth faste Falsnesse, For any kynnes giftes, And girdeth of Gyles heed, And lat hym go no ferther; And if ye lacche Lyere, Lat hym noght ascapen Er he be put on the pillory, For any preyere, I hote; And bryngeth Mede to me 1290 Maugree hem alle." Drede at the dore stood, And the doom herde, And how the kyng comaunded Constables and sergeauntz Falsnesse and his felawshipe To fettren and to bynden. Thanne Drede wente wyghtliche, And warned the False, And bad hym fle for fere, 1300 And hise felawes alle. Falsnesse for fere thanne Fleigh to the ffreres, And Gyle dooth hym to go, A-gast for to dye; Ac marchauntz metten with hym And made hym abide, And bi-shetten hym in hire shoppes To shewen hire ware, Apparailed hym as apprentice 1310 The peple to serve. {41} Lightliche Lyere Leep awey thanne, Lurkynge thorugh lanes, To-lugged of manye. He was nowher welcome, For his manye tales, Over al y-honted, And y-hote trusse, Til pardoners hadde pité, 1320 And pulled hym into house. They wesshen hym and wiped hym. And wounden hym in cloutes, And senten hym with seles On Sondayes to chirches, And yeven pardoun for pens Pounde-mele aboute. Thanne lourede leches, And lettres thei sente, That he sholde wonye with hem 1330 Watres to loke. Spycers speken with hym, To spien hire ware; For he kouthe of hir craft, And knewe manye gommes. And mynstrales and messagers Mette with hym ones, And helden hym an half-yeer And ellevene dayes. Freres with fair speche 1340 Fetten hym pennes, And for knowynge of comeres Coped hym as a frere; Ac he hath leve to lepen out, As ofte as hym liketh, {42} And is welcome whan he wile, And woneth with hem ofte. Alle fledden for fere, And flowen into hernes; Save Mede the mayde, 1350 Na-mo dorste abide. Ac trewely to telle, She trembled for drede, And ek wepte and wrong, Whan she was attached. 1355 * * * * * {43} _Passus Tertius de Visione, ut supra._ Now is Mede the mayde, 1356 And na-mo of hem alle, With bedeles and with baillies Brought bifore the kyng. The kyng called a clerk, 1360 Kan I noght his name, To take Mede the maide And maken hire at ese. "I shal assayen hire myself, And soothliche appose, What man of this moolde That hire were levest. And if she werche bi wit, And my wil folwe, I wol forgyven hire this gilt, 1370 So me God helpe!" Curteisly the clerk thanne, As the kyng highte, Took Mede bi the myddel And broghte hire into chambre; And ther was murthe and mynstralcie, Mede to plese. They that wonyeth in Westmynstre = Worshipeth hire alle, 1380 {44} Gentilliche with joye; The justices somme Busked hem to the bour Ther the burde dwellede, To conforten hire kyndely, By clergies leve; And seiden, "Mourne noght, Mede, Ne make thow no sorwe; For we wol wisse the kyng, And thi wey shape, 1390 To be wedded at thi wille, And wher thee leef liketh, For al Consciences cast Or craft, as I trowe." Mildely Mede thanne Merciede hem alle Of hire grete goodnesse, And gaf hem echone Coupes of clene gold, And coppes of silver, 1400 Rynges with rubies, And richesses manye; The leeste man of hire meynee A moton of golde. Than laughte thei leve Thise lordes at Mede. With that comen clerkes To conforten hire the same, And beden hire be blithe; "For we beth thyne owene, 1410 For to werche thi wille, The while thow myght laste." Hendiliche heo thanne Bi-highte hem the same, {45} To loven hem lelly, And lordes to make, And in the consistorie at the court Do callen hire names; "Shal no lewednesse lette The leode that I lovye, 1420 That he ne worth first avaunced; For I am bi-knowen, There konnynge clerkes Shul clokke bi-hynde." Thanne cam ther a confessour, Coped as a frere; To Mede the mayde He meved thise wordes, And seide ful softely, In shrift as it were, 1430 "Theigh lewed men and lered men Hadde leyen by thee bothe, And Falsnesse hadde y-folwed thee Alle thise fifty wynter, I shal assoille thee myself For a seem of whete, And also be thi bedeman, And bere wel thi message Amonges knyghtes and clerkes, Conscience to torne." 1440 Thanne Mede for hire mysdedes To that man kneled, And shrof hire of hire sherewednesse, Shamelees, I trowe; Tolde hym a tale, And took hym a noble, For to ben hire bedeman And hire brocour als. {46} Thanne he assoiled hire soone, And sithen he seide, 1450 "We have a wyndow in werchynge Wole sitten us ful hye, Woldestow glaze that gable And grave therinne thy name, Syker sholde thi soule be Hevene to have." "Wiste I that," quod that womman, "I wolde noght spare For to be youre frend, frere, And faile yow nevere, 1460 While ye love lordes That lecherie haunten, And lakketh noght ladies That loven wel the same. It is freletee of flesshe, Ye fynden it in bokes, And a cours of kynde Wherof we comen alle. Who may scape sclaundre, The scathe is soone amended; 1470 It is synne of the sevene Sonnest relessed. "Have mercy," quod Mede, "Of men that it haunteth, And I shal covere youre kirk, Youre cloistre do maken, Wowes do whiten, And wyndowes glazen, Do peynten and portraye, And paie for the makynge, 1480 That every segge shal seye I am suster of youre house." {47} Ac God to alle good folk Swich gravynge defendeth, To writen in wyndowes Of hir wel dedes, An aventure pride be peynted there, And pomp of the world; For Crist knoweth thi conscience, And thi kynde wille, 1490 And thi cost and thi coveitise, And who the catel oughte. For-thi I lere yow, lordes, Leveth swiche werkes; To writen in wyndowes Of youre wel dedes, Or to greden after Goddes men Whan ye dele doles, On aventure ye have youre hire here, And youre hevene als. 1500 _Nesciat sinistra quid faciat dextra._ Lat noght thi left half Late ne rathe Wite what thow werchest With thi right syde; For thus by the gospel Goode men doon hir almesse. Maires and maceres, That menes ben bitwene The kyng and the comune 1510 To kepe the lawes, To punysshe on pillories And pynynge-stooles, Brewesters and baksters, Bochiers and cokes, For thise are men on this molde {48} That moost harm wercheth To the povere peple That percel-mele buggen; For thei enpoisone the peple 1520 Pryveliche and ofte, Thei richen thorugh regratrie, And rentes hem biggen, With that the povere peple Sholde putte in hire wombe. For toke thei on trewely, Thei tymbred nought so heighe, Ne boughte none burgages, Be ye ful certeyne. Ac Mede the mayde 1530 The mair hath bi-sought Of alle swiche selleris Silver to take, Or presentz withouten pens, As pieces of silver, Rynges or oother richesse, The regratiers to mayntene; "For my love," quod that lady, "Love hem echone, And suffre hem to selle 1540 Som del ayeins reson." Salomon the sage A sermon he made, For to amenden maires And men that kepen lawes; And tolde hem this teme, That I telle thynke, _Ignis devorabit tabernacula eorum qui libenter accipiunt munera, etc._ 1550 {49} Among thise lettrede leodes This Latyn is to mene, That fir shal falle and brenne Al to bloo askes The houses and homes Of hem that desireth Yiftes or yeres-yeves By cause of hire offices. The kyng fro the conseil cam, And called after Mede, 1560 And of sente hire as swithe With sergeauntz manye, And broughte hire to boure With blisse and with joye. Curteisly the kyng thanne Comsed to telle, To Mede the mayde He meveth thise wordes, "Unwittily, womman, Wroght hastow ofte, 1570 Ac worse wroghtestow nevere Than tho thow Fals toke. But I forgyve thee that gilt, And graunte thee my grace; Hennes to thi deeth day Do so na-moore. "I have a knyght Conscience, Cam late fro biyonde; If he wilneth thee to wif, Wiltow hym have?" 1580 "Ye, lord," quod that lady, "Lord forbede it ellis! But I be holly at youre heste, Lat hange me soone." {50} And thanne was Conscience called To come and appere Bifore the kyng and his conseil, As clerkes and othere. Knelynge Conscience To the kyng louted, 1590 To wite what his wille were, And what he do wolde. "Woltow wedde this womman," quod the kyng, "If I wole assente? For she is fayn of thi felaweshipe, For to be thi make." Quod Conscience to the kyng, "Crist it me forbede! Er I wedde swich a wif, Wo me bitide! 1600 For she is frele of hire feith, Fikel of hire speche, And maketh men mysdo Many score tymes; Trust of hire tresor Bitrayeth ful manye. "Wyves and widewes Wantonnes she techeth, And lereth hem lecherie That loveth hire giftes. 1610 Youre fader she felled Thorugh false biheste, And hath enpoisoned popes, And peired holy chirche. Is noght a bettre baude, By hym that me made! Bitwene hevene and helle, In erthe though men soughte. {51} For she is tikel of hire tail, And tale-wis of hire tonge; 1620 As commune as a cartwey To ech a knave that walketh, To monkes, to mynstrales, To meseles in hegges. "Sisours and somonours, Swiche men hire preiseth; Sherreves of shires Were shent if she ne were; For she dooth men lese hire lond And hire lif bothe; 1630 She leteth passe prisoners, And paieth for hem ofte, And gyveth the gailers gold And grotes togidres, To unfettre the fals Fle where hym liketh; And taketh the trewe bi the top And tieth hem faste, And hangeth hem for hatrede That harm dide nevere. 1640 "To be corsed in consistorie She counteth noght a bene; For she copeth the commissarie, And coteth hise clerkes. She is assoiled as soone As hireself liketh; And may neigh as muche do In a monthe one, As youre secret seel In sixe score dayes. 1650 For she is pryvee with the pope, Provisours it knoweth; {52} For sire Symonie and hirselve Seleth hire bulles. "She blesseth thise bisshopes, Theigh thei be lewed; Provendreth persones, And preestes maynteneth, To have lemmans and lotebies Alle hire lif daies, 1660 And bryngeth forth barnes Ayein forbode lawes. Ther she is wel with the kyng, Wo is the reaume; For she is favourable to fals, And de-fouleth truthe ofte. "By Jhesus! with hire jeweles Youre justices she shendeth, And lith ayein the lawe, And letteth hym the gate, 1670 That feith may noght have his forth, Hire floryns go so thikke. She ledeth the lawe as hire list, And love-daies maketh, And doth men lese thorugh hire love, That lawe myghte wynne The maze for a mene man, Though he mote hire evere. Lawe is so lordlich And looth to maken ende, 1680 Withouten presentz or pens She pleseth wel fewe. "Barons and burgeises She bryngeth in sorwe, And al the comune in care That coveiten lyve in truthe; {53} For clergie and coveitise She coupleth togidres. This is the lif of that lady; Now Lord gyve hire sorwe! 1690 And alle that maynteneth hire men, Meschaunce hem bitide! For povere men may have no power To pleyne hem, though thei smerte. Swich a maister is Mede Among men of goode." Thanne mournede Mede, And mened hire to the kynge To have space to speke, Spede if she myghte. 1700 The kyng graunted hire grace, With a good wille, "Excuse thee, if thow kanst; I kan na-moore seggen. For Conscience accuseth thee, To congeien thee for evere." "Nay, lord," quod that lady, "Leveth hym the werse, Whan ye witen witterly Wher the wrong liggeth. 1710 Ther that meschief is gret, Mede may helpe. And thow knowest, Conscience, I kam noght to chide Ne deprave thi persone, With a proud herte. Wel thow woost, wernarde, But if thow wolt gabbe, Thow hast hanged on myn half Ellevene tymes, 1720 {54} And also griped my gold, Gyve it where thee liked; And whi thow wrathest thee now, Wonder me thynketh. Yet I may as I myghte Menske thee with giftes, And mayntene thi manhode Moore than thow knowest. "Ac thow hast famed me foule Bifore the kyng here; 1730 For killed I nevere no kyng Ne counseiled therafter, Ne dide as thow demest I do it on the kynge. "In Normandie was he noght Noyed for my sake; Ac thow thiself soothly Shamedest hym ofte, Crope into a cabane For cold of thi nayles, 1740 Wendest that wynter Wolde han y-lasted evere, And dreddest to be ded For a dym cloude, And hyedest homward For hunger of thi wombe. "Withouten pité, pilour, Povere men thow robbedest; And bere hire bras at thi bak To Caleis to selle, 1750 Ther I lafte with my lord, His lif for to save. I made his men murye, And mournynge lette; {55} I batred hem on the bak, And boldede hire hertes, And dide hem hoppe for hope To have me at wille. Hadde I ben marchal of his men, By Marie of hevene! 1760 I dorste have leyd my lif, And no lasse wedde, He sholde have be lord of that lond In lengthe and in brede, And also kyng of that kith His kyn for to helpe, The leeste brol of his blood A barones piere. "Cowardly thow, Conscience, Conseiledest hym thennes, 1770 To leven his lordshipe For a litel silver, That is the richeste reaume That reyn over-hoveth. "It bi-cometh to a kyng That kepeth a reaume, To yeve mede to men, That mekely hym serveth, To aliens and to alle men, To honouren hem with giftes; 1780 Mede maketh hym bi-loved And for a man holden. "Emperours and erles, And alle manere lordes, For giftes han yonge men To renne and to ryde. "The pope and alle the prelates Presentz underfongen, {56} And medeth men hemselven To mayntene hir lawes. 1790 "Sergeauntz for hire servyce, We seeth wel the sothe, Taken mede of hir maistres, As thei mowe acorde. "Beggeres for hir biddynge, Bidden men mede. "Mynstrales for hir myrthe, Mede thei aske. "The kyng hath mede of his men, To make pees in londe. 1800 "Men that teche children, Craven after mede. "Preestes that prechen the peple To goode, asken mede, And massepens and hire mete At the meel-tymes. "Alle kynne craftes men Craven mede for hir prentices. "Marchauntz and Mede Mote nede go togideres. 1810 No wight, as I wene, Withouten mede may libbe." Quod the kyng to Conscience, "By Crist! as me thynketh, Mede is well worthi The maistrie to have." "Nay," quod Conscience to the kyng, And kneled to the erthe, "Ther are two manere of medes, My lord, with youre leve. 1820 "That oon God of his grace Graunteth in his blisse {57} To tho that wel werchen, While thei ben here; The prophete precheth therof, And putte it in the Sauter, _Domine, quis habitabit in tabernaculo tuo?_ = "Lord, who shal wonye in thi wones, And with thyne holy seintes, 1830 Or resten in thyne holy hilles? This asketh David; And David assoileth it hymself, As the Sauter telleth. _Qui ingreditur sine macula et operatur justitiam._ = "Tho that entren of o colour, And of one wille, And han y-wroght werkes With right and with reson; 1840 And he that useth noght The lyf of usurie, And enformeth povere men, And pursueth truthe. _Qui pecuniam suam non dedit ad usuram, et munera super innoc. etc._ = "And alle that helpen the innocent, And holden with the rightfulle, Withouten mede doth hem good, 1850 And the truthe helpeth, Swiche manere men, my lord, Shul have this firste mede Of God at a gret nede, Whan thei gon hennes. "Ther is another mede mesurelees, {58} That maistres desireth, To mayntene mysdoers Mede thei take, And therof seith the Sauter 1860 In a salmes ende, _In quorum manibus iniquitates sunt, dextra eorum repleta est muneribus._ "And he that gripeth hir gold, So me God helpe! Shal abien it bittre, Or the book lieth. "Preestes and persons That plesynge desireth, 1870 That taken mede and moneie For masses that thei syngeth, Taken hire mede here, As Mathew us techeth. _Amen, Amen, recipiebant mercede suam._ = "That laborers and lowe folk Taken of hire maistres, It is no manere mede, But a mesurable hire. 1880 "In marchaundise is no mede, I may it wel avowe, It is a permutacion apertly, A penyworth for another. "Ac reddestow nevere _Regum_? Thow recrayed Mede, Whi the vengeaunce fel On Saul and on his children? God sente to Saul By Samuel the prophete, 1890 {59} That Agag of Amalec, And al his peple after, Sholden deye for a dede That doon hadde hire eldres. "For-thi seide Samuel to Saul, 'God hymself hoteth Thee be buxom at his biddynge, His wil to fulfille; Weend to Amalec with thyn oost, And what thow fyndest there sle it, 1900 Burnes and beestes Bren hem to dethe, Widwes and wyves, Wommen and children, Moebles and un-moebles, And al thow myght fynde, Bren it, bere it noght awey, Be it never so riche, For mede ne for monee, Loke thow destruye it, 1910 Spille it and spare it noght, Thow shalt spede the bettre.' "And for he coveited hir catel, And the kyng spared, Forbar hym and his beestes bothe, As the Bible witnesseth, Oother wise than he was Warned of the prophete, God seide to Samuel That Saul sholde deye, 1920 And al his seed for that synne Shenfulliche ende. Swich a meschief Mede made Saul the kyng to have, {60} That God hated hym for evere, And alle hise heires after. "The culorum of this cas Kepe I noght to telle, On aventure it noyed men, Noon ende wol I make, 1930 For so is this world went With hem that han power, That who so seith hem sothest Is sonnest y-blamed. "Conscience knowe this, For kynde wit it me taughte, That Reson shal regne And reaumes governe, And right as Agag hadde, Happe shul somme, 1940 Samuel shal sleen hym, And Saul shal be blamed, And David shal be diademed, And daunten hem alle; And oon cristene kyng Kepen hem alle. Shal na-moore Mede Be maister, as she is nouthe; Ac love and lowenesse And leautee togideres, 1950 Thise shul ben maistres on moolde, Truthe to save. "And who so trespaseth ayein truthe, Or taketh ayein his wille, Leauté shal don hym lawe, And no lif ellis; Shall no sergeaunt for his service Were a silk howve, {61} Ne no pelure in his cloke For pledynge at the barre. 1960 Mede of mysdoeres Maketh manye lordes, And over lordes lawes Ruleth the reaumes. "Ac kynde love shal come yit, And conscience togideres, And make of lawe a laborer; Swich love shal arise, And swich a pees among the peple, And a perfit truthe, 1970 That Jewes shul wene in hire wit, And wexen wonder glade, That Moyses or Messie Be come into this erthe, And have wonder in hire hertes That men beth so trewe. "Alle that beren baselarde, Brood swerd or launce, Ax outher hachet, Or any wepene ellis, 1980 Shal be demed to the deeth, But if he do it smythye Into sikel or to sithe, To shaar or to kultour; _Conflabunt gladios suos in vomeres, etc._ = "Ech man to pleye with a plow, Pykoise or spade, Spynne or sprede donge, Or spille hymself with sleuthe. 1990 "Preestes and persons With _Placebo_ to hunte, {62} And dyngen upon David Eche day til eve. Huntynge or haukynge If any of hem use, His boost of his benefice Worth by-nomen hym after. Shal neither kyng ne knyght, Constable ne meire, 2000 Overlede the commune, Ne to the court sompne, Ne putte hem in panel To doon hem plighte hir truthe; But after the dede that is doon Oon doom shal rewarde, Mercy or no mercy, As truthe wole acorde. "Kynges court and commune court, Consistorie and chapitle, 2010 Al shal be but oon court, And oon baron be justice. Thanne worth Trewe-tonge a tidy man That tened me nevere; Batailles shul none be, Ne no man bere wepene; And what smyth that any smytheth, Be smyte therwith to dethe. _Non levabit gens contra gentem gladium, etc._ 2020 "And er this fortune falle, Fynde men shul the worste, By sixe sonnes and a shipe, And half a shef of arwes, And the myddel of a moone, Shal make the Jewes to torne, {63} And Sarzynes for that sighte Shul synge _Gloria in excelsis, etc._ For Makometh and Mede Mys-happe shul that tyme, 2030 For _melius est bonum nomen quam divitiæ multæ._" = Al so wroth as the wynd Weex Mede in a while, "I kan no Latyn," quod she, "Clerkes wite the sothe; Se what Salomon seith In Sapience bokes, That thei that gyven giftes The victorie wynneth, 2040 And moost worshipe hadde therwith As holy writ telleth: _Honorem adquiret qui dat munera, etc._ = "Leve wel, lady," quod Conscience, "That thi Latyn be trewe; Ac thow art lik a lady That radde a lesson ones, Was _omnia probate_, And that plesed hire herte; 2050 For that lyne was no lenger At the leves ende. Hadde she loked that oother half, And the leef torned, She sholde have founden fele wordes Folwynge therafter, _Quod bonum est tenete_; Truthe that text made. And so ferde ye, madame, Ye kouthe na-moore fynde, 2060 {64} Tho ye loked on Sapience Sittynge in youre studie. This text that ye han told Were good for lordes; Ac yow fayled a konnynge clerk That kouthe the leef han torned. And if ye seche Sapience eft, Fynde shul ye that folweth, A ful teneful text To hem that taketh mede; 2070 And that is _animam autem aufert accipientium, etc._, = And that is the tail of the text; Of that that she shewed, That theigh we wynne worshipe, And with mede have victorie, The soule that the sonde taketh By so muche is bounde." 2078 * * * * * {65} _Passus Quartus de Visione, ut supra._ "Cesseth," seith the kyng, 2079 "I suffre yow no lenger; Ye shul saughtne for sothe, And serve me bothe. Kis hire," quod the kyng, "Conscience, I hote." "Nay, by Crist!" quod Conscience, "Congeye me er for evere, But Reson rede me therto, Rather wol I deye." "And I comaunde thee," quod the kyng, To Conscience thanne, 2090 "Rape thee to ryde, And Reson thow fecche; Comaunde hym that he come My counseil to here, For he shal rule my reaume And rede me the beste, And acounte with thee, Conscience, So me Crist helpe! How thow lernest the peple, The lered and the lewed." 2100 "I am fayn of that foreward," Seide the freke thanne, {66} And ryt right to Reson, And rouneth in his ere, And seide as the kyng bad, And sithen took his leve. "I shal arraye me to ryde," quod Reson, "Reste thee a while." And called Caton his knave, Curteis of speche, 2110 And also Tomme Trewe-tonge,-- "Tel me no tales, Ne lesynge to laughen of, For I loved hem nevere; And set my sadel upon Suffre, Til I se my tyme, And lat warroke hym wel With witty-wordes gerthes, And hange on hym the hevy brydel To holde his heed lowe, 2120 For he wol make 'wehee!' Twies er he be there." Thanne Conscience upon his capul Carieth forth faste, And Reson with hym ryt, Rownynge togideres, Whiche maistries Mede Maketh on this erthe. Oon Waryn Wisdom, And Witty his feere, 2130 Folwed hym faste, For thei hadde to doone In th'escheker and in the chauncerye, To ben descharged of thynges; And riden faste, for Reson sholde Rede hem the beste, {67} For to save hem for silver From shame and from harmes. And Conscience knew hem wel, Thei loved coveitise; 2140 And bad Reson ryde faste, And recche of hir neither. "Ther are wiles in hire wordes, And with Mede thei dwelleth; Ther as wrathe and wranglynge is, Ther wynne thei silver; Ac where is love and leautee, Thei wol noght come there. _Contritio et infelicitas in viis eorum, etc._ 2150 "Thei ne yeveth noght of God One goose wynge. _Non est timor Dei ante oculos eorum, etc._ = "For woot God thei wolde do moore For a dozeyne chicknes, Or as manye capons, Or for a seem of otes, Than for the love of oure Lord, Or alle hise leeve seintes. 2160 For-thi Reson lat hem ride, Tho riche by hemselve, For Conscience knoweth hem noght, Ne Crist, as I trowe." And thanne Reson rood faste The righte heighe gate, As Conscience hym kenned, Til thei come to the kynge. Curteisly the kyng thanne Com ayeins Reson, 2170 {68} And bitwene hymself and his sone Sette hym on benche; And wordeden wel wisely A gret while togideres. And thanne com Pees into parlement, And putte forth a bille, How Wrong ayeins his wille Hadde his wif taken, And how he ravysshede Rose Reginaldes loove, 2180 And Margrete of hir maydenhede Maugree hire chekes. "Bothe my gees and my grys Hise gadelynges feccheth, I dar noght for fere of hem Fighte ne chide. He borwed of me Bayard, He broughte hym hom nevere, Ne no ferthyng therfore, For ought I koude plede. 2190 He maynteneth hise men To murthere myne hewen, Forstalleth my feires, And fighteth in my chepyng, And breketh up my bernes dore, And bereth awey my whete, And taketh me but a taillé For ten quarters of otes; And yet he beteth me therto, And lyth by my mayde. 2200 I am noght hardy for hym Unnethe to loke." The kyng knew he seide sooth, For Conscience hym tolde {69} That Wrong was a wikked luft, And wroghte muche sorwe. Wrong was afered thanne, And Wisdom he soughte, To maken pees with hise pens; And profred hym manye, 2210 And seide, "Hadde I love of my lord the kyng, Litel wolde I recche, Theigh Pees and his power Pleyned hym evere." Tho wente Wisdom And sire Waryn the Witty, For that Wrong hadde y-wroght So wikked a dede, And warnede Wrong tho With swich a wis tale, 2220 "Who so wercheth by wille, Wrathe maketh ofte; I sey it by myself, Thow shalt it wel fynde; But if Mede it make, Thi meschief is uppe, For bothe thi lif and thi lond Lyth in his grace." Thanne wowede Wrong Wisdom ful yerne, 2230 To maken pees with his pens, Handy dandy payed. Wisdom and Wit thanne Wenten togidres, And token Mede myd hem Mercy to wynne. Pees putte forth his heed, And his panne blody, {70} "Withouten gilt, God it woot, Gat I this scathe; 2240 Conscience and the commune Knowen the sothe." Ac Wisdom and Wit Were aboute faste, To overcomen the kyng With catel, if thei myghte. The kyng swor by Crist, And by his crowne bothe, That Wrong for hise werkes Sholde wo tholie; 2250 And comaundede a constable To casten hym in irens, And lete hym noght thise seven yer Seen his feet ones. "God woot," quod Wisdom, "That were noght the beste; And he amendes nowe make, Lat maynprise hym have, And be borgh for his bale, And buggen hym boote, 2260 And so amenden that is mys-do And evere moore the bettre." Wit acorded therwith, And seide the same, "Bettre is that boote Bale a-doun brynge, Than bale be y-bet, And boote never the bettre." And thanne gan Mede to mengen hire, And mercy she bi-soughte, 2270 And profrede Pees a present Al of pure golde: {71} "Have this, man, of me," quod she, "To amenden thi scathe, For I wol wage for Wrong He wol do so na-moore." Pitously Pees thanne Preyde to the kynge, To have mercy on that man That mys-dide hym so ofte; 2280 "For he hath waged me wel, As Wisdom hym taughte, And I forgyve hym that gilt With a good wille, So that the kyng assente, I kan seye no bettre; For Mede hath me amendes maad, I may na-moore axe." "Nay," quod the kyng tho, "So me Crist helpe! 2290 Wrong wendeth noght so a-wey, Erst wole I wite moore. For lope he so lightly, Laughen he wolde; And eft the boldere be To bete myne hewen; But Reson have ruthe on hym, He shal reste in my stokkes; And that as longe as he lyveth, But lownesse hym borwe." 2300 Som men radde Reson tho To have ruthe on that shrewe, And for to counseille the kyng, And Conscience after; That Mede moste be maynpernour Reson thei bi-soughte. {72} "Reed me noght," quod Reson, "No ruthe to have, Til lordes and ladies Loven alle truthe, 2310 And haten alle harlotrie, To heren or to mouthen it. "Til Parnelles purfille Be put in hire hucche, And childrene cherissynge Be chastynge with yerdes, And harlottes holynesse Be holden for an hyne. "Til clerkene coveitise be To clothe the povere and fede, 2320 And religiouse romeris _Recordare_ in hir cloistres, As seynt Beneyt hem bad, Bernard and Fraunceis, And til prechours prechynge Be preved on hemselve. "Til the kynges counseil Be the commune profit, Til bisshopes bayardes Ben beggeris chaumbres, 2330 Hire haukes and hire houndes Help to povere religious. "And til seint James be sought There I shal assigne, That no man go to Galis But if he go for evere;-- And alle Rome renneres, For robberes biyonde, Bere no silver over see That signe of kyng sheweth, 2340 {73} Neither grave ne ungrave, Gold neither silver, Upon forfeture of that fee, Who so fynt it at Dovere, But if he be marchaunt or his man, Or messager with lettres, Provysour or preest, Or penaunt for hise synnes. "And yet," quod Reson, "by the Rode! I shal no ruthe have, 2350 While Mede hath the maistrie In this moot-halle. Ac I may shewe ensamples, As I se outher while, I seye it by myself," quod he, "And it so were That I were kyng with coroune To kepen a reaume, Sholde nevere Wrong in this world, That I wite myghte, 2360 Ben unpunysshed in my power, For peril of my soule, Ne gete my grace for giftes, So me God save! Ne for no mede have mercy, But mekenesse it make; For _nullum malum_ the man Mette with _inpunitum_, And bad _nullum bonum_ Be _irremuneratum_. 2370 "Lat youre confessour, sire kyng, Construe this unglosed; And if ye werchen it in werk, I wedde myne eris, {74} That lawe shal ben a laborer And lede a-feld donge, And love shal lede thi lond, As the leef liketh." Clerkes that were confessours Coupled hem togideres, 2380 Al to construe this clause, And for the kynges profit, Ac noght for confort of the commune, Ne for the kynges soule; For I seigh Mede in the moot-halle On men of lawe wynke, And thei laughynge lope to hire, And left Reson manye. Waryn Wisdom Wynked upon Mede, 2390 And seide, "Madame, I am youre man, What so my mouth jangle; I falle in floryns," quod that freke, "And faile speche ofte." Alle rightfulle recordede That Reson truthe tolde; And Wit acorded therwith, And comendede hise wordes, And the mooste peple in the halle, And manye of the grete, 2400 And leten Mekenesse a maister, And Mede a mansed sherewe. Love leet of hire light, And leauté yet lasse, And seiden it so heighe That al the halle it herde, "Who so wilneth hire to wif, For welthe of hire goodes, {75} But he be knowe for a cokewold, Kut of my nose." 2410 Mede mornede tho, And made hevy chere, For the mooste commune of that court Called hire an hore. Ac a sisour and a somonour Sued hire faste, And a sherreves clerk Bisherewed at the route; "For ofte have I," quod he, "Holpen yow at the barre, 2420 And yet yeve ye me nevere The worth of a risshe." The kyng callede Conscience, And afterward Reson, And recordede that Reson Hadde rightfully shewed; And modiliche upon Mede With myght the kyng loked; And gan wexe wroth with lawe, For Mede almoost hadde shent it; 2430 And seide, "thorugh lawe, as I leve! I lese manye eschetes; Mede overmaistreth lawe, And muche Truthe letteth. Ac Reson shal rekene with yow, If I regne any while, And deme yow bi this day, As ye han deserved. Mede shal noght maynprise yow, By the Marie of hevene! 2440 I wole have leauté in lawe, And lete be al youre janglyng; {76} And as moost folk witnesseth wel, Wrong shal be demed." Quod Conscience to the kyng, "But the commune wole assente, It is ful hard, by myn heed! Hertoo to brynge it, Alle youre lige leodes To lede thus evene." 2450 "By hym that raughte on the rode!" Quod Reson to the kynge, "But if I rule thus youre reaume, Rende out my guttes, If ye bidden buxomnesse Be of myn assent." "And I assente," seith the kyng, "By seinte Marie my lady! By my counseil commune, Of clerkes and of erles; 2460 Ac redily, Reson, Thow shalt noght ride fro me, For, as longe as I lyve, Lete thee I nelle." "I am al redy," quod Reson, "To reste with yow evere; So Conscience be of oure counseil, I kepe no bettre." "And I graunte," quod the kyng, "Goddes forbode ellis! Als longe as oure lyf lasteth, Lyve we togideres." 2472 * * * * * {77} _Passus Quintus de Visione, ut supra._ The kyng and hise knyghtes 2473 To the kirke wente, To here matyns of the day And the masse after. Thanne waked I of my wynkyng, And wo was withalle, That I ne hadde slept sadder, And y-seighen moore. 2480 Ac er I hadde faren a furlong, Feyntise me hente, That I ne myghte ferther a foot For defaute of slepynge, And sat softely a-doun, And seide my bileve, And so I bablede on my bedes, Thei broughte me a-slepe. And thanne saugh I muche moore Than I bifore of tolde, 2490 For I seigh the feld ful of folk, That I bifore of seide, And how Reson gan arayen hym Al the reaume to preche, And with a cros afore the kyng Comsede thus to techen. {78} He preved that thise pestilences Were for pure synne, And the south-westrene wynd On Saterday at even 2500 Was pertliche for pure pride, And for no point ellis; Pyries and plum-trees Were puffed to the erthe, In ensaumple that the segges Sholden do the bettre; Beches and brode okes Were blowen to the grounde, Turned upward hire tailes, In tokenynge of drede 2510 That dedly synne er domes-day Shal for-doon hem alle. Of this matere I myghte Mamelen ful longe; Ac I shal seye as I saugh, So me God helpe! How pertly afore the peple Reson bigan to preche. He bad Wastour go werche, What he best kouthe, 2520 And wynnen his wastyng With som maner crafte. He preide Pernele Hir purfil to lete, And kepe it in hire cofre For catel at hire nede. Tomme Stowne he taughte To take two staves, And fecche Felice hom Fro the wynen pyne. 2530 {79} He warnede Watte His wif was to blame, For hire heed was worth half marc, And his hood noght worth a grote; And bad Bette kutte A bough outher tweye, And bete Beton therwith, But if she wolde werche. And thanne he chargede chapmen To chastizen hir children, 2540 Late no wynnyng hem for-wanye While thei be yonge, Ne for no poustee of pestilence Plese hem noght out of reson. "My sire seide so to me, And so dide my dame, That the levere child The moore loore bihoveth; And Salomon seide the same, That _Sapience_ made, 2550 _Qui parcit virgæ, odit filium_. The Englissh of this Latyn is, Who so wole it knowe Who so spareth the spring, Spilleth hise children." And sithen he prechede prelates And preestes togideres, "That ye prechen to the peple, Preve it on yowselve, And dooth it in dede, 2560 It shal drawe yow to goode; If ye leven as ye leren us, We shul leve yow the bettre." And sithen he radde Religion {80} Hir rule to holde; "Lest the kyng and his conseil Youre comunes apeire, And be stywardes of youre stedes, Til ye be ruled bettre." And sithen he counseiled the kyng 2570 His commune to lovye; "It is thi trewe tresor, And tryacle at thy nede." And sithen he preide the pope Have pité on holy chirche, And er he gyve any grace, Governe first hymselve. "And ye that han lawes to kepe, Lat truthe be youre coveitise, Moore than gold outher giftes, 2580 If ye wol God plese; For who so contrarieth Truthe, He telleth in the gospel, That God knoweth hym noght, Ne no seynt of hevene. _Amen dico vobis, nescio vos._ "And ye that seke seynt James, And seyntes of Rome, Seketh seynt Truthe, For he may save yow alle; 2590 _Qui cum patre et filio_, That faire hem bi-falle That seweth my sermon." And thus seyde Reson. Thanne ran Repentaunce, And reherced his teme: And garte Wille to wepe Water with hise eighen. {81} Pernele Proud-herte Platte hire to the erthe, 2600 And lay longe er she loked, And "Lord, mercy!" cryde, And bi-highte to hym That us alle made, She sholde unsowen hir serk, And sette there an heyre, To affaiten hire flesshe That fiers was to synne. "Shal nevere heigh herte me hente, But holde I wole me lowe 2610 And suffre to be mys-seyd, And so dide I nevere; And now I wole meke me, And mercy biseche, For al this I have Hated in myn herte." Thanne Lechour seide, "Allas!" And on oure Lady he cryde, To maken mercy for hise mys-dedes Bitwene God and his soule; 2620 With that he sholde the Saterday, Seven yer therafter, Drynke but myd the doke, And dyne but ones. Envye with hevy herte Asked after shrifte, And carefully _mea culpa_ He comsed to shewe. He was as pale as a pelet, In the palsy he semed; 2630 And clothed in a kaurymaury, I kouthe it nought discryve, {82} In kirtel and courtepy, And a knyf by his syde; Of a freres frokke Were the fore-sleves; And as a leek that hadde y-leye Longe in the sonne, So loked he with lene chekes Lourynge foule. 2640 His body was to-bollen for wrathe, That he boot hise lippes; And wryngynge he yede with the fust, To wreke hymself he thoughte With werkes or with wordes, Whan he seyghe his tyme. Ech a word that he warpe Was of a neddres tonge; Of chidynge and of chalangynge Was his chief liflode, 2650 With bakbitynge and bismere, And berynge of fals witnesse. "I wolde ben y-shryve," quod this sherewe, "And I for shame dorste; I wolde be gladder, by God! That Gybbe hadde meschaunce, Than though I hadde this wouke y-wonne A weye of Essex chese. "I have a neghebore by me, I have anoyed hym ofte, 2660 And lowen on hym to lordes To doon hym lese his silver, And maad his frendes be his foon Thorugh my false tonge; His grace and his goode happes Greven me ful soore. {83} "Bitwene manye and manye I make debate ofte, That bothe lif and lyme Is lost thorugh my speche. 2670 And whan I mete hym in market That I moost hate, I hailse hym hendely, As I his frend were; For he is doughtier than I, I dar do noon oother; Ac hadde I maistrie and myght, God woot my wille! "And whan I come to the kirk, And sholde knele to the roode, 2680 And preye for the peple As the preest techeth, For pilgrymes and for palmeres, For al the peple after, Thanne I crye on my knees That Crist gyve hem sorwe, That beren awey my bolle And my broke shete. "Awey fro the auter thanne Turne I myne eighen, 2690 And bi-holde Eleyne Hath a newe cote; I wisshe thanne it were myn, And al the web after. "And of mennes lesynge I laughe, That liketh myn herte; And for hir wynnynge I wepe, And waille the tyme; And deme that thei doon ille, There I do wel werse. 2700 {84} Who so under-nymeth me hero I hate hym dedly after; I wolde that ech a wight Were my knave, For who so hath moore than I, Than angreth me soore. And thus I lyve love-lees, Lik a luther dogge; That al my body bolneth, For bitter of my galle. 2710 "I myghte noght ete many yeres As a man oughte, For envye and yvel wil Is yvel to defie. May no sugre ne swete thyng Aswage my swellyng? Ne no _diapenidion_ Dryve it fro myn herte? Ne neither shrifte ne shame, But who so shrape my mawe?" 2720 "Yis redily," quod Repentaunce, And radde hym to the beste, "Sorwe of synnes Is savacion of soules." "I am sory," quod that segge, "I am but selde oother, And that maketh me thus megre, For I ne may me venge. "Amonges burgeises have I be Dwellyng at Londone, 2730 And gart bakbityng be a brocour To blame mennes ware; Whan he solde and I nought, Thanne was I redy {85} To lye and to loure on my neghebore, And to lakke his chaffare; I wole amende this, if I may, Thorugh myght of God almyghty." Now awaketh Wrathe, With two white eighen; 2740 And nevelynge with the nose, And his nekke hangyng. "I am Wrathe," quod he, "I was som tyme a frere, And the coventes gardyner For to graffen impes; On lymitours and listres Lesynges I ymped, Til thei beere leves of lowe speche, Lordes to plese, 2750 And sithen thei blosmede a-brood In boure to here shriftes; And now is fallen therof a fruyt, That folk han wel levere Shewen hire shriftes to hem, Than shryve hem to hir persons. "And now persons han perceyved That freres parte with hem, Thise possessioners preche And deprave freres. 2760 "And freres fyndeth hem in defaute, As folk bereth witnesse, That whan thei preche the peple In many places aboute, I Wrathe walke with hem, And wisse hem of my bokes. Thus thei speken of my spiritualté, That either despiseth oother, {86} Til thei be bothe beggers And by my spiritualté libben, 2770 Or ellis al riche And ryden aboute. I Wrathe reste nevere, That I ne moste folwe This wikked folk, For swich is my grace. "I have an aunte to nonne, And an abbesse bothe; Hir hadde levere swowe or swelte, Than suffre any peyne, 2780 "I have be cook in hir kichene, And the covent served Manye monthes with hem, And with monkes bothe. I was the prioresse potager, And othere povere ladies, And maad hem joutes of janglyng, That dame Johane was a bastard, And dame Clarice a knyghtes doughter, Ac a cokewold was hir sire; 2790 And dame Pernele a preestes fyle, Prioresse worth she nevere, For she hadde child in chirie-tyme, Al our chapitre it wiste. "Of wikkede wordes I Wrathe hire wortes made, Til 'thow lixt' and 'thow lixt' Lopen out at ones, And either hite oother Under the cheke; 2800 Hadde thei had knyves, by Crist Hir either hadde kild oother. {87} "Seint Gregory was a good pope, And hadde a good forwit, That no prioresse were preest, For that he ordeyned; They hadde thanne ben _infames_ the firste day, Thei kan so yvele hele conseil. "Among monkes I myghte be, Ac many tyme I shonye it; 2810 For there ben manye felle frekes My feeris to aspie, Bothe priour and suppriour And oure _pater abbas_; And if I telle any tales, Thei taken hem togideres, And doon me faste frydayes To breed and to watre, And am chalanged in the chapitre hous As I a child were, 2820 And baleised on the bare ers, And no brech bitwene. For-thi have I no likyng With tho leodes to wonye. I ete there unthende fisshe, And feble ale drynke; Ac outher while whan wyn cometh, Thanne I drynke wyn at eve, And have a flux of a foul mouth Wel fyve dayes after. 2830 Al the wikkednesse that I woot By any of oure bretheren, I couthe it in oure cloistre, That al oure covent woot it." "Now repente thee," quod Repentaunce, "And reherce thow nevere {88} Counseil that thow knowest By contenaunce ne by right; And drynk nat over delicatly, Ne to depe neither, 2840 That thi wille by cause therof To wrathe myghte turne. _Esto sobrius_," he seide, And assoiled me after, And bad me wilne to wepe My wikkednesse to amende. And thanne cam Coveitise, Kan I hym naght discryve, So hungrily and holwe Sire Hervy hym loked. 2850 He was bitel-browed, And baber-lipped also, With two blered eighen As a blynd hagge; And as a letheren purs Lolled hise chekes, Wel sidder than his chyn Thei chyveled for elde; And as a bonde-man of his bacon His berd was bi-draveled, 2860 With an hood on his heed, A lousy hat above, And in a tawny tabard Of twelf wynter age, Al so torn and baudy, And ful of lys crepyng, But if that a lous couthe Han lopen the bettre, She sholde noght han walked on that welthe, So was it thred-bare. 2870 {89} "I have ben coveitous," quod this caytif, "I bi-knowe it here, For som tyme I served Symme-atte-Style, And was his prentice y-plight His profit to wayte. "First I lerned to lye, A leef outher tweyne; Wikkedly to weye Was my firste lesson; 2880 To Wy and to Wynchestre I wente to the feyre, With many manere marchaundise, As my maister me highte. Ne hadde the grace of gyle y-go Amonges my chaffare, It hadde ben unsold this seven yer, So me God helpe! "Thanne drough I me among drapiers, My donet to lerne, 2890 To drawe the liser along, The lenger it semed; Among the riche rayes I rendred a lesson, To broche hem with a pak-nedle, And playte hem togideres, And putte hem in a presse, And pyne hem therinne, Til ten yerdes or twelve Hadde tolled out thrittene. 2900 "My wif was a webbe, And wollen cloth made; She spak to spynnesteres To spynnen it oute, {90} Ac the pound that she paied by Peised a quatron moore Than myn owene auncer, Who so weyed truthe. "I boughte hire barly-malt, She brew it to selle, 2910 Peny ale and puddyng ale She poured togideres, For laborers and for lowe folk That lay by hymselve. "The beste ale lay in my bour, Or in my bed-chambre; And who so bummed therof, Boughte it therafter, A galon for a grote, God woot, no lesse! 2920 And yet it cam in cuppe-mele, This craft my wif used. Rose the Regrater Was hire righte name; She hath holden hukkerye Al hire lif tyme. Ac I swere now, so thee ik! That synne wol I lete, And nevere wikkedly weye, Ne wikke chaffare use; 2930 But wenden to Walsyngham, And my wif als, And bidde the Roode of Bromholm Brynge me out of dette." "Repentedestow evere?" quod Repentaunce, "Or restitucion madest." "Yis, ones I was y-herberwed," quod he, {91} "With an heep of chapmen, I roos whan thei were a-reste And riflede hire males." 2940 "That was no restitucion," quod Repentaunce, "But a robberis thefte; Thow haddest be the bettre worthi Ben hanged therfore, Than for al that That thow hast here shewed." "I wende riflynge were restitucion," quod he, "For I lerned nevere rede on boke; And I kan no Frensshe, in feith, But of the fertheste ende of Northfolk." 2950 "Usedestow evere usurie?" quod Repentaunce, "In al thi lif tyme." "Nay sothly," he seide, "Save in my youthe I lerned among Lumbardes And Jewes a lesson, To weye pens with a peis, And pare the hevyeste, And lene it for love of the cros, To legge a wed and lese it. 2960 Swiche dedes I dide write, If he his day breke, I have mo manoirs thorugh rerages, Than thorugh _miseretur et commodat_. "I have lent lordes And ladies my chaffare, And ben hire brocour after, And bought it myselve; {92} Eschaunges and chevysaunces With swich chaffare I dele, 2970 And lene folk that lese wole A lippe at every noble, And with Lumbardes lettres I ladde gold to Rome, And took it by tale here, And tolde hem there lasse." "Lentestow evere lordes, For love of hire mayntenaunce?" "Ye, I have lent to lordes, Loved me nevere after, 2980 And have y-maad many a knyght Bothe mercer and draper, That payed nevere for his prentishode Noght a peire gloves." "Hastow pité on povere men, That mote nedes borwe?" "I have as muche pité of povere men, As pedlere hath of cattes, That wolde kille hem, if he cacche hem myghte, For coveitise of hir skynnes." 2990 "Artow manlich among thi neghebores Of thi mete and drynke?" "I am holden," quod he, "as hende As hound is in kichene, Amonges my neghebores, namely, Swiche a name ich have." "Now God lene thee nevere," quod Repentaunce, "But thow repente the rather, The grace on this grounde {93} Thi good wel to bi-sette, 3000 Ne thyne heires after thee Have joie of that thow wynnest, Ne thyne executours wel bi-sette The silver that thow hem levest; And that was wonne with wrong With wikked men be despended. For were I frere of that hous Ther good feith and charité is, I nolde cope us with thi catel, Ne oure kirk amende, 3010 Ne have a peny to my pitaunce, So God my soule save! For the beste book in oure hous, Theigh brent gold were the leves, And I wiste witterly Thow were swich as thow tellest. _Servus es alterius, Dum fercula pinguia quæris; Pane tuo potius Vescere, liber eris._ 3020 "Thow art an unkynde creature, I kan thee noght assoille, Til thow make restitucion And rekene with hem alle; And sithen that Reson rolle it In the registre of hevene, That thow hast maad ech man good, I may thee noght assoile. _Non dimittitur peccatum, donec restituatur oblatum._ 3030 "For alle that han of thi good, Have God my trouthe! Ben holden at the heighe doom {94} To helpe thee to restitue; And who so leveth noght this be sooth, Loke in the Sauter glose, In _Miserere mei, Deus_, Wher I mene truthe; _Ecce enim veritatem dilexisti, etc._ Shal nevere werkman in this world 3040 Thryve with that thow wynnest. _Cum sancto sanctus eris;_ Construwe me this on Englisshe." Thanne weex that sherewe in wanhope, And wolde han hanged hym; Ne hadde Repentaunce the rather Reconforted hym in this manere. "Have mercy in thi mynde, And with thi mouth biseche it; For Goddes mercy is moore 3050 Than alle hise othere werkes. And al the wikkednesse in this world That man myghte werche or thynke, Nis na-moore to the mercy of God, Than in the see a gleede. _Omnis iniquitas quantum ad misericordiam Dei, est quasi scintilla in medio maris._ "For-thi have mercy in thy mynde, And marchaundise leve it; 3060 For thow hast no good ground To gete thee with a wastel, But if it were with thi tonge, Or ellis with thi two hondes. For the good that thow hast geten Bigan al with falshede, And as longe as thow lyvest therwith, {95} Thow yeldest noght, but borwest. "And if thow wite nevere to whiche, Ne whom to restitue, 3070 Ber it to the bisshope, And bid hym of his grace Bi-sette it hymself, As best is for thi soule; For he shal answere for thee At the heighe dome, For thee and for many mo That man shal yeve a rekenyng, What he lerned yow in Lente, Leve thow noon oother, 3080 And what he lente yow of oure Lordes good To lette yow fro synne." Now bi-gynneth Gloton For to go to shrifte, And karieth hym to kirke-warde His coupe to shewe; And Beton the brewestere Bad hym good morwe, And asked at hym with that, Whider-ward he wolde. 3090 "To holy chirche," quod he, "For to here masse, And sithen I wole be shryven, And synne na-moore." "I have good ale, gossib," quod she, "Gloton, woltow assaye?" "Hastow ought in thi purs?" quod he, "Any hote spices?" "I have pepir and piones," quod she, "And a pound of garleek, 3100 And a ferthyng-worth of fenel-seed {96} For fastynge dayes." Thanne goth Glotin in, And grete othes after. Cesse the souteresse Sat on the benche; Watte the warner, And his wif bothe; Tymme the tynkere, And tweyne of his prentices; 3110 Hikke the hakeney-man, And Hughe the nedlere; Clarice of Cokkeslane, And the clerk of the chirche; Dawe the dykere, And a dozeyne othere. Sire Piers of Pridie, And Pernele of Flaundres; A ribibour, a ratoner, A rakiere of Chepe, 3120 A ropere, a redyng-kyng, And Rose the dyssheres; Godefray of Garlekhithe, And Griffyn the Walshe; And upholderes an heep, Erly by the morwe, Geve Gloton with glad chere Good ale to hanselle. Clement the Cobelere Caste of his cloke, 3130 And at the newe feire He nempned it to selle, Hikke the hakeney-man Hitte his hood after, And bad Bette the bocher {97} Ben on his syde. Ther were chapmen y-chose This chaffare to preise, That who so hadde the hood Sholde han amendes of the cloke. 3140 Two risen up in rape, And rouned togideres, And preised thise peny-worthes A-part by hemselve; Thei kouthe noght by hir conscience Acorden in truthe, Til Robyn the ropere Aroos by the southe, And nempned hym for a nounpere, That no debat nere. 3150 Hikke the hostiler Hadde the cloke, In covenaunt that Clement Sholde the cuppe fille, And have Hikkes hood hostiler, And holden hym y-served. And who so repented rathest Sholde aryse after, And greten sire Gloton With a galon ale. 3160 There was laughynge and lourynge, And "lat go the cuppe;" And seten so till even-song, And songen umwhile, Til Gloton hadde y-glubbed A galon and a gille. Hise guttes bigonne to gothelen As two gredy sowes; He pissed a potel {98} In a pater-noster while, 3170 And blew his rounde ruwet At his rugge-bones ende, That alle that herde that horn Held hir noses after, And wisshed it hadde been wexed With a wispe of firses. He myghte neither steppe ne stonde, Er he his staf hadde; And thanne gan he to go Like a gle-mannes bicche, 3180 Som tyme aside, And som tyme arere, As who so leith lynes For to lacche foweles. And whan he drough to the dore, Thanne dymmed his eighen; He stumbled on the thresshfold, And threw to the erthe. Clement the cobelere Kaughte hym by the myddel, 3190 For to liften hym o-lofte; And leyde hym on his knowes. Ac Gloton was a gret cherl, And a grym in the liftyng, And koughed up a cawdel In Clementes lappe; Is noon so hungry hound In Hertford shire Dorste lape of that levynges, So un-lovely thei smaughte. 3200 With al the wo of this world, His wif and his wenche Baren hym hom to his bed, {99} And broughte hym therinne; And after al this excesse He hadde an accidie, That he sleep Saterday and Sonday, Til sonne yede to reste. Thanne waked he of his wynkyng, And wiped hise eighen; 3210 The firste word that he warpe Was "where is the bolle?" His wif gan edwyte hym tho, How wikkedly he lyvede; And Repentaunce right so Rebuked hym that tyme, "As thow with wordes and werkes Has wroght yvele in thi lyve, Shryve thee, and be shamed therof, And shewe it with thi mouthe." 3220 "I Gloton," quod the grom, "Gilty me yelde, That I have trespased with my tonge, I kan noght telle how ofte; Sworen Goddes soule, And so me God helpe! There no nede was, Nyne hundred tymes. "And over-seyen me at my soper, And som tyme at nones, 3230 That I Gloton girte it up Er I hadde gon a myle, An y-spilt that myghte be spared And spended on som hungry; Over delicatly on fastyng-dayes Dronken and eten bothe, And sat som tyme so longe there, {100} That I sleep and eet at ones. For love of tales in tavernes And for drynke, the moore I dyned; 3240 And hyed to the mete er noon, Whan fastyng-days were." "This shewynge shrift," quod Repentaunce, "Shal be meryt to the." And thanne gan Gloton greete, And gret doel to make, For his luther lif That he lyved hadde; And avowed to faste, "For hunger or for thurste, 3250 Shal nevere fyssh on Fryday Defyen in my wombe, Til abstinence myn aunte Have gyve me leeve; And yet have I hated hire Al my lif tyme." Thanne cam Sleuthe al bi-slabered, With two slymy eighen; "I moste sitte," seide the segge, "Or ellis sholde I nappe. 3260 I may noght stonde ne stoupe, Ne withoute a stool knele; Were I brought a-bedde, But if my tail-ende it made, Sholde no ryngynge do me ryse Er I were ripe to dyne." He bigan Benedicite with a bolk, And his brest knokked, And raxed and rored, And rutte at the laste. 3270 {101} "What, awake, renk!" quod Repentaunce, "And rape thee to shryfte." "If I sholde deye bi this day, Me list nought to loke; I kan noght parfitly my pater-noster, As the preest it syngeth; But I kan rymes of Robyn Hood, And Randolf erl of Chestre; Ac neither of oure Lord ne of oure Lady The leeste that evere was maked. 3280 "I have maad avowes fourty, And foryete hem on the morwe; I perfournede nevere penaunce As the preest me highte; Ne right sory for my synnes Yet was I nevere. And if I bidde any bedes, But if it be in wrathe, That I telle with my tonge Is two myle fro myn herte. 3290 I am ocupied eche day, Haly-day and oother, With ydel tales at the ale, And outher while at chirche; Goddes peyne and his passion Ful selde thenke I on it. "I visited nevere feble men, Ne fettred folk in puttes; I have levere here an harlotrye, Or a somer game of souters, 3300 Or lesynge to laughen at And bi-lye my neghebores, Than al that evere Marc made, {102} Mathew, Johan, and Lucas. And vigilies and fastyng-dayes, Alle thise late I passe; And ligge a-bedde in Lenten, And my lemman in myne armes, Til matyns and masse be do, And thanne go to the freres. 3310 Come I to _Ite, missa est_, I holde me y-served; I nam noght shryven som tyme, But if siknesse it make, Nought twyes in two yer, And thanne up gesse I shryve me. "I have be preest and parson Passynge thritty wynter, And yet can I neyther solne ne synge, Ne seintes lyves rede; 3320 But I kan fynden in a feld, Or in a furlang, an hare, Bettre than in _Beatus vir, Or in Beati omnes_, Construe oon clause wel And kenne it to my parisshens. I kan holde love-dayes, And here a reves rekenyng; Ac in canon nor in decretals I kan noght rede a lyne. 3330 "If I bigge and borwe aught, But if it be y-tailed, I foryete it as yerne; And if men me it axe Sixe sithes or sevene, I forsake it with othes; And thus tene I trewe men {103} Ten hundred tymes. "And my servauntz som tyme Hir salarie is bi-hynde; 3340 Ruthe it is to here the rekenyng, Whan we shul rede acountes. So with wikked wil and wrathe, My werkmen I paye. "If any man dooth me a bienfait, Or helpeth me at nede, I am unkynde ayeins curteisie, And kan nought understounden it; For I have and have had Som del haukes maneres, 3350 I am noght lured with love, But ther ligge aught under the thombe. "The kyndenesse that myn even cristene Kidde me fernyere, Sixty sithes I Sleuthe Have foryete it siththe. In speche and in sparynge of speche Y-spilt many a tyme Bothe flessh and fissh, And manye othere vitailles, 3360 Both bred and ale, Buttre, melk, and chese, For-sleuthed in my service Til it myghte serve no man. "I ran aboute in youthe, And yaf me naught to lerne, And evere siththe have I be beggere For my foule sleuthe. _Heu michi! quia sterilem vitam duxi juvenilem._" 3370 "Repentedestow noght?" quod Repentaunce; {104} And right with that he swowned, Til _Vigilate_ the veille Fette water at hise eighen, And flatte it on his face, And faste on hym cryde, And seide, "Ware thee, for Wanhope Wolde thee bi-traye, 'I am sory for my synnes' Seye to thiselve, 3380 And beet thiself on the brest, And bidde hym of grace; For is ne gilt here so gret That his goodnesse nys moore." Thanne sat Sleuthe up, And seyned hym swithe, And made a vow to-fore God For his foule sleuthe. "Shal no Sonday be this seven yer, But siknesse it lette, 3390 That I ne shal do me er day To the deere chirche; And here matyns and masse, As I a monk were, Shal noon ale after mete Holde me thennes, Til I have even-song herd, I bi-hote to the roode! And yet wole I yelde ayein, If I so much have, 3400 Al that I wikkedly wan Sithen I wit hadde. "And though my liflode lakke, Leten I nelle, That ech man ne shal have his, {105} Er I hennes wende; And with the residue and the remenaunt, Bi the Rode of Chestre! I shal seken Truthe erst Er I se Rome." 3410 Roberd the robbere On _Reddite_ loked, And for ther was noght wherof, He wepte swithe soore; Ac yet the synfulle sherewe Seide to hymselve, "Crist, that on Calvarie Upon the cros deidest, Tho Dysmas my brother Bi-soughte yow of grace, 3420 And haddest mercy on that man For _memento_ sake, So rewe on this robbere That _reddere_ ne have, Ne nevere wene to wynne With craft that I owe; But for thi muchel mercy Mitigacion I bi-seche, Ne dampne me noght at domes-day For that I dide so ille." 3430 What bi-fel of this feloun I kan noght faire shewe; Wel I woot he wepte faste Water with bothe hise eighen, And knoweliched his gilt To Crist yet eft soones, That _Poenetentia_ his pik He sholde polshe newe, And lepe with hym over lond {106} Al his lif tyme, 3440 For he hadde leyen by _Latro_ Luciferis aunte. And thanne hadde Repentaunce ruthe, And redde hem alle to knele; "For I shal bi-seche for alle synfulle Our Saveour of grace, To amenden us of oure mysdedes, And do mercy to us alle." "Now God," quod he, "that of thi goodnesse Bi-gonne the world to make, 3450 And of naught madest aught, and man Moost lik to thiselve, And sithen suffredest for to synne, A siknesse to us alle, And al for the beste, as I bi-leve, What evere the book telleth. _O felix culpa! O necessarium peccatum Adæ! etc._ = "For thorugh that synne thi sone Sent was to this erthe, 3460 And bicam man of a maide, Mankynde to save: And madest thiself with thi sone And us synfulle y-liche _Faciamus hominem ad imaginem nostram. Et alibi. Qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, et Deus in eo._ "And siththe with thi selve sone In oure secte deidest, 3470 On Good-Fryday, for mannes sake, At ful tyme of the daye, {107} Ther thiself ne thi sone No sorwe in deeth feledest, But in oure secte was the sorwe, And thi sone it ladde. _Captivam duxit captivitatem._ "The sonne for sorwe therof Lees light of a tyme, Aboute mydday whan moost light is, 3480 And meel-tyme of seintes, Feddest with thi fresshe blood Oure fore-fadres in derknesse. _Populus qui ambulabat in tenebris, vidit lucem magnam._ "And thorugh the light that lepe out of thee Lucifer was blent. And blewe alle thi blessed Into the blisse of paradys. "The thridde day after 3490 Thow yedest in oure sute, A synful Marie the seigh, Er seynte Marie thi dame; And al to solace synfulle Thow suffredest it so were. _Non veni vocare justos sed peccatores ad poenitentiam._ "And al that Marc hath y-maad, Mathew, Johan, and Lucas, Of thyne doughty dedes 3500 Was doon in oure armes. _Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis._ = "And by so muche me semeth The sikerer we mowe Bidde and bi-seche, {108} If it be thi wille, That art oure fader and oure brother, Be merciable to us, And have ruthe on thise ribaudes 3510 That repenten hem here soore, That evere thei wrathed thee in this world, In word, thought, or dedes." Thanne hent Hope an horn Of _Deus, tu conversus vivificabis_, And blew it with _Beati quorum Remissæ sunt iniquitates_, That alle seintes in hevene Songen at ones. _Homines et jumenta salvabis, quemadmodum 3520 multiplicasti misericordiam tuam._ = A thousand of men tho Thrungen togideres, Cride upward to Crist, And to his clene moder, To have grace to go with hem Truthe to seke. Ac there was wight noon so wys The wey thider kouthe, 3530 But blustreden forth as beestes Over bankes and hilles; Til late was and longe That thei a leode mette, Apparailled as a paynym In pilgrymes wise. He bar a burdoun y-bounde With a brood liste, In a withwynde wise Y-wounden aboute; 3540 {109} A bolle and a bagge He bar by his syde, And hundred of ampulles On his hat seten, Signes of Synay, And shelles of Galice, And many a crouche on his cloke, And keyes of Rome, And the vernycle bi-fore, For men sholde knowe 3550 And se bi hise signes Whom he sought hadde. This folk frayned hym first, Fro whennes he come. "Fram Syny," he seide, "And fram oure Lordes sepulcre; In Bethlem and in Babiloyne, I have ben in bothe; In Armonye and Alisaundre, In manye othere places. 3560 Ye may se by my signes, That sitten on myn hatte, That I have walked ful wide In weet and in drye, And sought goode seintes For my soules helthe." "Knowestow aught a corsaint, That men calle Truthe? Koudestow aught wissen us the wey, Wher that wye dwelleth?" 3570 "Nay, so me God helpe!" Seide the gome thanne, "I seigh nevere palmere, With pyk ne with scrippe, {110} Asken after hym er Til now in this place." "Peter!" quod a plowman, And putte forth his hed, "I knowe hym as kyndely As clerk doth hise bokes; 3580 Conscience and kynde wit Kenned me to his place, And diden me suren hym sikerly To serven hym for evere, Bothe to sowe and to sette, The while I swynke myghte. I have ben his folwere Al this fifty wynter, Bothe y-sowen his seed, And suwed hise beestes, 3590 Withinne and withouten Waited his profit. I dyke and I delve, I do that Truthe hoteth; Som tyme I sowe, And som tyme I thresshe; In taillours craft and tynkeris craft, What Truthe kan devyse, I weve and I wynde, And do what Truthe hoteth, 3600 For though I seye it myselfe, I serve hym to paye; I have myn hire wel, And outher whiles moore. He is the presteste paiere That povere men knoweth; He ne withhalt noon hewe his hire, That he ne hath it at even; {111} He is as lowe as a lomb, And lovelich of speche; 3610 And if ye wilneth to wite Where that he dwelleth, I shal wisse you witterly The wey to his place." "Ye, leve Piers," quod thise pilgrimes, And profred hym huyre, For to wende with hem To Truthes dwellyng-place. "Nay, by my soules helpe!" quod Piers, And gan for to swere, 3620 "I nolde fange a ferthyng. For seint Thomas shryne; Truthe wolde love me the lasse A long tyme therafter; Ac if yow wilneth to wende wel, This is the wey thider. "Ye moten go thorugh Mekenesse, Both men and wyves, Til ye come into Conscience, That Crist wite the sothe 3630 That ye loven oure Lord God Levest of alle thynges, And thanne youre neghebores next In none wise apeire, Other wise than thow woldest He wroughte to thiselve. "And so boweth forth by a brook, Beth-buxom-of-speche, Til he fynden a ford, Youre-fadres-honoureth, 3640 _Honora patrem et matrem, etc._ Wadeth in that water, {112} And wasshe yow wel therinne, And ye shul lepe the lightloker Al youre lif tyme; And so shaltow se Swere-noght,- But-if-it-be-for-nede,- And-nameliche-on-ydel- The-name-of-God-almyghty. "Thanne shaltow come by a croft, 3650 But come thow noght therinne; That croft hatte Coveite-noght- Mennes-catel-ne-hire-wyves,- Ne-noon-of-hire-servauntz- That-noyen-hem-myghte; Loke ye breke no bowes there, But if it be youre owene. "Two stokkes ther stondeth, Ac stynte ye noght there, Thei highte Stele-noght and Sle-noght, 3660 Strik forth by bothe, And leve hem on thi lift half, And loke noght therafter, And hold wel thyn hali-day Heighe til even. "Thanne shaltow blenche at a bergh, Bere-no-fals-witnesse, He is frythed in with floryns And othere fees manye; Loke thow plukke no plaunte there, 3670 For peril of thi soule; Thanne shul ye see Seye-sooth,- So-it-be-to-doone,- In-good-manere,-ellis-noght- For-no-mannes-biddyng. "Thanne shaltow come to a court {113} As cler as the sonne; The moot is of Mercy The manoir aboute, And alle the walles ben of Wit, 3680 To holden Wil oute, And kerneled wit Cristendom, Mankynde to save, Botrased with Bileef-so,- Or-thow-beest-noght-saved. "And alle the houses ben hiled, Halles and chambres, With no leed but with love, And lowe speche as bretheren; The brugg is of Bidde-wel,- 3690 The-bet-may-thow-spede; Ech piler is of penaunce, Of preieres to seyntes; Of almes-dedes are the hokes That the gates hangen on. "Grace hatte the gatewarde, A good man for sothe; His man hatte Amende-yow, For many men hym knoweth; Telleth hym this tokene, 3700 That Truthe wite the sothe; 'I perfourned the penaunce That the preest me enjoyned, And am ful sory for my synnes, And so I shal evere, Whan I thynke theron, Theigh I were a pope.' "Biddeth Amende-yow meke hym Til his maister ones, To wayven up the wiket 3710 {114} That the womman shette, Tho Adam and Eve Eten apples un-rosted. _Per Evam cunctis clausa est, et per Mariam virginem patefacta est._ "For he hath the keye and the cliket, Though the kyng slepe. And if grace graunte thee To go in this wise, Thow shalt see in thiselve 3720 Truthe in thyn herte, In a cheyne of charité As thow a child were, To suffren hym and segge noght Ayein thi sires wille. "And be war thanne of Wrathe-thee, That is a wikked sherewe; He hath envye to hym That in thyn herte sitteth, And poketh forth pride 3730 To preise thiselven. The boldnesse of thi bienfetes Maketh thee blynd thanne; And thanne worstow dryven out as dew, And the dore closed, Keyed and cliketted, To kepe thee withouten; Happily an hundred wynter Er thow eft entre. Thus myghtestow lesen his love, 3740 To lete wel by thiselve, And nevere happily eft entre, But grace thow have. "And ther are seven sustren {115} That serven Truthe evere, And arn porters of the posternes That to the place longeth. "That oon hatte Abstinence, And Humilité another; Charité and Chastité 3750 Ben hise chief maydenes; Pacience and Pees Muche peple thei helpeth; Largenesse the lady, She let in ful manye, Heo hath holpe a thousand out Of the develes punfolde; And who is sib to thise sevene, So me God helpe! He is wonderly welcome, 3760 And faire underfongen. And but if ye be sibbe To some of thise sevene, It is ful hard, by myn heed!" quod Piers, "For any of yow alle To geten in-going at any gate there, But grace be the moore." "Now by Crist!" quod a kutte-purs "I have no kyn there." "Nor I," quod an ape-ward, 3770 "By aught that I kan knowe." "Wite God!" quod a wafrestere, "Wiste I this for sothe, Sholde I nevere ferther a foot, For no freres prechyng." "Yis," quod Piers the Plowman, And poked hem alle to goode, "Mercy is a maiden there {116} Hath myght over alle; And she is sib to alle synfulle, 3780 And hire sone also, And thorugh the help of hem two Hope thow noon oother, Thow myght gete grace there, So thow go bi-tyme." "Bi seint Poul!" quod a pardoner, "Peraventure I be noght knowe there; I wol go fecche my box with my brevettes, And a bulle with bisshopes lettres." "By Crist!" quod a commune womman, "Thi compaignie wol I folwe; Thow shalt seye I am thi suster, I ne woot where thei bicome." 3793 * * * * * {117} _Passus Sextus de Visione, ut supra._ "This were a wikkede wey, 3794 But who so hadde a gyde, That wolde folwen us ech a foot;" Thus this folke hem mened. Quod Perkyn the Plowman, "By seint Peter of Rome! I have an half acre to erie 3800 By the heighe weye; Hadde I eryed this half acre, And sowen it after, I wolde wende with yow, And the wey teche." "This were a long lettyng," Quod a lady in scleyre, "What sholde we wommen Werche the while?" "Somme shul sowe the sak," quod Piers, 3810 "For shedyng of the whete; And ye, lovely ladies, With youre longe fyngres, That ye have silk and sandel To sowe, whan tyme is; Chesibles for chapeleyns, Chirches to honoure. {118} "Wyves and widewes, Wolle and flex spynneth; Maketh cloth, I counseille yow, 3820 And kenneth so youre doughtres; The nedy and the naked, Nymeth hede how thei liggeth, And casteth hem clothes, For so comaundeth Truthe. For I shal leven hem liflode, But if the lond faille, Flesshe and breed bothe To riche and to poore, As long as I lyve, 3830 For the Lordes love of hevene; And alle manere of men That thorugh mete and drynke libbeth, Helpeth hym to werche wightliche, That wynneth youre foode." "By Crist!" quod a knyght thoo, "He kenneth us the beste; Ac on the teme, trewely, Taught was I nevere; But kenne me," quod the knyght, 3840 "And by Crist I wole assaye!" "By seint Poul!" quod Perkyn, "Ye profre yow so faire, That I shal swynke and swete, And sowe for us bothe, And othere labours do for thi love Al my lif tyme, In covenaunt that thow kepe Holy kirke and myselve Fro wastours and fro wikked men 3850 That this world destruyeth. {119} And go hunte hardiliche To hares and to foxes, To bores and to brokkes That breken doun myne hegges; And so affaite thi faucons Wilde foweles to kille; For swiche cometh to my croft, And croppeth my whete." Curteisly the knyght thanne 3860 Comsed thise wordes; "By my power, Piers!" quod he, "I plighte thee my trouthe, To fulfille this forwarde, Though I fighte sholde; Als longe as I lyve I shal thee mayntene." "Ye, and yet a point," quod Piers, "I preye yow of moore, Loke ye tene no tenaunt, 3870 But Truthe wole assente; And though ye mowe amercy hem, Lat mercy be taxour, And mekenesse thi maister, Maugree Medes chekes. And though povere men profre yow Presentes and giftes, Nyme it noght, an aventure Ye mowe it noght deserve; For thow shalt yelde it ayein 3880 At one yeres tyme, In a ful perilous place, Purgatorie it hatte. "And mys-bede noght thi bonde-men, The bettre may thow spede; {120} Though he be thyn underlyng here, Wel may happe in hevene That he worth worthier set, And with moore blisse. _Amice, ascende superius._ 3890 For in charnel at chirche Cherles ben yvel to knowe, Or a knyght from a knave there, Knowe this in thyn herte. And that thow be trewe of thi tonge, And tales that thow hatie, But if thei ben of wisdom or of wit Thi werkmen to chaste. Hold with none harlotes, Ne here noght hir tales, 3900 And namely at the mete Swiche men eschuwe; For it ben the develes disours, I do the to understonde." "I assente, by seint Jame!" Seide the knyght thanne, "For to werche by thi wordes The while my lif dureth." "And I shal apparaille me," quod Perkyn, "In pilgrymes wise, 3910 And wende with yow I wile, Til we fynde Truthe; And caste on my clothes Y-clouted and hole, My cokeres and my coffes, For cold of my nailes; And hange myn hoper at myn hals In stede of a scryppe. A busshel of bred corn {121} Brynge me therinne; 3920 For I wol sowe it myself, And sithenes wol I wende To pilgrymage, as palmeres doon, Pardon for to have. And who so helpeth me to erie And sowen here er I wende, Shal have leve, by oure Lorde! To lese here in hervest, And make hem murie thermyd, Maugree who so bi-gruccheth it. 3930 And alle kynne crafty-men, That konne lyven in truthe, I shal fynden hem fode, That feithfulliche libbeth. "Save Jagge the jogelour, And Jonette of the stuwes, And Danyel the dees-pleyere, And Denote the baude, And frere the faitour, And folk of hire ordre, 3940 And Robyn the ribaudour For hise rusty wordes. Truthe tolde me ones, And bad me telle it after, _Deleantur de libro viventium_, I sholde noght dele with hem, For holy chirche is hote of hem No tithe to take; _Qui cum justis non scribantur_; They ben ascaped good aventure, 3950 God hem amende!" Dame Werch-whan-tyme-is Piers wif highte; {122} His doughter highte Do-right-so,- Or-thi-dame-shal-thee-bete; His sone highte Suffre-thi-sovereyns- To-haven-hir-wille,- Deme-hem-noght,-for-if-thow-doost,- Thow-shalt-it-deere-abugge. Lat God y-worthe with al, 3960 For so his word techeth; For now I am old and hoor, And have of myn owene, To penaunce and to pilgrimage I wol passe with thise othere. "For-thi I wole er I wende Do write my biqueste, _In Dei nomine, Amen_, I make it myselve; He shal have my soule, 3970 That best hath deserved it; And fro the fend it defende, For so I bileve, Til I come to hise acountes, As my Credo me telleth, To have a relees and a remission, On that rental I leve. "The kirke shal have my caroyne, And kepe my bones; For of my corn and catel 3980 She craved the tithe; I paide it ful prestly, For peril of my soule. For-thi is he holden I hope To have me in his masse, And mengen in his memorie Amonges alle cristene. {123} "My wif shal have of that I wan With truthe, and na-moore, And dele among my doughtres, 3990 And my deere children; For though I deye to day, My dettes are quyte; I bar hom that I borwed, Er I to bedde yede. "And with the residue and the remenaunt, By the Rode of Lukes! I wol worshipe therwith Truthe by my lyve, And ben his pilgrym atte plow, 4000 For povere mennes sake. My plow-foot shall be my pikstaf, And picche a-two the rotes, And helpe my cultour to kerve And clense the furwes." Now is Perkyn and hise pilgrimes To the plow faren; To erie his half acre Holpen hym manye; Dikeres and delveres 4010 Digged up the balkes. Therwith was Perkyn a-payed, And preised hem faste. Othere werkmen ther were That wroghten ful yerne; Ech man in his manere Made hymself to doone, And somme to plese Perkyn Piked up the wedes. At heigh prime Piers 4020 Leet the plowgh stonde, {124} To over-sen hem hymself, And who so best wroghte He sholde be hired therafter, Whan hervest tyme come. And thanne seten somme, And songen atte nale, And holpen ere this half acre With "How, trolly lolly." "Now, by the peril of my soule!" quod Piers, 4030 All in pure tene, "But ye arise the rather And rape yow to werche, Shal no greyn that groweth Glade yow at nede, And though ye deye for doel, The devel have that reccheth." Tho were faitours a-fered, And feyned hem blynde; Somme leide hir legges a-liry, 4040 As swiche losels konneth, And made hir mone to Piers, And preide hym of grace; "For we have no lymes to laboure with, Lord, y-graced be the; Ac we preie for yow, Piers, And for youre plowgh bothe, That God of his grace Youre greyn multiplie, And yelde yow for youre almesse 4050 That ye gyve us here; For we may noght swynke ne swete, Swich siknesse us eyleth." "If it be sooth," quod Piers, "that ye seyn, I shal it soone aspie. {125} Ye ben wastours, I woot wel, And Truthe woot the sothe; And I am his olde hyne, And highte hym to warne, Whiche thei were in this world 4060 Hise werkmen apeired. Ye wasten that men wynnen With travaille and with tene; Ac Truthe shal teche yow His teme to dryve, Or ye shul eten barley breed, And of the broke drynke. "But if he be blynd or broke-legged, Or bolted with irens, He shall ete whete breed, 4070 And drynke with myselve, Til God of his goodnesse Amendement hym sende. Ac ye myghte travaille, as Truthe wolde, And take mete and hyre, To kepe kyen in the feld, The corn fro the beestes, Diken or delven, Or dyngen upon sheves, Or helpe make morter, 4080 Or bere muk a-feld. "In lecherie and in losengerie Ye lyven, and in sleuthe; And al is thorugh suffraunce, That vengeaunce yow ne taketh. "Ac ancres and heremites That eten noght but at nones, And na-moore er the morwe, Myn almesse shul thei have, {126} And of catel to kepe hem with, 4090 That han cloistres and chirches. "Ac Robert Renaboute Shal noght have of myne, Ne postles, but thei preche konne And have power of the bisshope; Thei shul have payn and potage, And make hemself at ese, For it is an unreasonable religion That hath right noght of certein." And thanne gan Wastour to wrathen hym, 4100 And wolde have y-foughte; And to Piers the Plowman He profrede his glove; A bretoner, a braggere, A-bosted Piers als, And bad hym go pissen with his plowgh, "For-pynede sherewe! Wiltow or neltow, We wol have oure wille Of thi flour and of thi flesshe, 4110 Fecche whanne us liketh; And maken us murye thermyde, Maugree thi chekes." Thanne Piers the Plowman Pleyned hym to the knyghte, To kepen hym as covenaunt was Fro cursede sherewes, And fro thise wastours wolves-kynnes That maketh the world deere; "For tho wasten and wynnen noght, 4120 And that ilke while Worth nevere plentee among the peple, {127} The while my plowgh liggeth." Curteisly the knyght thanne, As his kynde wolde, Warnede Wastour, And wissed hym bettre, "Or thow shalt abigge by the lawe, By the ordre that I bere!" "I was noght wont to werche," quod Wastour, 4130 "And now wol I noght bigynne;" And leet light of the lawe, And lasse of the knyghte; And sette Piers at a pese, And his plowgh bothe; And manaced Piers and his men, If thei mette eft soone. "Now, by the peril of my soule!" quod Piers, "I shal apeire yow alle;" And houped after Hunger, 4140 That herde hym at the firste, "A-wreke me of thise wastours," quod he, "That this world shendeth." Hunger in haste thoo Hente Wastour by the wombe, And wrong him so by the wombe, That bothe hise eighen watrede. He buffeted the bretoner Aboute the chekes, That he loked lik a lanterne 4150 Al his lif after. He bette hem so bothe, He brast ner hire guttes; Ne hadde Piers with a pese loof {128} Preyed Hunger to cesse, They hadde be dolven, Ne deme thow noon oother. "Suffre hem lyve," he seide, "And lat hem ete with hogges, Or ellis benes or bren 4160 Y-baken togideres, Or ellis melk and mene ale;" Thus preied Piers for hem. Faitours for fere herof Flowen into bernes, And flapten on with flailes Fro morwe til even; That Hunger was noght so hardy On hem for to loke, For a potful of peses 4170 That Piers hadde y-maked. An heep of heremytes Henten hem spades, And kitten hir copes, And courtepies hem maked, And wente as werkmen With spades and with shoveles And dolven and dikeden, To dryve awey hunger. Blynde and bed-reden 4180 Were bootned a thousande, That seten to begge silver, Soone were thei heeled; For that was bake for bayarde, Was boote for many hungry; And many a beggere for benes Buxum was to swynke; And eche a povere man wel a-paied {129} To have pesen for his hyre, And what Piers preide hem to do, 4190 As prest as a sperhauk; And therof was Piers proud, And putte hem to werke, And yaf hem mete as he myghte aforthe, And mesurable hyre. Thanne had Piers pité, And preide Hunger to wende Hoom unto his owene yerd, And holden hym there; "For I am wel a-wroke 4200 Of wastours, thorugh thy myghte. Ac I preie thee, er thow passe," Quod Piers to Hunger, "Of beggeris and of bidderis What best be to doone. For I woot wel, be thow went, Thei wol werche ful ille; For meschief it maketh Thei be so meke nouthe, And for defaute of hire foode 4210 This folk is at my wille. "Thei are my blody bretheren," quod Piers, "For God boughte us alle. Truthe taughte me ones To loven hem echone; And to helpen hem of alle thyng Ay as hem nedeth. And now wolde I wite of thee What were the beste; And how I myghte a-maistren hem, 4220 And make hem to werche." {130} "Here now," quod Hunger, "And hoold it for a wisdom; Bolde beggeris and bigge That mowe hir breed bi-swynke, With houndes breed and horse breed Hoold up hir hertes; A-bate hem with benes, For bollynge of hir wombes; And if the gomes grucche, 4230 Bidde hem go swynke, And he shal soupe swetter Whan he it hath deserved. "And if thow fynde any freke That fortune hath apeired, Or any manere false men, Fonde thow swiche to knowe; Conforte hym with thi catel, For Cristes love of hevene; Love hem and leve hem, 4240 So lawe of God techeth, _Alter alterius onera portare._ "And alle manere of men That thow myght aspie, That nedy ben and noughty, Help hem with thi goodes; Love hem and lakke hem noght, Lat God take the vengeaunce; Theigh thei doon yvele, Lat God y-worthe. 4250 _Mihi vindictam, et ego retribuam._ "And if thow wilt be gracious to God, Do as the gospel techeth, And bi-love thee amonges lewed men, So shaltow lacche grace; {131} _Facite vos amicos de Mammone iniquitatis._" = "I wolde noght greve God," quod Piers, "For al the good on grounde. Mighte I synne-lees do as thow seist?" 4260 Seide Piers thanne. "Ye, I bi-hote thee," quod Hunger, "Or ellis the Bible lieth; Go to Genesis the geaunt, The engendrour of us alle: _In sudore_ and swynk Thow shalt thi mete tilie, And laboure for thi liflode, And so oure Lorde highte. And Sapience seith the same, 4270 I seigh it in the Bible, _Piger præ frigore_ No feeld nolde tilie, And therfore he shal begge and bidde, And no man bete his hunger. "Mathew with mannes face Mouthed thise wordes, That _servus nequam_ hadde a mnam, And for he wolde noght chaffare, He hadde maugree of his maister 4280 Evere moore after, And by-nam hym his mnam, For he ne wolde werche, And yaf that mnam to hym That ten mnames hadde; And with that he seide, That holy chirche it herde, He that hath shal have And helpe there it nedeth; {132} And he that noght hath shal noght have, 4290 And no man hym helpe, And that he weneth wel to have I wole it hym bi-reve. Kynde wit wolde That ech a wight wroghte, Or in dikynge or in delvynge, Or travaillynge in preieres; Contemplatif lif or actif lif Crist wolde thei wroghte. The Sauter seith in the Psalme 4300 Of _Beati omnes_, The freke that fedeth hymself With his feithful labour, He is blessed by the book In body and in soule." _Labores manuum tuarum, etc._ "Yet I preie yow," quod Piers, "_Par charité_, and ye konne Any leef of leche-craft, Lere it me, my deere; 4310 For some of my servauntz, And myself bothe, Of al a wike werche noght, So oure wombe aketh." "I woot wel," quod Hunger, "What siknesse yow eyleth; Ye han manged over muche, And that maketh yow grone. Ac I hote thee," quod Hunger, "As thow thyn hele wilnest, 4320 That thow drynke no day Er thow dyne som what. Ete noght, I hote thee, {133} Er hunger thee take, And sende thee of his sauce To savore with thi lippes; And keep som til soper-tyme, And sitte noght to longe, And rys up er appetit Have eten his fille. 4330 Lat noght sire Surfet Sitten at thi borde. Leve hym noght, for he is lecherous, And likerous of tunge, And after many maner metes His mawe is a-fyngred. "And if thow diete thee thus, I dar legge myne eris, That Phisik shal hise furred hodes For his fode selle, 4340 And his cloke of Calabre, With alle the knappes of golde, And be fayn, by my feith! His phisik to lete, And lerne to laboure with lond, For liflode is swete. For murthereris are manye leches, Lord hem amende! They do men deye thorugh hir drynkes, Er destynee it wolde." 4350 "By seint Poul!" quod Piers, "Thise arn profitable wordes! Wend now, Hunger, whan thow wolt, That wel be thow evere! For this is a lovely lesson, Lord it thee for-yelde!" "Bi-hote God!" quod Hunger, {134} "Hennes ne wole I wende, Til I have dyned bi this day, And y-dronke bothe." 4360 "I have no peny," quod Piers, "Pulettes to bugge, Ne neither gees ne grys, But two grene cheses, A fewe cruddes and creme, And an haver cake, And two loves of benes and bran Y-bake for my fauntes; And yet I seye, by my soule! I have no salt bacon, 4370 Ne no cokeney, by Crist! Coloppes for to maken. "Ac I have percile and porettes, And manye cole plauntes, And ek a cow and a calf, And a cart mare To drawe a-feld my donge, The while the droghte lasteth; And by this liflode we mote lyve Til Lammesse tyme. 4380 And by that, I hope to have Hervest in my crofte, And thanne may I dighte thi dyner, As me deere liketh." Al the povere peple tho Pescoddes fetten, Benes and baken apples Thei broghte in hir lappes, Chibolles and chervelles, And ripe chiries manye, 4390 And profrede Piers this present {135} To plese with Hunger. Al Hunger eet in haste, And axed after moore. Thanne povere folk, for fere, Fedden Hunger yerne, With grene poret and pesen, To poisone hym thei thoghte. By that it neghed neer hervest, And newe corn cam to chepyng; 4400 Thanne was folk fayn, And fedde Hunger with the beste, With goode ale, as Gloton taghte, And garte Hunger go slepe. And tho wolde Wastour noght werche, But wandren aboute, Ne no beggere ete breed That benes inne were, But of coket and cler-matyn, Or ellis of clene whete; 4410 Ne noon halfpeny ale In none wise drynke, But of the beste and of the brunneste That in burghe is to selle. Laborers that have no land To lyve on but hire handes, Deyned noght to dyne a day Nyght-olde wortes; May no peny ale hem paye, Ne no pece of bacone, 4420 But if it be fresshe flessh outher fisshe, Fryed outher y-bake, And that _chaud_ and _plus chaud_, For chillynge of hir mawe; And but if he be heighliche hyred; {136} Ellis wole he chide, And that he was werkman wroght Waille the tyme, Ayeins Catons counseil Comseth he to jangle. 4430 _Paupertatis onus patienter ferre memento._ = He greveth hym ageyn God, And gruccheth ageyn Reson, And thanne corseth he the kyng, And al his counseil after, Swiche lawes to loke Laborers to greve. Ac whiles Hunger was hir maister, Ther wolde noon of hem chide, 4440 Ne stryven ayeins his statut, So sterneliche he loked. Ac I warne yow, werkmen, Wynneth whil ye mowe, For Hunger hiderward Hasteth hym faste. He shal a-wake with water Wastours to chaste; Er fyve be fulfilled, Swich famyn shal a-ryse, 4450 Thorugh flodes and thorugh foule wedres Fruytes shul faille, And so seide Saturne, And sente yow to warne. Whan ye se the sonne a-mys, And two monkes heddes, And a mayde have the maistrie, And multiplie by eighte, Thanne shal deeth with-drawe, {137} And derthe be justice, 4460 And Dawe the dykere Deye for hunger; But God of his goodnesse Graunte us a trewe. 4464 * * * * * {138} _Passus Septimus de Visione, ut supra._ Treuthe herde telle her 4465 And to Piers he sente, To maken his teme And tilien the erthe, And purchaced hym a pardone _A poena et a culpa_, 4470 For hym and for hise heires, For evere moore after, And bad hym holde hym at home, And erien hise leyes. And alle that holpen hym to erye, To sette or to sowe, Or any oother mestier That myghte Piers availle, Pardon with Piers Plowman Truthe hath y-graunted. 4480 Kynges and knyghtes, That kepen holy chirche, And rightfully in remes Rulen the peple, Han pardon thorugh purgatorie To passen ful lightly, With patriarkes and prophetes In paradis to be felawe. {139} Bysshopes y-blessed, If thei ben as thei sholde, 4490 Legistres of bothe lawes, The lewed therwith to preche, And in as muche as thei mowe Amenden alle synfulle, Arn peres with the Apostles, This pardon Piers sheweth, And at the day of dome At the heighe deys sitte. Marchauntz in the margyne Hadde manye yeres, 4500 Ac noon _a poena et a culpa_ The pope nolde hem graunte, For thei holde noght hir hali-dayes As holy chirche techeth, And for thei swere by hir soule, And so God moste hem helpe, Ayein clene Conscience, Hir catel to selle. Ac under his secret seel Truthe sente hem a lettre, 4510 That thei sholde buggen boldely That hem best liked, And sithenes selle it ayein, And save the wynnyng, And amende meson-dieux thermyd, And mys-eise folk helpe, And wikkede weyes Wightly amende, And do boote to brugges That to-broke were, 4520 Marien maydenes, Or maken hem nonnes, {140} Povere peple and prisons Fynden hem hir foode, And sette scolers to scole, Or to som othere craftes, Releve religion, And renten hem bettre; "And I shal sende yow myselve Seint Michel myn archangel, 4530 That no devel shal yow dere, Ne fere yow in youre deying, And witen yow fro wanhope, If ye wol thus werche, And sende youre soules in saufté To my seintes in joye." Thanne were marchauntz murie, Manye wepten for joye, And preiseden Piers the Plowman, That purchaced this bulle. 4540 Men of lawe leest pardon hadde, That pleteden for Mede; For the Sauter saveth hem noght, Swiche as take giftes, And nameliche of innocentz That noon yvel ne konneth. _Super innocentem munera non accipies._ = Pledours sholde peynen hem To plede for swiche and helpe; 4550 Princes and prelates Sholde paie for hire travaille. _A regibus et principibus erit merces eorum._ = Ac many a justice and jurour Wolde for Johan do moore {141} Than _pro Dei pietate_, Leve thow noon oother. Ac he that spendeth his speche, And speketh for the povere 4560 That is innocent and nedy, And no man apeireth, Conforteth hym in that caas Withouten coveitise of giftes, And sheweth lawe for oure Lordes love, As he it hath y-lerned, Shal no devel at his deeth day Deren hym a myte, That he ne worth saaf and his soule, The Sauter bereth witnesse: 4570 _Domine, quis habitabit in tabernaculo tuo?_ = Ac to bugge water, ne wynd, Ne wit, ne fir the ferthe, Thise foure the fader of hevene Made to this foold in commune. Thise ben Truthes tresores Trewe folk to helpe, That nevere shul wexe ne wanye, Withouten God hymselve. 4580 Whan thei drawen on to deye, And indulgences wolde have, Hir pardon is ful petit At hir partyng hennes, That any mede of mene men For hir motyng taketh. Ye legistres and lawieres, Holdeth this for truthe, That if that I lye, Mathew is to blame, 4590 {142} For he bad me make yow this, And this proverbe me tolde, _Quodcunque vultis ut faciant vobis homines, facite eis._ Alle libbynge laborers That lyven with hir hondes, That treweliche taken, And treweliche wynnen, And lyven in love and in lawe, For hir lowe hertes 4600 Haveth the same absolucion That sent was to Piers. Beggeres ne bidderes Ne beth noght in the bulle, But if the suggestion be sooth That shapeth hem to begge. For he that beggeth or bit, But if he have nede, He is fals with the feend, And defraudeth the nedy; 4610 And also he bi-gileth the gyvere, Ageynes his wille; For if he wiste he were noght nedy, He wolde gyve that another That were moore nedy than he, So the nedieste sholde be holpe. Caton kenneth me thus, And the clerc of stories; _Cui des videto_, Is Catons techyng. 4620 And in the stories he techeth To bistowe thyn almesse. _Sit elemosina tua in manu tua, donec studes cui des._ {143} Ac Gregory was a good man, And bad us gyven alle That asketh for his love That us al leneth. _Non eligas cui miserearis, ne forte prætereas illum qui meretur 4630 accipere. Quia incertum est pro quo Deo magis placeas._ For wite ye nevere who is worthi, Ac God woot who hath nede; In hym that taketh is the trecherie, If any treson walke. For he that yeveth, yeldeth, And yarketh hym to reste; And he that biddeth, borweth, And bryngeth hymself in dette. 4640 For beggeres borwen evere mo, And hir borgh is God almyghty, To yelden hem that yeveth hem, And yet usure moore. _Quare non dedisti pecuniam meam ad mensam, ut ego veniam cum usuris exigere?_ For-thi biddeth noght, ye beggeres, But if ye have gret nede; For who so hath to buggen hym breed, 4650 The book bereth witnesse, He hath y-nough that hath breed y-nough, Though he have noght ellis. _Satis dives est, qui non indiget pane._ Lat usage be youre solas, Of seintes lyves redyng, The book banneth beggerie, {144} And blameth hem in this manere: _Junior fui, et jam senui, et non vidi justum derelictum, nec semen 4660 ejus, etc._ For ye lyve in no love, Ne no lawe holde; Manye of yow ne wedde noght The womman that ye with deele, But as wilde bestes with 'wehee!' Worthen uppe and werchen, And bryngen forth barnes, That bastardes men calleth; Or the bak or som boon 4670 He breketh in his youthe, And siththe goon faiten with youre fauntes For evere moore after. Ther is moore mys-shapen peple Amonges thise beggeres, Than of alle manere men That on this moolde walketh. And thei that lyve thus hir lif, Mowe lothe the tyme That evere thei were men wroght, 4680 Whan thei shal hennes fare. Ac olde men and hore, Than help-lees ben of strengthe, And wommen with childe That werche ne mowe, Blynde and bed-reden, And broken hire membres, That taken thise myschiefs mekeliche, As mesels and othere, Han as pleyn pardon 4690 As the plowman hymselve. {145} For love of hir lowe hertes, Oure Lord hath hem graunted Hir penaunce and hir purgatorie Here on this erthe. "Piers," quod a preest thoo, "Thi pardon moste I rede; For I wol construe ech clause, And kenne it thee on Englisshe." And Piers at his preiere 4700 The pardon unfoldeth; And I by-hynde hem bothe Biheld al the bulle, And in two lynes it lay, And noght a leef more, And was writen right thus, In witnesse of Truthe: _Et qui bona egerunt, ibunt in vitam eternam. = Qui vero mala, in ignem eternum._ 4710 "Peter," quod the preest thoo, "I kan no pardon fynde, But do wel and have wel, And God shal have thi soule, And do yvel and have yvel, Hope thow noon oother, But after thi deeth-day The devel shal have thi soule." And Piers for pure tene Pulled it a-tweyne, 4720 And seide _Si ambulavero in medio umbræ mortis, non timebo mala, quoniam tu mecum es._ "I shal cessen of my sowyng," quod Piers, = {146} "And swynke noght so harde, Ne aboute my bely joye So bisy be na-moore; Of preieres and of penaunce My plough shal ben herafter, 4730 And wepen whan I sholde slepe, Though whete-breed me faille. "The prophete his payn eet In penaunce and in sorwe, By that the Sauter seith, So dide othere manye; That loveth God lelly, His liflode is ful esy. _Fuerunt mihi lacrimæ meæ panes die ac nocte._ 4740 "And but if Luc lye, He lereth us by foweles, We sholde noght be to bisy Aboute the worldes blisse; _Ne soliciti sitis_, He seith in the Gospel, And sheweth us by ensamples Us selve to wisse. The foweles in the feld, Who fynt hem mete at wynter? 4750 Have thei no gerner to go to, But God fynt hem alle." "What!" quod the preest to Perkyn, "Peter! as me thynketh, Thow art lettred a litel:-- Who lerned thee on boke?" "Abstynence the abbesse," quod Piers, "Myn a.b.c. me taughte; And Conscience cam afterward, And kenned me muche moore." 4760 {147} "Were thow a preest," quod he, "Thou myghtest preche where thou sholdest, As divinour in divinité, With _Dixit insipiens_ to thi teme." "Lewed lorel!" quod Piers, "Litel lokestow on the Bible; On Salomons sawes Selden thow biholdest: _Ejice derisores et jurgia cum eis, ne crescant, etc._" 4770 The preest and Perkyn Opposeden either oother. And I thorugh hir wordes a-wook, And waited aboute, And seigh the sonne in the south Sitte that tyme, Mete-lees and monei-lees On Malverne hulles, Musynge on this metels, And my wey ich yede. 4780 Many tyme this metels Hath maked me to studie Of that I seigh slepynge, If it so be myghte, And also for Piers the Plowman Ful pencif in herte, And which a pardon Piers hadde Al the peple to conforte, And how the preest impugned it With two propre wordes. 4790 Ac I have no savour in songewarie, For I se it ofte faille; Caton and canonistres Counseillen us to leve {148} To sette sadnesse in songewarie, For _sompnia ne cures_. Ac for the book Bible Bereth witnesse How Daniel divined The dreem of a kyng, 4800 That was Nabugodonosor Nempned of clerkes. Daniel seide, "Sire kyng, Thi dremels bitokneth That unkouthe knyghtes shul come Thi kyngdom to cleyme; Amonges lower lordes Thi lond shal be departed." And as Daniel divined, In dede it fel after; 4810 The kyng lees his lordshipe, And lower men it hadde. And Joseph mette merveillously How the moone and the sonne And the ellevene sterres Hailsed hym alle. Thanne Jacob jugged Josephes swevene. "Beau fitz," quod his fader, "For defaute we shullen, 4820 I myself and my sones, Seche thee for nede." It bifel as his fader seide, In Pharaoes tyme, That Joseph was justice Egipte to loke; It bifel as his fader tolde, Hise frendes there hym soughte, And al this maketh me {149} On this metels to thynke. 4830 And how the preest preved No pardon to Do-wel, And demed that Do-wel Indulgences passed, Biennals and triennals, And bisshopes lettres; And how Do-wel at the day of dome Is digneliche underfongen, And passeth al the pardon Of seint Petres cherche. 4840 Now hath the pope power Pardon to graunte the peple, Withouten any penaunce To passen into hevene; This is oure bileve, As lettred men us techeth: _Quodcumque ligaveris super terram, erit ligatum et in coelis, etc._ = And so I leve leelly, 4850 Lordes forbode ellis! That pardon and penaunce And preieres doon save Soules that have synned Seven sithes dedly; Ac to truste to thise triennals, Trewely me thynketh, Is noght so siker for the soule, Certes, as is Do-wel. For-thi I rede yow, renkes, 4860 That riche ben on this erthe, Upon trust of youre tresor Triennals to have, Be ye never the bolder {150} To breake the .x. hestes; And namely ye maistres, Meires and jugges, That have the welthe of this world And for wise men ben holden, To purchace yow pardon 4870 And the popes bulles. At the dredful dome, Whan dede shulle rise, And comen alle to-fore Crist Acountes to yelde, How thow laddest thi lif here, And hise lawes keptest, And how thow didest day by day, The doom wole reherce. A poke ful of pardon there, 4880 Ne provincials lettres, Theigh ye be founde in the fraternité Of alle the foure ordres, And have indulgences double-fold, But if Do-wel yow helpe, I sette youre patentes and youre pardon At one pies hele. For-thi I counseille alle Cristene To crie God mercy, And Marie his moder 4890 Be oure meene bitwene, That God gyve us grace here, Er we go hennes, Swiche werkes to werche While we ben here, That after oure deeth-day Do-wel reherce At the day of dome, We dide as he highte. 4899 * * * * * {151} _Passus Octavus de Visione, et incipit Do-wel._ Thus y-robed in russet 4900 I romed aboute Al a somer seson For to seke Do-wel; And frayned ful ofte Of folk that I mette, If any wight wiste Wher Do-wel was at inne; And what man he myghte be Of many man I asked. Was nevere wight, as I wente, 4910 That me wisse kouthe Where this leode lenged, Lasse ne moore; Til it bi-fel on a Friday Two freres I mette, Maistres of the menours, Men of grete witte. I hailsed hem hendely, As I hadde y-lerned, And preide hem _par charité_, 4920 Er thei passed ferther, If thei knewe any contree Or costes, as thei wente, {152} "Where that Do-wel dwelleth Dooth me to witene." For thei be men of this moolde That moost wide walken, And knowen contrees and courtes, And many kynnes places, Bothe princes paleises 4930 And povere mennes cotes, And Do-wel and Do-yvele Wher thei dwelle bothe. "Amonges us," quod the Menours, "That man is dwellynge, And evere hath, as I hope, And evere shal herafter." "_Contra_," quod I as a clerc, And comsed to disputen, And seide hem soothly, 4940 "_Septies in die cadit justus._ Sevene sithes, seith the book, Synneth the rightfulle; And who so synneth," I seide, "Dooth yvele, as me thynketh; And Do-wel and Do-yvele Mowe noght dwelle togideres. _Ergo_ he nys noght alwey Amonges yow freres; He is outher while ellis where 4950 To wisse the peple." "I shal seye thee, my sone," Seide the frere thanne, "How seven sithes the sadde man On a day synneth; By a forbisne," quod the frere, "I shal thee faire shewe. {153} Lat brynge a man in a boot Amydde the brode watre, The wynd and the water 4960 And the boot waggyng Maketh the man many a tyme To falle and to stonde; For stonde he never so stif, He stumbleth if he meve, Ac yet is he saaf and sound, And so hym bihoveth. For if he ne arise the rather, And raughte to the steere, The wynd wolde with the water 4970 The boot over throwe; And thanne were his lif lost, Through lachesse of hymselve. "And thus it falleth," quod the frere, "By folk here on erthe; The water is likned to the world That wanyeth and wexeth; The goodes of this grounde arn lik To the grete wawes, That as wyndes and wedres 4980 Walketh aboute; The boot is likned to oure body That brotel is of kynde, That thorugh the fend and the flesshe And the frele worlde Synneth the sadde man A day seven sithes. "Ac dedly synne doth he noght, For Do-wel hym kepeth; And that is charité the champion, 4990 Chief help ayein synne; {154} For he strengheth men to stonde, And steereth mannes soule, And though the body bowe As boot dooth in the watre, Ay is thi soule saaf, But if thow wole thiselve Do a deedly synne, And drenche so thi soule, God wole suffre wel thi sleuthe, 5000 If thiself liketh. For he yaf thee a yeres-gyve, To yeme wel thiselve, And that is wit and free-wil, To every wight a porcion, To fleynge foweles, To fisshes and to beestes; Ac man hath moost therof, And moost is to blame, But if he werche wel therwith, 5010 As Do-wel hym teacheth." "I have no kynde knowyng," quod I, "To conceyven alle youre wordes; Ac if I may lyve and loke, I shal go lerne bettre." "I bikenne thee Crist," quod he, "That on cros deyde!" And I seide, "The same Save yow fro myschaunce, And gyve yow grace on this grounde 5020 Goode men to worthe!" And thus I wente wide wher Walkyng myn one, By a wilde wildernesse, {155} And by a wodes side; Blisse of the briddes Broughte me a-slepe, And under a lynde upon a launde Lened I a stounde, To lythe the layes 5030 Tho lovely foweles made. Murthe of hire mouthes Made me ther to sleple; The marveillouseste metels Mette me thanne That ever dremed wight In world, as I wene. A muche man, as me thoughte, And lik to myselve, Cam and called me 5040 By my kynde name. "What artow?" quod I tho, "That thow my name knowest." "That thou woost wel," quod he, "And no wight bettre." "Woot I what thow art?" "Thought," seide he thanne; "I have sued thee this seven yeer, Seye thow me no rather." "Artow Thought," quod I thoo, 5050 "Thow koudest me wisse, Where that Do-wel dwelleth, And do me that to knowe." "Do-wel and Do-bet, And Do-best the thridde," quod he, "Arn thre fair vertues, And ben noght fer to fynde. Who so is trewe of his tunge, {156} And of his two handes, And thorugh his labour, or thorugh his land, 5060 His liflode wynneth, And is trusty of his tailende, Taketh but his owene, And his noght dronklewe ne dedeynous, Do-wel hym folweth. "Do-bet dooth right thus: Ac he dooth muche moore; He is as lowe as a lomb, And lovelich of speche, And helpeth alle men 5070 After that hem nedeth. The bagges and the bigirdles, He hath to-broke hem alle, That the erl Avarous Heeld and hise heires. And thus with Mammonaes moneie He hath maad hym frendes, And is ronne to religion, And hath rendred the Bible, And precheth to the peple 5080 Seint Poules wordes: _Libenter suffertis insipientes, cum sitis ipsi sapientes._ "And suffreth the unwise With yow for to libbe; And with glad wille dooth hem good, For so God yow hoteth. "Do-best is above bothe, And bereth a bisshopes crosse, Is hoked on that oon ende 5090 To halie men fro helle; A pik is on that potente, {157} To putte a-down the wikked That waiten any wikkednesse Do-wel to tene. And Do-wel and Do-bet Amonges hem han ordeyned, To crowne oon to be kyng To rulen hem bothe; That if Do-wel or Do-bet 5100 Dide ayein Do-best, Thanne shal the kyng come And casten hem in irens, And but if Do-best bede for hem, Thei to be ther for evere. "Thus Do-wel and Do-bet, And Do-best the thridde, Crouned oon to the kyng To kepen hem alle, And to rule the reme 5110 By hire thre wittes, And noon oother wise But as thei thre assented." I thonked Thoght tho, That he me thus taughte. "Ac yet savoreth me noght thi seying; I coveite to lerne How Do-wel, Do-bet, and Do-best Doon among the peple." "But Wit konne wisse thee," quod Thoght, 5120 "Wher tho thre dwelle, Ellis woot I noon that kan That now is alyve." Thoght and I thus Thre daies we yeden, Disputyng upon Do-wel {158} Day after oother; And ere we were war, With Wit gonne we mete. He was long and lene, 5130 Lik to noon other; Was no pride on his apparaille, Ne poverte neither; Sad of his semblaunt, And of softe chere. I dorste meve no matere To maken hym to jangle, But as I bad Thoght thoo Be mene bitwene, And pute forth som purpos 5140 To preven hise wittes, What was Do-wel fro Do-bet, And Do-best from hem bothe. Thanne Thoght in that tyme Seide thise wordes: "Where Do-wel, Do-bet, And Do-best ben in londe, Here is Wil wolde wite, If Wit koude teche hym; And wheither he be man or womman This man fayn wolde aspie, And werchen as thei thre wolde, Thus is his entente." 5153 * * * * * {159} _Passus Nonus de Visione, ut supra, et Primus de Do-wel_ "Sire Do-wel dwelleth," quod Wit, 5154 "Noght a day hennes, In a castel that Kynde made Of four kynnes thynges; Of erthe and of eyr it is maad, Medled togideres, With wynd and with water 5160 Witterly enjoyned. Kynde hath closed therinne Craftily withalle A lemman that he loveth Lik to hymselve; _Anima_ she hatte. Ac envye hir hateth, A proud prikere of Fraunce, _Princeps hujus mundi_, And wolde wynne hire awey 5170 With wiles, and he myghte. "Ac Kynde knoweth this wel, And kepeth hire the bettre, And dooth hire with sire Do-wel, Is duc of thise marches. "Do-bet is hire damyselle, Sire Do-weles doughter, {160} To serven this lady leelly Bothe late and rathe. "Do-best is above bothe, 5180 A bisshopes peere; That he bit moot be do, He ruleth hem alle. _Anima_, that lady, Is lad by his leryng. Ac the constable of that castel, That kepeth al the wacche, Is a wis knyght withalle, Sire Inwit he hatte, And hathe fyve faire sones 5190 Bi his firste wyve; Sire Se-wel, and Sey-wel, And Here-wel the hende, Sire Werch-wel-with-thyn-hand, A wight man of strengthe, And sire Godefray Go-wel; Grete lordes, for sothe. Thise fyve ben set To kepe this lady _Anima_, Til Kynde come or sende 5200 To saven hire for evere." "What kynnes thyng is Kynde?" quod I, "Kanstow me telle?" "Kynde," quod Wit, "is a creatour Of alle kynnes thynges, Fader and formour Of al that evere was maked; And that is the grete God That gynnyng hadde nevere, Lord of lif and of light, 5210 Of lisse and of peyne. {161} Aungeles and alle thyng Arn at his wille; Ac man is hym moost lik Of marc and of shafte; For thorugh the word that he spak Woxen forth beestes. _Dixit et facta sunt._ "And made man likkest To hymself one, 5220 And Eve of his ryb-bon, Withouten any mene, For he was synguler hymself; And seide _faciamus_, As who seith moore moot herto Than my word oone, My myght moot helpe Forth with my speche. Right as a lord sholde make lettres, And hym lakked parchemyn, 5230 Though he koude write never so wel, If he hadde no penne, The lettre, for al the lordshipe, I leve were nevere y-maked. "And so it semeth by hym, As the Bible telleth, There he seide _Dixit et facta sunt_, He moste werche with his word, And his wit shewe. And in this manere was man maad, 5240 Thorugh myght of God almighty, With his word and werkmanshipe, And with lif to laste. And thus God gaf hym a goost, Thorugh the godhede of hevene, {162} And of his grete grace Graunted hym blisse, And that is lif that ay shal laste To al his lynage after. And that is the castel that Kynde made, 5250 _Caro_ it hatte, And is as muche to mene As man with a soule; And that he wroghte with werk, And with word bothe, Thorgh myght of the magesté Man was y-maked. "Inwit and alle wittes Closed ben therinne, For love of the lady _Anima_, 5260 That lif is y-nempned; Over al in mannes body He walketh and wandreth. And in the herte is hir hoom And hir mooste reste. "Ac Inwit is in the heed, And to the herte he loketh; What _Anima_ is leef or looth, He lat hire at his wille; For after the grace of God, 5270 The gretteste is Inwit. "Muche wo worth that man That mys-ruleth his Inwit; And that ben glotons glubberes, Hir God is hire wombe. _Quorum deus venter est._ "For thei serven Sathan, Hir soules shal he have. That lyven synful lif here, {163} Hir soule is lich the devil; 5280 And alle that lyven good lif Are lik to God almyghty, _Qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, etc._ = "Alas! that drynke shal for-do That God deere boughte, And dooth God forsaken hem That he shoop to his liknesse. _Amen dico vobis, nescio vos. Et alibi: Et dimisi eos secundum desideria 5290 eorum._ "Fools that fauten Inwit, I fynde that holy chirche Sholde fynden hem that hem fauted, And fader-lese children, And widewes that han noght wherwith To wynnen hem hir foode, Madde men, and maydenes That help-lese were, Alle thise lakken Inwit, 5300 And loore bihoveth. "Of this matere I myghte Make a long tale, And fynde fele witnesses Among the foure doctours; And that I lye noght of that I lere thee, Luc bereth witnesse. "God-fadres and god-modres, That seen hire god-children At mys-eise and at myschief, 5310 And mowe hem amende, Shul have penaunce in purgatorie But thei hem helpe. {164} For moore bilongeth to the litel barn, Er he the lawe knowe, Than nempnynge of a name, And he never the wiser. Sholde no cristene creature Cryen at the yate, Ne faille payn ne potage, 5320 And prelates dide as thei sholden. A Jew wolde noght se a Jew Go janglyng for defaute, For alle the mebles on this moolde, And he amende it myghte. "Alas! that a cristene creature Shal be unkynde til another; Syn Jewes, that we jugge Judas felawes, Eyther of hem helpeth oother 5330 Of that that hem nedeth. Whi nel we cristene Of Cristes good be as kynde As Jewes, that ben oure lores-men? Shame to us alle! The commune for hir unkyndenesse, I drede me, shul abye. "Bisshopes shul be blamed For beggeres sake. He is wors than Judas, 5340 That gyveth a japer silver, And biddeth the beggere go, For his broke clothes. _Proditor est prælatus cum Juda, qui patrimonium Christi mimis distribuit. Et alibi: Perniciosus dispensator est, qui res {165} pauperum Christi inutiliter consumit._ "He dooth noght wel that dooth thus, 5350 Ne drat noght God almyghty; He loveth noght Salomons sawes, That sapience taughte. _Initium sapientiæ, timor Domini._ "That dredeth God, he dooth wel; That dredeth him for love, And noght for drede of vengeaunce, Dooth therfore the bettre. "He dooth best that with-draweth hym By daye and by nyghte, 5360 To spille any speche Or any space of tyme. _Qui offendit in uno, in omnibus est reus._ = "Lesynge of tyme, Truthe woot the sothe, Is moost y-hated upon erthe Of hem that ben in hevene; And siththe to spille speche, That spicerie is of grace, 5370 And Goddes gle-man, And a game of hevene. Wolde nevere the feithful fader This fithele were un-tempred, Ne his gle-man a gedelyng, A goere to tavernes. "To alle trewe tidy men That travaille desiren, Oure Lord loveth hem and lent Loude outher stille 5380 {166} Grace to go to hem, And of-gon hir liflode. _Inquirentes autem Dominum non minuentur omni bono._ "Trewe wedded libbynge folk In this world is Do-wel, For thei mote werche and wynne, And the world sustene. For of hir kynde thei come That confessours ben nempned, 5390 Kynges and knyghtes, Kaysers and cherles, Maidenes and martires, Out of o man come. The wif was maad the weye For to helpe werche; And thus was wedlok y-wroght With a mene persone, First, by the fadres wille, And the frendes conseille; 5400 And sithenes by assent of hemself, As thei two myghte acorde. And thus was wedlok y-wroght, And God hymself it made In erthe and in hevene, Hymself bereth witnesse. "Ac fals folk feyth-lees, Theves and lyeres, Wastours and wrecches, Out of wedlok, I trowe, 5410 Conceyved ben in yvel tyme, As Caym was on Eve; Of swiche synfulle sherewes The Sauter maketh mynde: {167} _Concepit in dolore, et peperit iniquitatem, etc._ = "And alle that come of that Caym, Come to yvel ende. And God sente to Seem, And seide by an aungel, 5420 'Thyn issue in thyn issue I wol that thei be wedded, And noght thi kynde with Caymes Y-coupled nor y-spoused.' "Yet some, ayein the sonde Of oure Saveour of hevene, Caymes kynde and his kynde Coupled togideres, Til God wrathed for hir werkes, And swich a word seide, 5430 'That I makede man It me for-thynketh.' _Poenitet me fecisse hominem._ "And com to Noe anon, And bad hym noght lette: 'Swith go shape a ship Of shides and of bordes; Thyself and thi sones, And sithen youre wyves, Busketh yow to that boot, 5440 And bideth ye therinne, Til fourty daies be fulfild, That the flood have y-wasshen Clene awey the corsed blood That Caym hath y-maked. "'Beestes that now ben Shul banne the tyme That evere that cursed Caym {168} Coom on this erthe; Alle shul deye for hise dedes, 5450 By dales and by hulles, And the foweles that fleen Forth with othere beestes, Excepte oonliche Of ech kynde a couple, That in thi shyngled ship Shul ben y-saved.' Here a-boughte the barn The bel-sires giltes, And alle for hir fadres 5460 Thei ferden the werse; The Gospel is her ayein, In o degré, I fynde: _Filius non portabit iniquitatem patris, et pater non portabit iniquitatem filii, etc._ "Ac I fynde if the fader Be fals and a sherewe, That som del the sone Shal have the sires tacches. 5470 "Impe on an ellere, And if thyn appul be swete, Muchel merveille me thynketh; And moore of a sherewe That bryngeth forth any barn, But if he be the same, And have a savour after the sire; Selde sestow oother. _Nunquam colligitur de spinis uva, nec de tribulis ficus._ 5480 "And thus thorugh cursed Caym Cam care upon erthe; {169} And al for thei wroghte wedlokes Ayein Goddes wille. For-thi have thei maugré of hir mariages That marie so hir children. For some, as I se now, Sooth for to telle, For coveitise of catel Un-kyndely ben wedded; 5490 As careful concepcion Cometh of swiche mariages, As bi-fel of the folk That I bifore of tolde, Therfore goode sholde wedde goode, Though thei no good hadde; 'I am _via et veritas_,' seith Crist, 'I may avaunce yow alle.' "It is an uncomly couple, By Crist! as me thynketh, 5500 To yeven a yong wenche To an old feble, Or wedden any wodewe For welthe of hir goodes, That nevere shal barn bere But if it be in hir armes. Many a peire, sithen the pestilence, Han plight hem togideres, The fruyt that brynge forth Arn foule wordes, 5510 In jelousie joye-lees, And janglynge on bedde, Have thei no children but cheeste, And clappyng hem bitwene. And though thei do hem to Dunmowe, But if the devel helpe, {170} To folwen after the flicche, Fecche thei it nevere; And but thi bothe be for-swore, That bacon thei tyne. 5520 "For-thei I counseille alle cristene Coveite noght be wedded For coveitise of catel, Ne of kyn-rede riche; Ac maidenes and maydenes Macche yow togideres, Wodewes and wideweres Wercheth the same; For no londes, but for love, Loke ye be wedded, 5530 And thanne gete ye the grace of God, And good y-nough to lyve with. "And every maner seculer That may noght continue, Wisely goo wedde, And ware hym fro synne; For lecherie in likynge Is lyme-yerd of helle. Whiles thow art yong, And thi wepene kene, 5540 Wreke thee with wyvyng, If thow wolt ben excused. _Dum sis vir fortis, Ne des tua robora scortis; Scribitur in portis, Meretrix est janua mortis._ "Whan ye han wyved, beth war And wercheth in tyme; Noght as Adam and Eve, Whan Caym was engendred. 5550 {171} For in un-tyme, trewely, Bitwene man and womman, Ne sholde no bourde or bedde be; But if thei bothe were clene Bothe of lif and of soule, And in perfit charité, That ilke derne dede do No man ne sholde. And if thei leden thus hir lif, It liketh God almyghty; 5560 For he made wedlok first, And hymself it seide: _Bonum est ut unusquisque uxorem suam habeat, propter fornicationem._ "And thei that other gates ben geten For gedelynges arn holden, As fals folk fondlynges, Faitours and lieres, Ungracious to gete good 5570 Or love of the peple, Wandren and wasten What thei cacche mowe, Ayeins Do-wel thei doon yvel, And the devel serve; And after hir deeth day Shul dwelle with the same, But God gyve hem grace here Hemself to amende. "Do-wel my frend is, 5580 To doon as lawe techeth; To love thi frend and thi foo, Leve me, that is Do-bet; To gyven and to yemen {172} Bothe yonge and olde, To helen and to helpen, Is Do-best of alle. "And Do-wel is to drede God, And Do-bet to suffre, And so cometh Do-best of bothe, 5590 And bryngeth adoun the mody, And that is wikked wille That many a werk shendeth, And dryveth awey Do-wel Thorugh dedliche synnes." 5595 * * * * * {173} _Passus Decimus de Visione, et Secundus de Do-wel._ Thanne hadde Wit a wif, 5596 Was hote dame Studie, That lene was of lere, And of liche bothe; She was wonderly wroth 5600 That Wit me thus taughte; And al starynge dame Studie Sterneliche loked. "Wel artow wis," quod she to Wit, "Any wisdomes to telle To flatereres or to fooles, That frenetike ben of wittes." And blamed hym and banned hym, And bad hym be stille, With swiche wise wordes 5610 To wissen any sottes. And seide, "_Noli mittere_, man, Margery perles Among hogges, that han Hawes at wille; Thei doon but dryvele theron, Draf were hem levere Than al the precious perree That in paradis wexeth. {174} I seye it by swiche," quod she, 5620 "That sheweth by hir werkes, That hem were levere lond And lordshipe on erthe, Or richesse, or rentes, And reste at hir wille, Than alle the sooth sawes That Salomon seide evere. "Wisdom and wit now Is noght worth a kerse, But if it be carded with coveitise, 5630 As clotheres kemben hir wolle. Who so can contreve deceites And conspire wronges, And lede forth a love-day To lette with truthe, He that swiche craftes can To counseil is cleped. Thei lede lordes with lesynges, And bi-lieth Truthe. "Job the gentile 5640 In his gestes witnesseth, That wikked men thei welden The welthe of this worlde; And that thei ben lordes of ech a lond That out of lawe libbeth. _Quare impii vivunt, bene est omnibus qui prævaricantur et inique agunt._ "The Sauter seith the same By swiche that doon ille: 5650 _Ecce ipsi peccatores abundantes in sæculo obtinuerunt divitias._ "Lo! seith holy lettrure, {175} Whiche beth thise sherewes? Thilke that God gyveth moost, Leest good thei deleth; And moost un-kynde to the commune That moost catel weldeth. _Quæ perfecisti destruxerunt, justus autem, etc._ 5660 "Harlotes for hir harlotrie May have of hir goodes, And japeris and jogelours, And jangleris of gestes. "Ac he that hath holy writ Ay in his mouthe, And kan telle of Tobye, And of twelve apostles, Or prechen of the penaunce That Pilat wikkedly wroghte 5670 To Jhesu the gentile, That Jewes to-drowe; Litel is he loved That swich a lesson sheweth, Or daunted or drawe forth, I do it on God hymselve. "But thoo that feynen hem foolis, And with faityng libbeth, Ayein the lawe of oure Lord, And lyen on hemselve, 5680 Spitten and spuen, And speke foule wordes, Drynken and drevelen, And do men fer to gape, Likne men, and lye on hem, That leneth hem no giftes; Thei konne na-moore mynstralcie {176} Ne musik men to glade, Than Munde the millere Of _Multa fecit Deus_. 5690 Ne were hir vile harlotrye, Have God my trouthe! Sholde nevere kyng ne knyght, Ne chanon of seint Poules, Gyve hem to hir yeres-gyve The gifte of a grote. "Ac murthe and mynstralcie Amonges men is nouthe Lecherie, losengerye, And losels tales, 5700 Glotonye and grete othes, This murthe thei lovyeth. "Ac if thei carpen of Crist, Thise clerkes and thise lewed At mete in hir murthe, Whan mynstrals beth stille, Thanne telleth thei of the Trinité A tale outher tweye, And bryngen forth a balled reson, And taken Bernard to witnesse, 5710 And putten forth a presumpcion To preve the sothe. Thus thei dryvele at hir deys The Deitee to knowe, And gnawen God with the gorge, Whanne hir guttes fullen. "Ac the carefulle may crie And carpen at the yate, Bothe a-fyngred and a-furst, And for chele quake; 5720 Is ther noon to nyme hym neer, {177} His anoy to amende, But hunten hym as an hound, And hoten hym go thennes. Litel loveth he that Lord That lent hym al that blisse, That thus parteth with the povere A percell whan hym nedeth. Ne were mercy in meene men Moore than in riche, 5730 Mendinauntz mete-lees Myghte go to bedde. God is muche in the gorge Of thise grete maistres, Ac amonges meene men His mercy and hise werkes. And so seith the Sauter, I have seighen it ofte: _Ecce audivimus eam in Effrata, invenimus eam in campis silvæ._ 5740 "Clerkes and othere kynnes men Carpen of God faste, And have hym muche in the mouth; Ac meene men in herte. "Freres and faitours Han founde swiche questions, To plese with proude men, Syn the pestilence tyme; And prechen at seint Poules For pure envye of clerkes; 5750 That folk is noght fermed in the feith, Ne free of hire goodes, Ne sory for hire synnes; So is pride woxen, In religion and in al the reme, {178} Amonges riche and povere, That preieres have no power The pestilence to lette. And yet the wrecches of this world Is noon y-war by oother; 5760 Ne for drede of the deeth With-drawe noght hir pride; Ne beth plentevouse to the povere, As pure charité wolde; But in gaynesse and in glotonye For-glutten hir good hemselve, And breketh noght to the beggere As the Book techeth: _Frange esurienti panem tuum, etc._ And the moore he wynneth and welt 5770 Welthes and richesse, And lordeth in londes, The lasse good he deleth. "Tobye telleth yow noght so, Taketh hede, ye riche, How the book Bible Of hym bereth witnesse. _Si tibi sit copia, abundanter tribue. Si autem exiguum, illud impertiri stude libenter._ 5780 "Who so hath muche, spende manliche, So seith Tobye; And who so litel weldeth, Rule hym therafter. For we have no lettre of oure lif, How longe it shal dure, Swiche lessons lordes sholde Lovye to here, And how he myghte moost meynee {179} Manliche fynde. 5790 "Nought to fare as a fithelere or a frere, For to seke festes Homliche at othere mennes houses, And hatien hir owene. Elenge is the halle Ech day in the wike, Ther the lord ne the lady Liketh noght to sitte. Now hath ech riche a rule To eten by hymselve 5800 In a pryvee parlour, For povere mennes sake, Or in a chambre with a chymenee, And leve the chief halle That was maad for meles, Men to eten inne, And al to spare to spende That spille shal another. "I have y-herd heighe men, Etynge at the table, 5810 Carpen, as thei clerkes were, Of Crist, and of hise myghtes; And leyden fautes upon the fader That formede us alle, And carpen ayein clerkes Crabbede wordes, Why wolde oure Saveour suffre Swich a worm in his blisse, That bigiled the womman, And the man after, 5820 Thorugh whiche wiles and wordes Thei wente to helle, And al hir seed for hir synne {180} The same deeth suffrede. "Here lyeth youre lore, Thise lordes gynneth dispute, Of that the clerkes us kenneth Of Crist by the Gospel: _Filius non portabit iniquitatem patris, etc._ 5830 "Why sholde we that now ben, For the werkes of Adam, Roten and to-rende? Reson wolde it nevere. _Unusquisque portabit onus suum, etc._ "Swiche motyves thei mene, Thise maistres in hir glorie, And maken men in mys-bileve That muse muche on hire wordes, Ymaginatif herafterwarde 5840 Shal answere to hir purpos. "Austyn to swiche argueres Telleth this teme: _Non plus sapere quam oportet._ "Wilneth nevere to wite Why that God wolde Suffre Sathan His seed to bigile; Ac bileveth lelly In the loore of holy chirche, 5850 And preie hym of pardon And penaunce in thi lyve, And for his muche mercy To amende yow here. For alle that wilneth to wite The weyes of God almyghty, I wolde his eighe were in his ers, {181} And his fynger after, That evere wilneth to wite Why that God wolde 5860 Suffre Sathan His seed to bigile, Or Judas to the Jewes Jhesu bitraye. Al was as thow woldest, Lord, y-worshiped be the! And al worth as thow wolt, What so we dispute. "And tho that useth thise hanylons To blende mennes wittes, 5870 What is Do-wel fro Do-bet, That deef mote he worthe, Siththe he wilneth to wite Whiche thei ben bothe, But if he lyve in the lif That longeth to Do-wel. For I dar ben his bolde borgh, That do-bet wole he nevere, Theigh Do-best drawe on hym Day after oother." 5880 And whan that Wit was y-war What dame Studie tolde, He bicom so confus, He kouthe noght loke, And as doumb as deeth, And drough hym arere; And for no carpyng I kouthe after, Ne knelyng to the grounde, I myghte gete no greyn Of his grete wittes. 5890 But al laughynge he louted, {182} And loked upon Studie In signe that I sholde Bi-sechen hire of grace. And whan I was war of his wille, To his wif gan I loute, And seide, "Mercy, madame, Youre man shal I worthe As longe as I lyve, Bothe late and rathe, 5900 For to werche youre wille The while my lif dureth, With that ye kenne me kyndely To knowe what is Do-wel." "For thi mekenesse, man," quod she, "And for thi mylde speche, I shal kenne thee to my cosyn That Clergie is hoten. He hath wedded a wif Withinne thise sixe monthes, 5910 Is sib to seven artz, Scripture is hir name. They two, as I hope, After my techyng, Shullen wissen thee to Do-wel, I dar it undertake." Thanne was I al so fayn, As fowel of fair morwe, And gladder than the gle-man That gold hath to gifte; 5920 And asked hire the heighe wey Where that Clergie dwelte, "And tel me som tokene," quod I, "For tyme is that I wende." "Aske the heighe wey," quod she, {183} "Hennes to Suffre- Both-wele-and-wo, If that thow wolt lerne, And ryd forth by Richesse, Ac rest thow noght therinne; 5930 For if thow couplest thee therwith, To Clergie comestow nevere. "And also the likerouse launde That Lecherie hatte, Leve it on thi left half A large myle or moore, Til thow come to a court, Kepe-wel-thi-tunge- Fro-lesynges-and-lither-speche- And-likerouse-drynkes. 5940 "Thanne shaltow se Sobretee, And Sympletee-of-speche, That ech wight be in wille His wit thee to shewe; And thus shaltow come to Clergie, That kan manye thynges. "Seye hym this signe, I sette hym to scole, And that I grete wel his wif, For I wroot hire manye bokes, 5950 And sette hire to Sapience, And to the Sauter glose; Logyk I lerned hire, And manye othere lawes, And alle musons in musik I made hire to knowe. "Plato the poete I putte first to boke, Aristotle and othere mo {184} To argue I taughte. 5960 "Grammer for girles I garte first to write, And bette hem with a baleys, But if thei wolde lerne, "Of alle kynne craftes I contreved tooles, Of carpentrie, of kerveres, And compased masons, And lerned hem level and lyne, Though I loke dymme. 5970 "Ac Theologie hath tened me Ten score tymes; The moore I muse therinne The mystier it seemeth, And the depper I devyne The derker me it thynketh. It is no science, for sothe, For to sotile inne; A ful lethi thyng it were, If that love nere; 5980 Ac for it leteth best bi-love, I love it the bettre. For there that love is ledere, Ther lakked nevere grace. Loke thow love lelly, If thee liketh Do-wel; For Do-bet and Do-best Ben of Loves kynne. "In oother science it seith, I seigh it in Caton: 5990 _Qui simulat verbis, nec corde est fidus amicus, Tu quoque fac simile, sic ars deluditur arte._ {185} "Who so gloseth as gylours doon, Go me to the same; And so shaltow fals folk And feith-lees bigile. This is Catons kennyng To clerkes that he lereth. "Ac Theologie techeth noght so, Who so taketh yeme; 6000 He kenneth us the contrarie, Ayein Catons wordes. For he biddeth us be as bretheren, And bidde for our enemys. And loven hem that lyen on us, And lene hem whan hem nedeth, And do good ayein yvel, God hymself it hoteth. _Dum tempus habemus, operemur bonum ad omnes, maxime autem 6010 ad domesticos fidei._ Poul preched the peple That perfitnesse lovede, To do good for Goddes love, And gyven men that asked, And namely to swiche As suwen oure bileve, And alle that lakketh us, or lyeth, Oure Lord techeth us to lovye. And noght to greven hem that greveth us, 6020 God hymself forbad it, _Mihi vindictam, et ego retribuam._ "For-thi loke thow lovye, As longe as thow durest; For is no science under sonne So sovereyn for the soule. {186} "Ac astronomye is an hard thyng, And yvel for to knowe; Geometrie and geomesie, So gynful of speche, 6030 Who so thynketh werche with tho two Thryveth ful late, For sorcerie is the sovereyn book That to tho sciences bilongeth. "Yet ar ther fibicches in forceres Of fele mennes makyng, Experimentz of alkenamye The peple to deceyve; If thow thynke to do-wel, Deel therwith nevere. 6040 "Alle thise sciences I myself Sotilede and ordeynede, And founded hem formest Folk to deceyve. Tel Clergie this tokene, And Scripture after, To counseille thee kyndely To knowe what is Do-wel." I seide, "Graunt mercy, madame," And mekely hir grette; 6050 And wente wightly awey Withoute moore lettyng, And til I com to Clergie I koude nevere stynte; And grette the goode man, As Studie me taughte, And afterwardes the wif, And worshiped hem bothe, And tolde hem the tokenes That me taught were. 6060 {187} Was nevere gome upon this ground, Sith God made the worlde, Fairer under-fongen, Ne frendlier at ese, Than myself, soothly, Soone so he wiste Than I was of Wittes hous, And with his wif, dame Studie. I seide to hem soothly That sent was I thider, 6070 Do-wel and Do-bet And Do-best to lerne. "It is a commune lyf," quod Clergie, "On holy chirche to bileve, With alle the articles of the feith That falleth to be knowe; And that is to bileve lelly, Bothe lered and lewed, On the grete God That gynnyng hadde nevere, 6080 And on the soothfast Sone That saved mankynde Fro the dedly deeth And devel's power, Thorugh the help of the Holy Goost, The which goost is of bothe, Thre persones, ac noght In plurel nombre; For al is but oon God, And ech is God hymselve. 6090 _Deus pater, Deus filius, Deus spiritus sanctus._ = God the fader, God the sone, God holy goost of bothe, {188} Makere of mankynde, And of beestes bothe. "Austyn the olde Herof made bokes, And hymself ordeyned To sadde us in bileve. 6100 Who was his auctour? Alle the foure euvangelistes, And Crist cleped hymself so, The euvangelistes bereth witnesse. "Alle the clerkes under Crist Ne koude this assoille; But thus it bi-longeth to bileve To lewed that willen do-wel. For hadde nevere freke fyn wit The feith to dispute, 6110 Ne man hadde no merite, Myghte it ben y-preved. _Fides non habet meritum, ubi humana ratio præbet experimentum._ "Thanne is Do-bet to suffre For the soules helthe, Al that the book bit Bi holi cherches techyng; And that is, man, bi thy myght, 6120 For mercies sake. Loke thow werche it in werk, That thi word sheweth, Swich as thow semest in sighte Be in assay y-founde. _Appare quod es, vel esto quod appares._ = "And lat no body be {189} By thi beryng bigiled, But be swich in thi soule 6130 As thow semest withoute. "Thanne is Do-best to be boold To blame the gilty, Sythenes thow seest thiself As in soule clene; Ac blame thow nevere body, And thow be blame worthy. _Si culpare velis, Culpabilis esse cavebis; Dogma tuum sordet, 6140 Cum te tua culpa remordet._ "God in the Gospel Grevously repreveth Alle that lakketh any lif, And lakkes han hemselve. _Qui consideras festucam in oculo fratris tui, trabem in oculo tuo, etc._ = "Why menestow thi mood for a mote In thi brotheres eighe, 6150 Sithen a beem in thyn owene A-blyndeth thiselve. _Ejice primo trabem in oculo tuo, etc._ = Which letteth thee to loke Lasse outher more. "I rede ech a blynd bosarde Do boote to hymselve, For abbotes and for priours, And for alle manere prelates, 6160 As persons and parisshes preestes That preche sholde and teche {190} Alle maner men to amenden Bi hire myghtes. "This text was told yow, To ben y-war, er ye taughte, That ye were swiche as ye seye, So salve with othere; For Goddes word wolde noght be lost, For that wercheth evere; 6170 If it availled noght the commune, It myghte availle yowselve. "Ac it semeth now soothly To the worldes sighte, That Goddes word wercheth noght On lered ne on lewed, But in swich a manere As Marc meneth in the gospel: _Dum cæcus ducit cæcum, ambo in foveam cadunt._ 6180 "Lewed men may likne yow thus, That the beem lith in youre eighen; And the festu is fallen For youre defaute, In alle maner men, Thorugh mansede preestes. The Bible bereth witnesse That the folk of Israel Bittre a-boughte the giltes Of two badde preestes, 6190 Offyn and Fynes, For hir coveitise, _Archa Dei_ mys-happed, And Ely brak his nekke. "For-thi ye corectours claweth heron. And corecteth first yowselve {191} And thanne mowe ye safly seye, As David made in the Sauter, _Existimasti inique quod ero tui similis, arguam te, et statuam 6200 contra faciem tuam._ "And thanne shul burel clerkes ben abasshed To blame yow or to greve, And carpen noght as thei carpe now, Ne calle yow doumbe houndes. _Canes non valentes latrare._ And drede to wrathe yow in any word, Youre werkmanshipe to lette, And be prester at youre preiere, Than for a pound of nobles. 6210 And al for youre holynesse, Have ye this in herte. "In scole there is scorn, But if a clerk wol lerne, And gret love and likyng, For ech of hem loveth oother. "Ac now is Religion a rydere, A romere aboute, A ledere of love-dayes, And a lond-buggere, 6220 A prikere on a palfrey Fro manere to manere, An heepe of houndes at his ers As he a lord were. And but if his knave knele That shal his coppe brynge, He loureth on hym, and asketh hym Who taughte hym curteisie. "Litel hadde lordes to doon, {192} To gyve lond from hire heires 6230 To religiouse, that han no routhe, Though it reyne on hir auters. "In many places ther thei ben persons, By hemself at ese Of the povere have thei no pité; And that is hir charité. Ac thei leten hem as lordes Hire londes lyen so brode. "Ac ther shal come a kyng, And confesse yow religiouses, 6240 And bete yow as the Bible telleth For brekynge of youre rule; And amende monyals, Monkes and chanons, And puten to hir penaunce _Ad pristinum statum ire_; And barons with erles beten hem, Thorugh _Beatus-virres_ techyng, That hir barnes claymen And blame yow foule. 6250 _Hi in curribus et hi in equis ipsi obligati sunt, etc._ "And thanne freres in hir fraytour Shul fynden a keye Of Costantyns cofres, In which is the catel That Gregories god-children Han yvele despended. "And thanne shal the abbot of Abyngdone = And al his issue for evere, 6261 Have a knok of a kyng, And incurable the wounde. {193} "That this worth sooth, seke ye That ofte over-se the Bible: _Quomodo cessavit exactor, quievit tributum, contrivit Dominus baculum impiorum et virgam dominantium cædentium plaga insanabili._ 6270 "Ac er that kyng come, Caym shal awake. But Do-wel shal dyngen hym adoun, And destruye his myghte." "Thanne is Do-wel and Do-bet," quod I, "_Dominus_ and knyghthode." "I nel noght scorne," quod Scripture, "But if scryveynes lye; Kynghod ne knyghthod, By noght I kan a-wayte, 6280 Helpeth noght to hevene-ward Oone heris ende; Ne richesse right noght, Ne reautee of lordes. Poul preveth it impossible Riche men to have hevene. Salomon seith also That silver is worst to lovye: _Nihil iniquius quam amare pecuniam._ 6290 And Caton kenneth us to coveiten it Naught but as nede techeth, _Dilige denarium, sed parce dilige formam._ = And patriarkes and prophetes, And poetes bothe, Writen to wissen us {194} To wilne no richesse, And preiseden poverte with pacience; The apostles bereth witnesse 6300 That thei han eritage in hevene, And by trewe righte; Ther riche men no right may cleyme, But of ruthe and grace." "_Contra_," quod I, "by Crist! That kan I repreve, And preven it by Peter, And by Poul bothe, That is baptized beth saaf, Be he riche or povere." 6310 "That is _in extremis_," quod Scripture, "Amonges Sarzens and Jewes, They mowen be saved so, And that is oure bileve, That an un-cristene in that caas May cristen an hethen; And for his lele bileve, Whan he the lif tyneth, Have the heritage of hevene As any man cristene. 6320 "Ac cristene men withoute moore Maye noght come to hevene; For that Crist for cristene men Deide and confermed the lawe, That who so wolde and wilneth With Crist to arise, _Si cum Christo surexistis, etc._ He sholde lovye and leve, And the lawe fulfille. That is, love thi lord God 6330 Levest aboven alle; {195} And after, alle cristene creatures In commune, ech man oother; And thus bi-longeth to lovye, That leveth be saved. And but we do thus in dede, At the day of dome It shal bi-sitten us ful soure The silver that we kepen; And oure bakkes that mothe-eten be, 6340 And seen beggeris go naked; Or delit in wyn and wilde fowel, And wite any in defaute. For every cristene creature Sholde be kynde til oother, And sithen hethen to helpe, In hope of amendement. "God hoteth heighe and lowe That no man hurte oother; And seith, 'Slee noght that semblable is 6350 To myn owene liknesse, But if I sende thee som tokene;' And seith '_Non moechaberis_. Is slee noght, but suffre, And al for the beste; For I shal punysshe hem in purgatorie Or in the put of helle, Ech man for hise mysdedes, But mercy it lette.'" "This is a long lesson," quod I, 6360 "And litel am I the wiser; Where Do-wel is or Do-bet, Derkliche ye shewen. Manye tales ye tellen {196} That Theologie lerneth; And that I man maad was, And my name y-entred In the legende of lif Longe er I were, Or ellis un-writen for som wikkednesse, 6370 As Holy Writ witnesseth: _Nemo ascendit ad coelum, nisi qui de coelo descendit._ "I leve it wel," quod I, "by oure Lord! And on no lettrure bettre. For Salomon the sage, That Sapience taughte, God gat hym grace of wit, And alle hise goodes after; He demed wel and wisely, 6380 As Holy Writ telleth. Aristotle and he, Who wissed men bettre? Maistres that of Goddes mercy Techen men and prechen, Of hir wordes thei wissen us For wisest as in hir tyme, And al holy chirche Holdeth hem bothe y-dampned. "And if I sholde werche by hir werkes 6390 To wynne me hevene, That for hir werkes and wit Now wonyeth in pyne, Thanne wroughe I un-wisly, What so evere ye preche. "Ac of fele witty, in feith, Litel ferly I have, Though hir goost be un-gracious {197} God for to plese. For many men on this moolde 6400 Moore setten hir hertes In good than in God; For-thi hem grace failleth At hir mooste meschief, Whan thei shal lif lete. As Salomon dide, and swiche othere That shewed grete wittes; Ac hir werkes, as holy writ seith, Were evere the contrarie. For-thi wise witted men, 6410 And wel y-lettrede clerkes, As thei seyen hemself, Selde doon therafter. _Super cathedra Moysi, etc._ "Ac I wene it worth of manye, As was in Noes tyme, Tho he shoop that shipe Of shides and of bordes; Was nevere wrighte saved that wroghte theron, = Ne oothir werkman ellis, 6421 But briddes, and beestes, And the blissed Noe, And his wif with hise sones, And also hire wyves; Of wightes that it wroghte Was noon of hem y-saved. "God leve it fare noght so bi folk That the feith techeth Of holi chirche, that herberwe is, 6430 And Goddes hous to save, And shilden us from shame therinne, {198} As Noes ship dide beestes; And men that maden it A-mydde the flood a-dreynten. The culorum of this clause Curatours is to mene, That ben carpenters holy kirk to make For Cristes owene beestes: _Homines et jumenta salvabis, Domine, etc._ = "On Good Friday I fynde 6442 A felon was y-saved, That hadde lyved al his lif With lesynges and with thefte; And for he beknede to the cros, And to Crist shrof him, He was sonner y-saved Than seint Johan the Baptist; And or Adam or Ysaye, 6450 Or any of the prophetes, That hadde y-leyen with Lucifer Many longe yeres, A robbere was y-raunsoned Rather than thei alle, Withouten any penaunce of purgatorie, To perpetuel blisse. "Than Marie Maudeleyne What womman dide werse? Or who worse than David, 6460 That Uries deeth conspired? Or Poul the apostle, That no pité hadde Muche cristene kynde To kille to dethe? And now ben thise as sovereyns With seintes in hevene, {199} Tho that wroughte wikkedlokest In world tho thei were. And tho that wisely wordeden, 6470 And writen manye bokes Of wit and of wisedom, With dampned soules wonye. That Salomon seith, I trowe be sooth And certein of us alle: _Sunt justi atque sapientes et opera eorum in manu Dei sunt, etc._ "Ther are witty and wel libbynge, Ac hire werkes ben y-hudde In the hondes of almyghty God, 6480 And he woot the sothe, Wherfore a man worth allowed there, And hise lele werkes, Or ellis for his yvel wille, And for envye of herte, And be allowed as he lyved so; For by the luthere men knoweth the goode. "And wherby wiste men which were whit, If alle thyng blak were? And who were a good man, 6490 But if ther were som sherewe? For-thi lyve we forth with othere men, I leve fewe ben goode; For _quant_ oportet _vient en place_, _Il n'y ad que_ pati. And he that may al amende, Have mercy on us alle! For sothest word that ever God seide Was tho he seide _Nemo bonus_. "Clergie tho of Cristes mouth 6500 Comended was it litel; {200} For he seide to seint Peter, And to swiche as he lovede, _Cum steteritis ante reges et præsides, etc._ = Though ye come bifore kynges And clerkes of the lawe, Beth noght abasshed, For I shal be in youre mouthes, And gyve yow wit and wille, 6510 And konnyng to conclude Hem alle that ayeins yow Of Cristendom disputen. "David maketh mencion, He spak amonges kynges, And myghte no kyng over-comen hym As by konnynge of speche, But wit and wisedom Wan nevere the maistrie, Whan man was at meschief, 6520 Withoute the moore grace. "The doughtieste doctour And devinour of the Trinitee Was Austyn the olde, And heighest of the foure, Seide thus in a sermon, I seigh it writen ones: _Ecce ipsi idiotæ vi rapiunt coelum, ubi nos sapientes in inferno mergimur._ 6530 "And is to mene to men, Moore ne lesse, Arn none rather y-ravysshed Fro the righte bileve, Than are thise konnynge clerkes That konne manye bokes. {201} "Ne none sonner saved, Ne sadder of bileve, Than plowmen and pastours, And othere commune laborers; 6540 Souteres and shepherdes, And othere lewed juttes, Percen with a pater-noster The paleys of hevene, And passen purgatorie penaunce-lees At her hennes partyng Into the blisse of paradis, For hir pure bileve, That imparfitly here knewe, And ek lyvede. 6550 "Ye men knowe clerkes, That han corsed the tyme That evere thei kouthe or knewe moore Than _Credo in Deum patrem_; And principally hir pater-noster Many a persone hath wisshed. "I se ensamples myself, And so may manye othere, That servauntz that serven lordes Selde fallen in arerage, 6560 And tho that kepen the lordes catel, Clerkes and reves. "Right so lewed men, And of litel knowyng, Selden falle thei so foule And so fer in synne, As clerkes of holy chirche That kepen Cristes tresor, The which is mannes soule to save, As God seith in the Gospel: _Ite vos in vineam meam._" 6571 * * * * * {202} _Passus Undecimus._ Thanne Scripture scorned me 6572 And a skile tolde, And lakked me in Latyn, And light by me she sette, And seide "_Multi multa sciunt Et seipsos nesciunt._" Tho wepte I for wo And wrathe of hir speche; And in a wynkynge wrathe 6580 Weex I a-slepe. A merveillous metels Mette me thanne, That I was ravysshed right there, And Fortune me fette, And into the lond of longynge Allone she me broughte, And in a mirour that highte middel-erthe She made me to biholde. "Sone," she seide to me, 6590 "Here myghtow se wondres, And knowe that thow coveitest, And come therto, peraunter." Thanne hadde Fortune folwynge hire Two faire damyseles; {203} _Concupiscentia-carnis_ Men called the elder mayde, And Coveitise-of-eighes Y-called was that oother. Pride-of-parfit-lyvynge 6600 Pursued hem bothe, And bad me for my contenaunce Acounten Clergie lighte. _Concupiscentia-carnis_ Colled me aboute the nekke, And seide, "Thow art yong and yeepe, And hast yeres y-nowe For to lyve longe, And ladies to lovye; And in this mirour thow myght se 6610 Myghtes ful manye, That leden thee wole to likynge Al thi lif tyme." The secounde seide the same, "I shal sewe thi wille; Til thow be a lord and have lond, Leten thee I nelle, That I ne shal folwe thi felawshipe, If Fortune it like." "He shal fynde me his frend," 6620 Quod Fortune therafter; "The freke that folwede my wille Failled nevere blisse." Thanne was ther oon that highte Elde, That hevy was of chere; "Man," quod he, "if I mete with thee, By Marie of hevene! Thow shalt fynde Fortune thee faille At thi mooste nede, {204} And _Concupiscentia-carnis_ 6630 Clene thee forsake. Bittrely shaltow banne thanne Bothe dayes and nyghtes Coveitise-of-eighe, That evere thow hir knewe, And Pride-of-parfit-lyvynge To muche peril thee brynge." "Ye, recche thee nevere," quod Rechelesnesse, Stood forthe in raggede clothes, "Folwe forth that Fortune wole, 6640 Thow hast wel fer til Elde; A man may stoupe tyme y-nogh, Whan he shal tyne the crowne. "_Homo proponit_ quod a poete, And Plato he highte, And _Deus disponit_ quod he, Lat God doon his wille. If Truthe wol witnesse it be wel do Fortune to folwe, _Concupiscentia-carnis_, 6650 Ne Coveitise-of-eighes, Ne shal noght greve thee gretly, Ne bigile, but if thow wolt thiselve." "Ye, fare wel Phippe and Faunteltee," And forth gan me drawe, Til _Concupiscentia-carnis_ Acorded alle my werkes. "Alas! eighe," quod Elde And Holynesse bothe, "That wit shal torne to wrecchednesse, 6660 For wil to have his likyng." Coveitise-of-eighes {205} Conforted me anoon after, And folwed me fourty wynter And a fifte moore, That of Do-wel ne Do-bet Ne deyntee me thoughte. I hadde no likyng, leve me if thee list, Of hem ought to knowe. Coveitise-of-eighes 6670 Com ofter in mynde Than Do-wel or Do-bet, Among my dedes alle. Coveitise-of-eighes Conforted me ofte, And seide, "Have no conscience How thow come to goode. Go confesse thee to som frere, And shewe hym thi synnes; For whiles Fortune is thi frend 6680 Freres wol thee lovye, And fecche thee to hir fraternitee, And for the biseke To hir priour provincial A pardon for to have, And preien for thee pol by pol, If thow be _pecuniosus_." _Sed poena pecuniaria non sufficit pro spiritualibus delictis._ By wissynge of this wenche I wroughte, 6690 Hir wordes were so swete, Til I for-yat youthe, And yarn into elde. And thanne was Fortune my foo, For al hir faire speche; {206} And poverte pursued me, And putte me lowe. And tho fond I the frere a-fered, And flittynge bothe Ayeins oure firste for-warde; 6700 For I seide I nolde Be buried at hire hous, But at my parisshe chirche. For I herde ones How Conscience it tolde, That there a man were cristned Be kynde he sholde be buryed; Or where he were parisshen, Right there he sholde be graven. And for I seide thus to freres, 6710 A fool thei me helden, And loved me the lasse For my lele speche. Ac yet I cryde on my confessour, That heeld hymself so konnyng; "By my feith! frere," quod I, "Ye faren lik thise woweris That wedde none widwes But for to welden hir goodes. Right so, by the roode! 6720 Roughte ye nevere Where my body were buryed, By so ye hadde my silver. "Ich have muche merveille of yow, And so hath many another, Whi youre covent coveiteth To confesse and to burye, Rather than to baptize barnes That ben catecumelynges. {207} Baptizynge and buryinge 6730 Bothe beth ful nedefulle; Ac muche moore meritorie, Me thynketh it is to baptize. For a baptized man may, As thise maistres telleth, Thorugh contricion come To the heighe hevene. _Sola contritio, etc._ Ac barn withouten bapteme May noght so be saved. 6740 _Nisi quis renatus fuerit._ Loke ye, lettred men, Wheither I lye or do noght." And Lewté loked on me, And I loured after. "Wherfore lourestow?" quod Lewtee, And loked on me harde. "If I dorste," quod I, "amonges men This metels avowe!" "Yis, by Peter and by Poul!" quod he, 6750 And took hem bothe to witnesse. "_Non oderis fratres secrete in corde tuo, sed publice argue illos._" "They wole aleggen also," quod I, "And by the Gospel preven: _Nolite judicare quemquam._" "And wherof serveth lawe?" quod Lewtee, "If no lif undertoke it, Falsnesse ne faiterie, For som what the apostle seide, 6760 _Non oderis fratrem._ {208} And in the Sauter also Seith David the prophete, _Existimasti inique quod ero tui similis, etc._ = "It is _licitum_ for lewed men To sigge the sothe, If hem liketh and lest, Ech a lawe it graunteth; Excepte persons and preestes, 6770 And prelates of holy chirche, It falleth noght for that folk No tales to telle, Though the tale be trewe, And it touche synne. "Thyng that al the world woot, Wherfore sholdestow spare To reden it in retorik To a-rate dedly synne? Ac be nevere moore the firste 6780 Defaute to blame; Though thow se yvel, seye it noght first, Be sory it nere amended. No thyng that is pryvé, Publice thow it nevere; Neither for love preise it noght, Ne lakke it for envye. _Parum lauda, vitupera parcius._" "He seith sooth," quod Scripture tho, And skipte an heigh, and preched. 6790 Ac the matere that she meved, If lewed men it knewe, The lasse, as I leve, Lovyen it thei wolde. {209} This was hir teme and hir text, I took ful good hede; _Multi_ to a mangerie And to the mete were sompned; And whan the peple was plener comen, The porter unpynned the yate, 6800 And plukked in _Pauci_ pryveliche, And leet the remenaunt go rome. Al for tene of hir text Trembled myn herte; And in a weer gan I wexe, And with myself to dispute Wheither I were chosen or noght chosen. On holi chirche I thoughte, That under-fonged me atte font For oon of Goddes chosene. 6810 For Crist cleped us alle, Come if we wolde, Sarzens and scismatikes, And so he dide the Jewes. _O vos omnes sitientes, venite, etc._ And bad hem souke for synne Safly at his breste, And drynke boote for bale, Brouke it who so myghte. "Thanne may alle cristene come, quod I," = "And cleyme there entree 6822 By the blood that he boughte us with And thorugh bapteme after. _Qui crediderit et baptizatus fuerit, etc._ = {210} For though a cristen man coveited His cristendom to reneye, Rightfully to reneye No reson it wolde. 6830 "For may no cherl chartre make, Ne his catel selle, Withouten leve of his lord; No lawe wol it graunte. Ac he may renne in arerage, And rome so fro home, And as a reneyed caytif Recchelesly rennen aboute. And Reson shal rekene with hym, And casten hym in arerage, 6840 And putten hym after in a prison In purgatorie to brenne, For hise arerages rewarden hym there To the day of dome; But if Contricion wol come, And crye, by his lyve, Mercy for hise mysdedes, With mouthe and with herte," "That is sooth," seide Scripture; "May no synne lette 6850 Mercy al to amende, And mekenesse hir folwe. For thei beth, as oure bokes telleth, Above Goddes werkes." _Misericordia ejus super omnia opera ejus._ = "Ye, baw for bokes," quod oon Was broken out of helle, Highte Trojanus, hadde ben a trewe knyght, Took witnesse at a pope, 6860 {211} How he was ded and dampned To dwellen in pyne, For an uncristene creature; "Clerkes wite the sothe, That al the clergie under Crist Ne myghte me cracche fro helle, But oonliche love and leautee, And my laweful domes. "Gregorie wiste this wel, And wilned to my soule 6870 Savacion for soothnesse That he seigh in my werkes; And after that he wepte, And wilned me were graunted Grace; withouten any bene biddyng His boone was under-fongen, And I saved, as ye see, Withouten syngynge of masses. By love and by lernyng Of my lyvynge, in truthe, 6880 Broughte me fro bitter peyne Ther no biddyng myghte." Lo! ye lordes, what leautee dide By an emperour of Rome, That was an uncristene creature, As clerkes fyndeth in bokes. Nought thorugh preiere of a pope, But for his pure truthe, Was that Sarsen saved. As seint Gregorie bereth witnesse. 6890 Wel oughte ye, lordes, that lawes kepe, This lesson to have in mynde, And on Trojanus truthe to thenke, {212} And do truthe to the peple. "Lawe, withouten love," quod Trojanus, "Ley ther a bene, Or any science under sonne, The sevene artz and alle, But thei ben lerned for oure Lordes love, Lost is al the tyme;" 6900 For no cause to cacche silver therby, Ne to be called a maister, But al for love of oure Lord, And the bet to love the peple, For seint Johan seide it, And sothe arn hise wordes. _Qui non diligit, manet in morte._ Who so loveth noght, leve me, He lyveth in deep deyinge; And that alle manere men, 6910 Enemyes and frendes, Love hir eyther oother, And leve hem, as hemselve, Who so leveth noght, he loveth noght, God woot the sothe! Crist comaundeth ech a creature To conformen hym to lovye, And sovereynly the povere peple, And hir enemyes after. For hem that haten us 6920 Is oure merite to lovye, And povere peple to plese, Hir preieres maye us helpe. And oure joye and oure heele Jhesu Crist of hevene In a povere mannes apparaille Pursued us evere; {213} And loketh on us in hir liknesse, And that with lovely chere, To knowen us by oure kynde herte 6930 And castynge of oure eighen, Wheither we love the lordes here Bifore the Lord of blisse; And exciteth us by the Euvangelie That whan we maken festes, We sholde noght clepe oure kyn therto, Ne none kynnes riche. _Cum facitis convivia, nolite invitare amicos._ = "Ac calleth the carefulle therto, 6940 The croked and the povere. For youre frendes wol feden yow, And fonde yow to quyte Youre festynge and youre faire gifte; Ech frend quyteth so oother. "Ac for the povere I shal paie, And pure wel quyte hir travaille, That gyveth hem mete or moneie, Or loveth hem for my sake." For the beste ben som riche, 6950 And some beggeres and povere. For alle are we Cristes creatures, And of his cofres riche, And bretheren as of oo blood, As wel beggeres as erles. For on Calvarie of Cristes blood Cristendom gan sprynge, And blody bretheren we bicomen there Of o body y-wonne, As _quasi modo geniti_, 6960 And gentil-men echone; {214} No beggere ne boye amonges us, But if it synne made. _Qui facit peccatum, servus est peccati._ "In the olde lawe, As holy lettre telleth, Mennes sones Men callen us echone, Of Adames issue and Eve, Ay til God man deide; 6970 And after his resurexcion _Redemptor_ was his name, And we hise bretheren thorugh hym y-brought, Bothe riche and povere. "For-thi love we as leve bretheren, And ech man laughe of oother; And of that ech man may forbere Amende there it nedeth; And every man helpe oother, For hennes shul we alle. 6980 _Alter alterius onera portate._ "And be we noght un-kynde of oure catel, = Ne of oure konnyng neither. For woot no man how neigh it is To ben y-nome fro bothe. For-thi lakke no lif oother, Though he moore Latyn knowe; Ne under-nyme noght foule; For is noon withoute defaute. 6990 For what evere clerkes carpe Of cristendom or ellis, Crist to a commune womman seide, In commune at a feste, {215} That _fides sua_ sholde saven hire, And salven hire of synnes. "Thanne is bileve a lele help, Above logyk or lawe. Of logyk or of lawe In _Legenda Sanctorum_ 7000 Is litel alowaunce maad, But if bileve hem helpe. For it is over longe er logyk Any lesson assoille; And lawe is looth to lovye, But if he lacche silver. Bothe logyk and lawe, That loveth noght to lye, I conseille alle cristene Clyve noght theron to soore; 7010 For some wordes I fynde writen, That were of feithes techyng, That saved synful men, As seint Johan bereth witnesse. _Eadem mensura qua mensi fueritis, remetietur vobis._ "For-thi lerne we the lawe of love, As oure Lord taughte, And as seint Gregorie seide For mannes soule helthe: 7020 _Melius est scrutari scelera nostra, quam naturas rerum._ "Why I meve this matere, Is moost for the povere; For in hir liknesse oure Lord Ofte hath ben y-knowe. Witnesse in the Pask wyke Whan he yede to Emaüs; {216} Cleophas ne knew hym noght That he Crist were, 7030 For his povere apparaille, And pilgrymes wedes, Til he blessede and brak The breed that thei eten; So bi hise werkes thei wisten That he was Jhesus, Ac by clothyng thei knewe hym noght, Ne by carpynge of tunge. And al was in ensample To us synfulle here, 7040 That we sholde be lowe And loveliche of speche, And apparaille us noght over proudly, For pilgrymes are we alle. "And in the apparaille of a povere man, And pilgrymes liknesse, Many tyme God hath ben met Among nedy peple, Ther nevere segge hym seigh In secte of the riche. 7050 "Seint Johan and othere seintes Were seyen in poore clothyng, And as povere pilgrymes Preyed mennes goodes. "Jhesu Crist on a Jewes doghter lighte, Gentil womman though she were, Was a pure povere maide, And to a povere man y-wedded. "Martha on Marie Maudeleyne An huge pleynt made, 7060 And to oure Saveour self Seide thise wordes: {217} _Domine, non est tibi curæ quod soror mea reliquit me solam ministrare._ "And hastily God answerde, And eitheres wille folwed, Bothe Marthaes and Maries, As Mathew bereth witnesse; Ac poverte God putte bifore, 7070 And preised that the bettre. _Maria optimam partem elegit, quæ non, etc._ = "And alle the wise that evere were, By aught I kan aspye, Preiseden poverte for best lif, If pacience it folwed, And bothe bettre and blesseder By many fold than richesse. For though it be sour to suffre, 7080 Therafter cometh swete; As on a walnote withoute Is a bitter barke, And after that bitter bark, Be the shelle aweye, Is a kernel of confort Kynde to restore. "So is after poverte or penaunce Paciently y-take; For it maketh a man to have mynde 7090 In God, and a gret wille To wepe and to wel bidde, Wherof wexeth mercy, Of which Crist is a kernelle To conforte the soule. And wel sikerer he slepeth, {218} The man that is povere, And lasse he dredeth deeth, And in derke to ben y-robbed, Than he that is right riche, 7100 Reson bereth witnesse. _Pauper ego ludo, dum tu dives meditaris._ = "Al though Salomon seide, As folk seeth in the Bible, _Divitias nec paupertates, etc._ Wiser than Salomon was Bereth witnesse and taughte That parfit poverte was No possession to have, 7110 And lif moost likynge to God, As Luc bereth witnesse: _Si vis perfectus esse, vade et vende._ "And is to mene to men That on this moolde lyven, Who so wole be pure parfit Moot possession forsake, Or selle it, as seith the Book, And the silver dele To beggeris that goon and begge 7120 And bidden good for Goddes love. For failed nevere man mete That myghtful God serveth, As David seith in the Sauter To swiche that ben in wille To serve God goodliche, Ne greveth hym no penaunce: _Nihil inpossibile volenti._ Ne lakketh nevere liflode, Lynnen ne wollen. 7130 {219} _Inquirentes autem Dominum non minuentur omni bono._ "If preestes weren parifite, Thei wolde ne silver take For masses ne for matyns, Noght hir mete of usureres, Ne neither kirtel ne cote, Theigh thei for cold sholde deye, And thei hir devoir dide, As David seith in the Sauter: 7140 _Judica me, Deus, et decerne causam meam._ = "_Spera-in-Deo_ speketh of preestes That have no spendyng silver, That if thei travaille truweliche And truste in God almyghty, Hem sholde lakke no liflode, Neyther lynnen ne wollen. And the title that ye take ordres by Telleth ye ben avaunced; 7150 Thanne nedeth yow noght to take silver For masses that ye syngen. For he that took yow youre title, Sholde take yow youre wages, Or the bisshop that blessed yow, If that ye ben worthi. "For made nevere kyng no knyght, But he hadde catel to spende As bifel for a knyght, Or foond hym for his strengthe. 7160 It is a careful knyght, And of a caytif kynges makyng, That hath no lond ne lynage riche, Ne good loos of hise handes. {220} "The same I segge, for sothe, By alle swiche preestes That han neither konnynge ne kyn, But a crowne one, And a title, a tale of noght, To his liflode at his meschief. 7170 He hath moore bileve, as I leve, To lacche through his croune Cure, than for konnyng, Or knowen for clene berynge. I have wonder for why And wherefore the bisshope Maketh swiche preestes, That lewed men bitrayen. "A chartre is chalangeable Bifore a chief justice; 7180 If fals Latyn be in the lettre, The lawe it impugneth, Or peynted parentrelynarie, Or percelles over-skipped; The gome that gloseth so chartres For a goky is holden. "So is it a goky, by God! That in his gospel failleth, Or in masse or in matyns Maketh any defaut. 7190 _Qui offendit in uno, in omnibus est reus._ = "And also in the Sauter Seith David to over-skipperis, _Psallite Deo nostro, psallite, quoniam rex terræ Deus Israel, psallite sapienter._ "The bisshop shal be blamed {221} Bifore God, as I leve, That crouneth swiche Goddes knyghtes 7200 That konneth noght _sapienter_ Synge, ne psalmes rede, Ne seye a masse of the day. And never neither is blame-lees The bisshope ne the chapeleyn; For hir either is endited, And that is, _ignorantia Non excusat episcopos Nec idiotes_ preestes. "This lokynge on lewed preestes 7210 Hath doon me lepe from poverte, The which I preise ther pacience is Moore perfit than richesse." Ac muche moore in metynge thus With me gan oon dispute; And slepynge I seigh al this. And sithen cam Kynde, And nempned me by my name, And bad me nymen hede, And thorugh the wondres of this world 7220 Wit for to take. And on a mountaigne that myddel-erthe Highte, as me thoughte, I was fet forth By ensamples to knowe Thorugh ech a creature and kynde My creatour to lovye. I seigh the sonne and the see, And the sond after; And where that briddes and beestes 7230 {222} By hir makes yeden; Wilde wormes in wodes, And wonderful foweles With fleckede fetheres And of fele colours. Man and his make I myghte bothe biholde; Poverte and plentee; Bothe pees and werre; Blisse and bale bothe 7240 I seigh al at ones; And how men token mede, And mercy refused. Reson I seigh soothly Sewen alle beestes, In etynge, in drynkynge, And in engendrynge of kynde; And after cours of concepcion, Noon took kepe of oother As whan thei hadde ryde in rotey tyme, 7250 Anoon right therafter Males drowen hem to males A-morwenynges by hemselve, And in evenynges also The males ben fro femelles. Ther ne was cow ne cow-kynde That conceyved hadde, That wolde belwe after boles, Ne boor after sowe; Bothe hors and houndes, 7260 And alle othere beestes, Medled noght with hir makes That with fole were. Briddes I biheld {223} That in buskes made nestes, Hadde nevere wye wit To werche the leeste. I hadde wonder at whom And wher the pye lerned To legge the stikkes 7270 In whiche she leyeth and bredeth. Ther nys wrighte, as I wene, Sholde werche hir nestes to paye; If any mason made a molde therto, Muche wonder it were. Ac yet me merveilled moore, How many othere briddes Hidden and hileden Hir egges ful derne In mareys and moores, 7280 For men sholde hem noght fynde; And hidden hir egges, Whan thei therfro wente, For fere of othere foweles, And for wilde beestes. And some troden hir makes, And on trees bredden, And broughten forth hir briddes so Al above the grounde; And some briddes at the bile 7290 Thorugh brethyng conceyved; And some caukede; and took kepe How pecokkes bredden. Muche merveilled me What maister hem made, And who taughte hem on trees To tymbre so heighe, Ther neither burn ne beest {224} May hir briddes rechen. And sithen I loked upon the see, 7300 And so forth upon the sterres; Manye selkouthes I seigh, Ben noght to seye nouthe. I seigh floures in the fryth, And hir faire colours; And how among the grene gras Growed so manye hewes, And some soure and some swete, Selkouth me thoughte; Of hir kynde and hir colour 7310 To carpe it were to longe. Ac that moost meved me And my mood chaunged, That Reson rewarded And ruled alle beestes, Save man and his make; Many tyme and ofte No reson hem folwede. And thanne I rebukede Reson, and right 7320 Til hymselven I seyde: "I have wonder of thee," quod I, "That witty art holden, Why thow ne sewest man and his make, That no mysfeet hem folwe." And Reson a-rated me, And seide, "Recche thee nevere; Why I suffre or noght suffre, Thiself hast noght to doone. Amende thow it, if thow myght, 7330 For my tyme is to abide. Suffraunce is a soverayn vertue, {225} And a swift vengeance. Who suffrede moore than God?" quod he; "No gome, as I leeve. He myghte amende in a minute while Al that mys-standeth; Ac he suffreth for som mannes goode, And so it is oure bettre, The wise and the witty 7340 Wroot thus in the Bible: _De re quæ te non molestat, noli certare._ "For be a man fair or foul, = It falleth noght for to lakke The shap ne the shaft That God shoop hymselve; For al that he dide was wel y-do, As holy writ witnesseth: _Et vidit Deus cuncta quæ fecerat, et 7350 erant valde bona._ "And bad every creature In his kynde encreesse; Al to murthe with man, That moste wo tholie In fondynge of the flessh, And of the fend bothe. For man was maad of swich a matere, He may noght wel a-sterte That ne som tyme hym bitit 7360 To folwen his kynde. Caton a-cordeth therwith, _Nemo sine crimine vivit._" Tho caughte I colour anoon, And comsed to ben ashamed, And awaked therwith. {226} Wo was me thanne, That I in metels ne myghte Moore have y-knowen. And thanne seide I to myself, 7370 And chidde that tyme, "Now I woot what Do-wel is," quod I, "By deere God! as me thynketh." And as I caste up myne eighen, Oon loked on me and asked Of me, what thynge it were: "Y-wis, sire," I seide, "To se muche and suffre moore, Certes," quod I, "is Do-wel." "Haddestow suffred," he seide, 7380 "Slepynge tho thow were, Thow sholdest have knowen that Clergie kan, And contreved moore thorugh reson. For Reson wolde have reherced thee Right as Clergie seide. Ac for thyn entre-metynge, Here artow forsake. _Philosophus esses, si tacuisses._ "Adam, whiles he spak noght, Hadde paradis at wille; 7390 Ac whan he mamelede aboute mete, And entre-metede to knowe The wisedom and the wit of God, He was put fram blisse. "And right so ferde Reson bi thee; Thow with thi rude speche Lakkedest and losedest thyng That longed the noght to doone. Tho hadde he no likyng For to lere the moore. 7400 {227} "Pryde now and presumpcion Peraventure wol thee appele, That Clergie thi compaignye Kepeth noght to suwe. Shal nevere chalangynge ne chidynge Chaste a man so soone, As shal shame, and shenden hym, And shape hym to amende. For lat a dronken daffe In a dyk falle, 7410 Lat hym ligge, loke noght on hym, Til hym liste aryse. For though Reson rebuked hym thanne, It were but pure synne. Ac whan nede nymeth hym up For doute lest he sterve, And shame shrapeth hise clothes, And hise shynes wassheth. Thanne woot the dronken daffe Wherfore he is to blame." 7420 "Ye siggen sooth," quod I; "Ich have y-seyen it ofte, Ther smyt no thyng so smerte, Ne smelleth so soure, As shame, there he sheweth hym; For every man hym shonyeth. Why ye wisse me thus," quod I, "Was for I rebuked Reson." "Certes," quod he, "that is sooth;" And shoop hym for to walken. 7430 And I aroos up right with that, And folwed hym after, And preyde hym of his curteisie To telle me his name. 7434 * * * * * {228} _Passus Duodecimus, etc._ "Iam Ymaginatif," quod he, 7435 "Ydel was I nevere, Though I sitte by myself, In siknesse nor in helthe. I have folwed thee, in feith! Thise fyve and fourty wynter, 7440 And manye tymes have meved thee To thynke on thyn ende, And how fele fernyeres are faren, And so fewe to come; And of thi wilde wantownesse Tho thow yong were, To amende it in thi middel age, Lest myght the failled In thyn olde elde, That yvele kan suffre 7450 Poverte or penaunce, Or preyeres to bidde. _Si non in prima vigilia, nec in secunda, etc._ = "Amende thee, while thow myght; Thow hast ben warned ofte With poustees of pestilences, With poverte and with angres; {229} And with thise bittre baleises God beteth his deere children. 7460 _Quem diligo, castigo._ "And David in the Sauter seith Of swiche that loveth Jhesus: _Virga tua et baculus tuus ipsa me consolati sunt._ = "Al though thow strike me with thi staf, With stikke or with yerde, It is but murthe as for me, To amende my soule. And thow medlest thee with makynges, 7470 And myghtest go seye thi Sauter, And bidde for hem that gyveth thee breed, For ther are bokes y-knowe To telle men what Do-wel is, Do-bet and Do-best bothe, And prechours to preven what it is Of many a peire freres." I seigh wel he seide me sooth; And som what me to excuse, Seide Caton conforted me his sone, 7480 That clerk though he were, To solacen hym som tyme, As I do whan I make: _Interpone tuis interdum gaudia curis._ "And of holy men I herde, quod I," = "How thei outher while Pleyden the parfiter, To ben in manye places, Ac if ther were any wight 7490 That wolde me telle What were Do-wel and Do-bet {230} And Do-best at the laste, Wolde I nevere do werk, But wende to holi chirche, And ther bidde my bedes, But whan ich ete or slepe." "Poul in his pistle," quod he, "Preveth what is Do-wel: _Fides, spes, caritas, et major horum, etc._ = Feith, hope, and charité; 7502 And alle ben goode, And saven men sondry tymes; Ac noon so soone as charité. For he dooth wel withouten doute, That dooth as lewté techeth; That is, if thow be man maryed, Thi make thow lovye, And lyve forth as lawe wole, 7510 While ye lyven bothe. "Right so if thow be religious, Ren thow nevere ferther To Rome ne to Rochemador, But as thi rule techeth; And hold thee under obedience, That heigh wey is to hevene. "And if thow be maiden to marye, And myght wel continue, Seke thow nevere seint ferther 7520 For no soule helthe. For what made Lucifer To lese the heighe hevene? Or Salomon his sapience, Or Sampson his strengthe? Job the Jew his joye {231} Ful deere a-boughte; Aristotle and othere mo, Ypocras and Virgile; Alisaundre, that al wan, 7530 Elengliche ended. Catel and kynde wit Was combraunce to hem alle. "Felice hir fairnesse Fel hire al to sclaundre; And Rosamounde right so, Reufulliche to bileve, The beauté of hir body In baddenesse she despended. Of manye swiche I may rede, 7540 Of men and of wommen, That wise wordes wolde shewe, And werche the contrarie. _Sunt homines nequam bene de virtute loquentes._ = "And riche renkes right so Gaderen and sparen, And tho men that thei moost haten Mynistren it at the laste. And for thei suffren and see 7550 So manye nedy folkes, And love hem noght as oure Lord bit, Thei lesen hir soules. _Date et dabitur vobis._ "And richesse right so, But if the roote be trewe. Ac grace is a gras therof Tho grevaunces to abate. Ac grace ne groweth noght But amonges lowe; 7560 {232} Pacience and poverte The place highte ther it groweth, And in lele lyvynge men, And in lif holy, And thorugh the gifte of the Holy Goost, As the Gospel telleth. _Spiritus ubi vult spirat._ "Clergie and kynde wit Cometh of sighte and techyng; As the book bereth witnesse 7570 To burnes that kan rede. _Quod scimus loquimur, quod vidimus testamur._ = "Of _quod scimus_ cometh clergie And konnynge of hevene; And of _quod vidimus_ cometh kynde wit, Of sighte of diverse peple. Ac grace is a gifte of God, And of greet love spryngeth; Knew nevere clerk how it cometh forth, 7580 Ne kynde wit the weyes. _Nescit aliquis unde venit, aut quo vadit, etc._ = "Ac yet is clergie to comende, And kynde wit bothe; And namely clergie, for Cristes love That of clergie is roote. For Moyses witnesseth that God wroot For to wisse the peple In the olde lawe, as the lettre telleth, 7590 That was the lawe of Jewes, That what womman were in avoutrye taken, Were she riche or poore, With stones men sholde hir strike, {233} And stone hire to dethe. "A womman, as I fynde, Was gilty of that dede. Ac Crist of his curteisie Thorugh clergie hir saved; And thorugh caractes that Crist wroot, 7600 The Jewes knewe hemselve Giltier as a-fore God, And gretter in synne, Than the womman that there was, And wenten awey for shame. "The clergie that there was, Conforted the womman. Holy kirke knoweth this, That Cristes writyng saved hire. So clergie is confort 7610 To creatures that repenten, And to mansede men Meschief at hire ende. "For Goddes body myghte noght ben Of breed, withouten clergie; The which body is bothe Boote to the rightfulle, And deeth and dampnacion To hem that deyeth yvele, As Cristes caracte confortede, 7620 And bothe coupable shewed, The womman that the Jewes broughte, That Jhesus thoughte to save. _Nolite judicare, et non judicabimini._ Right so Goddes body, bretheren, But if it be worthili taken, Dampneth us at the day of dome, {234} As the caractes dide the Jewes. "For-thi I counseille thee, for Cristes sake, Clergie that thow lovye. 7630 For kynde wit is of his kyn, And neighe cosynes bothe To oure Lord, leve me; For-thi love hem, I rede. For bothe ben as mirours To amenden oure defautes, And lederes for lewed men And for lettred bothe. "For-thi lakke thow nevere logik, Lawe ne hise custumes; 7640 Ne countreplede clerkes, I counseille thee for evere. For as a man may noght see, That mysseth hise eighen; Na-moore kan no clerk, But if he caughte it first thorugh bokes. Al though men made bokes, God was the maister, And seint spirit the samplarie, And seide what men sholde write. 7650 "Right so ledeth lettrure Lewed men to reson; And as a blynd man in bataille Bereth wepne to fighte, And hath noon hap with his ax His enemy to hitte, Na-moore kan a kynde witted man, But clerkes hym teche, Come for al his kynde wit To cristendom, and be saved. 7660 {235} Which is the cofre of Cristes tresor, And clerkes kepe the keyes To unloken it at hir likyng, And to the lewed peple Gyve mercy for hire mysdedes, If men it wolde aske Buxomliche and benigneliche, And bidden it of Grace. "_Archa Dei_ in the olde lawe Levytes it kepten; 7670 Hadde nevere lewed man leve To leggen hond on that cheste, But he were preest or preestes sone, Patriark or prophete. For clergie is kepere Under Crist of hevene. Was ther nevere no knyght, But clergie hym made. Ac kynde wit cometh Of alle kynnes syghtes, 7680 Of briddes and of beestes, Of tastes of truthe and of deceites. "Lyveris to-forn us Useden to marke For selkouthes that thei seighen, Hir sones for to teche; And helden it an heigh science Hir wittes to knowe. Ac thorugh hir science soothly Was nevere no soule y-saved, 7690 Ne broght by hir bokes To blisse ne to joye; For alle hir kynde knowynges Come but of diverse sightes. {236} "Patriarkes and prophetes Repreveden hir science, And seiden hir wordes and hir wisdomes Nas but a folye; And to the clergie of Crist Counted it but a trufle. 7700 _Sapientia hujus mundi stultitia est apud Deum._ = "For the heighe Holy Goost Hevene shal to-cleve, And love shall lepen out after Into the lowe erthe; And clennesse shal cacchen it, And clerkes shullen it fynde. _Pastores loquebantur ad invicem._ "He speketh there of riche men right noght, 7710 Ne of right witty, Ne of lordes that were lewed men, But of the hyeste lettred oute. _Ibant magi ab oriente._ "If any frere were founde there, I gyve thee fyve shillynges; Ne in none burgeises cote Was that barn born; But in a burgeises place Of Bethlem the beste. 7720 _Sed non erat ei locus in diversorio, et pauper non habet diversorium._ "To pastours and to poetes Appered the aungel, And bad hem go to Bethlem Goddes burthe to honoure; And songe a song of solas, _Gloria in excelsis Deo!_ {237} "Clerkes knewen it wel, And comen with hir presentz, 7730 And diden homage honurably To hym that was almyghty. "Why I have tolde al this, I took ful good hede How thow contrariedest Clergie With crabbede wordes, How that lewde men lightloker Than lettrede were saved, Than clerkes or kynde witted men Of cristene peple; 7740 And thow seidest sooth of somme, Ac se in what manere. "Tak two stronge men, And in Themese cast hem, And bothe naked as a nedle, Her noon sikerer than oother; That oon hath konnynge and kan Swymmen and dyven; That oother is lewed of that labour, That lerned nevere swymme; 7750 Which trowestow of tho two That is in moost drede? He that nevere ne dyved, Ne noght kan of swymmyng? Or the swymmere that is saaf By so hymself like, Ther his felawe fleteth forth As the flood liketh, And is in drede to drenche, That nevere dide swymme?" 7760 "That swymme kan noght," I seide, "It semeth to my wittes." {238} "Right so," quod the renk. "Reson it sheweth, That he that knoweth clergie Kan sonner arise Out of synne, and be saaf, Though he synne ofte, If hym liketh and lest, Than any lewed leelly. 7770 For if the clerk be konnynge, He knoweth what is synne, And how contricion withoute confession Conforteth the soule; As thow seest in the Sauter, In Salmes oon or tweyne, How contricion is comended, For it cacheth awey synne. _Beati quorum remissæ sunt iniquitates, et quorum tecta sunt, etc._ 7780 "And this conforteth ech a clerk, And covereth hym fro wanhope. In which flood the fend Fondeth a man hardest. Ther the lewed lith stille, And loketh after lente, And hath no contricion er he come to shrifte, And thanne kan he litel telle, But as his lores-man lereth hym Bileveth and troweth; 7790 And that is after person or parissh preest, The whiche ben peraventure Unkonnynge to lere lewed men, As Luc bereth witnesse: _Dum cæcus ducit cæcum, etc._ "Wo was hym marked {239} That wade moot with the lewed! Wel may the barn blesse that man That hym to book sette, That lyvynge after lettrure 7800 Saveth hym lif and soule. _Dominus pars hereditatis meæ_, Is a murye verset, That hath take fro Tybourne Twenty stronge theves; Ther lewed theves ben lolled up, Loke how thei be saved. "The thef that hadde grace of God On Good-friday, as thow spekest, Was for he yald hym creaunt to Crist on the cros, 7810 And knewliched hym gilty, And grace asked of God, That to graunten it is redy To hem that buxomliche biddeth it, And ben in wille to amenden. Ac though that theef hadde hevene, He hadde noon heigh blisse, As seint Johan and othere seintes That deserved hadde bettre. "Right as som man yeve me mete, 7820 And a-mydde the floor sette me, And hadde mete moore than y-nough, Ac noght so muche worshipe As tho that seten at the syde table, Or with the sovereynes of the halle; But sete as a beggere bord-lees By myself on the grounde. So it fareth by that felon {240} That a Good-friday was saved. He sit neither with seint Johan, 7830 Symond ne Jude, Ne with maydenes ne with martires, Confessours ne wydewes; But by hymself as a soleyn, And served on erthe. For he that is ones a thef Is evere moore in daunger, And, as lawe liketh, To lyve or to deye. _De peccato propitiato, noli esse sine metu._ = And for to serven a seint 7842 And swich a thef togideres, It were neither reson ne right To rewarde hem bothe y-liche. "And right as Trojanus the trewe knyght Dwelte noght depe in helle, That oure Lord ne hadde hym lightly out, So leve I the thef be in hevene. For he is in the loweste of hevene, 7850 If oure bileve be trewe; And wel loselly he lolleth there, By the lawe of holy chirche. _Qui reddit unicuique juxta opera sua, etc._ = "And why that oon theef on the cros Creaunt hym yald Rather than that oother theef, Though thow woldest appose, Alle the clerkes under Crist 7860 Ne kouthe the skile assoille. _Quare placuit, quia voluit._ {241} "And so I seye by thee That sekest after the whyes, And a-resonedest Reson A rebukynge as it were; And of the floures in the fryth, And of hire faire hewes, Wherof thei cacche hir colours So clere and so brighte; 7870 And willest of briddes and of beestes, And of hir bredyng, to knowe, Why some be a-lough and some a-loft, Thi likyng it were; And of the stones and of the sterres Thow studiest, as I leve; How evere beest outher brid Hath so breme wittes. "Clergie ne kynde wit Ne knew nevere the cause; 7880 Ac kynde knoweth the cause hymself, And no creature ellis. He is the pies patron, And putteth it in hir ere There the thorn is thikkest To buylden and brede. And kynde kenned the pecok To cauken in swich a kynde; And kenned Adam To knowe his pryvé membres, 7890 And taughte hym and Eve To helien hem with leves. "Lewed men many tymes Maistres thei apposen, Why Adam ne hiled noght first His mouth that eet the appul, {242} Rather than his likame a-logh; Lewed asken thus clerkes. "Kynde knoweth whi he dide so, Ac no clerk ellis, 7900 Ac of briddes and of beestes Men by olde tyme Ensamples token and termes, As telleth the poetes; And that the faireste fowel Foulest engendreth, And feblest fowel of flight is That fleeth or swymmeth; And that the pecok and the pehen Proude riche men bitokneth; 7910 For the pecok, and men pursue hym, May noght flee heighe, For the trailynge of his tail Overtaken is he soone, And his flessh is foul flessh, And his feet bothe, And un-lovelich of ledene, And looth for to here. "Right so the riche, If he his richesse kepe, 7920 And deleth it noght til his deeth-day, The tail of alle sorwe Right so as the pennes of the pecok Peyneth hym in his flight. So is possession peyne Of pens and of nobles, To alle hem that it holdeth, Til hir tail be plukked. "And though the riche repente thanne And bi-rewe the tyme 7930 {243} That evere he gadered so grete, And gaf therof so litel; Though he crye to Crist thanne With kene wil, I leve, His ledene be in oure Lordes ere Like a pies chiteryng. And whan his caroyne shal come In cave to be buryed, I leve it flawme ful foule The fold al aboute, 7940 And alle the othere ther it lith Envenymeth thorugh his attre. "By the po feet is understande, As I have lerned in Avynet, Executours false frendes That fulfille noght his wille That was writen and thei witnesse To werche right as it wolde. Thus the poete preveth that the pecok For hise fetheres is reverenced, 7950 Right so is the riche By reson of hise goodes. "The larke, that is a lasse fowel, Is moore lovelich of ledene, And wel a wey of wynge Swifter than the pecok, And of flessh by fele fold Fatter and swetter; To lowe libbynge men The larke is resembled. 7960 "Aristotle the grete clerk Swiche tales he telleth. Thus he likneth in his logik The leeste fowel oute, {244} And wheither he be saaf or noght saaf The sothe woot no clergie, Ne of Sortes ne of Salomon No scripture kan telle. Ac God is so good, I hope, That siththe he gaf hem wittes 7970 To wissen us weyes therwith That wissen us to be saved, And the bettre for hir bokes To bidden we ben holden, That God for his grace Gyve hir soules reste. For lettred men were lewed men yet, Ne were loore of hir bokes." "Alle thise clerkes," quod I tho, "That in Crist leven, 7980 Seyen in hir sermons That neither Sarsens ne Jewes Ne no creature of Cristes liknesse Withouten cristendom worth saved." "_Contra_," quod Ymaginatif thoo, And comsed for to loure; And seide "_Salvabitur Vix justus in die judicii. Ergo salvabitur_," quod he, And seide na-moore Latyn. 7990 "Trojanus was a trewe knyght, And took nevere Cristendom, And he is saaf, so seith the book, And his soule in hevene. For ther is fullynge of font, And fullynge in blood shedyng, And thorugh fir is fullyng, And that is ferme bileve. {245} _Advenit ignis divinus non comburens, sed illuminans, etc._ 8000 "Ac Truthe that trespased nevere, Ne traversed ayeins his lawe, But lyveth as his lawe techeth, And leveth ther be no bettre; And if ther were, he wolde amende, And in swich wille deieth, Ne wolde nevere trewe god, But truthe were allowed, And wheither it be worth or noght worth, The bileve is gret of truthe, 8010 And an hope hangynge therinne To have a mede for his truthe. For _Deus dicitur quasi dans vitam æternam suis, hoc est fidelibus. Et alibi: Si ambulavero in medio umbræ mortis._ "The glose graunteth upon that vers A greet mede to Truthe, And wit and wisdom," quod that wye, "Was som tyme tresor 8020 To kepe with a commune, No catel was holde bettre, And muche murthe and manhod;" And right with that he vanysshed. 8024 * * * * * {246} _Passus Decimus Tertius, etc._ And I awaked therwith 8025 Wit-lees ner-hande, And as a freke that fre were Forth gan I walke In manere of a mendinaunt Many a yer after, 8030 And of this metyng many tyme Muche thought I hadde. First how Fortune me failed At my mooste nede; And how that Elde manaced me, Myghte we evere mete; And how that freres folwede Folk that was riche, And folk that was povere At litel pris thei sette; 8040 And no corps in hir kirk-yerde Nor in his kirk was buryed, But quik he biquethe aught To quyte with hir dettes; And how this Coveitise over-com Clerkes and preestes; And how that lewed men ben lad, But oure Lord hem helpe, {247} Thorugh un-konnynge curatours, To incurable peynes. 8050 And how that Ymaginatif In dremels me tolde Of Kynde and of his konnynge, And how curteis he is to bestes, And how lovynge he is to briddes On londe and on watre. Leneth he no lif Lasse ne moore. The creatures that crepen Of kynde ben engendred. 8060 And sithen how Ymaginatif seide, _Vix salvabitur_; And whan he hadde seid so, How sodeynliche he passed. I lay doun longe in this thoght, And at the laste I slepte. And as Crist wolde, ther com Conscience To conforte me that tyme, And bad me come to his court, With Clergie sholde I dyne; 8070 And for Conscience of Clergie spak, I com wel the rather. And there I seigh a maister, What man he was I nyste, That lowe louted And loveliche to Scripture. Conscience knew hym wel, And welcomed hym faire. Thei wesshen and wipeden, And wenten to the dyner. 8080 And Pacience in the paleis stood In pilgrymes clothes, {248} And preyde mete _par charité_ For a povere heremyte. Conscience called hym in, And curteisliche seide, "Welcome! wye; go and wasshe; Thow shalt sitte soone." This maister was maad sitte, As for the mooste worthi. 8090 And thanne Clergie and Conscience And Pacience cam after. Pacience and I Were put to be macches, And seten bi oureselve At the side borde. Conscience called after mete; And thanne cam Scripture, And served hem thus soone Of sondry metes manye, 8100 Of Austyn, of Ambrose, And of the foure Euvangelistes, _Edentis et bibentis quæ apud eos sunt._ = Ac this maister nor his man No maner flesshe eten; Ac thei eten mete of moore cost, Mortrews and potages Of that men mys-wonne Thei made hem wel at ese. 8110 Ac hir sauce was over sour, And unsavourly grounde In a morter _post mortem_ Of many a bitter peyne, But if thei synge for tho soules, And wepe salte teris. {249} _Vos qui peccata hominum comeditis, nisi pro eis lacrimas et orationes effunderitis, ea quæ in deliciis comeditis, in tormentis 8120 evometis._ Conscience ful curteisly tho Comaunded Scripture Bifore Pacience breed to brynge And me that was his macche. He sette a sour loof to-forn us, And seide, "_agite pænitentiam_." "As longe," quod I, "as I lyve, And lycame may dure." "Here is propre service," quod Pacience, 8130 "Ther fareth no prince bettre," And thanne he broughte us forth a mees of oother mete, Of _Miserere mei, Deus_, And he broughte us of _Beati quorum_, Of _Beatus-virres_ makyng. _Et quorum tecta sunt peccata_ in a disshe, Of derne shrifte _Dixi et confitebor tibi_. "Bryng Pacience som pitaunce," Pryveliche quod Conscience. And thanne hadde Pacience a pitaunce. 8140 _Pro hac orabit ad te omnis sanctus in tempore oportuno._ And Conscience conforted us, And carped us murye tales. _Cor contritum et humiliatum Deus non despicies._ = {250} Pacience was proud Of that propre service, And made hym murthe with his mete; Ac I mornede evere, 8150 For this doctour on the heighe dees Drank wyn so faste. _Væ vobis qui potentes estis ad bibendum vinum!_ = He eet manye sondry metes, Mortrews and puddynges, Wombe-cloutes and wilde brawen, And egges y-fryed with grece. Thanne seide I to myself so Pacience it herde, 8160 "It is noght foure dayes that this freke Bifore the deen of Poules Preched of penaunces That Poul the apostle suffrede, _In fame et frigore_ And flappes of scourges." _Ter cæsus sum, et a Judeis quinquies quadragenas, etc._ Ac o word thei over-huppen At ech a tyme that thei preche, 8170 That Poul in his Pistle To al the peple tolde: _Periculum est in falsis fratribus._ Holi writ bit men be war, I wol noght write it here In Englisshe, on aventure It sholde be reherced to ofte, And greve therwith goode men, Ac gramariens shul redde. _Unusquisque a fratre se custodiat, 8180 {251} quia, ut dicitur, periculum est in falsis fratribus._ Ac I wiste nevere freke that as a frere yede Bifore men on Englisshe Taken it for his teme, And telle it withouten glosyng. They prechen that penaunce is Profitable to the soule, And what meschief and _male ese_ Crist for man tholede. 8190 "Ac this Goddes gloton," quod I, "With hise grete chekes, Hath no pité on us povere, He perfourneth yvele; That he precheth he preveth noght," To Pacience I tolde, And wisshed ful witterly, With wille ful egre, That disshes and doublers Bifore this ilke doctour 8200 Were molten leed in his mawe, And Mahoun amyddes. "I shal jangle to this jurdan With his juste wombe, To telle me what penaunce is, Of which he preched rather." Pacience perceyved what I thoughte, And wynked on me to be stille, And seide, "Thow shalt see thus soone, Whan he may na-moore, 8210 He shal have a penaunce in his paunche, {252} And puffe at ech a worde; And thanne shullen his guttes gothele, And he shal galpen after. For now he hath dronken so depe, He wole devyne soone, And preven it by hir Pocalips And passion of seint Avereys, That neither bacon ne braun, Blancmanger ne mortrews, 8220 Is neither fissh nor flesshe, But fode for a penaunt And thanne shal he testifie of the Trinité, And take his felawe to witnesse, What he fond in a frayel, After a freres lyvyng; And but he first lyve be lesyng, Leve me nevere after. And thanne is tyme to take, And to appose this doctour 8230 Of Do-wel and Do-bet, And if Do-wel be any penaunce." And I sat stille, as Pacience seide, And thus soone this doctour, As rody as a rose, Rubbede hise chekes, Coughed and carped; And Conscience hym herde, And tolde hym of a Trinité, And toward us he loked. 8240 "What is Do-wel, sire doctour?" quod I, "Is it any penaunce?" "Do-wel," quod this doctour, And took the cuppe and drank, "Is do noon yvel to thyn even-cristen {253} Nought by thi power." "By this day! sire doctour," quod I, "Thanne be ye noght in Do-wel; For ye han harmed us two, In that ye eten the puddyng, 8250 Mortrews and oother mete, And we no morsel hadde. And if ye fare so in youre fermerye, Ferly me thynketh, But cheeste be ther charité sholde be. And yonge children dorste pleyne, I wolde permute my penaunce with youre, For I am in point to Do-wel." Thanne Conscience curteisly A contenaunce made, 8260 And preynte upon Pacience To preie me to be stille; And seide hymself, "Sire doctour, And it be youre wille, What is Do-wel and Do-bet, Ye dyvynours knoweth." "Do-wel," quod this doctour, "Do as clerkes techeth; And Do-bet is he that techeth, And travailleth to teche othere; 8270 And Do-best doth hymself so, As he seith and precheth." _Qui facit et docuerit, magnus vocabitur in regno coelorum._ "Now thow, Clergie," quod Conscience, "Carpest what is Do-wel. I have sevene sones," he seide, "Serven in a castel, {254} Ther the lord of lif wonyeth, To leren what is Do-wel; 8280 Til I se tho sevene And myself acorde, I am un-hardy," quod he, "To any wight to preven it. For oon Piers the Plowman Hath impugned us alle, And set alle sciences at a sope, Save love one; And no text ne taketh To mayntene his cause, 8290 But _Dilige Deum_, And _Domine quis habitabit_. And seith that Do-wel and Do-bet Arn two infinités, Whiche infinités, with a feith! Fynden out Do-best, Which shal save mannes soule; Thus seith Piers the Plowman." "I kan noght heron," quod Conscience, "Ac I knowe wel Piers; 8300 He wol noght ayein holy writ speken, I dar wel undertake. Thanne passe we over til Piers come, And preve this in dede. Pacience hath be in many place, And peraunter mouthed That no clerk ne kan, As Crist bereth witnesse: _Patientes vincunt, etc._" "Ac youre preiere," quod Pacience tho, 8310 "So no man displese hym. _Disce_," quo he, "_Doce_, {255} _Dilige inimicos_. _Disce_, and Do-wel; _Doce_, and Do-bet; _Dilige_, and Do-best; Thus taughte me ones A lemman that I lovede, Love was hir name: "With wordes and with werkes," quod she, 8320 "And wil of thyn herte, Thow love leelly thi soule Al thi lif tyme, And so thow lere the to lovye, For oure Lordes love of hevene, Thyn enemy in alle wise Evene forth with thiselve. Cast coles on his heed Of alle kynde speche, Bothe with werkes and with wordes 8330 Fonde his love to wynne; And leye on him thus with love, Til he laughe on the. And but he bowe for this betyng, Blynd mote he worthe. "Ac for to fare thus with thi frend, Folie it were. For he that loveth thee leelly, Litel of thyne coveiteth. Kynde love coveiteth noght 8340 No catel but speche. With halfe a laumpe lyne, In Latyn, _Ex vi transitionis_, I bere therinne aboute Faste y-bounde Do-wel, In a signe of the Saterday {256} That sette first the kalender, And al the wit of the Wodnesday Of the nexte wike after, The myddel of the moone, 8350 As the nyght of bothe, And herwith am I welcome Ther I have it with me, "Undo it, lat this doctour deme If Do-wel be therinne. For, by hym that me made! Myghte nevere poverte Misese ne meschief, Ne no man with his tonge, Coold ne care, 8360 Ne compaignye of theves, Ne neither hete ne hayl, Ne noon helle pouke, Ne fuyr ne flood, Ne feere of thyn enemy, Tene thee any tyme, And thow take it with the. _Caritas nihil timet, etc._" "It is but a dido," quod this doctour, "A disours tale; 8370 Al the wit of this world, And wight mennes strengthe, Kan noght conformen a pees Bitwene and hise enemys, Ne bitwene two cristene kynges Kan no wight pees make Profitable to either peple;" And putte the table fro hym, And took Clergie and Conscience To conseil, as it were, 8380 {257} That Pacience thow most passe, For pilgrymes konne wel lye. Ac Conscience carped loude, And curteisliche seide, "Frendes, fareth wel;" And faire spak to Clergie, "For I wol go with this gome, If God wol yeve me grace, And be pilgrym with Pacience, Til I have preved moore." 8390 "What!" quod Clergie to Conscience, "Ar ye coveitous nouthe After yeres-geves, or giftes, Or yernen to rede redels? I shal brynge yow a Bible, A book of the olde lawe, And lere yow, if yow like, The leeste point to knowe, That Pacience the pilgrym Parfitly knew nevere." 8400 "Nay, by Crist!" quod Conscience To Clergie, "God thee for-yelde; For al that Pacience me profreth Proud am I litel. Ac the wil of the wye, And the wil of folk here, Hath meved my mood To moorne for my synnes. The goode wil of a wight Was nevere bought to the fulle. 8410 For ther nys no tresour, for sothe, To a trewe wille. "Hadde noght Maudeleyne moore For a box of salve, {258} Than Zacheus for he seide _Dimidium bonorum meorum do pauperibus?_ = And the poore widewe For a peire of mytes, Than alle tho that offrede 8420 Into _gazophilacium_?" Thus curteisliche Conscience Congeyed first the frere, And sithen softeliche he seide In Clergies ere, "Me were levere, by oure Lord! And I lyve sholde, Have pacience perfitliche, Than half thi pak of bokes." Clergie of Conscience 8430 No congie wolde take, But seide ful sobreliche, "Thow shalt se the tyme Whan thow art wery of-walked, Wille me to counseille." "That is sooth," quod Conscience, "So me God helpe! If Pacience be oure partyng felawe, And pryvé with us bothe, Ther nys wo in this world 8440 That we ne sholde amende, And conformen kynges to pees, And alle kynnes londes; Sarsens and Surré, And so forth alle the Jewes, Turne into the trewe feith, And intil oon bileve." "That is sooth," quod Clergie, {259} "I se what thow menest; I shal dwelle as I do, 8450 My devoir to shewe, And confermen fauntekyns, And oother folk y-lered, Til Pacience have preved thee, And parfit thee maked." Conscience tho with Pacience passed, Pilgrymes as it were. Thanne hadde Pacience, as pilgrymes han, In his poke vitailles, Sobretee and symple speche, 8460 And soothfast bileve, To conforte hym and Conscience, If thei come in place There un-kyndenesse and coveitise is, Hungry contrees bothe. And as the wente by the weye, Of Do-wel thei carped; Thei mette with a mynstral, As me tho thoughte. Pacience apposed hym first. 8470 And preyde he sholde hem telle To Conscience what craft he kouthe, And to what contree he wolde. "I am a mynstrall," quod that man, "My name is _Activa-vita_; Al ydelnesse ich hatie, For of actif is my name; A wafrer, wol ye wite, And serve manye lordes, And fewe robes I fonge, 8480 Or furrede gownes. Couthe I lye to do men laughe, {260} Thanne lacchen I sholde Outher mantel or moneie Amonges lordes or mynstrals. Ac for I kan neither taboure ne trompe, Ne telle no gestes, Farten ne fithelen At festes, ne harpen, Jape ne jogele, 8490 Ne gentilliche pipe, Ne neither saille ne saute, Ne synge with the gyterne, I have no goode giftes Of thise grete lordes. For no breed that I brynge forth, Save a benyson on the Sonday Whan the preest preieth the peple Hir pater-noster to bidde For Piers the Plowman, 8500 And that hym profit waiten; And that am I actif, That ydelnesse hatie; For alle trewe travaillours And tiliers of the erthe, Fro Mighelmesse to Mighelmesse I fynde hem with my wafres. "Beggeris and bidderis Of my breed craven, Faitours and freres, 8510 And folk with brode crounes. I fynde payn for the pope, And provendre for his palfrey; And I hadde nevere of hym, Have God my trouthe! Neither provendre ne personage {261} Yet of popes gifte, Save a pardon with a peis of leed And two polles amyddes. Hadde ich a clerc that couthe write, 8520 I wolde caste hym a bille, That he sente me under his seel A salve for the pestilence, And that his blessynge and hise bulles Bocches myghte destruye. _In nomine meo dæmonia ejicient, et super ægros manus imponent, et bene habebunt._ "And thanne wolde I be prest to the peple Paast for to make, 8530 And buxom and busy Aboute breed and drynke For hym and for alle hise, Founde I that his pardon Mighte lechen a man, As I bileve it sholde. For sith he hath the power That Peter hymself hadde, He hath the pot with the salve, Soothly as me thynketh. 8540 _Argentum et aurum non est mihi; quod autem habeo tibi do: in nomine Domini surge et ambula._ "Ac if myght of myracle hym faille, It is for men ben noght worthi To have the grace of God, And no gilt of pope. For may no blessynge doon us boote, But if we wile amende, 8550 {262} Ne mannes masse make pees Among cristene peple, Til pride be pureliche for-do, And thorugh payn defaute. For er I have breed of mele, Oft moot I swete; And er the commune have corn y-nough, Many a cold morwenyng. So er my wafres be y-wroght, Muche wo I tholye. 8560 "At Londone, I leve, Liketh wel my wafres; And louren whan thei lakken hem. It is noght long y-passed, There was a careful commune, Whan no cart com to towne With breed fro Stratforde; Tho gonnen beggeris wepe, And werkmen were agast a lite; This wole be thought longe. 8570 In the date of oure Drighte, In a drye Aprille, A thousand and thre hundred Twies twenty and ten, My wafres there were gesene Whan Chichestre was maire." I took good kepe, by Crist! And Conscience bothe, Of Haukyn the actif man, And how he was y-clothed. 8580 He hadde a cote of Cristendom, As holy kirke bileveth; Ac it was moled in many places With manye sondry plottes; {263} Of pride here a plot, And there a plot of unbuxome speche, Of scornyng and of scoffyng, And of unskilful berynge, As in apparaill and in porte Proud amonges the peple, 8590 Oother wise than he hym hath With herte or sighte shewynge, Hym willyng that alle men wende He were that he is noght. For-why he bosteth and braggeth With manye bolde othes, And inobedient to ben undernome Of any lif lyvynge; And noon so singuler by hymself, Ne so pomp holy, 8600 Y-habited as an heremyte, An ordre by hymselve, Religion saunz rule Or resonable obedience, Lakkynge lettrede men And lewed men bothe In likynge of lele lif, And a liere in soule, With inwit and with outwit Ymagynen and studie, 8610 As best for his body be To have a badde name, And entremetten hym over al Ther he hath noght to doone, Willynge that men wende His wit were the beste. And if he gyveth ought to povere gomes, Telle what he deleth, {264} Povere of possession in purs And in cofre bothe. 8620 And as a lyoun on to loke, And lordlich of speche, Boldest of beggeris, A bostere that noght hath, In towne and in tavernes Tales to telle, And segge thyng that he nevere seigh, And for sothe sweren it, Of dedes that he nevere dide Demen and bosten 8630 And of werkes that he wel dide Witnesse, and siggen-- "Lo! if ye leve me noght, Or that I lye wenen, Asketh at hym or at hym, And he yow kan telle What I suffrede and seigh And som tymes hadde, And what I kouthe and knew, And what kyn I com of." 8640 Al he wolde that men wiste Of werkes and of wordes Which myghte plese the peple, And preisen hymselve. _Si hominibus placerem, Christi servus non essem. Et alibi: Nemo potest duobus dominis servire._ "By Crist!" quod Conscience tho, "Thi beste cote, Haukyn, 8650 Hath manye moles and spottes, It moste ben y-wasshe." {265} "Ye, who so toke hede," quod Haukyn, "Bihynde and bifore, What on bak and what on body half, And by the two sydes, Men sholde fynde manye frounces, And manye foule plottes." And he torned hym as tyd, And thanne took I hede, 8660 It was fouler bi fele fold Than it first semed. It was bi-dropped with wrathe And wikkede wille, With envye and yvel speche, Entisynge to fighte, Liynge and laughynge, And leve tonge to chide, Al that he wiste wikked By any wight tellen it, 8670 And blame men bihynde hir bak, And bidden hem meschaunce, And that he wiste by Wille Tellen it Watte, And that Watte wiste Wille wiste it after, And make of frendes foes Thorugh a fals tonge, Or with myght or with mouth, Or thorugh mennes strengthe 8680 Avenge me fele tymes, Other frete myselve Withinne as a shepsteres shere, Y-sherewed man and cursed. _Cujus maledictione os plenum est et amaritudine, sub lingua ejus {266} labor et dolor. Et alibi: Filii hominum, dentes eorum arma et sagittæ, et lingua eorum gladius acutus._ 8690 "Ther is no lif that me loveth Lastynge any while; For tales that I telle, No man trusteth to me. And whan I may noght have the maistrie, Swich malencolie I take, That I cacche the crampe, And the cardiacle som tyme, Or an ague in swich an angre, And som tyme a fevere 8700 That taketh me al a twelve monthe, Til that I despise Lechecraft of oure Lord, And leve on a wicche, And seye that no clerc ne kan, Ne Crist, as I leve, To the soutere of Southwerk, Or of Shordyche dame Emme; And seye that no Goddes word Gaf me nevere boote, 8710 But thorugh a charme hadde I chaunce And my chief heele." I waitede wisloker, And thanne was it soilled With likynge of lecherie, As by lokynge of his eighe. For ech a maide that he mette He made hire a signe Semynge to synne-warde, And some tyme he gan taste 8720 {267} Aboute the mouth, or bynethe Bigynneth to grope, Til eitheres wille wexeth kene, And to the werke yeden, As wel in fastyng dayes and Fridaies As forboden nyghtes, And as wel in Lente as out of Lente, Alle tymes y-liche. Swiche werkes with hem Were nevere out of seson, 8730 Til thei myghte na-moore; And thanne murye tales, And how that lecchours lovye Laughen and japen, And of hir harlotrye and horedom In hir elde tellen. Thanne Pacience perceyved Of pointes of this cote, That were colomy thorugh coveitise And unkynde desiryng; 8740 Moore to good than to God The gome his love caste, And ymagynede how He it myghte have With false mesures and met, And with fals witnesse; Lened for love of the wed, And looth to do truthe; And awaited thorugh which Wey to bigile, 8750 And menged his marchaundise, And made a good moustre; "The worste withinne was, A greet wit I let it, {268} And if my neghebore hadde any hyne, Or any beest ellis, Moore profitable than myn, Manye sleightes I made How I myghte have it, Al my wit I caste. 8760 And but I it hadde by oother wey, At the laste I stale it; Or priveliche his purs shook, And unpikede hise lokes; Or by nyghte or by daye Aboute was ich evere, Thorugh gile to gaderen The good that ich have. "If I yede to the plowgh, I pynched so narwe, 8770 That a foot lond or a forow Fecchen I wolde Of my nexte neghebore, And nymen of his erthe. And if I repe, over-reche, Of yaf hem reed that ropen To seise to me with hir sikel That I ne sew nevere. "And who so borwed of me, A-boughte the tyme 8780 With presentes prively, Or paide som certeyn; So he wolde or noght wolde, Wynnen I wolde, And bothe to kith and to kyn Unkynde of that ich hadde. "And who so cheped my chaffare, Chiden I wolde, {269} But he profrede to paie A peny or tweyne 8790 Moore than it was worth; And yet wolde I swere That it coste me muche moore, And swoor manye othes. "On holy daies at holy chirche Whan ich herde masse, Hadde I nevere wille, woot God, Witterly to biseche Mercy for my mysdedes, That I ne moorned moore 8800 Nor losse of good, leve me, Than for my likames giltes. As if I hadde dedly synne doon, I dredde noght that so soore, As when I lened, and leved it lost, Or longe er it were paied. So if I kidde any kyndenesse Myn even cristen to helpe, Upon a cruwel coveitise Myn herte gan hange. 8810 "And if I sente over see My servauntz to Brugges, Or into Pruce-lond my prentis, My profit to waiten, To marchaunden with moneie, And maken hire eschaunges, Mighte nevere me conforte. In the mene while Neither masse ne matynes, No none maner sightes; 8820 Ne nevere penaunce perfournede, Ne pater-noster seide, {270} That my mynde ne was moore On my good in a doute, Than in the grace of God, And hise grete helpes. _Ubi thesaurus tuus, ibi et cor tuum._ "Whiche ben the braunches That bryngen a man to sleuthe? He that moorneth noght for hise mysdedes, 8830 Ne maketh no sorwe, And penaunce that the preest enjoyneth Perfourneth yvele, Dooth noon almesse, Dred hym of no synne, Lyveth ayein the bileve, And no lawe holdeth, Ech day is holy day with hym, Or an heigh ferye; And, if he aught wole here, 8840 It is an harlotes tonge. Whan men carpen of Crist, Or of clennesse of soules, He wexeth wroth and wol noght here But wordes of murthe; Penaunce of povere men, And the passion of seintes, He hateth to here therof, And alle that it telleth. Thise ben the braunches, beth war, 8850 That bryngen a man to wanhope. "Ye lordes and ladies, And legates of holy chirche, That fedeth fooles sages, Flatereris and lieris, And han likynge to lithen hem {271} To do yow to laughe, _Væ vobis qui ridetis, etc._ And gyveth hem mete and mede, And povere men refuse; 8860 In youre deeth deyinge, I drede me ful soore Lest tho thre manner men To muche sorwe yow brynge. _Consentientes et agentes pari poena punientur._ = "Patriarkes and prophetes, And prechours of Goddes wordes, Saven thorugh hir sermons Mannes soule fro helle. 8870 Right so flatereris and fooles Arn the fendes disciples To entice men thorugh hir tales To synne and to harlotrie. Ac clerkes, that knowen holy writ, Sholde kenne lordes What David seith of swiche men, As the Sauter telleth. _Non habitabit in medio domus meæ, qui facit superbiam, et qui 8880 loquitur iniqua._ "Sholde noon harlot have audience In halle nor in chambre, Ther wise men were, Witnesseth Goddes wordes, Ne no mys-proud man Amonges lordes ben allowed. "Ac flaterers and fooles Thorugh hir foule wordes Leden tho that loven hem 8890 {272} To Luciferis feste, With _Turpiloquio_, a lady of sorwe, And Luciferis fithele." Thus Haukyn the actif man Hadde y-soiled his cote, Til Conscience acouped hym therof In a curteis manere, Why he ne hadde whasshen it, Or wiped it with a brusshe. 8899 * * * * * PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON. * * * * * Notes [1] See the "Apocalypsis Goliæ" and other pieces in the poems of Walter Mapes; the Order of Fair Ease in the Political Songs, and the Poems of Rutebeuf; and, in English, the remarkable "Poem on the Evil Times of Edward II." in the appendix to the Political Songs. The Poem entitled the Order of Fair Ease bears some resemblance to the _Abbaye de Theleme_ of Rabelais. [2] This sentiment was perpetuated in a numerous class of ballads, in which the monarch is represented as thrown incognito among the lower classes, as listening to their expressions of loyalty and to the tale of their sufferings. See the "Tale of King Edward and the Shepherd" in Hartshorne's _Ancient Metrical Tales_; "The King and the Barker," in Ritson's _Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry_; "The King and the Miller," and "King Edward IV. and the Tanner of Tamworth," in _Percy's Reliques_; &c. The earliest known form of this tale is the story of "Henry II. and the Cistercian Abbot," printed from Giraldus Cambrensis in the _Reliquiæ Antiquiæ_, vol. ii. p. 147. [3] It was at least a tradition early in the sixteenth century (for we have no means now of ascertaining whether there were any substantial grounds for the statement), that the author was named Robert Longlande (or Langlande), that he was born at Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire, and that (after receiving his education at Oxford) he became a monk of Malvern. I do not think, with Tyrwhitt and Price, that the name _Wil_, given in the poem to the dreamer, necessarily shows that the writer's name was _William_; and still less that the mention of "Kytte my wif" and "Calote my doghter" (p. 395 of the present volume), and of the dreamer's having resided at Cornhill, refer to the family and residence of the author of the poem. If he were a monk (as appears probable by his intimate acquaintance with the Scriptures and the Fathers), he would not be married. Sir Frederick Madden discovered a very important entry in a hand of the fifteenth century on the fly-leaf of a manuscript of Piers Ploughman in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, to the following effect--"Memorandum, quod Stacy de Rokayle, pater Willielmi de Langlond, qui Stacius fuit generosus, et morabatur in Schiptone under Whicwode, tenens domini Le Spenser in comitatu Oxon., _qui prædictus Willielmus fecit librum qui vocatur Perys Ploughman_."--It would perhaps be not impossible to trace the name and history of this Stacy de Rokayle; but till that be done, I do not think this memorandum ought to be considered as overthrowing the old tradition relating to Robert Longlande. It may be mentioned as a remarkable specimen of the patriotism of David Buchanan, that he lays claim to the author of Piers Ploughman as a Scotchman:--"Robertus Langland, natione Scotus, professione sacerdos, vir ex obscuris ortus parentibus, pius admodum et ingeniosus et zelo divinæ gloriæ plenus; inter monachos Benedictinos educatus in civitate Aberdonensi, vir æque erat in omni humaniore literatura insigniter doctus, et in medicina admodum clarus, pium opus sermone vulgare scripsit cui imposuit, || Visionem Petri Aratoris, lib. 1. || Pro conjugio sacerdotum. lib. 1. || Claruit anno Christi Redemptoria, 1369. Regnante Davide Secundo in Scotia."--Dav. Buchanan, _de Scriptoribus Scotis. MS. Bibl. Univ. Edin._ [4] We may mention another historical allusion in Piers Ploughman, which seems to involve a chronological difficulty; the dry April in the mayoralty of John Chichester, 1. 8567. It appears clear that this is an allusion to a remarkable drought in the year 1351, which answers precisely to a calculation of the date given in the text, in which all the manuscripts that I have consulted agree. But the only year in which Chichester is said to have been mayor was 1368-9 according to some, or 1369-70 according to others. Stowe (as quoted in the note on this passage) has altered the text of Piers Ploughman to suit the year in which Chichester is known to have been mayor: yet there can be little doubt (even from the allusion to the treaty of Bretigny) that the poem itself was composed before that date, and therefore the same or another Chichester had probably been mayor before. [5] Political Songs, p. 240. [6] This terrible calamity was said by the astrologers to have been brought about by an extraordinary conjunction of Saturn with the other planets, which happened scarcely once in a thousand years. An astrologer and physician, who witnessed its effects, Symon de Covino, has left a Latin poem on the subject under the title _De Judicio Solis in Conviviis Saturni_, in which he describes Saturn as indulging his malevolence towards the human race by obtaining a judgment against men for their sins. This opinion is alluded to in Piers Ploughman, l. 4453, "And so seide Saturne, And sente yow to warne." The influence of this planet was represented by astrologers as being peculiarly noxious, as is expressed in the following old distich:-- "Jupiter atque Venus boni, Saturnusque malignus, Sol et Mercurius cum Luna sunt mediocres." [7] "Qui male pastus erat fragili virtute ciborum, Labitur exiguo percussus flamine cladis: Indeque Saturni vulgus, pauperrima turba, Grata morte cadunt, quia vivere talibus est mors. Post quos lunares pereunt et mercuriales. Et sic debilior succumbit in ordine primo: Post alii tandem pestem secuntur eamdem. Sed dea principibus et nobilibus, generosis, Militibus, seu judicibus fera Parca pepercit. Raro cadunt tales, quia talibus est data vita Dulcis in hoc mundo, quam gloria laudat inanis." _Symon de Covino_, in the _Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartes_, tom. ii. p 236. [8] We have a very remarkable proof of the popularity of Piers Ploughman with the lower orders (among whom probably parts of it were repeated by memory), and of its influence on the insurrections of the peasantry in the reign of Richard II., in the seditious letter of John Ball to the commons of Essex, preserved by Thomas Walsingham (_Hist. Angl._ p. 275). I am not sure if "John _Schep_" may not contain an allusion to the opening of the poem; but the second passage, here printed in Italics, refers evidently to Passus VI. and VII., and the third is an allusion to the characters of Do-well and Do-best. "John _Schep_ sometime Seint Mary priest of Yorke, and now of Colchester, graeteth well John Namelesse, and John the Miller, and John Carter, and biddeth them that they beware of guyle in borough, and stand together in Gods name, and biddeth _Piers Plowman goe to his werke_, and chastise well Hob the robber, and take with you John Trewman, and all his fellows, and no moe. John the Miller hath y-ground, smal, small, small. The kings sonne of heaven shal pay for all. Beware or ye be woe, know your frende fro your foe. Have ynough, and say hoe: _And do well and better_, and flee sinne, and seeke peace and holde you therin, and so biddeth John Trewman and all his fellowes." [9] The mention of Wycliffe and of Walter Brute and other circumstances, fix the date of Piers Ploughman's Creed with tolerable certainty in the latter years of the reign of Richard II. It was probably written very soon after the year 1393, the date of the persecution of Walter Brute at Hereford; and from the particular allusion to that person we may perhaps suppose that like the Vision it was written on the Borders of Wales. [10] Different circumstances connected with this poem (which also appears to have been proscribed, for we have no early manuscript of it) lead me to suppose that it was written in the reign of Henry IV., when the _burning_ of heretics came into fashion, which is alluded to in the following stanza:-- "Were Christ on earth here, eftsoone These would damne him to die: All his hestes they han for-done, And saine his sawes ben heresie: And ayenst his commaundements they crie, And _damne all his to be brende_; For it liketh not hem such losengerie, God almighty hem amend!" In another passage, the writer of this poem alludes to the Creed of Piers Ploughman as though he were the author of it, and as a piece then known to everybody. "And all such other counterfaitours, Chanons, canons, and such disguised, Been Gods enemies and traitours, His true religion han foule despised. Of _freres_ I have told before, In a _making of a Crede_; And yet I could tell worse and more, But men would werien it to rede." Perhaps, however, the writer only claims the authorship of the Creed in his allegorical character, as the representative of that class of satirical writers who were then attacking the monastic orders. [11] We may enumerate the following as specimens of such works published in the sixteenth century. Several similar publications appeared in the century following. "Pyers Plowmans Exortation vnto the lordes, knights, and burgoysses of the parlyament house." 8vo. printed by Anthony Scholoker, in the reign of Edward VI. "Newes from the North, Otherwise called the Conference between Simon Certain, and Pierce Plowman, faithfully collected and gathered by T. F. Student." 4to. London, John Allde, 1579. "The Plowmans complaint of sundry wicked livers, and especially of the bad bringing vp of children; written in verse by R. B. printed for Hugh Corne, 1580." 8vo. "A goodlye Dialogue and dysputacion between Pyers Ploweman and a Popish Preest, c[=o]cernynge the Supper of the Lorde." 8vo, without date. [12] Printed in the _Reliquiæ Antiquæ_, vol i. pp. 170-188. On the date of this poem, see the _Biographia Britannica Literaria_ (by the editor of the present work), Anglo-Saxon period, pp. 395, 396. [13] Printed in the _Altdeutsche Blätter_ von Moriz Haupt und Heinrich Hoffmann, vol. ii. pp. 99-120, and in the _Reliquiæ Antiquæ_, vol. i. pp. 208-227. [14] Discovered in a MS. at Worcester by Sir Thomas Phillipps, who published a small edition of it, in folio. [15] Edited by Sir Frederick Madden, for the Society of Antiquaries. [16] Many instances of this will be found in my _Specimens of Lyric Poetry_, composed in England in the reign of Edward the First (Percy Society Publication). [17] Such as _William and the Werwolf_, edited by Sir Frederick Madden; the _Romance of Jerusalem_; that of _Alexander_; &c. [18] MS. Harl. 2253. In this manuscript, and in several others which I have seen the rhyming poems in short lines, whether in English, Latin, or French, are arranged in this manner; and I have met with instances in which part of a poem has been arranged in this way, and other parts of the same poem have been arranged in short lines, to suit the scribe's convenience. I have a strong impression of having met with an early English manuscript in which a fragment of alliterative verse was written in short couplets. [19] _Text I._ is from the edition now offered to the public: _Text II._ from that edited by Dr. Whitaker. [20] The title of the second impression is, "The Vision of Pierce Ploughman, nowe the seconde time imprinted by Roberte Crowley, dwellynge in Elye rentes in Holburne. Whereunto are added certayne notes and cotations in the mergyne gevynge light to the Reader, &c. Imprinted at London by Roberte Crowley, dwellyng in Elye rentes in Holburne. The yere of our Lord M.D.L. Cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum." 4to, 125 leaves. [21] The title consists merely of the words "Pierce the Ploughman's Crede," upon a tablet in the midst of a wood-cut which had evidently been brought from the continent. A fac-simile of the most important part of the cut is given in Mr. Payne Collier's Bibliographical Catalogue of the Library of Lord Francis Egerton, p. 235. The colophon, on a separate leaf, is "Imprinted at London. By Reynold Wolfe. Anno Domini M.D.L.III." It consists of 16 leaves in 4to. [22] The title of this edition is, "The Vision of Pierce Plowman, newlye imprynted after the authours olde copy, with a brefe summary of the principall matters set before every part called Passus. Wherevnto is also annexed the Crede of Pierce Plowman, neuer imprinted with the booke before. ¶ Imprynted at London, by Owen Rogers, dwellyng neare vnto great Saint Bartelmewes gate, at the sygne of the spred Egle. ¶ The yere of our Lord God, a thousand, fyve hundred, thre score and one. The xxi. daye of the Moneth of Februarye. Cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum." 4to. This edition is not foliated, or paged; and it is remarkable that it is as frequently found without the Creed, as with it. This edition of the Creed is also sometimes found separate. [23] Whitaker's edition bears the following title,--"Visio Willielmi de Petro Plouhman, Item Visiones ejusdem de Dowel, Dobet, et Dobest. Or, The Vision of William concerning Piers Plouhman, and The Visions of the same concerning the Origin, Progress, and Perfection of Christian Life, &c. By Thomas Dunham Whitaker, LL.D., &c." 4to. London. Murray, 1813. [24] This manuscript was bought at Heber's sale for the British Museum, where it is classed as Additional MS. No. 10,574. * * * * * Corrections made to printed text Page xxxiii, Text II: "Al the welthe of this worlde" corrected from "... wordle". Page xxxix, foot: "undertake" corrected from "untertake". Line 935: "fructum" corrected from "fructrum". Line 3740: "myghtestow" corrected from "mgyhtestow". Headings: Passus VIII "incipit Do-wel" corrected from "Primus de Do-wel". Passus VIII "Primus de Do-wel" corrected from "Primus de Do-bet". Passus VIII clearly concerns Do-wel (see the Introduction); Passus XVI is the true "Primus de Do-bet". Line 5058: "Who" corrected from "Whe". Line 5384: "minuentur" corrected from "minuenter" (Ps. 33:11). Line 6186: "mansede" corrected from "mausede" (noted as erratum in Volume II). Line 6528: "vi rapiunt" corrected from "irapiunt" (noted as erratum in Volume II). Line 7624: "Nolite judicare, et non judicabimini" corrected from "Polite judicare, et not judicabimini" (Luke 6:37). 
8512	----	and David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] THE THREE CITIES LOURDES BY EMILE ZOLA Volume 2. TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY THE SECOND DAY I THE TRAIN ARRIVES IT was twenty minutes past three by the clock of the Lourdes railway station, the dial of which was illumined by a reflector. Under the slanting roof sheltering the platform, a hundred yards or so in length, some shadowy forms went to and fro, resignedly waiting. Only a red signal light peeped out of the black countryside, far away. Two of the promenaders suddenly halted. The taller of them, a Father of the Assumption, none other indeed than the Reverend Father Fourcade, director of the national pilgrimage, who had reached Lourdes on the previous day, was a man of sixty, looking superb in his black cloak with its large hood. His fine head, with its clear, domineering eyes and thick grizzly beard, was the head of a general whom an intelligent determination to conquer inflames. In consequence, however, of a sudden attack of gout he slightly dragged one of his legs, and was leaning on the shoulder of his companion, Dr. Bonamy, the practitioner attached to the Miracle Verification Office, a short, thick-set man, with a square-shaped, clean-shaven face, which had dull, blurred eyes and a tranquil cast of features. Father Fourcade had stopped to question the station-master whom he perceived running out of his office. "Will the white train be very late, monsieur?" he asked. "No, your reverence. It hasn't lost more than ten minutes; it will be here at the half-hour. It's the Bayonne train which worries me; it ought to have passed through already." So saying, he ran off to give an order; but soon came back again, his slim, nervous figure displaying marked signs of agitation. He lived, indeed, in a state of high fever throughout the period of the great pilgrimages. Apart from the usual service, he that day expected eighteen trains, containing more than fifteen thousand passengers. The grey and the blue trains which had started from Paris the first had already arrived at the regulation hour. But the delay in the arrival of the white train was very troublesome, the more so as the Bayonne express--which passed over the same rails--had not yet been signalled. It was easy to understand, therefore, what incessant watchfulness was necessary, not a second passing without the entire staff of the station being called upon to exercise its vigilance. "In ten minutes, then?" repeated Father Fourcade. "Yes, in ten minutes, unless I'm obliged to close the line!" cried the station-master as he hastened into the telegraph office. Father Fourcade and the doctor slowly resumed their promenade. The thing which astonished them was that no serious accident had ever happened in the midst of such a fearful scramble. In past times, especially, the most terrible disorder had prevailed. Father Fourcade complacently recalled the first pilgrimage which he had organised and led, in 1875; the terrible endless journey without pillows or mattresses, the patients exhausted, half dead, with no means of reviving them at hand; and then the arrival at Lourdes, the train evacuated in confusion, no /materiel/ in readiness, no straps, nor stretchers, nor carts. But now there was a powerful organisation; a hospital awaited the sick, who were no longer reduced to lying upon straw in sheds. What a shock for those unhappy ones! What force of will in the man of faith who led them to the scene of miracles! The reverend Father smiled gently at the thought of the work which he had accomplished. Then, still leaning on the doctor's shoulder, he began to question him: "How many pilgrims did you have last year?" he asked. "About two hundred thousand. That is still the average. In the year of the Coronation of the Virgin the figure rose to five hundred thousand. But to bring that about an exceptional occasion was needed with a great effort of propaganda. Such vast masses cannot be collected together every day." A pause followed, and then Father Fourcade murmured: "No doubt. Still the blessing of Heaven attends our endeavours; our work thrives more and more. We have collected more than two hundred thousand francs in donations for this journey, and God will be with us, there will be many cures for you to proclaim to-morrow, I am sure of it." Then, breaking off, he inquired: "Has not Father Dargeles come here?" Dr. Bonamy waved his hand as though to say that he did not know. Father Dargeles was the editor of the "Journal de la Grotte." He belonged to the Order of the Fathers of the Immaculate Conception whom the Bishop had installed at Lourdes and who were the absolute masters there; though, when the Fathers of the Assumption came to the town with the national pilgrimage from Paris, which crowds of faithful Catholics from Cambrai, Arras, Chartres, Troyes, Rheims, Sens, Orleans, Blois, and Poitiers joined, they evinced a kind of affectation in disappearing from the scene. Their omnipotence was no longer felt either at the Grotto or at the Basilica; they seemed to surrender every key together with every responsibility. Their superior, Father Capdebarthe, a tall, peasant-like man, with a knotty frame, a big head which looked as if it had been fashioned with a bill-hook, and a worn face which retained a ruddy mournful reflection of the soil, did not even show himself. Of the whole community you only saw little, insinuating Father Dargeles; but he was met everywhere, incessantly on the look-out for paragraphs for his newspaper. At the same time, however, although the Fathers of the Immaculate Conception disappeared in this fashion, it could be divined that they were behind the vast stage, like a hidden sovereign power, coining money and toiling without a pause to increase the triumphant prosperity of their business. Indeed, they turned even their humility to account. "It's true that we have had to get up early--two in the morning," resumed Father Fourcade gaily. "But I wished to be here. What would my poor children have said, indeed, if I had not come?" He was alluding to the sick pilgrims, those who were so much flesh for miracle-working; and it was a fact that he had never missed coming to the station, no matter what the hour, to meet that woeful white train, that train which brought such grievous suffering with it. "Five-and-twenty minutes past three--only another five minutes now," exclaimed Dr. Bonamy repressing a yawn as he glanced at the clock; for, despite his obsequious air, he was at bottom very much annoyed at having had to get out of bed so early. However, he continued his slow promenade with Father Fourcade along that platform which resembled a covered walk, pacing up and down in the dense night which the gas jets here and there illumined with patches of yellow light. Little parties, dimly outlined, composed of priests and gentlemen in frock-coats, with a solitary officer of dragoons, went to and fro incessantly, talking together the while in discreet murmuring tones. Other people, seated on benches, ranged along the station wall, were also chatting or putting their patience to proof with their glances wandering away into the black stretch of country before them. The doorways of the offices and waiting-rooms, which were brilliantly lighted, looked like great holes in the darkness, and all was flaring in the refreshment-room, where you could see the marble tables and the counter laden with bottles and glasses and baskets of bread and fruit. On the right hand, beyond the roofing of the platform, there was a confused swarming of people. There was here a goods gate, by which the sick were taken out of the station, and a mass of stretchers, litters, and hand-carts, with piles of pillows and mattresses, obstructed the broad walk. Three parties of bearers were also assembled here, persons of well-nigh every class, but more particularly young men of good society, all wearing red, orange-tipped crosses and straps of yellow leather. Many of them, too, had adopted the Bearnese cap, the convenient head-gear of the region; and a few, clad as though they were bound on some distant expedition, displayed wonderful gaiters reaching to their knees. Some were smoking, whilst others, installed in their little vehicles, slept or read newspapers by the light of the neighbouring gas jets. One group, standing apart, were discussing some service question. Suddenly, however, one and all began to salute. A paternal-looking man, with a heavy but good-natured face, lighted by large blue eyes, like those of a credulous child, was approaching. It was Baron Suire, the President of the Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation. He possessed a great fortune and occupied a high position at Toulouse. "Where is Berthaud?" he inquired of one bearer after another, with a busy air. "Where is Berthaud? I must speak to him." The others answered, volunteering contradictory information. Berthaud was their superintendent, and whilst some said that they had seen him with the Reverend Father Fourcade, others affirmed that he must be in the courtyard of the station inspecting the ambulance vehicles. And they thereupon offered to go and fetch him. "No, no, thank you," replied the Baron. "I shall manage to find him myself." Whilst this was happening, Berthaud, who had just seated himself on a bench at the other end of the station, was talking with his young friend, Gerard de Peyrelongue, by way of occupation pending the arrival of the train. The superintendent of the bearers was a man of forty, with a broad, regular-featured, handsome face and carefully trimmed whiskers of a lawyer-like pattern. Belonging to a militant Legitimist family and holding extremely reactionary opinions, he had been Procureur de la Republique (public prosecutor) in a town of the south of France from the time of the parliamentary revolution of the twenty-fourth of May* until that of the decree of the Religious Communities,** when he had resigned his post in a blusterous fashion, by addressing an insulting letter to the Minister of Justice. And he had never since laid down his arms, but had joined the Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation as a sort of protest, repairing year after year to Lourdes in order to "demonstrate"; convinced as he was that the pilgrimages were both disagreeable and hurtful to the Republic, and that God alone could re-establish the Monarchy by one of those miracles which He worked so lavishly at the Grotto. Despite all this, however, Berthaud possessed no small amount of good sense, and being of a gay disposition, displayed a kind of jovial charity towards the poor sufferers whose transport he had to provide for during the three days that the national pilgrimage remained at Lourdes. * The parliamentary revolution of May, 1873, by which M. Thiers was overthrown and Marshal MacMahon installed in his place with the object of restoring the Monarchy in France.--Trans. ** M. Grevy's decree by which the Jesuits were expelled.--Trans. "And so, my dear Gerard," he said to the young man seated beside him, "your marriage is really to come off this year?" "Why yes, if I can find such a wife as I want," replied the other. "Come, cousin, give me some good advice." Gerard de Peyrelongue, a short, thin, carroty young man, with a pronounced nose and prominent cheek-bones, belonged to Tarbes, where his father and mother had lately died, leaving him at the utmost some seven or eight thousand francs a year. Extremely ambitious, he had been unable to find such a wife as he desired in his native province--a well-connected young woman capable of helping him to push both forward and upward in the world; and so he had joined the Hospitality, and betook himself every summer to Lourdes, in the vague hope that amidst the mass of believers, the torrent of devout mammas and daughters which flowed thither, he might find the family whose help he needed to enable him to make his way in this terrestrial sphere. However, he remained in perplexity, for if, on the one hand, he already had several young ladies in view, on the other, none of them completely satisfied him. "Eh, cousin? You will advise me, won't you?" he said to Berthaud. "You are a man of experience. There is Mademoiselle Lemercier who comes here with her aunt. She is very rich; according to what is said she has over a million francs. But she doesn't belong to our set, and besides I think her a bit of a madcap." Berthaud nodded. "I told you so; if I were you I should choose little Raymonde, Mademoiselle de Jonquiere." "But she hasn't a copper!" "That's true--she has barely enough to pay for her board. But she is fairly good-looking, she has been well brought up, and she has no extravagant tastes. That is the really important point, for what is the use of marrying a rich girl if she squanders the dowry she brings you? Besides, I know Madame and Mademoiselle de Jonquiere very well, I meet them all through the winter in the most influential drawing-rooms of Paris. And, finally, don't forget the girl's uncle, the diplomatist, who has had the painful courage to remain in the service of the Republic. He will be able to do whatever he pleases for his niece's husband." For a moment Gerard seemed shaken, and then he relapsed into perplexity. "But she hasn't a copper," he said, "no, not a copper. It's too stiff. I am quite willing to think it over, but it really frightens me too much." This time Berthaud burst into a frank laugh. "Come, you are ambitious, so you must be daring. I tell you that it means the secretaryship of an embassy before two years are over. By the way, Madame and Mademoiselle de Jonquiere are in the white train which we are waiting for. Make up your mind and pay your court at once." "No, no! Later on. I want to think it over." At this moment they were interrupted, for Baron Suire, who had already once gone by without perceiving them, so completely did the darkness enshroud them in that retired corner, had just recognised the ex-public prosecutor's good-natured laugh. And, thereupon, with the volubility of a man whose head is easily unhinged, he gave him several orders respecting the vehicles and the transport service, deploring the circumstance that it would be impossible to conduct the patients to the Grotto immediately on their arrival, as it was yet so extremely early. It had therefore been decided that they should in the first instance be taken to the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours, where they would be able to rest awhile after their trying journey. Whilst the Baron and the superintendent were thus settling what measures should be adopted, Gerard shook hands with a priest who had sat down beside him. This was the Abbe des Hermoises, who was barely eight-and-thirty years of age and had a superb head--such a head as one might expect to find on the shoulders of a worldly priest. With his hair well combed, and his person perfumed, he was not unnaturally a great favourite among women. Very amiable and distinguished in his manners, he did not come to Lourdes in any official capacity, but simply for his pleasure, as so many other people did; and the bright, sparkling smile of a sceptic above all idolatry gleamed in the depths of his fine eyes. He certainly believed, and bowed to superior decisions; but the Church--the Holy See--had not pronounced itself with regard to the miracles; and he seemed quite ready to dispute their authenticity. Having lived at Tarbes he was already acquainted with Gerard. "Ah!" he said to him, "how impressive it is--isn't it?--this waiting for the trains in the middle of the night! I have come to meet a lady--one of my former Paris penitents--but I don't know what train she will come by. Still, as you see, I stop on, for it all interests me so much." Then another priest, an old country priest, having come to sit down on the same bench, the Abbe considerately began talking to him, speaking of the beauty of the Lourdes district and of the theatrical effect which would take place by-and-by when the sun rose and the mountains appeared. However, there was again a sudden alert, and the station-master ran along shouting orders. Removing his hand from Dr. Bonamy's shoulder, Father Fourcade, despite his gouty leg, hastily drew near. "Oh! it's that Bayonne express which is so late," answered the station-master in reply to the questions addressed to him. "I should like some information about it; I'm not at ease." At this moment the telegraph bells rang out and a porter rushed away into the darkness swinging a lantern, whilst a distant signal began to work. Thereupon the station-master resumed: "Ah! this time it's the white train. Let us hope we shall have time to get the sick people out before the express passes." He started off once more and disappeared. Berthaud meanwhile called to Gerard, who was at the head of a squad of bearers, and they both made haste to join their men, into whom Baron Suire was already instilling activity. The bearers flocked to the spot from all sides, and setting themselves in motion began dragging their little vehicles across the lines to the platform at which the white train would come in--an unroofed platform plunged in darkness. A mass of pillows, mattresses, stretchers, and litters was soon waiting there, whilst Father Fourcade, Dr. Bonamy, the priests, the gentlemen, and the officer of dragoons in their turn crossed over in order to witness the removal of the ailing pilgrims. All that they could as yet see, far away in the depths of the black country, was the lantern in front of the engine, looking like a red star which grew larger and larger. Strident whistles pierced the night, then suddenly ceased, and you only heard the panting of the steam and the dull roar of the wheels gradually slackening their speed. Then the canticle became distinctly audible, the song of Bernadette with the ever-recurring "Aves" of its refrain, which the whole train was chanting in chorus. And at last this train of suffering and faith, this moaning, singing train, thus making its entry into Lourdes, drew up in the station. The carriage doors were at once opened, the whole throng of healthy pilgrims, and of ailing ones able to walk, alighted, and streamed over the platform. The few gas lamps cast but a feeble light on the crowd of poverty-stricken beings clad in faded garments, and encumbered with all sorts of parcels, baskets, valises, and boxes. And amidst all the jostling of this scared flock, which did not know in which direction to turn to find its way out of the station, loud exclamations were heard, the shouts of people calling relatives whom they had lost, mingled with the embraces of others whom relatives or friends had come to meet. One woman declared with beatifical satisfaction, "I have slept well." A priest went off carrying his travelling-bag, after wishing a crippled lady "good luck!" Most of them had the bewildered, weary, yet joyous appearance of people whom an excursion train sets down at some unknown station. And such became the scramble and the confusion in the darkness, that they did not hear the railway /employes/ who grew quite hoarse through shouting, "This way! this way!" in their eagerness to clear the platform as soon as possible. Sister Hyacinthe had nimbly alighted from her compartment, leaving the dead man in the charge of Sister Claire des Anges; and, losing her head somewhat, she ran off to the cantine van in the idea that Ferrand would be able to help her. Fortunately she found Father Fourcade in front of the van and acquainted him with the fatality in a low voice. Repressing a gesture of annoyance, he thereupon called Baron Suire, who was passing, and began whispering in his ear. The muttering lasted for a few seconds, and then the Baron rushed off, and clove his way through the crowd with two bearers carrying a covered litter. In this the man was removed from the carriage as though he were a patient who had simply fainted, the mob of pilgrims paying no further attention to him amidst all the emotion of their arrival. Preceded by the Baron, the bearers carried the corpse into a goods office, where they provisionally lodged it behind some barrels; one of them, a fair-haired little fellow, a general's son, remaining to watch over it. Meanwhile, after begging Ferrand and Sister Saint-Francois to go and wait for her in the courtyard of the station, near the reserved vehicle which was to take them to the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours, Sister Hyacinthe returned to the railway carriage and talked of helping her patients to alight before going away. But Marie would not let her touch her. "No, no!" said the girl, "do not trouble about me, Sister. I shall remain here the last. My father and Abbe Froment have gone to the van to fetch the wheels; I am waiting for their return; they know how to fix them, and they will take me away all right, you may be sure of it." In the same way M. Sabathier and Brother Isidore did not desire to be moved until the crowd had decreased. Madame de Jonquiere, who had taken charge of La Grivotte, also promised to see to Madame Vetu's removal in an ambulance vehicle. And thereupon Sister Hyacinthe decided that she would go off at once so as to get everything ready at the hospital. Moreover, she took with her both little Sophie Couteau and Elise Rouquet, whose face she very carefully wrapped up. Madame Maze preceded them, while Madame Vincent, carrying her little girl, who was unconscious and quite white, struggled through the crowd, possessed by the fixed idea of running off as soon as possible and depositing the child in the Grotto at the feet of the Blessed Virgin. The mob was now pressing towards the doorway by which passengers left the station, and to facilitate the egress of all these people it at last became necessary to open the luggage gates. The /employes/, at a loss how to take the tickets, held out their caps, which a downpour of the little cards speedily filled. And in the courtyard, a large square courtyard, skirted on three sides by the low buildings of the station, the most extraordinary uproar prevailed amongst all the vehicles of divers kinds which were there jumbled together. The hotel omnibuses, backed against the curb of the footway, displayed the most sacred names on their large boards--Jesus and Mary, St. Michel, the Rosary, and the Sacred Heart. Then there were ambulance vehicles, landaus, cabriolets, brakes, and little donkey carts, all entangled together, with their drivers shouting, swearing, and cracking their whips--the tumult being apparently increased by the obscurity in which the lanterns set brilliant patches of light. Rain had fallen heavily a few hours previously. Liquid mud splashed up under the hoofs of the horses; the foot passengers sank into it to their ankles. M. Vigneron, whom Madame Vigneron and Madame Chaise were following in a state of distraction, raised Gustave, in order to place him in the omnibus from the Hotel of the Apparitions, after which he himself and the ladies climbed into the vehicle. Madame Maze, shuddering slightly, like a delicate tabby who fears to dirty the tips of her paws, made a sign to the driver of an old brougham, got into it, and quickly drove away, after giving as address the Convent of the Blue Sisters. And at last Sister Hyacinthe was able to install herself with Elise Rouquet and Sophie Couteau in a large /char-a-bancs/, in which Ferrand and Sisters Saint-Francois and Claire des Anges were already seated. The drivers whipped up their spirited little horses, and the vehicles went off at a breakneck pace, amidst the shouts of those left behind, and the splashing of the mire. In presence of that rushing torrent, Madame Vincent, with her dear little burden in her arms, hesitated to cross over. Bursts of laughter rang out around her every now and then. Oh! what a filthy mess! And at sight of all the mud, the women caught up their skirts before attempting to pass through it. At last, when the courtyard had somewhat emptied, Madame Vincent herself ventured on her way, all terror lest the mire should make her fall in that black darkness. Then, on reaching a downhill road, she noticed there a number of women of the locality who were on the watch, offering furnished rooms, bed and board, according to the state of the pilgrim's purse. "Which is the way to the Grotto, madame, if you please?" asked Madame Vincent, addressing one old woman of the party. Instead of answering the question, however, the other offered her a cheap room. "You won't find anything in the hotels," said she, "for they are all full. Perhaps you will be able to eat there, but you certainly won't find a closet even to sleep in." Eat, sleep, indeed! Had Madame Vincent any thought of such things; she who had left Paris with thirty sous in her pocket, all that remained to her after the expenses she had been put to! "The way to the Grotto, if you please, madame?" she repeated. Among the women who were thus touting for lodgers, there was a tall, well-built girl, dressed like a superior servant, and looking very clean, with carefully tended hands. She glanced at Madame Vincent and slightly shrugged her shoulders. And then, seeing a broad-chested priest with a red face go by, she rushed after him, offered him a furnished room, and continued following him, whispering in his ear. Another girl, however, at last took pity on Madame Vincent and said to her: "Here, go down this road, and when you get to the bottom, turn to the right and you will reach the Grotto." Meanwhile, the confusion inside the station continued. The healthy pilgrims, and those of the sick who retained the use of their legs could go off, thus, in some measure, clearing the platform; but the others, the more grievously stricken sufferers whom it was difficult to get out of the carriages and remove to the hospital, remained waiting. The bearers seemed to become quite bewildered, rushing madly hither and thither with their litters and vehicles, not knowing at what end to set about the profusion of work which lay before them. As Berthaud, followed by Gerard, went along the platform, gesticulating, he noticed two ladies and a girl who were standing under a gas jet and to all appearance waiting. In the girl he recognised Raymonde, and with a sign of the hand he at once stopped his companion. "Ah! mademoiselle," said he, "how pleased I am to see you! Is Madame de Jonquiere quite well? You have made a good journey, I hope?" Then, without a pause, he added: "This is my friend, Monsieur Gerard de Peyrelongue." Raymonde gazed fixedly at the young man with her clear, smiling eyes. "Oh! I already have the pleasure of being slightly acquainted with this gentleman," she said. "We have previously met one another at Lourdes." Thereupon Gerard, who thought that his cousin Berthaud was conducting matters too quickly, and was quite resolved that he would not enter into any hasty engagement, contented himself with bowing in a ceremonious way. "We are waiting for mamma," resumed Raymonde. "She is extremely busy; she has to see after some pilgrims who are very ill." At this, little Madame Desagneaux, with her pretty, light wavy-haired head, began to say that it served Madame de Jonquiere right for refusing her services. She herself was stamping with impatience, eager to join in the work and make herself useful, whilst Madame Volmar, silent, shrinking back as though taking no interest in it at all, seemed simply desirous of penetrating the darkness, as though, indeed, she were seeking somebody with those magnificent eyes of hers, usually bedimmed, but now shining out like brasiers. Just then, however, they were all pushed back. Madame Dieulafay was being removed from her first-class compartment, and Madame Desagneaux could not restrain an exclamation of pity. "Ah! the poor woman!" There could in fact be no more distressing sight than this young woman, encompassed by luxury, covered with lace in her species of coffin, so wasted that she seemed to be a mere human shred, deposited on that platform till it could be taken away. Her husband and her sister, both very elegant and very sad, remained standing near her, whilst a man-servant and maid ran off with the valises to ascertain if the carriage which had been ordered by telegram was in the courtyard. Abbe Judaine also helped the sufferer; and when two men at last took her up he bent over her and wished her /au revoir/, adding some kind words which she did not seem to hear. Then as he watched her removal, he resumed, addressing himself to Berthaud, whom he knew: "Ah! the poor people, if they could only purchase their dear sufferer's cure. I told them that prayer was the most precious thing in the Blessed Virgin's eyes, and I hope that I have myself prayed fervently enough to obtain the compassion of Heaven. Nevertheless, they have brought a magnificent gift, a golden lantern for the Basilica, a perfect marvel, adorned with precious stones. May the Immaculate Virgin deign to smile upon it!" In this way a great many offerings were brought by the pilgrims. Some huge bouquets of flowers had just gone by, together with a kind of triple crown of roses, mounted on a wooden stand. And the old priest explained that before leaving the station he wished to secure a banner, the gift of the beautiful Madame Jousseur, Madame Dieulafay's sister. Madame de Jonquiere was at last approaching, however, and on perceiving Berthaud and Gerard she exclaimed: "Pray do go to that carriage, gentlemen--that one, there! We want some men very badly. There are three or four sick persons to be taken out. I am in despair; I can do nothing myself." Gerard ran off after bowing to Raymonde, whilst Berthaud advised Madame de Jonquiere to leave the station with her daughter and those ladies instead of remaining on the platform. Her presence was in nowise necessary, he said; he would undertake everything, and within three quarters of an hour she would find her patients in her ward at the hospital. She ended by giving way, and took a conveyance in company with Raymonde and Madame Desagneaux. As for Madame Volmar, she had at the last moment disappeared, as though seized with a sudden fit of impatience. The others fancied that they had seen her approach a strange gentleman, with the object no doubt of making some inquiry of him. However, they would of course find her at the hospital. Berthaud joined Gerard again just as the young man, assisted by two fellow-bearers, was endeavouring to remove M. Sabathier from the carriage. It was a difficult task, for he was very stout and very heavy, and they began to think that he would never pass through the doorway of the compartment. However, as he had been got in they ought to be able to get him out; and indeed when two other bearers had entered the carriage from the other side, they were at last able to deposit him on the platform. The dawn was now appearing, a faint pale dawn; and the platform presented the woeful appearance of an improvised hospital. La Grivotte, who had lost consciousness, lay there on a mattress pending her removal in a litter; whilst Madame Vetu had been seated against a lamp-post, suffering so severely from another attack of her ailment that they scarcely dared to touch her. Some hospitallers, whose hands were gloved, were with difficulty wheeling their little vehicles in which were poor, sordid-looking women with old baskets at their feet. Others, with stretchers on which lay the stiffened, woeful bodies of silent sufferers, whose eyes gleamed with anguish, found themselves unable to pass; but some of the infirm pilgrims, some unfortunate cripples, contrived to slip through the ranks, among them a young priest who was lame, and a little humpbacked boy, one of whose legs had been amputated, and who, looking like a gnome, managed to drag himself with his crutches from group to group. Then there was quite a block around a man who was bent in half, twisted by paralysis to such a point that he had to be carried on a chair with his head and feet hanging downward. It seemed as though hours would be required to clear the platform. The dismay therefore reached a climax when the station-master suddenly rushed up shouting: "The Bayonne express is signalled. Make haste! make haste! You have only three minutes left!" Father Fourcade, who had remained in the midst of the throng, leaning on Doctor Bonamy's arm, and gaily encouraging the more stricken of the sufferers, beckoned to Berthaud and said to him: "Finish taking them out of the train; you will be able to clear the platform afterwards!" The advice was very sensible, and in accordance with it they finished placing the sufferers on the platform. In Madame de Jonquiere's carriage Marie now alone remained, waiting patiently. M. de Guersaint and Pierre had at last returned to her, bringing the two pairs of wheels by means of which the box in which she lay was rolled about. And with Gerard's assistance Pierre in all haste removed the girl from the train. She was as light as a poor shivering bird, and it was only the box that gave them any trouble. However, they soon placed it on the wheels and made the latter fast, and then Pierre might have rolled Marie away had it not been for the crowd which hampered him. "Make haste! make haste!" furiously repeated the station-master. He himself lent a hand, taking hold of a sick man by the feet in order to remove him from the compartment more speedily. And he also pushed the little hand-carts back, so as to clear the edge of the platform. In a second-class carriage, however, there still remained one woman who had just been overpowered by a terrible nervous attack. She was howling and struggling, and it was impossible to think of touching her at that moment. But on the other hand the express, signalled by the incessant tinkling of the electric bells, was now fast approaching, and they had to close the door and in all haste shunt the train to the siding where it would remain for three days, until in fact it was required to convey its load of sick and healthy passengers back to Paris. As it went off to the siding the crowd still heard the cries of the suffering woman, whom it had been necessary to leave in it, in charge of a Sister, cries which grew weaker and weaker, like those of a strengthless child whom one at last succeeds in consoling. "Good Lord!" muttered the station-master; "it was high time!" In fact the Bayonne express was now coming along at full speed, and the next moment it rushed like a crash of thunder past that woeful platform littered with all the grievous wretchedness of a hospital hastily evacuated. The litters and little handcarts were shaken, but there was no accident, for the porters were on the watch, and pushed back the bewildered flock which was still jostling and struggling in its eagerness to get away. As soon as the express had passed, however, circulation was re-established, and the bearers were at last able to complete the removal of the sick with prudent deliberation. Little by little the daylight was increasing--a clear dawn it was, whitening the heavens whose reflection illumined the earth, which was still black. One began to distinguish things and people clearly. "Oh, by-and-by!" Marie repeated to Pierre, as he endeavoured to roll her away. "Let us wait till some part of the crowd has gone." Then, looking around, she began to feel interested in a man of military bearing, apparently some sixty years of age, who was walking about among the sick pilgrims. With a square-shaped head and white bushy hair, he would still have looked sturdy if he had not dragged his left foot, throwing it inward at each step he took. With the left hand, too, he leant heavily on a thick walking-stick. When M. Sabathier, who had visited Lourdes for six years past, perceived him, he became quite gay. "Ah!" said he, "it is you, Commander!" Commander was perhaps the old man's name. But as he was decorated with a broad red riband, he was possibly called Commander on account of his decoration, albeit the latter was that of a mere chevalier. Nobody exactly knew his story. No doubt he had relatives and children of his own somewhere, but these matters remained vague and mysterious. For the last three years he had been employed at the railway station as a superintendent in the goods department, a simple occupation, a little berth which had been given him by favour and which enabled him to live in perfect happiness. A first stroke of apoplexy at fifty-five years of age had been followed by a second one three years later, which had left him slightly paralysed in the left side. And now he was awaiting the third stroke with an air of perfect tranquillity. As he himself put it, he was at the disposal of death, which might come for him that night, the next day, or possibly that very moment. All Lourdes knew him on account of the habit, the mania he had, at pilgrimage time, of coming to witness the arrival of the trains, dragging his foot along and leaning upon his stick, whilst expressing his astonishment and reproaching the ailing ones for their intense desire to be made whole and sound again. This was the third year that he had seen M. Sabathier arrive, and all his anger fell upon him. "What! you have come back /again/!" he exclaimed. "Well, you /must/ be desirous of living this hateful life! But /sacrebleu/! go and die quietly in your bed at home. Isn't that the best thing that can happen to anyone?" M. Sabathier evinced no anger, but laughed, exhausted though he was by the handling to which he had been subjected during his removal from the carriage. "No, no," said he, "I prefer to be cured." "To be cured, to be cured! That's what they all ask for. They travel hundreds of leagues and arrive in fragments, howling with pain, and all this to be cured--to go through every worry and every suffering again. Come, monsieur, you would be nicely caught if, at your age and with your dilapidated old body, your Blessed Virgin should be pleased to restore the use of your legs to you. What would you do with them, /mon Dieu?/ What pleasure would you find in prolonging the abomination of old age for a few years more? It's much better to die at once, while you are like that! Death is happiness!" He spoke in this fashion, not as a believer who aspires to the delicious reward of eternal life, but as a weary man who expects to fall into nihility, to enjoy the great everlasting peace of being no more. Whilst M. Sabathier was gaily shrugging his shoulders as though he had a child to deal with, Abbe Judaine, who had at last secured his banner, came by and stopped for a moment in order that he might gently scold the Commander, with whom he also was well acquainted. "Don't blaspheme, my dear friend," he said. "It is an offence against God to refuse life and to treat health with contempt. If you yourself had listened to me, you would have asked the Blessed Virgin to cure your leg before now." At this the Commander became angry. "My leg! The Virgin can do nothing to it! I'm quite at my ease. May death come and may it all be over forever! When the time comes to die you turn your face to the wall and you die--it's simple enough." The old priest interrupted him, however. Pointing to Marie, who was lying on her box listening to them, he exclaimed: "You tell all our sick to go home and die--even mademoiselle, eh? She who is full of youth and wishes to live." Marie's eyes were wide open, burning with the ardent desire which she felt to /be/, to enjoy her share of the vast world; and the Commander, who had drawn near, gazed upon her, suddenly seized with deep emotion which made his voice tremble. "If mademoiselle gets well," he said, "I will wish her another miracle, that she be happy." Then he went off, dragging his foot and tapping the flagstones with the ferrule of his stout stick as he continued wending his way, like an angry philosopher among the suffering pilgrims. Little by little, the platform was at last cleared. Madame Vetu and La Grivotte were carried away, and Gerard removed M. Sabathier in a little cart, whilst Baron Suire and Berthaud already began giving orders for the green train, which would be the next one to arrive. Of all the ailing pilgrims the only one now remaining at the station was Marie, of whom Pierre jealously took charge. He had already dragged her into the courtyard when he noticed that M. de Guersaint had disappeared; but a moment later he perceived him conversing with the Abbe des Hermoises, whose acquaintance he had just made. Their admiration of the beauties of nature had brought them together. The daylight had now appeared, and the surrounding mountains displayed themselves in all their majesty. "What a lovely country, monsieur!" exclaimed M. de Guersaint. "I have been wishing to see the Cirque de Gavarnie for thirty years past. But it is some distance away and the trip must be an expensive one, so that I fear I shall not be able to make it." "You are mistaken, monsieur," said the Abbe; "nothing is more easily managed. By making up a party the expense becomes very slight. And as it happens, I wish to return there this year, so that if you would like to join us--" "Oh, certainly, monsieur. We will speak of it again. A thousand thanks," replied M. de Guersaint. His daughter was now calling him, however, and he joined her after taking leave of the Abbe in a very cordial manner. Pierre had decided that he would drag Marie to the hospital so as to spare her the pain of transference to another vehicle. But as the omnibuses, landaus, and other conveyances were already coming back, again filling the courtyard in readiness for the arrival of the next train, the young priest had some difficulty in reaching the road with the little chariot whose low wheels sank deeply in the mud. Some police agents charged with maintaining order were cursing that fearful mire which splashed their boots; and indeed it was only the touts, the young and old women who had rooms to let, who laughed at the puddles, which they crossed and crossed again in every direction, pursuing the last pilgrims that emerged from the station. When the little car had begun to roll more easily over the sloping road Marie suddenly inquired of M. de Guersaint, who was walking near her: "What day of the week is it, father?" "Saturday, my darling." "Ah! yes, Saturday, the day of the Blessed Virgin. Is it to-day that she will cure me?" Then she began thinking again; while, at some distance behind her, two bearers came furtively down the road, with a covered stretcher in which lay the corpse of the man who had died in the train. They had gone to take it from behind the barrels in the goods office, and were now conveying it to a secret spot of which Father Fourcade had told them. II HOSPITAL AND GROTTO BUILT, so far as it extends, by a charitable Canon, and left unfinished through lack of money, the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours is a vast pile, four storeys high, and consequently far too lofty, since it is difficult to carry the sufferers to the topmost wards. As a rule the building is occupied by a hundred infirm and aged paupers; but at the season of the national pilgrimage these old folks are for three days sheltered elsewhere, and the hospital is let to the Fathers of the Assumption, who at times lodge in it as many as five and six hundred patients. Still, however closely packed they may be, the accommodation never suffices, so that the three or four hundred remaining sufferers have to be distributed between the Hospital of Salvation and the town hospital, the men being sent to the former and the women to the latter institution. That morning at sunrise great confusion prevailed in the sand-covered courtyard of Our Lady of Dolours, at the door of which a couple of priests were mounting guard. The temporary staff, with its formidable supply of registers, cards, and printed formulas, had installed itself in one of the ground-floor rooms on the previous day. The managers were desirous of greatly improving upon the organisation of the preceding year. The lower wards were this time to be reserved to the most helpless sufferers; and in order to prevent a repetition of the cases of mistaken identity which had occurred in the past, very great care was to be taken in filling in and distributing the admission cards, each of which bore the name of a ward and the number of a bed. It became difficult, however, to act in accordance with these good intentions in presence of the torrent of ailing beings which the white train had brought to Lourdes, and the new formalities so complicated matters that the patients had to be deposited in the courtyard as they arrived, to wait there until it became possible to admit them in something like an orderly manner. It was the scene witnessed at the railway station all over again, the same woeful camping in the open, whilst the bearers and the young seminarists who acted as the secretary's assistants ran hither and thither in bewilderment. "We have been over-ambitious, we wanted to do things too well!" exclaimed Baron Suire in despair. There was much truth in his remark, for never had a greater number of useless precautions been taken, and they now discovered that, by some inexplicable error, they had allotted not the lower--but the higher-placed wards to the patients whom it was most difficult to move. It was impossible to begin the classification afresh, however, and so as in former years things must be allowed to take their course, in a haphazard way. The distribution of the cards began, a young priest at the same time entering each patient's name and address in a register. Moreover, all the /hospitalisation/ cards bearing the patients' names and numbers had to be produced, so that the names of the wards and the numbers of the beds might be added to them; and all these formalities greatly protracted the /defile/. Then there was an endless coming and going from the top to the bottom of the building, and from one to the other end of each of its four floors. M. Sabathier was one of the first to secure admittance, being placed in a ground-floor room which was known as the Family Ward. Sick men were there allowed to have their wives with them; but to the other wards of the hospital only women were admitted. Brother Isidore, it is true, was accompanied by his sister; however, by a special favour it was agreed that they should be considered as conjoints, and the missionary was accordingly placed in the bed next to that allotted to M. Sabathier. The chapel, still littered with plaster and with its unfinished windows boarded up, was close at hand. There were also various wards in an unfinished state; still these were filled with mattresses, on which sufferers were rapidly placed. All those who could walk, however, were already besieging the refectory, a long gallery whose broad windows looked into an inner courtyard; and the Saint-Frai Sisters, who managed the hospital at other times, and had remained to attend to the cooking, began to distribute bowls of coffee and chocolate among the poor women whom the terrible journey had exhausted. "Rest yourselves and try to gain a little strength," repeated Baron Suire, who was ever on the move, showing himself here, there, and everywhere in rapid succession. "You have three good hours before you, it is not yet five, and their reverences have given orders that you are not to be taken to the Grotto until eight o'clock, so as to avoid any excessive fatigue." Meanwhile, up above on the second floor, Madame de Jonquiere had been one of the first to take possession of the Sainte-Honorine Ward of which she was the superintendent. She had been obliged to leave her daughter Raymonde downstairs, for the regulations did not allow young girls to enter the wards, where they might have witnessed sights that were scarcely proper or else too horrible for such eyes as theirs. Raymonde had therefore remained in the refectory as a helper; however, little Madame Desagneaux, being a lady-hospitaller, had not left the superintendent, and was already asking her for orders, in her delight that she should at last be able to render some assistance. "Are all these beds properly made, madame?" she inquired; "perhaps I had better make them afresh with Sister Hyacinthe." The ward, whose walls were painted a light yellow, and whose few windows admitted but little light from an inner yard, contained fifteen beds, standing in two rows against the walls. "We will see by-and-by," replied Madame de Jonquiere with an absorbed air. She was busy counting the beds and examining the long narrow apartment. And this accomplished she added in an undertone: "I shall never have room enough. They say that I must accommodate twenty-three patients. We shall have to put some mattresses down." Sister Hyacinthe, who had followed the ladies after leaving Sister Saint-Francois and Sister Claire des Anges in a small adjoining apartment which was being transformed into a linen-room, then began to lift up the coverlets and examine the bedding. And she promptly reassured Madame Desagneaux with regard to her surmises. "Oh! the beds are properly made," she said; "everything is very clean too. One can see that the Saint-Frai Sisters have attended to things themselves. The reserve mattresses are in the next room, however, and if madame will lend me a hand we can place some of them between the beds at once. "Oh, certainly!" exclaimed young Madame Desagneaux, quite excited by the idea of carrying mattresses about with her weak slender arms. It became necessary for Madame de Jonquiere to calm her. "By-and-by," said the lady-superintendent; "there is no hurry. Let us wait till our patients arrive. I don't much like this ward, it is so difficult to air. Last year I had the Sainte-Rosalie Ward on the first floor. However, we will organise matters, all the same." Some other lady-hospitallers were now arriving, quite a hiveful of busy bees, all eager to start on their work. The confusion which so often arose was, in fact, increased by the excessive number of nurses, women of the aristocracy and upper-middle class, with whose fervent zeal some little vanity was blended. There were more than two hundred of them, and as each had to make a donation on joining the Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation, the managers did not dare to refuse any applicants, for fear lest they might check the flow of alms-giving. Thus the number of lady-hospitallers increased year by year. Fortunately there were among them some who cared for nothing beyond the privilege of wearing the red cloth cross, and who started off on excursions as soon as they reached Lourdes. Still it must be acknowledged that those who devoted themselves were really deserving, for they underwent five days of awful fatigue, sleeping scarcely a couple of hours each night, and living in the midst of the most terrible and repulsive spectacles. They witnessed the death agonies, dressed the pestilential sores, cleaned up, changed linen, turned the sufferers over in their beds, went through a sickening and overwhelming labour to which they were in no wise accustomed. And thus they emerged from it aching all over, tired to death, with feverish eyes flaming with the joy of the charity which so excited them. "And Madame Volmar?" suddenly asked Madame Desagneaux. "I thought we should find her here." This was apparently a subject which Madame de Jonquiere did not care to have discussed; for, as though she were aware of the truth and wished to bury it in silence, with the indulgence of a woman who compassionates human wretchedness, she promptly retorted: "Madame Volmar isn't strong, she must have gone to the hotel to rest. We must let her sleep." Then she apportioned the beds among the ladies present, allotting two to each of them; and this done they all finished taking possession of the place, hastening up and down and backwards and forwards in order to ascertain where the offices, the linen-room, and the kitchens were situated. "And the dispensary?" then asked one of the ladies. But there was no dispensary. There was no medical staff even. What would have been the use of any?--since the patients were those whom science had given up, despairing creatures who had come to beg of God the cure which powerless men were unable to promise them. Logically enough, all treatment was suspended during the pilgrimage. If a patient seemed likely to die, extreme unction was administered. The only medical man about the place was the young doctor who had come by the white train with his little medicine chest; and his intervention was limited to an endeavour to assuage the sufferings of those patients who chanced to ask for him during an attack. As it happened, Sister Hyacinthe was just bringing Ferrand, whom Sister Saint-Francois had kept with her in a closet near the linen-room which he proposed to make his quarters. "Madame," said he to Madame de Jonquiere, "I am entirely at your disposal. In case of need you will only have to ring for me." She barely listened to him, however, engaged as she was in a quarrel with a young priest belonging to the management with reference to a deficiency of certain utensils. "Certainly, monsieur, if we should need a soothing draught," she answered, and then, reverting to her discussion, she went on: "Well, Monsieur l'Abbe, you must certainly get me four or five more. How can we possibly manage with so few? Things are bad enough as it is." Ferrand looked and listened, quite bewildered by the extraordinary behaviour of the people amongst whom he had been thrown by chance since the previous day. He who did not believe, who was only present out of friendship and charity, was amazed at this extraordinary scramble of wretchedness and suffering rushing towards the hope of happiness. And, as a medical man of the new school, he was altogether upset by the careless neglect of precautions, the contempt which was shown for the most simple teachings of science, in the certainty which was apparently felt that, if Heaven should so will it, cure would supervene, sudden and resounding, like a lie given to the very laws of nature. But if this were the case, what was the use of that last concession to human prejudices--why engage a doctor for the journey if none were wanted? At this thought the young man returned to his little room, experiencing a vague feeling of shame as he realised that his presence was useless, and even a trifle ridiculous. "Get some opium pills ready all the same," said Sister Hyacinthe, as she went back with him as far as the linen-room. "You will be asked for some, for I feel anxious about some of the patients." While speaking she looked at him with her large blue eyes, so gentle and so kind, and ever lighted by a divine smile. The constant exercise which she gave herself brought the rosy flush of her quick blood to her skin all dazzling with youthfulness. And like a good friend who was willing that he should share the work to which she gave her heart, she added: "Besides, if I should need somebody to get a patient in or out of bed, you will help me, won't you?" Thereupon, at the idea that he might be of use to her, he was pleased that he had come and was there. In his mind's eye, he again beheld her at his bedside, at the time when he had so narrowly escaped death, nursing him with fraternal hands, with the smiling, compassionate grace of a sexless angel, in whom there was something more than a comrade, something of a woman left. However, the thought never occurred to him that there was religion, belief, behind her. "Oh! I will help you as much as you like, Sister," he replied. "I belong to you, I shall be so happy to serve you. You know very well what a debt of gratitude I have to pay you." In a pretty way she raised her finger to her lips so as to silence him. Nobody owed her anything. She was merely the servant of the ailing and the poor. At this moment a first patient was making her entry into the Sainte-Honorine Ward. It was Marie, lying in her wooden box, which Pierre, with Gerard's assistance, had just brought up-stairs. The last to start from the railway station, she had secured admission before the others, thanks to the endless complications which, after keeping them all in suspense, now freed them according to the chance distribution of the admission cards. M. de Guersaint had quitted his daughter at the hospital door by her own desire; for, fearing the hotels would be very full, she had wished him to secure two rooms for himself and Pierre at once. Then, on reaching the ward, she felt so weary that, after venting her chagrin at not being immediately taken to the Grotto, she consented to be laid on a bed for a short time. "Come, my child," repeated Madame de Jonquiere, "you have three hours before you. We will put you to bed. It will ease you to take you out of that case." Thereupon the lady-superintendent raised her by the shoulders, whilst Sister Hyacinthe held her feet. The bed was in the central part of the ward, near a window. For a moment the poor girl remained on it with her eyes closed, as though exhausted by being moved about so much. Then it became necessary that Pierre should be readmitted, for she grew very fidgety, saying that there were things which she must explain to him. "Pray don't go away, my friend," she exclaimed when he approached her. "Take the case out on to the landing, but stay there, because I want to be taken down as soon as I can get permission." "Do you feel more comfortable now?" asked the young priest. "Yes, no doubt--but I really don't know. I so much want to be taken yonder to the Blessed Virgin's feet." However, when Pierre had removed the case, the successive arrivals of the other patients supplied her with some little diversion. Madame Vetu, whom two bearers had brought up-stairs, holding her under the arms, was laid, fully dressed, on the next bed, where she remained motionless, scarce breathing, with her heavy, yellow, cancerous mask. None of the patients, it should be mentioned, were divested of their clothes, they were simply stretched out on the beds, and advised to go to sleep if they could manage to do so. Those whose complaints were less grievous contented themselves with sitting down on their mattresses, chatting together, and putting the things they had brought with them in order. For instance, Elise Rouquet, who was also near Marie, on the other side of the latter's bed, opened her basket to take a clean fichu out of it, and seemed sorely annoyed at having no hand-glass with her. In less than ten minutes all the beds were occupied, so that when La Grivotte appeared, half carried by Sister Hyacinthe and Sister Claire des Anges, it became necessary to place some mattresses on the floor. "Here! here is one," exclaimed Madame Desagneaux; "she will be very well here, out of the draught from the door." Seven other mattresses were soon added in a line, occupying the space between the rows of beds, so that it became difficult to move about. One had to be very careful, and follow narrow pathways which had been left between the beds and the mattresses. Each of the patients had retained possession of her parcel, or box, or bag, and round about the improvised shakedowns were piles of poor old things, sorry remnants of garments, straying among the sheets and the coverlets. You might have thought yourself in some woeful infirmary, hastily organised after some great catastrophe, some conflagration or earthquake which had thrown hundreds of wounded and penniless beings into the streets. Madame de Jonquiere made her way from one to the other end of the ward, ever and ever repeating, "Come, my children, don't excite yourselves; try to sleep a little." However, she did not succeed in calming them, and indeed, she herself, like the other lady-hospitallers under her orders, increased the general fever by her own bewilderment. The linen of several patients had to be changed, and there were other needs to be attended to. One woman, suffering from an ulcer in the leg, began moaning so dreadfully that Madame Desagneaux undertook to dress her sore afresh; but she was not skilful, and despite all her passionate courage she almost fainted, so greatly was she distressed by the unbearable odour. Those patients who were in better health asked for broth, bowlfuls of which began to circulate amidst the calls, the answers, and the contradictory orders which nobody executed. And meanwhile, let loose amidst this frightful scramble, little Sophie Couteau, who remained with the Sisters, and was very gay, imagined that it was playtime, and ran, and jumped, and hopped in turn, called and petted first by one and then by another, dear as she was to all alike for the miraculous hope which she brought them. However, amidst this agitation, the hours went by. Seven o'clock had just struck when Abbe Judaine came in. He was the chaplain of the Sainte-Honorine Ward, and only the difficulty of finding an unoccupied altar at which he might say his mass had delayed his arrival. As soon as he appeared, a cry of impatience arose from every bed. "Oh! Monsieur le Cure, let us start, let us start at once!" An ardent desire, which each passing minute heightened and irritated, was upbuoying them, like a more and more devouring thirst, which only the waters of the miraculous fountain could appease. And more fervently than any of the others, La Grivotte, sitting up on her mattress, and joining her hands, begged and begged that she might be taken to the Grotto. Was there not a beginning of the miracle in this--in this awakening of her will power, this feverish desire for cure which enabled her to set herself erect? Inert and fainting on her arrival, she was now seated, turning her dark glances in all directions, waiting and watching for the happy moment when she would be removed. And colour also was returning to her livid face. She was already resuscitating. "Oh! Monsieur le Cure, pray do tell them to take me--I feel that I shall be cured," she exclaimed. With a loving, fatherly smile on his good-natured face, Abbe Judaine listened to them all, and allayed their impatience with kind words. They would soon set out; but they must be reasonable, and allow sufficient time for things to be organised; and besides, the Blessed Virgin did not like to have violence done her; she bided her time, and distributed her divine favours among those who behaved themselves the best. As he paused before Marie's bed and beheld her, stammering entreaties with joined hands, he again paused. "And you, too, my daughter, you are in a hurry?" he said. "Be easy, there is grace enough in heaven for you all." "I am dying of love, Father," she murmured in reply. "My heart is so swollen with prayers, it stifles me--" He was greatly touched by the passion of this poor emaciated child, so harshly stricken in her youth and beauty, and wishing to appease her, he called her attention to Madame Vetu, who did not move, though with her eyes wide open she stared at all who passed. "Look at madame, how quiet she is!" he said. "She is meditating, and she does right to place herself in God's hands, like a little child." However, in a scarcely audible voice, a mere breath, Madame Vetu stammered: "Oh! I am suffering, I am suffering." At last, at a quarter to eight o'clock, Madame de Jonquiere warned her charges that they would do well to prepare themselves. She herself, assisted by Sister Hyacinthe and Madame Desagneaux, buttoned several dresses, and put shoes on impotent feet. It was a real toilette, for they all desired to appear to the greatest advantage before the Blessed Virgin. A large number had sufficient sense of delicacy to wash their hands. Others unpacked their parcels, and put on clean linen. On her side, Elise Rouquet had ended by discovering a little pocket-glass in the hands of a woman near her, a huge, dropsical creature, who was very coquettish; and having borrowed it, she leant it against the bolster, and then, with infinite care, began to fasten her fichu as elegantly as possible about her head, in order to hide her distorted features. Meanwhile, erect in front of her, little Sophie watched her with an air of profound interest. It was Abbe Judaine who gave the signal for starting on the journey to the Grotto. He wished, he said, to accompany his dear suffering daughters thither, whilst the lady-hospitallers and the Sisters remained in the ward, so as to put things in some little order again. Then the ward was at once emptied, the patients being carried down-stairs amidst renewed tumult. And Pierre, having replaced Marie's box upon its wheels, took the first place in the /cortege/, which was formed of a score of little handcarts, bath-chairs, and litters. The other wards, however, were also emptying, the courtyard became crowded, and the /defile/ was organised in haphazard fashion. There was soon an interminable train descending the rather steep slope of the Avenue de la Grotte, so that Pierre was already reaching the Plateau de la Merlasse when the last stretchers were barely leaving the precincts of the hospital. It was eight o'clock, and the sun, already high, a triumphant August sun, was flaming in the great sky, which was beautifully clear. It seemed as if the blue of the atmosphere, cleansed by the storm of the previous night, were quite new, fresh with youth. And the frightful /defile/, a perfect "Cour des Miracles" of human woe, rolled along the sloping pavement amid all the brilliancy of that radiant morning. There was no end to the train of abominations; it appeared to grow longer and longer. No order was observed, ailments of all kinds were jumbled together; it seemed like the clearing of some inferno where the most monstrous maladies, the rare and awful cases which provoke a shudder, had been gathered together. Eczema, roseola, elephantiasis, presented a long array of doleful victims. Well-nigh vanished diseases reappeared; one old woman was affected with leprosy, another was, covered with impetiginous lichen like a tree which has rotted in the shade. Then came the dropsical ones, inflated like wine-skins; and beside some stretchers there dangled hands twisted by rheumatism, while from others protruded feet swollen by oedema beyond all recognition, looking, in fact, like bags full of rags. One woman, suffering from hydrocephalus, sat in a little cart, the dolorous motions of her head bespeaking her grievous malady. A tall girl afflicted with chorea--St. Vitus's dance--was dancing with every limb, without a pause, the left side of her face being continually distorted by sudden, convulsive grimaces. A younger one, who followed, gave vent to a bark, a kind of plaintive animal cry, each time that the tic douloureux which was torturing her twisted her mouth and her right cheek, which she seemed to throw forward. Next came the consumptives, trembling with fever, exhausted by dysentery, wasted to skeletons, with livid skins, recalling the colour of that earth in which they would soon be laid to rest; and there was one among them who was quite white, with flaming eyes, who looked indeed like a death's head in which a torch had been lighted. Then every deformity of the contractions followed in succession--twisted trunks, twisted arms, necks askew, all the distortions of poor creatures whom nature had warped and broken; and among these was one whose right hand was thrust back behind her ribs whilst her head fell to the left resting fixedly upon her shoulder. Afterwards came poor rachitic girls displaying waxen complexions and slender necks eaten away by sores, and yellow-faced women in the painful stupor which falls on those whose bosoms are devoured by cancers; whilst others, lying down with their mournful eyes gazing heavenwards, seemed to be listening to the throbs of the tumours which obstructed their organs. And still more and more went by; there was always something more frightful to come; this woman following that other one increased the general shudder of horror. From the neck of a girl of twenty who had a crushed, flattened head like a toad's, there hung so large a goitre that it fell even to her waist like the bib of an apron. A blind woman walked along, her head erect, her face pale like marble, displaying the acute inflammation of her poor, ulcerated eyes. An aged woman stricken with imbecility, afflicted with dreadful facial disfigurements, laughed aloud with a terrifying laugh. And all at once an epileptic was seized with convulsions, and began foaming on her stretcher, without, however, causing any stoppage of the procession, which never slackened its march, lashed onward as it was by the blizzard of feverish passion which impelled it towards the Grotto. The bearers, the priests, and the ailing ones themselves had just intonated a canticle, the song of Bernadette, and all rolled along amid the besetting "Aves," so that the little carts, the litters, and the pedestrians descended the sloping road like a swollen and overflowing torrent of roaring water. At the corner of the Rue Saint-Joseph, near the Plateau de la Merlasse, a family of excursionists, who had come from Cauterets or Bagneres, stood at the edge of the footway, overcome with profound astonishment. These people were evidently well-to-do /bourgeois/, the father and mother very correct in appearance and demeanour, while their two big girls, attired in light-coloured dresses, had the smiling faces of happy creatures who are amusing themselves. But their first feeling of surprise was soon followed by terror, a growing terror, as if they beheld the opening of some pesthouse of ancient times, some hospital of the legendary ages, evacuated after a great epidemic. The two girls became quite pale, while the father and the mother felt icy cold in presence of that endless /defile/ of so many horrors, the pestilential emanations of which were blown full in their faces. O God! to think that such hideousness, such filth, such suffering, should exist! Was it possible--under that magnificently radiant sun, under those broad heavens so full of light and joy whither the freshness of the Gave's waters ascended, and the breeze of morning wafted the pure perfumes of the mountains! When Pierre, at the head of the /cortege/, reached the Plateau de la Merlasse, he found himself immersed in that clear sunlight, that fresh and balmy air. He turned round and smiled affectionately at Marie; and as they came out on the Place du Rosaire in the morning splendour, they were both enchanted with the lovely panorama which spread around them. In front, on the east, was Old Lourdes, lying in a broad fold of the ground beyond a rock. The sun was rising behind the distant mountains, and its oblique rays clearly outlined the dark lilac mass of that solitary rock, which was crowned by the tower and crumbling walls of the ancient castle, once the redoubtable key of the seven valleys. Through the dancing, golden dust you discerned little of the ruined pile except some stately outlines, some huge blocks of building which looked as though reared by Cyclopean hands; and beyond the rock you but vaguely distinguished the discoloured, intermingled house-roofs of the old town. Nearer in than the castle, however, the new town--the rich and noisy city which had sprung up in a few years as though by miracle--spread out on either hand, displaying its hotels, its stylish shops, its lodging-houses all with white fronts smiling amidst patches of greenery. Then there was the Gave flowing along at the base of the rock, rolling clamorous, clear waters, now blue and now green, now deep as they passed under the old bridge, and now leaping as they careered under the new one, which the Fathers of the Immaculate Conception had built in order to connect the Grotto with the railway station and the recently opened Boulevard. And as a background to this delightful picture, this fresh water, this greenery, this gay, scattered, rejuvenated town, the little and the big Gers arose, two huge ridges of bare rock and low herbage, which, in the projected shade that bathed them, assumed delicate tints of pale mauve and green, fading softly into pink. Then, upon the north, on the right bank of the Gave, beyond the hills followed by the railway line, the heights of La Buala ascended, their wooded slopes radiant in the morning light. On that side lay Bartres. More to the left arose the Serre de Julos, dominated by the Miramont. Other crests, far off, faded away into the ether. And in the foreground, rising in tiers among the grassy valleys beyond the Gave, a number of convents, which seemed to have sprung up in this region of prodigies like early vegetation, imparted some measure of life to the landscape. First, there was an Orphan Asylum founded by the Sisters of Nevers, whose vast buildings shone brightly in the sunlight. Next came the Carmelite convent, on the highway to Pau, just in front of the Grotto; and then that of the Assumptionists higher up, skirting the road to Poueyferre; whilst the Dominicans showed but a corner of their roofs, sequestered in the far-away solitude. And at last appeared the establishment of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, those who were called the Blue Sisters, and who had founded at the far end of the valley a home where they received well-to-do lady pilgrims, desirous of solitude, as boarders. At that early hour all the bells of these convents were pealing joyfully in the crystalline atmosphere, whilst the bells of other convents, on the other, the southern horizon, answered them with the same silvery strains of joy. The bell of the nunnery of Sainte Clarissa, near the old bridge, rang a scale of gay, clear notes, which one might have fancied to be the chirruping of a bird. And on this side of the town, also, there were valleys that dipped down between the ridges, and mountains that upreared their bare sides, a commingling of smiling and of agitated nature, an endless surging of heights amongst which you noticed those of Visens, whose slopes the sunlight tinged ornately with soft blue and carmine of a rippling, moire-like effect. However, when Marie and Pierre turned their eyes to the west, they were quite dazzled. The sun rays were here streaming on the large and the little Beout with their cupolas of unequal height. And on this side the background was one of gold and purple, a dazzling mountain on whose sides one could only discern the road which snaked between the trees on its way to the Calvary above. And here, too, against the sunlit background, radiant like an aureola, stood out the three superposed churches which at the voice of Bernadette had sprung from the rock to the glory of the Blessed Virgin. First of all, down below, came the church of the Rosary, squat, circular, and half cut out of the rock, at the farther end of an esplanade on either side of which, like two huge arms, were colossal gradient ways ascending gently to the Crypt church. Vast labour had been expended here, a quarryful of stones had been cut and set in position, there were arches as lofty as naves supporting the gigantic terraced avenues which had been constructed so that the processions might roll along in all their pomp, and the little conveyances containing sick children might ascend without hindrance to the divine presence. Then came the Crypt, the subterranean church within the rock, with only its low door visible above the church of the Rosary, whose paved roof, with its vast promenade, formed a continuation of the terraced inclines. And at last, from the summit sprang the Basilica, somewhat slender and frail, recalling some finely chased jewel of the Renascence, and looking very new and very white--like a prayer, a spotless dove, soaring aloft from the rocks of Massabielle. The spire, which appeared the more delicate and slight when compared with the gigantic inclines below, seemed like the little vertical flame of a taper set in the midst of the vast landscape, those endless waves of valleys and mountains. By the side, too, of the dense greenery of the Calvary hill, it looked fragile and candid, like childish faith; and at sight of it you instinctively thought of the little white arm, the little thin hand of the puny girl, who had here pointed to Heaven in the crisis of her human sufferings. You could not see the Grotto, the entrance of which was on the left, at the base of the rock. Beyond the Basilica, the only buildings which caught the eye were the heavy square pile where the Fathers of the Immaculate Conception had their abode, and the episcopal palace, standing much farther away, in a spreading, wooded valley. And the three churches were flaming in the morning glow, and the rain of gold scattered by the sun rays was sweeping the whole countryside, whilst the flying peals of the bells seemed to be the very vibration of the light, the musical awakening of the lovely day that was now beginning. Whilst crossing the Place du Rosaire, Pierre and Marie glanced at the Esplanade, the public walk with its long central lawn skirted by broad parallel paths and extending as far as the new bridge. Here, with face turned towards the Basilica, was the great crowned statue of the Virgin. All the sufferers crossed themselves as they went by. And still passionately chanting its canticle, the fearful /cortege/ rolled on, through nature in festive array. Under the dazzling sky, past the mountains of gold and purple, amidst the centenarian trees, symbolical of health, the running waters whose freshness was eternal, that /cortege/ still and ever marched on with its sufferers, whom nature, if not God, had condemned, those who were afflicted with skin diseases, those whose flesh was eaten away, those who were dropsical and inflated like wine-skins, and those whom rheumatism and paralysis had twisted into postures of agony. And the victims of hydrocephalus followed, with the dancers of St. Vitus, the consumptives, the rickety, the epileptic, the cancerous, the goitrous, the blind, the mad, and the idiotic. "Ave, ave, ave, Maria!" they sang; and the stubborn plaint acquired increased volume, as nearer and nearer to the Grotto it bore that abominable torrent of human wretchedness and pain, amidst all the fright and horror of the passers-by, who stopped short, unable to stir, their hearts frozen as this nightmare swept before their eyes. Pierre and Marie were the first to pass under the lofty arcade of one of the terraced inclines. And then, as they followed the quay of the Gave, they all at once came upon the Grotto. And Marie, whom Pierre wheeled as near to the railing as possible, was only able to raise herself in her little conveyance, and murmur: "O most Blessed Virgin, Virgin most loved!" She had seen neither the entrances to the piscinas nor the twelve-piped fountain, which she had just passed; nor did she distinguish any better the shop on her left hand where crucifixes, chaplets, statuettes, pictures, and other religious articles were sold, or the stone pulpit on her right which Father Massias already occupied. Her eyes were dazzled by the splendour of the Grotto; it seemed to her as if a hundred thousand tapers were burning there behind the railing, filling the low entrance with the glow of a furnace and illuminating, as with star rays, the statue of the Virgin, which stood, higher up, at the edge of a narrow ogive-like cavity. And for her, apart from that glorious apparition, nothing existed there, neither the crutches with which a part of the vault had been covered, nor the piles of bouquets fading away amidst the ivy and the eglantine, nor even the altar placed in the centre near a little portable organ over which a cover had been thrown. However, as she raised her eyes above the rock, she once more beheld the slender white Basilica profiled against the sky, its slight, tapering spire soaring into the azure of the Infinite like a prayer. "O Virgin most powerful--Queen of the Virgins--Holy Virgin of Virgins!" Pierre had now succeeded in wheeling Marie's box to the front rank, beyond the numerous oak benches which were set out here in the open air as in the nave of a church. Nearly all these benches were already occupied by those sufferers who could sit down, while the vacant spaces were soon filled with litters and little vehicles whose wheels became entangled together, and on whose close-packed mattresses and pillows all sorts of diseases were gathered pell-mell. Immediately on arriving, the young priest had recognised the Vignerons seated with their sorry child Gustave in the middle of a bench, and now, on the flagstones, he caught sight of the lace-trimmed bed of Madame Dieulafay, beside whom her husband and sister knelt in prayer. Moreover, all the patients of Madame de Jonquiere's carriage took up position here--M. Sabathier and Brother Isidore side by side, Madame Vetu reclining hopelessly in a conveyance, Elise Rouquet seated, La Grivotte excited and raising herself on her clenched hands. Pierre also again perceived Madame Maze, standing somewhat apart from the others, and humbling herself in prayer; whilst Madame Vincent, who had fallen on her knees, still holding her little Rose in her arms, presented the child to the Virgin with ardent entreaty, the distracted gesture of a mother soliciting compassion from the mother of divine grace. And around this reserved space was the ever-growing throng of pilgrims, the pressing, jostling mob which gradually stretched to the parapet overlooking the Gave. "O Virgin most merciful," continued Marie in an undertone, "Virgin most faithful, Virgin conceived without sin!" Then, almost fainting, she spoke no more, but with her lips still moving, as though in silent prayer, gazed distractedly at Pierre. He thought that she wished to speak to him and leant forward: "Shall I remain here at your disposal to take you to the piscina by-and-by?" he asked. But as soon as she understood him she shook her head. And then in a feverish way she said: "No, no, I don't want to be bathed this morning. It seems to me that one must be truly worthy, truly pure, truly holy before seeking the miracle! I want to spend the whole morning in imploring it with joined hands; I want to pray, to pray with all my strength and all my soul--" She was stifling, and paused. Then she added: "Don't come to take me back to the hospital till eleven o'clock. I will not let them take me from here till then." However, Pierre did not go away, but remained near her. For a moment, he even fell upon his knees; he also would have liked to pray with the same burning faith, to beg of God the cure of that poor sick child, whom he loved with such fraternal affection. But since he had reached the Grotto he had felt a singular sensation invading him, a covert revolt, as it were, which hampered the pious flight of his prayer. He wished to believe; he had spent the whole night hoping that belief would once more blossom in his soul, like some lovely flower of innocence and candour, as soon as he should have knelt upon the soil of that land of miracle. And yet he only experienced discomfort and anxiety in presence of the theatrical scene before him, that pale stiff statue in the false light of the tapers, with the chaplet shop full of jostling customers on the one hand, and the large stone pulpit whence a Father of the Assumption was shouting "Aves" on the other. Had his soul become utterly withered then? Could no divine dew again impregnate it with innocence, render it like the souls of little children, who at the slightest caressing touch of the sacred legend give themselves to it entirely? Then, while his thoughts were still wandering, he recognised Father Massias in the ecclesiastic who occupied the pulpit. He had formerly known him, and was quite stirred by his sombre ardour, by the sight of his thin face and sparkling eyes, by the eloquence which poured from his large mouth as he offered violence to Heaven to compel it to descend upon earth. And whilst he thus examined Father Massias, astonished at feeling himself so unlike the preacher, he caught sight of Father Fourcade, who, at the foot of the pulpit, was deep in conference with Baron Suire. The latter seemed much perplexed by something which Father Fourcade said to him; however he ended by approving it with a complaisant nod. Then, as Abbe Judaine was also standing there, Father Fourcade likewise spoke to him for a moment, and a scared expression came over the Abbe's broad, fatherly face while he listened; nevertheless, like the Baron, he at last bowed assent. Then, all at once, Father Fourcade appeared in the pulpit, erect, drawing up his lofty figure which his attack of gout had slightly bent; and he had not wished that Father Massias, his well-loved brother, whom he preferred above all others, should altogether go down the narrow stairway, for he had kept him upon one of the steps, and was leaning on his shoulder. And in a full, grave voice, with an air of sovereign authority which caused perfect silence to reign around, he spoke as follows: "My dear brethren, my dear sisters, I ask your forgiveness for interrupting your prayers, but I have a communication to make to you, and I have to ask the help of all your faithful souls. We had a very sad accident to deplore this morning, one of our brethren died in one of the trains by which you came to Lourdes, died just as he was about to set foot in the promised land." A brief pause followed and Father Fourcade seemed to become yet taller, his handsome face beaming with fervour, amidst his long, streaming, royal beard. "Well, my dear brethren, my dear sisters," he resumed, "in spite of everything, the idea has come to me that we ought not to despair. Who knows if God Almighty did not will that death in order that He might prove His Omnipotence to the world? It is as though a voice were speaking to me, urging me to ascend this pulpit and ask your prayers for this man, this man who is no more, but whose life is nevertheless in the hands of the most Blessed Virgin who can still implore her Divine Son in his favour. Yes, the man is here, I have caused his body to be brought hither, and it depends on you, perhaps, whether a brilliant miracle shall dazzle the universe, if you pray with sufficient ardour to touch the compassion of Heaven. We will plunge the man's body into the piscina and we will entreat the Lord, the master of the world, to resuscitate him, to give unto us this extraordinary sign of His sovereign beneficence!" An icy thrill, wafted from the Invisible, passed through the listeners. They had all become pale, and though the lips of none of them had opened, it seemed as if a murmur sped through their ranks amidst a shudder. "But with what ardour must we not pray!" violently resumed Father Fourcade, exalted by genuine faith. "It is your souls, your whole souls, that I ask of you, my dear brothers, my dear sisters, it is a prayer in which you must put your hearts, your blood, your very life with whatever may be most noble and loving in it! Pray with all your strength, pray till you no longer know who you are, or where you are; pray as one loves, pray as one dies, for that which we are about to ask is so precious, so rare, so astounding a grace that only the energy of our worship can induce God to answer us. And in order that our prayers may be the more efficacious, in order that they may have time to spread and ascend to the feet of the Eternal Father, we will not lower the body into the piscina until four o'clock this afternoon. And now my dear brethren, now my dear sisters, pray, pray to the most Blessed Virgin, the Queen of the Angels, the Comforter of the Afflicted!" Then he himself, distracted by emotion, resumed the recital of the rosary, whilst near him Father Massias burst into sobs. And thereupon the great anxious silence was broken, contagion seized upon the throng, it was transported and gave vent to shouts, tears, and confused stammered entreaties. It was as though a breath of delirium were sweeping by, reducing men's wills to naught, and turning all these beings into one being, exasperated with love and seized with a mad desire for the impossible prodigy. And for a moment Pierre had thought that the ground was giving way beneath him, that he was about to fall and faint. But with difficulty he managed to rise from his knees and slowly walked away. III FOUNTAIN AND PISCINA As Pierre went off, ill at ease, mastered by invincible repugnance, unwilling to remain there any longer, he caught sight of M. de Guersaint, kneeling near the Grotto, with the absorbed air of one who is praying with his whole soul. The young priest had not seen him since the morning, and did not know whether he had managed to secure a couple of rooms in one or other of the hotels, so that his first impulse was to go and join him. Then, however, he hesitated, unwilling to disturb his meditations, for he was doubtless praying for his daughter, whom he fondly loved, in spite of the constant absent-mindedness of his volatile brain. Accordingly, the young priest passed on, and took his way under the trees. Nine o'clock was now striking, he had a couple of hours before him. By dint of money, the wild bank where swine had formerly pastured had been transformed into a superb avenue skirting the Gave. It had been necessary to put back the river's bed in order to gain ground, and lay out a monumental quay bordered by a broad footway, and protected by a parapet. Some two or three hundred yards farther on, a hill brought the avenue to an end, and it thus resembled an enclosed promenade, provided with benches, and shaded by magnificent trees. Nobody passed along, however; merely the overflow of the crowd had settled there, and solitary spots still abounded between the grassy wall limiting the promenade on the south, and the extensive fields spreading out northward beyond the Gave, as far as the wooded slopes which the white-walled convents brightened. Under the foliage, on the margin of the running water, one could enjoy delightful freshness, even during the burning days of August. Thus Pierre, like a man at last awakening from a painful dream, soon found rest of mind again. He had questioned himself in the acute anxiety which he felt with regard to his sensations. Had he not reached Lourdes that morning possessed by a genuine desire to believe, an idea that he was indeed again beginning to believe even as he had done in the docile days of childhood when his mother had made him join his hands, and taught him to fear God? Yet as soon as he had found himself at the Grotto, the idolatry of the worship, the violence of the display of faith, the onslaught upon human reason which he witnessed, had so disturbed him that he had almost fainted. What would become of him then? Could he not even try to contend against his doubts by examining things and convincing himself of their truth, thus turning his journey to profit? At all events, he had made a bad beginning, which left him sorely agitated, and he indeed needed the environment of those fine trees, that limpid, rushing water, that calm, cool avenue, to recover from the shock. Still pondering, he was approaching the end of the pathway, when he most unexpectedly met a forgotten friend. He had, for a few seconds, been looking at a tall old gentleman who was coming towards him, dressed in a tightly buttoned frock-coat and broad-brimmed hat; and he had tried to remember where it was that he had previously beheld that pale face, with eagle nose, and black and penetrating eyes. These he had seen before, he felt sure of it; but the promenader's long white beard and long curly white hair perplexed him. However, the other halted, also looking extremely astonished, though he promptly exclaimed, "What, Pierre? Is it you, at Lourdes?" Then all at once the young priest recognised Doctor Chassaigne, his father's old friend, his own friend, the man who had cured and consoled him in the terrible physical and mental crisis which had come upon him after his mother's death. "Ah! my dear doctor, how pleased I am to see you!" he replied. They embraced with deep emotion. And now, in presence of that snowy hair and snowy beard, that slow walk, that sorrowful demeanour, Pierre remembered with what unrelenting ferocity misfortune had fallen on that unhappy man and aged him. But a few years had gone by, and now, when they met again, he was bowed down by destiny. "You did not know, I suppose, that I had remained at Lourdes?" said the doctor. "It's true that I no longer write to anybody; in fact, I am no longer among the living. I live in the land of the dead." Tears were gathering in his eyes, and emotion made his voice falter as he resumed: "There! come and sit down on that bench yonder; it will please me to live the old days afresh with you, just for a moment." In his turn the young priest felt his sobs choking him. He could only murmur: "Ah! my dear doctor, my old friend, I can truly tell you that I pitied you with my whole heart, my whole soul." Doctor Chassaigne's story was one of disaster, the shipwreck of a life. He and his daughter Marguerite, a tall and lovable girl of twenty, had gone to Cauterets with Madame Chassaigne, the model wife and mother, whose state of health had made them somewhat anxious. A fortnight had elapsed and she seemed much better, and was already planning several pleasure trips, when one morning she was found dead in her bed. Her husband and daughter were overwhelmed, stupefied by this sudden blow, this cruel treachery of death. The doctor, who belonged to Bartres, had a family vault in the Lourdes cemetery, a vault constructed at his own expense, and in which his father and mother already rested. He desired, therefore, that his wife should be interred there, in a compartment adjoining that in which he expected soon to lie himself. And after the burial he had lingered for a week at Lourdes, when Marguerite, who was with him, was seized with a great shivering, and, taking to her bed one evening, died two days afterwards without her distracted father being able to form any exact notion of the illness which had carried her off. And thus it was not himself, but his daughter, lately radiant with beauty and health, in the very flower of her youth, who was laid in the vacant compartment by the mother's side. The man who had been so happy, so worshipped by his two helpmates, whose heart had been kept so warm by the love of two dear creatures all his own, was now nothing more than an old, miserable, stammering, lost being, who shivered in his icy solitude. All the joy of his life had departed; he envied the men who broke stones upon the highways when he saw their barefooted wives and daughters bring them their dinners at noontide. And he had refused to leave Lourdes, he had relinquished everything, his studies, his practice in Paris, in order that he might live near the tomb in which his wife and his daughter slept the eternal sleep. "Ah, my old friend," repeated Pierre, "how I pitied you! How frightful must have been your grief! But why did you not rely a little on those who love you? Why did you shut yourself up here with your sorrow?" The doctor made a gesture which embraced the horizon. "I could not go away, they are here and keep me with them. It is all over, I am merely waiting till my time comes to join them again." Then silence fell. Birds were fluttering among the shrubs on the bank behind them, and in front they heard the loud murmur of the Gave. The sun rays were falling more heavily in a slow, golden dust, upon the hillsides; but on that retired bench under the beautiful trees, the coolness was still delightful. And although the crowd was but a couple of hundred yards distant, they were, so to say, in a desert, for nobody tore himself away from the Grotto to stray as far as the spot which they had chosen. They talked together for a long time, and Pierre related under what circumstances he had reached Lourdes that morning with M. de Guersaint and his daughter, all three forming part of the national pilgrimage. Then all at once he gave a start of astonishment and exclaimed: "What! doctor, so you now believe that miracles are possible? You, good heavens! whom I knew as an unbeliever, or at least as one altogether indifferent to these matters?" He was gazing at M. Chassaigne quite stupefied by something which he had just heard him say of the Grotto and Bernadette. It was amazing, coming from a man with so strong a mind, a /savant/ of such intelligence, whose powerful analytical faculties he had formerly so much admired! How was it that a lofty, clear mind, nourished by experience and method, had become so changed as to acknowledge the miraculous cures effected by that divine fountain which the Blessed Virgin had caused to spurt forth under the pressure of a child's fingers? "But just think a little, my dear doctor," he resumed. "It was you yourself who supplied my father with memoranda about Bernadette, your little fellow-villager as you used to call her; and it was you, too, who spoke to me at such length about her, when, later on, I took a momentary interest in her story. In your eyes she was simply an ailing child, prone to hallucinations, infantile, but self-conscious of her acts, deficient of will-power. Recollect our chats together, my doubts, and the healthy reason which you again enabled me, to acquire!" Pierre was feeling very moved, for was not this the strangest of adventures? He a priest, who in a spirit of resignation had formerly endeavoured to believe, had ended by completely losing all faith through intercourse with this same doctor, who was then an unbeliever, but whom he now found converted, conquered by the supernatural, whilst he himself was racked by the torture of no longer believing. "You who would only rely on accurate facts," he said, "you who based everything on observation! Do you renounce science then?" Chassaigne, hitherto quiet, with a sorrowful smile playing on his lips, now made a violent gesture expressive of sovereign contempt. "Science indeed!" he exclaimed. "Do I know anything? Can I accomplish anything? You asked me just now what malady it was that killed my poor Marguerite. But I do not know! I, whom people think so learned, so well armed against death, I understood nothing of it, and I could do nothing--not even prolong my daughter's life for a single hour! And my wife, whom I found in bed already cold, when on the previous evening she had lain down in much better health and quite gay--was I even capable of foreseeing what ought to have been done in her case? No, no! for me at all events, science has become bankrupt. I wish to know nothing; I am but a fool and a poor old man!" He spoke like this in a furious revolt against all his past life of pride and happiness. Then, having become calm again, he added: "And now I only feel a frightful remorse. Yes, a remorse which haunts me, which ever brings me here, prowling around the people who are praying. It is remorse for not having in the first instance come and humbled myself at that Grotto, bringing my two dear ones with me. They would have knelt there like those women whom you see, I should have knelt beside them, and perhaps the Blessed Virgin would have cured and preserved them. But, fool that I was, I only knew how to lose them! It is my fault." Tears were now streaming from his eyes. "I remember," he continued, "that in my childhood at Bartres, my mother, a peasant woman, made me join my hands and implore God's help each morning. The prayer she taught me came back to my mind, word for word, when I again found myself alone, as weak, as lost, as a little child. What would you have, my friend? I joined my hands as in my younger days, I felt too wretched, too forsaken, I had too keen a need of a superhuman help, of a divine power which should think and determine for me, which should lull me and carry me on with its eternal prescience. How great at first was the confusion, the aberration of my poor brain, under the frightful, heavy blow which fell upon it! I spent a score of nights without being able to sleep, thinking that I should surely go mad. All sorts of ideas warred within me; I passed through periods of revolt when I shook my fist at Heaven, and then I lapsed into humility, entreating God to take me in my turn. And it was at last a conviction that there must be justice, a conviction that there must be love, which calmed me by restoring me my faith. You knew my daughter, so tall and strong, so beautiful, so brimful of life. Would it not be the most monstrous injustice if for her, who did not know life, there should be nothing beyond the tomb? She will live again, I am absolutely convinced of it, for I still hear her at times, she tells me that we shall meet, that we shall see one another again. Oh! the dear beings whom one has lost, my dear daughter, my dear wife, to see them once more, to live with them elsewhere, that is the one hope, the one consolation for all the sorrows of this world! I have given myself to God, since God alone can restore them to me!" He was shaking with a slight tremor, like the weak old man he had become; and Pierre was at last able to understand and explain the conversion of this /savant/, this man of intellect who, growing old, had reverted to belief under the influence of sentiment. First of all, and this he had previously suspected, he discovered a kind of atavism of faith in this Pyrenean, this son of peasant mountaineers, who had been brought up in belief of the legend, and whom the legend had again mastered even when fifty years, of positive study had rolled over it. Then, too, there was human weariness; this man, to whom science had not brought happiness, revolted against science on the day when it seemed to him shallow, powerless to prevent him from shedding tears. And finally there was discouragement, a doubt of all things, ending in a need of certainty on the part of one whom age had softened, and who felt happy at being able to fall asleep in credulity. Pierre did not protest, however; he did not jeer, for his heart was rent at sight of this tall, stricken old man, with his woeful senility. Is it not indeed pitiful to see the strongest, the clearest-minded become mere children again under such blows of fate? "Ah!" he faintly sighed, "if I could only suffer enough to be able to silence my reason, and kneel yonder and believe in all those fine stories." The pale smile, which at times still passed over Doctor Chassaigne's lips, reappeared on them. "You mean the miracles?" said he. "You are a priest, my child, and I know what your misfortune is. The miracles seem impossible to you. But what do you know of them? Admit that you know nothing, and that what to our senses seems impossible is every minute taking place. And now we have been talking together for a long time, and eleven o'clock will soon strike, so that you must return to the Grotto. However, I shall expect you, at half-past three, when I will take you to the Medical Verification Office, where I hope I shall be able to show you some surprising things. Don't forget, at half-past three." Thereupon he sent him off, and remained on the bench alone. The heat had yet increased, and the distant hills were burning in the furnace-like glow of the sun. However, he lingered there forgetfully, dreaming in the greeny half-light amidst the foliage, and listening to the continuous murmur of the Gave, as if a voice, a dear voice from the realms beyond, were speaking to him. Pierre meantime hastened back to Marie. He was able to join her without much difficulty, for the crowd was thinning, a good many people having already gone off to /dejeuner/. And on arriving he perceived the girl's father, who was quietly seated beside her, and who at once wished to explain to him the reason of his long absence. For more than a couple of hours that morning he had scoured Lourdes in all directions, applying at twenty hotels in turn without being able to find the smallest closet where they might sleep. Even the servants' rooms were let and you could not have even secured a mattress on which to stretch yourself in some passage. However, all at once, just as he was despairing, he had discovered two rooms, small ones, it is true, and just under the roof, but in a very good hotel, that of the Apparitions, one of the best patronised in the town. The persons who had retained these rooms had just telegraphed that the patient whom they had meant to bring with them was dead. Briefly, it was a piece of rare good luck, and seemed to make M. de Guersaint quite gay. Eleven o'clock was now striking and the woeful procession of sufferers started off again through the sunlit streets and squares. When it reached the hospital Marie begged her father and Pierre to go to the hotel, lunch and rest there awhile, and return to fetch her at two o'clock, when the patients would again be conducted to the Grotto. But when, after lunching, the two men went up to the rooms which they were to occupy at the Hotel of the Apparitions, M. de Guersaint, overcome by fatigue, fell so soundly asleep that Pierre had not the heart to awaken him. What would have been the use of it? His presence was not indispensable. And so the young priest returned to the hospital alone. Then the /cortege/ again descended the Avenue de la Grotte, again wended its way over the Plateau de la Merlasse, again crossed the Place du Rosaire, past an ever-growing crowd which shuddered and crossed itself amid all the joyousness of that splendid August day. It was now the most glorious hour of a lovely afternoon. When Marie was again installed in front of the Grotto she inquired if her father were coming. "Yes," answered Pierre; "he is only taking a little rest." She waved her hand as though to say that he was acting rightly, and then in a sorely troubled voice she added: "Listen, Pierre; don't take me to the piscina for another hour. I am not yet in a state to find favour from Heaven, I wish to pray, to keep on praying." After evincing such an ardent desire to come to Lourdes, terror was agitating her now that the moment for attempting the miracle was at hand. In fact, she began to relate that she had been unable to eat anything, and a girl who overheard her at once approached saying: "If you feel too weak, my dear young lady, remember we have some broth here." Marie looked at her and recognised Raymonde. Several young girls were in this wise employed at the Grotto to distribute cups of broth and milk among the sufferers. Some of them, indeed, in previous years had displayed so much coquetry in the matter of silk, aprons trimmed with lace, that a uniform apron, of modest linen, with a small check pattern, blue and white, had been imposed on them. Nevertheless, in spite of this enforced simplicity, Raymonde, thanks to her freshness and her active, good-natured, housewifely air, had succeeded in making herself look quite charming. "You will remember, won't you?" she added; "you have only to make me a sign and I will serve you." Marie thanked her, saying, however, that she felt sure she would not be able to take anything; and then, turning towards the young priest, she resumed: "One hour--you must allow me one more hour, my friend." Pierre wished at any rate to remain near her, but the entire space was reserved to the sufferers, the bearers not being allowed there. So he had to retire, and, caught in the rolling waves of the crowd, he found himself carried towards the piscinas, where he came upon an extraordinary spectacle which stayed his steps. In front of the low buildings where the baths were, three by three, six for the women and three for the men, he perceived under the trees a long stretch of ground enclosed by a rope fastened to the tree-trunks; and here, various sufferers, some sitting in their bath-chairs and others lying on the mattresses of their litters, were drawn up in line, waiting to be bathed, whilst outside the rope, a huge, excited throng was ever pressing and surging. A Capuchin, erect in the centre of the reserved space, was at that moment conducting the prayers. "Aves" followed one after the other, repeated by the crowd in a loud confused murmur. Then, all at once, as Madame Vincent, who, pale with agony, had long been waiting, was admitted to the baths, carrying her dear burden, her little girl who looked like a waxen image of the child Christ, the Capuchin let himself fall upon his knees with his arms extended, and cried aloud: "Lord, heal our sick!" He raised this cry a dozen, twenty times, with a growing fury, and each time the crowd repeated it, growing more and more excited at each shout, till it sobbed and kissed the ground in a state of frenzy. It was like a hurricane of delirium rushing by and laying every head in the dust. Pierre was utterly distracted by the sob of suffering which arose from the very bowels of these poor folks--at first a prayer, growing louder and louder, then bursting forth like a demand in impatient, angry, deafening, obstinate accents, as though to compel the help of Heaven. "Lord, heal our sick!"--"Lord, heal our sick!" The shout soared on high incessantly. An incident occurred, however; La Grivotte was weeping hot tears because they would not bathe her. "They say that I'm a consumptive," she plaintively exclaimed, "and that they can't dip consumptives in cold water. Yet they dipped one this morning; I saw her. So why won't they dip me? I've been wearing myself out for the last half-hour in telling them that they are only grieving the Blessed Virgin, for I am going to be cured, I feel it, I am going to be cured!" As she was beginning to cause a scandal, one of the chaplains of the piscinas approached and endeavoured to calm her. They would see what they could do for her, by-and-by, said he; they would consult the reverend Fathers, and, if she were very good, perhaps they would bathe her all the same. Meantime the cry continued: "Lord, heal our sick! Lord, heal our sick!" And Pierre, who had just perceived Madame Vetu, also waiting at the piscina entry, could no longer turn his eyes away from her hope-tortured face, whose eyes were fixed upon the doorway by which the happy ones, the elect, emerged from the divine presence, cured of all their ailments. However, a sudden increase of the crowd's frenzy, a perfect rage of entreaties, gave him such a shock as to draw tears from his eyes. Madame Vincent was now coming out again, still carrying her little girl in her arms, her wretched, her fondly loved little girl, who had been dipped in a fainting state in the icy water, and whose little face, but imperfectly wiped, was as pale as ever, and indeed even more woeful and lifeless. The mother was sobbing, crucified by this long agony, reduced to despair by the refusal of the Blessed Virgin, who had remained insensible to her child's sufferings. And yet when Madame Vetu in her turn entered, with the eager passion of a dying woman about to drink the water of life, the haunting, obstinate cry burst out again, without sign of discouragement or lassitude: "Lord, heal our sick! Lord, heal our sick!" The Capuchin had now fallen with his face to the ground, and the howling crowd, with arms outstretched, devoured the soil with its kisses. Pierre wished to join Madame Vincent to soothe her with a few kind, encouraging words; however, a fresh string of pilgrims not only prevented him from passing, but threw him towards the fountain which another throng besieged. There was here quite a range of low buildings, a long stone wall with carved coping, and it had been necessary for the people to form in procession, although there were twelve taps from which the water fell into a narrow basin. Many came hither to fill bottles, metal cans, and stoneware pitchers. To prevent too great a waste of water, the tap only acted when a knob was pressed with the hand. And thus many weak-handed women lingered there a long time, the water dripping on their feet. Those who had no cans to fill at least came to drink and wash their faces. Pierre noticed one young man who drank seven small glassfuls of water, and washed his eyes seven times without wiping them. Others were drinking out of shells, tin goblets, and leather cups. And he was particularly interested by the sight of Elise Rouquet, who, thinking it useless to go to the piscinas to bathe the frightful sore which was eating away her face, had contented herself with employing the water of the fountain as a lotion, every two hours since her arrival that morning. She knelt down, threw back her fichu, and for a long time applied a handkerchief to her face--a handkerchief which she had soaked with the miraculous fluid like a sponge; and the crowd around rushed upon the fountain in such fury that folks no longer noticed her diseased face, but washed themselves and drank from the same pipe at which she constantly moistened her handkerchief. Just then, however, Gerard, who passed by dragging M. Sabathier to the piscinas, called to Pierre, whom he saw unoccupied, and asked him to come and help him, for it would not be an easy task to move and bathe this helpless victim of ataxia. And thus Pierre lingered with the sufferer in the men's piscina for nearly half an hour, whilst Gerard returned to the Grotto to fetch another patient. These piscinas seemed to the young priest to be very well arranged. They were divided into three compartments, three baths separated by partitions, with steps leading into them. In order that one might isolate the patient, a linen curtain hug before each entry, which was reached through a kind of waiting-room having a paved floor, and furnished with a bench and a couple of chairs. Here the patients undressed and dressed themselves with an awkward haste, a nervous kind of shame. One man, whom Pierre found there when he entered, was still naked, and wrapped himself in the curtain before putting on a bandage with trembling hands. Another one, a consumptive who was frightfully emaciated, sat shivering and groaning, his livid skin mottled with violet marks. However, Pierre became more interested in Brother Isidore, who was just being removed from one of the baths. He had fainted away, and for a moment, indeed, it was thought that he was dead. But at last he began moaning again, and one's heart filled with pity at sight of his long, lank frame, which suffering had withered, and which, with his diseased hip, looked a human remnant on exhibition. The two hospitallers who had been bathing him had the greatest difficulty to put on his shirt, fearful as they were that if he were suddenly shaken he might expire in their arms. "You will help me, Monsieur l'Abbe, won't you?" asked another hospitaller as he began to undress M. Sabathier. Pierre hastened to give his services, and found that the attendant, discharging such humble duties, was none other than the Marquis de Salmon-Roquebert whom M. de Guersaint had pointed out to him on the way from the station to the hospital that morning. A man of forty, with a large, aquiline, knightly nose set in a long face, the Marquis was the last representative of one of the most ancient and illustrious families of France. Possessing a large fortune, a regal mansion in the Rue de Lille at Paris, and vast estates in Normandy, he came to Lourdes each year, for the three days of the national pilgrimage, influenced solely by his benevolent feelings, for he had no religious zeal and simply observed the rites of the Church because it was customary for noblemen to do so. And he obstinately declined any high functions. Resolved to remain a hospitaller, he had that year assumed the duty of bathing the patients, exhausting the strength of his arms, employing his fingers from morning till night in handling rags and re-applying dressings to sores. "Be careful," he said to Pierre; "take off the stockings very slowly. Just now, some flesh came away when they were taking off the things of that poor fellow who is being dressed again, over yonder." Then, leaving M. Sabathier for a moment in order to put on the shoes of the unhappy sufferer whom he alluded to, the Marquis found the left shoe wet inside. Some matter had flowed into the fore part of it, and he had to take the usual medical precautions before putting it on the patient's foot, a task which he performed with extreme care; and so as not to touch the man's leg, into which an ulcer was eating. "And now," he said to Pierre, as he returned to M. Sabathier, "pull down the drawers at the same time I do, so that we may get them off at one pull." In addition to the patients and the hospitallers selected for duty at the piscinas, the only person in the little dressing-room was a chaplain who kept on repeating "Paters" and "Aves," for not even a momentary pause was allowed in the prayers. Merely a loose curtain hung before the doorway leading to the open space which the rope enclosed; and the ardent clamorous entreaties of the throng were incessantly wafted into the room, with the piercing shouts of the Capuchin, who ever repeated "Lord, heal our sick! Lord, heal our sick!" A cold light fell from the high windows of the building and constant dampness reigned there, with the mouldy smell like that of a cellar dripping with water. At last M. Sabathier was stripped, divested of all garments save a little apron which had been fastened about his loins for decency's sake. "Pray don't plunge me," said he; "let me down into the water by degrees." In point of fact that cold water quite terrified him. He was still wont to relate that he had experienced such a frightful chilling sensation on the first occasion that he had sworn never to go in again. According to his account, there could be no worse torture than that icy cold. And then too, as he put it, the water was scarcely inviting; for, through fear lest the output of the source should not suffice, the Fathers of the Grotto only allowed the water of the baths to be changed twice a day. And nearly a hundred patients being dipped in the same water, it can be imagined what a terrible soup the latter at last became. All manner of things were found in it, so that it was like a frightful /consomme/ of all ailments, a field of cultivation for every kind of poisonous germ, a quintessence of the most dreaded contagious diseases; the miraculous feature of it all being that men should emerge alive from their immersion in such filth. "Gently, gently," repeated M. Sabathier to Pierre and the Marquis, who had taken hold of him under the hips in order to carry him to the bath. And he gazed with childlike terror at that thick, livid water on which floated so many greasy, nauseating patches of scum. However, his dread of the cold was so great that he preferred the polluted baths of the afternoon, since all the bodies that were dipped in the water during the early part of the day ended by slightly warming it. "We will let you slide down the steps," exclaimed the Marquis in an undertone; and then he instructed Pierre to hold the patient with all his strength under the arm-pits. "Have no fear," replied the priest; "I will not let go." M. Sabathier was then slowly lowered. You could now only see his back, his poor painful back which swayed and swelled, mottled by the rippling of a shiver. And when they dipped him his head fell back in a spasm, a sound like the cracking of bones was heard, and breathing hard, he almost stifled. The chaplain, standing beside the bath, had begun calling with renewed fervour: "Lord, heal our sick! Lord, heal our sick!" M. de Salmon-Roquebert repeated the cry, which the regulations required the hospitallers to raise at each fresh immersion. Pierre, therefore, had to imitate his companion, and his pitiful feelings at the sight of so much suffering were so intense that he regained some little of his faith. It was long indeed since he had prayed like this, devoutly wishing that there might be a God in heaven, whose omnipotence could assuage the wretchedness of humanity. At the end of three or four minutes, however, when with great difficulty they drew M. Sabathier, livid and shivering, out of the bath, the young priest fell into deeper, more despairing sorrow than ever at beholding how downcast, how overwhelmed the sufferer was at having experienced no relief. Again had he made a futile attempt; for the seventh time the Blessed Virgin had not deigned to listen to his prayers. He closed his eyes, from between the lids of which big tears began to roll while they were dressing him again. Then Pierre recognised little Gustave Vigneron coming in, on his crutch, to take his first bath. His relatives, his father, his mother, and his aunt, Madame Chaise, all three of substantial appearance and exemplary piety, had just fallen on their knees at the door. Whispers ran through the crowd; it was said that the gentleman was a functionary of the Ministry of Finances. However, while the child was beginning to undress, a tumult arose, and Father Fourcade and Father Massias, suddenly arriving, gave orders to suspend the immersions. The great miracle was about to be attempted, the extraordinary favour which had been so ardently prayed for since the morning--the restoration of the dead man to life. The prayers were continuing outside, rising in a furious appeal which died away in the sky of that warm summer afternoon. Two bearers came in with a covered stretcher, which they deposited in the middle of the dressing-room. Baron Suire, President of the Association, followed, accompanied by Berthaud, one of its principal officers, for the affair was causing a great stir among the whole staff, and before anything was done a few words were exchanged in low voices between the gentlemen and the two Fathers of the Assumption. Then the latter fell upon their knees, with arms extended, and began to pray, their faces illumined, transfigured by their burning desire to see God's omnipotence displayed. "Lord, hear us! Lord, grant our prayer!" M. Sabathier had just been taken away, and the only patient now present was little Gustave, who had remained on a chair, half-undressed and forgotten. The curtains of the stretcher were raised, and the man's corpse appeared, already stiff, and seemingly reduced and shrunken, with large eyes which had obstinately remained wide open. It was necessary, however, to undress the body, which was still fully clad, and this terrible duty made the bearers momentarily hesitate. Pierre noticed that the Marquis de Salmon-Roquebert, who showed such devotion to the living, such freedom from all repugnance whenever they were in question, had now drawn aside and fallen on his knees, as though to avoid the necessity of touching that lifeless corpse. And the young priest thereupon followed his example, and knelt near him in order to keep countenance. Father Massias meanwhile was gradually becoming excited, praying in so loud a voice that it drowned that of his superior, Father Fourcade: "Lord, restore our brother to us!" he cried. "Lord, do it for Thy glory!" One of the hospitallers had already begun to pull at the man's trousers, but his legs were so stiff that the garment would not come off. In fact the corpse ought to have been raised up; and the other hospitaller, who was unbuttoning the dead man's old frock coat, remarked in an undertone that it would be best to cut everything away with a pair of scissors. Otherwise there would be no end of the job. Berthaud, however, rushed up to them, after rapidly consulting Baron Suire. As a politician he secretly disapproved of Father Fourcade's action in making such an attempt, only they could not now do otherwise than carry matters to an issue; for the crowd was waiting and had been entreating God on the dead man's behalf ever since the morning. The wisest course, therefore, was to finish with the affair at once, showing as much respect as possible for the remains of the deceased. In lieu, therefore, of pulling the corpse about in order to strip it bare, Berthaud was of opinion that it would be better to dip it in the piscina clad as it was. Should the man resuscitate, it would be easy to procure fresh clothes for him; and in the contrary event, no harm would have been done. This is what he hastily said to the bearers; and forthwith he helped them to pass some straps under the man's hips and arms. Father Fourcade had nodded his approval of this course, whilst Father Massias prayed with increased fervour: "Breathe upon him, O Lord, and he shall be born anew! Restore his soul to him, O, Lord, that he may glorify Thee!" Making an effort, the two hospitallers now raised the man by means of the straps, carried him to the bath, and slowly lowered him into the water, at each moment fearing that he would slip away from their hold. Pierre, although overcome by horror, could not do otherwise than look at them, and thus he distinctly beheld the immersion of this corpse in its sorry garments, which on being wetted clung to the bones, outlining the skeleton-like figure of the deceased, who floated like a man who has been drowned. But the repulsive part of it all was, that in spite of the /rigor mortis/, the head fell backward into the water, and was submerged by it. In vain did the hospitallers try to raise it by pulling the shoulder straps; as they made the attempt, the man almost sank to the bottom of the bath. And how could he have recovered his breath when his mouth was full of water, his staring eyes seemingly dying afresh, beneath that watery veil? Then, during the three long minutes allowed for the immersion, the two Fathers of the Assumption and the chaplain, in a paroxysm of desire and faith, strove to compel the intervention of Heaven, praying in such loud voices that they seemed to choke. "Do Thou but look on him, O Lord, and he will live again! Lord! may he rise at Thy voice to convert the earth! Lord! Thou hast but one word to say and all Thy people will acclaim Thee!" At last, as though some vessel had broken in his throat, Father Massias fell groaning and choking on his elbows, with only enough strength left him to kiss the flagstones. And from without came the clamour of the crowd, the ever-repeated cry, which the Capuchin was still leading: "Lord, heal our sick! Lord, heal our sick!" This appeal seemed so singular at that moment, that Pierre's sufferings were increased. He could feel, too, that the Marquis was shuddering beside him. And so the relief was general when Berthaud, thoroughly annoyed with the whole business, curtly shouted to the hospitallers: "Take him out! Take him out at once!" The body was removed from the bath and laid on the stretcher, looking like the corpse of a drowned man with its sorry garments clinging to its limbs. The water was trickling from the hair, and rivulets began falling on either side, spreading out in pools on the floor. And naturally, dead as the man had been, dead he remained. The others had all risen and stood looking at him amidst a distressing silence. Then, as he was covered up and carried away, Father Fourcade followed the bier leaning on the shoulder of Father Massias and dragging his gouty leg, the painful weight of which he had momentarily forgotten. But he was already recovering his strong serenity, and as a hush fell upon the crowd outside, he could be heard saying: "My dear brothers, my dear sisters, God has not been willing to restore him to us, doubtless because in His infinite goodness He has desired to retain him among His elect." And that was all; there was no further question of the dead man. Patients were again being brought into the dressing-room, the two other baths were already occupied. And now little Gustave, who had watched that terrible scene with his keen inquisitive eyes, evincing no sign of terror, finished undressing himself. His wretched body, the body of a scrofulous child, appeared with its prominent ribs and projecting spine, its limbs so thin that they looked like mere walking-sticks. Especially was this the case as regards the left one, which was withered, wasted to the bone; and he also had two sores, one on the hip, and the other in the loins, the last a terrible one, the skin being eaten away so that you distinctly saw the raw flesh. Yet he smiled, rendered so precocious by his sufferings that, although but fifteen years old and looking no more than ten, he seemed to be endowed with the reason and philosophy of a grown man. The Marquis de Salmon-Roquebert, who had taken him gently in his arms, refused Pierre's offer of service: "Thanks, but he weighs no more than a bird. And don't be frightened, my dear little fellow. I will do it gently." "Oh, I am not afraid of cold water, monsieur," replied the boy; "you may duck me." Then he was lowered into the bath in which the dead man had been dipped. Madame Vigneron and Madame Chaise, who were not allowed to enter, had remained at the door on their knees, whilst the father, M. Vigneron, who was admitted into the dressing-room, went on making the sign of the cross. Finding that his services were no longer required, Pierre now departed. The sudden idea that three o'clock must have long since struck and that Marie must be waiting for him made him hasten his steps. However, whilst he was endeavouring to pierce the crowd, he saw the girl arrive in her little conveyance, dragged along by Gerard, who had not ceased transporting sufferers to the piscina. She had become impatient, suddenly filled with a conviction that she was at last in a frame of mind to find grace. And at sight of Pierre she reproached him, saying, "What, my friend, did you forget me?" He could find no answer, but watched her as she was taken into the piscina reserved for women, and then, in mortal sorrow, fell upon his knees. It was there that he would wait for her, humbly kneeling, in order that he might take her back to the Grotto, cured without doubt and singing a hymn of praise. Since she was certain of it, would she not assuredly be cured? However, it was in vain that he sought for words of prayer in the depths of his distracted being. He was still under the blow of all the terrible things that he had beheld, worn out with physical fatigue, his brain depressed, no longer knowing what he saw or what he believed. His desperate affection for Marie alone remained, making him long to humble himself and supplicate, in the thought that when little ones really love and entreat the powerful they end by obtaining favours. And at last he caught himself repeating the prayers of the crowd, in a distressful voice that came from the depths of his being "Lord, heal our sick! Lord, heal our sick!" Ten minutes, a quarter of an hour perhaps, went by. Then Marie reappeared in her little conveyance. Her face was very pale and wore an expression of despair. Her beautiful hair was fastened above her head in a heavy golden coil which the water had not touched. And she was not cured. The stupor of infinite discouragement hollowed and lengthened her face, and she averted her eyes as though to avoid meeting those of the priest who thunderstruck, chilled to the heart, at last made up his mind to grasp the handle of the little vehicle, so as to take the girl back to the Grotto. And meantime the cry of the faithful, who with open arms were kneeling there and kissing the earth, again rose with a growing fury, excited by the Capuchin's shrill voice: "Lord, heal our sick! Heal our sick, O Lord!" As Pierre was placing Marie in position again in front of the Grotto, an attack of weakness came over her and she almost fainted. Gerard, who was there, saw Raymonde quickly hurry to the spot with a cup of broth, and at once they began zealously rivalling each other in their attentions to the ailing girl. Raymonde, holding out the cup in a pretty way, and assuming the coaxing airs of an expert nurse, especially insisted that Marie should accept the bouillon; and Gerard, glancing at this portionless girl, could not help finding her charming, already expert in the business of life, and quite ready to manage a household with a firm hand without ceasing to be amiable. Berthaud was no doubt right, this was the wife that he, Gerard, needed. "Mademoiselle," said he to Raymonde, "shall I raise the young lady a little?" "Thank you, monsieur, I am quite strong enough. And besides I will give it to her in spoonfuls; that will be the better way." Marie, however, obstinately preserving her fierce silence as she recovered consciousness, refused the broth with a gesture. She wished to be left in quietness, she did not want anybody to question her. And it was only when the others had gone off smiling at one another, that she said to Pierre in a husky voice: "Has not my father come then?" After hesitating for a moment the priest was obliged to confess the truth. "I left him sleeping and he cannot have woke up." Then Marie relapsed into her state of languid stupor and dismissed him in his turn, with the gesture with which she declined all succour. She no longer prayed, but remained quite motionless, gazing fixedly with her large eyes at the marble Virgin, the white statue amidst the radiance of the Grotto. And as four o'clock was now striking, Pierre with his heart sore went off to the Verification Office, having suddenly remembered the appointment given him by Doctor Chassaigne. IV VERIFICATION THE doctor was waiting for the young priest outside the Verification Office, in front of which a compact and feverish crowd of pilgrims was assembled, waylaying and questioning the patients who went in, and acclaiming them as they came out whenever the news spread of any miracle, such as the restoration of some blind man's sight, some deaf woman's hearing, or some paralytic's power of motion. Pierre had no little difficulty in making his way through the throng, but at last he reached his friend. "Well," he asked, "are we going to have a miracle--a real, incontestable one I mean?" The doctor smiled, indulgent despite his new faith. "Ah, well," said he, "a miracle is not worked to order. God intervenes when He pleases." Some hospitallers were mounting guard at the door, but they all knew M. Chassaigne, and respectfully drew aside to let him enter with his companion. The office where the cures were verified was very badly installed in a wretched wooden shanty divided into two apartments, first a narrow ante-chamber, and then a general meeting room which was by no means so large as it should have been. However, there was a question of providing the department with better accommodation the following year; with which view some large premises, under one of the inclined ways of the Rosary, were already being fitted up. The only article of furniture in the antechamber was a wooden bench on which Pierre perceived two female patients awaiting their turn in the charge of a young hospitaller. But on entering the meeting room the number of persons packed inside it quite surprised him, whilst the suffocating heat within those wooden walls on which the sun was so fiercely playing, almost scorched his face. It was a square bare room, painted a light yellow, with the panes of its single window covered with whitening, so that the pressing throng outside might see nothing of what went on within. One dared not even open this window to admit a little fresh air, for it was no sooner set ajar than a crowd of inquisitive heads peeped in. The furniture was of a very rudimentary kind, consisting simply of two deal tables of unequal height placed end to end and not even covered with a cloth; together with a kind of big "canterbury" littered with untidy papers, sets of documents, registers and pamphlets, and finally some thirty rush-seated chairs placed here and there over the floor and a couple of ragged arm-chairs usually reserved for the patients. Doctor Bonamy at once hastened forward to greet Doctor Chassaigne, who was one of the latest and most glorious conquests of the Grotto. He found a chair for him and, bowing to Pierre's cassock, also made the young priest sit down. Then, in the tone of extreme politeness which was customary with him, he exclaimed: "/Mon cher confrere/, you will kindly allow me to continue. We were just examining mademoiselle." He referred to a deaf peasant girl of twenty, who was seated in one of the arm-chairs. Instead of listening, however, Pierre, who was very weary, still with a buzzing in his head, contented himself with gazing at the scene, endeavouring to form some notion of the people assembled in the room. There were some fifty altogether, many of them standing and leaning against the walls. Half a dozen, however, were seated at the two tables, a central position being occupied by the superintendent of the piscinas, who was constantly consulting a thick register; whilst around him were a Father of the Assumption and three young seminarists who acted as secretaries, writing, searching for documents, passing them and classifying them again after each examination. Pierre, however, took most interest in a Father of the Immaculate Conception, Father Dargeles, who had been pointed out to him that morning as being the editor of the "Journal de la Grotte." This ecclesiastic, whose thin little face, with its blinking eyes, pointed nose, and delicate mouth was ever smiling, had modestly seated himself at the end of the lower table where he occasionally took notes for his newspaper. He alone, of the community to which he belonged, showed himself during the three days of the national pilgrimage. Behind him, however, one could divine the presence of all the others, the slowly developed hidden power which organised everything and raked in all the proceeds. The onlookers consisted almost entirely of inquisitive people and witnesses, including a score of doctors and a few priests. The medical men, who had come from all parts, mostly preserved silence, only a few of them occasionally venturing to ask a question; and every now and then they would exchange oblique glances, more occupied apparently in watching one another than in verifying the facts submitted to their examination. Who could they be? Some names were mentioned, but they were quite unknown. Only one had caused any stir, that of a celebrated doctor, professor at a Catholic university. That afternoon, however, Doctor Bonamy, who never sat down, busy as he was conducting the proceedings and questioning the patients, reserved most of his attentions for a short, fair-haired man, a writer of some talent who contributed to one of the most widely read Paris newspapers, and who, in the course of a holiday tour, had by chance reached Lourdes that morning. Was not this an unbeliever whom it might be possible to convert, whose influence it would be desirable to gain for advertisement's sake? Such at all events appeared to be M. Bonamy's opinion, for he had compelled the journalist to take the second arm-chair, and with an affectation of smiling good-nature was treating him to a full performance, again and again repeating that he and his patrons had nothing to hide, and that everything took place in the most open manner. "We only desire light," he exclaimed. "We never cease to call for the investigations of all willing men." Then, as the alleged cure of the deaf girl did not seem at all a promising case, he addressed her somewhat roughly: "Come, come, my girl, this is only a beginning. You must come back when there are more distinct signs of improvement." And turning to the journalist he added in an undertone: "If we were to believe them they would all be healed. But the only cures we accept are those which are thoroughly proven, which are as apparent as the sun itself. Pray notice moreover that I say cures and not miracles; for we doctors do not take upon ourselves to interpret and explain. We are simply here to see if the patients, who submit themselves to our examination, have really lost all symptoms of their ailments." Thereupon he struck an attitude. Doubtless he spoke like this in order that his rectitude might not be called in question. Believing without believing, he knew that science was yet so obscure, so full of surprises, that what seemed impossible might always come to pass; and thus, in the declining years of his life, he had contrived to secure an exceptional position at the Grotto, a position which had both its inconveniences and its advantages, but which, taken for all in all, was very comfortable and pleasant. And now, in reply to a question from the Paris journalist, he began to explain his mode of proceeding. Each patient who accompanied the pilgrimage arrived provided with papers, amongst which there was almost always a certificate of the doctor who had been attending the case. At times even there were certificates given by several doctors, hospital bulletins and so forth--quite a record of the illness in its various stages. And thus if a cure took place and the cured person came forward, it was only necessary to consult his or her set of documents in order to ascertain the nature of the ailment, and then examination would show if that ailment had really disappeared. Pierre was now listening. Since he had been there, seated and resting himself, he had grown calmer, and his mind was clear once more. It was only the heat which at present caused him any inconvenience. And thus, interested as he was by Doctor Bonamy's explanations, and desirous of forming an opinion, he would have spoken out and questioned, had it not been for his cloth which condemned him to remain in the background. He was delighted, therefore, when the little fair-haired gentleman, the influential writer, began to bring forward the objections which at once occurred to him.* Was it not most unfortunate that one doctor should diagnose the illness and that another one should verify the cure? In this mode of proceeding there was certainly a source of frequent error. The better plan would have been for a medical commission to examine all the patients as soon as they arrived at Lourdes and draw up reports on every case, to which reports the same commission would have referred whenever an alleged cure was brought before it. Doctor Bonamy, however, did not fall in with this suggestion. He replied, with some reason, that a commission would never suffice for such gigantic labour. Just think of it! A thousand patients to examine in a single morning! And how many different theories there would be, how many contrary diagnoses, how many endless discussions, all of a nature to increase the general uncertainty! The preliminary examination of the patients, which was almost always impossible, would, even if attempted, leave the door open for as many errors as the present system. In practice, it was necessary to remain content with the certificates delivered by the medical men who had been in attendance on the patients, and these certificates accordingly acquired capital, decisive importance. Doctor Bonamy ran through the documents lying on one of the tables and gave the Paris journalist some of these certificates to read. A great many of them unfortunately were very brief. Others, more skilfully drawn up, clearly specified the nature of the complaint; and some of the doctors' signatures were even certified by the mayors of the localities where they resided. Nevertheless doubts remained, innumerable and not to be surmounted. Who were these doctors? Who could tell if they possessed sufficient scientific authority to write as they did? With all respect to the medical profession, were there not innumerable doctors whose attainments were very limited? And, besides, might not these have been influenced by circumstances that one knew nothing of, in some cases by considerations of a personal character? One was tempted to ask for an inquiry respecting each of these medical men. Since everything was based on the documents supplied by the patients, these documents ought to have been most carefully controlled; for there could be no proof of any miracle if the absolute certainty of the alleged ailments had not been demonstrated by stringent examination. * The reader will doubtless have understood that the Parisian journalist is none other than M. Zola himself--Trans. Very red and covered with perspiration, Doctor Bonamy waved his arms. "But that is the course we follow, that is the course we follow!" said he. "As soon as it seems to us that a case of cure cannot be explained by natural means, we institute a minute inquiry, we request the person who has been cured to return here for further examination. And as you can see, we surround ourselves with all means of enlightenment. These gentlemen here, who are listening to us, are nearly every one of them doctors who have come from all parts of France. We always entreat them to express their doubts if they feel any, to discuss the cases with us, and a very detailed report of each discussion is drawn up. You hear me, gentlemen; by all means protest if anything occurs here of a nature to offend your sense of truth." Not one of the onlookers spoke. Most of the doctors present were undoubtedly Catholics, and naturally enough they merely bowed. As for the others, the unbelievers, the /savants/ pure and simple, they looked on and evinced some interest in certain phenomena, but considerations of courtesy deterred them from entering into discussions which they knew would have been useless. When as men of sense their discomfort became too great, and they felt themselves growing angry, they simply left the room. As nobody breathed a word, Doctor Bonamy became quite triumphant, and on the journalist asking him if he were all alone to accomplish so much work, he replied: "Yes, all alone; but my functions as doctor of the Grotto are not so complicated as you may think, for, I repeat it, they simply consist in verifying cures whenever any take place." However, he corrected himself, and added with a smile: "All! I was forgetting, I am not quite alone, I have Raboin, who helps me to keep things a little bit in order here." So saying, he pointed to a stout, grey-haired man of forty, with a heavy face and bull-dog jaw. Raboin was an ardent believer, one of those excited beings who did not allow the miracles to be called in question. And thus he often suffered from his duties at the Verification Office, where he was ever ready to growl with anger when anybody disputed a prodigy. The appeal to the doctors had made him quite lose his temper, and his superior had to calm him. "Come, Raboin, my friend, be quiet!" said Doctor Bonamy. "All sincere opinions are entitled to a hearing." However, the /defile/ of patients was resumed. A man was now brought in whose trunk was so covered with eczema that when he took off his shirt a kind of grey flour fell from his skin. He was not cured, but simply declared that he came to Lourdes every year, and always went away feeling relieved. Then came a lady, a countess, who was fearfully emaciated, and whose story was an extraordinary one. Cured of tuberculosis by the Blessed Virgin, a first time, seven years previously, she had subsequently given birth to four children, and had then again fallen into consumption. At present she was a morphinomaniac, but her first bath had already relieved her so much, that she proposed taking part in the torchlight procession that same evening with the twenty-seven members of her family whom she had brought with her to Lourdes. Then there was a woman afflicted with nervous aphonia, who after months of absolute dumbness had just recovered her voice at the moment when the Blessed Sacrament went by at the head of the four o'clock procession. "Gentlemen," declared Doctor Bonamy, affecting the graciousness of a /savant/ of extremely liberal views, "as you are aware, we do not draw any conclusions when a nervous affection is in question. Still you will kindly observe that this woman was treated at the Salpetriere for six months, and that she had to come here to find her tongue suddenly loosened." Despite all these fine words he displayed some little impatience, for he would have greatly liked to show the gentleman from Paris one of those remarkable instances of cure which occasionally presented themselves during the four o'clock procession--that being the moment of grace and exaltation when the Blessed Virgin interceded for those whom she had chosen. But on this particular afternoon there had apparently been none. The cures which had so far passed before them were doubtful ones, deficient in interest. Meanwhile, out-of-doors, you could hear the stamping and roaring of the crowd, goaded into a frenzy by repeated hymns, enfevered by its earnest desire for the Divine interposition, and growing more and more enervated by the delay. All at once, however, a smiling, modest-looking young girl, whose clear eyes sparkled with intelligence, entered the office. "Ah!" exclaimed Doctor Bonamy joyously, "here is our little friend Sophie. A remarkable cure, gentlemen, which took place at the same season last year, and the results of which I will ask permission to show you." Pierre had immediately recognized Sophie Couteau, the /miraculee/ who had got into the train at Poitiers. And he now witnessed a repetition of the scene which had already been enacted in his presence. Doctor Bonamy began giving detailed explanations to the little fair-haired gentleman, who displayed great attention. The case, said the doctor, had been one of caries of the bones of the left heel, with a commencement of necrosis necessitating excision; and yet the frightful, suppurating sore had been healed in a minute at the first immersion in the piscina. "Tell the gentlemen how it happened, Sophie," he added. The little girl made her usual pretty gesture as a sign to everybody to be attentive. And then she began: "Well, it was like this; my foot was past cure, I couldn't even go to church any more, and it had to be kept bandaged because there was always a lot of matter coming from it. Monsieur Rivoire, the doctor, who had made a cut in it so as to see inside it, said that he should be obliged to take out a piece of the bone; and that, sure enough, would have made me lame for life. But when I got to Lourdes, and had prayed a great deal to the Blessed Virgin, I went to dip my foot in the water, wishing so much that I might be cured, that I did not even take the time to pull the bandages off. And everything remained in the water; there was no longer anything the matter with my foot when I took it out." Doctor Bonamy listened, and punctuated each word with an approving nod. "And what did your doctor say, Sophie?" he asked. "When I got back to Vivonne, and Monsieur Rivoire saw my foot again, he said: 'Whether it be God or the Devil who has cured this child, it is all the same to me; but in all truth, she is cured.'" A burst of laughter rang out. The doctor's remark was sure to produce an effect. "And what was it, Sophie, that you said to Madame la Comtesse, the superintendent of your ward?" "Ah, yes! I hadn't brought many bandages for my foot with me, and I said to her, 'It was very kind of the Blessed Virgin to cure me the first day, as I should have run out of linen on the morrow.'" Then there was fresh laughter, a general display of satisfaction at seeing her look so pretty, telling her story, which she now knew by heart, in too recitative a manner, but, nevertheless, remaining very touching and truthful in appearance. "Take off your shoe, Sophie," now said Doctor Bonamy; "show your foot to these gentlemen. Let them feel it. Nobody must retain any doubt." The little foot promptly appeared, very white, very clean, carefully tended indeed, with its scar just below the ankle, a long scar, whose whity seam testified to the gravity of the complaint. Some of the medical men had drawn near, and looked on in silence. Others, whose opinions, no doubt, were already formed, did not disturb themselves, though one of them, with an air of extreme politeness, inquired why the Blessed Virgin had not made a new foot while she was about it, for this would assuredly have given her no more trouble. Doctor Bonamy, however, quickly replied, that if the Blessed Virgin had left a scar, it was certainly in order that a trace, a proof of the miracle, might remain. Then he entered into technical particulars, demonstrating that a fragment of bone and flesh must have been instantly formed, and this, of course, could not be explained in any natural way. "/Mon Dieu/!" interrupted the little fair-haired gentleman, "there is no need of any such complicated affair. Let me merely see a finger cut with a penknife, let me see it dipped in the water, and let it come out with the cut cicatrised. The miracle will be quite as great, and I shall bow to it respectfully." Then he added: "If I possessed a source which could thus close up sores and wounds, I would turn the world topsy-turvy. I do not know exactly how I should manage it, but at all events I would summon the nations, and the nations would come. I should cause the miracles to be verified in such an indisputable manner, that I should be the master of the earth. Just think what an extraordinary power it would be--a divine power. But it would be necessary that not a doubt should remain, the truth would have to be as patent, as apparent as the sun itself. The whole world would behold it and believe!" Then he began discussing various methods of control with the doctor. He had admitted that, owing to the great number of patients, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to examine them all on their arrival. Only, why didn't they organise a special ward at the hospital, a ward which would be reserved for cases of visible sores? They would have thirty such cases all told, which might be subjected to the preliminary examination of a committee. Authentic reports would be drawn up, and the sores might even be photographed. Then, if a case of cure should present itself, the commission would merely have to authenticate it by a fresh report. And in all this there would be no question of any internal complaint, the diagnostication of which is difficult, and liable to be controverted. There would be visible evidence of the ailment, and cure could be proved. Somewhat embarrassed, Doctor Bonamy replied: "No doubt, no doubt; all we ask for is enlightenment. The difficulty would be in forming the committee you speak of. If you only knew how little medical men agree! However, there is certainly an idea in what you say." Fortunately a fresh patient now came to his assistance. Whilst little Sophie Couteau, already forgotten, was putting on, her shoes again, Elise Rouquet appeared, and, removing her wrap, displayed her diseased face to view. She related that she had been bathing it with her handkerchief ever since the morning, and it seemed to her that her sore, previously so fresh and raw, was already beginning to dry and grow paler in colour. This was true; Pierre noticed, with great surprise, that the aspect of the sore was now less horrible. This supplied fresh food for the discussion on visible sores, for the little fair-haired gentleman clung obstinately to his idea of organising a special ward. Indeed, said he, if the condition of this girl had been verified that morning, and she should be cured, what a triumph it would have been for the Grotto, which could have claimed to have healed a lupus! It would then have no longer been possible to deny that miracles were worked. Doctor Chassaigne had so far kept in the background, motionless and silent, as though he desired that the facts alone should exercise their influence on Pierre. But he now leant forward and said to him in an undertone: "Visible sores, visible sores indeed! That gentleman can have no idea that our most learned medical men suspect many of these sores to be of nervous origin. Yes, we are discovering that complaints of this kind are often simply due to bad nutrition of the skin. These questions of nutrition are still so imperfectly studied and understood! And some medical men are also beginning to prove that the faith which heals can even cure sores, certain forms of lupus among others. And so I would ask what certainty that gentleman would obtain with his ward for visible sores? There would simply be a little more confusion and passion in arguing the eternal question. No, no! Science is vain, it is a sea of uncertainty." He smiled sorrowfully whilst Doctor Bonamy, after advising Elise Rouquet to continue using the water as lotion and to return each day for further examination, repeated with his prudent, affable air: "At all events, gentlemen, there are signs of improvement in this case--that is beyond doubt." But all at once the office was fairly turned topsy-turvy by the arrival of La Grivotte, who swept in like a whirlwind, almost dancing with delight and shouting in a full voice: "I am cured! I am cured!" And forthwith she began to relate that they had first of all refused to bathe her, and that she had been obliged to insist and beg and sob in order to prevail upon them to do so, after receiving Father Fourcade's express permission. And then it had all happened as she had previously said it would. She had not been immersed in the icy water for three minutes--all perspiring as she was with her consumptive rattle--before she had felt strength returning to her like a whipstroke lashing her whole body. And now a flaming excitement possessed her; radiant, stamping her feet, she was unable to keep still. "I am cured, my good gentlemen, I am cured!" Pierre looked at her, this time quite stupefied. Was this the same girl whom, on the previous night, he had seen lying on the carriage seat, annihilated, coughing and spitting blood, with her face of ashen hue? He could not recognise her as she now stood there, erect and slender, her cheeks rosy, her eyes sparkling, upbuoyed by a determination to live, a joy in living already. "Gentlemen," declared Doctor Bonamy, "the case appears to me to be a very interesting one. We will see." Then he asked for the documents concerning La Grivotte. But they could not be found among all the papers heaped together on the tables. The young seminarists who acted as secretaries began turning everything over; and the superintendent of the piscinas who sat in their midst himself had to get up to see if these documents were in the "canterbury." At last, when he had sat down again, he found them under the register which lay open before him. Among them were three medical certificates which he read aloud. All three of them agreed in stating that the case was one of advanced phthisis, complicated by nervous incidents which invested it with a peculiar character. Doctor Bonamy wagged his head as though to say that such an /ensemble/ of testimony could leave no room for doubt. Forthwith, he subjected the patient to a prolonged auscultation. And he murmured: "I hear nothing--I hear nothing." Then, correcting himself, he added: "At least I hear scarcely anything." Finally he turned towards the five-and-twenty or thirty doctors who were assembled there in silence. "Will some of you gentlemen," he asked, "kindly lend me the help of your science? We are here to study and discuss these questions." At first nobody stirred. Then there was one who ventured to come forward and, in his turn subject the patient to auscultation. But instead of declaring himself, he continued reflecting, shaking his head anxiously. At last he stammered that in his opinion one must await further developments. Another doctor, however, at once took his place, and this one expressed a decided opinion. He could hear nothing at all, that woman could never have suffered from phthisis. Then others followed him; in fact, with the exception of five or six whose smiling faces remained impenetrable, they all joined the /defile/. And the confusion now attained its apogee; for each gave an opinion sensibly differing from that of his colleagues, so that a general uproar arose and one could no longer hear oneself speak. Father Dargeles alone retained the calmness of perfect serenity, for he had scented one of those cases which impassion people and redound to the glory of Our Lady of Lourdes. He was already taking notes on a corner of the table. Thanks to all the noise of the discussion, Pierre and Doctor Chassaigne, seated at some distance from the others, were now able to talk together without being heard. "Oh! those piscinas!" said the young priest, "I have just seen them. To think that the water should be so seldom changed! What filth it is, what a soup of microbes! What a terrible blow for the present-day mania, that rage for antiseptic precautions! How is it that some pestilence does not carry off all these poor people? The opponents of the microbe theory must be having a good laugh--" M. Chassaigne stopped him. "No, no, my child," said he. "The baths may be scarcely clean, but they offer no danger. Please notice that the temperature of the water never rises above fifty degrees, and that seventy-seven are necessary for the cultivation of germs.* Besides, scarcely any contagious diseases come to Lourdes, neither cholera, nor typhus, nor variola, nor measles, nor scarlatina. We only see certain organic affections here, paralysis, scrofula, tumours, ulcers and abscesses, cancers and phthisis; and the latter cannot be transmitted by the water of the baths. The old sores which are bathed have nothing to fear, and offer no risk of contagion. I can assure you that on this point there is even no necessity for the Blessed Virgin to intervene." * The above are Fahrenheit degrees.--Trans. "Then, in that case, doctor," rejoined Pierre, "when you were practising, you would have dipped all your patients in icy water--women at no matter what season, rheumatic patients, people suffering from diseases of the heart, consumptives, and so on? For instance, that unhappy girl, half dead, and covered with sweat--would you have bathed her?" "Certainly not! There are heroic methods of treatment to which, in practice, one does not dare to have recourse. An icy bath may undoubtedly kill a consumptive; but do we know, whether, in certain circumstances, it might not save her? I, who have ended by admitting that a supernatural power is at work here, I willingly admit that some cures must take place under natural conditions, thanks to that immersion in cold water which seems to us idiotic and barbarous. Ah! the things we don't know, the things we don't know!" He was relapsing into his anger, his hatred of science, which he scorned since it had left him scared and powerless beside the deathbed of his wife and his daughter. "You ask for certainties," he resumed, "but assuredly it is not medicine which will give you them. Listen for a moment to those gentlemen and you will be edified. Is it not beautiful, all that confusion in which so many opinions clash together? Certainly there are ailments with which one is thoroughly acquainted, even to the most minute details of their evolution; there are remedies also, the effects of which have been studied with the most scrupulous care; but the thing that one does not know, that one cannot know, is the relation of the remedy to the ailment, for there are as many cases as there may be patients, each liable to variation, so that experimentation begins afresh every time. This is why the practice of medicine remains an art, for there can be no experimental finality in it. Cure always depends on chance, on some fortunate circumstance, on some bright idea of the doctor's. And so you will understand that all the people who come and discuss here make me laugh when they talk about the absolute laws of science. Where are those laws in medicine? I should like to have them shown to me." He did not wish to say any more, but his passion carried him away, so he went on: "I told you that I had become a believer--nevertheless, to speak the truth, I understand very well why this worthy Doctor Bonamy is so little affected, and why he continues calling upon doctors in all parts of the world to come and study his miracles. The more doctors that might come, the less likelihood there would be of the truth being established in the inevitable battle between contradictory diagnoses and methods of treatment. If men cannot agree about a visible sore, they surely cannot do so about an internal lesion the existence of which will be admitted by some, and denied by others. And why then should not everything become a miracle? For, after all, whether the action comes from nature or from some unknown power, medical men are, as a rule, none the less astonished when an illness terminates in a manner which they have not foreseen. No doubt, too, things are very badly organised here. Those certificates from doctors whom nobody knows have no real value. All documents ought to be stringently inquired into. But even admitting any absolute scientific strictness, you must be very simple, my dear child, if you imagine that a positive conviction would be arrived at, absolute for one and all. Error is implanted in man, and there is no more difficult task than that of demonstrating to universal satisfaction the most insignificant truth." Pierre had now begun to understand what was taking place at Lourdes, the extraordinary spectacle which the world had been witnessing for years, amidst the reverent admiration of some and the insulting laughter of others. Forces as yet but imperfectly studied, of which one was even ignorant, were certainly at work--auto-suggestion, long prepared disturbance of the nerves; inspiriting influence of the journey, the prayers, and the hymns; and especially the healing breath, the unknown force which was evolved from the multitude, in the acute crisis of faith. Thus it seemed to him anything but intelligent to believe in trickery. The facts were both of a much more lofty and much more simple nature. There was no occasion for the Fathers of the Grotto to descend to falsehood; it was sufficient that they should help in creating confusion, that they should utilise the universal ignorance. It might even be admitted that everybody acted in good faith--the doctors void of genius who delivered the certificates, the consoled patients who believed themselves cured, and the impassioned witnesses who swore that they had beheld what they described. And from all this was evolved the obvious impossibility of proving whether there was a miracle or not. And such being the case, did not the miracle naturally become a reality for the greater number, for all those who suffered and who had need of hope? Then, as Doctor Bonamy, who had noticed that they were chatting apart, came up to them, Pierre ventured to inquire: "What is about the proportion of the cures to the number of cases?" "About ten per cent.," answered the doctor; and reading in the young priest's eyes the words that he could not utter, he added in a very cordial way: "Oh! there would be many more, they would all be cured if we chose to listen to them. But it is as well to say it, I am only here to keep an eye on the miracles, like a policeman as it were. My only functions are to check excessive zeal, and to prevent holy things from being made ridiculous. In one word, this office is simply an office where a /visa/ is given when the cures have been verified and seem real ones." He was interrupted, however, by a low growl. Raboin was growing angry: "The cures verified, the cures verified," he muttered. "What is the use of that? There is no pause in the working of the miracles. What is the use of verifying them so far as believers are concerned? /They/ merely have to bow down and believe. And what is the use, too, as regards the unbelievers? /They/ will never be convinced. The work we do here is so much foolishness." Doctor Bonamy severely ordered him to hold his tongue. "You are a rebel, Raboin," said he; "I shall tell Father Capdebarthe that I won't have you here any longer since you pass your time in sowing disobedience." Nevertheless, there was truth in what had just been said by this man, who so promptly showed his teeth, eager to bite whenever his faith was assailed; and Pierre looked at him with sympathy. All the work of the Verification Office--work anything but well performed--was indeed useless, for it wounded the feelings of the pious, and failed to satisfy the incredulous. Besides, can a miracle be proved? No, you must believe in it! When God is pleased to intervene, it is not for man to try to understand. In the ages of real belief, Science did not make any meddlesome attempt to explain the nature of the Divinity. And why should it come and interfere here? By doing so, it simply hampered faith and diminished its own prestige. No, no, there must be no Science, you must throw yourself upon the ground, kiss it, and believe. Or else you must take yourself off. No compromise was possible. If examination once began it must go on, and must, fatally, conduct to doubt. Pierre's greatest sufferings, however, came from the extraordinary conversations which he heard around him. There were some believers present who spoke of the miracles with the most amazing ease and tranquillity. The most stupefying stories left their serenity entire. Another miracle, and yet another! And with smiles on their faces, their reason never protesting, they went on relating such imaginings as could only have come from diseased brains. They were evidently living in such a state of visionary fever that nothing henceforth could astonish them. And not only did Pierre notice this among folks of simple, childish minds, illiterate, hallucinated creatures like Raboin, but also among the men of intellect, the men with cultivated brains, the /savants/ like Doctor Bonamy and others. It was incredible. And thus Pierre felt a growing discomfort arising within him, a covert anger which would doubtless end by bursting forth. His reason was struggling, like that of some poor wretch who after being flung into a river, feels the waters seize him from all sides and stifle him; and he reflected that the minds which, like Doctor Chassaigne's, sink at last into blind belief, must pass though this same discomfort and struggle before the final shipwreck. He glanced at his old friend and saw how sorrowful he looked, struck down by destiny, as weak as a crying child, and henceforth quite alone in life. Nevertheless, he was unable to check the cry of protest which rose to his lips: "No, no, if we do not know everything, even if we shall never know everything, there is no reason why we should leave off learning. It is wrong that the Unknown should profit by man's debility and ignorance. On the contrary, the eternal hope should be that the things which now seem inexplicable will some day be explained; and we cannot, under healthy conditions, have any other ideal than this march towards the discovery of the Unknown, this victory slowly achieved by reason amidst all the miseries both of the flesh and of the mind. Ah! reason--it is my reason which makes me suffer, and it is from my reason too that I await all my strength. When reason dies, the whole being perishes. And I feel but an ardent thirst to satisfy my reason more and more, even though I may lose all happiness in doing so." Tears were appearing in Doctor Chassaigne's eyes; doubtless the memory of his dear dead ones had again flashed upon him. And, in his turn, he murmured: "Reason, reason, yes, certainly it is a thing to be very proud of; it embodies the very dignity of life. But there is love, which is life's omnipotence, the one blessing to be won again when you have lost it." His voice sank in a stifled sob; and as in a mechanical way he began to finger the sets of documents lying on the table, he espied among them one whose cover bore the name of Marie de Guersaint in large letters. He opened it and read the certificates of the two doctors who had inferred that the case was one of paralysis of the marrow. "Come, my child," he then resumed, "I know that you feel warm affection for Mademoiselle de Guersaint. What should you say if she were cured here? There are here some certificates, bearing honourable names, and you know that paralysis of this nature is virtually incurable. Well, if this young person should all at once run and jump about as I have seen so many others do, would you not feel very happy, would you not at last acknowledge the intervention of a supernatural power?" Pierre was about to reply, when he suddenly remembered his cousin Beauclair's expression of opinion, the prediction that the miracle would come about like a lightning stroke, an awakening, an exaltation of the whole being; and he felt his discomfort increase and contented himself with replying: "Yes, indeed, I should be very happy. And you are right; there is doubtless only a determination to secure happiness in all the agitation one beholds here." However, he could remain in that office no longer. The heat was becoming so great that perspiration streamed down the faces of those present. Doctor Bonamy had begun to dictate a report of the examination of La Grivotte to one of the seminarists, while Father Dargeles, watchful with regard to the phraseology employed, occasionally rose and whispered some verbal alteration in the writer's ear. Meantime, the tumult around them was continuing; the discussion among the medical men had taken another turn and now bore on certain technical points of no significance with regard to the case in question. You could no longer breathe within those wooden walls, nausea was upsetting every heart and every head. The little fair-haired gentleman, the influential writer from Paris, had already gone away, quite vexed at not having seen a real miracle. Pierre thereupon said to Doctor Chassaigne, "Let us go; I shall be taken ill if I stay here any longer." They left the office at the same time as La Grivotte, who was at last being dismissed. And as soon as they reached the door they found themselves caught in a torrential, surging, jostling crowd, which was eager to behold the girl so miraculously healed; for the report of the miracle must have already spread, and one and all were struggling to see the chosen one, question her, and touch her. And she, with her empurpled cheeks, her flaming eyes, her dancing gait, could do nothing but repeat, "I am cured, I am cured!" Shouts drowned her voice, she herself was submerged, carried off amidst the eddies of the throng. For a moment one lost sight of her as though she had sunk in those tumultuous waters; then she suddenly reappeared close to Pierre and the doctor, who endeavoured to extricate her from the crush. They had just perceived the Commander, one of whose manias was to come down to the piscinas and the Grotto in order to vent his anger there. With his frock-coat tightly girding him in military fashion, he was, as usual, leaning on his silver-knobbed walking-stick, slightly dragging his left leg, which his second attack of paralysis had stiffened. And his face reddened and his eyes flashed with anger when La Grivotte, pushing him aside in order that she might pass, repeated amidst the wild enthusiasm of the crowd, "I am cured, I am cured!" "Well!" he cried, seized with sudden fury, "so much the worse for you, my girl!" Exclamations arose, folks began to laugh, for he was well known, and his maniacal passion for death was forgiven him. However, when he began stammering confused words, saying that it was pitiful to desire life when one was possessed of neither beauty nor fortune, and that this girl ought to have preferred to die at once rather than suffer again, people began to growl around him, and Abbe Judaine, who was passing, had to extricate him from his trouble. The priest drew him away. "Be quiet, my friend, be quiet," he said. "It is scandalous. Why do you rebel like this against the goodness of God who occasionally shows His compassion for our sufferings by alleviating them? I tell you again that you yourself ought to fall on your knees and beg Him to restore to you the use of your leg and let you live another ten years." The Commander almost choked with anger. "What!" he replied, "ask to live for another ten years, when my finest day will be the day I die! Show myself as spiritless, as cowardly as the thousands of patients whom I see pass along here, full of a base terror of death, shrieking aloud their weakness, their passion to remain alive! Ah! no, I should feel too much contempt for myself. I want to die!--to die at once! It will be so delightful to be no more." He was at last out of the scramble of the pilgrims, and again found himself near Doctor Chassaigne and Pierre on the bank of the Gave. And he addressed himself to the doctor, whom he often met: "Didn't they try to restore a dead man to life just now?" he asked; "I was told of it--it almost suffocated me. Eh, doctor? You understand? That man was happy enough to be dead, and they dared to dip him in their water in the criminal hope to make him alive again! But suppose they had succeeded, suppose their water had animated that poor devil once more--for one never knows what may happen in this funny world--don't you think that the man would have had a perfect right to spit his anger in the face of those corpse-menders? Had he asked them to awaken him? How did they know if he were not well pleased at being dead? Folks ought to be consulted at any rate. Just picture them playing the same vile trick on me when I at last fall into the great deep sleep. Ah! I would give them a nice reception. 'Meddle with what concerns you,' I should say, and you may be sure I should make all haste to die again!" He looked so singular in the fit of rage which had come over him that Abbe Judaine and the doctor could not help smiling. Pierre, however, remained grave, chilled by the great quiver which swept by. Were not those words he had just heard the despairing imprecations of Lazarus? He had often imagined Lazarus emerging from the tomb and crying aloud: "Why hast Thou again awakened me to this abominable life, O Lord? I was sleeping the eternal, dreamless sleep so deeply; I was at last enjoying such sweet repose amidst the delights of nihility! I had known every wretchedness and every dolour, treachery, vain hope, defeat, sickness; as one of the living I had paid my frightful debt to suffering, for I was born without knowing why, and I lived without knowing how; and now, behold, O Lord, Thou requirest me to pay my debt yet again; Thou condemnest me to serve my term of punishment afresh! Have I then been guilty of some inexpiable transgression that thou shouldst inflict such cruel chastisement upon me? Alas! to live again, to feel oneself die a little in one's flesh each day, to have no intelligence save such as is required in order to doubt; no will, save such as one must have to be unable; no tenderness, save such as is needed to weep over one's own sorrows. Yet it was passed, I had crossed the terrifying threshold of death, I had known that second which is so horrible that it sufficeth to poison the whole of life. I had felt the sweat of agony cover me with moisture, the blood flow back from my limbs, my breath forsake me, flee away in a last gasp. And Thou ordainest that I should know this distress a second time, that I should die twice, that my human misery should exceed that of all mankind. Then may it be even now, O Lord! Yes, I entreat Thee, do also this great miracle; may I once more lay myself down in this grave, and again fall asleep without suffering from the interruption of my eternal slumber. Have mercy upon me, and forbear from inflicting on me the torture of living yet again; that torture which is so frightful that Thou hast never inflicted it on any being. I have always loved Thee and served Thee; and I beseech Thee do not make of me the greatest example of Thy wrath, a cause of terror unto all generations. But show unto me Thy gentleness and loving kindness, O Lord! restore unto me the slumber I have earned, and let me sleep once more amid the delights of Thy nihility." While Pierre was pondering in this wise, Abbe Judaine had led the Commander away, at last managing to calm him; and now the young priest shook hands with Doctor Chassaigne, recollecting that it was past five o'clock, and that Marie must be waiting for him. On his way back to the Grotto, however, he encountered the Abbe des Hermoises deep in conversation with M. de Guersaint, who had only just left his room at the hotel, and was quite enlivened by his good nap. He and his companion were admiring the extraordinary beauty which the fervour of faith imparted to some women's countenances, and they also spoke of their projected trip to the Cirque de Gavarnie. On learning, however, that Marie had taken a first bath with no effect, M. de Guersaint at once followed Pierre. They found the poor girl still in the same painful stupor, with her eyes still fixed on the Blessed Virgin who had not deigned to hear her. She did not answer the loving words which her father addressed to her, but simply glanced at him with her large distressful eyes, and then again turned them upon the marble statue which looked so white amid the radiance of the tapers. And whilst Pierre stood waiting to take her back to the hospital, M. de Guersaint devoutly fell upon his knees. At first he prayed with passionate ardour for his daughter's cure, and then he solicited, on his own behalf, the favour of finding some wealthy person who would provide him with the million francs that he needed for his studies on aerial navigation. V BERNADETTE'S TRIALS ABOUT eleven o'clock that night, leaving M. de Guersaint in his room at the Hotel of the Apparitions, it occurred to Pierre to return for a moment to the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours before going to bed himself. He had left Marie in such a despairing state, so fiercely silent, that he was full of anxiety about her. And when he had asked for Madame de Jonquiere at the door of the Sainte-Honorine Ward he became yet more anxious, for the news was by no means good. The young girl, said the superintendent, had not even opened her mouth. She would answer nobody, and had even refused to eat. Madame de Jonquiere, insisted therefore that Pierre should come in. True, the presence of men was forbidden in the women's wards at night-time, but then a priest is not a man. "She only cares for you and will only listen to you," said the worthy lady. "Pray come in and sit down near her till Abbe Judaine arrives. He will come at about one in the morning to administer the communion to our more afflicted sufferers, those who cannot move and who have to eat at daybreak. You will be able to assist him." Pierre thereupon followed Madame de Jonquiere, who installed him at the head of Marie's bed. "My dear child," she said to the girl, "I have brought you somebody who is very fond of you. You will be able to chat with him, and you will be reasonable now, won't you?" Marie, however, on recognising Pierre, gazed at him with an air of exasperated suffering, a black, stern expression of revolt. "Would you like him to read something to you," resumed Madame de Jonquiere, "something that would ease and console you as he did in the train? No? It wouldn't interest you, you don't care for it? Well, we will see by-and-by. I will leave him with you, and I am sure you will be quite reasonable again in a few minutes." Pierre then began speaking to her in a low voice, saying all the kind consoling things that his heart could think of, and entreating her not to allow herself to sink into such despair. If the Blessed Virgin had not cured her on the first day, it was because she reserved her for some conspicuous miracle. But he spoke in vain. Marie had turned her head away, and did not even seem to listen as she lay there with a bitter expression on her mouth and a gleam of irritation in her eyes, which wandered away into space. Accordingly he ceased speaking and began to gaze at the ward around him. The spectacle was a frightful one. Never before had such a nausea of pity and terror affected his heart. They had long since dined, nevertheless plates of food which had been brought up from the kitchens still lay about the beds; and all through the night there were some who ate whilst others continued restlessly moaning, asking to be turned over or helped out of bed. As the hours went by a kind of vague delirium seemed to come upon almost all of them. Very few were able to sleep quietly. Some had been undressed and were lying between the sheets, but the greater number were simply stretched out on the beds, it being so difficult to get their clothes off that they did not even change their linen during the five days of the pilgrimage. In the semi-obscurity, moreover, the obstruction of the ward seemed to have increased. To the fifteen beds ranged along the walls and the seven mattresses filling the central space, some fresh pallets had been added, and on all sides there was a confused litter of ragged garments, old baskets, boxes, and valises. Indeed, you no longer knew where to step. Two smoky lanterns shed but a dim light upon this encampment of dying women, in which a sickly smell prevailed; for, instead of any freshness, merely the heavy heat of the August night came in through the two windows which had been left ajar. Nightmare-like shadows and cries sped to and fro, peopling the inferno, amidst the nocturnal agony of so much accumulated suffering. However, Pierre recognised Raymonde, who, her duties over, had come to kiss her mother, before going to sleep in one of the garrets reserved to the Sisters of the hospital. For her own part, Madame de Jonquiere, taking her functions to heart, did not close her eyes during the three nights spent at Lourdes. She certainly had an arm-chair in which to rest herself, but she never sat down in it for a moment with out being disturbed. It must be admitted that she was bravely seconded by little Madame Desagneaux, who displayed such enthusiastic zeal that Sister Hyacinthe asked her, with a smile: "Why don't you take the vows?" whereupon she responded, with an air of scared surprise: "Oh! I can't, I'm married, you know, and I'm very fond of my husband." As for Madame Volmar, she had not even shown herself; but it was alleged that Madame de Jonquiere had sent her to bed on hearing her complain of a frightful headache. And this had put Madame Desagneaux in quite a temper; for, as she sensibly enough remarked, a person had no business to offer to nurse the sick when the slightest exertion exhausted her. She herself, however, at last began to feel her legs and arms aching, though she would not admit it, but hastened to every patient whom she heard calling, ever ready as she was to lend a helping hand. In Paris she would have rung for a servant rather than have moved a candlestick herself; but here she was ever coming and going, bringing and emptying basins, and passing her arms around patients to hold them up, whilst Madame de Jonquiere slipped pillows behind them. However, shortly after eleven o'clock, she was all at once overpowered. Having imprudently stretched herself in the armchair for a moment's rest, she there fell soundly asleep, her pretty head sinking on one of her shoulders amidst her lovely, wavy fair hair, which was all in disorder. And from that moment neither moan nor call, indeed no sound whatever, could waken her. Madame de Jonquiere, however, had softly approached the young priest again. "I had an idea," said she in a low voice, "of sending for Monsieur Ferrand, the house-surgeon, you know, who accompanies us. He would have given the poor girl something to calm her. Only he is busy downstairs trying to relieve Brother Isidore, in the Family Ward. Besides, as you know, we are not supposed to give medical attendance here; our work consists in placing our dear sick ones in the hands of the Blessed Virgin." Sister Hyacinthe, who had made up her mind to spend the night with the superintendent, now drew, near. "I have just come from the Family Ward," she said; "I went to take Monsieur Sabathier some oranges which I had promised him, and I saw Monsieur Ferrand, who had just succeeded in reviving Brother Isidore. Would you like me to go down and fetch him?" But Pierre declined the offer. "No, no," he replied, "Marie will be sensible. I will read her a few consoling pages by-and-by, and then she will rest." For the moment, however, the girl still remained obstinately silent. One of the two lanterns was hanging from the wall close by, and Pierre could distinctly see her thin face, rigid and motionless like stone. Then, farther away, in the adjoining bed, he perceived Elise Rouquet, who was sound asleep and no longer wore her fichu, but openly displayed her face, the ulcerations of which still continued to grow paler. And on the young priest's left hand was Madame Vetu, now greatly weakened, in a hopeless state, unable to doze off for a moment, shaken as she was by a continuous rattle. He said a few kind words to her, for which she thanked him with a nod; and, gathering her remaining strength together, she was at last able to say: "There were several cures to-day; I was very pleased to hear of them." On a mattress at the foot of her bed was La Grivotte, who in a fever of extraordinary activity kept on sitting up to repeat her favourite phrase: "I am cured, I am cured!" And she went on to relate that she had eaten half a fowl for dinner, she who had been unable to eat for long months past. Then, too, she had followed the torchlight procession on foot during nearly a couple of hours, and she would certainly have danced till daybreak had the Blessed Virgin only been pleased to give a ball. And once more she repeated: "I am cured, yes, cured, quite cured!" Thereupon Madame Vetu found enough strength to say with childlike serenity and perfect, gladsome abnegation: "The Blessed Virgin did well to cure her since she is poor. I am better pleased than if it had been myself, for I have my little shop to depend upon and can wait. We each have our turn, each our turn." One and all displayed a like charity, a like pleasure that others should have been cured. Seldom, indeed, was any jealousy shown; they surrendered themselves to a kind of epidemical beatitude, to a contagious hope that they would all be cured whenever it should so please the Blessed Virgin. And it was necessary that she should not be offended by any undue impatience; for assuredly she had her reasons and knew right well why she began by healing some rather than others. Thus with the fraternity born of common suffering and hope, the most grievously afflicted patients prayed for the cure of their neighbours. None of them ever despaired, each fresh miracle was the promise of another one, of the one which would be worked on themselves. Their faith remained unshakable. A story was told of a paralytic woman, some farm servant, who with extraordinary strength of will had contrived to take a few steps at the Grotto, and who while being conveyed back to the hospital had asked to be set down that she might return to the Grotto on foot. But she had gone only half the distance when she had staggered, panting and livid; and on being brought to the hospital on a stretcher, she had died there, cured, however, said her neighbours in the ward. Each, indeed, had her turn; the Blessed Virgin forgot none of her dear daughters unless it were her design to grant some chosen one immediate admission into Paradise. All at once, at the moment when Pierre was leaning towards her, again offering to read to her, Marie burst into furious sobs. Letting her head fall upon her friend's shoulder, she vented all her rebellion in a low, terrible voice, amidst the vague shadows of that awful room. She had experienced what seldom happened to her, a collapse of faith, a sudden loss of courage, all the rage of the suffering being who can no longer wait. Such was her despair, indeed, that she even became sacrilegious. "No, no," she stammered, "the Virgin is cruel; she is unjust, for she did not cure me just now. Yet I felt so certain that she would grant my prayer, I had prayed to her so fervently. I shall never be cured, now that the first day is past. It was a Saturday, and I was convinced that I should be cured on a Saturday. I did not want to speak--and oh! prevent me, for my heart is too full, and I might say more than I ought to do." With fraternal hands he had quickly taken hold of her head, and he was endeavouring to stifle the cry of her rebellion. "Be quiet, Marie, I entreat you! It would never do for anyone to hear you--you so pious! Do you want to scandalise every soul?" But in spite of her efforts she was unable to keep silence. "I should stifle, I must speak out," she said. "I no longer love her, no longer believe in her. The tales which are related here are all falsehoods; there is /nothing/, she does not even exist, since she does not hear when one speaks to her, and sobs. If you only knew all that I said to her! Oh! I want to go away at once. Take me away, carry me away in your arms, so that I may go and die in the street, where the passers-by, at least, will take pity on my sufferings!" She was growing weak again, and had once more fallen on her back, stammering, talking childishly. "Besides, nobody loves me," she said. "My father was not even there. And you, my friend, forsook me. When I saw that it was another who was taking me to the piscinas, I began to feel a chill. Yes, that chill of doubt which I often felt in Paris. And that is at least certain, I doubted--perhaps, indeed, that is why she did not cure me. I cannot have prayed well enough, I am not pious enough, no doubt." She was no longer blaspheming, but seeking for excuses to explain the non-intervention of Heaven. However, her face retained an angry expression amidst this struggle which she was waging with the Supreme Power, that Power which she had loved so well and entreated so fervently, but which had not obeyed her. When, on rare occasions, a fit of rage of this description broke out in the ward, and the sufferers, lying on their beds, rebelled against their fate, sobbing and lamenting, and at times even swearing, the lady-hospitallers and the Sisters, somewhat shocked, would content themselves with simply closing the bed-curtains. Grace had departed, one must await its return. And at last, sometimes after long hours, the rebellious complaints would die away, and peace would reign again amidst the deep, woeful silence. "Calm yourself, calm yourself, I implore you," Pierre gently repeated to Marie, seeing that a fresh attack was coming upon her, an attack of doubt in herself, of fear that she was unworthy of the divine assistance. Sister Hyacinthe, moreover, had again drawn near. "You will not be able to take the sacrament by-and-by, my dear child," said she, "if you continue in such a state. Come, since we have given Monsieur l'Abbe permission to read to you, why don't you let him do so?" Marie made a feeble gesture as though to say that she consented, and Pierre at once took out of the valise at the foot of her bed, the little blue-covered book in which the story of Bernadette was so naively related. As on the previous night, however, when the train was rolling on, he did not confine himself to the bald phraseology of the book, but began improvising, relating all manner of details in his own fashion, in order to charm the simple folks who listened to him. Nevertheless, with his reasoning, analytical proclivities, he could not prevent himself from secretly re-establishing the real facts, imparting, for himself alone, a human character to this legend, whose wealth of prodigies contributed so greatly to the cure of those that suffered. Women were soon sitting up on all the surrounding beds. They wished to hear the continuation of the story, for the thought of the sacrament which they were passionately awaiting had prevented almost all of them from getting to sleep. And seated there, in the pale light of the lantern hanging from the wall above him, Pierre little by little raised his voice, so that he might be heard by the whole ward. "The persecutions began with the very first miracles. Called a liar and a lunatic, Bernadette was threatened with imprisonment. Abbe Peyramale, the parish priest of Lourdes, and Monseigneur Laurence, Bishop of Tarbes, like the rest of the clergy, refrained from all intervention, waiting the course of events with the greatest prudence; whilst the civil authorities, the Prefect, the Public Prosecutor, the Mayor, and the Commissary of Police, indulged in excessive anti-religious zeal." Continuing his perusal in this fashion, Pierre saw the real story rise up before him with invincible force. His mind travelled a short distance backward and he beheld Bernadette at the time of the first apparitions, so candid, so charming in her ignorance and good faith, amidst all her sufferings. And she was truly the visionary, the saint, her face assuming an expression of superhuman beauty during her crises of ecstasy. Her brow beamed, her features seemed to ascend, her eyes were bathed with light, whilst her parted lips burnt with divine love. And then her whole person became majestic; it was in a slow, stately way that she made the sign of the cross, with gestures which seemed to embrace the whole horizon. The neighbouring valleys, the villages, the towns, spoke of Bernadette alone. Although the Lady had not yet told her name, she was recognised, and people said, "It is she, the Blessed Virgin." On the first market-day, so many people flocked into Lourdes that the town quite overflowed. All wished to see the blessed child whom the Queen of the Angels had chosen, and who became so beautiful when the heavens opened to her enraptured gaze. The crowd on the banks of the Gave grew larger each morning, and thousands of people ended by installing themselves there, jostling one another that they might lose nothing of the spectacle! As soon as Bernadette appeared, a murmur of fervour spread: "Here is the saint, the saint, the saint!" Folks rushed forward to kiss her garments. She was a Messiah, the eternal Messiah whom the nations await, and the need of whom is ever arising from generation to generation. And, moreover, it was ever the same adventure beginning afresh: an apparition of the Virgin to a shepherdess; a voice exhorting the world to penitence; a spring gushing forth; and miracles astonishing and enrapturing the crowds that hastened to the spot in larger and larger numbers. Ah! those first miracles of Lourdes, what a spring-tide flowering of consolation and hope they brought to the hearts of the wretched, upon whom poverty and sickness were preying! Old Bourriette's restored eyesight, little Bouhohort's resuscitation in the icy water, the deaf recovering their hearing, the lame suddenly enabled to walk, and so many other cases, Blaise Maumus, Bernade Soubies,* Auguste Bordes, Blaisette Soupenne, Benoite Cazeaux, in turn cured of the most dreadful ailments, became the subject of endless conversations, and fanned the illusions of all those who suffered either in their hearts or their flesh. On Thursday, March 4th, the last day of the fifteen visits solicited by the Virgin, there were more than twenty thousand persons assembled before the Grotto. Everybody, indeed, had come down from the mountains. And this immense throng found at the Grotto the divine food that it hungered for, a feast of the Marvellous, a sufficient meed of the Impossible to content its belief in a superior Power, which deigned to bestow some attention upon poor folks, and to intervene in the wretched affairs of this lower world, in order to re-establish some measure of justice and kindness. It was indeed the cry of heavenly charity bursting forth, the invisible helping hand stretched out at last to dress the eternal sores of humanity. Ah! that dream in which each successive generation sought refuge, with what indestructible energy did it not arise among the disinherited ones of this world as soon as it found a favourable spot, prepared by circumstances! And for centuries, perhaps, circumstances had never so combined to kindle the mystical fire of faith as they did at Lourdes. * I give this name as written by M. Zola; but in other works on Lourdes I find it given as "Bernarde Loubie--a bed-ridden old woman, cured of a paralytic affection by drinking the water of the Grotto."--Trans. A new religion was about to be founded, and persecutions at once began, for religions only spring up amidst vexations and rebellions. And even as it was long ago at Jerusalem, when the tidings of miracles spread, the civil authorities--the Public Prosecutor, the Justice of the Peace, the Mayor, and particularly the Prefect of Tarbes--were all roused and began to bestir themselves. The Prefect was a sincere Catholic, a worshipper, a man of perfect honour, but he also had the firm mind of a public functionary, was a passionate defender of order, and a declared adversary of fanaticism which gives birth to disorder and religious perversion. Under his orders at Lourdes there was a Commissary of Police, a man of great intelligence and shrewdness, who had hitherto discharged his functions in a very proper way, and who, legitimately enough, beheld in this affair of the apparitions an opportunity to put his gift of sagacious skill to the proof. So the struggle began, and it was this Commissary who, on the first Sunday in Lent, at the time of the first apparitions, summoned Bernadette to his office in order that he might question her. He showed himself affectionate, then angry, then threatening, but all in vain; the answers which the girl gave him were ever the same. The story which she related, with its slowly accumulated details, had little by little irrevocably implanted itself in her infantile mind. And it was no lie on the part of this poor suffering creature, this exceptional victim of hysteria, but an unconscious haunting, a radical lack of will-power to free herself from her original hallucination. She knew not how to exert any such will, she could not, she would not exert it. Ah! the poor child, the dear child, so amiable and so gentle, so incapable of any evil thought, from that time forward lost to life, crucified by her fixed idea, whence one could only have extricated her by changing her environment, by restoring her to the open air, in some land of daylight and human affection. But she was the chosen one, she had beheld the Virgin, she would suffer from it her whole life long and die from it at last! Pierre, who knew Bernadette so well, and who felt a fraternal pity for her memory, the fervent compassion with which one regards a human saint, a simple, upright, charming creature tortured by her faith, allowed his emotion to appear in his moist eyes and trembling voice. And a pause in his narrative ensued. Marie, who had hitherto been lying there quite stiff, with a hard expression of revolt still upon her face, opened her clenched hands and made a vague gesture of pity. "Ah," she murmured, "the poor child, all alone to contend against those magistrates, and so innocent, so proud, so unshakable in her championship of the truth!" The same compassionate sympathy was arising from all the beds in the ward. That hospital inferno with its nocturnal wretchedness, its pestilential atmosphere, its pallets of anguish heaped together, its weary lady-hospitallers and Sisters flitting phantom-like hither and thither, now seemed to be illumined by a ray of divine charity. Was not the eternal illusion of happiness rising once more amidst tears and unconscious falsehoods? Poor, poor Bernadette! All waxed indignant at the thought of the persecutions which she had endured in defence of her faith. Then Pierre, resuming his story, related all that the child had had to suffer. After being questioned by the Commissary she had to appear before the judges of the local tribunal. The entire magistracy pursued her, and endeavoured to wring a retractation from her. But the obstinacy of her dream was stronger than the common sense of all the civil authorities put together. Two doctors who were sent by the Prefect to make a careful examination of the girl came, as all doctors would have done, to the honest opinion that it was a case of nervous trouble, of which the asthma was a sure sign, and which, in certain circumstances, might have induced visions. This nearly led to her removal and confinement in a hospital at Tarbes. But public exasperation was feared. A bishop had fallen on his knees before her. Some ladies had sought to buy favours from her for gold. Moreover she had found a refuge with the Sisters of Nevers, who tended the aged in the town asylum, and there she made her first communion, and was with difficulty taught to read and write. As the Blessed Virgin seemed to have chosen her solely to work the happiness of others, and she herself had not been cured, it was very sensibly decided to take her to the baths of Cauterets, which were so near at hand. However, they did her no good. And no sooner had she returned to Lourdes than the torture of being questioned and adored by a whole people began afresh, became aggravated, and filled her more and more with horror of the world. Her life was over already; she would be a playful child no more; she could never be a young girl dreaming of a husband, a young wife kissing the cheeks of sturdy children. She had beheld the Virgin, she was the chosen one, the martyr. If the Virgin, said believers, had confided three secrets to her, investing her with a triple armour as it were, it was simply in order to sustain her in her appointed course. The clergy had for a long time remained aloof, on its own side full of doubt and anxiety. Abby Peyramale, the parish priest of Lourdes, was a man of somewhat blunt ways, but full of infinite kindness, rectitude, and energy whenever he found himself in what he thought the right path. On the first occasion when Bernadette visited him, he received this child who had been brought up at Bartres and had not yet been seen at Catechism, almost as sternly as the Commissary of Police had done; in fact, he refused to believe her story, and with some irony told her to entreat the Lady to begin by making the briars blossom beneath her feet, which, by the way, the Lady never did. And if the Abbe ended by taking the child under his protection like a good pastor who defends his flock, it was simply through the advent of persecution and the talk of imprisoning this puny child, whose clear eyes shone so frankly, and who clung with such modest, gentle stubbornness to her original tale. Besides, why should he have continued denying the miracle after merely doubting it like a prudent priest who had no desire to see religion mixed up in any suspicious affair? Holy Writ is full of prodigies, all dogma is based on the mysterious; and that being so, there was nothing to prevent him, a priest, from believing that the Virgin had really entrusted Bernadette with a pious message for him, an injunction to build a church whither the faithful would repair in procession. Thus it was that he began loving and defending Bernadette for her charm's sake, whilst still refraining from active interference, awaiting as he did the decision of his Bishop. This Bishop, Monseigneur Laurence, seemed to have shut himself up in his episcopal residence at Tarbes, locking himself within it and preserving absolute silence as though there were nothing occurring at Lourdes of a nature to interest him. He had given strict instructions to his clergy, and so far not a priest had appeared among the vast crowds of people who spent their days before the Grotto. He waited, and even allowed the Prefect to state in his administrative circulars that the civil and the religious authorities were acting in concert. In reality, he cannot have believed in the apparitions of the Grotto of Massabielle, which he doubtless considered to be the mere hallucinations of a sick child. This affair, which was revolutionising the region, was of sufficient importance for him to have studied it day by day, and the manner in which he disregarded it for so long a time shows how little inclined he was to admit the truth of the alleged miracles, and how greatly he desired to avoid compromising the Church in a matter which seemed destined to end badly. With all his piety, Monseigneur Laurence had a cool, practical intellect, which enabled him to govern his diocese with great good sense. Impatient and ardent people nicknamed him Saint Thomas at the time, on account of the manner in which his doubts persisted until events at last forced his hand. Indeed, he turned a deaf ear to all the stories that were being related, firmly resolved as he was that he would only listen to them if it should appear certain that religion had nothing to lose. However, the persecutions were about to become more pronounced. The Minister of Worship in Paris, who had been informed of what was going on, required that a stop should be put to all disorders, and so the Prefect caused the approaches to the Grotto to be occupied by the military. The Grotto had already been decorated with vases of flowers offered by the zeal of the faithful and the gratitude of sufferers who had been healed. Money, moreover, was thrown into it; gifts to the Blessed Virgin abounded. Rudimentary improvements, too, were carried out in a spontaneous way; some quarrymen cut a kind of reservoir to receive the miraculous water, and others removed the large blocks of stone, and traced a path in the hillside. However, in presence of the swelling torrents of people, the Prefect, after renouncing his idea of arresting Bernadette, took the serious resolution of preventing all access to the Grotto by placing a strong palisade in front of it. Some regrettable incidents had lately occurred; various children pretended that they had seen the devil, some of them being guilty of simulation in this respect, whilst others had given way to real attacks of hysteria, in the contagious nervous unhinging which was so prevalent. But what a terrible business did the removal of the offerings from the Grotto prove! It was only towards evening that the Commissary was able to find a girl willing to let him have a cart on hire, and two hours later this girl fell from a loft and broke one of her ribs. Likewise, a man who had lent an axe had one of his feet crushed on the morrow by the fall of a block of stone.* It was in the midst of jeers and hisses that the Commissary carried off the pots of flowers, the tapers which he found burning, the coppers and the silver hearts which lay upon the sand. People clenched their fists, and covertly called him "thief" and "murderer." Then the posts for the palisades were planted in the ground, and the rails were nailed to the crossbars, no little labour being performed to shut off the Mystery, in order to bar access to the Unknown, and put the miracles in prison. And the civil authorities were simple enough to imagine that it was all over, that those few bits of boarding would suffice to stay the poor people who hungered for illusion and hope. * Both of these accidents were interpreted as miracles.--Trans. But as soon as the new religion was proscribed, forbidden by the law as an offence, it began to burn with an inextinguishable flame in the depths of every soul. Believers came to the river bank in far greater numbers, fell upon their knees at a short distance from the Grotto, and sobbed aloud as they gazed at the forbidden heaven. And the sick, the poor ailing folks, who were forbidden to seek cure, rushed on the Grotto despite all prohibitions, slipped in whenever they could find an aperture or climbed over the palings when their strength enabled them to do so, in the one ardent desire to steal a little of the water. What! there was a prodigious water in that Grotto, which restored the sight to the blind, which set the infirm erect upon their legs again, which instantaneously healed all ailments; and there were officials cruel enough to put that water under lock and key so that it might not cure any more poor people! Why, it was monstrous! And a cry of hatred arose from all the humble ones, all the disinherited ones who had as much need of the Marvellous as of bread to live! In accordance with a municipal decree, the names of all delinquents were to be taken by the police, and thus one soon beheld a woeful /defile/ of old women and lame men summoned before the Justice of the Peace for the sole offence of taking a little water from the fount of life! They stammered and entreated, at their wit's end when a fine was imposed upon them. And, outside, the crowd was growling; rageful unpopularity was gathering around those magistrates who treated human wretchedness so harshly, those pitiless masters who after taking all the wealth of the world, would not even leave to the poor their dream of the realms beyond, their belief that a beneficent superior power took a maternal interest in them, and was ready to endow them with peace of soul and health of body. One day a whole band of poverty-stricken and ailing folks went to the Mayor, knelt down in his courtyard, and implored him with sobs to allow the Grotto to be reopened; and the words they spoke were so pitiful that all who heard them wept. A mother showed her child who was half-dead; would they let the little one die like that in her arms when there was a source yonder which had saved the children of other mothers? A blind man called attention to his dim eyes; a pale, scrofulous youth displayed the sores on his legs; a paralytic woman sought to join her woeful twisted hands: did the authorities wish to see them all perish, did they refuse them the last divine chance of life, condemned and abandoned as they were by the science of man? And equally great was the distress of the believers, of those who were convinced that a corner of heaven had opened amidst the night of their mournful existences, and who were indignant that they should be deprived of the chimerical delight, the supreme relief for their human and social sufferings, which they found in the belief that the Blessed Virgin had indeed come down from heaven to bring them the priceless balm of her intervention. However, the Mayor was unable to promise anything, and the crowd withdrew weeping, ready for rebellion, as though under the blow of some great act of injustice, an act of idiotic cruelty towards the humble and the simple for which Heaven would assuredly take vengeance. The struggle went on for several months; and it was an extraordinary spectacle which those sensible men--the Minister, the Prefect, and the Commissary of Police--presented, all animated with the best intentions and contending against the ever-swelling crowd of despairing ones, who would not allow the doors of dreamland to be closed upon them, who would not be shut off from the mystic glimpse of future happiness in which they found consolation for their present wretchedness. The authorities required order, the respect of a discreet religion, the triumph of reason; whereas the need of happiness carried the people off into an enthusiastic desire for cure both in this world and in the next. Oh! to cease suffering, to secure equality in the comforts of life; to march on under the protection of a just and beneficent Mother, to die only to awaken in heaven! And necessarily the burning desire of the multitude, the holy madness of the universal joy, was destined to sweep aside the rigid, morose conceptions of a well-regulated society in which the ever-recurring epidemical attacks of religious hallucination are condemned as prejudicial to good order and healthiness of mind. The Sainte-Honorine Ward, on hearing the story, likewise revolted. Pierre again had to pause, for many were the stifled exclamations in which the Commissary of Police was likened to Satan and Herod. La Grivotte had sat up on her mattress, stammering: "Ah! the monsters! To behave like that to the Blessed Virgin who has cured me!" And even Madame Vetu--once more penetrated by a ray of hope amidst the covert certainty she felt that she was going to die--grew angry at the idea that the Grotto would not have existed had the Prefect won the day. "There would have been no pilgrimages," she said, "we should not be here, hundreds of us would not be cured every year." A fit of stifling came over her, however, and Sister Hyacinthe had to raise her to a sitting posture. Madame de Jonquiere was profiting by the interruption to attend to a young woman afflicted with a spinal complaint, whilst two other women, unable to remain on their beds, so unbearable was the heat, prowled about with short, silent steps, looking quite white in the misty darkness. And from the far end of the ward, where all was black, there resounded a noise of painful breathing, which had been going on without a pause, accompanying Pierre's narrative like a rattle. Elise Rouquet alone was sleeping peacefully, still stretched upon her back, and displaying her disfigured countenance, which was slowly drying. Midnight had struck a quarter of an hour previously, and Abbe Judaine might arrive at any moment for the communion. Grace was now again descending into Marie's heart, and she was convinced that if the Blessed Virgin had refused to cure her it was, indeed, her own fault in having doubted when she entered the piscina. And she, therefore, repented of her rebellion as of a crime. Could she ever be forgiven? Her pale face sank down among her beautiful fair hair, her eyes filled with tears, and she looked at Pierre with an expression of anguish. "Oh! how wicked I was, my friend," she said. "It was through hearing you relate how that Prefect and those magistrates sinned through pride, that I understood my transgression. One must believe, my friend; there is no happiness outside faith and love." Then, as Pierre wished to break off at the point which he had reached, they all began protesting and calling for the continuation of his narrative, so that he had to promise to go on to the triumph of the Grotto. Its entrance remained barred by the palisade, and you had to come secretly at night if you wished to pray and carry off a stolen bottle of water. Still, the fear of rioting increased, for it was rumoured that whole villages intended to come down from the hills in order to deliver God, as they naively expressed it. It was a /levee en masse/ of the humble, a rush of those who hungered for the miraculous, so irresistible in its impetuosity that mere common sense, mere considerations of public order were to be swept away like chaff. And it was Monseigneur Laurence, in his episcopal residence at Tarbes, who was first forced to surrender. All his prudence, all his doubts were outflanked by the popular outburst. For five long months he had been able to remain aloof, preventing his clergy from following the faithful to the Grotto, and defending the Church against the tornado of superstition which had been let loose. But what was the use of struggling any longer? He felt the wretchedness of the suffering people committed to his care to be so great that he resigned himself to granting them the idolatrous religion for which he realised them to be eager. Some prudence remaining to him, however, he contented himself in the first instance with drawing up an /ordonnance/, appointing a commission of inquiry, which was to investigate the question; this implied the acceptance of the miracles after a period of longer or shorter duration. If Monseigneur Laurence was the man of healthy culture and cool reason that he is pictured to have been, how great must have been his anguish on the morning when he signed that /ordonnance/! He must have knelt in his oratory, and have begged the Sovereign Master of the world to dictate his conduct to him. He did not believe in the apparitions; he had a loftier, more intellectual idea of the manifestations of the Divinity. Only would he not be showing true pity and mercy in silencing the scruples of his reason, the noble prejudices of his faith, in presence of the necessity of granting that bread of falsehood which poor humanity requires in order to be happy? Doubtless, he begged the pardon of Heaven for allowing it to be mixed up in what he regarded as childish pastime, for exposing it to ridicule in connection with an affair in which there was only sickliness and dementia. But his flock suffered so much, hungered so ravenously for the marvellous, for fairy stories with which to lull the pains of life. And thus, in tears, the Bishop at last sacrificed his respect for the dignity of Providence to his sensitive pastoral charity for the woeful human flock. Then the Emperor in his turn gave way. He was at Biarritz at the time, and was kept regularly informed of everything connected with this affair of the apparitions, with which the entire Parisian press was also occupying itself, for the persecutions would not have been complete if the pens of Voltairean newspaper-men had not meddled in them. And whilst his Minister, his Prefect, and his Commissary of Police were fighting for common sense and public order, the Emperor preserved his wonted silence--the deep silence of a day-dreamer which nobody ever penetrated. Petitions arrived day by day, yet he held his tongue. Bishops came, great personages, great ladies of his circle watched and drew him on one side, and still he held his tongue. A truceless warfare was being waged around him: on one side the believers and the men of fanciful minds whom the Mysterious strongly interested; on the other the unbelievers and the statesmen who distrusted the disturbances of the imagination;--and still and ever he held his tongue. Then, all at once, with the sudden decision of a naturally timid man, he spoke out. The rumour spread that he had yielded to the entreaties of his wife Eugenie. No doubt she did intervene, but the Emperor was more deeply influenced by a revival of his old humanitarian dreams, his genuine compassion for the disinherited.* Like the Bishop, he did not wish to close the portals of illusion to the wretched by upholding the unpopular decree which forbade despairing sufferers to go and drink life at the holy source. So he sent a telegram, a curt order to remove the palisade, so as to allow everybody free access to the Grotto. * I think this view of the matter the right one, for, as all who know the history of the Second Empire are aware, it was about this time that the Emperor began taking great interest in the erection of model dwellings for the working classes, and the plantation and transformation of the sandy wastes of the Landes.--Trans. Then came a shout of joy and triumph. The decree annulling the previous one was read at Lourdes to the sound of drum and trumpet. The Commissary of Police had to come in person to superintend the removal of the palisade. He was afterwards transferred elsewhere like the Prefect.* People flocked to Lourdes from all parts, the new /cultus/ was organised at the Grotto, and a cry of joy ascended: God had won the victory! God?--alas, no! It was human wretchedness which had won the battle, human wretchedness with its eternal need of falsehood, its hunger for the marvellous, its everlasting hope akin to that of some condemned man who, for salvation's sake, surrenders himself into the hands of an invisible Omnipotence, mightier than nature, and alone capable, should it be willing, of annulling nature's laws. And that which had also conquered was the sovereign compassion of those pastors, the merciful Bishop and merciful Emperor who allowed those big sick children to retain the fetich which consoled some of them and at times even cured others. * The Prefect was transferred to Grenoble, and curiously enough his new jurisdiction extended over the hills and valleys of La Salette, whither pilgrims likewise flocked to drink, pray, and wash themselves at a miraculous fountain. Warned by experience, however, Baron Massy (such was the Prefect's name) was careful to avoid any further interference in religious matters.--Trans. In the middle of November the episcopal commission came to Lourdes to prosecute the inquiry which had been entrusted to it. It questioned Bernadette yet once again, and studied a large number of miracles. However, in order that the evidence might be absolute, it only registered some thirty cases of cure. And Monseigneur Laurence declared himself convinced. Nevertheless, he gave a final proof of his prudence, by continuing to wait another three years before declaring in a pastoral letter that the Blessed Virgin had in truth appeared at the Grotto of Massabielle and that numerous miracles had subsequently taken place there. Meantime, he had purchased the Grotto itself, with all the land around it, from the municipality of Lourdes, on behalf of his see. Work was then begun, modestly at first, but soon on a larger and larger scale as money began to flow in from all parts of Christendom. The Grotto was cleared and enclosed with an iron railing. The Gave was thrown back into a new bed, so as to allow of spacious approaches to the shrine, with lawns, paths, and walks. At last, too, the church which the Virgin had asked for, the Basilica, began to rise on the summit of the rock itself. From the very first stroke of the pick, Abbe Peyramale, the parish priest of Lourdes, went on directing everything with even excessive zeal, for the struggle had made him the most ardent and most sincere of all believers in the work that was to be accomplished. With his somewhat rough but truly fatherly nature, he had begun to adore Bernadette, making her mission his own, and devoting himself, soul and body, to realising the orders which he had received from Heaven through her innocent mouth. And he exhausted himself in mighty efforts; he wished everything to be very beautiful and very grand, worthy of the Queen of the Angels who had deigned to visit this mountain nook. The first religious ceremony did not take place till six years after the apparitions. A marble statue of the Virgin was installed with great pomp on the very spot where she had appeared. It was a magnificent day, all Lourdes was gay with flags, and every bell rang joyously. Five years later, in 1869, the first mass was celebrated in the crypt of the Basilica, whose spire was not yet finished. Meantime, gifts flowed in without a pause, a river of gold was streaming towards the Grotto, a whole town was about to spring up from the soil. It was the new religion completing its foundations. The desire to be healed did heal; the thirst for a miracle worked the miracle. A Deity of pity and hope was evolved from man's sufferings, from that longing for falsehood and relief which, in every age of humanity, has created the marvellous palaces of the realms beyond, where an almighty Power renders justice and distributes eternal happiness. And thus the ailing ones of the Sainte-Honorine Ward only beheld in the victory of the Grotto the triumph of their hopes of cure. Along the rows of beds there was a quiver of joy when, with his heart stirred by all those poor faces turned towards him, eager for certainty, Pierre repeated: "God had conquered. Since that day the miracles have never ceased, and it is the most humble who are the most frequently relieved." Then he laid down the little book. Abbe Judaine was coming in, and the Sacrament was about to be administered. Marie, however, again penetrated by the fever of faith, her hands burning, leant towards Pierre. "Oh, my friend!" said she, "I pray you hear me confess my fault and absolve me. I have blasphemed, and have been guilty of mortal sin. If you do not succour me, I shall be unable to receive the Blessed Sacrament, and yet I so greatly need to be consoled and strengthened." The young priest refused her request with a wave of the hand. He had never been willing to act as confessor to this friend, the only woman he had loved in the healthy, smiling days of youth. However, she insisted. "I beg you to do so," said she; "you will help to work the miracle of my cure." Then he gave way and received the avowal of her fault, that impious rebellion induced by suffering, that rebellion against the Virgin who had remained deaf to her prayers. And afterwards he granted her absolution in the sacramental form. Meanwhile Abbe Judaine had already deposited the ciborium on a little table, between two lighted tapers, which looked like woeful stars in the semi-obscurity of the ward. Madame de Jonquiere had just decided to open one of the windows quite wide, for the odour emanating from all the suffering bodies and heaped-up rags had become unbearable. But no air came in from the narrow courtyard into which the window opened; though black with night, it seemed like a well of fire. Having offered to act as server, Pierre repeated the "Confiteor." Then, after responding with the "Misereatur" and the "Indulgentiam," the chaplain, who wore his alb, raised the pyx, saying, "Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world." All the women who, writhing in agony, were impatiently awaiting the communion, like dying creatures who await life from some fresh medicine which is a long time coming, thereupon thrice repeated, in all humility, and with lips almost closed: "Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof; but only say the word and my soul shall be healed." Abbe Judaine had begun to make the round of those woeful beds, accompanied by Pierre, and followed by Madame de Jonquiere and Sister Hyacinthe, each of whom carried one of the lighted tapers. The Sister designated those who were to communicate; and, murmuring the customary Latin words, the priest leant forward and placed the Host somewhat at random on the sufferer's tongue. Almost all were waiting for him with widely opened, glittering eyes, amidst the disorder of that hastily pitched camp. Two were found to be sound asleep, however, and had to be awakened. Several were moaning without being conscious of it, and continued moaning even after they had received the sacrament. At the far end of the ward, the rattle of the poor creature who could not be seen still resounded. And nothing could have been more mournful than the appearance of that little /cortege/ in the semi-darkness, amidst which the yellow flames of the tapers gleamed like stars. But Marie's face, to which an expression of ecstasy had returned, was like a divine apparition. Although La Grivotte was hungering for the bread of life, they had refused her the sacrament on this occasion, as it was to be administered to her in the morning at the Rosary; Madame Vetu, however, had received the Host on her black tongue in a hiccough. And now Marie was lying there under the pale light of the tapers, looking so beautiful amidst her fair hair, with her eyes dilated and her features transfigured by faith, that everyone admired her. She received the sacrament with rapture; Heaven visibly descended into her poor, youthful frame, reduced to such physical wretchedness. And, clasping Pierre's hand, she detained him for a moment, saying: "Oh! she will heal me, my friend, she has just promised me that she will do so. Go and take some rest. I shall sleep so soundly now!" As he withdrew in company with Abbe Judaine, Pierre caught sight of little Madame Desagneaux stretched out in the arm-chair in which weariness had overpowered her. Nothing could awaken her. It was now half-past one in the morning; and Madame de Jonquiere and her assistant, Sister Hyacinthe, were still going backwards and forwards, turning the patients over, cleansing them, and dressing their sores. However, the ward was becoming more peaceful, its heavy darkness had grown less oppressive since Bernadette with her charm had passed through it. The visionary's little shadow was now flitting in triumph from bed to bed, completing its work, bringing a little of heaven to each of the despairing ones, each of the disinherited ones of this world; and as they all at last sank to sleep they could see the little shepherdess, so young, so ill herself, leaning over them and kissing them with a kindly smile. 
8513	----	and David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] THE THREE CITIES LOURDES BY EMILE ZOLA Volume 3. TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY THE THIRD DAY I BED AND BOARD AT seven o'clock on the morning of that fine, bright, warm August Sunday, M. de Guersaint was already up and dressed in one of the two little rooms which he had fortunately been able to secure on the third floor of the Hotel of the Apparitions. He had gone to bed at eleven o'clock the night before and had awoke feeling quite fresh and gay. As soon as he was dressed he entered the adjoining room which Pierre occupied; but the young priest, who had not returned to the hotel until past one in the morning, with his blood heated by insomnia, had been unable to doze off until daybreak and was now still slumbering. His cassock flung across a chair, his other garments scattered here and there, testified to his great weariness and agitation of mind. "Come, come, you lazybones!" cried M. de Guersaint gaily; "can't you hear the bells ringing?" Pierre awoke with a start, quite surprised to find himself in that little hotel room into which the sunlight was streaming. All the joyous peals of the bells, the music of the chiming, happy town, moreover, came in through the window which he had left open. "We shall never have time to get to the hospital before eight o'clock to fetch Marie," resumed M. de Guersaint, "for we must have some breakfast, eh?" "Of course, make haste and order two cups of chocolate. I will get up at once, I sha'n't be long," replied Pierre. In spite of the fatigue which had already stiffened his joints, he sprang out of bed as soon as he was alone, and made all haste with his toilet. However, he still had his head in the washing basin, ducking it in the fresh, cool water, when M. de Guersaint, who was unable to remain alone, came back again. "I've given the order," said he; "they will bring it up. Ah! what a curious place this hotel is! You have of course seen the landlord, Master Majeste, clad in white from head to foot and looking so dignified in his office. The place is crammed, it appears; they have never had so many people before. So it is no wonder that there should be such a fearful noise. I was wakened up three times during the night. People kept on talking in the room next to mine. And you, did you sleep well?" "No, indeed," answered Pierre; "I was tired to death, but I couldn't close my eyes. No doubt it was the uproar you speak of that prevented me." In his turn he then began to talk of the thin partitions, and the manner in which the house had been crammed with people until it seemed as though the floors and the walls would collapse with the strain. The place had been shaking all night long; every now and then people suddenly rushed along the passages, heavy footfalls resounded, gruff voices ascended nobody knew whence; without speaking of all the moaning and coughing, the frightful coughing which seemed to re-echo from every wall. Throughout the night people evidently came in and went out, got up and lay down again, paying no attention to time in the disorder in which they lived, amid shocks of passion which made them hurry to their devotional exercises as to pleasure parties. "And Marie, how was she when you left her last night?" M. de Guersaint suddenly inquired. "A great deal better," replied Pierre; "she had an attack of extreme discouragement, but all her courage and faith returned to her at last." A pause followed; and then the girl's father resumed with his tranquil optimism: "Oh! I am not anxious. Things will go on all right, you'll see. For my own part, I am delighted. I had asked the Virgin to grant me her protection in my affairs--you know, my great invention of navigable balloons. Well, suppose I told you that she has already shown me her favour? Yes, indeed yesterday evening while I was talking with Abbe des Hermoises, he told me that at Toulouse he would no doubt be able to find a person to finance me--one of his friends, in fact, who is extremely wealthy and takes great interest in mechanics! And in this I at once saw the hand of God!" M. de Guersaint began laughing with his childish laugh, and then he added: "That Abbe des Hermoises is a charming man. I shall see this afternoon if there is any means of my accompanying him on an excursion to the Cirque de Gavarnie at small cost." Pierre, who wished to pay everything, the hotel bill and all the rest, at once encouraged him in this idea. "Of course," said he, "you ought not to miss this opportunity to visit the mountains, since you have so great a wish to do so. Your daughter will be very happy to know that you are pleased." Their talk, however, was now interrupted by a servant girl bringing the two cups of chocolate with a couple of rolls on a metal tray covered with a napkin. She left the door open as she entered the room, so that a glimpse was obtained of some portion of the passage. "Ah! they are already doing my neighbour's room!" exclaimed M. de Guersaint. "He is a married man, isn't he? His wife is with him?" The servant looked astonished. "Oh, no," she replied, "he is quite alone!" "Quite alone? Why, I heard people talking in his room this morning." "You must be mistaken, monsieur," said the servant; "he has just gone out after giving orders that his room was to be tidied up at once." And then, while taking the cups of chocolate off the tray and placing them on the table, she continued: "Oh! he is a very respectable gentleman. Last year he was able to have one of the pavilions which Monsieur Majeste lets out to visitors, in the lane by the side of the hotel; but this year he applied too late and had to content himself with that room, which greatly worried him, for it isn't a large one, though there is a big cupboard in it. As he doesn't care to eat with everybody, he takes his meals there, and he orders good wine and the best of everything, I can tell you." "That explains it all!" replied M. de Guersaint gaily; "he dined too well last night, and I must have heard him talking in his sleep." Pierre had been listening somewhat inquisitively to all this chatter. "And on this side, my side," said he, "isn't there a gentleman with two ladies, and a little boy who walks about with a crutch?" "Yes, Monsieur l'Abbe, I know them. The aunt, Madame Chaise, took one of the two rooms for herself; and Monsieur and Madame Vigneron with their son Gustave have had to content themselves with the other one. This is the second year they have come to Lourdes. They are very respectable people too." Pierre nodded. During the night he had fancied he could recognise the voice of M. Vigneron, whom the heat doubtless had incommoded. However, the servant was now thoroughly started, and she began to enumerate the other persons whose rooms were reached by the same passage; on the left hand there was a priest, then a mother with three daughters, and then an old married couple; whilst on the right lodged another gentleman who was all alone, a young lady, too, who was unaccompanied, and then a family party which included five young children. The hotel was crowded to its garrets. The servants had had to give up their rooms the previous evening and lie in a heap in the washhouse. During the night, also, some camp bedsteads had even been set up on the landings; and one honourable ecclesiastic, for lack of other accommodation, had been obliged to sleep on a billiard-table. When the girl had retired and the two men had drunk their chocolate, M. de Guersaint went back into his own room to wash his hands again, for he was very careful of his person; and Pierre, who remained alone, felt attracted by the gay sunlight, and stepped for a moment on to the narrow balcony outside his window. Each of the third-floor rooms on this side of the hotel was provided with a similar balcony, having a carved-wood balustrade. However, the young priest's surprise was very great, for he had scarcely stepped outside when he suddenly saw a woman protrude her head over the balcony next to him--that of the room occupied by the gentleman whom M. de Guersaint and the servant had been speaking of. And this woman he had recognised: it was Madame Volmar. There was no mistaking her long face with its delicate drawn features, its magnificent large eyes, those brasiers over which a veil, a dimming /moire/, seemed to pass at times. She gave a start of terror on perceiving him. And he, extremely ill at ease, grieved that he should have frightened her, made all haste to withdraw into his apartment. A sudden light had dawned upon him, and he now understood and could picture everything. So this was why she had not been seen at the hospital, where little Madame Desagneaux was always asking for her. Standing motionless, his heart upset, Pierre fell into a deep reverie, reflecting on the life led by this woman whom he knew, that torturing conjugal life in Paris between a fierce mother-in-law and an unworthy husband, and then those three days of complete liberty spent at Lourdes, that brief bonfire of passion to which she had hastened under the sacrilegious pretext of serving the divinity. Tears whose cause he could not even explain, tears that ascended from the very depths of his being, from his own voluntary chastity, welled into his eyes amidst the feeling of intense sorrow which came over him. "Well, are you ready?" joyously called M. de Guersaint as he came back, with his grey jacket buttoned up and his hands gloved. "Yes, yes, let us go," replied Pierre, turning aside and pretending to look for his hat so that he might wipe his eyes. Then they went out, and on crossing the threshold heard on their left hand an unctuous voice which they recognised; it was that of M. Vigneron, who was loudly repeating the morning prayers. A moment afterwards came a meeting which interested them. They were walking down the passage when they were passed by a middle-aged, thick-set, sturdy-looking gentleman, wearing carefully trimmed whiskers. He bent his back and passed so rapidly that they were unable to distinguish his features, but they noticed that he was carrying a carefully made parcel. And immediately afterwards he slipped a key into the lock of the room adjoining M. de Guersaint's, and opening the door disappeared noiselessly, like a shadow. M. de Guersaint had glanced round: "Ah! my neighbour," said he; "he has been to market and has brought back some delicacies, no doubt!" Pierre pretended not to hear, for his companion was so light-minded that he did not care to trust him with a secret which was not his own. Besides, a feeling of uneasiness was returning to him, a kind of chaste terror at the thought that the world and the flesh were there taking their revenge, amidst all the mystical enthusiasm which he could feel around him. They reached the hospital just as the patients were being brought out to be carried to the Grotto; and they found that Marie had slept well and was very gay. She kissed her father and scolded him when she learnt that he had not yet decided on his trip to Gavarnie. She should really be displeased with him, she said, if he did not go. Still with the same restful, smiling expression, she added that she did not expect to be cured that day; and then, assuming an air of mystery, she begged Pierre to obtain permission for her to spend the following night before the Grotto. This was a favour which all the sufferers ardently coveted, but which only a few favoured ones with difficulty secured. After protesting, anxious as he felt with regard to the effect which a night spent in the open air might have upon her health, the young priest, seeing how unhappy she had suddenly become, at last promised that he would make the application. Doubtless she imagined that she would only obtain a hearing from the Virgin when they were alone together in the slumbering peacefulness of the night. That morning, indeed, she felt so lost among the innumerable patients who were heaped together in front of the Grotto, that already at ten o'clock she asked to be taken back to the hospital, complaining that the bright light tired her eyes. And when her father and the priest had again installed her in the Sainte-Honorine Ward, she gave them their liberty for the remainder of the day. "No, don't come to fetch me," she said, "I shall not go back to the Grotto this afternoon--it would be useless. But you will come for me this evening at nine o'clock, won't you, Pierre? It is agreed, you have given me your word." He repeated that he would endeavour to secure the requisite permission, and that, if necessary, he would apply to Father Fourcade in person. "Then, till this evening, darling," said M. de Guersaint, kissing his daughter. And he and Pierre went off together, leaving her lying on her bed, with an absorbed expression on her features, as her large, smiling eyes wandered away into space. It was barely half-past ten when they got back to the Hotel of the Apparitions; but M. de Guersaint, whom the fine weather delighted, talked of having /dejeuner/ at once, so that he might the sooner start upon a ramble through Lourdes. First of all, however, he wished to go up to his room, and Pierre following him, they encountered quite a drama on their way. The door of the room occupied by the Vignerons was wide open, and little Gustave could be seen lying on the sofa which served as his bed. He was livid; a moment previously he had suddenly fainted, and this had made the father and mother imagine that the end had come. Madame Vigneron was crouching on a chair, still stupefied by her fright, whilst M. Vigneron rushed about the room, thrusting everything aside in order that he might prepare a glass of sugared-water, to which he added a few drops of some elixir. This draught, he exclaimed, would set the lad right again. But all the same, it was incomprehensible. The boy was still strong, and to think that he should have fainted like that, and have turned as white as a chicken! Speaking in this wise, M. Vigneron glanced at Madame Chaise, the aunt, who was standing in front of the sofa, looking in good health that morning; and his hands shook yet more violently at the covert idea that if that stupid attack had carried off his son, they would no longer have inherited the aunt's fortune. He was quite beside himself at this thought, and eagerly opening the boy's mouth he compelled him to swallow the entire contents of the glass. Then, however, when he heard Gustave sigh, and saw him open his eyes again, his fatherly good-nature reappeared, and he shed tears, and called the lad his dear little fellow. But on Madame Chaise drawing near to offer some assistance, Gustave repulsed her with a sudden gesture of hatred, as though he understood how this woman's money unconsciously perverted his parents, who, after all, were worthy folks. Greatly offended, the old lady turned on her heel, and seated herself in a corner, whilst the father and mother, at last freed from their anxiety, returned thanks to the Blessed Virgin for having preserved their darling, who smiled at them with his intelligent and infinitely sorrowful smile, knowing and understanding everything as he did, and no longer having any taste for life, although he was not fifteen. "Can we be of any help to you?" asked Pierre in an obliging way. "No, no, I thank you, gentlemen," replied M. Vigneron, coming for a moment into the passage. "But oh! we did have a fright! Think of it, an only son, who is so dear to us too." All around them the approach of the /dejeuner/ hour was now throwing the house into commotion. Every door was banging, and the passages and the staircase resounded with the constant pitter-patter of feet. Three big girls passed by, raising a current of air with the sweep of their skirts. Some little children were crying in a neighbouring room. Then there were old people who seemed quite scared, and distracted priests who, forgetting their calling, caught up their cassocks with both hands, so that they might run the faster to the dining-room. From the top to the bottom of the house one could feel the floors shaking under the excessive weight of all the people who were packed inside the hotel. "Oh, I hope that it is all over now, and that the Blessed Virgin will cure him," repeated M. Vigneron, before allowing his neighbours to retire. "We are going down-stairs, for I must confess that all this has made me feel faint. I need something to eat, I am terribly hungry." When Pierre and M. de Guersaint at last left their rooms, and went down-stairs, they found to their annoyance that there was not the smallest table-corner vacant in the large dining-room. A most extraordinary mob had assembled there, and the few seats that were still unoccupied were reserved. A waiter informed them that the room never emptied between ten and one o'clock, such was the rush of appetite, sharpened by the keen mountain air. So they had to resign themselves to wait, requesting the waiter to warn them as soon as there should be a couple of vacant places. Then, scarcely knowing what to do with themselves, they went to walk about the hotel porch, whence there was a view of the street, along which the townsfolk, in their Sunday best, streamed without a pause. All at once, however, the landlord of the Hotel of the Apparitions, Master Majeste in person, appeared before them, clad in white from head to foot; and with a great show of politeness he inquired if the gentlemen would like to wait in the drawing-room. He was a stout man of five-and-forty, and strove to bear the burden of his name in a right royal fashion. Bald and clean-shaven, with round blue eyes in a waxy face, displaying three superposed chins, he always deported himself with much dignity. He had come from Nevers with the Sisters who managed the orphan asylum, and was married to a dusky little woman, a native of Lourdes. In less than fifteen years they had made their hotel one of the most substantial and best patronised establishments in the town. Of recent times, moreover, they had started a business in religious articles, installed in a large shop on the left of the hotel porch and managed by a young niece under Madame Majeste's Supervision. "You can wait in the drawing-room, gentlemen," again suggested the hotel-keeper whom Pierre's cassock rendered very attentive. They replied, however, that they preferred to walk about and wait in the open air. And thereupon Majeste would not leave them, but deigned to chat with them for a moment as he was wont to do with those of his customers whom he desired to honour. The conversation turned at first on the procession which would take place that night and which promised to be a superb spectacle as the weather was so fine. There were more than fifty thousand strangers gathered together in Lourdes that day, for visitors had come in from all the neighbouring bathing stations. This explained the crush at the /table d'hote/. Possibly the town would run short of bread as had been the case the previous year. "You saw what a scramble there is," concluded Majeste, "we really don't know how to manage. It isn't my fault, I assure you, if you are kept waiting for a short time." At this moment, however, a postman arrived with a large batch of newspapers and letters which he deposited on a table in the office. He had kept one letter in his hand and inquired of the landlord, "Have you a Madame Maze here?" "Madame Maze, Madame Maze," repeated the hotel-keeper. "No, no, certainly not." Pierre had heard both question and answer, and drawing near he exclaimed, "I know of a Madame Maze who must be lodging with the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, the Blue Sisters as people call them here, I think." The postman thanked him for the information and went off, but a somewhat bitter smile had risen to Majeste's lips. "The Blue Sisters," he muttered, "ah! the Blue Sisters." Then, darting a side glance at Pierre's cassock, he stopped short, as though he feared that he might say too much. Yet his heart was overflowing; he would have greatly liked to ease his feelings, and this young priest from Paris, who looked so liberal-minded, could not be one of the "band" as he called all those who discharged functions at the Grotto and coined money out of Our Lady of Lourdes. Accordingly, little by little, he ventured to speak out. "I am a good Christian, I assure you, Monsieur l'Abbe," said he. "In fact we are all good Christians here. And I am a regular worshipper and take the sacrament every Easter. But, really, I must say that members of a religious community ought not to keep hotels. No, no, it isn't right!" And thereupon he vented all the spite of a tradesman in presence of what he considered to be disloyal competition. Ought not those Blue Sisters, those Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, to have confined themselves to their real functions, the manufacture of wafers for sacramental purposes, and the repairing and washing of church linen? Instead of that, however, they had transformed their convent into a vast hostelry, where ladies who came to Lourdes unaccompanied found separate rooms, and were able to take their meals either in privacy or in a general dining-room. Everything was certainly very clean, very well organised and very inexpensive, thanks to the thousand advantages which the Sisters enjoyed; in fact, no hotel at Lourdes did so much business. "But all the same," continued Majeste, "I ask you if it is proper. To think of nuns selling victuals! Besides, I must tell you that the lady superior is really a clever woman, and as soon as she saw the stream of fortune rolling in, she wanted to keep it all for her own community and resolutely parted with the Fathers of the Grotto who wanted to lay their hands on it. Yes, Monsieur l'Abbe, she even went to Rome and gained her cause there, so that now she pockets all the money that her bills bring in. Think of it, nuns, yes nuns, /mon Dieu/! letting furnished rooms and keeping a /table d'hote/!" He raised his arms to heaven, he was stifling with envy and vexation. "But as your house is crammed," Pierre gently objected, "as you no longer have either a bed or a plate at anybody's disposal, where would you put any additional visitors who might arrive here?" Majeste at once began protesting. "Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe!" said he, "one can see very well that you don't know the place. It's quite true that there is work for all of us, and that nobody has reason to complain during the national pilgrimage. But that only lasts four or five days, and in ordinary times the custom we secure isn't nearly so great. For myself, thank Heaven, I am always satisfied. My house is well known, it occupies the same rank as the Hotel of the Grotto, where two landlords have already made their fortunes. But no matter, it is vexing to see those Blue Sisters taking all the cream of the custom, for instance the ladies of the /bourgeoisie/ who spend a fortnight and three weeks here at a stretch; and that, too, just in the quiet season, when there are not many people here. You understand, don't you? There are people of position who dislike uproar; they go by themselves to the Grotto, and pray there all day long, for days together, and pay good prices for their accommodation without any higgling." Madame Majeste, whom Pierre and M. de Guersaint had not noticed leaning over an account-book in which she was adding up some figures, thereupon intervened in a shrill voice: "We had a customer like that, gentlemen, who stayed here for two months last year. She went to the Grotto, came back, went there again, took her meals, and went to bed. And never did we have a word of complaint from her; she was always smiling, as though to say that she found everything very nice. She paid her bill, too, without even looking at it. Ah! one regrets people of that kind." Short, thin, very dark, and dressed in black, with a little white collar, Madame Majeste had risen to her feet; and she now began to solicit custom: "If you would like to buy a few little souvenirs of Lourdes before you leave, gentlemen, I hope that you will not forget us. We have a shop close by, where you will find an assortment of all the articles that are most in request. As a rule, the persons who stay here are kind enough not to deal elsewhere." However, Majeste was again wagging his head, with the air of a good Christian saddened by the scandals of the time. "Certainly," said he, "I don't want to show any disrespect to the reverend Fathers, but it must in all truth be admitted that they are too greedy. You must have seen the shop which they have set up near the Grotto, that shop which is always crowded, and where tapers and articles of piety are sold. A bishop declared that it was shameful, and that the buyers and sellers ought to be driven out of the temple afresh. It is said, too, that the Fathers run that big shop yonder, just across the street, which supplies all the petty dealers in the town. And, according to the reports which circulate, they have a finger in all the trade in religious articles, and levy a percentage on the millions of chaplets, statuettes, and medals which are sold every year at Lourdes." Majeste had now lowered his voice, for his accusations were becoming precise, and he ended by trembling somewhat at his imprudence in talking so confidentially to strangers. However, the expression of Pierre's gentle, attentive face reassured him; and so he continued with the passion of a wounded rival, resolved to go on to the very end: "I am willing to admit that there is some exaggeration in all this. But all the same, it does religion no good for people to see the reverend Fathers keeping shops like us tradesmen. For my part, of course, I don't go and ask for a share of the money which they make by their masses, or a percentage on the presents which they receive, so why should they start selling what I sell? Our business was a poor one last year owing to them. There are already too many of us; nowadays everyone at Lourdes sells 'religious articles,' to such an extent, in fact, that there will soon be no butchers or wine merchants left--nothing but bread to eat and water to drink. Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe, it is no doubt nice to have the Blessed Virgin with us, but things are none the less very bad at times." A person staying at the hotel at that moment disturbed him, but he returned just as a young girl came in search of Madame Majeste. The damsel, who evidently belonged to Lourdes, was very pretty, small but plump, with beautiful black hair, and a round face full of bright gaiety. "That is our niece Apolline," resumed Majeste. "She has been keeping our shop for two years past. She is the daughter of one of my wife's brothers, who is in poor circumstances. She was keeping sheep at Ossun, in the neighbourhood of Bartres, when we were struck by her intelligence and nice looks and decided to bring her here; and we don't repent having done so, for she has a great deal of merit, and has become a very good saleswoman." A point to which he omitted to refer, was that there were rumours current of somewhat flighty conduct on Mademoiselle Apolline's part. But she undoubtedly had her value: she attracted customers by the power, possibly, of her large black eyes, which smiled so readily. During his sojourn at Lourdes the previous year, Gerard de Peyrelongue had scarcely stirred from the shop she managed, and doubtless it was only the matrimonial ideas now flitting through his head that prevented him from returning thither. It seemed as though the Abbe des Hermoises had taken his place, for this gallant ecclesiastic brought a great many ladies to make purchases at the repository. "Ah! you are speaking of Apolline," said Madame Majeste, at that moment coming back from the shop. "Have you noticed one thing about her, gentlemen--her extraordinary likeness to Bernadette? There, on the wall yonder, is a photograph of Bernadette when she was eighteen years old." Pierre and M. de Guersaint drew near to examine the portrait, whilst Majeste exclaimed: "Bernadette, yes, certainly--she was rather like Apolline, but not nearly so nice; she looked so sad and poor." He would doubtless have gone on chattering, but just then the waiter appeared and announced that there was at last a little table vacant. M. de Guersaint had twice gone to glance inside the dining-room, for he was eager to have his /dejeuner/ and spend the remainder of that fine Sunday out-of-doors. So he now hastened away, without paying any further attention to Majeste, who remarked, with an amiable smile, that the gentlemen had not had so very long to wait after all. To reach the table mentioned by the waiter, the architect and Pierre had to cross the dining-room from end to end. It was a long apartment, painted a light oak colour, an oily yellow, which was already peeling away in places and soiled with stains in others. You realised that rapid wear and tear went on here amidst the continual scramble of the big eaters who sat down at table. The only ornaments were a gilt zinc clock and a couple of meagre candelabra on the mantelpiece. Guipure curtains, moreover, hung at the five large windows looking on to the street, which was flooded with sunshine; some of the fierce arrow-like rays penetrating into the room although the blinds had been lowered. And, in the middle of the apartment, some forty persons were packed together at the /table d'hote/, which was scarcely eleven yards in length and did not supply proper accommodation for more than thirty people; whilst at the little tables standing against the walls upon either side another forty persons sat close together, hustled by the three waiters each time that they went by. You had scarcely reached the threshold before you were deafened by the extraordinary uproar, the noise of voices and the clatter of forks and plates; and it seemed, too, as if you were entering a damp oven, for a warm, steamy mist, laden with a suffocating smell of victuals, assailed the face. Pierre at first failed to distinguish anything, but, when he was installed at the little table--a garden-table which had been brought indoors for the occasion, and on which there was scarcely room for two covers--he felt quite upset, almost sick, in fact, at the sight presented by the /table d'hote/, which his glance now enfiladed from end to end. People had been eating at it for an hour already, two sets of customers had followed one upon the other, and the covers were strewn about in higgledy-piggledy fashion. On the cloth were numerous stains of wine and sauce, while there was no symmetry even in the arrangement of the glass fruit-stands, which formed the only decorations of the table. And one's astonishment increased at sight of the motley mob which was collected there--huge priests, scraggy girls, mothers overflowing with superfluous fat, gentlemen with red faces, and families ranged in rows and displaying all the pitiable, increasing ugliness of successive generations. All these people were perspiring, greedily swallowing, seated slantwise, lacking room to move their arms, and unable even to use their hands deftly. And amidst this display of appetite, increased tenfold by fatigue, and of eager haste to fill one's stomach in order to return to the Grotto more quickly, there was a corpulent ecclesiastic who in no wise hurried, but ate of every dish with prudent slowness, crunching his food with a ceaseless, dignified movement of the jaws. "/Fichtre/!" exclaimed M. de Guersaint, "it is by no means cool in here. All the same, I shall be glad of something to eat, for I've felt a sinking in the stomach ever since I have been at Lourdes. And you--are you hungry?" "Yes, yes, I shall eat," replied Pierre, though, truth to tell, he felt quite upset. The /menu/ was a copious one. There was salmon, an omelet, mutton cutlets with mashed potatoes, stewed kidneys, cauliflowers, cold meats, and apricot tarts--everything cooked too much, and swimming in sauce which, but for its grittiness, would have been flavourless. However, there was some fairly fine fruit on the glass stands, particularly some peaches. And, besides, the people did not seem at all difficult to please; they apparently had no palates, for there was no sign of nausea. Hemmed in between an old priest and a dirty, full-bearded man, a girl of delicate build, who looked very pretty with her soft eyes and silken skin, was eating some kidneys with an expression of absolute beatitude, although the so-called "sauce" in which they swam was simply greyish water. "Hum!" resumed even M. de Guersaint, "this salmon is not so bad. Add a little salt to it and you will find it all right." Pierre made up his mind to eat, for after all he must take sustenance for strength's sake. At a little table close by, however, he had just caught sight of Madame Vigneron and Madame Chaise, who sat face to face, apparently waiting. And indeed, M. Vigneron and his son Gustave soon appeared, the latter still pale, and leaning more heavily than usual on his crutch. "Sit down next to your aunt," said his father; "I will take the chair beside your mother." But just then he perceived his two neighbours, and stepping up to them, he added: "Oh! he is now all right again. I have been rubbing him with some eau-de-Cologne, and by-and-by he will be able to take his bath at the piscina." Thereupon M. Vigneron sat down and began to devour. But what an awful fright he had had! He again began talking of it aloud, despite himself, so intense had been his terror at the thought that the lad might go off before his aunt. The latter related that whilst she was kneeling at the Grotto the day before, she had experienced a sudden feeling of relief; in fact, she flattered herself that she was cured of her heart complaint, and began giving precise particulars, to which her brother-in-law listened with dilated eyes, full of involuntary anxiety. Most certainly he was a good-natured man, he had never desired anybody's death; only he felt indignant at the idea that the Virgin might cure this old woman, and forget his son, who was so young. Talking and eating, he had got to the cutlets, and was swallowing the mashed potatoes by the forkful, when he fancied he could detect that Madame Chaise was sulking with her nephew. "Gustave," he suddenly inquired, "have you asked your aunt's forgiveness?" The lad, quite astonished, began staring at his father with his large clear eyes. "Yes," added M. Vigneron, "you behaved very badly, you pushed her back just now when she wanted to help you to sit up." Madame Chaise said nothing, but waited with a dignified air, whilst Gustave, who, without any show of appetite, was finishing the /noix/ of his cutlet, which had been cut into small pieces, remained with his eyes lowered on his plate, this time obstinately refusing to make the sorry show of affection which was demanded of him. "Come, Gustave," resumed his father, "be a good boy. You know how kind your aunt is, and all that she intends to do for you." But no, he would not yield. At that moment, indeed, he really hated that woman, who did not die quickly enough, who polluted the affection of his parents, to such a point that when he saw them surround him with attentions he no longer knew whether it were himself or the inheritance which his life represented that they wished to save. However, Madame Vigneron, so dignified in her demeanour, came to her husband's help. "You really grieve me, Gustave," said she; "ask your aunt's forgiveness, or you will make me quite angry with you." Thereupon he gave way. What was the use of resisting? Was it not better that his parents should obtain that money? Would he not himself die later on, so as to suit the family convenience? He was aware of all that; he understood everything, even when not a word was spoken. So keen was the sense of hearing with which suffering had endowed him, that he even heard the others' thoughts. "I beg your pardon, aunt," he said, "for not having behaved well to you just now." Then two big tears rolled from his eyes, whilst he smiled with the air of a tender-hearted man who has seen too much of life and can no longer be deceived by anything. Madame Chaise at once kissed him and told him that she was not at all angry. And the Vignerons' delight in living was displayed in all candour. "If the kidneys are not up to much," M. de Guersaint now said to Pierre, "here at all events are some cauliflowers with a good flavour." The formidable mastication was still going on around them. Pierre had never seen such an amount of eating, amidst such perspiration, in an atmosphere as stifling as that of a washhouse full of hot steam. The odour of the victuals seemed to thicken into a kind of smoke. You had to shout to make yourself heard, for everybody was talking in loud tones, and the scared waiters raised a fearful clatter in changing the plates and forks; not to mention the noise of all the jaw-crunching, a mill-like grinding which was distinctly audible. What most hurt the feelings of the young priest, however, was the extraordinary promiscuity of the /table d'hote/, at which men and women, young girls and ecclesiastics, were packed together in chance order, and satisfied their hunger like a pack of hounds snapping at offal in all haste. Baskets of bread went round and were promptly emptied. And there was a perfect massacre of cold meats, all the remnants of the victuals of the day before, leg of mutton, veal, and ham, encompassed by a fallen mass of transparent jelly which quivered like soft glue. They had all eaten too much already, but these viands seemed to whet their appetites afresh, as though the idea had come to them that nothing whatever ought to be left. The fat priest in the middle of the table, who had shown himself such a capital knife-and-fork, was now lingering over the fruit, having just got to his third peach, a huge one, which he slowly peeled and swallowed in slices with an air of compunction. All at once, however, the whole room was thrown into agitation. A waiter had come in and begun distributing the letters which Madame Majeste had finished sorting. "Hallo!" exclaimed M. Vigneron; "a letter for me! This is surprising--I did not give my address to anybody." Then, at a sudden recollection, he added, "Yes I did, though; this must have come from Sauvageot, who is filling my place at the Ministry." He opened the letter, his hands began to tremble, and suddenly he raised a cry: "The chief clerk is dead!" Deeply agitated, Madame Vigneron was also unable to bridle her tongue: "Then you will have the appointment!" This was the secret dream in which they had so long and so fondly indulged: the chief clerk's death, in order that he, Vigneron, assistant chief clerk for ten years past, might at last rise to the supreme post, the bureaucratic marshalship. And so great was his delight that he cast aside all restraint. "Ah! the Blessed Virgin is certainly protecting me, my dear. Only this morning I again prayed to her for a rise, and, you see, she grants my prayer!" However, finding Madame Chaise's eyes fixed upon his own, and seeing Gustave smile, he realised that he ought not to exult in this fashion. Each member of the family no doubt thought of his or her interests and prayed to the Blessed Virgin for such personal favours as might be desired. And so, again putting on his good-natured air, he resumed: "I mean that the Blessed Virgin takes an interest in every one of us and will send us all home well satisfied. Ah! the poor chief, I'm sorry for him. I shall have to send my card to his widow." In spite of all his efforts he could not restrain his exultation, and no longer doubted that his most secret desires, those which he did not even confess to himself, would soon be gratified. And so all honour was done to the apricot tarts, even Gustave being allowed to eat a portion of one. "It is surprising," now remarked M. de Guersaint, who had just ordered a cup of coffee; "it is surprising that one doesn't see more sick people here. All these folks seem to me to have first-rate appetites." After a close inspection, however, in addition to Gustave, who ate no more than a little chicken, he ended by finding a man with a goitre seated at the /table d'hote/ between two women, one of whom certainly suffered from cancer. Farther on, too, there was a girl so thin and pale that she must surely be a consumptive. And still farther away there was a female idiot who had made her entry leaning on two relatives, and with expressionless eyes and lifeless features was now carrying her food to her mouth with a spoon, and slobbering over her napkin. Perhaps there were yet other ailing ones present who could not be distinguished among all those noisy appetites, ailing ones whom the journey had braced, and who were eating as they had not eaten for a long time past. The apricot tarts, the cheese, the fruits were all engulfed amidst the increasing disorder of the table, where at last there only remained the stains of all the wine and sauce which had been spilt upon the cloth. It was nearly noon. "We will go back to the Grotto at once, eh?" said M. Vigneron. Indeed, "To the Grotto! To the Grotto!" were well-nigh the only words you now heard. The full mouths were eagerly masticating and swallowing, in order that they might repeat prayers and hymns again with all speed. "Well, as we have the whole afternoon before us," declared M. de Guersaint, "I suggest that we should visit the town a little. I want to see also if I can get a conveyance for my excursion, as my daughter so particularly wishes me to make it." Pierre, who was stifling, was glad indeed to leave the dining-room. In the porch he was able to breathe again, though even there he found a torrent of customers, new arrivals who were waiting for places. No sooner did one of the little tables become vacant than its possession was eagerly contested, whilst the smallest gap at the /table d'hote/ was instantly filled up. In this wise the assault would continue for more than another hour, and again would the different courses of the /menu/ appear in procession, to be engulfed amidst the crunching of jaws, the stifling heat, and the growing nausea. II THE "ORDINARY." WHEN Pierre and M. de Guersaint got outside they began walking slowly amidst the ever-growing stream of the Sundayfied crowd. The sky was a bright blue, the sun warmed the whole town, and there was a festive gaiety in the atmosphere, the keen delight that attends those great fairs which bring entire communities into the open air. When they had descended the crowded footway of the Avenue de la Grotte, and had reached the corner of the Plateau de la Merlasse, they found their way barred by a throng which was flowing backward amidst a block of vehicles and stamping of horses. "There is no hurry, however," remarked M. de Guersaint. "My idea is to go as far as the Place du Marcadal in the old town; for the servant girl at the hotel told me of a hairdresser there whose brother lets out conveyances cheaply. Do you mind going so far?" "I?" replied Pierre. "Go wherever you like, I'll follow you." "All right--and I'll profit by the opportunity to have a shave." They were nearing the Place du Rosaire, and found themselves in front of the lawns stretching to the Gave, when an encounter again stopped them. Mesdames Desagneaux and Raymonde de Jonquiere were here, chatting gaily with Gerard de Peyrelongue. Both women wore light-coloured gowns, seaside dresses as it were, and their white silk parasols shone in the bright sunlight. They imparted, so to say, a pretty note to the scene--a touch of society chatter blended with the fresh laughter of youth. "No, no," Madame Desagneaux was saying, "we certainly can't go and visit your 'ordinary' like that--at the very moment when all your comrades are eating." Gerard, however, with a very gallant air, insisted on their accompanying him, turning more particularly towards Raymonde, whose somewhat massive face was that day brightened by the radiant charm of health. "But it is a very curious sight, I assure you," said the young man, "and you would be very respectfully received. Trust yourself to me, mademoiselle. Besides, we should certainly find M. Berthaud there, and he would be delighted to do you the honours." Raymonde smiled, her clear eyes plainly saying that she was quite agreeable. And just then, as Pierre and M. de Guersaint drew near in order to present their respects to the ladies, they were made acquainted with the question under discussion. The "ordinary" was a kind of restaurant or /table d'hote/ which the members of the Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation--the bearers, the hospitallers of the Grotto, the piscinas, and the hospitals--had established among themselves with the view of taking their meals together at small cost. Many of them were not rich, for they were recruited among all classes; however, they had contrived to secure three good meals for the daily payment of three francs apiece. And in fact they soon had provisions to spare and distributed them among the poor. Everything was in their own management; they purchased their own supplies, recruited a cook and a few waiters, and did not disdain to lend a hand themselves, in order that everything might be comfortable and orderly. "It must be very interesting," said M, de Guersaint, when these explanations had been given him. "Let us go and see it, if we are not in the way." Little Madame Desagneaux thereupon gave her consent. "Well, if we are going in a party," said she, "I am quite willing. But when this gentleman first proposed to take Raymonde and me, I was afraid that it might not be quite proper." Then, as she began to laugh, the others followed her example. She had accepted M. de Guersaint's arm, and Pierre walked beside her on the other hand, experiencing a sudden feeling of sympathy for this gay little woman, who was so full of life and so charming with her fair frizzy hair and creamy complexion. Behind them came Raymonde, leaning upon Gerard's arm and talking to him in the calm, staid voice of a young lady who holds the best principles despite her air of heedless youth. And since here was the husband whom she had so often dreamt of, she resolved that she would this time secure him, make him beyond all question her own. She intoxicated him with the perfume of health and youth which she diffused, and at the same time astonished him by her knowledge of housewifely duties and of the manner in which money may be economised even in the most trifling matters; for having questioned him with regard to the purchases which he and his comrades made for their "ordinary," she proceeded to show him that they might have reduced their expenditure still further. Meantime M. de Guersaint and Madame Desagneaux were also chatting together: "You must be fearfully tired, madame," said the architect. But with a gesture of revolt, and an exclamation of genuine anger, she replied: "Oh no, indeed! Last night, it is true, fatigue quite overcame me at the hospital; I sat down and dozed off, and Madame de Jonquiere and the other ladies were good enough to let me sleep on." At this the others again began to laugh; but still with the same angry air she continued: "And so I slept like a log until this morning. It was disgraceful, especially as I had sworn that I would remain up all night." Then, merriment gaining upon her in her turn, she suddenly burst into a sonorous laugh, displaying her beautiful white teeth. "Ah! a pretty nurse I am, and no mistake! It was poor Madame de Jonquiere who had to remain on her legs all the time. I tried to coax her to come out with us just now. But she preferred to take a little rest." Raymonde, who overheard these words, thereupon raised her voice to say: "Yes, indeed, my poor mamma could no longer keep on her feet. It was I who compelled her to lie down, telling her that she could go to sleep without any uneasiness, for we should get on all right without her--" So saying, the girl gave Gerard a laughing glance. He even fancied that he could detect a faint squeeze of the fresh round arm which was resting on his own, as though, indeed, she had wished to express her happiness at being alone with him so that they might settle their own affairs without any interference. This quite delighted him; and he began to explain that if he had not had /dejeuner/ with his comrades that day, it was because some friends had invited him to join them at the railway-station refreshment-room at ten o'clock, and had not given him his liberty until after the departure of the eleven-thirty train. "Ah! the rascals!" he suddenly resumed. "Do you hear them, mademoiselle?" The little party was now nearing its destination, and the uproarious laughter and chatter of youth rang out from a clump of trees which concealed the old zinc and plaster building in which the "ordinary" was installed. Gerard began by taking the visitors into the kitchen, a very spacious apartment, well fitted up, and containing a huge range and an immense table, to say nothing of numerous gigantic cauldrons. Here, moreover, the young man called the attention of his companions to the circumstance that the cook, a fat, jovial-looking man, had the red cross pinned on his white jacket, being himself a member of the pilgrimage. Then, pushing open a door, Gerard invited his friends to enter the common room. It was a long apartment containing two rows of plain deal tables; and the only other articles of furniture were numerous rush-seated tavern chairs, with an additional table which served as a sideboard. The whitewashed walls and the flooring of shiny, red tiles looked, however, extremely clean amidst this intentional bareness, which was similar to that of a monkish refectory. But, the feature of the place which more particularly struck you, as you crossed the threshold, was the childish gaiety which reigned there; for, packed together at the tables, were a hundred and fifty hospitallers of all ages, eating with splendid appetites, laughing, applauding, and singing, with their mouths full. A wondrous fraternity united these men, who had flocked to Lourdes from every province of France, and who belonged to all classes, and represented every degree of fortune. Many of them knew nothing of one another, save that they met here and elbowed one another during three days every year, living together like brothers, and then going off and remaining in absolute ignorance of each other during the rest of the twelvemonth. Nothing could be more charming, however, than to meet again at the next pilgrimage, united in the same charitable work, and to spend a few days of hard labour and boyish delight in common once more; for it all became, as it were, an "outing" of a number of big fellows, let loose under a lovely sky, and well pleased to be able to enjoy themselves and laugh together. And even the frugality of the table, with the pride of managing things themselves, of eating the provisions which they had purchased and cooked, added to the general good humour. "You see," explained Gerard, "we are not at all inclined to be sad, although we have so much hard work to get through. The Hospitality numbers more than three hundred members, but there are only about one hundred and fifty here at a time, for we have had to organise two successive services, so that there may always be some of us on duty at the Grotto and the hospitals." The sight of the little party of visitors assembled on the threshold of the room seemed to have increased the general delight; and Berthaud, the superintendent of the bearers, who was lunching at the head of one of the tables, gallantly rose up to receive the ladies. "But it smells very nice," exclaimed Madame Desagneaux in her giddy way. "Won't you invite us to come and taste your cookery to-morrow?" "Oh! we can't ask ladies," replied Berthaud, laughing. "But if you gentlemen would like to join us to-morrow we should be extremely pleased to entertain you." He had at once noticed the good understanding which prevailed between Gerard and Raymonde, and seemed delighted at it, for he greatly wished his cousin to make this match. He laughed pleasantly, at the enthusiastic gaiety which the young girl displayed as she began to question him. "Is not that the Marquis de Salmon-Roquebert," she asked, "who is sitting over yonder between those two young men who look like shop assistants?" "They are, in fact, the sons of a small stationer at Tarbes," replied Berthaud; "and that is really the Marquis, your neighbour of the Rue de Lille, the owner of that magnificent mansion, one of the richest and most noble men of title in France. You see how he is enjoying our mutton stew!" It was true, the millionaire Marquis seemed delighted to be able to board himself for his three francs a day, and to sit down at table in genuine democratic fashion by the side of petty /bourgeois/ and workmen who would not have dared to accost him in the street. Was not that chance table symbolical of social communion, effected by the joint practice of charity? For his part, the Marquis was the more hungry that day, as he had bathed over sixty patients, sufferers from all the most abominable diseases of unhappy humanity, at the piscinas that morning. And the scene around him seemed like a realisation of the evangelical commonalty; but doubtless it was so charming and so gay simply because its duration was limited to three days. Although M. de Guersaint had but lately risen from table, his curiosity prompted him to taste the mutton stew, and he pronounced it perfect. Meantime, Pierre caught sight of Baron Suire, the director of the Hospitality, walking about between the rows of tables with an air of some importance, as though he had allotted himself the task of keeping an eye on everything, even on the manner in which his staff fed itself. The young priest thereupon remembered the ardent desire which Marie had expressed to spend the night in front of the Grotto, and it occurred to him that the Baron might be willing to give the necessary authorisation. "Certainly," replied the director, who had become quite grave whilst listening to Pierre, "we do sometimes allow it; but it is always a very delicate matter! You assure me at all events that this young person is not consumptive? Well, well, since you say that she so much desires it I will mention the matter to Father Fourcade and warn Madame de Jonquiere, so that she may let you take the young lady away." He was in reality a very good-natured fellow, albeit so fond of assuming the air of an indispensable man weighed down by the heaviest responsibilities. In his turn he now detained the visitors, and gave them full particulars concerning the organisation of the Hospitality. Its members said prayers together every morning. Two board meetings were held each day, and were attended by all the heads of departments, as well as by the reverend Fathers and some of the chaplains. All the hospitallers took the Sacrament as frequently as possible. And, moreover, there were many complicated tasks to be attended to, a prodigious rotation of duties, quite a little world to be governed with a firm hand. The Baron spoke like a general who each year gains a great victory over the spirit of the age; and, sending Berthaud back to finish his /dejeuner/, he insisted on escorting the ladies into the little sanded courtyard, which was shaded by some fine trees. "It is very interesting, very interesting," repeated Madame Desagneaux. "We are greatly obliged to you for your kindness, monsieur." "Don't mention it, don't mention it, madame," answered the Baron. "It is I who am pleased at having had an opportunity to show you my little army." So far Gerard had not quitted Raymonde's side; but M. de Guersaint and Pierre were already exchanging glances suggestive of leave-taking, in order that they might repair by themselves to the Place du Marcadal, when Madame Desagneaux suddenly remembered that a friend had requested her to send her a bottle of Lourdes water. And she thereupon asked Gerard how she was to execute this commission. The young man began to laugh. "Will you again accept me as a guide?" said he. "And by the way, if these gentlemen like to come as well, I will show you the place where the bottles are filled, corked, packed in cases, and then sent off. It is a curious sight." M. de Guersaint immediately consented; and all five of them set out again, Madame Desagneaux still between the architect and the priest, whilst Raymonde and Gerard brought up the rear. The crowd in the burning sunlight was increasing; the Place du Rosaire was now overflowing with an idle sauntering mob resembling some concourse of sight-seers on a day of public rejoicing. The bottling and packing shops were situated under one of the arches on the left-hand side of the Place. They formed a suite of three apartments of very simple aspect. In the first one the bottles were filled in the most ordinary of fashions. A little green-painted zinc barrel, not unlike a watering-cask, was dragged by a man from the Grotto, and the light-coloured bottles were then simply filled at its tap, one by one; the blouse-clad workman entrusted with the duty exercising no particular watchfulness to prevent the water from overflowing. In fact there was quite a puddle of it upon the ground. There were no labels on the bottles; the little leaden capsules placed over the corks alone bore an inscription, and they were coated with a kind of ceruse, doubtless to ensure preservation. Then came two other rooms which formed regular packing shops, with carpenters' benches, tools, and heaps of shavings. The boxes, most frequently made for one bottle or for two, were put together with great care, and the bottles were deposited inside them, on beds of fine wood parings. The scene reminded one in some degree of the packing halls for flowers at Nice and for preserved fruits at Grasse. Gerard went on giving explanations with a quiet, satisfied air. "The water," he said, "really comes from the Grotto, as you can yourselves see, so that all the foolish jokes which one hears really have no basis. And everything is perfectly simple, natural, and goes on in the broad daylight. I would also point out to you that the Fathers don't sell the water as they are accused of doing. For instance, a bottle of water here costs twenty centimes,* which is only the price of the bottle itself. If you wish to have it sent to anybody you naturally have to pay for the packing and the carriage, and then it costs you one franc and seventy centimes.** However, you are perfectly at liberty to go to the source and fill the flasks and cans and other receptacles that you may choose to bring with you." * Four cents, U.S.A. ** About 32 cents, U.S.A. Pierre reflected that the profits of the reverend Fathers in this respect could not be very large ones, for their gains were limited to what they made by manufacturing the boxes and supplying the bottles, which latter, purchased by the thousand, certainly did not cost them so much as twenty centimes apiece. However, Raymonde and Madame Desagneaux, as well as M. de Guersaint, who had such a lively imagination, experienced deep disappointment at sight of the little green barrel, the capsules, sticky with ceruse, and the piles of shavings lying around the benches. They had doubtless imagined all sorts of ceremonies, the observance of certain rites in bottling the miraculous water, priests in vestments pronouncing blessings, and choir-boys singing hymns of praise in pure crystalline voices. For his part, Pierre, in presence of all this vulgar bottling and packing, ended by thinking of the active power of faith. When one of those bottles reaches some far-away sick-room, and is unpacked there, and the sufferer falls upon his knees, and so excites himself by contemplating and drinking the pure water that he actually brings about the cure of his ailment, there must truly be a most extraordinary plunge into all-powerful illusion. "Ah!" exclaimed Gerard as they came out, "would you like to see the storehouse where the tapers are kept, before going to the offices? It is only a couple of steps away." And then, not even waiting for their answer, he led them to the opposite side of the Place du Rosaire. His one desire was to amuse Raymonde, but, in point of fact, the aspect of the place where the tapers were stored was even less entertaining than that of the packing-rooms which they had just left. This storehouse, a kind of deep vault under one of the right-hand arches of the Place, was divided by timber into a number of spacious compartments, in which lay an extraordinary collection of tapers, classified according to size. The overplus of all the tapers offered to the Grotto was deposited here; and such was the number of these superfluous candles that the little conveyances stationed near the Grotto railing, ready to receive the pilgrims' offerings, had to be brought to the storehouse several times a day in order to be emptied there, after which they were returned to the Grotto, and were promptly filled again. In theory, each taper that was offered ought to have been burnt at the feet of the Virgin's statue; but so great was the number of these offerings, that, although a couple of hundred tapers of all sizes were kept burning by day and night, it was impossible to exhaust the supply, which went on increasing and increasing. There was a rumour that the Fathers could not even find room to store all this wax, but had to sell it over and over again; and, indeed, certain friends of the Grotto confessed, with a touch of pride, that the profit on the tapers alone would have sufficed to defray all the expenses of the business. The quantity of these votive candles quite stupefied Raymonde and Madame Desagneaux. How many, how many there were! The smaller ones, costing from fifty centimes to a franc apiece, were piled up in fabulous numbers. M. de Guersaint, desirous of getting at the exact figures, quite lost himself in the puzzling calculation he attempted. As for Pierre, it was in silence that he gazed upon this mass of wax, destined to be burnt in open daylight to the glory of God; and although he was by no means a rigid utilitarian, and could well understand that some apparent acts of extravagance yield an illusive enjoyment and satisfaction which provide humanity with as much sustenance as bread, he could not, on the other hand, refrain from reflecting on the many benefits which might have been conferred on the poor and the ailing with the money represented by all that wax, which would fly away in smoke. "But come, what about that bottle which I am to send off?" abruptly asked Madame Desagneaux. "We will go to the office," replied Gerard. "In five minutes everything will be settled." They had to cross the Place du Rosaire once more and ascend the stone stairway leading to the Basilica. The office was up above, on the left hand, at the corner of the path leading to the Calvary. The building was a paltry one, a hut of lath and plaster which the wind and the rain had reduced to a state of ruin. On a board outside was the inscription: "Apply here with reference to Masses, Offerings, and Brotherhoods. Forwarding office for Lourdes water. Subscriptions to the 'Annals of O. L. of Lourdes.'" How many millions of people must have already passed through this wretched shanty, which seemed to date from the innocent days when the foundations of the adjacent Basilica had scarcely been laid! The whole party went in, eager to see what might be inside. But they simply found a wicket at which Madame Desagneaux had to stop in order to give her friend's name and address; and when she had paid one franc and seventy centimes, a small printed receipt was handed her, such as you receive on registering luggage at a railway station. As soon as they were outside again Gerard pointed to a large building standing two or three hundred yards away, and resumed: "There, that is where the Fathers reside." "But we see nothing of them," remarked Pierre. This observation so astonished the young man that he remained for a moment without replying. "It's true," he at last said, "we do not see them, but then they give up the custody of everything--the Grotto and all the rest--to the Fathers of the Assumption during the national pilgrimage." Pierre looked at the building which had been pointed out to him, and noticed that it was a massive stone pile resembling a fortress. The windows were closed, and the whole edifice looked lifeless. Yet everything at Lourdes came from it, and to it also everything returned. It seemed, in fact, to the young priest that he could hear the silent, formidable rake-stroke which extended over the entire valley, which caught hold of all who had come to the spot, and placed both the gold and the blood of the throng in the clutches of those reverend Fathers! However, Gerard just then resumed in a low voice "But come, they do show themselves, for here is the reverend superior, Father Capdebarthe himself." An ecclesiastic was indeed just passing, a man with the appearance of a peasant, a knotty frame, and a large head which looked as though carved with a billhook. His opaque eyes were quite expressionless, and his face, with its worn features, had retained a loamy tint, a gloomy, russet reflection of the earth. Monseigneur Laurence had really made a politic selection in confiding the organisation and management of the Grotto to those Garaison missionaries, who were so tenacious and covetous, for the most part sons of mountain peasants and passionately attached to the soil. However, the little party now slowly retraced its steps by way of the Plateau de la Merlasse, the broad boulevard which skirts the inclined way on the left hand and leads to the Avenue de la Grotte. It was already past one o'clock, but people were still eating their /dejeuners/ from one to the other end of the overflowing town. Many of the fifty thousand pilgrims and sight-seers collected within it had not yet been able to sit down and eat; and Pierre, who had left the /table d'hote/ still crowded, who had just seen the hospitallers squeezing together so gaily at the "ordinary," found more and more tables at each step he took. On all sides people were eating, eating without a pause. Hereabouts, however, in the open air, on either side of the broad road, the hungry ones were humble folk who had rushed upon the tables set up on either footway--tables formed of a couple of long boards, flanked by two forms, and shaded from the sun by narrow linen awnings. Broth and coffee were sold at these places at a penny a cup. The little loaves heaped up in high baskets also cost a penny apiece. Hanging from the poles which upheld the awnings were sausages, chitterlings, and hams. Some of the open-air /restaurateurs/ were frying potatoes, and others were concocting more or less savoury messes of inferior meat and onions. A pungent smoke, a violent odour, arose into the sunlight, mingling with the dust which was raised by the continuous tramp of the promenaders. Rows of people, moreover, were waiting at each cantine, so that each time a party rose from table fresh customers took possession of the benches ranged beside the oilcloth-covered planks, which were so narrow that there was scarcely room for two bowls of soup to be placed side by side. And one and all made haste, and devoured with the ravenous hunger born of their fatigue, that insatiable appetite which so often follows upon great moral shocks. In fact, when the mind had exhausted itself in prayer, when everything physical had been forgotten amidst the mental flight into the legendary heavens, the human animal suddenly appeared, again asserted itself, and began to gorge. Moreover, under that dazzling Sunday sky, the scene was like that of a fair-field with all the gluttony of a merrymaking community, a display of the delight which they felt in living, despite the multiplicity of their abominable ailments and the dearth of the miracles they hoped for. "They eat, they amuse themselves; what else can one expect?" remarked Gerard, guessing the thoughts of his amiable companions. "Ah! poor people!" murmured Pierre, "they have a perfect right to do so." He was greatly touched to see human nature reassert itself in this fashion. However, when they had got to the lower part of the boulevard near the Grotto, his feelings were hurt at sight of the desperate eagerness displayed by the female vendors of tapers and bouquets, who with the rough fierceness of conquerors assailed the passers-by in bands. They were mostly young women, with bare heads, or with kerchiefs tied over their hair, and they displayed extraordinary effrontery. Even the old ones were scarcely more discreet. With parcels of tapers under their arms, they brandished the one which they offered for sale and even thrust it into the hand of the promenader. "Monsieur," "madame," they called, "buy a taper, buy a taper, it will bring you luck!" One gentleman, who was surrounded and shaken by three of the youngest of these harpies, almost lost the skirts of his frock-coat in attempting to escape their clutches. Then the scene began afresh with the bouquets--large round bouquets they were, carelessly fastened together and looking like cabbages. "A bouquet, madame!" was the cry. "A bouquet for the Blessed Virgin!" If the lady escaped, she heard muttered insults behind her. Trafficking, impudent trafficking, pursued the pilgrims to the very outskirts of the Grotto. Trade was not merely triumphantly installed in every one of the shops, standing close together and transforming each street into a bazaar, but it overran the footways and barred the road with hand-carts full of chaplets, medals, statuettes, and religious prints. On all sides people were buying almost to the same extent as they ate, in order that they might take away with them some souvenir of this holy Kermesse. And the bright gay note of this commercial eagerness, this scramble of hawkers, was supplied by the urchins who rushed about through the crowd, crying the "Journal de la Grotte." Their sharp, shrill voices pierced the ear: "The 'Journal de la Grotte,' this morning's number, two sous, the 'Journal de la Grotte.'" Amidst the continual pushing which accompanied the eddying of the ever-moving crowd, Gerard's little party became separated. He and Raymonde remained behind the others. They had begun talking together in low tones, with an air of smiling intimacy, lost and isolated as they were in the dense crowd. And Madame Desagneaux at last had to stop, look back, and call to them: "Come on, or we shall lose one another!" As they drew near, Pierre heard the girl exclaim: "Mamma is so very busy; speak to her before we leave." And Gerard thereupon replied: "It is understood. You have made me very happy, mademoiselle." Thus the husband had been secured, the marriage decided upon, during this charming promenade among the sights of Lourdes. Raymonde had completed her conquest, and Gerard had at last taken a resolution, realising how gay and sensible she was, as she walked beside him leaning on his arm. M. de Guersaint, however, had raised his eyes, and was heard inquiring: "Are not those people up there, on that balcony, the rich folk who made the journey in the same train as ourselves?--You know whom I mean, that lady who is so very ill, and whose husband and sister accompany her?" He was alluding to the Dieulafays; and they indeed were the persons whom he now saw on the balcony of a suite of rooms which they had rented in a new house overlooking the lawns of the Rosary. They here occupied a first-floor, furnished with all the luxury that Lourdes could provide, carpets, hangings, mirrors, and many other things, without mentioning a staff of servants despatched beforehand from Paris. As the weather was so fine that afternoon, the large armchair on which lay the poor ailing woman had been rolled on to the balcony. You could see her there, clad in a lace /peignoir/. Her husband, always correctly attired in a black frock-coat, stood beside her on her right hand, whilst her sister, in a delightful pale mauve gown, sat on her left smiling and leaning over every now and then so as to speak to her, but apparently receiving no reply. "Oh!" declared little Madame Desagneaux, "I have often heard people speak of Madame Jousseur, that lady in mauve. She is the wife of a diplomatist who neglects her, it seems, in spite of her great beauty; and last year there was a deal of talk about her fancy for a young colonel who is well known in Parisian society. It is said, however, in Catholic /salons/ that her religious principles enabled her to conquer it." They all five remained there, looking up at the balcony. "To think," resumed Madame Desagneaux, "that her sister, poor woman, was once her living portrait." And, indeed, there was an expression of greater kindliness and more gentle gaiety on Madame Dieulafay's face. And now you see her--no different from a dead woman except that she is above instead of under ground--with her flesh wasted away, reduced to a livid, boneless thing which they scarcely dare to move. Ah! the unhappy woman! Raymonde thereupon assured the others that Madame Dieulafay, who had been married scarcely two years previously, had brought all the jewellery given her on the occasion of her wedding to offer it as a gift to Our Lady of Lourdes; and Gerard confirmed this assertion, saying that the jewellery had been handed over to the treasurer of the Basilica that very morning with a golden lantern studded with gems and a large sum of money destined for the relief of the poor. However, the Blessed Virgin could not have been touched as yet, for the sufferer's condition seemed, if anything, to be worse. From that moment Pierre no longer beheld aught save that young woman on that handsome balcony, that woeful, wealthy creature lying there high above the merrymaking throng, the Lourdes mob which was feasting and laughing in the Sunday sunshine. The two dear ones who were so tenderly watching over her--her sister who had forsaken her society triumphs, her husband who had forgotten his financial business, his millions dispersed throughout the world--increased, by their irreproachable demeanour, the woefulness of the group which they thus formed high above all other heads, and face to face with the lovely valley. For Pierre they alone remained; and they were exceedingly wealthy and exceedingly wretched. However, lingering in this wise on the footway with their eyes upturned, the five promenaders narrowly escaped being knocked down and run over, for at every moment fresh vehicles were coming up, for the most part landaus drawn by four horses, which were driven at a fast trot, and whose bells jingled merrily. The occupants of these carriages were tourists, visitors to the waters of Pau, Bareges, and Cauterets, whom curiosity had attracted to Lourdes, and who were delighted with the fine weather and quite inspirited by their rapid drive across the mountains. They would remain at Lourdes only a few hours; after hastening to the Grotto and the Basilica in seaside costumes, they would start off again, laughing, and well pleased at having seen it all. In this wise families in light attire, bands of young women with bright parasols, darted hither and thither among the grey, neutral-tinted crowd of pilgrims, imparting to it, in a yet more pronounced manner, the aspect of a fair-day mob, amidst which folks of good society deign to come and amuse themselves. All at once Madame Desagneaux raised a cry "What, is it you, Berthe?" And thereupon she embraced a tall, charming brunette who had just alighted from a landau with three other young women, the whole party smiling and animated. Everyone began talking at once, and all sorts of merry exclamations rang out, in the delight they felt at meeting in this fashion. "Oh! we are at Cauterets, my dear," said the tall brunette. "And as everybody comes here, we decided to come all four together. And your husband, is he here with you?" Madame Desagneaux began protesting: "Of course not," said she. "He is at Trouville, as you ought to know. I shall start to join him on Thursday." "Yes, yes, of course," resumed the tall brunette, who, like her friend, seemed to be an amiable, giddy creature, "I was forgetting; you are here with the pilgrimage." Then Madame Desagneaux offered to guide her friends, promising to show them everything of interest in less than a couple of hours; and turning to Raymonde, who stood by, smiling, she added "Come with us, my dear; your mother won't be anxious." The ladies and Pierre and M. de Guersaint thereupon exchanged bows: and Gerard also took leave, tenderly pressing Raymonde's hand, with his eyes fixed on hers, as though to pledge himself definitively. The women swiftly departed, directing their steps towards the Grotto, and when Gerard also had gone off, returning to his duties, M. de Guersaint said to Pierre: "And the hairdresser on the Place du Marcadal, I really must go and see him. You will come with me, won't you?" "Of course I will go wherever you like. I am quite at your disposal as Marie does not need us." Following the pathways between the large lawns which stretch out in front of the Rosary, they reached the new bridge, where they had another encounter, this time with Abbe des Hermoises, who was acting as guide to two young married ladies who had arrived that morning from Tarbes. Walking between them with the gallant air of a society priest, he was showing them Lourdes and explaining it to them, keeping them well away, however, from its more repugnant features, its poor and its ailing folk, its odour of low misery, which, it must be admitted, had well-nigh disappeared that fine, sunshiny day. At the first word which M. de Guersaint addressed to him with respect to the hiring of a vehicle for the trip to Gavarnie, the Abbe was seized with a dread lest he should be obliged to leave his pretty lady-visitors: "As you please, my dear sir," he replied. "Kindly attend to the matter, and--you are quite right, make the cheapest arrangements possible, for I shall have two ecclesiastics of small means with me. There will be four of us. Let me know at the hotel this evening at what hour we shall start." Thereupon he again joined his lady-friends, and led them towards the Grotto, following the shady path which skirts the Gave, a cool, sequestered path well suited for lovers' walks. Feeling somewhat tired, Pierre had remained apart from the others, leaning against the parapet of the new bridge. And now for the first time he was struck by the prodigious number of priests among the crowd. He saw all varieties of them swarming across the bridge: priests of correct mien who had come with the pilgrimage and who could be recognised by their air of assurance and their clean cassocks; poor village priests who were far more timid and badly clothed, and who, after making sacrifices in order that they might indulge in the journey, would return home quite scared and, finally, there was the whole crowd of unattached ecclesiastics who had come nobody knew whence, and who enjoyed such absolute liberty that it was difficult to be sure whether they had even said their mass that morning. They doubtless found this liberty very agreeable; and thus the greater number of them, like Abbe des Hermoises, had simply come on a holiday excursion, free from all duties, and happy at being able to live like ordinary men, lost, unnoticed as they were in the multitude around them. And from the young, carefully groomed and perfumed priest, to the old one in a dirty cassock and shoes down at heel, the entire species had its representative in the throng--there were corpulent ones, others but moderately fat, thin ones, tall ones and short ones, some whom faith had brought and whom ardour was consuming, some also who simply plied their calling like worthy men, and some, moreover, who were fond of intriguing, and who were only present in order that they might help the good cause. However, Pierre was quite surprised to see such a stream of priests pass before him, each with his special passion, and one and all hurrying to the Grotto as one hurries to a duty, a belief, a pleasure, or a task. He noticed one among the number, a very short, slim, dark man with a pronounced Italian accent, whose glittering eyes seemed to be taking a plan of Lourdes, who looked, indeed, like one of those spies who come and peer around with a view to conquest; and then he observed another one, an enormous fellow with a paternal air, who was breathing hard through inordinate eating, and who paused in front of a poor sick woman, and ended by slipping a five-franc piece into her hand. Just then, however, M. de Guersaint returned: "We merely have to go down the boulevard and the Rue Basse," said he. Pierre followed him without answering. He had just felt his cassock on his shoulders for the first time that afternoon, for never had it seemed so light to him as whilst he was walking about amidst the scramble of the pilgrimage. The young fellow was now living in a state of mingled unconsciousness and dizziness, ever hoping that faith would fall upon him like a lightning flash, in spite of all the vague uneasiness which was growing within him at sight of the things which he beheld. However, the spectacle of that ever-swelling stream of priests no longer wounded his heart; fraternal feelings towards these unknown colleagues had returned to him; how many of them there must be who believed no more than he did himself, and yet, like himself, honestly fulfilled their mission as guides and consolers! "This boulevard is a new one, you know," said M. de Guersaint, all at once raising his voice. "The number of houses built during the last twenty years is almost beyond belief. There is quite a new town here." The Lapaca flowed along behind the buildings on their right and, their curiosity inducing them to turn into a narrow lane, they came upon some strange old structures on the margin of the narrow stream. Several ancient mills here displayed their wheels; among them one which Monseigneur Laurence had given to Bernadette's parents after the apparitions. Tourists, moreover, were here shown the pretended abode of Bernadette, a hovel whither the Soubirous family had removed on leaving the Rue des Petits Fosses, and in which the young girl, as she was already boarding with the Sisters of Nevers, can have but seldom slept. At last, by way of the Rue Basse, Pierre and his companion reached the Place du Marcadal. This was a long, triangular, open space, the most animated and luxurious of the squares of the old town, the one where the cafes, the chemists, all the finest shops were situated. And, among the latter, one showed conspicuously, coloured as it was a lively green, adorned with lofty mirrors, and surmounted by a broad board bearing in gilt letters the inscription: "Cazaban, Hairdresser". M. de Guersaint and Pierre went in, but there was nobody in the salon and they had to wait. A terrible clatter of forks resounded from the adjoining room, an ordinary dining-room transformed into a /table d'hote/, in which some twenty people were having /dejeuner/ although it was already two o'clock. The afternoon was progressing, and yet people were still eating from one to the other end of Lourdes. Like every other householder in the town, whatever his religious convictions might be, Cazaban, in the pilgrimage season, let his bedrooms, surrendered his dining-room, end sought refuge in his cellar, where, heaped up with his family, he ate and slept, although this unventilated hole was no more than three yards square. However, the passion for trading and moneymaking carried all before it; at pilgrimage time the whole population disappeared like that of a conquered city, surrendering even the beds of its women and its children to the pilgrims, seating them at its tables, and supplying them with food. "Is there nobody here?" called M. de Guersaint after waiting a moment. At last a little man made his appearance, Cazaban himself, a type of the knotty but active Pyrenean, with a long face, prominent cheek-bones, and a sunburned complexion spotted here and there with red. His big, glittering eyes never remained still; and the whole of his spare little figure quivered with incessant exuberance of speech and gesture. "For you, monsieur--a shave, eh?" said he. "I must beg your pardon for keeping you waiting; but my assistant has gone out, and I was in there with my boarders. If you will kindly sit down, I will attend to you at once." Thereupon, deigning to operate in person, Cazaban began to stir up the lather and strop the razor. He had glanced rather nervously, however, at the cassock worn by Pierre, who without a word had seated himself in a corner and taken up a newspaper in the perusal of which he appeared to be absorbed. A short interval of silence followed; but it was fraught with suffering for Cazaban, and whilst lathering his customer's chin he began to chatter: "My boarders lingered this morning such a long time at the Grotto, monsieur, that they have scarcely sat down to /dejeuner/. You can hear them, eh? I was staying with them out of politeness. However, I owe myself to my customers as well, do I not? One must try to please everybody." M. de Guersaint, who also was fond of a chat, thereupon began to question him: "You lodge some of the pilgrims, I suppose?" "Oh! we all lodge some of them, monsieur; it is necessary for the town," replied the barber. "And you accompany them to the Grotto?" At this, however, Cazaban revolted, and, holding up his razor, he answered with an air of dignity "Never, monsieur, never! For five years past I have not been in that new town which they are building." He was still seeking to restrain himself, and again glanced at Pierre, whose face was hidden by the newspaper. The sight of the red cross pinned on M. de Guersaint's jacket was also calculated to render him prudent; nevertheless his tongue won the victory. "Well, monsieur, opinions are free, are they not?" said he. "I respect yours, but for my part I don't believe in all that phantasmagoria! Oh I've never concealed it! I was already a republican and a freethinker in the days of the Empire. There were barely four men of those views in the whole town at that time. Oh! I'm proud of it." He had begun to shave M. de Guersaint's left cheek and was quite triumphant. From that moment a stream of words poured forth from his mouth, a stream which seemed to be inexhaustible. To begin with, he brought the same charges as Majeste against the Fathers of the Grotto. He reproached them for their dealings in tapers, chaplets, prints, and crucifixes, for the disloyal manner in which they competed with those who sold those articles as well as with the hotel and lodging-house keepers. And he was also wrathful with the Blue Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, for had they not robbed him of two tenants, two old ladies, who spent three weeks at Lourdes each year? Moreover you could divine within him all the slowly accumulated, overflowing spite with which the old town regarded the new town--that town which had sprung up so quickly on the other side of the castle, that rich city with houses as big as palaces, whither flowed all the life, all the luxury, all the money of Lourdes, so that it was incessantly growing larger and wealthier, whilst its elder sister, the poor, antique town of the mountains, with its narrow, grass-grown, deserted streets, seemed near the point of death. Nevertheless the struggle still continued; the old town seemed determined not to die, and, by lodging pilgrims and opening shops on her side, endeavoured to compel her ungrateful junior to grant her a share of the spoils. But custom only flowed to the shops which were near the Grotto, and only the poorer pilgrims were willing to lodge so far away; so that the unequal conditions of the struggle intensified the rupture and turned the high town and the low town into two irreconcilable enemies, who preyed upon one another amidst continual intrigues. "Ah, no! They certainly won't see me at their Grotto," resumed Cazaban, with his rageful air. "What an abusive use they make of that Grotto of theirs! They serve it up in every fashion! To think of such idolatry, such gross superstition in the nineteenth century! Just ask them if they have cured a single sufferer belonging to the town during the last twenty years! Yet there are plenty of infirm people crawling about our streets. It was our folk that benefited by the first miracles; but it would seem that the miraculous water has long lost all its power, so far as we are concerned. We are too near it; people have to come from a long distance if they want it to act on them. It's really all too stupid; why, I wouldn't go there even if I were offered a hundred francs!" Pierre's immobility was doubtless irritating the barber. He had now begun to shave M. de Guersaint's right cheek; and was inveighing against the Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, whose greed for gain was the one cause of all the misunderstanding. These Fathers who were at home there, since they had purchased from the Municipality the land on which they desired to build, did not even carry out the stipulations of the contract they had signed, for there were two clauses in it forbidding all trading, such as the sale of the water and of religious articles. Innumerable actions might have been brought against them. But they snapped their fingers, and felt themselves so powerful that they no longer allowed a single offering to go to the parish, but arranged matters so that the whole harvest of money should be garnered by the Grotto and the Basilica. And, all at once, Cazaban candidly exclaimed: "If they were only reasonable, if they would only share with us!" Then, when M. de Guersaint had washed his face, and reseated himself, the hairdresser resumed: "And if I were to tell you, monsieur, what they have done with our poor town! Forty years ago all the young girls here conducted themselves properly, I assure you. I remember that in my young days when a young man was wicked he generally had to go elsewhere. But times have changed, our manners are no longer the same. Nowadays nearly all the girls content themselves with selling candles and nosegays; and you must have seen them catching hold of the passers-by and thrusting their goods into their hands! It is really shameful to see so many bold girls about! They make a lot of money, acquire lazy habits, and, instead of working during the winter, simply wait for the return of the pilgrimage season. And I assure you that the young men don't need to go elsewhere nowadays. No, indeed! And add to all this the suspicious floating element which swells the population as soon as the first fine weather sets in--the coachmen, the hawkers, the cantine keepers, all the low-class, wandering folk reeking with grossness and vice--and you can form an idea of the honest new town which they have given us with the crowds that come to their Grotto and their Basilica!" Greatly struck by these remarks, Pierre had let his newspaper fall and begun to listen. It was now, for the first time, that he fully realised the difference between the two Lourdes--old Lourdes so honest and so pious in its tranquil solitude, and new Lourdes corrupted, demoralised by the circulation of so much money, by such a great enforced increase of wealth, by the ever-growing torrent of strangers sweeping through it, by the fatal rotting influence of the conflux of thousands of people, the contagion of evil examples. And what a terrible result it seemed when one thought of Bernadette, the pure, candid girl kneeling before the wild primitive grotto, when one thought of all the naive faith, all the fervent purity of those who had first begun the work! Had they desired that the whole countryside should be poisoned in this wise by lucre and human filth? Yet it had sufficed that the nations should flock there for a pestilence to break out. Seeing that Pierre was listening, Cazaban made a final threatening gesture as though to sweep away all this poisonous superstition. Then, relapsing into silence, he finished cutting M. de Guersaint's hair. "There you are, monsieur!" The architect rose, and it was only now that he began to speak of the conveyance which he wished to hire. At first the hairdresser declined to enter into the matter, pretending that they must apply to his brother at the Champ Commun; but at last he consented to take the order. A pair-horse landau for Gavarnie was priced at fifty francs. However, he was so pleased at having talked so much, and so flattered at hearing himself called an honest man, that he eventually agreed to charge only forty francs. There were four persons in the party, so this would make ten francs apiece. And it was agreed that they should start off at about two in the morning, so that they might get back to Lourdes at a tolerably early hour on the Monday evening. "The landau will be outside the Hotel of the Apparitions at the appointed time," repeated Cazaban in his emphatic way. "You may rely on me, monsieur." Then he began to listen. The clatter of crockery did not cease in the adjoining room. People were still eating there with that impulsive voracity which had spread from one to the other end of Lourdes. And all at once a voice was heard calling for more bread. "Excuse me," hastily resumed Cazaban, "my boarders want me." And thereupon he rushed away, his hands still greasy through fingering the comb. The door remained open for a second, and on the walls of the dining-room Pierre espied various religious prints, and notably a view of the Grotto, which surprised him; in all probability, however, the hairdresser only hung these engravings there during the pilgrimage season by way of pleasing his boarders. It was now nearly three o'clock. When the young priest and M. de Guersaint got outside they were astonished at the loud pealing of bells which was flying through the air. The parish church had responded to the first stroke of vespers chiming at the Basilica; and now all the convents, one after another, were contributing to the swelling peals. The crystalline notes of the bell of the Carmelites mingled with the grave notes of the bell of the Immaculate Conception; and all the joyous bells of the Sisters of Nevers and the Dominicans were jingling together. In this wise, from morning till evening on fine days of festivity, the chimes winged their flight above the house-roofs of Lourdes. And nothing could have been gayer than that sonorous melody resounding in the broad blue heavens above the gluttonous town, which had at last lunched, and was now comfortably digesting as it strolled about in the sunlight. III THE NIGHT PROCESSION AS soon as night had fallen Marie, still lying on her bed at the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours, became extremely impatient, for she had learnt from Madame de Jonquiere that Baron Suire had obtained from Father Fourcade the necessary permission for her to spend the night in front of the Grotto. Thus she kept on questioning Sister Hyacinthe, asking her: "Pray, Sister, is it not yet nine o'clock?" "No, my child, it is scarcely half-past eight," was the reply. "Here is a nice woollen shawl for you to wrap round you at daybreak, for the Gave is close by, and the mornings are very fresh, you know, in these mountainous parts." "Oh! but the nights are so lovely, Sister, and besides, I sleep so little here!" replied Marie; "I cannot be worse off out-of-doors. /Mon Dieu/, how happy I am; how delightful it will be to spend the whole night with the Blessed Virgin!" The entire ward was jealous of her; for to remain in prayer before the Grotto all night long was the most ineffable of joys, the supreme beatitude. It was said that in the deep peacefulness of night the chosen ones undoubtedly beheld the Virgin, but powerful protection was needed to obtain such a favour as had been granted to Marie; for nowadays the reverend Fathers scarcely liked to grant it, as several sufferers had died during the long vigil, falling asleep, as it were, in the midst of their ecstasy. "You will take the Sacrament at the Grotto tomorrow morning, before you are brought back here, won't you, my child?" resumed Sister Hyacinthe. However, nine o'clock at last struck, and, Pierre not arriving, the girl wondered whether he, usually so punctual, could have forgotten her? The others were now talking to her of the night procession, which she would see from beginning to end if she only started at once. The ceremonies concluded with a procession every night, but the Sunday one was always the finest, and that evening, it was said, would be remarkably splendid, such, indeed, as was seldom seen. Nearly thirty thousand pilgrims would take part in it, each carrying a lighted taper: the nocturnal marvels of the sky would be revealed; the stars would descend upon earth. At this thought the sufferers began to bewail their fate; what a wretched lot was theirs, to be tied to their beds, unable to see any of those wonders. At last Madame de Jonquiere approached Marie's bed. "My dear girl," said she, "here is your father with Monsieur l'Abbe." Radiant with delight, the girl at once forgot her weary waiting. "Oh! pray let us make haste, Pierre," she exclaimed; "pray let us make haste!" They carried her down the stairs, and the young priest harnessed himself to the little car, which gently rolled along, under the star-studded heavens, whilst M. de Guersaint walked beside it. The night was moonless, but extremely beautiful; the vault above looked like deep blue velvet, spangled with diamonds, and the atmosphere was exquisitely mild and pure, fragrant with the perfumes from the mountains. Many pilgrims were hurrying along the street, all bending their steps towards the Grotto, but they formed a discreet, pensive crowd, with naught of the fair-field, lounging character of the daytime throng. And, as soon as the Plateau de la Merlasse was reached, the darkness spread out, you entered into a great lake of shadows formed by the stretching lawns and lofty trees, and saw nothing rising on high save the black, tapering spire of the Basilica. Pierre grew rather anxious on finding that the crowd became more and more compact as he advanced. Already on reaching the Place du Rosaire it was difficult to take another forward step. "There is no hope of getting to the Grotto yet awhile," he said. "The best course would be to turn into one of the pathways behind the pilgrims' shelter-house and wait there." Marie, however, greatly desired to see the procession start. "Oh! pray try to go as far as the Gave," said she. "I shall then see everything from a distance; I don't want to go near." M. de Guersaint, who was equally inquisitive, seconded this proposal. "Don't be uneasy," he said to Pierre. "I am here behind, and will take care to let nobody jostle her." Pierre had to begin pulling the little vehicle again. It took him a quarter of an hour to pass under one of the arches of the inclined way on the left hand, so great was the crush of pilgrims at that point. Then, taking a somewhat oblique course, he ended by reaching the quay beside the Gave, where there were only some spectators standing on the sidewalk, so that he was able to advance another fifty yards. At last he halted, and backed the little car against the quay parapet, in full view of the Grotto. "Will you be all right here?" he asked. "Oh yes, thank you. Only you must sit me up; I shall then be able to see much better." M. de Guersaint raised her into a sitting posture, and then for his part climbed upon the stonework running from one to the other end of the quay. A mob of inquisitive people had already scaled it in part, like sight-seers waiting for a display of fireworks; and they were all raising themselves on tiptoe, and craning their necks to get a better view. Pierre himself at last grew interested, although there was, so far, little to see. Some thirty thousand people were assembled, and, every moment there were fresh arrivals. All carried candles, the lower parts of which were wrapped in white paper, on which a picture of Our Lady of Lourdes was printed in blue ink. However, these candles were not yet lighted, and the only illumination that you perceived above the billowy sea of heads was the bright, forge-like glow of the taper-lighted Grotto. A great buzzing arose, whiffs of human breath blew hither and thither, and these alone enabled you to realise that thousands of serried, stifling creatures were gathered together in the black depths, like a living sea that was ever eddying and spreading. There were even people hidden away under the trees beyond the Grotto, in distant recesses of the darkness of which one had no suspicion. At last a few tapers began to shine forth here and there, like sudden sparks of light spangling the obscurity at random. Their number rapidly increased, eyots of stars were formed, whilst at other points there were meteoric trails, milky ways, so to say, flowing midst the constellations. The thirty thousand tapers were being lighted one by one, their beams gradually increasing in number till they obscured the bright glow of the Grotto and spread, from one to the other end of the promenade, the small yellow flames of a gigantic brasier. "Oh! how beautiful it is, Pierre!" murmured Marie; "it is like the resurrection of the humble, the bright awakening of the souls of the poor." "It is superb, superb!" repeated M. de Guersaint, with impassioned artistic satisfaction. "Do you see those two trails of light yonder, which intersect one another and form a cross?" Pierre's feelings, however, had been touched by what Marie had just said. He was reflecting upon her words. There was truth in them. Taken singly, those slender flames, those mere specks of light, were modest and unobtrusive, like the lowly; it was only their great number that supplied the effulgence, the sun-like resplendency. Fresh ones were continually appearing, farther and farther away, like waifs and strays. "Ah!" murmured the young priest, "do you see that one which has just begun to flicker, all by itself, far away--do you see it, Marie? Do you see how it floats and slowly approaches until it is merged in the great lake of light?" In the vicinity of the Grotto one could see now as clearly as in the daytime. The trees, illumined from below, were intensely green, like the painted trees in stage scenery. Above the moving brasier were some motionless banners, whose embroidered saints and silken cords showed with vivid distinctness. And the great reflection ascended to the rock, even to the Basilica, whose spire now shone out, quite white, against the black sky; whilst the hillsides across the Gave were likewise brightened, and displayed the pale fronts of their convents amidst their sombre foliage. There came yet another moment of uncertainty. The flaming lake, in which each burning wick was like a little wave, rolled its starry sparkling as though it were about to burst from its bed and flow away in a river. Then the banners began to oscillate, and soon a regular motion set in. "Oh! so they won't pass this way!" exclaimed M. de Guersaint in a tone of disappointment. Pierre, who had informed himself on the matter, thereupon explained that the procession would first of all ascend the serpentine road--constructed at great cost up the hillside--and that it would afterwards pass behind the Basilica, descend by the inclined way on the right hand, and then spread out through the gardens. "Look!" said he; "you can see the foremost tapers ascending amidst the greenery." Then came an enchanting spectacle. Little flickering lights detached themselves from the great bed of fire, and began gently rising, without it being possible for one to tell at that distance what connected them with the earth. They moved upward, looking in the darkness like golden particles of the sun. And soon they formed an oblique streak, a streak which suddenly twisted, then extended again until it curved once more. At last the whole hillside was streaked by a flaming zigzag, resembling those lightning flashes which you see falling from black skies in cheap engravings. But, unlike the lightning, the luminous trail did not fade away; the little lights still went onward in the same slow, gentle, gliding manner. Only for a moment, at rare intervals, was there a sudden eclipse; the procession, no doubt, was then passing behind some clump of trees. But, farther on, the tapers beamed forth afresh, rising heavenward by an intricate path, which incessantly diverged and then started upward again. At last, however, the time came when the lights no longer ascended, for they had reached the summit of the hill and had begun to disappear at the last turn of the road. Exclamations were rising from the crowd. "They are passing behind the Basilica," said one. "Oh! it will take them twenty minutes before they begin coming down on the other side," remarked another. "Yes, madame," said a third, "there are thirty thousand of them, and an hour will go by before the last of them leaves the Grotto." Ever since the start a sound of chanting had risen above the low rumbling of the crowd. The hymn of Bernadette was being sung, those sixty couplets between which the Angelic Salutation, with its all-besetting rhythm, was ever returning as a refrain. When the sixty couplets were finished they were sung again; and that lullaby of "Ave, ave, ave Maria!" came back incessantly, stupefying the mind, and gradually transporting those thousands of beings into a kind of wide-awake dream, with a vision of Paradise before their eyes. And, indeed, at night-time when they were asleep, their beds would rock to the eternal tune, which they still and ever continued singing. "Are we going to stop here?" asked M. de Guersaint, who speedily got tired of remaining in any one spot. "We see nothing but the same thing over and over again." Marie, who had informed herself by listening to what was said in the crowd, thereupon exclaimed: "You were quite right, Pierre; it would be much better to go back yonder under the trees. I so much wish to see everything." "Yes, certainly; we will seek a spot whence you may see it all," replied the priest. "The only difficulty lies in getting away from here." Indeed, they were now inclosed within the mob of sight-seers; and, in order to secure a passage, Pierre with stubborn perseverance had to keep on begging a little room for a suffering girl. M. de Guersaint meantime brought up the rear, screening the little conveyance so that it might not be upset by the jostling; whilst Marie turned her head, still endeavouring to see the sheet of flame spread out before the Grotto, that lake of little sparkling waves which never seemed to diminish, although the procession continued to flow from it without a pause. At last they all three found themselves out of the crowd, near one of the arches, on a deserted spot where they were able to breathe for a moment. They now heard nothing but the distant canticle with its besetting refrain, and they only saw the reflection of the tapers, hovering like a luminous cloud in the neighbourhood of the Basilica. "The best plan would be to climb to the Calvary," said M. de Guersaint. "The servant at the hotel told me so this morning. From up there, it seems, the scene is fairy-like." But they could not think of making the ascent. Pierre at once enumerated the difficulties. "How could we hoist ourselves to such a height with Marie's conveyance?" he asked. "Besides, we should have to come down again, and that would be dangerous work in the darkness amidst all the scrambling." Marie herself preferred to remain under the trees in the gardens, where it was very mild. So they started off, and reached the esplanade in front of the great crowned statue of the Virgin. It was illuminated by means of blue and yellow globes which encompassed it with a gaudy splendour; and despite all his piety M. de Guersaint could not help finding these decorations in execrable taste. "There!" exclaimed Marie, "a good place would be near those shrubs yonder." She was pointing to a shrubbery near the pilgrims' shelter-house; and the spot was indeed an excellent one for their purpose, as it enabled them to see the procession come down by the gradient way on the left, and watch it as it passed between the lawns to the new bridge and back again. Moreover, a delightful freshness prevailed there by reason of the vicinity of the Gave. There was nobody there as yet, and one could enjoy deep peacefulness in the dense shade which fell from the big plane-trees bordering the path. In his impatience to see the first tapers reappear as soon as they should have passed behind the Basilica, M. de Guersaint had risen on tiptoe. "I see nothing as yet," he muttered, "so whatever the regulations may be I shall sit on the grass for a moment. I've no strength left in my legs." Then, growing anxious about his daughter, he inquired: "Shall I cover you up? It is very cool here." "Oh, no! I'm not cold, father!" answered Marie; "I feel so happy. It is long since I breathed such sweet air. There must be some roses about--can't you smell that delicious perfume?" And turning to Pierre she asked: "Where are the roses, my friend? Can you see them?" When M. de Guersaint had seated himself on the grass near the little vehicle, it occurred to Pierre to see if there was not some bed of roses near at hand. But is was in vain that he explored the dark lawns; he could only distinguish sundry clumps of evergreens. And, as he passed in front of the pilgrims' shelter-house on his way back, curiosity prompted him to enter it. This building formed a long and lofty hall, lighted by large windows upon two sides. With bare walls and a stone pavement, it contained no other furniture than a number of benches, which stood here and there in haphazard fashion. There was neither table nor shelf, so that the homeless pilgrims who had sought refuge there had piled up their baskets, parcels, and valises in the window embrasures. Moreover, the place was apparently empty; the poor folk that it sheltered had no doubt joined the procession. Nevertheless, although the door stood wide open, an almost unbearable smell reigned inside. The very walls seemed impregnated with an odour of poverty, and in spite of the bright sunshine which had prevailed during the day, the flagstones were quite damp, soiled and soaked with expectorations, spilt wine, and grease. This mess had been made by the poorer pilgrims, who with their dirty skins and wretched rags lived in the hall, eating and sleeping in heaps on the benches. Pierre speedily came to the conclusion that the pleasant smell of roses must emanate from some other spot; still, he was making the round of the hall, which was lighted by four smoky lanterns, and which he believed to be altogether unoccupied, when, against the left-hand wall, he was surprised to espy the vague figure of a woman in black, with what seemed to be a white parcel lying on her lap. She was all alone in that solitude, and did not stir; however, her eyes were wide open. He drew near and recognised Madame Vincent. She addressed him in a deep, broken voice: "Rose has suffered so dreadfully to-day! Since daybreak she has not ceased moaning. And so, as she fell asleep a couple of hours ago, I haven't dared to stir for fear lest she should awake and suffer again." Thus the poor woman remained motionless, martyr-mother that she was, having for long months held her daughter in her arms in this fashion, in the stubborn hope of curing her. In her arms, too, she had brought her to Lourdes; in her arms she had carried her to the Grotto; in her arms she had rocked her to sleep, having neither a room of her own, nor even a hospital bed at her disposal. "Isn't the poor little thing any better?" asked Pierre, whose heart ached at the sight. "No, Monsieur l'Abbe; no, I think not." "But you are very badly off here on this bench. You should have made an application to the pilgrimage managers instead of remaining like this, in the street, as it were. Some accommodation would have been found for your little girl, at any rate; that's certain." "Oh! what would have been the use of it, Monsieur l'Abbe? She is all right on my lap. And besides, should I have been allowed to stay with her? No, no, I prefer to have her on my knees; it seems to me that it will end by curing her." Two big tears rolled down the poor woman's motionless cheeks, and in her stifled voice she continued: "I am not penniless. I had thirty sous when I left Paris, and I still have ten left. All I need is a little bread, and she, poor darling, can no longer drink any milk even. I have enough to last me till we go back, and if she gets well again, oh! we shall be rich, rich, rich!" She had leant forward while speaking, and by the flickering light of a lantern near by, gazed at Rose, who was breathing faintly, with parted lips. "You see how soundly she is sleeping," resumed the unhappy mother. "Surely the Blessed Virgin will take pity on her and cure her, won't she, Monsieur l'Abbe? We only have one day left; still, I don't despair; and I shall again pray all night long without moving from here. She will be cured to-morrow; we must live till then." Infinite pity was filling the heart of Pierre, who, fearing that he also might weep, now went away. "Yes, yes, my poor woman, we must hope, still hope," said he, as he left her there among the scattered benches, in that deserted, malodorous hall, so motionless in her painful maternal passion as to hold her own breath, fearful lest the heaving of her bosom should awaken the poor little sufferer. And in deepest grief, with closed lips, she prayed ardently. On Pierre returning to Marie's side, the girl inquired of him: "Well, and those roses? Are there any near here?" He did not wish to sadden her by telling her what he had seen, so he simply answered: "No, I have searched the lawns; there are none." "How singular!" she rejoined, in a thoughtful way. "The perfume is both so sweet and penetrating. You can smell it, can't you? At this moment it is wonderfully strong, as though all the roses of Paradise were flowering around us in the darkness." A low exclamation from her father interrupted her. M. de Guersaint had risen to his feet again on seeing some specks of light shine out above the gradient ways on the left side of the Basilica. "At last! Here they come!" said he. It was indeed the head of the procession again appearing; and at once the specks of light began to swarm and extend in long, wavering double files. The darkness submerged everything except these luminous points, which seemed to be at a great elevation, and to emerge, as it were, from the black depths of the Unknown. And at the same time the everlasting canticle was again heard, but so lightly, for the procession was far away, that it seemed as yet merely like the rustle of a coming storm, stirring the leaves of the trees. "Ah! I said so," muttered M. de Guersaint; "one ought to be at the Calvary to see everything." With the obstinacy of a child he kept on returning to his first idea, again and again complaining that they had chosen "the worst possible place." "But why don't you go up to the Calvary, papa?" at last said Marie. "There is still time. Pierre will stay here with me." And with a mournful laugh she added: "Go; you know very well that nobody will run away with me." He at first refused to act upon the suggestion, but, unable to resist his desire, he all at once fell in with it. And he had to hasten his steps, crossing the lawns at a run. "Don't move," he called; "wait for me under the trees. I will tell you of all that I may see up there." Then Pierre and Marie remained alone in that dim, solitary nook, whence came such a perfume of roses, albeit no roses could be found. And they did not speak, but in silence watched the procession, which was now coming down from the hill with a gentle, continuous, gliding motion. A double file of quivering stars leapt into view on the left-hand side of the Basilica, and then followed the monumental, gradient way, whose curve is gradually described. At that distance you were still unable to see the pilgrims themselves, and you beheld simply those well-disciplined travelling lights tracing geometrical lines amidst the darkness. Under the deep blue heavens, even the buildings at first remained vague, forming but blacker patches against the sky. Little by little, however, as the number of candles increased, the principal architectural lines--the tapering spire of the Basilica, the cyclopean arches of the gradient ways, the heavy, squat facade of the Rosary--became more distinctly visible. And with that ceaseless torrent of bright sparks, flowing slowly downward with the stubborn persistence of a stream which has overflowed its banks and can be stopped by nothing, there came as it were an aurora, a growing, invading mass of light, which would at last spread its glory over the whole horizon. "Look, look, Pierre!" cried Marie, in an access of childish joy. "There is no end of them; fresh ones are ever shining out." Indeed, the sudden appearances of the little lights continued with mechanical regularity, as though some inexhaustible celestial source were pouring forth all those solar specks. The head of the procession had just reached the gardens, near the crowned statue of the Virgin, so that as yet the double file of flames merely outlined the curves of the Rosary and the broad inclined way. However, the approach of the multitude was foretokened by the perturbation of the atmosphere, by the gusts of human breath coming from afar; and particularly did the voices swell, the canticle of Bernadette surging with the clamour of a rising tide, through which, with rhythmical persistence, the refrain of "Ave, ave, ave Maria!" rolled ever in a louder key. "Ah, that refrain!" muttered Pierre; "it penetrates one's very skin. It seems to me as though my whole body were at last singing it." Again did Marie give vent to that childish laugh of hers. "It is true," said she; "it follows me about everywhere. I heard it the other night whilst I was asleep. And now it is again taking possession of me, rocking me, wafting me above the ground." Then she broke off to say: "Here they come, just across the lawn, in front of us." The procession had entered one of the long, straight paths; and then, turning round the lawn by way of the Breton's Cross, it came back by a parallel path. It took more than a quarter of an hour to execute this movement, during which the double file of tapers resembled two long parallel streams of flame. That which ever excited one's admiration was the ceaseless march of this serpent of fire, whose golden coils crept so gently over the black earth, winding, stretching into the far distance, without the immense body ever seeming to end. There must have been some jostling and scrambling every now and then, for some of the luminous lines shook and bent as though they were about to break; but order was soon re-established, and then the slow, regular, gliding movement set in afresh. There now seemed to be fewer stars in the heavens; it was as though a milky way had fallen from on high, rolling its glittering dust of worlds, and transferring the revolutions of the planets from the empyrean to earth. A bluish light streamed all around; there was naught but heaven left; the buildings and the trees assumed a visionary aspect in the mysterious glow of those thousands of tapers, whose number still and ever increased. A faint sigh of admiration came from Marie. She was at a loss for words, and could only repeat "How beautiful it is! /Mon Dieu/! how beautiful it is! Look, Pierre, is it not beautiful?" However, since the procession had been going by at so short a distance from them it had ceased to be a rhythmic march of stars which no human hand appeared to guide, for amidst the stream of light they could distinguish the figures of the pilgrims carrying the tapers, and at times even recognise them as they passed. First they espied La Grivotte, who, exaggerating her cure, and repeating that she had never felt in better health, had insisted upon taking part in the ceremony despite the lateness of the hour; and she still retained her excited demeanour, her dancing gait in that cool night air, which often made her shiver. Then the Vignerons appeared; the father at the head of the party, raising his taper on high, and followed by Madame Vigneron and Madame Chaise, who dragged their weary legs; whilst little Gustave, quite worn out, kept on tapping the sanded path with his crutch, his right hand covered meantime with all the wax that had dripped upon it. Every sufferer who could walk was there, among others Elise Rouquet, who, with her bare red face, passed by like some apparition from among the damned. Others were laughing; Sophie Couteau, the little girl who had been miraculously healed the previous year, was quite forgetting herself, playing with her taper as though it were a switch. Heads followed heads without a pause, heads of women especially, more often with sordid, common features, but at times wearing an exalted expression, which you saw for a second ere it vanished amidst the fantastic illumination. And there was no end to that terrible march past; fresh pilgrims were ever appearing. Among them Pierre and Marie noticed yet another little black shadowy figure, gliding along in a discreet, humble way; it was Madame Maze, whom they would not have recognised if she had not for a moment raised her pale face, down which the tears were streaming. "Look!" exclaimed Pierre; "the first tapers in the procession are reaching the Place du Rosaire, and I am sure that half of the pilgrims are still in front of the Grotto." Marie had raised her eyes. Up yonder, on the left-hand side of the Basilica, she could see other lights incessantly appearing with that mechanical kind of movement which seemed as though it would never cease. "Ah!" she said, "how many, how many distressed souls there are! For each of those little flames is a suffering soul seeking deliverance, is it not?" Pierre had to lean over in order to hear her, for since the procession had been streaming by, so near to them, they had been deafened by the sound of the endless canticle, the hymn of Bernadette. The voices of the pilgrims rang out more loudly than ever amidst the increasing vertigo; the couplets became jumbled together--each batch of processionists chanted a different one with the ecstatic voices of beings possessed, who can no longer hear themselves. There was a huge indistinct clamour, the distracted clamour of a multitude intoxicated by its ardent faith. And meantime the refrain of "Ave, ave, ave Maria!" was ever returning, rising, with its frantic, importunate rhythm, above everything else. All at once Pierre and Marie, to their great surprise, saw M. de Guersaint before them again. "Ah! my children," he said, "I did not want to linger too long up there, I cut through the procession twice in order to get back to you. But what a sight, what a sight it is! It is certainly the first beautiful thing that I have seen since I have been here!" Thereupon he began to describe the procession as he had beheld it from the Calvary height. "Imagine," said he, "another heaven, a heaven down below reflecting that above, a heaven entirely filled by a single immense constellation. The swarming stars seem to be lost, to lie in dim faraway depths; and the trail of fire is in form like a monstrance--yes, a real monstrance, the base of which is outlined by the inclined ways, the stem by the two parallel paths, and the Host by the round lawn which crowns them. It is a monstrance of burning gold, shining out in the depths of the darkness with a perpetual sparkle of moving stars. Nothing else seems to exist; it is gigantic, paramount. I really never saw anything so extraordinary before!" He was waving his arms, beside himself, overflowing with the emotion of an artist. "Father dear," said Marie, tenderly, "since you have come back you ought to go to bed. It is nearly eleven o'clock, and you know that you have to start at two in the morning." Then, to render him compliant, she added: "I am so pleased that you are going to make that excursion! Only, come back early to-morrow evening, because you'll see, you'll see--" She stopped short, not daring to express her conviction that she would be cured. "You are right; I will go to bed," replied M. de Guersaint, quite calmed. "Since Pierre will be with you I sha'n't feel anxious." "But I don't wish Pierre to pass the night out here. He will join you by-and-by after he has taken me to the Grotto. I sha'n't have any further need of anybody; the first bearer who passes can take me back to the hospital to-morrow morning." Pierre had not interrupted her, and now he simply said: "No, no, Marie, I shall stay. Like you, I shall spend the night at the Grotto." She opened her mouth to insist and express her displeasure. But he had spoken those words so gently, and she had detected in them such a dolorous thirst for happiness, that, stirred to the depths of her soul, she stayed her tongue. "Well, well, my children," replied her father, "settle the matter between you. I know that you are both very sensible. And now good-night, and don't be at all uneasy about me." He gave his daughter a long, loving kiss, pressed the young priest's hands, and then went off, disappearing among the serried ranks of the procession, which he once more had to cross. Then they remained alone in their dark, solitary nook under the spreading trees, she still sitting up in her box, and he kneeling on the grass, with his elbow resting on one of the wheels. And it was truly sweet to linger there while the tapers continued marching past, and, after a turning movement, assembled on the Place du Rosaire. What delighted Pierre was that nothing of all the daytime junketing remained. It seemed as though a purifying breeze had come down from the mountains, sweeping away all the odour of strong meats, the greedy Sunday delights, the scorching, pestilential, fair-field dust which, at an earlier hour, had hovered above the town. Overhead there was now only the vast sky, studded with pure stars, and the freshness of the Gave was delicious, whilst the wandering breezes were laden with the perfumes of wild flowers. The mysterious Infinite spread far around in the sovereign peacefulness of night, and nothing of materiality remained save those little candle-flames which the young priest's companion had compared to suffering souls seeking deliverance. All was now exquisitely restful, instinct with unlimited hope. Since Pierre had been there all the heart-rending memories of the afternoon, of the voracious appetites, the impudent simony, and the poisoning of the old town, had gradually left him, allowing him to savour the divine refreshment of that beautiful night, in which his whole being was steeped as in some revivifying water. A feeling of infinite sweetness had likewise come over Marie, who murmured: "Ah! how happy Blanche would be to see all these marvels." She was thinking of her sister, who had been left in Paris to all the worries of her hard profession as a teacher forced to run hither and thither giving lessons. And that simple mention of her sister, of whom Marie had not spoken since her arrival at Lourdes, but whose figure now unexpectedly arose in her mind's eye, sufficed to evoke a vision of all the past. Then, without exchanging a word, Marie and Pierre lived their childhood's days afresh, playing together once more in the neighbouring gardens parted by the quickset hedge. But separation came on the day when he entered the seminary and when she kissed him on the cheeks, vowing that she would never forget him. Years went by, and they found themselves forever parted: he a priest, she prostrated by illness, no longer with any hope of ever being a woman. That was their whole story--an ardent affection of which they had long been ignorant, then absolute severance, as though they were dead, albeit they lived side by side. They again beheld the sorry lodging whence they had started to come to Lourdes after so much battling, so much discussion--his doubts and her passionate faith, which last had conquered. And it seemed to them truly delightful to find themselves once more quite alone together, in that dark nook on that lovely night, when there were as many stars upon earth as there were in heaven. Marie had hitherto retained the soul of a child, a spotless soul, as her father said, good and pure among the purest. Stricken low in her thirteenth year, she had grown no older in mind. Although she was now three-and-twenty, she was still a child, a child of thirteen, who had retired within herself, absorbed in the bitter catastrophe which had annihilated her. You could tell this by the frigidity of her glance, by her absent expression, by the haunted air she ever wore, unable as she was to bestow a thought on anything but her calamity. And never was woman's soul more pure and candid, arrested as it had been in its development. She had had no other romance in life save that tearful farewell to her friend, which for ten long years had sufficed to fill her heart. During the endless days which she had spent on her couch of wretchedness, she had never gone beyond this dream--that if she had grown up in health, he doubtless would not have become a priest, in order to live near her. She never read any novels. The pious works which she was allowed to peruse maintained her in the excitement of a superhuman love. Even the rumours of everyday life died away at the door of the room where she lived in seclusion; and, in past years, when she had been taken from one to the other end of France, from one inland spa to another, she had passed through the crowds like a somnambulist who neither sees nor hears anything, possessed, as she was, by the idea of the calamity that had befallen her, the bond which made her a sexless thing. Hence her purity and childishness; hence she was but an adorable daughter of suffering, who, despite the growth of her sorry flesh, harboured nothing in her heart save that distant awakening of passion, the unconscious love of her thirteenth year. Her hand sought Pierre's in the darkness, and when she found it, coming to meet her own, she, for a long time, continued pressing it. Ah! how sweet it was! Never before, indeed, had they tasted such pure and perfect joy in being together, far from the world, amidst the sovereign enchantment of darkness and mystery. Around them nothing subsisted, save the revolving stars. The lulling hymns were like the very vertigo that bore them away. And she knew right well that after spending a night of rapture at the Grotto, she would, on the morrow, be cured. Of this she was, indeed, absolutely convinced; she would prevail upon the Blessed Virgin to listen to her; she would soften her, as soon as she should be alone, imploring her face to face. And she well understood what Pierre had wished to say a short time previously, when expressing his desire to spend the whole night outside the Grotto, like herself. Was it not that he intended to make a supreme effort to believe, that he meant to fall upon his knees like a little child, and beg the all-powerful Mother to restore his lost faith? Without need of any further exchange of words, their clasped hands repeated all those things. They mutually promised that they would pray for each other, and so absorbed in each other did they become that they forgot themselves, with such an ardent desire for one another's cure and happiness, that for a moment they attained to the depths of the love which offers itself in sacrifice. It was divine enjoyment. "Ah!" murmured Pierre, "how beautiful is this blue night, this infinite darkness, which has swept away all the hideousness of things and beings, this deep, fresh peacefulness, in which I myself should like to bury my doubts!" His voice died away, and Marie, in her turn, said in a very low voice: "And the roses, the perfume of the roses? Can't you smell them, my friend? Where can they be since you could not see them?" "Yes, yes, I smell them, but there are none," he replied. "I should certainly have seen them, for I hunted everywhere." "How can you say that there are no roses when they perfume the air around us, when we are steeped in their aroma? Why, there are moments when the scent is so powerful that I almost faint with delight in inhaling it! They must certainly be here, innumerable, under our very feet." "No, no," said Pierre, "I swear to you I hunted everywhere, and there are no roses. They must be invisible, or they may be the very grass we tread and the spreading trees that are around us; their perfume may come from the soil itself, from the torrent which flows along close by, from the woods and the mountains that rise yonder." For a moment they remained silent. Then, in an undertone, she resumed: "How sweet they smell, Pierre! And it seems to me that even our clasped hands form a bouquet." "Yes, they smell delightfully sweet; but it is from you, Marie, that the perfume now ascends, as though the roses were budding from your hair." Then they ceased speaking. The procession was still gliding along, and at the corner of the Basilica bright sparks were still appearing, flashing suddenly from out of the obscurity, as though spurting from some invisible source. The vast train of little flames, marching in double file, threw a riband of light across the darkness. But the great sight was now on the Place du Rosaire, where the head of the procession, still continuing its measured evolutions, was revolving and revolving in a circle which ever grew smaller, with a stubborn whirl which increased the dizziness of the weary pilgrims and the violence of their chants. And soon the circle formed a nucleus, the nucleus of a nebula, so to say, around which the endless riband of fire began to coil itself. And the brasier grew larger and larger--there was first a pool, then a lake of light. The whole vast Place du Rosaire changed at last into a burning ocean, rolling its little sparkling wavelets with the dizzy motion of a whirlpool that never rested. A reflection like that of dawn whitened the Basilica; while the rest of the horizon faded into deep obscurity, amidst which you only saw a few stray tapers journeying alone, like glowworms seeking their way with the help of their little lights. However, a straggling rear-guard of the procession must have climbed the Calvary height, for up there, against the sky, some moving stars could also be seen. Eventually the moment came when the last tapers appeared down below, marched round the lawns, flowed away, and were merged in the sea of flame. Thirty thousand tapers were burning there, still and ever revolving, quickening their sparkles under the vast calm heavens where the planets had grown pale. A luminous glow ascended in company with the strains of the canticle which never ceased. And the roar of voices incessantly repeating the refrain of "Ave, ave, ave Maria!" was like the very crackling of those hearts of fire which were burning away in prayers in order that souls might be saved. The candles had just been extinguished, one by one, and the night was falling again, paramount, densely black, and extremely mild, when Pierre and Marie perceived that they were still there, hand in hand, hidden away among the trees. In the dim streets of Lourdes, far off, there were now only some stray, lost pilgrims inquiring their way, in order that they might get to bed. Through the darkness there swept a rustling sound--the rustling of those who prowl and fall asleep when days of festivity draw to a close. But the young priest and the girl lingered in their nook forgetfully, never stirring, but tasting delicious happiness amidst the perfume of the invisible roses. IV THE VIGIL WHEN Pierre dragged Marie in her box to the front of the Grotto, and placed her as near as possible to the railing, it was past midnight, and about a hundred persons were still there, some seated on the benches, but the greater number kneeling as though prostrated in prayer. The Grotto shone from afar, with its multitude of lighted tapers, similar to the illumination round a coffin, though all that you could distinguish was a star-like blaze, from the midst of which, with visionary whiteness, emerged the statue of the Virgin in its niche. The hanging foliage assumed an emerald sheen, the hundreds of crutches covering the vault resembled an inextricable network of dead wood on the point of reflowering. And the darkness was rendered more dense by so great a brightness, the surroundings became lost in a deep shadow in which nothing, neither walls nor trees, remained; whilst all alone ascended the angry and continuous murmur of the Gave, rolling along beneath the gloomy, boundless sky, now heavy with a gathering storm. "Are you comfortable, Marie?" gently inquired Pierre. "Don't you feel chilly?" She had just shivered. But it was only at a breath from the other world, which had seemed to her to come from the Grotto. "No, no, I am so comfortable! Only place the shawl over my knees. And--thank you, Pierre--don't be anxious about me. I no longer require anyone now that I am with her." Her voice died away, she was already falling into an ecstasy, her hands clasped, her eyes raised towards the white statue, in a beatific transfiguration of the whole of her poor suffering face. Yet Pierre remained a few minutes longer beside her. He would have liked to wrap her in the shawl, for he perceived the trembling of her little wasted hands. But he feared to annoy her, so confined himself to tucking her in like a child; whilst she, slightly raised, with her elbows on the edges of her box, and her eyes fixed on the Grotto, no longer beheld him. A bench stood near, and he had just seated himself upon it, intending to collect his thoughts, when his glance fell upon a woman kneeling in the gloom. Dressed in black, she was so slim, so discreet, so unobtrusive, so wrapt in darkness, that at first he had not noticed her. After a while, however, he recognised her as Madame Maze. The thought of the letter which she had received during the day then recurred to him. And the sight of her filled him with pity; he could feel for the forlornness of this solitary woman, who had no physical sore to heal, but only implored the Blessed Virgin to relieve her heart-pain by converting her inconstant husband. The letter had no doubt been some harsh reply, for, with bowed head, she seemed almost annihilated, filled with the humility of some poor beaten creature. It was only at night-time that she readily forgot herself there, happy at disappearing, at being able to weep, suffer martyrdom, and implore the return of the lost caresses, for hours together, without anyone suspecting her grievous secret. Her lips did not even move; it was her wounded heart which prayed, which desperately begged for its share of love and happiness. Ah! that inextinguishable thirst for happiness which brought them all there, wounded either in body or in spirit; Pierre also felt it parching his throat, in an ardent desire to be quenched. He longed to cast himself upon his knees, to beg the divine aid with the same humble faith as that woman. But his limbs were as though tied; he could not find the words he wanted, and it was a relief when he at last felt someone touch him on the arm. "Come with me, Monsieur l'Abbe, if you do not know the Grotto," said a voice. "I will find you a place. It is so pleasant there at this time!" He raised his head, and recognised Baron Suire, the director of the Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation. This benevolent and simple man no doubt felt some affection for him. He therefore accepted his offer, and followed him into the Grotto, which was quite empty. The Baron had a key, with which he locked the railing behind them. "You see, Monsieur l'Abbe," said he, "this is the time when one can really be comfortable here. For my part, whenever I come to spend a few days at Lourdes, I seldom retire to rest before daybreak, as I have fallen into the habit of finishing my night here. The place is deserted, one is quite alone, and is it not pleasant? How well one feels oneself to be in the abode of the Blessed Virgin!" He smiled with a kindly air, doing the honours of the Grotto like an old frequenter of the place, somewhat enfeebled by age, but full of genuine affection for this delightful nook. Moreover, in spite of his great piety, he was in no way ill at ease there, but talked on and explained matters with the familiarity of a man who felt himself to be the friend of Heaven. "Ah! you are looking at the tapers," he said. "There are about two hundred of them which burn together night and day; and they end by making the place warm. It is even warm here in winter." Indeed, Pierre was beginning to feel incommoded by the warm odour of the wax. Dazzled by the brilliant light into which he was penetrating, he gazed at the large, central, pyramidal holder, all bristling with little tapers, and resembling a luminous clipped yew glistening with stars. In the background, a straight holder, on a level with the ground, upheld the large tapers, which, like the pipes of an organ, formed a row of uneven height, some of them being as large as a man's thigh. And yet other holders, resembling massive candelabra, stood here and there on the jutting parts of the rock. The vault of the Grotto sank towards the left, where the stone seemed baked and blackened by the eternal flames which had been heating it for years. And the wax was perpetually dripping like fine snow; the trays of the holders were smothered with it, whitened by its ever-thickening dust. In fact, it coated the whole rock, which had become quite greasy to the touch; and to such a degree did it cover the ground that accidents had occurred, and it had been necessary to spread some mats about to prevent persons from slipping. "You see those large ones there," obligingly continued Baron Suire. "They are the most expensive and cost sixty francs apiece; they will continue burning for a month. The smallest ones, which cost but five sous each, only last three hours. Oh! we don't husband them; we never run short. Look here! Here are two more hampers full, which there has not yet been time to remove to the storehouse." Then he pointed to the furniture, which comprised a harmonium covered with a cloth, a substantial dresser with several large drawers in which the sacred vestments were kept, some benches and chairs reserved for the privileged few who were admitted during the ceremonies, and finally a very handsome movable altar, which was adorned with engraved silver plates, the gift of a great lady, and--for fear of injury from dampness--was only brought out on the occasions of remunerative pilgrimages. Pierre was disturbed by all this well-meant chatter. His religious emotion lost some of its charm. In spite of his lack of faith, he had, on entering, experienced a feeling of agitation, a heaving of the soul, as though the mystery were about to be revealed to him. It was at the same time both an anxious and a delicious feeling. And he beheld things which deeply stirred him: bunches of flowers, lying in a heap at the Virgin's feet, with the votive offerings of children--little faded shoes, a tiny iron corselet, and a doll-like crutch which almost seemed to be a toy. Beneath the natural ogival cavity in which the apparition had appeared, at the spot where the pilgrims rubbed the chaplets and medals they wished to consecrate, the rock was quite worn away and polished. Millions of ardent lips had pressed kisses on the wall with such intensity of love that the stone was as though calcined, streaked with black veins, shining like marble. However, he stopped short at last opposite a cavity in which lay a considerable pile of letters and papers of every description. "Ah! I was forgetting," hastily resumed Baron Suire; "this is the most interesting part of it. These are the letters which the faithful throw into the Grotto through the railing every day. We gather them up and place them there; and in the winter I amuse myself by glancing through them. You see, we cannot burn them without opening them, for they often contain money--francs, half-francs, and especially postage-stamps." He stirred up the letters, and, selecting a few at random, showed the addresses, and opened them to read. Nearly all of them were letters from illiterate persons, with the superscription, "To Our Lady of Lourdes," scrawled on the envelopes in big, irregular handwriting. Many of them contained requests or thanks, incorrectly worded and wondrously spelt; and nothing was more affecting than the nature of some of the petitions: a little brother to be saved, a lawsuit to be gained, a lover to be preserved, a marriage to be effected. Other letters, however, were angry ones, taking the Blessed Virgin to task for not having had the politeness to acknowledge a former communication by granting the writer's prayers. Then there were still others, written in a finer hand, with carefully worded phrases containing confessions and fervent entreaties; and these were from women who confided to the Queen of Heaven things which they dared not even say to a priest in the shadow of the confessional. Finally, one envelope, selected at random, merely contained a photograph; a young girl had sent her portrait to Our Lady of Lourdes, with this dedication: "To my good Mother." In short, they every day received the correspondence of a most powerful Queen, to whom both prayers and secrets were addressed, and who was expected to reply with favours and kindnesses of every kind. The franc and half-franc pieces were simple tokens of love to propitiate her; while, as for the postage-stamps, these could only be sent for convenience' sake, in lieu of coined money; unless, indeed, they were sent guilelessly, as in the case of a peasant woman who had added a postscript to her letter to say that she enclosed a stamp for the reply. "I can assure you," concluded the Baron, "that there are some very nice ones among them, much less foolish than you might imagine. During a period of three years I constantly found some very interesting letters from a lady who did nothing without relating it to the Blessed Virgin. She was a married woman, and entertained a most dangerous passion for a friend of her husband's. Well, Monsieur l'Abbe, she overcame it; the Blessed Virgin answered her by sending her an armour for her chastity, an all-divine power to resist the promptings of her heart." Then he broke off to say: "But come and seat yourself here, Monsieur l'Abbe. You will see how comfortable you will be." Pierre went and placed himself beside him on a bench on the left hand, at the spot where the rock sloped down. This was a deliciously reposeful corner, and neither the one nor the other spoke; a profound silence had ensued, when, behind him, Pierre heard an indistinct murmur, a light crystalline voice, which seemed to come from the Invisible. He gave a start, which Baron Suire understood. "That is the spring which you hear," said he; "it is there, underground, below this grating. Would you like to see it?" And without waiting for Pierre's reply, he at once bent down to open one of the iron plates protecting the spring, mentioning that it was thus closed up in order to prevent freethinkers from throwing poison into it. For a moment this extraordinary idea quite amazed the priest; but he ended by attributing it entirely to the Baron, who was, indeed, very childish. The latter, meantime, was vainly struggling with the padlock, which opened by a combination of letters, and refused to yield to his endeavours. "It is singular," he muttered; "the word is /Rome/, and I am positive that it hasn't been changed. The damp destroys everything. Every two years or so we are obliged to replace those crutches up there, otherwise they would all rot away. Be good enough to bring me a taper." By the light of the candle which Pierre then took from one of the holders, he at last succeeded in unfastening the brass padlock, which was covered with /vert-de-gris/. Then, the plate having been raised, the spring appeared to view. Upon a bed of muddy gravel, in a fissure of the rock, there was a limpid stream, quite tranquil, but seemingly spreading over a rather large surface. The Baron explained that it had been necessary to conduct it to the fountains through pipes coated with cement; and he even admitted that, behind the piscinas, a large cistern had been dug in which the water was collected during the night, as otherwise the small output of the source would not suffice for the daily requirements. "Will you taste it?" he suddenly asked. "It is much better here, fresh from the earth." Pierre did not answer; he was gazing at that tranquil, innocent water, which assumed a moire-like golden sheen in the dancing light of the taper. The falling drops of wax now and again ruffled its surface. And, as he gazed at it, the young priest pondered upon all the mystery it brought with it from the distant mountain slopes. "Come, drink some!" said the Baron, who had already dipped and filled a glass which was kept there handy. The priest had no choice but to empty it; it was good pure, water, fresh and transparent, like that which flows from all the lofty uplands of the Pyrenees. After refastening the padlock, they both returned to the bench. Now and again Pierre could still hear the spring flowing behind him, with a music resembling the gentle warble of some unseen bird. And now the Baron again raised his voice, giving him the history of the Grotto at all times and seasons, in a pathetic babble, replete with puerile details. The summer was the roughest season, for then came the great itinerant pilgrimage crowds, with the uproarious fervour of thousands of eager beings, all praying and vociferating together. But with the autumn came the rain, those diluvial rains which beat against the Grotto entrance for days together; and with them arrived the pilgrims from remote countries, small, silent, and ecstatic bands of Indians, Malays, and even Chinese, who fell upon their knees in the mud at the sign from the missionaries accompanying them. Of all the old provinces of France, it was Brittany that sent the most devout pilgrims, whole parishes arriving together, the men as numerous as the women, and all displaying a pious deportment, a simple and unostentatious faith, such as might edify the world. Then came the winter, December with its terrible cold, its dense snow-drifts blocking the mountain ways. But even then families put up at the hotels, and, despite everything, faithful worshippers--all those who, fleeing the noise of the world, wished to speak to the Virgin in the tender intimacy of solitude--still came every morning to the Grotto. Among them were some whom no one knew, who appeared directly they felt certain they would be alone there to kneel and love like jealous lovers; and who departed, frightened away by the first suspicion of a crowd. And how warm and pleasant the place was throughout the foul winter weather! In spite of rain and wind and snow, the Grotto still continued flaring. Even during nights of howling tempest, when not a soul was there, it lighted up the empty darkness, blazing like a brasier of love that nothing could extinguish. The Baron related that, at the time of the heavy snowfall of the previous winter, he had spent whole afternoons there, on the bench where they were then seated. A gentle warmth prevailed, although the spot faced the north and was never reached by a ray of sunshine. No doubt the circumstance of the burning tapers continually heating the rock explained this generous warmth; but might one not also believe in some charming kindness on the part of the Virgin, who endowed the spot with perpetual springtide? And the little birds were well aware of it; when the snow on the ground froze their feet, all the finches of the neighbourhood sought shelter there, fluttering about in the ivy around the holy statue. At length came the awakening of the real spring: the Gave, swollen with melted snow, and rolling on with a voice of thunder: the trees, under the action of their sap, arraying themselves in a mantle of greenery, whilst the crowds, once more returning, noisily invaded the sparkling Grotto, whence they drove the little birds of heaven. "Yes, yes," repeated Baron Suire, in a declining voice, "I spent some most delightful winter days here all alone. I saw no one but a woman, who leant against the railing to avoid kneeling in the snow. She was quite young, twenty-five perhaps, and very pretty--dark, with magnificent blue eyes. She never spoke, and did not even seem to pray, but remained there for hours together, looking intensely sad. I do not know who she was, nor have I ever seen her since." He ceased speaking; and when, a couple of minutes later, Pierre, surprised at his silence, looked at him, he perceived that he had fallen asleep. With his hands clasped upon his belly, his chin resting on his chest, he slept as peacefully as a child, a smile hovering the while about his mouth. Doubtless, when he said that he spent the night there, he meant that he came thither to indulge in the early nap of a happy old man, whose dreams are of the angels. And now Pierre tasted all the charms of the solitude. It was indeed true that a feeling of peacefulness and comfort permeated the soul in this rocky nook. It was occasioned by the somewhat stifling fumes of the burning wax, by the transplendent ecstasy into which one sank amidst the glare of the tapers. The young priest could no longer distinctly see the crutches on the roof, the votive offerings hanging from the sides, the altar of engraved silver, and the harmonium in its wrapper, for a slow intoxication seemed to be stealing over him, a gradual prostration of his whole being. And he particularly experienced the divine sensation of having left the living world, of having attained to the far realms of the marvellous and the superhuman, as though that simple iron railing yonder had become the very barrier of the Infinite. However, a slight noise on his left again disturbed him. It was the spring flowing, ever flowing on, with its bird-like warble. Ah! how he would have liked to fall upon his knees and believe in the miracle, to acquire a certain conviction that that divine water had gushed from the rock solely for the healing of suffering humanity. Had he not come there to prostrate himself and implore the Virgin to restore the faith of his childhood? Why, then, did he not pray, why did he not beseech her to bring him back to grace? His feeling of suffocation increased, the burning tapers dazzled him almost to the point of giddiness. And, all at once, the recollection came to him that for two days past, amidst the great freedom which priests enjoyed at Lourdes, he had neglected to say his mass. He was in a state of sin, and perhaps it was the weight of this transgression which was oppressing his heart. He suffered so much that he was at last compelled to rise from his seat and walk away. He gently closed the gate behind him, leaving Baron Suire still asleep do the bench. Marie, he found, had not stirred, but was still raised on her elbows, with her ecstatic eyes uplifted towards the figure of the Virgin. "How are you, Marie?" asked Pierre. "Don't you feel cold?" She did not reply. He felt her hands and found them warm and soft, albeit slightly trembling. "It is not the cold which makes you tremble, is it, Marie?" he asked. In a voice as gentle as a zephyr she replied: "No, no! let me be; I am so happy! I shall see her, I feel it. Ah! what joy!" So, after slightly pulling up her shawl, he went forth into the night, a prey to indescribable agitation. Beyond the bright glow of the Grotto was a night as black as ink, a region of darkness, into which he plunged at random. Then, as his eyes became accustomed to this gloom, he found himself near the Gave, and skirted it, following a path shaded by tall trees, where he again came upon a refreshing obscurity. This shade and coolness, both so soothing, now brought him relief. And his only surprise was that he had not fallen on his knees in the Grotto, and prayed, even as Marie was praying, with all the power of his soul. What could be the obstacle within him? Whence came the irresistible revolt which prevented him from surrendering himself to faith even when his overtaxed, tortured being longed to yield? He understood well enough that it was his reason alone which protested, and the time had come when he would gladly have killed that voracious reason, which was devouring his life and preventing him from enjoying the happiness allowed to the ignorant and the simple. Perhaps, had he beheld a miracle, he might have acquired enough strength of will to believe. For instance, would he not have bowed himself down, vanquished at last, if Marie had suddenly risen up and walked before him. The scene which he conjured up of Marie saved, Marie cured, affected him so deeply that he stopped short, his trembling arms uplifted towards the star-spangled vault of heaven. What a lovely night it was!--so deep and mysterious, so airy and fragrant; and what joy rained down at the hope that eternal health might be restored, that eternal love might ever revive, even as spring returns! Then he continued his walk, following the path to the end. But his doubts were again coming back to him; when you need a miracle to gain belief, it means that you are incapable of believing. There is no need for the Almighty to prove His existence. Pierre also felt uneasy at the thought that, so long as he had not discharged his priestly duties by saying his mass, his prayers would not be answered. Why did he not go at once to the church of the Rosary, whose altars, from midnight till noon, are placed at the disposal of the priests who come from a distance? Thus thinking, he descended by another path, again finding himself beneath the trees, near the leafy spot whence he and Marie had watched the procession of tapers. Not a light now remained, there was but a boundless expanse of gloom. Here Pierre experienced a fresh attack of faintness, and as though to gain time, he turned mechanically into the pilgrims' shelter-house. Its door had remained wide open; still this failed to sufficiently ventilate the spacious hall, which was now full of people. On the very threshold Pierre felt oppressed by the stifling heat emanating from the multitude of bodies, the dense pestilential smell of human breath and perspiration. The smoking lanterns gave out so bad a light that he had to pick his way with extreme care in order to avoid treading upon outstretched limbs; for the overcrowding was extraordinary, and many persons, unable to find room on the benches, had stretched themselves on the pavement, on the damp stone slabs fouled by all the refuse of the day. And on all sides indescribable promiscuousness prevailed: prostrated by overpowering weariness, men, women, and priests were lying there, pell-mell, at random, open-mouthed and utterly exhausted. A large number were snoring, seated on the slabs, with their backs against the walls and their heads drooping on their chests. Others had slipped down, with limbs intermingled, and one young girl lay prostrate across an old country priest, who in his calm, childlike slumber was smiling at the angels. It was like a cattle-shed sheltering poor wanderers of the roads, all those who were homeless on that beautiful holiday night, and who had dropped in there and fallen fraternally asleep. Still, there were some who found no repose in their feverish excitement, but turned and twisted, or rose up to finish eating the food which remained in their baskets. Others could be seen lying perfectly motionless, their eyes wide open and fixed upon the gloom. The cries of dreamers, the wailing of sufferers, arose amidst general snoring. And pity came to the heart, a pity full of anguish, at sight of this flock of wretches lying there in heaps in loathsome rags, whilst their poor spotless souls no doubt were far away in the blue realm of some mystical dream. Pierre was on the point of withdrawing, feeling sick at heart, when a low continuous moan attracted his attention. He looked, and recognised Madame Vincent, on the same spot and in the same position as before, still nursing little Rose upon her lap. "Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe," the poor woman murmured, "you hear her; she woke up nearly an hour ago, and has been sobbing ever since. Yet I assure you I have not moved even a finger, I felt so happy at seeing her sleep." The priest bent down, examining the little one, who had not even the strength to raise her eyelids. A plaintive cry no stronger than a breath was coming from her lips; and she was so white that he shuddered, for he felt that death was hovering near. "Dear me! what shall I do?" continued the poor mother, utterly worn out. "This cannot last; I can no longer bear to hear her cry. And if you knew all that I have been saying to her: 'My jewel, my treasure, my angel, I beseech you cry no more. Be good; the Blessed Virgin will cure you!' And yet she still cries on." With these words the poor creature burst out sobbing, her big tears falling on the face of the child, whose rattle still continued. "Had it been daylight," she resumed, "I would long ago have left this hall, the more especially as she disturbs the others. There is an old lady yonder who has already complained. But I fear it may be chilly outside; and besides, where could I go in the middle of the night? Ah! Blessed Virgin, Blessed Virgin, take pity upon us!" Overcome by emotion, Pierre kissed the child's fair head, and then hastened away to avoid bursting into tears like the sorrowing mother. And he went straight to the Rosary, as though he were determined to conquer death. He had already beheld the Rosary in broad daylight, and had been displeased by the aspect of this church, which the architect, fettered by the rockbound site, had been obliged to make circular and low, so that it seemed crushed beneath its great cupola, which square pillars supported. The worst was that, despite its archaic Byzantine style, it altogether lacked any religious appearance, and suggested neither mystery nor meditation. Indeed, with the glaring light admitted by the cupola and the broad glazed doors it was more like some brand-new corn-market. And then, too, it was not yet completed: the decorations were lacking, the bare walls against which the altars stood had no other embellishment than some artificial roses of coloured paper and a few insignificant votive offerings; and this bareness heightened the resemblance to some vast public hall. Moreover, in time of rain the paved floor became as muddy as that of a general waiting-room at a railway station. The high altar was a temporary structure of painted wood. Innumerable rows of benches filled the central rotunda, benches free to the public, on which people could come and rest at all hours, for night and day alike the Rosary remained open to the swarming pilgrims. Like the shelter-house, it was a cow-shed in which the Almighty received the poor ones of the earth. On entering, Pierre felt himself to be in some common hall trod by the footsteps of an ever-changing crowd. But the brilliant sunlight no longer streamed on the pallid walls, the tapers burning at every altar simply gleamed like stars amidst the uncertain gloom which filled the building. A solemn high mass had been celebrated at midnight with extraordinary pomp, amidst all the splendour of candles, chants, golden vestments, and swinging, steaming censers; but of all this glorious display there now remained only the regulation number of tapers necessary for the celebration of the masses at each of the fifteen altars ranged around the edifice. These masses began at midnight and did not cease till noon. Nearly four hundred were said during those twelve hours at the Rosary alone. Taking the whole of Lourdes, where there were altogether some fifty altars, more than two thousand masses were celebrated daily. And so great was the abundance of priests, that many had extreme difficulty in fulfilling their duties, having to wait for hours together before they could find an altar unoccupied. What particularly struck Pierre that evening, was the sight of all the altars besieged by rows of priests patiently awaiting their turn in the dim light at the foot of the steps; whilst the officiating minister galloped through the Latin phrases, hastily punctuating them with the prescribed signs of the cross. And the weariness of all the waiting ones was so great, that most of them were seated on the flagstones, some even dozing on the altar steps in heaps, quite overpowered, relying on the beadle to come and rouse them. For a moment Pierre walked about undecided. Was he going to wait like the others? However, the scene determined him against doing so. At every altar, at every mass, a crowd of pilgrims was gathered, communicating in all haste with a sort of voracious fervour. Each pyx was filled and emptied incessantly; the priests' hands grew tired in thus distributing the bread of life; and Pierre's surprise increased at the sight. Never before had he beheld a corner of this earth so watered by the divine blood, whence faith took wing in such a flight of souls. It was like a return to the heroic days of the Church, when all nations prostrated themselves beneath the same blast of credulity in their terrified ignorance which led them to place their hope of eternal happiness in an Almighty God. He could fancy himself carried back some eight or nine centuries, to the time of great public piety, when people believed in the approaching end of the world; and this he could fancy the more readily as the crowd of simple folk, the whole host that had attended high mass, was still seated on the benches, as much at ease in God's house as at home. Many had no place of refuge. Was not the church their home, the asylum where consolation awaited them both by day and by night? Those who knew not where to sleep, who had not found room even at the shelter place, came to the Rosary, where sometimes they succeeded in finding a vacant seat on a bench, at others sufficient space to lie down on the flagstones. And others who had beds awaiting them lingered there for the joy of passing a whole night in that divine abode, so full of beautiful dreams. Until daylight the concourse and promiscuity were extraordinary; every row of benches was occupied, sleeping persons were scattered in every corner and behind every pillar; men, women, children were leaning against each other, their heads on one another's shoulders, their breath mingling in calm unconsciousness. It was the break-up of a religious gathering overwhelmed by sleep, a church transformed into a chance hospital, its doors wide open to the lovely August night, giving access to all who were wandering in the darkness, the good and the bad, the weary and the lost. And all over the place, from each of the fifteen altars, the bells announcing the elevation of the Host incessantly sounded, whilst from among the mob of sleepers bands of believers now and again arose, went and received the sacrament, and then returned to mingle once more with the nameless, shepherdless flock which the semi-obscurity enveloped like a veil. With an air of restless indecision, Pierre was still wandering through the shadowy groups, when an old priest, seated on the step of an altar, beckoned to him. For two hours he had been waiting there, and now that his turn was at length arriving he felt so faint that he feared he might not have strength to say the whole of his mass, and preferred, therefore, to surrender his place to another. No doubt the sight of Pierre, wandering so distressfully in the gloom, had moved him. He pointed the vestry out to him, waited until he returned with chasuble and chalice, and then went off and fell into a sound sleep on one of the neighbouring benches. Pierre thereupon said his mass in the same way as he said it at Paris, like a worthy man fulfilling a professional duty. He outwardly maintained an air of sincere faith. But, contrary to what he had expected from the two feverish days through which he had just gone, from the extraordinary and agitating surroundings amidst which he had spent the last few hours, nothing moved him nor touched his heart. He had hoped that a great commotion would overpower him at the moment of the communion, when the divine mystery is accomplished; that he would find himself in view of Paradise, steeped in grace, in the very presence of the Almighty; but there was no manifestation, his chilled heart did not even throb, he went on to the end pronouncing the usual words, making the regulation gestures, with the mechanical accuracy of the profession. In spite of his effort to be fervent, one single idea kept obstinately returning to his mind--that the vestry was far too small, since such an enormous number of masses had to be said. How could the sacristans manage to distribute the holy vestments and the cloths? It puzzled him, and engaged his thoughts with absurd persistency. At length, to his surprise, he once more found himself outside. Again he wandered through the night, a night which seemed to him utterly void, darker and stiller than before. The town was lifeless, not a light was gleaming. There only remained the growl of the Gave, which his accustomed ears no longer heard. And suddenly, similar to a miraculous apparition, the Grotto blazed before him, illumining the darkness with its everlasting brasier, which burnt with a flame of inextinguishable love. He had returned thither unconsciously, attracted no doubt by thoughts of Marie. Three o'clock was about to strike, the benches before the Grotto were emptying, and only some twenty persons remained there, dark, indistinct forms, kneeling in slumberous ecstasy, wrapped in divine torpor. It seemed as though the night in progressing had increased the gloom, and imparted a remote visionary aspect to the Grotto. All faded away amidst delicious lassitude, sleep reigned supreme over the dim, far-spreading country side; whilst the voice of the invisible waters seemed to be merely the breathing of this pure slumber, upon which the Blessed Virgin, all white with her aureola of tapers, was smiling. And among the few unconscious women was Madame Maze, still kneeling, with clasped hands and bowed head, but so indistinct that she seemed to have melted away amidst her ardent prayer. Pierre, however, had immediately gone up to Marie. He was shivering, and fancied that she must be chilled by the early morning air. "I beseech you, Marie, cover yourself up," said he. "Do you want to suffer still more?" And thereupon he drew up the shawl which had slipped off her, and endeavoured to fasten it about her neck. "You are cold, Marie," he added; "your hands are like ice." She did not answer, she was still in the same attitude as when he had left her a couple of hours previously. With her elbows resting on the edges of her box, she kept herself raised, her soul still lifted towards the Blessed Virgin and her face transfigured, beaming with a celestial joy. Her lips moved, though no sound came from them. Perhaps she was still carrying on some mysterious conversation in the world of enchantments, dreaming wide awake, as she had been doing ever since he had placed her there. He spoke to her again, but still she answered not. At last, however, of her own accord, she murmured in a far-away voice: "Oh! I am so happy, Pierre! I have seen her; I prayed to her for you, and she smiled at me, slightly nodding her head to let me know that she heard me and would grant my prayers. And though she did not speak to me, Pierre, I understood what she wished me to know. 'Tis to-day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, when the Blessed Sacrament passes by, that I shall be cured!" He listened to her in deep agitation. Had she been sleeping with her eyes wide open? Was it in a dream that she had seen the marble figure of the Blessed Virgin bend its head and smile? A great tremor passed through him at the thought that this poor child had prayed for him. And he walked up to the railing, and dropped upon his knees, stammering: "O Marie! O Marie!" without knowing whether this heart-cry were intended for the Virgin or for the beloved friend of his childhood. And he remained there, utterly overwhelmed, waiting for grace to come to him. Endless minutes went by. This was indeed the superhuman effort, the waiting for the miracle which he had come to seek for himself, the sudden revelation, the thunderclap which was to sweep away his unbelief and restore him, rejuvenated and triumphant, to the faith of the simple-minded. He surrendered himself, he wished that some mighty power might ravage his being and transform it. But, even as before whilst saying his mass, he heard naught within him but an endless silence, felt nothing but a boundless vacuum. There was no divine intervention, his despairing heart almost seemed to cease beating. And although he strove to pray, to fix his mind wholly upon that powerful Virgin, so compassionate to poor humanity, his thoughts none the less wandered, won back by the outside world, and again turning to puerile trifles. Within the Grotto, on the other side of the railing, he had once more caught sight of Baron Suire, still asleep, still continuing his pleasant nap with his hands clasped in front of him. Other things also attracted his attention: the flowers deposited at the feet of the Virgin, the letters cast there as though into a heavenly letter-box, the delicate lace-like work of wax which remained erect around the flames of the larger tapers, looking like some rich silver ornamentation. Then, without any apparent reason, his thoughts flew away to the days of his childhood, and his brother Guillaume's face rose before him with extreme distinctness. He had not seen him since their mother's death. He merely knew that he led a very secluded life, occupying himself with scientific matters, in a little house in which he had buried himself with a mistress and two big dogs; and he would have known nothing more about him, but for having recently read his name in a newspaper in connection with some revolutionary attempt. It was stated that he was passionately devoting himself to the study of explosives, and in constant intercourse with the leaders of the most advanced parties. Why, however, should Guillaume appear to him in this wise, in this ecstatic spot, amidst the mystical light of the tapers,--appear to him, moreover, such as he had formerly known him, so good, affectionate, and brotherly, overflowing with charity for every affliction! The thought haunted him for a moment, and filled him with painful regret for that brotherliness now dead and gone. Then, with hardly a moment's pause, his mind reverted to himself, and he realised that he might stubbornly remain there for hours without regaining faith. Nevertheless, he felt a sort of tremor pass through him, a final hope, a feeling that if the Blessed Virgin should perform the great miracle of curing Marie, he would at last believe. It was like a final delay which he allowed himself, an appointment with Faith for that very day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, when, according to what the girl had told him, the Blessed Sacrament would pass by. And at this thought his anguish at once ceased, he remained kneeling, worn out with fatigue and overcome by invincible drowsiness. The hours passed by, the resplendent illumination of the Grotto was still projected into the night, its reflection stretching to the neighbouring hillsides and whitening the walls of the convents there. However, Pierre noticed it grow paler and paler, which surprised him, and he roused himself, feeling thoroughly chilled; it was the day breaking, beneath a leaden sky overcast with clouds. He perceived that one of those storms, so sudden in mountainous regions, was rapidly rising from the south. The thunder could already be heard rumbling in the distance, whilst gusts of wind swept along the roads. Perhaps he also had been sleeping, for he no longer beheld Baron Suire, whose departure he did not remember having witnessed. There were scarcely ten persons left before the Grotto, though among them he again recognised Madame Maze with her face hidden in her hands. However, when she noticed that it was daylight and that she could be seen, she rose up, and vanished at a turn of the narrow path leading to the convent of the Blue Sisters. Feeling anxious, Pierre went up to Marie to tell her she must not remain there any longer, unless she wished to get wet through. "I will take you back to the hospital," said he. She refused and then entreated: "No, no! I am waiting for mass; I promised to communicate here. Don't trouble about me, return to the hotel at once, and go to bed, I implore you. You know very well that covered vehicles are sent here for the sick whenever it rains." And she persisted in refusing to leave, whilst on his side he kept on repeating that he did not wish to go to bed. A mass, it should be mentioned, was said at the Grotto early every morning, and it was a divine joy for the pilgrims to be able to communicate, amidst the glory of the rising sun, after a long night of ecstasy. And now, just as some large drops of rain were beginning to fall, there came the priest, wearing a chasuble and accompanied by two acolytes, one of whom, in order to protect the chalice, held a large white silk umbrella, embroidered with gold, over him. Pierre, after pushing Marie's little conveyance close to the railing, so that the girl might be sheltered by the overhanging rock, under which the few other worshippers had also sought refuge, had just seen her receive the sacrament with ardent fervour, when his attention was attracted by a pitiful spectacle which quite wrung his heart. Beneath a dense, heavy deluge of rain, he caught sight of Madame Vincent, still with that precious, woeful burden, her little Rose, whom with outstretched arms she was offering to the Blessed Virgin. Unable to stay any longer at the shelter-house owing to the complaints caused by the child's constant moaning, she had carried her off into the night, and during two hours had roamed about in the darkness, lost, distracted, bearing this poor flesh of her flesh, which she pressed to her bosom, unable to give it any relief. She knew not what road she had taken, beneath what trees she had strayed, so absorbed had she been in her revolt against the unjust sufferings which had so sorely stricken this poor little being, so feeble and so pure, and as yet quite incapable of sin. Was it not abominable that the grip of disease should for weeks have been incessantly torturing her child, whose cry she knew not how to quiet? She carried her about, rocking her in her arms as she went wildly along the paths, obstinately hoping that she would at last get her to sleep, and so hush that wail which was rending her heart. And suddenly, utterly worn-out, sharing each of her daughter's death pangs, she found herself opposite the Grotto, at the feet of the miracle-working Virgin, she who forgave and who healed. "O Virgin, Mother most admirable, heal her! O Virgin, Mother of Divine Grace, heal her!" She had fallen on her knees, and with quivering, outstretched arms was still offering her expiring daughter, in a paroxysm of hope and desire which seemed to raise her from the ground. And the rain, which she never noticed, beat down behind her with the fury of an escaped torrent, whilst violent claps of thunder shook the mountains. For one moment she thought her prayer was granted, for Rose had slightly shivered as though visited by the archangel, her face becoming quite white, her eyes and mouth opening wide; and with one last little gasp she ceased to cry. "O Virgin, Mother of Our Redeemer, heal her! O Virgin, All-powerful Mother, heal her!" But the poor woman felt her child become even lighter in her extended arms. And now she became afraid at no longer hearing her moan, at seeing her so white, with staring eyes and open mouth, without a sign of life. How was it that she did not smile if she were cured? Suddenly a loud heart-rending cry rang out, the cry of the mother, surpassing even the din of the thunder in the storm, whose violence was increasing. Her child was dead. And she rose up erect, turned her back on that deaf Virgin who let little children die, and started off like a madwoman beneath the lashing downpour, going straight before her without knowing whither, and still and ever carrying and nursing that poor little body which she had held in her arms during so many days and nights. A thunderbolt fell, shivering one of the neighbouring trees, as though with the stroke of a giant axe, amidst a great crash of twisted and broken branches. Pierre had rushed after Madame Vincent, eager to guide and help her. But he was unable to follow her, for he at once lost sight of her behind the blurring curtain of rain. When he returned, the mass was drawing to an end, and, as soon as the rain fell less violently, the officiating priest went off under the white silk umbrella embroidered with gold. Meantime a kind of omnibus awaited the few patients to take them back to the hospital. Marie pressed Pierre's hands. "Oh! how happy I am!" she said. "Do not come for me before three o'clock this afternoon." On being left amidst the rain, which had now become an obstinate fine drizzle, Pierre re-entered the Grotto and seated himself on the bench near the spring. He would not go to bed, for in spite of his weariness he dreaded sleep in the state of nervous excitement in which he had been plunged ever since the day before. Little Rose's death had increased his fever; he could not banish from his mind the thought of that heart-broken mother, wandering along the muddy paths with the dead body of her child. What could be the reasons which influenced the Virgin? He was amazed that she could make a choice. Divine Mother as she was, he wondered how her heart could decide upon healing only ten out of a hundred sufferers--that ten per cent. of miracles which Doctor Bonamy had proved by statistics. He, Pierre, had already asked himself the day before which ones he would have chosen had he possessed the power of saving ten. A terrible power in all truth, a formidable selection, which he would never have had the courage to make. Why this one, and not that other? Where was the justice, where the compassion? To be all-powerful and heal every one of them, was not that the desire which rose from each heart? And the Virgin seemed to him to be cruel, badly informed, as harsh and indifferent as even impassible nature, distributing life and death at random, or in accordance with laws which mankind knew nothing of. The rain was at last leaving off, and Pierre had been there a couple of hours when he felt that his feet were damp. He looked down, and was greatly surprised, for the spring was overflowing through the gratings. The soil of the Grotto was already covered; whilst outside a sheet of water was flowing under the benches, as far as the parapet against the Gave. The late storms had swollen the waters in the neighbourhood. Pierre thereupon reflected that this spring, in spite of its miraculous origin, was subject to the laws that governed other springs, for it certainly communicated with some natural reservoirs, wherein the rain penetrated and accumulated. And then, to keep his ankles dry, he left the place. V THE TWO VICTIMS PIERRE walked along thirsting for fresh air, his head so heavy that he took off his hat to relieve his burning brow. Despite all the fatigue of that terrible night of vigil, he did not think of sleeping. He was kept erect by that rebellion of his whole being which he could not quiet. Eight o'clock was striking, and he walked at random under the glorious morning sun, now shining forth in a spotless sky, which the storm seemed to have cleansed of all the Sunday dust. All at once, however, he raised his head, anxious to know where he was; and he was quite astonished, for he found that he had already covered a deal of ground, and was now below the station, near the municipal hospital. He was hesitating at a point where the road forked, not knowing which direction to take, when a friendly hand was laid on his shoulder, and a voice inquired: "Where are you going at this early hour?" It was Doctor Chassaigne who addressed him, drawing up his lofty figure, clad in black from head to foot. "Have you lost yourself?" he added; "do you want to know your way?" "No, thanks, no," replied Pierre, somewhat disturbed. "I spent the night at the Grotto with that young patient to whom I am so much attached, and my heart was so upset that I have been walking about in the hope it would do me good, before returning to the hotel to take a little sleep." The doctor continued looking at him, clearly detecting the frightful struggle which was raging within him, the despair which he felt at being unable to sink asleep in faith, the suffering which the futility of all his efforts brought him. "Ah, my poor child!" murmured M. Chassaigne; and in a fatherly way he added: "Well, since you are walking, suppose we take a walk together? I was just going down yonder, to the bank of the Gave. Come along, and on our way back you will see what a lovely view we shall have." For his part, the doctor took a walk of a couple of hours' duration each morning, ever alone, seeking, as it were, to tire and exhaust his grief. First of all, as soon as he had risen, he repaired to the cemetery, and knelt on the tomb of his wife and daughter, which, at all seasons, he decked with flowers. And afterwards he would roam along the roads, with tearful eyes, never returning home until fatigue compelled him. With a wave of the hand, Pierre accepted his proposal, and in perfect silence they went, side by side, down the sloping road. They remained for a long time without speaking; the doctor seemed more overcome than was his wont that morning; it was as though his chat with his dear lost ones had made his heart bleed yet more copiously. He walked along with his head bowed; his face, round which his white hair streamed, was very pale, and tears still blurred his eyes. And yet it was so pleasant, so warm in the sunlight on that lovely morning. The road now followed the Gave on its right bank, on the other side of the new town; and you could see the gardens, the inclined ways, and the Basilica. And, all at once, the Grotto appeared, with the everlasting flare of its tapers, now paling in the broad light. Doctor Chassaigne, who had turned his head, made the sign of the cross, which Pierre did not at first understand. And when, in his turn, he had perceived the Grotto, he glanced in surprise at his old friend, and once more relapsed into the astonishment which had come over him a couple of days previously on finding this man of science, this whilom atheist and materialist, so overwhelmed by grief that he was now a believer, longing for the one delight of meeting his dear ones in another life. His heart had swept his reason away; old and lonely as he was, it was only the illusion that he would live once more in Paradise, where loving souls meet again, that prolonged his life on earth. This thought increased the young priest's discomfort. Must he also wait until he had grown old and endured equal sufferings in order to find a refuge in faith? Still walking beside the Gave, leaving the town farther and farther behind them, they were lulled as it were by the noise of those clear waters rolling over the pebbles between banks shaded by trees. And they still remained silent, walking on with an equal step, each, on his own side, absorbed in his sorrows. "And Bernadette," Pierre suddenly inquired; "did you know her?" The doctor raised his head. "Bernadette? Yes, yes," said he. "I saw her once--afterwards." He relapsed into silence for a moment, and then began chatting: "In 1858, you know, at the time of the apparitions, I was thirty years of age. I was in Paris, still young in my profession, and opposed to all supernatural notions, so that I had no idea of returning to my native mountains to see a girl suffering from hallucinations. Five or six years later, however, some time about 1864, I passed through Lourdes, and was inquisitive enough to pay Bernadette a visit. She was then still at the asylum with the Sisters of Nevers." Pierre remembered that one of the reasons of his journey had been his desire to complete his inquiry respecting Bernadette. And who could tell if grace might not come to him from that humble, lovable girl, on the day when he should be convinced that she had indeed fulfilled a mission of divine love and forgiveness? For this consummation to ensue it would perhaps suffice that he should know her better and learn to feel that she was really the saint, the chosen one, as others believed her to have been. "Tell me about her, I pray you," he said; "tell me all you know of her." A faint smile curved the doctor's lips. He understood, and would have greatly liked to calm and comfort the young priest whose soul was so grievously tortured by doubt. "Oh! willingly, my poor child!" he answered. "I should be so happy to help you on the path to light. You do well to love Bernadette--that may save you; for since all those old-time things I have deeply reflected on her case, and I declare to you that I never met a more charming creature, or one with a better heart." Then, to the slow rhythm of their footsteps along the well-kept, sunlit road, in the delightful freshness of morning, the doctor began to relate his visit to Bernadette in 1864. She had then just attained her twentieth birthday, the apparitions had taken place six years previously, and she had astonished him by her candid and sensible air, her perfect modesty. The Sisters of Nevers, who had taught her to read, kept her with them at the asylum in order to shield her from public inquisitiveness. She found an occupation there, helping them in sundry petty duties; but she was very often taken ill, and would spend weeks at a time in her bed. The doctor had been particularly struck by her beautiful eyes, pure, candid, and frank, like those of a child. The rest of her face, said he, had become somewhat spoilt; her complexion was losing its clearness, her features had grown less delicate, and her general appearance was that of an ordinary servant-girl, short, puny, and unobtrusive. Her piety was still keen, but she had not seemed to him to be the ecstatical, excitable creature that many might have supposed; indeed, she appeared to have a rather positive mind which did not indulge in flights of fancy; and she invariably had some little piece of needlework, some knitting, some embroidery in her hand. In a word, she appeared to have entered the common path, and in nowise resembled the intensely passionate female worshippers of the Christ. She had no further visions, and never of her own accord spoke of the eighteen apparitions which had decided her life. To learn anything it was necessary to interrogate her, to address precise questions to her. These she would briefly answer, and then seek to change the conversation, as though she did not like to talk of such mysterious things. If wishing to probe the matter further, you asked her the nature of the three secrets which the Virgin had confided to her, she would remain silent, simply averting her eyes. And it was impossible to make her contradict herself; the particulars she gave invariably agreed with her original narrative, and, indeed, she always seemed to repeat the same words, with the same inflections of the voice. "I had her in hand during the whole of one afternoon," continued Doctor Chassaigne, "and there was not the variation of a syllable in her story. It was disconcerting. Still, I am prepared to swear that she was not lying, that she never lied, that she was altogether incapable of falsehood." Pierre boldly ventured to discuss this point. "But won't you admit, doctor, the possibility of some disorder of the will?" he asked. "Has it not been proved, is it not admitted nowadays, that when certain degenerate creatures with childish minds fall into an hallucination, a fancy of some kind or other, they are often unable to free themselves from it, especially when they remain in the same environment in which the phenomenon occurred? Cloistered, living alone with her fixed idea, Bernadette, naturally enough, obstinately clung to it." The doctor's faint smile returned to his lips, and vaguely waving his arm, he replied: "Ah! my child, you ask me too much. You know very well that I am now only a poor old man, who prides himself but little on his science, and no longer claims to be able to explain anything. However, I do of course know of that famous medical-school example of the young girl who allowed herself to waste away with hunger at home, because she imagined that she was suffering from a serious complaint of the digestive organs, but who nevertheless began to eat when she was taken elsewhere. However, that is but one circumstance, and there are so many contradictory cases." For a moment they became silent, and only the rhythmical sound of their steps was heard along the road. Then the doctor resumed: "Moreover, it is quite true that Bernadette shunned the world, and was only happy in her solitary corner. She was never known to have a single intimate female friend, any particular human love for anybody. She was kind and gentle towards all, but it was only for children that she showed any lively affection. And as, after all, the medical man is not quite dead within me, I will confess to you that I have sometimes wondered if she remained as pure in mind, as, most undoubtedly, she did remain in body. However, I think it quite possible, given her sluggish, poor-blooded temperament, not to speak of the innocent sphere in which she grew up, first Bartres, and then the convent. Still, a doubt came to me when I heard of the tender interest which she took in the orphan asylum built by the Sisters of Nevers, farther along this very road. Poor little girls are received into it, and shielded from the perils of the highways. And if Bernadette wished it to be extremely large, so as to lodge all the little lambs in danger, was it not because she herself remembered having roamed the roads with bare feet, and still trembled at the idea of what might have become of her but for the help of the Blessed Virgin?" Then, resuming his narrative, he went on telling Pierre of the crowds that flocked to see Bernadette and pay her reverence in her asylum at Lourdes. This had proved a source of considerable fatigue to her. Not a day went by without a stream of visitors appearing before her. They came from all parts of France, some even from abroad; and it soon proved necessary to refuse the applications of those who were actuated by mere inquisitiveness, and to grant admittance only to the genuine believers, the members of the clergy, and the people of mark on whom the doors could not well have been shut. A Sister was always present to protect Bernadette against the excessive indiscretion of some of her visitors, for questions literally rained upon her, and she often grew faint through having to repeat her story so many times. Ladies of high position fell on their knees, kissed her gown, and would have liked to carry a piece of it away as a relic. She also had to defend her chaplet, which in their excitement they all begged her to sell to them for a fabulous amount. One day a certain marchioness endeavoured to secure it by giving her another one which she had brought with her--a chaplet with a golden cross and beads of real pearls. Many hoped that she would consent to work a miracle in their presence; children were brought to her in order that she might lay her hands upon them; she was also consulted in cases of illness, and attempts were made to purchase her influence with the Virgin. Large sums were offered to her. At the slightest sign, the slightest expression of a desire to be a queen, decked with jewels and crowned with gold, she would have been overwhelmed with regal presents. And while the humble remained on their knees on her threshold, the great ones of the earth pressed round her, and would have counted it a glory to act as her escort. It was even related that one among them, the handsomest and wealthiest of princes, came one clear sunny April day to ask her hand in marriage. "But what always struck and displeased me," said Pierre, "was her departure from Lourdes when she was two-and-twenty, her sudden disappearance and sequestration in the convent of Saint Gildard at Nevers, whence she never emerged. Didn't that give a semblance of truth to those spurious rumours of insanity which were circulated? Didn't it help people to suppose that she was being shut up, whisked away for fear of some indiscretion on her part, some naive remark or other which might have revealed the secret of a prolonged fraud? Indeed, to speak plainly, I will confess to you that for my own part I still believe that she was spirited away." Doctor Chassaigne gently shook his head. "No, no," said he, "there was no story prepared in advance in this affair, no big melodrama secretly staged and afterwards performed by more or less unconscious actors. The developments came of themselves, by the sole force of circumstances; and they were always very intricate, very difficult to analyse. Moreover, it is certain that it was Bernadette herself who wished to leave Lourdes. Those incessant visits wearied her, she felt ill at ease amidst all that noisy worship. All that /she/ desired was a dim nook where she might live in peace, and so fierce was she at times in her disinterestedness, that when money was handed to her, even with the pious intent of having a mass said or a taper burnt, she would fling it upon the floor. She never accepted anything for herself or for her family, which remained in poverty. And with such pride as she possessed, such natural simplicity, such a desire to remain in the background, one can very well understand that she should have wished to disappear and cloister herself in some lonely spot so as to prepare herself to make a good death. Her work was accomplished; she had initiated this great movement scarcely knowing how or why; and she could really be of no further utility. Others were about to conduct matters to an issue and insure the triumph of the Grotto." "Let us admit, then, that she went off of her own accord," said Pierre; "still, what a relief it must have been for the people you speak of, who thenceforth became the real masters, whilst millions of money were raining down on Lourdes from the whole world." "Oh! certainly; I don't pretend that any attempt was made to detain her here!" exclaimed the doctor. "Frankly, I even believe that she was in some degree urged into the course she took. She ended by becoming somewhat of an incumbrance. It was not that any annoying revelations were feared from her; but remember that with her extreme timidity and frequent illnesses she was scarcely ornamental. Besides, however small the room which she took up at Lourdes, however obedient she showed herself, she was none the less a power, and attracted the multitude, which made her, so to say, a competitor of the Grotto. For the Grotto to remain alone, resplendent in its glory, it was advisable that Bernadette should withdraw into the background, become as it were a simple legend. Such, indeed, must have been the reasons which induced Monseigneur Laurence, the Bishop of Tarbes, to hasten her departure. The only mistake that was made was in saying that it was a question of screening her from the enterprises of the world, as though it were feared that she might fall into the sin of pride, by growing vain of the saintly fame with which the whole of Christendom re-echoed. And this was doing her a grave injury, for she was as incapable of pride as she was of falsehood. Never, indeed, was there a more candid or more modest child." The doctor was growing impassioned, excited. But all at once he became calm again, and a pale smile returned to his lips. "'Tis true," said he, "I love her; the more I have thought of her, the more have I learned to love her. But you must not think, Pierre, that I am completely brutified by belief. If I nowadays acknowledge the existence of an unseen power, if I feel a need of believing in another, better, and more just life, I nevertheless know right well that there are men remaining in this world of ours; and at times, even when they wear the cowl or the cassock, the work they do is vile." There came another interval of silence. Each was continuing his dream apart from the other. Then the doctor resumed: "I will tell you of a fancy which has often haunted me. Suppose we admit that Bernadette was not the shy, simple child we knew her to be; let us endow her with a spirit of intrigue and domination, transform her into a conqueress, a leader of nations, and try to picture what, in that case, would have happened. It is evident that the Grotto would be hers, the Basilica also. We should see her lording it at all the ceremonies, under a dais, with a gold mitre on her head. She would distribute the miracles; with a sovereign gesture her little hand would lead the multitudes to heaven. All the lustre and glory would come from her, she being the saint, the chosen one, the only one that had been privileged to see the Divinity face to face. And indeed nothing would seem more just, for she would triumph after toiling, enjoy the fruit of her labour in all glory. But you see, as it happens, she is defrauded, robbed. The marvellous harvests sown by her are reaped by others. During the twelve years which she lived at Saint Gildard, kneeling in the gloom, Lourdes was full of victors, priests in golden vestments chanting thanksgivings, and blessing churches and monuments erected at a cost of millions. She alone did not behold the triumph of the new faith, whose author she had been. You say that she dreamt it all. Well, at all events, what a beautiful dream it was, a dream which has stirred the whole world, and from which she, dear girl, never awakened!" They halted and sat down for a moment on a rock beside the road, before returning to the town. In front of them the Gave, deep at this point of its course, was rolling blue waters tinged with dark moire-like reflections, whilst, farther on, rushing hurriedly over a bed of large stones, the stream became so much foam, a white froth, light like snow. Amidst the gold raining from the sun, a fresh breeze came down from the mountains. Whilst listening to that story of how Bernadette had been exploited and suppressed, Pierre had simply found in it all a fresh motive for revolt; and, with his eyes fixed on the ground, he began to think of the injustice of nature, of that law which wills that the strong should devour the weak. Then, all at once raising his head, he inquired: "And did you also know Abbe Peyramale?" The doctor's eyes brightened once more, and he eagerly replied: "Certainly I did! He was an upright, energetic man, a saint, an apostle. He and Bernadette were the great makers of Our Lady of Lourdes. Like her, he endured frightful sufferings, and, like her, he died from them. Those who do not know his story can know nothing, understand nothing, of the drama enacted here." Thereupon he related that story at length. Abbe Peyramale was the parish priest of Lourdes at the time of the apparitions. A native of the region, tall, broad-shouldered, with a powerful leonine head, he was extremely intelligent, very honest and goodhearted, though at times violent and domineering. He seemed built for combat. An enemy of all pious exaggerations, discharging the duties of his ministry in a broad, liberal spirit, he regarded the apparitions with distrust when he first heard of them, refused to believe in Bernadette's stories, questioned her, and demanded proofs. It was only at a later stage, when the blast of faith became irresistible, upsetting the most rebellious minds and mastering the multitude, that he ended, in his turn, by bowing his head; and when he was finally conquered, it was more particularly by his love for the humble and the oppressed which he could not restrain when he beheld Bernadette threatened with imprisonment. The civil authorities were persecuting one of his flock; at this his shepherd's heart awoke, and, in her defence, he gave full reign to his ardent passion for justice. Moreover, the charm which the child diffused had worked upon him; he felt her to be so candid, so truthful, that he began to place a blind faith in her and love her even as everybody else loved her. Moreover, why should he have curtly dismissed all questions of miracles, when miracles abound in the pages of Holy Writ? It was not for a minister of religion, whatever his prudence, to set himself up as a sceptic when entire populations were falling on their knees and the Church seemed to be on the eve of another great triumph. Then, too, he had the nature of one who leads men, who stirs up crowds, who builds, and in this affair he had really found his vocation, the vast field in which he might exercise his energy, the great cause to which he might wholly devote himself with all his passionate ardour and determination to succeed. From that moment, then, Abbe Peyramale had but one thought, to execute the orders which the Virgin had commissioned Bernadette to transmit to him. He caused improvements to be carried out at the Grotto. A railing was placed in front of it; pipes were laid for the conveyance of the water from the source, and a variety of work was accomplished in order to clear the approaches. However, the Virgin had particularly requested that a chapel might be built; and he wished to have a church, quite a triumphal Basilica. He pictured everything on a grand scale, and, full of confidence in the enthusiastic help of Christendom, he worried the architects, requiring them to design real palaces worthy of the Queen of Heaven. As a matter of fact, offerings already abounded, gold poured from the most distant dioceses, a rain of gold destined to increase and never end. Then came his happy years: he was to be met among the workmen at all hours, instilling activity into them like the jovial, good-natured fellow he was, constantly on the point of taking a pick or trowel in hand himself, such was his eagerness to behold the realisation of his dream. But days of trial were in store for him: he fell ill, and lay in danger of death on the fourth of April, 1864, when the first procession started from his parish church to the Grotto, a procession of sixty thousand pilgrims, which wound along the streets amidst an immense concourse of spectators. On the day when Abbe Peyramale rose from his bed, saved, a first time, from death, he found himself despoiled. To second him in his heavy task, Monseigneur Laurence, the Bishop, had already given him as assistant a former episcopal secretary, Father Sempe, whom he had appointed warden of the Missionaries of Geraison, a community founded by himself. Father Sempe was a sly, spare little man, to all appearance most disinterested and humble, but in reality consumed by all the thirst of ambition. At the outset he kept in his place, serving the parish priest of Lourdes like a faithful subordinate, attending to matters of all kinds in order to lighten the other's work, and acquiring information on every possible subject in his desire to render himself indispensable. He must soon have realised what a rich farm the Grotto was destined to become, and what a colossal revenue might be derived from it, if only a little skill were exercised. And thenceforth he no longer stirred from the episcopal residence, but ended by acquiring great influence over the calm, practical Bishop, who was in great need of money for the charities of his diocese. And thus it was that during Abbe Peyramale's illness Father Sempe succeeded in effecting a separation between the parish of Lourdes and the domain of the Grotto, which last he was commissioned to manage at the head of a few Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, over whom the Bishop placed him as Father Superior. The struggle soon began, one of those covert, desperate, mortal struggles which are waged under the cloak of ecclesiastical discipline. There was a pretext for rupture all ready, a field of battle on which the longer purse would necessarily end by conquering. It was proposed to build a new parish church, larger and more worthy of Lourdes than the old one already in existence, which was admitted to have become too small since the faithful had been flocking into the town in larger and larger numbers. Moreover, it was an old idea of Abbe Peyramale, who desired to carry out the Virgin's orders with all possible precision. Speaking of the Grotto, she had said that people would go "thither in procession"; and the Abbe had always seen the pilgrims start in procession from the town, whither they were expected to return in the same fashion, as indeed had been the practice on the first occasions after the apparitions. A central point, a rallying spot, was therefore required, and the Abbe's dream was to erect a magnificent church, a cathedral of gigantic proportions, which would accommodate a vast multitude. Builder as he was by temperament, impassioned artisan working for the glory of Heaven, he already pictured this cathedral springing from the soil, and rearing its clanging belfry in the sunlight. And it was also his own house that he wished to build, the edifice which would be his act of faith and adoration, the temple where he would be the pontiff, and triumph in company with the sweet memory of Bernadette, in full view of the spot of which both he and she had been so cruelly dispossessed. Naturally enough, bitterly as he felt that act of spoliation, the building of this new parish church was in some degree his revenge, his share of all the glory, besides being a task which would enable him to utilise both his militant activity and the fever that had been consuming him ever since he had ceased going to the Grotto, by reason of his soreness of heart. At the outset of the new enterprise there was again a flash of enthusiasm. At the prospect of seeing all the life and all the money flow into the new city which was springing from the ground around the Basilica, the old town, which felt itself thrust upon one side, espoused the cause of its priest. The municipal council voted a sum of one hundred thousand francs, which, unfortunately, was not to be paid until the new church should be roofed in. Abbe Peyramale had already accepted the plans of his architect--plans which, he had insisted, should be on a grand scale--and had also treated with a contractor of Chartres, who engaged to complete the church in three or four years if the promised supplies of funds should be regularly forthcoming. The Abbe believed that offerings would assuredly continue raining down from all parts, and so he launched into this big enterprise without any anxiety, overflowing with a careless bravery, and fully expecting that Heaven would not abandon him on the road. He even fancied that he could rely upon the support of Monseigneur Jourdan, who had now succeeded Monseigneur Laurence as Bishop of Tarbes, for this prelate, after blessing the foundation-stone of the new church, had delivered an address in which he admitted that the enterprise was necessary and meritorious. And it seemed, too, as though Father Sempe, with his customary humility, had bowed to the inevitable and accepted this vexatious competition, which would compel him to relinquish a share of the plunder; for he now pretended to devote himself entirely to the management of the Grotto, and even allowed a collection-box for contributions to the building of the new parish church to be placed inside the Basilica. Then, however, the secret, rageful struggle began afresh. Abbe Peyramale, who was a wretched manager, exulted on seeing his new church so rapidly take shape. The work was being carried on at a fast pace, and he troubled about nothing else, being still under the delusion that the Blessed Virgin would find whatever money might be needed. Thus he was quite stupefied when he at last perceived that the offerings were falling off, that the money of the faithful no longer reached him, as though, indeed, someone had secretly diverted its flow. And eventually the day came when he was unable to make the stipulated payments. In all this there had been so much skilfully combined strangulation, of which he only became aware later on. Father Sempe, however, had once more prevailed on the Bishop to grant his favour exclusively to the Grotto. There was even a talk of some confidential circulars distributed through the various dioceses, so that the many sums of money offered by the faithful should no longer be sent to the parish. The voracious, insatiable Grotto was bent upon securing everything, and to such a point were things carried that five hundred franc notes slipped into the collection-box at the Basilica were kept back; the box was rifled and the parish robbed. Abbe Peyramale, however, in his passion for the rising church, his child, continued fighting most desperately, ready if need were to give his blood. He had at first treated with the contractor in the name of the vestry; then, when he was at a loss how to pay, he treated in his own name. His life was bound up in the enterprise, he wore himself out in the heroic efforts which he made. Of the four hundred thousand francs that he had promised, he had only been able to pay two hundred thousand; and the municipal council still obstinately refused to hand over the hundred thousand francs which it had voted, until the new church should be covered in. This was acting against the town's real interests. However, it was said that Father Sempe was trying to bring influence to bear on the contractor. And, all at once, the work was stopped. From that moment the death agony began. Wounded in the heart, the Abbe Peyramale, the broad-shouldered mountaineer with the leonine face, staggered and fell like an oak struck down by a thunderbolt. He took to his bed, and never left it alive. Strange stories circulated: it was said that Father Sempe had sought to secure admission to the parsonage under some pious pretext, but in reality to see if his much-dreaded adversary were really mortally stricken; and it was added, that it had been necessary to drive him from the sick-room, where his presence was an outrageous scandal. Then, when the unhappy priest, vanquished and steeped in bitterness, was dead, Father Sempe was seen triumphing at the funeral, from which the others had not dared to keep him away. It was affirmed that he openly displayed his abominable delight, that his face was radiant that day with the joy of victory. He was at last rid of the only man who had been an obstacle to his designs, whose legitimate authority he had feared. He would no longer be forced to share anything with anybody now that both the founders of Our Lady of Lourdes had been suppressed--Bernadette placed in a convent, and Abbe Peyramale lowered into the ground. The Grotto was now his own property, the alms would come to him alone, and he could do what he pleased with the eight hundred thousand francs* or so which were at his disposal every year. He would complete the gigantic works destined to make the Basilica a self-supporting centre, and assist in embellishing the new town in order to increase the isolation of the old one and seclude it behind its rock, like an insignificant parish submerged beneath the splendour of its all-powerful neighbour. All the money, all the sovereignty, would be his; he henceforth would reign. * About 145,000 dollars. However, although the works had been stopped, and the new parish church was slumbering inside its wooden fence, it was none the less more than half built. The vaulted aisles were already erected. And the imperfect pile remained there like a threat, for the town might some day attempt to finish it. Like Abbe Peyramale, therefore, it must be killed for good, turned into an irreparable ruin. The secret labour therefore continued, a work of refined cruelty and slow destruction. To begin with, the new parish priest, a simple-minded creature, was cowed to such a point that he no longer opened the envelopes containing remittances for the parish; all the registered letters were at once taken to the Fathers. Then the site selected for the new parish church was criticised, and the diocesan architect was induced to draw up a report stating that the old church was still in good condition and of ample size for the requirements of the community. Moreover, influence was brought to bear on the Bishop, and representations were made to him respecting the annoying features of the pecuniary difficulties which had arisen with the contractor. With a little imagination poor Peyramale was transformed into a violent, obstinate madman, through whose undisciplined zeal the Church had almost been compromised. And, at last, the Bishop, forgetting that he himself had blessed the foundation-stone, issued a pastoral letter laying the unfinished church under interdict, and prohibiting all religious services in it. This was the supreme blow. Endless lawsuits had already begun; the contractor, who had only received two hundred thousand francs for the five hundred thousand francs' worth of work which had been executed, had taken proceedings against Abbe Peyramale's heir-at-law, the vestry, and the town, for the last still refused to pay over the amount which it had voted. At first the Prefect's Council declared itself incompetent to deal with the case, and when it was sent back to it by the Council of State, it rendered a judgment by which the town was condemned to pay the hundred thousand francs and the heir-at-law to finish the church. At the same time the vestry was put out of court. However, there was a fresh appeal to the Council of State, which quashed this judgment, and condemned the vestry, and, in default, the heir-at-law, to pay the contractor. Neither party being solvent, matters remained in this position. The lawsuits had lasted fifteen years. The town had now resignedly paid over the hundred thousand francs, and only two hundred thousand remained owing to the contractor. However, the costs and the accumulated interest had so increased the amount of indebtedness that it had risen to six hundred thousand francs; and as, on the other hand, it was estimated that four hundred thousand francs would be required to finish the church, a million was needed to save this young ruin from certain destruction. The Fathers of the Grotto were thenceforth able to sleep in peace; they had assassinated the poor church; it was as dead as Abbe Peyramale himself. The bells of the Basilica rang out triumphantly, and Father Sempe reigned as a victor at the conclusion of that great struggle, that dagger warfare in which not only a man but stones also had been done to death in the shrouding gloom of intriguing sacristies. And old Lourdes, obstinate and unintelligent, paid a hard penalty for its mistake in not giving more support to its minister, who had died struggling, killed by his love for his parish, for now the new town did not cease to grow and prosper at the expense of the old one. All the wealth flowed to the former: the Fathers of the Grotto coined money, financed hotels and candle shops, and sold the water of the source, although a clause of their agreement with the municipality expressly prohibited them from carrying on any commercial pursuits. The whole region began to rot and fester; the triumph of the Grotto had brought about such a passion for lucre, such a burning, feverish desire to possess and enjoy, that extraordinary perversion set in, growing worse and worse each day, and changing Bernadette's peaceful Bethlehem into a perfect Sodom or Gomorrah. Father Sempe had ensured the triumph of his Divinity by spreading human abominations all around and wrecking thousands of souls. Gigantic buildings rose from the ground, five or six millions of francs had already been expended, everything being sacrificed to the stern determination to leave the poor parish out in the cold and keep the entire plunder for self and friends. Those costly, colossal gradient ways had only been erected in order to avoid compliance with the Virgin's express desire that the faithful should come to the Grotto in procession. For to go down from the Basilica by the incline on the left, and climb up to it again by the incline on the right, could certainly not be called going to the Grotto in procession: it was simply so much revolving in a circle. However, the Fathers cared little about that; they had succeeded in compelling people to start from their premises and return to them, in order that they might be the sole proprietors of the affair, the opulent farmers who garnered the whole harvest. Abbe Peyramale lay buried in the crypt of his unfinished, ruined church, and Bernadette, who had long since dragged out her life of suffering in the depths of a convent far away, was now likewise sleeping the eternal sleep under a flagstone in a chapel. Deep silence fell when Doctor Chassaigne had finished this long narrative. Then, with a painful effort, he rose to his feet again: "It will soon be ten o'clock, my dear child," said he, "and I want you to take a little rest. Let us go back." Pierre followed him without speaking; and they retraced their steps toward the town at a more rapid pace. "Ah! yes," resumed the doctor, "there were great iniquities and great sufferings in it all. But what else could you expect? Man spoils and corrupts the most beautiful things. And you cannot yet understand all the woeful sadness of the things of which I have been talking to you. You must see them, lay your hand on them. Would you like me to show you Bernadette's room and Abbe Peyramale's unfinished church this evening?" "Yes, I should indeed," replied Pierre. "Well, I will meet you in front of the Basilica after the four-o'clock procession, and you can come with me." Then they spoke no further, each becoming absorbed in his reverie once more. The Gave, now upon their right hand, was flowing through a deep gorge, a kind of cleft into which it plunged, vanishing from sight among the bushes. But at intervals a clear stretch of it, looking like unburnished silver, would appear to view; and, farther on, after a sudden turn in the road, they found it flowing in increased volume across a plain, where it spread at times into glassy sheets which must often have changed their beds, for the gravelly soil was ravined on all sides. The sun was now becoming very hot, and was already high in the heavens, whose limpid azure assumed a deeper tinge above the vast circle of mountains. And it was at this turn of the road that Lourdes, still some distance away, reappeared to the eyes of Pierre and Doctor Chassaigne. In the splendid morning atmosphere, amid a flying dust of gold and purple rays, the town shone whitely on the horizon, its houses and monuments becoming more and more distinct at each step which brought them nearer. And the doctor, still silent, at last waved his arm with a broad, mournful gesture in order to call his companion's attention to this growing town, as though to a proof of all that he had been telling him. There, indeed, rising up in the dazzling daylight, was the evidence which confirmed his words. The flare of the Grotto, fainter now that the sun was shining, could already be espied amidst the greenery. And soon afterwards the gigantic monumental works spread out: the quay with its freestone parapet skirting the Gave, whose course had been diverted; the new bridge connecting the new gardens with the recently opened boulevard; the colossal gradient ways, the massive church of the Rosary, and, finally, the slim, tapering Basilica, rising above all else with graceful pride. Of the new town spread all around the monuments, the wealthy city which had sprung, as though by enchantment, from the ancient impoverished soil, the great convents and the great hotels, you could, at this distance, merely distinguish a swarming of white facades and a scintillation of new slates; whilst, in confusion, far away, beyond the rocky mass on which the crumbling castle walls were profiled against the sky, appeared the humble roofs of the old town, a jumble of little time-worn roofs, pressing timorously against one another. And as a background to this vision of the life of yesterday and to-day, the little and the big Gers rose up beneath the splendour of the everlasting sun, and barred the horizon with their bare slopes, which the oblique rays were tingeing with streaks of pink and yellow. Doctor Chassaigne insisted on accompanying Pierre to the Hotel of the Apparitions, and only parted from him at its door, after reminding him of their appointment for the afternoon. It was not yet eleven o'clock. Pierre, whom fatigue had suddenly mastered, forced himself to eat before going to bed, for he realised that want of food was one of the chief causes of the weakness which had come over him. He fortunately found a vacant seat at the /table d'hote/, and made some kind of a /dejeuner/, half asleep all the time, and scarcely knowing what was served to him. Then he went up-stairs and flung himself on his bed, after taking care to tell the servant to awake him at three o'clock. However, on lying down, the fever that consumed him at first prevented him from closing his eyes. A pair of gloves, forgotten in the next room, had reminded him of M. de Guersaint, who had left for Gavarnie before daybreak, and would only return in the evening. What a delightful gift was thoughtlessness, thought Pierre. For his own part, with his limbs worn out by weariness and his mind distracted, he was sad unto death. Everything seemed to conspire against his willing desire to regain the faith of his childhood. The tale of Abbe Peyramale's tragic adventures had simply aggravated the feeling of revolt which the story of Bernadette, chosen and martyred, had implanted in his breast. And thus he asked himself whether his search after the truth, instead of restoring his faith, would not rather lead him to yet greater hatred of ignorance and credulity, and to the bitter conviction that man is indeed all alone in the world, with naught to guide him save his reason. At last he fell asleep, but visions continued hovering around him in his painful slumber. He beheld Lourdes, contaminated by Mammon, turned into a spot of abomination and perdition, transformed into a huge bazaar, where everything was sold, masses and souls alike! He beheld also Abbe Peyramale, dead and slumbering under the ruins of his church, among the nettles which ingratitude had sown there. And he only grew calm again, only tasted the delights of forgetfulness when a last pale, woeful vision had faded from his gaze--a vision of Bernadette upon her knees in a gloomy corner at Nevers, dreaming of her far-away work, which she was never, never to behold. 
8514	----	and David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] THE THREE CITIES LOURDES BY EMILE ZOLA Volume 4. TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY THE FOURTH DAY I THE BITTERNESS OP DEATH AT the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours, that morning, Marie remained seated on her bed, propped up by pillows. Having spent the whole night at the Grotto, she had refused to let them take her back there. And, as Madame de Jonquiere approached her, to raise one of the pillows which was slipping from its place, she asked: "What day is it, madame?" "Monday, my dear child." "Ah! true. One so soon loses count of time. And, besides, I am so happy! It is to-day that the Blessed Virgin will cure me!" She smiled divinely, with the air of a day-dreamer, her eyes gazing into vacancy, her thoughts so far away, so absorbed in her one fixed idea, that she beheld nothing save the certainty of her hope. Round about her, the Sainte-Honorine Ward was now quite deserted, all the patients, excepting Madame Vetu, who lay at the last extremity in the next bed, having already started for the Grotto. But Marie did not even notice her neighbour; she was delighted with the sudden stillness which had fallen. One of the windows overlooking the courtyard had been opened, and the glorious morning sunshine entered in one broad beam, whose golden dust was dancing over her bed and streaming upon her pale hands. It was indeed pleasant to find this room, so dismal at nighttime with its many beds of sickness, its unhealthy atmosphere, and its nightmare groans, thus suddenly filled with sunlight, purified by the morning air, and wrapped in such delicious silence! "Why don't you try to sleep a little?" maternally inquired Madame de Jonquiere. "You must be quite worn out by your vigil." Marie, who felt so light and cheerful that she no longer experienced any pain, seemed surprised. "But I am not at all tired, and I don't feel a bit sleepy. Go to sleep? Oh! no, that would be too sad. I should no longer know that I was going to be cured!" At this the superintendent laughed. "Then why didn't you let them take you to the Grotto?" she asked. "You won't know what to do with yourself all alone here." "I am not alone, madame, I am with her," replied Marie; and thereupon, her vision returning to her, she clasped her hands in ecstasy. "Last night, you know, I saw her bend her head towards me and smile. I quite understood her, I could hear her voice, although she never opened her lips. When the Blessed Sacrament passes at four o'clock I shall be cured." Madame de Jonquiere tried to calm her, feeling rather anxious at the species of somnambulism in which she beheld her. However, the sick girl went on: "No, no, I am no worse, I am waiting. Only, you must surely see, madame, that there is no need for me to go to the Grotto this morning, since the appointment which she gave me is for four o'clock." And then the girl added in a lower tone: "Pierre will come for me at half-past three. At four o'clock I shall be cured." The sunbeam slowly made its way up her bare arms, which were now almost transparent, so wasted had they become through illness; whilst her glorious fair hair, which had fallen over her shoulders, seemed like the very effulgence of the great luminary enveloping her. The trill of a bird came in from the courtyard, and quite enlivened the tremulous silence of the ward. Some child who could not be seen must also have been playing close by, for now and again a soft laugh could be heard ascending in the warm air which was so delightfully calm. "Well," said Madame de Jonquiere by way of conclusion, "don't sleep then, as you don't wish to. But keep quite quiet, and it will rest you all the same." Meantime Madame Vetu was expiring in the adjoining bed. They had not dared to take her to the Grotto, for fear they should see her die on the way. For some little time she had lain there with her eyes closed; and Sister Hyacinthe, who was watching, had beckoned to Madame Desagneaux in order to acquaint her with the bad opinion she had formed of the case. Both of them were now leaning over the dying woman, observing her with increasing anxiety. The mask upon her face had turned more yellow than ever, and now looked like a coating of mud; her eyes too had become more sunken, her lips seemed to have grown thinner, and the death rattle had begun, a slow, pestilential wheezing, polluted by the cancer which was finishing its destructive work. All at once she raised her eyelids, and was seized with fear on beholding those two faces bent over her own. Could her death be near, that they should thus be gazing at her? Immense sadness showed itself in her eyes, a despairing regret of life. It was not a vehement revolt, for she no longer had the strength to struggle; but what a frightful fate it was to have left her shop, her surroundings, and her husband, merely to come and die so far away; to have braved the abominable torture of such a journey, to have prayed both day and night, and then, instead of having her prayer granted, to die when others recovered! However, she could do no more than murmur "Oh! how I suffer; oh! how I suffer. Do something, anything, to relieve this pain, I beseech you." Little Madame Desagneaux, with her pretty milk-white face showing amidst her mass of fair, frizzy hair, was quite upset. She was not used to deathbed scenes, she would have given half her heart, as she expressed it, to see that poor woman recover. And she rose up and began to question Sister Hyacinthe, who was also in tears but already resigned, knowing as she did that salvation was assured when one died well. Could nothing really be done, however? Could not something be tried to ease the dying woman? Abbe Judaine had come and administered the last sacrament to her a couple of hours earlier that very morning. She now only had Heaven to look to; it was her only hope, for she had long since given up expecting aid from the skill of man. "No, no! we must do something," exclaimed Madame Desagneaux. And thereupon she went and fetched Madame de Jonquiere from beside Marie's bed. "Look how this poor creature is suffering, madame!" she exclaimed. "Sister Hyacinthe says that she can only last a few hours longer. But we cannot leave her moaning like this. There are things which give relief. Why not call that young doctor who is here?" "Of course we will," replied the superintendent. "We will send for him at once." They seldom thought of the doctor in the wards. It only occurred to the ladies to send for him when a case was at its very worst, when one of their patients was howling with pain. Sister Hyacinthe, who herself felt surprised at not having thought of Ferrand, whom she believed to be in an adjoining room, inquired if she should fetch him. "Certainly," was the reply. "Bring him as quickly as possible." When the Sister had gone off, Madame de Jonquiere made Madame Desagneaux help her in slightly raising the dying woman's head, thinking that this might relieve her. The two ladies happened to be alone there that morning, all the other lady-hospitallers having gone to their devotions or their private affairs. However, from the end of the large deserted ward, where, amidst the warm quiver of the sunlight such sweet tranquillity prevailed, there still came at intervals the light laughter of the unseen child. "Can it be Sophie who is making such a noise?" suddenly asked the lady-superintendent, whose nerves were somewhat upset by all the worry of the death which she foresaw. Then quickly walking to the end of the ward, she found that it was indeed Sophie Couteau--the young girl so miraculously healed the previous year--who, seated on the floor behind a bed, had been amusing herself, despite her fourteen years, in making a doll out of a few rags. She was now talking to it, so happy, so absorbed in her play, that she laughed quite heartily. "Hold yourself up, mademoiselle," said she. "Dance the polka, that I may see how you can do it! One! two! dance, turn, kiss the one you like best!" Madame de Jonquiere, however, was now coming up. "Little girl," she said, "we have one of our patients here in great pain, and not expected to recover. You must not laugh so loud." "Ah! madame, I didn't know," replied Sophie, rising up, and becoming quite serious, although still holding the doll in her hand. "Is she going to die, madame?" "I fear so, my poor child." Thereupon Sophie became quite silent. She followed the superintendent, and seated herself on an adjoining bed; whence, without the slightest sign of fear, but with her large eyes burning with curiosity, she began to watch Madame Vetu's death agony. In her nervous state, Madame Desagneaux was growing impatient at the delay in the doctor's arrival; whilst Marie, still enraptured, and resplendent in the sunlight, seemed unconscious of what was taking place about her, wrapt as she was in delightful expectancy of the miracle. Not having found Ferrand in the small apartment near the linen-room which he usually occupied, Sister Hyacinthe was now searching for him all over the building. During the past two days the young doctor had become more bewildered than ever in that extraordinary hospital, where his assistance was only sought for the relief of death pangs. The small medicine-chest which he had brought with him proved quite useless; for there could be no thought of trying any course of treatment, as the sick were not there to be doctored, but simply to be cured by the lightning stroke of a miracle. And so he mainly confined himself to administering a few opium pills, in order to deaden the severer sufferings. He had been fairly amazed when accompanying Doctor Bonamy on a round through the wards. It had resolved itself into a mere stroll, the doctor, who had only come out of curiosity, taking no interest in the patients, whom he neither questioned nor examined. He solely concerned himself with the pretended cases of cure, stopping opposite those women whom he recognised from having seen them at his office where the miracles were verified. One of them had suffered from three complaints, only one of which the Blessed Virgin had so far deigned to cure; but great hopes were entertained respecting the other two. Sometimes, when a wretched woman, who the day before had claimed to be cured, was questioned with reference to her health, she would reply that her pains had returned to her. However, this never disturbed the doctor's serenity; ever conciliatory, the good man declared that Heaven would surely complete what Heaven had begun. Whenever there was an improvement in health, he would ask if it were not something to be thankful for. And, indeed, his constant saying was: "There's an improvement already; be patient!" What he most dreaded were the importunities of the lady-superintendents, who all wished to detain him to show him sundry extraordinary cases. Each prided herself on having the most serious illnesses, the most frightful, exceptional cases in her ward; so that she was eager to have them medically authenticated, in order that she might share in the triumph should cure supervene. One caught the doctor by the arm and assured him that she felt confident she had a leper in her charge; another entreated him to come and look at a young girl whose back, she said, was covered with fish's scales; whilst a third, whispering in his ear, gave him some terrible details about a married lady of the best society. He hastened away, however, refusing to see even one of them, or else simply promising to come back later on when he was not so busy. As he himself said, if he listened to all those ladies, the day would pass in useless consultations. However, he at last suddenly stopped opposite one of the miraculously cured inmates, and, beckoning Ferrand to his side, exclaimed: "Ah! now here is an interesting cure!" and Ferrand, utterly bewildered, had to listen to him whilst he described all the features of the illness, which had totally disappeared at the first immersion in the piscina. At last Sister Hyacinthe, still wandering about, encountered Abbe Judaine, who informed her that the young doctor had just been summoned to the Family Ward. It was the fourth time he had gone thither to attend to Brother Isidore, whose sufferings were as acute as ever, and whom he could only fill with opium. In his agony, the Brother merely asked to be soothed a little, in order that he might gather together sufficient strength to return to the Grotto in the afternoon, as he had not been able to do so in the morning. However, his pains increased, and at last he swooned away. When the Sister entered the ward she found the doctor seated at the missionary's bedside. "Monsieur Ferrand," she said, "come up-stairs with me to the Sainte-Honorine Ward at once. We have a patient there at the point of death." He smiled at her; indeed, he never beheld her without feeling brighter and comforted. "I will come with you, Sister," he replied. "But you'll wait a minute, won't you? I must try to restore this poor man." She waited patiently and made herself useful. The Family Ward, situated on the ground-floor, was also full of sunshine and fresh air which entered through three large windows opening on to a narrow strip of garden. In addition to Brother Isidore, only Monsieur Sabathier had remained in bed that morning, with the view of obtaining a little rest; whilst Madame Sabathier, taking advantage of the opportunity, had gone to purchase a few medals and pictures, which she intended for presents. Comfortably seated on his bed, his back supported by some pillows, the ex-professor was rolling the beads of a chaplet between his fingers. He was no longer praying, however, but merely continuing the operation in a mechanical manner, his eyes, meantime, fixed upon his neighbour, whose attack he was following with painful interest. "Ah! Sister," said he to Sister Hyacinthe, who had drawn near, "that poor Brother fills me with admiration. Yesterday I doubted the Blessed Virgin for a moment, seeing that she did not deign to hear me, though I have been coming here for seven years past; but the example set me by that poor martyr, so resigned amidst his torments, has quite shamed me for my want of faith. You can have no idea how grievously he suffers, and you should see him at the Grotto, with his eyes glowing with divine hope! It is really sublime! I only know of one picture at the Louvre--a picture by some unknown Italian master--in which there is the head of a monk beatified by a similar faith." The man of intellect, the ex-university-professor, reared on literature and art, was reappearing in this poor old fellow, whose life had been blasted, and who had desired to become a free patient, one of the poor of the earth, in order to move the pity of Heaven. He again began thinking of his own case, and with tenacious hopefulness, which the futility of seven journeys to Lourdes had failed to destroy, he added: "Well, I still have this afternoon, since we sha'n't leave till to-morrow. The water is certainly very cold, but I shall let them dip me a last time; and all the morning I have been praying and asking pardon for my revolt of yesterday. When the Blessed Virgin chooses to cure one of her children, it only takes her a second to do so; is that not so, Sister? May her will be done, and blessed be her name!" Passing the beads of the chaplet more slowly between his fingers, he again began saying his "Aves" and "Paters," whilst his eyelids drooped on his flabby face, to which a childish expression had been returning during the many years that he had been virtually cut off from the world. Meantime Ferrand had signalled to Brother Isidore's sister, Marthe, to come to him. She had been standing at the foot of the bed with her arms hanging down beside her, showing the tearless resignation of a poor, narrow-minded girl whilst she watched that dying man whom she worshipped. She was no more than a faithful dog; she had accompanied her brother and spent her scanty savings, without being of any use save to watch him suffer. Accordingly, when the doctor told her to take the invalid in her arms and raise him up a little, she felt quite happy at being of some service at last. Her heavy, freckled, mournful face actually grew bright. "Hold him," said the doctor, "whilst I try to give him this." When she had raised him, Ferrand, with the aid of a small spoon, succeeded in introducing a few drops of liquid between his set teeth. Almost immediately the sick man opened his eyes and heaved a deep sigh. He was calmer already; the opium was taking effect and dulling the pain which he felt burning his right side, as though a red-hot iron were being applied to it. However, he remained so weak that, when he wished to speak, it became necessary to place one's ear close to his mouth in order to catch what he said. With a slight sign he had begged Ferrand to bend over him. "You are the doctor, monsieur, are you not?" he faltered. "Give me sufficient strength that I may go once more to the Grotto, this afternoon. I am certain that, if I am able to go, the Blessed Virgin will cure me." "Why, of course you shall go," replied the young man. "Don't you feel ever so much better?" "Oh! ever so much better--no! I know very well what my condition is, because I saw many of our Brothers die, out there in Senegal. When the liver is attacked and the abscess has worked its way outside, it means the end. Sweating, fever, and delirium follow. But the Blessed Virgin will touch the sore with her little finger and it will be healed. Oh! I implore you all, take me to the Grotto, even if I should be unconscious!" Sister Hyacinthe had also approached, and leant over him. "Be easy, dear Brother," said she. "You shall go to the Grotto after /dejeuner/, and we will all pray for you." At length, in despair at these delays and extremely anxious about Madame Vetu, she was able to get Ferrand away. Still, the Brother's state filled her with pity; and, as they ascended the stairs, she questioned the doctor, asking him if there were really no more hope. The other made a gesture expressive of absolute hopelessness. It was madness to come to Lourdes when one was in such a condition. However, he hastened to add, with a smile: "I beg your pardon, Sister. You know that I am unfortunate enough not to be a believer." But she smiled in her turn, like an indulgent friend who tolerates the shortcomings of those she loves. "Oh! that doesn't matter," she replied. "I know you; you're all the same a good fellow. Besides, we see so many people, we go amongst such pagans that it would be difficult to shock us." Up above, in the Sainte-Honorine Ward, they found Madame Vetu still moaning, a prey to most intolerable suffering. Madame de Jonquiere and Madame Desagneaux had remained beside the bed, their faces turning pale, their hearts distracted by that death-cry, which never ceased. And when they consulted Ferrand in a whisper, he merely replied, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, that she was a lost woman, that it was only a question of hours, perhaps merely of minutes. All he could do was to stupefy her also, in order to ease the atrocious death agony which he foresaw. She was watching him, still conscious, and also very obedient, never refusing the medicine offered her. Like the others, she now had but one ardent desire--to go back to the Grotto--and she gave expression to it in the stammering accents of a child who fears that its prayer may not be granted: "To the Grotto--will you? To the Grotto!" "You shall be taken there by-and-by, I promise you," said Sister Hyacinthe. "But you must be good. Try to sleep a little to gain some strength." The sick woman appeared to sink into a doze, and Madame de Jonquiere then thought that she might take Madame Desagneaux with her to the other end of the ward to count the linen, a troublesome business, in which they became quite bewildered, as some of the articles were missing. Meantime Sophie, seated on the bed opposite Madame Vetu, had not stirred. She had laid her doll on her lap, and was waiting for the lady's death, since they had told her that she was about to die. Sister Hyacinthe, moreover, had remained beside the dying woman, and, unwilling to waste her time, had taken a needle and cotton to mend some patient's bodice which had a hole in the sleeve. "You'll stay a little while with us, won't you?" she asked Ferrand. The latter, who was still watching Madame Vetu, replied: "Yes, yes. She may go off at any moment. I fear hemorrhage." Then, catching sight of Marie on the neighbouring bed, he added in a lower voice: "How is she? Has she experienced any relief?" "No, not yet. Ah, dear child! we all pray for her very sincerely. She is so young, so sweet, and so sorely afflicted. Just look at her now! Isn't she pretty? One might think her a saint amid all this sunshine, with her large, ecstatic eyes, and her golden hair shining like an aureola!" Ferrand watched Marie for a moment with interest. Her absent air, her indifference to all about her, the ardent faith, the internal joy which so completely absorbed her, surprised him. "She will recover," he murmured, as though giving utterance to a prognostic. "She will recover." Then he rejoined Sister Hyacinthe, who had seated herself in the embrasure of the lofty window, which stood wide open, admitting the warm air of the courtyard. The sun was now creeping round, and only a narrow golden ray fell upon her white coif and wimple. Ferrand stood opposite to her, leaning against the window bar and watching her while she sewed. "Do you know, Sister," said he, "this journey to Lourdes, which I undertook to oblige a friend, will be one of the few delights of my life." She did not understand him, but innocently asked: "Why so?" "Because I have found you again, because I am here with you, assisting you in your admirable work. And if you only knew how grateful I am to you, what sincere affection and reverence I feel for you!" She raised her head to look him straight in the face, and began jesting without the least constraint. She was really delicious, with her pure lily-white complexion, her small laughing mouth, and adorable blue eyes which ever smiled. And you could realise that she had grown up in all innocence and devotion, slender and supple, with all the appearance of a girl hardly in her teens. "What! You are so fond of me as all that!" she exclaimed. "Why?" "Why I'm fond of you? Because you are the best, the most consoling, the most sisterly of beings. You are the sweetest memory in my life, the memory I evoke whenever I need to be encouraged and sustained. Do you no longer remember the month we spent together, in my poor room, when I was so ill and you so affectionately nursed me?" "Of course, of course I remember it! Why, I never had so good a patient as you. You took all I offered you; and when I tucked you in, after changing your linen, you remained as still as a little child." So speaking, she continued looking at him, smiling ingenuously the while. He was very handsome and robust, in the very prime of youth, with a rather pronounced nose, superb eyes, and red lips showing under his black moustache. But she seemed to be simply pleased at seeing him there before her moved almost to tears. "Ah! Sister, I should have died if it hadn't been for you," he said. "It was through having you that I was cured." Then, as they gazed at one another, with tender gaiety of heart, the memory of that adorable month recurred to them. They no longer heard Madame Vetu's death moans, nor beheld the ward littered with beds, and, with all its disorder, resembling some infirmary improvised after a public catastrophe. They once more found themselves in a small attic at the top of a dingy house in old Paris, where air and light only reached them through a tiny window opening on to a sea of roofs. And how charming it was to be alone there together--he who had been prostrated by fever, she who had appeared there like a good angel, who had quietly come from her convent like a comrade who fears nothing! It was thus that she nursed women, children, and men, as chance ordained, feeling perfectly happy so long as she had something to do, some sufferer to relieve. She never displayed any consciousness of her sex; and he, on his side, never seemed to have suspected that she might be a woman, except it were for the extreme softness of her hands, the caressing accents of her voice, the beneficent gentleness of her manner; and yet all the tender love of a mother, all the affection of a sister, radiated from her person. During three weeks, as she had said, she had nursed him like a child, helping him in and out of bed, and rendering him every necessary attention, without the slightest embarrassment or repugnance, the holy purity born of suffering and charity shielding them both the while. They were indeed far removed from the frailties of life. And when he became convalescent, what a happy existence began, how joyously they laughed, like two old friends! She still watched over him, scolding him and gently slapping his arms when he persisted in keeping them uncovered. He would watch her standing at the basin, washing him a shirt in order to save him the trifling expense of employing a laundress. No one ever came up there; they were quite alone, thousands of miles away from the world, delighted with this solitude, in which their youth displayed such fraternal gaiety. "Do you remember, Sister, the morning when I was first able to walk about?" asked Ferrand. "You helped me to get up, and supported me whilst I awkwardly stumbled about, no longer knowing how to use my legs. We did laugh so." "Yes, yes, you were saved, and I was very pleased." "And the day when you brought me some cherries--I can see it all again: myself reclining on my pillows, and you seated at the edge of the bed, with the cherries lying between us in a large piece of white paper. I refused to touch them unless you ate some with me. And then we took them in turn, one at a time, until the paper was emptied; and they were very nice." "Yes, yes, very nice. It was the same with the currant syrup: you would only drink it when I took some also." Thereupon they laughed yet louder; these recollections quite delighted them. But a painful sigh from Madame Vetu brought them back to the present. Ferrand leant over and cast a glance at the sick woman, who had not stirred. The ward was still full of a quivering peacefulness, which was only broken by the clear voice of Madame Desagneaux counting the linen. Stifling with emotion, the young man resumed in a lower tone: "Ah! Sister, were I to live a hundred years, to know every joy, every pleasure, I should never love another woman as I love you!" Then Sister Hyacinthe, without, however, showing any confusion, bowed her head and resumed her sewing. An almost imperceptible blush tinged her lily-white skin with pink. "I also love you well, Monsieur Ferrand," she said, "but you must not make me vain. I only did for you what I do for so many others. It is my business, you see. And there was really only one pleasant thing about it all, that the Almighty cured you." They were now again interrupted. La Grivotte and Elise Rouquet had returned from the Grotto before the others. La Grivotte at once squatted down on her mattress on the floor, at the foot of Madame Vetu's bed, and, taking a piece of bread from her pocket, proceeded to devour it. Ferrand, since the day before, had felt some interest in this consumptive patient, who was traversing such a curious phase of agitation, a prey to an inordinate appetite and a feverish need of motion. For the moment, however, Elise Rouquet's case interested him still more; for it had now become evident that the lupus, the sore which was eating away her face, was showing signs of cure. She had continued bathing her face at the miraculous fountain, and had just come from the Verification Office, where Doctor Bonamy had triumphed. Ferrand, quite surprised, went and examined the sore, which, although still far from healed, was already paler in colour and slightly desiccated, displaying all the symptoms of gradual cure. And the case seemed to him so curious, that he resolved to make some notes upon it for one of his old masters at the medical college, who was studying the nervous origin of certain skin diseases due to faulty nutrition. "Have you felt any pricking sensation?" he asked. "Not at all, monsieur," she replied. "I bathe my face and tell my beads with my whole soul, and that is all." La Grivotte, who was vain and jealous, and ever since the day before had been going in triumph among the crowds, thereupon called to the doctor. "I say, monsieur, I am cured, cured, cured completely!" He waved his hand to her in a friendly way, but refused to examine her. "I know, my girl. There is nothing more the matter with you." Just then Sister Hyacinthe called to him. She had put her sewing down on seeing Madame Vetu raise herself in a frightful fit of nausea. In spite of her haste, however, she was too late with the basin; the sick woman had brought up another discharge of black matter, similar to soot; but, this time, some blood was mixed with it, little specks of violet-coloured blood. It was the hemorrhage coming, the near end which Ferrand had been dreading. "Send for the superintendent," he said in a low voice, seating himself at the bedside. Sister Hyacinthe ran for Madame de Jonquiere. The linen having been counted, she found her deep in conversation with her daughter Raymonde, at some distance from Madame Desagneaux, who was washing her hands. Raymonde had just escaped for a few minutes from the refectory, where she was on duty. This was the roughest of her labours. The long narrow room, with its double row of greasy tables, its sickening smell of food and misery, quite disgusted her. And taking advantage of the half-hour still remaining before the return of the patients, she had hurried up-stairs, where, out of breath, with a rosy face and shining eyes, she had thrown her arms around her mother's neck. "Ah! mamma," she cried, "what happiness! It's settled!" Amazed, her head buzzing, busy with the superintendence of her ward, Madame de Jonquiere did not understand. "What's settled, my child?" she asked. Then Raymonde lowered her voice, and, with a faint blush, replied: "My marriage!" It was now the mother's turn to rejoice. Lively satisfaction appeared upon her face, the fat face of a ripe, handsome, and still agreeable woman. She at once beheld in her mind's eye their little lodging in the Rue Vaneau, where, since her husband's death, she had reared her daughter with great difficulty upon the few thousand francs he had left her. This marriage, however, meant a return to life, to society, the good old times come back once more. "Ah! my child, how happy you make me!" she exclaimed. But a feeling of uneasiness suddenly restrained her. God was her witness that for three years past she had been coming to Lourdes through pure motives of charity, for the one great joy of nursing His beloved invalids. Perhaps, had she closely examined her conscience, she might, behind her devotion, have found some trace of her fondness for authority, which rendered her present managerial duties extremely pleasant to her. However, the hope of finding a husband for her daughter among the suitable young men who swarmed at the Grotto was certainly her last thought. It was a thought which came to her, of course, but merely as something that was possible, though she never mentioned it. However, her happiness, wrung an avowal from her: "Ah! my child, your success doesn't surprise me. I prayed to the Blessed Virgin for it this morning." Then she wished to be quite sure, and asked for further information. Raymonde had not yet told her of her long walk leaning on Gerard's arm the day before, for she did not wish to speak of such things until she was triumphant, certain of having at last secured a husband. And now it was indeed settled, as she had exclaimed so gaily: that very morning she had again seen the young man at the Grotto, and he had formally become engaged to her. M. Berthaud would undoubtedly ask for her hand on his cousin's behalf before they took their departure from Lourdes. "Well," declared Madame de Jonquiere, who was now convinced, smiling, and delighted at heart, "I hope you will be happy, since you are so sensible and do not need my aid to bring your affairs to a successful issue. Kiss me." It was at this moment that Sister Hyacinthe arrived to announce Madame Vetu's imminent death. Raymonde at once ran off. And Madame Desagneaux, who was wiping her hands, began to complain of the lady-assistants, who had all disappeared precisely on the morning when they were most wanted. "For instance," said she, "there's Madame Volmar. I should like to know where she can have got to. She has not been seen, even for an hour, ever since our arrival." "Pray leave Madame Volmar alone!" replied Madame de Jonquiere with some asperity. "I have already told you that she is ill." They both hastened to Madame Vetu. Ferrand stood there waiting; and Sister Hyacinthe having asked him if there were indeed nothing to be done, he shook his head. The dying woman, relieved by her first emesis, now lay inert, with closed eyes. But, a second time, the frightful nausea returned to her, and she brought up another discharge of black matter mingled with violet-coloured blood. Then she had another short interval of calm, during which she noticed La Grivotte, who was greedily devouring her hunk of bread on the mattress on the floor. "She is cured, isn't she?" the poor woman asked, feeling that she herself was dying. La Grivotte heard her, and exclaimed triumphantly: "Oh, yes, madame, cured, cured, cured completely!" For a moment Madame Vetu seemed overcome by a miserable feeling of grief, the revolt of one who will not succumb while others continue to live. But almost immediately she became resigned, and they heard her add very faintly, "It is the young ones who ought to remain." Then her eyes, which remained wide open, looked round, as though bidding farewell to all those persons, whom she seemed surprised to see about her. She attempted to smile as she encountered the eager gaze of curiosity which little Sophie Couteau still fixed upon her: the charming child had come to kiss her that very morning, in her bed. Elise Rouquet, who troubled herself about nobody, was meantime holding her hand-glass, absorbed in the contemplation of her face, which seemed to her to be growing beautiful, now that the sore was healing. But what especially charmed the dying woman was the sight of Marie, so lovely in her ecstasy. She watched her for a long time, constantly attracted towards her, as towards a vision of light and joy. Perhaps she fancied that she already beheld one of the saints of Paradise amid the glory of the sun. Suddenly, however, the fits of vomiting returned, and now she solely brought up blood, vitiated blood, the colour of claret. The rush was so great that it bespattered the sheet, and ran all over the bed. In vain did Madame de Jonquiere and Madame Desagneaux bring cloths; they were both very pale and scarce able to remain standing. Ferrand, knowing how powerless he was, had withdrawn to the window, to the very spot where he had so lately experienced such delicious emotion; and with an instinctive movement, of which she was surely unconscious, Sister Hyacinthe had likewise returned to that happy window, as though to be near him. "Really, can you do nothing?" she inquired. "No, nothing! She will go off like that, in the same way as a lamp that has burnt out." Madame Vetu, who was now utterly exhausted, with a thin red stream still flowing from her mouth, looked fixedly at Madame de Jonquiere whilst faintly moving her lips. The lady-superintendent thereupon bent over her and heard these slowly uttered words: "About my husband, madame--the shop is in the Rue Mouffetard--oh! it's quite a tiny one, not far from the Gobelins.--He's a clockmaker, he is; he couldn't come with me, of course, having to attend to the business; and he will be very much put out when he finds I don't come back.--Yes, I cleaned the jewelry and did the errands--" Then her voice grew fainter, her words disjointed by the death rattle, which began. "Therefore, madame, I beg you will write to him, because I haven't done so, and now here's the end.--Tell him my body had better remain here at Lourdes, on account of the expense.--And he must marry again; it's necessary for one in trade--his cousin--tell him his cousin--" The rest became a confused murmur. Her weakness was too great, her breath was halting. Yet her eyes continued open and full of life, amid her pale, yellow, waxy mask. And those eyes seemed to fix themselves despairingly on the past, on all that which soon would be no more: the little clockmaker's shop hidden away in a populous neighbourhood; the gentle humdrum existence, with a toiling husband who was ever bending over his watches; the great pleasures of Sunday, such as watching children fly their kites upon the fortifications. And at last these staring eyes gazed vainly into the frightful night which was gathering. A last time did Madame de Jonquiere lean over her, seeing that her lips were again moving. There came but a faint breath, a voice from far away, which distantly murmured in an accent of intense grief: "She did not cure me." And then Madame Vetu expired, very gently. As though this were all that she had been waiting for, little Sophie Couteau jumped from the bed quite satisfied, and went off to play with her doll again at the far end of the ward. Neither La Grivotte, who was finishing her bread, nor Elise Rouquet, busy with her mirror, noticed the catastrophe. However, amidst the cold breath which seemingly swept by, while Madame de Jonquiere and Madame Desagneaux--the latter of whom was unaccustomed to the sight of death--were whispering together in agitation, Marie emerged from the expectant rapture in which the continuous, unspoken prayer of her whole being had plunged her so long. And when she understood what had happened, a feeling of sisterly compassion--the compassion of a suffering companion, on her side certain of cure--brought tears to her eyes. "Ah! the poor woman!" she murmured; "to think that she has died so far from home, in such loneliness, at the hour when others are being born anew!" Ferrand, who, in spite of professional indifference, had also been stirred by the scene, stepped forward to verify the death; and it was on a sign from him that Sister Hyacinthe turned up the sheet, and threw it over the dead woman's face, for there could be no question of removing the corpse at that moment. The patients were now returning from the Grotto in bands, and the ward, hitherto so calm, so full of sunshine, was again filling with the tumult of wretchedness and pain--deep coughing and feeble shuffling, mingled with a noisome smell--a pitiful display, in fact, of well-nigh every human infirmity. II THE SERVICE AT THE GROTTO ON that day, Monday, the crowd at the Grotto, was enormous. It was the last day that the national pilgrimage would spend at Lourdes, and Father Fourcade, in his morning address, had said that it would be necessary to make a supreme effort of fervour and faith to obtain from Heaven all that it might be willing to grant in the way of grace and prodigious cure. So, from two o'clock in the afternoon, twenty thousand pilgrims were assembled there, feverish, and agitated by the most ardent hopes. From minute to minute the throng continued increasing, to such a point, indeed, that Baron Suire became alarmed, and came out of the Grotto to say to Berthaud: "My friend, we shall be overwhelmed, that's certain. Double your squads, bring your men closer together." The Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation was alone entrusted with the task of keeping order, for there were neither guardians nor policemen, of any sort present; and it was for this reason that the President of the Association was so alarmed. However, Berthaud, under grave circumstances, was a leader whose words commanded attention, and who was endowed with energy that could be relied on. "Be easy," said he; "I will be answerable for everything. I shall not move from here until the four-o'clock procession has passed by." Nevertheless, he signalled to Gerard to approach. "Give your men the strictest instructions," he said to him. "Only those persons who have cards should be allowed to pass. And place your men nearer each other; tell them to hold the cord tight." Yonder, beneath the ivy which draped the rock, the Grotto opened, with the eternal flaring of its candles. From a distance it looked rather squat and misshapen, a very narrow and modest aperture for the breath of the Infinite which issued from it, turning all faces pale and bowing every head. The statue of the Virgin had become a mere white spot, which seemed to move amid the quiver of the atmosphere, heated by the small yellow flames. To see everything it was necessary to raise oneself; for the silver altar, the harmonium divested of its housing, the heap of bouquets flung there, and the votive offerings streaking the smoky walls were scarcely distinguishable from behind the railing. And the day was lovely; never yet had a purer sky expanded above the immense crowd; the softness of the breeze in particular seemed delicious after the storm of the night, which had brought down the over-oppressive heat of the two first days. Gerard had to fight his way with his elbows in order to repeat the orders to his men. The crowd had already begun pushing. "Two more men here!" he called. "Come, four together, if necessary, and hold the rope well!" The general impulse was instinctive and invincible; the twenty thousand persons assembled there were drawn towards the Grotto by an irresistible attraction, in which burning curiosity mingled with the thirst for mystery. All eyes converged, every mouth, hand, and body was borne towards the pale glitter of the candles and the white moving speck of the marble Virgin. And, in order that the large space reserved to the sick, in front of the railings, might not be invaded by the swelling mob, it had been necessary to inclose it with a stout rope which the bearers at intervals of two or three yards grasped with both hands. Their orders were to let nobody pass excepting the sick provided with hospital cards and the few persons to whom special authorisations had been granted. They limited themselves, therefore, to raising the cords and then letting them fall behind the chosen ones, without heeding the supplications of the others. In fact they even showed themselves somewhat rough, taking a certain pleasure in exercising the authority with which they were invested for a day. In truth, however, they were very much pushed about, and had to support each other and resist with all the strength of their loins to avoid being swept away. While the benches before the Grotto and the vast reserved space were filling with sick people, handcarts, and stretchers, the crowd, the immense crowd, swayed about on the outskirts. Starting from the Place du Rosaire, it extended to the bottom of the promenade along the Gave, where the pavement throughout its entire length was black with people, so dense a human sea that all circulation was prevented. On the parapet was an interminable line of women--most of them seated, but some few standing so as to see the better--and almost all carrying silk parasols, which, with holiday-like gaiety, shimmered in the sunlight. The managers had wished to keep a path open in order that the sick might be brought along; but it was ever being invaded and obstructed, so that the carts and stretchers remained on the road, submerged and lost until a bearer freed them. Nevertheless, the great tramping was that of a docile flock, an innocent, lamb-like crowd; and it was only the involuntary pushing, the blind rolling towards the light of the candles that had to be contended against. No accident had ever happened there, notwithstanding the excitement, which gradually increased and threw the people into the unruly delirium of faith. However, Baron Suire again forced his way through the throng. "Berthaud! Berthaud!" he called, "see that the /defile/ is conducted less rapidly. There are women and children stifling." This time Berthaud gave a sign of impatience. "Ah! hang it, I can't be everywhere! Close the gate for a moment if it's necessary." It was a question of the march through the Grotto which went on throughout the afternoon. The faithful were permitted to enter by the door on the left, and made their exit by that on the right. "Close the gate!" exclaimed the Baron. "But that would be worse; they would all get crushed against it!" As it happened Gerard was there, thoughtlessly talking for an instant with Raymonde, who was standing on the other side of the cord, holding a bowl of milk which she was about to carry to a paralysed old woman; and Berthaud ordered the young fellow to post two men at the entrance gate of the iron railing, with instructions only to allow the pilgrims to enter by tens. When Gerard had executed this order, and returned, he found Berthaud laughing and joking with Raymonde. She went off on her errand, however, and the two men stood watching her while she made the paralysed woman drink. "She is charming, and it's settled, eh?" said Berthaud. "You are going to marry her, aren't you?" "I shall ask her mother to-night. I rely upon you to accompany me." "Why, certainly. You know what I told you. Nothing could be more sensible. The uncle will find you a berth before six months are over." A push of the crowd separated them, and Berthaud went off to make sure whether the march through the Grotto was now being accomplished in a methodical manner, without any crushing. For hours the same unbroken tide rolled in--women, men, and children from all parts of the world, all who chose, all who passed that way. As a result, the crowd was singularly mixed: there were beggars in rags beside neat /bourgeois/, peasants of either sex, well dressed ladies, servants with bare hair, young girls with bare feet, and others with pomatumed hair and foreheads bound with ribbons. Admission was free; the mystery was open to all, to unbelievers as well as to the faithful, to those who were solely influenced by curiosity as well as to those who entered with their hearts faint with love. And it was a sight to see them, all almost equally affected by the tepid odour of the wax, half stifling in the heavy tabernacle air which gathered beneath the rocky vault, and lowering their eyes for fear of slipping on the gratings. Many stood there bewildered, not even bowing, examining the things around with the covert uneasiness of indifferent folks astray amidst the redoubtable mysteries of a sanctuary. But the devout crossed themselves, threw letters, deposited candles and bouquets, kissed the rock below the Virgin's statue, or else rubbed their chaplets, medals, and other small objects of piety against it, as the contact sufficed to bless them. And the /defile/ continued, continued without end during days and months as it had done for years; and it seemed as if the whole world, all the miseries and sufferings of humanity, came in turn and passed in the same hypnotic, contagious kind of round, through that rocky nook, ever in search of happiness. When Berthaud had satisfied himself that everything was working well, he walked about like a mere spectator, superintending his men. Only one matter remained to trouble him: the procession of the Blessed Sacrament, during which such frenzy burst forth that accidents were always to be feared. This last day seemed likely to be a very fervent one, for he already felt a tremor of exalted faith rising among the crowd. The treatment needed for miraculous care was drawing to an end; there had been the fever of the journey, the besetting influence of the same endlessly repeated hymns, and the stubborn continuation of the same religious exercises; and ever and ever the conversation had been turned on miracles, and the mind fixed on the divine illumination of the Grotto. Many, not having slept for three nights, had reached a state of hallucination, and walked about in a rageful dream. No repose was granted them, the continual prayers were like whips lashing their souls. The appeals to the Blessed Virgin never ceased; priest followed priest in the pulpit, proclaiming the universal dolour and directing the despairing supplications of the throng, during the whole time that the sick remained with hands clasped and eyes raised to heaven before the pale, smiling, marble statue. At that moment the white stone pulpit against the rock on the right of the Grotto was occupied by a priest from Toulouse, whom Berthaud knew, and to whom he listened for a moment with an air of approval. He was a stout man with an unctuous diction, famous for his rhetorical successes. However, all eloquence here consisted in displaying the strength of one's lungs in a violent delivery of the phrase or cry which the whole crowd had to repeat; for the addresses were nothing more than so much vociferation interspersed with "Ayes" and "Paters." The priest, who had just finished the Rosary, strove to increase his stature by stretching his short legs, whilst shouting the first appeal of the litanies which he improvised, and led in his own way, according to the inspiration which possessed him. "Mary, we love thee!" he called. And thereupon the crowd repeated in a lower, confused, and broken tone: "Mary, we love thee!" From that moment there was no stopping. The voice of the priest rang out at full swing, and the voices of the crowd responded in a dolorous murmur: "Mary, thou art our only hope!" "Mary, thou art our only hope!" "Pure Virgin, make us purer, among the pure!" "Pure Virgin, make us purer, among the pure!" "Powerful Virgin, save our sick!" "Powerful Virgin, save our sick!" Often, when the priest's imagination failed him, or he wished to thrust a cry home with greater force, he would repeat it thrice; while the docile crowd would do the same, quivering under the enervating effect of the persistent lamentation, which increased the fever. The litanies continued, and Berthaud went back towards the Grotto. Those who defiled through it beheld an extraordinary sight when they turned and faced the sick. The whole of the large space between the cords was occupied by the thousand or twelve hundred patients whom the national pilgrimage had brought with it; and beneath the vast, spotless sky on that radiant day there was the most heart-rending jumble of sufferers that one could behold. The three hospitals of Lourdes had emptied their chambers of horror. To begin with, those who were still able to remain seated had been piled upon the benches. Many of them, however, were propped up with cushions, whilst others kept shoulder to shoulder, the strong ones supporting the weak. Then, in front of the benches, before the Grotto itself, were the more grievously afflicted sufferers lying at full length; the flagstones disappearing from view beneath this woeful assemblage, which was like a large, stagnant pool of horror. There was an indescribable block of vehicles, stretchers, and mattresses. Some of the invalids in little boxes not unlike coffins had raised themselves up and showed above the others, but the majority lay almost on a level with the ground. There were some lying fully dressed on the check-patterned ticks of mattresses; whilst others had been brought with their bedding, so that only their heads and pale hands were seen outside the sheets. Few of these pallets were clean. Some pillows of dazzling whiteness, which by a last feeling of coquetry had been trimmed with embroidery, alone shone out among all the filthy wretchedness of all the rest--a fearful collection of rags, worn-out blankets, and linen splashed with stains. And all were pushed, squeezed, piled up by chance as they came, women, men, children, and priests, people in nightgowns beside people who were fully attired being jumbled together in the blinding light of day. And all forms of disease were there, the whole frightful procession which, twice a day, left the hospitals to wend its way through horrified Lourdes. There were the heads eaten away by eczema, the foreheads crowned with roseola, and the noses and mouths which elephantiasis had transformed into shapeless snouts. Next, the dropsical ones, swollen out like leathern bottles; the rheumatic ones with twisted hands and swollen feet, like bags stuffed full of rags; and a sufferer from hydrocephalus, whose huge and weighty skull fell backwards. Then the consumptive ones, with livid skins, trembling with fever, exhausted by dysentery, wasted to skeletons. Then the deformities, the contractions, the twisted trunks, the twisted arms, the necks all awry; all the poor broken, pounded creatures, motionless in their tragic, marionette-like postures. Then the poor rachitic girls displaying their waxen complexions and slender necks eaten into by sores; the yellow-faced, besotted-looking women in the painful stupor which falls on unfortunate creatures devoured by cancer; and the others who turned pale, and dared not move, fearing as they did the shock of the tumours whose weighty pain was stifling them. On the benches sat bewildered deaf women, who heard nothing, but sang on all the same, and blind ones with heads erect, who remained for hours turned toward the statue of the Virgin which they could not see. And there was also the woman stricken with imbecility, whose nose was eaten away, and who laughed with a terrifying laugh, displaying the black, empty cavern of her mouth; and then the epileptic woman, whom a recent attack had left as pale as death, with froth still at the corners of her lips. But sickness and suffering were no longer of consequence, since they were all there, seated or stretched with their eyes upon the Grotto. The poor, fleshless, earthy-looking faces became transfigured, and began to glow with hope. Anchylosed hands were joined, heavy eyelids found the strength to rise, exhausted voices revived as the priest shouted the appeals. At first there was nothing but indistinct stuttering, similar to slight puffs of air rising, here and there above the multitude. Then the cry ascended and spread through the crowd itself from one to the other end of the immense square. "Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us!" cried the priest in his thundering voice. And the sick and the pilgrims repeated louder and louder: "Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us!" Then the flow of the litany set in, and continued with increasing speed: "Most pure Mother, most chaste Mother, thy children are at thy feet!" "Most pure Mother, most chaste Mother, thy children are at thy feet!" "Queen of the Angels, say but a word, and our sick shall be healed!" "Queen of the Angels, say but a word, and our sick shall be healed!" In the second row of sufferers, near the pulpit, was M. Sabathier, who had asked to be brought there early, wishing to choose his place like an old /habitue/ who knew the cosy corners. Moreover, it seemed to him that it was of paramount importance that he should be as near as possible, under the very eyes of the Virgin, as though she required to see her faithful in order not to forget them. However, for the seven years that he had been coming there he had nursed this one hope of being some day noticed by her, of touching her, and of obtaining his cure, if not by selection, at least by seniority. This merely needed patience on his part without the firmness of his faith being in the least shaken by his way of thinking. Only, like a poor, resigned man just a little weary of being always put off, he sometimes allowed himself diversions. For instance, he had obtained permission to keep his wife near him, seated on a camp-stool, and he liked to talk to her, and acquaint her with his reflections. "Raise me a little, my dear," said he. "I am slipping. I am very uncomfortable." Attired in trousers and a coarse woollen jacket, he was sitting upon his mattress, with his back leaning against a tilted chair. "Are you better?" asked his wife, when she had raised him. "Yes, yes," he answered; and then began to take an interest in Brother Isidore, whom they had succeeded in bringing in spite of everything, and who was lying upon a neighbouring mattress, with a sheet drawn up to his chin, and nothing protruding but his wasted hands, which lay clasped upon the blanket. "Ah! the poor man," said M. Sabathier. "It's very imprudent, but the Blessed Virgin is so powerful when she chooses!" He took up his chaplet again, but once more broke off from his devotions on perceiving Madame Maze, who had just glided into the reserved space--so slender and unobtrusive that she had doubtless slipped under the ropes without being noticed. She had seated herself at the end of a bench and, very quiet and motionless, did not occupy more room there than a child. And her long face, with its weary features, the face of a woman of two-and-thirty faded before her time, wore an expression of unlimited sadness, infinite abandonment. "And so," resumed M. Sabathier in a low voice, again addressing his wife after attracting her attention by a slight movement of the chin, "it's for the conversion of her husband that this lady prays. You came across her this morning in a shop, didn't you?" "Yes, yes," replied Madame Sabathier. "And, besides, I had some talk about her with another lady who knows her. Her husband is a commercial-traveller. He leaves her for six months at a time, and goes about with other people. Oh! he's a very gay fellow, it seems, very nice, and he doesn't let her want for money; only she adores him, she cannot accustom herself to his neglect, and comes to pray the Blessed Virgin to give him back to her. At this moment, it appears, he is close by, at Luchon, with two ladies--two sisters." M. Sabathier signed to his wife to stop. He was now looking at the Grotto, again becoming a man of intellect, a professor whom questions of art had formerly impassioned. "You see, my dear," he said, "they have spoilt the Grotto by endeavouring to make it too beautiful. I am certain it looked much better in its original wildness. It has lost its characteristic features--and what a frightful shop they have stuck there, on the left!" However, he now experienced sudden remorse for his thoughtlessness. Whilst he was chatting away, might not the Blessed Virgin be noticing one of his neighbours, more fervent, more sedate than himself? Feeling anxious on the point, he reverted to his customary modesty and patience, and with dull, expressionless eyes again began waiting for the good pleasure of Heaven. Moreover, the sound of a fresh voice helped to bring him back to this annihilation, in which nothing was left of the cultured reasoner that he had formerly been. It was another preacher who had just entered the pulpit, a Capuchin this time, whose guttural call, persistently repeated, sent a tremor through the crowd. "Holy Virgin of virgins, be blessed!" "Holy Virgin of virgins, be blessed!" "Holy Virgin of virgins, turn not thy face from thy children!" "Holy Virgin of virgins, turn not thy face from thy children!" "Holy Virgin of virgins, breathe upon our sores, and our sores shall heal!" "Holy Virgin of virgins, breathe upon our sores, and our sores shall heal!" At the end of the first bench, skirting the central path, which was becoming crowded, the Vigneron family had succeeded in finding room for themselves. They were all there: little Gustave, seated in a sinking posture, with his crutch between his legs; his mother, beside him, following the prayers like a punctilious /bourgeoise/; his aunt, Madame Chaise, on the other side, so inconvenienced by the crowd that she was stifling; and M. Vigneron, who remained silent and, for a moment, had been examining Madame Chaise attentively. "What is the matter with you, my dear?" he inquired. "Do you feel unwell?" She was breathing with difficulty. "Well, I don't know," she answered; "but I can't feel my limbs, and my breath fails me." At that very moment the thought had occurred to him that all the agitation, fever, and scramble of a pilgrimage could not be very good for heart-disease. Of course he did not desire anybody's death, he had never asked the Blessed Virgin for any such thing. If his prayer for advancement had already been granted through the sudden death of his chief, it must certainly be because Heaven had already ordained the latter's death. And, in the same way, if Madame Chaise should die first, leaving her fortune to Gustave, he would only have to bow before the will of God, which generally requires that the aged should go off before the young. Nevertheless, his hope unconsciously became so keen that he could not help exchanging a glance with his wife, to whom had come the same involuntary thought. "Gustave, draw back," he exclaimed; "you are inconveniencing your aunt." And then, as Raymonde passed, he asked; "Do you happen to have a glass of water, mademoiselle? One of our relatives here is losing consciousness." But Madame Chaise refused the offer with a gesture. She was getting better, recovering her breath with an effort. "No, I want nothing, thank you," she gasped. "There, I'm better--still, I really thought this time that I should stifle!" Her fright left her trembling, with haggard eyes in her pale face. She again joined her hands, and begged the Blessed Virgin to save her from other attacks and cure her; while the Vignerons, man and wife, honest folk both of them, reverted to the covert prayer for happiness that they had come to offer up at Lourdes: a pleasant old age, deservedly gained by twenty years of honesty, with a respectable fortune which in later years they would go and enjoy in the country, cultivating flowers. On the other hand, little Gustave, who had seen and noted everything with his bright eyes and intelligence sharpened by suffering, was not praying, but smiling at space, with his vague enigmatical smile. What could be the use of his praying? He knew that the Blessed Virgin would not cure him, and that he would die. However, M. Vigneron could not remain long without busying himself about his neighbours. Madame Dieulafay, who had come late, had been deposited in the crowded central pathway; and he marvelled at the luxury about the young woman, that sort of coffin quilted with white silk, in which she was lying, attired in a pink dressing-gown trimmed with Valenciennes lace. The husband in a frock-coat, and the sister in a black gown of simple but marvellous elegance, were standing by; while Abbe Judaine, kneeling near the sufferer, finished offering up a fervent prayer. When the priest had risen, M. Vigneron made him a little room on the bench beside him; and he then took the liberty of questioning him. "Well, Monsieur le Cure, does that poor young woman feel a little better?" Abbe Judaine made a gesture of infinite sadness. "Alas! no. I was full of so much hope! It was I who persuaded the family to come. Two years ago the Blessed Virgin showed me such extraordinary grace by curing my poor lost eyes, that I hoped to obtain another favour from her. However, I will not despair. We still have until to-morrow." M. Vigneron again looked towards Madame Dieulafay and examined her face, still of a perfect oval and with admirable eyes; but it was expressionless, with ashen hue, similar to a mask of death, amidst the lace. "It's really very sad," he murmured. "And if you had seen her last summer!" resumed the priest. "They have their country seat at Saligny, my parish, and I often dined with them. I cannot help feeling sad when I look at her elder sister, Madame Jousseur, that lady in black who stands there, for she bears a strong resemblance to her; and the poor sufferer was even prettier, one of the beauties of Paris. And now compare them together--observe that brilliancy, that sovereign grace, beside that poor, pitiful creature--it oppresses one's heart--ah! what a frightful lesson!" He became silent for an instant. Saintly man that he was naturally, altogether devoid of passions, with no keen intelligence to disturb him in his faith, he displayed a naive admiration for beauty, wealth, and power, which he had never envied. Nevertheless, he ventured to express a doubt, a scruple, which troubled his usual serenity. "For my part, I should have liked her to come here with more simplicity, without all that surrounding of luxury, because the Blessed Virgin prefers the humble-- But I understand very well that there are certain social exigencies. And, then, her husband and sister love her so! Remember that he has forsaken his business and she her pleasures in order to come here with her; and so overcome are they at the idea of losing her that their eyes are never dry, they always have that bewildered look which you can notice. So they must be excused for trying to procure her the comfort of looking beautiful until the last hour." M. Vigneron nodded his head approvingly. Ah! it was certainly not the wealthy who had the most luck at the Grotto! Servants, country folk, poor beggars, were cured, while ladies returned home with their ailments unrelieved, notwithstanding their gifts and the big candles they had burnt. And, in spite of himself, Vigneron then looked at Madame Chaise, who, having recovered from her attack, was now reposing with a comfortable air. But a tremor passed through the crowd and Abbe Judaine spoke again: "Here is Father Massias coming towards the pulpit. He is a saint; listen to him." They knew him, and were aware that he could not make his appearance without every soul being stirred by sudden hope, for it was reported that the miracles were often brought to pass by his great fervour. His voice, full of tenderness and strength, was said to be appreciated by the Virgin. All heads were therefore uplifted and the emotion yet further increased when Father Fourcade was seen coming to the foot of the pulpit, leaning on the shoulder of his well-beloved brother, the preferred of all; and he stayed there, so that he also might hear him. His gouty foot had been paining him more acutely since the morning, so that it required great courage on his part to remain thus standing and smiling. The increasing exaltation of the crowd made him happy, however; he foresaw prodigies and dazzling cures which would redound to the glory of Mary and Jesus. Having ascended the pulpit, Father Massias did not at once speak. He seemed, very tall, thin, and pale, with an ascetic face, elongated the more by his discoloured beard. His eyes sparkled, and his large eloquent mouth protruded passionately. "Lord, save us, for we perish!" he suddenly cried; and in a fever, which increased minute by minute, the transported crowd repeated: "Lord, save us, for we perish!" Then he opened his arms and again launched forth his flaming cry, as if he had torn it from his glowing heart: "Lord, if it be Thy will, Thou canst heal me!" "Lord, if it be Thy will, Thou canst heal me!" "Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof, but only say the word, and I shall be healed!" "Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof, but only say the word, and I shall be healed!" Marthe, Brother Isidore's sister, had now begun to talk in a whisper to Madame Sabathier, near whom she had at last seated herself. They had formed an acquaintance at the hospital; and, drawn together by so much suffering, the servant had familiarly confided to the /bourgeoise/ how anxious she felt about her brother; for she could plainly see that he had very little breath left in him. The Blessed Virgin must be quick indeed if she desired to save him. It was already a miracle that they had been able to bring him alive as far as the Grotto. In her resignation, poor, simple creature that she was, she did not weep; but her heart was so swollen that her infrequent words came faintly from her lips. Then a flood of past memories suddenly returned to her; and with her utterance thickened by prolonged silence, she began to relieve her heart: "We were fourteen at home, at Saint Jacut, near Vannes. He, big as he was, has always been delicate, and that was why he remained with our priest, who ended by placing him among the Christian Brothers. The elder ones took over the property, and, for my part, I preferred going out to service. Yes, it was a lady who took me with her to Paris, five years ago already. Ah! what a lot of trouble there is in life! Everyone has so much trouble!" "You are quite right, my girl," replied Madame Sabathier, looking the while at her husband, who was devoutly repeating each of Father Massias's appeals. "And then," continued Marthe, "there I learned last month that Isidore, who had returned from a hot climate where he had been on a mission, had brought a bad sickness back with him. And, when I ran to see him, he told me he should die if he did not leave for Lourdes, but that he couldn't make the journey, because he had nobody to accompany him. Then, as I had eighty francs saved up, I gave up my place, and we set out together. You see, madame, if I am so fond of him, it's because he used to bring me gooseberries from the parsonage, whereas all the others beat me." She relapsed into silence for a moment, her countenance swollen by grief, and her poor eyes so scorched by watching that no tears could come from them. Then she began to stutter disjointed words: "Look at him, madame. It fills one with pity. Ah! my God, his poor cheeks, his poor chin, his poor face--" It was, in fact, a lamentable spectacle. Madame Sabathier's heart was quite upset when she observed Brother Isidore so yellow, cadaverous, steeped in a cold sweat of agony. Above the sheet he still only showed his clasped hands and his face encircled with long scanty hair; but if those wax-like hands seemed lifeless, if there was not a feature of that long-suffering face that stirred, its eyes were still alive, inextinguishable eyes of love, whose flame sufficed to illumine the whole of his expiring visage--the visage of a Christ upon the cross. And never had the contrast been so clearly marked between his low forehead and unintelligent, loutish, peasant air, and the divine splendour which came from his poor human mask, ravaged and sanctified by suffering, sublime at this last hour in the passionate radiance of his faith. His flesh had melted, as it were; he was no longer a breath, nothing but a look, a light. Since he had been set down there his eyes had not strayed from the statue of the Virgin. Nothing else existed around him. He did not see the enormous multitude, he did not even hear the wild cries of the priests, the incessant cries which shook this quivering crowd. His eyes alone remained to him, his eyes burning with infinite tenderness, and they were fixed upon the Virgin, never more to turn from her. They drank her in, even unto death; they made a last effort of will to disappear, die out in her. For an instant, however, his mouth half opened and his drawn visage relaxed as an expression of celestial beatitude came over it. Then nothing more stirred, his eyes remained wide open, still obstinately fixed upon the white statue. A few seconds elapsed. Marthe had felt a cold breath, chilling the roots of her hair. "I say, madame, look!" she stammered. Madame Sabathier, who felt anxious, pretended that she did not understand. "What is it, my girl?" "My brother! look! He no longer moves. He opened his mouth, and has not stirred since." Then they both shuddered, feeling certain he was dead. He had, indeed, just passed away, without a rattle, without a breath, as if life had escaped in his glance, through his large, loving eyes, ravenous with passion. He had expired gazing upon the Virgin, and nothing could have been so sweet; and he still continued to gaze upon her with his dead eyes, as though with ineffable delight. "Try to close his eyes," murmured Madame Sabathier. "We shall soon know then." Marthe had already risen, and, leaning forward, so as not to be observed, she endeavoured to close the eyes with a trembling finger. But each time they reopened, and again looked at the Virgin with invincible obstinacy. He was dead, and Marthe had to leave his eyes wide open, steeped in unbounded ecstasy. "Ah! it's finished, it's quite finished, madame!" she stuttered. Two tears then burst from her heavy eyelids and ran down her cheeks; while Madame Sabathier caught hold of her hand to keep her quiet. There had been whisperings, and uneasiness was already spreading. But what course could be adopted? It was impossible to carry off the corpse amidst such a mob, during the prayers, without incurring the risk of creating a disastrous effect. The best plan would be to leave it there, pending a favourable moment. The poor fellow scandalised no one, he did not seem any more dead now than he had seemed ten minutes previously, and everybody would think that his flaming eyes were still alive, ardently appealing to the divine compassion of the Blessed Virgin. Only a few persons among those around knew the truth. M. Sabathier, quite scared, had made a questioning sign to his wife, and on being answered by a prolonged affirmative nod, he had returned to his prayers without any rebellion, though he could not help turning pale at the thought of the mysterious almighty power which sent death when life was asked for. The Vignerons, who were very much interested, leaned forward, and whispered as though in presence of some street accident, one of those petty incidents which in Paris the father sometimes related on returning home from the Ministry, and which sufficed to occupy them all, throughout the evening. Madame Jousseur, for her part, had simply turned round and whispered a word or two in M. Dieulafay's ear, and then they had both reverted to the heart-rending contemplation of their own dear invalid; whilst Abbe Judaine, informed by M. Vigneron, knelt down, and in a low, agitated voice recited the prayers for the dead. Was he not a Saint, that missionary who had returned from a deadly climate, with a mortal wound in his side, to die there, beneath the smiling gaze of the Blessed Virgin? And Madame Maze, who also knew what had happened, suddenly felt a taste for death, and resolved that she would implore Heaven to suppress her also, in unobtrusive fashion, if it would not listen to her prayer and give her back her husband. But the cry of Father Massias rose into a still higher key, burst forth with a strength of terrible despair, with a rending like that of a sob: "Jesus, son of David, I am perishing, save me!" And the crowd sobbed after him in unison "Jesus, son of David, I am perishing, save me!" Then, in quick succession, and in higher and higher keys, the appeals went on proclaiming the intolerable misery of the world: "Jesus, son of David, take pity on Thy sick children!" "Jesus, son of David, take pity on Thy sick children!" "Jesus, son of David, come, heal them, that they may live!" "Jesus, son of David, come, heal them, that they may live!" It was delirium. At the foot of the pulpit Father Fourcade, succumbing to the extraordinary passion which overflowed from all hearts, had likewise raised his arms, and was shouting the appeals in his thundering voice as though to compel the intervention of Heaven. And the exaltation was still increasing beneath this blast of desire, whose powerful breath bowed every head in turn, spreading even to the young women who, in a spirit of mere curiosity, sat watching the scene from the parapet of the Gave; for these also turned pale under their sunshades. Miserable humanity was clamouring from the depths of its abyss of suffering, and the clamour swept along, sending a shudder down every spine, for one and all were plunged in agony, refusing to die, longing to compel God to grant them eternal life. Ah! life, life! that was what all those unfortunates, who had come so far, amid so many obstacles, wanted--that was the one boon they asked for in their wild desire to live it over again, to live it always! O Lord, whatever our misery, whatever the torment of our life may be, cure us, grant that we may begin to live again and suffer once more what we have suffered already. However unhappy we may be, to be is what we wish. It is not heaven that we ask Thee for, it is earth; and grant that we may leave it at the latest possible moment, never leave it, indeed, if such be Thy good pleasure. And even when we no longer implore a physical cure, but a moral favour, it is still happiness that we ask Thee for; happiness, the thirst for which alone consumes us. O Lord, grant that we may be happy and healthy; let us live, ay, let us live forever! This wild cry, the cry of man's furious desire for life, came in broken accents, mingled with tears, from every breast. "O Lord, son of David, heal our sick!" "O Lord, son of David, heal our sick!" Berthaud had twice been obliged to dash forward to prevent the cords from giving way under the unconscious pressure of the crowd. Baron Suire, in despair, kept on making signs, begging someone to come to his assistance; for the Grotto was now invaded, and the march past had become the mere trampling of a flock rushing to its passion. In vain did Gerard again leave Raymonde and post himself at the entrance gate of the iron railing, so as to carry out the orders, which were to admit the pilgrims by tens. He was hustled and swept aside, while with feverish excitement everybody rushed in, passing like a torrent between the flaring candles, throwing bouquets and letters to the Virgin, and kissing the rock, which the pressure of millions of inflamed lips had polished. It was faith run wild, the great power that nothing henceforth could stop. And now, whilst Gerard stood there, hemmed in against the iron railing, he heard two countrywomen, whom the advance was bearing onward, raise loud exclamations at sight of the sufferers lying on the stretchers before them. One of them was so greatly impressed by the pallid face of Brother Isidore, whose large dilated eyes were still fixed on the statue of the Virgin, that she crossed herself, and, overcome by devout admiration, murmured: "Oh! look at that one; see how he is praying with his whole heart, and how he gazes on Our Lady of Lourdes!" The other peasant woman thereupon replied "Oh! she will certainly cure him, he is so beautiful!" Indeed, as the dead man lay there, his eyes still fixedly staring whilst he continued his prayer of love and faith, his appearance touched every heart. No one in that endless, streaming throng could behold him without feeling edified. III MARIE'S CURE IT was good Abbe Judaine who was to carry the Blessed Sacrament in the four-o'clock procession. Since the Blessed Virgin had cured him of a disease of the eyes, a miracle with which the Catholic press still resounded, he had become one of the glories of Lourdes, was given the first place, and honoured with all sorts of attentions. At half-past three he rose, wishing to leave the Grotto, but the extraordinary concourse of people quite frightened him, and he feared he would be late if he did not succeed in getting out of it. Fortunately help came to him in the person of Berthaud. "Monsieur le Cure," exclaimed the superintendent of the bearers, "don't attempt to pass out by way of the Rosary; you would never arrive in time. The best course is to ascend by the winding paths--and come! follow me; I will go before you." By means of his elbows, he thereupon parted the dense throng and opened a path for the priest, who overwhelmed him with thanks. "You are too kind. It's my fault; I had forgotten myself. But, good heavens! how shall we manage to pass with the procession presently?" This procession was Berthaud's remaining anxiety. Even on ordinary days it provoked wild excitement, which forced him to take special measures; and what would now happen, as it wended its way through this dense multitude of thirty thousand persons, consumed by such a fever of faith, already on the verge of divine frenzy? Accordingly, in a sensible way, he took advantage of this opportunity to give Abbe Judaine the best advice. "Ah! Monsieur le Cure, pray impress upon your colleagues of the clergy that they must not leave any space between their ranks; they should come on slowly, one close behind the other. And, above all, the banners should be firmly grasped, so that they may not be overthrown. As for yourself, Monsieur le Cure, see that the canopy-bearers are strong, tighten the cloth around the monstrance, and don't be afraid to carry it in both hands with all your strength." A little frightened by this advice, the priest went on expressing his thanks. "Of course, of course; you are very good," said he. "Ah! monsieur, how much I am indebted to you for having helped me to escape from all those people!" Then, free at last, he hastened towards the Basilica by the narrow serpentine path which climbs the hill; while his companion again plunged into the mob, to return to his post of inspection. At that same moment Pierre, who was bringing Marie to the Grotto in her little cart, encountered on the other side, that of the Place du Rosaire, the impenetrable wall formed by the crowd. The servant at the hotel had awakened him at three o'clock, so that he might go and fetch the young girl at the hospital. There seemed to be no hurry; they apparently had plenty of time to reach the Grotto before the procession. However, that immense throng, that resisting, living wall, through which he did not know how to break, began to cause him some uneasiness. He would never succeed in passing with the little car if the people did not evince some obligingness. "Come, ladies, come!" he appealed. "I beg of you! You see, it's for a patient!" The ladies, hypnotised as they were by the spectacle of the Grotto sparkling in the distance, and standing on tiptoe so as to lose nothing of the sight, did not move, however. Besides, the clamour of the litanies was so loud at this moment that they did not even hear the young priest's entreaties. Then Pierre began again: "Pray stand on one side, gentlemen; allow me to pass. A little room for a sick person. Come, please, listen to what I am saying!" But the men, beside themselves, in a blind, deaf rapture, would stir no more than the women. Marie, however, smiled serenely, as if ignorant of the impediments, and convinced that nothing in the world could prevent her from going to her cure. However, when Pierre had found an aperture, and begun to work his way through the moving mass, the situation became more serious. From all parts the swelling human waves beat against the frail chariot, and at times threatened to submerge it. At each step it became necessary to stop, wait, and again entreat the people. Pierre had never before felt such an anxious sensation in a crowd. True, it was not a threatening mob, it was as innocent as a flock of sheep; but he found a troubling thrill in its midst, a peculiar atmosphere that upset him. And, in spite of his affection for the humble, the ugliness of the features around him, the common, sweating faces, the evil breath, and the old clothes, smelling of poverty, made him suffer even to nausea. "Now, ladies, now, gentlemen, it's for a patient," he repeated. "A little room, I beg of you!" Buffeted about in this vast ocean, the little vehicle continued to advance by fits and starts, taking long minutes to get over a few yards of ground. At one moment you might have thought it swamped, for no sign of it could be detected. Then, however, it reappeared near the piscinas. Tender sympathy had at length been awakened for this sick girl, so wasted by suffering, but still so beautiful. When people had been compelled to give way before the priest's stubborn pushing, they turned round, but did not dare to get angry, for pity penetrated them at sight of that thin, suffering face, shining out amidst a halo of fair hair. Words of compassion and admiration were heard on all sides: "Ah, the poor child!"--"Was it not cruel to be infirm at her age?"--"Might the Blessed Virgin be merciful to her!" Others, however, expressed surprise, struck as they were by the ecstasy in which they saw her, with her clear eyes open to the spheres beyond, where she had placed her hope. She beheld Heaven, she would assuredly be cured. And thus the little car left, as it were, a feeling of wonder and fraternal charity behind it, as it made its way with so much difficulty through that human ocean. Pierre, however, was in despair and at the end of his strength, when some of the stretcher-bearers came to his aid by forming a path for the passage of the procession--a path which Berthaud had ordered them to keep clear by means of cords, which they were to hold at intervals of a couple of yards. From that moment the young priest was able to drag Marie along in a fairly easy manner, and at last place her within the reserved space, where he halted, facing the Grotto on the left side. You could no longer move in this reserved space, where the crowd seemed to increase every minute. And, quite exhausted by the painful journey he had just accomplished, Pierre reflected what a prodigious concourse of people there was; it had seemed to him as if he were in the midst of an ocean, whose waves he had heard heaving around him without a pause. Since leaving the hospital Marie had not opened her lips. He now realised, however, that she wished to speak to him, and accordingly bent over her. "And my father," she inquired, "is he here? Hasn't he returned from his excursion?" Pierre had to answer that M. de Guersaint had not returned, and that he had doubtless been delayed against his will. And thereupon she merely added with a smile: "Ah I poor father, won't he be pleased when he finds me cured!" Pierre looked at her with tender admiration. He did not remember having ever seen her looking so adorable since the slow wasting of sickness had begun. Her hair, which alone disease had respected, clothed her in gold. Her thin, delicate face had assumed a dreamy expression, her eyes wandering away to the haunting thought of her sufferings, her features motionless, as if she had fallen asleep in a fixed thought until the expected shock of happiness should waken her. She was absent from herself, ready, however, to return to consciousness whenever God might will it. And, indeed, this delicious infantile creature, this little girl of three-and-twenty, still a child as when an accident had struck her, delaying her growth, preventing her from becoming a woman, was at last ready to receive the visit of the angel, the miraculous shock which would draw her out of her torpor and set her upright once more. Her morning ecstasy continued; she had clasped her hands, and a leap of her whole being had ravished her from earth as soon as she had perceived the image of the Blessed Virgin yonder. And now she prayed and offered herself divinely. It was an hour of great mental trouble for Pierre. He felt that the drama of his priestly life was about to be enacted, and that if he did not recover faith in this crisis, it would never return to him. And he was without bad thoughts, without resistance, hoping with fervour, he also, that they might both be healed! Oh! that he might be convinced by her cure, that he might believe like her, that they might be saved together! He wished to pray, ardently, as she herself did. But in spite of himself he was preoccupied by the crowd, that limitless crowd, among which he found it so difficult to drown himself, disappear, become nothing more than a leaf in the forest, lost amidst the rustle of all the leaves. He could not prevent himself from analysing and judging it. He knew that for four days past it had been undergoing all the training of suggestion; there had been the fever of the long journey, the excitement of the new landscapes, the days spent before the splendour of the Grotto, the sleepless nights, and all the exasperating suffering, ravenous for illusion. Then, again, there had been the all-besetting prayers, those hymns, those litanies, which agitated it without a pause. Another priest had followed Father Massias in the pulpit, a little thin, dark Abbe, whom Pierre heard hurling appeals to the Virgin and Jesus in a lashing voice which resounded like a whip. Father Massias and Father Fourcade had remained at the foot of the pulpit, and were now directing the cries of the crowd, whose lamentations rose in louder and louder tones beneath the limpid sunlight. The general exaltation had yet increased; it was the hour when the violence done to Heaven at last produced the miracles. All at once a paralytic rose up and walked towards the Grotto, holding his crutch in the air; and this crutch, waving like a flag above the swaying heads, wrung loud applause from the faithful. They were all on the look-out for prodigies, they awaited them with the certainty that they would take place, innumerable and wonderful. Some eyes seemed to behold them, and feverish voices pointed them out. Another woman had been cured! Another! Yet another! A deaf person had heard, a mute had spoken, a consumptive had revived! What, a consumptive? Certainly, that was a daily occurrence! Surprise was no longer possible; you might have certified that an amputated leg was growing again without astonishing anyone. Miracle-working became the actual state of nature, the usual thing, quite commonplace, such was its abundance. The most incredible stories seemed quite simple to those overheated imaginations, given what they expected from the Blessed Virgin. And you should have heard the tales that went about, the quiet affirmations, the expressions of absolute certainty which were exchanged whenever a delirious patient cried out that she was cured. Another! Yet another! However, a piteous voice would at times exclaim: "Ah! she's cured; that one; she's lucky, she is!" Already, at the Verification Office, Pierre had suffered from this credulity of the folk among whom he lived. But here it surpassed everything he could have imagined; and he was exasperated by the extravagant things he heard people say in such a placid fashion, with the open smiles of children. Accordingly he tried to absorb himself in his thoughts and listen to nothing. "O God!" he prayed, "grant that my reason may be annihilated, that I may no longer desire to understand, that I may accept the unreal and impossible." For a moment he thought the spirit of inquiry dead within him, and allowed the cry of supplication to carry him away: "Lord, heal our sick! Lord, heal our sick!" He repeated this appeal with all his charity, clasped his hands, and gazed fixedly at the statue of the Virgin, until he became quite giddy, and imagined that the figure moved. Why should he not return to a state of childhood like the others, since happiness lay in ignorance and falsehood? Contagion would surely end by acting; he would become nothing more than a grain of sand among innumerable other grains, one of the humblest among the humble ones under the millstone, who trouble not about the power that crushes them. But just at that second, when he hoped that he had killed the old man in him, that he had annihilated himself along with his will and intelligence, the stubborn work of thought, incessant and invincible, began afresh in the depths of his brain. Little by little, notwithstanding his efforts to the contrary, he returned to his inquiries, doubted, and sought the truth. What was the unknown force thrown off by this crowd, the vital fluid powerful enough to work the few cures that really occurred? There was here a phenomenon that no physiologist had yet studied. Ought one to believe that a multitude became a single being, as it were, able to increase the power of auto-suggestion tenfold upon itself? Might one admit that, under certain circumstances of extreme exaltation, a multitude became an agent of sovereign will compelling the obedience of matter? That would have explained how sudden cure fell at times upon the most sincerely excited of the throng. The breaths of all of them united in one breath, and the power that acted was a power of consolation, hope, and life. This thought, the outcome of his human charity, filled Pierre with emotion. For another moment he was able to regain possession of himself, and prayed for the cure of all, deeply touched by the belief that he himself might in some degree contribute towards the cure of Marie. But all at once, without knowing what transition of ideas led to it, a recollection returned to him of the medical consultation which he had insisted upon prior to the young girl's departure for Lourdes. The scene rose before him with extraordinary clearness and precision; he saw the room with its grey, blue-flowered wall-paper, and he heard the three doctors discuss and decide. The two who had given certificates diagnosticating paralysis of the marrow spoke discreetly, slowly, like esteemed, well-known, perfectly honourable practitioners; but Pierre still heard the warm, vivacious voice of his cousin Beauclair, the third doctor, a young man of vast and daring intelligence, who was treated coldly by his colleagues as being of an adventurous turn of mind. And at this supreme moment Pierre was surprised to find in his memory things which he did not know were there; but it was only an instance of that singular phenomenon by which it sometimes happens that words scarce listened to, words but imperfectly heard, words stored away in the brain almost in spite of self, will awaken, burst forth, and impose themselves on the mind after they have long been forgotten. And thus it now seemed to him that the very approach of the miracle was bringing him a vision of the conditions under which--according to Beauclair's predictions--the miracle would be accomplished. In vain did Pierre endeavour to drive away this recollection by praying with an increase of fervour. The scene again appeared to him, and the old words rang out, filling his ears like a trumpet-blast. He was now again in the dining-room, where Beauclair and he had shut themselves up after the departure of the two others, and Beauclair recapitulated the history of the malady: the fall from a horse at the age of fourteen; the dislocation and displacement of the organ, with doubtless a slight laceration of the ligaments, whence the weight which the sufferer had felt, and the weakness of the legs leading to paralysis. Then, a slow healing of the disorder, everything returning to its place of itself, but without the pain ceasing. In fact this big, nervous child, whose mind had been so grievously impressed by her accident, was unable to forget it; her attention remained fixed on the part where she suffered, and she could not divert it, so that, even after cure, her sufferings had continued--a neuropathic state, a consecutive nervous exhaustion, doubtless aggravated by accidents due to faulty nutrition as yet imperfectly understood. And further, Beauclair easily explained the contrary and erroneous diagnosis of the numerous doctors who had attended her, and who, as she would not submit to examination, had groped in the dark, some believing in a tumour, and the others, the more numerous, convinced of some lesion of the marrow. He alone, after inquiring into the girl's parentage, had just begun to suspect a simple state of auto-suggestion, in which she had obstinately remained ever since the first violent shock of pain; and among the reasons which he gave for this belief were the contraction of her visual field, the fixity of her eyes, the absorbed, inattentive expression of her face, and above all the nature of the pain she felt, which, leaving the organ, had borne to the left, where it continued in the form of a crushing, intolerable weight, which sometimes rose to the breast in frightful fits of stifling. A sudden determination to throw off the false notion she had formed of her complaint, the will to rise, breathe freely, and suffer no more, could alone place her on her feet again, cured, transfigured, beneath the lash of some intense emotion. A last time did Pierre endeavour to see and hear no more, for he felt that the irreparable ruin of all belief in the miraculous was in him. And, in spite of his efforts, in spite of the ardour with which he began to cry, "Jesus, son of David, heal our sick!" he still saw, he still heard Beauclair telling him, in his calm, smiling manner how the miracle would take place, like a lightning flash, at the moment of extreme emotion, under the decisive circumstance which would complete the loosening of the muscles. The patient would rise and walk in a wild transport of joy, her legs would all at once be light again, relieved of the weight which had so long made them like lead, as though this weight had melted, fallen to the ground. But above all, the weight which bore upon the lower part of the trunk, which rose, ravaged the breast, and strangled the throat, would this time depart in a prodigious soaring flight, a tempest blast bearing all the evil away with it. And was it not thus that, in the Middle Ages, possessed women had by the mouth cast up the Devil, by whom their flesh had so long been tortured? And Beauclair had added that Marie would at last become a woman, that in that moment of supreme joy she would cease to be a child, that although seemingly worn out by her prolonged dream of suffering, she would all at once be restored to resplendent health, with beaming face, and eyes full of life. Pierre looked at her, and his trouble increased still more on seeing her so wretched in her little cart, so distractedly imploring health, her whole being soaring towards Our Lady of Lourdes, who gave life. Ah! might she be saved, at the cost even of his own damnation! But she was too ill; science lied like faith; he could not believe that this child, whose limbs had been dead for so many years, would indeed return to life. And, in the bewildered doubt into which he again relapsed, his bleeding heart clamoured yet more loudly, ever and ever repeating with the delirious crowd: "Lord, son of David, heal our sick!--Lord, son of David, heal our sick!" At that moment a tumult arose agitating one and all. People shuddered, faces were turned and raised. It was the cross of the four-o'clock procession, a little behind time that day, appearing from beneath one of the arches of the monumental gradient way. There was such applause and such violent, instinctive pushing that Berthaud, waving his arms, commanded the bearers to thrust the crowd back by pulling strongly on the cords. Overpowered for a moment, the bearers had to throw themselves backward with sore hands; however, they ended by somewhat enlarging the reserved path, along which the procession was then able to slowly wend its way. At the head came a superb beadle, all blue and gold, followed by the processional cross, a tall cross shining like a star. Then followed the delegations of the different pilgrimages with their banners, standards of velvet and satin, embroidered with metal and bright silk, adorned with painted figures, and bearing the names of towns: Versailles, Rheims, Orleans, Poitiers, and Toulouse. One, which was quite white, magnificently rich, displayed in red letters the inscription "Association of Catholic Working Men's Clubs." Then came the clergy, two or three hundred priests in simple cassocks, about a hundred in surplices, and some fifty clothed in golden chasubles, effulgent like stars. They all carried lighted candles, and sang the "Laudate Sion Salvatorem" in full voices. And then the canopy appeared in royal pomp, a canopy of purple silk, braided with gold, and upheld by four ecclesiastics, who, it could be seen, had been selected from among the most robust. Beneath it, between two other priests who assisted him, was Abbe Judaine, vigorously clasping the Blessed Sacrament with both hands, as Berthaud had recommended him to do; and the somewhat uneasy glances that he cast on the encroaching crowd right and left showed how anxious he was that no injury should befall the heavy divine monstrance, whose weight was already straining his wrists. When the slanting sun fell upon him in front, the monstrance itself looked like another sun. Choir-boys meantime were swinging censers in the blinding glow which gave splendour to the entire procession; and, finally, in the rear, there was a confused mass of pilgrims, a flock-like tramping of believers and sightseers all aflame, hurrying along, and blocking the track with their ever-rolling waves. Father Massias had returned to the pulpit a moment previously; and this time he had devised another pious exercise. After the burning cries of faith, hope, and love that he threw forth, he all at once commanded absolute silence, in order that one and all might, with closed lips, speak to God in secret for a few minutes. These sudden spells of silence falling upon the vast crowd, these minutes of mute prayer, in which all souls unbosomed their secrets, were deeply, wonderfully impressive. Their solemnity became formidable; you heard desire, the immense desire for life, winging its flight on high. Then Father Massias invited the sick alone to speak, to implore God to grant them what they asked of His almighty power. And, in response, came a pitiful lamentation, hundreds of tremulous, broken voices rising amidst a concert of sobs. "Lord Jesus, if it please Thee, Thou canst cure me!"--"Lord Jesus take pity on Thy child, who is dying of love!"--"Lord Jesus, grant that I may see, grant that I may hear, grant that I may walk!" And, all at once, the shrill voice of a little girl, light and vivacious as the notes of a flute, rose above the universal sob, repeating in the distance: "Save the others, save the others, Lord Jesus!" Tears streamed from every eye; these supplications upset all hearts, threw the hardest into the frenzy of charity, into a sublime disorder which would have impelled them to open their breasts with both hands, if by doing so they could have given their neighbours their health and youth. And then Father Massias, not letting this enthusiasm abate, resumed his cries, and again lashed the delirious crowd with them; while Father Fourcade himself sobbed on one of the steps of the pulpit, raising his streaming face to heaven as though to command God to descend on earth. But the procession had arrived; the delegations, the priests, had ranged themselves on the right and left; and, when the canopy entered the space reserved to the sick in front of the Grotto, when the sufferers perceived Jesus the Host, the Blessed Sacrament, shining like a sun, in the hands of Abbe Judaine, it became impossible to direct the prayers, all voices mingled together, and all will was borne away by vertigo. The cries, calls, entreaties broke, lapsing into groans. Human forms rose from pallets of suffering; trembling arms were stretched forth; clenched hands seemingly desired to clutch at the miracle on the way. "Lord Jesus, save us, for we perish!"--"Lord Jesus, we worship Thee; heal us!"--"Lord Jesus, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God; heal us!" Thrice did the despairing, exasperated voices give vent to the supreme lamentation in a clamour which rushed up to Heaven; and the tears redoubled, flooding all the burning faces which desire transformed. At one moment, the delirium became so great, the instinctive leap toward the Blessed Sacrament seemed so irresistible, that Berthaud placed the bearers who were there in a chain about it. This was the extreme protective manoeuvre, a hedge of bearers drawn up on either side of the canopy, each placing an arm firmly round his neighbour's neck, so as to establish a sort of living wall. Not the smallest aperture was left in it; nothing whatever could pass. Still, these human barriers staggered under the pressure of the unfortunate creatures who hungered for life, who wished to touch, to kiss Jesus; and, oscillating and recoiling, the bearers were at last thrust against the canopy they were defending, and the canopy itself began swaying among the crowd, ever in danger of being swept away like some holy bark in peril of being wrecked. Then, at the very climax of this holy frenzy, the miracles began amidst supplications and sobs, as when the heavens open during a storm, and a thunderbolt falls on earth. A paralytic woman rose and cast aside her crutches. There was a piercing yell, and another woman appeared erect on her mattress, wrapped in a white blanket as in a winding sheet; and people said it was a half-dead consumptive who had thus been resuscitated. Then grace fell upon two others in quick succession: a blind woman suddenly perceived the Grotto in a flame; a dumb woman fell on both her knees, thanking the Blessed Virgin in a loud, clear voice. And all in a like way prostrated themselves at the feet of Our Lady of Lourdes, distracted with joy and gratitude. But Pierre had not taken his eyes off Marie, and he was overcome with tender emotion at what he saw. The sufferer's eyes were still expressionless, but they had dilated, while her poor, pale face, with its heavy mask, was contracted as if she were suffering frightfully. She did not speak in her despair; she undoubtedly thought that she was again in the clutches of her ailment. But all at once, when the Blessed Sacrament passed by, and she saw the star-like monstrance sparkling in the sun, a sensation of dizziness came over her. She imagined herself struck by lightning. Her eyes caught fire from the glare which flashed upon her, and at last regained their flame of life, shining out like stars. And under the influence of a wave of blood her face became animated, suffused with colour, beaming with a smile of joy and health. And, suddenly, Pierre saw her rise, stand upright in her little car, staggering, stuttering, and finding in her mind only these caressing words: "Oh, my friend! Oh, my friend!" He hurriedly drew near in order to support her. But she drove him back with a gesture. She was regaining strength, looking so touching, so beautiful, in the little black woollen gown and slippers which she always wore; tall and slender, too, and crowned as with a halo of gold by her beautiful flaxen hair, which was covered with a simple piece of lace. The whole of her virgin form was quivering as if some powerful fermentation had regenerated her. First of all, it was her legs that were relieved of the chains that bound them; and then, while she felt the spirit of life--the life of woman, wife, and mother--within her, there came a final agony, an enormous weight that rose to her very throat. Only, this time, it did not linger there, did not stifle her, but burst from her open mouth, and flew away in a cry of sublime joy. "I am cured!--I am cured!" Then there was an extraordinary sight. The blanket lay at her feet, she was triumphant, she had a superb, glowing face. And her cry of cure had resounded with such rapturous delight that the entire crowd was distracted by it. She had become the sole point of interest, the others saw none but her, erect, grown so radiant and so divine. "I am cured!--I am cured!" Pierre, at the violent shock his heart had received, had begun to weep. Indeed, tears glistened again in every eye. Amidst exclamations of gratitude and praise, frantic enthusiasm passed from one to another, throwing the thousands of pilgrims who pressed forward to see into a state of violent emotion. Applause broke out, a fury of applause, whose thunder rolled from one to the other end of the valley. However, Father Fourcade began waving his arms, and Father Massias was at last able to make himself heard from the pulpit: "God has visited us, my dear brothers, my dear sisters!" said he. "/Magnificat anima mea Dominum/, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." And then all the voices, the thousands of voices, began the chant of adoration and gratitude. The procession found itself at a stand-still. Abbe Judaine had been able to reach the Grotto with the monstrance, but he patiently remained there before giving the Benediction. The canopy was awaiting him outside the railings, surrounded by priests in surplices and chasubles, all a glitter of white and gold in the rays of the setting sun. Marie, however, had knelt down, sobbing; and, whilst the canticle lasted, a burning prayer of faith and love ascended from her whole being. But the crowd wanted to see her walk, delighted women called to her, a group surrounded her, and swept her towards the Verification Office, so that the miracle might be proved true, as patent as the very light of the sun. Her box was forgotten, Pierre followed her, while she, stammering and hesitating, she who for seven years had not used her legs, advanced with adorable awkwardness, the uneasy, charming gait of a little child making its first steps; and it was so affecting, so delicious, that the young priest thought of nothing but the immense happiness of seeing her thus return to her childhood. Ah! the dear friend of infancy, the dear tenderness of long ago, so she would at last be the beautiful and charming woman that she had promised to be as a young girl when, in the little garden at Neuilly, she had looked so gay and pretty beneath the tall trees flecked with sunlight! The crowd continued to applaud her furiously, a huge wave of people accompanied her; and all remained awaiting her egress, swarming in a fever before the door, when she had entered the office, whither Pierre only was admitted with her. That particular afternoon there were few people at the Verification Office. The small square room, with its hot wooden walls and rudimentary furniture, its rush-bottomed chairs, and its two tables of unequal height, contained, apart from the usual staff only some five or six doctors, seated and silent. At the tables were the inspector of the piscinas and two young Abbes making entries in the registers, and consulting the sets of documents; while Father Dargeles, at one end, wrote a paragraph for his newspaper. And, as it happened, Doctor Bonamy was just then examining Elise Rouquet, who, for the third time, had come to have the increasing cicatrisation of her sore certified. "Anyhow, gentlemen," exclaimed the doctor, "have you ever seen a lupus heal in this way so rapidly? I am aware that a new work has appeared on faith healing in which it is stated that certain sores may have a nervous origin. Only that is by no means proved in the case of lupus, and I defy a committee of doctors to assemble and explain mademoiselle's cure by ordinary means." He paused, and turning towards Father Dargeles, inquired: "Have you noted, Father, that the suppuration has completely disappeared, and that the skin is resuming its natural colour?" However, he did not wait for the reply, for just then Marie entered, followed by Pierre; and by her beaming radiance he immediately guessed what good-fortune was befalling him. She looked superb, admirably fitted to transport and convert the multitude. He therefore promptly dismissed Elise Rouquet, inquired the new arrival's name, and asked one of the young priests to look for her papers. Then, as she slightly staggered, he wished to seat her in the arm-chair. "Oh no! oh no!" she exclaimed. "I am so happy to be able to use my legs!" Pierre, with a glance, had sought for Doctor Chassaigne, whom he was sorry not to see there. He remained on one side, waiting while they rummaged in the untidy drawers without being able to place their hands on the required papers. "Let's see," repeated Dr. Bonamy; "Marie de Guersaint, Marie de Guersaint. I have certainly seen that name before." At last Raboin discovered the documents classified under a wrong letter; and when the doctor had perused the two medical certificates he became quite enthusiastic. "Here is something very interesting, gentlemen," said he. "I beg you to listen attentively. This young lady, whom you see standing here, was afflicted with a very serious lesion of the marrow. And, if one had the least doubt of it, these two certificates would suffice to convince the most incredulous, for they are signed by two doctors of the Paris faculty, whose names are well known to us all." Then he passed the certificates to the doctors present, who read them, wagging their heads the while. It was beyond dispute; the medical men who had drawn up these documents enjoyed the reputation of being honest and clever practitioners. "Well, gentlemen, if the diagnosis is not disputed--and it cannot be when a patient brings us documents of this value--we will now see what change has taken place in the young lady's condition." However, before questioning her he turned towards Pierre. "Monsieur l'Abbe," said he, "you came from Paris with Mademoiselle de Guersaint, I think. Did you converse with the doctors before your departure?" The priest shuddered amidst all his great delight. "I was present at the consultation, monsieur," he replied. And again the scene rose up before him. He once more saw the two doctors, so serious and rational, and he once more saw Beauclair smiling, while his colleagues drew up their certificates, which were identical. And was he, Pierre, to reduce these certificates to nothing, reveal the other diagnosis, the one that allowed of the cure being explained scientifically? The miracle had been predicted, shattered beforehand. "You will observe, gentlemen," now resumed Dr. Bonamy, "that the presence of the Abbe gives these proofs additional weight. However, mademoiselle will now tell us exactly what she felt." He had leant over Father Dargeles's shoulder to impress upon him that he must not forget to make Pierre play the part of a witness in the narrative. "/Mon Dieu/! gentlemen, how can I tell you?" exclaimed Marie in a halting voice, broken by her surging happiness. "Since yesterday I had felt certain that I should be cured. And yet, a little while ago, when the pins and needles seized me in the legs again, I was afraid it might only be another attack. For an instant I doubted. Then the feeling stopped. But it began again as soon as I recommenced praying. Oh! I prayed, I prayed with all my soul! I ended by surrendering myself like a child. 'Blessed Virgin, Our Lady of Lourdes, do with me as thou wilt,' I said. But the feeling did not cease, it seemed as if my blood were boiling; a voice cried to me: 'Rise! Rise!' And I felt the miracle fall on me in a cracking of all my bones, of all my flesh, as if I had been struck by lightning." Pierre, very pale, listened to her. Beauclair had positively told him that the cure would come like a lightning flash, that under the influence of extreme excitement a sudden awakening of will so long somnolent would take place within her. "It was my legs which the Holy Virgin first of all delivered," she continued. "I could well feel that the iron bands which bound them were gliding along my skin like broken chains. Then the weight which still suffocated me, there, in the left side, began to ascend; and I thought I was going to die, it hurt me so. But it passed my chest, it passed my throat, and I felt it there in my mouth, and spat it out violently. It was all over, I no longer had any pain, it had flown away!" She had made a gesture expressive of the motion of a night bird beating its wings, and, lapsing into silence, stood smiling at Pierre, who was bewildered. Beauclair had told him all that beforehand, using almost the same words and the same imagery. Point by point, his prognostics were realised, there was nothing more in the case than natural phenomena, which had been foreseen. Raboin, however, had followed Marie's narrative with dilated eyes and the passion of a pietist of limited intelligence, ever haunted by the idea of hell. "It was the devil," he cried; "it was the devil that she spat out!" Doctor Bonamy, who was more wary, made him hold his tongue. And turning towards the doctors he said: "Gentlemen, you know that we always avoid pronouncing the big word of miracle here. Only here is a fact, and I am curious to know how any of you can explain it by natural means. Seven years ago this young lady was struck with serious paralysis, evidently due to a lesion of the marrow. And that cannot be denied; the certificates are there, irrefutable. She could no longer walk, she could no longer make a movement without a cry of pain, she had reached that extreme state of exhaustion which precedes but by little an unfortunate issue. All at once, however, here she rises, walks, laughs, and beams on us. The paralysis has completely disappeared, no pain remains, she is as well as you and I. Come, gentlemen, approach, examine her, and tell me what has happened." He triumphed. Not one of the doctors spoke. Two, who were doubtless true Catholics, had shown their approval of his speech by their vigorous nods, while the others remained motionless, with a constrained air, not caring to mix themselves up in the business. However, a little thin man, whose eyes shone behind the glasses he was wearing, ended by rising to take a closer look at Marie. He caught hold of her hand, examined the pupils of her eyes, and merely seemed preoccupied by the air of transfiguration which she wore. Then, in a very courteous manner, without even showing a desire to discuss the matter, he came back and sat down again. "The case is beyond science, that is all I can assume," concluded Doctor Bonamy, victoriously. "I will add that we have no convalescence here; health is at once restored, full, entire. Observe the young lady. Her eyes are bright, her colour is rosy, her physiognomy has recovered its lively gaiety. Without doubt, the healing of the tissues will proceed somewhat slowly, but one can already say that mademoiselle has been born again. Is it not so, Monsieur l'Abbe, you who have seen her so frequently; you no longer recognise her, eh?" "That's true, that's true," stammered Pierre. And, in fact, she already appeared strong to him, her cheeks full and fresh, gaily blooming. But Beauclair had also foreseen this sudden joyful change, this straightening and resplendency of her invalid frame, when life should re-enter it, with the will to be cured and be happy. Once again, however, had Doctor Bonamy leant over Father Dargeles, who was finishing his note, a brief but fairly complete account of the affair. They exchanged a few words in low tones, consulting together, and the doctor ended by saying: "You have witnessed these marvels, Monsieur l'Abbe, so you will not refuse to sign the careful report which the reverend Father has drawn up for publication in the 'Journal de la Grotte.'" He--Pierre--sign that page of error and falsehood! A revolt roused him, and he was on the point of shouting out the truth. But he felt the weight of his cassock on his shoulders; and, above all, Marie's divine joy filled his heart. He was penetrated with deep happiness at seeing her saved. Since they had ceased questioning her she had come and leant on his arm, and remained smiling at him with eyes full of enthusiasm. "Oh, my, friend, thank the Blessed Virgin!" she murmured in a low voice. "She has been so good to me; I am now so well, so beautiful, so young! And how pleased my father, my poor father, will be!" Then Pierre signed. Everything was collapsing within him, but it was enough that she should be saved; he would have thought it sacrilegious to interfere with the faith of that child, the great pure faith which had healed her. When Marie reappeared outside the office, the applause began afresh, the crowd clapped their hands. It now seemed that the miracle was official. However, certain charitable persons, fearing that she might again fatigue herself and again require her little car, which she had abandoned before the Grotto, had brought it to the office, and when she found it there she felt deeply moved. Ah! that box in which she had lived so many years, that rolling coffin in which she had sometimes imagined herself buried alive, how many tears, how much despair, how many bad days it had witnessed! And, all at once, the idea occurred to her that it had so long been linked with her sufferings, it ought also to share her triumph. It was a sudden inspiration, a kind of holy folly, that made her seize the handle. At that moment the procession passed by, returning from the Grotto, where Abbe Judaine had pronounced the Benediction. And thereupon Marie, dragging the little car, placed herself behind the canopy. And, in her slippers, her head covered with a strip of lace, her bosom heaving, her face erect, glowing, and superb, she walked on behind the clergy, dragging after her that car of misery, that rolling coffin, in which she had endured so much agony. And the crowd which acclaimed her, the frantic crowd, followed in her wake. IV TRIUMPH--DESPAIR PIERRE also had followed Marie, and like her was behind the canopy, carried along as it were by the blast of glory which made her drag her little car along in triumph. Every moment, however, there was so much tempestuous pushing that the young priest would assuredly have fallen if a rough hand had not upheld him. "Don't be alarmed," said a voice; "give me your arm, otherwise you won't be able to remain on your feet." Pierre turned round, and was surprised to recognise Father Massias, who had left Father Fourcade in the pulpit in order to accompany the procession. An extraordinary fever was sustaining him, throwing him forward, as solid as a rock, with eyes glowing like live coals, and an excited face covered with perspiration. "Take care, then!" he again exclaimed; "give me your arm." A fresh human wave had almost swept them away. And Pierre now yielded to the support of this terrible enthusiast, whom he remembered as a fellow-student at the seminary. What a singular meeting it was, and how greatly he would have liked to possess that violent faith, that mad faith, which was making Massias pant, with his throat full of sobs, whilst he continued giving vent to the ardent entreaty "Lord Jesus, heal our sick! Lord Jesus, heal our sick!" There was no cessation of this cry behind the canopy, where there was always a crier whose duty it was to accord no respite to the slow clemency of Heaven. At times a thick voice full of anguish, and at others a shrill and piercing voice, would arise. The Father's, which was an imperious one, was now at last breaking through sheer emotion. "Lord Jesus, heal our sick! Lord Jesus, heal our sick!" The rumour of Marie's wondrous cure, of the miracle whose fame would speedily fill all Christendom, had already spread from one to the other end of Lourdes; and from this had come the increased vertigo of the multitude, the attack of contagious delirium which now caused it to whirl and rush toward the Blessed Sacrament like the resistless flux of a rising tide. One and all yielded to the desire of beholding the Sacrament and touching it, of being cured and becoming happy. The Divinity was passing; and now it was not merely a question of ailing beings glowing with a desire for life, but a longing for happiness which consumed all present and raised them up with bleeding, open hearts and eager hands. Berthaud, who feared the excesses of this religious adoration, had decided to accompany his men. He commanded them, carefully watching over the double chain of bearers beside the canopy in order that it might not be broken. "Close your ranks--closer--closer!" he called, "and keep your arms firmly linked!" These young men, chosen from among the most vigorous of the bearers, had an extremely difficult duty to discharge. The wall which they formed, shoulder to shoulder, with arms linked at the waist and the neck, kept on giving way under the involuntary assaults of the throng. Nobody, certainly, fancied that he was pushing, but there was constant eddying, and deep waves of people rolled towards the procession from afar and threatened to submerge it. When the canopy had reached the middle of the Place du Rosaire, Abbe Judaine really thought that he would be unable to go any farther. Numerous conflicting currents had set in over the vast expanse, and were whirling, assailing him from all sides, so that he had to halt under the swaying canopy, which shook like a sail in a sudden squall on the open sea. He held the Blessed Sacrament aloft with his numbed hands, each moment fearing that a final push would throw him over; for he fully realised that the golden monstrance, radiant like a sun, was the one passion of all that multitude, the Divinity they demanded to kiss, in order that they might lose themselves in it, even though they should annihilate it in doing so. Accordingly, while standing there, the priest anxiously turned his eyes on Berthaud. "Let nobody pass!" called the latter to the bearers--"nobody! The orders are precise; you hear me?" Voices, however, were rising in supplication on all sides, wretched beings were sobbing with arms outstretched and lips protruding, in the wild desire that they might be allowed to approach and kneel at the priest's feet. What divine grace it would be to be thrown upon the ground and trampled under foot by the whole procession!* An infirm old man displayed his withered hand in the conviction that it would be made sound again were he only allowed to touch the monstrance. A dumb woman wildly pushed her way through the throng with her broad shoulders, in order that she might loosen her tongue by a kiss. Others were shouting, imploring, and even clenching their fists in their rage with those cruel men who denied cure to their bodily sufferings and their mental wretchedness. The orders to keep them back were rigidly enforced, however, for the most serious accidents were feared. * One is here irresistibly reminded of the car of Juggernaut, and of the Hindoo fanatics throwing themselves beneath its wheels in the belief that they would thus obtain an entrance into Paradise.--Trans. "Nobody, nobody!" repeated Berthaud; "let nobody whatever pass!" There was a woman there, however, who touched every heart with compassion. Clad in wretched garments, bareheaded, her face wet with tears, she was holding in her arms a little boy of ten years or so, whose limp, paralysed legs hung down inertly. The lad's weight was too great for one so weak as herself, still she did not seem to feel it. She had brought the boy there, and was now entreating the bearers with an invincible obstinacy which neither words nor hustling could conquer. At last, as Abbe Judaine, who felt deeply moved, beckoned to her to approach, two of the bearers, in deference to his compassion, drew apart, despite all the danger of opening a breach, and the woman then rushed forward with her burden, and fell in a heap before the priest. For a moment he rested the foot of the monstrance on the child's head, and the mother herself pressed her eager, longing lips to it; and, as they started off again, she wished to remain behind the canopy, and followed the procession, with streaming hair and panting breast, staggering the while under the heavy burden, which was fast exhausting her strength. They managed, with great difficulty, to cross the remainder of the Place du Rosaire, and then the ascent began, the glorious ascent by way of the monumental incline; whilst upon high, on the fringe of heaven, the Basilica reared its slim spire, whence pealing bells were winging their flight, sounding the triumphs of Our Lady of Lourdes. And now it was towards an apotheosis that the canopy slowly climbed, towards the lofty portal of the high-perched sanctuary which stood open, face to face with the Infinite, high above the huge multitude whose waves continued soaring across the valley's squares and avenues. Preceding the processional cross, the magnificent beadle, all blue and silver, was already rearing the level of the Rosary cupola, the spacious esplanade formed by the roof of the lower church, across which the pilgrimage deputations began to wind, with their bright-coloured silk and velvet banners waving in the ruddy glow of the sunset. Then came the clergy, the priests in snowy surplices, and the priests in golden chasubles, likewise shining out like a procession of stars. And the censers swung, and the canopy continued climbing, without anything of its bearers being seen, so that it seemed as though a mysterious power, some troop of invisible angels, were carrying it off in this glorious ascension towards the open portal of heaven. A sound of chanting had burst forth; the voices in the procession no longer called for the healing of the sick, now that the /cortege/ had extricated itself from amidst the crowd. The miracle had been worked, and they were celebrating it with the full power of their lungs, amidst the pealing of the bells and the quivering gaiety of the atmosphere. "/Magnificat anima mea Dominum/"--they began. "My soul doth magnify the Lord." 'Twas the song of gratitude, already chanted at the Grotto, and again springing from every heart: "/Et exsultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo/." "And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." Meantime it was with increasing, overflowing joy that Marie took part in that radiant ascent, by the colossal gradient way, towards the glowing Basilica. It seemed to her, as she continued climbing, that she was growing stronger and stronger, that her legs, so long lifeless, became firmer at each step. The little car which she victoriously dragged behind her was like the earthly tenement of her illness, the /inferno/ whence the Blessed Virgin had extricated her, and although its handle was making her hands sore, she nevertheless wished to pull it up yonder with her, in order that she might cast it at last at the feet of the Almighty. No obstacle could stay her course, she laughed through the big tears which were falling on her cheeks, her bosom was swelling, her demeanour becoming warlike. One of her slippers had become unfastened, and the strip of lace had fallen from her head to her shoulders. Nevertheless, with her lovely fair hair crowning her like a helmet and her face beaming brightly, she still marched on and on with such an awakening of will and strength that, behind her, you could hear her car leap and rattle over the rough slope of the flagstones, as though it had been a mere toy. Near Marie was Pierre, still leaning on the arm of Father Massias, who had not relinquished his hold. Lost amidst the far-spreading emotion, the young priest was unable to reflect. Moreover his companion's sonorous voice quite deafened him. "/Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles/." "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble." On Pierre's other side, the right, Berthaud, who no longer had any cause for anxiety, was now also following the canopy. He had given his bearers orders to break their chain, and was gazing with an expression of delight on the human sea through which the procession had lately passed. The higher they the incline, the more did the Place du Rosaire and the avenues and paths of the gardens expand below them, black with the swarming multitude. It was a bird's-eye view of a whole nation, an ant-hill which ever increased in size, spreading farther and farther away. "Look!" Berthaud at last exclaimed to Pierre. "How vast and how beautiful it is! Ah! well, the year won't have been a bad one after all." Looking upon Lourdes as a centre of propaganda, where his political rancour found satisfaction, he always rejoiced when there was a numerous pilgrimage, as in his mind it was bound to prove unpleasant to the Government. Ah! thought he, if they had only been able to bring the working classes of the towns thither, and create a Catholic democracy. "Last year we scarcely reached the figure of two hundred thousand pilgrims," he continued, "but we shall exceed it this year, I hope." And then, with the gay air of the jolly fellow that he was, despite his sectarian passions, he added: "Well, 'pon my word, I was really pleased just now when there was such a crush. Things are looking up, I thought, things are looking up." Pierre, however, was not listening to him; his mind had been struck by the grandeur of the spectacle. That multitude, which spread out more and more as the procession rose higher and higher above it, that magnificent valley which was hollowed out below and ever became more and more extensive, displaying afar off its gorgeous horizon of mountains, filled him with quivering admiration. His mental trouble was increased by it all, and seeking Marie's glance, he waved his arm to draw her attention to the vast circular expanse of country. And his gesture deceived her, for in the purely spiritual excitement that possessed her she did not behold the material spectacle he pointed at, but thought that he was calling earth to witness the prodigious favours which the Blessed Virgin had heaped upon them both; for she imagined that he had had his share of the miracle, and that in the stroke of grace which had set her erect with her flesh healed, he, so near to her that their hearts mingled, had felt himself enveloped and raised by the same divine power, his soul saved from doubt, conquered by faith once more. How could he have witnessed her wondrous cure, indeed, without being convinced? Moreover, she had prayed so fervently for him outside the Grotto on the previous night. And now, therefore, to her excessive delight, she espied him transfigured like herself, weeping and laughing, restored to God again. And this lent increased force to her blissful fever; she dragged her little car along with unwearying hands, and--as though it were their double cross, her own redemption and her friend's redemption which she was carrying up that incline with its resounding flagstones--she would have liked to drag it yet farther, for leagues and leagues, ever higher and higher, to the most inaccessible summits, to the transplendent threshold of Paradise itself. "O Pierre, Pierre!" she stammered, "how sweet it is that this great happiness should have fallen on us together--yes, together! I prayed for it so fervently, and she granted my prayer, and saved you even in saving me. Yes, I felt your soul mingling with my own. Tell me that our mutual prayers have been granted, tell me that I have won your salvation even as you have won mine!" He understood her mistake and shuddered. "If you only knew," she continued, "how great would have been my grief had I thus ascended into light alone. Oh! to be chosen without you, to soar yonder without you! But with you, Pierre, it is rapturous delight! We have been saved together, we shall be happy forever! I feel all needful strength for happiness, yes, strength enough to raise the world!" And in spite of everything, he was obliged to answer her and lie, revolting at the idea of spoiling, dimming that great and pure felicity. "Yes, yes, be happy, Marie," he said, "for I am very happy myself, and all our sufferings are redeemed." But even while he spoke he felt a deep rending within him, as though a brutal hatchet-stroke were parting them forever. Amidst their common sufferings, she had hitherto remained the little friend of childhood's days, the first artlessly loved woman, whom he knew to be still his own, since she could belong to none. But now she was cured, and he remained alone in his hell, repeating to himself that she would never more be his! This sudden thought so upset him that he averted his eyes, in despair at reaping such suffering from the prodigious felicity with which she exulted. However the chant went on, and Father Massias, hearing nothing and seeing nothing, absorbed as he was in his glowing gratitude to God, shouted the final verse in a thundering voice: "/Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros, Abraham, et semini ejus in saecula/." "As He spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever!" Yet another incline had to be climbed, yet another effort had to be made up that rough acclivity, with its large slippery flagstones. And the procession rose yet higher, and the ascent still went on in the full, bright light. There came a last turn, and the wheels of Marie's car grated against a granite curb. Then, still higher, still and ever higher, did it roll until it finally reached what seemed to be the very fringe of heaven. And all at once the canopy appeared on the summit of the gigantic inclined ways, on the stone balcony overlooking the stretch of country outside the portal of the Basilica. Abbe Judaine stepped forward holding the Blessed Sacrament aloft with both hands. Marie, who had pulled her car up the balcony steps, was near him, her heart beating from her exertion, her face all aglow amidst the gold of her loosened hair. Then all the clergy, the snowy surplices, and the dazzling chasubles ranged themselves behind, whilst the banners waved like bunting decking the white balustrades. And a solemn minute followed. From on high there could have been no grander spectacle. First, immediately below, there was the multitude, the human sea with its dark waves, its heaving billows, now for a moment stilled, amidst which you only distinguished the small pale specks of the faces uplifted towards the Basilica, in expectation of the Benediction; and as far as the eye could reach, from the place du Rosaire to the Gave, along the paths and avenues and across the open spaces, even to the old town in the distance; those little pale faces multiplied and multiplied, all with lips parted, and eyes fixed upon the august heaven was about to open to their gaze. Then the vast amphitheatre of slopes and hills and mountains surged aloft, ascended upon all sides, crests following crests, until they faded away in the far blue atmosphere. The numerous convents among the trees on the first of the northern slopes, beyond the torrent--those of the Carmelites, the Dominicans, the Assumptionists, and the Sisters of Nevers--were coloured by a rosy reflection from the fire-like glow of the sunset. Then wooded masses rose one above the other, until they reached the heights of Le Buala, which were surmounted by the Serre de Julos, in its turn capped by the Miramont. Deep valleys opened on the south, narrow gorges between piles of gigantic rocks whose bases were already steeped in lakes of bluish shadow, whilst the summits sparkled with the smiling farewell of the sun. The hills of Visens upon this side were empurpled, and shewed like a promontory of coral, in front of the stagnant lake of the ether, which was bright with a sapphire-like transparency. But, on the east, in front of you, the horizon again spread out to the very point of intersection of the seven valleys. The castle which had formerly guarded them still stood with its keep, its lofty walls, its black outlines--the outlines of a fierce fortress of feudal time,--upon the rock whose base was watered by the Gave; and upon this side of the stern old pile was the new town, looking quite gay amidst its gardens, with its swarm of white house-fronts, its large hotels, its lodging-houses, and its fine shops, whose windows were glowing like live embers; whilst, behind the castle, the discoloured roofs of old Lourdes spread out in confusion, in a ruddy light which hovered over them like a cloud of dust. At this late hour, when the declining luminary was sinking in royal splendour behind the little Gers and the big Gers, those two huge ridges of bare rock, spotted with patches of short herbage, formed nothing but a neutral, somewhat violet, background, as though, indeed, they were two curtains of sober hue drawn across the margin of the horizon. And higher and still higher, in front of this immensity, did Abbe Judaine with both hands raise the Blessed Sacrament. He moved it slowly from one to the other horizon, causing it to describe a huge sign of the cross against the vault of heaven. He saluted the convents, the heights of Le Buala, the Serre de Julos, and the Miramont, upon his left; he saluted the huge fallen rocks of the dim valleys, and the empurpled hills of Visens, on his right; he saluted the new and the old town, the castle bathed by the Gave, the big and the little Gers, already drowsy, in front of him; and he saluted the woods, the torrents, the mountains, the faint chains linking the distant peaks, the whole earth, even beyond the visible horizon: Peace upon earth, hope and consolation to mankind! The multitude below had quivered beneath that great sign of the cross which enveloped it. It seemed as though a divine breath were passing, rolling those billows of little pale faces which were as numerous as the waves of an ocean. A loud murmur of adoration ascended; all those parted lips proclaimed the glory of God when, in the rays of the setting sun, the illumined monstrance again shone forth like another sun, a sun of pure gold, describing the sign of the cross in streaks of flame upon the threshold of the Infinite. The banners, the clergy, with Abbe Judaine under the canopy, were already returning to the Basilica, when Marie, who was also entering it, still dragging her car by the handle, was stopped by two ladies, who kissed her, weeping. They were Madame de Jonquiere and her daughter Raymonde, who had come thither to witness the Benediction, and had been told of the miracle. "Ah! my dear child, what happiness!" repeated the lady-hospitaller; "and how proud I am to have you in my ward! It is so precious a favour for all of us that the Blessed Virgin should have been pleased to select you." Raymonde, meanwhile, had kept one of the young girl's hands in her own. "Will you allow me to call you my friend, mademoiselle?" said she. "I felt so much pity for you, and I am now so pleased to see you walking, so strong and beautiful already. Let me kiss you again. It will bring me happiness." "Thank you, thank you with all my heart," Marie stammered amidst her rapture. "I am so happy, so very happy!" "Oh! we will not leave you," resumed Madame de Jonquiere. "You hear me, Raymonde? We must follow her, and kneel beside her, and we will take her back after the ceremony." Thereupon the two ladies joined the /cortege/, and, following the canopy, walked beside Pierre and Father Massias, between the rows of chairs which the deputations already occupied, to the very centre of the choir. The banners alone were allowed on either side of the high altar; but Marie advanced to its steps, still dragging her car, whose wheels resounded over the flagstones. She had at last brought it to the spot whither the sacred madness of her desire had longingly impelled her to drag it. She had brought it, indeed, woeful, wretched-looking as it was, into the splendour of God's house, so that it might there testify to the truth of the miracle. The threshold had scarcely been crossed when the organs burst into a hymn of triumph, the sonorous acclamation of a happy people, from amidst which there soon arose a celestial, angelic voice, of joyful shrillness and crystalline purity. Abbe Judaine had placed the Blessed Sacrament upon the altar, and the crowd was streaming into the nave, each taking a seat, installing him or herself in a corner, pending the commencement of the ceremony. Marie had at once fallen on her knees between Madame de Jonquiere and Raymonde, whose eyes were moist with tender emotion; whilst Father Massias, exhausted by the extraordinary tension of the nerves which had been sustaining him ever since his departure from the Grotto, had sunk upon the ground, sobbing, with his head between his hands. Behind him Pierre and Berthaud remained standing, the latter still busy with his superintendence, his eyes ever on the watch, seeing that good order was preserved even during the most violent outbursts of emotion. Then, amidst all his mental confusion, increased by the deafening strains of the organ, Pierre raised his head and examined the interior of the Basilica. The nave was narrow and lofty, and streaked with bright colours, which numerous windows flooded with light. There were scarcely any aisles; they were reduced to the proportions of a mere passage running between the side-chapels and the clustering columns, and this circumstance seemed to increase the slim loftiness of the nave, the soaring of the stonework in perpendicular lines of infantile, graceful slenderness. A gilded railing, as transparent as lace, closed the choir, where the high altar, of white marble richly sculptured, arose in all its lavish chasteness. But the feature of the building which astonished you was the mass of extraordinary ornamentation which transformed the whole of it into an overflowing exhibition of embroidery and jewellery. What with all the banners and votive offerings, the perfect river of gifts which had flowed into it and remained clinging to its walls in a stream of gold and silver, velvet and silk, covering it from top to bottom, it was, so to say, the ever-glowing sanctuary of gratitude, whose thousand rich adornments seemed to be chanting a perpetual canticle of faith and thankfulness. The banners, in particular, abounded, as innumerable as the leaves of trees. Some thirty hung from the vaulted roof, whilst others were suspended, like pictures, between the little columns around the triforium. And others, again, displayed themselves on the walls, waved in the depths of the side-chapels, and encompassed the choir with a heaven of silk, satin, and velvet. You could count them by hundreds, and your eyes grew weary of admiring them. Many of them were quite celebrated, so renowned for their skilful workmanship that talented embroideresses took the trouble to come to Lourdes on purpose to examine them. Among these were the banner of our Lady of Fourvieres, bearing the arms of the city of Lyons; the banner of Alsace, of black velvet embroidered with gold; the banner of Lorraine, on which you beheld the Virgin casting her cloak around two children; and the white and blue banner of Brittany, on which bled the sacred heart of Jesus in the midst of a halo. All empires and kingdoms of the earth were represented; the most distant lands--Canada, Brazil, Chili, Haiti--here had their flags, which, in all piety, were being offered as a tribute of homage to the Queen of Heaven. Then, after the banners, there were other marvels, the thousands and thousands of gold and silver hearts which were hanging everywhere, glittering on the walls like stars in the heavens. Some were grouped together in the form of mystical roses, others described festoons and garlands, others, again, climbed up the pillars, surrounded the windows, and constellated the deep, dim chapels. Below the triforium somebody had had the ingenious idea of employing these hearts to trace in tall letters the various words which the Blessed Virgin had addressed to Bernadette; and thus, around the nave, there extended a long frieze of words, the delight of the infantile minds which busied themselves with spelling them. It was a swarming, a prodigious resplendency of hearts, whose infinite number deeply impressed you when you thought of all the hands, trembling with gratitude, which had offered them. Moreover, the adornments comprised many other votive offerings, and some of quite an unexpected description. There were bridal wreaths and crosses of honour, jewels and photographs, chaplets, and even spurs, in glass cases or frames. There were also the epaulets and swords of officers, together with a superb sabre, left there in memory of a miraculous conversion. But all this was not sufficient; other riches, riches of every kind, shone out on all sides--marble statues, diadems enriched with brilliants, a marvellous carpet designed at Blois and embroidered by ladies of all parts of France, and a golden palm with ornaments of enamel, the gift of the sovereign pontiff. The lamps suspended from the vaulted roof, some of them of massive gold and the most delicate workmanship, were also gifts. They were too numerous to be counted, they studded the nave with stars of great price. Immediately in front of the tabernacle there was one, a masterpiece of chasing, offered by Ireland. Others--one from Lille, one from Valence, one from Macao in far-off China--were veritable jewels, sparkling with precious stones. And how great was the resplendency when the choir's score of chandeliers was illumined, when the hundreds of lamps and the hundreds of candles burned all together, at the great evening ceremonies! The whole church then became a conflagration, the thousands of gold and silver hearts reflecting all the little flames with thousands of fiery scintillations. It was like a huge and wondrous brasier; the walls streamed with live flakes of light; you seemed to be entering into the blinding glory of Paradise itself; whilst on all sides the innumerable banners spread out their silk, their satin, and their velvet, embroidered with sanguifluous sacred hearts, victorious saints, and Virgins whose kindly smiles engendered miracles. Ah! how many ceremonies had already displayed their pomp in that Basilica! Worship, prayer, chanting, never ceased there. From one end of the year to the other incense smoked, organs roared, and kneeling multitudes prayed there with their whole souls. Masses, vespers, sermons, were continually following one upon another; day by day the religious exercises began afresh, and each festival of the Church was celebrated with unparalleled magnificence. The least noteworthy anniversary supplied a pretext for pompous solemnities. Each pilgrimage was granted its share of the dazzling resplendency. It was necessary that those suffering ones and those humble ones who had come from such long distances should be sent home consoled and enraptured, carrying with them a vision of Paradise espied through its opening portals. They beheld the luxurious surroundings of the Divinity, and would forever remain enraptured by the sight. In the depths of bare, wretched rooms, indeed, by the side of humble pallets of suffering throughout all Christendom, a vision of the Basilica with its blazing riches continually arose like a vision of fortune itself, like a vision of the wealth of that life to be, into which the poor would surely some day enter after their long, long misery in this terrestrial sphere. Pierre, however, felt no delight; no consolation, no hope, came to him as he gazed upon all the splendour. His frightful feeling of discomfort was increasing, all was becoming black within him, with that blackness of the tempest which gathers when men's thoughts and feelings pant and shriek. He had felt immense desolation rising in his soul ever since Marie, crying that she was healed, had risen from her little car and walked along with such strength and fulness of life. Yet he loved her like a passionately attached brother, and had experienced unlimited happiness on seeing that she no longer suffered. Why, therefore, should her felicity bring him such agony? He could now no longer gaze at her, kneeling there, radiant amidst her tears, with beauty recovered and increased, without his poor heart bleeding as from some mortal wound. Still he wished to remain there, and so, averting his eyes, he tried to interest himself in Father Massias, who was still shaking with violent sobbing on the flagstones, and whose prostration and annihilation, amidst the consuming illusion of divine love, he sorely envied. For a moment, moreover, he questioned Berthaud, feigning to admire some banner and requesting information respecting it. "Which one?" asked the superintendent of the bearers; "that lace banner over there?" "Yes, that one on the left." "Oh! it is a banner offered by Le Puy. The arms are those of Le Puy and Lourdes linked together by the Rosary. The lace is so fine that if you crumpled the banner up, you could hold it in the hollow of your hand." However, Abbe Judaine was now stepping forward; the ceremony was about to begin. Again did the organs resound, and again was a canticle chanted, whilst, on the altar, the Blessed Sacrament looked like the sovereign planet amidst the scintillations of the gold and silver hearts, as innumerable as stars. And then Pierre lacked the strength to remain there any longer. Since Marie had Madame de Jonquiere and Raymonde with her, and they would accompany her back, he might surely go off by himself, vanish into some shadowy corner, and there, at last, vent his grief. In a few words he excused himself, giving his appointment with Doctor Chassaigne as a pretext for his departure. However, another fear suddenly came to him, that of being unable to leave the building, so densely did the serried throng of believers bar the open doorway. But immediately afterwards he had an inspiration, and, crossing the sacristy, descended into the crypt by the narrow interior stairway. Deep silence and sepulchral gloom suddenly succeeded to the joyous chants and prodigious radiance of the Basilica above. Cut in the rock, the crypt formed two narrow passages, parted by a massive block of stone which upheld the nave, and conducting to a subterranean chapel under the apse, where some little lamps remained burning both day and night. A dim forest of pillars rose up there, a mystic terror reigned in that semi-obscurity where the mystery ever quivered. The chapel walls remained bare, like the very stones of the tomb, in which all men must some day sleep the last sleep. And along the passages, against their sides, covered from top to bottom with marble votive offerings, you only saw a double row of confessionals; for it was here, in the lifeless tranquillity of the bowels of the earth, that sins were confessed; and there were priests, speaking all languages, to absolve the sinners who came thither from the four corners of the world. At that hour, however, when the multitude was thronging the Basilica above, the crypt had become quite deserted. Not a soul, save Pierre's, throbbed there ever so faintly; and he, amidst that deep silence, that darkness, that coolness of the grave, fell upon his knees. It was not, however, through any need of prayer and worship, but because his whole being was giving way beneath his crushing mental torment. He felt a torturing longing to be able to see clearly within himself. Ah! why could he not plunge even more deeply into the heart of things, reflect, understand, and at last calm himself. And it was a fearful agony that he experienced. He tried to remember all the minutes that had gone by since Marie, suddenly springing from her pallet of wretchedness, had raised her cry of resurrection. Why had he even then, despite his fraternal joy in seeing her erect, felt such an awful sensation of discomfort, as though, indeed, the greatest of all possible misfortunes had fallen upon him? Was he jealous of the divine grace? Did he suffer because the Virgin, whilst healing her, had forgotten him, whose soul was so afflicted? He remembered how he had granted himself a last delay, fixed a supreme appointment with Faith for the moment when the Blessed Sacrament should pass by, were Marie only cured; and she was cured, and still he did not believe, and henceforth there was no hope, for never, never would he be able to believe. Therein lay the bare, bleeding sore. The truth burst upon him with blinding cruelty and certainty--she was saved, he was lost. That pretended miracle which had restored her to life had, in him, completed the ruin of all belief in the supernatural. That which he had, for a moment, dreamed of seeking, and perhaps finding, at Lourdes,--naive faith, the happy faith of a little child,--was no longer possible, would never bloom again after that collapse of the miraculous, that cure which Beauclair had foretold, and which had afterwards come to pass, exactly as had been predicted. Jealous! No--he was not jealous; but he was ravaged, full of mortal sadness at thus remaining all alone in the icy desert of his intelligence, regretting the illusion, the lie, the divine love of the simpleminded, for which henceforth there was no room in his heart. A flood of bitterness stifled him, and tears started from his eyes. He had slipped on to the flagstones, prostrated by his anguish. And, by degrees, he remembered the whole delightful story, from the day when Marie, guessing how he was tortured by doubt, had become so passionately eager for his conversion, taking hold of his hand in the gloom, retaining it in her own, and stammering that she would pray for him--oh! pray for him with her whole soul. She forgot herself, she entreated the Blessed Virgin to save her friend rather than herself if there were but one grace that she could obtain from her Divine Son. Then came another memory, the memory of the delightful hours which they had spent together amid the dense darkness of the trees during the night procession. There, again, they had prayed for one another, mingled one in the other with so ardent a desire for mutual happiness that, for a moment, they had attained to the very depths of the love which gives and immolates itself. And now their long, tear-drenched tenderness, their pure idyl of suffering, was ending in this brutal separation; she on her side saved, radiant amidst the hosannas of the triumphant Basilica; and he lost, sobbing with wretchedness, bowed down in the depths of the dark crypt in an icy, grave-like solitude. It was as though he had just lost her again, and this time forever and forever. All at once Pierre felt the sharp stab which this thought dealt his heart. He at last understood his pain--a sudden light illumined the terrible crisis of woe amidst which he was struggling. He had lost Marie for the first time on the day when he had become a priest, saying to himself that he might well renounce his manhood since she, stricken in her sex by incurable illness, would never be a woman. But behold! she /was/ cured. Behold! she /had/ become a woman. She had all at once appeared to him very strong, very beautiful, living, and desirable. He, who was dead, however, could not become a man again. Never more would he be able to raise the tombstone which crushed and imprisoned his flesh. She fled away alone, leaving him in the cold grave. The whole wide world was opening before her with smiling happiness, with the love which laughs in the sunlit paths, with the husband, with children, no doubt. Whereas he, buried, as it were to his shoulders, had naught of his body free, save his brain, and that remained free, no doubt, in order that he might suffer the more. She had still been his so long as she had not belonged to another; and if he had been enduring such agony during the past hour, it was only through this final rending which, this time, parted her from him forever and forever. Then rage shook Pierre from head to foot. He was tempted to return to the Basilica, and cry the truth aloud to Marie. The miracle was a lie! The helpful beneficence of an all-powerful Divinity was but so much illusion! Nature alone had acted, life had conquered once again. And he would have given proofs: he would have shown how life, the only sovereign, worked for health amid all the sufferings of this terrestrial sphere. And then they would have gone off together; they would have fled far, far away, that they might be happy. But a sudden terror took possession of him. What! lay hands upon that little spotless soul, kill all belief in it, fill it with the ruins which worked such havoc in his own soul? It all at once occurred to him that this would be odious sacrilege. He would afterwards become horrified with himself, he would look upon himself as her murderer were he some day to realise that he was unable to give her a happiness equal to that which she would have lost. Perhaps, too, she would not believe him. And, moreover, would she ever consent to marry a priest who had broken his vows? She who would always retain the sweet and never-to be-forgotten memory of how she had been healed in ecstasy! His design then appeared to him insane, monstrous, polluting. And his revolt rapidly subsided, until he only retained a feeling of infinite weariness, a sensation of a burning, incurable wound--the wound of his poor, bruised, lacerated heart. Then, however, amidst his abandonment, the void in which he was whirling, a supreme struggle began, filling him again with agony. What should he do? His sufferings made a coward of him, and he would have liked to flee, so that he might never see Marie again. For he understood very well that he would now have to lie to her, since she thought that he was saved like herself, converted, healed in soul, even as she had been healed in body. She had told him of her joy while dragging her car up the colossal gradient way. Oh! to have had that great happiness together, together; to have felt their hearts melt and mingle one in the other! And even then he had already lied, as he would always be obliged to lie in order that he might not spoil her pure and blissful illusion. He let the last throbbings of his veins subside, and vowed that he would find sufficient strength for the sublime charity of feigning peacefulness of soul, the rapture of one who is redeemed. For he wished her to be wholly happy--without a regret, without a doubt--in the full serenity of faith, convinced that the blessed Virgin had indeed given her consent to their purely mystical union. What did his torments matter? Later on, perhaps, he might recover possession of himself. Amidst his desolate solitude of mind would there not always be a little joy to sustain him, all that joy whose consoling falsity he would leave to her? Several minutes again elapsed, and Pierre, still overwhelmed, remained on the flagstones, seeking to calm his fever. He no longer thought, he no longer lived; he was a prey to that prostration of the entire being which follows upon great crises. But, all at once, he fancied he could hear a sound of footsteps, and thereupon he painfully rose to his feet, and feigned to be reading the inscriptions graven in the marble votive slabs along the walls. He had been mistaken--nobody was there; nevertheless, seeking to divert his mind, he continued perusing the inscriptions, at first in a mechanical kind of way, and then, little by little, feeling a fresh emotion steal over him. The sight was almost beyond imagination. Faith, love, and gratitude displayed themselves in a hundred, a thousand ways on these marble slabs with gilded lettering. Some of the inscriptions were so artless as to provoke a smile. A colonel had sent a sculptured representation of his foot with the words: "Thou hast preserved it; grant that it may serve Thee." Farther on you read the line: "May Her protection extend to the glass trade." And then, by the frankness of certain expressions of thanks, you realised of what a strange character the appeals had been. "To Mary the Immaculate," ran one inscription, "from a father of a family, in recognition of health restored, a lawsuit won, and advancement gained." However, the memory of these instances faded away amidst the chorus of soaring, fervent cries. There was the cry of the lovers: "Paul and Anna entreat Our Lady of Lourdes to bless their union." There was the cry of the mothers in various forms: "Gratitude to Mary, who has thrice healed my child."--"Gratitude to Mary for the birth of Antoinette, whom I dedicate, like myself and all my kin, to Her."--"P. D., three years old, has been preserved to the love of his parents." And then came the cry of the wives, the cry, too, of the sick restored to health, and of the souls restored to happiness: "Protect my husband; grant that my husband may enjoy good health."--"I was crippled in both legs, and now I am healed."--"We came, and now we hope."--"I prayed, I wept, and She heard me." And there were yet other cries, cries whose veiled glow conjured up thoughts of long romances: "Thou didst join us together; protect us, we pray Thee."--"To Mary, for the greatest of all blessings." And the same cries, the same words--gratitude, thankfulness, homage, acknowledgment,--occurred again and again, ever with the same passionate fervour. All! those hundreds, those thousands of cries which were forever graven on that marble, and from the depths of the crypt rose clamorously to the Virgin, proclaiming the everlasting devotion of the unhappy beings whom she had succoured. Pierre did not weary of reading them, albeit his mouth was bitter and increasing desolation was filling him. So it was only he who had no succour to hope for! When so many sufferers were listened to, he alone had been unable to make himself heard! And he now began to think of the extraordinary number of prayers which must be said at Lourdes from one end of the year to the other. He tried to cast them up; those said during the days spent at the Grotto and during the nights spent at the Rosary, those said at the ceremonies at the Basilica, and those said at the sunlight and the starlight processions. But this continual entreaty of every second was beyond computation. It seemed as if the faithful were determined to weary the ears of the Divinity, determined to extort favours and forgiveness by the very multitude, the vast multitude of their prayers. The priests said that it was necessary to offer to God the acts of expiation which the sins of France required, and that when the number of these acts of expiation should be large enough, God would smite France no more. What a harsh belief in the necessity of chastisement! What a ferocious idea born of the gloomiest pessimism! How evil life must be if it were indeed necessary that such imploring cries, such cries of physical and moral wretchedness, should ever and ever ascend to Heaven! In the midst of all his sadness, Pierre felt deep compassion penetrate his heart. He was upset by the thought that mankind should be so wretched, reduced to such a state of woe, so bare, so weak, so utterly forsaken, that it renounced its own reason to place the one sole possibility of happiness in the hallucinatory intoxication of dreams. Tears once more filled his eyes; he wept for himself and for others, for all the poor tortured beings who feel a need of stupefying and numbing their pains in order to escape from the realities of the world. He again seemed to hear the swarming, kneeling crowd of the Grotto, raising the glowing entreaty of its prayer to Heaven, the multitude of twenty and thirty thousand souls from whose midst ascended such a fervour of desire that you seemed to see it smoking in the sunlight like incense. Then another form of the exaltation of faith glowed, beneath the crypt, in the Church of the Rosary, where nights were spent in a paradise of rapture, amidst the silent delights of the communion, the mute appeals in which the whole being pines, burns, and soars aloft. And as though the cries raised before the Grotto and the perpetual adoration of the Rosary were not sufficient, that clamour of ardent entreaty burst forth afresh on the walls of the crypt around him; and here it was eternised in marble, here it would continue shrieking the sufferings of humanity even into the far-away ages. It was the marble, it was the walls themselves praying, seized by that shudder of universal woe which penetrated even the world's stones. And, at last, the prayers ascended yet higher, still higher, soared aloft from the radiant Basilica, which was humming and buzzing above him, full as it now was of a frantic multitude, whose mighty voice, bursting into a canticle of hope, he fancied he could hear through the flagstones of the nave. And it finally seemed to him that he was being whirled away, transported, as though he were indeed amidst the very vibrations of that huge wave of prayer, which, starting from the dust of the earth, ascended the tier of superposed churches, spreading from tabernacle to tabernacle, and filling even the walls with such pity that they sobbed aloud, and that the supreme cry of wretchedness pierced its way into heaven with the white spire, the lofty golden cross, above the steeple. O Almighty God, O Divinity, Helpful Power, whoever, whatever Thou mayst be, take pity upon poor mankind and make human suffering cease! All at once Pierre was dazzled. He had followed the left-hand passage, and was coming out into broad daylight, above the inclined ways, and two affectionate arms at once caught hold of him and clasped him. It was Doctor Chassaigne, whose appointment he had forgotten, and who had been waiting there to take him to visit Bernadette's room and Abbe Peyramale's church. "Oh! what joy must be yours, my child!" exclaimed the good old man. "I have just learnt the great news, the extraordinary favour which Our Lady of Lourdes has granted to your young friend. Recollect what I told you the day before yesterday. I am now at ease--you are saved!" A last bitterness came to the young priest who was very pale. However, he was able to smile, and he gently answered: "Yes, we are saved, we are very happy." It was the lie beginning; the divine illusion which in a spirit of charity he wished to give to others. And then one more spectacle met Pierre's eyes. The principal door of the Basilica stood wide open, and a red sheet of light from the setting sun was enfilading the nave from one to the other end. Everything was flaring with the splendour of a conflagration--the gilt railings of the choir, the votive offerings of gold and silver, the lamps enriched with precious stones, the banners with their bright embroideries, and the swinging censers, which seemed like flying jewels. And yonder, in the depths of this burning splendour, amidst the snowy surplices and the golden chasubles, he recognised Marie, with hair unbound, hair of gold like all else, enveloping her in a golden mantle. And the organs burst into a hymn of triumph; and the delirious people acclaimed God; and Abbe Judaine, who had again just taken the Blessed Sacrament from off the altar, raised it aloft and presented it to their gaze for the last time; and radiantly magnificent it shone out like a glory amidst the streaming gold of the Basilica, whose prodigious triumph all the bells proclaimed in clanging, flying peals. V CRADLE AND GRAVE IMMEDIATELY afterwards, as they descended the steps, Doctor Chassaigne said to Pierre: "You have just seen the triumph; I will now show you two great injustices." And he conducted him into the Rue des Petits-Fosses to visit Bernadette's room, that low, dark chamber whence she set out on the day the Blessed Virgin appeared to her. The Rue des Petits-Fosses starts from the former Rue des Bois, now the Rue de la Grotte, and crosses the Rue du Tribunal. It is a winding lane, slightly sloping and very gloomy. The passers-by are few; it is skirted by long walls, wretched-looking houses, with mournful facades in which never a window opens. All its gaiety consists in an occasional tree in a courtyard. "Here we are," at last said the doctor. At the part where he had halted, the street contracted, becoming very narrow, and the house faced the high, grey wall of a barn. Raising their heads, both men looked up at the little dwelling, which seemed quite lifeless, with its narrow casements and its coarse, violet pargeting, displaying the shameful ugliness of poverty. The entrance passage down below was quite black; an old light iron gate was all that closed it; and there was a step to mount, which in rainy weather was immersed in the water of the gutter. "Go in, my friend, go in," said the doctor. "You have only to push the gate." The passage was long, and Pierre kept on feeling the damp wall with his hand, for fear of making a false step. It seemed to him as if he were descending into a cellar, in deep obscurity, and he could feel a slippery soil impregnated with water beneath his feet. Then at the end, in obedience to the doctor's direction, he turned to the right. "Stoop, or you may hurt yourself," said M. Chassaigne; "the door is very low. There, here we are." The door of the room, like the gate in the street, stood wide open, as if the place had been carelessly abandoned; and Pierre, who had stopped in the middle of the chamber, hesitating, his eyes still full of the bright daylight outside, could distinguish absolutely nothing. He had fallen into complete darkness, and felt an icy chill about the shoulders similar to the sensation that might be caused by a wet towel. But, little by little, his eyes became accustomed to the dimness. Two windows of unequal size opened on to a narrow, interior courtyard, where only a greenish light descended, as at the bottom of a well; and to read there, in the middle of the day, it would be necessary to have a candle. Measuring about fifteen feet by twelve, the room was flagged with large uneven stones; while the principal beam and the rafters of the roof, which were visible, had darkened with time and assumed a dirty, sooty hue. Opposite the door was the chimney, a miserable plaster chimney, with a mantelpiece formed of a rotten old plank. There was a sink between this chimney and one of the windows. The walls, with their decaying, damp-stained plaster falling off by bits, were full of cracks, and turning a dirty black like the ceiling. There was no longer any furniture there; the room seemed abandoned; you could only catch a glimpse of some confused, strange objects, unrecognisable in the heavy obscurity that hung about the corners. After a spell of silence, the doctor exclaimed "Yes, this is the room; all came from here. Nothing has been changed, with the exception that the furniture has gone. I have tried to picture how it was placed: the beds certainly stood against this wall, opposite the windows; there must have been three of them at least, for the Soubirouses were seven--the father, mother, two boys, and three girls. Think of that! Three beds filling this room! Seven persons living in this small space! All of them buried alive, without air, without light, almost without bread! What frightful misery! What lowly, pity-awaking poverty!" But he was interrupted. A shadowy form, which Pierre at first took for an old woman, entered. It was a priest, however, the curate of the parish, who now occupied the house. He was acquainted with the doctor. "I heard your voice, Monsieur Chassaigne, and came down," said he. "So there you are, showing the room again?" "Just so, Monsieur l' Abbe; I took the liberty. It does not inconvenience you?" "Oh! not at all, not at all! Come as often as you please, and bring other people." He laughed in an engaging manner, and bowed to Pierre, who, astonished by this quiet carelessness, observed: "The people who come, however, must sometimes plague you?" The curate in his turn seemed surprised. "Indeed, no! Nobody comes. You see the place is scarcely known. Every one remains over there at the Grotto. I leave the door open so as not to be worried. But days and days often pass without my hearing even the sound of a mouse." Pierre's eyes were becoming more and more accustomed to the obscurity; and among the vague, perplexing objects which filled the corners, he ended by distinguishing some old barrels, remnants of fowl cages, and broken tools, a lot of rubbish such as is swept away and thrown to the bottom of cellars. Hanging from the rafters, moreover, were some provisions, a salad basket full of eggs, and several bunches of big pink onions. "And, from what I see," resumed Pierre, with a slight shudder, "you have thought that you might make use of the room?" The curate was beginning to feel uncomfortable. "Of course, that's it," said he. "What can one do? The house is so small, I have so little space. And then you can't imagine how damp it is here; it is altogether impossible to occupy the room. And so, /mon Dieu/, little by little all this has accumulated here by itself, contrary to one's own desire." "It has become a lumber-room," concluded Pierre. "Oh no! hardly that. An unoccupied room, and yet in truth, if you insist on it, it is a lumber-room!" His uneasiness was increasing, mingled with a little shame. Doctor Chassaigne remained silent and did not interfere; but he smiled, and was visibly delighted at his companion's revolt against human ingratitude. Pierre, unable to restrain himself, now continued: "You must excuse me, Monsieur l'Abbe, if I insist. But just reflect that you owe everything to Bernadette; but for her Lourdes would still be one of the least known towns of France. And really it seems to me that out of mere gratitude the parish ought to have transformed this wretched room into a chapel." "Oh! a chapel!" interrupted the curate. "It is only a question of a human creature: the Church could not make her an object of worship." "Well, we won't say a chapel, then; but at all events there ought to be some lights and flowers--bouquets of roses constantly renewed by the piety of the inhabitants and the pilgrims. In a word, I should like some little show of affection--a touching souvenir, a picture of Bernadette--something that would delicately indicate that she deserves to have a place in all hearts. This forgetfulness and desertion are shocking. It is monstrous that so much dirt should have been allowed to accumulate!" The curate, a poor, thoughtless, nervous man, at once adopted Pierre's views: "In reality, you are a thousand times right," said he; "but I myself have no power, I can do nothing. Whenever they ask me for the room, to set it to rights, I will give it up and remove my barrels, although I really don't know where else to put them. Only, I repeat, it does not depend on me. I can do nothing, nothing at all!" Then, under the pretext that he had to go out, he hastened to take leave and run away again, saying to Doctor Chassaigne: "Remain, remain as long as you please; you are never in my way." When the doctor once more found himself alone with Pierre he caught hold of both his hands with effusive delight. "Ah, my dear child," said he, "how pleased you have made me! How admirably you expressed to him all that has been boiling in my own heart so long! Like you, I thought of bringing some roses here every morning. I should have simply had the room cleaned, and would have contented myself with placing two large bunches of roses on the mantelpiece; for you know that I have long felt deep affection for Bernadette, and it seemed to me that those roses would be like the very flowering and perfume of her memory. Only--only--" and so saying he made a despairing gesture, "only courage failed me. Yes, I say courage, no one having yet dared to declare himself openly against the Fathers of the Grotto. One hesitates and recoils in the fear of stirring up a religious scandal. Fancy what a deplorable racket all this would create. And so those who are as indignant as I am are reduced to the necessity of holding their tongues--preferring a continuance of silence to anything else." Then, by way of conclusion, he added: "The ingratitude and rapacity of man, my dear child, are sad things to see. Each time I come into this dim wretchedness, my heart swells and I cannot restrain my tears." He ceased speaking, and neither of them said another word, both being overcome by the extreme melancholy which the surroundings fostered. They were steeped in gloom. The dampness made them shudder as they stood there amidst the dilapidated walls and the dust of the old rubbish piled upon either side. And the idea returned to them that without Bernadette none of the prodigies which had made Lourdes a town unique in the world would have existed. It was at her voice that the miraculous spring had gushed forth, that the Grotto, bright with candles, had opened. Immense works were executed, new churches rose from the ground, giant-like causeways led up to God. An entire new city was built, as if by enchantment, with gardens, walks, quays, bridges, shops, and hotels. And people from the uttermost parts of the earth flocked thither in crowds, and the rain of millions fell with such force and so abundantly that the young city seemed likely to increase indefinitely--to fill the whole valley, from one to the other end of the mountains. If Bernadette had been suppressed none of those things would have existed, the extraordinary story would have relapsed into nothingness, old unknown Lourdes would still have been plunged in the sleep of ages at the foot of its castle. Bernadette was the sole labourer and creatress; and yet this room, whence she had set out on the day she beheld the Virgin, this cradle, indeed, of the miracle and of all the marvellous fortune of the town, was disdained, left a prey to vermin, good only for a lumber-room, where onions and empty barrels were put away. Then the other side of the question vividly appeared in Pierre's mind, and he again seemed to see the triumph which he had just witnessed, the exaltation of the Grotto and Basilica, while Marie, dragging her little car, ascended behind the Blessed Sacrament, amidst the clamour of the multitude. But the Grotto especially shone out before him. It was no longer the wild, rocky cavity before which the child had formerly knelt on the deserted bank of the torrent; it was a chapel, transformed and enriched, a chapel illumined by a vast number of candles, where nations marched past in procession. All the noise, all the brightness, all the adoration, all the money, burst forth there in a splendour of constant victory. Here, at the cradle, in this dark, icy hole, there was not a soul, not a taper, not a hymn, not a flower. Of the infrequent visitors who came thither, none knelt or prayed. All that a few tender-hearted pilgrims had done in their desire to carry away a souvenir had been to reduce to dust, between their fingers, the half-rotten plank serving as a mantelshelf. The clergy ignored the existence of this spot of misery, which the processions ought to have visited as they might visit a station of glory. It was there that the poor child had begun her dream, one cold night, lying in bed between her two sisters, and seized with a fit of her ailment while the whole family was fast asleep. It was thence, too, that she had set out, unconsciously carrying along with her that dream, which was again to be born within her in the broad daylight and to flower so prettily in a vision such as those of the legends. And no one now followed in her footsteps. The manger was forgotten, and left in darkness--that manger where had germed the little humble seed which over yonder was now yielding such prodigious harvests, reaped by the workmen of the last hour amidst the sovereign pomp of ceremonies. Pierre, whom the great human emotion of the story moved to tears, at last summed up his thoughts in three words, saying in a low voice, "It is Bethlehem." "Yes," remarked Doctor Chassaigne, in his turn, "it is the wretched lodging, the chance refuge, where new religions are born of suffering and pity. And at times I ask myself if all is not better thus: if it is not better that this room should remain in its actual state of wretchedness and abandonment. It seems to me that Bernadette has nothing to lose by it, for I love her all the more when I come to spend an hour here." He again became silent, and then made a gesture of revolt: "But no, no! I cannot forgive it--this ingratitude sets me beside myself. I told you I was convinced that Bernadette had freely gone to cloister herself at Nevers. But although no one smuggled her away, what a relief it was for those whom she had begun to inconvenience here! And they are the same men, so anxious to be the absolute masters, who at the present time endeavour by all possible means to wrap her memory in silence. Ah! my dear child, if I were to tell you all!" Little by little he spoke out and relieved himself. Those Fathers of the Grotto, who showed such greed in trading on the work of Bernadette, dreaded her still more now that she was dead than they had done whilst she was alive. So long as she had lived, their great terror had assuredly been that she might return to Lourdes to claim a portion of the spoil; and her humility alone reassured them, for she was in nowise of a domineering disposition, and had herself chosen the dim abode of renunciation where she was destined to pass away. But at present their fears had increased at the idea that a will other than theirs might bring the relics of the visionary back to Lourdes; that, thought had, indeed, occurred to the municipal council immediately after her death; the town had wished to raise a tomb, and there had been talk of opening a subscription. The Sisters of Nevers, however, formally refused to give up the body, which they said belonged to them. Everyone felt that the Sisters were acting under the influence of the Fathers, who were very uneasy, and energetically bestirred themselves to prevent by all means in their power the return of those venerated ashes, in whose presence at Lourdes they foresaw a possible competition with the Grotto itself. Could they have imagined some such threatening occurrence as this--a monumental tomb in the cemetery, pilgrims proceeding thither in procession, the sick feverishly kissing the marble, and miracles being worked there amidst a holy fervour? This would have been disastrous rivalry, a certain displacement of all the present devotion and prodigies. And the great, the sole fear, still and ever returned to them, that of having to divide the spoils, of seeing the money go elsewhere should the town, now taught by experience, know how to turn the tomb to account. The Fathers were even credited with a scheme of profound craftiness. They were supposed to have the secret idea of reserving Bernadette's remains for themselves; the Sisters of Nevers having simply undertaken to keep it for them within the peaceful precincts of their chapel. Only, they were waiting, and would not bring it back until the affluence of the pilgrims should decrease. What was the use of a solemn return at present, when crowds flocked to the place without interruption and in increasing numbers? Whereas, when the extraordinary success of Our Lady of Lourdes should decline, like everything else in this world, one could imagine what a reawakening of faith would attend the solemn, resounding ceremony at which Christendom would behold the relics of the chosen one take possession of the soil whence she had made so many marvels spring. And the miracles would then begin again on the marble of her tomb before the Grotto or in the choir of the Basilica. "You may search," continued Doctor Chassaigne, "but you won't find a single official picture of Bernadette at Lourdes. Her portrait is sold, but it is hung no where, in no sanctuary. It is systematic forgetfulness, the same sentiment of covert uneasiness as that which has wrought silence and abandonment in this sad chamber where we are. In the same way as they are afraid of worship at her tomb, so are they afraid of crowds coming and kneeling here, should two candles burn or a couple of bouquets of roses bloom upon this chimney. And if a paralytic woman were to rise shouting that she was cured, what a scandal would arise, how disturbed would be those good traders of the Grotto on seeing their monopoly seriously threatened! They are the masters, and the masters they intend to remain; they will not part with any portion of the magnificent farm that they have acquired and are working. Nevertheless they tremble--yes, they tremble at the memory of the workers of the first hour, of that little girl who is still so great in death, and for whose huge inheritance they burn with such greed that after having sent her to live at Nevers, they dare not even bring back her corpse, but leave it imprisoned beneath the flagstones of a convent!" Ah! how wretched was the fate of that poor creature, who had been cut off from among the living, and whose corpse in its turn was condemned to exile! And how Pierre pitied her, that daughter of misery, who seemed to have been chosen only that she might suffer in her life and in her death! Even admitting that an unique, persistent will had not compelled her to disappear, still guarding her even in her tomb, what a strange succession of circumstances there had been--how it seemed as if someone, uneasy at the idea of the immense power she might grasp, had jealously sought to keep her out of the way! In Pierre's eyes she remained the chosen one, the martyr; and if he could no longer believe, if the history of this unfortunate girl sufficed to complete within him the ruin of his faith, it none the less upset him in all his brotherly love for mankind by revealing a new religion to him, the only one which might still fill his heart, the religion of life, of human sorrow. Just then, before leaving the room, Doctor Chassaigne exclaimed: "And it's here that one must believe, my dear child. Do you see this obscure hole, do you think of the resplendent Grotto, of the triumphant Basilica, of the town built, of the world created, the crowds that flock to Lourdes! And if Bernadette was only hallucinated, only an idiot, would not the outcome be more astonishing, more inexplicable still? What! An idiot's dream would have sufficed to stir up nations like this! No! no! The Divine breath which alone can explain prodigies passed here." Pierre was on the point of hastily replying "Yes!" It was true, a breath had passed there, the sob of sorrow, the inextinguishable yearning towards the Infinite of hope. If the dream of a suffering child had sufficed to attract multitudes, to bring about a rain of millions and raise a new city from the soil, was it not because this dream in a measure appeased the hunger of poor mankind, its insatiable need of being deceived and consoled? She had once more opened the Unknown, doubtless at a favourable moment both socially and historically; and the crowds had rushed towards it. Oh! to take refuge in mystery, when reality is so hard, to abandon oneself to the miraculous, since cruel nature seems merely one long injustice! But although you may organise the Unknown, reduce it to dogmas, make revealed religions of it, there is never anything at the bottom of it beyond the appeal of suffering, the cry of life, demanding health, joy, and fraternal happiness, and ready to accept them in another world if they cannot be obtained on earth. What use is it to believe in dogmas? Does it not suffice to weep and love? Pierre, however, did not discuss the question. He withheld the answer that was on his lips, convinced, moreover, that the eternal need of the supernatural would cause eternal faith to abide among sorrowing mankind. The miraculous, which could not be verified, must be a food necessary to human despair. Besides, had he not vowed in all charity that he would not wound anyone with his doubts? "What a prodigy, isn't it?" repeated the doctor. "Certainly," Pierre ended by answering. "The whole human drama has been played, all the unknown forces have acted in this poor room, so damp and dark." They remained there a few minutes more in silence; they walked round the walls, raised their eyes toward the smoky ceiling, and cast a final glance at the narrow, greenish yard. Truly it was a heart-rending sight, this poverty of the cobweb level, with its dirty old barrels, its worn-out tools, its refuse of all kinds rotting in the corners in heaps. And without adding a word they at last slowly retired, feeling extremely sad. It was only in the street that Doctor Chassaigne seemed to awaken. He gave a slight shudder and hastened his steps, saying: "It is not finished, my dear child; follow me. We are now going to look at the other great iniquity." He referred to Abbe Peyramale and his church. They crossed the Place du Porche and turned into the Rue Saint Pierre; a few minutes would suffice them. But their conversation had again fallen on the Fathers of the Grotto, on the terrible, merciless war waged by Father Sempe against the former Cure of Lourdes. The latter had been vanquished, and had died in consequence, overcome by feelings of frightful bitterness; and, after thus killing him by grief, they had completed the destruction of his church, which he had left unfinished, without a roof, open to the wind and to the rain. With what a glorious dream had that monumental edifice filled the last year of the Cure's life! Since he had been dispossessed of the Grotto, driven from the work of Our Lady of Lourdes, of which he, with Bernadette, had been the first artisan, his church had become his revenge, his protestation, his own share of the glory, the House of the Lord where he would triumph in his sacred vestments, and whence he would conduct endless processions in compliance with the formal desire of the Blessed Virgin. Man of authority and domination as he was at bottom, a pastor of the multitude, a builder of temples, he experienced a restless delight in hurrying on the work, with the lack of foresight of an eager man who did not allow indebtedness to trouble him, but was perfectly contented so long as he always had a swarm of workmen busy on the scaffoldings. And thus he saw his church rise up, and pictured it finished, one bright summer morning, all new in the rising sun. Ah! that vision constantly evoked gave him courage for the struggle, amidst the underhand, murderous designs by which he felt himself to be enveloped. His church, towering above the vast square, at last rose in all its colossal majesty. He had decided that it should be in the Romanesque style, very large, very simple, its nave nearly three hundred feet long, its steeple four hundred and sixty feet high. It shone out resplendently in the clear sunlight, freed on the previous day of the last scaffolding, and looking quite smart in its newness, with its broad courses of stone disposed with perfect regularity. And, in thought, he sauntered around it, charmed with its nudity, its stupendous candour, its chasteness recalling that of a virgin child, for there was not a piece of sculpture, not an ornament that would have uselessly loaded it. The roofs of the nave, transept, and apse were of equal height above the entablature, which was decorated with simple mouldings. In the same way the apertures in the aisles and nave had no other adornments than archivaults with mouldings, rising above the piers. He stopped in thought before the great coloured glass windows of the transept, whose roses were sparkling; and passing round the building he skirted the semicircular apse against which stood the vestry building with its two rows of little windows; and then he returned, never tiring of his contemplation of that regal ordonnance, those great lines standing out against the blue sky, those superposed roofs, that enormous mass of stone, whose solidity promised to defy centuries. But, when he closed his eyes he, above all else, conjured up, with rapturous pride, a vision of the facade and steeple; down below, the three portals, the roofs of the two lateral ones forming terraces, while from the central one, in the very middle of the facade, the steeple boldly sprang. Here again columns resting on piers supported archivaults with simple mouldings. Against the gable, at a point where there was a pinnacle, and between the two lofty windows lighting the nave, was a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes under a canopy. Up above, were other bays with freshly painted luffer-boards. Buttresses started from the ground at the four corners of the steeple-base, becoming less and less massive from storey to storey, till they reached the spire, a bold, tapering spire in stone, flanked by four turrets and adorned with pinnacles, and soaring upward till it vanished in the sky. And to the parish priest of Lourdes it seemed as if it were his own fervent soul which had grown and flown aloft with this spire, to testify to his faith throughout the ages, there on high, quite close to God. At other times another vision delighted him still more. He thought he could see the inside of his church on the day of the first solemn mass he would perform there. The coloured windows threw flashes of fire brilliant like precious stones; the twelve chapels, the aisles, were beaming with lighted candles. And he was at the high altar of marble and gold; and the fourteen columns of the nave in single blocks of Pyrenean marble, magnificent marble purchased with money that had come from the four corners of Christendom, rose up supporting the vaulted roof, while the sonorous voices of the organs filled the whole building with a hymn of joy. A multitude of the faithful was gathered there, kneeling on the flags in front of the choir, which was screened by ironwork as delicate as lace, and covered with admirably carved wood. The pulpit, the regal present of a great lady, was a marvel of art cut in massive oak. The baptismal fonts had been hewn out of hard stone by an artist of great talent. Pictures by masters ornamented the walls. Crosses, pyxes, precious monstrances, sacred vestments, similar to suns, were piled up in the vestry cupboards. And what a dream it was to be the pontiff of such a temple, to reign there after having erected it with passion, to bless the crowds who hastened to it from the entire earth, while the flying peals from the steeple told the Grotto and Basilica that they had over there, in old Lourdes, a rival, a victorious sister, in whose great nave God triumphed also! After following the Rue Saint Pierre for a moment, Doctor Chassaigne and his companion turned into the little Rue de Langelle. "We are coming to it," said the doctor. But though Pierre looked around him he could see no church. There were merely some wretched hovels, a whole district of poverty, littered with foul buildings. At length, however, at the bottom of a blind alley, he perceived a remnant of the half-rotten palings which still surrounded the vast square site bordered by the Rue Saint Pierre, the Rue de Bagneres, the Rue de Langelle, and the Rue des Jardins. "We must turn to the left," continued the doctor, who had entered a narrow passage among the rubbish. "Here we are!" And the ruin suddenly appeared amidst the ugliness and wretchedness that masked it. The whole great carcase of the nave and the aisles, the transept and the apse was standing. The walls rose on all sides to the point where the vaulting would have begun. You entered as into a real church, you could walk about at ease, identifying all the usual parts of an edifice of this description. Only when you raised your eyes you saw the sky; the roofs were wanting, the rain could fall and the wind blow there freely. Some fifteen years previously the works had been abandoned, and things had remained in the same state as the last workman had left them. What struck you first of all were the ten pillars of the nave and the four pillars of the choir, those magnificent columns of Pyrenean marble, each of a single block, which had been covered with a casing of planks in order to protect them from damage. The bases and capitals were still in the rough, awaiting the sculptors. And these isolated columns, thus cased in wood, had a mournful aspect indeed. Moreover, a dismal sensation filled you at sight of the whole gaping enclosure, where grass had sprung up all over the ravaged, bumpy soil of the aisles and the nave, a thick cemetery grass, through which the women of the neighbourhood had ended by making paths. They came in to spread out their washing there. And even now a collection of poor people's washing--thick sheets, shirts in shreds, and babies' swaddling clothes--was fast drying in the last rays of the sun, which glided in through the broad, empty bays. Slowly, without speaking, Pierre and Doctor Chassaigne walked round the inside of the church. The ten chapels of the aisles formed a species of compartments full of rubbish and remnants. The ground of the choir had been cemented, doubtless to protect the crypt below against infiltrations; but unfortunately the vaults must be sinking; there was a hollow there which the storm of the previous night had transformed into a little lake. However, it was these portions of the transept and the apse which had the least suffered. Not a stone had moved; the great central rose windows above the triforium seemed to be awaiting their coloured glass, while some thick planks, forgotten atop of the walls of the apse, might have made anyone think that the workmen would begin covering it the next day. But, when Pierre and the doctor had retraced their steps, and went out to look at the facade, the lamentable woefulness of the young ruin was displayed to their gaze. On this side, indeed, the works had not been carried forward to anything like the same extent: the porch with its three portals alone was built, and fifteen years of abandonment had sufficed for the winter weather to eat into the sculptures, the small columns and the archivaults, with a really singular destructive effect, as though the stones, deeply penetrated, destroyed, had melted away beneath tears. The heart grieved at the sight of the decay which had attacked the work before it was even finished. Not yet to be, and nevertheless to crumble away in this fashion under the sky! To be arrested in one's colossal growth, and simply strew the weeds with ruins! They returned to the nave, and were overcome by the frightful sadness which this assassination of a monument provoked. The spacious plot of waste ground inside was littered with the remains of scaffoldings, which had been pulled down when half rotten, in fear lest their fall might crush people; and everywhere amidst the tall grass were boards, put-logs, moulds for arches, mingled with bundles of old cord eaten away by damp. There was also the long narrow carcase of a crane rising up like a gibbet. Spade-handles, pieces of broken wheelbarrows, and heaps of greenish bricks, speckled with moss and wild convolvuli in bloom, were still lying among the forgotten materials. In the beds of nettles you here and there distinguished the rails of a little railway laid down for the trucks, one of which was lying overturned in a corner. But the saddest sight in all this death of things was certainly the portable engine which had remained in the shed that sheltered it. For fifteen years it had been standing there cold and lifeless. A part of the roof of the shed had ended by falling in upon it, and now the rain drenched it at every shower. A bit of the leather harness by which the crane was worked hung down, and seemed to bind the engine like a thread of some gigantic spider's web. And its metal-work, its steel and copper, was also decaying, as if rusted by lichens, covered with the vegetation of old age, whose yellowish patches made it look like a very ancient, grass-grown machine which the winters had preyed upon. This lifeless engine, this cold engine with its empty firebox and its silent boiler, was like the very soul of the departed labour vainly awaiting the advent of some great charitable heart, whose coming through the eglantine and the brambles would awaken this sleeping church in the wood from its heavy slumber of ruin. At last Doctor Chassaigne spoke: "Ah!" he said, "when one thinks that fifty thousand francs would have sufficed to prevent such a disaster! With fifty thousand francs the roof could have been put on, the heavy work would have been saved, and one could have waited patiently. But they wanted to kill the work just as they had killed the man." With a gesture he designated the Fathers of the Grotto, whom he avoided naming. "And to think," he continued, "that their annual receipts are eight hundred thousand francs. However, they prefer to send presents to Rome to propitiate powerful friends there." In spite of himself, he was again opening hostilities against the adversaries of Cure Peyramale. The whole story caused a holy anger of justice to haunt him. Face to face with those lamentable ruins, he returned to the facts--the enthusiastic Cure starting on the building of his beloved church, and getting deeper and deeper into debt, whilst Father Sempe, ever on the lookout, took advantage of each of his mistakes, discrediting him with the Bishop, arresting the flow of offerings, and finally stopping the works. Then, after the conquered man was dead, had come interminable lawsuits, lawsuits lasting fifteen years, which gave the winters time to devour the building. And now it was in such a woeful state, and the debt had risen to such an enormous figure, that all seemed over. The slow death, the death of the stones, was becoming irrevocable. The portable engine beneath its tumbling shed would fall to pieces, pounded by the rain and eaten away by the moss. "I know very well that they chant victory," resumed the doctor; "that they alone remain. It is just what they wanted--to be the absolute masters, to have all the power, all the money for themselves alone. I may tell you that their terror of competition has even made them intrigue against the religious Orders that have attempted to come to Lourdes. Jesuits, Dominicans, Benedictines, Capuchins, and Carmelites have made applications at various times, and the Fathers of the Grotto have always succeeded in keeping them away. They only tolerate the female Orders, and will only have one flock. And the town belongs to them; they have opened shop there, and sell God there wholesale and retail!" Walking slowly, he had while speaking returned to the middle of the nave, amidst the ruins, and with a sweeping wave of the arm he pointed to all the devastation surrounding him. "Look at this sadness, this frightful wretchedness! Over yonder the Rosary and Basilica cost them three millions of francs."* * About 580,000 dollars. Then, as in Bernadette's cold, dark room, Pierre saw the Basilica rise before him, radiant in its triumph. It was not here that you found the realisation of the dream of Cure Peyramale, officiating and blessing kneeling multitudes while the organs resounded joyfully. The Basilica, over yonder, appeared, vibrating with the pealing of its bells, clamorous with the superhuman joy of an accomplished miracle, all sparkling with its countless lights, its banners, its lamps, its hearts of silver and gold, its clergy attired in gold, and its monstrance akin to a golden star. It flamed in the setting sun, it touched the heavens with its spire, amidst the soaring of the milliards of prayers which caused its walls to quiver. Here, however, was the church that had died before being born, the church placed under interdict by a mandamus of the Bishop, the church falling into dust, and open to the four winds of heaven. Each storm carried away a little more of the stones, big flies buzzed all alone among the nettles which had invaded the nave; and there were no other devotees than the poor women of the neighbourhood, who came thither to turn their sorry linen, spread upon the grass. It seemed amidst the mournful silence as though a low voice were sobbing, perhaps the voice of the marble columns weeping over their useless beauty under their wooden shirts. At times birds would fly across the deserted apse uttering a shrill cry. Bands of enormous rats which had taken refuge under bits of the lowered scaffoldings would fight, and bite, and bound out of their holes in a gallop of terror. And nothing could have been more heart-rending than the sight of this pre-determined ruin, face to face with its triumphant rival, the Basilica, which beamed with gold. Again Doctor Chassaigne curtly said, "Come." They left the church, and following the left aisle, reached a door, roughly fashioned out of a few planks nailed together; and, when they had passed down a half-demolished wooden staircase, the steps of which shook beneath their feet, they found themselves in the crypt. It was a low vault, with squat arches, on exactly the same plan as the choir. The thick, stunted columns, left in the rough, also awaited their sculptors. Materials were lying about, pieces of wood were rotting on the beaten ground, the whole vast hall was white with plaster in the abandonment in which unfinished buildings are left. At the far end, three bays, formerly glazed, but in which not a pane of glass remained, threw a clear, cold light upon the desolate bareness of the walls. And there, in the middle, lay Cure Peyramale's corpse. Some pious friends had conceived the touching idea of thus burying him in the crypt of his unfinished church. The tomb stood on a broad step and was all marble. The inscriptions, in letters of gold, expressed the feelings of the subscribers, the cry of truth and reparation that came from the monument itself. You read on the face: "This tomb has been erected by the aid of pious offerings from the entire universe to the blessed memory of the great servant of Our Lady of Lourdes." On the right side were these words from a Brief of Pope Pius IX.: "You have entirely devoted yourself to erecting a temple to the Mother of God." And on the left were these words from the New Testament: "Happy are they who suffer persecution for justice' sake." Did not these inscriptions embody the true plaint, the legitimate hope of the vanquished man who had fought so long in the sole desire of strictly executing the commands of the Virgin as transmitted to him by Bernadette? She, Our Lady of Lourdes, was there personified by a slender statuette, standing above the commemorative inscription, against the naked wall whose only decorations were a few bead wreaths hanging from nails. And before the tomb, as before the Grotto, were five or six benches in rows, for the faithful who desired to sit down. But with another gesture of sorrowful compassion, Doctor Chassaigne had silently pointed out to Pierre a huge damp spot which was turning the wall at the far end quite green. Pierre remembered the little lake which he had noticed up above on the cracked cement flooring of the choir--quite a quantity of water left by the storm of the previous night. Infiltration had evidently commenced, a perfect stream ran down, invading the crypt, whenever there was heavy rain. And they both felt a pang at their hearts when they perceived that the water was trickling along the vaulted roof in narrow threads, and thence falling in large, regular rhythmical drops upon the tomb. The doctor could not restrain a groan. "Now it rains," he said; "it rains on him!" Pierre remained motionless, in a kind of awe. In the presence of that falling water, at the thought of the blasts which must rush at winter time through the glassless windows, that corpse appeared to him both woeful and tragic. It acquired a fierce grandeur, lying there alone in its splendid marble tomb, amidst all the rubbish, at the bottom of the crumbling ruins of its own church. It was the solitary guardian, the dead sleeper and dreamer watching over the empty spaces, open to all the birds of night. It was the mute, obstinate, eternal protest, and it was expectation also. Cure Peyramale, stretched in his coffin, having all eternity before him to acquire patience, there, without weariness, awaited the workmen who would perhaps return thither some fine April morning. If they should take ten years to do so, he would be there, and if it should take them a century, he would be there still. He was waiting for the rotten scaffoldings up above, among the grass of the nave, to be resuscitated like the dead, and by the force of some miracle to stand upright once more, along the walls. He was waiting, too, for the moss-covered engine to become all at once burning hot, recover its breath, and raise the timbers for the roof. His beloved enterprise, his gigantic building, was crumbling about his head, and yet with joined hands and closed eyes he was watching over its ruins, watching and waiting too. In a low voice, the doctor finished the cruel story, telling how, after persecuting Cure Peyramale and his work, they persecuted his tomb. There had formerly been a bust of the Cure there, and pious hands had kept a little lamp burning before it. But a woman had one day fallen with her face to the earth, saying that she had perceived the soul of the deceased, and thereupon the Fathers of the Grotto were in a flutter. Were miracles about to take place there? The sick already passed entire days there, seated on the benches before the tomb. Others knelt down, kissed the marble, and prayed to be cured. And at this a feeling of terror arose: supposing they should be cured, supposing the Grotto should find a competitor in this martyr, lying all alone, amidst the old tools left there by the masons! The Bishop of Tarbes, informed and influenced, thereupon published the mandamus which placed the church under interdict, forbidding all worship there and all pilgrimages and processions to the tomb of the former priest of Lourdes. As in the case of Bernadette, his memory was proscribed, his portrait could be found, officially, nowhere. In the same manner as they had shown themselves merciless against the living man, so did the Fathers prove merciless to his memory. They pursued him even in his tomb. They alone, again nowadays, prevented the works of the church from being proceeded with, by raising continual obstacles, and absolutely refusing to share their rich harvest of alms. And they seemed to be waiting for the winter rains to fall and complete the work of destruction, for the vaulted roof of the crypt, the walls, the whole gigantic pile to crumble down upon the tomb of the martyr, upon the body of the defeated man, so that he might be buried beneath them and at last pounded to dust! "Ah!" murmured the doctor, "I, who knew him so valiant, so enthusiastic in all noble labour! Now, you see it, it rains, it rains on him!" Painfully, he set himself on his knees and found relief in a long prayer. Pierre, who could not pray, remained standing. Compassionate sorrow was overflowing from his heart. He listened to the heavy drops from the roof as one by one they broke on the tomb with a slow rhythmical pit-a-pat, which seemed to be numbering the seconds of eternity, amidst the profound silence. And he reflected on the eternal misery of this world, on the choice which suffering makes in always falling on the best. The two great makers of Our Lady of Lourdes, Bernadette and Cure Peyramale, rose up in the flesh again before him, like woeful victims, tortured during their lives and exiled after their deaths. That alone, indeed, would have completed within him the destruction of his faith; for the Bernadette, whom he had just found at the end of his researches, was but a human sister, loaded with every dolour. But none the less he preserved a tender brotherly veneration for her, and two tears slowly trickled down his cheeks. 
8515	----	and David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] THE THREE CITIES LOURDES BY EMILE ZOLA Volume 5. TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY THE FIFTH DAY I EGOTISM AND LOVE AGAIN that night Pierre, at the Hotel of the Apparitions, was unable to obtain a wink of sleep. After calling at the hospital to inquire after Marie, who, since her return from the procession, had been soundly enjoying the delicious, restoring sleep of a child, he had gone to bed himself feeling anxious at the prolonged absence of M. de Guersaint. He had expected him at latest at dinner-time, but probably some mischance had detained him at Gavarnie; and he thought how disappointed Marie would be if her father were not there to embrace her the first thing in the morning. With a man like M. de Guersaint, so pleasantly heedless and so hare-brained, everything was possible, every fear might be realised. Perhaps this anxiety had at first sufficed to keep Pierre awake in spite of his great fatigue; but afterwards the nocturnal noises of the hotel had really assumed unbearable proportions. The morrow, Tuesday, was the day of departure, the last day which the national pilgrimage would spend at Lourdes, and the pilgrims no doubt were making the most of their time, coming from the Grotto and returning thither in the middle of the night, endeavouring as it were to force the grace of Heaven by their commotion, and apparently never feeling the slightest need of repose. The doors slammed, the floors shook, the entire building vibrated beneath the disorderly gallop of a crowd. Never before had the walls reverberated with such obstinate coughs, such thick, husky voices. Thus Pierre, a prey to insomnia, tossed about on his bed and continually rose up, beset with the idea that the noise he heard must have been made by M. de Guersaint who had returned. For some minutes he would listen feverishly; but he could only hear the extraordinary sounds of the passage, amid which he could distinguish nothing precisely. Was it the priest, the mother and her three daughters, or the old married couple on his left, who were fighting with the furniture? or was it rather the larger family, or the single gentleman, or the young single woman on his right, whom some incomprehensible occurrences were leading into adventures? At one moment he jumped from his bed, wishing to explore his absent friend's empty room, as he felt certain that some deeds of violence were taking place in it. But although he listened very attentively when he got there, the only sound he could distinguish was the tender caressing murmur of two voices. Then a sudden recollection of Madame Volmar came to him, and he returned shuddering to bed. At length, when it was broad daylight and Pierre had just fallen asleep, a loud knocking at his door awoke him with a start. This time there could be no mistake, a loud voice broken by sobs was calling "Monsieur l'Abbe! Monsieur l'Abbe! for Heaven's sake wake up!" Surely it must be M. de Guersaint who had been brought back dead, at least. Quite scared, Pierre ran and opened the door, in his night-shirt, and found himself in the presence of his neighbour, M. Vigneron. "Oh! for Heaven's sake, Monsieur l'Abbe, dress yourself at once!" exclaimed the, assistant head-clerk. "Your holy ministry is required." And he began to relate that he had just got up to see the time by his watch on the mantelpiece, when he had heard some most frightful sighs issuing from the adjoining room, where Madame Chaise slept. She had left the communicating door open in order to be more with them, as she pleasantly expressed it. Accordingly he had hastened in, and flung the shutters open so as to admit both light and air. "And what a sight, Monsieur l'Abbe!" he continued. "Our poor aunt lying on her bed, nearly purple in the face already, her mouth wide open in a vain effort to breathe, and her hands fumbling with the sheet. It's her heart complaint, you know. Come, come at once, Monsieur l'Abbe, and help her, I implore you!" Pierre, utterly bewildered, could find neither his breeches nor his cassock. "Of course, of course I'll come with you," said he. "But I have not what is necessary for administering the last sacraments." M. Vigneron had assisted him to dress, and was now stooping down looking for his slippers. "Never mind," he said, "the mere sight of you will assist her in her last moments, if Heaven has this affliction in store for us. Here! put these on your feet, and follow me at once--oh! at once!" He went off like a gust of wind and plunged into the adjoining room. All the doors remained wide open. The young priest, who followed him, noticed nothing in the first room, which was in an incredible state of disorder, beyond the half-naked figure of little Gustave, who sat on the sofa serving him as a bed, motionless, very pale, forgotten, and shivering amid this drama of inexorable death. Open bags littered the floor, the greasy remains of supper soiled the table, the parents' bed seemed devastated by the catastrophe, its coverlets torn off and lying on the floor. And almost immediately afterwards he caught sight of the mother, who had hastily enveloped herself in an old yellow dressing-gown, standing with a terrified look in the inner room. "Well, my love, well, my love?" repeated M. Vigneron, in stammering accents. With a wave of her hand and without uttering a word Madame Vigneron drew their attention to Madame Chaise, who lay motionless, with her head sunk in the pillow and her hands stiffened and twisted. She was blue in the face, and her mouth gaped, as though with the last great gasp that had come from her. Pierre bent over her. Then in a low voice he said: "She is dead!" Dead! The word rang through the room where a heavy silence reigned, and the husband and wife looked at each other in amazement, bewilderment. So it was over? The aunt had died before Gustave, and the youngster inherited her five hundred thousand francs. How many times had they dwelt on that dream; whose sudden realisation dumfounded them? How many times had despair overcome them when they feared that the poor child might depart before her? Dead! Good heavens! was it their fault? Had they really prayed to the Blessed Virgin for this? She had shown herself so good to them that they trembled at the thought that they had not been able to express a wish without its being granted. In the death of the chief clerk, so suddenly carried off so that they might have his place, they had already recognised the powerful hand of Our Lady of Lourdes. Had she again loaded them with favours, listening even to the unconscious dreams of their desire? Yet they had never desired anyone's death; they were worthy people incapable of any bad action, loving their relations, fulfilling their religious duties, going to confession, partaking of the communion like other people without any ostentation. Whenever they thought of those five hundred thousand francs, of their son who might be the first to go, and of the annoyance it would be to them to see another and far less worthy nephew inherit that fortune, it was merely in the innermost recesses of their hearts, in short, quite innocently and naturally. Certainly they /had/ thought of it when they were at the Grotto, but was not the Blessed Virgin wisdom itself? Did she not know far better than ourselves what she ought to do for the happiness of both the living and the dead? Then Madame Vigneron in all sincerity burst into tears and wept for the sister whom she loved so much. "Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe," she said, "I saw her expire; she passed away before my eyes. What a misfortune that you were not here sooner to receive her soul! She died without a priest; your presence would have consoled her so much." A prey also to emotion, his eyes full of tears, Vigneron sought to console his wife. "Your sister was a saint," said he; "she communicated again yesterday morning, and you need have no anxiety concerning her; her soul has gone straight to heaven. No doubt, if Monsieur l'Abbe had been here in time she would have been glad to see him. But what would you? Death was quicker. I went at once, and really there is nothing for us to reproach ourselves with." Then, turning towards the priest, he added "Monsieur l'Abbe, it was her excessive piety which certainly hastened her end. Yesterday, at the Grotto, she had a bad attack, which was a warning. And in spite of her fatigue she obstinately followed the procession afterwards. I thought then that she could not last long. Yet, out of delicacy, one did not like to say anything to her, for fear of frightening her." Pierre gently knelt down and said the customary prayers, with that human emotion which was his nearest approach to faith in the presence of eternal life and eternal death, both so pitiful. Then, as he remained kneeling a little longer, he overheard snatches of the conversation around him. Little Gustave, forgotten on his couch amid the disorder of the other room, must have lost patience, for he had begun to cry and call out, "Mamma! mamma! mamma!" At length Madame Vigneron went to quiet him, and it occurred to her to carry him in her arms to kiss his poor aunt for the last time. But at first he struggled and refused, crying so much that M. Vigneron was obliged to interfere and try to make him ashamed of himself. What! he who was never frightened of anything! who bore suffering with the courage of a grown-up man! And to think it was a question of kissing his poor aunt, who had always been so kind, whose last thought must most certainly have been for him! "Give him to me," said he to his wife; "he's going to be good." Gustave ended by clinging to his father's neck. He came shivering in his night-shirt, displaying his wretched little body devoured by scrofula. It seemed indeed as though the miraculous water of the piscinas, far from curing him, had freshened the sore on his back; whilst his scraggy leg hung down inertly like a dry stick. "Kiss her," resumed M. Vigneron. The child leant forward and kissed his aunt on the forehead. It was not death which upset him and caused him to struggle. Since he had been in the room he had been looking at the dead woman with an air of quiet curiosity. He did not love her, he had suffered on her account so long. He had the ideas and feelings of a man, and the weight of them was stifling him as, like his complaint, they developed and became more acute. He felt full well that he was too little, that children ought not to understand what only concerns their elders. However, his father, seating himself out of the way, kept him on his knee, whilst his mother closed the window and lit the two candles on the mantelpiece. "Ah! my poor dear," murmured M. Vigneron, feeling that he must say something, "it's a cruel loss for all of us. Our trip is now completely spoilt; this is our last day, for we start this afternoon. And the Blessed Virgin, too, was showing herself so kind to us." However, seeing his son's surprised look, a look of infinite sadness and reproach, he hastened to add: "Yes, of course, I know that she hasn't yet quite cured you. But we must not despair of her kindness. She loves us so well, she shows us so many favours that she will certainly end by curing you, since that is now the only favour that remains for her to grant us." Madame Vigneron, who was listening, drew near and said: "How happy we should have been to have returned to Paris all three hale and hearty! Nothing is ever perfect!" "I say!" suddenly observed Monsieur Vigneron, "I sha'n't be able to leave with you this afternoon, on account of the formalities which have to be gone through. I hope that my return ticket will still be available to-morrow!" They were both getting over the frightful shock, feeling a sense of relief in spite of their affection for Madame Chaise; and, in fact, they were already forgetting her, anxious above all things to leave Lourdes as soon as possible, as though the principal object of their journey had been attained. A decorous, unavowed delight was slowly penetrating them. "When I get back to Paris there will be so much for me to do," continued M. Vigneron. "I, who now only long for repose! All the same I shall remain my three years at the Ministry, until I can retire, especially now that I am certain of the retiring pension of chief clerk. But afterwards--oh! afterwards I certainly hope to enjoy life a bit. Since this money has come to us I shall purchase the estate of Les Billottes, that superb property down at my native place which I have always been dreaming of. And I promise you that I sha'n't find time hanging heavy on my hands in the midst of my horses, my dogs, and my flowers!" Little Gustave was still on his father's knee, his night-shirt tucked up, his whole wretched misshapen body shivering, and displaying the scragginess of a slowly dying child. When he perceived that his father, now full of his dream of an opulent life, no longer seemed to notice that he was there, he gave one of his enigmatical smiles, in which melancholy was tinged with malice. "But what about me, father?" he asked. M. Vigneron started, like one aroused from sleep, and did not at first seem to understand. "You, little one? You'll be with us, of course!" But Gustave gave him a long, straight look, without ceasing to smile with his artful, though woeful lips. "Oh! do you think so?" he asked. "Of course I think so! You'll be with us, and it will be very nice to be with us." Uneasy, stammering, unable to find the proper words, M. Vigneron felt a chill come over him when his son shrugged his skinny shoulders with an air of philosophical disdain and answered: "Oh, no! I shall be dead." And then the terrified father was suddenly able to detect in the child's deep glance the glance of a man who was very aged, very knowing in all things, acquainted with all the abominations of life through having gone through them. What especially alarmed him was the abrupt conviction that this child had always seen into the innermost recesses of his heart, even farther than the things he dared to acknowledge to himself. He could recall that when the little sufferer had been but a baby in his cradle his eyes would frequently be fixed upon his own--and even then those eyes had been rendered so sharp by suffering, endowed, too, with such an extraordinary power of divination, that they had seemed able to dive into the unconscious thoughts buried in the depths of his brain. And by a singular counter-effect all the things that he had never owned to himself he now found in his child's eyes--he beheld them, read them there, against his will. The story of his cupidity lay unfolded before him, his anger at having such a sorry son, his anguish at the idea that Madame Chaise's fortune depended upon such a fragile existence, his eager desire that she might make haste and die whilst the youngster was still there, in order that he might finger the legacy. It was simply a question of days, this duel as to which should go off first. And then, at the end, it still meant death--the youngster must in his turn disappear, whilst he, the father, alone pocketed the cash, and lived joyfully to a good old age. And these frightful things shone forth so clearly from the keen, melancholy, smiling eyes of the poor condemned child, passed from son to father with such evident distinctness, that for a moment it seemed to them that they were shouting them aloud. However, M. Vigneron struggled against it all, and, averting his head, began energetically protesting: "How! You'll be dead? What an idea! It's absurd to have such ideas as that!" Meantime, Madame Vigneron was sobbing. "You wicked child," she gasped; "how can you make us so unhappy, when we already have such a cruel loss to deplore?" Gustave had to kiss them, and to promise them that he would live for their sakes. Yet he did not cease smiling, conscious as he was that a lie is necessary when one does not wish to be too miserable, and quite prepared, moreover, to leave his parents happy behind him, since even the Blessed Virgin herself was powerless to grant him in this world the little happy lot to which each creature should be born. His mother took him back to bed, and Pierre at length rose up, just as M. Vigneron had finished arranging the chamber of death in a suitable manner. "You'll excuse me, won't you, Monsieur l'Abbe?" said he, accompanying the young priest to the door. "I'm not quite myself. Well, it's an unpleasant time to go through. I must get over it somehow, however." When Pierre got into the passage he stopped for a moment, listening to a sound of voices which was ascending the stairs. He had just been thinking of M. de Guersaint again, and imagined that he could recognise his voice. However, whilst he stood there waiting, an incident occurred which caused him intense discomfort. The door of the room next to M. de Guersaint's softly opened and a woman, clad in black, slipped into the passage. As she turned, she found herself face to face with Pierre, in such a fashion that it was impossible for them to pretend not to recognise each other. The woman was Madame Volmar. Six o'clock had not yet struck, and she was going off, hoping that nobody would notice her, with the intention of showing herself at the hospital, and there spending this last morning, in order, in some measure, to justify her journey to Lourdes. When she perceived Pierre, she began to tremble, and, at first, could only stammer: "Oh, Monsieur l'Abbe, Monsieur l'Abbe!" Then, noticing that the priest had left his door wide open, she seemed to give way to the fever consuming her, to a need of speaking out, explaining things and justifying herself. With her face suffused by a rush of blood she entered the young man's room, whither he had to follow her, greatly disturbed by this strange adventure. And, as he still left the door open, it was she who, in her desire to confide her sorrow and her sin to him, begged that he would close it. "Oh! I pray you, Monsieur l'Abbe," said she, "do not judge me too harshly." He made a gesture as though to reply that he did not allow himself the right to pass judgment upon her. "But yes, but yes," she responded; "I know very well that you are acquainted with my misfortune. You saw me once in Paris behind the church of La Trinite, and the other day you recognised me on the balcony here! You were aware that I was there--in that room. But if you only knew--ah, if you only knew!" Her lips were quivering, and tears were welling into her eyes. As he looked at her he was surprised by the extraordinary beauty transfiguring her face. This woman, invariably clad in black, extremely simple, with never a jewel, now appeared to him in all the brilliancy of her passion; no longer drawing back into the gloom, no longer seeking to bedim the lustre of her eyes, as was her wont. She, who at first sight did not seem pretty, but too dark and slender, with drawn features, a large mouth and long nose, assumed, as he now examined her, a troubling charm, a powerful, irresistible beauty. Her eyes especially--her large, magnificent eyes, whose brasiers she usually sought to cover with a veil of indifference--were flaring like torches; and he understood that she should be loved, adored, to madness. "If you only knew, Monsieur l'Abbe," she continued. "If I were only to tell you all that I have suffered. Doubtless you have suspected something of it, since you are acquainted with my mother-in-law and my husband. On the few occasions when you have called on us you cannot but have understood some of the abominable things which go on in my home, though I have always striven to appear happy in my silent little corner. But to live like that for ten years, to have no existence--never to love, never to be loved--no, no, it was beyond my power!" And then she related the whole painful story: her marriage with the diamond merchant, a disastrous, though it seemed an advantageous one; her mother-in-law, with the stern soul of a jailer or an executioner, and her husband, a monster of physical ugliness and mental villainy. They imprisoned her, they did not even allow her to look out of a window. They had beaten her, they had pitilessly assailed her in her tastes, her inclinations, in all her feminine weaknesses. She knew that her husband wandered in his affections, and yet if she smiled to a relative, if she had a flower in her corsage on some rare day of gaiety, he would tear it from her, enter into the most jealous rage, and seize and bruise her wrists whilst shouting the most fearful threats. For years and years she had lived in that hell, hoping, hoping still, having within her such a power of life, such an ardent need of affection, that she continued waiting for happiness, ever thinking, at the faintest breath, that it was about to enter. "I swear to you, Monsieur l'Abbe," said she, "that I could not do otherwise than I have done. I was too unhappy: my whole being longed for someone who would care for me. And when my friend the first time told me that he loved me it was all over--I was his forever. Ah! to be loved, to be spoken to gently, to have someone near you who is always solicitous and amiable; to know that in absence he thinks of you, that there is a heart somewhere in which you live . . . Ah! if it be a crime, Monsieur l'Abbe, I cannot, cannot feel remorse for it. I will not even say that I was urged to it; I simply say that it came to me as naturally as my breath, because it was as necessary to my life!" She had carried her hand to her lips as though to throw a kiss to the world, and Pierre felt deeply disturbed in presence of this lovely woman, who personified all the ardour of human passion, and at the same time a feeling of deep pity began to arise within him. "Poor woman!" he murmured. "It is not to the priest that I am confessing," she resumed; "it is to the man that I am speaking, to a man by whom I should greatly like to be understood. No, I am not a believer: religion has not sufficed me. It is said that some women find contentment in it, a firm protection even against all transgressions. But I have ever felt cold in church, weary unto death. Oh! I know very well that it is wrong to feign piety, to mingle religion with my heart affairs. But what would you? I am forced to it. If you saw me in Paris behind La Trinite it was because that church is the only place to which I am allowed to go alone; and if you find me here at Lourdes it is because, in the whole long year, I have but these three days of happiness and freedom." Again she began to tremble. Hot tears were coursing down her cheeks. A vision of it all arose in Pierre's mind, and, distracted by the thought of the ardent earthly love which possessed this unhappy creature, he again murmured: "Poor woman!" "And, Monsieur l'Abbe," she continued, "think of the hell to which I am about to return! For weeks and months I live my life of martyrdom without complaint. Another year, another year must go by without a day, an hour of happiness! Ah! I am indeed very unhappy, Monsieur l'Abbe, yet do you not think all the same that I am a good woman?" He had been deeply moved by her sincere display of mingled grief and passion. He felt in her the breath of universal desire--a sovereign flame. And his compassion overflowed from his heart, and his words were words of pardon. "Madame," he said, "I pity you and respect you infinitely." Then she spoke no further, but looked at him with her large tear-blurred eyes. And suddenly catching hold of both his hands, she grasped them tightly with her burning fingers. And then she went off, vanishing down the passage as light, as ethereal, as a shadow. However, Pierre suffered from her presence in that room even more acutely after she had departed. He opened the window wide that the fresh air might carry off the breath of passion which she had left there. Already on the Sunday when he had seen her on the balcony he had been seized with terror at the thought that she personified the revenge of the world and the flesh amidst all the mystical exaltation of immaculate Lourdes. And now his terror was returning to him. Love seemed stronger than faith, and perhaps it was only love that was divine. To love, to belong to one another, to create and continue life--was not that the one sole object of nature outside of all social and religious policies? For a moment he was conscious of the abyss before him: his chastity was his last prop, the very dignity of his spoilt life; and he realised that, if after yielding to his reason he also yielded to his flesh, he would be utterly lost. All his pride of purity, all his strength which he had placed in professional rectitude, thereupon returned to him, and he again vowed that he would never be a man, since he had voluntarily cut himself off from among men. Seven o'clock was striking, and Pierre did not go back to bed, but began to wash himself, thoroughly enjoying the cool water, which ended by calming his fever. As he finished dressing, the anxious thought of M. de Guersaint recurred to him on hearing a sound of footsteps in the passage. These steps stopped outside his room and someone knocked. With a feeling of relief he went to open the door, but on doing so exclaimed in great surprise "What, it's you! How is it that you're already up, running about to see people?" Marie stood on the threshold smiling, whilst behind her was Sister Hyacinthe, who had come with her, and who also was smiling, with her lovely, candid eyes. "Ah! my friend," said the girl, "I could not remain in bed. I sprang out directly I saw the sunshine. I had such a longing to walk, to run and jump about like a child, and I begged and implored so much that Sister was good enough to come with me. I think I should have got out through the window if the door had been closed against me." Pierre ushered them in, and an indescribable emotion oppressed him as he heard her jest so gaily and saw her move about so freely with such grace and liveliness. She, good heavens! she whom he had seen for years with lifeless legs and colourless face! Since he had left her the day before at the Basilica she had blossomed into full youth and beauty. One night had sufficed for him to find again, developed it is true, the sweet creature whom he had loved so tenderly, the superb, radiant child whom he had embraced so wildly in the by-gone days behind the flowering hedge, beneath the sun-flecked trees. "How tall and lovely you are, Marie!" said he, in spite of himself. Then Sister Hyacinthe interposed: "Hasn't the Blessed Virgin done things well, Monsieur l'Abbe? When she takes us in hand, you see, she turns us out as fresh as roses and smelling quite as sweet." "Ah!" resumed Marie, "I'm so happy; I feel quite strong and well and spotless, as though I had just been born!" All this was very delicious to Pierre. It seemed to him that the atmosphere was now truly purified of Madame Volmar's presence. Marie filled the room with her candour, with the perfume and brightness of her innocent youth. And yet the joy he felt at the sight of pure beauty and life reflowering was not exempt from sadness. For, after all, the revolt which he had felt in the crypt, the wound of his wrecked life, must forever leave him a bleeding heart. As he gazed upon all that resuscitated grace, as the woman he loved thus reappeared before him in the flower of her youth, he could not but remember that she would never be his, that he belonged no longer to the world, but to the grave. However, he no longer lamented; he experienced a boundless melancholy--a sensation of utter nothingness as he told himself that he was dead, that this dawn of beauty was rising on the tomb in which his manhood slept. It was renunciation, accepted, resolved upon amidst all the desolate grandeur attaching to those lives which are led contrary to nature's law. Then, like the other woman, the impassioned one, Marie took hold of Pierre's hands. But hers were so soft, so fresh, so soothing! She looked at him with so little confusion and a great longing which she dared not express. After a while, however, she summoned up her courage and said: "Will you kiss me, Pierre? It would please me so much." He shuddered, his heart crushed by this last torture. Ah! the kisses of other days--those kisses which had ever lingered on his lips! Never since had he kissed her, and to-day she was like a sister flinging her arms around his neck. She kissed him with a loud smack on both his cheeks, and offering her own, insisted on his doing likewise to her. So twice, in his turn, he embraced her. "I, too, Marie," said he, "am pleased, very pleased, I assure you." And then, overcome by emotion, his courage exhausted, whilst at the same time filled with delight and bitterness, he burst into sobs, weeping with his face buried in his hands, like a child seeking to hide its tears. "Come, come, we must not give way," said Sister Hyacinthe, gaily. "Monsieur l'Abbe would feel too proud if he fancied that we had merely come on his account. M. de Guersaint is about, isn't he?" Marie raised a cry of deep affection. "Ah! my dear father! After all, it's he who'll be most pleased!" Thereupon Pierre had to relate that M. de Guersaint had not returned from his excursion to Gavarnie. His increasing anxiety showed itself while he spoke, although he sought to explain his friend's absence, surmising all sorts of obstacles and unforeseen complications. Marie, however, did not seem afraid, but again laughed, saying that her father never could be punctual. Still she was extremely eager for him to see her walking, to find her on her legs again, resuscitated, in the fresh blossoming of her youth. All at once Sister Hyacinthe, who had gone to lean over the balcony, returned to the room, saying "Here he comes! He's down below, just alighting from his carriage." "Ah!" cried Marie, with the eager playfulness of a school-girl, "let's give him a surprise. Yes, we must hide, and when he's here we'll show ourselves all of a sudden." With these words, she hastily dragged Sister Hyacinthe into the adjoining room. Almost immediately afterwards, M. de Guersaint entered like a whirlwind from the passage, the door communicating with which had been quickly opened by Pierre, and, shaking the young priest's hand, the belated excursionist exclaimed: "Here I am at last! Ah! my friend, you can't have known what to think since four o'clock yesterday, when you expected me back, eh? But you have no idea of the adventures we have had. To begin with, one of the wheels of our landau came off just as we reached Gavarnie; then, yesterday evening--though we managed to start off again--a frightful storm detained us all night long at Saint-Sauveur. I wasn't able to sleep a wink." Then, breaking off, he inquired, "And you, are you all right?" "I wasn't able to sleep either," said the priest; "they made such a noise in the hotel." But M. de Guersaint had already started off again: "All the same, it was delightful. I must tell you; you can't imagine it. I was with three delightful churchmen. Abbe des Hermoises is certainly the most charming man I know. Oh! we did laugh--we did laugh!" Then he again stopped, to inquire, "And how's my daughter?" Thereupon a clear laugh behind him caused him to turn round, and he remained with his mouth wide open. Marie was there, and was walking, with a look of rapturous delight upon her face, which was beaming with health. He had never for a moment doubted the miracle, and was not in the least surprised that it had taken place, for he had returned with the conviction that everything would end well, and that he would surely find her cured. But what so utterly astounded him was the prodigious spectacle which he had not foreseen: his daughter, looking so beautiful, so divine, in her little black gown!--his daughter, who had not even brought a hat with her, and merely had a piece of lace tied over her lovely fair hair!--his daughter, full of life, blooming, triumphant, similar to all the daughters of all the fathers whom he had envied for so many years! "O my child! O my child!" he exclaimed. And, as she had flown into his arms, he pressed her to his heart, and then they fell upon their knees together. Everything disappeared from before them in a radiant effusion of faith and love. This heedless, hare-brained man, who fell asleep instead of accompanying his daughter to the Grotto, who went off to Gavarnie on the day the Blessed Virgin was to cure her, overflowed with such paternal affection, with such Christian faith so exalted by thankfulness, that for a moment he appeared sublime. "O Jesus! O Mary! let me thank you for having restored my child to me! O my child, we shall never have breath enough, soul enough, to render thanks to Mary and Jesus for the great happiness they have vouchsafed us! O my child, whom they have resuscitated, O my child, whom they have made so beautiful again, take my heart to offer it to them with your own! I am yours, I am theirs eternally, O my beloved child, my adored child!" Kneeling before the open window they both, with uplifted eyes, gazed ardently on heaven. The daughter had rested her head on her father's shoulder; whilst he had passed an arm round her waist. They had become one. Tears slowly trickled down their enraptured faces, which were smiling with superhuman felicity, whilst they stammered together disconnected expressions of gratitude. "O Jesus, we give Thee thanks! O Holy Mother of Jesus, we give thee thanks! We love you, we adore you both. You have rejuvenated the best blood in our veins; it is yours, it circulates only for you. O All-powerful Mother, O Divine and Well-beloved Son, behold a daughter and a father who bless you, who prostrate themselves with joy at your feet." So affecting was this mingling of two beings, happy at last after so many dark days, this happiness, which could but stammer as though still tinged with suffering, that Pierre was again moved to tears. But this time they were soothing tears which relieved his heart. Ah! poor pitiable humanity! how pleasant it was to see it somewhat consoled and enraptured! and what did it matter, after all, if its great joys of a few seconds' duration sprang from the eternal illusion! Was not the whole of humanity, pitiable humanity, saved by love, personified by that poor childish man who suddenly became sublime because he found his daughter resuscitated? Standing a little aside, Sister Hyacinthe was also weeping, her heart very full, full of human emotion which she had never before experienced, she who had known no other parents than the Almighty and the Blessed Virgin. Silence had now fallen in this room full of so much tearful fraternity. And it was she who spoke the first, when the father and the daughter, overcome with emotion, at length rose up. "Now, mademoiselle," she said, "we must be quick and get back to the hospital." But they all protested. M. de Guersaint wished to keep his daughter with him, and Marie's eyes expressed an eager desire, a longing to enjoy life, to walk and ramble through the whole vast world. "Oh! no, no!" said the father, "I won't give her back to you. We'll each have a cup of milk, for I'm dying of thirst; then we'll go out and walk about. Yes, yes, both of us! She shall take my arm, like a little woman!" Sister Hyacinthe laughed again. "Very well!" said she, "I'll leave her with you, and tell the ladies that you've stolen her from me. But for my own part I must be off. You've no idea what an amount of work we have to get through at the hospital if we are to be ready in time to leave: there are all the patients and things to be seen to; and all is in the greatest confusion!" "So to-day's really Tuesday, and we leave this afternoon?" asked Monsieur de Guersaint, already absent-minded again. "Of course we do, and don't forget! The white train starts at 3.40. And if you're sensible you'll bring your daughter back early so that she may have a little rest." Marie walked with the Sister to the door, saying "Be easy, I will be very good. Besides, I want to go back to the Grotto, to thank the Blessed Virgin once more." When they found themselves all three alone in the little room full of sunshine, it was delicious. Pierre called the servant and told her to bring them some milk, some chocolate, and cakes, in fact the nicest things he could think of. And although Marie had already broken her fast, she ate again, so great an appetite had come upon her since the night before. They drew the table to the window and made quite a feast amidst the keen air from the mountains, whilst the hundred bells of Lourdes, proclaimed with flying peals the glory of that radiant day. They chattered and laughed, and the young woman told her father the story of the miracle, with all the oft-repeated details. She related, too, how she had left her box at the Basilica, and how she had slept twelve hours without stirring. Then M. de Guersaint on his side wished to relate his excursion, but got mixed and kept coming back to the miracle. Finally, it appeared that the Cirque de Gavarnie was something colossal. Only, when you looked at it from a distance it seemed small, for you lost all sense of proportion. The gigantic snow-covered tiers of cliffs, the topmost ridge standing out against the sky with the outlines of some cyclopean fortress with razed keep and jagged ramparts, the great cascade, whose ceaseless jet seemed so slow when in reality it must have rushed down with a noise like thunder, the whole immensity, the forests on right and left, the torrents and the landslips, looked as though they might have been held in the palm of one's hand, when one gazed upon them from the village market-place. And what had impressed him most, what he repeatedly alluded to, were the strange figures described by the snow, which had remained up there amongst the rocks. Amongst others was a huge crucifix, a white cross, several thousand yards in length, which you might have thought had been thrown across the amphitheatre from one end to the other. However, all at once M. de Guersaint broke off to inquire: "By the way, what's happening at our neighbour's? As I came up-stairs a little while ago I met Monsieur Vigneron running about like a madman; and, through the open doorway of their room, I fancied I saw Madame Vigneron looking very red. Has their son Gustave had another attack?" Pierre had quite forgotten Madame Chaise lying dead on the other side of the partition. He seemed to feel a cold breath pass over him. "No, no," he answered, "the child is all right." And he said no more, preferring to remain silent. Why spoil this happy hour of new life and reconquered youth by mingling with it the image of death? However, from that moment he himself could not cease thinking of the proximity of nothingness. And he thought, too, of that other room where Madame Volmar's friend was now alone, stifling his sobs with his lips pressed upon a pair of gloves which he had stolen from her. All the sounds of the hotel were now becoming audible again--the coughs, the sighs, the indistinct voices, the continual slamming of doors, the creaking of the floors beneath the great accumulation of travellers, and all the stir in the passages, along which flying skirts were sweeping, and families galloping distractedly amidst the hurry-scurry of departure. "On my word! you'll do yourself an injury," all at once cried Monsieur de Guersaint, on seeing his daughter take up another cake. Marie was quite merry too. But at a sudden thought tears came into her eyes, and she exclaimed: "Ah! how glad I am! but also how sorry when I think that everybody is not as pleased as myself." II PLEASANT HOURS IT was eight o'clock, and Marie was so impatient that she could not keep still, but continued going to the window, as if she wished to inhale all the air of the vast, expanse and the immense sky. Ah! what a pleasure to be able to run about the streets, across the squares, to go everywhere as far as she might wish. And to show how strong she was, to have the pride of walking leagues in the presence of everyone, now that the Blessed Virgin had cured her! It was an irresistible impulsion, a flight of her entire being, her blood, and her heart. However, just as she was setting out she made up her mind that her first visit with her father ought to be to the Grotto, where both of them had to thank Our Lady of Lourdes. Then they would be free; they would have two long hours before them, and might walk wherever they chose, before she returned to lunch and pack up her few things at the hospital. "Well, is everyone ready?" repeated M. de Guersaint. "Shall we make a move?" Pierre took his hat, and all three went down-stairs, talking very loud and laughing on the staircase, like boisterous school-boys going for their holidays. They had almost reached the street, when at the doorway Madame Majeste rushed forward. She had evidently been waiting for them to go out. "Ah! mademoiselle; ah! gentlemen, allow me to congratulate you," she said. "We have heard of the extraordinary favour that has been granted you; we are so happy, so much flattered, when the Blessed Virgin is pleased to select one of our customers!" Her dry, harsh face was melting with amiability, and she observed the miraculously healed girl with the fondest of eyes. Then she impulsively called her husband, who was passing: "Look, my dear! It's mademoiselle; it's mademoiselle." Majeste's clean-shaven face, puffed out with yellow fat, assumed a happy and grateful expression. "Really, mademoiselle, I cannot tell you how honoured we feel," said he. "We shall never forget that your papa put up at our place. It has already excited the envy of many people." While he spoke Madame Majeste stopped the other travellers who were going out, and with a sign summoned the families already seated in the dining-room; indeed, she would have called in the whole street if they had given her time, to show that she had in her house the miracle at which all Lourdes had been marvelling since the previous day. People ended by collecting there, a crowd gathered little by little, while she whispered in the ear of each "Look! that's she; the young party, you know, the young party who--" But all at once she exclaimed: "I'll go and fetch Apolline from the shop; I must show mademoiselle to Apolline." Thereupon, however, Majeste, in a very dignified way, restrained her. "No," he said, "leave Apolline; she has three ladies to serve already. Mademoiselle and these gentlemen will certainly not leave Lourdes without making a few purchases. The little souvenirs that one carries away with one are so pleasant to look at later on! And our customers make a point of never buying elsewhere than here, in the shop which we have annexed to the hotel." "I have already offered my services," added Madame Majeste, "and I renew them. Apolline will be so happy to show mademoiselle all our prettiest articles, at prices, too, which are incredibly low! Oh! there are some delightful things, delightful!" Marie was becoming impatient at being detained in this manner, and Pierre was suffering from the increasing curiosity which they were arousing. As for M. de Guersaint, he enjoyed this popularity and triumph of his daughter immensely, and promised to return. "Certainly," said he, "we will purchase a few little knick-knacks. Some souvenirs for ourselves, and some presents that we shall have to make, but later on, when we come back." At last they escaped and descended the Avenue de la Grotte. The weather was again superb after the storms of the two preceding nights. Cooled by the rain, the morning air was delicious amidst the gaiety which the bright sun shed around. A busy crowd, well pleased with life, was already hurrying along the pavements. And what pleasure it all was for Marie, to whom everything seemed new, charming, inappreciable! In the morning she had had to allow Raymonde to lend her a pair of boots, for she had taken good care not to put any in her portmanteau, superstitiously fearing that they might bring her bad luck. However, Raymonde's boots fitted her admirably, and she listened with childish delight to the little heels tapping merrily on the flagstones. And she did not remember having ever seen houses so white, trees so green, and passers-by so happy. All her senses seemed holiday-making, endowed with a marvellously delicate sensibility; she heard music, smelt distant perfumes, savoured the air greedily, as though it were some delicious fruit. But what she considered, above all, so nice, so charming, was to walk along in this wise on her father's arm. She had never done so before, although she had felt the desire for years, as for one of those impossible pleasures with which people occupy their minds when invalided. And now her dream was realised and her heart beat with joy. She pressed against her father, and strove to walk very upright and look very handsome, so as to do him honour. And he was quite proud, as happy as she was, showing, exhibiting her, overcome with joy at the thought that she belonged to him, that she was his blood, his flesh, his daughter, henceforth beaming with youth and health. As they were all three crossing the Plateau de la Merlasse, already obstructed by a band of candle and bouquet sellers running after the pilgrims, M. de Guersaint exclaimed, "We are surely not going to the Grotto empty-handed!" Pierre, who was walking on the other side of Marie, himself brightened by her merry humour, thereupon stopped, and they were at once surrounded by a crowd of female hawkers, who with eager fingers thrust their goods into their faces. "My beautiful young lady! My good gentleman! Buy of me, of me, of me!" Such was the onslaught that it became necessary to struggle in order to extricate oneself. M. de Guersaint ended by purchasing the largest nosegay he could see--a bouquet of white marguerites, as round and hard as a cabbage--from a handsome, fair-haired, well developed girl of twenty, who was extremely bold both in look and manner. It only cost twenty sons, and he insisted on paying for it out of his own little purse, somewhat abashed meantime by the girl's unblushing effrontery. Then Pierre in his turn settled for the three candles which Marie had taken from an old woman, candles at two francs each, a very reasonable price, as she repeatedly said. And on being paid, the old creature, who had an angular face, covetous eyes, and a nose like the beak of a bird of prey, returned profuse and mellifluous thanks: "May Our Lady of Lourdes bless you, my beautiful young lady! May she cure you of your complaints, you and yours!" This enlivened them again, and they set out once more, all three laughing, amused like children at the idea that the good woman's wish had already been accomplished. At the Grotto Marie wished to file off at once, in order to offer the bouquet and candles herself before even kneeling down. There were not many people there as yet, and having gone to the end of the line their turn came after waiting some three or four minutes. And with what enraptured glances did she then examine everything--the altar of engraved silver, the harmonium-organ, the votive offerings, the candle-holders, streaming with wax blazing in broad daylight. She was now inside that Grotto which she had hitherto only seen from her box of misery; she breathed there as in Paradise itself, steeped rapturously in a pleasant warmth and odour, which slightly oppressed her. When she had placed the tapers at the bottom of the large basket, and had raised herself on tiptoe to fix the bouquet on one of the spears of the iron railing, she imprinted a long kiss upon the rock, below the statue of the Blessed Virgin, at the very spot, indeed, which millions of lips had already polished. And the stone received a kiss of love in which she put forth all the strength of her gratitude, a kiss with which her heart melted. When she was once more outside, Marie prostrated and humbled herself in an almost endless act of thanksgiving. Her father also had knelt down near her, and mingled the fervour of his gratitude with hers. But he could not remain doing the same thing for long. Little by little he became uneasy, and ended by bending down to his daughter's ear to tell her that he had a call to make which he had previously forgotten. Assuredly the best course would be for her to remain where she was, praying, and waiting for him. While she completed her devotions he would hurry along and get his troublesome errand over; and then they might walk about at ease wheresoever they liked. She did not understand him, did not even hear him, but simply nodded her head, promising that she would not move, and then such tender faith again took possession of her that her eyes, fixed on the white statue of the Virgin, filled with tears. When M. de Guersaint had joined Pierre, who had remained a short distance off, he gave him the following explanation. "My dear fellow," he said, "it's a matter of conscience; I formally promised the coachman who drove us to Gavarnie that I would see his master and tell him the real cause of our delay. You know whom I mean--the hairdresser on the Place du Marcadal. And, besides, I want to get shaved." Pierre, who felt uneasy at this proposal, had to give way in face of the promise that they would be back within a quarter of an hour. Only, as the distance seemed long, he on his side insisted on taking a trap which was standing at the bottom of the Plateau de la Merlasse. It was a sort of greenish cabriolet, and its driver, a fat fellow of about thirty, with the usual Basque cap on his head, was smoking a cigarette whilst waiting to be hired. Perched sideways on the seat with his knees wide apart, he drove them on with the tranquil indifference of a well-fed man who considers himself the master of the street. "We will keep you," said Pierre as he alighted, when they had reached the Place du Marcadal. "Very well, very well, Monsieur l'Abbe! I'll wait for you!" And then, leaving his lean horse in the hot sun, the driver went to chat and laugh with a strong, dishevelled servant-girl who was washing a dog in the basin of the neighbouring fountain. Cazaban, as it happened, was just then on the threshold of his shop, the lofty windows and pale green painting of which enlivened the dull Place, which was so deserted on week-days. When he was not pressed with work he delighted to parade in this manner, standing between his two windows, which pots of pomatum and bottles of perfumery decorated with bright shades of colour. He at once recognised the gentlemen. "Very flattered, very much honoured. Pray walk in, I beg of you," he said. Then, at the first words which M. de Guersaint said to him to excuse the man who had driven him to Gavarnie, he showed himself well disposed. Of course it was not the man's fault; he could not prevent wheels coming to pieces, or storms falling. So long as the travellers did not complain all was well. "Oh!" thereupon exclaimed M. de Guersaint, "it's a magnificent country, never to be forgotten." "Well, monsieur, as our neighbourhood pleases you, you must come and see us again; we don't ask anything better," said Cazaban; and, on the architect seating himself in one of the arm-chairs and asking to be shaved, he began to bustle about. His assistant was still absent, running errands for the pilgrims whom he lodged, a whole family, who were taking a case of chaplets, plaster Virgins, and framed engravings away with them. You heard a confused tramping of feet and violent bursts of conversation coming from the first floor, all the helter-skelter of people whom the approaching departure and the packing of purchases lying hither and thither drove almost crazy. In the adjoining dining-room, the door of which had remained open, two children were draining the dregs of some cups of chocolate which stood about amidst the disorder of the breakfast service. The whole of the house had been let, entirely given over, and now had come the last hours of this invasion which compelled the hairdresser and his wife to seek refuge in the narrow cellar, where they slept on a small camp-bed. While Cazaban was rubbing M. de Guersaint's cheeks with soap-suds, the architect questioned him. "Well, are you satisfied with the season?" "Certainly, monsieur, I can't complain. As you hear, my travellers are leaving to-day, but I am expecting others to-morrow morning; barely sufficient time for a sweep out. It will be the same up to October." Then, as Pierre remained standing, walking about the shop and looking at the walls with an air of impatience, he turned round politely and said: "Pray be seated, Monsieur l'Abbe; take a newspaper. It will not be long." The priest having thanked him with a nod, and refusing to sit down, the hairdresser, whose tongue was ever itching to talk, continued: "Oh! as for myself, I am always busy, my house is renowned for the cleanliness of the beds and the excellence of the fare. Only the town is not satisfied. Ah, no! I may even say that I have never known so much discontent here." He became silent for a moment, and shaved his customer's left cheek; then again pausing in his work he suddenly declared with a cry, wrung from him by conviction, "The Fathers of the Grotto are playing with fire, monsieur, that is all I have to say." From that moment, however, the vent-plug was withdrawn, and he talked and talked and talked again. His big eyes rolled in his long face with prominent cheek-bones and sunburnt complexion sprinkled with red, while the whole of his nervous little body continued on the jump, agitated by his growing exuberance of speech and gesture. He returned to his former indictment, and enumerated all the many grievances that the old town had against the Fathers. The hotel-keepers complained; the dealers in religious fancy articles did not take half the amount they ought to have realised; and, finally, the new town monopolised both the pilgrims and the cash; there was now no possibility for anyone but the keepers of the lodging-houses, hotels, and shops open in the neighbourhood of the Grotto to make any money whatever. It was a merciless struggle, a deadly hostility increasing from day to day, the old city losing a little of its life each season, and assuredly destined to disappear,--to be choked, assassinated, by the young town. Ah! their dirty Grotto! He would rather have his feet cut off than tread there. Wasn't it heart-rending, that knick-knack shop which they had stuck beside it? A shameful thing, at which a bishop had shown himself so indignant that it was said he had written to the Pope! He, Cazaban, who flattered himself with being a freethinker and a Republican of the old days, who already under the Empire had voted for the Opposition candidates, assuredly had the right to declare that he did not believe in their dirty Grotto, and that he did not care a fig for it! "Look here, monsieur," he continued; "I am going to tell you a fact. My brother belongs to the municipal council, and it's through him that I know it. I must tell you first of all that we now have a Republican municipal council, which is much worried by the demoralisation of the town. You can no longer go out at night without meeting girls in the streets--you know, those candle hawkers! They gad about with the drivers who come here when the season commences, and swell the suspicious floating population which comes no one knows whence. And I must also explain to you the position of the Fathers towards the town. When they purchased the land at the Grotto they signed an agreement by which they undertook not to engage in any business there. Well, they have opened a shop in spite of their signature. Is not that an unfair rivalry, unworthy of honest people? So the new council decided on sending them a deputation to insist on the agreement being respected, and enjoining them to close their shop at once. What do you think they answered, monsieur? Oh! what they have replied twenty times before, what they will always answer, when they are reminded of their engagements: 'Very well, we consent to keep them, but we are masters at our own place, and we'll close the Grotto!'" He raised himself up, his razor in the air, and, repeating his words, his eyes dilated by the enormity of the thing, he said, "'We'll close the Grotto.'" Pierre, who was continuing his slow walk, suddenly stopped and said in his face, "Well! the municipal council had only to answer, 'Close it.'" At this Cazaban almost choked; the blood rushed to his face, he was beside himself, and stammered out "Close the Grotto?--Close the Grotto?" "Certainly! As the Grotto irritates you and rends your heart; as it's a cause of continual warfare, injustice, and corruption. Everything would be over, we should hear no more about it. That would really be a capital solution, and if the council had the power it would render you a service by forcing the Fathers to carry out their threat." As Pierre went on speaking, Cazaban's anger subsided. He became very calm and somewhat pale, and in the depths of his big eyes the priest detected an expression of increasing uneasiness. Had he not gone too far in his passion against the Fathers? Many ecclesiastics did not like them; perhaps this young priest was simply at Lourdes for the purpose of stirring-up an agitation against them. Then who knows?--it might possibly result in the Grotto being closed later on. But it was by the Grotto that they all lived. If the old city screeched with rage at only picking up the crumbs, it was well pleased to secure even that windfall; and the freethinkers themselves, who coined money with the pilgrims, like everyone else, held their tongues, ill at ease, and even frightened, when they found people too much of their opinion with regard to the objectionable features of new Lourdes. It was necessary to be prudent. Cazaban thereupon returned to M. de Guersaint, whose other cheek he began shaving, murmuring the while in an off-hand manner: "Oh! what I say about the Grotto is not because it troubles me much in reality, and, besides, everyone must live." In the dining-room, the children, amidst deafening shouts, had just broken one of the bowls, and Pierre, glancing through the open doorway, again noticed the engravings of religious subjects and the plaster Virgin with which the hairdresser had ornamented the apartment in order to please his lodgers. And just then, too, a voice shouted from the first floor that the trunk was ready, and that they would be much obliged if the assistant would cord it as soon as he returned. However, Cazaban, in the presence of these two gentlemen whom, as a matter of fact, he did not know, remained suspicious and uneasy, his brain haunted by all sorts of disquieting suppositions. He was in despair at the idea of having to let them go away without learning anything about them, especially after having exposed himself. If he had only been able to withdraw the more rabid of his biting remarks about the Fathers. Accordingly, when M. de Guersaint rose to wash his chin, he yielded to a desire to renew the conversation. "Have you heard talk of yesterday's miracle? The town is quite upside down with it; more than twenty people have already given me an account of what occurred. Yes, it seems they obtained an extraordinary miracle, a paralytic young lady got up and dragged her invalid carriage as far as the choir of the Basilica." M. de Guersaint, who was about to sit down after wiping himself, gave a complacent laugh. "That young lady is my daughter," he said. Thereupon, under this sudden and fortunate flash of enlightenment, Cazaban became all smiles. He felt reassured, and combed M. de Guersaint's hair with a masterly touch, amid a returning exuberance of speech and gesture. "Ah! monsieur, I congratulate you, I am flattered at having you in my hands. Since the young lady your daughter is cured, your father's heart is at ease. Am I not right?" And he also found a few pleasant words for Pierre. Then, when he had decided to let them go, he looked at the priest with an air of conviction, and remarked, like a sensible man, desirous of coming to a conclusion on the subject of miracles: "There are some, Monsieur l'Abbe, which are good fortunes for everybody. From time to time we require one of that description." Outside, M. de Guersaint had to go and fetch the coachman, who was still laughing with the servant-girl, while her dog, dripping with water, was shaking itself in the sun. In five minutes the trap brought them back to the bottom of the Plateau de la Merlasse. The trip had taken a good half-hour. Pierre wanted to keep the conveyance, with the idea of showing Marie the town without giving her too much fatigue. So, while the father ran to the Grotto to fetch his daughter, he waited there beneath the trees. The coachman at once engaged in conversation with the priest. He had lit another cigarette and showed himself very familiar. He came from a village in the environs of Toulouse, and did not complain, for he earned good round sums each day at Lourdes. You fed well there, said he, you amused yourself, it was what you might call a good neighbourhood. He said these things with the /abandon/ of a man who was not troubled with religious scruples, but yet did not forget the respect which he owed to an ecclesiastic. At last, from the top of his box, where he remained half lying down, dangling one of his legs, he allowed this remark to fall slowly from his lips: "Ah! yes, Monsieur l'Abbe, Lourdes has caught on well, but the question is whether it will all last long!" Pierre, who was very much struck by the remark, was pondering on its involuntary profundity, when M. de Guersaint reappeared, bringing Marie with him. He had found her kneeling on the same spot, in the same act of faith and thankfulness, at the feet of the Blessed Virgin; and it seemed as if she had brought all the brilliant light of the Grotto away in her eyes, so vividly did they sparkle with divine joy at her cure. She would not entertain a proposal to keep the trap. No, no! she preferred to go on foot; she did not care about seeing the town, so long as she might for another hour continue walking on her father's arm through the gardens, the streets, the squares, anywhere they pleased! And, when Pierre had paid the driver, it was she who turned into a path of the Esplanade garden, delighted at being able to saunter in this wise beside the turf and the flower beds, under the great trees. The grass, the leaves, the shady solitary walks where you heard the everlasting rippling of the Gave, were so sweet and fresh! But afterwards she wished to return by way of the streets, among the crowd, that she might find the agitation, noise, and life, the need of which possessed her whole being. In the Rue St. Joseph, on perceiving the panorama, where the former Grotto was depicted, with Bernadette kneeling down before it on the day of the miracle of the candle, the idea occurred to Pierre to go in. Marie became as happy as a child; and even M. de Guersaint was full of innocent delight, especially when he noticed that among the batch of pilgrims who dived at the same time as themselves into the depths of the obscure corridor, several recognised in his daughter the girl so miraculously healed the day before, who was already famous, and whose name flew from mouth to mouth. Up above, on the circular platform, when they came out into the diffuse light, filtering through a vellum, there was a sort of ovation around Marie; soft whispers, beatifical glances, a rapture of delight in seeing, following, and touching her. Now glory had come, she would be loved in that way wherever she went, and it was not until the showman who gave the explanations had placed himself at the head of the little party of visitors, and begun to walk round, relating the incident depicted on the huge circular canvas, nearly five hundred feet in length, that she was in some measure forgotten. The painting represented the seventeenth apparition of the Blessed Virgin to Bernadette, on the day when, kneeling before the Grotto during her vision, she had heedlessly left her hand on the flame of the candle without burning it. The whole of the old primitive landscape of the Grotto was shown, the whole scene was set out with all its historical personages: the doctor verifying the miracle watch in hand, the Mayor, the Commissary of Police, and the Public Prosecutor, whose names the showman gave out, amidst the amazement of the public following him. Then, by an unconscious transition of ideas, Pierre recalled the remark which the driver of the cabriolet had made a short time previously: "Lourdes has caught on well, but the question is whether it will all last long." That, in fact, was the question. How many venerated sanctuaries had thus been built already, at the bidding of innocent chosen children, to whom the Blessed Virgin had shown herself! It was always the same story beginning afresh: an apparition; a persecuted shepherdess, who was called a liar; next the covert propulsion of human misery hungering after illusion; then propaganda, and the triumph of the sanctuary shining like a star; and afterwards decline, and oblivion, when the ecstatic dream of another visionary gave birth to another sanctuary elsewhere. It seemed as if the power of illusion wore away; that it was necessary in the course of centuries to displace it, set it amidst new scenery, under fresh circumstances, in order to renew its force. La Salette had dethroned the old wooden and stone Virgins that had healed; Lourdes had just dethroned La Salette, pending the time when it would be dethroned itself by Our Lady of to-morrow, she who will show her sweet, consoling features to some pure child as yet unborn. Only, if Lourdes had met with such rapid, such prodigious fortune, it assuredly owed it to the little sincere soul, the delightful charm of Bernadette. Here there was no deceit, no falsehood, merely the blossoming of suffering, a delicate sick child who brought to the afflicted multitude her dream of justice and equality in the miraculous. She was merely eternal hope, eternal consolation. Besides, all historical and social circumstances seem to have combined to increase the need of this mystical flight at the close of a terrible century of positivist inquiry; and that was perhaps the reason why Lourdes would still long endure in its triumph, before becoming a mere legend, one of those dead religions whose powerful perfume has evaporated. Ah! that ancient Lourdes, that city of peace and belief, the only possible cradle where the legend could come into being, how easily Pierre conjured it up before him, whilst walking round the vast canvas of the Panorama! That canvas said everything; it was the best lesson of things that could be seen. The monotonous explanations of the showman were not heard; the landscape spoke for itself. First of all there was the Grotto, the rocky hollow beside the Gave, a savage spot suitable for reverie--bushy slopes and heaps of fallen stone, without a path among them; and nothing yet in the way of ornamentation--no monumental quay, no garden paths winding among trimly cut shrubs; no Grotto set in order, deformed, enclosed with iron railings; above all, no shop for the sale of religious articles, that simony shop which was the scandal of all pious souls. The Virgin could not have selected a more solitary and charming nook wherein to show herself to the chosen one of her heart, the poor young girl who came thither still possessed by the dream of her painful nights, even whilst gathering dead wood. And on the opposite side of the Gave, behind the rock of the castle, was old Lourdes, confident and asleep. Another age was then conjured up; a small town, with narrow pebble-paved streets, black houses with marble dressings, and an antique, semi-Spanish church, full of old carvings, and peopled with visions of gold and painted flesh. Communication with other places was only kept up by the Bagneres and Cauterets /diligences/, which twice a day forded the Lapaca to climb the steep causeway of the Rue Basse. The spirit of the century had not breathed on those peaceful roofs sheltering a belated population which had remained childish, enclosed within the narrow limits of strict religious discipline. There was no debauchery; a slow antique commerce sufficed for daily life, a poor life whose hardships were the safeguards of morality. And Pierre had never better understood how Bernadette, born in that land of faith and honesty, had flowered like a natural rose, budding on the briars of the road. "It's all the same very curious," observed M. de Guersaint when they found themselves in the street again. "I'm not at all sorry I saw it." Marie was also laughing with pleasure. "One would almost think oneself there. Isn't it so, father? At times it seems as if the people were going to move. And how charming Bernadette looks on her knees, in ecstasy, while the candle flame licks her fingers without burning them." "Let us see," said the architect; "we have only an hour left, so we must think of making our purchases, if we wish to buy anything. Shall we take a look at the shops? We certainly promised Majeste to give him the preference; but that does not prevent us from making a few inquiries. Eh! Pierre, what do you say?" "Oh! certainly, as you like," answered the priest. "Besides, it will give us a walk." And he thereupon followed the young girl and her father, who returned to the Plateau de la Merlasse. Since he had quitted the Panorama he felt as though he no longer knew where he was. It seemed to him as if he had all at once been transported from one to another town, parted by centuries. He had left the solitude, the slumbering peacefulness of old Lourdes, which the dead light of the vellum had increased, to fall at last into new Lourdes, sparkling with brightness and noisy with the crowd. Ten o'clock had just struck, and extraordinary animation reigned on the footways, where before breakfast an entire people was hastening to complete its purchases, so that it might have nothing but its departure to think of afterwards. The thousands of pilgrims of the national pilgrimage streamed along the thoroughfares and besieged the shops in a final scramble. You would have taken the cries, the jostling, and the sudden rushes for those at some fair just breaking up amidst a ceaseless roll of vehicles. Many, providing themselves with provisions for the journey, cleared the open-air stalls where bread and slices of sausages and ham were sold. Others purchased fruit and wine; baskets were filled with bottles and greasy parcels until they almost burst. A hawker who was wheeling some cheeses about on a small truck saw his goods carried off as if swept away by the wind. But what the crowd more particularly purchased were religious articles, and those hawkers whose barrows were loaded with statuettes and sacred engravings were reaping golden gains. The customers at the shops stood in strings on the pavement; the women were belted with immense chaplets, had Blessed Virgins tucked under their arms, and were provided with cans which they meant to fill at the miraculous spring. Carried in the hand or slung from the shoulder, some of them quite plain and others daubed over with a Lady of Lourdes in blue paint, these cans held from one to ten quarts apiece; and, shining with all the brightness of new tin, clashing, too, at times with the sharp jingle of stew-pans, they added a gay note to the aspect of the noisy multitude. And the fever of dealing, the pleasure of spending one's money, of returning home with one's pockets crammed with photographs and medals, lit up all faces with a holiday expression, transforming the radiant gathering into a fair-field crowd with appetites either beyond control or satisfied. On the Plateau de la Merlasse, M. de Guersaint for a moment felt tempted to enter one of the finest and most patronised shops, on the board over which were these words in large letters: "Soubirous, Brother of Bernadette." "Eh! what if we were to make our purchases there? It would be more appropriate, more interesting to remember." However, he passed on, repeating that they must see everything first of all. Pierre had looked at the shop kept by Bernadette's brother with a heavy heart. It grieved him to find the brother selling the Blessed Virgin whom the sister had beheld. However, it was necessary to live, and he had reason to believe that, beside the triumphant Basilica resplendent with gold, the visionary's relatives were not making a fortune, the competition being so terrible. If on the one hand the pilgrims left millions behind them at Lourdes, on the other there were more than two hundred dealers in religious articles, to say nothing of the hotel and lodging-house keepers, to whom the largest part of the spoils fell; and thus the gain, so eagerly disputed, ended by being moderate enough after all. Along the Plateau on the right and left of the repository kept by Bernadette's brother, other shops appeared, an uninterrupted row of them, pressing one against the other, each occupying a division of a long wooden structure, a sort of gallery erected by the town, which derived from it some sixty thousand francs a year. It formed a regular bazaar of open stalls, encroaching on the pavements so as to tempt people to stop as they passed along. For more than three hundred yards no other trade was plied: a river of chaplets, medals, and statuettes streamed without end behind the windows; and in enormous letters on the boards above appeared the venerated names of Saint Roch, Saint Joseph, Jerusalem, The Immaculate Virgin, The Sacred Heart of Mary, all the names in Paradise that were most likely to touch and attract customers. "Really," said M. de Guersaint, "I think it's the same thing all over the place. Let us go anywhere." He himself had had enough of it, this interminable display was quite exhausting him. "But as you promised to make the purchases at Majeste's," said Marie, who was not, in the least tired, "the best thing will be to go back." "That's it; let's return to Majeste's place." But the rows of shops began again in the Avenue de la Grotte. They swarmed on both sides; and among them here were jewellers, drapers, and umbrella-makers, who also dealt in religious articles. There was even a confectioner who sold boxes of pastilles /a l'eau de Lourdes/, with a figure of the Virgin on the cover. A photographer's windows were crammed with views of the Grotto and the Basilica, and portraits of Bishops and reverend Fathers of all Orders, mixed up with views of famous sites in the neighbouring mountains. A bookseller displayed the last Catholic publications, volumes bearing devout titles, and among them the innumerable works published on Lourdes during the last twenty years, some of which had had a wonderful success, which was still fresh in memory. In this broad, populous thoroughfare the crowd streamed along in more open order; their cans jingled, everyone was in high spirits, amid the bright sunrays which enfiladed the road from one end to the other. And it seemed as if there would never be a finish to the statuettes, the medals, and the chaplets; one display followed another; and, indeed, there were miles of them running through the streets of the entire town, which was ever the same bazaar selling the same articles. In front of the Hotel of the Apparitions M. de Guersaint again hesitated. "Then it's decided, we are going to make our purchases there?" he asked. "Certainly," said Marie. "See what a beautiful shop it is!" And she was the first to enter the establishment, which was, in fact, one of the largest in the street, occupying the ground-floor of the hotel on the left hand. M. de Guersaint and Pierre followed her. Apolline, the niece of the Majestes, who was in charge of the place, was standing on a stool, taking some holy-water vases from a top shelf to show them to a young man, an elegant bearer, wearing beautiful yellow gaiters. She was laughing with the cooing sound of a dove, and looked charming with her thick black hair and her superb eyes, set in a somewhat square face, which had a straight forehead, chubby cheeks, and full red lips. Jumping lightly to the ground, she exclaimed: "Then you don't think that this pattern would please madame, your aunt?" "No, no," answered the bearer, as he went off. "Obtain the other pattern. I shall not leave until to-morrow, and will come back." When Apolline learnt that Marie was the young person visited by the miracle of whom Madame Majeste had been talking ever since the previous day, she became extremely attentive. She looked at her with her merry smile, in which there was a dash of surprise and covert incredulity. However, like the clever saleswoman that she was, she was profuse in complimentary remarks. "Ah, mademoiselle, I shall be so happy to sell to you! Your miracle is so beautiful! Look, the whole shop is at your disposal. We have the largest choice." Marie was ill at ease. "Thank you," she replied, "you are very good. But we have only come to buy a few small things." "If you will allow us," said M. de Guersaint, "we will choose ourselves." "Very well. That's it, monsieur. Afterwards we will see!" And as some other customers now came in, Apolline forgot them, returned to her duties as a pretty saleswoman, with caressing words and seductive glances, especially for the gentlemen, whom she never allowed to leave until they had their pockets full of purchases. M. de Guersaint had only two francs left of the louis which Blanche, his eldest daughter, had slipped into his hand when he was leaving, as pocket-money; and so he did not dare to make any large selection. But Pierre declared that they would cause him great pain if they did not allow him to offer them the few things which they would like to take away with them from Lourdes. It was therefore understood that they would first of all choose a present for Blanche, and then Marie and her father should select the souvenirs that pleased them best. "Don't let us hurry," repeated M. de Guersaint, who had become very gay. "Come, Marie, have a good look. What would be most likely to please Blanche?" All three looked, searched, and rummaged. But their indecision increased as they went from one object to another. With its counters, show-cases, and nests of drawers, furnishing it from top to bottom, the spacious shop was a sea of endless billows, overflowing with all the religious knick-knacks imaginable. There were the chaplets: skeins of chaplets hanging along the walls, and heaps of chaplets lying in the drawers, from humble ones costing twenty sons a dozen, to those of sweet-scented wood, agate, and lapis-lazuli, with chains of gold or silver; and some of them, of immense length, made to go twice round the neck or waist, had carved beads, as large as walnuts, separated by death's-heads. Then there were the medals: a shower of medals, boxes full of medals, of all sizes, of all metals, the cheapest and the most precious. They bore different inscriptions, they represented the Basilica, the Grotto, or the Immaculate Conception; they were engraved, /repoussees/, or enamelled, executed with care, or made by the gross, according to the price. And next there were the Blessed Virgins, great and small, in zinc, wood, ivory, and especially plaster; some entirely white, others tinted in bright colours, in accordance with the description given by Bernadette; the amiable and smiling face, the extremely long veil, the blue sash, and the golden roses on the feet, there being, however, some slight modification in each model so as to guarantee the copyright. And there was another flood of other religious objects: a hundred varieties of scapularies, a thousand different sorts of sacred pictures: fine engravings, large chromo-lithographs in glaring colours, submerged beneath a mass of smaller pictures, which were coloured, gilded, varnished, decorated with bouquets of flowers, and bordered with lace paper. And there was also jewellery: rings, brooches, and bracelets, loaded with stars and crosses, and ornamented with saintly figures. Finally, there was the Paris article, which rose above and submerged all the rest: pencil-holders, purses, cigar-holders, paperweights, paper-knives, even snuff-boxes; and innumerable other objects on which the Basilica, Grotto, and Blessed Virgin ever and ever appeared, reproduced in every way, by every process that is known. Heaped together pell-mell in one of the cases reserved to articles at fifty centimes apiece were napkin-rings, egg-cups, and wooden pipes, on which was carved the beaming apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes. Little by little, M. de Guersaint, with the annoyance of a man who prides himself on being an artist, became disgusted and quite sad. "But all this is frightful, frightful!" he repeated at every new article he took up to look at. Then he relieved himself by reminding Pierre of the ruinous attempt which he had made to improve the artistic quality of religious prints. The remains of his fortune had been lost in that attempt, and the thought made him all the more angry, in presence of the wretched productions with which the shop was crammed. Had anyone ever seen things of such idiotic, pretentious, and complicated ugliness! The vulgarity of the ideas and the silliness of the expressions portrayed rivalled the commonplace character of the composition. You were reminded of fashion-plates, the covers of boxes of sweets, and the wax dolls' heads that revolve in hairdressers' windows; it was an art abounding in false prettiness, painfully childish, with no really human touch in it, no tone, and no sincerity. And the architect, who was wound up, could not stop, but went on to express his disgust with the buildings of new Lourdes, the pitiable disfigurement of the Grotto, the colossal monstrosity of the inclined ways, the disastrous lack of symmetry in the church of the Rosary and the Basilica, the former looking too heavy, like a corn market, whilst the latter had an anaemical structural leanness with no kind of style but the mongrel. "Ah! one must really be very fond of God," he at last concluded, "to have courage enough to come and adore Him amidst such horrors! They have failed in everything, spoilt everything, as though out of pleasure. Not one of them has experienced that moment of true feeling, of real naturalness and sincere faith, which gives birth to masterpieces. They are all clever people, but all plagiarists; not one has given his mind and being to the undertaking. And what must they not require to inspire them, since they have failed to produce anything grand even in this land of miracles?" Pierre did not reply, but he was very much struck by these reflections, which at last gave him an explanation of a feeling of discomfort that he had experienced ever since his arrival at Lourdes. This discomfort arose from the difference between the modern surroundings and the faith of past ages which it sought to resuscitate. He thought of the old cathedrals where quivered that faith of nations; he pictured the former attributes of worship--the images, the goldsmith's work, the saints in wood and stone--all of admirable power and beauty of expression. The fact was that in those ancient times the workmen had been true believers, had given their whole souls and bodies and all the candour of their feelings to their productions, just as M. de Guersaint said. But nowadays architects built churches with the same practical tranquillity that they erected five-storey houses, just as the religious articles, the chaplets, the medals, and the statuettes were manufactured by the gross in the populous quarters of Paris by merrymaking workmen who did not even follow their religion. And thus what slopwork, what toymakers', ironmongers' stuff it all was! of a prettiness fit to make you cry, a silly sentimentality fit to make your heart turn with disgust! Lourdes was inundated, devastated, disfigured by it all to such a point as to quite upset persons with any delicacy of taste who happened to stray through its streets. It clashed jarringly with the attempted resuscitation of the legends, ceremonies, and processions of dead ages; and all at once it occurred to Pierre that the social and historical condemnation of Lourdes lay in this, that faith is forever dead among a people when it no longer introduces it into the churches it builds or the chaplets it manufactures. However, Marie had continued examining the shelves with the impatience of a child, hesitating, and finding nothing which seemed to her worthy of the great dream of ecstasy which she would ever keep within her. "Father," she said, "it is getting late; you must take me back to the hospital; and to make up my mind, look, I will give Blanche this medal with the silver chain. After all it's the most simple and prettiest thing here. She will wear it; it will make her a little piece of jewellery. As for myself, I will take this statuette of Our Lady of Lourdes, this small one, which is rather prettily painted. I shall place it in my room and surround it with fresh flowers. It will be very nice, will it not?" M. de Guersaint approved of her idea, and then busied himself with his own choice. "O dear! oh dear! how embarrassed I am!" said he. He was examining some ivory-handled penholders capped with pea-like balls, in which were microscopic photographs, and while bringing one of the little holes to his eye to look in it he raised an exclamation of mingled surprise and pleasure. "Hallo! here's the Cirque de Gavarnie! Ah! it's prodigious; everything is there; how can that colossal panorama have been got into so small a space? Come, I'll take this penholder; it's curious, and will remind me of my excursion." Pierre had simply chosen a portrait of Bernadette, the large photograph which represents her on her knees in a black gown, with a handkerchief tied over her hair, and which is said to be the only one in existence taken from life. He hastened to pay, and they were all three on the point of leaving when Madame Majeste entered, protested, and positively insisted on making Marie a little present, saying that it would bring her establishment good-fortune. "I beg of you, mademoiselle, take a scapulary," said she. "Look among those there. The Blessed Virgin who chose you will repay me in good luck." She raised her voice and made so much fuss that the purchasers filling the shop were interested, and began gazing at the girl with envious eyes. It was popularity bursting out again around her, a popularity which ended even by reaching the street when the landlady went to the threshold of the shop, making signs to the tradespeople opposite and putting all the neighbourhood in a flutter. "Let us go," repeated Marie, feeling more and more uncomfortable. But her father, on noticing a priest come in, detained her. "Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe des Hermoises!" It was in fact the handsome Abbe, clad in a cassock of fine cloth emitting a pleasant odour, and with an expression of soft gaiety on his fresh-coloured face. He had not noticed his companion of the previous day, but had gone straight to Apolline and taken her on one side. And Pierre overheard him saying in a subdued tone: "Why didn't you bring me my three-dozen chaplets this morning?" Apolline again began laughing with the cooing notes of a dove, and looked at him sideways, roguishly, without answering. "They are for my little penitents at Toulouse. I wanted to place them at the bottom of my trunk; and you offered to help me pack my linen." She continued laughing, and her pretty eyes sparkled. "However, I shall not leave before to-morrow. Bring them me to-night, will you not? When you are at liberty. It's at the end of the street, at Duchene's." Thereupon, with a slight movement of her red lips, and in a somewhat bantering way, which left him in doubt as to whether she would keep her promise, she replied: "Certainly, Monsieur l'Abbe, I will go." They were now interrupted by M. de Guersaint, who came forward to shake the priest's hand. And the two men at once began talking again of the Cirque de Gavarnie: they had had a delightful trip, a most pleasant time, which they would never forget. Then they enjoyed a laugh at the expense of their two companions, ecclesiastics of slender means, good-natured fellows, who had much amused them. And the architect ended by reminding his new friend that he had kindly promised to induce a personage at Toulouse, who was ten times a millionaire, to interest himself in his studies on navigable balloons. "A first advance of a hundred thousand francs would be sufficient," he said. "You can rely on me," answered Abbe des Hermoises. "You will not have prayed to the Blessed Virgin in vain." However, Pierre, who had kept Bernadette's portrait in his hand, had just then been struck by the extraordinary likeness between Apolline and the visionary. It was the same rather massive face, the same full thick mouth, and the same magnificent eyes; and he recollected that Madame Majeste had already pointed out to him this striking resemblance, which was all the more peculiar as Apolline had passed through a similar poverty-stricken childhood at Bartres before her aunt had taken her with her to assist in keeping the shop. Bernadette! Apolline! What a strange association, what an unexpected reincarnation at thirty years' distance! And, all at once, with this Apolline, who was so flightily merry and careless, and in regard to whom there were so many odd rumours, new Lourdes rose before his eyes: the coachmen, the candle-girls, the persons who let rooms and waylaid tenants at the railway station, the hundreds of furnished houses with discreet little lodgings, the crowd of free priests, the lady hospitallers, and the simple passers-by, who came there to satisfy their appetites. Then, too, there was the trading mania excited by the shower of millions, the entire town given up to lucre, the shops transforming the streets into bazaars which devoured one another, the hotels living gluttonously on the pilgrims, even to the Blue Sisters who kept a /table d'hote/, and the Fathers of the Grotto who coined money with their God! What a sad and frightful course of events, the vision of pure Bernadette inflaming multitudes, making them rush to the illusion of happiness, bringing a river of gold to the town, and from that moment rotting everything. The breath of superstition had sufficed to make humanity flock thither, to attract abundance of money, and to corrupt this honest corner of the earth forever. Where the candid lily had formerly bloomed there now grew the carnal rose, in the new loam of cupidity and enjoyment. Bethlehem had become Sodom since an innocent child had seen the Virgin. "Eh? What did I tell you?" exclaimed Madame Majeste, perceiving that Pierre was comparing her niece with the portrait. "Apolline is Bernadette all over!" The young girl approached with her amiable smile, flattered at first by the comparison. "Let's see, let's see!" said Abbe des Hermoises, with an air of lively interest. He took the photograph in his turn, compared it with the girl, and then exclaimed in amazement: "It's wonderful; the same features. I had not noticed it before. Really I'm delighted--" "Still I fancy she had a larger nose," Apolline ended by remarking. The Abbe then raised an exclamation of irresistible admiration: "Oh! you are prettier, much prettier, that's evident. But that does not matter, anyone would take you for two sisters." Pierre could not refrain from laughing, he thought the remark so peculiar. Ah! poor Bernadette was absolutely dead, and she had no sister. She could not have been born again; it would have been impossible for her to exist in the region of crowded life and passion which she had made. At length Marie went off leaning on her father's arm, and it was agreed that they would both call and fetch her at the hospital to go to the station together. More than fifty people were awaiting her in the street in a state of ecstasy. They bowed to her and followed her; and one woman even made her infirm child, whom she was bringing back from the Grotto, touch her gown. III DEPARTURE At half-past two o'clock the white train, which was to leave Lourdes at three-forty, was already in the station, alongside the second platform. For three days it had been waiting on a siding, in the same state as when it had come from Paris, and since it had been run into the station again white flags had been waving from the foremost and hindmost of its carriages, by way of preventing any mistakes on the part of the pilgrims, whose entraining was usually a very long and troublesome affair. Moreover, all the fourteen trains of the pilgrimage were timed to leave that day. The green train had started off at ten o'clock, followed by the pink and the yellow trains, and the others--the orange, the grey, and the blue--would start in turn after the white train had taken its departure. It was, indeed, another terrible day's work for the station staff, amidst a tumult and a scramble which altogether distracted them. However, the departure of the white train was always the event of the day which provoked most interest and emotion, for it took away with it all the more afflicted patients, amongst whom were naturally those loved by the Virgin and chosen by her for the miraculous cures. Accordingly, a large, serried crowd was collected under the roofing of the spacious platform, a hundred yards in length, where all the benches were already covered with waiting pilgrims and their parcels. In the refreshment-room, at one end of the buildings, men were drinking beer and women ordering lemonade at the little tables which had been taken by assault, whilst at the other end bearers stood on guard at the goods entrance so as to keep the way clear for the speedy passage of the patients, who would soon be arriving. And all along the broad platform there was incessant coming and going, poor people rushing hither and thither in bewilderment, priests trotting along to render assistance, gentlemen in frock-coats looking on with quiet inquisitiveness: indeed, all the jumbling and jostling of the most mixed, most variegated throng ever elbowed in a railway station. At three o'clock, however, the sick had not yet reached the station, and Baron Suire was in despair, his anxiety arising from the dearth of horses, for a number of unexpected tourists had arrived at Lourdes that morning and hired conveyances for Bareges, Cauterets, and Gavarnie. At last, however, the Baron espied Berthaud and Gerard arriving in all haste, after scouring the town; and when he had rushed up to them they soon pacified him by announcing that things were going splendidly. They had been able to procure the needful animals, and the removal of the patients from the hospital was now being carried out under the most favorable circumstances. Squads of bearers with their stretchers and little carts were already in the station yard, watching for the arrival of the vans, breaks, and other vehicles which had been recruited. A reserve supply of mattresses and cushions was, moreover, heaped up beside a lamp-post. Nevertheless, just as the first patients arrived, Baron Suire again lost his head, whilst Berthaud and Gerard hastened to the platform from which the train would start. There they began to superintend matters, and gave orders amidst an increasing scramble. Father Fourcade was on this platform, walking up and down alongside the train, on Father Massias's arm. Seeing Doctor Bonamy approach, he stopped short to speak to him: "Ah, doctor," said he, "I am pleased to see you. Father Massias, who is about to leave us, was again telling me just now of the extraordinary favor granted by the Blessed Virgin to that interesting young person, Mademoiselle Marie de Guersaint. There has not been such a brilliant miracle for years! It is signal good-fortune for us--a blessing which should render our labours fruitful. All Christendom will be illumined, comforted, enriched by it." He was radiant with pleasure, and forthwith the doctor with his clean-shaven face, heavy, peaceful features, and usually tired eyes, also began to exult: "Yes, your reverence, it is prodigious, prodigious! I shall write a pamphlet about it. Never was cure produced by supernatural means in a more authentic manner. Ah! what a stir it will create!" Then, as they had begun walking to and fro again, all three together, he noticed that Father Fourcade was dragging his leg with increased difficulty, leaning heavily the while on his companion's arm. "Is your attack of gout worse, your reverence?" he inquired. "You seem to be suffering a great deal." "Oh! don't speak of it; I wasn't able to close my eyes all night! It is very annoying that this attack should have come on me the very day of my arrival here! It might as well have waited. But there is nothing to be done, so don't let us talk of it any more. I am, at all events, very pleased with this year's result." "Ah! yes, yes indeed," in his turn said Father Massias, in a voice which quivered with fervour; "we may all feel proud, and go away with our hearts full of enthusiasm and gratitude. How many prodigies there have been, in addition to the healing of that young woman you spoke of! There is no counting all the miracles: deaf women and dumb women have recovered their faculties, faces disfigured by sores have become as smooth as the hand, moribund consumptives have come to life again and eaten and danced! It is not a train of sufferers, but a train of resurrection, a train of glory, that I am about to take back to Paris!" He had ceased to see the ailing creatures around him, and in the blindness of his faith was soaring triumphantly. Then, alongside the carriages, whose compartments were beginning to fill, they all three continued their slow saunter, smiling at the pilgrims who bowed to them, and at times again stopping to address a kind word to some mournful woman who, pale and shivering, passed by upon a stretcher. They boldly declared that she was looking much better, and would assuredly soon get well. However, the station-master, who was incessantly bustling about, passed by, calling in a shrill voice: "Don't block up the platform, please; don't block up the platform!" And on Berthaud pointing out to him that it was, at all events, necessary to deposit the stretchers on the platform before hoisting the patients into the carriages, he became quite angry: "But, come, come; is it reasonable?" he asked. "Look at that little hand-cart which has been left on the rails over yonder. I expect the train to Toulouse in a few minutes. Do you want your people to be crushed to death?" Then he went off at a run to instruct some porters to keep the bewildered flock of pilgrims away from the rails. Many of them, old and simple people, did not even recognise the colour of their train, and this was the reason why one and all wore cards of some particular hue hanging from their necks, so that they might be led and entrained like marked cattle. And what a constant state of excitement it was, with the starting of these fourteen special trains, in addition to all the ordinary traffic, in which no change had been made. Pierre arrived, valise in hand, and found some difficulty in reaching the platform. He was alone, for Marie had expressed an ardent desire to kneel once more at the Grotto, so that her soul might burn with gratitude before the Blessed Virgin until the last moment; and so he had left M. de Guersaint to conduct her thither whilst he himself settled the hotel bill. Moreover, he had made them promise that they would take a fly to the station, and they would certainly arrive within a quarter of an hour. Meantime, his idea was to seek their carriage, and there rid himself of his valise. This, however, was not an easy task, and he only recognised the carriage eventually by the placard which had been swinging from it in the sunlight and the storms during the last three days--a square of pasteboard bearing the names of Madame de Jonquiere and Sisters Hyacinthe and Claire des Anges. There could be no mistake, and Pierre again pictured the compartments full of his travelling companions. Some cushions already marked M. Sabathier's corner, and on the seat where Marie had experienced such suffering he still found some scratches caused by the ironwork of her box. Then, having deposited his valise in his own place, he remained on the platform waiting and looking around him, with a slight feeling of surprise at not perceiving Doctor Chassaigne, who had promised to come and embrace him before the train started. Now that Marie was well again, Pierre had laid his bearer straps aside, and merely wore the red cross of the pilgrimage on his cassock. The station, of which he had caught but a glimpse, in the livid dawn amidst the anguish of the terrible morning of their arrival, now surprised him by its spacious platforms, its broad exits, and its clear gaiety. He could not see the mountains, but some verdant slopes rose up on the other side, in front of the waiting-rooms; and that afternoon the weather was delightfully mild, the sky of a milky whiteness, with light fleecy clouds veiling the sun, whence there fell a broad diffuse light, like a nacreous, pearly dust: "maiden's weather," as country folk are wont to say. The big clock had just struck three, and Pierre was looking at it when he saw Madame Desagneaux and Madame Volmar arrive, followed by Madame de Jonquiere and her daughter. These ladies, who had driven from the hospital in a landau, at once began looking for their carriage, and it was Raymonde who first recognised the first-class compartment in which she had travelled from Paris. "Mamma, mamma, here; here it is!" she called. "Stay a little while with us; you have plenty of time to install yourself among your patients, since they haven't yet arrived." Pierre now again found himself face to face with Madame Volmar, and their glances met. However, he gave no sign of recognition, and on her side there was but a slight sudden drooping of the eyelids. She had again assumed the air of a languid, indolent, black-robed woman, who modestly shrinks back, well pleased to escape notice. Her brasier-like eyes no longer glowed; it was only at long intervals that they kindled into a spark beneath the veil of indifference, the moire-like shade, which dimmed them. "Oh! it was a fearful sick headache!" she was repeating to Madame Desagneaux. "And, you can see, I've hardly recovered the use of my poor head yet. It's the journey which brings it on. It's the same thing every year." However, Berthaud and Gerard, who had just perceived the ladies, were hurrying up to them. That morning they had presented themselves at the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours, and Madame de Jonquiere had received them in a little office near the linen-room. Thereupon, apologising with smiling affability for making his request amidst such a hurly-burly, Berthaud had solicited the hand of Mademoiselle Raymonde for his cousin, Gerard. They at once felt themselves at ease, the mother, with some show of emotion, saying that Lourdes would bring the young couple good luck. And so the marriage was arranged in a few words, amidst general satisfaction. A meeting was even appointed for the fifteenth of September at the Chateau of Berneville, near Caen, an estate belonging to Raymonde's uncle, the diplomatist, whom Berthaud knew, and to whom he promised to introduce Gerard. Then Raymonde was summoned, and blushed with pleasure as she placed her little hand in those of her betrothed. Binding her now upon the platform, the latter began paying her every attention, and asking, "Would you like some pillows for the night? Don't make any ceremony about it; I can give you plenty, both for yourself and for these ladies who are accompanying you." However, Raymonde gaily refused the offer, "No, no," said she, "we are not so delicate. Keep them for the poor sufferers." All the ladies were now talking together. Madame de Jonquiere declared that she was so tired, so tired that she no longer felt alive; and yet she displayed great happiness, her eyes smiling as she glanced at her daughter and the young man she was engaged to. But neither Berthaud nor Gerard could remain there; they had their duties to perform, and accordingly took their leave, after reminding Madame de Jonquiere and Raymonde of the appointed meeting. It was understood, was it not, on September 15th, at the Chateau of Berneville? Yes, yes, it was understood! And then came fresh smiles and handshakes, whilst the eyes of the newly engaged couple--caressing, delighted eyes--added all that they dared not say aloud in the midst of such a throng. "What!" exclaimed little Madame Desagneaux, "you will go to Berneville on the 15th? But if we stay at Trouville till the 10th, as my husband wishes to do, we will go to see you!" And then, turning towards Madame Volmar, who stood there silent, she added, "You ought to come as well, my dear. It would be so nice to meet there all together." But, with a slow wave of the hand and an air of weary indifference, Madame Volmar answered, "Oh! my holiday is all over; I am going home." Just then her eyes again met those of Pierre, who had remained standing near the party, and he fancied that she became confused, whilst an expression of indescribable suffering passed over her lifeless face. The Sisters of the Assumption were now arriving, and the ladies joined them in front of the cantine van. Ferrand, who had come with the Sisters from the hospital, got into the van, and then helped Sister Saint-Francois to mount upon the somewhat high footboard. Then he remained standing on the threshold of the van--transformed into a kitchen and containing all sorts of supplies for the journey, such as bread, broth, milk, and chocolate,--whilst Sister Hyacinthe and Sister Claire des Anges, who were still on the platform, passed him his little medicine-chest and some small articles of luggage. "You are sure you have everything?" Sister Hyacinthe asked him. "All right. Well, now you only have to go and lie down in your corner and get to sleep, since you complain that your services are not utilised." Ferrand began to laugh softly. "I shall help Sister Saint-Francois," said he. "I shall light the oil-stove, wash the crockery, carry the cups of broth and milk to the patients whenever we stop, according to the time-table hanging yonder; and if, all the same, you /should/ require a doctor, you will please come to fetch me." Sister Hyacinthe had also begun to laugh. "But we no longer require a doctor since all our patients are cured," she replied; and, fixing her eyes on his, with her calm, sisterly air, she added, "Good-bye, Monsieur Ferrand." He smiled again, whilst a feeling of deep emotion brought moisture to his eyes. The tremulous accents of his voice expressed his conviction that he would never be able to forget this journey, his joy at having seen her again, and the souvenir of divine and eternal affection which he was taking away with him. "Good-bye, Sister," said he. Then Madame de Jonquiere talked of going to her carriage with Sister Claire des Anges and Sister Hyacinthe; but the latter assured her that there was no hurry, since the sick pilgrims were as yet scarcely arriving. She left her, therefore, taking the other Sister with her, and promising to see to everything. Moreover, she even insisted on ridding the superintendent of her little bag, saying that she would find it on her seat when it was time for her to come. Thus the ladies continued walking and chatting gaily on the broad platform, where the atmosphere was so pleasant. Pierre, however, his eyes fixed upon the big clock, watched the minutes hasten by on the dial, and began to feel surprised at not seeing Marie arrive with her father. It was to be hoped that M. de Guersaint would not lose himself on the road! The young priest was still watching, when, to his surprise, he caught sight of M. Vigneron, in a state of perfect exasperation, pushing his wife and little Gustave furiously before him. "Oh, Monsieur l'Abbe," he exclaimed, "tell me where our carriage is! Help me to put our luggage and this child in it. I am at my wit's end! They have made me altogether lose my temper." Then, on reaching the second-class compartment, he caught hold of Pierre's hands, just as the young man was about to place little Gustave inside, and quite an outburst followed. "Could you believe it? They insist on my starting. They tell me that my return-ticket will not be available if I wait here till to-morrow. It was of no use my telling them about the accident. As it is, it's by no means pleasant to have to stay with that corpse, watch over it, see it put in a coffin, and remove it to-morrow within the regulation time. But they pretend that it doesn't concern them, that they already make large enough reductions on the pilgrimage tickets, and that they can't enter into any questions of people dying." Madame Vigneron stood all of a tremble listening to him, whilst Gustave, forgotten, staggering on his crutch with fatigue, raised his poor, inquisitive, suffering face. "But at all events," continued the irate father, "as I told them, it's a case of compulsion. What do they expect me to do with that corpse? I can't take it under my arm, and bring it them to-day, like an article of luggage! I am therefore absolutely obliged to remain behind. But no! ah! how many stupid and wicked people there are!" "Have you spoken to the station-master?" asked Pierre. "The station-master! Oh! he's somewhere about, in the midst of the scramble. They were never able to find him. How could you have anything done properly in such a bear-garden? Still, I mean to rout him out, and give him a bit of my mind!" Then, perceiving his wife standing beside him motionless, glued as it were to the platform, he cried: "What are you doing there? Get in, so that we may pass you the youngster and the parcels!" With these words he pushed her in, and threw the parcels after her, whilst the young priest took Gustave in his arms. The poor little fellow, who was as light as a bird, seemingly thinner than before, consumed by sores, and so full of pain, raised a faint cry. "Oh, my dear child, have I hurt you?" asked Pierre. "No, no, Monsieur l'Abbe, but I've been moved about so much to-day, and I'm very tired this afternoon." As he spoke, he smiled with his usual intelligent and mournful expression, and then, sinking back into his corner, closed his eyes, exhausted, indeed done for, by this fearful trip to Lourdes. "As you can very well understand," now resumed M. Vigneron, "it by no means amuses me to stay here, kicking my heels, while my wife and my son go back to Paris without me. They have to go, however, for life at the hotel is no longer bearable; and besides, if I kept them with me, and the railway people won't listen to reason, I should have to pay three extra fares. And to make matters worse, my wife hasn't got much brains. I'm afraid she won't be able to manage things properly." Then, almost breathless, he overwhelmed Madame Vigneron with the most minute instructions--what she was to do during the journey, how she was to get back home on arriving in Paris, and what steps she was to take if Gustave was to have another attack. Somewhat scared, she responded, in all docility, to each recommendation: "Yes, yes, dear--of course, dear, of course." But all at once her husband's rage came back to him. "After all," he shouted, "what I want to know is whether my return ticket be good or not! I must know for certain! They must find that station-master for me!" He was already on the point of rushing away through the crowd, when he noticed Gustave's crutch lying on the platform. This was disastrous, and he raised his eyes to heaven as though to call Providence to witness that he would never be able to extricate himself from such awful complications. And, throwing the crutch to his wife, he hurried off, distracted and shouting, "There, take it! You forget everything!" The sick pilgrims were now flocking into the station, and, as on the occasion of their arrival, there was plenty of disorderly carting along the platform and across the lines. All the abominable ailments, all the sores, all the deformities, went past once more, neither their gravity nor their number seeming to have decreased; for the few cures which had been effected were but a faint inappreciable gleam of light amidst the general mourning. They were taken back as they had come. The little carts, laden with helpless old women with their bags at their feet, grated over the rails. The stretchers on which you saw inflated bodies and pale faces with glittering eyes, swayed amidst the jostling of the throng. There was wild and senseless haste, indescribable confusion, questions, calls, sudden running, all the whirling of a flock which cannot find the entrance to the pen. And the bearers ended by losing their heads, no longer knowing which direction to take amidst the warning cries of the porters, who at each moment were frightening people, distracting them with anguish. "Take care, take care over there! Make haste! No, no, don't cross! The Toulouse train, the Toulouse train!" Retracing his steps, Pierre again perceived the ladies, Madame de Jonquiere and the others, still gaily chatting together. Lingering near them, he listened to Berthaud, whom Father Fourcade had stopped, to congratulate him on the good order which had been maintained throughout the pilgrimage. The ex-public prosecutor was now bowing his thanks, feeling quite flattered by this praise. "Is it not a lesson for their Republic, your reverence?" he asked. "People get killed in Paris when such crowds as these celebrate some bloody anniversary of their hateful history. They ought to come and take a lesson here." He was delighted with the thought of being disagreeable to the Government which had compelled him to resign. He was never so happy as when women were just saved from being knocked over amidst the great concourse of believers at Lourdes. However, he did not seem to be satisfied with the results of the political propaganda which he came to further there, during three days, every year. Fits of impatience came over him, things did not move fast enough. When did Our Lady of Lourdes mean to bring back the monarchy? "You see, your reverence," said he, "the only means, the real triumph, would be to bring the working classes of the towns here /en masse/. I shall cease dreaming, I shall devote myself to that entirely. Ah! if one could only create a Catholic democracy!" Father Fourcade had become very grave. His fine, intelligent eyes filled with a dreamy expression, and wandered far away. How many times already had he himself made the creation of that new people the object of his efforts! But was not the breath of a new Messiah needed for the accomplishment of such a task? "Yes, yes," he murmured, "a Catholic democracy; ah! the history of humanity would begin afresh!" But Father Massias interrupted him in a passionate voice, saying that all the nations of the earth would end by coming; whilst Doctor Bonamy, who already detected a slight subsidence of fervour among the pilgrims, wagged his head and expressed the opinion that the faithful ones of the Grotto ought to increase their zeal. To his mind, success especially depended on the greatest possible measure of publicity being given to the miracles. And he assumed a radiant air and laughed complacently whilst pointing to the tumultuous /defile/ of the sick. "Look at them!" said he. "Don't they go off looking better? There are a great many who, although they don't appear to be cured, are nevertheless carrying the germs of cure away with them; of that you may be certain! Ah! the good people; they do far more than we do all together for the glory of Our Lady of Lourdes!" However, he had to check himself, for Madame Dieulafay was passing before them, in her box lined with quilted silk. She was deposited in front of the door of the first-class carriage, in which a maid was already placing the luggage. Pity came to all who beheld the unhappy woman, for she did not seem to have awakened from her prostration during her three days' sojourn at Lourdes. What she had been when they had removed her from the carriage on the morning of her arrival, that she also was now when the bearers were about to place her inside it again--clad in lace, covered with jewels, still with the lifeless, imbecile face of a mummy slowly liquefying; and, indeed, one might have thought that she had become yet more wasted, that she was being taken back diminished, shrunken more and more to the proportions of a child, by the march of that horrible disease which, after destroying her bones, was now dissolving the softened fibres of her muscles. Inconsolable, bowed down by the loss of their last hope, her husband and sister, their eyes red, were following her with Abbe Judaine, even as one follows a corpse to the grave. "No, no! not yet!" said the old priest to the bearers, in order to prevent them from placing the box in the carriage. "She will have time enough to roll along in there. Let her have the warmth of that lovely sky above her till the last possible moment." Then, seeing Pierre near him, he drew him a few steps aside, and, in a voice broken by grief, resumed: "Ah! I am indeed distressed. Again this morning I had a hope. I had her taken to the Grotto, I said my mass for her, and came back to pray till eleven o'clock. But nothing came of it; the Blessed Virgin did not listen to me. Although she cured me, a poor, useless old man like me, I could not obtain from her the cure of this beautiful, young, and wealthy woman, whose life ought to be a continual /fete/. Undoubtedly the Blessed Virgin knows what she ought to do better than ourselves, and I bow and bless her name. Nevertheless, my soul is full of frightful sadness." He did not tell everything; he did not confess the thought which was upsetting him, simple, childish, worthy man that he was, whose life had never been troubled by either passion or doubt. But his thought was that those poor weeping people, the husband and the sister, had too many millions, that the presents they had brought were too costly, that they had given far too much money to the Basilica. A miracle is not to be bought. The wealth of the world is a hindrance rather than an advantage when you address yourself to God. Assuredly, if the Blessed Virgin had turned a deaf ear to their entreaties, had shown them but a stern, cold countenance, it was in order that she might the more attentively listen to the weak voices of the lowly ones who had come to her with empty hands, with no other wealth than their love, and these she had loaded with grace, flooded with the glowing affection of her Divine Motherhood. And those poor wealthy ones, who had not been heard, that sister and that husband, both so wretched beside the sorry body they were taking away with them, they themselves felt like pariahs among the throng of the humble who had been consoled or healed; they seemed embarrassed by their very luxury, and recoiled, awkward and ill at ease, covered with shame at the thought that Our Lady of Lourdes had relieved beggars whilst never casting a glance upon that beautiful and powerful lady agonising unto death amidst all her lace! All at once it occurred to Pierre that he might have missed seeing M. de Guersaint and Marie arrive, and that they were perhaps already in the carriage. He returned thither, but there was still only his valise on the seat. Sister Hyacinthe and Sister Claire des Anges, however, had begun to install themselves, pending the arrival of their charges, and as Gerard just then brought up M. Sabathier in a little handcart, Pierre helped to place him in the carriage, a laborious task which put both the young priest and Gerard into a perspiration. The ex-professor, who looked disconsolate though very calm, at once settled himself in his corner. "Thank you, gentlemen," said he. "That's over, thank goodness. And now they'll only have to take me out at Paris." After wrapping a rug round his legs, Madame Sabathier, who was also there, got out of the carriage and remained standing near the open door. She was talking to Pierre when all at once she broke off to say: "Ah! here's Madame Maze coming to take her seat. She confided in me the other day, you know. She's a very unhappy little woman." Then, in an obliging spirit, she called to her and offered to watch over her things. But Madame Maze shook her head, laughed, and gesticulated as though she were out of her senses. "No, no, I am not going," said she. "What! you are not going back?" "No, no, I am not going--that is, I am, but not with you, not with you!" She wore such an extraordinary air, she looked so bright, that Pierre and Madame Sabathier found it difficult to recognise her. Her fair, prematurely faded face was radiant, she seemed to be ten years younger, suddenly aroused from the infinite sadness into which desertion had plunged her. And, at last, her joy overflowing, she raised a cry: "I am going off with him! Yes, he has come to fetch me, he is taking me with him. Yes, yes, we are going to Luchon together, together!" Then, with a rapturous glance, she pointed out a dark, sturdy-looking young man, with gay eyes and bright red lips, who was purchasing some newspapers. "There! that's my husband," said she, "that handsome man who's laughing over there with the newspaper-girl. He turned up here early this morning, and he's carrying me off. We shall take the Toulouse train in a couple of minutes. Ah! dear madame, I told you of all my worries, and you can understand my happiness, can't you?" However, she could not remain silent, but again spoke of the frightful letter which she had received on Sunday, a letter in which he had declared to her that if she should take advantage of her sojourn at Lourdes to come to Luchon after him, he would not open the door to her. And, think of it, theirs had been a love match! But for ten years he had neglected her, profiting by his continual journeys as a commercial traveller to take friends about with him from one to the other end of France. Ah! that time she had thought it all over, she had asked the Blessed Virgin to let her die, for she knew that the faithless one was at that very moment at Luchon with two friends. What was it then that had happened? A thunderbolt must certainly have fallen from heaven. Those two friends must have received a warning from on high--perhaps they had dreamt that they were already condemned to everlasting punishment. At all events they had fled one evening without a word of explanation, and he, unable to live alone, had suddenly been seized with a desire to fetch his wife and keep her with him for a week. Grace must have certainly fallen on him, though he did not say it, for he was so kind and pleasant that she could not do otherwise than believe in a real beginning of conversion. "Ah! how grateful I am to the Blessed Virgin," she continued; "she alone can have acted, and I well understood her last evening. It seemed to me that she made me a little sign just at the very moment when my husband was making up his mind to come here to fetch me. I asked him at what time it was that the idea occurred to him, and the hours fit in exactly. Ah! there has been no greater miracle. The others make me smile with their mended legs and their vanished sores. Blessed be Our Lady of Lourdes, who has healed my heart!" Just then the sturdy young man turned round, and she darted away to join him, so full of delight that she forgot to bid the others good-bye. And it was at this moment, amidst the growing crowd of patients whom the bearers were bringing, that the Toulouse train at last came in. The tumult increased, the confusion became extraordinary. Bells rang and signals worked, whilst the station-master was seen rushing up, shouting with all the strength of his lungs: "Be careful there! Clear the line at once!" A railway /employe/ had to rush from the platform to push a little vehicle, which had been forgotten on the line, with an old woman in it, out of harm's way; however, yet another scared band of pilgrims ran across when the steaming, growling engine was only thirty yards distant. Others, losing their heads, would have been crushed by the wheels if porters had not roughly caught them by the shoulders. Then, without having pounded anybody, the train at last stopped alongside the mattresses, pillows, and cushions lying hither and thither, and the bewildered, whirling groups of people. The carriage doors opened and a torrent of travellers alighted, whilst another torrent climbed in, these two obstinately contending currents bringing the tumult to a climax. Faces, first wearing an inquisitive expression, and then overcome by stupefaction at the astonishing sight, showed themselves at the windows of the doors which remained closed; and, among them, one especially noticed the faces of two remarkably pretty girls, whose large candid eyes ended by expressing the most dolorous compassion. Followed by her husband, however, Madame Maze had climbed into one of the carriages, feeling as happy and buoyant as if she were in her twentieth year again, as on the already distant evening of her honeymoon journey. And the doors having been slammed, the engine gave a loud whistle and began to move, going off slowly and heavily between the throng, which, in the rear of the train, flowed on to the lines again like an invading torrent whose flood-gates have been swept away. "Bar the platform!" shouted the station-master to his men. "Keep watch when the engine comes up!" The belated patients and pilgrims had arrived during this alert. La Grivotte passed by with her feverish eyes and excited, dancing gait, followed by Elise Rouquet and Sophie Couteau, who were very gay, and quite out of breath through running. All three hastened to their carriage, where Sister Hyacinthe scolded them. They had almost been left behind at the Grotto, where, at times, the pilgrims lingered forgetfully, unable to tear themselves away, still imploring and entreating the Blessed Virgin, when the train was waiting for them at the railway-station. All at once Pierre, who likewise was anxious, no longer knowing what to think, perceived M. de Guersaint and Marie quietly talking with Abbe Judaine on the covered platform. He hastened to join them, and told them of his impatience. "What have you been doing?" he asked. "I was losing all hope." "What have we been doing?" responded M. de Guersaint, with quiet astonishment. "We were at the Grotto, as you know very well. There was a priest there, preaching in a most remarkable manner, and we should still be there if I hadn't remembered that we had to leave. And we took a fly here, as we promised you we would do." He broke off to look at the clock. "But hang it all!" he added, "there's no hurry. The train won't start for another quarter of an hour." This was true. Then Marie, smiling with divine joy, exclaimed: "Oh! if you only knew, Pierre, what happiness I have brought away from that last visit to the Blessed Virgin. I saw her smile at me, I felt her giving me strength to live. Really, that farewell was delightful, and you must not scold us, Pierre." He himself had begun to smile, somewhat ill at ease, however, as he thought of his nervous fidgeting. Had he, then, experienced so keen a desire to get far away from Lourdes? Had he feared that the Grotto might keep Marie, that she might never come away from it again? Now that she was there beside him, he was astonished at having indulged such thoughts, and felt himself to be very calm. However, whilst he was advising them to go and take their seats in the carriage, he recognised Doctor Chassaigne hastily approaching. "Ah! my dear doctor," he said, "I was waiting for you. I should have been sorry indeed to have gone away without embracing you." But the old doctor, who was trembling with emotion, interrupted him. "Yes, yes, I am late. But ten minutes ago, just as I arrived, I caught sight of that eccentric fellow, the Commander, and had a talk with him over yonder. He was sneering at the sight of your people taking the train again to go and die at home, when, said he, they ought to have done so before coming to Lourdes. Well, all at once, while he was talking like this, he fell on the ground before me. It was his third attack of paralysis; the one he had long been expecting." "Oh! /mon Dieu/," murmured Abbe Judaine, who heard the doctor, "he was blaspheming. Heaven has punished him." M. de Guersaint and Marie were listening, greatly interested and deeply moved. "I had him carried yonder, into that shed," continued the doctor. "It is all over; I can do nothing. He will doubtless be dead before a quarter of an hour has gone by. But I thought of a priest, and hastened up to you." Then, turning towards Abbe Judaine, M. Chassaigne added: "Come with me, Monsieur le Cure; you know him. We cannot let a Christian depart unsuccoured. Perhaps he will be moved, recognise his error, and become reconciled with God." Abbe Judaine quickly followed the doctor, and in the rear went M. de Guersaint, leading Marie and Pierre, whom the thought of this tragedy impassioned. All five entered the goods shed, at twenty paces from the crowd which was still bustling and buzzing, without a soul in it expecting that there was a man dying so near by. In a solitary corner of the shed, between two piles of sacks filled with oats, lay the Commander, on a mattress borrowed from the Hospitality reserve supply. He wore his everlasting frock-coat, with its buttonhole decked with a broad red riband, and somebody who had taken the precaution to pick up his silver-knobbed walking-stick had carefully placed it on the ground beside the mattress. Abbe Judaine at once leant over him. "You recognise us, you can hear us, my poor friend, can't you?" asked the priest. Only the Commander's eyes now appeared to be alive; but they /were/ alive, still glittering brightly with a stubborn flame of energy. The attack had this time fallen on his right side, almost entirely depriving him of the power of speech. He could only stammer a few words, by which he succeeded in making them understand that he wished to die there, without being moved or worried any further. He had no relative at Lourdes, where nobody knew anything either of his former life or his family. For three years he had lived there happily on the salary attached to his little post at the station, and now he at last beheld his ardent, his only desire, approaching fulfilment--the desire that he might depart and fall into the eternal sleep. His eyes expressed the great joy he felt at being so near his end. "Have you any wish to make known to us?" resumed Abbe Judaine. "Cannot we be useful to you in any way?" No, no; his eyes replied that he was all right, well pleased. For three years past he had never got up in the morning without hoping that by night time he would be sleeping in the cemetery. Whenever he saw the sun shine he was wont to say in an envious tone: "What a beautiful day for departure!" And now that death was at last at hand, ready to deliver him from his hateful existence, it was indeed welcome. "I can do nothing, science is powerless. He is condemned," said Doctor Chassaigne in a low, bitter tone to the old priest, who begged him to attempt some effort. However, at that same moment it chanced that an aged woman, a pilgrim of fourscore years, who had lost her way and knew not whither she was going, entered the shed. Lame and humpbacked, reduced to the stature of childhood's days, afflicted with all the ailments of extreme old age, she was dragging herself along with the assistance of a stick, and at her side was slung a can full of Lourdes water, which she was taking away with her, in the hope of yet prolonging her old age, in spite of all its frightful decay. For a moment her senile, imbecile mind was quite scared. She stood looking at that outstretched, stiffened man, who was dying. Then a gleam of grandmotherly kindliness appeared in the depths of her dim, vague eyes; and with the sisterly feelings of one who was very aged and suffered very grievously she drew nearer, and, taking hold of her can with her hands, which never ceased shaking, she offered it to the man. To Abbe Judaine this seemed like a sudden flash of light, an inspiration from on high. He, who had prayed so fervently and so often for the cure of Madame Dieulafay without being heard by the Blessed Virgin, now glowed with fresh faith in the conviction that if the Commander would only drink that water he would be cured. The old priest fell upon his knees beside the mattress. "O brother!" he said, "it is God who has sent you this woman. Reconcile yourself with God, drink and pray, whilst we ourselves implore the divine mercy with our whole souls. God will prove His power to you; God will work the great miracle of setting you erect once more, so that you may yet spend many years upon this earth, loving Him and glorifying Him." No, no! the Commander's sparkling eyes cried no! He, indeed, show himself as cowardly as those flocks of pilgrims who came from afar, through so many fatigues, in order to drag themselves on the ground and sob and beg Heaven to let them live a month, a year, ten years longer! It was so pleasant, so simple to die quietly in your bed. You turned your face to the wall and you died. "Drink, O my brother, I implore you!" continued the old priest. "It is life that you will drink, it is strength and health, the very joy of living. Drink that you may become young again, that you may begin a new and pious life; drink that you may sing the praises of the Divine Mother, who will have saved both your body and your soul. She is speaking to me, your resurrection is certain." But no! but no! The eyes refused, repelled the offer of life with growing obstinacy, and in their expression now appeared a covert fear of the miraculous. The Commander did not believe; for three years he had been shrugging his shoulders at the pretended cases of cure. But could one ever tell in this strange world of ours? Such extraordinary things did sometimes happen. And if by chance their water should really have a supernatural power, and if by force they should make him drink some of it, it would be terrible to have to live again--to endure once more the punishment of a galley-slave existence, that abomination which Lazarus--the pitiable object of the great miracle--had suffered twice. No, no, he would not drink; he would not incur the fearful risk of resurrection. "Drink, drink, my brother," repeated Abbe Judaine, who was now in tears; "do not harden your heart to refuse the favours of Heaven." And then a terrible thing was seen; this man, already half dead, raised himself, shaking off the stifling bonds of paralysis, loosening for a second his tied tongue, and stammering, growling in a hoarse voice: "No, no, NO!" Pierre had to lead the stupefied old woman away and put her in the right direction again. She had failed to understand that refusal of the water which she herself was taking home with her like an inestimable treasure, the very gift of God's eternity to the poor who did not wish to die. Lame of one leg, humpbacked, dragging the sorry remnants of her fourscore years along by the assistance of her stick, she disappeared among the tramping crowd, consumed by the passion of being, eager for space, air, sunshine, and noise. Marie and her father had shuddered in presence of that appetite for death, that greedy hungering for the end which the Commander showed. Ah! to sleep, to sleep without a dream, in the infinite darkness forever and ever--nothing in the world could have seemed so sweet to him. He did not hope in a better life; he had no desire to become happy, at last, in Paradise where equality and justice would reign. His sole longing was for black night and endless sleep, the joy of being no more, of never, never being again. And Doctor Chassaigne also had shuddered, for he also nourished but one thought, the thought of the happy moment when he would depart. But, in his case, on the other side of this earthly existence he would find his dear lost ones awaiting him, at the spot where eternal life began; and how icy cold all would have seemed had he but for a single moment thought that he might not meet them there. Abbe Judaine painfully rose up. It had seemed to him that the Commander was now fixing his bright eyes upon Marie. Deeply grieved that his entreaties should have been of no avail, the priest wished to show the dying man an example of that goodness of God which he repulsed. "You recognise her, do you not?" he asked. "Yes, it is the young lady who arrived here on Saturday so ill, with both legs paralysed. And you see her now, so full of health, so strong, so beautiful. Heaven has taken pity on her, and now she is reviving to youth, to the long life she was born to live. Do you feel no regret in seeing her? Would you also like her to be dead? would you have advised her not to drink the water?" The Commander could not answer; but his eyes no longer strayed from Marie's young face, on which one read such great happiness at having resuscitated, such vast hopes in countless morrows; and tears appeared in those fixed eyes of his, gathered under their lids, and rolled down his cheeks, which were already cold. He was certainly weeping for her; he must have been thinking of that other miracle which he had wished her--that if she should be cured, she might be happy. It was the tenderness of an old man, who knows the miseries of this world, stirred to pity by the thought of all the sorrows which awaited this young creature. Ah! poor woman, how many times; perhaps, might she regret that she had not died in her twentieth year! Then the Commander's eyes grew very dim, as though those last pitiful tears had dissolved them. It was the end; coma was coming; the mind was departing with the breath. He slightly turned, and died. Doctor Chassaigne at once drew Marie aside. "The train's starting," he said; "make haste, make haste!" Indeed, the loud ringing of a bell was clearly resounding above the growing tumult of the crowd. And the doctor, having requested two bearers to watch the body, which would be removed later on when the train had gone, desired to accompany his friends to their carriage. They hastened their steps. Abbe Judaine, who was in despair, joined them after saying a short prayer for the repose of that rebellious soul. However, while Marie, followed by Pierre and M. de Guersaint, was running along the platform, she was stopped once more, and this time by Doctor Bonamy, who triumphantly presented her to Father Fourcade. "Here is Mademoiselle de Guersaint, your reverence, the young lady who was healed so marvellously yesterday." The radiant smile of a general who is reminded of his most decisive victory appeared on Father Fourcade's face. "I know, I know; I was there," he replied. "God has blessed you among all women, my dear daughter; go, and cause His name to be worshipped." Then he congratulated M. de Guersaint, whose paternal pride savoured divine enjoyment. It was the ovation beginning afresh--the concert of loving words and enraptured glances which had followed the girl through the streets of Lourdes that morning, and which again surrounded her at the moment of departure. The bell might go on ringing; a circle of delighted pilgrims still lingered around her; it seemed as if she were carrying away in her person all the glory of the pilgrimage, the triumph of religion, which would echo and echo to the four corners of the earth. And Pierre was moved as he noticed the dolorous group which Madame Jousseur and M. Dieulafay formed near by. Their eyes were fixed upon Marie; like the others, they were astonished by the resurrection of this beautiful girl, whom they had seen lying inert, emaciated, with ashen face. Why should that child have been healed? Why not the young woman, the dear woman, whom they were taking home in a dying state? Their confusion, their sense of shame, seemed to increase; they drew back, uneasy, like pariahs burdened with too much wealth; and it was a great relief for them when, three bearers having with difficulty placed Madame Dieulafay in the first-class compartment, they themselves were able to vanish into it in company with Abbe Judaine. The /employes/ were already shouting, "Take your seats! take your seats," and Father Massias, the spiritual director of the train, had returned to his compartment, leaving Father Fourcade on the platform leaning on Doctor Bonamy's shoulder. In all haste Gerard and Berthaud again saluted the ladies, while Raymonde got in to join Madame Desagneaux and Madame Volmar in their corner; and Madame de Jonquiere at last ran off to her carriage, which she reached at the same time as the Guersaints. There was hustling, and shouting, and wild running from one to the other end of the long train, to which the engine, a copper engine, glittering like a star, had just been coupled. Pierre was helping Marie into the carriage, when M. Vigneron, coming back at a gallop, shouted to him: "It'll be good to-morrow, it'll be good tomorrow!" Very red in the face, he showed and waved his ticket, and then galloped off again to the compartment where his wife and son had their seats, in order to announce the good news to them. When Marie and her father were installed in their places, Pierre lingered for another moment on the platform with Doctor Chassaigne, who embraced him paternally. The young man wished to induce the doctor to return to Paris and take some little interest in life again. But M. Chassaigne shook his head. "No, no, my dear child," he replied. "I shall remain here. They are here, they keep me here." He was speaking of his dear lost ones. Then, very gently and lovingly, he said, "Farewell." "Not farewell, my dear doctor; till we meet again." "Yes, yes, farewell. The Commander was right, you know; nothing can be so sweet as to die, but to die in order to live again." Baron Suire was now giving orders for the removal of the white flags on the foremost and hindmost carriages of the train; the shouts of the railway /employes/ were ringing out in more and more imperious tones, "Take your seats! take your seats!" and now came the supreme scramble, the torrent of belated pilgrims rushing up distracted, breathless, and covered with perspiration. Madame de Jonquiere and Sister Hyacinthe were counting their party in the carriage. La Grivotte, Elise Rouquet, and Sophie Couteau were all three there. Madame Sabathier, too, had taken her seat in front of her husband, who, with his eyes half closed, was patiently awaiting the departure. However, a voice inquired, "And Madame Vincent, isn't she going back with us?" Thereupon Sister Hyacinthe, who was leaning out of the window exchanging a last smile with Ferrand, who stood at the door of the cantine van, exclaimed: "Here she comes!" Madame Vincent crossed the lines, rushed up, the last of all, breathless and haggard. And at once, by an involuntary impulse, Pierre glanced at her arms. They carried nothing now. All the doors were being closed, slammed one after the other; the carriages were full, and only the signal for departure was awaited. Panting and smoking, the engine gave vent to a first loud whistle, shrill and joyous; and at that moment the sun, hitherto veiled from sight, dissipated the light cloudlets and made the whole train resplendent, gilding the engine, which seemed on the point of starting for the legendary Paradise. No bitterness, but a divine, infantile gaiety attended the departure. All the sick appeared to be healed. Though most of them were being taken away in the same condition as they had been brought, they went off relieved and happy, at all events, for an hour. And not the slightest jealousy tainted their brotherly and sisterly feelings; those who were not cured waxed quite gay, triumphant at the cure of the others. Their own turns would surely come; yesterday's miracle was the formal promise of to-morrow's. Even after those three days of burning entreaty their fever of desire remained within them; the faith of the forgotten ones continued as keen as ever in the conviction that the Blessed Virgin had simply deferred a cure for their souls' benefit. Inextinguishable love, invincible hope glowed within all those wretched ones thirsting for life. And so a last outburst of joy, a turbulent display of happiness, laughter and shouts, overflowed from all the crowded carriages. "Till next year! We'll come back, we'll come back again!" was the cry; and then the gay little Sisters of the Assumption clapped their hands, and the hymn of gratitude, the "Magnificat," began, sung by all the eight hundred pilgrims: "/Magnificat anima mea Dominum/." "My soul doth magnify the Lord." Thereupon the station-master, his mind at last at ease, his arms hanging beside him, caused the signal to be given. The engine whistled once again and then set out, rolling along in the dazzling sunlight as amidst a glory. Although his leg was causing him great suffering, Father Fourcade had remained on the platform, leaning upon Doctor Bonamy's shoulder, and, in spite of everything, saluting the departure of his dear children with a smile. Berthaud, Gerard, and Baron Suire formed another group, and near them were Doctor Chassaigne and M. Vigneron waving their handkerchiefs. Heads were looking joyously out of the windows of the fleeing carriages, whence other handkerchiefs were streaming in the current of air produced by the motion of the train. Madame Vigneron compelled Gustave to show his pale little face, and for a long time Raymonde's small hand could be seen waving good wishes; but Marie remained the last, looking back on Lourdes as it grew smaller and smaller amidst the trees. Across the bright countryside the train triumphantly disappeared, resplendent, growling, chanting at the full pitch of its eight hundred voices: "/Et exsultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo/." "And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour!" IV MARIE'S VOW ONCE more was the white train rolling, rolling towards Paris on its way home; and the third-class carriage, where the shrill voices singing the "Magnificat" at full pitch rose above the growling of the wheels, had again become a common room, a travelling hospital ward, full of disorder, littered like an improvised ambulance. Basins and brooms and sponges lay about under the seats, which half concealed them. Articles of luggage, all the wretched mass of poor worn-out things, were heaped together, a little bit everywhere; and up above, the litter began again, what with the parcels, the baskets, and the bags hanging from the brass pegs and swinging to and fro without a moment's rest. The same Sisters of the Assumption and the same lady-hospitallers were there with their patients, amidst the contingent of healthy pilgrims, who were already suffering from the overpowering heat and unbearable odour. And at the far end there was again the compartment full of women, the ten close-packed female pilgrims, some young, some old, and all looking pitifully ugly as they violently chanted the canticle in cracked and woeful voices. "At what time shall we reach Paris?" M. de Guersaint inquired of Pierre. "To-morrow at about two in the afternoon, I think," the priest replied. Since starting, Marie had been looking at the latter with an air of anxious preoccupation, as though haunted by a sudden sorrow which she could not reveal. However, she found her gay, healthful smile again to say: "Twenty-two hours' journey! Ah! it won't be so long and trying as it was coming." "Besides," resumed her father, "we have left some of our people behind. We have plenty of room now." In fact Madame Maze's absence left a corner free at the end of the seat which Marie, now sitting up like any other passenger, no longer encumbered with her box. Moreover, little Sophie had this time been placed in the next compartment, where there was neither Brother Isidore nor his sister Marthe. The latter, it was said, had remained at Lourdes in service with a pious lady. On the other side, Madame de Jonquiere and Sister Hyacinthe also had the benefit of a vacant seat, that of Madame Vetu; and it had further occurred to them to get rid of Elise Rouquet by placing her with Sophie, so that only La Grivotte and the Sabathier couple were with them in their compartment. Thanks to these new arrangements, they were better able to breathe, and perhaps they might manage to sleep a little. The last verse of the "Magnificat" having been sung, the ladies finished installing themselves as comfortably as possible by setting their little household in order. One of the most important matters was to put the zinc water-can, which interfered with their legs, out of the way. All the blinds of the left-hand windows had been pulled down, for the oblique sunrays were falling on the train, and had poured into it in sheets of fire. The last storms, however, must have laid the dust, and the night would certainly be cool. Moreover, there was less suffering: death had carried off the most afflicted ones, and only stupefied ailments, numbed by fatigue and lapsing into a slow torpor, remained. The overpowering reaction which always follows great moral shocks was about to declare itself. The souls had made the efforts required of them, the miracles had been worked, and now the relaxing was beginning amidst a hebetude tinged with profound relief. Until they got to Tarbes they were all very much occupied in setting things in order and making themselves comfortable. But as they left that station Sister Hyacinthe rose up and clapped her hands. "My children," said she, "we must not forget the Blessed Virgin who has been so kind to us. Let us begin the Rosary." Then the whole carriage repeated the first chaplet--the five joyful mysteries, the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Purification, and the Finding of Jesus in the Temple. And afterwards they intoned the canticle, "Let us contemplate the heavenly Archangel," in such loud voices that the peasants working in the fields raised their heads to look at this singing train as it rushed past them at full speed. Marie was at the window, gazing with admiration at the vast landscape and the immense stretch of sky, which had gradually freed itself of its mist and was now of a dazzling blue. It was the delicious close of a fine day. However, she at last looked back into the carriage, and her eyes were fixing themselves on Pierre with that mute sadness which had previously dimmed them, when all at once a sound of furious sobbing burst forth in front of her. The canticle was finished, and it was Madame Vincent who was crying, stammering confused words, half-choked by her tears: "Ah, my poor little one!" she gasped. "Ah, my jewel, my treasure, my life!" She had previously remained in her corner, shrinking back into it as though anxious to disappear. With a fierce face, her lips tightly set, and her eyes closed, as though to isolate herself in the depths of her cruel grief, she had hitherto not said a word. But, chancing to open her eyes, she had espied the leathern window-strap hanging down beside the door, and the sight of that strap, which her daughter had touched, almost played with at one moment during the previous journey, had overwhelmed her with a frantic despair which swept away her resolution to remain silent. "Ah! my poor little Rose," she continued. "Her little hand touched that strap, she turned it, and looked at it--ah, it was her last plaything! And we were there both together then; she was still alive, I still had her on my lap, in my arms. It was still so nice, so nice! But now I no longer have her; I shall never, never have her again, my poor little Rose, my poor little Rose!" Distracted, sobbing bitterly, she looked at her knees and her arms, on which nothing now rested, and which she was at a loss how to employ. She had so long rocked her daughter on her knees, so long carried her in her arms, that it now seemed to her as if some portion of her being had been amputated, as if her body had been deprived of one of its functions, leaving her diminished, unoccupied, distracted at being unable to fulfil that function any more. Those useless arms and knees of hers quite embarrassed her. Pierre and Marie, who were deeply moved, had drawn near, uttering kind words and striving to console the unhappy mother. And, little by little, from the disconnected sentences which mingled with her sobs, they learned what a Calvary she had ascended since her daughter's death. On the morning of the previous day, when she had carried the body off in her arms amidst the storm, she must have long continued walking, blind and deaf to everything, whilst the torrential rain beat down upon her. She no longer remembered what squares she had crossed, what streets she had traversed, as she roamed through that infamous Lourdes, that Lourdes which killed little children, that Lourdes which she cursed. "Ah! I can't remember, I can't remember," she faltered. "But some people took me in, had pity upon me, some people whom I don't know, but who live somewhere. Ah! I can't remember where, but it was somewhere high up, far away, at the other end of the town. And they were certainly very poor folk, for I can still see myself in a poor-looking room with my dear little one who was quite cold, and whom they laid upon their bed." At this recollection a fresh attack of sobbing shook her, in fact almost stifled her. "No, no," she at last resumed, "I would not part with her dear little body by leaving it in that abominable town. And I can't tell exactly how it happened, but it must have been those poor people who took me with them. We did a great deal of walking, oh! a great deal of walking; we saw all those gentlemen of the pilgrimage and the railway. 'What can it matter to you?' I repeated to them. 'Let me take her back to Paris in my arms. I brought her here like that when she was alive, I may surely take her back dead? Nobody will notice anything, people will think that she is asleep.'" "And all of them, all those officials, began shouting and driving me away as though I were asking them to let me do something wicked. Then I ended by telling them my mind. When people make so much fuss, and bring so many agonising sick to a place like that, they surely ought to send the dead ones home again, ought they not? And do you know how much money they ended by asking of me at the station? Three hundred francs! Yes, it appears it is the price! Three hundred francs, good Lord! of me, who came here with thirty sous in my pocket and have only five left. Why, I don't earn that amount of money by six months' sewing. They ought to have asked me for my life; I would have given it so willingly. Three hundred francs! three hundred francs for that poor little bird-like body, which it would have consoled me so much to have brought away on my knees!" Then she began stammering and complaining in a confused, husky voice: "Ah, if you only knew how sensibly those poor people talked to me to induce me to go back. A work-woman like myself, with work waiting, ought to return to Paris, they said; and, besides, I couldn't afford to sacrifice my return ticket; I must take the three-forty train. And they told me, too, that people are compelled to put up with things when they are not rich. Only the rich can keep their dead, do what they like with them, eh? And I can't remember--no, again I can't remember! I didn't even know the time; I should never have been able to find my way back to the station. After the funeral over there, at a place where there were two trees, it must have been those poor people who led me away, half out of my senses, and brought me to the station, and pushed me into the carriage just at the moment when the train was starting. But what a rending it was--as if my heart had remained there underground, and it is frightful, that it is, frightful, my God!" "Poor woman!" murmured Marie. "Take courage, and pray to the Blessed Virgin for the succour which she never refuses to the afflicted." But at this Madame Vincent shook with rage. "It isn't true!" she cried. "The Blessed Virgin doesn't care a rap about me. She doesn't tell the truth! Why did she deceive me? I should never have gone to Lourdes if I hadn't heard that voice in a church. My little girl would still be alive, and perhaps the doctors would have saved her. I, who would never set my foot among the priests formerly! Ah! I was right! I was right! There's no Blessed Virgin at all!" And in this wise, without resignation, without illusion, without hope, she continued blaspheming with the coarse fury of a woman of the people, shrieking the sufferings of her heart aloud in such rough fashion that Sister Hyacinthe had to intervene: "Be quiet, you unhappy woman! It is God who is making you suffer, to punish you." The scene had already lasted a long time, and as they passed Riscle at full speed the Sister again clapped her hands and gave the signal for the chanting of the "Laudate Mariam." "Come, come, my children," she exclaimed, "all together, and with all your hearts: "In heav'n, on earth, All voices raise, In concert sing My Mother's praise: /Laudate, laudate, laudate Mariam/!" Madame Vincent, whose voice was drowned by this canticle of love, now only sobbed, with her hands pressed to her face. Her revolt was over, she was again strengthless, weak like a suffering woman whom grief and weariness have stupefied. After the canticle, fatigue fell more or less heavily upon all the occupants of the carriage. Only Sister Hyacinthe, so quick and active, and Sister Claire des Anges, so gentle, serious, and slight, retained, as on their departure from Paris and during their sojourn at Lourdes, the professional serenity of women accustomed to everything, amidst the bright gaiety of their white coifs and wimples. Madame de Jonquiere, who had scarcely slept for five days past, had to make an effort to keep her poor eyes open; and yet she was delighted with the journey, for her heart was full of joy at having arranged her daughter's marriage, and at bringing back with her the greatest of all the miracles, a /miraculee/ whom everybody was talking of. She decided in her own mind that she would get to sleep that night, however bad the jolting might be; though on the other hand she could not shake off a covert fear with regard to La Grivotte, who looked very strange, excited, and haggard, with dull eyes, and cheeks glowing with patches of violet colour. Madame de Jonquiere had tried a dozen times to keep her from fidgeting, but had not been able to induce her to remain still, with joined hands and closed eyes. Fortunately, the other patients gave her no anxiety; most of them were either so relieved or so weary that they were already dozing off. Elise Rouquet, however, had bought herself a pocket mirror, a large round one, in which she did not weary of contemplating herself, finding herself quite pretty, and verifying from minute to minute the progress of her cure with a coquetry which, now that her monstrous face was becoming human again, made her purse her lips and try a variety of smiles. As for Sophie Couteau, she was playing very prettily; for finding that nobody now asked to examine her foot, she had taken off her shoe and stocking of her own accord, repeating that she must surely have a pebble in one or the other of them; and as her companions still paid no attention to that little foot which the Blessed Virgin had been pleased to visit, she kept it in her hands, caressing it, seemingly delighted to touch it and turn it into a plaything. M. de Guersaint had meantime risen from his seat, and, leaning on the low partition between the compartments, he was glancing at M. Sabathier, when all of a sudden Marie called: "Oh! father, father, look at this notch in the seat; it was the ironwork of my box that made it!" The discovery of this trace rendered her so happy that for a moment she forgot the secret sorrow which she seemed anxious to keep to herself. And in the same way as Madame Vincent had burst out sobbing on perceiving the leather strap which her little girl had touched, so she burst into joy at the sight of this scratch, which reminded her of her long martyrdom in this same carriage, all the abomination which had now disappeared, vanished like a nightmare. "To think that four days have scarcely gone by," she said; "I was lying there, I could not stir, and now, now I come and go, and feel so comfortable!" Pierre and M. de Guersaint were smiling at her; and M. Sabathier, who had heard her, slowly said: "It is quite true. We leave a little of ourselves in things, a little of our sufferings and our hopes, and when we find them again they speak to us, and once more tell us the things which sadden us or make us gay." He had remained in his corner silent, with an air of resignation, ever since their departure from Lourdes. Even his wife whilst wrapping up his legs had only been able to obtain sundry shakes of the head from him in response to her inquiries whether he was suffering. In point of fact he was not suffering, but extreme dejection was overcoming him. "Thus for my own part," he continued, "during our long journey from Paris I tried to divert my thoughts by counting the bands in the roofing up there. There were thirteen from the lamp to the door. Well, I have just been counting them again, and naturally enough there are still thirteen. It's like that brass knob beside me. You can't imagine what dreams I had whilst I watched it shining at night-time when Monsieur l'Abbe was reading the story of Bernadette to us. Yes, I saw myself cured; I was making that journey to Rome which I have been talking of for twenty years past; I walked and travelled the world--briefly, I had all manner of wild and delightful dreams. And now here we are on our way back to Paris, and there are thirteen bands across the roofing there, and the knob is still shining--all of which tells me that I am again on the same seat, with my legs lifeless. Well, well, it's understood, I'm a poor, old, used-up animal, and such I shall remain." Two big tears appeared in his eyes; he must have been passing through an hour of frightful bitterness. However, he raised his big square head, with its jaw typical of patient obstinacy, and added: "This is the seventh year that I have been to Lourdes, and the Blessed Virgin has not listened to me. No matter! It won't prevent me from going back next year. Perhaps she will at last deign to hear me." For his part he did not revolt. And Pierre, whilst chatting with him, was stupefied to find persistent, tenacious credulity springing up once more, in spite of everything, in the cultivated brain of this man of intellect. What ardent desire of cure and life was it that had led to this refusal to accept evidence, this determination to remain blind? He stubbornly clung to the resolution to be saved when all human probabilities were against him, when the experiment of the miracle itself had failed so many times already; and he had reached such a point that he wished to explain his fresh rebuff, urging moments of inattention at the Grotto, a lack of sufficient contrition, and all sorts of little transgressions which must have displeased the Blessed Virgin. Moreover, he was already deciding in his mind that he would perform a novena somewhere next year, before again repairing to Lourdes. "Ah! by the way," he resumed, "do you know of the good-luck which my substitute has had? Yes, you must remember my telling you about that poor fellow suffering from tuberculosis, for whom I paid fifty francs when I obtained /hospitalisation/ for myself. Well, he has been thoroughly cured." "Really! And he was suffering from tuberculosis!" exclaimed M. de Guersaint. "Certainly, monsieur, perfectly cured I had seen him looking so low, so yellow, so emaciated, when we started; but when he came to pay me a visit at the hospital he was quite a new man; and, dear me, I gave him five francs." Pierre had to restrain a smile, for be had heard the story from Doctor Chassaigne. This miraculously healed individual was a feigner, who had eventually been recognised at the Medical Verification Office. It was, apparently, the third year that he had presented himself there, the first time alleging paralysis and the second time a tumour, both of which had been as completely healed as his pretended tuberculosis. On each occasion he obtained an outing, lodging and food, and returned home loaded with alms. It appeared that he had formerly been a hospital nurse, and that he transformed himself, "made-up" a face suited to his pretended ailment, in such an extremely artistic manner that it was only by chance that Doctor Bonamy had detected the imposition. Moreover, the Fathers had immediately required that the incident should be kept secret. What was the use of stirring up a scandal which would only have led to jocular remarks in the newspapers? Whenever any fraudulent miracles of this kind were discovered, the Fathers contented themselves with forcing the guilty parties to go away. Moreover, these feigners were far from numerous, despite all that was related of them in the amusing stories concocted by Voltairean humourists. Apart from faith, human stupidity and ignorance, alas! were quite sufficient to account for the miracles. M. Sabathier, however, was greatly stirred by the idea that Heaven had healed this man who had gone to Lourdes at his expense, whereas he himself was returning home still helpless, still in the same woeful state. He sighed, and, despite all his resignation, could not help saying, with a touch of envy: "What would you, however? The Blessed Virgin must know very well what she's about. Neither you nor I can call her to account to us for her actions. Whenever it may please her to cast her eyes on me she will find me at her feet." After the "Angelus" when they got to Mont-de-Marsan, Sister Hyacinthe made them repeat the second chaplet, the five sorrowful mysteries, Jesus in the Garden of Olives, Jesus scourged, Jesus crowned with thorns, Jesus carrying the cross, and Jesus crucified. Then they took dinner in the carriage, for there would be no stopping until they reached Bordeaux, where they would only arrive at eleven o'clock at night. All the pilgrims' baskets were crammed with provisions, to say nothing of the milk, broth, chocolate, and fruit which Sister Saint-Francois had sent from the cantine. Then, too, there was fraternal sharing: they sat with their food on their laps and drew close together, every compartment becoming, as it were, the scene of a picnic, to which each contributed his share. And they had finished their meal and were packing up the remaining bread again when the train passed Morceux. "My children," now said Sister Hyacinthe, rising up, "the evening prayer!" Thereupon came a confused murmuring made up of "Paters" and "Aves," self-examinations, acts of contrition and vows of trustful reliance in God, the Blessed Virgin, and the Saints, with thanksgivings for that happy day, and, at last, a prayer for the living and for the faithful departed. "I warn you," then resumed the Sister, "that when we get to Lamothe, at ten o'clock, I shall order silence. However, I think you will all be very good and won't require any rocking to get to sleep." This made them laugh. It was now half-past eight o'clock, and the night had slowly covered the country-side. The hills alone retained a vague trace of the twilight's farewell, whilst a dense sheet of darkness blotted out all the low ground. Rushing on at full speed, the train entered an immense plain, and then there was nothing but a sea of darkness, through which they ever and ever rolled under a blackish sky, studded with stars. For a moment or so Pierre had been astonished by the demeanour of La Grivotte. While the other pilgrims and patients were already dozing off, sinking down amidst the luggage, which the constant jolting shook, she had risen to her feet and was clinging to the partition in a sudden spasm of agony. And under the pale, yellow, dancing gleam of the lamp she once more looked emaciated, with a livid, tortured face. "Take care, madame, she will fall!" the priest called to Madame de Jonquiere, who, with eyelids lowered, was at last giving way to sleep. She made all haste to intervene, but Sister Hyacinthe had turned more quickly and caught La Grivotte in her arms. A frightful fit of coughing, however, prostrated the unhappy creature upon the seat, and for five minutes she continued stifling, shaken by such an attack that her poor body seemed to be actually cracking and rending. Then a red thread oozed from between her lips, and at last she spat up blood by the throatful. "Good heavens! good heavens! it's coming on her again!" repeated Madame de Jonquiere in despair. "I had a fear of it; I was not at ease, seeing her looking so strange. Wait a moment; I will sit down beside her." But the Sister would not consent: "No, no, madame, sleep a little. I'll watch over her. You are not accustomed to it: you would end by making yourself ill as well." Then she settled herself beside La Grivotte, made her rest her head against her shoulder, and wiped the blood from her lips. The attack subsided, but weakness was coming back, so extreme that the wretched woman was scarcely able to stammer: "Oh, it is nothing, nothing at all; I am cured, I am cured, completely cured!" Pierre was thoroughly upset: This sudden, overwhelming relapse had sent an icy chill through the whole carriage. Many of the passengers raised themselves up and looked at La Grivotte with terror in their eyes. Then they dived down into their corners again, and nobody spoke, nobody stirred any further. Pierre, for his part, reflected on the curious medical aspect of this girl's case. Her strength had come back to her over yonder. She had displayed a ravenous appetite, she had walked long distances with a dancing gait, her face quite radiant the while; and now she had spat blood, her cough had broken out afresh, she again had the heavy ashen face of one in the last agony. Her ailment had returned to her with brutal force, victorious over everything. Was this, then, some special case of phthisis complicated by neurosis? Or was it some other malady, some unknown disease, quietly continuing its work in the midst of contradictory diagnosis? The sea of error and ignorance, the darkness amidst which human science is still struggling, again appeared to Pierre. And he once more saw Doctor Chassaigne shrugging his shoulders with disdain, whilst Doctor Bonamy, full of serenity, quietly continued his verification work, absolutely convinced that nobody would be able to prove to him the impossibility of his miracles any more than he himself could have proved their possibility. "Oh! I am not frightened," La Grivotte continued, stammering. "I am cured, completely cured; they all told me so, over yonder." Meantime the carriage was rolling, rolling along, through the black night. Each of its occupants was making preparations, stretching himself out in order to sleep more comfortably. They compelled Madame Vincent to lie down on the seat, and gave her a pillow on which to rest her poor pain-racked head; and then, as docile as a child, quite stupefied, she fell asleep in a nightmare-like torpor, with big, silent tears still flowing from her closed eyes. Elise Rouquet, who had a whole seat to herself, was also getting ready to lie down, but first of all she made quite an elaborate toilet, tying the black wrap which had served to hide her sore about her head, and then again peering into her glass to see if this headgear became her, now that the swelling of her lip had subsided. And again did Pierre feel astonished at sight of that sore, which was certainly healing, if not already healed--that face, so lately a monster's face, which one could now look at without feeling horrified. The sea of incertitude stretched before him once more. Was it even a real lupus? Might it not rather be some unknown form of ulcer of hysterical origin? Or ought one to admit that certain forms of lupus, as yet but imperfectly studied and arising from faulty nutrition of the skin, might be benefited by a great moral shock? At all events there here seemed to be a miracle, unless, indeed, the sore should reappear again in three weeks', three months', or three years' time, like La Grivotte's phthisis. It was ten o'clock, and the people in the carriage were falling asleep when they left Lamothe. Sister Hyacinthe, upon whose knees La Grivotte was now drowsily resting her head, was unable to rise, and, for form's sake, merely said, "Silence, silence, my children!" in a low voice, which died away amidst the growling rumble of the wheels. However, something continued stirring in an adjoining compartment; she heard a noise which irritated her nerves, and the cause of which she at last fancied she could understand. "Why do you keep on kicking the seat, Sophie?" she asked. "You must get to sleep, my child." "I'm not kicking, Sister. It's a key that was rolling about under my foot." "A key!--how is that? Pass it to me." Then she examined it. A very old, poor-looking key it was--blackened, worn away, and polished by long use, its ring bearing the mark of where it had been broken and resoldered. However, they all searched their pockets, and none of them, it seemed, had lost a key. "I found it in the corner," now resumed Sophie; "it must have belonged to the man." "What man?" asked Sister Hyacinthe. "The man who died there." They had already forgotten him. But it had surely been his, for Sister Hyacinthe recollected that she had heard something fall while she was wiping his forehead. And she turned the key over and continued looking at it, as it lay in her hand, poor, ugly, wretched key that it was, no longer of any use, never again to open the lock it belonged to--some unknown lock, hidden far away in the depths of the world. For a moment she was minded to put it in her pocket, as though by a kind of compassion for this little bit of iron, so humble and so mysterious, since it was all that remained of that unknown man. But then the pious thought came to her that it is wrong to show attachment to any earthly thing; and, the window being half-lowered, she threw out the key, which fell into the black night. "You must not play any more, Sophie," she resumed. "Come, come, my children, silence!" It was only after the brief stay at Bordeaux, however, at about half-past eleven o'clock, that sleep came back again and overpowered all in the carriage. Madame de Jonquiere had been unable to contend against it any longer, and her head was now resting against the partition, her face wearing an expression of happiness amidst all her fatigue. The Sabathiers were, in a like fashion, calmly sleeping; and not a sound now came from the compartment which Sophie Couteau and Elise Rouquet occupied, stretched in front of each other, on the seats. From time to time a low plaint would rise, a strangled cry of grief or fright, escaping from the lips of Madame Vincent, who, amidst her prostration, was being tortured by evil dreams. Sister Hyacinthe was one of the very few who still had their eyes open, anxious as she was respecting La Grivotte, who now lay quite motionless, like a felled animal, breathing painfully, with a continuous wheezing sound. From one to the other end of this travelling dormitory, shaken by the rumbling of the train rolling on at full speed, the pilgrims and the sick surrendered themselves to sleep, and limbs dangled and heads swayed under the pale, dancing gleams from the lamps. At the far end, in the compartment occupied by the ten female pilgrims, there was a woeful jumbling of poor, ugly faces, old and young, and all open-mouthed, as though sleep had suddenly fallen upon them at the moment they were finishing some hymn. Great pity came to the heart at the sight of all those mournful, weary beings, prostrated by five days of wild hope and infinite ecstasy, and destined to awaken, on the very morrow, to the stern realities of life. And now Pierre once more felt himself to be alone with Marie. She had not consented to stretch herself on the seat--she had been lying down too long, she said, for seven years, alas! And in order that M. de Guersaint, who on leaving Bordeaux had again fallen into his childlike slumber, might be more at ease, Pierre came and sat down beside the girl. As the light of the lamp annoyed her he drew the little screen, and they thus found themselves in the shade, a soft and transparent shade. The train must now have been crossing a plain, for it glided through the night as in an endless flight, with a sound like the regular flapping of huge wings. Through the window, which they had opened, a delicious coolness came from the black fields, the fathomless fields, where not even any lonely little village lights could be seen gleaming. For a moment Pierre had turned towards Marie and had noticed that her eyes were closed. But he could divine that she was not sleeping, that she was savouring the deep peacefulness which prevailed around them amidst the thundering roar of their rush through the darkness, and, like her, he closed his eyelids and began dreaming. Yet once again did the past arise before him: the little house at Neuilly, the embrace which they had exchanged near the flowering hedge under the trees flecked with sunlight. How far away all that already was, and with what perfume had it not filled his life! Then bitter thoughts returned to him at the memory of the day when he had become a priest. Since she would never be a woman, he had consented to be a man no more; and that was to prove their eternal misfortune, for ironical Nature was to make her a wife and a mother after all. Had he only been able to retain his faith he might have found eternal consolation in it. But all his attempts to regain it had been in vain. He had gone to Lourdes, he had striven his utmost at the Grotto, he had hoped for a moment that he would end by believing should Marie be miraculously healed; but total and irremediable ruin had come when the predicted cure had taken place even as science had foretold. And their idyl, so pure and so painful, the long story of their affection bathed in tears, likewise spread out before him. She, having penetrated his sad secret, had come to Lourdes to pray to Heaven for the miracle of his conversion. When they had remained alone under the trees amidst the perfume of the invisible roses, during the night procession, they had prayed one for the other, mingling one in the other, with an ardent desire for their mutual happiness. Before the Grotto, too, she had entreated the Blessed Virgin to forget her and to save him, if she could obtain but one favour from her Divine Son. Then, healed, beside herself, transported with love and gratitude, whirled with her little car up the inclined ways to the Basilica, she had thought her prayers granted, and had cried aloud the joy she felt that they should have both been saved, together, together! Ah! that lie which he, prompted by affection and charity, had told, that error in which he had from that moment suffered her to remain, with what a weight did it oppress his heart! It was the heavy slab which walled him in his voluntarily chosen sepulchre. He remembered the frightful attack of grief which had almost killed him in the gloom of the crypt, his sobs, his brutal revolt, his longing to keep her for himself alone, to possess her since he knew her to be his own--all that rising passion of his awakened manhood, which little by little had fallen asleep again, drowned by the rushing river of his tears; and in order that he might not destroy the divine illusion which possessed her, yielding to brotherly compassion, he had taken that heroic vow to lie to her, that vow which now filled him with such anguish. Pierre shuddered amidst his reverie. Would he have the strength to keep that vow forever? Had he not detected a feeling of impatience in his heart even whilst he was waiting for her at the railway station, a jealous longing to leave that Lourdes which she loved too well, in the vague hope that she might again become his own, somewhere far away? If he had not been a priest he would have married her. And what rapture, what felicity would then have been his! He would have given himself wholly unto her, she would have been wholly his own, and he and she would have lived again in the dear child that would doubtless have been born to them. Ah! surely that alone was divine, the life which is complete, the life which creates life! And then his reverie strayed: he pictured himself married, and the thought filled him with such delight that he asked why such a dream should be unrealisable? She knew no more than a child of ten; he would educate her, form her mind. She would then understand that this cure for which she thought herself indebted to the Blessed Virgin, had in reality come to her from the Only Mother, serene and impassive Nature. But even whilst he was thus settling things in his mind, a kind of terror, born of his religious education, arose within him. Could he tell if that human happiness with which he desired to endow her would ever be worth as much as the holy ignorance, the infantile candour in which she now lived? How bitterly he would reproach himself afterwards if she should not be happy. Then, too, what a drama it would all be; he to throw off the cassock, and marry this girl healed by an alleged miracle--ravage her faith sufficiently to induce her to consent to such sacrilege? Yet therein lay the brave course; there lay reason, life, real manhood, real womanhood. Why, then, did he not dare? Horrible sadness was breaking upon his reverie, he became conscious of nothing beyond the sufferings of his poor heart. The train was still rolling along with its great noise of flapping wings. Beside Pierre and Marie, only Sister Hyacinthe was still awake amidst the weary slumber of the carriage; and just then, Marie leant towards Pierre, and softly said to him: "It's strange, my friend; I am so sleepy, and yet I can't sleep." Then, with alight laugh, she added: "I've got Paris in my head!" "How is that--Paris?" "Yes, yes. I'm thinking that it's waiting for me, that I am about to return to it--that Paris which I know nothing of, and where I shall have to live!" These words brought fresh anguish to Pierre's heart. He had well foreseen it; she could no longer belong to him, she would belong to others. If Lourdes had restored her to him, Paris was about to take her from him again. And he pictured this ignorant little being fatally acquiring all the education of woman. That little spotless soul which had remained so candid in the frame of a big girl of three-and-twenty, that soul which illness had kept apart from others, far from life, far even from novels, would soon ripen, now that it could fly freely once more. He beheld her, a gay, healthy young girl, running everywhere, looking and learning, and, some day, meeting the husband who would finish her education. "And so," said he, "you propose to amuse yourself in Paris?" "Oh! what are you saying, my friend? Are we rich enough to amuse ourselves?" she replied. "No, I was thinking of my poor sister Blanche, and wondering what I should be able to do in Paris to help her a little. She is so good, she works so hard; I don't wish that she should have to continue earning all the money." And, after a fresh pause, as he, deeply moved, remained silent, she added: "Formerly, before I suffered so dreadfully, I painted miniatures rather nicely. You remember, don't you, that I painted a portrait of papa which was very like him, and which everybody praised. You will help me, won't you? You will find me customers?" Then she began talking of the new life which she was about to live. She wanted to arrange her room and hang it with cretonne, something pretty, with a pattern of little blue flowers. She would buy it out of the first money she could save. Blanche had spoken to her of the big shops where things could be bought so cheaply. To go out with Blanche and run about a little would be so amusing for her, who, confined to her bed since childhood, had never seen anything. Then Pierre, who for a moment had been calmer, again began to suffer, for he could divine all her glowing desire to live, her ardour to see everything, know everything, and taste everything. It was at last the awakening of the woman whom she was destined to be, whom he had divined in childhood's days--a dear creature of gaiety and passion, with blooming lips, starry eyes, a milky complexion, golden hair, all resplendent with the joy of being. "Oh! I shall work, I shall work," she resumed; "but you are right, Pierre, I shall also amuse myself, because it cannot be a sin to be gay, can it?" "No, surely not, Marie." "On Sundays we will go into the country, oh very far away, into the woods where there are beautiful trees. And we will sometimes go to the theatre, too, if papa will take us. I have been told that there are many plays that one may see. But, after all, it's not all that. Provided I can go out and walk in the streets and see things, I shall be so happy; I shall come home so gay. It is so nice to live, is it not, Pierre?" "Yes, yes, Marie, it is very nice." A chill like that of death was coming over him; his regret that he was no longer a man was filling him with agony. But since she tempted him like this with her irritating candour, why should he not confess to her the truth which was ravaging his being? He would have won her, have conquered her. Never had a more frightful struggle arisen between his heart and his will. For a moment he was on the point of uttering irrevocable words. But with the voice of a joyous child she was already resuming: "Oh! look at poor papa; how pleased he must be to sleep so soundly!" On the seat in front of them M. de Guersaint was indeed slumbering with a comfortable expression on his face, as though he were in his bed, and had no consciousness of the continual jolting of the train. This monotonous rolling and heaving seemed, in fact, a lullaby rocking the whole carriage to sleep. All surrendered themselves to it, sinking powerless on to the piles of bags and parcels, many of which had also fallen; and the rhythmical growling of the wheels never ceased in the unknown darkness through which the train was still rolling. Now and again, as they passed through a station or under a bridge, there would be a loud rush of wind, a tempest would suddenly sweep by; and then the lulling, growling sound would begin again, ever the same for hours together. Marie gently took hold of Pierre's hands; he and she were so lost, so completely alone among all those prostrated beings, in the deep, rumbling peacefulness of the train flying across the black night. And sadness, the sadness which she had hitherto hidden, had again come back to her, casting a shadow over her large blue eyes. "You will often come with us, my good Pierre, won't you?" she asked. He had started on feeling her little hand pressing his own. His heart was on his lips, he was making up his mind to speak. However, he once again restrained himself and stammered: "I am not always at liberty, Marie; a priest cannot go everywhere." "A priest?" she repeated. "Yes, yes, a priest. I understand." Then it was she who spoke, who confessed the mortal secret which had been oppressing her heart ever since they had started. She leant nearer, and in a lower voice resumed: "Listen, my good Pierre; I am fearfully sad. I may look pleased, but there is death in my soul. You did not tell me the truth yesterday." He became quite scared, but did not at first understand her. "I did not tell you the truth--About what?" he asked. A kind of shame restrained her, and she again hesitated at the moment of descending into the depths of another conscience than her own. Then, like a friend, a sister, she continued: "No, you let me believe that you had been saved with me, and it was not true, Pierre, you have not found your lost faith again." Good Lord! she knew. For him this was desolation, such a catastrophe that he forgot his torments. And, at first, he obstinately clung to the falsehood born of his fraternal charity. "But I assure you, Marie. How can you have formed such a wicked idea?" "Oh! be quiet, my friend, for pity's sake. It would grieve me too deeply if you were to speak to me falsely again. It was yonder, at the station, at the moment when we were starting, and that unhappy man had died. Good Abbe Judaine had knelt down to pray for the repose of that rebellious soul. And I divined everything, I understood everything when I saw that you did not kneel as well, that prayer did not rise to your lips as to his." "But, really, I assure you, Marie--" "No, no, you did not pray for the dead; you no longer believe. And besides, there is something else; something I can guess, something which comes to me from you, a despair which you can't hide from me, a melancholy look which comes into your poor eyes directly they meet mine. The Blessed Virgin did not grant my prayer, she did not restore your faith, and I am very, very wretched." She was weeping, a hot tear fell upon the priest's hand, which she was still holding. It quite upset him, and he ceased struggling, confessing, in his turn letting his tears flow, whilst, in a very low voice, he stammered: "Ah! Marie, I am very wretched also. Oh! so very wretched." For a moment they remained silent, in their cruel grief at feeling that the abyss which parts different beliefs was yawning between them. They would never belong to one another again, and they were in despair at being so utterly unable to bring themselves nearer to one another; but the severance was henceforth definitive, since Heaven itself had been unable to reconnect the bond. And thus, side by side, they wept over their separation. "I who prayed so fervently for your conversion," she said in a dolorous voice, "I who was so happy. It had seemed to me that your soul was mingling with mine; and it was so delightful to have been saved together, together. I felt such strength for life; oh, strength enough to raise the world!" He did not answer; his tears were still flowing, flowing without end. "And to think," she resumed, "that I was saved all alone; that this great happiness fell upon me without you having any share in it. And to see you so forsaken, so desolate, when I am loaded with grace and joy, rends my heart. Ah! how severe the Blessed Virgin has been! Why did she not heal your soul at the same time that she healed my body?" The last opportunity was presenting itself; he ought to have illumined this innocent creature's mind with the light of reason, have explained the miracle to her, in order that life, after accomplishing its healthful work in her body, might complete its triumph by throwing them into one another's arms. He also was healed, his mind was healthy now, and it was not for the loss of faith, but for the loss of herself, that he was weeping. However, invincible compassion was taking possession of him amidst all his grief. No, no, he would not trouble that dear soul; he would not rob her of her belief, which some day might prove her only stay amidst the sorrows of this world. One cannot yet require of children and women the bitter heroism of reason. He had not the strength to do it; he even thought that he had not the right. It would have seemed to him violation, abominable murder. And he did not speak out, but his tears flowed, hotter and hotter, in this immolation of his love, this despairing sacrifice of his own happiness in order that she might remain candid and ignorant and gay at heart. "Oh, Marie, how wretched I am! Nowhere on the roads, nowhere at the galleys even, is there a man more wretched than myself! Oh, Marie, if you only knew; if you only knew how wretched I am!" She was distracted, and caught him in her trembling arms, wishing to console him with a sisterly embrace. And at that moment the woman awaking within her understood everything, and she herself sobbed with sorrow that both human and divine will should thus part them. She had never yet reflected on such things, but suddenly she caught a glimpse of life, with its passions, its struggles, and its sufferings; and then, seeking for what she might say to soothe in some degree that broken heart, she stammered very faintly, distressed that she could find nothing sweet enough, "I know, I know--" Then the words it was needful she should speak came to her; and as though that which she had to say ought only to be heard by the angels, she became anxious and looked around her. But the slumber which reigned in the carriage seemed more heavy even than before. Her father was still sleeping, with the innocent look of a big child. Not one of the pilgrims, not one of the ailing ones, had stirred amidst the rough rocking which bore them onward. Even Sister Hyacinthe, giving way to her overpowering weariness, had just closed her eyes, after drawing the lamp-screen in her own compartment. And now there were only vague shadows there, ill-defined bodies amidst nameless things, ghostly forms scarce visible, which a tempest blast, a furious rush, was carrying on and on through the darkness. And she likewise distrusted that black country-side whose unknown depths went by on either side of the train without one even being able to tell what forests, what rivers, what hills one was crossing. A short time back some bright sparks of light had appeared, possibly the lights of some distant forges, or the woeful lamps of workers or sufferers. Now, however, the night again streamed deeply all around, the obscure, infinite, nameless sea, farther and farther through which they ever went, not knowing where they were. Then, with a chaste confusion, blushing amidst her tears, Marie placed her lips near Pierre's ear. "Listen, my friend; there is a great secret between the Blessed Virgin and myself. I had sworn that I would never tell it to anybody. But you are too unhappy, you are suffering too bitterly; she will forgive me; I will confide it to you." And in a faint breath she went on: "During that night of love, you know, that night of burning ecstasy which I spent before the Grotto, I engaged myself by a vow: I promised the Blessed Virgin the gift of my chastity if she would but heal me. . . . She has healed me, and never--you hear me, Pierre, never will I marry anybody." Ah! what unhoped-for sweetness! He thought that a balmy dew was falling on his poor wounded heart. It was a divine enchantment, a delicious relief. If she belonged to none other she would always be a little bit his own. And how well she had known his torment and what it was needful she should say in order that life might yet be possible for him. In his turn he wished to find happy words and promise that he also would ever be hers, ever love her as he had loved her since childhood, like the dear creature she was, whose one kiss, long, long ago, had sufficed to perfume his entire life. But she made him stop, already anxious, fearing to spoil that pure moment. "No, no, my friend," she murmured, "let us say nothing more; it would be wrong, perhaps. I am very weary; I shall sleep quietly now." And, with her head against his shoulder, she fell asleep at once, like a sister who is all confidence. He for a moment kept himself awake in that painful happiness of renunciation which they had just tasted together. It was all over, quite over now; the sacrifice was consummated. He would live a solitary life, apart from the life of other men. Never would he know woman, never would any child be born to him. And there remained to him only the consoling pride of that accepted and desired suicide, with the desolate grandeur that attaches to lives which are beyond the pale of nature. But fatigue overpowered him also; his eyes closed, and in his turn he fell asleep. And afterwards his head slipped down, and his cheek touched the cheek of his dear friend, who was sleeping very gently with her brow against his shoulder. Then their hair mingled. She had her golden hair, her royal hair, half unbound, and it streamed over his face, and he dreamed amidst its perfume. Doubtless the same blissful dream fell upon them both, for their loving faces assumed the same expression of rapture; they both seemed to be smiling to the angels. It was chaste and passionate abandon, the innocence of chance slumber placing them in one another's arms, with warm, close lips so that their breath mingled, like the breath of two babes lying in the same cradle. And such was their bridal night, the consummation of the spiritual marriage in which they were to live, a delicious annihilation born of extreme fatigue, with scarcely a fleeting dream of mystical possession, amidst that carriage of wretchedness and suffering, which still and ever rolled along through the dense night. Hours and hours slipped by, the wheels growled, the bags and baskets swung from the brass hooks, whilst from the piled-up, crushed bodies there only arose a sense of terrible fatigue, the great physical exhaustion brought back from the land of miracles when the overworked souls returned home. At last, at five o'clock, whilst the sun was rising, there was a sudden awakening, a resounding entry into a large station, with porters calling, doors opening, and people scrambling together. They were at Poitiers, and at once the whole carriage was on foot, amidst a chorus of laughter and exclamations. Little Sophie Couteau alighted here, and was bidding everybody farewell. She embraced all the ladies, even passing over the partition to take leave of Sister Claire des Anges, whom nobody had seen since the previous evening, for, silent and slight of build, with eyes full of mystery, she had vanished into her corner. Then the child came back again, took her little parcel, and showed herself particularly amiable towards Sister Hyacinthe and Madame de Jonquiere. "/Au revoir/, Sister! /Au revoir/, madame! I thank you for all your kindness." "You must come back again next year, my child." "Oh, I sha'n't fail, Sister; it's my duty." "And be good, my dear child, and take care of your health, so that the Blessed Virgin may be proud of you." "To be sure, madame, she was so good to me, and it amuses me so much to go to see her." When she was on the platform, all the pilgrims in the carriage leaned out, and with happy faces watched her go off. "Till next year!" they called to her; "till next year!" "Yes, yes, thank you kindly. Till next year." The morning prayer was only to be said at Chatelherault. After the stoppage at Poitiers, when the train was once more rolling on in the fresh breeze of morning, M. de Guersaint gaily declared that he had slept delightfully, in spite of the hardness of the seat. Madame de Jonquiere also congratulated herself on the good rest which she had had, and of which she had been in so much need; though, at the same time, she was somewhat annoyed at having left Sister Hyacinthe all alone to watch over La Grivotte, who was now shivering with intense fever, again attacked by her horrible cough. Meanwhile the other female pilgrims were tidying themselves. The ten women at the far end were fastening their /fichus/ and tying their cap strings, with a kind of modest nervousness displayed on their mournfully ugly faces. And Elise Rouquet, all attention, with her face close to her pocket glass, did not cease examining her nose, mouth, and cheeks, admiring herself with the thought that she was really and truly becoming nice-looking. And it was then that Pierre and Marie again experienced a feeling of deep compassion on glancing at Madame Vincent, whom nothing had been able to rouse from a state of torpor, neither the tumultuous stoppage at Poitiers, nor the noise of voices which had continued ever since they had started off again. Prostrate on the seat, she had not opened her eyes, but still and ever slumbered, tortured by atrocious dreams. And, with big tears still streaming from her closed eyes, she had caught hold of the pillow which had been forced upon her, and was closely pressing it to her breast in some nightmare born of her suffering. Her poor arms, which had so long carried her dying daughter, her arms now unoccupied, forever empty, had found this cushion whilst she slept, and had coiled around them, as around a phantom, with a blind and frantic embrace. On the other hand, M. Sabathier had woke up feeling quite joyous. Whilst his wife was pulling up his rug, carefully wrapping it round his lifeless legs; he began to chat with sparkling eyes, once more basking in illusion. He had dreamt of Lourdes, said he, and had seen the Blessed Virgin leaning towards him with a smile of kindly promise. And then, although he had before him both Madame Vincent, that mother whose daughter the Virgin had allowed to die, and La Grivotte, the wretched woman whom she had healed and who had so cruelly relapsed into her mortal disease, he nevertheless rejoiced and made merry, repeating to M. de Guersaint, with an air of perfect conviction: "Oh! I shall return home quite easy in mind, monsieur--I shall be cured next year. Yes, yes, as that dear little girl said just now: 'Till next year, till next year!'" It was indestructible illusion, victorious even over certainty, eternal hope determined not to die, but shooting up with more life than ever, after each defeat, upon the ruins of everything. At Chatelherault, Sister Hyacinthe made them say the morning prayer, the "Pater," the "Ave," the "Credo," and an appeal to God begging Him for the happiness of a glorious day: "O God, grant me sufficient strength that I may avoid all that is evil, do all that is good, and suffer without complaint every pain." V THE DEATH OP BERNADETTE--THE NEW RELIGION AND the journey continued; the train rolled, still rolled along. At Sainte-Maure the prayers of the mass were said, and at Sainte-Pierre-des- Corps the "Credo" was chanted. However, the religious exercises no longer proved so welcome; the pilgrims' zeal was flagging somewhat in the increasing fatigue of their return journey, after such prolonged mental excitement. It occurred to Sister Hyacinthe that the happiest way of entertaining these poor worn-out folks would be for someone to read aloud; and she promised that she would allow Monsieur l'Abbe to read them the finish of Bernadette's life, some of the marvellous episodes of which he had already on two occasions related to them. However, they must wait until they arrived at Les Aubrais; there would be nearly two hours between Les Aubrais and Etampes, ample time to finish the story without being disturbed. Then the various religious exercises followed one after the other, in a monotonous repetition of the order which had been observed whilst they crossed the same plains on their way to Lourdes. They again began the Rosary at Amboise, where they said the first chaplet, the five joyful mysteries; then, after singing the canticle, "O loving Mother, bless," at Blois, they recited the second chaplet, the five sorrowful mysteries, at Beaugency. Some little fleecy clouds had veiled the sun since morning, and the landscapes, very sweet and somewhat sad, flew by with a continuous fan-like motion. The trees and houses on either side of the line disappeared in the grey light with the fleetness of vague visions, whilst the distant hills, enveloped in mist, vanished more slowly, with the gentle rise and fall of a swelling sea. Between Beaugency and Les Aubrais the train seemed to slacken speed, though it still kept up its rhythmical, persistent rumbling, which the deafened pilgrims no longer even heard. At length, when Les Aubrais had been left behind, they began to lunch in the carriage. It was then a quarter to twelve, and when they had said the "Angelus," and the three "Aves" had been thrice repeated, Pierre took from Marie's bag the little book whose blue cover was ornamented with an artless picture of Our Lady of Lourdes. Sister Hyacinthe clapped her hands as a signal for silence, and amidst general wakefulness and ardent curiosity like that of big children impassioned by the marvellous story, the priest was able to begin reading in his fine, penetrating voice. Now came the narrative of Bernadette's sojourn at Nevers, and then her death there. Pierre, however, as on the two previous occasions, soon ceased following the exact text of the little book, and added charming anecdotes of his own, both what he knew and what he could divine; and, for himself alone, he again evolved the true story, the human, pitiful story, that which none had ever told, but which he felt so deeply. It was on the 8th July, 1866, that Bernadette left Lourdes. She went to take the veil at Nevers, in the convent of Saint-Gildard, the chief habitation of the Sisters on duty at the Asylum where she had learnt to read and had been living for eight years. She was then twenty-two years of age, and it was eight years since the Blessed Virgin had appeared to her. And her farewells to the Grotto, to the Basilica, to the whole town which she loved, were watered with tears. But she could no longer remain there, owing to the continuous persecution of public curiosity, the visits, the homage, and the adoration paid to her, from which, on account of her delicate health, she suffered cruelly. Her sincere humility, her timid love of shade and silence, had at last produced in her an ardent desire to disappear, to hide her resounding glory--the glory of one whom heaven had chosen and whom the world would not leave in peace--in the depth of some unknown darkness; and she longed only for simple-mindedness, for a quiet humdrum life devoted to prayer and petty daily occupations. Her departure was therefore a relief both to her and to the Grotto, which she was beginning to embarrass with her excessive innocence and burdensome complaints. At Nevers, Saint-Gildard ought to have proved a paradise. She there found fresh air, sunshine, spacious apartments, and an extensive garden planted with fine trees. Yet she did not enjoy peace,--that utter forgetfulness of the world for which one flees to the far-away desert. Scarcely twenty days after her arrival, she donned the garb of the Order and assumed the name of Sister Marie-Bernard, for the time simply engaging herself by partial vows. However, the world still flocked around her, the persecution of the multitude began afresh. She was pursued even into the cloister through an irresistible desire to obtain favours from her saintly person. Ah! to see her, touch her, become lucky by gazing on her or surreptitiously rubbing some medal against her dress. It was the credulous passion of fetishism, a rush of believers pursuing this poor beatified being in the desire which each felt to secure a share of hope and divine illusion. She wept at it with very weariness, with impatient revolt, and often repeated: "Why do they torment me like this? What more is there in me than in others?" And at last she felt real grief at thus becoming "the raree-show," as she ended by calling herself with a sad, suffering smile. She defended herself as far as she could, refusing to see anyone. Her companions defended her also, and sometimes very sternly, showing her only to such visitors as were authorised by the Bishop. The doors of the Convent remained closed, and ecclesiastics almost alone succeeded in effecting an entrance. Still, even this was too much for her desire for solitude, and she often had to be obstinate, to request that the priests who had called might be sent away, weary as she was of always telling the same story, of ever answering the same questions. She was incensed, wounded, on behalf of the Blessed Virgin herself. Still, she sometimes had to yield, for the Bishop in person would bring great personages, dignitaries, and prelates; and she would then appear with her grave air, answering politely and as briefly as possible; only feeling at ease when she was allowed to return to her shadowy corner. Never, indeed, had distinction weighed more heavily on a mortal. One day, when she was asked if she was not proud of the continual visits paid her by the Bishop, she answered simply: "Monseigneur does not come to see me, he comes to show me." On another occasion some princes of the Church, great militant Catholics, who wished to see her, were overcome with emotion and sobbed before her; but, in her horror of being shown, in the vexation they caused her simple mind, she left them without comprehending, merely feeling very weary and very sad. At length, however, she grew accustomed to Saint-Gildard, and spent a peaceful existence there, engaged in avocations of which she became very fond. She was so delicate, so frequently ill, that she was employed in the infirmary. In addition to the little assistance she rendered there, she worked with her needle, with which she became rather skilful, embroidering albs and altar-cloths in a delicate manner. But at times she, would lose all strength, and be unable to do even this light work. When she was not confined to her bed she spent long days in an easy-chair, her only diversion being to recite her rosary or to read some pious work. Now that she had learnt to read, books interested her, especially the beautiful stories of conversion, the delightful legends in which saints of both sexes appear, and the splendid and terrible dramas in which the devil is baffled and cast back into hell. But her great favourite, the book at which she continually marvelled, was the Bible, that wonderful New Testament of whose perpetual miracle she never wearied. She remembered the Bible at Bartres, that old book which had been in the family a hundred years, and whose pages had turned yellow; she could again see her foster-father slip a pin between the leaves to open the book at random, and then read aloud from the top of the right-hand page; and even at that time she had already known those beautiful stories so well that she could have continued repeating the narrative by heart, whatever might be the passage at which the perusal had ceased. And now that she read the book herself, she found in it a constant source of surprise, an ever-increasing delight. The story of the Passion particularly upset her, as though it were some extraordinary tragical event that had happened only the day before. She sobbed with pity; it made her poor suffering body quiver for hours. Mingled with her tears, perhaps, there was the unconscious dolour of her own passion, the desolate Calvary which she also had been ascending ever since her childhood. When Bernadette was well and able to perform her duties in the infirmary, she bustled about, filling the building with childish liveliness. Until her death she remained an innocent, infantile being, fond of laughing, romping, and play. She was very little, the smallest Sister of the community, so that her companions always treated her somewhat like a child. Her face grew long and hollow, and lost its bloom of youth; but she retained the pure divine brightness of her eyes, the beautiful eyes of a visionary, in which, as in a limpid sky, you detected the flight of her dreams. As she grew older and her sufferings increased, she became somewhat sour-tempered and violent, cross-grained, anxious, and at times rough; little imperfections which after each attack filled her with remorse. She would humble herself, think herself damned, and beg pardon of everyone. But, more frequently, what a good little daughter of Providence she was! She became lively, alert, quick at repartee, full of mirth-provoking remarks, with a grace quite her own, which made her beloved. In spite of her great devotion, although she spent days in prayer, she was not at all bigoted or over-exacting with regard to others, but tolerant and compassionate. In fact, no nun was ever so much a woman, with distinct features, a decided personality, charming even in its puerility. And this gift of childishness which she had retained, the simple innocence of the child she still was, also made children love her, as though they recognised in her one of themselves. They all ran to her, jumped upon her lap, and passed their tiny arms round her neck, and the garden would then fill with the noise of joyous games, races, and cries; and it was not she who ran or cried the least, so happy was she at once more feeling herself a poor unknown little girl as in the far-away days of Bartres! Later on it was related that a mother had one day brought her paralysed child to the convent for the saint to touch and cure it. The woman sobbed so much that the Superior ended by consenting to make the attempt. However, as Bernadette indignantly protested whenever she was asked to perform a miracle, she was not forewarned, but simply called to take the sick child to the infirmary. And she did so, and when she stood the child on the ground it walked. It was cured. Ah! how many times must Bartres and her free childhood spent watching her lambs--the years passed among the hills, in the long grass, in the leafy woods--have returned to her during the hours she gave to her dreams when weary of praying for sinners! No one then fathomed her soul, no one could say if involuntary regrets did not rend her wounded heart. One day she spoke some words, which her historians have preserved, with the view of making her passion more touching. Cloistered far away from her mountains, confined to a bed of sickness, she exclaimed: "It seems to me that I was made to live, to act, to be ever on the move, and yet the Lord will have me remain motionless." What a revelation, full of terrible testimony and immense sadness! Why should the Lord wish that dear being, all grace and gaiety, to remain motionless? Could she not have honoured Him equally well by living the free, healthy life that she had been born to live? And would she not have done more to increase the world's happiness and her own if, instead of praying for sinners, her constant occupation, she had given her love to the husband who might have been united to her and to the children who might have been born to her? She, so gay and so active, would, on certain evenings, become extremely depressed. She turned gloomy and remained wrapped in herself, as though overcome by excess of pain. No doubt the cup was becoming too bitter. The thought of her life's perpetual renunciation was killing her. Did Bernadette often think of Lourdes whilst she was at Saint-Gildard? What knew she of the triumph of the Grotto, of the prodigies which were daily transforming the land of miracles? These questions were never thoroughly elucidated. Her companions were forbidden to talk to her of such matters, which remained enveloped in absolute, continual silence. She herself did not care to speak of them; she kept silent with regard to the mysterious past, and evinced no desire to know the present, however triumphant it might be. But all the same did not her heart, in imagination, fly away to the enchanted country of her childhood, where lived her kith and kin, where all her life-ties had been formed, where she had left the most extraordinary dream that ever human being dreamt? Surely she must have sometimes travelled the beautiful journey of memory, she must have known the main features of the great events that had taken place at Lourdes. What she most dreaded was to go there herself, and, she always refused to do so, knowing full well that she could not remain unrecognised, and fearful of meeting the crowds whose adoration awaited her. What glory would have been hers had she been headstrong, ambitious, domineering! She would have returned to the holy spot of her visions, have worked miracles there, have become a priestess, a female pope, with the infallibility and sovereignty of one of the elect, a friend of the Blessed Virgin. But the Fathers never really feared this, although express orders had been given to withdraw her from the world for her salvation's sake. In reality they were easy, for they knew her, so gentle and so humble in her fear of becoming divine, in her ignorance of the colossal machine which she had put in motion, and the working of which would have made her recoil with affright had she understood it. No, no! that was no longer her land, that place of crowds, of violence and trafficking. She would have suffered too much there, she would have been out of her element, bewildered, ashamed. And so, when pilgrims bound thither asked her with a smile, "Will you come with us?" she shivered slightly, and then hastily replied, "No, no! but how I should like to, were I a little bird!" Her reverie alone was that little travelling bird, with rapid flight and noiseless wings, which continually went on pilgrimage to the Grotto. In her dreams, indeed, she must have continually lived at Lourdes, though in the flesh she had not even gone there for either her father's or her mother's funeral. Yet she loved her kin; she was anxious to procure work for her relations who had remained poor, and she had insisted on seeing her eldest brother, who, coming to Nevers to complain, had been refused admission to the convent. However, he found her weary and resigned, and she did not ask him a single question about New Lourdes, as though that rising town were no longer her own. The year of the crowning of the Virgin, a priest whom she had deputed to pray for her before the Grotto came back and told her of the never-to-be forgotten wonders of the ceremony, the hundred thousand pilgrims who had flocked to it, and the five-and-thirty bishops in golden vestments who had assembled in the resplendent Basilica. Whilst listening, she trembled with her customary little quiver of desire and anxiety. And when the priest exclaimed, "Ah! if you had only seen that pomp!" she answered: "Me! I was much better here in my little corner in the infirmary." They had robbed her of her glory; her work shone forth resplendently amidst a continuous hosanna, and she only tasted joy in forgetfulness, in the gloom of the cloister, where the opulent farmers of the Grotto forgot her. It was never the re-echoing solemnities that prompted her mysterious journeys; the little bird of her soul only winged its lonesome flight to Lourdes on days of solitude, in the peaceful hours when no one could there disturb its devotions. It was before the wild primitive Grotto that she returned to kneel, amongst the bushy eglantine, as in the days when the Gave was not walled in by a monumental quay. And it was the old town that she visited at twilight, when the cool, perfumed breezes came down from the mountains, the old painted and gilded semi-Spanish church where she had made her first communion, the old Asylum so full of suffering where during eight years she had grown accustomed to solitude--all that poor, innocent old town, whose every paving-stone awoke old affections in her memory's depths. And did Bernadette ever extend the pilgrimage of her dreams as far as Bartres? Probably, at times when she sat in her invalid-chair and let some pious book slip from her tired hands, and closed her eyes, Bartres did appear to her, lighting up the darkness of her view. The little antique Romanesque church with sky-blue nave and blood-red altar screens stood there amidst the tombs of the narrow cemetery. Then she would find herself once more in the house of the Lagues, in the large room on the left, where the fire was burning, and where, in winter-time, such wonderful stories were told whilst the big clock gravely ticked the hours away. At times the whole countryside spread out before her, meadows without end, giant chestnut-trees beneath which you lost yourself, deserted table-lands whence you descried the distant mountains, the Pic du Midi and the Pic de Viscos soaring aloft as airy and as rose-coloured as dreams, in a paradise such as the legends have depicted. And afterwards, afterwards came her free childhood, when she scampered off whither she listed in the open air, her lonely, dreamy thirteenth year, when with all the joy of living she wandered through the immensity of nature. And now, too, perhaps, she again beheld herself roaming in the tall grass among the hawthorn bushes beside the streams on a warm sunny day in June. Did she not picture herself grown, with a lover of her own age, whom she would have loved with all the simplicity and affection of her heart? Ah! to be a child again, to be free, unknown, happy once more, to love afresh, and to love differently! The vision must have passed confusedly before her--a husband who worshipped her, children gaily growing up around her, the life that everybody led, the joys and sorrows that her own parents had known, and which her children would have had to know in their turn. But little by little all vanished, and she again found herself in her chair of suffering, imprisoned between four cold walls, with no other desire than a longing one for a speedy death, since she had been denied a share of the poor common happiness of this world. Bernadette's ailments increased each year. It was, in fact, the commencement of her passion, the passion of this new child-Messiah, who had come to bring relief to the unhappy, to announce to mankind the religion of divine justice and equality in the face of miracles which flouted the laws of impassible nature. If she now rose it was only to drag herself from chair to chair for a few days at a time, and then she would have a relapse and be again forced to take to her bed. Her sufferings became terrible. Her hereditary nervousness, her asthma, aggravated by cloister life, had probably turned into phthisis. She coughed frightfully, each fit rending her burning chest and leaving her half dead. To complete her misery, caries of the right knee-cap supervened, a gnawing disease, the shooting pains of which caused her to cry aloud. Her poor body, to which dressings were continually being applied, became one great sore, which was irritated by the warmth of her bed, by her prolonged sojourn between sheets whose friction ended by breaking her skin. One and all pitied her; those who beheld her martyrdom said that it was impossible to suffer more, or with greater fortitude. She tried some of the Lourdes water, but it brought her no relief. Lord, Almighty King, why cure others and not cure her? To save her soul? Then dost Thou not save the souls of the others? What an inexplicable selection! How absurd that in the eternal evolution of worlds it should be necessary for this poor being to be tortured! She sobbed, and again and again said in order to keep up her courage: "Heaven is at the end, but how long the end is in coming!" There was ever the idea that suffering is the test, that it is necessary to suffer upon earth if one would triumph elsewhere, that suffering is indispensable, enviable, and blessed. But is this not blasphemous, O Lord? Hast Thou not created youth and joy? Is it Thy wish that Thy creatures should enjoy neither the sun, nor the smiling Nature which Thou hast created, nor the human affections with which Thou hast endowed their flesh? She dreaded the feeling of revolt which maddened her at times, and wished also to strengthen herself against the disease which made her groan, and she crucified herself in thought, extending her arms so as to form a cross and unite herself to Jesus, her limbs against His limbs, her mouth against His mouth, streaming the while with blood like Him, and steeped like Him in bitterness! Jesus died in three hours, but a longer agony fell to her, who again brought redemption by pain, who died to give others life. When her bones ached with agony she would sometimes utter complaints, but she reproached herself immediately. "Oh! how I suffer, oh! how I suffer! but what happiness it is to bear this pain!" There can be no more frightful words, words pregnant with a blacker pessimism. Happy to suffer, O Lord! but why, and to what unknown and senseless end? Where is the reason in this useless cruelty, in this revolting glorification of suffering, when from the whole of humanity there ascends but one desperate longing for health and happiness? In the midst of her frightful sufferings, however, Sister Marie-Bernard took the final vows on September 22, 1878. Twenty years had gone by since the Blessed Virgin had appeared to her, visiting her as the Angel had visited the Virgin, choosing her as the Virgin had been chosen, amongst the most lowly and the most candid, that she might hide within her the secret of King Jesus. Such was the mystical explanation of that election of suffering, the /raison d'etre/ of that being who was so harshly separated from her fellows, weighed down by disease, transformed into the pitiable field of every human affliction. She was the "garden inclosed"* that brings such pleasure to the gaze of the Spouse. He had chosen her, then buried her in the death of her hidden life. And even when the unhappy creature staggered beneath the weight of her cross, her companions would say to her: "Do you forget that the Blessed Virgin promised you that you should be happy, not in this world, but in the next?" And with renewed strength, and striking her forehead, she would answer: "Forget? no, no! it is here!" She only recovered temporary energy by means of this illusion of a paradise of glory, into which she would enter escorted by seraphims, to be forever and ever happy. The three personal secrets which the Blessed Virgin had confided to her, to arm her against evil, must have been promises of beauty, felicity, and immortality in heaven. What monstrous dupery if there were only the darkness of the earth beyond the grave, if the Blessed Virgin of her dream were not there to meet her with the prodigious guerdons she had promised! But Bernadette had not a doubt; she willingly undertook all the little commissions with which her companions naively entrusted her for Heaven: "Sister Marie-Bernard, you'll say this, you'll say that, to the Almighty." "Sister Marie-Bernard, you'll kiss my brother if you meet him in Paradise." "Sister Marie-Bernard, give me a little place beside you when I die." And she obligingly answered each one: "Have no fear, I will do it!" Ah! all-powerful illusion, delicious repose, power ever reviving and consolatory! * Song of Solomon iv. 12. And then came the last agony, then came death. On Friday, March 28, 1879, it was thought that she would not last the night. She had a despairing longing for the tomb, in order that she might suffer no more, and live again in heaven. And thus she obstinately refused to receive extreme unction, saying that twice already it had cured her. She wished, in short, that God would let her die, for it was more than she could bear; it would have been unreasonable to require that she should suffer longer. Yet she ended by consenting to receive the sacraments, and her last agony was thereby prolonged for nearly three weeks. The priest who attended her frequently said: "My daughter, you must make the sacrifice of your life"; and one day, quite out of patience, she sharply answered him: "But, Father, it is no sacrifice." A terrible saying, that also, for it implied disgust at /being/, furious contempt for existence, and an immediate ending of her humanity, had she had the power to suppress herself by a gesture. It is true that the poor girl had nothing to regret, that she had been compelled to banish everything from her life, health, joy, and love, so that she might leave it as one casts off a soiled, worn, tattered garment. And she was right; she condemned her useless, cruel life when she said: "My passion will finish only at my death; it will not cease until I enter into eternity." And this idea of her passion pursued her, attaching her more closely to the cross with her Divine Master. She had induced them to give her a large crucifix; she pressed it vehemently against her poor maidenly breast, exclaiming that she would like to thrust it into her bosom and leave it there. Towards the end, her strength completely forsook her, and she could no longer grasp the crucifix with her trembling hands. "Let it be tightly tied to me," she prayed, "that I may feel it until my last breath!" The Redeemer upon that crucifix was the only spouse that she was destined to know; His bleeding kiss was to be the only one bestowed upon her womanhood, diverted from nature's course. The nuns took cords, passed them under her aching back, and fastened the crucifix so roughly to her bosom that it did indeed penetrate it. At last death took pity upon her. On Easter Monday she was seized with a great fit of shivering. Hallucinations perturbed her, she trembled with fright, she beheld the devil jeering and prowling around her. "Be off, be off, Satan!" she gasped; "do not touch me, do not carry me away!" And amidst her delirium she related that the fiend had sought to throw himself upon her, that she had felt his mouth scorching her with all the flames of hell. The devil in a life so pure, in a soul without sin! what for, O Lord! and again I ask it, why this relentless suffering, intense to the very last, why this nightmare-like ending, this death troubled with such frightful fancies, after so beautiful a life of candour, purity, and innocence? Could she not fall asleep serenely in the peacefulness of her chaste soul? But doubtless so long as breath remained in her body it was necessary to leave her the hatred and dread of life, which is the devil. It was life which menaced her, and it was life which she cast out, in the same way that she denied life when she reserved to the Celestial Bridegroom her tortured, crucified womanhood. That dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which her dream had come to strengthen, was a blow dealt by the Church to woman, both wife and mother. To decree that woman is only worthy of worship on condition that she be a virgin, to imagine that virgin to be herself born without sin, is not this an insult to Nature, the condemnation of life, the denial of womanhood, whose true greatness consists in perpetuating life? "Be off, be off, Satan! let me die without fulfilling Nature's law." And she drove the sunshine from the room and the free air that entered by the window, the air that was sweet with the scent of flowers, laden with all the floating germs which transmit love throughout the whole vast world. On the Wednesday after Easter (April 16th), the death agony commenced. It is related that on the morning of that day one of Bernadette's companions, a nun attacked with a mortal illness and lying in the infirmary in an adjoining bed, was suddenly healed upon drinking a glass of Lourdes water. But she, the privileged one, had drunk of it in vain. God at last granted her the signal favour which she desired by sending her into the good sound sleep of the earth, in which there is no more suffering. She asked pardon of everyone. Her passion was consummated; like the Saviour, she had the nails and the crown of thorns, the scourged limbs, the pierced side. Like Him she raised her eyes to heaven, extended her arms in the form of a cross, and uttered a loud cry: "My God!" And, like Him, she said, towards three o'clock: "I thirst." She moistened her lips in the glass, then bowed her head and expired. Thus, very glorious and very holy, died the Visionary of Lourdes, Bernadette Soubirous, Sister Marie-Bernard, one of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers. During three days her body remained exposed to view, and vast crowds passed before it; a whole people hastened to the convent, an interminable procession of devotees hungering after hope, who rubbed medals, chaplets, pictures, and missals against the dead woman's dress, to obtain from her one more favour, a fetish bringing happiness. Even in death her dream of solitude was denied her: a mob of the wretched ones of this world rushed to the spot, drinking in illusion around her coffin. And it was noticed that her left eye, the eye which at the time of the apparitions had been nearest to the Blessed Virgin, remained obstinately open. Then a last miracle amazed the convent: the body underwent no change, but was interred on the third day, still supple, warm, with red lips, and a very white skin, rejuvenated as it were, and smelling sweet. And to-day Bernadette Soubirous, exiled from Lourdes, obscurely sleeps her last sleep at Saint Gildard, beneath a stone slab in a little chapel, amidst the shade and silence of the old trees of the garden, whilst yonder the Grotto shines resplendently in all its triumph. Pierre ceased speaking; the beautiful, marvellous story was ended. And yet the whole carriage was still listening, deeply impressed by that death, at once so tragic and so touching. Compassionate tears fell from Marie's eyes, while the others, Elise Rouquet, La Grivotte herself, now calmer, clasped their hands and prayed to her who was in heaven to intercede with the Divinity to complete their cure. M. Sabathier made a big sign of the cross, and then ate a cake which his wife had bought him at Poitiers. M. de Guersaint, whom sad things always upset, had fallen asleep again in the middle of the story. And there was only Madame Vincent, with her face buried in her pillow, who had not stirred, like a deaf and blind creature, determined to see and hear nothing more. Meanwhile the train rolled, still rolled along. Madame de Jonquiere, after putting her head out of the window, informed them that they were approaching Etampes. And, when they had left that station behind them, Sister Hyacinthe gave the signal, and they recited the third chaplet of the Rosary, the five glorious mysteries--the Resurrection of Our Lord, the Ascension of Our Lord, the Mission of the Holy Ghost, the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin, and the Crowning of the Most Blessed Virgin. And afterwards they sang the canticle: "O Virgin, in thy help I put my trust." Then Pierre fell into a deep reverie. His glance had turned towards the now sunlit landscape, the continual flight of which seemed to lull his thoughts. The noise of the wheels was making him dizzy, and he ended by no longer recognising the familiar horizon of this vast suburban expanse with which he had once been acquainted. They still had to pass Bretigny and Juvisy, and then, in an hour and a half at the utmost, they would at last be at Paris. So the great journey was finished! the inquiry, which he had so much desired to make, the experiment which he had attempted with so much passion, were over! He had wished to acquire certainty, to study Bernadette's case on the spot, and see if grace would not come back to him in a lightning flash, restoring him his faith. And now he had settled the point--Bernadette had dreamed through the continual torments of her flesh, and he himself would never believe again. And this forced itself upon his mind like a brutal fact: the simple faith of the child who kneels and prays, the primitive faith of young people, bowed down by an awe born of their ignorance, was dead. Though thousands of pilgrims might each year go to Lourdes, the nations were no longer with them; this attempt to bring about the resurrection of absolute faith, the faith of dead-and-gone centuries, without revolt or examination, was fatally doomed to fail. History never retraces its steps, humanity cannot return to childhood, times have too much changed, too many new inspirations have sown new harvests for the men of to-day to become once more like the men of olden time. It was decisive; Lourdes was only an explainable accident, whose reactionary violence was even a proof of the extreme agony in which belief under the antique form of Catholicism was struggling. Never again, as in the cathedrals of the twelfth century, would the entire nation kneel like a docile flock in the hands of the Master. To blindly, obstinately cling to the attempt to bring that to pass would mean to dash oneself against the impossible, to rush, perhaps, towards great moral catastrophes. And of his journey there already only remained to Pierre an immense feeling of compassion. Ah! his heart was overflowing with pity; his poor heart was returning wrung by all that he had seen. He recalled the words of worthy Abbe Judaine; and he had seen those thousands of unhappy beings praying, weeping, and imploring God to take pity on their suffering; and he had wept with them, and felt within himself, like an open wound, a sorrowful fraternal feeling for all their ailments. He could not think of those poor people without burning with a desire to relieve them. If it were true that the faith of the simple-minded no longer sufficed; if one ran the risk of going astray in wishing to turn back, would it become necessary to close the Grotto, to preach other efforts, other sufferings? However, his compassion revolted at that thought. No, no! it would be a crime to snatch their dream of Heaven from those poor creatures who suffered either in body or in mind, and who only found relief in kneeling yonder amidst the splendour of tapers and the soothing repetition of hymns. He had not taken the murderous course of undeceiving Marie, but had sacrificed himself in order to leave her the joy of her fancy, the divine consolation of having been healed by the Virgin. Where was the man hard enough, cruel enough, to prevent the lowly from believing, to rob them of the consolation of the supernatural, the hope that God troubled Himself about them, that He held a better life in His paradise in reserve for them? All humanity was weeping, desperate with anguish, like some despairing invalid, irrevocably condemned, and whom only a miracle could save. He felt mankind to be unhappy indeed, and he shuddered with fraternal affection in the presence of such pitiable humility, ignorance, poverty in its rags, disease with its sores and evil odour, all the lowly sufferers, in hospital, convent, and slums, amidst vermin and dirt, with ugliness and imbecility written on their faces, an immense protest against health, life, and Nature, in the triumphal name of justice, equality, and benevolence. No, no! it would never do to drive the wretched to despair. Lourdes must be tolerated, in the same way that you tolerate a falsehood which makes life possible. And, as he had already said in Bernadette's chamber, she remained the martyr, she it was who revealed to him the only religion which still filled his heart, the religion of human suffering. Ah! to be good and kindly, to alleviate all ills, to lull pain, to sleep in a dream, to lie even, so that no one might suffer any more! The train passed at full speed through a village, and Pierre vaguely caught sight of a church nestling amidst some large apple trees. All the pilgrims in the carriage crossed themselves. But he was now becoming uneasy, scruples were tingeing his reverie with anxiety. This religion of human suffering, this redemption by pain, was not this yet another lure, a continual aggravation of pain and misery? It is cowardly and dangerous to allow superstition to live. To tolerate and accept it is to revive the dark evil ages afresh. It weakens and stupefies; the sanctimoniousness bequeathed by heredity produces humiliated, timorous generations, decadent and docile nations, who are an easy prey to the powerful of the earth. Whole nations are imposed upon, robbed, devoured, when they have devoted the whole effort of their will to the mere conquest of a future existence. Would it not, therefore, be better to cure humanity at once by boldly closing the miraculous Grottos whither it goes to weep, and thus restore to it the courage to live the real life, even in the midst of tears? And it was the same prayer, that incessant flood of prayer which ascended from Lourdes, the endless supplication in which he had been immersed and softened: was it not after all but puerile lullaby, a debasement of all one's energies? It benumbed the will, one's very being became dissolved in it and acquired disgust for life and action. Of what use could it be to will anything, do anything, when you totally resigned yourself to the caprices of an unknown almighty power? And, in another respect, what a strange thing was this mad desire for prodigies, this anxiety to drive the Divinity to transgress the laws of Nature established by Himself in His infinite wisdom! Therein evidently lay peril and unreasonableness; at the risk even of losing illusion, that divine comforter, only the habit of personal effort and the courage of truth should have been developed in man, and especially in the child. Then a great brightness arose in Pierre's mind and dazzled him. It was Reason, protesting against the glorification of the absurd and the deposition of common-sense. Ah! reason, it was through her that he had suffered, through her alone that he was happy. As he had told Doctor Chassaigne, his one consuming longing was to satisfy reason ever more and more, although it might cost him happiness to do so. It was reason, he now well understood it, whose continual revolt at the Grotto, at the Basilica, throughout entire Lourdes, had prevented him from believing. Unlike his old friend--that stricken old man, who was afflicted with such dolorous senility, who had fallen into second childhood since the shipwreck of his affections,--he had been unable to kill reason and humiliate and annihilate himself. Reason remained his sovereign mistress, and she it was who buoyed him up even amidst the obscurities and failures of science. Whenever he met with a thing which he could not understand, it was she who whispered to him, "There is certainly a natural explanation which escapes me." He repeated that there could be no healthy ideal outside the march towards the discovery of the unknown, the slow victory of reason amidst all the wretchedness of body and mind. In the clashing of the twofold heredity which he had derived from his father, all brain, and his mother, all faith, he, a priest, found it possible to ravage his life in order that he might keep his vows. He had acquired strength enough to master his flesh, but he felt that his paternal heredity had now definitely gained the upper hand, for henceforth the sacrifice of his reason had become an impossibility; this he would not renounce and would not master. No, no, even human suffering, the hallowed suffering of the poor, ought not to prove an obstacle, enjoining the necessity of ignorance and folly. Reason before all; in her alone lay salvation. If at Lourdes, whilst bathed in tears, softened by the sight of so much affliction, he had said that it was sufficient to weep and love, he had made a dangerous mistake. Pity was but a convenient expedient. One must live, one must act; reason must combat suffering, unless it be desired that the latter should last forever. However, as the train rolled on and the landscape flew by, a church once more appeared, this time on the fringe of heaven, some votive chapel perched upon a hill and surmounted by a lofty statue of the Virgin. And once more all the pilgrims made the sign of the cross, and once more Pierre's reverie strayed, a fresh stream of reflections bringing his anguish back to him. What was this imperious need of the things beyond, which tortured suffering humanity? Whence came it? Why should equality and justice be desired when they did not seem to exist in impassive nature? Man had set them in the unknown spheres of the Mysterious, in the supernatural realms of religious paradises, and there contented his ardent thirst for them. That unquenchable thirst for happiness had ever consumed, and would consume him always. If the Fathers of the Grotto drove such a glorious trade, it was simply because they made motley out of what was divine. That thirst for the Divine, which nothing had quenched through the long, long ages, seemed to have returned with increased violence at the close of our century of science. Lourdes was a resounding and undeniable proof that man could never live without the dream of a Sovereign Divinity, re-establishing equality and re-creating happiness by dint of miracles. When man has reached the depths of life's misfortunes, he returns to the divine illusion, and the origin of all religions lies there. Man, weak and bare, lacks the strength to live through his terrestrial misery without the everlasting lie of a paradise. To-day, thought Pierre, the experiment had been made; it seemed that science alone could not suffice, and that one would be obliged to leave a door open on the Mysterious. All at once in the depths of his deeply absorbed mind the words rang out, A new religion! The door which must be left open on the Mysterious was indeed a new religion. To subject mankind to brutal amputation, lop off its dream, and forcibly deprive it of the Marvellous, which it needed to live as much as it needed bread, would possibly kill it. Would it ever have the philosophical courage to take life as it is, and live it for its own sake, without any idea of future rewards and penalties? It certainly seemed that centuries must elapse before the advent of a society wise enough to lead a life of rectitude without the moral control of some cultus and the consolation of superhuman equality and justice. Yes, a new religion! The call burst forth, resounded within Pierre's brain like the call of the nations, the eager, despairing desire of the modern soul. The consolation and hope which Catholicism had brought the world seemed exhausted after eighteen hundred years full of so many tears, so much blood, so much vain and barbarous agitation. It was an illusion departing, and it was at least necessary that the illusion should be changed. If mankind had long ago darted for refuge into the Christian paradise, it was because that paradise then opened before it like a fresh hope. But now a new religion, a new hope, a new paradise, yes, that was what the world thirsted for, in the discomfort in which it was struggling. And Father Fourcade, for his part, fully felt such to be the case; he had not meant to imply anything else when he had given rein to his anxiety, entreating that the people of the great towns, the dense mass of the humble which forms the nation, might be brought to Lourdes. One hundred thousand, two hundred thousand pilgrims at Lourdes each year, that was, after all, but a grain of sand. It was the people, the whole people, that was required. But the people has forever deserted the churches, it no longer puts any soul in the Blessed Virgins which it manufactures, and nothing nowadays could restore its lost faith. A Catholic democracy--yes, history would then begin afresh; only were it possible to create a new Christian people, would not the advent of a new Saviour, the mighty breath of a new Messiah, have been needed for such a task? However, the words still sounded, still rang out in Pierre's mind with the growing clamour of pealing bells. A new religion; a new religion. Doubtless it must be a religion nearer to life, giving a larger place to the things of the world, and taking the acquired truths into due account. And, above all, it must be a religion which was not an appetite for death--Bernadette living solely in order that she might die, Doctor Chassaigne aspiring to the tomb as to the only happiness--for all that spiritualistic abandonment was so much continuous disorganisation of the will to live. At bottom of it was hatred to life, disgust with and cessation of action. Every religion, it is true, is but a promise of immortality, an embellishment of the spheres beyond, an enchanted garden to be entered on the morrow of death. Could a new religion ever place such a garden of eternal happiness on earth? Where was the formula, the dogma, that would satisfy the hopes of the mankind of to-day? What belief should be sown to blossom forth in a harvest of strength and peace? How could one fecundate the universal doubt so that it should give birth to a new faith? and what sort of illusion, what divine falsehood of any kind could be made to germinate in the contemporary world, ravaged as it had been upon all sides, broken up by a century of science? At that moment, without any apparent transition, Pierre saw the face of his brother Guillaume arise in the troublous depths of his mind. Still, he was not surprised; some secret link must have brought that vision there. Ah! how fond they had been of one another long ago, and what a good brother that elder brother, so upright and gentle, had been! Henceforth, also, the rupture was complete; Pierre no longer saw Guillaume, since the latter had cloistered himself in his chemical studies, living like a savage in a little suburban house, with a mistress and two big dogs. Then Pierre's reverie again diverged, and he thought of that trial in which Guillaume had been mentioned, like one suspected of having compromising friendships amongst the most violent revolutionaries. It was related, too, that the young man had, after long researches, discovered the formula of a terrible explosive, one pound of which would suffice to blow up a cathedral. And Pierre then thought of those Anarchists who wished to renew and save the world by destroying it. They were but dreamers, horrible dreamers; yet dreamers in the same way as those innocent pilgrims whom he had seen kneeling at the Grotto in an enraptured flock. If the Anarchists, if the extreme Socialists, demanded with violence the equality of wealth, the sharing of all the enjoyments of the world, the pilgrims on their side demanded with tears equality of health and an equitable sharing of moral and physical peace. The latter relied on miracles, the former appealed to brute force. At bottom, however, it was but the same exasperated dream of fraternity and justice, the eternal desire for happiness--neither poor nor sick left, but bliss for one and all. And, in fact, had not the primitive Christians been terrible revolutionaries for the pagan world, which they threatened, and did, indeed, destroy? They who were persecuted, whom the others sought to exterminate, are to-day inoffensive, because they have become the Past. The frightful Future is ever the man who dreams of a future society; even as to-day it is the madman so wildly bent on social renovation that he harbours the great black dream of purifying everything by the flame of conflagrations. This seemed monstrous to Pierre. Yet, who could tell? Therein, perchance, lay the rejuvenated world of to-morrow. Astray, full of doubts, he nevertheless, in his horror of violence, made common cause with old society now reduced to defend itself, unable though he was to say whence would come the new Messiah of Gentleness, in whose hands he would have liked to place poor ailing mankind. A new religion, yes, a new religion. But it is not easy to invent one, and he knew not to what conclusion to come between the ancient faith, which was dead, and the young faith of to-morrow, as yet unborn. For his part, in his desolation, he was only sure of keeping his vow, like an unbelieving priest watching over the belief of others, chastely and honestly discharging his duties, with the proud sadness that he had been unable to renounce his reason as he had renounced his flesh. And for the rest, he would wait. However, the train rolled on between large parks, and the engine gave a prolonged whistle, a joyful flourish, which drew Pierre from his reflections. The others were stirring, displaying emotion around him. The train had just left Juvisy, and Paris was at last near at hand, within a short half-hour's journey. One and all were getting their things together: the Sabathiers were remaking their little parcels, Elise Rouquet was giving a last glance at her mirror. For a moment Madame de Jonquiere again became anxious concerning La Grivotte, and decided that as the girl was in such a pitiful condition she would have her taken straight to a hospital on arriving; whilst Marie endeavoured to rouse Madame Vincent from the torpor in which she seemed determined to remain. M. de Guersaint, who had been indulging in a little siesta, also had to be awakened. And at last, when Sister Hyacinthe had clapped her hands, the whole carriage intonated the "Te Deum," the hymn of praise and thanksgiving. "/Te Deum, laudamus, te Dominum confitemur/." The voices rose amidst a last burst of fervour. All those glowing souls returned thanks to God for the beautiful journey, the marvellous favours that He had already bestowed on them, and would bestow on them yet again. At last came the fortifications. The two o'clock sun was slowly descending the vast, pure heavens, so serenely warm. Distant smoke, a ruddy smoke, was rising in light clouds above the immensity of Paris like the scattered, flying breath of that toiling colossus. It was Paris in her forge, Paris with her passions, her battles, her ever-growling thunder, her ardent life ever engendering the life of to-morrow. And the white train, the woeful train of every misery and every dolour, was returning into it all at full speed, sounding in higher and higher strains the piercing flourishes of its whistle-calls. The five hundred pilgrims, the three hundred patients, were about to disappear in the vast city, fall again upon the hard pavement of life after the prodigious dream in which they had just indulged, until the day should come when their need of the consolation of a fresh dream would irresistibly impel them to start once more on the everlasting pilgrimage to mystery and forgetfulness. Ah! unhappy mankind, poor ailing humanity, hungering for illusion, and in the weariness of this waning century distracted and sore from having too greedily acquired science; it fancies itself abandoned by the physicians of both the mind and the body, and, in great danger of succumbing to incurable disease, retraces its steps and asks the miracle of its cure of the mystical Lourdes of a past forever dead! Yonder, however, Bernadette, the new Messiah of suffering, so touching in her human reality, constitutes the terrible lesson, the sacrifice cut off from the world, the victim condemned to abandonment, solitude, and death, smitten with the penalty of being neither woman, nor wife, nor mother, because she beheld the Blessed Virgin. THE END 
8721	----	and David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] THE THREE CITIES ROME BY EMILE ZOLA TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY PREFACE IN submitting to the English-speaking public this second volume of M. Zola's trilogy "Lourdes, Rome, Paris," I have no prefatory remarks to offer on behalf of the author, whose views on Rome, its past, present, and future, will be found fully expounded in the following pages. That a book of this character will, like its forerunner "Lourdes," provoke considerable controversy is certain, but comment or rejoinder may well be postponed until that controversy has arisen. At present then I only desire to say, that in spite of the great labour which I have bestowed on this translation, I am sensible of its shortcomings, and in a work of such length, such intricacy, and such a wide range of subject, it will not be surprising if some slips are discovered. Any errors which may be pointed out to me, however, shall be rectified in subsequent editions. I have given, I think, the whole essence of M. Zola's text; but he himself has admitted to me that he has now and again allowed his pen to run away with him, and thus whilst sacrificing nothing of his sense I have at times abbreviated his phraseology so as slightly to condense the book. I may add that there are no chapter headings in the original, and that the circumstances under which the translation was made did not permit me to supply any whilst it was passing through the press; however, as some indication of the contents of the book--which treats of many more things than are usually found in novels--may be a convenience to the reader, I have prepared a table briefly epitomising the chief features of each successive chapter. E. A. V. MERTON, SURREY, ENGLAND, April, 1896. CONTENTS TO PART I I "NEW ROME"--Abbe Froment in the Eternal City--His First Impressions--His Book and the Rejuvenation of Christianity II "BLACK MOUTH, RED SOUL"--The Boccaneras, their Mansion, Ancestors, History, and Friends III ROMANS OF THE CHURCH--Cardinals Boccanera and Sanguinetti--Abbes Paparelli and Santobono--Don Vigilio--Monsignor Nani CONTENTS TO PART II IV ROMANS OF NEW ITALY--The Pradas and the Saccos--The Corso and the Pincio V THE BLOOD OF AUGUSTUS--The Palaces of the Caesars--The Capitol--The Forum--The Appian Way--The Campagna--The Catacombs--St. Peter's. VI VENUS AND HERCULES--The Vatican--The Sixtine Chapel--Michael Angelo and Raffaelle--Botticelli and Bernini--Gods and Goddesses--The Gardens--Leo XIII--The Revolt of Passion CONTENTS TO PART III VII PRINCE AND PONTIFF--The International Pilgrimage--The Papal Revenue--A Function at St. Peter's--The Pope-King--The Temporal Power VIII THE POOR AND THE POPE--The Building Mania--The Financial Crash--The Horrors of the Castle Fields--The Roman Workman--May Christ's Vicar Gamble?--Hopes and Fears of the Papacy IX TITO's WARNING--Aspects of Rome--The Via Giulia--The Tiber by Day--The Gardens--The Villa Medici---The Squares--The Fountains--Poussin and the Campagna--The Campo Verano--The Trastevere--The "Palaces"--Aristocracy, Middle Class, Democracy--The Tiber by Night CONTENTS TO PART IV X FROM PILLAR TO POST--The Propaganda--The Index--Dominicans, Jesuits, Franciscans--The Secular Clergy--Roman Worship--Freemasonry--Cardinal Vicar and Cardinal Secretary--The Inquisition. XI POISON!--Frascati--A Cardinal and his Creature--Albano, Castel Gandolfo, Nemi--Across the Campagna--An Osteria--Destiny on the March XII THE AGONY OF PASSION--A Roman Gala--The Buongiovannis--The Grey World--The Triumph of Benedetta--King Humbert and Queen Margherita--The Fig-tree of Judas XIII DESTINY!--A Happy Morning--The Mid-day Meal--Dario and the Figs--Extreme Unction--Benedetta's Curse--The Lovers' Death CONTENTS TO PART V XIV SUBMISSION--The Vatican by Night--The Papal Anterooms--Some Great Popes--His Holiness's Bed-room--Pierre's Reception--Papal Wrath--Pierre's Appeal--The Pope's Policy--Dogma and Lourdes--Pierre Reprobates his Book XV A HOUSE OF MOURNING--Lying in State--Mother and Son--Princess and Work-girl--Nani the Jesuit--Rival Cardinals--The Pontiff of Destruction XVI JUDGMENT--Pierre and Orlando--Italian Rome--Wanted, a Democracy--Italy and France--The Rome of the Anarchists--The Agony of Guilt--A Botticelli--The Papacy Condemned--The Coming Schism--The March of Science--The Destruction of Rome--The Victory of Reason--Justice not Charity--Departure--The March of Civilisation--One Fatherland for All Mankind ROME PART I I THE train had been greatly delayed during the night between Pisa and Civita Vecchia, and it was close upon nine o'clock in the morning when, after a fatiguing journey of twenty-five hours' duration, Abbe Pierre Froment at last reached Rome. He had brought only a valise with him, and, springing hastily out of the railway carriage amidst the scramble of the arrival, he brushed the eager porters aside, intent on carrying his trifling luggage himself, so anxious was he to reach his destination, to be alone, and look around him. And almost immediately, on the Piazza dei Cinquecento, in front of the railway station, he climbed into one of the small open cabs ranged alongside the footwalk, and placed the valise near him after giving the driver this address: "Via Giulia, Palazzo Boccanera."* * Boccanera mansion, Julia Street. It was a Monday, the 3rd of September, a beautifully bright and mild morning, with a clear sky overhead. The cabby, a plump little man with sparkling eyes and white teeth, smiled on realising by Pierre's accent that he had to deal with a French priest. Then he whipped up his lean horse, and the vehicle started off at the rapid pace customary to the clean and cheerful cabs of Rome. However, on reaching the Piazza delle Terme, after skirting the greenery of a little public garden, the man turned round, still smiling, and pointing to some ruins with his whip, "The baths of Diocletian," said he in broken French, like an obliging driver who is anxious to court favour with foreigners in order to secure their custom. Then, at a fast trot, the vehicle descended the rapid slope of the Via Nazionale, which dips down from the summit of the Viminalis,* where the railway station is situated. And from that moment the driver scarcely ceased turning round and pointing at the monuments with his whip. In this broad new thoroughfare there were only buildings of recent erection. Still, the wave of the cabman's whip became more pronounced and his voice rose to a higher key, with a somewhat ironical inflection, when he gave the name of a huge and still chalky pile on his left, a gigantic erection of stone, overladen with sculptured work-pediments and statues. * One of the seven hills on which Rome is built. The other six are the Capitoline, Aventine, Quirinal, Esquiline, Coelian, and Palatine. These names will perforce frequently occur in the present narrative. "The National Bank!" he said. Pierre, however, during the week which had followed his resolve to make the journey, had spent wellnigh every day in studying Roman topography in maps and books. Thus he could have directed his steps to any given spot without inquiring his way, and he anticipated most of the driver's explanations. At the same time he was disconcerted by the sudden slopes, the perpetually recurring hills, on which certain districts rose, house above house, in terrace fashion. On his right-hand clumps of greenery were now climbing a height, and above them stretched a long bare yellow building of barrack or convent-like aspect. "The Quirinal, the King's palace," said the driver. Lower down, as the cab turned across a triangular square, Pierre, on raising his eyes, was delighted to perceive a sort of aerial garden high above him--a garden which was upheld by a lofty smooth wall, and whence the elegant and vigorous silhouette of a parasol pine, many centuries old, rose aloft into the limpid heavens. At this sight he realised all the pride and grace of Rome. "The Villa Aldobrandini," the cabman called. Then, yet lower down, there came a fleeting vision which decisively impassioned Pierre. The street again made a sudden bend, and in one corner, beyond a short dim alley, there was a blazing gap of light. On a lower level appeared a white square, a well of sunshine, filled with a blinding golden dust; and amidst all that morning glory there arose a gigantic marble column, gilt from base to summit on the side which the sun in rising had laved with its beams for wellnigh eighteen hundred years. And Pierre was surprised when the cabman told him the name of the column, for in his mind he had never pictured it soaring aloft in such a dazzling cavity with shadows all around. It was the column of Trajan. The Via Nazionale turned for the last time at the foot of the slope. And then other names fell hastily from the driver's lips as his horse went on at a fast trot. There was the Palazzo Colonna, with its garden edged by meagre cypresses; the Palazzo Torlonia, almost ripped open by recent "improvements"; the Palazzo di Venezia, bare and fearsome, with its crenelated walls, its stern and tragic appearance, that of some fortress of the middle ages, forgotten there amidst the commonplace life of nowadays. Pierre's surprise increased at the unexpected aspect which certain buildings and streets presented; and the keenest blow of all was dealt him when the cabman with his whip triumphantly called his attention to the Corso, a long narrow thoroughfare, about as broad as Fleet Street,* white with sunshine on the left, and black with shadows on the right, whilst at the far end the Piazza del Popolo (the Square of the People) showed like a bright star. Was this, then, the heart of the city, the vaunted promenade, the street brimful of life, whither flowed all the blood of Rome? * M. Zola likens the Corso to the Rue St. Honore in Paris, but I have thought that an English comparison would be preferable in the present version.--Trans. However, the cab was already entering the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, which follows the Via Nazionale, these being the two piercings effected right across the olden city from the railway station to the bridge of St. Angelo. On the left-hand the rounded apsis of the Gesu church looked quite golden in the morning brightness. Then, between the church and the heavy Altieri palace which the "improvers" had not dared to demolish, the street became narrower, and one entered into cold, damp shade. But a moment afterwards, before the facade of the Gesu, when the square was reached, the sun again appeared, dazzling, throwing golden sheets of light around; whilst afar off at the end of the Via di Ara Coeli, steeped in shadow, a glimpse could be caught of some sunlit palm-trees. "That's the Capitol yonder," said the cabman. The priest hastily leant to the left, but only espied the patch of greenery at the end of the dim corridor-like street. The sudden alternations of warm light and cold shade made him shiver. In front of the Palazzo di Venezia, and in front of the Gesu, it had seemed to him as if all the night of ancient times were falling icily upon his shoulders; but at each fresh square, each broadening of the new thoroughfares, there came a return to light, to the pleasant warmth and gaiety of life. The yellow sunflashes, in falling from the house fronts, sharply outlined the violescent shadows. Strips of sky, very blue and very benign, could be perceived between the roofs. And it seemed to Pierre that the air he breathed had a particular savour, which he could not yet quite define, but it was like that of fruit, and increased the feverishness which had possessed him ever since his arrival. The Corso Vittorio Emanuele is, in spite of its irregularity, a very fine modern thoroughfare; and for a time Pierre might have fancied himself in any great city full of huge houses let out in flats. But when he passed before the Cancelleria,* Bramante's masterpiece, the typical monument of the Roman Renascence, his astonishment came back to him and his mind returned to the mansions which he had previously espied, those bare, huge, heavy edifices, those vast cubes of stone-work resembling hospitals or prisons. Never would he have imagined that the famous Roman "palaces" were like that, destitute of all grace and fancy and external magnificence. However, they were considered very fine and must be so; he would doubtless end by understanding things, but for that he would require reflection.** * Formerly the residence of the Papal Vice-Chancellors. ** It is as well to point out at once that a palazzo is not a palace as we understand the term, but rather a mansion.--Trans. All at once the cab turned out of the populous Corso Vittorio Emanuele into a succession of winding alleys, through which it had difficulty in making its way. Quietude and solitude now came back again; the olden city, cold and somniferous, followed the new city with its bright sunshine and its crowds. Pierre remembered the maps which he had consulted, and realised that he was drawing near to the Via Giulia, and thereupon his curiosity, which had been steadily increasing, augmented to such a point that he suffered from it, full of despair at not seeing more and learning more at once. In the feverish state in which he had found himself ever since leaving the station, his astonishment at not finding things such as he had expected, the many shocks that his imagination had received, aggravated his passion beyond endurance, and brought him an acute desire to satisfy himself immediately. Nine o'clock had struck but a few minutes previously, he had the whole morning before him to repair to the Boccanera palace, so why should he not at once drive to the classic spot, the summit whence one perceives the whole of Rome spread out upon her seven hills? And when once this thought had entered into his mind it tortured him until he was at last compelled to yield to it. The driver no longer turned his head, so that Pierre rose up to give him this new address: "To San Pietro in Montorio!" On hearing him the man at first looked astonished, unable to understand. He indicated with his whip that San Pietro was yonder, far away. However, as the priest insisted, he again smiled complacently, with a friendly nod of his head. All right! For his own part he was quite willing. The horse then went on at a more rapid pace through the maze of narrow streets. One of these was pent between high walls, and the daylight descended into it as into a deep trench. But at the end came a sudden return to light, and the Tiber was crossed by the antique bridge of Sixtus IV, right and left of which stretched the new quays, amidst the ravages and fresh plaster-work of recent erections. On the other side of the river the Trastevere district also was ripped open, and the vehicle ascended the slope of the Janiculum by a broad thoroughfare where large slabs bore the name of Garibaldi. For the last time the driver made a gesture of good-natured pride as he named this triumphal route. "Via Garibaldi!" The horse had been obliged to slacken its pace, and Pierre, mastered by childish impatience, turned round to look at the city as by degrees it spread out and revealed itself behind him. The ascent was a long one; fresh districts were ever rising up, even to the most distant hills. Then, in the increasing emotion which made his heart beat, the young priest felt that he was spoiling the contentment of his desire by thus gradually satisfying it, slowly and but partially effecting his conquest of the horizon. He wished to receive the shock full in the face, to behold all Rome at one glance, to gather the holy city together, and embrace the whole of it at one grasp. And thereupon he mustered sufficient strength of mind to refrain from turning round any more, in spite of the impulses of his whole being. There is a spacious terrace on the summit of the incline. The church of San Pietro in Montorio stands there, on the spot where, as some say, St. Peter was crucified. The square is bare and brown, baked by the hot summer suns; but a little further away in the rear, the clear and noisy waters of the Acqua Paola fall bubbling from the three basins of a monumental fountain amidst sempiternal freshness. And alongside the terrace parapet, on the very crown of the Trastevere, there are always rows of tourists, slim Englishmen and square-built Germans, agape with traditional admiration, or consulting their guide-books in order to identify the monuments. Pierre sprang lightly from the cab, leaving his valise on the seat, and making a sign to the driver, who went to join the row of waiting cabs, and remained philosophically seated on his box in the full sunlight, his head drooping like that of his horse, both resigning themselves to the customary long stoppage. Meantime Pierre, erect against the parapet, in his tight black cassock, and with his bare feverish hands nervously clenched, was gazing before him with all his eyes, with all his soul. Rome! Rome! the city of the Caesars, the city of the Popes, the Eternal City which has twice conquered the world, the predestined city of the glowing dream in which he had indulged for months! At last it was before him, at last his eyes beheld it! During the previous days some rainstorms had abated the intense August heat, and on that lovely September morning the air had freshened under the pale blue of the spotless far-spreading heavens. And the Rome that Pierre beheld was a Rome steeped in mildness, a visionary Rome which seemed to evaporate in the clear sunshine. A fine bluey haze, scarcely perceptible, as delicate as gauze, hovered over the roofs of the low-lying districts; whilst the vast Campagna, the distant hills, died away in a pale pink flush. At first Pierre distinguished nothing, sought no particular edifice or spot, but gave sight and soul alike to the whole of Rome, to the living colossus spread out below him, on a soil compounded of the dust of generations. Each century had renewed the city's glory as with the sap of immortal youth. And that which struck Pierre, that which made his heart leap within him, was that he found Rome such as he had desired to find her, fresh and youthful, with a volatile, almost incorporeal, gaiety of aspect, smiling as at the hope of a new life in the pure dawn of a lovely day. And standing motionless before the sublime vista, with his hands still clenched and burning, Pierre in a few minutes again lived the last three years of his life. Ah! what a terrible year had the first been, spent in his little house at Neuilly, with doors and windows ever closed, burrowing there like some wounded animal suffering unto death. He had come back from Lourdes with his soul desolate, his heart bleeding, with nought but ashes within him. Silence and darkness fell upon the ruins of his love and his faith. Days and days went by, without a pulsation of his veins, without the faintest gleam arising to brighten the gloom of his abandonment. His life was a mechanical one; he awaited the necessary courage to resume the tenor of existence in the name of sovereign reason, which had imposed upon him the sacrifice of everything. Why was he not stronger, more resistant, why did he not quietly adapt his life to his new opinions? As he was unwilling to cast off his cassock, through fidelity to the love of one and disgust of backsliding, why did he not seek occupation in some science suited to a priest, such as astronomy or archaeology? The truth was that something, doubtless his mother's spirit, wept within him, an infinite, distracted love which nothing had yet satisfied and which ever despaired of attaining contentment. Therein lay the perpetual suffering of his solitude: beneath the lofty dignity of reason regained, the wound still lingered, raw and bleeding. One autumn evening, however, under a dismal rainy sky, chance brought him into relations with an old priest, Abbe Rose, who was curate at the church of Ste. Marguerite, in the Faubourg St. Antoine. He went to see Abbe Rose in the Rue de Charonne, where in the depths of a damp ground floor he had transformed three rooms into an asylum for abandoned children, whom he picked up in the neighbouring streets. And from that moment Pierre's life changed, a fresh and all-powerful source of interest had entered into it, and by degrees he became the old priest's passionate helper. It was a long way from Neuilly to the Rue de Charonne, and at first he only made the journey twice a week. But afterwards he bestirred himself every day, leaving home in the morning and not returning until night. As the three rooms no longer sufficed for the asylum, he rented the first floor of the house, reserving for himself a chamber in which ultimately he often slept. And all his modest income was expended there, in the prompt succouring of poor children; and the old priest, delighted, touched to tears by the young devoted help which had come to him from heaven, would often embrace Pierre, weeping, and call him a child of God. It was then that Pierre knew want and wretchedness--wicked, abominable wretchedness; then that he lived amidst it for two long years. The acquaintance began with the poor little beings whom he picked up on the pavements, or whom kind-hearted neighbours brought to him now that the asylum was known in the district--little boys, little girls, tiny mites stranded on the streets whilst their fathers and mothers were toiling, drinking, or dying. The father had often disappeared, the mother had gone wrong, drunkenness and debauchery had followed slack times into the home; and then the brood was swept into the gutter, and the younger ones half perished of cold and hunger on the footways, whilst their elders betook themselves to courses of vice and crime. One evening Pierre rescued from the wheels of a stone-dray two little nippers, brothers, who could not even give him an address, tell him whence they had come. On another evening he returned to the asylum with a little girl in his arms, a fair-haired little angel, barely three years old, whom he had found on a bench, and who sobbed, saying that her mother had left her there. And by a logical chain of circumstances, after dealing with the fleshless, pitiful fledglings ousted from their nests, he came to deal with the parents, to enter their hovels, penetrating each day further and further into a hellish sphere, and ultimately acquiring knowledge of all its frightful horror, his heart meantime bleeding, rent by terrified anguish and impotent charity. Oh! the grievous City of Misery, the bottomless abyss of human suffering and degradation--how frightful were his journeys through it during those two years which distracted his whole being! In that Ste. Marguerite district of Paris, in the very heart of that Faubourg St. Antoine, so active and so brave for work, however hard, he discovered no end of sordid dwellings, whole lanes and alleys of hovels without light or air, cellar-like in their dampness, and where a multitude of wretches wallowed and suffered as from poison. All the way up the shaky staircases one's feet slipped upon filth. On every story there was the same destitution, dirt, and promiscuity. Many windows were paneless, and in swept the wind howling, and the rain pouring torrentially. Many of the inmates slept on the bare tiled floors, never unclothing themselves. There was neither furniture nor linen, the life led there was essentially an animal life, a commingling of either sex and of every age--humanity lapsing into animality through lack of even indispensable things, through indigence of so complete a character that men, women, and children fought even with tooth and nail for the very crumbs swept from the tables of the rich. And the worst of it all was the degradation of the human being; this was no case of the free naked savage, hunting and devouring his prey in the primeval forests; here civilised man was found, sunk into brutishness, with all the stigmas of his fall, debased, disfigured, and enfeebled, amidst the luxury and refinement of that city of Paris which is one of the queens of the world. In every household Pierre heard the same story. There had been youth and gaiety at the outset, brave acceptance of the law that one must work. Then weariness had come; what was the use of always toiling if one were never to get rich? And so, by way of snatching a share of happiness, the husband turned to drink; the wife neglected her home, also drinking at times, and letting the children grow up as they might. Sordid surroundings, ignorance, and overcrowding did the rest. In the great majority of cases, prolonged lack of work was mostly to blame; for this not only empties the drawers of the savings hidden away in them, but exhausts human courage, and tends to confirmed habits of idleness. During long weeks the workshops empty, and the arms of the toilers lose strength. In all Paris, so feverishly inclined to action, it is impossible to find the slightest thing to do. And then the husband comes home in the evening with tearful eyes, having vainly offered his arms everywhere, having failed even to get a job at street-sweeping, for that employment is much sought after, and to secure it one needs influence and protectors. Is it not monstrous to see a man seeking work that he may eat, and finding no work and therefore no food in this great city resplendent and resonant with wealth? The wife does not eat, the children do not eat. And then comes black famine, brutishness, and finally revolt and the snapping of all social ties under the frightful injustice meted out to poor beings who by their weakness are condemned to death. And the old workman, he whose limbs have been worn out by half a century of hard toil, without possibility of saving a copper, on what pallet of agony, in what dark hole must he not sink to die? Should he then be finished off with a mallet, like a crippled beast of burden, on the day when ceasing to work he also ceases to eat? Almost all pass away in the hospitals, others disappear, unknown, swept off by the muddy flow of the streets. One morning, on some rotten straw in a loathsome hovel, Pierre found a poor devil who had died of hunger and had been forgotten there for a week. The rats had devoured his face. But it was particularly on an evening of the last winter that Pierre's heart had overflowed with pity. Awful in winter time are the sufferings of the poor in their fireless hovels, where the snow penetrates by every chink. The Seine rolls blocks of ice, the soil is frost-bound, in all sorts of callings there is an enforced cessation of work. Bands of urchins, barefooted, scarcely clad, hungry and racked by coughing, wander about the ragpickers' "rents" and are carried off by sudden hurricanes of consumption. Pierre found families, women with five and six children, who had not eaten for three days, and who huddled together in heaps to try to keep themselves warm. And on that terrible evening, before anybody else, he went down a dark passage and entered a room of terror, where he found that a mother had just committed suicide with her five little ones--driven to it by despair and hunger--a tragedy of misery which for a few hours would make all Paris shudder! There was not an article of furniture or linen left in the place; it had been necessary to sell everything bit by bit to a neighbouring dealer. There was nothing but the stove where the charcoal was still smoking and a half-emptied palliasse on which the mother had fallen, suckling her last-born, a babe but three months old. And a drop of blood had trickled from the nipple of her breast, towards which the dead infant still protruded its eager lips. Two little girls, three and five years old, two pretty little blondes, were also lying there, sleeping the eternal sleep side by side; whilst of the two boys, who were older, one had succumbed crouching against the wall with his head between his hands, and the other had passed through the last throes on the floor, struggling as though he had sought to crawl on his knees to the window in order to open it. Some neighbours, hurrying in, told Pierre the fearful commonplace story; slow ruin, the father unable to find work, perchance taking to drink, the landlord weary of waiting, threatening the family with expulsion, and the mother losing her head, thirsting for death, and prevailing on her little ones to die with her, while her husband, who had been out since the morning, was vainly scouring the streets. Just as the Commissary of Police arrived to verify what had happened, the poor devil returned, and when he had seen and understood things, he fell to the ground like a stunned ox, and raised a prolonged, plaintive howl, such a poignant cry of death that the whole terrified street wept at it. Both in his ears and in his heart Pierre carried away with him that horrible cry, the plaint of a condemned race expiring amidst abandonment and hunger; and that night he could neither eat nor sleep. Was it possible that such abomination, such absolute destitution, such black misery leading straight to death should exist in the heart of that great city of Paris, brimful of wealth, intoxicated with enjoyment, flinging millions out of the windows for mere pleasure? What! there should on one side be such colossal fortunes, so many foolish fancies gratified, with lives endowed with every happiness, whilst on the other was found inveterate poverty, lack even of bread, absence of every hope, and mothers killing themselves with their babes, to whom they had nought to offer but the blood of their milkless breast! And a feeling of revolt stirred Pierre; he was for a moment conscious of the derisive futility of charity. What indeed was the use of doing that which he did--picking up the little ones, succouring the parents, prolonging the sufferings of the aged? The very foundations of the social edifice were rotten; all would soon collapse amid mire and blood. A great act of justice alone could sweep the old world away in order that the new world might be built. And at that moment he realised so keenly how irreparable was the breach, how irremediable the evil, how deathly the cancer of misery, that he understood the actions of the violent, and was himself ready to accept the devastating and purifying whirlwind, the regeneration of the world by flame and steel, even as when in the dim ages Jehovah in His wrath sent fire from heaven to cleanse the accursed cities of the plains. However, on hearing him sob that evening, Abbe Rose came up to remonstrate in fatherly fashion. The old priest was a saint, endowed with infinite gentleness and infinite hope. Why despair indeed when one had the Gospel? Did not the divine commandment, "Love one another," suffice for the salvation of the world? He, Abbe Rose, held violence in horror and was wont to say that, however great the evil, it would soon be overcome if humanity would but turn backward to the age of humility, simplicity, and purity, when Christians lived together in innocent brotherhood. What a delightful picture he drew of evangelical society, of whose second coming he spoke with quiet gaiety as though it were to take place on the very morrow! And Pierre, anxious to escape from his frightful recollections, ended by smiling, by taking pleasure in Abbe Rose's bright consoling tale. They chatted until a late hour, and on the following days reverted to the same subject of conversation, one which the old priest was very fond of, ever supplying new particulars, and speaking of the approaching reign of love and justice with the touching confidence of a good if simple man, who is convinced that he will not die till he shall have seen the Deity descend upon earth. And now a fresh evolution took place in Pierre's mind. The practice of benevolence in that poor district had developed infinite compassion in his breast, his heart failed him, distracted, rent by contemplation of the misery which he despaired of healing. And in this awakening of his feelings he often thought that his reason was giving way, he seemed to be retracing his steps towards childhood, to that need of universal love which his mother had implanted in him, and dreamt of chimerical solutions, awaiting help from the unknown powers. Then his fears, his hatred of the brutality of facts at last brought him an increasing desire to work salvation by love. No time should be lost in seeking to avert the frightful catastrophe which seemed inevitable, the fratricidal war of classes which would sweep the old world away beneath the accumulation of its crimes. Convinced that injustice had attained its apogee, that but little time remained before the vengeful hour when the poor would compel the rich to part with their possessions, he took pleasure in dreaming of a peaceful solution, a kiss of peace exchanged by all men, a return to the pure morals of the Gospel as it had been preached by Jesus. Doubts tortured him at the outset. Could olden Catholicism be rejuvenated, brought back to the youth and candour of primitive Christianity? He set himself to study things, reading and questioning, and taking a more and more passionate interest in that great problem of Catholic socialism which had made no little noise for some years past. And quivering with pity for the wretched, ready as he was for the miracle of fraternisation, he gradually lost such scruples as intelligence might have prompted, and persuaded himself that once again Christ would work the redemption of suffering humanity. At last a precise idea took possession of him, a conviction that Catholicism purified, brought back to its original state, would prove the one pact, the supreme law that might save society by averting the sanguinary crisis which threatened it. When he had quitted Lourdes two years previously, revolted by all its gross idolatry, his faith for ever dead, but his mind worried by the everlasting need of the divine which tortures human creatures, a cry had arisen within him from the deepest recesses of his being: "A new religion! a new religion!" And it was this new religion, or rather this revived religion which he now fancied he had discovered in his desire to work social salvation--ensuring human happiness by means of the only moral authority that was erect, the distant outcome of the most admirable implement ever devised for the government of nations. During the period of slow development through which Pierre passed, two men, apart from Abbe Rose, exercised great influence on him. A benevolent action brought him into intercourse with Monseigneur Bergerot, a bishop whom the Pope had recently created a cardinal, in reward for a whole life of charity, and this in spite of the covert opposition of the papal /curia/ which suspected the French prelate to be a man of open mind, governing his diocese in paternal fashion. Pierre became more impassioned by his intercourse with this apostle, this shepherd of souls, in whom he detected one of the good simple leaders that he desired for the future community. However, his apostolate was influenced even more decisively by meeting Viscount Philibert de la Choue at the gatherings of certain workingmen's Catholic associations. A handsome man, with military manners, and a long noble-looking face, spoilt by a small and broken nose which seemed to presage the ultimate defeat of a badly balanced mind, the Viscount was one of the most active agitators of Catholic socialism in France. He was the possessor of vast estates, a vast fortune, though it was said that some unsuccessful agricultural enterprises had already reduced his wealth by nearly one-half. In the department where his property was situated he had been at great pains to establish model farms, at which he had put his ideas on Christian socialism into practice, but success did not seem to follow him. However, it had all helped to secure his election as a deputy, and he spoke in the Chamber, unfolding the programme of his party in long and stirring speeches. Unwearying in his ardour, he also led pilgrimages to Rome, presided over meetings, and delivered lectures, devoting himself particularly to the people, the conquest of whom, so he privately remarked, could alone ensure the triumph of the Church. And thus he exercised considerable influence over Pierre, who in him admired qualities which himself did not possess--an organising spirit and a militant if somewhat blundering will, entirely applied to the revival of Christian society in France. However, though the young priest learnt a good deal by associating with him, he nevertheless remained a sentimental dreamer, whose imagination, disdainful of political requirements, straightway winged its flight to the future abode of universal happiness; whereas the Viscount aspired to complete the downfall of the liberal ideas of 1789 by utilising the disillusion and anger of the democracy to work a return towards the past. Pierre spent some delightful months. Never before had neophyte lived so entirely for the happiness of others. He was all love, consumed by the passion of his apostolate. The sight of the poor wretches whom he visited, the men without work, the women, the children without bread, filled him with a keener and keener conviction that a new religion must arise to put an end to all the injustice which otherwise would bring the rebellious world to a violent death. And he was resolved to employ all his strength in effecting and hastening the intervention of the divine, the resuscitation of primitive Christianity. His Catholic faith remained dead; he still had no belief in dogmas, mysteries, and miracles; but a hope sufficed him, the hope that the Church might still work good, by connecting itself with the irresistible modern democratic movement, so as to save the nations from the social catastrophe which impended. His soul had grown calm since he had taken on himself the mission of replanting the Gospel in the hearts of the hungry and growling people of the Faubourgs. He was now leading an active life, and suffered less from the frightful void which he had brought back from Lourdes; and as he no longer questioned himself, the anguish of uncertainty no longer tortured him. It was with the serenity which attends the simple accomplishment of duty that he continued to say his mass. He even finished by thinking that the mystery which he thus celebrated--indeed, that all the mysteries and all the dogmas were but symbols--rites requisite for humanity in its childhood, which would be got rid of later on, when enlarged, purified, and instructed humanity should be able to support the brightness of naked truth. And in his zealous desire to be useful, his passion to proclaim his belief aloud, Pierre one morning found himself at his table writing a book. This had come about quite naturally; the book proceeded from him like a heart-cry, without any literary idea having crossed his mind. One night, whilst he lay awake, its title suddenly flashed before his eyes in the darkness: "NEW ROME." That expressed everything, for must not the new redemption of the nations originate in eternal and holy Rome? The only existing authority was found there; rejuvenescence could only spring from the sacred soil where the old Catholic oak had grown. He wrote his book in a couple of months, having unconsciously prepared himself for the work by his studies in contemporary socialism during a year past. There was a bubbling flow in his brain as in a poet's; it seemed to him sometimes as if he dreamt those pages, as if an internal distant voice dictated them to him. When he read passages written on the previous day to Viscount Philibert de la Choue, the latter often expressed keen approval of them from a practical point of view, saying that one must touch the people in order to lead them, and that it would also be a good plan to compose pious and yet amusing songs for singing in the workshops. As for Monseigneur Bergerot, without examining the book from the dogmatic standpoint, he was deeply touched by the glowing breath of charity which every page exhaled, and was even guilty of the imprudence of writing an approving letter to the author, which letter he authorised him to insert in his work by way of preface. And yet now the Congregation of the Index Expurgatorius was about to place this book, issued in the previous June, under interdict; and it was to defend it that the young priest had hastened to Rome, inflamed by the desire to make his ideas prevail, and resolved to plead his cause in person before the Holy Father, having, he was convinced of it, simply given expression to the pontiff's views. Pierre had not stirred whilst thus living his three last years afresh: he still stood erect before the parapet, before Rome, which he had so often dreamt of and had so keenly desired to see. There was a constant succession of arriving and departing vehicles behind him; the slim Englishmen and the heavy Germans passed away after bestowing on the classic view the five minutes prescribed by their guidebooks; whilst the driver and the horse of Pierre's cab remained waiting complacently, each with his head drooping under the bright sun, which was heating the valise on the seat of the vehicle. And Pierre, in his black cassock, seemed to have grown slimmer and elongated, very slight of build, as he stood there motionless, absorbed in the sublime spectacle. He had lost flesh after his journey to Lourdes, his features too had become less pronounced. Since his mother's part in his nature had regained ascendency, the broad, straight forehead, the intellectual air which he owed to his father seemed to have grown less conspicuous, while his kind and somewhat large mouth, and his delicate chin, bespeaking infinite affection, dominated, revealing his soul, which also glowed in the kindly sparkle of his eyes. Ah! how tender and glowing were the eyes with which he gazed upon the Rome of his book, the new Rome that he had dreamt of! If, first of all, the /ensemble/ had claimed his attention in the soft and somewhat veiled light of that lovely morning, at present he could distinguish details, and let his glance rest upon particular edifices. And it was with childish delight that he identified them, having long studied them in maps and collections of photographs. Beneath his feet, at the bottom of the Janiculum, stretched the Trastevere district with its chaos of old ruddy houses, whose sunburnt tiles hid the course of the Tiber. He was somewhat surprised by the flattish aspect of everything as seen from the terraced summit. It was as though a bird's-eye view levelled the city, the famous hills merely showing like bosses, swellings scarcely perceptible amidst the spreading sea of house-fronts. Yonder, on the right, distinct against the distant blue of the Alban mountains, was certainly the Aventine with its three churches half-hidden by foliage; there, too, was the discrowned Palatine, edged as with black fringe by a line of cypresses. In the rear, the Coelian hill faded away, showing only the trees of the Villa Mattei paling in the golden sunshine. The slender spire and two little domes of Sta. Maria Maggiore alone indicated the summit of the Esquiline, right in front and far away at the other end of the city; whilst on the heights of the neighbouring Viminal, Pierre only perceived a confused mass of whitish blocks, steeped in light and streaked with fine brown lines--recent erections, no doubt, which at that distance suggested an abandoned stone quarry. He long sought the Capitol without being able to discover it; he had to take his bearings, and ended by convincing himself that the square tower, modestly lost among surrounding house-roofs, which he saw in front of Sta. Maria Maggiore was its campanile. Next, on the left, came the Quirinal, recognisable by the long facade of the royal palace, a barrack or hospital-like facade, flat, crudely yellow in hue, and pierced by an infinite number of regularly disposed windows. However, as Pierre was completing the circuit, a sudden vision made him stop short. Without the city, above the trees of the Botanical Garden, the dome of St. Peter's appeared to him. It seemed to be poised upon the greenery, and rose up into the pure blue sky, sky-blue itself and so ethereal that it mingled with the azure of the infinite. The stone lantern which surmounts it, white and dazzling, looked as though it were suspended on high. Pierre did not weary, and his glances incessantly travelled from one end of the horizon to the other. They lingered on the noble outlines, the proud gracefulness of the town-sprinkled Sabine and Alban mountains, whose girdle limited the expanse. The Roman Campagna spread out in far stretches, bare and majestic, like a desert of death, with the glaucous green of a stagnant sea; and he ended by distinguishing "the stern round tower" of the tomb of Cecilia Metella, behind which a thin pale line indicated the ancient Appian Way. Remnants of aqueducts strewed the short herbage amidst the dust of the fallen worlds. And, bringing his glance nearer in, the city again appeared with its jumble of edifices, on which his eyes lighted at random. Close at hand, by its loggia turned towards the river, he recognised the huge tawny cube of the Palazzo Farnese. The low cupola, farther away and scarcely visible, was probably that of the Pantheon. Then by sudden leaps came the freshly whitened walls of San Paolo-fuori-le-Mura,* similar to those of some huge barn, and the statues crowning San Giovanni in Laterano, delicate, scarcely as big as insects. Next the swarming of domes, that of the Gesu, that of San Carlo, that of St'. Andrea della Valle, that of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini; then a number of other sites and edifices, all quivering with memories, the castle of St'. Angelo with its glittering statue of the Destroying Angel, the Villa Medici dominating the entire city, the terrace of the Pincio with its marbles showing whitely among its scanty verdure; and the thick-foliaged trees of the Villa Borghese, whose green crests bounded the horizon. Vainly however did Pierre seek the Colosseum. * St. Paul-beyond-the-walls. The north wind, which was blowing very mildly, had now begun to dissipate the morning haze. Whole districts vigorously disentangled themselves, and showed against the vaporous distance like promontories in a sunlit sea. Here and there, in the indistinct swarming of houses, a strip of white wall glittered, a row of window panes flared, or a garden supplied a black splotch, of wondrous intensity of hue. And all the rest, the medley of streets and squares, the endless blocks of buildings, scattered about on either hand, mingled and grew indistinct in the living glory of the sun, whilst long coils of white smoke, which had ascended from the roofs, slowly traversed the pure sky. Guided by a secret influence, however, Pierre soon ceased to take interest in all but three points of the mighty panorama. That line of slender cypresses which set a black fringe on the height of the Palatine yonder filled him with emotion: beyond it he saw only a void: the palaces of the Caesars had disappeared, had fallen, had been razed by time; and he evoked their memory, he fancied he could see them rise like vague, trembling phantoms of gold amidst the purple of that splendid morning. Then his glances reverted to St. Peter's, and there the dome yet soared aloft, screening the Vatican which he knew was beside the colossus, clinging to its flanks. And that dome, of the same colour as the heavens, appeared so triumphant, so full of strength, so vast, that it seemed to him like a giant king, dominating the whole city and seen from every spot throughout eternity. Then he fixed his eyes on the height in front of him, on the Quirinal, and there the King's palace no longer appeared aught but a flat low barracks bedaubed with yellow paint. And for him all the secular history of Rome, with its constant convulsions and successive resurrections, found embodiment in that symbolical triangle, in those three summits gazing at one another across the Tiber. Ancient Rome blossoming forth in a piling up of palaces and temples, the monstrous florescence of imperial power and splendour; Papal Rome, victorious in the middle ages, mistress of the world, bringing that colossal church, symbolical of beauty regained, to weigh upon all Christendom; and the Rome of to-day, which he knew nothing of, which he had neglected, and whose royal palace, so bare and so cold, brought him disparaging ideas--the idea of some out-of-place, bureaucratic effort, some sacrilegious attempt at modernity in an exceptional city which should have been left entirely to the dreams of the future. However, he shook off the almost painful feelings which the importunate present brought to him, and would not let his eyes rest on a pale new district, quite a little town, in course of erection, no doubt, which he could distinctly see near St. Peter's on the margin of the river. He had dreamt of his own new Rome, and still dreamt of it, even in front of the Palatine whose edifices had crumbled in the dust of centuries, of the dome of St. Peter's whose huge shadow lulled the Vatican to sleep, of the Palace of the Quirinal repaired and repainted, reigning in homely fashion over the new districts which swarmed on every side, while with its ruddy roofs the olden city, ripped up by improvements, coruscated beneath the bright morning sun. Again did the title of his book, "NEW ROME," flare before Pierre's eyes, and another reverie carried him off; he lived his book afresh even as he had just lived his life. He had written it amid a flow of enthusiasm, utilising the /data/ which he had accumulated at random; and its division into three parts, past, present, and future, had at once forced itself upon him. The PAST was the extraordinary story of primitive Christianity, of the slow evolution which had turned this Christianity into present-day Catholicism. He showed that an economical question is invariably hidden beneath each religious evolution, and that, upon the whole, the everlasting evil, the everlasting struggle, has never been aught but one between the rich and the poor. Among the Jews, when their nomadic life was over, and they had conquered the land of Canaan, and ownership and property came into being, a class warfare at once broke out. There were rich, and there were poor; thence arose the social question. The transition had been sudden, and the new state of things so rapidly went from bad to worse that the poor suffered keenly, and protested with the greater violence as they still remembered the golden age of the nomadic life. Until the time of Jesus the prophets are but rebels who surge from out the misery of the people, proclaim its sufferings, and vent their wrath upon the rich, to whom they prophesy every evil in punishment for their injustice and their harshness. Jesus Himself appears as the claimant of the rights of the poor. The prophets, whether socialists or anarchists, had preached social equality, and called for the destruction of the world if it were unjust. Jesus likewise brings to the wretched hatred of the rich. All His teaching threatens wealth and property; and if by the Kingdom of Heaven which He promised one were to understand peace and fraternity upon this earth, there would only be a question of returning to a life of pastoral simplicity, to the dream of the Christian community, such as after Him it would seem to have been realised by His disciples. During the first three centuries each Church was an experiment in communism, a real association whose members possessed all in common--wives excepted. This is shown to us by the apologists and early fathers of the Church. Christianity was then but the religion of the humble and the poor, a form of democracy, of socialism struggling against Roman society. And when the latter toppled over, rotted by money, it succumbed far more beneath the results of frantic speculation, swindling banks, and financial disasters, than beneath the onslaught of barbarian hordes and the stealthy, termite-like working of the Christians. The money question will always be found at the bottom of everything. And a new proof of this was supplied when Christianity, at last triumphing by virtue of historical, social, and human causes, was proclaimed a State religion. To ensure itself complete victory it was forced to range itself on the side of the rich and the powerful; and one should see by means of what artfulness and sophistry the fathers of the Church succeeded in discovering a defence of property and wealth in the Gospel of Jesus. All this, however, was a vital political necessity for Christianity; it was only at this price that it became Catholicism, the universal religion. From that time forth the powerful machine, the weapon of conquest and rule, was reared aloft: up above were the powerful and the wealthy, those whose duty it was to share with the poor, but who did not do so; while down below were the poor, the toilers, who were taught resignation and obedience, and promised the kingdom of futurity, the divine and eternal reward--an admirable monument which has lasted for ages, and which is entirely based on the promise of life beyond life, on the inextinguishable thirst for immortality and justice that consumes mankind. Pierre had completed this first part of his book, this history of the past, by a broad sketch of Catholicism until the present time. First appeared St. Peter, ignorant and anxious, coming to Rome by an inspiration of genius, there to fulfil the ancient oracles which had predicted the eternity of the Capitol. Then came the first popes, mere heads of burial associations, the slow rise of the all-powerful papacy ever struggling to conquer the world, unremittingly seeking to realise its dream of universal domination. At the time of the great popes of the middle ages it thought for a moment that it had attained its goal, that it was the sovereign master of the nations. Would not absolute truth and right consist in the pope being both pontiff and ruler of the world, reigning over both the souls and the bodies of all men, even like the Deity whose vicar he is? This, the highest and mightiest of all ambitions, one, too, that is perfectly logical, was attained by Augustus, emperor and pontiff, master of all the known world; and it is the glorious figure of Augustus, ever rising anew from among the ruins of ancient Rome, which has always haunted the popes; it is his blood which has pulsated in their veins. But power had become divided into two parts amidst the crumbling of the Roman empire; it was necessary to content oneself with a share, and leave temporal government to the emperor, retaining over him, however, the right of coronation by divine grant. The people belonged to God, and in God's name the pope gave the people to the emperor, and could take it from him; an unlimited power whose most terrible weapon was excommunication, a superior sovereignty, which carried the papacy towards real and final possession of the empire. Looking at things broadly, the everlasting quarrel between the pope and the emperor was a quarrel for the people, the inert mass of humble and suffering ones, the great silent multitude whose irremediable wretchedness was only revealed by occasional covert growls. It was disposed of, for its good, as one might dispose of a child. Yet the Church really contributed to civilisation, rendered constant services to humanity, diffused abundant alms. In the convents, at any rate, the old dream of the Christian community was ever coming back: one-third of the wealth accumulated for the purposes of worship, the adornment and glorification of the shrine, one-third for the priests, and one-third for the poor. Was not this a simplification of life, a means of rendering existence possible to the faithful who had no earthly desires, pending the marvellous contentment of heavenly life? Give us, then, the whole earth, and we will divide terrestrial wealth into three such parts, and you shall see what a golden age will reign amidst the resignation and the obedience of all! However, Pierre went on to show how the papacy was assailed by the greatest dangers on emerging from its all-powerfulness of the middle ages. It was almost swept away amidst the luxury and excesses of the Renascence, the bubbling of living sap which then gushed from eternal nature, downtrodden and regarded as dead for ages past. More threatening still were the stealthy awakenings of the people, of the great silent multitude whose tongue seemed to be loosening. The Reformation burst forth like the protest of reason and justice, like a recall to the disregarded truths of the Gospel; and to escape total annihilation Rome needed the stern defence of the Inquisition, the slow stubborn labour of the Council of Trent, which strengthened the dogmas and ensured the temporal power. And then the papacy entered into two centuries of peace and effacement, for the strong absolute monarchies which had divided Europe among themselves could do without it, and had ceased to tremble at the harmless thunderbolts of excommunication or to look on the pope as aught but a master of ceremonies, controlling certain rites. The possession of the people was no longer subject to the same rules. Allowing that the kings still held the people from God, it was the pope's duty to register the donation once for all, without ever intervening, whatever the circumstances, in the government of states. Never was Rome farther away from the realisation of its ancient dream of universal dominion. And when the French Revolution burst forth, it may well have been imagined that the proclamation of the rights of man would kill that papacy to which the exercise of divine right over the nations had been committed. And so how great at first was the anxiety, the anger, the desperate resistance with which the Vatican opposed the idea of freedom, the new /credo/ of liberated reason, of humanity regaining self-possession and control. It was the apparent /denouement/ of the long struggle between the pope and the emperor for possession of the people: the emperor vanished, and the people, henceforward free to dispose of itself, claimed to escape from the pope--an unforeseen solution, in which it seemed as though all the ancient scaffolding of the Catholic world must fall to the very ground. At this point Pierre concluded the first part of his book by contrasting primitive Christianity with present-day Catholicism, which is the triumph of the rich and the powerful. That Roman society which Jesus had come to destroy in the name of the poor and humble, had not Catholic Rome steadily continued rebuilding it through all the centuries, by its policy of cupidity and pride? And what bitter irony it was to find, after eighteen hundred years of the Gospel, that the world was again collapsing through frantic speculation, rotten banks, financial disasters, and the frightful injustice of a few men gorged with wealth whilst thousands of their brothers were dying of hunger! The whole redemption of the wretched had to be worked afresh. However, Pierre gave expression to all these terrible things in words so softened by charity, so steeped in hope, that they lost their revolutionary danger. Moreover, he nowhere attacked the dogmas. His book, in its sentimental, somewhat poetic form, was but the cry of an apostle glowing with love for his fellow-men. Then came the second part of the work, the PRESENT, a study of Catholic society as it now exists. Here Pierre had painted a frightful picture of the misery of the poor, the misery of a great city, which he knew so well and bled for, through having laid his hands upon its poisonous wounds. The present-day injustice could no longer be tolerated, charity was becoming powerless, and so frightful was the suffering that all hope was dying away from the hearts of the people. And was it not the monstrous spectacle presented by Christendom, whose abominations corrupted the people, and maddened it with hatred and vengeance, that had largely destroyed its faith? However, after this picture of rotting and crumbling society, Pierre returned to history, to the period of the French Revolution, to the mighty hope with which the idea of freedom had filled the world. The middle classes, the great Liberal party, on attaining power had undertaken to bring happiness to one and all. But after a century's experience it really seemed that liberty had failed to bring any happiness whatever to the outcasts. In the political sphere illusions were departing. At all events, if the reigning third estate declares itself satisfied, the fourth estate, that of the toilers,* still suffers and continues to demand its share of fortune. The working classes have been proclaimed free; political equality has been granted them, but the gift has been valueless, for economically they are still bound to servitude, and only enjoy, as they did formerly, the liberty of dying of hunger. All the socialist revendications have come from that; between labour and capital rests the terrifying problem, the solution of which threatens to sweep away society. When slavery disappeared from the olden world to be succeeded by salaried employment the revolution was immense, and certainly the Christian principle was one of the great factors in the destruction of slavery. Nowadays, therefore, when the question is to replace salaried employment by something else, possibly by the participation of the workman in the profits of his work, why should not Christianity again seek a new principle of action? The fatal and proximate accession of the democracy means the beginning of another phase in human history, the creation of the society of to-morrow. And Rome cannot keep away from the arena; the papacy must take part in the quarrel if it does not desire to disappear from the world like a piece of mechanism that has become altogether useless. * In England we call the press the fourth estate, but in France and elsewhere the term is applied to the working classes, and in that sense must be taken here.--Trans. Hence it followed that Catholic socialism was legitimate. On every side the socialist sects were battling with their various solutions for the privilege of ensuring the happiness of the people, and the Church also must offer her solution of the problem. Here it was that New Rome appeared, that the evolution spread into a renewal of boundless hope. Most certainly there was nothing contrary to democracy in the principles of the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed she had only to return to the evangelical traditions, to become once more the Church of the humble and the poor, to re-establish the universal Christian community. She is undoubtedly of democratic essence, and if she sided with the rich and the powerful when Christianity became Catholicism, she only did so perforce, that she might live by sacrificing some portion of her original purity; so that if to-day she should abandon the condemned governing classes in order to make common cause with the multitude of the wretched, she would simply be drawing nearer to Christ, thereby securing a new lease of youth and purifying herself of all the political compromises which she formerly was compelled to accept. Without renouncing aught of her absolutism the Church has at all times known how to bow to circumstances; but she reserves her perfect sovereignty, simply tolerating that which she cannot prevent, and patiently waiting, even through long centuries, for the time when she shall again become the mistress of the world. Might not that time come in the crisis which was now at hand? Once more, all the powers are battling for possession of the people. Since the people, thanks to liberty and education, has become strong, since it has developed consciousness and will, and claimed its share of fortune, all rulers have been seeking to attach it to themselves, to reign by it, and even with it, should that be necessary. Socialism, therein lies the future, the new instrument of government; and the kings tottering on their thrones, the middle-class presidents of anxious republics, the ambitious plotters who dream of power, all dabble in socialism! They all agree that the capitalist organisation of the State is a return to pagan times, to the olden slave-market; and they all talk of breaking for ever the iron law by which the labour of human beings has become so much merchandise, subject to supply and demand, with wages calculated on an estimate of what is strictly necessary to keep a workman from dying of hunger. And, down in the sphere below, the evil increases, the workmen agonise with hunger and exasperation, while above them discussion still goes on, systems are bandied about, and well-meaning persons exhaust themselves in attempting to apply ridiculously inadequate remedies. There is much stir without any progress, all the wild bewilderment which precedes great catastrophes. And among the many, Catholic socialism, quite as ardent as Revolutionary socialism, enters the lists and strives to conquer. After these explanations Pierre gave an account of the long efforts made by Catholic socialism throughout the Christian world. That which particularly struck one in this connection was that the warfare became keener and more victorious whenever it was waged in some land of propaganda, as yet not completely conquered by Roman Catholicism. For instance, in the countries where Protestantism confronted the latter, the priests fought with wondrous passion, as for dear life itself, contending with the schismatical clergy for possession of the people by dint of daring, by unfolding the most audacious democratic theories. In Germany, the classic land of socialism, Mgr. Ketteler was one of the first to speak of adequately taxing the rich; and later he fomented a wide-spread agitation which the clergy now directs by means of numerous associations and newspapers. In Switzerland Mgr. Mermillod pleaded the cause of the poor so loudly that the bishops there now almost make common cause with the democratic socialists, whom they doubtless hope to convert when the day for sharing arrives. In England, where socialism penetrates so very slowly, Cardinal Manning achieved considerable success, stood by the working classes on the occasion of a famous strike, and helped on a popular movement, which was signalised by numerous conversions. But it was particularly in the United States of America that Catholic socialism proved triumphant, in a sphere of democracy where the bishops, like Mgr. Ireland, were forced to set themselves at the head of the working-class agitation. And there across the Atlantic a new Church seems to be germinating, still in confusion but overflowing with sap, and upheld by intense hope, as at the aurora of the rejuvenated Christianity of to-morrow. Passing thence to Austria and Belgium, both Catholic countries, one found Catholic socialism mingling in the first instance with anti-semitism, while in the second it had no precise sense. And all movement ceased and disappeared when one came to Spain and Italy, those old lands of faith. The former with its intractable bishops who contented themselves with hurling excommunication at unbelievers as in the days of the Inquisition, seemed to be abandoned to the violent theories of revolutionaries, whilst Italy, immobilised in the traditional courses, remained without possibility of initiative, reduced to silence and respect by the presence of the Holy See. In France, however, the struggle remained keen, but it was more particularly a struggle of ideas. On the whole, the war was there being waged against the revolution, and to some it seemed as though it would suffice to re-establish the old organisation of monarchical times in order to revert to the golden age. It was thus that the question of working-class corporations had become the one problem, the panacea for all the ills of the toilers. But people were far from agreeing; some, those Catholics who rejected State interference and favoured purely moral action, desired that the corporations should be free; whilst others, the young and impatient ones, bent on action, demanded that they should be obligatory, each with capital of its own, and recognised and protected by the State. Viscount Philibert de la Choue had by pen and speech carried on a vigorous campaign in favour of the obligatory corporations; and his great grief was that he had so far failed to prevail on the Pope to say whether in his opinion these corporations should be closed or open. According to the Viscount, herein lay the fate of society, a peaceful solution of the social question or the frightful catastrophe which must sweep everything away. In reality, though he refused to own it, the Viscount had ended by adopting State socialism. And, despite the lack of agreement, the agitation remained very great; attempts, scarcely happy in their results, were made; co-operative associations, companies for erecting workmen's dwellings, popular savings' banks were started; many more or less disguised efforts to revert to the old Christian community organisation were tried; while day by day, amidst the prevailing confusion, in the mental perturbation and political difficulties through which the country passed, the militant Catholic party felt its hopes increasing, even to the blind conviction of soon resuming sway over the whole world. The second part of Pierre's book concluded by a picture of the moral and intellectual uneasiness amidst which the end of the century is struggling. While the toiling multitude suffers from its hard lot and demands that in any fresh division of wealth it shall be ensured at least its daily bread, the /elite/ is no better satisfied, but complains of the void induced by the freeing of its reason and the enlargement of its intelligence. It is the famous bankruptcy of rationalism, of positivism, of science itself which is in question. Minds consumed by need of the absolute grow weary of groping, weary of the delays of science which recognises only proven truths; doubt tortures them, they need a complete and immediate synthesis in order to sleep in peace; and they fall on their knees, overcome by the roadside, distracted by the thought that science will never tell them all, and preferring the Deity, the mystery revealed and affirmed by faith. Even to-day, it must be admitted, science calms neither our thirst for justice, our desire for safety, nor our everlasting idea of happiness after life in an eternity of enjoyment. To one and all it only brings the austere duty to live, to be a mere contributor in the universal toil; and how well one can understand that hearts should revolt and sigh for the Christian heaven, peopled with lovely angels, full of light and music and perfumes! Ah! to embrace one's dead, to tell oneself that one will meet them again, that one will live with them once more in glorious immortality! And to possess the certainty of sovereign equity to enable one to support the abominations of terrestrial life! And in this wise to trample on the frightful thought of annihilation, to escape the horror of the disappearance of the /ego/, and to tranquillise oneself with that unshakable faith which postpones until the portal of death be crossed the solution of all the problems of destiny! This dream will be dreamt by the nations for ages yet. And this it is which explains why, in these last days of the century, excessive mental labour and the deep unrest of humanity, pregnant with a new world, have awakened religious feeling, anxious, tormented by thoughts of the ideal and the infinite, demanding a moral law and an assurance of superior justice. Religions may disappear, but religious feelings will always create new ones, even with the help of science. A new religion! a new religion! Was it not the ancient Catholicism, which in the soil of the present day, where all seemed conducive to a miracle, was about to spring up afresh, throw out green branches and blossom in a young yet mighty florescence? At last, in the third part of his book and in the glowing language of an apostle, Pierre depicted the FUTURE: Catholicism rejuvenated, and bringing health and peace, the forgotten golden age of primitive Christianity, back to expiring society. He began with an emotional and sparkling portrait of Leo XIII, the ideal Pope, the Man of Destiny entrusted with the salvation of the nations. He had conjured up a presentment of him and beheld him thus in his feverish longing for the advent of a pastor who should put an end to human misery. It was perhaps not a close likeness, but it was a portrait of the needed saviour, with open heart and mind, and inexhaustible benevolence, such as he had dreamed. At the same time he had certainly searched documents, studied encyclical letters, based his sketch upon facts: first Leo's religious education at Rome, then his brief nunciature at Brussels, and afterwards his long episcopate at Perugia. And as soon as Leo became pope in the difficult situation bequeathed by Pius IX, the duality of his nature appeared: on one hand was the firm guardian of dogmas, on the other the supple politician resolved to carry conciliation to its utmost limits. We see him flatly severing all connection with modern philosophy, stepping backward beyond the Renascence to the middle ages and reviving Christian philosophy, as expounded by "the angelic doctor," St. Thomas Aquinas, in Catholic schools. Then the dogmas being in this wise sheltered, he adroitly maintains himself in equilibrium by giving securities to every power, striving to utilise every opportunity. He displays extraordinary activity, reconciles the Holy See with Germany, draws nearer to Russia, contents Switzerland, asks the friendship of Great Britain, and writes to the Emperor of China begging him to protect the missionaries and Christians in his dominions. Later on, too, he intervenes in France and acknowledges the legitimacy of the Republic. From the very outset an idea becomes apparent in all his actions, an idea which will place him among the great papal politicians. It is moreover the ancient idea of the papacy--the conquest of every soul, Rome capital and mistress of the world. Thus Leo XIII has but one desire, one object, that of unifying the Church, of drawing all the dissident communities to it in order that it may be invincible in the coming social struggle. He seeks to obtain recognition of the moral authority of the Vatican in Russia; he dreams of disarming the Anglican Church and of drawing it into a sort of fraternal truce; and he particularly seeks to come to an understanding with the Schismatical Churches of the East, which he regards as sisters, simply living apart, whose return his paternal heart entreats. Would not Rome indeed dispose of victorious strength if she exercised uncontested sway over all the Christians of the earth? And here the social ideas of Leo XIII come in. Whilst yet Bishop of Perugia he wrote a pastoral letter in which a vague humanitarian socialism appeared. As soon, however, as he had assumed the triple crown his opinions changed and he anathematised the revolutionaries whose audacity was terrifying Italy. But almost at once he corrected himself, warned by events and realising the great danger of leaving socialism in the hands of the enemies of the Church. Then he listened to the bishops of the lands of propaganda, ceased to intervene in the Irish quarrel, withdrew the excommunications which he had launched against the American "knights of labour," and would not allow the bold works of Catholic socialist writers to be placed in the Index. This evolution towards democracy may be traced through his most famous encyclical letters: /Immortale Dei/, on the constitution of States; /Libertas/, on human liberty; /Sapientoe/, on the duties of Christian citizens; /Rerum novarum/, on the condition of the working classes; and it is particularly this last which would seem to have rejuvenated the Church. The Pope herein chronicles the undeserved misery of the toilers, the undue length of the hours of labour, the insufficiency of salaries. All men have the right to live, and all contracts extorted by threats of starvation are unjust. Elsewhere he declares that the workman must not be left defenceless in presence of a system which converts the misery of the majority into the wealth of a few. Compelled to deal vaguely with questions of organisation, he contents himself with encouraging the corporative movement, placing it under State patronage; and after thus contributing to restore the secular power, he reinstates the Deity on the throne of sovereignty, and discerns the path to salvation more particularly in moral measures, in the ancient respect due to family ties and ownership. Nevertheless, was not the helpful hand which the august Vicar of Christ thus publicly tendered to the poor and the humble, the certain token of a new alliance, the announcement of a new reign of Jesus upon earth? Thenceforward the people knew that it was not abandoned. And from that moment too how glorious became Leo XIII, whose sacerdotal jubilee and episcopal jubilee were celebrated by all Christendom amidst the coming of a vast multitude, of endless offerings, and of flattering letters from every sovereign! Pierre next dealt with the question of the temporal power, and this he thought he might treat freely. Naturally, he was not ignorant of the fact that the Pope in his quarrel with Italy upheld the rights of the Church over Rome as stubbornly as his predecessor; but he imagined that this was merely a necessary conventional attitude, imposed by political considerations, and destined to be abandoned when the times were ripe. For his own part he was convinced that if the Pope had never appeared greater than he did now, it was to the loss of the temporal power that he owed it; for thence had come the great increase of his authority, the pure splendour of moral omnipotence which he diffused. What a long history of blunders and conflicts had been that of the possession of the little kingdom of Rome during fifteen centuries! Constantine quits Rome in the fourth century, only a few forgotten functionaries remaining on the deserted Palatine, and the Pope naturally rises to power, and the life of the city passes to the Lateran. However, it is only four centuries later that Charlemagne recognises accomplished facts and formally bestows the States of the Church upon the papacy. From that time warfare between the spiritual power and the temporal powers has never ceased; though often latent it has at times become acute, breaking forth with blood and fire. And to-day, in the midst of Europe in arms, is it not unreasonable to dream of the papacy ruling a strip of territory where it would be exposed to every vexation, and where it could only maintain itself by the help of a foreign army? What would become of it in the general massacre which is apprehended? Is it not far more sheltered, far more dignified, far more lofty when disentangled from all terrestrial cares, reigning over the world of souls? In the early times of the Church the papacy from being merely local, merely Roman, gradually became catholicised, universalised, slowly acquiring dominion over all Christendom. In the same way the Sacred College, at first a continuation of the Roman Senate, acquired an international character, and in our time has ended by becoming the most cosmopolitan of assemblies, in which representatives of all the nations have seats. And is it not evident that the Pope, thus leaning on the cardinals, has become the one great international power which exercises the greater authority since it is free from all monarchical interests, and can speak not merely in the name of country but in that of humanity itself? The solution so often sought amidst such long wars surely lies in this: Either give the Pope the temporal sovereignty of the world, or leave him only the spiritual sovereignty. Vicar of the Deity, absolute and infallible sovereign by divine delegation, he can but remain in the sanctuary if, ruler already of the human soul, he is not recognised by every nation as the one master of the body also--the king of kings. But what a strange affair was this new incursion of the papacy into the field sown by the French Revolution, an incursion conducting it perhaps towards the domination, which it has striven for with a will that has upheld it for centuries! For now it stands alone before the people. The kings are down. And as the people is henceforth free to give itself to whomsoever it pleases, why should it not give itself to the Church? The depreciation which the idea of liberty has certainly undergone renders every hope permissible. The liberal party appears to be vanquished in the sphere of economics. The toilers, dissatisfied with 1789 complain of the aggravation of their misery, bestir themselves, seek happiness despairingly. On the other hand the new /regimes/ have increased the international power of the Church; Catholic members are numerous in the parliaments of the republics and the constitutional monarchies. All circumstances seem therefore to favour this extraordinary return of fortune, Catholicism reverting to the vigour of youth in its old age. Even science, remember, is accused of bankruptcy, a charge which saves the /Syllabus/ from ridicule, troubles the minds of men, and throws the limitless sphere of mystery and impossibility open once more. And then a prophecy is recalled, a prediction that the papacy shall be mistress of the world on the day when she marches at the head of the democracy after reuniting the Schismatical Churches of the East to the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church. And, in Pierre's opinion, assuredly the times had come since Pope Leo XIII, dismissing the great and the wealthy of the world, left the kings driven from their thrones in exile to place himself like Jesus on the side of the foodless toilers and the beggars of the high roads. Yet a few more years, perhaps, of frightful misery, alarming confusion, fearful social danger, and the people, the great silent multitude which others have so far disposed of, will return to the cradle, to the unified Church of Rome, in order to escape the destruction which threatens human society. Pierre concluded his book with a passionate evocation of New Rome, the spiritual Rome which would soon reign over the nations, reconciled and fraternising as in another golden age. Herein he even saw the end of superstitions. Without making a direct attack on dogma, he allowed himself to dream of an enlargement of religious feeling, freed from rites, and absorbed in the one satisfaction of human charity. And still smarting from his journey to Lourdes, he felt the need of contenting his heart. Was not that gross superstition of Lourdes the hateful symptom of the excessive suffering of the times? On the day when the Gospel should be universally diffused and practised, suffering ones would cease seeking an illusory relief so far away, assured as they would be of finding assistance, consolation, and cure in their homes amidst their brothers. At Lourdes there was an iniquitous displacement of wealth, a spectacle so frightful as to make one doubt of God, a perpetual conflict which would disappear in the truly Christian society of to-morrow. Ah! that society, that Christian community, all Pierre's work ended in an ardent longing for its speedy advent: Christianity becoming once more the religion of truth and justice which it had been before it allowed itself to be conquered by the rich and the powerful! The little ones and the poor ones reigning, sharing the wealth of earth, and owing obedience to nought but the levelling law of work! The Pope alone erect at the head of the federation of nations, prince of peace, with the simple mission of supplying the moral rule, the link of charity and love which was to unite all men! And would not this be the speedy realisation of the promises of Christ? The times were near accomplishment, secular and religious society would mingle so closely that they would form but one; and it would be the age of triumph and happiness predicted by all the prophets, no more struggles possible, no more antagonism between the mind and the body, but a marvellous equilibrium which would kill evil and set the kingdom of heaven upon earth. New Rome, the centre of the world, bestowing on the world the new religion! Pierre felt that tears were coming to his eyes, and with an unconscious movement, never noticing how much he astonished the slim Englishmen and thick-set Germans passing along the terrace, he opened his arms and extended them towards the /real/ Rome, steeped in such lovely sunshine and stretched out at his feet. Would she prove responsive to his dream? Would he, as he had written, find within her the remedy for our impatience and our alarms? Could Catholicism be renewed, could it return to the spirit of primitive Christianity, become the religion of the democracy, the faith which the modern world, overturned and in danger of perishing, awaits in order to be pacified and to live? Pierre was full of generous passion, full of faith. He again beheld good Abbe Rose weeping with emotion as he read his book. He heard Viscount Philibert de la Choue telling him that such a book was worth an army. And he particularly felt strong in the approval of Cardinal Bergerot, that apostle of inexhaustible charity. Why should the Congregation of the Index threaten his work with interdiction? Since he had been officiously advised to go to Rome if he desired to defend himself, he had been turning this question over in his mind without being able to discover which of his pages were attacked. To him indeed they all seemed to glow with the purest Christianity. However, he had arrived quivering with enthusiasm and courage: he was all eagerness to kneel before the Pope, and place himself under his august protection, assuring him that he had not written a line without taking inspiration from his ideas, without desiring the triumph of his policy. Was it possible that condemnation should be passed on a book in which he imagined in all sincerity that he had exalted Leo XIII by striving to help him in his work of Christian reunion and universal peace? For a moment longer Pierre remained standing before the parapet. He had been there for nearly an hour, unable to drink in enough of the grandeur of Rome, which, given all the unknown things she hid from him, he would have liked to possess at once. Oh! to seize hold of her, know her, ascertain at once the true word which he had come to seek from her! This again, like Lourdes, was an experiment, but a graver one, a decisive one, whence he would emerge either strengthened or overcome for evermore. He no longer sought the simple, perfect faith of the little child, but the superior faith of the intellectual man, raising himself above rites and symbols, working for the greatest happiness of humanity as based on its need of certainty. His temples throbbed responsive to his heart. What would be the answer of Rome? The sunlight had increased and the higher districts now stood out more vigorously against the fiery background. Far away the hills became gilded and empurpled, whilst the nearer house-fronts grew very distinct and bright with their thousands of windows sharply outlined. However, some morning haze still hovered around; light veils seemed to rise from the lower streets, blurring the summits for a moment, and then evaporating in the ardent heavens where all was blue. For a moment Pierre fancied that the Palatine had vanished, for he could scarcely see the dark fringe of cypresses; it was as though the dust of its ruins concealed the hill. But the Quirinal was even more obscured; the royal palace seemed to have faded away in a fog, so paltry did it look with its low flat front, so vague in the distance that he no longer distinguished it; whereas above the trees on his left the dome of St. Peter's had grown yet larger in the limpid gold of the sunshine, and appeared to occupy the whole sky and dominate the whole city! Ah! the Rome of that first meeting, the Rome of early morning, whose new districts he had not even noticed in the burning fever of his arrival--with what boundless hopes did she not inspirit him, this Rome which he believed he should find alive, such indeed as he had dreamed! And whilst he stood there in his thin black cassock, thus gazing on her that lovely day, what a shout of coming redemption seemed to arise from her house-roofs, what a promise of universal peace seemed to issue from that sacred soil, twice already Queen of the world! It was the third Rome, it was New Rome whose maternal love was travelling across the frontiers to all the nations to console them and reunite them in a common embrace. In the passionate candour of his dream he beheld her, he heard her, rejuvenated, full of the gentleness of childhood, soaring, as it were, amidst the morning freshness into the vast pure heavens. But at last Pierre tore himself away from the sublime spectacle. The driver and the horse, their heads drooping under the broad sunlight, had not stirred. On the seat the valise was almost burning, hot with rays of the sun which was already heavy. And once more Pierre got into the vehicle and gave this address: "Via Giulia, Palazzo Boccanera." II THE Via Giulia, which runs in a straight line over a distance of five hundred yards from the Farnese palace to the church of St. John of the Florentines, was at that hour steeped in bright sunlight, the glow streaming from end to end and whitening the small square paving stones. The street had no footways, and the cab rolled along it almost to the farther extremity, passing the old grey sleepy and deserted residences whose large windows were barred with iron, while their deep porches revealed sombre courts resembling wells. Laid out by Pope Julius II, who had dreamt of lining it with magnificent palaces, the street, then the most regular and handsome in Rome, had served as Corso* in the sixteenth century. One could tell that one was in a former luxurious district, which had lapsed into silence, solitude, and abandonment, instinct with a kind of religious gentleness and discretion. The old house-fronts followed one after another, their shutters closed and their gratings occasionally decked with climbing plants. At some doors cats were seated, and dim shops, appropriated to humble trades, were installed in certain dependencies. But little traffic was apparent. Pierre only noticed some bare-headed women dragging children behind them, a hay cart drawn by a mule, a superb monk draped in drugget, and a bicyclist speeding along noiselessly, his machine sparkling in the sun. * The Corso was so called on account of the horse races held in it at carnival time.--Trans. At last the driver turned and pointed to a large square building at the corner of a lane running towards the Tiber. "Palazzo Boccanera." Pierre raised his head and was pained by the severe aspect of the structure, so bare and massive and blackened by age. Like its neighbours the Farnese and Sacchetti palaces, it had been built by Antonio da Sangallo in the early part of the sixteenth century, and, as with the former of those residences, the tradition ran that in raising the pile the architect had made use of stones pilfered from the Colosseum and the Theatre of Marcellus. The vast, square-looking facade had three upper stories, each with seven windows, and the first one very lofty and noble. Down below, the only sign of decoration was that the high ground-floor windows, barred with huge projecting gratings as though from fear of siege, rested upon large consoles, and were crowned by attics which smaller consoles supported. Above the monumental entrance, with folding doors of bronze, there was a balcony in front of the central first-floor window. And at the summit of the facade against the sky appeared a sumptuous entablature, whose frieze displayed admirable grace and purity of ornamentation. The frieze, the consoles, the attics, and the door-case were of white marble, but marble whose surface had so crumbled and so darkened that it now had the rough yellowish grain of stone. Right and left of the entrance were two antique seats upheld by griffons also of marble; and incrusted in the wall at one corner, a lovely Renascence fountain, its source dried up, still lingered; and on it a cupid riding a dolphin could with difficulty be distinguished, to such a degree had the wear and tear of time eaten into the sculpture. Pierre's eyes, however, had been more particularly attracted by an escutcheon carved above one of the ground-floor windows, the escutcheon of the Boccaneras, a winged dragon venting flames, and underneath it he could plainly read the motto which had remained intact: "/Bocca nera, Alma rossa/" (black mouth, red soul). Above another window, as a pendant to the escutcheon, there was one of those little shrines which are still common in Rome, a satin-robed statuette of the Blessed Virgin, before which a lantern burnt in the full daylight. The cabman was about to drive through the dim and gaping porch, according to custom, when the young priest, overcome by timidity, stopped him. "No, no," he said; "don't go in, it's useless." Then he alighted from the vehicle, paid the man, and, valise in hand, found himself first under the vaulted roof, and then in the central court without having met a living soul. It was a square and fairly spacious court, surrounded by a porticus like a cloister. Some remnants of statuary, marbles discovered in excavating, an armless Apollo, and the trunk of a Venus, were ranged against the walls under the dismal arcades; and some fine grass had sprouted between the pebbles which paved the soil as with a black and white mosaic. It seemed as if the sun-rays could never reach that paving, mouldy with damp. A dimness and a silence instinct with departed grandeur and infinite mournfulness reigned there. Surprised by the emptiness of this silent mansion, Pierre continued seeking somebody, a porter, a servant; and, fancying that he saw a shadow flit by, he decided to pass through another arch which led to a little garden fringing the Tiber. On this side the facade of the building was quite plain, displaying nothing beyond its three rows of symmetrically disposed windows. However, the abandonment reigning in the garden brought Pierre yet a keener pang. In the centre some large box-plants were growing in the basin of a fountain which had been filled up; while among the mass of weeds, some orange-trees with golden, ripening fruit alone indicated the tracery of the paths which they had once bordered. Between two huge laurel-bushes, against the right-hand wall, there was a sarcophagus of the second century--with fauns offering violence to nymphs, one of those wild /baccanali/, those scenes of eager passion which Rome in its decline was wont to depict on the tombs of its dead; and this marble sarcophagus, crumbling with age and green with moisture, served as a tank into which a streamlet of water fell from a large tragic mask incrusted in the wall. Facing the Tiber there had formerly been a sort of colonnaded loggia, a terrace whence a double flight of steps descended to the river. For the construction of the new quays, however, the river bank was being raised, and the terrace was already lower than the new ground level, and stood there crumbling and useless amidst piles of rubbish and blocks of stone, all the wretched chalky confusion of the improvements which were ripping up and overturning the district. Pierre, however, was suddenly convinced that he could see somebody crossing the court. So he returned thither and found a woman somewhat short of stature, who must have been nearly fifty, though as yet she had not a white hair, but looked very bright and active. At sight of the priest, however, an expression of distrust passed over her round face and clear eyes. Employing the few words of broken Italian which he knew, Pierre at once sought to explain matters: "I am Abbe Pierre Froment, madame--" he began. However, she did not let him continue, but exclaimed in fluent French, with the somewhat thick and lingering accent of the province of the Ile-de-France: "Ah! yes, Monsieur l'Abbe, I know, I know--I was expecting you, I received orders about you." And then, as he gazed at her in amazement, she added: "Oh! I'm a Frenchwoman! I've been here for five and twenty years, but I haven't yet been able to get used to their horrible lingo!" Pierre thereupon remembered that Viscount Philibert de la Choue had spoken to him of this servant, one Victorine Bosquet, a native of Auneau in La Beauce, who, when two and twenty, had gone to Rome with a consumptive mistress. The latter's sudden death had left her in as much terror and bewilderment as if she had been alone in some land of savages; and so she had gratefully devoted herself to the Countess Ernesta Brandini, a Boccanera by birth, who had, so to say, picked her up in the streets. The Countess had at first employed her as a nurse to her daughter Benedetta, hoping in this way to teach the child some French; and Victorine--remaining for some five and twenty years with the same family--had by degrees raised herself to the position of housekeeper, whilst still remaining virtually illiterate, so destitute indeed of any linguistic gift that she could only jabber a little broken Italian, just sufficient for her needs in her intercourse with the other servants. "And is Monsieur le Vicomte quite well?" she resumed with frank familiarity. "He is so very pleasant, and we are always so pleased to see him. He stays here, you know, each time he comes to Rome. I know that the Princess and the Contessina received a letter from him yesterday announcing you." It was indeed Viscount Philibert de la Choue who had made all the arrangements for Pierre's sojourn in Rome. Of the ancient and once vigorous race of the Boccaneras, there now only remained Cardinal Pio Boccanera, the Princess his sister, an old maid who from respect was called "Donna" Serafina, their niece Benedetta--whose mother Ernesta had followed her husband, Count Brandini, to the tomb--and finally their nephew, Prince Dario Boccanera, whose father, Prince Onofrio, was likewise dead, and whose mother, a Montefiori, had married again. It so chanced that the Viscount de la Choue was connected with the family, his younger brother having married a Brandini, sister to Benedetta's father; and thus, with the courtesy rank of uncle, he had, in Count Brandini's time, frequently sojourned at the mansion in the Via Giulia. He had also become attached to Benedetta, especially since the advent of a private family drama, consequent upon an unhappy marriage which the young woman had contracted, and which she had petitioned the Holy Father to annul. Since Benedetta had left her husband to live with her aunt Serafina and her uncle the Cardinal, M. de la Choue had often written to her and sent her parcels of French books. Among others he had forwarded her a copy of Pierre's book, and the whole affair had originated in that wise. Several letters on the subject had been exchanged when at last Benedetta sent word that the work had been denounced to the Congregation of the Index, and that it was advisable the author should at once repair to Rome, where she graciously offered him the hospitality of the Boccanera mansion. The Viscount was quite as much astonished as the young priest at these tidings, and failed to understand why the book should be threatened at all; however, he prevailed on Pierre to make the journey as a matter of good policy, becoming himself impassioned for the achievement of a victory which he counted in anticipation as his own. And so it was easy to understand the bewildered condition of Pierre, on tumbling into this unknown mansion, launched into an heroic adventure, the reasons and circumstances of which were beyond him. Victorine, however, suddenly resumed: "But I am leaving you here, Monsieur l'Abbe. Let me conduct you to your rooms. Where is your luggage?" Then, when he had shown her his valise which he had placed on the ground beside him, and explained that having no more than a fortnight's stay in view he had contented himself with bringing a second cassock and some linen, she seemed very much surprised. "A fortnight! You only expect to remain here a fortnight? Well, well, you'll see." And then summoning a big devil of a lackey who had ended by making his appearance, she said: "Take that up into the red room, Giacomo. Will you kindly follow me, Monsieur l'Abbe?" Pierre felt quite comforted and inspirited by thus unexpectedly meeting such a lively, good-natured compatriot in this gloomy Roman "palace." Whilst crossing the court he listened to her as she related that the Princess had gone out, and that the Contessina--as Benedetta from motives of affection was still called in the house, despite her marriage--had not yet shown herself that morning, being rather poorly. However, added Victorine, she had her orders. The staircase was in one corner of the court, under the porticus. It was a monumental staircase with broad, low steps, the incline being so gentle that a horse might easily have climbed it. The stone walls, however, were quite bare, the landings empty and solemn, and a death-like mournfulness fell from the lofty vault above. As they reached the first floor, noticing Pierre's emotion, Victorine smiled. The mansion seemed to be uninhabited; not a sound came from its closed chambers. Simply pointing to a large oaken door on the right-hand, the housekeeper remarked: "The wing overlooking the court and the river is occupied by his Eminence. But he doesn't use a quarter of the rooms. All the reception-rooms on the side of the street have been shut. How could one keep up such a big place, and what, too, would be the use of it? We should need somebody to lodge." With her lithe step she continued ascending the stairs. She had remained essentially a foreigner, a Frenchwoman, too different from those among whom she lived to be influenced by her environment. On reaching the second floor she resumed: "There, on the left, are Donna Serafina's rooms; those of the Contessina are on the right. This is the only part of the house where there's a little warmth and life. Besides, it's Monday to-day, the Princess will be receiving visitors this evening. You'll see." Then, opening a door, beyond which was a second and very narrow staircase, she went on: "We others have our rooms on the third floor. I must ask Monsieur l'Abbe to let me go up before him." The grand staircase ceased at the second floor, and Victorine explained that the third story was reached exclusively by this servants' staircase, which led from the lane running down to the Tiber on one side of the mansion. There was a small private entrance in this lane, which was very convenient. At last, reaching the third story, she hurried along a passage, again calling Pierre's attention to various doors. "These are the apartments of Don Vigilio, his Eminence's secretary. These are mine. And these will be yours. Monsieur le Vicomte will never have any other rooms when he comes to spend a few days in Rome. He says that he enjoys more liberty up here, as he can come in and go out as he pleases. I gave him a key to the door in the lane, and I'll give you one too. And, besides, you'll see what a nice view there is from here!" Whilst speaking she had gone in. The apartments comprised two rooms: a somewhat spacious /salon/, with wall-paper of a large scroll pattern on a red ground, and a bed-chamber, where the paper was of a flax grey, studded with faded blue flowers. The sitting-room was in one corner of the mansion overlooking the lane and the Tiber, and Victorine at once went to the windows, one of which afforded a view over the distant lower part of the river, while the other faced the Trastevere and the Janiculum across the water. "Ah! yes, it's very pleasant!" said Pierre, who had followed and stood beside her. Giaccomo, who did not hurry, came in behind them with the valise. It was now past eleven o'clock; and seeing that the young priest looked tired, and realising that he must be hungry after such a journey, Victorine offered to have some breakfast served at once in the sitting-room. He would then have the afternoon to rest or go out, and would only meet the ladies in the evening at dinner. At the mere suggestion of resting, however, Pierre began to protest, declaring that he should certainly go out, not wishing to lose an entire afternoon. The breakfast he readily accepted, for he was indeed dying of hunger. However, he had to wait another full half hour. Giaccomo, who served him under Victorine's orders, did everything in a most leisurely way. And Victorine, lacking confidence in the man, remained with the young priest to make sure that everything he might require was provided. "Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe," said she, "what people! What a country! You can't have an idea of it. I should never get accustomed to it even if I were to live here for a hundred years. Ah! if it were not for the Contessina, but she's so good and beautiful." Then, whilst placing a dish of figs on the table, she astonished Pierre by adding that a city where nearly everybody was a priest could not possibly be a good city. Thereupon the presence of this gay, active, unbelieving servant in the queer old palace again scared him. "What! you are not religious?" he exclaimed. "No, no, Monsieur l'Abbe, the priests don't suit me," said Victorine; "I knew one in France when I was very little, and since I've been here I've seen too many of them. It's all over. Oh! I don't say that on account of his Eminence, who is a holy man worthy of all possible respect. And besides, everybody in the house knows that I've nothing to reproach myself with. So why not leave me alone, since I'm fond of my employers and attend properly to my duties?" She burst into a frank laugh. "Ah!" she resumed, "when I was told that another priest was coming, just as if we hadn't enough already, I couldn't help growling to myself. But you look like a good young man, Monsieur l'Abbe, and I feel sure we shall get on well together. . . . I really don't know why I'm telling you all this--probably it's because you've come from yonder, and because the Contessina takes an interest in you. At all events, you'll excuse me, won't you, Monsieur l'Abbe? And take my advice, stay here and rest to-day; don't be so foolish as to go running about their tiring city. There's nothing very amusing to be seen in it, whatever they may say to the contrary." When Pierre found himself alone, he suddenly felt overwhelmed by all the fatigue of his journey coupled with the fever of enthusiasm that had consumed him during the morning. And as though dazed, intoxicated by the hasty meal which he had just made--a couple of eggs and a cutlet--he flung himself upon the bed with the idea of taking half an hour's rest. He did not fall asleep immediately, but for a time thought of those Boccaneras, with whose history he was partly acquainted, and of whose life in that deserted and silent palace, instinct with such dilapidated and melancholy grandeur, he began to dream. But at last his ideas grew confused, and by degrees he sunk into sleep amidst a crowd of shadowy forms, some tragic and some sweet, with vague faces which gazed at him with enigmatical eyes as they whirled before him in the depths of dreamland. The Boccaneras had supplied two popes to Rome, one in the thirteenth, the other in the fifteenth century, and from those two favoured ones, those all-powerful masters, the family had formerly derived its vast fortune--large estates in the vicinity of Viterbo, several palaces in Rome, enough works of art to fill numerous spacious galleries, and a pile of gold sufficient to cram a cellar. The family passed as being the most pious of the Roman /patriziato/, a family of burning faith whose sword had always been at the service of the Church; but if it were the most believing family it was also the most violent, the most disputatious, constantly at war, and so fiercely savage that the anger of the Boccaneras had become proverbial. And thence came their arms, the winged dragon spitting flames, and the fierce, glowing motto, with its play on the name "/Bocca sera, Alma rossa/" (black mouth, red soul), the mouth darkened by a roar, the soul flaming like a brazier of faith and love. Legends of endless passion, of terrible deeds of justice and vengeance still circulated. There was the duel fought by Onfredo, the Boccanera by whom the present palazzo had been built in the sixteenth century on the site of the demolished antique residence of the family. Onfredo, learning that his wife had allowed herself to be kissed on the lips by young Count Costamagna, had caused the Count to be kidnapped one evening and brought to the palazzo bound with cords. And there in one of the large halls, before freeing him, he compelled him to confess himself to a monk. Then he severed the cords with a stiletto, threw the lamps over and extinguished them, calling to the Count to keep the stiletto and defend himself. During more than an hour, in complete obscurity, in this hall full of furniture, the two men sought one another, fled from one another, seized hold of one another, and pierced one another with their blades. And when the doors were broken down and the servants rushed in they found among the pools of blood, among the overturned tables and broken seats, Costamagna with his nose sliced off and his hips pierced with two and thirty wounds, whilst Onfredo had lost two fingers of his right hand, and had both shoulders riddled with holes! The wonder was that neither died of the encounter. A century later, on that same bank of the Tiber, a daughter of the Boccaneras, a girl barely sixteen years of age, the lovely and passionate Cassia, filled all Rome with terror and admiration. She loved Flavio Corradini, the scion of a rival and hated house, whose alliance her father, Prince Boccanera, roughly rejected, and whom her elder brother, Ercole, swore to slay should he ever surprise him with her. Nevertheless the young man came to visit her in a boat, and she joined him by the little staircase descending to the river. But one evening Ercole, who was on the watch, sprang into the boat and planted his dagger full in Flavio's heart. Later on the subsequent incidents were unravelled; it was understood that Cassia, wrathful and frantic with despair, unwilling to survive her love and bent on wreaking justice, had thrown herself upon her brother, had seized both murderer and victim with the same grasp whilst overturning the boat; for when the three bodies were recovered Cassia still retained her hold upon the two men, pressing their faces one against the other with her bare arms, which had remained as white as snow. But those were vanished times. Nowadays, if faith remained, blood violence seemed to be departing from the Boccaneras. Their huge fortune also had been lost in the slow decline which for a century past has been ruining the Roman /patriziato/. It had been necessary to sell the estates; the palace had emptied, gradually sinking to the mediocrity and bourgeois life of the new times. For their part the Boccaneras obstinately declined to contract any alien alliances, proud as they were of the purity of their Roman blood. And poverty was as nothing to them; they found contentment in their immense pride, and without a plaint sequestered themselves amidst the silence and gloom in which their race was dwindling away. Prince Ascanio, dead since 1848, had left four children by his wife, a Corvisieri; first Pio, the Cardinal; then Serafina, who, in order to remain with her brother, had not married; and finally Ernesta and Onofrio, both of whom were deceased. As Ernesta had merely left a daughter, Benedetta, behind her, it followed that the only male heir, the only possible continuator of the family name was Onofrio's son, young Prince Dario, now some thirty years of age. Should he die without posterity, the Boccaneras, once so full of life and whose deeds had filled Roman history in papal times, must fatally disappear. Dario and his cousin Benedetta had been drawn together by a deep, smiling, natural passion ever since childhood. They seemed born one for the other; they could not imagine that they had been brought into the world for any other purpose than that of becoming husband and wife as soon as they should be old enough to marry. When Prince Onofrio--an amiable man of forty, very popular in Rome, where he spent his modest fortune as his heart listed--espoused La Montefiori's daughter, the little Marchesa Flavia, whose superb beauty, suggestive of a youthful Juno, had maddened him, he went to reside at the Villa Montefiori, the only property, indeed the only belonging, that remained to the two ladies. It was in the direction of St'. Agnese-fuori-le-Mura,* and there were vast grounds, a perfect park in fact, planted with centenarian trees, among which the villa, a somewhat sorry building of the seventeenth century, was falling into ruins. * St. Agnes-without-the-walls, N.E. of Rome. Unfavourable reports were circulated about the ladies, the mother having almost lost caste since she had become a widow, and the girl having too bold a beauty, too conquering an air. Thus the marriage had not met with the approval of Serafina, who was very rigid, or of Onofrio's elder brother Pio, at that time merely a /Cameriere segreto/ of the Holy Father and a Canon of the Vatican basilica. Only Ernesta kept up a regular intercourse with Onofrio, fond of him as she was by reason of his gaiety of disposition; and thus, later on, her favourite diversion was to go each week to the Villa Montefiori with her daughter Benedetta, there to spend the day. And what a delightful day it always proved to Benedetta and Dario, she ten years old and he fifteen, what a fraternal loving day in that vast and almost abandoned garden with its parasol pines, its giant box-plants, and its clumps of evergreen oaks, amidst which one lost oneself as in a virgin forest. The poor stifled soul of Ernesta was a soul of pain and passion. Born with a mighty longing for life, she thirsted for the sun--for a free, happy, active existence in the full daylight. She was noted for her large limpid eyes and the charming oval of her gentle face. Extremely ignorant, like all the daughters of the Roman nobility, having learnt the little she knew in a convent of French nuns, she had grown up cloistered in the black Boccanera palace, having no knowledge of the world than by those daily drives to the Corso and the Pincio on which she accompanied her mother. Eventually, when she was five and twenty, and was already weary and desolate, she contracted the customary marriage of her caste, espousing Count Brandini, the last-born of a very noble, very numerous and poor family, who had to come and live in the Via Giulia mansion, where an entire wing of the second floor was got ready for the young couple. And nothing changed, Ernesta continued to live in the same cold gloom, in the midst of the same dead past, the weight of which, like that of a tombstone, she felt pressing more and more heavily upon her. The marriage was, on either side, a very honourable one. Count Brandini soon passed as being the most foolish and haughty man in Rome. A strict, intolerant formalist in religious matters, he became quite triumphant when, after innumerable intrigues, secret plottings which lasted ten long years, he at last secured the appointment of grand equerry to the Holy Father. With this appointment it seemed as if all the dismal majesty of the Vatican entered his household. However, Ernesta found life still bearable in the time of Pius IX--that is until the latter part of 1870--for she might still venture to open the windows overlooking the street, receive a few lady friends otherwise than in secrecy, and accept invitations to festivities. But when the Italians had conquered Rome and the Pope declared himself a prisoner, the mansion in the Via Giulia became a sepulchre. The great doors were closed and bolted, even nailed together in token of mourning; and during ten years the inmates only went out and came in by the little staircase communicating with the lane. It was also forbidden to open the window shutters of the facade. This was the sulking, the protest of the black world, the mansion sinking into death-like immobility, complete seclusion; no more receptions, barely a few shadows, the intimates of Donna Serafina who on Monday evenings slipped in by the little door in the lane which was scarcely set ajar. And during those ten lugubrious years, overcome by secret despair, the young woman wept every night, suffered untold agony at thus being buried alive. Ernesta had given birth to her daughter Benedetta rather late in life, when three and thirty years of age. At first the little one helped to divert her mind. But afterwards her wonted existence, like a grinding millstone, again seized hold of her, and she had to place the child in the charge of the French nuns, by whom she herself had been educated, at the convent of the Sacred Heart of La Trinita de' Monti. When Benedetta left the convent, grown up, nineteen years of age, she was able to speak and write French, knew a little arithmetic and her catechism, and possessed a few hazy notions of history. Then the life of the two women was resumed, the life of a /gynoeceum/, suggestive of the Orient; never an excursion with husband or father, but day after day spent in closed, secluded rooms, with nought to cheer one but the sole, everlasting, obligatory promenade, the daily drive to the Corso and the Pincio. At home, absolute obedience was the rule; the tie of relationship possessed an authority, a strength, which made both women bow to the will of the Count, without possible thought of rebellion; and to the Count's will was added that of Donna Serafina and that of Cardinal Pio, both of whom were stern defenders of the old-time customs. Since the Pope had ceased to show himself in Rome, the post of grand equerry had left the Count considerable leisure, for the number of equipages in the pontifical stables had been very largely reduced; nevertheless, he was constant in his attendance at the Vatican, where his duties were now a mere matter of parade, and ever increased his devout zeal as a mark of protest against the usurping monarchy installed at the Quirinal. However, Benedetta had just attained her twentieth year, when one evening her father returned coughing and shivering from some ceremony at St. Peter's. A week later he died, carried off by inflammation of the lungs. And despite their mourning, the loss was secretly considered a deliverance by both women, who now felt that they were free. Thenceforward Ernesta had but one thought, that of saving her daughter from that awful life of immurement and entombment. She herself had sorrowed too deeply: it was no longer possible for her to remount the current of existence; but she was unwilling that Benedetta should in her turn lead a life contrary to nature, in a voluntary grave. Moreover, similar lassitude and rebellion were showing themselves among other patrician families, which, after the sulking of the first years, were beginning to draw nearer to the Quirinal. Why indeed should the children, eager for action, liberty, and sunlight, perpetually keep up the quarrel of the fathers? And so, though no reconciliation could take place between the black world and the white world,* intermediate tints were already appearing, and some unexpected matrimonial alliances were contracted. * The "blacks" are the supporters of the papacy, the "whites" those of the King of Italy.--Trans. Ernesta for her part was indifferent to the political question; she knew next to nothing about it; but that which she passionately desired was that her race might at last emerge from that hateful sepulchre, that black, silent Boccanera mansion, where her woman's joys had been frozen by so long a death. She had suffered very grievously in her heart, as girl, as lover, and as wife, and yielded to anger at the thought that her life should have been so spoiled, so lost through idiotic resignation. Then, too, her mind was greatly influenced by the choice of a new confessor at this period; for she had remained very religious, practising all the rites of the Church, and ever docile to the advice of her spiritual director. To free herself the more, however, she now quitted the Jesuit father whom her husband had chosen for her, and in his stead took Abbe Pisoni, the rector of the little church of Sta. Brigida, on the Piazza Farnese, close by. He was a man of fifty, very gentle, and very good-hearted, of a benevolence seldom found in the Roman world; and archaeology, a passion for the old stones of the past, had made him an ardent patriot. Humble though his position was, folks whispered that he had on several occasions served as an intermediary in delicate matters between the Vatican and the Quirinal. And, becoming confessor not only of Ernesta but of Benedetta also, he was fond of discoursing to them about the grandeur of Italian unity, the triumphant sway that Italy would exercise when the Pope and the King should agree together. Meantime Benedetta and Dario loved as on the first day, patiently, with the strong tranquil love of those who know that they belong to one another. But it happened that Ernesta threw herself between them and stubbornly opposed their marriage. No, no! her daughter must not espouse that Dario, that cousin, the last of the name, who in his turn would immure his wife in the black sepulchre of the Boccanera palace! Their union would be a prolongation of entombment, an aggravation of ruin, a repetition of the haughty wretchedness of the past, of the everlasting peevish sulking which depressed and benumbed one! She was well acquainted with the young man's character; she knew that he was egotistical and weak, incapable of thinking and acting, predestined to bury his race with a smile on his lips, to let the last remnant of the house crumble about his head without attempting the slightest effort to found a new family. And that which she desired was fortune in another guise, a new birth for her daughter with wealth and the florescence of life amid the victors and powerful ones of to-morrow. From that moment the mother did not cease her stubborn efforts to ensure her daughter's happiness despite herself. She told her of her tears, entreated her not to renew her own deplorable career. Yet she would have failed, such was the calm determination of the girl who had for ever given her heart, if certain circumstances had not brought her into connection with such a son-in-law as she dreamt of. At that very Villa Montefiori where Benedetta and Dario had plighted their troth, she met Count Prada, son of Orlando, one of the heroes of the reunion of Italy. Arriving in Rome from Milan, with his father, when eighteen years of age, at the time of the occupation of the city by the Italian Government, Prada had first entered the Ministry of Finances as a mere clerk, whilst the old warrior, his sire, created a senator, lived scantily on a petty income, the last remnant of a fortune spent in his country's service. The fine war-like madness of the former comrade of Garibaldi had, however, in the son turned into a fierce appetite for booty, so that the young man became one of the real conquerors of Rome, one of those birds of prey that dismembered and devoured the city. Engaged in vast speculations on land, already wealthy according to popular report, he had--at the time of meeting Ernesta--just become intimate with Prince Onofrio, whose head he had turned by suggesting to him the idea of selling the far-spreading grounds of the Villa Montefiori for the erection of a new suburban district on the site. Others averred that he was the lover of the princess, the beautiful Flavia, who, although nine years his senior, was still superb. And, truth to tell, he was certainly a man of violent desires, with an eagerness to rush on the spoils of conquest which rendered him utterly unscrupulous with regard either to the wealth or to the wives of others. From the first day that he beheld Benedetta he desired her. But she, at any rate, could only become his by marriage. And he did not for a moment hesitate, but broke off all connection with Flavia, eager as he was for the pure virgin beauty, the patrician youth of the other. When he realised that Ernesta, the mother, favoured him, he asked her daughter's hand, feeling certain of success. And the surprise was great, for he was some fifteen years older than the girl. However, he was a count, he bore a name which was already historical, he was piling up millions, he was regarded with favour at the Quirinal, and none could tell to what heights he might not attain. All Rome became impassioned. Never afterwards was Benedetta able to explain to herself how it happened that she had eventually consented. Six months sooner, six months later, such a marriage would certainly have been impossible, given the fearful scandal which it raised in the black world. A Boccanera, the last maiden of that antique papal race, given to a Prada, to one of the despoilers of the Church! Was it credible? In order that the wild project might prove successful it had been necessary that it should be formed at a particular brief moment--a moment when a supreme effort was being made to conciliate the Vatican and the Quirinal. A report circulated that an agreement was on the point of being arrived at, that the King consented to recognise the Pope's absolute sovereignty over the Leonine City,* and a narrow band of territory extending to the sea. And if such were the case would not the marriage of Benedetta and Prada become, so to say, a symbol of union, of national reconciliation? That lovely girl, the pure lily of the black world, was she not the acquiescent sacrifice, the pledge granted to the whites? * The Vatican suburb of Rome, called the /Civitas Leonina/, because Leo IV, to protect it from the Saracens and Arabs, enclosed it with walls in the ninth century.--Trans. For a fortnight nothing else was talked of; people discussed the question, allowed their emotion rein, indulged in all sorts of hopes. The girl, for her part, did not enter into the political reasons, but simply listened to her heart, which she could not bestow since it was hers no more. From morn till night, however, she had to encounter her mother's prayers entreating her not to refuse the fortune, the life which offered. And she was particularly exercised by the counsels of her confessor, good Abbe Pisoni, whose patriotic zeal now burst forth. He weighed upon her with all his faith in the Christian destinies of Italy, and returned heartfelt thanks to Providence for having chosen one of his penitents as the instrument for hastening the reconciliation which would work God's triumph throughout the world. And her confessor's influence was certainly one of the decisive factors in shaping Benedetta's decision, for she was very pious, very devout, especially with regard to a certain Madonna whose image she went to adore every Sunday at the little church on the Piazza Farnese. One circumstance in particular struck her: Abbe Pisoni related that the flame of the lamp before the image in question whitened each time that he himself knelt there to beg the Virgin to incline his penitent to the all-redeeming marriage. And thus superior forces intervened; and she yielded in obedience to her mother, whom the Cardinal and Donna Serafina had at first opposed, but whom they left free to act when the religious question arose. Benedetta had grown up in such absolute purity and ignorance, knowing nothing of herself, so shut off from existence, that marriage with another than Dario was to her simply the rupture of a long-kept promise of life in common. It was not the violent wrenching of heart and flesh that it would have been in the case of a woman who knew the facts of life. She wept a good deal, and then in a day of self-surrender she married Prada, lacking the strength to continue resisting everybody, and yielding to a union which all Rome had conspired to bring about. But the clap of thunder came on the very night of the nuptials. Was it that Prada, the Piedmontese, the Italian of the North, the man of conquest, displayed towards his bride the same brutality that he had shown towards the city he had sacked? Or was it that the revelation of married life filled Benedetta with repulsion since nothing in her own heart responded to the passion of this man? On that point she never clearly explained herself; but with violence she shut the door of her room, locked it and bolted it, and refused to admit her husband. For a month Prada was maddened by her scorn. He felt outraged; both his pride and his passion bled; and he swore to master her, even as one masters a colt, with the whip. But all his virile fury was impotent against the indomitable determination which had sprung up one evening behind Benedetta's small and lovely brow. The spirit of the Boccaneras had awoke within her; nothing in the world, not even the fear of death, would have induced her to become her husband's wife.* And then, love being at last revealed to her, there came a return of her heart to Dario, a conviction that she must reserve herself for him alone, since it was to him that she had promised herself. * Many readers will doubtless remember that the situation as here described is somewhat akin to that of the earlier part of M. George Ohnet's /Ironmaster/, which, in its form as a novel, I translated into English many years ago. However, all resemblance between /Rome/ and the /Ironmaster/ is confined to this one point.--Trans. Ever since that marriage, which he had borne like a bereavement, the young man had been travelling in France. She did not hide the truth from him, but wrote to him, again vowing that she would never be another's. And meantime her piety increased, her resolve to reserve herself for the lover she had chosen mingled in her mind with constancy of religious faith. The ardent heart of a great /amorosa/ had ignited within her, she was ready for martyrdom for faith's sake. And when her despairing mother with clasped hands entreated her to resign herself to her conjugal duties, she replied that she owed no duties, since she had known nothing when she married. Moreover, the times were changing; the attempts to reconcile the Quirinal and the Vatican had failed, so completely, indeed, that the newspapers of the rival parties had, with renewed violence, resumed their campaign of mutual insult and outrage; and thus that triumphal marriage, to which every one had contributed as to a pledge of peace, crumbled amid the general smash-up, became but a ruin the more added to so many others. Ernesta died of it. She had made a mistake. Her spoilt life--the life of a joyless wife--had culminated in this supreme maternal error. And the worst was that she alone had to bear all the responsibility of the disaster, for both her brother, the Cardinal, and her sister, Donna Serafina, overwhelmed her with reproaches. For consolation she had but the despair of Abbe Pisoni, whose patriotic hopes had been destroyed, and who was consumed with grief at having contributed to such a catastrophe. And one morning Ernesta was found, icy white and cold, in her bed. Folks talked of the rupture of a blood-vessel, but grief had been sufficient, for she had suffered frightfully, secretly, without a plaint, as indeed she had suffered all her life long. At this time Benedetta had been married about a twelvemonth: still strong in her resistance to her husband, but remaining under the conjugal roof in order to spare her mother the terrible blow of a public scandal. However, her aunt Serafina had brought influence to bear on her, by opening to her the hope of a possible nullification of her marriage, should she throw herself at the feet of the Holy Father and entreat his intervention. And Serafina ended by persuading her of this, when, deferring to certain advice, she removed her from the spiritual control of Abbe Pisoni, and gave her the same confessor as herself. This was a Jesuit father named Lorenza, a man scarce five and thirty, with bright eyes, grave and amiable manners, and great persuasive powers. However, it was only on the morrow of her mother's death that Benedetta made up her mind, and returned to the Palazzo Boccanera, to occupy the apartments where she had been born, and where her mother had just passed away. Immediately afterwards proceedings for annulling the marriage were instituted, in the first instance, for inquiry, before the Cardinal Vicar charged with the diocese of Rome. It was related that the Contessina had only taken this step after a secret audience with his Holiness, who had shown her the most encouraging sympathy. Count Prada at first spoke of applying to the law courts to compel his wife to return to the conjugal domicile; but, yielding to the entreaties of his old father Orlando, whom the affair greatly grieved, he eventually consented to accept the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. He was infuriated, however, to find that the nullification of the marriage was solicited on the ground of its non-consummation through /impotentia mariti/; this being one of the most valid and decisive pleas on which the Church of Rome consents to part those whom she has joined. And far more unhappy marriages than might be imagined are severed on these grounds, though the world only gives attention to those cases in which people of title or renown are concerned, as it did, for instance, with the famous Martinez Campos suit. In Benedetta's case, her counsel, Consistorial-Advocate Morano, one of the leading authorities of the Roman bar, simply neglected to mention, in his memoir, that if she was still merely a wife in name, this was entirely due to herself. In addition to the evidence of friends and servants, showing on what terms the husband and wife had lived since their marriage, the advocate produced a certificate of a medical character, showing that the non-consummation of the union was certain. And the Cardinal Vicar, acting as Bishop of Rome, had thereupon remitted the case to the Congregation of the Council. This was a first success for Benedetta, and matters remained in this position. She was waiting for the Congregation to deliver its final pronouncement, hoping that the ecclesiastical dissolution of the marriage would prove an irresistible argument in favour of the divorce which she meant to solicit of the civil courts. And meantime, in the icy rooms where her mother Ernesta, submissive and desolate, had lately died, the Contessina resumed her girlish life, showing herself calm, yet very firm in her passion, having vowed that she would belong to none but Dario, and that she would not belong to him until the day when a priest should have joined them together in God's holy name. As it happened, some six months previously, Dario also had taken up his abode at the Boccanera palace in consequence of the death of his father and the catastrophe which had ruined him. Prince Onofrio, after adopting Prada's advice and selling the Villa Montefiori to a financial company for ten million /lire/,* had, instead of prudently keeping his money in his pockets, succumbed to the fever of speculation which was consuming Rome. He began to gamble, buying back his own land, and ending by losing everything in the formidable /krach/ which was swallowing up the wealth of the entire city. Totally ruined, somewhat deeply in debt even, the Prince nevertheless continued to promenade the Corso, like the handsome, smiling, popular man he was, when he accidentally met his death through falling from his horse; and four months later his widow, the ever beautiful Flavia--who had managed to save a modern villa and a personal income of forty thousand /lire/* from the disaster--was remarried to a man of magnificent presence, her junior by some ten years. This was a Swiss named Jules Laporte, originally a sergeant in the Papal Swiss Guard, then a traveller for a shady business in "relics," and finally Marchese Montefiore, having secured that title in securing his wife, thanks to a special brief of the Holy Father. Thus the Princess Boccanera had again become the Marchioness Montefiori. * 400,000 pounds. ** 1,800 pounds. It was then that Cardinal Boccanera, feeling greatly hurt, insisted on his nephew Dario coming to live with him, in a small apartment on the first floor of the palazzo. In the heart of that holy man, who seemed dead to the world, there still lingered pride of name and lineage, with a feeling of affection for his young, slightly built nephew, the last of the race, the only one by whom the old stock might blossom anew. Moreover, he was not opposed to Dario's marriage with Benedetta, whom he also loved with a paternal affection; and so proud was he of the family honour, and so convinced of the young people's pious rectitude that, in taking them to live with him, he absolutely scorned the abominable rumours which Count Prada's friends in the white world had begun to circulate ever since the two cousins had resided under the same roof. Donna Serafina guarded Benedetta, as he, the Cardinal, guarded Dario, and in the silence and the gloom of the vast deserted mansion, ensanguined of olden time by so many tragic deeds of violence, there now only remained these four with their restrained, stilled passions, last survivors of a crumbling world upon the threshold of a new one. When Abbe Pierre Froment all at once awoke from sleep, his head heavy with painful dreams, he was worried to find that the daylight was already waning. His watch, which he hastened to consult, pointed to six o'clock. Intending to rest for an hour at the utmost, he had slept on for nearly seven hours, overcome beyond power of resistance. And even on awaking he remained on the bed, helpless, as though he were conquered before he had fought. Why, he wondered, did he experience this prostration, this unreasonable discouragement, this quiver of doubt which had come he knew not whence during his sleep, and which was annihilating his youthful enthusiasm of the morning? Had the Boccaneras any connection with this sudden weakening of his powers? He had espied dim disquieting figures in the black night of his dreams; and the anguish which they had brought him continued, and he again evoked them, scared as he was at thus awaking in a strange room, full of uneasiness in presence of the unknown. Things no longer seemed natural to him. He could not understand why Benedetta should have written to Viscount Philibert de la Choue to tell him that his, Pierre's, book had been denounced to the Congregation of the Index. What interest too could she have had in his coming to Rome to defend himself; and with what object had she carried her amiability so far as to desire that he should take up his quarters in the mansion? Pierre's stupefaction indeed arose from his being there, on that bed in that strange room, in that palace whose deep, death-like silence encompassed him. As he lay there, his limbs still overpowered and his brain seemingly empty, a flash of light suddenly came to him, and he realised that there must be certain circumstances that he knew nothing of that, simple though things appeared, they must really hide some complicated intrigue. However, it was only a fugitive gleam of enlightenment; his suspicions faded; and he rose up shaking himself and accusing the gloomy twilight of being the sole cause of the shivering and the despondency of which he felt ashamed. In order to bestir himself, Pierre began to examine the two rooms. They were furnished simply, almost meagrely, in mahogany, there being scarcely any two articles alike, though all dated from the beginning of the century. Neither the bed nor the windows nor the doors had any hangings. On the floor of bare tiles, coloured red and polished, there were merely some little foot-mats in front of the various seats. And at sight of this middle-class bareness and coldness Pierre ended by remembering a room where he had slept in childhood--a room at Versailles, at the abode of his grandmother, who had kept a little grocer's shop there in the days of Louis Philippe. However, he became interested in an old painting which hung in the bed-room, on the wall facing the bed, amidst some childish and valueless engravings. But partially discernible in the waning light, this painting represented a woman seated on some projecting stone-work, on the threshold of a great stern building, whence she seemed to have been driven forth. The folding doors of bronze had for ever closed behind her, yet she remained there in a mere drapery of white linen; whilst scattered articles of clothing, thrown forth chance-wise with a violent hand, lay upon the massive granite steps. Her feet were bare, her arms were bare, and her hands, distorted by bitter agony, were pressed to her face--a face which one saw not, veiled as it was by the tawny gold of her rippling, streaming hair. What nameless grief, what fearful shame, what hateful abandonment was thus being hidden by that rejected one, that lingering victim of love, of whose unknown story one might for ever dream with tortured heart? It could be divined that she was adorably young and beautiful in her wretchedness, in the shred of linen draped about her shoulders; but a mystery enveloped everything else--her passion, possibly her misfortune, perhaps even her transgression--unless, indeed, she were there merely as a symbol of all that shivers and that weeps visageless before the ever closed portals of the unknown. For a long time Pierre looked at her, and so intently that he at last imagined he could distinguish her profile, divine in its purity and expression of suffering. But this was only an illusion; the painting had greatly suffered, blackened by time and neglect; and he asked himself whose work it might be that it should move him so intensely. On the adjoining wall a picture of a Madonna, a bad copy of an eighteenth-century painting, irritated him by the banality of its smile. Night was falling faster and faster, and, opening the sitting-room window, Pierre leant out. On the other bank of the Tiber facing him arose the Janiculum, the height whence he had gazed upon Rome that morning. But at this dim hour Rome was no longer the city of youth and dreamland soaring into the early sunshine. The night was raining down, grey and ashen; the horizon was becoming blurred, vague, and mournful. Yonder, to the left, beyond the sea of roofs, Pierre could still divine the presence of the Palatine; and yonder, to the right, there still arose the Dome of St. Peter's, now grey like slate against the leaden sky; whilst behind him the Quirinal, which he could not see, must also be fading away into the misty night. A few minutes went by, and everything became yet more blurred; he realised that Rome was fading, departing in its immensity of which he knew nothing. Then his causeless doubt and disquietude again came on him so painfully that he could no longer remain at the window. He closed it and sat down, letting the darkness submerge him with its flood of infinite sadness. And his despairing reverie only ceased when the door gently opened and the glow of a lamp enlivened the room. It was Victorine who came in quietly, bringing the light. "Ah! so you are up, Monsieur l'Abbe," said she; "I came in at about four o'clock but I let you sleep on. You have done quite right to take all the rest you required." Then, as he complained of pains and shivering, she became anxious. "Don't go catching their nasty fevers," she said. "It isn't at all healthy near their river, you know. Don Vigilio, his Eminence's secretary, is always having the fever, and I assure you that it isn't pleasant." She accordingly advised him to remain upstairs and lie down again. She would excuse his absence to the Princess and the Contessina. And he ended by letting her do as she desired, for he was in no state to have any will of his own. By her advice he dined, partaking of some soup, a wing of a chicken, and some preserves, which Giaccomo, the big lackey, brought up to him. And the food did him a great deal of good; he felt so restored that he refused to go to bed, desiring, said he, to thank the ladies that very evening for their kindly hospitality. As Donna Serafina received on Mondays he would present himself before her. "Very good," said Victorine approvingly. "As you are all right again it can do you no harm, it will even enliven you. The best thing will be for Don Vigilio to come for you at nine o'clock and accompany you. Wait for him here." Pierre had just washed and put on the new cassock he had brought with him, when, at nine o'clock precisely, he heard a discreet knock at his door. A little priest came in, a man scarcely thirty years of age, but thin and debile of build, with a long, seared, saffron-coloured face. For two years past attacks of fever, coming on every day at the same hour, had been consuming him. Nevertheless, whenever he forgot to control the black eyes which lighted his yellow face, they shone out ardently with the glow of his fiery soul. He bowed, and then in fluent French introduced himself in this simple fashion: "Don Vigilio, Monsieur l'Abbe, who is entirely at your service. If you are willing, we will go down." Pierre immediately followed him, expressing his thanks, and Don Vigilio, relapsing into silence, answered his remarks with a smile. Having descended the small staircase, they found themselves on the second floor, on the spacious landing of the grand staircase. And Pierre was surprised and saddened by the scanty illumination, which, as in some dingy lodging-house, was limited to a few gas-jets, placed far apart, their yellow splotches but faintly relieving the deep gloom of the lofty, endless corridors. All was gigantic and funereal. Even on the landing, where was the entrance to Donna Serafina's apartments, facing those occupied by her niece, nothing indicated that a reception was being held that evening. The door remained closed, not a sound came from the rooms, a death-like silence arose from the whole palace. And Don Vigilio did not even ring, but, after a fresh bow, discreetly turned the door-handle. A single petroleum lamp, placed on a table, lighted the ante-room, a large apartment with bare fresco-painted walls, simulating hangings of red and gold, draped regularly all around in the antique fashion. A few men's overcoats and two ladies' mantles lay on the chairs, whilst a pier table was littered with hats, and a servant sat there dozing, with his back to the wall. However, as Don Vigilio stepped aside to allow Pierre to enter a first reception-room, hung with red /brocatelle/, a room but dimly lighted and which he imagined to be empty, the young priest found himself face to face with an apparition in black, a woman whose features he could not at first distinguish. Fortunately he heard his companion say, with a low bow, "Contessina, I have the honour to present to you Monsieur l'Abbe Pierre Froment, who arrived from France this morning." Then, for a moment, Pierre remained alone with Benedetta in that deserted /salon/, in the sleepy glimmer of two lace-veiled lamps. At present, however, a sound of voices came from a room beyond, a larger apartment whose doorway, with folding doors thrown wide open, described a parallelogram of brighter light. The young woman at once showed herself very affable, with perfect simplicity of manner: "Ah! I am happy to see you, Monsieur l'Abbe. I was afraid that your indisposition might be serious. You are quite recovered now, are you not?" Pierre listened to her, fascinated by her slow and rather thick voice, in which restrained passion seemed to mingle with much prudent good sense. And at last he saw her, with her hair so heavy and so dark, her skin so white, the whiteness of ivory. She had a round face, with somewhat full lips, a small refined nose, features as delicate as a child's. But it was especially her eyes that lived, immense eyes, whose infinite depths none could fathom. Was she slumbering? Was she dreaming? Did her motionless face conceal the ardent tension of a great saint and a great /amorosa/? So white, so young, and so calm, her every movement was harmonious, her appearance at once very staid, very noble, and very rhythmical. In her ears she wore two large pearls of matchless purity, pearls which had come from a famous necklace of her mother's, known throughout Rome. Pierre apologised and thanked her. "You see me in confusion, madame," said he; "I should have liked to express to you this morning my gratitude for your great kindness." He had hesitated to call her madame, remembering the plea brought forward in the suit for the dissolution of her marriage. But plainly enough everybody must call her madame. Moreover, her face had retained its calm and kindly expression. "Consider yourself at home here, Monsieur l'Abbe," she responded, wishing to put him at his ease. "It is sufficient that our relative, Monsieur de la Choue, should be fond of you, and take interest in your work. I have, you know, much affection for him." Then her voice faltered slightly, for she realised that she ought to speak of the book, the one reason of Pierre's journey and her proffered hospitality. "Yes," she added, "the Viscount sent me your book. I read it and found it very beautiful. It disturbed me. But I am only an ignoramus, and certainly failed to understand everything in it. We must talk it over together; you will explain your ideas to me, won't you, Monsieur l'Abbe?" In her large clear eyes, which did not know how to lie, Pierre then read the surprise and emotion of a child's soul when confronted by disquieting and undreamt-of problems. So it was not she who had become impassioned and had desired to have him near her that she might sustain him and assist his victory. Once again, and this time very keenly, he suspected a secret influence, a hidden hand which was directing everything towards some unknown goal. However, he was charmed by so much simplicity and frankness in so beautiful, young, and noble a creature; and he gave himself to her after the exchange of those few words, and was about to tell her that she might absolutely dispose of him, when he was interrupted by the advent of another woman, whose tall, slight figure, also clad in black, stood out strongly against the luminous background of the further reception-room as seen through the open doorway. "Well, Benedetta, have you sent Giaccomo up to see?" asked the newcomer. "Don Vigilio has just come down and he is quite alone. It is improper." "No, no, aunt. Monsieur l'Abbe is here," was the reply of Benedetta, hastening to introduce the young priest. "Monsieur l'Abbe Pierre Froment--The Princess Boccanera." Ceremonious salutations were exchanged. The Princess must have been nearly sixty, but she laced herself so tightly that from behind one might have taken her for a young woman. This tight lacing, however, was her last coquetry. Her hair, though still plentiful, was quite white, her eyebrows alone remaining black in her long, wrinkled face, from which projected the large obstinate nose of the family. She had never been beautiful, and had remained a spinster, wounded to the heart by the selection of Count Brandini, who had preferred her younger sister, Ernesta. From that moment she had resolved to seek consolation and satisfaction in family pride alone, the hereditary pride of the great name which she bore. The Boccaneras had already supplied two Popes to the Church, and she hoped that before she died her brother would become the third. She had transformed herself into his housekeeper, as it were, remaining with him, watching over him, and advising him, managing all the household affairs herself, and accomplishing miracles in order to conceal the slow ruin which was bringing the ceilings about their heads. If every Monday for thirty years past she had continued receiving a few intimates, all of them folks of the Vatican, it was from high political considerations, so that her drawing-room might remain a meeting-place of the black world, a power and a threat. And Pierre divined by her greeting that she deemed him of little account, petty foreign priest that he was, not even a prelate. This too again surprised him, again brought the puzzling question to the fore: Why had he been invited, what was expected of him in this society from which the humble were usually excluded? Knowing the Princess to be austerely devout, he at last fancied that she received him solely out of regard for her kinsman, the Viscount, for in her turn she only found these words of welcome: "We are so pleased to receive good news of Monsieur de la Choue! He brought us such a beautiful pilgrimage two years ago." Passing the first through the doorway, she at last ushered the young priest into the adjoining reception-room. It was a spacious square apartment, hung with old yellow /brocatelle/ of a flowery Louis XIV pattern. The lofty ceiling was adorned with a very fine panelling, carved and coloured, with gilded roses in each compartment. The furniture, however, was of all sorts. There were some high mirrors, a couple of superb gilded pier tables, and a few handsome seventeenth-century arm-chairs; but all the rest was wretched. A heavy round table of first-empire style, which had come nobody knew whence, caught the eye with a medley of anomalous articles picked up at some bazaar, and a quantity of cheap photographs littered the costly marble tops of the pier tables. No interesting article of /virtu/ was to be seen. The old paintings on the walls were with two exceptions feebly executed. There was a delightful example of an unknown primitive master, a fourteenth-century Visitation, in which the Virgin had the stature and pure delicacy of a child of ten, whilst the Archangel, huge and superb, inundated her with a stream of dazzling, superhuman love; and in front of this hung an antique family portrait, depicting a very beautiful young girl in a turban, who was thought to be Cassia Boccanera, the /amorosa/ and avengeress who had flung herself into the Tiber with her brother Ercole and the corpse of her lover, Flavio Corradini. Four lamps threw a broad, peaceful glow over the faded room, and, like a melancholy sunset, tinged it with yellow. It looked grave and bare, with not even a flower in a vase to brighten it. In a few words Donna Serafina at once introduced Pierre to the company; and in the silence, the pause which ensued in the conversation, he felt that every eye was fixed upon him as upon a promised and expected curiosity. There were altogether some ten persons present, among them being Dario, who stood talking with little Princess Celia Buongiovanni, whilst the elderly relative who had brought the latter sat whispering to a prelate, Monsignor Nani, in a dim corner. Pierre, however, had been particularly struck by the name of Consistorial-Advocate Morano, of whose position in the house Viscount de la Choue had thought proper to inform him in order to avert any unpleasant blunder. For thirty years past Morano had been Donna Serafina's /amico/. Their connection, formerly a guilty one, for the advocate had wife and children of his own, had in course of time, since he had been left a widower, become one of those /liaisons/ which tolerant people excuse and except. Both parties were extremely devout and had certainly assured themselves of all needful "indulgences." And thus Morano was there in the seat which he had always taken for a quarter of a century past, a seat beside the chimney-piece, though as yet the winter fire had not been lighted, and when Donna Serafina had discharged her duties as mistress of the house, she returned to her own place in front of him, on the other side of the chimney. When Pierre in his turn had seated himself near Don Vigilio, who, silent and discreet, had already taken a chair, Dario resumed in a louder voice the story which he had been relating to Celia. Dario was a handsome man, of average height, slim and elegant. He wore a full beard, dark and carefully tended, and had the long face and pronounced nose of the Boccaneras, but the impoverishment of the family blood over a course of centuries had attenuated, softened as it were, any sharpness or undue prominence of feature. "Oh! a beauty, an astounding beauty!" he repeated emphatically. "Whose beauty?" asked Benedetta, approaching him. Celia, who resembled the little Virgin of the primitive master hanging above her head, began to laugh. "Oh! Dario's speaking of a poor girl, a work-girl whom he met to-day," she explained. Thereupon Dario had to begin his narrative again. It appeared that while passing along a narrow street near the Piazza Navona, he had perceived a tall, shapely girl of twenty, who was weeping and sobbing violently, prone upon a flight of steps. Touched particularly by her beauty, he had approached her and learnt that she had been working in the house outside which she was, a manufactory of wax beads, but that, slack times having come, the workshops had closed and she did not dare to return home, so fearful was the misery there. Amidst the downpour of her tears she raised such beautiful eyes to his that he ended by drawing some money from his pocket. But at this, crimson with confusion, she sprang to her feet, hiding her hands in the folds of her skirt, and refusing to take anything. She added, however, that he might follow her if it so pleased him, and give the money to her mother. And then she hurried off towards the Ponte St'. Angelo.* * Bridge of St. Angelo. "Yes, she was a beauty, a perfect beauty," repeated Dario with an air of ecstasy. "Taller than I, and slim though sturdy, with the bosom of a goddess. In fact, a real antique, a Venus of twenty, her chin rather bold, her mouth and nose of perfect form, and her eyes wonderfully pure and large! And she was bare-headed too, with nothing but a crown of heavy black hair, and a dazzling face, gilded, so to say, by the sun." They had all begun to listen to him, enraptured, full of that passionate admiration for beauty which, in spite of every change, Rome still retains in her heart. "Those beautiful girls of the people are becoming very rare," remarked Morano. "You might scour the Trastevere without finding any. However, this proves that there is at least one of them left." "And what was your goddess's name?" asked Benedetta, smiling, amused and enraptured like the others. "Pierina," replied Dario, also with a laugh. "And what did you do with her?" At this question the young man's excited face assumed an expression of discomfort and fear, like the face of a child on suddenly encountering some ugly creature amidst its play. "Oh! don't talk of it," said he. "I felt very sorry afterwards. I saw such misery--enough to make one ill." Yielding to his curiosity, it seemed, he had followed the girl across the Ponte St'. Angelo into the new district which was being built over the former castle meadows*; and there, on the first floor of an abandoned house which was already falling into ruins, though the plaster was scarcely dry, he had come upon a frightful spectacle which still stirred his heart: a whole family, father and mother, children, and an infirm old uncle, dying of hunger and rotting in filth! He selected the most dignified words he could think of to describe the scene, waving his hand the while with a gesture of fright, as if to ward off some horrible vision. * The meadows around the Castle of St. Angelo. The district, now covered with buildings, is quite flat and was formerly greatly subject to floods. It is known as the Quartiere dei Prati.--Trans. "At last," he concluded, "I ran away, and you may be sure that I shan't go back again." A general wagging of heads ensued in the cold, irksome silence which fell upon the room. Then Morano summed up the matter in a few bitter words, in which he accused the despoilers, the men of the Quirinal, of being the sole cause of all the frightful misery of Rome. Were not people even talking of the approaching nomination of Deputy Sacco as Minister of Finances--Sacco, that intriguer who had engaged in all sorts of underhand practices? His appointment would be the climax of impudence; bankruptcy would speedily and infallibly ensue. Meantime Benedetta, who had fixed her eyes on Pierre, with his book in her mind, alone murmured: "Poor people, how very sad! But why not go back to see them?" Pierre, out of his element and absent-minded during the earlier moments, had been deeply stirred by the latter part of Dario's narrative. His thoughts reverted to his apostolate amidst the misery of Paris, and his heart was touched with compassion at being confronted by the story of such fearful sufferings on the very day of his arrival in Rome. Unwittingly, impulsively, he raised his voice, and said aloud: "Oh! we will go to see them together, madame; you will take me. These questions impassion me so much." The attention of everybody was then again turned upon the young priest. The others questioned him, and he realised that they were all anxious about his first impressions, his opinion of their city and of themselves. He must not judge Rome by mere outward appearances, they said. What effect had the city produced on him? How had he found it, and what did he think of it? Thereupon he politely apologised for his inability to answer them. He had not yet gone out, said he, and had seen nothing. But this answer was of no avail; they pressed him all the more keenly, and he fully understood that their object was to gain him over to admiration and love. They advised him, adjured him not to yield to any fatal disillusion, but to persist and wait until Rome should have revealed to him her soul. "How long do you expect to remain among us, Monsieur l'Abbe?" suddenly inquired a courteous voice, with a clear but gentle ring. It was Monsignor Nani, who, seated in the gloom, thus raised his voice for the first time. On several occasions it had seemed to Pierre that the prelate's keen blue eyes were steadily fixed upon him, though all the while he pretended to be attentively listening to the drawling chatter of Celia's aunt. And before replying Pierre glanced at him. In his crimson-edged cassock, with a violet silk sash drawn tightly around his waist, Nani still looked young, although he was over fifty. His hair had remained blond, he had a straight refined nose, a mouth very firm yet very delicate of contour, and beautifully white teeth. "Why, a fortnight or perhaps three weeks, Monsignor," replied Pierre. The whole /salon/ protested. What, three weeks! It was his pretension to know Rome in three weeks! Why, six weeks, twelve months, ten years were required! The first impression was always a disastrous one, and a long sojourn was needed for a visitor to recover from it. "Three weeks!" repeated Donna Serafina with her disdainful air. "Is it possible for people to study one another and get fond of one another in three weeks? Those who come back to us are those who have learned to know us." Instead of launching into exclamations like the others, Nani had at first contented himself with smiling, and gently waving his shapely hand, which bespoke his aristocratic origin. Then, as Pierre modestly explained himself, saying that he had come to Rome to attend to certain matters and would leave again as soon as those matters should have been concluded, the prelate, still smiling, summed up the argument with the remark: "Oh! Monsieur l'Abbe will stay with us for more than three weeks; we shall have the happiness of his presence here for a long time, I hope." These words, though spoken with quiet cordiality, strangely disturbed the young priest. What was known, what was meant? He leant towards Don Vigilio, who had remained near him, still and ever silent, and in a whisper inquired: "Who is Monsignor Nani?" The secretary, however, did not at once reply. His feverish face became yet more livid. Then his ardent eyes glanced round to make sure that nobody was watching him, and in a breath he responded: "He is the Assessor of the Holy Office."* * Otherwise the Inquisition. This information sufficed, for Pierre was not ignorant of the fact that the assessor, who was present in silence at the meetings of the Holy Office, waited upon his Holiness every Wednesday evening after the sitting, to render him an account of the matters dealt with in the afternoon. This weekly audience, this hour spent with the Pope in a privacy which allowed of every subject being broached, gave the assessor an exceptional position, one of considerable power. Moreover the office led to the cardinalate; the only "rise" that could be given to the assessor was his promotion to the Sacred College. Monsignor Nani, who seemed so perfectly frank and amiable, continued to look at the young priest with such an encouraging air that the latter felt obliged to go and occupy the seat beside him, which Celia's old aunt at last vacated. After all, was there not an omen of victory in meeting, on the very day of his arrival, a powerful prelate whose influence would perhaps open every door to him? He therefore felt very touched when Monsignor Nani, immediately after the first words, inquired in a tone of deep interest, "And so, my dear child, you have published a book?" After this, gradually mastered by his enthusiasm and forgetting where he was, Pierre unbosomed himself, and recounted the birth and progress of his burning love amidst the sick and the humble, gave voice to his dream of a return to the olden Christian community, and triumphed with the rejuvenescence of Catholicism, developing into the one religion of the universal democracy. Little by little he again raised his voice, and silence fell around him in the stern, antique reception-room, every one lending ear to his words with increasing surprise, with a growing coldness of which he remained unconscious. At last Nani gently interrupted him, still wearing his perpetual smile, the faint irony of which, however, had departed. "No doubt, no doubt, my dear child," he said, "it is very beautiful, oh! very beautiful, well worthy of the pure and noble imagination of a Christian. But what do you count on doing now?" "I shall go straight to the Holy Father to defend myself," answered Pierre. A light, restrained laugh went round, and Donna Serafina expressed the general opinion by exclaiming: "The Holy Father isn't seen as easily as that." Pierre, however, was quite impassioned. "Well, for my part," he rejoined, "I hope I shall see him. Have I not expressed his views? Have I not defended his policy? Can he let my book be condemned when I believe that I have taken inspiration from all that is best in him?" "No doubt, no doubt," Nani again hastily replied, as if he feared that the others might be too brusque with the young enthusiast. "The Holy Father has such a lofty mind. And of course it would be necessary to see him. Only, my dear child, you must not excite yourself so much; reflect a little; take your time." And, turning to Benedetta, he added, "Of course his Eminence has not seen Abbe Froment yet. It would be well, however, that he should receive him to-morrow morning to guide him with his wise counsel." Cardinal Boccanera never attended his sister's Monday-evening receptions. Still, he was always there in the spirit, like some absent sovereign master. "To tell the truth," replied the Contessina, hesitating, "I fear that my uncle does not share Monsieur l'Abbe's views." Nani again smiled. "Exactly; he will tell him things which it is good he should hear." Thereupon it was at once settled with Don Vigilio that the latter would put down the young priest's name for an audience on the following morning at ten o'clock. However, at that moment a cardinal came in, clad in town costume--his sash and his stockings red, but his simar black, with a red edging and red buttons. It was Cardinal Sarno, a very old intimate of the Boccaneras; and whilst he apologised for arriving so late, through press of work, the company became silent and deferentially clustered round him. This was the first cardinal Pierre had seen, and he felt greatly disappointed, for the newcomer had none of the majesty, none of the fine port and presence to which he had looked forward. On the contrary, he was short and somewhat deformed, with the left shoulder higher than the right, and a worn, ashen face with lifeless eyes. To Pierre he looked like some old clerk of seventy, half stupefied by fifty years of office work, dulled and bent by incessantly leaning over his writing desk ever since his youth. And indeed that was Sarno's story. The puny child of a petty middle-class family, he had been educated at the Seminario Romano. Then later he had for ten years professed Canon Law at that same seminary, afterwards becoming one of the secretaries of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. Finally, five and twenty years ago, he had been created a cardinal, and the jubilee of his cardinalate had recently been celebrated. Born in Rome, he had always lived there; he was the perfect type of the prelate who, through growing up in the shade of the Vatican, has become one of the masters of the world. Although he had never occupied any diplomatic post, he had rendered such important services to the Propaganda, by his methodical habits of work, that he had become president of one of the two commissions which furthered the interests of the Church in those vast countries of the west which are not yet Catholic. And thus, in the depths of his dim eyes, behind his low, dull-looking brow, the huge map of Christendom was stored away. Nani himself had risen, full of covert respect for the unobtrusive but terrible man whose hand was everywhere, even in the most distant corners of the earth, although he had never left his office. As Nani knew, despite his apparent nullity, Sarno, with his slow, methodical, ably organised work of conquest, possessed sufficient power to set empires in confusion. "Has your Eminence recovered from that cold which distressed us so much?" asked Nani. "No, no, I still cough. There is a most malignant passage at the offices. I feel as cold as ice as soon as I leave my room." From that moment Pierre felt quite little, virtually lost. He was not even introduced to the Cardinal. And yet he had to remain in the room for nearly another hour, looking around and observing. That antiquated world then seemed to him puerile, as though it had lapsed into a mournful second childhood. Under all the apparent haughtiness and proud reserve he could divine real timidity, unacknowledged distrust, born of great ignorance. If the conversation did not become general, it was because nobody dared to speak out frankly; and what he heard in the corners was simply so much childish chatter, the petty gossip of the week, the trivial echoes of sacristies and drawing-rooms. People saw but little of one another, and the slightest incidents assumed huge proportions. At last Pierre ended by feeling as though he were transported into some /salon/ of the time of Charles X, in one of the episcopal cities of the French provinces. No refreshments were served. Celia's old aunt secured possession of Cardinal Sarno; but, instead of replying to her, he simply wagged his head from time to time. Don Vigilio had not opened his mouth the whole evening. However, a conversation in a very low tone was started by Nani and Morano, to whom Donna Serafina listened, leaning forward and expressing her approval by slowly nodding her head. They were doubtless speaking of the dissolution of Benedetta's marriage, for they glanced at the young woman gravely from time to time. And in the centre of the spacious room, in the sleepy glow of the lamps, there was only the young people, Benedetta, Dario, and Celia who seemed to be at all alive, chattering in undertones and occasionally repressing a burst of laughter. All at once Pierre was struck by the great resemblance between Benedetta and the portrait of Cassia hanging on the wall. Each displayed the same delicate youth, the same passionate mouth, the same large, unfathomable eyes, set in the same round, sensible, healthy-looking face. In each there was certainly the same upright soul, the same heart of flame. Then a recollection came to Pierre, that of a painting by Guido Reni, the adorable, candid head of Beatrice Cenci, which, at that moment and to his thinking, the portrait of Cassia closely resembled. This resemblance stirred him and he glanced at Benedetta with anxious sympathy, as if all the fierce fatality of race and country were about to fall on her. But no, it could not be; she looked so calm, so resolute, and so patient! Besides, ever since he had entered that room he had noticed none other than signs of gay fraternal tenderness between her and Dario, especially on her side, for her face ever retained the bright serenity of a love which may be openly confessed. At one moment, it is true, Dario in a joking way had caught hold of her hands and pressed them; but while he began to laugh rather nervously, with a brighter gleam darting from his eyes, she on her side, all composure, slowly freed her hands, as though theirs was but the play of old and affectionate friends. She loved him, though, it was visible, with her whole being and for her whole life. At last when Dario, after stifling a slight yawn and glancing at his watch, had slipped off to join some friends who were playing cards at a lady's house, Benedetta and Celia sat down together on a sofa near Pierre; and the latter, without wishing to listen, overheard a few words of their confidential chat. The little Princess was the eldest daughter of Prince Matteo Buongiovanni, who was already the father of five children by an English wife, a Mortimer, to whom he was indebted for a dowry of two hundred thousand pounds. Indeed, the Buongiovannis were known as one of the few patrician families of Rome that were still rich, still erect among the ruins of the past, now crumbling on every side. They also numbered two popes among their forerunners, yet this had not prevented Prince Matteo from lending support to the Quirinal without quarrelling with the Vatican. Son of an American woman, no longer having the pure Roman blood in his veins, he was a more supple politician than other aristocrats, and was also, folks said, extremely grasping, struggling to be one of the last to retain the wealth and power of olden times, which he realised were condemned to death. Yet it was in his family, renowned for its superb pride and its continued magnificence, that a love romance had lately taken birth, a romance which was the subject of endless gossip: Celia had suddenly fallen in love with a young lieutenant to whom she had never spoken; her love was reciprocated, and the passionate attachment of the officer and the girl only found vent in the glances they exchanged on meeting each day during the usual drive through the Corso. Nevertheless Celia displayed a tenacious will, and after declaring to her father that she would never take any other husband, she was waiting, firm and resolute, in the certainty that she would ultimately secure the man of her choice. The worst of the affair was that the lieutenant, Attilio Sacco, happened to be the son of Deputy Sacco, a parvenu whom the black world looked down upon, as upon one sold to the Quirinal and ready to undertake the very dirtiest job. "It was for me that Morano spoke just now," Celia murmured in Benedetta's ear. "Yes, yes, when he spoke so harshly of Attilio's father and that ministerial appointment which people are talking about. He wanted to give me a lesson." The two girls had sworn eternal affection in their school-days, and Benedetta, the elder by five years, showed herself maternal. "And so," she said, "you've not become a whit more reasonable. You still think of that young man?" "What! are you going to grieve me too, dear?" replied Celia. "I love Attilio and mean to have him. Yes, him and not another! I want him and I'll have him, because I love him and he loves me. It's simple enough." Pierre glanced at her, thunderstruck. With her gentle virgin face she was like a candid, budding lily. A brow and a nose of blossom-like purity; a mouth all innocence with its lips closing over pearly teeth, and eyes like spring water, clear and fathomless. And not a quiver passed over her cheeks of satiny freshness, no sign, however faint, of anxiety or inquisitiveness appeared in her candid glance. Did she think? Did she know? Who could have answered? She was virginity personified with all its redoubtable mystery. "Ah! my dear," resumed Benedetta, "don't begin my sad story over again. One doesn't succeed in marrying the Pope and the King." All tranquillity, Celia responded: "But you didn't love Prada, whereas I love Attilio. Life lies in that: one must love." These words, spoken so naturally by that ignorant child, disturbed Pierre to such a point that he felt tears rising to his eyes. Love! yes, therein lay the solution of every quarrel, the alliance between the nations, the reign of peace and joy throughout the world! However, Donna Serafina had now risen, shrewdly suspecting the nature of the conversation which was impassioning the two girls. And she gave Don Vigilio a glance, which the latter understood, for he came to tell Pierre in an undertone that it was time to retire. Eleven o'clock was striking, and Celia went off with her aunt. Advocate Morano, however, doubtless desired to retain Cardinal Sarno and Nani for a few moments in order that they might privately discuss some difficulty which had arisen in the divorce proceedings. On reaching the outer reception-room, Benedetta, after kissing Celia on both cheeks, took leave of Pierre with much good grace. "In answering the Viscount to-morrow morning," said she, "I shall tell him how happy we are to have you with us, and for longer than you think. Don't forget to come down at ten o'clock to see my uncle, the Cardinal." Having climbed to the third floor again, Pierre and Don Vigilio, each carrying a candlestick which the servant had handed to them, were about to part for the night, when the former could not refrain from asking the secretary a question which had been worrying him for hours: "Is Monsignor Nani a very influential personage?" Don Vigilio again became quite scared, and simply replied by a gesture, opening his arms as if to embrace the world. Then his eyes flashed, and in his turn he seemed to yield to inquisitiveness. "You already knew him, didn't you?" he inquired. "I? not at all!" "Really! Well, he knows you very well. Last Monday I heard him speak of you in such precise terms that he seemed to be acquainted with the slightest particulars of your career and your character." "Why, I never even heard his name before." "Then he must have procured information." Thereupon Don Vigilio bowed and entered his room; whilst Pierre, surprised to find his door open, saw Victorine come out with her calm active air. "Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe, I wanted to make sure that you had everything you were likely to want. There are candles, water, sugar, and matches. And what do you take in the morning, please? Coffee? No, a cup of milk with a roll. Very good; at eight o'clock, eh? And now rest and sleep well. I was awfully afraid of ghosts during the first nights I spent in this old palace! But I never saw a trace of one. The fact is, when people are dead, they are too well pleased, and don't want to break their rest!" Then off she went, and Pierre at last found himself alone, glad to be able to shake off the strain imposed on him, to free himself from the discomfort which he had felt in that reception-room, among those people who in his mind still mingled and vanished like shadows in the sleepy glow of the lamps. Ghosts, thought he, are the old dead ones of long ago whose distressed spirits return to love and suffer in the breasts of the living of to-day. And, despite his long afternoon rest, he had never felt so weary, so desirous of slumber, confused and foggy as was his mind, full of the fear that he had hitherto not understood things aright. When he began to undress, his astonishment at being in that room returned to him with such intensity that he almost fancied himself another person. What did all those people think of his book? Why had he been brought to this cold dwelling whose hostility he could divine? Was it for the purpose of helping him or conquering him? And again in the yellow glimmer, the dismal sunset of the drawing-room, he perceived Donna Serafina and Advocate Morano on either side of the chimney-piece, whilst behind the calm yet passionate visage of Benedetta appeared the smiling face of Monsignor Nani, with cunning eyes and lips bespeaking indomitable energy. He went to bed, but soon got up again, stifling, feeling such a need of fresh, free air that he opened the window wide in order to lean out. But the night was black as ink, the darkness had submerged the horizon. A mist must have hidden the stars in the firmament; the vault above seemed opaque and heavy like lead; and yonder in front the houses of the Trastevere had long since been asleep. Not one of all their windows glittered; there was but a single gaslight shining, all alone and far away, like a lost spark. In vain did Pierre seek the Janiculum. In the depths of that ocean of nihility all sunk and vanished, Rome's four and twenty centuries, the ancient Palatine and the modern Quirinal, even the giant dome of St. Peter's, blotted out from the sky by the flood of gloom. And below him he could not see, he could not even hear the Tiber, the dead river flowing past the dead city. III AT a quarter to ten o'clock on the following morning Pierre came down to the first floor of the mansion for his audience with Cardinal Boccanera. He had awoke free of all fatigue and again full of courage and candid enthusiasm; nothing remaining of his strange despondency of the previous night, the doubts and suspicions which had then come over him. The morning was so fine, the sky so pure and so bright, that his heart once more palpitated with hope. On the landing he found the folding doors of the first ante-room wide open. While closing the gala saloons which overlooked the street, and which were rotting with old age and neglect, the Cardinal still used the reception-rooms of one of his grand-uncles, who in the eighteenth century had risen to the same ecclesiastical dignity as himself. There was a suite of four immense rooms, each sixteen feet high, with windows facing the lane which sloped down towards the Tiber; and the sun never entered them, shut off as it was by the black houses across the lane. Thus the installation, in point of space, was in keeping with the display and pomp of the old-time princely dignitaries of the Church. But no repairs were ever made, no care was taken of anything, the hangings were frayed and ragged, and dust preyed on the furniture, amidst an unconcern which seemed to betoken some proud resolve to stay the course of time. Pierre experienced a slight shock as he entered the first room, the servants' ante-chamber. Formerly two pontifical /gente d'armi/ in full uniform had always stood there amidst a stream of lackeys; and the single servant now on duty seemed by his phantom-like appearance to increase the melancholiness of the vast and gloomy hall. One was particularly struck by an altar facing the windows, an altar with red drapery surmounted by a /baldacchino/ with red hangings, on which appeared the escutcheon of the Boccaneras, the winged dragon spitting flames with the device, /Bocca nera, Alma rossa/. And the grand-uncle's red hat, the old huge ceremonial hat, was also there, with the two cushions of red silk, and the two antique parasols which were taken in the coach each time his Eminence went out. And in the deep silence it seemed as if one could almost hear the faint noise of the moths preying for a century past upon all this dead splendour, which would have fallen into dust at the slightest touch of a feather broom. The second ante-room, that was formerly occupied by the secretary, was also empty, and it was only in the third one, the /anticamera nobile/, that Pierre found Don Vigilio. With his retinue reduced to what was strictly necessary, the Cardinal had preferred to have his secretary near him--at the door, so to say, of the old throne-room, where he gave audience. And Don Vigilio, so thin and yellow, and quivering with fever, sat there like one lost, at a small, common, black table covered with papers. Raising his head from among a batch of documents, he recognised Pierre, and in a low voice, a faint murmur amidst the silence, he said, "His Eminence is engaged. Please wait." Then he again turned to his reading, doubtless to escape all attempts at conversation. Not daring to sit down, Pierre examined the apartment. It looked perhaps yet more dilapidated than the others, with its hangings of green damask worn by age and resembling the faded moss on ancient trees. The ceiling, however, had remained superb. Within a frieze of gilded and coloured ornaments was a fresco representing the Triumph of Amphitrite, the work of one of Raffaelle's pupils. And, according to antique usage, it was here that the /berretta/, the red cap, was placed, on a credence, below a large crucifix of ivory and ebony. As Pierre grew used to the half-light, however, his attention was more particularly attracted by a recently painted full-length portrait of the Cardinal in ceremonial costume--cassock of red moire, rochet of lace, and /cappa/ thrown like a royal mantle over his shoulders. In these vestments of the Church the tall old man of seventy retained the proud bearing of a prince, clean shaven, but still boasting an abundance of white hair which streamed in curls over his shoulders. He had the commanding visage of the Boccaneras, a large nose and a large thin-lipped mouth in a long face intersected by broad lines; and the eyes which lighted his pale countenance were indeed the eyes of his race, very dark, yet sparkling with ardent life under bushy brows which had remained quite black. With laurels about his head he would have resembled a Roman emperor, very handsome and master of the world, as though indeed the blood of Augustus pulsated in his veins. Pierre knew his story which this portrait recalled. Educated at the College of the Nobles, Pio Boccanera had but once absented himself from Rome, and that when very young, hardly a deacon, but nevertheless appointed oblegate to convey a /berretta/ to Paris. On his return his ecclesiastical career had continued in sovereign fashion. Honours had fallen on him naturally, as by right of birth. Ordained by Pius IX himself, afterwards becoming a Canon of the Vatican Basilica, and /Cameriere segreto/, he had risen to the post of Majordomo about the time of the Italian occupation, and in 1874 had been created a Cardinal. For the last four years, moreover, he had been Papal Chamberlain (/Camerlingo/), and folks whispered that Leo XIII had appointed him to that post, even as he himself had been appointed to it by Pius IX, in order to lessen his chance of succeeding to the pontifical throne; for although the conclave in choosing Leo had set aside the old tradition that the Camerlingo was ineligible for the papacy, it was not probable that it would again dare to infringe that rule. Moreover, people asserted that, even as had been the case in the reign of Pius, there was a secret warfare between the Pope and his Camerlingo, the latter remaining on one side, condemning the policy of the Holy See, holding radically different opinions on all things, and silently waiting for the death of Leo, which would place power in his hands with the duty of summoning the conclave, and provisionally watching over the affairs and interests of the Church until a new Pope should be elected. Behind Cardinal Pio's broad, stern brow, however, in the glow of his dark eyes, might there not also be the ambition of actually rising to the papacy, of repeating the career of Gioachino Pecci, Camerlingo and then Pope, all tradition notwithstanding? With the pride of a Roman prince Pio knew but Rome; he almost gloried in being totally ignorant of the modern world; and verily he showed himself very pious, austerely religious, with a full firm faith into which the faintest doubt could never enter. But a whisper drew Pierre from his reflections. Don Vigilio, in his prudent way, invited him to sit down: "You may have to wait some time: take a stool." Then he began to cover a large sheet of yellowish paper with fine writing, while Pierre seated himself on one of the stools ranged alongside the wall in front of the portrait. And again the young man fell into a reverie, picturing in his mind a renewal of all the princely pomp of the old-time cardinals in that antique room. To begin with, as soon as nominated, a cardinal gave public festivities, which were sometimes very splendid. During three days the reception-rooms remained wide open, all could enter, and from room to room ushers repeated the names of those who came--patricians, people of the middle class, poor folks, all Rome indeed, whom the new cardinal received with sovereign kindliness, as a king might receive his subjects. Then there was quite a princely retinue; some cardinals carried five hundred people about with them, had no fewer than sixteen distinct offices in their households, lived, in fact, amidst a perfect court. Even when life subsequently became simplified, a cardinal, if he were a prince, still had a right to a gala train of four coaches drawn by black horses. Four servants preceded him in liveries, emblazoned with his arms, and carried his hat, cushion, and parasols. He was also attended by a secretary in a mantle of violet silk, a train-bearer in a gown of violet woollen stuff, and a gentleman in waiting, wearing an Elizabethan style of costume, and bearing the /berretta/ with gloved hands. Although the household had then become smaller, it still comprised an /auditore/ specially charged with the congregational work, a secretary employed exclusively for correspondence, a chief usher who introduced visitors, a gentleman in attendance for the carrying of the /berretta/, a train-bearer, a chaplain, a majordomo and a /valet-de-chambre/, to say nothing of a flock of underlings, lackeys, cooks, coachmen, grooms, quite a population, which filled the vast mansions with bustle. And with these attendants Pierre mentally sought to fill the three spacious ante-rooms now so deserted; the stream of lackeys in blue liveries broidered with emblazonry, the world of abbes and prelates in silk mantles appeared before him, again setting magnificent and passionate life under the lofty ceilings, illumining all the semi-gloom with resuscitated splendour. But nowadays--particularly since the Italian occupation of Rome--nearly all the great fortunes of the Roman princes have been exhausted, and the pomp of the great dignitaries of the Church has disappeared. The ruined patricians have kept aloof from badly remunerated ecclesiastical offices to which little renown attaches, and have left them to the ambition of the petty /bourgeoisie/. Cardinal Boccanera, the last prince of ancient nobility invested with the purple, received scarcely more than 30,000 /lire/* a year to enable him to sustain his rank, that is 22,000 /lire/,** the salary of his post as Camerlingo, and various small sums derived from other functions. And he would never have made both ends meet had not Donna Serafina helped him with the remnants of the former family fortune which he had long previously surrendered to his sisters and his brother. Donna Serafina and Benedetta lived apart, in their own rooms, having their own table, servants, and personal expenses. The Cardinal only had his nephew Dario with him, and he never gave a dinner or held a public reception. His greatest source of expense was his carriage, the heavy pair-horse coach, which ceremonial usage compelled him to retain, for a cardinal cannot go on foot through the streets of Rome. However, his coachman, an old family servant, spared him the necessity of keeping a groom by insisting on taking entire charge of the carriage and the two black horses, which, like himself, had grown old in the service of the Boccaneras. There were two footmen, father and son, the latter born in the house. And the cook's wife assisted in the kitchen. However, yet greater reductions had been made in the ante-rooms, where the staff, once so brilliant and numerous, was now simply composed of two petty priests, Don Vigilio, who was at once secretary, auditore, and majordomo, and Abbe Paparelli, who acted as train-bearer, chaplain, and chief usher. There, where a crowd of salaried people of all ranks had once moved to and fro, filling the vast halls with bustle and colour, one now only beheld two little black cassocks gliding noiselessly along, two unobtrusive shadows flitting about amidst the deep gloom of the lifeless rooms. * 1,200 pounds. ** 880 pounds. And Pierre now fully understood the haughty unconcern of the Cardinal, who suffered time to complete its work of destruction in that ancestral mansion, to which he was powerless to restore the glorious life of former times! Built for that shining life, for the sovereign display of a sixteenth-century prince, it was now deserted and empty, crumbling about the head of its last master, who had no servants left him to fill it, and would not have known how to pay for the materials which repairs would have necessitated. And so, since the modern world was hostile, since religion was no longer sovereign, since men had changed, and one was drifting into the unknown, amidst the hatred and indifference of new generations, why not allow the old world to collapse in the stubborn, motionless pride born of its ancient glory? Heroes alone died standing, without relinquishing aught of their past, preserving the same faith until their final gasp, beholding, with pain-fraught bravery and infinite sadness, the slow last agony of their divinity. And the Cardinal's tall figure, his pale, proud face, so full of sovereign despair and courage, expressed that stubborn determination to perish beneath the ruins of the old social edifice rather than change a single one of its stones. Pierre was roused by a rustling of furtive steps, a little mouse-like trot, which made him raise his head. A door in the wall had just opened, and to his surprise there stood before him an abbe of some forty years, fat and short, looking like an old maid in a black skirt, a very old maid in fact, so numerous were the wrinkles on his flabby face. It was Abbe Paparelli, the train-bearer and usher, and on seeing Pierre he was about to question him, when Don Vigilio explained matters. "Ah! very good, very good, Monsieur l'Abbe Froment. His Eminence will condescend to receive you, but you must wait, you must wait." Then, with his silent rolling walk, he returned to the second ante-room, where he usually stationed himself. Pierre did not like his face--the face of an old female devotee, whitened by celibacy, and ravaged by stern observance of the rites; and so, as Don Vigilio--his head weary and his hands burning with fever--had not resumed his work, the young man ventured to question him. Oh! Abbe Paparelli, he was a man of the liveliest faith, who from simple humility remained in a modest post in his Eminence's service. On the other hand, his Eminence was pleased to reward him for his devotion by occasionally condescending to listen to his advice. As Don Vigilio spoke, a faint gleam of irony, a kind of veiled anger appeared in his ardent eyes. However, he continued to examine Pierre, and gradually seemed reassured, appreciating the evident frankness of this foreigner who could hardly belong to any clique. And so he ended by departing somewhat from his continual sickly distrust, and even engaged in a brief chat. "Yes, yes," he said, "there is a deal of work sometimes, and rather hard work too. His Eminence belongs to several Congregations, the Consistorial, the Holy Office, the Index, the Rites. And all the documents concerning the business which falls to him come into my hands. I have to study each affair, prepare a report on it, clear the way, so to say. Besides which all the correspondence is carried on through me. Fortunately his Eminence is a holy man, and intrigues neither for himself nor for others, and this enables us to taste a little peace." Pierre took a keen interest in these particulars of the life led by a prince of the Church. He learnt that the Cardinal rose at six o'clock, summer and winter alike. He said his mass in his chapel, a little room which simply contained an altar of painted wood, and which nobody but himself ever entered. His private apartments were limited to three rooms--a bed-room, dining-room, and study--all very modest and small, contrived indeed by partitioning off portions of one large hall. And he led a very retired life, exempt from all luxury, like one who is frugal and poor. At eight in the morning he drank a cup of cold milk for his breakfast. Then, when there were sittings of the Congregations to which he belonged, he attended them; otherwise he remained at home and gave audience. Dinner was served at one o'clock, and afterwards came the siesta, lasting until five in summer and until four at other seasons--a sacred moment when a servant would not have dared even to knock at the door. On awaking, if it were fine, his Eminence drove out towards the ancient Appian Way, returning at sunset when the /Ave Maria/ began to ring. And finally, after again giving audience between seven and nine, he supped and retired into his room, where he worked all alone or went to bed. The cardinals wait upon the Pope on fixed days, two or three times each month, for purposes connected with their functions. For nearly a year, however, the Camerlingo had not been received in private audience by his Holiness, and this was a sign of disgrace, a proof of secret warfare, of which the entire black world spoke in prudent whispers. "His Eminence is sometimes a little rough," continued Don Vigilio in a soft voice. "But you should see him smile when his niece the Contessina, of whom he is very fond, comes down to kiss him. If you have a good reception, you know, you will owe it to the Contessina." At this moment the secretary was interrupted. A sound of voices came from the second ante-room, and forthwith he rose to his feet, and bent very low at sight of a stout man in a black cassock, red sash, and black hat, with twisted cord of red and gold, whom Abbe Paparelli was ushering in with a great display of deferential genuflections. Pierre also had risen at a sign from Don Vigilio, who found time to whisper to him, "Cardinal Sanguinetti, Prefect of the Congregation of the Index." Meantime Abbe Paparelli was lavishing attentions on the prelate, repeating with an expression of blissful satisfaction: "Your most reverend Eminence was expected. I have orders to admit your most reverend Eminence at once. His Eminence the Grand Penitentiary is already here." Sanguinetti, loud of voice and sonorous of tread, spoke out with sudden familiarity, "Yes, yes, I know. A number of importunate people detained me! One can never do as one desires. But I am here at last." He was a man of sixty, squat and fat, with a round and highly coloured face distinguished by a huge nose, thick lips, and bright eyes which were always on the move. But he more particularly struck one by his active, almost turbulent, youthful vivacity, scarcely a white hair as yet showing among his brown and carefully tended locks, which fell in curls about his temples. Born at Viterbo, he had studied at the seminary there before completing his education at the Universita Gregoriana in Rome. His ecclesiastical appointments showed how rapidly he had made his way, how supple was his mind: first of all secretary to the nunciature at Lisbon; then created titular Bishop of Thebes, and entrusted with a delicate mission in Brazil; on his return appointed nuncio first at Brussels and next at Vienna; and finally raised to the cardinalate, to say nothing of the fact that he had lately secured the suburban episcopal see of Frascati.* Trained to business, having dealt with every nation in Europe, he had nothing against him but his ambition, of which he made too open a display, and his spirit of intrigue, which was ever restless. It was said that he was now one of the irreconcilables who demanded that Italy should surrender Rome, though formerly he had made advances to the Quirinal. In his wild passion to become the next Pope he rushed from one opinion to the other, giving himself no end of trouble to gain people from whom he afterwards parted. He had twice already fallen out with Leo XIII, but had deemed it politic to make his submission. In point of fact, given that he was an almost openly declared candidate to the papacy, he was wearing himself out by his perpetual efforts, dabbling in too many things, and setting too many people agog. * Cardinals York and Howard were Bishops of Frascati.--Trans. Pierre, however, had only seen in him the Prefect of the Congregation of the Index; and the one idea which struck him was that this man would decide the fate of his book. And so, when the Cardinal had disappeared and Abbe Paparelli had returned to the second ante-room, he could not refrain from asking Don Vigilio, "Are their Eminences Cardinal Sanguinetti and Cardinal Boccanera very intimate, then?" An irrepressible smile contracted the secretary's lips, while his eyes gleamed with an irony which he could no longer subdue: "Very intimate--oh! no, no--they see one another when they can't do otherwise." Then he explained that considerable deference was shown to Cardinal Boccanera's high birth, and that his colleagues often met at his residence, when, as happened to be the case that morning, any grave affair presented itself, requiring an interview apart from the usual official meetings. Cardinal Sanguinetti, he added, was the son of a petty medical man of Viterbo. "No, no," he concluded, "their Eminences are not at all intimate. It is difficult for men to agree when they have neither the same ideas nor the same character, especially too when they are in each other's way." Don Vigilio spoke these last words in a lower tone, as if talking to himself and still retaining his sharp smile. But Pierre scarcely listened, absorbed as he was in his own worries. "Perhaps they have met to discuss some affair connected with the Index?" said he. Don Vigilio must have known the object of the meeting. However, he merely replied that, if the Index had been in question, the meeting would have taken place at the residence of the Prefect of that Congregation. Thereupon Pierre, yielding to his impatience, was obliged to put a straight question. "You know of my affair--the affair of my book," he said. "Well, as his Eminence is a member of the Congregation, and all the documents pass through your hands, you might be able to give me some useful information. I know nothing as yet and am so anxious to know!" At this Don Vigilio relapsed into scared disquietude. He stammered, saying that he had not seen any documents, which was true. "Nothing has yet reached us," he added; "I assure you I know nothing." Then, as the other persisted, he signed to him to keep quiet, and again turned to his writing, glancing furtively towards the second ante-room as if he believed that Abbe Paparelli was listening. He had certainly said too much, he thought, and he made himself very small, crouching over the table, and melting, fading away in his dim corner. Pierre again fell into a reverie, a prey to all the mystery which enveloped him--the sleepy, antique sadness of his surroundings. Long minutes went by; it was nearly eleven when the sound of a door opening and a buzz of voices roused him. Then he bowed respectfully to Cardinal Sanguinetti, who went off accompanied by another cardinal, a very thin and tall man, with a grey, bony, ascetic face. Neither of them, however, seemed even to see the petty foreign priest who bent low as they went by. They were chatting aloud in familiar fashion. "Yes! the wind is falling; it is warmer than yesterday." "We shall certainly have the sirocco to-morrow." Then solemn silence again fell on the large, dim room. Don Vigilio was still writing, but his pen made no noise as it travelled over the stiff yellow paper. However, the faint tinkle of a cracked bell was suddenly heard, and Abbe Paparelli, after hastening into the throne-room for a moment, returned to summon Pierre, whom he announced in a restrained voice: "Monsieur l'Abbe Pierre Froment." The spacious throne-room was like the other apartments, a virtual ruin. Under the fine ceiling of carved and gilded wood-work, the red wall-hangings of /brocatelle/, with a large palm pattern, were falling into tatters. A few holes had been patched, but long wear had streaked the dark purple of the silk--once of dazzling magnificence--with pale hues. The curiosity of the room was its old throne, an arm-chair upholstered in red silk, on which the Holy Father had sat when visiting Cardinal Pio's grand-uncle. This chair was surmounted by a canopy, likewise of red silk, under which hung the portrait of the reigning Pope. And, according to custom, the chair was turned towards the wall, to show that none might sit on it. The other furniture of the apartment was made up of sofas, arm-chairs, and chairs, with a marvellous Louis Quatorze table of gilded wood, having a top of mosaic-work representing the rape of Europa. But at first Pierre only saw Cardinal Boccanera standing by the table which he used for writing. In his simple black cassock, with red edging and red buttons, the Cardinal seemed to him yet taller and prouder than in the portrait which showed him in ceremonial costume. There was the same curly white hair, the same long, strongly marked face, with large nose and thin lips, and the same ardent eyes, illumining the pale countenance from under bushy brows which had remained black. But the portrait did not express the lofty tranquil faith which shone in this handsome face, a complete certainty of what truth was, and an absolute determination to abide by it for ever. Boccanera had not stirred, but with black, fixed glance remained watching his visitor's approach; and the young priest, acquainted with the usual ceremonial, knelt and kissed the large ruby which the prelate wore on his hand. However, the Cardinal immediately raised him. "You are welcome here, my dear son. My niece spoke to me about you with so much sympathy that I am happy to receive you." With these words Pio seated himself near the table, as yet not telling Pierre to take a chair, but still examining him whilst speaking slowly and with studied politeness: "You arrived yesterday morning, did you not, and were very tired?" "Your Eminence is too kind--yes, I was worn out, as much through emotion as fatigue. This journey is one of such gravity for me." The Cardinal seemed indisposed to speak of serious matters so soon. "No doubt; it is a long way from Paris to Rome," he replied. "Nowadays the journey may be accomplished with fair rapidity, but formerly how interminable it was!" Then speaking yet more slowly: "I went to Paris once--oh! a long time ago, nearly fifty years ago--and then for barely a week. A large and handsome city; yes, yes, a great many people in the streets, extremely well-bred people, a nation which has accomplished great and admirable things. Even in these sad times one cannot forget that France was the eldest daughter of the Church. But since that one journey I have not left Rome--" Then he made a gesture of quiet disdain, expressive of all he left unsaid. What was the use of journeying to a land of doubt and rebellion? Did not Rome suffice--Rome, which governed the world--the Eternal City which, when the times should be accomplished, would become the capital of the world once more? Silently glancing at the Cardinal's lofty stature, the stature of one of the violent war-like princes of long ago, now reduced to wearing that simple cassock, Pierre deemed him superb with his proud conviction that Rome sufficed unto herself. But that stubborn resolve to remain in ignorance, that determination to take no account of other nations excepting to treat them as vassals, disquieted him when he reflected on the motives that had brought him there. And as silence had again fallen he thought it politic to approach the subject he had at heart by words of homage. "Before taking any other steps," said he, "I desired to express my profound respect for your Eminence; for in your Eminence I place my only hope; and I beg your Eminence to be good enough to advise and guide me." With a wave of the hand Boccanera thereupon invited Pierre to take a chair in front of him. "I certainly do not refuse you my counsel, my dear son," he replied. "I owe my counsel to every Christian who desires to do well. But it would be wrong for you to rely on my influence. I have none. I live entirely apart from others; I cannot and will not ask for anything. However, this will not prevent us from chatting." Then, approaching the question in all frankness, without the slightest artifice, like one of brave and absolute mind who fears no responsibility however great, he continued: "You have written a book, have you not?--'New Rome,' I believe--and you have come to defend this book which has been denounced to the Congregation of the Index. For my own part I have not yet read it. You will understand that I cannot read everything. I only see the works that are sent to me by the Congregation which I have belonged to since last year; and, besides, I often content myself with the reports which my secretary draws up for me. However, my niece Benedetta has read your book, and has told me that it is not lacking in interest. It first astonished her somewhat, and then greatly moved her. So I promise you that I will go through it and study the incriminated passages with the greatest care." Pierre profited by the opportunity to begin pleading his cause. And it occurred to him that it would be best to give his references at once. "Your Eminence will realise how stupefied I was when I learnt that proceedings were being taken against my book," he said. "Monsieur le Vicomte Philibert de la Choue, who is good enough to show me some friendship, does not cease repeating that such a book is worth the best of armies to the Holy See." "Oh! De la Choue, De la Choue!" repeated the Cardinal with a pout of good-natured disdain. "I know that De la Choue considers himself a good Catholic. He is in a slight degree our relative, as you know. And when he comes to Rome and stays here, I willingly see him, on condition however that no mention is made of certain subjects on which it would be impossible for us to agree. To tell the truth, the Catholicism preached by De la Choue--worthy, clever man though he is--his Catholicism, I say, with his corporations, his working-class clubs, his cleansed democracy and his vague socialism, is after all merely so much literature!" This pronouncement struck Pierre, for he realised all the disdainful irony contained in it--an irony which touched himself. And so he hastened to name his other reference, whose authority he imagined to be above discussion: "His Eminence Cardinal Bergerot has been kind enough to signify his full approval of my book." At this Boccanera's face suddenly changed. It no longer wore an expression of derisive blame, tinged with the pity that is prompted by a child's ill-considered action fated to certain failure. A flash of anger now lighted up the Cardinal's dark eyes, and a pugnacious impulse hardened his entire countenance. "In France," he slowly resumed, "Cardinal Bergerot no doubt has a reputation for great piety. We know little of him in Rome. Personally, I have only seen him once, when he came to receive his hat. And I would not therefore allow myself to judge him if his writings and actions had not recently saddened my believing soul. Unhappily, I am not the only one; you will find nobody here, of the Sacred College, who approves of his doings." Boccanera paused, then in a firm voice concluded: "Cardinal Bergerot is a Revolutionary!" This time Pierre's surprise for a moment forced him to silence. A Revolutionary--good heavens! a Revolutionary--that gentle pastor of souls, whose charity was inexhaustible, whose one dream was that Jesus might return to earth to ensure at last the reign of peace and justice! So words did not have the same signification in all places; into what religion had he now tumbled that the faith of the poor and the humble should be looked upon as a mere insurrectional, condemnable passion? As yet unable to understand things aright, Pierre nevertheless realised that discussion would be both discourteous and futile, and his only remaining desire was to give an account of his book, explain and vindicate it. But at his first words the Cardinal interposed. "No, no, my dear son. It would take us too long and I wish to read the passages. Besides, there is an absolute rule. All books which meddle with the faith are condemnable and pernicious. Does your book show perfect respect for dogma?" "I believe so, and I assure your Eminence that I have had no intention of writing a work of negation." "Good: I may be on your side if that is true. Only, in the contrary case, I have but one course to advise you, which is to withdraw your work, condemn it, and destroy it without waiting until a decision of the Index compels you to do so. Whosoever has given birth to scandal must stifle it and expiate it, even if he have to cut into his own flesh. The only duties of a priest are humility and obedience, the complete annihilation of self before the sovereign will of the Church. And, besides, why write at all? For there is already rebellion in expressing an opinion of one's own. It is always the temptation of the devil which puts a pen in an author's hand. Why, then, incur the risk of being for ever damned by yielding to the pride of intelligence and domination? Your book again, my dear son--your book is literature, literature!" This expression again repeated was instinct with so much contempt that Pierre realised all the wretchedness that would fall upon the poor pages of his apostolate on meeting the eyes of this prince who had become a saintly man. With increasing fear and admiration he listened to him, and beheld him growing greater and greater. "Ah! faith, my dear son, everything is in faith--perfect, disinterested faith--which believes for the sole happiness of believing! How restful it is to bow down before the mysteries without seeking to penetrate them, full of the tranquil conviction that, in accepting them, one possesses both the certain and the final! Is not the highest intellectual satisfaction that which is derived from the victory of the divine over the mind, which it disciplines, and contents so completely that it knows desire no more? And apart from that perfect equilibrium, that explanation of the unknown by the divine, no durable peace is possible for man. If one desires that truth and justice should reign upon earth, it is in God that one must place them. He that does not believe is like a battlefield, the scene of every disaster. Faith alone can tranquillise and deliver." For an instant Pierre remained silent before the great figure rising up in front of him. At Lourdes he had only seen suffering humanity rushing thither for health of the body and consolation of the soul; but here was the intellectual believer, the mind that needs certainty, finding satisfaction, tasting the supreme enjoyment of doubting no more. He had never previously heard such a cry of joy at living in obedience without anxiety as to the morrow of death. He knew that Boccanera's youth had been somewhat stormy, traversed by acute attacks of sensuality, a flaring of the red blood of his ancestors; and he marvelled at the calm majesty which faith had at last implanted in this descendant of so violent a race, who had no passion remaining in him but that of pride. "And yet," Pierre at last ventured to say in a timid, gentle voice, "if faith remains essential and immutable, forms change. From hour to hour evolution goes on in all things--the world changes." "That is not true!" exclaimed the Cardinal, "the world does not change. It continually tramps over the same ground, loses itself, strays into the most abominable courses, and it continually has to be brought back into the right path. That is the truth. In order that the promises of Christ may be fulfilled, is it not necessary that the world should return to its starting point, its original innocence? Is not the end of time fixed for the day when men shall be in possession of the full truth of the Gospel? Yes, truth is in the past, and it is always to the past that one must cling if one would avoid the pitfalls which evil imaginations create. All those fine novelties, those mirages of that famous so-called progress, are simply traps and snares of the eternal tempter, causes of perdition and death. Why seek any further, why constantly incur the risk of error, when for eighteen hundred years the truth has been known? Truth! why it is in Apostolic and Roman Catholicism as created by a long succession of generations! What madness to desire to change it when so many lofty minds, so many pious souls have made of it the most admirable of monuments, the one instrument of order in this world, and of salvation in the next!" Pierre, whose heart had contracted, refrained from further protest, for he could no longer doubt that he had before him an implacable adversary of his most cherished ideas. Chilled by a covert fear, as though he felt a faint breath, as of a distant wind from a land of ruins, pass over his face, bringing with it the mortal cold of a sepulchre, he bowed respectfully whilst the Cardinal, rising to his full height, continued in his obstinate voice, resonant with proud courage: "And if Catholicism, as its enemies pretend, be really stricken unto death, it must die standing and in all its glorious integrality. You hear me, Monsieur l'Abbe--not one concession, not one surrender, not a single act of cowardice! Catholicism is such as it is, and cannot be otherwise. No modification of the divine certainty, the entire truth, is possible. The removal of the smallest stone from the edifice could only prove a cause of instability. Is this not evident? You cannot save old houses by attacking them with the pickaxe under pretence of decorating them. You only enlarge the fissures. Even if it were true that Rome were on the eve of falling into dust, the only result of all the repairing and patching would be to hasten the catastrophe. And instead of a noble death, met unflinchingly, we should then behold the basest of agonies, the death throes of a coward who struggles and begs for mercy! For my part I wait. I am convinced that all that people say is but so much horrible falsehood, that Catholicism has never been firmer, that it imbibes eternity from the one and only source of life. But should the heavens indeed fall, on that day I should be here, amidst these old and crumbling walls, under these old ceilings whose beams are being devoured by the worms, and it is here, erect, among the ruins, that I should meet my end, repeating my /credo/ for the last time." His final words fell more slowly, full of haughty sadness, whilst with a sweeping gesture he waved his arms towards the old, silent, deserted palace around him, whence life was withdrawing day by day. Had an involuntary presentiment come to him, did the faint cold breath from the ruins also fan his own cheeks? All the neglect into which the vast rooms had fallen was explained by his words; and a superb, despondent grandeur enveloped this prince and cardinal, this uncompromising Catholic who, withdrawing into the dim half-light of the past, braved with a soldier's heart the inevitable downfall of the olden world. Deeply impressed, Pierre was about to take his leave when, to his surprise, a little door opened in the hangings. "What is it? Can't I be left in peace for a moment?" exclaimed Boccanera with sudden impatience. Nevertheless, Abbe Paparelli, fat and sleek, glided into the room without the faintest sign of emotion. And he whispered a few words in the ear of the Cardinal, who, on seeing him, had become calm again. "What curate?" asked Boccanera. "Oh! yes, Santobono, the curate of Frascati. I know--tell him I cannot see him just now." Paparelli, however, again began whispering in his soft voice, though not in so low a key as previously, for some of his words could be overheard. The affair was urgent, the curate was compelled to return home, and had only a word or two to say. And then, without awaiting consent, the train-bearer ushered in the visitor, a /protege/ of his, whom he had left just outside the little door. And for his own part he withdrew with the tranquillity of a retainer who, whatever the modesty of his office, knows himself to be all powerful. Pierre, who was momentarily forgotten, looked at the visitor--a big fellow of a priest, the son of a peasant evidently, and still near to the soil. He had an ungainly, bony figure, huge feet and knotted hands, with a seamy tanned face lighted by extremely keen black eyes. Five and forty and still robust, his chin and cheeks bristling, and his cassock, overlarge, hanging loosely about his big projecting bones, he suggested a bandit in disguise. Still there was nothing base about him; the expression of his face was proud. And in one hand he carried a small wicker basket carefully covered over with fig-leaves. Santobono at once bent his knees and kissed the Cardinal's ring, but with hasty unconcern, as though only some ordinary piece of civility were in question. Then, with that commingling of respect and familiarity which the little ones of the world often evince towards the great, he said, "I beg your most reverend Eminence's forgiveness for having insisted. But there were people waiting, and I should not have been received if my old friend Paparelli had not brought me by way of that door. Oh! I have a very great service to ask of your Eminence, a real service of the heart. But first of all may I be allowed to offer your Eminence a little present?" The Cardinal listened with a grave expression. He had been well acquainted with Santobono in the years when he had spent the summer at Frascati, at a princely residence which the Boccaneras had possessed there--a villa rebuilt in the seventeenth century, surrounded by a wonderful park, whose famous terrace overlooked the Campagna, stretching far and bare like the sea. This villa, however, had since been sold, and on some vineyards, which had fallen to Benedetta's share, Count Prada, prior to the divorce proceedings, had begun to erect quite a district of little pleasure houses. In former times, when walking out, the Cardinal had condescended to enter and rest in the dwelling of Santobono, who officiated at an antique chapel dedicated to St. Mary of the Fields, without the town. The priest had his home in a half-ruined building adjoining this chapel, and the charm of the place was a walled garden which he cultivated himself with the passion of a true peasant. "As is my rule every year," said he, placing his basket on the table, "I wished that your Eminence might taste my figs. They are the first of the season. I gathered them expressly this morning. You used to be so fond of them, your Eminence, when you condescended to gather them from the tree itself. You were good enough to tell me that there wasn't another tree in the world that produced such fine figs." The Cardinal could not help smiling. He was indeed very fond of figs, and Santobono spoke truly: his fig-tree was renowned throughout the district. "Thank you, my dear Abbe," said Boccanera, "you remember my little failings. Well, and what can I do for you?" Again he became grave, for, in former times, there had been unpleasant discussions between him and the curate, a lack of agreement which had angered him. Born at Nemi, in the core of a fierce district, Santobono belonged to a violent family, and his eldest brother had died of a stab. He himself had always professed ardently patriotic opinions. It was said that he had all but taken up arms for Garibaldi; and, on the day when the Italians had entered Rome, force had been needed to prevent him from raising the flag of Italian unity above his roof. His passionate dream was to behold Rome mistress of the world, when the Pope and the King should have embraced and made cause together. Thus the Cardinal looked on him as a dangerous revolutionary, a renegade who imperilled Catholicism. "Oh! what your Eminence can do for me, what your Eminence can do if only condescending and willing!" repeated Santobono in an ardent voice, clasping his big knotty hands. And then, breaking off, he inquired, "Did not his Eminence Cardinal Sanguinetti explain my affair to your most reverend Eminence?" "No, the Cardinal simply advised me of your visit, saying that you had something to ask of me." Whilst speaking Boccanera's face had clouded over, and it was with increased sternness of manner that he again waited. He was aware that the priest had become Sanguinetti's "client" since the latter had been in the habit of spending weeks together at his suburban see of Frascati. Walking in the shadow of every cardinal who is a candidate to the papacy, there are familiars of low degree who stake the ambition of their life on the possibility of that cardinal's election. If he becomes Pope some day, if they themselves help him to the throne, they enter the great pontifical family in his train. It was related that Sanguinetti had once already extricated Santobono from a nasty difficulty: the priest having one day caught a marauding urchin in the act of climbing his wall, had beaten the little fellow with such severity that he had ultimately died of it. However, to Santobono's credit it must be added that his fanatical devotion to the Cardinal was largely based upon the hope that he would prove the Pope whom men awaited, the Pope who would make Italy the sovereign nation of the world. "Well, this is my misfortune," he said. "Your Eminence knows my brother Agostino, who was gardener at the villa for two years in your Eminence's time. He is certainly a very pleasant and gentle young fellow, of whom nobody has ever complained. And so it is hard to understand how such an accident can have happened to him, but it seems that he has killed a man with a knife at Genzano, while walking in the street in the evening. I am dreadfully distressed about it, and would willingly give two fingers of my right hand to extricate him from prison. However, it occurred to me that your Eminence would not refuse me a certificate stating that Agostino was formerly in your Eminence's service, and that your Eminence was always well pleased with his quiet disposition." But the Cardinal flatly protested: "I was not at all pleased with Agostino. He was wildly violent, and I had to dismiss him precisely because he was always quarrelling with the other servants." "Oh! how grieved I am to hear your Eminence say that! So it is true, then, my poor little Agostino's disposition has really changed! Still there is always a way out of a difficulty, is there not? You can still give me a certificate, first arranging the wording of it. A certificate from your Eminence would have such a favourable effect upon the law officers." "No doubt," replied Boccanera; "I can understand that, but I will give no certificate." "What! does your most reverend Eminence refuse my prayer?" "Absolutely! I know that you are a priest of perfect morality, that you discharge the duties of your ministry with strict punctuality, and that you would be deserving of high commendation were it not for your political fancies. Only your fraternal affection is now leading you astray. I cannot tell a lie to please you." Santobono gazed at him in real stupefaction, unable to understand that a prince, an all-powerful cardinal, should be influenced by such petty scruples, when the entire question was a mere knife thrust, the most commonplace and frequent of incidents in the yet wild land of the old Roman castles. "A lie! a lie!" he muttered; "but surely it isn't lying just to say what is good of a man, leaving out all the rest, especially when a man has good points as Agostino certainly has. In a certificate, too, everything depends on the words one uses." He stubbornly clung to that idea; he could not conceive that a person should refuse to soften the rigour of justice by an ingenious presentation of the facts. However, on acquiring a certainty that he would obtain nothing, he made a gesture of despair, his livid face assuming an expression of violent rancour, whilst his black eyes flamed with restrained passion. "Well, well! each looks on truth in his own way," he said. "I shall go back to tell his Eminence Cardinal Sanguinetti. And I beg your Eminence not to be displeased with me for having disturbed your Eminence to no purpose. By the way, perhaps the figs are not yet quite ripe; but I will take the liberty to bring another basketful towards the end of the season, when they will be quite nice and sweet. A thousand thanks and a thousand felicities to your most reverend Eminence." Santobono went off backwards, his big bony figure bending double with repeated genuflections. Pierre, whom the scene had greatly interested, in him beheld a specimen of the petty clergy of Rome and its environs, of whom people had told him before his departure from Paris. This was not the /scagnozzo/, the wretched famished priest whom some nasty affair brings from the provinces, who seeks his daily bread on the pavements of Rome; one of the herd of begowned beggars searching for a livelihood among the crumbs of Church life, voraciously fighting for chance masses, and mingling with the lowest orders in taverns of the worst repute. Nor was this the country priest of distant parts, a man of crass ignorance and superstition, a peasant among the peasants, treated as an equal by his pious flock, which is careful not to mistake him for the Divinity, and which, whilst kneeling in all humility before the parish saint, does not bend before the man who from that saint derives his livelihood. At Frascati the officiating minister of a little church may receive a stipend of some nine hundred /lire/ a year,* and he has only bread and meat to buy if his garden yields him wine and fruit and vegetables. This one, Santobono, was not without education; he knew a little theology and a little history, especially the history of the past grandeur of Rome, which had inflamed his patriotic heart with the mad dream that universal domination would soon fall to the portion of renascent Rome, the capital of united Italy. But what an insuperable distance still remained between this petty Roman clergy, often very worthy and intelligent, and the high clergy, the high dignitaries of the Vatican! Nobody that was not at least a prelate seemed to count. * About 36 pounds. One is reminded of Goldsmith's line: "And passing rich with forty pounds a year."--Trans. "A thousand thanks to your most reverend Eminence, and may success attend all your Eminence's desires." With these words Santobono finally disappeared, and the Cardinal returned to Pierre, who also bowed preparatory to taking his leave. "To sum up the matter, Monsieur l'Abbe," said Boccanera, "the affair of your book presents certain difficulties. As I have told you, I have no precise information, I have seen no documents. But knowing that my niece took an interest in you, I said a few words on the subject to Cardinal Sanguinetti, the Prefect of the Index, who was here just now. And he knows little more than I do, for nothing has yet left the Secretary's hands. Still he told me that the denunciation emanated from personages of rank and influence, and applied to numerous pages of your work, in which it was said there were passages of the most deplorable character as regards both discipline and dogma." Greatly moved by the idea that he had hidden foes, secret adversaries who pursued him in the dark, the young priest responded: "Oh! denounced, denounced! If your Eminence only knew how that word pains my heart! And denounced, too, for offences which were certainly involuntary, since my one ardent desire was the triumph of the Church! All I can do, then, is to fling myself at the feet of the Holy Father and entreat him to hear my defence." Boccanera suddenly became very grave again. A stern look rested on his lofty brow as he drew his haughty figure to its full height. "His Holiness," said he, "can do everything, even receive you, if such be his good pleasure, and absolve you also. But listen to me. I again advise you to withdraw your book yourself, to destroy it, simply and courageously, before embarking in a struggle in which you will reap the shame of being overwhelmed. Reflect on that." Pierre, however, had no sooner spoken of the Pope than he had regretted it, for he realised that an appeal to the sovereign authority was calculated to wound the Cardinal's feelings. Moreover, there was no further room for doubt. Boccanera would be against his book, and the utmost that he could hope for was to gain his neutrality by bringing pressure to bear on him through those about him. At the same time he had found the Cardinal very plain spoken, very frank, far removed from all the secret intriguing in which the affair of his book was involved, as he now began to realise; and so it was with deep respect and genuine admiration for the prelate's strong and lofty character that he took leave of him. "I am infinitely obliged to your Eminence," he said, "and I promise that I will carefully reflect upon all that your Eminence has been kind enough to say to me." On returning to the ante-room, Pierre there found five or six persons who had arrived during his audience, and were now waiting. There was a bishop, a domestic prelate, and two old ladies, and as he drew near to Don Vigilio before retiring, he was surprised to find him conversing with a tall, fair young fellow, a Frenchman, who, also in astonishment, exclaimed, "What! are you here in Rome, Monsieur l'Abbe?" For a moment Pierre had hesitated. "Ah! I must ask your pardon, Monsieur Narcisse Habert," he replied, "I did not at first recognise you! It was the less excusable as I knew that you had been an /attache/ at our embassy here ever since last year." Tall, slim, and elegant of appearance, Narcisse Habert had a clear complexion, with eyes of a bluish, almost mauvish, hue, a fair frizzy beard, and long curling fair hair cut short over the forehead in the Florentine fashion. Of a wealthy family of militant Catholics, chiefly members of the bar or bench, he had an uncle in the diplomatic profession, and this had decided his own career. Moreover, a place at Rome was marked out for him, for he there had powerful connections. He was a nephew by marriage of Cardinal Sarno, whose sister had married another of his uncles, a Paris notary; and he was also cousin german of Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo, a /Cameriere segreto/, and son of one of his aunts, who had married an Italian colonel. And in some measure for these reasons he had been attached to the embassy to the Holy See, his superiors tolerating his somewhat fantastic ways, his everlasting passion for art which sent him wandering hither and thither through Rome. He was moreover very amiable and extremely well-bred; and it occasionally happened, as was the case that morning, that with his weary and somewhat mysterious air he came to speak to one or another of the cardinals on some real matter of business in the ambassador's name. So as to converse with Pierre at his ease, he drew him into the deep embrasure of one of the windows. "Ah! my dear Abbe, how pleased I am to see you!" said he. "You must remember what pleasant chats we had when we met at Cardinal Bergerot's! I told you about some paintings which you were to see for your book, some miniatures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. And now, you know, I mean to take possession of you. I'll show you Rome as nobody else could show it to you. I've seen and explored everything. Ah! there are treasures, such treasures! But in truth there is only one supreme work; one always comes back to one's particular passion. The Botticelli in the Sixtine Chapel--ah, the Botticelli!" His voice died away, and he made a faint gesture as if overcome by admiration. Then Pierre had to promise that he would place himself in his hands and accompany him to the Sixtine Chapel. "You know why I am here," at last said the young priest. "Proceedings have been taken against my book; it has been denounced to the Congregation of the Index." "Your book! is it possible?" exclaimed Narcisse: "a book like that with pages recalling the delightful St. Francis of Assisi!" And thereupon he obligingly placed himself at Pierre's disposal. "But our ambassador will be very useful to you," he said. "He is the best man in the world, of charming affability, and full of the old French spirit. I will present you to him this afternoon or to-morrow morning at the latest; and since you desire an immediate audience with the Pope, he will endeavour to obtain one for you. His position naturally designates him as your intermediary. Still, I must confess that things are not always easily managed. Although the Holy Father is very fond of him, there are times when his Excellency fails, for the approaches are so extremely intricate." Pierre had not thought of employing the ambassador's good offices, for he had naively imagined that an accused priest who came to defend himself would find every door open. However, he was delighted with Narcisse's offer, and thanked him as warmly as if the audience were already obtained. "Besides," the young man continued, "if we encounter any difficulties I have relatives at the Vatican, as you know. I don't mean my uncle the Cardinal, who would be of no use to us, for he never stirs out of his office at the Propaganda, and will never apply for anything. But my cousin, Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo, is very obliging, and he lives in intimacy with the Pope, his duties requiring his constant attendance on him. So, if necessary, I will take you to see him, and he will no doubt find a means of procuring you an interview, though his extreme prudence keeps him perpetually afraid of compromising himself. However, it's understood, you may rely on me in every respect." "Ah! my dear sir," exclaimed Pierre, relieved and happy, "I heartily accept your offer. You don't know what balm your words have brought me; for ever since my arrival everybody has been discouraging me, and you are the first to restore my strength by looking at things in the true French way." Then, lowering his voice, he told the /attache/ of his interview with Cardinal Boccanera, of his conviction that the latter would not help him, of the unfavourable information which had been given by Cardinal Sanguinetti, and of the rivalry which he had divined between the two prelates. Narcisse listened, smiling, and in his turn began to gossip confidentially. The rivalry which Pierre had mentioned, the premature contest for the tiara which Sanguinetti and Boccanera were waging, impelled to it by a furious desire to become the next Pope, had for a long time been revolutionising the black world. There was incredible intricacy in the depths of the affair; none could exactly tell who was pulling the strings, conducting the vast intrigue. As regards generalities it was simply known that Boccanera represented absolutism--the Church freed from all compromises with modern society, and waiting in immobility for the Deity to triumph over Satan, for Rome to be restored to the Holy Father, and for repentant Italy to perform penance for its sacrilege; whereas Sanguinetti, extremely politic and supple, was reported to harbour bold and novel ideas: permission to vote to be granted to all true Catholics,* a majority to be gained by this means in the Legislature; then, as a fatal corollary, the downfall of the House of Savoy, and the proclamation of a kind of republican federation of all the former petty States of Italy under the august protectorate of the Pope. On the whole, the struggle was between these two antagonistic elements--the first bent on upholding the Church by a rigorous maintenance of the old traditions, and the other predicting the fall of the Church if it did not follow the bent of the coming century. But all was steeped in so much mystery that people ended by thinking that, if the present Pope should live a few years longer, his successor would certainly be neither Boccanera nor Sanguinetti. * Since the occupation of Rome by the Italian authorities, the supporters of the Church, obedient to the prohibition of the Vatican, have abstained from taking part in the political elections, this being their protest against the new order of things which they do not recognise. Various attempts have been made, however, to induce the Pope to give them permission to vote, many members of the Roman aristocracy considering the present course impolitic and even harmful to the interests of the Church.--Trans. All at once Pierre interrupted Narcisse: "And Monsignor Nani, do you know him? I spoke with him yesterday evening. And there he is coming in now!" Nani was indeed just entering the ante-room with his usual smile on his amiable pink face. His cassock of fine texture, and his sash of violet silk shone with discreet soft luxury. And he showed himself very amiable to Abbe Paparelli, who, accompanying him in all humility, begged him to be kind enough to wait until his Eminence should be able to receive him. "Oh! Monsignor Nani," muttered Narcisse, becoming serious, "he is a man whom it is advisable to have for a friend." Then, knowing Nani's history, he related it in an undertone. Born at Venice, of a noble but ruined family which had produced heroes, Nani, after first studying under the Jesuits, had come to Rome to perfect himself in philosophy and theology at the Collegio Romano, which was then also under Jesuit management. Ordained when three and twenty, he had at once followed a nuncio to Bavaria as private secretary; and then had gone as /auditore/ to the nunciatures of Brussels and Paris, in which latter city he had lived for five years. Everything seemed to predestine him to diplomacy, his brilliant beginnings and his keen and encyclopaedical intelligence; but all at once he had been recalled to Rome, where he was soon afterwards appointed Assessor to the Holy Office. It was asserted at the time that this was done by the Pope himself, who, being well acquainted with Nani, and desirous of having a person he could depend upon at the Holy Office, had given instructions for his recall, saying that he could render far more services at Rome than abroad. Already a domestic prelate, Nani had also lately become a Canon of St. Peter's and an apostolic prothonotary, with the prospect of obtaining a cardinal's hat whenever the Pope should find some other favourite who would please him better as assessor. "Oh, Monsignor Nani!" continued Narcisse. "He's a superior man, thoroughly well acquainted with modern Europe, and at the same time a very saintly priest, a sincere believer, absolutely devoted to the Church, with the substantial faith of an intelligent politician--a belief different, it is true, from the narrow gloomy theological faith which we know so well in France. And this is one of the reasons why you will hardly understand things here at first. The Roman prelates leave the Deity in the sanctuary and reign in His name, convinced that Catholicism is the human expression of the government of God, the only perfect and eternal government, beyond the pales of which nothing but falsehood and social danger can be found. While we in our country lag behind, furiously arguing whether there be a God or not, they do not admit that God's existence can be doubted, since they themselves are his delegated ministers; and they entirely devote themselves to playing their parts as ministers whom none can dispossess, exercising their power for the greatest good of humanity, and devoting all their intelligence, all their energy to maintaining themselves as the accepted masters of the nations. As for Monsignor Nani, after being mixed up in the politics of the whole world, he has for ten years been discharging the most delicate functions in Rome, taking part in the most varied and most important affairs. He sees all the foreigners who come to Rome, knows everything, has a hand in everything. Add to this that he is extremely discreet and amiable, with a modesty which seems perfect, though none can tell whether, with his light silent footstep, he is not really marching towards the highest ambition, the purple of sovereignty." "Another candidate for the tiara," thought Pierre, who had listened passionately; for this man Nani interested him, caused him an instinctive disquietude, as though behind his pink and smiling face he could divine an infinity of obscure things. At the same time, however, the young priest but ill understood his friend, for he again felt bewildered by all this strange Roman world, so different from what he had expected. Nani had perceived the two young men and came towards them with his hand cordially outstretched "Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, I am happy to meet you again. I won't ask you if you have slept well, for people always sleep well at Rome. Good-day, Monsieur Habert; your health has kept good I hope, since I met you in front of Bernini's Santa Teresa, which you admire so much.* I see that you know one another. That is very nice. I must tell you, Monsieur l'Abbe, that Monsieur Habert is a passionate lover of our city; he will be able to show you all its finest sights." * The allusion is to a statue representing St. Theresa in ecstasy, with the Angel of Death descending to transfix her with his dart. It stands in a transept of Sta. Maria della Vittoria.--Trans. Then, in his affectionate way, he at once asked for information respecting Pierre's interview with the Cardinal. He listened attentively to the young man's narrative, nodding his head at certain passages, and occasionally restraining his sharp smile. The Cardinal's severity and Pierre's conviction that he would accord him no support did not at all astonish Nani. It seemed as if he had expected that result. However, on hearing that Cardinal Sanguinetti had been there that morning, and had pronounced the affair of the book to be very serious, he appeared to lose his self-control for a moment, for he spoke out with sudden vivacity: "It can't be helped, my dear child, my intervention came too late. Directly I heard of the proceedings I went to his Eminence Cardinal Sanguinetti to tell him that the result would be an immense advertisement for your book. Was it sensible? What was the use of it? We know that you are inclined to be carried away by your ideas, that you are an enthusiast, and are prompt to do battle. So what advantage should we gain by embarrassing ourselves with the revolt of a young priest who might wage war against us with a book of which some thousands of copies have been sold already? For my part I desired that nothing should be done. And I must say that the Cardinal, who is a man of sense, was of the same mind. He raised his arms to heaven, went into a passion, and exclaimed that he was never consulted, that the blunder was already committed beyond recall, and that it was impossible to prevent process from taking its course since the matter had already been brought before the Congregation, in consequence of denunciations from authoritative sources, based on the gravest motives. Briefly, as he said, the blunder was committed, and I had to think of something else." All at once Nani paused. He had just noticed that Pierre's ardent eyes were fixed upon his own, striving to penetrate his meaning. A faint flush then heightened the pinkiness of his complexion, whilst in an easy way he continued, unwilling to reveal how annoyed he was at having said too much: "Yes, I thought of helping you with all the little influence I possess, in order to extricate you from the worries in which this affair will certainly land you." An impulse of revolt was stirring Pierre, who vaguely felt that he was perhaps being made game of. Why should he not be free to declare his faith, which was so pure, so free from personal considerations, so full of glowing Christian charity? "Never," said he, "will I withdraw; never will I myself suppress my book, as I am advised to do. It would be an act of cowardice and falsehood, for I regret nothing, I disown nothing. If I believe that my book brings a little truth to light I cannot destroy it without acting criminally both towards myself and towards others. No, never! You hear me--never!" Silence fell. But almost immediately he resumed: "It is at the knees of the Holy Father that I desire to make that declaration. He will understand me, he will approve me." Nani no longer smiled; henceforth his face remained as it were closed. He seemed to be studying the sudden violence of the young priest with curiosity; then sought to calm him with his own tranquil kindliness. "No doubt, no doubt," said he. "There is certainly great sweetness in obedience and humility. Still I can understand that, before anything else, you should desire to speak to his Holiness. And afterwards you will see--is that not so?--you will see--" Then he evinced a lively interest in the suggested application for an audience. He expressed keen regret that Pierre had not forwarded that application from Paris, before even coming to Rome: in that course would have rested the best chance of a favourable reply. Bother of any kind was not liked at the Vatican, and if the news of the young priest's presence in Rome should only spread abroad, and the motives of his journey be discussed, all would be lost. Then, on learning that Narcisse had offered to present Pierre to the French ambassador, Nani seemed full of anxiety, and deprecated any such proceeding: "No, no! don't do that--it would be most imprudent. In the first place you would run the risk of embarrassing the ambassador, whose position is always delicate in affairs of this kind. And then, too, if he failed--and my fear is that he might fail--yes, if he failed it would be all over; you would no longer have the slightest chance of obtaining an audience by any other means. For the Vatican would not like to hurt the ambassador's feelings by yielding to other influence after resisting his." Pierre anxiously glanced at Narcisse, who wagged his head, embarrassed and hesitating. "The fact is," the /attache/ at last murmured, "we lately solicited an audience for a high French personage and it was refused, which was very unpleasant for us. Monsignor is right. We must keep our ambassador in reserve, and only utilise him when we have exhausted all other means." Then, noticing Pierre's disappointment, he added obligingly: "Our first visit therefore shall be for my cousin at the Vatican." Nani, his attention again roused, looked at the young man in astonishment. "At the Vatican? You have a cousin there?" "Why, yes--Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo." "Gamba! Gamba! Yes, yes, excuse me, I remember now. Ah! so you thought of Gamba to bring influence to bear on his Holiness? That's an idea, no doubt; one must see--one must see." He repeated these words again and again as if to secure time to see into the matter himself, to weigh the pros and cons of the suggestion. Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo was a worthy man who played no part at the Papal Court, whose nullity indeed had become a byword at the Vatican. His childish stories, however, amused the Pope, whom he greatly flattered, and who was fond of leaning on his arm while walking in the gardens. It was during these strolls that Gamba easily secured all sorts of little favours. However, he was a remarkable poltroon, and had such an intense fear of losing his influence that he never risked a request without having convinced himself by long meditation that no possible harm could come to him through it. "Well, do you know, the idea is not a bad one," Nani at last declared. "Yes, yes, Gamba can secure the audience for you, if he is willing. I will see him myself and explain the matter." At the same time Nani did not cease advising extreme caution. He even ventured to say that it was necessary to be on one's guard with the papal /entourage/, for, alas! it was a fact his Holiness was so good, and had such a blind faith in the goodness of others, that he had not always chosen his familiars with the critical care which he ought to have displayed. Thus one never knew to what sort of man one might be applying, or in what trap one might be setting one's foot. Nani even allowed it to be understood that on no account ought any direct application to be made to his Eminence the Secretary of State, for even his Eminence was not a free agent, but found himself encompassed by intrigues of such intricacy that his best intentions were paralysed. And as Nani went on discoursing in this fashion, in a very gentle, extremely unctuous manner, the Vatican appeared like some enchanted castle, guarded by jealous and treacherous dragons--a castle where one must not take a step, pass through a doorway, risk a limb, without having carefully assured oneself that one would not leave one's whole body there to be devoured. Pierre continued listening, feeling colder and colder at heart, and again sinking into uncertainty. "/Mon Dieu/!" he exclaimed, "I shall never know how to act. You discourage me, Monsignor." At this Nani's cordial smile reappeared. "I, my dear child? I should be sorry to do so. I only want to repeat to you that you must wait and do nothing. Avoid all feverishness especially. There is no hurry, I assure you, for it was only yesterday that a /consultore/ was chosen to report upon your book, so you have a good full month before you. Avoid everybody, live in such a way that people shall be virtually ignorant of your existence, visit Rome in peace and quietness--that is the best course you can adopt to forward your interests." Then, taking one of the priest's hands between both his own, so aristocratic, soft, and plump, he added: "You will understand that I have my reasons for speaking to you like this. I should have offered my own services; I should have made it a point of honour to take you straight to his Holiness, had I thought it advisable. But I do not wish to mix myself up in the matter at this stage; I realise only too well that at the present moment we should simply make sad work of it. Later on--you hear me--later on, in the event of nobody else succeeding, I myself will obtain you an audience; I formally promise it. But meanwhile, I entreat you, refrain from using those words 'a new religion,' which, unfortunately, occur in your book, and which I heard you repeat again only last night. There can be no new religion, my dear child; there is but one eternal religion, which is beyond all surrender and compromise--the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion. And at the same time leave your Paris friends to themselves. Don't rely too much on Cardinal Bergerot, whose lofty piety is not sufficiently appreciated in Rome. I assure you that I am speaking to you as a friend." Then, seeing how disabled Pierre appeared to be, half overcome already, no longer knowing in what direction to begin his campaign, he again strove to comfort him: "Come, come, things will right themselves; everything will end for the best, both for the welfare of the Church and your own. And now you must excuse me, I must leave you; I shall not be able to see his Eminence to-day, for it is impossible for me to wait any longer." Abbe Paparelli, whom Pierre had noticed prowling around with his ears cocked, now hastened forward and declared to Monsignor Nani that there were only two persons to be received before him. But the prelate very graciously replied that he would come back again at another time, for the affair which he wished to lay before his Eminence was in no wise pressing. Then he withdrew, courteously bowing to everybody. Narcisse Habert's turn came almost immediately afterwards. However, before entering the throne-room he pressed Pierre's hand, repeating, "So it is understood. I will go to see my cousin at the Vatican to-morrow, and directly I get a reply I will let you know. We shall meet again soon I hope." It was now past twelve o'clock, and the only remaining visitor was one of the two old ladies who seemed to have fallen asleep. At his little secretarial table Don Vigilio still sat covering huge sheets of yellow paper with fine handwriting, from which he only lifted his eyes at intervals to glance about him distrustfully, and make sure that nothing threatened him. In the mournful silence which fell around, Pierre lingered for yet another moment in the deep embrasure of the window. Ah! what anxiety consumed his poor, tender, enthusiastic heart! On leaving Paris things had seemed so simple, so natural to him! He was unjustly accused, and he started off to defend himself, arrived and flung himself at the feet of the Holy Father, who listened to him indulgently. Did not the Pope personify living religion, intelligence to understand, justice based upon truth? And was he not, before aught else, the Father, the delegate of divine forgiveness and mercy, with arms outstretched towards all the children of the Church, even the guilty ones? Was it not meet, then, that he should leave his door wide open so that the humblest of his sons might freely enter to relate their troubles, confess their transgressions, explain their conduct, imbibe comfort from the source of eternal loving kindness? And yet on the very first day of his, Pierre's, arrival, the doors closed upon him with a bang; he felt himself sinking into a hostile sphere, full of traps and pitfalls. One and all cried out to him "Beware!" as if he were incurring the greatest dangers in setting one foot before the other. His desire to see the Pope became an extraordinary pretension, so difficult of achievement that it set the interests and passions and influences of the whole Vatican agog. And there was endless conflicting advice, long-discussed manoeuvring, all the strategy of generals leading an army to victory, and fresh complications ever arising in the midst of a dim stealthy swarming of intrigues. Ah! good Lord! how different all this was from the charitable reception that Pierre had anticipated: the pastor's house standing open beside the high road for the admission of all the sheep of the flock, both those that were docile and those that had gone astray. That which began to frighten Pierre, however, was the evil, the wickedness, which he could divine vaguely stirring in the gloom: Cardinal Bergerot suspected, dubbed a Revolutionary, deemed so compromising that he, Pierre, was advised not to mention his name again! The young priest once more saw Cardinal Boccanera's pout of disdain while speaking of his colleague. And then Monsignor Nani had warned him not to repeat those words "a new religion," as if it were not clear to everybody that they simply signified the return of Catholicism to the primitive purity of Christianity! Was that one of the crimes denounced to the Congregation of the Index? He had begun to suspect who his accusers were, and felt alarmed, for he was now conscious of secret subterranean plotting, a great stealthy effort to strike him down and suppress his work. All that surrounded him became suspicious. If he listened to advice and temporised, it was solely to follow the same politic course as his adversaries, to learn to know them before acting. He would spend a few days in meditation, in surveying and studying that black world of Rome which to him had proved so unexpected. But, at the same time, in the revolt of his apostle-like faith, he swore, even as he had said to Nani, that he would never yield, never change either a page or a line of his book, but maintain it in its integrity in the broad daylight as the unshakable testimony of his belief. Even were the book condemned by the Index, he would not tender submission, withdraw aught of it. And should it become necessary he would quit the Church, he would go even as far as schism, continuing to preach the new religion and writing a new book, /Real Rome/, such as he now vaguely began to espy. However, Don Vigilio had ceased writing, and gazed so fixedly at Pierre that the latter at last stepped up to him politely in order to take leave. And then the secretary, yielding, despite his fears, to a desire to confide in him, murmured, "He came simply on your account, you know; he wanted to ascertain the result of your interview with his Eminence." It was not necessary for Don Vigilio to mention Nani by name; Pierre understood. "Really, do you think so?" he asked. "Oh! there is no doubt of it. And if you take my advice you will do what he desires with a good grace, for it is absolutely certain that you will do it later on." These words brought Pierre's disquietude and exasperation to a climax. He went off with a gesture of defiance. They would see if he would ever yield. The three ante-rooms which he again crossed appeared to him blacker, emptier, more lifeless than ever. In the second one Abbe Paparelli saluted him with a little silent bow; in the first the sleepy lackey did not even seem to see him. A spider was weaving its web between the tassels of the great red hat under the /baldacchino/. Would not the better course have been to set the pick at work amongst all that rotting past, now crumbling into dust, so that the sunlight might stream in freely and restore to the purified soil the fruitfulness of youth? 
8722	----	and David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] THE THREE CITIES ROME BY EMILE ZOLA TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY PART II IV ON the afternoon of that same day Pierre, having leisure before him, at once thought of beginning his peregrinations through Rome by a visit on which he had set his heart. Almost immediately after the publication of "New Rome" he had been deeply moved and interested by a letter addressed to him from the Eternal City by old Count Orlando Prada, the hero of Italian independence and reunion, who, although unacquainted with him, had written spontaneously after a first hasty perusal of his book. And the letter had been a flaming protest, a cry of the patriotic faith still young in the heart of that aged man, who accused him of having forgotten Italy and claimed Rome, the new Rome, for the country which was at last free and united. Correspondence had ensued, and the priest, while clinging to his dream of Neo-Catholicism saving the world, had from afar grown attached to the man who wrote to him with such glowing love of country and freedom. He had eventually informed him of his journey, and promised to call upon him. But the hospitality which he had accepted at the Boccanera mansion now seemed to him somewhat of an impediment; for after Benedetta's kindly, almost affectionate, greeting, he felt that he could not, on the very first day and with out warning her, sally forth to visit the father of the man from whom she had fled and from whom she now asked the Church to part her for ever. Moreover, old Orlando was actually living with his son in a little palazzo which the latter had erected at the farther end of the Via Venti Settembre. Before venturing on any step Pierre resolved to confide in the Contessina herself; and this seemed the easier as Viscount Philibert de la Choue had told him that the young woman still retained a filial feeling, mingled with admiration, for the old hero. And indeed, at the very first words which he uttered after lunch, Benedetta promptly retorted: "But go, Monsieur l'Abbe, go at once! Old Orlando, you know, is one of our national glories--you must not be surprised to hear me call him by his Christian name. All Italy does so, from pure affection and gratitude. For my part I grew up among people who hated him, who likened him to Satan. It was only later that I learned to know him, and then I loved him, for he is certainly the most just and gentle man in the world." She had begun to smile, but timid tears were moistening her eyes at the recollection, no doubt, of the year of suffering she had spent in her husband's house, where her only peaceful hours had been those passed with the old man. And in a lower and somewhat tremulous voice she added: "As you are going to see him, tell him from me that I still love him, and, whatever happens, shall never forget his goodness." So Pierre set out, and whilst he was driving in a cab towards the Via Venti Settembre, he recalled to mind the heroic story of old Orlando's life which had been told him in Paris. It was like an epic poem, full of faith, bravery, and the disinterestedness of another age. Born of a noble house of Milan, Count Orlando Prada had learnt to hate the foreigner at such an early age that, when scarcely fifteen, he already formed part of a secret society, one of the ramifications of the antique Carbonarism. This hatred of Austrian domination had been transmitted from father to son through long years, from the olden days of revolt against servitude, when the conspirators met by stealth in abandoned huts, deep in the recesses of the forests; and it was rendered the keener by the eternal dream of Italy delivered, restored to herself, transformed once more into a great sovereign nation, the worthy daughter of those who had conquered and ruled the world. Ah! that land of whilom glory, that unhappy, dismembered, parcelled Italy, the prey of a crowd of petty tyrants, constantly invaded and appropriated by neighbouring nations--how superb and ardent was that dream to free her from such long opprobrium! To defeat the foreigner, drive out the despots, awaken the people from the base misery of slavery, to proclaim Italy free and Italy united--such was the passion which then inflamed the young with inextinguishable ardour, which made the youthful Orlando's heart leap with enthusiasm. He spent his early years consumed by holy indignation, proudly and impatiently longing for an opportunity to give his blood for his country, and to die for her if he could not deliver her. Quivering under the yoke, wasting his time in sterile conspiracies, he was living in retirement in the old family residence at Milan, when, shortly after his marriage and his twenty-fifth birthday, tidings came to him of the flight of Pius IX and the Revolution of Rome.* And at once he quitted everything, wife and hearth, and hastened to Rome as if summoned thither by the call of destiny. This was the first time that he set out scouring the roads for the attainment of independence; and how frequently, yet again and again, was he to start upon fresh campaigns, never wearying, never disheartened! And now it was that he became acquainted with Mazzini, and for a moment was inflamed with enthusiasm for that mystical unitarian Republican. He himself indulged in an ardent dream of a Universal Republic, adopted the Mazzinian device, "/Dio e popolo/" (God and the people), and followed the procession which wended its way with great pomp through insurrectionary Rome. The time was one of vast hopes, one when people already felt a need of renovated religion, and looked to the coming of a humanitarian Christ who would redeem the world yet once again. But before long a man, a captain of the ancient days, Giuseppe Garibaldi, whose epic glory was dawning, made Orlando entirely his own, transformed him into a soldier whose sole cause was freedom and union. Orlando loved Garibaldi as though the latter were a demi-god, fought beside him in defence of Republican Rome, took part in the victory of Rieti over the Neapolitans, and followed the stubborn patriot in his retreat when he sought to succour Venice, compelled as he was to relinquish the Eternal City to the French army of General Oudinot, who came thither to reinstate Pius IX. And what an extraordinary and madly heroic adventure was that of Garibaldi and Venice! Venice, which Manin, another great patriot, a martyr, had again transformed into a republican city, and which for long months had been resisting the Austrians! And Garibaldi starts with a handful of men to deliver the city, charters thirteen fishing barks, loses eight in a naval engagement, is compelled to return to the Roman shores, and there in all wretchedness is bereft of his wife, Anita, whose eyes he closes before returning to America, where, once before, he had awaited the hour of insurrection. Ah! that land of Italy, which in those days rumbled from end to end with the internal fire of patriotism, where men of faith and courage arose in every city, where riots and insurrections burst forth on all sides like eruptions--it continued, in spite of every check, its invincible march to freedom! * It was on November 24, 1848, that the Pope fled to Gaeta, consequent upon the insurrection which had broken out nine days previously.--Trans. Orlando returned to his young wife at Milan, and for two years lived there, almost in concealment, devoured by impatience for the glorious morrow which was so long in coming. Amidst his fever a gleam of happiness softened his heart; a son, Luigi, was born to him, but the birth killed the mother, and joy was turned into mourning. Then, unable to remain any longer at Milan, where he was spied upon, tracked by the police, suffering also too grievously from the foreign occupation, Orlando decided to realise the little fortune remaining to him, and to withdraw to Turin, where an aunt of his wife took charge of the child. Count di Cavour, like a great statesman, was then already seeking to bring about independence, preparing Piedmont for the decisive /role/ which it was destined to play. It was the time when King Victor Emmanuel evinced flattering cordiality towards all the refugees who came to him from every part of Italy, even those whom he knew to be Republicans, compromised and flying the consequences of popular insurrection. The rough, shrewd House of Savoy had long been dreaming of bringing about Italian unity to the profit of the Piedmontese monarchy, and Orlando well knew under what master he was taking service; but in him the Republican already went behind the patriot, and indeed he had begun to question the possibility of a united Republican Italy, placed under the protectorate of a liberal Pope, as Mazzini had at one time dreamed. Was that not indeed a chimera beyond realisation which would devour generation after generation if one obstinately continued to pursue it? For his part, he did not wish to die without having slept in Rome as one of the conquerors. Even if liberty was to be lost, he desired to see his country united and erect, returning once more to life in the full sunlight. And so it was with feverish happiness that he enlisted at the outset of the war of 1859; and his heart palpitated with such force as almost to rend his breast, when, after Magenta, he entered Milan with the French army--Milan which he had quitted eight years previously, like an exile, in despair. The treaty of Villafranca which followed Solferino proved a bitter deception: Venetia was not secured, Venice remained enthralled. Nevertheless the Milanese was conquered from the foe, and then Tuscany and the duchies of Parma and Modena voted for annexation. So, at all events, the nucleus of the Italian star was formed; the country had begun to build itself up afresh around victorious Piedmont. Then, in the following year, Orlando plunged into epopoeia once more. Garibaldi had returned from his two sojourns in America, with the halo of a legend round him--paladin-like feats in the pampas of Uruguay, an extraordinary passage from Canton to Lima--and he had returned to take part in the war of 1859, forestalling the French army, overthrowing an Austrian marshal, and entering Como, Bergamo, and Brescia. And now, all at once, folks heard that he had landed at Marsala with only a thousand men--the Thousand of Marsala, the ever illustrious handful of braves! Orlando fought in the first rank, and Palermo after three days' resistance was carried. Becoming the dictator's favourite lieutenant, he helped him to organise a government, then crossed the straits with him, and was beside him on the triumphal entry into Naples, whose king had fled. There was mad audacity and valour at that time, an explosion of the inevitable; and all sorts of supernatural stories were current--Garibaldi invulnerable, protected better by his red shirt than by the strongest armour, Garibaldi routing opposing armies like an archangel, by merely brandishing his flaming sword! The Piedmontese on their side had defeated General Lamoriciere at Castelfidardo, and were invading the States of the Church. And Orlando was there when the dictator, abdicating power, signed the decree which annexed the Two Sicilies to the Crown of Italy; even as subsequently he took part in that forlorn attempt on Rome, when the rageful cry was "Rome or Death!"--an attempt which came to a tragic issue at Aspromonte, when the little army was dispersed by the Italian troops, and Garibaldi, wounded, was taken prisoner, and sent back to the solitude of his island of Caprera, where he became but a fisherman and a tiller of the rocky soil.* * M. Zola's brief but glowing account of Garibaldi's glorious achievements has stirred many memories in my mind. My uncle, Frank Vizetelly, the war artist of the /Illustrated London News/, whose bones lie bleaching somewhere in the Soudan, was one of Garibaldi's constant companions throughout the memorable campaign of the Two Sicilies, and afterwards he went with him to Caprera. Later, in 1870, my brother, Edward Vizetelly, acted as orderly-officer to the general when he offered the help of his sword to France.--Trans. Six years of waiting again went by, and Orlando still dwelt at Turin, even after Florence had been chosen as the new capital. The Senate had acclaimed Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy; and Italy was indeed almost built, it lacked only Rome and Venice. But the great battles seemed all over, the epic era was closed; Venice was to be won by defeat. Orlando took part in the unlucky battle of Custozza, where he received two wounds, full of furious grief at the thought that Austria should be triumphant. But at that same moment the latter, defeated at Sadowa, relinquished Venetia, and five months later Orlando satisfied his desire to be in Venice participating in the joy of triumph, when Victor Emmanuel made his entry amidst the frantic acclamations of the people. Rome alone remained to be won, and wild impatience urged all Italy towards the city; but friendly France had sworn to maintain the Pope, and this acted as a check. Then, for the third time, Garibaldi dreamt of renewing the feats of the old-world legends, and threw himself upon Rome like a soldier of fortune illumined by patriotism and free from every tie. And for the third time Orlando shared in that fine heroic madness destined to be vanquished at Mentana by the Pontifical Zouaves supported by a small French corps. Again wounded, he came back to Turin in almost a dying condition. But, though his spirit quivered, he had to resign himself; the situation seemed to have no outlet; only an upheaval of the nations could give Rome to Italy. All at once the thunderclap of Sedan, of the downfall of France, resounded through the world; and then the road to Rome lay open, and Orlando, having returned to service in the regular army, was with the troops who took up position in the Campagna to ensure the safety of the Holy See, as was said in the letter which Victor Emmanuel wrote to Pius IX. There was, however, but the shadow of an engagement: General Kanzler's Pontifical Zouaves were compelled to fall back, and Orlando was one of the first to enter the city by the breach of the Porta Pia. Ah! that twentieth of September--that day when he experienced the greatest happiness of his life--a day of delirium, of complete triumph, which realised the dream of so many years of terrible contest, the dream for which he had sacrificed rest and fortune, and given both body and mind! Then came more than ten happy years in conquered Rome--in Rome adored, flattered, treated with all tenderness, like a woman in whom one has placed one's entire hope. From her he awaited so much national vigour, such a marvellous resurrection of strength and glory for the endowment of the young nation. Old Republican, old insurrectional soldier that he was, he had been obliged to adhere to the monarchy, and accept a senatorship. But then did not Garibaldi himself--Garibaldi his divinity--likewise call upon the King and sit in parliament? Mazzini alone, rejecting all compromises, was unwilling to rest content with a united and independent Italy that was not Republican. Moreover, another consideration influenced Orlando, the future of his son Luigi, who had attained his eighteenth birthday shortly after the occupation of Rome. Though he, Orlando, could manage with the crumbs which remained of the fortune he had expended in his country's service, he dreamt of a splendid destiny for the child of his heart. Realising that the heroic age was over, he desired to make a great politician of him, a great administrator, a man who should be useful to the mighty nation of the morrow; and it was on this account that he had not rejected royal favour, the reward of long devotion, desiring, as he did, to be in a position to help, watch, and guide Luigi. Besides, was he himself so old, so used-up, as to be unable to assist in organisation, even as he had assisted in conquest? Struck by his son's quick intelligence in business matters, perhaps also instinctively divining that the battle would now continue on financial and economic grounds, he obtained him employment at the Ministry of Finances. And again he himself lived on, dreaming, still enthusiastically believing in a splendid future, overflowing with boundless hope, seeing Rome double her population, grow and spread with a wild vegetation of new districts, and once more, in his loving enraptured eyes, become the queen of the world. But all at once came a thunderbolt. One morning, as he was going downstairs, Orlando was stricken with paralysis. Both his legs suddenly became lifeless, as heavy as lead. It was necessary to carry him up again, and never since had he set foot on the street pavement. At that time he had just completed his fifty-sixth year, and for fourteen years since he had remained in his arm-chair, as motionless as stone, he who had so impetuously trod every battlefield of Italy. It was a pitiful business, the collapse of a hero. And worst of all, from that room where he was for ever imprisoned, the old soldier beheld the slow crumbling of all his hopes, and fell into dismal melancholy, full of unacknowledged fear for the future. Now that the intoxication of action no longer dimmed his eyes, now that he spent his long and empty days in thought, his vision became clear. Italy, which he had desired to see so powerful, so triumphant in her unity, was acting madly, rushing to ruin, possibly to bankruptcy. Rome, which to him had ever been the one necessary capital, the city of unparalleled glory, requisite for the sovereign people of to-morrow, seemed unwilling to take upon herself the part of a great modern metropolis; heavy as a corpse she weighed with all her centuries on the bosom of the young nation. Moreover, his son Luigi distressed him. Rebellious to all guidance, the young man had become one of the devouring offsprings of conquest, eager to despoil that Italy, that Rome, which his father seemed to have desired solely in order that he might pillage them and batten on them. Orlando had vainly opposed Luigi's departure from the ministry, his participation in the frantic speculations on land and house property to which the mad building of the new districts had given rise. But at the same time he loved his son, and was reduced to silence, especially now when everything had succeeded with Luigi, even his most risky financial ventures, such as the transformation of the Villa Montefiori into a perfect town--a colossal enterprise in which many of great wealth had been ruined, but whence he himself had emerged with millions. And it was in part for this reason that Orlando, sad and silent, had obstinately restricted himself to one small room on the third floor of the little palazzo erected by Luigi in the Via Venti Settembre--a room where he lived cloistered with a single servant, subsisting on his own scanty income, and accepting nothing but that modest hospitality from his son. As Pierre reached that new Via Venti Settembre* which climbs the side and summit of the Viminal hill, he was struck by the heavy sumptuousness of the new "palaces," which betokened among the moderns the same taste for the huge that marked the ancient Romans. In the warm afternoon glow, blent of purple and old gold, the broad, triumphant thoroughfare, with its endless rows of white house-fronts, bore witness to new Rome's proud hope of futurity and sovereign power. And Pierre fairly gasped when he beheld the Palazzo delle Finanze, or Treasury, a gigantic erection, a cyclopean cube with a profusion of columns, balconies, pediments, and sculptured work, to which the building mania had given birth in a day of immoderate pride. And on the other side of the street, a little higher up, before reaching the Villa Bonaparte, stood Count Prada's little palazzo. * The name--Twentieth September Street--was given to the thoroughfare to commemorate the date of the occupation of Rome by Victor Emmanuel's army.--Trans. After discharging his driver, Pierre for a moment remained somewhat embarrassed. The door was open, and he entered the vestibule; but, as at the mansion in the Via Giulia, no door porter or servant was to be seen. So he had to make up his mind to ascend the monumental stairs, which with their marble balustrades seemed to be copied, on a smaller scale, from those of the Palazzo Boccanera. And there was much the same cold bareness, tempered, however, by a carpet and red door-hangings, which contrasted vividly with the white stucco of the walls. The reception-rooms, sixteen feet high, were on the first floor, and as a door chanced to be ajar he caught a glimpse of two /salons/, one following the other, and both displaying quite modern richness, with a profusion of silk and velvet hangings, gilt furniture, and lofty mirrors reflecting a pompous assemblage of stands and tables. And still there was nobody, not a soul, in that seemingly forsaken abode, which exhaled nought of woman's presence. Indeed Pierre was on the point of going down again to ring, when a footman at last presented himself. "Count Prada, if you please." The servant silently surveyed the little priest, and seemed to understand. "The father or the son?" he asked. "The father, Count Orlando Prada." "Oh! that's on the third floor." And he condescended to add: "The little door on the right-hand side of the landing. Knock loudly if you wish to be admitted." Pierre indeed had to knock twice, and then a little withered old man of military appearance, a former soldier who had remained in the Count's service, opened the door and apologised for the delay by saying that he had been attending to his master's legs. Immediately afterwards he announced the visitor, and the latter, after passing through a dim and narrow ante-room, was lost in amazement on finding himself in a relatively small chamber, extremely bare and bright, with wall-paper of a light hue studded with tiny blue flowers. Behind a screen was an iron bedstead, the soldier's pallet, and there was no other furniture than the arm-chair in which the cripple spent his days, with a table of black wood placed near him, and covered with books and papers, and two old straw-seated chairs which served for the accommodation of the infrequent visitors. A few planks, fixed to one of the walls, did duty as book-shelves. However, the broad, clear, curtainless window overlooked the most admirable panorama of Rome that could be desired. Then the room disappeared from before Pierre's eyes, and with a sudden shock of deep emotion he only beheld old Orlando, the old blanched lion, still superb, broad, and tall. A forest of white hair crowned his powerful head, with its thick mouth, fleshy broken nose, and large, sparkling, black eyes. A long white beard streamed down with the vigour of youth, curling like that of an ancient god. By that leonine muzzle one divined what great passions had growled within; but all, carnal and intellectual alike, had erupted in patriotism, in wild bravery, and riotous love of independence. And the old stricken hero, his torso still erect, was fixed there on his straw-seated arm-chair, with lifeless legs buried beneath a black wrapper. Alone did his arms and hands live, and his face beam with strength and intelligence. Orlando turned towards his servant, and gently said to him: "You can go away, Batista. Come back in a couple of hours." Then, looking Pierre full in the face, he exclaimed in a voice which was still sonorous despite his seventy years: "So it's you at last, my dear Monsieur Froment, and we shall be able to chat at our ease. There, take that chair, and sit down in front of me." He had noticed the glance of surprise which the young priest had cast upon the bareness of the room, and he gaily added: "You will excuse me for receiving you in my cell. Yes, I live here like a monk, like an old invalided soldier, henceforth withdrawn from active life. My son long begged me to take one of the fine rooms downstairs. But what would have been the use of it? I have no needs, and I scarcely care for feather beds, for my old bones are accustomed to the hard ground. And then too I have such a fine view up here, all Rome presenting herself to me, now that I can no longer go to her." With a wave of the hand towards the window he sought to hide the embarrassment, the slight flush which came to him each time that he thus excused his son; unwilling as he was to tell the true reason, the scruple of probity which had made him obstinately cling to his bare pauper's lodging. "But it is very nice, the view is superb!" declared Pierre, in order to please him. "I am for my own part very glad to see you, very glad to be able to grasp your valiant hands, which accomplished so many great things." Orlando made a fresh gesture, as though to sweep the past away. "Pooh! pooh! all that is dead and buried. Let us talk about you, my dear Monsieur Froment, you who are young and represent the present; and especially about your book, which represents the future! Ah! if you only knew how angry your book, your 'New Rome,' made me first of all." He began to laugh, and took the book from off the table near him; then, tapping on its cover with his big, broad hand, he continued: "No, you cannot imagine with what starts of protest I read your book. The Pope, and again the Pope, and always the Pope! New Rome to be created by the Pope and for the Pope, to triumph thanks to the Pope, to be given to the Pope, and to fuse its glory in the glory of the Pope! But what about us? What about Italy? What about all the millions which we have spent in order to make Rome a great capital? Ah! only a Frenchman, and a Frenchman of Paris, could have written such a book! But let me tell you, my dear sir, if you are ignorant of it, that Rome has become the capital of the kingdom of Italy, that we here have King Humbert, and the Italian people, a whole nation which must be taken into account, and which means to keep Rome--glorious, resuscitated Rome--for itself!" This juvenile ardour made Pierre laugh in turn. "Yes, yes," said he, "you wrote me that. Only what does it matter from my point of view? Italy is but one nation, a part of humanity, and I desire concord and fraternity among all the nations, mankind reconciled, believing, and happy. Of what consequence, then, is any particular form of government, monarchy or republic, of what consequence is any question of a united and independent country, if all mankind forms but one free people subsisting on truth and justice?" To only one word of this enthusiastic outburst did Orlando pay attention. In a lower tone, and with a dreamy air, he resumed: "Ah! a republic. In my youth I ardently desired one. I fought for one; I conspired with Mazzini, a saintly man, a believer, who was shattered by collision with the absolute. And then, too, one had to bow to practical necessities; the most obstinate ended by submitting. And nowadays would a republic save us? In any case it would differ but little from our parliamentary monarchy. Just think of what goes on in France! And so why risk a revolution which would place power in the hands of the extreme revolutionists, the anarchists? We fear all that, and this explains our resignation. I know very well that a few think they can detect salvation in a republican federation, a reconstitution of all the former little states in so many republics, over which Rome would preside. The Vatican would gain largely by any such transformation; still one cannot say that it endeavours to bring it about; it simply regards the eventuality without disfavour. But it is a dream, a dream!" At this Orlando's gaiety came back to him, with even a little gentle irony: "You don't know, I suppose, what it was that took my fancy in your book--for, in spite of all my protests, I have read it twice. Well, what pleased me was that Mazzini himself might almost have written it at one time. Yes! I found all my youth again in your pages, all the wild hope of my twenty-fifth year, the new religion of a humanitarian Christ, the pacification of the world effected by the Gospel! Are you aware that, long before your time, Mazzini desired the renovation of Christianity? He set dogma and discipline on one side and only retained morals. And it was new Rome, the Rome of the people, which he would have given as see to the universal Church, in which all the churches of the past were to be fused--Rome, the eternal and predestined city, the mother and queen, whose domination was to arise anew to ensure the definitive happiness of mankind! Is it not curious that all the present-day Neo-Catholicism, the vague, spiritualistic awakening, the evolution towards communion and Christian charity, with which some are making so much stir, should be simply a return of the mystical and humanitarian ideas of 1848? Alas! I saw all that, I believed and burned, and I know in what a fine mess those flights into the azure of mystery landed us! So it cannot be helped, I lack confidence." Then, as Pierre on his side was growing impassioned and sought to reply, he stopped him: "No, let me finish. I only want to convince you how absolutely necessary it was that we should take Rome and make her the capital of Italy. Without Rome new Italy could not have existed; Rome represented the glory of ancient time; in her dust lay the sovereign power which we wished to re-establish; she brought strength, beauty, eternity to those who possessed her. Standing in the middle of our country, she was its heart, and must assuredly become its life as soon as she should be awakened from the long sleep of ruin. Ah! how we desired her, amidst victory and amidst defeat, through years and years of frightful impatience! For my part I loved her, and longed for her, far more than for any woman, with my blood burning, and in despair that I should be growing old. And when we possessed her, our folly was a desire to behold her huge, magnificent, and commanding all at once, the equal of the other great capitals of Europe--Berlin, Paris, and London. Look at her! she is still my only love, my only consolation now that I am virtually dead, with nothing alive in me but my eyes." With the same gesture as before, he directed Pierre's attention to the window. Under the glowing sky Rome stretched out in its immensity, empurpled and gilded by the slanting sunrays. Across the horizon, far, far away, the trees of the Janiculum stretched a green girdle, of a limpid emerald hue, whilst the dome of St. Peter's, more to the left, showed palely blue, like a sapphire bedimmed by too bright a light. Then came the low town, the old ruddy city, baked as it were by centuries of burning summers, soft to the eye and beautiful with the deep life of the past, an unbounded chaos of roofs, gables, towers, /campanili/, and cupolas. But, in the foreground under the window, there was the new city--that which had been building for the last five and twenty years--huge blocks of masonry piled up side by side, still white with plaster, neither the sun nor history having as yet robed them in purple. And in particular the roofs of the colossal Palazzo delle Finanze had a disastrous effect, spreading out like far, bare steppes of cruel hideousness. And it was upon the desolation and abomination of all the newly erected piles that the eyes of the old soldier of conquest at last rested. Silence ensued. Pierre felt the faint chill of hidden, unacknowledged sadness pass by, and courteously waited. "I must beg your pardon for having interrupted you just now," resumed Orlando; "but it seems to me that we cannot talk about your book to any good purpose until you have seen and studied Rome closely. You only arrived yesterday, did you not? Well, stroll about the city, look at things, question people, and I think that many of your ideas will change. I shall particularly like to know your impression of the Vatican since you have cone here solely to see the Pope and defend your book against the Index. Why should we discuss things to-day, if facts themselves are calculated to bring you to other views, far more readily than the finest speeches which I might make? It is understood, you will come to see me again, and we shall then know what we are talking about, and, maybe, agree together." "Why certainly, you are too kind," replied Pierre. "I only came to-day to express my gratitude to you for having read my book so attentively, and to pay homage to one of the glories of Italy." Orlando was not listening, but remained for a moment absorbed in thought, with his eyes still resting upon Rome. And overcome, despite himself, by secret disquietude, he resumed in a low voice as though making an involuntary confession: "We have gone too fast, no doubt. There were expenses of undeniable utility--the roads, ports, and railways. And it was necessary to arm the country also; I did not at first disapprove of the heavy military burden. But since then how crushing has been the war budget--a war which has never come, and the long wait for which has ruined us. Ah! I have always been the friend of France. I only reproach her with one thing, that she has failed to understand the position in which we were placed, the vital reasons which compelled us to ally ourselves with Germany. And then there are the thousand millions of /lire/* swallowed up in Rome! That was the real madness; pride and enthusiasm led us astray. Old and solitary as I've been for many years now, given to deep reflection, I was one of the first to divine the pitfall, the frightful financial crisis, the deficit which would bring about the collapse of the nation. I shouted it from the housetops, to my son, to all who came near me; but what was the use? They didn't listen; they were mad, still buying and selling and building, with no thought but for gambling booms and bubbles. But you'll see, you'll see. And the worst is that we are not situated as you are; we haven't a reserve of men and money in a dense peasant population, whose thrifty savings are always at hand to fill up the gaps caused by big catastrophes. There is no social rise among our people as yet; fresh men don't spring up out of the lower classes to reinvigorate the national blood, as they constantly do in your country. And, besides, the people are poor; they have no stockings to empty. The misery is frightful, I must admit it. Those who have any money prefer to spend it in the towns in a petty way rather than to risk it in agricultural or manufacturing enterprise. Factories are but slowly built, and the land is almost everywhere tilled in the same primitive manner as it was two thousand years ago. And then, too, take Rome--Rome, which didn't make Italy, but which Italy made its capital to satisfy an ardent, overpowering desire--Rome, which is still but a splendid bit of scenery, picturing the glory of the centuries, and which, apart from its historical splendour, has only given us its degenerate papal population, swollen with ignorance and pride! Ah! I loved Rome too well, and I still love it too well to regret being now within its walls. But, good heavens! what insanity its acquisition brought us, what piles of money it has cost us, and how heavily and triumphantly it weighs us down! Look! look!" * 40,000,000 pounds. He waved his hand as he spoke towards the livid roofs of the Palazzo delle Finanze, that vast and desolate steppe, as though he could see the harvest of glory all stripped off and bankruptcy appear with its fearful, threatening bareness. Restrained tears were dimming his eyes, and he looked superbly pitiful with his expression of baffled hope and grievous disquietude, with his huge white head, the muzzle of an old blanched lion henceforth powerless and caged in that bare, bright room, whose poverty-stricken aspect was instinct with so much pride that it seemed, as it were, a protest against the monumental splendour of the whole surrounding district! So those were the purposes to which the conquest had been put! And to think that he was impotent, henceforth unable to give his blood and his soul as he had done in the days gone by. "Yes, yes," he exclaimed in a final outburst; "one gave everything, heart and brain, one's whole life indeed, so long as it was a question of making the country one and independent. But, now that the country is ours, just try to stir up enthusiasm for the reorganisation of its finances! There's no ideality in that! And this explains why, whilst the old ones are dying off, not a new man comes to the front among the young ones--" All at once he stopped, looking somewhat embarrassed, yet smiling at his feverishness. "Excuse me," he said, "I'm off again, I'm incorrigible. But it's understood, we'll leave that subject alone, and you'll come back here, and we'll chat together when you've seen everything." From that moment he showed himself extremely pleasant, and it was apparent to Pierre that he regretted having said so much, by the seductive affability and growing affection which he now displayed. He begged the young priest to prolong his sojourn, to abstain from all hasty judgments on Rome, and to rest convinced that, at bottom, Italy still loved France. And he was also very desirous that France should love Italy, and displayed genuine anxiety at the thought that perhaps she loved her no more. As at the Boccanera mansion, on the previous evening, Pierre realised that an attempt was being made to persuade him to admiration and affection. Like a susceptible woman with secret misgivings respecting the attractive power of her beauty, Italy was all anxiety with regard to the opinion of her visitors, and strove to win and retain their love. However, Orlando again became impassioned when he learnt that Pierre was staying at the Boccanera mansion, and he made a gesture of extreme annoyance on hearing, at that very moment, a knock at the outer door. "Come in!" he called; but at the same time he detained Pierre, saying, "No, no, don't go yet; I wish to know--" But a lady came in--a woman of over forty, short and extremely plump, and still attractive with her small features and pretty smile swamped in fat. She was a blonde, with green, limpid eyes; and, fairly well dressed in a sober, nicely fitting mignonette gown, she looked at once pleasant, modest, and shrewd. "Ah! it's you, Stefana," said the old man, letting her kiss him. "Yes, uncle, I was passing by and came up to see how you were getting on." The visitor was the Signora Sacco, niece of Prada and a Neapolitan by birth, her mother having quitted Milan to marry a certain Pagani, a Neapolitan banker, who had afterwards failed. Subsequent to that disaster Stefana had married Sacco, then merely a petty post-office clerk. He, later on, wishing to revive his father-in-law's business, had launched into all sorts of terrible, complicated, suspicious affairs, which by unforeseen luck had ended in his election as a deputy. Since he had arrived in Rome, to conquer the city in his turn, his wife had been compelled to assist his devouring ambition by dressing well and opening a /salon/; and, although she was still a little awkward, she rendered him many real services, being very economical and prudent, a thorough good housewife, with all the sterling, substantial qualities of Northern Italy which she had inherited from her mother, and which showed conspicuously beside the turbulence and carelessness of her husband, in whom flared Southern Italy with its perpetual, rageful appetite. Despite his contempt for Sacco, old Orlando had retained some affection for his niece, in whose veins flowed blood similar to his own. He thanked her for her kind inquiries, and then at once spoke of an announcement which he had read in the morning papers, for he suspected that the deputy had sent his wife to ascertain his opinion. "Well, and that ministry?" he asked. The Signora had seated herself and made no haste to reply, but glanced at the newspapers strewn over the table. "Oh! nothing is settled yet," she at last responded; "the newspapers spoke out too soon. The Prime Minister sent for Sacco, and they had a talk together. But Sacco hesitates a good deal; he fears that he has no aptitude for the Department of Agriculture. Ah! if it were only the Finances--However, in any case, he would not have come to a decision without consulting you. What do you think of it, uncle?" He interrupted her with a violent wave of the hand: "No, no, I won't mix myself up in such matters!" To him the rapid success of that adventurer Sacco, that schemer and gambler who had always fished in troubled waters, was an abomination, the beginning of the end. His son Luigi certainly distressed him; but it was even worse to think that--whilst Luigi, with his great intelligence and many remaining fine qualities, was nothing at all--Sacco, on the other hand, Sacco, blunderhead and ever-famished battener that he was, had not merely slipped into parliament, but was now, it seemed, on the point of securing office! A little, swarthy, dry man he was, with big, round eyes, projecting cheekbones, and prominent chin. Ever dancing and chattering, he was gifted with a showy eloquence, all the force of which lay in his voice--a voice which at will became admirably powerful or gentle! And withal an insinuating man, profiting by every opportunity, wheedling and commanding by turn. "You hear, Stefana," said Orlando; "tell your husband that the only advice I have to give him is to return to his clerkship at the post-office, where perhaps he may be of use." What particularly filled the old soldier with indignation and despair was that such a man, a Sacco, should have fallen like a bandit on Rome--on that Rome whose conquest had cost so many noble efforts. And in his turn Sacco was conquering the city, was carrying it off from those who had won it by such hard toil, and was simply using it to satisfy his wild passion for power and its attendant enjoyments. Beneath his wheedling air there was the determination to devour everything. After the victory, while the spoil lay there, still warm, the wolves had come. It was the North that had made Italy, whereas the South, eager for the quarry, simply rushed upon the country, preyed upon it. And beneath the anger of the old stricken hero of Italian unity there was indeed all the growing antagonism of the North towards the South--the North industrious, economical, shrewd in politics, enlightened, full of all the great modern ideas, and the South ignorant and idle, bent on enjoying life immediately, amidst childish disorder in action, and an empty show of fine sonorous words. Stefana had begun to smile in a placid way while glancing at Pierre, who had approached the window. "Oh, you say that, uncle," she responded; "but you love us well all the same, and more than once you have given me myself some good advice, for which I'm very thankful to you. For instance, there's that affair of Attilio's--" She was alluding to her son, the lieutenant, and his love affair with Celia, the little Princess Buongiovanni, of which all the drawing-rooms, white and black alike, were talking. "Attilio--that's another matter!" exclaimed Orlando. "He and you are both of the same blood as myself, and it's wonderful how I see myself again in that fine fellow. Yes, he is just the same as I was at his age, good-looking and brave and enthusiastic! I'm paying myself compliments, you see. But, really now, Attilio warms my heart, for he is the future, and brings me back some hope. Well, and what about his affair?" "Oh! it gives us a lot of worry, uncle. I spoke to you about it before, but you shrugged your shoulders, saying that in matters of that kind all that the parents had to do was to let the lovers settle their affairs between them. Still, we don't want everybody to repeat that we are urging our son to get the little princess to elope with him, so that he may afterwards marry her money and title." At this Orlando indulged in a frank outburst of gaiety: "That's a fine scruple! Was it your husband who instructed you to tell me of it? I know, however, that he affects some delicacy in this matter. For my own part, I believe myself to be as honest as he is, and I can only repeat that, if I had a son like yours, so straightforward and good, and candidly loving, I should let him marry whomsoever he pleased in his own way. The Buongiovannis--good heavens! the Buongiovannis--why, despite all their rank and lineage and the money they still possess, it will be a great honour for them to have a handsome young man with a noble heart as their son-in-law!" Again did Stefana assume an expression of placid satisfaction. She had certainly only come there for approval. "Very well, uncle," she replied, "I'll repeat that to my husband, and he will pay great attention to it; for if you are severe towards him he holds you in perfect veneration. And as for that ministry--well, perhaps nothing will be done, Sacco will decide according to circumstances." She rose and took her leave, kissing the old soldier very affectionately as on her arrival. And she complimented him on his good looks, declaring that she found him as handsome as ever, and making him smile by speaking of a lady who was still madly in love with him. Then, after acknowledging the young priest's silent salutation by a slight bow, she went off, once more wearing her modest and sensible air. For a moment Orlando, with his eyes turned towards the door, remained silent, again sad, reflecting no doubt on all the difficult, equivocal present, so different from the glorious past. But all at once he turned to Pierre, who was still waiting. "And so, my friend," said he, "you are staying at the Palazzo Boccanera? Ah! what a grievous misfortune there has been on that side too!" However, when the priest had told him of his conversation with Benedetta, and of her message that she still loved him and would never forget his goodness to her, no matter whatever happened, he appeared moved and his voice trembled: "Yes, she has a good heart, she has no spite. But what would you have? She did not love Luigi, and he was possibly violent. There is no mystery about the matter now, and I can speak to you freely, since to my great grief everybody knows what has happened." Then Orlando abandoned himself to his recollections, and related how keen had been his delight on the eve of the marriage at the thought that so lovely a creature would become his daughter, and set some youth and charm around his invalid's arm-chair. He had always worshipped beauty, and would have had no other love than woman, if his country had not seized upon the best part of him. And Benedetta on her side loved him, revered him, constantly coming up to spend long hours with him, sharing his poor little room, which at those times became resplendent with all the divine grace that she brought with her. With her fresh breath near him, the pure scent she diffused, the caressing womanly tenderness with which she surrounded him, he lived anew. But, immediately afterwards, what a frightful drama and how his heart had bled at his inability to reconcile the husband and the wife! He could not possibly say that his son was in the wrong in desiring to be the loved and accepted spouse. At first indeed he had hoped to soften Benedetta, and throw her into Luigi's arms. But when she had confessed herself to him in tears, owning her old love for Dario, and her horror of belonging to another, he realised that she would never yield. And a whole year had then gone by; he had lived for a whole year imprisoned in his arm-chair, with that poignant drama progressing beneath him in those luxurious rooms whence no sound even reached his ears. How many times had he not listened, striving to hear, fearing atrocious quarrels, in despair at his inability to prove still useful by creating happiness. He knew nothing by his son, who kept his own counsel; he only learnt a few particulars from Benedetta at intervals when emotion left her defenceless; and that marriage in which he had for a moment espied the much-needed alliance between old and new Rome, that unconsummated marriage filled him with despair, as if it were indeed the defeat of every hope, the final collapse of the dream which had filled his life. And he himself had ended by desiring the divorce, so unbearable had become the suffering caused by such a situation. "Ah! my friend!" he said to Pierre; "never before did I so well understand the fatality of certain antagonism, the possibility of working one's own misfortune and that of others, even when one has the most loving heart and upright mind!" But at that moment the door again opened, and this time, without knocking, Count Luigi Prada came in. And after rapidly bowing to the visitor, who had risen, he gently took hold of his father's hands and felt them, as if fearing that they might be too warm or too cold. "I've just arrived from Frascati, where I had to sleep," said he; "for the interruption of all that building gives me a lot of worry. And I'm told that you spent a bad night!" "No, I assure you." "Oh! I knew you wouldn't own it. But why will you persist in living up here without any comfort? All this isn't suited to your age. I should be so pleased if you would accept a more comfortable room where you might sleep better." "No, no--I know that you love me well, my dear Luigi. But let me do as my old head tells me. That's the only way to make me happy." Pierre was much struck by the ardent affection which sparkled in the eyes of the two men as they gazed at one another, face to face. This seemed to him very touching and beautiful, knowing as he did how many contrary ideas and actions, how many moral divergencies separated them. And he next took an interest in comparing them physically. Count Luigi Prada, shorter, more thick-set than his father, had, however, much the same strong energetic head, crowned with coarse black hair, and the same frank but somewhat stern eyes set in a face of clear complexion, barred by thick moustaches. But his mouth differed--a sensual, voracious mouth it was, with wolfish teeth--a mouth of prey made for nights of rapine, when the only question is to bite, and tear, and devour others. And for this reason, when some praised the frankness in his eyes, another would retort: "Yes, but I don't like his mouth." His feet were large, his hands plump and over-broad, but admirably cared for. And Pierre marvelled at finding him such as he had anticipated. He knew enough of his story to picture in him a hero's son spoilt by conquest, eagerly devouring the harvest garnered by his father's glorious sword. And he particularly studied how the father's virtues had deflected and become transformed into vices in the son--the most noble qualities being perverted, heroic and disinterested energy lapsing into a ferocious appetite for possession, the man of battle leading to the man of booty, since the great gusts of enthusiasm no longer swept by, since men no longer fought, since they remained there resting, pillaging, and devouring amidst the heaped-up spoils. And the pity of it was that the old hero, the paralytic, motionless father beheld it all--beheld the degeneration of his son, the speculator and company promoter gorged with millions! However, Orlando introduced Pierre. "This is Monsieur l'Abbe Pierre Froment, whom I spoke to you about," he said, "the author of the book which I gave you to read." Luigi Prada showed himself very amiable, at once talking of home with an intelligent passion like one who wished to make the city a great modern capital. He had seen Paris transformed by the Second Empire; he had seen Berlin enlarged and embellished after the German victories; and, according to him, if Rome did not follow the movement, if it did not become the inhabitable capital of a great people, it was threatened with prompt death: either a crumbling museum or a renovated, resuscitated city--those were the alternatives.* * Personally I should have thought the example of Berlin a great deterrent. The enlargement and embellishment of the Prussian capital, after the war of 1870, was attended by far greater roguery and wholesale swindling than even the previous transformation of Paris. Thousands of people too were ruined, and instead of an increase of prosperity the result was the very reverse.--Trans. Greatly struck, almost gained over already, Pierre listened to this clever man, charmed with his firm, clear mind. He knew how skilfully Prada had manoeuvred in the affair of the Villa Montefiori, enriching himself when every one else was ruined, having doubtless foreseen the fatal catastrophe even while the gambling passion was maddening the entire nation. However, the young priest could already detect marks of weariness, precocious wrinkles and a fall of the lips, on that determined, energetic face, as though its possessor were growing tired of the continual struggle that he had to carry on amidst surrounding downfalls, the shock of which threatened to bring the most firmly established fortunes to the ground. It was said that Prada had recently had grave cause for anxiety; and indeed there was no longer any solidity to be found; everything might be swept away by the financial crisis which day by day was becoming more and more serious. In the case of Luigi, sturdy son though he was of Northern Italy, a sort of degeneration had set in, a slow rot, caused by the softening, perversive influence of Rome. He had there rushed upon the satisfaction of every appetite, and prolonged enjoyment was exhausting him. This, indeed, was one of the causes of the deep silent sadness of Orlando, who was compelled to witness the swift deterioration of his conquering race, whilst Sacco, the Italian of the South--served as it were by the climate, accustomed to the voluptuous atmosphere, the life of those sun-baked cities compounded of the dust of antiquity--bloomed there like the natural vegetation of a soil saturated with the crimes of history, and gradually grasped everything, both wealth and power. As Orlando spoke of Stefana's visit to his son, Sacco's name was mentioned. Then, without another word, the two men exchanged a smile. A rumour was current that the Minister of Agriculture, lately deceased, would perhaps not be replaced immediately, and that another minister would take charge of the department pending the next session of the Chamber. Next the Palazzo Boccanera was mentioned, and Pierre, his interest awakened, became more attentive. "Ah!" exclaimed Count Luigi, turning to him, "so you are staying in the Via Giulia? All the Rome of olden time sleeps there in the silence of forgetfulness." With perfect ease he went on to speak of the Cardinal and even of Benedetta--"the Countess," as he called her. But, although he was careful to let no sign of anger escape him, the young priest could divine that he was secretly quivering, full of suffering and spite. In him the enthusiastic energy of his father appeared in a baser, degenerate form. Quitting the yet handsome Princess Flavia in his passion for Benedetta, her divinely beautiful niece, he had resolved to make the latter his own at any cost, determined to marry her, to struggle with her and overcome her, although he knew that she loved him not, and that he would almost certainly wreck his entire life. Rather than relinquish her, however, he would have set Rome on fire. And thus his hopeless suffering was now great indeed: this woman was but his wife in name, and so torturing was the thought of her disdain, that at times, however calm his outward demeanour, he was consumed by a jealous vindictive sensual madness that did not even recoil from the idea of crime. "Monsieur l'Abbe is acquainted with the situation," sadly murmured old Orlando. His son responded by a wave of the hand, as though to say that everybody was acquainted with it. "Ah! father," he added, "but for you I should never have consented to take part in those proceedings for annulling the marriage! The Countess would have found herself compelled to return here, and would not nowadays be deriding us with her lover, that cousin of hers, Dario!" At this Orlando also waved his hand, as if in protest. "Oh! it's a fact, father," continued Luigi. "Why did she flee from here if it wasn't to go and live with her lover? And indeed, in my opinion, it's scandalous that a Cardinal's palace should shelter such goings-on!" This was the report which he spread abroad, the accusation which he everywhere levelled against his wife, of publicly carrying on a shameless /liaison/. In reality, however, he did not believe a word of it, being too well acquainted with Benedetta's firm rectitude, and her determination to belong to none but the man she loved, and to him only in marriage. However, in Prada's eyes such accusations were not only fair play but also very efficacious. And now, although he turned pale with covert exasperation, and laughed a hard, vindictive, cruel laugh, he went on to speak in a bantering tone of the proceedings for annulling the marriage, and in particular of the plea put forward by Benedetta's advocate Morano. And at last his language became so free that Orlando, with a glance towards the priest, gently interposed: "Luigi! Luigi!" "Yes, you are right, father, I'll say no more," thereupon added the young Count. "But it's really abominable and ridiculous. Lisbeth, you know, is highly amused at it." Orlando again looked displeased, for when visitors were present he did not like his son to refer to the person whom he had just named. Lisbeth Kauffmann, very blonde and pink and merry, was barely thirty years of age, and belonged to the Roman foreign colony. For two years past she had been a widow, her husband having died at Rome whither he had come to nurse a complaint of the lungs. Thenceforward free, and sufficiently well off, she had remained in the city by taste, having a marked predilection for art, and painting a little, herself. In the Via Principe Amadeo, in the new Viminal district, she had purchased a little palazzo, and transformed a large apartment on its second floor into a studio hung with old stuffs, and balmy in every season with the scent of flowers. The place was well known to tolerant and intellectual society. Lisbeth was there found in perpetual jubilation, clad in a long blouse, somewhat of a /gamine/ in her ways, trenchant too and often bold of speech, but nevertheless capital company, and as yet compromised with nobody but Prada. Their /liaison/ had begun some four months after his wife had left him, and now Lisbeth was near the time of becoming a mother. This she in no wise concealed, but displayed such candid tranquillity and happiness that her numerous acquaintances continued to visit her as if there were nothing in question, so facile and free indeed is the life of the great cosmopolitan continental cities. Under the circumstances which his wife's suit had created, Prada himself was not displeased at the turn which events had taken with regard to Lisbeth, but none the less his incurable wound still bled. There could be no compensation for the bitterness of Benedetta's disdain, it was she for whom his heart burned, and he dreamt of one day wreaking on her a tragic punishment. Pierre, knowing nothing of Lisbeth, failed to understand the allusions of Orlando and his son. But realising that there was some embarrassment between them, he sought to take countenance by picking from off the littered table a thick book which, to his surprise, he found to be a French educational work, one of those manuals for the /baccalaureat/,* containing a digest of the knowledge which the official programmes require. It was but a humble, practical, elementary work, yet it necessarily dealt with all the mathematical, physical, chemical, and natural sciences, thus broadly outlining the intellectual conquests of the century, the present phase of human knowledge. * The examination for the degree of bachelor, which degree is the necessary passport to all the liberal professions in France. M. Zola, by the way, failed to secure it, being ploughed for "insufficiency in literature"!--Trans. "Ah!" exclaimed Orlando, well pleased with the diversion, "you are looking at the book of my old friend Theophile Morin. He was one of the thousand of Marsala, you know, and helped us to conquer Sicily and Naples. A hero! But for more than thirty years now he has been living in France again, absorbed in the duties of his petty professorship, which hasn't made him at all rich. And so he lately published that book, which sells very well in France it seems; and it occurred to him that he might increase his modest profits on it by issuing translations, an Italian one among others. He and I have remained brothers, and thinking that my influence would prove decisive, he wishes to utilise it. But he is mistaken; I fear, alas! that I shall be unable to get anybody to take up his book." At this Luigi Prada, who had again become very composed and amiable, shrugged his shoulders slightly, full as he was of the scepticism of his generation which desired to maintain things in their actual state so as to derive the greatest profit from them. "What would be the good of it?" he murmured; "there are too many books already!" "No, no!" the old man passionately retorted, "there can never be too many books! We still and ever require fresh ones! It's by literature, not by the sword, that mankind will overcome falsehood and injustice and attain to the final peace of fraternity among the nations--Oh! you may smile; I know that you call these ideas my fancies of '48, the fancies of a greybeard, as people say in France. But it is none the less true that Italy is doomed, if the problem be not attacked from down below, if the people be not properly fashioned. And there is only one way to make a nation, to create men, and that is to educate them, to develop by educational means the immense lost force which now stagnates in ignorance and idleness. Yes, yes, Italy is made, but let us make an Italian nation. And give us more and more books, and let us ever go more and more forward into science and into light, if we wish to live and to be healthy, good, and strong!" With his torso erect, with his powerful leonine muzzle flaming with the white brightness of his beard and hair, old Orlando looked superb. And in that simple, candid chamber, so touching with its intentional poverty, he raised his cry of hope with such intensity of feverish faith, that before the young priest's eyes there arose another figure--that of Cardinal Boccanera, erect and black save for his snow-white hair, and likewise glowing with heroic beauty in his crumbling palace whose gilded ceilings threatened to fall about his head! Ah! the magnificent stubborn men of the past, the believers, the old men who still show themselves more virile, more ardent than the young! Those two represented the opposite poles of belief; they had not an idea, an affection in common, and in that ancient city of Rome, where all was being blown away in dust, they alone seemed to protest, indestructible, face to face like two parted brothers, standing motionless on either horizon. And to have seen them thus, one after the other, so great and grand, so lonely, so detached from ordinary life, was to fill one's day with a dream of eternity. Luigi, however, had taken hold of the old man's hands to calm him by an affectionate filial clasp. "Yes, yes, you are right, father, always right, and I'm a fool to contradict you. Now, pray don't move about like that, for you are uncovering yourself, and your legs will get cold again." So saying, he knelt down and very carefully arranged the wrapper; and then remaining on the floor like a child, albeit he was two and forty, he raised his moist eyes, full of mute, entreating worship towards the old man who, calmed and deeply moved, caressed his hair with a trembling touch. Pierre had been there for nearly two hours, when he at last took leave, greatly struck and affected by all that he had seen and heard. And again he had to promise that he would return and have a long chat with Orlando. Once out of doors he walked along at random. It was barely four o'clock, and it was his idea to ramble in this wise, without any predetermined programme, through Rome at that delightful hour when the sun sinks in the refreshed and far blue atmosphere. Almost immediately, however, he found himself in the Via Nazionale, along which he had driven on arriving the previous day. And he recognised the huge livid Banca d'Italia, the green gardens climbing to the Quirinal, and the heaven-soaring pines of the Villa Aldobrandini. Then, at the turn of the street, as he stopped short in order that he might again contemplate the column of Trajan which now rose up darkly from its low piazza, already full of twilight, he was surprised to see a victoria suddenly pull up, and a young man courteously beckon to him. "Monsieur l'Abbe Froment! Monsieur l'Abbe Froment!" It was young Prince Dario Boccanera, on his way to his daily drive along the Corso. He now virtually subsisted on the liberality of his uncle the Cardinal, and was almost always short of money. But, like all the Romans, he would, if necessary, have rather lived on bread and water than have forgone his carriage, horse, and coachman. An equipage, indeed, is the one indispensable luxury of Rome. "If you will come with me, Monsieur l'Abbe Froment," said the young Prince, "I will show you the most interesting part of our city." He doubtless desired to please Benedetta, by behaving amiably towards her protege. Idle as he was, too, it seemed to him a pleasant occupation to initiate that young priest, who was said to be so intelligent, into what he deemed the inimitable side, the true florescence of Roman life. Pierre was compelled to accept, although he would have preferred a solitary stroll. Yet he was interested in this young man, the last born of an exhausted race, who, while seemingly incapable of either thought or action, was none the less very seductive with his high-born pride and indolence. Far more a Roman than a patriot, Dario had never had the faintest inclination to rally to the new order of things, being well content to live apart and do nothing; and passionate though he was, he indulged in no follies, being very practical and sensible at heart, as are all his fellow-citizens, despite their apparent impetuosity. As soon as his carriage, after crossing the Piazza di Venezia, entered the Corso, he gave rein to his childish vanity, his desire to shine, his passion for gay, happy life in the open under the lovely sky. All this, indeed, was clearly expressed in the simple gesture which he made whilst exclaiming: "The Corso!" As on the previous day, Pierre was filled with astonishment. The long narrow street again stretched before him as far as the white dazzling Piazza del Popolo, the only difference being that the right-hand houses were now steeped in sunshine, whilst those on the left were black with shadow. What! was that the Corso then, that semi-obscure trench, close pressed by high and heavy house-fronts, that mean roadway where three vehicles could scarcely pass abreast, and which serried shops lined with gaudy displays? There was neither space, nor far horizon, nor refreshing greenery such as the fashionable drives of Paris could boast! Nothing but jostling, crowding, and stifling on the little footways under the narrow strip of sky. And although Dario named the pompous and historical palaces, Bonaparte, Doria, Odescalchi, Sciarra, and Chigi; although he pointed out the column of Marcus Aurelius on the Piazza Colonna, the most lively square of the whole city with its everlasting throng of lounging, gazing, chattering people; although, all the way to the Piazza del Popolo, he never ceased calling attention to churches, houses, and side-streets, notably the Via dei Condotti, at the far end of which the Trinity de' Monti, all golden in the glory of the sinking sun, appeared above that famous flight of steps, the triumphal Scala di Spagna--Pierre still and ever retained the impression of disillusion which the narrow, airless thoroughfare had conveyed to him: the "palaces" looked to him like mournful hospitals or barracks, the Piazza Colonna suffered terribly from a lack of trees, and the Trinity de' Monti alone took his fancy by its distant radiance of fairyland. But it was necessary to come back from the Piazza del Popolo to the Piazza di Venezia, then return to the former square, and come back yet again, following the entire Corso three and four times without wearying. The delighted Dario showed himself and looked about him, exchanging salutations. On either footway was a compact crowd of promenaders whose eyes roamed over the equipages and whose hands could have shaken those of the carriage folks. So great at last became the number of vehicles that both lines were absolutely unbroken, crowded to such a point that the coachmen could do no more than walk their horses. Perpetually going up and coming down the Corso, people scrutinised and jostled one another. It was open-air promiscuity, all Rome gathered together in the smallest possible space, the folks who knew one another and who met here as in a friendly drawing-room, and the folks belonging to adverse parties who did not speak together but who elbowed each other, and whose glances penetrated to each other's soul. Then a revelation came to Pierre, and he suddenly understood the Corso, the ancient custom, the passion and glory of the city. Its pleasure lay precisely in the very narrowness of the street, in that forced elbowing which facilitated not only desired meetings but the satisfaction of curiosity, the display of vanity, and the garnering of endless tittle-tattle. All Roman society met here each day, displayed itself, spied on itself, offering itself in spectacle to its own eyes, with such an indispensable need of thus beholding itself that the man of birth who missed the Corso was like one out of his element, destitute of newspapers, living like a savage. And withal the atmosphere was delightfully balmy, and the narrow strip of sky between the heavy, rusty mansions displayed an infinite azure purity. Dario never ceased smiling, and slightly inclining his head while he repeated to Pierre the names of princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses--high-sounding names whose flourish had filled history, whose sonorous syllables conjured up the shock of armour on the battlefield and the splendour of papal pomp with robes of purple, tiaras of gold, and sacred vestments sparkling with precious stones. And as Pierre listened and looked he was pained to see merely some corpulent ladies or undersized gentlemen, bloated or shrunken beings, whose ill-looks seemed to be increased by their modern attire. However, a few pretty women went by, particularly some young, silent girls with large, clear eyes. And just as Dario had pointed out the Palazzo Buongiovanni, a huge seventeenth-century facade, with windows encompassed by foliaged ornamentation deplorably heavy in style, he added gaily: "Ah! look--that's Attilio there on the footway. Young Lieutenant Sacco--you know, don't you?" Pierre signed that he understood. Standing there in uniform, Attilio, so young, so energetic and brave of appearance, with a frank countenance softly illumined by blue eyes like his mother's, at once pleased the priest. He seemed indeed the very personification of youth and love, with all their enthusiastic, disinterested hope in the future. "You'll see by and by, when we pass the palace again," said Dario. "He'll still be there and I'll show you something." Then he began to talk gaily of the girls of Rome, the little princesses, the little duchesses, so discreetly educated at the convent of the Sacred Heart, quitting it for the most part so ignorant and then completing their education beside their mothers, never going out but to accompany the latter on the obligatory drive to the Corso, and living through endless days, cloistered, imprisoned in the depths of sombre mansions. Nevertheless what tempests raged in those mute souls to which none had ever penetrated! what stealthy growth of will suddenly appeared from under passive obedience, apparent unconsciousness of surroundings! How many there were who stubbornly set their minds on carving out their lives for themselves, on choosing the man who might please them, and securing him despite the opposition of the entire world! And the lover was chosen there from among the stream of young men promenading the Corso, the lover hooked with a glance during the daily drive, those candid eyes speaking aloud and sufficing for confession and the gift of all, whilst not a breath was wafted from the lips so chastely closed. And afterwards there came love letters, furtively exchanged in church, and the winning-over of maids to facilitate stolen meetings, at first so innocent. In the end, a marriage often resulted. Celia, for her part, had determined to win Attilio on the very first day when their eyes had met. And it was from a window of the Palazzo Buongiovanni that she had perceived him one afternoon of mortal weariness. He had just raised his head, and she had taken him for ever and given herself to him with those large, pure eyes of hers as they rested on his own. She was but an /amorosa/--nothing more; he pleased her; she had set her heart on him--him and none other. She would have waited twenty years for him, but she relied on winning him at once by quiet stubbornness of will. People declared that the terrible fury of the Prince, her father, had proved impotent against her respectful, obstinate silence. He, man of mixed blood as he was, son of an American woman, and husband of an English woman, laboured but to retain his own name and fortune intact amidst the downfall of others; and it was rumoured that as the result of a quarrel which he had picked with his wife, whom he accused of not sufficiently watching over their daughter, the Princess had revolted, full not only of the pride of a foreigner who had brought a huge dowry in marriage, but also of such plain, frank egotism that she had declared she no longer found time enough to attend to herself, let alone another. Had she not already done enough in bearing him five children? She thought so; and now she spent her time in worshipping herself, letting Celia do as she listed, and taking no further interest in the household through which swept stormy gusts. However, the carriage was again about to pass the Buongiovanni mansion, and Dario forewarned Pierre. "You see," said he, "Attilio has come back. And now look up at the third window on the first floor." It was at once rapid and charming. Pierre saw the curtain slightly drawn aside and Celia's gentle face appear. Closed, candid lily, she did not smile, she did not move. Nothing could be read on those pure lips, or in those clear but fathomless eyes of hers. Yet she was taking Attilio to herself, and giving herself to him without reserve. And soon the curtain fell once more. "Ah, the little mask!" muttered Dario. "Can one ever tell what there is behind so much innocence?" As Pierre turned round he perceived Attilio, whose head was still raised, and whose face was also motionless and pale, with closed mouth, and widely opened eyes. And the young priest was deeply touched, for this was love, absolute love in its sudden omnipotence, true love, eternal and juvenescent, in which ambition and calculation played no part. Then Dario ordered the coachman to drive up to the Pincio; for, before or after the Corso, the round of the Pincio is obligatory on fine, clear afternoons. First came the Piazza del Popolo, the most airy and regular square of Rome, with its conjunction of thoroughfares, its churches and fountains, its central obelisk, and its two clumps of trees facing one another at either end of the small white paving-stones, betwixt the severe and sun-gilt buildings. Then, turning to the right, the carriage began to climb the inclined way to the Pincio--a magnificent winding ascent, decorated with bas-reliefs, statues, and fountains--a kind of apotheosis of marble, a commemoration of ancient Rome, rising amidst greenery. Up above, however, Pierre found the garden small, little better than a large square, with just the four necessary roadways to enable the carriages to drive round and round as long as they pleased. An uninterrupted line of busts of the great men of ancient and modern Italy fringed these roadways. But what Pierre most admired was the trees--trees of the most rare and varied kinds, chosen and tended with infinite care, and nearly always evergreens, so that in winter and summer alike the spot was adorned with lovely foliage of every imaginable shade of verdure. And beside these trees, along the fine, breezy roadways, Dario's victoria began to turn, following the continuous, unwearying stream of the other carriages. Pierre remarked one young woman of modest demeanour and attractive simplicity who sat alone in a dark-blue victoria, drawn by a well-groomed, elegantly harnessed horse. She was very pretty, short, with chestnut hair, a creamy complexion, and large gentle eyes. Quietly robed in dead-leaf silk, she wore a large hat, which alone looked somewhat extravagant. And seeing that Dario was staring at her, the priest inquired her name, whereat the young Prince smiled. Oh! she was nobody, La Tonietta was the name that people gave her; she was one of the few /demi-mondaines/ that Roman society talked of. Then, with the freeness and frankness which his race displays in such matters, Dario added some particulars. La Tonietta's origin was obscure; some said that she was the daughter of an innkeeper of Tivoli, and others that of a Neapolitan banker. At all events, she was very intelligent, had educated herself, and knew thoroughly well how to receive and entertain people at the little palazzo in the Via dei Mille, which had been given to her by old Marquis Manfredi now deceased. She made no scandalous show, had but one protector at a time, and the princesses and duchesses who paid attention to her at the Corso every afternoon, considered her nice-looking. One peculiarity had made her somewhat notorious. There was some one whom she loved and from whom she never accepted aught but a bouquet of white roses; and folks would smile indulgently when at times for weeks together she was seen driving round the Pincio with those pure, white bridal flowers on the carriage seat. Dario, however, suddenly paused in his explanations to address a ceremonious bow to a lady who, accompanied by a gentleman, drove by in a large landau. Then he simply said to the priest: "My mother." Pierre already knew of her. Viscount de la Choue had told him her story, how, after Prince Onofrio Boccanera's death, she had married again, although she was already fifty; how at the Corso, just like some young girl, she had hooked with her eyes a handsome man to her liking--one, too, who was fifteen years her junior. And Pierre also knew who that man was, a certain Jules Laporte, an ex-sergeant of the papal Swiss Guard, an ex-traveller in relics, compromised in an extraordinary "false relic" fraud; and he was further aware that Laporte's wife had made a fine-looking Marquis Montefiori of him, the last of the fortunate adventurers of romance, triumphing as in the legendary lands where shepherds are wedded to queens. At the next turn, as the large landau again went by, Pierre looked at the couple. The Marchioness was really wonderful, blooming with all the classical Roman beauty, tall, opulent, and very dark, with the head of a goddess and regular if somewhat massive features, nothing as yet betraying her age except the down upon her upper lip. And the Marquis, the Romanised Swiss of Geneva, really had a proud bearing, with his solid soldierly figure and long wavy moustaches. People said that he was in no wise a fool but, on the contrary, very gay and very supple, just the man to please women. His wife so gloried in him that she dragged him about and displayed him everywhere, having begun life afresh with him as if she were still but twenty, spending on him the little fortune which she had saved from the Villa Montefiori disaster, and so completely forgetting her son that she only saw the latter now and again at the promenade and acknowledged his bow like that of some chance acquaintance. "Let us go to see the sun set behind St. Peter's," all at once said Dario, conscientiously playing his part as a showman of curiosities. The victoria thereupon returned to the terrace, where a military band was now playing with a terrific blare of brass instruments. In order that their occupants might hear the music, a large number of carriages had already drawn up, and a growing crowd of loungers on foot had assembled there. And from that beautiful terrace, so broad and lofty, one of the most wonderful views of Rome was offered to the gaze. Beyond the Tiber, beyond the pale chaos of the new district of the castle meadows,* and between the greenery of Monte Mario and the Janiculum arose St. Peter's. Then on the left came all the olden city, an endless stretch of roofs, a rolling sea of edifices as far as the eye could reach. But one's glances always came back to St. Peter's, towering into the azure with pure and sovereign grandeur. And, seen from the terrace, the slow sunsets in the depths of the vast sky behind the colossus were sublime. * See /ante/ note on castle meadows. Sometimes there are topplings of sanguineous clouds, battles of giants hurling mountains at one another and succumbing beneath the monstrous ruins of flaming cities. Sometimes only red streaks or fissures appear on the surface of a sombre lake, as if a net of light has been flung to fish the submerged orb from amidst the seaweed. Sometimes, too, there is a rosy mist, a kind of delicate dust which falls, streaked with pearls by a distant shower, whose curtain is drawn across the mystery of the horizon. And sometimes there is a triumph, a /cortege/ of gold and purple chariots of cloud rolling along a highway of fire, galleys floating upon an azure sea, fantastic and extravagant pomps slowly sinking into the less and less fathomable abyss of the twilight. But that night the sublime spectacle presented itself to Pierre with a calm, blinding, desperate grandeur. At first, just above the dome of St. Peter's, the sun, descending in a spotless, deeply limpid sky, proved yet so resplendent that one's eyes could not face its brightness. And in this resplendency the dome seemed to be incandescent, you would have said a dome of liquid silver; whilst the surrounding districts, the house-roofs of the Borgo, were as though changed into a lake of live embers. Then, as the sun was by degrees inclined, it lost some of its blaze, and one could look; and soon afterwards sinking with majestic slowness it disappeared behind the dome, which showed forth darkly blue, while the orb, now entirely hidden, set an aureola around it, a glory like a crown of flaming rays. And then began the dream, the dazzling symbol, the singular illumination of the row of windows beneath the cupola which were transpierced by the light and looked like the ruddy mouths of furnaces, in such wise that one might have imagined the dome to be poised upon a brazier, isolated, in the air, as though raised and upheld by the violence of the fire. It all lasted barely three minutes. Down below the jumbled roofs of the Borgo became steeped in violet vapour, sank into increasing gloom, whilst from the Janiculum to Monte Mario the horizon showed its firm black line. And it was the sky then which became all purple and gold, displaying the infinite placidity of a supernatural radiance above the earth which faded into nihility. Finally the last window reflections were extinguished, the glow of the heavens departed, and nothing remained but the vague, fading roundness of the dome of St. Peter's amidst the all-invading night. And, by some subtle connection of ideas, Pierre at that moment once again saw rising before him the lofty, sad, declining figures of Cardinal Boccanera and old Orlando. On the evening of that day when he had learnt to know them, one after the other, both so great in the obstinacy of their hope, they seemed to be there, erect on the horizon above their annihilated city, on the fringe of the heavens which death apparently was about to seize. Was everything then to crumble with them? was everything to fade away and disappear in the falling night following upon accomplished Time? V ON the following day Narcisse Habert came in great worry to tell Pierre that Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo complained of being unwell, and asked for a delay of two or three days before receiving the young priest and considering the matter of his audience. Pierre was thus reduced to inaction, for he dared not make any attempt elsewhere in view of seeing the Pope. He had been so frightened by Nani and others that he feared he might jeopardise everything by inconsiderate endeavours. And so he began to visit Rome in order to occupy his leisure. His first visit was for the ruins of the Palatine. Going out alone one clear morning at eight o'clock, he presented himself at the entrance in the Via San Teodoro, an iron gateway flanked by the lodges of the keepers. One of the latter at once offered his services, and though Pierre would have preferred to roam at will, following the bent of his dream, he somehow did not like to refuse the offer of this man, who spoke French very distinctly, and smiled in a very good-natured way. He was a squatly built little man, a former soldier, some sixty years of age, and his square-cut, ruddy face was barred by thick white moustaches. "Then will you please follow me, Monsieur l'Abbe," said he. "I can see that you are French, Monsieur l'Abbe. I'm a Piedmontese myself, but I know the French well enough; I was with them at Solferino. Yes, yes, whatever people may say, one can't forget old friendships. Here, this way, please, to the right." Raising his eyes, Pierre had just perceived the line of cypresses edging the plateau of the Palatine on the side of the Tiber; and in the delicate blue atmosphere the intense greenery of these trees showed like a black fringe. They alone attracted the eye; the slope, of a dusty, dirty grey, stretched out bare and devastated, dotted by a few bushes, among which peeped fragments of ancient walls. All was instinct with the ravaged, leprous sadness of a spot handed over to excavation, and where only men of learning could wax enthusiastic. "The palaces of Tiberius, Caligula, and the Flavians are up above," resumed the guide. "We must keep then for the end and go round." Nevertheless he took a few steps to the left, and pausing before an excavation, a sort of grotto in the hillside, exclaimed: "This is the Lupercal den where the wolf suckled Romulus and Remus. Just here at the entry used to stand the Ruminal fig-tree which sheltered the twins." Pierre could not restrain a smile, so convinced was the tone in which the old soldier gave these explanations, proud as he was of all the ancient glory, and wont to regard the wildest legends as indisputable facts. However, when the worthy man pointed out some vestiges of Roma Quadrata--remnants of walls which really seemed to date from the foundation of the city--Pierre began to feel interested, and a first touch of emotion made his heart beat. This emotion was certainly not due to any beauty of scene, for he merely beheld a few courses of tufa blocks, placed one upon the other and uncemented. But a past which had been dead for seven and twenty centuries seemed to rise up before him, and those crumbling, blackened blocks, the foundation of such a mighty eclipse of power and splendour, acquired extraordinary majesty. Continuing their inspection, they went on, skirting the hillside. The outbuildings of the palaces must have descended to this point; fragments of porticoes, fallen beams, columns and friezes set up afresh, edged the rugged path which wound through wild weeds, suggesting a neglected cemetery; and the guide repeated the words which he had used day by day for ten years past, continuing to enunciate suppositions as facts, and giving a name, a destination, a history, to every one of the fragments. "The house of Augustus," he said at last, pointing towards some masses of earth and rubbish. Thereupon Pierre, unable to distinguish anything, ventured to inquire: "Where do you mean?" "Oh!" said the man, "it seems that the walls were still to be seen at the end of the last century. But it was entered from the other side, from the Sacred Way. On this side there was a huge balcony which overlooked the Circus Maximus so that one could view the sports. However, as you can see, the greater part of the palace is still buried under that big garden up above, the garden of the Villa Mills. When there's money for fresh excavations it will be found again, together with the temple of Apollo and the shrine of Vesta which accompanied it." Turning to the left, he next entered the Stadium, the arena erected for foot-racing, which stretched beside the palace of Augustus; and the priest's interest was now once more awakened. It was not that he found himself in presence of well-preserved and monumental remains, for not a column had remained erect, and only the right-hand walls were still standing. But the entire plan of the building had been traced, with the goals at either end, the porticus round the course, and the colossal imperial tribune which, after being on the left, annexed to the house of Augustus, had afterwards opened on the right, fitting into the palace of Septimius Severus. And while Pierre looked on all the scattered remnants, his guide went on chattering, furnishing the most copious and precise information, and declaring that the gentlemen who directed the excavations had mentally reconstructed the Stadium in each and every particular, and were even preparing a most exact plan of it, showing all the columns in their proper order and the statues in their niches, and even specifying the divers sorts of marble which had covered the walls. "Oh! the directors are quite at ease," the old soldier eventually added with an air of infinite satisfaction. "There will be nothing for the Germans to pounce on here. They won't be allowed to set things topsy-turvy as they did at the Forum, where everybody's at sea since they came along with their wonderful science!" Pierre--a Frenchman--smiled, and his interest increased when, by broken steps and wooden bridges thrown over gaps, he followed the guide into the great ruins of the palace of Severus. Rising on the southern point of the Palatine, this palace had overlooked the Appian Way and the Campagna as far as the eye could reach. Nowadays, almost the only remains are the substructures, the subterranean halls contrived under the arches of the terraces, by which the plateau of the hill was enlarged; and yet these dismantled substructures suffice to give some idea of the triumphant palace which they once upheld, so huge and powerful have they remained in their indestructible massiveness. Near by arose the famous Septizonium, the tower with the seven tiers of arcades, which only finally disappeared in the sixteenth century. One of the palace terraces yet juts out upon cyclopean arches and from it the view is splendid. But all the rest is a commingling of massive yet crumbling walls, gaping depths whose ceilings have fallen, endless corridors and vast halls of doubtful destination. Well cared for by the new administration, swept and cleansed of weeds, the ruins have lost their romantic wildness and assumed an aspect of bare and mournful grandeur. However, flashes of living sunlight often gild the ancient walls, penetrate by their breaches into the black halls, and animate with their dazzlement the mute melancholy of all this dead splendour now exhumed from the earth in which it slumbered for centuries. Over the old ruddy masonry, stripped of its pompous marble covering, is the purple mantle of the sunlight, draping the whole with imperial glory once more. For more than two hours already Pierre had been walking on, and yet he still had to visit all the earlier palaces on the north and east of the plateau. "We must go back," said the guide, "the gardens of the Villa Mills and the convent of San Bonaventura stop the way. We shall only be able to pass on this side when the excavations have made a clearance. Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe, if you had walked over the Palatine merely some fifty years ago! I've seen some plans of that time. There were only some vineyards and little gardens with hedges then, a real campagna, where not a soul was to be met. And to think that all these palaces were sleeping underneath!" Pierre followed him, and after again passing the house of Augustus, they ascended the slope and reached the vast Flavian palace,* still half buried by the neighbouring villa, and composed of a great number of halls large and small, on the nature of which scholars are still arguing. The aula regia, or throne-room, the basilica, or hall of justice, the triclinium, or dining-room, and the peristylium seem certainties; but for all the rest, and especially the small chambers of the private part of the structure, only more or less fanciful conjectures can be offered. Moreover, not a wall is entire; merely foundations peep out of the ground, mutilated bases describing the plan of the edifice. The only ruin preserved, as if by miracle, is the house on a lower level which some assert to have been that of Livia,* a house which seems very small beside all the huge palaces, and where are three halls comparatively intact, with mural paintings of mythological scenes, flowers, and fruits, still wonderfully fresh. As for the palace of Tiberius, not one of its stones can be seen; its remains lie buried beneath a lovely public garden; whilst of the neighbouring palace of Caligula, overhanging the Forum, there are only some huge substructures, akin to those of the house of Severus--buttresses, lofty arcades, which upheld the palace, vast basements, so to say, where the praetorians were posted and gorged themselves with continual junketings. And thus this lofty plateau dominating the city merely offered some scarcely recognisable vestiges to the view, stretches of grey, bare soil turned up by the pick, and dotted with fragments of old walls; and it needed a real effort of scholarly imagination to conjure up the ancient imperial splendour which once had triumphed there. * Begun by Vespasian and finished by Domitian.--Trans. ** Others assert it to have been the house of Germanicus, father of Caligula.--Trans. Nevertheless Pierre's guide, with quiet conviction, persisted in his explanations, pointing to empty space as though the edifices still rose before him. "Here," said he, "we are in the Area Palatina. Yonder, you see, is the facade of Domitian's palace, and there you have that of Caligula's palace, while on turning round the temple of Jupiter Stator is in front of you. The Sacred Way came up as far as here, and passed under the Porta Mugonia, one of the three gates of primitive Rome." He paused and pointed to the northwest portion of the height. "You will have noticed," he resumed, "that the Caesars didn't build yonder. And that was evidently because they had to respect some very ancient monuments dating from before the foundation of the city and greatly venerated by the people. There stood the temple of Victory built by Evander and his Arcadians, the Lupercal grotto which I showed you, and the humble hut of Romulus constructed of reeds and clay. Oh! everything has been found again, Monsieur l'Abbe; and, in spite of all that the Germans say there isn't the slightest doubt of it." Then, quite abruptly, like a man suddenly remembering the most interesting thing of all, he exclaimed: "Ah! to wind up we'll just go to see the subterranean gallery where Caligula was murdered." Thereupon they descended into a long crypto-porticus, through the breaches of which the sun now casts bright rays. Some ornaments of stucco and fragments of mosaic-work are yet to be seen. Still the spot remains mournful and desolate, well fitted for tragic horror. The old soldier's voice had become graver as he related how Caligula, on returning from the Palatine games, had been minded to descend all alone into this gallery to witness certain sacred dances which some youths from Asia were practising there. And then it was that the gloom gave Cassius Chaereas, the chief of the conspirators, an opportunity to deal him the first thrust in the abdomen. Howling with pain, the emperor sought to flee; but the assassins, his creatures, his dearest friends, rushed upon him, threw him down, and dealt him blow after blow, whilst he, mad with rage and fright, filled the dim, deaf gallery with the howling of a slaughtered beast. When he had expired, silence fell once more, and the frightened murderers fled. The classical visit to the Palatine was now over, and when Pierre came up into the light again, he wished to rid himself of his guide and remain alone in the pleasant, dreamy garden on the summit of the height. For three hours he had been tramping about with the guide's voice buzzing in his ears. The worthy man was now talking of his friendship for France and relating the battle of Magenta in great detail. He smiled as he took the piece of silver which Pierre offered him, and then started on the battle of Solferino. Indeed, it seemed impossible to stop him, when fortunately a lady came up to ask for some information. And, thereupon, he went off with her. "Good-evening, Monsieur l'Abbe," he said; "you can go down by way of Caligula's palace." Delightful was Pierre's relief when he was at last able to rest for a moment on one of the marble seats in the garden. There were but few clumps of trees, cypresses, box-trees, palms, and some fine evergreen oaks; but the latter, sheltering the seat, cast a dark shade of exquisite freshness around. The charm of the spot was also largely due to its dreamy solitude, to the low rustle which seemed to come from that ancient soil saturated with resounding history. Here formerly had been the pleasure grounds of the Villa Farnese which still exists though greatly damaged, and the grace of the Renascence seems to linger here, its breath passing caressingly through the shiny foliage of the old evergreen oaks. You are, as it were, enveloped by the soul of the past, an ethereal conglomeration of visions, and overhead is wafted the straying breath of innumerable generations buried beneath the sod. After a time, however, Pierre could no longer remain seated, so powerful was the attraction of Rome, scattered all around that august summit. So he rose and approached the balustrade of a terrace; and beneath him appeared the Forum, and beyond it the Capitoline hill. To the eye the latter now only presented a commingling of grey buildings, lacking both grandeur and beauty. On the summit one saw the rear of the Palace of the Senator, flat, with little windows, and surmounted by a high, square campanile. The large, bare, rusty-looking walls hid the church of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli and the spot where the temple of Capitoline Jove had formerly stood, radiant in all its royalty. On the left, some ugly houses rose terrace-wise upon the slope of Monte Caprino, where goats were pastured in the middle ages; while the few fine trees in the grounds of the Caffarelli palace, the present German embassy, set some greenery above the ancient Tarpeian rock now scarcely to be found, lost, hidden as it is, by buttress walls. Yet this was the Mount of the Capitol, the most glorious of the seven hills, with its citadel and its temple, the temple to which universal dominion was promised, the St. Peter's of pagan Rome; this indeed was the hill--steep on the side of the Forum, and a precipice on that of the Campus Martius--where the thunder of Jupiter fell, where in the dimmest of the far-off ages the Asylum of Romulus rose with its sacred oaks, a spot of infinite savage mystery. Here, later, were preserved the public documents of Roman grandeur inscribed on tablets of brass; hither climbed the heroes of the triumphs; and here the emperors became gods, erect in statues of marble. And nowadays the eye inquires wonderingly how so much history and so much glory can have had for their scene so small a space, such a rugged, jumbled pile of paltry buildings, a mole-hill, looking no bigger, no loftier than a hamlet perched between two valleys. Then another surprise for Pierre was the Forum, starting from the Capitol and stretching out below the Palatine: a narrow square, close pressed by the neighbouring hills, a hollow where Rome in growing had been compelled to rear edifice close to edifice till all stifled for lack of breathing space. It was necessary to dig very deep--some fifty feet--to find the venerable republican soil, and now all you see is a long, clean, livid trench, cleared of ivy and bramble, where the fragments of paving, the bases of columns, and the piles of foundations appear like bits of bone. Level with the ground the Basilica Julia, entirely mapped out, looks like an architect's ground plan. On that side the arch of Septimius Severus alone rears itself aloft, virtually intact, whilst of the temple of Vespasian only a few isolated columns remain still standing, as if by miracle, amidst the general downfall, soaring with a proud elegance, with sovereign audacity of equilibrium, so slender and so gilded, into the blue heavens. The column of Phocas is also erect; and you see some portions of the Rostra fitted together out of fragments discovered near by. But if the eye seeks a sensation of extraordinary vastness, it must travel beyond the three columns of the temple of Castor and Pollux, beyond the vestiges of the house of the Vestals, beyond the temple of Faustina, in which the Christian Church of San Lorenzo has so composedly installed itself, and even beyond the round temple of Romulus, to light upon the Basilica of Constantine with its three colossal, gaping archways. From the Palatine they look like porches built for a nation of giants, so massive that a fallen fragment resembles some huge rock hurled by a whirlwind from a mountain summit. And there, in that illustrious, narrow, overflowing Forum the history of the greatest of nations held for centuries, from the legendary time of the Sabine women, reconciling their relatives and their ravishers, to that of the proclamation of public liberty, so slowly wrung from the patricians by the plebeians. Was not the Forum at once the market, the exchange, the tribunal, the open-air hall of public meeting? The Gracchi there defended the cause of the humble; Sylla there set up the lists of those whom he proscribed; Cicero there spoke, and there, against the rostra, his bleeding head was hung. Then, under the emperors, the old renown was dimmed, the centuries buried the monuments and temples with such piles of dust that all that the middle ages could do was to turn the spot into a cattle market! Respect has come back once more, a respect which violates tombs, which is full of feverish curiosity and science, which is dissatisfied with mere hypotheses, which loses itself amidst this historical soil where generations rise one above the other, and hesitates between the fifteen or twenty restorations of the Forum that have been planned on paper, each of them as plausible as the other. But to the mere passer-by, who is not a professional scholar and has not recently re-perused the history of Rome, the details have no significance. All he sees on this searched and scoured spot is a city's cemetery where old exhumed stones are whitening, and whence rises the intense sadness that envelops dead nations. Pierre, however, noting here and there fragments of the Sacred Way, now turning, now running down, and now ascending with their pavement of silex indented by the chariot-wheels, thought of the triumphs, of the ascent of the triumpher, so sorely shaken as his chariot jolted over that rough pavement of glory. But the horizon expanded towards the southeast, and beyond the arches of Titus and Constantine he perceived the Colosseum. Ah! that colossus, only one-half or so of which has been destroyed by time as with the stroke of a mighty scythe, it rises in its enormity and majesty like a stone lace-work with hundreds of empty bays agape against the blue of heaven! There is a world of halls, stairs, landings, and passages, a world where one loses oneself amidst death-like silence and solitude. The furrowed tiers of seats, eaten into by the atmosphere, are like shapeless steps leading down into some old extinct crater, some natural circus excavated by the force of the elements in indestructible rock. The hot suns of eighteen hundred years have baked and scorched this ruin, which has reverted to a state of nature, bare and golden-brown like a mountain-side, since it has been stripped of its vegetation, the flora which once made it like a virgin forest. And what an evocation when the mind sets flesh and blood and life again on all that dead osseous framework, fills the circus with the 90,000 spectators which it could hold, marshals the games and the combats of the arena, gathers a whole civilisation together, from the emperor and the dignitaries to the surging plebeian sea, all aglow with the agitation and brilliancy of an impassioned people, assembled under the ruddy reflection of the giant purple velum. And then, yet further, on the horizon, were other cyclopean ruins, the baths of Caracalla, standing there like relics of a race of giants long since vanished from the world: halls extravagantly and inexplicably spacious and lofty; vestibules large enough for an entire population; a /frigidarium/ where five hundred people could swim together; a /tepidarium/ and a /calidarium/* on the same proportions, born of a wild craving for the huge; and then the terrific massiveness of the structures, the thickness of the piles of brick-work, such as no feudal castle ever knew; and, in addition, the general immensity which makes passing visitors look like lost ants; such an extraordinary riot of the great and the mighty that one wonders for what men, for what multitudes, this monstrous edifice was reared. To-day, you would say a mass of rocks in the rough, thrown from some height for building the abode of Titans. * Tepidarium, warm bath; calidarium, vapour bath.--Trans. And as Pierre gazed, he became more and more immersed in the limitless past which encompassed him. On all sides history rose up like a surging sea. Those bluey plains on the north and west were ancient Etruria; those jagged crests on the east were the Sabine Mountains; while southward, the Alban Mountains and Latium spread out in the streaming gold of the sunshine. Alba Longa was there, and so was Monte Cavo, with its crown of old trees, and the convent which has taken the place of the ancient temple of Jupiter. Then beyond the Forum, beyond the Capitol, the greater part of Rome stretched out, whilst behind Pierre, on the margin of the Tiber, was the Janiculum. And a voice seemed to come from the whole city, a voice which told him of Rome's eternal life, resplendent with past greatness. He remembered just enough of what he had been taught at school to realise where he was; he knew just what every one knows of Rome with no pretension to scholarship, and it was more particularly his artistic temperament which awoke within him and gathered warmth from the flame of memory. The present had disappeared, and the ocean of the past was still rising, buoying him up, carrying him away. And then his mind involuntarily pictured a resurrection instinct with life. The grey, dismal Palatine, razed like some accursed city, suddenly became animated, peopled, crowned with palaces and temples. There had been the cradle of the Eternal City, founded by Romulus on that summit overlooking the Tiber. There assuredly the seven kings of its two and a half centuries of monarchical rule had dwelt, enclosed within high, strong walls, which had but three gateways. Then the five centuries of republican sway spread out, the greatest, the most glorious of all the centuries, those which brought the Italic peninsula and finally the known world under Roman dominion. During those victorious years of social and war-like struggle, Rome grew and peopled the seven hills, and the Palatine became but a venerable cradle with legendary temples, and was even gradually invaded by private residences. But at last Caesar, the incarnation of the power of his race, after Gaul and after Pharsalia triumphed in the name of the whole Roman people, having completed the colossal task by which the five following centuries of imperialism were to profit, with a pompous splendour and a rush of every appetite. And then Augustus could ascend to power; glory had reached its climax; millions of gold were waiting to be filched from the depths of the provinces; and the imperial gala was to begin in the world's capital, before the eyes of the dazzled and subjected nations. Augustus had been born on the Palatine, and after Actium had given him the empire, he set his pride in reigning from the summit of that sacred mount, venerated by the people. He bought up private houses and there built his palace with luxurious splendour: an atrium upheld by four pilasters and eight columns; a peristylium encompassed by fifty-six Ionic columns; private apartments all around, and all in marble; a profusion of marble, brought at great cost from foreign lands, and of the brightest hues, resplendent like gems. And he lodged himself with the gods, building near his own abode a large temple of Apollo and a shrine of Vesta in order to ensure himself divine and eternal sovereignty. And then the seed of the imperial palaces was sown; they were to spring up, grow and swarm, and cover the entire mount. Ah! the all-powerfulness of Augustus, his four and forty years of total, absolute, superhuman power, such as no despot has known even in his dreams! He had taken to himself every title, united every magistracy in his person. Imperator and consul, he commanded the armies and exercised executive power; pro-consul, he was supreme in the provinces; perpetual censor and princeps, he reigned over the senate; tribune, he was the master of the people. And, formerly called Octavius, he had caused himself to be declared Augustus, sacred, god among men, having his temples and his priests, worshipped in his lifetime like a divinity deigning to visit the earth. And finally he had resolved to be supreme pontiff, annexing religious to civil power, and thus by a stroke of genius attaining to the most complete dominion to which man can climb. As the supreme pontiff could not reside in a private house, he declared his abode to be State property. As the supreme pontiff could not leave the vicinity of the temple of Vesta, he built a temple to that goddess near his own dwelling, leaving the guardianship of the ancient altar below the Palatine to the Vestal virgins. He spared no effort, for he well realised that human omnipotence, the mastery of mankind and the world, lay in that reunion of sovereignty, in being both king and priest, emperor and pope. All the sap of a mighty race, all the victories achieved, and all the favours of fortune yet to be garnered, blossomed forth in Augustus, in a unique splendour which was never again to shed such brilliant radiance. He was really the master of the world, amidst the conquered and pacified nations, encompassed by immortal glory in literature and in art. In him would seem to have been satisfied the old intense ambition of his people, the ambition which it had pursued through centuries of patient conquest, to become the people-king. The blood of Rome, the blood of Augustus, at last coruscated in the sunlight, in the purple of empire. And the blood of Augustus, of the divine, triumphant, absolute sovereign of bodies and souls, of the man in whom seven centuries of national pride had culminated, was to descend through the ages, through an innumerable posterity with a heritage of boundless pride and ambition. For it was fatal: the blood of Augustus was bound to spring into life once more and pulsate in the veins of all the successive masters of Rome, ever haunting them with the dream of ruling the whole world. And later on, after the decline and fall, when power had once more become divided between the king and the priest, the popes--their hearts burning with the red, devouring blood of their great forerunner--had no other passion, no other policy, through the centuries, than that of attaining to civil dominion, to the totality of human power. But Augustus being dead, his palace having been closed and consecrated, Pierre saw that of Tiberius spring up from the soil. It had stood where his feet now rested, where the beautiful evergreen oaks sheltered him. He pictured it with courts, porticoes, and halls, both substantial and grand, despite the gloomy bent of the emperor who betook himself far from Rome to live amongst informers and debauchees, with his heart and brain poisoned by power to the point of crime and most extraordinary insanity. Then the palace of Caligula followed, an enlargement of that of Tiberius, with arcades set up to increase its extent, and a bridge thrown over the Forum to the Capitol, in order that the prince might go thither at his ease to converse with Jove, whose son he claimed to be. And sovereignty also rendered this one ferocious--a madman with omnipotence to do as he listed! Then, after Claudius, Nero, not finding the Palatine large enough, seized upon the delightful gardens climbing the Esquiline in order to set up his Golden House, a dream of sumptuous immensity which he could not complete and the ruins of which disappeared in the troubles following the death of this monster whom pride demented. Next, in eighteen months, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius fell one upon the other, in mire and in blood, the purple converting them also into imbeciles and monsters, gorged like unclean beasts at the trough of imperial enjoyment. And afterwards came the Flavians, at first a respite, with commonsense and human kindness: Vespasian; next Titus, who built but little on the Palatine; but then Domitian, in whom the sombre madness of omnipotence burst forth anew amidst a /regime/ of fear and spying, idiotic atrocities and crimes, debauchery contrary to nature, and building enterprises born of insane vanity instinct with a desire to outvie the temples of the gods. The palace of Domitian, parted by a lane from that of Tiberius, arose colossal-like--a palace of fairyland. There was the hall of audience, with its throne of gold, its sixteen columns of Phrygian and Numidian marble and its eight niches containing colossal statues; there were the hall of justice, the vast dining-room, the peristylium, the sleeping apartments, where granite, porphyry, and alabaster overflowed, carved and decorated by the most famous artists, and lavished on all sides in order to dazzle the world. And finally, many years later, a last palace was added to all the others--that of Septimius Severus: again a building of pride, with arches supporting lofty halls, terraced storeys, towers o'er-topping the roofs, a perfect Babylonian pile, rising up at the extreme point of the mount in view of the Appian Way, so that the emperor's compatriots--those from the province of Africa, where he was born--might, on reaching the horizon, marvel at his fortune and worship him in his glory. And now Pierre beheld all those palaces which he had conjured up around him, resuscitated, resplendent in the full sunlight. They were as if linked together, parted merely by the narrowest of passages. In order that not an inch of that precious summit might be lost, they had sprouted thickly like the monstrous florescence of strength, power, and unbridled pride which satisfied itself at the cost of millions, bleeding the whole world for the enjoyment of one man. And in truth there was but one palace altogether, a palace enlarged as soon as one emperor died and was placed among the deities, and another, shunning the consecrated pile where possibly the shadow of death frightened him, experienced an imperious need to build a house of his own and perpetuate in everlasting stone the memory of his reign. All the emperors were seized with this building craze; it was like a disease which the very throne seemed to carry from one occupant to another with growing intensity, a consuming desire to excel all predecessors by thicker and higher walls, by a more and more wonderful profusion of marbles, columns, and statues. And among all these princes there was the idea of a glorious survival, of leaving a testimony of their greatness to dazzled and stupefied generations, of perpetuating themselves by marvels which would not perish but for ever weigh heavily upon the earth, when their own light ashes should long since have been swept away by the winds. And thus the Palatine became but the venerable base of a monstrous edifice, a thick vegetation of adjoining buildings, each new pile being like a fresh eruption of feverish pride; while the whole, now showing the snowy brightness of white marble and now the glowing hues of coloured marble, ended by crowning Rome and the world with the most extraordinary and most insolent abode of sovereignty-- whether palace, temple, basilica, or cathedral--that omnipotence and dominion have ever reared under the heavens. But death lurked beneath this excess of strength and glory. Seven hundred and thirty years of monarchy and republic had sufficed to make Rome great; and in five centuries of imperial sway the people-king was to be devoured down to its last muscles. There was the immensity of the territory, the more distant provinces gradually pillaged and exhausted; there was the fisc consuming everything, digging the pit of fatal bankruptcy; and there was the degeneration of the people, poisoned by the scenes of the circus and the arena, fallen to the sloth and debauchery of their masters, the Caesars, while mercenaries fought the foe and tilled the soil. Already at the time of Constantine, Rome had a rival, Byzantium; disruption followed with Honorius; and then some ten emperors sufficed for decomposition to be complete, for the bones of the dying prey to be picked clean, the end coming with Romulus Augustulus, the sorry creature whose name is, so to say, a mockery of the whole glorious history, a buffet for both the founder of Rome and the founder of the empire. The palaces, the colossal assemblage of walls, storeys, terraces, and gaping roofs, still remained on the deserted Palatine; many ornaments and statues, however, had already been removed to Byzantium. And the empire, having become Christian, had afterwards closed the temples and extinguished the fire of Vesta, whilst yet respecting the ancient Palladium. But in the fifth century the barbarians rush upon Rome, sack and burn it, and carry the spoils spared by the flames away in their chariots. As long as the city was dependent on Byzantium a custodian of the imperial palaces remained there watching over the Palatine. Then all fades and crumbles in the night of the middle ages. It would really seem that the popes then slowly took the place of the Caesars, succeeding them both in their abandoned marble halls and their ever-subsisting passion for domination. Some of them assuredly dwelt in the palace of Septimius Severus; a council of the Church was held in the Septizonium; and, later on, Gelasius II was elected in a neighbouring monastery on the sacred mount. It was as if Augustus were again rising from the tomb, once more master of the world, with a Sacred College of Cardinals resuscitating the Roman Senate. In the twelfth century the Septizonium belonged to some Benedictine monks, and was sold by them to the powerful Frangipani family, who fortified it as they had already fortified the Colosseum and the arches of Constantine and Titus, thus forming a vast fortress round about the venerable cradle of the city. And the violent deeds of civil war and the ravages of invasion swept by like whirlwinds, throwing down the walls, razing the palaces and towers. And afterwards successive generations invaded the ruins, installed themselves in them by right of trover and conquest, turned them into cellars, store-places for forage, and stables for mules. Kitchen gardens were formed, vines were planted on the spots where fallen soil had covered the mosaics of the imperial halls. All around nettles and brambles grew up, and ivy preyed on the overturned porticoes, till there came a day when the colossal assemblage of palaces and temples, which marble was to have rendered eternal, seemed to dive beneath the dust, to disappear under the surging soil and vegetation which impassive Nature threw over it. And then, in the hot sunlight, among the wild flowerets, only big, buzzing flies remained, whilst herds of goats strayed in freedom through the throne-room of Domitian and the fallen sanctuary of Apollo. A great shudder passed through Pierre. To think of so much strength, pride, and grandeur, and such rapid ruin--a world for ever swept away! He wondered how entire palaces, yet peopled by admirable statuary, could thus have been gradually buried without any one thinking of protecting them. It was no sudden catastrophe which had swallowed up those masterpieces, subsequently to be disinterred with exclamations of admiring wonder; they had been drowned, as it were--caught progressively by the legs, the waist, and the neck, till at last the head had sunk beneath the rising tide. And how could one explain that generations had heedlessly witnessed such things without thought of putting forth a helping hand? It would seem as if, at a given moment, a black curtain were suddenly drawn across the world, as if mankind began afresh, with a new and empty brain which needed moulding and furnishing. Rome had become depopulated; men ceased to repair the ruins left by fire and sword; the edifices which by their very immensity had become useless were utterly neglected, allowed to crumble and fall. And then, too, the new religion everywhere hunted down the old one, stole its temples, overturned its gods. Earthly deposits probably completed the disaster--there were, it is said, both earthquakes and inundations--and the soil was ever rising, the alluvia of the young Christian world buried the ancient pagan society. And after the pillaging of the temples, the theft of the bronze roofs and marble columns, the climax came with the filching of the stones torn from the Colosseum and the Theatre of Marcellus, with the pounding of the statuary and sculpture-work, thrown into kilns to procure the lime needed for the new monuments of Catholic Rome. It was nearly one o'clock, and Pierre awoke as from a dream. The sun-rays were streaming in a golden rain between the shiny leaves of the ever-green oaks above him, and down below Rome lay dozing, overcome by the great heat. Then he made up his mind to leave the garden, and went stumbling over the rough pavement of the Clivus Victoriae, his mind still haunted by blinding visions. To complete his day, he had resolved to visit the old Appian Way during the afternoon, and, unwilling to return to the Via Giulia, he lunched at a suburban tavern, in a large, dim room, where, alone with the buzzing flies, he lingered for more than two hours, awaiting the sinking of the sun. Ah! that Appian Way, that ancient queen of the high roads, crossing the Campagna in a long straight line with rows of proud tombs on either hand--to Pierre it seemed like a triumphant prolongation of the Palatine. He there found the same passion for splendour and domination, the same craving to eternise the memory of Roman greatness in marble and daylight. Oblivion was vanquished; the dead refused to rest, and remained for ever erect among the living, on either side of that road which was traversed by multitudes from the entire world. The deified images of those who were now but dust still gazed on the passers-by with empty eyes; the inscriptions still spoke, proclaiming names and titles. In former times the rows of sepulchres must have extended without interruption along all the straight, level miles between the tomb of Caecilia Metella and that of Casale Rotondo, forming an elongated cemetery where the powerful and wealthy competed as to who should leave the most colossal and lavishly decorated mausoleum: such, indeed, was the craving for survival, the passion for pompous immortality, the desire to deify death by lodging it in temples; whereof the present-day monumental splendour of the Genoese Campo Santo and the Roman Campo Verano is, so to say, a remote inheritance. And what a vision it was to picture all the tremendous tombs on the right and left of the glorious pavement which the legions trod on their return from the conquest of the world! That tomb of Caecilia Metella, with its bond-stones so huge, its walls so thick that the middle ages transformed it into the battlemented keep of a fortress! And then all the tombs which follow, the modern structures erected in order that the marble fragments discovered might be set in place, the old blocks of brick and concrete, despoiled of their sculptured-work and rising up like seared rocks, yet still suggesting their original shapes as shrines, /cippi/, and /sarcophagi/. There is a wondrous succession of high reliefs figuring the dead in groups of three and five; statues in which the dead live deified, erect; seats contrived in niches in order that wayfarers may rest and bless the hospitality of the dead; laudatory epitaphs celebrating the dead, both the known and the unknown, the children of Sextius Pompeius Justus, the departed Marcus Servilius Quartus, Hilarius Fuscus, Rabirius Hermodorus; without counting the sepulchres venturously ascribed to Seneca and the Horatii and Curiatii. And finally there is the most extraordinary and gigantic of all the tombs, that known as Casale Rotondo, which is so large that it has been possible to establish a farmhouse and an olive garden on its substructures, which formerly upheld a double rotunda, adorned with Corinthian pilasters, large candelabra, and scenic masks.* * Some believe this tomb to have been that of Messalla Corvinus, the historian and poet, a friend of Augustus and Horace; others ascribe it to his son, Aurelius Messallinus Cotta.--Trans. Pierre, having driven in a cab as far as the tomb of Caecilia Metella, continued his excursion on foot, going slowly towards Casale Rotondo. In many places the old pavement appears--large blocks of basaltic lava, worn into deep ruts that jolt the best-hung vehicles. Among the ruined tombs on either hand run bands of grass, the neglected grass of cemeteries, scorched by the summer suns and sprinkled with big violet thistles and tall sulphur-wort. Parapets of dry stones, breast high, enclose the russet roadsides, which resound with the crepitation of grasshoppers; and, beyond, the Campagna stretches, vast and bare, as far as the eye can see. A parasol pine, a eucalyptus, some olive or fig trees, white with dust, alone rise up near the road at infrequent intervals. On the left the ruddy arches of the Acqua Claudia show vigorously in the meadows, and stretches of poorly cultivated land, vineyards, and little farms, extend to the blue and lilac Sabine and Alban hills, where Frascati, Rocca di Papa, and Albano set bright spots, which grow and whiten as one gets nearer to them. Then, on the right, towards the sea, the houseless, treeless plain grows and spreads with vast, broad ripples, extraordinary ocean-like simplicity and grandeur, a long, straight line alone parting it from the sky. At the height of summer all burns and flares on this limitless prairie, then of a ruddy gold; but in September a green tinge begins to suffuse the ocean of herbage, which dies away in the pink and mauve and vivid blue of the fine sunsets. As Pierre, quite alone and in a dreary mood, slowly paced the endless, flat highway, that resurrection of the past which he had beheld on the Palatine again confronted his mind's eye. On either hand the tombs once more rose up intact, with marble of dazzling whiteness. Had not the head of a colossal statue been found, mingled with fragments of huge sphinxes, at the foot of yonder vase-shaped mass of bricks? He seemed to see the entire colossal statue standing again between the huge, crouching beasts. Farther on a beautiful headless statue of a woman had been discovered in the cella of a sepulchre, and he beheld it, again whole, with features expressive of grace and strength smiling upon life. The inscriptions also became perfect; he could read and understand them at a glance, as if living among those dead ones of two thousand years ago. And the road, too, became peopled: the chariots thundered, the armies tramped along, the people of Rome jostled him with the feverish agitation of great communities. It was a return of the times of the Flavians or the Antonines, the palmy years of the empire, when the pomp of the Appian Way, with its grand sepulchres, carved and adorned like temples, attained its apogee. What a monumental Street of Death, what an approach to Rome, that highway, straight as an arrow, where with the extraordinary pomp of their pride, which had survived their dust, the great dead greeted the traveller, ushered him into the presence of the living! He may well have wondered among what sovereign people, what masters of the world, he was about to find himself--a nation which had committed to its dead the duty of telling strangers that it allowed nothing whatever to perish--that its dead, like its city, remained eternal and glorious in monuments of extraordinary vastness! To think of it--the foundations of a fortress, and a tower sixty feet in diameter, that one woman might be laid to rest! And then, far away, at the end of the superb, dazzling highway, bordered with the marble of its funereal palaces, Pierre, turning round, distinctly beheld the Palatine, with the marble of its imperial palaces--the huge assemblage of palaces whose omnipotence had dominated the world! But suddenly he started: two carabiniers had just appeared among the ruins. The spot was not safe; the authorities watched over tourists even in broad daylight. And later on came another meeting which caused him some emotion. He perceived an ecclesiastic, a tall old man, in a black cassock, edged and girt with red; and was surprised to recognise Cardinal Boccanera, who had quitted the roadway, and was slowly strolling along the band of grass, among the tall thistles and sulphur-wort. With his head lowered and his feet brushing against the fragments of the tombs, the Cardinal did not even see Pierre. The young priest courteously turned aside, surprised to find him so far from home and alone. Then, on perceiving a heavy coach, drawn by two black horses, behind a building, he understood matters. A footman in black livery was waiting motionless beside the carriage, and the coachman had not quitted his box. And Pierre remembered that the Cardinals were not expected to walk in Rome, so that they were compelled to drive into the country when they desired to take exercise. But what haughty sadness, what solitary and, so to say, ostracised grandeur there was about that tall, thoughtful old man, thus forced to seek the desert, and wander among the tombs, in order to breathe a little of the evening air! Pierre had lingered there for long hours; the twilight was coming on, and once again he witnessed a lovely sunset. On his left the Campagna became blurred, and assumed a slaty hue, against which the yellowish arcades of the aqueduct showed very plainly, while the Alban hills, far away, faded into pink. Then, on the right, towards the sea, the planet sank among a number of cloudlets, figuring an archipelago of gold in an ocean of dying embers. And excepting the sapphire sky, studded with rubies, above the endless line of the Campagna, which was likewise changed into a sparkling lake, the dull green of the herbage turning to a liquid emerald tint, there was nothing to be seen, neither a hillock nor a flock--nothing, indeed, but Cardinal Boccanera's black figure, erect among the tombs, and looking, as it were, enlarged as it stood out against the last purple flush of the sunset. Early on the following morning Pierre, eager to see everything, returned to the Appian Way in order to visit the catacomb of St. Calixtus, the most extensive and remarkable of the old Christian cemeteries, and one, too, where several of the early popes were buried. You ascend through a scorched garden, past olives and cypresses, reach a shanty of boards and plaster in which a little trade in "articles of piety" is carried on, and there a modern and fairly easy flight of steps enables you to descend. Pierre fortunately found there some French Trappists, who guard these catacombs and show them to strangers. One brother was on the point of going down with two French ladies, the mother and daughter, the former still comely and the other radiant with youth. They stood there smiling, though already slightly frightened, while the monk lighted some long, slim candles. He was a man with a bossy brow, the large, massive jaw of an obstinate believer and pale eyes bespeaking an ingenuous soul. "Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe," he said to Pierre, "you've come just in time. If the ladies are willing, you had better come with us; for three Brothers are already below with people, and you would have a long time to wait. This is the great season for visitors." The ladies politely nodded, and the Trappist handed a candle to the priest. In all probability neither mother nor daughter was devout, for both glanced askance at their new companion's cassock, and suddenly became serious. Then they all went down and found themselves in a narrow subterranean corridor. "Take care, mesdames," repeated the Trappist, lighting the ground with his candle. "Walk slowly, for there are projections and slopes." Then, in a shrill voice full of extraordinary conviction, he began his explanations. Pierre had descended in silence, his heart beating with emotion. Ah! how many times, indeed, in his innocent seminary days, had he not dreamt of those catacombs of the early Christians, those asylums of the primitive faith! Even recently, while writing his book, he had often thought of them as of the most ancient and venerable remains of that community of the lowly and simple, for the return of which he called. But his brain was full of pages written by poets and great prose writers. He had beheld the catacombs through the magnifying glass of those imaginative authors, and had believed them to be vast, similar to subterranean cities, with broad highways and spacious halls, fit for the accommodation of vast crowds. And now how poor and humble the reality! "Well, yes," said the Trappist in reply to the ladies' questions, "the corridor is scarcely more than a yard in width; two persons could not pass along side by side. How they dug it? Oh! it was simple enough. A family or a burial association needed a place of sepulchre. Well, a first gallery was excavated with pickaxes in soil of this description--granular tufa, as it is called--a reddish substance, as you can see, both soft and yet resistant, easy to work and at the same time waterproof. In a word, just the substance that was needed, and one, too, that has preserved the remains of the buried in a wonderful way." He paused and brought the flamelet of his candle near to the compartments excavated on either hand of the passage. "Look," he continued, "these are the /loculi/. Well, a subterranean gallery was dug, and on both sides these compartments were hollowed out, one above the other. The bodies of the dead were laid in them, for the most part simply wrapped in shrouds. Then the aperture was closed with tiles or marble slabs, carefully cemented. So, as you can see, everything explains itself. If other families joined the first one, or the burial association became more numerous, fresh galleries were added to those already filled. Passages were excavated on either hand, in every sense; and, indeed, a second and lower storey, at times even a third, was dug out. And here, you see, we are in a gallery which is certainly thirteen feet high. Now, you may wonder how they raised the bodies to place them in the compartments of the top tier. Well, they did not raise them to any such height; in all their work they kept on going lower and lower, removing more and more of the soil as the compartments became filled. And in this wise, in these catacombs of St. Calixtus, in less than four centuries, the Christians excavated more than ten miles of galleries, in which more than a million of their dead must have been laid to rest. Now, there are dozens of catacombs; the environs of Rome are honeycombed with them. Think of that, and perhaps you will be able to form some idea of the vast number of people who were buried in this manner." Pierre listened, feeling greatly impressed. He had once visited a coal pit in Belgium, and he here found the same narrow passages, the same heavy, stifling atmosphere, the same nihility of darkness and silence. The flamelets of the candles showed merely like stars in the deep gloom; they shed no radiance around. And he at last understood the character of this funereal, termite-like labour--these chance burrowings continued according to requirements, without art, method, or symmetry. The rugged soil was ever ascending and descending, the sides of the gallery snaked: neither plumb-line nor square had been used. All this, indeed, had simply been a work of charity and necessity, wrought by simple, willing grave-diggers, illiterate craftsmen, with the clumsy handiwork of the decline and fall. Proof thereof was furnished by the inscriptions and emblems on the marble slabs. They reminded one of the childish drawings which street urchins scrawl upon blank walls. "You see," the Trappist continued, "most frequently there is merely a name; and sometimes there is no name, but simply the words /In Pace/. At other times there is an emblem, the dove of purity, the palm of martyrdom, or else the fish whose name in Greek is composed of five letters which, as initials, signify: 'Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.'" He again brought his candle near to the marble slabs, and the palm could be distinguished: a central stroke, whence started a few oblique lines; and then came the dove or the fish, roughly outlined, a zigzag indicating a tail, two bars representing the bird's feet, while a round point simulated an eye. And the letters of the short inscriptions were all askew, of various sizes, often quite misshapen, as in the coarse handwriting of the ignorant and simple. However, they reached a crypt, a sort of little hall, where the graves of several popes had been found; among others that of Sixtus II, a holy martyr, in whose honour there was a superbly engraved metrical inscription set up by Pope Damasus. Then, in another hall, a family vault of much the same size, decorated at a later stage, with naive mural paintings, the spot where St. Cecilia's body had been discovered was shown. And the explanations continued. The Trappist dilated on the paintings, drawing from them a confirmation of every dogma and belief, baptism, the Eucharist, the resurrection, Lazarus arising from the tomb, Jonas cast up by the whale, Daniel in the lions' den, Moses drawing water from the rock, and Christ--shown beardless, as was the practice in the early ages--accomplishing His various miracles. "You see," repeated the Trappist, "all those things are shown there; and remember that none of the paintings was specially prepared: they are absolutely authentic." At a question from Pierre, whose astonishment was increasing, he admitted that the catacombs had been mere cemeteries at the outset, when no religious ceremonies had been celebrated in them. It was only later, in the fourth century, when the martyrs were honoured, that the crypts were utilised for worship. And in the same way they only became places of refuge during the persecutions, when the Christians had to conceal the entrances to them. Previously they had remained freely and legally open. This was indeed their true history: cemeteries four centuries old becoming places of asylum, ravaged at times during the persecutions; afterwards held in veneration till the eighth century; then despoiled of their holy relics, and subsequently blocked up and forgotten, so that they remained buried during more than seven hundred years, people thinking of them so little that at the time of the first searches in the fifteenth century they were considered an extraordinary discovery--an intricate historical problem--one, moreover, which only our own age has solved. "Please stoop, mesdames," resumed the Trappist. "In this compartment here is a skeleton which has not been touched. It has been lying here for sixteen or seventeen hundred years, and will show you how the bodies were laid out. Savants say that it is the skeleton of a female, probably a young girl. It was still quite perfect last spring; but the skull, as you can see, is now split open. An American broke it with his walking stick to make sure that it was genuine." The ladies leaned forward, and the flickering light illumined their pale faces, expressive of mingled fright and compassion. Especially noticeable was the pitiful, pain-fraught look which appeared on the countenance of the daughter, so full of life with her red lips and large black eyes. Then all relapsed into gloom, and the little candles were borne aloft and went their way through the heavy darkness of the galleries. The visit lasted another hour, for the Trappist did not spare a detail, fond as he was of certain nooks and corners, and as zealous as if he desired to work the redemption of his visitors. While Pierre followed the others, a complete evolution took place within him. As he looked about him, and formed a more and more complete idea of his surroundings, his first stupefaction at finding the reality so different from the embellished accounts of story-tellers and poets, his disillusion at being plunged into such rudely excavated mole-burrows, gave way to fraternal emotion. It was not that he thought of the fifteen hundred martyrs whose sacred bones had rested there. But how humble, resigned, yet full of hope had been those who had chosen such a place of sepulchre! Those low, darksome galleries were but temporary sleeping-places for the Christians. If they did not burn the bodies of their dead, as the Pagans did, it was because, like the Jews, they believed in the resurrection of the body; and it was that lovely idea of sleep, of tranquil rest after a just life, whilst awaiting the celestial reward, which imparted such intense peacefulness, such infinite charm, to the black, subterranean city. Everything there spoke of calm and silent night; everything there slumbered in rapturous quiescence, patient until the far-off awakening. What could be more touching than those terra-cotta tiles, those marble slabs, which bore not even a name--nothing but the words /In Pace/--at peace. Ah! to be at peace--life's work at last accomplished; to sleep in peace, to hope in peace for the advent of heaven! And the peacefulness seemed the more delightful as it was enjoyed in such deep humility. Doubtless the diggers worked chance-wise and clumsily; the craftsmen no longer knew how to engrave a name or carve a palm or a dove. Art had vanished; but all the feebleness and ignorance were instinct with the youth of a new humanity. Poor and lowly and meek ones swarmed there, reposing beneath the soil, whilst up above the sun continued its everlasting task. You found there charity and fraternity and death; husband and wife often lying together with their offspring at their feet; the great mass of the unknown submerging the personage, the bishop, or the martyr; the most touching equality--that springing from modesty--prevailing amidst all that dust, with compartments ever similar and slabs destitute of ornament, so that rows and rows of the sleepers mingled without distinctive sign. The inscriptions seldom ventured on a word of praise, and then how prudent, how delicate it was: the men were very worthy, very pious: the women very gentle, very beautiful, very chaste. A perfume of infancy arose, unlimited human affection spread: this was death as understood by the primitive Christians--death which hid itself to await the resurrection, and dreamt no more of the empire of the world! And all at once before Pierre's eyes arose a vision of the sumptuous tombs of the Appian Way, displaying the domineering pride of a whole civilisation in the sunlight--tombs of vast dimensions, with a profusion of marbles, grandiloquent inscriptions, and masterpieces of sculptured-work. Ah! what an extraordinary contrast between that pompous avenue of death, conducting, like a highway of triumph, to the regal Eternal City, when compared with the subterranean necropolis of the Christians, that city of hidden death, so gentle, so beautiful, and so chaste! Here only quiet slumber, desired and accepted night, resignation and patience were to be found. Millions of human beings had here laid themselves to rest in all humility, had slept for centuries, and would still be sleeping here, lulled by the silence and the gloom, if the living had not intruded on their desire to remain in oblivion so long as the trumpets of the Judgment Day did not awaken them. Death had then spoken of Life: nowhere had there been more intimate and touching life than in these buried cities of the unknown, lowly dead. And a mighty breath had formerly come from them--the breath of a new humanity destined to renew the world. With the advent of meekness, contempt for the flesh, terror and hatred of nature, relinquishment of terrestrial joys, and a passion for death, which delivers and opens the portals of Paradise, another world had begun. And the blood of Augustus, so proud of purpling in the sunlight, so fired by the passion for sovereign dominion, seemed for a moment to disappear, as if, indeed, the new world had sucked it up in the depths of its gloomy sepulchres. However, the Trappist insisted on showing the ladies the steps of Diocletian, and began to tell them the legend. "Yes," said he, "it was a miracle. One day, under that emperor, some soldiers were pursuing several Christians, who took refuge in these catacombs; and when the soldiers followed them inside the steps suddenly gave way, and all the persecutors were hurled to the bottom. The steps remain broken to this day. Come and see them; they are close by." But the ladies were quite overcome, so affected by their prolonged sojourn in the gloom and by the tales of death which the Trappist had poured into their ears that they insisted on going up again. Moreover, the candles were coming to an end. They were all dazzled when they found themselves once more in the sunlight, outside the little hut where articles of piety and souvenirs were sold. The girl bought a paper weight, a piece of marble on which was engraved the fish symbolical of "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour of Mankind." On the afternoon of that same day Pierre decided to visit St. Peter's. He had as yet only driven across the superb piazza with its obelisk and twin fountains, encircled by Bernini's colonnades, those four rows of columns and pilasters which form a girdle of monumental majesty. At the far end rises the basilica, its facade making it look smaller and heavier than it really is, but its sovereign dome nevertheless filling the heavens. Pebbled, deserted inclines stretched out, and steps followed steps, worn and white, under the burning sun; but at last Pierre reached the door and went in. It was three o'clock. Broad sheets of light streamed in through the high square windows, and some ceremony--the vesper service, no doubt--was beginning in the Capella Clementina on the left. Pierre, however, heard nothing; he was simply struck by the immensity of the edifice, as with raised eyes he slowly walked along. At the entrance came the giant basins for holy water with their boy-angels as chubby as Cupids; then the nave, vaulted and decorated with sunken coffers; then the four cyclopean buttress-piers upholding the dome, and then again the transepts and apsis, each as large as one of our churches. And the proud pomp, the dazzling, crushing splendour of everything, also astonished him: he marvelled at the cupola, looking like a planet, resplendent with the gold and bright colours of its mosaic-work, at the sumptuous /baldacchino/ of bronze, crowning the high altar raised above the very tomb of St. Peter, and whence descend the double steps of the Confession, illumined by seven and eighty lamps, which are always kept burning. And finally he was lost in astonishment at the extraordinary profusion of marble, both white and coloured. Oh! those polychromatic marbles, Bernini's luxurious passion! The splendid pavement reflecting the entire edifice, the facings of the pilasters with their medallions of popes, the tiara and the keys borne aloft by chubby angels, the walls covered with emblems, particularly the dove of Innocent X, the niches with their colossal statues uncouth in taste, the /loggie/ and their balconies, the balustrade and double steps of the Confession, the rich altars and yet richer tombs--all, nave, aisles, transepts, and apsis, were in marble, resplendent with the wealth of marble; not a nook small as the palm of one's hand appearing but it showed the insolent opulence of marble. And the basilica triumphed, beyond discussion, recognised and admired by every one as the largest and most splendid church in the whole world--the personification of hugeness and magnificence combined. Pierre still wandered on, gazing, overcome, as yet not distinguishing details. He paused for a moment before the bronze statue of St. Peter, seated in a stiff, hierarchical attitude on a marble pedestal. A few of the faithful were there kissing the large toe of the Saint's right foot. Some of them carefully wiped it before applying their lips; others, with no thought of cleanliness, kissed it, pressed their foreheads to it, and then kissed it again. Next, Pierre turned into the transept on the left, where stand the confessionals. Priests are ever stationed there, ready to confess penitents in every language. Others wait, holding long staves, with which they lightly tap the heads of kneeling sinners, who thereby obtain thirty days' indulgence. However, there were few people present, and inside the small wooden boxes the priests occupied their leisure time in reading and writing, as if they were at home. Then Pierre again found himself before the Confession, and gazed with interest at the eighty lamps, scintillating like stars. The high altar, at which the Pope alone can officiate, seemed wrapped in the haughty melancholy of solitude under its gigantic, flowery /baldacchino/, the casting and gilding of which cost two and twenty thousand pounds. But suddenly Pierre remembered the ceremony in the Capella Clementina, and felt astonished, for he could hear nothing of it. As he drew near a faint breath, like the far-away piping of a flute, was wafted to him. Then the volume of sound slowly increased, but it was only on reaching the chapel that he recognised an organ peal. The sunlight here filtered through red curtains drawn before the windows, and thus the chapel glowed like a furnace whilst resounding with the grave music. But in that huge pile all became so slight, so weak, that at sixty paces neither voice nor organ could be distinguished. On entering the basilica Pierre had fancied that it was quite empty and lifeless. There were, however, some people there, but so few and far between that their presence was not noticed. A few tourists wandered about wearily, guide-book in hand. In the grand nave a painter with his easel was taking a view, as in a public gallery. Then a French seminary went by, conducted by a prelate who named and explained the tombs. But in all that space these fifty or a hundred people looked merely like a few black ants who had lost themselves and were vainly seeking their way. And Pierre pictured himself in some gigantic gala hall or tremendous vestibule in an immeasurable palace of reception. The broad sheets of sunlight streaming through the lofty square windows of plain white glass illumined the church with blending radiance. There was not a single stool or chair: nothing but the superb, bare pavement, such as you might find in a museum, shining mirror-like under the dancing shower of sunrays. Nor was there a single corner for solitary reflection, a nook of gloom and mystery, where one might kneel and pray. In lieu thereof the sumptuous, sovereign dazzlement of broad daylight prevailed upon every side. And, on thus suddenly finding himself in this deserted opera-house, all aglow with flaring gold and purple, Pierre could but remember the quivering gloom of the Gothic cathedrals of France, where dim crowds sob and supplicate amidst a forest of pillars. In presence of all this ceremonial majesty--this huge, empty pomp, which was all Body--he recalled with a pang the emaciate architecture and statuary of the middle ages, which were all Soul. He vainly sought for some poor, kneeling woman, some creature swayed by faith or suffering, yielding in a modest half-light to thoughts of the unknown, and with closed lips holding communion with the invisible. These he found not: there was but the weary wandering of the tourists, and the bustle of the prelates conducting the young priests to the obligatory stations; while the vesper service continued in the left-hand chapel, nought of it reaching the ears of the visitors save, perhaps, a confused vibration, as of the peal of a bell penetrating from outside through the vaults above. And Pierre then understood that this was the splendid skeleton of a colossus whence life was departing. To fill it, to animate it with a soul, all the gorgeous display of great religious ceremonies was needed; the eighty thousand worshippers which it could hold, the great pontifical pomps, the festivals of Christmas and Easter, the processions and /corteges/ displaying all the luxury of the Church amidst operatic scenery and appointments. And he tried to conjure up a picture of the past magnificence--the basilica overflowing with an idolatrous multitude, and the superhuman /cortege/ passing along whilst every head was lowered; the cross and the sword opening the march, the cardinals going two by two, like twin divinities, in their rochets of lace and their mantles and robes of red moire, which train-bearers held up behind them; and at last, with Jove-like pomp, the Pope, carried on a stage draped with red velvet, seated in an arm-chair of red velvet and gold, and dressed in white velvet, with cope of gold, stole of gold, and tiara of gold. The bearers of the /Sedia gestatoria/* shone bravely in red tunics broidered with gold. Above the one and only Sovereign Pontiff of the world the /flabelli/ waved those huge fans of feathers which formerly were waved before the idols of pagan Rome. And around the seat of triumph what a dazzling, glorious court there was! The whole pontifical family, the stream of assistant prelates, the patriarchs, the archbishops, and the bishops, with vestments and mitres of gold, the /Camerieri segreti partecipanti/ in violet silk, the /Camerieri partecipanti/ of the cape and the sword in black velvet Renascence costumes, with ruffs and golden chains, the whole innumerable ecclesiastical and laical suite, which not even a hundred pages of the "Gerarchia" can completely enumerate, the prothonotaries, the chaplains, the prelates of every class and degree, without mentioning the military household, the gendarmes with their busbies, the Palatine Guards in blue trousers and black tunics, the Swiss Guards costumed in red, yellow, and black, with breastplates of silver, suggesting the men at arms of some drama of the Romantic school, and the Noble Guards, superb in their high boots, white pigskins, red tunics, gold lace, epaulets, and helmets! However, since Rome had become the capital of Italy the doors were no longer thrown wide open; on the rare occasions when the Pope yet came down to officiate, to show himself as the supreme representative of the Divinity on earth, the basilica was filled with chosen ones. To enter it you needed a card of invitation. You no longer saw the people--a throng of fifty, even eighty, thousand Christians--flocking to the Church and swarming within it promiscuously; there was but a select gathering, a congregation of friends convened as for a private function. Even when, by dint of effort, thousands were collected together there, they formed but a picked audience invited to the performance of a monster concert. * The chair and stage are known by that name.--Trans. And as Pierre strolled among the bright, crude marbles in that cold if gorgeous museum, the feeling grew upon him that he was in some pagan temple raised to the deity of Light and Pomp. The larger temples of ancient Rome were certainly similar piles, upheld by the same precious columns, with walls covered with the same polychromatic marbles and vaulted ceilings having the same gilded panels. And his feeling was destined to become yet more acute after his visits to the other basilicas, which could but reveal the truth to him. First one found the Christian Church quietly, audaciously quartering itself in a pagan church, as, for instance, San Lorenzo in Miranda installed in the temple of Antoninus and Faustina, and retaining the latter's rare porticus in /cipollino/ marble and its handsome white marble entablature. Then there was the Christian Church springing from the ruins of the destroyed pagan edifice, as, for example, San Clemente, beneath which centuries of contrary beliefs are stratified: a very ancient edifice of the time of the kings or the republic, then another of the days of the empire identified as a temple of Mithras, and next a basilica of the primitive faith. Then, too, there was the Christian Church, typified by that of Saint Agnes-beyond-the-walls which had been built on exactly the same pattern as the Roman secular basilica--that Tribunal and Exchange which accompanied every Forum. And, in particular, there was the Christian Church erected with material stolen from the demolished pagan temples. To this testified the sixteen superb columns of that same Saint Agnes, columns of various marbles filched from various gods; the one and twenty columns of Santa Maria in Trastevere, columns of all sorts of orders torn from a temple of Isis and Serapis, who even now are represented on their capitals; also the six and thirty white marble Ionic columns of Santa Maria Maggiore derived from the temple of Juno Lucina; and the two and twenty columns of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli, these varying in substance, size, and workmanship, and certain of them said to have been stolen from Jove himself, from the famous temple of Jupiter Capitolinus which rose upon the sacred summit. In addition, the temples of the opulent Imperial period seemed to resuscitate in our times at San Giovanni in Laterano and San Paolo-fuori-le-mura. Was not that Basilica of San Giovanni--"the Mother and Head of all the churches of the city and the earth"--like the abode of honour of some pagan divinity whose splendid kingdom was of this world? It boasted five naves, parted by four rows of columns; it was a profusion of bas-reliefs, friezes, and entablatures, and its twelve colossal statues of the Apostles looked like subordinate deities lining the approach to the master of the gods! And did not San Paolo, lately completed, its new marbles shimmering like mirrors, recall the abode of the Olympian immortals, typical temple as it was with its majestic colonnade, its flat, gilt-panelled ceiling, its marble pavement incomparably beautiful both in substance and workmanship, its violet columns with white bases and capitals, and its white entablature with violet frieze: everywhere, indeed, you found, the mingling of those two colours so divinely carnal in their harmony. And there, as at St. Peter's, not one patch of gloom, not one nook of mystery where one might peer into the invisible, could be found! And, withal, St. Peter's remained the monster, the colossus, larger than the largest of all others, an extravagant testimony of what the mad passion for the huge can achieve when human pride, by dint of spending millions, dreams of lodging the divinity in an over-vast, over-opulent palace of stone, where in truth that pride itself, and not the divinity, triumphs! And to think that after long centuries that gala colossus had been the outcome of the fervour of primitive faith! You found there a blossoming of that ancient sap, peculiar to the soil of Rome, which in all ages has thrown up preposterous edifices, of exaggerated hugeness and dazzling and ruinous luxury. It would seem as if the absolute masters successively ruling the city brought that passion for cyclopean building with them, derived it from the soil in which they grew, for they transmitted it one to the other, without a pause, from civilisation to civilisation, however diverse and contrary their minds. It has all been, so to say, a continuous blossoming of human vanity, a passionate desire to set one's name on an imperishable wall, and, after being master of the world, to leave behind one an indestructible trace, a tangible proof of one's passing glory, an eternal edifice of bronze and marble fit to attest that glory until the end of time. At the bottom the spirit of conquest, the proud ambition to dominate the world, subsists; and when all has crumbled, and a new society has sprung up from the ruins of its predecessor, men have erred in imagining it to be cured of the sin of pride, steeped in humility once more, for it has had the old blood in its veins, and has yielded to the same insolent madness as its ancestors, a prey to all the violence of its heredity directly it has become great and strong. Among the illustrious popes there has not been one that did not seek to build, did not revert to the traditions of the Caesars, eternising their reigns in stone and raising temples for resting-places, so as to rank among the gods. Ever the same passion for terrestrial immortality has burst forth: it has been a battle as to who should leave the highest, most substantial, most gorgeous monument; and so acute has been the disease that those who, for lack of means and opportunity, have been unable to build, and have been forced to content themselves with repairing, have, nevertheless, desired to bequeath the memory of their modest achievements to subsequent generations by commemorative marble slabs engraved with pompous inscriptions! These slabs are to be seen on every side: not a wall has ever been strengthened but some pope has stamped it with his arms, not a ruin has been restored, not a palace repaired, not a fountain cleaned, but the reigning pope has signed the work with his Roman and pagan title of "Pontifex Maximus." It is a haunting passion, a form of involuntary debauchery, the fated florescence of that compost of ruins, that dust of edifices whence new edifices are ever arising. And given the perversion with which the old Roman soil almost immediately tarnished the doctrines of Jesus, that resolute passion for domination and that desire for terrestrial glory which wrought the triumph of Catholicism in scorn of the humble and pure, the fraternal and simple ones of the primitive Church, one may well ask whether Rome has ever been Christian at all! And whilst Pierre was for the second time walking round the huge basilica, admiring the tombs of the popes, truth, like a sudden illumination, burst upon him and filled him with its glow. Ah! those tombs! Yonder in the full sunlight, in the rosy Campagna, on either side of the Appian Way--that triumphal approach to Rome, conducting the stranger to the august Palatine with its crown of circling palaces--there arose the gigantic tombs of the powerful and wealthy, tombs of unparalleled artistic splendour, perpetuating in marble the pride and pomp of a strong race that had mastered the world. Then, near at hand, beneath the sod, in the shrouding night of wretched mole-holes, other tombs were hidden--the tombs of the lowly, the poor, and the suffering--tombs destitute of art or display, but whose very humility proclaimed that a breath of affection and resignation had passed by, that One had come preaching love and fraternity, the relinquishment of the wealth of the earth for the everlasting joys of a future life, and committing to the soil the good seed of His Gospel, sowing the new humanity which was to transform the olden world. And, behold, from that seed, buried in the soil for centuries, behold, from those humble, unobtrusive tombs, where martyrs slept their last and gentle sleep whilst waiting for the glorious call, yet other tombs had sprung, tombs as gigantic and as pompous as the ancient, destroyed sepulchres of the idolaters, tombs uprearing their marbles among a pagan-temple-like splendour, proclaiming the same superhuman pride, the same mad passion for universal sovereignty. At the time of the Renascence Rome became pagan once more; the old imperial blood frothed up and swept Christianity away with the greatest onslaught ever directed against it. Ah! those tombs of the popes at St. Peter's, with their impudent, insolent glorification of the departed, their sumptuous, carnal hugeness, defying death and setting immortality upon this earth. There are giant popes of bronze, allegorical figures and angels of equivocal character wearing the beauty of lovely girls, of passion-compelling women with the thighs and the breasts of pagan goddesses! Paul III is seated on a high pedestal, Justice and Prudence are almost prostrate at his feet. Urban VIII is between Prudence and Religion, Innocent XI between Religion and Justice, Innocent XII between Justice and Charity, Gregory XIII between Religion and Strength. Attended by Prudence and Justice, Alexander VII appears kneeling, with Charity and Truth before him, and a skeleton rises up displaying an empty hour-glass. Clement XIII, also on his knees, triumphs above a monumental sarcophagus, against which leans Religion bearing the Cross; while the Genius of Death, his elbow resting on the right-hand corner, has two huge, superb lions, emblems of omnipotence, beneath him. Bronze bespeaks the eternity of the figures, white marble describes opulent flesh, and coloured marble winds around in rich draperies, deifying the monuments under the bright, golden glow of nave and aisles. And Pierre passed from one tomb to the other on his way through the magnificent, deserted, sunlit basilica. Yes, these tombs, so imperial in their ostentation, were meet companions for those of the Appian Way. Assuredly it was Rome, the soil of Rome, that soil where pride and domination sprouted like the herbage of the fields that had transformed the humble Christianity of primitive times, the religion of fraternity, justice, and hope into what it now was: victorious Catholicism, allied to the rich and powerful, a huge implement of government, prepared for the conquest of every nation. The popes had awoke as Caesars. Remote heredity had acted, the blood of Augustus had bubbled forth afresh, flowing through their veins and firing their minds with immeasurable ambition. As yet none but Augustus had held the empire of the world, had been both emperor and pontiff, master of the body and the soul. And thence had come the eternal dream of the popes in despair at only holding the spiritual power, and obstinately refusing to yield in temporal matters, clinging for ever to the ancient hope that their dream might at last be realised, and the Vatican become another Palatine, whence they might reign with absolute despotism over all the conquered nations. VI PIERRE had been in Rome for a fortnight, and yet the affair of his book was no nearer solution. He was still possessed by an ardent desire to see the Pope, but could in no wise tell how to satisfy it, so frequent were the delays and so greatly had he been frightened by Monsignor Nani's predictions of the dire consequences which might attend any imprudent action. And so, foreseeing a prolonged sojourn, he at last betook himself to the Vicariate in order that his "celebret" might be stamped, and afterwards said his mass each morning at the Church of Santa Brigida, where he received a kindly greeting from Abbe Pisoni, Benedetta's former confessor. One Monday evening he resolved to repair early to Donna Serafina's customary reception in the hope of learning some news and expediting his affairs. Perhaps Monsignor Nani would look in; perhaps he might be lucky enough to come across some cardinal or domestic prelate willing to help him. It was in vain that he had tried to extract any positive information from Don Vigilio, for, after a short spell of affability and willingness, Cardinal Pio's secretary had relapsed into distrust and fear, and avoided Pierre as if he were resolved not to meddle in a business which, all considered, was decidedly suspicious and dangerous. Moreover, for a couple of days past a violent attack of fever had compelled him to keep his room. Thus the only person to whom Pierre could turn for comfort was Victorine Bosquet, the old Beauceronne servant who had been promoted to the rank of housekeeper, and who still retained a French heart after thirty years' residence in Rome. She often spoke to the young priest of Auneau, her native place, as if she had left it only the previous day; but on that particular Monday even she had lost her wonted gay vivacity, and when she heard that he meant to go down in the evening to see the ladies she wagged her head significantly. "Ah! you won't find them very cheerful," said she. "My poor Benedetta is greatly worried. Her divorce suit is not progressing at all well." All Rome, indeed, was again talking of this affair. An extraordinary revival of tittle-tattle had set both white and black worlds agog. And so there was no need for reticence on Victorine's part, especially in conversing with a compatriot. It appeared, then, that, in reply to Advocate Morano's memoir setting forth that the marriage had not been consummated, there had come another memoir, a terrible one, emanating from Monsignor Palma, a doctor in theology, whom the Congregation of the Council had selected to defend the marriage. As a first point, Monsignor Palma flatly disputed the alleged non-consummation, questioned the certificate put forward on Benedetta's behalf, and quoted instances recorded in scientific text-books which showed how deceptive appearances often were. He strongly insisted, moreover, on the narrative which Count Prada supplied in another memoir, a narrative well calculated to inspire doubt; and, further, he so turned and twisted the evidence of Benedetta's own maid as to make that evidence also serve against her. Finally he argued in a decisive way that, even supposing the marriage had not been consummated, this could only be ascribed to the resistance of the Countess, who had thus set at defiance one of the elementary laws of married life, which was that a wife owed obedience to her husband. Next had come a fourth memoir, drawn up by the reporter of the Congregation, who analysed and discussed the three others, and subsequently the Congregation itself had dealt with the matter, opining in favour of the dissolution of the marriage by a majority of one vote--such a bare majority, indeed, that Monsignor Palma, exercising his rights, had hastened to demand further inquiry, a course which brought the whole /procedure/ again into question, and rendered a fresh vote necessary. "Ah! the poor Contessina!" exclaimed Victorine, "she'll surely die of grief, for, calm as she may seem, there's an inward fire consuming her. It seems that Monsignor Palma is the master of the situation, and can make the affair drag on as long as he likes. And then a deal of money had already been spent, and one will have to spend a lot more. Abbe Pisoni, whom you know, was very badly inspired when he helped on that marriage; and though I certainly don't want to soil the memory of my good mistress, Countess Ernesta, who was a real saint, it's none the less true that she wrecked her daughter's life when she gave her to Count Prada." The housekeeper paused. Then, impelled by an instinctive sense of justice, she resumed. "It's only natural that Count Prada should be annoyed, for he's really being made a fool of. And, for my part, as there is no end to all the fuss, and this divorce is so hard to obtain, I really don't see why the Contessina shouldn't live with her Dario without troubling any further. Haven't they loved one another ever since they were children? Aren't they both young and handsome, and wouldn't they be happy together, whatever the world might say? Happiness, /mon Dieu/! one finds it so seldom that one can't afford to let it pass." Then, seeing how greatly surprised Pierre was at hearing such language, she began to laugh with the quiet composure of one belonging to the humble classes of France, whose only desire is a quiet and happy life, irrespective of matrimonial ties. Next, in more discreet language, she proceeded to lament another worry which had fallen on the household, another result of the divorce affair. A rupture had come about between Donna Serafina and Advocate Morano, who was very displeased with the ill success of his memoir to the congregation, and accused Father Lorenza--the confessor of the Boccanera ladies--of having urged them into a deplorable lawsuit, whose only fruit could be a wretched scandal affecting everybody. And so great had been Morano's annoyance that he had not returned to the Boccanera mansion, but had severed a connection of thirty years' standing, to the stupefaction of all the Roman drawing-rooms, which altogether disapproved of his conduct. Donna Serafina was, for her part, the more grieved as she suspected the advocate of having purposely picked the quarrel in order to secure an excuse for leaving her; his real motive, in her estimation, being a sudden, disgraceful passion for a young and intriguing woman of the middle classes. That Monday evening, when Pierre entered the drawing-room, hung with yellow brocatelle of a flowery Louis XIV pattern, he at once realised that melancholy reigned in the dim light radiating from the lace-veiled lamps. Benedetta and Celia, seated on a sofa, were chatting with Dario, whilst Cardinal Sarno, ensconced in an arm-chair, listened to the ceaseless chatter of the old relative who conducted the little Princess to each Monday gathering. And the only other person present was Donna Serafina, seated all alone in her wonted place on the right-hand side of the chimney-piece, and consumed with secret rage at seeing the chair on the left-hand side unoccupied--that chair which Morano had always taken during the thirty years that he had been faithful to her. Pierre noticed with what anxious and then despairing eyes she observed his entrance, her glance ever straying towards the door, as though she even yet hoped for the fickle one's return. Withal her bearing was erect and proud; she seemed to be more tightly laced than ever; and there was all the wonted haughtiness on her hard-featured face, with its jet-black eyebrows and snowy hair. Pierre had no sooner paid his respects to her than he allowed his own worry to appear by inquiring whether they would not have the pleasure of seeing Monsignor Nani that evening. Thereupon Donna Serafina could not refrain from answering: "Oh! Monsignor Nani is forsaking us like the others. People always take themselves off when they can be of service." She harboured a spite against the prelate for having done so little to further the divorce in spite of his many promises. Beneath his outward show of extreme willingness and caressing affability he doubtless concealed some scheme of his own which he was tenaciously pursuing. However, Donna Serafina promptly regretted the confession which anger had wrung from her, and resumed: "After all, he will perhaps come. He is so good-natured, and so fond of us." In spite of the vivacity of her temperament she really wished to act diplomatically, so as to overcome the bad luck which had recently set in. Her brother the Cardinal had told her how irritated he was by the attitude of the Congregation of the Council; he had little doubt that the frigid reception accorded to his niece's suit had been due in part to the desire of some of his brother cardinals to be disagreeable to him. Personally, he desired the divorce, as it seemed to him the only means of ensuring the perpetuation of the family; for Dario obstinately refused to marry any other woman than his cousin. And thus there was an accumulation of disasters; the Cardinal was wounded in his pride, his sister shared his sufferings and on her own side was stricken in the heart, whilst both lovers were plunged in despair at finding their hopes yet again deferred. As Pierre approached the sofa where the young folks were chatting he found that they were speaking of the catastrophe. "Why should you be so despondent?" asked Celia in an undertone. "After all, there was a majority of a vote in favour of annulling the marriage. Your suit hasn't been rejected; there is only a delay." But Benedetta shook her head. "No, no! If Monsignor Palma proves obstinate his Holiness will never consent. It's all over." "Ah! if one were only rich, very rich!" murmured Dario, with such an air of conviction that no one smiled. And, turning to his cousin, he added in a whisper: "I must really have a talk with you. We cannot go on living like this." In a breath she responded: "Yes, you are right. Come down to-morrow evening at five. I will be here alone." Then dreariness set in; the evening seemed to have no end. Pierre was greatly touched by the evident despair of Benedetta, who as a rule was so calm and sensible. The deep eyes which illumined her pure, delicate, infantile face were now blurred as by restrained tears. He had already formed a sincere affection for her, pleased as he was with her equable if somewhat indolent disposition, the semblance of discreet good sense with which she veiled her soul of fire. That Monday even she certainly tried to smile while listening to the pretty secrets confided to her by Celia, whose love affairs were prospering far more than her own. There was only one brief interval of general conversation, and that was brought about by the little Princess's aunt, who, suddenly raising her voice, began to speak of the infamous manner in which the Italian newspapers referred to the Holy Father. Never, indeed, had there been so much bad feeling between the Vatican and the Quirinal. Cardinal Sarno felt so strongly on the subject that he departed from his wonted silence to announce that on the occasion of the sacrilegious festivities of the Twentieth of September, celebrating the capture of Rome, the Pope intended to cast a fresh letter of protest in the face of all the Christian powers, whose indifference proved their complicity in the odious spoliation of the Church. "Yes, indeed! what folly to try and marry the Pope and the King," bitterly exclaimed Donna Serafina, alluding to her niece's deplorable marriage. The old maid now seemed quite beside herself; it was already so late that neither Monsignor Nani nor anybody else was expected. However, at the unhoped-for sound of footsteps her eyes again brightened and turned feverishly towards the door. But it was only to encounter a final disappointment. The visitor proved to be Narcisse Habert, who stepped up to her, apologising for making so late a call. It was Cardinal Sarno, his uncle by marriage, who had introduced him into this exclusive /salon/, where he had received a cordial reception on account of his religious views, which were said to be most uncompromising. If, however, despite the lateness of the hour, he had ventured to call there that evening, it was solely on account of Pierre, whom he at once drew on one side. "I felt sure I should find you here," he said. "Just now I managed to see my cousin, Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo, and I have some good news for you. He will see us to-morrow at about eleven in his rooms at the Vatican." Then, lowering his voice: "I think he will endeavour to conduct you to the Holy Father. Briefly, the audience seems to me assured." Pierre was greatly delighted by this promised certainty, which came to him so suddenly in that dreary drawing-room, where for a couple of hours he had been gradually sinking into despair! So at last a solution was at hand! Meantime Narcisse, after shaking hands with Dario and bowing to Benedetta and Celia, approached his uncle the Cardinal, who, having rid himself of the old relation, made up his mind to talk. But his conversation was confined to the state of his health, and the weather, and sundry insignificant anecdotes which he had lately heard. Not a word escaped him respecting the thousand complicated matters with which he dealt at the Propaganda. It was as though, once outside his office, he plunged into the commonplace and the unimportant by way of resting from the anxious task of governing the world. And after he had spoken for a time every one got up, and the visitors took leave. "Don't forget," Narcisse repeated to Pierre, "you will find me at the Sixtine Chapel to-morrow at ten. And I will show you the Botticellis before we go to our appointment." At half-past nine on the following morning Pierre, who had come on foot, was already on the spacious Piazza of St. Peter's; and before turning to the right, towards the bronze gate near one corner of Bernini's colonnade, he raised his eyes and lingered, gazing at the Vatican. Nothing to his mind could be less monumental than the jumble of buildings which, without semblance of architectural order or regularity of any kind, had grown up in the shadow cast by the dome of the basilica. Roofs rose one above the other and broad, flat walls stretched out chance-wise, just as wings and storeys had been added. The only symmetry observable above the colonnade was that of the three sides of the court of San Damaso, where the lofty glass-work which now encloses the old /loggie/ sparkled in the sun between the ruddy columns and pilasters, suggesting, as it were, three huge conservatories. And this was the most beautiful palace in the world, the largest of all palaces, comprising no fewer than eleven thousand apartments and containing the most admirable masterpieces of human genius! But Pierre, disillusioned as he was, had eyes only for the lofty facade on the right, overlooking the piazza, for he knew that the second-floor windows there were those of the Pope's private apartments. And he contemplated those windows for a long time, and remembered having been told that the fifth one on the right was that of the Pope's bed-room, and that a lamp could always be seen burning there far into the night. What was there, too, behind that gate of bronze which he saw before him--that sacred portal by which all the kingdoms of the world communicated with the kingdom of heaven, whose august vicar had secluded himself behind those lofty, silent walls? From where he stood Pierre gazed on that gate with its metal panels studded with large square-headed nails, and wondered what it defended, what it concealed, what it shut off from the view, with its stern, forbidding air, recalling that of the gate of some ancient fortress. What kind of world would he find behind it, what treasures of human charity jealously preserved in yonder gloom, what revivifying hope for the new nations hungering for fraternity and justice? He took pleasure in fancying, in picturing the one holy pastor of humanity, ever watching in the depths of that closed palace, and, while the nations strayed into hatred, preparing all for the final reign of Jesus, and at last proclaiming the advent of that reign by transforming our democracies into the one great Christian community promised by the Saviour. Assuredly the world's future was being prepared behind that bronze portal; assuredly it was that future which would issue forth. But all at once Pierre was amazed to find himself face to face with Monsignor Nani, who had just left the Vatican on his way to the neighbouring Palace of the Inquisition, where, as Assessor, he had his residence. "Ah! Monsignor," said Pierre, "I am very pleased. My friend Monsieur Habert is going to present me to his cousin, Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo, and I think I shall obtain the audience I so greatly desire." Monsignor Nani smiled with his usual amiable yet keen expression. "Yes, yes, I know." But, correcting himself as it were, he added: "I share your satisfaction, my dear son. Only, you must be prudent." And then, as if fearing that the young priest might have understood by his first words that he had just seen Monsignor Gamba, the most easily terrified prelate of the whole prudent pontifical family, he related that he had been running about since an early hour on behalf of two French ladies, who likewise were dying of a desire to see the Pope. However, he greatly feared that the help he was giving them would not prove successful. "I will confess to you, Monsignor," replied Pierre, "that I myself was getting very discouraged. Yes, it is high time I should find a little comfort, for my sojourn here is hardly calculated to brace my soul." He went on in this strain, allowing it to be seen that the sights of Rome were finally destroying his faith. Such days as those which he had spent on the Palatine and along the Appian Way, in the Catacombs and at St. Peter's, grievously disturbed him, spoilt his dream of Christianity rejuvenated and triumphant. He emerged from them full of doubt and growing lassitude, having already lost much of his usually rebellious enthusiasm. Still smiling, Monsignor Nani listened and nodded approvingly. Yes, no doubt that was the fatal result. He seemed to have foreseen it, and to be well satisfied thereat. "At all events, my dear son," said he, "everything is going on well, since you are now certain that you will see his Holiness." "That is true, Monsignor; I have placed my only hope in the very just and perspicacious Leo XIII. He alone can judge me, since he alone can recognise in my book his own ideas, which I think I have very faithfully set forth. Ah! if he be willing he will, in Jesus' name and by democracy and science, save this old world of ours!" Pierre's enthusiasm was returning again, and Nani, smiling more and more affably with his piercing eyes and thin lips, again expressed approval: "Certainly; quite so, my dear son. You will speak to him, you will see." Then as they both raised their heads and looked towards the Vatican, Nani carried his amiability so far as to undeceive Pierre with respect to the Pope's bed-room. No, the window where a light was seen every evening was simply that of a landing where the gas was kept burning almost all night. The window of his Holiness's bed-chamber was the second one farther on. Then both relapsed into silence, equally grave as they continued to gaze at the facade. "Well, till we meet again, my dear son," said Nani at last. "You will tell me of your interview, I hope." As soon as Pierre was alone he went in by the bronze portal, his heart beating violently, as if he were entering some redoubtable sanctuary where the future happiness of mankind was elaborated. A sentry was on duty there, a Swiss guard, who walked slowly up and down in a grey-blue cloak, below which one only caught a glimpse of his baggy red, black, and yellow breeches; and it seemed as if this cloak of sober hue were purposely cast over a disguise in order to conceal its strangeness, which had become irksome. Then, on the right-hand, came the covered stairway conducting to the Court of San Damaso; but to reach the Sixtine Chapel it was necessary to follow a long gallery, with columns on either hand, and ascend the royal staircase, the Scala Regia. And in this realm of the gigantic, where every dimension is exaggerated and replete with overpowering majesty, Pierre's breath came short as he ascended the broad steps. He was much surprised on entering the Sixtine Chapel, for it at first seemed to him small, a sort of rectangular and lofty hall, with a delicate screen of white marble separating the part where guests congregate on the occasion of great ceremonies from the choir where the cardinals sit on simple oaken benches, while the inferior prelates remain standing behind them. On a low platform to the right of the soberly adorned altar is the pontifical throne; while in the wall on the left opens the narrow singing gallery with its balcony of marble. And for everything suddenly to spread out and soar into the infinite one must raise one's head, allow one's eyes to ascend from the huge fresco of the Last Judgment, occupying the whole of the end wall, to the paintings which cover the vaulted ceiling down to the cornice extending between the twelve windows of white glass, six on either hand. Fortunately there were only three or four quiet tourists there; and Pierre at once perceived Narcisse Habert occupying one of the cardinals' seats above the steps where the train-bearers crouch. Motionless, and with his head somewhat thrown back, the young man seemed to be in ecstasy. But it was not the work of Michael Angelo that he thus contemplated. His eyes never strayed from one of the earlier frescoes below the cornice; and on recognising the priest he contented himself with murmuring: "Ah! my friend, just look at the Botticelli." Then, with dreamy eyes, he relapsed into a state of rapture. Pierre, for his part, had received a great shock both in heart and in mind, overpowered as he was by the superhuman genius of Michael Angelo. The rest vanished; there only remained, up yonder, as in a limitless heaven, the extraordinary creations of the master's art. That which at first surprised one was that the painter should have been the sole artisan of the mighty work. No marble cutters, no bronze workers, no gilders, no one of another calling had intervened. The painter with his brush had sufficed for all--for the pilasters, columns, and cornices of marble, for the statues and the ornaments of bronze, for the /fleurons/ and roses of gold, for the whole of the wondrously rich decorative work which surrounded the frescoes. And Pierre imagined Michael Angelo on the day when the bare vault was handed over to him, covered with plaster, offering only a flat white surface, hundreds of square yards to be adorned. And he pictured him face to face with that huge white page, refusing all help, driving all inquisitive folks away, jealously, violently shutting himself up alone with his gigantic task, spending four and a half years in fierce solitude, and day by day adding to his colossal work of creation. Ah! that mighty work, a task to fill a whole lifetime, a task which he must have begun with quiet confidence in his own will and power, drawing, as it were, an entire world from his brain and flinging it there with the ceaseless flow of creative virility in the full heyday of its omnipotence. And Pierre was yet more overcome when he began to examine these presentments of humanity, magnified as by the eyes of a visionary, overflowing in mighty sympathetic pages of cyclopean symbolisation. Royal grace and nobility, sovereign peacefulness and power--every beauty shone out like natural florescence. And there was perfect science, the most audacious foreshortening risked with the certainty of success--an everlasting triumph of technique over the difficulty which an arched surface presented. And, in particular, there was wonderful simplicity of medium; matter was reduced almost to nothingness; a few colours were used broadly without any studied search for effect or brilliancy. Yet that sufficed, the blood seethed freely, the muscles projected, the figures became animated and stood out of their frames with such energy and dash that it seemed as if a flame were flashing by aloft, endowing all those beings with superhuman and immortal life. Life, aye, it was life, which burst forth and triumphed--mighty, swarming life, miraculous life, the creation of one sole hand possessed of the supreme gift--simplicity blended with power. That a philosophical system, a record of the whole of human destiny, should have been found therein, with the creation of the world, of man, and of woman, the fall, the chastisement, then the redemption, and finally God's judgment on the last day--this was a matter on which Pierre was unable to dwell, at this first visit, in the wondering stupor into which the paintings threw him. But he could not help noticing how the human body, its beauty, its power, and its grace were exalted! Ah! that regal Jehovah, at once terrible and paternal, carried off amid the whirlwind of his creation, his arms outstretched and giving birth to worlds! And that superb and nobly outlined Adam, with extended hand, whom Jehovah, though he touch him not, animates with his finger--a wondrous and admirable gesture, leaving a sacred space between the finger of the Creator and that of the created--a tiny space, in which, nevertheless, abides all the infinite of the invisible and the mysterious. And then that powerful yet adorable Eve, that Eve with the sturdy flanks fit for the bearing of humanity, that Eve with the proud, tender grace of a woman bent on being loved even to perdition, that Eve embodying the whole of woman with her fecundity, her seductiveness, her empire! Moreover, even the decorative figures of the pilasters at the corners of the frescoes celebrate the triumph of the flesh: there are the twenty young men radiant in their nakedness, with incomparable splendour of torso and of limb, and such intensity of life that a craze for motion seems to carry them off, bend them, throw them over in superb attitudes. And between the windows are the giants, the prophets and the sibyls--man and woman deified, with inordinate wealth of muscle and grandeur of intellectual expression. There is Jeremiah with his elbow resting on his knee and his chin on his hand, plunged as he is in reflection--in the very depths of his visions and his dreams; there is the Sibylla Erithraea, so pure of profile, so young despite the opulence of her form, and with one finger resting on the open book of destiny; there is Isaiah with the thick lips of truth, virile and haughty, his head half turned and his hand raised with a gesture of command; there is the Sibylla Cumaea, terrifying with her science and her old age, her wrinkled countenance, her vulture's nose, her square protruding chin; there is Jonah cast forth by the whale, and wondrously foreshortened, his torso twisted, his arms bent, his head thrown back, and his mouth agape and shouting: and there are the others, all of the same full-blown, majestic family, reigning with the sovereignty of eternal health and intelligence, and typifying the dream of a broader, loftier, and indestructible humanity. Moreover, in the lunettes and the arches over the windows other figures of grace, power, and beauty appear and throng, the ancestors of the Christ, thoughtful mothers with lovely nude infants, men with wondering eyes peering into the future, representatives of the punished weary race longing for the promised Redeemer; while in the pendentives of the four corners various biblical episodes, the victories of Israel over the Spirit of Evil, spring into life. And finally there is the gigantic fresco at the far end, the Last Judgment with its swarming multitude, so numerous that days and days are needed to see each figure aright, a distracted crowd, full of the hot breath of life, from the dead rising in response to the furious trumpeting of the angels, from the fearsome groups of the damned whom the demons fling into hell, even to Jesus the justiciar, surrounded by the saints and apostles, and to the radiant concourse of the blessed who ascend upheld by angels, whilst higher and still higher other angels, bearing the instruments of the Passion, triumph as in full glory. And yet, above this gigantic composition, painted thirty years subsequently, in the full ripeness of age, the ceiling retains its ethereality, its unquestionable superiority, for on it the artist bestowed all his virgin power, his whole youth, the first great flare of his genius. And Pierre found but one word to express his feelings: Michael Angelo was the monster dominating and crushing all others. Beneath his immense achievement you had only to glance at the works of Perugino, Pinturicchio, Roselli, Signorelli, and Botticelli, those earlier frescoes, admirable in their way, which below the cornice spread out around the chapel. Narcisse for his part had not raised his eyes to the overpowering splendour of the ceiling. Wrapt in ecstasy, he did not allow his gaze to stray from one of the three frescoes of Botticelli. "Ah! Botticelli," he at last murmured; "in him you have the elegance and the grace of the mysterious; a profound feeling of sadness even in the midst of voluptuousness, a divination of the whole modern soul, with the most troublous charm that ever attended artist's work." Pierre glanced at him in amazement, and then ventured to inquire: "You come here to see the Botticellis?" "Yes, certainly," the young man quietly replied; "I only come here for him, and five hours every week I only look at his work. There, just study that fresco, Moses and the daughters of Jethro. Isn't it the most penetrating work that human tenderness and melancholy have produced?" Then, with a faint, devout quiver in his voice and the air of a priest initiating another into the delightful but perturbing atmosphere of a sanctuary, he went on repeating the praises of Botticelli's art; his women with long, sensual, yet candid faces, supple bearing, and rounded forms showing from under light drapery; his young men, his angels of doubtful sex, blending stateliness of muscle with infinite delicacy of outline; next the mouths he painted, fleshy, fruit-like mouths, at times suggesting irony, at others pain, and often so enigmatical with their sinuous curves that one knew not whether the words they left unuttered were words of purity or filth; then, too, the eyes which he bestowed on his figures, eyes of languor and passion, of carnal or mystical rapture, their joy at times so instinct with grief as they peer into the nihility of human things that no eyes in the world could be more impenetrable. And finally there were Botticelli's hands, so carefully and delicately painted, so full of life, wantoning so to say in a free atmosphere, now joining, caressing, and even, as it were, speaking, the whole evincing such intense solicitude for gracefulness that at times there seems to be undue mannerism, though every hand has its particular expression, each varying expression of the enjoyment or pain which the sense of touch can bring. And yet there was nothing effeminate or false about the painter's work: on all sides a sort of virile pride was apparent, an atmosphere of superb passionate motion, absolute concern for truth, direct study from life, conscientiousness, veritable realism, corrected and elevated by a genial strangeness of feeling and character that imparted a never-to-be-forgotten charm even to ugliness itself. Pierre's stupefaction, however, increased as he listened to Narcisse, whose somewhat studied elegance, whose curly hair cut in the Florentine fashion, and whose blue, mauvish eyes paling with enthusiasm he now for the first time remarked. "Botticelli," he at last said, "was no doubt a marvellous artist, only it seems to me that here, at any rate, Michael Angelo--" But Narcisse interrupted him almost with violence. "No! no! Don't talk of him! He spoilt everything, ruined everything! A man who harnessed himself to his work like an ox, who laboured at his task like a navvy, at the rate of so many square yards a day! And a man, too, with no sense of the mysterious and the unknown, who saw everything so huge as to disgust one with beauty, painting girls like the trunks of oak-trees, women like giant butchers, with heaps and heaps of stupid flesh, and never a gleam of a divine or infernal soul! He was a mason--a colossal mason, if you like--but he was nothing more." Weary "modern" that Narcisse was, spoilt by the pursuit of the original and the rare, he thus unconsciously gave rein to his fated hate of health and power. That Michael Angelo who brought forth without an effort, who had left behind him the most prodigious of all artistic creations, was the enemy. And his crime precisely was that he had created life, produced life in such excess that all the petty creations of others, even the most delightful among them, vanished in presence of the overflowing torrent of human beings flung there all alive in the sunlight. "Well, for my part," Pierre courageously declared, "I'm not of your opinion. I now realise that life is everything in art; that real immortality belongs only to those who create. The case of Michael Angelo seems to me decisive, for he is the superhuman master, the monster who overwhelms all others, precisely because he brought forth that magnificent living flesh which offends your sense of delicacy. Those who are inclined to the curious, those who have minds of a pretty turn, whose intellects are ever seeking to penetrate things, may try to improve on the equivocal and invisible, and set all the charm of art in some elaborate stroke or symbolisation; but, none the less, Michael Angelo remains the all-powerful, the maker of men, the master of clearness, simplicity, and health." At this Narcisse smiled with indulgent and courteous disdain. And he anticipated further argument by remarking: "It's already eleven. My cousin was to have sent a servant here as soon as he could receive us. I am surprised to have seen nobody as yet. Shall we go up to see the /stanze/ of Raffaelle while we wait?" Once in the rooms above, he showed himself perfect, both lucid in his remarks and just in his appreciations, having recovered all his easy intelligence as soon as he was no longer upset by his hatred of colossal labour and cheerful decoration. It was unfortunate that Pierre should have first visited the Sixtine Chapel; for it was necessary he should forget what he had just seen and accustom himself to what he now beheld in order to enjoy its pure beauty. It was as if some potent wine had confused him, and prevented any immediate relish of a lighter vintage of delicate fragrance. Admiration did not here fall upon one with lightning speed; it was slowly, irresistibly that one grew charmed. And the contrast was like that of Racine beside Corneille, Lamartine beside Hugo, the eternal pair, the masculine and feminine genius coupled through centuries of glory. With Raffaelle it is nobility, grace, exquisiteness, and correctness of line, and divineness of harmony that triumph. You do not find in him merely the materialist symbolism so superbly thrown off by Michael Angelo; he introduces psychological analysis of deep penetration into the painter's art. Man is shown more purified, idealised; one sees more of that which is within him. And though one may be in presence of an artist of sentimental bent, a feminine genius whose quiver of tenderness one can feel, it is also certain that admirable firmness of workmanship confronts one, that the whole is very strong and very great. Pierre gradually yielded to such sovereign masterliness, such virile elegance, such a vision of supreme beauty set in supreme perfection. But if the "Dispute on the Sacrament" and the so-called "School of Athens," both prior to the paintings of the Sixtine Chapel, seemed to him to be Raffaelle's masterpieces, he felt that in the "Burning of the Borgo," and particularly in the "Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple," and "Pope St. Leo staying Attila at the Gates of Rome," the artist had lost the flower of his divine grace, through the deep impression which the overwhelming grandeur of Michael Angelo had wrought upon him. How crushing indeed had been the blow when the Sixtine Chapel was thrown open and the rivals entered! The creations of the monster then appeared, and the greatest of the humanisers lost some of his soul at sight of them, thenceforward unable to rid himself of their influence. From the /stanze/ Narcisse took Pierre to the /loggie/, those glazed galleries which are so high and so delicately decorated. But here you only find work which pupils executed after designs left by Raffaelle at his death. The fall was sudden and complete, and never had Pierre better understood that genius is everything--that when it disappears the school collapses. The man of genius sums up his period; at a given hour he throws forth all the sap of the social soil, which afterwards remains exhausted often for centuries. So Pierre became more particularly interested in the fine view that the /loggie/ afford, and all at once he noticed that the papal apartments were in front of him, just across the Court of San Damaso. This court, with its porticus, fountain, and white pavement, had an aspect of empty, airy, sunlit solemnity which surprised him. There was none of the gloom or pent-up religious mystery that he had dreamt of with his mind full of the surroundings of the old northern cathedrals. Right and left of the steps conducting to the rooms of the Pope and the Cardinal Secretary of State four or five carriages were ranged, the coachmen stiffly erect and the horses motionless in the brilliant light; and nothing else peopled that vast square desert of a court which, with its bareness gilded by the coruscations of its glass-work and the ruddiness of its stones, suggested a pagan temple dedicated to the sun. But what more particularly struck Pierre was the splendid panorama of Rome, for he had not hitherto imagined that the Pope from his windows could thus behold the entire city spread out before him as if he merely had to stretch forth his hand to make it his own once more. While Pierre contemplated the scene a sound of voices caused him to turn; and he perceived a servant in black livery who, after repeating a message to Narcisse, was retiring with a deep bow. Looking much annoyed, the /attache/ approached the young priest. "Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo," said he, "has sent word that he can't see us this morning. Some unexpected duties require his presence." However, Narcisse's embarrassment showed that he did not believe in the excuse, but rather suspected some one of having so terrified his cousin that the latter was afraid of compromising himself. Obliging and courageous as Habert himself was, this made him indignant. Still he smiled and resumed: "Listen, perhaps there's a means of forcing an entry. If your time is your own we can lunch together and then return to visit the Museum of Antiquities. I shall certainly end by coming across my cousin and we may, perhaps, be lucky enough to meet the Pope should he go down to the gardens." At the news that his audience was yet again postponed Pierre had felt keenly disappointed. However, as the whole day was at his disposal, he willingly accepted the /attache's/ offer. They lunched in front of St. Peter's, in a little restaurant of the Borgo, most of whose customers were pilgrims, and the fare, as it happened, was far from good. Then at about two o'clock they set off for the museum, skirting the basilica by way of the Piazza della Sagrestia. It was a bright, deserted, burning district; and again, but in a far greater degree, did the young priest experience that sensation of bare, tawny, sun-baked majesty which had come upon him while gazing into the Court of San Damaso. Then, as he passed the apse of St. Peter's, the enormity of the colossus was brought home to him more strongly than ever: it rose like a giant bouquet of architecture edged by empty expanses of pavement sprinkled with fine weeds. And in all the silent immensity there were only two children playing in the shadow of a wall. The old papal mint, the Zecca, now an Italian possession, and guarded by soldiers of the royal army, is on the left of the passage leading to the museums, while on the right, just in front, is one of the entrances of honour to the Vatican where the papal Swiss Guard keeps watch and ward; and this is the entrance by which, according to etiquette, the pair-horse carriages convey the Pope's visitors into the Court of San Damaso. Following the long lane which ascends between a wing of the palace and its garden wall, Narcisse and Pierre at last reached the Museum of Antiquities. Ah! what a museum it is, with galleries innumerable, a museum compounded of three museums, the Pio-Clementino, Chiaramonti, and the Braccio-Nuovo, and containing a whole world found beneath the soil, then exhumed, and now glorified in full sunlight. For more than two hours Pierre went from one hall to another, dazzled by the masterpieces, bewildered by the accumulation of genius and beauty. It was not only the celebrated examples of statuary, the Laocoon and the Apollo of the cabinets of the Belvedere, the Meleager, or even the torso of Hercules--that astonished him. He was yet more impressed by the /ensemble/, by the innumerable quantities of Venuses, Bacchuses, and deified emperors and empresses, by the whole superb growth of beautiful or August flesh celebrating the immortality of life. Three days previously he had visited the Museum of the Capitol, where he had admired the Venus, the Dying Gaul,* the marvellous Centaurs of black marble, and the extraordinary collection of busts, but here his admiration became intensified into stupor by the inexhaustible wealth of the galleries. And, with more curiosity for life than for art, perhaps, he again lingered before the busts which so powerfully resuscitate the Rome of history--the Rome which, whilst incapable of realising the ideal beauty of Greece, was certainly well able to create life. The emperors, the philosophers, the learned men, the poets are all there, and live such as they really were, studied and portrayed in all scrupulousness with their deformities, their blemishes, the slightest peculiarities of their features. And from this extreme solicitude for truth springs a wonderful wealth of character and an incomparable vision of the past. Nothing, indeed, could be loftier: the very men live once more, and retrace the history of their city, that history which has been so falsified that the teaching of it has caused generations of school-boys to hold antiquity in horror. But on seeing the men, how well one understands, how fully one can sympathise! And indeed the smallest bits of marble, the maimed statues, the bas-reliefs in fragments, even the isolated limbs--whether the divine arm of a nymph or the sinewy, shaggy thigh of a satyr--evoke the splendour of a civilisation full of light, grandeur, and strength. * Best known in England, through Byron's lines, as the Dying Gladiator, though that appellation is certainly erroneous.--Trans. At last Narcisse brought Pierre back into the Gallery of the Candelabra, three hundred feet in length and full of fine examples of sculpture. "Listen, my dear Abbe," said he. "It is scarcely more than four o'clock, and we will sit down here for a while, as I am told that the Holy Father sometimes passes this way to go down to the gardens. It would be really lucky if you could see him, perhaps even speak to him--who can tell? At all events, it will rest you, for you must be tired out." Narcisse was known to all the attendants, and his relationship to Monsignor Gamba gave him the run of almost the entire Vatican, where he was fond of spending his leisure time. Finding two chairs, they sat down, and the /attache/ again began to talk of art. How astonishing had been the destiny of Rome, what a singular, borrowed royalty had been hers! She seemed like a centre whither the whole world converged, but where nothing grew from the soil itself, which from the outset appeared to be stricken with sterility. The arts required to be acclimatised there; it was necessary to transplant the genius of neighbouring nations, which, once there, however, flourished magnificently. Under the emperors, when Rome was the queen of the earth, the beauty of her monuments and sculpture came to her from Greece. Later, when Christianity arose in Rome, it there remained impregnated with paganism; it was on another soil that it produced Gothic art, the Christian Art /par excellence/. Later still, at the Renascence, it was certainly at Rome that the age of Julius II and Leo X shone forth; but the artists of Tuscany and Umbria prepared the evolution, brought it to Rome that it might thence expand and soar. For the second time, indeed, art came to Rome from without, and gave her the royalty of the world by blossoming so triumphantly within her walls. Then occurred the extraordinary awakening of antiquity, Apollo and Venus resuscitated worshipped by the popes themselves, who from the time of Nicholas V dreamt of making papal Rome the equal of the imperial city. After the precursors, so sincere, tender, and strong in their art--Fra Angelico, Perugino, Botticelli, and so many others--came the two sovereigns, Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, the superhuman and the divine. Then the fall was sudden, years elapsed before the advent of Caravaggio with power of colour and modelling, all that the science of painting could achieve when bereft of genius. And afterwards the decline continued until Bernini was reached--Bernini, the real creator of the Rome of the present popes, the prodigal child who at twenty could already show a galaxy of colossal marble wenches, the universal architect who with fearful activity finished the facade, built the colonnade, decorated the interior of St. Peter's, and raised fountains, churches, and palaces innumerable. And that was the end of all, for since then Rome has little by little withdrawn from life, from the modern world, as though she, who always lived on what she derived from others, were dying of her inability to take anything more from them in order to convert it to her own glory. "Ah! Bernini, that delightful Bernini!" continued Narcisse with his rapturous air. "He is both powerful and exquisite, his verve always ready, his ingenuity invariably awake, his fecundity full of grace and magnificence. As for their Bramante with his masterpiece, that cold, correct Cancelleria, we'll dub him the Michael Angelo and Raffaelle of architecture and say no more about it. But Bernini, that exquisite Bernini, why, there is more delicacy and refinement in his pretended bad taste than in all the hugeness and perfection of the others! Our own age ought to recognise itself in his art, at once so varied and so deep, so triumphant in its mannerisms, so full of a perturbing solicitude for the artificial and so free from the baseness of reality. Just go to the Villa Borghese to see the group of Apollo and Daphne which Bernini executed when he was eighteen,* and in particular see his statue of Santa Teresa in ecstasy at Santa Maria della Vittoria! Ah! that Santa Teresa! It is like heaven opening, with the quiver that only a purely divine enjoyment can set in woman's flesh, the rapture of faith carried to the point of spasm, the creature losing breath and dying of pleasure in the arms of the Divinity! I have spent hours and hours before that work without exhausting the infinite scope of its precious, burning symbolisation." * There is also at the Villa Borghese Bernini's /Anchises carried by Aeneas/, which he sculptured when only sixteen. No doubt his faults were many; but it was his misfortune to belong to a decadent period.--Trans. Narcisse's voice died away, and Pierre, no longer astonished at his covert, unconscious hatred of health, simplicity, and strength, scarcely listened to him. The young priest himself was again becoming absorbed in the idea he had formed of pagan Rome resuscitating in Christian Rome and turning it into Catholic Rome, the new political, sacerdotal, domineering centre of earthly government. Apart from the primitive age of the Catacombs, had Rome ever been Christian? The thoughts that had come to him on the Palatine, in the Appian Way, and in St. Peter's were gathering confirmation. Genius that morning had brought him fresh proof. No doubt the paganism which reappeared in the art of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle was tempered, transformed by the Christian spirit. But did it not still remain the basis? Had not the former master peered across Olympus when snatching his great nudities from the terrible heavens of Jehovah? Did not the ideal figures of Raffaelle reveal the superb, fascinating flesh of Venus beneath the chaste veil of the Virgin? It seemed so to Pierre, and some embarrassment mingled with his despondency, for all those beautiful forms glorifying the ardent passions of life, were in opposition to his dream of rejuvenated Christianity giving peace to the world and reviving the simplicity and purity of the early ages. All at once he was surprised to hear Narcisse, by what transition he could not tell, speaking to him of the daily life of Leo XIII. "Yes, my dear Abbe, at eighty-four* the Holy Father shows the activity of a young man and leads a life of determination and hard work such as neither you nor I would care for! At six o'clock he is already up, says his mass in his private chapel, and drinks a little milk for breakfast. Then, from eight o'clock till noon, there is a ceaseless procession of cardinals and prelates, all the affairs of the congregations passing under his eyes, and none could be more numerous or intricate. At noon the public and collective audiences usually begin. At two he dines. Then comes the siesta which he has well earned, or else a promenade in the gardens until six o'clock. The private audiences then sometimes keep him for an hour or two. He sups at nine and scarcely eats, lives on nothing, in fact, and is always alone at his little table. What do you think, eh, of the etiquette which compels him to such loneliness? There you have a man who for eighteen years has never had a guest at his table, who day by day sits all alone in his grandeur! And as soon as ten o'clock strikes, after saying the Rosary with his familiars, he shuts himself up in his room. But, although he may go to bed, he sleeps very little; he is frequently troubled by insomnia, and gets up and sends for a secretary to dictate memoranda or letters to him. When any interesting matter requires his attention he gives himself up to it heart and soul, never letting it escape his thoughts. And his life, his health, lies in all this. His mind is always busy; his will and strength must always be exerting themselves. You may know that he long cultivated Latin verse with affection; and I believe that in his days of struggle he had a passion for journalism, inspired the articles of the newspapers he subsidised, and even dictated some of them when his most cherished ideas were in question." * The reader should remember that the period selected for this narrative is the year 1894. Leo XIII was born in 1810.--Trans. Silence fell. At every moment Narcisse craned his neck to see if the little papal /cortege/ were not emerging from the Gallery of the Tapestries to pass them on its way to the gardens. "You are perhaps aware," he resumed, "that his Holiness is brought down on a low chair which is small enough to pass through every doorway. It's quite a journey, more than a mile, through the /loggie/, the /stanze/ of Raffaelle, the painting and sculpture galleries, not to mention the numerous staircases, before he reaches the gardens, where a pair-horse carriage awaits him. It's quite fine this evening, so he will surely come. We must have a little patience." Whilst Narcisse was giving these particulars Pierre again sank into a reverie and saw the whole extraordinary history pass before him. First came the worldly, ostentatious popes of the Renascence, those who resuscitated antiquity with so much passion and dreamt of draping the Holy See with the purple of empire once more. There was Paul II, the magnificent Venetian who built the Palazzo di Venezia; Sixtus IV, to whom one owes the Sixtine Chapel; and Julius II and Leo X, who made Rome a city of theatrical pomp, prodigious festivities, tournaments, ballets, hunts, masquerades, and banquets. At that time the papacy had just rediscovered Olympus amidst the dust of buried ruins, and as though intoxicated by the torrent of life which arose from the ancient soil, it founded the museums, thus reviving the superb temples of the pagan age, and restoring them to the cult of universal admiration. Never had the Church been in such peril of death, for if the Christ was still honoured at St. Peter's, Jupiter and all the other gods and goddesses, with their beauteous, triumphant flesh, were enthroned in the halls of the Vatican. Then, however, another vision passed before Pierre, one of the modern popes prior to the Italian occupation--notably Pius IX, who, whilst yet free, often went into his good city of Rome. His huge red and gold coach was drawn by six horses, surrounded by Swiss Guards and followed by Noble Guards; but now and again he would alight in the Corso, and continue his promenade on foot, and then the mounted men of the escort galloped forward to give warning and stop the traffic. The carriages drew up, the gentlemen had to alight and kneel on the pavement, whilst the ladies simply rose and devoutly inclined their heads, as the Holy Father, attended by his Court, slowly wended his way to the Piazza del Popolo, smiling and blessing at every step. And now had come Leo XIII, the voluntary prisoner, shut up in the Vatican for eighteen years, and he, behind the high, silent walls, in the unknown sphere where each of his days flowed by so quietly, had acquired a more exalted majesty, instinct with sacred and redoubtable mysteriousness. Ah! that Pope whom you no longer meet or see, that Pope hidden from the common of mankind like some terrible divinity whom the priests alone dare to approach! It is in that sumptuous Vatican which his forerunners of the Renascence built and adorned for giant festivities that he has secluded himself; it is there he lives, far from the crowd, in prison with the handsome men and the lovely women of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, with the gods and goddesses of marble, with the whole of resplendent Olympus celebrating around him the religion of life and light. With him the entire Papacy is there steeped in paganism. What a spectacle when the slender, weak old man, all soul, so purely white, passes along the galleries of the Museum of Antiquities on his way to the gardens. Right and left the statues behold him pass with all their bare flesh. There is Jupiter, there is Apollo, there is Venus the /dominatrix/, there is Pan, the universal god in whose laugh the joys of earth ring out. Nereids bathe in transparent water. Bacchantes roll, unveiled, in the warm grass. Centaurs gallop by carrying lovely girls, faint with rapture, on their steaming haunches. Ariadne is surprised by Bacchus, Ganymede fondles the eagle, Adonis fires youth and maiden with his flame. And on and on passes the weak, white old man, swaying on his low chair, amidst that splendid triumph, that display and glorification of the flesh, which shouts aloud the omnipotence of Nature, of everlasting matter! Since they have found it again, exhumed it, and honoured it, that it is which once more reigns there imperishable; and in vain have they set vine leaves on the statues, even as they have swathed the huge figures of Michael Angelo; sex still flares on all sides, life overflows, its germs course in torrents through the veins of the world. Near by, in that Vatican library of incomparable wealth, where all human science lies slumbering, there lurks a yet more terrible danger--the danger of an explosion which would sweep away everything, Vatican and St. Peter's also, if one day the books in their turn were to awake and speak aloud as speak the beauty of Venus and the manliness of Apollo. But the white, diaphanous old man seems neither to see nor to hear, and the huge heads of Jupiter, the trunks of Hercules, the equivocal statues of Antinous continue to watch him as he passes on! However, Narcisse had become impatient, and, going in search of an attendant, he learnt from him that his Holiness had already gone down. To shorten the distance, indeed, the /cortege/ often passes along a kind of open gallery leading towards the Mint. "Well, let us go down as well," said Narcisse to Pierre; "I will try to show you the gardens." Down below, in the vestibule, a door of which opened on to a broad path, he spoke to another attendant, a former pontifical soldier whom he personally knew. The man at once let him pass with Pierre, but was unable to tell him whether Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo had accompanied his Holiness that day. "No matter," resumed Narcisse when he and his companion were alone in the path; "I don't despair of meeting him--and these, you see, are the famous gardens of the Vatican." They are very extensive grounds, and the Pope can go quite two and a half miles by passing along the paths of the wood, the vineyard, and the kitchen garden. Occupying the plateau of the Vatican hill, which the medieval wall of Leo IV still girdles, the gardens are separated from the neighbouring valleys as by a fortified rampart. The wall formerly stretched to the castle of Sant' Angelo, thereby forming what was known as the Leonine City. No inquisitive eyes can peer into the grounds excepting from the dome of St. Peter's, which casts its huge shadow over them during the hot summer weather. They are, too, quite a little world, which each pope has taken pleasure in embellishing. There is a large parterre with lawns of geometrical patterns, planted with handsome palms and adorned with lemon and orange trees in pots; there is a less formal, a shadier garden, where, amidst deep plantations of yoke-elms, you find Giovanni Vesanzio's fountain, the Aquilone, and Pius IV's old Casino; then, too, there are the woods with their superb evergreen oaks, their thickets of plane-trees, acacias, and pines, intersected by broad avenues, which are delightfully pleasant for leisurely strolls; and finally, on turning to the left, beyond other clumps of trees, come the kitchen garden and the vineyard, the last well tended. Whilst walking through the wood Narcisse told Pierre of the life led by the Holy Father in these gardens. He strolls in them every second day when the weather allows. Formerly the popes left the Vatican for the Quirinal, which is cooler and healthier, as soon as May arrived; and spent the dog days at Castle Gandolfo on the margins of the Lake of Albano. But nowadays the only summer residence possessed by his Holiness is a virtually intact tower of the old rampart of Leo IV. He here spends the hottest days, and has even erected a sort of pavilion beside it for the accommodation of his suite. Narcisse, like one at home, went in and secured permission for Pierre to glance at the one room occupied by the Pope, a spacious round chamber with semispherical ceiling, on which are painted the heavens with symbolical figures of the constellations; one of the latter, the lion, having two stars for eyes--stars which a system of lighting causes to sparkle during the night. The walls of the tower are so thick that after blocking up a window, a kind of room, for the accommodation of a couch, has been contrived in the embrasure. Beside this couch the only furniture is a large work-table, a dining-table with flaps, and a large regal arm-chair, a mass of gilding, one of the gifts of the Pope's episcopal jubilee. And you dream of the days of solitude and perfect silence, spent in that low donjon hall, where the coolness of a tomb prevails whilst the heavy suns of August are scorching overpowered Rome. An astronomical observatory has been installed in another tower, surmounted by a little white cupola, which you espy amidst the greenery; and under the trees there is also a Swiss chalet, where Leo XIII is fond of resting. He sometimes goes on foot to the kitchen garden, and takes much interest in the vineyard, visiting it to see if the grapes are ripening and if the vintage will be a good one. What most astonished Pierre, however, was to learn that the Holy Father had been very fond of "sport" before age had weakened him. He was indeed passionately addicted to bird snaring. Broad-meshed nets were hung on either side of a path on the fringe of a plantation, and in the middle of the path were placed cages containing the decoys, whose songs soon attracted all the birds of the neighbourhood--red-breasts, white-throats, black-caps, nightingales, fig-peckers of all sorts. And when a numerous company of them was gathered together Leo XIII, seated out of sight and watching, would suddenly clap his hands and startle the birds, which flew up and were caught by the wings in the meshes of the nets. All that then remained to be done was to take them out of the nets and stifle them by a touch of the thumb. Roast fig-peckers are delicious.* * Perhaps so; but what a delightful pastime for the Vicar of the Divinity!--Trans. As Pierre came back through the wood he had another surprise. He suddenly lighted on a "Grotto of Lourdes," a miniature imitation of the original, built of rocks and blocks of cement. And such was his emotion at the sight that he could not conceal it. "It's true, then!" said he. "I was told of it, but I thought that the Holy Father was of loftier mind--free from all such base superstitions!" "Oh!" replied Narcisse, "I fancy that the grotto dates from Pius IX, who evinced especial gratitude to our Lady of Lourdes. At all events, it must be a gift, and Leo XIII simply keeps it in repair." For a few moments Pierre remained motionless and silent before that imitation grotto, that childish plaything. Some zealously devout visitors had left their visiting cards in the cracks of the cement-work! For his part, he felt very sad, and followed his companion with bowed head, lamenting the wretched idiocy of the world. Then, on emerging from the wood, on again reaching the parterre, he raised his eyes. Ah! how exquisite in spite of everything was that decline of a lovely day, and what a victorious charm ascended from the soil in that part of the gardens. There, in front of that bare, noble, burning parterre, far more than under the languishing foliage of the wood or among the fruitful vines, Pierre realised the strength of Nature. Above the grass growing meagrely over the compartments of geometrical pattern which the pathways traced there were barely a few low shrubs, dwarf roses, aloes, rare tufts of withering flowers. Some green bushes still described the escutcheon of Pius IX in accordance with the strange taste of former times. And amidst the warm silence one only heard the faint crystalline murmur of the water trickling from the basin of the central fountain. But all Rome, its ardent heavens, sovereign grace, and conquering voluptuousness, seemed with their own soul to animate this vast rectangular patch of decorative gardening, this mosaic of verdure, which in its semi-abandonment and scorched decay assumed an aspect of melancholy pride, instinct with the ever returning quiver of a passion of fire that could not die. Some antique vases and statues, whitely nude under the setting sun, skirted the parterres. And above the aroma of eucalyptus and of pine, stronger even than that of the ripening oranges, there rose the odour of the large, bitter box-shrubs, so laden with pungent life that it disturbed one as one passed as if indeed it were the very scent of the fecundity of that ancient soil saturated with the dust of generations. "It's very strange that we have not met his Holiness," exclaimed Narcisse. "Perhaps his carriage took the other path through the wood while we were in the tower." Then, reverting to Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo, the /attache/ explained that the functions of /Copiere/, or papal cup-bearer, which his cousin should have discharged as one of the four /Camerieri segreti partecipanti/ had become purely honorary since the dinners offered to diplomatists or in honour of newly consecrated bishops had been given by the Cardinal Secretary of State. Monsignor Gamba, whose cowardice and nullity were legendary, seemed therefore to have no other /role/ than that of enlivening Leo XIII, whose favour he had won by his incessant flattery and the anecdotes which he was ever relating about both the black and the white worlds. Indeed this fat, amiable man, who could even be obliging when his interests were not in question, was a perfect newspaper, brimful of tittle-tattle, disdaining no item of gossip whatever, even if it came from the kitchens. And thus he was quietly marching towards the cardinalate, certain of obtaining the hat without other exertion than that of bringing a budget of gossip to beguile the pleasant hours of the promenade. And Heaven knew that he was always able to garner an abundant harvest of news in that closed Vatican swarming with prelates of every kind, in that womanless pontifical family of old begowned bachelors, all secretly exercised by vast ambitions, covert and revolting rivalries, and ferocious hatreds, which, it is said, are still sometimes carried as far as the good old poison of ancient days. All at once Narcisse stopped. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "I was certain of it. There's the Holy Father! But we are not in luck. He won't even see us; he is about to get into his carriage again." As he spoke a carriage drew up at the verge of the wood, and a little /cortege/ emerging from a narrow path, went towards it. Pierre felt as if he had received a great blow in the heart. Motionless beside his companion, and half hidden by a lofty vase containing a lemon-tree, it was only from a distance that he was able to see the white old man, looking so frail and slender in the wavy folds of his white cassock, and walking so very slowly with short, gliding steps. The young priest could scarcely distinguish the emaciated face of old diaphanous ivory, emphasised by a large nose which jutted out above thin lips. However, the Pontiff's black eyes were glittering with an inquisitive smile, while his right ear was inclined towards Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo, who was doubtless finishing some story at once rich and short, flowery and dignified. And on the left walked a Noble Guard; and two other prelates followed. It was but a familiar apparition; Leo XIII was already climbing into the closed carriage. And Pierre, in the midst of that large, odoriferous, burning garden, again experienced the singular emotion which had come upon him in the Gallery of the Candelabra while he was picturing the Pope on his way between the Apollos and Venuses radiant in their triumphant nudity. There, however, it was only pagan art which had celebrated the eternity of life, the superb, almighty powers of Nature. But here he had beheld the Pontiff steeped in Nature itself, in Nature clad in the most lovely, most voluptuous, most passionate guise. Ah! that Pope, that old man strolling with his Divinity of grief, humility, and renunciation along the paths of those gardens of love, in the languid evenings of the hot summer days, beneath the caressing scents of pine and eucalyptus, ripe oranges, and tall, acrid box-shrubs! The whole atmosphere around him proclaimed the powers of the great god Pan. How pleasant was the thought of living there, amidst that magnificence of heaven and of earth, of loving the beauty of woman and of rejoicing in the fruitfulness of all! And suddenly the decisive truth burst forth that from a land of such joy and light it was only possible for a temporal religion of conquest and political domination to rise; not the mystical, pain-fraught religion of the North--the religion of the soul! However, Narcisse led the young priest away, telling him other anecdotes as they went--anecdotes of the occasional /bonhomie/ of Leo XIII, who would stop to chat with the gardeners, and question them about the health of the trees and the sale of the oranges. And he also mentioned the Pope's former passion for a pair of gazelles, sent him from Africa, two graceful creatures which he had been fond of caressing, and at whose death he had shed tears. But Pierre no longer listened. When they found themselves on the Piazza of St. Peter's, he turned round and gazed at the Vatican once more. His eyes had fallen on the gate of bronze, and he remembered having wondered that morning what there might be behind these metal panels ornamented with big nails. And he did not yet dare to answer the question, and decide if the new nations thirsting for fraternity and justice would really find there the religion necessary for the democracies of to-morrow; for he had not been able to probe things, and only carried a first impression away with him. But how keen it was, and how ill it boded for his dreams! A gate of bronze! Yes, a hard, impregnable gate, so completely shutting the Vatican off from the rest of the world that nothing new had entered the palace for three hundred years. Behind that portal the old centuries, as far as the sixteenth, remained immutable. Time seemed to have stayed its course there for ever; nothing more stirred; the very costumes of the Swiss Guards, the Noble Guards, and the prelates themselves were unchanged; and you found yourself in the world of three hundred years ago, with its etiquette, its costumes, and its ideas. That the popes in a spirit of haughty protest should for five and twenty years have voluntarily shut themselves up in their palace was already regrettable; but this imprisonment of centuries within the past, within the grooves of tradition, was far more serious and dangerous. It was all Catholicism which was thus imprisoned, whose dogmas and sacerdotal organisation were obstinately immobilised. Perhaps, in spite of its apparent flexibility, Catholicism was really unable to yield in anything, under peril of being swept away, and therein lay both its weakness and its strength. And then what a terrible world was there, how great the pride and ambition, how numerous the hatreds and rivalries! And how strange the prison, how singular the company assembled behind the bars--the Crucified by the side of Jupiter Capitolinus, all pagan antiquity fraternising with the Apostles, all the splendours of the Renascence surrounding the pastor of the Gospel who reigns in the name of the humble and the poor! The sun was sinking, the gentle, luscious sweetness of the Roman evenings was falling from the limpid heavens, and after that splendid day spent with Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, the ancients, and the Pope, in the finest palace of the world, the young priest lingered, distracted, on the Piazza of St. Peter's. "Well, you must excuse me, my dear Abbe," concluded Narcisse. "But I will now confess to you that I suspect my worthy cousin of a fear that he might compromise himself by meddling in your affair. I shall certainly see him again, but you will do well not to put too much reliance on him." It was nearly six o'clock when Pierre got back to the Boccanera mansion. As a rule, he passed in all modesty down the lane, and entered by the little side door, a key of which had been given him. But he had that morning received a letter from M. de la Choue, and desired to communicate it to Benedetta. So he ascended the grand staircase, and on reaching the anteroom was surprised to find nobody there. As a rule, whenever the man-servant went out Victorine installed herself in his place and busied herself with some needlework. Her chair was there, and Pierre even noticed some linen which she had left on a little table when probably summoned elsewhere. Then, as the door of the first reception-room was ajar, he at last ventured in. It was almost night there already, the twilight was softly dying away, and all at once the young priest stopped short, fearing to take another step, for, from the room beyond, the large yellow /salon/, there came a murmur of feverish, distracted words, ardent entreaties, fierce panting, a rustling and a shuffling of footsteps. And suddenly Pierre no longer hesitated, urged on despite himself by the conviction that the sounds he heard were those of a struggle, and that some one was hard pressed. And when he darted into the further room he was stupefied, for Dario was there, no longer showing the degenerate elegance of the last scion of an exhausted race, but maddened by the hot, frantic blood of the Boccaneras which had bubbled up within him. He had clasped Benedetta by the shoulders in a frenzy of passion and was scorching her face with his hot, entreating words: "But since you say, my darling, that it is all over, that your marriage will never be dissolved--oh! why should we be wretched for ever! Love me as you do love me, and let me love you--let me love you!" But the Contessina, with an indescribable expression of tenderness and suffering on her tearful face, repulsed him with her outstretched arms, she likewise evincing a fierce energy as she repeated: "No, no; I love you, but it must not, it must not be." At that moment, amidst the roar of his despair, Dario became conscious that some one was entering the room. He turned and gazed at Pierre with an expression of stupefied insanity, scarce able even to recognise him. Then he carried his two hands to his face, to his bloodshot eyes and his cheeks wet with scalding tears, and fled, heaving a terrible, pain-fraught sigh in which baffled passion mingled with grief and repentance. Benedetta seated herself, breathing hard, her strength and courage wellnigh exhausted. But as Pierre, too much embarrassed to speak, turned towards the door, she addressed him in a calmer voice: "No, no, Monsieur l'Abbe, do not go away--sit down, I pray you; I should like to speak to you for a moment." He thereupon thought it his duty to account for his sudden entrance, and explained that he had found the door of the first /salon/ ajar, and that Victorine was not in the ante-room, though he had seen her work lying on the table there. "Yes," exclaimed the Contessina, "Victorine ought to have been there; I saw her there but a short time ago. And when my poor Dario lost his head I called her. Why did she not come?" Then, with sudden expansion, leaning towards Pierre, she continued: "Listen, Monsieur l'Abbe, I will tell you what happened, for I don't want you to form too bad an opinion of my poor Dario. It was all in some measure my fault. Last night he asked me for an appointment here in order that we might have a quiet chat, and as I knew that my aunt would be absent at this time to-day I told him to come. It was only natural--wasn't it?--that we should want to see one another and come to an agreement after the grievous news that my marriage will probably never be annulled. We suffer too much, and must form a decision. And so when he came this evening we began to weep and embrace, mingling our tears together. I kissed him again and again, telling him how I adored him, how bitterly grieved I was at being the cause of his sufferings, and how surely I should die of grief at seeing him so unhappy. Ah! no doubt I did wrong; I ought not to have caught him to my heart and embraced him as I did, for it maddened him, Monsieur l'Abbe; he lost his head, and would have made me break my vow to the Blessed Virgin." She spoke these words in all tranquillity and simplicity, without sign of embarrassment, like a young and beautiful woman who is at once sensible and practical. Then she resumed: "Oh! I know my poor Dario well, but it does not prevent me from loving him; perhaps, indeed, it only makes me love him the more. He looks delicate, perhaps rather sickly, but in truth he is a man of passion. Yes, the old blood of my people bubbles up in him. I know something of it myself, for when I was a child I sometimes had fits of angry passion which left me exhausted on the floor, and even now, when the gusts arise within me, I have to fight against myself and torture myself in order that I may not act madly. But my poor Dario does not know how to suffer. He is like a child whose fancies must be gratified. And yet at bottom he has a good deal of common sense; he waits for me because he knows that the only real happiness lies with the woman who adores him." As Pierre listened he was able to form a more precise idea of the young prince, of whose character he had hitherto had but a vague perception. Whilst dying of love for his cousin, Dario had ever been a man of pleasure. Though he was no doubt very amiable, the basis of his temperament was none the less egotism. And, in particular, he was unable to endure suffering; he loathed suffering, ugliness, and poverty, whether they affected himself or others. Both his flesh and his soul required gaiety, brilliancy, show, life in the full sunlight. And withal he was exhausted, with no strength left him but for the idle life he led, so incapable of thought and will that the idea of joining the new /regime/ had not even occurred to him. Yet he had all the unbounded pride of a Roman; sagacity--a keen, practical perception of the real--was mingled with his indolence; while his inveterate love of woman, more frequently displayed in charm of manner, burst forth at times in attacks of frantic sensuality. "After all he is a man," concluded Benedetta in a low voice, "and I must not ask impossibilities of him." Then, as Pierre gazed at her, his notions of Italian jealousy quite upset, she exclaimed, aglow with passionate adoration: "No, no. Situated as we are, I am not jealous. I know very well that he will always return to me, and that he will be mine alone whenever I please, whenever it may be possible." Silence followed; shadows were filling the room, the gilding of the large pier tables faded away, and infinite melancholy fell from the lofty, dim ceiling and the old hangings, yellow like autumn leaves. But soon, by some chance play of the waning light, a painting stood out above the sofa on which the Contessina was seated. It was the portrait of the beautiful young girl with the turban--Cassia Boccanera the forerunner, the /amorosa/ and avengeress. Again was Pierre struck by the portrait's resemblance to Benedetta, and, thinking aloud, he resumed: "Passion always proves the stronger; there invariably comes a moment when one succumbs--" But Benedetta violently interrupted him: "I! I! Ah! you do not know me; I would rather die!" And with extraordinary exaltation, all aglow with love, as if her superstitious faith had fired her passion to ecstasy, she continued: "I have vowed to the Madonna that I will belong to none but the man I love, and to him only when he is my husband. And hitherto I have kept that vow, at the cost of my happiness, and I will keep it still, even if it cost me my life! Yes, we will die, my poor Dario and I, if it be necessary; but the holy Virgin has my vow, and the angels shall not weep in heaven!" She was all in those words, her nature all simplicity, intricate, inexplicable though it might seem. She was doubtless swayed by that idea of human nobility which Christianity has set in renunciation and purity; a protest, as it were, against eternal matter, against the forces of Nature, the everlasting fruitfulness of life. But there was more than this; she reserved herself, like a divine and priceless gift, to be bestowed on the one being whom her heart had chosen, he who would be her lord and master when God should have united them in marriage. For her everything lay in the blessing of the priest, in the religious solemnisation of matrimony. And thus one understood her long resistance to Prada, whom she did not love, and her despairing, grievous resistance to Dario, whom she did love, but who was not her husband. And how torturing it was for that soul of fire to have to resist her love; how continual was the combat waged by duty in the Virgin's name against the wild, passionate blood of her race! Ignorant, indolent though she might be, she was capable of great fidelity of heart, and, moreover, she was not given to dreaming: love might have its immaterial charms, but she desired it complete. As Pierre looked at her in the dying twilight he seemed to see and understand her for the first time. The duality of her nature appeared in her somewhat full, fleshy lips, in her big black eyes, which suggested a dark, tempestuous night illumined by flashes of lightning, and in the calm, sensible expression of the rest of her gentle, infantile face. And, withal, behind those eyes of flame, beneath that pure, candid skin, one divined the internal tension of a superstitious, proud, and self-willed woman, who was obstinately intent on reserving herself for her one love. And Pierre could well understand that she should be adored, that she should fill the life of the man she chose with passion, and that to his own eyes she should appear like the younger sister of that lovely, tragic Cassia who, unwilling to survive the blow that had rendered self-bestowal impossible, had flung herself into the Tiber, dragging her brother Ercole and the corpse of her lover Flavio with her. However, with a gesture of kindly affection Benedetta caught hold of Pierre's hands. "You have been here a fortnight, Monsieur l'Abbe," said she, "and I have come to like you very much, for I feel you to be a friend. If at first you do not understand us, at least pray do not judge us too severely. Ignorant as I may be, I always strive to act for the best, I assure you." Pierre was greatly touched by her affectionate graciousness, and thanked her whilst for a moment retaining her beautiful hands in his own, for he also was becoming much attached to her. A fresh dream was carrying him off, that of educating her, should he have the time, or, at all events, of not returning home before winning her soul over to his own ideas of future charity and fraternity. Did not that adorable, unoccupied, indolent, ignorant creature, who only knew how to defend her love, personify the Italy of yesterday? The Italy of yesterday, so lovely and so sleepy, instinct with a dying grace, charming one even in her drowsiness, and retaining so much mystery in the fathomless depths of her black, passionate eyes! And what a /role/ would be that of awakening her, instructing her, winning her over to truth, making her the rejuvenated Italy of to-morrow such as he had dreamt of! Even in that disastrous marriage with Count Prada he tried to see merely a first attempt at revival which had failed, the modern Italy of the North being over-hasty, too brutal in its eagerness to love and transform that gentle, belated Rome which was yet so superb and indolent. But might he not take up the task? Had he not noticed that his book, after the astonishment of the first perusal, had remained a source of interest and reflection with Benedetta amidst the emptiness of her days given over to grief? What! was it really possible that she might find some appeasement for her own wretchedness by interesting herself in the humble, in the happiness of the poor? Emotion already thrilled her at the idea, and he, quivering at the thought of all the boundless love that was within her and that she might bestow, vowed to himself that he would draw tears of pity from her eyes. But the night had now almost completely fallen, and Benedetta rose to ask for a lamp. Then, as Pierre was about to take leave, she detained him for another moment in the gloom. He could no longer see her; he only heard her grave voice: "You will not go away with too bad an opinion of us, will you, Monsieur l'Abbe? We love one another, Dario and I, and that is no sin when one behaves as one ought. Ah! yes, I love him, and have loved him for years. I was barely thirteen, he was eighteen, and we already loved one another wildly in those big gardens of the Villa Montefiori which are now all broken up. Ah! what days we spent there, whole afternoons among the trees, hours in secret hiding-places, where we kissed like little angels. When the oranges ripened their perfume intoxicated us. And the large box-plants, ah, /Dio!/ how they enveloped us, how their strong, acrid scent made our hearts beat! I can never smell then nowadays without feeling faint!" A man-servant brought in the lamp, and Pierre ascended to his room. But when half-way up the little staircase he perceived Victorine, who started slightly, as if she had posted herself there to watch his departure from the /salon/. And now, as she followed him up, talking and seeking for information, he suddenly realised what had happened. "Why did you not go to your mistress instead of running off," he asked, "when she called you, while you were sewing in the ante-room?" At first she tried to feign astonishment and reply that she had heard nothing. But her good-natured, frank face did not know how to lie, and she ended by confessing, with a gay, courageous air. "Well," she said, "it surely wasn't for me to interfere between lovers! Besides, my poor little Benedetta is simply torturing herself to death with those ideas of hers. Why shouldn't they be happy, since they love one another? Life isn't so amusing as some may think. And how bitterly one regrets not having seized hold of happiness when the time for it has gone!" Once alone in his room, Pierre suddenly staggered, quite overcome. The great box-plants, the great box-plants with their acrid, perturbing perfume! She, Benedetta, like himself, had quivered as she smelt them; and he saw them once more in a vision of the pontifical gardens, the voluptuous gardens of Rome, deserted, glowing under the August sun. And now his whole day crystallised, assumed clear and full significance. It spoke to him of the fruitful awakening, of the eternal protest of Nature and life, Venus and Hercules, whom one may bury for centuries beneath the soil, but who, nevertheless, one day arise from it, and though one may seek to wall them up within the domineering, stubborn, immutable Vatican, reign yet even there, and rule the whole, wide world with sovereign power! 
43661	----	Transcriber's note: A few obvious typographical errors have been corrected: they are listed at the end of the text. In this edition line numbers are displayed on every tenth line--in the printed work they were synchronised to the pagination, with sometimes only one number per page. Lines marked = were printed AND COUNTED as two lines. Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). A carat character is used to denote superscription. A single character, or group enclosed enclosed in curly brackets, following the carat is superscripted (example: .xxx.^{ti}). In the main texts of The Vision and The Creed, the numbers of the original pages are enclosed in curly brackets to facilitate the use of the glossary. Project Gutenberg has the other volume of this work. Volume I: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43660 * * * * * Library of Old Authors. THE VISION AND CREED OF PIERS PLOUGHMAN. EDITED, FROM A CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT, WITH A HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND A GLOSSARY, BY THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A. F.S.A. &c. Corresponding Member of the Imperial Institute of France, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. _SECOND AND REVISED EDITION._ LONDON: REEVES AND TURNER, 196 STRAND. 1887. * * * * * {273} _Passus Decimus Quartus, etc._ "Ihave but oon hool hater," quod Haukyn; 8900 "I am the lasse to blame, Though it be soiled and selde clene: I slepe therinne o nyghtes. And also I have an houswif, Hewen and children,-- _Uxorem duxi, et ideo non possum venire._-- That wollen by-molen it many tyme, Maugree my chekes. It hath be laved in Lente And out of Lente bothe, 8910 With the sope of siknesse, That seketh wonder depe, And with the losse of catel, Looth for to a-gulte God of any good man, By aught that I wiste; And was shryven of the preest That gaf me for my synnes To penaunce pacience And povere men to fede, 8920 Al for coveitise of my cristendom In clennesse to kepen it. {274} And kouthe I nevere, by Crist! Kepen it clene an houre, That I ne soiled it with sighte Or som ydel speche, Or thorugh werk, or thorugh word, Or wille of myn herte, That I ne flobre it foule Fro morwe til even." 8930 "And I shal kenne thee," quod Conscience, "Of contricion to make That shal clawe thi cote Of alle kynnes filthe. _Cordis contritio, etc._ Do-wel shal wasshen and wryngen it Thorugh a wis confessour. _Oris confessio, etc._ Do-bet shal beten it and bouken it As bright as any scarlet, 8940 And engreyven it with good wille And Goddes grace to amende the, And sithen sende thee to satisfaccion For to sowen it after. _Satisfactio Do-best._ "Shal nevere cheeste by-molen it, Ne mothe after biten it, Ne fend ne fals man Defoulen it in thi lyve. Shal noon heraud ne harpour 8950 Have a fairer garnement Than Haukyn the actif man, And thow do by my techyng; Ne no mynstrall be moore worth Amonges povere and riche, Than Haukyns wif the wafrer, {275} With his _activa vita_." "And I shal purveie thee paast," quod Pacience, "Though no plough erye, And flour to fede folk with 8960 As best be for the soule, Though nevere greyn growed, Ne grape upon vyne. To alle that lyveth and loketh Liflode wolde I fynde, And that y-nogh shal noon faille Of thyng that hem nedeth, We sholde noght be to bisy Abouten oure liflode," _Ne solliciti sitis, etc. Volucres coeli 8970 Deus pascit, etc. Patientes vincunt._ Thanne laughed Haukyn a litel, And lightly gan swerye, "Who so leveth yow, by oure Lord! I leve noght he be blessed." "No," quod Pacience paciently; And out of his poke hente Vitailles of grete vertues For alle manere beestes, 8980 And seide, "Lo here liflode y-nogh! If oure bileve be trewe. For lent nevere was lif, But liflode were shapen, Wher-of or wher-fore Or wher-by to libbe. "First the wilde worm Under weet erthe, Fissh to lyve in the flood, {276} And in the fir the criket, 8990 The corlew by kynde of the eyr Moost clennest flessh of briddes, And bestes by gras and by greyn And by grene rootes, In menynge that alle men Myghte the same Lyve thorugh leel bileve And love, as God witnesseth." _Quodcunque petieritis a patre in nomine meo, etc. Et alibi: 9000 Non in solo pane vivit homo, sed in omni verbo quod procedit de ore Dei._ But I lokede what liflode it was That Pacience so preisede; And thanne was it a pece of the pater-noster, _Fiat voluntas tua._ "Have, Haukyn," quod Pacience, "And et this whan the hungreth, Or whan thow clomsest for cold, 9010 Or clyngest for drye; Shul nevere gyves thee greve, Ne gret lordes wrathe, Prison ne peyne; For _patientes vincunt_. By so that thow be sobre Of sighte and of tonge, In etynge and in handlynge, And in alle thi fyve wittes, Darstow nevere care for corn, 9020 Ne lynnen cloth ne wollen, Ne for drynke, ne deeth drede, But deye as God liketh, {277} Or thorugh hunger or thorugh hete, At his wille be it. For if thow lyve after his loore, The shorter lif the bettre. _Si quis amat Christum, Mundum non diliget istum._ "For thorugh his breeth beestes woxen 9030 And a-brood yeden. _Dixit et facta sunt, etc._ _Ergo_ thorugh his breeth mowen Men and beestes lyven, As holy writ witnesseth, Whan men seye hir graces. _Aperis tu manum tuam, et imples omne animal benedictione._ "It is founden that fourty wynter Folk lyvede withouten tulying; 9040 And out of the flynt sprong the flood That folk and beestes dronken; And in Elyes tyme Hevene was y-closed, That no reyn ne roon; Thus rede men in bokes 9046 That many wyntres men lyveden, And no mete ne tulieden. "Sevene slepe, as seith the book, Sevene hundred wynter, And lyveden withouten liflode, And at the laste thei woken. And if men lyvede as mesure wolde, Sholde nevere moore be defaute Amonges cristene creatures, If Cristes wordes ben trewe. "Ac unkyndenesse _caristiam_ maketh 9056 {278} Amonges cristen peple; And over plentee maketh pryde Amonges poore and riche. Therfore mesure is muche worth, 9060 It may noght be to deere; For the meschief and the meschaunce Amonges men of Sodome, Weex thorugh plentee of payn, And of pure sleuthe. _Otiositas et abundantia panis peccatum turpissimum nutrivit._ For thei mesured noght hemself Of that thei ete and dronke, Thei diden dedly synne 9070 That the devel liked, So vengeaunce fil upon hem For hir vile synnes; Thei sonken into helle, The citees echone. "For-thi mesure we us wel, And make oure feith oure sheltrom; And thorugh feith cometh contricion, Conscience woot wel, Which dryveth awey dedly synne, 9080 And dooth it to be venial. And though a man myghte noght speke, Contricion myghte hym save, And brynge his soule to blisse; For so that feith bere witnesse, That whiles he lyvede, he bilevede In the loore of the holy chirche. _Ergo_ contricion, feith, and conscience Is kyndeliche Do-wel, {279} And surgiens for dedly synnes 9090 Whan shrift of mouthe failleth. Ac shrift of mouth moore worthi is, If man be y-liche contrit; For shrift of mouthe sleeth synne, Be it never so dedly. _Per confessionem_ to a preest _Peccata occiduntur._ "Ther contricion dooth but dryveth it down Into a venial synne, As David seith in the Sauter, 9100 _Et quorum tecta sunt peccata_; Ac satisfaccion seketh out the roote, And bothe sleeth and voideth, An as it nevere hadde y-be To noghte bryngeth dedly synne, That it nevere eft is sene ne soor, But semeth a wounde y-heeled." "Where wonyeth Charité?" quod Haukyn, "I wiste nevere in my lyve Man that with hym spak, 9110 As wide as I have passed." "Ther parfit truthe and poore herte is, And pacience of tonge, Ther is Charité the chief chaumbrere For God hymselve." "Wheither paciente poverte," quod Haukyn, "Be moore plesaunt to our Drighte Than richesse rightfulliche wonne, And resonably despended?" "Ye, _quis est ille_?" quod Pacience; 9120 "Quik _laudabimus eum_. {280} Though men rede of richesse Right to the worldes ende, I wiste nevere renk that riche was, That whan he rekene sholde, Whan he drogh to his deeth day, That he ne dredde hym soore, And that at the rekenyng in arrerage fel Rather than out of dette. Ther the poore dar plede, 9130 And preve by pure reson, To have allowance of his lord, By the lawe he it cleymeth; Joye, that nevere joye hadde, Of rightful jugge he asketh, And seith 'Lo! briddes and beestes That no blisse ne knoweth, And wilde wormes in wodes, Thorugh wyntres thow hem grevest; And makest hem wel neigh meke, 9140 And mylde for defaute; And after thow sendest hem somer, That is hir sovereyn joye, And blisse to alle that ben, Bothe wilde and tame.' "Thanne may beggeris as beestes After boote waiten, That al hir lif han lyved In langour and in defaute, But God sente hem som tyme 9150 Som manere joye Outher here or ellis where, Kynde wolde it nevere; For to wrotherhele was he wroght That nevere was joye shapen. {281} Aungeles that in helle now ben Hadden joye som tyme; And Dives in the deyntees lyvede, And in _douce vie_. Right so reson sheweth 9160 That the men that were riche, And hir makes also, Lyvede hir lif in murthe. "Ac God is of wonder wille, By that kynde wit sheweth, To gyve many man his mede Er he it have deserved. Right so fareth God by some riche, Ruthe me it thynketh; For thei han hir hire heer, 9170 And hevene, as it were, And greet likynge to lyve Withouten labour of bodye: And whan he dyeth, ben disalowed, As David seith in the Sauter: _Dormierunt, et nihil invenerunt._ And in another stede also: _Velut somnium surgentium, Domine, in civitate tua, et ad nihilum rediges, etc._ 9180 "Allas! that richesse shal reve And robbe mannes soule From the love of oure Lord, At his laste ende. "Hewen, that han hir hire afore, Arn evere moore nedy; And selden deyeth he out of dette, That dyneth er he deserve it, And til he have doon his devoir {282} And his dayes journée. 9190 For whan a werkman hath wroght, Than many men se the sothe What he were worthi for his werk, And what he hath deserved; And noght to fonge bifore, For drede of disalowyng. "So I seye by yow riche, It semeth noght that ye shulle Have hevene in youre here dwellyng, And hevene also therafter; 9200 Right so as a servaunt taketh his salarie bifore, And siththe wolde clayme moore, As he that noon hadde, And hath hire at the laste. It may noght be, ye riche men, Or Mathew on God lyeth: _Væ! deliciis ad delicias difficile est transire._ "Ac if ye riche have ruthe, And rewarde wel the poore, 9210 And lyven as lawe techeth, And doon leauté to hem alle, Crist of his curteisie Shal conforte yow at the laste, And rewarden alle double richesse That rewful hertes habbeth. And as an hyne that hadde His hire er he bigonne, And whan he hath doon his devoir wel Men dooth hym oother bountee, 9220 Gyveth hym a cote above his covenaunt, {283} Right so Crist gyveth hevene Bothe to riche and to noght riche That rewfulliche libbeth; And alle that doon hir devoir wel Han double hire for hir travaille, Here forgifnesse of hir synnes, And hevene blisse after. "Ac it is but selde y-seien, As by holy seintes bokes, 9230 That God rewarded double reste To any riche wye. For muche murthe is amonges riche, As in mete and clothyng; And muche murthe in May is Amonges wilde beestes, And so forth while somer lasteth Hir solace dureth. "Ac beggeris aboute Midsomer Bred-lees thei slepe. And yet is wynter for hem worse, For weet shoed thei gone, A-furst soore and a-fyngred, And foule y-rebuked, 9244 And a-rated of riche men That ruthe is to here. Now, Lord, sende hem somer, And som maner joye, Hevene after hir hennes goyng, That here han swich defaute, For alle myghtestow have maad Noon mener than oother, And y-liche witty and wise, If thee wel hadde liked. But, Lord, have ruthe on thise riche men, 9254 {284} That rewarde noght thi prisoners. Of the good that thow hem gyvest _Ingrati_ ben manye; Ac, God, of thi goodnesse Gyve hem grace to amende. For may no derthe be hem deere, 9260 Droghte ne weet hem greve, Ne neither hete ne hayll; Have thei hir heele, Of that thei wilne and wolde Wanteth hem noght here. "Ac poore peple thi prisoners, Lord, in the put of meschief, Conforte tho creatures, That muche care suffren Thorugh derthe, thorugh droghte, 9270 Alle hir dayes here, Wo in wynter tymes For wantynge of clothes, And in somer tyme selde Soupen to the fulle. Conforte thi carefulle, Crist, in thi richesse; For how thow confortest alle creatures, Clerkes bereth witnesse: _Convertimini ad me, et salvi eritis_. 9280 "Thus _in genere_ of gentries Jhesu Crist seide, To robberis and to reveris, To riche and to poore, Thou taughtest hem in the Trinité To taken bapteme, And to be clene through that cristnyng Of alle kynnes synne; {285} And if us fille thorugh folie To falle in synne after, 9290 Confession and knowlichynge In cravynge thi mercy, Shulde amenden us as manye sithes As man wolde desire. And if the pope wolde plede ayein, And punysshe us in conscience, He sholde take the acquitaunce as quyk, And to the queed shewen it. _Pateat, etc. per passionem Domini._ And putten of so the pouke, 9300 And preven us under borwe. Ac the parchemyn of this patente Of poverte be moste, And of pure pacience, And parfit bileve. "Of pompe and of pride The parchemym decourreth, And principalliche of al the peple, But thei be poore of herte; Ellis is al on ydel, 9310 Al that evere writen Pater-nostres and penaunce, And pilgrymages to Rome; But oure spences and spendynge Sprynge of a trewe wille, Ellis is al our labour lost, Lo! how men writeth In fenestres at the freres, If fals be the foundement. For-thi cristene sholde be in commune riche, 9320 Noon coveitous for hymselve. {286} "For sevene synnes ther ben, That assaillen us evere; The fend folweth hem alle, And fondeth hem to helpe. Ac with richesse that ribaud He rathest men bigileth. For ther that richesse regneth, Reverence folweth; And that is plesaunt to pride, 9330 In poore and in riche. And the riche is reverenced By reson of his richesse, Ther the poore is put bihynde, And peraventure kan moore Of wit and of wisdom, That fer awey is bettre Than richesse or reautee, And rather y-herd in hevene. For the riche hath muche to rekene; 9340 And many tyme hym that walketh The heighe wey to hevene-ward, Richesse hym letteth,-- _Ita inpossibile diviti, etc._-- Ther the poore preesseth bifore the riche, With a pak at his rugge,-- _Opera enim illorum sequuntur illos_.-- Batauntliche, as beggeris doon, And boldeliche he craveth, For his poverte and his pacience, 9350 A perpetuel blisse. _Beati pauperes, quoniam ipsorum est regnum cælorum._ "And pride in richesse regneth Rather than in poverte; {287} Arst in the master than in the man Som mansion he haveth. Ac in poverte, ther pacience is, Pride hath no myghte, Ne none of the sevene synnes 9360 Sitten ne mowe ther longe, Ne have power in poverte, If pacience folwe. For the poore is ay prest To plese the riche, And buxom at hise biddynges, For his broke loves; And boxomnesse and boost Arn evere moore at werre, And either hateth oother 9370 In alle maner werkes. "If wrathe wrastle with the poore, He hath the worse ende; And if thei bothe pleyne, The poore is but feble; And if he chide or chatre, Hym cheveth the worse. "And if coveitise cacche the poore, Thei may noght come togideres; And by the nekke namely 9380 Hir noon may hente oother. For men knowen wel that coveitise Is of kene wille, And hath hondes and armes Of ful greet lengthe; And poverte nys but a petit thyng, Apereth noght to his navele; And lovely layk was it nevere Bitwene the longe and the shorte. {288} "And though avarice wolde angre the poore, 9390 He hath but litel myghte; For poverte hath but pokes To putten in hise goodes, Ther avarice hath almaries, And yren bounden cofres. And wheither be lighter to breke, And lasse boost maketh, A beggeris bagge Than an yren bounde cofre? "Lecherie loveth hym noght, 9400 For he gyveth but litel silver, Ne dooth hym noght dyne delicatly, Ne drynke wyn ofte. A straw for the stuwes! Thei stoode noght, I trowe, Hadde thei no thyng but of poore men, Hir houses stoode untyled. "And though sleuthe suwe poverte, And serve noght God to paie, Meschief is his maister, 9410 And maketh hym to thynke That God is his grettest help, And no gome ellis; And he is servaunt, as he seith, And of his sute bothe; And wheither he be or be noght, He bereth the signe of poverte, And in that secte oure Saveour Saved al mankynde. For-thi every poore that pacient is, 9420 May cleymen and asken After hir endynge here {289} Hevene riche blisse, "Muche hardier may he asken, That here myghte have his wille In lond and in lordshipe, And likynge of bodie, And for Goddes love leveth al, Any lyveth as a beggere; And as a mayde for mannes love 9430 Hire moder forsaketh, Hir fader and alle hire frendes, And folweth hir make. Muche moore is to love Of hym that swich oon taketh, Than is that maiden That is maried thorugh brocage, As by assent of sondry parties, And silver to boote, Moore for coveitise of good 9440 Than kynde love of bothe. So it fareth by ech a persone That possession forsaketh, And put hym to be pacient. And poverte weddeth, The which is sib to God hymself, And so to hise seintes." "Have God my trouthe!" quod Haukyn, "Ye preise faste poverte, What is poverte with pacience," quod he; 9450 "Proprely to mene?" "_Paupertas_," quod Pacience, "_est odibile bonum, remotio curarum, possessio sine calumnia, donum Dei, sanitatis mater, {290} absque sollicitudine semita, sapientiæ temperatrix, negotium sine damno, incerta fortuna, absque sollicitudine felicitas._" 9460 "I kan noght construe al this," quod Haukyn, "Ye moste kenne me this on Englissh." "In Englissh," quod Pacience, "It is wel hard wel to expounen; Ac som deel I shal seyen it, By so thow understonde: Poverte is the firste point That pride moost hateth; Thanne is it good by good skile, Al that agasteth pride. 9470 Right as contricion is confortable thyng, Conscience woot wel, And a sorwe of hymself, And a solace to the soule, So poverte propreliche, Penaunce and joye, Is to the body Pure spiritual helthe. _Ergo paupertas est odibile bonum._ And contricion confort, 9480 And _cura animarum_. "Selde sit poverte, The sothe to declare; For as justice to jugge men, Enjoyned is no poore, Ne to be mair above men Ne mynystre under kynges; Selde is any poore y-put {291} To punysshen any peple. _Remotio curarum._ 9490 _Ergo_ poverte and poore men Perfournen the comaundement, _Nolite judicare Quemquam_ the thridde," "Selde is any poore riche, But of rightful heritage; Wynneth he noght with wightes false, Ne with unseled mesures, Ne borweth of hise neighebores, But that he may wel paie. 9500 _Possessio sine calumnia._ "The ferthe is a fortune That florissheth the soule, With sobretee fram alle synne, And also yit moore It afaiteth the flessh Fram folies ful manye, A collateral confort, Cristes owene gifte. _Donum Dei._ 9510 "The fifte is moder of helthe, A frend in alle fondynges, And for the land evere a leche, A lemman of alle clennesse. _Sanitatis mater._ "The sixte is a path of pees, Ye, thorugh the paas of Aultone Poverte myghte passe Withouten peril of robbyng. For ther that poverte passeth, 9520 Pees folweth after; And ever the lasse that he bereth, {292} The hardier he is of herte. For-thi seith Seneca, _Paupertas est absque sollicitudine semita_ = And an hardy man of herte, Among an heep of theves. _Cantabit paupertas coram latrone viatore._ 9530 "The seventhe is welle of wisedom, And fewe wordes sheweth; Therfore lordes alloweth hym litel, Or listneth to his reson, For he tempreth the tonge to trutheward, And no tresor coveiteth _Sapientiæ temperatrix._ "The eightethe is a lele labour, And looth to take moore Than he may wel deserve, 9540 In somer or in wynter. And if he chaffareth, he chargeth no losse, Mowe he charité wynne. _Negotium sine damno._ "The nynthe is swete to the soule, No sugre is swetter. For pacience is payn For poverte hymselve, And sobretee swete drynke And good leche in siknesse. 9550 Thus lered me a lettred man, For oure Lordes love of hevene; Seint Austyn a blessed lif Withouten bisynesse ladde For body and for soule, _Absque sollicitudine felicitas_. {293} Now God, that alle good gyveth, Graunte his soule reste That this first wroot to wissen men What poverte was to mene!" 9560 "Allas!" quod Haukyn the actif man tho, "That after my cristendom I ne hadde be deed and dolven For Do-welis sake! So hard it is," quod Haukyn, "To lyve and to do no synne. Synne seweth us evere," quod he, And sory gan wexe, And wepte water with hise eighen, And weyled the tyme 9570 That he evere dide dede That deere God displesed; Swound and sobbed And siked ful ofte, That evere he hadde lond outher lordshipe, Lasse other moore, Or maistrie over any man Mo than of hymselve. "I were noght worthi, woot God!" quod Haukyn, "To werien any clothes, 9580 Ne neither sherte ne shoon, Save for shame one To covere my careyne," quod he; And cride mercy faste, And wepte and wailede; And therwith I awakede. 9586 * * * * * {294} _Passus Decimus Quintus, etc. finit Do-wel, et incipit Do-bet._ Ac after my wakynge, 9587 It was wonder longe Er I koude kyndely Knowe what was Do-wel. And so my wit weex and wanyed, Til I a fool weere; And some lakkede my lif, Allowed it fewe, And lete me for a lorel, And looth to reverencen Lordes or ladies, Or any lif ellis; As persons in pelure, With pendauntz of silver; 9600 To sergeauntz ne to swiche Seide I noght ones, "God loke yow, lordes!" Ne loutede faire; That folk helden me a fool, And in that folie I raved. Til reson hadde ruthe on me, And rokked me a-slepe, Til I seigh, as it sorcerie were, A sotil thyng withalle; 9610 {295} Oon withouten tonge and teeth Tolde me whider I sholde, And wherof I cam, and of what kynde; I conjured hym at the laste, If he were Cristes creature Anoon me to tellen. "I am Cristes creature," quod he, "And cristene in many a place, In Cristes court y-knowe wel, And of his kyn a party. 9620 Is neither Peter the porter, Nor Poul with his fauchon, That wole defende me the dore, Dynge I never so late; At mydnyght, at mydday, My vois so is knowe, That ech a creature of his court Welcometh me faire." "What are ye called," quod I, "in that court, Among Cristes peple?" 9630 "The whiles I quikne the cors," quod he, "Called am I _Anima_; And whan I wilne and wolde, _Animus_ ich hatte; And for that I kan knowe, Called am I _Mens_; And whan I make mone to God, _Memoria_ is my name; And whan I deme domes, And do as truthe techeth, 9640 Thanne is _Ratio_ my righte name, Reson on Englisshe; {296} And whan I feele that folk telleth, My firste name is _Sensus_, And that is wit and wisdom, The welle of alle craftes. And whan I chalange or chalange noght, Chepe or refuse, Thanne am I _Conscience_ y-called, Goddes clerk and his notarie; 9650 And whan I love leelly Oure Lord and alle othere, Thanne is lele Love my name, And in Latyn _Amor_; And whan I flee fro the flesshe, And forsake the careyne, Thanne am I a spirit specheless, _Spiritus_ thanne iche hatte. Austyn and Ysodorus, Either of hem bothe, 9660 Nempnede me thus to name, And now thow myght chese How thow coveitest to calle me, For now thow knowest my names." _Anima pro diversis actionibus diversa nomina sortitur; dum vivificat corpus, anima est; dum vult, animus est; dum scit, mens est; dum recolit, memoria est; dum judicat, 9670 ratio est; dum sentit, sensus est; dum amat, amor est; dum negat vel consentit, conscientia est; dum spirat, spiritus est._ "Ye ben as a bisshope," quod I, {297} Al bourdynge that tyme; "For bisshopes y-blessed, Thei bereth manye names, _Præsul_ and _pontifex_, 9680 And _metropolitanus_, And othere names an heep, _Episcopus_ and _pastor_." "That is sooth," seide he; "Now I se thi wille; Thow woldest knowe and konne The cause of alle my names, And of me, if thow myghtest, Me thynketh by thi speche." "Ye, sire," I seide, 9690 "By so no man were greved, Alle the sciences under sonne, And alle the sotile craftes, I wolde I knewe and kouthe Kyndely in myn herte." "Thanne artow inparfit," quod he, "And oon of Prides knyghtes; For swich a lust and likyng Lucifer fel from hevene." _Ponam pedem meum in aquilone, et 9700 similis ero altissimo._ "It were ayeins kynde," quod he, "And alle kynnes reson, That any creature sholde konne al, Except Crist oone: Ayein swiche Salomon speketh, And despiseth hir wittes, And seith, _Sicut qui mel comedit multum, non est ei bonum; sic qui scrutator est majestatis, 9710 opprimitur a gloria_. {298} "To Englisshe men this is to mene, That mowen speke and here, The man that muche hony eteth, His mawe it engleymeth; And the moore that a man Of good matere hereth, But he do therafter, It dooth hym double scathe. _Beatus est_, seith seint Bernard, 9720 _Qui scripturas legit, Et verba vertit in opera_ Fulliche to his power. Coveitise to konne And to knowe sciences, Putte out of Paradis Adam and Eve. _Scientiæ appetitus hominem inmortalitatis gloria spoliavit._ "And right as hony is yvel to defie, 9730 And engleymeth the mawe; Right so he that thorugh reson Wolde the roote knowe Of God and of hise grete myghtes, Hise graces it letteth. For in the likynge lith a pride, And licames coveitise, Ayein Cristes counseil And alle clerkes techynge; That is _Non plus sapere quam oportet sapere_ = "Freres and fele othere maistres, 9742 That to lewed men prechen, Ye moeven materes unmesurable {299} To tellen of the Trinité, That ofte tymes the lewed peple Of hir bileve doute. Bettre it were to manye doctours To leven swich techyng, And tellen men of the ten comaundmentz, 9750 And touchen the sevene synnes, And of the braunches that burjoneth of hem, And bryngen men to helle, And how that folk in folies Misspenden hir fyve wittes, As wel freres as oother folk Foliliche spenden In housynge, in haterynge, And in to heigh clergie shewynge, Moore for pompe than for pure charité, 9760 The peple woot the sothe, That I lye noght, loo! For lordes ye plesen, And reverencen the riche The rather for hir silver _Confundantur omnes qui adorant sculptilia. Et alibi: Ut quid diligitis vanitatem, et quæritis mendacium._ "Gooth to the glose of thise vers, 9770 Ye grete clerkes; If I lye on yow to my lewed wit, Ledeth me to brennyng. For as it semeth, ye forsaketh No mannes almesse Of usurers, of hoores, {300} Of avarouse chapmen; And louten to thise lordes That mowen lene yow nobles, Ayein youre rule and religion, 9780 I take record at Jhesus, That seide to hise disciples, _Ne sitis personarum acceptores_. Of this matere I myghte Make a long bible! Ac of curatours of cristen peple, As clerkes bereth witnesse, I shal tellen it, for truthes sake, Take hede who so liketh. "As holynesse and honesté 9790 Out of holy chirche spredeth Thorugh lele libbynge men That Goddes lawe techen; Right so out of holi chirche Alle yveles spryngeth, There inparfit preesthode is, Prechours and techeris. I se it by ensaunple In somer tyme on trowes: Ther some bowes ben leved, 9800 And some bereth none, Ther is a meschief in the morre Of swiche manere bowes. "Rightso bi persons and preestes, And prechours of holi chirche, That aren roote of the right feith To rule the peple. And ther the roote is roten, Reson woot the sothe, Shal nevere flour ne fruyt 9810 {301} Ne fair leef be greene. For-thi wolde ye, lettrede, leve The lecherie of clothyng; And be kynde, as bifel for clerkes, And curteise of Cristes goodes, Trewe of youre tonge, And of youre tail bothe, And hatien to here harlotrie; And noght to underfonge Tithes, but of trewe thyng, 9820 Y-tilied or chaffared; Lothe were lewed men, But thei youre loore folwede, And amendeden hem that mysdoon Moore for youre ensaumples, Than for to prechen and preven it noght, Ypocrisie it semeth; The which in Latyn Is likned to a dongehill That were bi-snewed with snow, 9830 And snakes withinne; Or to a wal that were whit-lymed, And were foul withinne; "Right so manye preestes, Prechours and prelates, Ye aren enblaunched with _bele paroles_, And with clothes also; Ac youre werkes and youre wordes ther under, Aren ful unloveliche. Johannes Crisostomus 9840 Of clerkes speketh and preestes; _Sicut de templo omne bonum progreditur, sic de templo omne malum procedit. Si sacerdotium {302} integrum fuerit, tota floret ecclesia: si autem corruptum fuerit, omnis fides marcida est. Si sacerdotium fuerit in peccatis, totus populus convertitur ad peccandum. Sicut 9850 cum videris arborem pallidam et marcidam, intelligis quod vitium habet in radice. Ita cum videris populum indisciplinatum et irreligiosum, sine dubio sacerdotium ejus non est sanum._ "If lewed men wiste What this Latyn meneth, And who was myn auctour, 9860 Muche wonder me thinketh, But if many a preest beere, For hir baselardes and hir broches, A peire of bedes in hir hand, And a book under hir arme. Sire Johan and sire Geffrey Hath a girdel of silver. A baselard or a ballok-knyf, With botons over gilte; Ac a porthors that sholde be his plow 9870 _Placebo_ to sigge, Hadde he nevere service to save silver therto. Seith it with ydel wille. "Allas! ye lewed men, Muche lese ye on preestes. Ac thing that wikkedly is wonne, And with false sleightes, Wolde nevere the wit of witty God {303} But wikkede men it hadde, The whiche arn preestes inparfite, 9880 And prechours after silver, Executours and sodenes, Somonours and hir lemmannes; That that with gile was geten, Ungraciousliche is despended; So harlotes and hores Arn holpe with swiche goodes, And Goddes folk, for defaute therof, For-faren and spillen. "Curatours of holy kirke, 9890 As clerkes that ben avarouse, Lightliche that thei leven, Losels it habbeth, Or deieth intestate, And thanne the bisshope entreth And maketh murthe thermyd, And hise men bothe, And seyen he was a nygard That no good myghte aspare To frend ne to fremmed, 9900 The fend have his soule! For a wrecchede hous held he Al his lif tyme; And that he spared and bisperede, Dispende we in murthe; By lered, by lewed, That looth is to despende. Thus goon hire goodes. Be the goost faren. Ac for goode men, God woot! 9910 Greet doel men maken, And bymeneth goode mete gyveres, {304} And in mynde haveth, In preieres and in penaunces, And in parfit charité." "What is charité?" quod I tho. "A childisshe thyng," he seide. "_Nisi efficiamini parvuli, non intrabitis in regnum cælorum._ Withouten fauntelté or folie, 9920 A fre liberal wille." "Where sholde men fynde swich a frend, With so fre an herte?" "I have lyved in londe," quod he, "My name is Longe-wille; And fond I nevere ful charité Byfore ne bihynde. Men beth merciable To mendinauntz and to poore, And wollen lene ther thei leve 9930 Lelly to ben paied. Ac charité that Poul preiseth best, And moost plesaunt to oure Lord, Is _Non inflatur, non est ambitiosa, non quærit quæ sua sunt, etc_. "I seigh nevere swich a man, So me God helpe! That he ne wolde aske after his, And outher while coveite Thyng that neded hym noght, 9940 And nyme it, if he myghte. "Clerkes kenne me That Crist is in alle places; Ac I seigh hym nevere soothly, But as myself in a mirour: _In ænigmate tunc facie ad faciem._ {305} And so I trowe trewely, By that men telleth of charité, It is noght chaumpions fight, Ne chaffare, as I trowe, 9950 "Charité," quod he, "ne chaffareth noght, Ne chalangeth, ne craveth; As proud of a peny, As of a pound of golde; And is as glad of a gowne Of a gray russet, As of a tunycle of Tarse, Or of trie scarlet. He is glad with alle glade, And good til alle wikkede, 9960 And leveth and loveth alle That oure Lord made. Corseth he no creature, Ne he kan bere no wrathe, Ne no likynge hath to lye, Ne laughe men to scorne; Al that men seyn, he leet it sooth, And in solace taketh, And alle manere meschiefs In myldenesse he suffreth. 9970 Coveiteth he noon erthely good, But hevene riche blisse, Hath he anye rentes or richesse, Or anye riche frendes. "Of rentes nor of richesse Ne rekketh he nevere; For a frend that fyndeth hym, Failed hym nevere at neede. _Fiat voluntas tua_ Fynt hym evere moore; 9980 {306} And if he soupeth, eteth but a sop Of _spera in Deo_. He kan portreye wel the paternoster, And peynte it with aves; And outher while he is woned To wenden on pilgrymages, Ther poore men and prisons liggeth, Hir pardon to have. Though he bere hem no breed, He bereth hem swetter liflode, 9990 Loveth hem as oure Lord biddeth, And loketh how thei fare. "And whan he is wery of that werk, Than wole he som tyme Labouren in lavendrye Wel the lengthe of a mile, And yerne into youthe, And yepeliche speke Pride with al the appurtenaunces, And pakken hem togideres, 10000 And bouken hem at his brest, And beten hem clene, And leggen on longe, With _laboravi in gemitu meo_; And with warm water at hise eighen Wasshen hem after. And thanne he syngeth whan he doth so, And som tyme seith wepynge, _Cor contritum et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies_." 10010 "By Crist! I wolde that I knewe hym," quod I, "No creature levere!" "Withouten help of Piers Plowman," quod he, {307} "His persone sestow nevere." "Wheither clerkes knowen hym," quod I, "That kepen holi kirke?" "Clerkes have no knowyng," quod he, "But by werkes and by wordes. Ac Piers the Plowman Parceyveth moore depper 10020 What is the wille and wherfore That many wight suffreth. _Et vidit Deus cogitationes eorum._ For ther are ful proude herted men, Pacient of tonge, And buxome as of berynge To burgeises and to lordes, And to poore peple Han pepir in the nose, And as a lyoun he loketh, 10030 Ther men lakken hise werkes. "For ther are beggeris and bidderis, Bedemen as it were, Loken as lambren, And semen ful holy; Ac it is moore to have hir mete With swich an esy manere, Than for penaunce and perfitnesse, The poverte that swiche taketh. "Therfore by colour ne by clergie 10040 Knowe shaltow nevere, Neither thorugh wordes ne werkes, But thorugh wil oone. And that knoweth no clerk, Ne creature on erthe, But Piers the Plowman {308} _Petrus, i. Christus._ For he nys noght in lolleris, Ne in lond leperis heremytes, Ne at ancres there a box hangeth, 10050 Alle swiche thei faiten. Fy on faitours, And _in fautores suos_! For charité is Goddes champion, And as a good child hende, And the murieste of mouth At mete where he sitteth. The love that lith in his herte Maketh hym light of speche, And is compaignable and confortatif, 10060 As Crist bit hymselve. _Nolite fieri sicut hypocritæ tristes, etc._ For I have seyen hym in silk, And som tyme in russet, Bothe in grey and in grys, And in gilt harneis; And as gladliche he it gaf To gomes that it neded. "Edmond and Edward Bothe were kynges, 10070 And seintes y-set, For charité hem folwede. "I have y-seyen charité also Syngen and reden, Riden and rennen In raggede wedes; Ac biddynge as beggeris Biheld I hym nevere. Ac in riche robes Rathest he walketh, 10080 {309} Y-called and y-crymyled, And his crowne y-shave; And in a freres frokke He was y-founden ones, Ac it is fern ago, In seint Fraunceis tyme: In that secte siththe To selde hath he ben founde. "Riche men he recomendeth, And of hir robes taketh, 10090 That withouten wiles Ledeth hir lyves. _Beatus est dives qui, etc._ "In kynges court he cometh ofte, Ther the counseil is trewe; Ac if coveitise be of the counseil, He wolnoght come therinne, "In court amonges japeris He cometh noght but selde, For braulynge and bakbitynge, 10100 And berynge of fals witnesse. "In the consistorie bifore the commissarie He cometh noght but ofte; For hir lawe dureth over longe, But if thei lacchen silver, And matrimoyne for moneie Maken and unmaken; And that conscience and Crist Hath y-knyt faste, Thei undoon it unworthily, 10110 Tho doctours of lawe. "Ac I ne lakke no lif, But, Lord, amende us alle, {310} And gyve us grace, good God, Charité to folwe. For who so myghte meete myd hym, Swiche maneres hym eileth, Neither he blameth ne banneth, Bosteth ne preiseth, Lakketh ne loseth, 10120 Ne loketh up sterne, Craveth ne coveiteth, Ne crieth after moore. _In pace in idipsum dormiam, etc._ "The mooste liflode that he lyveth by, Is love in Goddes passion; Neither he biddeth ne beggeth, Ne borweth to yelde, Misdooth he no man, Ne with his mouth greveth. 10130 "Amonges cristene men This myldenesse sholde laste. In alle manere angres Have this at herte, That theigh thei suffrede al this, God suffrede for us moore, In ensample we sholde do so, And take no vengeaunce Of oure foes that dooth us falsnesse, That is oure fadres wille. 10140 "For wel may every man wite, If God hadde wold hymselve, Sholde nevere Judas ne Jew Have Jhesu doon on roode, Ne han martired Peter ne Poul, Ne in prison holden. Ac he suffrede in ensample {311} That we sholde suffren also, And seide to swiche that suffre wolde, That _patientes vincunt_. 10150 "_Verbi gratia_," quod he, "And verray ensamples manye, In _Legenda Sanctorum_, The lif of holy seintes, What penaunce and poverte And passion thei suffrede, In hunger, in hete, In alle manere angres. "Antony and Egidie, And othere holy fadres, 10160 Woneden in wildernesse Among wilde beestes; Monkes and mendinauntz, Men by hemselve, In spekes and in spelonkes, Selde speken togideres. "Ac neither Antony ne Egidie, Ne heremyte that tyme, Of leons ne of leopardes No liflode ne toke; 10170 But of foweles that fleeth, Thus fyndeth men in bokes. Except that Egidie After an hynde cride, And thorugh the mylk of that mylde beest The man was sustened; And day bi day hadde he hire noght His hunger for to slake, But selden and sondry tymes, As seith the book and techeth. 10180 "Antony a dayes, {312} Aboute noon tyme, Hadde a brid that broughte hym breed, That he by lyvede; And though the gome hadde a gest, God fond hem bothe. "Poul _primus heremita_ Hadde parroked hymselve, That no man myghte hym se For mosse and for leves; 10190 Foweles hym fedde Fele wyntres withalle, Til he foundede freres Of Austynes ordre. Poul, after his prechyng, Paniers he made, And wan with hise hondes That his wombe neded. "Peter fisshed for his foode, And his felawe Andrew; 10200 Som thei solde and som thei soden, And so thei lyved bothe. "And also Marie Maudeleyne By mores lyvede and dewes Ac moost thorugh devocion And mynde of God almyghty. I sholde noght thise seven daies Siggen hem alle, That lyveden thus for oure Lordes love Many longe yeres. 10210 "Ac ther ne was leon ne leopard That on laundes wenten, Neither bere ne boor, Ne oother beest wilde, That ne fil to hir feet, {313} And fawned with the taillies; And if thei kouthe han y-carped, By Crist! as I trowe, Thei wolde have y-fed that folk Bifore wild foweles. 10220 Ac God sente hem foode by foweles, And by no fierse beestes, In menynge that meke thyng Mylde thyng sholde fede. "Ac who seith religiouses Rightfulle men sholde fede, And lawefulle men to lif-holy men Liflode sholde brynge; And thanne wolde lordes and ladies Be looth to agulte, 10230 And to taken of hir tenauntz Moore than trouthe wolde, Foulde thei that freres Wolde forsake hir almesses, And bidden hem bere it There it was y-borwed. For we ben Goddes foweles, And abiden alwey Til briddes brynge us That we sholde lyve by. 10240 For hadde ye potage and payn y-nogh, And peny ale to drynke, And a mees thermyd Of o maner kynde, Ye hadde right y-nogh, ye religiouse, And so youre rule me tolde. _Nunquam, dicit Job, rugit onager cum herbam habuerit, aut mugiet bos cum ante plenum præsepe {314} steterit. Brutorum animalium 10250 natura te condemnat, quia cum eis pabulum commune sufficiat, ex adipe prodiit iniquitas tua._ "If lewed men knewe this Latyn, Thei wolde loke whom thei yeve, And avisen hem bifore A fyve dayes or sixe, Er thei amortisede to monkes Or chanons hir rente. Allas! lordes and ladies, 10260 Lewed counseil have ye, To gyve from youre heires That youre aiels yow lefte, And gyveth it to bidde for yow Fo swiche that ben riche, And ben founded and feffed ek To bidde for othere. "Who perfourneth this prophecie Of the peple that now libbeth? _Dispersit, dedit pauperibus._ 10270 "If any peple perfourne that text, It are thise poore freres; For that thei beggen aboute, In buyldynge thei spende it, And on hemself som, And swiche as ben hir laborers; And of hem that habbeth thei taken, And gyveth hem that habbeth. "Ac clerkes and knyghtes, And communers that ben riche, 10280 Fele of yow fareth As if I a forest hadde {315} That were ful of faire trees, And I fondede and caste How I myghte mo therinne Amonges hem sette. "Right so, ye riche, Ye robeth that ben riche, And helpeth hem that helpeth yow, And gyveth ther no nede is. 10290 As who so filled a toune Of a fressh ryver, And wente forth with that water To woke with Temese; Right so, ye riche, Ye robeth and fedeth Hem that han as ye han, Hem ye make at ese. "Ac religiouse that riche ben, Sholde rather feeste beggeris 10300 Than burgeises that riche ben, As the book techeth. _Quia sacrilegium est res pauperum non pauperibus dare. Item: Peccatoribus dare, est dæmonibus immolare. Item: Monache, si indiges et accipis, potius das quam accipis; si autem non eges et accipis, rapis. Porro non indiget monachus, si 10310 habeat quod naturæ sufficit._ "For-thi I counseille alle cristene To conformen hem to charité, For charité withouten chalangynge Unchargeth the soule, And many a prison fram purgatorie {316} Thorugh his preieres he delivereth. Ac ther is a defaute in the folk That the feith kepeth; Wherfore folk is the febler, 10320 And noght ferm of bileve, As in lussheburwes is a luther alay, And yet loketh he lik a sterlyng; The merk of that monee is good, Ac the metal is feble. "And so it fareth by som folk now, Thei han a fair speche, Crowne and cristendom, The kynges mark of hevene; Ac the metal, that is mannes soule, 10330 With synne is foule alayed. Bothe lettred and lewed Beth alayed now with synne, That no lif loveth oother, Ne oure Lord, as it semeth. For thorugh werre and wikkede werkes, And wederes unresonable, Weder-wise shipmen, And witty clerkes also, Han no bileve to the lifte, 10340 Ne to the loore of philosofres. "Astronomiens al day In hir art faillen, That whilom warned bifore What sholde falle after. "Shipmen and shepherdes, That with ship and sheep wenten, Wisten by the walkne What sholde bitide, As of wedres and wyndes 10350 {317} Thei warned men ofte. "Tilieris, that tiled the erthe, Tolden hir maistres, By the seed that thei sewe, What thei selle myghte, And what to lene, and what to lyve by, The lond was so trewe. "Now faileth the folk of the flood, And of the lond bothe, Shepherdes and shipmen, 10360 And so do thise tilieris, Neither thei konneth ne knoweth Oon cours bifore another. "Astronomyens also Aren at hir wittes ende, Of that was calculed of the element The contrarie thei fynde; Grammer, the ground of al, Bigileth now children, For is noon of this newe clerkes, 10370 Who so nymeth hede, Naught oon among an hundred That an auctour kan construwe, Ne rede a lettre in any langage But in Latyn or in Englissh. "Go now to any degree, And but if gile be maister, And flaterere his felawe Under hym to fourmen, Muche wonder me thynketh 10380 Amonges us alle, Doctours of decrees And of divinité maistres, That sholde konne and knowe {318} Alle kynnes clergie, And answere to argumentz, And also to a _quodlibet_; I dar noght siggen it for shame, If swiche were apposed, Thei sholde faillen of her philosophie, 10390 And in phisik bothe. "Wherfore I am a-fered Of folk of holy kirke, Lest thei overhuppen, as oothere doon, In office and in houres; And if they overhuppe, as I hope noght, Oure bileve suffiseth; As clerkes in Corpus Christi feeste Syngen and reden, That _sola fides sufficit_ 10400 To save with lewed peple; And so may Sarzens be saved, Scribes, and Jewes. "Allas, thanne! but our looresmen Lyve as thei leren us, And for hir lyvynge that lewed men Be the lother God agulten. For Sarzens han somwhat Semynge to oure bileve; For thei love and bileve 10410 In o persone almyghty, And we, lered and lewed, In oon God almyghty; And oon Makometh, a man, In mysbileve broughte Sarzens of Surree, And see in what manere. "This Makometh was a cristene {319} And for he moste noght ben a pope Into Surrie he soughte, 10420 And thorugh hise sotile wittes He daunted a dowve, And day and nyght hire fedde, The corn that she croppede He caste it in his ere; And if he among the peple preched, Or in places come, Thanne wolde the colvere come To the clerkes ere Menynge as after mete,-- 10430 Thus Makometh hire enchauntede; And dide folk thanne falle on knees, For he swoor in his prechyng That the colvere that com so, Com from God of hevene, As messager to Makometh, Men for to teche. And thus thorugh wiles of his wit, And a whit dowve, Makometh in mysbileve 10440 Men and wommen broughte; That lyved tho there and lyve yit Leeven on hise lawes. "And siththe oure Saveour suffred, The Sarzens so bigiled Thorugh a cristene clerk, Acorsed in his soule! For drede of the deeth I dare noght telle truthe, How Englisshe clerkes a colvere fede 10450 That coveitise highte, And ben manered after Makometh, {320} That no man useth trouthe. "Ancres and heremytes, And monkes and freres, Peeren to the apostles Thorugh hire parfit lyvynge; Wolde nevere the feithful fader That hise ministres sholde Of tirauntz that teneth trewe men 10460 Taken any almesse, But doon as Antony dide, Dominyk and Fraunceys, Beneit and Bernard The whiche hem first taughte To lyve by litel, and in lowe houses, By lele mennes almesse. Grace sholde growe and be grene Thorugh hir goode lyvynge; And folkes sholden fare, 10470 That ben in diverse siknesse, The bettre for hir biddynges In body and in soule. Hir preieres and hir penaunces To pees sholde brynge Alle that ben at debaat, And bedemen were trewe. _Petite et accipietis, etc._ Salt saveth the catel, Siggen thise wives. 10480 _Vos estis sal terræ, etc._ The hevedes of holy chirche, And thei holy were, Crist calleth hem salt For cristene soules. _Et si sal evanuerit in quo salietur, etc._ {321} "For fressh flessh outher fissh, Whan it salt failleth, It is unsavory for sothe, Y-soden or y-bake; 10490 So is mannes soule, soothly, That seeth no goode ensamples Of hem of holi chirche, That the heighe wey sholde teche, And be gide, and go bifore, As a good banyer; And hardie hem that bihynde ben, And gyve hem good evidence. "Ellevene holy men Al the world tornede 10500 Into lele bileve; The lightloker me thinketh Sholde all maner men, We han so manye maistres, Preestes and prechours, And a pope above, That Goddes salt sholde be To save mannes soule. "Al was hethynesse som tyme Engelond and Walis, 10510 Til Gregory garte clerkes To go here and preche; Austyn at Caunterbury Cristnede the kyng, And thorugh miracles, as men now rede, Al that marche he tornede To Crist and to cristendom, And cros to honoure; And follede folk faste, And the feith taughte, 10520 {322} Moore thorugh miracles Than thorugh muche prechyng, As wel thorugh hise werkes As with hise holy wordes, And seide hem what fullynge And feith was to mene. "Clooth that cometh fro the wevyng Is noght comly to were, Til it be fulled under foot Or in fullyng stokkes, 10530 Wasshen wel with water, And with taseles cracched, Y-touked and y-teynted, And under taillours hande; Right so it fareth by a barn, That born is of a wombe, Til it be cristned in Cristes name, And confermed of the bisshope, It is hethene as to hevene-ward. And help-lees to the soule. 10540 Hethen is to mene after heeth And untiled erthe, As in wilde wildernesse Wexeth wilde beestes, Rude and unresonable, Rennynge withouten cropiers. "Ye mynnen wel how Mathew seith, How a man made a feste; He fedde him with no venyson, Ne fesauntz y-bake, 10550 But with foweles that fram hym nolde, But folwede his whistlyng. _Ecce altilia mea, et omnia parata sunt._ = And with calves flessh he fedde {323} The folk that he lovede. "The calf bitokneth clennesse In hem that kepeth lawes. For as the cow thorugh kynde mylk The calf norisseth til an oxe; 10560 So love and leauté Lele men susteneth, And maidenes and mylde men Mercy desiren, Right as the cow calf Coveiteth melk swete, So doon rightfulle men Mercy and truthe. "Ac who beth that excuseth hem That ben persons and preestes, 10570 That hevedes of holy chirche ben, That han hir wil here Withouten travaille the tithe deel That trewe men biswynken; Thei wol be wrooth for I write thus, Ac to witnesse I take Bothe Mathew and Marc, And _Memento Domine David_. "What pope or prelat now Perfourneth that Crist highte. 10580 _Ite in universum mundum et prædicate, etc._ = "Allas! that men so longe On Makometh sholde bileve, So manye prelates to preche As the pope maketh, Of Nazareth, of Nynyve, Of Neptalym and Damaske, That thei ne wente as Crist wisseth, Sithen thei wille have name 10590 {324} To be pastours and preche To lyve and to dye. _Bonus pastor animam suam ponit, etc._ = And seide it in salvacion Of Sarzens and othere, For cristene and uncristene Crist seide to prechours: _Ite vos in vineam meam, etc._ "And sith that thise Sarzens, 10600 Scribes, and Jewes, Han a lippe of our bileve, The lightlier me thynketh Thei sholde turne, who so travailed To teche hem of the Trinité. _Quærite et invenietis, etc._ "It is ruthe to rede How rightwise men lyvede, How thei defouled hir flessh, Forsoke hir owene wille, 10610 Fer fro kyth and fro kyn Yvele y-clothed yeden, Baddely y-bedded, No book but conscience, Ne no richesse but the roode To rejoisse hem inne. _Absit nobis gloriari nisi in cruce Domini nostri, etc._ "And tho was plentee and pees Amonges poore and riche, 10620 And now is routhe to rede How the rede noble Is reverenced er the roode, And receyved for worthier Than Cristes cros, that overcam {325} Deeth and dedly synne. And now is werre and wo; And who so why asketh, For coveitise after cros The croune stant in golde. 10630 Bothe riche and religious That roode thei honoure That in grotes is y-grave And in gold nobles. For coveitise of that cros, Men of holy kirke Shul torne as templers dide, The tyme approcheth faste. "Wite ye noght, ye wise men, How tho men honoured 10640 Moore tresor than trouthe, I dar noght telle the sothe, Reson and rightful doom The religiouse demede. "Right so, ye clerkes, For youre coveitise, er longe, Shal thei demen _dos ecclesiæ_, And youre pride depose, _Deposuit potentes de sede, etc._ "If knyghthod and kynde wit 10650 And the commune by conscience Togideres love leelly, Leveth it wel, ye bisshopes, The lordshipe of youre londes For evere shul ye lese, And lyven as _levitici_, As oure Lord techeth. _Per primitias et decimas, etc._ "Whan Costantyn of curteisie Holy kirke dowed 10660 {326} With londes and ledes, Lordshipes and rentes, An aungel men herden An heigh at Rome crye, _Dos ecclesiæ_ this day Hath y-dronke venym, And tho that han Petres power Arn apoisoned alle. "A medicyne moot therto, That may amende prelates, 10670 That sholden preie for the pees, Possession hem letteth; Taketh hire landes, ye lordes, And leteth hem lyve by dymes. "If possession be poison, And inparfite hem make, Good were to deschargen hem, For holy chirches sake, And purgen hem of poison, Er moore peril falle. 10680 "If preesthode were parfit, The peple sholde amende That contrarien Cristes lawe, And cristendom dispise. For alle paynymes preieth, And parfitly bileveth In the holy grete God, And his grace thei asken, And make hir mone to Makometh Hir message to shewe. 10690 Thus in a feith leve that folk, And in a fals mene; And that is routhe for rightful men That in the reawme wonyen, {327} And a peril to the pope, And prelates that he maketh, That bere bisshopes names Of Bethleem and Babiloigne, That huppe aboute in Engelond To halwe mennes auteres, 10700 And crepe amonges curatours, And confessen ageyn the lawe. _Nolite mittere falcem in messem alienam, etc._ "Many man for Cristes love Was martired in Romayne, Er any cristendom was knowe there, Or any cros honoured. "Every bisshop that bereth cros, By that he is holden Thorugh his province to passe, 10710 And to his peple to shewe hym, Tellen hem and techen hem On the Trinité to bileve, And feden hem with goostly foode, And gyve there it nedeth. _In domo mea non est panis neque vestimentum, et ideo nolite constituere me regem._ "Ozias seith for swiche That sike ben and feble, 10720 _Inferte omnes decimas in horreum meum, ut sit cibus in domo mea._ "Ac we cristene creatures That on the cros bileven, Arn ferme as in the feith, Goddes forbode ellis! And han clerkes to kepen us therinne, {328} And hem that shul come after us. "And Jewes lyven in lele lawe, Oure Lord wroot it hymselve 10730 In stoon, for it stedefast was, And stonde sholde evere. _Dilige Deum et proximum_, Is parfit Jewen lawe; And took it Moyses to teche men Til Messie coome; And on that lawe thei lyve yit, And leten it the beste, And yit knewe thei Crist That cristendom taughte 10740 For a parfit prophete That muche peple savede Of selkouthe sores, Thei seighen it ofte, Bothe of miracles and merveilles, And how he men festede, With two fisshes and fyve loves, Fyve thousand peple; And by that mangerie men myghte wel se That Messie he semede, 10750 And whan he lifte up Lazar, That leid was in grave, And under stoon deed and stank, With stif vois hym callede: _Lazare, veni foras._ Dide hym rise and rome, Right bifore the Jewes. "Ac thei seiden and sworen With sorcerie he wroughte, And studieden to struyen hym, 10760 And struyden hemselve; {329} And thorugh his pacience, hir power To pure noght he broughte. _Patientes vincunt._ "Daniel of hire undoynge Devyned and seide, _Cum sanctus sanctorum veniat, cessabit unctio vestra._ And wenen tho wrecches That he were _pseudo-propheta_, 10770 And that his loore be lesynges, And lakken it alle, And hopen that he be to come That shal hem releve, Moyses eft or Messie Hir maistres yit devyneth. "Ac Pharisees and Sarzens, Scribes and Jewes, Arn folk of oon feith, The fader God thei honouren. 10780 And sithen that the Sarzens, And also the Jewes, Konne the firste clause of oure bileve, _Credo in Deum patrem omnipotentem_, Prelates of cristene provinces Sholde preve, if thei myghte, To lere hem litlum and litlum _Et in Jesum Christum filium_, Til thei kouthe speke and spelle _Et in Spiritum sanctum_, And reden it and recorden it With _remissionem peccatorum, Carnis resurrectionem, et vitam æternam. Amen._" 10793 * * * * * {330} _Passus Decimus Sextus, etc. et Primus de Do-bet._ "Now faire falle yow," quod I tho, 10794 "For youre faire shewyng; For Haukyns love, the actif man, Evere I shal yow lovye! Ac yit I am in a weer What charité is to mene." "It is a ful trie tree," quod he, 10800 "Trewely to telle; Mercy is the more therof, The myddul stok is ruthe; The leves ben lele wordes, The lawe of holy chirche; The blosmes beth buxom speche, And benigne lokynge; Pacience hatte the pure tree, And pure symple of herte; And so, thorugh God and thorugh goode men, 10810 Groweth the fruyt charité." "I wolde travaille," quod I, "this tree to se, Twenty hundred myle; And for to have my fulle of that fruyt, {331} Forsake alle othere saulees. Lord!" quod I, "if any wight wite Whider out it groweth." "It groweth in a gardyn," quod he, "That God made hymselve, Amyddes mannes body, 10820 The more is of that stokke, Herte highte the herber That it inne groweth. And _liberum arbitrium_ Hath the lond the ferme Under Piers the Plowman, To piken it and to weden it." "Piers the Plowman!" quod I tho, And al for pure joye That I herde nempne his name, 10830 Anoon I swowned after, And lay longe in a lone dreem; And at the laste, me thoughte That Piers the Plowman Al the place me shewed, And bad me to toten on the tree, On top and on roote; With thre piles was it under-pight, I perceyved it soone. "Piers," quod I, "I preie thee, 10840 Whi stonde thise piles here?" "For wyndes, wiltow wite," quod he, To witen it fro fallyng. _Cum ceciderit justus, non collidetur, quia Dominus supponit manum suam._ And in blowyng tyme, abite the flowres, But if thise piles helpe, {332} "The world is a wikked wynd To hem that willen truthe; 10850 Coveitise comth of that wynd, And crepeth among the leves, And for-freteth neigh the fruyt Thorugh manye faire sightes; Thanne with the firste pil I palle hym down, That is _Potentia Dei_. "The flessh is a fel wynd, And in flouryng tyme Thorugh likynge and lustes So loude he gynneth blowe, 10860 That it norisseth nyce sightes, And som tyme wordes, And wikkede werkes therof, Wormes of synne, And for-biteth the blosmes Right to the bare leves. "Than sette I to the secounde pil _Sapientia Dei patris_; That is the passion and the power Of oure prince Jhesu. 10870 Thorugh preieres and thorugh penaunces, And Goddes passion in mynde, I save it til I se it ripen And som del y-fruyted. "And thanne fondeth the fend My fruyt to destruye, With alle the wiles that he kan; And waggeth the roote, And casteth up to the crop Unkynde neighebores; 10880 Bakbiteris breke the cheste, Brawleris and chideris, {333} And leith a laddre therto, Of lesynges are the ronges, And feccheth awey my floures som tyme Afore bothe myne eighen. Ac _liberum arbitrium_ Letteth hym som tyme, That is lieutenaunt to loken it wel, Bi leve of myselve. 10890 _Videatis qui peccat in spiritum sanctum nunquam remittetur, etc. Hoc est idem, qui peccat per liberum arbitrium non repurgatur._ "Ac whan the fend and the flessh Forth with the world Manacen bihynde me My fruyt for to fecche, Thanne _liberum arbitrium_ 10900 Laccheth the firste plante, And palleth adoun the pouke, Pureliche thorugh grace And help of the Holy Goost, And thus have I the maistrie." "Now faire falle yow! Piers," quod I, "So faire ye discryven The power of thise postes, And hire propre myghtes. Ac I have thoughtes a threve 10910 Of thise thre piles, In what wode thei woxen, And where that thei growed; For alle are thei aliche longe, Noon lasse than oother, And to my mynde, as me thinketh, {334} On o more thei growed, And of o greetnesse, And grene of greyn thei semen." "That is sooth," quod Piers, 10920 "So it may bifalle; I shal telle thee as tid What this tree highte. The ground there it groweth, Goodnesse it hatte; And I have told thee what highte the tree, The Trinité it meneth." And egreliche he loked on me; And therfore I spared To asken hym any moore therof, 10930 And bad hym ful faire To discryve the fruyt That so faire hangeth. "Heer no bynethe," quod he tho, "If I nede hadde, Matrimoyne I may nyme, A moiste fruyt withalle; Thanne continence is neer the crop, As kaylewey bastard, Thanne bereth the crop kynde fruyt, 10940 And clennest of alle, Maidenhode aungeles peeris And rathest wole be ripe, And swete withouten swellyng, Sour worth it nevere." I preide Piers tho to pulle a-doun An appul, and he wolde, And suffre me to assaien What savour it hadde. And Piers caste to the crop, 10950 {335} And thanne comsed it to crye, And waggede widwehode, And it wepte after; And whan it meved matrimoyne, It made a foul noise. And I hadde ruthe whan Piers rogged, It gradde so rufulliche; For evere as thei dropped a-doun, The devel was redy And gadrede hem alle togideres, 10960 Bothe grete and smale, Adam and Abraham, And Ysaye the prophete, Sampson and Samuel, And seint Johan the Baptist, Bar hem forth bodily, No body hym letted, And made of holy men his hoord _In limbo inferni_, There is derknesse and drede, 10970 And the devel maister. And Piers, for pure tene, Of that a pil he raughte; He hitte after hym, Hitte how it myghte, _Filius_ by the fader wille, And frenesse of _Spiritus sancti_, To go robbe that rageman, And reve the fruyt fro hym. And thanne spak _Spiritus sanctus_ 10980 In Gabrielis mouthe, To a maide that highte Marie, A meke thyng withalle, That oon Jhesus a justices sone {336} Moste jouke in hir chambre, Til _plenitudo temporis_ Fully comen were, That Piers fruyt floured, And felle to be rype, And thanne sholde Jhesus juste therfore, 10990 By juggement of armes, Wheither sholde fonge the fruyt, The fend or hymselve. The maide myldeliche tho The messager graunted, And seide hendeliche to hym, "Lo me his hand-maiden For to werchen his wille, Withouten any synne." _Ecce ancilla Domini, fiat mihi, etc._ 11000 And in the wombe of that wenche Was he fourty woukes, Til he weex a faunt thorugh hir flessh, And of fightyng kouthe, To have y-foughte with the fend Er ful tyme come. And Piers the Plowman Perceyved plener tyme, And lered hym lechecraft His lif for to save, 11010 That though he were wounded with his enemy, To warisshen hymselve, And dide hym assaie his surgenrie On hem that sike were, Til he was perfit praktisour, If any peril fille; And soughte out the sike And synfulle bothe, {337} And salvede sike and synfulle, Bothe blynde and crokede, 11020 And commune wommen convertede, And to goode turnede. _Non est sanis opus medicinæ, sed in, etc._ Bothe meseles and mute, And in the menyson blody, Ofte heeled swiche, He ne held it for no maistrie, Save tho he leched Lazar That hadde y-leye in grave, _Quatriduanus_ quelt, 11030 Quyk dide hym walke. Ac as he made the maistrie, _Moestus coepit esse_, And wepte water with hise eighen, Ther seighen it manye. Some that the sighte seighen, Seiden that tyme That he was leche of lif, And lord of heigh hevene. Jewes jangled ther ayein, 11040 And juggede lawes And seide he wroghte thorugh wichecraft, And with the develes myghte. _Dæmonium habet, etc._ Thanne, "are ye cherles," quod ich, "And youre children bothe, And Sathan youre saveour, Ye self now ye witnessen." "For I have saved yow self," seith Crist, "And youre sones after, 11050 Youre bodies, youre beestes, {338} And blynde men holpen And fed yow with two fisshes And with fyve loves, And lefte baskettesful of broke mete, Bere awey who so wolde." And mys-seide the Jewes manliche And manaced hem to bete, And knokked on hem with a corde, And caste a-doun hir stalles 11060 That in chirche chaffareden, Or chaungeden any moneie, And seide it in sighte of hem alle, So that alle herden:-- "I shal overturne this temple, And a-doun throwe it, And in thre daies after Edifie it new, And maken it as muche outher moore In alle manere poyntes 11070 As evere it was, and as wid; Wherfore I hote yow, Of preieres and of perfitnesse This place that ye callen." _Domus mea domus orationis vocabitur._ = Envye and yvel wil Was in the Jewes; Thei casten and contreveden To kulle hym whan thei myghte, 11080 Eche day after oother Hir tyme thei awaiteden; Til it bifel on a Friday A litel bifore Pasqe, The Thursday bifore {339} There he made his maundee, Sittynge at the soper He seide thise wordes, "I am sold thorugh oon of yow, He shal the tyme rewe, 11090 That evere he his Saveour solde, For silver or ellis." Judas jangled ther ayein; Ac Jhesus hym tolde, It was hymself soothly, And seide _tu dicis_. Thanne wente forth that wikked man, And with the Jewes mette, And tolde hem a tokne How to knowe with Jhesus, 11100 And which tokne to this day To muche is y-used, That is kissynge and fair countenaunce, And unkynde wille. And so was with Judas tho, That Jhesus bitrayed: "_Ave, raby_," quod that ribaud, And right to hym he yede, And kiste hym, to be caught therby, And kulled of the Jewes. 11110 Thanne Jhesus to Judas And to the Jewes seide, "Falsnesse I fynde In thi faire speche, And gile in thi glad chere, And galle is in thi laughyng; Thow shalt be myrour To many men to deceyve, Ac the worse and the wikkednesse {340} Shal worthe upon thiselve. 11120 _Necesse est ut veniant scandala: Væ homini illi per quem scandalum venit!_ "Though I bi treson be take At youre owene wille, Suffreth myne apostles in pees And in pays gange." On a Thursday in thesternesse Thus was he taken, Thorugh Judas and Jewes, 11130 Jhesus was his name, That on the Friday folwynge For mankyndes sake Justed in Jherusalem, A joye to us alle. On cros upon Calvarie Crist took the bataille Ayeins deeth and the devel, Destruyed hir botheres myghtes, Deide and deed for-dide, 11140 And day of nyght made. And I awaked therwith, And wiped myne eighen, And after Piers the Plowman Pried and stared Est-ward and west-ward, I waited after faste, And yede forth as an ydiot In contree to aspie, After Piers the Plowman 11150 Many a place I soughte. And thanne mette I with a man, A myd-lenten Sonday, {341} As hoor as an hawethorn, And Abraham he highte. I frayned hym first Fram whennes he come, And of whennes he were, And whider that he soughte. "Iam Feith," quod that freke, 11160 "It falleth noght to lye, And of Abrahames hous An heraud of armes, And seke after a segge That I seigh ones, A ful bold bacheler, I knew hym by his blasen." "What berth that buyrn?" quod I tho, "So blisse thee bitide!" "Thre leodes in oon lyth, 11170 Noon lenger than oother, Of oon muchel and myght In mesure and in lengthe; That oon dooth, alle dooth, And ech dooth bi his one. "The firste hath myght and majestee, Makere of alle thynges, _Pater_ is his propre name, A persone by hymselve. "The secounde of tha sire is 11180 Sothfastnesse _filius_, Wardeyn of that wit hath Was evere withouten gynnyng. "The thridde highte the Holi Goost, A persone by hymselve, The light of al that lif hath {342} A-londe and a-watre, Confortour of creatures, Of hym cometh alle blisse. "So thre bilongeth for a lord 11190 That lordshipe cleymeth, Might and mene To knowe his owene myghte, Of hym and of his servaunt, And what thei suffre bothe. "So God that gynnyng hadde nevere, But tho hym good thoughte, Sente forth his sone, As for servaunt that tyme, To ocupie hym here, 11200 Til issue were spronge, That is, children of charité, And holi chirche the moder; Patriarkes and prophetes And apostles were the children, And Crist and cristendom, And cristene holy chirche, In menynge that man moste On o God bileve. And there hym likede and lovede, 11210 In thre persones hym shewede, And that it may be so and sooth, Manhode it sheweth, Wedlok and widwehode, With virginité y-nempned, In tokenynge of the Trinité Was out of man taken. "Adam was oure aller fader, And Eve was of hymselve, {343} And the issue that thei hadde 11220 It was of hem bothe, And either is otheres joie In thre sondry persones, And in hevene and here Oon singuler name; And thus is mankynde and manhede Of matrimoyne y-spronge, And bitokneth the Trinité And trewe bileve. "Mighty is matrimoyne, 11230 That multiplieth the erthe, And bitokneth trewely, Telle if I dorste, Hym that first formed al, The fader of hevene. "The sone, if I it dorste seye, Resembleth wel the widewe. _Deus meus, Deus meus, ut quid dereliquisti me!_ = "That is, creatour weex creature 11240 To knowe what was bothe. As widewe withouten wedlok Was nevere yit y-seighe; Na-moore myghte God be man, But if he moder hadde. So widewe withouten wedlok May noght wel stande, Ne matrimoyne withouten muliere Is noght muche to preise. _Maledictus homo qui non reliquit 11250 semen in Israel! etc._ "Thus in thre persones Is perfitliche manhede; {344} That is man and his make And mulliere children. And is noght but gendre of a generacion Bifore Jhesu Crist in hevene; So is the fader forth with the sone, And fre wille of bothe. _Spiritus procedens a patre et filio, etc._ = Which is the Holy Goost of alle, 11262 And alle is but o God. "Thus in a somer I hym seigh As I sat in my porche. I roos up and reverenced hym, And right faire hym grette, Thre men to my sighte I made wel at ese, Wessh her feet and wiped hem, 11270 And afterward thei eten Calves flessh and cake-breed, And knewe what I thoughte! Ful trewe toknes bitwene us is, To telle whan me liketh. "First he fonded me If I lovede bettre Hym or Ysaak myn heir, The which he highte me kulle. He wiste my wille bi hym, 11280 He wol me it allowe; I am ful siker in soule therof, And my sone bothe. I circumscised my sone Sithen for his sake, Myself and my meynee, And alle that male weere, {345} Bledden blood for that Lordes love, And hope to blisse the tyme. Myn affiaunce and my feith 11290 Is ferme in his bileve; For himself bihighte to me, And to myn issue bothe, Lond and lordshipe, And lif withouten ende; To me and to myn issue Moore yet he grauntede, Mercy for oure mys-dedes, As many tyme as we asken. _Quam olim Abrahæ promisisti et 11300 semini ejus._ "And siththe he sente me to seye I sholde do sacrifise, And doon hym worship with breed And with wyn bothe; And called me the foot of his feith, His folk for to save, And defende hem fro the fend, Folk that on me leveden. "Thus have I ben his heraud 11310 Here and in helle, And conforted many a careful That after his comynge waiteden. And thus I seke hym," he seide, "For I herde seyn late Of a barn that baptysed hym, Johan Baptist was his name, That to patriarkes and to prophetes, And to oother peple in derknesse, Seide that he seigh here 11320 That sholde save us alle." {346} _Ecce agnus Dei! etc._ I hadde wonder of hise wordes, And of hise wide clothes; For in his bosom he bar a thyng That he blissed evere. And I loked in his lappe, A lazar lay therinne Amonges patriarkes and prophetes Pleyinge togideres. 11330 "What awaitestow?" quod he, "And what woldestow have?" "I wolde wite," quod I tho, "What is in youre lappe." "Loo!" quod he; and leet me see. "Lord, mercy!" I seide; "This is a present of muche pris, What prynce shal it have?" "It is a precious present," quod he; "Ac the pouke it hath attached, 11340 And me thermyde," quod that man, "May no wed us quyte, Ne no buyrn be oure borgh, Ne brynge us fram his daunger; Out of the poukes pondfold No maynprise may us feeche, Til he come that I carpe of, Crist is his name. That shal delivere us som day Out of the develes power, 11350 And bettre wed for us legge Than we ben alle worthi, That is lif for lif, Or ligge thus evere Lollynge in my lappe, {347} Til swich a lord us fecche." "Allas!" I seide, "that synne So longe shal lette The myght of Goddes mercy, That myghte us alle amende." 11360 I wepte for hise wordes. With that saugh I another Rapeliche renne forth, The righte wey he wente. I affrayned hym first Fram whennes he come, And what he highte, and whider he wolde; And wightly he tolde. 11368 * * * * * {348} _Passus Decimus Septimus, etc. et Secundus de Do-bet._ "Iam _Spes_," quod he, "aspie 11369 And spire after a knyght, That took me a maundement Upon the mount of Synay, To rule alle reames with, I bere the writ here." "Is it enseled?" I seide, "May men see thi lettres?" "Nay," he seide, "seke hym That hath the seel to kepe; And that is cros and cristendom, And Crist theron to honge. 11380 And whan it is enseled so, I woot wel the sothe, That Luciferis lordshipe Laste shal no lenger." "Lat se thi lettres," quod I, "We myghte the lawe knowe." Thanne plukkede he forth a patente, A pece of an hard roche, Wheron were writen two wordes On this wise y-glosed. 11390 _Dilige Deum et proximum tuum._ This was the tixte trewely, {349} I took ful good yeme; The glose was gloriously writen, With a gilt penne. _In his duobus mandatis tota lex pendet et prophetia._ "Ben here alle thi lordes lawes?" quod I. "Ye, leve me wel," he seide; And who so wercheth after this writ, 11400 I wol undertaken Shal nevere devel hym dere, Ne deeth in soule greve. For, though I seye it myself, I have saved with this charme, Of men and of wommen Many score thousand. "Ye seien sooth," seide this heraud; "I have y-founde it ofte. Lo! here in my lappe 11410 That leeved on that charme, Josue and Judith, And Judas Macabeus, Ye, and sixti thousand biside forth, That ben noght seyen here." "Youre wordes arn wonderfulle," quod I tho, "Which of yow is trewest, And lelest to leve so, For lif, and for soule? Abraham seith 11420 That he seigh hoolly the Trinité, Thre persones in parcelles Departable fro oother, And alle thre but o god; {350} Thus Abraham me taughte, And hath saved that bileved so, And sory for hir synnes. He kan noght siggen the somme, And some arn in his lappe. What neded it thanne 11430 A newe lawe to bigynne, Sith the firste suffiseth To savacion and to blisse? And now cometh _Spes_ and speketh, That aspied the lawe; And telleth noght of the Trinité That took hym hise lettres, To bileeve and lovye In o lord almyghty, And siththe right as myself 11440 So lovye alle peple. "The gome that gooth with o staf, He semeth in gretter heele Than he that gooth with two staves, To sighte of us alle. "And right so, bi the roode! Reson me sheweth That it is lighter to lewed men O lesson to knowe, Than for to techen hem two, 11450 And to hard to lerne to the leeste It is ful hard for any man On Abraham bileve; And wel awey worse yit For to love a sherewe. It is lighter to leeve In thre lovely persones, Than for to lovye and leve {351} As wel lorels as lele." "Go thi gate!" quod I to _Spes_, 11460 "So me God helpe! Tho that lernen thi lawe, Wol litel while usen it." And as we wenten thus in the wey Wordynge togideres, Thanne seighe we a Samaritan Sittynge on a mule, Ridynge ful rapely The righte wey we yeden, Comynge from a contree 11470 That men called Jerico, To a justes in Jerusalem He chaced awey faste. Bothe the heraud and Hope And he mette at ones Where a man was wounded, And with theves taken; He myghte neither steppe ne stande, Ne stere foot ne handes, Ne helpe hymself soothly, 11480 For semy-vif he semed, And as naked as a nedle, And noon help aboute hym. Feith hadde first sighte of hym; Ac he fleigh aside, And nolde noght neghen hym By nyne londes lengthe. Hope cam hippynge after, That hadde so y-bosted How he with Moyses maundement 11490 Hadde many men y-holpe; Ac whan he hadde sighte of that segge {352} Aside he gan hym drawe Dredfully bi this day, As doke dooth fram the faucon. Ac so soone so the Samaritan Hadde sighte of this leode, He lighte a-down of lyard, And ladde hym in his hande, And to the wye he wente 11500 Hise woundes to biholde; And perceyved bi his pous He was in peril to dye, And but he hadde recoverer the rapelier, That rise sholde he nevere. With wyn and with oille Hise woundes he wasshed, Enbawmed hym and bond his heed, And in his lappe hym leide, And ladde hym so forth on lyard 11510 Te _lex Christi_, a graunge Wel sixe mile or sevene Biside the newe market; Herberwed hym at an hostrie, And to the hostiler called, And seide, "Have kepe this man Til I come fro the justes; And lo! here silver," he seide, "For salve to hise woundes." And he took hym two pens, 11520 To liflod, as it weere; And seide, "What he spendeth moore, I make thee good herafter; For I may noght lette," quod that leode; And lyard he bistrideth, And raped hym to Jerusalem-ward {353} The righte wey to ryde. Feith folwede after faste, And fondede to mete hym; And _Spes_ spakliche hym spedde, 11530 Spede if he myghte To overtaken hym and talke to hym, Er thei to towne coome. And whan I seigh this, I sojourned noght, But shoop me to renne, And suwed that Samaritan That was so ful of pité, And graunted hym to ben his groom. "Graunt mercy!" he seide; "Ac thi frend and thi felawe," quod he, 11540 "Thow fyndest me at nede." And I thanked hym tho, And siththe I hym tolde How that Feith fleigh awey, And _Spes_ his felawe bothe, For sighte of that sorweful man That robbed was with theves. "Have hem excused," quod he, "Hir help may litel availle; May no medicyne on molde 11550 The man to heele brynge, Neither feith ne fyn hope, So festred be hise woundes, Withouten the blood of a barn Born of a mayde. And he be bathed in that blood, Baptised as it were, And thanne plastred with penaunce And passion of that baby, {354} He sholde stonde and steppe. 11560 Ac stalworthe worth he nevere. Til he have eten al the barn, And his blood y-dronke. For wente nevere wye in this world Thorugh that wildernesse, That he ne was robbed or rifled, Rood he there or yede, Save Feith and his felawe, _Spes_, and myselve, And thiself now, 11570 And swiche as suwen oure werkes. "For outlawes in the wode And under bank lotieth, And mowen ech man see, And good mark take Who is bihynde and who bifore, And who ben on horse For he halt hym hardier on horse Than he that is foote. For he seigh me that am Samaritan 11580 Suwen Feith and his felawe On my capul that highte _caro_, Of mankynde I took it; He was unhardy that harlot, And hidde hym _in Inferno_. Ac er this day thre daies, I dar undertaken, That he worth fettred, that feloun, Faste with cheynes, And nevere eft greve gome 11590 That gooth this ilke gate. "And thanne shal Feith be forster here, {355} And in this fryth walke, And kennen out comune men That knowen noght the contree Which is the wey that I wente, And wher forth to Jerusalem. And Hope the hostilers man shal be, Ther the man lith an helyng; And alle that feble and feynte be, 11600 That Feith may noght teche, Hope shal lede hem forth with love, As his lettre telleth, And hostele hem and heele Thorugh holy chirche bileve, Til I have salve for alle sike; And thanne shal I turne, And come ayein bi this contree, And conforten alle sike That craveth it and coveiteth it, 11610 Or crieth therafter. For the barn was born in Bethleem, That with his blood shal save Alle that lyven in feith And folwen his felawes techynge." "A! swete sire," I seide tho, "Wher I shal bileve, As Feith and his felawe Enformed me bothe, In thre persones departable, 11620 That perpetuele were evere, And alle thre but o God, Thus Abraham me taughte. "And Hope afterward He bad me to lovye O God with al my good, {356} And alle gomes after, Lovye hem lik myselve, Ac oure Lord aboven alle. "After Abraham," quod he, 11630 "That heraud of armes, Sette fully thi feith And ferme bileve; And as Hope highte thee, I hote that thow lovye Thyn evene cristene evere moore Evene forth with thiselve. And if Conscience carpe ther ayein, Or kynde wit eyther, Or eretikes with argumentz 11640 Thyn hond thow hem shewe; For God is after an hand, Y-heer now and knowe it. "The fader was first as a fust, With o fynger foldynge; Til hym lovede and liste To unlosen his fynger, And profre it forth as with a pawme To what place it sholde, "The pawme is purely the hand, 11650 And profreth forth the fyngres, To ministren and to make That myght of hand knoweth; And bitokneth trewely, Telle who so liketh, The Holy Goost of hevene He is as the pawme. "The fyngres that fre ben To folde and to serve, Bitoknen soothly the Sone 11660 {357} That sent was til erthe, That touched and tastede At techynge of the pawme Seinte Marie a mayde, And mankynde laughte. _Qui conceptus est de Spiritu sancto, etc._ = "The Fader is pawme as a fust, With fynger to touche,-- _Quia omnia traham ad meipsum, etc._ = Al that the pawme perceyveth 11672 Profitable to feele. "Thus are thei alle but oon, As it an hand weere, And thre sondry sightes In oon shewynge, The pawme for it putteth forth fyngres, And the fust bothe; Right so redily, 11680 Reson it sheweth How he that is Holy Goost Sire and Son preveth. "And as the hand halt harde, And alle thyng faste, Thorugh foure fyngres and a thombe Forth with the pawme; Right so the Fader and the Sone, And Seint Spirit the thridde, Al the wide world 11690 Withinne hem thre holden, Bothe wolkne and the wynd, Water and erthe, Hevene and helle, {358} And al that is therinne. "Thus it is, nedeth no man Trowe noon oother, That thre thynges bilongeth In oure Lord of Hevene; And aren serelopes by hemself, 11700 A-sondry were thei nevere, Na-moore than myn hand may Meve withoute my fyngres. "And as my fust is ful hand Y-holden togideres; So is the Fader a ful God, Formour and shappere. _Tu fabricator omnium, etc._ And al the myght myd hym is In makynge of thynges. 11710 The fyngres formen a ful hand To portreye or peynten, Kervynge and compasynge, As craft of the fyngres. "Right so is the Sone The science of the Fader, And ful God as is the Fader, No febler ne no bettre. "The pawme is pureliche the hand, And hath power by hymselve, 11720 Other wise than the writhen fust, Or werkmanshipe of fyngres. For he hath power To putte out alle the joyntes, And to unfolde the folden fust, At the fyngres wille. "So is the Holy Goost God, Neither gretter ne lasse. {359} Than is the Sire and the Sone, And in the same myghte. 11730 And alle are thei but o God; As is myn hand and my fyngres, Unfolden or folden, My fust and my pawne, Al is but an hand; Evene in the myddes, He may receyve right noght, Reson it sheweth, For the fyngres that folde sholde And the fust make, 11740 For peyne of the pawme, Power hem failleth To clucche or to clawe, To clippe or to holde. "Were the myddel of myn hand Y-maymed or y-perissed, I sholde receyve right noght Of that I reche myghte. "Ac though my thombe and my fyngres Bothe were to-shullen, 11750 And the myddel of myn hand Withoute _male-ese_, In many kynnes maneres I myghte myself helpe, Bothe mene and amende, Though alle my fyngres oke. "By this skile, me thynketh, I se an evidence That who so synneth in the Seint Spirit, Assoilled worth he nevere, 11760 Neither here ne ellis where, As I herde telle. {360} _Qui peccat in Spiritu sancto, etc._ For he priketh God as in the pawme, That _peccat in Spiritu sancto_. For God the fader is as a fust, The Sone is as a fynger, The Holy Goost of hevene Is as it were the pawme; So who so synneth in the Seint Spirit, 11770 It semeth that he greveth God, that he grypeth with, And wolde his grace quenche. "And to a torche or a tapur The Trinité is likned; As wex and a weke Were twyned togideres, And thanne a fir flawmynge Forth out of bothe; And as wex and weke 11780 And hoot fir togideres Fostren forth a flawmbe And a fair leye, So dooth the Sire and the Sone And also _Spiritus sanctus_, That alle kynne cristene Clenseth of synnes And as thow seest som tyme Sodeynliche a torche, The blase therof y-blowe out, 11790 Yet brenneth the weke Withouten leye or light That the macche brenneth; So is the Holy Goost God, And grace withoute mercy To alle unkynde creatures, {361} That coveite to destruye Lele love or lif That oure Lord shapte. "And as glowynge gledes 11800 Gladeth noght thise werkmen, That werchen and waken In wyntres nyghtes, As dooth a kex or a candle That caught hath fir and blaseth; Na-moore dooth Sire ne Sone Ne Seint Spirit togidres Graunte no grace Ne forgifnesse of synnes, Til the Holy Goost gynne 11810 To glowe and to blase. So that the Holy Goost Gloweth but as a glade, Til that lele love Ligge on hym and blowe, And thanne flawmeth he as fir On Fader and on _Filius_, And melteth hire myght into mercy; As men may se in wyntre Ysekeles and evesynges 11820 Thorugh hete of the sonne Melte in a minut while To myst and to watre. "So grace of the Holy Goost The greet myght of the Trinité Melteth to mercy, To merciable and to othere; And as wex withouten moore On a warm glede Wol brennen and blasen, 11830 {362} Be thei togideres, And solacen hem that mowe se, That sitten in derknesse. "So wol the Fader forgyve Folk of mylde hertes, That rufully repenten, And restitucion make, In as muche as thei mowen Amenden and paien; And if it suffise noght for assetz, 11840 That in swich a wille deyeth, Mercy for his mekenesse Wol maken good the remenaunt. And as the weke and fir Wol maken a warm flaumbe, For to murthen men myd That in the derke sitten; So wole Crist of his curteisie, And men crye hym mercy, Bothe forgyve and foryete, 11850 And yit bidde for us To the Fader of hevene Forgifnesse to have. "Ac hewe fir at a flynt Foure hundred wynter, But thow have tow to take it with, Tonder or broches, Al thi labour is lost, And al thi long travaille; For may no fir flaumbe make, 11860 Faille it is kynde. "So is the Holi Goost God, And grace withouten mercy To alle unkynde creatures, {363} Crist hymself witnesseth. _Amen dico vobis, nescio vos, etc._ "Be unkynde to thyn evene cristene, And al that thow kanst bidde, Delen and do penaunce Day and nyght evere, 11870 And purchace al the pardon Of Pampilon and Rome, And indulgences y-nowe, And be _ingratus_ to thi kynde, The Holy Goost hereth thee noght, Ne helpe may thee by reson; For unkyndenesse quencheth hym, That he kan noght shyne, Ne brenne ne blase clere For blowynge of unkyndenesse. 11880 Poul the apostel Preveth wheither I lye. _Si linguis hominum loquar, etc._ "For-thi beth war, ye wise men, That with the world deleth, That riche ben and reson knoweth, Ruleth wel youre soule, Beth noght unkynde, I conseille yow, To youre evene cristene, For manye of yow riche men, 11890 By my soule! men telleth, Ye brenne, but ye blase noght, That is a blynd bekene. _Non omnis qui dicit Domine! Domine! intrabit, etc._ "Dives deyde dampned, For his unkyndenesse {364} Of his mete and of his moneie To men that it nedede. Ech a riche I rede 11900 Reward at hym take, And gyveth youre good to that God That grace of ariseth; For thei that ben unkynde to hise, Hope I noon oother, But thei dwelle ther Dives is Dayes withouten ende. "Thus is unkyndenesse the contrarie, That quencheth, as it were, The grace of the Holy Goost, 11910 Goddes owene kynde. For that kynde dooth, unkynde for-dooth; As thise corsede theves Unkynde cristene men, For coveitise and envye, Sleeth a man for hise moebles With mouth or with handes. For that the Holy Goost hath to kepe, The harlotes destruyeth, The which is lif and love, 11920 The leye of mannes body. For every manere good man May be likned to a torche, Or ellis to a tapur, To reverence the Trinité; And who morthereth a good man, Me thynketh by myn inwit, He for-dooth the levest light That oure Lord lovyeth. "And yet in manye mo maneres 11930 Men offenden the Holy Goost. Ac this is the worste wise {365} That any wight myghte Synnen ayein the Seint Spirit, Assenten to destruye For coveitise of any kynnes thyng That Crist deere boughte, That wikkedliche and wilfulliche Wolde mercy aniente. "Innocence is next God, 11940 And nyght and day it crieth, 'Vengeaunce! vengeaunce! Forgyve be it nevere That shente us and shedde oure blood, For-shapte us, as it were!' _Vindica sanguinem justorum._ "Thus 'Vengeaunce! vengeaunce!' Verrey Charité asketh. And sith holy chirche and Charité Chargeth this so soore, 11950 Leve I nevere that oure Lord Wol love that charité lakketh, Ne have pité for any preiere Ther that he pleyneth." "I pose I hadde synned so, And sholde now deye; And now I am sory that I so The Seint Spirit a-gulte, Confesse me and crye his grace, God that al made, 11960 And myldeliche his mercy aske, Myghte I noght be saved?" "Yis," seide the Samaritan, "So wel thow myght repente, That rightwisnesse thorugh repentaunce, To ruthe myghte turne. Ac it is but selden y-seighe {366} Ther soothnesse bereth witnesse, Any creature that is coupable Afore a kynges justice, 11970 Be raunsoned for his repentaunce, Ther alle reson hym dampneth. For ther that partie pursueth, The peple is so huge, That the kyng may do no mercy Til bothe men acorde, And eyther have equité, As holy writ telleth. _Nunquam dimittitur peccatum, etc._ "Thus it fareth by swich folk 11980 That falsly al hire lyves Yvele lyven, and leten noght Til lif hem forsake. Good hope, that helpe sholde, To wanhope torneth, Noght of the noun power of God, That he ne is myghtful To amende al that amys is, And his mercy gretter Than alle oure wikkede werkes, 11990 As holy writ telleth. _Misericordia ejus super omnia opera ejus._ = Ac er his rightwisnesse to ruthe torne, Som restitucion bihoveth. His sorwe is satisfaccion, For hym that may noght paie. "Thre thynges ther ben That doon a man by strengthe For to fleen his owene, 12000 As holy writ sheweth. "That oon is a wikkede wif, {367} That wol noght be chastised; Hir feere fleeth fro hire, For feere of hir tonge. "And if his hous be un-hiled, And reyne on his bedde, He seketh and seketh Til he slepe drye. "And whan smoke and smolder 12010 Smyt in his sighte, It dooth hym worse than his wif Or wete to slepe. For smoke and smolder Smyteth in hise eighen, Til he be bler-eighed, or blynd, And hoors in the throte, Cogheth, and curseth That Crist gyve hem sorwe That sholde brynge in bettre wode, 12020 Or blowe it til it brende. "Thise thre that I telle of Ben thus to understonde; The wif is oure wikked flessh, That wol noght be chastised; For kynde clyveth on hym evere To contrarie the soule. And though it falle, it fynt skiles That freleté it made, And that is lightly forgyven 12030 And forgeten bothe, To man that mercy asketh, And amende thenketh. "The reyn that reyneth Ther we reste sholde, Ben siknesse and sorwes That we suffren ofte; {368} As Poul the apostle To the people taughte. _Virtus infirmitate perficitur, etc._ 12040 "And though that men make Muche doel in hir angre, And ben inpacient in hir penaunce, Pure reson knoweth That thei han cause to contrarie By kynde of hir siknesse; And lightliche oure Lord At hir lyves ende Hath mercy on swiche men, That so yvele may suffre. 12050 "Ac the smoke and the smolder That smyt in oure eighen, That is coveitise and unkyndenesse, That quencheth Goddes mercy. For unkyndenesse is the contrarie Of alle kynnes reson. For ther nys sik ne sory, Ne noon so muche wrecche, That he ne may lovye, and hym like, And lene of his herte 12060 Good wille and good word, And wisshen and willen Alle manere men Mercy and forgifnesse, And lovye hem lik hymself, And his lif amende. "I may no lenger lette," quod he; And lyard he prikede, And went awey as wynd; And therwith I awakede. 12070 * * * * * {369} _Passus Decimus Octavus, etc. et Tertius de Do-bet._ Wolleward and weet-shoed = Wente I forth after, 12073 As a recchelees renk That of no wo roughte, And yede forth lik a lorel Al my lif tyme, Til I weex wery of the world, And wilned eft to slepe, And lened me to a lenten, 12080 And longe tyme I slepte; And of Cristes passion and penaunce, The peple that of raughte, Reste me there, and rutte faste Til _ramis palmarum_. Of gerlis and of _gloria laus_ Gretly me dremed, And how _hosanna_ by organye Olde folk songen. Oon semblable to the Samaritan, 12090 And som deel to Piers the Plowman, Bare-foot on an asse bak Boot-les cam prikye, {370} Withouten spores other spere, Spakliche he lokede, As is the kynde of a knyght That cometh to be dubbed, To geten hym gilte spores, Or galoches y-couped. Thanne was Feith in a fenestre, 12100 And cryde a _fili David_, As dooth an heraud of armes, Whan aventrous cometh to justes. Old Jewes of Jerusalem For joye thei songen, _Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini._ = Thanne I frayned at Feith, What al that fare by-mente, And who sholde juste in Jerusalem. 12110 "Jhesus," he seide, "And fecche that the fend claymeth, Piers fruyt the Plowman." "Is Piers in this place?" quod I. And he preynte on me: "This Jhesus of his gentries Wol juste in Piers armes, In his helm and in his haubergeon, _Humana natura_; That Crist be noght bi-knowe here 12120 For _consummatus Deus_. In Piers paltok the Plowman This prikiere shal ryde. For no dynt shal hym dere, As _in deitate Patris_." "Who shal juste with Jhesus?" quod I, {371} "Jewes or scrybes?" "Nay," quod he; "The foule fend, And fals doom and deeth. Deeth seith he shal for-do 12130 And a-doun brynge Al that lyveth and loketh In londe and in watre. "Lif seith that he lieth, And leieth his lif to wedde, That for al that deeth kan do Withinne thre daies To walke and fecche fro the fend Piers fruyt the Plowman, And legge it ther hym liketh, 12140 And Lucifer bynde, And for-bete and a-doun brynge Bale deeth for evere." _O mors, ero mors tua._ Thanne cam Pilatus with muche peple, _Sedens pro tribunali_, To se how doghtiliche Deeth sholde do, And deme hir botheres right. The Jewes and the justice Ayeins Jhesu thei weere, 12150 And al the court on hym cryde _Crucifige_ sharpe. Tho putte hym forth a pilour Bifore Pilat, and seide, "This Jhesus of oure Jewes temple Hath japed and despised, To for-doon it on o day, And in thre dayes after Edifie it eft newe; {372} Here he stant that seide it; 12160 And yit maken it as muche In alle manere poyntes, Bothe as long and as large, Bi lofte and by grounde." "_Crucifige!_" quod a cachepol; "I warrante hym a wicche." "_Tolle! tolle!_" quod another, And took of kene thornes, And bigan of kene thorn A garland to make, 12170 And sette it sore on his heed, And seide in envye, "Ave, Raby," quod that rybaud, And threw reedes at hym, Nailed hym with thre nailes Naked on the roode, And poison on a poole Thei putte up to hise lippes, And beden hym drynken his deeth yvel, Hise daies were y-done, 12180 "And if that thow sotil be, Help now thiselve; If thow be Crist and kynges sone, Com down of the roode; Thanne shul we leve that lif thee loveth, And wol noght lete thee deye." "_Consummatum est_," quod Crist, And comsede for to swoune Pitousliche and pale, As a prison that deieth. 12190 The lord of lif and of light Tho leide hise eighen togideres. {373} The day for drede withdrough, And derk bicam the sonne; The wal waggede and cleef, And al the world quaved; Dede men for that dene Come out of depe graves, And tolde why that tempeste So longe tyme durede; 12200 "For a bitter bataille," The dede body seide, "Lif and deeth in this derknesse Hir oon for-dooth hir oother. Shal no wight wite witterly Who shal have the maistrie Er Sonday aboute sonne risyng;" And sank with that til erthe. Some seide that he was Goddes sone That so faire deide. 12210 _Vere filius Dei erat iste._ And some seide he was a wicche, "Good is that we assaye Wher he be deed or noght deed, Doun er he be taken." Two theves also Tholed deeth that tyme, Upon a croos besides Crist, So was the comune lawe. A cachepol cam forth 12220 And craked bothe hire legges, And the armes after Of either of tho theves. Ac was no body so boold Goddes body to touche; For he was knyght and kynges sone, {374} Kynde for-yaf that tyme, That noon harlot were so hardy To leyen hond upon hym. Ac ther cam forth a knyght, 12230 With a kene spere y-grounde, Highte Longeus, as the lettre telleth, And longe hadde lore his sighte. Bifore Pilat and oother peple In the place he hoved; Maugree his manye teeth, He was maad that tyme To take the spere in his hond, And justen with Jhesus. For alle thei were unhardy, 12240 That hoved on horse or stode, To touchen hym or to tasten hym, Or taken doun of roode. But this blynde bacheler Baar hym thorugh the herte; The blood sprong doun by the spere, And unspered the knyghtes eighen. Thanne fil the knyght upon knees, And cryde hym mercy; "Ayein my wille it was, Lord, 12250 To wownde yow so soore." He sighed and seide, "Soore it me a-thynketh, For the dede that I have doon I do me in youre grace. Have on me ruthe! rightful Jhesu!" And right with that he wepte. Thanne gan Feith felly The false Jewes despise, {375} Callede hem caytyves 12260 Acorsed for evere; "For this foule vileynye Vengeaunce to yow falle! To do the blynde bete hym y-bounde, It was a boyes counseille. Cursede caytif! Knyghthood was it nevere To mys-do a deed body By daye or by nyghte. The gree yit hath he geten, 12270 For al his grete wounde. "For youre champion chivaler, Chief knyght of yow alle, Yilt hym recreaunt rennyng Right at Jhesus wille. For be this derknesse y-do, His deeth worth avenged; And ye, lurdaynes, han y-lost, For lif shal have the maistrye; And youre fraunchise, that fre was, 12280 Fallen is in thraldom, And ye, cherles, and youre children Cheve shulle nevere To have lordshipe in londe, Ne no lond tilye, But al barayne be, And usurie usen, Which is lif that oure Lord In alle lawes acurseth. Now youre goode dayes arn doon, 12290 As Daniel prophecied, Whan Crist cam, of hir kyngdom The crowne sholde cesse." {376} _Cum veniat sanctus sanctorum, cessabit unctio vestra._ What for feere of this ferly, And of the false Jewes, I drow me in that derknesse To _descendit ad inferna_; And there I saugh soothly 12300 _Secundum Scripturas_ Out of the west coste A wenche, as me thoughte, Cam walkynge in the wey, To helle-ward she loked. Mercy highte that mayde, A meke thyng withalle, A ful benigne burde, And buxom of speche. Hir suster, as it semed, 12310 Cam soothly walkynge. Evene out of the est, And west-ward she lokede, A ful comely creature, Truthe she highte, For the vertue that hire folwede A-fered was she nevere. Whan thise maydenes mette, Mercy and Truthe, Either asked oother 12320 Of this grete wonder, Of the dyn and of the derknesse, And how the day rowed, And which a light and a leme Lay bifore helle. "Ich have ferly of this fare, In feith!" seide Truthe, {377} "And am wendynge to wite What this wonder meneth." "Have no merveille," quod Mercy, 12330 "Murth it bitokneth. A maiden that highte Marie, And moder withouten felyng Of any kynnes creature, Conceyved thorugh speche And grace of the Holy Goost, Weex greet with childe, Withouten wem Into this world she broghte hym; And that my tale be trewe, 12340 I take God to witnesse. "Sith this barn was y-bore Ben .xxx.^{ti} wynter passed, Which deide and deeth tholed This day aboute myd-day, And that is cause of this clips That closeth now the sonne, In menynge that man shal Fro merknesse be drawe, The while this light and this leme 12350 Shal Lucifer a-blende. For patriarkes and prophetes Han preched herof ofte: That man shal man save Thorugh a maydenes helpe; And that was tynt thorugh tree, Tree shal it wynne; And that deeth a-down broughte, Deeth shal releve." "That thow tellest," quod Truthe, 12360 "Is but a tale of Waltrot. {378} For Adam and Eve, And Abraham, with othere, Patriarkes and prophetes, That in peyne liggen, Leve thow nevere that yon light Hem a-lofte brynge, Ne have hem out of helle. Hold thi tonge, Mercy! It is but a trufle that thow tellest; 12370 I, Truthe, woot the sothe. For he that is ones in helle, Out cometh he nevere. Job the prophete patriark Repreveth thi sawes." _Quia in inferno nulla est redemptio._ Thanne Mercy ful myldely Mouthed thise wordes, "Thorugh experience," quod she, "I hope thei shul be saved. 12380 For venym for-dooth venym; And that preve I by reson. For of alle venymes Foulest is the scorpion, May no medicyne helpe The place ther he styngeth, Til he be deed, and do therto, The yvel he destruyeth, The firste venymousté Thorugh venym of hymselve. 12390 "So shal this deeth for-do, I dar my lif legge, Al that deeth for-dide first Thorugh the develes entisyng; And right as thorugh gile {379} Man was bi-giled, So shal grace that bi-gan Make a good sleighte." _Ars ut artem falleret._ "Now suffre we," seide Truthe; 12400 "I se, as me thynketh, Out of the nyppe of the north Noght ful her hennes Rightwisnesse come rennynge. Reste we the while; For he woot moore than we, He was er we bothe." "That is sooth," seide Mercy; "And I se here by sowthe Where Pees cometh pleyinge, 12410 In pacience y-clothed. Love hath coveited hire longe, Leve I noon oother, But he sente hire som lettre, What this light by-meneth That over-hoveth helle thus, She us shal telle." When Pees in pacience y-clothed Approched ner hem tweyne, Rightwisnesse hire reverenced, 12420 By hir riche clothyng, And preide Pees to telle hire To what place she wolde, And in hire gaye garnementz Whom she grete thoughte. "My wil is to wende," quod she, "And welcome hem alle That many day myghte I noght se For merknesse of synne, {380} Adam and Eve, 12430 And othere mo in helle; Moyses and many mo Mercy shul have, And I shal daunce therto, Do thow so, suster, For Jhesus justede wel, Joy bigynneth dawe. _Ad vesperum demorabitur fletus, et ad matutinum lætitia._ "Love, that is my lemman, 12440 Swiche lettres me sente, That Mercy, my suster, and I Mankynde sholde save, And that God hath for-gyven And graunted me pees and mercy, To be mannes meynpernour For evere moore after. Lo here the patente!" quod Pees, "_In pace in idipsum._ And that this dede shal dure, 12450 _Dormiam et requiescam_." "What! ravestow?" quod Rightwisnesse, "Or thow art right dronke? Levestow that yond light Unlouke myghte helle, And save mannes soule? Suster, wene it nevere. For God the bigynnere Gaf the doom hymselve, That Adam and Eve, 12460 And alle that hem suwede, Sholden deye down righte, {381} And dwelle in pyne after, If that thei touchede a tree, And the fruyt eten. "Adam afterward Ayeins his defence Freet of that fruyt, And forsook, as it weere, The love of oure Lord 12470 And his loore bothe, And folwede that the fend taughte, And his felawes wille, Ayeins reson and rightwisnesse, Recorde thus with truthe, That hir peyne be perpetuel, And no preiere hem helpe. For-thi lat hem chewe as thei chosen, And chide we noght, sustres; For it is bote-lees bale, 12480 The byte that thei eten." "And I shal preve," quod Pees, "Hir peyne moot have ende, And from wo into wele Mowe wenden at the laste. For hadde thei wist of no wo, Wele hadde the noght knowen. For no wight woot what wele is, That nevere wo suffrede; Ne what is hoot hunger, 12490 That hadde nevere defaute. "If no nyght ne weere, No man, as I leeve, Sholde nevere wite witterly What day is to meene. Sholde nevere right riche man, {382} That lyveth in reste and ese, Wite what wo is, Ne were the deeth of kynde. "So God, that bigan al 12500 Of his goode wille, Bicam man of a mayde Mankynde to save; And suffrede to be sold, To se the sorwe of deying, The which unknytteth alle care, And comsynge is of reste. For til _modicum_ mete with us, I may it wel avowe, Woot no wight, as I wene, 12510 What y-nogh is to mene. "For-thi God of his goodnesse The firste gome Adam Sette hym in solace, And in sovereyn murthe; And siththe he suffred hym synne, Sorwe to feele, To wite what wele was Kyndeliche and knowe it. And after God auntrede hymself, 12520 And took Adames kynde, To wite what he hath suffred In thre sondry places, Bothe in hevene and in erthe, And now til helle he thenketh To wite what alle wo is, And what is alle joye. "So it shal fare by this folk, Hir folie and hir synne Shal lere hem what langour is 12530 {383} And lisse withouten ende. Woot no wight what werre is Ther that pees regneth, Ne what is witterly wele Til weylawey! hym teche." Thanne was ther a wight With two brode eighen, Book highte that beau-peere, A bold man of speche; "By Goddes body!" quod this Book, 12540 "I wol bere witnesse That tho this barn was y-bore, Ther blased a sterre That alle the wise of this world In o wit acorden, That swich a barn was y-bore In Bethleem the citee, That mannes soule sholde save, And synne destroye. And alle the elementz," quod the Book, 12550 "Herof beren witnesse, That he was God that al wroghte, The wolkne first shewed. "Tho that weren in hevene Token _stella cometa_, And tendeden it as a torche To reverencen his burthe; The light folwede the Lord Into the lowe erthe. "The water witnessed that he was God, 12560 For he wente on it. Peter the apostel Parceyved his gate, And as he wente on the water, {384} Wel hym knew, and seide, _Jube me venire ad te super aquas._ "And lo! how the sonne gan louke Hire light in hirselve, Whan she seigh hym suffre, That sonne and see made. 12570 "The erthe for hevynesse That he wolde suffre, Quaked as quyk thyng, And al biquasshed the roche. "Lo! helle myghte nat holde, But opnede tho God tholede, And leet out Symondes sone To seen hym hange on roode. And now shal Lucifer leve it, Though hym looth thynke; 12580 For _Gigas_ the geaunt With a gyn hath engyned To breke and to bete a-doun That ben ayeins Jhesus. And I, Book, wole be brent, But Jhesus rise to lyve In alle myghtes of man, And his moder gladie, And conforte al his kyn And out of care brynge, 12590 And al the Jewene joye Unjoynen and unlouken, And but thei reversen his roode, And his resurexion, And bileve on a newe lawe, Be lost lif and soule." "Suffre we," seide Truthe; "I here and see bothe {385} How a spirit speketh to helle, And biddeth unspere the yates." 12600 _Attolite portas, etc._ A vois loude in that light To Lucifer crieth, "Prynces of this place, Unpynneth and unlouketh! For here cometh with crowne That kyng is of glorie." Thanne sikede Sathan, And seide to hem alle, "Swich a light ayeins oure leve 12610 Lazar out fette; Care and encombraunce Is comen to us alle! If this kyng come in, Mankynde wole he fecche, And lede it ther hym liketh, And lightliche me bynde. Patriarkes and Prophetes Han parled herof longe, That swich a lord and light 12620 Sholde lede hem alle hennes." "Listneth," quod Lucifer, "For I this lord knowe. Bothe this lord and this light, Is longe a-go I knew hym. May no deeth hym dere, Ne no develes queyntise; And where he wole is his wey, Ac ware hym of the perils. If he reveth me my right, 12630 He robbeth me by maistrie; For by right and by reson {386} The renkes that ben here Body and soule beth myne, Bothe goode and ille. For hymself seide, That sire is of hevene, If Adam ete the appul, Alle sholde deye And dwelle with us develes; 12640 This thretynge he made. And he that soothnesse is, Seide thise wordes. And sithen I seised Sevene hundred wynter, I leeve that lawe nyl noght Lete hym the leeste." "That is sooth," seide Sathan; "But I me soore drede. For thow gete hem with gile, 12650 And his gardyn breke, And in semblaunce of a serpent Sete upon the appul-tree, And eggedest hem to ete, Eve by hirselve; And toldest hire a tale, Of treson were the wordes; And so thow haddest hem out, And hider at the laste. It is noght graithly geten, 12660 Ther gile is the roote. For God wol noght be bi-giled," Quod Gobelyn, "ne by-japed; We have no trewe title to hem, For thorugh treson were thei dampned." = {387} "Certes, I drede me," quod the devel, "Lest Truthe wol hem fecche; Thise thritty wynter, as I wene, Hath he gon and preched. 12670 I have assailled hym with synne, And som tyme y-asked Wheither he were God or Goddes sone; He yaf me short answere. And thus hath he trolled forth Thise two and thritty wynter. And whan I seigh it was so, Lepynge I wente To warne Pilates wif What done man was Jhesus. 12680 For Jewes hateden hym, And han doon hym to dethe. I wolde have lengthed his lif; For I leved if he deide, That his soule wolde suffre No synne in his sighte. For the body, while it on bones yede, Aboute was evere To save men from synne, If hemself wolde. 12690 And now I se wher a soule Cometh hiderward seillynge, With glorie and with gret light,-- God it is, I woot wel. I rede that we fle," quod he, "Faste alle hennes; For us were bettre noght be, Than biden his sighte. For thi lesynges, Lucifer, {388} Lost is al oure praye. 12700 "First thorugh the we fellen Fro hevene so heighe, For we leved on thi lesynges; Y-lorn we have Adam, And al oure lordshipe, I leve, A-londe and a-watre." _Nunc princeps hujus mundi ejicietur foras_. Eft the light bad unlouke; And Lucifer answerede, "What lord artow?" quod Lucifer. 12710 _Quis est iste?_ "_Rex Gloriæ_," The light soone seide, "And lord of myght and of man, And alle manere vertues. _Dominus virtutum_. Dukes of this dymme place, Anoon undo thise yates, That Crist may come in, The kynges sone of hevene!" 12720 And with that breeth helle brak, With Belialles barres, For any wye or warde, Wide opned the yates. Patriarkes and prophetes, _Populus in tenebris_, Songen seint Johanes song, _Ecce agnus Dei._ Lucifer loke ne myghte, So light hym a-blente. 12730 And tho that oure Lord lovede Into his light he laughte; And seide to Sathan, {389} "Lo! here my soule to amendes For alle synfulle soules, To save tho that ben worthi. Myne thei ben and of me, I may the bet hem cleyme. And though Reson recorde And Right, of myselve, 12740 That if he ete the appul Alle sholde deye; I bi-highte hem noght here Helle for evere. For the dede that thei dide, Thi deceite it made; With gile thow hem gete, Ageyn alle reson. For in my paleis Paradis, In persone of an addre, 12750 Falsliche thow fettest Thyng that I lovede. "Thus y-lik a lusard, With a lady visage, Thefliche thow me robbedest; And the olde lawe graunteth That gilours be bigiled, And that is good reson. _Dentem pro dente et oculum pro oculo._ = _Ergo_ soule shal soule quyte, 12761 And synne to synne wende, And al that man hath mys-do I, man, wole amende; Membre for membre By the olde lawe was amendes, And lif for lif also, {390} And by that lawe I clayme it, Adam and al his issue At my wille herafter, 12770 And that deeth in hem for-dide My deeth shal releve, And bothe quykne and quyte That queynt was thorugh synne. And that grace gile destruye, Good feith it asketh. So leve I noght, Lucifer, Ayein the lawe I fecche hem; But by right and by reson Raunsone here my liges. 12780 _Non veni solvere legem, sed adimplere._ = "Thow fettest myne in my place Ayeins alle reson, Falsliche and felonliche; Good feith me it taughte, To recovere hem thorugh raunson, And by no reson ellis. So that thorugh gile thow gete, Thorugh grace it is y-wonne. 12790 Thow Lucifer in liknesse Of a luther addere Getest bi gile Tho that God lovede. "And I in liknesse of a leode, That lord am of hevene, Graciousliche thi gile have quyt; Go gile ayein gile. And as Adam and alle Thorugh a tree deyden; 12800 Adam and alle thorugh a tree {391} Shul turne ayein to lyve; And gile is bi-giled, And in his gile fallen. _Et cecidit in foveam quam fecit._ "Now bi-gynneth thi gile Ageyn thee to turne, And my grace to growe Ay gretter and widder; That art doctour of deeth, 12810 Drynk that thow madest. "For I that am lord of lif, Love is my drynke; And for that drynke to-day I deide upon erthe. I faught so, me thursteth yit, For mannes soule sake; May no drynke me moiste, Ne my thurst slake, Til the vendage falle 12820 In the vale of Josaphat, That I drynke right ripe must, _Resurrectio mortuorum_; And thanne shal I come as a kyng, Crouned with aungeles, And have out of helle Alle mennes soules. "Fendes and fyndekynes Bifore me shul stande, And be at my biddyng 12830 Wher so evere me liketh; And to be merciable to man Thanne my kynde asketh. For we beth bretheren of blood, But noght in baptisme alle. {392} Ac alle that beth myne hole bretheren In blood and in baptisme. Shul noght be dampned to the deeth That is withouten ende. _Tibi soli peccavi, etc._ 12840 "It is noght used in erthe, To hangen a feloun Ofter than ones, Though he were a tretour. And if the kyng of that kyngdom Come in that tyme There feloun thole sholde Deeth or oother juwise, Lawe wolde he yeve hym lif, If he loked on hym. 12850 And I, that am kyng of kynges, Shal come swich a tyme Ther doom to the deeth Dampneth alle the wikked; And if lawe wole I loke on hem, It lith in my grace Wheither thei deye or deye noght For that thei diden ille; Be it any thyng a-bought The boldnesse of hir synnes, 12860 I do mercy thorugh rightwisnesse, And alle my wordes trewe; And though holy writ wole that I be wroke Of hem that diden ille,-- _Nullum malum impunitum, etc._-- Thei shul be clensed clerliche, And wasshen of hir synnes, In my prisone Purgatorie, {393} Til _parce_ it hote, And my mercy shal be shewed 12870 To manye of my bretheren. For blood may suffre blood, Bothe hungry and a-cale; Ac blood may noght se blood Blede, but hym rewe. _Audivi arcana verba quæ non licet homini loqui._ "Ac my rightwisnesse and right Shul rulen al helle, And mercy al mankynde 12880 Bifore me in hevene. For I were an unkynde kyng, But I my kynde helpe, And nameliche at swich a nede. Ther nedes help bihoveth. _Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo._ = "Thus by lawe," quod oure Lord, "Lede I wole fro hennes Tho that me lovede 12890 And leved in my comynge. And for thi lesynge, Lucifer, That thow leighe til Eve, Thow shalt abyen it bittre;"-- And bond hym with cheynes. Astroth and al the route Hidden hem in hernes; They dorste noght loke on oure Lord, The boldeste of hem alle, But leten hym lede forth whom hym liked, 12900 And lete whom hym liste. {394} Manye hundred of aungeles Harpeden and songen, _Culpat caro, purgat caro, Regnat Deus Dei caro._ Thanne pipede Pees Of Poesie a note, _Clarior est solito post maxima nebula Phoebus, = Post inimicitias, etc._ 12910 "After sharpe shoures," quod Pees, "Moost shene is the sonne; Is no weder warmer Than after watry cloudes; Ne no love levere, Ne lever frendes, Than after werre and wo, Whan Love and Pees ben maistres. Was nevere werre in this world, Ne wikkednesse so kene, 12920 That ne Love, and hym liste, To laughynge ne broughte, And pees thorugh pacience Alle perils stoppeth." "Trewes," quod Truthe; "Thow tellest us sooth, by Jhesus! Clippe we in covenaunt, And ech of us clippe oother." "And leteth no peple," quod Pees, "Perceyve that we chidde. 12930 For inpossible is no thyng To hym that is almyghty." "Thow seist sooth," quod Rightwisnesse; And reverentliche hire kiste. {395} "Pees and pees here! _Per sæcula sæculorum._" _Misericordia et veritas obviaverunt sibi, justitia et pax osculatæ sunt._ Truthe trumpede tho, And song _Te Deum laudamus_; 12940 And thanne lutede, In a loud note, _Ecce quam bonum et quam jocundum, etc._ Til the day dawed Thise damyseles dauncede, That men rongen to the resurexion. And right with that I wakede, And callede Kytte my wif, And Calote my doghter; And bad hem rise and reverence 12950 Goddes resurexion; And crepe to the cros on knees, And kisse it for a juwel, For Goddes blissede body It bar for oure boote; And it a-fereth the fend, For swich is the myghte, May no grisly goost Glide there it walketh. 12959 * * * * * {396} _Passus Decimus Nonus, explicit Do-bet, et incipit Do-best._ Thus I awaked and wroot 12960 What I hadde y-dremed; And dighte me derely, And dide me to chirche, To here holly the masse, And to be housled after. In myddes of the masse, Tho men yede to offryng, I fel eft-soones a-slepe; And sodeynly me mette That Piers the Plowman 12970 Was peynted al blody, And com in with a cros Bifore the comune peple, And right lik in alle thynges To oure Lord Jhesus. And thanne called I Conscience, To kenne me the sothe; "Is this Jhesus the justere," quod I, "That Jewes dide to dethe? Or it is Piers the Plowman. 12980 Who peynted hym so rede?" Quod Conscience, and kneled tho, "Thise arn Piers armes, {397} Hise colours and his cote armure; Ac he that cometh so blody Is Crist with his cros, Conquerour of cristene." "Why calle hym Crist," quod I, "Sithen Jewes calle hym Jhesus? Patriarkes and prophetes 12990 Prophecied bifore That alle kynne creatures Sholden knelen and bowen, Anoon as men nempned The name of God Jhesu. _Ergo_ is no name To the name of Jhesus; Ne noon so nedeful to nempne By nyghte ne by daye. For alle derke develes 13000 Arn a-drad to heren it; And synfulle aren solaced And saved by that name. And ye callen hym Crist; For what cause telleth me? Is Crist moore of myght, And moore worthi name, Than Jhesu or Jhesus, That al oure joye com of?" "Thow knowest wel," quod Conscience, 13010 "And thow konne reson, That knyght, kyng, conquerour, May be o persone. To be called a knyght is fair, For men shul knele to hym; To be called a kyng is fairer, {398} For he may knyghtes make; Ac to be conquerour called, That cometh of special grace, And of hardynesse of herte, 13020 And of hendenesse, To make lordes of laddes Of lond that he wynneth, And fre men foule thralles That folwen noght hise lawes. "The Jewes that were gentil men, Jhesus thei despised, Bothe his loore and his lawe; Now are thei lowe cherles. As wide as the world is, 13030 Noon of hem ther wonyeth But under tribut and taillage, As tikes and cherles; And tho that bicome cristene Bi counseil of the baptisme, Aren frankeleyns, free men, Thorugh fullynge that thei toke, And gentil men with Jhesu; For Jhesu was y-fulled, And upon Calvarie on cros 13040 Y-crouned kyng of Jewes. "It bicometh to a kyng To kepe and to defende; And conquerour of conquest Hise lawes and his large. And so dide Jhesus the Jewes, He justified and taughte hem The lawe of lif, That laste shal evere; And defended from foule yveles, 13050 {399} Feveres and fluxes, And from fendes that in hem were, And false bileve. Tho was he Jhesus of Jewes called, Gentile prophete, And kyng of hir kyngdom, And croune bar of thornes. "And tho conquered he on cros, As conquerour noble. Mighte no deeth hym for-do, 13060 Ne a-doun brynge, That he naroos and regnede, And ravysshed helle: And tho was he conquerour called Of quyke and of dede. For he yaf Adam and Eve And othere mo blisse, That longe hadde y-leyen bifore As Luciferis cherles. "And sith he yaf largely 13070 Alle hise lele liges Places in Paradis, At hir partynge hennes; He may wel be called conquerour, And that is Crist to mene. "Ac the cause that he cometh thus With cros of his passion, Is to wissen us therwith That whan that we ben tempted, Therwith to fighte and defenden us 13080 Fro fallynge to synne. And so bi his sorwe, That who so loveth joye To penaunce and to poverte {400} He moste puten hymselven, And muche wo in this world To willen and suffren. "Ac to carpe moore of Crist, And how he com to that name, Faithly for to speke, 13090 His firste name was Jhesus; Tho he was born in Bethleem, As the book telleth, And cam to take mankynde, Kynges and aungeles Reverenced hym faire With richesses of erthe, Aungeles out of hevene Come knelynge and songe, _Gloria in excelsis Deo, etc._ 13100 "Kynges that come after Knelede, and offrede Mirre and muche gold, Withouten mercy askynge Or any kynnes catel, But knowelichynge hym sovereyn Bothe of lond, sonne, and see, And sithenes thei wente Into hir kyngene kith, By counseil of aungeles. 13110 And there was that word fulfilled The which thow of speke. _Omnia cælestia terrestria flectantur in hoc nomine Jhesu._ "For alle the aungeles of hevene At his burthe knelede, And al the wit of the world Was in tho thre kynges, {401} Reson and rightwisnesse And ruthe thei offrede; 13120 Wherfore and why Wise men that tyme, Maistres and lettred men, _Magi_ hem callede. "That o kyng cam with reson, Covered under sense. "The seconde kyng siththe Soothliche offrede Rightwisnesse under reed gold, Resones felawe. 13130 For gold is likned to leautee That laste shal evere. "The thridde kyng tho kam Knelynge to Jhesu, And presented hym with pitee, Apperynge by mirre. For mirre is mercy to mene And mylde speche of tonge. "Thre y-liche honeste thynges Were offred thus at ones, 13140 Thorugh thre kynne kynges Knelynge to Jhesu, "Ac for alle thise preciouse presentz, Oure Lord kyng Jhesus Was neither kyng ne conquerour, Til he gan to wexe In the manere of a man, And that by muchel sleighte, As it bi-cometh a conquerour To konne manye sleightes, 13150 And manye wiles and wit, That wole ben a ledere. {402} And so dide Jhesu in hise dayes, Who so hadde tyme to telle it. "Som tyme he suffrede, And som tyme he hidde hym; And some tyme he faught faste, And fleigh outher while; And som tyme he gaf good, And grauntede heele bothe, 13160 Lif and lyme, As hym liste he wroghte. As kynde is of a conquerour, So comsede Jhesu, Til he hadde alle hem That he for bledde. "In his juventee this Jhesus At Jewene feeste Water into wyn turnede, As holy writ telleth. 13170 And there bigan God Of his grace to do-wel. For wyn is likned to lawe And lif-holynesse, And lawe lakkede tho, For men lovede noght hir enemys. And Crist counseileth thus, And comaundeth bothe, To lered and to lewede To lovyen oure enemys. 13180 So at the feeste first, As I bifore tolde, Bigan God of his grace And goodnesse to do-wel. And thanne was he called Noght holy Crist, but Jhesu, {403} A faunt fyn ful of wit, _Filius Mariæ._ For bifore his moder Marie Made he that wonder; 13190 That she first and formest Ferme sholde bileve That he thorugh grace was gete, And of no gome ellis. He wroghte that by no wit, But thorugh word one; After the kynde that he cam of, There comsede he do-wel. "And whan he woxen was moore, In his moder absence, 13200 He made lame to lepe, And yaf light to blynde, And fedde with two fisshes, And with fyve loves, Sore a fyngred folk Mo than fyve thousand. "Thus he confortede carefulle And caughte a gretter name, The which was Do-bet, Where that he wente, 13210 For deve thorugh hise doynges to here And dombe speke he made, And alle he heeled and halp That hym of grace askede. And tho was he called in contré Of the comune peple, For the dedes that he dide, _Fili David, Jhesus._ For David was doghtiest Of dedes in his tyme. 13220 {404} The burdes tho songe, _Saul interfecit mille, et David decem millia._ = "For-thi the contree ther Jhesu cam Called hym _fili David_, And nempned hym of Nazareth, And no man so worthi To be kaiser or kyng Of the kyngdom of Juda, Ne over Jewes justice, 13230 As Jhesus was, hem thoughte. "Wherof Cayphas hadde envye, And othere of the Jewes; And for to doon hym to dethe Day and nyght thei casten, Killeden hym on cros wise At Calvarie on Friday, And sithen buriede his body, And beden that men sholde, Kepen it fro nyght comeris 13240 With knyghtes y-armed, For no frendes sholde hym fecche. For prophetes hem tolde That that blissede body Of burieles risen sholde, And goon into Galilee, And gladen hise apostles, And his moder Marie; Thus men bifore demede. "The knyghtes that kepten it 13250 Bi-knewe it hemselven, That aungeles and archaungeles Er the day spronge Come knelynge to the corps, {405} And songen _Christus resurgens_, Verray men bifore hem alle, And forth with hem he yede. "The Jewes preide hem be pees, And bi-soughte the knyghtes Telle the comune that ther cam 13260 A compaignie of hise apostles, And bi-wicched hem as thei woke, And awey stolen it. "Ac Marie Maudeleyne Mette hym by the weye, Goynge toward Galilee In godhede and manhede, And lyves and lokynge, And she a-loud cride In ech a compaignie ther she cam, 13270 _Christus resurgens_. "Thus cam it out that Crist over-coom, Recoverede and lyvede _Sic oportet Christum pati et intrare, etc._ = For that that wommen witeth, May noght wel be counseille. "Peter parceyved al this, And pursued after, Bothe James and Johan, 13280 Jhesu for to seke, Thaddee and ten mo, With Thomas of Inde. And as alle thise wise wyes Weren togideres, In an hous al bi-shet, And hir dore y-barred, Crist cam in, and al closed {406} Bothe dore and yates, To Peter and to thise apostles, 13290 And seide _pax vobis!_ And took Thomas by the hand, And taughte hym to grope, And feele with hise fyngres His flesshliche herte. "Thomas touched it, And with his tonge seide, '_Deus meus et Dominus meus_-- Thow art my lord, I bi-leve, My God, lord Jhesu; 13300 Thow deidest and deeth tholedest, And deme shalt us alle, And now art lyvynge and lokynge, And laste shalt evere.' "Crist carpede thanne, And curteisliche seide, 'Thomas, for thow trowest this, And treweliche bi-levest it, Blessed mote thow be, And be shalt for evere; 13310 And blessed mote thei alle be In body and in soule That nevere shul se me in sighte, As thow doost nowthe, And lelliche bi-leve al this, I love hem and blesse hem.' _Beati qui non viderunt, etc._ "And whan this dede was doon, Do-best he taughte, And yaf Piers power, 13320 And pardon he grauntede, To alle maner men {407} Mercy and forgifnesse, Hym myght to assoille Of alle manere synne, In covenaunt that thei come And kneweliched to paie To Piers pardon the Plowman, _Redde quod debes._ "Thus hath Piers power, 13330 By his pardon paied, To bynde and unbynde, Bothe here and ellis where; And assoille men of alle synnes, Save of dette one. "Anoon after an heigh Up into hevene He wente, and wonyeth there, And wol come at the laste, And rewarde hym right wel 13340 That _reddit quod debet_, Paieth parfitly, As pure truthe wolde; And what persone paieth it nought, Punysshen he thenketh, And demen hem at domes day Bothe quyke and dede. The goode to the godhede And to greet joye, And wikkede to wonye 13350 In wo withouten ende." Thus Conscience of Crist And of the cros carpede, And counseiled me to knele therto. And thanne cam, me thoughte, Oon _spiritus paraclitus_ {408} To Piers and to hise felawes In liknesse of a lightnynge He lighte on hem alle, And made hem konne and knowe 13360 Alle kynne langages. I wondred what that was, And waggede Conscience, And was a-fered of the light, For in fires lightnesse _Spiritus paraclitus_ Over-spradde hem alle. Quod Conscience, and knelede, "This is Cristes messager, And cometh fro the grete God, 13370 And Grace is his name. Knele now," quod Conscience, "And if thow kanst synge, Welcome hym and worshipe hym With _Veni creator spiritus_." Thanne song I that song, So dide manye hundred, And cride with Conscience, "Help us, God of Grace!" And thanne bigan Grace 13380 To go with Piers Plowman, And counseillede hym and Conscience The comune to sompne; "For I wole dele to-day And gyve divine grace To alle kynne creatures That han hir fyve wittes, Tresour to lyve by To hir lyves ende, And wepne to fighte with 13390 {409} That wole nevere faille. For Antecrist and hise Al the world shul greve, And acombre thee, Conscience, But if Crist thee helpe. "And false prophetes fele, Flatereris and gloseris, Shullen come and be curatours Over kynges and erles, And Pride shal be pope, 13400 Prynce of holy chirche, Coveitise and unkyndenesse Cardinals hym to lede; For-thi," quod Grace, "er I go, I wol gyve yow tresor, And wepne to fighte with Whan Antecrist yow assaileth." And gaf ech man a grace To gide with hymselven, That ydelnesse encombre hym noght, 13410 Envye ne pride. _Divisiones gratiarum sunt, etc._ Some he yaf wit With wordes to shewe, Wit to wynne hir liflode with, As the world asketh, As prechours and preestes, And prentices of lawe, They lelly to lyve By labour of tonge, 13420 And by wit to wissen othere As grace hem wolde teche. And some he kennede craft And konnynge of sighte, {410} With sellynge and buggynge Hir bilyve to wynne. And some he lered to laboure, A lele lif and a trewe; And some he taughte to tilie, To dyche and to thecche, 13430 To wynne with her liflode Bi loore of his techynge. And some to devyne and divide, Noumbres to kenne; And some to compace craftily, And colours to make; And some to se and to seye What sholde bi-falle, Bothe of wele and of wo, Telle it er it felle, 13440 As astronomyens thorugh astronomye, And philosofres wise. And some to ryde, and to recovere That wrongfully was wonne; He wissed hem to wynne it ayein Thorugh wightnesse of handes, And fecchen it fro false men With folvyles lawes. And some he lered to lyve In longynge to ben hennes, 13450 In poverte and in penaunce, To preie for alle cristene. And alle he lered to be lele, And ech a craft love oother; And forbad hem alle debat, That noon were among hem. "Though some be clenner than some, Ye se wel," quod Grace, {411} "That he that useth the faireste craft, To the fouleste I kouthe have put hym. 13460 Thynketh alle," quod Grace, "That grace cometh of my gifte; Loketh that no man lakke oother, But loveth alle as bretheren. "And who that moost maistries kan Be myldest of berynge; And crouneth Conscience kyng, And maketh Craft youre stiward, And after Craftes conseil Clotheth yow and fede. 13470 For I make Piers the Plowman My procuratour and my reve, And registrer to receyve, _Redde quod debes._ My prowor and my plowman Piers shal ben on erthe, And for to tilie truthe A teeme shal he have." Grace gaf Piers a teeme Of foure grete oxen. 13480 That oon was Luk, a large beest, And a lowe chered; And Mark, and Mathew the thridde, Myghty beestes bothe; And joyned to hem oon Johan, Moost gentil of alle, The pris neet of Piers Plow, Passynge all othere. And Grace gaf Piers Of his goodnesse foure stottes; 13490 Al that hise oxen eriede, {412} Thei to harewen after. Oon highte Austyn, And Ambrose another, Gregori the grete clerk, And Jerom the goode. Thise foure the feith to teche Folweth Piers teme, And harewede in an hand while Al holy Scripture, 13500 With two harewes that thei hadde, An oold and a newe. _Id est, vetus testamentum et novum._ And Grace gaf greynes, The cardynal vertues, And sew hem in mannes soule, And sithen he tolde hir names. _Spiritus prudentiæ._ The firste seed highte; And who so ete that, 13510 Ymagynen he sholde Er he deide any deeth, Devyse wel the ende; And lerned men a ladel bugge With a long stele, And caste for to kepe a crokke To save the fatte above. The seconde seed highte _Spiritus temperantiæ._ He that ete of that seed 13520 Hadde swich a kynde, Sholde nevere mete ne muchel drynke Make hym to swelle, Ne no scornere ne scolde Out of skile hym bringe, {413} Ne wynnynge ne wele Of worldliche richesse, Waste word of ydelnesse Ne wikked speche moeve; Sholde no curious clooth 13530 Comen on his rugge, Ne no mete in his mouth That maister Johan spicede. The thridde seed that Piers sew Was _spiritus fortitudinis_. And who ete that seed, Hardy was he evere To suffren al that God sente, Siknesse and angres; Mighte no lesynges ne lyere, 13540 Ne los of worldly catel, Maken hym for any mournynge That he nas murie in soule, And bold and abidynge Bismares to suffre; And pleieth al with pacience And _parce mihi domine_; And covered hym under conseille Of Caton the wise: _Esto forti animo, cum sis dampnatus inique._ = The ferthe seed that Piers sew 13552 Was _spiritus justitiæ_. And he that ete of that seed, Sholde be evere trewe, With God, and naught a-gast, But of gile one; For gile gooth so pryvely, That good feith outher while {414} Maye nought ben espied, 13560 For _spiritus justitiæ_. _Spiritus justitiæ._ Spareth noght to spille Hem that ben gilty, And for to correcte The kyng, if he falle In gilt or in trespas. For counteth he no kynges wrathe, Whan he in court sitteth To demen as a domesman, 13570 A-drad was he nevere Neither of duc ne of deeth, That he ne dide lawe, For present or for preiere, Or any prynces lettres; He dide equité to alle Evene forth his power. Thise foure sedes Piers sew; And siththe he dide hem harewe With olde lawe and newe lawe, 13580 That love myghte wexe Among tho foure vertues, And vices destruye. For comunliche in contrees Cammokes and wedes Foulen the fruyt in the feld, Ther thei growen togideres; And so doon vices Vertues worthi. Quod Piers, "Hareweth alle that konneth kynde wit, By conseil of thise doctours; 13591 And tilieth after hir techynge {415} The cardynale vertues." "Ayeins thei greynes," quod Grace, "Bi-gynneth for to ripe, Ordeigne thee an hous, Piers, To herberwe inne thi cornes." "By God! Grace," quod Piers, "Ye moten gyve tymber, And ordeyne that hous, 13600 Er ye hennes wende." And Grace gaf hym the cros, With the croune of thornes, That Crist upon Calvarie For mankynde on pyned, And of his baptisme and blood That he bledde on roode He made a manere morter, And mercy it highte. And therwith Grace bi-gan 13610 To make a good foundement, And watlede it and walled it With his peyne and his passion, And of al holy writ He made a roof after, And called that hous _Unitee_, Holy chirche on Englisshe. And whan this dede was doon, Grace devysede A cart highte cristendom 13620 To carie Piers sheves; And gaf hym caples to his carte, Contricion and confession; And made preesthod hayward, The while hymself wente As wide as the world is {416} With Piers to tilie truthe. Now is Piers to the plow; And Pride it aspide, And gadered hym a greet oost, 13630 For to greven he thynketh Conscience and alle cristene And cardinale vertues, Blowe hem doun and breke hem, And bite a-two the mores; And sente forth Surquidous, His sergeaunt of armes, And his spye Spille-love, Oon Spek-yvel bihynde. Thise two coome to Conscience, 13640 And to cristen peple, And tolde hem tidynges, That tyne thei sholde the sedes That Piers there hadde y-sowen, The cardynale vertues; "And Piers bern worth y-broke, And thei that ben in _Unitee_ Shulle come out, and Conscience And youre two caples, Confession and Contricion; 13650 And youre carte the bileeve Shal be coloured so queyntely, And covered under sophistrie, That Conscience shal noght Knowe by Contricion Ne by Confession Who is cristene or hethene; Ne no manere marchaunt That with moneie deleth, Wheither he wynne with right, 13660 {417} With wrong, or with usure. "With swiche colours and queyntise Cometh Pride y-armed, With the lord that lyveth after The lust of his body, To wasten on welfare, And in wikked lyvynge, Al the world in a while Thorugh oure wit," quod Pryde. Quod Conscience to alle cristene tho, 13670 "My counseil is to wende Hastiliche into Unitee, And holde we us there; And praye we that a pees weere In Piers berne the Plowman. For witterly I woot wel, We beth noght of strengthe To goon agayn Pride, But Grace weere with us." And thanne kam Kynde Wit 13680 Conscience to teche, And cryde and comaundede Alle cristene peple For to delven a dych Depe aboute Unitee, That holy chirche stode in Unitee, As it a pyl weere. Conscience comaundede tho Alle cristene to delve, And make a muche moot, 13690 That myghte ben a strengthe To helpe holy chirche And hem that it kepeth. Thanne alle kynne cristene, {418} Save comune wommen, Repenteden and refused synne, Save thei one, And false men, flatereris, Usurers, and theves, Lyeris, and queste-mongeres 13700 That were for-sworen ofte, Witynge and wilfully With the false helden, And for silver were for-swore, Soothly they wiste it. Ther nas no cristene creature That kynde wit hadde, Save sherewes one Swiche as I spak of, That he ne halp a quantité 13710 Holynesse to wexe, Some thorugh bedes biddynge, And some thorugh pilgrymages And othere pryvé penaunces, And somme thorugh penyes delynge. And thanne wellede water For wikkede werkes, Egreliche ernynge Out of mennes eighen, Clennesse out of comune, 13720 And clerkes clene lyvynge, Made Unitee holy chirche In holynesse to stonde. "I care noght," quod Conscience, "Though Pride come nouthe. The lord of lust shal be letted Al this lente, I hope. Cometh," quod Conscience, {419} "Ye cristene, and dyneth, That han laboured lelly 13730 Al this lenten tyme. Here is breed y-blessed, And Goddes body therunder: Grace, thorugh Goddes word, Yaf Piers power And myghtes to maken it, And men to ete it after In helpe of hir heele Ones in a monthe, Or as ofte as thei hadde nede, 13740 Tho that hadde y-paied To Piers pardon the Plowman. _Redde quod debes._" "How?" quod al the comune, "Thow conseillest us to yelde Al that we owen any wight, Er we go to housel?" "That is my conseil," quod Conscience, "And cardinale vertues, That ech man for-gyve oother, 13750 And that wol the pater-noster. _Et dimitte nobis debita nostra, etc._ And so to ben assoilled, And siththen ben houseled." "Ye, baw!" quod a brewere, "I wol noght be ruled, By Jhesu! for al youre janglynge With _spiritus justitiæ_, Ne after Conscience, by Crist! While I kan selle 13760 Bothe dregges and draf, And drawe it out at oon hole {420} Thikke ale and thynne ale, For that is my kynde, And noght hakke after holynesse. Hold thi tonge, Conscience! Of _spiritus justitiæ_, Thow spekest muche on ydel." "Caytif!" quod Conscience, "Cursede wrecche! 13770 Un-blessed artow, brewere, But if thee God helpe. But thow lyve by loore Of _spiritus justitiæ_, The chief seed that Piers sew, Y-saved worstow nevere. But Conscience the comune fede, And cardinale vertues, Leve it wel, thei ben lost, Bothe lif and soule." 13780 "Thanne is many a man lost," Quod a lewed vicory.-- "I am a curatour of holy kirke, And cam nevere in my tyme Man to me, that me kouthe telle Of cardinale vertues, Or that acountede Conscience At a cokkes fethere or an hennes. I knew nevere cardynal, That he ne cam fro the pope; 13790 And we clerkes, whan thei come, For hir comunes paieth, For hir pelure and hir palfreyes mete, And pilours that hem folweth. "The comune _clamat cotidie_ Ech a man til oother, {421} The contree is the corseder That cardinals comme inne; And ther thei ligge and lenge moost, Lecherie there regneth. 13800 "For-thi," quod this vicory, "By verray God! I wolde That no cardynal coome Among the comune peple; But in hir holynesse Helden hem stille At Avynone among the Jewes,-- _Cum sancto sanctus eris, etc._-- Or in Rome, as hir rule wole, The relikes to kepe; 13810 And thow, Conscience, in kynges court, And sholdest nevere come thennes; And Grace, that thow graddest so of, Gyour of alle clerkes; And Piers with his newe plow, And ek with his olde, Emperour of al the world, That alle men were cristene. "Inparfit is that pope That al the world sholde helpe, 13820 And sendeth swiche that sleeth hem That he sholde save. "And wel worthe Piers the Plowman, That pursueth God in doynge, _Qui pluit super justos Et injustos_ at ones, And sent the sonne to save A cursed mannes tilthe, As brighte as to the beste man, Or to the beste womman. 13830 {422} "Right so Piers the Plowman Peyneth hym to tilye As wel for a wastour And wenches of the stewes, As for hymself and his servauntz, Save he is first y-served; And travailleth and tilieth For a tretour also soore As for a trewe tidy man, Alle tymes y-like. 13840 And worshiped be he that wroghte al, Bothe good and wikke, And suffreth that synfulle be, [Tyl som tyme that thei repenten]. And God amende the pope! That pileth holy kirke, And cleymeth bifore the kyng To be kepere over cristene; And counteth noght though cristene ben Killed and robbed; 13850 And fynt folk to fighte, And cristen blood to spille, Ayein the olde lawe and newe lawe, As Luc therof witnesseth. _Non occides, mihi vindictam, etc._ "It semeth, bi so Hymself hadde his wille, That he reccheth right noght Of al the remenaunt. And Crist of his curteisie 13860 The cardinals save, And torne hir wit to wisdom, And to welthe of soule! For the comune," quod this curatour, {423} "Counten ful litel The counseil of Conscience, Or cardinale vertues. But if thei seighe, as by sighte, Som what to wynnyng, Of gile ne of gabbyng 13870 Gyve thei nevere tale. For _spiritus prudentiæ_ Among the peple is gyle; And alle tho faire vertues As vices thei semeth. Ech man subtileth a sleighte Synne for to hide, And coloureth it for a konnynge, And a clene lyvynge." Thanne lough ther a lord, 13880 And "By this light!" seide, "I holde it right and reson Of my reve to take Al that myn auditour, Or ellis my styward, Counseilleth me bi hir acounte And my clerkes writyng. With _spiritus intellectus_ Thei seke the reves rolles; And with _spiritus fortitudinis_ 13890 Fecche it I wole after." And thanne cam ther a kyng, And, by his croune! seide, "I am kyng with croune The comune to rule, And holy kirke and clergie From cursed men to fende; And if me lakketh to lyve by, {424} The lawe wole I take it Ther I may hastilokest it have. 13900 For I am heed of lawe; And ye ben but membres, And I above alle. And sith I am youre aller heed, I am youre aller heele, And holy chirches chief help, And chieftayn of the comune; And what I take of yow two, I take it at the techynge Of _spiritus justitiæ_, 13910 For I jugge yow alle. So I may boldely be housled, For I borwe nevere, Ne crave of my comune, But as my kynde asketh." "In condicion," quod Conscience, "That thow konne defende And rule thi reaume in reson, Right wel and in truthe, Take thow mayst in reson 13920 As thi lawe asketh. _Omnia tua sunt ad defendendum, sed non ad deprædandum._" The viker hadde fer hoom, And faire took his leeve; And I awakned therwith, And wroot as me mette. 13927 * * * * * {425} _Passus Vicesimus de Visione, et Primus de Do-best._ Thanne as I wente by the wey, 13928 Whan I was thus awaked, Hevy-chered I yede, And elenge in herte; I ne wiste wher to ete, Ne at what place, And it neghed neigh the noon, And with Nede I mette That afrounted me foule, And faitour me called: "Kanstow noght excuse thee, As dide the kyng and othere, That thow toke to thy bilyve, 13940 To clothes and to sustenaunce; And by techynge and by tellynge Of _spiritus temperantiæ_, And thow nome na-moore Than nede thee taughte, And nede he hath no lawe, Ne nevere shal falle in dette; For thre thynges he taketh, His lif for to save. "That is mete, whan men hym werneth 13950 {426} And he no moneye weldeth, Ne wight noon wol ben his borugh, Ne wed hath noon to legge; And he caughte in that caas, And come therto by sleighte, He synneth noght, soothliche, That so wynneth his foode. "And though he come so to a clooth, And kan no bettre chevyssaunce, Nede anoon righte 13960 Nymeth hym under maynprise. "And if hym list for to lape, The lawe of kynde wolde That he dronke at ech dych, Er he for thurst deide. So Nede al gret nede May nymen, as for his owene, Withouten counseil of Conscience Or cardynale vertues, So that he sewe and save 13970 _Spiritus temperantiæ_. "For is no vertue bi fer To _spiritus temperantiæ_; Ne _spiritus justitiæ_ Ne _spiritus fortitudinis_. For _spiritus fortitudinis_ Forfeteth ful ofte. He shal do moore than mesure Many tyme and ofte, And bete men over bittre, 13980 And some of hem to litel, And greve men gretter Than good feith it wolde {427} "And _spiritus justitiæ_ Shal juggen, wol he nele he, After the kynges counseil, And the comune like. And _spiritus prudentiæ_ In many a point shal faille Of that he weneth wolde falle, 13990 If his wit ne weere. Wenynge is no wysdom, Ne wys ymaginacion, _Homo proponit, et Deus disponit_, And governeth alle goode vertues; Ac Nede is next hym, For anoon he meketh, And as lowe as a lomb, For lakkyng of that hym nedeth. Wise men forsoke wele, 14000 For thei wolde be nedy, And woneden in wildernesse, And wolde noght he riche. "And God al his grete joye Goostliche he lefte, And cam and took mankynde, And bi-cam nedy. So nedy he was, as seith the book, In manye sondry places, That he seide in his sorwe 14010 On the selve roode, Bothe fox and fowel May fle to hole and crepe, And the fissh hath fyn To flete with to reste, Ther Nede hath y-nome me That I moot nede abide {428} And suffre sorwes ful soure That shal to joye torne, For-thi be noght abasshed 14020 To bide and to be nedy; Sith he that wroghte al the world Was wilfulliche nedy, Ne nevere noon so nedy Ne poverer deide." Whan Nede hath under-nome me thus, Anoon I fil a-slepe; And mette ful merveillously, That in mannes forme Antecrist cam thanne, 14030 And al the crop of Truthe Torned it up-so-doun, And over-tilte the roote; And fals sprynge and sprede, And spede mennes nedes, In ech a contree ther he cam He kutte awey truthe, And gerte gile growe there, As he a Good weere. Freres folwede that fend, 14040 For he gaf hem copes; And religiouse reverenced hym, And rongen hir belles, And al the covent forth cam To welcome that tyraunt, And alle hise as wel as hym, Save oonly fooles. Whiche foolis were wel levere To deye than to lyve {429} Lenger, sith Lenten 14050 Was so rebuked. And as a fals fend, Antecrist Over alle folk regnede, Save that were mylde men and holye, That no meschief dradden, Defyed alle falsnesse And folk that it usede; And what kyng that hem conforted, Knowynge hem any while, They cursed and hir conseil, 14060 Were it clerk or lewed. Antecrist hadde thus soone Hundredes at his baner, And Pride it bar Boldely aboute, With a lord that lyveth After likyng of body, That kam ayein Conscience, That kepere was and gyour Over kynde cristene 14070 And cardynale vertues. "I conseille," quod Conscience tho, "Cometh with me, ye fooles, Into Unité holy chirche, And holde we us there; And crye we to kynde That he come and defende us, Fooles, fro thise fendes lymes, For Piers love the Plowman; And crye we to al the comune, 14080 That thei come to Unitee, And there abide and bikere Ayeins Beliales children." {430} Kynde Conscience tho herde, And cam out of the planetes, And sente forth his forreyours, Feveres and fluxes, Coughes and cardiacles, Crampes and tooth-aches, Rewmes and radegundes, 14090 And roynous scabbes, Biles and bocches, And brennynge agues, Frenesies and foule yveles, Forageres of kynde, Hadde y-priked and prayed Polles of peple, That largeliche a legion Loste hir lif soone. There was, "Harrow and help! 14100 Here cometh Kynde, With Deeth that is dredful To undo us alle!" The lord that lyved after lust Tho aloud cryde After Confort, a knyght, To come and bere his baner; "_A l'arme! à l'arme!_" quod that lord, "Ech lif kepe his owene!" And thanne mette thise men, 14110 Er mynstrals myghte pipe, And er heraudes of armes Hadden discryved lordes, Elde the hoore That was in the vaunt-warde. And bar the baner bifore Deeth, Bi right he it cleymede. {431} Kynde cam after, With many kene soores, As pokkes and pestilences, 14120 And muche peple shente; So Kynde thorugh corrupcions Kilde ful manye. Deeth cam dryvynge after, And al to duste passhed Kynges and knyghtes, Kaysers and popes, Lered and lewed, He leet no man stonde That he hitte evene, 14130 That evere stired after. Manye a lovely lady, And lemmans of knyghtes, Swowned and swelted For sorwe of hise dyntes. Conscience of his curteisie To Kynde he bi-soughte To cesse and suffre, And see wher thei wolde Leve Pride pryvely, 14140 And be parfite cristene. And Kynde cessede tho To se the peple amende. Fortune gan flatere thanne Tho fewe that were alyve, And bi-highte hem long lif, And Lecherie he sente Amonges alle manere men, Wedded and unwedded, And gaderede a greet hoost 14150 Al agayn Conscience. {432} This Lecherie leide on With a janglynge chiere, And with pryvee speche And peyntede wordes; And armede hym in ydelnesse, And in heigh berynge. He bar a bowe in his hand, And manye brode arewes, Weren fethered with fair bi-heste 14160 And many a fals truthe. With hise un-tidy tales He tened ful ofte. Conscience and his compaignye, Of holy chirche the techeris. Thanne cam Coveitise, And caste how he myghte Overcome Conscience And cardinale vertues, And armed hym in avarice, 14170 And hungriliche lyvede. His wepne was al wiles To wynnen and to hiden; With glosynges and with gabbynges He giled the peple. Symonye hym sente To assaille Conscience, And preched to the peple; And prelates thei hem maden To holden with Antecrist, 14180 His temporaltees to save; And cam to the kynges counseille As a kene baroun, And kneled to Conscience In court afore hem alle, {433} And garte good feith flee, And fals to abide; And boldeliche bar a-doun, With many a bright noble, Muche of the wit and wisdom 14190 Of Westmynstre Halle. He jogged to a justice, And justed in his eere, And over-tilte al his truthe With "Tak this up amendement." And to the Arches in haste He yede anoon after, And tornede cyvyle into symonye, And siththe he took the official For a mantel of menever, 14200 And made lele matrymoyne Departen er deeth cam, And devors shapte. "Allas!" quod Conscience, and cryde tho, "Wolde Crist of his grace That coveitise were cristene! That is so kene a fightere, And boold and bidynge While his bagge lasteth." And thanne lough Lyf, 14210 And leet daggen hise clothes, And armed hym an haste With harlotes wordes; And heeld holynesse a jape, And hendenesse a wastour; And leet leautee a cherl, And lyere a fre man; Conscience and his counseil He counted at a flye {434} Thus relyede Lif, 14220 For a litel fortune; And priketh forth with Pride, Preiseth he no vertue, Ne careth noght how Kynde slow, And shal come at the laste, And kille alle erthely creatures, Save Conscience oone. Lyf lepte aside, And laughte hym a lemman; "Heele and I," quod he, 14230 "And heighnesse of herte, Shal do thee noght drede Neither deeth ne elde, And to forgyte sorwe, And gyve noght of synne." This likede Lif, And his lemman Fortune; And geten in hir glorie A gadelyng at the laste, Oon that muche wo wroghte, 14240 Sleuthe was his name. Sleuthe wax wonder yerne, And soone was of age, And wedded oon Wanhope, A wenche of the stuwes. Hir sire was a sysour That nevere swoor truthe, Oon Tomme Two-tonge, Atteynt at ech enqueste. This Sleuthe was war of werre, 14250 And a slynge made, And threw drede of dispair A dozeyne myle aboute. {435} For care Conscience tho Cryde upon Elde, And bad hym fonde to fighte, And a-fere Wanhope. And Elde hente good hope, And hastiliche he shifte hym, And wayved awey Wanhope, 14260 And with Lif he fighteth. And Lif fleigh for feere To phisik after helpe, And bi-soughte hym of socour, And of his salve he hadde. He gaf hym gold good woon, That gladede his herte; And thei gyven hym ageyn A glazene howve. Lyf leeved that lechecraft 14270 Lette sholde elde, And dryven awey deeth With dyas and drogges. And Elde auntred hym on lyf, And at the laste he hitte A phisicien with a furred hood, That he fel in a palsie, And there dyed that doctour Er thre dayes after. "Now I se," seide Lif, 14280 "That surgerie ne phisik May noght a myte availle To mede ayein Elde." And in hope of his heele Good herte he hente, And rood forth to a revel, A ryche place and a murye; {436} The compaignye of confort Men cleped it som tyme. And Elde anoon after me 14290 And over myn heed yede; And made me balled bifore, And bare on the crowne. So harde he yede over myn heed, It wole be sene evere. "Sire yvele y-taught, Elde!" quod I, "Unhende go with the! Sith whanne was the wey Over mennes heddes? Haddestow be hende," quod I, 14300 "Thow woldest have asked leeve." "Ye, leve lurdeyn!" quod he; And leyde on me with age, And hitte me under the ere, Unnethe myghte ich here. He buffetted me so aboute the mouth, That out my teeth he bette; And gyved me in goutes, I may noght goon at large. And of the wo that I was inne 14310 My wif hadde ruthe, And wisshed ful witterly That I were in hevene; For the lyme that she loved me fore, And leef was to feele,-- On nyghtes, namely, Whan we naked weere,-- I ne myghte in no manere Maken it at hir wille; So Elde and she, soothly, 14320 Hadden it for-beten. {437} And as I seet in this sorwe, I saugh how Kynde passede; And Deeth drogh neigh me. For drede gan I quake, And cryde to Kynde, "Out of care me brynge! Lo! Elde the hoore Hath me bi-seye. Awreke me! if youre wille be, 14330 For I wolde ben hennes." "If thow wolt be wroken, Wend into Unitee, And hold thee there evere, Til I sende for thee; And loke thow konne som craft, Er thow come thennes." "Counseille me, Kynde," quod I, "What craft is best to lerne." "Lerne to love," quod Kynde, 14340 "And leef of alle othere." "How shal I come to catel so, To clothe me and to feede?" "And thow love lelly," quod he, "Lakke shal thee nevere Mete ne worldly weede, While thi lif lasteth." And there by conseil of Kynde I comsed to rome Thorugh Contricion and Confession, 14350 Til I cam to Unitee. And there was Conscience conestable Cristene to save, And bisegede soothly With sevene grete geauntz {438} That with Antechrist helden Harde ayein Conscience. Sleuthe with his slynge An hard assaut he made. Proude preestes coome with hym 14360 Mo than a thousand, In paltokes and pyked shoes, And pisseris longe knyves, Coomen ayein Conscience, With Coveitise thei helden. "By Marie!" quod a mansed preest Of the Marche of Walys, "I counte na-moore Conscience, By so I cacche silver, Than I do to drynke 14370 A draughte of good ale." And so seiden sixty Of the same contree; And shotten ayein with shot Many a sheef of othes, And brode hoked arwes, Goddes herte and hise nayles; And hadden almoost Unitee, And holynesse a-down. Conscience cryede, "Helpe, Clergie! 14380 Or ellis I falle, Thorugh inparfite preestes And prelates of holy chirche." Freres herden hym crye, And comen hym to helpe; Ac for thei kouthe noght wel hir craft, Conscience forsook hem. Nede neghede tho neer, And Conscience he tolde {439} That thei come for coveitise 14390 To have cure of soules; "And for thei are povere, peraventure, For patrymoyne thei faille, They wol flatere and fare wel With folk that ben riche. And sithen thei chosen chele And cheitiftee poverte, Lat hem chewe as thei chose, And charge hem with no cure. For lomere he lyeth, 14400 That liflode moot begge, Than he that laboureth for liflode, And leneth it beggeris. And sithen freres forsoke The felicité of erthe, Lat hem be as beggeris, Or lyve by aungeles foode." Conscience of this counseil tho Comsede for to laughe, And curteisliche conforted hem, 14410 And called in alle freres, And seide, "Sires, soothly Welcome be ye alle To Unitee and holy chirche; Ac o thyng I yow preye, Holdeth yow in Unitee, And haveth noon envye To lered ne to lewed, But lyveth after youre reule, And I wol be youre borugh 14420 Ye shal have breed and clothes And othere necessaries y-nowe, Yow shal no thyng faille, {440} With that ye leve logik, And lerneth for to lovye. For love lafte thei lordshipe, Bothe lond and scole, Frere Fraunceys and Domynyk, For love to be holye. "And if ye coveite cure, 14430 Kynde wol yow teche That in mesure God made Alle manere thynges, And sette hem at a certein And a siker nombre, And nempnede names newe, And noumbrede the sterres. _Qui numerat multitudinem stellarum, et omnibus eis, etc._ "Kynges and knyghtes 14440 That kepen and defenden, Han officers under hem, And ech of hem a certein. And if thei wage men to werre, Thei write hem in noumbre; Alle othere in bataille Ben y-holde brybours, Pylours and pyke-harneys, In ech a place y-cursed, Wol no man tresore hem paie, 14450 Travaille thei never so soore. "Monkes and moniales, And alle men of religion, Hir ordre and hir reule wole To han a certein noumbre, Of lewed and of lered, The lawe wole and asketh {441} A certein for a certein, Save oonliche of freres. "For thi," quod conscience, "by Crist! 14460 Kynde wit me telleth It is wikked to wage yow, Ye wexen out of noumbre; Hevene hath evene noumbre, And helle is withoute noumbre. For-thi I wolde witterly That ye were in the registre, And youre noumbre under notaries signe, And neither mo ne lasse." Envye herde this, 14470 And heet freres to go to scole And lerne logyk and lawe, And ek contemplacion, And preche men of Plato, And preve it by Seneca, That alle thynges under hevene Oughte to ben in comune. And yet he lyeth, as I leve, That to the lewed so precheth; For God made to men a lawe, 14480 And Moyses it taughte. _Non concupisces rem proximi tui._ And yvele in this y-holde In parisshes of Engelonde; For persons and parissh-preestes That sholde the peple shryve, Ben curatours called, To knowe and to hele Alle that ben hir parisshens, Penaunce to enjoigne; 14490 And sholden be ashamed in his shrift; {442} Ac shame maketh hem wende And fleen to the freres, As fals folk to Westmynstre, That borweth, and bereth it thider, And thanne biddeth frendes Yerne of forgifnesse, Or lenger yeres loone. Ac while he is in Westmynstre, He wol be bifore, 14500 And maken hym murie With oother mennes goodes. And so it fareth with muche folk That to the freres hem shryveth, As sisours and executours, Thei wol gyve the freres A parcel to preye for hem, And make hemself murye With the residue and the remenaunt That othere men bi-swonke, 14510 And suffre the dede in dette To the day of doome. Envye herfore Hatede Conscience; And freres to philosophie He fond thanne to scole, The while Coveitise and Unkyndenesse, Conscience assaillede. In Unitee holy chirche Conscience held hym, 14520 And made Pees porter To pynne the yates, Of alle tale-telleris And titeleris in ydel {443} Ypocrisie and he An hard assaut thei made, And woundede wel wikkedly Many a wis techere That with Conscience acordede And cardynale vertues. 14530 Conscience called a leche, That koude wel shryve, To go salve tho that sike ben And thorugh synne y-wounded Shrift shoop sharpe salve, And made men do penaunce For hir mys-dedes That thei wroght hadde, And that Piers were y-payed: _Redde quod debes._ 14540 Some liked noght this leche, And lettres thei sente, If any surgien were the segge That softer koude plastre. Sire Leef-to-lyve-in-lecherie Lay there and gronede, For fastynge of a Frydaye He ferde as he wolde deye. "Ther is a surgien in this sege That softe kan handle, 14550 And moore of phisik bi fer And fairer he plastreth, Oon frere Flaterere, Is phisicien and surgien." Quod Contricion to Conscience, "Do hym come to Unitee; For here is many a man {444} Hurt thorugh Ypocrisye." "We han no nede," quod Conscience, "I woot no bettre leche 14560 Than person or parisshe-preest, Penitauncer or bisshope, Save Piers the Plowman, That hath power over hem alle, And indulgence may do, But if dette lette it." "I may wel suffre," seide Conscience, "Syn ye desiren That frere Flaterere be fet And phisike yow sike." 14570 The frere herof herde And hiede faste To a lord for a lettre, Leve to have to curen, As a curatour he were; And cam with hise lettres Boldely to the bisshope, And his brief hadde, In contrees ther he coome Confessions to here, 14580 And cam there Conscience was, And knokked at the yate. Pees unpynned it, Was porter of Unitee, And in haste askede What his wille were. "In faith!" quod this frere, "For profit and for helthe Carpe I wolde with Contricion, And therfore cam I hider." 14590 "He is sik," seide Pees, {445} "And so are manye othere. Ypocrisie hath hurt hem, Ful hard is if thei kevere." "I am a surgien," seide the segge, "And salves kan make. Conscience knoweth me wel, And what I kan do bothe." "I praye thee," quod Pees tho, "Er thow passe ferther, 14600 What hattestow? I praye thee; Hele noght thi name." "Certes," seide his felawe, "Sire _Penetrans-domos_." "Ye, go thi gate," quod Pees, "By God! for al thi phisik, But thow konne som oother craft, Thow comest nought herinne. I knew swich oon ones, Noght eighte wynter hennes, 14610 Coom in thus y-coped At a court there I dwelde, And was my lordes leche, And my ladies bothe. And at the laste this lymytour, Tho my lord was oute, He salvede so oure wommen Til some were with childe." Hende-speche heet Pees Open the yates, 14620 "Lat in the frere and his felawe, And make hem fair cheere; He may se and here, So it may bifalle That lif thorugh his loore {446} Shal leve Coveitise, And be a-drad of Deeth, And withdrawe hym fram Pryde, And acorde with Conscience, And kisse hir either oother." 14630 Thus thorugh Hende-speche Entred the frere, And cam in to Conscience, And curteisly hym grette. "Thou art welcome," quod Conscience, "Kanstow heele the sike? Here is Contricion," quod Conscience, "My cosyn, y-wounded. Conforte hym," quod Conscience, "And tak kepe to hise soores. 14640 The plastres of the person And poudres biten to soore; He lat hem ligge over longe, And looth is to chaunge hem; Fro lenten to lenten He lat hise plastres bite." "That is over longe," quod this lymytour, "I leve I shal amende it." And gooth and gropeth Contricion, And gaf hym a plastre 14650 Of 'a pryvee paiement, And I shal praye for yow For al that ye ben holden to, Al my lif tyme, And make yow, my lady, In masse and in matyns As frere of oure fraternytee {447} For a litel silver.' Thus he gooth and gadereth, And gloseth there he shryveth, 14660 Til Contricion hadde clene foryeten To crye and to wepe; And wake for hise wikked werkes, As he was wont to doone, For confort of his confessour Contricion he lafte, That is the soverayneste salve For alle kynne synnes. Sleuthe seigh that, And so dide Pryde, 14670 And comen with a kene wille Conscience to assaille. Conscience cryed eft, And bad Clergie helpe hym, And also Contricion, For to kepe the yate. "He lyth and dremeth," seide Pees, "And so do manye othere, The frere with his phisyk This folk hath enchaunted, 14680 And plastred hem so esily, Thei drede no synne." "By Crist!" quod Conscience tho, "I wole bicome a pilgrym, And walken as wide As the world lasteth, To seken Piers the Plowman, That Pryde may destruye; And that freres hadde a fyndyng, That for nede flateren, 14690 And countrepledeth me, Conscience. {448} Now Kynde me avenge, And sende me hap and heele, Til I have Piers the Plowman." And siththe he gradde after Grace, Til I gan awake. 14696 _Explicit hic Dialogus Petri Plowman._ * * * * * THE CREED OF PIERS PLOUGHMAN. * * * * * {451} PIERS PLOUGHMAN'S CREED. Cros and curteis Christ 1 This begynnyng spede, For the faders frendshipe That fourmed heaven, And through the special spirit That sprong of hem tweyne, And al in one God-hed Endles dwelleth. A, and all myn a.b.c. After have I lerned, 10 And patred in my pater-noster Iche poynt after other; And after al, myne Ave-marie Almost to the end; But al my care is to comen, For I can nought my Crede. Whan I shall shewen my shrift, Shent mote I worthen; The preeste wil me punyche, And penaunce enjoyne; 20 The lengthe of a lenton Flesh moot I leve, After that Estur is y-come, And that is hard fare; {452} And Wedenesday iche wyke Withouten flesh-mete. And also Jesu hymselfe To the Jewes he saide, "He that leeveth nought on me, He leseth the blisse." 30 Therfor lerne the byleve Levest me were, Gif any worldly wight Wil me [it] couthe; Other lewed or lered, That lyveth thereafter And fulliche folweth the feith, And feyneth non other; That no worldeliche wele Wilneth no tyme, 40 But liveth in lovyng of God, And his lawe holdeth; And for no gettyng of good Never his God greveth, But folweth hym the full way, As he the folke taughte. But to many maner of men This matter is asked, Both to lered and to lewed, That seyn that they liveden 50 Hollich on the grete God, And holden al his hestes. But by a fraynyng for than Faileth ther manye. For first I frayned the freres, And they me fulle tolden, That al the fruyt of the fayth Was in her foure orders; {453} And the cofres of Christendom, And the keie bothen, 60 And the lock of byleve, Lieth loken in her hondes, Then wennede I to wytten, And with a whight I mette, A Minoure in a morwe-tide; And to this man I saide, "Sire, for greate Godes love! The graith thou me tell, Of what myddel-erde man Myght I best lerne 70 My Crede? For I can it nought, My kare is the more. And therfore, for Christes love! Thy counseyl I preie. A Carm me hath y-covenant, The nede me to teche; But for thou knowest Carmes wel, Thy counsail I aske." This Minour loked on me, And laughyng he sayde, 80 "Leve christen man, I leve that thou [art] madde: Whough shulde thei techen the god, That con non hemselve? They ben but jugulers, And japers of kynde; Lorels and lechures, And lemans holden, Neyther in order ne out, But unneth lybbeth, 90 And by-japeth the folk With gestes of Rome. {454} It is but a faynt folke, Y-founded upon japes. They maketh hem Maries men, And so thei men tellen; And leieth on oure Lady Many a long tale. And that wicked folk Wymmen betraieth, 100 And begileth hem her good With glaverynge wordes, And therwith holden her hous In harlotes warkes. And, so save me God! I hold it greate synne To gyven hem any good, Swiche glotones to fynde, To mayntaynen swiche maner men That michel good destruieth. 110 Yet seyn they in her sutiltie To sottes in townes, Thei comen out of Carmeli Christ for to folwen, And feyneth hem with holynesse, That yvele hem bisemeth. Thei lyven more in lecherie, And lyeth in her tales, Than suen any good liif; But lurken in her selles, 120 And wynnen werdliche good, And wasten it in synne. And ghif thei couthen her Crede, Other on Christ leveden, Thei weren nought so hardy Swyche harlotri usen. {455} Sikerli I can nought fynden Who hem first founded; But the foles foundeden hemselfe Freres of the Pye, 130 And maken hem mendynans, And marre the puple. But what glut of tho gomes May any good kachen, He wyl kepen it hemself, And cofrene it faste; And thoigh his felawes fayle good, For hym he may sterven. Her monei mai byquest, And testament maken, 140 And none obedience bere, But don as hym luste. And ryght as Robartes men Raken aboute At feyres and at full ales, And fyllen the cuppe; And precheth al of pardon, To plesen the puple. Her pacience is al pased, And put out to ferme; 150 And pride is in her povertie, That litel is to preisen. And at the lullyng of oure lady The wymmen to lyken, And miracles of mydwyves, And maken wymmen to wenen That the lace of oure Lady smok Lighteth hem of children. Thei ne prechen nought of Powel, Ne penaunce for synne; 160 {456} But al of merci and mensk, That Marie may helpen. With sterne staves and stronge Thei over lond straketh, Thider as here lemmans liggeth, And lurketh in townes, Grey grete-heded quenes With gold by the eighen, And seyne that her sustern thei ben, That sojurneth aboute. 170 And thus abouten the gon, And Godes folke betrayeth. It is the puple that Powel Preched of in his tyme; He seyde of swich folke That so aboute wente, Wepyng, I warne you Of walkers aboute, It beth enemyes of the cros That Christ upon tholede. 180 Swiche slomrers in slepe, Slaughte in her ende, And glotonye is her God, With gloppynge of drynk, And gladnesse in glees, And grete joye y-maked. In the shendyng of swiche Shal mychel folk lawghe; Therfore, frend, for thy feith Fond to don beter; 190 Leve nought on tho losels, Put let hem forth pasen, For thei ben fals in her faith, And feele mo other." {457} "Alas! frere," quath I tho, "My purpos is y-failed; Now is my comfort a-cast. Canstou no bote, Wher I myght meten with a man That myghte me wyssen 200 For to conne my Crede, Christ for to folwen?" "Certeyn, felawe," quath the frere, "Withouten any fayle, Of al men upon mold, We Minorities most sheweth The pure aposteles liif, With penance on erthe, And suen hem in sanctité, And sufferen wel harde. 210 We haunten no tavernes, Ne hobelen abouten; At marketes and miracles We medeleth us never; We hondlen no moneye, But monelich faren, And haven hunger at the mete, At ich a mel ones. We haven forsaken the world, And in wo libbeth, 220 In penaunce and poverte, And prechethe the puple By ensample of oure liif Soules to helpen; And in poverte preien For al oure parteneres, That gyveth us any good God to honouren, {458} Other bel other book, Or bred to our foode, 230 Other catel, other cloth To coveren with oure bones. For we buldeth a burwgh, A brod and a large, A chirch and a chapitle, With chaumbers a-lofte; With wide wyndowes y-wrought, And walles wel heye, That mote ben portreid and paint, And pulched ful clene, 240 With gay glitering glas Glowyng as the sunne. And mightestou amenden us With moneye of thyn owen, Thou shouldest knely bifore Christ In compas of gold, In the wyde window west-ward Wel neigh in the myddel, And saint Fraunceis hymselfe Shal folden the in his cope, 250 And present the to the Trinité, And praye for thy synnes. Thy name shal noblich ben wryten And wrought for the nones, And in remembraunce of the Y-rad there for evere. And, brother, be thou nought a-ferd; Bythenk in thyne herte, Though thou conne nought thy Crede, Care thou no-more! 260 I shal asoilen the, syr, And setten it on my soule; {459} And thou may maken this good, Thenk thou non other." "Sir," I sayde, "in certaine I shal gon and asaye." And he set on me his hond, And asoiled me clene, And there I parted him fro Wythouten and peyne; 270 In covenaunt that I come agayne, Christ he me be-taught. Then saide I to myself, "Here semeth litel treuthe! First to blame his brother, And bakbyten hym foule, There as curteis Christ Clerliche saide, Whow myght thou in thy brothers eighe A bare mote loken, 280 And in thyn owen eighe Nought a beme toten? See fyrst on thyself, And sithen on another, And clense clene thy syght, And kepe wel thyne eighe, And for another mannes eighe Ordeyne after. And also I see coveitise Catel to fongen, 290 That Christ hath clerliche forboden, And clenliche destrueden; And sayde to his sueres For sothe on this wyse, 'Nought thy neighbors good Coveyte in no tyme.' {460} But charité and chastité Ben chased out clene. But Christ seide by her fruit Men shal hem ful knowen." 300 Thanne saide I, "certeine, syr, Thou demest ful trewe." Than thought I to frayne the first Of this foure ordres; And presed to the Prechoures, To proven hir wille. Ich highed to her house, To herken of more; And when I came to that court, I gaped aboute, 310 Swich a bild bold Y-buld upon erthe heighte Say I nought in certeyn Syththe a long tyme. I semed opon that hous, And yerne theron loked, Whow the pileres weren y-paint, And pulched ful clene, And queyntly y-corven With curious knottes; 320 With wyndowes wel y-wrought, Wyde up a-lofte, And thanne I entred in, And even forth wente; And al was walled that wone, Though it wiid were, With posternes in privité To pasen when hem liste; Orcheyardes and erberes Evesed wel clene, 330 {461} And a curious cros Craftly entayled, With tabernacles y-tight To toten al abouten. The pris of a plough-lond Of penies so rounde To aparaile that pyler Were pure litel. Than I munte me forth The mynstre to knowen, 340 And awaytede a woon Wonderly wel y-bild, With arches on everiche half, And bellyche y-corven, With crochetes on corneres, With knottes of gold, Wyde wyndowes y-wrought, Y-wryten ful thikke, Shynen with shapen sheldes, To shewen aboute, 350 With merkes of merchauntes Y-medeled betwene, Mo than twentie and two Twyse y-noumbbred. Ther is non heraud that hath Half swich a rolle, Right as a rageman Hath rekned hem newe. Tombes upon tabernacles Tylde opon lofte, 360 Housed in hornes, Harde set abouten, Of armede alabaustre Clad for the nones, {462} Maad opon marbel In many manner wyse, Knyghtes in ther conisante Clad for the nones; Alle it semed seyntes Y-sacred opon erthe; 370 And lovely ladies y-wrought Leyen by her sydes In manye gay garnemens, That weren gold beten. Though the tax of ten yere Were trewely y-gadered, Nolde it nought maken that hous Half, as I trowe. Than cam I to that cloystre, And gaped abouten, 380 Whough it was pilered and peynt, And portreyed wel clene, Al y-hyled with leed Lowe to the stones, And y-paved with poynttyl Ich point after other; With cundites of clene tyn Closed al aboute, With lavoures of latun Loveliche y-greithed. 390 I trowe the gaynage of the ground In a gret shyre Nold aparaile that place Oo poynt tyl other ende. Thanne was that chapitre house Wrought as a greet chirche, Corven and covered; And queyntelyche entayled, {463} With semliche selure Y-seet on lofte, 400 As a parlement-hous Y-peynted aboute. Thanne ferd I into fraytoure, And fond there another, An halle for an hygh kynge An houshold to holden, With brode bordes abouten Y-benched wel clene, With wyndowes of glaas Wrought as a chirche 410 Than walkede I ferrer, And went al abouten, And seigh halles full heygh, And houses ful noble, Chambres with chymeneys, And chapeles gaye, And kychenes for an high kynge In casteles to holden; And her dortoure y-dight With dores ful stronge; 420 Fermerye and fraitur, With fele mo houses, And al strong ston wal Sterne upon heithe, With gaye garites and grete, And iche hole y-glased, And other houses y-nowe To herberwe the queene. And yet thise bilderes wiln beggen A bagge ful of whete 430 Of a pure pore man, That may onethe paye {464} Half his rent in a yere, And half ben byhynde. Than turned I ayen, Whan I hadde all y-toted, And fond in a freitoure A frere on a benche, A greet chorl and a grym, Growen as a tonne, 440 With a face so fat As a ful bleddere Blowen bretful of breth, And as a bagge honged On bothen his chekes, and his chyn With a chol lollede So greet as a gos ey, Growen al of grece; That al wagged his fleish As a quick myre. 450 His cope, that bi-clypped hym, Wel clene was it folden, Of double worstede y-dyght Doun to the hele. His kyrtel of clene whiit, Clenlyche y-sewed, Hit was good y-now of ground Greyn for to beren. I haylsede that hirdman, And hendlich I sayde, 460 "Gode sire, for Godes love! Canstou me graith tellen To any worthely wiight That wissen me couthe, Whow I shulde conne my Crede, Christ for to folwe, {465} That levede lelliche hymselfe And lyvede therafter, That feynede no falshede, But fully Chrise suwede? 470 For sich a certeyn man Syker wold I trosten, That he wolde telle me the trewthe, And turne to non other. And an Austyn this ender day Egged me faste, That he wolde techen me wel, He plyght me his treuthe, And seyde me "certeyn, Syghthen Christ deyed 480 Oure ordre was euelles And erst y-founde." "First, felawe," quath he, "Fy on his pilche! He is but abortiif, Eked with cloutes, He holdeth his ordynaunce With hores and theves, And purchaseth hem pryvyleges With penyes so rounde. 490 It is a pur pardoners craft, Prove and asay; For have they thy money, A moneth therafter Certes, theigh thou come agen, He wil the nought knowen. But, felawe, oure foundement Was first of the othere, And we ben founded fulliche Withouten fayntise, 500 {466} And we ben clerkes y-cnowen, Cunnyng in schole, Proved in processyon By processe of lawe. Of oure order ther beth Bichopes wel manye, Seyntes on sundri stedes That suffreden harde; And we ben proved the priis Of popes at Rome, 510 And of grettest degré, As godspelles telleth." "A! syre," quath I thanne, "Thou seyst a grete wonder; Sithen Christ sayd hymselfe To alle his diciples, 'Which of you that is most, Most shal he werche; And who is goere byforne, First shal he serven.' 520 And seyde he saugh Satan Sytten ful heyghe, And ful low ben y-leid. In lyknesse he tolde, That in povernesse of spyrit Is spedfullest hele; And hertes of heyne Harmeth the soule. And therefore, frere, farewel; Here fynd I but pride. 530 I preise nought thy prechyns, But as a pur myte." And angerich I wandrede The Austyns to prove, {467} And mette with a maistre of tho men, And meklich I seyde, "Maistre, for the moder love That Marie men calleth! Knowest thou ought there thou comest A creature on erthe 540 That coude me my Crede teche, And trewelich enfourme, Withouten flateryng fare, And nothing feyne, That folweth fulliche the feith, And non other fables, Withouten gabinge of glose, As the godspelles telleth? A Minoure hath me holly behyght To helen my soule, 550 For he seith that her secte Is sykerest on erthe, And ben kepers of the keye That Chrystendom helpeth, And puriche in poverte The apostles they suweth." "Allaas!" quath the frere, "Almost I madde in mynde, To sen hough this Minoures Many men bygyleth. 560 Sothly somme of tho gomes Hath more good hymselve Than ten knyghtes that I knowe, Of catel in cofres. In fraytoure they faren best Of al the foure ordres, And usun ypocricie In al that thei werchen, {468} And prechen al of perfitnesse; But loke now, I the prey, 570 Nought but profre hem in privité A peny for a masse, And, but his name be prest, Put out myn eighe, Though he had more money hid Than marchauntes of wolle. Loke hough this loresmen Lordes betrayen, Seyn that they folwen Fully Fraunceyses rewle, 580 That in cotinge of his cope Is more cloth y-folden Than was in Fraunceis froc Whan he hem first made. And yet under that cope A cote hathe he furred With foyns, or with fichewes, Other fyn bevere, And that is cutted to the kne, And queyntly y-botend, 590 Lest any spiritual man Aspie that gyle. Fraunceys bad his brethern Bar-fot to wenden; Now han they buclede shone, For blenyng of her heles, And hosen in harde weder Y-hamled by the ancle, And spicerie sprad in her purs To parten where hem luste. 600 Lordes loveth hem wel, For they so lowe crouchen; {469} But knowen men her cautel And her queynte wordes, Thei wolde worshypen hem Nought but a litle, The ymage of ypocricie Ymped upon fendes. But, sone, gif thou wilt ben seker, Seche thou no ferther, 610 We freres beth the firste, And founded upon treuthe; Paule _primus heremita_ Put us hymselve Away into wildernesse, The world to despisen, And there we lengeden ful long, And leveden ful harde; For to alle this freren folke Weren founden in tounes, 620 And taughten untrewely, And that we wel aspiede. And for chef charyté, We chargeden us selven In amendyng of this men, We maden oure celles To ben in cytés y-set, To styghtle the puple, Prechyng and prayeng As profetes shoulden. 630 And so we holden us the hetheved Of al holy chirche. We han power of the Pope Purliche assoylen Al that helpen oure hous In helpe of her soules; {470} To dispensen hem with In dedes of synne, Al that amendeth oure hous In money other elles, 640 With corne other catel, Or clothes to beddes, Other bedys or broche, Or breed for our fode. And gif thou hast any good, And wilt thyself helpen, Help us hertelich therwith, And here I undertake Thou shalt ben brother of oure hous, And a book habben 650 At the nexte chapitre Clerliche enseled. And than oure provincial Hath power to assoylen Alle sustren and bretheren That beth of oure ordre. And though thou conne nought the Crede, Knele down here, My soule I sette for thyn, To asoile the clene, 660 In covenaunt that thou come ageyne, And katel us brynge." And thanne loutede I adoun, Add he me leve grauntede; And so I parted hym fro, And the frere lefte. Than seide I to myself, "Here is no bote; Here pride is the pater-noster In preying of synne; 670 {471} Her Crede is coveytise:-- Now can I no ferthere. Yet wil I fonden forth, And fraynen the Carmes." Than toted I into a taverne, And there I aspyede Two frere Carmes With a ful coppe. There I auntrede me in, And aisliche I seyde, 680 "Leve sire, for the Lordes love That thou on levest! Lere me to som man My Crede for to lerne, That lyveth in lel liif, And loveth no synne, And gloseth nought the godspel, But halt Godes hetes, And neyther money ne mede Ne may hym nought letten, 690 But werchen after Godes word, Withouten any faile. A Prechoure y-professed Hath plight me his trewthe To techen me trewely; But wouldest thou me tellen, For they ben certeyne men, And syker on to trosten, I would quiten the thy mede As my myght were." 700 "A trefle," quath he, "trewely! His treweth is ful litel; He dynede nought with Dominic, Sithe Christ deide. {472} For with the prynces of pryde The Prechours dwellen; They ben so digne as the devel That droppeth fro heven, With hartes of heynesse, Whough halwen the cherches, 710 And deleth in devynyté As dogges doth bones. Thei medeleth with mesages And mariages of grete; Thei leeven with lordes With lesynges y-nowe; Thei biggeth hem bichopriches With bagges of gold; Thei wilneth worchipes:-- But waite on her dedes. 720 Harkne at Herdforthe How that they werchen, And loke when that they lyven And leeve as thou fyndest. They ben counseylours of kynges, Christ wot the sothe, Whou thei curreth kynges And her bak claweth. God leve hem laden wel In lyvynge of hevene, 730 And glose hem nought for her good To greven her soules. I pray the, where ben they pryvé With any pore whightes That may nought amenden her hous, Ne amenden hemselven? They prechen in proud herte, And preyseth her ordre, {473} And werdlich worchype Wilneth in erthe. 740 Leeve it wel, lef man, And men right lokede, There is more pryvé pryde In Prechoures hertes, Than there lefte in Lucifere, Or he were lowe fallen. They bene dygne as dich-watere, That dogges in bayteth. Lok a ribaut of hem That can nought wel reden 750 His Rewel ne his Respondes, But be pure rote; Als as he were a connyng clerk, He casteth the lawes Nought lowly, but lordly, And lesynges lyeth. For right as Minoures Most hypocrice useth, Ryght so ben Prechoures proude Purlyche in herte. 760 "But, chrysten creatoure, We Carmes firste comen, Even in Elyes tyme, First of hem alle; And lyven by oure Lady, And lelly her serven, In clene commun liif Kepen us out of synne; Nowt proude as Prechoures beth, But preyen ful stylle. 770 We couuen on no quentyse, Christ wot the southe! {474} But bisyeth us in oure bedes, As us best holdeth. And, therfore, leeve leelman, Leeve that iche sigge, A masse of us meene men Is of more mede, And passeth alle prayers Of this proude freres.-- 780 And thou wilt ghyven us any good, I wolde ye here graunten To taken al thy penaunce In peril of my soule; And tho thou conne nought thy Crede, Clene the assoyle, So that thou mowe amenden oure house With money other elles, With som catel, other corn, Or cuppes of sylvere." 790 "Trewely, frere," quath I tho, "To tellen the the sothe, There is no peny in my pakke To payen for my mete. I have no good, ne no golde, But go thus abouten, And travaile ful trewely To wynnen with my fode. But woldest thou for Godes love Lerne me my Crede, 800 I shulde don for the wil, Whan I wele hadde." "Trewely," quath the frere, "A fole I the holde:-- Thou woldest nought wetten thy fote, And woldest fich kachen. {475} Oure pardon and oure preieres So beth they nought parten, Oure power lasteth nought so feer, But we som peny fongen. 810 "Fare wel," quath the frere, "For I mot hethen fonden, And hyen to an house-wiif That hath us byquethen Ten pound in hir testament. To tellen the sothe, Ho draweth to the deth-ward; But yet I am in drede Leste ho turne hire testament, And therfore I hyghe 820 To haven hire to oure hous, And henten, gif I mighte, An anuel for myne owen use, To helpen to clothe." "Godys forbode!" quath his felawe, "But ho forth passe Whil ho is in purpos With us to departen! God let hir no lengere lyven! For letteres ben manye." 830 Thanne turnede I me forth, And talked to myselfe Of the falshede of this folke, Whow feythles thei weren. And as I wente by the way Wepynge for sorowe, I seigh a sely man me by, Opon the plough hongen. His cote was of a cloute That cary was y-called; 840 {476} His hod was ful of holes, And his heare oute; With his knoppede shon Clouted ful thykke; His ton toteden out, As he the lond tredede; His hosen over-hongen his hok-shynes On everich a syde, Al beslomered in fen, As he the plow folwede. 850 Tweye myteynes as meter Maad al of cloutes, The fyngres weren for-werd, And ful of fen honged. This whit waselede in the feen Almost to the ancle; Foure rotheren hym byforne, That feble were worthi; Men myghte reknen ich a ryb, So rentful they weren. 860 His wiif walked hym with, With a long gode, In a cuttede cote, Cutted ful heyghe, Wrapped in a wynwe shete To weren hire fro wederes, Bar-fot on the bare iis, That the blod folwede. And at the londes ende lath A little crom-bolle, 870 And theron lay a lytel chylde Lapped in cloutes, And tweyne of tweie yeres olde Opon another syde. {477} And al they songen o songe, That sorwe was to heren; They crieden alle o cry, A kareful note. The sely man sighed sore, And seyde, "Children, beth stille!" 880 This man lokede opon me, And leet the plough stonden; And seyde, "Sely man, Whi syghest thou so harde? Gif the lakke liiflode, Lene the ich wille Swich good as God hath sent; Go we, leeve brother." I sayde thanne, "Nay, syre, My sorowe is wel more. 890 For I can nought my Crede, I care wel harde; For I can fynden no man That fulli byleveth, To techen me the heyghe weie, And therfore I wepe. For I have fonded the freres Of the foure ordres; For there I wende have wist, But now my wit lakketh; 900 And al myn hope was on hem, And myn herte also, But thei ben fulli faithles, And the fend sueth." "A! brother," quath he tho, "Be ware of tho foles; For Christ seyde hymself, 'Of swiche I you warne,' {478} And false profetes in the feith He fulliche hem calde, 910 _In vestimentis ovium_, But only withinne They ben wilde werwolves That wiln the folke robben. The fen[d] founded hem first, The feyth to distrie; And by his craft thei comen in, To combren the chirche, By the covetise of his craft The curates to helpen. 920 But nowe they haven an hold, They harmen ful manye; They don nought after Dominik, But dreccheth the puple. He folwen nought Fraunceis, But falsliche lybben; And Austynes rewle They rekeneth but a fable; And purchaseth hem privilege Of popes at Rome. 930 They coveten confessiones, To kachen some hyre; And sepulturus also, Somme wayten to lacchen; But other cures of Christen They coveten nought to have, But there as wynnynge liith, He loketh non other." "Whough shal I nemne thy name, That neyghbores the calleth?" 940 "Peres," quath he, "the pore man, The Ploughman I hatte." {479} "A! Peres!" quath I tho, "I pray the thou me telle More of thise tryflers, Hou trechurly they libbeth; For ichon of hem hath tolde me A tale of that other, Of her wikked liif, In werld that he libbeth. 950 I trowe that some wicked wight Wroughte this ordres. Trow ye that gleym of that gest That Golias is y-cald, Other els Satan hymself, Sente hem fro helle, To combren men with her crafte, Christendome to shenden." "Dere brother," quath Peres, "The devel is ful queynte, 960 To encombren holy chirche He casteth ful harde, And fluricheth his falsnesse Opon fele wise, And fer he casteth to-forn The folk to dystroye. "Of the kynrede of Caym He cast the freres, And founded hem on Sarysenes, Feyned for God. 970 But they with her falshe faith Mychel folk shendeth. Christ calde hem hymself Kynd ipocrites; How often he cursed hem, Wel can I tellen. {480} He seide ons hymself To that sory puple: 'Who worthe you, wyghtes, Wel lerned of the lawe!' 980 Eft he seyde to hem selfe, 'Wo mote you worthen That the toumbes of profetes Bildeth up heighe! Your faderes for-deden hem, And to the deth hem broughte.' Here I touche this two, Twynnen hem I thenke. Who wilneth be wiser of lawe Than lewede freres, 990 And in multitude of men But maistres y-called, And wilneth worship of the werld, And sytten with heye, And leveth lovyng of God And lownesse byhynde, And in beldyng of toumbes Thei traveileth grete, To chargen her chirche flore, And chaungen it ofte. 1000 And the fader of the freres Defouled her soules, That was the dyggyng devel, That dreccheth men ofte. The devel by his dotage Dissaveth the chirche, And put in the Prechours, Y-paynted withouten, And by his queyntise they comen in The curates to helpen; 1010 {481} But that harmed hem harde, And halp hem ful littel. But Austynes ordinaunce Was on a good treuthe; And also Dominikes dedes Weren dernelich y-used; And Fraunceis founded his folke Fulliche on treuthe, Pure parfit prestes In penaunce to libben, 1020 In love and in lownesse And lettynge of pryde, Grounded on the Godspel, As God baad hymselve. But now the glose is so greet In gladdyng tales, That turneth up two-fold Un-teyned upon treuthe, That they ben cursed of Christ, I can hem wel prove 1030 Withouten his blissyng, Bare beth thei in her werkes. For Christ seyde hymselfe To swiche as him folwede: 'Y-blissed mot they ben That mene ben in soule;' And alle power in gost God hymself blisseth. Whou fele freres fareth so, Fayne wolde I knowe, 1040 Prove hem in proces, And pynch at her ordre, And deme hem after that the don, And dredles, Y leve, {482} Thei wiln wexon pure wroth Wonderliche sone, And shewen the a sharp wil In a short tyme To wiln wilfully wrathe, And werche therafter. 1050 Wytnes on Wyclif, That warned hem with trewthe. For he in goodnesse of gost Graythliche hem warned To wayven her wikednesse And werkes of synne. Whou sone this sorimen Seweden hys soule, And overal lolled hym With heritikes werkes! 1060 And so of the blissyng of God Thei bereth little mede. "Afterward another, Onliche he blissede The meke of the myddel-erde Through myght of his fader. Fynd foure freres in a flok That folweth that rewle, Than have I tynt al my tast, Touche and assaye. 1070 Lakke hem a littel wight, And her liif blamen; But he lepe up on heigh In hardenesse of herte, And nemne the anon nought, And thy name lakke, With proude wordes apert That passeth his rewle, {483} Bothe with 'thou leyst,' and 'thou lext,' In heynesse of soule, 1080 And turnnen as a tyraunt That turmenteth hymselve. A lord were lother For to leyne a knave, Thanne swich a begger, The best in a toun. Loke now, leve man, Beth nought thise y-lyke Fully to the Pharisens, In fele of these poyntes. 1090 Al her brad beldyng Ben belded with synne, And in worshipe of the world Here wynnyng they holden; They shapen her chapolories, And strecchet hem brode, And launceth heighe her hemmes With babelyng in stretes. They ben y-sewed with whight silke, And semes ful queynte, 1100 Y-stongen with stiches That stareth as sylver. And but freres ben fyrst y-set At sopers and at festes, They wiln ben wonderly wroth Y-wis, as I trowe; But they ben at the lordes borde, Louren they willeth. He mot bygynne that bord, A beggere with sorowe; 1110 And first sitten in se In her synagoges, {484} That beth her heigh helle hous, Of Caymes kynd. For though a man in her mynstre A masse wolde heren, His sight shal so by set On sondrye werkes, The penonnes and the pomels And poyntes of sheldes 1120 Withdrawen his devocion, And dusken his herte. I likene it to a lim-yerde To drawen men to helle, And to worchipe of the fend, To wraththen the soules. And also Christ himself seide To swich ypocrites, He loveth in marketes ben met With gretynges of povere, 1130 And lowynge of lewed men In Lentenes tyme; For thei han of bichopes y-bought With her propre silver And purchased of penaunce The puple to asoyle. But money may maken Mesure of the peyne; After that his power is to payen, His penaunce shal fayle. 1140 God leve it be a good help For hele of the soules! And also this myster men Ben maysters i-called, That the gentill Jesus Generalliche blamed, {485} And that poynt to his apostles Purly defended. But freres haven forgeten this, And the fend suweth, 1150 He that maystri loved, Lucifer the olde. Where Fraunceys or Dominik, Other Austyn ordeynde, And of this dotardes Doctur to worthe, Maysters of divinité Her matynes to leve, And cherlich as a cheveteyn Hys chaumbre to holden, 1160 With chymené, and chaple, And chosen whan hem lyste, And served as a sovereyn, And as a lord sytten. Swich a gome Godes wordes Grysliche gloseth; I trowe he toucheth nought the text, But taketh it for a tale. God forbad to his folk, And fullyche defendede, 1170 They shoulden nought stodyen biforne Ne sturren her wyttes, But sodenly the same word With here mouth shewe, That weren given hem of God, Thorugh gost of hemselve. Now mot a frere studyen And stumlen in tales, And leven his matynes, And no masse syngen, 1180 {486} And loken hem lesynges That liketh the puple, To purchasen hym his purs ful, To paye for the drynke. And, brother, when bernes ben ful, And holy tyme passed, Thanne comen cursed freres, And croucheth ful lowe, A losel, a lymytoure, Over al the lond lepeth. 1190 And loke that he leve non hous, That somwhat he ne laiche; And there thei gylen hemself, And Godes word turneth, Bagges and beggyng He bad his folke leven, And only serven hymself, And his ruwel sechen, And al that nedly nedeth, That shulden hem nought lakken. 1200 Wherto beggen thise men, And ben nought so feble? Hem fayleth no furryng, Ne clothes atte fulle, But for a lustful liif In lustes to dwellen; Withouten any travail Untrulych libbeth; Thei beth nought maymed men, Ne no mete lakketh; 1210 Thei [ben] clothed in curious cloth, And clenliche arayed. It is a lawles liif, As lordynges usen, {487} Nether ordeyned in ordre, But onethe libbeth. "Christ bad blissen Bodies on erthe That wepen for wikkednesse That he byforn wroughte. 1220 That ben few of tho freres, For thei ben nere dede, And put al in pur clath, With pottes on her hedes; Thanne he warieth, and wepeth, And wicheth after heven, And fyeth on her falshedes That thei before deden. And therfore of that blissyng, Trewely, as I trowe, 1230 Thei may trussen her part In a terre powghe. "Alle tho blissed beth That bodyliche hongreth; That ben the pore penyles, That han over-passed The poynt of her pris liif, In penaunce of werkes, And mown nought swynken ne sweten, But ben swith feble, 1240 Other mayned at meschef, Or meseles lyke, And her god is a-gon, And greveth hem to beggen. Ther is no frere, in feith, That fareth in this wyse, That he may beggen his bred, His bed is y-greithed {488} Under a pot he shall be put In a pryvye chaumbre, 1250 That he shal lyven ne last But lytel whyle after. Almyghti God and man, The merciable blessed, That han mercy on men That mis-don hem here. But who so for-gabbed a frere Y-founden at the stues, And brought blod of his bodi, On back or on syde, 1260 Hym were as good greven A grete lord of rentes; He shoulde sonnere ben shryven, Shortly to tellen, Though he kilde a comly knyght, And compasd his mother, Then a buffet to beden A beggere frere. "The clene hertes Christ He curteyliche blissed 1270 That coveten no catel But Christes fulle blysse, That leveth fulliche on God, And lelliche thenketh On his lore and his lawe, And lyveth opon trewthe. Freres han forgetten this, And folweth another, That they may henten they holden, By-hirneth it sone; 1280 Here hertes ben clen y-hid In her heighe cloystre, {489} As curres from careyne That is cast in diches. "And parfiit Christ The pesible blissede, That ben suffrant and sobre, And susteyne anger. Asay of her sobernesse, And thou might y-knowen 1290 Ther ne is no waspe in this world That wil folloke styngen, For stappyng on a too Of a styncand frere. For neyther soveren ne seget Thei ne suffereth never. Al thei blessyng of God Beouten thei walken, For of her suffraunce, for sothe, Men say but lytel. 1300 "Alle that persecution In pure liif suffren, They han the beneson of God, Blissed in erthe. I pray, parceyve now The pursut of a frere, In what mesure of a mekenesse Thise men deleth. Byhold upon Water Brut Whou bisiliche thei pursueden, 1310 For he seid hem the sothe. And yet, syre, ferther Hy may no more marren hem, But men telleth That he is an heretik, And yvele beleveth. {490} And precheth it in pulpit To blenden the puple. They wolden awyrien that wight For his wel dedes, 1320 And so they chewen charité, As chewen shaf houndes. And thei pursueth the povere, And passeth pursutes, Bothe they wyln and thei wolden Y-worthen so grete, To passen any manes myght, To mortheren the soules; First to brenne the body In a bale of fiir, 1330 And sythen the sely soule slen, And senden hyre to helle. And Christ clerly forbad His christene, and defended, They shoulden nought after the face Never the folke demen." "Sire," I seide myself, "Thou semest to blamen. Why dispisest thou thus Thise sely pore freres, 1340 None other men so mychel, Monkes ne prestes, Chanons ne charthous That in chirche serveth? It semeth that thise sely men Han somewhat the greved, Other with word, or with werk, And therfore thou wilnest To shenden other shamen hem With the sharp speche, 1350 {491} And bannen holliche, And her hous greven." "I prey the," quath Peres, "Put that out of thy mynde; Certeyn for soule hele I say the this wordes. I preise nought pocessioneres But pur lytel; For falshed of freres Hath fulliche encombred 1360 Manye of this maner men, And maad hem to leven Her charité and chasteté, And shosen hem to lustes, And waxen to werly, And wayven the trewethe, And leven the love of her God, And the werld serven. But for falshed of freres I fele in my soule, 1370 Seyng the synful liif, That sorweth myn herte, Hou they ben clothed in cloth That clennest sheweth, For angeles and archangeles Alle they whiit useth, And al aldremen That ben _ante thronum_. Thise toknes haven freres taken; But I trowe that a fewe 1380 Folwen fully that cloth, But falslyche that useth. For whiit, in trowthe, bytokeneth Clennes in soule:-- {492} Gif he have undernethen whiit, Thanne he above wereth Black, that betokeneth Bale for oure synne, And mournyng for mis-dede Of hem that this useth, 1390 And sorwe for synful liif, So that cloth asketh. I trowe there ben nought ten freres That for synne wepen. For that liif is her lust, And therby thei libben, In fraytour and in fermori Her fostryng is synne; It is her mete at ich a mel, Her most sustinaunce. 1400 Herkne opon Hildegare Hou homlich he telleth How her sustinaunce is synne; And syker, as I trowe, Weren her confessiones Clenly destrued, Hy shoulde nought beren hem so brag, Ne belden so heyghe. For the fallyng of synne Socoreth the foles, 1410 And begileth the grete With glaverynge wordes; With glosyng of godspels Thei Godes word turneth, And passen al the pryvylege That Peter after used. The power of the apostles Thie pasen in speche, {493} For to sellen the synnes For selver other mede. 1420 And purliche _a poena_ The puple asoyleth, And _a culpa_ also, That they may kachen Money other money-worth, And mede to fonge; And ben at lone and at bode, As burgeises useth. Thus they serven Sathanas, And soules bygyleth, 1430 Marchaunes of malisones, Mansede wrecches. Thei usen russet also Some of this freres, That bitokeneth travaile And treuth upon erthe, But loke whou this lorels Laboren the erthe. But freten the fruyt that the folke Ful lellich beswynketh; 1440 With travail of trewe men Thei tymbren her houses, And of the curiouse cloth Her copes they beggen; And als his gettyng is grete He shal ben good holden. And right as dranes doth nought But drynketh up the huny, Whan been with her busynes Han brought it to hepe, 1450 Right so fareth freres With folk opon erthe; {494} They freten up the firste froyt, And falsliche lybbeth. But alle freres eten nought Y-liche good mete, But after that his wynnyng is Is his wel-fare, And after that he bringeth hom His bed shal ben graythed, 1460 And after that his richesse is raught He shal ben redy served. But se thiself in thi sight Whou somme of hem walketh With clouted shon, And clothes ful feble, Wel neigh for-werd, And the wlon offe; And his felawe in a frok Worth swhich fiftene, 1470 Arayd in rede stone, And elles were reuthe: And sexe copes or seven In his celle hongeth; Though for fayling of good His felawe shulde sterve, He wolde nought lenen hym a peny His liif for to holden. I myght tymen tho troiflardes To toylen with the erthe, 1480 Tylyen, and trewlich lyven, And her flesh tempren. Now mot ich soutere hys sone Seten to schole, And ich a beggeres brol On the book lerne. {495} And worth to a writere And with a lorde dwelle; Other falsly to a frere The fend for to serven; 1490 So of that beggares brol An abbot shal worthen, Among the peres of the lond Prese to sytten, And lordes sones lowly To tho losels aloute, Knyghtes crouketh hem to And cruccheth ful lowe; And his syre a soutere Y-suled in grees, 1500 His teeth with toylyng of lether Tatered as a sawe. Alaas! that lordes of the londe Leveth swiche wrechen, And leveth swych lorels For her lowe wordes. They shulden maken abbots Her owen bretheren childre, Other of som gentil blod, And so yt best semed, 1510 And fostre none forytoures, Ne swich false freres, To maken fat and fulle And her flesh combren. For her kynde were more To y-clense diches, Than ben to sopers y-set first, And served with sylver. A grete bolle-ful of benen Were beter in hys wombe, 1520 {496} And with the bandes of bakun His baly for to fillen, Then pertryches, or plovers, Or pecokes y-rosted, And comeren her stomakes With curiuse drynkes, That maketh swyche harlotes Hordom usen, And with her wikked word Wymmen bitrayeth. 1530 God wold her wonyynge Were in wildernesse, And fals freres forboden The fayre ladis chaumbres. For knewe lordes her craft, Treuly I trowe, They shulden nought haunten her house So holy on nyghtes, Ne bedden swich brothels In so brode shetes; 1540 But sheten her heved in the stre, To sharpen her wittes; Ne ben kynges confessours of custom, Ne the counsel of the rewme knowe. For Fraunceis founded hem nought To faren on that wise, Ne Domynyk dued hem nevere Swyche drynkers to worthe, Ne Helye ne Austyn Swyche liif never used, 1550 But in povert of spirit Spended her tyme. We have seyn ourself In a short tyme {497} Whou freres wolden no flesh Among the folk usen; But now the harlotes Han hyd thilke reule, And for the love of oure Lord Han leyd hire in water. 1560 Wenest thou ther wolde so fele Swich warlawes worthen? Ne were werliche wele And her welfare, Thei shulden delven and dyken, And dongen the erthe, And menemong corn breed To her mete fongen, And wortes fleshles wrought, And water to drynken, 1570 And werchen and wolward gon, As we wrecches usen. An aunter gif ther wolde on, Among an hol hundred, Lyven so for Godes love In tyme of a wyntere." "Leve Peres," quath I tho, "I pray that thou me telle Whou I may conne my Crede In Christen byleve." 1580 "Leve brother," quath he, "Hold that I segge, I wil techen the the trouthe, And tellen the the sothe.-- 1584 THE CREDE. "Leve thou in oure Loverd God 1585 That al the werld wrought, {498} Holy heven eke on hey Holliche he fourmede, And is almyghti hymself Over alle his werkes. 1590 And wrought as his wil was The werld and the heven; And on gentil Jesu Christ, Engendred of hymselven, His owen onlyche sone, Lord over all y-knowen, That was clenlich conceived Clerli in trewthe Of the heye Holy Gost, This is the holy beleve. 1600 And of the maiden Marye Man was he born, Withouten synful seed, This is fully the byleve. With thorn y-crouned, crucified, And on the cros dyede, And sythen his blessed body Was in a stone byried, And descended a-doun To the derk helle, 1610 And fet out our formfaderes, And hy ful fayn weren. The thyrd day redeliche Hymself ros fram deeth, And, on a ston there he stod, He steigh up to hevene, And on his fader ryght hand Redelich he sitteth, That almyghti God, Over alle other whyghtes; 1620 {499} And is herafter to commen, Christ all himselven, To demen the quyke and the dede, Withouten any doute. And in the heighe Holy Gost Holly I beleve; And generall holy chirche also, Hold this in the minde; The communion of sayntes, For soth I to the sayn; 1630 And for our great sinnes Forgivenes for to getten, And only by Christ Clenlich to be clensed; Our bodies again to risen Right as we been here; And the liif everlasting Leve ich to habben. Amen. "Although this flatterynge freres Wyln, for her pryde, 1640 Disputen of Godes deyté, As dotardes shulden, The more the matere is moved The masedere hi worthen. Lat the loseles alone, And leve thou the trewthe; For these maystres of dyvynité Many, als I trowe, Folwen nought fully the feith, As fele of the lewede. 1650 Whough may mannes wiit, Through werk of himselve, Knowen Christes privité, {500} That alle kynde passeth? It mot ben a man Of also mek an herte, That myght with his good liif The Holy Gost fongen; And thanne nedeth him nought Nevere for to studyen; 1660 He myght no maistre ben cald, For Christ that defended, Ne puten no pylion On his pild pate, But prechen in parfit liif, And no pryde usen. But al that ever I have seyd, Soth it me semeth; And al that evere I have wryten Is soth, as I trowe; 1670 And for amendyng of thise men Is most that I write. God wolde hy wolden ben war, And werchen the betere! But for I am a lewed man, Paraunter I myghte Passen par adventure, And in some poynt erren, I wil nought this matere Maistrely avowen. 1680 But gif ich have mys-said, Mercy ich aske, And pray al mannere men This matere amende, Ich a word by hymself, And al, gif it nedeth. God of his grete myght, {501} And his good grace, Save alle freres That feithfulli lybben! 1690 And alle tho that ben fals, Fayre hem amende, And gyve hem wiit and good wil Swiche dedes to werch, That thei may wynnen the liif That evere shal lesten." _Amen._ * * * * * NOTES AND GLOSSARY * * * * * NOTES. Line 1. Bale, quoting the first two lines, translates them _In æstivo tempore, cum sol caleret_. The printers of the early editions altered _softe_ to _set_. 4, 5. _shroudes ... sheep_. The other text of this poem reads _Yshop into shrobbis | as y shepherde were_. See the Introduction. 28. The text represented in Whitaker's edition here differs much from the other. Our dreamer is there introduced very unadvisedly telling us of this tower, 'truthe was therynne,' a piece of information which he only learns afterwards from dame 'Holy Churche:' Ich was aferd of hure face, Thauh hue faire were, And saide, mercy, madame, Wat may this be to mene, _The tour upon toft_, quath hue, Treuthe ys therynne. (Passus Secundus, ed. Whit.) Where there is an evident reference to the "tour on a toft," which has been previously mentioned in the more correct text. 43, 44. Dr. Whitaker, misunderstanding this passage, has printed 'ther' for 'that,' which is in all the MSS. In his gloss, he interprets 'wonnen' by 'to dwell;' and he paraphrases the sentence, 'some destroying themselves by gluttony and excess,' translating it, I suppose, "And there dwell wasters whom gluttony destroyeth." The meaning is, the ploughmen worked hard, "and obtained (wan) that which wasters destroy with their gluttony." The writer of the second Trin. Coll. MS. seems to have understood the meaning of the passage, but not the words, and has 'whom that thise wastours.' 68. I have here to preserve the alliteration, adopted 'giltles,' from the second Trin. Coll. MS., and one of the printed editions, in place of 'synneles,' which the other MS. has. Though we find instances of irregularity in the sub-letters (or alliterative letters in the first line) in Pierce Plowman, the chief letter is not so often neglected. In Whitaker's text the account of the minstrels is very confused. Here the minstrels get gold by their song without sin, but the japers and janglers are condemned as getting their living by what is afterwards called 'turpiloquium,' when they had ability to get it in an honester way. 88. _Roberdes knaves._ These are the same class of malefactors who are named _Roberdesmen_ in the Statutes, 5 Ed. III. c. 14. "Et diverses roberies, homicides, et felonies ont esté faitz eintz ces heures par gentz qui sont appellez Roberdesmen, Wastours, et Draghelatche, si est acordé et establi que si homme eit suspecion de mal de nuls tielx, soit-il de jour soit-il de nuyt, que meintenant soient arestus par les conestables des villes." This law was confirmed by 7 Ric. II. c. 5, where the word is again introduced. Whitaker supposes, without any reason, the 'Roberdes knaves' to be Robin Hood's men. The other Trin. Coll. MS. reads _Robertis knaves_. 93. _Seint Jame._ St. James of Compostello was a famous resort of pilgrims in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. An amusing song on the inconveniences which attended the voyage is printed in the Reliquiæ Antiquæ, vol. i, p. 2. 107. _Walsyngham._ The shrine of the Virgin Mary at Walsingham in Norfolk, also enjoyed an extraordinary celebrity, as a resort of English pilgrims. It appears that the first complaints of the Wicliffite reformers were strongly expressed against this pilgrimage. "Lolardi sequaces Johannis Wiclif ... prædicaverunt peregrinationes non debere fieri, et præcipue apud Walsingham," etc. Th. Walsingh. p. 340. 116. The four orders of friars were, of course, the Franciscans, Augustines, Dominicans, and Carmelites. 131. These four lines stand thus in Whitaker's text, _Bote holy churche and charité | choppe a-doun swich shryvers, | the moste myschif of molde | mounteth up faste._ Whitaker has translated it quite wrong, "May true charity and church discipline knock down these, the greatest pests on earth, who are rapidly increasing!" The simple meaning of the passage, as given by Whitaker, is, "Unless holy church and charity chop down such shrivers (confessors), the greatest mischief of the world is increasing fast." The present text affords a better and equally clear meaning, "Unless holy church and they hold better together, the greatest mischief in the world is increasing, or gaining ground very fast." 141. _of falshede of fastynge_, the comma has slipped in by accident. The meaning is "of breaking fast-days." 147. _He bunchith hem_, MS. Trin. 2. 168. _the pestilence tyme._ See further on, the note on l. 2497. The great plague of 1349 and 1350 had carried off so much people, that hands were wanting to cultivate the lands in many parishes, and the distress which followed, with the failure of tithes which naturally accompanied it, drove the parsons to plead poverty as an excuse for going to London and seeking other occupations. 192. Whitaker's text inserts the following passage between this line and the one following:-- Conscience cam and acusede hem, And the commune herde hit, And seide, "Ydolatrie ye soffren In sondrye places menye, And boxes ben y-set forth Bounden with yren, To undertake the tool Of untrewe sacrifice, In menynge of miracles Muche wex hongeth there, Al the worldle wot wel Hit myghte nat be trywe. Ac for it profitith yow to pors-warde, Ye prelates soffren That lewede men in mysbylyve Leven and deien. Ich lyve wel, by oure Lorde! For love of youre covetyse, That al the worlde be the wors; As holy wryght telleth What cheste and meschaunce To children of Israel Ful on hem that free were, Thorwe two false preestes. For the synne of Ophni And of Finees hus brother, Thei were disconfit in bataille, And losten _Archa Dei_, And fore hure syre sauh hem syngen, And aoffred hem don ylle, And noght chasted hem therof, And wolde noght rebukie hem, Anon as it was y-told hyme That the children of Israel Weren disconfit in bataille, And _Archa Dei_ y-lore, And hus sones slayen, Anon he ful for sorwe Fro hus chaire thare he sat, And brak hus necke a-tweyne; And al was for venjaunce That he but noght hus children. And for they were preestes, And men of holy churche, God was well wrother, And toke the rather venjaunce. For-thei ich seye, ye preestes, And men of holy churche, That soffren men do sacrifice And worsheppen mawmettes, And ye sholde be here fadres, And techen hem betere; God shal take venjaunce In alle swiche preestes Wel harder and grettere, On suche shrewede faderes, Than ever he dude on Ophni And Finees, or in here fadere. For youre shrewede suffraunce, And youre owen synne, Youre masse and youre matynes, And meny of youre houres, etc. 225. This is the constitutional principle which was universally acknowledged by our early political writers, and of which some strong declarations will be found in my "Political Songs" (published by the Camden Society). The doctrine of "right divine" was certainly not a prevalent one in the middle ages. 291. This fable appears to be of middle-age formation, for it is not found in any of the ancient collections. It does not occur in the fables of Marie. It is however found in the old collection, in French verse of the fourteenth century, entitled Ysopet; and M. Robert has also printed a Latin metrical version of the story from a MS. of the same century. La Fontaine has given it among his fables. It may be observed that the fable is nowhere so well told as in Piers Ploughman. (See Robert, Fables Inédites, des xii^e, xiii^e, et xiv^e siècles, i, pp. 98-101.) The readers of Scottish history will remember the application of this fable in 1481, by the earl of Angus (popularly named, from this circumstance, Archibald Bell-the-cat), in the conspiracy against the royal favourites, which forms an excellent illustration of our text. 381. _Væ terræ, etc._ Ecclesiastes, x, 16. "Væ tibi, terra, cujus rex puer est, et cujus principes mane comedunt." 423. _and pointeth the lawe._ MS. Trin. 2. 429. after this line the following are inserted in the second MS. of Trin. Coll. I saugh bisshopis bolde, And bacheleris of devyn, Become clerkis of acountis The king for to serve, Archideknes and denis, That dignités haven, To preche the peple And pore men to fede, Ben y-lope to Lundone Be leve of hire bisshop, And ben clerkis of the kinges bench The cuntré to shende. 438. _Taillours, tanneris, | And tokkeris bothe._ MS. Trin. 2. 453. The Cottonian MS. Vespas. B. xvi, from which Price has given a long extract in his edition of Warton, has here "With wyne of Oseye | and wyn of Gascoyne." Whitaker's reading is "Whit wyn of Oseye and of Gascoyne." Price observes, in a note, "good wyne of Gaskyne, and the wyne of Osee [is the reading of MS. Harl. No. 875].--The same hand already noticed has corrected _wyn_ to _weyte_ (wheat) _of Gascoyne_;--an obvious improvement." I by no means partake in this opinion: _wine_ of Gascony, and _not wheat_ of Gascony, is perpetually alluded to in the literature of France and England from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. The reading of the text now printed is evidently the original one, which has been corrupted in the others: the wine more particularly known as Gascon, was a red wine. The writer of "La Desputoison du Vin et de l'Iaue," says of it-- Vin de Gascoigne, sa coulour N'est pas de petite valour; Les autres vins fet honnorer. Quant de soi les veult coulourer: Force donne, aide, et confort, Et d'un vin foible, fet. i. fort. Il a de vin plaine sustance; Il nourrist sans faire grevance: Aus testes est bons et au flanc. Et du rouge y a et du blanc. (_Jubinal, Nouveau Recueil de Contes, &c._, i. 399.) The 'wyn of the Rochel' (vin de la Rochelle) was also a favourite wine.-- Rochelle, qui tant a de pris, Que l'en la va de partout querre; Chascun si l'enclot et l'enserre, Car il n'est pas à garçonner, N'en ne la doit q'aus bons donner;-- Por les grans seignors l'en salache. (_ib._ p. 300). The "wyn of Oseye" (vin d'Osaie) was a foreign wine, very rare and dear, and sought up by 'gourmands:' it is mentioned with those of Malvoisia, Rosetta, and Muscadet. (Depping Réglemens sur les Arts et Métiers de Paris, p. lxiii.) It is unnecessary to explain what was 'wyn of the Ryn' (Rhine). 456. _of the Reule | and of the Rochel._ Whitaker. 458. These two lines, omitted in the MS. from which our text is printed, have been added from MS. Trin. 2. 489. _fyve wittes._ The five wits were equivalent to the five _senses_. One of the characters in the early interlude of The Four Elements, a production of the earlier part of the sixteenth century, says:-- I am callyd Sensuall Apetyte, All craturs in me delyte; I comforte the _wyttys fyve_, The tastyng, smellyng, and herynge, I refresh the syght and felynge, To all creaturs alyve. Stephen Hawes, in his Pastime of Pleasure (chap. xxiv), belonging to this same age, refines upon this notion, and talks of five "internall wittes," answering to the five external wits, or to those which were commonly understood by that name. 522. Genesis xix, 32. It is very singular that this story of Lot and his daughters was the favourite example of the medieval preachers against drunkenness. 563. Luke xx, 25. 595. _on an eller._ It was the prevailing belief during the middle ages, that the tree on which Judas hanged himself was an elder. Maundevile tells us that this tree was still in existence, when he visited Jerusalem. "Also streghte from Natatorie Siloe is an ymage of ston and of olde auncyen werk, that Absalon leet make; and because thereof, men clepen it the hond of Absalon. And faste by is yit the _tree of eldre_ that Judas henge himself upon for despeyr that he hadde, whan he solde and betrayed oure Lord." The same notion continued to exist in the age of Shakespeare, and is alluded to by Shakespeare himself, Ben Jonson, and others. _Hol._ What mean you, sir? _Boyet._ To make Judas hang himself. _Hol._ Begin, sir; you are _my elder_. _Biron._ Well followed: _Judas was hang'd on an elder._ _Love's Labours Lost_, v, 2. 681. _Lucifer with legions._ The story of Lucifer's rebellion and fall was extremely popular in the middle ages, and particularly among the Anglo-Saxons, who, in the fine poem ascribed to Cædmon, had given it almost as much detail as Milton had done at a later date. This legend is related in prose in an Anglo-Saxon tract in MS. Cotton. Vespas. D. xiv, fol. 2. 682. The second Trin. Col. MS. has, _Leride it in hevene, | and as the lovelokest | to loke on, aftir oure Lord_. 697-704. Instead of these lines, we find the following in Whitaker's text: Lord, why wolde he tho, Thulke wrechede Lucifer, Lepen on a-lofte In the northe syde, To sitten in the sonne side Ther the day roweth, Ne were it for northerne men, Anon ich wolde telle: Ac ich wolle lacke no lyf, Quath that lady sotthly. 'Hyt is sykerer by southe, Ther the sonne regneth, Than in the north, by meny notes, No man loyne other. For theder as the fend flegh, Hus fote for to sette, Ther he failede and fuel, And hus felawes alle. And helle is ther he is, And he ther y-bounde, Evene contrarie suteth Criste, Cierkus knowen the sothe, _Dixit Dominus Domino meo, sede a dextris meis._ 'Ac of this matere No more mene ich nelle, He was in the halyday After heten wayten, They care noght thauh it be cold Knaves wen thei worchen.' Whitaker has translated the last four lines of the foregoing extract thus, "Excepting that hyndes on the holyday look out for warm places, but knaves (servants) when working hard, are indifferent to cold." 695. Isaiah xiv, 14. The citation varies a little from the text of the printed vulgate. 707. _Somme in the eyr._ The monks in the middle ages endeavoured to explain the existence of different classes of spirits and fairies, which the popular creed represented as harmless, or even beneficent creatures, by supposing that some of the angels who fell with Lucifer were less guilty than others, and were allowed to occupy the different elements on the earth instead of being condemned to "the pit." In "The Master of Oxford's Catechism," written early in the fifteenth century, and printed in the Reliquiæ Antiquæ, vol. i, p. 231, we have the following question and answer,--"_C._ Where be the anjelles that God put out of heven, and bycam devilles? _M._ Som into hell, and som reyned in the skye, and som in the erth, and som in waters and in wodys." 815. Mark iv, 24. In qua mensura mensi fueritis, remetietur vobis, et adjicietur vobis. 835. Epist. Jac. ii, 17. Sic et fides, si non habeat opera, mortua est in semetipsa. 862. Luke vi, 38. 901. The second Trin. Col. MS. has-- Frettid with rynges, Of the pureste perreighe That prince werde evere, In red scarlet robid And ribande with gold. Ther nis no quen queyntere That quyk is o-lyve, 'What is this womman,' quod I. 934. Matth. vii, 17. _bonus_ (for _bona_) is the reading of the MS. Perhaps it was thought allowable to use the masculine thus before a fem. noun beginning with _a_, for the sake of euphony, as the French still write _mon amie_, instead of _ma amie_, and the like. Whitaker's text has here-- _Talis pater, talis filius._ For shal never brere bere Beries as a vyne, No on crokyd kene thorne Kynde fygys wexe. _Bona arbor bonum fructum facit._ The lines which follow differ considerably in the two texts. 958. Psalm xiv, 1. 991-994. Instead of these lines, the following are substituted in the second Trin. Coll. MS.:-- Sire Symonye is assent To asele the chartres, That Fals and Favel Be any fyn halden, And feffe Mede therwith In mariage for evere. Ther nas halle ne hous To herberwe the peple, That iche feld nas ful Of folk al aboute. In myddis a mounteyne At myd-morewe tide Was pight up a pavyloun Proud for the nones, And ten thousand of tentis Teldit beside, Of knightes of cuntrés, Of comeres aboute, For sisours, for somonours, etc. And the rest, as far as line 1100, differs very much in the two MSS. 1103. _of Banneburies sokne, | Reynald the reve, | and the redyngkynges menye, | Munde the mylnere._ Whit. 1128. Luke x, 7. 1177. _With floryns ynowe._ Edward III had issued, not very long before the date of this poem, the first extensive English gold coinage, to which he gave the Italian name of florins, derived originally from that of the city of Florence. 1204. _to Westmynstre_: _i. e._ to the courts of law which were held there. 1404. _A moton of golde._ A mutton (mouton) was a small French coin of gold, which bore the stamp of a lamb or sheep. See Ducange, v. _Multo_. 1501. Matth. vi, 3. 1523. Regrating, or the buying up of provisions and other things to make extravagant profits by retailing them, was one of the great sources of oppression of the poor by the rich in the middle ages, and was a constant subject of popular complaint. 1529. Whitaker's text adds here,-- Thei have no puteye of the puple That parcel-mele mote biggen, Thauh thei take hem untydy thyng, Thei hold it no treson; And thauh thei fulle nat ful, That for lawe y-seelde, He gripeth therfor as grete As for the grete treuthe. Meny sondry sorwes In cyté fallen ofte, Bothe thorw fyur and flod, And al for false puple, That bygylen good men, And greveth hem wrongliche, The wiche cryen on hure knees That Christ hem avenge Here on this erthe, Other elles on helle, That so bygyleth hem of here good, And God on hem sendeth Feveres, other fouler hyveles, Other fur on here houses, Moreyne, other meschaunce. And menye tyme hit falleth, That innocence ys y-herde In hevene amonge seyntes, That louten for hem to oure Lorde, And to oure Lady bothe, To granten gylours on erthe Grace to amende, And have here penaunce on pure erthe, And noght in the pyne of helle. And thenne falleth the fur On false menne houses, And good men for here gultes Gloweth on fuyr after. Al thys have we seyen, That some tyme thorw a brewere Many burgages y-brent, And bodyes therynne, And thorw a candel cloming In a cursed place, Fel a-don and for-brende Forth al the rewe, For-thy mayres that maken free-men, Me thynken that thei ouhten For to spure and aspye, For eny speche of selver, What manere mester Of merchaundise he usede, Er he were underfonge free And felawe in youre rolles. Hit ys nought semly, for soth, In cyté ne in borw-ton, That usurers other regratours For eny kynne geftes, Be fraunchised for a free-man, And have fals name. 1548. Job, xv, 34. 1611. _Youre fader she felled._ An allusion to the deposition and death of Edward II. 1652. Provisors were people who obtained from the pope the reversion of ecclesiastical dignities, and several severe statutes were made against them, one well-known one by Edward III. 1674. _Love-daies._ See further on, the note on l. 5634. 1735. _In Normandie._ 1750. _To Caleis._ Allusions, no doubt, to recent events in the wars of Edward III. See the Introduction. 1769. _Caytiflyche thow, Conscience, | Consailedist the kyng leten | In hus enemys honde | Ys heritage of Fraunce._ Whit. 1827. Psalm xiv, 1. 1835. Ps. xiv, 2. 1845. Ps. xiv, 5. 1862. Psalm xxv, 10. 1875. Matth. vi, 5. 1885. _Regum._ The reference is to 1 Sam. xv, which in the old Vulgate was called _primus liber regum_. 1985, 2019. Isaiah ii, 4. 2043. Prov. xxii, 9. Victoriam et honorem acquiret qui dat munera; animam autem aufert accipientium. 2099. _lernest._ Whitaker's text has _ledest_. 2149. Psalm xiii, 3. The quotation which follows is from the same verse. 2171. _his sone._ The Black Prince, who was a great favourite with the people. 2175-2186. The variation in Whitaker's text deserves notice. This passage there stands as follows:-- Thenne cam Pees into parlement, And putte up a bylle. How that Wrong wilfullich Hadde hus wif for-leyen; And how he ravysed Rose, The riche widewe, by nyghte; And Margarete of here maidenhod, As he met hure late. 'Both my goos, and my grys, And my gras he taketh, Ich dar nouht for is felaweshepe, In faith!' Pees saide, 'Bere sickerlich eny selver To seint Gyles doune; He watteth ful wel, Wan ich sulfere taketh, Wat wey ich wende. Wel yerne he aspieth, To robbe me and to ryfle me, Yf ich ride softe. Yut he is bolde for to borwe, And baldelich he payeth: He borwede of me Bayarde,' etc. 2177. _How Wrong ayeins his wille._ What follows is a true picture of the oppressions to which the peasantry were frequently subjected by the king's purveyors, and by others in power. See the Political Songs, pp. 377, 378; and Hartshorne's Ancient Metrical Tales, pp. 41, 42. 2197. _taillé_, a tally. See the Political Songs, as above quoted. Whitaker translates this passage, which stands thus in his edition, And taketh me bote a taile For ten quarters other twelve, by, "and for ten or twelve quarters of it repaid me but _a sheep's tail_!" 2298. _in my stokkes._ In my prison. Prisons were usually furnished with stocks, in which, instead of fetters, prisoners were set. 2323. _Beneyt._ St. Benedict, the founder of the Benedictine order; St. Bernard, of the order of Cistercians; St. Francis, of the Franciscans. 2335. _Galis._ Compostello in Galicia. 2473. _Passus Quintus._ In Whitaker's text, this section, which is called _Passus Sextus_, is prefaced by the following long exordium, intended as a satire against the mendicant friars:-- Thus ich awaked, God wot! Wanne ich wonede on Cornhulle, Kytte and ich in a cote, Clothede as a lollere: And a lytel ich let by, Leyve me, for sothe, Among lolleres of London, And lewede heremytes. For ich made of tho men, As Reson me tauhte. For as ich cam by Conscience, Wit Reson ich mette, In an hote hervest, Wenne ich hadde myn hele, And lymes to labore with, And lovede wel fare, And no dede to do Bote drynke and to slepe, In hele and in unité, On me aposede, Romynge in remembraunce. Thus Reson me arated: 'Canstow serven,' he seide, 'Other syngen in a churche? Other loke for my cokers? Other to the carte picche? Mowe, other mowen, Other make bond to sheves? Repe, other be a repe-reyve And arise erliche? Other have an horne and be hay-warde, And liggen out a nyghtes, And kepe my corn in my croft From pykers and theeves? Other shap shoon other clothes? Other shep other kyne kepe? Eggen, other harwen, Other swyne other gees dryve? Other eny kyne craft That to the comune nudeth, Hem that bed-reden be Bylyve to fynde?' 'Certes,' ich seyde, 'And so me God helpe! Ich am to waik to worche With sykel other with sythe; And to long, leyf me, Lowe for to stoupe, To worchen as workeman Eny wyle to dure.' 'Then havest thow londes to lyve by,' Quath Reson, 'other lynage ryche That fynden the thy fode? For an hydel man thow semest, A spendour that spende mot, Other a spille-tyme; Other beggest thy lyve Aboute ate menne hatches; Other faitest upon Fridays Other feste dayes in churches; The wiche is lollerene lyf, That lytel is preysed Ther ryghtfulnesse rewardeth Ryght as men deserveth. _Reddit unicuique juxta opera sua._ Ether thow ert broke, so may be, In body other in membre, Other y-maymed thorow som myshap. Werby thow myght be excusede.' 'Wanne ich yong was,' quath ich, 'Many yer hennes, My fader and my frendes Founden me to scole, Tyl ich wiste wyterliche Wat holy wryt menede, And wat is best for the body, As the bok telleth, And sykerest for the soule, By so ich wolle continue. And yut fond ich never in faith, Sytthen my frendes deyden, Lyf that me lyked, Bote in thes long clothes. Hyf ich by laboure sholde lyf, And lyflode deserven, That labour that ich lerned best Therwhit lyve ich sholde. _In eadem vocatione qua vocati estis._ And ich lyve in Londene And on Londen bothe. The lomes that ich laboure with And lyflode deserve, Ys paternoster and my prymer, _Placebo et dirige_, And my sauter some tyme, And my sevene psalmes. Thus ich synge for hure soules Of suche as me helpen. And tho that fynden me my fode Vochen saf, ich trowe, To be wolcome wan ich come Other wyle in a monthe, Now with hym, and now with hure, And thus gate ich begge Withoute bagge other botel, Bote my wombe one. And also, moreover, Me thynketh, syre Reson, Men sholde constreyne No clerke to knavene werkes. For by law of Livitici, That oure Lord ordeynede, Clerkes that aren crowned Of kynde understondyng, Sholde nother swynke ne swete, Ne swere at enquestes, Ne fyghte in no vauntwarde, Ne hus fo greve. _Nou reddas malum pro malo._ For it ben aires of hevene, And alle that ben crounede And in queer in churches, Cristes owene mynestres. _Dominus pars hæreditatis meæ Et alibi, Clementia non constringit._ Hit bycometh for clerkus Crist for to serven; And knaves uncrounede To cart and to worche. For shold no clerk be crouned, Bote yf he y-come were Of franklens and freemen And of folke y-weddede. Bondmen and bastardes, And beggers children, Thuse bylongeth to labour. And lordes children sholde serven, Bothe God and good men, As here degree asketh; Some to synge masses, Others sitten and wryte, Rede and receyve That Reson oughte spende. And sith bondemenne barnes Han be made bisshopes, And barnes bastardes Han ben archidekenes; And sopers and here sones For selver han be knyghtes, And lordene sones here laboreres, And leid here rentes to wedden For the ryght of the reame, Ryden ayens oure enemys, In consort of the comune And the kynges worshep. And monkes and moniales. That mendinauns sholden fynde, Han mad here kyn knyghtes, And knyght fees purchase. Popes and patrones Povre gentil blod refuseth, And taken Symondes sonne Seyntewarie to kepe. Lyf-holynesse and love Han ben longe hennes, And wole, til hit be wered out, Or otherwise y-chaunged. For-thy rebuke me ryht nouht, Reson, ich yow praye; For in my conscience ich knowe What Crist wolde that ich wroughte. Preyers of perfyt man, And penaunce discret, Is the levest labour That oure Lord pleseth. _Non de solo_, ich seyde, For sothe _vivit homo, Nec in pane et pabulo_, The paternoster witnesseth. _Fiat voluntas tua_ Fynt ous alle thynges.' Quath Conscience, 'By Crist! Ich can nat see this lyeth. Ac it semeth nouht perfitnesse In cyties for to begge, Bote he be obediencer To pryour other to mynstre.' 'That ys soth,' ich seide, 'And so ich by-knowe That ich have tynt tyme, And tyme mys-spended. And yut ich hope, as he That ofte haveth chaffarede, That ay hath lost and lost, And at the latest hym happeth He bouhte suche a bargayn He was the bet evere, And sette hus lost at a lef At the laste ende; Suche a wynnynge hym warth Thorw wyrdes of his grace. _Simile est regnum coelorum thesauro abscondito in agro, etc._ _Mulier quæ inveniet dragmam, etc._ So hope ich to have of hym That his almyghty A gobet of hus grace, And bygynne a tyme That alle tymes of my tyme To profit shal turne.' 'Ich rede the,' quath Reson tho, 'Rathe the to bygynne The lyf that ys lowable And leel to the soule.' 'Ye, and continue,' quath Conscience. And to the church ich wente. And to the church gan ich go, God to honourie, Byfor the crois on my knees Knocked ich my brest, Sykinge for my sennes, Segginge my paternoster, Wepyng and wailinge, Tyl ich was a-slepe Thenne mete me moche more Than ich byfor tolde, Of the mater that ich mete fyrst On Malverne hulles. Ich sawe the feld ful of folk Fram ende to the other; And Reson revested Ryght as a pope, And Conscience his crocer Byfore the kynge stande. Reson reverentliche Byfor all the reame Prechede and provede That thuse pestilences Was for pure synne, etc. _See_ l. 2497, of the present edition. 2497. _thise pestilences._--There were three great pestilences in the reign of Edward III, the terrible effects of which were long fresh in people's minds, and they were often taken as points from which to date common events. Two of them had passed at the period when the Visions of Piers Ploughman are believed to have been written, and are the ones here alluded to. Of the first, or great pestilence, which lasted from 31 May, 1348, to 29 Sept. 1349, the contemporary chroniclers give a fearful account. In a register of the Abbey of Gloucester (MS. Cotton. Domit. A. VIII, fol. 124), we have the following entry:--"Anno Domini m^o.ccc^o.xlviij^o. anno vero regni regis Edwardi III, post conquestum xxij^o. incepit magna pestilentia in Anglia, ita quod _vix tertia pars_ hominum remansit." This pestilence, known as the _black plague_, ravaged most parts of Europe, and is said to have carried off in general about two-thirds of the people. It was the pestilence which gave rise to the Decameron of Boccaccio. For an interesting account of it, see Michelet's Hist. de France, iii, 342-349. The second pestilence lasted from 15 Aug. 1361, to May 3, 1362, and was much less severe. The third pestilence raged from 2 July to 29 September, 1369. 2500. _The south-westrene wynd | on Saterday at even._ Tyrwhitt, in his Preface to Chaucer, first pointed out the identity of this wind with the one mentioned by the old chroniclers (Thorn, Decem. Script. col. 2122; Walsingham, p. 178; the continuator of Adam Murimuth, p. 115), as occurring on the evening of Jan. 15, 1362. The fifteenth of January in that year was a Saturday. The following is the account given by Walsingham: "Anno gratiæ millesimo trecentesimo sexagesimo secundo, qui est annus regni regis Edwardi a conquestu tertii tricesimus sextus, tenuit rex natale apud Wyndesor, et quinto decimo die sequente ventus vehemens, nothus auster affricus, tanta vi erupit, quod flatu suo domos altas, ædificia sublimia, turres, et campanilia, arbores, et alia quæque durabilia et fortia violenter prostravit pariter et impegit, in tantum quod residua quæ modo extant, sunt hactenus infirmiora." The continuator of Murimuth is more particular as to the time of the day, and in other respects more exact. "A.D. m. ccc. lxii, xv die Januarii, _circa horam vesperarum_, ventus vehemens notus australis affricus tanta rabie erupit," etc. 2529. _And fecche Felis his wyf | Fro wyuene pyne._ MS. Trin. Col. 2. 2547. This was a very old and very common proverb in England. Thus in the Proverbs of Hending (Reliquiæ Antiquæ, vol. i, p. 110):-- Ne bue thi child never so duere, Ant hit wolle unthewes lerne, Bet hit other whyle; Mote hit al habben is wille, Woltou nultou hit wolle spille, Ant bicome a fule. _Luef child lore byhoveth_; Quoth Hendyng. The proverb is a little varied in another copy of these "Proverbs," p. 194 of the same work. There is a German proverb closely resembling it, "Je lieberes Kind, je schärfere Ruthe." 2551. Prov. xiii, 24. 2569. After this line Whitaker's text has inserted a passage, answering nearly word for word (except in the few first lines) to the passage in our text, ll. 6218-6274. 2573. In the same text, the following lines are here added:-- 'And also,' quath Reson, 'Ich rede yow, riche And comuners, to acorden In alle kynne treuthe. Let no kynne consail Ne covetyze yow departe, That on wit and on wil Alle youre wardes kepe. Lo! in hevene on hy Was an holy comune, Til Lucifer the lyere Leyved that hymselve Were wittyour and worthiour Than he that was hus maister. Hold yow in unité. And ye that hother wolde Is cause of alle combraunce To confounde a reame. 2586. Matt. xxv, 12. 2594. Whitaker's _Passus Sextus_ ends with this line. 2625. Before Envy's confession, and in the place of Lechery, Whitaker's text introduces the confession of Pride-- Ich, Pruyde, patientliche Penaunce ich aske; For ich formest and ferst To fader and to moder Have y-be unboxome, Ich beseche God of mercy; And unboxome y-be, Nouht abaissed to agulte God and alle good men, So gret was myn herte; Inobedient to holy churche, And to hem that ther serven, Demed for hure yvel vices, And excited othere Thorw my word and al my wit Hure yvel workes to shewe; And scorned hem and othere, Yf a skyle founde, Lauhynge al aloude, For lewede men sholde Wene that ich were witty And wyser than anothere; Scorner and unskilful to hem That skil shewede, In all manere manners My name to be y-knowe, Semeng a sovereyn on, Wer so me byfulle To telle eny tale. Ich trowede me wiser To carpen other to counsaile Than eny, lered other lewede. Proud of aparail In porte amonge the puple, Otherwise than ich have, Withynne other withoute, Me wilnede that men wende Ich were in aveyr Riche and resonable, And ryghtful of lyvynge; Bostynge and braggynge Wyt meny bolde othes; Avauntyng upon my veine glorie For eny undernemynge; And yut so syngeler by myself Ne non so pomp holy, Som tyme on a secte, Sam tyme on another; In all kynne covetyse Contrevede how ich myghte Be holde for holy, And hondred sithe by that encheison; Wilnede that men wende My werkes were the beste And konnygest of my craft, Clerkes other othere, And strengest upon my stede, And styvest under gurdell, And lovelokest to loken on, And lykyngest a-bedde; And lykynge of such a lif That no lawe preyseth; Proud of my faire fetours; And for ich songe shrille; And what ich gaf for Godes love, To godsybbes ich tolde, Ther to wene that ich were Wel holy and wel almesful. And non so bold begger To bydden an[d] crave, Tales to telle In tavernes and in stretes, Thyng that nevere was thouhte, And yut ich swor ich sauh hit, And lyed on my lykame And on my lyf bothe. Of werkes that ich wel dude Witnesse ich take, And syggen to such That sytten me bysyde, 'Lo! yf ye leyve me nouht, Other that ye wene ich lye, Ask of hym other of hure, And thei conne yow telle What ich soffrede an[d] seih, And som tyme hadde, And what ich knew and couthe, Of wat kyn ich kam of; Al ich wolde that men wuste, When it to pruyde sonede, As to preised among the puple, Thauh ich povre semede.' _Si hominibus placerem, Christi servus non essem. Nemo potest duobus dominis servire._ 'Now God, of hus goodnesse, Geve the grace to amende!' Quath Repentaunce ryght with that; And thenne roos Envye. The description of Envy, which follows, is shorter in Whitaker's text, and differs much from our text. 2819-2822. The discipline here described seems to have been peculiar to the chapter-house of the monasteries. Matth. Paris, p. 848, has an anecdote which illustrates curiously this passage of Piers Ploughman. In speaking of the turbulent Falcasius de Breuté, who had been warned in a vision to offer himself to suffer penance in the monastery of St. Albans, in the reign of Henry III, he says, "Vestibus igitur spoliatus cum suis militibus, similiter indumentis spoliatis, ferens in manu virgam quam vulgariter _baleis_ appellamus, et confitens culpam suam, ... a singulis fratribus disciplinas nuda carne suscepit." 2846. In the text which Whitaker has printed, the confession of Wrath was followed by that of Luxury or Lechery. It stands as follows in the copy of the same text in MS. Cotton. Vespas. B. xvi. (_See_ l. 8713, of our present text.) Thanne seide Lecherie, Alas! And to oure Ladi criede, 'Ladi, for thi leve sone, Loute for me nouthe, That he have pité on me, putour, For his pure merci.' 'With that I schal,' quod that schrewe, 'Saterdaies, for thi love, Drynke with the doke, And dine but ones.' I, gulti in gost, To God I me schrive, As in likyng of lecherige My licames gultes, In wordes, in wedes, In waityng of eyen, To eche maide that I mette I made here a sigge, Semyng to synne-ward, And summe can I taste Aboute the mouth, and binethe Bigon I to grope, Til bothe oure wil was on, To werke we yeden, As wel fastyng daies, And hi festes eves, And wel in Lente as out of Lente, Al tymes i-liche; Swiche werkes with us Weren nevere out of seson, Til we mighten ne more, Tho hadde we muri tales Of putrige and of paramours, And provede thorw speche, Handelyng, and halsyng, And also thorw cussyng, Excityng heither other To oure elde synne; Sotilde songes, And sente out elde baudes For te wynne to my wil Wemmen with gile; Bi sorcerie sum time, And sum time be maistrie, I lai bi the lovelokest, And lovede hem nevere aftur. Whan I was eld and hor, And hadde i-lorn that kynde, I hadde likyng to lige Of lecherous tales. Now, lord, for thi lewté, On lecheres have merci. 2850. _Sire Hervy._ Whitaker and Price (in Warton) suppose that there is here a personal allusion, which at the time had become proverbial. 2874. _Symme at the Style._ Whit. 2881. _To Wy and to Wynchestre | I wente to the feyre._ Warton (Hist. of Eng. p. ii, 55, edit. 1840) supposes Wy to be Weyhill, in Hampshire, "where a famous fair still subsists." In fact it is one of the greatest fairs in England, lasting ten days. For anecdotes of the celebrity of the great fair at Winchester in former times, and for some interesting observations on fairs in general, _see_ Warton, loc. cit. 2933. _The Roode of Bromholm._ At the Priory of Bromholm, in Norfolk, there was a celebrated cross, said to be made of fragments of the real cross, and much resorted to by pilgrims. It was brought from Constantinople to England in 1223. The history of this cross, and the miracles said to have been performed by it at Bromholm, are told by Matthew Paris (p. 268). In the MS. Chronicle of Barthol. de Cotton, it is recorded at the date 1223, "Eo tempore Peregrinatio de Bromholm incepit." 2949. _Frensshe ... of Northfolk._ Norfolk, it would appear by this, was one of the least refined parts of the island. 3030. In this part of the poem, the smaller variations between the present text and Whitaker's are very numerous. After this line, the following passage is inserted:-- With false wordes and writes Ich have wonne my goodes, And with gyle and glosynge Gadered that ich have; Meddled my merchaundise, And mad a good moustre, The werst lay withynne, A gret wit ich let hit. And yf my neyhgebore had an hyne, Other eny best ellys, More profitable than myn, Ich made meny wentes, How ich myght have hit Al my wit ich caste; And bote ich hadde hit by othes away, At last ich stal hit, Other pryvyliche hus pors shok, Unpiked his lokes. And yf ich yede to the plouh, Ich pynchede on hus half acre, That a fot londe other a forwe Fetchen ich wolde Of my neyhgeboris next, Nymen of hus erthe, And yf y repe, over reche, Other gaf hem red that repen To sese to me with here sykel, That ich sewe nevere. In haly dayes at holy churche Wenne ich hurde messe, Ich hadde nevere witerlich To byseche mercy For my mysdedes, That ich ne mornede ofter For lost of good, leyve me, Then for lycames gultes. Thauh ich dedliche synne dude, Ich dradde hit nat so sore As wenne ich lenede and leyvede hit lost, Other longe er hit were paied. And yf [ich] sente over see My servaunt to Brugges, Other into Prus my prentys, My profit to awaite, To marchaunde with monye And maken here eshaunge, Myght nevere man comforty me In the meyn time, Neither matyns ne masse, Ne othere manere syghtes, And nevere penaunce performede, Ne paternoster seyde. That my mynde ne was More in my goodes, Than in Godes grace, And hus grete myghte. _Ubi thesaurus tuus, ibi cor tuum._ _See_ ll. 8751-8827. 3039. Psa. l, 8. 3083. The confessions of the robber and the glutton are reversed in Whitaker's text, and present many variations. The robber's confession is there preceded by the following curious lines:-- Then was ther a Walishman That was wonderlich sory, He hight Yyvan Yeld ageyn; 'If ich so moche have, Al that ich wickedlich wan Setthen ich hit hadde; And thauh my liflode lache Leten ich nelle That ech man shal have hus, Er ich hennes wende. For me ys levere in this lif As a lorel beggen, Than in lysse to lyve, And lese lyf and soule.' 3162. Between this line and the next, MS. Trin. Col. 2, inserts _Bargoynes and beverechis | Begonne for to arise._ 3277, 3278. _rymes of Robyn Hood | and Randolf erl of Chestre._ This seems to be the earliest mention of the ballads of Robin Hood which can now be found. Ritson was quite mistaken (Robin Hood, Introd. p. xlix) in the supposed mention of him by the prior of Alnwick, the title of the Latin song being modern. The passage of Fordun, in which Robin Hood is spoken of, is probably an interpolation. I am not sure that Ritson is right in taking the _Randolf erl of Chester_ of Piers Ploughman, to be Ranulf de Blundevile: it is quite as probable that he was the Ranulf of Chester of the days of Stephen, whose turbulent deeds may have been the subject of popular ballads. Warton (H. E. P. ii, 373), quoting the passage of Piers Ploughman with the word _erl_ omitted, conceives it to mean Ralph Higden, and imagines the _rymes_ to be the Chester Mysteries, of which he conjectured that Ralph Higden was the author. 3311. _Ite missa est._ The concluding sentence of the service of the Mass. 3408. _the Rode of Chestre._ There was a celebrated cross or rood at Chester, which was long an object of great veneration, and even of pilgrimage, among our Roman Catholic forefathers. "I do not recollect any thing remarkable (says Mr. Pennant, speaking of Chester) on the outside of the walls which has been unnoticed, unless it be the Rood-eye, and the adjacent places."--"The name of this spot is taken from _eye_, its watery situation, and rood, the cross which stood there, whose base is still to be seen." Pennant's Tour in Wales, edit. 1778, p. 191. According to Gough's Camden, the base was still remaining in 1789. 3410. _Roberd the robbere._ This name is rather curious in conjunction with the term _Roberdesmen_ mentioned in the note on l. 88. It was no uncommon practice to give punning names in this way to people or classes of people. In a Latin song of the reign of Henry III (Political Songs, p. 49), we have a very curious instance of it, one of the names being, as here, _Robert_:-- Competentur per _Robert_, _robbur_ designatur; Robertus excoriat, extorquet, et minatur.-- Vir quicunque rabidus consors est Roberto. Still earlier (12th cent.) a scribe says of one of his brothers, "Secundus dicebatur _Robertus_, quia a re nomen habuit, _spoliator_ enim diu fuit et _prædo_." (Polit. Songs, p. 354.) 3419. _Dysmas._ In middle-age legends, Dismas and Gestas were the names of the two thieves who were crucified with Christ. The former was the one who believed in the Saviour, and received a promise of paradise. 3443. Before this line, Whitaker's text has the following passage:-- Ac whiche be the braunches That bryngeth me to sleuthe, Ys wanne a man mourneth nat For hus mysdedes; The penaunce that the prest enjoyneth Parfourmeth uvele; Doth non almys-dedes, And drat nat of synne: Lyveth ayens the byleyve, And no lawe kepeth; And hath no lykynge to lerne, Ne of houre Lord hure, Bote harlotrie other horedom, Other elles of som wynnyng. Wan men carpen of Crist Other of clennesse of soule, He wext wroth, and wol not huyre Bote wordes of murthe, Penaunce and povre men, The passion of seyntes, He hateth to huyre therof And alle that therof carpen. Thuse beth the braunches, be war, That bryngeth man to wanhope. Ye lordes and ladyes, And legates of holy churche, That feden fool sages, Flaterers and lyers, And han lykynge to lythen hem, In hope to do yow lawe-- _Væ! vobis qui ridetis, etc._ And geveth suche mede an mete, And povre men refusen; In youre deth deynge, Ich drede me sore Lest tho maner men To moche sorwe yow brynge. _Consensientes et agentes pari pæna punientur._ Patriarkes and prophetes, Prechours of Godes wordes, Saven thorgh here sermons Mannes soule fro helle: Ryght so flaterers and foles Aren the fendes procuratores, Entysen men thorgh here tales To synne and to harlotrie. Clerkus that knowen this, Sholde kennen lordes What David seide of suche men, As the Sauter telleth: _Non habitabit in medio domus meæ qui facit superbiam, qui loquitur iniquum._ Sholde non harlot have audience In halle ne in chaumbre, Ther that wys men were. Whitnesse of Godes wordes; Nother a mys-prout man Among lordes alouwed. Clerkus and knyghtes Wolcometh kynges mynstrales, For love of here lordes Lithen hem at festes: Muche more, me thenketh, Riche men auhte Have beggers byfore hem, Wiche beth Godes mynstreles, As he seith hymself, Seynt Johan berith whittnesse: _Qui vos spernit, me etiam spernit._ Therfor ich rede yow, riche, Reveles when ye maken, For to solace youre soules, Suche mynstrales to have, The povre for a foul sage Syttynge at thy table, Whith a lered man to lere the What oure Lord suffrede, For to savy thy saule Fram Satan thyn enemye, And fitayle the withoute flateryng Of Good Friday the feste: And a blynde man for a bordiour, Other a bed-reden womman To crye a largesse byfor oure Lord, Youre good loos to shewe. Thuse thre manere mynstrales Maken a man to lauhe; In hus deth deyng Thei don hym gret comfort, That by hus lyfe loveth hem, And loveth hem to huyre. Thuse solaceth the soule, Til hymself be falle In a wele good hope, for he wroghte so, Among worthy seyntes, Ther flaterers and foles Whith here foule wordes Leden tho that lithen hem To Luciferes feste, With _Turpiloquio_, a lay of sorwe, And Lucifers fitele, To perpetual peyne Other purgatorye as wykke, For he litheth and loveth That Godes lawe despiteth. _Qui histrionibus dat, dæmonibus sacrificat._ 3466. _qui manet, &c._ Epist. Joan. iv, 16. 3477. Epist. Paul, ad Ephes. iv, 8. 3484. Isai. ix, 2. 3496. Matt. ix, 13. 3502. John i, 14. 3520. Psalm xxxv, 8. 3545. _Signes of Synay, | and shelles of Galice ... keyes of Rome._ It is perhaps hardly necessary to remark that the articles mentioned here were borne by the pilgrim to indicate the particular holy sites which he had visited. The reader will readily call to mind the lines of a modern poet:-- The summon'd Palmer came in place, His sable cowl o'erhung his face; In his black mantle was he clad, With _Peter's keys_ in cloth of red On his broad shoulders wrought; The _scallop shell_ his cap did deck; The crucifix around his neck Was from Loretto brought. 3622. _Seint Thomas shryne._ St. Thomas of Canterbury. It may not perhaps be generally known that an interesting description of this shrine, when in its glory, is given by Erasmus, Colloq. _Peregrinatio Religionis ergo._ 3713. _eten apples un-rosted._ One of the many specimens of the burlesque manner in which scripture was frequently quoted in these times. A very singular passage (but in a tract professedly burlesque) occurs in the Reliquiæ Antiquæ, vol. i, p. 83:--"Peter askud Adam a full greyt dowtfull question, and seyd, 'Adam, Adam, why ete thu the appull unpard?' 'For sothe,' quod he, 'for y had no wardyns fryde.'" 3826. _leven_, should be _lenen_. 3890. Luke xiv, 10. 3944, 3948. Psalm lxviii, 29. 3997. _the rode of Lukes._ The second Trin. Col. MS. has _be the rode of Chestre._ There was a famous cross at Lucca, but whether a part of the real cross, I have not ascertained. Calvin, in his most able and entertaining _Admonitio de Reliquiis_, declines undertaking a list of all the places where pieces of the real cross were shown. "Denique si congesta in acervum essent omnia quæ reperiri possent, integrum navis onus efficerent: cum tamen evangelium testificetur ab unico homine ferri potuisse. Quantæ igitur audaciæ fuit, ligneis frustis sic totum implere orbem, quibus ferendis ne trecenti quidem homines sufficiant?" _Calvini_, _Opusc._ p. 277. There was also at Lucca one of the impressions of our Saviour's face on the handkerchief of Veronica. The peculiar oath of William Rufus was by the holy face at Lucca. 4027. _with hey trolly lolly._ MS. Trin. Col. 2. 4154. In the second Trin. Col. MS. the passage stands as follows:-- Ne hadde Peris but a pese lof, Thei preyede hym beleve, And with a bene batte He hadde betwene, And hitte hunger therwith Amydde hise lippes, And blodde in it the bodyward A bolle ful of growel, Ne hadde the fisician ferst Defendite him watir, To abate the barly bred, And the benis y-grounde, Thei hadde be ded be this day, And dolven al warm. Faitours for fer, etc. 4194. _Thei corven here coppes, | and courtepies made._ Whitaker, who translates it, "They _carved wooden cups_, and made themselves short cloaks." It ought to be, "They cut their copes to make courtpies (a kind of short cloaks) of them." 4242. Paul Epist. ad Galat. vi, 2. 4251. Scimus enim qui dixit, mihi vindicta, et ego retribuam. Paul. ad Heb. x, 30; conf. Paul. ad Rom. xii, 19. 4256. Luke xvi, 9. 4272. Propter frigus piger arare noluit. Prov. xx, 4. 4306. Labores manuum tuarum quia manducabis, beatus es et bene tibi erit. Psal. cxxvii, 2. 4336. _His mawe is alongid._ MS. Trin. Coll. 2. 4336. Whitaker's text inserts here the following passage, which is curious as containing the same word, _latchdrawers_, that occurs in Edward's statute, quoted before in the note to l. 88:-- Thenk that Dives for hus delicat lyf To the devel wente, And Lazar the lene beggere That longed after cromes, And yut had he hem nat, For ich Hunger culde hym, And suthe ich sauh hym sute, As he a syre were, At alle manere ese In Abrahame lappe. An yf you be of power, Peers, ich the rede, Alle that greden at thy gate For Godes love after fede, Parte wit hem of thy payn, Of potage and of souel, Lene hem som of thy loof, Thauh thu the lesse chewe. And thauh lyers and latchedrawers, And lolleres knocke, Let hem abyde tyl the bord be drawe, Ac bere hem none cromes, Tyl al thyn nedy neihebores Have none y-maked. 4339. _Phisik ... hise furred hodes ... his cloke of Calabre._ Whitaker cites, in illustration of the dress of the physician, the costume still worn by the Doctors of Medicine in the universities. Chaucer gives the following description of the dress of the "Doctour of Phisike":-- In sangwin and in pers he clad was al, Lyned with taffata, and with sendal. (Cant. T. Prolog. 441.) _Calabre_ appears to have been a kind of fur: a document in Rymer, quoted by Ducange, speaks of an _indumentum foderatum cum Calabre_. 4390. _ripe chiries manye._ This passage, joined with the mention of cherry-time in l. 2794, shows that cherries were a common fruit in the fourteenth century. "Mr. Gough, in his British Topography, says that cherries were first brought in by the Romans, but were afterwards lost and brought in again in the time of Henry VIII, by Richard Harris, the king's fruiterer; but this is certainly a mistake. When in the New Forest in Hampshire in the summer of 1808, I saw a great many cherry-trees, apparently, of much more considerable age than the time of Henry VIII. The _very old_ trees were universally of the kind called _merries_." H. E. 4431. Cato, Distich. i, 21:-- Infantem nudum quum te natura crearit, Paupertatis onus patienter ferre memento. 4453. _so seide Saturne._ See the Introduction, p. xii. 4490. Whitaker's text reads after this line:-- Leel and ful of love, And no lord dreden, Merciable to meek, And mylde to the goode, And bytynge on badde men Bote yf thei wolde amende, And dredeth nat for no deth To distruye by here powere Lecherie among lordes, And hure luther custymes, And sithen lyve as thei lereth men, Oure lorde Treuthe hem graunteth, To be peeres to Apostles, &c. 4525. _sette scolers to scole._ It was common in the _scholastic_ ages for scholars to wander about gathering money to support them at the universities. In a poem in MS. Lansdowne, No. 762, the husbandman, complaining of the many burdens he supports in taxes to the court, payments to the church, and charitable contributions of different kinds, enumerates among the latter the alms to scholars:-- Than cometh clerkys of Oxford, and mak their mone, To her scole-hire they most have money. 4547. Psa. xiv, 5. Qui pecuniam suam non dedit ad usuram, et munera super innocentem non accepit. 4571. Psa. xiv, 1. 4593. Matt. vii, 12. Luke vi, 31. 4618. _the clerc of stories._ Called, elsewhere, _maister of stories_. These names were given popularly to Peter Comestor, author of the famous Historia Scolastica, a paraphrase of the Bible history, with abundance of legendary matter added to it. The title given him by the author of Piers Ploughman is not uncommon in English treatises of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 102 (Ed. Halliwell), speaks of Comestor thus:-- _Maister of storyes_, this doctour ful notable, Holding a chalice here in a sonne cliere. 4619. _Catons techyng._ "Cui des videto," is the twenty-third of the "Distichorum Lemmata" of Dionysius Cato. 4621. Instead of ll. 4621-4658, the following long and curious passage is substituted in the text adopted by Mr. Whitaker:-- Wot no man, as ich wene, Who is worthy to have. The most needy aren oure neighebores, And we nyme good hede; As prisoners in puttes, And poore folke in cotes Charged with children And chef lordes rente, That thei spynnynge may spare, Spynen hit in hous hyre, Bothe in mylk and in mele. To maken with papelotes To aglotye with here gurles That greden after fode. Al so hemselve Suffren muche hunger, And wo in winter tyme; With wakyng a-nyghtes To ryse to the ruel, To rocke the cradel, Bothe to karde and to kembe, To clouten and to wasche, To rubbe and to rely, Russhes to pilie, That reuthe is to rede Othere in ryme shewe The wo that theese women That wonyeth in cotes, And of meny other men That muche wo suffren, Bothe a-fyngrede and a-furst, To turne the fayre outwarde; And beth abasshed for to begge, And wolle nat be y-knowe What hem needeth att here neihebores At non and at even. This Wit wot witerly, As the world techeth, What other byhoveth That hath meny children. And hath no catel bote hus crafte To clothy hem and to fede, And fele to fonge therto, And fewe pans taketh. Ther is payn and peny ale, As for a pytaunce y-take; Cold flesch and cold fyssh, For veneson y-bake. Frydays and fastyng-dayes Ferthyng worth of muscles Were a feste for suche a folke, Other so fele cockes. Theese were almes to helpe That han suche charges, And to comforte suche cotyers, And crokede men and blynde. Ac beggers with bagges, the wiche Brewhouses ben here churches, Bote thei be blynde other broke, Other elles syke, Thauh he falle for defaute, That faiteth for hus lyflode, Reicheth nevere, ye ryche, Thauh suche lorelles sterven; For all that han here hele And here eyen syghte, And lymes to laborye with, And lolleres lyf usen, Lyven ayens Godes lawe, And love of holy churche. And yut arn ther other beggers, In hele, as it semeth; Ac hem wanteth here witt, Men and women bothe, The wiche aren lunatik lollers And leperes aboute, And mad, as the mone sitt, More other lasse: Thei caren for no cold, Ne counteth of no hete, And are mevenge after the mone, Moneyles thei walke, With a good wil wit-lees, Meny wyde contreys, Ryght as Peter dude and Paul, Save that thei preche nat, Ne myracles maken; Ac meny tymes hem happeth To prophetien of the puple, Pleyninge, as hit were, And to oure sight, as hit semeth, Suththe God hath the myghte To yeven eche a whit wit, Welthe, and his hele, And suffreth suche so gon, Hit semeth to myn inwitt, Hit arn as hus aposteles suche puple, Other as his prevye disciples; For he sente hem forth selverles, In a somer garnement, Withoute bred and bagge, As the Bok telleth. _Quando misi vos sine pane et pera._ Bar fot and bred-les, Beggeth thei of no man; And thauh he mete with the meyere In mydest the strete, He reverenceth hym ryght nouht No rather than another. _Neminem salutaveris per viam_, Suche manere of men, Matheu ous techeth, We sholde have hem to house, And help hem when thei come. _Et egenos vagosque induc in domum tuam._ For hit aren murye mouthede men, Mynstrales of hevene And Godes boyes bordiours, As the Bok telleth. _Si quis videtur sapiens, fiet stultus ut sit sapiens._ And alle manere mynstrales, Men wot wel the sothe, To underfonge hem faire Byfalle for the ryche; For the lordes love and ladies That thei with lengen, Men suffren al that suche seyn, And in solas taken; And yut more to suche men Doth, er thei passe, Gyven hem gyftes and gold, For grete lordes sake. Ryght so, ye riche, Rather ye sholde, for sothe, Wolcomen and worsshepen And with youre goode helpen Godes mynstrales, and hus messagers, And hus murye burdiers, The wiche are lunatik lollares And leperes aboute. For under Godes secré seel Here synnes ben y-keverede. For thei bereth no bagges, Ne non botels under clokes, The wiche is lollaren lyf And lewede eremytes, That loken ful louheliche To lacchen mennes almesse, In hope to suten at even By the hote coles, Unlouke hus legges abrod, Other lygge at hus ese, Reste hym and roste hym, And his ryg turne, Drynke drue and deepe, And drawe hym thanne to bedde, And when hym lyketh and lust Hus leve ys is to aryse; When he rysen, rometh out, And ryght wel aspieth War he may rathest have a repast, Other a rounde of bacon, Sulver other fode-mete And some tyme bothe, A loof other alf a loof, Other a lompe of chese, And carieth it hom to hus cote, And cast hym to lyve In ydelnesse and in ese, And by others travayle. And wat frek of thys tolde Fisketh thus aboute With a bagge at hus bak, Abegeneldes wyse, And can som manere craft, In cas he wolde hit use. Thorgh wiche craft he couthe come To bred and to ale, And ovar more to an hater To helye with hus bones, And lyveth like a lollere, Godes lawe him dampneth. Lolleres lyvinge in sleuthe, And overe lond stryken, Beeth nat in thys bulle, quath Peers, Til thei ben amended. Nother beggars that beggen, Bote yf thei have neede. The Bok blameth alle beggerye, And banneth in this manere: etc. 4645. Luke xix, 23. 4659. Ps. xxxvi, 25. Junior fui, etenim senui: et non vidi justum derelictum, nec semen ejus quærens panem. 4695. Here again, after many verbal variations from our text, Whitaker's text adds the following long passage, which is very curious, and well worthy to be preserved. Whitaker calls it "one of the finest passages in the whole poem." Ac eremites that enhabiten hem By the heye weyes, And in borwes among brewesters, And beggen in churches Al that holy eremytes Hateden and despisede, As rychesses and reverences And ryche mennes almesse. These lolleres, latche-draweres, Lewede eremytes, Coveyten the contrarie, As cotyers thei lybben, For hit beth bote boyes, Lolleres atten ale, Of linguage of lettrure Ne lyf-holy as eremytes That wonnede wyle in wodes With beres and lyones. Some had lyflode of here lynage, And of no lyf elles; And some lyvede by here lettrure And labour of here hondes; Some had foreynes to frendes, That hem fode sente; And bryddes brouhten to some bred, Werby thei lyveden. Alle thuse holy eremytes Were of hye kynne, Forsoke londe and lordshep And lykynges of the body; Ac thuse eremytes, that edefyen Thus by the hye weyes, Wylen were workmen, Webbes and taillours, And carters knaves And clerkus without grace, Heelden hungry hous, And had much defaute, Long labour and lyte wynnynge, And atte laste aspiden That faitours in frere clothynge Had fatte chekus; For-thi lefte thei here laboure, Theese lewede knaves, And clothed hem in copes, Clerkus as hit were. Other on of som ordre, Othere elles prophite, Ayens the lawe he lyveth, Yf Latyn be trywe: _Non licet nobis legem voluntate, sed voluntatem conjungere legi._ Now kyndeliche, by Crist! Beth suche callyd lolleres, As by Englisch of oure eldres, Of olde menne techynge, He that lolleth his lame, Other his leg out of the joynte, Other meymed in som membre, For to meschief hit souneth; And ryght so sothlyche Suche manere eremytes Lollen ayen the bylyeve And lawe of holy churche. For holy churche hoteth Alle manere puple Under obedience to bee, And buxum to the lawe, Furst religious of religion Here ruele to holde, And under obedience to be By dayes and by nyghtes, Lewede men to laborie, Lordes to honte In frythes and in forestes For fox and other bestes That in wilde wodes ben, And in wast places, As wolves that wyrhyeth men, Wommen, and children, And upon Sonedayes to cesse, Godes service to huyre, Bothe matyns and messe, And after mete in churches To huyre here eve song Every man ouhte. Thus it bylongeth for lorde, For lered and lewede, Eche halyday to huyre Hollyche the service, Vigiles and fastyng dayes Forthere to knowe, And fulfille tho fastynges Bote infirmité hit made, Poverte othere penaunces, As pilgrymages and travayles. Under this obedience Arn we echone. Who so brekyeth this, be wel war, Bot yf he repente, Amenden hym and mercy aske, And meekliche hym shryve, Ich drede me, and he deye, Hit worth for dedlich synne Acounted byfore Crist, Bote Conscience excuse hym. Loke now were theese lolleres And lewede eremytes, Yf thei breke thys obedience That ben so fro churche, Wher see we hem on Sonedays The servise to huyre? As matyns by the morwe Tyl masse bygynne, Other Sonedays at eve songe, See we wol fewe; Othere labory for our lyflode As the lawe wolde Ac at mydday meel tyme Ich mete with hem ofte, Conynge in a cope As he a clerke were, A bachelor other a beaupere Best hym bysemeth, And for the cloth that kevereth hem Cald his here a frere, Whassheth and wypeth, And with the furste suteth. Ac while he wrought in thys worlde, And wan hus mete with Treuthe, He sat atte syd benche And secounde table, Com no wyn in hus wombe Thorw the weke longe, Nother blankett in hus bed, Ne white bred byfore hym. The cause of al thys caitifté Cometh of meny bisshepes, That suffren suche sottes And othere synnes regne. Certes ho so thurste hit segge, _Symon quasi dormit._ _Vigilate_ were fairour, For thow hast gret charge: For meny waker wolves Ben broke into foldes. Thyne berkeres ben al blynde, That bryngeth forth thy lambren; _Disperguntur oves_, thi dogge Dar nat beerke. The tarre is untydy That to thyne sheep bylongeth; Hure salve ys of _supersedeas_ In someneres boxes, Thyne sheep are ner al shabbyd, The wolf sheteth woolle. _Sub molli pastore lupus lanam cacat, et grex incustoditus dilaceratur eo._ Hoow hurde wher is thyn hounde, And thyn hardy herte, For to wyne the wolf That thy woolle fouleth. Ich leyve for thy lacchesse Thow leest meny wederes, And ful meny fayre flus Falsliche wasshe. When thy lord loketh to have Alowance for hus bestes, And of the monye thow haddist thermyd, Hus meable to save, And the woolle worth weye, Woo ys the thenne! _Redde rationem villicationis tuæ_, Other arerage, ffalle. Then hyre hurde, as ich hope, Hath nouht to quyty thy dette, Ther as mede ne mercy May nat a myte avayle, Bote have this for that, Tho that thow toke Mercy for mede, And my lawe breke; Loke now for thi lacchesse Whether lawe wol the graunt Purgatorie for thy paye, Other perpetuel helle. For shal no pardone praye for yowe ther, Nother princes letteres. 4708. Matth. xxv, 46. Et ibunt hi in supplicium æternum; justi autem in vitam æternam. 4721. Psal. xxii, 4. 4739. Psal. xli, 4. 4745. Luke xii, 22. Conf. Matth. vi, 25. 4764. "Dixit insipiens in corde suo, non est Deus," is the commencement of Psalms xiii. and lii. 4769. Prov. xxii, 10. Ejice derisorem, et exibit cum eo jurgium, cessabuntque causæ et contumeliæ. 4771. _Perkyn_, the diminutive of Peter, or Piers. Formerly the diminutives of people's names were constantly used as marks of familiarity or endearment, as Hawkyn or Halkyn for Henry, Tymkyn for Tim or Timothy, Dawkyn for David, Tomkyn for Thomas, &c. 4796. Cato, Distich. ii, 31. Somnia ne cures, nam mens humana quod optans, Dum vigilat, sperat, per somnum cernit id ipsum. 4847. Matth. xvi, 19. 4941. Prov. xxiv, 16. Septies enim cadet justus, _et resurget_; impii autem corruent in malum. 4963. _To falle and to stonde._ I by no means agree with Price's interpretation of this phrase, or in his preference of the reading _to falle if he stonde_. (Note on Warton ii, 67.) The motion of the boat causes the firm man alternately to fall and stand; be he ever so stable, he stumbles now and then, but his strength is shown in his being able to recover himself. Such are the moral slips which even the just man cannot avoid. But if the man in the boat be too weak to arise again and place himself at the helm, his boat and himself will be lost for want of strength and guidance. So it is with the wicked man. The completion of the phrase quoted from Proverbs, as given in the preceding note, shows the justice of this explanation. 5014. _if I may lyve and loke._ Price (in Warton) first pointed out the identity between this expression and the one so common in Homer: it is "one of those primitive figures which are common to the poetry of every country." [Greek: Outis, emeu zôntos kai epi chthoni derkomenoio,] [Greek: Soi koilêis para nêusi bareias cheiras epoisei.] Il. i, 88. Whitaker's interpretation is nonsense, "If I have space to live and look in the book." Other instances of this phrase occur in ll. 12132, 13268, and 13303 of Piers Ploughman. 5082. 2 Corinth. xi, 19. 5157. _of four kynnes thynges._ The medieval notion of the manner in which the elements were mixed together in the formation of the human body, here alluded to, appears to partake more of Western legend than of Eastern tradition. In the English verses on Popular Science (given in my "Popular Treatises of Science written during the Middle Ages," p. 138), we have the following curious account of the four things forming the body, and the influence of each:-- Man hath of urthe al his bodi, of water he haveth wete, Of eyr he haveth wynd, of fur he haveth hete. Ech quic thing of alle this foure, of some hath more other lasse; Ho so haveth of urthe most, he is slou as an asse; Of vad colour, of hard hide, boustes forme, and ded strong, Of moche thoght, of lute speche, of stille grounynge, and wraththe long, A slough wrecche and ferblet, fast and loth to geve his god, Sone old, and noght wilful, stable and stedefast of mode. And so on with the other elements. This doctrine of the composition of man from the four elements became a very popular one in the sixteenth century, when the poets frequently allude to it, as may be seen in the examples given by Nares (_v._ ELEMENTS). In the _Mirror for Magistrates_ (_King Forrex_, page 76), it is said:-- If we behold the substance of a man, How he is made of _elements_ by kind, Of earth, of water, aire, and fire, than We would full often call unto our mind, That all our earthly joys we leave behind. Massinger (_Renegado_ iii, 2) says:-- ----I've heard Schoolmen affirm, man's body is compos'd Of _the four elements_. In Shakespeare (_Twel. N._ ii, 3), Sir Toby Belch inquires, "Does not our life consist of _the four elements_?" and Brutus is commended for possessing these elements properly blended, in which the perfection of a man's nature was supposed to consist:-- His life was gentle; and the _elements_ So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, This _was a man_. _Jul. Cæs._ v, 5. On the other hand, the ill mixing of these elements was supposed to be accompanied with a corresponding derangement of the intellectual faculties. Thus, in one of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, a madman is addressed:-- I prithee, thou _four elements_ ill brew'd Torment none but thyself: Away, I say, Thou beast of passion. _B. and Fl. Nice Valour_, act i, p. 312. The more mythic form of this legend gives _eight things_ to the formation of the body, instead of four. Our earliest notice of this legend in England occurs in the prose Anglo-Saxon Dialogue between Saturn and Solomon (Thorpe's Analecta, p. 95):--"Saga me þæt andworc þe Adám wæs of-ge-worht se ærusta man? Ic þe secge of viii punda ge-wihte. Saga me hwæt hatton þage? Ic þe secge þæt æroste wæs fóldan pund, of ðam him wæs flesc ge-worht; oðer wæs fyres pund, þanon him wæs þæt blód reád and hát; þridde wæs windes pund, þanon him wæs seo æðung ge-seald; feorðe wæs wolcnes pund, þanon him wæs his módes unstaðelfæstnes ge-seald; fifte wæs gyfe pund, þanon him wæs ge-seald se fat and geðang; syxste wæs blostnena pund, þanon him wæs eagena myssenlicnys ge-seald; seofoðe wæs deawes pund, þanon him becom swat; eahtothe wæs sealtes pund, þanon him wæron þa tearas sealte."--_Tell me the matter of which Adam the first man was made? I tell thee, of eight pound-weights. Tell me their names? I tell thee, the first was a pound of earth, of which his flesh was made; the second was a pound of fire, from which his blood was red and hot; the third was a pound of wind, of which breath was given him; the fourth was a pound of cloud, whereof was given him his instability of mood; the fifth was a pound of ..., whereof was given him fat and sinew; the sixth was a pound of flowers, whereof was given him diversity of eyes; the seventh was a pound of dew, whereof he had sweat; the eighth was a pound of salt, whereof he had salt tears._ This legend was still prevalent in England as late as the fifteenth century, when we find it among the curious collection of questions (closely resembling those of Saturn and Solomon just quoted) entitled "Questions bitwene the Maister of Oxinford and his Scoler" (Reliquiæ Antiquæ, vol. i, p. 230),--"_C._ Whereof was Adam made? _M._ Of viij. thingis: the first of erthe, the second of fire, the iij^{de} of wynde, the iiij^{th} of clowdys, the v^{th} of aire wherethorough he speketh and thinketh, the vj^{th} of dewe wherby he sweteth, the vij^{th} of flowres, wherof Adam hath his ien, the viij^{th} is salte wherof Adam hath salt teres." A similar account is given in an extract from an old Friesic manuscript communicated to the Zeitschrift für Deutsches Alterthum, by Dr. James Grimm,--"God scôp thene êresta meneska, thet was Adam, fon achta wendem; that bênete fon tha stêne, thet flâsk fon there erthe, thet blôd fon tha wetere, tha herta fon tha winde, thene togta (l. thochta) fon tha wolken, the(ne) suêt fon tha dawe, tha lokkar fon tha gerse, tha âgene fon there sunna, and tha blêrem on thene helga ôm."--_God created the first man, who was Adam, of eight elements: the bone from the stone, the flesh from the earth, the blood from the water, the heart from the wind, the thought from the cloud, the sweat from the dew, the hair from the grass, the eyes from the sun._ 5169. _a proud prikere of Fraunce._ A proud rider of France. Until the fifteenth century there appears to have been a strong prejudice among the lower orders against horsemen: their name was connected with oppressors and foreigners. Horses appear to have been comparatively little used for riding among the Anglo-Saxons until they were introduced by the Norman favourites of Edward the Confessor, in whose reign we read that the Anglo-Saxon soldiers in Herefordshire were defeated by the Welsh owing to their awkwardness on horseback, having been unadvisedly mounted by their Norman commander. The Anglo-Norman barons of the three following centuries, with their numerous household of knights and attendants who plundered and oppressed the peasantry and middle classes of society, kept alive the prejudice alluded to, and we trace it in several popular songs. In a song of the reign of Edward I (Political Songs, p. 240), we find the following lines:-- Whil God wes on erthe And wondrede wyde, Whet wes the resoun Why he nolde ryde? For he nolde no grom To go by ys syde, Ne grucchyng of no gedelyng To chaule ne to chyde. Spedeth ou to spewen, Ase me doth to spelle; The fend ou afretie With fleis ant with felle! Herkneth hideward, horsmen, A tidyng ich ou telle, That ye shulen hongen, Ant herbarewen in helle! 5276. Epist. ad. Philippens. iii, 19. 5283. Epist. Joan. iv, 16. 5289. Matth. xxv, 12; Psal. lxxx, 13. Et dimisi eos secundum desideria cordis eorum, ibunt in adventionibus suis. 5305. _the four doctours._ The four doctors _par excellence_ of the western church were, I believe, Gregory, Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome. 5354. Ecclesiast. i, 16. 5363. Epist. Jacob. ii, 10. Quicunque autem totam legem servaverit, offendat autem in uno, factus est omnium reus. 5412. _as Caym was on Eve._ See further on l. 5549. According to a very curious legend, which was popular in the middle ages, Cain was born during the period of penitence and fasting to which our first parents were condemned for their breach of obedience. 5415. Psa. vii, 15. Concepit dolorem et peperit iniquitatem. 5417. Whitaker's text inserts before this line-- Caym, the cursed creature, Conceyved was in synne; After that Adam and Eve Hadden y-synged, Withoute repentaunce Of here rechelessnesse, A rybaud thei engendrede, And a gome unryghtful; As an hywe that ereth nat Auntreth hym to sowe On a leye lond, Ayens hus lordes wille, So was Caym conceyved, And so ben cursed wrettches That lycame han ayen the lawe That oure Lord ordeynede. 5433. Gen. vi, 7. pænitet enim me fecisse eos. 5464. Ezech. xviii, 20. 5470. Whitaker's text adds here:-- Westminster lawe, ich wot, Worcheth the contrarie; For thauh the fader be a frankelayne, And for a felon be hanged, The heritage that the air sholde have Ys at the kynges wille. 5479. Matt. vii, 16. 5497. John xiv, 6. 5507. _many a peire, sithen the pestilence._ The continuator of William de Nangis, who gives a detailed account of the effects of the great pestilence on the Continent, mentions the hasty marriages which followed it, but he gives quite a different account of their fruitfulness. "Cessante autem dicta epidimia, pestilentia, et mortalitate, nupserunt viri qui remanserunt et mulieres ad invicem, conceperunt uxores residuæ per mundum ultra modum, nulla sterilis efficiebatur, sed prægnantes hinc inde videbantur, et plures geminos pariebant, et aliquæ tres infantes insimul vivos emittebant." The writer goes on to observe, "Sed proh dolor! ex hujus renovatione sæculi non est mundus propter hoc in melius commutatus. Nam homines fuerunt postea magis avari et tenaces, cum multo plura bona quam antea possiderent; magis etiam cupidi et per lites, brigas, et rixas, atque per placita, seipsos conturbantes.... Charitas etiam ab illo tempore refrigescere cæpit valde, et iniquitas abundavit cum ignorantiis et peccatis; nam pauci inveniebantur qui scirent aut vellent in domibus, villis, et castris informare pueros in grammaticalibus rudimentis."--_Contin. G. de Nangis, in Dacherii Spicileg._ iii, 110 (_ed._ 1723). 5515. _do hem to Dunmowe._ This is, I believe, the earliest allusion at present known to the custom of the flitch of bacon at Dunmow, which was evidently, at that time, a matter of general celebrity. In Chaucer, about half a century later, the Wife of Bath says of her two old husbands, and of the way in which she tyrannized over them,-- The bacoun was nought fet for hem, I trowe, That som men fecche in Essex at Donmowe.--_Cant. T._ 5799. In a curious religious poem preserved in a manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, written about the year 1460, from which some extracts are printed in the "Reliquiæ Antiquæ," ii, 27-29, we have the following satirical allusion to this custom:-- I can fynde no man now that wille enquere The parfyte wais unto Dunmow; For they repent hem within a yere, And many within a weke, and sonner, men trow; That cawsith the weis to be rowgh and over-grow, That no man may fynd path or gap, The world is turnyd to another shap. Befe and moton wylle serve wele enow; And for to seche so ferre a lytill bakon flyk, Which hath long hanggid resty and tow And the wey, I telle you, is comborous and thyk, And thou might stomble, and take the cryk; Therfor bide at home, what so ever hap Tylle the world be turnyd into another shap. One or two other allusions to this custom have been found in manuscripts of the fifteenth century, and in the sixteenth century these allusions become more numerous. 5563. 1 Corinth. vii, 1. 5613. _Margery perles._ A margarite pearl, _perle marguerite_. The Latin name for a pearl (_margarita_) seems to be the origin of this expression. 5634. _a love day | to lette with truthe._ Love days (_Dies amoris_) were days fixed for settling differences by umpire, without having recourse to law or to violence. The ecclesiastics seem generally to have had the principal share in the management of these transactions, which throughout the Visions of Piers Ploughman appear to be censured as the means of hindering justice and of enriching the clergy. A little further on, Religion is blamed for being "a ledere of love-dayes." (l. 6219.) In Chaucer, it is said of the friar:-- And over'al, ther eny profyt schulde arise, Curteys he was, and lowe of servyse. . . . . . . And rage he couthe and pleye as a whelpe, In love-dayes, ther couthe he mochil helpe. For ther was he not like a cloysterer With a thredbare cope, as a pore scoler, But he was like a maister or a pope.--_Cant. T._ 249, 259. 5646. The quotation is made up from Job xxi, 7; and Jerem. xii, 2. 5651. Psal. lxxii, 12. 5659. Psal. x, 4. Quoniam quæ perfecisti, destruxerunt: justus autem quid fecit? 5739. Psal. cxxxi, 6. 5769. Isai. lviii, 7. 5778. Tob. iv, 9. Si multum tibi fuerit, abundanter tribue; si exiguum tibi fuerit, etiam exiguum libenter impertiri stude. In what follows, Whitaker's text is in parts much more brief than the one now printed; there are also many transpositions, and other variations, which are not of sufficient importance to be pointed out more particularly. 5801. _in a pryvee parlour._ 5803. _in a chambre with a chymenee._ This is a curious illustration of contemporary manners. The hall was the apartment in which originally the lord of the household and the male portion of the family passed nearly all their time when at home, and where they lived in a manner in public. The chambers were only used for sleeping, and as places of retirement for the ladies, and had, at first, no fire-places (_chymenees_), which were added, in course of time, for their comfort. The parlour was an apartment introduced also at a comparatively late period, and was, as its name indicates, a place for private conferences or conversation. As society advanced in refinement, people sought to live less and less in public, and the heads of the household gradually deserted the hall, except on special occasions, and lived more in the parlour and in the "chambre with a chymenee." With the absence of the lord from the hall, its festive character and indiscriminate hospitality began to diminish; and the popular agitators declaimed against this as an unmistakeable sign of the debasement of the times. 5829. Ezech. xviii, 19. 5835. Galat. vi, 5. 5844. Pauli Epist. ad Rom. xii, 3. 5911. _seven artz._ In the scholastic system of the middle ages, the whole course of learning was divided into seven arts, which were, grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, music, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy. They were included in the following memorial distich:-- Gram. loquitur, Dia. vera docet, Rhet. verba colorat, Mus. canit, Ar. numerat, Geo. ponderat, As. colit astra. 5963. _a baleys._ See before, the note on l. 2819. 5990. _Caton._ Distich. lib. i, 26. 6009. Galat. vi, 10. 6022. Epist. ad Rom. xii, 19. 6037. The second Trin. Coll. MS. reads here-- Experimentis of Alkenemye Of Albertis makyng, Nigromancie and permansie The pouke to reisen, Gif thou thenke, etc. 6146. Matth. vii, 3. 6179. Matth. xv, 14; Luke vi, 39; Mark (?) 6186. _mausede._ An error of the press for _mansede_. See the Glossary. 6191. _Offyn and Fynes_. Ophni and Phinees. See 1 Samuel iv. (in the Vulgate called 1 Kings). 6199. Psal. xlix, 21. 6207. Isai. lvi, 10. 6217. The text of the Trin. Coll. MS. 2, differs very much from ours in this part of the poem. Instead of 6217-6277, we have the following lines:-- Ac now is Religioun a ridere And a rennere aboute, A ledere of ladies, And a lond biggere; Poperith on a palfrey To toune and to toune; A bidowe or a biselard He berith be his side; Godis flessh and his fet And hise fyve woundis Arn more in his mynde Than the memorie of his foundours. This is the lif of this lordis That lyven shulde with Do-bet, And wel awey wers, And I shulde al telle. I wende that kinghed and knighthed, And caiseris with erlis, Wern Do-wel and Do-bet And Do-best-of-hem-alle. For I have seighe it myself, And siththen red it aftir, How Crist counseilleth the comune, And kenneth hem this tale, _Super cathedram Moisi sederunt principes_ For-thi I wende that tho wyes Wern Do-best-of-alle. I nile not scorne, etc. 6223. _an heepe of houndes._ "Walter de Suffield, bishop of Norwich, bequeathed by will his pack of hounds to the king, in 1256. Blomefield's Norf. ii, 347. See Chaucer's Monke, Prol. v, 165. This was a common topic of satire. It occurs again fol. xxvii, a [l. 3321, of the present Edition]. See Chaucer's Testament of Love, page 492, col. ii, Urr. The Archdeacon of Richmond, on his visitation, comes to the priory of Bridlington in Yorkshire, in 1216, with ninety-seven horses, twenty dogs, and three hawks. Dugd. Mon. ii, 65." WARTON. 6251. Psal. xix, 8. 6259. _the abbot of Abyngdone._ There was a very ancient and famous abbey at Abingdon in Berkshire. Geoffrey of Monmouth was abbot there. It was the house into which the monks, strictly so called, were first introduced in England, and is, therefore, very properly introduced as the representative of English monachism. 6266. Isai. xiv, 4, 5. 6289. Ecclesiasticus x, 10. 6291. Catonis Distich. iv, 4. Dilige denari, sed parce dilige, formam; Quem nemo sanctus nec honestus captat ab ære. 6327. Colos. iii, 1. 6353. _moechaberis._ A mistake in the original MS. for _necaberis_, as it is rightly printed in Crowley's edition. 6372. John iii, 13. 6414. Matth. xxiii, 2. Super cathedram Moysi sederunt Scribæ et Pharisæi. 6440. Psal. xxxv, 8. 6476. Ecclesiastes ix, 1. 6504. Matth. x, 18. The quotation is not quite literal. 6528. For _idiotæ irapiunt_, read _idiotæ vi rapiunt_: the error was caused accidentally in the printing, and has escaped in the present edition. 6571. Matth. xx, 4. 6741. John iii, 3. 6755. Matth. vii, 1. 6764. Psal. l, 21. 6815. Isai. lv, 1. 6825. Mark xvi, 16. 6831. _may no cherl chartre make._ Such was the law of _vileinage_, then in existence. There is a curious story illustrative of the condition of the _cherl_ or peasant, in the Descriptio Norfolciensium, in my Early Mysteries and other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, p. 94. The 'cherl,' vilein, or bondman, could not even be put apprentice without the licence of the lord of the soil. In the curious poem on the Constitution of Masonry (14th cent.) published by Mr. Halliwell, the master is particularly cautioned on this point:-- The fowrthe artycul thys moste be, That the mayster hym wel be-se That he no bondemon prentys make, Ny for no covetyse do hym take; For the lord that he ys bonde to, May fache the prentes whersever he go. _Early History of Freemasonry in England_, p. 14. 6859. _Trojanus._ 6869. _Gregorie._ The legend here alluded to is given briefly as follows, in the life of St. Gregory in the Golden Legend, fol. lxxxxvii,-- "In the tyme that Trayan themperour regned, and on a tyme as he wente toward a batayll out of Rome, it happed that in hys waye as he shold ryde a woman a wydowe came to hym wepyng and sayd: I praye thee, syre, that thou avenge the deth of one my sone, whyche innocently and wythout cause hath ben slayn. Themperour answerd: yf I come agayn fro the batayll hool and sounde, thenne I shall do justyce for the deth of thy sone. Thenne sayd the wydowe: Syre, and yf thou deye in the bataylle, who shall thenne avenge hys deth for me? And the wydowe sayd, is it not better that thou do to me justice, and have the meryte thereof of God, than another have it for thee? Then had Trayan pyté, and descended fro his horse, and dyde justyce in avengynge the deth of her sone. On a tyme saynt Gregory went by the marked of Rome whyche is called the marked of Trayan. And thenne he remembred of the justyce and other good dedes of Trayan, and how he had ben pyteous and debonayr, and was moche sorowfull that he had ben a paynem; and he tourned to the chyrche of saynt Peter waylyng for thorrour of the mescreaunce of Trayan. Thenne answerd a voys fro God, sayng: I have now herd thy prayer, and have spared Trayan fro the payne perpetuelly. By thys thus, as somme saye, the payne perpetuell due to Trayan as a mescreaunt was somme dele take awaye, but for all that was he not quyte fro the pryson of helle; for the sowle may well be in helle, and fele ther no payne, by the mercy of God." 6907. 1 John iii, 15. 6938. Luke xiv, 12. 6964. John viii, 34. 6981. Galat. vi, 2. 7015. Matth. vii, 3. 7063. Luke x, 40. 7072. Luke x, 42. 7113. Although our writer quotes the circumstance from Luke xviii, the words he gives are from Matth. xix, 21. 7113. In Whitaker's text the following passage is here inserted:-- Thus consaileth Crist In comun ous alle, 'Ho so coveyteth to come To my kynriche, He mot forsake hymself, Hus suster, and hus brother, And al that the worlde wolde, And my wil folwen.' _Nisi renunciaveritis omnia quæ possidetis, etc._ Meny proverbis ich myghte have Of meny holy seyntes, To testifie for treuthe The tale that ich shewe, And poetes to preoven hit, Porfirie and Plato, Aristotle, Ovidius, And ellevene hundred, Tullius, Tholomeus, Ich can nat telle here names, Preoven pacient poverte Pryns of alle vertues. And by greyn that groweth, God ous alle techeth. _Nisi granum frumenti cadens in terra, et mortuum fuit, ipsum solum manet._ Bot yf that sed that sowen is, In the sloh sterve, Shal nevere spir springen up, Ne spik on strawe curne; Sholde nevere wete wexe, Bote wete fyrste deyde; And other sedes also In the same wyse, That ben leide on louh eerthe, Y-lore as hit were, And thorw the grete grace of God, Of greyn ded in erthe Atte the laste launceth up Werby lyven alle. Ac sedes that ben sowen And mowe suffre wyntres, Aren tydyor and tower To mannes by-hofte, Than seedes that sowen beeth And mowe nouht with forste, With wyndes, ne with wederes, As in wynter tyme, As lynne-seed, and lik-seed, And Lente-seedes alle, Aren nouht so worthy as whete, Ne so wel mowen In the feld with the forst, And hit freese longe. Ryght so, for sothe, That suffre may penaunces Worth alowed of oure Lorde At here laste ende, And for here penaunce be preysed, As for puyre martir, Other for a confessour y-kud, That counteth nat a ruysshe Fere ne famyne, Ne false menne tonges; Bote as an hosebonde hopeth After an hard wynter, Yf God gyveth hym the lif To have a good hervest, So preoveth thees prophetes That pacientliche suffreth Myschiefs and myshappes, And menye tribulacions, Bytokneth ful triweliche In tyme comynge after Murthe for hus mornynge, And that muche plenté. For Crist seide to hus seyntes That for hus sake tholeden Poverte, penaunces, Persecution of body, Angeles in here angre On this wise hem grate, _Tristitia vestra vertetur in gaudium._ Youre sorwe into solas Shal turne atte laste, And out of wo into wele Youre wyrdes shul chaunge. Ac so redeth of riche, The revers he may fynde, How God, as the Godspel telleth, Geveth hem foul towname, And that hus gost shal go, And hus good byleve, And asketh hym after Ho shal hit have, The catel that he kepeth so In coffres and in hernes, And ert so loth to lene Thet leve shalt needes. _O stulte, ista nocte anima tua egrediatur, thesauriza et ignorat._ An unredy reve Thi residue shal spene, That menye moththe was ynne In a mynte while; Upholderes on the hul Shullen have hit to selle. Lo! lo! lordes, lo! And ladies taketh hede, Hit lasteth nat longe That is lycour swete, Ac pees-coddes and pere-ronettes, Plomes and chiries, That lyghtliche launceth up, Litel wile dureth, And that that rathest rypeth, Roteth most sannest. On fat londe and ful of donge Foulest wedes groweth, Right so, for sothe, Suche that ben bysshopes, Erles and archdekenes, And other ryche clerkes. That chaffaren as chapmen, And chiden bote thei wynne, And haven the worlde at here wil Other wyse to lyve; Right as weodes wexen In wose and in dunge, So of rychesse upon richesse Arist al vices. Lo! lond overe-layde With marle and with donge, Whete that wexeth theron Worth lygge ar hit repe; Right so, for sothe, For to sigge treuthe, Over plenté pryde norssheth Ther poverte destrueth hit. For how hit evere be y-wonne, Bote hit be wel dispended, Worliche wele is wuked thynge To hym that hit kupeth. For yf he be feer therfro, Ful ofte hath he drede That fals folke fetche away Felonliche hus godes. And yut more hit maketh men Meny time and ofte To synegen, and to souchen Soteltees of gyle, For covetyze of that catel To culle hem that hit kepeth; And so is meny men y-morthred For hus money and goodes; And tho that duden the dede Y-dampned therfore after, And he, for hus harde heldynge, In helle paraunter; So covetise of catel Was combraunce to hem alle. Lo! how pans purchasede Faire places, and drede, That rote is robbers The richesse withynne. [_Passus quartus de Dowel._] Ac wel worth Poverte, For he may walke unrobbede, Among pilours in pees, Yf pacience hym folwe, Oure prynce Jhesu poverte chees, And hus aposteles alle, And ay the lenger thei lyveden The lasse good thei hadde. _Tanquam nihil habentes, et omnia possidentes._ Yut men that of Abraam And Job were wonder ryche, And out of numbre tho men Menye meobles hadden. Abraam, for al hus good, Hadde muche teene, In gret poverte was y-put, A pryns as hit were Bynom hym ys housewif And heeld here hymself, And Abraam nat hardy Ones to letten hym, Ne for brightnesse of here beauté Here spouse to be byknowe. And for he suffrede and seide nouht, Oure Lord sente tokne, That the kynge cride To Abraam mercy, And deliverede hym hus wif, With muche welthe after. And also Job the gentel What joye hadde he on erthe, How bittere he hit bouhte! As the book telleth. And for he songe in hus sorwe, _Si bona accipimus a Domino_, Dereworthe dere God, Do we so _mala_; Al hus sorwe to solas Thorgh that songe turnede, And Job bycam a jolif man, And al hus joye newe. Lo how patience in here poverte Thees patriarkes relevede, And brouhte hem al above That in bale rotede, As greyn that lyth in the greot And thorgh grace atte laste Spryngeth up and spredeth, So spedde the fader Abraam, And also the gentel Job, Here joie hath non ende. Ac leveth nouht, ye lewede men, That ich lacke richesse, Thauh ich preise poverte thus, And preove hit by ensamples, Worthiour as by holy writ, And wise philosophers, Bothe two but goode, Be ye ful certayn, And lyves that our Lorde loveth, And large weyes to hevene. Ac the povre pacient Purgatorye passeth Rathere than the ryche, Thauh thei renne at ones. For yf a marchaunt and a messager Metten to-gederes, For the parcels of hus paper And other pryvey dettes, Wol lette hym as ich leyve The lengthe of a myle; The messager doth namore Bote hus mouth telleth, Hus lettere and hus ernde sheweth, And is anon delyvered; And thauh thei wende by the wey Tho two to-gederes. Thauh the messager made hus wey Amyde the whete, Wole no wys man wroth be, Ne hus wed take, Ys non haiwarde y-hote Hus wed for to take. _Necessitas non habet legem._ Ac yf the marchaunt make hus way Overe menne cornne, And the haywarde happe With hym for to mete, Other hus hatt, other hus hed, Other elles hus gloves, The merchaunt mot for-go, Other moneys of huse porse, And yut be lett, as ich leyve, For the lawe asketh Marchauns for here merchandise In meny place to tullen. Yut thauh thei wenden on wey As to Wynchestre fayre, The marchaunt with hus marchaundise May nat go so swythe As the messager may, Ne with so mochel ese. For that on bereth bote a boxe, A brevet therynne, Ther the marchaunt ledeth a male With meny kynne thynges; And dredeth to be ded therefore, And he in derke mete With robbours and with revers That riche men despoilen, Ther the messager is ay murye, Hus mouthe ful of songes, And leyveth for hus letters That no wight wol hym greve. Ac yut myghte the marchaunt Thorgh monye and other yeftes Have hors and hardy men, Thauh he mette theoves, Wolde non suche asailen hym For hem that hym folweth, As safliche passe as the messager, And as sone at hus hostel. Ye, wyten wel, ye wyse men, What this is to mene. The marchaunt is no more to mene Bote men that ben ryche Aren acountable to Crist And to the kyng of hevene, That holden mote the heye weye, Evene ten hestes, Bothe lovye and lene, The leele and the unleele, And have reuthe, and releve With hus grete richesse By hus power alle manere men In meschief y-falle, Fynde beggars bred, Backes for the colde, Tythen here goodes tryweliche, A tol as hit semeth That oure Lord loketh after Of eche a lyf that wyneth, Withoute wyles other wrong, Other wommen atte stuwes, And yut more, to make pees, And quyte menne dettes, Bothe spele and spare To spene upon the needful, As Crist self comandeth To alle Cristene puple. _Alter alterius onera porta._ The messager aren the mendinans That lyveth by menne almesse, Beth nat y-bounde, as beeth the riche, To bothe the two lawes, To lene and to lere, Ne lentenes to faste, And other pryvey penaunces The wiche the preest wol wel, That the law yeveth leve Suche lowe folke to be excused, As none tythes to tythen, Ne clothe the nakede, Ne in enquestes to come, Ne contumax thauh he worthe Halyday other holy eve Hus mete to deserve; For yf he loveth and byleyveth As the lawe techeth, _Qui crediderit et baptizatus fuerit, etc._ Telleth the lord a tale, As a triwe messager, And sheweth by seel and suthe by lettere With wat lord he dwelleth, Kneweleche hym crystene And of holy churche byleyve, Ther is no lawe, as ich leyve, Wol let hym the gate, Ther God is gatwarde hymself And eche a gome knoweth. The porter of pure reuthe May parforme the lawe In that he wilneth and wolde Ech wight as hemself; For the wil is as muche worth Of a wretche beggere As al that the ryche may reyme And ryght fulliche dele, And as much mede For a myte that he offreth, As the riche man for al is moneye, And more, as by the Godspel: _Amen dico vobis quia hæc vidua paupercula, etc._ So that povre pacient Is parfitest lif of alle, And alle parfit preestes To poverte sholde drawe. 7128. Matth. xvii, 20. 7131. Psal. xxxiii, 11. 7141. Psal. xlii, 1. 7191. James ii, 10. 7194. _over-skipperis._ Those who skipped over words in reading or chanting the service of the church. The following distich points out the classes of defaulters in this respect:-- Ecclesiæ tres sunt qui servitium maie fallunt; Momylers, for-scyppers, ovre-lepers, non bene psallunt. _Reliq. Antiq._ p. 90. _Poems of Walter Mapes_, p. 148. A still more numerous list of such offenders is given in the following lines from MS. Lansdowne, 762, fol. 101, v^o:-- Hii sunt qui Psalmos corrumpunt nequitur almos: Jangler cum jasper, lepar, galper quoque, draggar, Momeler, for-skypper, for-reynner, sic et over-leper, Fragmina verborum Tutivillus colligit horum. Tutivillus was the popular name of one of the fiends (see Towneley Mysteries, pp. 310, 319; Reliq. Antiq. p. 257). According to an old legend, a hermit walking out met one of the devils bearing a large sack, very full, under the load of which he seemed to labour. The hermit asked him what he carried in his sack. He answered that it was filled with the fragments of words which the clerks had skipped over or mutilated in the performance of the service, and that he was carrying them to hell to be deposited among the stores there. 7195. Psal. xlvi, 7, 8. 7264. _Briddes I biheld._ A similar sentiment is expressed in the following parallel passage of a modern poet:-- But most of all it wins my admiration To view the structure of this little work-- A bird's nest. Mark it well, within, without, No tool had he that wrought, no knife to cut, No nail to fix, no bodkin to insert, No glue to join; his little beak was all: And yet how neatly finished! What nice hand, With every implement and means of art, And twenty years' apprenticeship to boot, Could make me such another? Fondly then We boast of excellence, where noblest skill Instinctive genius foils.--_Hurdis._ 7342. Ecclesiasticus xi, 9. 7344. Instead of ll. 7344-7363, Whitaker's text has the following passage:-- 'Ho suffreth more than God?' quath he, 'No gome, as ich leyve. He myght amende in a mynt while Al that amys stondes. Ac he suffreth, in ensaumple That we sholde all suffren. Ys no vertue so feyr Of value ne of profit, As ys suffraunce, soveraynliche, So hit be for Godes love, And so wittnesseth the wyse, And wysseth the Frenshe, _Bele vertue est suffraunce, Mal dire est petite venjaunce; Bien dire e bien suffrer Fait ly suffrable à bien vener._ For-thi.' quath Reson, 'Ich rede the, Rewele thi tonge evere; And er thow lacke eny lyf, Loke ho is to preise. For is no creature under Cryst, That can hymselve make; And yf cristene creatures Couthen make hemselve, Eche lede wolde be lacles, Leyf thow non othere. Man was mad of suche matere, He may nat wel asterte, That som tymes hym tit To folwen hus kynde. Caton acordeth herwith: _Nemo sine crimine vivit._ 7347. Genes. i, 31. 7363. Cato, Distich. i, 5. Si vitam inspicias hominum, si denique mores, Quum culpent alios, nemo sine crimine vivit. It may be observed here, that Whitaker, in his note on this passage, has very much misunderstood Tyrwhitt (in Chaucer, Cant. T. 3227), in making him the authority for calling the author of the _Disticha de Moribus_ an obscure French writer. Tyrwhitt says that the mode in which Chaucer spells his name (Caton) seems to show that the French translation was more read than the Latin original. The same observation would apply to the present poem: but I am very doubtful how far it is correct. The Distiches of Cato were translated into English, French, German, &c., and were extremely popular. The author of these Distiches, Dionysius Cato, is supposed to have lived under the Antonines, and has certainly no claim to the title of _an obscure French writer_. 7441-7642. Instead of these lines, Whitaker has the following:-- And wissede the ful ofte What Dowel was to mene, And counsailede the, for Cristes sake, No creature to bygyle, Nother to lye nor to lacke, Ne lere that is defendid, Ne to spille speche, As to speke an ydel; And no tyme to tene, Ne trywe thyng to teenen; Lowe the to lyve forth In the lawe of holy churche, Thenne dost thow wel, withoute drede, Ho can do bet no forse. Clerkes that connen al, ich hope, Thei con do bettere; Ac hit suffuseth to be saved, And to be suche as ich tauhte: Ac for to lovye and lene, And lyve wel and byleyve, Ys y-calid _Caritas_, Kynde-love in English, And that is Dobet, yf eny suche be, A blessed man that helpeth, And pees be and pacience, And povre withoute defaute. _Beatius est dare quam petere._ As catel and kynde witt Encombre ful menye, Woo is hym that hem weldeth, Bote he hym wel dispeyne. _Scientes et non facientes variis flagellis vapulabunt._ Ac comunliche connynge And unkynde rychesse, As lorels to be lordes, And lewede men techeres, And holy churche horen help, Averous and coveytous, Droweth up Dowel, And destruyeth Dobest. Ac grace is a gras therfore To don hem eft growe; Ac grace groweth nat, Til God wil gynne reyne, And wokie thorwe goode werkes Wikkede hertes; Ac er suche a wil wol wexe, God hymself worcheth, And send forth seint espirit To don love sprynge. _Spiritus ubi vult spirat, etc._ So grace withoute grace Of God and of good werkes, May nat bee, bee thow siker, Thauh we bid evere. Cleregie cometh bote of siht, And kynd witt of sterres, As to be bore other bygete In suche constellacion That wit wexeth therof, And othere wordes bothe. _Vultus hujus sæculi sunt subjecti vultibus coelestibus._ So grace is a gyfte of God, And kynde witt a chaunce, And cleregie and connyng of kynde Wittes techynge; And yut is cleregie to comende Fore Cristes love more, Than eny connynge of kynde witt, Bote cleregie hit rewele. For Moyses wutnesseth that God wrot In stoon with hus fynger, Lawe of love owre Lorde wrot, Long ere Crist were; And Crist cam and confermede, And holy-churche made, And in sond a sygne wrot, And seide to the Jewes, 'That seeth hym synneles, Cesse nat, ich hote, To stryke with stoon other with staf This strompett to dethe.' _Qui vestrum sine peccato est, etc._ For-thi ich consaily alle Cristene Cleregie to honoure, etc. 7453. Luke xii, 38. 7461. Heb. xii, 6. 7464. Psalm xxii, 4. 7470. _makynges._ 7483. _make._--There is a curious analogy between the Greek and the Teutonic languages in the name given to the poet--the Greek [Greek: poiêtês] (from [Greek: poiein]), the Anglo-Saxon _scóp_ (from _sceopan_, to make or create), and the Middle-English _maker_, preserved in the later Scottish _makkar_ (also applied to a poet), have all the same signification. In the Neo-Latin tongues a different, though somewhat analogous, word was used: the French and Anglo-Norman _trouvère_, and the Provençal _trobador_, signify a finder or inventor. 7484. Catonis Distich. iii, 5. 7500. 1 Cor. xiii, 13. Nunc autem manent fides, spes, charitas, tria hæc: major autem horum est charitas. 7528, &c. _Aristotle_, _Ypocras_, and _Virgile_.--These three names were the great representatives of ancient science and literature in the middle ages. Aristotle represented philosophy, in its most general sense; Virgil represented literature in general, and more particularly the ancient writers who formed the _grammar_ course of scholastic learning, whether verse or prose; Ypocras, or Hippocrates, represented medicine. They are here introduced to illustrate the fact that men of science and learning, as well as warriors and rich men, experience the vicissitudes of fortune. 7534. _Felice._ Perhaps this name is only introduced for the sake of alliteration. 7536. _Rosamounde._ I suppose the reference is to "fair Rosamond." 7554. Luc. vi, 38. 7567. John iii, 8. 7572. John iii, 11. 7582. John iii, 8. 7600. _thorugh caractes._ It was the popular belief in the middle ages, that while the Jews were accusing the woman taken in adultery, Christ wrote with his staff on the ground the sins of the accusers, and that when they perceived this they dropped their accusation in confusion at finding that their own guilt was known. See this point curiously illustrated in Mr. Halliwell's Coventry Mysteries, pp. 220, 221. These are the _characters_ alluded to in Piers Ploughman. 7624. Luke vi, 37. 7701. 1 Cor. iii, 19. 7709. Luke ii, 15. 7714. Matth. ii, 1. 7721. Luke ii, 7. 7779. Psalm xxxi, 1. 7795. Luke vi, 39. The ignorance and inefficiency of the parish priests appear to have become proverbial in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the latter century a canon of Lilleshul in Shropshire, named John Myrk, or Myrkes, composed an English poem, or rather metrical treatise, on their duties, which he commences by applying to them this same aphorism of our Saviour:-- God seyth hymself, as wryten we fynde, That whenne the blynde ledeth the blynde, Into the dyche they fallen boo, For they ne sen whare by to go. So faren prestes now by dawe, They beth blynde in Goddes lawe, etc. _MS. Cotton. Claud._ A. II. It had previously been applied in the same manner to the parish priests by the author of a long French poem (apparently written in England in the fourteenth century) entitled _Le Miroir de l'Ome_ (Speculum Hominis), as follows:-- Dieus dist, et c'est tout verité, Qe si l'un voegle soit mené D'un autre voegle, tresbucher Falt ambedeux en la fossée. C'est un essample comparé As fols curetz, qui sanz curer Ne voient pas le droit sentier, Dont font les autres forsvoier, Qui sont après leur trace alé. Car fol errant ne puet quider, Ne cil comment nous puet saner, Qui mesmes est au mort naufré. _MS. in the possession of Mr. J. Russell Smith._ The following picture of the corrupt manners of the parish priests at this time is extracted from a much longer and more minute censure in the same poem:-- Des fols curetz auci y a, Qui sur sa cure demourra Non pour curer, mais q'il sa vie Endroit le corps plus easera. Car lors ou il bargaignera Du seculiere marchandie, Dont sa richesce multeplie; Ou il se donne à leccherie, Du quoy son corps delitera; Ou il se prent à venerie, Qant duist chanter sa letanie, Au bois le goupil huera. 7802. Psal. xv, 5. We might be led to suppose that this was the "neck verse" in the time of Piers Ploughman. In later times the text which was given to read to those who claimed the benefit of clergy is said to have been the beginning of Psal. lv, _Miserere mei, &c._ 7840. Eccl. v, 5. 7846. _Trojanus._ See the note on line 6859. 7854. Matth. xvi, 27. Filius enim hominis venturus est in gloria Patris sui cum angelis suis: et tunc reddet unicuique secundum opera ejus. 7915. _his flessh is foul flessh._ Yet in spite of the "foulness" of its flesh, the peacock was a very celebrated dish at table. For an account of the use made of the peacock in feasts, see Le Grand d'Aussy, Histoire de la Vie privée des Français, tom. i, pp. 299-301, and 361. In the Romance of Mahomet, 13th century, it is said of Dives-- Et dou Riche qui _tant poon Englouti_ et tant bon poisson, Tante piéche de venison, Et but bon vin par grant delit, &c. _Roman de Mahommet_, l. 301. 7944. _Avynet._ In the 14th and 15th centuries, as any grammar was called a _Donet_, because the treatise of Donatus was the main foundation of them all, so, from Esop and Avienus from whom the materials were taken, any collection of fables was called an _Avionet_ or an _Esopet_. The title of one of these collections in a MS. of the Bibl. du Roi at Paris is, _Compilacio Ysopi alata cum Avionetto, cum quibusdam addicionibus et moralitatibus_. (_Robert, Fabl. Inéd. Essay_, p. clxv.) Perhaps the reference in the present case is to the fable of the Peacock who complained of his voice, the 39th in the collection which M. Robert calls _Ysopet_, in the morality to which are the following lines:-- Les riches conteront Des biens qu'il aront En ce siecle conquis. Cil qui petit ara, De petit contera Au Roy de paradis. Qui vit en povreté, Sans point d'iniquité, Moult ara grant richesse Es cieux, en paradis, O dieux et ses amis Seront joyeux et aise. 7961. Whitaker's text reads here:-- Thus Porfirie and Plato, And poetes menye, Lykneth in here logyk The leeste fowel oute; And whether hii be saf other nat saf The sothe wot not clergie, Ne of Sortes ne of Salamon No scripture can telle, Wether thei be in helle other in hevene, Other Aristotle the wise. 7961. _Aristotle, the grete clerk._ From the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries the influence of Aristotle's writings in the schools was all-powerful. It was considered almost an impiety to go against his authority. He was indeed "the great clerk." 7967. _Sortes._ I suppose this is an abbreviated form of the name Socrates. It occurs again in one of the poems printed among the Latin Poetry attributed to Walter Mapes (Camden Society's Publication), which has the following lines:-- Adest ei bajulus cui nomen Gnato, Præcedebat logicum gressu fatigato, Dorso ferens sarcinam ventre tensus lato, Plenam vestro dogmate, o _Sortes et Plato_. 7987. 1 Peter iv, 18. 8015. Psalm xxii, 4. 8073. _a maister._ This word was generally used in the scholastic ages in a restricted sense, to signify one who had taken his degrees in the schools--a master of arts. 8103. Luke x, 7. 8133-8137. These are the indications of different Psalms. Psalm li begins with the words, _Miserere mei, Deus_, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam. The thirty-first Psalm commences with the words, _Beati quorum_ remissæ sunt iniquitates, _et quorum tecta sunt peccata_. _Beatus vir_, is the beginning of Psalm i. The fifth verse of Psalm xxxi contains the words _Dixi: Confitebor_ adversum me injustitiam meam Domino. 8141. Psalm xxxi, 6. 8145. Psalm l, 19. 8153. Isaiah v, 22. 8155. Whitaker's text has-- And ete meny sondry metes, Mortrews and poddynges, Braun and blod of the goos, Bacon and colhopes. The second Trin. Coll. MS. has-- And sette many sundry metis, Mortreux and puddynges, Braun and blood of gees, Bacoun and colopis. 8167. 2 Corinth. xi, 24, 25, 27. 8173, 8180. 2 Cor. xi, 26. 8202. _Mahoun._ Mahoun was the middle-age name of Mohammed, and in the popular writers was often taken in the mere sense of an idol or pagan deity. 8204. _justly wombe._ MS. Trin. Coll. 2. 8225. _in a frayel._ Whitaker's text has _in a forel_, which he explains by "a wicker basket." The second Trin. Coll. MS. has also _in a forell_. _Forel_ is the Low-Latin _forellus_, a bag, sack, or purse: a _frayel_ (_fraellum_) was a little wicker basket, such as were used for carrying figs or grapes. 8273. Matth. v, 19. 8292. Psalm xiv, 1. 8368. 1 John iv, 18. 8416. Luke xix, 8. 8418. Luke xxi, 1-4. 8444. _Surré._ Syria. 8474. _a mynstrall._ The description of the minstrel given here is very curious. For a sketch of the character of this profession see Mr. Shaw's "Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages;" and for more enlarged details of the history of the craft the reader may consult the Introduction to Percy's Reliques, and Chappell's History of National Airs. 8518. _a pardon with a peis of leed._ The papal bulls, &c., had seals of lead, instead of wax. 8526. Marc. xvi, 17, 18. 8541. Acts iii, 6. 8554. Whitaker's text omits all that follows here to l. 8958 of our text, entering very abruptly upon the subject there treated. Some of the intervening matter had already been inserted in other places in Whitaker's text. See our notes on ll. 2846 and 3030. 8567. _cart ... with breed fro Stratforde._ Stratford-at-Bow is said to have been famous in old times for its numerous bakers, who supplied a great part of the metropolis. Stowe, in his Survey of London, p. 159 (who appears to have altered the text of Piers Ploughman to suit his own calculation, for all the manuscripts and printed editions I have collated give "twice _twenty_ and ten"), observes, "And because I have here before spoken of the bread carts comming from Stratford at the Bow, ye shall understand that of olde time the bakers of breade at Stratford were allowed to bring dayly (except the Sabbaoth and principall feast) diverse long cartes laden with bread, the same being two ounces in the pennie wheate loafe heavier than the penny wheate loafe baked in the citie, the same to be solde in Cheape, three or foure carts standing there, betweene Gutherans lane and Fausters lane ende, one cart on Cornehill, by the conduit, and one other in Grasse streete. And I have reade that in the fourth yere of Edward the second, Richard Reffeham being maior, a baker named John of Stratforde, for making bread lesser than the assise, was with a fooles whoode on his head, and loaves of bread about his necke, drawne on a hurdle through the streets of this citie. Moreover in the 44. of Edward the third, John Chichester being maior of London, I read in the visions of Pierce Plowman, a booke so called, as followeth. _There was a careful commune when no cart came to towne with baked bread from Stratford: tho gan beggers weepe, and workemen were agast, a little this will be thought long in the date of our Dirte, in a drie Averell a thousand and three hundred, twise thirtie and ten, &c._ I reade also in the 20. of Henrie the eight, Sir James Spencer being maior, six bakers of Stratford were merced in the Guildhall of London, for baking under the size appoynted. These bakers of Stratford left serving of this citie, I know not uppon what occasion, about 30 yeares since." 8572. _a drye Aprill._ This is without doubt the dry season placed by Fabyan in the year 1351, which, as he describes it, began with the month of April. The difference of the date arises probably from a different system of computation. Fabian says, "In the sommer of this xxvii yeare, it was so drie that it was many yeres after called the drie sommer. For from the latter ende of March, till the latter ende of Julye, fell lytle rayne or none, by reason whereof manye inconveniences ensued." 8576. _Whan Chichestre was maire._ According to Fabyan, John Chichester was mayor only once, in 1368, 1369, which was the period of the "thirde mortalytie." The other authorities seem to agree in giving this as the year of Chichester's mayoralty. He may perhaps have been mayor more than once. See INTRODUCTION. 8645. Galat. i, 10. 8685. Psalm x, 7. 8707, 8708. The two persons mentioned here (the shoemaker of Southwark and dame Emma of Shoreditch) were probably eminent sorcerers and fortune-tellers of the time. 8769-8778. To understand fully this passage, it must be borne in mind that the corn lands were not so universally hedged as at present, and that the portions belonging to different persons were separated only by a narrow furrow, as is still the case in some of the uninclosed lands in Cambridgeshire. 8812. _Brugges._ Bruges was the great mart of continental commerce during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. 8813. _Pruce-lond_--Prussia, which was then the farthest country in the interior of Europe with which a regular trade was carried on by the English merchants. 8827. Matth. vi, 21. 8858. Luke vi, 25. 8879. Psalm ci, 7. 8891. _a lady of sorwe._ The old printed edition has a _laye of sorow_. 8900. Whitaker has no division here, but continues the previous _passus_, and omits many lines and has many variations in what follows. 8903. _I slepe therinne o nyghtes._ This passage is curious, because at the time the poem was written, it was the custom for all classes of society to go to bed quite naked, a practice which is said to have been not entirely laid aside in the sixteenth century. We see constant proofs of this practice in the illuminations of old manuscripts. The following memorial lines are written in the margin of a MS. of the thirteenth century:-- Ne be thi winpil nevere so jelu ne so stroutende, Ne thi faire tail so long ne so trailende, That tu ne schalt at evin al kuttid bilevin, And tou schalt to bedde gon so nakid as tou were [borin]. _MS. Cotton. Cleop. C._ VI, fol. 22, r^o. In the Roman de la Violette, the old nurse expresses her astonishment that her young mistress should retain her chemise when she goes to bed:-- Et quant elle son lit fait a, Sa dame apiele, si se couche Nue en chemise en la couche; C'onques en trestoute sa vie La biele, blonde, l'escavie, Ne volt demostrer sa char nue. La vielle en est au lit venue, Puis li a dit: 'Dame, j'esgart Une chose, se Dex me gart, Dont je sui molt esmervillie C'onques ne vous vi despoillie, Et si vous ai vij. ans gardée; Molt vous ai souvent esgardée Que vo chemise ne sachiés!' _Rom. de la Viol._ l. 577. The lady explains her conduct by stating that she has a mark on the breast which she had promised that no one should ever see. 8906. Luke xiv, 20. 8950. _noon heraud ne harpour._ Robes and other garments were among the most usual gifts bestowed upon minstrels and heralds by the princes and great barons. See before, ll. 8480, 8481. 8970. Matth. vi, 25, 26. 8999. John xiv, 13; xv, 16. Matth. iv, 4. 9037. Psalm cxliv, 16. 9039. _fourty wynter._ During the forty years that the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness, they did not apply themselves to agriculture. 9049. _Sevene slepe._ The legend of the seven sleepers was remarkably popular during the middle ages. 9101. Psalm xxxi. 1. 9176. Psalm lxxv, 6. 9178. Psalm lxxii, 20. Whitaker's _Passus sextus de Dowel_ ends with this quotation. 9317. Both in the Vision of Piers Ploughman, and in the Creed, there are frequent expressions of indignation at the extravagant expenditure in painting the windows of the abbeys and churches. It must not be forgotten that a little later the same feeling as that exhibited in these satires led to the destruction of many of the noblest monuments of medieval art. 9344. Mat. xix, 23, 24. 9347. Apocal. xiv, 13. 9352. Matth. v, 3. 9452. Compare the defence of poverty in Chaucer (Cant. T. 6774):-- Juvenal saith of poverte merily: The poore man, whan he goth by the way, Beforn the theves he may sing and play. _Poverte is hateful good_; and, as I gesse, A ful gret _bringer out of besinesse_; A _gret amender_ eke _of sapience_, To him that taketh it in patience. Poverte is this although it seme elenge, _Possession that no wight wol challenge._ Poverte ful often, whan a man is low, Maketh his God and eke himself to know: Poverte a spectakel is, as thinketh me, Thurgh which he may his veray frendes see. And therfore, sire, sin that I you not greve, Of my poverte no more me repreve. The definition given in Piers Ploughman is taken from the Dialogues of Secundus, where it is thus expressed:--"Quid est paupertas? Odibile bonum, sanitatis mater, curarum remotio, absque sollicitudine semita, sapientiæ reparatrix, negotium sine damno, intractabilis substantia, possessio absque calumnia, incerta fortuna, sine sollicitudine felicitas." (MS. Reg. 9 A xiv, fol. 140 v^o.) See also Roger de Hoveden, p. 816, and Vincent de Beauvais, Spec. Hist. lib. x, c. 71. 9517. _the paas of Aultone._ Whitaker has _Haultoun_, and says that this pass is Halton "in Cheshire, formerly infamous to a proverb as a haunt of robbers." 9529. _Cantabit, etc._ The author has modified, or the scribes have corrupted, the well-known line of Juvenal, Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator. 9665. These definitions will be found in Isidore, Etymol. lib. xl, c. 1, and Different, lib. ii, c. 29. They are repeated by Alcuin, De Anim. Rat. N. x, p. 149, _Anima_ est, dum vivificat; dum contemplatur, _spiritus_ est; dum sentit, _sensus_ est; dum sapit, _animus_ est; dum intelligit, _mens_ est; dum discernit, _ratio_ est; dum consentit, _voluntas_ est; dum recordatur, _memoria_ est. 9708. Prov. xxv, 27. 9740. Epist. ad Rom. xii, 3. 9751. _the seven synnes._ The seven deadly sins were--pride, anger, envy, sloth, covetousness, gluttony, and lechery. "Now ben they cleped chiefetaines, for as moche as they be chiefe, and of hem springen alle other sinnes. The rote of thise sinnes than is pride, the general rote of alle harmes. For of this rote springen certain braunches: as, ire, envie, accidie or slouthe, avarice or coveitise, (to commun understonding) glotonie, and lecherie: and eche of thise chief sinnes hath his braunches and his twigges." Chaucer, Persones Tale, p. 40. 9766. Psal. xcvi, 7; iv, 3. 9828. _in Latyn._ The monks had collections of comparisons, similitudes, proverbs, &c., to be introduced in their sermons, and even when preaching in English they generally quoted them in Latin. This I suppose to be the meaning of the expression here. 9918. Matth. xviii, 3. 9934. 1 Corinth. xiii, 4. 9946. 1 Corinth, xiii, 12. 9957. _a tunicle of Tarse._ Tarse was the name given to a kind of silk, said to have been brought from a country of that name on the borders of Cathai, or China. Chaucer (Cant. T. l. 2162), describing "the king of Inde," says-- His coote armour was of a cloth of Tars, Cowched of perlys whyte, round and grete. Ducange (v. _Tarsicus_) quotes a visitation of the treasury of St. Paul's, London, in 1295, where there is mention of Tunica et dalmatica de _panno Indico Tarsico_ Besantato de auro, and of a Casula de _panno Tarsico_. 10004. Psal. vi, 7. 10009. Psal. l, 19. 10062. Matth. vi, 16. 10069. _Edmond and Edward._ St. Edmund the martyr, king of East Anglia, and king Edward the Confessor. 10124. Psal. iv, 9. 10159. _Antony and Egidie._ Whitaker has _Antonie and Ersenie_. St. Antony is well known as the father and patron of monks, and for the persecutions he underwent from the devil. St. Giles, or Egidius, is said to have been a Greek, who came to France about the end of the seventh century, and established himself in a hermitage near the mouth of the Rhone, and afterwards in the neighbourhood of Nismes. Arsenius was a noble Roman who, at the end of the fourth century, retired to Egypt to live the life of an anchoret in the desert. 10174. _after an hynde cride._ The monkish biographer of St. Giles relates, that he was for some time nourished with the milk of a hind in the forest, and that a certain prince discovered his retreat while hunting in his woods, by pursuing the hind till it took shelter in St. Giles's hermitage. 10183. _Hadde a bird._ This incident is not found in the common lives of St. Antony. 10187. _Poul._ Paul was a Grecian hermit, who lived in the tenth century in the wilderness of Mount Latrus, and became the founder of one of the monastic establishments there. He was famous for the rigorous severity of his life. 10203. _Marie Maudeleyne._ By Mary Magdalen here is meant probably St. Mary the Egyptian, who lived in the fifth century, and who, according to the legend, after having spent her youth in unbridled debauchery, repented in her twenty-ninth year, and lived during the remainder of her life (forty-seven years) in the wilderness beyond the Jordan, without seeing one human being during that time, and sustained only by the precarious food which she found in the desert. 10239. Whitaker's text here adds a passage relating to Tobias:-- Marie Magdalene By mores levede and dewes; Love and leel byleyve Heeld lyf and soule togedere. Maria Egyptiaca Eet in thyrty wynter Bote thre lytel loves, And love was her souel. Ich can nat rekene hem ryght now, Ne reherce here names, That lyveden thus for oure Lordes love Meny longe yeres, Whitoute borwyng other beggyng, Other the boke lyeth; And woneden in wildernesse Among wilde bestes; Ac dorst no beste byten hem By daye ne by nyghte, Bote myldeliche whan thei metten Maden louh chere, And feyre byfore tho men Fauhnede whith the tayles. Ac bestes brouhte hem no mete, Bote onliche the fouweles; In tokenynge that trywe man Alle tymes sholde Fynde honeste men in holy men And other ryghtful peuple. For wolde never feithful goud That freres and monkes token Lyflode of luther wynnynges In al here lyf tyme; As wytnesseth holy writt Whot Thobie deyde To is wif, whan he was blynde, Herde a lambe blete,-- 'A! wyf, be war,' quath he, 'What ye have here ynne. Lord leyve,' quath the lede, 'No stole thyng be here!' _Videte ne furtum sit. Et alibi, Melius est mori quam male vivere._ This is no more to mene, Bote men of holy churche Sholde receyve ryght nauth Bot that ryght wolde, And refuse reverences And raveneres offrynges; Thenne wolde lordes and ladies Be loth to agulte, And to take of here tenaunts More than treuthe wolde; And marchauns merciable wolde be, And men of lawe bothe. Wold religeouse refuse Raveneres almesse, Then Grace sholde growe yut And grene-leved wexe, And Charité, that child is now, Sholde chaufen of hem self, And comfortye all crystene, Wold holy churche amende. Job the parfit patriarch This proverbe wrot and tauhte, To makye a man lovye mesure, That monkes beeth and freeres. _Nunquam dicit Job, rugiet onager, etc._ Throughout this part of the poem, Whitaker's text differs very much in words and phraseology from the one now printed, but it would take up too much space to point out all these variations. 10247. Job vi, 5. 10270. 2 Corinth, ix, 9. 10303. These sentences appear to be quotations from the fathers of the Latin Church. 10322. _lussheburwes._ A foreign coin, much adulterated, common in England in the middle of the fourteenth century. Chaucer (C. T. 15445) uses the word in a very expressive passage:-- This maketh that oure wyfes wol assaye Religious folk, for thay may bettre paye Of Venus payementes than may we: God woot! no _lusscheburghes_ paye ye. Among the foreign money, mostly of a base quality, which came into this country in the fourteenth century, the coinage of the counts of Luxemburg, or, as it was then called, Lusenburg (hence called _lussheburwes_ and _lusscheburghes_), seems to have been the most abundant, and to have given most trouble. These coins were the subject of legislation in 1346, 1347, 1348, and 1351; so that the grievance must have been at its greatest height at the period to which the poem of Piers Ploughman especially belongs. Many of these coins are preserved, and found in the cabinets of collectors; they are in general very much like the contemporary English coinage, and might easily be taken for it, but the metal is very base. 10368. _Grammer, the ground of al._ In the scholastic learning of the middle ages, grammar was considered as the first of the seven sciences, and the foundation-stone of all the rest. See my Essay on Anglo-Saxon Literature, introductory to vol. i. of the _Biographia Britannica Literaria_, p. 72. The importance of grammar is thus stated in the _Image du Monde_ of Gautier de Metz (thirteenth century):-- Li primeraine des vij. ars, Dont or n'est pas seus li quars, A ichest tans, chou est gramaire, Sans laquele nus ne vaut gaire Qui à clergie veut aprendre: Car petit puet sans li entendre. Gramaires si est fondemens De clergie et coumenchemens; Cou est li porte de science, Par cui on vient à sapience. De lettres en gramaire escole Qui ensegne et forme parole, Soit en Latin ou en Roumans, Ou en tous langages palans; Qui bien saroit toute gramaire, Toute parole saroit faire. Par parole fist Dius le monde, Et sentence est parole monde. 10398. _Corpus Christi feeste._ Corpus Christi day was a high festival of the Church of Rome, held annually on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, in memory, as was said, of the miraculous confirmation of transubstantiation under pope Urban IV. 10418. _This Makometh._ This account of Mohammed was the one most popularly current in the middle ages. According to Hildebert, who wrote a life of the pseudo-prophet in Latin verse in the twelfth century, Mohammed was a Christian, skilled in magical arts, who, on the death of the patriarch of Jerusalem, aspired to succeed him:-- Nam male devotus quidam baptismate lotus, Plenus perfidia vixit in ecclesia. . . . . . . Nam cum transisset Pater illius urbis, et isset In coelum subito corpore disposito, Tunc exaltari magus hic et pontificari Affectans avide; se tamen hæc pavide Dixit facturum, nisi sciret non nociturum Si præsul fiat, cum Deus hoc cupiat. His intrigues being discovered, the emperor drives him away, and in revenge he goes and founds a new sect. The story of the pigeon (which is not in Hildebert) is found in Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. Hist. lib. xxiii, c. 40. This story is said to be founded in truth. Neither of them are found in the Roman de Mahomet (by Alexander du Pont), written in the thirteenth century, and edited by MM. Reinaud and Michel, Paris, 1831, 8vo, a work which contains much information concerning the Christian notions relative to Mohammed in the middle ages. 10478. John xvi, 24. 10481, 10486. Matth. v, 13. 10499. _Ellevene holy men._ The eleven apostles who remained after the apostasy of Judas and the crucifixion of their Lord. 10550. _Ne fesauntz y-bake._ The pheasant was formerly held in the same honour as the peacock (see before the note on l. 7915), and was served at table in the same manner. It was considered one of the most precious dishes. See Le Grand d'Aussy, Hist. de la Vie privée des François, ii, 19. The Miroir de l'Ome (MS. in the possession of Mr. Russell Smith) says (punning) of the luxurious prelates of the fourteenth century,-- Pour le phesant et le bon vin Le bien-faisant et le divin L'evesque laist à nonchalure; Si quiert la coupe et crusequin, Ainz que la culpe du cristin Pour corriger et mettre en cure. 10553. Matth. xxii, 4. 10581. Mark xvi, 15. 10585. _So manye prelates._ 10699. _that huppe aboute in Engelond._ The pope appointed many titular bishops of foreign sees in which, from the nature of circumstances, they could not possibly reside, and who therefore were a burthen upon the church. Some of these prelates appear to have resorted to England, and to have exercised the episcopal functions, consecrating churches, &c. The church of Elsfield, in Oxfordshire, was consecrated by a foreign bishop. (See Kennett's Parochial Antiquities.) 10593. John x, 11. 10599. Matth. xx, 4, 7. 10606. Matth. vii, 7. 10617. Galat. vi, 14. 10632. _That roode thei honoure._ A cross was the common mark on the reverse of our English money at this period, and for a long time previous to it. The point of satirical wit in this passage of Piers Ploughman appears to be taken from the old Latin rhymes of the beginning of the thirteenth century. See the curious poem _De Cruce Denarii_, in Walter Mapes, p. 223. Another poem in the same volume (p. 38) speaks thus of the court of Rome:-- Nummis in hac curia non est qui non vacet; _Crux_ placet, rotunditas, et albedo placet. 10637. _Shul torne as templers dide._ The suppression of the order of the Templars was at this time fresh in people's memories. It was the general belief, and not without some foundation, that the Templars had entirely degenerated from their original sanctity and faithfulness, and that before the dissolution of the order they were addicted to degrading vices and superstitions; and they were accused of sacrificing everything else to their grasping covetousness. 10659. _Whan Constantyn._ The Christian church began first to be endowed with wealth and power under the emperor Constantine the Great. 10649. Luke i, 52. 10695-10699. Instead of these lines, Whitaker's text has the following:-- And bereth name of Neptalym, Of Nynyve and Damaske. For when the holy kynge of hevene Sende hus sone to eerthe, Meny myracles he wroughte, Man for to turne, In ensample that men sholde See by sad reyson That men myghte nat be savede Bote thorw mercy and grace, And thorw penaunce and passioun, And parfyght byleyve; And bycam a man of a mayde, And _metropolitanus_ And baptisede an busshoppede Whit the blode of hus herte, Alle that wilnede other wolde Whit inwhight byleyve hit. Meny seint sitthe Suffrede deth alsoo, For to enferme the faithe Ful wyde where deyden, In Inde and in Alisaundrie, In Ermanye, in Spayne; An fro mysbyleve Meny man turnede. In savacion of mannys saule Seynt Thomas of Cauntelbury Among unkynde Cristene In holy churche was sleye, And alle holy churche Honourede for that deyinge: He is a forbusur to alle busshopes, And a bryghthe myrour, And sovereynliche to alle suche That of Surrye bereth name, And nat in Engelounde to huppe aboute, And halewen men auters. In the remainder of this passus, Whitaker's text differs much from the one I have printed, but in such a manner that to give here the variations it would be necessary to reprint the whole. In the remainder of the poem, the variations are not great or important, being only such as we always find in different copies of poems which enjoyed considerable popularity. 10716. Isai. iii, 7. 10721. Malach. iii, 10. 10733. Luke x, 27. Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo, et ex tota anima tua, et ex omni mente tua, et proximum tuum sicut teipsum. 10755. John xi, 43. 10787. _litlum and litlum_, by little and little, gradually. It is the pure Anglo-Saxon phrase. In the Anglo-Saxon version of Genesis xl, 10, the Latin _paulatim_ is rendered by _lytlum and lytlum_. 10844. Psal. xxxvi, 24. 10891. Matth. xii, 32. 11000. Luke i, 38. 11023. Matth. ix, 12. Mark ii, 17. Luke v, 31. 11033. Matth. xxvi, 37. 11044. Matth. xi, 18. 11075. Matth. xxi, 13. 11121. Matth. xviii, 7. 11238. Matth. xxvii, 46, and Mark xv, 34. 11300. Rom. iv, 13. 11322. John i, 29 and 36. 11396. Matth. xx, 40. 11518, 11520. _lo! here silver ... two pens._ It must be remembered that at this period the mass of the coinage, including pence, halfpence, and farthings, was of silver; copper came into use for the smaller coinage at a later period. Two pence of Edward III would be worth about two shillings of our modern money. 11670. John xii, 32. 11708. _tu fabricator omnium._ This was one of the hymns of the catholic church. 11866. Luke xiii, 27. 11883. 1 Corinth. xiii, 1. 11894. Matth. vii, 21. 11998. _Thre thynges._ This proverb is frequently quoted by the satirical and facetious writers of the middle ages. Thus in Chaucer (C. T. 5860):-- Thou saist, that droppyng houses, and eek smoke, And chydyng wyves, maken men to fle Out of here oughne hous. In the poem entitled Golias de Conjuge non ducenda, in Walter Mapes, p. 83, the proverb is alluded to in the following words:-- Fumus, et mulier, et stillicidia, Expellunt hominem a domo propria. There was an old French proverbial distich to the same effect,-- Fumée, pluye, et femme sans raison, Chassent l'homme de sa maison. 12040. 2 Corinth. xii, 9. 12097. _to be dubbed._ These and the following lines contain a continued allusion to the ceremonies of knighthood and tournaments. 12106. Psal. cxvii, 26. 12211. Matth. xxvii, 54. 12232, 12244. _Longeus ... this blynde bacheler._ This alludes to one of the many legends which the monks engrafted upon the scripture history. Longeus is said to have been the name of the soldier who pierced the side of Christ with his spear; and it is pretended that he was previously blind from his birth, but that the blood of the Saviour ran down his spear, and a drop of it touching his eye, he was instantly restored to sight, by which miracle he was converted. See, in illustration of this subject, Halliwell's Coventry Mysteries, p. 334; The Towneley Mysteries, p. 321; Jubinal, Mystères inédits du quinzième Siècle, tom. ii, pp. 254-257; &c. 12319, 12418, 12420. _Mercy and Truthe, ... Pees ... Rightwisnesse._ Lydgate seems to have had this passage in his mind, when he described the four sisters in the following lines at the commencement of one of his poems (MS. Harl. 2255, fol. 21):-- Mercy and Trouthe mette on an hih mounteyn Briht as the sonne with his beemys cleer, Pees and Justicia walkyng on the pleyn, And with foure sustryn, moost goodly of ther cheer, List nat departe nor severe in no maneer, Of oon accoord by vertuous encrees, Joyned in charité, pryncessis moost enteer, Mercy and Trouthe, Rihtwisnesse and Pees. 12361. _a tale of Waltrot._ This name, like Wade in Chaucer, appears to have been that of a hero of romances and tales, or a personage belonging to the popular superstitions. Perhaps it may be connected with the old German _Waltschrat_ (_satyrus_, _pilosus_). See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 270. 12438. Psal. xxix, 6. 12566. Matth. xiv, 28. 12599. _a spirit speketh to helle._ The picture of the "Harrowing of Hell," which here fol, bears a striking resemblance to the analogous scene in the old Mysteries, particularly in that edited by Mr. Halliwell under this title, 8vo, 1840. Compare the play on the same subject in the Towneley Mysteries, p. 244. 12601. Psal. xxiii, 7, 9. 12645, 12669, 12676. _sevene hundred wynter ... thritty wynter ... two and thritty wynter._ Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers always counted duration of time by _winters_ and _nights_; for so many years, they said so many winters, and so many nights for so many days. This form continued long in popular usage, and still remains in our words _fortnight_ and _se'nnight_. 12663. _Gobelyn._ Goblin is a name still applied to a devil. It belongs properly to a being of the old Teutonic popular mythology, a hob-goblin, the "lubber-fiend" of the poet, and seems to be identical with the German _kobold_. (See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 286.) _Gobelin_ occurs as the name of one of the shepherds in the Mystery of the Nativity, printed by M. Jubinal in his Mystères inédits, vol. ii, p. 71. It occurs as the name of a devil in a song of the commencement of the fourteenth century, Political Songs, p. 238:-- Sathanas huere syre Seyde on is sawe, Gobelyn made is gerner Of gromene mawe. 12679. _to warne Pilates wif._ This is an allusion to a popular legend prevalent at this time that the devil wished to hinder Christ's crucifixion, and that he appeared to Pilate's wife in a dream, and caused her to beseech her husband not to condemn the Saviour. It was founded on the passage in Matthew xxvii, 19. Sedente autem illo pro tribunali, misit ad eum uxor ejus, dicens: Nihil tibi et justo illi: multa enim passa sum hodie per visum propter eum. The most complete illustration of the passage of Piers Ploughman will be found in Halliwell's Coventry Mysteries, p. 308, "Pilate's Wife's Dream." 12691. _And now I se wher a soule | Cometh hiderward seillynge, | With glorie, &c._ With this beautiful passage may be compared a very similar one in the Samson Agonistes of Milton:-- But who is this, what thing of sea or land? Female of sex it seems, That so bedeck'd, ornate and gay, _Comes this way sailing_ Like a stately ship Of Tarsus, bound for th' isles Of Javan or Gadire, With all her bravery on, and tackle trim. 12753. _y-lik a lusard._ In the illuminations of manuscripts representing the scene of the temptation, the serpent is often figured with legs like a lizard or crocodile, and a human face. 12759. Matth. v, 38. 12781. Matth. v, 17. 12801. _thorugh a tree._ Some of the medieval legends go still farther, and pretended that the tree from which the wood of the cross was made was descended directly from a plant from the tree in Paradise of which Adam and Eve were tempted to eat the fruit. 12805. Psal. vii, 16. 12840. Psal. l, 6. 12876. 2 Corinth. xii, 4. 12886. Psal. cxlii, 2. 12896. _Astroth._ This name, as given to one of the devils, occurs in a curious list of actors in the Miracle Play of St. Martin, given by M. Jubinal, in the preface to his Mystères inédits, vol. ii, p. ix. It is similarly used in the Miracle Play of the Martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul, Jubinal, ib. vol. i, p. 69. In one of the Towneley Mysteries (p. 246), this name is likewise given to one of the devils:-- Calle up _Astarot_ and Anaballe, To gyf us counselle in this case. 12937. Psal. lxxxiv, 11. 12943. Psal. cxxxii, 1. 13222. 1 Sam. xviii, 7. 13274. Luke xxiv, 46. 13317. John xx, 29. 13375. _Veni creator spiritus._ The first line of the hymn at vespers, on the feast of Pentecost. 13412. 1 Corinth. xii, 4. 13550. Cato, Distich. 14, lib. ii:-- Esto forti animo cum sis damnatus inique; Nemo diu gaudet qui judice vincit iniquo. 13789. _I knew nevere cardynal._ The contributions levied upon the clergy for the support of the pope's messengers and agents was a frequent subject of complaint in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 13807. _At Avynone among the Jewes._ In the middle ages there was a large congregation of Jews at Avignon, as in most of the principal cities in the south of France. In the civil dissensions which disturbed Italy during this century, the pope was frequently obliged to take shelter at Avignon and other places within the French territory. 13825. Matth. v, 45. 13855. Rom. xii, 19; Hebr. x, 30. 14142. _Kynde cessede._ The lines which follow contain an allusion to the dissipation of manners which followed the pestilence. 14191, 14196. _Westmynstre Halle ... the Arches._ The law courts have been held at Westminster from the earliest Anglo-Norman times, it being the king's chief palace. The court of the arches was a very ancient consistory court of the archbishop of Canterbury, held at Bow church in London, which was called St. Mary de Arcubus or St. Mary le Bow, from the circumstance of its having been built on arches. 14211. _leet daggen hise clothes._ An account of the mode in which the rich fashionable robes of the dandies of the fourteenth century were dagged, or cut in slits at the edges and borders, will be found in any work on costume: it is frequently represented in the contemporary illuminations in manuscripts. Chaucer, in the "Persones Tale," when treating of pride and of the "superfluitee of clothing," speaks of "the costlewe furring in hir gounes, so moche pounsoning of chesel to maken holes, so moche _dagging of sheres_," &c. And again, "if so be that they wolden yeve swiche pounsoned and _dagged_ clothing to the povre peple, it is not convenient to were for hir estate," &c. In the Alliterative Poem on the Deposition of Richard II (printed for the Camden Society), p. 21, the clergy is blamed for not preaching against the new fashions in dress:-- For wolde they blame the burnes That broughte newe gysis, And dryve out _the dagges_ And alle the Duche cotis. Whitaker gives the following singular explanation of this passage:--"_Let dagge hus clothes_, probably, let them fall to the ground, or divested himself of them; for warriors are 'succinct' for battle as well as 'for speed!'" 14269. _A glazene howve._ I suppose this means that, in return for his gold, Physic gave him a hood of glass, _i. e._ a very frail protection for his person. 14367. _of the Marche of Walys._ Whitaker's text reads, _of the Marche of Yrelonde_. The clergy of the Welsh border appear, from allusions in other works, to have been proverbial for their ignorance and irregularity of life. 14438. Psal. cxlvi, 4. 14444. _wage menne to werre._ This is a curious account of the composition of an army in the fourteenth century. 14482. Exod. xx, 17. 14511. _suffre the dede in dette_, _i. e._, The friars persuade people to leave to them, under pretence of saving their souls, the property which was due to their creditors, and thus, after their death, their debts remain unpaid. 14615, 14617. _this lymytour ... he salvede so oure wommen._ The whole of this passage, taken with what precedes, is an amusing satire upon the limitour. Compare the description of the limitour given by Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales, ll. 208-271, who alludes to his kindness for the women. The limitour was a friar licensed to visit and beg within certain limits. His pertinacity and inquisitiveness in visiting, alluded to in the name given him in Piers Ploughman (Sir Penetrans-domos), is admirably satirized by Chaucer, in the opening of the "Wif of Bathes Tale:"-- In olde dayes of the kyng Arthour, Of which that Britouns speken gret honour, Al was this lond fulfilled of fayrie; The elf-queen, with hir joly compaignye, Daunced ful oft in many a grene mede. This was the old oppynyoun, as I rede I speke of many hundrid yer ago; But now can no man see noon elves mo. For now the grete charité and prayeres Of lymytours and other holy freres, That sechen every lond and every streem, As thik as motis in the sonne-beem, Blesynge halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures, Citees and burghes, castels hihe, and toures, Thropes and bernes, shepnes and dayeries, This makith that ther ben no fayeries: For ther as wont was to walken an elf, Ther walkith noon but the lymytour himself, In undermeles and in morwenynges, And saith his matyns and his holy thinges, As he goth in his lymytacioun. ------ NOTES TO THE CREED. 65. _a Minoure._ These were the Gray or Franciscan Friars, founded at the beginning of the thirteenth century by St. Francis of Assise. They are supposed to have come to England in 1224, when they settled, first at Canterbury, and afterwards at London. 75. _a Carm._ 95. _Maries men._ The Carmelites, or White Friars, pretended to be of great antiquity, and were originally established at Mount Carmel, from whence they were driven by the Saracens about the year 1238. They were brought into England in 1244, and settled first at Alnwick in Northumberland, and at Ailesford in Kent. About the date (or a little before) of our poem, the Carmelites appear to have been very active in asserting in a boasting manner the superiority of their order over the others. An anecdote told by Fuller (History of Cambridge, p. 113), under the year 1371, affords a curious illustration. "John Stokes, a Dominican, born at Sudbury, in Suffolk, but studying in Cambridge, as champion of his order, fell foul on the Carmelites, chiefly for calling themselves 'The brothers of the Blessed Virgin,' and then by consequence all knew whose uncle they pretend themselves. He put them to prove their pedigree by Scripture, how the kindred came in. In brief, Bale saith, 'he left red notes in the white coats of the Carmelites,' he so belaboured them with his lashing language. But John Hornby a Carmelite (born at Boston in Lincolnshire) undertook him, called by Bale Cornutus, by others Hornet-bee, so stinging his stile. He proved the brothership of his order to the Virgin Mary by visions, allowed true by the infallible popes, so that no good Christian durst deny it." 130. _Freres of the Pye._ The Fratres de Pica, or Friars of the Pye, are said to have received their name from the circumstance of their wearing their outer garment black and white like a magpie. Very little is known of their history. They are said to have had but one house in England. 143. _Robartes men._ See before the notes on the Vision, ll. 88 and ll. 3410. 155. _miracles of mydwyves._ The monks had many relics and superstitious practices to preserve and aid women in childbirth. One of the commissioners for the suppression of the monasteries mentions among the relics of a house he had visited, "Mare Magdalens girdell, and yt is wrappyde and coveride with white, sent also with gret reverence to women traveling:" he had previously spoken of "oure Lades gyrdell of Bruton, rede silke, wiche is a solemne reliquie sent to women travelyng wiche shall not miscarie _in partu_." (MS. Cotton. Cleop. E. iv, fol. 249.) See the account of a gem, which had a similar virtue, in Matthew Paris's History of the Abbots of St. Albans. 305. _the Prechoures._ The Black Friars, or Dominicans, were founded by St. Dominic, a Spanish monk of the end of the eleventh century. They were called Friars Preachers, because their chief duty was to preach and convert heretics. They came into England in 1221, and had their first houses in Oxford. 327. _posternes in privité._ These private posterns are frequently alluded to in the reports of the Commissioners for the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. One of them, speaking of the abbey of Langden, says, "Wheras immediatly descendying fro my horse, I sent Bartlett your servant, with all my servantes to circumcept the abbay and surely to kepe _all bake dorres and startyng hoilles_, and I myself went alone to the abbottes logeying joyning upon the feldes and wode, _evyn lyke a cony clapper full of startyng hoilles_." (MS. Cotton. Cleop. E. iv, fol. 127.) Another commissioner (MS. Cotton. Cleop. E. iv, fol. 35), in a letter concerning the monks of the Charter-house in London, says, "These charterhowse monkes wolde be callyde solytary, but to the cloyster dore ther be above xxiiij. keys in the handes of xxiiij. persons, and hit is lyke my letters, unprofytable tayles and tydinges and sumtyme perverse concell commythe and goythe by reason therof. Allso to the buttrey dore ther be xij. sundrye keys in xij. [mens] handes wherin symythe to be small husbandrye." 351. _merkes of merchauntes._ Their ciphers or badges painted in the windows. For examples, see the note in Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. ii, p. 98, last edition. 481. _euelles._ Perhaps for _evel-les_, _i. e._ without evil. 534. _the Austyns._ The Austin Friars, or Friars Eremites of the order of St. Augustine, came into England about the year 1250. Before the end of the fourteenth century they possessed a great number of houses in this island. 566. _the foure ordres._ The four principal orders of Mendicant Friars. See note on the Vision, l. 116. 721. _harkne at Herdforthe._ This appears to be an allusion to some event which had recently occurred among the Franciscans at Hertford, or at Hereford: if the latter, perhaps they had been active in the persecution of Walter Brut. See below, l. 1309. 745. _than ther lefte in Lucifere._ Than there existed in Lucifer, before his fall. See before, the note on l. 681 of the Vision. 771. _couuen_. Probably an error of the old printed edition for _connen_. 869. _lath._ Perhaps an error of the printer of the first edition for _lay_. 911. Matth. vii, 15. 913. _werwolves._ People who had the power of turning themselves into, or were turned into, wolves. This fearful superstition, which is very ancient, was extremely prevalent in the middle ages. In French they were called _Loup-garous_. The history of a personage of this kind forms the subject of the Lai de Bisclaveret, by Marie de France. Sir Frederick Madden has published a very remarkable Early-English metrical romance on the subject of "William and the Werwolf." See on this superstition Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, pp. 620-622. 954. _Golias._ There is perhaps here an allusion to the famous satire on the Monkish orders entitled Apocalypsis Goliæ, printed among the poems of Walter Mapes. 967. _the kynrede of Caym._ In the popular belief of the middle ages, hob-goblins and evil spirits (which haunted the wilds and the waters) literally, and bad men figuratively, were represented as being descended from the first murderer, Cain. In Old-English poetry, _Caymes kyn_ is a common epithet for very wicked people. In the Anglo-Saxon romance of Beowulf, the Grendel is said to be of "Cain's kin." 1051. _wytnes on Wyclif._ In the persecutions to which Wycliffe was subjected for his opinions in 1382, his most violent opponents were the Mendicants. He died in 1384, quietly at his living of Lutterworth. 1189. _a lymytoure._ See before, the note on l. 14615 of the Vision. 1178. _stumlen in tales._ An allusion to the idle and superstitious tales with which the monks filled their sermons, in place of simple and sound doctrine. 1309. _Water Brut._ Walter Brut (or Bright) was a native of Herefordshire, and was prosecuted by the Bishop of Hereford for heresy in 1393. A long account of his defence will be found in Foxe's Acts and Monuments. 1401. _Hildegare._ I suppose this refers to St. Hildegardis, a nun who flourished in the middle of the twelfth century, and who was celebrated among the Roman Catholics as a prophetess. Her prophecies are not uncommon in manuscripts, and they have been printed. Those which relate to the future corruptions in the monkish orders are given in Foxe's Acts and Monuments, book vi, and in other works. * * * * * GLOSSARY. [The figures in the following Glossary refer to the _page_ of the text. Words preceded by a +, occur only in the CREED. A.S. and A.N. distinguish the two different languages of which our own is composed, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman.] A. a, prefixed to verbs of Anglo-Saxon origin, has sometimes a negative, sometimes an intensative power: before nouns and adjectives it represents _on_ and _at_, as, a-brood, a-fore (æt-foran), a-rowe (i. e. _on a row_), a-loft (i. e. _on high_), &c. In words of Anglo-Norman origin, it answers to the prepositions, _a_, _ab_, _ad_, of the original Latin words a (A.N.) 355, _ah!_ (an interjection) abidynge (A.S.) 413, _patient_ abiggen (A.S.) 35, 127, abien, 58, abugge, 122, abye, 164, abyen, 393, _to make amends for_, _to atone for_. _pret. s._ aboughte, 168, 190, 231, 268. _part. past_, abought, 392 abite (A.S.) 331, _to bite, nip_ a-blende (A.S.) 377, a-blynden, _to blinde, dazzle_. _pret. s._ a-blente, 388 abosten (A.N.) 126, _to assault_ abouten, aboute (A.S.) _about_ a-brood (A.S.) _abroad_ ac (A.S.) _but, and_ a-cale (A.S.) 393, _cold_. It occurs in the Romance of the Seven Sages (Weber, p. 59): That night he sat wel sore _a-kale_, And his wif lai warme a-bedde. accidie (A.N.) 99, _sloth, a fit of slothfulness_ acombren (A.N.) _to embarrass, bring into trouble_ acorden (A.N.) _to agree, accord_ acorse, acursen (A.S.) 375, _to curse._ acorsed, 375, _accursed_ acoupen (A.N.) 272, _to blame, accuse._ (for acoulpen) a-drad (A.S.) 397, _afraid_ a-drenchen (A.S.) 198, _to drown_ afaiten, 291, affaiten 81, 119, (A.N.) _to tame_ a-feren (A.S.) 395, 435, _to frighten_, _drive away_. a-fered, 376, _afraid_, _terrified_ affraynen (A.S.) 347, _to ask_, _question_, _interrogate_ afore (A.S.) _before_ aforthe (A.S.) 129, _to afford_ afrounte (A.N.) _to encounter_, _attack_, _accost rudely_. _pret. s._ afrounted, 425 a-fyngred (A.S.) 133, 176, 283, 403, _a-hungered_, _hungry_ a-furst (A.S.) 176, 283, _a-thirst_, _thirsty_. The two forms, _a-fyngred_ and _a-furst_, appear to be characteristic of the dialect of the counties which lay on the Welsh border. They occur once or twice in MS. Harl. 2253, which, in my Specimens of Lyric Poetry, I have shown to have been written in Herefordshire. They also occur in several other manuscripts which may probably be traced to that part of England. In the Romance of Horn, in the MS. just mentioned, we have the lines:-- Horn set at grounde, Him thohte he wes y-bounde, He seide, Quene, so hende, To me hydeward thou wende. Thou shench us with the vurste, The beggares bueth _a-furste_. i. e. the beggars are thirsty. Whitaker gives a very remarkable translation of _a-furst and a-fyngred_, i. e. _frost-bitten, and with aching fingers_. Ritson has no less inaccurately explained _a-furste_ in the Romance of Horn, by _at first_: the Cambridge MS. of this Romance, earlier and better than the MS. Harl., reads:-- Thu gef us with the furste, The beggeres beoth _of thurste_. ayein (A.S.) _again_, _in return for_. ayeins, _against_, _towards_ a-gulte (A.S.) 273, 313, 318, 365, _to fail in duty towards any one_, _offend_, _sin against_ aiels (A.N.) 314, _forefathers_ +aisliche (A.S.) 471, _fearfully_. The Anglo-Saxon _egeslice_ aken (A.S.) _to ache_. _pret. pl._ oke, 359 al (A.S.) _all_. _pl._ alle, _gen. pl._ alre, aller. oure aller fader, 342, _the father of us all_. your aller heed, 424, _head of you all_ a-leggen (A.N.) 207, _to allege_ a-liry (A.S.) 124, _across_, _cross-legged_ alkenamye (A.N.) 186, _alchemy_ allowen (A.N.) 294, _to allow_, _approve_ a-loft (A.S.) 378, _on high_ almarie (A.N.) 288, _a cupboard_ almesse (A.S.) _alms_ a-lough, a-logh (A.S.) 241, 242, _below_ +aloute (A.S.) 495, _to salute_ als (A.S.) _also_ a-maistren, a-maistryen (A.N.) _to overcome_, _be master of_ amenden (A.N.) _to make amends for_ amercy (A.N.) _to amerce_ amortisen (A.N.) 314, _to amortize_, _to give property in mortmain_ ampulle (A.N.) 109, _a small vessel containing holy water or oil_ an (A.S.) 2, _on_ ancres (A.S.) 3, 308, _anachorites, monks who live in solitude_. It is applied to nuns, in the early English Rule of Nuns. See Reliquiæ Antiquæ, vol. ii, p. 1 and (A.S.) the conjunction, is frequently used in the sense of _if_. and men crye, 362, _if men cry_ aniente (A.N.) 365, _to destroy, annihilate, reduce to nothing_ anoon (A.S.) _anon_ anoy (A.N.) _annoyance_ +anuel (A.N.) 475, _an annuity_: a yearly salary paid to a priest for keeping an anniversary apayen (A.N.) 123, _to satisfy, to please_ apeiren (A.N.) 80, 111, 125, 127, 141, _to lessen, diminish, impair_ apertli (A.N.) _openly_ appenden, apenden (A.N.) 17, _to belong, appertain to_ apposen (A.N.) 18, 43, 252, 318, _to raise questions, to object_ arate (A.S.) 208, 283, _to rate, scold, correct_ (the A.S. aretan?) arayen (A.N.) _to array_ arere (A.N.) _backwards, back_ arwe, _pl._ arewes (A.S.) 438, _an arrow_ arst (A.S.) 287, _first, erst_ ascapen (A.N.) _to escape_ askes (A.S.) _ashes_ asondry (A.S.) 358, _separated_ aspare (A.N.) 303, _to spare_ aspien (A.N.) to _espy_. _part. s._ aspied, 350 assaien, assaie (A.N.) 334, 336, _to assay, try_ assetz (A.N.) 362, _assets sufficient to pay the debts or legacies of a testator_. A law term assoille (A.N.) 57, 188, 407, 419, _to assoil, absolve, to explain or solve_ astronomien (Lat.) _an astronomer_ a-thynken (A.S.) 374, _to repent_ attachen (A.N.) 40, _to attach, indict_ atte (A.S.) _at the_. atte nale, 124, _at the ale_, a corruption of the Saxon, æt þan ale attre (A.S.) 243, _poison, venom_ a-tweyne (A.S.) _in two_ aught (A.S.) _something, anything, everything_ auncer (A.N.) 90, _a small vessel or cup_. In Low-Latin it is called _anceria_. See Ducange, s. v., who quotes from a charter of the date of 1320 the words, Una cum cuppis, _anceriis_, tonis, et aliis utensilibus auntren (A.N.) _to venture, adventure_, _pret. s._ auntrede, 382, auntred, 435 auter, _pl._ auteres (A.N.) _altar_ avarouser (A.N.) _more avaricious_ aventrous (A.N.) 370, _adventurers, adventurous persons_ aventure (A.N.) _an adventure, an accident_. an aventure, 47, _by adventure, by chance_ avoutrye (A.N.) _adultery_ avowen (A.N.) _to make a vow_ avowes (A.N.) _vows, promises_ awaiten (A.N.) 346, _to watch, wait_. a-wayte, 193, _to see or discover by watching_ awaken (A.S.) _to awake_. _pret. s._ awaked, 396, awakned, 424, a-wook, 147, _part. past_, awaked, 425 awreken (A.S.) _to avenge, revenge_. _part. pas._ a-wroke, 129 +awyrien (A.S.) 490, _to curse, execrate_ axen (A.S.) 71, _to ask_. _pret. s._ asked, 81 ay (A.S.) _ever, always_ B. bakstere (A.S.) 14, 47, _a woman who bakes_ bale (A.S.) 70, 209, 381, 371 (?), evil, mischief, punishment +bale (A.S.) 490, _a bon-fire_ (_rogus_) baleis (A.N.) 184, 229, _a rod_ baleisen (A.N.) 87, _to beat with a rod_ balled (A.S.) 436, _bald_. _balled reson_, 176, _a bald reason, a bare argument_ ballok-knyf (A.S.) 302, _a knife hung from the girdle_ bannen, banne (A.N.) 18, 143, 167, 310, _to ban, curse, banish_. _pret. s._ banned, 173 banyer (A.N.) 321, _a banner-bearer, standard-bearer_ barn (A.S.) 353, _a child_ baselarde (A.N.) 61, 302, _a kind of large dagger, carried in the girdle_ batauntliche (A.N.) 286, _hastily_. Cotgrave gives the Fr. phrase, il arriva tout batant, _he came very hastily_ baude (A.S.) _a bawd_ baudy (A.N.) 88, _dirty_, applied to garments. Thus in Chaucer, Cant. T. l 16102:-- His overest sloppe it is not worth a mite As in effect to him, so mote I go. It is al _baudy_ and to-tore also. baw (A.S.) 210, 419, _an interjection of contempt_. Whitaker says that the word is still used in Lancashire, and that "the verb means _alvum levare_" bayard (A.N.) 72, a term for a horse. It means properly a _bay horse_ beau-peere (A.N.) 383, _a common title for a monk_. "Beau-pere, titre que l'on donnoit aux religieux." _Roquef._ beche (A.S.) _a beech-tree_ bede, _pl._ bedes (A.S.) prayer. Our modern word _beads_ is derived from this word, because it was by such articles, hung on a cord, that our forefathers reckoned the number of their prayers bedeman (A.S.) 45, _a person who prays for another_ +been (A.S.) 493, _bees_ beigh (A.S.) _pl._ beighes, _rings, bracelets, collars_ bekene (A.S.) 363, _a beacon_ +beldyng (A.S.) 483, _building_. belded, 483, _built_ +bellyche (A.N.) 461, _fairly_ bel-sire (A.N.) 168, _grandfather_, or rather, _an ancestor_ belwe (A.S.) 222, _to bellow_ ben (A.S.) _to be_. _pres. pl._ arn, aren _or_ ben, we beth, 391, ye aren, 301, they arn, 375. _subj. sing._ weere, 15, 19, 417, _pl._ were. what she were, 19 bene (A.S.) _a bean_, +_pl._ benen (A.S.) 495, _beans_ +beneson (A.N.) 489, _blessing_ +beouten (A.S.) 489, _without_ beren, bere (A.S.) _to bear_. _pr. s._ he berth, 341. _pret. s._ bere, 54, bar, 28, 109, _pl._ baren, 98. _part. pas._ born, y-bore, 377 bergh (A.S.) 112, _a hill, mount_ bern (A.S.) 416, _a barn_ best, beest, _pl._ beestes (A.N.) _a beast, animal_ bet (A.S.) 389, _better_ bete (A.S.) 375, _to beat_. _pret. s._ bette, 184, 436. _part. pas._ y-bet bete (A.S.) 131, _to amend, heal, abate_. that myghtt not bete my bale (Sir Amadas, l. 46), _that might not amend my misfortune_. bete his nede (Rom. of Alexand. l. 5065, in Weber), _to satisfy his need_ bettre (A.S.) _better_ bi- _or_ be- is a very common prefix to words in our language derived from the Anglo-Saxon, and has chiefly an intensative power, although it modifies the meaning in various degrees. Many verbs are no longer known, except in this compound form. Thus we have:-- bi-dravelen (A.S.) 88, _to slobber or slaver on anything_ bi-fallen (A.S.) _to befal, happen_. _pr. sing._ bifel bi-yete (A.S.) _begetting, offspring_ bi-ginnen (A.S.) _to begin_. _pret. s._ bi-gonne, 106 bi-heste (A.S.) 50, _a behest, command_ bi-hest (A.S.) 432, _a promise_ bi-holden (A.S.) _to behold_. _pr. sing._ biheeld +bi-hirnen (A.S.) 488 (?) bi-hoten (A.S.) _to promise_. _pres. s._ bi-hote, 104. _pret. s._ bi-highte, 81, 345, 389. bi-hote God, 133, _an exclamation_ by-japen (A.S.) 386, 453, _to mock_ bi-kennen (A.S.) 31, 154, _to commit to_ bi-knowen (A.S.) 13, 45, _to know, recognize, acknowledge_. _pret. s._ bi-knewe, 404, _part. past_, bi-knowe, 370 bi-lien (A.S.) 174, bi-lye, 101, _to calumniate_. _part. past_, bi-lowen, 29 bi-love (A.S.) 184, _false love_ (?) bi-loven (A.S.) 130, _to make friends_ (?) by-menen (A.S.) _to signify_. _pret. s._ by-mente, 370 by-molen (A.S.) 273, 274, _to spot, stain_ by-nymen (A.S.) _to take from_. _part. past_, by-nomen, 62 bi-quasshen (A.S.) 384, _to crush to pieces_ bi-reve (A.S.) 132, _to take from, bereave_ bi-rewe (A.S.) 242, _to rue_ bi-seken, bi-sechen, 18 (A.S.) _to beseech_. _pret._ bi-soughte. _part. pas._ bi-sought bi-semen (A.S.) _to appear_ bi-setten (A.S.) 93, 95, _to place, set_ bi-seggen (A.S.) _to reproach, insult_. _part. past_, bi-seye, 437 bi-sherewen (A.S.) 75, _to curse_ bi-shetten (A.S.) 40, _to shut up_. _part. past_, bi-shet, 405 bi-sitten (A.S.) 36, 195, _to beset_ +be-slomered, 476, _bedaubed_ bi-snewed (A.S.) 301, _snowed over, covered with snow_ bi-speren (A.S.) 303, _to lock up_ bi-swynken (A.S.) 323, _to labour hard_. _pret. pl._ bi-swonke, 442 bi-tiden (A.S.) _to happen to, betide_ bi-wicchen (A.S.) 405, _to bewitch_ bicche (A.N.) 98, _a bitch_ bidden, bidde (A.S.) _to pray, to ask, beg, to require, to order_. _pres. s._ he bit, 308, 188. _pret. s._ bidde, bad, _pl._ beden, 372, 404. _part. act._ biddynge. (if he) bede, 157 bidder (A.S.) _pl._ bidderes, _an asker, petitioner_ biden (A.S.) 387, 428, _to bide, wait_. _part. past_, boden bienfait (A.N.) _a benefit_ bi-girdle (A.S.) 156, _a bag to hang at the girdle, a purse_ bi-hynde (A.S.) _behind_ bikere (A.S.) 429, _to skirmish, fight_ +bild (A.S.) 460, _a building_ bile (A.S.) _a bill_ bilyve (A.S.) 410, 425, _food_ bynden (A.S.) _to bind_. _pret. s._ bond, 352. _part. pas._ bounden bisie (A.S.) _busy_ bismere, bismare (A.S.) 82, 413, _infamy, reproach, disgrace_ biten, bite (A.S.) 446, _to bite, urge_. _pres. s._ bitit, 225. _pret. s._ boot, 82 byte (A.S.) 381, _a morsel_, _bit_ bi-time (A.S.) _betimes_ bittre (A.S.) 393, _bitterly_ bi-yonde (A.S.) _beyond_: when used indefinitely it signifies _beyond sea_, _ultra mare_ blancmanger (A.N.) 252, _a made dish for the table_. Receipts for cooking it are given in most of the early tracts on cookery bleden (A.S.) _to bleed_. _pret. s._ bledde, 402, 415 blenche (A.S.) 112, _to draw back_ blende (A.S.) 181, _to blind_. blent, _blinded_ +blenying (A.S.) 468, _blistering_ bleren (A.S.) _to blear, to make a person's sight dim, impose upon him_. bler-eighed, 367, _blear-eyed_ blisse (A.S.) _joy, happiness_ blisful (A.S.) _joyful, full of happiness, blessed_ blody (A.S.) 129, 213, _by blood, of or in blood_ bloo (A.S.) _blue_ blosmen (A.S.) _to blossom_. _pret._ blosmede blowen (A.S.) _to blow_. _pret. s._ blewe, _blew_. _part. past_, y-blowe, 360 blustren (A.N. ?) 108, _to wander or stray along without any particular aim_ bochier (A.N.) _a butcher_ +bode ( ) 493 (?) bolden (A.S.) _to encourage, embolden_ bole (A.S.) _a bull_ bolk (A.S.) 100, _a belching_ bolle (A.S.) 83, 99, _a bowl_ bollen, bolne (A.S.) _to swell_. _pres. s._ bolneth, 84 book, _pl._ bokes (A.S.) _a book_ boold (A.S.) 373, _bold_ boon (A.S.) _a bone_ boor (A.S.) _a boar_ boot (A.S.) _a boat_ boote (A.S.) 70, 139, 189, 209, 233, 266, _help, reparation, amendment, restoration, remedy_ bootne (A.S.) _to restore, remedy_. _part. pas._ bootned, 128 boot-les (A.S.) 369, _without boots_ borde (A.S.) _table_. Hence the modern use of the word _board_ when we speak of "_board and lodging_" bord-lees (A.S.) 239, _without table_ borgh, 70, 143, 181, 346. borugh, 426, 439, _pl._ borwes, 19 (A.S.) _a pledge, surety_. _s. in obj. case_, borwe, 285 borwen (A.S.) 71, _to give security, or a pledge to release a person or thing, to bail, to borrow_. _pret. s._ borwed bosarde (A.N.) 189, _a worthless or useless fellow_. It is properly the name of a worthless species of hawk, which is unfit for sporting; and is thus used in Chaucer's version of the Romance of the Rose, l. 4033:-- This have I herde ofte in saying, That man ne maie for no daunting Make a sperhawke of _a bosarde_. The original is,-- Ce oï dire en reprovier, Que l'en ne puet fere espervier En nule guise _d'ung busart_. bosten (A.S.) _to boast_. _part. past_, y-bosted, 351 bote-lees (A.S.) 381, _without remedy_ botenen (A.N.) _to button_. +_part. past_, y-botend, 468, _buttoned_ bothe (A.S.) _both_. The genitive, botheres, _of both_, occurs. hir botheres myghtes, 340, _the might of both of them_. hir botheres right, 371, _the right of each of them_. botrasen (A.N.) 113, _to make buttresses to a building_ bouchen (A.N.) 5, _to stop people's mouths (?)_ bouken (A.S.) 274, 306, _to buck (clothes)_ bour (A.S.) _a bower, chamber_ bourde (A.S.) _a game, joke_ bourdynge (A.N.) 297, _jesting_ bourn, _g._ bournes (A.S.) _a stream or river_ bowe (A.S.) 112, _a bough, branch_ bown (A.S.) 37, _ready_ boy (A.S.) 6 (?) boye (A.S.) 214, _a lad servant_ breden (A.S.) _to breed_. _pret. pl._ bredden brede (A.S.) _breadth_ breed (A.S.) _bread_ breeth (A.S.) 388, _breath_ breken (A.S.) _to break, tear_. _pret. s._ brak, 388. _part. pas._ y-broken, broke, y-broke, 416 breme (A.S.) 241, _vigorous, fierce, furious_. Chaucer, C. T. l. 1701, speaking of Arcite and Palamon, says they--"foughten breme, as it were bolles two," _fought as fiercely as two bulls_. In the Romance of Sir Amadas (Weber, p. 250) a person is described as coming "lyke a breme bare," _like a fierce boar_. It appears to be most commonly applied to animals. In the Towneley Mysteries, p. 197, Anna says to Cayphas, "Be not to breme," _be not too fierce_ brennen, brenne (A.S.) 360, _to burn_. _pret. s._ brende, 367. _part. pas._ brent bresten (A.S.) _to burst_, _pret. s._ brast, 127 brevet (A.N.) 5, _a little brief or letter_ brewestere (A.S.) 14, 47, _a woman who brews_ brid, _pl._ briddes (A.S.) _a bird_ bringen (A.S.) _to bring_. _pret. s._ broughte, broghte. _part. past_, y-brought, broght, 235 brocage (A.N.) 33, 289, _a treaty by a broker or agent_. It is particularly applied to treaties of marriage, brought about in this way. In Chaucer's Romance of the Rose, l. 6971, Fals Semblant says,-- I entremete me of _brocages_. I maken pece, and mariages. So in the Miller's Tale (C.T. 3375), it is said of Absolon, He woweth hire by mene and by _brocage_, And swor he wolde ben hir owne page. That is, he wooed her by the agency of another person, whom he employed to persuade her to agree to his wishes. broches (A.N.) _brooches, jewels_. broches, 362, _matches_ (?) brocour (A.N.) 31, 32, 45, 84, _a seller, broker, maker of bargains_ broke (A.S.) _a brook_ brok, _pl._ brokkes (A.S.) 119, _an animal of the badger kind_ brol (A.S.) 55, 494, 495, _a child, brat_. Reliquiæ Antiquæ, ii, 177:-- Whan hi commith to the world, hi doth ham silf sum gode, Al bot the wrech _brol_ that is of Adamis blode. brood (A.S.) _broad_ brotel (A.S.) 153, _weak, brittle, unsteady_ +brothels (A.S.) 496, _wretches, men of bad life_. In the Coventry Mysteries (Ed. Halliwell, p. 308), the term is applied to the damned who suffer punishment in hell:-- In bras and in bronston the _brethellys_ be brent, That wene in this werd my wyl for to werke. In another play in the same collection, p. 217, it is applied to the woman taken in adultery:-- Com forthe, thou bysmare and _brothel_ bolde. brouke (A.S.) 209, _to enjoy, use, to brook_ brugg, _pl._ brugges (A.S.) _a bridge_ bruneste (A.S.) _brownest_ buggen, bugge (A.S.) 412, _to buy_. _pres. pl._ biggen. _pret._ boughte. _part. act._ buggynge, 410 bummen (A.S. ?) 90, _to taste_ (?) burde (A.S.) 44, 404, _a maiden, damsel, lady_ burdoun (A.N.) 108, _a staff_ burel (A.N.) _a kind of coarse brown woollen cloth_. burel clerkes, 191. Tyrwhit (Glos. to Chaucer) thinks this means _lay clerks_. In the Canterbury Tales, l. 7453, the friar says:-- And more we se of Goddis secré thinges, Than _borel folk_, although that thay ben kinges, We lyve in povert and in abstinence, And _borel folk_ in riches and dispence. The hoste says (l. 15440)-- Religioun hath take up al the corn Of tredyng, and we _burel men_ ben schrympes. _Borel folk_ and _borel men_ evidently mean _laymen_ burgage (A.N.) 48, _lands or tenements in towns, held by a particular tenure_ burgeise (A.S.) _burgess, inhabitant of a borough_ burghe (A.S.) 135, _burgh, town_ burghe (A.S.) _castrated_, applied to a hog. burghe swyn, 34, _a barrow hog_ burjonen (A.N.) 299, _to bud, or spring_ burn (A.S.) _pl._ burnes, _a man_. buyrn, 341, 346 +burwgh (A.S.) 458, _a castle, palace, or large edifice_ busk, _pl._ buskes (A.S.) 223, _a bush_ busken (A.S.) 44, 167, _to busk, go, to array, prepare_ buxom (A.S.) _obedient_. buxomnesse, _obedience_ C. K. caas (A.N.) _case_ cacchen (A.S.) 236, _to catch, take_. _part. past_, caught, 361 cachepol (A.S.) 372, 373, _a catchpole_ kaiser, kayser (A.S.) 404, _an emperor_ cammoke (A.S.) 414, a weed more commonly known by the name of _rest-harrow (anonis)_ kan (A.S.) _can_ capul, caple (A.N.) 354, _pl._ caples, 415, 416, _a horse_ (said to be derived from the Low-Latin _caballus_) caractes (A.N.) 233, _characters_ cardiacle (Gr.) 266, 430, _a disease affecting the heart_ careful (A.S.) _pl._ carefulle, 403, _full of care_ carien (A.S.) _to carry_ caroyne, careyne (A.N.) _carrion, flesh, a corpse_ carpen (A.N.) 356, 400, _to talk, chat, tell_. _part. pas._ y-carped, 313 +cary (A.N. ?) 475, _a kind of coarse cloth_ casten (A.S.) _to cast_ catel (A.N.) 70, 78, 175, 437, _goods, property, treasure, possessions_ cauken (A.S. ?) 223, 241, a technical term, applied to birds at their time of breeding. It is found in the St. Albans Book of Hawking, 1496, sign. A. i.; "And in the tyme of their (the hawks') love, they calle, and not _cauke_." kaurymaury, 81, _care, trouble_? +cautel (A.N.) 469, _a cunning trick_ kaylewey ( .) 334 (?) kemben (A.S.) 174, _to comb_ kene (A.S.) _sharp, earnest_ kennen, kenne (A.S.) 355, 396, 410, _to teach_, _pres pl._ konne, 3. _imperat._ kenne (_teach_), 20. _pret._ kenned, 67, 241, kennede, 409 kepen, kepe (A.S.) _to keep, to abstain_, 60. _pret. pl._ kepten, 235, 404. have kepe this man, 352, _have this man to keep_ kernelen (A.N.) 113, _to embattle a building, build the battlements_ kerse (A.S.) 174, _cress_ kerven (A.S.) _to carve_. +_part. past_, y-corven, 460 kerver, 184, _a sculptor_ cesse (A.N.) 375, _to end, cease_ kevere (A.N.) 445, _to recover_ kex (A.S.) 361, _the dried stalk of hemlock_ chace (A.N.) 351, _to race, to go fast_ chaffare (A.S.) 131, 292, 301, 305, 338, _to deal, traffic, trade_ chaffare (A.S.) 3, 31, 85, 268, 305, _merchandise_ chalangen (A.N.) _to challenge, claim_. chalangynge, 82. chalanged, 87 chapitle (A.N.) _a chapter_ +chaple (A.N.) 485, _a chapel_ chapman (A.S.) _a merchant, buyer_ +chapolories (A.N.) 483, _chapelaries_ +charthous (A.N.) 490, _Carthusians_ chastilet (A.N.) _a little castle_ chatre (A.N.) 287, _to chatter_ chauncelrie (A.N.) _chancery_ cheke (A.S.) 68, _the cheek_, maugree hire chekes, 68. We have in Chaucer, _maugré thin eyen_, _maugré hire hed_, &c. See Tyrwhit's Gloss, v. _Maugre_. One of these instances is exactly analogous to the passage of Piers Ploughman (C. T. l. 6467):-- And happed, al alone as sche was born, He saugh a mayde walkyng him by-forn, Of which mayden anoon _maugré hir heed_, By verray fors byraft hir maydenhed. cheker (A.N.) _the exchequer_ chele (A.S.) 176, 439, _cold_ chepen (A.S.) 296, _to buy_ chepyng (A.S.) 68, 135, _market, sale_ cherl (A.S.) 210, _pl._ cherles, 337, 375, _a serf, peasant, churl_ +cherlich (A.N.) 485, _richly, sumptuously_ chervelle (A.S.) 134, _chervil, a plant which was eaten as a pot-herb (cerefolium)_ chese (A.S.) 296, _to choose_ cheeste, cheste (A.S.) 33, 169, 253, _dissension, strife, debate_ cheve (A.N.) 375, _to compass a thing, to succeed, or bring to an end, to obtain, adopt_. _pres. s._ cheveth, 287. _pret. pl._ cheveden, 3, chewe, 381, 439. lat hem chewe as thei chosen, _let them take as they choose_ chewen (A.N.) 26, 490, _to eschewe_ chibolle (A.N.) 134, _a kind of leek_, called in French _ciboule_ chicke, _pl._ chicknes, 67 (A.S.) _a chicken_ chevysaunce (A.N.) 92, 426, _an agreement for borrowing money_ chiden (A.S.) _to chide_ child (A.S.) _a child_. _gen. pl._ childrene, 72 chymenee (A.N.) 179, _a fire-place_ chirie-tyme, 86, _cherry-time_ chyvelen (A.S. ?) 88, _to become shrivelled_ +chol (A.S.) 464, _the jowl_ kidde, _see_ couthen kirk (A.S.) _a church_ kirtel (A.S.) _a kirtle, frock_ kissen (A.S.) 395, _to kiss_. _pret. s._ kiste, 394 kith, kyth (A.S.) 55, 324, 400, _relationship, family connection_. to kith and to kyn, 268, _to family connection and kindred_ kitone (A.N.) _kitten, young cat_ clawe (A.S.) 274, _to brush, to stroke_ clene (A.S.) _pure, clean_. clenner, 410, purer. clennesse, _purity, cleanness_ clepen, clepe (A.S.) _to call_. _pret._ cleped, 436. _part. pas._ cleped, 174 clergie (A.N.) _science, clergy_ clerk (A.N.) _pl._ clerkes, _gen. pl._ clerkene, 72, _a scholar_ cler-matyn (A.N.) 135, _a kind of fine bread_ cleven (A.S.) _to split, cleave_ (intransitive). _pret. s._ cleef, 373 cleymen (A.N.) 389, _to claim_. _pret. s._ cleymede, 430 cliket (A.N.) 114, _a kind of latch key_. cliketten, 114, _to fasten with a cliket_. Tyrwhit explains the word simply as meaning a key--but in Piers Ploughman it is put so in immediate apposition with the word key, that it must have differed from it. In Chaucer, C. T. 9990, et seq. it appears to be the key of a garden gate:-- This freissche May, that I spake of so yore, In warm wex hath emprynted the _cliket_ That January bar of the smale wiket, By which into his gardyn ofte he went; And Damyan, that knew al hir entent, The _cliket_ counterfeted prively. In a document of the date 1416, quoted by Ducange, v. _Cliquetus_, it is ordered that, Refectorarius semper teneat hostium refectorii clausum _cum cliqueto_ clyngen (A.S.) 276, _to shrink, wither, pine_. Reliq. Antiquæ, vol. ii, p. 210:-- When eld me wol aweld, mi wele is awai; Eld wol keld, and _cling_ so the clai. clippe (A.S.) 359, 394, _to embrace, enfold_ clips (A.N. ?) 377, _an eclipse_ clyven (A.S.) 367, _to cleave, stick to_ clokken (A.N.) 45, _to limp or hobble, to walk lamely_ clomsen (A.N.) 276, _to shrink or contract_. A verb used often in the Wycliffite Bible. In Prompt. Parv. aclomsid. clooth (A.S.) _cloth_ clouch (A.S.) _pl._ clouches, _a clutch_ clouten (A.S.) _to patch, mend_. _part. past_, y-clouted, 120 clucche (A.S.) 359, _to clutch, hold_ knappe (A.S.) 133, _a knop, a button_ knave (A.S.) 14, 66, _a servant lad_ +knoppede (A.S.) 476, _full of knobs_ knowelichen (A.S.) _to acknowledge_. _pret. s._ kneweliched, 239, 407. _part. act._ knowelichynge, 400 knowes (A.S.) 98, _knees_ knowen, knowe (A.S.) 408, _to know_, _pres. pl._ knowen. _pret. s._ knew, 232. _pl._ knewen, 237. _part. pas._ knowen, knowe coffe (A.S. ?) 120, _a cuff_ +cofrene (A.N.) 455, _to put in a coffer_ coghen (A.S.) 367, _to cough_ coke (A.S.) _a cook_ cokeney (A.N.) 134, _some kind of meager food, probably a young or small cock, which had little flesh on its bones_. This meaning of the word (which has been misunderstood) may be gathered from a comparison of the passage in Piers Ploughman with one in the "Turnament of Tottenham," where the writer intended to satirize the poorness of the fare:-- At that fest were thei servyd in a rich aray, Every fyve and fyve had _a cokeney_. Heywood, in his Proverbs, part i, chap. xi, gives a proverb in which the word is evidently used in the same sense, and appears to be intentionally contrasted with a _fat hen_:-- --Men say, He that comth every daie shall have _a cocknaie_, He that comth now and then, shall have a fat hen; But I gat not so muche in comyng seelde when, As a goode hens fether or a poore egshell. I think that _cokenay_ in Chaucer is the same word, used metaphorically to signify a person without worth or courage (C. T. 4205):-- And when this jape is tald another day, I sal be hald a daf, _a cokenay_. coker (A.S.) 120, _a short stocking, or glove, a sheath_ coket (A.N.) 135, _a kind of fine bread_ cokewold (A.N.) 75, _a cuckold_ cole (A.N.) 134, _cabbage_ coler (A.N.) _a collar_ collen (A.N.) 203, _to embrace, put one's arms round a person's neck_, in French, _accoller_ colomy (A. .) 267 (?) colvere (A.S.) 319, _a dove, pigeon_ come (A.S.) 416, _to come_. _pres. s._ he comth, 18, 332. _pret. s._ cam, kam, coom, 168, com, 400. _pl._ comen, 438, come, 235, 237, 430, coome, 416, coomen, 438. _subj._, til he coome, 328, er thei coome, 353 comsen (A.N.) 23, 24, 49, 77, 81, 119, 136, 152, 244, 372, _to begin, commence, to endeavour_. _pret. s._ comsede, 402, 403. comsynge, 382 comunes (A.N.) 80, 420, _commons, allowance of provision_ confus (A.N.) _confused_ congeyen, congeien (A.N.) 258, _to give leave, dismiss_ congie (A.N.) 258, _leave_ konne (A.S.) 401, 408, 437, _to learn, know_. _pres. s._ kan. _pret._ kouthe, 411, koude. _subj._ in case that thow konne, 424, and thou konne, 397, _if thou know_. _pret. act._ konnyng, 206, _knowing_ konnynge (A.S.) 409, _knowledge, science, cunning_ contenaunce (A.N.) 2, 203, _appearance, gesture, carriage_ contrarien (A.N.) 367, _to go against, vex, oppose_ contree (A.N.) _a country_ contreve (A.N.) _to contrive_. contreved, _contrived_ conying (A.N. ?) _a rabbit_ copen (A.N.) 51, _to cover with a cope, like a friar_ coppe (A.N.) 44, 191, _a cup, basin_ coroune (A.N.) _a crown_ corounen (A.N.) _to crown_. _part. p._ y-corouned cors (A.N.) 295, _the body_ corsaint (A.N.) 109, _a relique, the body of a saint_ corsen (A.S.) 305, _to curse_ corsede (A.S.) _cursed_. corseder, 421, _more cursed, worse_ cost (A.N.) 33, 151, 376, _a side, region_ costen (A.N.) _to cost_. _pret. s._ costed, 13. _part. pas._ costned, 13 cote (A.S.) 152, _a cottage, cot_ coten (A.N.) 51, _to dress in a coat_ +cotinge (A.S.) 468, _cutting_ coupable (A.N.) 366, _guilty, culpable_ coupe (A.N.) 44, 95, _a cup_ coupen (A.N.) _to cut out, fashion_ (?) _part. past_, y-couped, 370 courben (A.N.) 19, 28, _to bend, stoop_ courtepy (A.N.) 82, 128, _a short cloak of coarse cloth_ couthen (A.S.) 87, _to make known, discover, publish_. _pret._ kidde, 103, 269 +couuen (A.S.) 473, perhaps an error in the old printed text for _connen_ coveiten (A.N.) _to covet_ covent (A.N.) 428, _a convent_ coveren (A.N.) 238, _to recover_ cracchen (A.S.) 211, 322, _to scratch_ crafte (A.S.) _craft, art_. crafty-men, 121, _artisans_ creaunt (A.N.) 239, _believing_ crepen (A.S.) _to creep_. _pret. s._ crope, _pl._ cropen cryen (A.N.) _to cry_. _pret. s._ cried, cryde, 374, _pl._ cryden, cride croft (A.S.) _a small inclosed field, a croft_ crokke (A.S.) 412, _a pot, pitcher, vessel of earthenware_ +crom-bolle (A.S.) 476, _a crum-bowl_ crop (A.S.) 332, 334, _the head or top of a tree or plant_; hence the expression "root and crop," still in use cropiers (A.N.) _the housings on the horse's back_ croppen (A.S.) 319, _to eat (said of a bird), to put into its crop or craw_ crouche (A.N.) 109, _a cross_. Hence is derived the name of _the Crutched Friars_ +crouken (A.S.) 495, _to bend_ +crucchen (A.S.) 495, _to crouch_ cruddes (A.S.) _curds_ cruwel (A.N.) 269, _cruel_ ku, _pl._ kyen (A.S.) 125, _a cow_ kulle (A.S.) 344, kille, 434, _to kill_. _pret. s._ kilde, 431. _part. past_, kulled, 339. to kulle, 338 culorum (_Lat._) 60, 198, _the conclusion or moral of a tale_ cultour (A.S.) 123, kultour, 61, _a culter, blade_ cuppe-mele (A.S.) 90, _cup by cup_ kutte, 79 (A.S.) _to cut_. _imperat._ kut, 75. _pret. pl._ kitten, 128 kynde (A.S.) _nature, race, kind_ kynde (A.S.) _natural_. kyndeliche, 382, _naturally_ kyng (A.S.) _pl._ kynges. _gen. pl._ kyngene, 21, 400, _a king_ kyng-ryche (A.S.) _a kingdom_ kyn, _gen. s._ kynnes (A.S.) 40, _kin, kind_. This word is used in the genitive case in such phrases as the following: of foure kynnes thynges, 151, _of four kinds of things_. othere kynnes men, 177, _other kinds of men_. none kynnes riche, 213, _no kind of rich men, or rich men of no kind_. many kynnes maneres, 359, _many sorts of manners_. any kynnes catel, 400, _any kind of property_ D. daffe (A.S.) _a fool_ daggen (A.S.) 433, _to dag, to cut the edges of the garment in jagged ornaments, as was the custom at this period_ daren (A.S.) _to dare_. _pres. pl._ dar, 10, 280. _pret. s._ and _pl._ dorste, 11, 42, 253, 393 dawe (A.S.) 380, _dawn_. _pret. s._ dawed, 395 dawnten (A.N.) 319, _to tame_,--also, _to daunt, to fear_ decourren (A.N.) 285, _to discover, lay open, narrate_ dedeynous (A.N.) 156, _disdainful_ deed (A.S.) _dead_ deen (A.N.) _a dean_ dees (A.N.) _dice_ deef (A.S.) _pl._ deve, 403, _deaf_ defende (A.N.) 47, 485, _to forbid, prohibit_ defien, defyen, defie (A.N. ?) 84, 100, 141, 298, _to digest_ defyen (A.N.) _to defy_. _pret. s._ defyed, 429 degised (A.N.) 2, _disguised_ deyen (A.S.) _to die_. _pret. s._ deide, 214. to dye, 352 deyntee (A.N.) 205, _dainty, niceness, preciousness_ deys, dees (A.N.) 139, 250, _the dais, or high table in the hall_ deitee (A.N.) _deity, godhead_ del, deel (A.S.) _part, portion_. tithe deel, 323, _tenth part_ delen, dele, deelen (A.S.) 47, 175, 218, _share, distribute, give, deal_. _pres._ ye deele, 144 deliten (A.N.) _to delight, take pleasure_ delitable (A.N.) _delightful, pleasant_ delven (A.S.) 417, _to dig, bury_. _pret. pl._ dolven, 128. _part. pas._ dolven, 128, 293 delvere (A.S.) _a digger, delver_ demen (A.S.) _to judge_. _pret._ demede dene (A.S.) 373, _din, noise_ dene (A.N.) _a dean_ departable (A.N.) 355, _divisible_ depper (A.S.) 307, _deeper_ dere (A.S.) 140, 349, 370, _to injure, hurt_ derely (A.S.) 396, _expensively, richly_ dereworthe (A.S.) _precious, honourable_ derk (A.S.) _dark_ derne (A.S.) 38, 249, _secret_ destruyen, destruye (A.N.) 361, _to destroy_. _pret. s._ destruyed, 340 dette (A.N.) _pl._ dettes, _a debt_ devoir (A.N.) _duty_ devors (A.N.) 433, _divorce_ dya (A.N.) 435, _dyachylon_ diapenidion, 84, _an electuary_ dido (A. .) 256, _a trifle, a trick_ dighte (A.S.) 134, _to fit out, make, dispose, dress_. _pret. s._ dighte, 396 +digne (A.N.) 472, _worthy_ digneliche (A.N.) _worthily, deservedly_ dyk, 417 (A.S.) _dych, a ditch_ dikere, dykere (A.S.) 96, _a ditch or foss digger, ditcher_ dymes (A.N.) 326, _tithes_ dymme (A.S.) 388, _dark_. _adv._ dymme, 184, _darkly_ dymmen (A.S.) 98, _to become dim or dark_ dyngen (A.S.) 62, 125, 193, 295, _to strike, ding, knock_ dynt (A.S.) 370, _a blow, knock_ disalowed (A.N.) 281, _disallowed, disapproved. disalowyng_, 282, _disapproving_ discryven (A.N.) _to describe_ disour (A.N.) _a player at dice_ disour (A.N.) 120, _a teller of tales_ dyssheres (A.S.) 96, _a female who makes dishes_ +distrie (A.N.) 478, _to destroy_ doel (A.N.) 100, 124, 368, _grief, lamentation_ doughtier (A.S.) 83, _more doughty, more to be feared_. doghtiest, 403, _bravest_. doghtiliche, 371, _doughtily, bravely_ doke (A.S.) 81, 352, _a duck_ dole (A.S.) 47, _a share, portion_. Another form of _del_. donet (A.N.) 89, _grammar, elements, first principles_, from Donatus. See note on l. 7944 domesman (A.S.) 414, _a judge_ dongeon (A.N.) _a fort, the chief tower of a castle_ doom, dome (A.S.) _pl._ domes, _judgment_ doon (A.S.) _to do_. _pres. sing._ dooth, _pl._ doon, don. _pret. s._ dide, _pl._ diden, 278, 392, dide, 389. _part. pas._ doon, do. _imperat. pl._ dooth, 152. to doone, 226, 263 dore-tree (A.S.) _a door post_ +dortour (A.N.) 463, _a dormitory_ doted (A.S.) _foolish, simple_ doughtres (A.S.) _daughters_ doute (A.N.) _fear, doubt_ dowen (A.N.) _to endow_. _pret._ dowed, 325, _endowed_ dowve (A.S.) 319, _a dove_ draf (A.S.) 173, 419, _dregs, dirt_. Things thrown away as unfit for man's food, particularly the dust and husks of corn after it has been threshed. Chaucer's Parson (C. T. l. 17329) says:-- Why schuld I sowen _draf_ out of my fest, Whan I may sowe whete, if that me lest? +drane (A.S.) 493, _a drone_ drawen (A.S.) _to draw_. _pret. s._ drough, 89, 98. drogh, 280, 437. drow, 376, _pl._ drowen, 222. _part. pas._ drawe, 175 +drecchen (A.S.) 478, 480, _to vex, grieve, oppress_ drede (A.S.) 434, _to dread, fear_. _pres. s._ he drat, 165. _pret. s._ dredde, 280. _pl._ dradden, 429. _imperat._ dred, 17 dredfully (A.S.) 352, _fearfully, terrified_ dregges (A.S.) 419, _dregs_ dremels (A.S.) 148, 247, _a dream_ drenchen, drenche (A.S.) 154, 237, _to drown_. _pret. pl._ a-dreynten, 198 drevelen (A.S.) 175, _to drivel_ drye (A.S.) 276, _thirst_ drien (A.S.) 16, _to be dry, thirsty_ drihte (A.S.) 262, _lord_. drighte, 279 drinken (A.S.) _to drink_. _pret. s._ drank, _pl._ dronken, 277, dronke, 278. _part. pas._ dronken, y-dronke, 354 dryven (A.S.) _to drive_ droghte (A.S.) 134, _a drought, deficiency of wet_ dronklewe (A.S.) 156, _drunken, given to drink_. The word occurs in Chaucer, C. T. l. 7625:-- Irous Cambises was eek _dronkelewe_, And ay delited him to ben a schrewe. Again (C. T. l. 12426):-- Seneca saith a good word douteles: He saith he can no difference find, Betwix a man that is out of his mind, And a man whiche that is _dronkelew_. The word used by Seneca is _ebrius_ drury (A.N.) 20, _courtship, gallantry_ duc (A.N.) 414, _a duke_. _pl._ dukes, 388 +duen (A.N.) 496, _to endue, or endow_ E. ech (A.S.) _each_. echone (i. e. _each one_) _every one, each_ edifie (A.N.) 371, _to build_ edwyte (A.S.) 99, _to reproach, blame, upbraid_ eest (A.S.) _east_ eft (A.S.) 354, 371, _again_ eggen (A.S.) 19, 386, _to egg on, urge, incite_ egreliche (A.N.) 334, 418, _sourly, bitterly_ +ey (A.S.) 464, _an egg_ eighe (A.S.) 180, 190, 306, _pl._ eighen, 5, 80, 127, eighes, 33, _the eye_ eylen (A.S.) _to ail_ eyr (A.N.) _air_ elde (A.S.) _old age_ elenge (A.S.) 12, 179, 425, _mournful, sorrowful_. elengliche, 231, _sorrowfully, in trouble_ eller (A.S.) 19, ellere, 168, _an elder tree_ ellis (A.S.) 6, _else, otherwise, at other times_ enbawmen (A.N.) _to embalm_. _pret. s._ enbawmed, 352 enblaunchen (A.N.) 301, _to whiten over_ engyne (A.N.) 384, _to contrive, lay a plan, catch_ engleymen (A.N.) 298, _to beslime_ engreyned (A.N.) 29, _powdered_ enselen (A.N.) _to put a seal to_ +entayled (A.N.) 462, _carved_ entre-metten (A.N.) 226, 263, _to intermeddle_ envenyme (A.N.) _venom, poison_ er (A.S.) _before, formerly_ erchdekenes (A.N.) _archdeacons_ ere (A.S.) _pl. eris, the ear_ erien, erie, erye (A.S.) 117, 138, _to plough_. _pret. pl._ eriede, 411. _part. past_, eryed, 117 eerl. _pl._ erles (A.S.) _an earl_ ernynge (A.S.) 418, _running_. _see_ yerne ers (A.S.) 87, 180, 191, _the fundament, podex_ erst (A.S.) _first, most before_, _superl. of_ er eschaunge (A.N.) _exchange_ eschetes (A.N.) 75, _escheats_ ese (A.N.) _ease_ eten, ete (A.S.) 386, _to eat_. _pret. s._ eet, 100, 135, 146, 241, &c. _pl._ eten, 114, 248, ete, 278. _part. pas._ eten, 354. +evelles (A.S.) 465, _without evil_ even (A.S.) _equal_. even-cristen, _equal christian, or equal by baptism_; _fellow-christian_, evene, 76, _evenly, equally_. evene forth, 356, _equally_ +evesed (A.S.) 460, _furnished with eaves_ evesynge (A.S.) 361, _the ice which hangs on the eaves of houses_ ewage (A.N.) 29, _a kind of precious stone_ expounen (A.N.) 290, _to expound, explain_ F. fader (A.S.) 361, _a father_ fayn (A.S.) _fain, glad_ faiten (A.N.) 144, 308, _to beg, idle, to flatter_. _pret. pl._ faiteden, 3. faityng, 175, _deceiving_ faiterie (A.N.) 207, _flattery, deception_ faitour (A.N.) _a deceiver, an idle lazy fellow, a flatterer_ faithly (A.N.) 400, _truly, properly_ fallen (A.S.) _to fall_. _pres. s._ he falleth. _pret. s._ fel, 280, 297, fil, 278, 312, 374, fille, 285, 336, _pl._ fellen, felle, 336, 388. _part. pas._ fallen, 375 fals (A.N.) _false, falseness_. falshede, _falsehood_. falsliche, 390, _falsely_ fangen (A.S.) 111, fonge, 282, 336, _to take, take hold of_. _pret. s._ _under_-feng, 19, _under_-fonged, 209. _part. past_, _under_-fongen, 115, 211 faren, fare (A.S.) 197, _to go, fare_. _pret. s._ ferde, 443, _pl._ ferden, 168 _part. past_, faren 77, 123, 228 fare (A.S.) 376, _proceeding, manner of going on, fare_ fasten (A.S.) _to fast_ fauchon (A.N.) 295, _a sword, falchion_ faunt (A.N.) 134, 144, 336, 403, _a child, infant_ fauntekyn (A.N.) 259, _a young child_ faunteltee, fauntelté (A.N.) 204, 304, _childishness_ faute, _pl._ fautes (A.N.) 179, _a fault_ fauten (A.N.) _to want_. _pret._ fauted, 163 favel (A.N.) 28, 30, _deception by flattery, cajolery_ feble (A.N.) 355, _feeble, weak_ fecchen (A.S.) 39, 385, 410, _to fetch_. _pres. s._ I fecche, thow fettest, 390. _pret. s._ fet, fette, 36, 104, 202, 385. _pl._ fetten, 134. _part. pas._ fet, 444, fette water at hise eighen, _threw water at his eyes_; to fetch a thing at another, for, to throw, is an expression still in use feden (A.S.) _to feed_ fee (A.S.) _property, money, fee_ feere (A.S.) 367, _pl._ feeres, feeris, _companion_ feere (A.S.) 256, 367, 376, _fear_ feet (A.N.) 26, _a deed, fact_ feffement (A.N.) 32, _enfeofment_ feffen (A.N.) 33, 37, _to infeof, to fee, present_ feynen (A.N.) _to feign, dissemble_ feyntise (A.S.) 77, _faintness, weakness_ feire (A.N.) _a fair_ fel (A.S.) _the skin_ fele (A.S.) _many_. fele fold, _manyfold_ fellen (A.S.) _to fell, kill_ felonliche (A.N.) 390, _like a felon, in manner of a felon_ +fen (A.S.) 476, _mud, mire_ fend (A.S.) _pl._ fendes, _a fiend, devil_. fyndekynes, 391, _little fiends_ fennel-seed (A.S.) 95, _the seed of sweet-fennel was formerly used as a spice_ fenestre (A.N.) 285, 370, _a window_ fer (A.S.) _far_ fere (A.S.) 140, _to frighten_ ferly (A.S.) _pl._ ferlies, _a wonder_, 196, 253, 376 ferie (A.N.) 270, _a week-day_ ferme (A.N.) 403, _adv._ _firmly_ fermed (A.N.) 177, _strengthened_ fernyere (A.S.) 103, 228, _in former times_ fernmerye (A.N.) 253, _the infirmary_ +ferrer (A.S.) 463, _further_ ferthe (A.S.) 413, _fourth_ festnen (A.S.) _to fasten_. _part. pas._ fest, 35 festynge (A.N.) _feasting_ festu (A.N.) 190, _a mote in the eye_. (festuca, _Lat._) fetisliche, 28, fetisly, 38 (A.N.) _elegantly, neatly, featously_ fibicches (A.N. ?) 186 (?) +fichewes (A.S.) 468, _a kind of weasel_, called a _fitchet_ in Shropshire +fyen (A.N.) 487, _to say, fy!_ The exclamation, _fy!_ was originally one of disgust, occasioned by anything that stunk, according to the old distich (MS. Cotton, Cleop. B. ix, fol. 11, v^o. of the thirteenth cent.):-- _Phi_, nota _foetoris_, lippus gravis omnibus horis, Sit _phi_, sit lippus semper procul, ergo Philippus! fiers (A.N.) _proud, fierce_ fighten (A.S.) _to fight_. _pret. s._ faught, 391, 402. _pl._ foughten. _part. pas._ y-foughte, 126, 336 fyle (A.N.) 86, _a daughter, girl_, apparently used here in the sense of a _common woman_; as they say now in French, _elle n'est qu'une fille_, she is no better than a strumpet fyn (A.N.) 403, _fine, clever_ fynden (A.S.) _to find, to furnish_. _pres. s._ he fynt, 73, 146, 305, 367. _pret. s._ fond, foond, 219, 304, 312 fir (A.S.) 360, _fire_. fuyr, _fire_ fithele (A.N.) 272, _to fiddle_. fithele, 165, _a fiddle_ flappen (A.S.) _to strike with a flail or with any flat loose weapon_. _pret. pl._ flapten, 128 flatten (A.N.) _to slap_. _pret. s._ flatte, 104 flawmbe, flaumbe (A.N.) 360, 362, _a flame_ flawme (A.S.) 243, _to emit a fetid exhalation_ (?) flawmen (A.N.) 361, _to flame_. flawmynge, 360, _flaming_ fle, 40, fleen, 168, 366 (A.S.) _to fly_. _pret. s._ fleigh, 40, 351, 353, 402, 435. _pl._ flowen, 42, 128. fledden, 42 fleckede (A.S.) 222, _spotted_ flesshe (A.S.) _flesh_ fleten (A.S.) 237, _to float, swim involuntarily_ flittynge (A.S.) 206, _disputing, flyting_ flobre (A.S. ?) 274, _to slobber_ (?) florisshe (A.N.) 291, _to adorn_ floryn (A.N.) 74, _a florin_ (a gold coin) +flurichen (A.N.) 479, _to flourish_ fode (A.S.) _food_ +foynes (A.N.) 468, _a kind of marten, of which the fur was used for dresses_ fold, foold (A.S.) 24, 141, 243, _the world, the earth_ fole (A.S.) _a foal_ follede, 321, _baptized_. see _fullen_ +folloke (A.S.) 489 (?) folvyle (A.N.) 410 (?) folwe, folwen (A.S.) 355, _to follow_. _pres. pl._ folwen. _pret. s._ folwed, folwede, 353. _pl._ folwede, 301. _part. past_, folwed folwere (A.S.) _a follower_ fonden (A.S.) 238, _to try, tempt, inquire_. _pret. s._ fonded, fondede, 315, 344, 353 fondynge (A.S.) 291, _a temptation, undertaking_ fongen, _see_ fangen foot (A.S.) _a foot_. foote, 354, _on foot_ for (A.S.) _for, for that, because_; for-thi, _because, therefore_ for-, in composition in verbs derived from the Anglo-Saxon, conveys the idea of privation or deterioration, and answers to the modern German ver-. It is preserved in a few words in our language, such as _forbid_, _forbear_, _forlorn_, &c. The following instances occur in Piers Ploughman:-- for-bete (A.S.) _to beat down, beat to pieces, or to death, beat entirely_. _part. past_, for-beten, 436 for-bode (A.S.) _denial, forbidding_ for-biten (A.S.) 332, _to bite to pieces_ for-doon, for-do (A.S.) 78, 163, 371, _to undo, ruin_. _pret. s._ for-dide, 340, 390. _part. past_, for-do, 262, for-doon, 371 for-faren (A.S.) 303, _to go to ruin, perish, to fare ill_ for-freten (A.S.) 332, _to eat to pieces_ +for-gabben (A.N.) 488, _to mock_ for-yeten (A.S.) 362, _to forget_. _pret. s._ for-yat, 205 for-gyven (A.S.) _to forgive_. _pret. s._ 374. _part. pas._ for-gyve, 365 for-glutten (A.S.) 178, _to devour, swallow up_ for-pynede (A.S.) 126, _pined or starved to death, wasted away, niggardly_. Chaucer, C. T. l. 1453:-- In derknes and orrible and strong prisoun This seven yeer hath seten Palamon, _For-pyned_, what for woo and for destresse. And C. T. l. 205:-- He was not pale as a _for-pyned_ goost. In this latter place Tyrwhit seems to interpret it as meaning _tormented_ for-shapen (A.S.) _to unmake_. _pret. s._ for-shapte, 365 for-sleuthen (A.S.) 103, _to be spoilt from lying idle_ for-stallen (A.S.) 68, _to hinder, forestall, stop_ for-sweren (A.S.) 170, _to perjure, swear falsely_. _part. pas._ for-sworen, 418, forsworn for-thynken (A.S.) 167, _to repent, beg pardon_ for-wandred (A.S.) 1, _worn out with wandering about_ for-wanye (A.S.) 79, _to spoil_ +for-werd (A.S.) 476, 494, _worn out_ for-yelden (A.S.) 133, 257, _to make a return for a thing, repay_ forbisne (A.S.) 152, _an example, similitude, parable_ forceres (A.N.) 186, _coffers_ fore-ward, for-ward, for-warde (A.S.) 65, 119, 206, _a bargain, promise_ for-goer (A.S.) 39, _a goer before_ for-goers (A.S.) 31, _people whose business it was to go before the great lords in their progresses, and buy up provisions for them_ formest (A.S.) 186, 403, _first, foremost_ +formfaderes (A.S.) 498, _first fathers_ formour (A.N.) 160, 358, _a creator, maker_ forreyour (A.N.) 430, _a scout, forager_ forster (A.N.) 354, _a forester_ +forytoures, 465, perhaps an error of the press in the old edition for _fautoures_ forwit (A.S.) 87, _prescience, forethought, anticipation_ fostren (A.S.) 360, _to foster_ foulen (A.S.) 414, _to defoul_ fowel (A.S.) _a fowl, bird_ fraynen (A.S.) _to ask, inquire, question_. _pret. s._ frayned, 18, 109, 151, 341, 370 +fraynyng (A.S.) 452, _questioning_ frankeleyn (A.N.) 398, _a large freeholder_, in rank in society classed with, but after, the _miles_ and _armiger_. See Tyrwhit's note on the Canterbury Tales, l. 333 frayel (A.N.) 252, _a wicker basket_. See note. In the romance of Richard Coeur de Lion, l. 1547, King Richard says:-- Richard aunsweryth, with herte free, Off froyt there is gret plenté; Fyggys, raysyns, in _frayel_, And notes may serve us fol wel. fraytour (A.N.) 192, 463, _a refectory_ freke (A.S.) 74, 87, 130, 132, 188, 203, 246, 250, 341, _man, fellow_ frele (A.N.) _frail_ freletee (A.N.) 46, frelete, 367, _frailty_ fremmed (A.S.) 303, _strange_ frere (A.N.) _a friar, brother_ frete (A.S.) 265, _to fret_ frete, freten (A.S.) 33, _to eat, devour_. _pret. s._ freet, 381 fretien (A.S.) _to adorn_. _part. p._ fretted fryth (A.S.) 224, 241, 355, _an inclosed wood_ frythed (A.S.) 112, _wooded_ frounces (A.N.) 265, _wrinkles_ fullen (A.S.) 322, _to full cloth_ fullen (A.S.) 176, _to become full_ fullen (A.S.) _to baptize_. _pret. s._ follede, 321. _part. past_, y-fulled, 398 fullynge (A.S.) 244, 322, 398, _baptizing, baptism_ furwe (A.S.) _a furrow_ fust (A.S.) 356, _the fist_ G. Y. gabben (A.N.) 53, _to joke, trifle, tell tales_. gabbyng (A.N.) 423, _joking, idle talk_ gadelyng (A.S.) 434, gedelyng, 165. _pl._ gedelynges, 171, gadelynges, 68, _a vagabond_. In Anglo-Saxon the word _gædeling_ means a companion or associate, apparently without any bad sense. Thus the romance of Beowulf speaks of the armour of one of the heroes:-- þæt Onela for-geaf, his gædelinges guð-ge-wædu. _which Onela had given him, the war-weeds of his comrade, the ready implements of war._ This, and most of the other similar Anglo-Saxon words, applied to their heroes and warriors, became degraded under the Anglo-Normans. We may mention as other examples the words, _fellow_, _renk_, _grom_, _wye_, &c. +gaynage (A.N.) 462, _profit_ gaynesse (A.N.) 178, _gaiety_ galoche (A.N.) 370, _a shoe_. The word occurs in Chaucer galpen (A.S.) 252, _to belch_ gamen (A.S.) _play_ gangen, gange (A.S.) _to go_ +garites (A.S.) 463, _garrets_ garnementz (A.N.) 379, _garments, ornaments_ gare (A.S.) _to make or cause to do a thing_. _pret. s._ garte, 22, 80, 135, 321, gart, 84, gerte, 428 gate (A.S.) 67, 171, 383, _way, going_. go thi gate, 351, 445, _go thy way_. this ilke gate, 354, _this same way_ yate (A.S.) 385, 406, _a gate_ geaunt (A.N.) 384, _a giant_ gentile (A.N.) 26, 174, 175, _gentle, genteel_ gentilliche (A.N.) 44, _beautifully, finely, genteelly_ gentrie (A.N.) 370, _gentility_ gerl (A.S.) _pl._ gerles, girles, gerlis, 17, 184, 369, _youth of either sex_. In the Coventry Mystery of the Slaughter of the Innocents (p. 181) one of the knights engaged in the massacre says:-- I xall sle scharlys, And qwenys with therlys, Here _knave gerlys_ I xal steke. Forthe wyl I spede, To don hem blede, Thow _gerlys_ grede, We xul be wreke. gerner (A.N.) _a garner_ gesene (A.S. ?) 262, _rare, scarce_ gesse (A.S.) _a guess_. up gesse, 102, _upon guess, by guess_ gest, _pl_. gestes (A.N.) _a deed, history, tale_ gest (A.S.) 312, _a guest_ geten, gete (A.S.) _to get_. _pres. pl._ geten. _pret. s._ gat, thow gete, 386, 389, 390, getest, 390, _part. past_, geten, 375, gete, 403 yiftes (A.S.) 49, _gifts_ gyle (A.S.) _guile, deceit_ gilour (A.S.) _a deceiver_ gyn (A.N.) 384, _a trap, machine, contrivance_ gynful (A.N.) 186, _full of tricks or contrivances_ gynnen (A.S.) _to begin_. _pret. sing._ gan, 2. _pl._ gonne, 158, gonnen, 262. gynnyng, _beginning_. The preterite is frequently used as an auxiliary verb to form with others a kind of imperfect or preterite, as, gan drawe, 352, _drew_; gan despise, 374, _despised_ gyen (A.N.) 39, _to rule_ gyour (A.N.) 421, 429, _a ruler, leader_ girden (A.S.) 40, _to cast, strike_. _pret. s._ girte, 99. In the second Towneley Mystery of the Shepherds, p. 115, Mak says, "If I trespas eft, _gyrd_ of my heede." gyterne (A.N.) 260, a _gittern_, a musical instrument, resembling, or identical with, the modern guitar gyven (A.S.) _to give_. _pres. pl._ gyven. _pret. sing._ gaf, yaf, 387. _part. past_, yeven, y-gyve, 37 gyven (A.S.) 436, _to fetter, bind in gyves_ +gladdyng (A.S.) 481, _merry_ (?) gladen, 404, gladie, 384 (A.S.) _to gladden, cause joy to_. _pret. s._ gladede, 435 +glaverynge (A.N.) 454, 492, _smooth, slippery, flattering_ glazene (A.S.) 435, _made of glass_ (?) See note glee (A.S.) _the performance of the minstrel or jongleur_ gle-man (A.S.) 98, 165, _a minstrel_ glede, glade (A.S.) 94, 361, _a spark, glowing ember_ +gleym ( ) 479 (?) +gloppynge (A.S.) 456, _sucking in_ glosen (A.N.) _to gloss, paraphrase, comment_ gloton (A.N.) _a glutton_ glotonye (A.N.) _gluttony_ glubben (A.S.) _to suck in, gobble up_. _part. pas._ y-glubbed, 97, _sucked in_. glubbere, 162, _a glutton_ gnawen (A.S.) _to gnaw_ +gode (A.S.) 476, _a goad_ goky (A.S.) 220, _a gawky, clown_ goliardeis (A.N.) 9, _one who gains his living by following rich men's tables, and telling tales and making sport for the guests_. See on this word the Introduction to the Poems of Walter Mapes. It occurs in Chaucer, C. T. l. 562 He was a jangler and _a golyardeys_, And that was most of synne and harlotries. gome (A.S.) 257, 263, 267, 288, 308, 312, 350, 354, 382, 403, _a man_ gomme (A.N.) _gum_ goon (A.S.) 37, _to go_. _pres. s._ he gooth, 354. _pl._ gon, goon, 303. _pret. sing._ wente. _pl._ wenten, 233, 351 goost (A.S.) _spirit, ghost_ goostliche (A.S.) 427, _spiritually_ gorge (A.N.) 176, 177, _the throat, mouth_ gos (A.S.) _pl._ gees, _a goose_ gothelen (A.S.) 97, 252, _to grumble_ (as is said of the belly) gowe (A.S.) 14, _a phrase of invitation, i. e. go we, let us go_ graffen (A.N.) 85, _to graft_ +graith (A.S.) 453, 464, _the truth_ (?) graithe (A.S.) 27, _ready, prepared_ graithen (A.S.) _to prepare, make ready_. +_part. pas._ y-greithed, 462, 487. graythed, 494 graithly (A.S.) 386. graythliche, 482, _readily, speedily_ graunt (A.N.) 353, _great_ graven (A.N.) _to engrave_. _part. pas._ grave, 73, _engraved_ gravynge (A.N.) _engraving, sculpturing_ graven (A.N.) 206, _to put in grave_ greden (A.S.) 32, 47, _to cry out, shout, make a noise_. _pret. s._ thow graddest, 421, he gradde, 335, 448 gree (A.N.) 375, _pleasure, will_ greete (A.S.) 100, _to lament_ greyne (A.N.) 412, 415, _a grain, seed_ greten (A.S.) 97, 379, _to greet_. _pret. s._ grette, 186, 344, 446 gretter (A.S.) _greater_ greven (A.N.) 354, _to grieve_ grys (A.S.) 14, 68, 134, _pigs_. See the story of Will _Gris_ in the Lanercost Chronicle grys (A.N.) 308, _a kind of fur_ +grysliche (A.S.) 485, _fearfully_ grom (A.S.) 99, _a man_: hence the modern groom grote (A.N.) 51, _a groat, a coin of the value of four pennies_ grucchen, grucche (A.S.) _to grudge_ H. hailsen (A.S.) _to salute_. _pres. s._ hailse, 83. _pret._ hailsed, 148, 151 hayward (A.N.) 415, _a man employed to watch and guard the inclosed fields, or hays_. An illustration of this word will be found in the passage from Whitaker's text given in the note on l. 2473 hakke (A.S.) 420, _to follow, run after, cut along after_ half (A.S.) _half, side_ halie (A.S.) 156, _to hawl_ hals (A.S.) _the neck_ halwe (A.S.) 327, _to hallow, consecrate, make holy_ hamlen (A.S.) +_part. pas._ y-hamled, 468, _to tie or attach_ (?) handy dandy (A.S.) 69, the expression still used in Shropshire and Herefordshire hange, honge (A.S.) 348, 384, _to hang_ (intransitive). _pret. s._ hanged, 19 hange, hangen (A.S.) 39, 392, _to hang_ (transitive). _pret. pl._ hengen, 25 hanylons (A.N.) 181, _the wiles of a fox_. See Sir Frederick Madden's Glossary to Gawawyn (v. _hamlounez_), who quotes the following lines from the Boke of St. Albans:-- And yf your houndes at a chace renne there ye hunte, And the beest begyn to renne, as hartes ben wonte, Or for to _hanylon_, as dooth the foxe wyth his gyle, Or for to crosse, as the roo doth otherwhyle. hanselle (A.S.) 96, _gift, reward, bribe_. It is used in the alliterative poem on the Deposition of Richard II, p. 30:-- Some parled as perte As provyd well after, And clappid more for the coyne That the kyng owed hem, Thanne ffor comfforte of the comyne That her cost paied, And were behote _hansell_, If they helpe wolde. hardy (A.N.) 413, _bold, hardy, courageous_. hardier, 354, _more bold_ hardie (A.N.) 321, _to encourage, embolden_ harewe (A.S.) 412, _a harrow_ harewen, harewe (A.S.) 412, 414, _to harrow_. _pret._ harewede, _ib._ harlot (A.N.) 175, 270, 271, 303, 354, _a blackguard, person of infamous life_. The word was used in both genders. It appears to have answered exactly to the French _ribaud_, as Chaucer in the Romance of the Rose translates _roy des ribaulx_, by _king of harlots_. Chaucer says of the Sompnour (C. T. l. 649):-- He was a _gentil harlot_ and a kynde A bettre felaw schulde men nowher fynde. He wolde suffre for a quart of wyn, A good felawe to ban his concubyn, A twelve moneth, and excuse him atte fulle. This passage gives us a remarkable trait of the character of the ribald, or harlot, who formed a peculiar class of middle-age society. Among some old glosses in the Reliquiæ Antiquæ (vol. i, p. 7), we find "_scurra_, a harlotte." In the Coventry Mystery of the Woman taken in Adultery (p. 217), it is the young man who is caught with the woman, and not the woman herself, who is stigmatised as a _harlot_. harpen (A.S.) _to harp_. _pret. pl._ harpeden, 394 harrow (A.N.) 430, an exclamation, or rather a cry, said to have been peculiar to the Normans, the origin and derivation of which have been the subject of much discussion among antiquaries. It was the cry which every one was bound to raise and repeat, when any murder, theft, robbery, or other violent crime, was attempted or perpetrated, in order that the offenders might be hindered or secured. It was afterwards used in any great tumult or disorder, and became a general exclamation of persons wanting help. (See Ducange, in v. _Haro_.) In the Towneley Mysteries (p. 14), when Cain finds that his offering will not burn, he cries:-- We! out! haro! help to blaw! It wille not bren for me, I traw. haspen (A.S.) _to clasp_. y-hasped, 26 hastilokest (A.N.) 424, _most quickly, speedily, hastily_ haten (A.S.) _to call, order_. _pres. s._ I hote. _pret. s._ highte, heet, 445. _part. pas._ y-hote, hoten, hote, _called, ordered_ haten (A.S.) _to be called or named_. _pres. s._ hatte, _is called_, I hatie, 260, _am called_. _pret. s._ highte, _was called_ hater (A.S.) 273, _dress_ haterynge (A.S.) 299, _dressing, attire_ hatien (A.S.) 179, _to hate_ haven, have, han (A.S.) _to have_. _pres. pl._ han. _pret. s._ hadde, _pl._ hadden, hadde haver (A.S.) _oats_, 134, an haver cake, _an oat-cake_ heed (A.S.) _the head_. _See_ heved heele (A.S.) _health_ heep (A.S.) _a heap_ heeth (A.S.) 322, _heath_ hegge (A.S.) _pl._ hegges, _a hedge_ heigh (A.S.) _high_ +heyne (A.N.) 466, _hatred_ (?) heyre (A.S.) _hair_. _gen._ heris, 193, _hair's_ hele, heele (A.S.) _health_ hele (A.S.) 150, _a heel_ helen, (A.S.) 87, 445. helien, 241, _to conceal, hide_ helen, heele, 355 (A.S.) _to heal_. _pret. s._ heeled, 337. an helyng, 355, _in healing, in the course of recovering his health_ helpen, helpe (A.S.) _to help_. _pret. s._ halp, 403, 418, _pl._ holpen, 123. _part. pas._ holpen, 75, 303, 338, holpe, 115 hem (A.S.) _them_ hemselve (A.S.) _themselves_ hende (A.S.) 308, _gentle, polite_. hendenesse, 398, _gentleness, worthiness_. hendely, hendiliche, 44, _politely, gently_ hennes (A.S.) _hence, from this time_ henten, hente (A.S.) _to take, seize_. _pret. s._ hente, hent, 435 heraud (A.N.) _a herald_ herberwe (A.S.) _a harbour_ herberwen (A.S.) _to harbour, shelter_. _pret. s._ herberwed, 352 heremite (A.N.) _a hermit_ heren, here (A.S.) _to hear_. _pret. s._ herde. _imperat._ y-heer, 356 herne (A.S.) 42, 393, _a corner_ herte (A.S.) _the heart_ heste (A.S.) _a commandment_ +hethen (A.S.) 475, _hence_ +hetheved (A.S.) 469, _head_ hethynesse (A.S.) 321, _heathenness, paganism, idolatry_ heved (A.S.) _a head_. heed, 352 hewe (A.S.) 110, _pl._ hewen, 71, 273, 281, _a husbandman, a workman_ hewe, _pl._ hewes (A.S.) 224, _hue, colour_ hiden (A.S.) _to hide_. _pret. s._ hidde, 354. _part. pas._ y-hudde, 199 +hyen (A.S.) 475, _to hie, go_. _pret. s._ hiede, 444 hyere (A.S.) _higher_ hii (A.S.) _they_ hil (A.S.) _pl._ hulles, _a hill_ hilen (A.S.) 113, _to cover over_. _pret. s._ hiled, 241, _pl._ hileden, 223 hynde (A.S.) 311, _a doe, female deer_ hyne (A.S.) _a servant, serf, rustic, labourer_ hyne, 72, 268, _a hen_ (?) hippynge (A.S.) 351, _hopping_ hire (A.S.) _their_ hir (A.S.) _of them_. _gen. pl._ of he. hir neither, 67, _neither of them_. hir eyther, 212, 446, _either of them_. hir noon, 237, _none of them_. hir oon fordooth hir oother, 373, _one of them destroys the other of them_ his (A.S.) _pl._ hise, _his_ hitten (A.S.) _to hit_. _pret. s._ hite, 86, hitte, 96 +hod (A.S.) 476, _a hood_ +hok-shynes (A.S.) 476, _crooked shins_. hok seems almost superfluous: the shin towards the _hock_ or ancle? holden (A.S.) _to hold_. _pres. s._ he halt, 354, 357, _pl._ holde, 15, holden, 18. _pret. s._ heeld, 156, 206, _pl._ helden, 294, 418, 438. _part. pas._ y-holden, 358, holden, y-holde, 440, 441 hool (A.S.) _pl._ hole, 392, _whole, entire_. hooly, _wholly_. holly, 396, _wholly_. +hollich, 452, _wholly_ homliche (A.S.) 179, _from house to house_ hoom (A.S.) _home_. the viker hadde fer hoom, 424, _the vicar had far to go home_ hoor (A.S.) _pl._ hore, 144, _hoary_. as hoor as an hawethorn, 341 hoord (A.S.) _a hoard_ hoors (A.S.) 367, _hoarse_ hoot (A.S.) 360, _hot_ hopen (A.S.) 329, _to expect, hope_ hoper (A.S.) 120, _the hopper of a mill_ hore (A.S.) 75, _pl._ hoores, 299, hores, 303, _a whore_ +hornes (A.S.) 461, _corners_ hostele (A.N.) 355, _to give lodging, to receive into an inn_ hostiler (A.N.) 352, 355, _the keeper of a hostelry or inn_ hostrie (A.N.) 352, _a hostelry, inn_ houpen (A.S.) 127, _to hoop, shout_ houres (A.N. heures, _Lat._ horæ) _the Romish service_ housel (A.S.) 419, _the sacrament of the Eucharist_ houselen (A.S.) _to receive the Eucharist_. _part. past_, housled, 396, 424, houseled, 419 hoven (A.S.) 13, _to tarry, hover, dwell_. _pret. s._ hoved, 374 howve (A.S.) _pl._ howves, 13, 60, 435, _a cap or hood_ hucche (A.S.) 72, _a hutch, chest_ huge (A.S.) 216, _great_ hukkerye (A.S.) 90, _huckstry_ hunten (A.S.) _to hunt_. _part. pas._ y-honted, 41 huppe (A.S.) 327, _to hop_ huyre (A.S.) 111, _hire, wages_ I. Y. ic, ich, ik (A.S.) _I_ +ich (A.S.) _each_. +ichon, 479, _each one_. _See_ ech ydel (A.S.) _idleness, vanity_. on ydel, _in vain_ +iis (A.S.) 476, _ice_ ilke (A.S.) _same_ impe (A.N.) 85, _a sprig, twig growing from the root of a tree_ impen, ympen (A.N.) 85, _to graft_. +_part. past_, ymped, 469, _grafted_ in-going (A.S.) 115, _entrance_ inne (A.S.) the adverbial form of _in_ inne (A.S.) _a lodging_, hence our _inn_ inwit (A.S.) 160, 162, 364, _conscience, interior understanding_. with inwit and outwit, 263 yren (A.S.) 288, _iron_ ysekeles (A.S.) 361, _icicles_ J. jangeleres, jangleris (A.N.) 3, 175, _praters_ jangle (A.N.) 9, 33, 74, 136, 164, 251, 337, 339, _to jangle, to talk emptily, to prate_ janglynge (A.N.) 169, 419, _jangling, empty talking, nonsense_ jape (A.S.) 433, _a jest_ japen (A.S.) 19, 33, 260, _to jest, mock, cajole_. _part. past_, japed, 371 japer (A.S.) _pl._ japeres, japeris, 3, 164, 175, _a jester, mocker_ Jewe, _gen. pl._ Jewen, 19, Jewene, 384, 402, _a Jew_ jogele (A.N.) 260, _to play the minstrel, or jongleur_ jogelour (A.N.) 121, 175, _a minstrel, jongleur, one who played mountebank tricks_ jouke (A.S.) 336, _to rest, dwell_ joute (A.N.) 86, _a battle, combat_ jugge (A.N.) _a judge_ juggen (A.N.) 290, 427, _to judge_ jurdan (A.N.) 251, _a pot_. At a later period the word was only applied to a chamber-pot, as in Shakespeare juste (A.N.) 251, justes, 351, 352, 370, _a joust, battle, tournament_ justen, juste (A.N.) 336, 370, 374, _to joust, tilt (in a tournament)_. _pret. s._ justed, 340, justede, 380 justere (A.N.) 396, _one who goes to jousts, engages in tournaments_ justice (A.N.) 404, _to judge_ juttes (A.N. ?) 201, _low persons_ juventee (A.N.) 402, _youth_ juwise (A.N.) 392, _judgment_, from _judicium_ K. _See under_ C. L. lachesse (A.N.) 153, _negligence_ ladde (A.S.) _pl._ laddes, 398, _a low common person_ +laiche (A.S.) 486, _to catch, obtain_. _see_ lakke layk (A.S.) 287, _play_ laiken (A.S.) 11, _to play_. The writer of the romance of Kyng Alisaunder, in describing a battle (Weber, p. 159), says,-- There was _sweord lakkyng_, _i.e. there was playing with the sword_. Weber, in his Glossary, has very wrongly explained it by _licking_. It is the Anglo-Saxon poetic phrase, sweorda ge-lác, _the play of swords_ lakke (A.S.) 189, _a fault, a lack, or something deficient or wanting_ lakken, lacche (A.S.) 31, 40, 130, 220, 262, 309, 333, _to obtain, catch, take_. _pret. s._ laughte, 357, 388, 434. _part. act._ lacchynge, 21 lakken (A.S.) 85, 130, 185, 189, 208, 214, 234, 263, 307, 309, 329, 411, _to mock, to blame, or reproach_. _pret. pl._ lakkede, 294. _part. pas._ y-lakked, 29 lakken (A.S.) 46, 218, 219, 262, 310, 365, 423, _to lack, to be wanting_. _pret. s._ lakkede, 402, _was wanting_ lambren (A.S.) 307, _lambs_. So Lydgate (Minor Poems, ed. Halliwell), p. 169,-- Takith to his larder at what price he wold, Of gretter _lambren_, j., ij., or thre, In wynter nyghtis frostis bien so colde, The sheppard slepithe, God lete hym never the! lang (A.S.) _long_ lape (A.S.) 426, _to lap, as a dog_ large (A.N.) 398, _largess_ (?) lasse (A.S.) _less_ late, lete (A.S.) 76, 386, _to let_. _pres. s._ leet, 305, 384. _pret. s._ leet, 25, 74, 127, 209, 346, _pl._ leten, lete, 294, 393. _subj. s._ late +lath ( .) 476. Perhaps an error of the old edition for _lay_? +latun (A.N.) 462, _a mixed metal of the colour of brass_ laughen (A.S.) 439, _to laugh_. _pret. s._ lough, 423. _part. pas._ lowen, 82. launde (A.N.) 155, 183, 312, _a plain, a level space clear of trees in the midst of a forest, a lawn_ lave (A.N.) 273, _to wash_ lavendrye (A.N.) 306, _washing_ +lavoures (A.N.) 462, _lavers, ewers, basins to receive water_ leauté (A.N.) _loyalty_ leche (A.S.) 443, _a physician_ lechecraft (A.S.) 336, 435, _the art of healing, medicine_ lechen (A.S.) 261, _to cure_. _pret. s._ leched, 337 leden, lede (A.S.) 355, 393, _to lead_. pret. s. ladde, 352. _part. act._ ledynge. _part. pas._ lad, 160, 246 ledene (A.S.) 242, 243, _speech, language_. This is applied, as here, to birds, by Chaucer, C. T. 10749:-- This faire kynges doughter, Canace, That on hir fynger bar the queynte ryng, Thurgh which sche understood wel every thing That eny foul may _in his lydne_ sayn, And couthe answer him in _his lydne_ agayn. ledes (A.S.) 326, _people attached to the land, peasants_ leef (A.S.) _dear, love_. his leef, _his dear_ leef (A.S.) 301, _pl._ leves, _a leaf_ leelly (A.N.) 19, lelly, 45, 146, _loyally, faithfully_. leele, lele, _loyal_. lelest, 349, _most loyal_ leere, lere (A.S.) 15, 173, _countenance, mien, complexion_ leggen (A.S.) 30, 133, 235, 306, 426, leyen, 374, _to lay, to bet (to lay down a wager)_. _pret. s._ leide, 352, 372, 432, leyde, 98, 436 legistre (A.N.) 139, _a legist, one skilled in the law._ ley, _pl._ leyes (A.S.) 138, _a lea_ (Lat. _saltus_) leye (A.S.) 360, 364, _flame_ leme (A.S.) 376, 377, _brightness_ lemman (A.S.) _pl._ lemmannes, 303, _a sweetheart, a mistress_ lene (A.S.) _lean_ lenen, lene (A.S.) _to give_; hence our _lend_. _pret._ lened, 269. _part. past_, lent, 275 lenen (A.S.) _to lean_. _pret. s._ lened, 369 lenge (A.S.) 27, 421, _to rest, remain, reside long in a place_. _pret. s._ lenged, 151, +_pret. pl._ lengeden, 469, _dwelt, remained_ Lenten (A.S.) _Lent_ lenten (A.S.) 369, _a linden tree_ leode (A.S.) 352, _people, a person_, whence our _lad_ lepen (A.S.) 41, 236, _to leap_. _pret. s._ leep, 10, 41, lope, 71, lepe, 107, lepte, 434. _pl._ lopen, 14, 22, 86, lope, 74. _part. pas._ lopen, 88 leperis (A.S.) _leapers_. lond leperis heremytes, _hermits who leap or wander over different lands_ lered (A.S.) 45, _learned, educated, clergy_ leren (A.S.) 146, _to teach_. _pres._ he lereth. _pret._ lerned, 146, 412, lered, 292, 336, 410 lerne (A.S.) 350, 351, 437, 441, _to learn_. _part. pas._ y-lerned, 141 lesen (A.S.) _to lose_. _pres. s._ lese, lees, 107, 148. _part. act._ lesynge. _part. pas._ lost, lore, 374, y-lorn, 388 lese (A.S.) 121, _to glean_. The word is still used in Shropshire and Herefordshire. lesynge (A.S.) 66, 387, 388, _a lie, fable, falsehood_ lethi (A.S.) 184, _hateful_ letten, leten, lette (A.S.) 352, 435, _to hinder, to tarry_, _pret. s._ lette, 368, letted, 335. _part. past_, letted, 418. lettere, 19, _a hinderer_. lettyng, _a hindrance_ lettrede (A.N.) 49, _lettered, learned_. y-lettrede, _learned, instructed_ lettrure (A.N.) _learning, scripture, literature_ leve (A.S.) 385, _leave, permission_ leve (A.S.) _pl._ leeve, _dear, precious_. levere, _dearer, rather_. leveste, levest, 364, _dearest_ leved (A.S.) 300, _leaved, covered with leaves_ leven (A.S.) 299, 301, _to leave_. _part. s._ lafte, 447 leven (A.S.) _to dwell, remain_. _pret._ lafte, 440. +_pret. s._ lefte, 473, _dwelt, remained_. leven, leeve (A.S.) _to believe_, 304, 319. _pret. s._ leeved, 435. leved, 393. _pl._ leveden lewed (A.S.) 26, 420, _lay, ignorant, untaught, useless_. lewed of that labour, 237, _ignorant of_, or _unskilful in, that labour_. lewednesse, 45, _ignorance, rusticity_ lewté (A.N.) _loyalty_ lyard (A.N.) 352, 368, a common name for _a horse_, but signifying originally _a horse of a grey colour_ libben, libbe (A.S.) 275, _to live_. _part. act._ libbynge lyen (A.S.) _to lie_. _pres. s. 2 pers._ thow lixt, 86. _pret._ thow leighe, 393, _thou didst lie_ liere (A.S.) _a liar_ lif (A.S.) _pl._ lives, _life_ liflode (A.S.) _living, state of life_ lift (A.S.) 316, _air, sky_ lige (A.N.) 76, 390, _liege_ liggen, ligge (A.S.) 361, _to lie down_. _pres. s._ I ligge, he lith, lyth, 355, thei ligge, 421. _pret. sing._ lay. _part. act._ liggynge. _part. pas._ leyen, 45, y-leye, 82, y-leyen, 198, 399 lighten (A.S.) _to alight, descend, or dismount from_. _pret. s._ lighte, 352 lightloker (A.S.) 112, 237, 321, _more lightly, more easily_ lik, lich, y-lik (A.S.) 389, _like, resembling_. liknesse, _likeness_, y-liche, 401 liche (A.S.) 173, _the body_. Chaucer, C.T. l. 2960, speaks of the _liche-wake_, or ceremonies of waking and watching the corpse, still preserved in Ireland:-- Ne how the _liche-wake_ was y-holde Al thilke night, ne how the Grekes pleye. In the romance of Alexander (Weber, p. 145), the word is applied to a living body (as in Piers Ploughman):-- The armure he dude on his liche-- _he put the armour on his body_ likame, lycame (A.S.) _the body_ liken (A.S.) 455, _to please, to like_ (i. e. _be pleased with_). liketh, 17, 262. _pret. s._ liked likynge (A.S.) 203, _pleasure, love, liking_ likerous (A.N.) 133, _nice, voluptuous, lecherous_ likne (A.S.) 175, 190, _to imitate, to mimic, to make a simile_ lyme (A.S.) 436, _limb_ lyme-yerd (A.S.) 170, _limed twig_ lymitour (A.N.) 85, 445, _a limitour, a begging friar_ lynde (A.S.) 24, 155, _the linden tree_ lippe (A.S.) 324, _a slip, portion_ liser (A.N.) 89, _list of cloth_ (?) lisse (A.S.) 160, 383, _joy, happiness, bliss_ liste (A.S.) _to please, list_. _pret._ list, 356, _it pleased_ listre (A.S.) 85, _a deceiver_ lite (A.S.) 262, _little_ litel (A.S.) _little_. litlum and litlum, 329, _by little and little_, the uncorrupted Anglo-Saxon phrase. _See_ note lyth (A.S.) 341, _a body_ lythe, lithen (A.S.) 155, 270, _to listen to_ lyven, lyve (A.S.) _to live_. _pr. pl._ lyveden, 2. _part. act._ lybbynge. _See_ libben lyves (A.S.) _alive_. lyves and lokynge, 405, _alive and looking_. _See_ note on l. 5014 lyveris (A.S.) 235, _livers, people who live_ lobies (A.S.) 4, _loobies, clowns_ loft (A.S.) _high, height_. bi lofte and by grounde, 372, _in height and in ground-plan_. o-lofte, _aloft, on high_ lok (A.S.) 27, _a lock_ loken (A.S.) 388, _to look, to over-see_, 148. _pret. s._ lokede, 276 lollen (A.S.) 240, _to loll_. _part. pas._ lolled, 239. _part. act._ lollynge, 346 lolleris (A.S.) 308, _lollards_. The origin of this word is doubtful, but it seems to mean generally people who go about from place to place with a hypocritical show of praying and devotion. It was certainly in use long before the time of the Wycliffites, in Germany as well as in England. Johannes Hocsemius (quoted by Ducange, v. _Lollardi_) says, in his chronicle on the year 1309, "Eodem anno quidam hypocritæ gyrovagi, qui _Lollardisive Deum laudantes_ vocabantur, per Hannoniam et Brabantiam quasdam mulieres nobiles deceperunt," &c. The term, used in the time of Piers Ploughman as one of reproach, was afterwards contemptuously given to the church reformers. The writer of the Ploughman's Tale, printed in Chaucer, Speght, fol. 86, appears to apply it to wandering friars:-- i-cleped _lollers_ and londlese. lomere (A.S.) 439, _more frequently_ lond-buggere (A.S.) 191, _a buyer of land_ +lone (A.S.) 493, _a loan_ (?) longen (A.S.) _to belong_ loof (A.S.) _a loaf_ loone (A.S.) 442, _a loan_. lenger yeres loone, _a loan of a year longer, a year's extension or renewal of the loan_ loore (A.S.) 79, 244, _teaching, lore, doctrine, science_ loores-man, lores-man (A.S.) 164, 318, _a teacher_ loos (A.S.) 219, _honour, praise_ lorel (A.N.) 147, 294, 351, 369, _a bad man, a good-for-nothing fellow_. Chaucer, in his translation of Boethius, uses it to represent the Latin _perditissimus_. Compare the description of the _lorel_ in the Ploughman's Tale (Speght's Chaucer) fol. 91:-- For thou canst no cattell gete, But livest in lond as a _lorell_, With glosing gettest thou thy mete. losel (A.N.) 5, 124, 176, 303, _a wretch, good-for-nothing fellow_. It appears to be a different form of the preceding word. loselly, 240, _in a disgraceful, good-for-nothing manner_ losengerie (A.N.) 125, 176, _flattery, lying_ lothen (A.S.) _to loath_ looth (A.S.) _loath, hateful_. lother, 318, _more loath_. lothliche, _hateful_ lotebies (A.S. ?) 52, _private companions, bed-fellows_. In the romance of the Seven Sages (Weber, p. 57) it is said of a woman unfaithful to her husband:-- Sche stal a-wai, mididone, And wente to here _lotebi_. Chaucer uses the word (in the romance of the Rose, l. 6339), in a passage rather similar to this of Piers Ploughman:-- Now am I yong and stout and bolde, Now am I Robert, now Robin, Now frere Minor now Jacobin, And _with me followeth my loteby_, To don me solace and company. In the original the word is _compaigne_ lotien (A.S.) 354, _to lurk, lie in ambush_ louke (A.S.) 384, _to lock_ louren (A.S.) _to lower_ lous, lys (A.S.) _pl._ _a louse_ louten (A.S.) 50, 181, 182, 300, _to make a salutation, reverence_. _pret. s._ louted, 294, 470 lovyen, lovye, lovien (A.S.) _to love_. hym lovede, 356, _it pleased him_ lowen (A.S.) _to condescend_ (?) _pret._ lowed, 8 luft (A.S.) 69, _fellow, person_ +lullyng (A.S.) 455, _lolling_ (?) lurdayne (A.S.) 375, 436, _a clown, rustic, ill-bred person_ lusard (A.N.) 389, _a lizard, crocodile_ lussheburwes (A.N.) 316, _base or adulterated coins_; which took their name and were imported from Luxemberg. See note on l. 10322 luten (A.N.) _to play on the lute_. _pret. s._ lutede, 395 luther (A.S.) 316, 390, _bad, wicked_ M. macche (A.S.) 248, 249, _companion, match-fellow_ macche (A.S.) 360, _a match_ macer (A.N.) 47, _one who carries a mace_ mayen (A.S.) _to be able_ (it is seldom or never used in the infinitive mood). _pres. s._ may, _pl._ mowen, mowe. _pret. s._ myghte, _pl._ mighte y-maymed (A.S.) 359, _maimed_ mayn-pernour, (A.N.) 71, 380. _See_ the next word mayn-prise (A.N.) 70, 346, _a kind of bail_, a law term. "It signifieth in our Common Law the taking or receiving a man in friendly custodie, that otherwise is or might be committed to prison, and so upon securitie given for his forth coming at a day assigned: and they that doe thus undertake for any, are called _mainpernours_, because they do receive him into their hands." MINSHEU. The persons thus received were allowed to go at large mayn-prise (A.N.) 75, 426, meynprise, 39, _to bail in the manner described under the foregoing word_ mair (A.N.) 290, _pl._ meires, 150, _a mayor_ maistrie (A.N.) 66, _a mastery, a feat of science_ make (A.S.) 50, 222, 230, _a companion, consort_ maken, make (A.S.) _to make_. _pret. s._ made. _part. pas._ y-maked, 2. maad, 71, 248 make (A.S.) 229, _to compose poetry_. _See_ note makynge (A.S.) 229, _writing poetry_ male (A.N.) 91, _a box, pack_ +malisones (A.N.) 493, _curses_ mamelen (A.S.) 78, 226, _to chatter, mumble_ menacen (A.N.) _to menace, threaten_ manere (A.N.) _manner_ mange (A.N.) 132, _to eat_ mangerie (A.N.) 209, 328, _an eating, a feast_ manlich (A.S.) 92. _humane_. manliche, _manfully, humanely_ mansed (A.N.) 30, 74, 190, 233, 438, _cursed, excommunicated_ marc (A.N.) 161, _a mark (a coin)_ marche (A.S.) 159, 321, _a border_. The word is preserved in the term "Marches of Wales," "Marches of Scotland" marchen (A.N.) _to march, go_ mareys (A.N.) _a marsh_ +masedere (A.N.) 499, _more amazed_ maugree (A.N.) 131, _ill thanks, in spite of_ maundee (A.S.) 339, _maunday_ maundement (A.N.) 348, _a commandment_ mawe (A.S.) 298, _mouth, maw_ maze (A.N.) 12, _doubt, amazement, a labyrinth_ meden (A.S.) 56, _to reward, bribe_ mede (A.S.) _meed, reward_ medlen (A.N.) _to mix with_ meel (A.S.) _meal_ meene (A.N.) _poor, moderate, middle_ mees (A.S.) 249, 313, _a mess_ or _portion of meat_ megre (A.N.) _meagre, thin_ meynee (A.N.) 178, _household, household retinue_ meken (A.S.) _to make meek, humiliate_ mele (A.S.) 262, _meal, flour_ mendinaunt, _pl._ mendinauntz (A.N.) _a beggar; friars of the begging orders_ mene, meene (A.N.) _mean, middle_ mene (A.N.) 326, _a mean_ menen (A.S.) _to mean_. to meene, 15, 18. that is Crist to mene, 399, _that means Christ_ menen (A.S.) _to moan, lament_. _pret._ mened +menemong (A.S.) 497, _of an ordinary quality_ menever (A.N.) 433, _a kind of fur; the fur of the ermine and small weasel mixed_ mengen (A.S.) _to mix, meddle_ menyson (A.N.) 337, _a flux, dysentery_ menour (A.N.) _a Minorite_ menske (A.S.) 54, 455, _decency, honour, manliness_ mercien (A.N.) _to thank_ mercy (A.N.) 17, 353, _thanks_ mercy (A.N.) 360, 361, _mercy_ mercyment (A.N.) _amercement_ merk (A.S.) 316, _a mark_ merke (A.S.) 15, _dark_. merknesse (A.S.) 377, 379, _darkness_ merveillous (A.N.) _marvellous, wonderful_ meschief (A.N.) 197, _mishap, evil, mischief_ mesel (A.S.) _pl._ meseles, 51, 144, 337, _a leper_ meson-Dieux (A.N.) 139, _hospitals_ messe (A.S.) _mass, the Romish ceremony_ mestier (A.N.) 138, _occupation_ mesurable (A.N.) _moderate_ met (A.S.) 267, _measure_ mete (A.S.) _meat_. mete-less, (A.S.) _without meat_ metels (A.S.) 13, 31, 147, 149, 155, 202, 207, _a dream_ meten, meete (A.S.) 310, _to meet_. _pret. s._ mette, 351. _part. pas._ met, 216 meten (A.S.) _to dream_. _pret. s._ mette, 148, 155, 396. _part. s._ metynge, 221 metyng (A.S.) 246, _a dream_ +meter (A.S.) 476, _fitter_ (?) meve (A.N.) 153, 228, _to move_. _pres. pl._ ye moeven, 298 myd (A.S.) _with_ myddel-erthe (A.S.) 221, _the world_ middes (A.S.) _middle, midst_ mynistren (A.N.) 231, _to administer_ mynnen (A.S.) 322, _to mind, to recollect_ mynours (A.N.) _miners, diggers of mines_ mys-beden (A.S.) 119, _to injure_ mysese (A.N.) 16, _ill ease_ mys-eise (A.N.) 139, _ill at ease_ mysfeet (A.N.) 224, _ill deed, wrong_ +myster (A.N.) 484, _kind species_ mystier (A.S.) _more misty, more dark_ +myteynes (A.N.) 476, _mittens, gloves_ mnam, 131, _a Hebrew coin_ mo (A.S.) _more_ mody (A.S.) _moody_. modiliche, _moodily_ moeble, meble (A.N.) 364, _goods_ molde, moolde (A.S.) _earth, mould_ moled (A.N.) 262, 264, _spotted, stained_ mom (A.S.) 13, _a mum, sound_ mone (A.S.) 295, _lamentation_ +monelich (A.N.) 457, _meanly_ monials (A.N.) 192, _nuns_ (_Lat._ moniales) moore (A.S.) 403, _greater_ moost (A.S.) _greatest_ moot (A.N.) 113, 417, _a moat_ moot-halle (A.S.) 73, 74, _hall of meeting, of justice_ more (A.S.) 300, 330, 331, 334, _pl._ mores, 416, _a root_ mornen (A.S.) _to mourn_. _pret. s._ mornede mortrews (A.N.) 248, 250, 252, _a kind of soup_ morwe (A.S.) _morning, morrow_ morwenynge (A.S.) _morning_ mote (A.S.) 25, _to hold courts of justice_ motyng (A.S.) 141, _judging, meeting for justice_ moton (A.N.) 44, _the name of a coin_. _See_ note on l. 1404 mous (A.S.) _pl._ mees, _a mouse_ mouster (A.N.) 267, _muster, arrangement_ muche (A.S.) 155, 417, _great_ muchel (A.S.) 401, _great, much_ muliere, mulliere (A.N.) 343, 344, _a wife, woman_ murie (A.S.) _pleasant, merry, joyful_. murye, 1, _pleasantly_, murier, _more pleasant_ murthe (A.S.) 382, _pleasure, joy, mirth_ murthen (A.S.) 362, _to make merry or joyful_ muson (A.N.) 183, _measures_ (?) must (A.S.) 391, _a liquor made of honey_ N. nale (A.S.) 124, _the ale_. _see_ atte namoore (A.S.) _no more_ naught (A.S.) _not, nought_ ne (A.S.) _not_. The negative _ne_ is combined with the verb _to will, to be_, &c.; as _nelle_, for _ne wille_, _nel, nyl_, for _ne wil_, _nere_, for _ne were_, _nolde_, for _ne wolde_, _nyste_, for _ne wiste_. It is sometimes combined with other verbs, as _naroos_, 399, for _ne aroos_. So we have such expressions as, wol he nele he, 427, i. e. _whether he will or he will not_ nede (A.S.) _need_ neddre (A.S.) 82, _an adder, venomous serpent_ nedlere (A.S.) 96, _maker of, or dealer in, needles_ neet (A.S.) 411, _cattle_. Farmers still talk of _neat cattle_ neghen (A.S.) _to approach, to near_. _pret. s._ neghed, 425, neghede, 438 neigh (A.S.) _near, nigh_ nempne (A.S.) 397, _to name, call_. _pret. s._ nempned, 397, 404. _part. pas._ y-nempned, nempned nevelynge (A.S.) 85, _sniveling_ nygard (A.S.) _niggard_ nymen, nyme (A.S.) 268, 304 426, _to take_. _part. pas._ y-nome, 427 nyppe (A.S.) 379, _a point_ (?) noble (A.N.) 191, _a gold coin of the value of six shillings and eightpence_ noght (A.S.) _nought, nothing_ noyen (A.N.) _to injure, annoy, plague_ nones (A.N.) 125, _the hour of two or three in the afternoon_ nonne (A.S.) 86, _a nun_ noon (A.S.) _none_ nounpere (A.N.) 97, _an umpire, an arbitrator_ noughty (A.S.) 130, _possessed of nothing_ noun (A.N.) 366, _no_ nouthe (A.S.) _now_ O. o (A.S.) 349, _one_ of-gon (A.S.) 166, _to derive_ (?) of-walked (A.S.) 258, _fatigued with walking_ o-lofte (A.S.) _aloft, on high_ one, oone (A.S.) _singly, alone, only_. myn one, 154, _myself singly_ +onethe (A.S.) _scarcely_. _See_ unnethe oon (A.S.) _one_ oost (A.N.) 416, _a host, army_ openen, opene (A.S.) _to open_. _pret. pl._ opned, 388 ordeigne, ordeyne (A.N.) 415, _to ordain_ organye (A.N.) 369, _a musical instrument_. by organye, _as an accompaniment to music_ ote (A.S.) _an oat_ oughen (A.S.) _to own, possess, owe_. _pret. s._ oughte, 47 outher (A.S.) _other, either, or_ over-come (A.S.) _to overcome_. _pret. s._ over-coom, 405 over-hoven (A.S.) 55, 379, _to hover or dwell over, hang over_ over-hippen (A.S.) _to hop over, skip over_. _pret. pl._ thei over-huppen, 250, 318 over-leden (A.S.) 62, _to overlead, tyrannize over_ over-spreden (A.S.) _to spread over_. _pret. s._ over-spradde, 408 over-tilten (A.S.) _to tilt or throw over_. _pret. s._ over-tilte, 428, 433, _threw over, dug up_ owene (A.S.) 366, _own_ P. paast (A.N.) 275, _paste, dough_ payn (A.N.) _bread_ paynym (A.N.) 108, 326, _a pagan_ pays (A.N.) 340, _country_ pallen (A.S.) 333, _to knock_. _pret. s._ I palle, 332 palmere (A.N.) 83, _a palmer, pilgrim to distant lands_ paltok (A.N.) 370, 438, _a cloak_ panne (A.S.) 69, _the scull, head_ pardoner (A.N.) _a dealer in pardons_ parentrelynarie (A.N.) 220, _between the lines, interlineal_ parfiter (A.N.) 229, _more perfectly_ parfitly (A.N.) _perfectly_ parfourne (A.N.) _to perform_ parisshen (A.N.) 206, 441, _a parishioner_ parle (A.N.) _to talk_. _part. past_, parled, 385 parroken (A.N.) 312, _to park or inclose_ parten (A.N.) _to share, to part_. +_part. pas._ parten, 475 Pasqe (A.N.) 338, _Easter_ passhen (A.S.) 431, _to crush_ pawme (A.N.) 356, _the palm of the hand_ pece (A.N.) 276, _a piece_ peeren (A.N.) 320, _make themselves equal_ peeren (A.N.) 11, _to appear_ pees (A.N.) _peace_. preide hem be pees, 405, _prayed them to be quiet_ peire (A.N.) _a pair_ peiren (A.N.) 50, _to diminish, injure_. _see_ apeiren peis (A.N.) 91, _weight_ peisen (A.N.) 90, _to weigh_ pelure (A.N.) 420, _fur_ pens (A.S.) _pence_ peraunter (A.N.) 202, _peradventure, by chance_ percell, _pl._ parcelles (A.N.) 177, 220, 349, _a parcel, part_ percel-mele (A.N.) 48, _piecemeal_ percile (A.N.) 134, _parsley_ pere (A.N.) 139, _a peer, an equal_ perfourne (A.N.) 251, _to finish, complete, to furnish_ perillousli (A.N.) _dangerously, rudely_ y-perissed (A.N.) 359, _perished, destroyed_ perree (A.N.) 173, _precious stones, jewellery_ persaunt (A.N.) 24, _piercing_ person (A.N.) 441, _a parson_. personage, _a parsonage_ pertliche (A.N.) 78, _openly_ pese (A.N.) _pease_ petit (A.N.) _little_ picche (A.S.) 123, _to pick_ pie (A.N.) 150, _a magpie_ pik (A.S.) _a pike_ pikstaf (A.S.) 123, _a pike-staff_ piken (A.S.) _to pick_ pyke-harneys (A.N.) 440, _plunderers_ pykoise (A.N.) 61, _a hoe_ pil, pyl, _pl._ piles (A.S.) 331, 332, 417, _a pile_ +pilche (A.S.) 465, _a coat of hair or some rude material_. We find the word used by Lydgate, ed. Halliwell, p. 154:-- Houndys for favour wyl nat spare, To pynche his _pylche_ with greet noyse and soun. And in Caxton's Reynard the Foxe, cap. v, Reynard having turned hermit, bare "his slayvne and _pylche_, and an heren sherte therunder." +pild (A.N.) 500, _bald_ pilen (A.N.) 422, _to rob_ pilour (A.N.) 371, 420, _a thief_ +pylion (A.S. ?) 500, _a kind of cap_ pyne (A.N.) peyne, _pl._ peynes, _pain, punishment_ pyne, 78. _See_ wynen pynynge-stoole (A.S.) 47, literally, _a stool of punishment, a cucking-stool_ pynne (A.S.) 442, _to bolt_ piones (A.N.) 95, _the seed of the piony_, which was used as a spice. In the Coventry Mysteries (ed. Halliwell, p. 22) we find the word joined, as here, with pepper:-- Here is pepyr, _pyan_, and swete lycorys, Take hem alle at thi lykying pyries (A.N.) 78, _pear-trees_ pisseris (A.N.) 438 (?) pistle (A.N.) _an epistle_ pitously (A.N.) _piteously, for the sake of pity_ pleyen (A.S.) _to play_. _pret. s._ pleide, _pl._ pleiden pleyn (A.N.) _full_ pleyne (A.N.) 53, _to commiserate, to complain, make a complaint_ plener (A.N.) 209, 336, _full, fully_ pleten (A.N.) _to plead_. _pret. pl._ pleteden, 140 platten (A.N.) _to fall or throw down flat_. _pret. s._ platte, 81 plot (A.N.) 263, _pl._ plottes, 265, _a patch_ plow-foot (A.S.) 123, _a part of a plough_ po (A.S.) 243, _a peacock_ +poynttyl (A.N.) 462, the signification of this word appears to be the _square tiles_ used for paving floors. See Warton's Hist. of Engl. Poetry, ii, 99 poke (A.S.) 150, 259, 275, 288, _a sack_ poken (A.N.) _to urge, push forwards, poke, thrust_ pol, 205, polle (A.S.) 261, 430, _a head, poll_ polshen (A.N.) 105, _to polish_ pondfold (A.S.) 346, _the pinfold or pound_ poraille (A.N.) _the poor people_ poret (A.N.) _pl._ porettes, 134, 135, _a kind of leek_ porthors (A.N.) 302, _a breviary_, (_portiforium_, Lat.) pose (A.N.) 365, _to place, put as a supposition_ possen (A.N.) _to push_ potente (A.N.) 156, _a club, staff_ pouke (A.S.) 256, 285, 333, 346, _the devil_ Poul (A.N.) _St. Paul_ pounde-mele (A.S.) 41, _by the pound_ pous (A.N.) 352, _the pulse_ poustee (A.N.) 79, 228, _power, strength_ povere (A.N.) _poor_ +povert (A.N.) 496, _poverty_ +powghe, terre powghe, 487, _a torn sack or poke_ (?) The imperfect glossary appended to the old printed edition of the "Creed" explains it by _tar box_ prayen (A.N.) 430, _to make prey of, plunder_ preessen (A.N.) 286, _to hasten, crowd_ preyen, preye (A.N.) _to pray_. _pret. s._ preide, preyde preiere (A.N.) _prayer_ preynte (A.N. ?) 253 (?) preise (A.N.) 97, _to appraise, value_ +prese (A.N.) 495, _to hasten_. _pret. s._ presed, 460 prest (A.N.) 287, _ready_. prester, 191, _more ready_. presteste, 110, _readiest, quickest_. prestly, _readily_ preven, preve (A.N.) _to prove_ prikye (A.S.) 369, _to ride over, ride, spur_. _pret. s._ prikede, 368, _part. past_, y-priked, 430 prikere (A.S.) 159, 191, prikiere, 370, _a rider_ pris (A.N.) 411, _prize, value_ prison (A.N.) 140, 315, 372, _a prisoner_ pryvee (A.N.) _private, intimate, confidential_ provisour (A.N.) 38, 73, _a purveyor, provider_ prowor (A.N.) 411, _a priest_ puffed (A.S.) 78, _blown_ +pulchen (A.N.) _to polish_. _part. past_, pulched, 458, pulchud, 460, _polished_ pulette (A.N.) _a chicken_ punysshen (A.N.) 407, _to punish_ pure (A.N.) _pure, simple, unmixed_. pure (_adv._) 213, _purely, simply_. purely for-do, 262, _altogether destroyed or undone_. +puriche (A.N.) 467, _purely_: perhaps it should be _purliche_ purfill, purfil (A.N.) 72, 78, _embroidery, tinsel_ purfilen (A.N.) 28, _to embroider_ put (A.S.) 195, 284, _pl._ puttes, _a pit, cave_ putten, puten (A.S.) 400, _to put, place_. _pres. s._ putte, _pl._ putten. _pres. s._ and _pl._ putte, 68, 110, 372. _part. past_, y-put, 290 Q. quatron (A.N.) 90, _a quartern_ quave (A.N.) _to shake, tremble_. _pret. s._ quaved, 373 queed (A.S.) 285, _the evil one, the devil_ queste-mongere (A.N. and A.S.) _one who made a business of conducting inquests_ queynt (A.S.) 390, _quenched, destroyed_ queyntely (A.N.) 416, _quaintly, cunningly_ queyntise (A.N.) 385, 417, _cunning_ quellen (A.S.) _to kill_. _part. past_, quelt, 337, _killed_ +quenes (A.S.) 456, _women_. The word is used in the modern sense of the word _wench_ quyk (A.S.) 384, 399, _live, alive_ quykne (A.S.) 390, _to give life to, bring to life_. _pret. s._ I quikne quite, quyte (A.N.) 389, 390, _to quit, pay off_. _part. past_, quit, 390 quod (A.S.) _quoth, says_ R. radegunde (A.S. ?) 430, _a disease, apparently a sort of boil_ rageman (A.N.) 5, 335, _a catalogue, list_ ray (A.N.) 89, _a ray, streak_ +raken (A.S.) 455, _to go raking about_ rakiere (A.S.) 96, _one who goes raking about_ rape (A.S.) 97, _haste_ rapen (A.S.) 65, 101, 124, _to prepare_. _pret. s._ raped, 352 rapeliche (A.S.) 347, rapely, 351, _readily, quickly_. rapelier, 352, _more quickly_ rappen (A.S.) 20, _to strike, rap_ rather, 155, _earlier_ rathe (A.S.) _early_. rathest, _earliest, first, soonest, most readily_ raton (A.N.) _a rat_ ratoner (A.N.) 96, _a rat-catcher_ raunsone (A.N.) 390, _ransom_ rave (A.S.) 380, _to rave_. ravestow, 380, _dost thou rave_ ravysshen (A.N.) 399, _to ravage, rob, plunder, ravish_ raxen (A.S.) 100, _to hawk, spit_ reaume, reme (A.N.) _pl._ remes, reames, _a realm_ recche (A.S.) 67, 204, _to reck, care for_. _pret. s._ roughte, 369 recchelees (A.S.) 369, _reckless_ rechen (A.S.) 359, _to reach_. _pret. s._ raughte, 5, 76, 153, 335, 369 recoverer (A.N.) 352, _a remedy_ (?) recrayed (A.N.) 58, _recreant_ (?) rede (A.S.) _red_ rede (A.S.) _to read_ reden (A.S.) _to advise, counsel_. _pret. s._ redde, 106, _pl._ radde, 71, 84. _imperat._ reed, 72 redel (A.S.) 257, _a riddle_ +redelich (A.S.) 498, _readily, promptly_ redyng-kyng, 96, _a class of feudal retainers_. _See_ Spelman's Gloss. in v. _rodknightes_ reed (A.S.) _counsel, advice_ regne (A.N.) _to reign_. _pret. s._ regnede, 399, _reigned_ regratier, regrater (A.N.) 48, 90, _a retailer of wares and victuals_ regratrie (A.N.) 48, _retailing, selling by retail_ reyn (A.S.) _rain_ reckenen (A.S.) _to reckon, count_ relessen (A.N.) 46, _to forgive_ releve (A.N.) 377, _to raise again, restore, rally_ religious (A.N.) _pl._ religiouses 192, _a monk_ renable (A.N.) 10, _reasonable_ renden (A.S.) 13, _to rend, tear_. _imperat._ rende, 76 reneye (A.N.) 210, _to deny, be a renegade to_. _part. pas._ reneyed, 210, _renegade_ renk (A.S.) 12, 101, 149, 231, 238, 280, 369, 385, _a man_ rennen, renne (A.S.) 353, _to run_. _imperative_, ren thow, 230. _pret. s._ ran, roon, 277, yarn, 205 (? y-arn). _part. past_, ronne, 156 renner (A.S.) 72, _a runner_ renten (A.N.) 140, _to give rents to_ +rentful (A.S.) 476, _meagre, miserable_ (?) repen (A.S.) _to reap_. _pret. pl._ ropen, 268 repreven (A.N.) 236, _to reprove, blame_ rerages (A.N.) 91, _arrears_ retenaunce (A.N.) 31, _a retinue_ reve (A.S.) 34, 102, 411, 423, _an overseer, a reeve, steward, or bailiff_ reve (A.S.) 335, 385, _to take from_ revere, _pl._ reveris (A.S.) _reavers, people who deprive by force_ reward (A.N.) 364, _attention, warning_ +rewel (A.S.) 473, _rule_ rewen (A.S.) _to rue, to have mercy_ rewme (A.N.) 430, _a rheumatism, cold_ ribaud (A.N.) 108, 286, 339, 372, _a profligate low man_. The word belonged properly to a particular class in society. See a detailed account of its derivation and signification in a note in my Political Songs, p. 369 ribaudie (A.N.) _low profligate talk_ ribaudour (A.N.) 121, _a teller of low tales_ ribibour (A.N.) 96, _a player on_ _the ribibe_ (a musical instrument) riche, ryche (A.S.) _a kingdom_. hevene riche blisse, _the joy of the kingdom of heaven_ richen (A.N.) _to become rich_ riden, ryde (A.S.) _to ride_. _pres. s._ ryt, _pl._ riden. _pret. s._ rood, 354 rightwisnesse (A.S.) 393, _righteousness_ ringen (A.S.) _to ring_. _pret. pl._ rongen, 395, 428 ripe (A.S.) 415, _to ripen_ ripe (A.S.) 100, _ready_ rise, ryse (A.S.) 352, _to rise_. _pret. s._ roos, 91, 344 risshe (A.S.) 75, _a rush_ (_juncus_) rody (A.S.) _ruddy, red_ roggen (A.S.) _to shake_ (explained in the Prompt. Parv. by _agito_.) _pret. s._ rogged, 335 roynous (A.N.) 430, _scabby, rough_ rolle (A.N.) 93, _to enrol_ rome (A.S.) 209, 210, 328, _to roam_ romere (A.S.) _pl._ romeris, _a person who wanders or roams about_ ronges (A.S.) 333, _the steps of a ladder_ roost (A.N.) 14, _roast_ +rote (A.N.) _practice_. by rote, _by heart_. be pure rote, 473, _merely by rote_ roten (A.S.) _to rot_ rotey tyme (A.N.) 222, _the time of rut_ +rotheren (A.S.) 476, _oxen_ rounen, rownen (A.S.) 66, 97, _to whisper, talk privately_ routhe (A.S.) _ruth, compassion_ rowen (A.S.) _to become red, as the dawn of day_ (?). _pret. s._ rowed, 376 rufulliche (A.S.) _ruefully_ rugge (A.S.) 286, 413, _the back_. rugge-bone (A.S.) 98, _the back-bone_ rulen (A.N.) 393, _to rule, govern_ rusty (A.S.) 121, _filthy_ (?). In the Coventry Mysteries, p. 47, Ham's wife says, "rustynes of synne is cawse of these wawys;" i. e. _filthiness of sin is the cause of these waves_ ruthe (A.S.) _compassion_ rutten (A.S. ?) 100, _to snore_. _pret. s._ rutte, 369 ruwet (A.S. ?) 98, _a small trumpet_ S. saaf (A.N.) _safe_ sadde (A.S.) 188, _to make serious, steady_ sadde (A.S.) 152, _serious, grave, steady_ sadder (A.S.) 77, _sounder_ safly (A.N.) _safely_ saille (A.N.) 260, _to leap_ salve (A.N.) 337, _to apply salves_ samplarie (A.N.) 234, _type, first copy_ saufté (A.N.) _safety_ saughtne (A.S.) 65, _to be pacified, reconciled_ saulee (A.N.) 331 (?) saunz (A.N.) _without_ saute (A.N.) 260, _to jump_ sauter (A.N.) _the Psalter_ savoren (A.N.) 157, _to savour_ savour (A.N.) 147, _knowledge_ sawe (A.S.) 147, 165, 378, _pl._ sawes, 174, _a saying, legend, proverb_ scathe (A.S.) 46, 70, 71, 298, _injury, hurt_ scryveynes (A.N.) 193, _writers_ +se (A.N.) 483, _seat_ secte (A.N.) 106, 107, 216, _a suit_ see (A.S.) _the sea_ seel (A.S.) 348, _pl._ seles, _a seal_ seem (A.S.) 45, 67, _a seam_ (of wheat), a measure of eight bushels, originally as much as a horse could carry sege (A.N.) 443, _siege_ +seget (A.N.) 489, _subject_ segge (A.S.) 46, 78, 84, 100, 216, 341, 443, 445, _a man_ seyen, 290, seye, seyn, seggen, 53, 264, sigge, 208, 302, siggen, 264, 312, 318, 350 (A.S.) _to say_. _pres. s._ I seye, he seith, thei siggen, 320. _pret. s._ seide, _pl._ seiden seillynge (A.S.) 387, _sailing_ seynen (A.N.) _to sign_. _pret. s._ seyned, 104 seint (A.N.) _a saint_ seken, seche (A.S.) _to seek_; 273, _to penetrate_. _pret. s. & pl._ soughte. _part. pas._ y-sought selde (A.S.) _seldom_. selden, 365 selen (A.S.) _to seal_ self (A.S.) _objec. s._ selve, _pl._ selves _self-same_. on the selve roode, 427, _on the cross itself_ +sely (A.S.) 477, _simple, poor_ selkouth (A.S.) _pl._ selkouthe _wonderful, strange_ selles (A.N.) _cells_ semen (A.S.) 328, _to seem, appear, resemble_. +I semed, 460, _I looked_ semynge (A.S.) 318, _resembling_ semy-vif (A.N.) 351, _half alive_, i. e. _half dead_ sen, 25, see, 32 (A.S.) _to see_. _pres. sing._ thow sest, 15. he seeth, _pl._ we seen. _pret. sing._ seigh, 77, 147, 200, 247, seyghe, 82, saugh, 29, 77, 347, 376, 437, _pl._ seighe. _part. pas._ y-seyen, seyen, 216, 308, 349, seene, y-seighen, 77, seighen, 177, y-seighe, 365 senden (A.S.) _to send_. _pret. s._ sent, 421, _pl._ senten serelopes (A.S.) 358, _severally, by themselves_ serk (A.S.) 81, _a shift, shirt_ serven (A.N.) _to serve_ setten (A.S.) _to set_. _pret. s. & pl._ sette. _part. past_, seten, 248 sewen (A.S.) _to follow_. _see_ suwen shaar (A.S.) 61, _the blade or share of a plough_ +shaf (A.S.) 490, _chaff_ shaft (A.S.) 161, 225, _make, creation_ shaken (A.S.) _to shake_. _pret. s._ shook, 268 shallen (A.S.) _the auxiliary verb. sing._ I shal, 15. thow shalt, _pl._ ye shul, 14, shulle, 25, thei shulle, 22--sholde, sholdest, _pl._ sholden, sholde shapen, shape (A.S.) _to make, create, shape_. _pret. s._ shoop, 1, 163, 197, 225, 443, shapte, 361, 433, for-shapte, 365. _pl._ shopen. _part. past_, mys-shapen, 144, shapen, 280 shappere (A.S.) 358, _a maker, creator_ sharpe (A.S.) 443, _pungent_ sheep (A.S.) 1, _a sheep, or a shepherd_ sheltrom (A.S.) 278, _a host, troop of soldiers_ shenden (A.S.) _to ruin, destroy_. _pret. s._ shente, 365. _part. pas._ shent shene (A.S.) 394, _bright_ shenfulliche (A.S.) 59, _shamefully, disastrously_ shepstere (A.S.) 265, _a sheep-shearer_ (?) shere (A.S.) _a shear_ sherreve (A.S.) 31, 51, _a shire-reeve_, or _sheriff_ sherewe, shrewe (A.S.) _a shrew; a cursed one_ shrewednesse (A.S.) _cursedness_ sheten (A.S.) _to shoot_. _pret. pl._ shotten, 438 shetten, shette (A.S.) _to shut_. _pret. s._ shette shide (A.S.) 167, 197, _a thin board, a billet of wood_ shiften (A.S.) _to move away_. _pret. s._ shifte 435 shyngled (A.S.) 168, _made of planks or boards_ shonyen (A.S.) 87, _to shun_ +shosen ( ) 491 qu. for chosen, i. e. _dispose, incline to_ shrape (A.S.) 84, _to scrape_ shryve (A.S.) 441, _to shrive, make confession_. _pret. s._ shrof, 45, 198. _part. pas._ y-shryve, 82, shryven, 273 shrift (A.S.) _confession_ shroudes (A.S.) _clothes_ sib, sibbe (A.S.) _relation, companion_. Gossip is God-sib, _companion or fellow in God_, and was originally applied to the attendants at a christening sidder (A.S.) 88, _wider_ sike (A.S.) 355, _sick_ siken (A.S.) _to sigh_. _pret. s._ siked, 293, sikede, 385 siker, syker (A.S.) _sure, secure_. sikerer, 237, _more secure, more sure_ syn (A.S.) 444, _since_ syngen, synge (A.S.) 408, _to sing_. _pret. s._ songe, I song, 408. _pl._ songen, 369, 388, 405 sinken (A.S.) _to sink_. _pret. s._ sank, 373. _pl._ sonken, 278 sisour (A.N.) 31, 32, 38, 51, 75, 434, _a person deputed to hold assizes_. _See_ Ducange in v. _assisarii_ sith (A.S.) _since_. sithen, _since, afterwards_. sithenes, 121, _afterwards_. siththe (_adv._) _since afterwards_ sithe (A.S.) 102, _time_ sitten, sitte (A.S.) _to sit_. _pret. s._ thow sete, 386. I seet, 437. sat, _pl._ seten, 109 skile (A.S.) 202, 240, 290, 359, 367, 412, _reason, argument_ +slaughte ( ) 456 (?) sleighte (A.S.) 379, 401, _a trick, slight_ sleen (A.S.) _to slay_. _pres._ sleeth. 364, 421. _pret. s._ slow, 434 slepen (A.S.) _to sleep_. _pret. s._ sleep, 99, 100, I slepte, 247. _pl._ slepe, 277 slepying (A.S.) _asleep_ sleple (A.S.) 155, _to sleep gently_ sleuthe (A.S.) _sloth, idleness_ sliken (A.S.) 34, _to make sleek, smooth_ slombren (A.S.) _to slumber_. _pret. s._ slombred, 1 smal (A.S.) _pl._ smale, _small_ smecen (A.S.) _to taste, smack_. _pret. pl._ smaughte, 98 smythyen (A.S.) 61, 62, _to do the work of a smith, to forge_ so (A.S.) _so, as_. so soone so, 352, _as soon as_ soden (A.S.) 312, _to boil_. _part. pas._ y-soden, 321 sodenes (A.N.) 303, _sub-deans_ softe (A.S.) 1, _warm_ (like the Fr. _doux_) sokene (A.S.) 34, _a district held by tenure of socage_ solas (A.N.) _comfort, solace_ soleyn (A.N.) 240, _one left alone_ solne (A.N.) 102, _to sing by note_ som (A.S.) _pl._ somme, _some_ somone (A.N.) 37, sompne, 62, 209, 408, _to summon_ somonour (A.N.) 31, 51, 75, _a somner_, an officer employed to summon delinquents to appear in ecclesiastical courts, now called _an apparitor_ sonde (A.S.) _mission, sending_ sone (A.S.) _a son_ songewarie (A.N.) 147, 148, _the interpreting of dreams_ sonne (A.S.) _the sun_ sooth (A.S.) _truth_ soothnesse, sothnesse (A.S.) _truth_ sope (A.S.) 254, _a sop_ sope (A.S.) 273, _soap_ soper (A.N.) _supper_ sorwe (A.S.) _sorrow_ sorweful (A.S.) 353, _sorrowful_ soth (A.S.) _true_ sothe (A.S.) _truth_ sotile (A.N.) 184, 186, _to apply one's cunning or penetration_ sotil (A.N.) _pl._ sotile, 294, 297, 319, 372, _clever, cunning, subtile, difficult to conceive or understand_ sotte (A.N.) _a fool_ souke (A.N.) 209, _to suck_ souter (A.S.) 101, 201, _a shoemaker_. +soutere, 494 souteresse (A.S.) 96, _a female shoemaker_ southdene (A.N.) _a subdean_ sowen (A.S.) 274, _to sow_. _pret. s._ sew, 268, 412, _pl._ sewe, 317. _part. pas._ y-sowen, 416 spakliche (A.S.) 353, _hastily_ (?) spede (A.S.) 353, _to haste, to speed_. _pret. s._ spedde, 353 speken, speke (A.S.) _to speak_. _pret. s._ spak spelonke (LAT.) 311, _a cavern_ spences (A.N.) 285, _expense_ spillen (A.S.) (trans.) _to mix, spill, spoil, waste_, 414 (_intransitive_) _to perish_, 303. _part. pas._ y-spilt spire (A.S.) 348, _to look closely into, to inquire_ spores (A.S.) 370, _spurs_ spring (A.S.) 79, _a sprig, rod_ springen (A.S.) _to spring_. _pret. s._ sprong, 277, spronge, 404 stablisse (A.N.) 22, _to establish_ +stappyng (A.S.) 489, _stepping_ stede (A.S.) _pl._ stedes, _a place_ steere (A.S.) 153, _the helm of a ship_ steyen (A.S.) _to arise, mount_. +_pret. s._ steigh, 498, _arose_ stekie (A.S.) 22, _to stick fast_ stele (A.S.), 412, _a handle_ stelen (A.S.) _to steal_. _pret. s._ stale, 268. _pl._ stolen, 405 sterre, _pl._ sterne, 310 (A.S.) _a star_ +styghtle (A.S.) 469, _to establish, confirm_. Explained in the glossary appended to the old edition by _to stay_ +stylle (A.S.) 473, _quietly, with a low voice_ +y-stongen (A.S.) 483, _stabbed, pierced_ stinken (A.S.) _to stink_. _pret. s._ stank, 328. +styncand, 489, _stinking_ stynten (A.S.) 22, 186, _to stop_ stonden, stonde, stande, 354 (A.S.) _to stand_. he stondeth, it stant, 325, he stant, 372, thei stonden. _pret. s._ stood, 204, 247 stoon (A.S.) 328, _a stone_ stotte (A.S.) 411, _an ox of three years old_ stounde (A.S.) 155, _a short space of time_ stoupe (A.S.) 204, _to bend, stoop_. Chaucer, in the first line of the Nonne Preestes Tale, speaks of,--"A pore wydow somdel _stoupe_ in age." +straken (A.S.) 456, _to proceed directly_ +stre (A.S.) 496, _straw_ streyte (A.S.) _straitly, narrowly_ streyves (A.N.) 6, _estreys, beasts which have strayed_, a law-term striken (A.S.) _to strike_. _pret. s._ strook struyen (A.N.) 328, _to destroy_. _pret._ struyede stuwe (A.N.) 121, _a house of ill fame, a stew_. +stues, 488, _stews, brothels_ +sueres (A.S.) 459, _followers_ suffren (A.N.) _to suffer_ sulen (A.N.) _to soil_. +_part. pas._ y-suled, 495, _soiled_ suren (A.N.) _to assure_ surgenrie (A.N.) 336, _surgery_ surquidous (A.N.) 416, _overbearing, arrogant, conceited_ suster (A.S.) _pl._ sustren, _a sister_ suwen, sewe (A.S.) 203, 454 _to follow_. _pret. s. and pl._ suwed, 353, suwede, 380. _part. p._ suwed, 110, sued, 155 swelte (A.S.) 86, _to die, to perish_. _pret. s._ swelted, 431 swerd (A.S.) _a sword_ sweren, swerye, 275 (A.S.) _to swear_. _pret. s._ swoor, 434, swor, 269. _part. pas._ sworen, 328, swore swetter (A.S.) _sweeter_ swevene (A.S.) _a dream_ sweyen (A.S.) _to sound_. _pret. s._ sweyed, 1 swich (A.S.) 385, _pl._ swiche, _such_ swynken (A.S.) _to labour_. _pret. pl._ swonken, 2. swynk (A.S.) _labour, work_ swithe (A.S.) _very, immediately, quickly_ swowe (A.S.) 86, _to faint, to swoon_ T. tabard (A.N.) 88, _a short coat or mantle_. "Tabbard, _collobium_." Promp. Parv. One of the stage directions in the Coventry Mysteries (p. 244) is:-- Here xal Annas shewyn hymself in his stage, be seyn after a busshop of the hoold lawe, in a skarlet gowne, and over that _a blew tabbard_ furryd with whyte. tacches (A.N.) 168, _stains, blemishes_ taillé (A.N.) 68, _a tally, notched stick; an account scored on a piece of wood_. _See_ note tailen (A.N.) _to keep an account by notches on a stick, to give a tally for a thing_. _part. a._ tailende, 156. _part. pas._ y-tailed, 102 taken (A.S.) _to take_. _pres. s._ took, _pl._ token, toke, 398. _part. pas._ taken taken, take (A.S.) _to give_. _pret. s._ took, 328, _pl._ toke, token, 383 tale (A.S.) _an account, reckoning_ tale-wis (A.S.) 51, _wise in tales_ tasele (A.S.) 322, _a teasel_. The burs of this plant are used in the manufacture of cloth tasten (A.N.) 266, 374, _to feel_. _pret. s._ tastede, 357 techen (A.S.) _to teach_. _pret. s._ taughte, 19, taghte, 135. _part. pas._ taught, 186, y-taught, 436 tellen, telle (A.S.) _to count, tell_, 405. _pret. s._ tolde. _pl._ tolden teme, teeme (A.S.) 118, 125, 138, 411, 412, _a team of horses_ teme (A.N.) 48, 80, 147, 209, _a theme_ tenten (A.N.) _to offer, present, to hold out, stretch forth_. _pret. pl._ tendeden, 383 tenen, tene (A.S.) 256, 320, _to injure_. _pret. s._ tened, 432 tene (A.S.) 124, 125, 145, 209, 335, _anger, hurt_ teneful (A.S.) _injurious_ termes (A.N.) 242, _terms, times for their work_ teynten (A.N.) _to die, tint_. _part. past_, y-teynted, 322 y-termyned (A.N.) 20, _judged, determined_ thanne (A.S.) _then_ thecche (A.S.) 410, _to thatch_ theen (A.S.) _to thrive, be prosperous_. so thee ik! 90, _as I may prosper!_ thef, theef (A.S.) _pl._ theves, 239, 353, 373, _a thief_. thefliche, 389, _thievishly_ theigh (A.S.) _though_ thenke, thynke (A.S.) 211, 228, _to think_. _pres. s._ he thenketh, 407 ther (A.S.) _there, where_. therafter, 90, _in proportion to it_. thermyd, _herewith_ thesternesse (A.S.) 340, _darkness_ thynke (A.S.) 384, _to seem_. _pres. sing._ I thynke, me thynketh (_it seems to me_). _pret. s._ thoghte, 1, 205, thoughte, 404 thirlen (A.S.) _to pierce, bore through_ thise (A.S.) _these_ tho (A.S.) _those, the_ tho (A.S.) _then, when_ tholien (A.S.) 70, thole, 392, _to bear, support, suffer_. _pret. s._ tholede, 251, 384, tholed, 377. _pl._ tholed, 373 thonkyng (A.S.) _thanking, thanks_ thorugh (A.S.) _through_ thow (A.S.) The second personal pronoun is in interrogative clauses generally combined with its verb, as sestow, _seest thou_; slepestow, _sleepest thou_, &c. thral (A.S.) _pl._ thralles, 398, _a bond-man_ threve (A.S.) 333, _a bundle_ thridde (A.S.) 413, _third_ thringen (A.S.) _to crowd, to throng, to press forward_. _pret. pl._ thrungen, 108 tyd, tid (A.S.) 265, 334, _quickly, promptly, readily_ tidy (A.S.) 422, _clever, ready, neat_ tyen (A.S.) _to tie_ +y-tight, 461, _furnished, provided_ tikes (A.S.) 398, _low people_; literally, _dogs_. The word is still used in Yorkshire til (A.S.) 305, _to_ tilien, tilie, tilye (A.S.) 131, 138, 375, 410, _to till the earth_. +_part. pas._ tylde, 461 tilthe (A.S.) 421, _tilth, the result or produce of tilling or ploughing_ tymbre (A.S.) 223, _to build_. _pret._ tymbred, 48 +tymen (A.S.) 494, _to compel_ (?) It appears to be the same word which occurs in the alliterative poem on the Deposition of Richard II, p. 17:-- Thus lafte they the leder That hem wrong ladde, And _tymed_ no twynte, But tolled her cornes, And gaderid the grotus With gyle, as I trowe. tynen, tyne (A.S.) 416, _to lose_. _part. pas._ tynt, 377 titeleris (A.S. ?) 442, _tattlers_ tithe (A.S.) _tenth, tithe_ tixte (A.N.) 348, _text_ to (A.S.) _too_ to-, prefixed in composition to verbs of Anglo-Saxon origin, has the same force as the German _zu-_, giving to the word the idea of destruction or deterioration:-- to-bollen (A.S.) 82, _to overswell_ to-breken (A.S.) 156, _to break to pieces, break down_. _part. pas._ to-broke, 139 to-cleve (A.S.) 236, _to cleave in pieces, cut open_ to-drawen (A.S.) _to draw to pieces_, or _to destruction_. _pret._ to-drowe, 175 to-luggen (A.S.) 41, _to lug about, tear_ to-rende (A.S.) 180, _to be torn or burst to pieces_ to-shullen (A.S.) _to cut off, destroy_. _part. pas._ to-shullen, 359 toft (A.S.) _an open exposed place, a hill_ to-fore (A.S.) _before_. to-forn 235, _before_ to-gidere, to-gidres, to-gideres (A.S.) _together_ +toylyng (A.S.) 495, _tugging_ tollen (A.S.) 89, _to measure out, count_ tollers (A.S.) _toll-gatherers_ tome (A.S.) 39, _leisure, time_. This form of the word seems to have been in use in the fourteenth century. It occurs at the commencement of the Seven Sages:-- I sal yow tel, if I have _tome_, Of the seven ages of Rome. Its occurrence in Piers Ploughman shows that Weber was not right in supposing it a mere alteration of the word _time_ for the sake of rhyme. See also Sir F. Madden's Glossary to Gawayne tonder (A.S.) 362, _tinder_ +too (A.S.) _pl._ ton, 476, 489, _a toe_ torne (A.N.) 428, _to turn_. _pret. s._ tornede, 321, torned, 265, _turned_ torne, 325, turne, 324 (A.S.) _to turn_ (intransitive) toten (A.S.) 331, 459, 461, _to look, observe, to peep_. _pret. s._ toted, 471. _pl._ toteden, 476. _part. past_, y-toted, 464 touken (A.S.) _to dye_. _part. pas._ y-touked, 322 toune, 315, _a tun_. Perhaps it should be printed _tonne_. tour (A.N.) _a tower_ travaille (A.N.) _to labour_ traversen (A.N.) 245, _to transgress_ treden (A.S.) _to tread_. _pret. pl._ troden, 223. +_pret. s._ tredede, 476, _trod_ tree, 330 (A.S.) _pl._ trowes, 300, _a tree_ tresor (A.N.) _a treasure_ triacle, tryacle (A.N.) _a remedy, a cure_ tricherie (A.N.) _treachery, cunning, trickery_ trie (A.N.) 305, 330, _choice, select_. trieste, 23, _most choice_, trieliche, _choicely_ +tryfler (A.S.) 479, _a trifler, a deceiver, a good-for-nothing_ +troiflardes (A.S.) 494, _triflers, idlers_ trollen (A.S.) 387, _to draw, to drag_ tronen (A.N.) _to throne_ trowe (A.S.) 358, _to believe, think, suppose_. trowestow, 237, _thinkest thou_ trufle (A.S.) 236, 378, trefle, 471, _a silly tale, trifle, good-for-nothing thing_ or _person_ trumpen (A.N.) _to sound a trumpet_. _pret. s._ trumpede, 395 tulien (A.S.) _to labour, to till_. _pret. pl._ tulieden, 277. _part. act._ tulying, 277 tweye (A.S.) _two_ twies (A.S.) _twice_ +twynnen (A.S.) 480, _to couple together_ U. umwhile (A.S.) 97, _once, on a time_ unbuxome (A.S.) _disobedient, inobedient_ underfongen (A.S.) 301, _to undertake, accept, receive_. _pret. s._ underfonged, 209 undernymen (A.S.) 214, _to undertake, take possession of_. _pres. s._ undernymeth, 84. _part. past_, under-nome, 263, 428 under-pight (A.S.) 331, _propped up_ unhardy (A.N.) 254, 354, _not bold_ un-hiled (A.S.) 367, _uncovered, unroofed_ unjoynen (A.N.) 384, _to disjoin, separate_ unkynde (A.S.) _unnatural_ unkouthe (A.S.) 148, _unknown, strange, foreign_ unlosen (A.S.) 356, _to unloose_ unlouken (A.S.) 380, 384, 385, 388, _to unlock_ unnethe (A.S.) _scarcely_ unpynne (A.S.) 385, _to unbolt_ unsperen (A.S.) 374, 385, _to open, undo, unbolt_ +un-teyned (A.S.) 481, _unfastened (?)_ unthende (A.S.) 87, _unserved, without sauce_ untidy (A.S.) 432, _slovenly, not clever_ until (A.S.) _to_ unwittily (A.S.) 49, _unwisely, unreasonably_ up (A.S.) _upon_. up so doun, 428, _upside down_ usen (A.S.) _to use_ V. vaunt-warde (A.N.) 430, _the avant-guard, the van_ veille (A.N.) 104, _an old woman_ vendage (A.N.) 391, _vintage, harvest_ venymousté (A.N.) 378, _the property of being poisonous or venomous_ venym (A.N.) 326, _poison_ vernycle (A.N.) 109, "diminutive of _Veronike_. A copy in miniature of the picture of Christ, which is supposed to have been miraculously imprinted upon a handkerchief, preserved in the church of St. Peter at Rome. Du Cange, in v. _Veronica_. Madox, Form. Angl. p. 428. Testam. Joh. de Nevill, an. 1386. Item Domino archiepiscopo Ebor. fratri meo. i. vestimentum rubeum de velvet cum _le Veronike_ in granis rosarum desuper broudata. It was usual for persons returning from pilgrimages to bring with them certain tokens of the several places which they had visited; and therefore the Pardoner [in Chaucer], who is just arrived from Rome, is represented with _a vernicle sewed upon his cappe_."--TYRWHITT. verrey (A.N.) 365, verrey, 405, _true_ verset (A.N.) 239, _a little verse_ viker (A.N.) 424, _a vicar_ vicory (A.N.) 420, _a vicar_ W. waast (A.N.) 10, _a waste, wilderness_ wafrestere (A.S.) 115, _a maker of wafers for the priests, to be consecrated and administered at the sacrament_ wage, wagen (A.N.) 440, _to hire, to wage, pay wages, remunerate_ wage (A.N.) 71, _to be pledge for, to warrant_ waggen (A.S.) 332, _to shake_. _pret. s._ waggede, 335, 373, 408 wayte, waiten (A.S.) 89, 147, 157, 260, 269, _to watch, look about, wait_. _pret. s._ waitede, 266. _pl._ waiteden, 345 waitynges (A.S.) 33, _watchings, lookings_ walkne (A.S.) 316, _air, sky, welkin_. wolkne, 357, 383 walnote (A.S.) _a wallnut_ wayven (A.N.) 113, 435, 482, 491, _to waive_ waken (A.S.) _to awake_. _pret. pl._ woken, 277, woke, 405, _awoke_ wanhope (A.S.) 34, 94, 140, 238, 366, _despair, hopelessness_ wanye (A.S.) 141, 153, _to fade, wane_. _pret. s._ wanyed, 294 war (A.S.) _ware, aware_. y-war, 17 warde (A.N.) 388, _a keeper_ wardemotes (A.N.) 6, _meetings of the ward_ wareyne (A.N.) 10, _a warren_ warisshen (A.N.) 336, _to cure_ warlawes (A.S.) 497, _wizards, sorcerers, warlocks_. See Jamieson, on this latter word warner (A.N.) 96, _a warrener, keeper of a warren_ warpen (A.S.) _to utter, cast_. _pret. s._ warpe, 82, 99 warroken (A.S.) 66, _to girt_ waselen (A.S.) _to become dirty, dirty one's self_. +_pret. s._ waselede, 476 wasshe (A.S.) 248, _to wash_. _pret. s._ I wessh, 344, wasshed, 352, _pl._ wesshen, 247. _part. pas._ y-wasshen, 167, whasshen, 272, wasshen, 392 wastel (A.N.) 94, _a cake, fine bread_ watlen (A.S.) _to cover with hurdles, to wattle_. _pret. s._ watlede, 415 wawe (A.S.) 153, _a wave_ webbe (A.S.) 89, _a weaver_ webbestere (A.S.) _a weaver_. wollen webbesters, 14, _woollen weavers_ wed (A.S.) 91, 346, _a pledge_ wedden (A.S.) 73, _to lay a wager_ weder (A.S.) _weather_. weder-wise, _weather-wise_ wedes (A.S.) _dress, clothes, apparel_ weer (A.S.) 209, 330, _a doubt, perplexity_ weet (A.S.) _wet_. weet-shoed, 369, _wet-shoed_ weg (A.S.) 426, _a pledge_ wey (A.S.) _a way_ weye (A.S.) 82, _a wey of cheese_ weyen (A.S.) _to weigh_. _part. past_, weyen, 25 weylaway (A.S.) 383, _an exclamation of lamenting under suffering_ weyves (A.S.) 6 (a law term), _animals lost or strayed_ weke (A.S.) 360, 362, _the wick of a candle_ welden (A.S.) 174, 175, 206, _to possess_. _pres. s._ he welt, 178, when he weldeth, 426 wele (A.S.) 381, _weal, happiness, good fortune_ wellen (A.S.) _to boil, to gush out as water from a spring_. _pret. s._ wellede, 418 welle (A.S.) 296, _a spring_ welthe (A.S.) 88, _a welt_ wem (A.S.) 377, _a flaw, stain_ wenden (A.S.) 306, _to go, to wend_. _pres. pl._ wenden. _imperat._ weend, 59 wenen (A.S.) 264, 380, _to suppose, imagine, think, believe_. _pret. pl._ wende, 263, _supposed_ wepen (A.S.) _to weep_. _pret. s._ wepte, 374, _pl._ wepten wepene (A.S.) 170, _membrum virile_ wepne (A.S.) _a weapon_ +werdliche (A.S.) 454, 473, _worldly_ were (A.S.) 322, _to wear_ werken, werche (A.S.) _to work_. _pres. pl._ werchen. _pret. s._ wroghte. _pl._ wroughte, wroghten. _part. act._ werchynge. _part. pas._ wroughte, wroght, y-wroght +werly (A.S.) 491, _worldly_ wernard, wernarde (A.N.) 35, 53, _persons who lay information against others_ (?) wernen (A.S.) _to refuse, deny_. _pres. s._ werneth, 425, _refuses_ werre (A.N.) _war_ wers (A.S.) _worse_ +werwolves (A.S.) 478, _people turned into wolves by sorcery_. An ancient superstition. _See_ note wesshen (A.S.) _to wash_ weven (A.S.) _to weave_ wex (A.S.) 360, 361, wax wexen, wexe (A.S.) 141, 209, 293, 401, _to wax, grow_. _pret. s._ weex, 63, 94, 202, 278, 294, 336, 369. _pl._ woxen, 161, 277, 333. _part. pas._ woxen, 177, 403 wexed (A.S.) 98, _washed_ (?) what! (A.S.) 146, an interjection, _lo!_ whiche (A.S.) which a light, 376, _what light_ +whit (A.S.) 476, _a wight, creature_ whiten (A.S.) _to make white_ +whough (A.S.) 453, _how_. whou, 481 wicche (A.S.) 372, 373, _a witch_ wye (A.S.) 109, 223, 245, 248, 283, 352, 354, 388, 405, _a man_. It is the Saxon _wig_, and was originally applied to a warrior or hero. I am inclined to think this may be the origin of our present slang term, _a guy_ wif (A.S.) _in the objective_, wyve, _pl._ wyves, _a woman, wife_ wight (A.S.) 160, _active, brave_. wightly, _actively, bravely, well_. wyghtliche, 40, _actively_. wightnesse, 410, _activity, cleverness_ wight (A.S.) _a creature, being_ wike (A.S.) _a week_. _pl._ woukes, 336 wikkedlokest (A.S.) 199, _most wickedly_ willen (A.S.) 400, _to will_. _pres. s._ wol, wole, _pl._ wol. _pret. s._ wolde, _pl._ wolde. thow willest, 241 wilne (A.S.) 49, _to will_. _pr. s._ wilneth, 20. _pl._ wilne, 15. _pret. s._ wilned, 211, 369 wyn (A.S.) 402, _wine_ wynen pyne (A.S.) 78, _the wine pin, or place where wine was sold_ (?) wynkyng (A.S.) 77, 99, _dozing, slumbering_ wynnen, wynne (A.S.) _to win, gain_. _pret. s._ wan, 123, 231, _pl._ wonnen, 2. _part. pas._ y-wonne, 82, 213, wonne, 410 +wynwe (A.S.) 476, _winnowing_ wis, _pl._ wise (A.S.) _wise_ wisloker (A.S.) 266, _more certainly_ wissen, wisse (A.S.) 399, _to teach_. _pres. sing._ I wisse. _pret. sing._ wissed, 19. _part. act._ wissynge, 205, _teaching_ wissen (A.S.) _to know_. _pret. sing._ wiste, 151, 211, _knew_ _part. past_, wist, 381 wit (A.S.) _mind, wit, intelligence_ witen, wite (A.S.) 373, 377, _to know_. _pres. s._ he woot, 105, 199. _pret. s._ woot, 3, 32, 35, 67. to witene, 152, _to know_. witynge, 418, _knowingly_ witen (A.S.) 140, 331, _to hinder, keep_ witen (A.S.) _to blame_. _pret. s._ witte, 17 withdrawen (A.S.) _to withdraw_. _pret. s._ withdrough, 373 withholden (A.S.) _to withold, retain_. _pres. s._ he withhalt, 110 withwynde (A.S.) 108, _crosswise_ (?) as if bound with a withy witterly (A.S.) _truly_ witty (A.S.) 196, _knowing, wise_ +wlon (A.S.) 494, _the nap of cloth_ (?) wo (A.S.) _woe_ wodewe (A.S.) 169, _pl._ widwes, _a widow_ woke (A.S.) 315, _to moisten_ (?) wolleward (A.S.) 369, wolward, 497, _miserable, plagued_ wolves-kynnes (A.S.) 126, _of the nature of wolves_ wombe (A.S.) _the belly_ wombe-cloutes (A.S.) 250, _tripes_ womman, _pl._ wommen (A.S.) _a woman_ wone (A.S.) _a dwelling-place, residence_ woned (A.S.) 306, _accustomed, wont_ wonyen (A.S.) _to dwell_. _pres. s._ wonyeth, 18. _pret. pl._ woneden, 311 woon (A.S.) 435, _plenty, abundance_ +woon (A.S.) _a dwelling_ worden (A.S.) _to discourse, have words together_. _pret. pl._ wordeden, 68. wordynge, 351, _talking, using words, conversing_ worm (A.S.) 222, _a serpent_ worstow, 420, _shalt thou be_. _See_ worthe wort (A.S.) 135, _a plant, vegetable_ worthe, y-worthe (A.S.) _to be, become_. to late the cat worthe, 12, _to let the cat be_. worth, 26, 244, 359, _shall be_ wowen (A.S.) 69, _to woo, court_ wower, _pl._ woweris (A.S.) 206, _a wooer_ wowes (A.S.) 46, _walls_ wrathen (A.S.) _to be or become angry, wroth_ wreken (A.S.) _to avenge_. _part. past_, wroken, 39, 437, wroke, 392 wrighte (A.S.) 197, _a workman, artist, maker_ wringen (A.S.) _to wring_. _pret. s._ wrong, 42, 127 writen (A.S.) _to write_. _pret. s._ wroot, 183, 225, 233, 293, 328, 396. _part. past_, writen, 349 writhen (A.S.) 358, _twisted, clenched_ wrooth (A.S.) _wroth_ wrotherhele (A.S.) 280, _ill fate, ill condition_ Y. As a consonant; for other words beginning with _y_, see under _g_ and _i_ yarken (A.S.) 143, _to make ready, prepare_ ye (A.S.) _yea, yes_ yeden (A.S.) _to go_. _pret. s._ yede. _pl._ yeden, 324, 351, 354 yeepe (A.S.) 203, _active, alert, prompt_ yelde (A.S.) 419, _to yield, pay, give_. _pres. s._ he yelt, 375. _pret. s._ yald, 239, 240. yeldynge yeme (A.S.) 349, _heed, attention_ yemen (A.S.) 154, 171, 185, _to rule, guide, govern--to heed, take care of_ yepeliche (A.S.) 306, _promptly_ yerde (A.S.) _a rod, a yard_ yere (A.S.) _pl._ yeer, _a year_. yeres-gyve, 154. yeres-yeves, 49, _a year's gift_ yerne (A.S.) _to yearn, desire eagerly_ yerne (A.S.) (_adverb_) _eagerly, earnestly, readily_ yerne (A.S.) 306, _to run_. _pret. s._ yarn, 205. _part. act._ ernynge, 418. _See_ rennen yis (A.S.) _yes_ yit (A.S.) _yet_ ynowe (A.S.) _enough_. ynogh, 382 yvel (A.S.) _evil, wicked_. yvele, 87, _evilly, wickedly_. _FINIS._ * * * * * PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON. * * * * * Corrections made to printed text Lines 9010, 9011. "for cold", "for drye" corrected from "for-cold", "for-drye" Line 9056 et seq.: Original line numbering preserved, appears to be 1 too low. Line 9254 et seq.: Original line numbering preserved, appears to be a further 2 too low. Line 10204: printed "10240" Line 10260 et seq.: Original line numbering preserved, appears to be a further 1 too low. Line 13205 "a-fyngred" corrected from "a fyngred". Line 14038: printed "14083" Line 14311 "hadde" corrected from "hande". Creed, line 1238: "In penaunce" corrected from "Ia penaunce". Notes generally: the abbreviations for Eccliastes and Eccliasticus are confusing - they are retained as printed. References to Psalms sometimes use the numbering of the Vulgate, sometimes the Hebrew/Protestant numbering - these are also retained as printed. Corrections to the line numbers for the notes: 1735 (corrected from 1734); 2497 (2499); 2881 (2882); 3408 (3407); 4618 (4620); 5433 (5423); 8167 (8164), 8173 (8170), 8180 (8177); 9176 (9177: the next line had incorrect printed line number 9178), 9178 (9179); 9517 (9510); 10183 (10182); 10322 (10332); 10553 (10523); 11075 (11074); 11300 (11299); 10322 (10332); 10553 (10523); 11075 (11074); 11300 (11299); 12669 (12668); 12943 (12942); 14269 (14265); Creed 913 (911). Note 1177. "ynowe" corrected from "ynome". Note 3944 & 3948. "Psalm lxviii, 29" corrected from "Psalm xlviii, 29". Note 4618. "popularly" corrected from "pupularly". Note 6022. "Epist. ad Rom. xii, 19.", the only good match and confirmed by Skeat. The original has "Galat. vi, 2.", which belongs to the note to line 6981. Note 8418. "Luke xxi, 1-4." corrected from "Luke xx, 1-4.". Note "8572", corrected from "8573". Note 9766. "Psal. xcvi" corrected from "Psal. cxvi". Note 10183. "Hadde" from "Hudde". Note 10404. "looresmen" from "loorsemen" (cf. glossary). Note 11396. "Matth. xx, 40" corrected from "Matth. v, 40". Note 11670. "John xii, 32" corrected from "Cant. xii, 32". Note 12040. "2 Corinth. xii, 9" corrected from "2 Corinth. xii, 19". Corrected page references in the Glossary: affaiten (deleted 9); apeiren 80 (corrected from 8); arwe 438 (432); brok 119 (199); brotel 153 (133); cacchen 236 (238); chaffare (merchandise) 85 (84); come: com 400 (401); comsen: comsynge 382 (384); coveren 238 (228); daggen 433 (483); devors 433 (438); drawen: drogh 437 (487), drow 376 (375); dredfully 352 (252); duc 388 (188); eten 386 (385); fighten: y-foughte 336 (386); foote 354 (314); for-yelden 133 (184); formest 403 (409); frete (deleted 4); goon: wenten 351 (321); graithen: graythed 494 (491); hastilokest 424 (434); hewen 273 (173); kennen: kenne 20 (621, which is the line number instead of the page); kyn 359 (659); lakken 262 (260); leet 25 (27); leven (to believe): leved 393 (392); manlich 92 (62); mees 249 (242); metels 207 (206); meve 228 (288); pil 331 (330); pulchen 460 (46); quellen 537 (337); quyk 384 (334); segge 216 (210); sleen: slow 434 (433); sleep 99 (96); spede: spedde 353 (352); torne: torned 265 (266); treden: tredede 476 (475); undernymen 214 (9); vaunt-warde 430 (409); wage (deleted 171); webbe (deleted 267); witty 196 (96); writen 349 (249); yvele 87 (7). Gloss "aspien", corrected from "aspein". Gloss "avowen". "to make a vow" corrected from "... row". Gloss "biten". "bitit" corrected from "betit". Gloss "deitee". "daity" corrected from "deity". Gloss "fondynge", corrected from "fongynge". Gloss "liggen". "leyen" corrected from "leven". Gloss "lomere". "frequently" corrected from "ferquently". Gloss "sitten". "I seet" corrected from "I sete". Gloss "speken", corrected from "peken". 
39452	----	Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. [Illustration: Christian Confides in His Wife. See page 13] THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS BY JOHN BUNYAN EVERY CHILD CAN READ EDITED BY REV. JESSE LYMAN HURLBUT, D.D. ILLUSTRATED EVERY CHILD'S LIBRARY THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO. PHILADELPHIA COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO. PREFACE It may seem a very bold undertaking to change even a word of the book which, next to the Bible, has been read by more people, old and young, than any other book in the English language. But, it must be remembered that, although the Pilgrim's Progress has come to be a children's book, and is read more often by young people than by those who are older, it was not in the purpose of John Bunyan to write a book for children or even for the young. The Pilgrim's Progress was a book for men and women; and it was aimed to teach the great truths of the gospel. Hence while most of it is written in a simple style,--as all books should be written,--it contains much that a child cannot understand; not often in the story, but in the conversations and discussions between the different persons. Some of these conversations are in reality short sermons on doctrines and teachings which Bunyan believed to be of great importance. But these are beyond the minds of children and give them great trouble when the book is read. They do not like to have them left out of the reading, thinking that they may lose something interesting. Many a young person has stumbled through the dull, doctrinal parts of the book, without understanding them; and even grown people find them in our time somewhat of a blemish upon the wonderful story, valuable as they were supposed to be in Bunyan's own time. For many years it has been in my mind, not to re-write the Pilgrim's Progress, for that would destroy its greatest charm, but to change the words here and there to simpler ones, and to omit all the conversations and arguments concerning subjects belonging to the field of doctrine; in other words to place the story of the Pilgrim's Progress in such a form that every child ten years old can understand it. My purpose is to make it plain and interesting to children, leaving the older form of the book to be read by them when they become older. Perhaps a short account of Bunyan's own life may add to the interest of his book. John Bunyan was born in 1628 at Elstow, a small village near Bedford, which is in the heart of England. His father was a poor man, traveling on foot from place to place mending pots and pans and the simple furniture of country kitchens, and the son followed the same trade, and was known as a "tinker." He tells us that he lived a wild life, and was especially known as one of the worst swearers in the region. When the great Civil War broke out in England, in 1642, between King Charles the First and the Parliament, Bunyan became a soldier on the side of the Commonwealth, as the party against the king was called. He served in the army between 1644 and 1646. In 1648, at the age of twenty years, he married a good young woman, who led him to prayer and to a new life. But it was hard for one who had led such a life as his had been to turn to God, and it cost the young man a great struggle. It seemed to him that his past sins were like a load upon his back, just as he afterward wrote of his "pilgrim," and it was long before he found peace. He became a member of a little Baptist society, and soon began to preach. Crowds came to hear him, drawn by his earnest spirit and his quaint striking manner. But when Charles the Second became king, no religious services were allowed except those of the Church of England, and all other meetings were forbidden. Bunyan however went on preaching, until he was sent to prison in Bedford. In Bedford jail he stayed twelve years. To find a means of living in jail, he made lace, and sold it as a support for himself and his blind daughter. If the prison was hard for Bunyan his sufferings were made a blessing to untold millions, for while in Bedford jail he wrote the Pilgrim's Progress. This story was intended to be a parable, like many of our Saviour's teachings; that is, it put into the form of a story the life of one who turns from sin, finds salvation through Christ, and in the face of many difficulties makes his way through this world to heaven. Even a child who reads or listens to the book will see this meaning in part; and he will understand it better as he grows older. In 1672 Bunyan was set free, and allowed to begin again his work as a Baptist minister, and he soon became one of the most popular preachers in all England. He died quite suddenly in 1688, when he was sixty years old, and is buried in an old graveyard now near the center of London, called Bunhill Fields Burial-ground. In the same ground is buried another great writer, Daniel DeFoe, whose story of "Robinson Crusoe" ranks next to the Pilgrim's Progress in the number of its readers; also Isaac Watts, the author of many hymns sung in all the churches, and Mrs. Susanna Wesley, the mother of the great John Wesley. Four people who have left a deep mark upon the world, all lie near together in this small cemetery in London. Every child should read the Pilgrim's Progress as a story if no more than a story; should read it until he knows it by heart. And the older he grows the deeper will be the meaning that he will see in it. JESSE LYMAN HURLBUT. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. CHRISTIAN CONFIDES IN HIS WIFE _Frontispiece_ PAGE EVANGELIST POINTS TO WICKET-GATE 15 CHRISTIAN BEFORE THE CROSS 50 CHRISTIAN AND FAITHFUL JOIN COMPANY 89 HOPEFUL AND CHRISTIAN 129 ATHEIST LAUGHING AT CHRISTIAN AND HOPEFUL 170 CHRISTIANA'S BOYS BEGAN TO EAT 231 TURN-AWAY RESISTING EVANGELIST 357 THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS PART I CHAPTER I. As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den,[1] and laid me down in that place to sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the book, and read therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled; and, not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry, saying, "What shall I do?" [1] Bedford jail, in which Bunyan was twelve years a prisoner. In this plight, therefore, he went home, and restrained himself as long as he could, that his wife and children should not perceive his distress; but he could not be silent long, because that his trouble increased. Wherefore at length he brake his mind to his wife and children; and thus he began to talk to them: "Oh my dear wife," said he, "and you my sweet children, I, your dear friend, am in myself undone by reason of a burden that lieth hard upon me; moreover, I am told to a certainty that this our city will be burned with fire from heaven; in which fearful overthrow, both myself, with thee, my wife, and you, my sweet babes, shall miserably come to ruin, except some way of escape can be found whereby we may be delivered." At this all his family were sore amazed; not for that they believed that what he had said to them was true, but because they thought that some frenzy or madness had got into his head; therefore, it drawing towards night, and they hoping that sleep might settle his brain, with all haste they got him to bed. But the night was as troublesome to him as the day; wherefore, instead of sleeping, he spent it in sighs and tears. So when the morning was come, they would know how he did. He told them, Worse and worse: he also set to talking to them again; but they began to be hardened. They also thought to drive away his madness by harsh and surly treatment of him: sometimes they would ridicule, sometimes they would chide, and sometimes they would quite neglect him. Wherefore he began to retire himself to his chamber, to pray for and pity them, and also to sorrow over his own misery; he would also walk solitary in the fields, sometimes reading, and sometimes praying; and thus for some days he spent his time. [Sidenote: CHRISTIAN'S DISTRESS OF MIND] Now, I saw, upon a time, when he was walking in the fields, that he was (as he was wont) reading in his book, and greatly distressed in his mind; and as he read, he burst out as he had done before, crying, "What shall I do to be saved?" I saw also that he looked this way and that way, as if he would run; yet he stood still, because (as I perceived) he could not tell which way to go. I looked then, and saw a man named Evangelist coming to him, who asked, "Wherefore dost thou cry?" [Illustration: Evangelist Points to Wicket-Gate. Page 15] He answered, "Sir, I read in the book in my hand, that I am condemned to die, and after that to come to judgment; and I find that I am not willing to do the first, nor able to do the second." Then said Evangelist, "Why not willing to die, since this life is troubled with so many evils?" The man answered, "Because I fear that this burden that is upon my back will sink me lower than the grave, and I shall fall into Tophet.[2] And, sir, if I be not fit to go to prison, I am not fit to go to judgment, and from thence to death; and the thoughts of these things make me cry." [2] Tophet here means hell. Then said Evangelist, "If this be thy condition, why standest thou still?" He answered, "Because I know not whither to go." Then he gave him a parchment roll, and there was written within, "Flee from the wrath to come." The man, therefore, read it, and looking upon Evangelist very carefully, said, "Whither must I fly?" Then said Evangelist (pointing with his finger over a very wide field), "Do you see yonder wicket-gate?" The man said, "No." Then said the other, "Do you see yonder shining light?" He said, "I think I do." Then said Evangelist, "Keep that light in your eye, and go up directly thereto; so shalt thou see the gate; at which, when thou knockest, it shall be told thee what thou shalt do." So I saw in my dream that the man began to run. Now, he had not run far from his own door, when his wife and children perceiving it, began to cry after him to return; but the man put his fingers in his ears, and ran on, crying, "Life! life! eternal life!" So he looked not behind him, but fled towards the middle of the plain. [Sidenote: CHRISTIAN FLEES FROM THE CITY] The neighbors also came out to see him run; and as he ran, some mocked, others threatened, and some cried after him to return; and among those that did so there were two that resolved to fetch him back by force. The name of the one was Obstinate, and the name of the other Pliable. Now, by this time the man was got a good distance from them; but, however, they were resolved to pursue him, which they did, and in a little time they overtook him. Then said the man, "Neighbors, wherefore are ye come?" They said, "To persuade you to go back with us." But he said, "That can by no means be: you dwell," said he, "in the City of Destruction, the place also where I was born: I see it to be so; and, dying there, sooner or later, you will sink lower than the grave, into a place that burns with fire and brimstone. Be content, good neighbors, and go along with me." OBST. "What!" said Obstinate, "and leave our friends and comforts behind us?" CHRIS. "Yes," said Christian (for that was his name), "because that all which you forsake is not worthy to be compared with a little of that I am seeking to enjoy; and if you would go along with me, and hold it, you shall fare as I myself; for there, where I go, is enough and to spare. Come away, and prove my words." OBST. What are the things you seek, since you leave all the world to find them? CHRIS. I seek a place that can never be destroyed, one that is pure, and that fadeth not away, and it is laid up in heaven, and safe there, to be given, at the time appointed, to them that seek it with all their heart. Read it so, if you will, in my book. OBST. "Tush!" said Obstinate, "away with your book; will you go back with us or no?" CHRIS. "No, not I," said the other, "because I have put my hand to the plough." [Sidenote: DISCOURSES WITH PLIABLE] OBST. Come, then, neighbor Pliable, let us turn again, and go home without him: there is a company of these crazy-headed fools, that, when they take a fancy by the end, are wiser in their own eyes than seven men that can render a reason. PLI. Then said Pliable, "Don't revile; if what the good Christian says is true, the things he looks after are better than ours; my heart inclines to go with my neighbor." OBST. What! more fools still? Be ruled by me, and go back; who knows whither such a brain-sick fellow will lead you? Go back, go back, and be wise. CHRIS. Nay, but do thou come with thy neighbor Pliable; there are such things to be had which I spoke of, and many more glories besides. If you believe not me, read here in this book; and for the truth of what is told therein, behold, all is made by the blood of Him that made it. PLI. "Well, neighbor Obstinate," said Pliable, "I begin to come to a point; I intend to go along with this good man, and to cast in my lot with him. But, my good companion, do you know the way to this desired place?" CHRIS. I am directed by a man, whose name is Evangelist, to speed me to a little gate that is before us, where we shall receive directions about the way. PLI. Come, then, good neighbor, let us be going. Then they went both together. "And I will go back to my place," said Obstinate; "I will be no companion of such misled, fantastical fellows." Now, I saw in my dream, that, when Obstinate was gone back, Christian and Pliable went talking over the plain; and thus they began: CHRIS. Come, neighbor Pliable, how do you do? I am glad you are persuaded to go along with me. Had even Obstinate himself but felt what I have felt of the powers and terrors of what is yet unseen, he would not thus lightly have given us the back. PLI. Come, neighbor Christian, since there are none but us two here, tell me now further what the things are, and how to be enjoyed, whither we are going. CHRIS. I can better understand them with my mind than speak of them with my tongue; but yet, since you are desirous to know, I will read of them in my book. PLI. And do you think that the words of your book are certainly true? CHRIS. Yes, verily; for it was made by Him that cannot lie. PLI. Well said; what things are they? CHRIS. There is an endless kingdom to be enjoyed, and everlasting life to be given us, that we may live in that kingdom forever. PLI. Well said; and what else? CHRIS. There are crowns of glory to be given us, and garments that will make us shine like the sun in the sky. PLI. This is very pleasant; and what else? CHRIS. There shall be no more crying, nor sorrow; for he that is owner of the place will wipe all tears from our eyes. PLI. And what company shall we have there? CHRIS. There we shall be with seraphims and cherubims, creatures that shall dazzle your eyes to look on them. There also you shall meet with thousands and ten thousands that have gone before us to that place; none of them are hurtful, but all loving and holy; every one walking in the sight of God, and standing in His presence with acceptance for ever. In a word, there we shall see the elders with their golden crowns; there we shall see the holy women with their golden harps; there we shall see men that by the world were cut in pieces, burnt in flames, eaten of beasts, drowned in the seas, for the love they bear to the Lord of the place, all well, and clothed with everlasting life as with a garment. PLI. The hearing of this is enough to delight one's heart. But are these things to be enjoyed? How shall we get to be sharers thereof? CHRIS. The Lord, the Governor of the country, hath written that in this book; the substance of which is, If we be truly willing to have it, He will bestow it upon us freely. PLI. Well, my good companion, glad am I to hear of these things; come on, let us mend our pace. CHRIS. I cannot go so fast as I would, by reason of this burden that is on my back. [Sidenote: THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND] Now, I saw in my dream, that just as they had ended this talk, they drew nigh to a very miry slough or swamp, that was in the midst of the plain; and they, being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was Despond. Here, therefore, they wallowed for a time, being grievously bedaubed with the dirt; and Christian, because of the burden that was on his back, began to sink into the mire. PLI. Then said Pliable, "Ah! neighbor Christian where are you now?" CHRIS. "Truly," said Christian, "I do not know." PLI. At this Pliable began to be offended, and angrily said to his fellow, "Is this the happiness you have told me all this while of? If we have such ill speed at our first setting out, what may we expect between this and our journey's end? May I get out again with my life, you shall possess the brave country alone for me." And with that, he gave a desperate struggle or two, and got out of the mire on that side of the swamp which was next to his own house: so away he went, and Christian saw him no more. Wherefore Christian was left to tumble in the Slough of Despond alone; but still he tried to struggle to that side of the slough which was farthest from his own house, and next to the wicket-gate; the which, he did but could not get out because of the burden that was upon his back; but I beheld in my dream, that a man came to him whose name was Help, and asked him, What he did there? CHRIS. "Sir," said Christian, "I was bid to go this way by a man called Evangelist, who directed me also to yonder gate, that I might escape the wrath to come; and as I was going there I fell in here." HELP. But why did you not look for the steps? CHRIS. Fear followed me so hard, that I fled the next way and fell in. HELP. Then said he, "Give me thine hand." So he gave him his hand, and he drew him out, and set him upon solid ground, and bade him go on his way. Then I stepped to him that plucked him out, and said, "Sir, wherefore, since over this place is the way from the City of Destruction to yonder gate, is it that this place is not mended, that poor travelers might go thither with more safety?" And he said unto me, "This miry slough is such a place as cannot be mended; it is the hollow whither the scum and filth that go with the feeling of sin, do continually run, and therefore it is called the Slough of Despond; for still, as the sinner is awakened by his lost condition, there arise in his soul many fears, and doubts, and discouraging alarms, which all of them get together and settle in this place; and this is the reason of the badness of the ground. "It is not the pleasure of the King that this place should remain so bad. His laborers also have, by the direction of His Majesty's surveyors, been for about these sixteen hundred years employed about this patch of ground, if perhaps it might have been mended; yea, and to my knowledge," said he, "here have been swallowed up at least twenty thousand cart-loads, yea, millions, of wholesome teachings, that have at all seasons been brought from all places of the King's dominions (and they that can tell say they are the best materials to make good ground of the place), if so be it might have been mended; but it is the Slough of Despond still, and so will be when they have done what they can. "True, there are, by the direction of the Lawgiver, certain good and substantial steps, placed even through the very midst of this slough; but at such time as this place doth much spew out its filth, as it doth against change of weather, these steps are hardly seen; or, if they be, men, through the dizziness of their heads, step aside, and then they are bemired to purpose, notwithstanding the steps be there; but the ground is good when they are got in at the gate." Now, I saw in my dream, that by this time Pliable was got home to his house. So his neighbors came to visit him; and some of them called him wise man for coming back, and some called him a fool for risking himself with Christian; others again did mock at his cowardliness, saying "Surely since you began to venture, I would not have been so base to have given out for a few difficulties;" so Pliable sat sneaking among them. But at last he got more confidence; and then they all turned their tales, and began to abuse poor Christian behind his back. And thus much concerning Pliable. [Sidenote: WORLDLY WISEMAN'S COUNSEL] Now, as Christian was walking solitary by himself, he espied one afar off come crossing over the field to meet him; and their hap was to meet just as they were crossing the way of each other. The gentleman's name that met him was Mr. Worldly Wiseman: he dwelt in the town of Carnal Policy, a very great town, and also hard by from whence Christian came. This man, then, meeting with Christian, and having heard about him--(for Christian's setting forth from the City of Destruction was much noised abroad, not only in the town where he dwelt, but also it began to be the town-talk in some other places)--Mr. Worldly Wiseman therefore, having some guess of him, by beholding his laborious going, by noticing his sighs and groans, and the like, began thus to enter into some talk with Christian: WORLD. How now, good fellow! whither away after this burdened manner? CHRIS. A burdened manner indeed, as ever I think poor creature had! And whereas you ask me, Whither away? I tell you, sir, I am going to yonder wicket-gate before me; for there, as I am informed, I shall be put into a way to be rid of my heavy burden. WORLD. Hast thou a wife and children? CHRIS. Yes; but I am so laden with this burden, that I cannot take that pleasure in them as formerly; methinks I am as if I had none. WORLD. Wilt thou hearken to me, if I give thee counsel? CHRIS. If it be _good_, I will; for I stand in need of good counsel. WORLD. I would advise thee, then, that thou with all speed get thyself rid of thy burden; for thou wilt never be settled in thy mind till then; nor canst thou enjoy the blessings which God hath bestowed upon thee till then. CHRIS. That is that which I seek for, even to be rid of this heavy burden; but get it off myself I cannot; nor is there any man in our country that can take it off my shoulders; therefore am I going this way, as I told you, that I may be rid of my burden. WORLD. Who bid thee go this way to be rid of thy burden? CHRIS. A man that appeared to me to be a very great and honorable person; his name, as I remember, is Evangelist. WORLD. I curse him for his counsel! there is not a more dangerous and troublesome way in the world than is that into which he hath directed thee; and that thou shalt find, if thou wilt be ruled by his advice. Thou hast met with something, as I perceive, already; for I see the dirt of the Slough of Despond is upon thee; but that slough is the beginning of the sorrows that do attend those that go on in that way. Hear me: I am older than thou: thou art like to meet with, in the way which thou goest, wearisomeness, painfulness, hunger, perils, nakedness, sword, lions, dragons, darkness, and, in a word, death, and what not. These things are certainly true, having been proved by the words of many people. And why should a man so carelessly cast away himself, by giving heed to a stranger? CHRIS. Why, sir, this burden upon my back is more terrible to me than all these things which you have mentioned; nay, methinks I care not what I meet with in the way, if so be I can also meet with deliverance from my burden. WORLD. How camest thou by the burden at first? CHRIS. By reading this book in my hand. WORLD. I thought so. And it has happened unto thee as unto other weak men, who, meddling with things too high for them, do suddenly fall into thy crazy thoughts, which thoughts do not only unman men, as thine I perceive have done thee, but they run them upon desperate efforts to obtain they know not what. CHRIS. I know what I would obtain; it is ease for my heavy burden. WORLD. But why wilt thou seek for ease this way, seeing so many dangers attend it? Especially since (hadst thou but patience to hear me,) I could direct thee to the getting of what thou desirest, without the dangers that thou in this way wilt run thyself into. Yea, and the remedy is at hand. Besides, I will add that, instead of those dangers, thou shalt meet with much safety, friendship, and content. CHRIS. Sir, I pray, open this secret to me. WORLD. Why, in yonder village (the village is named Morality), there dwells a gentleman whose name is Legality, a very wise man, and a man of very good name, that has skill to help men off with such burdens as thine is from their shoulders; yea, to my knowledge he hath done a great deal of good this way; aye, and besides, he hath skill to cure those that are somewhat crazed in their wits with their burdens. To him, as I said, thou mayest go, and be helped presently. His house is not quite a mile from this place; and if he should not be at home himself, he hath a pretty young man as his son, whose name is Civility, that can do it (to speak on) as well as the old gentleman himself. There, I say, thou mayest be eased of thy burden; and if thou art not minded to go back to thy former habitation (as indeed I would not wish thee), thou mayest send for thy wife and children to thee in this village, where there are houses now standing empty, one of which thou mayest have at a reasonable rate; provision is there also cheap and good; and that which will make thy life the more happy is, to be sure there thou shalt live by honest neighbors, in credit and good fashion. Now was Christian somewhat at a stand; but presently he concluded, "If this be true which this gentleman hath said, my wisest course is to take his advice;" and with that, he thus further spake: CHRIS. Sir, which is my way to this honest man's house? WORLD. Do you see yonder high hill? CHRIS. Yes, very well. WORLD. By that hill you must go, and the first house you come at is his. [Sidenote: EVANGELIST AND CHRISTIAN.] So Christian turned out of his way to go to Mr. Legality's house for help; but, behold, when he was got now hard by the hill, it seemed so high, and also that side of it that was next the wayside did hang so much over, that Christian was afraid to venture farther, lest the hill should fall on his head; wherefore there he stood still, and knew not what to do. Also his burden now seemed heavier to him than while he was in his way. There came also flashes of fire out of the hill, that made Christian afraid that he should be burnt: here, therefore, he sweat and did quake for fear. And now he began to be sorry that he had taken Mr. Worldly Wiseman's counsel; and with that, he saw Evangelist coming to meet him, at the sight also of whom he began to blush for shame. So Evangelist drew nearer and nearer; and, coming up to him, he looked upon him with a severe and dreadful countenance, and thus began to reason with Christian: EVAN. "What dost thou here, Christian?" said he; at which words Christian knew not what to answer; wherefore at present he stood speechless before him. Then said Evangelist further, "Art thou not the man that I found crying, without the walls of the City of Destruction?" CHRIS. Yes, dear sir, I am the man. EVAN. Did not I direct thee the way to the little wicket-gate? CHRIS. "Yes, dear sir," said Christian. EVAN. How is it, then, that thou art so quickly turned aside? For thou art now out of the way. CHRIS. I met with a gentleman as soon as I had got over the Slough of Despond, who persuaded me that I might, in the village before me, find a man that could take off my burden. EVAN. What was he? CHRIS. He looked like a gentleman, and talked much to me, and got me at last to yield: so I came hither, but when I beheld this hill, and how it hangs over the way, I suddenly made a stand, lest it should fall on my head. EVAN. What said that gentleman to you? CHRIS. Why, he asked me whither I was going, and I told him. EVAN. And what said he then? CHRIS. He asked me if I had a family, and I told him. But, said I, I am so laden with the burden that is on my back, that I cannot take pleasure in them as formerly. EVAN. And what said he then? CHRIS. He bid me with speed get rid of my burden; and I told him it was ease that I sought. And, said I, I am therefore going to yonder gate to receive further direction how I may get to the place of deliverance. So he said that he would show me a better way, and short, not so hard as the way, sir, that you sent me in; which way, said he, will direct you to a gentleman's house that hath skill to take off these burdens. So I believed him, and turned out of that way into this, if haply I might soon be eased of my burden. But, when I came to this place, and beheld things as they are, I stopped for fear (as I said) of danger; but I now know not what to do. EVAN. Then said Evangelist, "Stand still a little, that I may show thee the words of God." So he stood trembling. Then said Evangelist, "God says in his book, 'See that ye refuse not him that speaketh; for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven.' He said, moreover, 'Now, the righteous man shall live by faith in God, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.'" He also did thus apply them: "Thou art the man that art running into misery; thou hast begun to reject the counsel of the Most High, and to draw back thy foot from the way of peace, even almost to the danger of thy everlasting ruin." Then Christian fell down at his feet as dead, crying, "Woe is me, for I am undone!" At the sight of which Evangelist caught him by the right hand, saying, "All manner of sin and evil words shall be forgiven unto men." "Be not faithless, but believing." Then did Christian again a little revive, and stood up trembling, as at first, before Evangelist. Then Evangelist proceeded, saying, "Give more earnest heed to the things that I shall tell thee of. I will now show thee who it was that led thee astray, and who it was also to whom he sent thee. That man that met thee is one Worldly Wiseman; and rightly is he so called; partly because he seeks only for the things of this world (therefore he always goes to the town of Morality to church), and partly because he loveth that way best, for it saveth him from the Cross; and because he is of this evil temper, therefore he seeketh to turn you from my way though it is the right way. "He to whom thou wast sent for ease, being by name Legality, is not able to set thee free from thy burden. No man was as yet ever rid of his burden by him; no, nor ever is like to be: ye cannot be set right by any such plan. Therefore, Mr. Worldly Wiseman is an enemy, and Mr. Legality is a cheat; and, for his son Civility, notwithstanding his simpering looks, he is but a fraud and cannot help thee. Believe me, there is nothing in all this noise that thou hast heard of these wicked men, but a design to rob thee of thy salvation, by turning thee from the way in which I had set thee." After this, Evangelist called aloud to the heavens for proof of what he had said; and with that there came words and fire out of the mountain under which poor Christian stood, which made the hair of his flesh stand up. The words were thus spoken: "As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse." Now, Christian looked for nothing but death, and began to cry out lamentably; even cursing the time in which he met with Mr. Worldly Wiseman; still calling himself a thousand fools for listening to his counsel. He also was greatly ashamed to think that this gentleman's arguments should have the power with him so far as to cause him to forsake the right way. This done, he spoke again to Evangelist, in words and sense as follows: CHRIS. Sir, what think you? Is there any hope? May I now go back, and go up to the wicket-gate? Shall I not be abandoned for this, and sent back from thence ashamed? I am sorry I have hearkened to this man's counsel; but may my sins be forgiven? EVAN. Then said Evangelist to him, "Thy sin is very great, for by it thou hast committed two evils; thou hast forsaken the way that is good, to tread in forbidden paths. Yet will the man at the gate receive thee, for he has good will for men; only," said he, "take heed that thou turn not aside again, lest thou perish from the way, when his anger is kindled but a little." CHAPTER II. Then did Christian begin to go back to the right road; and Evangelist, after he had kissed him, gave him one smile, and bid him God speed; so he went on with haste, neither spake he to any man by the way; nor, if any asked him, would he give them an answer. He went like one that was all the while treading on forbidden ground, and could by no means think himself safe, till again he was got in the way which he had left to follow Mr. Worldly Wiseman's counsel: so after a time, Christian got up to the gate. Now, over the gate there was written, "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." He knocked, therefore, more than once or twice, saying: "May I now enter here? Will He within Open to sorry me, though I have been An undeserving rebel? Then shall I Not fail to sing His lasting praise on high." [Sidenote: GOODWILL OPENS THE GATE] At last there came a grave person to the gate named Goodwill, who asked who was there, and whence he came, and what he would have? CHRIS. Here is a poor burdened sinner. I come from the City of Destruction, but am going to Mount Zion, that I may be set free from the wrath to come; I would therefore, sir, since I am told that by this gate is the way thither, know, if you are willing to let me in. GOOD. "I am willing with all my heart," said he; and, with that, he opened the gate. So, when Christian was stepping in, the other gave him a pull. Then said Christian, "What means that?" The other told him, "A little distance from this gate there is erected a strong castle, of which Beelzebub, the Evil One, is the captain; from whence both he and they that are with him shoot arrows at those that come up to this gate, if haply they may die before they can enter in." Then said Christian, "I rejoice and tremble." So when he was got in, the man of the gate asked him who directed him thither. CHRIS. Evangelist bid me come hither and knock, as I did; and he said that you, sir, would tell me what I must do. GOOD. An open door is set before thee, and no man can shut it. CHRIS. Now I begin to reap the benefit of the trouble which I have taken. GOOD. But how is it that you came alone? CHRIS. Because none of my neighbors saw their danger, as I saw mine. GOOD. Did any of them know you were coming? CHRIS. Yes, my wife and children saw me at the first, and called after me to turn again; also some of my neighbors stood crying and calling after me to return; but I put my fingers in my ears, and so came on my way. GOOD. But did none of them follow you, to persuade you to go back? CHRIS. Yes, both Obstinate and Pliable: but, when they saw that they could not prevail, Obstinate went railing back, but Pliable came with me a little way. GOOD. But why did he not come through? CHRIS. We indeed came both together until we came to the Slough of Despond, into the which we also suddenly fell. And then was my neighbor Pliable discouraged, and would not venture farther. Wherefore, getting out again on the side next his own house, he told me I should win the brave country alone for him: so he went his way, and I came mine; he after Obstinate, and I to this gate. GOOD. Then said Goodwill, "Alas, poor man! is the heavenly glory of so little worth with him, that he counteth it not worth running the risk of a few difficulties to obtain it?" CHRIS. "Truly," said Christian, "I have said the truth of Pliable; and if I should also say the truth of myself, it will appear there is not betterment betwixt him and myself. 'Tis true, he went on back to his own house; but I also turned aside to go into the way of death, being persuaded thereto by the words of one Mr. Worldly Wiseman." GOOD. Oh! did he light upon you? What! he would have had you seek for ease at the hands of Mr. Legality! They are both of them a very cheat. But did you take his counsel? CHRIS. Yes, as far as I durst. I went to find out Mr. Legality, until I thought that the mountain that stands by his house would have fallen upon my head: wherefore there I was forced to stop. GOOD. That mountain has been the death of many, and will be the death of many more; it is well you escaped being by it dashed in pieces. CHRIS. Why, truly, I do not know what had become of me there, had not Evangelist happily met me again as I was musing in the midst of my dumps; but it was God's mercy that he came to me again, for else I had never come hither. But now I am come, such a one as I am, more fit indeed for death by that mountain, than thus to stand talking with my Lord. But, oh! what a favor this is to me, that yet I am to enter here! GOOD. We make no objections against any, notwithstanding all that they have done before they come hither; they in no wise are cast out. And therefore, good Christian, come a little with me, and I will teach thee about the way thou must go. Look before thee: dost thou see this narrow way? That is the way thou must go. It was cast up by the men of old, prophets, Christ and His apostles, and it is as straight as a rule can make it: this is the way thou must go. CHRIS. "But," said Christian, "are there no turnings nor windings by which a stranger may lose his way?" GOOD. "Yes, there are many ways butt down upon this, and they are crooked and wide; but thus thou mayest distinguish the right from the wrong, the right only being straight and narrow." Then I saw in my dream, that Christian asked him further if he could not help him off with his burden that was upon his back. For as yet he had not got rid thereof, nor could he by any means get it off without help. He told him, "As to thy burden, be content to bear it until thou comest to the place of deliverance; for there it will fall from thy back of itself." Then Christian began to gird up his loins, and to turn again to his journey. So the other told him that as soon as he was gone some distance from the gate, he would come at the house of the Interpreter, at whose door he should knock, and he would show him excellent things. Then Christian took his leave of his friend, and he again bid him God speed. [Sidenote: House of the Interpreter] Then he went on till he came to the house of the Interpreter, where he knocked over and over. At last one came to the door, and asked who was there. CHRIS. Sir, here is a traveler who was bid by a friend of the good man of this house to call here for his benefit; I would therefore speak with the master of the house. So he called for the master of the house, who, after a little time, came to Christian, and asked him what he would have. CHRIS. "Sir," said Christian, "I am a man that am come from the City of Destruction, and am going to Mount Zion; and I was told by the man that stands at the gate at the head of this way, that, if I called here, you would show me excellent things, such as would be helpful to me on my journey." INTER. Then said the Interpreter, "Come in; I will show thee that which will be profitable to thee." So he commanded his man to light the candle, and bid Christian follow him; so he led him into a private room, and bid his man open a door; the which when he had done, Christian saw the picture of a very grave person hung up against the wall; and this was the fashion of it: it had eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books in its hand, the law of truth was written upon its lips, the world was behind its back; it stood as if it pleaded with men, and a crown of gold did hang over its head. CHRIS. Then said Christian, "What meaneth this?" INTER. The man whose picture this is, is one of a thousand. He can say, in the words of the apostle Paul, "Though ye have ten thousand teachers in Christ, yet have you not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have been your father through the Gospel." And whereas thou seest him with his eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books in his hand, and the law of truth writ on his lips, it is to show thee that his work is to know and unfold dark things to sinners; even as also thou seest him stand as if he pleaded with men. And whereas thou seest the world is cast behind him, and that a crown hangs over his head; that is to show thee that, slighting and despising the things that are in the world, for the love that he hath to his Master's service, he is sure in the world that comes next to have glory for his reward. Now, said the Interpreter, I have showed thee this picture first, because the man whose picture this is, is the only man whom the Lord of the place whither thou art going hath chosen to be thy guide, in all difficult places thou mayest meet with in thy way; wherefore take good heed to what I have showed thee, and bear well in thy mind what thou hast seen, lest in thy journey thou meet with some that pretend to lead thee right, but their way goes down to death. Then he took him by the hand, and led him into a very large parlor, that was full of dust, because never swept; the which after he had looked at it a little while, the Interpreter called for a man to sweep. Now, when he began to sweep, the dust began so abundantly to fly about that Christian had almost therewith been choked. Then said the Interpreter to a girl that stood by, "Bring hither water, and sprinkle the room;" the which when she had done, it was swept and cleansed with ease. CHRIS. Then said Christian, "What means this?" INTER. The Interpreter answered, "This parlor is the heart of a man that was never made pure by the sweet grace of the Gospel. The dust is his sin, and inward evils that have defiled the whole man. He that began to sweep at first is the law; but she that brought water, and did sprinkle it, is the Gospel. Now, whereas thou sawest that, as soon as the first began to sweep, the dust did fly so about that the room could not by him be cleansed, but that thou wast almost choked therewith; this is to show thee, that the law, instead of cleansing the heart (by its working) from sin, doth revive, put strength into, and increase it in the soul, even as it doth discover and forbid it, for it doth not give power to overcome. Again, as thou sawest the girl sprinkle the room with water, upon which it was cleansed with ease; this is to show thee, that when the Gospel comes, in the sweet and gracious power thereof, to the heart, then, I say, even as thou sawest the maiden lay the dust by sprinkling the floor with water, so is sin vanquished and subdued, and the soul made clean through the faith of it, and, consequently, fit for the King of Glory to dwell in." I saw moreover in my dream, that the Interpreter took him by the hand, and led him into a little room where sat two little children, each one in his own chair. The name of the eldest was Passion, and the name of the other Patience. Passion seemed to be much discontented, but Patience was very quiet. The Christian asked, "What is the reason of the discontent of Passion?" The Interpreter answered, "The governor of them would have him stay for his best things till the beginning of next year; but he will have all now. Patience is willing to wait." Then I saw that one came to Passion, and brought him a bag of treasure, and poured it down at his feet; the which he took up, and rejoiced therein, and withal laughed Patience to scorn. But I beheld but awhile, and he had wasted all away, and had nothing left him but rags. CHRIS. Then said Christian to the Interpreter, "Explain this matter more fully to me." INTER. So he said, "These two lads are pictures: Passion, of the men of this world; and Patience, of the men of that which is to come: for, as here thou seest, Passion will have all now, this year, that is to say in this world; so are the men of this world; they must have all their good things now; they cannot stay till the next year, that is, until the next world, for their portion of good. That proverb, 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,' is of more weight with them than all the words in the Bible of the good of the world to come. But, as thou sawest that he had quickly wasted all away, and had presently left him nothing but rags, so will it be with all such men at the end of this world." CHRIS. Then said Christian, "Now I see that Patience has the best wisdom, and that upon many accounts. 1. Because he stays for the best things. 2. And also because he will have the glory of his when the other has nothing but rags." INTER. Nay, you may add another; this, the glory of the next world will never wear out; but these are suddenly gone. Therefore Passion had not so much reason to laugh at Patience because he had his good things at first, as Patience will have to laugh at Passion, because he had his best things last; for first must give place to last, because last must have his time to come; but last gives place to nothing, for there is not another to succeed: he, therefore, that hath his portion first, must needs have a time to spend it; but he that hath his portion last, must have it lastingly. CHRIS. Then I see it is not best to covet things that are now, but to wait for things to come. INTER. You say truth; "for the things that are seen soon pass away, but the things that are not seen endure forever." Then I saw in my dream, that the Interpreter took Christian by the hand and led him into a place where was a fire burning against a wall, and one standing by it, always casting much water upon it, to quench it; yet did the fire burn higher and hotter. CHRIS. Then said Christian, "What means this?" INTER. The Interpreter answered, "This fire is the work of God that is wrought in the heart: he that casts water upon it to extinguish and put it out, is the devil; but, in that thou seest the fire notwithstanding burn higher and hotter, thou shalt also see the reason of that." So then he led him about to the other side of the wall, where he saw a man with a vessel of oil in his hand, of the which he did also continually cast, but secretly, into the fire. CHRIS. Then said Christian, "What means this?" INTER. The Interpreter answered, "This is Christ, who continually, with the oil of His grace, helps the work already begun in the heart; by the means of which notwithstanding what the devil can do, the souls of His people prove gracious still. And in that thou sawest that the man stood behind the wall to keep up the fire; this is to teach thee, that it is hard for the tempted to see how this work of grace is kept alive in the soul." I saw also that the Interpreter took him again by the hand, and led him into a pleasant place, where was built a stately palace, beautiful to behold, at the sight of which Christian was greatly delighted. He saw also upon the top thereof certain persons walking, who were clothed all in gold. Then said Christian, "May we go in thither?" Then the Interpreter took him and led him up toward the door of the palace; and behold, at the door stood a great company of men, as desirous to go in, but durst not. There also sat a man at a little distance from the door, at a table-side, with a book and his ink-horn before him, to take the name of him that should enter therein; he saw also that in the doorway stood many men in armor to keep it, being resolved to do to the men that would enter what hurt and mischief they could. Now was Christian somewhat in amaze. At last, when every man started back for fear of the armed men, Christian saw a man of a very stout countenance come up to the man that sat there to write, saying, "Set down my name, sir:" the which when he had done, he saw the man draw his sword, and put a helmet upon his head, and rush toward the door upon the armed men, who laid upon him with deadly force; but the man, not at all discouraged, fell to cutting and hacking most fiercely. So that, after he had received and given many wounds to those that attempted to keep him out, he cut his way through them all and pressed forward into the palace; at which there was a pleasant voice heard from those that were within, even of those that walked upon the top of the palace, saying: "Come in, come in; Eternal glory thou shalt win." So he went in, and was clothed in such garments as they. Then Christian smiled, and said, "I think verily I know the meaning of this." "Now," said Christian, "let me go hence." "Nay, stay," said the Interpreter, "until I have showed thee a little more; and after that thou shalt go on thy way." So he took him by the hand again, and led him into a very dark room, where there sat a man in an iron cage. Now, the man, to look on, seemed very sad. He sat with his eyes looking down to the ground, his hands folded together; and he sighed as if he would break his heart. Then said Christian, "What means this?" At which the Interpreter bid him talk with the man. Then said Christian to the man, "What art thou?" The man answered, "I am what I was not once." CHRIS. What wast thou once? MAN. The man said, "I was once a fair and flourishing Christian, both in mine own eyes, and also in the eyes of others; I was once, as I thought, fair for the Celestial City, and had even joy at the thoughts that I should get thither." CHRIS. Well, but what art thou now? MAN. I am now a man of despair, and am shut up in it, as in this iron cage. I cannot get out. Oh, _now_ I cannot! CHRIS. But how camest thou in this condition? MAN. I left off to watch and be sober. I gave free reins to sin; I sinned against the light of the Word and the goodness of God; I have grieved the Spirit, and He is gone; I tempted the devil, and he has come to me; I have provoked God to anger, and He has left me; I have so hardened my heart that I _cannot_ turn. Then said Christian to the Interpreter, "But are there no hopes for such a man as this?" "Ask him," said the Interpreter. CHRIS. Then said Christian, "Is there no hope, but you must be kept in the iron cage of despair?" MAN. No, none at all. CHRIS. Why? the Son of the Blessed is very pitiful. MAN. I have crucified Him to myself afresh. I have despised His person. I have despised His holiness; I have counted His blood an unholy thing; I have shown contempt to the Spirit of mercy. Therefore I have shut myself out of all the promises of God, and there now remains to me nothing but threatenings, dreadful threatenings, fearful threatenings of certain judgment and fiery anger, which shall devour me as an enemy. CHRIS. For what did you bring yourself into this condition? MAN. For the desires, pleasures, and gains of this world; in the enjoyment of which I did then promise myself much delight; but now every one of those things also bite me, and gnaw me, like a burning worm. CHRIS. But canst thou not now turn again to God? MAN. God no longer invites me to come to Him. His Word gives me no encouragement to believe; yea, Himself hath shut me up in this iron cage; nor can all the men in the world let me out. O eternity! eternity! how shall I grapple with the misery that I must meet with in eternity? INTER. Then said the Interpreter to Christian, "Let this man's misery be remembered by thee, and be an everlasting caution to thee." [Sidenote: THE DREAM OF THE JUDGMENT] CHRIS. "Well," said Christian, "this is fearful! God help me to watch and be sober, and to pray, that I may shun the cause of this man's misery. Sir, is it not time for me to go on my way now?" INTER. Tarry till I show thee one thing more, and then thou shalt go on thy way. So he took Christian by the hand again, and led him into a chamber, where there was one rising out of bed; and, as he put on his clothing, he shook and trembled. Then said Christian, "Why doth this man thus tremble?" The Interpreter then bid him tell to Christian the reason of his so doing. So he began, and said, "This night, as I was in my sleep, I dreamed, and behold, the heavens grew exceeding black; also it thundered and lightened in most fearful manner, that it put me into an agony. So I looked up in my dream, and saw the clouds rack at an unusual rate; upon which I heard a great sound of a trumpet, and saw also a Man sitting upon a cloud, attended with the thousands of heaven; they were all in flaming fire; also the heavens were in a burning flame. I heard then a great voice saying, 'Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment.' And with that the rocks rent, the graves opened, and the dead that were therein came forth: some of them were exceeding glad, and looked upward; and some thought to hide themselves under the mountains. Then I saw the Man that sat upon the cloud open the book and bid the world draw near. Yet there was, by reason of a fierce flame that issued out and came before Him, a certain distance betwixt Him and them, as betwixt the judge and the prisoners at the bar. I heard it also called out to them that stood around on the Man that sat on the cloud, 'Gather together the tares, the chaff, and stubble, and cast them into the burning lake. And, with that, the bottomless pit opened, just whereabout I stood; out of the mouth of which there came, in an abundant manner, smoke and coals of fire, with hideous noises. It was also said to the same persons, 'Gather my wheat into the garner.' And, with that, I saw many catched up and carried away into the clouds; but I was left behind. I also sought to hide myself, but I could not; for the Man that sat upon the cloud still kept His eye upon me; my sins also came into my mind, and my conscience did accuse me on every side. Upon this I awakened from my sleep." CHRIS. But what was it that made you so afraid of this sight? MAN. Why I thought that the day of judgment was come, and that I was not ready for it. But this affrighted me most, that the angels gathered up several, and left me behind; also the pit of hell opened her mouth just where I stood. My conscience, too, troubled me; and, as I thought, the judge had always His eye upon me, showing anger in His countenance. INTER. Then said the Interpreter to Christian, "Hast thou considered these things?" CHRIS. Yes; and they put me in hope and fear. INTER. Well, keep all things so in thy mind, that they may be as a goad in thy sides, to prick thee forward in the way thou must go. Then Christian began to gird up his loins, and to address himself to his journey. Then said the Interpreter, "The Comforter be always with thee, good Christian, to guide thee into the way that leads to the city." So Christian went on his way, saying: "Here have I seen things rare and profitable; Things pleasant, dreadful; things to make me stable In what I have begun to take in hand: Then let me think on them, and understand Wherefore they showed me where; and let me be Thankful, O good Interpreter, to thee." CHAPTER III. Now, I saw in my dream that the highway up which Christian was to go was fenced on either side with a wall that was called Salvation. Up this way, therefore, did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back. He ran thus till he came to a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a Cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a tomb. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the tomb, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. [Illustration: Christian Before the Cross. Page 50] Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, "He hath given me rest by His sorrow, and life by His death." Then he stood still awhile to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden. He looked, therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the water down his cheeks. Now, as he stood looking and weeping, behold, three Shining Ones came to him, and saluted him with "Peace be to thee." So the first said to him, "Thy sins be forgiven thee;" the second stripped him of his rags, and clothed him with a change of garments; the third also set a mark on his forehead, and gave him a roll with a seal upon it, which he bade him look on as he ran, and that he should give it in at the heavenly gate; so they went their way. Then Christian gave three leaps for joy, and went on, singing: "Thus far did I come laden with my sin; Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in, Till I came hither; what a place is this! Must here be the beginning of my bliss? Must here the burden fall from off my back? Must here the strings that bound it to me crack? Blest cross! blest sepulchre! blest rather be The Man that was there put to shame for me!" [Sidenote: SIMPLE, SLOTH, PRESUMPTION] I saw then in my dream that he went on thus, even until he came to the bottom, where he saw, a little out of the way, three men fast asleep, with fetters upon their heels. The name of one was Simple, of another Sloth, and of the third Presumption. Christian, then, seeing them lie in this case, went to them, if perhaps he might awake them, and cried, "You are like them that sleep on the top of a mast; for the deep sea is under you, a gulf that hath no bottom: awake, therefore, and come away; be willing, also, and I will help you off with your irons." He also told them, "If he that goeth about like a roaring lion comes by, you will certainly become a prey to his teeth." With that they looked upon him, and began to reply in this sort: Simple said, "I see no danger." Sloth said, "Yet a little more sleep." And Presumption said, "Every tub must stand upon his own bottom." And so they lay down to sleep again, and Christian went on his way. [Sidenote: FORMALIST AND HYPOCRISY] Yet was he troubled to think that men in that danger should so little care for the kindness of him that so offered to help them, both by awakening of them, advising them, and offering to help them off with their irons. And, as he was troubled thereabout, he espied two men come tumbling over the wall on the left hand of the narrow way; and they made up apace to him. The name of one was Formalist, and the name of the other was Hypocrisy. So, as I said, they drew up unto him, who thus began talking with them: CHRIS. Gentlemen, whence came you, and whither go you? FORM. and HYP. We were born in the land of Vain-glory, and are going for praise to Mount Zion. CHRIS. Why came you not in at the gate which standeth at the beginning of the way? Know ye not that it is written, "He that cometh not in by the door, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber?" FORM. and HYP. They said that to go to the gate for entrance was, by all their countrymen, counted too far about; and that therefore their usual way was to make a short cut of it, and to climb over the wall as they had done. CHRIS. But will it not be counted a trespass against the Lord of the city whither we are bound, thus to disobey His will? FORM. and HYP. They told him, that as for that, he needed not trouble his head thereabout; for what they did they had custom for, and could show, if need were, testimony that could prove it for more than a thousand years. CHRIS. "But," said Christian, "will it stand a trial at law?" FORM. and HYP. They told him that custom, it being of so long standing as above a thousand years, would doubtless now be admitted as a thing according to law by a fair judge. "And besides," said they, "if we get into the way, what matter is it which way we may get in? If we are in, we are in: thou art but in the way, who, as we perceive, came in at the gate; and we are also in the way, that came tumbling over the wall: wherein, now, is thy condition better than ours?" CHRIS. I walk by the rule of my Master; you walk by the rude working of your fancies. You are counted thieves already by the Lord of the way; therefore I doubt you will not be found true men at the end of the way. You come in by yourselves without His word, and shall go out by yourselves without His mercy. To this they made him but little answer; only they bid him look to himself. Then I saw that they went on every man in his way, without much talking one with another; save that these two men told Christian, that, as to law and rules, they doubted not but that they should as carefully do them as he. "Therefore," said they, "we see not wherein thou differest from us, but by the coat which is on thy back, which was, as we believe given thee by some of thy neighbors to hide the shame of thy nakedness." CHRIS. By laws and rules you will not be saved, since you came not in by the door. And as for this coat that is on my back, it was given to me by the Lord of the place whither I go; and that, as you say, to cover my nakedness with. And I take it as a token of His kindness to me; for I had nothing but rags before. And besides, thus I comfort myself as I go. Surely, think I, when I come to the gate of the city, the Lord thereof will know me for good, since I have His coat on my back; a coat that He gave me freely in the day that He stripped me of my rags. I have moreover, a mark in my forehead, of which perhaps you have taken no notice, which one of my Lord's most intimate friends fixed there the day that my burden fell off my shoulders. I will tell you, moreover, that I had then given me a roll sealed, to comfort me by reading as I go in the way; I was also bid to give it in at the heavenly gate, in token of my certain going in after it; all which things, I doubt, you want, and want them because you came not in at the gate. To these things they gave him no answer; only they looked upon each other, and laughed. Then I saw that they went on all, save that Christian kept before, who had no more talk but with himself, and sometimes sighingly, and sometimes comfortably; also he would be often reading in the roll that one of the Shining Ones gave him, by which he was refreshed. [Sidenote: THE HILL OF DIFFICULTY] I beheld then that they all went on till they came to the foot of the Hill Difficulty, at the bottom of which was a spring. There were also in the same place two other ways, besides that which came straight from the gate; one turned to the left hand, and the other to the right, at the bottom of the hill; but the narrow way lay right up the hill, and the name of that going up the side of the hill is called Difficulty. Christian now went to the spring, and drank thereof to refresh himself, and then began to go up the hill, saying: "The hill, though high, I covet to ascend; The difficulty will not me offend, For I perceive the way to life lies here. Come, pluck up, heart, let's neither faint nor fear. Better, though _difficult_, the right way to go, Than wrong, though _easy_, where the end is woe." The other two also came to the foot of the hill. But when they saw that the hill was steep and high, and that there were two other ways to go; and supposing also that these two ways might meet again with that up which Christian went, on the other side of the hill; therefore they were resolved to go in those ways. Now, the name of one of those ways was Danger, and the name of the other Destruction. So the one took the way which is called Danger, which led him into a great wood; and the other took directly up the way to destruction, which led him into a wide field, full of dark mountains, where he stumbled and fell, and rose no more. I looked then after Christian, to see him go up the hill, where I perceived he fell from running to going, and from going to clambering upon his hands and his knees, because of the steepness of the place. Now, about the midway to the top of the hill was a pleasant arbor, made by the Lord of the hill for the refreshment of weary travelers. Thither, therefore, Christian got, where also he sat down to rest him; then he pulled his roll out of his bosom, and read therein to his comfort; he also now began afresh to take a review of the coat or garment that was given him as he stood by the cross. Thus pleasing himself a while, he at last fell into a slumber, and thence into a fast sleep, which detained him in that place until it was almost night; and in his sleep his roll fell out of his hand. Now, as he was sleeping, there came one to him, and awaked him, saying, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard;[3] consider her ways, and be wise." And, with that, Christian suddenly started up, and sped on his way, and went apace till he came to the top of the hill. [3] Idle one. [Sidenote: TIMOROUS AND MISTRUST] Now, when he was got up to the top of the hill, there came two men running amain: the name of the one was Timorous, and of the other Mistrust; to whom Christian said, "Sirs, what's the matter? You run the wrong way." Timorous answered, that they were going to the city of Zion, and had got up that difficult place: "but," said he, "the farther we go, the more danger we meet with; wherefore we turned, and are going back again." "Yes," said Mistrust, "for just before us lie a couple of lions in the way, whether sleeping or waking we know not; and we could not think, if we came within reach, but they would presently pull us in pieces." CHRIS. Then said Christian, "You make me afraid; but whither shall I fly to be safe? If I go back to my own country, that is prepared for fire and brimstone, and I shall certainly perish there; if I can get to the Celestial City, I am sure to be in safety there: I must venture. To go back is nothing but death; to go forward is fear of death, and life everlasting beyond it. I will yet go forward." So Mistrust and Timorous ran down the hill, and Christian went on his way. But, thinking again of what he heard from the men, he felt in his bosom for his roll, and found it not. Then was Christian in great distress, and knew not what to do; for he wanted that which used to comfort him, and that which should have been his pass into the Celestial City. Here, therefore, he began to be greatly troubled, and knew not what to do. At last he bethought himself that he had slept in the arbor that is on the side of the hill; and, falling down upon his knees, he asked God's forgiveness for that his foolish act, and then went back to look for his roll. But all the way he went back, who can sufficiently set forth the sorrow of Christian's heart? Sometimes he sighed, sometimes he wept, and oftentimes he blamed himself for being so foolish to fall asleep in that place, which was erected only for a little refreshment from his weariness. Thus, therefore, he went back, carefully looking on this side and on that, all the way as he went, if happily he might find his roll that had been his comfort so many times in his journey. He went thus till he came again within sight of the arbor where he sat and slept; but that sight renewed his sorrow the more, by bringing again, even afresh, his evil of sleeping into his mind. Thus, therefore, he now went on, bewailing his sinful sleep, saying, "O wretched man that I am, that I should sleep in the day-time; that I should sleep in the midst of difficulty! that I should so indulge myself, as to use that rest for ease to my flesh which the Lord of the hill hath builded only for the relief of the spirits of pilgrims! How many steps have I taken in vain! Thus it happened to Israel; for their sin they were sent back again by the way of the Red Sea; and I am made to tread those steps with sorrow which I might have trod with delight, had it not been for this sinful sleep. How far might I have been on my way by this time! I am made to tread those steps thrice over which I needed not to have trod but once; yea, also, now I am like to be benighted, for the day is almost spent. Oh that I had not slept!" [Sidenote: CHRISTIAN RECOVERS HIS ROLL] Now, by this time he was come to the arbor again, where for awhile he sat down and wept; but at last (as Providence would have it), looking sorrowfully down under the settle, there he espied his roll, the which he, with trembling and haste, caught up, and put it into his bosom. But who can tell how joyful this man was when he had got his roll again? for this roll was the assurance of his life and acceptance at the desired haven. Therefore he laid it up in his bosom, giving thanks to God for directing his eye to the place where it lay, and with joy and tears betook himself again to his journey. But oh, how nimbly now did he go up the rest of the hill! Yet, before he got up, the sun went down upon Christian; and this made him again recall the folly of his sleeping to his remembrance; and thus he began again to condole with himself, "Oh, thou sinful sleep! how for thy sake am I like to be benighted in my journey. I must walk without the sun, darkness must cover the path of my feet, and I must hear the noise of the doleful creatures, because of my sinful sleep." Now also he remembered the story that Mistrust and Timorous told him, of how they were frighted with the sight of the lions. Then said Christian to himself again, "These beasts range in the night for their prey; and if they should meet with me in the dark, how should I avoid them? how should I escape being torn in pieces?" Thus he went on his way. But, while he was thus bewailing his unhappy mistake, he lifted up his eyes, and behold there was a very stately palace before him, the name of which was Beautiful, and it stood just by the highway side. [Sidenote: WATCHFUL THE PORTER] So I saw in my dream that he made haste, and went forward, that, if possible, he might get lodging there. Now, before he had gone far, he entered into a very narrow passage, which was about a furlong off the Porter's lodge; and looking very narrowly before him as he went, he espied two lions in the way. Now, thought he, I see the dangers by which Mistrust and Timorous were driven back. (The lions were chained, but he saw not the chains). Then he was afraid, and thought also himself to go back after them; for he thought nothing but death was before him. But the Porter at the lodge, whose name is Watchful, perceiving that Christian made a halt as if he would go back, cried out unto him, saying, "Is thy strength so small? fear not the lions, for they are chained, and are placed there for the trial of faith where it is, and for the finding out of those that have none: keep in the midst of the path, and no hurt shall come unto thee." Then I saw that he went on trembling for fear of the lions; but, taking good heed to the words of the Porter, he heard them roar, but they did him no harm. Then he clapped his hands, and went on till he came and stood before the gate where the Porter was. Then said Christian to the Porter, "Sir, what house is this? and may I lodge here to-night?" The Porter answered, "This house was built by the Lord of the hill, and He built it for the relief and security of pilgrims." The Porter also asked whence he was, and whither he was going. CHRIS. I am come from the City of Destruction, and am going to Mount Zion; but, because the sun is now set, I desire, if I may, to lodge here to-night. PORT. What is your name? CHRIS. My name is now Christian, but my name at the first was Graceless. PORT. But how doth it happen that you come so late? The sun is set. CHRIS. I had been here sooner, but that, wretched man that I am, I slept in the arbor that stands on the hill-side. Nay, I had, notwithstanding that, been here much sooner, but that in my sleep I lost my roll, and came without it to the brow of the hill; and then, feeling for it and finding it not, I was forced with sorrow of heart to go back to the place where I slept my sleep, where I found it; and now I am come. PORT. Well, I will call out one of the women of this place, who will, if she likes your talk, bring you in to the rest of the family, according to the rules of the house. So Watchful the Porter rang a bell, at the sound of which came out of the door of the house a grave and beautiful young woman, named Discretion, and asked why she was called. The Porter answered, "This man is on a journey from the City of Destruction to Mount Zion; but, being weary and benighted, he asked me if he might lodge here to-night; so I told him I would call for thee, who, after speaking with him, mayest do as seemeth thee good, even according to the law of the house." [Sidenote: PIETY, PRUDENCE, CHARITY] Then she asked him whence he was, and whither he was going; and he told her. She asked him also how he got into the way; and he told her. Then she asked him what he had seen and met with on the way; and he told her. And at last she asked his name. So he said, "It is Christian; and I have so much the more a desire to lodge here to-night, because, by what I perceive, this place was built by the Lord of the hill for the relief and safety of pilgrims." So she smiled, but the water stood in her eyes; and after a little pause, she said, "I will call forth two or three of my family." So she ran to the door, and called out Prudence, Piety, and Charity, who, after a little more discourse with him brought him in to the family; and many of them, meeting him at the threshold of the house, said, "Come in, thou blessed of the Lord: this house was built by the Lord of the hill on purpose to entertain such pilgrims in." Then he bowed his head, and followed them into the house. So, when he was come in and sat down, they gave him something to drink, and agreed together, that, until supper was ready, some of them should talk with Christian, for the best use of the time; and they appointed Piety, Prudence, and Charity to talk with him; and thus they began: PIETY. Come, good Christian since we have been so loving to you to receive you into our house this night, let us, if perhaps we may better ourselves thereby, talk with you of all things that have happened to you in your pilgrimage. CHRIS. With a very good will, and I am glad that you are so well disposed. PIETY. What moved you at first to betake yourself to a pilgrim's life? [Sidenote: CHRISTIAN'S ADVENTURES] CHRIS. I was driven out of my native country by a dreadful sound that was in mine ears; to wit, that certain destruction did await me, if I abode in that place where I was. PIETY. But how did it happen that you came out of your country this way? CHRIS. It was as God would have it; for, when I was under the fears of destruction, I did not know whither to go; but by chance there came a man even to me, as I was trembling and weeping, whose name is Evangelist, and he directed me to the wicket-gate, which else I should never have found, and so set me in the way that hath led me directly to this house. PIETY. But did you not come by the house of the Interpreter? CHRIS. Yes, and did see such things there, the remembrance of which will stick by me as long as I live, especially three things; to wit, how Christ, in despite of Satan, the Evil One maintains His work of grace in the heart; how the man had sinned himself quite out of hopes of God's mercy; and also the dream of him that thought in his sleep the day of judgment was come. PIETY. Why? did you hear him tell his dream? CHRIS. Yes, and a dreadful one it was, I thought it made my heart ache as he was telling of it; but yet I am glad I heard of it. PIETY. Was that all you saw at the house of the Interpreter? CHRIS. No; he took me, and had me where he showed me a stately palace; and how the people were clad in gold that were in it; and how there came a venturous man, and cut his way through the armed men that stood in the door to keep him out; and how he was bid to come in and win eternal glory. Methought those things did delight my heart. I would have stayed at that good man's house a twelvemonth, but that I knew I had farther to go. PIETY. And what saw you else in the way? CHRIS. Saw? Why, I went but a little farther, and I saw One, as I thought in my mind, hang bleeding upon a tree; and the very sight of Him made my burden fall off my back; for I groaned under a very heavy burden, and then it fell down from off me. It was a strange thing to me, for I never saw such a thing before; yea, and while I stood looking up (for then I could not forbear looking), three Shining Ones came to me. One of them told me that my sins were forgiven me; another stripped me of my rags, and gave me this broidered coat which you see; and the third set the mark which you see in my forehead, and gave me this sealed roll. (And, with that, he plucked it out of his bosom.) PIETY. But you saw more than this, did you not? CHRIS. The things that I have told you were the best; yet some other matters I saw; as namely I saw three men, Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, lie asleep, a little out of the way as I came, with irons upon their heels; but do you think I could wake them? I also saw Formalist and Hypocrisy come tumbling over the wall, to go, as they pretended, to Zion; but they were quickly lost, even as I myself did tell them, but they would not believe. But, above all, I found it hard work to get up this hill, and as hard to come by the lions' mouths; and truly, if it had not been for the good man the Porter, that stands at the gate, I do not know but that, after all, I might have gone back again; but now I thank God I am here, and I thank you for receiving of me. Then Prudence thought good to ask him a few questions, and desired his answer to them. PRU. Do you think sometimes of the country from whence you came? CHRIS. Yes, but with much shame and detestation. Truly, if I had been mindful of that country from whence I came out, I might have had an opportunity to have returned; but now I desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. PRU. Do you not yet bear away with you in your thoughts some of the things that you did in the former time? CHRIS. Yes, but greatly against my will; especially my inward and sinful thoughts, with which all my countrymen, as well as myself, were delighted. But now all those things are my grief; and, might I but choose mine own things, I would choose never to think of those things more; but when I would be doing that which is best, that which is worst is with me. PRU. Do you not find sometimes as if those things were overcome, which at other times are your trouble? CHRIS. Yes, but that is but seldom; but they are to me golden hours in which such things happen to me. PRU. Can you remember by what means you find your annoyances, at times, as if they were overcome? CHRIS. Yes; when I think what I saw at the cross, that will do it; and when I look upon my broidered coat, that will do it; also when I look into the roll that I carry in my bosom, that will do it; and when my thoughts wax warm about whither I am going, that will do it. PRU. And what makes you so desirous to go to Mount Zion? CHRIS. Why, there I hope to see Him alive that did hang dead on the cross; and there I hope to be rid of all these things that to this day are in me an annoyance to me. There, they say, there is no death; and there I shall dwell with such company as I like best. For, to tell you the truth, I love Him because I was by Him eased of my burden; and I am weary of my inward sickness. I would fain be where I shall die no more, and with the company that shall continually cry, "Holy, holy, holy!" [Sidenote: CHARITY TALKS WITH CHRISTIAN] CHAR. Then said Charity to Christian, "Have you a family? are you a married man?" CHRIS. I have a wife and four small children. CHAR. And why did you not bring them along with you? CHRIS. Then Christian wept, and said, "Oh, how willingly would I have done it! but they were all of them utterly against my going on pilgrimage." CHAR. But you should have talked to them, and endeavored to have shown them the danger of staying behind. CHRIS. So I did, and told them also what God had shown to me of the destruction of our city; but I seemed to them as one that mocked, and they believed me not. CHAR. And did you pray to God that He would bless your words to them? CHRIS. Yes, and that with much affection; for you must think that my wife and poor children are very dear unto me. CHAR. But did you tell them of your own sorrow and fear of destruction? for I suppose that you could see your destruction before you. CHRIS. Yes, over, and over, and over. They might also see my fears in my countenance, in my tears, and also in my trembling under the fear of the judgment that did hang over our heads: but all was not enough to prevail with them to come with me. CHAR. But what could they say for themselves why they came not? CHRIS. Why, my wife was afraid of losing this world, and my children were given to the foolish delights of youth; so, what by one thing, and what by another, they left me to wander in this manner alone. CHAR. But did you not, with your vain life, hinder all that you by words used by way of persuasion to bring them away with you? CHRIS. Indeed, I cannot commend my life, for I am conscious to myself of many failings therein. I know also, that a man, by his actions may soon overthrow what, by proofs or persuasion, he doth labor to fasten upon others for their good. Yet this I can say, I was very wary of giving them occasion, by any unseemly action, to make them averse to going on pilgrimage. Yea, for this very thing they would tell me I was too precise, and that I denied myself of things (for their sakes) in which they saw no evil. Nay, I think I may say that, if what they saw in me did hinder them, it was my great tenderness in sinning against God, or of doing any wrong to my neighbor. CHAR. Indeed, Cain hated his brother because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous; and, if thy wife and children have been offended with thee for this, they thereby show themselves to be resolutely opposed to good: thou hast freed thy soul from their blood. Now I saw in my dream, that thus they sat talking together till supper was ready. So, when they had made ready, they sat down to meat. Now, the table was furnished with fat things, and wine that was well refined; and all their talk at the table was about the Lord of the hill; as, namely, about what He had done, and wherefore He did what He did, and why He had builded that house; and by what they said, I perceived that He had been a great warrior, and had fought with and slain him that had the power of death, but not without great danger to Himself, which made me love Him the more. For, as they said, and as I believe (said Christian), He did it with the loss of much blood. But that which puts the glory of grace into all He did, was, that He did it out of pure love to this country. And, besides, there were some of them of the household that said they had seen and spoken with Him since He did die on the cross; and they have declared that they had it from His own lips, that He is such a lover of poor pilgrims, that the like is not to be found from the east to the west. They moreover gave an instance of what they affirmed; and that was, He had stripped Himself of His glory, that He might do this for the poor; and that they had heard Him say and affirm that He would not dwell in the mountains of Zion alone. They said, moreover, that He had made many pilgrims princes, though by nature they were beggars born, and their home had been the dunghill. Thus they talked together till late at night; and after they had committed themselves to their Lord for protection, they betook themselves to rest. The Pilgrim they laid in a large upper chamber, whose window opened towards the sunrising. The name of the chamber was Peace, where he slept till break of day, and then he awoke and sang: "Where am I now? Is this the love and care Of Jesus, for the men that pilgrims are, Thus to provide that I should be forgiven, And dwell already the next door to heaven?" [Sidenote: THE VIRGINS READ TO CHRISTIAN] So in the morning they all got up; and after some more talking together, they told him that he should not depart till they had shown him the rarities of that place. And first they took him into the study, where they showed him records of the greatest age; in which, as I remember in my dream, they showed him first the history of the Lord of the hill, that He was the son of the Ancient of Days, and had lived from the beginning. Here also were more fully written the acts that He had done, and the names of many hundreds that He had taken into his service; and how he had placed them in such houses that could neither by length of days nor decays of nature be destroyed. Then they read to him some of the worthy acts that some of His servants had done; as, how they had conquered kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the armies of the enemies. They then read again in another part of the records of the house, where it was shown how willing their Lord was to receive into His favor any even any, though they in time past had done great wrongs to His person and rule. Here also were several other histories of many other famous things, of all which Christian had a view; as of things both ancient and modern, together with prophecies and foretellings of things that surely come to pass, both to the dread and wonder of enemies, and the comfort and happiness of pilgrims. The next day they took him and led him into the armory, where they showed him all manner of weapons which their Lord had provided for pilgrims; as sword, shield, helmet, breast-plate, all-prayer, and shoes that would not wear out. And there was here enough of this to harness out as many men for the service of their Lord as there be stars in the heaven for multitude. They also showed him some of the things with which some of His servants had done wonderful things. They showed him Moses' rod; the hammer and nail with which Jael slew Sisera; the pitchers, trumpets, and lamps too, with which Gideon put to flight the armies of Midian. Then they showed him the ox's goad wherewith Shamgar slew six hundred men. They showed him also the jaw-bone with which Samson did such mighty feats. They showed him, moreover, the sling and stone with which David slew Goliath of Gath, and the sword also with which their Lord will kill the Man of Sin, in the day that He shall rise up to the battle. They showed him, besides, many excellent things, with which Christian was much delighted. This done, they went to their rest again. Then I saw in my dream that on the morrow he got up to go forward, but they desired him to stay till the next day also; "and then," said they, "we will, if the day be clear, show you the Delectable Mountains;" which they said would yet further add to his comfort, because they were nearer the desired haven than the place where at present he was. So he consented and stayed. When the morning was up, they led him to the top of the house, and bid him look south. So he did, and behold, at a great distance he saw a most pleasant mountainous country, beautified with woods, vineyards, fruits of all sorts, flowers also, with springs and fountains, very lovely to behold. Then he asked the name of the country. They said it was Immanuel's Land; "and it is as common," said they, "as this hill is, to and for all the pilgrims. And when thou comest there, from thence thou mayest see to the gate of the Celestial City, as the shepherds that live there will make appear." Now he bethought himself of setting forward, and they were willing he should. "But first," said they, "let us go again into the armory." So they did; and when he came there, they dressed him from head to foot with armor of proof, lest perhaps he should meet with assaults in the way. He being, therefore, thus armed, walked out with his friends to the gate; and there he asked the Porter if he saw any pilgrim pass by. Then the Porter answered, "Yes." CHRIS. "Pray, did you know him?" said he. PORT. I asked his name, and he told me it was Faithful. CHRIS. "Oh," said Christian, "I know him, he is my townsman, my near neighbor; he comes from the place where I was born. How far do you think he may be before?" PORT. He has got by this time below the hill. CHRIS. "Well," said Christian, "good Porter, the Lord be with thee, and add to all thy blessings much increase for the kindness thou has shown to me!" Then he began to go forward; but Discretion, Piety, Charity, and Prudence would accompany him down to the foot of the hill. So they went on together repeating their former discourses, till they came to go down the hill. Then said Christian, "As it was difficult coming up, so far so as I can see, it is dangerous going down." "Yes," said Prudence, "so it is; for it is a hard matter for a man to go down the Valley of Humiliation, as thou art now, and to catch no slip by the way; therefore," said they, "are we come out to accompany thee down the hill." So he began to go down, but very warily; yet he caught a slip or two. Then I saw in my dream that these good companions, when Christian was gone down to the bottom of the hill, gave him a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, and a cluster of raisins; and then he went his way. CHAPTER IV. But now, in this Valley of Humiliation, poor Christian was hard put to it; for he had gone but a little way before he espied a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him: his name is Apollyon. Then did Christian begin to be afraid, and to cast in his mind whether to go back or to stand his ground. But he considered again that he had no armor for his back, and therefore thought that to turn the back to him might give him greater advantage with ease to pierce him with darts; therefore he resolved to venture and stand his ground; for, thought he, had I no more in mine eye than the saving of my life, it would be the best way to stand. So he went on, and Apollyon met him. Now, the monster was hideous to behold: he was clothed with scales like a fish, and they are his pride; he had wings like a dragon, and feet like a bear, and out of his belly came fire and smoke; and his mouth was as the mouth of a lion. When he was come up to Christian, he beheld him with a disdainful countenance, and thus began to question with him: [Sidenote: APOLLYON STAYS CHRISTIAN] APOLLYON. Whence come you, and whither are you bound? CHRIS. I am come from the City of Destruction, which is the place of all evil, and am going to the City of Zion. APOL. By this I perceive that thou art one of my subjects; for all that country is mine, and I am the prince and God of it. How is it then that thou hast run away from thy king? Were it not that I hope that thou mayest do me more service, I would strike thee now at one blow to the ground. CHRIS. I was indeed born in your kingdom; but your service was hard, and your wages such as a man could not live on; for the wages of sin is death; therefore, when I was come to years, I did as other thoughtful persons do, look out, if perhaps I might mend myself. APOL. There is no prince that will thus lightly lose his subjects, neither will I as yet lose thee; but, since thou complainest of thy service and wages, be content to go back, and what our country will afford I do here promise to give thee. CHRIS. But I have let myself to another, even to the King of princes; and how can I with fairness go back with thee? APOL. Thou hast done in this according to the proverb, "changed a bad for a worse;" but it is common for those that have called themselves His servants, after awhile to give Him the slip, and return again to me. Do thou so too, and all shall be well. CHRIS. I have given Him my faith, and sworn my service to Him; how, then, can I go back from this, and not be hanged as a traitor? APOL. Thou didst the same to me, and yet I am willing to pass by all, if now thou wilt yet turn again and go back. CHRIS. What I promised thee was in my youth, and besides, I count that the Prince under whose banner I now stand is able to set me free, yea, and to pardon also what I did as to my service with thee. And besides, O thou destroying Apollyon, to speak the truth, I like His service, His wages, His servants, His government, His company, and country, better than thine; therefore leave off to persuade me further: I am His servant, and I will follow Him. APOL. Consider again when thou art in cold blood, what thou art likely to meet with in the way that thou goest. Thou knowest that for the most part His servants come to an ill end, because they are disobedient against me and my ways. How many of them have been put to shameful deaths! And besides, thou countest His service better than mine; whereas He never came yet from the place where He is, to deliver any that served Him out of their hands; but as for me, how many times, as all the world very well knows, have I delivered, either by power or fraud, those that have faithfully served me, from Him and His, though taken by them! And so I will deliver thee. CHRIS. His forbearing at present to deliver them is on purpose to try their love, whether they will cleave to Him to the end; and, as for the ill end thou sayest they come to, that is most glorious in their account. For, for present deliverance, they do not much expect it; for they stay for their glory, and then they shall have it when their prince comes in His and the glory of the angels. APOL. Thou hast already been unfaithful in thy service to Him; and how dost thou think to receive wages of Him? CHRIS. Wherein, O Apollyon, have I been unfaithful to Him? APOL. Thou didst faint at first setting out, when thou wast almost choked in the Gulf of Despond. Thou didst attempt wrong ways to be rid of thy burden, whereas thou shouldst have stayed till thy Prince had taken it off. Thou didst sinfully sleep and lose thy choice things. Thou wast almost persuaded to go back at the sight of the lions. And when thou talkest of thy journey, and of what thou hast seen and heard, thou art inwardly desirous of glory to thyself in all that thou sayest or doest. CHRIS. All this is true, and much more which thou hast left out; but the Prince whom I serve and honor is merciful and ready to forgive. But besides, these infirmities possessed me in thy own country; for there I sucked them in, and I have groaned under them, been sorry for them, and have obtained pardon of my Prince. APOL. Then Apollyon broke out into a grievous rage, saying, "I am an enemy to this Prince; I hate His person, His laws, and people. I am come out on purpose to withstand thee." [Sidenote: CHRISTIAN THE CONQUEROR] CHRIS. Apollyon, beware what you do, for I am in the King's highway, the way of holiness: therefore take heed to yourself. APOL. Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said, "I am void of fear in this matter. Prepare thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal den, that thou shalt go no farther: here will I spill thy soul." And, with that, he threw a flaming dart at his breast; but Christian held a shield in his hand, with which he caught, and so prevented the danger of that. Then did Christian draw, for he saw it was time to bestir him; and Apollyon as fast made at him, throwing darts as thick as hail, by the which, notwithstanding all that Christian could do to avoid it, Apollyon wounded him in his head, his hand, and foot. This made Christian give a little back; Apollyon, therefore, followed his work amain, and Christian again took courage, and resisted as manfully as he could. This sore combat lasted for above half a day, even till Christian was almost quite spent. For you must know that Christian, by reason of his wounds, must needs grow weaker and weaker. Then Apollyon, espying his opportunity, began to gather up close to Christian, and, wrestling with him, gave him a dreadful fall; and, with that, Christian's sword flew out of his hand. Then said Apollyon, "I am sure of thee now." And, with that, he had almost pressed him to death, so that Christian began to despair of life. But, as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching his last blow, thereby to make a full end of this good man, Christian nimbly reached out his hand for his sword, and caught it, saying, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall I shall arise;" and, with that, gave him a deadly thrust, which made him give back, as one that had received his mortal wound. Christian, perceiving that, made at him again, saying, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us." And, with that, Apollyon spread forth his dragon's wings, and sped him away, that Christian for a season saw him no more. In this combat no man can imagine, unless he had seen and heard, as I did, what yelling and hideous roaring Apollyon made all the time of the fight: he spake like a dragon; and, on the other side, what sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. I never saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged sword; then, indeed, he did smile and look upward; but it was the dreadfullest sight that ever I saw. [Sidenote: CHRISTIAN GIVES THANKS] CHRIS. So, when the battle was over, Christian said, "I will here give thanks to Him that hath delivered me out of the mouth of the lion; to Him that did help me against Apollyon." And so he did, saying: "Great Satan, the captain of this fiend, Designed my ruin; therefore to this end He sent him harnessed out: and he with rage That hellish was, did fiercely me engage; But blessed angels helped me; and I, By dint of sword, did quickly make him fly: Therefore to God let me give lasting praise, And thank and bless His holy name always." Then there came to him a hand with some of the leaves of the tree of life; the which Christian took, and laid upon the wounds that he had received in the battle, and was healed immediately. He also sat down in that place to eat bread, and to drink of the bottle that was given to him a little before: so, being refreshed, he went forth on his journey, with his sword drawn in his hand; "For," he said, "I know not but some other enemy may be at hand." But he met with no other harm from Apollyon quite through this valley. Now, at the end of this valley was another, called the Valley of the Shadow of Death; and Christian must needs go through it, because the way to the Celestial City lay through the midst of it. Now this valley is a very solitary place; the prophet Jeremiah thus describes it: "A wilderness, a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, a land that no man" but a Christian "passeth through, and where no man dwelt." Now here Christian was worse put to it than in his fight with Apollyon, as in the story you shall see. I saw then in my dream, that when Christian was got to the borders of the Shadow of Death, there met him two men, children of them that brought up an evil report of the good land, making haste to go back; to whom Christian spake as follows: CHRIS. Whither are you going? MEN. They said, "Back, back! and we would have you to do so too, if either life or peace is prized by you." CHRIS. "Why, what's the matter?" said Christian. MEN. "Matter!" said they: "we were going that way as you are going, and went as far as we durst: and indeed we were almost past coming back; for had we gone a little farther, we had not been here to bring the news to thee." CHRIS. "But what have you met with?" said Christian. MEN. Why, we were almost in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, but that by good hap we looked before us, and saw the danger before we came to it. CHRIS. "But what have you seen?" said Christian. MEN. Seen! why, the valley itself, which is as dark as pitch: we also saw there the hobgoblins, satyrs, and dragons of the pit; we heard also in that valley a continual howling and yelling, as of a people under unutterable misery, who there sat bound in affliction and irons; and over that hung the discouraging clouds of confusion; Death also does always spread his wings over it. In a word, it is every whit dreadful, being utterly without order. CHRIS. Then said Christian, "I perceive not yet, by what you have said, but that this is my way to the desired haven." MEN. Be it thy way, we will not choose it for ours. So they parted, and Christian went on his way, but still with his sword drawn in his hand, for fear lest he should be attacked. I saw then in my dream, as far as this valley reached, there was on the right hand a very deep ditch; that ditch is it into which the blind have led the blind in all ages, and have both there miserably perished. Again, behold, on the left hand there was a very dangerous quag, or marsh, into which, if even a good man falls, he finds no bottom for his foot to stand on: into that quag King David once did fall, and had no doubt there been smothered, had not He that is able plucked him out. The pathway was here also exceedingly narrow, and therefore good Christian was the more put to it; for when he sought, in the dark, to shun the ditch, on the one hand he was ready to tip over into the mire on the other; also when he sought to escape the mire, without great carefulness he would be ready to fall into the ditch. Thus he went on, and I heard him here sigh bitterly, for besides the danger mentioned above, the pathway was here so dark, that ofttimes, when he lifted up his foot to go forward, he knew not where or upon what he should set it next. [Sidenote: A COMPANY OF FIENDS] About the midst of this valley I perceived the mouth of hell to be, and it stood also hard by the wayside. Now, thought Christian, what shall I do? And ever and anon the flame and smoke would come out in such abundance, with sparks and hideous noises (things that cared not for Christian's sword, as did Apollyon before), that he was forced to put up his sword, and betake himself to another weapon, called "All-Prayer." So he cried in my hearing, "O Lord, I beseech Thee, deliver my soul." Thus he went on a great while, yet still the flames would be reaching towards him; also he heard doleful voices, and rushings to and fro, so that sometimes he thought he should be torn in pieces, or trodden down like mire in the streets. This frightful sight was seen, and those dreadful noises were heard by him, for several miles together, and, coming to a place where he thought he heard a company of fiends coming forward to meet him, he stopped, and began to muse what he had best to do. Sometimes he had half a thought to go back; then again he thought he might be half-way through the valley. He remembered, also, how he had already vanquished many a danger, and that the danger of going back might be much more than going forward. So he resolved to go on; yet the fiends seemed to come nearer and nearer. But, when they were come even almost at him, he cried out with a most vehement voice, "I will walk in the strength of the Lord God." So they gave back, and came no farther. [Sidenote: VALLEY OF SHADOW OF DEATH] One thing I would not let slip: I took notice that now poor Christian was so confounded that he did not know his own voice; and thus I perceived it: just when he was come over against the mouth of the burning pit, one of the wicked ones got behind him, and stepped up softly to him, and whisperingly suggested many wicked words to him, which he verily thought had proceeded from his own mind. This put Christian more to it than anything he had met with before, even to think that he should now speak evil of Him that he had so much loved before. Yet, if he could have helped it, he would not have done it; but he had not the wisdom either to stop his ears, or to know from whence those wicked words came. When Christian had traveled in this sorrowful condition some considerable time he thought he heard the voice of a man, as going before him, saying, "Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me." Then he was glad, and that for these reasons: First,--Because he gathered from thence, that some who feared God were in this valley as well as himself. Secondly,--For that he perceived God was with them, though in that dark and dismal state. And why not, thought he, with me, though by reason of the kindness that attends this place, I cannot perceive it? Thirdly,--For that he hoped (could he overtake them) to have company by-and-by. So he went on, and called to him that was before; but he knew not what to answer, for that he also thought himself to be alone. And by-and-by the day broke. Then said Christian, "He hath turned the shadow of death into the morning." Now, morning being come, he looked back, not out of desire to return, but to see, by the light of the day, what dangers he had gone through in the dark. So he saw more perfectly the ditch that was on the one hand, and the quag that was on the other; also how narrow the way which led betwixt them both. Also now he saw the hobgoblins, and satyrs, and dragons of the pit, but all afar off; for after break of day they came not nigh; yet they were shown to him according to that which is written, "He showeth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death." Now was Christian much affected with his deliverance from all the dangers of his solitary way; which dangers, though he feared them much before, yet he saw them more clearly now, because the light of the day made them plain to him. And about this time the sun was rising, and this was another mercy to Christian; for you must note that, though the first part of the Valley of the Shadow of Death was dangerous, yet this second part, which he was yet to go, was if possible far more dangerous; for, from the place where he now stood, even to the end of the valley, the way was all along set so full of snares, traps, gins, and nets here, and so full of pits, pitfalls, deep holes, and shelvings down there, that, had it now been dark, as it was when he came the first part of the way, had he had a thousand souls, they had in reason been cast away. But, as I said just now the sun was rising. Then said he, "His candle shineth on my head, and by His light I go through darkness." [Sidenote: POPE AND PAGAN] In this light, therefore, he came to the end of the valley. Now, I saw in my dream that at the end of the valley lay blood, bones, ashes, and mangled bodies of men, even of pilgrims that had gone this way formerly; and, while I was musing what should be the reason, I espied a little before me a cave, where two giants, POPE and PAGAN, dwelt in old time; by whose power and tyranny, the men whose bones, blood, ashes, etc., lay there, were cruelly put to death. But by this place Christian went without danger, whereat I somewhat wondered; but I have learnt since, that Pagan has been dead many a day; and, as for the other, though he be yet alive, he is, by reason of age, also of the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints, that he can now do little more than sit in his cave's mouth, grinning at pilgrims as they go by, and biting his nails because he cannot come to them. So I saw that Christian went on his way; yet, at the sight of the old man that sat at the mouth of the cave, he could not tell what to think, especially because he spoke to him, though he could not go after him, saying, "You will never mend till more of you be burned." But he held his peace, and set a good face on it, and so went by and caught no hurt. Then sang Christian: "O, world of wonders (I can say no less), That I should be preserved in that distress That I have met with here! Oh, blessed be That hand that from it hath delivered me! Dangers in darkness, devils, hell, and sin, Did compass me, while I this vale was in; Yes, snares, and pits, and traps, and nets did lie My path about, that worthless, silly I Might have been catched, entangled, and cast down; But, since I live, let Jesus wear the crown." [Illustration: Christian and Faithful Join Company. Page 89] CHAPTER V. Now as Christian went on his way, he came to a little ascent which was cast up on purpose that pilgrims might see before them: up there, therefore, Christian went; and looking forward, he saw Faithful before him upon his journey. Then said Christian aloud, "Ho, ho! so-ho! stay, and I will be your companion." At that Faithful looked behind him; to whom Christian cried, "Stay, stay, till I come up to you." But Faithful answered, "No, I am upon my life, and the avenger of blood is behind me." [Sidenote: CHRISTIAN JOINS FAITHFUL] At this Christian was somewhat moved; and putting to all his strength, he quickly got up with Faithful, and did also overrun him: so the last was first. Then did Christian boastfully smile, because he had gotten the start of his brother; but, not taking good heed to his feet, he suddenly stumbled and fell, and could not rise again until Faithful came up to help him. Then I saw in my dream, they went very lovingly on together, and had sweet talk together of all things that had happened to them in their pilgrimage; and thus Christian began: CHRIS. My honored and well-beloved brother Faithful, I am glad that I have overtaken you, and that God has so tempered our spirits that we can walk as companions in this so pleasant a path. FAITH. I had thought, dear friend, to have had your company quite from our town; but you did get the start of me, wherefore I was forced to come thus much of the way alone. CHRIS. How long did you stay in the City of Destruction before you set out after me on your pilgrimage? [Sidenote: WHAT WAS SAID IN THE CITY] FAITH. Till I could stay no longer; for there was great talk, presently after you were gone out, that our city would, in a short time, with fire from heaven, be burned down to the ground. CHRIS. What! did your neighbors talk so? FAITH. Yes, it was for a while in everybody's mouth. CHRIS. What! and did no more of them but you come out to escape the danger? FAITH. Though there was, as I said, a great talk thereabout, yet I do not think they did firmly believe it. For, in the heat of the talking I heard some of them deridingly speak of you, and of your desperate journey; for so they called this your pilgrimage. But I did believe, and do still, that the end of our city will be with fire and brimstone from above; and therefore I have made my escape. CHRIS. Did you hear no talk of neighbor Pliable? FAITH. Yes, Christian; I heard that he followed you till he came to the Slough of Despond, where, as some said, he fell in; but he would not be known to have so done; but I am sure he was soundly bedabbled with that kind of dirt. CHRIS. And what said the neighbors to him? FAITH. He hath, since his going back, been held greatly in derision, and that among all sorts of people: some do mock and despise him, and scarce any will set him on work. He is now seven times worse than if he had never gone out of the city. CHRIS. But why should they be set so against him, since they also despise the way that he forsook? FAITH. "Oh," they say, "hang him; he is a turncoat! he was not true to his profession!" I think God has stirred up even his enemies to hiss at him and laugh at him, because he hath forsaken the way. CHRIS. Had you no talk with him before you came out? FAITH. I met him once in the streets, but he leered away on the other side, as one ashamed of what he had done; so I spake not to him. CHRIS. Well, at my first setting out, I had hopes of that man, but now I fear he will perish in the overthrow of the city. For it has happened to him according to the true proverb, "The dog is turned to his vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire." FAITH. These are my fears of him too; but who can hinder that which will be? CHRIS. "Well, neighbor Faithful," said Christian, "let us leave him, and talk of things that more immediately concern ourselves. Tell me now what you have met with in the way as you came; for I know you have met with some things, or else it may be writ for a wonder." FAITH. I escaped the slough that I perceive you fell into, and got up to the gate without that danger; only I met with one whose name was Wanton, that had like to have done me a mischief. CHRIS. It was well you escaped her net: Joseph was hard put to it by her, and he escaped her as you did; but it had like to have cost him his life. But what did she do to you? FAITH. You cannot think (but that you know something) what a flattering tongue she had; she lay at me hard to turn aside with her, promising me all manner of enjoyment. CHRIS. Nay, she did not promise you the enjoyment of a good conscience. FAITH. You know what I mean--not the enjoyment of the soul, but of the body. CHRIS. Thank God you have escaped her: the abhorred of the Lord shall fall into her ditch. FAITH. Nay, I know not whether I did wholly escape her or no. CHRIS. Why, I suppose you did not consent to her desires? FAITH. No, not to defile myself; for I remembered an old writing that I had seen which saith, "Her steps take hold of hell." So I shut mine eyes, because I would not be bewitched with her looks. Then she railed on me, and I went my way. CHRIS. Did you meet with no other assault as you came? [Sidenote: FAITHFUL AND ADAM THE FIRST] FAITH. When I came to the foot of the hill called Difficulty, I met with a very aged man, who asked me what I was and whither bound. I told him that I was a pilgrim, going to the Celestial City. Then said the old man, "Thou lookest like an honest fellow: wilt thou be content to dwell with me, for the wages that I shall give thee?" Then I asked him his name, and where he dwelt. He said his name was Adam the First, and that he dwelt in the town of Deceit. I asked him then what was his work, and what the wages that he would give. He told me that his work was many delights; and his wages, that I should be his heir at last. I further asked him what house he kept, and what other servants he had. So he told me that his house was filled with all the dainties of the world, and that his servants were his own children. Then I asked him how many children he had. He said that he had but three daughters, the Lust of the Flesh, the Lust of the Eyes, and the Pride of Life, and that I should marry them if I would. Then I asked, how long time he would have me live with him? And he told me, As long as he lived himself. CHRIS. Well, and what conclusion came the old man and you to at last? FAITH. Why, at first I found myself somewhat inclinable to go with the man, for I thought he spake very fair; but looking in his forehead, as I talked with him, I saw there written, "Put off the old man with his deeds." CHRIS. And how then? FAITH. Then it came burning hot into my mind, whatever he said, and however he flattered, when he got home to his house he would sell me for a slave. So I bid him forbear, for I would not come near the door of his house. Then he reviled me, and told me that he would send such a one after me that should make my way bitter to my soul. So I turned to go away from him; but, just as I turned myself to go thence, I felt him take hold of my flesh, and give me such a deadly twitch back, that I thought he had pulled part of me after himself: this made me cry, "O wretched man!" So I went on my way up the hill. Now, when I had got about half-way up, I looked behind me, and saw one coming after me, swift as the wind; so he overtook me just about the place where the settle stands. CHRIS. "Just there," said Christian, "did I sit down to rest me; but being overcome with sleep, I there lost this roll out of my bosom." FAITH. But, good brother, hear me out. So soon as the man overtook me, he was but a word and a blow; for down he knocked me, and laid me for dead. But, when I was a little come to myself again, I asked him wherefore he served me so. He said, because of my secret inclining to Adam the First. And, with that, he struck me another deadly blow on the breast, and beat me down backwards; so I lay at his feet as dead as before. So, when I came to myself again, I cried him mercy; but he said, "I know not how to show mercy;" and, with that, he knocked me down again. He had doubtless made an end of me, but that One came by, and bid him forbear. CHRIS. Who was that that bid him forbear? FAITH. I did not know him at first; but, as He went by, I perceived the holes in His hands and His side; then I concluded that He was our Lord. So I went up the hill. CHRIS. That man that overtook you was Moses. He spareth none, neither knoweth he how to show mercy to those that disobey his law. FAITH. I know it very well: it was not the first time that he has met with me. It was he that came to me when I dwelt securely at home, and that told me he would burn my house over my head if I stayed there. CHRIS. But Did not you see the house that stood there, on the top of that hill on the side of which Moses met you? FAITH. Yes, and the lions too, before I came at it. But, for the lions, I think they were asleep, for it was about noon; and because I had so much of the day before me I passed by the Porter, and came down the hill. CHRIS. He told me, indeed, that he saw you go by; but I wished you had called at the house, for they would have showed you so many rarities, that you would scarce have forgot them to the day of your death. But pray tell me, did you meet nobody in the Valley of Humility? FAITH. Yes, I met with one Discontent, who would willingly have persuaded me to go back again with him: his reason was, for that the valley was altogether without honor. He told me, moreover, that there to go was the way to disoblige all my friends, as Pride, Arrogancy, Self-Conceit, Worldly-Glory, with others, who he knew, as he said, would be very much offended if I made such a fool of myself as to wade through this valley. CHRIS. Well, and how did you answer him? FAITH. I told him that, although all these that he named might claim kindred of me, and that rightly (for, indeed, they were my relations according to the flesh), yet, since I became a pilgrim, they have disowned me, as I also have rejected them; and therefore they were to me now no more than if they had never been of my lineage. I told him, moreover, that as to this valley, he had quite misrepresented the thing; for before honor is humility, and a haughty spirit before a fall. "Therefore," said I, "I had rather go through this valley to the honor that was so accounted by the wisest, than choose that which he esteemed most worthy of our affections." CHRIS. Met you with nothing else in that valley? [Sidenote: SHAME A BOLD VILLAIN] FAITH. Yes, I met with Shame; but, of all the men that I met with in my pilgrimage, he I think, bears the wrong name. The others would take "No" for an answer, at least after some words of denial; but this bold-faced Shame would never have done. CHRIS. Why, what did he say to you? FAITH. What? why, he objected against religion itself. He said it was a pitiful, low, sneaking business for a man to mind religion. He said that a tender conscience was an unmanly thing; and that for a man to watch over his words and ways, so as to tie up himself from that liberty that the brave spirits of the times accustom themselves unto, would make him the ridicule of all the people in our time. He objected also, that but a few of the mighty, rich, or wise were ever of my opinion; nor any of them neither, before they were persuaded to be fools, to venture the loss of all for nobody else knows what. He, moreover, objected the base and low estate and condition of those that were chiefly the pilgrims of the times in which they lived; also their ignorance, and want of understanding in all worldly knowledge. Yea, he did hold me to it at that rate also, about a great many more things than here I relate; as, that it was a shame to sit whining and mourning under a sermon, and a shame to come sighing and groaning home; that it was a shame to ask my neighbor forgiveness for petty faults, or to give back what I had taken from any. He said also that religion made a man grow strange to the great, because of a few vices (which he called by finer names), and because religion made him own and respect the base, who were of the same religious company; "and is not this," said he, "a shame?" CHRIS. And what did you say to him? FAITH. Say? I could not tell what to say at first. Yea, he put me so to it that my blood came up in my face; even this Shame fetched it up, and had almost beat me quite off. But at last I began to consider that that which is highly esteemed among men is had in abomination with God. And I thought again, This Shame tells me what men are, but it tells me nothing what God, or the Word of God is. And I thought, moreover, that at the day of doom we shall not be doomed to death or life according to the spirits of the world, but according to the wisdom and law of the Highest. Therefore, thought I, what God says is best--is best, though all the men in the world are against it. Seeing, then, that God prefers His religion; seeing God prefers a tender conscience; seeing they that make themselves fools for the kingdom of heaven are wisest, and that the poor man that loveth Christ is richer than the greatest man in the world that hates Him; Shame, depart! thou art an enemy to my salvation. Shall I listen to thee against my sovereign Lord? how, then, shall I look Him in the face at His coming? Should I now be ashamed of His way and servants how can I expect the blessing? But, indeed, this Shame was a bold villain: I could scarce shake him out of my company; yea, he would be haunting of me, and continually whispering me in the ear with some one or other of the weak things that attend religion. But at last I told him it was in vain to attempt further in this business; for those things that he despised, in those did I see most glory; and so, at last, I got past this persistent one. And when I had shaken him off, then I began to sing, "The trials that those men do meet withal, That are obedient to the heavenly call, Are manifold, and suited to the flesh, And come, and come, and come again afresh; That now, or some time else, we by them may Be taken, overcome, and cast away. Oh, let the pilgrims, let the pilgrims then, Be vigilant and quit themselves like men!" CHRIS. I am glad, my brother, that thou didst withstand this villain so bravely: for of all, as thou sayest, I think he has the wrong name; for he is so bold as to follow us in the streets, and to attempt to put us to shame before all men; that is, to make us ashamed of that which is good. But, if he was not himself bold, he would never attempt to do as he does. But let us still resist him; for, notwithstanding all his bold words, he promoteth the fool, and none else. "The wise shall inherit glory," said Solomon; "but shame shall be the promotion of fools." FAITH. I think we must cry to Him for help against Shame who would have us to be valiant for truth upon the earth. CHRIS. You say true. But did you meet nobody else in that valley? FAITH. No, not I; for I had sunshine all the rest of the way through that, and also through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. CHRIS. It was well for you! I am sure it fared far otherwise with me. I had for a long season, as soon almost as I entered into that valley, a dreadful combat with that foul fiend Apollyon; yea, I thought verily he would have killed me, especially when he got me down, and crushed me under him, as if he would have crushed me to pieces. For, as he threw me, my sword flew out of my hand; nay, he told me he was sure of me; and I cried to God, and He heard me, and delivered me out of all my troubles. Then I entered into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and had no light for almost half the way through it. I thought I should have been killed there over and over: but at last day broke, and the sun rose, and I went through that which was behind with far more ease and quiet. [Sidenote: TALKATIVE OVERTAKEN] Moreover, I saw in my dream that, as they went on, Faithful, as he chanced to look on one side, saw a man whose name is Talkative walking at a distance beside them; for in this place there was room enough for them all to walk. He was a tall man, and something better looking at a distance than near at hand. To this man Faithful spoke himself in this manner: FAITH. Friend, whither away? Are you going to the heavenly country? TALK. I am going to that same place. FAITH. That is well; then I hope we may have your good company. TALK. With a very good will, will I be your companion. FAITH. Come on, then, and let us go together, and let us spend our time in talking of things that are profitable. TALK. To talk of things that are good, to me is very acceptable, with you or with any other; and I am glad that I have met with those that incline to so good a work; for, to speak the truth, there are but few who care thus to spend their time as they are in their travels, but choose much rather to be speaking of things to no profit; and this has been a trouble to me. FAITH. That is, indeed, a thing to be lamented; for what things so worthy of the use of the tongue and mouth of men on earth, as are the things of the God of heaven? TALK. I like you wonderfully well, for your saying is full of the truth; and I will add, What thing is so pleasant, and what so profitable, as to talk of the things of God? What things so pleasant? that is, if a man hath any delight in things that are wonderful. For instance, if a man doth delight to talk of the history or the mystery of things, or if a man doth love to talk of miracles, wonders, or signs, where shall he find things written so delightful, or so sweetly penned, as in the Holy Scripture? FAITH. That's true; but to be profited by such things in our talk should be that which we design. [Sidenote: TALKATIVE SELF-DECEIVED] TALK. That is it that I said; for to talk of such things is most profitable; for, by so doing, a man may get knowledge of many things; as of the folly of earthly things, and the benefit of things above. Besides, by this a man may learn what it is to turn from sin, to believe, to pray, to suffer, or the like; by this, also, a man may learn what are the great promises and comforts of the Gospel, to his own enjoyment. Further, by this a man may learn to answer false opinions, to prove the truth, and also to teach the ignorant. FAITH. All this is true; and glad am I to hear these things from you. TALK. Alas! the want of this is the cause that so few understand the need of faith, and the necessity of a work of grace in their soul, in order to eternal life. FAITH. But, by your leave, heavenly knowledge of these is the gift of God; no man attaineth to them by human working, or only by the talk of them. TALK. All that I know very well, for a man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven; I could give you a hundred scriptures for the confirmation of this. FAITH. "Well, then," said Faithful, "what is that one thing that we shall at this time found our talk upon?" TALK. What you will. I will talk of things heavenly or things earthly; things in life or things in the gospel; things sacred or things worldly; things past or things to come; things foreign or things at home; things necessary or things accidental, provided that all be done to our profit. FAITH. Now did Faithful begin to wonder; and, stepping to Christian (for he walked all this while by himself), he said to him, but softly, "What a brave companion have we got! Surely this man will make a very excellent pilgrim." [Sidenote: FAITHFUL DISPUTES TALKATIVE] CHRIS. At this Christian modestly smiled, and said, "This man with whom you are so taken will deceive with this tongue of his twenty of them that know him not." FAITH. Do you know him, then? CHRIS. Know him? Yes, better than he knows himself. FAITH. Pray what is he? CHRIS. His name is Talkative; he dwelleth in our town. I wonder that you should be a stranger to him: only I consider that our town is large. FAITH. Whose son is he? and whereabout doth he dwell? CHRIS. He is the son of one Say-well. He dwelt in Prating Row, and is known to all that are acquainted with him by the name of Talkative of Prating Row; and notwithstanding his fine tongue, he is but a sorry fellow. FAITH. Well, he seems to be a very pretty man. CHRIS. That is, to them that have not a thorough acquaintance with him, for he is best abroad; near home he is ugly enough. Your saying that he is a pretty man brings to my mind what I have observed in the work of the painter, whose pictures show best at a distance, but very near more unpleasing. FAITH. But I am ready to think you do but jest, because you smiled. CHRIS. God forbid that I should jest (though I smiled) in this matter, or that I should accuse any falsely. I will give you a further discovery of him. This man is for any company, and for any talk. As he talketh now with you, so will he talk when he is on the ale-bench; and the more drink he hath in his crown, the more of these things he hath in his mouth. Religion hath no place in his heart, or house, or conversation: all he hath lieth in his tongue, and his religion is to make a noise therewith. FAITH. Say you so? Then am I in this man greatly deceived. CHRIS. Deceived! you may be sure of it. Remember the proverb, "They say, and do not;" but the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. He talketh of prayer, of turning to God, of faith, and of the new birth; but he knows but only to talk of them. I have been in his family, and have seen him both at home and abroad, and I know what I say of him is the truth. His house is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is of savor. There is there neither prayer nor sign of turning from sin; yea, the brute, in his kind, serves God far better than he. He is the very stain, reproach, and shame of religion to all that know him. It can hardly have a good word in all that end of the town where he dwells, through him. Thus say the common people that know him: "A saint abroad, and a devil at home." His poor family finds it so: he is such a fault-finder, such a railer at, and so unreasonable with his servants, that they neither know how to do for or speak to him. Men that have any dealings with him say, it is better to deal with a Turk than with him, for fairer dealing they shall have at their hands. This Talkative, if it be possible, will go beyond them, cheat, beguile, and overreach them. Besides, he brings up his sons to follow his steps; and, if he findeth in any of them a foolish timorousness (for so he calls the first appearance of a tender conscience), he calls them fools and blockheads, and by no means will employ them in much, or speak to their commendation before others. For my part, I am of opinion that he has, by his wicked life, caused many to stumble and fall, and will be, if God prevent not, the ruin of many more. FAITH. Well, my brother, I am bound to believe you, not only because you say you know him, but also because like a Christian you make your reports of men. For I cannot think you speak these things of ill-will, but because it is even so as you say. CHRIS. Had I known him no more than you, I might, perhaps, have thought of him as at first you did; yea, had he received this report only from those that are enemies to religion, I should have thought it had been a slander, a lot that often falls from bad men's mouths upon good men's names and professions. But all these things, yea, and a great many more as bad, of my own knowledge I can prove him guilty of. Besides, good men are ashamed of him: they can neither call him brother nor friend; the very naming of him among them makes them blush, if they know him. FAITH. Well, I see that saying and doing are two things, and hereafter I shall better observe the difference between them. CHRIS. They are two things, indeed, and are as diverse as are the soul and the body; for, as the body without the soul is but a dead carcase, so _saying_, if it be alone, is but a dead carcase also. The soul of religion is the practical part. "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." This, Talkative is not aware of: he thinks that hearing and saying will make a good Christian, and thus he deceiveth his own soul. Hearing is but as the sowing of the seed; talking is not sufficient to prove that fruit is indeed in the heart and life. And let us assure ourselves that, at the day of doom, men shall be judged according to their fruits. FAITH. Well, I was not so fond of his company at first, but I am as sick of it now. What shall we do to be rid of him? CHRIS. Take my advice, and do as I bid you, and you shall find that he will soon be sick of your company too, except God shall touch his heart and turn it. FAITH. What would you have me to do? CHRIS. Why, go to him, and enter into some serious conversation about the power of religion and ask him plainly (when he has approved of it, for that he will) whether this thing be set up in his heart, house or conduct. FAITH. Then Faithful stepped forward again, and said to Talkative, "Come, what cheer? How is it now?" TALK. Thank you, well: I thought we should have had a great deal of talk by this time. FAITH. Well, if you will, we will fall to it now; and, since you left it with me to state the question, let it be this: How doth the saving grace of God show itself when it is in the heart of man? TALK. I perceive, then, that our talk must be about the power of things. Well, it is a very good question, and I shall be willing to answer you. And take my answer in brief, thus. First, where the grace of God is in the heart, it causeth there a great outcry against sin. Secondly,-- FAITH. Nay, hold; let us consider of one at once. I think you should rather say, it shows itself by inclining the soul to hate its sin. TALK. Why, what difference is there between crying out against and hating sin? FAITH. Oh! a great deal. A man may cry out against sin in order to appear good; but he cannot hate it except by a real dislike for it. I have heard many cry out against sin in the pulpit, who yet can abide it well enough in the heart, house, and life. Some cry out against sin, even as the mother cries out against her child in her lap, when she calleth it a naughty girl, and then falls to hugging and kissing it. TALK. You are trying to catch me, I perceive. FAITH. No, not I; I am only for setting things right. But what is the second thing whereby you would prove a discovery of a work of God in the heart? TALK. Great knowledge of hard things in the Bible. [Sidenote: TALKATIVE PARTS COMPANY] FAITH. This sign should have been first; but, first or last, it is also false; for knowledge, great knowledge, may be obtained in the mysteries of the Gospel, and yet no work of grace in the soul. Yea, if a man have all knowledge, he may yet be nothing, and so, consequently, be no child of God. When Christ said, "Do ye know all these things?" and the disciples had answered, "Yes," He added, "Blessed are ye if ye do them." He doth not lay the blessing in the knowledge of them, but in the doing of them. For there is a knowledge that is not attended with doing: "He that knoweth his master's will, and doeth it not." A man may know like an angel, and yet be no Christian; therefore your sign of it is not true. Indeed, to know, is a thing that pleaseth talkers and boasters; but to do is that which pleaseth God. TALK. You are trying to catch me again: this is not profitable. FAITH. Well, if you please, name another sign how this work of grace showeth itself where it is. TALK. Not I; for I see we shall not agree. FAITH. Well, if you will not, will you give me leave to do it? TALK. You may say what you please. FAITH. God's work in the soul showeth itself either to him that hath it or to standers by. To him that has it, it is shown by making him see and feel his own sins. To others who are standing by it is shown by his life, a life of doing right in the sight of God. And now, sir, as to this brief account of the work of grace, and also the showing of it, if you have aught to object, object; if not, then give me leave to ask you a second question. TALK. Nay, my part is not now to object, but to hear; let me, therefore, have your second question. FAITH. It is this: Have you felt your own sins, and have you turned from them? And do your life and conduct show it the same? Or is your religion in word or in tongue, and not in deed and truth? Pray, if you incline to answer me in this, say no more than you know the God above will say Amen to, and also nothing but what your conscience can approve you in; for not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth. Besides, to say I am thus and thus, when my conduct and all my neighbors tell me I lie, is great wickedness. TALK. Then Talkative at first began to blush; but, recovering himself, thus he replied: "This kind of discourse I did not expect; nor am I disposed to give an answer to such questions, because I count not myself bound thereto, unless you take upon you to be a questioner; and though you should do so, yet I may refuse to make you my judge. But, I pray, will you tell me why you ask me such questions?" FAITH. Because I saw you forward to talk, and because I knew not that you had aught else but notion. Besides, to tell you all the truth, I have heard of you that you are a man whose religion lies in talk, and that your life gives this your mouth-profession the lie. They say you are a spot among Christians, and that religion fareth the worse for your ungodly conduct; that some already have stumbled at your wicked ways, and that more are in danger of being destroyed thereby: your religion, and an alehouse, and greed for gain, and uncleanness, and swearing, and lying, and vain company-keeping, etc., will stand together. You are a shame to all who are members of the church. TALK. Since you are ready to take up reports, and to judge so rashly as you do, I cannot but conclude you are some peevish or cross man, not fit to be talked with; and so adieu. CHRIS. Then came up Christian, and said to his brother, "I told you how it would happen; your words and his heart could not agree. He had rather leave your company than reform his life. But he is gone, as I said: let him go; the loss is no man's but his own: he has saved us the trouble of going from him; for he continuing (as I suppose he will do) as he is, he would have been but a blot in our company. Besides, the Apostle says, 'From such withdraw thyself.'" FAITH. But I am glad we had this little talk with him; it may happen that he will think of it again: however, I have dealt plainly with him, and so am clear of his blood, if he perisheth. CHRIS. You did well to talk so plainly to him as you did. There is but little of this faithful dealing with men now-a-days; and that makes religion to be despised by so many; for they are these talkative fools, whose religion is only in word, and are vile and vain in their life, that, being so much admitted into the fellowship of the godly, do puzzle the world, blemish Christianity, and grieve the sincere. I wish that all men would deal with such as you have done; then should they either be made more suitable to religion, or the company of saints would be too hot for them. FAITH. Then did Faithful say, "How Talkative at first lifts up his plumes! How bravely doth he speak! How he presumes To drive down all before him! But so soon As Faithful talks of heart-work, like the moon That's past the full, into the wane he goes; And so will all but he who heart-work knows." Thus they went on, talking of what they had seen by the way, and so made that way easy, which would otherwise, no doubt, have been tedious to them; for now they went through a wilderness. CHAPTER VI. Now, when they were got almost quite out of this wilderness, Faithful chanced to cast his eye back, and espied one coming after him, and he knew him. "Oh!" said Faithful to his brother, "who comes yonder?" Then Christian looked, and said, "It is my good friend Evangelist." "Ay, and my good friend, too," said Faithful; "for it was he that set me the way to the gate." Now was Evangelist come up unto them, and thus saluted them: EVAN. Peace be with you, dearly beloved, and peace be to your helpers. CHRIS. Welcome, welcome, my good Evangelist: the sight of thy face brings to my thought thy former kindness and unwearied laboring for my eternal good. FAITH. "And a thousand times welcome," said good Faithful: "thy company, O sweet Evangelist, how desirable is it to us poor pilgrims!" EVAN. Then said Evangelist, "How hath it fared with you, my friends, since the time of our last parting? What have you met with, and how have you behaved yourselves?" Then Christian and Faithful told him of all things that had happened to them in the way; and how, and with what difficulty, they had arrived to that place. EVAN. "Right glad am I," said Evangelist, "not that you met with trials, but that you have been victors, and for that you have, notwithstanding many weaknesses, continued in the way to this very day. I say, right glad am I of this thing, and that for my own sake and yours. I have sowed, and you have reaped; and the day is coming when 'both he that sowed and they that reaped shall rejoice together;' that is, if you faint not. The crown is before you, and it is an uncorruptible one: so run that you may obtain it. Some there be that set out for this crown, and after they have gone far for it, another comes in and takes it from them: 'Hold fast, therefore, that you have; let no man take your crown.'" Then Christian thanked him for his words, but told him withal that they would have him speak further to them, for their help the rest of the way; and the rather, for that they well knew that he was a prophet, and could tell them of things that might happen unto them, and also how they might resist and overcome them. To which request Faithful also consented. So Evangelist began as followeth: [Sidenote: EVANGELIST EXHORTS CHRISTIAN] EVAN. My sons, you have heard, in the words of the truth of the Gospel, that you must "through many trials enter into the kingdom of heaven;" and again, that "in every city bonds and afflictions await you;" and therefore you cannot expect that you should go long on your pilgrimage without them in some sort or other. You have found something of the truth of these words upon you already, and more will immediately follow; for now, as you see, you are almost out of this wilderness, and therefore you will soon come into a town that you will by-and-by see before you; and in that town you will be hardly beset with enemies who will strain hard but they will kill you; and be you sure that one or both of you must seal the truth which you hold with blood: but be you faithful unto death, and the King will give you a crown of life. He that shall die there, although his death will be unnatural, and his pain, perhaps, great, he will yet have the better of his fellow; not only because he will be arrived at the Celestial City soonest, but because he will escape many miseries that the other will meet with in the rest of his journey. But when you are come to the town, and shall find fulfilled what I have here related, then remember your friend, and quit yourselves like men, and commit the keeping of your souls to God in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator. [Sidenote: THE PILGRIMS AT VANITY FAIR] Then I saw in my dream, that, when they were got out of the wilderness, they presently saw a town before them, and the name of that town is Vanity; and at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair. It is kept all the year long. It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where it is kept is lighter than vanity, and also because all that is there sold, or that cometh thither, is vanity; as is the saying of the Wise, "All that cometh is vanity." This is no newly begun business, but a thing of ancient standing. I will show you the original of it. Almost five thousand years ago, there were pilgrims walking to the Celestial City, as these two honest persons are; and Beelzebub, Apollyon, and Legion, with their companions, perceiving by the path that the pilgrims made that their way to the city lay through this town of Vanity, they contrived here to set up a fair; a fair wherein should be sold all sorts of vanity, and that it should last all the year long. Therefore at this fair are all such things sold as houses, lands, trades, places, honors, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures, and delights of all sorts, as wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not. And, moreover, at this fair there are at all times to be seen jugglings, cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues, and that of every kind. Here are to be seen, too, and that for nothing, thefts, murders, false swearers, and that of a blood-red color. And, as in other fairs of less moment there are several rows and streets under their proper names, where such and such wares are vended; so here likewise you have the proper places, rows, streets (namely, countries and kingdoms), where the wares of this fair are soonest to be found. Here are the Britain Row, the French Row, the Italian Row, the Spanish Row, the German Row, where several sorts of vanities are to be sold. But, as in other fairs some one commodity is as the chief of all the fair, so the ware of Rome and her goods are greatly promoted in this fair; only our English nation, with some others, have taken dislike thereat. Now, as I said, the way to the Celestial City lies just through this town where this lusty fair is kept; and he that would go to the city, and yet not go through this town, "must needs go out of the world." The Prince of princes Himself, when here, went through this town to His own country, and that upon a fair day too; yea, and as I think, it was Beelzebub, the chief lord of this fair, that invited Him to buy of his vanities; yea, would have made Him lord of the fair, would He but have done him reverence as He went through the town. Yea, because He was such a person of honor, Beelzebub had Him from street to street, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a little time, that he might, if possible, allure that Blessed One to ask for and buy some of his vanities; but He had no mind to the merchandise, and therefore left the town without laying out so much as one farthing upon these vanities. This fair, therefore, is an ancient thing of long-standing, and a very great fair. Now, these pilgrims, as I said, must needs go through this fair. Well, so they did; but, behold, even as they entered into the fair, all the people in the fair were moved and the town itself, as it were, in a hubbub about them, and that for several reasons; for, First,--The pilgrims were clothed with such kind of garments as were different from the raiment of any that traded in that fair. The people, therefore, of the fair, made a great gazing upon them: some said they were fools; some, they were bedlams; and some, they were outlandish men. Secondly,--And, as they wondered at their apparel, so they did likewise at their speech; for few could understand what they said. They naturally spoke the language of Canaan; but they that kept the fair were the men of this world. So that from one end of the fair to the other, they seemed barbarians each to the other. Thirdly,--But that which did not a little amuse the store-keepers was, that these pilgrims set very light by all their wares. They cared not so much as to look upon them; and if they called upon them to buy, they would put their fingers in their ears, and cry, "Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity," and look upwards, signifying that their trade and traffic were in heaven. One chanced, mockingly, beholding the actions of the men, to say unto them, "What will you buy?" But they, looking gravely upon him, said, "We buy the truth." At that there was an occasion taken to despise the men the more: some mocking, some taunting, some speaking reproachfully, and some calling on others to smite them. At last things came to a hubbub and great stir in the fair, insomuch that all order was confounded. Now was word presently brought to the great one of the fair, who quickly came down, and deputed some of his most trusty friends to take these men for trial about whom the fair was almost overturned. So the men were brought to trial, and they that sat upon them asked them whence they came, whither they went, and what they did there in such an unusual garb. The men told them that they were pilgrims and strangers in the world, and that they were going to their own country, which was the heavenly Jerusalem, and that they had given no occasion to the men of the town, nor yet to the merchants, thus to abuse them, and to hinder them in their journey, except it was for that, when one asked them what they would buy, they said they would buy the truth. But they that were appointed to examine them did not believe them to be any other than crazy people and mad, or else such as came to put all things into a confusion in the fair. Therefore they took them and beat them, and besmeared them with dirt, and then put them into the cage, that they might be made a spectacle to all the men of the fair. There, therefore, they lay for some time, and were made the objects of any man's sport, or malice, or revenge; the great one of the fair laughing still at all that befell them. But, the men being patient, and "not rendering railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing," and giving good words for bad, and kindness for injuries done, some men in the fair that were more observing and less opposed than the rest, began to check and blame the baser sort for their continual abuses done by them to the men. They, therefore, in an angry manner, let fly at them again, counting them as bad as the men in the cage, and telling them that they seemed to be in league with them, and should be made partakers of their misfortunes. The others replied, that, for aught they could see, the men were quiet and sober, and intended nobody any harm; and that there were many that traded in their fair that were more worthy to be put into the cage, yea, and pillory too, than were the men that they had abused. Thus, after divers words had passed on both sides (the men behaving themselves all the while very wisely and soberly before them,) they fell to some blows, and did harm to one another. Then were these two poor men brought before the court again, and there charged as being guilty of the late hubbub that had been in the fair. So they beat them pitifully, and hanged irons upon them, and led them in chains up and down the fair, for an example and terror to others, lest any should speak in their behalf, or join themselves unto them. But Christian and Faithful behaved themselves yet more wisely, and received the wrongs and shame that were cast upon them with so much meekness and patience, that it won to their side (though but few in comparison of the rest) several of the men in the fair. This put the other party in yet a greater rage, insomuch that they resolved upon the death of these two men. Wherefore they threatened that neither cage nor irons should serve their turn, but that they should die for the abuse they had done, and for deceiving the men of the fair. [Sidenote: THE PILGRIMS IN STOCKS] Then were they remanded to the cage again, until further order should be taken with them. So they put them in, and made their feet fast in the stocks. Here, therefore, they called again to mind what they had heard from their faithful friend Evangelist, and were more confirmed in their way and sufferings, by what he told them would happen to them. They also now comforted each other, that whose lot it was to suffer, even he should have the best of it; therefore each man secretly wished he might have that privilege. But, committing themselves to the all-wise disposal of Him that ruleth all things, with much content they abode in the condition in which they were, until they should be otherwise disposed of. [Sidenote: LORD HATE-GOOD] Then a convenient time being appointed, they brought them forth to their trial, in order to their being condemned. When the time was come, they were brought before their enemies, and placed on trial. The judge's name was Lord Hate-good: the charges against both were one and the same in substance, though somewhat varying in form; the contents whereof were this: "That they were enemies to and disturbers of their trade; that they had made riots and divisions in the town, and had won a party to their own most dangerous opinions, in contempt of the law of their prince." Then Faithful began to answer, that he had only set himself against that which had set itself against Him that is higher than the highest. "And," said he, "as for disturbances, I make none, being myself a man of peace; the parties that were won to us, were won by beholding our truth and innocence, and they are only turned from the worse to the better. And, as to the king you talk of, since he is Beelzebub, the enemy of our Lord, I defy him and all his angels." [Sidenote: THE PILGRIMS ON TRIAL] Then it was made known that they that had aught to say for their lord the king against the prisoner at the bar should forthwith appear and give in their evidence. So there came in three witnesses; to wit, Envy, Superstition, and Pickthank. They were then asked if they knew the prisoner at the bar, and what they had to say for their lord the king against him. Then stood forth Envy, and said to this effect: "My lord, I have known this man a long time, and will attest upon my oath before this honorable bench that he is--" JUDGE. Hold! Give him his oath. ENVY. So they sware him. Then said he, "My lord, this man, notwithstanding his name, Faithful is one of the vilest men in our country. He cares for neither prince nor people, law nor custom, but doth all that he can to possess all men with certain of his disloyal notions, which he in the general calls principles of faith and holiness. And in particular, I heard him once myself affirm that Christianity and the customs of our town of Vanity were opposite, and could not be reconciled. By which saying, my lord, he doth at once not only condemn all our laudable doings, but us in the doing of them." JUDGE. Then did the judge say to him, "Hast thou any more to say?" ENVY. My lord, I could say much more, only I would not be tiresome to the court. Yet, if need be, when the other gentlemen have given in their evidence, rather than anything shall be wanting that will dispatch him, I will have more to speak against him. So he was bid stand by. Then they called Superstition, and bade him look upon the prisoner. They also asked what he could say for their lord the king against him. Then they sware him: so he began: SUPER. My lord, I have no great acquaintance with this man, nor do I desire to have further knowledge of him. However, this I know, that he is a very pestilent fellow, from some discourse the other day that I had with him in this town; for then, talking with him, I heard him say that our religion was naught, and such by which a man could by no means please God. Which saying of his, my lord, your lordship very well knows what necessarily thence will follow; to wit, that we still do worship in vain, are yet in our sins, and finally shall be destroyed: and this is that which I have to say. Then was Pickthank sworn, and bid say what he knew, in behalf of their lord the king, against the prisoner at the bar. PICK. My lord, and you gentlemen all, this fellow I have known a long time, and have heard him speak things that ought not to be spoken, for he hath railed on our noble prince Beelzebub, and hath spoken contemptuously of his honorable friends, whose names are, the Lord Old-man, the Lord Carnal-Delight, the Lord Luxurious, the Lord Desire-of-Vain-Glory, my old Lord Lust, Sir Having Greedy, with all the rest of our nobility and he hath said, moreover, that, if all men were of his mind, if possible there is not one of these noblemen should have any longer a being in this town. Besides, he has not been afraid to rail on you, my lord, who are now appointed to be his judge, calling you an ungodly villain, with many other such-like abusive terms, with which he hath bespattered most of the gentry of our town. JUDGE. When this Pickthank had told his tale, the judge directed his speech to the prisoner at the bar, saying, "Thou runagate, heretic, and traitor! hast thou heard what these honest gentlemen have witnessed against thee?" FAITH. May I speak a few words in my own defense? JUDGE. Sirrah, sirrah, thou deservest to live no longer, but to be slain immediately upon the place; yet, that all men may see our gentleness towards thee, let us hear what thou, vile runagate, hast to say. FAITH. 1. I say, then, in answer to what Mr. Envy hath spoken, I have never said aught but this, that what rule, or laws, or custom, or people were flat against the Word of God, are opposite to Christianity. If I have said amiss in this, convince me of my error, and I am ready here before you to take back my words. 2. As to the second, to wit, Mr. Superstition and his charge against me, I said only this, that in the worship of God there is required true faith. But there can be no true faith without a knowledge of the will of God. Therefore, whatever is thrust into the worship of God that is not agreeable to the word of God will not profit to eternal life. 3. As to what Mr. Pickthank hath said, I say (avoiding terms, as that I am said to rail, and the like), that the prince of this town, with all the rabblement his attendants, by this gentleman named, are more fit for a being in hell than in this town and country. And so the Lord have mercy upon me! Then the judge called to the jury (who all this while stood by to hear and observe), "Gentlemen of the jury, you see this man about whom so great an uproar hath been made in this town; you have also heard what these worthy gentlemen have witnessed against him; also you have heard his reply and confession. It lieth now in your breast to hang him or to save his life; but yet I think meet to instruct you into our law. "There was an act made in the days of Pharaoh, the great servant to our prince, that, lest those of a contrary religion should multiply and grow too strong for him, their males should be thrown into the river. There was also an act made in the days of Nebuchadnezzar the Great, another of his servants, that whoever would not fall down and worship his golden image should be thrown into a fiery furnace. There was also an act made in the days of Darius, that whoso for some time called upon any god but him should be cast into the lions' den. Now, the substance of these laws this rebel has broken, not only in thought (which is not to be borne,) but also in word and deed, which must, therefore, needs be intolerable. You see he disputeth against our religion; and for the reason that he hath confessed he deserveth to die the death." [Sidenote: FAITHFUL DIES AT THE STAKE] Then went the jury out, whose names were Mr. Blind-man, Mr. No-good, Mr. Malice, Mr. Love-lust, Mr. Live-loose, Mr. Heady, Mr. High-mind, Mr. Enmity, Mr. Liar, Mr. Cruelty, Mr. Hate-light, and Mr. Implacable, who every one gave in his private voice against him among themselves, and afterwards unanimously concluded to bring him in guilty before the Judge. And first among themselves, Mr. Blind-man, the foreman, said, "I see clearly that this man is a heretic." Then said Mr. No-good, "Away with such a fellow from the earth!" "Ay," said Mr. Malice, "for I hate the very look of him." Then said Mr. Love-lust, "I could never endure him." "Nor I," said Mr. Live-loose; "for he would always be condemning my way." "Hang him, hang him!" said Mr. Heady. "A sorry scrub," said Mr. High-mind. "My heart riseth against him," said Mr. Enmity. "He is a rogue," said Mr. Liar. "Hanging is too good for him," said Mr. Cruelty. "Let us dispatch him out of the way," said Mr. Hate-light. Then said Mr. Implacable, "Might I have all the world given to me, I could not be reconciled to him; therefore let us forthwith bring him in guilty of death." And so they did: therefore he was presently condemned to be had from the place where he was, to the place from whence he came, and there to be put to the most cruel death that could be invented. They therefore brought him out, to do with him according to their law; and first they scourged him, then they buffeted him, then they lanced his flesh with knives; after that they stoned him with stones, then pricked him with their swords, and, last of all, they burned him to ashes at the stake. Thus came Faithful to his end. Now, I saw that there stood behind the multitude a chariot and a couple of horses waiting for Faithful, who (so soon as his enemies had slain him) was taken up into it, and straightway was carried up through the clouds with sound of trumpet the nearest way to the Celestial Gate. But as for Christian, he had some delay, and was sent back to prison; so he there remained for a space. But He who overrules all things, having the power of their rage in his own hand, so wrought it about that Christian for that time escaped them, and went his way. And as he went, he sang, saying, "Well, Faithful, thou hast faithfully professed Unto thy Lord, with whom thou shalt be blest, When faithless ones, with all their vain delights, Are crying out under their hellish plights. Sing, Faithful, sing, and let thy name survive; For though they killed thee, thou art yet alive." [Illustration: Hopeful and Christian. Page 120] CHAPTER VII. Now, I saw in my dream, that Christian went forth not alone; for there was one whose name was Hopeful (being so made by looking upon Christian and Faithful in their words and behavior in their sufferings at the fair,) who joined himself unto him, and, entering into a brotherly pledge told him that he would be his companion. Thus one died to show faithfulness to the truth, and another rises out of his ashes to be a companion with Christian in his pilgrimage. This Hopeful also told Christian that there were many more of the men in the fair that would take their time and follow after. [Sidenote: BY-ENDS OF FAIR-SPEECH] So I saw that, quickly after they were got out of the fair, they overtook one that was going before them, whose name was By-ends; so they said to him, "What countryman, sir? and how far go you this way?" He told them that he came from the town of Fair-speech, and he was going to the Celestial City; but told them not his name. CHRIS. "From Fair-speech! are there any that be good live there?" BY. "Yes," said By-ends, "I hope." CHRIS. Pray, sir, what may I call you? BY. I am a stranger to you, and you to me: if you be going this way, I shall be glad of your company; if not, I must be content. CHRIS. This town of Fair-speech, I have heard of it; and, as I remember, they say it's a wealthy place. BY. Yes, I will assure you that it is; and I have very many rich kindred there. CHRIS. Pray, who are your kindred there? if a man may be so bold. BY. Almost the whole town; but in particular my Lord Turnabout, my Lord Timeserver, my Lord Fair-speech, from whose ancestors that town first took its name; also Mr. Smooth-man, Mr. Facing-both-ways, Mr. Anything; and the parson of our parish, Mr. Two-tongues, was my mother's own brother by father's side; and to tell you the truth, I am become a gentleman of good quality; yet my great-grandfather was but a waterman, looking one way and rowing another, and I got most of my estate by the same occupation. CHRIS. Are you a married man? BY. Yes, and my wife is a very virtuous woman, the daughter of a virtuous woman; she was my Lady Feigning's daughter: therefore she came of a very honorable family, and is arrived to such a pitch of breeding, that she knows how to carry it to all, even to prince and peasant. 'Tis true we somewhat differ in religion from those of the stricter sort, yet but in two small points: First, we never strive against wind and tide; secondly, we are always most zealous when Religion is well dressed and goes in his silver slippers: we love much to walk with him in the street if the sun shines and the people praise him. Then Christian stepped a little aside to his fellow Hopeful, saying, "It runs in my mind that this is one By-ends, of Fair-speech; and if it be he, we have as very a knave in our company as dwelleth in all these parts." Then said Hopeful, "Ask him; methinks he should not be ashamed of his name." So Christian came up with him again, and said, "Sir, you talk as if you knew something more than all the world doth; and if I take not my mark amiss, I deem I have half a guess of you. Is not your name Mr. By-ends, of Fair-speech?" BY. This is not my name; but, indeed, it is a nickname that is given me by some that cannot abide me, and I must be content to bear it as a reproach, as other good men have borne theirs before me. CHRIS. But did you never give an occasion to men to call you by this name? BY. Never, never! The worst that ever I did to give them an occasion to give me this name was, that I had always the luck to jump in my judgment with the present way of the times, whatever it was, and my chance was to gain thereby. But if things are thus cast upon me, let me count them a blessing; but let not the malicious load me therefore with reproach. CHRIS. I thought, indeed, that you were the man that I heard of; and, to tell you what I think, I fear this name belongs to you more properly than you are willing we should think it doth. BY. Well, if you will thus imagine, I cannot help it: you shall find me a fair company-keeper if you still admit me your companion. CHRIS. If you will go with us, you must go against wind and tide; the which, I perceive, is against your opinion; you must also own Religion in his rags, as well as when in his silver slippers; and stand by him, too, when bound in irons, as well as when he walketh the streets with applause. BY. You must not impose or lord it over my faith; leave it to my liberty, and let me go with you. CHRIS. Not a step farther, unless you will do in what I declare as we do. BY. Then said By-ends, "I never desert my old principles, since they are harmless and profitable. If I may not go with you, I must do as I did before you overtook me, even go by myself, until some overtake me that will be glad of my company." [Sidenote: MONEY-LOVE'S PRINCIPLES] Now, I saw in my dream that Christian and Hopeful forsook him, and kept their distance before him; but one of them, looking back, saw three men following Mr. By-ends; and, behold, as they came up with him, he made them a very low bow, and they also gave him a compliment. The men's names were Mr. Hold-the-world, Mr. Money-love, and Mr. Save-all; men that Mr. By-ends had been formerly acquainted with; for in their boyhood they were schoolfellows, and taught by one Mr. Gripe-man a schoolmaster in Love-gain, which is a market town in the county of Coveting, in the North. This schoolmaster taught them the art of getting, either by violence, cheating, flattery, lying, or by putting on a pretence of religion; and these four gentlemen had learned much of the art of their master, so that they could each of them have kept such a school themselves. Well, when they had, as I said, thus saluted each other, Mr. Money-love said to Mr. By-ends, "Who are they upon the road before us?" for Christian and Hopeful were yet within view. BY. They are a couple of far countrymen, that, after their mode, are going on pilgrimage. MONEY. Alas! why did they not stay, that we might have had their good company? for they, and we, and you, sir, I hope, are all going on pilgrimage. BY. We are so, indeed; but the men before us are so rigid, and love so much their own notions, and do also so lightly esteem the opinions of others, that, let a man be ever so godly, yet, if he agrees not with them in all things, they thrust him quite out of their company. SAVE. That is bad; but we read of some that are righteous overmuch, and such men's rigidness makes them to judge and condemn all but themselves. But I pray, what and how many were the things wherein you differed? BY. Why, they, after their headstrong manner conclude that it is their duty to rush on their journey all weathers; and I am for waiting for wind and tide. They are for taking the risk of all for God at a clap; and I am for taking all advantages to secure my life and property. They are for holding their notions, though all other men be against them; but I am for religion in what and so far as, the times and my safety will bear it. They are for Religion when in rags and contempt; but I am for him when he walks in his golden slippers, in the sunshine, and with applause. HOLD. Ay, and hold you there still, good Mr. By-ends; for, for my part, I can count him but a fool, that, having the liberty to keep what he has, shall be so unwise as to lose it. Let us be wise as serpents. It is best to make hay while the sun shines. You see how the bee lieth still all winter, and bestirs her only when she can have profit and pleasure. God sends sometimes rain and sometimes sunshine; if they be such fools to go through the rain, yet let us be content to take fair weather along with us. For my part, I like that religion best that will stand with the safety of God's good blessings unto us; for who can imagine, that is ruled by his reason, since God has bestowed upon us the good things of this life, but that He would have us keep them for His sake? Abraham and Solomon grew rich in religion; and Job says that "a good man should lay up gold as dust;" but he must not be such as the men before us, if they be as you have described them. SAVE. I think that we are all agreed in this matter, and therefore there needs no more words about it. MONEY. No, there needs no more words about this matter, indeed; for he that believes neither Scripture nor reason (and you see we have both on our side), neither knows his own liberty nor seeks his own safety. And so these four men, Mr. By-ends, Mr. Money-love, Mr. Save-all, and old Mr. Hold-the-world, walked on together, while Christian and Hopeful were far in advance. [Sidenote: CHRISTIAN AND HOPEFUL] Then Christian and Hopeful went on till they came to a delicate plain, called Ease, where they went with much content; but that plain was but narrow, so they were quickly got over it. Now at the farther side of that plain was a little hill, called Lucre,[4] and in that hill a silver mine, which some of them that had formerly gone that way, because of the rarity of it, had turned aside to see; but going too near the brink of the pit, the ground, being deceitful under them, broke, and they were slain; some also had been maimed there, and could not to their dying day be their own men again. [4] An old word meaning "money" or "riches." Then I saw in my dream that a little off the road, over against the silver mine, stood Demas (gentleman-like) to call to passengers to come and see; who said to Christian and his fellow, "Ho! turn aside hither, and I will show you a thing." CHRIS. What thing so deserving as to turn us out of the way? DEMAS. Here is a silver mine, and some digging in it for treasure; if you will come, with a little pains you may richly provide for yourselves. HOPE. Then said Hopeful, "Let us go see." CHRIS. "Not I," said Christian. "I have heard of this place before now, and how many have there been slain; and besides, that treasure is a snare to those that seek it, for it hindereth them in their pilgrimage." CHRIS. Then Christian called to Demas, saying, "Is not the place dangerous? Hath it not hindered many in their pilgrimage?" DEMAS. Not very dangerous, except to those that are careless. But withal, he blushed as he spake. CHRIS. Then said Christian to Hopeful, "Let us not stir a step, but still keep on our way." HOPE. I will warrant you, when By-ends comes up, if he hath the same invitation as we, he will turn in thither to see. CHRIS. No doubt thereof, for his principles lead him that way; and a hundred to one but he dies there. DEMAS. Then Demas called out again, saying, "But will you not come over and see?" CHRIS. Then Christian roundly answered, saying, "Demas, thou art an enemy to the right ways of the Lord of this way, and hast been already condemned for thine own turning aside, by one of His Majesty's judges; and why seekest thou to have us condemned also? Besides, if we at all turn aside, our Lord the King will certainly hear thereof, and will there put us to shame where we should stand with boldness before Him." Demas cried again that he also was one of their company, a pilgrim like themselves, and that, if they would tarry a little, he also himself would walk with them. CHRIS. Then said Christian, "What is thy name? Is it not the same by the which I have called thee?" DEMAS. Yes, my name is Demas; I am the son of Abraham. CHRIS. I know you: Gehazi was your great-grandfather, and Judas your father, and you have trod in their steps. It is but a devilish prank that thou usest: thy father was hanged for a traitor, and thou deservest no better reward. Assure thyself that when we come to the King, we will tell him of this thy behavior. Thus they went their way. By this time By-ends and his companions were come again within sight, and they at the first beck went over to Demas. Now, whether they fell into the pit by looking over the brink thereof, or whether they went down to dig, or whether they were smothered in the bottom by the damps that commonly arise, of these things I am not certain; but this I observed, that they never were seen again in the way. Then sang Christian: "By-ends and silver Demas both agree; One calls; the other runs, that he may be A sharer in his lucre; so these two Take up in this world, and no farther go." Now, I saw that just on the other side of the plain the pilgrims came to a place where stood an old monument hard by the highway-side; at the sight of which they were both concerned, because of the strangeness of the form thereof; for it seemed to them as if it had been a woman changed into the shape of a pillar. Here, therefore, they stood looking and looking upon it, but could not for a time tell what they should make thereof. At last Hopeful espied written above, upon the head thereof, a writing in an unusual hand; but he, being no scholar, called to Christian (for he was learned,) to see if he could pick out the meaning; so he came, and after a little laying of letters together, he found the same to be this, "Remember Lot's wife." So he read it to his fellow; after which, they both concluded that that was the pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was turned, for her looking back with a covetous heart when she was going from Sodom. Which sudden and amazing sight gave them occasion for speaking thus: CHRIS. Ah, my brother! this is a seasonable sight. It came just in time to us after the invitation which Demas gave us to come over to view the hill Lucre; and, had we gone over, as he desired us, and as thou wast inclining to do, my brother, we had, for aught I know, been made ourselves, like this woman, a spectacle for those that shall come after to behold. HOPE. I am sorry that I was so foolish, and am made to wonder that I am not now as Lot's wife; for wherein was the difference betwixt her sin and mine? She only looked back, and I had a desire to go see. Let God's goodness be praised; and let me be ashamed that ever such a thing should be in mine heart. CHRIS. Let us take notice of what we see here, for our help for time to come. This woman escaped one judgment, for she fell not by the destruction of Sodom; yet she was destroyed by another, as we see: she is turned into a pillar of salt. HOPE. What a mercy is it that neither thou, but especially I, am not made myself this example! This gives reason to us to thank God, to fear before Him and always to remember Lot's wife. [Sidenote: RIVER OF THE WATER OF LIFE] I saw, then, that they went on their way to a pleasant river, which David the King called "the river of God," but John, "the river of the water of life." Now their way lay just upon the bank of this river; here, therefore, Christian and his companion walked with great delight; they drank also of the water of the river, which was pleasant and enlivening to their weary spirits. Besides, on the banks of this river on either side were green trees that bore all manner of fruit; and the leaves of the trees were good for medicine; with the fruit of these trees they were also much delighted; and the leaves they ate to prevent illness, especially such diseases that come to those that heat their blood by travels. On either side of the river was also a meadow, curiously beautified with lilies, and it was green all the year long. In this meadow they lay down and slept, for here they might lie down safely. When they awoke, they gathered again of the fruit of the trees and drank again of the water of the river, and they lay down again to sleep. This they did several days and nights. Then they sang: "Behold ye, how these crystal streams do glide, To comfort pilgrims by the highway-side; The meadows green, besides their fragrant smell, Yield dainties for them; and he who can tell What pleasant fruit, yea, leaves, these trees do yield, Will soon sell all, that he may buy this field." So when they were disposed to go on (for they were not as yet at their journey's end,) they ate and drank, and departed. Now, I beheld in my dream that they had not journeyed far, but the river and the way for a time parted, at which they were not a little sorry; yet they durst not go out of the way. Now the way from the river was rough, and their feet tender by reason of their travels; so the souls of the pilgrims were much discouraged because of the way. Wherefore, still as they went on they wished for a better way. Now, a little before them there was, on the left hand of the road, a meadow, and a stile to go over into it, and that meadow is called By-path Meadow. Then said Christian to his fellow, "If this meadow lieth along by our wayside, let's go over it." Then he went to the stile to see; and behold, a path lay along by the way on the other side of the fence. "It is according to my wish," said Christian; "here is the easiest going. Come, good Hopeful, and let us go over." HOPE. But how if this path should lead us out of the way? [Sidenote: VAIN-CONFIDENCE] CHRIS. "That is not likely," said the other. "Look, doth it not go along by the wayside?" So Hopeful, being persuaded by his fellow, went after him over the stile. When they were gone over, and were got into the path, they found it very easy to their feet; and withal, they, looking before them, espied a man walking as they did, and his name was Vain-Confidence: so they called after him, and asked him whither that way led. He said, "To the Celestial Gate." "Look," said Christian, "did not I tell you so? By this you may see we are right." So they followed, and he went before them. But, behold, the night came on, and it grew very dark; so that they that were behind lost sight of him that went before. He, therefore, that went before (Vain-Confidence by name) not seeing the way before him, fell into a deep pit, which was on purpose there made by the prince of those grounds to catch careless fools, withal and was dashed in pieces with his fall. Now Christian and his fellow heard him fall. So they called to know the matter; but there was none to answer, only they heard a groaning. Then said Hopeful, "Where are we now?" Then was his fellow silent, as mistrusting that he had led him out of the way; and now it began to rain, and thunder, and lighten in a most dreadful manner, and the water rose amain. Then Hopeful groaned in himself, saying, "Oh that I had kept on my way!" CHRIS. Who could have thought that this path should have led us out of the way? HOPE. I was afraid on't at the very first, and therefore gave you that gentle caution. I would have spoken plainer, but that you are older than I. CHRIS. Good brother, be not offended. I am very sorry I have brought thee out of the way, and that I have put thee into such great danger. Pray, my brother, forgive me: I did not do it of any evil intent. HOPE. Be comforted, my brother, for I forgive thee, and believe, too, that this shall be for our good. CHRIS. I am glad I have with me a merciful brother; but we must not stand still: let us try to go back again. HOPE. But, good brother, let me go before. CHRIS. No, if you please; let me go first, that, if there be any danger, I may be first therein, because by my means we are both gone out of the way. HOPE. "No, you shall not go first; for your mind being troubled may lead you out of the way again." Then for their encouragement they heard the voice of one saying, "Let thine heart be towards the highway, even the way that thou wentest; turn again." But by this time the waters were greatly risen, by reason of which the way of going back was very dangerous. (Then I thought that it is easier going out of the way when we are in, than going in when we are out.) Yet they undertook to go back; but it was so dark, and the flood so high, that, in their going back, they had like to have been drowned nine or ten times. [Sidenote: GIANT DESPAIR] Neither could they, with all the skill they had, get again to the stile that night. Wherefore, at last lighting under a little shelter, they sat down there until daybreak; but, being weary, they fell asleep. Now, there was, not far from the place where they lay, a castle, called Doubting Castle the owner whereof was Giant Despair, and it was in his grounds they now were sleeping; wherefore he, getting up in the morning early, and walking up and down in his fields, caught Christian and Hopeful asleep in his grounds. Then, with a grim and surly voice, he bid them awake, and asked them whence they were, and what they did in his grounds. They told him they were pilgrims, and that they had lost their way. Then said the giant, "You have this night trespassed on me by trampling in and lying on my grounds, and therefore you must go along with me." So they were forced to go, because he was stronger than they. They had also but little to say, for they knew themselves in fault. The giant, therefore, drove them before him, and put them into his castle, into a very dark dungeon, nasty and smelling vilely to the spirits of these two men. Here, then, they lay from Wednesday morning till Saturday night, without one bit of bread or drop of drink, or light, or any to ask how they did; they were, therefore, here in evil case, and were far from friends and people whom they knew. Now, in this place Christian had double sorrow, because it was through his thoughtless haste that they were brought into this distress. [Sidenote: THE PILGRIMS IN A DUNGEON] Now, Giant Despair had a wife, and her name was Diffidence. So, when he was gone to bed, he told his wife what he had done; to wit, that he had taken a couple of prisoners and cast them into his dungeon for trespassing on his grounds. Then he asked her also what he had best to do further to them. So she asked him what they were, whence they came, and whither they were bound; and he told her. Then she advised him, that when he arose in the morning, he should beat them without any mercy. So, when he arose, he getteth him a grievous crab-tree cudgel, and goes down into the dungeon to them, and there first fell to abusing them as if they were dogs, although they never gave him a word of distaste. Then he falls upon them, and beats them fearfully, in such sort that they were not able to help themselves, or to turn them upon the floor. This done, he withdraws and leaves them there to sorrow over their misery and to mourn under their distress. So all that day they spent their time in nothing but sighs and bitter grief. The next night she, talking with her husband about them further, and understanding that they were yet alive, did advise him to tell them to make away with themselves. So, when morning was come, he goes to them in a surly manner, as before and, perceiving them to be very sore with the stripes that he had given them the day before, he told them that, since they were never like to come out of that place, their only way would be forthwith to make an end of themselves, either with knife, halter, or poison: "For why," said he, "should you choose life, seeing it is attended with so much bitterness?" But they desired him to let them go. With that, he looked ugly upon them, and rushing to them, had doubtless made an end of them himself, but that he fell into one of his fits (for he sometimes, in sunshiny weather, fell into fits), and lost for a time the use of his hands, wherefore he withdrew, and left them as before to consider what to do. Then did the prisoners consult between themselves, whether it was best to take his advice or no; and thus they began to discourse: CHRIS. "Brother," said Christian, "what shall we do? The life we now live is miserable. For my part, I know not whether is best, to live thus, or to die out of hand. My soul chooseth strangling rather than life, and the grave is more easy for me than this dungeon. Shall we be ruled by the giant?" [Sidenote: HOPEFUL CHEERS CHRISTIAN] HOPE. Indeed, our present condition is dreadful; and death would be far more welcome to me than thus for ever to abide. But yet, let us think: the Lord of the country to which we are going hath said, "Thou shalt do no murder," no, not to another man's person; much more, then, are we forbidden to take his advice to kill ourselves. Besides, he that kills another can but commit murder upon his body; but for one to kill himself is to kill body and soul at once. And, moreover, my brother, thou talkest of ease in the grave; but hast thou forgotten the hell, whither, for certain, the murderers go? for "no murderer hath eternal life." And let us consider again, that all the law is not in the hand of Giant Despair: others, so far as I can understand, have been taken by him as well as we, and yet have escaped out of his hand. Who knows but that God, who made the world, may cause that Giant Despair may die? or that, at some time or other, he may forget to lock us in? or that he may, in a short time, have another of his fits before us, and he may lose the use of his limbs? and if ever that should come to pass again, for my part, I am resolved to pluck up the heart of a man, and try to my utmost to get from under his hand. I was a fool that I did not try to do it before. But however, my brother, let us be patient, and endure awhile: the time may come that may give us a happy release; but let us not be our own murderers. With these words, Hopeful at present did calm the mind of his brother; so they continued together in the dark that day, in their sad and doleful condition. Well, towards evening, the giant goes down into the dungeon again, to see if his prisoners had taken his counsel. But, when he came there, he found them alive; and truly, alive was all; for now, what for want of bread and water, and by reason of the wounds they received when he beat them, they could do little but breathe. But, I say, he found them alive; at which he fell into a grievous rage, and told them that, seeing they had disobeyed his counsel, it should be worse with them than if they had never been born. At this they trembled greatly, and I think that Christian fell into a swoon; but, coming a little to himself again, they renewed their discourse about the giant's advice and whether yet they had best to take it or no. Now, Christian again seemed for doing it; but Hopeful made his second reply as followeth: HOPE. "My brother," said he, "rememberest thou not how valiant thou hast been heretofore? Apollyon could not crush thee, nor could all that thou didst hear, or see, or feel in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. What hardship, terror, and amazement hast thou already gone through! and art thou now nothing but fear? Thou seest that I am in the dungeon with thee, a far weaker man by nature than thou art; also this giant has wounded me as well as thee, and hath also cut off the bread and water from my mouth; and, with thee, I mourn without the light. But let us have a little more patience. Remember how thou showedst thyself the man at Vanity Fair, and wast neither afraid of the chain, nor cage, nor yet of bloody death. Wherefore, let us (at least to avoid the shame that it becomes not a Christian to be found in) bear up with patience as well as we can." Now, night being come again, and the giant and his wife being in bed, she asked him concerning the prisoners, and if they had taken his advice: to which he replied, "They are sturdy rogues; they choose rather to bear all hardship than to make away with themselves." Then said she, "Take them unto the castle-yard to-morrow, and show them the bones and skulls of those that thou hast already killed; and make them believe, ere a week comes to an end, thou wilt tear them also in pieces, as thou hast done their fellows before them." So when the morning was come, the giant goes to them again, and takes them into the castle-yard and shows them as his wife had bidden him. "These," said he, "were pilgrims, as you are, once, and they trespassed in my grounds as you have done; and when I thought fit, I tore them in pieces; and so within ten days I will do you. Go, get you down to your den again." And, with that, he beat them all the way thither. They lay, therefore, all day on Saturday in a lamentable case, as before. Now, when night was come, and when Mrs. Diffidence and her husband, the giant were got to bed, they began to renew their talking of their prisoners; and withal, the old giant wondered that he could neither by his blows nor counsel bring them to an end. And, with that, his wife replied, "I fear," said she, "that they live in hope that some will come to relieve them; or that they have picklocks about them, by the means of which they hope to escape." "And sayest thou so, my dear?" said the giant: "I will therefore search them in the morning." [Sidenote: THE PILGRIMS ESCAPE] Well, on Saturday about midnight, they began to pray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day. Now, a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out into this earnest speech: "What a fool," quoth he, "am I to lie in a foul-smelling dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom called Promise, that will, I am sure, open any lock in Doubting Castle." Then said Hopeful, "That is good news, good brother: pluck it out of thy bosom, and try." Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the dungeon door, whose bolt, as he turned the key, gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outward door that leads into the castle-yard, and with his key opened that door also. After, he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too; but that lock went exceedingly hard, yet the key did open it. Then they thrust open the gate to make their escape with speed; but that gate, as it opened, made such a creaking, that it waked Giant Despair who, hastily rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail; for his fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and came to the King's highway again, and so were safe because they were out of Giant Despair's rule. Now, when they were gone over the stile, they began to contrive with themselves what they should do at that stile to prevent those that should come after from falling into the hands of Giant Despair. So they agreed to build there a pillar, and to engrave upon the side thereof this sentence: "Over this stile is the way to Doubting Castle, which is kept by Giant Despair, who despiseth the King of the Celestial Country, and seeks to destroy His holy pilgrims." Many, therefore, that followed after, read what was written, and escaped the danger. This done, they sang as follows: "Out of the way we went, and then we found What 'twas to tread upon forbidden ground: And let them that come after have a care, Lest heedlessness make them as we to fare; Lest they for trespassing his prisoners are Whose Castle's Doubting, and whose name's Despair." CHAPTER VIII. [Sidenote: THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS] They went then till they came to the Delectable[5] Mountains, which mountains belong to the Lord of that hill of which we have spoken before. So they went up to the mountains to behold the gardens and orchards, the vineyards and fountains of water, where also they drank and washed themselves, and did freely eat of the vineyards. Now there were on the tops of these mountains shepherds feeding their flocks, and they stood by the highway-side. The pilgrims, therefore, went to them, and leaning upon their staves (as is common with weary pilgrims when they stand to talk with any by the way), they asked, "Whose delightful mountains are these, and whose be the sheep that feed upon them?" [5] This word means "pleasant," or "delightful." SHEP. These mountains are Immanuel's Land, and they are within sight of His city; and the sheep also are His, and He laid down His life for them. CHRIS. Is this the way to the Celestial City? SHEP. You are just in your way. CHRIS. How far is it thither? SHEP. Too far for any but those who shall get thither indeed. CHRIS. Is the way safe or dangerous? SHEP. Safe for those for whom it is to be safe; but sinners shall fall therein. CHRIS. Is there in this place any relief for pilgrims that are weary and faint in the way? SHEP. The Lord of these mountains hath given us a charge not to be forgetful to care for strangers; therefore the good of the place is before you. I saw also in my dream that when the shepherds perceived that they were wayfaring men, they also put questions to them (to which they made answer as in other places), as, "Whence came you?" and "How got you into the way?" and, "By what means have you so persevered therein? for but few of them that begin to come hither do show their faces on these mountains." But when the shepherds heard their answers, being pleased therewith they looked very lovingly upon them, and said, "Welcome to the Delectable Mountains!" The shepherds, I say, whose names were Knowledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere, took them by the hand and took them to their tents, and made them partake of what was ready at present. They said moreover, "We would that you should stay here awhile, to be acquainted with us, and yet more to cheer yourselves with the good of these Delectable Mountains." They then told them that they were content to stay. So they went to rest that night, because it was very late. [Sidenote: THE SHEPHERDS CONDUCT THEM] Then I saw in my dream that in the morning the shepherds called up Christian and Hopeful to walk with them upon the mountains. So they went forth with them and walked a while, having a pleasant prospect on every side. Then said the shepherds one to another, "Shall we show these pilgrims some wonders?" So, when they had concluded to do it, they had them first to the top of the hill called Error, which was very steep on the farthest side, and bid them look down to the bottom. So Christian and Hopeful looked down, and saw at the bottom several men dashed all to pieces by a fall they had had from the top. Then said Christian, "What meaneth this?" Then the shepherds answered, "Have you not heard of them that were made to err, by hearkening to Hymeneus and Philetus, as concerning the faith of the rising from the dead?" They answered, "Yes." Then said the shepherds, "Those you see lie dashed to pieces at the bottom of this mountain are they; and they have continued to this day unburied, as you see, for an example to others to take heed how they clamber too high, or how they come too near the brink of this mountain." Then I saw that they had them to the top of another mountain, and the name of that is Caution and bid them look afar off; and when they did, they perceived, as they thought, several men walking up and down among the tombs that were there; and they perceived that the men were blind, because they stumbled sometimes upon the tombs, and because they could not get out from among them. Then said Christian, "What means this?" The shepherds then answered, "Did you not see a little below these mountains a stile that led into a meadow on the left hand side of this way?" They answered, "Yes." Then said the shepherds, "From that stile there goes a path that leads directly to Doubting Castle, which is kept by Giant Despair; and these men" (pointing to them among the tombs) "came once on pilgrimage, as you do now, even until they came to that same stile. And because the right way was rough in that place, they chose to go out of it into that meadow, and there were taken by Giant Despair, and cast into Doubting Castle, where, after they had been kept a while in the dungeon, he at last did put out their eyes, and led them among those tombs, where he has left them to wander to this very day, that the saying of the Wise Man might be fulfilled, 'He that wandereth out of the way of knowledge, shall remain in the congregation of the dead.'" Then Christian and Hopeful looked upon one another with tears gushing out, but yet said nothing to the shepherds. Then I saw in my dream, that the shepherds had them to another place in a bottom, where was a door on the side of a hill; and they opened the door, and bid them look in. They looked in, therefore, and saw that within it was very dark and smoky; they also thought that they heard there a rumbling noise, as of fire, and a cry of some tormented, and that they smelt the scent of brimstone. Then said Christian, "What means this?" The shepherds told them, "This is a by-way to hell, a way that hypocrites go in at: namely, such as sell their birthright, with Esau; such as sell their master, with Judas; such as blaspheme the Gospel, with Alexander; and that lie and deceive with Ananias and Sapphira his wife." HOPE. Then said Hopeful to the shepherds, "I perceive that these had on them, even every one, a show of pilgrimage, as we have now; had they not?" SHEP. Yes, and held it a long time too. HOPE. How far might they go on in pilgrimage in their day, since they notwithstanding were thus miserably cast away? SHEP. Some farther, and some not so far as these mountains. Then said the pilgrims one to another, "We have need to cry to the Strong for strength." SHEP. Ay, and you will have need to use it when you have it, too. [Sidenote: GATE OF THE CELESTIAL CITY] By this time the pilgrims had a desire to go forward, and the shepherds a desire they should; so they walked together towards the end of the mountains. Then said the shepherds one to another, "Let us here show to the pilgrims the gate of the Celestial City, if they have skill to look through our perspective glass."[6] The pilgrims then lovingly accepted the motion; so they had them to the top of a high hill called Clear, and gave them their glass to look. [6] "Perspective glass" is an old name for a telescope or spy-glass. Then they tried to look; but the remembrance of that last thing, that the shepherds had showed them, made their hands shake, by means of which hindrance they could not look steadily through the glass; yet they thought they saw something like the gate, and also some of the glory of the place. Thus they went away, and sang this song: "Thus by the shepherds secrets are revealed, Which from all other men are kept concealed. Come to the shepherds, then, if you would see Things deep, things hid, and that mysterious be." When they were about to depart, one of the shepherds gave them a note of the way. Another of them bid them beware of the Flatterer. The third bid them take heed that they slept not upon the Enchanted Ground. And the fourth bid them God speed. So I awoke from my dream. CHAPTER IX. [Sidenote: THEY OVERTAKE IGNORANCE] And I slept, and dreamed again, and saw the same two pilgrims going down the mountains along the highway towards the city. Now, a little below these mountains, on the left hand, lieth the country of Conceit; from which country there comes into the way in which the pilgrims walked a little crooked lane. Here, therefore, they met with a very brisk lad, that came out of that country, and his name was Ignorance. So Christian asked him from what parts he came, and whither he was going. IGNOR. Sir, I was born in the country that lieth off there a little on the left hand, and I am going to the Celestial City. CHRIS. But how do you think to get in at the gate? for you may find some difficulty there. IGNOR. As other people do. CHRIS. But what have you to show at the gate, that may cause that the gate should be opened to you? IGNOR. I know my Lord's will, and have been a good liver; I pay every man his own; I pray, fast, pay money to the church and give to the poor, and have left my country for whither I am going. CHRIS. But thou camest not in at the wicket-gate that is at the head of this way: thou camest in hither through that same crooked lane; and therefore I fear, however thou mayest think of thyself, when the reckoning day shall come, thou wilt have laid to thy charge that thou art a thief and a robber, instead of getting admittance into the city. IGNOR. Gentlemen, ye be utter strangers to me: I know you not: be content to follow the custom of your country, and I will follow the custom of mine. I hope all will be well. And, as for the gate that you talk of, all the world knows that that is a great way off of our country. I cannot think that any man in all our parts doth so much as know the way to it; nor need they matter whether they do or no, since we have, as you see, a fine, pleasant green lane, that comes down from our country, the next way into the way. When Christian saw that the man was wise in his own opinion, he said to Hopeful, whisperingly, "There is more hope of a fool than of him." And said, moreover "When he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool. What! shall we talk further with him, or outgo him at present, and so leave him to think of what he hath heard already, and then stop again for him afterwards, and see if by degrees we can do any good to him?" Then said Hopeful: "Let Ignorance a little while now muse On what is said, and let him not refuse Good counsel to embrace, lest he remain Still ignorant of what's the chiefest gain. God saith, those that no understanding have (Although He made them), them He will not save." HOPE. He further added, "It is not good, I think, to say all to him at once: let us pass him by, if you will, and talk to him by and by, even as he is able to bear it." So they both went on, and Ignorance he came after. Now, when they had passed him a little way, they entered into a very dark lane, where they met a man whom seven devils had bound with seven strong cords, and were carrying of him back to the door that they saw on the side of the hill. Now good Christian began to tremble, and so did Hopeful his companion; yet, as the devils led away the man, Christian looked to see if he knew him; and he thought it might be one Turn-away, that dwelt in the town of Apostasy. But he did not perfectly see his face, for he did hang his head like a thief that is found; but being gone past, Hopeful looked after him, and espied on his back a paper with this inscription, "One who was wicked while claiming to be good, and turned away from God." [Sidenote: THREE STURDY ROGUES] Then said Christian to his fellow, "Now I call to remembrance that which was told of a thing that happened to a good man hereabout. The name of that man was Little-Faith, but a good man, and dwelt in the town of Sincere. The thing was this: At the entering in at this passage, there comes down from Broad-way Gate a lane called Dead Man's Lane; so-called because of the murders that are commonly done there; and this Little-Faith, going on pilgrimage as we do now, chanced to sit down there, and slept. Now, there happened at that time to come down that lane, from Broad-way Gate, three sturdy rogues, and their names were Faint-heart, Mistrust, and Guilt, three brothers; and they espying Little-Faith, where he was, came galloping up with speed. Now, the good man was just awaked from his sleep, and was getting up to go on his journey. So they came up all to him, and with threatening language bid him stand. At this, Little-Faith looked as white as a sheet and had neither power to fight nor fly. Then said Faint-heart, 'Deliver thy purse;' but, he making no haste to do it (for he was loth to lose his money) Mistrust ran up to him, and, thrusting his hand into his pocket, pulled out thence a bag of silver. Then he cried out, 'Thieves! thieves!' With that, Guilt, with a great club that was in his hand, struck Little-Faith on the head, and with that blow felled him flat to the ground, where he lay bleeding as one that would bleed to death. All this while the thieves stood by. But, at last, they hearing that some were upon the road, and fearing lest it should be one Great-Grace, that dwells in the city of Good-Confidence, they betook themselves to their heels, and left this good man to shift for himself. Now, after a while, Little-Faith came to himself, and, getting up, made shift to scramble on his way. This was the story." HOPE. But did they take from him all that ever he had? CHRIS. No; the place where his jewels were they never ransacked; so those he kept still. But as I was told, the good man was much afflicted for his loss, for the thieves got most of his spending money. That which they got not, as I said, were jewels; also he had a little odd money left, but scarce enough to bring him to his journey's end. Nay, if I was not misinformed, he was forced to beg as he went, to keep himself alive, for his jewels he might not sell; but, beg and do what he could, he went, as we say, often with a hungry stomach the most part of the rest of the way. HOPE. But is it not a wonder they got not from him his certificate, by which he was to receive admission at the Celestial Gate? CHRIS. It is a wonder; but they got not that, though they missed it not through any cunning of his; for he, being dismayed by their coming upon him, had neither power nor skill to hide anything; so it was more by good providence than by his endeavor, that they missed of that good thing. HOPE. But it must needs be a comfort to him that they got not his jewels from him. CHRIS. It might have been great comfort to him, had he used it as he should; but they that told me the story said, that he made but little use of it all the rest of the way, and that because of the alarm that he had in their taking away his money. Indeed, he forgot it a great part of the rest of his journey; and besides, when at any time it came into his mind, and he began to be comforted therewith, then would fresh thoughts of his loss come again upon him, and those thoughts would swallow up all. [Sidenote: HOPEFUL REBUKED] HOPE. Alas, poor man! this could not but be a great grief unto him. CHRIS. Grief! ay, a grief indeed. Would it not have been so to any of us, had we been used as he, to be robbed and wounded too, and that in a strange place, as he was? It is a wonder he did not die with grief, poor heart! I was told that he scattered almost all the rest of the way with nothing but doleful and bitter complaints; telling also to all that overtook him, or that he overtook in the way as he went, where he was robbed, and how; who they were that did it, and what he had lost; how he was wounded, and that he hardly escaped with life. HOPE. But it is a wonder that his necessities did not put him upon selling or pawning some of his jewels, that he might have wherewith to relieve himself in his journey. CHRIS. Thou talkest like one whose head is thick to this very day. For what should he pawn them, or to whom should he sell them? In all that country where he was robbed, his jewels were not accounted of; nor did he want that relief which could from thence be administered to him. Besides, had his jewels been missing at the gate of the Celestial City, he had (and that he knew well enough) been shut out from an inheritance there; and that would have been worse to him than the coming and villany of ten thousand thieves. HOPE. But, Christian, these three fellows, I am persuaded in my heart, are but a company of cowards: would they have run else, think you, as they did at the noise of one that was coming on the road? Why did not Little-Faith pluck up a greater heart? He might, methinks, have stood one brush with them, and have yielded when there had been no remedy. CHRIS. That they are cowards many have said, but few have found it so in the time of trial. As for a great heart, Little-Faith had none; and I perceive by thee, my brother, hadst thou been the man concerned, thou art but for a brush, and then to yield. And, verily, since this is the height of thy courage now they are at a distance from us, should they appear to thee as they did to him, they might put thee to second thoughts. But consider again, they are but journeymen-thieves; they serve under the king of the bottomless pit, who, if need be, will come in to their aid himself, and his voice is as the roaring of a lion. I myself have been engaged as this Little-Faith was, and I found it a terrible thing. These three villains set upon me: and I beginning like a Christian to resist, they gave but a call, and in came their master. I would, as the saying is, have given my life for a penny, but that, as God would have it, I was clothed with armor of proof. Ay, and yet, though I was so protected, I found it hard work to quit myself like a man. No man can tell what in that combat attends us, but he that hath been in the battle himself. [Sidenote: LITTLE-FAITH AND GREAT-GRACE] HOPE. Well, but they ran, you see, when they did but suppose that one Great-Grace was in the way. CHRIS. True, they have often fled, both they and their master, when Great-Grace hath but appeared; and no marvel, for he is the King's champion. But I trow you will put some difference between Little-Faith and the King's champion? All the King's subjects are not His champions, nor can they when tried do such feats of war as he. Is it meet to think that a little child should handle Goliath as David did? or that there should be the strength of an ox in a wren? Some are strong, some are weak; some have great faith, some have little: this man was one of the weak, and therefore he went to the wall. HOPE. I would it had been Great-Grace for their sakes. CHRIS. If it had been he, he might have had his hands full; for I must tell you that though Great-Grace is excellent good at his weapons, and has, and can, so long as he keeps them at sword's point, do well enough with them; yet, if they get within him, even Faint-heart, Mistrust, or the other, it shall go hard but they will throw up his heels. And when a man is down, you know, what can he do? Whoso looks well upon Great-Grace's face will see those scars and cuts there, that shall easily give proof of what I say. Yea, once I heard that he should say (and that when he was in the combat), "We despaired even of life." How did these sturdy rogues and their fellows make David groan, mourn, and roar! Yea, Heman, and Hezekiah too, though champions in their days, were forced to bestir when by these attacked; and yet, notwithstanding, they had their coats soundly brushed by them. Peter, upon a time, would go try what he could do; but though some do say of him that he is the prince of the apostles, they handled him so that they made him at last afraid of a sorry girl. [Sidenote: LITTLE-FAITH AMONG THIEVES] Besides, their king is at their whistle--he is never out of hearing; and if at any time they be put to the worst, he, if possible, comes in to help them; and of him it is said, "The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold; the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon. He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. The arrow cannot make him flee; sling-stones are turned with him into stubble. Darts are counted as stubble: he laugheth at the shaking of a spear." What can a man do in this case? It is true, if a man could at every turn have Job's horse, and had skill and courage to ride him, he might do notable things. For his neck is clothed with thunder. He will not be afraid as the grasshopper: "the glory of his nostrils is terrible. He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed men. He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted, neither turneth he his back from the sword. The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the shield. He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage; neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet. He saith among the trumpets, Ha! ha! and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting." But for such footmen as thee and I are, let us never desire to meet with an enemy, nor vaunt as if we could do better, when we hear of others that have been foiled, nor be tickled at the thoughts of our manhood; for such commonly come by the worst when tried. Witness Peter, of whom I made mention before: he would swagger, ay, he would; he would, as his vain mind prompted him to say, do better and stand more for his Master than all men; but who so foiled and run down by those villains as he? Then Christian sang: "Poor Little-Faith! hast been among the thieves? Wast robbed? Remember this: whoso believes And gets more faith, shall then a victor be Over ten thousand; else, scarce over three." So they went on, and Ignorance followed. They went then till they came to a place where they saw a way put itself into their way, and seemed withal to lie as straight as the way which they should go; and here they knew not which of the two to take, for both seemed straight before them; therefore here they stood still to consider. And, as they were thinking about the way, behold, a man, black of flesh, but covered with a very light robe, came to them, and asked them why they stood there. They answered they were going to the Celestial City, but knew not which of these ways to take. "Follow me," said the man; "it is thither that I am going." So they followed him to the way that but now came into the road, which by degrees turned and turned them so from the city that they desired to go to, that, in a little time, their faces were turned away from it; yet they followed him. But by-and-by, before they were aware, he led them both within the folds of a net, in which they were both so entangled that they knew not what to do; and with that, the white robe fell off the black man's back. Then they saw where they were. Wherefore, there they lay crying some time, for they could not get themselves out. CHRIS. Then said Christian to his fellow, "Now do I see myself in an error. Did not the shepherds bid us beware of flatterers? As is the saying of the Wise Man, so we have found it this day: 'A man that flattereth his neighbor, spreadeth a net at his feet.'" [Sidenote: A SHINING ONE APPEARS] HOPE. They also gave us a note of directions about the way, for our more sure finding thereof; but therein we have also forgotten to read, and have not kept ourselves from the paths of the destroyer. Thus they lay bewailing themselves in the net. At last they espied a Shining One coming towards them with a whip of small cord in his hand. When he was come to the place where they were, he asked them whence they came, and what they did there. They told him that they were poor pilgrims going to Zion, but were led out of their way by a black man clothed in white, "Who bid us," said they, "follow him, for he was going thither too." Then said he with the whip, "It is Flatterer, a false prophet, that hath changed himself into an angel of light." So he rent the net, and let the men out. Then said he to them, "Follow me, that I may set you in your way again." So he led them back to the way which they had left to follow the Flatterer. Then he asked them, saying, "Where did you lie the last night?" They said, "With the shepherds upon the Delectable Mountains." He asked them then if they had not of those shepherds a note of direction for the way. They answered, "Yes." "But did you not," said he, "when you were at a stand, pluck out and read your note?" They answered, "No." He asked them, "Why?" They said they forgot. He asked them, moreover, if the shepherds did not bid them beware of the Flatterer. They answered, "Yes; but we did not imagine," said they, "that this fine-spoken man had been he." Then I saw in my dream, that he commanded them to lie down; which when they did, he whipped them sore, to teach them the good way wherein they should walk; and, as he whipped them, he said, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous, therefore, and repent." This done, he bid them go on their way, and take good heed to the other directions of the shepherds. So they thanked him for all his kindness, and went softly along the right way, singing: "Come hither, you that walk along the way, See how the pilgrims fare that go astray; They catchèd are in an entangling net, 'Cause they good counsel lightly did forget; 'Tis true, they rescued were; but yet, you see, They're scourged to boot: let this your caution be." Now, after awhile they perceived afar off, one coming softly and alone, all along the highway, to meet them. Then said Christian to his fellow, "Yonder is a man with his back towards Zion, and he is coming to meet us." HOPE. I see him: let us take heed to ourselves lest he should prove a flatterer also. [Sidenote: THEY MEET ATHEIST] So he drew nearer and nearer, and at last came up to them. His name was Atheist,[7] and he asked them whither they were going. [7] An atheist is one who does not believe that there is a God. CHRIS. We are going to Mount Zion. Then Atheist fell into a very great laughter. CHRIS. What is the meaning of your laughter? ATHEIST. I laugh to see what ignorant persons you are, to take upon yourselves so tedious a journey, and yet are like to have nothing but your travel for your pains. [Illustration: Atheist Laughing at Christian and Hopeful. Page 170] CHRIS. Why, man, do you think we shall not be received? ATHEIST. Received! There is no such a place as you dream of in all this world. CHRIS. But there is in the world to come. ATHEIST. When I was at home in mine own country, I heard as you now affirm, and, from that hearing, went out to see, and have been seeking this city these twenty years, but find no more of it than I did the first day I set out. CHRIS. We have both heard and believe that there is such a place to be found. ATHEIST. Had not I, when at home, believed I had not come thus far to seek; but, finding none (and yet I should had there been such a place to be found, for I have gone to seek it farther than you), I am going back again, and will seek to refresh myself with the things that I then cast away for hopes of that which I now see is not. CHRIS. Then said Christian to Hopeful his fellow, "Is it true which this man hath said?" HOPE. Take heed; he is one of the flatterers. Remember what it hath cost us once already for hearkening to such kind of fellows. What! no Mount Zion? Did we not see from the Delectable Mountains the gate of the city? Also, are we not now to walk by faith? Let us go on, lest the man with the whip overtake us again. I say, my brother, cease to hear him, and let us believe to the saving of the soul. CHRIS. My brother, I did not put the question to thee for that I doubted of the truth of our belief myself, but to prove thee, and to fetch from thee a fruit of the honesty of thy heart. As for this man, I know that he is blinded. Let thee and me go on, knowing that we have belief of the truth, and no lie is of the truth. HOPE. Now do I rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So they turned away from the man, and he, laughing at them, went his way. I then saw in my dream that they went till they came into a certain country, whose air naturally tended to make one drowsy if he came a stranger into it. And here Hopeful began to be very dull and heavy of sleep; wherefore he said unto Christian, "I do now begin to grow so drowsy, that I can scarcely hold up mine eyes; let us lie down here, and take one nap." CHRIS. "By no means," said the other, "lest sleeping, we never awake more." HOPE. Why, my brother? sleep is sweet to the laboring man: we may be refreshed if we take a nap. CHRIS. Do not you remember that one of the shepherds bid us beware of the Enchanted Ground? He meant by that that we should beware of sleeping; wherefore let us not sleep as others, but let us watch and be sober. HOPE. I acknowledge myself in fault; and had I been here alone, I had, by sleeping, run the danger of death. I see it is true that the Wise Man saith, "Two are better than one." Hitherto hath thy company been my help; and thou shalt have a good reward for thy labor. CHRIS. "Now, then," said Christian, "to prevent drowsiness in this place, let us talk about something profitable." HOPE. With all my heart. [Sidenote: HOPEFUL NARRATES CONVERSION] CHRIS. Where shall we begin? HOPE. Where God began with us. But do you begin, if you please. CHRIS. I will sing you first this song: "When saints do sleepy grow, let them come hither, And hear how these two pilgrims talk together; Yea, let them learn of them, in any wise, Thus to keep ope their drowsy, slumbering eyes. Saints' fellowship, if it be managed well, Keeps them awake, and that in spite of hell." CHRIS. Then Christian began, and said, "I will ask you a question. How came you to think at first of doing as you do now?" HOPE. Do you mean, how came I at first to look after the good of my soul? CHRIS. Yes, that is my meaning. HOPE. I continued a great while in the delight of those things which were seen and sold at our fair; things which I believe now would have, had I continued in them still, drowned me in ruin and destruction. CHRIS. What things were they? HOPE. All the treasures and riches of the world. Also I delighted much in rioting, revelling, drinking, swearing, lying, uncleanness, Sabbath-breaking, and what not, that tended to destroy the soul. But I found at last, by hearing and considering of things that are holy, which indeed I heard of you, as also of beloved Faithful, that was put to death for his faith, and good living in Vanity Fair, that the end of these things is death; and that, for these things' sake, the wrath of God cometh upon those who disobey him. CHRIS. And did you presently fall under the power of this feeling? HOPE. No; I was not willing presently to know the evil of sin, nor the destruction that follows upon the doing of it; but tried, when my mind at first began to be shaken with the Word, to shut mine eyes against the light thereof. CHRIS. But what was the cause of your waiting so long? HOPE. The causes were,--Firstly, I was ignorant that this was the work of God upon me. Secondly, Sin was yet very sweet to my flesh, and I was loth to leave it. Thirdly, I could not tell how to part with mine old companions, their presence and actions were so desirable unto me. Fourthly, The hours in which these feelings were upon me, were such troublesome and such heart-affrighting hours, that I could not bear, no, not so much as the remembrance of them upon my heart. CHRIS. Then, as it seems, sometimes you got rid of your trouble? HOPE. Yes, verily, but it would come into my mind again, and then I should be as bad, nay, worse than I was before. CHRIS. Why, what was it that brought your sins to mind again? HOPE. Many things; as, 1. If I did but meet a good man in the streets; or, 2. If I have heard any read in the Bible; or, 3. If mine head did begin to ache; or, 4. If I were told that some of my neighbors were sick; or, 5. If I heard the bell toll for some that were dead; or, 6. If I thought of dying myself; or, 7. If I heard that sudden death happened to others; 8. But especially when I thought of myself that I must quickly come to judgment. CHRIS. And could you at any time with ease get off the guilt of sin, when by any of these ways it came upon you? HOPE. No, not I; for then they got faster hold of my conscience; and then, if I did but think of going back to sin (though my mind was turned against it,) it would be double torment to me. CHRIS. And how did you do then? HOPE. I thought I must endeavor to mend my life; for else, thought I, I am sure to be lost forever. CHRIS. And did you endeavor to mend? HOPE. Yes, and fled from not only my sins, but sinful company too, and betook me to religious duties, as praying, reading, weeping for sin, speaking truth to my neighbors, etc. These things did I, with many others, too much here to tell. CHRIS. And did you think yourself well then? HOPE. Yes, for a while; but, at the last, my trouble came tumbling upon me again, and that over the neck of all my trying to do right. CHRIS. How came that about, since you were now doing right, as far as you knew? HOPE. There were several things brought it upon me; especially such sayings as these: "All our righteousness are as filthy rags;" "By the works of the law shall no flesh be made righteous;" "When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable;" with many more such like. From whence I began to reason with myself thus: If all my righteousness are filthy rags, if by the deeds of the law no man can be made righteous, and if, when we have done _all_, we are yet unprofitable, then it is but a folly to think of heaven by the law. I further thought thus; If a man runs a hundred pounds into the shopkeeper's debt, and after that shall pay for all that he shall buy; yet his old debt stands still in the book uncrossed; for the which the shopkeeper may sue him, and cast him into prison till he shall pay the debt. CHRIS. Well, and how did you apply this to yourself? HOPE. Why, I thought thus with myself: I have by my sins run a great way into God's book, and my now reforming will not pay off that score. Therefore I should think still, under all my present trying. But how shall I be freed from that punishment that I have brought myself in danger of by my former sins. CHRIS. A very good application; but pray go on. HOPE. Another thing that hath troubled me ever since my late turning from sin is, that if I look narrowly into the best of what I do now, I still see sin, new sin, mixing itself with the best of that I do; so that now I am forced to conclude that, notwithstanding my former fond opinion of myself and duties, I have committed sin enough in one duty to send me to hell, though my former life had been faultless. CHRIS. And what did you do then? HOPE. Do! I could not tell what to do, till I brake my mind to Faithful; for he and I were well acquainted. And he told me, that unless I could obtain the righteousness of a Man that never had sinned, neither mine own nor all the righteousness of the world could save me. CHRIS. And did you think he spake true? HOPE. Had he told me so when I was pleased and satisfied with mine own trying, I had called him fool for his pains; but now, since I see mine own weakness and the sin which cleaves to my best performance, I have been forced to be of his opinion. CHRIS. But did you think, when at first he suggested it to you, that there was such a Man to be found, of whom it might justly be said that He never committed sin? HOPE. I must confess the words at first sounded strangely; but after a little more talk and company with him I had full certainty about it. CHRIS. And did you ask him what Man this was, and how you must be made righteous by Him? HOPE. Yes, and he told me it was the Lord Jesus, that dwelleth on the right hand of the Most High. And thus, said he, you must be made right by Him, even by trusting what He hath done by Himself in the days of His flesh, and suffered when He did hang on the tree. I asked him further, How that Man's righteousness could be of that power to help another before God? And he told me He was the mighty God, and did what He did, and died the death also, not for Himself, but for me; to whom His doings, and the worthiness of them, should be given if I believed on Him. CHRIS. And what did you do then? HOPE. I made my objections against my believing, for that I thought He was not willing to save me. CHRIS. And what said Faithful to you then? HOPE. He bid me go to Him and see. Then I said it was too much for me to ask for. But he said No, for I was invited to come. Then he gave me a book of Jesus' own writing to encourage me the more freely to come; and he said concerning that book, that every word and letter thereof stood firmer than heaven and earth. Then I asked him what I must do when I came; and he told me I must entreat on my knees, with all my heart and soul, the Father to reveal Him to me. Then I asked him further how I must make my prayer to Him; and he said, Go, and thou shalt find Him upon a mercy-seat, where He sits all the year long to give pardon and forgiveness to them that come. I told him that I knew not what to say when I came; and he bid me say to this effect: God be merciful to me a sinner, and make me to know and believe in Jesus Christ; for I see that if His righteousness had not been, or I have not faith in that righteousness, I am utterly cast away. Lord, I have heard that Thou art a merciful God, and hast given that Thy Son Jesus Christ should be the Saviour of the world; and, moreover, that Thou art willing to bestow Him upon such a poor sinner as I am. And I am a sinner indeed. Lord, take therefore this opportunity, and show Thy grace in the salvation of my soul, through Thy Son Jesus Christ. Amen. CHRIS. And did you do as you were bidden? HOPE. Yes, over, and over, and over. CHRIS. And did the Father show His son to you? HOPE. Not at the first, nor second, nor third, nor fourth, nor fifth; no, nor at the sixth time neither. CHRIS. What did you do then? HOPE. What! why, I could not tell what to do. CHRIS. Had you no thoughts of leaving off praying? HOPE. Yes; a hundred times twice told. CHRIS. And what was the reason you did not? HOPE. I believed that that was true which had been told me; to wit, that without the righteousness of this Christ, all the world could not save me; and therefore, thought I with myself, if I leave off I die, and I can but die at the throne of grace. And withal, this came into my mind: "Though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." So I continued praying until the Father showed me His Son. CHRIS. And how was He shown unto you? HOPE. I did not see Him with my bodily eyes, but with the eyes of my heart, and thus it was: One day I was very sad, I think sadder than at any one time in my life; and this sadness was through a fresh sight of the greatness and vileness of my sins. And, as I was then looking for nothing but hell and the everlasting loss of my soul, suddenly, as I thought, I saw the Lord Jesus look down from heaven upon me, and saying, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." But I replied, "Lord, I am a great, a very great sinner." And He answered, "My grace is sufficient for thee." Then I said, "But, Lord, what is believing?" And then I saw from that saying, "He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst," that believing and coming was all one; and that he that came, that is, ran out in his heart and desire after salvation by Christ, he indeed believed in Christ. Then the water stood in mine eyes, and I asked further, "But, Lord, may such a great sinner as I am be indeed accepted of Thee, and be saved by thee?" and I heard Him say, "And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." Then said I, "But how Lord, must I consider of Thee in my coming to Thee, that my faith may be placed aright upon Thee?" Then he said, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes. He died for our sins, and rose again for our righteousness. He loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood. He is Mediator between God and us. He ever liveth to plead for us." From all which I gathered that I must look for righteousness in His person, and for satisfaction for my sins by His blood; that what He did in obedience to His Father's law, and in submitting to the penalty thereof, was not for Himself, but for him that will accept it for his salvation, and be thankful. And now was my heart full of joy, mine eyes full of tears, and mine affections running over with love to the name, people, and ways of Jesus Christ. CHRIS. This was a revelation of Christ to your soul indeed. But tell me particularly what effect this had upon your spirit. HOPE. It made me see that all the world, notwithstanding all the righteousness thereof, is in a state of condemnation. It made me see that God the Father, though He be just, can justly forgive the coming sinner. It made me greatly ashamed of the vileness of my former life, and confounded me with the sense of my own ignorance; for there never came thought into my heart before now, that showed me so the beauty of Jesus Christ. It made me love a holy life, and long to do something for the honor and glory of the name of the Lord Jesus. Yea, I thought that had I now a thousand gallons of blood in my body, I could spill it all for the sake of the Lord Jesus. CHAPTER X. I saw then in my dream that Hopeful looked back, and saw Ignorance, whom they had left behind, coming after. "Look," said he to Christian, "how far yonder youngster loitereth behind." CHRIS. Ay, ay, I see him: he careth not for our company. HOPE. But I think it would not have hurt him, had he kept pace with us hitherto. CHRIS. That is true; but I warrant you he thinks otherwise. HOPE. That I think he doth; but, however, let us tarry for him. So they did. CHRIS. Then Christian said to him, "Come away, man; why do you stay so behind?" IGNOR. I take my pleasure in walking alone, even more a great deal than in company, unless I like it the better. Then said Christian to Hopeful (but softly), "Did I not tell you he cared not for our company? But, however," said he, "come up, and let us talk away the time in this solitary place." Then, directing his speech to Ignorance, he said, "Come how do you? How stands it between God and your soul now?" IGNOR. I hope well; for I am always full of good thoughts, that come into my mind to comfort me as I walk. CHRIS. What good motions? pray tell us. IGNOR. Why, I think of God and heaven. CHRIS. So do the devils and lost souls. IGNOR. But I think of them and desire them. CHRIS. So do many that are never like to come there. "The soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing." IGNOR. But I think of them, and leave all for them. CHRIS. That I doubt, for leaving of all is a very hard matter; yea, a harder matter than many are aware of. But why, or by what, art thou persuaded that thou hast left all for God and heaven? IGNOR. My heart tells me so. CHRIS. The Wise Man says, "He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool." IGNOR. This is spoken of an evil heart; but mine is a good one. CHRIS. But how dost thou prove that? IGNOR. It comforts me in the hopes of heaven. CHRIS. That may be through its deceitfulness; for a man's heart may minister comfort to him in the hopes of that thing for which he has yet no ground to hope. IGNOR. But my heart and life agree together; and therefore my hope is well grounded. CHRIS. Who told thee that thy heart and life agree together? IGNOR. My heart tells me so. CHRIS. Ask my fellow if I be a thief! Thy heart tells thee so! Except the Word of God telleth thee in this matter, other testimony is of no value. IGNOR. But is it not a good heart that hath good thoughts? and is not that a good life that is according to God's commandments? CHRIS. Yes, that is a good heart that hath good thoughts, and that is a good life that is according to God's commandments; but it is one thing, indeed, to have these, and another thing only to think so. IGNOR. Pray, what count you good thoughts, and a life according to God's commandments? CHRIS. There are good thoughts of many kinds: some respecting ourselves, some God, some Christ, and some other things. IGNOR. You go so fast, I cannot keep pace with you. Do you go on before: I must stay awhile behind. Then they said: "Well, Ignorance, wilt thou yet foolish be, To slight good counsel, ten times given thee? And if thou yet refuse it, thou shalt know, Ere long, the evil of thy doing so. Remember, man, in time; stoop, do not fear; Good counsel, taken well, saves; therefore hear: But, if thou yet shalt slight it, thou wilt be The loser, Ignorance, I'll warrant thee." Then Christian addressed himself thus to his fellow: CHRIS. Well, come, my good Hopeful; I perceive that thou and I must walk by ourselves again. [Sidenote: THE TWO PILGRIMS PROCEED] So I saw in my dream that they went on apace before, and Ignorance he came hobbling after. Then said Christian to his companion, "It pities me much for this poor man: it will certainly go ill with him at last." HOPE. Alas! there are abundance in our town in his condition, whole families, yea, whole streets, and that of pilgrims, too; and if there be so many in our parts, how many, think you, must there be in the place where he was born? CHRIS. Indeed, the Word saith, "He hath blinded their eyes, lest they should see." HOPE. Well said; I believe you have said the truth. Are we now almost got past the Enchanted Ground? CHRIS. Why, art thou weary of our talking? HOPE. No, verily; but that I would know where we are. CHRIS. We have not now above two miles farther to go thereon. Well, we will leave at this time our neighbor Ignorance by himself, and fall upon another subject. HOPE. With all my heart; but you shall still begin. CHRIS. Well, then, did you not know, about ten years ago, one Temporary in your parts, who was a forward man in religion then? HOPE. Know him! yes; he dwelt in Graceless, a town about two miles off of Honesty, and he dwelt next door to one Turnback. CHRIS. Right, he dwelt under the same roof with him. Well, that man was much awakened once: I believe that then he had some sight of his sins, and of the punishment that was due thereto. HOPE. I am of your mind; for (my house not being above three miles from him) he would ofttimes come to me, and that with many tears. Truly, I pitied the man, and was not altogether without hope of him; but one may see, it is not every one that cries "Lord! Lord!" CHRIS. He told me once that he was resolved to go on pilgrimage as we do now; but all of a sudden he grew acquainted with one Save-self, and then he became a stranger to me, for at that time he gave up going on pilgrimage. CHAPTER XI. [Sidenote: BEULAH LAND] Now I saw in my dream, that by this time the pilgrims were got over the Enchanted Ground, and entering into the country of Beulah, whose air was very sweet and pleasant: the way lying directly through it, they enjoyed themselves there for a season. Yea, here they heard continually the singing of birds and saw every day the flowers appear on the earth, and heard the voice of the turtle in the land. In this country the sun shineth night and day; wherefore this was beyond the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and also out of the reach of Giant Despair; neither could they from this place so much as see Doubting Castle. Here they were within sight of the City they were going to; also here met them some of the inhabitants thereof; for in this land the Shining Ones commonly walked, because it was upon the borders of heaven. Here they had no want of corn and wine; for in this place they met with abundance of what they had sought for in all their pilgrimage. Here they heard voices from out of the City, loud voices, saying, "Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh! Behold, His reward is with Him!" Here all the inhabitants of the country called them "The holy people, and redeemed of the Lord, sought out," etc. Now, as they walked in this land, they had more rejoicing than in parts more remote from the kingdom to which they were bound; and drawing near to the City, they had yet a more perfect view thereof. It was builded of pearls and precious stones, also the streets thereof were paved with gold; so that by reason of the natural glory of the City, and the reflection of the sunbeams upon it, Christian with desire fell sick; Hopeful also had a fit or two of the same disease, wherefore here they lay by it awhile, crying out because of their pangs, "If you see my Beloved tell Him that I am sick of love." But being a little strengthened, and better able to bear their sickness, they walked on their way, and came yet nearer and nearer, where were orchards, vineyards, and gardens, and their gates opened into the highway. Now, as they came up to these places, behold, the gardener, stood in the way; to whom the pilgrims said, "Whose goodly vineyards and gardens are these?" He answered, "They are the King's, and are planted here for His own delight, and also for the solace of pilgrims." So the gardener had them into the vineyards, and bid them refresh themselves with the dainties. He also showed them there the King's walks, and the arbors where He delighted to be; and here they tarried and slept. Now I beheld in my dream, that they talked more in their sleep at this time than ever they did in all their journey; and being in thought thereabout, the gardener said even to me, "Wherefore dost thou meditate at the matter? It is the nature of the fruit of the grapes of these vineyards to go down so sweetly as to cause the lips of them that are asleep to speak." So I saw, when they awoke they undertook to go up to the City. But, as I said, the reflection of the sun upon the City (for the City was pure gold) was so extremely glorious, that they could not, as yet, with open face behold it, but through a glass made for that purpose. So I saw that, as they went on, there met them two men in raiment that shone like gold, also their faces shone as the light. These men asked the pilgrims whence they came; and they told them. They also asked them where they had lodged, what difficulties and dangers, what comforts and pleasures, they had met in the way; and they told them. Then said the men that met them, "You have but two difficulties more to meet with, and then you are in the City." Christian, then, and his companion, asked the men to go along with them; so they told them that they would. "But," said they, "you must obtain it by your own faith." So I saw in my dream that they went on together till they came in sight of the gate. [Sidenote: A RIVER INTERVENES] Now I further saw, that betwixt them and the gate was a river; but there was no bridge to go over, and the river was very deep. At the sight, therefore, of this river, the pilgrims were much stunned; but the men that went with them said, "You must go through, or you cannot come at the gate." The pilgrims then began to inquire if there was no other way to the gate; to which they answered, "Yes; but there hath not any save two, to wit, Enoch and Elijah, been permitted to tread that path since the foundation of the world, nor shall until the last trumpet shall sound." The pilgrims then, especially Christian, began to be anxious in his mind, and looked this way and that; but no way could be found by them by which they might escape the river. Then they asked the men if the waters were all of a depth. They said, "No," yet they could not help them in that case; "for," said they, "you shall find it deeper or shallower as you believe in the King of the place." They then addressed themselves to the water; and, entering, Christian began to sink, and crying out to his good friend Hopeful, he said, "I sink in deep waters; the billows go over my head; all His waves go over me." Then said the other, "Be of good cheer, my brother; I feel the bottom, and it is good." Then said Christian, "Ah! my friend, the sorrows of death have compassed me about; I shall not see the land that flows with milk and honey." And with that, a great darkness and horror fell upon Christian, so that he could not see before him. Also here he in a great measure lost his senses, so that he could neither remember nor orderly talk of any of those sweet refreshments that he had met with in the way of his pilgrimage. But all the words that he spake still tended to show that he had horror of mind, and heart-fears that he should die in that river, and never obtain entrance in at the gate. Here also, as they that stood by perceived, he was much in the troublesome thoughts of the sins that he had committed, both since and before he began to be a pilgrim. It was also observed that he was troubled with the sight of demons and evil spirits; for ever and anon he would intimate so much by words. Hopeful, therefore, here had much ado to keep his brother's head above water; yea, sometimes he would be quite gone down, and then, ere a while he would rise up again half dead. Hopeful would also endeavor to comfort him, saying, "Brother, I see the gate, and men standing by to receive us;" but Christian would answer, "It is you, it is you they wait for: you have been hopeful ever since I knew you." "And so have you," said he to Christian. "Ah, brother," said he, "surely, if I were right, He would now arise to help me; but for my sins He hath brought me into this snare, and hath left me." Then said Hopeful, "My brother, these troubles and distresses that you go through in these waters are no sign that God hath forsaken you; but are sent to try you, whether you will call to mind that which hitherto you have received of His goodness, and live upon Him in your distresses." Then I saw in my dream that Christian was in thought awhile. To whom also Hopeful added these words, "Be of good cheer, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole." And, with that, Christian brake out with a loud voice, "Oh, I see Him again; and He tells me, 'When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.'" Then they both took courage; and the enemy was, after that, as still as a stone, until they were gone over. Christian, therefore, presently found ground to stand upon; and so it followed that the rest of the river was but shallow. Thus they got over. [Sidenote: TWO SHINING MEN] Now, upon the bank of the river, on the other side, they saw the two Shining Men again, who there waited for them. Wherefore, being come out of the river, they saluted them, saying, "We are heavenly spirits, sent forth to help those that shall be heirs of salvation." Thus they went along towards the gate. Now, you must note that the City stood upon a mighty hill; but the pilgrims went up that hill with ease, because they had these two men to lead them up by the arms; also they had left their mortal garments behind them in the river; for though they went in with them, they came out without them. They therefore went up here with much activity and speed, though the foundation upon which the City was framed was higher than the clouds. They therefore went up through the regions of the air, sweetly talking as they went, being comforted because they had safely got over the river, and had such glorious companions to attend them. [Sidenote: MOUNT ZION] The talk they had with the Shining Ones, was about the glory of the place; who told them that the beauty and glory of it were such as could not be put into words. "There," said they, "is the Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of good men made perfect. You are going now," said they, "to the Paradise of God, wherein you shall see the tree of life, and eat of the never-fading fruits thereof; and when you come there, you shall have white robes given you, and your walk and talk shall be every day with the King, even all the days of an eternal life. There you shall not see again such things as you saw when you were in the lower region upon the earth; to wit, sorrow, sickness, affliction, and death; 'for the former things are passed away.' You are going now to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and to the prophets, men that God hath taken away from the evil to come, and that are now resting upon their beds, each one walking in his righteousness." The men then asked, "What must we do in the holy place?" To whom it was answered, "You must there receive the comfort of all your toil, and have joy for all your sorrow; you must reap what you have sown, even the fruit of all your prayers, and tears, and sufferings for the King by the way. In that place you must wear crowns of gold, and enjoy the perpetual sight and visions of the Holy One; for there you shall see Him as He is. There also you shall serve Him continually with praise, with shouting and thanksgiving, whom you desired to serve in the world, though with much difficulty, because of the weakness of your bodies. There your eyes shall be delighted with seeing and your ears with hearing the pleasant voice of the Mighty One. There you shall enjoy your friends again that are gone thither before you; and there you shall with joy receive even every one that follows into the holy place after you. There also you shall be clothed with glory and majesty, and put into a state fit to ride out with the King of Glory. When He shall come with sound of trumpet in the clouds, as upon the wings of the wind, you shall come with Him; and when He shall sit upon the throne of judgment, you shall sit by Him; yea, and when He shall pass sentence upon all the workers of evil, let them be angels or men, you also shall have a voice in that judgment because they were His and your enemies. Also, when He shall again return to the City, you shall go too, with sound of trumpet, and be ever with Him." Now, while they were thus drawing towards the gate, behold, a company of the heavenly host came out to meet them; to whom it was said by the other two Shining Ones, "These are the men that have loved our Lord when in the world, and that have left all for His holy name; and He hath sent us to fetch them, and we have brought them thus far on their desired journey, that they may go in and look their Redeemer in the face with joy." Then the heavenly host gave a great shout, saying, "Blessed are they which are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb." There came out also at this time to meet them several of the King's trumpeters, clothed in white and shining raiment who, with melodious noises and loud, made even the heavens to echo with their sound. These trumpeters saluted Christian and his fellow with ten thousand welcomes from the world; and this they did with shouting and sound of trumpet. [Sidenote: THE CELESTIAL CITY] This done, they compassed them round on every side; some went before, some behind, and some on the right hand, some on the left (as it were to guard them through the upper regions), continually sounding as they went, with melodious noise, in notes on high: so that the very sight was to them that could behold it as if heaven itself was come down to meet them. Thus, therefore, they walked on together; and, as they walked, ever and anon these trumpeters, even with joyful sound, would, by mixing their music, with looks and gestures, still signify to Christian and his brother how welcome they were into their company, and with what gladness they came to meet them. And now were these two men as it were in heaven before they came at it, being swallowed up with the sight of angels, and with hearing of their melodious notes. Here also they had the City itself in view, and thought they heard all the bells therein to ring, and welcome them thereto. But, above all, the warm and joyful thoughts that they had about their own dwelling there with such company, and that for ever and ever, oh! by what tongue or pen can their glorious joy be expressed? And thus they came up to the gate. Now, when they were come up to the gate, there was written over it in letters of gold, "BLESSED ARE THEY THAT DO HIS COMMANDMENTS, THAT THEY MAY HAVE RIGHT TO THE TREE OF LIFE, AND MAY ENTER IN THROUGH THE GATES INTO THE CITY." Then I saw in my dream, that the Shining Men bid them call at the gate: the which when they did, some from above looked over the gate: such as Enoch, Moses, and Elijah, and others, to whom it was said, "These pilgrims are come from the City of Destruction, for the love that they bear to the King of this place." And then the pilgrims gave in unto them each man his certificate, which they had received in the beginning; those therefore were carried in to the King, who, when He had read them, said, "Where are the men?" To whom it was answered, "They are standing without the gate." The King then commanded to open the gate, "that the righteous nation," said He, "which keepeth the truth, may enter in." Now, I saw in my dream, that these two men went in at the gate; and lo! as they entered, their looks were changed so that their faces became bright; and they had garments put on that shone like gold. There were also that met them with harps and crowns, and gave them to them--the harps to praise withal, and the crowns in token of honor. Then I heard in my dream that all the bells in the City rang again for joy, and that it was said unto them, "Enter ye into the joy of your Lord." I also heard the men themselves, that they sang with a loud voice, saying, "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever!" Now, just as the gates were opened to let in the men, I looked in after them, and behold, the City shone like the sun; the streets also were paved with gold; and in them walked many men with crowns on their heads, palms in their hands, and golden harps to sing praises withal. There were also of them that had wings, and they answered one another without ceasing, saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord!" And, after that, they shut up the gates; which when I had seen, I wished myself among them. [Sidenote: IGNORANCE FAILS TO ENTER] Now while I was gazing upon all these things, I turned my head to look back, and saw Ignorance come up to the river-side; but he soon got over, and that without half the difficulty which the other two men met with. For it happened that there was then in the place one Vain-Hope, a ferryman, that with his boat helped him over; so he, as the others I saw, did ascend the hill, to come up to the gate; only he came alone, neither did any man meet him with the least encouragement. When he was come up to the gate, he looked up to the writing that was above, and then began to knock, supposing that entrance should have been quickly given to him; but he was asked by the men that looked over the top of the gate, "Whence came you? and what would you have?" He answered, "I have eaten and drunk in the presence of the King, and He has taught in our streets." Then they asked him for his certificate, that they might go in and show it to the King: so he fumbled in his bosom for one, and found none. Then said they, "Have you none?" But the man answered never a word. So they told the King; but He would not come down to see him, but commanded the two Shining Ones that conducted Christian and Hopeful to the City, to go out and take Ignorance, and bind him hand and foot, and have him away. Then they took him up, and carried him through the air to the door that I saw in the side of the hill, and put him in there. Then I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven, as well as from the City of Destruction! * * * * * So I awoke, and behold, it was a dream. CONCLUSION. Now, reader, I have told my dream to thee, See if thou canst interpret it to me, Or to thyself or neighbor; but take heed Of misinterpreting; for that, instead Of doing good, will but thyself abuse: By misinterpreting, evil ensues. Take heed also that thou be not extreme In playing with the outside of my dream; Nor let my figure or similitude Put thee into a laughter or a feud. Leave this for boys and fools; but as for thee, Do thou the substance of my matter see. Put by the curtains, look within my veil; Turn up my metaphors, and do not fail, There, if thou seekest them, such things to find As will be helpful to an honest mind. What of my dross thou findest there, be bold To throw away; but yet preserve the gold. What if my gold be wrapped up in ore?-- None throws away the apple for the core. But if thou shalt cast all away as vain, I know not but t'will make me dream again. THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. PART II. CHAPTER I. COURTEOUS COMPANIONS,-- Some time since, to tell you my dream that I had of Christian the Pilgrim, and of his dangerous journey towards the Celestial Country, was pleasant to me and profitable to you. I told you then, also, what I saw concerning his wife and children, and how unwilling they were to go with him on pilgrimage, insomuch that he was forced to go on his progress without them; for he durst not run the danger of that destruction which he feared would come by staying with them in the City of Destruction; wherefore, as I then showed you, he left them and departed. Now, it hath so happened, through the abundance of business, that I have been much hindered and kept back from my wonted travels into those parts whence he went, and so could not, till now, obtain an opportunity to make further inquiry after those whom he left behind, that I might give you an account of them. But, having had some concerns that way of late, I went down again thitherward. Now, having taken up my lodgings in a wood about a mile off the place, as I slept I dreamed again. [Sidenote: THE AUTHOR AND MR. SAGACITY] And as I was in my dream, behold, an aged gentleman came by where I lay; and, because he was to go some part of the way that I was travelling, methought I got up and went with him. So, as we walked, and as travelers usually do, I was as if we fell into discourse; and our talk happened to be about Christian and his travels; for thus I began with the old man: "Sir," said I, "what town is that there below, that lieth on the left hand of our way?" Then said Mr. Sagacity (for that was his name), "It is the City of Destruction; a populous place, but possessed with a very ill-conditioned and idle sort of people." "I thought that was that city," quoth I: "I went once myself through that town, and therefore know that this report you give of it is true." SAG. Too true! I wish I could speak truth in speaking better of them that dwell therein. "Well, sir," quoth I, "then I perceive you to be a well-meaning man, and so one that takes pleasure to hear and tell of that which is good. Pray, did you never hear what happened to a man some time ago of this town (whose name was Christian), that went on pilgrimage up towards the higher regions?" SAG. Hear of him! Ay, and I also heard of the difficulties, troubles, wars, captivities, cries, groans, frights and fears that he met with and had in his journey. Besides, I must tell you all our country rings of him: there are but few houses that have heard of him and his doings but have sought after and got the record of his pilgrimage. Yea, I think I may say that his hazardous journey has got many wellwishers to his ways; for though, when he was here, he was a fool in every man's mouth, yet now he is gone he is highly commended of all. For 'tis said he lives bravely where he is: yea, many of them that are resolved never to run his risks yet have their mouths water at his gains. "They may," quoth I, "well think, if they think anything that is true, that he liveth well where he is; for he now lives at and in the Fountain of Life, and has what he has without labor and sorrow; for there is no grief mixed therewith. But, pray, what talk have the people about him?" SAG. Talk! the people talk strangely about him: some say that he now walks in white; that he has a chain of gold about his neck; that he has a crown of gold beset with pearls upon his head. Others say that the Shining Ones, that sometimes showed themselves unto him in his journey, are become his companions, and that he is as familiar with them in the place where he is, as here one neighbor is with another. Besides, it is confidently spoken concerning him, that the King of the place where he is has bestowed upon him already a very rich and pleasant dwelling at court, and that he every day eateth and drinketh and walketh with Him, and receiveth of the smiles and favors of Him that is judge of all there. Moreover, it is expected of some, that his Prince, the Lord of that country, will shortly come into these parts, and will know the reason, if they can give any, why his neighbors set so little by him, and had him so much in derision, when they perceived that he would be a Pilgrim. For they say, now he is so in the affections of his Prince, and that his Sovereign is so much concerned with the wrongs that were cast upon Christian when he became a Pilgrim, that He will look upon all as if done unto Himself; and no marvel, for it was for the love that he had to his Prince that he ventured as he did. [Sidenote: SAGACITY TELLS OF CHRISTIANA] "I daresay," quoth I; "I am glad on't; I am glad for the poor man's sake, for that he now has rest from his labor, and for that he reapeth the benefit of his tears with joy, and for that he has got beyond gunshot of his enemies, and is out of the reach of them that hate him. I also am glad for that a rumor of these things is noised abroad in this country: who can tell but that it may work some good effect on some that are left behind? But pray, sir, while it is fresh in my mind, do you hear anything of his wife and children? Poor hearts! I wonder in my mind what they do." SAG. Who? Christiana and her sons? They are like to do as well as did Christian himself; for, though they all played the fool at first, and would by no means be persuaded by either the tears or entreaties of Christian, yet, second thoughts have wrought wonderfully with them, so they have packed up, and are also gone after him. "Better and better," quoth I: "but, what! wife and children and all?" SAG. It is true: I can give you an account of the matter, for I was upon the spot at the instant, and was thoroughly acquainted with the whole affair. "Then," said I, "a man, it seems, may report it for a truth?" SAG. You need not fear to declare it. I mean, that they are all gone on pilgrimage, both the good woman and her four boys. And, since (we are, as I perceive) going some considerable way together, I will give you an account of the whole matter. This Christiana (for that was her name from the day that she, with her children betook themselves to a pilgrim's life) after her husband had gone over the river, and she could hear of him no more, her thoughts began to work in her mind. First, for that she had lost her husband, and of that the loving bond of that relation was utterly broken betwixt them. For you know (said he to me) it is only natural that the living should have many sad thoughts, in the remembrance of the loss of loving relations. This, therefore, of her husband, did cost her many a tear. But this was not all; for Christiana did also begin to consider with herself, whether unbecoming behavior towards her husband was not one cause that she saw him no more, and that in such sort he was taken away from her. And, upon this, came into her mind, by swarms, all her unkind, unnatural, and ungodly treatment of her dear friend; which also troubled her conscience, and did load her with guilt. She was, moreover, much broken with recalling to remembrance the restless groans, brinish tears, and self-bemoanings of her husband, and how she did harden her heart against all his entreaties and loving persuasions of her and her sons to go with him; yea, there was not anything that Christian either said to her or did before her, all the while that his burden did hang on his back, but it returned upon her like a flash of lightning, and rent her heart in sunder. Specially that bitter outcry of his, "What shall I do to be saved?" did ring in her ears most dolefully. Then said she to her children, "Sons, we are all undone. I have sinned away your father, and he is gone; he would have had us with him, but I would not go myself; I also have hindered you of life." With that, the boys fell all into tears, and cried out to go after their father. "Oh," said Christiana, "that it had been but our lot to go with him! then had it fared well with us, beyond what it is like to do now. For though I formerly foolishly imagined, concerning the troubles of your father, that they came from a foolish fancy that he had, or for that he was overrun with melancholy humors; yet now it will not out of my mind but that they sprang from another cause; and it was this, that the light of life was given him, by the help of which, as I perceive, he has escaped the snares of death." [Sidenote: OF CHRISTIANA'S DREAM] Then they all wept again, and cried out, "Oh, woe worth the day!" The next night Christiana had a dream; and, behold, she saw as if a broad parchment were opened before her, in which were recorded the sum of her ways; and the times, as she thought, looked very black upon her. Then she cried out aloud in her sleep, "Lord, have mercy upon me a sinner!" and the little children heard her. After this, she thought she saw two very ill-favored ones standing by her bed-side, and saying, "What shall we do with this woman? for she cries out for mercy waking and sleeping: if she be suffered to go on as she begins, we shall lose her as we have lost her husband. Wherefore we must, by one way or other, seek to take her off from the thoughts of what shall be hereafter; else, all the world cannot help but she will become a pilgrim." Now she awoke in a great sweat; also a trembling was upon her; but after a while, she fell to sleeping again. And then she thought she saw Christian her husband in a place of bliss, among many immortals, with a harp in his hand, standing and playing upon it before One that sat upon a throne, with a rainbow about His head. She saw, also, as if he bowed his head with his face to the paved work that was under the Prince's feet, saying, "I heartily thank my Lord and King for bringing of me into this place." Then shouted a company of them that stood round about, and harped with their harps; but no man living could tell what they said, but Christian and his companions. Next morning, when she was up, and had prayed to God and talked with her children a while, one knocked hard at the door; to whom she spake out, saying, "If thou comest in God's name, come in." So he said, "Amen," and opened the door, and saluted her with "Peace be to this house!" The which, when he had done, he said, "Christiana, knowest thou wherefore I am come?" Then she blushed and trembled, also her heart began to wax warm with desires to know from whence he came, and what was his errand to her. So he said unto her, "My name is Secret: I dwell with those that are on high. It is talked of where I dwell, as if thou hadst a desire to go thither; also there is a report that thou art aware of the evil thou hast formerly done to thy husband, in hardening thy heart against his way, and in keeping of these thy babes in their ignorance. Christiana, the Merciful One hath sent me to tell thee, that He is a God ready to forgive, and that He taketh delight to pardon offences. He also would have thee know that He inviteth thee to come into His presence, to His table, and that He will feed thee with the fat of His house, and with the heritage of Jacob thy father. "There is Christian, thy husband that was, with legions more, his companions, ever behold that face that doth minister life to beholders; and they will be glad when they shall hear the sound of thy feet step over thy Father's threshold." [Sidenote: CHRISTIANA IS SENT FOR] Christiana at this was greatly abashed in herself, and bowed her head to the ground. This visitor proceeded, and said, "Christiana, here is also a letter for thee, which I have brought from thy husband's King." So she took it, and opened it; but it smelt after the manner of the best perfume; also it was written in letters of gold. The contents of the letter were these: "That the King would have her to do as Christian her husband; for that was the way to come to His City, and to dwell in His presence with joy for ever." At this the good woman was quite overcome; so she cried out to her visitor, "Sir, will you carry me and my children with you, that we also may worship this King?" Then said the visitor, "Christiana, the bitter is before the sweet. Thou must through troubles, as did he that went before thee, enter the Celestial City. Wherefore I advise thee to do as did Christian thy husband: go to the wicket-gate yonder over the plain, for that stands in the head of the way up which you must go; and I wish thee all good speed. Also I advise that thou put this letter in thy bosom, that thou read therein to thyself, and to thy children, until you have got it by rote of heart: for it is one of the songs that thou must sing while thou art in this house of thy pilgrimage. Also this thou must deliver in at the farther gate." Now, I saw in my dream, that this old gentleman, as he told me the story, did himself seem to be greatly affected therewith. He moreover went on, and said: So Christiana called her sons together, and began thus to address herself unto them: "My sons, I have, as you may perceive, been of late under much trouble in my soul about the death of your father: not for that I doubt at all of his happiness, for I am satisfied now that he is well. I have also been much affected with the thoughts of mine own state and yours, which I verily believe is by nature miserable. My treatment also of your father in his distress is a great load to my conscience, for I hardened both mine own heart and yours against him, and refused to go with him on pilgrimage. "The thoughts of these things would now kill me outright, but for a dream which I had last night, and but for the encouragement that this stranger has given me this morning. Come, my children, let us pack up, and be gone to the gate that leads to the Celestial Country, that we may see your father, and be with him and his companions in peace, according to the laws of that land." Then did her children burst out into tears, for joy that the heart of their mother was so inclined. So their visitor bade them farewell; and they began to prepare to set out for their journey. [Sidenote: MRS. TIMOROUS AND CHRISTIANA] But while they were thus about to be gone, two of the women that were Christiana's neighbors came up to the house, and knocked at the door. To whom she said as before, "if you come in God's name, come in." At this the women were stunned; for this kind of language they used not to hear, or to perceive to drop from the lips of Christiana. Yet they came in; but, behold they found the good woman preparing to be gone from her house. So they began, and said, "Neighbor, pray what is your meaning by this?" Christiana answered and said to the eldest of them, whose name was Mrs. Timorous, "I am preparing for a journey." This Timorous was daughter to him that met Christian upon the Hill Difficulty, and would have had him go back for fear of the lions. TIM. For what journey, I pray you? CHR. Even to go after my good husband. And with that she fell a weeping. TIM. I hope not so, good neighbor. Pray, for your poor children's sake, do not so unwomanly cast away yourself. CHR. Nay, my children shall go with me; not one of them is willing to stay behind. TIM. I wonder in my very heart what or who has brought you into this mind! CHR. Oh, neighbor, knew you but as much as I do, I doubt not but that you would go with me. TIM. Prithee, what new knowledge hast thou got that so worketh off thy mind from thy friends, and that tempteth thee to go nobody knows where? CHR. Then Christiana replied, "I have been sorely afflicted since my husband's departure from me, but especially since he went over the river. But that which troubleth me most is my unkind treatment of him when he was under his distress. Besides, I am now as he was then: nothing will serve me but going on pilgrimage. I was a-dreaming last night that I saw him. Oh that my soul was with him! He dwelleth in the presence of the King of the country; he sits and eats with Him at His table; he has become a companion of immortals, and has a house now given him to dwell in, to which the best palaces on earth, if compared, seem to me but as a dunghill. The Prince of the place has also sent for me, with promises of entertainment if I shall come to Him; His messenger was here even now, and has brought me a letter which invites me to come." And with that she plucked out the letter, and read it, and said to them, "What now will you say to this?" [Sidenote: MERCY ALSO DESIRES TO GO] TIM. Oh, the madness that hath possessed thee and thy husband, to run yourselves upon such difficulties! You have heard, I am sure, what your husband did meet with, even in a manner at the first step that he took on his way, as our neighbor Obstinate can yet testify, for he went along with them, yea, and Pliable too; until they, like wise men, were afraid to go any farther. We also heard, over and above, how he met with the lions, Apollyon, the Shadow of Death, and many other things. Nor is the danger he met with at Vanity Fair to be forgotten by thee. For if he, though a man, was so hard put to it, what canst thou, being but a poor woman, do? Consider also that these four sweet babes are thy children, thy flesh and thy bones. Wherefore, though thou shouldest be so rash as to cast away thyself, yet, for the sake of thy children, keep thou at home. But Christiana said unto her, "Tempt me not, my neighbor. I have now a price put into my hands to get gain, and I should be a fool of the greatest size if I should have no heart to strike in with the opportunity. And for that you tell me of all these troubles which I am like to meet with in the way, they are so far off from being to me a discouragement, that they show I am in the right. The bitter must come before the sweet, and that also will make the sweet the sweeter. Wherefore, since you came not to my house in God's name, as I said, I pray you to be gone, and not to disquiet me further." Then Timorous reviled her, and said to her fellow, "Come, neighbor Mercy, let us leave her in her own hands, since she scorns our counsel and company." But Mercy was at a stand, and could not so readily comply with her neighbor, and that for a twofold reason. 1. Her heart yearned over Christiana; so she said within herself, "If my neighbor will needs be gone, I will go a little way with her, and help her." 2. Her heart yearned over her own soul; for what Christiana had said had taken hold upon her mind. Wherefore she said within herself again, "I will yet have more talk with this Christiana, and if I find truth and life in what she shall say, myself, with my heart, shall also go with her." Wherefore Mercy began thus to reply to her neighbor Timorous: MER. Neighbor, I did indeed come with you to see Christiana this morning; and since she is, as you see, taking her last farewell of her country, I think to walk this sunshiny morning a little with her, to help her on her way. But she told her not of the second reason, but kept that to herself. TIM. Well, I see you have a mind to go a-fooling too; but take heed in time, and be wise. While we are out of danger, we are out; but when we are in, we are in. So Mrs. Timorous returned to her house, and Christiana betook herself to her journey. But when Timorous was got home to her house, she sends for some of her neighbors; to wit, Mrs. Bat's-eyes, Mrs. Inconsiderate, Mrs. Light-mind, and Mrs. Know-nothing. So, when they were come to her house, she falls to telling of the story of Christiana and of her intended journey. And thus she began her tale: [Sidenote: MRS. TIMOROUS' NEIGHBORS] TIM. Neighbors, having had little to do this morning, I went to give Christiana a visit; and when I came at the door, I knocked, as you know it is our custom; and she answered, "If you come in God's name come in." So in I went, thinking all was well; but when I came in I found her preparing herself to depart the town, she and also her children. So I asked her what was her meaning by that. And she told me, in short, that she was now of a mind to go on pilgrimage, as did her husband. She told me also a dream that she had, and how the King of the country where her husband was had sent her an inviting letter to come thither. Then said Mrs. Know-nothing, "And, what! do you think she will go?" TIM. Ay, go she will, whatever comes on't; and methinks I know it by this: for that which was my great reason in persuading her to stay at home (that is, the troubles she was like to meet with in the way) is one great reason with her to put her forward on her journey. For she told me, in so many words, "The bitter goes before the sweet; yea, and forasmuch as it so doth, it makes the sweet the sweeter." MRS. BAT'S-EYES. "Oh, this blind and foolish woman!" said she; "will she not take warning by her husband's trials? For my part, I see, if he were here again, he would rest him content in a whole skin, and never run so many dangers for nothing." Mrs. Inconsiderate also replied, saying, "Away with such fantastical fools from the town! a good riddance, for my part, I say, of her! Should she stay where she dwells, and retain this her mind, who could live quietly by her? for she will either be dumpish, or unneighborly, or talk of such matters as no wise body can abide. Wherefore, for my part, I shall never be sorry for her departure: let her go, and let better come in her room. It was never a good world since these whimsical fools dwelt in it." Then Mrs. Light-mind added as followeth: "Come, put this kind of talk away. I was yesterday at Madam Wanton's, where we were as merry as the maids. For who do you think should be there, but I and Mrs. Love-the-Flesh, and three or four more, with Mr. Lechery, Mrs. Filth, and some others. So there we had music and dancing, and what else was meet to fill up the pleasure. And, I dare say, my lady herself is an admirable well-bred gentlewoman, and Mr. Lechery is as pretty a fellow." CHAPTER II. THE WICKET-GATE. By this time Christiana was got on her way, and Mercy went along with her. So as they went, her children being there also, Christiana began to discourse. "And, Mercy," said Christiana, "I take this as an unexpected favor, that thou shouldest set forth out of doors with me, to accompany me a little in my way." MER. Then said young Mercy (for she was but young), "If I thought it would be a good purpose to go with you, I would never go near the town any more." CHR. "Well, Mercy," said Christiana, "cast in thy lot with me: I well know what will be the end of our pilgrimage: my husband is where he would not but be for all the gold in the Spanish mines. Nor shalt thou be turned away, though thou goest but upon my invitation. The King who hath sent for me and my children is One that delighteth in mercy. Besides, if thou wilt, I will hire thee, and thou shalt go along with me as my servant; yet we will have all things in common betwixt thee and me, only go along with me." MER. But how shall I be sure that I also shall be welcomed? Had I this hope but from one that can tell, I would have no hesitation at all, but would go, being helped by Him that can help, though the way be never so tedious. CHR. Well, loving Mercy, I will tell thee what thou shalt do: go with me to the wicket-gate, and there I will further inquire for thee; and if there thou dost not meet with encouragement, I will be content that thou shalt return to thy place: I also will pay thee for thy kindness which thou showest to me and my children, in the accompanying of us in our way as thou dost. [Sidenote: MERCY GOES WITH CHRISTIANA] MER. Then will I go thither, and will take what shall follow; and the Lord grant that my lot may there fall, even as the King of heaven shall have His heart upon me! Christiana was then glad at her heart, not only that she had a companion, but also for that she had prevailed with this poor maid to fall in love with her own salvation. So they went on together and Mercy began to weep. Then said Christiana, "Wherefore weepeth my sister so?" MER. "Alas!" said she, "who can but lament, that shall but rightly consider what a state and condition my poor relations are in, that yet remain in our sinful town? And that which makes my grief the more heavy is, because they have no one to teach them nor to tell them what is to come." CHR. Tenderness becometh pilgrims; and thou dost for thy friends as my good Christian did for me when he left me: he mourned for that I would not heed nor regard him; but his Lord and ours did gather up his tears, and put them into His bottle; and now both I and thou, and these my sweet babes, are reaping the fruit and benefit of them I hope, Mercy, that these tears of thine will not be lost; for the Truth hath said that "they that sow in tears shall reap in joy," in singing; and "he that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." Then said Mercy: "Let the Most Blessèd be my guide, If 't be His blessèd will, Unto His gate, into His fold, Up to His holy hill. "And never let Him suffer me To swerve or turn aside From His free grace and holy ways, Whate'er shall me betide. "And let Him gather them of mine That I have left behind: Lord, make them pray they may be Thine, With all their heart and mind." Now my old friend proceeded, and said, "But when Christiana came to the Slough of Despond, she began to be at a stand; 'For,' said she, 'this is the place in which my dear husband had like to have been smothered with mud.' She perceived also that, notwithstanding the command of the King to make this place for pilgrims good, yet it was rather worse than formerly." So I asked if that was true. "Yes," said the old gentleman, "too true, for many there be that pretend to be the King's laborers, and say they are for mending the King's highway, that bring dirt and dung instead of stones, and so mar instead of mending. Here Christiana, therefore, with her boys, did make a stand. But said Mercy, 'Come, let us venture, only let us be wary.' Then they looked well to their steps, and made shift to get staggeringly over. Yet Christiana had to have been in, and that not once nor twice. "Now, they had no sooner got over, but they thought they heard words that said unto them, 'Blessed is she that believeth, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.' "Then they went on again; and said Mercy to Christiana, 'Had I as good ground to hope for a loving reception at the wicket-gate as you, I think no Slough of Despond would discourage me.' "'Well,' said the other, 'You know your trouble, and I know mine; and, good friend, we shall have enough evil before we come at our journey's end. For can it be imagined that the people that design to attain such excellent glories as we do, and that are so envied that happiness as we are, but that we shall meet with what fears, with what troubles and afflictions they can possibly assault us with, that hate us?'" [Sidenote: AT THE WICKET GATE] And now Mr. Sagacity left me to dream out my dream by myself. Wherefore, methought I saw Christiana, and Mercy, and the boys, go all of them up to the gate; to which when they were come they betook themselves to a short debate about how they must manage their calling at the gate, and what should be said unto him that did open unto them: so it was concluded, since Christiana was the eldest, that she should knock for entrance, and that she should speak to him that did open, for the rest. So Christiana began to knock, and, as her poor husband did, she knocked and knocked again. But instead of any that answered, they all thought that they heard as if a dog came barking upon them; a dog, and a great one too: and this made the women and children afraid, nor durst they for a while to knock any more, for fear the mastiff should fly upon them. Now, therefore, they were greatly tumbled up and down in their minds, and knew not what to do. Knock they durst not, for fear of the dog; go back they durst not, for fear the keeper of the gate should espy them as they so went, and should be offended with them. At last they thought of knocking again, and knocked more loudly than they did at first. Then said the Keeper of the gate, "Who is there?" So the dog left off to bark, and He opened unto them. Then Christiana made low obeisance, and said, "Let not our Lord be offended with His handmaidens, for that we have knocked at His princely gate." Then said the Keeper, "Whence come ye? and what is it that you would have?" Christiana answered, "We are come from whence Christian did come, and upon the same errand as he; to wit, to be, if it shall please you, graciously admitted by this gate into the way that leads to the Celestial City. And I answer, my Lord, in the next place, that I am Christiana, once the wife of Christian, that now is gotten above." With that the Keeper of the gate did marvel, saying, "What! is she now become a pilgrim, that, but a while ago hated that life?" Then she bowed her head, and said, "Yes; and so are these my sweet babes also." Then He took her by the hand, and let her in, and said also, "Suffer the little children to come unto me;" and with that He shut up the gate. This done, He called to a trumpeter that was above, over the gate, to entertain Christiana with shouting and sound of trumpet for joy. So he obeyed, and sounded, and filled the air with his melodious notes. Now, all this while poor Mercy did stand without trembling and crying, for fear that she was rejected. But when Christiana had got admittance for herself and her boys, then she began to make intercession for Mercy. [Sidenote: MERCY FALLS IN A SWOON] CHR. And she said, "My Lord, I have a companion of mine that stands yet without, that is come hither upon the same account as myself, one that is much troubled in her mind, for that she comes, as she thinks, without sending for; whereas I was sent to by my husband's King to come." Now Mercy began to be very impatient, for each minute was as long to her as an hour; wherefore she prevented Christiana from asking for her more fully by knocking at the gate herself. And she knocked then so loud that she made Christiana to start. Then said the Keeper of the gate, "Who is there?" And said Christiana, "It is my friend." So He opened the gate and looked out; but Mercy was fallen down without in a swoon, for she fainted, and was afraid that no gate would be opened to her. Then he took her by the hand, and said, "Maiden, I bid thee arise." "Oh, sir," said she, "I am faint: there is scarce life left in me." But He answered that "One once said, 'When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came in unto Thee, into Thy holy temple.' Fear not, but stand upon thy feet, and tell me wherefore thou art come." MER. I am come for that unto which I was never invited, as my friend Christiana was. Hers was from the King, and mine was but from her. Wherefore I fear I presume. KEEP. Did she desire thee to come with her to this place? MER. Yes; and, as my Lord sees, I am come. And if there is any grace and forgiveness of sins to spare, I beseech that I, Thy poor handmaiden, may be partaker thereof. [Sidenote: MERCY PERMITTED TO ENTER] Then He took her again by the hand, and led her gently in, and said, "I pray for all them that believe on me, by what means soever they come unto me." Then said He to those that stood by, "Fetch something, and give it to Mercy to smell on, thereby to stay her fainting." So they fetched her a bundle of myrrh, and a while after she was revived. And now was Christiana and her boys and Mercy received of the Lord at the head of the way, and spoke kindly unto by Him. Then said they yet further unto Him, "We are sorry for our sins, and beg of our Lord His pardon and further information what we must do." "I grant pardon," said He, "by word and deed: by word, in the promise of forgiveness; by deed, in the way I obtained it. Take the first from my lips with a kiss, and the other as it shall be revealed." Now, I saw in my dream, that He spake many good words unto them, whereby they were greatly gladded. He also had them up to the top of the gate, and showed them by what deed they were saved; and told them withal that that sight they would have again as they went along the way, to their comfort. So He left them a while in a summer parlor below, where they entered into a talk by themselves; and thus Christiana began: "O Lord, how glad am I that we are got in hither!" MER. So you well may; but I of all have cause to leap for joy. CHR. I thought one time as I stood at the gate, because I knocked, and none did answer, that all our labor had been lost, specially when that ugly cur made such a heavy barking against us. MER. But my worst fear was after I saw that you were taken into His favor, and that I was left behind. Now, thought I, it is fulfilled which is written, "Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left." I had much ado to forbear crying out, "Undone! undone!" And afraid I was to knock any more: but when I looked up to what was written over the gate, I took courage. I also thought that I must either knock again or die; so I knocked, but I cannot tell how, for my spirit now struggled betwixt life and death. _Chr._ Can you not tell how you knocked? I am sure your knocks were so earnest, that the very sound of them made me start. I thought I never heard such knocking in all my life; I thought you would come in by violent hands, or take the kingdom by storm. _Mer._ Alas! to be in my case, who that so was could but have done so? You saw that the door was shut upon me, and that there was a most cruel dog thereabout. Who, I say, that was so faint-hearted as I, would not have knocked with all their might? But, pray, what said my Lord to my rudeness? Was He not angry with me? CHR. When He heard your lumbering noise, He gave a wonderful innocent smile; I believe what you did pleased Him well enough, for He showed no sign to the contrary. But I marvel in my heart why he keeps such a dog; had I known that afore, I should not have had heart enough to have ventured myself in this manner. But now we are in, we are in, and I am glad with all my heart. _Mer._ I will ask, if you please, next time He comes down, why He keeps such a filthy cur in His yard. I hope He will not take it amiss. "Ay, do," said the children, "and persuade Him to hang him, for we are afraid he will bite us when we go hence." So at last He came down to them again, and Mercy fell to the ground on her face before Him, and worshiped, and said, "Let my Lord accept the offering of praise which I now offer unto Him with my lips." [Sidenote: MERCY EXPRESSES HER FEARS] So He said unto her, "Peace be to thee; stand up." But she continued upon her face, and said, "Righteous art Thou, O Lord, when I plead with Thee; yet let me talk with Thee of Thy judgments. Wherefore dost Thou keep so cruel a dog in Thy yard, at the sight of which such women and children as we are ready to fly from the gate with fear?" He answered and said, "That dog has another owner; he also is kept close in another man's ground, only my pilgrims hear his barking: he belongs to the castle which you see there at a distance, but can come up to the walls of this place. He has frighted many an honest pilgrim from worse to better, by the great voice of his roaring. Indeed, he that owneth him doth not keep him out of any good-will to me or mine, but with intent to keep the pilgrims from coming to me, and that they may be afraid to come and knock at this gate for entrance. Sometimes also he has broken out, and has worried some that I love; but I take all at present patiently. I also give my pilgrims timely help, so that they are not delivered up to his power, to do with them what his doggish nature would prompt him to. But, what! my beloved one, I should suppose, hadst thou known even so much beforehand, thou wouldst not have been afraid of a dog. The beggars that go from door to door will, rather than lose a supposed alms, run the danger of the bawling, barking, and biting too, of a dog; and shall a dog in another man's yard, a dog whose barking I turn to the profit of pilgrims, keep any one from coming to me? I deliver them from the lions, their darling from the power of the dog." MER. Then said Mercy, "I confess my ignorance, I spake what I understood not: I acknowledge that Thou doest all things well." CHR. Then Christiana began to talk of their journey, and to inquire after the way. So He fed them, and washed their feet, and set them in the way of His steps, according as He had dealt with her husband before. So I saw in my dream that they walked on in their way, and had the weather very comfortable to them. Then Christiana began to sing: "Blessed be the day that I began A pilgrim for to be; And blessèd also be the man That thereto movèd me. "'Tis true 'twas long ere I began To seek to live for ever; But now I run fast as I can: 'Tis better late than never. "Our tears to joy, our fears to faith, Are turnèd, as we see; Thus our beginning (as one saith) Shows what our end will be." Now, there was, on the other side of the wall that fenced in the way up which Christiana and her companions were to go, a garden, and that garden belonged to him whose was that barking dog, of whom mention was made before. And some of the fruit-trees that grew in that garden shot their branches over the wall; and, being mellow, they that found them did gather them up and oft eat of them to their hurt. So Christiana's boys, as boys are apt to do, being pleased with the trees, and the fruit that did hang thereon, did bend the branches down, and pluck the fruit, and begin to eat. Their mother did also chide them for so doing; but still the boys went on. [Illustration: Christiana's Boys Began to Eat. Page 231] "Well," said she, "my sons, you do wrong, for that fruit is none of ours;" but she did not know that it did belong to the enemy: I'll warrant you, if she had, she would have been ready to die for fear. But that passed, and they went on their way. [Sidenote: THE ILL-FAVORED ONES] Now, by that they were gone about two bow-shots from the place that led them unto the way, they espied two very ill-favored ones coming down apace to meet them. With that, Christiana, and Mercy her friend, covered themselves with their veils, and so kept on their journey; the children also went on before; so that, at last, they met together. Then they that came down to meet them came just up to the women, as if they would embrace them; but Christiana said, "Stand back, or go peaceably by, as you should." Yet these two, as men that are deaf, regarded not Christiana's words, but began to lay hands upon them. At that, Christiana, waxing very wroth, spurned at them with her feet. Mercy also, as well as she could, did what she could to shift them. Christiana again said to them, "Stand back, and be gone; for we have no money to lose, being pilgrims, as you see, and such, too, as live upon the charity of our friends." ILL-FAVORED ONE. Then said one of the two men, "We make no assault upon you for money, but are come out to tell you that, if you will grant one small request which we shall ask, we will make women of you for ever." CHR. Now Christiana, imagining what they should mean, made answer again, "We will neither hear nor regard, nor yield to what you shall ask. We are in haste, and cannot stay; our business is a business of life or death." So again she and her companions made a fresh attempt to go past them; but they letted them in their way. ILL-FAV. And they said, "We intend no hurt to your lives; it is another thing we would have." CHR. "Ay," quoth Christiana, "you would have us body and soul, for I know it is for that you are come; but we will die rather upon the spot, than to suffer ourselves to be brought into such snares as shall risk the loss of our well-being hereafter." And, with that, they both shrieked out, and cried, "Murder! murder!" and so put themselves under those laws that are provided for the protection of women. But the men still made their approach upon them, with design to prevail against them. They therefore cried out again. [Sidenote: A RELIEVER APPEARS] Now, they being, as I said, far from the gate in at which they came, their voices were heard from where they were, thither; wherefore some of the house came out, and, knowing it was Christiana's tongue, they made haste to her relief. But by the time that they were got within sight of them, the women were in a very great terror; the children also stood crying by. Then did he that came in for their relief call out to the ruffians, saying, "What is that thing you do? Would you make my Lord's people to do wrong?" He also attempted to take them, but they did make their escape over the wall into the garden of the man to whom the great dog belonged; so the dog became their protector. This Reliever then came up to the women and asked them how they did. So they answered, "We thank thy Prince, pretty well, only we have been somewhat affrighted: we thank thee also for that thou camest in to our help, otherwise we had been overcome." RELIEVER. So, after a few more words, this Reliever said as followeth: "I marvelled much when you were entertained at the gate above, being ye knew that ye were but weak women, that you asked not the Lord for a conductor. Then might you have avoided these troubles and dangers; for He would have granted you one." CHR. "Alas!" said Christiana, "we were taken so with our present blessing, that dangers to come were forgotten by us. Besides, who could have thought that, so near the King's palace, there could have lurked such naughty ones? Indeed, it had been well for us had we asked our Lord for one; but, since our Lord knew it would be for our profit, I wonder He sent not one along with us." REL. It is not always necessary to grant things not asked for, lest, by so doing, they become of little value; but when the want of a thing is felt, then he who needs it feels its preciousness; and so when it is given it will be used. Had my Lord granted you a conductor, you would not either have so bewailed that oversight of yours, in not asking for one, as now you have occasion to do. So all things work for good, and tend to make you more wary. CHR. Shall we go back again to my Lord, and confess our folly, and ask one? REL. Your confession of your folly I will present Him with. To go back again you need not; for, in all places where you shall come, you will find no want at all; for, in every one of my Lord's lodgings, which He has prepared for the care of His pilgrims, there is sufficient to furnish them against all attempts whatsoever. But, as I said, He will be asked of by them, to do it for them. And 'tis a poor thing that is not worth asking for. [Sidenote: THE PILGRIMS PROCEED] When he had thus said, he went back to his place, and the pilgrims went on their way. MER. Then said Mercy, "What a sudden blank is here! I made account we had been past all danger, and that we should never see sorrow more." CHR. "Thy innocence, my sister," said Christiana to Mercy, "may excuse thee much; but as for me, fault is so much the greater, for that I saw the danger before I came out of the doors, and yet did not provide for it when provision might have been had. I am, therefore, much to be blamed." MER. Then said Mercy, "How knew you this before you came from home? Pray, open to me this riddle." CHR. Why, I will tell you. Before I set foot out of doors, one night, as I lay in my bed, I had a dream about this; for methought I saw two men, as like these as ever any in the world could look, stand at my bed's feet, plotting how they might prevent my salvation. I will tell you their very words. They said (it was when I was in my troubles), "What shall we do with this woman? for she cries out waking and sleeping for forgiveness: if she be suffered to go on as she begins, we shall lose her as we have lost her husband." This, you know, might have made me take heed, and have provided when provision might have been had. MER. "Well," said Mercy, "as by this neglect we have been made to behold our own imperfections, so our Lord has taken occasion thereby to make manifest the riches of His grace; for He, as we see, has followed us with unasked kindness, and has delivered us from their hands that were stronger than we, of His mere good pleasure." CHAPTER III. THE INTERPRETER'S HOUSE. Thus, now, when they had talked away a little more time, they drew near to a house which stood in the way, which house was built for the relief of pilgrims, as you will find more fully related in the first part of these records of the Pilgrim's Progress. So they drew on towards the house (the house of the Interpreter); and, when they came to the door, they heard a great talk in the house. Then they gave ear, and heard, as they thought, Christiana mentioned by name; for you must know that there went along, even before her, a talk of her and her children's going on pilgrimage. And this was the more pleasing to them, because they had heard she was Christian's wife, that woman who was some time ago so unwilling to hear of going on pilgrimage. Thus, therefore, they stood still, and heard the good people within commending her, who, they little thought, stood at the door. At last Christiana knocked, as she had done at the gate before. Now, when she had knocked, there came to the door a young maiden, and opened the door and looked; and, behold, two women were there. [Sidenote: THE INTERPRETER'S HOUSE] MAID. Then said the maid to them, "With whom would you speak in this place?" CHR. Christiana answered, "We understand that this is a place prepared for those that are become pilgrims, and we now at this door are such; wherefore we pray that we may be partakers of that for which we at this time are come; for the day, as thou seest, is very far spent, and we are loth to-night to go any farther." DAM. Pray, what may I call your name, that I may tell it to my lord within? CHR. My name is Christiana: I was the wife of that pilgrim that some years ago did travel this way; and these be his four children. This young woman is my companion, and is going on pilgrimage too. INNOCENT. Then Innocent ran in (for that was her name,) and said to those within, "Can you think who is at the door? There are Christiana and her children, and her companion, all waiting for entertainment here." Then they leaped for joy, and went and told their master. So he came to the door, and looking upon her, he said, "Art thou that Christiana whom Christian the good man left behind him, when he betook himself to a pilgrim's life?" CHR. I am that woman that was so hard-hearted as to slight my husband's troubles, and then left him to go on his journey alone; and these are his four children. But now also I am come, for I am convinced that no way is right but this. INTER. Then is fulfilled that which also is written of the man that said to his son, "Go, work to-day in my vineyard;" and he said to his father, "I will not;" but afterwards he repented, and went. CHR. Then said Christiana, "So be it: Amen. God make it a true saying upon me, and grant that I may be found at the last of Him in peace, without spot and blameless!" INTER. But why standest thou thus at the door? Come in, thou blessed one. We were talking of thee but now; for tidings have come to us before how thou art become a pilgrim. Come, children, come in; come, maiden, come in. So he had them all into the house. [Sidenote: PILGRIMS ENTERTAINED] So when they were within, they were bidden to sit down and rest them; the which when they had done, those that attended upon the pilgrims in the house came into the room to see them. And one smiled, and another smiled, and they all smiled for joy that Christiana was become a pilgrim. They also looked upon the boys; they stroked them over the faces with the hand, in token of their kind reception of them; they also carried it lovingly to Mercy, and bid them all welcome into their master's house. After a while, because supper was not ready, the Interpreter took them into his significant rooms, and showed them what Christian, Christiana's husband, had seen some time before. Here, therefore, they saw the man in the cage, the man and his dream, the man that cut his way through his enemies, and the picture of the biggest of them all, together with the rest of those things that were then so profitable to Christian. This done, and after those things had been seen and thought of by Christiana and her company, the Interpreter takes them apart again, and has them first into a room where was a man that could look no way but downwards, with a muck-rake in his hand. There stood also one over his head, with a celestial crown in his hand, and proffered to give him that crown for his muck-rake; but the man did neither look up nor regard, but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and the dust of the floor. Then said Christiana, "I persuade myself that I know somewhat the meaning of this; for this is a figure of a man of this world. Is it not, good sir?" INTER. "Thou hast said the right," said he; "and his muck-rake doth show his worldly mind. And whereas thou seest him rather give heed to rake up straws and sticks, and the dust of the floor, than to do what he says that calls to him from above with the celestial crown in his hand; it is to show that heaven is but a fable to some, and that things here are counted the only things substantial. Now, whereas it was also showed thee that the man could look no way but downwards; it is to let thee know that earthly things, when they are with power upon men's minds, quite carry their hearts away from God." CHR. Then said Christiana, "Oh, deliver me from this muck-rake!" INTER. "That prayer," said the Interpreter, "has lain by till it is almost rusty. 'Give me not riches' is scarce the prayer of one of ten thousand. Straws, and sticks, and dust, with most, are the great things now looked after." With that, Mercy and Christiana wept, and said, "It is, alas! too true." [Sidenote: INTERPRETER'S ALLEGORIES] When the Interpreter had showed them this, he had them into the very best room in the house; a very brave room it was. So he bid them look round about, and see if they could find anything there. Then they looked round and round; for there was nothing to be seen but a very great spider on the wall, and that they overlooked. MER. Then said Mercy, "Sir, I see nothing." But Christiana held her peace. INTER. "But," said the Interpreter, "look again." She therefore looked again, and said, "Here is not anything but an ugly spider, who hangs by her hands upon the wall." Then said he, "Is there but one spider in all this spacious room?" Then the water stood in Christiana's eyes, for she was a woman quick of mind; and she said, "Yes, my lord; there is here more than one; yea, and spiders whose venom is far more destructive than that which is in her." The Interpreter then looked pleasantly upon her, and said, "Thou hast said the truth." This made Mercy blush and the boys to cover their faces; for they all began now to understand the riddle. Then said the Interpreter again, "The spider taketh hold with her hands (as you see), and is in kings' palaces. And wherefore is this recorded, but to show you that, how full of the venom of sin soever you be, yet you may, by the hand of faith, lay hold of and dwell in the best room that belongs to the king's house above." CHR. "I thought," said Christiana, "of something of this; but I could not imagine it all. I thought that we were like spiders, and that we looked like ugly creatures, in what fine rooms soever we were: but that by this spider, this venomous and ill-favored creature, we were to learn how to act faith, that came not into my mind; and yet she has taken hold with her hands, and, as I see, dwelleth in the best room in the house. God has made nothing in vain." Then they seemed all to be glad, but the water stood in their eyes; yet they looked one upon another, and also bowed before the Interpreter. He had them then into another room, where were a hen and chickens, and bid them observe a while. So one of the chickens went to the trough to drink; and every time she drank, she lifted up her head and her eyes toward heaven. "See," said he, "what this little chick doth; and learn of her to acknowledge whence your mercies come, by receiving them with looking up. Yet again," said he, "observe and look." So they gave heed, and perceived that the hen did walk in a fourfold method towards her chickens. First, she had a common call, and that she hath all day long. Secondly, she had a special call, and that she had but sometimes. Thirdly, she had a brooding note. And, fourthly she had an outcry. INTER. "Now," said he, "compare this hen to your King, and these chickens to His obedient ones: for, answerable to her, He Himself hath His methods which He walketh in toward His people. By His common call, He gives nothing; by His special call, He always has something to give; He also has a brooding voice for them that are under His wing; and He hath an outcry, to give the alarm when He seeth the enemy come. I chose, my darlings, to lead you into the room where such things are, because you are women, and they are easy for you." CHR. "And, sir," said Christiana, "pray let us see some more." So he had them into the slaughter-house, where the butcher was killing a sheep; and, behold, the sheep was quiet, and took her death patiently. Then said the Interpreter, "You must learn of this sheep to suffer, and to put up with wrongs without murmurings and complaints. Behold how quietly she takes her death; and, without objecting, she suffereth her skin to be pulled over her ears. Your King doth call you His sheep." After this, he led them into his garden, where was great variety of flowers; and he said, "Do you see all these?" So Christiana said, "Yes." Then said he again, "Behold, the flowers are diverse in stature, in quality, and color, and smell, and virtue, and some are better than others; also, where the gardener has set them, there they stand, and quarrel not one with another." Again, he had them into his field, which he had sowed with wheat and corn; but when they beheld, the tops of all were cut off, and only the straw remained. He said again, "This ground was made rich, and was ploughed, and sowed; but what shall we do with the crop?" Then said Christiana, "Burn some, and make muck of the rest." Then said the Interpreter again, "Fruit, you see, is that thing you look for; and, for want of that, you send it to the fire, and to be trodden under foot of men. Beware that in this you condemn not yourselves." Then, as they were coming in from abroad, they espied a little robin with a great spider in his mouth. So the Interpreter said, "Look here." So they looked, and Mercy wondered; but Christiana said, "What a disparagement is it to such a pretty little bird as the robin-redbreast is; he being also a bird above many, that loveth to maintain a kind of sociableness with man! I had thought they had lived upon crumbs of bread, or upon other such harmless matter. I like him worse than I did." The Interpreter then replied, "This robin is an emblem very apt, to set forth some people by; for to sight they are as this robin, pretty of note, color, and conduct. They seem also to have a very great love for those that are sincere followers of Christ; and above all other to desire to associate with them, and to be in their company, as if they could live upon the good man's crumbs. They pretend, also, that therefore it is that they frequent the house of the godly and the appointments of the Lord; but, when they are by themselves, as the robin, they can catch and gobble up spiders, they can change their diet, drink wickedness, and swallow down sin like water." So, when they were come again into the house, because supper as yet was not ready, Christiana again desired that the Interpreter would either show, or tell of, some other things that were profitable. Then the Interpreter began, and said, "The fatter the sow is the more she desires the mire; the fatter the ox is, the more thoughtlessly he goes to the slaughter; and the more healthy the lusty man is, the more prone he is unto evil. There is a desire in women to go neat and fine; and it is a comely thing to be adorned with that which in God's sight is of great price. 'Tis easier watching a night or two than to sit up a whole year together; so 'tis easier for one to begin to profess well than to hold out as he should to the end. Every ship-master, when in a storm, will willingly cast that overboard which is of the smallest value in the vessel; but who will throw the best out first? None but he that feareth not God. One leak will sink a ship, and one sin will destroy a sinner. He that forgets his friends is ungrateful unto him but he that forgets his Saviour is unmerciful to himself. He that lives in sin, and looks for happiness hereafter, is like him that soweth weeds, and thinks to fill his barn with wheat or barley. If a man would live well, let him bring before him his last day, and make it always his company-keeper. Whispering, and change of thoughts, prove that sin is in the world. If the world, which God sets light by, is counted a thing of that worth with men, what is heaven, that God commendeth! If the life that is attended with so many troubles is so loth to be let go by us, what is the life above! Everybody will cry up the goodness of men; but who is there that is, as he should be, affected with the goodness of God?" When the Interpreter had done, he takes them out into his garden again, and had them to a tree, whose inside was all rotten and gone, and yet it grew and had leaves. Then said Mercy, "What means this?" "This tree," said he, "whose outside is fair, and whose inside is rotten, is that to which many may be compared that are in the garden of God, who with their mouths speak high in behalf of God, but indeed will do nothing for Him; whose leaves are fair, but their heart good for nothing but to be tinder for the devil's tinder-box." Now supper was ready, the table spread, and all things set on the board; so they sat down, and did eat when one had given thanks. And the Interpreter did usually entertain those that lodged with him with music at meals; so the minstrels played. There was also one that did sing, and a very fine voice he had. His song was this: "The Lord is only my support, And He that doth me feed; How can I then want anything Whereof I stand in need?" [Sidenote: DISCOURSE AT SUPPER] When the song and music were ended, the Interpreter asked Christiana what it was that first did move her to betake herself to a pilgrim's life. Christiana answered, "First, the loss of my husband came into my mind, at which I was heartily grieved; but all that was but natural affection. Then, after that, came the troubles and pilgrimages of my husband into my mind, and also how unkindly I had behaved to him as to that. So guilt took hold of my mind, and would have drawn me into the pond, to drown myself, but that, just at the right time, I had a dream of the well-being of my husband, and a letter sent by the King of that country where my husband dwells, to come to him. The dream and the letter together so wrought upon my mind, that they forced me to this way." INTER. But met you with no opposition afore you set out of doors? CHR. Yes, a neighbor of mine, one Mrs. Timorous: she was akin to him that would have persuaded my husband to go back for fear of the lions. She all-to-be-fooled me for, as she called it, my intended desperate adventure; she also urged what she could to dishearten me from it--the hardship and troubles that my husband met with in the way; but all this I got over pretty well. But a dream that I had of two ill-looked ones, that I thought did plot how to make me fail in my journey, that hath troubled me much: yea, it still runs in my mind, and makes me afraid of every one that I meet, lest they should meet me to do me a mischief, and to turn me out of my way. Yea, I may tell my Lord, though I would not have everybody know it, that, between this and the gate by which we got into the way, we were both so sorely attacked that we were made to cry out "murder;" and the two that made this attack upon us were like the two that I saw in my dream. Then said the Interpreter, "Thy beginning is good; thy latter end shall greatly increase." So he addressed himself to Mercy, and said unto her, "And what moved thee to come hither, sweetheart?" Then Mercy blushed and trembled, and for a while continued silent. INTER. Then said he, "Be not afraid; only believe, and speak thy mind." MER. So she began, and said, "Truly, sir, my lack of knowledge is that which makes me wish to be in silence, and that also that fills me with fears of coming short at last. I cannot tell of visions and dreams, as my friend Christiana can nor know I what it is to mourn for my refusing the advice of those that were good relations." INTER. What was it, then, dear heart, that hath prevailed with thee to do as thou hast done? MER. Why, when our friend here was packing up to be gone from our town, I and another went accidentally to see her. So we knocked at the door and went in. When we were within, and seeing what she was doing, we asked her what was her meaning. She said she was sent for to go to her husband; and then she up and told us how she had seen him in a dream, dwelling in a wonderful place, among immortals, wearing a crown, playing upon a harp, eating and drinking at his Prince's table, and singing praises to Him for bringing him thither, and so on. Now, methought while she was telling these things unto us, my heart burned within me. And I said in my heart, If this be true, I will leave my father and my mother, and the land of my birth, and will, if I may, go along with Christiana. So I asked her further of the truth of these things, and if she would let me go with her; for I saw now that there was no dwelling but with the danger of ruin any longer in our town. But yet I came away with a heavy heart; not for that I was unwilling to come away, but for that so many of my relations were left behind. And I am come with all the desire of my heart, and will go, if I may, with Christiana, unto her husband and his King. INTER. Thy setting out is good, for thou hast given credit to the truth: thou art a Ruth, who did, for the love she bare to Naomi and to the Lord her God, leave father and mother, and the land of her birth, to come out and go with a people that she knew not heretofore. The Lord bless thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. Now supper was ended, and preparation was made for bed: the women were laid singly alone, and the boys by themselves. Now, when Mercy was in bed, she could not sleep for joy, for that now her doubts of missing at last were removed farther from her than ever they were before. So she lay blessing and praising God, who had had such favor for her. In the morning they arose with the sun, and prepared themselves for their departure; but the Interpreter would have them tarry a while: "For," said he, "you must orderly go from hence." Then said he to the maid that first opened to them, "Take them and have them into the garden, to the bath, and there wash them, and make them clean from the soil which they have gathered by traveling." Then Innocent the maid took them and had them into the garden, and brought them to the bath; so she told them they must wash and be clean, for so her master would have the women to do that called at his house as they were going on pilgrimage. Then they went in and washed, yea, they and the boys and all; and they came out of that bath, not only sweet and clean, but also much enlivened, and strengthened in their joints. So, when they came in, they looked fairer a deal than when they went out to the washing. When they were returned out of the garden from the bath, the Interpreter took them, and looked upon them, and said unto them, "Fair as the moon." Then he called for the seal wherewith they used to be sealed that were washed in this bath. So the seal was brought, and he set his mark upon them, that they might be known in the places whither they were yet to go; and the mark was set between their eyes. This seal added greatly to their beauty, for it was an ornament to their faces. It also added to their glory, and made their countenances more like those of angels. [Sidenote: CLOTHED IN WHITE RAIMENT] Then said the Interpreter again to the maid that waited upon these women, "Go into the vestry, and fetch out garments for these people." So she went and fetched out white raiment and laid it down before him; so he commanded them to put it on; it was fine linen, white and clean. When the women were thus adorned, they seemed to be afraid one of the other, for that they could not see that glory each one had in herself, which they could see in each other. Now, therefore, they began to esteem each other better than themselves. For "You are fairer than I am," said one; and "You are more beautiful than I am," said another. The children also stood amazed, to see into what fashion they were brought. The Interpreter then called for a man-servant of his, one Great-heart, and bid him take sword, and helmet, and shield, and "Take these my daughters," said he, "and conduct them to the house called Beautiful, at which place they will rest next." So he took his weapons, and went before them; and the Interpreter said, "God speed!" Those also that belonged to the family sent them away with many a good wish. So they went on their way and sang: "This place hath been our second stage: Here we have heard and seen Those good things that from age to age To others hid have been. The Dunghill-raker, Spider, Hen, The Chicken, too, to me Have taught a lesson: let me then Conformèd to it be. "The Butcher, Garden, and the Field, The Robin and his bait, Also the Rotten Tree, doth yield Me argument of weight: To move me for to watch and pray, To strive to be sincere, To take my cross up day by day, And serve the Lord with fear." CHAPTER IV. THE CROSS AND THE CONSEQUENCES. Now, I saw in my dream that they went on, and Great-heart before them. So they went, and came to the place where Christian's burden fell off his back and tumbled into a sepulchre. Here, then, they made a pause, and here also they blessed God. "Now," said Christiana, "comes to my mind what was said to us at the gate, to wit, that we should have pardon by word and deed: by word, that is, by the promise; by deed, that is, in the way it was obtained. What the promise is, of that I know something; but what it is to have pardon by deed, or in the way that it was obtained, Mr. Great-heart, I suppose you know; wherefore, if you please, let us hear you speak thereof." [Sidenote: GREAT-HEART DISCOURSES] GREAT. Pardon by the deed done, is pardon obtained by some one for another that hath need thereof; not by the person pardoned, but in the way, saith another, in which I have obtained it. So then, to speak to the question at large, the pardon that you, and Mercy, and these boys have obtained, was obtained by another; to wit, by Him that let you in at the gate. And He hath obtained it in this double way: He has shown righteousness to cover you, and spilt His blood to wash you in. CHR. This is brave! Now I see that there was something to be learnt by our being pardoned by word and deed. Good Mercy, let us labor to keep this in mind; and, my children, do you remember it also. But, sir, was not this it that made my good Christian's burden fall from off his shoulders, and that made him give three leaps for joy? GREAT. Yes, it was the belief of this that cut off those strings that could not be cut by other means; and it was to give him proof of the virtue of this that he was suffered to carry his burden to the Cross. CHR. I thought so; for though my heart was lightsome and joyous before, yet it is ten times more lightsome and joyous now. And I am persuaded by what I have felt, though I have felt but little as yet, that, if the most burdened man in the World was here, and did see and believe as I now do, it would make his heart merry and blithe. GREAT. There is not only comfort and the ease of a burden brought to us by the sight and consideration of these, but an endeared love born in us by it; for who can, if he doth but once think that pardon comes, not only by promise, but thus, but be affected with the way and means of his redemption, and so love the Man that hath wrought it for him? CHR. True: methinks it makes my heart bleed, to think that He should bleed for me. Oh, Thou loving One! Oh, Thou blessed One! Thou deservest to have me: Thou hast bought me. Thou deservest to have me all: Thou hast paid for me ten thousand times more than I am worth. No marvel that this made the water stand in my husband's eyes, and that it made him trudge so nimbly on. I am persuaded he wished me with him; but, vile wretch that I was! I let him come all alone. Oh, Mercy, that thy father and mother were here! yea, and Mrs. Timorous also! Nay, I wish now with all my heart that here was Madam Wanton too. Surely, surely, their hearts would be affected; nor could the fear of the one, nor the powerful passions of the other, prevail with them to go home again, and refuse to become good pilgrims. GREAT. You speak now in the warmth of your affections: will it, think you, be always thus with you? Besides, this is not given to every one, nor to every one that did see your Jesus bleed. There were that stood by, and that saw the blood run from His heart to the ground, and yet were so far off this, that instead of lamenting, they laughed at Him, and instead of becoming His disciples, did harden their hearts against him. So that all that you have, my daughters, you have by a peculiar feeling made by a thinking upon what I have spoken to you. This you have, therefore, by a special grace. [Sidenote: SIMPLE, SLOTH, PRESUMPTION] Now, I saw still in my dream, that they went on till they were come to the place that Simple, and Sloth, and Presumption lay and slept in, when Christian went by on pilgrimage; and, behold, they were hanged up in irons a little way off on the other side. MER. Then said Mercy to him that was their guide and conductor, "What are those three men? and for what are they hanged there?" GREAT. These three men were men of very bad qualities: they had no mind to be pilgrims themselves, and whomsoever they could they hindered. They were for sloth and folly themselves, and whomsoever they could persuade with, they made so too, and withal taught them to presume that they should do well at last. They were asleep when Christian went by; and, now you go by, they are hanged. MER. But could they persuade any to be of their opinion? GREAT. Yes, they turned several out of the way. There was Slow-pace that they persuaded to do as they. They also prevailed with one Short-wind, with one No-heart, with one Linger-after-lust, and with one Sleepy-head, and with a young woman--her name was Dull--to turn out of the way and become as they. Besides, they brought up an ill report of your Lord, persuading others that He was a hard task-master. They also brought up an evil report of the good land, saying it was not half so good as some pretended it was. They also began to speak falsely about His servants, and to count the very best of them meddlesome, troublesome busy-bodies. Further, they would call the bread of God, husks; the comforts of His children, fancies; the travel labor of pilgrims, things to no purpose. CHR. "Nay," said Christiana, "if they were such, they never shall be bewailed by me: they have but what they deserve; and I think it is well that they hang so near the highway, that others may see and take warning. But had it not been well if their crimes had been engraven on some plate of iron or brass, and left here where they did their mischiefs, for a caution to other bad men?" GREAT. So it is, as you well may perceive, if you will go a little to the wall. MER. No, no: let them hang, and their names rot, and their crimes live for ever against them. I think it a high favor that they were hanged afore we came hither who knows, else, what they might have done to such poor women as we are? Then she turned it into a song, saying: "Now, then, you three, hang there, and be a sign To all that shall against the truth combine; And let him that comes after fear this end, If unto pilgrims he is not a friend. And thou, my soul, of all such men beware That unto holiness opposers are." Thus they went on till they came at the foot of the Hill Difficulty, where again their good friend Mr. Great-heart took an occasion to tell them of what happened there when Christian himself went by. So he had them first to the spring. "Lo," saith he, "this is the spring that Christian drank of before he went up this hill: and then it was clear and good; but now it is dirty with the feet of some that are not desirous that pilgrims here should quench their thirst." Thereat Mercy said, "And why are they so envious, I wonder?" But said their guide, "It will do if taken up and put into a vessel that is sweet and good; for then the dirt will sink to the bottom, and the water come out by itself more clear." Thus, therefore, Christiana and her companions were compelled to do. They took it up, and put it into an earthen pot, and so let it stand till the dirt was gone to the bottom, and then they drank thereof. [Sidenote: TWO DANGEROUS PATHS] Next he showed them the two by-ways that were at the foot of the hill, where Formality and Hypocrisy lost themselves. And said he, "These are dangerous paths. Two were here cast away when Christian came by; and although, as you see, these ways are since stopped up with chains, posts, and a ditch, yet there are that will choose to adventure here, rather than take the pains to go up this hill." CHR. The way of transgressors is hard. It is a wonder that they can get into those ways without danger of breaking their necks. GREAT. They will venture: yea, if at any time any of the King's servants doth happen to see them, and doth call unto them, and tell them that they are in the wrong ways, and do bid them beware the danger, then they will railingly return them answer, and say, "As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the King, we will not hearken unto thee; but we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth." Nay, if you look a little farther, you shall see that these ways are warned against enough, not only by these posts, and ditch, and chain, but also by being hedged up; yet they will choose to go there. CHR. They are idle: they love not to take pains: up-hill way is unpleasant to them. So it is fulfilled unto them as it is written, "The way of the slothful man is a hedge of thorns." Yea, they will rather choose to walk upon a snare than go up this hill, and the rest of this way to the City. Then they set forward, and began to go up the hill; and up the hill they went. But, before they got to the top, Christiana began to pant, and said, "I dare say this is a breathing hill: no marvel if they that love their ease more than their souls choose to themselves a smoother way." Then said Mercy, "I must sit down;" also the least of the children began to cry. "Come, come," said Great-heart, "sit not down here, for a little above is the Prince's arbor." Then took he the little boy by the hand, and led him up thereto. [Sidenote: THE ARBOR ON THE HILL] When they were come to the arbor, they were very willing to sit down, for they were all in a pelting heat. Then said Mercy, "How sweet is rest to them that labor, and how good is the Prince of pilgrims to provide such resting-places for them! Of this arbor I have heard much, but I never saw it before. But here let us beware of sleeping; for, as I have heared, for that it cost poor Christian dear." Then said Mr. Great-heart to the little ones, "Come, my pretty boys, how do you do? what think you now of going on pilgrimage?" "Sir," said the least, "I was almost beat out of heart; but I thank you for lending me a hand at my need. And I remember now what my mother has told me, namely, 'That the way to heaven is as up a ladder, and the way to hell is as down a hill.' But I rather go up the ladder to life, than the hill to death." Then said Mercy, "But the proverb, is, 'To go down the hill is easy.'" But James said (for that was his name), "The day is coming when, in my opinion, going down-hill will be the hardest of all." "That's a good boy," said his master; "thou hast given her a right answer." Then Mercy smiled, but the little boy did blush. CHR. "Come," said Christiana, "will you eat a bit, a little to sweeten your mouths, while you sit here to rest your legs? for I have here a piece of pomegranate, which Mr. Interpreter put in my hand just when I came out of his doors: he gave me also a piece of a honeycomb, and a little bottle of spirits." "I thought he gave you something," said Mercy, "because he called you aside." "Yes, so he did," said the other; "but, Mercy, it shall still be as I said it should, when at first we came from home; thou shalt be a sharer in all the good that I have, because thou so willingly didst become my companion." Then she gave to them, and they did eat, both Mercy and the boys. And said Christiana to Mr. Great-heart, "Sir, will you do as we and take some refreshment?" But he answered, "You are going on pilgrimage, and presently I shall return; much good may have do to you: at home I eat the same every day." Now, when they had eaten and drunk, and had chatted a little longer, their guide said to them, "The day wears away; if you think good, let us prepare to be going." So they got up to go, and the little boys went before; but Christiana forgot to take her bottle of spirits with her, so she sent her little boy back to fetch it. Then said Mercy, "I think this is a losing place: here Christian lost his roll, and here Christiana left her bottle behind her. Sir, what is the cause of this?" So their guide made answer, and said, "The cause is sleep or forgetfulness: some sleep when they should keep awake, and some forget when they should remember. And this is the very cause why often at the resting-places some pilgrims, in some things, come off losers. Pilgrims should watch, and remember what they have already received, under their greatest enjoyments; but, for want of doing so, ofttimes their rejoicing ends in tears, and their sunshine in a cloud: witness the story of Christian at this place." [Sidenote: MISTRUST AND TIMOROUS] When they were come to the place where Mistrust and Timorous met Christian, to persuade him to go back for fear of the lions, they perceived as it were a stage, and before it, towards the road, a broad plate, with a copy of verses written thereon, and underneath the reason of the raising up of that stage in that place rendered. The verses were these: "Let him that sees this stage take heed Unto his heart and tongue; Lest, if he do not, here he speed As some have, long agone." The words underneath the verses were, "This stage was built to punish such upon, who, through timorousness or mistrust, shall be afraid to go farther on pilgrimage. Also on this stage both Mistrust and Timorous were burned through the tongue with a hot iron, for endeavoring to hinder Christian in his journey." Then said Mercy, "This is much like to the saying of the Beloved, 'What shall be given unto thee, or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue? Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper.'" So they went on till they came within sight of the lions. Now, Mr. Great-heart was a strong man, so he was not afraid of a lion. But yet, when they were come up to the place where the lions were, the boys, that went before, were glad to cringe behind, for they were afraid of the lions so they stepped back, and went behind. At this their guide smiled, and said, "How now, my boys! do you love to go before when no danger doth approach, and love to come behind so soon as the lions appear?" Now, as they went up, Mr. Great-heart drew his sword, with intent to make a way for the pilgrims in spite of the lions. Then there appeared one that, it seems, had taken upon him to back the lions; and he said to the pilgrims' guide, "What is the cause of your coming hither?" Now, the name of that man was Grim, or Bloody-man, because of his slaying of pilgrims; and he was of the race of the giants. GREAT. Then said the pilgrims' guide, "These women and children are going on pilgrimage, and this is the way they must go; and go it they shall, in spite of thee and the lions." GRIM. This is not their way, neither shall they go therein. I am come forth to withstand them, and to that end will back the lions. [Sidenote: GREAT-HEART OVERCOMES GRIM] Now, to say truth, by reason of the fierceness of the lions, and of the grim carriage of him that did back them, this way had of late lain much unoccupied, and was almost all grown over with grass. CHR. Then said Christiana, "Though the highways have been unoccupied heretofore, and though the travellers have been made in times past to walk through by-paths, it must not be so now I am risen. 'Now I am risen a mother in Israel.'" GRIM. Then he swore by the lions, "But it should," and therefore bid them turn aside, for they should not passage there. But Great-heart their guide made first his approach unto Grim, and laid so heavily at him with his sword, that he forced him to a retreat. GRIM. Then said he that attempted to back the lions, "Will you slay me upon mine own ground?" GREAT. It is the King's highway that we are in, and in His way it is that thou hast placed thy lions; but these women, and these children, though weak, shall hold on their way in spite of thy lions. And, with that, he gave him again a downright blow, and brought him upon his knees. With this blow he also broke his helmet, and with the next he cut off an arm. Then did the giant roar so hideously, that his voice frighted the women, and yet they were glad to see him lie sprawling upon the ground. Now, the lions were chained, and so of themselves could do nothing. Wherefore, when old Grim, that intended to back them, was dead, Mr. Great-heart said to the pilgrims, "Come now, and follow me, and no hurt shall happen to you from the lions." They therefore went on; but the women trembled as they passed by them: the boys also looked as if they would die; but they all got by without further hurt. CHAPTER V. THE PALACE BEAUTIFUL. Now, then, they were within sight of the Porter's lodge, and they soon came up unto it; but they made the more haste after this to go thither, because it is dangerous travelling there in the night. So, when they were come to the gate, the guide knocked, and the Porter cried, "Who is there?" But as soon as the guide had said "It is I," he knew his voice, and came down, for the guide had oft before that come thither as a conductor of pilgrims. When he was come down he opened the gate; and, seeing the guide stand just before it (for he saw not the women, for they were behind him), he said unto him, "How now, Mr. Great-heart! what is your business here so late to-night?" "I have brought," said he, "some pilgrims hither, where, by my Lord's commandment, they must lodge. I had been here some time ago, had I not been opposed by the giant that did use to back the lions; but I, after a long and tedious combat with him, have cut him off, and have brought the pilgrims hither in safety." PORT. Will you not go in, and stay till morning? GREAT. No, I will return to my Lord to-night. CHR. Oh, sir, I know not how to be willing you should leave us in our pilgrimage: you have been so faithful and so loving to us, you have fought so stoutly for us, you have been so hearty in counselling of us, that I shall never forget your favor towards us. MER. Then said Mercy, "Oh that we might have thy company to our journey's end! How can such poor women as we hold out in a way so full of troubles as this way is, without a friend and defender?" JAMES. Then said James, the youngest of the boys, "Pray, sir, be persuaded to go with us, and help us, because we are so weak, and the way so dangerous as it is." GREAT. I am at my Lord's commandment. If he shall allot me to be your guide quite through, I will willingly wait upon you. But here you failed at first; for when he bid me come thus far with you, then you should have begged me of him to have gone quite through with you, and he would have granted your request. However, at present I must withdraw; and so, good Christiana, Mercy, and my brave children, adieu. Then the Porter, Mr. Watchful, asked Christiana of her country and of her kindred. And she said, "I come from the City of Destruction. I am a widow woman, and my husband is dead: his name was Christian, the pilgrim." "How!" said the Porter, "was he your husband?" [Sidenote: A JOYFUL RECEPTION] "Yes," said she, "and these are his children, and this" (pointing to Mercy) "is one of my townswomen." Then the Porter rang his bell, as at such times he is wont, and there came to the door one of the maids, whose name was Humble-mind; and to her the Porter said, "Go, tell it within that Christiana, the wife of Christian, and her children, are come hither on pilgrimage." She went in, therefore, and told it. But oh, what a noise for gladness was there within when the maid did but drop that word out of her mouth! So they came with haste to the Porter, for Christiana stood still at the door. Then some of those within said unto her, "Come in, Christiana, come in, thou wife of that good man; come in, thou blessed woman; come in, with all that are with thee." So she went in, and they followed her that were her children and her companions. Now, when they were gone in, they were had into a very large room, where they were bidden to sit down. So they sat down, and the chief of the house were called to see and welcome the guests. Then they came in and understanding who they were did salute each other with a kiss, and said, "Welcome, ye that bear the grace of God; welcome to us, your friends!" Now, because it was somewhat late, and because the pilgrims were weary with their journey, and also made faint with the sight of the fight, and of the terrible lions, therefore they desired, as soon as might be, to prepare to go to rest. "Nay," said those of the family, "refresh yourselves first with a morsel of meat;" for they had prepared for them a lamb, with the accustomed sauce belonging thereto, for the Porter had heard before of their coming, and had told it to them within. So, when they had supped, and ended their prayer with a psalm, they desired they might go to rest. "But let us," said Christiana, "if we may be so bold as to choose, be in that chamber that was my husband's when he was here." So they had them up thither, and they lay all in a room. When they were at rest, Christiana and Mercy entered into discourse about things that were convenient. CHR. Little did I think once, when my husband went on pilgrimage, that I should ever have followed. MER. And you as little thought of lying in his bed, and in his chamber to rest, as you do now. CHR. And much less did I ever think of seeing his face with comfort, and of worshipping the Lord the King with him; and yet now I believe I shall. MER. Hark! don't you hear a noise? CHR. Yes, it is, as I believe, a noise of music, for joy that we are here. MER. Wonderful! Music in the house, music in the heart, and music also in heaven, for joy that we are here! [Sidenote: MERCY'S DREAM] Thus they talked a while, and then betook themselves to sleep. So in the morning, when they were awake, Christiana said to Mercy, "What was the matter, that you did laugh in your sleep to-night? I suppose you were in a dream." MER. So I was, and a sweet dream it was; but are you sure I laughed? CHR. Yes, you laughed heartily; but, prithee, Mercy, tell me thy dream. MER. I was dreaming that I sat all alone in a solitary place, and was bemoaning of the hardness of my heart. Now, I had not sat there long, but methought many were gathered about me to see me, and to hear what it was that I said. So they hearkened, and I went on bemoaning the hardness of my heart. At this, some of them laughed at me, some called me fool, and some thrust me about. With that, methought I looked up, and saw one coming with wings towards me. So he came directly to me, and said, "Mercy, what aileth thee?" Now, when he had heard me make my complaint, he said, "Peace be to thee;" he also wiped mine eyes with his handkerchief, and clad me in silver and gold. He put a chain about my neck, and ear-rings in mine ears, and a beautiful crown upon my head. Then he took me by the hand, and said, "Mercy, come after me." So he went up, and I followed, till we came to a golden gate. Then he knocked; and when they within opened, the man went in, and I followed him up to a throne upon which One sat; and He said to me, "Welcome, daughter!" The place looked bright and twinkling, like the stars, or rather like the sun; and I thought that I saw your husband there. So I awoke from my dream. But did I laugh? CHR. Laugh! ay, and well you might, to see yourself so well. For you must give me leave to tell you, that I believe it was a good dream; and that, as you have begun to find the first part true, so you shall find the second at last. "God speaks once, yea, twice, yet man perceiveth it not; in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed." We need not, when abed, to lie awake to talk with God: He can visit us while we sleep, and cause us then to hear His voice. Our heart oftentimes wakes when we sleep; and God can speak to that, either by words, by proverbs, or by signs and similitudes, as well as if one was awake. MER. Well, I am glad of my dream; for I hope ere long to see it fulfilled, to the making of me laugh again. CHR. I think it is now high time to rise, and to know what we must do. MER. Pray, if they invite us to stay, a while, let us willingly accept of the proffer. I am the willinger to stay a while here, to grow better acquainted with these maids. Methinks Prudence, Piety, and Charity have very lovely and sober countenances. CHR. We shall see what they will do. So, when they were up and ready, they came down; and they asked one another of their rest, and if it was comfortable or not. MER. "Very good," said Mercy; "it was one of the best nights' lodging that ever I had in my life." Then said Prudence and Piety, "If you will be persuaded to stay here a while, you shall have what the house will afford." CHAR. "Ay, and that with a very good will," said Charity. So they consented, and stayed there about a month, or above, and became very profitable one to another. [Sidenote: MR. BRISK VISITS MERCY] Now, by that these pilgrims had been at this place a week, Mercy had a visitor that pretended some good-will unto her; and his name was Mr. Brisk; a man of some breeding, and that pretended to religion, but a man that stuck very close to the world. So he came once or twice, or more, to Mercy, and offered love unto her. Now, Mercy was a fair countenance, and therefore the more alluring. Her mind also was, to be always busying of herself in doing; for, when she had nothing to do for herself, she would be making of hose and garments for others, and would bestow them upon them that had need. And Mr. Brisk, not knowing where or how she disposed of what she made, seemed to be greatly taken, for that he found her never idle. "I will warrant her a good housewife," quoth he to himself. Mercy then told the matter to the maidens that were of the house, and inquired of them concerning him; for they did know him better than she. So they told her that he was a very busy young man, and one who pretended to serve the Lord, but was, as they feared, a stranger to the power of that which is good. "Nay, then," said Mercy, "I will look no more on him; for I purpose never to have a clog to my soul." Prudence then replied that "There needed no great matter of discouragement to be given to him; her continuing so as she had begun to do for the poor would quickly cool his courage." So, the next time he comes, he finds her at her old work, a-making of things for the poor. Then said he, "What! always at it?" "Yes," said she, "either for myself or for others." "And what canst thou earn a day?" quoth he. "I do these things," said she, "that I may be rich in good works, laying up in store for myself a good foundation against the time to come, that I may lay hold on eternal life." "Why, prithee, what doest thou with them?" said he. "Clothe the naked," said she. With that, his countenance fell. So he forbore to come at her again. And when he was asked the reason why, he said that "Mercy was a pretty lass, but troubled with too much working for others." [Sidenote: MERCY REJECTS THE SUITOR] When he had left her, Prudence said, "Did I not tell thee that Mr. Brisk would soon forsake thee? yea, he will raise up an ill report of thee; for, notwithstanding his pretence to serve bad and his seeming love to Mercy, yet Mercy and he are of tempers so different, that I believe they will never come together." MER. I might have had husbands afore now, though I spake not of it to any; but they were such as did not like my ways, though never did any of them find fault with my person. So they and I could not agree. PRUD. Mercy in our days is little set by, any further than as to its name: the practice, which is set forth by thy works, there are but few that can abide. MER. "Well," said Mercy, "if nobody will have me, I will die a maid, or my works shall be to me as a husband; for I cannot change my nature; and to have one that lies cross to me in this, that I purpose never to admit of as long as I live. I had a sister, named Bountiful, that was married to one of these selfish people; but he and she could never agree; but, because my sister was resolved to do as she had begun, that is, to show kindness to the poor, therefore her husband first cried her down in public, and then turned her out of his doors." PRUD. And yet he was a church-member, I warrant you? MER. Yes, such a one as he was; and of such as he the world is now full; but I am for none of them at all. [Sidenote: MATTHEW FALLS SICK] Now Matthew, the eldest son of Christiana, fell sick, and his sickness was sore upon him for he was much pained in his bowels; so that he was with it, at times, pulled as it were both ends together. There dwelt also not far from thence one Mr. Skill, an ancient and well-approved physician. So Christiana desired it and they sent for him, and he came. When he was entered the room, and had a little observed the boy, he concluded that he was sick of the gripes. Then he said to his mother, "What diet has Matthew of late fed upon?" "Diet!" said Christiana, "nothing but that which is wholesome." The physician answered, "This boy has been tampering with something that lies in his stomach undigested, and that will not away without means. And I tell you he must be purged, or else he will die." SAM. Then said Samuel, "Mother, what was that which my brother did gather up and eat, so soon as we were come from the gate that is at the head of this way? You know that there was an orchard on the left hand, on the other side of the wall, and some of the trees hung over the wall, and my brother did pull down the branches and did eat." CHR. "True, my child," said Christiana, "he did take thereof and did eat; naughty boy as he was, I did chide him, and yet he would eat thereof." SKILL. I knew he had eaten something that was not wholesome food; and that food, to wit, that fruit, is even the most hurtful of all. It is the fruit of Beelzebub's orchard. I do marvel that none did warn you of it: many have died thereof. CHR. Then Christiana began to cry, and she said, "Oh, naughty boy! and oh, careless mother! What shall I do for my son?" SKILL. Come, do not be too much dejected; the boy may do well again, but he must purge and vomit. CHR. Pray, sir, try the utmost of your skill with him, whatever it costs. SKILL. Nay, I hope I shall be reasonable. [Sidenote: DOCTOR SKILL PRESCRIBES] So he made him a purge, but it was too weak; it was said, it was made of the blood of a goat, the ashes of an heifer, and with some of the juice of hyssop, etc. When Mr. Skill had seen that that purge was too weak, he made him one to the purpose. It was made [the name was written in Latin] _ex carne et sanguine Christi_;[8] (you know physicians give strange medicines to their patients)--and it was made up into pills, with a promise or two, and a proportionable quantity of salt. Now, he was to take them three at a time, fasting, in half a quarter of a pint of the tears of sorrow. [8] That is, "of the body and blood of Christ." When this potion was prepared and brought to the boy, he was loth to take it, though torn with the gripes as if he should be pulled in pieces. "Come, come," said the physician, "you must take it." "It goes against my stomach," said the boy. "I must have you take it," said his mother. "I shall vomit it up again," said the boy. "Pray, sir," said Christiana to Mr. Skill, "how does it taste?" "It has no ill taste," said the doctor; and with that she touched one of the pills with the tip of her tongue. "O Matthew," said she, "this potion is sweeter than honey. If thou lovest thy mother, if thou lovest thy brothers, if thou lovest Mercy, if thou lovest thy life, take it." So, with much ado, after a short prayer for the blessing of God upon it, he took it, and it wrought kindly with him. It caused him to purge, it caused him to sleep and rest quietly; it put him into a fine heat and breathing sweat, and did quite rid him of his gripes. So, in a little time he got up, and walked about with a staff, and would go from room to room, and talk with Prudence, Piety, and Charity, of his sickness, and how he was healed. So, when the boy was healed, Christiana asked Mr. Skill, saying, "Sir, what will content you for your pains and care to and of my child?" And he said, "You must pay the Master of the College of Physicians, according to the rules made in that case and provided." CHR. "But, sir," said she, "what is this pill good for else?" SKILL. It is an universal pill: it is good against all the diseases that pilgrims are troubled with; and when it is well prepared, it will keep good time out of mind. CHR. Pray, sir, make me up twelve boxes of them; for if I can get these, I will never take other physic. SKILL. These pills are good to prevent diseases, as well as to cure when one is sick. Yea, I dare say it, and stand to it, that if a man will but use this physic as he should, it will make him live for ever. But, good Christiana, thou must give these pills no other way than as I have prescribed; for if you do, they will do no good. So he gave unto Christiana physic for herself and her boys, and for Mercy; and bid Matthew take heed how he ate any more green plums; and kissed them and went his way. It was told you before, that Prudence bid the boys, if at any time they would, they should ask her some questions that might be profitable, and she would say something to them. MATT. Then Matthew, who had been sick, asked her, "Why, for the most part, physic should be bitter to our palates?" PRUD. To show how unwelcome the Word of God, and the effects thereof, are to a sinful heart. MATT. Why does physic, if it does good, purge and cause that we vomit? PRUD. To show that the Word, when it works effectually, cleanseth the heart and mind. For look, what the one doth to the body, the other doth to the soul. MATT. What should we learn by seeing the flame of our fire go upwards, and by seeing the beams and sweet influences of the sun strike downwards? PRUD. By the going up of the fire, we are taught to ascend to heaven by fervent and hot desires. And by the sun's sending his heat, beams, and sweet influences downwards, we are taught that the Saviour of the world, though high reaches down with His grace and love to us below. MATT. Where have the clouds their water? PRUD. Out of the sea. MATT. What may we learn from that? PRUD. That ministers should fetch their teaching from God. MATT. Why do they empty themselves upon the earth? PRUD. To show that ministers should give out what they know of God to the world. MATT. Why is the rainbow caused by the sun? PRUD. To show that the promise of God's grace is made sure to us in Christ. MATT. Why do the springs come from the sea to us through the earth? PRUD. To show that the grace of God comes to us through the body of Christ. MATT. Why do some of the springs rise out of the tops of high hills? PRUD. To show that the spirit of grace shall spring up in some that are great and mighty, as well as in many that are poor and low. MATT. Why doth the fire fasten upon the candle-wick? PRUD. To show that, unless grace doth kindle upon the heart, there will be no true light of life in us. MATT. Why is the wick, and tallow, and all, spent to maintain the light of the candle? PRUD. To show that body, and soul, and all, should be at the service of, and spend themselves to maintain in good condition, that grace of God that is in us. MATT. Why doth the pelican pierce her own breast with her bill? PRUD. To nourish her young ones with her blood, and thereby to show that Christ the Blessed so loveth His young (His people), as to save them from death by His blood. MATT. What may one learn by hearing the cock to crow? PRUD. Learn to remember Peter's sin and Peter's sorrow. The cock's crowing shows also that day is coming on: let, then, the crowing of the cock put thee in mind of that last and terrible day of judgment. Now, about this time, their month was out; wherefore they signified to those of the house that it was convenient for them to be up and going. Then said Joseph to his mother, "It is convenient that you forget not to send to the house of Mr. Interpreter, to pray him to grant that Mr. Great-heart should be sent unto us, that he may be our conductor the rest of our way." "Good boy," said she, "I had almost forgot." So she drew up a petition, and prayed Mr. Watchful the Porter to send it by some fit man to her good friend Mr. Interpreter, who, when it was come, and he had seen the contents of the petition, said to the messenger, "Go, tell them that I will send him." When the family where Christiana was saw that they had a purpose to go forward, they called the whole house together, to give thanks to their King for sending of them such profitable guests as these. Which done, they said unto Christiana, "And shall we not show thee something, according, as our custom is to do to pilgrims, on which thou mayest meditate when thou art upon the way?" [Sidenote: THE PILGRIMS VIEW CURIOSITIES] So they took Christiana, her children, and Mercy, into the closet, and showed them one of the apples that Eve did eat of, and that which she also did give to her husband, and that for the eating of which they were both turned out of Paradise, and asked her what she thought that was. Then Christiana said, "It is food or poison, I know not which." So they opened the matter to her, and she held up her hands and wondered. Then they had her to a place, and showed her Jacob's ladder. Now, at that time there were some angels ascending upon it. So Christiana looked and looked, to see the angels go up, and so did the rest of the company. Then they were going into another place, to show them something else; but James said to his mother, "Pray bid them stay here a little longer, for this is a curious sight." So they turned again, and stood feeding their eyes with this so pleasing a prospect. After this they had them into a place where did hang up a golden anchor. So they bid Christiana take it down; "For," said they, "you shall have it with you, for it is of absolute necessity that you should, that you may lay hold of that within the veil, and stand steadfast, in case you should meet with turbulent weather." So they were glad thereof. Then they took them, and had them to the mount upon which Abraham our father had offered up Isaac his son, and showed them the altar, the wood, the fire, and the knife; for they remain to be seen to this very day. When they had seen it, they held up their hands, and blessed themselves, and said, "Oh! what a man for love to his Master, and for denial to himself, was Abraham!" After they had showed them all these things, Prudence took them into the dining-room, where stood a pair of excellent virginals;[9] so she played upon them, and turned what she had showed them into this excellent song, saying: "Eve's apple we have showèd you-- Of that be you aware; You have seen Jacob's ladder too, Upon which angels are. An anchor you receivèd have: But let not these suffice, Until with Abra'm, you have gave Your best a sacrifice." [9] An instrument of music, used in the time of John Bunyan, somewhat like a very small piano. [Sidenote: GREAT-HEART CONDUCTS THEM] Now, about this time, one knocked at the door. So the Porter opened, and behold, Mr. Great-heart was there; but when he was come in, what joy was there! For it came now fresh again into their minds, how, but a while ago, he had slain old Grim Bloody-man, the giant, and had delivered them from the lions. Then said Mr. Great-heart to Christiana and to Mercy, "My lord has sent each of you a bottle of wine, and also some parched corn, together with a couple of pomegranates; he has also sent the boys some figs and raisins, to refresh you in your way." Then they addressed themselves to their journey; and Prudence and Piety went along with them. When they came at the gate, Christiana asked the Porter if any one of late went by. He said, "No; only one some time since, who also told me that, of late, there had been a great robbery committed on the King's highway as you go. But he saith the thieves are taken, and will shortly be tried for their lives." Then Christiana and Mercy were afraid; but Matthew said, "Mother, fear nothing as long as Mr. Great-heart is to go with us, and to be our conductor." Then said Christiana to the Porter, "Sir, I am much obliged to you for all the kindnesses that you have shown me since I came hither, and also for that you have been so loving and kind to my children. I know not how to gratify your kindness; wherefore, pray, as a token of my respects to you, accept of this small mite." So she put a gold angel[10] in his hand; and he made her a low obeisance, and said, "Let thy garments be always white, and let thy head want no ointment. Let Mercy live and not die, and let not her works be few." And to the boys he said, "Do you flee youthful passions, and follow after godliness with them that are grave and wise, so shall you put gladness into your mother's heart, and obtain praise of all that are sober-minded." [10] An old English coin, bearing the figure of an angel. So they thanked the Porter, and departed. Now I saw in my dream that they went forward until they were come to the brow of the hill; where Piety, bethinking herself, cried out, "Alas! I have forgot what I intended to bestow upon Christiana and her companions: I will go back and fetch it." So she ran and fetched it. While she was gone, Christiana thought she heard, in a grove a little way off on the right hand, a most curious melodious note, with words much like these: "Through all my life Thy favor is So frankly showed to me, That in Thy house for evermore My dwelling-place shall be." And listening still, she thought she heard another answer it, saying: "For why? the Lord our God is good; His mercy is for ever sure; His truth at all times firmly stood, And shall from age to age endure." So Christiana asked Prudence what it was that made those curious notes. "They are," said she, "our country birds: they sing these notes but seldom, except it be at the spring, when the flowers appear and the sun shines warm, and then you may hear them all day long. I often," said she, "go out to hear them; we also ofttimes keep them tame in our house. They are very fine company for us when we are melancholy; also they make the woods, and groves, and solitary places, places desirable to be in." By this time Piety was come again. So she said to Christiana, "Look here: I have brought thee a plan of all those things that thou hast seen at our house, upon which thou mayest look when thou findest thyself forgetful, and call those things again to remembrance for thy teaching and comfort." CHAPTER VI. THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. Now they began to go down the hill into the Valley of Humiliation. It was a steep hill, and the way was slippery; but they were very careful, so they got down pretty well. When they were down in the valley, Piety said to Christiana, "This is the place where Christian, your husband, met with the foul fiend Apollyon, and where they had that dreadful fight that they had: I know you cannot but have heard thereof. But be of good courage: as long as you have here Mr. Great-heart to be your guide and conductor, we hope you will fare the better." So when these two had given the pilgrims unto the care of their guide, he went forward, and they went after. GREAT. Then said Mr. Great-heart, "We need not to be so afraid of this valley, for here is nothing to hurt us, unless we procure it to ourselves. It is true that Christian did here meet with Apollyon, with whom he had also a sore combat; but that fray was the fruit of those slips that he got in his going down the hill; for they that get slips there, must look for combats here. And hence it is that this valley has got so hard a name. For the common people, when they hear that some frightful thing has befallen such a one in such a place, are of an opinion that that place is haunted with some foul fiend or evil spirit; when, alas! it is for the fruit of their doing that such things do befall them there. This Valley of Humiliation is of itself as fruitful a place as any the crow flies over; and I am persuaded, if we could hit upon it, we might find, somewhere hereabouts, something that might give us an account why Christian was so hardly beset in this place." Then James said to his mother, "Lo, yonder stands a pillar, and it looks as if something was written thereon: let us go and see what it is." So they went, and found there written, "Let Christian's slips before he came hither, and the battles that he met with in this place, be a warning to those that come after." "Lo!" said their guide, "did not I tell you that there was something hereabouts that would give intimation of the reason why Christian was so hard beset in this place?" Then turning himself to Christiana, he said, "No disgrace to Christian, more than to many others whose hap and loss his was; for it is easier going up than down this hill; and that can be said but of few hills in all these parts of the world. But we will leave the good man: he is at rest; he also had a brave victory over his enemy. Let Him that dwelleth above grant that we fare no worse, when we come to be tried, than he. "But we will come again to this Valley of Humiliation. It is the best and most fruitful piece of ground in all these parts. It is fat ground, and, as you see, consisteth much in meadows; and if a man was to come here in the summer-time, as we do now, if he knew not anything before thereof, and if he also delighted himself in the sight of his eyes, he might see that that would be delightful to him. Behold how green this valley is, also how beautified with lilies! I have also known many laboring men that have got good estates in this valley of Humiliation; for 'God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.' Indeed, it is a very fruitful soil, and doth bring forth by handfuls. Some also have wished that the next way to their Father's house were here, that they might be troubled no more with either hills or mountains to go over; but the way is the way, and there's an end." Now, as they were going along and talking, they espied a boy feeding his father's sheep. The boy was in very mean clothes, but of a very fresh and well-favored countenance; and as he sat by himself he sang. "Hark," said Mr. Great-heart, "to what the shepherd's boy saith." So they hearkened, and he said: "He that is down needs fear no fall He that is low, no pride; He that is humble ever shall Have God to be his guide. "I am content with what I have Little be it or much: And, Lord, contentment still I crave Because Thou savest much. "Fulness to such a burden is, That go on pilgrimage; Here little, and hereafter bliss, Is best from age to age." Then said their guide, "Do you hear him? I will dare to say that this boy lives a merrier life, and wears more of that herb called heart's-ease in his bosom, than he that is clad in silk and velvet. But we will proceed in our account of this valley. "In this valley our Lord formerly had His country house: He loved much to be here. He loved also to walk these meadows, for He found the air was pleasant. Besides, here a man shall be free from the noise and from the hurryings of this life. All states are full of noise and confusion, only the Valley of Humiliation is that empty and solitary place. Here a man shall not be so let and hindered in his thoughts as in other places he is apt to be. This is a valley that nobody walks in but those that love a pilgrim's life. And though Christian had the hard hap to meet here with Apollyon, and to enter with him into a brisk encounter, yet I must tell you that in former times men have met with angels here, have found pearls here, and have in this place found the words of life. "Did I say, our Lord had here in former days His country house, and that He loved here to walk? I will add, in this place, and to the people that love to tread these grounds, He has left a yearly sum of money, to be faithfully paid them at certain seasons, for their support by the way, and for their further encouragement to go on their pilgrimage." SAM. Now, as they went on, Samuel said to Mr. Great-heart, "Sir, I perceive that in this valley my father and Apollyon had their battle; but whereabout was the fight? for I perceive this valley is large." [Sidenote: FORGETFUL GREEN] GREAT. Your father had that battle with Apollyon at a place yonder before us, in a narrow passage just beyond Forgetful Green. And, indeed, that place is the most dangerous place in all these parts. For, if at any time the pilgrims meet with any brunt, it is when they forget what favors they have received, and how unworthy they are of them. This is the place also where others have been hard put to it. But more of the place when we are come to it; for I persuade myself, that to this day there remains either some sign of the battle, or some monument to testify that such a battle there was fought. MER. Then said Mercy, "I think that I am as well in this valley as I have been anywhere else in all our journey: the place, methinks, suits with my spirit. I love to be in such places, where there is no rattling with coaches nor rumbling with wheels. Methinks here one may, without much trouble, be thinking what he is, whence he came, what he has done, and to what the King has called him. Here one may think and break at heart, and melt in one's spirit, until one's eyes become like the fish-pools in Heshbon. They that go rightly through this Valley of Baca, make it a well; the rain that God sends down from heaven upon them that are here also filleth the pools. This valley is that from whence also the King will give to His their vineyards; and they that go through it shall sing, as Christian did, for all he met with Apollyon." GREAT. "'Tis true," said their guide; "I have gone through this valley many a time, and never was better than when here. I have also been a conductor to several pilgrims, and they have confessed the same. 'To this man will I look,' saith the King, 'even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word.'" Now they were come to the place where the afore-mentioned battle was fought. Then said the guide to Christiana, her children, and Mercy, "This is the place; on this ground Christian stood, and up there came Apollyon against him. And look--did not I tell you?--here is some of your husband's blood upon these stones to this day. Behold, also, how here and there are yet to be seen upon the place some of the shivers of Apollyon's broken darts. See also how they did beat the ground with their feet as they fought, to make good their places against each other; how also, with their by-blows, they did split the very stones in pieces. Verily, Christian did here play the man, and showed himself as stout as could, had he been there, even Hercules himself. When Apollyon was beat, he made his retreat to the next valley, that is called the Valley of the Shadow of Death, unto which we shall come soon. Lo, yonder also stands a monument, on which is engraven this battle, and Christian's victory, to his fame throughout all ages." [Sidenote: VALLEY OF SHADOW OF DEATH] So, because it stood just on the way-side before them, they stepped to it, and read the writing, which word for word was this: "Hard by here was a battle fought, Most strange, and yet most true; Christian and Apollyon sought Each other to subdue. "The man so bravely played the man, He made the fiend to fly; Of which a monument I stand, The same to testify." When they had passed by this place, they came upon the borders of the Shadow of Death. This valley was longer than the other; a place also most strangely haunted with evil things, as many are able to testify; but these women and children went the better through it, because they had daylight, and because Mr. Great-heart was their conductor. When they were entered upon this valley, they thought that they heard a groaning, as of dead men--a very great groaning. They thought also that they did hear words of moaning spoken, as of some in extreme torment. These things made the boys to quake; the women also looked pale and wan; but their guide bid them be of good comfort. So they went on a little farther, and they thought that they felt the ground begin to shake under them, as if some hollow place was there; they heard also a kind of hissing, as of serpents; but nothing as yet appeared. Then said the boys, "Are we not yet at the end of this doleful place?" But the guide also bid them be of good courage, and look well to their feet; "lest haply," said he, "you be taken in some snare." Now James began to be sick; but I think the cause thereof was fear; so his mother gave him some of that glass of spirits that had been given her at the Interpreter's house, and three of the pills that Mr. Skill had prepared; and the boy began to revive. Thus they went on till they came to about the middle of the valley; and then Christiana said, "Methinks I see something yonder upon the road before us, a thing of such a shape as I have not seen." Then said Joseph, "Mother, what is it?" "An ugly thing, child, an ugly thing," said she. "But, mother, what is it like?" said he. "'Tis like I cannot tell what," said she, "and now it is but a little way off." Then said she, "It is nigh!" [Sidenote: RESIST THE DEVIL] "Well, well," said Mr. Great-heart, "let them that are most afraid keep close to me." So the fiend came on, and the conductor met it; but, when it was just come to him, it vanished to all their sights. Then remembered they what had been said some time ago, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." They went therefore on, as being a little refreshed. But they had not gone far before Mercy, looking behind her, saw, as she thought, something most like a lion, and it came a great padding pace after; and it had a hollow voice of roaring, and at every roar that it gave it made all the valley echo, and all their hearts to ache, save the heart of him that was their guide. So it came up, and Mr. Great-heart went behind, and put the pilgrims all before him. The lion also came on apace, and Mr. Great-heart addressed himself to give him battle. But, when he saw that it was determined that resistance should be made, he also drew back, and came no farther. They then went on again, and their conductor did go before them, till they came to a place where was cast up a pit the whole breadth of the way; and before they could be prepared to go over that, a great mist and darkness fell upon them, so that they could not see. Then said the pilgrims, "Alas! what now shall we do?" But their guide made answer, "Fear not, stand still, and see what an end will be put to this also." So they stayed there, because their path was marred. They then also thought that they did hear more apparently the noise and rushing of the enemies; the fire also, and the smoke of the pit, were much easier to be discerned. Then said Christiana to Mercy, "Now I see what my poor husband went through. I have heard much of this place, but I never was here before now. Poor man! he went here all alone in the night; he had night almost quite through the way; also these fiends were busy about him, as if they would have torn him in pieces. Many have spoken of it, but none can tell what the Valley of the Shadow of Death should mean, until they come in it themselves. 'The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with its joy.' To be here is a fearful thing." GREAT. This is like doing business in great waters, or like going down into the deep. This is like being in the heart of the sea, and like going down to the bottoms of the mountains. Now it seems as if the earth, with its bars, were about us for ever. But let them that walk in darkness and have no light, trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon their God. For my part, as I have told you already, I have gone often through this valley, and have been much harder put to it than now I am; and yet, you see, I am alive. I would not boast, for that I am not mine own saviour; but I trust we shall have a good deliverance. Come, let us pray for light to Him that can lighten our darkness, and that can rebuke not only these, but all the Satans in hell. So they cried and prayed, and God sent light and deliverance; for there was now no hindrance in their way, no, not there where but now they were stopped with a pit. Yet they were not got through the valley; so they went on still; and behold, great stinks and loathsome smells, to the great annoyance of them. Then said Mercy to Christiana, "It is not so pleasant being here as at the gate, or at the Interpreter's, or at the house where we lay last." "Oh, but," said one of the boys, "it is not so bad to go through here as it is to abide here always; and, for aught I know, one reason why we must go this way to the house prepared for us is, that our home might be made the sweeter to us." "Well said, Samuel," quoth the guide; "thou hast now spoke like a man." "Why, if ever I get out here again," said the boy, "I think I shall prize light and good way better than ever I did in all my life." Then said the guide, "We shall be out by-and-by." So on they went, and Joseph said, "Cannot we see to the end of this valley as yet?" [Sidenote: AMONG THE SNARES] Then said the guide, "Look to your feet, for we shall presently be among the snares." So they looked to their feet, and went on; but they were troubled much with the snares. Now, when they were come among the snares, they espied a man cast into the ditch on the left hand, with his flesh all rent and torn. Then said the guide, "That is one Heedless, that was going this way; he has lain there a great while. There was one Take-heed with him when he was taken and slain, but he escaped their hands. You cannot imagine how many are killed hereabouts; and yet men are so foolishly venturous as to set out lightly on pilgrimage, and to come without a guide. Poor Christian! it is a wonder that he here escaped; but he was beloved of his God, also he had a good heart of his own, or else he could never have done it." [Sidenote: GREAT-HEART ENCOUNTERS MAUL] Now they drew towards the end of the way; and just where Christian had seen the cave when he went by, out thence came forth Maul, a giant. This Maul did use to spoil young pilgrims by deceiving them; and he called Great-heart by his name, and said unto him, "How many times have you been forbidden to do these things?" Then said Mr. Great-heart, "What things?" "What things!" quoth the giant; "you know what things; but I will put an end to your trade." "But pray," said Mr. Great-heart, "before we fall to it, let us understand wherefore we must fight." Now the women and children stood trembling, and knew not what to do. Quoth the giant, "You rob the country, and rob it with the worst of thefts." "These are but random words," said Mr. Great-heart; "tell what robberies I have done, man." Then said the giant, "Thou practicest the craft of a kidnapper: thou gatherest up women and children, and carriest them into a strange country, to the weakening of my master's kingdom." But now Great-heart replied, "I am a servant of the God of heaven; my business is to persuade sinners to turn to God. I am commanded to do my best to turn men, women, and children from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God; and if this be indeed the ground of thy quarrel, let us fall to it as soon as thou wilt." [Sidenote: THE GIANT IS SLAIN] Then the giant came up, and Mr. Great-heart went to meet him; and as he went, he drew his sword, but the giant had a club. So without more ado they fell to it; and, at the first blow, the giant struck Mr. Great-heart down upon one of his knees. With that, the women and children cried out. So Mr. Great-heart, recovering himself, laid about him in full lusty manner, and gave the giant a wound in his arm. Thus he fought for the space of an hour, to that height of heat, that the breath came out of the giant's nostrils as the heat doth out of a boiling cauldron. Then they sat down to rest them; but Mr. Great-heart betook himself to prayer. Also the women and children did nothing but sigh and cry all the time that the battle did last. When they had rested them, and taken breath, they both fell to it again; and Mr. Great-heart with a blow fetched the giant down to the ground. "Nay, hold, and let me recover," quoth he. So Mr. Great-heart fairly let him get up: so to it they went again; and the giant missed but little of breaking Mr. Great-heart's skull with his club. Mr. Great-heart seeing that, runs to him in the full heat of his spirit, and pierceth him under the fifth rib. With that the giant began to faint, and could hold up his club no longer. Then Mr. Great-heart seconded his blow, and smote the head of the giant from his shoulders. Then the women and the children rejoiced, and Mr. Great-heart also praised God for the deliverance He had wrought. When this was done, they amongst them erected a pillar, and fastened the giant's head thereon, and wrote under it in letters that passengers might read: "He that did wear this head, was one That pilgrims did misuse; He stopped their way, he spared none, But did them all abuse; Until that I, Great-heart, arose, The pilgrims' guide to be; Until that I did him oppose That was their enemy." Now, I saw that they went to the high ground that was a little way off, cast up to be a prospect for pilgrims. That was the place from whence Christiana had the first sight of Faithful his brother. Wherefore here they sat down and rested. They also here did eat and drink and make merry, for that they had gotten deliverance from this so dangerous an enemy. As they sat thus and did eat, Christiana asked the guide if he had caught no hurt in the battle. Then said Mr. Great-heart, "No, save a little on my flesh; yet that also shall be so far from being to my harm that it is at present a proof of my love to my Master and you, and shall be a means, by grace, to increase my reward at last." CHR. But were you not afraid, good sir, when you saw him come out with his club? GREAT. "It is my duty," said he, "to mistrust my own ability, that I may have trust in Him who is stronger than all." CHR. But what did you think when he fetched you down to the ground at the first blow? GREAT. "Why, I thought," replied he, "that so my Master Himself was served; and yet He it was that conquered at the last." MATT. When you all have thought what you please, I think God has been wonderful good unto us, both in bringing us out of this valley, and in delivering us out of the hand of this enemy. For my part, I see no reason why we should distrust our God any more, since He has now, and in such a place as this, given us such proof of His love as this. [Sidenote: OLD HONEST] Then they got up and went forward. Now, a little before them stood an oak; and under it, when they came to it, they found an old pilgrim fast asleep. They knew that he was a pilgrim by his clothes, and his staff, and his girdle. So the guide, Mr. Great-heart, awaked him; and the old gentleman, as he lifted up his eyes, cried out, "What's the matter? what are you, and what is your business here?" GREAT. Come, man, be not so hot; here are none but friends. Yet the old man gets up, and stands upon his guard, and will know of them what they are. Then said the guide, "My name is Great-heart; I am the guide of these pilgrims, that are going to the Celestial Country." HONEST. Then said Mr. Honest, "I cry you mercy: I feared that you had been of the company of those that some time ago did rob Little-Faith of his money; but now I look better about me I perceive you are honester people." GREAT. Why, what would or could you have done to have helped yourself, if we indeed had been of that company? HON. Done! why, I would have fought as long as breath had been in me; and, had I so done, I am sure you could never have given me the worst on't, for a Christian can never be overcome unless he shall yield of himself. GREAT. "Well said, Father Honest," quoth the guide; "for by this I know thou art a cock of the right kind, for thou hast said the truth." HON. And by this also I know that thou knowest what true pilgrimage is; for all others do think that we are the soonest overcome of any. [Sidenote: CONVERSES WITH HONEST] GREAT. Well, now we are so happily met, pray let me crave your name, and the name of the place you came from. HON. My name I cannot; but I came from the town of Stupidity; it lieth about four degrees beyond the City of Destruction. GREAT. Oh! are you that countryman? then I deem I have half a guess of you: your name is old Honesty, is it not? HON. So the old gentleman blushed, and said, "Not Honesty, but Honest is my name; and I wish that my nature may agree to what I am called. But, sir," said the old gentleman, "how could you guess that I am such a man, since I came from such a place?" GREAT. I had heard of you before by my Master; for He knows all things that are done on the earth. But I have often wondered that any should come from your place, for your town is worse than is the City of Destruction itself. HON. Yes, we lie more off from the sun, and so are more cold and senseless. But were a man in a mountain of ice, yet if the Sun of Righteousness should rise upon him, his frozen heart shall feel a thaw; and thus it hath been with me. GREAT. I believe it, Father Honest, I believe it; for I know the thing is true. Then the old gentleman saluted all the pilgrims with a holy kiss of love, and asked them their names, and how they had fared since they had set out on their pilgrimage. CHR. Then said Christiana, "My name I suppose you have heard of: good Christian was my husband, and these are his children." But can you think how the old gentleman was taken when she told him who she was? He skipped, he smiled, he blessed them with a thousand good wishes, saying: HON. I have heard much of your husband, and of his travels and wars which he underwent in his days. Be it spoken to your comfort, the name of your husband rings all over these parts of the world: his faith, his courage, his enduring, and his sincerity under all, have made his name famous. Then he turned him to the boys, and asked of them their names, which they told him. Then he said unto them, "Matthew, be thou like Matthew the publican, not in vice, but in virtue. Samuel," said he, "be thou like Samuel the prophet, a man of faith and prayer. Joseph," said he, "be thou like Joseph in Potiphar's house, pure, and one that flees from temptation. And James, be thou like James the Just, and like James the brother of our Lord." Then they told him of Mercy, and how she had left her town and her kindred to come along with Christiana and with her sons. At that, the old honest man said, "Mercy is thy name? by Mercy shalt thou be sustained and carried through all those difficulties that shall attack thee in thy way, till thou shalt come thither where thou shalt look the Fountain of Mercy in the face with comfort." All this while the guide, Mr. Great-heart, was very well pleased and smiled upon his companion. [Sidenote: THEY DISCUSS MR. FEARING] Now, as they walked along together, the guide asked the old gentleman if he did not know one Mr. Fearing, that came on pilgrimage out of his parts. HON. "Yes, very well," said he. "He was a man that had the root of the matter in him; but he was one of the most troublesome pilgrims that ever I met with in all my days." GREAT. I perceive you knew him, for you have given a very right character of him. HON. Knew him! I was a great companion of his; I was with him most an end: when he first began to think upon what would come upon us hereafter, I was with him. GREAT. I was his guide from my master's house to the gates of the Celestial City. HON. Then you knew him to be a troublesome one? GREAT. I did so; but I could very well bear it, for men of my calling are oftentimes entrusted with the conduct of such as he was. HON. Well, then, pray let us hear a little of him, and how he managed himself under your conduct. GREAT. Why, he was always afraid that he should come short of whither he had a desire to go. Everything frightened him that he heard anybody speak of, if it had but the least appearance of opposition in it. I hear that he lay roaring at the Slough of Despond for above a month together; nor durst he, for all he saw several go over before him, venture, though they, many of them, offered to lend him their hand. He would not go back again neither. The Celestial City, he said, he should die if he came not to it; and yet was discouraged at every difficulty, and stumbled at every straw that anybody cast in his way. Well, after he had lain at the Slough of Despond a great while, as I have told you, one sunshine morning, I don't know how, he ventured, and so got over; but, when he was over, he would scarce believe it. He had, I think, a Slough of Despond in his mind, a slough that he carried everywhere with him, or else he could never have been as he was. So he came up to the gate (you know what I mean) that stands at the head of this way, and here also he stood a good while before he would venture to knock. When the gate was opened, he would give back, and give place to others, and say that he was not worthy. For, for all he got before some to the gate, yet many of them went in before him. There the poor man would stand shaking and shrinking: I dare say it would have pitied one's heart to have seen him. Nor would he go back again. At last, he took the hammer that hanged on the gate in his hand, and gave a small rap or two; then One opened to him, but he shrank back as before. He that opened stepped out after him, and said, "Thou trembling one, what wantest thou?" With that, he fell down to the ground. He that spoke to him wondered to see him so faint; so He said to him, "Peace be to thee: up, for I have set open the door to thee; come in, for thou are blessed." With that, he got up, and went in trembling; and when he was in, he was ashamed to show his face. Well, after he had been entertained there a while, as you know how the manner is, he was bid go on his way, and also told the way he should take. So he came till he came to our house; but as he behaved himself at the gate, so he did at my master the Interpreter's door. He lay thereabout in the cold a good while before he would venture to call: yet he would not go back; and the nights were long and cold then. Nay, he had a note of need in his bosom to my master, to receive him and grant him the comfort of his house, and also to allow him a stout and valiant conductor, because he was himself so chicken-hearted a man; and yet, for all that, he was afraid to call at the door. So he lay up and down thereabouts, till, poor man, he was almost starved; yea, so great was his fear, though he had seen several others for knocking get in, yet he was afraid to venture. At last, I think I looked out of the window, and perceiving a man to be up and down about the door, I went out to him, and asked what he was; but, poor man, the water stood in his eyes; so I perceived what he wanted. I went therefore in, and told it in the house, and we showed the things to our Lord: so he sent me out again, to entreat him to come in; but I dare say I had hard work to do it. At last he came in; and I will say that for my Lord, he carried it wonderful lovingly to him. There were but few good bits at the table, but some of it was laid upon his trencher. Then he presented the note; and my Lord looked thereon, and said his desire should be granted. So, when he had been there a good while, he seemed to get some heart, and to be a little more comfortable. For my master, you must know, is one of very tender heart, specially to them that are afraid; wherefore he carried it so towards him as might tend most to his encouragement. Well, when he had a sight of the things of the place, and was ready to take his journey to go to the City, my Lord, as he did to Christian before, gave him a bottle of spirits, and some comfortable things to eat. Thus we set forward, and I went before him; but the man was but of few words, only he would sigh aloud. [Sidenote: GREAT-HEART'S REMINISCENCES] When we were come to the place where the three fellows were hanged, he said that he doubted that that would be his end also. Only he seemed glad when he saw the Cross and the sepulchre. There, I confess, he desired to stay a little to look; and he seemed, for a little while after, to be a little cheery. When we came at the Hill Difficulty, he made no stick at that, nor did he much fear the lions, for you must know that his trouble was not about such things as those; his fear was about his acceptance at last. I got him in at the House Beautiful, I think, before he was willing. Also, when he was in, I brought him acquainted with the damsels that were of the place; but he was ashamed to make himself much for company. He desired much to be alone; yet he always loved good talk, and often would get behind the screen to hear it. He also loved much to see ancient things, and to be pondering them in his mind. He told me, afterwards, that he loved to be in those two houses from which he came last; to wit, at the gate, and that of the Interpreter; but that he durst not be so bold as to ask. When we went also from the House Beautiful, down the hill into the Valley of Humiliation, he went down as well as ever I saw a man in my life: for he cared not how mean he was, so he might be happy at last. Yea, I think there was a kind of sympathy betwixt that valley and him; for I never saw him better in all his pilgrimage than when he was in that valley. Here he would lie down, embrace the ground, and kiss the very flowers that grew in this valley. He would now be up every morning by break of day, tracing and walking to and fro in this valley. But when he was come to the entrance of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I thought I should have lost my man: not for that he had any inclination to go back--that he always abhorred; but he was ready to die for fear. "Oh, the hobgoblins will have me! the hobgoblins will have me!" cried he, and I could not beat him out of it. He made such a noise and such an outcry here, that, had they but heard him, it was enough to encourage them to come and fall upon us. But this I took very great notice of, that this valley was as quiet while we went through it as ever I knew it before or since. I suppose those enemies here had now a special check from our Lord, and a command not to meddle until Mr. Fearing had passed over it. [Sidenote: FEARING AT VANITY FAIR] It would be too tedious to tell you of all, I will therefore only mention a passage or two more. When he was come at Vanity Fair, I thought he would have fought with all the men in the fair. I feared there we should both have been knocked on the head, so hot was he against their fooleries. Upon the Enchanted Ground he was also very wakeful. But, when he was come at the river where was no bridge, there again he was in a heavy case. Now, now, he said, he should be drowned for ever, and so never see that face with comfort that he had come so many miles to behold. And here also I took notice of what was very remarkable: the water of that river was lower at this time than ever I saw it in all my life: so he went over at last, not much above wetshod. When he was going up to the gate, I began to take leave of him, and to wish him a good reception above. So he said, "I shall, I shall." Then parted we asunder, and I saw him no more. HON. Then it seems he was well at last? GREAT. Yes, yes; I never had a doubt about him. He was a man of choice spirit; only he was always kept very low, and that made his life so burthensome to himself and so troublesome to others. He was, above many, tender of sin: he was so afraid of doing injuries to others, that he often would deny himself of that which was lawful because he would not offend. HON. But what should be the reason that such a good man should be all his days so much in the dark? GREAT. There are two sorts of reasons for it. One is, the wise God will have it so; some must pipe, and some must weep. Now Mr. Fearing was one that played upon this bass. He and his fellows sound the sackbut, whose notes are more doleful than the notes of other music are; though, indeed, some say the bass is the ground of music. And, for my part, I care not at all for that profession which begins, not in heaviness of mind. The first string that the musician usually touches is the bass, when he intends to put all in tune. God also plays upon this string first, when He sets the soul in tune for Himself. Only here was the imperfection of Mr. Fearing: he could play upon no other music but this till toward his latter end. I make bold to talk thus in figures, for the ripening of the wits of young readers, and because, in the book of the Revelation, the saved are compared to a company of musicians, that play upon their trumpets and harps, and sing their songs before the throne. HON. He was a very zealous man, as one may see by the relation which you have given of him. Difficulties, lions, or Vanity Fair he feared not at all; it was only sin, death, and hell that were to him a terror, because he had some doubts about his interest in that Celestial Country. GREAT. You say right: those were the things that were his troublers, and they, as you have well observed, arose from the weakness of his mind thereabout, not from weakness of spirit as to the practical part of a pilgrim's life. I dare believe that, as the proverb is, he would have bit a firebrand, had it stood in his way; but the things with which he was oppressed no man ever yet could shake off with ease. CHR. Then said Christiana, "This relation of Mr. Fearing has done me good. I thought nobody had been like me; but I see there was some semblance betwixt this good man and I: only we differed in two things. His troubles were so great that they broke out; but mine I kept within. His also lay so hard upon him, they made him that he could not knock at the houses provided for entertainment; but my trouble was always such as made me knock the louder." MER. If I might also speak my heart, I must say that something of him has also dwelt in me; for I have ever been more afraid of the lake, and the loss of a place in Paradise, than I have been of the loss of other things. Oh, thought I, may I have the happiness to have a habitation there, it is enough, though I part with all the world to win it! MATT. Then said Matthew, "Fear was one thing that made me think that I was far from having that within me which makes me sure of being saved. But if it were so with such a good man as he, why may it not also go well with me?" JAMES. "No fears, no grace," said James, "Though there is not always grace where there is the fear of hell, yet, to be sure, there is no grace where there is no fear of God." GREAT. Well said, James; thou hast hit the mark. For the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom; and, to be sure, they that want the beginning have neither middle nor end. But we will here conclude our discourse of Mr. Fearing, after we have sent after him this farewell: "Well, Master Fearing, thou didst fear Thy God, and wast afraid Of doing anything while here That would have thee betrayed. "And didst thou fear the lake and pit? Would others did so too! For, as for them that want thy wit, They do themselves undo." [Sidenote: HONEST TELLS OF MR. SELF-WILL] Now I saw that they still went on in their talk; for, after Mr. Great-heart had made an end with Mr. Fearing, Mr. Honest began to tell them of another, but his name was Mr. Self-will. "He pretended himself to be a pilgrim," said Mr. Honest, "but I persuade myself he never came in at the gate that stands at the head of the way." GREAT. Had you ever any talk with him about it? HON. Yes, more than once or twice; but he would always be like himself, self-willed. He neither cared for man, nor argument, nor yet example; what his mind prompted him to, that he would do, and nothing else could he be got to do. GREAT. Pray, what principles did he hold? for I suppose you can tell. HON. He held that a man might follow the sins as well as the virtues of pilgrims; and that, if he did both, he should be certainly saved. GREAT. How! If he had said it is possible for the best to be guilty of the vices, as well as to partake of the virtues, of pilgrims, he could not much have been blamed; for, indeed, we are free from no sin absolutely, but on condition that we watch and strive. But this, I perceive, is not the thing; but, if I understood you right, your meaning is that he was of opinion that it was allowable so to be. HON. Ay, ay, so I mean, and so he believed and acted. GREAT. But what grounds had he for his so saying? HON. Why, he said he had the Scripture for his warrant. [Sidenote: HONEST QUOTES SELF-WILL] GREAT. Prithee, Mr. Honest, present us with a few particulars. HON. So I will. He said, To have to do with other men's wives had been practiced by David, God's beloved; and therefore he could do it. He said, To have more women than one was a thing that Solomon practiced; and therefore he could do it. He said that Sarah lied, and so did Rahab; and therefore he could do it. He said that the disciples went at the bidding of their Master, and took away the owner's ass; and therefore he could do so too. He said that Jacob got the inheritance of his father in a way of guile and cheating; and therefore he could do so too. GREAT. Highly base, indeed! And you are sure he was of this opinion? HON. I have heard him plead for it, bring Scripture for it, bring argument for it, and so on. GREAT. An opinion that is not fit to be with any allowance in the world! HON. You must understand me rightly: he did not say that _any_ man might do this; but that they who had the virtues of those that did such things, might also do the same. GREAT. But what more false than such a conclusion? For this is as much as to say that, because good men heretofore have sinned through weakness or forgetfulness, therefore he had an allowance to do it of a purpose; or if, because a child, by the blast of the wind, or for that it stumbled at a stone, fell down and defiled itself in the mire, therefore he might wilfully lie down and wallow like a boar therein. Who could have thought that any one could so far have been blinded by the power of sin. But what is written must be true: they "stumble at the Word, being disobedient; whereunto also they were appointed." His supposing that such may have the godly man's virtues, who accustom themselves to their vices, is also a delusion as strong as the other. To eat up the sin of God's people as a dog licks up filth, is no sign of one that is possessed with their virtues. Nor can I believe that one who is of this opinion can have faith or love in him. But I know you have made strong objections against him: prithee, what can he say for himself? HON. Why, he says, "To do this openly and by way of opinion, seems abundantly more honest than to do it and yet hold contrary to it in opinion." GREAT. A very wicked answer. For, though to let loose the bridle to lusts while our opinions are against such things is bad; yet to sin, and plead a toleration so to do, is worse. The one stumbles beholders accidentally, the other _pleads_ them into the snare. HON. There are many of this man's mind, that have not this man's mouth; and that makes going on pilgrimage of so little esteem as it is. GREAT. You have said the truth, and it is to be lamented; but he that feareth the King of Paradise shall come out of them all. CHR. There are strange opinions in the world. I know one that said it was time enough to turn from sin when they come to die. GREAT. Such are not overwise. That man would have been loth, might he have had a week to run twenty miles in for his life, to have deferred that journey to the last hour of that week. HON. You say right; and yet the most of them who count themselves pilgrims do indeed do thus. I am, as you see, an old man, and have been a traveller in this road many a day, and I have taken notice of many things. I have seen some that have set out as if they would drive all the world afore them, who yet have, in a few days, died as they in the wilderness, and so never got sight of the promised land. I have seen some that have promised nothing at first, setting out to be pilgrims, and that one would have thought could not have lived a day, that have yet proved very good pilgrims. I have seen some that have run hastily forward, that again have, after a little time, run just as fast back again. I have seen some who have spoken very well of a pilgrim's life at first, that, after a while, have spoken as much against it. I have heard some, when they first set out for Paradise, say positively there is such a place, who, when they have been almost there, have come back again, and said there is none. I have heard some boast what they would do in case they should be opposed, that have, even at a false alarm, fled faith, the pilgrim's way, and all. Now, as they were thus in their way, there came one running to meet them, and said, "Gentlemen, and you of the weaker sort, if you love life, shift for yourselves, for the robbers are before you." GREAT. "They be the three that set upon Little-Faith heretofore. Well," said he, "we are ready for them." [Sidenote: THE PILGRIMS PROCEED] So they went on their way. Now they looked at every turning when they should have met with the villains; but whether they heard of Mr. Great-heart, or whether they had some other game, they came not up to the pilgrims. CHAPTER VII. ENTERTAINED BY GAIUS. Christiana then wished for an inn for herself and her children, because they were weary. Then said Mr. Honest, "There is one a little before us, where a very honorable disciple, one Gaius, dwells." So they all concluded to turn in thither, and the rather because the old gentleman gave him so good a report. When they came to the door, they went in, not knocking, for folks use not to knock at the door of an inn. Then they called for the master of the house, and he came to them; so they asked if they might lie there that night. GAIUS. Yes, gentlemen, if you be true men, for my house is for none but pilgrims. Then were Christiana, Mercy, and the boys the more glad, for that the Innkeeper was a lover of pilgrims. So they called for rooms, and he showed them one for Christiana, and her children, and Mercy, and another for Mr. Great-heart and the old gentleman. GREAT. "Good Gaius, what hast thou for supper? for these pilgrims have come far to-day, and are weary." GAIUS. "It is late, so we cannot conveniently go out to seek food; but such as we have you shall be welcome to, if that will content." GREAT. We will be content with what thou hast in the house; forasmuch as I have proved thee, thou art never without that which is suitable. Then he went down and spake to the cook, whose name was Taste-that-which-is-good, to get ready supper for so many pilgrims. This done, he came up again, saying, "Come, my good friends, you are welcome to me, and I am glad that I have a house to entertain you in; and, while supper is making ready, if you please, let us entertain one another with some good talking together." So they all said, "Content." GAIUS. "Whose wife is this aged matron? and whose daughter is this young damsel?" GREAT. The woman is the wife of one Christian, a pilgrim of former times; and these are his four children. The maid is one of her acquaintance, one that she hath persuaded to come with her on pilgrimage. The boys take all after their father, and wish to tread in his steps; yea, if they do but see any place where the old pilgrim hath lain, or any print of his foot, it bringeth joy to their hearts, and they are eager to lie or tread in the same. [Sidenote: FAMILY OF THE CHRISTIANS] GAIUS. "Is this Christian's wife, and are these Christian's children? I knew your husband's father; yea, also his father's father. Many have been good of this stock; their ancestors dwelt first at Antioch. Christian's ancestors, the early fathers from whom he came (I suppose you have heard your husband talk of them) were very worthy men. They have, above any that I know, showed themselves men of great virtue and courage, for the Lord of pilgrims, His ways, and them that loved Him. I have heard of many of your husband's relations that have stood all trials for the sake of the truth. Stephen, who was one of the first of the family from whence your husband sprang, was knocked on the head with stones. James, another of this generation, was slain with the edge of the sword. To say nothing of Paul and Peter, men anciently of the family from whence your husband came; there was Ignatius, who was cast to the lions; Romanus, whose flesh was cut by pieces from his bones; and Polycarp, that played the man in the fire; there was he that was hanged up in a basket in the sun for the wasps to eat; and he whom they put into a sack, and cast him into the sea to be drowned. It would be utterly impossible to count up all of that family who have suffered injuries and death for the love of a pilgrim's life. Nor can I but be glad to see that thy husband has left behind him four such boys as these. I hope they will bear out their father's name, and tread in their father's steps, and come to their father's end." GREAT. Indeed, sir, they are likely lads; they seem to choose heartily their father's ways. GAIUS. That is it that I said; wherefore Christian's family is like still to spread abroad upon the face of the ground, and yet to be numerous upon the face of the earth. Wherefore let Christiana look out some damsels for her sons, to whom they may be married, etc., that the name of their father and the house of his family may never be forgotten in the world. HON. 'Tis pity this family should fall and die out of the world. GAIUS. Fall it cannot, but be diminished it may; but let Christiana take my advice, and that is the way to uphold it. "And Christiana," said this Innkeeper, "I am glad to see thee and thy friend Mercy together here, a lovely couple. And may I advise, take Mercy into a nearer relation to thee; if she will, let her be given to Matthew, thy eldest son. It is the way to give you a family in the earth." So this match was arranged, and in process of time they were married; but more of that hereafter. Gaius also proceeded, and said, "I will now speak on the behalf of women, to take away their reproach. For as death and the curse came into the world by a woman, so also did life and health: 'God sent forth His Son, born of a woman.' I will say again, that when the Saviour was come, women rejoiced in Him before either man or angel. I read not that man ever gave unto Christ so much as one penny; but the women followed Him, and ministered to Him of their substance. 'Twas a woman that washed His feet with tears, and a woman that anointed His body to the burial. They were women that wept when He was going to the cross, and women that followed Him from the cross; and that sat over against the sepulchre when He was buried. They were women that were first with Him at His resurrection-morn, and women that brought tidings first to His disciples that He was risen from the dead. Women, therefore, are highly favored, and show by these things that they are sharers with us in the grace of life." [Sidenote: THE SUPPER AT GAIUS'S HOUSE] Now the cook sent up to signify that supper was almost ready, and sent one to lay the cloth, the dishes, and to set the salt and bread in order. Then said Matthew, "The sight of this cloth, and of this forerunner of the supper, awaketh in me a greater appetite to my food than I had before." GAIUS. So let all teaching truth to thee in this life awaken in thee a greater desire to sit at the supper of the great King in His kingdom; for all preaching, books, and services here, are but as the laying of the dishes, and as setting of salt upon the board, when compared with the feast which our Lord will make for us when we come to His house. So supper came up. And first a heave-shoulder and a wave-breast were set on the table before them, to show that they must begin their meal with prayer and praise to God. The heave-shoulder David lifted up his heart to God with; and with the wave-breast, where his heart lay, he used to lean upon his harp when he played. These two dishes were very fresh and good, and they all ate heartily well thereof. The next they brought up was a bottle of wine, red as blood. So Gaius said to them, "Drink freely: this is the true juice of the vine, that makes glad the heart of God and man." So they drank and were merry. The next was a dish of milk, well crumbed; but Gaius said, "Let the boys have that, that they may grow thereby." Then they brought up in course of dish of butter and honey. Then said Gaius, "Eat freely of this, for this is good to cheer up and strengthen your judgments and understandings. This was our Lord's dish when He was a child: 'Butter and honey shall He eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good.'" Then they brought them up a dish of apples, and they were very good tasted fruit. Then said Matthew, "May we eat apples, since they were such by and with which the serpent deceived our first mother Eve?" Then said Gaius: "Apples were they with which we were beguiled; Yet sin, not apples, hath our souls defiled. Apples forbid, if ate, corrupt the blood; To eat such, when commanded, does us good. Drink of His flagons, then, thou Church, His dove, And eat His apples who are sick of love." Then said Matthew, "I made the objection, because I, a while since, was sick with eating of fruit." GAIUS. Forbidden fruit will make you sick; but not what our Lord has allowed. While they were thus talking, they were presented with another dish, and it was a dish of nuts. Then said some at the table, "Nuts spoil tender teeth, specially the teeth of children;" which, when Gaius heared, he said; "Hard texts are nuts (I will not call them cheaters), Whose shells do keep their kernels from the eaters; Ope then the shells, and you shall have the meat: They here are brought for you to crack and eat." Then were they very merry, and sat at the table a long time, talking of many things. Then said the old gentleman, "My good landlord, while we are cracking your nuts, if you please, do you open this riddle; "A man there was, though some did count him mad, The more he cast away, the more he had." Then they all gave good heed, wondering what good Gaius would say: so he sat still awhile, and then thus replied: "He that bestows his goods upon the poor Shall have as much again, and ten times more." Then said Joseph, "I dare say, sir, I did not think you could have found it out." "Oh!" said Gaius, "I have been trained up in this way a great while: nothing teaches like experience, I have learned of my Lord to be kind, and have found by experience that I have gained thereby. 'There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.' 'There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing; there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.'" [Sidenote: MERCY AND MATTHEW] Then Samuel whispered to Christiana, his mother, and said, "Mother, this is a very good man's house; let us stay here a good while, and let my brother Matthew be married here to Mercy before we go any farther." The which Gaius, the host, overhearing, said, "With a very good will, my child." So they stayed there more than a month, and Mercy was given to Matthew to wife. While they stayed here, Mercy, as her custom was, would be making coats and garments to give to the poor, by which she brought up a very good report upon the pilgrims. But to return again to our story. After supper, the lads desired a bed, for that they were weary with travelling. Then Gaius called to show them their chamber; but said Mercy, "I will have them to bed." So she had them to bed, and they slept well; but the rest sat up all night, for Gaius and they were such suitable company, that they could not tell how to part. Then, after much talk of their Lord, themselves, and their journey, old Mr. Honest, he that put forth the riddle to Gaius, began to nod. Then said Great-heart, "What, sir! you begin to be drowsy? Come, rub up. Now, here's a riddle for you." Then said Mr. Honest, "Let us hear it." Then said Mr. Great-heart: "He that will kill, must first be overcome; Who live abroad would, first must die at home." "Ha!" said Mr. Honest, "it is a hard one; hard to explain, and harder to do. But come, landlord," said he, "I will, if you please, leave my part to you: do you expound it, and I will hear what you say." "No," said Gaius, "it was put to you, and it is expected you should answer it." Then said the old gentleman: "He first by grace must conquered be, That sin would mortify; And who that lives would convince me, Unto himself must die." Thus they sat talking till break of day. Now, when the family were up, Christiana bade her son James read a chapter; so he read the fifty-third of Isaiah. "Well," said Gaius, "now you are here, and since, as I know Mr. Great-heart is good at his weapons, if you please, after we have refreshed ourselves we will walk into the fields, to see if we can do any good. About a mile from hence there is one Slay-good, a giant, that doth much annoy the King's highway in these parts; and I know whereabout his haunt is. He is master of a number of thieves: 'twould be well if we could clear these parts of him." So they consented and went; Mr. Great-heart with his sword, helmet, and shield, and the rest with spears and staves. [Sidenote: SLAY-GOOD DESTROYED] When they were come to the place where he was, they found him with one Feeble-minded in his hands, whom his servants had brought unto him, having taken him in the way. Now the giant was picking his pockets, with a purpose after that to pick his bones; for he was of the nature of flesh-eaters. Well, so soon as he saw Mr. Great-heart and his friends at the mouth of his cave with their weapons, he demanded what they wanted. GREAT. We want thee, for we are come to revenge the quarrel of the many that thou hast slain of the pilgrims, when thou has dragged them out of the King's highway; wherefore come out of thy cave. So he armed himself and came out; and to battle they went, and fought for above an hour, and then stood still to take wind. SLAY. Then said the giant, "Why are you here on my ground?" GREAT. To revenge the blood of pilgrims, as I told thee before. [Sidenote: FEEBLE-MIND RESCUED] So they went to it again, and the giant made Mr. Great-heart give back; but he came up again, and in the greatness of his mind he let fly with such stoutness at the giant's head and sides, that he made him let his weapon fall out of his hand. So he smote him, and slew him, and cut off his head, and brought it away to the inn. He also took Feeble-mind, the pilgrim, and brought him with him to his lodgings. When they were come home, they showed his head to the family, and then set it up as they had done others before, for a terror to those that should attempt to do as he hereafter. Then they asked Mr. Feeble-mind how he fell into his hands. FEEBLE. Then said the poor man, "I am a sickly man, as you see; and because death did usually once a day knock at my door, I thought I should never be well at home: so I betook myself to a pilgrim's life, and have travelled hither from the town of Uncertain, where I and my father were born. I am a man of no strength at all of body, nor yet of mind, but would, if I could, though I can but crawl, spend my life in the pilgrims' way. When I came at the gate that is at the head of the way, the Lord of that place did entertain me freely; neither objected He against my weakly looks, nor against my feeble mind, but gave me such things as were necessary for my journey, and bid me hope to the end. When I came to the house of the Interpreter, I received much kindness there; and because the Hill Difficulty was judged too hard for me, I was carried up that by one of his servants. Indeed, I have found much relief from pilgrims: though none were willing to go so softly as I am forced to do, yet still as they came on they bid me be of good cheer, and said that it was the will of their Lord that comfort should be given to the feeble-minded, and so went on their own pace. When I was come to Assault Lane, then this giant met with me, and bid me prepare for an encounter. But, alas! feeble one that I was, I had more need of a cordial; so he came up and took me. I believed not that he should kill me. Also when he got me into his den, since I went not with him willingly, I believed I should come out alive again; for I have heard that not any pilgrim that is taken captive by violent hands, if he keeps heart-whole towards his Master, is, by the laws of Providence, to die by the hands of the enemy. Robbed I looked to be, and robbed to be sure I am; but I have, as you see, escaped with life, for the which I thank my King as author, and you as the means. Other brunts I also look for; but this I have resolved on--to wit, to run when I can, to go when I cannot run, and to creep when I cannot go. As to the principal thing, I thank Him that loves me, I am fixed: my way is before me, my mind is beyond the river that has no bridge, though I am, as you see, but of a feeble mind." HON. Then said old Mr. Honest, "Have not you some time ago been acquainted with one Mr. Fearing, a pilgrim?" FEEBLE. Acquainted with him! yes; he came from the town of Stupidity, which lies four degrees northward of the City of Destruction, and as many off of where I was born; yet we were well acquainted, for indeed he was my uncle, my father's brother. He and I have been much of a temper: he was a little shorter than I, but yet we were much of a complexion. HON. I perceive you know him, and I am apt to believe also that you are related one to another; for you have his whitely look, a cast like his with your eye, and your speech is much alike. FEEBLE. Most have said so that have known us both; and besides, what I have read in him I have for the most part found in myself. GAIUS. "Come, sir," said good Gaius, "be of good cheer: you are welcome to me and to my house. What thou hast a mind to, call for freely; and what thou wouldst have my servants do for thee, they will do it with a ready mind." Then said Mr. Feeble-mind, "This is an unexpected favor, and as the sun shining out of a very dark cloud. Did Giant Slay-good intend me this favor when he stopped me, and resolved to let me go no farther? Did he intend that, after he had rifled my pockets, I should go to Gaius, mine host? Yet so it is." Now, just as Feeble-mind and Gaius were thus in talk, there came one running, and called at the door, and said, that "About a mile and a half off there was one Mr. Not-right, a pilgrim, struck dead upon the place where he was, with a thunderbolt." FEEBLE. "Alas!" said Mr. Feeble-mind, "is he slain? He overtook me some days before I came so far as hither, and would be my company-keeper. He also was with me when Slay-good, the giant, took me; but he was nimble of his heels, and escaped; but it seems he escaped to die, and I was taken to live. "What, one would think, doth seek to slay outright, Ofttimes delivers from the saddest plight, That very Providence, whose face is death, Doth ofttimes to the lowly life bequeath. I was taken, he did escape and flee; Hands crossed gives death to him, and life to me." [Sidenote: PHOEBE AND JAMES] Now, about this time, Matthew and Mercy were married; also Gaius gave his daughter Phoebe to James, Matthew's brother, to wife; after which time, they yet stayed about ten days at Gaius's house, spending their time and the seasons like as pilgrims use to do. When they were to depart, Gaius made them a feast, and they did eat and drink and were merry. Now, the hour was come that they must be gone, wherefore Mr. Great-heart called for the bill of charges. But Gaius told him that at his house it was not the custom of pilgrims to pay for their entertainment. He boarded them by the year, but looked for his pay from the Good Samaritan, who had promised him, at His return, whatsoever charge he was at with them, faithfully to repay him. Then said Mr. Great-heart to him, GREAT. Beloved, thou doest faithfully, whatsoever thou doest to the brethren and to strangers, which have borne witness of thy liberal giving before the Church; whom if thou yet bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well. Then Gaius took his leave of them all, and his children, and particularly of Mr. Feeble-mind. He also gave him something to drink by the way. Now, Mr. Feeble-mind, when they were going out of the door, made as if he intended to linger. The which when Mr. Great-heart espied, he said, "Come, Mr. Feeble-mind, pray do you go along with us: I will be your conductor, and you shall fare as the rest." FEEBLE. Alas! I want a suitable companion. You are all lusty and strong, but I, as you see, am weak; I choose, therefore, rather to come behind, lest, by reason of my many weaknesses, I should be both a burden to myself and to you. I am, as I said, a man of a weak and feeble mind, and shall be injured and made weak at that which others can bear. I shall like no laughing; I shall like no gay attire; I shall like no unprofitable questions. Nay, I am so weak a man as to be harmed with that which others have a liberty to do. I do not yet know all the truth; I am a very ignorant Christian man. Sometimes, if I hear any rejoice in the Lord, it troubles me, because I cannot do so too. It is with me as it is with a weak man among the strong, or as with a sick man among the healthy, or as a lamp despised. "He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease;" so that I know not what to do. GREAT. "But, brother," said Mr. Great-heart, "I have it in my work to comfort the feeble-minded and to support the weak. You must needs go along with us: we will wait for you; we will lend you our help; we will deny ourselves of some things, for your sake; we will not enter into doubtful questions before you! we will be made all things to you, rather than you shall be left behind." Now, all this while they were at Gaius's door, and, behold, as they were thus in the heat of their discourse, Mr. Ready-to-halt came by, with his crutches in his hands; and he also was going on pilgrimage. FEEBLE. Then said Mr. Feeble-mind to him, "How camest thou hither? I was but now complaining that I had not a suitable companion, but thou art according to my wish. Welcome, welcome, good Mr. Ready-to-halt; I hope thou and I may be some help." READY. "I shall be glad of thy company," said the other; "and, good Mr. Feeble-mind, rather than we will part, since we are thus happily met, I will lend thee one of my crutches." FEEBLE. "Nay," said he, "though I thank thee for thy good-will, I am not inclined to halt before I am lame. Howbeit, I think, when occasion is, it may help me against a dog." READY. If either myself or my crutches can do thee a pleasure, we are both at thy command, good Mr. Feeble-mind. Thus, therefore, they went on. Mr. Great-heart and Mr. Honest went before, Christiana and her children went next, and Mr. Feeble-mind came behind, and Mr. Ready-to-halt with his crutches. Then said Mr. Honest, HON. Pray, sir, now that we are upon the road, tell us some profitable things of some that have gone on pilgrimage before us. [Sidenote: REVIEWS OTHER PILGRIMAGES] GREAT. With a good will. I suppose you have heard how Christian of old did meet with Apollyon in the Valley of Humiliation, and also what hard work he had to go through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Also I think you cannot but have heard how Faithful was put to it by Madam Wanton, with Adam the first, with one Discontent, and Shame; four as deceitful villains as a man can meet with upon the road. HON. Yes, I believe I have heard of all this; but, indeed, good Faithful was hardest put to it with Shame: he was an unwearied one. GREAT. Ay; for, as the pilgrim well said, he of all men had the wrong name. HON. But pray, sir, where was it that Christian and Faithful met Talkative? That same was also a notable one. GREAT. He was a confident fool; yet many follow his ways. HON. He had liked to have deceived Faithful. GREAT. Ay, but Christian put him into a way quickly to find him out. Thus they went on till they came to the place where Evangelist met with Christian and Faithful, and foretold them what should befall them at Vanity Fair. Then said their guide, "Hereabouts did Christian and Faithful meet with Evangelist, who foretold them of their troubles which they should meet with at Vanity Fair." HON. Say you so? I dare say it was a hard chapter, then, that he did read unto them! GREAT. It was; but he gave them encouragement withal. But what do we talk of them? they were a couple of lion-like men: they had set their faces like flint. Do not you remember how undaunted they were when they stood before the judge? HON. Well. Faithful bravely suffered. GREAT. So he did, and as brave things came on't; for Hopeful and some others, as the story relates it, were converted by his death. HON. Well, but pray go on, for you are well acquainted with things. GREAT. Above all that Christian met with after he had passed through Vanity Fair, one By-ends was the arch one. HON. By-ends! what was he? GREAT. A very arch fellow--a downright deceiver; one that would be religious, which way soever the world went; but so cunning that he would be sure never to lose or suffer for it. He had his mode of religion for every fresh occasion, and his wife was as good at it as he. And he would turn and change from opinion to opinion; yea, and plead for so doing, too. But, as far as I could learn, he came to an ill end with his by-ends; nor did I ever hear that any of his children were ever of any esteem with any that truly feared God. [Sidenote: THEY ARRIVE AT VANITY FAIR] Now, by this time they were come within sight of the town of Vanity, where Vanity Fair is kept. So, when they saw that they were so near the town, they consulted with one another how they should pass through the town; and some said one thing, and some another. At last Mr. Great-heart said, "I have, as you may understand, often been a conductor of pilgrims through this town. Now, I am acquainted with one Mr. Mnason, a Cyprusian by nature, an old disciple, at whose house we may lodge. If you think good," said he, "we will turn in there." [Sidenote: MNASON ENTERTAINS PILGRIMS] "Content," said old Honest; "Content," said Christiana; "Content," said Mr. Feeble-mind; and so they said all. Now, you must think it was eventide by that they got to the outside of the town; but Mr. Great-heart knew the way to the old man's house. So thither they came, and he called at the door; and the old man within knew his tongue so soon as ever he heard it; so he opened the door, and they all came in. Then said Mnason, their host, "How far have ye come to-day?" So they said, "From the house of Gaius, our friend." "I promise you," said he, "you have come a good stitch: you may well be weary. Sit down." So they sat down. GREAT. Then said their guide, "Come, what cheer, sirs? I dare say you are welcome to my friend." MNAS. "I also," said Mr. Mnason, "do bid you welcome; and whatever you want, do but say, and we will do what we can to get it for you." HON. Our great want a while since was a resting-place and good company, and now I hope we have both. MNAS. For resting-place, you see what it is; but for good company, that will appear in the trial. GREAT. "Well," said Great-heart, "will you have the pilgrims up into their lodging?" MNAS. "I will," said Mr. Mnason. So he had them up to their several places, and also showed them a very fair dining-room, where they might be, and sup together, until time should come to go to rest. Now, when they were set in their places, and were a little cheery after their journey, Mr. Honest asked his landlord if there were any store of good people in the town. MNAS. We have a few; for, indeed, they are but a few when compared with them on the other side. HON. But how shall we do to see some of them? for the sight of good men to them that are going on pilgrimage is like the appearing of the moon and stars to them that are sailing upon the seas. [Sidenote: FRIENDS CALL ON THE PILGRIMS] MNAS. Then Mr. Mnason stamped with his foot, and his daughter Grace came up. So he said unto her, "Grace, go you, tell my friends, Mr. Contrite, Mr. Holy-man, Mr. Love-saint, Mr. Dare-not-lie, and Mr. Penitent, that I have a friend or two at my house who have a mind this evening to see them." So Grace went to call them, and they came; and, after salutation made, they sat down together at the table. Then said Mr. Mnason, their landlord, "My neighbors, I have, as you see, a company of strangers come to my house: they are pilgrims; they come from afar, and are going to Mount Zion. But who," quoth he, "do you think this is?" pointing with his finger to Christiana. "It is Christiana, the wife of Christian, that famous pilgrim who, with Faithful his brother, was so shamefully handled in our town." At that they stood amazed, saying, "We little thought to see Christiana when Grace came to call us; wherefore this is a very comfortable surprise." They then asked her of her welfare, and if these young men were her husband's sons. And when she told them they were, they said, "The King whom you love and serve, make you as your father, and bring you where he is in peace!" HON. Then Mr. Honest (when they had all sat down) asked Mr. Contrite and the rest, in what posture their town was at present. CONTRITE. You may be sure we are full of hurry in fair-time. 'Tis hard keeping our hearts and spirits in good order when we are in a cumbered condition. He that lives in such a place as this, and has to do with such as we have, has need of a hint to caution him to take heed, every moment of the day. HON. But how are your neighbors for quietness? CONTR. They are much more moderate now than formerly. You know how Christian and Faithful were used at our town; but of late, I say, they have been far more moderate. I think the blood of Faithful lieth as a load upon them till now; for since they burned him they have been ashamed to burn any more. In those days we were afraid to walk the street; but now we can show our heads. Then the name of a Christian was hated; now, specially in some parts of our town (for you know our town is large), religion is counted honorable. Then said Mr. Contrite to them, "Pray, how fareth it with you in your pilgrimage? how stands the country towards you?" HON. It happens to us as it happeneth to wayfaring men: sometimes our way is clean, sometimes up-hill, sometimes down-hill: we are seldom at a certainty. The wind is not always on our back, nor is every one a friend that we meet with in the way. We have met with some notable rubs already, and what are yet behind we know not; but, for the most part we find it true that has been talked of, of old, "A good man must suffer trouble." CONTR. You talk of rubs; what rubs have you met withal? HON. Nay, ask Mr. Great-heart, our guide; for he can give the best account of that. GREAT. We have been beset three or four times already. First, Christiana and her children were beset by two ruffians, who, they feared, would take away their lives. We were beset by Giant Bloody-man, Giant Maul, and Giant Slay-good. Indeed, we did rather beset the last, than were beset of him. And thus it was: After we had been some time at the house of Gaius mine host, and of the whole Church, we were minded upon a time to take our weapons with us, and go and see if we could light upon any of those that were enemies to pilgrims; for we heard that there was a notable one thereabouts. Now Gaius knew his haunt better than I, because he dwelt thereabout. So we looked, and looked, till at last we saw the mouth of his cave; then we were glad and plucked up our spirits. So we approached up to his den; and, lo! when we came there, he had dragged, by mere force, into his net, this poor man, Mr. Feeble-mind, and was about to bring him to his end. But, when he saw us, supposing, as he thought, he had had another prey, he left the poor man in his house, and came out. So we fell to it full sore, and he lustily laid about him; but, in conclusion, he was brought down to the ground, and his head cut off, and set up by the wayside, for terror to such as should after practice such ungodliness. That I tell you the truth, here is the man himself to affirm it, who was as a lamb taken out of the mouth of the lion. FEEBLE. Then said Mr. Feeble-mind, "I found this true, to my cost and comfort: to my cost, when he threatened to pick my bones every moment; and to my comfort, when I saw Mr. Great-heart and his friends with their weapons approach so near for my deliverance." HOLY. Then said Mr. Holy-man, "There are two things that they have need to possess who go on pilgrimage--courage and an unspotted life. If they have not courage, they can never hold on their way; and if their lives be loose, they will make the very name of the pilgrim stink." LOVE. Then said Mr. Love-saint, "I hope this caution is not needful among you. But truly there are many that go upon the road, who rather declare themselves strangers to pilgrimage than strangers and pilgrims in the earth." DARE. Then said Mr. Dare-not-lie, "'Tis true. They have neither the pilgrim's weed nor the pilgrim's courage: they go not uprightly, but all awry with their feet; one shoe goeth inward, another outward, and their hosen out behind; there is here a rag, and there a rent, to the disparagement of their Lord." PEN. "These things," said Mr. Penitent, "they ought to be troubled for; nor are the pilgrims like to have that grace upon them and their pilgrim's progress as they desire, until the way is cleared of such spots and blemishes." Thus they sat talking and spending the time until supper was set upon the table, unto which they went, and refreshed their weary bodies; so they went to rest. [Sidenote: GRACE AND SAMUEL] Now, they stayed in this fair a great while, at the house of Mnason, who, in process of time, gave his daughter Grace unto Samuel, Christiana's son, to wife; and his daughter Martha to Joseph. The time, as I said, that they stayed here was long; for it was not now as in former times. Wherefore the pilgrims grew acquainted with many of the good people of the town, and did them what service they could. Mercy, as she was wont, labored much for the poor; wherefore their bodies and backs blessed her, and she was there an ornament to her profession. And to say the truth for Grace, Phoebe, and Martha, they were all of a very good nature, and did much good in their places. They were also all of them very fruitful; so that Christian's name, as was said before, was like to live in the world. While they lay here, there came a monster out of the woods, and slew many of the people of the town. It would also carry away their children, and teach them to suck its whelps. Now, no man in the town durst so much as face this monster, but all fled when they heard the noise of his coming. The monster was like unto no one beast on the earth. Its body was like a dragon, and it had seven heads and ten horns. It made great havoc of children, and yet it was governed by a woman. This monster gave conditions to men, and such men as loved their lives more than their souls accepted of those conditions; so they came under. Now, this Mr. Great-heart, together with those that came to visit the pilgrims at Mr. Mnason's house, entered into a covenant to go and engage this beast, if perhaps they might deliver the people of this town from the paws and mouth of this so devouring a serpent. Then did Mr. Great-heart, Mr. Contrite, Mr. Holy-man, Mr. Dare-not-lie, and Mr. Penitent, with their weapons, go forth to meet him. Now, the monster was at first very rampant, and looked upon these enemies with great disdain; but they so belabored him, being sturdy men-at-arms, that they made him make a retreat. So they came home to Mr. Mnason's house again. [Sidenote: MARTHA AND JOSEPH] The monster, you must know, had his certain seasons to come out in, and to make his attempts upon the children of the people of the town. Also, these seasons did these valiant worthies watch him in, and did still continually assault him; insomuch that in process of time he became not only wounded, but lame. Also he has not made that havoc of the townsmen's children as formerly he had done; and it is verily believed by some that this beast will die of his wounds. This, therefore, made Mr. Great-heart and his fellows of great fame in this town; so that many of the people that wanted their taste of things, yet had a reverent esteem and respect for them. Upon this account, therefore, it was that these pilgrims got not much hurt here. True, there were some of the baser sort, that could see no more than a mole, nor understand any more than a beast; these had no reverence for these men, and took no notice of their valor or adventures. Well, the time grew on that the pilgrims must go on their way; wherefore they prepared for their journey. They sent for their friends; they talked with them; they had some time set apart, therein to commit each other to the protection of their Prince. There were again that brought them of such things as they had, that were fit for the weak and the strong, for the women and the men, and so laded them with such things as were necessary. Then they set forward on their way; and, their friends accompanying them so far as was convenient, they again committed each other to the protection of their King, and parted. They, therefore, that were of the pilgrims' company, went on, and Mr. Great-heart went before them. Now, the women and children being weakly, they were forced to go as they could bear; by which means, Mr. Ready-to-halt and Mr. Feeble-mind had more to sympathize with their condition. When they were gone from the townsmen, and when their friends had bid them farewell, they quickly came to the place where Faithful was put to death. There, therefore, they made a stand, and thanked Him that had enabled him to bear his cross so well; and the rather, because they now found that they had a benefit by such manly suffering as his was. They went on, therefore, after this a good way farther, talking of Christian and Faithful, and how Helpful joined himself to Christian after that Faithful was dead. Now they were come up with the Hill Lucre, where the silver mine was which took Demas off from his pilgrimage, and into which, as some think, By-ends fell and perished; wherefore they considered that. But, when they were come to the old monument that stood over against the Hill Lucre, to wit, the pillar of salt, that stood also within view of Sodom and its stinking lake, they marvelled, as did Christian before, that men of that knowledge and ripeness of wit as they were, should be so blind as to turn aside here. CHAPTER VIII. THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS AND THE SHEPHERDS. I saw now that they went on till they came at the river that was on this side of the Delectable Mountains; to the river where the fine trees grow on both sides, and whose leaves, if taken inwardly, are good against sickness; where the meadows are green all the year long, and where they might lie down safely. By this river-side, in the meadow, there were cotes and folds for sheep, a house built for the nourishing and bringing up of those lambs, the babes of those women that go on pilgrimage. Also there was here One that was entrusted with them, who could have pity, and that could gather these lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and that could gently lead those that were with young. Now, to the care of this Man Christiana admonished her four daughters to commit their little ones, that by these waters they might be housed, cared for, helped and nourished, and that none of them might be lacking in time to come. This Man, if any of them go astray or be lost, He will bring them again; He will also bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen them that are sick. Here they will never want food and drink and clothing; here they will be kept from thieves and robbers; for this Man will die before one of those committed to His trust shall be lost. Besides, here they shall be sure to have good nurture and training, and shall be taught to walk in right paths; and that, you know, is a favor of no small account. Also here, as you see, are delicate waters, pleasant meadows, dainty flowers, variety of trees, and such as bear wholesome fruit--fruit not like that that Matthew ate of, that fell over the wall out of Beelzebub's garden; but fruit that giveth health where there is none, and that continueth and increaseth it where it is. So they were content to commit their little ones to Him; and that which was also an encouragement to them so to do, was, for that all this was to be at the charge of the King, and so was as an hospital for young children and orphans. [Sidenote: DOUBTING CASTLE] Now they went on. And, when they were come to By-path Meadow, to the stile over which Christian went with his fellow Hopeful, when they were taken by Giant Despair and put into Doubting Castle, they sat down, and consulted what was best to be done; to wit, now they were so strong, and had got such a man as Mr. Great-heart for their conductor, whether they had not best make an attempt upon the giant, demolish his castle, and if there were any pilgrims in it, to set them at liberty, before they went any farther. So one said one thing, and another said the contrary. One questioned if it were lawful to go upon ground that was not the King's; another said they might providing their end was good; but Mr. Great-heart said, "Though that reason given last cannot be always true, yet I have a commandment to resist sin, to overcome evil, to fight the good fight of faith; and, I pray, with whom should I fight this good fight, if not with Giant Despair? I will therefore attempt the taking away of his life and the demolishing of Doubting Castle." Then said he, "Who will go with me?" Then said old Honest, "I will." "And so will we, too," said Christiana's four sons, Matthew, Samuel, Joseph, and James; for they were young men and strong. So they left the women in the road, and with them Mr. Feeble-mind and Mr. Ready-to-halt, with his crutches, to be their guard until they came back; for, in that place, though Giant Despair dwelt so near, they keeping in the road, "a little child might lead them." So Mr. Great-heart, old Honest, and the four young men went to go up to Doubting Castle, to look for Giant Despair. When they came at the castle gate, they knocked for entrance with an unusual noise. At that, the old giant comes to the gate, and Diffidence his wife follows. Then said he, "Who and what is he that is so hardy as after this manner to disturb the Giant Despair?" Mr. Great-heart replied, "It is I, Great-heart, one of the King of the Celestial Country's conductors of pilgrims to their place; and I demand of thee that thou open thy gates for my entrance; prepare thyself also to fight, for I am come to take away thy head, and to demolish Doubting Castle." [Sidenote: GIANT DESPAIR IS BEHEADED] Now, Giant Despair, because he was a giant, thought no man could overcome him; and again thought he, "Since heretofore I have made a conquest of angels, shall Great-heart make me afraid?" So he harnessed himself with his armor, and went out. He had a cap of steel upon his head, a breast-plate of fire girded to him, and he came out in iron shoes, with a great club in his hand. Then these six men made up to him, and beset him behind and before; also when Diffidence, the giantess, came up to help him, old Mr. Honest cut her down at one blow. Then they fought for their lives, and Giant Despair was brought down to the ground, but was very loath to die. He struggled hard, and had, as they say, as many lives as a cat; but Great-heart was his death, for he left him not till he had severed his head from his shoulders. Then they fell to demolishing Doubting Castle, and that, you know, might with ease be done, since Giant Despair was dead. They were seven days in destroying of that; and in it of pilgrims, they found one Mr. Despondency, almost starved to death, and one Much-afraid, his daughter: these two they saved alive. But it would have made you wonder to have seen the dead bodies that lay here and there in the castle-yard, and how full of dead men's bones the dungeon was. When Mr. Great-heart and his companions had performed this great work they took Mr. Despondency and his daughter Much-afraid into their care; for they were honest people, though they were prisoners in Doubting Castle to that tyrant Giant Despair. They therefore, I say, took with them the head of the giant (for his body they had buried under a heap of stones), and down to the road and to their companions they came, and showed them what they had done. Now, when Feeble-mind and Ready-to-halt saw that it was the head of Giant Despair indeed, they were very jocund and merry. Now, Christiana, if need was, could play upon the viol, and her daughter Mercy upon the lute; so, since they were so merry disposed, she played them a lesson, and Ready-to-halt would dance. So he took Despondency's daughter Much-afraid by the hand, and to dancing they went in the road. True, he could not dance without one crutch in his hand; but I promise you he footed it well; also the girl was to be commended, for she answered the music handsomely. As for Mr. Despondency, the music was not so much to him; he was for feeding rather than dancing, for that he was almost starved. So Christiana gave him some of her bottle of spirits for present relief, and then prepared him something to eat; and in a little time the old gentleman came to himself, and began to be finely revived. Now, I saw in my dream, when all these things were finished, Mr. Great-heart took the head of Giant Despair, and set it upon a pole by the highway-side, right over against the pillar that Christian erected for a caution to pilgrims that came after to take heed of entering into his grounds. Then he writ under it, upon a marble stone, these verses following: "This is the head of him whose name only In former times did pilgrims terrify; His castle's down, and Diffidence his wife Brave Mr. Great-heart has bereft of life. Despondency, his daughter Much-afraid, Great-heart for them also the man has played. Who hereof doubts, if he'll but cast his eye Up hither, may his scruples satisfy. This head also, when doubting cripples dance, Doth show from fears they have deliverance." [Sidenote: THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS] When these men had thus bravely showed themselves against Doubting Castle, and had slain Giant Despair, they went forward, and went on till they came to the Delectable Mountains, where Christian and Hopeful refreshed themselves with the varieties of the place. They also acquainted themselves with the shepherds there, who welcomed them, as they had done Christian before, unto the Delectable Mountains. Now, the shepherds seeing so great a train follow Mr. Great-heart (for with him they were well acquainted), they said unto him, "Good sir, you have got a goodly company here; pray, where did you find all these?" Then Mr. Great-heart replied: "First, here is Christiana and her train, Her sons, and her sons' wives, who, like the wain, Keep by the pole, and do by compass steer From sin to grace; else they had not been here. Next, here's old Honest come on pilgrimage, Ready-to-halt too, who I dare engage True-hearted is, and so is Feeble-mind, Who willing was not to be left behind. Despondency, good man, is coming after And so also is Much-afraid his daughter. May we have entertainment here, or must We farther go? Let's know whereon to trust." [Sidenote: THE SHEPHERDS ENTERTAIN] Then said the shepherds, "This is a comfortable company. You are welcome to us, for we have care for the feeble, as well as for the strong. Our Prince has an eye to what is done, to the least of these; therefore weakness must not be a block to our entertainment." So they had them to the palace door, and then said unto them, "Come in, Mr. Feeble-mind; come in, Mr. Ready-to-halt; come in, Mr. Despondency and Mrs. Much-afraid, his daughter. These, Mr. Great-heart," said the shepherds to the guide, "we call in by name, for that they are most subject to draw back; but as for you and the rest that are strong, we leave you to your wonted liberty." Then said Mr. Great-heart, "This day I see that grace doth shine in your faces, and that you are my Lord's shepherds indeed; for that you have not pushed these helpless ones neither with side nor shoulder, but have rather strewed their way into the palace with flowers, as you should." So the feeble and weak went in, and Mr. Great-heart and the rest did follow. When they were also sat down, the shepherds said to those of the weaker sort, "What is it that you would have? for," said they, "all things must be managed here for the supporting of the weak, as well as the warning of the unruly." So they made them a feast of things easy of digestion, and that were pleasant to the palate, and nourishing; the which when they had received, they went to their rest, each one separately unto his proper place. When morning was come, because the mountains were nigh and the day clear, and because it was the custom of the shepherds to show the pilgrims before their departure some rarities; therefore, after they were ready and had refreshed themselves, the shepherds took them out into the fields, and showed them first what they had showed to Christian before. Then they had them to some new places. The first was to Mount Marvel, where they looked, and beheld a man at a distance that tumbled the hills about with words. Then they asked the shepherds what that should mean. So they told them that that man was the son of Mr. Great-grace of whom you read in the first part of the records of the Pilgrim's Progress; and he is set down there to teach the pilgrims how to believe, or to tumble out of their ways what difficulties they should meet with, by faith. Then said Mr. Great-heart, "I know him; he is a man above many." Then they had them to another place, called Mount Innocent; and there they saw a man clothed all in white, and two men, Prejudice and Ill-will, continually casting dirt upon them. Now, behold, the dirt, whatsoever they cast at him, would in a little time fall off again, and his garment would look as clear as if no dirt had been cast thereat. Then said the pilgrims, "What means this?" The shepherds answered, "This man is named Godly-man, and this garment is to show the innocency of his life. Now, those that throw dirt at him are such as hate his well-doing; but, as you see, the dirt will not stick upon his clothes: so it shall be with him that liveth truly innocently in the world. Whoever they be that would make such men dirty, they labor all in vain; for God, by that a little time is spent, will cause that their innocence shall break forth as the light, and their righteousness as the noon-day." Then they took them, and had them to Mount Charity, where they showed them a man that had a bundle of cloth lying before him, out of which he cut coats and garments for the poor that stood about him; yet his bundle or roll of cloth was never the less. Then said they, "What should this be?" "This is," said the shepherds, "to show you that he who has a heart to give of his labor to the poor, shall never want wherewithal. He that watereth shall be watered himself. And the cake that the widow gave to the prophet did not cause that she had ever the less in her barrel." They had them also to a place where they saw one Fool, and one Want-wit, washing of an Ethiopian, with intention to make him white; but the more they washed him the blacker he was. Then they asked the shepherds what that should mean. So they told them, saying, "Thus shall it be with the vile person: all means used to get such an one a good name, shall, in the end tend but to make him more abominable. Thus it was with the Pharisees, and so shall it be with all pretenders to religion." Then said Mercy, the wife of Matthew, to Christiana her mother, "Mother, I would, if it might be, see the hole in the hill, or that commonly called the By-way to Hell." So her mother brake her mind to the shepherds. Then they went to the door: it was in the side of a hill; and they opened it, and bid Mercy hearken awhile. So she hearkened, and heard one saying, "Cursed be my father for holding of my feet back from the way of peace and life." And another said, "Oh that I had been torn in pieces before I had, to save my life, lost my soul!" And another said, "If I were to live again, how would I deny myself rather than come to this place!" Then there was as if the very earth groaned and quaked under the feet of this young woman for fear; so she looked white, and came trembling away, saying, "Blessed be he and she that are delivered from this place." [Sidenote: THE GREAT GLASS] Now, when the shepherds had shown them all these things, then they had them back to the palace, and entertained them with what the house would afford. But Mercy longed for something that she saw there, but was ashamed to ask. Her mother-in-law then asked her what she ailed, for she looked as one not well. Then said Mercy, "There is a looking-glass hangs up in the dining-room, off of which I cannot take my mind; if, therefore, I have it not, I think I shall be unhappy." Then said her mother, "I will mention thy wants to the shepherds, and they will not deny it thee." But she said, "I am ashamed that these men should know that I longed." "Nay, my daughter," said she, "it is no shame, but a virtue, to long for such a thing as that." So Mercy said, "Then, mother, if you please, ask the shepherds if they are willing to sell it." Now, the glass was one of a thousand. It would present a man, one way, with his own features exactly; and, turn it but another way, and it would show one the very face and likeness of the Prince of pilgrims Himself. Yea, I have talked with them that can tell, and they have said that they have seen the very crown of thorns upon His head, by looking in that glass; they have therein also seen the holes in His hands, in His feet, and in His side. Yea, such an excellency is there in this glass, that it will show Him to one where they have a mind to see Him, whether living or dead, whether in earth or in heaven, whether in a state of lowliness or in His kingliness, whether coming to suffer or coming to reign. Christiana, therefore went to the shepherds apart--(now, the names of the shepherds were Knowledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere),--and said unto them, "There is one of my daughters, that I think doth long for something that she hath seen in this house, and she thinks that she shall be unhappy if she should by you be denied." EXPERIENCE. Call her, call her; she shall assuredly have what we can help her to. So they called her, and said to her, "Mercy, what is that thing thou wouldst have?" Then she blushed, and said, "The great glass that hangs up in the dining-room." So Sincere ran and fetched it; and with a joyful consent it was given her. Then she bowed her head, and gave thanks, and said, "By this I know that I have obtained favor in your eyes." They also gave to the other young women such things as they desired, and to their husbands great praise for that they joined with Great-heart to the slaying of Giant Despair and the destroying of Doubting Castle. About Christiana's neck the shepherds put a necklace, and so they did about the necks of her four daughters; also they put ear-rings in their ears, and jewels on their foreheads. [Illustration: Turn-away Resisting Evangelist. Page 357] [Sidenote: THEY LEAVE THE SHEPHERDS] When they were minded to go hence, they let them go in peace, but gave not to them those certain cautions which before were given to Christian and his companion. The reason was, for that these had Great-heart to be their guide, who was one that was well acquainted with things, and so could give them their cautions more seasonably; that is, even then when the danger was nigh the approaching. What cautions Christian and his companion had received of the shepherds, they had also lost by that the time was come that they had need to put them in practice. Wherefore, here was the advantage that this company had over the other. From hence they went on singing, and they said: "Behold, how fitly are the stages set, For their relief that pilgrims are become, And how they us receive without one let[11] That make the other life our mark and home! "What novelties they have, to us they give, That we, though pilgrims, joyful lives may live; They do upon us, too, such things bestow, That show we pilgrims are, where'er we go." [11] The word "let" here means "hindrance." When they were gone from the shepherds, they quickly came to the place where Christian met with one Turn-away, that dwelt in the town of Apostasy. Wherefore of him Mr. Great-heart, their guide, did now put them in mind, saying, "This is the place where Christian met with one Turn-away, who carried with him the character of his rebellion at his back. And this I have to say concerning this man: he would hearken to no counsel, but, once falling, persuasion could not stop him. When he came to the place where the Cross and the sepulchre were, he did meet with one that bid him look there; but he gnashed with his teeth, and stamped, and said he was resolved to go back to his own town. Before he came to the gate, he met with Evangelist, who offered to lay hands on him, to turn him into the way again. But this Turn-away resisted him; and having done much harm unto him, he got away over the wall, and so escaped his hand." [Sidenote: MEET VALIANT FOR TRUTH] Then they went on; and just at the place where Little-Faith formerly was robbed, there stood a man with his sword drawn, and his face all bloody. Then said Mr. Great-heart, "Who art thou?" The man made answer, saying, "I am one whose name is Valiant-for-truth. I am a pilgrim, and am going to the Celestial City. Now, as I was in my way, there were three men did beset me, and propounded unto me these three things: 1. Whether I would become one of them? 2. Or go back to the place from whence I came? 3. Or die upon the place? To the first I answered, I had been a true man a long season, and therefore it could not be expected that I should now cast in my lot with thieves. Then they demanded what I should say to the second. So I told them that the place from whence I came, had I not found it unsatisfactory I had not forsaken at all; but, finding it altogether unsuitable to me, and very unprofitable for me, I forsook it for this way. Then they asked me what I said to the third. And I told them my life cost more dear far than that I should lightly give it away. Besides you have nothing to do thus to put things to my choice, wherefore at your peril be it if you meddle. Then these three, to wit, Wild-head, Inconsiderate, and Pragmatic, drew their weapons upon me, and I also drew upon them. So we fell to it, one against three, for the space of above three hours. They have left upon me, as you see, some of the marks of their valor, and have also carried away with them some of mine. They are but just now gone: I suppose they might, as the saying is, hear your horse dash, and so they betook them to flight." GREAT. But here was great odds, three against one. [Sidenote: HOW VALIANT BORE HIMSELF] VALIANT. 'Tis true; but little or more are nothing to him that has the truth on his side. "Though an host should encamp against me," said one, "my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. Besides," said he, "I have read in some records that one man has fought an army; and how many did Samson slay with the jaw-bone of an ass?" GREAT. Then said the guide, "Why did you not cry out, that some might have come in for your succor?" VALIANT. So I did, to my King, who, I knew, could hear me, and afford invisible help; and that was sufficient for me. GREAT. Then said Great-heart to Mr. Valiant-for-truth, "Thou hast worthily behaved thyself. Let me see thy sword." So he showed it him. When he had taken it in his hand, and looked thereon a while, he said, "Ha! it is a right Jerusalem blade." VALIANT. It is so. Let a man have one of these blades, with a hand to wield it and skill to use it, and he may venture upon an angel with it. He need not fear its holding, if he can but tell how to lay on. Its edges will never blunt. It will cut flesh and bones, and soul and spirit, and all. GREAT. But you fought a great while. I wonder you were not weary. VALIANT. I fought till my sword did cleave to my hand; and when they were joined together, as if a sword grew out of my arm, and when the blood ran through my fingers, then I fought with most courage. GREAT. Thou hast done well; thou hast resisted unto blood, striving against sin. Thou shalt abide by us, come in and go out with us, for we are thy companions. Then they took him, washed his wounds, and gave him of what they had, to refresh him; and so they went on together. Now, as they went on, because Mr. Great-heart was delighted in him (for he loved one greatly that he found to be a man of his own sort), and because there were in company them that were feeble and weak, therefore he questioned with him about many things; as, first, what countryman he was. VALIANT. I am of Dark-land; for there I was born, and there my father and mother are still. GREAT. "Dark-land!" said the guide; "doth not that lie upon the same coast with the City of Destruction?" VALIANT. Yes, it doth. Now, that which caused me to come on pilgrimage was this. We had one Mr. Tell-true come into our parts, and he told it about what Christian had done, that went from the City of Destruction; namely, how he had forsaken his wife and children, and had betaken himself to a pilgrim's life. It was also reported, and believed, how he had killed a serpent that did come out to resist him in his journey; and how he got through to whither he intended. It was also told what welcome he had at all his Lord's lodgings, specially when he came to the gates of the Celestial City; "For there," said the man, "he was received with sound of trumpet by a company of Shining Ones." He told also how all the bells in the City did ring for joy at his entering in, and what golden garments he was clothed with; with many other things that now I shall forbear to relate. In a word, that man so told the story of Christian and his travels, that my heart fell into a burning haste to be gone after him; nor could father or mother stay me. So I got from them, and am come thus far on my way. GREAT. You came in at the gate, did you not? VALIANT. Yes, yes; for the same man also told us, that all would be nothing if we did not begin to enter this way at the gate. GREAT. "Look you," said the guide to Christiana, "the pilgrimage of your husband, with what he has gotten thereby, is spread abroad far and near." VALIANT. Why, is this Christian's wife? GREAT. Yes, that it is, and these also are his four sons. VALIANT. What! and going on pilgrimage too? GREAT. Yes, verily, they are following after. VALIANT. It glads me at heart. Good man, how joyful will he be when he shall see them that would not go with him, yet to enter after him in at the gates into the City! GREAT. Without doubt it will be a comfort to him; for, next to the joy of seeing himself there, it will be a joy to meet there his wife and children. VALIANT. But, now you are upon that, pray let me hear your opinion about it. Some make a question whether we shall know one another when we are there. [Sidenote: VALIANT'S OBSTACLES] GREAT. Do they think they shall know themselves, then? or that they shall rejoice to see themselves in that happiness? And if they think they shall know and do this, why not know others, and rejoice in their welfare also? Again, since relations are our second self, though that state will cease there, yet why may it not be wisely concluded that we shall be more glad to see them there than to see they are wanting? VALIANT. Well, I perceive whereabouts you are as to this. Have you any more things to ask me about my beginning to come on pilgrimage? GREAT. Yes. Were your father and mother willing that you should become a pilgrim? VALIANT. Oh, no; they used all means imaginable to persuade me to stay at home. GREAT. Why, what could they say against it? VALIANT. They said it was an idle life; and, if I myself were not inclined to sloth and laziness, I would never favor a pilgrim's condition. GREAT. And what did they say else? VALIANT. Why, they told me that it was a dangerous way: "Yea, the most dangerous way in the world," said they, "is that which the pilgrims go." GREAT. Did they show you wherein this way is so dangerous? VALIANT. Yes; and that in many particulars. GREAT. Name some of them. [Sidenote: VALIANT'S DISCOURAGEMENTS] VALIANT. They told me of the Slough of Despond, where Christian was well-nigh smothered. They told me that there were archers standing ready in Beelzebub's castle to shoot them who should knock at the wicket-gate for entrance. They told me also of the wood and dark mountains of the Hill Difficulty; of the lions; and also of the three giants, Bloody-man, Maul, and Slay-good. They said moreover that there was a foul fiend haunted the Valley of Humiliation, and that Christian was by him almost bereft of life. "Besides," said they, "you must go over the Valley of the Shadow of Death, where the hobgoblins are, where the light is darkness, where the way is full of snares, pits, traps, and gins." They told me also of Giant Despair, of Doubting Castle, and of the ruin that the pilgrims met with there. Further, they said I must go over the Enchanted Ground, which was dangerous; and that, after all this, I should find a river, over which I should find no bridge, and that that river did lie betwixt me and the Celestial Country. GREAT. And was this all? VALIANT. No. They also told me that this way was full of deceivers, and of persons that laid wait there to turn good men out of the path. GREAT. But how did they make that out? VALIANT. They told me that Mr. Worldly Wiseman did there lie in wait to deceive. They also said that there were Formality and Hypocrisy continually on the road. They said also that By-ends, Talkative, or Demas would go near to gather me up; that the Flatterer would catch me in his net; or that, with green-headed Ignorance, I would presume to go on to the gate, from whence he was sent back to the hole that was in the side of the hill, and made to go the by-way to hell. GREAT. I promise you, this was enough to discourage you; but did they make an end here? VALIANT. No stay. They told me also of many that had tried that way of old, and that had gone a great way therein, to see if they could find something of the glory there that so many had so much talked of from time to time; and how they came back again, and befooled themselves for setting a foot out of doors in that path, to the satisfaction of all the country. And they named several that did so, as Obstinate and Pliable, Mistrust and Timorous, Turn-away and old Atheist; with several more, who, they said, had some of them gone far to see what they could find, but not one of them found so much advantage by going as amounted to the weight of a feather. GREAT. Said they anything more to discourage you? VALIANT. Yes; they told me of one Mr. Fearing, who was a pilgrim, and how he found this way so solitary, that he never had a comfortable hour therein; also that Mr. Despondency had like to have been starved therein; yea, and also (which I had almost forgot) that Christian himself, about whom there had been such a noise, after all his ventures for a celestial crown, was certainly drowned in the Black River, and never went a foot farther, however it was smothered up. GREAT. And did none of these things discourage you? VALIANT. No; they seemed but as so many nothings to me. GREAT. How came that about? VALIANT. Why, I still believed what Mr. Tell-true had said; and that carried me beyond them all. GREAT. Then this was your victory, even your faith. VALIANT. It was so. I believed, and therefore came out, got into the way, fought all that set themselves against me, and, by believing, am come to this place. "Who would true valor see, Let him come hither; One here will constant be, Come wind, come weather; There's no discouragement Shall make him once relent His first avowed intent To be a pilgrim. "Whoso beset him round With dismal stories, Do but themselves confound-- His strength the more is. No lion can him fright; He'll with a giant fight, But he will have a right To be a pilgrim. "Hobgoblin nor foul fiend Can daunt his spirit; He knows he at the end Shall life inherit. Then, fancies fly away, He'll fear not what men say; He'll labor night and day To be a pilgrim." CHAPTER IX. THE ENCHANTED GROUND. By this time they were got to the Enchanted Ground, where the air naturally tended to make one drowsy. And that place was all grown over with briers and thorns, excepting here and there, where was an enchanted arbor, upon which if a man sits, or in which if a man sleeps, it is a question, say some, whether ever he shall rise or wake again in this world. Over this forest, therefore, they went, both one and another; and Mr. Great-heart went before, for that he was the guide, and Mr. Valiant-for-truth came behind, being rear-guard, for fear lest peradventure some fiend, or dragon, or giant, or thief, should fall upon their rear, and so do mischief. They went on here, each man with his sword drawn in his hand, for they knew it was a dangerous place. Also they cheered up one another as well as they could. Feeble-mind, Mr. Great-heart commanded, should come up after him; and Mr. Despondency was under the eye of Mr. Valiant. Now, they had not gone far, but a great mist and darkness fell upon them all, so that they could scarce, for a great while, see the one the other; wherefore they were forced, for some time, to feel for one another by words; for they walked not by sight. But any one must think that here was but sorry going for the best of them all; but how much worse for the women and children, who both of feet and heart were but tender! Yet so it was, that through the encouraging words of him that led in the front, they made a pretty good shift to wag along. The way also was here very wearisome through dirt and slabbiness. Nor was there on all this ground so much as one inn or victualling-house, therein to refresh the feebler sort. Here, therefore, was grunting, and puffing and sighing. While one tumbleth over a brush, another sticks fast in the dirt; and the children, some of them, lost their shoes in the mire. While one cries out, "I am down!" and another, "Ho! where are you?" and a third, "The bushes have got such fast hold on me, I think I cannot get away from them." Then they came at an arbor, warm, and promising much refreshing to the pilgrims; for it was finely wrought above head, beautified with greens, furnished with benches and settles. It also had in it a soft couch, whereon the weary might lean. This, you must think, all things considered, was tempting; for the pilgrims already began to be foiled with the badness of the way; but there was not one of them that made so much as a motion to stop there. Yea, for aught I could perceive, they continually gave so good heed to the advice of their guide, and he did so faithfully tell them of dangers, and of the nature of dangers when they were at them, that usually, when they were nearest to them, they did most pluck up their spirits, and hearten one another to deny the flesh. This arbor was called "The Slothful's Friend," on purpose to allure, if it might be, some of the pilgrims there to take up their rest when weary. I saw then in my dream, that they went on in this their solitary ground, till they came to a place at which a man is apt to lose his way. Now, though when it was light their guide could well enough tell how to miss those ways that led wrong, yet, in the dark, he was put to a stand. But he had in his pocket a map of all ways leading to or from the Celestial City; wherefore he struck a light (for he also never goes without his tinder-box), and takes a view of his book or map, which bids him be careful in that place to turn to the right-hand way. And had he not here been careful to look in his map, they had, in all probability been smothered in the mud; for, just a little before them, and that at the end of the cleanest way too, was a pit, none knows how deep, full of nothing but mud, there made on purpose to destroy the pilgrims in. Then thought I with myself, "Who that goeth on pilgrimage but would have one of those maps about him, that he may look, when he is at a stand, which is the way he must take?" They went on then in this Enchanted Ground till they came to where was another arbor, and it was built by the highway-side. And in that arbor there lay two men, whose names were Heedless and Too-bold. These two went thus far on pilgrimage; but here, being wearied with their journey, they sat down to rest themselves, and so fell fast asleep. When the pilgrims saw them, they stood still, and shook their heads; for they knew that the sleepers were in a pitiful case. Then they consulted what to do,--whether to go on, and leave them in their sleep, or to step to them, and try to awake them. So they concluded to go to them and wake them; that is, if they could; but with this caution, namely, to take heed that themselves did not sit down nor embrace the offered benefit of that arbor. So they went in and spake to the men, and called each one by his name (for the guide, it seems, did know them); but there was no voice or answer. Then the guide did shake them, and do what he could to disturb them. Then said one of them, "I will pay you when I take my money." At which the guide shook his head. "I will fight so long as I can hold my sword in my hand," said the other. At that, one of the children laughed. [Sidenote: THE LAND OF BEULAH] Then said Christiana, "What is the meaning of this?" The guide said, "They talk in their sleep. If you strike them, beat them, or whatever else you do to them, they will answer you after this fashion; or, as one of them said in old time, when the waves of the sea did beat upon him, and he slept as one upon the mast of a ship, 'When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.' You know, when men talk in their sleep, they say anything, but their words are not governed either by faith or reason. There is an unsuitableness in their words now, as there was before betwixt their going on pilgrimage and sitting down there. This, then, is the mischief of it: when heedless ones go on pilgrimage, 'tis twenty to one but they are served thus. For this Enchanted Ground is one of the last refuges that the enemy to pilgrims has; wherefore, it is, as you see, placed almost at the end of the way, and so it standeth against us with the more advantage. For when, thinks the enemy, will these fools be so desirous to sit down as when they are weary? and when so like to be weary as when almost at their journey's end? Therefore it is, I say, that the Enchanted Ground is placed so near to the Land of Beulah, and so near the end of their race. Wherefore, let pilgrims look to themselves, lest it happen to them as it has done to these, that, as you see, are fallen asleep, and none can wake them." Then the pilgrims desired, with trembling, to go forward; only they prayed their guide to strike a light, that they might go the rest of their way by the help of the light of a lantern. So he struck a light, and they went by the help of that through the rest of this way, though the darkness was very great. But the children began to be sorely weary; and they cried out to Him that loveth pilgrims to make their way more comfortable. So, by that they had gone a little farther, a wind arose that drove away the fog; so the air became more clear. Yet they were not off, by much, of the Enchanted Ground; only now they could see one another better, and the way wherein they should walk. Now, when they were almost at the end of this ground, they perceived that a little before them was a solemn noise, as of one that was much concerned. So they went on, and looked before them; and behold, they saw, as they thought, a man upon his knees, with hands and eyes lift up, and speaking, as they thought, earnestly to One that was above. They drew nigh, but could not tell what he said; so they went softly till he had done. When he had done, he got up, and began to run towards the Celestial City. Then Mr. Great-heart called after him, saying, "So-ho, friend! let us have your company, if you go, as I suppose you do, to the Celestial City." So the man stopped, and they came up to him. But, as soon as Mr. Honest saw him, he said, "I know this man." Then said Mr. Valiant-for-truth, "Prithee, who is it?" "It is one," said he, "that comes from whereabout I dwelt. His name is Stand-fast; he is certainly a right good pilgrim." So they came up one to another. And presently Stand-fast said to old Honest, "Ho, father Honest, are you there?" "Ay," said he, "that I am, as sure as you are there." [Sidenote: HEEDLESS AND TOO-BOLD] "Right glad am I," said Mr. Stand-fast, "that I have found you on this road." "And as glad am I," said the other, "that I espied you upon your knees." Then Mr. Stand-fast blushed, and said, "But why? did you see me?" "Yes, that I did," quoth the other, "and with my heart was glad at the sight." "Why, what did you think?" said Stand-fast. "Think!" said old Honest; "what should I think? I thought we had an honest man upon the road, and therefore should have his company by-and-by." "If you thought not amiss," said Stand-fast, "how happy am I! But, if I be not as I should, I alone must bear it." "That is true," said the other; "but your fear doth further show me that things are right betwixt the Prince of pilgrims and your soul; for He saith, 'Blessed is the man that feareth always.'" VALIANT. Well, but, brother, I pray thee, tell us what was it that was the cause of thy being upon thy knees even now: was it for that some special mercy laid upon thee, the need of prayer, or how? STAND. Why, we are, as you see, upon the Enchanted Ground; and as I was coming along, I was musing with myself of what a dangerous road the road in this place was, and how many that had come even thus far on pilgrimage, had here been stopped and been destroyed. I thought also of the manner of the death with which this place destroyeth men. Those that die here die of no violent, painful disease: the death which such die is not grievous to them. For he that goeth away in such a sleep, begins that journey with desire and pleasure. Yea, such sink into the will of that disease. HON. Then Mr. Honest, interrupting of him, said, "Did you see the two men asleep in the arbor?" [Sidenote: STAND-FAST REPULSES MADAM] STAND. Ay, ay, I saw Heedless and Too-bold there; and, for aught I know, there they will lie till they rot. But let me go on in my tale. As I was thus musing, as I said, there was one in very pleasant attire, but old, who presented herself to me, and offered me three things; to wit, her body, her purse, and her bed. Now, the truth is, I was both aweary and sleepy; I am also as poor as an owlet, and that, perhaps, the witch knew. Well, I repulsed her once or twice; but she put by my repulses, and smiled. Then I began to be angry; but she mattered that nothing at all. Then she made offers again, and said, if I would be ruled by her, she would make me great and happy. "For," said she, "I am the mistress of the world, and men are made happy by me." Then I asked her name, and she told me it was Madam Bubble. This set me farther from her; but she still followed me with enticements. Then I betook me, as you saw, to my knees; and, with hands lift up, and cries, I prayed to Him that had said He would help. So, just as you came up, the gentlewoman went her way. Then I continued to give thanks for this my great deliverance; for I verily believe she intended no good, but rather sought to make stop of me in my journey. HON. Without doubt her designs were bad. But stay: now you talk of her, methinks I either have seen her, or have read some story of her. STAND. Perhaps you have done both. HON. Madam Bubble? Is she not a tall, comely dame, somewhat of a swarthy complexion? STAND. Right, you hit it: she is just such a one. HON. Does she not speak very smoothly, and give you a smile at the end of a sentence? STAND. You fall right upon it again, for these are her very actions. HON. Doth she not wear a great purse by her side, and is not her hand often in it, fingering her money, as if that was her heart's delight? STAND. 'Tis just so. Had she stood by all this while, you could not more amply have set her forth before me, nor have better described her features. HON. Then he that drew her picture was a good artist, and he that wrote of her said true. [Sidenote: MADAM BUBBLE'S INFLUENCE] GREAT. This woman is a witch, and it is by virtue of her witchcraft that this ground is enchanted. Whoever doth lay his head down in her lap, had as good lay it down upon that block over which the axe doth hang; and whoever lay their eyes upon her beauty, are accounted the enemies of God. This is she that maintaineth in their splendor all those that are the enemies of pilgrims. Yea, this is she that hath bought off many a man from a pilgrim's life. She is a great gossiper: she is always, both she and her daughters, at one pilgrim's heels or other; now commanding, and then preferring the excellences of this life. She is a bold and impudent creature; she will talk with any man. She always laugheth poor pilgrims to scorn, but highly commends the rich. If there be one cunning to get money in a place, she will speak well of him from house to house. She loveth banqueting and feasting mainly well; she is always at one full table or another. She has given it out in some places that she is a goddess, and therefore some do worship her. She has her times and open places of cheating; and she will say and avow it, that none can show a good comparable to hers. She promiseth to dwell with children's children, if they will but love her and make much of her. She will cast out of her purse gold like dust, in some places and to some persons. She loves to be sought after, spoken well of, and to lie in the bosoms of men. She is never weary of praising her gifts and she loves them most that think best of her. She will promise, to some, crowns and kingdoms, if they will but take her advice; yet many hath she brought to the halter, and ten thousand times more to hell. STAND. "Oh," said Mr. Stand-fast, "what a mercy it is that I did resist her! for whither might she have drawn me?" GREAT. Whither! nay, none but God knows whither; but in general, to be sure, she would have drawn thee into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and ruin. 'Twas she that set Absalom against his father, and Jeroboam against his master. 'Twas she that persuaded Judas to sell his Lord, and that prevailed with Demas to forsake the godly pilgrim's life. None can tell of the mischief that she doth. She makes variance betwixt rulers and subjects, betwixt parents and children, betwixt neighbor and neighbor, betwixt a man and his wife, betwixt a man and himself, betwixt the flesh and the heart. Wherefore, good Master Stand-fast, be as your name is, and when you have done all, stand. At this course there was among the pilgrims a mixture of joy and trembling; but at length they brake out, and sang: "What danger is the pilgrim in! How many are his foes! How many ways there are to sin No living mortal knows. "Some of the ditch shy are, yet can Lie tumbling in the mire; Some, though they shun the frying-pan, Do leap into the fire." CHAPTER X. THE PILGRIMS AT HOME. After this, I beheld until they were come unto the Land of Beulah, where the sun shineth night and day. Here, because they were weary, they betook themselves awhile to rest. And because this country was common for pilgrims, and because the orchards and vineyards that were here belong to the King of the Celestial Country, therefore they were permitted to make bold with any of His things. But a little while soon refreshed them here; for the bells did so ring, and the trumpets continually sound so melodiously, that they could not sleep and yet they received as much refreshing as if they had slept their sleep never so soundly. Here also the noise of them that walked in the streets was, "More pilgrims are come to town!" And another would answer, saying, "And so many went over the water, and were let in at the golden gates, to-day!" They would cry again, "There is now a legion of Shining Ones just come to town, by which we know that there are more pilgrims upon the road; for here they come to wait for them, and comfort them after all their sorrow!" Then the pilgrims got up, and walked to and fro. But how were their ears now filled with heavenly voices, and their eyes delighted with celestial visions! In this land they heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing, smelt nothing, tasted nothing, that was offensive to their stomach or mind; only when they tasted of the water of the river over which they were to go, they thought that it tasted a little bitterish to the palate, but it proved sweeter when it was down. In this place there was a record kept of the names of them that had been pilgrims of old, and a history of all the famous acts that they had done. It was here also much spoken of, how the river to some had had its flowings, and what ebbings it had had while others have gone over. It has been in a manner dry for some, while it has overflowed its banks for others. In this place, the children of the town would go into the King's gardens, and gather nosegays for the pilgrims, and bring them to them with much affection. Here also grew camphire, with spikenard, and saffron, calamus, and cinnamon, with all the trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, with all chief spices. With these the pilgrims' chambers were perfumed while they stayed here; and with these were their bodies anointed, to prepare them to go over the river, when the time appointed was come. [Sidenote: CHRISTIANA RECEIVES MESSAGE] Now, while they lay here, and waited for the good hour, there was a noise in the town that there was a messenger come from the Celestial City with matter of great importance to one Christiana, the wife of Christian the pilgrim. So inquiry was made for her, and the house was found out where she was. So the messenger presented her with a letter; the contents whereof were, "Hail, good woman! I bring thee tidings that the Master calleth for thee, and expecteth that thou shouldest stand in His presence, in clothes of everlasting life, within these ten days." When he had read this letter to her, he gave her therewith a sure token that he was a true messenger, and was come to bid her make haste to be gone. The token was an arrow, with a point sharpened with love, let easily into her heart, which by degrees wrought so effectually with her, that at the time appointed she must be gone. When Christiana saw that her time was come, and that she was the first of this company that was to go over, she called for Mr. Great-heart, her guide, and told him how matters were. So he told her he was heartily glad of the news, and could have been glad had the post come for him. Then she bid that he should give advice how all things should be prepared for her journey. So he told her, saying, "Thus and thus it must be; and we that are left will accompany you to the river-side." Then she called for her children, and gave them her blessing, and told them that she yet read with comfort the mark that was set in their foreheads, and was glad to see them with her there, and that they had kept their garments so white. Lastly, she gave to the poor that little she had, and commanded her sons and her daughters to be ready against the messenger should come for them. When she had spoken these words to her guide and to her children, she called for Mr. Valiant-for-truth, and said unto him, "Sir, you have in all places shown yourself true-hearted. Be faithful unto death, and my King will give you a crown of life. I would also entreat you to have an eye to my children; and if at any time you see them faint, speak comfortably to them. For my daughters, my sons' wives, they have been faithful; and a fulfilling of the promise upon them will be their end." But she gave Mr. Stand-fast a ring. Then she called for old Mr. Honest, and said of him, "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile." Then said he, "I wish you a fair day when you set out for Mount Zion, and shall be glad to see that you go over the river dry shod." But she answered, "Come wet, come dry, I long to be gone; for, however the weather is in my journey, I shall have time enough when I come there to sit down and rest me and dry me." Then came in that good man, Mr. Ready-to-halt, to see her. So she said to him, "Thy travel hitherto has been with difficulty; but that will make thy rest the sweeter. But watch and be ready; for, at an hour when you think not, the messenger may come." After him came in Mr. Despondency and his daughter Much-afraid; to whom she said, "You ought with thankfulness for ever to remember your deliverance from the hands of Giant Despair and out of Doubting Castle. The effect of that mercy is that you are brought with safety hither. Be ye watchful, and cast away fear; be sober, and hope to the end." Then she said to Mr. Feeble-mind, "Thou wast delivered from the mouth of Giant Slay-good, that thou mightest live in the light of the living for ever, and see thy King with comfort. Only I advise thee to turn thee of thy aptness to fear and doubt of His goodness, before He sends for thee; lest thou shouldest, when He comes, be forced to stand before Him for that fault with blushing." [Sidenote: CHRISTIANA CROSSES THE RIVER] Now, the day drew on that Christiana must be gone. So the road was full of people to see her take her journey. But, behold, all the banks beyond the river were full of horses and chariots, which were come down from above to accompany her to the City gate. So she came forth and entered the river, with a beckon of farewell to those that followed her to the river-side. The last words that she was heard to say were, "I come, Lord, to be with Thee, and bless Thee!" So her children and friends returned to their place, for that those that waited for Christiana had carried her out of their sight. So she went and called, and entered in at the gate with all the tokens of joy that her husband Christian had done before her. At her departure her children wept. But Mr. Great-heart and Mr. Valiant played upon the well-tuned cymbal and harp for joy. So all departed to their respective places. [Sidenote: PILGRIMS RECEIVE MESSAGES] In process of time, there came a messenger to the town again, and his business was with Mr. Ready-to-halt. So he inquired him out, and said to him, "I am come to thee from Him whom thou hast loved and followed, though upon crutches; and my message is to tell thee, that He expects thee at His table, to sup with Him in His kingdom, the next day after Easter; wherefore prepare thyself for this journey." Then he also gave him a token that he was a true messenger, saying, "I have broken thy golden bowl and loosed thy silver cord." After this Mr. Ready-to-halt called for his fellow-pilgrims, and told them, saying, "I am sent for, and God shall surely visit you also." So he desired Mr. Valiant to make his will. And because he had nothing to bequeath to them that should survive him but his crutches and his good wishes, therefore thus he said: "These crutches I bequeath to my son that shall tread in my steps, with a hundred warm wishes that he may prove better than I have done." Then he thanked Mr. Great-heart for his conduct and kindness, and so addressed himself to his journey. When he came to the brink of the river, he said, "Now I shall have no more need of these crutches, since yonder are chariots and horses for me to ride on." The last words he was heard to say were, "Welcome life!" So he went his way. After this, Mr. Feeble-mind had tidings brought him, that the messenger sounded his horn at his chamber-door. Then he came in, and told him, saying, "I am come to tell thee that thy Master has need of thee, and that in a very little time thou must behold His face in brightness. And take this as a token of the truth of my message: 'Those that look out at the windows shall be darkened.'" Then Mr. Feeble-mind called for his friends, and told them what errand had been brought unto him, and what token he had received of the truth of the message. Then he said, "Since I have nothing to bequeath to any, to what purpose should I make a will? As for my feeble mind, that I will leave behind me, for that I shall have no need of in the place whither I go, nor is it worth bestowing upon the poorest pilgrim: wherefore, when I am gone, I desire that you, Mr. Valiant, would bury it in a dunghill." This done, and the day being come on which he was to depart, he entered the river as the rest. His last words were, "Hold out, faith and patience!" So he went over to the other side. When days had many of them passed away, Mr. Despondency was sent for; for a messenger was come, and brought this message to him: "Trembling man, these are to summon thee to be ready with thy King by the next Lord's day, to shout for joy for thy deliverance from all thy doubtings. And," said the messenger, "that my message is true, take this for a proof." So he gave him the grasshopper to be a burden unto him. Now, Mr. Despondency's daughter, whose name was Much-afraid, said when she heard what was done, that she would go with her father. Then Mr. Despondency said to his friends, "Myself and my daughter, you know what we have been, and how troublesomely we have behaved ourselves in every company. My will and my daughter's is, that our discouraged feelings and slavish fears be by no man received, from the day of our departure for ever; for I know that after my death they will offer themselves to others. For, to be plain with you, they are ghosts the which we entertained when we first began to be pilgrims, and could never shake them off after; and they will walk about and seek entertainment of the pilgrims; but, for our sakes, shut ye the doors upon them." When the time was come for them to depart, they went to the brink of the river. The last words of Mr. Despondency were, "Farewell, night! welcome, day!" His daughter went through the river singing, but none could understand what she said. Then it came to pass a while after, that there was a messenger in the town that inquired for Mr. Honest. So he came to his house where he was, and delivered to his hand these lines: "Thou art commanded to be ready against this day seven-night, to present thyself before thy Lord at His Father's house. And for a token that my message is true, 'All thy daughters of music shall be brought low.'" Then Mr. Honest called for his friends, and said unto them, "I die, but shall make no will. As for my honesty, it shall go with me: let them that come after me be told this." When the day that he was to be gone was come, he prepared himself to go over the river. Now, the river at that time overflowed its banks in some places; but Mr. Honest in his lifetime had spoken to one Good-conscience to meet him there; the which also he did, and lent him his hand, and so helped him over. The last words of Mr. Honest were, "Grace reigns!" So he left the world. [Sidenote: THE FINAL SUMMONS] After this, it was noised abroad that Mr. Valiant-for-truth was taken with a summons by the same messenger as the other, and had this for a token that the summons was true, that his pitcher was broken at the fountain. When he understood it, he called for his friends, and told them of it. Then said he, "I am going to my Father's; and though with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles who now will be my rewarder." When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the river-side, into which as he went he said, "Death, where is thy sting?" And, as he went down deeper, he said, "Grave, where is thy victory?" So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side. Then there came forth a summons for Mr. Stand-fast (this Mr. Stand-fast was he whom the pilgrims found upon his knees in the Enchanted Ground), for the messenger brought it him open in his hands; the contents thereof were, that he must prepare for a change of life, for his Master was not willing that he should be so far from Him any longer. At this Mr. Stand-fast was put into a muse. "Nay," said the messenger, "you need not doubt the truth of my message, for here is a token of the truth thereof: 'Thy wheel is broken at the cistern.'" Then he called to him Mr. Great-heart, who was their guide, and said unto him, "Sir, although it was not my hap to be much in your good company in the days of my pilgrimage, yet, since the time I knew you, you have been profitable to me. When I came from home, I left behind me a wife and five small children: let me entreat you at your return (for I know that you will go and return to your master's house, in hopes that you may yet be a conductor to more of the holy pilgrims), that you send to my family, and let them be acquainted with all that hath or shall happen unto me. Tell them moreover of my happy arrival to this place, and of the present and late blessed condition that I am in. Tell them also of Christian and Christiana his wife, and how she and her children came after her husband. Tell them also what a happy end she made, and whither she is gone. I have little or nothing to send to my family, unless it be my prayers and tears for them; of which it will suffice that you acquaint them, if peradventure they may prevail." [Sidenote: END OF THE PILGRIMAGE] When Mr. Stand-fast had thus set things in order, and the time being come for him to haste him away, he also went down to the river. Now, there was a great calm at that time in the river; wherefore Mr. Stand-fast, when he was about half-way in, stood a while, and talked to his companions that had waited upon him thither. And he said, "This river has been a terror to many; yea, the thoughts of it have also frighted me; but now methinks I stand easy; my foot is fixed upon that on which the feet of the priests that bare the ark of the covenant stood while Israel went over Jordan. The waters, indeed, are to the palate bitter, and to the stomach cold; yet the thought of what I am going to, and of the conduct that waits for me on the other side, doth lie as a glowing coal at my heart. I see myself now at the end of my journey; my toilsome days are ended. I am going to see that head which was crowned with thorns, and that face which was spit upon for me. I have formerly lived by hearsay and faith; but now I go where I shall live by sight, and shall be with Him in whose company I delight myself. I have loved to hear my Lord spoken of; and wherever I have seen the print of His shoe in the earth, there I have coveted to set my foot too. His name has been to me as a perfume box; yea, sweeter than all sweet smells. His voice to me has been most sweet, and His countenance I have more desired than they that have most desired the light of the sun. His Word I did use to gather for my food, and for medicine against my faintings. He has held me, and hath kept me from my sins; yea, my steps hath He strengthened in His way." Now, while he was thus speaking, his countenance changed, his strong man bowed under him; and, after he had said, "Take me, for I come unto Thee!" he ceased to be seen of them. But glorious it was to see how the open region was filled with horses and chariots, with trumpeters and pipers, with singers and players on stringed instruments to welcome the pilgrims as they went up, and followed one another in at the beautiful gate of the City. As for Christian's children, the four boys that Christiana brought with her, with their wives and children, I did not stay where I was till they were gone over. Also, since I came away, I heard one say that they were yet alive, and so would be for the help of the Church in that place where they were for a time. Shall it be my lot to go that way again, I may give those that desire it an account of what I here am silent about: meantime I bid my reader ADIEU. THE LITTLE PILGRIM. THE STORY OF A LITTLE GIRL WHO TRIED TO GO ON PILGRIMAGE. In a large old house, with two kind aunts, The little Marian dwelt; And a happy child she was, I ween, For though at times she felt That playmates would be better far Than either birds or flowers, Yet her kind old aunts, and story books, Soothed many lonely hours. Her favorite haunt, in the summer-time, Was a large old apple-tree; And oft amid the boughs she sat, With her pet book on her knee. The "Pilgrim's Progress" was its name, And Marian loved it much; It is, indeed, a glorious book, There are not many such! She read it in her little bed, Beside the winter fire, And in summer-time, in the apple-tree, As though she would never tire. But, unexplained, 'tis just the book To puzzle the young brain; And the poor child had no kind friend, Its meaning to explain. For though her aunts were very kind, They were not overwise, And only said, "Don't read so, child, I'm sure you'll spoil your eyes." But Marian still went reading on, And visions strange and wild Began to fill the little head Of the lonely, dreaming child; For she thought that Christian and his wife, And all their children too, Had left behind their pleasant home, And done what she must do. "I'll take my Bible," said the child, "And seek the road to heaven; I'll try to find the Wicket Gate, And hope to be forgiven. I wish my aunts would go with me, But 'tis in vain to ask; They are so deaf and rather lame, They'd think it quite a task. "No! I must go alone, I see, So I'll not let them know; Or, like poor Christian's friends, they'll say, 'My dear, you must not go.' "But I must wait till some grand scheme Can all their thoughts engage; And then I'll leave my pleasant home, And go on pilgrimage." She had not waited long, before, One fine autumnal day, She saw the large old coach arrive, To take her aunts away. "We're going out to spend the day," The two old ladies said; "We mean to visit Mrs. Blair-- Poor soul!--she's ill in bed. "But, Marian, you must stay at home, For the lady's ill, you see; You can have your dinner, if you like, In the large old apple-tree, And play in the garden all the day, Quite happy and content." A few more parting words were said, And off the ladies went. The servants, too, were all engaged; "The day is come at last," Said Marian, "but oh, I wish, My pilgrimage was past." She knelt beside the apple-tree, And for God's assistance prayed; Then, with her basket in her hand, Forth tripped the little maid. Behind the house where Marian dwelt, Far off in the distance, lay A high steep hill, which the sun at morn Tinged with its earliest ray. "Difficulty" was its rightful name, The child had often thought; Towards this hill she turned her steps, With hopeful visions fraught. The flowers seemed to welcome her, 'Twas a lovely autumn morn, The little lark sang merrily, Above the waving corn. "Ah, little lark, you sing," said she, "On your early pilgrimage; I, too, will sing, for pleasant thoughts Should now my mind engage." In clear, sweet strains she sang a hymn, And tripped lightly on her way; Until a pool of soft, thick mud Across her pathway lay. "This is the Slough of Despond," she cried, But she bravely ventured through; And safely reached the other side, But she lost one little shoe. On an old gray stone she sat her down, To eat some fruit and bread; Then took her little Bible out, And a cheering psalm she read. Then with fresh hope she journeyed on, For many miles away; And she reached the bottom of the hill, Before the close of day. She clambered up the steep ascent, Though faint and weary, too; But firmly did our Marian keep Her purpose still in view. "I'm glad, at least, the arbor's past," Said the little tired soul; "I'm sure I should have sat me down And lost my little roll!" On the high hill-top she stands at last, And our weary Pilgrim sees A porter's lodge, of ample size, Half hid by sheltering trees. She clapped her hands with joy, and cried, "Oh, there's the Wicket Gate, And I must seek admittance there, Before it is too late." Gently she knocks--'tis answered soon, And at the open door Stands a tall, stout man--poor Marian felt As she ne'er had felt before. With tearful eyes, and trembling hand, Flushed cheek, and anxious brow, She said, "I hope you're Watchful, Sir, I want Discretion now." "Oh yes, I'm watchful," said the man, "As a porter ought to be; I s'pose you've lost your way, young Miss, You've lost your shoe, I see. "Missus," he cried to his wife within, "Here's a child here, at the door, You'll never see such a one again, If you live to be fourscore. She wants discretion, so she says, Indeed I think 'tis true; But I know some who want it more, Who will not own they do." "Go to the Hall," his wife replies, "And take the child with you, The ladies there are all so wise, They'll soon know what to do." The man complied, and led the child Through many a flowery glade; "Is that the Palace Beautiful?" The little Pilgrim said. "There, to the left, among the trees? Why, Miss, 'tis mighty grand; Call it a palace, if you please, 'Tis the finest in the land. Now we be come to the fine old porch, And this is the Marble Hall; Here, little lady, you must stay, While I the servants call." Tired and sad he left the child, But he quickly re-appeared, And with him the lady of the house-- Poor Marian's heart was cheered. "Sweet little girl," the lady said, In accents soft and kind, "I'm sure you sadly want some rest, And rest you soon shall find." To a room where three young ladies sat, The child was quickly led; "Piety, Prudence, and Charity," To herself she softly said. "What is your name, my little dear?" Said the eldest of the three, Whom Marian, in her secret thought, Had christened Piety. "We'll send a servant to your friends, How uneasy they must be!" Admiringly she watched the child, Who, indeed, was fair to see; Around her bright and lovely face Fell waves of auburn hair, As modestly she told her name, With whom she lived and where. "How did you lose your way, my love?" She gently raised her head; "I do not think I've lost my way," The little Pilgrim said. "This is the Palace Beautiful, May I stay here to-night?" They smiled and said, "We're glad our house Finds favor in your sight:-- "Yes, gladly will we keep you here, For many nights to come." "Thank you," said Marian, "but I soon Must seek my heavenly home. The Valley of the Shadow of Death Is near this house, I know"-- She stopped, for she saw, with great surprise, Their tears began to flow. She little thought the mourning dress, Which all the ladies wore, Was for one whom they had dearly loved, And should see on earth no more. Their brother had been called away, Their brightest and their best; No wonder, then, that Marian's words Roused grief in every breast. Sobs only for awhile were heard; At length the ladies said, "My, love, you have reminded us Of our loved and early dead; But this you could not know, my dear, And it indeed is true; We are all near to Death's dark door, Even little girls like you." "Yes," said the timid, trembling child, "I know it must be so; But, ma'am, I hope that Piety May be with me when I go. And will you show me your armory, When you have time to spare? I hope you have some small enough For a little girl to wear." No more she said, for Piety, As Marian called her, cast Her arms around the Pilgrim's neck, The secret's out at last. "You puzzled all," said Piety; "But now, I see, you've read A glorious book, which, unexplained, Has turned your little head. "Oh, dearly, when I was a child, I loved that Pilgrim Tale; But then mamma explained it well-- And if we can prevail On your kind aunts to let you stay Some time with us, my dear, You shall read that book with my mamma, And she will make it clear." Now we'll return to Marian's home, And see what's passing there. The servants all had company, And a merry group they were. They had not missed our Pilgrim long, For they knew she oft would play In that old garden, with a book, The whole of the livelong day. "Betty," at last, said the housekeeper, "Where can Miss Marian be? Her dinner was in the basket packed, But sure, she'll come in to tea!" They sought her here, they sought her there, But they could not find the child; And her poor old aunts, when they came home, With grief were almost wild. The coachman and the footman too, In different ways were sent; But none thought of the narrow way In which the Pilgrim went. "Perhaps she followed us to town," Poor Aunt Rebecca said, "I wish we had not left our home; I fear the child is dead." And to the town the coachman went, For they knew not what to do; And night drew on, when a country boy Brought Marian's little shoe. With the shoe in her hand, the housekeeper Into the parlor ran, "Oh, Mistress, here is all that's left Of poor Miss Marian. "It was found sticking in the mud, Just above Harlem Chase; I fear the poor child's perished there, For 'tis a frightful place." Then louder grew the ladies' grief; But soon their hearts were cheered, When a footman grand, with a note in his hand, From the distant Hall appeared. Aunt Ruth now read the note, and cried, "Oh, sister, all is well! The child is safe at Brookland Hall, With Lady Arundel, Who wants to keep her for a month; Why, yes; I think she may-- Such friends as Lady Arundel Are not met with every day. "Our compliments, and thanks to her, When you return, young man; We'll call to-morrow at the Hall, And see Miss Marian." Then came a burst of grateful joy, That could not be suppressed, And, with thankful hearts and many tears, The ladies went to rest. We'll take a peep at our Marian now, There in her bed lies she; How blissful were her dreams that night, In the arms of Piety. Oh, that happy month at Brookland Hall, How soon it passed away! Cheerful and good were Marian's friends, And who so kind as they? And, more than all, while there she stayed They did their best to bring The little lamb to that blest fold Where reigns the Shepherd King. For many a lesson ne'er forgot, The little Marian learned; And a thoughtful and a happier child She to her home returned. Years rolled away, the scene has changed, A wife and mother now, Marian has found the Wicket Gate, She and her children too. And oh! how sweet it is to see This little Pilgrim band, As on towards their heavenly home, They travel hand in hand. When cloudy days fall to their lot, They see a light afar, The light that shone on Bethlehem's plain, The Pilgrim's guiding star. And now, dear children, whosoe'er, Or whereso'er you be, Who ponder o'er this strange, true tale Of Marian's history,-- If to the Flowers of your young hearts, Instructions dews are given, Oh! be earnest as our Marian was, To find the road to Heaven. * * * * * Transriber's note: Minor typographical errors, punctuation and inconsistencies have been silently normalized. Archaic spelling has been retained. Page 365: 'Tell-truth' has been changed to 'Tell-true'. 
8723	----	and David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] THE THREE CITIES ROME BY EMILE ZOLA TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY PART III VII On the following day as Pierre, after a long ramble, once more found himself in front of the Vatican, whither a harassing attraction ever led him, he again encountered Monsignor Nani. It was a Wednesday evening, and the Assessor of the Holy Office had just come from his weekly audience with the Pope, whom he had acquainted with the proceedings of the Congregation at its meeting that morning. "What a fortunate chance, my dear sir," said he; "I was thinking of you. Would you like to see his Holiness in public while you are waiting for a private audience?" Nani had put on his pleasant expression of smiling civility, beneath which one would barely detect the faint irony of a superior man who knew everything, prepared everything, and could do everything. "Why, yes, Monsignor," Pierre replied, somewhat astonished by the abruptness of the offer. "Anything of a nature to divert one's mind is welcome when one loses one's time in waiting." "No, no, you are not losing your time," replied the prelate. "You are looking round you, reflecting, and enlightening yourself. Well, this is the point. You are doubtless aware that the great international pilgrimage of the Peter's Pence Fund will arrive in Rome on Friday, and be received on Saturday by his Holiness. On Sunday, moreover, the Holy Father will celebrate mass at the Basilica. Well, I have a few cards left, and here are some very good places for both ceremonies." So saying he produced an elegant little pocketbook bearing a gilt monogram and handed Pierre two cards, one green and the other pink. "If you only knew how people fight for them," he resumed. "You remember that I told you of two French ladies who are consumed by a desire to see his Holiness. Well, I did not like to support their request for an audience in too pressing a way, and they have had to content themselves with cards like these. The fact is, the Holy Father is somewhat fatigued at the present time. I found him looking yellow and feverish just now. But he has so much courage; he nowadays only lives by force of soul." Then Nani's smile came back with its almost imperceptible touch of derision as he resumed: "Impatient ones ought to find a great example in him, my dear son. I heard that Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo had been unable to help you. But you must not be too much distressed on that account. This long delay is assuredly a grace of Providence in order that you may instruct yourself and come to understand certain things which you French priests do not, unfortunately, realise when you arrive in Rome. And perhaps it will prevent you from making certain mistakes. Come, calm yourself, and remember that the course of events is in the hands of God, who, in His sovereign wisdom, fixes the hour for all things." Thereupon Nani offered Pierre his plump, supple, shapely hand, a hand soft like a woman's but with the grasp of a vice. And afterwards he climbed into his carriage, which was waiting for him. It so happened that the letter which Pierre had received from Viscount Philibert de la Choue was a long cry of spite and despair in connection with the great international pilgrimage of the Peter's Pence Fund. The Viscount wrote from his bed, to which he was confined by a very severe attack of gout, and his grief at being unable to come to Rome was the greater as the President of the Committee, who would naturally present the pilgrims to the Pope, happened to be Baron de Fouras, one of his most bitter adversaries of the old conservative, Catholic party. M. de la Choue felt certain that the Baron would profit by his opportunity to win the Pope over to the theory of free corporations; whereas he, the Viscount, believed that the salvation of Catholicism and the world could only be worked by a system in which the corporations should be closed and obligatory. And so he urged Pierre to exert himself with such cardinals as were favourable, to secure an audience with the Holy Father whatever the obstacles, and to remain in Rome until he should have secured the Pontiff's approbation, which alone could decide the victory. The letter further mentioned that the pilgrimage would be made up of a number of groups headed by bishops and other ecclesiastical dignitaries, and would comprise three thousand people from France, Belgium, Spain, Austria, and even Germany. Two thousand of these would come from France alone. An international committee had assembled in Paris to organise everything and select the pilgrims, which last had proved a delicate task, as a representative gathering had been desired, a commingling of members of the aristocracy, sisterhood of middle-class ladies, and associations of the working classes, among whom all social differences would be forgotten in the union of a common faith. And the Viscount added that the pilgrimage would bring the Pope a large sum of money, and had settled the date of its arrival in the Eternal City in such wise that it would figure as a solemn protest of the Catholic world against the festivities of September 20, by which the Quirinal had just celebrated the anniversary of the occupation of Rome. The reception of the pilgrimage being fixed for noon, Pierre in all simplicity thought that he would be sufficiently early if he reached St. Peter's at eleven. The function was to take place in the Hall of Beatifications, which is a large and handsome apartment over the portico, and has been arranged as a chapel since 1890. One of its windows opens on to the central balcony, whence the popes formerly blessed the people, the city, and the world. To reach the apartment you pass through two other halls of audience, the Sala Regia and Sala Ducale, and when Pierre wished to gain the place to which his green card entitled him he found both those rooms so extremely crowded that he could only elbow his way forward with the greatest difficulty. For an hour already the three or four thousand people assembled there had been stifling, full of growing emotion and feverishness. At last the young priest managed to reach the threshold of the third hall, but was so discouraged at sight of the extraordinary multitude of heads before him that he did not attempt to go any further. The apartment, which he could survey at a glance by rising on tip-toe, appeared to him to be very rich of aspect, with walls gilded and painted under a severe and lofty ceiling. On a low platform, where the altar usually stood, facing the entry, the pontifical throne had now been set: a large arm-chair upholstered in red velvet with glittering golden back and arms; whilst the hangings of the /baldacchino/, also of red velvet, fell behind and spread out on either side like a pair of huge purple wings. However, what more particularly interested Pierre was the wildly passionate concourse of people whose hearts he could almost hear beating and whose eyes sought to beguile their feverish impatience by contemplating and adoring the empty throne. As if it had been some golden monstrance which the Divinity in person would soon deign to occupy, that throne dazzled them, disturbed them, filled them all with devout rapture. Among the throng were workmen rigged out in their Sunday best, with clear childish eyes and rough ecstatic faces; ladies of the upper classes wearing black, as the regulations required, and looking intensely pale from the sacred awe which mingled with their excessive desire; and gentlemen in evening dress, who appeared quite glorious, inflated with the conviction that they were saving both the Church and the nations. One cluster of dress-coats assembled near the throne, was particularly noticeable; it comprised the members of the International Committee, headed by Baron de Fouras, a very tall, stout, fair man of fifty, who bestirred and exerted himself and issued orders like some commander on the morning of a decisive victory. Then, amidst the general mass of grey, neutral hue, there gleamed the violet silk of some bishop's cassock, for each pastor had desired to remain with his flock; whilst members of various religious orders, superiors in brown, black, and white habits, rose up above all others with lofty bearded or shaven heads. Right and left drooped banners which associations and congregations had brought to present to the Pope. And the sea of pilgrims ever waved and surged with a growing clamour: so much impatient love being exhaled by those perspiring faces, burning eyes, and hungry mouths that the atmosphere, reeking with the odour of the throng, seemed thickened and darkened. All at once, however, Pierre perceived Monsignor Nani standing near the throne and beckoning him to approach; and although the young priest replied by a modest gesture, implying that he preferred to remain where he was, the prelate insisted and even sent an usher to make way for him. Directly the usher had led him forward, Nani inquired: "Why did you not come to take your place? Your card entitled you to be here, on the left of the throne." "The truth is," answered the priest, "I did not like to disturb so many people. Besides, this is an undue honour for me." "No, no; I gave you that place in order that you should occupy it. I want you to be in the first rank, so that you may see everything of the ceremony." Pierre could not do otherwise than thank him. Then, on looking round, he saw that several cardinals and many other prelates were likewise waiting on either side of the throne. But it was in vain that he sought Cardinal Boccanera, who only came to St. Peter's and the Vatican on the days when his functions required his presence there. However, he recognised Cardinal Sanguinetti, who, broad and sturdy and red of face, was talking in a loud voice to Baron de Fouras. And Nani, with his obliging air, stepped up again to point out two other Eminences who were high and mighty personages--the Cardinal Vicar, a short, fat man, with a feverish countenance scorched by ambition, and the Cardinal Secretary, who was robust and bony, fashioned as with a hatchet, suggesting a romantic type of Sicilian bandit, who, to other courses, had preferred the discreet, smiling diplomacy of the Church. A few steps further on, and quite alone, the Grand Penitentiary, silent and seemingly suffering, showed his grey, lean, ascetic profile. Noon had struck. There was a false alert, a burst of emotion, which swept in like a wave from the other halls. But it was merely the ushers opening a passage for the /cortege/. Then, all at once, acclamations arose in the first hall, gathered volume, and drew nearer. This time it was the /cortege/ itself. First came a detachment of the Swiss Guard in undress, headed by a sergeant; then a party of chair-bearers in red; and next the domestic prelates, including the four /Camerieri segreti partecipanti/. And finally, between two rows of Noble Guards, in semi-gala uniforms, walked the Holy Father, alone, smiling a pale smile, and slowly blessing the pilgrims on either hand. In his wake the clamour which had risen in the other apartments swept into the Hall of Beatifications with the violence of delirious love; and, under his slender, white, benedictive hand, all those distracted creatures fell upon both knees, nought remaining but the prostration of a devout multitude, overwhelmed, as it were, by the apparition of its god. Quivering, carried away, Pierre had knelt like the others. Ah! that omnipotence, that irresistible contagion of faith, of the redoubtable current from the spheres beyond, increased tenfold by a /scenario/ and a pomp of sovereign grandeur! Profound silence fell when Leo XIII was seated on the throne surrounded by the cardinals and his court; and then the ceremony proceeded according to rite and usage. First a bishop spoke, kneeling and laying the homage of the faithful of all Christendom at his Holiness's feet. The President of the Committee, Baron de Fouras, followed, remaining erect whilst he read a long address in which he introduced the pilgrimage and explained its motive, investing it with all the gravity of a political and religious protest. This stout man had a shrill and piercing voice, and his words jarred like the grating of a gimlet as he proclaimed the grief of the Catholic world at the spoliation which the Holy See had endured for a quarter of a century, and the desire of all the nations there represented by the pilgrims to console the supreme and venerated Head of the Church by bringing him the offerings of rich and poor, even to the mites of the humblest, in order that the Papacy might retain the pride of independence and be able to treat its enemies with contempt. And he also spoke of France, deplored her errors, predicted her return to healthy traditions, and gave it to be understood that she remained in spite of everything the most opulent and generous of the Christian nations, the donor whose gold and presents flowed into Rome in a never ending stream. At last Leo XIII arose to reply to the bishop and the baron. His voice was full, with a strong nasal twang, and surprised one coming from a man so slight of build. In a few sentences he expressed his gratitude, saying how touched he was by the devotion of the nations to the Holy See. Although the times might be bad, the final triumph could not be delayed much longer. There were evident signs that mankind was returning to faith, and that iniquity would soon cease under the universal dominion of the Christ. As for France, was she not the eldest daughter of the Church, and had she not given too many proofs of her affection for the Holy See for the latter ever to cease loving her? Then, raising his arm, he bestowed on all the pilgrims present, on the societies and enterprises they represented, on their families and friends, on France, on all the nations of the Catholic world, his apostolic benediction, in gratitude for the precious help which they sent him. And whilst he was again seating himself applause burst forth, frantic salvoes of applause lasting for ten minutes and mingling with vivats and inarticulate cries--a passionate, tempestuous outburst, which made the very building shake. Amidst this blast of frantic adoration Pierre gazed at Leo XIII, now again motionless on his throne. With the papal cap on his head and the red cape edged with ermine about his shoulders, he retained in his long white cassock the rigid, sacerdotal attitude of an idol venerated by two hundred and fifty millions of Christians. Against the purple background of the hangings of the /baldacchino/, between the wing-like drapery on either side, enclosing, as it were, a brasier of glory, he assumed real majesty of aspect. He was no longer the feeble old man with the slow, jerky walk and the slender, scraggy neck of a poor ailing bird. The simious ugliness of his face, the largeness of his nose, the long slit of his mouth, the hugeness of his ears, the conflicting jumble of his withered features disappeared. In that waxen countenance you only distinguished the admirable, dark, deep eyes, beaming with eternal youth, with extraordinary intelligence and penetration. And then there was a resolute bracing of his entire person, a consciousness of the eternity which he represented, a regal nobility, born of the very circumstance that he was now but a mere breath, a soul set in so pellucid a body of ivory that it became visible as though it were already freed from the bonds of earth. And Pierre realised what such a man--the Sovereign Pontiff, the king obeyed by two hundred and fifty millions of subjects--must be for the devout and dolent creatures who came to adore him from so far, and who fell at his feet awestruck by the splendour of the powers incarnate in him. Behind him, amidst the purple of the hangings, what a gleam was suddenly afforded of the spheres beyond, what an Infinite of ideality and blinding glory! So many centuries of history from the Apostle Peter downward, so much strength and genius, so many struggles and triumphs to be summed up in one being, the Elect, the Unique, the Superhuman! And what a miracle, incessantly renewed, was that of Heaven deigning to descend into human flesh, of the Deity fixing His abode in His chosen servant, whom He consecrated above and beyond all others, endowing him with all power and all science! What sacred perturbation, what emotion fraught with distracted love might one not feel at the thought of the Deity being ever there in the depths of that man's eyes, speaking with his voice and emanating from his hand each time that he raised it to bless! Could one imagine the exorbitant absoluteness of that sovereign who was infallible, who disposed of the totality of authority in this world and of salvation in the next! At all events, how well one understood that souls consumed by a craving for faith should fly towards him, that those who at last found the certainty they had so ardently sought should seek annihilation in him, the consolation of self-bestowal and disappearance within the Deity Himself. Meantime, the ceremony was drawing to an end; Baron de Fouras was now presenting the members of the committee and a few other persons of importance. There was a slow procession with trembling genuflections and much greedy kissing of the papal ring and slipper. Then the banners were offered, and Pierre felt a pang on seeing that the finest and richest of them was one of Lourdes, an offering no doubt from the Fathers of the Immaculate Conception. On one side of the white, gold-bordered silk Our Lady of Lourdes was painted, while on the other appeared a portrait of Leo XIII. Pierre saw the Pope smile at the presentment of himself, and was greatly grieved thereat, as though, indeed, his whole dream of an intellectual, evangelical Pope, disentangled from all low superstition, were crumbling away. And just then his eyes met those of Nani, who from the outset had been watching him with the inquisitive air of a man who is making an experiment. "That banner is superb, isn't it?" said Nani, drawing near. "How it must please his Holiness to be so nicely painted in company with so pretty a virgin." And as the young priest, turning pale, did not reply, the prelate added, with an air of devout enjoyment: "We are very fond of Lourdes in Rome; that story of Bernadette is so delightful." However, the scene which followed was so extraordinary that for a long time Pierre remained overcome by it. He had beheld never-to-be-forgotten idolatry at Lourdes, incidents of naive faith and frantic religious passion which yet made him quiver with alarm and grief. But the crowds rushing on the grotto, the sick dying of divine love before the Virgin's statue, the multitudes delirious with the contagion of the miraculous--nothing of all that gave an idea of the blast of madness which suddenly inflamed the pilgrims at the feet of the Pope. Some bishops, superiors of religious orders, and other delegates of various kinds had stepped forward to deposit near the throne the offerings which they brought from the whole Catholic world, the universal "collection" of St. Peter's Pence. It was the voluntary tribute of the nations to their sovereign: silver, gold, and bank notes in purses, bags, and cases. Ladies came and fell on their knees to offer silk and velvet alms-bags which they themselves had embroidered. Others had caused the note cases which they tendered to be adorned with the monogram of Leo XIII in diamonds. And at one moment the enthusiasm became so intense that several women stripped themselves of their adornments, flung their own purses on to the platform, and emptied their pockets even to the very coppers they had about them. One lady, tall and slender, very beautiful and very dark, wrenched her watch from about her neck, pulled off her rings, and threw everything upon the carpet. Had it been possible, they would have torn away their flesh to pluck out their love-burnt hearts and fling them likewise to the demi-god. They would even have flung themselves, have given themselves without reserve. It was a rain of presents, an explosion of the passion which impels one to strip oneself for the object of one's cult, happy at having nothing of one's own that shall not belong to him. And meantime the clamour grew, vivats and shrill cries of adoration arose amidst pushing and jostling of increased violence, one and all yielding to the irresistible desire to kiss the idol! But a signal was given, and Leo XIII made haste to quit the throne and take his place in the /cortege/ in order to return to his apartments. The Swiss Guards energetically thrust back the throng, seeking to open a way through the three halls. But at sight of his Holiness's departure a lamentation of despair arose and spread, as if heaven had suddenly closed again and shut out those who had not yet been able to approach. What a frightful disappointment--to have beheld the living manifestation of the Deity and to see it disappear before gaining salvation by just touching it! So terrible became the scramble, so extraordinary the confusion, that the Swiss Guards were swept away. And ladies were seen to dart after the Pope, to drag themselves on all fours over the marble slabs and kiss his footprints and lap up the dust of his steps! The tall dark lady suddenly fell at the edge of the platform, raised a loud shriek, and fainted; and two gentlemen of the committee had to hold her so that she might not do herself an injury in the convulsions of the hysterical fit which had come upon her. Another, a plump blonde, was wildly, desperately kissing one of the golden arms of the throne-chair, on which the old man's poor, bony elbow had just rested. And others, on seeing her, came to dispute possession, seized both arms, gilding and velvet, and pressed their mouths to wood-work or upholstery, their bodies meanwhile shaking with their sobs. Force had to be employed in order to drag them away. When it was all over Pierre went off, emerging as it were from a painful dream, sick at heart, and with his mind revolting. And again he encountered Nani's glance, which never left him. "It was a superb ceremony, was it not?" said the prelate. "It consoles one for many iniquities." "Yes, no doubt; but what idolatry!" the young priest murmured despite himself. Nani, however, merely smiled, as if he had not heard the last word. At that same moment the two French ladies whom he had provided with tickets came up to thank him, and. Pierre was surprised to recognise the mother and daughter whom he had met at the Catacombs. Charming, bright, and healthy as they were, their enthusiasm was only for the spectacle: they declared that they were well pleased at having seen it--that it was really astonishing, unique. As the crowd slowly withdrew Pierre all at once felt a tap on his shoulder, and, on turning his head, perceived Narcisse Habert, who also was very enthusiastic. "I made signs to you, my dear Abbe," said he, "but you didn't see me. Ah! how superb was the expression of that dark woman who fell rigid beside the platform with her arms outstretched. She reminded me of a masterpiece of one of the primitives, Cimabue, Giotto, or Fra Angelico. And the others, those who devoured the chair arms with their kisses, what suavity, beauty, and love! I never miss these ceremonies: there are always some fine scenes, perfect pictures, in which souls reveal themselves." The long stream of pilgrims slowly descended the stairs, and Pierre, followed by Nani and Narcisse, who had begun to chat, tried to bring the ideas which were tumultuously throbbing in his brain into something like order. There was certainly grandeur and beauty in that Pope who had shut himself up in his Vatican, and who, the more he became a purely moral, spiritual authority, freed from all terrestrial cares, had grown in the adoration and awe of mankind. Such a flight into the ideal deeply stirred Pierre, whose dream of rejuvenated Christianity rested on the idea of the supreme Head of the Church exercising only a purified, spiritual authority. He had just seen what an increase of majesty and power was in that way gained by the Supreme Pontiff of the spheres beyond, at whose feet the women fainted, and behind whom they beheld a vision of the Deity. But at the same moment the pecuniary side of the question had risen before him and spoilt his joy. If the enforced relinquishment of the temporal power had exalted the Pope by freeing him from the worries of a petty sovereignty which was ever threatened, the need of money still remained like a chain about his feet tying him to earth. As he could not accept the proffered subvention of the Italian Government,* there was certainly in the Peter's Pence a means of placing the Holy See above all material cares, provided, however, that this Peter's Pence were really the Catholic /sou/, the mite of each believer, levied on his daily income and sent direct to Rome. Such a voluntary tribute paid by the flock to its pastor would, moreover, suffice for the wants of the Church if each of the 250,000,000 of Catholics gave his or her /sou/ every week. In this wise the Pope, indebted to each and all of his children, would be indebted to none in particular. A /sou/ was so little and so easy to give, and there was also something so touching about the idea. But, unhappily, things were not worked in that way; the great majority of Catholics gave nothing whatever, while the rich ones sent large sums from motives of political passion; and a particular objection was that the gifts were centralised in the hands of certain bishops and religious orders, so that these became ostensibly the benefactors of the papacy, the indispensable cashiers from whom it drew the sinews of life. The lowly and humble whose mites filled the collection boxes were, so to say, suppressed, and the Pope became dependent on the intermediaries, and was compelled to act cautiously with them, listen to their remonstrances, and even at times obey their passions, lest the stream of gifts should suddenly dry up. And so, although he was disburdened of the dead weight of the temporal power, he was not free; but remained the tributary of his clergy, with interests and appetites around him which he must needs satisfy. And Pierre remembered the "Grotto of Lourdes" in the Vatican gardens, and the banner which he had just seen, and he knew that the Lourdes fathers levied 200,000 francs a year on their receipts to send them as a present to the Holy Father. Was not that the chief reason of their great power? He quivered, and suddenly became conscious that, do what he might, he would be defeated, and his book would be condemned. * 110,000 pounds per annum. It has never been accepted, and the accumulations lapse to the Government every five years, and cannot afterwards be recovered.--Trans. At last, as he was coming out on to the Piazza of St. Peter's, he heard Narcisse asking Monsignor Nani: "Indeed! Do you really think that to-day's gifts exceeded that figure?" "Yes, more than three millions,* I'm convinced of it," the prelate replied. * All the amounts given on this and the following pages are calculated in francs. The reader will bear in mind that a million francs is equivalent to 40,000 pounds.--Trans. For a moment the three men halted under the right-hand colonnade and gazed at the vast, sunlit piazza where the pilgrims were spreading out like little black specks hurrying hither and thither--an ant-hill, as it were, in revolution. Three millions! The words had rung in Pierre's ears. And, raising his head, he gazed at the Vatican, all golden in the sunlight against the expanse of blue sky, as if he wished to penetrate its walls and follow the steps of Leo XIII returning to his apartments. He pictured him laden with those millions, with his weak, slender arms pressed to his breast, carrying the silver, the gold, the bank notes, and even the jewels which the women had flung him. And almost unconsciously the young priest spoke aloud: "What will he do with those millions? Where is he taking them?" Narcisse and even Nani could not help being amused by this strangely expressed curiosity. It was the young /attache/ who replied. "Why, his Holiness is taking them to his room; or, at least, is having them carried there before him. Didn't you see two persons of his suite picking up everything and filling their pockets? And now his Holiness has shut himself up quite alone; and if you could see him you would find him counting and recounting his treasure with cheerful care, ranging the rolls of gold in good order, slipping the bank notes into envelopes in equal quantities, and then putting everything away in hiding-places which are only known to himself." While his companion was speaking Pierre again raised his eyes to the windows of the Pope's apartments, as if to follow the scene. Moreover, Narcisse gave further explanations, asserting that the money was put away in a certain article of furniture, standing against the right-hand wall in the Holy Father's bedroom. Some people, he added, also spoke of a writing table or secretaire with deep drawers; and others declared that the money slumbered in some big padlocked trunks stored away in the depths of the alcove, which was very roomy. Of course, on the left side of the passage leading to the Archives there was a large room occupied by a general cashier and a monumental safe; but the funds kept there were simply those of the Patrimony of St. Peter, the administrative receipts of Rome; whereas the Peter's Pence money, the voluntary donations of Christendom, remained in the hands of Leo XIII: he alone knew the exact amount of that fund, and lived alone with its millions, which he disposed of like an absolute master, rendering account to none. And such was his prudence that he never left his room when the servants cleaned and set it in order. At the utmost he would consent to remain on the threshold of the adjoining apartment in order to escape the dust. And whenever he meant to absent himself for a few hours, to go down into the gardens, for instance, he double-locked the doors and carried the keys away with him, never confiding them to another. At this point Narcisse paused and, turning to Nani, inquired: "Is not that so, Monsignor? These are things known to all Rome." The prelate, ever smiling and wagging his head without expressing either approval or disapproval, had begun to study on Pierre's face the effect of these curious stories. "No doubt, no doubt," he responded; "so many things are said! I know nothing myself, but you seem to be certain of it all, Monsieur Habert." "Oh!" resumed the other, "I don't accuse his Holiness of sordid avarice, such as is rumoured. Some fabulous stories are current, stories of coffers full of gold in which the Holy Father is said to plunge his hands for hours at a time; treasures which he has heaped up in corners for the sole pleasure of counting them over and over again. Nevertheless, one may well admit that his Holiness is somewhat fond of money for its own sake, for the pleasure of handling it and setting it in order when he happens to be alone--and after all that is a very excusable mania in an old man who has no other pastime. But I must add that he is yet fonder of money for the social power which it brings, the decisive help which it will give to the Holy See in the future, if the latter desires to triumph." These words evoked the lofty figure of a wise and prudent Pope, conscious of modern requirements, inclined to utilise the powers of the century in order to conquer it, and for this reason venturing on business and speculation. As it happened, the treasure bequeathed by Pius IX had nearly been lost in a financial disaster, but ever since that time Leo XIII had sought to repair the breach and make the treasure whole again, in order that he might leave it to his successor intact and even enlarged. Economical he certainly was, but he saved for the needs of the Church, which, as he knew, increased day by day; and money was absolutely necessary if Atheism was to be met and fought in the sphere of the schools, institutions, and associations of all sorts. Without money, indeed, the Church would become a vassal at the mercy of the civil powers, the Kingdom of Italy and other Catholic states; and so, although he liberally helped every enterprise which might contribute to the triumph of the Faith, Leo XIII had a contempt for all expenditure without an object, and treated himself and others with stern closeness. Personally, he had no needs. At the outset of his pontificate he had set his small private patrimony apart from the rich patrimony of St. Peter, refusing to take aught from the latter for the purpose of assisting his relatives. Never had pontiff displayed less nepotism: his three nephews and his two nieces had remained poor--in fact, in great pecuniary embarrassment. Still he listened neither to complaints nor accusations, but remained inflexible, proudly resolved to bequeath the sinews of life, the invincible weapon money, to the popes of future times, and therefore vigorously defending the millions of the Holy See against the desperate covetousness of one and all. "But, after all, what are the receipts and expenses of the Holy See?" inquired Pierre. In all haste Nani again made his amiable, evasive gesture. "Oh! I am altogether ignorant in such matters," he replied. "Ask Monsieur Habert, who is so well informed." "For my part," responded the /attache/, "I simply know what is known to all the embassies here, the matters which are the subject of common report. With respect to the receipts there is, first of all, the treasure left by Pius IX, some twenty millions, invested in various ways and formerly yielding about a million a year in interest. But, as I said before, a disaster happened, and there must then have been a falling off in the income. Still, nowadays it is reported that nearly all deficiencies have been made good. Well, besides the regular income from the invested money, a few hundred thousand francs are derived every year from chancellery dues, patents of nobility, and all sorts of little fees paid to the Congregations. However, as the annual expenses exceed seven millions, it has been necessary to find quite six millions every year; and certainly it is the Peter's Pence Fund that has supplied, not the six millions, perhaps, but three or four of them, and with these the Holy See has speculated in the hope of doubling them and making both ends meet. It would take me too long just now to relate the whole story of these speculations, the first huge gains, then the catastrophe which almost swept everything away, and finally the stubborn perseverance which is gradually supplying all deficiencies. However, if you are anxious on the subject, I will one day tell you all about it." Pierre had listened with deep interest. "Six millions--even four!" he exclaimed, "what does the Peter's Pence Fund bring in, then?" "Oh! I can only repeat that nobody has ever known the exact figures. In former times the Catholic Press published lists giving the amounts of different offerings, and in this way one could frame an approximate estimate. But the practice must have been considered unadvisable, for no documents nowadays appear, and it is absolutely impossible for people to form any real idea of what the Pope receives. He alone knows the correct amount, keeps the money, and disposes of it with absolute authority. Still I believe that in good years the offerings have amounted to between four and five millions. Originally France contributed one-half of the sum; but nowadays it certainly gives much less. Then come Belgium and Austria, England and Germany. As for Spain and Italy--oh! Italy--" Narcisse paused and smiled at Monsignor Nani, who was wagging his head with the air of a man delighted at learning some extremely curious things of which he had previously had no idea. "Oh, you may proceed, you may proceed, my dear son," said he. "Well, then, Italy scarcely distinguishes itself. If the Pope had to provide for his living out of the gifts of the Italian Catholics there would soon be a famine at the Vatican. Far from helping him, indeed, the Roman nobility has cost him dear; for one of the chief causes of his pecuniary losses was his folly in lending money to the princes who speculated. It is really only from France and England that rich people, noblemen and so forth, have sent royal gifts to the imprisoned and martyred Pontiff. Among others there was an English nobleman who came to Rome every year with a large offering, the outcome of a vow which he had made in the hope that Heaven would cure his unhappy idiot son. And, of course, I don't refer to the extraordinary harvest garnered during the sacerdotal and the episcopal jubilees--the forty millions which then fell at his Holiness's feet." "And the expenses?" asked Pierre. "Well, as I told you, they amount to about seven millions. We may reckon two of them for the pensions paid to former officials of the pontifical government who were unwilling to take service under Italy; but I must add that this source of expense is diminishing every year as people die off and their pensions become extinguished. Then, broadly speaking, we may put down one million for the Italian sees, another for the Secretariate and the Nunciatures, and another for the Vatican. In this last sum I include the expenses of the pontifical Court, the military establishment, the museums, and the repair of the palace and the Basilica. Well, we have reached five millions, and the two others may be set down for the various subsidised enterprises, the Propaganda, and particularly the schools, which Leo XIII, with great practical good sense, subsidises very handsomely, for he is well aware that the battle and the triumph be in that direction--among the children who will be men to-morrow, and who will then defend their mother the Church, provided that they have been inspired with horror for the abominable doctrines of the age." A spell of silence ensued, and the three men slowly paced the majestic colonnade. The swarming crowd had gradually disappeared, leaving the piazza empty, so that only the obelisk and the twin fountains now arose from the burning desert of symmetrical paving; whilst on the entablature of the porticus across the square a noble line of motionless statues stood out in the bright sunlight. And Pierre, with his eyes still raised to the Pope's windows, again fancied that he could see Leo XIII amidst all the streaming gold that had been spoken of, his whole, white, pure figure, his poor, waxen, transparent form steeped amidst those millions which he hid and counted and expended for the glory of God alone. "And so," murmured the young priest, "he has no anxiety, he is not in any pecuniary embarrassment." "Pecuniary embarrassment!" exclaimed Monsignor Nani, his patience so sorely tried by the remark that he could no longer retain his diplomatic reserve. "Oh! my dear son! Why, when Cardinal Mocenni, the treasurer, goes to his Holiness every month, his Holiness always gives him the sum he asks for; he would give it, and be able to give it, however large it might be! His Holiness has certainly had the wisdom to effect great economies; the Treasure of St. Peter is larger than ever. Pecuniary embarrassment, indeed! Why, if a misfortune should occur, and the Sovereign Pontiff were to make a direct appeal to all his children, the Catholics of the entire world, do you know that in that case a thousand millions would fall at his feet just like the gold and the jewels which you saw raining on the steps of his throne just now?" Then suddenly calming himself and recovering his pleasant smile, Nani added: "At least, that is what I sometimes hear said; for, personally, I know nothing, absolutely nothing; and it is fortunate that Monsieur Habert should have been here to give you information. Ah! Monsieur Habert, Monsieur Habert! Why, I fancied that you were always in the skies absorbed in your passion for art, and far removed from all base mundane interests! But you really understand these things like a banker or a notary. Nothing escapes you, nothing. It is wonderful." Narcisse must have felt the sting of the prelate's delicate sarcasm. At bottom, beneath this make-believe Florentine all-angelicalness, with long curly hair and mauve eyes which grew dim with rapture at sight of a Botticelli, there was a thoroughly practical, business-like young man, who took admirable care of his fortune and was even somewhat miserly. However, he contented himself with lowering his eyelids and assuming a languorous air. "Oh!" said he, "I'm all reverie; my soul is elsewhere." "At all events," resumed Nani, turning towards Pierre, "I am very glad that you were able to see such a beautiful spectacle. A few more such opportunities and you will understand things far better than you would from all the explanations in the world. Don't miss the grand ceremony at St. Peter's to-morrow. It will be magnificent, and will give you food for useful reflection; I'm sure of it. And now allow me to leave you, delighted at seeing you in such a fit frame of mind." Darting a last glance at Pierre, Nani seemed to have observed with pleasure the weariness and uncertainty which were paling his face. And when the prelate had gone off, and Narcisse also had taken leave with a gentle hand-shake, the young priest felt the ire of protest rising within him. What fit frame of mind did Nani mean? Did that man hope to weary him and drive him to despair by throwing him into collision with obstacles, so that he might afterwards overcome him with perfect ease? For the second time Pierre became suddenly and briefly conscious of the stealthy efforts which were being made to invest and crush him. But, believing as he did in his own strength of resistance, pride filled him with disdain. Again he swore that he would never yield, never withdraw his book, no matter what might happen. And then, before crossing the piazza, he once more raised his eyes to the windows of the Vatican, all his impressions crystallising in the thought of that much-needed money which like a last bond still attached the Pope to earth. Its chief evil doubtless lay in the manner in which it was provided; and if indeed the only question were to devise an improved method of collection, his dream of a pope who should be all soul, the bond of love, the spiritual leader of the world, would not be seriously affected. At this thought, Pierre felt comforted and was unwilling to look on things otherwise than hopefully, moved as he was by the extraordinary scene which he had just beheld, that feeble old man shining forth like the symbol of human deliverance, obeyed and venerated by the multitudes, and alone among all men endowed with the moral omnipotence that might at last set the reign of charity and peace on earth. For the ceremony on the following day, it was fortunate that Pierre held a private ticket which admitted him to a reserved gallery, for the scramble at the entrances to the Basilica proved terrible. The mass, which the Pope was to celebrate in person, was fixed for ten o'clock, but people began to pour into St. Peter's four hours earlier, as soon, indeed, as the gates had been thrown open. The three thousand members of the International Pilgrimage were increased tenfold by the arrival of all the tourists in Italy, who had hastened to Rome eager to witness one of those great pontifical functions which nowadays are so rare. Moreover, the devotees and partisans whom the Holy See numbered in Rome itself and in other great cities of the kingdom, helped to swell the throng, all alacrity at the prospect of a demonstration. Judging by the tickets distributed, there would be a concourse of 40,000 people. And, indeed, at nine o'clock, when Pierre crossed the piazza on his way to the Canons' Entrance in the Via Santa Marta, where the holders of pink tickets were admitted, he saw the portico of the facade still thronged with people who were but slowly gaining admittance, while several gentlemen in evening dress, members of some Catholic association, bestirred themselves to maintain order with the help of a detachment of Pontifical Guards. Nevertheless, violent quarrels broke out in the crowd, and blows were exchanged amidst the involuntary scramble. Some people were almost stifled, and two women were carried off half crushed to death. A disagreeable surprise met Pierre on his entry into the Basilica. The huge edifice was draped; coverings of old red damask with bands of gold swathed the columns and pilasters, seventy-five feet high; even the aisles were hung with the same old and faded silk; and the shrouding of those pompous marbles, of all the superb dazzling ornamentation of the church bespoke a very singular taste, a tawdry affectation of pomposity, extremely wretched in its effect. However, he was yet more amazed on seeing that even the statue of St. Peter was clad, costumed like a living pope in sumptuous pontifical vestments, with a tiara on its metal head. He had never imagined that people could garment statues either for their glory or for the pleasure of the eyes, and the result seemed to him disastrous. The Pope was to say mass at the papal altar of the Confession, the high altar which stands under the dome. On a platform at the entrance of the left-hand transept was the throne on which he would afterwards take his place. Then, on either side of the nave, tribunes had been erected for the choristers of the Sixtine Chapel, the Corps Diplomatique, the Knights of Malta, the Roman nobility, and other guests of various kinds. And, finally, in the centre, before the altar, there were three rows of benches covered with red rugs, the first for the cardinals and the other two for the bishops and the prelates of the pontifical court. All the rest of the congregation was to remain standing. Ah! that huge concert-audience, those thirty, forty thousand believers from here, there, and everywhere, inflamed with curiosity, passion, or faith, bestirring themselves, jostling one another, rising on tip-toe to see the better! The clamour of a human sea arose, the crowd was as gay and familiar as if it had found itself in some heavenly theatre where it was allowable for one to chat aloud and recreate oneself with the spectacle of religious pomp! At first Pierre was thunderstruck, he who only knew of nervous, silent kneeling in the depths of dim cathedrals, who was not accustomed to that religion of light, whose brilliancy transformed a religious celebration into a morning festivity. Around him, in the same tribune as himself, were gentlemen in dress-coats and ladies gowned in black, carrying glasses as in an opera-house. There were German and English women, and numerous Americans, all more or less charming, displaying the grace of thoughtless, chirruping birds. In the tribune of the Roman nobility on the left he recognised Benedetta and Donna Serafina, and there the simplicity of the regulation attire for ladies was relieved by large lace veils rivalling one another in richness and elegance. Then on the right was the tribune of the Knights of Malta, where the Grand Master stood amidst a group of commanders: while across the nave rose the diplomatic tribune where Pierre perceived the ambassadors of all the Catholic nations, resplendent in gala uniforms covered with gold lace. However, the young priest's eyes were ever returning to the crowd, the great surging throng in which the three thousand pilgrims were lost amidst the multitude of other spectators. And yet as the Basilica was so vast that it could easily contain eighty thousand people, it did not seem to be more than half full. People came and went along the aisles and took up favourable positions without impediment. Some could be seen gesticulating, and calls rang out above the ceaseless rumble of voices. From the lofty windows of plain white glass fell broad sheets of sunlight, which set a gory glow upon the faded damask hangings, and these cast a reflection as of fire upon all the tumultuous, feverish, impatient faces. The multitude of candles, and the seven-and-eighty lamps of the Confession paled to such a degree that they seemed but glimmering night-lights in the blinding radiance; and everything proclaimed the worldly gala of the imperial Deity of Roman pomp. All at once there came a premature shock of delight, a false alert. Cries burst forth and circulated through the crowd: "Eccolo! eccolo! Here he comes!" And then there was pushing and jostling, eddying which made the human sea whirl and surge, all craning their necks, raising themselves to their full height, darting forward in a frenzied desire to see the Holy Father and the /cortege/. But only a detachment of Noble Guards marched by and took up position right and left of the altar. A flattering murmur accompanied them, their fine impassive bearing with its exaggerated military stiffness, provoking the admiration of the throng. An American woman declared that they were superb-looking fellows; and a Roman lady gave an English friend some particulars about the select corps to which they belonged. Formerly, said she, young men of the aristocracy had greatly sought the honour of forming part of it, for the sake of wearing its rich uniform and caracoling in front of the ladies. But recruiting was now such a difficult matter that one had to content oneself with good-looking young men of doubtful or ruined nobility, whose only care was for the meagre "pay" which just enabled them to live. When another quarter of an hour of chatting and scrutinising had elapsed, the papal /cortege/ at last made its appearance, and no sooner was it seen than applause burst forth as in a theatre--furious applause it was which rose and rolled along under the vaulted ceilings, suggesting the acclamations which ring out when some popular, idolised actor makes his entry on the stage. As in a theatre, too, everything had been very skilfully contrived so as to produce all possible effect amidst the magnificent scenery of the Basilica. The /cortege/ was formed in the wings, that is in the Cappella della Pieta, the first chapel of the right aisle, and in order to reach it, the Holy Father, coming from his apartments by the way of the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, had been stealthily carried behind the hangings of the aisle which served the purpose of a drop-scene. Awaiting him in all readiness in the Cappella della Pieta were the cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, the whole pontifical prelacy, hierarchically classified and grouped. And then, as at a signal from a ballet master, the /cortege/ made its entry, reaching the nave and ascending it in triumph from the closed Porta Santa to the altar of the Confession. On either hand were the rows of spectators whose applause at the sight of so much magnificence grew louder and louder as their delirious enthusiasm increased. It was the /cortege/ of the olden solemnities, the cross and sword, the Swiss Guard in full uniform, the valets in scarlet simars, the Knights of the Cape and the Sword in Renascence costumes, the Canons in rochets of lace, the superiors of the religious communities, the apostolic prothonotaries, the archbishops, and bishops, all the pontifical prelates in violet silk, the cardinals, each wearing the /cappa magna/ and draped in purple, walking solemnly two by two with long intervals between each pair. Finally, around his Holiness were grouped the officers of the military household, the chamber prelates, Monsignor the Majordomo, Monsignor the Grand Chamberlain, and all the other high dignitaries of the Vatican, with the Roman prince assistant of the throne, the traditional, symbolical defender of the Church. And on the /sedia gestatoria/, screened by the /flabelli/ with their lofty triumphal fans of feathers and carried on high by the bearers in red tunics broidered with silk, sat the Pope, clad in the sacred vestments which he had assumed in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, the amict, the alb, the stole, and the white chasuble and white mitre enriched with gold, two gifts of extraordinary sumptuousness that had come from France. And, as his Holiness drew near, all hands were raised and clapped yet more loudly amidst the waves of living sunlight which streamed from the lofty windows. Then a new and different impression of Leo XIII came to Pierre. The Pope, as he now beheld him, was no longer the familiar, tired, inquisitive old man, leaning on the arm of a talkative prelate as he strolled through the loveliest gardens in the world. He no longer recalled the Holy Father, in red cape and papal cap, giving a paternal welcome to a pilgrimage which brought him a fortune. He was here the Sovereign Pontiff, the all-powerful Master whom Christendom adored. His slim waxen form seemed to have stiffened within his white vestments, heavy with golden broidery, as in a reliquary of precious metal; and he retained a rigid, haughty, hieratic attitude, like that of some idol, gilded, withered for centuries past by the smoke of sacrifices. Amidst the mournful stiffness of his face only his eyes lived--eyes like black sparkling diamonds gazing afar, beyond earth, into the infinite. He gave not a glance to the crowd, he lowered his eyes neither to right nor to left, but remained soaring in the heavens, ignoring all that took place at his feet. And as that seemingly embalmed idol, deaf and blind, in spite of the brilliancy of his eyes, was carried through the frantic multitude which it appeared neither to hear nor to see, it assumed fearsome majesty, disquieting grandeur, all the rigidity of dogma, all the immobility of tradition exhumed with its /fascioe/ which alone kept it erect. Still Pierre fancied he could detect that the Pope was ill and weary, suffering from the attack of fever which Nani had spoken of when glorifying the courage of that old man of eighty-four, whom strength of soul alone now kept alive. The service began. Alighting from the /sedia gestatoria/ before the altar of the Confession, his Holiness slowly celebrated a low mass, assisted by four prelates and the pro-prefect of the ceremonies. When the time came for washing his fingers, Monsignor the Majordomo and Monsignor the Grand Chamberlain, accompanied by two cardinals, poured the water on his august hands; and shortly before the elevation of the host all the prelates of the pontifical court, each holding a lighted taper, came and knelt around the altar. There was a solemn moment, the forty thousand believers there assembled shuddered as if they could feel the terrible yet delicious blast of the invisible sweeping over them when during the elevation the silver clarions sounded the famous chorus of angels which invariably makes some women swoon. Almost immediately an aerial chant descended from the cupola, from a lofty gallery where one hundred and twenty choristers were concealed, and the enraptured multitude marvelled as though the angels had indeed responded to the clarion call. The voices descended, taking their flight under the vaulted ceilings with the airy sweetness of celestial harps; then in suave harmony they died away, reascended to the heavens as with a faint flapping of wings. And, after the mass, his Holiness, still standing at the altar, in person started the /Te Deum/, which the singers of the Sixtine Chapel and the other choristers took up, each party chanting a verse alternately. But soon the whole congregation joined them, forty thousand voices were raised, and a hymn of joy and glory spread through the vast nave with incomparable splendour of effect. And then the scene became one of extraordinary magnificence: there was Bernini's triumphal, flowery, gilded /baldacchino/, surrounded by the whole pontifical court with the lighted tapers showing like starry constellations, there was the Sovereign Pontiff in the centre, radiant like a planet in his gold-broidered chasuble, there were the benches crowded with cardinals in purple and archbishops and bishops in violet silk, there were the tribunes glittering with official finery, the gold lace of the diplomatists, the variegated uniforms of foreign officers, and then there was the throng flowing and eddying on all sides, rolling billows after billows of heads from the most distant depths of the Basilica. And the hugeness of the temple increased one's amazement; and even the glorious hymn which the multitude repeated became colossal, ascended like a tempest blast amidst the great marble tombs, the superhuman statues and gigantic pillars, till it reached the vast vaulted heavens of stone, and penetrated into the firmament of the cupola where the Infinite seemed to open resplendent with the gold-work of the mosaics. A long murmur of voices followed the /Te Deum/, whilst Leo XIII, after donning the tiara in lieu of the mitre, and exchanging the chasuble for the pontifical cope, went to occupy his throne on the platform at the entry of the left transept. He thence dominated the whole assembly, through which a quiver sped when after the prayers of the ritual, he once more rose erect. Beneath the symbolic, triple crown, in the golden sheathing of his cope, he seemed to have grown taller. Amidst sudden and profound silence, which only feverish heart-beats interrupted, he raised his arm with a very noble gesture and pronounced the papal benediction in a slow, loud, full voice, which seemed, as it were, the very voice of the Deity, so greatly did its power astonish one, coming from such waxen lips, from such a bloodless, lifeless frame. And the effect was prodigious: as soon as the /cortege/ reformed to return whence it had come, applause again burst forth, a frenzy of enthusiasm which the clapping of hands could no longer content. Acclamations resounded and gradually gained upon the whole multitude. They began among a group of ardent partisans stationed near the statue of St. Peter: /"Evviva il Papa-Re! evviva il Papa-Re/! Long live the Pope-King!" as the /cortege/ went by the shout rushed along like leaping fire, inflaming heart after heart, and at last springing from every mouth in a thunderous protest against the theft of the states of the Church. All the faith, all the love of those believers, overexcited by the regal spectacle they had just beheld, returned once more to the dream, to the rageful desire that the Pope should be both King and Pontiff, master of men's bodies as he was of their souls--in one word, the absolute sovereign of the earth. Therein lay the only truth, the only happiness, the only salvation! Let all be given to him, both mankind and the world! "/Evviva il Papa-Re! evviva il Papa-Re/! Long live the Pope-King!" Ah! that cry, that cry of war which had caused so many errors and so much bloodshed, that cry of self-abandonment and blindness which, realised, would have brought back the old ages of suffering, it shocked Pierre, and impelled him in all haste to quit the tribune where he was in order that he might escape the contagion of idolatry. And while the /cortege/ still went its way and the deafening clamour of the crowd continued, he for a moment followed the left aisle amidst the general scramble. This, however, made him despair of reaching the street, and anxious to escape the crush of the general departure, it occurred to him to profit by a door which he saw open and which led him into a vestibule, whence ascended the steps conducting to the dome. A sacristan standing in the doorway, both bewildered and delighted at the demonstration, looked at him for a moment, hesitating whether he should stop him or not. However, the sight of the young priest's cassock combined with his own emotion rendered the man tolerant. Pierre was allowed to pass, and at once began to climb the staircase as rapidly as he could, in order that he might flee farther and farther away, ascend higher and yet higher into peace and silence. And the silence suddenly became profound, the walls stifled the cry of the multitude. The staircase was easy and light, with broad paved steps turning within a sort of tower. When Pierre came out upon the roofs of nave and aisles, he was delighted to find himself in the bright sunlight and the pure keen air which blew there as in the open country. And it was with astonishment that he gazed upon the huge expanse of lead, zinc, and stone-work, a perfect aerial city living a life of its own under the blue sky. He saw cupolas, spires, terraces, even houses and gardens, houses bright with flowers, the residences of the workmen who live atop of the Basilica, which is ever and ever requiring repair. A little population here bestirs itself, labours, loves, eats, and sleeps. However, Pierre desired to approach the balustrade so as to get a near view of the colossal statues of the Saviour and the Apostles which surmount the facade on the side of the piazza. These giants, some nineteen feet in height, are constantly being mended; their arms, legs, and heads, into which the atmosphere is ever eating, nowadays only hold together by the help of cement, bars, and hooks. And having examined them, Pierre was leaning forward to glance at the Vatican's jumble of ruddy roofs, when it seemed to him that the shout from which he had fled was rising from the piazza, and thereupon, in all haste, he resumed his ascent within the pillar conducting to the dome. There was first a staircase, and then came some narrow, oblique passages, inclines intersected by a few steps, between the inner and outer walls of the cupola. Yielding to curiosity, Pierre pushed a door open, and suddenly found himself inside the Basilica again, at nearly 200 feet from the ground. A narrow gallery there ran round the dome just above the frieze, on which, in letters five feet high, appeared the famous inscription: /Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram oedificabo ecclesiam meam et tibi dabo claves regni coelorum.* And then, as Pierre leant over to gaze into the fearful cavity beneath him and the wide openings of nave, and aisles, and transepts, the cry, the delirious cry of the multitude, yet clamorously swarming below, struck him full in the face. He fled once more; but, higher up, yet a second time he pushed another door open and found another gallery, one perched above the windows, just where the splendid mosaics begin, and whence the crowd seemed to him lost in the depths of a dizzy abyss, altar and /baldacchino/ alike looking no larger than toys. And yet the cry of idolatry and warfare arose again, and smote him like the buffet of a tempest which gathers increase of strength the farther it rushes. So to escape it he had to climb higher still, even to the outer gallery which encircles the lantern, hovering in the very heavens. * Thou art Peter (Petrus) and on that rock (Petram) will I build my church, and to thee will I give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. How delightful was the relief which that bath of air and sunlight at first brought him! Above him now there only remained the ball of gilt copper into which emperors and queens have ascended, as is testified by the pompous inscriptions in the passages; a hollow ball it is, where the voice crashes like thunder, where all the sounds of space reverberate. As he emerged on the side of the apse, his eyes at first plunged into the papal gardens, whose clumps of trees seemed mere bushes almost level with the soil; and he could retrace his recent stroll among them, the broad /parterre/ looking like a faded Smyrna rug, the large wood showing the deep glaucous greenery of a stagnant pool. Then there were the kitchen garden and the vineyard easily identified and tended with care. The fountains, the observatory, the casino, where the Pope spent the hot days of summer, showed merely like little white spots in those undulating grounds, walled in like any other estate, but with the fearsome rampart of the fourth Leo, which yet retained its fortress-like aspect. However, Pierre took his way round the narrow gallery and abruptly found himself in front of Rome, a sudden and immense expanse, with the distant sea on the west, the uninterrupted mountain chains on the east and the south, the Roman Campagna stretching to the horizon like a bare and greenish desert, while the city, the Eternal City, was spread out at his feet. Never before had space impressed him so majestically. Rome was there, as a bird might see it, within the glance, as distinct as some geographical plan executed in relief. To think of it, such a past, such a history, so much grandeur, and Rome so dwarfed and contracted by distance! Houses as lilliputian and as pretty as toys; and the whole a mere mouldy speck upon the earth's face! What impassioned Pierre was that he could at a glance understand the divisions of Rome: the antique city yonder with the Capitol, the Forum, and the Palatine; the papal city in that Borgo which he overlooked, with St. Peter's and the Vatican gazing across the city of the middle ages--which was huddled together in the right angle described by the yellow Tiber--towards the modern city, the Quirinal of the Italian monarchy. And particularly did he remark the chalky girdle with which the new districts encompassed the ancient, central, sun-tanned quarters, thus symbolising an effort at rejuvenescence, the old heart but slowly mended, whereas the outlying limbs were renewed as if by miracle. In that ardent noontide glow, however, Pierre no longer beheld the pure ethereal Rome which had met his eyes on the morning of his arrival in the delightfully soft radiance of the rising sun. That smiling, unobtrusive city, half veiled by golden mist, immersed as it were in some dream of childhood, now appeared to him flooded with a crude light, motionless, hard of outline and silent like death. The distance was as if devoured by too keen a flame, steeped in a luminous dust in which it crumbled. And against that blurred background the whole city showed with violent distinctness in great patches of light and shade, their tracery harshly conspicuous. One might have fancied oneself above some very ancient, abandoned stone quarry, which a few clumps of trees spotted with dark green. Of the ancient city one could see the sunburnt tower of the Capitol, the black cypresses of the Palatine, and the ruins of the palace of Septimius Severus, suggesting the white osseous carcase of some fossil monster, left there by a flood. In front, was enthroned the modern city with the long, renovated buildings of the Quirinal, whose yellow walls stood forth with wondrous crudity amidst the vigorous crests of the garden trees. And to right and left on the Viminal, beyond the palace, the new districts appeared like a city of chalk and plaster mottled by innumerable windows as with a thousand touches of black ink. Then here and there were the Pincio showing like a stagnant mere, the Villa Medici uprearing its campanili, the castle of Sant' Angelo brown like rust, the spire of Santa Maria Maggiore aglow like a burning taper, the three churches of the Aventine drowsy amidst verdure, the Palazzo Farnese with its summer-baked tiles showing like old gold, the domes of the Gesu, of Sant' Andrea della Valle, of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, and yet other domes and other domes, all in fusion, incandescent in the brazier of the heavens. And Pierre again felt a heart-pang in presence of that harsh, stern Rome, so different from the Rome of his dream, the Rome of rejuvenescence and hope, which he had fancied he had found on his first morning, but which had now faded away to give place to the immutable city of pride and domination, stubborn under the sun even unto death. And there on high, all alone with his thoughts, Pierre suddenly understood. It was as if a dart of flaming light fell on him in that free, unbounded expanse where he hovered. Had it come from the ceremony which he had just beheld, from the frantic cry of servitude still ringing in his ears? Had it come from the spectacle of that city beneath him, that city which suggested an embalmed queen still reigning amidst the dust of her tomb? He knew not; but doubtless both had acted as factors, and at all events the light which fell upon his mind was complete: he felt that Catholicism could not exist without the temporal power, that it must fatally disappear whenever it should no longer be king over this earth. A first reason of this lay in heredity, in the forces of history, the long line of the heirs of the Caesars, the popes, the great pontiffs, in whose veins the blood of Augustus, demanding the empire of the world, had never ceased to flow. Though they might reside in the Vatican they had come from the imperial abodes on the Palatine, from the palace of Septimius Severus, and throughout the centuries their policy had ever pursued the dream of Roman mastery, of all the nations vanquished, submissive, and obedient to Rome. If its sovereignty were not universal, extending alike over bodies and over souls, Catholicism would lose its /raison d'etre/; for the Church cannot recognise any empire or kingdom otherwise than politically--the emperors and the kings being purely and simply so many temporary delegates placed in charge of the nations pending the time when they shall be called upon to relinquish their trust. All the nations, all humanity, and the whole world belong to the Church to whom they have been given by God. And if real and effective possession is not hers to-day, this is only because she yields to force, compelled to face accomplished facts, but with the formal reserve that she is in presence of guilty usurpation, that her possessions are unjustly withheld from her, and that she awaits the realisation of the promises of the Christ, who, when the time shall be accomplished, will for ever restore to her both the earth and mankind. Such is the real future city which time is to bring: Catholic Rome, sovereign of the world once more. And Rome the city forms a substantial part of the dream, Rome whose eternity has been predicted, Rome whose soil has imparted to Catholicism the inextinguishable thirst of absolute power. And thus the destiny of the papacy is linked to that of Rome, to such a point indeed that a pope elsewhere than at Rome would no longer be a Catholic pope. The thought of all this frightened Pierre; a great shudder passed through him as he leant on the light iron balustrade, gazing down into the abyss where the stern mournful city was even now crumbling away under the fierce sun. There was, however, evidence of the facts which had dawned on him. If Pius IX and Leo XIII had resolved to imprison themselves in the Vatican, it was because necessity bound them to Rome. A pope is not free to leave the city, to be the head of the Church elsewhere; and in the same way a pope, however well he may understand the modern world, has not the right to relinquish the temporal power. This is an inalienable inheritance which he must defend, and it is moreover a question of life, peremptory, above discussion. And thus Leo XIII has retained the title of Master of the temporal dominions of the Church, and this he has done the more readily since as a cardinal--like all the members of the Sacred College when elected--he swore that he would maintain those dominions intact. Italy may hold Rome as her capital for another century or more, but the coming popes will never cease to protest and claim their kingdom. If ever an understanding should be arrived at, it must be based on the gift of a strip of territory. Formerly, when rumours of reconciliation were current, was it not said that the papacy exacted, as a formal condition, the possession of at least the Leonine City with the neutralisation of a road leading to the sea? Nothing is not enough, one cannot start from nothing to attain to everything, whereas that Civitas Leonina, that bit of a city, would already be a little royal ground, and it would then only be necessary to conquer the rest, first Rome, next Italy, then the neighbouring states, and at last the whole world. Never has the Church despaired, even when, beaten and despoiled, she seemed to be at the last gasp. Never will she abdicate, never will she renounce the promises of the Christ, for she believes in a boundless future and declares herself to be both indestructible and eternal. Grant her but a pebble on which to rest her head, and she will hope to possess, first the field in which that pebble lies, and then the empire in which the field is situated. If one pope cannot achieve the recovery of the inheritance, another pope, ten, twenty other popes will continue the work. The centuries do not count. And this explains why an old man of eighty-four has undertaken colossal enterprises whose achievement requires several lives, certain as he is that his successors will take his place, and that the work will ever and ever be carried forward and completed. As these thoughts coursed through his mind, Pierre, overlooking that ancient city of glory and domination, so stubbornly clinging to its purple, realised that he was an imbecile with his dream of a purely spiritual pope. The notion seemed to him so different from the reality, so out of place, that he experienced a sort of shame-fraught despair. The new pope, consonant to the teachings of the Gospel, such as a purely spiritual pope reigning over souls alone, would be, was virtually beyond the ken of a Roman prelate. At thought of that papal court congealed in ritual, pride, and authority, Pierre suddenly understood what horror and repugnance such a pastor would inspire. How great must be the astonishment and contempt of the papal prelates for that singular notion of the northern mind, a pope without dominions or subjects, military household or royal honours, a pope who would be, as it were, a spirit, exercising purely moral authority, dwelling in the depths of God's temple, and governing the world solely with gestures of benediction and deeds of kindliness and love! All that was but a misty Gothic invention for this Latin clergy, these priests of light and magnificence, who were certainly pious and even superstitious, but who left the Deity well sheltered within the tabernacle in order to govern in His name, according to what they considered the interests of Heaven. Thence it arose that they employed craft and artifice like mere politicians, and lived by dint of expedients amidst the great battle of human appetites, marching with the prudent, stealthy steps of diplomatists towards the final terrestrial victory of the Christ, who, in the person of the Pope, was one day to reign over all the nations. And how stupefied must a French prelate have been--a prelate like Monseigneur Bergerot, that apostle of renunciation and charity--when he lighted amidst that world of the Vatican! How difficult must it have been for him to understand and focus things, and afterwards how great his grief at finding himself unable to come to any agreement with those men without country, without fatherland, those "internationals," who were ever poring over the maps of both hemispheres, ever absorbed in schemes which were to bring them empire. Days and days were necessary, one needed to live in Rome, and he, Pierre himself, had only seen things clearly after a month's sojourn, whilst labouring under the violent shock of the royal pomp of St. Peter's, and standing face to face with the ancient city as it slumbered heavily in the sunlight and dreamt its dream of eternity. But on lowering his eyes to the piazza in front of the Basilica he perceived the multitude, the 40,000 believers streaming over the pavement like insects. And then he thought that he could hear the cry again rising: "/Evviva il Papa-Re! evviva il Papa-Re/! Long live the Pope-King!" Whilst ascending those endless staircases a moment previously it had seemed to him as if the colossus of stone were quivering with the frantic shout raised beneath its ceilings. And now that he had climbed even into cloudland that shout apparently was traversing space. If the colossal pile beneath him still vibrated with it, was it not as with a last rise of sap within its ancient walls, a reinvigoration of that Catholic blood which formerly had demanded that the pile should be a stupendous one, the veritable king of temples, and which now was striving to reanimate it with the powerful breath of life, and this at the very hour when death was beginning to fall upon its over-vast, deserted nave and aisles? The crowd was still streaming forth, filling the piazza, and Pierre's heart was wrung by frightful anguish, for that throng with its shout had just swept his last hope away. On the previous afternoon, after the reception of the pilgrimage, he had yet been able to deceive himself by overlooking the necessity for money which bound the Pope to earth in order that he might see nought but the feeble old man, all spirituality, resplendent like the symbol of moral authority. But his faith in such a pastor of the Gospel, free from all considerations of earthly wealth, and king of none other than a heavenly kingdom, had fled. Not only did the Peter's Pence impose hard servitude upon Leo XIII but he was also the prisoner of papal tradition--the eternal King of Rome, riveted to the soil of Rome, unable either to quit the city or to renounce the temporal power. The fatal end would be collapse on the spot, the dome of St. Peter's falling even as the temple of Olympian Jupiter had fallen, Catholicism strewing the grass with its ruins whilst elsewhere schism burst forth: a new faith for the new nations. Of this Pierre had a grandiose and tragical vision: he beheld his dream destroyed, his book swept away amidst that cry which spread around him as if flying to the four corners of the Catholic world "/Evviva il Papa-Re! evviva il Papa-Re! Long live the Pope-King!" But even in that hour of the papacy's passing triumph he already felt that the giant of gold and marble on which he stood was oscillating, even as totter all old and rotten societies. At last he took his way down again, and a fresh shock of emotion came to him as he reached the roofs, that sunlit expanse of lead and zinc, large enough for the site of a town. Monsignor Nani was there, in company with the two French ladies, the mother and the daughter, both looking very happy and highly amused. No doubt the prelate had good-naturedly offered to conduct them to the dome. However, as soon as he recognised the young priest he went towards him: "Well, my dear son," he inquired, "are you pleased? Have you been impressed, edified?" As he spoke, his searching eyes dived into Pierre's soul, as if to ascertain the present result of his experiments. Then, satisfied with what he detected, he began to laugh softly: "Yes, yes, I see--come, you are a sensible fellow after all. I begin to think that the unfortunate affair which brought you here will have a happy ending." VIII WHEN Pierre remained in the morning at the Boccanera mansion he often spent some hours in the little neglected garden which had formerly ended with a sort of colonnaded /loggia/, whence two flights of steps descended to the Tiber. This garden was a delightful, solitary nook, perfumed by the ripe fruit of the centenarian orange-trees, whose symmetrical lines were the only indication of the former pathways, now hidden beneath rank weeds. And Pierre also found there the acrid scent of the large box-shrubs growing in the old central fountain basin, which had been filled up with loose earth and rubbish. On those luminous October mornings, full of such tender and penetrating charm, the spot was one where all the joy of living might well be savoured, but Pierre brought thither his northern dreaminess, his concern for suffering, his steadfast feeling of compassion, which rendered yet sweeter the caress of the sunlight pervading that atmosphere of love. He seated himself against the right-hand wall on a fragment of a fallen column over which a huge laurel cast a deep-black shadow, fresh and aromatic. In the antique greenish sarcophagus beside him, on which fauns offered violence to nymphs, the streamlet of water trickling from the mask incrusted in the wall, set the unchanging music of its crystal note, whilst he read the newspapers and the letters which he received, all the communications of good Abbe Rose, who kept him informed of his mission among the wretched ones of gloomy Paris, now already steeped in fog and mud. One morning however, Pierre unexpectedly found Benedetta seated on the fallen column which he usually made his chair. She raised a light cry of surprise on seeing him, and for a moment remained embarrassed, for she had with her his book "New Rome," which she had read once already, but had then imperfectly understood. And overcoming her embarrassment she now hastened to detain him, making him sit down beside her, and frankly owning that she had come to the garden in order to be alone and apply herself to an attentive study of the book, in the same way as some ignorant school-girl. Then they began to chat like a pair of friends, and the young priest spent a delightful hour. Although Benedetta did not speak of herself, he realised that it was her grief alone which brought her nearer to him, as if indeed her own sufferings enlarged her heart and made her think of all who suffered in the world. Patrician as she was, regarding social hierarchy as a divine law, she had never previously thought of such things, and some pages of Pierre's book greatly astonished her. What! one ought to take interest in the lowly, realise that they had the same souls and the same griefs as oneself, and seek in brotherly or sisterly fashion to make them happy? She certainly sought to acquire such an interest, but with no great success, for she secretly feared that it might lead her into sin, as it could not be right to alter aught of the social system which had been established by God and consecrated by the Church. Charitable she undoubtedly was, wont to bestow small sums in alms, but she did not give her heart, she felt no true sympathy for the humble, belonging as she did to such a different race, which looked to a throne in heaven high above the seats of all the plebeian elect. She and Pierre, however, found themselves on other mornings side by side in the shade of the laurels near the trickling, singing water; and he, lacking occupation, weary of waiting for a solution which seemed to recede day by day, fervently strove to animate this young and beautiful woman with some of his own fraternal feelings. He was impassioned by the idea that he was catechising Italy herself, the queen of beauty, who was still slumbering in ignorance, but who would recover all her past glory if she were to awake to the new times with soul enlarged, swelling with pity for men and things. Reading good Abbe Rose's letters to Benedetta, he made her shudder at the frightful wail of wretchedness which ascends from all great cities. With such deep tenderness in her eyes, with the happiness of love reciprocated emanating from her whole being, why should she not recognise, even as he did, that the law of love was the sole means of saving suffering humanity, which, through hatred, incurred the danger of death? And to please him she did try to believe in democracy, in the fraternal remodelling of society, but among other nations only--not at Rome, for an involuntary, gentle laugh came to her lips whenever his words evoked the idea of the poor still remaining in the Trastevere district fraternising with those who yet dwelt in the old princely palaces. No, no, things had been as they were so long; they could not, must not, be altered! And so, after all, Pierre's pupil made little progress: she was, in reality, simply touched by the wealth of ardent love which the young priest had chastely transferred from one alone to the whole of human kind. And between him and her, as those sunlit October mornings went by, a tie of exquisite sweetness was formed; they came to love one another with deep, pure, fraternal affection, amidst the great glowing passion which consumed them both. Then, one day, Benedetta, her elbow resting on the sarcophagus, spoke of Dario, whose name she had hitherto refrained from mentioning. Ah! poor /amico/, how circumspect and repentant he had shown himself since that fit of brutal insanity! At first, to conceal his embarrassment, he had gone to spend three days at Naples, and it was said that La Tonietta, the sentimental /demi-mondaine/, had hastened to join him there, wildly in love with him. Since his return to the mansion he had avoided all private meetings with his cousin, and scarcely saw her except at the Monday receptions, when he wore a submissive air, and with his eyes silently entreated forgiveness. "Yesterday, however," continued Benedetta, "I met him on the staircase and gave him my hand. He understood that I was no longer angry with him and was very happy. What else could I have done? One must not be severe for ever. Besides, I do not want things to go too far between him and that woman. I want him to remember that I still love him, and am still waiting for him. Oh! he is mine, mine alone. But alas! I cannot say the word: our affairs are in such sorry plight." She paused, and two big tears welled into her eyes. The divorce proceedings to which she alluded had now come to a standstill, fresh obstacles ever arising to stay their course. Pierre was much moved by her tears, for she seldom wept. She herself sometimes confessed, with her calm smile, that she did not know how to weep. But now her heart was melting, and for a moment she remained overcome, leaning on the mossy, crumbling sarcophagus, whilst the clear water falling from the gaping mouth of the tragic mask still sounded its flutelike note. And a sudden thought of death came to the priest as he saw her, so young and so radiant with beauty, half fainting beside that marble resting-place where fauns were rushing upon nymphs in a frantic bacchanal which proclaimed the omnipotence of love--that omnipotence which the ancients were fond of symbolising on their tombs as a token of life's eternity. And meantime a faint, warm breeze passed through the sunlit, silent garden, wafting hither and thither the penetrating scent of box and orange. "One has so much strength when one loves," Pierre at last murmured. "Yes, yes, you are right," she replied, already smiling again. "I am childish. But it is the fault of your book. It is only when I suffer that I properly understand it. But all the same I am making progress, am I not? Since you desire it, let all the poor, all those who suffer, as I do, be my brothers and sisters." Then for a while they resumed their chat. On these occasions Benedetta was usually the first to return to the house, and Pierre would linger alone under the laurels, vaguely dreaming of sweet, sad things. Often did he think how hard life proved for poor creatures whose only thirst was for happiness! One Monday evening, at a quarter-past ten, only the young folks remained in Donna Serafina's reception-room. Monsignor Nani had merely put in an appearance that night, and Cardinal Sarno had just gone off. Even Donna Serafina, in her usual seat by the fireplace, seemed to have withdrawn from the others, absorbed as she was in contemplation of the chair which the absent Morano still stubbornly left unoccupied. Chatting and laughing in front of the sofa on which sat Benedetta and Celia were Dario, Pierre, and Narcisse Habert, the last of whom had begun to twit the young Prince, having met him, so he asserted, a few days previously, in the company of a very pretty girl. "Oh! don't deny it, my dear fellow," continued Narcisse, "for she was really superb. She was walking beside you, and you turned into a lane together--the Borgo Angelico, I think." Dario listened smiling, quite at his ease and incapable of denying his passionate predilection for beauty. "No doubt, no doubt; it was I, I don't deny it," he responded. "Only the inferences you draw are not correct." And turning towards Benedetta, who, without a thought of jealous anxiety, wore as gay a look as himself, as though delighted that he should have enjoyed that passing pleasure of the eyes, he went on: "It was the girl, you know, whom I found in tears six weeks ago. Yes, that bead-worker who was sobbing because the workshop was shut up, and who rushed along, all blushing, to conduct me to her parents when I offered her a bit of silver. Pierina her name is, as you, perhaps, remember." "Oh! yes, Pierina." "Well, since then I've met her in the street on four or five occasions. And, to tell the truth, she is so very beautiful that I've stopped and spoken to her. The other day, for instance, I walked with her as far as a manufacturer's. But she hasn't yet found any work, and she began to cry, and so, to console her a little, I kissed her. She was quite taken aback at it, but she seemed very well pleased." At this all the others began to laugh. But suddenly Celia desisted and said very gravely, "You know, Dario, she loves you; you must not be hard on her." Dario, no doubt, was of Celia's opinion, for he again looked at Benedetta, but with a gay toss of the head, as if to say that, although the girl might love him, he did not love her. A bead-worker indeed, a girl of the lowest classes, pooh! She might be a Venus, but she could be nothing to him. And he himself made merry over his romantic adventure, which Narcisse sought to arrange in a kind of antique sonnet: A beautiful bead-worker falling madly in love with a young prince, as fair as sunlight, who, touched by her misfortune, hands her a silver crown; then the beautiful bead-worker, quite overcome at finding him as charitable as handsome, dreaming of him incessantly, and following him everywhere, chained to his steps by a link of flame; and finally the beautiful bead-worker, who has refused the silver crown, so entreating the handsome prince with her soft, submissive eyes, that he at last deigns to grant her the alms of his heart. This pastime greatly amused Benedetta; but Celia, with her angelic face and the air of a little girl who ought to have been ignorant of everything, remained very grave and repeated sadly, "Dario, Dario, she loves you; you must not make her suffer." Then the Contessina, in her turn, was moved to pity. "And those poor folks are not happy!" said she. "Oh!" exclaimed the Prince, "it's misery beyond belief. On the day she took me to the Quartiere dei Prati* I was quite overcome; it was awful, astonishingly awful!" * The district of the castle meadows--see /ante/ note.--Trans. "But I remember that we promised to go to see the poor people," resumed Benedetta, "and we have done wrong in delaying our visit so long. For your studies, Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, you greatly desired to accompany us and see the poor of Rome--was that not so?" As she spoke she raised her eyes to Pierre, who for a moment had been silent. He was much moved by her charitable thought, for he realised, by the faint quiver of her voice, that she desired to appear a docile pupil, progressing in affection for the lowly and the wretched. Moreover, his passion for his apostolate had at once returned to him. "Oh!" said he, "I shall not quit Rome without having seen those who suffer, those who lack work and bread. Therein lies the malady which affects every nation; salvation can only be attained by the healing of misery. When the roots of the tree cannot find sustenance the tree dies." "Well," resumed the Contessina, "we will fix an appointment at once; you shall come with us to the Quartiere dei Prati--Dario will take us there." At this the Prince, who had listened to the priest with an air of stupefaction, unable to understand the simile of the tree and its roots, began to protest distressfully, "No, no, cousin, take Monsieur l'Abbe for a stroll there if it amuses you. But I've been, and don't want to go back. Why, when I got home the last time I was so upset that I almost took to my bed. No, no; such abominations are too awful--it isn't possible." At this moment a voice, bitter with displeasure, arose from the chimney corner. Donna Serafina was emerging from her long silence. "Dario is quite right! Send your alms, my dear, and I will gladly add mine. There are other places where you might take Monsieur l'Abbe, and which it would be far more useful for him to see. With that idea of yours you would send him away with a nice recollection of our city." Roman pride rang out amidst the old lady's bad temper. Why, indeed, show one's sores to foreigners, whose visit is possibly prompted by hostile curiosity? One always ought to look beautiful; Rome should not be shown otherwise than in the garb of glory. Narcisse, however, had taken possession of Pierre. "It's true, my dear Abbe," said he; "I forgot to recommend that stroll to you. You really must visit the new district built over the castle meadows. It's typical, and sums up all the others. And you won't lose your time there, I'll warrant you, for nowhere can you learn more about the Rome of the present day. It's extraordinary, extraordinary!" Then, addressing Benedetta, he added, "Is it decided? Shall we say to-morrow morning? You'll find the Abbe and me over there, for I want to explain matters to him beforehand, in order that he may understand them. What do you say to ten o'clock?" Before answering him the Contessina turned towards her aunt and respectfully opposed her views. "But Monsieur l'Abbe, aunt, has met enough beggars in our streets already, so he may well see everything. Besides, judging by his book, he won't see worse things than he has seen in Paris. As he says in one passage, hunger is the same all the world over." Then, with her sensible air, she gently laid siege to Dario. "You know, Dario," said she, "you would please me very much by taking me there. We can go in the carriage and join these gentlemen. It will be a very pleasant outing for us. It is such a long time since we went out together." It was certainly that idea of going out with Dario, of having a pretext for a complete reconciliation with him, that enchanted her; he himself realised it, and, unable to escape, he tried to treat the matter as a joke. "Ah! cousin," he said, "it will be your fault; I shall have the nightmare for a week. An excursion like that spoils all the enjoyment of life for days and days." The mere thought made him quiver with revolt. However, laughter again rang out around him, and, in spite of Donna Serafina's mute disapproval, the appointment was finally fixed for the following morning at ten o'clock. Celia as she went off expressed deep regret that she could not form one of the party; but, with the closed candour of a budding lily, she really took interest in Pierina alone. As she reached the ante-room she whispered in her friend's ear: "Take a good look at that beauty, my dear, so as to tell me whether she is so very beautiful--beautiful beyond compare." When Pierre met Narcisse near the Castle of Sant' Angelo on the morrow, at nine o'clock, he was surprised to find him again languid and enraptured, plunged anew in artistic enthusiasm. At first not a word was said of the excursion. Narcisse related that he had risen at sunrise in order that he might spend an hour before Bernini's "Santa Teresa." It seemed that when he did not see that statue for a week he suffered as acutely as if he were parted from some cherished mistress. And his adoration varied with the time of day, according to the light in which he beheld the figure: in the morning, when the pale glow of dawn steeped it in whiteness, he worshipped it with quite a mystical transport of the soul, whilst in the afternoon, when the glow of the declining sun's oblique rays seemed to permeate the marble, his passion became as fiery red as the blood of martyrs. "Ah! my friend," said he with a weary air whilst his dreamy eyes faded to mauve, "you have no idea how delightful and perturbing her awakening was this morning--how languorously she opened her eyes, like a pure, candid virgin, emerging from the embrace of the Divinity. One could die of rapture at the sight!" Then, growing calm again when he had taken a few steps, he resumed in the voice of a practical man who does not lose his balance in the affairs of life: "We'll walk slowly towards the castle-fields district--the buildings yonder; and on our way I'll tell you what I know of the things we shall see there. It was the maddest affair imaginable, one of those delirious frenzies of speculation which have a splendour of their own, just like the superb, monstrous masterpiece of a man of genius whose mind is unhinged. I was told of it all by some relatives of mine, who took part in the gambling, and, in point of fact, made a good deal of money by it." Thereupon, with the clearness and precision of a financier, employing technical terms with perfect ease, he recounted the extraordinary adventure. That all Italy, on the morrow of the occupation of Rome, should have been delirious with enthusiasm at the thought of at last possessing the ancient and glorious city, the eternal capital to which the empire of the world had been promised, was but natural. It was, so to say, a legitimate explosion of the delight and the hopes of a young nation anxious to show its power. The question was to make Rome a modern capital worthy of a great kingdom, and before aught else there were sanitary requirements to be dealt with: the city needed to be cleansed of all the filth which disgraced it. One cannot nowadays imagine in what abominable putrescence the city of the popes, the /Roma sporca/ which artists regret, was then steeped: the vast majority of the houses lacked even the most primitive arrangements, the public thoroughfares were used for all purposes, noble ruins served as store-places for sewage, the princely palaces were surrounded by filth, and the streets were perfect manure beds which fostered frequent epidemics. Thus vast municipal works were absolutely necessary, the question was one of health and life itself. And in much the same way it was only right to think of building houses for the newcomers, who would assuredly flock into the city. There had been a precedent at Berlin, whose population, after the establishment of the German empire, had suddenly increased by some hundreds of thousands. In the same way the population of Rome would certainly be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, for as the new centre of national life the city would necessarily attract all the /vis viva/ of the provinces. And at this thought pride stepped in: the fallen government of the Vatican must be shown what Italy was capable of achieving, what splendour she would bestow on the new and third Rome, which, by the magnificence of its thoroughfares and the multitude of its people, would far excel either the imperial or the papal city. True, during the early years some prudence was observed; wisely enough, houses were only built in proportion as they were required. The population had doubled at one bound, rising from two to four hundred thousand souls, thanks to the arrival of the little world of employees and officials of the public services--all those who live on the State or hope to live on it, without mentioning the idlers and enjoyers of life whom a Court always carries in its train. However, this influx of newcomers was a first cause of intoxication, for every one imagined that the increase would continue, and, in fact, become more and more rapid. And so the city of the day before no longer seemed large enough; it was necessary to make immediate preparations for the morrow's need by enlarging Rome on all sides. Folks talked, too, of the Paris of the second empire, which had been so extended and transformed into a city of light and health. But unfortunately on the banks of the Tiber there was neither any preconcerted general plan nor any clear-seeing man, master of the situation, supported by powerful financial organisations. And the work, begun by pride, prompted by the ambition of surpassing the Rome of the Caesars and the Popes, the determination to make the eternal, predestined city the queen and centre of the world once more, was completed by speculation, one of those extraordinary gambling frenzies, those tempests which arise, rage, destroy, and carry everything away without premonitory warning or possibility of arresting their course. All at once it was rumoured that land bought at five francs the metre had been sold again for a hundred francs the metre; and thereupon the fever arose--the fever of a nation which is passionately fond of gambling. A flight of speculators descending from North Italy swooped down upon Rome, the noblest and easiest of preys. Those needy, famished mountaineers found spoils for every appetite in that voluptuous South where life is so benign, and the very delights of the climate helped to corrupt and hasten moral gangrene. At first, too; it was merely necessary to stoop; money was to be found by the shovelful among the rubbish of the first districts which were opened up. People who were clever enough to scent the course which the new thoroughfares would take and purchase buildings threatened with demolition increased their capital tenfold in a couple of years. And after that the contagion spread, infecting all classes--the princes, burgesses, petty proprietors, even the shop-keepers, bakers, grocers, and boot-makers; the delirium rising to such a pitch that a mere baker subsequently failed for forty-five millions.* Nothing, indeed, was left but rageful gambling, in which the stakes were millions, whilst the lands and the houses became mere fictions, mere pretexts for stock-exchange operations. And thus the old hereditary pride, which had dreamt of transforming Rome into the capital of the world, was heated to madness by the high fever of speculation--folks buying, and building, and selling without limit, without a pause, even as one might throw shares upon the market as fast and as long as presses can be found to print them. * 1,800,000 pounds. See /ante/ note.--Trans. No other city in course of evolution has ever furnished such a spectacle. Nowadays, when one strives to penetrate things one is confounded. The population had increased to five hundred thousand, and then seemingly remained stationary; nevertheless, new districts continued to sprout up more thickly than ever. Yet what folly it was not to wait for a further influx of inhabitants! Why continue piling up accommodation for thousands of families whose advent was uncertain? The only excuse lay in having beforehand propounded the proposition that the third Rome, the triumphant capital of Italy, could not count less than a million souls, and in regarding that proposition as indisputable fact. The people had not come, but they surely would come: no patriot could doubt it without being guilty of treason. And so houses were built and built without a pause, for the half-million citizens who were coming. There was no anxiety as to the date of their arrival; it was sufficient that they should be expected. Inside Rome the companies which had been formed in connection with the new thoroughfares passing through the old, demolished, pestiferous districts, certainly sold or let their house property, and thereby realised large profits. But, as the craze increased, other companies were established for the purpose of erecting yet more and more districts outside Rome--veritable little towns, of which there was no need whatever. Beyond the Porta San Giovanni and the Porta San Lorenzo, suburbs sprang up as by miracle. A town was sketched out over the vast estate of the Villa Ludovisi, from the Porta Pia to the Porta Salaria and even as far as Sant' Agnese. And then came an attempt to make quite a little city, with church, school, and market, arise all at once on the fields of the Castle of Sant' Angelo. And it was no question of small dwellings for labourers, modest flats for employees, and others of limited means; no, it was a question of colossal mansions three and four storeys high, displaying uniform and endless facades which made these new excentral quarters quite Babylonian, such districts, indeed, as only capitals endowed with intense life, like Paris and London, could contrive to populate. However, such were the monstrous products of pride and gambling; and what a page of history, what a bitter lesson now that Rome, financially ruined, is further disgraced by that hideous girdle of empty, and, for the most part, uncompleted carcases, whose ruins already strew the grassy streets! The fatal collapse, the disaster proved a frightful one. Narcisse explained its causes and recounted its phases so clearly that Pierre fully understood. Naturally enough, numerous financial companies had sprouted up: the Immobiliere, the Society d'Edilizia e Construzione, the Fondaria, the Tiberiana, and the Esquilino. Nearly all of them built, erected huge houses, entire streets of them, for purposes of sale; but they also gambled in land, selling plots at large profit to petty speculators, who also dreamt of making large profits amidst the continuous, fictitious rise brought about by the growing fever of agiotage. And the worst was that the petty speculators, the middle-class people, the inexperienced shop-keepers without capital, were crazy enough to build in their turn by borrowing of the banks or applying to the companies which had sold them the land for sufficient cash to enable them to complete their structures. As a general rule, to avoid the loss of everything, the companies were one day compelled to take back both land and buildings, incomplete though the latter might be, and from the congestion which resulted they were bound to perish. If the expected million of people had arrived to occupy the dwellings prepared for them the gains would have been fabulous, and in ten years Rome might have become one of the most flourishing capitals of the world. But the people did not come, and the dwellings remained empty. Moreover, the buildings erected by the companies were too large and costly for the average investor inclined to put his money into house property. Heredity had acted, the builders had planned things on too huge a scale, raising a series of magnificent piles whose purpose was to dwarf those of all other ages; but, as it happened, they were fated to remain lifeless and deserted, testifying with wondrous eloquence to the impotence of pride. So there was no private capital that dared or could take the place of that of the companies. Elsewhere, in Paris for instance, new districts have been erected and embellishments have been carried out with the capital of the country--the money saved by dint of thrift. But in Rome all was built on the credit system, either by means of bills of exchange at ninety days, or--and this was chiefly the case--by borrowing money abroad. The huge sum sunk in these enterprises is estimated at a milliard, four-fifths of which was French money. The bankers did everything; the French ones lent to the Italian bankers at 3 1/2 or 4 per cent.; and the Italian bankers accommodated the speculators, the Roman builders, at 6, 7, and even 8 per cent. And thus the disaster was great indeed when France, learning of Italy's alliance with Germany, withdrew her 800,000,000 francs in less than two years. The Italian banks were drained of their specie, and the land and building companies, being likewise compelled to reimburse their loans, were compelled to apply to the banks of issue, those privileged to issue notes. At the same time they intimidated the Government, threatening to stop all work and throw 40,000 artisans and labourers starving on the pavement of Rome if it did not compel the banks of issue to lend them the five or six millions of paper which they needed. And this the Government at last did, appalled by the possibility of universal bankruptcy. Naturally, however, the five or six millions could not be paid back at maturity, as the newly built houses found neither purchasers nor tenants; and so the great fall began, and continued with a rush, heaping ruin upon ruin. The petty speculators fell on the builders, the builders on the land companies, the land companies on the banks of issue, and the latter on the public credit, ruining the nation. And that was how a mere municipal crisis became a frightful disaster: a whole milliard sunk to no purpose, Rome disfigured, littered with the ruins of the gaping and empty dwellings which had been prepared for the five or six hundred thousand inhabitants for whom the city yet waits in vain! Moreover, in the breeze of glory which swept by, the state itself took a colossal view of things. It was a question of at once making Italy triumphant and perfect, of accomplishing in five and twenty years what other nations have required centuries to effect. So there was feverish activity and a prodigious outlay on canals, ports, roads, railway lines, and improvements in all the great cities. Directly after the alliance with Germany, moreover, the military and naval estimates began to devour millions to no purpose. And the ever growing financial requirements were simply met by the issue of paper, by a fresh loan each succeeding year. In Rome alone, too, the building of the Ministry of War cost ten millions, that of the Ministry of Finances fifteen, whilst a hundred was spent on the yet unfinished quays, and two hundred and fifty were sunk on works of defence around the city. And all this was a flare of the old hereditary pride, springing from that soil whose sap can only blossom in extravagant projects; the determination to dazzle and conquer the world which comes as soon as one has climbed to the Capitol, even though one's feet rest amidst the accumulated dust of all the forms of human power which have there crumbled one above the other. "And, my dear friend," continued Narcisse, "if I could go into all the stories that are current, that are whispered here and there, you would be stupefied at the insanity which overcame the whole city amidst the terrible fever to which the gambling passion gave rise. Folks of small account, and fools and ignorant people were not the only ones to be ruined; nearly all the Roman nobles lost their ancient fortunes, their gold and their palaces and their galleries of masterpieces, which they owed to the munificence of the popes. The colossal wealth which it had taken centuries of nepotism to pile up in the hands of a few melted away like wax, in less than ten years, in the levelling fire of modern speculation." Then, forgetting that he was speaking to a priest, he went on to relate one of the whispered stories to which he had alluded: "There's our good friend Dario, Prince Boccanera, the last of the name, reduced to live on the crumbs which fall to him from his uncle the Cardinal, who has little beyond his stipend left him. Well, Dario would be a rich man had it not been for that extraordinary affair of the Villa Montefiori. You have heard of it, no doubt; how Prince Onofrio, Dario's father, speculated, sold the villa grounds for ten millions, then bought them back and built on them, and how, at last, not only the ten millions were lost, but also all that remained of the once colossal fortune of the Boccaneras. What you haven't been told, however, is the secret part which Count Prada--our Contessina's husband--played in the affair. He was the lover of Princess Boccanera, the beautiful Flavia Montefiori, who had brought the villa as dowry to the old Prince. She was a very fine woman, much younger than her husband, and it is positively said that it was through her that Prada mastered the Prince--for she held her old doting husband at arm's length whenever he hesitated to give a signature or go farther into the affair of which he scented the danger. And in all this Prada gained the millions which he now spends, while as for the beautiful Flavia, you are aware, no doubt, that she saved a little fortune from the wreck and bought herself a second and much younger husband, whom she turned into a Marquis Montefiori. In the whole affair the only victim is our good friend Dario, who is absolutely ruined, and wishes to marry his cousin, who is as poor as himself. It's true that she's determined to have him, and that it's impossible for him not to reciprocate her love. But for that he would have already married some American girl with a dowry of millions, like so many of the ruined princes, on the verge of starvation, have done; that is, unless the Cardinal and Donna Serafina had opposed such a match, which would not have been surprising, proud and stubborn as they are, anxious to preserve the purity of their old Roman blood. However, let us hope that Dario and the exquisite Benedetta will some day be happy together." Narcisse paused; but, after taking a few steps in silence, he added in a lower tone: "I've a relative who picked up nearly three millions in that Villa Montefiori affair. Ah! I regret that I wasn't here in those heroic days of speculation. It must have been very amusing; and what strokes there were for a man of self-possession to make!" However, all at once, as he raised his head, he saw before him the Quartiere dei Prati--the new district of the castle fields; and his face thereupon changed: he again became an artist, indignant with the modern abominations with which old Rome had been disfigured. His eyes paled, and a curl of his lips expressed the bitter disdain of a dreamer whose passion for the vanished centuries was sorely hurt: "Look, look at it all!" he exclaimed. "To think of it, in the city of Augustus, the city of Leo X, the city of eternal power and eternal beauty!" Pierre himself was thunderstruck. The meadows of the Castle of Sant' Angelo, dotted with a few poplar trees, had here formerly stretched alongside the Tiber as far as the first slopes of Monte Mario, thus supplying, to the satisfaction of artists, a foreground or greenery to the Borgo and the dome of St. Peter's. But now, amidst the white, leprous, overturned plain, there stood a town of huge, massive houses, cubes of stone-work, invariably the same, with broad streets intersecting one another at right angles. From end to end similar facades appeared, suggesting series of convents, barracks, or hospitals. Extraordinary and painful was the impression produced by this town so suddenly immobilised whilst in course of erection. It was as if on some accursed morning a wicked magician had with one touch of his wand stopped the works and emptied the noisy stone-yards, leaving the buildings in mournful abandonment. Here on one side the soil had been banked up; there deep pits dug for foundations had remained gaping, overrun with weeds. There were houses whose halls scarcely rose above the level of the soil; others which had been raised to a second or third floor; others, again, which had been carried as high as was intended, and even roofed in, suggesting skeletons or empty cages. Then there were houses finished excepting that their walls had not been plastered, others which had been left without window frames, shutters, or doors; others, again, which had their doors and shutters, but were nailed up like coffins with not a soul inside them; and yet others which were partly, and in a few cases fully, inhabited--animated by the most unexpected of populations. And no words could describe the fearful mournfulness of that City of the Sleeping Beauty, hushed into mortal slumber before it had even lived, lying annihilated beneath the heavy sun pending an awakening which, likely enough, would never come. Following his companion, Pierre walked along the broad, deserted streets, where all was still as in a cemetery. Not a vehicle nor a pedestrian passed by. Some streets had no foot ways; weeds were covering the unpaved roads, turning them once more into fields; and yet there were temporary gas lamps, mere leaden pipes bound to poles, which had been there for years. To avoid payment of the door and window tax, the house owners had generally closed all apertures with planks; while some houses, of which little had been built, were surrounded by high palings for fear lest their cellars should become the dens of all the bandits of the district. But the most painful sight of all was that of the young ruins, the proud, lofty structures, which, although unfinished, were already cracking on all sides, and required the support of an intricate arrangement of timbers to prevent them from falling in dust upon the ground. A pang came to one's heart as though one was in a city which some scourge had depopulated--pestilence, war, or bombardment, of which these gaping carcases seem to retain the mark. Then at the thought that this was abortment, not death--that destruction would complete its work before the dreamt-of, vainly awaited denizens would bring life to the still-born houses, one's melancholy deepened to hopeless discouragement. And at each corner, moreover, there was the frightful irony of the magnificent marble slabs which bore the names of the streets, illustrious historical names, Gracchus, Scipio, Pliny, Pompey, Julius Caesar, blazing forth on those unfinished, crumbling walls like a buffet dealt by the Past to modern incompetency. Then Pierre was once more struck by this truth--that whosoever possesses Rome is consumed by the building frenzy, the passion for marble, the boastful desire to build and leave his monument of glory to future generations. After the Caesars and the Popes had come the Italian Government, which was no sooner master of the city than it wished to reconstruct it, make it more splendid, more huge than it had ever been before. It was the fatal suggestion of the soil itself--the blood of Augustus rushing to the brain of these last-comers and urging them to a mad desire to make the third Rome the queen of the earth. Thence had come all the vast schemes such as the cyclopean quays and the mere ministries struggling to outvie the Colosseum; and thence had come all the new districts of gigantic houses which had sprouted like towns around the ancient city. It was not only on the castle fields, but at the Porta San Giovanni, the Porta San Lorenzo, the Villa Ludovisi, and on the heights of the Viminal and the Esquiline that unfinished, empty districts were already crumbling amidst the weeds of their deserted streets. After two thousand years of prodigious fertility the soil really seemed to be exhausted. Even as in very old fruit gardens newly planted plum and cherry trees wither and die, so the new walls, no doubt, found no life in that old dust of Rome, impoverished by the immemorial growth of so many temples, circuses, arches, basilicas, and churches. And thus the modern houses, which men had sought to render fruitful, the useless, over-huge houses, swollen with hereditary ambition, had been unable to attain maturity, and remained there sterile like dry bushes on a plot of land exhausted by over-cultivation. And the frightful sadness that one felt arose from the fact that so creative and great a past had culminated in such present-day impotency--Rome, who had covered the world with indestructible monuments, now so reduced that she could only generate ruins. "Oh, they'll be finished some day!" said Pierre. Narcisse gazed at him in astonishment: "For whom?" That was the cruel question! Only by dint of patriotic enthusiasm on the morrow of the conquest had one been able to indulge in the hope of a mighty influx of population, and now singular blindness was needed for the belief that such an influx would ever take place. The past experiments seemed decisive; moreover, there was no reason why the population should double: Rome offered neither the attraction of pleasure nor that of gain to be amassed in commerce and industry for those she had not, nor of intensity of social and intellectual life, since of this she seemed no longer capable. In any case, years and years would be requisite. And, meantime, how could one people those houses which were finished; and for whom was one to finish those which had remained mere skeletons, falling to pieces under sun and rain? Must they all remain there indefinitely, some gaunt and open to every blast and others closed and silent like tombs, in the wretched hideousness of their inutility and abandonment? What a terrible proof of error they offered under the radiant sky! The new masters of Rome had made a bad start, and even if they now knew what they ought to have done would they have the courage to undo what they had done? Since the milliard sunk there seemed to be definitely lost and wasted, one actually hoped for the advent of a Nero, endowed with mighty, sovereign will, who would take torch and pick and burn and raze everything in the avenging name of reason and beauty. "Ah!" resumed Narcisse, "here are the Contessina and the Prince." Benedetta had told the coachman to pull up in one of the open spaces intersecting the deserted streets, and now along the broad, quiet, grassy road--well fitted for a lovers' stroll--she was approaching on Dario's arm, both of them delighted with their outing, and no longer thinking of the sad things which they had come to see. "What a nice day it is!" the Contessina gaily exclaimed as she reached Pierre and Narcisse. "How pleasant the sunshine is! It's quite a treat to be able to walk about a little as if one were in the country!" Dario was the first to cease smiling at the blue sky, all the delight of his stroll with his cousin on his arm suddenly departing. "My dear," said he, "we must go to see those people, since you are bent on it, though it will certainly spoil our day. But first I must take my bearings. I'm not particularly clever, you know, in finding my way in places where I don't care to go. Besides, this district is idiotic with all its dead streets and dead houses, and never a face or a shop to serve as a reminder. Still I think the place is over yonder. Follow me; at all events, we shall see." The four friends then wended their way towards the central part of the district, the part facing the Tiber, where a small nucleus of a population had collected. The landlords turned the few completed houses to the best advantage they could, letting the rooms at very low rentals, and waiting patiently enough for payment. Some needy employees, some poverty-stricken families--had thus installed themselves there, and in the long run contrived to pay a trifle for their accommodation. In consequence, however, of the demolition of the ancient Ghetto and the opening of the new streets by which air had been let into the Trastevere district, perfect hordes of tatterdemalions, famished and homeless, and almost without garments, had swooped upon the unfinished houses, filling them with wretchedness and vermin; and it had been necessary to tolerate this lawless occupation lest all the frightful misery should remain displayed in the public thoroughfares. And so it was to those frightful tenants that had fallen the huge four and five storeyed palaces, entered by monumental doorways flanked by lofty statues and having carved balconies upheld by caryatides all along their fronts. Each family had made its choice, often closing the frameless windows with boards and the gaping doorways with rags, and occupying now an entire princely flat and now a few small rooms, according to its taste. Horrid-looking linen hung drying from the carved balconies, foul stains already degraded the white walls, and from the magnificent porches, intended for sumptuous equipages, there poured a stream of filth which rotted in stagnant pools in the roads, where there was neither pavement nor footpath. On two occasions already Dario had caused his companions to retrace their steps. He was losing his way and becoming more and more gloomy. "I ought to have taken to the left," said he, "but how is one to know amidst such a set as that!" Parties of verminous children were now to be seen rolling in the dust; they were wondrously dirty, almost naked, with black skins and tangled locks as coarse as horsehair. There were also women in sordid skirts and with their loose jackets unhooked. Many stood talking together in yelping voices, whilst others, seated on old chairs with their hands on their knees, remained like that idle for hours. Not many men were met; but a few lay on the scorched grass, sleeping heavily in the sunlight. However, the stench was becoming unbearable--a stench of misery as when the human animal eschews all cleanliness to wallow in filth. And matters were made worse by the smell from a small, improvised market--the emanations of the rotting fruit, cooked and sour vegetables, and stale fried fish which a few poor women had set out on the ground amidst a throng of famished, covetous children. "Ah! well, my dear, I really don't know where it is," all at once exclaimed the Prince, addressing his cousin. "Be reasonable; we've surely seen enough; let's go back to the carriage." He was really suffering, and, as Benedetta had said, he did not know how to suffer. It seemed to him monstrous that one should sadden one's life by such an excursion as this. Life ought to be buoyant and benign under the clear sky, brightened by pleasant sights, by dance and song. And he, with his naive egotism, had a positive horror of ugliness, poverty, and suffering, the sight of which caused him both mental and physical pain. Benedetta shuddered even as he did, but in presence of Pierre she desired to be brave. Glancing at him, and seeing how deeply interested and compassionate he looked, she desired to persevere in her effort to sympathise with the humble and the wretched. "No, no, Dario, we must stay. These gentlemen wish to see everything--is it not so?" "Oh, the Rome of to-day is here," exclaimed Pierre; "this tells one more about it than all the promenades among the ruins and the monuments." "You exaggerate, my dear Abbe," declared Narcisse. "Still, I will admit that it is very interesting. Some of the old women are particularly expressive." At this moment Benedetta, seeing a superbly beautiful girl in front of her, could not restrain a cry of enraptured admiration: "/O che bellezza!" And then Dario, having recognised the girl, exclaimed with the same delight: "Why, it's La Pierina; she'll show us the way." The girl had been following the party for a moment already without daring to approach. Her eyes, glittering with the joy of a loving slave, had at first darted towards the Prince, and then had hastily scrutinised the Contessina--not, however, with any show of jealous anger, but with an expression of affectionate submission and resigned happiness at seeing that she also was very beautiful. And the girl fully answered to the Prince's description of her--tall, sturdy, with the bust of a goddess, a real antique, a Juno of twenty, her chin somewhat prominent, her mouth and nose perfect in contour, her eyes large and full like a heifer's, and her whole face quite dazzling--gilded, so to say, by a sunflash--beneath her casque of heavy jet-black hair. "So you will show us the way?" said Benedetta, familiar and smiling, already consoled for all the surrounding ugliness by the thought that there should be such beautiful creatures in the world. "Oh yes, signora, yes, at once!" And thereupon Pierina ran off before them, her feet in shoes which at any rate had no holes, whilst the old brown woollen dress which she wore appeared to have been recently washed and mended. One seemed to divine in her a certain coquettish care, a desire for cleanliness, which none of the others displayed; unless, indeed, it were simply that her great beauty lent radiance to her humble garments and made her appear a goddess. "/Che bellezza! the bellezza!/" the Contessina repeated without wearying. "That girl, Dario /mio/, is a real feast for the eyes!" "I knew she would please you," he quietly replied, flattered at having discovered such a beauty, and no longer talking of departure, since he could at last rest his eyes on something pleasant. Behind them came Pierre, likewise full of admiration, whilst Narcisse spoke to him of the scrupulosity of his own tastes, which were for the rare and the subtle. "She's beautiful, no doubt," said he; "but at bottom nothing can be more gross than the Roman style of beauty; there's no soul, none of the infinite in it. These girls simply have blood under their skins without ever a glimpse of heaven." Meantime Pierina had stopped, and with a wave of the hand directed attention to her mother, who sat on a broken box beside the lofty doorway of an unfinished mansion. She also must have once been very beautiful, but at forty she was already a wreck, with dim eyes, drawn mouth, black teeth, broadly wrinkled countenance, and huge fallen bosom. And she was also fearfully dirty, her grey wavy hair dishevelled and her skirt and jacket soiled and slit, revealing glimpses of grimy flesh. On her knees she held a sleeping infant, her last-born, at whom she gazed like one overwhelmed and courageless, like a beast of burden resigned to her fate. "/Bene, bene,/" said she, raising her head, "it's the gentleman who came to give me a crown because he saw you crying. And he's come back to see us with some friends. Well, well, there are some good hearts in the world after all." Then she related their story, but in a spiritless way, without seeking to move her visitors. She was called Giacinta, it appeared, and had married a mason, one Tomaso Gozzo, by whom she had had seven children, Pierina, then Tito, a big fellow of eighteen, then four more girls, each at an interval of two years, and finally the infant, a boy, whom she now had on her lap. They had long lived in the Trastevere district, in an old house which had lately been pulled down; and their existence seemed to have then been shattered, for since they had taken refuge in the Quartiere dei Prati the crisis in the building trade had reduced Tomaso and Tito to absolute idleness, and the bead factory where Pierina had earned as much as tenpence a day--just enough to prevent them from dying of hunger--had closed its doors. At present not one of them had any work; they lived purely by chance. "If you like to go up," the woman added, "you'll find Tomaso there with his brother Ambrogio, whom we've taken to live with us. They'll know better than I what to say to you. Tomaso is resting; but what else can he do? It's like Tito--he's dozing over there." So saying she pointed towards the dry grass amidst which lay a tall young fellow with a pronounced nose, hard mouth, and eyes as admirable as Pierina's. He had raised his head to glance suspiciously at the visitors, a fierce frown gathering on his forehead when he remarked how rapturously his sister contemplated the Prince. Then he let his head fall again, but kept his eyes open, watching the pair stealthily. "Take the lady and gentlemen upstairs, Pierina, since they would like to see the place," said the mother. Other women had now drawn near, shuffling along with bare feet in old shoes; bands of children, too, were swarming around; little girls but half clad, amongst whom, no doubt, were Giacinta's four. However, with their black eyes under their tangled mops they were all so much alike that only their mothers could identify them. And the whole resembled a teeming camp of misery pitched on that spot of majestic disaster, that street of palaces, unfinished yet already in ruins. With a soft, loving smile, Benedetta turned to her cousin. "Don't you come up," she gently said; "I don't desire your death, Dario /mio/. It was very good of you to come so far. Wait for me here in the pleasant sunshine: Monsieur l'Abbe and Monsieur Habert will go up with me." Dario began to laugh, and willingly acquiesced. Then lighting a cigarette, he walked slowly up and down, well pleased with the mildness of the atmosphere. La Pierina had already darted into the spacious porch whose lofty, vaulted ceiling was adorned with coffers displaying a rosaceous pattern. However, a veritable manure heap covered such marble slabs as had already been laid in the vestibule, whilst the steps of the monumental stone staircase with sculptured balustrade were already cracked and so grimy that they seemed almost black. On all sides appeared the greasy stains of hands; the walls, whilst awaiting the painter and gilder, had been smeared with repulsive filth. On reaching the spacious first-floor landing Pierina paused, and contented herself with calling through a gaping portal which lacked both door and framework: "Father, here's a lady and two gentlemen to see you." Then to the Contessina she added: "It's the third room at the end." And forthwith she herself rapidly descended the stairs, hastening back to her passion. Benedetta and her companions passed through two large rooms, bossy with plaster under foot and having frameless windows wide open upon space; and at last they reached a third room, where the whole Gozzo family had installed itself with the remnants it used as furniture. On the floor, where the bare iron girders showed, no boards having been laid down, were five or six leprous-looking palliasses. A long table, which was still strong, occupied the centre of the room, and here and there were a few old, damaged, straw-seated chairs mended with bits of rope. The great business had been to close two of the three windows with boards, whilst the third one and the door were screened with some old mattress ticking studded with stains and holes. Tomaso's face expressed the surprise of a man who is unaccustomed to visits of charity. Seated at the table, with his elbows resting on it and his chin supported by his hands, he was taking repose, as his wife Giacinta had said. He was a sturdy fellow of five and forty, bearded and long-haired; and, in spite of all his misery and idleness, his large face had remained as serene as that of a Roman senator. However, the sight of the two foreigners--for such he at once judged Pierre and Narcisse to be, made him rise to his feet with sudden distrust. But he smiled on recognising Benedetta, and as she began to speak of Dario, and to explain the charitable purpose of their visit, he interrupted her: "Yes, yes, I know, Contessina. Oh! I well know who you are, for in my father's time I once walled up a window at the Palazzo Boccanera." Then he complaisantly allowed himself to be questioned, telling Pierre, who was surprised, that although they were certainly not happy they would have found life tolerable had they been able to work two days a week. And one could divine that he was, at heart, fairly well content to go on short commons, provided that he could live as he listed without fatigue. His narrative and his manner suggested the familiar locksmith who, on being summoned by a traveller to open his trunk, the key of which was lost, sent word that he could not possibly disturb himself during the hour of the siesta. In short, there was no rent to pay, as there were plenty of empty mansions open to the poor, and a few coppers would have sufficed for food, easily contented and sober as one was. "But oh, sir," Tomaso continued, "things were ever so much better under the Pope. My father, a mason like myself, worked at the Vatican all his life, and even now, when I myself get a job or two, it's always there. We were spoilt, you see, by those ten years of busy work, when we never left our ladders and earned as much as we pleased. Of course, we fed ourselves better, and bought ourselves clothes, and took such pleasure as we cared for; so that it's all the harder nowadays to have to stint ourselves. But if you'd only come to see us in the Pope's time! No taxes, everything to be had for nothing, so to say--why, one merely had to let oneself live." At this moment a growl arose from one of the palliasses lying in the shade of the boarded windows, and the mason, in his slow, quiet way, resumed: "It's my brother Ambrogio, who isn't of my opinion. "He was with the Republicans in '49, when he was fourteen. But it doesn't matter; we took him with us when we heard that he was dying of hunger and sickness in a cellar." The visitors could not help quivering with pity. Ambrogio was the elder by some fifteen years; and now, though scarcely sixty, he was already a ruin, consumed by fever, his legs so wasted that he spent his days on his palliasse without ever going out. Shorter and slighter, but more turbulent than his brother, he had been a carpenter by trade. And, despite his physical decay, he retained an extraordinary head--the head of an apostle and martyr, at once noble and tragic in its expression, and encompassed by bristling snowy hair and beard. "The Pope," he growled; "I've never spoken badly of the Pope. Yet it's his fault if tyranny continues. He alone in '49 could have given us the Republic, and then we shouldn't have been as we are now." Ambrogio had known Mazzini, whose vague religiosity remained in him--the dream of a Republican pope at last establishing the reign of liberty and fraternity. But later on his passion for Garibaldi had disturbed these views, and led him to regard the papacy as worthless, incapable of achieving human freedom. And so, between the dream of his youth and the stern experience of his life, he now hardly knew in which direction the truth lay. Moreover, he had never acted save under the impulse of violent emotion, but contented himself with fine words--vague, indeterminate wishes. "Brother Ambrogio," replied Tomaso, all tranquillity, "the Pope is the Pope, and wisdom lies in putting oneself on his side, because he will always be the Pope--that is to say, the stronger. For my part, if we had to vote to-morrow I'd vote for him." Calmed by the shrewd prudence characteristic of his race, the old carpenter made no haste to reply. At last he said, "Well, as for me, brother Tomaso, I should vote against him--always against him. And you know very well that we should have the majority. The Pope-king indeed! That's all over. The very Borgo would revolt. Still, I won't say that we oughtn't to come to an understanding with him, so that everybody's religion may be respected." Pierre listened, deeply interested, and at last ventured to ask: "Are there many socialists among the Roman working classes?" This time the answer came after a yet longer pause. "Socialists? Yes, there are some, no doubt, but much fewer than in other places. All those things are novelties which impatient fellows go in for without understanding much about them. We old men, we were for liberty; we don't believe in fire and massacre." Then, fearing to say too much in presence of that lady and those gentlemen, Ambrogio began to moan on his pallet, whilst the Contessina, somewhat upset by the smell of the place, took her departure, after telling the young priest that it would be best for them to leave their alms with the wife downstairs. Meantime Tomaso resumed his seat at the table, again letting his chin rest on his hands as he nodded to his visitors, no more impressed by their departure than he had been by their arrival: "To the pleasure of seeing you again, and am happy to have been able to oblige you." On the threshold, however, Narcisse's enthusiasm burst forth; he turned to cast a final admiring glance at old Ambrogio's head, "a perfect masterpiece," which he continued praising whilst he descended the stairs. Down below Giacinta was still sitting on the broken box with her infant across her lap, and a few steps away Pierina stood in front of Dario, watching him with an enchanted air whilst he finished his cigarette. Tito, lying low in the grass like an animal on the watch for prey, did not for a moment cease to gaze at them. "Ah, signora!" resumed the woman, in her resigned, doleful voice, "the place is hardly inhabitable, as you must have seen. The only good thing is that one gets plenty of room. But there are draughts enough to kill me, and I'm always so afraid of the children falling down some of the holes." Thereupon she related a story of a woman who had lost her life through mistaking a window for a door one evening and falling headlong into the street. Then, too, a little girl had broken both arms by tumbling from a staircase which had no banisters. And you could die there without anybody knowing how bad you were and coming to help you. Only the previous day the corpse of an old man had been found lying on the plaster in a lonely room. Starvation must have killed him quite a week previously, yet he would still have been stretched there if the odour of his remains had not attracted the attention of neighbours. "If one only had something to eat things wouldn't be so bad!" continued Giacinta. "But it's dreadful when there's a baby to suckle and one gets no food, for after a while one has no milk. This little fellow wants his titty and gets angry with me because I can't give him any. But it isn't my fault. He has sucked me till the blood came, and all I can do is to cry." As she spoke tears welled into her poor dim eyes. But all at once she flew into a tantrum with Tito, who was still wallowing in the grass like an animal instead of rising by way of civility towards those fine people, who would surely leave her some alms. "Eh! Tito, you lazy fellow, can't you get up when people come to see you?" she called. After some pretence of not hearing, the young fellow at last rose with an air of great ill-humour; and Pierre, feeling interested in him, tried to draw him out as he had done with the father and uncle upstairs. But Tito only returned curt answers, as if both bored and suspicious. Since there was no work to be had, said he, the only thing was to sleep. It was of no use to get angry; that wouldn't alter matters. So the best was to live as one could without increasing one's worry. As for socialists--well, yes, perhaps there were a few, but he didn't know any. And his weary, indifferent manner made it quite clear that, if his father was for the Pope and his uncle for the Republic, he himself was for nothing at all. In this Pierre divined the end of a nation, or rather the slumber of a nation in which democracy has not yet awakened. However, as the priest continued, asking Tito his age, what school he had attended, and in what district he had been born, the young man suddenly cut the questions short by pointing with one finger to his breast and saying gravely, "/Io son' Romano di Roma/." And, indeed, did not that answer everything? "I am a Roman of Rome." Pierre smiled sadly and spoke no further. Never had he more fully realised the pride of that race, the long-descending inheritance of glory which was so heavy to bear. The sovereign vanity of the Caesars lived anew in that degenerate young fellow who was scarcely able to read and write. Starveling though he was, he knew his city, and could instinctively have recounted the grand pages of its history. The names of the great emperors and great popes were familiar to him. And why should men toil and moil when they had been the masters of the world? Why not live nobly and idly in the most beautiful of cities, under the most beautiful of skies? "/Io son' Romano di Roma/!" Benedetta had slipped her alms into the mother's hand, and Pierre and Narcisse were following her example when Dario, who had already done so, thought of Pierina. He did not like to offer her money, but a pretty, fanciful idea occurred to him. Lightly touching his lips with his finger-tips, he said, with a faint laugh, "For beauty!" There was something really pretty and pleasing in the kiss thus wafted with a slightly mocking laugh by that familiar, good-natured young Prince who, as in some love story of the olden time, was touched by the beautiful bead-worker's mute adoration. Pierina flushed with pleasure, and, losing her head, darted upon Dario's hand and pressed her warm lips to it with unthinking impulsiveness, in which there was as much divine gratitude as tender passion. But Tito's eyes flashed with anger at the sight, and, brutally seizing his sister by the skirt, he threw her back, growling between his teeth, "None of that, you know, or I'll kill you, and him too!" It was high time for the visitors to depart, for other women, scenting the presence of money, were now coming forward with outstretched hands, or despatching tearful children in their stead. The whole wretched, abandoned district was in a flutter, a distressful wail ascended from those lifeless streets with high resounding names. But what was to be done? One could not give to all. So the only course lay in flight--amidst deep sadness as one realised how powerless was charity in presence of such appalling want. When Benedetta and Dario had reached their carriage they hastened to take their seats and nestle side by side, glad to escape from all such horrors. Still the Contessina was well pleased with her bravery in the presence of Pierre, whose hand she pressed with the emotion of a pupil touched by the master's lesson, after Narcisse had told her that he meant to take the young priest to lunch at the little restaurant on the Piazza of St. Peter's whence one obtained such an interesting view of the Vatican. "Try some of the light white wine of Genzano," said Dario, who had become quite gay again. "There's nothing better to drive away the blues." However, Pierre's curiosity was insatiable, and on the way he again questioned Narcisse about the people of modern Rome, their life, habits, and manners. There was little or no education, he learnt; no large manufactures and no export trade existed. The men carried on the few trades that were current, all consumption being virtually limited to the city itself. Among the women there were bead-workers and embroiderers; and the manufacture of religious articles, such as medals and chaplets, and of certain popular jewellery had always occupied a fair number of hands. But after marriage the women, invariably burdened with numerous offspring, attempted little beyond household work. Briefly, the population took life as it came, working just sufficiently to secure food, contenting itself with vegetables, pastes, and scraggy mutton, without thought of rebellion or ambition. The only vices were gambling and a partiality for the red and white wines of the Roman province--wines which excited to quarrel and murder, and on the evenings of feast days, when the taverns emptied, strewed the streets with groaning men, slashed and stabbed with knives. The girls, however, but seldom went wrong; one could count those who allowed themselves to be seduced; and this arose from the great union prevailing in each family, every member of which bowed submissively to the father's absolute authority. Moreover, the brothers watched over their sisters even as Tito did over Pierina, guarding them fiercely for the sake of the family honour. And amidst all this there was no real religion, but simply a childish idolatry, all hearts going forth to Madonna and the Saints, who alone were entreated and regarded as having being: for it never occurred to anybody to think of God. Thus the stagnation of the lower orders could easily be understood. Behind them were the many centuries during which idleness had been encouraged, vanity flattered, and nerveless life willingly accepted. When they were neither masons, nor carpenters, nor bakers, they were servants serving the priests, and more or less directly in the pay of the Vatican. Thence sprang the two antagonistic parties, on the one hand the more numerous party composed of the old Carbonari, Mazzinians, and Garibaldians, the /elite/ of the Trastevere; and on the other the "clients" of the Vatican, all who lived on or by the Church and regretted the Pope-King. But, after all, the antagonism was confined to opinions; there was no thought of making an effort or incurring a risk. For that, some sudden flare of passion, strong enough to overcome the sturdy calmness of the race, would have been needed. But what would have been the use of it? The wretchedness had lasted for so many centuries, the sky was so blue, the siesta preferable to aught else during the hot hours! And only one thing seemed positive--that the majority was certainly in favour of Rome remaining the capital of Italy. Indeed, rebellion had almost broken out in the Leonine City when the cession of the latter to the Holy See was rumoured. As for the increase of want and poverty, this was largely due to the circumstance that the Roman workman had really gained nothing by the many works carried on in his city during fifteen years. First of all, over 40,000 provincials, mostly from the North, more spirited and resistant than himself, and working at cheaper rates, had invaded Rome; and when he, the Roman, had secured his share of the labour, he had lived in better style, without thought of economy; so that after the crisis, when the 40,000 men from the provinces were sent home again, he had found himself once more in a dead city where trade was always slack. And thus he had relapsed into his antique indolence, at heart well pleased at no longer being hustled by press of work, and again accommodating himself as best he could to his old mistress, Want, empty in pocket yet always a /grand seigneur/. However, Pierre was struck by the great difference between the want and wretchedness of Rome and Paris. In Rome the destitution was certainly more complete, the food more loathsome, the dirt more repulsive. Yet at the same time the Roman poor retained more ease of manner and more real gaiety. The young priest thought of the fireless, breadless poor of Paris, shivering in their hovels at winter time; and suddenly he understood. The destitution of Rome did not know cold. What a sweet and eternal consolation; a sun for ever bright, a sky for ever blue and benign out of charity to the wretched! And what mattered the vileness of the dwelling if one could sleep under the sky, fanned by the warm breeze! What mattered even hunger if the family could await the windfall of chance in sunlit streets or on the scorched grass! The climate induced sobriety; there was no need of alcohol or red meat to enable one to face treacherous fogs. Blissful idleness smiled on the golden evenings, poverty became like the enjoyment of liberty in that delightful atmosphere where the happiness of living seemed to be all sufficient. Narcisse told Pierre that at Naples, in the narrow odoriferous streets of the port and Santa Lucia districts, the people spent virtually their whole lives out-of-doors, gay, childish, and ignorant, seeking nothing beyond the few pence that were needed to buy food. And it was certainly the climate which fostered the prolonged infancy of the nation, which explained why such a democracy did not awaken to social ambition and consciousness of itself. No doubt the poor of Naples and Rome suffered from want; but they did not know the rancour which cruel winter implants in men's hearts, the dark rancour which one feels on shivering with cold while rich people are warming themselves before blazing fires. They did not know the infuriated reveries in snow-swept hovels, when the guttering dip burns low, the passionate need which then comes upon one to wreak justice, to revolt, as from a sense of duty, in order that one may save wife and children from consumption, in order that they also may have a warm nest where life shall be a possibility! Ah! the want that shivers with the bitter cold--therein lies the excess of social injustice, the most terrible of schools, where the poor learn to realise their sufferings, where they are roused to indignation, and swear to make those sufferings cease, even if in doing so they annihilate all olden society! And in that same clemency of the southern heavens Pierre also found an explanation of the life of St. Francis,* that divine mendicant of love who roamed the high roads extolling the charms of poverty. Doubtless he was an unconscious revolutionary, protesting against the overflowing luxury of the Roman court by his return to the love of the humble, the simplicity of the primitive Church. But such a revival of innocence and sobriety would never have been possible in a northern land. The enchantment of Nature, the frugality of a people whom the sunlight nourished, the benignity of mendicancy on roads for ever warm, were needed to effect it. And yet how was it possible that a St. Francis, glowing with brotherly love, could have appeared in a land which nowadays so seldom practises charity, which treats the lowly so harshly and contemptuously, and cannot even bestow alms on its own Pope? Is it because ancient pride ends by hardening all hearts, or because the experience of very old races leads finally to egotism, that one now beholds Italy seemingly benumbed amidst dogmatic and pompous Catholicism, whilst the return to the ideals of the Gospel, the passionate interest in the poor and the suffering comes from the woeful plains of the North, from the nations whose sunlight is so limited? Yes, doubtless all that has much to do with the change, and the success of St. Francis was in particular due to the circumstance that, after so gaily espousing his lady, Poverty, he was able to lead her, bare-footed and scarcely clad, during endless and delightful spring-tides, among communities whom an ardent need of love and compassion then consumed. * St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of the famous order of mendicant friars.--Trans. While conversing, Pierre and Narcisse had reached the Piazza of St. Peter's, and they sat down at one of the little tables skirting the pavement outside the restaurant where they had lunched once before. The linen was none too clean, but the view was splendid. The Basilica rose up in front of them, and the Vatican on the right, above the majestic curve of the colonnade. Just as the waiter was bringing the /hors-d'oeuvre/, some /finocchio/* and anchovies, the young priest, who had fixed his eyes on the Vatican, raised an exclamation to attract Narcisse's attention: "Look, my friend, at that window, which I am told is the Holy Father's. Can't you distinguish a pale figure standing there, quite motionless?" * Fennel-root, eaten raw, a favourite "appetiser" in Rome during the spring and autumn.--Trans. The young man began to laugh. "Oh! well," said he, "it must be the Holy Father in person. You are so anxious to see him that your very anxiety conjures him into your presence." "But I assure you," repeated Pierre, "that he is over there behind the window-pane. There is a white figure looking this way." Narcisse, who was very hungry, began to eat whilst still indulging in banter. All at once, however, he exclaimed: "Well, my dear Abbe, as the Pope is looking at us, this is the moment to speak of him. I promised to tell you how he sunk several millions of St. Peter's Patrimony in the frightful financial crisis of which you have just seen the ruins; and, indeed, your visit to the new district of the castle fields would not be complete without this story by way of appendix." Thereupon, without losing a mouthful, Narcisse spoke at considerable length. At the death of Pius IX the Patrimony of St. Peter, it seemed, had exceeded twenty millions of francs. Cardinal Antonelli, who speculated, and whose ventures were usually successful, had for a long time left a part of this money with the Rothschilds and a part in the hands of different nuncios, who turned it to profit abroad. After Antonelli's death, however, his successor, Cardinal Simeoni, withdrew the money from the nuncios to invest it at Rome; and Leo XIII on his accession entrusted the administration of the Patrimony to a commission of cardinals, of which Monsignor Folchi was appointed secretary. This prelate, who for twelve years played such an important /role/, was the son of an employee of the Dataria, who, thanks to skilful financial operations, had left a fortune of a million francs. Monsignor Folchi inherited his father's cleverness, and revealed himself to be a financier of the first rank in such wise that the commission gradually relinquished its powers to him, letting him act exactly as he pleased and contenting itself with approving the reports which he laid before it at each meeting. The Patrimony, however, yielded scarcely more than a million francs per annum, and, as the expenditure amounted to seven millions, six had to be found. Accordingly, from that other source of income, the Peter's Pence, the Pope annually gave three million francs to Monsignor Folchi, who, by skilful speculations and investments, was able to double them every year, and thus provide for all disbursements without ever breaking into the capital of the Patrimony. In the earlier times he realised considerable profit by gambling in land in and about Rome. He took shares also in many new enterprises, speculated in mills, omnibuses, and water-services, without mentioning all the gambling in which he participated with the Banca di Roma, a Catholic institution. Wonderstruck by his skill, the Pope, who, on his own side, had hitherto speculated through the medium of a confidential employee named Sterbini, dismissed the latter, and entrusted Monsignor Folchi with the duty of turning his money to profit in the same way as he turned that of the Holy See. This was the climax of the prelate's favour, the apogee of his power. Bad days were dawning, things were tottering already, and the great collapse was soon to come, sudden and swift like lightning. One of Leo XIII's practices was to lend large sums to the Roman princes who, seized with the gambling frenzy, and mixed up in land and building speculations, were at a loss for money. To guarantee the Pope's advances they deposited shares with him, and thus, when the downfall came, he was left with heaps of worthless paper on his hands. Then another disastrous affair was an attempt to found a house of credit in Paris in view of working off the shares which could not be disposed of in Italy among the French aristocracy and religious people. To egg these on it was said that the Pope was interested in the venture; and the worst was that he dropped three millions of francs in it.* The situation then became the more critical as he had gradually risked all the money he disposed of in the terrible agiotage going on in Rome, tempted thereto by the prospect of huge profits and perhaps indulging in the hope that he might win back by money the city which had been torn from him by force. His own responsibility remained complete, for Monsignor Folchi never made an important venture without consulting him; and he must have been therefore the real artisan of the disaster, mastered by his passion for gain, his desire to endow the Church with a huge capital, that great source of power in modern times. As always happens, however, the prelate was the only victim. He had become imperious and difficult to deal with; and was no longer liked by the cardinals of the commission, who were merely called together to approve such transactions as he chose to entrust to them. So, when the crisis came, a plot was laid; the cardinals terrified the Pope by telling him of all the evil rumours which were current, and then forced Monsignor Folchi to render a full account of his speculations. The situation proved to be very bad; it was no longer possible to avoid heavy losses. And so Monsignor Folchi was disgraced, and since then has vainly solicited an audience of Leo XIII, who has always refused to receive him, as if determined to punish him for their common fault--that passion for lucre which blinded them both. Very pious and submissive, however, Monsignor Folchi has never complained, but has kept his secrets and bowed to fate. Nobody can say exactly how many millions the Patrimony of St. Peter lost when Rome was changed into a gambling-hell, but if some prelates only admit ten, others go as far as thirty. The probability is that the loss was about fifteen millions.** * The allusion is evidently to the famous Union Generale, on which the Pope bestowed his apostolic benediction, and with which M. Zola deals at length in his novel /Money/. Certainly a very brilliant idea was embodied in the Union Generale, that of establishing a great international Catholic bank which would destroy the Jewish financial autocracy throughout Europe, and provide both the papacy and the Legitimist cause in several countries with the sinews of war. But in the battle which ensued the great Jew financial houses proved the stronger, and the disaster which overtook the Catholic speculators was a terrible one.--Trans. ** That is 600,000 pounds. Whilst Narcisse was giving this account he and Pierre had despatched their cutlets and tomatoes, and the waiter was now serving them some fried chicken. "At the present time," said Narcisse by way of conclusion, "the gap has been filled up; I told you of the large sums yielded by the Peter's Pence Fund, the amount of which is only known by the Pope, who alone fixes its employment. And, by the way, he isn't cured of speculating: I know from a good source that he still gambles, though with more prudence. Moreover, his confidential assistant is still a prelate. And, when all is said, my dear Abbe, he's in the right: a man must belong to his times--dash it all!" Pierre had listened with growing surprise, in which terror and sadness mingled. Doubtless such things were natural, even legitimate; yet he, in his dream of a pastor of souls free from all terrestrial cares, had never imagined that they existed. What! the Pope--the spiritual father of the lowly and the suffering--had speculated in land and in stocks and shares! He had gambled, placed funds in the hands of Jew bankers, practised usury, extracted hard interest from money--he, the successor of the Apostle, the Pontiff of Christ, the representative of Jesus, of the Gospel, that divine friend of the poor! And, besides, what a painful contrast: so many millions stored away in those rooms of the Vatican, and so many millions working and fructifying, constantly being diverted from one speculation to another in order that they might yield the more gain; and then down below, near at hand, so much want and misery in those abominable unfinished buildings of the new districts, so many poor folks dying of hunger amidst filth, mothers without milk for their babes, men reduced to idleness by lack of work, old ones at the last gasp like beasts of burden who are pole-axed when they are of no more use! Ah! God of Charity, God of Love, was it possible! The Church doubtless had material wants; she could not live without money; prudence and policy had dictated the thought of gaining for her such a treasure as would enable her to fight her adversaries victoriously. But how grievously this wounded one's feelings, how it soiled the Church, how she descended from her divine throne to become nothing but a party, a vast international association organised for the purpose of conquering and possessing the world! And the more Pierre thought of the extraordinary adventure the greater was his astonishment. Could a more unexpected, startling drama be imagined? That Pope shutting himself up in his palace--a prison, no doubt, but one whose hundred windows overlooked immensity; that Pope who, at all hours of the day and night, in every season, could from his window see his capital, the city which had been stolen from him, and the restitution of which he never ceased to demand; that Pope who, day by day, beheld the changes effected in the city--the opening of new streets, the demolition of ancient districts, the sale of land, and the gradual erection of new buildings which ended by forming a white girdle around the old ruddy roofs; that Pope who, in presence of this daily spectacle, this building frenzy, which he could follow from morn till eve, was himself finally overcome by the gambling passion, and, secluded in his closed chamber, began to speculate on the embellishments of his old capital, seeking wealth in the spurt of work and trade brought about by that very Italian Government which he reproached with spoliation; and finally that Pope losing millions in a catastrophe which he ought to have desired, but had been unable to foresee! No, never had dethroned monarch yielded to a stranger idea, compromised himself in a more tragical venture, the result of which fell upon him like divine punishment. And it was no mere king who had done this, but the delegate of God, the man who, in the eyes of idolatrous Christendom, was the living manifestation of the Deity! Dessert had now been served--a goat's cheese and some fruit--and Narcisse was just finishing some grapes when, on raising his eyes, he in turn exclaimed: "Well, you are quite right, my dear Abbe, I myself can see a pale figure at the window of the Holy Father's room." Pierre, who scarcely took his eyes from the window, answered slowly: "Yes, yes, it went away, but has just come back, and stands there white and motionless." "Well, after all, what would you have the Pope do?" resumed Narcisse with his languid air. "He's like everybody else; he looks out of the window when he wants a little distraction, and certainly there's plenty for him to look at." The same idea had occurred to Pierre, and was filling him with emotion. People talked of the Vatican being closed, and pictured a dark, gloomy palace, encompassed by high walls, whereas this palace overlooked all Rome, and the Pope from his window could see the world. Pierre himself had viewed the panorama from the summit of the Janiculum, the /loggie/ of Raffaelle, and the dome of St. Peter's, and so he well knew what it was that Leo XIII was able to behold. In the centre of the vast desert of the Campagna, bounded by the Sabine and Alban mountains, the seven illustrious hills appeared to him with their trees and edifices. His eyes ranged also over all the basilicas, Santa Maria Maggiore, San Giovanni in Laterano, the cradle of the papacy, San Paolo-fuori-le-Mura, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Sant' Agnese, and the others; they beheld, too, the domes of the Gesu of Sant' Andrea della Valle, San Carlo and San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, and indeed all those four hundred churches of Rome which make the city like a /campo santo/ studded with crosses. And Leo XIII could moreover see the famous monuments testifying to the pride of successive centuries--the Castle of Sant' Angelo, that imperial mausoleum which was transformed into a papal fortress, the distant white line of the tombs of the Appian Way, the scattered ruins of the baths of Caracalla and the abode of Septimius Severus; and then, after the innumerable columns, porticoes, and triumphal arches, there were the palaces and villas of the sumptuous cardinals of the Renascence, the Palazzo Farnese, the Palazzo Borghese, the Villa Medici, and others, amidst a swarming of facades and roofs. But, in particular, just under his window, on the left, the Pope was able to see the abominations of the unfinished district of the castle fields. In the afternoon, when he strolled through his gardens, bastioned by the wall of the fourth Leo like the plateau of a citadel, his view stretched over the ravaged valley at the foot of Monte Mario, where so many brick-works were established during the building frenzy. The green slopes are still ripped up, yellow trenches intersect them in all directions, and the closed works and factories have become wretched ruins with lofty, black, and smokeless chimneys. And at any other hour of the day Leo XIII could not approach his window without beholding the abandoned houses for which all those brick-fields had worked, those houses which had died before they even lived, and where there was now nought but the swarming misery of Rome, rotting there like some decomposition of olden society. However, Pierre more particularly thought of Leo XIII, forgetting the rest of the city to let his thoughts dwell on the Palatine, now bereft of its crown of palaces and rearing only its black cypresses towards the blue heavens. Doubtless in his mind he rebuilt the palaces of the Caesars, whilst before him rose great shadowy forms arrayed in purple, visions of his real ancestors, those emperors and Supreme Pontiffs who alone could tell him how one might reign over every nation and be the absolute master of the world. Then, however, his glances strayed to the Quirinal, and there he could contemplate the new and neighbouring royalty. How strange the meeting of those two palaces, the Quirinal and the Vatican, which rise up and gaze at one another across the Rome of the middle ages and the Renascence, whose roofs, baked and gilded by the burning sun, are jumbled in confusion alongside the Tiber. When the Pope and the King go to their windows they can with a mere opera-glass see each other quite distinctly. True, they are but specks in the boundless immensity, and what a gulf there is between them--how many centuries of history, how many generations that battled and suffered, how much departed greatness, and how much new seed for the mysterious future! Still, they can see one another, and they are yet waging the eternal fight, the fight as to which of them--the pontiff and shepherd of the soul or the monarch and master of the body--shall possess the people whose stream rolls beneath them, and in the result remain the absolute sovereign. And Pierre wondered also what might be the thoughts and dreams of Leo XIII behind those window-panes where he still fancied he could distinguish his pale, ghostly figure. On surveying new Rome, the ravaged olden districts and the new ones laid waste by the blast of disaster, the Pope must certainly rejoice at the colossal failure of the Italian Government. His city had been stolen from him; the newcomers had virtually declared that they would show him how a great capital was created, and their boast had ended in that catastrophe--a multitude of hideous and useless buildings which they did not even know how to finish! He, the Pope, could moreover only be delighted with the terrible worries into which the usurping /regime/ had fallen, the political crisis, and the financial crisis, the whole growing national unrest amidst which that /regime/ seemed likely to sink some day; and yet did not he himself possess a patriotic soul? was he not a loving son of that Italy whose genius and ancient ambition coursed in the blood of his veins? Ah! no, nothing against Italy; rather everything that would enable her to become once more the mistress of the world. And so, even amidst the joy of hope, he must have been grieved to see her thus ruined, threatened with bankruptcy, displaying like a sore that overturned, unfinished Rome which was a confession of her impotency. But, on the other hand, if the House of Savoy were to be swept away, would he not be there to take its place, and at last resume possession of his capital, which, from his window, for fifteen years past, he had beheld in the grip of masons and demolishers? And then he would again be the master and reign over the world, enthroned in the predestined city to which prophecy has ensured eternity and universal dominion. But the horizon spread out, and Pierre wondered what Leo XIII beheld beyond Rome, beyond the Campagna and the Sabine and Alban mountains. What had he seen for eighteen years past from that window whence he obtained his only view of the world? What echoes of modern society, its truths and certainties, had reached his ears? From the heights of the Viminal, where the railway terminus stands, the prolonged whistling of engines must have occasionally been carried towards him, suggesting our scientific civilisation, the nations brought nearer together, free humanity marching on towards the future. Did he himself ever dream of liberty when, on turning to the right, he pictured the sea over yonder, past the tombs of the Appian Way? Had he ever desired to go off, quit Rome and her traditions, and found the Papacy of the new democracies elsewhere? As he was said to possess so clear and penetrating a mind he ought to have understood and trembled at the far-away stir and noise that came from certain lands of battle, from those United States of America, for instance, where revolutionary bishops were conquering, winning over the people. Were they working for him or for themselves? If he could not follow them, if he remained stubborn within his Vatican, bound on every side by dogma and tradition, might not rupture some day become unavoidable? And, indeed, the fear of a blast of schism, coming from afar, must have filled him with growing anguish. It was assuredly on that account that he had practised the diplomacy of conciliation, seeking to unite in his hands all the scattered forces of the Church, overlooking the audacious proceedings of certain bishops as far as possible, and himself striving to gain the support of the people by putting himself on its side against the fallen monarchies. But would he ever go any farther? Shut up in that Vatican, behind that bronze portal, was he not bound to the strict formulas of Catholicism, chained to them by the force of centuries? There obstinacy was fated; it was impossible for him to resign himself to that which was his real and surpassing power, the purely spiritual power, the moral authority which brought mankind to his feet, made thousands of pilgrims kneel and women swoon. Departure from Rome and the renunciation of the temporal power would not displace the centre of the Catholic world, but would transform him, the head of the Catholic Church, into the head of something else. And how anxious must have been his thoughts if the evening breeze ever brought him a vague presentiment of that something else, a fear of the new religion which was yet dimly, confusedly dawning amidst the tramp of the nations on the march, and the sound of which must have reached him at one and the same time from every point of the compass. At this precise moment, however, Pierre felt that the white and motionless shadow behind those windowpanes was held erect by pride, by the ever present conviction of victory. If man could not achieve it, a miracle would intervene. He, the Pope, was absolutely convinced that he or some successor would recover possession of Rome. Had not the Church all eternity before it? And, moreover, why should not the victor be himself? Could not God accomplish the impossible? Why, if it so pleased God, on the very morrow his city would be restored to him, in spite of all the objections of human reason, all the apparent logic of facts. Ah! how he would welcome the return of that prodigal daughter whose equivocal adventures he had ever watched with tears bedewing his paternal eyes! He would soon forget the excesses which he had beheld during eighteen years at all hours and in all seasons. Perhaps he dreamt of what he would do with those new districts with which the city had been soiled. Should they be razed, or left as evidence of the insanity of the usurpers? At all events, Rome would again become the august and lifeless city, disdainful of such vain matters as material cleanliness and comfort, and shining forth upon the world like a pure soul encompassed by the traditional glory of the centuries. And his dream continued, picturing the course which events would take on the very morrow, no doubt. Anything, even a republic was preferable to that House of Savoy. Why not a federal republic, reviving the old political divisions of Italy, restoring Rome to the Church, and choosing him, the Pope, as the natural protector of the country thus reorganised? But his eyes travelled beyond Rome and Italy, and his dream expanded, embracing republican France, Spain which might become republican again, Austria which would some day be won, and indeed all the Catholic nations welded into the United States of Europe, and fraternising in peace under his high presidency as Sovereign Pontiff. And then would follow the supreme triumph, all the other churches at last vanishing, and all the dissident communities coming to him as to the one and only pastor, who would reign in the name of Jesus over the universal democracy. However, whilst Pierre was immersed in this dream which he attributed to Leo XIII, he was all at once interrupted by Narcisse, who exclaimed: "Oh! my dear Abbe, just look at those statues on the colonnade." The young fellow had ordered a cup of coffee and was languidly smoking a cigar, deep once more in the subtle aesthetics which were his only preoccupation. "They are rosy, are they not?" he continued; "rosy, with a touch of mauve, as if the blue blood of angels circulated in their stone veins. It is the sun of Rome which gives them that supra-terrestrial life; for they live, my friend; I have seen them smile and hold out their arms to me during certain fine sunsets. Ah! Rome, marvellous, delicious Rome! One could live here as poor as Job, content with the very atmosphere, and in everlasting delight at breathing it!" This time Pierre could not help feeling surprised at Narcisse's language, for he remembered his incisive voice and clear, precise, financial acumen when speaking of money matters. And, at this recollection, the young priest's mind reverted to the castle fields, and intense sadness filled his heart as for the last time all the want and suffering rose before him. Again he beheld the horrible filth which was tainting so many human beings, that shocking proof of the abominable social injustice which condemns the greater number to lead the joyless, breadless lives of accursed beasts. And as his glance returned yet once more to the window of the Vatican, and he fancied he could see a pale hand uplifted behind the glass panes, he thought of that papal benediction which Leo XIII gave from that height, over Rome, and over the plain and the hills, to the faithful of all Christendom. And that papal benediction suddenly seemed to him a mockery, destitute of all power, since throughout such a multitude of centuries it had not once been able to stay a single one of the sufferings of mankind, and could not even bring a little justice for those poor wretches who were agonising yonder beneath the very window. IX THAT evening at dusk, as Benedetta had sent Pierre word that she desired to see him, he went down to her little /salon/, and there found her chatting with Celia. "I've seen your Pierina, you know," exclaimed the latter, just as the young priest came in. "And with Dario, too. Or rather, she must have been watching for him; he found her waiting in a path on the Pincio and smiled at her. I understood at once. What a beauty she is!" Benedetta smiled at her friend's enthusiasm; but her lips twitched somewhat painfully, for, however sensible she might be, this passion, which she realised to be so naive and so strong, was beginning to make her suffer. She certainly made allowances for Dario, but the girl was too much in love with him, and she feared the consequences. Even in turning the conversation she allowed the secret of her heart to escape her. "Pray sit down, Monsieur l'Abbe," she said, "we are talking scandal, you see. My poor Dario is accused of making love to every pretty woman in Rome. People say that it's he who gives La Tonietta those white roses which she has been exhibiting at the Corso every afternoon for a fortnight past." "That's certain, my dear," retorted Celia impetuously. "At first people were in doubt, and talked of little Pontecorvo and Lieutenant Moretta. But every one now knows that La Tonietta's caprice is Dario. Besides, he joined her in her box at the Costanzi the other evening." Pierre remembered that the young Prince had pointed out La Tonietta at the Pincio one afternoon. She was one of the few /demi-mondaines/ that the higher-class society of Rome took an interest in. For a month or so the rich Englishman to whom she owed her means had been absent, travelling. "Ah!" resumed Benedetta, whose budding jealousy was entirely confined to La Pierina, "so my poor Dario is ruining himself in white roses! Well, I shall have to twit him about it. But one or another of these beauties will end by robbing me of him if our affairs are not soon settled. Fortunately, I have had some better news. Yes, my suit is to be taken in hand again, and my aunt has gone out to-day on that very account." Then, as Victorine came in with a lamp, and Celia rose to depart, Benedetta turned towards Pierre, who also was rising from his chair: "Please stay," said she; "I wish to speak to you." However, Celia still lingered, interested by the mention of the divorce suit, and eager to know if the cousins would soon be able to marry. And at last throwing her arms round Benedetta, she kissed her passionately. "So you are hopeful, my dear," she exclaimed. "You think that the Holy Father will give you back your liberty? Oh! I am so pleased; it will be so nice for you to marry Dario! And I'm well pleased on my own account, for my father and mother are beginning to yield. Only yesterday I said to them with that quiet little air of mine, 'I want Attilio, and you must give him me.' And then my father flew into a furious passion and upbraided me, and shook his fist at me, saying that if he'd made my head as hard as his own he would know how to break it. My mother was there quite silent and vexed, and all at once he turned to her and said: 'Here, give her that Attilio she wants, and then perhaps we shall have some peace!' Oh yes! I'm well pleased, very well pleased indeed!" As she spoke her pure virginal face beamed with so much innocent, celestial joy that Pierre and Benedetta could not help laughing. And at last she went off attended by a maid who had waited for her in the first /salon/. When they were alone Benedetta made the priest sit down again: "I have been asked to give you some important advice, my friend," she said. "It seems that the news of your presence in Rome is spreading, and that bad reports of you are circulated. Your book is said to be a fierce appeal to schism, and you are spoken of as a mere ambitious, turbulent schismatic. After publishing your book in Paris you have come to Rome, it is said, to raise a fearful scandal over it in order to make it sell. Now, if you still desire to see his Holiness, so as to plead your cause before him, you are advised to make people forget you, to disappear altogether for a fortnight or three weeks." Pierre was stupefied. Why, they would end by maddening him with all the obstacles they raised to exhaust his patience; they would actually implant in him an idea of schism, of an avenging, liberating scandal! He wished to protest and refuse the advice, but all at once he made a gesture of weariness. What would be the good of it, especially with that young woman, who was certainly sincere and affectionate. "Who asked you to give me this advice?" he inquired. She did not answer, but smiled, and with sudden intuition he resumed: "It was Monsignor Nani, was it not?" Thereupon, still unwilling to give a direct reply, she began to praise the prelate. He had at last consented to guide her in her divorce affair; and Donna Serafina had gone to the Palace of the Inquisition that very afternoon in order to acquaint him with the result of certain steps she had taken. Father Lorenza, the confessor of both the Boccanera ladies, was to be present at the interview, for the idea of the divorce was in reality his own. He had urged the two women to it in his eagerness to sever the bond which the patriotic priest Pisoni had tied full of such fine illusions. Benedetta became quite animated as she explained the reasons of her hopefulness. "Monsignor Nani can do everything," she said, "and I am very happy that my affair should be in his hands. You must be reasonable also, my friend; do as you are requested. I'm sure you will some day be well pleased at having taken this advice." Pierre had bowed his head and remained thoughtful. There was nothing unpleasant in the idea of remaining for a few more weeks in Rome, where day by day his curiosity found so much fresh food. Of course, all these delays were calculated to discourage him and bend his will. Yet what did he fear, since he was still determined to relinquish nothing of his book, and to see the Holy Father for the sole purpose of proclaiming his new faith? Once more, in silence, he took that oath, then yielded to Benedetta's entreaties. And as he apologised for being a source of embarrassment in the house she exclaimed: "No, no, I am delighted to have you here. I fancy that your presence will bring us good fortune now that luck seems to be changing in our favour." It was then agreed that he would no longer prowl around St. Peter's and the Vatican, where his constant presence must have attracted attention. He even promised that he would virtually spend a week indoors, desirous as he was of reperusing certain books, certain pages of Rome's history. Then he went on chatting for a moment, lulled by the peacefulness which reigned around him, since the lamp had illumined the /salon/ with its sleepy radiance. Six o'clock had just struck, and outside all was dark. "Wasn't his Eminence indisposed to-day?" the young man asked. "Yes," replied the Contessina. "But we are not anxious: it is only a little fatigue. He sent Don Vigilio to tell me that he intended to shut himself up in his room and dictate some letters. So there can be nothing much the matter, you see." Silence fell again. For a while not a sound came from the deserted street or the old empty mansion, mute and dreamy like a tomb. But all at once the soft somnolence, instinct with all the sweetness of a dream of hope, was disturbed by a tempestuous entry, a whirl of skirts, a gasp of terror. It was Victorine, who had gone off after bringing the lamp, but now returned, scared and breathless: "Contessina! Contessina!" Benedetta had risen, suddenly quite white and cold, as at the advent of a blast of misfortune. "What, what is it? Why do you run and tremble?" she asked. "Dario, Monsieur Dario--down below. I went down to see if the lantern in the porch were alight, as it is so often forgotten. And in the dark, in the porch, I stumbled against Monsieur Dario. He is on the ground; he has a knife-thrust somewhere." A cry leapt from the /amorosa's/ heart: "Dead!" "No, no, wounded." But Benedetta did not hear; in a louder and louder voice she cried: "Dead! dead!" "No, no, I tell you, he spoke to me. And for Heaven's sake, be quiet. He silenced me because he did not want any one to know; he told me to come and fetch you--only you. However, as Monsieur l'Abbe is here, he had better help us. We shall be none too many." Pierre listened, also quite aghast. And when Victorine wished to take the lamp her trembling hand, with which she had no doubt felt the prostrate body, was seen to be quite bloody. The sight filled Benedetta with so much horror that she again began to moan wildly. "Be quiet, be quiet!" repeated Victorine. "We ought not to make any noise in going down. I shall take the lamp, because we must at all events be able to see. Now, quick, quick!" Across the porch, just at the entrance of the vestibule, Dario lay prone upon the slabs, as if, after being stabbed in the street, he had only had sufficient strength to take a few steps before falling. And he had just fainted, and lay there with his face very pale, his lips compressed, and his eyes closed. Benedetta, recovering the energy of her race amidst her excessive grief, no longer lamented or cried out, but gazed at him with wild, tearless, dilated eyes, as though unable to understand. The horror of it all was the suddenness and mysteriousness of the catastrophe, the why and wherefore of this murderous attempt amidst the silence of the old deserted palace, black with the shades of night. The wound had as yet bled but little, for only the Prince's clothes were stained. "Quick, quick!" repeated Victorine in an undertone after lowering the lamp and moving it around. "The porter isn't there--he's always at the carpenter's next door--and you see that he hasn't yet lighted the lantern. Still he may come back at any moment. So the Abbe and I will carry the Prince into his room at once." She alone retained her head, like a woman of well-balanced mind and quiet activity. The two others, whose stupor continued, listened to her and obeyed her with the docility of children. "Contessina," she continued, "you must light us. Here, take the lamp and lower it a little so that we may see the steps. You, Abbe, take the feet; I'll take hold of him under the armpits. And don't be alarmed, the poor dear fellow isn't heavy." Ah! that ascent of the monumental staircase with its low steps and its landings as spacious as guardrooms. They facilitated the cruel journey, but how lugubrious looked the little /cortege/ under the flickering glimmer of the lamp which Benedetta held with arm outstretched, stiffened by determination! And still not a sound came from the old lifeless dwelling, nothing but the silent crumbling of the walls, the slow decay which was making the ceilings crack. Victorine continued to whisper words of advice whilst Pierre, afraid of slipping on the shiny slabs, put forth an excess of strength which made his breath come short. Huge, wild shadows danced over the big expanse of bare wall up to the very vaults decorated with sunken panels. So endless seemed the ascent that at last a halt became necessary; but the slow march was soon resumed. Fortunately Dario's apartments--bed-chamber, dressing-room, and sitting-room--were on the first floor adjoining those of the Cardinal in the wing facing the Tiber; so, on reaching the landing, they only had to walk softly along the corridor, and at last, to their great relief, laid the wounded man upon his bed. Victorine vented her satisfaction in a light laugh. "That's done," said she; "put the lamp on that table, Contessina. I'm sure nobody heard us. It's lucky that Donna Serafina should have gone out, and that his Eminence should have shut himself up with Don Vigilio. I wrapped my skirt round Monsieur Dario's shoulders, you know, so I don't think any blood fell on the stairs. By and by, too, I'll go down with a sponge and wipe the slabs in the porch--" She stopped short, looked at Dario, and then quickly added: "He's breathing--now I'll leave you both to watch over him while I go for good Doctor Giordano, who saw you come into the world, Contessina. He's a man to be trusted." Alone with the unconscious sufferer in that dim chamber, which seemed to quiver with the frightful horror that filled their hearts, Benedetta and Pierre remained on either side of the bed, as yet unable to exchange a word. The young woman first opened her arms and wrung her hands whilst giving vent to a hollow moan, as if to relieve and exhale her grief; and then, leaning forward, she watched for some sign of life on that pale face whose eyes were closed. Dario was certainly breathing, but his respiration was slow and very faint, and some time went by before a touch of colour returned to his cheeks. At last, however, he opened his eyes, and then she at once took hold of his hand and pressed it, instilling into the pressure all the anguish of her heart. Great was her happiness on feeling that he feebly returned the clasp. "Tell me," she said, "you can see me and hear me, can't you? What has happened, good God?" He did not at first answer, being worried by the presence of Pierre. On recognising the young priest, however, he seemed content that he should be there, and then glanced apprehensively round the room to see if there were anybody else. And at last he murmured: "No one saw me, no one knows?" "No, no; be easy. We carried you up with Victorine without meeting a soul. Aunt has just gone out, uncle is shut up in his rooms." At this Dario seemed relieved, and he even smiled. "I don't want anybody to know, it is so stupid," he murmured. "But in God's name what has happened?" she again asked him. "Ah! I don't know, I don't know," was his response, as he lowered his eyelids with a weary air as if to escape the question. But he must have realised that it was best for him to confess some portion of the truth at once, for he resumed: "A man was hidden in the shadow of the porch--he must have been waiting for me. And so, when I came in, he dug his knife into my shoulder, there." Forthwith she again leant over him, quivering, and gazing into the depths of his eyes: "But who was the man, who was he?" she asked. Then, as he, in a yet more weary way, began to stammer that he didn't know, that the man had fled into the darkness before he could recognise him, she raised a terrible cry: "It was Prada! it was Prada, confess it, I know it already!" And, quite delirious, she went on: "I tell you that I know it! Ah! I would not be his, and he is determined that we shall never belong to one another. Rather than have that he will kill you on the day when I am free to be your wife! Oh! I know him well; I shall never, never be happy. Yes, I know it well, it was Prada, Prada!" But sudden energy upbuoyed the wounded man, and he loyally protested: "No, no, it was not Prada, nor was it any one working for him. That I swear to you. I did not recognise the man, but it wasn't Prada--no, no!" There was such a ring of truth in Dario's words that Benedetta must have been convinced by them. But terror once more overpowered her, for the hand she held was suddenly growing soft, moist, and powerless. Exhausted by his effort, Dario had fallen back, again fainting, his face quite white and his eyes closed. And it seemed to her that he was dying. Distracted by her anguish, she felt him with trembling, groping hands: "Look, look, Monsieur l'Abbe!" she exclaimed. "But he is dying, he is dying; he is already quite cold. Ah! God of heaven, he is dying!" Pierre, terribly upset by her cries, sought to reassure her, saying: "He spoke too much; he has lost consciousness, as he did before. But I assure you that I can feel his heart beating. Here, put your hand here, Contessina. For mercy's sake don't distress yourself like that; the doctor will soon be here, and everything will be all right." But she did not listen to him, and all at once he was lost in amazement, for she flung herself upon the body of the man she adored, caught it in a frantic embrace, bathed it with tears and covered it with kisses whilst stammering words of fire: "Ah! if I were to lose you, if I were to lose you! And to think that I repulsed you, that I would not accept happiness when it was yet possible! Yes, that idea of mine, that vow I made to the Madonna! Yet how could she be offended by our happiness? And then, and then, if she has deceived me, if she takes you from me, ah! then I can have but one regret--that I did not damn myself with you--yes, yes, damnation rather than that we should never, never be each other's!" Was this the woman who had shown herself so calm, so sensible, so patient the better to ensure her happiness? Pierre was terrified, and no longer recognised her. He had hitherto seen her so reserved, so modest, with a childish charm that seemed to come from her very nature! But under the threatening blow she feared, the terrible blood of the Boccaneras had awoke within her with a long heredity of violence, pride, frantic and exasperated longings. She wished for her share of life, her share of love! And she moaned and she clamoured, as if death, in taking her lover from her, were tearing away some of her own flesh. "Calm yourself, I entreat you, madame," repeated the priest. "He is alive, his heart beats. You are doing yourself great harm." But she wished to die with her lover: "O my darling! if you must go, take me, take me with you. I will lay myself on your heart, I will clasp you so tightly with my arms that they shall be joined to yours, and then we must needs be buried together. Yes, yes, we shall be dead, and we shall be wedded all the same--wedded in death! I promised that I would belong to none but you, and I will be yours in spite of everything, even in the grave. O my darling, open your eyes, open your mouth, kiss me if you don't want me to die as soon as you are dead!" A blaze of wild passion, full of blood and fire, had passed through that mournful chamber with old, sleepy walls. But tears were now overcoming Benedetta, and big gasping sobs at last threw her, blinded and strengthless, on the edge of the bed. And fortunately an end was put to the terrible scene by the arrival of the doctor whom Victorine had fetched. Doctor Giordano was a little old man of over sixty, with white curly hair, and fresh-looking, clean-shaven countenance. By long practice among Churchmen he had acquired the paternal appearance and manner of an amiable prelate. And he was said to be a very worthy man, tending the poor for nothing, and displaying ecclesiastical reserve and discretion in all delicate cases. For thirty years past the whole Boccanera family, children, women, and even the most eminent Cardinal himself, had in all cases of sickness been placed in the hands of this prudent practitioner. Lighted by Victorine and helped by Pierre, he undressed Dario, who was roused from his swoon by pain; and after examining the wound he declared with a smile that it was not at all dangerous. The young Prince would at the utmost have to spend three weeks in bed, and no complications were to be feared. Then, like all the doctors of Rome, enamoured of the fine thrusts and cuts which day by day they have to dress among chance patients of the lower classes, he complacently lingered over the wound, doubtless regarding it as a clever piece of work, for he ended by saying to the Prince in an undertone: "That's what we call a warning. The man didn't want to kill, the blow was dealt downwards so that the knife might slip through the flesh without touching the bone. Ah! a man really needs to be skilful to deal such a stab; it was very neatly done." "Yes, yes," murmured Dario, "he spared me; had he chosen he could have pierced me through." Benedetta did not hear. Since the doctor had declared the case to be free from danger, and had explained that the fainting fits were due to nervous shock, she had fallen in a chair, quite prostrated. Gradually, however, some gentle tears coursed from her eyes, bringing relief after her frightful despair, and then, rising to her feet, she came and kissed Dario with mute and passionate delight. "I say, my dear doctor," resumed the Prince, "it's useless for people to know of this. It's so ridiculous. Nobody has seen anything, it seems, excepting Monsieur l'Abbe, whom I ask to keep the matter secret. And in particular I don't want anybody to alarm the Cardinal or my aunt, or indeed any of our friends." Doctor Giordano indulged in one of his placid smiles. "/Bene, bene/," said he, "that's natural; don't worry yourself. We will say that you have had a fall on the stairs and have dislocated your shoulder. And now that the wound is dressed you must try to sleep, and don't get feverish. I will come back to-morrow morning." That evening of excitement was followed by some very tranquil days, and a new life began for Pierre, who at first remained indoors, reading and writing, with no other recreation than that of spending his afternoons in Dario's room, where he was certain to find Benedetta. After a somewhat intense fever lasting for eight and forty hours, cure took its usual course, and the story of the dislocated shoulder was so generally believed, that the Cardinal insisted on Donna Serafina departing from her habits of strict economy, to have a second lantern lighted on the landing in order that no such accident might occur again. And then the monotonous peacefulness was only disturbed by a final incident, a threat of trouble, as it were, with which Pierre found himself mixed up one evening when he was lingering beside the convalescent patient. Benedetta had absented herself for a few minutes, and as Victorine, who had brought up some broth, was leaning towards the Prince to take the empty cup from him, she said in a low voice: "There's a girl, Monsieur, La Pierina, who comes here every day, crying and asking for news of you. I can't get rid of her, she's always prowling about the place, so I thought it best to tell you of it." Unintentionally, Pierre heard her and understood everything. Dario, who was looking at him, at once guessed his thoughts, and without answering Victorine exclaimed: "Yes, Abbe, it was that brute Tito! How idiotic, eh?" At the same time, although the young man protested that he had done nothing whatever for the girl's brother to give him such a "warning," he smiled in an embarrassed way, as if vexed and even somewhat ashamed of being mixed up in an affair of the kind. And he was evidently relieved when the priest promised that he would see the girl, should she come back, and make her understand that she ought to remain at home. "It was such a stupid affair!" the Prince repeated, with an exaggerated show of anger. "Such things are not of our times." But all at once he ceased speaking, for Benedetta entered the room. She sat down again beside her dear patient, and the sweet, peaceful evening then took its course in the old sleepy chamber, the old, lifeless palace, whence never a sound arose. When Pierre began to go out again he at first merely took a brief airing in the district. The Via Giulia interested him, for he knew how splendid it had been in the time of Julius II, who had dreamt of lining it with sumptuous palaces. Horse and foot races then took place there during the carnival, the Palazzo Farnese being the starting-point, and the Piazza of St. Peter's the goal. Pierre had also lately read that a French ambassador, D'Estree, Marquis de Coure, had resided at the Palazzo Sacchetti, and in 1638 had given some magnificent entertainments in honour of the birth of the Dauphin,* when on three successive days there had been racing from the Ponte Sisto to San Giovanni dei Fiorentini amidst an extraordinary display of sumptuosity: the street being strewn with flowers, and rich hangings adorning every window. On the second evening there had been fireworks on the Tiber, with a machine representing the ship Argo carrying Jason and his companions to the recovery of the Golden Fleece; and, on another occasion, the Farnese fountain, the Mascherone, had flowed with wine. Nowadays, however, all was changed. The street, bright with sunshine or steeped in shadow according to the hour, was ever silent and deserted. The heavy, ancient palatial houses, their old doors studded with plates and nails, their windows barred with huge iron gratings, always seemed to be asleep, whole storeys showing nothing but closed shutters as if to keep out the daylight for evermore. Now and again, when a door was open, you espied deep vaults, damp, cold courts, green with mildew, and encompassed by colonnades like cloisters. Then, in the outbuildings of the mansions, the low structures which had collected more particularly on the side of the Tiber, various small silent shops had installed themselves. There was a baker's, a tailor's, and a bookbinder's, some fruiterers' shops with a few tomatoes and salad plants set out on boards, and some wine-shops which claimed to sell the vintages of Frascati and Genzano, but whose customers seemed to be dead. Midway along the street was a modern prison, whose horrid yellow wall in no wise enlivened the scene, whilst, overhead, a flight of telegraph wires stretched from the arcades of the Farnese palace to the distant vista of trees beyond the river. With its infrequent traffic the street, even in the daytime, was like some sepulchral corridor where the past was crumbling into dust, and when night fell its desolation quite appalled Pierre. You did not meet a soul, you did not see a light in any window, and the glimmering gas lamps, few and far between, seemed powerless to pierce the gloom. On either hand the doors were barred and bolted, and not a sound, not a breath came from within. Even when, after a long interval, you passed a lighted wine-shop, behind whose panes of frosted glass a lamp gleamed dim and motionless, not an exclamation, not a suspicion of a laugh ever reached your ear. There was nothing alive save the two sentries placed outside the prison, one before the entrance and the other at the corner of the right-hand lane, and they remained erect and still, coagulated, as it were, in that dead street. * Afterwards Louis XIV.--Trans. Pierre's interest, however, was not merely confined to the Via Giulia; it extended to the whole district, once so fine and fashionable, but now fallen into sad decay, far removed from modern life, and exhaling a faint musty odour of monasticism. Towards San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, where the new Corso Vittorio Emanuele has ripped up every olden district, the lofty five-storeyed houses with their dazzling sculptured fronts contrasted violently with the black sunken dwellings of the neighbouring lanes. In the evening the globes of the electric lamps on the Corso shone out with such dazzling whiteness that the gas lamps of the Via Giulia and other streets looked like smoky lanterns. There were several old and famous thoroughfares, the Via Banchi Vecchi, the Via del Pellegrino, the Via di Monserrato, and an infinity of cross-streets which intersected and connected the others, all going towards the Tiber, and for the most part so narrow that vehicles scarcely had room to pass. And each street had its church, a multitude of churches all more or less alike, highly decorated, gilded, and painted, and open only at service time when they were full of sunlight and incense. In the Via Giulia, in addition to San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, San Biagio della Pagnotta, San Eligio degli Orefici, and three or four others, there was the so-called Church of the Dead, Santa Maria dell' Orazione; and this church, which is at the lower end behind the Farnese palace, was often visited by Pierre, who liked to dream there of the wild life of Rome, and of the pious brothers of the Confraternita della Morte, who officiate there, and whose mission is to search for and bury such poor outcasts as die in the Campagna. One evening he was present at the funeral of two unknown men, whose bodies, after remaining unburied for quite a fortnight, had been discovered in a field near the Appian Way. However, Pierre's favourite promenade soon became the new quay of the Tiber beyond the Palazzo Boccanera. He had merely to take the narrow lane skirting the mansion to reach a spot where he found much food for reflection. Although the quay was not yet finished, the work seemed to be quite abandoned. There were heaps of rubbish, blocks of stone, broken fences, and dilapidated tool-sheds all around. To such a height had it been necessary to carry the quay walls--designed to protect the city from floods, for the river bed has been rising for centuries past--that the old terrace of the Boccanera gardens, with its double flight of steps to which pleasure boats had once been moored, now lay in a hollow, threatened with annihilation whenever the works should be finished. But nothing had yet been levelled; the soil, brought thither for making up the bank, lay as it had fallen from the carts, and on all sides were pits and mounds interspersed with the abandoned building materials. Wretched urchins came to play there, workmen without work slept in the sunshine, and women after washing ragged linen spread it out to dry upon the stones. Nevertheless the spot proved a happy, peaceful refuge for Pierre, one fruitful in inexhaustible reveries when for hours at a time he lingered gazing at the river, the quays, and the city, stretching in front of him and on either hand. At eight in the morning the sun already gilded the vast opening. On turning to the left he perceived the roofs of the Trastevere, of a misty, bluish grey against the dazzling sky. Then, just beyond the apse of San Giovanni, on the right, the river curved, and on its other bank the poplars of the Ospedale di Santo Spirito formed a green curtain, while the castle of Sant' Angelo showed brightly in the distance. But Pierre's eyes dwelt more particularly on the bank just in front of him, for there he found some lingering vestiges of old Rome. On that side indeed between the Ponte Sisto and the Ponte Sant' Angelo, the quays, which were to imprison the river within high, white, fortress-like walls, had not yet been raised, and the bank with its remnants of the old papal city conjured up an extraordinary vision of the middle ages. The houses, descending to the river brink, were cracked, scorched, rusted by innumerable burning summers, like so many antique bronzes. Down below there were black vaults into which the water flowed, piles upholding walls, and fragments of Roman stone-work plunging into the river bed; then, rising from the shore, came steep, broken stairways, green with moisture, tiers of terraces, storeys with tiny windows pierced here and their in hap-hazard fashion, houses perched atop of other houses, and the whole jumbled together with a fantastic commingling of balconies and wooden galleries, footbridges spanning courtyards, clumps of trees growing apparently on the very roofs, and attics rising from amidst pinky tiles. The contents of a drain fell noisily into the river from a worn and soiled gorge of stone; and wherever the houses stood back and the bank appeared, it was covered with wild vegetation, weeds, shrubs, and mantling ivy, which trailed like a kingly robe of state. And in the glory of the sun the wretchedness and dirt vanished, the crooked, jumbled houses seemed to be of gold, draped with the purple of the red petticoats and the dazzling white of the shifts which hung drying from their windows; while higher still, above the district, the Janiculum rose into all the luminary's dazzlement, uprearing the slender profile of Sant' Onofrio amidst cypresses and pines. Leaning on the parapet of the quay wall, Pierre sadly gazed at the Tiber for hours at a time. Nothing could convey an idea of the weariness of those old waters, the mournful slowness of their flow along that Babylonian trench where they were confined within huge, bare, livid prison-like walls. In the sunlight their yellowness was gilded, and the faint quiver of the current brought ripples of green and blue; but as soon as the shade spread over it the stream became opaque like mud, so turbid in its venerable old age that it no longer even gave back a reflection of the houses lining it. And how desolate was its abandonment, what a stream of silence and solitude it was! After the winter rains it might roll furiously and threateningly, but during the long months of bright weather it traversed Rome without a sound, and Pierre could remain there all day long without seeing either a skiff or a sail. The two or three little steam-boats which arrived from the coast, the few tartanes which brought wine from Sicily, never came higher than the Aventine, beyond which there was only a watery desert in which here and there, at long intervals, a motionless angler let his line dangle. All that Pierre ever saw in the way of shipping was a sort of ancient, covered pinnace, a rotting Noah's ark, moored on the right beside the old bank, and he fancied that it might be used as a washhouse, though on no occasion did he see any one in it. And on a neck of mud there also lay a stranded boat with one side broken in, a lamentable symbol of the impossibility and the relinquishment of navigation. Ah! that decay of the river, that decay of father Tiber, as dead as the famous ruins whose dust he is weary of laving! And what an evocation! all the centuries of history, so many things, so many men, that those yellow waters have reflected till, full of lassitude and disgust, they have grown heavy, silent and deserted, longing only for annihilation. One morning on the river bank Pierre found La Pierina standing behind an abandoned tool-shed. With her neck extended, she was looking fixedly at the window of Dario's room, at the corner of the quay and the lane. Doubtless she had been frightened by Victorine's severe reception, and had not dared to return to the mansion; but some servant, possibly, had told her which was the young Prince's window, and so she now came to this spot, where without wearying she waited for a glimpse of the man she loved, for some sign of life and salvation, the mere hope of which made her heart leap. Deeply touched by the way in which she hid herself, all humility and quivering with adoration, the priest approached her, and instead of scolding her and driving her away as he had been asked to do, spoke to her in a gentle, cheerful manner, asking her for news of her people as though nothing had happened, and at last contriving to mention Dario's name in order that she might understand that he would be up and about again within a fortnight. On perceiving Pierre, La Pierina had started with timidity and distrust as if anxious to flee; but when she understood him, tears of happiness gushed from her eyes, and with a bright smile she kissed her hand to him, calling: "/Grazie, grazie/, thanks, thanks!" And thereupon she darted away, and he never saw her again. On another morning at an early hour, as Pierre was going to say mass at Santa Brigida on the Piazza Farnese, he was surprised to meet Benedetta coming out of the church and carrying a small phial of oil. She evinced no embarrassment, but frankly told him that every two or three days she went thither to obtain from the beadle a few drops of the oil used for the lamp that burnt before an antique wooden statue of the Madonna, in which she had perfect confidence. She even confessed that she had never had confidence in any other Madonna, having never obtained anything from any other, though she had prayed to several of high repute, Madonnas of marble and even of silver. And so her heart was full of ardent devotion for the holy image which refused her nothing. And she declared in all simplicity, as though the matter were quite natural and above discussion, that the few drops of oil which she applied, morning and evening, to Dario's wound, were alone working his cure, so speedy a cure as to be quite miraculous. Pierre, fairly aghast, distressed indeed to find such childish, superstitious notions in one so full of sense and grace and passion, did not even venture to smile. In the evenings, when he came back from his strolls and spent an hour or so in Dario's room, he would for a time divert the patient by relating what he had done and seen and thought of during the day. And when he again ventured to stray beyond the district, and became enamoured of the lovely gardens of Rome, which he visited as soon as they opened in the morning in order that he might be virtually alone, he delighted the young prince and Benedetta with his enthusiasm, his rapturous passion for the splendid trees, the plashing water, and the spreading terraces whence the views were so sublime. It was not the most extensive of these gardens which the more deeply impressed his heart. In the grounds of the Villa Borghese, the little Roman Bois de Boulogne, there were certainly some majestic clumps of greenery, some regal avenues where carriages took a turn in the afternoon before the obligatory drive to the Pincio; but Pierre was more touched by the reserved garden of the villa--that villa dazzling with marble and now containing one of the finest museums in the world. There was a simple lawn of fine grass with a vast central basin surmounted by a figure of Venus, nude and white; and antique fragments, vases, statues, columns, and /sarcophagi/ were ranged symmetrically all around the deserted, sunlit yet melancholy, sward. On returning on one occasion to the Pincio Pierre spent a delightful morning there, penetrated by the charm of this little nook with its scanty evergreens, and its admirable vista of all Rome and St. Peter's rising up afar off in the soft limpid radiance. At the Villa Albani and the Villa Pamphili he again came upon superb parasol pines, tall, stately, and graceful, and powerful elm-trees with twisted limbs and dusky foliage. In the Pamphili grounds, the elm-trees steeped the paths in a delicious half-light, the lake with its weeping willows and tufts of reeds had a dreamy aspect, while down below the /parterre/ displayed a fantastic floral mosaic bright with the various hues of flowers and foliage. That which most particularly struck Pierre, however, in this, the noblest, most spacious, and most carefully tended garden of Rome, was the novel and unexpected view that he suddenly obtained of St. Peter's, whilst skirting a low wall: a view whose symbolism for ever clung to him. Rome had completely vanished, and between the slopes of Monte Mario and another wooded height which hid the city, there only appeared the colossal dome which seemed to be poised on an infinity of scattered blocks, now white, now red. These were the houses of the Borgo, the jumbled piles of the Vatican and the Basilica which the huge dome surmounted and annihilated, showing greyly blue in the light blue of the heavens, whilst far away stretched a delicate, boundless vista of the Campagna, likewise of a bluish tint. It was, however, more particularly in the less sumptuous gardens, those of a more homely grace, that Pierre realised that even things have souls. Ah! that Villa Mattei on one side of the Coelius with its terraced grounds, its sloping alleys edged with laurel, aloe, and spindle tree, its box-plants forming arbours, its oranges, its roses, and its fountains! Pierre spent some delicious hours there, and only found a similar charm on visiting the Aventine, where three churches are embowered in verdure. The little garden of Santa Sabina, the birthplace of the Dominican order, is closed on all sides and affords no view: it slumbers in quiescence, warm and perfumed by its orange-trees, amongst which that planted by St. Dominic stands huge and gnarled but still laden with ripe fruit. At the adjoining Priorato, however, the garden, perched high above the Tiber, overlooks a vast expanse, with the river and the buildings on either bank as far as the summit of the Janiculum. And in these gardens of Rome Pierre ever found the same clipped box-shrubs, the same eucalypti with white trunks and pale leaves long like hair, the same ilex-trees squat and dusky, the same giant pines, the same black cypresses, the same marbles whitening amidst tufts of roses, and the same fountains gurgling under mantling ivy. Never did he enjoy more gentle, sorrow-tinged delight than at the Villa of Pope Julius, where all the life of a gay and sensual period is suggested by the semi-circular porticus opening on the gardens, a porticus decorated with paintings, golden trellis-work laden with flowers, amidst which flutter flights of smiling Cupids. Then, on the evening when he returned from the Farnesina, he declared that he had brought all the dead soul of ancient Rome away with him, and it was not the paintings executed after Raffaelle's designs that had touched him, it was rather the pretty hall on the river side decorated in soft blue and pink and lilac, with an art devoid of genius yet so charming and so Roman; and in particular it was the abandoned garden once stretching down to the Tiber, and now shut off from it by the new quay, and presenting an aspect of woeful desolation, ravaged, bossy and weedy like a cemetery, albeit the golden fruit of orange and citron tree still ripened there. And for the last time a shock came to Pierre's heart on the lovely evening when he visited the Villa Medici. There he was on French soil.* And again what a marvellous garden he found with box-plants, and pines, and avenues full of magnificence and charm! What a refuge for antique reverie was that wood of ilex-trees, so old and so sombre, where the sun in declining cast fiery gleams of red gold amidst the sheeny bronze of the foliage. You ascend by endless steps, and from the crowning belvedere on high you embrace all Rome at a glance as though by opening your arms you could seize it in its entirety. From the villa's dining-room, decorated with portraits of all the artists who have successfully sojourned there, and from the spacious peaceful library one beholds the same splendid, broad, all-conquering panorama, a panorama of unlimited ambition, whose infinite ought to set in the hearts of the young men dwelling there a determination to subjugate the world. Pierre, who came thither opposed to the principle of the "Prix de Rome," that traditional, uniform education so dangerous for originality, was for a moment charmed by the warm peacefulness, the limpid solitude of the garden, and the sublime horizon where the wings of genius seemed to flutter. Ah! how delightful, to be only twenty and to live for three years amidst such infinite sweetness, encompassed by the finest works of man; to say to oneself that one is as yet too young to produce, and to reflect, and seek, and learn how to enjoy, suffer, and love! But Pierre afterwards reflected that this was not a fit task for youth, and that to appreciate the divine enjoyment of such a retreat, all art and blue sky, ripe age was needed, age with victories already gained and weariness following upon the accomplishment of work. He chatted with some of the young pensioners, and remarked that if those who were inclined to dreaminess and contemplation, like those who could merely claim mediocrity, accommodated themselves to this life cloistered in the art of the past, on the other hand artists of active bent and personal temperament pined with impatience, their eyes ever turned towards Paris, their souls eager to plunge into the furnace of battle and production. * Here is the French Academy, where winners of the "Prix de Rome" in painting, sculpture, architecture, engraving, and music are maintained by the French Government for three years. The creation dates from Louis XIV.--Trans. All those gardens of which Pierre spoke to Dario and Benedetta with so much rapture, awoke within them the memory of the garden of the Villa Montefiori, now a waste, but once so green, planted with the finest orange-trees of Rome, a grove of centenarian orange-trees where they had learnt to love one another. And the memory of their early love brought thoughts of their present situation and their future prospects. To these the conversation always reverted, and evening after evening Pierre witnessed their delight, and heard them talk of coming happiness like lovers transported to the seventh heaven. The suit for the dissolution of Benedetta's marriage was now assuming a more and more favourable aspect. Guided by a powerful hand, Donna Serafina was apparently acting very vigorously, for almost every day she had some further good news to report. She was indeed anxious to finish the affair both for the continuity and for the honour of the name, for on the one hand Dario refused to marry any one but his cousin, and on the other this marriage would explain everything and put an end to an intolerable situation. The scandalous rumours which circulated both in the white and the black world quite incensed her, and a victory was the more necessary as Leo XIII, already so aged, might be snatched away at any moment, and in the Conclave which would follow she desired that her brother's name should shine forth with untarnished, sovereign radiance. Never had the secret ambition of her life, the hope that her race might give a third pope to the Church, filled her with so much passion. It was as if she therein sought a consolation for the harsh abandonment of Advocate Morano. Invariably clad in sombre garb, ever active and slim, so tightly laced that from behind one might have taken her for a young girl, she was so to say the black soul of that old palace; and Pierre, who met her everywhere, prowling and inspecting like a careful house-keeper, and jealously watching over her brother the Cardinal, bowed to her in silence, chilled to the heart by the stern look of her withered wrinkled face in which was set the large, opiniative nose of her family. However she barely returned his bows, for she still disdained that paltry foreign priest, and only tolerated him in order to please Monsignor Nani and Viscount Philibert de la Choue. A witness every evening of the anxious delight and impatience of Benedetta and Dario, Pierre by degrees became almost as impassioned as themselves, as desirous for an early solution. Benedetta's suit was about to come before the Congregation of the Council once more. Monsignor Palma, the defender of the marriage, had demanded a supplementary inquiry after the favourable decision arrived at in the first instance by a bare majority of one vote--a majority which the Pope would certainly not have thought sufficient had he been asked for his ratification. So the question now was to gain votes among the ten cardinals who formed the Congregation, to persuade and convince them, and if possible ensure an almost unanimous pronouncement. The task was arduous, for, instead of facilitating matters, Benedetta's relationship to Cardinal Boccanera raised many difficulties, owing to the intriguing spirit rife at the Vatican, the spite of rivals who, by perpetuating the scandal, hoped to destroy Boccanera's chance of ever attaining to the papacy. Every afternoon, however, Donna Serafina devoted herself to the task of winning votes under the direction of her confessor, Father Lorenza, whom she saw daily at the Collegio Germanico, now the last refuge of the Jesuits in Rome, for they have ceased to be masters of the Gesu. The chief hope of success lay in Prada's formal declaration that he would not put in an appearance. The whole affair wearied and irritated him; the imputations levelled against him as a man, seemed to him supremely odious and ridiculous; and he no longer even took the trouble to reply to the assignations which were sent to him. He acted indeed as if he had never been married, though deep in his heart the wound dealt to his passion and his pride still lingered, bleeding afresh whenever one or another of the scandalous rumours in circulation reached his ears. However, as their adversary desisted from all action, one can understand that the hopes of Benedetta and Dario increased, the more so as hardly an evening passed without Donna Serafina telling them that she believed she had gained the support of another cardinal. But the man who terrified them all was Monsignor Palma, whom the Congregation had appointed to defend the sacred ties of matrimony. His rights and privileges were almost unlimited, he could appeal yet again, and in any case would make the affair drag on as long as it pleased him. His first report, in reply to Morano's memoir, had been a terrible blow, and it was now said that a second one which he was preparing would prove yet more pitiless, establishing as a fundamental principle of the Church that it could not annul a marriage whose nonconsummation was purely and simply due to the action of the wife in refusing obedience to her husband. In presence of such energy and logic, it was unlikely that the cardinals, even if sympathetic, would dare to advise the Holy Father to dissolve the marriage. And so discouragement was once more overcoming Benedetta when Donna Serafina, on returning from a visit to Monsignor Nani, calmed her somewhat by telling her that a mutual friend had undertaken to deal with Monsignor Palma. However, said she, even if they succeeded, it would doubtless cost them a large sum. Monsignor Palma, a theologist expert in all canonical affairs, and a perfectly honest man in pecuniary matters, had met with a great misfortune in his life. He had a niece, a poor and lovely girl, for whom, unhappily, in his declining years he conceived an insensate passion, with the result that to avoid a scandal he was compelled to marry her to a rascal who now preyed upon her and even beat her. And the prelate was now passing through a fearful crisis, weary of reducing himself to beggary, and indeed no longer having the money necessary to extricate his nephew by marriage from a very nasty predicament, the result of cheating at cards. So the idea was to save the young man by a considerable pecuniary payment, and then to procure him employment without asking aught of his uncle, who, as if offering complicity, came in tears one evening, when night had fallen, to thank Donna Serafina for her exceeding goodness. Pierre was with Dario that evening when Benedetta entered the room, laughing and joyfully clapping her bands. "It's done, it's done!" she said, "he has just left aunt, and vowed eternal gratitude to her. He will now be obliged to show himself amiable." However Dario distrustfully inquired: "But was he made to sign anything, did he enter into a formal engagement?" "Oh! no; how could one do that? It's such a delicate matter," replied Benedetta. "But people say that he is a very honest man." Nevertheless, in spite of these words, she herself became uneasy. What if Monsignor Palma should remain incorruptible in spite of the great service which had been rendered him? Thenceforth this idea haunted them, and their suspense began once more. Dario, eager to divert his mind, was imprudent enough to get up before he was perfectly cured, and, his wound reopening, he was obliged to take to his bed again for a few days. Every evening, as previously, Pierre strove to enliven him with an account of his strolls. The young priest was now getting bolder, rambling in turn through all the districts of Rome, and discovering the many "classical" curiosities catalogued in the guide-books. One evening he spoke with a kind of affection of the principal squares of the city which he had first thought commonplace, but which now seemed to him very varied, each with original features of its own. There was the noble Piazza del Popolo of such monumental symmetry and so full of sunlight; there was the Piazza di Spagna, the lively meeting-place of foreigners, with its double flight of a hundred and thirty steps gilded by the sun; there was the vast Piazza Colonna, always swarming with people, and the most Italian of all the Roman squares from the presence of the idle, careless crowd which ever lounged round the column of Marcus Aurelius as if waiting for fortune to fall from heaven; there was also the long and regular Piazza Navona, deserted since the market was no longer held there, and retaining a melancholy recollection of its former bustling life; and there was the Campo dei Fiori, which was invaded each morning by the tumultuous fruit and vegetable markets, quite a plantation of huge umbrellas sheltering heaps of tomatoes, pimentoes, and grapes amidst a noisy stream of dealers and housewives. Pierre's great surprise, however, was the Piazza del Campidoglio--the "Square of the Capitol"--which to him suggested a summit, an open spot overlooking the city and the world, but which he found to be small and square, and on three sides enclosed by palaces, whilst on the fourth side the view was of little extent.* There are no passers-by there; visitors usually come up by a flight of steps bordered by a few palm-trees, only foreigners making use of the winding carriage-ascent. The vehicles wait, and the tourists loiter for a while with their eyes raised to the admirable equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, in antique bronze, which occupies the centre of the piazza. Towards four o'clock, when the sun gilds the left-hand palace, and the slender statues of its entablature show vividly against the blue sky, you might think yourself in some warm cosy square of a little provincial town, what with the women of the neighbourhood who sit knitting under the arcade, and the bands of ragged urchins who disport themselves on all sides like school-boys in a playground. * The Piazza del Campidoglio is really a depression between the Capitolium proper and the northern height called the Arx. It is supposed to have been the exact site of Romulus's traditional Asylum.--Trans. Then, on another evening Pierre told Benedetta and Dario of his admiration for the Roman fountains, for in no other city of the world does water flow so abundantly and magnificently in fountains of bronze and marble, from the boat-shaped Fontana della Barcaccia on the Piazza di Spagna, the Triton on the Piazza Barberini, and the Tortoises which give their name to the Piazza delle Tartarughe, to the three fountains of the Piazza Navona where Bernini's vast central composition of rock and river-gods rises so triumphantly, and to the colossal and pompous fountain of Trevi, where King Neptune stands on high attended by lofty figures of Health and Fruitfulness. And on yet another evening Pierre came home quite pleased, relating that he had at last discovered why it was that the old streets around the Capitol and along the Tiber seemed to him so strange: it was because they had no footways, and pedestrians, instead of skirting the walls, invariably took the middle of the road, leisurely wending their way among the vehicles. Pierre was very fond of those old districts with their winding lanes, their tiny squares so irregular in shape, and their huge square mansions swamped by a multitudinous jumble of little houses. He found a charm, too, in the district of the Esquiline, where, besides innumerable flights of ascending steps, each of grey pebbles edged with white stone, there were sudden sinuous slopes, tiers of terraces, seminaries and convents, lifeless, with their windows ever closed, and lofty, blank walls above which a superb palm-tree would now and again soar into the spotless blue of the sky. And on yet another evening, having strolled into the Campagna beside the Tiber and above the Ponte Molle, he came back full of enthusiasm for a form of classical art which hitherto he had scarcely appreciated. Along the river bank, however, he had found the very scenery that Poussin so faithfully depicted: the sluggish, yellow stream fringed with reeds; low riven cliffs, whose chalky whiteness showed against the ruddy background of a far-stretching, undulating plain, bounded by blue hills; a few spare trees with a ruined porticus opening on to space atop of the bank, and a line of pale-hued sheep descending to drink, whilst the shepherd, with an elbow resting on the trunk of an ilex-tree, stood looking on. It was a special kind of beauty, broad and ruddy, made up of nothing, sometimes simplified into a series of low, horizontal lines, but ever ennobled by the great memories it evoked: the Roman legions marching along the paved highways across the bare Campagna; the long slumber of the middle ages; and then the awakening of antique nature in the midst of Catholicism, whereby, for the second time, Rome became ruler of the world. One day when Pierre came back from seeing the great modern cemetery, the Campo Verano, he found Celia, as well as Benedetta, by the side of Dario's bed. "What, Monsieur l'Abbe!" exclaimed the little Princess when she learnt where he had been; "it amuses you to visit the dead?" "Oh those Frenchmen," remarked Dario, to whom the mere idea of a cemetery was repulsive; "those Frenchmen seem to take a pleasure in making their lives wretched with their partiality for gloomy scenes." "But there is no escaping the reality of death," gently replied Pierre; "the best course is to look it in the face." This made the Prince quite angry. "Reality, reality," said he, "when reality isn't pleasant I don't look at it; I try never to think of it even." In spite of this rejoinder, Pierre, with his smiling, placid air, went on enumerating the things which had struck him: first, the admirable manner in which the cemetery was kept, then the festive appearance which it derived from the bright autumn sun, and the wonderful profusion in which marble was lavished in slabs, statues, and chapels. The ancient atavism had surely been at work, the sumptuous mausoleums of the Appian Way had here sprung up afresh, making death a pretext for the display of pomp and pride. In the upper part of the cemetery the Roman nobility had a district of its own, crowded with veritable temples, colossal statues, groups of several figures; and if at times the taste shown in these monuments was deplorable, it was none the less certain that millions had been expended on them. One charming feature of the place, said Pierre, was that the marbles, standing among yews and cypresses were remarkably well preserved, white and spotless; for, if the summer sun slowly gilded them, there were none of those stains of moss and rain which impart an aspect of melancholy decay to the statues of northern climes. Touched by the discomfort of Dario, Benedetta, hitherto silent, ended by interrupting Pierre. "And was the hunt interesting?" she asked, turning to Celia. The little Princess had been taken by her mother to see a fox-hunt, and had been speaking of it when the priest entered the room. "Yes, it was very interesting, my dear," she replied; "the meet was at noon near the tomb of Caecilia Metella, where a buffet had been arranged under a tent. And there was such a number of people--the foreign colony, the young men of the embassies, and some officers, not to mention ourselves--all the men in scarlet and a great many ladies in habits. The 'throw-off' was at one o'clock, and the gallop lasted more than two hours and a half, so that the fox had a very long run. I wasn't able to follow, but all the same I saw some extraordinary things--a great wall which the whole hunt had to leap, and then ditches and hedges--a mad race indeed in the rear of the hounds. There were two accidents, but nothing serious; one gentleman, who was unseated, sprained his wrist badly, and another broke his leg."* * The Roman Hunt, which counts about one hundred subscribers, has flourished since 1840. There is a kennel of English hounds, an English huntsman and whip, and a stable of English hunters.--Trans. Dario had listened to Celia with passionate interest, for fox-hunting is one of the great pleasures of Rome, and the Campagna, flat and yet bristling with obstacles, is certainly well adapted to the sport. "Ah!" said the young Prince in a despairing tone, "how idiotic it is to be riveted to this room! I shall end by dying of /ennui/!" Benedetta contented herself with smiling; neither reproach nor expression of sadness came from her at this candid display of egotism. Her own happiness at having him all to herself in the room where she nursed him was great indeed; still her love, at once full of youth and good sense, included a maternal element, and she well understood that he hardly amused himself, deprived as he was of his customary pleasures and severed from his friends, few of whom he was willing to receive, for he feared that they might think the story of the dislocated shoulder suspicious. Of course there were no more /fetes/, no more evenings at the theatre, no more flirtations. But above everything else Dario missed the Corso, and suffered despairingly at no longer seeing or learning anything by watching the procession of Roman society from four to five each afternoon. Accordingly, as soon as an intimate called, there were endless questions: Had the visitor seen so and so? Had such a one reappeared? How had a certain friend's love affair ended? Was any new adventure setting the city agog? And so forth; all the petty frivolities, nine days' wonders, and puerile intrigues in which the young Prince had hitherto expended his manly energy. After a pause Celia, who was fond of coming to him with innocent gossip, fixed her candid eyes on him--the fathomless eyes of an enigmatical virgin, and resumed: "How long it takes to set a shoulder right!" Had she, child as she was, with love her only business, divined the truth? Dario in his embarrassment glanced at Benedetta, who still smiled. However, the little Princess was already darting to another subject: "Ah! you know, Dario, at the Corso yesterday I saw a lady--" Then she stopped short, surprised and embarrassed that these words should have escaped her. However, in all bravery she resumed like one who had been a friend since childhood, sharing many a little love secret: "Yes, a very pretty person whom you know. Well, she had a bouquet of white roses with her all the same." At this Benedetta indulged in a burst of frank merriment, and Dario, still looking at her, also laughed. She had twitted him during the early days because no young woman ever sent to make inquiries about him. For his part, he was not displeased with the rupture, for the continuance of the connection might have proved embarrassing; and so, although his vanity may have been slightly hurt, the news that he was already replaced in La Tonietta's affections was welcome rather than otherwise. "Ah!" he contented himself with saying, "the absent are always in the wrong." "The man one loves is never absent," declared Celia with her grave, candid air. However, Benedetta had stepped up to the bed to raise the young man's pillows: "Never mind, Dario /mio/," said she, "all those things are over; I mean to keep you, and you will only have me to love." He gave her a passionate glance and kissed her hair. She spoke the truth: he had never loved any one but her, and she was not mistaken in her anticipation of keeping him always to herself alone, as soon as they should be wedded. To her great delight, since she had been nursing him he had become quite childish again, such as he had been when she had learnt to love him under the orange-trees of the Villa Montefiori. He retained a sort of puerility, doubtless the outcome of impoverished blood, that return to childhood which one remarks amongst very ancient races; and he toyed on his bed with pictures, gazed for hours at photographs, which made him laugh. Moreover, his inability to endure suffering had yet increased; he wished Benedetta to be gay and sing, and amused her with his petty egotism which led him to dream of a life of continual joy with her. Ah! how pleasant it would be to live together and for ever in the sunlight, to do nothing and care for nothing, and even if the world should crumble somewhere to heed it not! "One thing which greatly pleases me," suddenly said the young Prince, "is that Monsieur l'Abbe has ended by falling in love with Rome." Pierre admitted it with a good grace. "We told you so," remarked Benedetta. "A great deal of time is needed for one to understand and love Rome. If you had only stayed here for a fortnight you would have gone off with a deplorable idea of us, but now that you have been here for two full months we are quite at ease, for you will never think of us without affection." She looked exceedingly charming as she spoke these words, and Pierre again bowed. However, he had already given thought to the phenomenon, and fancied he could explain it. When a stranger comes to Rome he brings with him a Rome of his own, a Rome such as he dreams of, so ennobled by imagination that the real Rome proves a terrible disenchantment. And so it is necessary to wait for habituation, for the mediocrity of the reality to soften, and for the imagination to have time to kindle again, and only behold things such as they are athwart the prodigious splendour of the past. However, Celia had risen and was taking leave. "Good-bye, dear," she said; "I hope the wedding will soon take place. You know, Dario, that I mean to be betrothed before the end of the month. Oh yes, I intend to make my father give a grand entertainment. And how nice it would be if the two weddings could take place at the same time!" Two days later, after a long ramble through the Trastevere district, followed by a visit to the Palazzo Farnese, Pierre felt that he could at last understand the terrible, melancholy truth about Rome. He had several times already strolled through the Trastevere, attracted towards its wretched denizens by his compassion for all who suffered. Ah! that quagmire of wretchedness and ignorance! He knew of abominable nooks in the faubourgs of Paris, frightful "rents" and "courts" where people rotted in heaps, but there was nothing in France to equal the listless, filthy stagnation of the Trastevere. On the brightest days a dank gloom chilled the sinuous, cellar-like lanes, and the smell of rotting vegetables, rank oil, and human animality brought on fits of nausea. Jumbled together in a confusion which artists of romantic turn would admire, the antique, irregular houses had black, gaping entrances diving below ground, outdoor stairways conducting to upper floors, and wooden balconies which only a miracle upheld. There were crumbling fronts, shored up with beams; sordid lodgings whose filth and bareness could be seen through shattered windows; and numerous petty shops, all the open-air cook-stalls of a lazy race which never lighted a fire at home: you saw frying-shops with heaps of polenta, and fish swimming in stinking oil, and dealers in cooked vegetables displaying huge turnips, celery, cauliflowers, and spinach, all cold and sticky. The butcher's meat was black and clumsily cut up; the necks of the animals bristled with bloody clots, as though the heads had simply been torn away. The baker's loaves, piled on planks, looked like little round paving stones; at the beggarly greengrocers' merely a few pimentoes and fir-apples were shown under the strings of dry tomatoes which festooned the doorways; and the only shops which were at all attractive were those of the pork butchers with their salted provisions and their cheese, whose pungent smell slightly attenuated the pestilential reek of the gutters. Lottery offices, displaying lists of winning numbers, alternated with wine-shops, of which latter there was a fresh one every thirty yards with large inscriptions setting forth that the best wines of Genzano, Marino, and Frascati were to be found within. And the whole district teemed with ragged, grimy denizens, children half naked and devoured by vermin, bare-headed, gesticulating and shouting women, whose skirts were stiff with grease, old men who remained motionless on benches amidst swarms of hungry flies; idleness and agitation appearing on all sides, whilst cobblers sat on the sidewalks quietly plying their trade, and little donkeys pulled carts hither and thither, and men drove turkeys along, whip in hand, and hands of beggars rushed upon the few anxious tourists who had timorously ventured into the district. At the door of a little tailor's shop an old house-pail dangled full of earth, in which a succulent plant was flowering. And from every window and balcony, as from the many cords which stretched across the street from house to house, all the household washing hung like bunting, nameless drooping rags, the symbolical banners of abominable misery. Pierre's fraternal, soul filled with pity at the sight. Ah! yes, it was necessary to demolish all those pestilential districts where the populace had wallowed for centuries as in a poisonous gaol! He was for demolition and sanitary improvement, even if old Rome were killed and artists scandalised. Doubtless the Trastevere was already greatly changed, pierced with several new thoroughfares which let the sun stream in. And amidst the /abattis/ of rubbish and the spacious clearings, where nothing new had yet been erected, the remaining portions of the old district seemed even blacker and more loathsome. Some day, no doubt, it would all be rebuilt, but how interesting was this phase of the city's evolution: old Rome expiring and new Rome just dawning amidst countless difficulties! To appreciate the change it was necessary to have known the filthy Rome of the past, swamped by sewage in every form. The recently levelled Ghetto had, over a course of centuries, so rotted the soil on which it stood that an awful pestilential odour yet arose from its bare site. It was only fitting that it should long remain waste, so that it might dry and become purified in the sun. In all the districts on either side of the Tiber where extensive improvements have been undertaken you find the same scenes. You follow some narrow, damp, evil-smelling street with black house-fronts and overhanging roofs, and suddenly come upon a clearing as in a forest of ancient leprous hovels. There are squares, broad footways; lofty white carved buildings yet in the rough, littered with rubbish and fenced off. On every side you find as it were a huge building yard, which the financial crisis perpetuates; the city of to-morrow arrested in its growth, stranded there in its monstrous, precocious, surprising infancy. Nevertheless, therein lies good and healthful work, such as was and is absolutely necessary if Rome is to become a great modern city, instead of being left to rot, to dwindle into a mere ancient curiosity, a museum show-piece. That day, as Pierre went from the Trastevere to the Palazzo Farnese, where he was expected, he chose a roundabout route, following the Via di Pettinari and the Via dei Giubbonari, the former so dark and narrow with a great hospital wall on one side and a row of wretched houses on the other, and the latter animated by a constant stream of people and enlivened by the jewellers' windows, full of big gold chains, and the displays of the drapers' shops, where stuffs hung in bright red, blue, green, and yellow lengths. And the popular district through which he had roamed and the trading district which he was now crossing reminded him of the castle fields with their mass of workpeople reduced to mendicity by lack of employment and forced to camp in the superb, unfinished, abandoned mansions. Ah! the poor, sad people, who were yet so childish, kept in the ignorance and credulity of a savage race by centuries of theocracy, so habituated to mental night and bodily suffering that even to-day they remained apart from the social awakening, simply desirous of enjoying their pride, indolence, and sunlight in peace! They seemed both blind and deaf in their decadence, and whilst Rome was being overturned they continued to lead the stagnant life of former times, realising nought but the worries of the improvements, the demolition of the old favourite districts, the consequent change in habits, and the rise in the cost of food, as if indeed they would rather have gone without light, cleanliness, and health, since these could only be secured by a great financial and labour crisis. And yet, at bottom, it was solely for the people, the populace, that Rome was being cleansed and rebuilt with the idea of making it a great modern capital, for democracy lies at the end of these present day transformations; it is the people who will inherit the cities whence dirt and disease are being expelled, and where the law of labour will end by prevailing and killing want. And so, though one may curse the dusting and repairing of the ruins and the stripping of all the wild flora from the Colosseum, though one may wax indignant at sight of the hideous fortress like ramparts which imprison the Tiber, and bewail the old romantic banks with their greenery and their antique dwellings dipping into the stream, one must at the same time acknowledge that life springs from death, and that to-morrow must perforce blossom in the dust of the past. While thinking of all these things Pierre had reached the deserted, stern-looking Piazza Farnese, and for a moment he looked up at the bare monumental facade of the heavy square Palazzo, its lofty entrance where hung the tricolour, its rows of windows and its famous cornice sculptured with such marvellous art. Then he went in. A friend of Narcisse Habert, one of the /attaches/ of the embassy to the King of Italy, was waiting for him, having offered to show him over the huge pile, the finest palace in Rome, which France had leased as a lodging for her ambassador.* Ah! that colossal, sumptuous, deadly dwelling, with its vast court whose porticus is so dark and damp, its giant staircase with low steps, its endless corridors, its immense galleries and halls. All was sovereign pomp blended with death. An icy, penetrating chill fell from the walls. With a discreet smile the /attache/ owned that the embassy was frozen in winter and baked in summer. The only part of the building which was at all lively and pleasant was the first storey, overlooking the Tiber, which the ambassador himself occupied. From the gallery there, containing the famous frescoes of Annibale Caracci, one can see the Janiculum, the Corsini gardens, and the Acqua Paola above San Pietro in Montorio. Then, after a vast drawing-room comes the study, peaceful and pleasant, and enlivened by sunshine. But the dining-room, the bed-chambers, and other apartments occupied by the /personnel/ look out on to the mournful gloom of a side street. All these vast rooms, twenty and four-and-twenty feet high, have admirable carved or painted ceilings, bare walls, a few of them decorated with frescoes, and incongruous furniture, superb pier tables mingling with modern /bric-a-brac/. And things become abominable when you enter the gala reception-rooms overlooking the piazza, for there you no longer find an article of furniture, no longer a hanging, nothing but disaster, a series of magnificent deserted halls given over to rats and spiders. The embassy occupies but one of them, where it heaps up its dusty archives. Near by is a huge hall occupying the height of two floors, and thus sixty feet in elevation. Reserved by the owner of the palace, the ex-King of Naples, it has become a mere lumber-room where /maquettes/, unfinished statues, and a very fine sarcophagus are stowed away amidst all kinds of remnants. And this is but a part of the palace. The ground floor is altogether uninhabited; the French "Ecole de Rome" occupies a corner of the second floor; while the embassy huddles in chilly fashion in the most habitable corner of the first floor, compelled to abandon everything else and lock the doors to spare itself the useless trouble of sweeping. No doubt it is grand to live in the Palazzo Farnese, built by Pope Paul III and for more than a century inhabited by cardinals; but how cruel the discomfort and how frightful the melancholy of this huge ruin, three-fourths of whose rooms are dead, useless, impossible, cut off from life. And the evenings, oh! the evenings, when porch, court, stairs, and corridors are invaded by dense gloom, against which a few smoky gas lamps struggle in vain, when a long, long journey lies before one through the lugubrious desert of stone, before one reaches the ambassador's warm and cheerful drawing-room! * The French have two embassies at Rome: one at the Palazzo Farnese, to the Italian Court, and the other at the Palazzo Rospigliosi, to the Vatican.--Trans. Pierre came away quite aghast. And, as he walked along, the many other grand palaces which he had seen during his strolls rose before him, one and all of them stripped of their splendour, shorn of their princely establishments, let out in uncomfortable flats! What could be done with those grandiose galleries and halls now that no fortune could defray the cost of the pompous life for which they had been built, or even feed the retinue needed to keep them up? Few indeed were the nobles who, like Prince Aldobrandini, with his numerous progeny, still occupied their entire mansions. Almost all of them let the antique dwellings of their forefathers to companies or individual tenants, reserving only a storey, and at times a mere lodging in some dark corner, for themselves. The Palazzo Chigi was let: the ground floor to bankers and the first floor to the Austrian ambassador, while the Prince and his family divided the second floor with a cardinal. The Palazzo Sciarra was let: the first floor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second to a senator, while the Prince and his mother merely occupied the ground floor. The Palazzo Barberini was let: its ground floor, first floor, and second floor to various families, whilst the Prince found a refuge on the third floor in the rooms which had been occupied by his ancestors' lackeys. The Palazzo Borghese was let: the ground floor to a dealer in antiquities, the first floor to a Lodge of Freemasons, and the rest to various households, whilst the Prince only retained the use of a small suite of apartments. And the Palazzo Odescalchi, the Palazzo Colonna, the Palazzo Doria were let: their Princes reduced to the position of needy landlords eager to derive as much profit as possible from their property in order to make both ends meet. A blast of ruin was sweeping over the Roman patriziato, the greatest fortunes had crumbled in the financial crisis, very few remained wealthy, and what a wealth it was, stagnant and dead, which neither commerce nor industry could renew. The numerous princes who had tried speculation were stripped of their fortunes. The others, terrified, called upon to pay enormous taxes, amounting to nearly one-third of their incomes, could henceforth only wait and behold their last stagnant millions dwindle away till they were exhausted or distributed according to the succession laws. Such wealth as remained to these nobles must perish, for, like everything else, wealth perishes when it lacks a soil in which it may fructify. In all this there was solely a question of time: eventual ruin was a foregone and irremediable conclusion, of absolute, historical certainty. Those who resigned themselves to the course of letting their deserted mansions still struggled for life, seeking to accommodate themselves to present-day exigencies; whilst death already dwelt among the others, those stubborn, proud ones who immured themselves in the tombs of their race, like that appalling Palazzo Boccanera, which was falling into dust amidst such chilly gloom and silence, the latter only broken at long intervals when the Cardinal's old coach rumbled over the grassy court. The point which most struck Pierre, however, was that his visits to the Trastevere and the Palazzo Farnese shed light one on the other, and led him to a conclusion which had never previously seemed so manifest. As yet no "people," and soon no aristocracy. He had found the people so wretched, ignorant, and resigned in its long infancy induced by historic and climatic causes that many years of instruction and culture were necessary for it to become a strong, healthy, and laborious democracy, conscious of both its rights and its duties. As for the aristocracy, it was dwindling to death in its crumbling palaces, no longer aught than a finished, degenerate race, with such an admixture also of American, Austrian, Polish, and Spanish blood that pure Roman blood became a rare exception; and, moreover, it had ceased to belong either to sword or gown, unwilling to serve constitutional Italy and forsaking the Sacred College, where only /parvenus/ now donned the purple. And between the lowly and the aristocracy there was as yet no firmly seated middle class, with the vigour of fresh sap and sufficient knowledge, and good sense to act as the transitional educator of the nation. The middle class was made up in part of the old servants and clients of the princes, the farmers who rented their lands, the stewards, notaries, and solicitors who managed their fortunes; in part, too, of all the employees, the functionaries of every rank and class, the deputies and senators, whom the new Government had brought from the provinces; and, in particular, of the voracious hawks who had swooped down upon Rome, the Pradas, the men of prey from all parts of the kingdom, who with beak and talon devoured both people and aristocracy. For whom, then, had one laboured? For whom had those gigantic works of new Rome been undertaken? A shudder of fear sped by, a crack as of doom was heard, arousing pitiful disquietude in every fraternal heart. Yes, a threat of doom and annihilation: as yet no people, soon no aristocracy, and only a ravenous middle class, quarrying, vulture-like, among the ruins. On the evening of that day, when all was dark, Pierre went to spend an hour on the river quay beyond the Boccanera mansion. He was very fond of meditating on that deserted spot in spite of the warnings of Victorine, who asserted that it was not safe. And, indeed, on such inky nights as that one, no cutthroat place ever presented a more tragic aspect. Not a soul, not a passer-by; a dense gloom, a void in front and on either hand. At a corner of the mansion, now steeped in darkness, there was a gas lamp which stood in a hollow since the river margin had been banked up, and this lamp cast an uncertain glimmer upon the quay, level with the latter's bossy soil. Thus long vague shadows stretched from the various materials, piles of bricks and piles of stone, which were strewn around. On the right a few lights shone upon the bridge near San Giovanni and in the windows of the hospital of the Santo Spirito. On the left, amidst the dim recession of the river, the distant districts were blotted out. Then yonder, across the stream, was the Trastevere, the houses on the bank looking like vague, pale phantoms, with infrequent window-panes showing a blurred yellow glimmer, whilst on high only a dark band shadowed the Janiculum, near whose summit the lamps of some promenade scintillated like a triangle of stars. But it was the Tiber which impassioned Pierre; such was its melancholy majesty during those nocturnal hours. Leaning over the parapet, he watched it gliding between the new walls, which looked like those of some black and monstrous prison built for a giant. So long as lights gleamed in the windows of the houses opposite he saw the sluggish water flow by, showing slow, moire-like ripples there where the quivering reflections endowed it with a mysterious life. And he often mused on the river's famous past and evoked the legends which assert that fabulous wealth lies buried in its muddy bed. At each fresh invasion of the barbarians, and particularly when Rome was sacked, the treasures of palaces and temples are said to have been cast into the water to prevent them from falling into the hands of the conquerors. Might not those golden bars trembling yonder in the glaucous stream be the branches of the famous candelabrum which Titus brought from Jerusalem? Might not those pale patches whose shape remained uncertain amidst the frequent eddies indicate the white marble of statues and columns? And those deep moires glittering with little flamelets, were they not promiscuous heaps of precious metal, cups, vases, ornaments enriched with gems? What a dream was that of the swarming riches espied athwart the old river's bosom, of the hidden life of the treasures which were said to have slumbered there for centuries; and what a hope for the nation's pride and enrichment centred in the miraculous finds which might be made in the Tiber if one could some day dry it up and search its bed, as had already been suggested! Therein, perchance, lay Rome's new fortune. However, on that black night, whilst Pierre leant over the parapet, it was stern reality alone which occupied his mind. He was still pursuing the train of thought suggested by his visits to the Trastevere and the Farnese palace, and in presence of that lifeless water was coming to the conclusion that the selection of Rome for transformation into a modern capital was the great misfortune to which the sufferings of young Italy were due. He knew right well that the selection had been inevitable: Rome being the queen of glory, the antique ruler of the world to whom eternity had been promised, and without whom the national unity had always seemed an impossibility. And so the problem was a terrible one, since without Rome Italy could not exist, and with Rome it seemed difficult for it to exist. Ah! that dead river, how it symbolised disaster! Not a boat upon its surface, not a quiver of the commercial and industrial activity of those waters which bear life to the very hearts of great modern cities! There had been fine schemes, no doubt--Rome a seaport, gigantic works, canalisation to enable vessels of heavy tonnage to come up to the Aventine; but these were mere delusions; the authorities would scarcely be able to clear the river mouth, which deposits were continually choking. And there was that other cause of mortal languishment, the Campagna--the desert of death which the dead river crossed and which girdled Rome with sterility. There was talk of draining and planting it; much futile discussion on the question whether it had been fertile in the days of the old Romans; and even a few experiments were made; but, all the same, Rome remained in the midst of a vast cemetery like a city of other times, for ever separated from the modern world by that /lande/ or moor where the dust of centuries had accumulated. The geographical considerations which once gave the city the empire of the world no longer exist. The centre of civilisation has been displaced. The basin of the Mediterranean has been divided among powerful nations. In Italy all roads now lead to Milan, the city of industry and commerce, and Rome is but a town of passage. And so the most valiant efforts have failed to rouse it from its invincible slumber. The capital which the newcomers sought to improvise with such extreme haste has remained unfinished, and has almost ruined the nation. The Government, legislators, and functionaries only camp there, fleeing directly the warm weather sets in so as to escape the pernicious climate. The hotels and shops even put up their shutters, and the streets and promenades become deserts, the city having failed to acquire any life of its own, and relapsing into death as soon as the artificial life instilled into it is withdrawn. So all remains in suspense in this purely decorative capital, where only a fresh growth of men and money can finish and people the huge useless piles of the new districts. If it be true that to-morrow always blooms in the dust of the past, one ought to force oneself to hope; but Pierre asked himself if the soil were not exhausted, and since mere buildings could no longer grow on it, if it were not for ever drained of the sap which makes a race healthy, a nation powerful. As the night advanced the lights in the houses of the Trastevere went out one by one: yet Pierre for a long time lingered on the quay, leaning over the blackened river and yielding to hopelessness. There was now no distance to the gloom; all had become dense; no longer did any reflections set a moire-like, golden quiver in the water, or reveal beneath its mystery-concealing current a fantastic, dancing vision of fabulous wealth. Gone was the legend, gone the seven-branched golden candelabrum, gone the golden vases, gone the golden jewellery, the whole dream of antique treasure that had vanished into night, even like the antique glory of Rome. Not a glimmer, nothing but slumber, disturbed solely by the heavy fall of sewage from the drain on the right-hand, which could not be seen. The very water had disappeared, and Pierre no longer espied its leaden flow through the darkness, no longer had any perception of the sluggish senility, the long-dating weariness, the intense sadness of that ancient and glorious Tiber, whose waters now rolled nought but death. Only the vast, opulent sky, the eternal, pompous sky displayed the dazzling life of its milliards of planets above that river of darkness, bearing away the ruins of wellnigh three thousand years. Before returning to his own chamber that evening Pierre entered Dario's room, and found Victorine there preparing things for the night. And as soon as she heard where he had been she raised her voice in protest: "What! you have again been to the quay at this time of night, Monsieur l'Abbe? You want to get a good knife thrust yourself, it seems. Well, for my part, I certainly wouldn't take the air at such a late hour in this dangerous city." Then, with her wonted familiarity, she turned and spoke to the Prince, who was lying back in an arm-chair and smiling: "That girl, La Pierina," she said, "hasn't been back here, but all the same I've lately seen her prowling about among the building materials." Dario raised his hand to silence her, and, addressing Pierre, exclaimed: "But you spoke to her, didn't you? It's becoming idiotic! Just fancy that brute Tito coming back to dig his knife into my other shoulder--" All at once he paused, for he had just perceived Benedetta standing there and listening to him; she had slipped into the room a moment previously in order to wish him good-night. At sight of her his embarrassment was great indeed; he wished to speak, explain his words, and swear that he was wholly innocent in the affair. But she, with a smiling face, contented herself with saying, "I knew all about it, Dario /mio/. I am not so foolish as not to have thought it all over and understood the truth. If I ceased questioning you it was because I knew, and loved you all the same." The young woman looked very happy as she spoke, and for this she had good cause, for that very evening she had learnt that Monsignor Palma had shown himself grateful for the service rendered to his nephew by laying a fresh and favourable memoir on the marriage affair before the Congregation of the Council. He had been unwilling to recall his previous opinions so far as to range himself completely on the Contessina's side, but the certificates of two doctors whom she had recently seen had enabled him to conclude that her own declarations were accurate. And gliding over the question of wifely obedience, on which he had previously laid stress, he had skilfully set forth the reasons which made a dissolution of the marriage desirable. No hope of reconciliation could be entertained, so it was certain that both parties were constantly exposed to temptation and sin. He discreetly alluded to the fact that the husband had already succumbed to this danger, and praised the wife's lofty morality and piety, all the virtues which she displayed, and which guaranteed her veracity. Then, without formulating any conclusion of his own, he left the decision to the wisdom of the Congregation. And as he virtually repeated Advocate Morano's arguments, and Prada stubbornly refused to enter an appearance, it now seemed certain that the Congregation would by a great majority pronounce itself in favour of dissolution, a result which would enable the Holy Father to act benevolently. "Ah! Dario /mio/!" said Benedetta, "we are at the end of our worries. But what a lot of money, what a lot of money it all costs! Aunt says that they will scarcely leave us water to drink." So speaking she laughed with the happy heedlessness of an impassioned /amorosa/. It was not that the jurisdiction of the Congregations was in itself ruinous; indeed, in principle, it was gratuitous. Still there were a multitude of petty expenses, payments to subaltern employees, payments for medical consultations and certificates, copies of documents, and the memoirs and addresses of counsel. And although the votes of the cardinals were certainly not bought direct, some of them ended by costing considerable sums, for it often became necessary to win over dependants, to induce quite a little world to bring influence to bear upon their Eminences; without mentioning that large pecuniary gifts, when made with tact, have a decisive effect in clearing away the greatest difficulties in that sphere of the Vatican. And, briefly, Monsignor Palma's nephew by marriage had cost the Boccaneras a large sum. "But it doesn't matter, does it, Dario /mio/?" continued Benedetta. "Since you are now cured, they must make haste to give us permission to marry. That's all we ask of them. And if they want more, well, I'll give them my pearls, which will be all I shall have left me." He also laughed, for money had never held any place in his life. He had never had it at his pleasure, and simply hoped that he would always live with his uncle the cardinal, who would certainly not leave him and his young wife in the streets. Ruined as the family was, one or two hundred thousand francs represented nothing to his mind, and he had heard that certain dissolutions of marriage had cost as much as half a million. So, by way of response, he could only find a jest: "Give them my ring as well," said he; "give them everything, my dear, and we shall still be happy in this old palace even if we have to sell the furniture!" His words filled her with enthusiasm; she took his head between both hands and kissed him madly on the eyes in an extraordinary transport of passion. Then, suddenly turning to Pierre, she said: "Oh! excuse me, Monsieur l'Abbe. I was forgetting that I have a commission for you. Yes, Monsignor Nani, who brought us that good news, bade me tell you that you are making people forget you too much, and that you ought to set to work to defend your book." The priest listened in astonishment; then replied: "But it was he who advised me to disappear." "No doubt--only it seems that the time has now come for you to see people and plead your cause. And Monsignor Nani has been able to learn that the reporter appointed to examine your book is Monsignor Fornaro, who lives on the Piazza Navona." Pierre's stupefaction was increasing, for a reporter's name is never divulged, but kept quite secret, in order to ensure a free exercise of judgment. Was a new phase of his sojourn in Rome about to begin then? His mind was all wonderment. However, he simply answered: "Very good, I will set to work and see everybody." 
8725	----	and David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] THE THREE CITIES ROME BY EMILE ZOLA TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY PART V XIV THAT evening, when Pierre emerged from the Borgo in front of the Vatican, a sonorous stroke rang out from the clock amidst the deep silence of the dark and sleepy district. It was only half-past eight, and being in advance the young priest resolved to wait some twenty minutes in order to reach the doors of the papal apartments precisely at nine, the hour fixed for his audience. This respite brought him some relief amidst the infinite emotion and grief which gripped his heart. That tragic afternoon which he had spent in the chamber of death, where Dario and Benedetta now slept the eternal sleep in one another's arms, had left him very weary. He was haunted by a wild, dolorous vision of the two lovers, and involuntary sighs came from his lips whilst tears continually moistened his eyes. He had been altogether unable to eat that evening. Ah! how he would have liked to hide himself and weep at his ease! His heart melted at each fresh thought. The pitiful death of the lovers intensified the grievous feeling with which his book was instinct, and impelled him to yet greater compassion, a perfect anguish of charity for all who suffered in the world. And he was so distracted by the thought of the many physical and moral sores of Paris and of Rome, where he had beheld so much unjust and abominable suffering, that at each step he took he feared lest he should burst into sobs with arms upstretched towards the blackness of heaven. In the hope of somewhat calming himself he began to walk slowly across the Piazza of St. Peter's, now all darkness and solitude. On arriving he had fancied that he was losing himself in a murky sea, but by degrees his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness. The vast expanse was only lighted by the four candelabra at the corners of the obelisk and by infrequent lamps skirting the buildings which run on either hand towards the Basilica. Under the colonnade, too, other lamps threw yellow gleams across the forest of pillars, showing up their stone trunks in fantastic fashion; while on the piazza only the pale, ghostly obelisk was at all distinctly visible. Pierre could scarcely perceive the dim, silent facade of St. Peter's; whilst of the dome he merely divined a gigantic, bluey roundness faintly shadowed against the sky. In the obscurity he at first heard the plashing of the fountains without being at all able to see them, but on approaching he at last distinguished the slender phantoms of the ever rising jets which fell again in spray. And above the vast square stretched the vast and moonless sky of a deep velvety blue, where the stars were large and radiant like carbuncles; Charles's Wain, with golden wheels and golden shaft tilted back as it were, over the roof of the Vatican, and Orion, bedizened with the three bright stars of his belt, showing magnificently above Rome, in the direction of the Via Giulia. At last Pierre raised his eyes to the Vatican, but facing the piazza there was here merely a confused jumble of walls, amidst which only two gleams of light appeared on the floor of the papal apartments. The Court of San Damaso was, however, lighted, for the conservatory-like glass-work of two of its sides sparkled as with the reflection of gas lamps which could not be seen. For a time there was not a sound or sign of movement, but at last two persons crossed the expanse of the piazza, and then came a third who in his turn disappeared, nothing remaining but a rhythmical far-away echo of steps. The spot was indeed a perfect desert, there were neither promenaders nor passers-by, nor was there even the shadow of a prowler in the pillared forest of the colonnade, which was as empty as the wild primeval forests of the world's infancy. And what a solemn desert it was, full of the silence of haughty desolation. Never had so vast and black a presentment of slumber, so instinct with the sovereign nobility of death, appeared to Pierre. At ten minutes to nine he at last made up his mind and went towards the bronze portal. Only one of the folding doors was now open at the end of the right-hand porticus, where the increasing density of the gloom steeped everything in night. Pierre remembered the instructions which Monsignor Nani had given him; at each door that he reached he was to ask for Signor Squadra without adding a word, and thereupon each door would open and he would have nothing to do but to let himself be guided on. No one but the prelate now knew that he was there, since Benedetta, the only being to whom he had confided the secret, was dead. When he had crossed the threshold of the bronze doors and found himself in presence of the motionless, sleeping Swiss Guard, who was on duty there, he simply spoke the words agreed upon: "Signor Squadra." And as the Guard did not stir, did not seek to bar his way, he passed on, turning into the vestibule of the Scala Pia, the stone stairway which ascends to the Court of San Damaso. And not a soul was to be seen: there was but the faint sound of his own light footsteps and the sleepy glow of the gas jets whose light was softly whitened by globes of frosted glass. Up above, on reaching the courtyard he found it a solitude, whose slumber seemed sepulchral amidst the mournful gleams of the gas lamps which cast a pallid reflection on the lofty glass-work of the facades. And feeling somewhat nervous, affected by the quiver which pervaded all that void and silence, Pierre hastened on, turning to the right, towards the low flight of steps which leads to the staircase of the Pope's private apartments. Here stood a superb gendarme in full uniform. "Signor Squadra," said Pierre, and without a word the gendarme pointed to the stairs. The young man went up. It was a broad stairway, with low steps, balustrade of white marble, and walls covered with yellowish stucco. The gas, burning in globes of round glass, seemed to have been already turned down in a spirit of prudent economy. And in the glimmering light nothing could have been more mournfully solemn than that cold and pallid staircase. On each landing there was a Swiss Guard, halbard in hand, and in the heavy slumber spreading through the palace one only heard the regular monotonous footsteps of these men, ever marching up and down, in order no doubt that they might not succumb to the benumbing influence of their surroundings. Amidst the invading dimness and the quivering silence the ascent of the stairs seemed interminable to Pierre, who by the time he reached the second-floor landing imagined that he had been climbing for ages. There, outside the glass door of the Sala Clementina, only the right-hand half of which was open, a last Swiss Guard stood watching. "Signor Squadra," Pierre said again, and the Guard drew back to let him pass. The Sala Clementina, spacious enough by daylight, seemed immense at that nocturnal hour, in the twilight glimmer of its lamps. All the opulent decorative-work, sculpture, painting, and gilding became blended, the walls assuming a tawny vagueness amidst which appeared bright patches like the sparkle of precious stones. There was not an article of furniture, nothing but the endless pavement stretching away into the semi-darkness. At last, however, near a door at the far end Pierre espied some men dozing on a bench. They were three Swiss Guards. "Signor Squadra," he said to them. One of the Guards thereupon slowly rose and left the hall, and Pierre understood that he was to wait. He did not dare to move, disturbed as he was by the sound of his own footsteps on the paved floor, so he contented himself with gazing around and picturing the crowds which at times peopled that vast apartment, the first of the many papal ante-chambers. But before long the Guard returned, and behind him, on the threshold of the adjoining room, appeared a man of forty or thereabouts, who was clad in black from head to foot and suggested a cross between a butler and a beadle. He had a good-looking, clean-shaven face, with somewhat pronounced nose and large, clear, fixed eyes. "Signor Squadra," said Pierre for the last time. The man bowed as if to say that he was Signor Squadra, and then, with a fresh reverence, he invited the priest to follow him. Thereupon at a leisurely step, one behind the other, they began to thread the interminable suite of waiting-rooms. Pierre, who was acquainted with the ceremonial, of which he had often spoken with Narcisse, recognised the different apartments as he passed through them, recalling their names and purpose, and peopling them in imagination with the various officials of the papal retinue who have the right to occupy them. These according to their rank cannot go beyond certain doors, so that the persons who are to have audience of the Pope are passed on from the servants to the Noble Guards, from the Noble Guards to the honorary /Camerieri/, and from the latter to the /Camerieri segreti/, until they at last reach the presence of the Holy Father. At eight o'clock, however, the ante-rooms empty and become both deserted and dim, only a few lamps being left alight upon the pier tables standing here and there against the walls. And first Pierre came to the ante-room of the /bussolanti/, mere ushers clad in red velvet broidered with the papal arms, who conduct visitors to the door of the ante-room of honour. At that late hour only one of them was left there, seated on a bench in such a dark corner that his purple tunic looked quite black. Then the Hall of the Gendarmes was crossed, where according to the regulations the secretaries of cardinals and other high personages await their masters' return; and this was now completely empty, void both of the handsome blue uniforms with white shoulder belts and the cassocks of fine black cloth which mingled in it during the brilliant reception hours. Empty also was the following room, a smaller one reserved to the Palatine Guards, who are recruited among the Roman middle class and wear black tunics with gold epaulets and shakoes surmounted by red plumes. Then Pierre and his guide turned into another series of apartments, and again was the first one empty. This was the Hall of the Arras, a superb waiting-room with lofty painted ceiling and admirable Gobelins tapestry designed by Audran and representing the miracles of Jesus. And empty also was the ante-chamber of the Noble Guards which followed, with its wooden stools, its pier table on the right-hand surmounted by a large crucifix standing between two lamps, and its large door opening at the far end into another but smaller room, a sort of alcove indeed, where there is an altar at which the Holy Father says mass by himself whilst those privileged to be present remain kneeling on the marble slabs of the outer apartment which is resplendent with the dazzling uniforms of the Guards. And empty likewise was the ensuing ante-room of honour, otherwise the grand throne-room, where the Pope receives two or three hundred people at a time in public audience. The throne, an arm-chair of elaborate pattern, gilded, and upholstered with red velvet, stands under a velvet canopy of the same hue, in front of the windows. Beside it is the cushion on which the Pope rests his foot in order that it may be kissed. Then facing one another, right and left of the room, there are two pier tables, on one of which is a clock and on the other a crucifix between lofty candelabra with feet of gilded wood. The wall hangings, of red silk damask with a Louis XIV palm pattern, are topped by a pompous frieze, framing a ceiling decorated with allegorical figures and attributes, and it is only just in front of the throne that a Smyrna carpet covers the magnificent marble pavement. On the days of private audience, when the Pope remains in the little throne-room or at times in his bed-chamber, the grand throne-room becomes simply the ante-room of honour, where high dignitaries of the Church, ambassadors, and great civilian personages, wait their turns. Two /Camerieri/, one in violet coat, the other of the Cape and the Sword, here do duty, receiving from the /bussolanti/ the persons who are to be honoured with audiences and conducting them to the door of the next room, the secret or private ante-chamber, where they hand them over to the /Camerieri segreti/. Signor Squadra who, walking on with slow and silent steps, had not yet once turned round, paused for a moment on reaching the door of the /anticamera segreta/ so as to give Pierre time to breathe and recover himself somewhat before crossing the threshold of the sanctuary. The /Camerieri segreti/ alone had the right to occupy that last ante-chamber, and none but the cardinals might wait there till the Pope should condescend to receive them. And so when Signor Squadra made up his mind to admit Pierre, the latter could not restrain a slight nervous shiver as if he were passing into some redoubtable mysterious sphere beyond the limits of the lower world. In the daytime a Noble Guard stood on sentry duty before the door, but the latter was now free of access, and the room within proved as empty as all the others. It was rather narrow, almost like a passage, with two windows overlooking the new district of the castle fields and a third one facing the Piazza of St. Peter's. Near the last was a door conducting to the little throne-room, and between this door and the window stood a small table at which a secretary, now absent, usually sat. And here again, as in all the other rooms, one found a gilded pier table surmounted by a crucifix flanked by a pair of lamps. In a corner too there was a large clock, loudly ticking in its ebony case incrusted with brass-work. Still there was nothing to awaken curiosity under the panelled and gilded ceiling unless it were the wall-hangings of red damask, on which yellow scutcheons displaying the Keys and the Tiara alternated with armorial lions, each with a paw resting on a globe. Signor Squadra, however, now noticed that Pierre still carried his hat in his hand, whereas according to etiquette he should have left it in the hall of the /bussolanti/, only cardinals being privileged to carry their hats with them into the Pope's presence. Accordingly he discreetly took the young priest's from him, and deposited it on the pier table to indicate that it must at least remain there. Then, without a word, by a simple bow he gave Pierre to understand that he was about to announce him to his Holiness, and that he must be good enough to wait for a few minutes in that room. On being left to himself Pierre drew a long breath. He was stifling; his heart was beating as though it would burst. Nevertheless his mind remained clear, and in spite of the semi-obscurity he had been able to form some idea of the famous and magnificent apartments of the Pope, a suite of splendid /salons/ with tapestried or silken walls, gilded or painted friezes, and frescoed ceilings. By way of furniture, however, there were only pier table, stools,* and thrones. And the lamps and the clocks, and the crucifixes, even the thrones, were all presents brought from the four quarters of the world in the great fervent days of jubilee. There was no sign of comfort, everything was pompous, stiff, cold, and inconvenient. All olden Italy was there, with its perpetual display and lack of intimate, cosy life. It had been necessary to lay a few carpets over the superb marble slabs which froze one's feet; and some /caloriferes/ had even lately been installed, but it was not thought prudent to light them lest the variations of temperature should give the Pope a cold. However, that which more particularly struck Pierre now that he stood there waiting was the extraordinary silence which prevailed all around, silence so deep that it seemed as if all the dark quiescence of that huge, somniferous Vatican were concentrated in that one suite of lifeless, sumptuous rooms, which the motionless flamelets of the lamps as dimly illumined. * M. Zola seems to have fallen into error here. Many of the seats, which are of peculiar antique design, do, in the lower part, resemble stools, but they have backs, whereas a stool proper has none. Briefly, these seats, which are entirely of wood, are not unlike certain old-fashioned hall chairs.--Trans. All at once the ebony clock struck nine and the young man felt astonished. What! had only ten minutes elapsed since he had crossed the threshold of the bronze doors below? He felt as if he had been walking on for days and days. Then, desiring to overcome the nervous feeling which oppressed him--for he ever feared lest his enforced calmness should collapse amidst a flood of tears--he began to walk up and down, passing in front of the clock, glancing at the crucifix on the pier table, and the globe of the lamp on which had remained the mark of a servant's greasy fingers. And the light was so faint and yellow that he felt inclined to turn the lamp up, but did not dare. Then he found himself with his brow resting against one of the panes of the window facing the Piazza of St. Peter's, and for a moment he was thunderstruck, for between the imperfectly closed shutters he could see all Rome, as he had seen it one day from the /loggie/ of Raffaelle, and as he had pictured Leo XIII contemplating it from the window of his bed-room. However, it was now Rome by night, Rome spreading out into the depths of the gloom, as limitless as the starry sky. And in that sea of black waves one could only with certainty identify the larger thoroughfares which the white brightness of electric lights turned, as it were, into Milky Ways. All the rest showed but a swarming of little yellow sparks, the crumbs, as it were, of a half-extinguished heaven swept down upon the earth. Occasional constellations of bright stars, tracing mysterious figures, vainly endeavoured to show forth distinctly, but they were submerged, blotted out by the general chaos which suggested the dust of some old planet that had crumbled there, losing its splendour and reduced to mere phosphorescent sand. And how immense was the blackness thus sprinkled with light, how huge the mass of obscurity and mystery into which the Eternal City with its seven and twenty centuries, its ruins, its monuments, its people, its history seemed to have been merged. You could no longer tell where it began or where it ended, whether it spread to the farthest recesses of the gloom, or whether it were so reduced that the sun on rising would illumine but a little pile of ashes. However, in spite of all Pierre's efforts, his nervous anguish increased each moment, even in presence of that ocean of darkness which displayed such sovereign quiescence. He drew away from the window and quivered from head to foot on hearing a faint footfall and thinking it was that of Signor Squadra approaching to fetch him. The sound came from an adjacent apartment, the little throne-room, whose door, he now perceived, had remained ajar. And at last, as he heard nothing further, he yielded to his feverish impatience and peeped into this room which he found to be fairly spacious, again hung with red damask, and containing a gilded arm-chair, covered with red velvet under a canopy of the same material. And again there was the inevitable pier table, with a tall ivory crucifix, a clock, a pair of lamps, a pair of candelabra, a pair of large vases on pedestals, and two smaller ones of Sevres manufacture decorated with the Holy Father's portrait. At the same time, however, the room displayed rather more comfort, for a Smyrna carpet covered the whole of the marble floor, while a few arm-chairs stood against the walls, and an imitation chimney-piece, draped with damask, served as counterpart to the pier table. As a rule the Pope, whose bed-chamber communicated with this little throne-room, received in the latter such persons as he desired to honour. And Pierre's shiver became more pronounced at the idea that in all likelihood he would merely have the throne-room to cross and that Leo XIII was yonder behind its farther door. Why was he kept waiting, he wondered? He had been told of mysterious audiences granted at a similar hour to personages who had been received in similar silent fashion, great personages whose names were only mentioned in the lowest whispers. With regard to himself no doubt, it was because he was considered compromising that there was a desire to receive him in this manner unknown to the personages of the Court, and so as to speak with him at ease. Then, all at once, he understood the cause of the noise he had recently heard, for beside the lamp on the pier table of the little throne-room he saw a kind of butler's tray containing some soiled plates, knives, forks, and spoons, with a bottle and a glass, which had evidently just been removed from a supper table. And he realised that Signor Squadra, having seen these things in the Pope's room, had brought them there, and had then gone in again, perhaps to tidy up. He knew also of the Pope's frugality, how he took his meals all alone at a little round table, everything being brought to him in that tray, a plate of meat, a plate of vegetables, a little Bordeaux claret as prescribed by his doctor, and a large allowance of beef broth of which he was very fond. In the same way as others might offer a cup of tea, he was wont to offer cups of broth to the old cardinals his friends and favourites, quite an invigorating little treat which these old bachelors much enjoyed. And, O ye orgies of Alexander VI, ye banquets and /galas/ of Julius II and Leo X, only eight /lire/ a day--six shillings and fourpence--were allowed to defray the cost of Leo XIII's table! However, just as that recollection occurred to Pierre, he again heard a slight noise, this time in his Holiness's bed-chamber, and thereupon, terrified by his indiscretion, he hastened to withdraw from the entrance of the throne-room which, lifeless and quiescent though it was, seemed in his agitation to flare as with sudden fire. Then, quivering too violently to be able to remain still, he began to walk up and down the ante-chamber. He remembered that Narcisse had spoken to him of that Signor Squadra, his Holiness's cherished valet, whose importance and influence were so great. He alone, on reception days, was able to prevail on the Pope to don a clean cassock if the one he was wearing happened to be soiled by snuff. And though his Holiness stubbornly shut himself up alone in his bed-room every night from a spirit of independence, which some called the anxiety of a miser determined to sleep alone with his treasure, Signor Squadra at all events occupied an adjoining chamber, and was ever on the watch, ready to respond to the faintest call. Again, it was he who respectfully intervened whenever his Holiness sat up too late or worked too long. But on this point it was difficult to induce the Pope to listen to reason. During his hours of insomnia he would often rise and send Squadra to fetch a secretary in order that he might detail some memoranda or sketch out an encyclical letter. When the drafting of one of the latter impassioned him he would have spent days and nights over it, just as formerly, when claiming proficiency in Latin verse, he had often let the dawn surprise him whilst he was polishing a line. But, indeed, he slept very little, his brain ever being at work, ever scheming out the realisation of some former ideas. His memory alone seemed to have slightly weakened during recent times. Pierre, as he slowly paced to and fro, gradually became absorbed in his thoughts of that lofty and sovereign personality. From the petty details of the Pope's daily existence, he passed to his intellectual life, to the /role/ which he was certainly bent on playing as a great pontiff. And Pierre asked himself which of his two hundred and fifty-seven predecessors, the long line of saints and criminals, men of mediocrity and men of genius, he most desired to resemble. Was it one of the first humble popes, those who followed on during the first three centuries, mere heads of burial guilds, fraternal pastors of the Christian community? Was it Pope Damasus, the first great builder, the man of letters who took delight in intellectual matters, the ardent believer who is said to have opened the Catacombs to the piety of the faithful? Was it Leo III, who by crowning Charlemagne boldly consummated the rupture with the schismatic East and conveyed the Empire to the West by the all-powerful will of God and His Church, which thenceforth disposed of the crowns of monarchs? Was it the terrible Gregory VII, the purifier of the temple, the sovereign of kings; was it Innocent III or Boniface VIII, those masters of souls, nations, and thrones, who, armed with the fierce weapon of excommunication, reigned with such despotism over the terrified middle ages that Catholicism was never nearer the attainment of its dream of universal dominion? Was it Urban II or Gregory IX or another of those popes in whom flared the red Crusading passion which urged the nations on to the conquest of the unknown and the divine? Was it Alexander III, who defended the Holy See against the Empire, and at last conquered and set his foot on the neck of Frederick Barbarossa? Was it, long after the sorrows of Avignon, Julius II, who wore the cuirass and once more strengthened the political power of the papacy? Was it Leo X, the pompous, glorious patron of the Renascence, of a whole great century of art, whose mind, however, was possessed of so little penetration and foresight that he looked on Luther as a mere rebellious monk? Was it Pius V, who personified dark and avenging reaction, the fire of the stakes that punished the heretic world? Was it some other of the popes who reigned after the Council of Trent with faith absolute, belief re-established in its full integrity, the Church saved by pride and the stubborn upholding of every dogma? Or was it a pope of the decline, such as Benedict XIV, the man of vast intelligence, the learned theologian who, as his hands were tied, and he could not dispose of the kingdoms of the world, spent a worthy life in regulating the affairs of heaven? In this wise, in Pierre's mind there spread out the whole history of the popes, the most prodigious of all histories, showing fortune in every guise, the lowest, the most wretched, as well as the loftiest and most dazzling; whilst an obstinate determination to live enabled the papacy to survive everything--conflagrations, massacres, and the downfall of many nations, for always did it remain militant and erect in the persons of its popes, that most extraordinary of all lines of absolute, conquering, and domineering sovereigns, every one of them--even the puny and humble--masters of the world, every one of them glorious with the imperishable glory of heaven when they were thus evoked in that ancient Vatican, where their spirits assuredly awoke at night and prowled about the endless galleries and spreading halls in that tomb-like silence whose quiver came no doubt from the light touch of their gliding steps over the marble slabs. However, Pierre was now thinking that he indeed knew which of the great popes Leo XIII most desired to resemble. It was first Gregory the Great, the conqueror and organiser of the early days of Catholic power. He had come of ancient Roman stock, and in his heart there was a little of the blood of the emperors. He administered Rome after it had been saved from the Goths, cultivated the ecclesiastical domains, and divided earthly wealth into thirds, one for the poor, one for the clergy, and one for the Church. Then too he was the first to establish the Propaganda, sending his priests forth to civilise and pacify the nations, and carrying his conquests so far as to win Great Britain over to the divine law of Christ. And the second pope whom Leo XIII took as model was one who had arisen after a long lapse of centuries, Sixtus V, the pope financier and politician, the vine-dresser's son, who, when he had donned the tiara, revealed one of the most extensive and supple minds of a period fertile in great diplomatists. He heaped up treasure and displayed stern avarice, in order that he might ever have in his coffers all the money needful for war or for peace. He spent years and years in negotiations with kings, never despairing of his own triumph; and never did he display open hostility for his times, but took them as they were and then sought to modify them in accordance with the interests of the Holy See, showing himself conciliatory in all things and with every one, already dreaming of an European balance of power which he hoped to control. And withal a very saintly pope, a fervent mystic, yet a pope of the most absolute and domineering mind blended with a politician ready for whatever courses might most conduce to the rule of God's Church on earth. And, after all, Pierre amidst his rising enthusiasm, which despite his efforts at calmness was sweeping away all prudence and doubt, Pierre asked himself why he need question the past. Was not Leo XIII the pope whom he had depicted in his book, the great pontiff, who was desired and expected? No doubt the portrait which he had sketched was not accurate in every detail, but surely its main lines must be correct if mankind were to retain a hope of salvation. Whole pages of that book of his arose before him, and he again beheld the Leo XIII that he had portrayed, the wise and conciliatory politician, labouring for the unity of the Church and so anxious to make it strong and invincible against the day of the inevitable great struggle. He again beheld him freed from the cares of the temporal power, elevated, radiant with moral splendour, the only authority left erect above the nations; he beheld him realising what mortal danger would be incurred if the solution of the social question were left to the enemies of Christianity, and therefore resolving to intervene in contemporary quarrels for the defence of the poor and the lowly, even as Jesus had intervened once before. And he again beheld him putting himself on the side of the democracies, accepting the Republic in France, leaving the dethroned kings in exile, and verifying the prediction which promised the empire of the world to Rome once more when the papacy should have unified belief and have placed itself at the head of the people. The times indeed were near accomplishment, Caesar was struck down, the Pope alone remained, and would not the people, the great silent multitude, for whom the two powers had so long contended, give itself to its Father now that it knew him to be both just and charitable, with heart aglow and hand outstretched to welcome all the penniless toilers and beggars of the roads! Given the catastrophe which threatened our rotten modern societies, the frightful misery which ravaged every city, there was surely no other solution possible: Leo XIII, the predestined, necessary redeemer, the pastor sent to save the flock from coming disaster by re-establishing the true Christian community, the forgotten golden age of primitive Christianity. The reign of justice would at last begin, all men would be reconciled, there would be but one nation living in peace and obeying the equalising law of work, under the high patronage of the Pope, sole bond of charity and love on earth! And at this thought Pierre was upbuoyed by fiery enthusiasm. At last he was about to see the Holy Father, empty his heart and open his soul to him! He had so long and so passionately looked for the advent of that moment! To secure it he had fought with all his courage through ever recurring obstacles, and the length and difficulty of the struggle and the success now at last achieved, increased his feverishness, his desire for final victory. Yes, yes, he would conquer, he would confound his enemies. As he had said to Monsignor Fornaro, could the Pope disavow him? Had he not expressed the Holy Father's secret ideas? Perhaps he might have done so somewhat prematurely, but was not that a fault to be forgiven? And then too, he remembered his declaration to Monsignor Nani, that he himself would never withdraw and suppress his book, for he neither regretted nor disowned anything that was in it. At this very moment he again questioned himself, and felt that all his valour and determination to defend his book, all his desire to work the triumph of his belief, remained intact. Yet his mental perturbation was becoming great, he had to seek for ideas, wondering how he should enter the Pope's presence, what he should say, what precise terms he should employ. Something heavy and mysterious which he could hardly account for seemed to weigh him down. At bottom he was weary, already exhausted, only held up by his dream, his compassion for human misery. However, he would enter in all haste, he would fall upon his knees and speak as he best could, letting his heart flow forth. And assuredly the Holy Father would smile on him, and dismiss him with a promise that he would not sign the condemnation of a work in which he had found the expression of his own most cherished thoughts. Then, again, such an acute sensation as of fainting came over Pierre that he went up to the window to press his burning brow against the cold glass. His ears were buzzing, his legs staggering, whilst his brain throbbed violently. And he was striving to forget his thoughts by gazing upon the black immensity of Rome, longing to be steeped in night himself, total, healing night, the night in which one sleeps on for ever, knowing neither pain nor wretchedness, when all at once he became conscious that somebody was standing behind him; and thereupon, with a start, he turned round. And there, indeed, stood Signor Squadra in his black livery. Again he made one of his customary bows to invite the visitor to follow him, and again he walked on in front, crossing the little throne-room, and slowly opening the farther door. Then he drew aside, allowed Pierre to enter, and noiselessly closed the door behind him. Pierre was in his Holiness's bed-room. He had feared one of those overwhelming attacks of emotion which madden or paralyse one. He had been told of women reaching the Pope's presence in a fainting condition, staggering as if intoxicated, while others came with a rush, as though upheld and borne along by invisible pinions. And suddenly the anguish of his own spell of waiting, his intense feverishness, ceased in a sort of astonishment, a reaction which rendered him very calm and so restored his clearness of vision, that he could see everything. As he entered he distinctly realised the decisive importance of such an audience, he, a mere petty priest in presence of the Supreme Pontiff, the Head of the Church. All his religious and moral life would depend on it; and possibly it was this sudden thought that thus chilled him on the threshold of the redoubtable sanctuary, which he had approached with such quivering steps, and which he would not have thought to enter otherwise than with distracted heart and loss of senses, unable to do more than stammer the simple prayers of childhood. Later on, when he sought to classify his recollections he remembered that his eyes had first lighted on Leo XIII, not, however, to the exclusion of his surroundings, but in conjunction with them, that spacious room hung with yellow damask whose alcove, adorned with fluted marble columns, was so deep that the bed was quite hidden away in it, as well as other articles of furniture, a couch, a wardrobe, and some trunks, those famous trunks in which the treasure of the Peter's Pence was said to be securely locked. A sort of Louis XIV writing-desk with ornaments of engraved brass stood face to face with a large gilded and painted Louis XV pier table on which a lamp was burning beside a lofty crucifix. The room was virtually bare, only three arm-chairs and four or five other chairs, upholstered in light silk, being disposed here and there over the well-worn carpet. And on one of the arm-chairs sat Leo XIII, near a small table on which another lamp with a shade had been placed. Three newspapers, moreover, lay there, two of them French and one Italian, and the last was half unfolded as if the Pope had momentarily turned from it to stir a glass of syrup, standing beside him, with a long silver-gilt spoon. In the same way as Pierre saw the Pope's room, he saw his costume, his cassock of white cloth with white buttons, his white skull-cap, his white cape and his white sash fringed with gold and broidered at either end with golden keys. His stockings were white, his slippers were of red velvet, and these again were broidered with golden keys. What surprised the young priest, however, was his Holiness's face and figure, which now seemed so shrunken that he scarcely recognised them. This was his fourth meeting with the Pope. He had seen him walking in the Vatican gardens, enthroned in the Hall of Beatifications, and pontifying at St. Peter's, and now he beheld him on that arm-chair, in privacy, and looking so slight and fragile that he could not restrain a feeling of affectionate anxiety. Leo's neck was particularly remarkable, slender beyond belief, suggesting the neck of some little, aged, white bird. And his face, of the pallor of alabaster, was characteristically transparent, to such a degree, indeed, that one could see the lamplight through his large commanding nose, as if the blood had entirely withdrawn from that organ. A mouth of great length, with white bloodless lips, streaked the lower part of the papal countenance, and the eyes alone had remained young and handsome. Superb eyes they were, brilliant like black diamonds, endowed with sufficient penetration and strength to lay souls open and force them to confess the truth aloud. Some scanty white curls emerged from under the white skull-cap, thus whitely crowning the thin white face, whose ugliness was softened by all this whiteness, this spiritual whiteness in which Leo XIII's flesh seemed as it were but pure lily-white florescence. At the first glance, however, Pierre noticed that if Signor Squadra had kept him waiting, it had not been in order to compel the Holy Father to don a clean cassock, for the one he was wearing was badly soiled by snuff. A number of brown stains had trickled down the front of the garment beside the buttons, and just like any good /bourgeois/, his Holiness had a handkerchief on his knees to wipe himself. Apart from all this he seemed in good health, having recovered from his recent indisposition as easily as he usually recovered from such passing illnesses, sober, prudent old man that he was, quite free from organic disease, and simply declining by reason of progressive natural exhaustion. Immediately on entering Pierre had felt that the Pope's sparkling eyes, those two black diamonds, were fixed upon him. The silence was profound, and the lamps burned with motionless, pallid flames. He had to approach, and after making the three genuflections prescribed by etiquette, he stooped over one of the Pope's feet resting on a cushion in order to kiss the red velvet slipper. And on the Pope's side there was not a word, not a gesture, not a movement. When the young man drew himself up again he found the two black diamonds, those two eyes which were all brightness and intelligence, still riveted on him. But at last Leo XIII, who had been unwilling to spare the young priest the humble duty of kissing his foot and who now left him standing, began to speak, whilst still examining him, probing, as it were, his very soul. "My son," he said, "you greatly desired to see me, and I consented to afford you that satisfaction." He spoke in French, somewhat uncertain French, pronounced after the Italian fashion, and so slowly did he articulate each sentence that one could have written it down like so much dictation. And his voice, as Pierre had previously noticed, was strong and nasal, one of those full voices which people are surprised to hear coming from debile and apparently bloodless and breathless frames. In response to the Holy Father's remark Pierre contented himself with bowing, knowing that respect required him to wait for a direct answer before speaking. However, this question promptly came. "You live in Paris?" asked Leo XIII. "Yes, Holy Father." "Are you attached to one of the great parishes of the city?" "No, Holy Father. I simply officiate at the little church of Neuilly." "Ah, yes, Neuilly, that is in the direction of the Bois de Boulogne, is it not? And how old are you, my son?" "Thirty-four, Holy Father." A short interval followed. Leo XIII had at last lowered his eyes. With frail, ivory hand he took up the glass beside him, again stirred the syrup with the long spoon, and then drank a little of it. And all this he did gently and slowly, with a prudent, judicious air, as was his wont no doubt in everything. "I have read your book, my son," he resumed. "Yes, the greater part of it. As a rule only fragments are submitted to me. But a person who is interested in you handed me the volume, begging me to glance through it. And that is how I was able to look into it." As he spoke he made a slight gesture in which Pierre fancied he could detect a protest against the isolation in which he was kept by those surrounding him, who, as Monsignor Nani had said, maintained a strict watch in order that nothing they objected to might reach him. And thereupon the young priest ventured to say: "I thank your Holiness for having done me so much honour. No greater or more desired happiness could have befallen me." He was indeed so happy! On seeing the Pope so calm, so free from all signs of anger, and on hearing him speak in that way of his book, like one well acquainted with it, he imagined that his cause was won. "You are in relations with Monsieur le Vicomte Philibert de la Choue, are you not, my son?" continued Leo XIII. "I was struck by the resemblance between some of your ideas and those of that devoted servant of the Church, who has in other ways given us previous testimony of his good feelings." "Yes, indeed, Holy Father, Monsieur de la Choue is kind enough to show me some affection. We have often talked together, so it is not surprising that I should have given expression to some of his most cherished ideas." "No doubt, no doubt. For instance, there is that question of the working-class guilds with which he largely occupies himself--with which, in fact, he occupies himself rather too much. At the time of his last journey to Rome he spoke to me of it in the most pressing manner. And in the same way, quite recently, another of your compatriots, one of the best and worthiest of men, Monsieur le Baron de Fouras, who brought us that superb pilgrimage of the St. Peter's Pence Fund, never ceased his efforts until I consented to receive him, when he spoke to me on the same subject during nearly an hour. Only it must be said that they do not agree in the matter, for one begs me to do things which the other will not have me do on any account." Pierre realised that the conversation was straying away from his book, but he remembered having promised the Viscount that if he should see the Pope he would make an attempt to obtain from him a decisive expression of opinion on the famous question as to whether the working-class guilds or corporations should be free or obligatory, open or closed. And the unhappy Viscount, kept in Paris by the gout, had written the young priest letter after letter on the subject, whilst his rival the Baron, availing himself of the opportunity offered by the international pilgrimage, endeavoured to wring from the Pope an approval of his own views, with which he would have returned in triumph to France. Pierre conscientiously desired to keep his promise, and so he answered: "Your Holiness knows better than any of us in which direction true wisdom lies. Monsieur de Fouras is of opinion that salvation, the solution of the labour question, lies simply in the re-establishment of the old free corporations, whilst Monsieur de la Choue desires the corporations to be obligatory, protected by the state and governed by new regulations. This last conception is certainly more in agreement with the social ideas now prevalent in France. Should your Holiness condescend to express a favourable opinion in that sense, the young French Catholic party would certainly know how to turn it to good result, by producing quite a movement of the working classes in favour of the Church." In his quiet way Leo XIII responded: "But I cannot. Frenchmen always ask things of me which I cannot, will not do. What I will allow you to say on my behalf to Monsieur de la Choue is, that though I cannot content him I have not contented Monsieur de Fouras. He obtained from me nothing beyond the expression of my sincere good-will for the French working classes, who are so dear to me and who can do so much for the restoration of the faith. You must surely understand, however, that among you Frenchmen there are questions of detail, of mere organisation, so to say, into which I cannot possibly enter without imparting to them an importance which they do not have, and at the same time greatly discontenting some people should I please others." As the Pope pronounced these last words he smiled a pale smile, in which the shrewd, conciliatory politician, who was determined not to allow his infallibility to be compromised in useless and risky ventures, was fully revealed. And then he drank a little more syrup and wiped his mouth with his handkerchief, like a sovereign whose Court day is over and who takes his ease, having chosen this hour of solitude and silence to chat as long as he may be so inclined. Pierre, however, sought to bring him back to the subject of his book. "Monsieur de la Choue," said he, "has shown me so much kindness and is so anxious to know the fate reserved to my book--as if, indeed, it were his own--that I should have been very happy to convey to him an expression of your Holiness's approval." However, the Pope continued wiping his mouth and did not reply. "I became acquainted with the Viscount," continued Pierre, "at the residence of his Eminence Cardinal Bergerot, another great heart whose ardent charity ought to suffice to restore the faith in France." This time the effect was immediate. "Ah! yes, Monsieur le Cardinal Bergerot!" said Leo XIII. "I read that letter of his which is printed at the beginning of your book. He was very badly inspired in writing it to you; and you, my son, acted very culpably on the day you published it. I cannot yet believe that Monsieur le Cardinal Bergerot had read some of your pages when he sent you an expression of his complete and full approval. I prefer to charge him with ignorance and thoughtlessness. How could he approve of your attacks on dogma, your revolutionary theories which tend to the complete destruction of our holy religion? If it be a fact that he had read your book, the only excuse he can invoke is sudden and inexplicable aberration. It is true that a very bad spirit prevails among a small portion of the French clergy. What are called Gallican ideas are ever sprouting up like noxious weeds; there is a malcontent Liberalism rebellious to our authority which continually hungers for free examination and sentimental adventures." The Pope grew animated as he spoke. Italian words mingled with his hesitating French, and every now and again his full nasal voice resounded with the sonority of a brass instrument. "Monsieur le Cardinal Bergerot," he continued, "must be given to understand that we shall crush him on the day when we see in him nothing but a rebellious son. He owes the example of obedience; we shall acquaint him with our displeasure, and we hope that he will submit. Humility and charity are great virtues doubtless, and we have always taken pleasure in recognising them in him. But they must not be the refuge of a rebellious heart, for they are as nothing unless accompanied by obedience--obedience, obedience, the finest adornment of the great saints!" Pierre listened thunderstruck, overcome. He forgot himself to think of the apostle of kindliness and tolerance upon whose head he had drawn this all-powerful anger. So Don Vigilio had spoken the truth: over and above his--Pierre's--head the denunciations of the Bishops of Evreux and Poitiers were about to fall on the man who opposed their Ultramontane policy, that worthy and gentle Cardinal Bergerot, whose heart was open to all the woes of the lowly and the poor. This filled the young priest with despair; he could accept the denunciation of the Bishop of Tarbes acting on behalf of the Fathers of the Grotto, for that only fell on himself, as a reprisal for what he had written about Lourdes; but the underhand warfare of the others exasperated him, filled him with dolorous indignation. And from that puny old man before him with the slender, scraggy neck of an aged bird, he had suddenly seen such a wrathful, formidable Master arise that he trembled. How could he have allowed himself to be deceived by appearances on entering? How could he have imagined that he was simply in presence of a poor old man, worn out by age, desirous of peace, and ready for every concession? A blast had swept through that sleepy chamber, and all his doubts and his anguish awoke once more. Ah! that Pope, how thoroughly he answered to all the accounts that he, Pierre, had heard but had refused to believe; so many people had told him in Rome that he would find Leo XIII a man of intellect rather than of sentiment, a man of the most unbounded pride, who from his very youth had nourished the supreme ambition, to such a point indeed that he had promised eventual triumph to his relatives in order that they might make the necessary sacrifices for him, while since he had occupied the pontifical throne his one will and determination had been to reign, to reign in spite of all, to be the sole absolute and omnipotent master of the world! And now here was reality arising with irresistible force and confirming everything. And yet Pierre struggled, stubbornly clutching at his dream once more. "Oh! Holy Father," said he, "I should be grieved indeed if his Eminence should have a moment's worry on account of my unfortunate book. If I be guilty I can answer for my error, but his Eminence only obeyed the dictates of his heart and can only have transgressed by excess of love for the disinherited of the world!" Leo XIII made no reply. He had again raised his superb eyes, those eyes of ardent life, set, as it were, in the motionless countenance of an alabaster idol; and once more he was fixedly gazing at the young priest. And Pierre, amidst his returning feverishness, seemed to behold him growing in power and splendour, whilst behind him arose a vision of the ages, a vision of that long line of popes whom the young priest had previously evoked, the saintly and the proud ones, the warriors and the ascetics, the theologians and the diplomatists, those who had worn armour, those who had conquered by the Cross, those who had disposed of empires as of mere provinces which God had committed to their charge. And in particular Pierre beheld the great Gregory, the conqueror and founder, and Sixtus V, the negotiator and politician, who had first foreseen the eventual victory of the papacy over all the vanquished monarchies. Ah! what a throng of magnificent princes, of sovereign masters with powerful brains and arms, there was behind that pale, motionless, old man! What an accumulation of inexhaustible determination, stubborn genius, and boundless domination! The whole history of human ambition, the whole effort of the ages to subject the nations to the pride of one man, the greatest force that has ever conquered, exploited, and fashioned mankind in the name of its happiness! And even now, when territorial sovereignty had come to an end, how great was the spiritual sovereignty of that pale and slender old man, in whose presence women fainted, as if overcome by the divine splendour radiating from his person. Not only did all the resounding glories, the masterful triumphs of history spread out behind him, but heaven opened, the very spheres beyond life shone out in their dazzling mystery. He--the Pope--stood at the portals of heaven, holding the keys and opening those portals to human souls; all the ancient symbolism was revived, freed at last from the stains of royalty here below. "Oh! I beg you, Holy Father," resumed Pierre, "if an example be needed strike none other than myself. I have come, and am here; decide my fate, but do not aggravate my punishment by filling me with remorse at having brought condemnation on the innocent." Leo XIII still refrained from replying, though he continued to look at the young priest with burning eyes. And he, Pierre, no longer beheld Leo XIII, the last of a long line of popes, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Patriarch of the East, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the Temporal Domains of the Holy Church; he saw the Leo XIII that he had dreamt of, the awaited saviour who would dispel the frightful cataclysm in which rotten society was sinking. He beheld him with his supple, lofty intelligence and fraternal, conciliatory tactics, avoiding friction and labouring to bring about unity whilst with his heart overflowing with love he went straight to the hearts of the multitude, again giving the best of his blood in sign of the new alliance. He raised him aloft as the sole remaining moral authority, the sole possible bond of charity and peace--as the Father, in fact, who alone could stamp out injustice among his children, destroy misery, and re-establish the liberating Law of Work by bringing the nations back to the faith of the primitive Church, the gentleness and the wisdom of the true Christian community. And in the deep silence of that room the great figure which he thus set up assumed invincible all-powerfulness, extraordinary majesty. "Oh, I beseech you, Holy Father, listen to me," he said. "Do not even strike me, strike no one, neither a being nor a thing, anything that can suffer under the sun. Show kindness and indulgence to all, show all the kindness and indulgence which the sight of the world's sufferings must have set in you!" And then, seeing that Leo XIII still remained silent and still left him standing there, he sank down upon his knees, as if felled by the growing emotion which rendered his heart so heavy. And within him there was a sort of /debacle/; all his doubts, all his anguish and sadness burst forth in an irresistible stream. There was the memory of the frightful day that he had just spent, the tragic death of Dario and Benedetta, which weighed on him like lead; there were all the sufferings that he had experienced since his arrival in Rome, the destruction of his illusions, the wounds dealt to his delicacy, the buffets with which men and things had responded to his young enthusiasm; and, lying yet more deeply within his heart, there was the sum total of human wretchedness, the thought of famished ones howling for food, of mothers whose breasts were drained and who sobbed whilst kissing their hungry babes, of fathers without work, who clenched their fists and revolted--indeed, the whole of that hateful misery which is as old as mankind itself, which has preyed upon mankind since its earliest hour, and which he now had everywhere found increasing in horror and havoc, without a gleam of hope that it would ever be healed. And withal, yet more immense and more incurable, he felt within him a nameless sorrow to which he could assign no precise cause or name--an universal, an illimitable sorrow with which he melted despairingly, and which was perhaps the very sorrow of life. "O Holy Father!" he exclaimed, "I myself have no existence and my book has no existence. I desired, passionately desired to see your Holiness that I might explain and defend myself. But I no longer know, I can no longer recall a single one of the things that I wished to say, I can only weep, weep the tears which are stifling me. Yes, I am but a poor man, and the only need I feel is to speak to you of the poor. Oh! the poor ones, oh! the lowly ones, whom for two years past I have seen in our faubourgs of Paris, so wretched and so full of pain; the poor little children that I have picked out of the snow, the poor little angels who had eaten nothing for two days; the women too, consumed by consumption, without bread or fire, shivering in filthy hovels; and the men thrown on the street by slackness of trade, weary of begging for work as one begs for alms, sinking back into night, drunken with rage and harbouring the sole avenging thought of setting the whole city afire! And that night too, that terrible night, when in a room of horror I beheld a mother who had just killed herself with her five little ones, she lying on a palliasse suckling her last-born, and two little girls, two pretty little blondes, sleeping the last sleep beside her, while the two boys had succumbed farther away, one of them crouching against a wall, and the other lying upon the floor, distorted as though by a last effort to avoid death!. . . O Holy Father! I am but an ambassador, the messenger of those who suffer and who sob, the humble delegate of the humble ones who die of want beneath the hateful harshness, the frightful injustice of our present-day social system! And I bring your Holiness their tears, and I lay their tortures at your Holiness's feet, I raise their cry of woe, like a cry from the abyss, that cry which demands justice unless indeed the very heavens are to fall! Oh! show your loving kindness, Holy Father, show compassion!" The young man had stretched out his arms and implored Leo XIII with a gesture as of supreme appeal to the divine compassion. Then he continued: "And here, Holy Father, in this splendid and eternal Rome, is not the want and misery as frightful! During the weeks that I have roamed hither and thither among the dust of famous ruins, I have never ceased to come in contact with evils which demand cure. Ah! to think of all that is crumbling, all that is expiring, the agony of so much glory, the fearful sadness of a world which is dying of exhaustion and hunger! Yonder, under your Holiness's windows, have I not seen a district of horrors, a district of unfinished palaces stricken like rickety children who cannot attain to full growth, palaces which are already in ruins and have become places of refuge for all the woeful misery of Rome? And here, as in Paris, what a suffering multitude, what a shameless exhibition too of the social sore, the devouring cancer openly tolerated and displayed in utter heedlessness! There are whole families leading idle and hungry lives in the splendid sunlight; fathers waiting for work to fall to them from heaven; sons listlessly spending their days asleep on the dry grass; mothers and daughters, withered before their time, shuffling about in loquacious idleness. O Holy Father, already to-morrow at dawn may your Holiness open that window yonder and with your benediction awaken that great childish people, which still slumbers in ignorance and poverty! May your Holiness give it the soul it lacks, a soul with the consciousness of human dignity, of the necessary law of work, of free and fraternal life regulated by justice only! Yes, may your Holiness make a people out of that heap of wretches, whose excuse lies in all their bodily suffering and mental night, who live like the beasts that go by and die, never knowing nor understanding, yet ever lashed onward with the whip!" Pierre's sobs were gradually choking him, and it was only the impulse of his passion which still enabled him to speak. "And, Holy Father," he continued, "is it not to you that I ought to address myself in the name of all these wretched ones? Are you not the Father, and is it not before the Father that the messenger of the poor and the lowly should kneel as I am kneeling now? And is it not to the Father that he should bring the huge burden of their sorrows and ask for pity and help and justice? Yes, particularly for justice! And since you are the Father throw the doors wide open so that all may enter, even the humblest of your children, the faithful, the chance passers, even the rebellious ones and those who have gone astray but who will perhaps enter and whom you will save from the errors of abandonment! Be as the house of refuge on the dangerous road, the loving greeter of the wayfarer, the lamp of hospitality which ever burns, and is seen afar off and saves one in the storm! And since, O Father, you are power be salvation also! You can do all; you have centuries of domination behind you; you have nowadays risen to a moral authority which has rendered you the arbiter of the world; you are there before me like the very majesty of the sun which illumines and fructifies! Oh! be the star of kindness and charity, be the redeemer; take in hand once more the purpose of Jesus, which has been perverted by being left in the hands of the rich and the powerful who have ended by transforming the work of the Gospel into the most hateful of all monuments of pride and tyranny! And since the work has been spoilt, take it in hand, begin it afresh, place yourself on the side of the little ones, the lowly ones, the poor ones, and bring them back to the peace, the fraternity, and the justice of the original Christian communion. And say, O Father, that I have understood you, that I have sincerely expressed in this respect your most cherished ideas, the sole living desire of your reign! The rest, oh! the rest, my book, myself, what matter they! I do not defend myself, I only seek your glory and the happiness of mankind. Say that from the depths of this Vatican you have heard the rending of our corrupt modern societies! Say that you have quivered with loving pity, say that you desire to prevent the awful impending catastrophe by recalling the Gospel to the hearts of your children who are stricken with madness, and by bringing them back to the age of simplicity and purity when the first Christians lived together in innocent brotherhood! Yes, it is for that reason, is it not, that you have placed yourself, Father, on the side of the poor, and for that reason I am here and entreat you for pity and kindness and justice with my whole soul!" Then the young man gave way beneath his emotion, and fell all of a heap upon the floor amidst a rush of sobs--loud, endless sobs, which flowed forth in billows, coming as it were not only from himself but from all the wretched, from the whole world in whose veins sorrow coursed mingled with the very blood of life. He was there as the ambassador of suffering, as he had said. And indeed, at the foot of that mute and motionless pope, he was like the personification of the whole of human woe. Leo XIII, who was extremely fond of talking and could only listen to others with an effort, had twice raised one of his pallid hands to interrupt the young priest. Then, gradually overcome by astonishment, touched by emotion himself, he had allowed him to continue, to go on to the end of his outburst. A little blood even had suffused the snowy whiteness of the Pontiff's face whilst his eyes shone out yet more brilliantly. And as soon as he saw the young man speechless at his feet, shaken by those sobs which seemed to be wrenching away his heart, he became anxious and leant forward: "Calm yourself, my son, raise yourself," he said. But the sobs still continued, still flowed forth, all reason and respect being swept away amidst that distracted plaint of a wounded soul, that moan of suffering, dying flesh. "Raise yourself, my son, it is not proper," repeated Leo XIII. "There, take that chair." And with a gesture of authority he at last invited the young man to sit down. Pierre rose with pain, and at once seated himself in order that he might not fall. He brushed his hair back from his forehead, and wiped his scalding tears away with his hands, unable to understand what had just happened, but striving to regain his self-possession. "You appeal to the Holy Father," said Leo XIII. "Ah! rest assured that his heart is full of pity and affection for those who are unfortunate. But that is not the point, it is our holy religion which is in question. I have read your book, a bad book, I tell you so at once, the most dangerous and culpable of books, precisely on account of its qualities, the pages in which I myself felt interested. Yes, I was often fascinated, I should not have continued my perusal had I not felt carried away, transported by the ardent breath of your faith and enthusiasm. The subject 'New Rome' is such a beautiful one and impassions me so much! and certainly there is a book to be written under that title, but in a very different spirit to yours. You think that you have understood me, my son, that you have so penetrated yourself with my writings and actions that you simply express my most cherished ideas. But no, no, you have not understood me, and that is why I desired to see you, explain things to you, and convince you." It was now Pierre who sat listening, mute and motionless. Yet he had only come thither to defend himself; for three months past he had been feverishly desiring this interview, preparing his arguments and feeling confident of victory; and now although he heard his book spoken of as dangerous and culpable he did not protest, did not reply with any one of those good reasons which he had deemed so irresistible. But the fact was that intense weariness had come upon him, the appeal that he had made, the tears that he had shed had left him utterly exhausted. By and by, however, he would be brave and would say what he had resolved to say. "People do not understand me, do not understand me!" resumed Leo XIII with an air of impatient irritation. "It is incredible what trouble I have to make myself understood, in France especially! Take the temporal power for instance; how can you have fancied that the Holy See would ever enter into any compromise on that question? Such language is unworthy of a priest, it is the chimerical dream of one who is ignorant of the conditions in which the papacy has hitherto lived and in which it must still live if it does not desire to disappear. Cannot you see the sophistry of your argument that the Church becomes the loftier the more it frees itself from the cares of terrestrial sovereignty? A purely spiritual royalty, a sway of charity and love, indeed, 'tis a fine imaginative idea! But who will ensure us respect? Who will grant us the alms of a stone on which to rest our head if we are ever driven forth and forced to roam the highways? Who will guarantee our independence when we are at the mercy of every state? . . . No, no! this soil of Rome is ours, we have inherited it from the long line of our ancestors, and it is the indestructible, eternal soil on which the Church is built, so that any relinquishment would mean the downfall of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church. And, moreover, we could not relinquish it; we are bound by our oath to God and man." He paused for a moment to allow Pierre to answer him. But the latter to his stupefaction could say nothing, for he perceived that this pope spoke as he was bound to speak. All the heavy mysterious things which had weighed the young priest down whilst he was waiting in the ante-room, now became more and more clearly defined. They were, indeed, the things which he had seen and learnt since his arrival in Rome, the disillusions, the rebuffs which he had experienced, all the many points of difference between existing reality and imagination, whereby his dream of a return to primitive Christianity was already half shattered. And in particular he remembered the hour which he had spent on the dome of St. Peter's, when, in presence of the old city of glory so stubbornly clinging to its purple, he had realised that he was an imbecile with his idea of a purely spiritual pope. He had that day fled from the furious shouts of the pilgrims acclaiming the Pope-King. He had only accepted the necessity for money, that last form of servitude still binding the Pope to earth. But all had crumbled afterwards, when he had beheld the real Rome, the ancient city of pride and domination where the papacy can never be complete without the temporal power. Too many bonds, dogma, tradition, environment, the very soil itself rendered the Church for ever immutable. It was only in appearances that she could make concessions, and a time would even arrive when her concessions would cease, in presence of the impossibility of going any further without committing suicide. If his, Pierre's, dream of a New Rome were ever to be realised, it would only be faraway from ancient Rome. Only in some distant region could the new Christianity arise, for Catholicism was bound to die on the spot when the last of the popes, riveted to that land of ruins, should disappear beneath the falling dome of St. Peter's, which would fall as surely as the temple of Jupiter had fallen! And, as for that pope of the present day, though he might have no kingdom, though age might have made him weak and fragile, though his bloodless pallor might be that of some ancient idol of wax, he none the less flared with the red passion for universal sovereignty, he was none the less the stubborn scion of his ancestry, the Pontifex Maximus, the Caesar Imperator in whose veins flowed the blood of Augustus, master of the world. "You must be fully aware," resumed Leo XIII, "of the ardent desire for unity which has always possessed us. We were very happy on the day when we unified the rite, by imposing the Roman rite throughout the whole Catholic world. This is one of our most cherished victories, for it can do much to uphold our authority. And I hope that our efforts in the East will end by bringing our dear brethren of the dissident communions back to us, in the same way as I do not despair of convincing the Anglican sects, without speaking of the other so-called Protestant sects who will be compelled to return to the bosom of the only Church, the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church, when the times predicted by the Christ shall be accomplished. But a thing which you did not say in your book is that the Church can relinquish nothing whatever of dogma. On the contrary, you seem to fancy that an agreement might be effected, concessions made on either side, and that, my son, is a culpable thought, such language as a priest cannot use without being guilty of a crime. No, the truth is absolute, not a stone of the edifice shall be changed. Oh! in matters of form, we will do whatever may be asked. We are ready to adopt the most conciliatory courses if it be only a question of turning certain difficulties and weighing expressions in order to facilitate agreement. . . . Again, there is the part we have taken in contemporary socialism, and here too it is necessary that we should be understood. Those whom you have so well called the disinherited of the world, are certainly the object of our solicitude. If socialism be simply a desire for justice, and a constant determination to come to the help of the weak and the suffering, who can claim to give more thought to the matter and work with more energy than ourselves? Has not the Church always been the mother of the afflicted, the helper and benefactress of the poor? We are for all reasonable progress, we admit all new social forms which will promote peace and fraternity. . . . Only we can but condemn that socialism which begins by driving away God as a means of ensuring the happiness of mankind. Therein lies simple savagery, an abominable relapse into the primitive state in which there can only be catastrophe, conflagration, and massacre. And that again is a point on which you have not laid sufficient stress, for you have not shown in your book that there can be no progress outside the pale of the Church, that she is really the only initiatory and guiding power to whom one may surrender oneself without fear. Indeed, and in this again you have sinned, it seemed to me as if you set God on one side, as if for you religion lay solely in a certain bent of the soul, a florescence of love and charity, which sufficed one to work one's salvation. But that is execrable heresy. God is ever present, master of souls and bodies; and religion remains the bond, the law, the very governing power of mankind, apart from which there can only be barbarism in this world and damnation in the next. And, once again, forms are of no importance; it is sufficient that dogma should remain. Thus our adhesion to the French Republic proves that we in no wise mean to link the fate of religion to that of any form of government, however august and ancient the latter may be. Dynasties may have done their time, but God is eternal. Kings may perish, but God lives! And, moreover, there is nothing anti-Christian in the republican form of government; indeed, on the contrary, it would seem like an awakening of that Christian commonwealth to which you have referred in some really charming pages. The worst is that liberty at once becomes license, and that our desire for conciliation is often very badly requited. . . . But ah! what a wicked book you have written, my son,--with the best intentions, I am willing to believe,--and how your silence shows that you are beginning to recognise the disastrous consequences of your error." Pierre still remained silent, overcome, feeling as if his arguments would fall against some deaf, blind, and impenetrable rock, which it was useless to assail since nothing could enter it. And only one thing now preoccupied him; he wondered how it was that a man of such intelligence and such ambition had not formed a more distinct and exact idea of the modern world. He could divine that the Pope possessed much information and carried the map of Christendom with many of the needs, deeds, and hopes of the nations, in his mind amidst his complicated diplomatic enterprises; but at the same time what gaps there were in his knowledge! The truth, no doubt, was that his personal acquaintance with the world was confined to his brief nunciature at Brussels.* * That too, was in 1843-44, and the world is now utterly unlike what it was then!--Trans. During his occupation of the see of Perugia, which had followed, he had only mingled with the dawning life of young Italy. And for eighteen years now he had been shut up in the Vatican, isolated from the rest of mankind and communicating with the nations solely through his /entourage/, which was often most unintelligent, most mendacious, and most treacherous. Moreover, he was an Italian priest, a superstitious and despotic High Pontiff, bound by tradition, subjected to the influences of race environment, pecuniary considerations, and political necessities, not to speak of his great pride, the conviction that he ought to be implicitly obeyed in all things as the one sole legitimate power upon earth. Therein lay fatal causes of mental deformity, of errors and gaps in his extraordinary brain, though the latter certainly possessed many admirable qualities, quickness of comprehension and patient stubbornness of will and strength to draw conclusions and act. Of all his powers, however, that of intuition was certainly the most wonderful, for was it not this alone which, owing to his voluntary imprisonment, enabled him to divine the vast evolution of humanity at the present day? He was thus keenly conscious of the dangers surrounding him, of the rising tide of democracy and the boundless ocean of science which threatened to submerge the little islet where the dome of St. Peter's yet triumphed. And the object of all his policy, of all his labour, was to conquer so that he might reign. If he desired the unity of the Church it was in order that the latter might become strong and inexpugnable in the contest which he foresaw. If he preached conciliation, granting concessions in matters of form, tolerating audacious actions on the part of American bishops, it was because he deeply and secretly feared the dislocation of the Church, some sudden schism which might hasten disaster. And this fear explained his returning affection for the people, the concern which he displayed respecting socialism, and the Christian solution which he offered to the woes of earthly life. As Caesar was stricken low, was not the long contest for possession of the people over, and would not the people, the great silent multitude, speak out, and give itself to him, the Pope? He had begun experiments with France, forsaking the lost cause of the monarchy and recognising the Republic which he hoped might prove strong and victorious, for in spite of everything France remained the eldest daughter of the Church, the only Catholic nation which yet possessed sufficient strength to restore the temporal power at some propitious moment. And briefly Leo's desire was to reign. To reign by the support of France since it seemed impossible to do so by the support of Germany! To reign by the support of the people, since the people was now becoming the master, the bestower of thrones! To reign by means even of an Italian Republic, if only that Republic could wrest Rome from the House of Savoy and restore her to him, a federal Republic which would make him President of the United States of Italy pending the time when he should be President of the United States of Europe! To reign in spite of everybody and everything, such was his ambition, to reign over the world, even as Augustus had reigned, Augustus whose devouring blood alone upheld this expiring old man, yet so stubbornly clinging to power! "And another crime of yours, my son," resumed Leo XIII, "is that you have dared to ask for a new religion. That is impious, blasphemous, sacrilegious. There is but one religion in the world, our Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Religion, apart from which there can be but darkness and damnation. I quite understand that what you mean to imply is a return to early Christianity. But the error of so-called Protestantism, so culpable and so deplorable in its consequences, never had any other pretext. As soon as one departs from the strict observance of dogma and absolute respect for tradition one sinks into the most frightful precipices. . . . Ah! schism, schism, my son, is a crime beyond forgiveness, an assassination of the true God, a device of the loathsome Beast of Temptation which Hell sends into the world to work the ruin of the faithful! If your book contained nothing beyond those words 'a new religion,' it would be necessary to destroy and burn it like so much poison fatal in its effects upon the human soul." He continued at length on this subject, while Pierre recalled what Don Vigilio had told him of those all-powerful Jesuits who at the Vatican as elsewhere remained in the background, secretly but none the less decisively governing the Church. Was it true then that this pope, whose opportunist tendencies were so freely displayed, was one of them, a mere docile instrument in their hands, though he fancied himself penetrated with the doctrines of St. Thomas Aquinas? In any case, like them he compounded with the century, made approaches to the world, and was willing to flatter it in order that he might possess it. Never before had Pierre so cruelly realised that the Church was now so reduced that she could only live by dint of concessions and diplomacy. And he could at last distinctly picture that Roman clergy which at first is so difficult of comprehension to a French priest, that Government of the Church, represented by the pope, the cardinals, and the prelates, whom the Deity has appointed to govern and administer His mundane possessions--mankind and the earth. They begin by setting that very Deity on one side, in the depths of the tabernacle, and impose whatever dogmas they please as so many essential truths. That the Deity exists is evident, since they govern in His name which is sufficient for everything. And being by virtue of their charge the masters, if they consent to sign covenants, Concordats, it is only as matters of form; they do not observe them, and never yield to anything but force, always reserving the principle of their absolute sovereignty which must some day finally triumph. Pending that day's arrival, they act as diplomatists, slowly carrying on their work of conquest as the Deity's functionaries; and religion is but the public homage which they pay to the Deity, and which they organise with all the pomp and magnificence that is likely to influence the multitude. Their only object is to enrapture and conquer mankind in order that the latter may submit to the rule of the Deity, that is the rule of themselves, since they are the Deity's visible representatives, expressly delegated to govern the world. In a word, they straightway descend from Roman law, they are still but the offspring of the old pagan soul of Rome, and if they have lasted until now and if they rely on lasting for ever, until the awaited hour when the empire of the world shall be restored to them, it is because they are the direct heirs of the purple-robed Caesars, the uninterrupted and living progeny of the blood of Augustus. And thereupon Pierre felt ashamed of his tears. Ah! those poor nerves of his, that outburst of sentiment and enthusiasm to which he had given way! His very modesty was appalled, for he felt as if he had exhibited his soul in utter nakedness. And so uselessly too, in that room where nothing similar had ever been said before, and in presence of that Pontiff-King who could not understand him. His plan of the popes reigning by means of the poor and lowly now horrified him. His idea of the papacy going to the people, at last rid of its former masters, seemed to him a suggestion worthy of a wolf, for if the papacy should go to the people it would only be to prey upon it as the others had done. And really he, Pierre, must have been mad when he had imagined that a Roman prelate, a cardinal, a pope, was capable of admitting a return to the Christian commonwealth, a fresh florescence of primitive Christianity to pacify the aged nations whom hatred consumed. Such a conception indeed was beyond the comprehension of men who for centuries had regarded themselves as masters of the world, so heedless and disdainful of the lowly and the suffering, that they had at last become altogether incapable of either love or charity.* * The reader should bear in mind that these remarks apply to the Italian cardinals and prelates, whose vanity and egotism are remarkable.--Trans. Leo XIII, however, was still holding forth in his full, unwearying voice. And the young priest heard him saying: "Why did you write that page on Lourdes which shows such a thoroughly bad spirit? Lourdes, my son, has rendered great services to religion. To the persons who have come and told me of the touching miracles which are witnessed at the Grotto almost daily, I have often expressed my desire to see those miracles confirmed, proved by the most rigorous scientific tests. And, indeed, according to what I have read, I do not think that the most evilly disposed minds can entertain any further doubt on the matter, for the miracles /are/ proved scientifically in the most irrefutable manner. Science, my son, must be God's servant. It can do nothing against Him, it is only by His grace that it arrives at the truth. All the solutions which people nowadays pretend to discover and which seemingly destroy dogma will some day be recognised as false, for God's truth will remain victorious when the times shall be accomplished. That is a very simple certainty, known even to little children, and it would suffice for the peace and salvation of mankind, if mankind would content itself with it. And be convinced, my son, that faith and reason are not incompatible. Have we not got St. Thomas who foresaw everything, explained everything, regulated everything? Your faith has been shaken by the onslaught of the spirit of examination, you have known trouble and anguish which Heaven has been pleased to spare our priests in this land of ancient belief, this city of Rome which the blood of so many martyrs has sanctified. However, we have no fear of the spirit of examination, study St. Thomas, read him thoroughly and your faith will return, definitive and triumphant, firmer than ever." These remarks caused Pierre as much dismay as if fragments of the celestial vault were raining on his head. O God of truth, miracles--the miracles of Lourdes!--proved scientifically, faith in the dogmas compatible with reason, and the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas sufficient to instil certainty into the minds of this present generation! How could one answer that, and indeed why answer it at all? "Yes, yours is a most culpable and dangerous book," concluded Leo XIII; "its very title 'New Rome' is mendacious and poisonous, and the work is the more to be condemned as it offers every fascination of style, every perversion of generous fancy. Briefly it is such a book that a priest, if he conceived it in an hour of error, can have no other duty than that of burning it in public with the very hand which traced the pages of error and scandal." All at once Pierre rose up erect. He was about to exclaim: "'Tis true, I had lost my faith, but I thought I had found it again in the compassion which the woes of the world set in my heart. You were my last hope, the awaited saviour. But, behold, that again is a dream, you cannot take the work of Jesus in hand once more and pacify mankind so as to avert the frightful fratricidal war which is preparing. You cannot leave your throne and come along the roads with the poor and the humble to carry out the supreme work of fraternity. Well, it is all over with you, your Vatican and your St. Peter's. All is falling before the onslaught of the rising multitude and growing science. You no longer exist, there are only ruins and remnants left here." However, he did not speak those words. He simply bowed and said: "Holy Father, I make my submission and reprobate my book." And as he thus replied his voice trembled with disgust, and his open hands made a gesture of surrender as though he were yielding up his soul. The words he had chosen were precisely those of the required formula: /Auctor laudabiliter se subjecit et opus reprobavit/. "The author has laudably made his submission and reprobated his work." No error could have been confessed, no hope could have accomplished self-destruction with loftier despair, more sovereign grandeur. But what frightful irony: that book which he had sworn never to withdraw, and for whose triumph he had fought so passionately, and which he himself now denied and suppressed, not because he deemed it guilty, but because he had just realised that it was as futile, as chimerical as a lover's desire, a poet's dream. Ah! yes, since he had been mistaken, since he had merely dreamed, since he had found there neither the Deity nor the priest that he had desired for the happiness of mankind, why should he obstinately cling to the illusion of an awakening which was impossible! 'Twere better to fling his book on the ground like a dead leaf, better to deny it, better to cut it away like a dead limb that could serve no purpose whatever! Somewhat surprised by such a prompt victory Leo XIII raised a slight exclamation of content. "That is well said, my son, that is well said! You have spoken the only words that can become a priest." And in his evident satisfaction, he who left nothing to chance, who carefully prepared each of his audiences, deciding beforehand what words he would say, what gestures even he would make, unbent somewhat and displayed real /bonhomie/. Unable to understand, mistaking the real motives of this rebellious priest's submission, he tasted positive delight in having so easily reduced him to silence, the more so as report had stated the young man to be a terrible revolutionary. And thus his Holiness felt quite proud of such a conversion. "Moreover, my son," he said, "I did not expect less of one of your distinguished mind. There can be no loftier enjoyment than that of owning one's error, doing penance, and submitting." He had again taken the glass off the little table beside him and was stirring the last spoonful of syrup before drinking it. And Pierre was amazed at again finding him as he had found him at the outset, shrunken, bereft of sovereign majesty, and simply suggestive of some aged /bourgeois/ drinking his glass of sugared water before getting into bed. It was as if after growing and radiating, like a planet ascending to the zenith, he had again sunk to the level of the soil in all human mediocrity. Again did Pierre find him puny and fragile, with the slender neck of a little sick bird, and all those marks of senile ugliness which rendered him so exacting with regard to his portraits, whether they were oil paintings or photographs, gold medals, or marble busts, for of one and the other he would say that the artist must not portray "Papa Pecci" but Leo XIII, the great Pope, of whom he desired to leave such a lofty image to posterity. And Pierre, after momentarily ceasing to see them, was again embarrassed by the handkerchief which lay on the Pope's lap, and the dirty cassock soiled by snuff. His only feelings now were affectionate pity for such white old age, deep admiration for the stubborn power of life which had found a refuge in those dark black eyes, and respectful deference, such as became a worker, for that large brain which harboured such vast projects and overflowed with such innumerable ideas and actions. The audience was over, and the young man bowed low: "I thank your Holiness for having deigned to give me such a fatherly reception," he said. However, Leo XIII detained him for a moment longer, speaking to him of France and expressing his sincere desire to see her prosperous, calm, and strong for the greater advantage of the Church. And Pierre, during that last moment, had a singular vision, a strange haunting fancy. As he gazed at the Holy Father's ivory brow and thought of his great age and of his liability to be carried off by the slightest chill, he involuntarily recalled the scene instinct with a fierce grandeur which is witnessed each time a pope dies. He recalled Pius IX, Giovanni Mastai, two hours after death, his face covered by a white linen cloth, while the pontifical family surrounded him in dismay; and then Cardinal Pecci, the /Camerlingo/, approaching the bed, drawing aside the veil and dealing three taps with his silver hammer on the forehead of the deceased, repeating at each tap the call, "Giovanni! Giovanni! Giovanni!" And as the corpse made no response, turning, after an interval of a few seconds, and saying: "The Pope is dead!" And at the same time, yonder in the Via Giulia Pierre pictured Cardinal Boccanera, the present /Camerlingo/, awaiting his turn with his silver hammer, and he imagined Leo XIII, otherwise Gioachino Pecci, dead, like his predecessor, his face covered by a white linen cloth and his corpse surrounded by his prelates in that very room. And he saw the /Camerlingo/ approach, draw the veil aside and tap the ivory forehead, each time repeating the call: "Gioachino! Gioachino! Gioachino!" Then, as the corpse did not answer, he waited for a few seconds and turned and said "The Pope is dead!" Did Leo XIII remember how he had thrice tapped the forehead of Pius IX, and did he ever feel on the brow an icy dread of the silver hammer with which he had armed his own /Camerlingo/, the man whom he knew to be his implacable adversary, Cardinal Boccanera? "Go in peace, my son," at last said his Holiness by way of parting benediction. "Your transgression will be forgiven you since you have confessed and testify your horror for it." With distressful spirit, accepting humiliation as well-deserved chastisement for his chimerical fancies, Pierre retired, stepping backwards according to the customary ceremonial. He made three deep bows and crossed the threshold without turning, followed by the black eyes of Leo XIII, which never left him. Still he saw the Pope stretch his arm towards the table to take up the newspaper which he had been reading prior to the audience, for Leo retained a great fancy for newspapers, and was very inquisitive as to news, though in the isolation in which he lived he frequently made mistakes respecting the relative importance of articles. And once more the chamber sank into deep quietude, whilst the two lamps continued to diffuse a soft and steady light. In the centre of the /anticamera segreta/ Signor Squadra stood waiting black and motionless. And on noticing that Pierre in his flurry forgot to take his hat from the pier table, he himself discreetly fetched it and handed it to the young priest with a silent bow. Then without any appearance of haste, he walked ahead to conduct the visitor back to the Sala Clementina. The endless promenade through the interminable ante-rooms began once more, and there was still not a soul, not a sound, not a breath. In each empty room stood the one solitary lamp, burning low amidst a yet deeper silence than before. The wilderness seemed also to have grown larger as the night advanced, casting its gloom over the few articles of furniture scattered under the lofty gilded ceilings, the thrones, the stools, the pier tables, the crucifixes, and the candelabra which recurred in each succeeding room. And at last the Sala Clementina which the Swiss Guards had just quitted was reached again, and Signor Squadra, who hitherto had not turned his head, thereupon drew aside without word or gesture, and, saluting Pierre with a last bow, allowed him to pass on. Then he himself disappeared. And Pierre descended the two flights of the monumental staircase where the gas jets in their globes of ground glass glimmered like night lights amidst a wondrously heavy silence now that the footsteps of the sentries no longer resounded on the landings. And he crossed the Court of St. Damasus, empty and lifeless in the pale light of the lamps above the steps, and descended the Scala Pia, that other great stairway as dim, deserted, and void of life as all the rest, and at last passed beyond the bronze door which a porter slowly shut behind him. And with what a rumble, what a fierce roar did the hard metal close upon all that was within; all the accumulated darkness and silence; the dead, motionless centuries perpetuated by tradition; the indestructible idols, the dogmas, bound round for preservation like mummies; every chain which may weigh on one or hamper one, the whole apparatus of bondage and sovereign domination, with whose formidable clang all the dark, deserted halls re-echoed. Once more the young man found himself alone on the gloomy expanse of the Piazza of St. Peter's. Not a single belated pedestrian was to be seen. There was only the lofty, livid, ghost-like obelisk, emerging between its four candelabra, from the mosaic pavement of red and serpentine porphyry. The facade of the Basilica also showed vaguely, pale as a vision, whilst from it on either side like a pair of giant arms stretched the quadruple colonnade, a thicket of stone, steeped in obscurity. The dome was but a huge roundness scarcely discernible against the moonless sky; and only the jets of the fountains, which could at last be detected rising like slim phantoms ever on the move, lent a voice to the silence, the endless murmur of a plaint of sorrow coming one knew not whence. Ah! how great was the melancholy grandeur of that slumber, that famous square, the Vatican and St. Peter's, thus seen by night when wrapped in silence and darkness! But suddenly the clock struck ten with so slow and loud a chime that never, so it seemed, had more solemn and decisive an hour rung out amidst blacker and more unfathomable gloom. All Pierre's poor weary frame quivered at the sound as he stood motionless in the centre of the expanse. What! had he spent barely three-quarters of an hour, chatting up yonder with that white old man who had just wrenched all his soul away from him! Yes, it was the final wrench; his last belief had been torn from his bleeding heart and brain. The supreme experiment had been made, a world had collapsed within him. And all at once he thought of Monsignor Nani, and reflected that he alone had been right. He, Pierre, had been told that in any case he would end by doing what Monsignor Nani might desire, and he was now stupefied to find that he had done so. But sudden despair seized upon him, such atrocious distress of spirit that, from the depths of the abyss of darkness where he stood, he raised his quivering arms into space and spoke aloud: "No, no, Thou art not here, O God of life and love, O God of Salvation! But come, appear since Thy children are perishing because they know neither who Thou art, nor where to find Thee amidst the Infinite of the worlds!" Above the vast square spread the vast sky of dark-blue velvet, the silent disturbing Infinite, where the constellations palpitated. Over the roofs of the Vatican, Charles's Wain seemed yet more tilted, its golden wheels straying from the right path, its golden shaft upreared in the air; whilst yonder, over Rome towards the Via Giulia, Orion was about to disappear and already showed but one of the three golden stars which bedecked his belt. XV IT was nearly daybreak when Pierre fell asleep, exhausted by emotion and hot with fever. And at nine o'clock, when he had risen and breakfasted, he at once wished to go down into Cardinal Boccanera's rooms where the bodies of Dario and Benedetta had been laid in state in order that the members of the family, its friends and clients, might bring them their tears and prayers. Whilst he breakfasted, Victorine who, showing an active bravery amidst her despair, had not been to bed at all, told him of what had taken place in the house during the night and early morning. Donna Serafina, prude that she was, had again made an attempt to have the bodies separated; but this had proved an impossibility, as /rigor mortis/ had set in, and to part the lovers it would have been necessary to break their limbs. Moreover, the Cardinal, who had interposed once before, almost quarrelled with his sister on the subject, unwilling as he was that any one should disturb the lovers' last slumber, their union of eternity. Beneath his priestly garb there coursed the blood of his race, a pride in the passions of former times; and he remarked that if the family counted two popes among its forerunners, it had also been rendered illustrious by great captains and ardent lovers. Never would he allow any one to touch those two children, whose dolorous lives had been so pure and whom the grave alone had united. He was the master in his house, and they should be sewn together in the same shroud, and nailed together in the same coffin. Then too the religious service should take place at the neighbouring church of San Carlo, of which he was Cardinal-priest and where again he was the master. And if needful he would address himself to the Pope. And such being his sovereign will, so authoritatively expressed, everybody in the house had to bow submissively. Donna Serafina at once occupied herself with the laying-out. According to the Roman custom the servants were present, and Victorine as the oldest and most appreciated of them, assisted the relatives. All that could be done in the first instance was to envelop both corpses in Benedetta's unbound hair, thick and odorous hair, which spread out into a royal mantle; and they were then laid together in one shroud of white silk, fastened about their necks in such wise that they formed but one being in death. And again the Cardinal imperatively ordered that they should be brought into his apartments and placed on a state bed in the centre of the throne-room, so that a supreme homage might be rendered to them as to the last scions of the name, the two tragic lovers with whom the once resounding glory of the Boccaneras was about to return to earth. The story which had been arranged was already circulating through Rome; folks related how Dario had been carried off in a few hours by infectious fever, and how Benedetta, maddened by grief, had expired whilst clasping him in her arms to bid him a last farewell; and there was talk too of the royal honours which the bodies were to receive, the superb funeral nuptials which were to be accorded them as they lay clasped on their bed of eternal rest. All Rome, quite overcome by this tragic story of love and death, would talk of nothing else for several weeks. Pierre would have started for France that same night, eager as he was to quit the city of disaster where he had lost the last shreds of his faith, but he desired to attend the obsequies, and therefore postponed his departure until the following evening. And thus he would spend one more day in that old crumbling palace, near the corpse of that unhappy young woman to whom he had been so much attached and for whom he would try to find some prayers in the depths of his empty and lacerated heart. When he reached the threshold of the Cardinal's reception-rooms, he suddenly remembered his first visit to them. They still presented the same aspect of ancient princely pomp falling into decay and dust. The doors of the three large ante-rooms were wide open, and the rooms themselves were at that early hour still empty. In the first one, the servants' anteroom, there was nobody but Giacomo who stood motionless in his black livery in front of the old red hat hanging under the /baldacchino/ where spiders spun their webs between the crumbling tassels. In the second room, which the secretary formerly had occupied, Abbe Paparelli, the train-bearer, was softly walking up and down whilst waiting for visitors; and with his conquering humility, his all-powerful obsequiousness, he had never before so closely resembled an old maid, whitened and wrinkled by excess of devout observances. Finally, in the third ante-room, the /anticamera nobile/, where the red cap lay on a credence facing the large imperious portrait of the Cardinal in ceremonial costume, there was Don Vigilio who had left his little work-table to station himself at the door of the throne-room and there bow to those who crossed the threshold. And on that gloomy winter morning the rooms appeared more mournful and dilapidated than ever, the hangings frayed and ragged, the few articles of furniture covered with dust, the old wood-work crumbling beneath the continuous onslaught of worms, and the ceilings alone retaining their pompous show of gilding and painting. However, Pierre, to whom Abbe Paparelli addressed a profound bow, in which one divined the irony of a sort of dismissal given to one who was vanquished, felt more impressed by the mournful grandeur which those three dilapidated rooms presented that day, conducting as they did to the old throne-room, now a chamber of death, where the two last children of the house slept their last sleep. What a superb and sorrowful /gala/ of death! Every door wide open and all the emptiness of those over-spacious rooms, void of the throngs of ancient days and leading to the supreme affliction--the end of a race! The Cardinal had shut himself up in his little work-room where he received the relatives and intimates who desired to present their condolences to him, whilst Donna Serafina had chosen an adjoining apartment to await her lady friends who would come in procession until evening. And Pierre, informed of the ceremonial by Victorine, had in the first place to enter the throne-room, greeted as he passed by a deep bow from Don Vigilio who, pale and silent, did not seem to recognise him. A surprise awaited the young priest. He had expected such a lying-in-state as is seen in France and elsewhere, all windows closed so as to steep the room in night, and hundreds of candles burning round a /catafalco/, whilst from ceiling to floor the walls were hung with black drapery. He had been told that the bodies would lie in the throne-room because the antique chapel on the ground floor of the palazzo had been shut up for half a century and was in no condition to be used, whilst the Cardinal's little private chapel was altogether too small for any such ceremony. And thus it had been necessary to improvise an altar in the throne-room, an altar at which masses had been said ever since dawn. Masses and other religious services were moreover to be celebrated all day long in the private chapel; and two additional altars had even been set up, one in a small room adjoining the /anticamera nobile/ and the other in a sort of alcove communicating with the second anteroom: and in this wise priests, Franciscans, and members of other Orders bound by the vow of poverty, would simultaneously and without intermission celebrate the divine sacrifice on those four altars. The Cardinal, indeed, had desired that the Divine Blood should flow without pause under his roof for the redemption of those two dear souls which had flown away together. And thus in that mourning mansion, through those funeral halls the bells scarcely stopped tinkling for the elevation of the host, whilst the quivering murmur of Latin words ever continued, and consecrated wafers were continually broken and chalices drained, in such wise that the Divine Presence could not for a moment quit the heavy atmosphere all redolent of death. On the other hand, however, Pierre, to his great astonishment, found the throne-room much as it had been on the day of his first visit. The curtains of the four large windows had not even been drawn, and the grey, cold, subdued light of the gloomy winter morning freely entered. Under the ceiling of carved and gilded wood-work there were the customary red wall-hangings of /brocatelle/, worn away by long usage; and there was the old throne with the arm-chair turned to the wall, uselessly waiting for a visit from the Pope which would never more come. The principal changes in the aspect of the room were that its seats and tables had been removed, and that, in addition to the improvised altar arranged beside the throne, it now contained the state bed on which lay the bodies of Benedetta and Dario, amidst a profusion of flowers. The bed stood in the centre of the room on a low platform, and at its head were two lighted candles, one on either side. There was nothing else, nothing but that wealth of flowers, such a harvest of white roses that one wondered in what fairy garden they had been culled, sheaves of them on the bed, sheaves of them toppling from the bed, sheaves of them covering the step of the platform, and falling from that step on to the magnificent marble paving of the room. Pierre drew near to the bed, his heart faint with emotion. Those tapers whose little yellow flamelets scarcely showed in the pale daylight, that continuous low murmur of the mass being said at the altar, that penetrating perfume of roses which rendered the atmosphere so heavy, filled the antiquated, dusty room with a spirit of infinite woe, a lamentation of boundless mourning. And there was not a gesture, not a word spoken, save by the priest officiating at the altar, nothing but an occasional faint sound of stifled sobbing among the few persons present. Servants of the house constantly relieved one another, four always standing erect and motionless at the head of the bed, like faithful, familiar guards. From time to time Consistorial-Advocate Morano who, since early morning had been attending to everything, crossed the room with a silent step and the air of a man in a hurry. And at the edge of the platform all who entered, knelt, prayed, and wept. Pierre perceived three ladies there, their faces hidden by their handkerchiefs; and there was also an old priest who trembled with grief and hung his head in such wise that his face could not be distinguished. However, the young man was most moved by the sight of a poorly clad girl, whom he took for a servant, and whom sorrow had utterly prostrated on the marble slabs. Then in his turn he knelt down, and with the professional murmur of the lips sought to repeat the Latin prayers which, as a priest, he had so often said at the bedside of the departed. But his growing emotion confused his memory, and he became wrapt in contemplation of the lovers whom his eyes were unable to quit. Under the wealth of flowers which covered them the clasped bodies could scarcely be distinguished, but the two heads emerged from the silken shroud, and lying there on the same cushion, with their hair mingling, they were still beautiful, beautiful as with satisfied passion. Benedetta had kept her divinely gay, loving, and faithful face for eternity, transported with rapture at having rendered up her last breath in a kiss of love; whilst Dario retained a more dolorous expression amidst his final joy. And their eyes were still wide open, gazing at one another with a persistent and caressing sweetness which nothing would ever more disturb. Oh! God, was it true that yonder lay that Benedetta whom he, Pierre, had loved with such pure, brotherly affection? He was stirred to the very depths of his soul by the recollection of the delightful hours which he had spent with her. She had been so beautiful, so sensible, yet so full of passion! And he had indulged in so beautiful a dream, that of animating with his own liberating fraternal feelings that admirable creature with soul of fire and indolent air, in whom he had pictured all ancient Rome, and whom he would have liked to awaken and win over to the Italy of to-morrow. He had dreamt of enlarging her brain and heart by filling her with love for the lowly and the poor, with all present-day compassion for things and beings. How he would now have smiled at such a dream had not his tears been flowing! Yet how charming she had shown herself in striving to content him despite the invincible obstacles of race, education, and environment. She had been a docile pupil, but was incapable of any real progress. One day she had certainly seemed to draw nearer to him, as though her own sufferings had opened her soul to every charity; but the illusion of happiness had come back, and then she had lost all understanding of the woes of others, and had gone off in the egotism of her own hope and joy. Did that mean then that this Roman race must finish in that fashion, beautiful as it still often is, and fondly adored but so closed to all love for others, to those laws of charity and justice which, by regulating labour, can henceforth alone save this world of ours? Then there came another great sorrow to Pierre which left him stammering, unable to speak any precise prayer. He thought of the overwhelming reassertion of Nature's powers which had attended the death of those two poor children. Was it not awful? To have taken that vow to the Virgin, to have endured torment throughout life, and to end by plunging into death, on the loved one's neck, distracted by vain regret and eager for self-bestowal! The brutal fact of impending separation had sufficed for Benedetta to realise how she had duped herself, and to revert to the universal instinct of love. And therein, again once more, was the Church vanquished; therein again appeared the great god Pan, mating the sexes and scattering life around! If in the days of the Renascence the Church did not fall beneath the assault of the Venuses and Hercules then exhumed from the old soil of Rome, the struggle at all events continued as bitterly as ever; and at each and every hour new nations, overflowing with sap, hungering for life, and warring against a religion which was nothing more than an appetite for death, threatened to sweep away that old Holy Apostolic Roman and Catholic edifice whose walls were already tottering on all sides. And at that moment Pierre felt that the death of that adorable Benedetta was for him the supreme disaster. He was still looking at her and tears were scorching his eyes. She was carrying off his chimera. This time 'twas really the end. Rome the Catholic and the Princely was dead, lying there like marble on that funeral bed. She had been unable to go to the humble, the suffering ones of the world, and had just expired amidst the impotent cry of her egotistical passion when it was too late either to love or to create. Never more would children be born of her, the old Roman house was henceforth empty, sterile, beyond possibility of awakening. Pierre whose soul mourned such a splendid dream, was so grieved at seeing her thus motionless and frigid, that he felt himself fainting. He feared lest he might fall upon the step beside the bed, and so struggled to his feet and drew aside. Then, as he sought refuge in a window recess in order that he might try to recover self-possession, he was astonished to perceive Victorine seated there on a bench which the hangings half concealed. She had come thither by Donna Serafina's orders, and sat watching her two dear children as she called them, whilst keeping an eye upon all who came in and went out. And, on seeing the young priest so pale and nearly swooning, she at once made room for him to sit down beside her. "Ah!" he murmured after drawing a long breath, "may they at least have the joy of being together elsewhere, of living a new life in another world." Victorine, however, shrugged her shoulders, and in an equally low voice responded, "Oh! live again, Monsieur l'Abbe, why? When one's dead the best is to remain so and to sleep. Those poor children had enough torments on earth, one mustn't wish that they should begin again elsewhere." This naive yet deep remark on the part of an ignorant unbelieving woman sent a shudder through Pierre's very bones. To think that his own teeth had chattered with fear at night time at the sudden thought of annihilation. He deemed her heroic at remaining so undisturbed by any ideas of eternity and the infinite. And she, as she felt he was quivering, went on: "What can you suppose there should be after death? We've deserved a right to sleep, and nothing to my thinking can be more desirable and consoling." "But those two did not live," murmured Pierre, "so why not allow oneself the joy of believing that they now live elsewhere, recompensed for all their torments?" Victorine, however, again shook her head; "No, no," she replied. "Ah! I was quite right in saying that my poor Benedetta did wrong in torturing herself with all those superstitious ideas of hers when she was really so fond of her lover. Yes, happiness is rarely found, and how one regrets having missed it when it's too late to turn back! That's the whole story of those poor little ones. It's too late for them, they are dead." Then in her turn she broke down and began to sob. "Poor little ones! poor little ones! Look how white they are, and think what they will be when only the bones of their heads lie side by side on the cushion, and only the bones of their arms still clasp one another. Ah! may they sleep, may they sleep; at least they know nothing and feel nothing now." A long interval of silence followed. Pierre, amidst the quiver of his own doubts, the anxious desire which in common with most men he felt for a new life beyond the grave, gazed at this woman who did not find priests to her fancy, and who retained all her Beauceronne frankness of speech, with the tranquil, contented air of one who has ever done her duty in her humble station as a servant, lost though she had been for five and twenty years in a land of wolves, whose language she had not even been able to learn. Ah! yes, tortured as the young man was by his doubts, he would have liked to be as she was, a well-balanced, healthy, ignorant creature who was quite content with what the world offered, and who, when she had accomplished her daily task, went fully satisfied to bed, careless as to whether she might never wake again! However, as Pierre's eyes once more sought the state bed, he suddenly recognised the old priest, who was kneeling on the step of the platform, and whose features he had hitherto been unable to distinguish. "Isn't that Abbe Pisoni, the priest of Santa Brigida, where I sometimes said mass?" he inquired. "The poor old man, how he weeps!" In her quiet yet desolate voice Victorine replied, "He has good reason to weep. He did a fine thing when he took it into his head to marry my poor Benedetta to Count Prada. All those abominations would never have happened if the poor child had been given her Dario at once. But in this idiotic city they are all mad with their politics; and that old priest, who is none the less a very worthy man, thought he had accomplished a real miracle and saved the world by marrying the Pope and the King as he said with a soft laugh, poor old /savant/ that he is, who for his part has never been in love with anything but old stones--you know, all that antiquated rubbish of theirs of a hundred thousand years ago. And now, you see, he can't keep from weeping. The other one too came not twenty minutes ago, Father Lorenza, the Jesuit who became the Contessina's confessor after Abbe Pisoni, and who undid what the other had done. Yes, a handsome man he is, but a fine bungler all the same, a perfect killjoy with all the crafty hindrances which he brought into that divorce affair. I wish you had been here to see what a big sign of the cross he made after he had knelt down. He didn't cry, he didn't: he seemed to be saying that as things had ended so badly it was evident that God had withdrawn from all share in the business. So much the worse for the dead!" Victorine spoke gently and without a pause, as it relieved her, to empty her heart after the terrible hours of bustle and suffocation which she had spent since the previous day. "And that one yonder," she resumed in a lower voice, "don't you recognise her?" She glanced towards the poorly clad girl whom Pierre had taken for a servant, and whom intensity of grief had prostrated beside the bed. With a gesture of awful suffering this girl had just thrown back her head, a head of extraordinary beauty, enveloped by superb black hair. "La Pierina!" said Pierre. "Ah! poor girl." Victorine made a gesture of compassion and tolerance. "What would you have?" said she, "I let her come up. I don't know how she heard of the trouble, but it's true that she is always prowling round the house. She sent and asked me to come down to her, and you should have heard her sob and entreat me to let her see her Prince once more! Well, she does no harm to anybody there on the floor, looking at them both with her beautiful loving eyes full of tears. She's been there for half an hour already, and I had made up my mind to turn her out if she didn't behave properly. But since she's so quiet and doesn't even move, she may well stop and fill her heart with the sight of them for her whole life long." It was really sublime to see that ignorant, passionate, beautiful Pierina thus overwhelmed below the nuptial couch on which the lovers slept for all eternity. She had sunk down on her heels, her arms hanging heavily beside her, and her hands open. And with raised face, motionless as in an ecstasy of suffering, she did not take her eyes from that adorable and tragic pair. Never had human face displayed such beauty, such a dazzling splendour of suffering and love; never had there been such a portrayal of ancient Grief, not however cold like marble but quivering with life. What was she thinking of, what were her sufferings, as she thus fixedly gazed at her Prince now and for ever locked in her rival's arms? Was it some jealousy which could have no end that chilled the blood of her veins? Or was it mere suffering at having lost him, at realising that she was looking at him for the last time, without thought of hatred for that other woman who vainly sought to warm him with her arms as icy cold as his own? There was still a soft gleam in the poor girl's blurred eyes, and her lips were still lips of love though curved in bitterness by grief. She found the lovers so pure and beautiful as they lay there amidst that profusion of flowers! And beautiful herself, beautiful like a queen, ignorant of her own charms, she remained there breathless, a humble servant, a loving slave as it were, whose heart had been wrenched away and carried off by her dying master. People were now constantly entering the room, slowly approaching with mournful faces, then kneeling and praying for a few minutes, and afterwards retiring with the same mute, desolate mien. A pang came to Pierre's heart when he saw Dario's mother, the ever beautiful Flavia, enter, accompanied by her husband, the handsome Jules Laporte, that ex-sergeant of the Swiss Guard whom she had turned into a Marquis Montefiori. Warned of the tragedy directly it had happened, she had already come to the mansion on the previous evening; but now she returned in grand ceremony and full mourning, looking superb in her black garments which were well suited to her massive, Juno-like style of beauty. When she had approached the bed with a queenly step, she remained for a moment standing with two tears at the edges of her eyelids, tears which did not fall. Then, at the moment of kneeling, she made sure that Jules was beside her, and glanced at him as if to order him to kneel as well. They both sank down beside the platform and remained in prayer for the proper interval, she very dignified in her grief and he even surpassing her, with the perfect sorrow-stricken bearing of a man who knew how to conduct himself in every circumstance of life, even the gravest. And afterwards they rose together, and slowly betook themselves to the entrance of the private apartments where the Cardinal and Donna Serafina were receiving their relatives and friends. Five ladies then came in one after the other, while two Capuchins and the Spanish ambassador to the Holy See went off. And Victorine, who for a few minutes had remained silent, suddenly resumed. "Ah! there's the little Princess, she's much afflicted too, and, no wonder, she was so fond of our Benedetta." Pierre himself had just noticed Celia coming in. She also had attired herself in full mourning for this abominable visit of farewell. Behind her was a maid, who carried on either arm a huge sheaf of white roses. "The dear girl!" murmured Victorine, "she wanted her wedding with her Attilio to take place on the same day as that of the poor lovers who lie there. And they, alas! have forestalled her, their wedding's over; there they sleep in their bridal bed." Celia had at once crossed herself and knelt down beside the bed, but it was evident that she was not praying. She was indeed looking at the lovers with desolate stupefaction at finding them so white and cold with a beauty as of marble. What! had a few hours sufficed, had life departed, would those lips never more exchange a kiss! She could again see them at the ball of that other night, so resplendent and triumphant with their living love. And a feeling of furious protest rose from her young heart, so open to life, so eager for joy and sunlight, so angry with the hateful idiocy of death. And her anger and affright and grief, as she thus found herself face to face with the annihilation which chills every passion, could be read on her ingenuous, candid, lily-like face. She herself stood on the threshold of a life of passion of which she yet knew nothing, and behold! on that very threshold she encountered the corpses of those dearly loved ones, the loss of whom racked her soul with grief. She gently closed her eyes and tried to pray, whilst big tears fell from under her lowered eyelids. Some time went by amidst the quivering silence, which only the murmur of the mass near by disturbed. At last she rose and took the sheaves of flowers from her maid; and standing on the platform she hesitated for a moment, then placed the roses to the right and left of the cushion on which the lovers' heads were resting, as if she wished to crown them with those blossoms, perfume their young brows with that sweet and powerful aroma. Then, though her hands remained empty she did not retire, but remained there leaning over the dead ones, trembling and seeking what she might yet say to them, what she might leave them of herself for ever more. An inspiration came to her, and she stooped forward, and with her whole, deep, loving soul set a long, long kiss on the brow of either spouse. "Ah! the dear girl!" said Victorine, whose tears were again flowing. "You saw that she kissed them, and nobody had yet thought of that, not even the poor young Prince's mother. Ah! the dear little heart, she surely thought of her Attilio." However, as Celia turned to descend from the platform she perceived La Pierina, whose figure was still thrown back in an attitude of mute and dolorous adoration. And she recognised the girl and melted with pity on seeing such a fit of sobbing come over her that her whole body, her goddess-like hips and bosom, shook as with frightful anguish. That agony of love quite upset the little Princess, and she could be heard murmuring in a tone of infinite compassion, "Calm yourself, my dear, calm yourself. Be reasonable, my dear, I beg you." Then as La Pierina, thunderstruck at thus being pitied and succoured, began to sob yet more loudly so as to create quite a stir in the room, Celia raised her and held her up with both arms, for fear lest she should fall again. And she led her away in a sisterly clasp, like a sister of affection and despair, lavishing the most gentle, consoling words upon her as they went. "Follow them, go and see what becomes of them," Victorine said to Pierre. "I do not want to stir from here, it quiets me to watch over my two poor children." A Capuchin was just beginning a fresh mass at the improvised altar, and the low Latin psalmody went on again, while in the adjoining ante-chamber, where another mass was being celebrated, a bell was heard tinkling for the elevation of the host. The perfume of the flowers was becoming more violent and oppressive amidst the motionless and mournful atmosphere of the spacious throne-room. The four servants standing at the head of the bed, as for a /gala/ reception, did not stir, and the procession of visitors ever continued, men and women entering in silence, suffocating there for a moment, and then withdrawing, carrying away with them the never-to-be-forgotten vision of the two tragic lovers sleeping their eternal sleep. Pierre joined Celia and La Pierina in the /anticamera nobile/, where stood Don Vigilio. The few seats belonging to the throne-room had there been placed in a corner, and the little Princess had just compelled the work-girl to sit down in an arm-chair, in order that she might recover self-possession. Celia was in ecstasy before her, enraptured at finding her so beautiful, more beautiful than any other, as she said. Then she spoke of the two dead ones, who also had seemed to her very beautiful, endowed with an extraordinary beauty, at once superb and sweet; and despite all her tears, she still remained in a transport of admiration. On speaking with La Pierina, Pierre learnt that her brother Tito was at the hospital in great danger from the effects of a terrible knife thrust dealt him in the side; and since the beginning of the winter, said the girl, the misery in the district of the castle fields had become frightful. It was a source of great suffering to every one, and those whom death carried off had reason to rejoice. Celia, however, with a gesture of invincible hopefulness, brushed all idea of suffering, even of death, aside. "No, no, we must live," she said. "And beauty is sufficient for life. Come, my dear, do not remain here, do not weep any more; live for the delight of being beautiful." Then she led La Pierina away, and Pierre remained seated in one of the arm-chairs, overcome by such sorrow and weariness that he would have liked to remain there for ever. Don Vigilio was still bowing to each fresh visitor that arrived. A severe attack of fever had come on him during the night, and he was shivering from it, with his face very yellow, and his eyes ablaze and haggard. He constantly glanced at Pierre, as if anxious to speak to him, but his dread lest he should be seen by Abbe Paparelli, who stood in the next ante-room, the door of which was wide open, doubtless restrained him, for he did not cease to watch the train-bearer. At last the latter was compelled to absent himself for a moment, and the secretary thereupon approached the young Frenchman. "You saw his Holiness last night," he said; and as Pierre gazed at him in stupefaction he added: "Oh! everything gets known, I told you so before. Well, and you purely and simply withdrew your book, did you not?" The young priest's increasing stupor was sufficient answer, and without leaving him time to reply, Don Vigilio went on: "I suspected it, but I wished to make certain. Ah! that's just the way they work! Do you believe me now, have you realised that they stifle those whom they don't poison?" He was no doubt referring to the Jesuits. However, after glancing into the adjoining room to make sure that Abbe Paparelli had not returned thither, he resumed: "And what has Monsignor Nani just told you?" "But I have not yet seen Monsignor Nani," was Pierre's reply. "Oh! I thought you had. He passed through before you arrived. If you did not see him in the throne-room he must have gone to pay his respects to Donna Serafina and his Eminence. However, he will certainly pass this way again; you will see him by and by." Then with the bitterness of one who was weak, ever terror-smitten and vanquished, Don Vigilio added: "I told you that you would end by doing what Monsignor Nani desired." With these words, fancying that he heard the light footfall of Abbe Paparelli, he hastily returned to his place and bowed to two old ladies who just then walked in. And Pierre, still seated, overcome, his eyes wearily closing, at last saw the figure of Nani arise before him in all its reality so typical of sovereign intelligence and address. He remembered what Don Vigilio, on the famous night of his revelations, had told him of this man who was far too shrewd to have labelled himself, so to say, with an unpopular robe, and who, withal, was a charming prelate with thorough knowledge of the world, acquired by long experience at different nunciatures and at the Holy Office, mixed up in everything, informed with regard to everything, one of the heads, one of the chief minds in fact of that modern black army, which by dint of Opportunism hopes to bring this century back to the Church. And all at once, full enlightenment fell on Pierre, he realised by what supple, clever strategy that man had led him to the act which he desired of him, the pure and simple withdrawal of his book, accomplished with every appearance of free will. First there had been great annoyance on Nani's part on learning that the book was being prosecuted, for he feared lest its excitable author might be prompted to some dangerous revolt; then plans had at once been formed, information had been collected concerning this young priest who seemed so capable of schism, he had been urged to come to Rome, invited to stay in an ancient mansion whose very walls would chill and enlighten him. And afterwards had come the ever recurring obstacles, the system of prolonging his sojourn in Rome by preventing him from seeing the Pope, but promising him the much-desired interview when the proper time should come, that is after he had been sent hither and thither and brought into collision with one and all. And finally, when every one and everything had shaken, wearied, and disgusted him, and he was restored once more to his old doubts, there had come the audience for which he had undergone all this preparation, that visit to the Pope which was destined to shatter whatever remained to him of his dream. Pierre could picture Nani smiling at him and speaking to him, declaring that the repeated delays were a favour of Providence, which would enable him to visit Rome, study and understand things, reflect, and avoid blunders. How delicate and how profound had been the prelate's diplomacy in thus crushing his feelings beneath his reason, appealing to his intelligence to suppress his work without any scandalous struggle as soon as his knowledge of the real Rome should have shown him how supremely ridiculous it was to dream of a new one! At that moment Pierre perceived Nani in person just coming from the throne-room, and did not feel the irritation and rancour which he had anticipated. On the contrary he was glad when the prelate, in his turn seeing him, drew near and held out his hand. Nani, however, did not wear his wonted smile, but looked very grave, quite grief-stricken. "Ah! my dear son," he said, "what a frightful catastrophe! I have just left his Eminence, he is in tears. It is horrible, horrible!" He seated himself on one of the chairs, inviting the young priest, who had risen, to do the same; and for a moment he remained silent, weary with emotion no doubt, and needing a brief rest to free himself of the weight of thoughts which visibly darkened his usually bright face. Then, with a gesture, he strove to dismiss that gloom, and recover his amiable cordiality. "Well, my dear son," he began, "you saw his Holiness?" "Yes, Monseigneur, yesterday evening; and I thank you for your great kindness in satisfying my desire." Nani looked at him fixedly, and his invincible smile again returned to his lips. "You thank me. . . . I can well see that you behaved sensibly and laid your full submission at his Holiness's feet. I was certain of it, I did not expect less of your fine intelligence. But, all the same, you render me very happy, for I am delighted to find that I was not mistaken concerning you." And then, setting aside his reserve, the prelate went on: "I never discussed things with you. What would have been the good of it, since facts were there to convince you? And now that you have withdrawn your book a discussion would be still more futile. However, just reflect that if it were possible for you to bring the Church back to her early period, to that Christian community which you have sketched so delightfully, she could only again follow the same evolutions as those in which God the first time guided her; so that, at the end of a similar number of centuries, she would find herself exactly in the position which she occupies to-day. No, what God has done has been well done, the Church such as she is must govern the world, such as it is; it is for her alone to know how she will end by firmly establishing her reign here below. And this is why your attack upon the temporal power was an unpardonable fault, a crime even, for by dispossessing the papacy of her domains you hand her over to the mercy of the nations. Your new religion is but the final downfall of all religion, moral anarchy, the liberty of schism, in a word, the destruction of the divine edifice, that ancient Catholicism which has shown such prodigious wisdom and solidity, which has sufficed for the salvation of mankind till now, and will alone be able to save it to-morrow and always." Pierre felt that Nani was sincere, pious even, and really unshakable in his faith, loving the Church like a grateful son, and convinced that she was the only social organisation which could render mankind happy. And if he were bent on governing the world, it was doubtless for the pleasure of governing, but also in the conviction that no one could do so better than himself. "Oh! certainly," said he, "methods are open to discussion. I desire them to be as affable and humane as possible, as conciliatory as can be with this present century, which seems to be escaping us, precisely because there is a misunderstanding between us. But we shall bring it back, I am sure of it. And that is why, my dear son, I am so pleased to see you return to the fold, thinking as we think, and ready to battle on our side, is that not so?" In Nani's words the young priest once more found the arguments of Leo XIII. Desiring to avoid a direct reply, for although he now felt no anger the wrenching away of his dream had left him a smarting wound, he bowed, and replied slowly in order to conceal the bitter tremble of his voice: "I repeat, Monseigneur, that I deeply thank you for having amputated my vain illusions with the skill of an accomplished surgeon. A little later, when I shall have ceased to suffer, I shall think of you with eternal gratitude." Monsignor Nani still looked at him with a smile. He fully understood that this young priest would remain on one side, that as an element of strength he was lost to the Church. What would he do now? Something foolish no doubt. However, the prelate had to content himself with having helped him to repair his first folly; he could not foresee the future. And he gracefully waved his hand as if to say that sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof. "Will you allow me to conclude, my dear son?" he at last exclaimed. "Be sensible, your happiness as a priest and a man lies in humility. You will be terribly unhappy if you use the great intelligence which God has given you against Him." Then with another gesture he dismissed this affair, which was all over, and with which he need busy himself no more. And thereupon the other affair came back to make him gloomy, that other affair which also was drawing to a close, but so tragically, with those two poor children slumbering in the adjoining room. "Ah!" he resumed, "that poor Princess and that poor Cardinal quite upset my heart! Never did catastrophe fall so cruelly on a house. No, no, it is indeed too much, misfortune goes too far--it revolts one's soul!" Just as he finished a sound of voices came from the second ante-room, and Pierre was thunderstruck to see Cardinal Sanguinetti go by, escorted with the greatest obsequiousness by Abbe Paparelli. "If your most Reverend Eminence will have the extreme kindness to follow me," the train-bearer was saying, "I will conduct your most Reverend Eminence myself." "Yes," replied Sanguinetti, "I arrived yesterday evening from Frascati, and when I heard the sad news, I at once desired to express my sorrow and offer consolation." "Your Eminence will perhaps condescend to remain for a moment near the bodies. I will afterwards escort your Eminence to the private apartments." "Yes, by all means. I desire every one to know how greatly I participate in the sorrow which has fallen on this illustrious house." Then Sanguinetti entered the throne-room, leaving Pierre quite aghast at his quiet audacity. The young priest certainly did not accuse him of direct complicity with Santobono, he did not even dare to measure how far his moral complicity might go. But on seeing him pass by like that, his brow so lofty, his speech so clear, he had suddenly felt convinced that he knew the truth. How or through whom, he could not have told; but doubtless crimes become known in those shady spheres by those whose interest it is to know of them. And Pierre remained quite chilled by the haughty fashion in which that man presented himself, perhaps to stifle suspicion and certainly to accomplish an act of good policy by giving his rival a public mark of esteem and affection. "The Cardinal! Here!" Pierre murmured despite himself. Nani, who followed the young man's thoughts in his childish eyes, in which all could be read, pretended to mistake the sense of his exclamation. "Yes," said he, "I learnt that the Cardinal returned to Rome yesterday evening. He did not wish to remain away any longer; the Holy Father being so much better that he might perhaps have need of him." Although these words were spoken with an air of perfect innocence, Pierre was not for a moment deceived by them. And having in his turn glanced at the prelate, he was convinced that the latter also knew the truth. Then, all at once, the whole affair appeared to him in its intricacy, in the ferocity which fate had imparted to it. Nani, an old intimate of the Palazzo Boccanera, was not heartless, he had surely loved Benedetta with affection, charmed by so much grace and beauty. One could thus explain the victorious manner in which he had at last caused her marriage to be annulled. But if Don Vigilio were to be believed, that divorce, obtained by pecuniary outlay, and under pressure of the most notorious influences, was simply a scandal which he, Nani, had in the first instance spun out, and then precipitated towards a resounding finish with the sole object of discrediting the Cardinal and destroying his chances of the tiara on the eve of the Conclave which everybody thought imminent. It seemed certain, too, that the Cardinal, uncompromising as he was, could not be the candidate of Nani, who was so desirous of universal agreement, and so the latter's long labour in that house, whilst conducing to the happiness of the Contessina, had been designed to frustrate Donna Serafina and Cardinal Pio in their burning ambition, that third triumphant elevation to the papacy which they sought to secure for their ancient family. However, if Nani had always desired to baulk this ambition, and had even at one moment placed his hopes in Sanguinetti and fought for him, he had never imagined that Boccanera's foes would go to the point of crime, to such an abomination as poison which missed its mark and killed the innocent. No, no, as he himself said, that was too much, and made one's soul rebel. He employed more gentle weapons; such brutality filled him with indignation; and his face, so pinky and carefully tended, still wore the grave expression of his revolt in presence of the tearful Cardinal and those poor lovers stricken in his stead. Believing that Sanguinetti was still the prelate's secret candidate, Pierre was worried to know how far their moral complicity in this baleful affair might go. So he resumed the conversation by saying: "It is asserted that his Holiness is on bad terms with his Eminence Cardinal Sanguinetti. Of course the reigning pope cannot look on the future pope with a very kindly eye." At this, Nani for a moment became quite gay in all frankness. "Oh," said he, "the Cardinal has quarrelled and made things up with the Vatican three or four times already. And, in any event, the Holy Father has no motive for posthumous jealousy; he knows very well that he can give his Eminence a good greeting." Then, regretting that he had thus expressed a certainty, he added: "I am joking, his Eminence is altogether worthy of the high fortune which perhaps awaits him." Pierre knew what to think however; Sanguinetti was certainly Nani's candidate no longer. It was doubtless considered that he had used himself up too much by his impatient ambition, and was too dangerous by reason of the equivocal alliances which in his feverishness he had concluded with every party, even that of patriotic young Italy. And thus the situation became clearer. Cardinals Sanguinetti and Boccanera devoured and suppressed one another; the first, ever intriguing, accepting every compromise, dreaming of winning Rome back by electoral methods; and the other, erect and motionless in his stern maintenance of the past, excommunicating the century, and awaiting from God alone the miracle which would save the Church. And, indeed, why not leave the two theories, thus placed face to face, to destroy one another, including all the extreme, disquieting views which they respectively embodied? If Boccanera had escaped the poison, he had none the less become an impossible candidate, killed by all the stories which had set Rome buzzing; while if Sanguinetti could say that he was rid of a rival, he had at the same time dealt a mortal blow to his own candidature, by displaying such passion for power, and such unscrupulousness with regard to the methods he employed, as to be a danger for every one. Monsignor Nani was visibly delighted with this result; neither candidate was left, it was like the legendary story of the two wolves who fought and devoured one another so completely that nothing of either of them was found left, not even their tails! And in the depths of the prelate's pale eyes, in the whole of his discreet person, there remained nothing but redoubtable mystery: the mystery of the yet unknown, but definitively selected candidate who would be patronised by the all-powerful army of which he was one of the most skilful leaders. A man like him always had a solution ready. Who, then, who would be the next pope? However, he now rose and cordially took leave of the young priest. "I doubt if I shall see you again, my dear son," he said; "I wish you a good journey." Still he did not go off, but continued to look at Pierre with his penetrating eyes, and finally made him sit down again and did the same himself. "I feel sure," he said, "that you will go to pay your respects to Cardinal Bergerot as soon as you have returned to France. Kindly tell him that I respectfully desired to be reminded to him. I knew him a little at the time when he came here for his hat. He is one of the great luminaries of the French clergy. Ah! a man of such intelligence would only work for a good understanding in our holy Church. Unfortunately I fear that race and environment have instilled prejudices into him, for he does not always help us." Pierre, who was surprised to hear Nani speak of the Cardinal for the first time at this moment of farewell, listened with curiosity. Then in all frankness he replied: "Yes, his Eminence has very decided ideas about our old Church of France. For instance, he professes perfect horror of the Jesuits." With a light exclamation Nani stopped the young man. And he wore the most sincerely, frankly astonished air that could be imagined. "What! horror of the Jesuits! In what way can the Jesuits disquiet him? The Jesuits, there are none, that's all over! Have you seen any in Rome? Have they troubled you in any way, those poor Jesuits who haven't even a stone of their own left here on which to lay their heads? No, no, that bogey mustn't be brought up again, it's childish." Pierre in his turn looked at him, marvelling at his perfect ease, his quiet courage in dealing with this burning subject. He did not avert his eyes, but displayed an open face like a book of truth. "Ah!" he continued, "if by Jesuits you mean the sensible priests who, instead of entering into sterile and dangerous struggles with modern society, seek by human methods to bring it back to the Church, why, then of course we are all of us more or less Jesuits, for it would be madness not to take into account the times in which one lives. And besides, I won't haggle over words; they are of no consequence! Jesuits, well, yes, if you like, Jesuits!" He was again smiling with that shrewd smile of his in which there was so much raillery and so much intelligence. "Well, when you see Cardinal Bergerot tell him that it is unreasonable to track the Jesuits and treat them as enemies of the nation. The contrary is the truth. The Jesuits are for France, because they are for wealth, strength, and courage. France is the only great Catholic country which has yet remained erect and sovereign, the only one on which the papacy can some day lean. Thus the Holy Father, after momentarily dreaming of obtaining support from victorious Germany, has allied himself with France, the vanquished, because he has understood that apart from France there can be no salvation for the Church. And in this he has only followed the policy of the Jesuits, those frightful Jesuits, whom your Parisians execrate. And tell Cardinal Bergerot also that it would be grand of him to work for pacification by making people understand how wrong it is for your Republic to help the Holy Father so little in his conciliatory efforts. It pretends to regard him as an element in the world's affairs that may be neglected; and that is dangerous, for although he may seem to have no political means of action he remains an immense moral force, and can at any moment raise consciences in rebellion and provoke a religious agitation of the most far-reaching consequences. It is still he who disposes of the nations, since he disposes of their souls, and the Republic acts most inconsiderately, from the standpoint of its own interests, in showing that it no longer even suspects it. And tell the Cardinal too, that it is really pitiful to see in what a wretched way your Republic selects its bishops, as though it intentionally desired to weaken its episcopacy. Leaving out a few fortunate exceptions, your bishops are men of small brains, and as a result your cardinals, likewise mere mediocrities, have no influence, play no part here in Rome. Ah! what a sorry figure you Frenchmen will cut at the next Conclave! And so why do you show such blind and foolish hatred of those Jesuits, who, politically, are your friends? Why don't you employ their intelligent zeal, which is ready to serve you, so that you may assure yourselves the help of the next, the coming pope? It is necessary for you that he should be on your side, that he should continue the work of Leo XIII, which is so badly judged and so much opposed, but which cares little for the petty results of to-day, since its purpose lies in the future, in the union of all the nations under their holy mother the Church. Tell Cardinal Bergerot, tell him plainly that he ought to be with us, that he ought to work for his country by working for us. The coming pope, why the whole question lies in that, and woe to France if in him she does not find a continuator of Leo XIII!" Nani had again risen, and this time he was going off. Never before had he unbosomed himself at such length. But most assuredly he had only said what he desired to say, for a purpose that he alone knew of, and in a firm, gentle, and deliberate voice by which one could tell that each word had been weighed and determined beforehand. "Farewell, my dear son," he said, "and once again think over all you have seen and heard in Rome. Be as sensible as you can, and do not spoil your life." Pierre bowed, and pressed the small, plump, supple hand which the prelate offered him. "Monseigneur," he replied, "I again thank you for all your kindness; you may be sure that I shall forget nothing of my journey." Then he watched Nani as he went off, with a light and conquering step as if marching to all the victories of the future. No, no, he, Pierre, would forget nothing of his journey! He well knew that union of all the nations under their holy mother the Church, that temporal bondage in which the law of Christ would become the dictatorship of Augustus, master of the world! And as for those Jesuits, he had no doubt that they did love France, the eldest daughter of the Church, and the only daughter that could yet help her mother to reconquer universal sovereignty, but they loved her even as the black swarms of locusts love the harvests which they swoop upon and devour. Infinite sadness had returned to the young man's heart as he dimly realised that in that sorely-stricken mansion, in all that mourning and downfall, it was they, they again, who must have been the artisans of grief and disaster. As this thought came to him he turned round and perceived Don Vigilio leaning against the credence in front of the large portrait of the Cardinal. Holding his hands to his face as if he desired to annihilate himself, the secretary was shivering in every limb as much with fear as with fever. At a moment when no fresh visitors were arriving he had succumbed to an attack of terrified despair. "/Mon Dieu/! What is the matter with you?" asked Pierre stepping forward, "are you ill, can I help you?" But Don Vigilio, suffocating and still hiding his face, could only gasp between his close-pressed hands "Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli!" "What is it? What has he done to you?" asked the other astonished. Then the secretary disclosed his face, and again yielded to his quivering desire to confide in some one. "Eh? what he has done to me? Can't you feel anything, can't you see anything then? Didn't you notice the manner in which he took possession of Cardinal Sanguinetti so as to conduct him to his Eminence? To impose that suspected, hateful rival on his Eminence at such a moment as this, what insolent audacity! And a few minutes previously did you notice with what wicked cunning he bowed out an old lady, a very old family friend, who only desired to kiss his Eminence's hand and show a little real affection which would have made his Eminence so happy! Ah! I tell you that he's the master here, he opens or closes the door as he pleases, and holds us all between his fingers like a pinch of dust which one throws to the wind!" Pierre became anxious, seeing how yellow and feverish Don Vigilio was: "Come, come, my dear fellow," he said, "you are exaggerating!" "Exaggerating? Do you know what happened last night, what I myself unwillingly witnessed? No, you don't know it; well, I will tell you." Thereupon he related that Donna Serafina, on returning home on the previous day to face the terrible catastrophe awaiting her, had already been overcome by the bad news which she had learnt when calling on the Cardinal Secretary and various prelates of her acquaintance. She had then acquired a certainty that her brother's position was becoming extremely bad, for he had made so many fresh enemies among his colleagues of the Sacred College, that his election to the pontifical throne, which a year previously had seemed probable, now appeared an impossibility. Thus, all at once, the dream of her life collapsed, the ambition which she had so long nourished lay in dust at her feet. On despairingly seeking the why and wherefore of this change, she had been told of all sorts of blunders committed by the Cardinal, acts of rough sternness, unseasonable manifestations of opinion, inconsiderate words or actions which had sufficed to wound people, in fact such provoking demeanour that one might have thought it adopted with the express intention of spoiling everything. And the worst was that in each of the blunders she had recognised errors of judgment which she herself had blamed, but which her brother had obstinately insisted on perpetrating under the unacknowledged influence of Abbe Paparelli, that humble and insignificant train-bearer, in whom she detected a baneful and powerful adviser who destroyed her own vigilant and devoted influence. And so, in spite of the mourning in which the house was plunged, she did not wish to delay the punishment of the traitor, particularly as his old friendship with that terrible Santobono, and the story of that basket of figs which had passed from the hands of the one to those of the other, chilled her blood with a suspicion which she even recoiled from elucidating. However, at the first words she spoke, directly she made a formal request that the traitor should be immediately turned out of the house, she was confronted by invincible resistance on her brother's part. He would not listen to her, but flew into one of those hurricane-like passions which swept everything away, reproaching her for laying blame on so modest, pious, and saintly a man, and accusing her of playing into the hands of his enemies, who, after killing Monsignor Gallo, were seeking to poison his sole remaining affection for that poor, insignificant priest. He treated all the stories he was told as abominable inventions, and swore that he would keep the train-bearer in his service if only to show his disdain for calumny. And she was thereupon obliged to hold her peace. However, Don Vigilio's shuddering fit had again come back; he carried his hands to his face stammering: "Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli!" And muttered invectives followed: the train-bearer was an artful hypocrite who feigned modesty and humility, a vile spy appointed to pry into everything, listen to everything, and pervert everything that went on in the palace; he was a loathsome, destructive insect, feeding on the most noble prey, devouring the lion's mane, a Jesuit--the Jesuit who is at once lackey and tyrant, in all his base horror as he accomplishes the work of vermin. "Calm yourself, calm yourself," repeated Pierre, who whilst allowing for foolish exaggeration on the secretary's part could not help shivering at thought of all the threatening things which he himself could divine astir in the gloom. However, since Don Vigilio had so narrowly escaped eating those horrible figs, his fright was such that nothing could calm it. Even when he was alone at night, in bed, with his door locked and bolted, sudden terror fell on him and made him hide his head under the sheet and vent stifled cries as if he thought that men were coming through the wall to strangle him. In a faint, breathless voice, as if just emerging from a struggle, he now resumed: "I told you what would happen on the evening when we had a talk together in your room. Although all the doors were securely shut, I did wrong to speak of them to you, I did wrong to ease my heart by telling you all that they were capable of. I was sure they would learn it, and you see they did learn it, since they tried to kill me. . . . Why it's even wrong of me to tell you this, for it will reach their ears and they won't miss me the next time. Ah! it's all over, I'm as good as dead; this house which I thought so safe will be my tomb." Pierre began to feel deep compassion for this ailing man, whose feverish brain was haunted by nightmares, and whose life was being finally wrecked by the anguish of persecution mania. "But you must run away in that case!" he said. "Don't stop here; come to France." Don Vigilio looked at him, momentarily calmed by surprise. "Run away, why? Go to France? Why, they are there! No matter where I might go, they would be there. They are everywhere, I should always be surrounded by them! No, no, I prefer to stay here and would rather die at once if his Eminence can no longer defend me." With an expression of ardent entreaty in which a last gleam of hope tried to assert itself, he raised his eyes to the large painting in which the Cardinal stood forth resplendent in his cassock of red moire; but his attack came back again and overwhelmed him with increased intensity of fever. "Leave me, I beg you, leave me," he gasped. "Don't make me talk any more. Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli! If he should come back and see us and hear me speak. . . . Oh! I'll never say anything again. I'll tie up my tongue, I'll cut it off. Leave me, you are killing me, I tell you, he'll be coming back and that will mean my death. Go away, oh! for mercy's sake, go away!" Thereupon Don Vigilio turned towards the wall as if to flatten his face against it, and immure his lips in tomb-like silence; and Pierre resolved to leave him to himself, fearing lest he should provoke a yet more serious attack if he went on endeavouring to succour him. On returning to the throne-room the young priest again found himself amidst all the frightful mourning. Mass was following mass; without cessation murmured prayers entreated the divine mercy to receive the two dear departed souls with loving kindness. And amidst the dying perfume of the fading roses, in front of the pale stars of the lighted candles, Pierre thought of that supreme downfall of the Boccaneras. Dario was the last of the name, and one could well understand that the Cardinal, whose only sin was family pride, should have loved that one remaining scion by whom alone the old stock might yet blossom afresh. And indeed, if he and Donna Serafina had desired the divorce, and then the marriage of the cousins, it had been less with the view of putting an end to scandal than with the hope of seeing a new line of Boccaneras spring up. But the lovers were dead, and the last remains of a long series of dazzling princes of sword and of gown lay there on that bed, soon to rot in the grave. It was all over; that old maid and that aged Cardinal could leave no posterity. They remained face to face like two withered oaks, sole remnants of a vanished forest, and their fall would soon leave the plain quite clear. And how terrible the grief of surviving in impotence, what anguish to have to tell oneself that one is the end of everything, that with oneself all life, all hope for the morrow will depart! Amidst the murmur of the prayers, the dying perfume of the roses, the pale gleams of the two candies, Pierre realised what a downfall was that bereavement, how heavy was the gravestone which fell for ever on an extinct house, a vanished world. He well understood that as one of the familiars of the mansion he must pay his respects to Donna Serafina and the Cardinal, and he at once sought admission to the neighbouring room where the Princess was receiving her friends. He found her robed in black, very slim and very erect in her arm-chair, whence she rose with slow dignity to respond to the bow of each person that entered. She listened to the condolences but answered never a word, overcoming her physical pain by rigidity of bearing. Pierre, who had learnt to know her, could divine, however, by the hollowness of her cheeks, the emptiness of her eyes, and the bitter twinge of her mouth, how frightful was the collapse within her. Not only was her race ended, but her brother would never be pope, never secure the elevation which she had so long fancied she was winning for him by dint of devotion, dint of feminine renunciation, giving brain and heart, care and money, foregoing even wifehood and motherhood, spoiling her whole life, in order to realise that dream. And amidst all the ruin of hope, it was perhaps the nonfulfilment of that ambition which most made her heart bleed. She rose for the young priest, her guest, as she rose for the other persons who presented themselves; but she contrived to introduce shades of meaning into the manner in which she quitted her chair, and Pierre fully realised that he had remained in her eyes a mere petty French priest, an insignificant domestic of the Divinity who had not known how to acquire even the title of prelate. When she had again seated herself after acknowledging his compliment with a slight inclination of the head, he remained for a moment standing, out of politeness. Not a word, not a sound disturbed the mournful quiescence of the room, for although there were four or five lady visitors seated there they remained motionless and silent as with grief. Pierre was most struck, however, by the sight of Cardinal Sarno, who was lying back in an arm-chair with his eyes closed. The poor puny lopsided old man had lingered there forgetfully after expressing his condolences, and, overcome by the heavy silence and close atmosphere, had just fallen asleep. And everybody respected his slumber. Was he dreaming as he dozed of that map of Christendom which he carried behind his low obtuse-looking brow? Was he continuing in dreamland his terrible work of conquest, that task of subjecting and governing the earth which he directed from his dark room at the Propaganda? The ladies glanced at him affectionately and deferentially; he was gently scolded at times for over-working himself, the sleepiness which nowadays frequently overtook him in all sorts of places being attributed to excess of genius and zeal. And of this all-powerful Eminence Pierre was destined to carry off only this last impression: an exhausted old man, resting amidst the emotion of a mourning-gathering, sleeping there like a candid child, without any one knowing whether this were due to the approach of senile imbecility, or to the fatigues of a night spent in organising the reign of God over some distant continent. Two ladies went off and three more arrived. Donna Serafina rose, bowed, and then reseated herself, reverting to her rigid attitude, her bust erect, her face stern and full of despair. Cardinal Sarno was still asleep. Then Pierre felt as if he would stifle, a kind of vertigo came on him, and his heart beat violently. So he bowed and withdrew: and on passing through the dining-room on his way to the little study where Cardinal Boccanera received his visitors, he found himself in the presence of Paparelli who was jealously guarding the door. When the train-bearer had sniffed at the young man, he seemed to realise that he could not refuse him admittance. Moreover, as this intruder was going away the very next day, defeated and covered with shame, there was nothing to be feared from him. "You wish to see his Eminence?" said Paparelli. "Good, good. By and by, wait." And opining that Pierre was too near the door, he pushed him back to the other end of the room, for fear no doubt lest he should overhear anything. "His Eminence is still engaged with his Eminence Cardinal Sanguinetti. Wait, wait there!" Sanguinetti indeed had made a point of kneeling for a long time in front of the bodies in the throne-room, and had then spun out his visit to Donna Serafina in order to mark how largely he shared the family sorrow. And for more than ten minutes now he had been closeted with Cardinal Boccanera, nothing but an occasional murmur of their voices being heard through the closed door. Pierre, however, on finding Paparelli there, was again haunted by all that Don Vigilio had told him. He looked at the train-bearer, so fat and short, puffed out with bad fat in his dirty cassock, his face flabby and wrinkled, and his whole person at forty years of age suggestive of that of a very old maid: and he felt astonished. How was it that Cardinal Boccanera, that superb prince who carried his head so high, and who was so supremely proud of his name, had allowed himself to be captured and swayed by such a frightful creature reeking of baseness and abomination? Was it not the man's very physical degradation and profound humility that had struck him, disturbed him, and finally fascinated him, as wondrous gifts conducing to salvation, which he himself lacked? Paparelli's person and disposition were like blows dealt to his own handsome presence and his own pride. He, who could not be so deformed, he who could not vanquish his passion for glory, must, by an effort of faith, have grown jealous of that man who was so extremely ugly and so extremely insignificant, he must have come to admire him as a superior force of penitence and human abasement which threw the portals of heaven wide open. Who can ever tell what ascendency is exercised by the monster over the hero; by the horrid-looking saint covered with vermin over the powerful of this world in their terror at having to endure everlasting flames in payment of their terrestrial joys? And 'twas indeed the lion devoured by the insect, vast strength and splendour destroyed by the invisible. Ah! to have that fine soul which was so certain of paradise, which for its welfare was enclosed in such a disgusting body, to possess the happy humility of that wide intelligence, that remarkable theologian, who scourged himself with rods each morning on rising, and was content to be the lowest of servants. Standing there a heap of livid fat, Paparelli on his side watched Pierre with his little grey eyes blinking amidst the myriad wrinkles of his face. And the young priest began to feel uneasy, wondering what their Eminences could be saying to one another, shut up together like that for so long a time. And what an interview it must be if Boccanera suspected Sanguinetti of counting Santobono among his clients. What serene audacity it was on Sanguinetti's part to have dared to present himself in that house, and what strength of soul there must be on Boccanera's part, what empire over himself, to prevent all scandal by remaining silent and accepting the visit as a simple mark of esteem and affection! What could they be saying to one another, however? How interesting it would have been to have seen them face to face, and have heard them exchange the diplomatic phrases suited to such an interview, whilst their souls were raging with furious hatred! All at once the door opened and Cardinal Sanguinetti appeared with calm face, no ruddier than usual, indeed a trifle paler, and retaining the fitting measure of sorrow which he had thought it right to assume. His restless eyes alone revealed his delight at being rid of a difficult task. And he was going off, all hope, in the conviction that he was the only eligible candidate to the papacy that remained. Abbe Paparelli had darted forward: "If your Eminence will kindly follow me--I will escort your Eminence to the door." Then, turning towards Pierre, he added: "You may go in now." Pierre watched them walk away, the one so humble behind the other, who was so triumphant. Then he entered the little work-room, furnished simply with a table and three chairs, and in the centre of it he at once perceived Cardinal Boccanera still standing in the lofty, noble attitude which he had assumed to take leave of Sanguinetti, his hated rival to the pontifical throne. And, visibly, Boccanera also believed himself the only possible pope, the one whom the coming Conclave would elect. However, when the door had been closed, and the Cardinal beheld that young priest, his guest, who had witnessed the death of those two dear children lying in the adjoining room, he was again mastered by emotion, an unexpected attack of weakness in which all his energy collapsed. His human feelings were taking their revenge now that his rival was no longer there to see him. He staggered like an old tree smitten with the axe, and sank upon a chair, stifling with sobs. And as Pierre, according to usage, was about to stoop and kiss his ring, he raised him and at once made him sit down, stammering in a halting voice: "No, no, my dear son! Seat yourself there, wait--Excuse me, leave me to myself for a moment, my heart is bursting." He sobbed with his hands to his face, unable to master himself, unable to drive back his grief with those yet vigorous fingers which were pressed to his cheeks and temples. Tears came into Pierre's eyes, for he also lived through all that woe afresh, and was much upset by the weeping of that tall old man, that saint and prince, usually so haughty, so fully master of himself, but now only a poor, suffering, agonising man, as weak and as lost as a child. However, although the young priest was likewise stifling with grief, he desired to present his condolences, and sought for kindly words by which he might soothe the other's despair. "I beg your Eminence to believe in my profound grief," he said. "I have been overwhelmed with kindness here, and desired at once to tell your Eminence how much that irreparable loss--" But with a brave gesture the Cardinal silenced him. "No, no, say nothing, for mercy's sake say nothing!" And silence reigned while he continued weeping, shaken by the struggle he was waging, his efforts to regain sufficient strength to overcome himself. At last he mastered his quiver and slowly uncovered his face, which had again become calm, like that of a believer strong in his faith, and submissive to the will of God. In refusing a miracle, in dealing so hard a blow to that house, God had doubtless had His reasons, and he, the Cardinal, one of God's ministers, one of the high dignitaries of His terrestrial court, was in duty bound to bow to it. The silence lasted for another moment, and then, in a voice which he managed to render natural and cordial, Boccanera said: "You are leaving us, you are going back to France to-morrow, are you not, my dear son?" "Yes, I shall have the honour to take leave of your Eminence to-morrow, again thanking your Eminence for your inexhaustible kindness." "And you have learnt that the Congregation of the Index has condemned your book, as was inevitable?" "Yes, I obtained the signal favour of being received by his Holiness, and in his presence made my submission and reprobated my book." The Cardinal's moist eyes again began to sparkle. "Ah! you did that, ah! you did well, my dear son," he said. "It was only your strict duty as a priest, but there are so many nowadays who do not even do their duty! As a member of the Congregation I kept the promise I gave you to read your book, particularly the incriminated pages. And if I afterwards remained neutral, to such a point even as to miss the sitting in which judgment was pronounced, it was only to please my poor, dear niece, who was so fond of you, and who pleaded your cause to me." Tears were coming into his eyes again, and he paused, feeling that he would once more be overcome if he evoked the memory of that adored and lamented Benedetta. And so it was with a pugnacious bitterness that he resumed: "But what an execrable book it was, my dear son, allow me to tell you so. You told me that you had shown respect for dogma, and I still wonder what aberration can have come over you that you should have been so blind to all consciousness of your offences. Respect for dogma--good Lord! when the entire work is the negation of our holy religion! Did you not realise that by asking for a new religion you absolutely condemned the old one, the only true one, the only good one, the only one that can be eternal? And that sufficed to make your book the most deadly of poisons, one of those infamous books which in former times were burnt by the hangman, and which one is nowadays compelled to leave in circulation after interdicting them and thereby designating them to evil curiosity, which explains the contagious rottenness of the century. Ah! I well recognised there some of the ideas of our distinguished and poetical relative, that dear Viscount Philibert de la Choue. A man of letters, yes! a man of letters! Literature, mere literature! I beg God to forgive him, for he most surely does not know what he is doing, or whither he is going with his elegiac Christianity for talkative working men and young persons of either sex, to whom scientific notions have given vagueness of soul. And I only feel angry with his Eminence Cardinal Bergerot, for he at any rate knows what he does, and does as he pleases. No, say nothing, do not defend him. He personifies Revolution in the Church, and is against God." Although Pierre had resolved that he would not reply or argue, he had allowed a gesture of protest to escape him on hearing this furious attack upon the man whom he most respected in the whole world. However, he yielded to Cardinal Boccanera's injunction and again bowed. "I cannot sufficiently express my horror," the Cardinal roughly continued; "yes, my horror for all that hollow dream of a new religion! That appeal to the most hideous passions which stir up the poor against the rich, by promising them I know not what division of wealth, what community of possession which is nowadays impossible! That base flattery shown to the lower orders to whom equality and justice are promised but never given, for these can come from God alone, it is only He who can finally make them reign on the day appointed by His almighty power! And there is even that interested charity which people abuse of to rail against Heaven itself and accuse it of iniquity and indifference, that lackadaisical weakening charity and compassion, unworthy of strong firm hearts, for it is as if human suffering were not necessary for salvation, as if we did not become more pure, greater and nearer to the supreme happiness, the more and more we suffer!" He was growing excited, full of anguish, and superb. It was his bereavement, his heart wound, which thus exasperated him, the great blow which had felled him for a moment, but against which he again rose erect, defying grief, and stubborn in his stoic belief in an omnipotent God, who was the master of mankind, and reserved felicity to those whom He selected. Again, however, he made an effort to calm himself, and resumed in a more gentle voice: "At all events the fold is always open, my dear son, and here you are back in it since you have repented. You cannot imagine how happy it makes me." In his turn Pierre strove to show himself conciliatory in order that he might not further ulcerate that violent, grief-stricken soul: "Your Eminence," said he, "may be sure that I shall endeavour to remember every one of the kind words which your Eminence has spoken to me, in the same way as I shall remember the fatherly greeting of his Holiness Leo XIII." This sentence seemed to throw Boccanera into agitation again. At first only murmured, restrained words came from him, as if he were struggling against a desire to question the, young priest. "Ah yes! you saw his Holiness, you spoke to him, and he told you I suppose, as he tells all the foreigners who go to pay their respects to him, that he desires conciliation and peace. For my part I now only see him when it is absolutely necessary; for more than a year I have not been received in private audience." This proof of disfavour, of the covert struggle which as in the days of Pius IX kept the Holy Father and the /Camerlingo/ at variance, filled the latter with bitterness. He was unable to restrain himself and spoke out, reflecting no doubt that he had a familiar before him, one whose discretion was certain, and who moreover was leaving Rome on the morrow. "One may go a long way," said he, "with those fine words, peace and conciliation, which are so often void of real wisdom and courage. The terrible truth is that Leo XIII's eighteen years of concessions have shaken everything in the Church, and should he long continue to reign Catholicism would topple over and crumble into dust like a building whose pillars have been undermined." Interested by this remark, Pierre in his desire for knowledge began to raise objections. "But hasn't his Holiness shown himself very prudent?" he asked; "has he not placed dogma on one side in an impregnable fortress? If he seems to have made concessions on many points, have they not always been concessions in mere matters of form?" "Matters of form; ah, yes!" the Cardinal resumed with increasing passion. "He told you, no doubt, as he tells others, that whilst in substance he will make no surrender, he will readily yield in matters of form! It's a deplorable axiom, an equivocal form of diplomacy even when it isn't so much low hypocrisy! My soul revolts at the thought of that Opportunism, that Jesuitism which makes artifice its weapon, and only serves to cast doubt among true believers, the confusion of a /sauve-qui-peut/, which by and by must lead to inevitable defeat. It is cowardice, the worst form of cowardice, abandonment of one's weapons in order that one may retreat the more speedily, shame of oneself, assumption of a mask in the hope of deceiving the enemy, penetrating into his camp, and overcoming him by treachery! No, no, form is everything in a traditional and immutable religion, which for eighteen hundred years has been, is now, and till the end of time will be the very law of God!" The Cardinal's feelings so stirred him that he was unable to remain seated, and began to walk about the little room. And it was the whole reign, the whole policy of Leo XIII which he discussed and condemned. "Unity too," he continued, "that famous unity of the Christian Church which his Holiness talks of bringing about, and his desire for which people turn to his great glory, why, it is only the blind ambition of a conqueror enlarging his empire without asking himself if the new nations that he subjects may not disorganise, adulterate, and impregnate his old and hitherto faithful people with every error. What if all the schismatical nations on returning to the Catholic Church should so transform it as to kill it and make it a new Church? There is only one wise course, which is to be what one is, and that firmly. Again, isn't there both shame and danger in that pretended alliance with the democracy which in itself gives the lie to the ancient spirit of the papacy? The right of kings is divine, and to abandon the monarchical principle is to set oneself against God, to compound with revolution, and harbour a monstrous scheme of utilising the madness of men the better to establish one's power over them. All republics are forms of anarchy, and there can be no more criminal act, one which must for ever shake the principle of authority, order, and religion itself, than that of recognising a republic as legitimate for the sole purpose of indulging a dream of impossible conciliation. And observe how this bears on the question of the temporal power. He continues to claim it, he makes a point of no surrender on that question of the restoration of Rome; but in reality, has he not made the loss irreparable, has he not definitively renounced Rome, by admitting that nations have the right to drive away their kings and live like wild beasts in the depths of the forest?" All at once the Cardinal stopped short and raised his arms to Heaven in a burst of holy anger. "Ah! that man, ah! that man who by his vanity and craving for success will have proved the ruin of the Church, that man who has never ceased corrupting everything, dissolving everything, crumbling everything in order to reign over the world which he fancies he will reconquer by those means, why, Almighty God, why hast Thou not already called him to Thee?" So sincere was the accent in which that appeal to Death was raised, to such a point was hatred magnified by a real desire to save the Deity imperilled here below, that a great shudder swept through Pierre also. He now understood that Cardinal Boccanera who religiously and passionately hated Leo XIII; he saw him in the depths of his black palace, waiting and watching for the Pope's death, that death which as /Camerlingo/ he must officially certify. How feverishly he must wait, how impatiently he must desire the advent of the hour, when with his little silver hammer he would deal the three symbolic taps on the skull of Leo XIII, while the latter lay cold and rigid on his bed surrounded by his pontifical Court. Ah! to strike that wall of the brain, to make sure that nothing more would answer from within, that nothing beyond night and silence was left there. And the three calls would ring out: "Gioachino! Gioachino! Gioachino!" And, the corpse making no answer, the /Camerlingo/ after waiting for a few seconds would turn and say: "The Pope is dead!" "Conciliation, however, is the weapon of the times," remarked Pierre, wishing to bring the Cardinal back to the present, "and it is in order to make sure of conquering that the Holy Father yields in matters of form." "He will not conquer, he will be conquered," cried Boccanera. "Never has the Church been victorious save in stubbornly clinging to its integrality, the immutable eternity of its divine essence. And it would for a certainty fall on the day when it should allow a single stone of its edifice to be touched. Remember the terrible period through which it passed at the time of the Council of Trent. The Reformation had just deeply shaken it, laxity of discipline and morals was everywhere increasing, there was a rising tide of novelties, ideas suggested by the spirit of evil, unhealthy projects born of the pride of man, running riot in full license. And at the Council itself many members were disturbed, poisoned, ready to vote for the wildest changes, a fresh schism added to all the others. Well, if Catholicism was saved at that critical period, under the threat of such great danger, it was because the majority, enlightened by God, maintained the old edifice intact, it was because with divinely inspired obstinacy it kept itself within the narrow limits of dogma, it was because it made no concession, none, whether in substance or in form! Nowadays the situation is certainly not worse than it was at the time of the Council of Trent. Let us suppose it to be much the same, and tell me if it is not nobler, braver, and safer for the Church to show the courage which she showed before and declare aloud what she is, what she has been, and what she will be. There is no salvation for her otherwise than in her complete, indisputable sovereignty; and since she has always conquered by non-surrender, all attempts to conciliate her with the century are tantamount to killing her!" The Cardinal had again begun to walk to and fro with thoughtful step. "No, no," said he, "no compounding, no surrender, no weakness! Rather the wall of steel which bars the road, the block of granite which marks the limit of a world! As I told you, my dear son, on the day of your arrival, to try to accommodate Catholicism to the new times is to hasten its end, if really it be threatened, as atheists pretend. And in that way it would die basely and shamefully instead of dying erect, proud, and dignified in its old glorious royalty! Ah! to die standing, denying nought of the past, braving the future and confessing one's whole faith!" That old man of seventy seemed to grow yet loftier as he spoke, free from all dread of final annihilation, and making the gesture of a hero who defies futurity. Faith had given him serenity of peace; he believed, he knew, he had neither doubt nor fear of the morrow of death. Still his voice was tinged with haughty sadness as he resumed, "God can do all, even destroy His own work should it seem evil in His eyes. But though all should crumble to-morrow, though the Holy Church should disappear among the ruins, though the most venerated sanctuaries should be crushed by the falling stars, it would still be necessary for us to bow and adore God, who after creating the world might thus annihilate it for His own glory. And I wait, submissive to His will, for nothing happens unless He wills it. If really the temples be shaken, if Catholicism be fated to fall to-morrow into dust, I shall be here to act as the minister of death, even as I have been the minister of life! It is certain, I confess it, that there are hours when terrible signs appear to me. Perhaps, indeed, the end of time is nigh, and we shall witness that fall of the old world with which others threaten us. The worthiest, the loftiest are struck down as if Heaven erred, and in them punished the crimes of the world. Have I not myself felt the blast from the abyss into which all must sink, since my house, for transgressions that I am ignorant of, has been stricken with that frightful bereavement which precipitates it into the gulf which casts it back into night everlasting!" He again evoked those two dear dead ones who were always present in his mind. Sobs were once more rising in his throat, his hands trembled, his lofty figure quivered with the last revolt of grief. Yes, if God had stricken him so severely by suppressing his race, if the greatest and most faithful were thus punished, it must be that the world was definitively condemned. Did not the end of his house mean the approaching end of all? And in his sovereign pride as priest and as prince, he found a cry of supreme resignation, once more raising his hands on high: "Almighty God, Thy will be done! May all die, all fall, all return to the night of chaos! I shall remain standing in this ruined palace, waiting to be buried beneath its fragments. And if Thy will should summon me to bury Thy holy religion, be without fear, I shall do nothing unworthy to prolong its life for a few days! I will maintain it erect, like myself, as proud, as uncompromising as in the days of all its power. I will yield nothing, whether in discipline, or in rite, or in dogma. And when the day shall come I will bury it with myself, carrying it whole into the grave rather than yielding aught of it, encompassing it with my cold arms to restore it to Thee, even as Thou didst commit it to the keeping of Thy Church. O mighty God and sovereign Master, dispose of me, make me if such be Thy good pleasure the pontiff of destruction, the pontiff of the death of the world." Pierre, who was thunderstruck, quivered with fear and admiration at the extraordinary vision this evoked: the last of the popes interring Catholicism. He understood that Boccanera must at times have made that dream; he could see him in the Vatican, in St. Peter's which the thunderbolts had riven asunder, he could see him erect and alone in the spacious halls whence his terrified, cowardly pontifical Court had fled. Clad in his white cassock, thus wearing white mourning for the Church, he once more descended to the sanctuary, there to wait for heaven to fall on the evening of Time's accomplishment and annihilate the earth. Thrice he raised the large crucifix, overthrown by the supreme convulsions of the soil. Then, when the final crack rent the steps apart, he caught it in his arms and was annihilated with it beneath the falling vaults. And nothing could be more instinct with fierce and kingly grandeur. Voiceless, but without weakness, his lofty stature invincible and erect in spite of all, Cardinal Boccanera made a gesture dismissing Pierre, who yielding to his passion for truth and beauty found that he alone was great and right, and respectfully kissed his hand. It was in the throne-room, with closed doors, at nightfall, after the visits had ceased, that the two bodies were laid in their coffin. The religious services had come to an end, and in the close silent atmosphere there only lingered the dying perfume of the roses and the warm odour of the candles. As the latter's pale stars scarcely lighted the spacious room, some lamps had been brought, and servants held them in their hands like torches. According to custom, all the servants of the house were present to bid a last farewell to the departed. There was a little delay. Morano, who had been giving himself no end of trouble ever since morning, was forced to run off again as the triple coffin did not arrive. At last it came, some servants brought it up, and then they were able to begin. The Cardinal and Donna Serafina stood side by side near the bed. Pierre also was present, as well as Don Vigilio. It was Victorine who sewed the lovers up in the white silk shroud, which seemed like a bridal robe, the gay pure robe of their union. Then two servants came forward and helped Pierre and Don Vigilio to lay the bodies in the first coffin, of pine wood lined with pink satin. It was scarcely broader than an ordinary coffin, so young and slim were the lovers and so tightly were they clasped in their last embrace. When they were stretched inside they there continued their eternal slumber, their heads half hidden by their odorous, mingling hair. And when this first coffin had been placed in the second one, a leaden shell, and the second had been enclosed in the third, of stout oak, and when the three lids had been soldered and screwed down, the lovers' faces could still be seen through the circular opening, covered with thick glass, which in accordance with the Roman custom had been left in each of the coffins. And then, for ever parted from the living, alone together, they still gazed at one another with their eyes obstinately open, having all eternity before them wherein to exhaust their infinite love. XVI ON the following day, on his return from the funeral Pierre lunched alone in his room, having decided to take leave of the Cardinal and Donna Serafina during the afternoon. He was quitting Rome that evening by the train which started at seventeen minutes past ten. There was nothing to detain him any longer; there was only one visit which he desired to make, a visit to old Orlando, with whom he had promised to have a long chat prior to his departure. And so a little before two o'clock he sent for a cab which took him to the Via Venti Settembre. A fine rain had fallen all night, its moisture steeping the city in grey vapour; and though this rain had now ceased the sky remained very dark, and the huge new mansions of the Via Venti Settembre were quite livid, interminably mournful with their balconies ever of the same pattern and their regular and endless rows of windows. The Ministry of Finances, that colossal pile of masonry and sculpture, looked in particular like a dead town, a huge bloodless body whence all life had withdrawn. On the other hand, although all was so gloomy the rain had made the atmosphere milder, in fact it was almost warm, damply and feverishly warm. In the hall of Prada's little palazzo Pierre was surprised to find four or five gentlemen taking off their overcoats; however he learnt from a servant that Count Luigi had a meeting that day with some contractors. As he, Pierre, wished to see the Count's father he had only to ascend to the third floor, added the servant. He must knock at the little door on the right-hand side of the landing there. On the very first landing, however, the priest found himself face to face with the young Count who was there receiving the contractors, and who on recognising him became frightfully pale. They had not met since the tragedy at the Boccanera mansion, and Pierre well realised how greatly his glance disturbed that man, what a troublesome recollection of moral complicity it evoked, and what mortal dread lest he should have guessed the truth. "Have you come to see me, have you something to tell me?" the Count inquired. "No, I am leaving Rome, I have come to wish your father good-bye." Prada's pallor increased at this, and his whole face quivered: "Ah! it is to see my father. He is not very well, be gentle with him," he replied, and as he spoke, his look of anguish clearly proclaimed what he feared from Pierre, some imprudent word, perhaps even a final mission, the malediction of that man and woman whom he had killed. And surely if his father knew, he would die as well. "Ah! how annoying it is," he resumed, "I can't go up with you! There are gentlemen waiting for me. Yes, how annoyed I am. As soon as possible, however, I will join you, yes, as soon as possible." He knew not how to stop the young priest, whom he must evidently allow to remain with his father, whilst he himself stayed down below, kept there by his pecuniary worries. But how distressful were the eyes with which he watched Pierre climb the stairs, how he seemed to supplicate him with his whole quivering form. His father, good Lord, the only true love, the one great, pure, faithful passion of his life! "Don't make him talk too much, brighten him, won't you?" were his parting words. Up above it was not Batista, the devoted ex-soldier, who opened the door, but a very young fellow to whom Pierre did not at first pay any attention. The little room was bare and light as on previous occasions, and from the broad curtainless window there was the superb view of Rome, Rome crushed that day beneath a leaden sky and steeped in shade of infinite mournfulness. Old Orlando, however, had in no wise changed, but still displayed the superb head of an old blanched lion, a powerful muzzle and youthful eyes, which yet sparkled with the passions which had growled in a soul of fire. Pierre found the stricken hero in the same arm-chair as previously, near the same table littered with newspapers, and with his legs buried in the same black wrapper, as if he were there immobilised in a sheath of stone, to such a point that after months and years one was sure to perceive him quite unchanged, with living bust, and face glowing with strength and intelligence. That grey day, however, he seemed gloomy, low in spirits. "Ah! so here you are, my dear Monsieur Froment," he exclaimed, "I have been thinking of you these three days past, living the awful days which you must have lived in that tragic Palazzo Boccanera. Ah, God! What a frightful bereavement! My heart is quite overwhelmed, these newspapers have again just upset me with the fresh details they give!" He pointed as he spoke to the papers scattered over the table. Then with a gesture he strove to brush aside the gloomy story, and banish that vision of Benedetta dead, which had been haunting him. "Well, and yourself?" he inquired. "I am leaving this evening," replied Pierre, "but I did not wish to quit Rome without pressing your brave hands." "You are leaving? But your book?" "My book--I have been received by the Holy Father, I have made my submission and reprobated my book." Orlando looked fixedly at the priest. There was a short interval of silence, during which their eyes told one another all that they had to tell respecting the affair. Neither felt the necessity of any longer explanation. The old man merely spoke these concluding words: "You have done well, your book was a chimera." "Yes, a chimera, a piece of childishness, and I have condemned it myself in the name of truth and reason." A smile appeared on the dolorous lips of the impotent hero. "Then you have seen things, you understand and know them now?" "Yes, I know them; and that is why I did not wish to go off without having that frank conversation with you which we agreed upon." Orlando was delighted, but all at once he seemed to remember the young fellow who had opened the door to Pierre, and who had afterwards modestly resumed his seat on a chair near the window. This young fellow was a youth of twenty, still beardless, of a blonde handsomeness such as occasionally flowers at Naples, with long curly hair, a lily-like complexion, a rosy mouth, and soft eyes full of a dreamy languor. The old man presented him in fatherly fashion, Angiolo Mascara his name was, and he was the grandson of an old comrade in arms, the epic Mascara of the Thousand, who had died like a hero, his body pierced by a hundred wounds. "I sent for him to scold him," continued Orlando with a smile. "Do you know that this fine fellow with his girlish airs goes in for the new ideas? He is an Anarchist, one of the three or four dozen Anarchists that we have in Italy. He's a good little lad at bottom, he has only his mother left him, and supports her, thanks to the little berth which he holds, but which he'll lose one of these fine days if he is not careful. Come, come, my child, you must promise me to be reasonable." Thereupon Angiolo, whose clean but well-worn garments bespoke decent poverty, made answer in a grave and musical voice: "I am reasonable, it is the others, all the others who are not. When all men are reasonable and desire truth and justice, the world will be happy." "Ah! if you fancy that he'll give way!" cried Orlando. "But, my poor child, just ask Monsieur l'Abbe if one ever knows where truth and justice are. Well, well, one must leave you the time to live, and see, and understand things." Then, paying no more attention to the young man, he returned to Pierre, while Angiolo, remaining very quiet in his corner, kept his eyes ardently fixed on them, and with open, quivering ears lost not a word they said. "I told you, my dear Monsieur Froment," resumed Orlando, "that your ideas would change, and that acquaintance with Rome would bring you to accurate views far more readily than any fine speeches I could make to you. So I never doubted but what you would of your own free will withdraw your book as soon as men and things should have enlightened you respecting the Vatican at the present day. But let us leave the Vatican on one side, there is nothing to be done but to let it continue falling slowly and inevitably into ruin. What interests me is our Italian Rome, which you treated as an element to be neglected, but which you have now seen and studied, so that we can both speak of it with the necessary knowledge!" He thereupon at once granted a great many things, acknowledged that blunders had been committed, that the finances were in a deplorable state, and that there were serious difficulties of all kinds. They, the Italians, had sinned by excess of legitimate pride, they had proceeded too hastily with their attempt to improvise a great nation, to change ancient Rome into a great modern capital as by the mere touch of a wand. And thence had come that mania for erecting new districts, that mad speculation in land and shares, which had brought the country within a hair's breadth of bankruptcy. At this Pierre gently interrupted him to tell him of the view which he himself had arrived at after his peregrinations and studies through Rome. "That fever of the first hour, that financial /debacle/," said he, "is after all nothing. All pecuniary sores can be healed. But the grave point is that your Italy still remains to be created. There is no aristocracy left, and as yet there is no people, nothing but a devouring middle class, dating from yesterday, which preys on the rich harvest of the future before it is ripe." Silence fell. Orlando sadly wagged his old leonine head. The cutting harshness of Pierre's formula struck him in the heart. "Yes, yes," he said at last, "that is so, you have seen things plainly; and why say no when facts are there, patent to everybody? I myself had already spoken to you of that middle class which hungers so ravenously for place and office, distinctions and plumes, and which at the same time is so avaricious, so suspicious with regard to its money which it invests in banks, never risking it in agriculture or manufactures or commerce, having indeed the one desire to enjoy life without doing anything, and so unintelligent that it cannot see it is killing its country by its loathing for labour, its contempt for the poor, its one ambition to live in a petty way with the barren glory of belonging to some official administration. And, as you say, the aristocracy is dying, discrowned, ruined, sunk into the degeneracy which overtakes races towards their close, most of its members reduced to beggary, the others, the few who have clung to their money, crushed by heavy imposts, possessing nought but dead fortunes which constant sharing diminishes and which must soon disappear with the princes themselves. And then there is the people, which has suffered so much and suffers still, but is so used to suffering that it can seemingly conceive no idea of emerging from it, blind and deaf as it is, almost regretting its ancient bondage, and so ignorant, so abominably ignorant, which is the one cause of its hopeless, morrowless misery, for it has not even the consolation of understanding that if we have conquered and are trying to resuscitate Rome and Italy in their ancient glory, it is for itself, the people, alone. Yes, yes, no aristocracy left, no people as yet, and a middle class which really alarms one. How can one therefore help yielding at times to the terrors of the pessimists, who pretend that our misfortunes are as yet nothing, that we are going forward to yet more awful catastrophes, as though, indeed, what we now behold were but the first symptoms of our race's end, the premonitory signs of final annihilation!" As he spoke he raised his long quivering arms towards the window, towards the light, and Pierre, deeply moved, remembered how Cardinal Boccanera on the previous day had made a similar gesture of supplicant distress when appealing to the divine power. And both men, Cardinal and patriot, so hostile in their beliefs, were instinct with the same fierce and despairing grandeur. "As I told you, however, on the first day," continued Orlando, "we only sought to accomplish logical and inevitable things. As for Rome, with her past history of splendour and domination which weighs so heavily upon us, we could not do otherwise than take her for capital, for she alone was the bond, the living symbol of our unity at the same time as the promise of eternity, the renewal offered to our great dream of resurrection and glory." He went on, recognising the disastrous conditions under which Rome laboured as a capital. She was a purely decorative city with exhausted soil, she had remained apart from modern life, she was unhealthy, she offered no possibility of commerce or industry, she was invincibly preyed upon by death, standing as she did amidst that sterile desert of the Campagna. Then he compared her with the other cities which are jealous of her; first Florence, which, however, has become so indifferent and so sceptical, impregnated with a happy heedlessness which seems inexplicable when one remembers the frantic passions, and the torrents of blood rolling through her history; next Naples, which yet remains content with her bright sun, and whose childish people enjoy their ignorance and wretchedness so indolently that one knows not whether one ought to pity them; next Venice, which has resigned herself to remaining a marvel of ancient art, which one ought to put under glass so as to preserve her intact, slumbering amid the sovereign pomp of her annals; next Genoa, which is absorbed in trade, still active and bustling, one of the last queens of that Mediterranean, that insignificant lake which was once the opulent central sea, whose waters carried the wealth of the world; and then particularly Turin and Milan, those industrial and commercial centres, which are so full of life and so modernised that tourists disdain them as not being "Italian" cities, both of them having saved themselves from ruin by entering into that Western evolution which is preparing the next century. Ah! that old land of Italy, ought one to leave it all as a dusty museum for the pleasure of artistic souls, leave it to crumble away, even as its little towns of Magna Graecia, Umbria, and Tuscany are already crumbling, like exquisite /bibelots/ which one dares not repair for fear that one might spoil their character. At all events, there must either be death, death soon and inevitable, or else the pick of the demolisher, the tottering walls thrown to the ground, and cities of labour, science, and health created on all sides; in one word, a new Italy really rising from the ashes of the old one, and adapted to the new civilisation into which humanity is entering. "However, why despair?" Orlando continued energetically. "Rome may weigh heavily on our shoulders, but she is none the less the summit we coveted. We are here, and we shall stay here awaiting events. Even if the population does not increase it at least remains stationary at a figure of some 400,000 souls, and the movement of increase may set in again when the causes which stopped it shall have ceased. Our blunder was to think that Rome would become a Paris or Berlin; but, so far, all sorts of social, historical, even ethnical considerations seem opposed to it; yet who can tell what may be the surprises of to-morrow? Are we forbidden to hope, to put faith in the blood which courses in our veins, the blood of the old conquerors of the world? I, who no longer stir from this room, impotent as I am, even I at times feel my madness come back, believe in the invincibility and immortality of Rome, and wait for the two millions of people who must come to populate those dolorous new districts which you have seen so empty and already falling into ruins! And certainly they will come! Why not? You will see, you will see, everything will be populated, and even more houses will have to be built. Moreover, can you call a nation poor, when it possesses Lombardy? Is there not also inexhaustible wealth in our southern provinces? Let peace settle down, let the South and the North mingle together, and a new generation of workers grow up. Since we have the soil, such a fertile soil, the great harvest which is awaited will surely some day sprout and ripen under the burning sun!" Enthusiasm was upbuoying him, all the /furia/ of youth inflamed his eyes. Pierre smiled, won over; and as soon as he was able to speak, he said: "The problem must be tackled down below, among the people. You must make men!" "Exactly!" cried Orlando. "I don't cease repeating it, one must make Italy. It is as if a wind from the East had blown the seed of humanity, the seed which makes vigorous and powerful nations, elsewhere. Our people is not like yours in France, a reservoir of men and money from which one can draw as plentifully as one pleases. It is such another inexhaustible reservoir that I wish to see created among us. And one must begin at the bottom. There must be schools everywhere, ignorance must be stamped out, brutishness and idleness must be fought with books, intellectual and moral instruction must give us the industrious people which we need if we are not to disappear from among the great nations. And once again for whom, if not for the democracy of to-morrow, have we worked in taking possession of Rome? And how easily one can understand that all should collapse here, and nothing grow up vigorously since such a democracy is absolutely absent. Yes, yes, the solution of the problem does not lie elsewhere; we must make a people, make an Italian democracy." Pierre had grown calm again, feeling somewhat anxious yet not daring to say that it is by no means easy to modify a nation, that Italy is such as soil, history, and race have made her, and that to seek to transform her so radically and all at once might be a dangerous enterprise. Do not nations like beings have an active youth, a resplendent prime, and a more or less prolonged old age ending in death? A modern democratic Rome, good heavens! The modern Romes are named Paris, London, Chicago. So he contented himself with saying: "But pending this great renovation of the people, don't you think that you ought to be prudent? Your finances are in such a bad condition, you are passing through such great social and economic difficulties, that you run the risk of the worst catastrophes before you secure either men or money. Ah! how prudent would that minister be who should say in your Chamber: 'Our pride has made a mistake, it was wrong of us to try to make ourselves a great nation in one day; more time, labour, and patience are needed; and we consent to remain for the present a young nation, which will quietly reflect and labour at self-formation, without, for a long time yet, seeking to play a dominant part. So we intend to disarm, to strike out the war and naval estimates, all the estimates intended for display abroad, in order to devote ourselves to our internal prosperity, and to build up by education, physically and morally, the great nation which we swear we will be fifty years hence!' Yes, yes, strike out all needless expenditure, your salvation lies in that!" But Orlando, while listening, had become gloomy again, and with a vague, weary gesture he replied in an undertone: "No, no, the minister who should use such language would be hooted. It would be too hard a confession, such as one cannot ask a nation to make. Every heart would bound, leap forth at the idea. And, besides, would not the danger perhaps be even greater if all that has been done were allowed to crumble? How many wrecked hopes, how much discarded, useless material there would be! No, we can now only save ourselves by patience and courage--and forward, ever forward! We are a very young nation, and in fifty years we desired to effect the unity which others have required two hundred years to arrive at. Well, we must pay for our haste, we must wait for the harvest to ripen, and fill our barns." Then, with another and more sweeping wave of the arm, he stubbornly strengthened himself in his hopes. "You know," said he, "that I was always against the alliance with Germany. As I predicted, it has ruined us. We were not big enough to march side by side with such a wealthy and powerful person, and it is in view of a war, always near at hand and inevitable, that we now suffer so cruelly from having to support the budgets of a great nation. Ah! that war which has never come, it is that which has exhausted the best part of our blood and sap and money without the slightest profit. To-day we have nothing before us but the necessity of breaking with our ally, who speculated on our pride, who has never helped us in any way, who has never given us anything but bad advice, and treated us otherwise than with suspicion. But it was all inevitable, and that's what people won't admit in France. I can speak freely of it all, for I am a declared friend of France, and people even feel some spite against me on that account. However, explain to your compatriots, that on the morrow of our conquest of Rome, in our frantic desire to resume our ancient rank, it was absolutely necessary that we should play our part in Europe and show that we were a power with whom the others must henceforth count. And hesitation was not allowable, all our interests impelled us toward Germany, the evidence was so binding as to impose itself. The stern law of the struggle for life weighs as heavily on nations as on individuals, and this it is which explains and justifies the rupture between the two sisters, France and Italy, the forgetting of so many ties, race, commercial intercourse, and, if you like, services also. The two sisters, ah! they now pursue each other with so much hatred that all common sense even seems at an end. My poor old heart bleeds when I read the articles which your newspapers and ours exchange like poisoned darts. When will this fratricidal massacre cease, which of the two will first realise the necessity of peace, the necessity of the alliance of the Latin races, if they are to remain alive amidst those torrents of other races which more and more invade the world?" Then gaily, with the /bonhomie/ of a hero disarmed by old age, and seeking a refuge in his dreams, Orlando added: "Come, you must promise to help me as soon as you are in Paris. However small your field of action may be, promise me you will do all you can to promote peace between France and Italy; there can be no more holy task. Relate all you have seen here, all you have heard, oh! as frankly as possible. If we have faults, you certainly have faults as well. And, come, family quarrels can't last for ever!" "No doubt," Pierre answered in some embarrassment. "Unfortunately they are the most tenacious. In families, when blood becomes exasperated with blood, hate goes as far as poison and the knife. And pardon becomes impossible." He dared not fully express his thoughts. Since he had been in Rome, listening, and considering things, the quarrel between Italy and France had resumed itself in his mind in a fine tragic story. Once upon a time there were two princesses, daughters of a powerful queen, the mistress of the world. The elder one, who had inherited her mother's kingdom, was secretly grieved to see her sister, who had established herself in a neighbouring land, gradually increase in wealth, strength, and brilliancy, whilst she herself declined as if weakened by age, dismembered, so exhausted, and so sore, that she already felt defeated on the day when she attempted a supreme effort to regain universal power. And so how bitter were her feelings, how hurt she always felt on seeing her sister recover from the most frightful shocks, resume her dazzling /gala/, and continue to reign over the world by dint of strength and grace and wit. Never would she forgive it, however well that envied and detested sister might act towards her. Therein lay an incurable wound, the life of one poisoned by that of the other, the hatred of old blood for young blood, which could only be quieted by death. And even if peace, as was possible, should soon be restored between them in presence of the younger sister's evident triumph, the other would always harbour deep within her heart an endless grief at being the elder yet the vassal. "However, you may rely on me," Pierre affectionately resumed. "This quarrel between the two countries is certainly a great source of grief and a great peril. And assuredly I will only say what I think to be the truth about you. At the same time I fear that you hardly like the truth, for temperament and custom have hardly prepared you for it. The poets of every nation who at various times have written on Rome have intoxicated you with so much praise that you are scarcely fitted to hear the real truth about your Rome of to-day. No matter how superb a share of praise one may accord you, one must all the same look at the reality of things, and this reality is just what you won't admit, lovers of the beautiful as you ever are, susceptible too like women, whom the slightest hint of a wrinkle sends into despair." Orlando began to laugh. "Well, certainly, one must always beautify things a little," said he. "Why speak of ugly faces at all? We in our theatres only care for pretty music, pretty dancing, pretty pieces which please one. As for the rest, whatever is disagreeable let us hide it, for mercy's sake!" "On the other hand," the priest continued, "I will cheerfully confess the great error of my book. The Italian Rome which I neglected and sacrificed to papal Rome not only exists but is already so powerful and triumphant that it is surely the other one which is bound to disappear in course of time. However much the Pope may strive to remain immutable within his Vatican, a steady evolution goes on around him, and the black world, by mingling with the white, has already become a grey world. I never realised that more acutely than at the /fete/ given by Prince Buongiovanni for the betrothal of his daughter to your grand-nephew. I came away quite enchanted, won over to the cause of your resurrection." The old man's eyes sparkled. "Ah! you were present?" said he, "and you witnessed a never-to-be-forgotten scene, did you not, and you no longer doubt our vitality, our growth into a great people when the difficulties of to-day are overcome? What does a quarter of a century, what does even a century matter! Italy will again rise to her old glory, as soon as the great people of to-morrow shall have sprung from the soil. And if I detest that man Sacco it is because to my mind he is the incarnation of all the enjoyers and intriguers whose appetite for the spoils of our conquest has retarded everything. But I live again in my dear grand-nephew Attilio, who represents the future, the generation of brave and worthy men who will purify and educate the country. Ah! may some of the great ones of to-morrow spring from him and that adorable little Princess Celia, whom my niece Stefana, a sensible woman at bottom, brought to see me the other day. If you had seen that child fling her arms about me, call me endearing names, and tell me that I should be godfather to her first son, so that he might bear my name and once again save Italy! Yes, yes, may peace be concluded around that coming cradle; may the union of those dear children be the indissoluble marriage of Rome and the whole nation, and may all be repaired, and all blossom anew in their love!" Tears came to his eyes, and Pierre, touched by his inextinguishable patriotism, sought to please him. "I myself," said he, "expressed to your son much the same wish on the evening of the betrothal /fete/, when I told him I trusted that their nuptials might be definitive and fruitful, and that from them and all the others there might arise the great nation which, now that I begin to know you, I hope you will soon become!" "You said that!" exclaimed Orlando. "Well, I forgive your book, for you have understood at last; and new Rome, there she is, the Rome which is ours, which we wish to make worthy of her glorious past, and for the third time the queen of the world." With one of those broad gestures into which he put all his remaining life, he pointed to the curtainless window where Rome spread out in solemn majesty from one horizon to the other. But, suddenly he turned his head and in a fit of paternal indignation began to apostrophise young Angiolo Mascara. "You young rascal!" said he, "it's our Rome which you dream of destroying with your bombs, which you talk of razing like a rotten, tottering house, so as to rid the world of it for ever!" Angiolo had hitherto remained silent, passionately listening to the others. His pretty, girlish, beardless face reflected the slightest emotion in sudden flashes; and his big blue eyes also had glowed on hearing what had been said of the people, the new people which it was necessary to create. "Yes!" he slowly replied in his pure and musical voice, "we mean to raze it and not leave a stone of it, but raze it in order to build it up again." Orlando interrupted him with a soft, bantering laugh: "Oh! you would build it up again; that's fortunate!" he said. "I would build it up again," the young man replied, in the trembling voice of an inspired prophet. "I would build it up again oh, so vast, so beautiful, and so noble! Will not the universal democracy of to-morrow, humanity when it is at last freed, need an unique city, which shall be the ark of alliance, the very centre of the world? And is not Rome designated, Rome which the prophecies have marked as eternal and immortal, where the destinies of the nations are to be accomplished? But in order that it may become the final definitive sanctuary, the capital of the destroyed kingdoms, where the wise men of all countries shall meet once every year, one must first of all purify it by fire, leave nothing of its old stains remaining. Then, when the sun shall have absorbed all the pestilence of the old soil, we will rebuild the city ten times more beautiful and ten times larger than it has ever been. And what a city of truth and justice it will at last be, the Rome that has been announced and awaited for three thousand years, all in gold and all in marble, filling the Campagna from the sea to the Sabine and the Alban mountains, and so prosperous and so sensible that its twenty millions of inhabitants after regulating the law of labour will live with the unique joy of being. Yes, yes, Rome the Mother, Rome the Queen, alone on the face of the earth and for all eternity!" Pierre listened to him, aghast. What! did the blood of Augustus go to such a point as this? The popes had not become masters of Rome without feeling impelled to rebuild it in their passion to rule over the world; young Italy, likewise yielding to the hereditary madness of universal domination, had in its turn sought to make the city larger than any other, erecting whole districts for people who had never come, and now even the Anarchists were possessed by the same stubborn dream of the race, a dream beyond all measure this time, a fourth and monstrous Rome, whose suburbs would invade continents in order that liberated humanity, united in one family, might find sufficient lodging! This was the climax. Never could more extravagant proof be given of the blood of pride and sovereignty which had scorched the veins of that race ever since Augustus had bequeathed it the inheritance of his absolute empire, with the furious instinct that the world legally belonged to it, and that its mission was to conquer it again. This idea had intoxicated all the children of that historic soil, impelling all of them to make their city The City, the one which had reigned and which would reign again in splendour when the days predicted by the oracles should arrive. And Pierre remembered the four fatidical letters, the S.P.Q.R. of old and glorious Rome, which like an order of final triumph given to Destiny he had everywhere found in present-day Rome, on all the walls, on all the insignia, even on the municipal dust-carts! And he understood the prodigious vanity of these people, haunted by the glory of their ancestors, spellbound by the past of their city, declaring that she contains everything, that they themselves cannot know her thoroughly, that she is the sphinx who will some day explain the riddle of the universe, that she is so great and noble that all within her acquires increase of greatness and nobility, in such wise that they demand for her the idolatrous respect of the entire world, so vivacious in their minds is the illusive legend which clings to her, so incapable are they of realising that what was once great may be so no longer. "But I know your fourth Rome," resumed Orlando, again enlivened. "It's the Rome of the people, the capital of the Universal Republic, which Mazzini dreamt of. Only he left the pope in it. Do you know, my lad, that if we old Republicans rallied to the monarchy, it was because we feared that in the event of revolution the country might fall into the hands of dangerous madmen such as those who have upset your brain? Yes, that was why we resigned ourselves to our monarchy, which is not much different from a parliamentary republic. And now, goodbye and be sensible, remember that your poor mother would die of it if any misfortune should befall you. Come, let me embrace you all the same." On receiving the hero's affectionate kiss Angiolo coloured like a girl. Then he went off with his gentle, dreamy air, never adding a word but politely inclining his head to the priest. Silence continued till Orlando's eyes encountered the newspapers scattered on the table, when he once more spoke of the terrible bereavement of the Boccaneras. He had loved Benedetta like a dear daughter during the sad days when she had dwelt near him; and finding the newspaper accounts of her death somewhat singular, worried in fact by the obscure points which he could divine in the tragedy, he was asking Pierre for particulars, when his son Luigi suddenly entered the room, breathless from having climbed the stairs so quickly and with his face full of anxious fear. He had just dismissed his contractors with impatient roughness, giving no thought to his serious financial position, the jeopardy in which his fortune was now placed, so anxious was he to be up above beside his father. And when he was there his first uneasy glance was for the old man, to make sure whether the priest by some imprudent word had not dealt him his death blow. He shuddered on noticing how Orlando quivered, moved to tears by the terrible affair of which he was speaking; and for a moment he thought he had arrived too late, that the harm was done. "Good heavens, father!" he exclaimed, "what is the matter with you, why are you crying?" And as he spoke he knelt at the old man's feet, taking hold of his hands and giving him such a passionate, loving glance that he seemed to be offering all the blood of his heart to spare him the slightest grief. "It is about the death of that poor woman," Orlando sadly answered. "I was telling Monsieur Froment how it grieved me, and I added that I could not yet understand it all. The papers talk of a sudden death which is always so extraordinary." The young Count rose again looking very pale. The priest had not yet spoken. But what a frightful moment was this! What if he should reply, what if he should speak out? "You were present, were you not?" continued the old man addressing Pierre. "You saw everything. Tell me then how the thing happened." Luigi Prada looked at Pierre. Their eyes met fixedly, plunging into one another's souls. All began afresh in their minds, Destiny on the march, Santobono encountered with his little basket, the drive across the melancholy Campagna, the conversation about poison while the little basket was gently rocked on the priest's knees; then, in particular, the sleepy /osteria/, and the little black hen, so suddenly killed, lying on the ground with a tiny streamlet of violet blood trickling from her beak. And next there was that splendid ball at the Buongiovanni mansion, with all its /odore di femina/ and its triumph of love: and finally, before the Palazzo Boccanera, so black under the silvery moon, there was the man who lighted a cigar and went off without once turning his head, allowing dim Destiny to accomplish its work of death. Both of them, Pierre and Prada, knew that story and lived it over again, having no need to recall it aloud in order to make certain that they had fully penetrated one another's soul. Pierre did not immediately answer the old man. "Oh!" he murmured at last, "there were frightful things, yes, frightful things." "No doubt--that is what I suspected," resumed Orlando. "You can tell us all. In presence of death my son has freely forgiven." The young Count's gaze again sought that of Pierre with such weight, such ardent entreaty that the priest felt deeply stirred. He had just remembered that man's anguish during the ball, the atrocious torture of jealousy which he had undergone before allowing Destiny to avenge him. And he pictured also what must have been his feelings after the terrible outcome of it all: at first stupefaction at Destiny's harshness, at this full vengeance which he had never desired so ferocious; then icy calmness like that of the cool gambler who awaits events, reading the newspapers, and feeling no other remorse than that of the general whose victory has cost him too many men. He must have immediately realised that the Cardinal would stifle the affair for the sake of the Church's honour; and only retained one weight on his heart, regret possibly for that woman whom he had never won, with perhaps a last horrible jealousy which he did not confess to himself but from which he would always suffer, jealousy at knowing that she lay in another's arms in the grave, for all eternity. But behold, after that victorious effort to remain calm, after that cold and remorseless waiting, Punishment arose, the fear that Destiny, travelling on with its poisoned figs, might have not yet ceased its march, and might by a rebound strike down his own father. Yet another thunderbolt, yet another victim, the most unexpected, the being he most adored! At that thought all his strength of resistance had in one moment collapsed, and he was there, in terror of Destiny, more at a loss, more trembling than a child. "The newspapers, however," slowly said Pierre as if he were seeking his words, "the newspapers must have told you that the Prince succumbed first, and that the Contessina died of grief whilst embracing him for the last time. . . . As for the cause of death, /mon Dieu/, you know that doctors themselves in sudden cases scarcely dare to pronounce an exact opinion--" He stopped short, for within him he had suddenly heard the voice of Benedetta giving him just before she died that terrible order: "You, who will see his father, I charge you to tell him that I cursed his son. I wish that he should know, it is necessary that he should know, for the sake of truth and justice." And was he, oh! Lord, about to obey that order, was it one of those divine commands which must be executed even if the result be a torrent of blood and tears? For a few seconds Pierre suffered from a heart-rending combat within him, hesitating between the act of truth and justice which the dead woman had called for and his own personal desire for forgiveness, and the horror he would feel should he kill that poor old man by fulfilling his implacable mission which could benefit nobody. And certainly the other one, the son, must have understood what a supreme struggle was going on in the priest's mind, a struggle which would decide his own father's fate, for his glance became yet more suppliant than ever. "One first thought that it was merely indigestion," continued Pierre, "but the Prince became so much worse, that one was alarmed, and the doctor was sent for--" Ah! Prada's eyes, they had become so despairing, so full of the most touching and weightiest things, that the priest could read in them all the decisive reasons which were about to stay his tongue. No, no, he would not strike an innocent old man, he had promised nothing, and to obey the last expression of the dead woman's hatred would have seemed to him like charging her memory with a crime. The young Count, too, during those few minutes of anguish, had suffered a whole life of such abominable torture, that after all some little justice was done. "And then," Pierre concluded, "when the doctor arrived he at once recognised that it was a case of infectious fever. There can be no doubt of it. This morning I attended the funeral, it was very splendid and very touching." Orlando did not insist, but contented himself with saying that he also had felt much emotion all the morning on thinking of that funeral. Then, as he turned to set the papers on the table in order with his trembling hands, his son, icy cold with perspiration, staggering and clinging to the back of a chair in order that he might not fall, again gave Pierre a long glance, but a very soft one, full of distracted gratitude. "I am leaving this evening," resumed Pierre, who felt exhausted and wished to break off the conversation, "and I must now bid you farewell. Have you any commission to give me for Paris?" "No, none," replied Orlando; and then, with sudden recollection, he added, "Yes, I have, though! You remember that book written by my old comrade in arms, Theophile Morin, one of Garibaldi's Thousand, that manual for the bachelor's degree which he desired to see translated and adopted here. Well, I am pleased to say that I have a promise that it shall be used in our schools, but on condition that he makes some alterations in it. Luigi, give me the book, it is there on that shelf." Then, when his son had handed him the volume, he showed Pierre some notes which he had pencilled on the margins, and explained to him the modifications which were desired in the general scheme of the work. "Will you be kind enough," he continued, "to take this copy to Morin himself? His address is written inside the cover. If you can do so you will spare me the trouble of writing him a very long letter; in ten minutes you can explain matters to him more clearly and completely than I could do in ten pages. . . . And you must embrace Morin for me, and tell him that I still love him, oh! with all my heart of the bygone days, when I could still use my legs and we two fought like devils side by side under a hail of bullets." A short silence followed, that pause, that embarrassment tinged with emotion which precedes the moment of farewell. "Come, good-bye," said Orlando, "embrace me for him and for yourself, embrace me affectionately like that lad did just now. I am so old and so near my end, my dear Monsieur Froment, that you will allow me to call you my child and to kiss you like a grandfather, wishing you all courage and peace, and that faith in life which alone helps one to live." Pierre was so touched that tears rose to his eyes, and when with all his soul he kissed the stricken hero on either cheek, he felt that he likewise was weeping. With a hand yet as vigorous as a vice, Orlando detained him for a moment beside his arm-chair, whilst with his other hand waving in a supreme gesture, he for the last time showed him Rome, so immense and mournful under the ashen sky. And his voice came low, quivering and suppliant. "For mercy's sake swear to me that you will love her all the same, in spite of all, for she is the cradle, the mother! Love her for all that she no longer is, love her for all that she desires to be! Do not say that her end has come, love her, love her so that she may live again, that she may live for ever!" Pierre again embraced him, unable to find any other response, upset as he was by all the passion displayed by that old warrior, who spoke of his city as a man of thirty might speak of the woman he adores. And he found him so handsome and so lofty with his old blanched, leonine mane and his stubborn belief in approaching resurrection, that once more the other old Roman, Cardinal Boccanera, arose before him, equally stubborn in his faith and relinquishing nought of his dream, even though he might be crushed on the spot by the fall of the heavens. These twain ever stood face to face, at either end of their city, alone rearing their lofty figures above the horizon, whilst awaiting the future. Then, when Pierre had bowed to Count Luigi, and found himself outside again in the Via Venti Settembre he was all eagerness to get back to the Boccanera mansion so as to pack up his things and depart. His farewell visits were made, and he now only had to take leave of Donna Serafina and the Cardinal, and to thank them for all their kind hospitality. For him alone did their doors open, for they had shut themselves up on returning from the funeral, resolved to see nobody. At twilight, therefore, Pierre had no one but Victorine to keep him company in the vast, black mansion, for when he expressed a desire to take supper with Don Vigilio she told him that the latter had also shut himself in his room. Desirous as he was of at least shaking hands with the secretary for the last time, Pierre went to knock at the door, which was so near his own, but could obtain no reply, and divined that the poor fellow, overcome by a fresh attack of fever and suspicion, desired not to see him again, in terror at the idea that he might compromise himself yet more than he had done already. Thereupon, it was settled that as the train only started at seventeen minutes past ten Victorine should serve Pierre his supper on the little table in his sitting-room at eight o'clock. She brought him a lamp and spoke of putting his linen in order, but he absolutely declined her help, and she had to leave him to pack up quietly by himself. He had purchased a little box, since his valise could not possibly hold all the linen and winter clothing which had been sent to him from Paris as his stay in Rome became more and more protracted. However, the packing was soon accomplished; the wardrobe was emptied, the drawers were visited, the box and valise filled and securely locked by seven o'clock. An hour remained to him before supper and he sat there resting, when his eyes whilst travelling round the walls to make sure that he had forgotten nothing, encountered that old painting by some unknown master, which had so often filled him with emotion. The lamplight now shone full upon it; and this time again as he gazed at it he felt a blow in the heart, a blow which was all the deeper, as now, at his parting hour, he found a symbol of his defeat at Rome in that dolent, tragic, half-naked woman, draped in a shred of linen, and weeping between her clasped hands whilst seated on the threshold of the palace whence she had been driven. Did not that rejected one, that stubborn victim of love, who sobbed so bitterly, and of whom one knew nothing, neither what her face was like, nor whence she had come, nor what her fault had been--did she not personify all man's useless efforts to force the doors of truth, and all the frightful abandonment into which he falls as soon as he collides with the wall which shuts the unknown off from him? For a long while did Pierre look at her, again worried at being obliged to depart without having seen her face behind her streaming golden hair, that face of dolorous beauty which he pictured radiant with youth and delicious in its mystery. And as he gazed he was just fancying that he could see it, that it was becoming his at last, when there was a knock at the door and Narcisse Habert entered. Pierre was surprised to see the young /attache/, for three days previously he had started for Florence, impelled thither by one of the sudden whims of his artistic fancy. However, he at once apologised for his unceremonious intrusion. "Ah! there is your luggage!" he said; "I heard that you were going away this evening, and I was unwilling to let you leave Rome without coming to shake hands with you. But what frightful things have happened since we met! I only returned this afternoon, so that I could not attend the funeral. However, you may well imagine how thunderstruck I was by the news of those frightful deaths." Then, suspecting some unacknowledged tragedy, like a man well acquainted with the legendary dark side of Rome, he put some questions to Pierre but did not insist on them, being at bottom far too prudent to burden himself uselessly with redoubtable secrets. And after Pierre had given him such particulars as he thought fit, the conversation changed and they spoke at length of Italy, Rome, Naples, and Florence. "Ah! Florence, Florence!" Narcisse repeated languorously. He had lighted a cigarette and his words fell more slowly, as he glanced round the room. "You were very well lodged here," he said, "it is very quiet. I had never come up to this floor before." His eyes continued wandering over the walls until they were at last arrested by the old painting which the lamp illumined, and thereupon he remained for a moment blinking as if surprised. And all at once he rose and approached the picture. "Dear me, dear me," said he, "but that's very good, that's very fine." "Isn't it?" rejoined Pierre. "I know nothing about painting but I was stirred by that picture on the very day of my arrival, and over and over again it has kept me here with my heart beating and full of indescribable feelings." Narcisse no longer spoke but examined the painting with the care of a connoisseur, an expert, whose keen glance decides the question of authenticity, and appraises commercial value. And the most extraordinary delight appeared upon the young man's fair, rapturous face, whilst his fingers began to quiver. "But it's a Botticelli, it's a Botticelli! There can be no doubt about it," he exclaimed. "Just look at the hands, and look at the folds of the drapery! And the colour of the hair, and the technique, the flow of the whole composition. A Botticelli, ah! /mon Dieu/, a Botticelli." He became quite faint, overflowing with increasing admiration as he penetrated more and more deeply into the subject, at once so simple and so poignant. Was it not acutely modern? The artist had foreseen our pain-fraught century, our anxiety in presence of the invisible, our distress at being unable to cross the portal of mystery which was for ever closed. And what an eternal symbol of the world's wretchedness was that woman, whose face one could not see, and who sobbed so distractedly without it being possible for one to wipe away her tears. Yes, a Botticelli, unknown, uncatalogued, what a discovery! Then he paused to inquire of Pierre: "Did you know it was a Botticelli?" "Oh no! I spoke to Don Vigilio about it one day, but he seemed to think it of no account. And Victorine, when I spoke to her, replied that all those old things only served to harbour dust." Narcisse protested, quite stupefied: "What! they have a Botticelli here and don't know it! Ah! how well I recognise in that the Roman princes who, unless their masterpieces have been labelled, are for the most part utterly at sea among them! No doubt this one has suffered a little, but a simple cleaning would make a marvel, a famous picture of it, for which a museum would at least give--" He abruptly stopped, completing his sentence with a wave of the hand and not mentioning the figure which was on his lips. And then, as Victorine came in followed by Giacomo to lay the little table for Pierre's supper, he turned his back upon the Botticelli and said no more about it. The young priest's attention was aroused, however, and he could well divine what was passing in the other's mind. Under that make-believe Florentine, all angelicalness, there was an experienced business man, who well knew how to look after his pecuniary interests and was even reported to be somewhat avaricious. Pierre, who was aware of it, could not help smiling therefore when he saw him take his stand before another picture--a frightful Virgin, badly copied from some eighteenth-century canvas--and exclaim: "Dear me! that's not at all bad! I've a friend, I remember, who asked me to buy him some old paintings. I say, Victorine, now that Donna Serafina and the Cardinal are left alone do you think they would like to rid themselves of a few valueless pictures?" The servant raised her arms as if to say that if it depended on her, everything might be carried away. Then she replied: "Not to a dealer, sir, on account of the nasty rumours which would at once spread about, but I'm sure they would be happy to please a friend. The house costs a lot to keep up, and money would be welcome." Pierre then vainly endeavoured to persuade Narcisse to stay and sup with him, but the young man gave his word of honour that he was expected elsewhere and was even late. And thereupon he ran off, after pressing the priest's hands and affectionately wishing him a good journey. Eight o'clock was striking, and Pierre seated himself at the little table, Victorine remaining to serve him after dismissing Giacomo, who had brought the supper things upstairs in a basket. "The people here make me wild," said the worthy woman after the other had gone, "they are so slow. And besides, it's a pleasure for me to serve you your last meal, Monsieur l'Abbe. I've had a little French dinner cooked for you, a /sole au gratin/ and a roast fowl." Pierre was touched by this attention, and pleased to have the company of a compatriot whilst he partook of his final meal amidst the deep silence of the old, black, deserted mansion. The buxom figure of Victorine was still instinct with mourning, with grief for the loss of her dear Contessina, but her daily toil was already setting her erect again, restoring her quick activity; and she spoke almost cheerfully whilst passing plates and dishes to Pierre. "And to think Monsieur l'Abbe," said she, "that you'll be in Paris on the morning of the day after to-morrow! As for me, you know, it seems as if I only left Auneau yesterday. Ah! what fine soil there is there; rich soil yellow like gold, not like their poor stuff here which smells of sulphur! And the pretty fresh willows beside our stream, too, and the little wood so full of moss! They've no moss here, their trees look like tin under that stupid sun of theirs which burns up the grass. /Mon Dieu/! in the early times I would have given I don't know what for a good fall of rain to soak me and wash away all the dust. Ah! I shall never get used to their awful Rome. What a country and what people!" Pierre was quite enlivened by her stubborn fidelity to her own nook, which after five and twenty years of absence still left her horrified with that city of crude light and black vegetation, true daughter as she was of a smiling and temperate clime which of a morning was steeped in rosy mist. "But now that your young mistress is dead," said he, "what keeps you here? Why don't you take the train with me?" She looked at him in surprise: "Go off with you, go back to Auneau! Oh! it's impossible, Monsieur l'Abbe. It would be too ungrateful to begin with, for Donna Serafina is accustomed to me, and it would be bad on my part to forsake her and his Eminence now that they are in trouble. And besides, what could I do elsewhere? No, my little hole is here now." "So you will never see Auneau again?" "No, never, that's certain." "And you don't mind being buried here, in their ground which smells of sulphur?" She burst into a frank laugh. "Oh!" she said, "I don't mind where I am when I'm dead. One sleeps well everywhere. And it's funny that you should be so anxious as to what there may be when one's dead. There's nothing, I'm sure. That's what tranquillises me, to feel that it will be all over and that I shall have a rest. The good God owes us that after we've worked so hard. You know that I'm not devout, oh! dear no. Still that doesn't prevent me from behaving properly, and, true as I stand here, I've never had a lover. It seems foolish to say such a thing at my age, still I say it because it's the sober truth." She continued laughing like the worthy woman she was, having no belief in priests and yet without a sin upon her conscience. And Pierre once more marvelled at the simple courage and great practical common sense of this laborious and devoted creature, who for him personified the whole unbelieving lowly class of France, those who no longer believe and will believe never more. Ah! to be as she was, to do one's work and lie down for the eternal sleep without any revolt of pride, satisfied with the one joy of having accomplished one's share of toil! When Pierre had finished his supper Victorine summoned Giacomo to clear the things away. And as it was only half-past eight she advised the priest to spend another quiet hour in his room. Why go and catch a chill by waiting at the station? She could send for a cab at half-past nine, and as soon as it arrived she would send word to him and have his luggage carried down. He might be easy as to that, and need trouble himself about nothing. When she had gone off Pierre soon sank into a deep reverie. It seemed to him, indeed, as if he had already quitted Rome, as if the city were far away and he could look back on it, and his experiences within it. His book, "New Rome," arose in his mind; and he remembered his first morning on the Janiculum, his view of Rome from the terrace of San Pietro in Montorio, a Rome such as he had dreamt of, so young and ethereal under the pure sky. It was then that he had asked himself the decisive question: Could Catholicism be renewed? Could it revert to the spirit of primitive Christianity, become the religion of the democracy, the faith which the distracted modern world, in danger of death, awaits in order that it may be pacified and live? His heart had then beaten with hope and enthusiasm. After his disaster at Lourdes from which he had scarcely recovered, he had come to attempt another and supreme experiment by asking Rome what her reply to his question would be. And now the experiment had failed, he knew what answer Rome had returned him through her ruins, her monuments, her very soil, her people, her prelates, her cardinals, her pope! No, Catholicism could not be renewed: no, it could not revert to the spirit of primitive Christianity; no, it could not become the religion of the democracy, the new faith which might save the old toppling societies in danger of death. Though it seemed to be of democratic origin, it was henceforth riveted to that Roman soil, it remained kingly in spite of everything, forced to cling to the principle of temporal power under penalty of suicide, bound by tradition, enchained by dogma, its evolutions mere simulations whilst in reality it was reduced to such immobility that, behind the bronze doors of the Vatican, the papacy was the prisoner, the ghost of eighteen centuries of atavism, indulging the ceaseless dream of universal dominion. There, where with priestly faith exalted by love of the suffering and the poor, he had come to seek life and a resurrection of the Christian communion, he had found death, the dust of a destroyed world in which nothing more could germinate, an exhausted soil whence now there could never grow aught but that despotic papacy, the master of bodies as it was of souls. To his distracted cry asking for a new religion, Rome had been content to reply by condemning his book as a work tainted with heresy, and he himself had withdrawn it amidst the bitter grief of his disillusions. He had seen, he had understood, and all had collapsed. And it was himself, his soul and his brain, which lay among the ruins. Pierre was stifling. He rose, threw the window overlooking the Tiber wide open, and leant out. The rain had begun to fall again at the approach of evening, but now it had once more ceased. The atmosphere was very mild, moist, even oppressive. The moon must have arisen in the ashen grey sky, for her presence could be divined behind the clouds which she illumined with a vague, yellow, mournful light. And under that slumberous glimmer the vast horizon showed blackly and phantom-like: the Janiculum in front with the close-packed houses of the Trastevere; the river flowing away yonder on the left towards the dim height of the Palatine; whilst on the right the dome of St. Peter's showed forth, round and domineering in the pale atmosphere. Pierre could not see the Quirinal but divined it to be behind him, and could picture its long facade shutting off part of the sky. And what a collapsing Rome, half-devoured by the gloom, was this, so different from the Rome all youth and dreamland which he had beheld and passionately loved on the day of his arrival! He remembered the three symbolic summits which had then summed up for him the whole long history of Rome, the ancient, the papal, and the Italian city. But if the Palatine had remained the same discrowned mount on which there only rose the phantom of the ancestor, Augustus, emperor and pontiff, master of the world, he now pictured St. Peter's and the Quirinal as strangely altered. To that royal palace which he had so neglected, and which had seemed to him like a flat, low barrack, to that new Government which had brought him the impression of some attempt at sacrilegious modernity, he now accorded the large, increasing space that they occupied in the panorama, the whole of which they would apparently soon fill; whilst, on the contrary, St. Peter's, that dome which he had found so triumphal, all azure, reigning over the city like a gigantic and unshakable monarch, at present seemed to him full of cracks and already shrinking, as if it were one of those huge old piles, which, through the secret, unsuspected decay of their timbers, at times fall to the ground in one mass. A murmur, a growling plaint rose from the swollen Tiber, and Pierre shivered at the icy abysmal breath which swept past his face. And his thoughts of the three summits and their symbolic triangle aroused within him the memory of the sufferings of the great silent multitude of poor and lowly for whom pope and king had so long disputed. It all dated from long ago, from the day when, in dividing the inheritance of Augustus, the emperor had been obliged to content himself with men's bodies, leaving their souls to the pope, whose one idea had henceforth been to gain the temporal power of which God, in his person, was despoiled. All the middle ages had been disturbed and ensanguined by the quarrel, till at last the silent multitude weary of vexations and misery spoke out; threw off the papal yoke at the Reformation, and later on began to overthrow its kings. And then, as Pierre had written in his book, a new fortune had been offered to the pope, that of reverting to the ancient dream, by dissociating himself from the fallen thrones and placing himself on the side of the wretched in the hope that this time he would conquer the people, win it entirely for himself. Was it not prodigious to see that man, Leo XIII, despoiled of his kingdom and allowing himself to be called a socialist, assembling under his banner the great flock of the disinherited, and marching against the kings at the head of that fourth estate to whom the coming century will belong? The eternal struggle for possession of the people continued as bitterly as ever even in Rome itself, where pope and king, who could see each other from their windows, contended together like falcon and hawk for the little birds of the woods. And in this for Pierre lay the reason why Catholicism was fatally condemned; for it was of monarchical essence to such a point that the Apostolic and Roman papacy could not renounce the temporal power under penalty of becoming something else and disappearing. In vain did it feign a return to the people, in vain did it seek to appear all soul; there was no room in the midst of the world's democracies for any such total and universal sovereignty as that which it claimed to hold from God. Pierre ever beheld the Imperator sprouting up afresh in the Pontifex Maximus, and it was this in particular which had killed his dream, destroyed his book, heaped up all those ruins before which he remained distracted without either strength or courage. The sight of that ashen Rome, whose edifices faded away into the night, at last brought him such a heart-pang that he came back into the room and fell on a chair near his luggage. Never before had he experienced such distress of spirit, it seemed like the death of his soul. After his disaster at Lourdes he had not come to Rome in search of the candid and complete faith of a little child, but the superior faith of an intellectual being, rising above rites and symbols, and seeking to ensure the greatest possible happiness of mankind based on its need of certainty. And if this collapsed, if Catholicism could not be rejuvenated and become the religion and moral law of the new generations, if the Pope at Rome and with Rome could not be the Father, the arch of alliance, the spiritual leader whom all hearkened to and obeyed, why then, in Pierre's eyes, the last hope was wrecked, the supreme rending which must plunge present-day society into the abyss was near at hand. That scaffolding of Catholic socialism which had seemed to him so happily devised for the consolidation of the old Church, now appeared to him lying on the ground; and he judged it severely as a mere passing expedient which might perhaps for some years prop up the ruined edifice, but which was simply based on an intentional misunderstanding, on a skilful lie, on politics and diplomacy. No, no, that the people should once again, as so many times before, be duped and gained over, caressed in order that it might be enthralled--this was repugnant to one's reason, and the whole system appeared degenerate, dangerous, temporary, calculated to end in the worst catastrophes. So this then was the finish, nothing remained erect and stable, the old world was about to disappear amidst the frightful sanguinary crisis whose approach was announced by such indisputable signs. And he, before that chaos near at hand, had no soul left him, having once more lost his faith in that decisive experiment which, he had felt beforehand, would either strengthen him or strike him down for ever. The thunderbolt had fallen, and now, O God, what should he do? To shake off his anguish he began to walk across the room. Aye, what should he do now that he was all doubt again, all dolorous negation, and that his cassock weighed more heavily than it had ever weighed upon his shoulders? He remembered having told Monsignor Nani that he would never submit, would never be able to resign himself and kill his hope in salvation by love, but would rather reply by a fresh book, in which he would say in what new soil the new religion would spring up. Yes, a flaming book against Rome, in which he would set down all he had seen, a book which would depict the real Rome, the Rome which knows neither charity nor love, and is dying in the pride of its purple! He had spoken of returning to Paris, leaving the Church and going to the point of schism. Well, his luggage now lay there packed, he was going off and he would write that book, he would be the great schismatic who was awaited! Did not everything foretell approaching schism amidst that great movement of men's minds, weary of old mummified dogmas and yet hungering for the divine? Even Leo XIII must be conscious of it, for his whole policy, his whole effort towards Christian unity, his assumed affection for the democracy had no other object than that of grouping the whole family around the papacy, and consolidating it so as to render the Pope invincible in the approaching struggle. But the times had come, Catholicism would soon find that it could grant no more political concessions without perishing, that at Rome it was reduced to the immobility of an ancient hieratic idol, and that only in the lands of propaganda, where it was fighting against other religions, could further evolution take place. It was, indeed, for this reason that Rome was condemned, the more so as the abolition of the temporal power, by accustoming men's minds to the idea of a purely spiritual papacy, seemed likely to conduce to the rise of some anti-pope, far away, whilst the successor of St. Peter was compelled to cling stubbornly to his Apostolic and Roman fiction. A bishop, a priest would arise--where, who could tell? Perhaps yonder in that free America, where there are priests whom the struggle for life has turned into convinced socialists, into ardent democrats, who are ready to go forward with the coming century. And whilst Rome remains unable to relinquish aught of her past, aught of her mysteries and dogmas, that priest will relinquish all of those things which fall from one in dust. Ah! to be that priest, to be that great reformer, that saviour of modern society, what a vast dream, what a part, akin to that of a Messiah summoned by the nations in distress. For a moment Pierre was transported as by a breeze of hope and triumph. If that great change did not come in France, in Paris, it would come elsewhere, yonder across the ocean, or farther yet, wherever there might be a sufficiently fruitful soil for the new seed to spring from it in overflowing harvests. A new religion! a new religion! even as he had cried on returning from Lourdes, a religion which in particular should not be an appetite for death, a religion which should at last realise here below that Kingdom of God referred to in the Gospel, and which should equitably divide terrestrial wealth, and with the law of labour ensure the rule of truth and justice. In the fever of this fresh dream Pierre already saw the pages of his new book flaring before him when his eyes fell on an object lying upon a chair, which at first surprised him. This also was a book, that work of Theophile Morin's which Orlando had commissioned him to hand to its author, and he felt annoyed with himself at having left it there, for he might have forgotten it altogether. Before putting it into his valise he retained it for a moment in his hand turning its pages over, his ideas changing as by a sudden mental revolution. The work was, however, a very modest one, one of those manuals for the bachelor's degree containing little beyond the first elements of the sciences; still all the sciences were represented in it, and it gave a fair summary of the present state of human knowledge. And it was indeed Science which thus burst upon Pierre's reverie with the energy of sovereign power. Not only was Catholicism swept away from his mind, but all his religious conceptions, every hypothesis of the divine tottered and fell. Only that little school book, nothing but the universal desire for knowledge, that education which ever extends and penetrates the whole people, and behold the mysteries became absurdities, the dogmas crumbled, and nothing of ancient faith was left. A nation nourished upon Science, no longer believing in mysteries and dogmas, in a compensatory system of reward and punishment, is a nation whose faith is for ever dead: and without faith Catholicism cannot be. Therein is the blade of the knife, the knife which falls and severs. If one century, if two centuries be needed, Science will take them. She alone is eternal. It is pure /naivete/ to say that reason is not contrary to faith. The truth is, that now already in order to save mere fragments of the sacred writings, it has been necessary to accommodate them to the new certainties, by taking refuge in the assertion that they are simply symbolical! And what an extraordinary attitude is that of the Catholic Church, expressly forbidding all those who may discover a truth contrary to the sacred writings to pronounce upon it in definitive fashion, and ordering them to await events in the conviction that this truth will some day be proved an error! Only the Pope, says the Church, is infallible; Science is fallible, her constant groping is exploited against her, and divines remain on the watch striving to make it appear that her discoveries of to-day are in contradiction with her discoveries of yesterday. What do her sacrilegious assertions, what do her certainties rending dogma asunder, matter to a Catholic since it is certain that at the end of time, she, Science, will again join Faith, and become the latter's very humble slave! Voluntary blindness and impudent denial of things as evident as the sunlight, can no further go. But all the same the insignificant little book, the manual of truth travels on continuing its work, destroying error and building up the new world, even as the infinitesimal agents of life built up our present continents. In the sudden great enlightenment which had come on him Pierre at last felt himself upon firm ground. Has Science ever retreated? It is Catholicism which has always retreated before her, and will always be forced to retreat. Never does Science stop, step by step she wrests truth from error, and to say that she is bankrupt because she cannot explain the world in one word and at one effort, is pure and simple nonsense. If she leaves, and no doubt will always leave a smaller and smaller domain to mystery, and if supposition may always strive to explain that mystery, it is none the less certain that she ruins, and with each successive hour will add to the ruin of the ancient hypotheses, those which crumble away before the acquired truths. And Catholicism is in the position of those ancient hypotheses, and will be in it yet more thoroughly to-morrow. Like all religions it is, at the bottom, but an explanation of the world, a superior social and political code, intended to bring about the greatest possible sum of peace and happiness on earth. This code which embraces the universality of things thenceforth becomes human, and mortal like everything that is human. One cannot put it on one side and say that it exists on one side by itself, whilst Science does the same on the other. Science is total and has already shown Catholicism that such is the case, and will show it again and again by compelling it to repair the breaches incessantly effected in its ramparts till the day of victory shall come with the final assault of resplendent truth. Frankly, it makes one laugh to hear people assign a /role/ to Science, forbid her to enter such and such a domain, predict to her that she shall go no further, and declare that at this end of the century she is already so weary that she abdicates! Oh! you little men of shallow or distorted brains, you politicians planning expedients, you dogmatics at bay, you authoritarians so obstinately clinging to the ancient dreams, Science will pass on, and sweep you all away like withered leaves! Pierre continued glancing through the humble little book, listening to all it told him of sovereign Science. She cannot become bankrupt, for she does not promise the absolute, she is simply the progressive conquest of truth. Never has she pretended that she could give the whole truth at one effort, that sort of edifice being precisely the work of metaphysics, of revelation, of faith. The /role/ of Science, on the contrary, is only to destroy error as she gradually advances and increases enlightenment. And thus, far from becoming bankrupt, in her march which nothing stops, she remains the only possible truth for well-balanced and healthy minds. As for those whom she does not satisfy, who crave for immediate and universal knowledge, they have the resource of seeking refuge in no matter what religious hypothesis, provided, if they wish to appear in the right, that they build their fancy upon acquired certainties. Everything which is raised on proven error falls. However, although religious feeling persists among mankind, although the need of religion may be eternal, it by no means follows that Catholicism is eternal, for it is, after all, but one form of religion, which other forms preceded and which others will follow. Religions may disappear, but religious feeling will create new ones even with the help of Science. Pierre thought of that alleged repulse of Science by the present-day awakening of mysticism, the causes of which he had indicated in his book: the discredit into which the idea of liberty has fallen among the people, duped in the last social reorganisation, and the uneasiness of the /elite/, in despair at the void in which their liberated minds and enlarged intelligences have left them. It is the anguish of the Unknown springing up again; but it is also only a natural and momentary reaction after so much labour, on finding that Science does not yet calm our thirst for justice, our desire for security, or our ancient idea of an eternal after-life of enjoyment. In order, however, that Catholicism might be born anew, as some seem to think it will be, the social soil would have to change, and it cannot change; it no longer possesses the sap needful for the renewal of a decaying formula which schools and laboratories destroy more and more each day. The ground is other than it once was, a different oak must spring from it. May Science therefore have her religion, for such a religion will soon be the only one possible for the coming democracies, for the nations, whose knowledge ever increases whilst their Catholic faith is already nought but dust. And all at once, by way of conclusion, Pierre bethought himself of the idiocy of the Congregation of the Index. It had condemned his book, and would surely condemn the other one that he had thought of, should he ever write it. A fine piece of work truly! To fall tooth and nail on the poor books of an enthusiastic dreamer, in which chimera contended with chimera! Yet the Congregation was so foolish as not to interdict that little book which he held in his hands, that humble book which alone was to be feared, which was the ever triumphant enemy that would surely overthrow the Church. Modest it was in its cheap "get up" as a school manual, but that did not matter: danger began with the very alphabet, increased as knowledge was acquired, and burst forth with those /resumes/ of the physical, chemical, and natural sciences which bring the very Creation, as described by Holy Writ, into question. However, the Index dared not attempt to suppress those humble volumes, those terrible soldiers of truth, those destroyers of faith. What was the use, then, of all the money which Leo XIII drew from his hidden treasure of the Peter's Pence to subvention Catholic schools, with the thought of forming the believing generations which the papacy needed to enable it to conquer? What was the use of that precious money if it was only to serve for the purchase of similar insignificant yet formidable volumes, which could never be sufficiently "cooked" and expurgated, but would always contain too much Science, that growing Science which one day would blow up both Vatican and St. Peter's? Ah! that idiotic and impotent Index, what wretchedness and what derision! Then, when Pierre had placed Theophile Morin's book in his valise, he once more returned to the window, and while leaning out, beheld an extraordinary vision. Under the cloudy, coppery sky, in the mild and mournful night, patches of wavy mist had risen, hiding many of the house-roofs with trailing shreds which looked like shrouds. Entire edifices had disappeared, and he imagined that the times were at last accomplished, and that truth had at last destroyed St. Peter's dome. In a hundred or a thousand years, it would be like that, fallen, obliterated from the black sky. One day, already, he had felt it tottering and cracking beneath him, and had foreseen that this temple of Catholicism would fall even as Jove's temple had fallen on the Capitol. And it was over now, the dome had strewn the ground with fragments, and all that remained standing, in addition to a portion of the apse, where five columns of the central nave, still upholding a shred of entablature, and four cyclopean buttress-piers on which the dome had rested--piers which still arose, isolated and superb, looking indestructible among all the surrounding downfall. But a denser mist flowed past, another thousand years no doubt went by, and then nothing whatever remained. The apse, the last pillars, the giant piers themselves were felled! The wind had swept away their dust, and it would have been necessary to search the soil beneath the brambles and the nettles to find a few fragments of broken statues, marbles with mutilated inscriptions, on the sense of which learned men were unable to agree. And, as formerly, on the Capitol, among the buried remnants of Jupiter's temple, goats strayed and climbed through the solitude, browsing upon the bushes, amidst the deep silence of the oppressive summer sunlight, which only the buzzing flies disturbed. Then, only then, did Pierre feel the supreme collapse within him. It was really all over, Science was victorious, nothing of the old world remained. What use would it be then to become the great schismatic, the reformer who was awaited? Would it not simply mean the building up of a new dream? Only the eternal struggle of Science against the Unknown, the searching, pursuing inquiry which incessantly moderated man's thirst for the divine, now seemed to him of import, leaving him waiting to know if she would ever triumph so completely as to suffice mankind, by satisfying all its wants. And in the disaster which had overcome his apostolic enthusiasm, in presence of all those ruins, having lost his faith, and even his hope of utilising old Catholicism for social and moral salvation, there only remained reason that held him up. She had at one moment given way. If he had dreamt that book, and had just passed through that terrible crisis, it was because sentiment had once again overcome reason within him. It was his mother, so to say, who had wept in his heart, who had filled him with an irresistible desire to relieve the wretched and prevent the massacres which seemed near at hand; and his passion for charity had thus swept aside the scruples of his intelligence. But it was his father's voice that he now heard, lofty and bitter reason which, though it had fled, at present came back in all sovereignty. As he had done already after Lourdes, he protested against the glorification of the absurd and the downfall of common sense. Reason alone enabled him to walk erect and firm among the remnants of the old beliefs, even amidst the obscurities and failures of Science. Ah! Reason, it was through her alone that he suffered, through her alone that he could content himself, and he swore that he would now always seek to satisfy her, even if in doing so he should lose his happiness. At that moment it would have been vain for him to ask what he ought to do. Everything remained in suspense, the world stretched before him still littered with the ruins of the past, of which, to-morrow, it would perhaps be rid. Yonder, in that dolorous faubourg of Paris, he would find good Abbe Rose, who but a few days previously had written begging him to return and tend, love, and save his poor, since Rome, so dazzling from afar, was dead to charity. And around the good and peaceful old priest he would find the ever growing flock of wretched ones; the little fledglings who had fallen from their nests, and whom he found pale with hunger and shivering with cold; the households of abominable misery in which the father drank and the mother became a prostitute, while the sons and the daughters sank into vice and crime; the dwellings, too, through which famine swept, where all was filth and shameful promiscuity, where there was neither furniture nor linen, nothing but purely animal life. And then there would also come the cold blasts of winter, the disasters of slack times, the hurricanes of consumption carrying off the weak, whilst the strong clenched their fists and dreamt of vengeance. One evening, too, perhaps, he might again enter some room of horror and find that another mother had killed herself and her five little ones, her last-born in her arms clinging to her drained breast, and the others scattered over the bare tiles, at last contented, feeling hunger no more, now that they were dead! But no, no, such awful things were no longer possible: such black misery conducting to suicide in the heart of that great city of Paris, which is brimful of wealth, intoxicated with enjoyment, and flings millions out of window for mere pleasure! The very foundations of the social edifice were rotten; all would soon collapse amidst mire and blood. Never before had Pierre so acutely realised the derisive futility of Charity. And all at once he became conscious that the long-awaited word, the word which was at last springing from the great silent multitude, the crushed and gagged people was /Justice/! Aye, Justice not Charity! Charity had only served to perpetuate misery, Justice perhaps would cure it. It was for Justice that the wretched hungered; an act of Justice alone could sweep away the olden world so that the new one might be reared. After all, the great silent multitude would belong neither to Vatican nor to Quirinal, neither to pope nor to king. If it had covertly growled through the ages in its long, sometimes mysterious, and sometimes open contest; if it had struggled betwixt pontiff and emperor who each had wished to retain it for himself alone, it had only done so in order that it might free itself, proclaim its resolve to belong to none on the day when it should cry Justice! Would to-morrow then at last prove that day of Justice and Truth? For his part, Pierre amidst his anguish--having on one hand that need of the divine which tortures man, and on the other sovereignty of reason which enables man to remain erect--was only sure of one thing, that he would keep his vows, continue a priest, watching over the belief of others though he could not himself believe, and would thus chastely and honestly follow his profession, amidst haughty sadness at having been unable to renounce his intelligence in the same way as he had renounced his flesh and his dream of saving the nations. And again, as after Lourdes, he would wait. So deeply was he plunged in reflection at that window, face to face with the mist which seemed to be destroying the dark edifices of Rome, that he did not hear himself called. At last, however, he felt a tap on the shoulder: "Monsieur l'Abbe!" And then as he turned he saw Victorine, who said to him: "It is half-past nine; the cab is there. Giacomo has already taken your luggage down. You must come away, Monsieur l'Abbe." Then seeing him blink, still dazed as it were, she smiled and added: "You were bidding Rome goodbye. What a frightful sky there is." "Yes, frightful," was his reply. Then they descended the stairs. He had handed her a hundred-franc note to be shared between herself and the other servants. And she apologised for going down before him with the lamp, explaining that the old palace was so dark that evening one could scarcely see. Ah! that departure, that last descent through the black and empty mansion, it quite upset Pierre's heart. He gave his room that glance of farewell which always saddened him, even when he was leaving a spot where he had suffered. Then, on passing Don Vigilio's chamber, whence there only came a quivering silence, he pictured the secretary with his head buried in his pillows, holding his breath for fear lest he should speak and attract vengeance. But it was in particular on the second and first floor landings, on passing the closed doors of Donna Serafina and the Cardinal, that Pierre quivered with apprehension at hearing nothing but the silence of the grave. And as he followed Victorine, who, lamp in hand, was still descending, he thought of the brother and sister who were left alone in the ruined palace, last relics of a world which had half passed away. All hope of life had departed with Benedetta and Dario, no resurrection could come from that old maid and that priest who was bound to chastity. Ah! those interminable and lugubrious passages, that frigid and gigantic staircase which seemed to descend into nihility, those huge halls with cracking walls where all was wretchedness and abandonment! And that inner court, looking like a cemetery with its weeds and its damp porticus, where remnants of Apollos and Venuses were rotting! And the little deserted garden, fragrant with ripe oranges, whither nobody now would ever stray, where none would ever meet that adorable Contessina under the laurels near the sarcophagus! All was now annihilated in abominable mourning, in a death-like silence, amidst which the two last Boccaneras must wait, in savage grandeur, till their palace should fall about their heads. Pierre could only just detect a faint sound, the gnawing of a mouse perhaps, unless it were caused by Abbe Paparelli attacking the walls of some out-of-the-way rooms, preying on the old edifice down below, so as to hasten its fall. The cab stood at the door, already laden with the luggage, the box beside the driver, the valise on the seat; and the priest at once got in. "Oh! You have plenty of time," said Victorine, who had remained on the foot-pavement. "Nothing has been forgotten. I'm glad to see you go off comfortably." And indeed at that last moment Pierre was comforted by the presence of that worthy woman, his compatriot, who had greeted him on his arrival and now attended his departure. "I won't say 'till we meet again,' Monsieur l'Abbe," she exclaimed, "for I don't fancy that you'll soon be back in this horrid city. Good-bye, Monsieur l'Abbe." "Good-bye, Victorine, and thank you with all my heart." The cab was already going off at a fast trot, turning into the narrow sinuous street which leads to the Corso Vittoria Emanuele. It was not raining and so the hood had not been raised, but although the damp atmosphere was comparatively mild, Pierre at once felt a chill. However, he was unwilling to stop the driver, a silent fellow whose only desire seemingly was to get rid of his fare as soon as possible. When the cab came out into the Corso Vittoria Emanuele, the young man was astonished to find it already quite deserted, the houses shut, the footways bare, and the electric lamps burning all alone in melancholy solitude. In truth, however, the temperature was far from warm and the fog seemed to be increasing, hiding the house-fronts more and more. When Pierre passed the Cancelleria, that stern colossal pile seemed to him to be receding, fading away; and farther on, upon the right, at the end of the Via di Ara Coeli, starred by a few smoky gas lamps, the Capitol had quite vanished in the gloom. Then the thoroughfare narrowed, and the cab went on between the dark heavy masses of the Gesu and the Altieri palace; and there in that contracted passage, where even on fine sunny days one found all the dampness of old times, the quivering priest yielded to a fresh train of thought. It was an idea which had sometimes made him feel anxious, the idea that mankind, starting from over yonder in Asia, had always marched onward with the sun. An east wind had always carried the human seed for future harvest towards the west. And for a long while now the cradle of humanity had been stricken with destruction and death, as if indeed the nations could only advance by stages, leaving exhausted soil, ruined cities, and degenerate populations behind, as they marched from orient to occident, towards their unknown goal. Nineveh and Babylon on the banks of the Euphrates, Thebes and Memphis on the banks of the Nile, had been reduced to dust, sinking from old age and weariness into a deadly numbness beyond possibility of awakening. Then decrepitude had spread to the shores of the great Mediterranean lake, burying both Tyre and Sidon with dust, and afterwards striking Carthage with senility whilst it yet seemed in full splendour. In this wise as mankind marched on, carried by the hidden forces of civilisation from east to west, it marked each day's journey with ruins; and how frightful was the sterility nowadays displayed by the cradle of History, that Asia and that Egypt, which had once more lapsed into childhood, immobilised in ignorance and degeneracy amidst the ruins of ancient cities that once had been queens of the world! It was thus Pierre reflected as the cab rolled on. Still he was not unconscious of his surroundings. As he passed the Palazzo di Venezia it seemed to him to be crumbling beneath some assault of the invisible, for the mist had already swept away its battlements, and the lofty, bare, fearsome walls looked as if they were staggering from the onslaught of the growing darkness. And after passing the deep gap of the Corso, which was also deserted amidst the pallid radiance of its electric lights, the Palazzo Torlonia appeared on the right-hand, with one wing ripped open by the picks of demolishers, whilst on the left, farther up, the Palazzo Colonna showed its long, mournful facade and closed windows, as if, now that it was deserted by its masters and void of its ancient pomp, it awaited the demolishers in its turn. Then, as the cab at a slower pace began to climb the ascent of the Via Nazionale, Pierre's reverie continued. Was not Rome also stricken, had not the hour come for her to disappear amidst that destruction which the nations on the march invariably left behind them? Greece, Athens, and Sparta slumbered beneath their glorious memories, and were of no account in the world of to-day. Moreover, the growing paralysis had already invaded the lower portion of the Italic peninsula; and after Naples certainly came the turn of Rome. She was on the very margin of the death spot which ever extends over the old continent, that margin where agony begins, where the impoverished soil will no longer nourish and support cities, where men themselves seem stricken with old age as soon as they are born. For two centuries Rome had been declining, withdrawing little by little from modern life, having neither manufactures nor trade, and being incapable even of science, literature, or art. And in Pierre's thoughts it was no longer St. Peter's only that fell, but all Rome--basilicas, palaces, and entire districts--which collapsed amidst a supreme rending, and covered the seven hills with a chaos of ruins. Like Nineveh and Babylon, and like Thebes and Memphis, Rome became but a plain, bossy with remnants, amidst which one vainly sought to identify the sites of ancient edifices, whilst its sole denizens were coiling serpents and bands of rats. The cab turned, and on the right, in a huge gap of darkness Pierre recognised Trajan's column, but it was no longer gilded by the sun as when he had first seen it; it now rose up blackly like the dead trunk of a giant tree whose branches have fallen from old age. And farther on, when he raised his eyes while crossing the little triangular piazza, and perceived a real tree against the leaden sky, that parasol pine of the Villa Aldobrandini which rises there like a symbol of Rome's grace and pride, it seemed to him but a smear, a little cloud of soot ascending from the downfall of the whole city. With the anxious, fraternal turn of his feelings, fear was coming over him as he reached the end of his tragic dream. When the numbness which spreads across the aged world should have passed Rome, when Lombardy should have yielded to it, and Genoa, Turin, and Milan should have fallen asleep as Venice has fallen already, then would come the turn of France. The Alps would be crossed, Marseilles, like Tyre and Sidon, would see its port choked up by sand, Lyons would sink into desolation and slumber, and at last Paris, invaded by the invincible torpor, and transformed into a sterile waste of stones bristling with nettles, would join Rome and Nineveh and Babylon in death, whilst the nations continued their march from orient to occident following the sun. A great cry sped through the gloom, the death cry of the Latin races! History, which seemed to have been born in the basin of the Mediterranean, was being transported elsewhere, and the ocean had now become the centre of the world. How many hours of the human day had gone by? Had mankind, starting from its cradle over yonder at daybreak, strewing its road with ruins from stage to stage, now accomplished one-half of its day and reached the dazzling hour of noon? If so, then the other half of the day allotted to it was beginning, the new world was following the old one, the new world of those American cities where democracy was forming and the religion of to-morrow was sprouting, those sovereign queens of the coming century, with yonder, across another ocean, on the other side of the globe, that motionless Far East, mysterious China and Japan, and all the threatening swarm of the yellow races. However, while the cab climbed higher and higher up the Via Nazionale, Pierre felt his nightmare dissipating. There was here a lighter atmosphere, and he came back into a renewal of hope and courage. Yet the Banca d'Italia, with its brand-new ugliness, its chalky hugeness, looked to him like a phantom in a shroud; whilst above a dim expanse of gardens the Quirinal formed but a black streak barring the heavens. However, the street ever ascended and broadened, and on the summit of the Viminal, on the Piazza delle Terme, when he passed the ruins of Diocletian's baths, he could breathe as his lungs listed. No, no, the human day could not finish, it was eternal, and the stages of civilisation would follow and follow without end! What mattered that eastern wind which carried the nations towards the west, as if borne on by the power of the sun! If necessary, they would return across the other side of the globe, they would again and again make the circuit of the earth, until the day should come when they could establish themselves in peace, truth, and justice. After the next civilisation on the shores of the Atlantic, which would become the world's centre, skirted by queenly cities, there would spring up yet another civilisation, having the Pacific for its centre, with seaport capitals that could not be yet foreseen, whose germs yet slumbered on unknown shores. And in like way there would be still other civilisations and still others! And at that last moment, the inspiriting thought came to Pierre that the great movement of the nations was the instinct, the need which impelled them to return to unity. Originating in one sole family, afterwards parted and dispersed in tribes, thrown into collision by fratricidal hatred, their tendency was none the less to become one sole family again. The provinces united in nations, the nations would unite in races, and the races would end by uniting in one immortal mankind--mankind at last without frontiers, or possibility of wars, mankind living by just labour amidst an universal commonwealth. Was not this indeed the evolution, the object of the labour progressing everywhere, the finish reserved to History? Might Italy then become a strong and healthy nation, might concord be established between her and France, and might that fraternity of the Latin races become the beginning of universal fraternity! Ah! that one fatherland, the whole earth pacified and happy, in how many centuries would that come--and what a dream! Then, on reaching the station the scramble prevented Pierre from thinking any further. He had to take his ticket and register his luggage, and afterwards he at once climbed into the train. At dawn on the next day but one, he would be back in Paris. 
8724	----	and David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] THE THREE CITIES ROME BY EMILE ZOLA TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY PART IV X IN his anxiety to bring things to a finish, Pierre wished to begin his campaign on the very next day. But on whom should he first call if he were to steer clear of blunders in that intricate and conceited ecclesiastical world? The question greatly perplexed him; however, on opening his door that morning he luckily perceived Don Vigilio in the passage, and with a sudden inspiration asked him to step inside. He realised that this thin little man with the saffron face, who always trembled with fever and displayed such exaggerated, timorous discretion, was in reality well informed, mixed up in everything. At one period it had seemed to Pierre that the secretary purposely avoided him, doubtless for fear of compromising himself; but recently Don Vigilio had proved less unsociable, as though he were not far from sharing the impatience which must be consuming the young Frenchman amidst his long enforced inactivity. And so, on this occasion, he did not seek to avoid the chat on which Pierre was bent. "I must apologise," said the latter, "for asking you in here when things are in such disorder. But I have just received some more linen and some winter clothing from Paris. I came, you know, with just a little valise, meaning to stay for a fortnight, and yet I've now been here for nearly three months, and am no more advanced than I was on the morning of my arrival." Don Vigilio nodded. "Yes, yes, I know," said he. Thereupon Pierre explained to him that Monsignor Nani had informed him, through the Contessina, that he now ought to act and see everybody for the defence of his book. But he was much embarrassed, as he did not know in what order to make his visits so that they might benefit him. For instance, ought he to call in the first place on Monsignor Fornaro, the /consultore/ selected to report on his book, and whose name had been given him? "Ah!" exclaimed Don Vigilio, quivering; "has Monsignor Nani gone as far as that--given you the reporter's name? That's even more than I expected." Then, forgetting his prudence, yielding to his secret interest in the affair, he resumed: "No, no; don't begin with Monsignor Fornaro. Your first visit should be a very humble one to the Prefect of the Congregation of the Index--his Eminence Cardinal Sanguinetti; for he would never forgive you for having offered your first homage to another should he some day hear of it." And, after a pause, Don Vigilio added, in a low voice, amidst a faint, feverish shiver: "And he /would/ hear of it; everything becomes known." Again he hesitated, and then, as if yielding to sudden, sympathetic courage, he took hold of the young Frenchman's hands. "I swear to you, my dear Monsieur Froment," he said, "that I should be very happy to help you, for you are a man of simple soul, and I really begin to feel worried for you. But you must not ask me for impossibilities. Ah! if you only knew--if I could only tell you of all the perils which surround us! However, I think I can repeat to you that you must in no wise rely on my patron, his Eminence Cardinal Boccanera. He has expressed absolute disapproval of your book in my presence on several occasions. Only he is a saint, a most worthy, honourable man; and, though he won't defend you, he won't attack you--he will remain neutral out of regard for his niece, whom he loves so dearly, and who protects you. So, when you see him, don't plead your cause; it would be of no avail, and might even irritate him." Pierre was not particularly distressed by this news, for at his first interview with the Cardinal, and on the few subsequent occasions when he had respectfully visited him, he had fully understood that his Eminence would never be other than an adversary. "Well," said he, "I will wait on him to thank him for his neutrality." But at this all Don Vigilio's terrors returned. "No, no, don't do that; he would perhaps realise that I have spoken to you, and then what a disaster--my position would be compromised. I've said nothing, nothing! See the cardinals to begin with, see all the cardinals. Let it be understood between us that I've said nothing more." And, on that occasion at any rate, Don Vigilio would speak no further, but left the room shuddering and darting fiery, suspicious glances on either side of the corridor. Pierre at once went out to call on Cardinal Sanguinetti. It was ten o'clock, and there was a chance that he might find him at home. This cardinal resided on the first floor of a little palazzo in a dark, narrow street near San Luigi dei Francesi.* There was here none of the giant ruin full of princely and melancholy grandeur amidst which Cardinal Boccanera so stubbornly remained. The old regulation gala suite of rooms had been cut down just like the number of servants. There was no throne-room, no red hat hanging under a /baldacchino/, no arm-chair turned to the wall pending a visit from the Pope. A couple of apartments served as ante-rooms, and then came a /salon/ where the Cardinal received; and there was no luxury, indeed scarcely any comfort; the furniture was of mahogany, dating from the empire period, and the hangings and carpets were dusty and faded by long use. Moreover, Pierre had to wait a long time for admittance, and when a servant, leisurely putting on his jacket, at last set the door ajar, it was only to say that his Eminence had been away at Frascati since the previous day. * This is the French church of Rome, and is under the protection of the French Government.--Trans. Pierre then remembered that Cardinal Sanguinetti was one of the suburban bishops. At his see of Frascati he had a villa where he occasionally spent a few days whenever a desire for rest or some political motive impelled him to do so. "And will his Eminence soon return?" Pierre inquired. "Ah! we don't know. His Eminence is poorly, and expressly desired us to send nobody to worry him." When Pierre reached the street again he felt quite bewildered by this disappointment. At first he wondered whether he had not better call on Monsignor Fornaro without more ado, but he recollected Don Vigilio's advice to see the cardinals first of all, and, an inspiration coming to him, he resolved that his next visit should be for Cardinal Sarno, whose acquaintance he had eventually made at Donna Serafina's Mondays. In spite of Cardinal Sarno's voluntary self-effacement, people looked upon him as one of the most powerful and redoubtable members of the Sacred College, albeit his nephew Narcisse Habert declared that he knew no man who showed more obtuseness in matters which did not pertain to his habitual occupations. At all events, Pierre thought that the Cardinal, although not a member of the Congregation of the Index, might well give him some good advice, and possibly bring his great influence to bear on his colleagues. The young man straightway betook himself to the Palace of the Propaganda, where he knew he would find the Cardinal. This palace, which is seen from the Piazza di Spagna, is a bare, massive corner pile between two streets. And Pierre, hampered by his faulty Italian, quite lost himself in it, climbing to floors whence he had to descend again, and finding himself in a perfect labyrinth of stairs, passages, and halls. At last he luckily came across the Cardinal's secretary, an amiable young priest, whom he had already seen at the Boccanera mansion. "Why, yes," said the secretary, "I think that his Eminence will receive you. You did well to come at this hour, for he is always here of a morning. Kindly follow me, if you please." Then came a fresh journey. Cardinal Sarno, long a Secretary of the Propaganda, now presided over the commission which controlled the organisation of worship in those countries of Europe, Africa, America, and Oceanica where Catholicism had lately gained a footing; and he thus had a private room of his own with special officers and assistants, reigning there with the ultra-methodical habits of a functionary who had grown old in his arm-chair, closely surrounded by nests of drawers, and knowing nothing of the world save the usual sights of the street below his window. The secretary left Pierre on a bench at the end of a dark passage, which was lighted by gas even in full daylight. And quite a quarter of an hour went by before he returned with his eager, affable air. "His Eminence is conferring with some missionaries who are about to leave Rome," he said; "but it will soon be over, and he told me to take you to his room, where you can wait for him." As soon as Pierre was alone in the Cardinal's sanctum he examined it with curiosity. Fairly spacious, but in no wise luxurious, it had green paper on its walls, and its furniture was of black wood and green damask. From two windows overlooking a narrow side street a mournful light reached the dark wall-paper and faded carpets. There were a couple of pier tables and a plain black writing-table, which stood near one window, its worn mole-skin covering littered with all sorts of papers. Pierre drew near to it for a moment, and glanced at the arm-chair with damaged, sunken seat, the screen which sheltered it from draughts, and the old inkstand splotched with ink. And then, in the lifeless and oppressive atmosphere, the disquieting silence, which only the low rumbles from the street disturbed, he began to grow impatient. However, whilst he was softly walking up and down he suddenly espied a map affixed to one wall, and the sight of it filled him with such absorbing thoughts that he soon forgot everything else. It was a coloured map of the world, the different tints indicating whether the territories belonged to victorious Catholicism or whether Catholicism was still warring there against unbelief; these last countries being classified as vicariates or prefectures, according to the general principles of organisation. And the whole was a graphic presentment of the long efforts of Catholicism in striving for the universal dominion which it has sought so unremittingly since its earliest hour. God has given the world to His Church, but it is needful that she should secure possession of it since error so stubbornly abides. From this has sprung the eternal battle, the fight which is carried on, even in our days, to win nations over from other religions, as it was in the days when the Apostles quitted Judaea to spread abroad the tidings of the Gospel. During the middle ages the great task was to organise conquered Europe, and this was too absorbing an enterprise to allow of any attempt at reconciliation with the dissident churches of the East. Then the Reformation burst forth, schism was added to schism, and the Protestant half of Europe had to be reconquered as well as all the orthodox East. War-like ardour, however, awoke at the discovery of the New World. Rome was ambitious of securing that other side of the earth, and missions were organised for the subjection of races of which nobody had known anything the day before, but which God had, nevertheless, given to His Church, like all the others. And by degrees the two great divisions of Christianity were formed, on one hand the Catholic nations, those where the faith simply had to be kept up, and which the Secretariate of State installed at the Vatican guided with sovereign authority, and on the other the schismatical or pagan nations which were to be brought back to the fold or converted, and over which the Congregation of the Propaganda sought to reign. Then this Congregation had been obliged to divide itself into two branches in order to facilitate its work--the Oriental branch, which dealt with the dissident sects of the East, and the Latin branch, whose authority extended over all the other lands of mission: the two forming a vast organisation--a huge, strong, closely meshed net cast over the whole world in order that not a single soul might escape. It was in presence of that map that Pierre for the first time became clearly conscious of the mechanism which for centuries had been working to bring about the absorption of humanity. The Propaganda, richly dowered by the popes, and disposing of a considerable revenue, appeared to him like a separate force, a papacy within the papacy, and he well understood that the Prefect of the Congregation should be called the "Red Pope," for how limitless were the powers of that man of conquest and domination, whose hands stretched from one to the other end of the earth. Allowing that the Cardinal Secretary held Europe, that diminutive portion of the globe, did not he, the Prefect, hold all the rest--the infinity of space, the distant countries as yet almost unknown? Besides, statistics showed that Rome's uncontested dominion was limited to 200 millions of Apostolic and Roman Catholics; whereas the schismatics of the East and the Reformation, if added together, already exceeded that number, and how small became the minority of the true believers when, besides the schismatics, one brought into line the 1000 millions of infidels who yet remained to be converted. The figures struck Pierre with a force which made him shudder. What! there were 5 million Jews, nearly 200 million Mahommedans, more than 700 million Brahmanists and Buddhists, without counting another 100 million pagans of divers creeds, the whole making 1000 millions, and against these the Christians could marshal barely more than 400 millions, who were divided among themselves, ever in conflict, one half with Rome and the other half against her?* Was it possible that in 1800 years Christianity had not proved victorious over even one-third of mankind, and that Rome, the eternal and all-powerful, only counted a sixth part of the nations among her subjects? Only one soul saved out of every six--how fearful was the disproportion! However, the map spoke with brutal eloquence: the red-tinted empire of Rome was but a speck when compared with the yellow-hued empire of the other gods--the endless countries which the Propaganda still had to conquer. And the question arose: How many centuries must elapse before the promises of the Christ were realised, before the whole world were gained to Christianity, before religious society spread over secular society, and there remained but one kingdom and one belief? And in presence of this question, in presence of the prodigious labour yet to be accomplished, how great was one's astonishment when one thought of Rome's tranquil serenity, her patient stubbornness, which has never known doubt or weariness, her bishops and ministers toiling without cessation in the conviction that she alone will some day be the mistress of the world! * Some readers may question certain of the figures given by M. Zola, but it must be remembered that all such calculations (even those of the best "authorities") are largely guesswork. I myself think that there are more than 5 million Jews, and more than 200 millions of Mahommedans, but I regard the alleged number of Brahmanists and Buddhists as exaggerated. On the other hand, some statistical tables specify 80 millions of Confucianists, of whom M. Zola makes no separate mention. However, as regards the number of Christians in the world, the figures given above are, within a few millions, probably accurate.--Trans. Narcisse had told Pierre how carefully the embassies at Rome watched the doings of the Propaganda, for the missions were often the instruments of one or another nation, and exercised decisive influence in far-away lands. And so there was a continual struggle, in which the Congregation did all it could to favour the missionaries of Italy and her allies. It had always been jealous of its French rival, "L'Oeuvre de la Propagation de la Foi," installed at Lyons, which is as wealthy in money as itself, and richer in men of energy and courage. However, not content with levelling tribute on this French association, the Propaganda thwarted it, sacrificed it on every occasion when it had reason to think it might achieve a victory. Not once or twice, but over and over again had the French missionaries, the French orders, been driven from the scenes of their labours to make way for Italians or Germans. And Pierre, standing in that mournful, dusty room, which the sunlight never brightened, pictured the secret hot-bed of political intrigue masked by the civilising ardour of faith. Again he shuddered as one shudders when monstrous, terrifying things are brought home to one. And might not the most sensible be overcome? Might not the bravest be dismayed by the thought of that universal engine of conquest and domination, which worked with the stubbornness of eternity, not merely content with the gain of souls, but ever seeking to ensure its future sovereignty over the whole of corporeal humanity, and--pending the time when it might rule the nations itself--disposing of them, handing them over to the charge of this or that temporary master, in accordance with its good pleasure. And then, too, what a prodigious dream! Rome smiling and tranquilly awaiting the day when she will have united Christians, Mahommedans, Brahmanists, and Buddhists into one sole nation, of whom she will be both the spiritual and the temporal queen! However, a sound of coughing made Pierre turn, and he started on perceiving Cardinal Sarno, whom he had not heard enter. Standing in front of that map, he felt like one caught in the act of prying into a secret, and a deep flush overspread his face. The Cardinal, however, after looking at him fixedly with his dim eyes, went to his writing-table, and let himself drop into the arm-chair without saying a word. With a gesture he dispensed Pierre of the duty of kissing his ring. "I desired to offer my homage to your Eminence," said the young man. "Is your Eminence unwell?" "No, no, it's nothing but a dreadful cold which I can't get rid of. And then, too, I have so many things to attend to just now." Pierre looked at the Cardinal as he appeared in the livid light from the window, puny, lopsided, with the left shoulder higher than the right, and not a sign of life on his worn and ashen countenance. The young priest was reminded of one of his uncles, who, after thirty years spent in the offices of a French public department, displayed the same lifeless glance, parchment-like skin, and weary hebetation. Was it possible that this withered old man, so lost in his black cassock with red edging, was really one of the masters of the world, with the map of Christendom so deeply stamped on his mind, albeit he had never left Rome, that the Prefect of the Propaganda did not take a decision without asking his opinion? "Sit down, Monsieur l'Abbe," said the Cardinal. "So you have come to see me--you have something to ask of me!" And, whilst disposing himself to listen, he stretched out his thin bony hands to finger the documents heaped up before him, glancing at each of them like some general, some strategist, profoundly versed in the science of his profession, who, although his army is far away, nevertheless directs it to victory from his private room, never for a moment allowing it to escape his mind. Pierre was somewhat embarrassed by such a plain enunciation of the interested object of his visit; still, he decided to go to the point. "Yes, indeed," he answered, "it is a liberty I have taken to come and appeal to your Eminence's wisdom for advice. Your Eminence is aware that I am in Rome for the purpose of defending a book of mine, and I should be grateful if your Eminence would help and guide me." Then he gave a brief account of the present position of the affair, and began to plead his cause; but as he continued speaking he noticed that the Cardinal gave him very little attention, as though indeed he were thinking of something else, and failed to understand. "Ah! yes," the great man at last muttered, "you have written a book. There was some question of it at Donna Serafina's one evening. But a priest ought not to write; it is a mistake for him to do so. What is the good of it? And the Congregation of the Index must certainly be in the right if it is prosecuting your book. At all events, what can I do? I don't belong to the Congregation, and I know nothing, nothing about the matter." Pierre, pained at finding him so listless and indifferent, went on trying to enlighten and move him. But he realised that this man's mind, so far-reaching and penetrating in the field in which it had worked for forty years, closed up as soon as one sought to divert it from its specialty. It was neither an inquisitive nor a supple mind. All trace of life faded from the Cardinal's eyes, and his entire countenance assumed an expression of mournful imbecility. "I know nothing, nothing," he repeated, "and I never recommend anybody." However, at last he made an effort: "But Nani is mixed up in this," said he. "What does Nani advise you to do?" "Monsignor Nani has been kind enough to reveal to me that the reporter is Monsignor Fornaro, and advises me to see him." At this Cardinal Sarno seemed surprised and somewhat roused. A little light returned to his eyes. "Ah! really," he rejoined, "ah! really-- Well, if Nani has done that he must have some idea. Go and see Monsignor Fornaro." Then, after rising and dismissing his visitor, who was compelled to thank him, bowing deeply, he resumed his seat, and a moment later the only sound in the lifeless room was that of his bony fingers turning over the documents before him. Pierre, in all docility, followed the advice given him, and immediately betook himself to the Piazza Navona, where, however, he learnt from one of Monsignor Fornaro's servants that the prelate had just gone out, and that to find him at home it was necessary to call in the morning at ten o'clock. Accordingly it was only on the following day that Pierre was able to obtain an interview. He had previously made inquiries and knew what was necessary concerning Monsignor Fornaro. Born at Naples, he had there begun his studies under the Barnabites, had finished them at the Seminario Romano, and had subsequently, for many years, been a professor at the University Gregoriana. Nowadays Consultor to several Congregations and a Canon of Santa Maria Maggiore, he placed his immediate ambition in a Canonry at St. Peter's, and harboured the dream of some day becoming Secretary of the Consistorial Congregation, a post conducting to the cardinalate. A theologian of remarkable ability, Monsignor Fornaro incurred no other reproach than that of occasionally sacrificing to literature by contributing articles, which he carefully abstained from signing, to certain religious reviews. He was also said to be very worldly. Pierre was received as soon as he had sent in his card, and perhaps he would have fancied that his visit was expected had not an appearance of sincere surprise, blended with a little anxiety, marked his reception. "Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, Monsieur l'Abbe Froment," repeated the prelate, looking at the card which he still held. "Kindly step in--I was about to forbid my door, for I have some urgent work to attend to. But no matter, sit down." Pierre, however, remained standing, quite charmed by the blooming appearance of this tall, strong, handsome man who, although five and forty years of age, was quite fresh and rosy, with moist lips, caressing eyes, and scarcely a grey hair among his curly locks. Nobody more fascinating and decorative could be found among the whole Roman prelacy. Careful of his person undoubtedly, and aiming at a simple elegance, he looked really superb in his black cassock with violet collar. And around him the spacious room where he received his visitors, gaily lighted as it was by two large windows facing the Piazza Navona, and furnished with a taste nowadays seldom met with among the Roman clergy, diffused a pleasant odour and formed a setting instinct with kindly cheerfulness. "Pray sit down, Monsieur l'Abbe Froment," he resumed, "and tell me to what I am indebted for the honour of your visit." He had already recovered his self-possession and assumed a /naif/, purely obliging air; and Pierre, though the question was only natural, and he ought to have foreseen it, suddenly felt greatly embarrassed, more embarrassed indeed than in Cardinal Sarno's presence. Should he go to the point at once, confess the delicate motive of his visit? A moment's reflection showed him that this would be the best and worthier course. "Dear me, Monseigneur," he replied, "I know very well that the step I have taken in calling on you is not usually taken, but it has been advised me, and it has seemed to me that among honest folks there can never be any harm in seeking in all good faith to elucidate the truth." "What is it, what is it, then?" asked the prelate with an expression of perfect candour, and still continuing to smile. "Well, simply this. I have learnt that the Congregation of the Index has handed you my book 'New Rome,' and appointed you to examine it; and I have ventured to present myself before you in case you should have any explanations to ask of me." But Monsignor Fornaro seemed unwilling to hear any more. He had carried both hands to his head and drawn back, albeit still courteous. "No, no," said he, "don't tell me that, don't continue, you would grieve me dreadfully. Let us say, if you like, that you have been deceived, for nothing ought to be known, in fact nothing is known, either by others or myself. I pray you, do not let us talk of such matters." Pierre, however, had fortunately remarked what a decisive effect was produced when he had occasion to mention the name of the Assessor of the Holy Office. So it occurred to him to reply: "I most certainly do not desire to give you the slightest cause for embarrassment, Monseigneur, and I repeat to you that I would never have ventured to importune you if Monsignor Nani himself had not acquainted me with your name and address." This time the effect was immediate, though Monsignor Fornaro, with that easy grace which he introduced into all things, made some ceremony about surrendering. He began by a demurrer, speaking archly with subtle shades of expression. "What! is Monsignor Nani the tattler! But I shall scold him, I shall get angry with him! And what does he know? He doesn't belong to the Congregation; he may have been led into error. You must tell him that he has made a mistake, and that I have nothing at all to do with your affair. That will teach him not to reveal needful secrets which everybody respects!" Then, in a pleasant way, with winning glance and flowery lips, he went on: "Come, since Monsignor Nani desires it, I am willing to chat with you for a moment, my dear Monsieur Froment, but on condition that you shall know nothing of my report or of what may have been said or done at the Congregation." Pierre in his turn smiled, admiring how easy things became when forms were respected and appearances saved. And once again he began to explain his case, the profound astonishment into which the prosecution of his book had thrown him, and his ignorance of the objections which were taken to it, and for which he had vainly sought a cause. "Really, really," repeated the prelate, quite amazed at so much innocence. "The Congregation is a tribunal, and can only act when a case is brought before it. Proceedings have been taken against your book simply because it has been denounced." "Yes, I know, denounced." "Of course. Complaint was laid by three French bishops, whose names you will allow me to keep secret, and it consequently became necessary for the Congregation to examine the incriminated work." Pierre looked at him quite scared. Denounced by three bishops? Why? With what object? Then he thought of his protector. "But Cardinal Bergerot," said he, "wrote me a letter of approval, which I placed at the beginning of my work as a preface. Ought not a guarantee like that to have been sufficient for the French episcopacy?" Monsignor Fornaro wagged his head in a knowing way before making up his mind to reply: "Ah! yes, no doubt, his Eminence's letter, a very beautiful letter. I think, however, that it would have been much better if he had not written it, both for himself and for you especially." Then as the priest, whose surprise was increasing, opened his mouth to urge him to explain himself, he went on: "No, no, I know nothing, I say nothing. His Eminence Cardinal Bergerot is a saintly man whom everybody venerates, and if it were possible for him to sin it would only be through pure goodness of heart." Silence fell. Pierre could divine that an abyss was opening, and dared not insist. However, he at last resumed with some violence: "But, after all, why should my book be prosecuted, and the books of others be left untouched? I have no intention of acting as a denouncer myself, but how many books there are to which Rome closes her eyes, and which are far more dangerous than mine can be!" This time Monsignor Fornaro seemed glad to be able to support Pierre's views. "You are right," said he, "we cannot deal with every bad book, and it greatly distresses us. But you must remember what an incalculable number of works we should be compelled to read. And so we have to content ourselves with condemning the worst /en bloc/." Then he complacently entered into explanations. In principle, no printer ought to send any work to press without having previously submitted the manuscript to the approval of the bishop of the diocese. Nowadays, however, with the enormous output of the printing trade, one could understand how terribly embarrassed the bishops would be if the printers were suddenly to conform to the Church's regulation. There was neither the time nor the money, nor were there the men necessary for such colossal labour. And so the Congregation of the Index condemned /en masse/, without examination, all works of certain categories: first, books which were dangerous for morals, all erotic writings, and all novels; next the various bibles in the vulgar tongue, for the perusal of Holy Writ without discretion was not allowable; then the books on magic and sorcery, and all works on science, history, or philosophy that were in any way contrary to dogma, as well as the writings of heresiarchs or mere ecclesiastics discussing religion, which should never be discussed. All these were wise laws made by different popes, and were set forth in the preface to the catalogue of forbidden books which the Congregation published, and without them this catalogue, to have been complete, would in itself have formed a large library. On turning it over one found that the works singled out for interdiction were chiefly those of priests, the task being so vast and difficult that Rome's concern extended but little beyond the observance of good order within the Church. And Pierre and his book came within the limit. "You will understand," continued Monsignor Fornaro, "that we have no desire to advertise a heap of unwholesome writings by honouring them with special condemnation. Their name is legion in every country, and we should have neither enough paper nor enough ink to deal with them all. So we content ourselves with condemning one from time to time, when it bears a famous name and makes too much noise, or contains disquieting attacks on the faith. This suffices to remind the world that we exist and defend ourselves without abandoning aught of our rights or duties." "But my book, my book," exclaimed Pierre, "why these proceedings against my book?" "I am explaining that to you as far as it is allowable for me to do, my dear Monsieur Froment. You are a priest, your book is a success, you have published a cheap edition of it which sells very readily; and I don't speak of its literary merit, which is remarkable, for it contains a breath of real poetry which transported me, and on which I must really compliment you. However, under the circumstances which I have enumerated, how could we close our eyes to such a work as yours, in which the conclusion arrived at is the annihilation of our holy religion and the destruction of Rome?" Pierre remained open-mouthed, suffocating with surprise. "The destruction of Rome!" he at last exclaimed; "but I desire to see Rome rejuvenated, eternal, again the queen of the world." And, once more mastered by his glowing enthusiasm, he defended himself and confessed his faith: Catholicism reverting to the principles and practices of the primitive Church, drawing the blood of regeneration from the fraternal Christianity of Jesus; the Pope, freed from all terrestrial royalty, governing the whole of humanity with charity and love, and saving the world from the frightful social cataclysm that threatens it by leading it to the real Kingdom of God: the Christian communion of all nations united in one nation only. "And can the Holy Father disavow me?" he continued. "Are not these his secret ideas, which people are beginning to divine, and does not my only offence lie in having expressed them perhaps too soon and too freely? And if I were allowed to see him should I not at once obtain from him an order to stop these proceedings?" Monsignor Fornaro no longer spoke, but wagged his head without appearing offended by the priest's juvenile ardour. On the contrary, he smiled with increasing amiability, as though highly amused by so much innocence and imagination. At last he gaily responded, "Oh! speak on, speak on; it isn't I who will stop you. I'm forbidden to say anything. But the temporal power, the temporal power." "Well, what of the temporal power?" asked Pierre. The prelate had again become silent, raising his amiable face to heaven and waving his white hands with a pretty gesture. And when he once more opened his mouth it was to say: "Then there's your new religion--for the expression occurs twice: the new religion, the new religion--ah, /Dio/!" Again he became restless, going off into an ecstasy of wonderment, at sight of which Pierre impatiently exclaimed: "I do not know what your report will be, Monseigneur, but I declare to you that I have had no desire to attack dogma. And, candidly now, my whole book shows that I only sought to write a work of pity and salvation. It is only justice that some account should be taken of one's intentions." Monsignor Fornaro had become very calm and paternal again. "Oh! intentions! intentions!" he said as he rose to dismiss his visitor. "You may be sure, my dear Monsieur Froment, that I feel much honoured by your visit. Naturally I cannot tell you what my report will be; as it is, we have talked too much about it, and, in fact, I ought to have refused to listen to your defence. At the same time, you will always find me ready to be of service to you in anything that does not go against my duty. But I greatly fear that your book will be condemned." And then, as Pierre again started, he added: "Well, yes. It is facts that are judged, you know, not intentions. So all defence is useless; the book is there, and we take it such as it is. However much you may try to explain it, you cannot alter it. And this is why the Congregation never calls the accused parties before it, and never accepts from them aught but retraction pure and simple. And, indeed, the wisest course would be for you to withdraw your book and make your submission. No? You won't? Ah! how young you are, my friend!" He laughed yet more loudly at the gesture of revolt, of indomitable pride which had just escaped his young friend, as he called him. Then, on reaching the door, he again threw off some of his reserve, and said in a low voice, "Come, my dear Abbe, there is something I will do for you. I will give you some good advice. At bottom, I myself am nothing. I deliver my report, and it is printed, and the members of the Congregation read it, but are quite free to pay no attention to it. However, the Secretary of the Congregation, Father Dangelis, can accomplish everything, even impossibilities. Go to see him; you will find him at the Dominican convent behind the Piazza di Spagna. Don't name me. And for the present good-bye, my dear fellow, good-bye." Pierre once more found himself on the Piazza Navona, quite dazed, no longer knowing what to believe or hope. A cowardly idea was coming over him; why should he continue this struggle, in which his adversaries remained unknown and indiscernible? Why carry obstinacy any further, why linger any longer in that impassionating but deceptive Rome? He would flee that very evening, return to Paris, disappear there, and forget his bitter disillusion in the practice of humble charity. He was traversing one of those hours of weakness when the long-dreamt-of task suddenly seems to be an impossibility. However, amidst his great confusion he was nevertheless walking on, going towards his destination. And when he found himself in the Corso, then in the Via dei Condotti, and finally in the Piazza di Spagna, he resolved that he would at any rate see Father Dangelis. The Dominican convent is there, just below the Trinity de' Monti. Ah! those Dominicans! Pierre had never thought of them without a feeling of respect with which mingled a little fear. What vigorous pillars of the principle of authority and theocracy they had for centuries proved themselves to be! To them the Church had been indebted for its greatest measure of authority; they were the glorious soldiers of its triumph. Whilst St. Francis won the souls of the humble over to Rome, St. Dominic, on Rome's behalf, subjected all the superior souls--those of the intelligent and powerful. And this he did with passion, amidst a blaze of faith and determination, making use of all possible means, preachings, writings, and police and judicial pressure. Though he did not found the Inquisition, its principles were his, and it was with fire and sword that his fraternal, loving heart waged war on schism. Living like his monks, in poverty, chastity, and obedience--the great virtues of those times of pride and licentiousness--he went from city to city, exhorting the impious, striving to bring them back to the Church and arraigning them before the ecclesiastical courts when his preachings did not suffice. He also laid siege to science, sought to make it his own, dreamt of defending God with the weapons of reason and human knowledge like a true forerunner of the angelic St. Thomas, that light of the middle ages, who joined the Dominican order and set everything in his "Summa Theologiae," psychology, logic, policy, and morals. And thus it was that the Dominicans filled the world, upholding the doctrines of Rome in the most famous pulpits of every nation, and contending almost everywhere against the free sprit of the Universities, like the vigilant guardians of dogma that they were, the unwearying artisans of the fortunes of the popes, the most powerful amongst all the artistic, scientific, and literary workers who raised the huge edifice of Catholicism such as it exists to-day. However, Pierre, who could feel that this edifice was even now tottering, though it had been built, people fancied, so substantially as to last through all eternity, asked himself what could be the present use of the Dominicans, those toilers of another age, whose police system and whose tribunals had perished beneath universal execration, whose voices were no longer listened to, whose books were but seldom read, and whose /role/ as /savants/ and civilisers had come to an end in presence of latter-day science, the truths of which were rending dogma on all sides. Certainly the Dominicans still form an influential and prosperous order; but how far one is from the times when their general reigned in Rome, Master of the Holy Palace, with convents and schools, and subjects throughout Europe! Of all their vast inheritance, so far as the Roman curia is concerned, only a few posts now remain to them, and among others the Secretaryship of the Congregation of the Index, a former dependency of the Holy Office where they once despotically ruled. Pierre was immediately ushered into the presence of Father Dangelis. The convent parlour was vast, bare, and white, flooded with bright sunshine. The only furniture was a table and some stools; and a large brass crucifix hung from the wall. Near the table stood the Father, a very thin man of about fifty, severely draped in his ample white habit and black mantle. From his long ascetic face, with thin lips, thin nose, and pointed, obstinate chin, his grey eyes shone out with a fixity that embarrassed one. And, moreover, he showed himself very plain and simple of speech, and frigidly polite in manner. "Monsieur l'Abbe Froment--the author of 'New Rome,' I suppose?" Then seating himself on one stool and pointing to another, he added: "Pray acquaint me with the object of your visit, Monsieur l'Abbe." Thereupon Pierre had to begin his explanation, his defence, all over again; and the task soon became the more painful as his words fell from his lips amidst death-like silence and frigidity. Father Dangelis did not stir; with his hands crossed upon his knees he kept his sharp, penetrating eyes fixed upon those of the priest. And when the latter had at last ceased speaking, he slowly said: "I did not like to interrupt you, Monsieur l'Abbe, but it was not for me to hear all this. Process against your book has begun, and no power in the world can stay or impede its course. I do not therefore realise what it is that you apparently expect of me." In a quivering voice Pierre was bold enough to answer: "I look for some kindness and justice." A pale smile, instinct with proud humility, arose to the Dominican's lips. "Be without fear," he replied, "God has ever deigned to enlighten me in the discharge of my modest duties. Personally, be it said, I have no justice to render; I am but an employee whose duty is to classify matters and draw up documents concerning them. Their Eminences, the members of the Congregation, will alone pronounce judgment on your book. And assuredly they will do so with the help of the Holy Spirit. You will only have to bow to their sentence when it shall have been ratified by his Holiness." Then he broke off the interview by rising, and Pierre was obliged to do the same. The Dominican's words were virtually identical with those that had fallen from Monsignor Fornaro, but they were spoken with cutting frankness, a sort of tranquil bravery. On all sides Pierre came into collision with the same anonymous force, the same powerful engine whose component parts sought to ignore one another. For a long time yet, no doubt, he would be sent from one to the other, without ever finding the volitional element which reasoned and acted. And the only thing that he could do was to bow to it all. However, before going off, it occurred to him once more to mention the name of Monsignor Nani, the powerful effect of which he had begun to realise. "I ask your pardon," he said, "for having disturbed you to no purpose, but I simply deferred to the kind advice of Monsignor Nani, who has condescended to show me some interest." The effect of these words was unexpected. Again did Father Dangelis's thin face brighten into a smile, but with a twist of the lips, sharp with ironical contempt. He had become yet paler, and his keen intelligent eyes were flaming. "Ah! it was Monsignor Nani who sent you!" he said. "Well, if you think you need a protector, it is useless for you to apply to any other than himself. He is all-powerful. Go to see him; go to see him!" And that was the only encouragement Pierre derived from his visit: the advice to go back to the man who had sent him. At this he felt that he was losing ground, and he resolved to return home in order to reflect on things and try to understand them before taking any further steps. The idea of questioning Don Vigilio at once occurred to him, and that same evening after supper he luckily met the secretary in the corridor, just as, candle in hand, he was on his way to bed. "I have so many things that I should like to say to you," Pierre said to him. "Can you kindly come to my rooms for a moment?" But the other promptly silenced him with a gesture, and then whispered: "Didn't you see Abbe Paparelli on the first floor? He was following us, I'm sure." Pierre often saw the train-bearer roaming about the house, and greatly disliked his stealthy, prying ways. However, he had hitherto attached no importance to him, and was therefore much surprised by Don Vigilio's question. The other, without awaiting his reply, had returned to the end of the corridor, where for a long while he remained listening. Then he came back on tip-toe, blew out his candle, and darted into Pierre's sitting-room. "There--that's done," he murmured directly the door was shut. "But if it is all the same to you, we won't stop in this sitting-room. Let us go into your bed-room. Two walls are better than one." When the lamp had been placed on the table and they found themselves seated face to face in that bare, faded bed-chamber, Pierre noticed that the secretary was suffering from a more violent attack of fever than usual. His thin puny figure was shivering from head to foot, and his ardent eyes had never before blazed so blackly in his ravaged, yellow face. "Are you poorly?" asked Pierre. "I don't want to tire you." "Poorly, yes, I am on fire--but I want to talk. I can't bear it any longer. One always has to relieve oneself some day or other." Was it his complaint that he desired to relieve; or was he anxious to break his long silence in order that it might not stifle him? This at first remained uncertain. He immediately asked for an account of the steps that Pierre had lately taken, and became yet more restless when he heard how the other had been received by Cardinal Sarno, Monsignor Fornaro, and Father Dangelis. "Yes, that's quite it," he repeated, "nothing astonishes me nowadays, and yet I feel indignant on your account. Yes, it doesn't concern me, but all the same it makes me ill, for it reminds me of all my own troubles. You must not rely on Cardinal Sarno, remember, for he is always elsewhere, with his mind far away, and has never helped anybody. But that Fornaro, that Fornaro!" "He seemed to me very amiable, even kindly disposed," replied Pierre; "and I really think that after our interview, he will considerably soften his report." "He! Why, the gentler he was with you the more grievously he will saddle you! He will devour you, fatten himself with such easy prey. Ah! you don't know him, /dilizioso/ that he is, ever on the watch to rear his own fortune on the troubles of poor devils whose defeat is bound to please the powerful. I prefer the other one, Father Dangelis, a terrible man, no doubt, but frank and brave and of superior mind. I must admit, however, that he would burn you like a handful of straw if he were the master. And ah! if I could tell you everything, if I could show you the frightful under-side of this world of ours, the monstrous, ravenous ambition, the abominable network of intrigues, venality, cowardice, treachery, and even crime!" On seeing Don Vigilio so excited, in such a blaze of spite, Pierre thought of extracting from him some of the many items of information which he had hitherto sought in vain. "Well, tell me merely what is the position of my affair," he responded. "When I questioned you on my arrival here you said that nothing had yet reached Cardinal Boccanera. But all information must now have been collected, and you must know of it. And, by the way, Monsignor Fornaro told me that three French bishops had asked that my book should be prosecuted. Three bishops, is it possible?" Don Vigilio shrugged his shoulders. "Ah!" said he, "yours is an innocent soul! I'm surprised that there were /only/ three! Yes, several documents relating to your affair are in our hands; and, moreover, things have turned out much as I suspected. The three bishops are first the Bishop of Tarbes, who evidently carries out the vengeance of the Fathers of Lourdes; and then the Bishops of Poitiers and Evreux, who are both known as uncompromising Ultramontanists and passionate adversaries of Cardinal Bergerot. The Cardinal, you know, is regarded with disfavour at the Vatican, where his Gallican ideas and broad liberal mind provoke perfect anger. And don't seek for anything else. The whole affair lies in that: an execution which the powerful Fathers of Lourdes demand of his Holiness, and a desire to reach and strike Cardinal Bergerot through your book, by means of the letter of approval which he imprudently wrote to you and which you published by way of preface. For a long time past the condemnations of the Index have largely been secret knock-down blows levelled at Churchmen. Denunciation reigns supreme, and the law applied is that of good pleasure. I could tell you some almost incredible things, how perfectly innocent books have been selected among a hundred for the sole object of killing an idea or a man; for the blow is almost always levelled at some one behind the author, some one higher than he is. And there is such a hot-bed of intrigue, such a source of abuses in this institution of the Index, that it is tottering, and even among those who surround the Pope it is felt that it must soon be freshly regulated if it is not to fall into complete discredit. I well understand that the Church should endeavour to retain universal power, and govern by every fit weapon, but the weapons must be such as one can use without their injustice leading to revolt, or their antique childishness provoking merriment!" Pierre listened with dolorous astonishment in his heart. Since he had been at Rome and had seen the Fathers of the Grotto saluted and feared there, holding an authoritative position, thanks to the large alms which they contributed to the Peter's Pence, he had felt that they were behind the proceedings instituted against him, and realised that he would have to pay for a certain page of his book in which he had called attention to an iniquitous displacement of fortune at Lourdes, a frightful spectacle which made one doubt the very existence of the Divinity, a continual cause of battle and conflict which would disappear in the truly Christian society of to-morrow. And he could also now understand that his delight at the loss of the temporal power must have caused a scandal, and especially that the unfortunate expression "a new religion" had alone been sufficient to arm /delatores/ against him. But that which amazed and grieved him was to learn that Cardinal Bergerot's letter was looked upon as a crime, and that his (Pierre's) book was denounced and condemned in order that adversaries who dared not attack the venerable pastor face to face might, deal him a cowardly blow from behind. The thought of afflicting that saintly man, of serving as the implement to strike him in his ardent charity, cruelly grieved Pierre. And how bitter and disheartening it was to find the most hideous questions of pride and money, ambition and appetite, running riot with the most ferocious egotism, beneath the quarrels of those leaders of the Church who ought only to have contended together in love for the poor! And then Pierre's mind revolted against that supremely odious and idiotic Index. He now understood how it worked, from the arrival of the denunciations to the public posting of the titles of the condemned works. He had just seen the Secretary of the Congregation, Father Dangelis, to whom the denunciations came, and who then investigated the affair, collecting all documents and information concerning it with the passion of a cultivated authoritarian monk, who dreamt of ruling minds and consciences as in the heroic days of the Inquisition. Then, too, Pierre had visited one of the consultive prelates, Monsignor Fornaro, who was so ambitious and affable, and so subtle a theologian that he would have discovered attacks against the faith in a treatise on algebra, had his interests required it. Next there were the infrequent meetings of the cardinals, who at long intervals voted for the interdiction of some hostile book, deeply regretting that they could not suppress them all; and finally came the Pope, approving and signing the decrees, which was a mere formality, for were not all books guilty? But what an extraordinary wretched Bastille of the past was that aged Index, that senile institution now sunk into second childhood. One realised that it must have been a formidable power when books were rare and the Church had tribunals of blood and fire to enforce her edicts. But books had so greatly multiplied, the written, printed thoughts of mankind had swollen into such a deep broad river, that they had swept all opposition away, and now the Index was swamped and reduced to powerlessness, compelled more and more to limit its field of action, to confine itself to the examination of the writings of ecclesiastics, and even in this respect it was becoming corrupt, fouled by the worst passions and changed into an instrument of intrigue, hatred, and vengeance. Ah! that confession of decay, of paralysis which grew more and more complete amidst the scornful indifference of the nations. To think that Catholicism, the once glorious agent of civilisation, had come to such a pass that it cast books into hell-fire by the heap; and what books they were, almost the entire literature, history, philosophy, and science of the past and the present! Few works, indeed, are published nowadays that would not fall under the ban of the Church. If she seems to close her eyes, it is in order to avoid the impossible task of hunting out and destroying everything. Yet she stubbornly insists on retaining a semblance of sovereign authority over human intelligence, just as some very aged queen, dispossessed of her states and henceforth without judges or executioners, might continue to deliver vain sentences to which only an infinitesimal minority would pay heed. But imagine the Church momentarily victorious, miraculously mastering the modern world, and ask yourself what she, with her tribunals to condemn and her gendarmes to enforce, would do with human thought. Imagine a strict application of the Index regulations: no printer able to put anything whatever to press without the approval of his bishop, and even then every book laid before the Congregation, the past expunged, the present throttled, subjected to an intellectual Reign of Terror! Would not the closing of every library perforce ensue, would not the long heritage of written thought be cast into prison, would not the future be barred, would not all progress, all conquest of knowledge, be totally arrested? Rome herself is nowadays a terrible example of such a disastrous experiment--Rome with her congealed soil, her dead sap, killed by centuries of papal government, Rome which has become so barren that not a man, not a work has sprung from her midst even after five and twenty years of awakening and liberty! And who would accept such a state of things, not among people of revolutionary mind, but among those of religious mind that might possess any culture and breadth of view? Plainly enough it was all mere childishness and absurdity. Deep silence reigned, and Pierre, quite upset by his reflections, made a gesture of despair whilst glancing at Don Vigilio, who sat speechless in front of him. For a moment longer, amidst the death-like quiescence of that old sleeping mansion, both continued silent, seated face to face in the closed chamber which the lamp illumined with a peaceful glow. But at last Don Vigilio leant forward, his eyes sparkling, and with a feverish shiver murmured: "It is they, you know, always they, at the bottom of everything." Pierre, who did not understand, felt astonished, indeed somewhat anxious at such a strange remark coming without any apparent transition. "Who are /they/?" he asked. "The Jesuits!" In this reply the little, withered, yellow priest had set all the concentrated rage of his exploding passion. Ah! so much the worse if he had perpetrated a fresh act of folly. The cat was out of the bag at last! Nevertheless, he cast a final suspicious glance around the walls. And then he relieved his mind at length, with a flow of words which gushed forth the more irresistibly since he had so long held them in check. "Ah! the Jesuits, the Jesuits! You fancy that you know them, but you haven't even an idea of their abominable actions and incalculable power. They it is whom one always comes upon, everywhere, in every circumstance. Remember /that/ whenever you fail to understand anything, if you wish to understand it. Whenever grief or trouble comes upon you, whenever you suffer, whenever you weep, say to yourself at once: 'It is they; they are there!' Why, for all I know, there may be one of them under that bed, inside that cupboard. Ah! the Jesuits, the Jesuits! They have devoured me, they are devouring me still, they will leave nothing of me at last, neither flesh nor bone." Then, in a halting voice, he related the story of his life, beginning with his youth, which had opened so hopefully. He belonged to the petty provincial nobility, and had been dowered with a fairly large income, besides a keen, supple intelligence, which looked smilingly towards the future. Nowadays, he would assuredly have been a prelate, on the road to high dignities, but he had been foolish enough to speak ill of the Jesuits and to thwart them in two or three circumstances. And from that moment, if he were to be believed, they had caused every imaginable misfortune to rain upon him: his father and mother had died, his banker had robbed him and fled, good positions had escaped him at the very moment when he was about to occupy them, the most awful misadventures had pursued him amidst the duties of his ministry to such a point indeed, that he had narrowly escaped interdiction. It was only since Cardinal Boccanera, compassionating his bad luck, had taken him into his house and attached him to his person, that he had enjoyed a little repose. "Here I have a refuge, an asylum," he continued. "They execrate his Eminence, who has never been on their side, but they haven't yet dared to attack him or his servants. Oh! I have no illusions, they will end by catching me again, all the same. Perhaps they will even hear of our conversation this evening, and make me pay dearly for it; for I do wrong to speak, I speak in spite of myself. They have stolen all my happiness, and brought all possible misfortune on me, everything that was possible, everything--you hear me!" Increasing discomfort was taking possession of Pierre, who, seeking to relieve himself by a jest, exclaimed: "Come, come, at any rate it wasn't the Jesuits who gave you the fever." "Yes, yes, it was!" Don Vigilio violently declared. "I caught it on the bank of the Tiber one evening, when I went to weep there in my grief at having been driven from the little church where I officiated." Pierre, hitherto, had never believed in the terrible legend of the Jesuits. He belonged to a generation which laughed at the idea of wehr-wolves, and considered the /bourgeois/ fear of the famous black men, who hid themselves in walls and terrorised families, to be a trifle ridiculous. To him all such things seemed to be nursery tales, exaggerated by religious and political passion. And so it was with amazement that he examined Don Vigilio, suddenly fearing that he might have to deal with a maniac. Nevertheless he could not help recalling the extraordinary story of the Jesuits. If St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic are the very soul and spirit of the middle ages, its masters and teachers, the former a living expression of all the ardent, charitable faith of the humble, and the other defending dogma and fixing doctrines for the intelligent and the powerful, on the other hand Ignatius de Loyola appeared on the threshold of modern times to save the tottering heritage by accommodating religion to the new developments of society, thereby ensuring it the empire of the world which was about to appear. At the advent of the modern era it seemed as if the Deity were to be vanquished in the uncompromising struggle with sin, for it was certain that the old determination to suppress Nature, to kill the man within man, with his appetites, passions, heart, and blood, could only result in a disastrous defeat, in which, indeed, the Church found herself on the very eve of sinking; and it was the Jesuits who came to extricate her from this peril and reinvigorate her by deciding that it was she who now ought to go to the world, since the world seemed unwilling to go any longer to her. All lay in that; you find the Jesuits declaring that one can enter into arrangements with heaven; they bend and adjust themselves to the customs, prejudices, and even vices of the times; they smile, all condescension, cast rigourism aside, and practice the diplomacy of amiability, ever ready to turn the most awful abominations "to the greater glory of God." That is their motto, their battle-cry, and thence springs the moral principle which many regard as their crime: that all means are good to attain one's end, especially when that end is the furtherance of the Deity's interests as represented by those of the Church. And what overwhelming success attends the efforts of the Jesuits! they swarm and before long cover the earth, on all sides becoming uncontested masters. They shrive kings, they acquire immense wealth, they display such victorious power of invasion that, however humbly they may set foot in any country, they soon wholly possess it: souls, bodies, power, and fortune alike falling to them. And they are particularly zealous in founding schools, they show themselves to be incomparable moulders of the human brain, well understanding that power always belongs to the morrow, to the generations which are growing up and whose master one must be if one desire to reign eternally. So great is their power, based on the necessity of compromise with sin, that, on the morrow of the Council of Trent, they transform the very spirit of Catholicism, penetrate it, identify it with themselves and become the indispensable soldiers of the papacy which lives by them and for them. And from that moment Rome is theirs, Rome where their general so long commands, whence so long go forth the directions for the obscure tactics which are blindly followed by their innumerable army, whose skilful organisation covers the globe as with an iron network hidden by the velvet of hands expert in dealing gently with poor suffering humanity. But, after all, the most prodigious feature is the stupefying vitality of the Jesuits who are incessantly tracked, condemned, executed, and yet still and ever erect. As soon as their power asserts itself, their unpopularity begins and gradually becomes universal. Hoots of execration arise around them, abominable accusations, scandalous law cases in which they appear as corruptors and felons. Pascal devotes them to public contempt, parliaments condemn their books to be burnt, universities denounce their system of morals and their teaching as poisonous. They foment such disturbances, such struggles in every kingdom, that organised persecution sets in, and they are soon driven from everywhere. During more than a century they become wanderers, expelled, then recalled, passing and repassing frontiers, leaving a country amidst cries of hatred to return to it as soon as quiet has been restored. Finally, for supreme disaster, they are suppressed by one pope, but another re-establishes them, and since then they have been virtually tolerated everywhere. And in the diplomatic self-effacement, the shade in which they have the prudence to sequester themselves, they are none the less triumphant, quietly confident of their victory like soldiers who have once and for ever subdued the earth. Pierre was aware that, judging by mere appearances, the Jesuits were nowadays dispossessed of all influence in Rome. They no longer officiated at the Gesu, they no longer directed the Collegio Romano, where they formerly fashioned so many souls; and with no abode of their own, reduced to accept foreign hospitality, they had modestly sought a refuge at the Collegio Germanico, where there is a little chapel. There they taught and there they still confessed, but without the slightest bustle or display. Was one to believe, however, that this effacement was but masterly cunning, a feigned disappearance in order that they might really remain secret, all-powerful masters, the hidden hand which directs and guides everything? People certainly said that the proclamation of papal Infallibility had been their work, a weapon with which they had armed themselves whilst feigning to bestow it on the papacy, in readiness for the coming decisive task which their genius foresaw in the approaching social upheavals. And thus there might perhaps be some truth in what Don Vigilio, with a shiver of mystery, related about their occult sovereignty, a seizin, as it were, of the government of the Church, a royalty ignored but nevertheless complete. As this idea occurred to Pierre, a dim connection between certain of his experiences arose in his mind and he all at once inquired: "Is Monsignor Nani a Jesuit, then?" These words seemed to revive all Don Vigilio's anxious passion. He waved his trembling hand, and replied: "He? Oh, he's too clever, too skilful by far to have taken the robe. But he comes from that Collegio Romano where his generation grew up, and he there imbibed that Jesuit genius which adapted itself so well to his own. Whilst fully realising the danger of wearing an unpopular and embarrassing livery, and wishing to be free, he is none the less a Jesuit in his flesh, in his bones, in his very soul. He is evidently convinced that the Church can only triumph by utilising the passions of mankind, and withal he is very fond of the Church, very pious at bottom, a very good priest, serving God without weakness in gratitude for the absolute power which God gives to His ministers. And besides, he is so charming, incapable of any brutal action, full of the good breeding of his noble Venetian ancestors, and deeply versed in knowledge of the world, thanks to his experiences at the nunciatures of Paris, Vienna, and other places, without mentioning that he knows everything that goes on by reason of the delicate functions which he has discharged for ten years past as Assessor of the Holy Office. Yes, he is powerful, all-powerful, and in him you do not have the furtive Jesuit whose robe glides past amidst suspicion, but the head, the brain, the leader whom no uniform designates." This reply made Pierre grave, for he was quite willing to admit that an opportunist code of morals, like that of the Jesuits, was inoculable and now predominated throughout the Church. Indeed, the Jesuits might disappear, but their doctrine would survive them, since it was the one weapon of combat, the one system of strategy which might again place the nations under the dominion of Rome. And in reality the struggle which continued lay precisely in the attempts to accommodate religion to the century, and the century to religion. Such being the case, Pierre realised that such men as Monsignor Nani might acquire vast and even decisive importance. "Ah! if you knew, if you knew," continued Don Vigilio, "he's everywhere, he has his hand in everything. For instance, nothing has ever happened here, among the Boccaneras, but I've found him at the bottom of it, tangling or untangling the threads according to necessities with which he alone is acquainted." Then, in the unquenchable fever for confiding things which was now consuming him, the secretary related how Monsignor Nani had most certainly brought on Benedetta's divorce case. The Jesuits, in spite of their conciliatory spirit, have always taken up a hostile position with regard to Italy, either because they do not despair of reconquering Rome, or because they wait to treat in due season with the ultimate and real victor, whether King or Pope. And so Nani, who had long been one of Donna Serafina's intimates, had helped to precipitate the rupture with Prada as soon as Benedetta's mother was dead. Again, it was he who, to prevent any interference on the part of the patriotic Abbe Pisoni, the young woman's confessor and the artisan of her marriage, had urged her to take the same spiritual director as her aunt, Father Lorenza, a handsome Jesuit with clear and kindly eyes, whose confessional in the chapel of the Collegio Germanico was incessantly besieged by penitents. And it seemed certain that this manoeuvre had brought about everything; what one cleric working for Italy had done, was to be undone by another working against Italy. Why was it, however, that Nani, after bringing about the rupture, had momentarily ceased to show all interest in the affair to the point even of jeopardising the suit for the dissolution of the marriage? And why was he now again busying himself with it, setting Donna Serafina in action, prompting her to buy Monsignor Palma's support, and bringing his own influence to bear on the cardinals of the Congregation? There was mystery in all this, as there was in everything he did, for his schemes were always complicated and distant in their effects. However, one might suppose that he now wished to hasten the marriage of Benedetta and Dario, in order to stop all the abominable rumours which were circulating in the white world; unless, indeed, this divorce secured by pecuniary payments and the pressure of notorious influences were an intentional scandal at first spun out and now hastened, in order to harm Cardinal Boccanera, whom the Jesuits might desire to brush aside in certain eventualities which were possibly near at hand. "To tell the truth, I rather incline to the latter view," said Don Vigilio, "the more so indeed as I learnt this evening that the Pope is not well. With an old man of eighty-four the end may come at any moment, and so the Pope can never catch cold but what the Sacred College and the prelacies are all agog, stirred by sudden ambitious rivalries. Now, the Jesuits have always opposed Cardinal Boccanera's candidature. They ought to be on his side, on account of his rank, and his uncompromising attitude towards Italy, but the idea of giving themselves such a master disquiets them, for they consider him unseasonably rough and stern, too violent in his faith, which unbending as it is would prove dangerous in these diplomatic times through which the Church is passing. And so I should in no wise be astonished if there were an attempt to discredit him and render his candidature impossible, by employing the most underhand and shameful means." A little quiver of fear was coming over Pierre. The contagion of the unknown, of the black intrigues plotted in the dark, was spreading amidst the silence of the night in the depths of that palace, near that Tiber, in that Rome so full of legendary tragedies. But all at once the young man's mind reverted to himself, to his own affair. "But what is my part in all this?" he asked: "why does Monsignor Nani seem to take an interest in me? Why is he mixed up in the proceedings against my book?" "Oh! one never knows, one never knows exactly!" replied Don Vigilio, waving his arms. "One thing I can say, that he only knew of the affair when the denunciations of the three bishops were already in the hands of Father Dangelis; and I have also learnt that he then tried to stop the proceedings, which he no doubt thought both useless and impolitic. But when a matter is once before the Congregation it is almost impossible for it to be withdrawn, and Monsignor Nani must also have come into collision with Father Dangelis who, like a faithful Dominican, is the passionate adversary of the Jesuits. It was then that he caused the Contessina to write to Monsieur de la Choue, requesting him to tell you to hasten here in order to defend yourself, and to arrange for your acceptance of hospitality in this mansion, during your stay." This revelation brought Pierre's emotion to a climax. "You are sure of that?" he asked. "Oh! quite sure. I heard Nani speak of you one Monday, and some time ago I told you that he seemed to know all about you, as if he had made most minute inquiries. My belief is that he had already read your book, and was extremely preoccupied about it." "Do you think that he shares my ideas, then? Is he sincere, is he defending himself while striving to defend me?" "Oh! no, no, not at all. Your ideas, why he certainly hates them, and your book and yourself as well. You have no idea what contempt for the weak, what hatred of the poor, and love of authority and domination he conceals under his caressing amiability. Lourdes he might abandon to you, though it embodies a marvellous weapon of government; but he will never forgive you for being on the side of the little ones of the world, and for pronouncing against the temporal power. If you only heard with what gentle ferocity he derides Monsieur de la Choue, whom he calls the weeping willow of Neo-Catholicism!" Pierre carried his hands to his temples and pressed his head despairingly. "Then why, why, tell me I beg of you, why has he brought me here and kept me here in this house at his disposal? Why has he promenaded me up and down Rome for three long months, throwing me against obstacles and wearying me, when it was so easy for him to let the Index condemn my book if it embarrassed him? It's true, of course, that things would not have gone quietly, for I was disposed to refuse submission and openly confess my new faith, even against the decisions of Rome." Don Vigilio's black eyes flared in his yellow face: "Perhaps it was that which he wished to prevent. He knows you to be very intelligent and enthusiastic, and I have often heard him say that intelligence and enthusiasm should not be fought openly." Pierre, however, had risen to his feet, and instead of listening, was striding up and down the room as though carried away by the whirlwind of his thoughts. "Come, come," he said at last, "it is necessary that I should know and understand things if I am to continue the struggle. You must be kind enough to give me some detailed particulars about each of the persons mixed up in my affair. Jesuits, Jesuits everywhere? /Mon Dieu/, it may be so, you are perhaps right! But all the same you must point out the different shades to me. Now, for instance, what of that Fornaro?" "Monsignor Fornaro, oh! he's whatever you like. Still he also was brought up at the Collegio Romano, so you may be certain that he is a Jesuit, a Jesuit by education, position, and ambition. He is longing to become a cardinal, and if he some day becomes one, he'll long to be the next pope. Besides, you know, every one here is a candidate to the papacy as soon as he enters the seminary." "And Cardinal Sanguinetti?" "A Jesuit, a Jesuit! To speak plainly, he was one, then ceased to be one, and is now undoubtedly one again. Sanguinetti has flirted with every influence. It was long thought that he was in favour of conciliation between the Holy See and Italy; but things drifted into a bad way, and he violently took part against the usurpers. In the same style he has frequently fallen out with Leo XIII and then made his peace. To-day at the Vatican, he keeps on a footing of diplomatic reserve. Briefly he only has one object, the tiara, and even shows it too plainly, which is a mistake, for it uses up a candidate. Still, just at present the struggle seems to be between him and Cardinal Boccanera. And that's why he has gone over to the Jesuits again, utilising their hatred of his rival, and anticipating that they will be forced to support /him/ in order to defeat the other. But I doubt it, they are too shrewd, they will hesitate to patronise a candidate who is already so compromised. He, blunder-head, passionate and proud as he is, doubts nothing, and since you say that he is now at Frascati, I'm certain that he made all haste to shut himself up there with some grand strategical object in view, as soon as he heard of the Pope's illness." "Well, and the Pope himself, Leo XIII?" asked Pierre. This time Don Vigilio slightly hesitated, his eyes blinking. Then he said: "Leo XIII? He is a Jesuit, a Jesuit! Oh! I know it is said that he sides with the Dominicans, and this is in a measure true, for he fancies that he is animated with their spirit and he has brought St. Thomas into favour again, and has restored all the ecclesiastical teaching of doctrine. But there is also the Jesuit, remember, who is one involuntarily and without knowing it, and of this category the present Pope will prove the most famous example. Study his acts, investigate his policy, and you will find that everything in it emanates from the Jesuit spirit. The fact is that he has unwittingly become impregnated with that spirit, and that all the influence, directly or indirectly brought to bear on him comes from a Jesuit centre. Ah! why don't you believe me? I repeat that the Jesuits have conquered and absorbed everything, that all Rome belongs to them from the most insignificant cleric to his Holiness in person." Then he continued, replying to each fresh name that Pierre gave with the same obstinate, maniacal cry: "Jesuit, Jesuit!" It seemed as if a Churchman could be nothing else, as if each answer were a confirmation of the proposition that the clergy must compound with the modern world if it desired to preserve its Deity. The heroic age of Catholicism was accomplished, henceforth it could only live by dint of diplomacy and ruses, concessions and arrangements. "And that Paparelli, he's a Jesuit too, a Jesuit!" Don Vigilio went on, instinctively lowering his voice. "Yes, the humble but terrible Jesuit, the Jesuit in his most abominable /role/ as a spy and a perverter! I could swear that he has merely been placed here in order to keep watch on his Eminence! And you should see with what supple talent and craft he has performed his task, to such a point indeed that it is now he alone who wills and orders things. He opens the door to whomsoever he pleases, uses his master like something belonging to him, weighs on each of his resolutions, and holds him in his power by dint of his stealthy unremitting efforts. Yes! it's the lion conquered by the insect; the infinitesimally small disposing of the infinitely great; the train-bearer--whose proper part is to sit at his cardinal's feet like a faithful hound--in reality reigning over him, and impelling him in whatsoever direction he chooses. Ah! the Jesuit! the Jesuit! Mistrust him when you see him gliding by in his shabby old cassock, with the flabby wrinkled face of a devout old maid. And make sure that he isn't behind the doors, or in the cupboards, or under the beds. Ah! I tell you that they'll devour you as they've devoured me; and they'll give you the fever too, perhaps even the plague if you are not careful!" Pierre suddenly halted in front of his companion. He was losing all assurance, both fear and rage were penetrating him. And, after all, why not? These extraordinary stories must be true. "But in that case give me some advice," he exclaimed, "I asked you to come in here this evening precisely because I no longer know what to do, and need to be set in the right path--" Then he broke off and again paced to and fro, as if urged into motion by his exploding passion. "Or rather no, tell me nothing!" he abruptly resumed. "It's all over; I prefer to go away. The thought occurred to me before, but it was in a moment of cowardice and with the idea of disappearing and of returning to live in peace in my little nook: whereas now, if I go off, it will be as an avenger, a judge, to cry aloud to all the world from Paris, to proclaim what I have seen in Rome, what men have done there with the Christianity of Jesus, the Vatican falling into dust, the corpse-like odour which comes from it, the idiotic illusions of those who hope that they will one day see a renascence of the modern soul arise from a sepulchre where the remnants of dead centuries rot and slumber. Oh! I will not yield, I will not make my submission, I will defend my book by a fresh one. And that book, I promise you, will make some noise in the world, for it will sound the last agony of a dying religion, which one must make all haste to bury lest its remains should poison the nations!" All this was beyond Don Vigilio's mind. The Italian priest, with narrow belief and ignorant terror of the new ideas, awoke within him. He clasped his hands, affrighted. "Be quiet, be quiet! You are blaspheming! And, besides, you cannot go off like that without again trying to see his Holiness. He alone is sovereign. And I know that I shall surprise you; but Father Dangelis has given you in jest the only good advice that can be given: Go back to see Monsignor Nani, for he alone will open the door of the Vatican for you." Again did Pierre give a start of anger: "What! It was with Monsignor Nani that I began, from him that I set out; and I am to go back to him? What game is that? Can I consent to be a shuttlecock sent flying hither and thither by every battledore? People are having a game with me!" Then, harassed and distracted, the young man fell on his chair in front of Don Vigilio, who with his face drawn by his prolonged vigil, and his hands still and ever faintly trembling, remained for some time silent. At last he explained that he had another idea. He was slightly acquainted with the Pope's confessor, a Franciscan father, a man of great simplicity, to whom he might recommend Pierre. This Franciscan, despite his self-effacement, would perhaps prove of service to him. At all events he might be tried. Then, once more, silence fell, and Pierre, whose dreamy eyes were turned towards the wall, ended by distinguishing the old picture which had touched him so deeply on the day of his arrival. In the pale glow of the lamp it gradually showed forth and lived, like an incarnation of his own case, his own futile despair before the sternly closed portal of truth and justice. Ah! that outcast woman, that stubborn victim of love, weeping amidst her streaming hair, her visage hidden whilst with pain and grief she sank upon the steps of that palace whose door was so pitilessly shut--how she resembled him! Draped with a mere strip of linen, she was shivering, and amidst the overpowering distress of her abandonment she did not reveal her secret, misfortune, or transgression, whichever it might be. But he, behind her close-pressed hands, endowed her with a face akin to his own: she became his sister, as were all the poor creatures without roof or certainty who weep because they are naked and alone, and wear out their strength in seeking to force the wicked thresholds of men. He could never gaze at her without pitying her, and it stirred him so much that evening to find her ever so unknown, nameless and visageless, yet steeped in the most bitter tears, that he suddenly began to question his companion. "Tell me," said he, "do you know who painted that old picture? It stirs me to the soul like a masterpiece." Stupefied by this unexpected question, the secretary raised his head and looked, feeling yet more astonished when he had examined the blackened, forsaken panel in its sorry frame. "Where did it come from?" resumed Pierre; "why has it been stowed away in this room?" "Oh!" replied Don Vigilio, with a gesture of indifference, "it's nothing. There are heaps of valueless old paintings everywhere. That one, no doubt, has always been here. But I don't know; I never noticed it before." Whilst speaking he had at last risen to his feet, and this simple action had brought on such a fit of shivering that he could scarcely take leave, so violently did his teeth chatter with fever. "No, no, don't show me out," he stammered, "keep the lamp here. And to conclude: the best course is for you to leave yourself in the hands of Monsignor Nani, for he, at all events, is a superior man. I told you on your arrival that, whether you would or not, you would end by doing as he desired. And so what's the use of struggling? And mind, not a word of our conversation to-night; it would mean my death." Then he noiselessly opened the doors, glanced distrustfully into the darkness of the passage, and at last ventured out and disappeared, regaining his own room with such soft steps that not the faintest footfall was heard amidst the tomb-like slumber of the old mansion. On the morrow, Pierre, again mastered by a desire to fight on to the very end, got Don Vigilio to recommend him to the Pope's confessor, the Franciscan friar with whom the secretary was slightly acquainted. However, this friar proved to be an extremely timid if worthy man, selected precisely on account of his great modesty, simplicity, and absolute lack of influence in order that he might not abuse his position with respect to the Holy Father. And doubtless there was an affectation of humility on the latter's part in taking for confessor a member of the humblest of the regular orders, a friend of the poor, a holy beggar of the roads. At the same time the friar certainly enjoyed a reputation for oratory; and hidden by a veil the Pope at times listened to his sermons; for although as infallible Sovereign Pontiff Leo XIII could not receive lessons from any priest, it was admitted that as a man he might reap profit by listening to good discourse. Nevertheless apart from his natural eloquence, the worthy friar was really a mere washer of souls, a confessor who listens and absolves without even remembering the impurities which he removes in the waters of penitence. And Pierre, finding him really so poor and such a cipher, did not insist on an intervention which he realised would be futile. All that day the young priest was haunted by the figure of that ingenuous lover of poverty, that delicious St. Francis, as Narcisse Habert was wont to say. Pierre had often wondered how such an apostle, so gentle towards both animate and inanimate creation, and so full of ardent charity for the wretched, could have arisen in a country of egotism and enjoyment like Italy, where the love of beauty alone has remained queen. Doubtless the times have changed; yet what a strong sap of love must have been needed in the old days, during the great sufferings of the middle ages, for such a consoler of the humble to spring from the popular soil and preach the gift of self to others, the renunciation of wealth, the horror of brutal force, the equality and obedience which would ensure the peace of the world. St. Francis trod the roads clad as one of the poorest, a rope girdling his grey gown and his bare feet shod with sandals, and he carried with him neither purse nor staff. And he and his brethren spoke aloud and freely, with sovereign florescence of poetry and boldness of truth, attacking the rich and the powerful, and daring even to denounce the priests of evil life, the debauched, simoniacal, and perjured bishops. A long cry of relief greeted the Franciscans, the people followed them in crowds--they were the friends, the liberators of all the humble ones who suffered. And thus, like revolutionaries, they at first so alarmed Rome, that the popes hesitated to authorise their Order. When they at last gave way it was assuredly with the hope of using this new force for their own profit, by conquering the whole vague mass of the lowly whose covert threats have ever growled through the ages, even in the most despotic times. And thenceforward in the sons of St. Francis the Church possessed an ever victorious army--a wandering army which spread over the roads, in the villages and through the towns, penetrating to the firesides of artisan and peasant, and gaining possession of all simple hearts. How great the democratic power of such an Order which had sprung from the very entrails of the people! And thence its rapid prosperity, its teeming growth in a few years, friaries arising upon all sides, and the third Order* so invading the secular population as to impregnate and absorb it. And that there was here a genuine growth of the soil, a vigorous vegetation of the plebeian stock was shown by an entire national art arising from it--the precursors of the Renascence in painting and even Dante himself, the soul of Italia's genius. * The Franciscans, like the Dominicans and others, admit, in addition to the two Orders of friars and nuns, a third Order comprising devout persons of either sex who have neither the vocation nor the opportunity for cloistered life, but live in the world, privately observing the chief principles of the fraternity with which they are connected. In central and southern Europe members of these third Orders are still numerous.--Trans. For some days now, in the Rome of the present time, Pierre had been coming into contact with those great Orders of the past. The Franciscans and the Dominicans were there face to face in their vast convents of prosperous aspect. But it seemed as if the humility of the Franciscans had in the long run deprived them of influence. Perhaps, too, their /role/ as friends and liberators of the people was ended since the people now undertook to liberate itself. And so the only real remaining battle was between the Dominicans and the Jesuits, both of whom still claimed to mould the world according to their particular views. Warfare between them was incessant, and Rome--the supreme power at the Vatican--was ever the prize for which they contended. But, although the Dominicans had St. Thomas on their side, they must have felt that their old dogmatic science was crumbling, compelled as they were each day to surrender a little ground to the Jesuits whose principles accorded better with the spirit of the century. And, in addition to these, there were the white-robed Carthusians, those very holy, pure, and silent meditators who fled from the world into quiet cells and cloisters, those despairing and consoled ones whose numbers may decrease but whose Order will live for ever, even as grief and desire for solitude will live. And then there were the Benedictines whose admirable rules have sanctified labour, passionate toilers in literature and science, once powerful instruments of civilisation, enlarging universal knowledge by their immense historical and critical works. These Pierre loved, and with them would have sought a refuge two centuries earlier, yet he was astonished to find them building on the Aventine a huge dwelling, for which Leo XIII has already given millions, as if the science of to-day and to-morrow were yet a field where they might garner harvests. But /cui bono/, when the workmen have changed, and dogmas are there to bar the road--dogmas which totter, no doubt, but which believers may not fling aside in order to pass onward? And finally came the swarm of less important Orders, hundreds in number; there were the Carmelites, the Trappists, the Minims, the Barnabites, the Lazzarists, the Eudists, the Mission Fathers, the Servites, the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine; there were the Bernadines, the Augustinians, the Theatines, the Observants, the Passionists, the Celestines, and the Capuchins, without counting the corresponding Orders of women or the Poor Clares, or the innumerable nuns like those of the Visitation and the Calvary. Each community had its modest or sumptuous dwelling, certain districts of Rome were entirely composed of convents, and behind the silent lifeless facades all those people buzzed, intrigued, and waged the everlasting warfare of rival interests and passions. The social evolution which produced them had long since ceased, still they obstinately sought to prolong their life, growing weaker and more useless day by day, destined to a slow agony until the time shall come when the new development of society will leave them neither foothold nor breathing space. And it was not only with the regulars that Pierre came in contact during his peregrinations through Rome; indeed, he more particularly had to deal with the secular clergy, and learnt to know them well. A hierarchical system which was still vigorously enforced maintained them in various ranks and classes. Up above, around the Pope, reigned the pontifical family, the high and noble cardinals and prelates whose conceit was great in spite of their apparent familiarity. Below them the parish clergy formed a very worthy middle class of wise and moderate minds; and here patriot priests were not rare. Moreover, the Italian occupation of a quarter of a century, by installing in the city a world of functionaries who saw everything that went on, had, curiously enough, greatly purified the private life of the Roman priesthood, in which under the popes women, beyond all question, played a supreme part. And finally one came to the plebeian clergy whom Pierre studied with curiosity, a collection of wretched, grimy, half-naked priests who like famished animals prowled around in search of masses, and drifted into disreputable taverns in the company of beggars and thieves. However, he was more interested by the floating population of foreign priests from all parts of Christendom--the adventurers, the ambitious ones, the believers, the madmen whom Rome attracted just as a lamp at night time attracts the insects of the gloom. Among these were men of every nationality, position, and age, all lashed on by their appetites and scrambling from morn till eve around the Vatican, in order to snap at the prey which they hoped to secure. He found them everywhere, and told himself with some shame that he was one of them, that the unit of his own personality served to increase the incredible number of cassocks that one encountered in the streets. Ah! that ebb and flow, that ceaseless tide of black gowns and frocks of every hue! With their processions of students ever walking abroad, the seminaries of the different nations would alone have sufficed to drape and decorate the streets, for there were the French and the English all in black, the South Americans in black with blue sashes, the North Americans in black with red sashes, the Poles in black with green sashes, the Greeks in blue, the Germans in red, the Scots in violet, the Romans in black or violet or purple, the Bohemians with chocolate sashes, the Irish with red lappets, the Spaniards with blue cords, to say nothing of all the others with broidery and bindings and buttons in a hundred different styles. And in addition there were the confraternities, the penitents, white, black, blue, and grey, with sleeveless frocks and capes of different hue, grey, blue, black, or white. And thus even nowadays Papal Rome at times seemed to resuscitate, and one could realise how tenaciously and vivaciously she struggled on in order that she might not disappear in the cosmopolitan Rome of the new era. However, Pierre, whilst running about from one prelate to another, frequenting priests and crossing churches, could not accustom himself to the worship, the Roman piety which astonished him when it did not wound him. One rainy Sunday morning, on entering Santa Maria Maggiore, he fancied himself in some waiting-room, a very splendid one, no doubt, but where God seemed to have no habitation. There was not a bench, not a chair in the nave, across which people passed, as they might pass through a railway station, wetting and soiling the precious mosaic pavement with their muddy shoes; and tired women and children sat round the bases of the columns, even as in railway stations one sees people sitting and waiting for their trains during the great crushes of the holiday season. And for this tramping throng of folks of small degree, who had looked in /en passant/, a priest was saying a low mass in a side chapel, before which a narrow file of standing people had gathered, extending across the nave, and recalling the crowds which wait in front of theatres for the opening of the doors. At the elevation of the host one and all inclined themselves devoutly, but almost immediately afterwards the gathering dispersed. And indeed why linger? The mass was said. Pierre everywhere found the same form of attendance, peculiar to the countries of the sun; the worshippers were in a hurry and only favoured the Deity with short familiar visits, unless it were a question of some gala scene at San Paolo or San Giovanni in Laterano or some other of the old basilicas. It was only at the Gesu, on another Sunday morning, that the young priest came upon a high-mass congregation, which reminded him of the devout throngs of the North. Here there were benches and women seated, a worldly warmth and cosiness under the luxurious, gilded, carved, and painted roof, whose tawny splendour is very fine now that time has toned down the eccentricities of the decoration. But how many of the churches were empty, among them some of the most ancient and venerable, San Clemente, Sant' Agnese, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, where during the offices one saw but a few believers of the neighbourhood. Four hundred churches were a good many for even Rome to people; and, indeed, some were merely attended on fixed ceremonial occasions, and a good many merely opened their doors once every year--on the feast day, that is, of their patron saint. Some also subsisted on the lucky possession of a fetish, an idol compassionate to human sufferings. Santa Maria in Ara Coeli possessed the miraculous little Jesus, the "Bambino," who healed sick children, and Sant' Agostino had the "Madonna del Parto," who grants a happy delivery to mothers. Then others were renowned for the holy water of their fonts, the oil of their lamps, the power of some wooden saint or marble virgin. Others again seemed forsaken, given up to tourists and the perquisites of beadles, like mere museums peopled with dead gods: Finally others disturbed one's faith by the suggestiveness of their aspects, as, for instance, that Santa Maria Rotonda, which is located in the Pantheon, a circular hall recalling a circus, where the Virgin remains the evident tenant of the Olympian deities. Pierre took no little interest in the churches of the poor districts, but did not find there the keen faith and the throngs he had hoped for. One afternoon, at Santa Maria in Trastevere, he heard the choir in full song, but the church was quite empty, and the chant had a most lugubrious sound in such a desert. Then, another day, on entering San Crisogono, he found it draped, probably in readiness for some festival on the morrow. The columns were cased with red damask, and between them were hangings and curtains alternately yellow and blue, white and red; and the young man fled from such a fearful decoration as gaudy as that of a fair booth. Ah! how far he was from the cathedrals where in childhood he had believed and prayed! On all sides he found the same type of church, the antique basilica accommodated to the taste of eighteenth-century Rome. Though the style of San Luigi dei Francesi is better, more soberly elegant, the only thing that touched him even there was the thought of the heroic or saintly Frenchmen, who sleep in foreign soil beneath the flags. And as he sought for something Gothic, he ended by going to see Santa Maria sopra Minerva,* which, he was told, was the only example of the Gothic style in Rome. Here his stupefaction attained a climax at sight of the clustering columns cased in stucco imitating marble, the ogives which dared not soar, the rounded vaults condemned to the heavy majesty of the dome style. No, no, thought he, the faith whose cooling cinders lingered there was no longer that whose brazier had invaded and set all Christendom aglow! However, Monsignor Fornaro whom he chanced to meet as he was leaving the church, inveighed against the Gothic style as rank heresy. The first Christian church, said the prelate, had been the basilica, which had sprung from the temple, and it was blasphemy to assert that the Gothic cathedral was the real Christian house of prayer, for Gothic embodied the hateful Anglo-Saxon spirit, the rebellious genius of Luther. At this a passionate reply rose to Pierre's lips, but he said nothing for fear that he might say too much. However, he asked himself whether in all this there was not a decisive proof that Catholicism was the very vegetation of Rome, Paganism modified by Christianity. Elsewhere Christianity has grown up in quite a different spirit, to such a point that it has risen in rebellion and schismatically turned against the mother-city. And the breach has ever gone on widening, the dissemblance has become more and more marked; and amidst the evolution of new societies, yet a fresh schism appears inevitable and proximate in spite of all the despairing efforts to maintain union. * So called because it occupies the site of a temple to Minerva.--Trans. While Pierre thus visited the Roman churches, he also continued his efforts to gain support in the matter of his book, his irritation tending to such stubbornness, that if in the first instance he failed to obtain an interview, he went back again and again to secure one, steadfastly keeping his promise to call in turn upon each cardinal of the Congregation of the Index. And as a cardinal may belong to several Congregations, it resulted that he gradually found himself roaming through those former ministries of the old pontifical government which, if less numerous than formerly, are still very intricate institutions, each with its cardinal-prefect, its cardinal-members, its consultative prelates, and its numerous employees. Pierre repeatedly had to return to the Cancelleria, where the Congregation of the Index meets, and lost himself in its world of staircases, corridors, and halls. From the moment he passed under the porticus he was overcome by the icy shiver which fell from the old walls, and was quite unable to appreciate the bare, frigid beauty of the palace, Bramante's masterpiece though it be, so purely typical of the Roman Renascence. He also knew the Propaganda where he had seen Cardinal Sarno; and, sent as he was hither and thither, in his efforts to gain over influential prelates, chance made him acquainted with the other Congregations, that of the Bishops and Regulars, that of the Rites and that of the Council. He even obtained a glimpse of the Consistorial, the Dataria,* and the sacred Penitentiary. All these formed part of the administrative mechanism of the Church under its several aspects--the government of the Catholic world, the enlargement of the Church's conquests, the administration of its affairs in conquered countries, the decision of all questions touching faith, morals, and individuals, the investigation and punishment of offences, the grant of dispensations and the sale of favours. One can scarcely imagine what a fearful number of affairs are each morning submitted to the Vatican, questions of the greatest gravity, delicacy, and intricacy, the solution of which gives rise to endless study and research. It is necessary to reply to the innumerable visitors who flock to Rome from all parts, and to the letters, the petitions, and the batches of documents which are submitted and require to be distributed among the various offices. And Pierre was struck by the deep and discreet silence in which all this colossal labour was accomplished; not a sound reaching the streets from the tribunals, parliaments, and factories for the manufacture of saints and nobles, whose mechanism was so well greased, that in spite of the rust of centuries and the deep and irremediable wear and tear, the whole continued working without clank or creak to denote its presence behind the walls. And did not that silence embody the whole policy of the Church, which is to remain mute and await developments? Nevertheless what a prodigious mechanism it was, antiquated no doubt, but still so powerful! And amidst those Congregations how keenly Pierre felt himself to be in the grip of the most absolute power ever devised for the domination of mankind. However much he might notice signs of decay and coming ruin he was none the less seized, crushed, and carried off by that huge engine made up of vanity and venality, corruption and ambition, meanness and greatness. And how far, too, he now was from the Rome that he had dreamt of, and what anger at times filled him amidst his weariness, as he persevered in his resolve to defend himself! * It is from the Dataria that bulls, rescripts, letters of appointment to benefices, and dispensations of marriage, are issued, after the affixture of the date and formula /Datum Romae/, "Given at Rome."--Trans. All at once certain things which he had never understood were explained to him. One day, when he returned to the Propaganda, Cardinal Sarno spoke to him of Freemasonry with such icy rage that he was abruptly enlightened. Freemasonry had hitherto made him smile; he had believed in it no more than he had believed in the Jesuits. Indeed, he had looked upon the ridiculous stories which were current--the stories of mysterious, shadowy men who governed the world with secret incalculable power--as mere childish legends. In particular he had been amazed by the blind hatred which maddened certain people as soon as Freemasonry was mentioned. However, a very distinguished and intelligent prelate had declared to him, with an air of profound conviction, that at least on one occasion every year each masonic Lodge was presided over by the Devil in person, incarnate in a visible shape! And now, by Cardinal Sarno's remarks, he understood the rivalry, the furious struggle of the Roman Catholic Church against that other Church, the Church of over the way.* Although the former counted on her own triumph, she none the less felt that the other, the Church of Freemasonry, was a competitor, a very ancient enemy, who indeed claimed to be more ancient than herself, and whose victory always remained a possibility. And the friction between them was largely due to the circumstance that they both aimed at universal sovereignty, and had a similar international organisation, a similar net thrown over the nations, and in a like way mysteries, dogmas, and rites. It was deity against deity, faith against faith, conquest against conquest: and so, like competing tradesmen in the same street, they were a source of mutual embarrassment, and one of them was bound to kill the other. But if Roman Catholicism seemed to Pierre to be worn out and threatened with ruin, he remained quite as sceptical with regard to the power of Freemasonry. He had made inquiries as to the reality of that power in Rome, where both Grand Master and Pope were enthroned, one in front of the other. He was certainly told that the last Roman princes had thought themselves compelled to become Freemasons in order to render their own difficult position somewhat easier and facilitate the future of their sons. But was this true? had they not simply yielded to the force of the present social evolution? And would not Freemasonry eventually be submerged by its own triumph--that of the ideas of justice, reason, and truth, which it had defended through the dark and violent ages of history? It is a thing which constantly happens; the victory of an idea kills the sect which has propagated it, and renders the apparatus with which the members of the sect surrounded themselves, in order to fire imaginations, both useless and somewhat ridiculous. Carbonarism did not survive the conquest of the political liberties which it demanded; and on the day when the Catholic Church crumbles, having accomplished its work of civilisation, the other Church, the Freemasons' Church of across the road, will in a like way disappear, its task of liberation ended. Nowadays the famous power of the Lodges, hampered by traditions, weakened by a ceremonial which provokes laughter, and reduced to a simple bond of brotherly agreement and mutual assistance, would be but a sorry weapon of conquest for humanity, were it not that the vigorous breath of science impels the nations onwards and helps to destroy the old religions. * Some readers may think the above passages an exaggeration, but such is not the case. The hatred with which the Catholic priesthood, especially in Italy, Spain, and France, regards Freemasonry is remarkable. At the moment of writing these lines I have before me several French clerical newspapers, which contain the most abusive articles levelled against President Faure solely because he is a Freemason. One of these prints, a leading journal of Lyons, tells the French President that he cannot serve both God and the Devil; and that if he cannot give up Freemasonry he would do well to cease desecrating the abode of the Deity by his attendance at divine service.--Trans. However, all Pierre's journeyings and applications brought him no certainty; and, while stubbornly clinging to Rome, intent on fighting to the very end, like a soldier who will not believe in the possibility of defeat, he remained as anxious as ever. He had seen all the cardinals whose influence could be of use to him. He had seen the Cardinal Vicar, entrusted with the diocese of Rome, who, like the man of letters he was, had spoken to him of Horace, and, like a somewhat blundering politician, had questioned him about France, the Republic, the Army, and the Navy Estimates, without dealing in the slightest degree with the incriminated book. He had also seen the Grand Penitentiary, that tall old man, with fleshless, ascetic face, of whom he had previously caught a glimpse at the Boccanera mansion, and from whom he now only drew a long and severe sermon on the wickedness of young priests, whom the century had perverted and who wrote most abominable books. Finally, at the Vatican, he had seen the Cardinal Secretary, in some wise his Holiness's Minister of Foreign Affairs, the great power of the Holy See, whom he had hitherto been prevented from approaching by terrifying warnings as to the possible result of an unfavourable reception. However, whilst apologising for calling at such a late stage, he had found himself in presence of a most amiable man, whose somewhat rough appearance was softened by diplomatic affability, and who, after making him sit down, questioned him with an air of interest, listened to him, and even spoke some words of comfort. Nevertheless, on again reaching the Piazza of St. Peter's, Pierre well understood that his affair had not made the slightest progress, and that if he ever managed to force the Pope's door, it would not be by way of the Secretariate of State. And that evening he returned home quite exhausted by so many visits, in such distraction at feeling that little by little he had been wholly caught in that huge mechanism with its hundred wheels, that he asked himself in terror what he should do on the morrow now that there remained nothing for him to do--unless, indeed, it were to go mad. However, meeting Don Vigilio in a passage of the house, he again wished to ask him for some good advice. But the secretary, who had a gleam of terror in his eyes, silenced him, he knew not why, with an anxious gesture. And then in a whisper, in Pierre's ear, he said: "Have you seen Monsignor Nani? No! Well, go to see him, go to see him. I repeat that you have nothing else to do!" Pierre yielded. And indeed why should he have resisted? Apart from the motives of ardent charity which had brought him to Rome to defend his book, was he not there for a self-educating, experimental purpose? It was necessary that he should carry his attempts to the very end. On the morrow, when he reached the colonnade of St. Peter's, the hour was so early that he had to wait there awhile. He had never better realised the enormity of those four curving rows of columns, forming a forest of gigantic stone trunks among which nobody ever promenades. In fact, the spot is a grandiose and dreary desert, and one asks oneself the why and wherefore of such a majestic porticus. Doubtless, however, it was for its sole majesty, for the mere pomp of decoration, that this colonnade was reared; and therein, again, one finds the whole Roman spirit. However, Pierre at last turned into the Via di Sant' Offizio, and passing the sacristy of St. Peter's, found himself before the Palace of the Holy Office in a solitary silent district, which the footfall of pedestrians or the rumble of wheels but seldom disturbs. The sun alone lives there, in sheets of light which spread slowly over the small, white paving. You divine the vicinity of the Basilica, for there is a smell as of incense, a cloisteral quiescence as of the slumber of centuries. And at one corner the Palace of the Holy Office rises up with heavy, disquieting bareness, only a single row of windows piercing its lofty, yellow front. The wall which skirts a side street looks yet more suspicious with its row of even smaller casements, mere peep-holes with glaucous panes. In the bright sunlight this huge cube of mud-coloured masonry ever seems asleep, mysterious, and closed like a prison, with scarcely an aperture for communication with the outer world. Pierre shivered, but then smiled as at an act of childishness, for he reflected that the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition, nowadays the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, was no longer the institution it had been, the purveyor of heretics for the stake, the occult tribunal beyond appeal which had right of life and death over all mankind. True, it still laboured in secrecy, meeting every Wednesday, and judging and condemning without a sound issuing from within its walls. But on the other hand if it still continued to strike at the crime of heresy, if it smote men as well as their works, it no longer possessed either weapons or dungeons, steel or fire to do its bidding, but was reduced to a mere /role/ of protest, unable to inflict aught but disciplinary penalties even upon the ecclesiastics of its own Church. When Pierre on entering was ushered into the reception-room of Monsignor Nani who, as assessor, lived in the palace, he experienced an agreeable surprise. The apartment faced the south, and was spacious and flooded with sunshine. And stiff as was the furniture, dark as were the hangings, an exquisite sweetness pervaded the room, as though a woman had lived in it and accomplished the prodigy of imparting some of her own grace to all those stern-looking things. There were no flowers, yet there was a pleasant smell. A charm expanded and conquered every heart from the very threshold. Monsignor Nani at once came forward, with a smile on his rosy face, his blue eyes keenly glittering, and his fine light hair powdered by age. With hands outstretched, he exclaimed: "Ah! how kind of you to have come to see me, my dear son! Come, sit down, let us have a friendly chat." Then with an extraordinary display of affection, he began to question Pierre: "How are you getting on? Tell me all about it, exactly what you have done." Touched in spite of Don Vigilio's revelations, won over by the sympathy which he fancied he could detect, Pierre thereupon confessed himself, relating his visits to Cardinal Sarno, Monsignor Fornaro and Father Dangelis, his applications to all the influential cardinals, those of the Index, the Grand Penitentiary, the Cardinal Vicar, and the Cardinal Secretary; and dwelling on his endless journeys from door to door through all the Congregations and all the clergy, that huge, active, silent bee-hive amidst which he had wearied his feet, exhausted his limbs, and bewildered his poor brain. And at each successive Station of this Calvary of entreaty, Monsignor Nani, who seemed to listen with an air of rapture, exclaimed: "But that's very good, that's capital! Oh! your affair is progressing. Yes, yes, it's progressing marvellously well." He was exultant, though he allowed no unseemly irony to appear, while his pleasant, penetrating eyes fathomed the young priest, to ascertain if he had been brought to the requisite degree of obedience. Had he been sufficiently wearied, disillusioned and instructed in the reality of things, for one to finish with him? Had three months' sojourn in Rome sufficed to turn the somewhat mad enthusiast of the first days into an unimpassioned or at least resigned being? However, all at once Monsignor Nani remarked: "But, my dear son, you tell me nothing of his Eminence Cardinal Sanguinetti." "The fact is, Monseigneur, that his Eminence is at Frascati, so I have been unable to see him." Thereupon the prelate, as if once more postponing the /denouement/ with the secret enjoyment of an artistic /diplomate/, began to protest, raising his little plump hands with the anxious air of a man who considers everything lost: "Oh! but you must see his Eminence; it is absolutely necessary! Think of it! The Prefect of the Index! We can only act after your visit to him, for as you have not seen /him/ it is as if you had seen nobody. Go, go to Frascati, my dear son." And thereupon Pierre could only bow and reply: "I will go, Monseigneur." XI ALTHOUGH Pierre knew that he would be unable to see Cardinal Sanguinetti before eleven o'clock, he nevertheless availed himself of an early train, so that it was barely nine when he alighted at the little station of Frascati. He had already visited the place during his enforced idleness, when he had made the classical excursion to the Roman castles which extend from Frascati to Rocco di Papa, and from Rocco di Papa to Monte Cavo, and he was now delighted with the prospect of strolling for a couple of hours along those first slopes of the Alban hills, where, amidst rushes, olives, and vines, Frascati, like a promontory, overlooks the immense ruddy sea of the Campagna even as far as Rome, which, six full leagues away, wears the whitish aspect of a marble isle. Ah! that charming Frascati, on its greeny knoll at the foot of the wooded Tusculan heights, with its famous terrace whence one enjoys the finest view in the world, its old patrician villas with proud and elegant Renascence facades and magnificent parks, which, planted with cypress, pine, and ilex, are for ever green! There was a sweetness, a delight, a fascination about the spot, of which Pierre would have never wearied. And for more than an hour he had wandered blissfully along roads edged with ancient, knotty olive-trees, along dingle ways shaded by the spreading foliage of neighbouring estates, and along perfumed paths, at each turn of which the Campagna was seen stretching far away, when all at once he was accosted by a person whom he was both surprised and annoyed to meet. He had strolled down to some low ground near the railway station, some old vineyards where a number of new houses had been built of recent years, and suddenly saw a stylish pair-horse victoria, coming from the direction of Rome, draw up close by, whilst its occupant called to him: "What! Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, are you taking a walk here, at this early hour?" Thereupon Pierre recognised Count Luigi Prada, who alighted, shook hands with him and began to walk beside him, whilst the empty carriage went on in advance. And forthwith the Count explained his tastes: "I seldom take the train," he said, "I drive over. It gives my horses an outing. I have interests over here as you may know, a big building enterprise which is unfortunately not progressing very well. And so, although the season is advanced, I'm obliged to come rather more frequently than I care to do." As Prada suggested, Pierre was acquainted with the story. The Boccaneras had been obliged to sell a sumptuous villa which a cardinal of their family had built at Frascati in accordance with the plans of Giacomo della Porta, during the latter part of the sixteenth century: a regal summer-residence it had been, finely wooded, with groves and basins and cascades, and in particular a famous terrace projecting like a cape above the Roman Campagna whose expanse stretches from the Sabine mountains to the Mediterranean sands. Through the division of the property, Benedetta had inherited from her mother some very extensive vineyards below Frascati, and these she had brought as dowry to Prada at the very moment when the building mania was extending from Rome into the provinces. And thereupon Prada had conceived the idea of erecting on the spot a number of middle-class villas like those which litter the suburbs of Paris. Few purchasers, however, had come forward, the financial crash had supervened, and he was now with difficulty liquidating this unlucky business, having indemnified his wife at the time of their separation. "And then," he continued, addressing Pierre, "one can come and go as one likes with a carriage, whereas, on taking the train, one is at the mercy of the time table. This morning, for instance, I have appointments with contractors, experts, and lawyers, and I have no notion how long they will keep me. It's a wonderful country, isn't it? And we are quite right to be proud of it in Rome. Although I may have some worries just now, I can never set foot here without my heart beating with delight." A circumstance which he did not mention, was that his /amica/, Lisbeth Kauffmann, had spent the summer in one of the newly erected villas, where she had installed her studio and had been visited by all the foreign colony, which tolerated her irregular position on account of her gay spirits and artistic talent. Indeed, people had even ended by accepting the outcome of her connection with Prada, and a fortnight previously she had returned to Rome, and there given birth to a son--an event which had again revived all the scandalous tittle-tattle respecting Benedetta's divorce suit. And Prada's attachment to Frascati doubtless sprang from the recollection of the happy hours he had spent there, and the joyful pride with which the birth of the boy inspired him. Pierre, for his part, felt ill at ease in the young Count's presence, for he had an instinctive hatred of money-mongers and men of prey. Nevertheless, he desired to respond to his amiability, and so inquired after his father, old Orlando, the hero of the Liberation. "Oh!" replied Prada, "excepting for his legs he's in wonderfully good health. He'll live a hundred years. Poor father! I should so much have liked to install him in one of these little houses, last summer. But I could not get him to consent; he's determined not to leave Rome; he's afraid, perhaps, that it might be taken away from him during his absence." Then the young Count burst into a laugh, quite merry at the thought of jeering at the heroic but no longer fashionable age of independence. And afterwards he said, "My father was speaking of you again only yesterday, Monsieur l'Abbe. He is astonished that he has not seen you lately." This distressed Pierre, for he had begun to regard Orlando with respectful affection. Since his first visit, he had twice called on the old hero, but the latter had refused to broach the subject of Rome so long as his young friend should not have seen, felt, and understood everything. There would be time for a talk later on, said he, when they were both in a position to formulate their conclusions. "Pray tell Count Orlando," responded Pierre, "that I have not forgotten him, and that, if I have deferred a fresh visit, it is because I desire to satisfy him. However, I certainly will not leave Rome without going to tell him how deeply his kind greeting has touched me." Whilst talking, the two men slowly followed the ascending road past the newly erected villas, several of which were not yet finished. And when Prada learned that the priest had come to call on Cardinal Sanguinetti, he again laughed, with the laugh of a good-natured wolf, showing his white fangs. "True," he exclaimed, "the Cardinal has been here since the Pope has been laid up. Ah! you'll find him in a pretty fever." "Why?" "Why, because there's bad news about the Holy Father this morning. When I left Rome it was rumoured that he had spent a fearful night." So speaking, Prada halted at a bend of the road, not far from an antique chapel, a little church of solitary, mournful grace of aspect, on the verge of an olive grove. Beside it stood a ruinous building, the old parsonage, no doubt, whence there suddenly emerged a tall, knotty priest with coarse and earthy face, who, after roughly locking the door, went off in the direction of the town. "Ah!" resumed the Count in a tone of raillery, "that fellow's heart also must be beating violently; he's surely gone to your Cardinal in search of news." Pierre had looked at the priest. "I know him," he replied; "I saw him, I remember, on the day after my arrival at Cardinal Boccanera's. He brought the Cardinal a basket of figs and asked him for a certificate in favour of his young brother, who had been sent to prison for some deed of violence--a knife thrust if I recollect rightly. However, the Cardinal absolutely refused him the certificate." "It's the same man," said Prada, "you may depend on it. He was often at the Villa Boccanera formerly; for his young brother was gardener there. But he's now the client, the creature of Cardinal Sanguinetti. Santobono his name is, and he's a curious character, such as you wouldn't find in France, I fancy. He lives all alone in that falling hovel, and officiates at that old chapel of St. Mary in the Fields, where people don't go to hear mass three times in a year. Yes, it's a perfect sinecure, which with its stipend of a thousand francs enables him to live there like a peasant philosopher, cultivating the somewhat extensive garden whose big walls you see yonder." The close to which he called attention stretched down the slope behind the parsonage, without an aperture, like some savage place of refuge into which not even the eye could penetrate. And all that could be seen above the left-hand wall was a superb, gigantic fig-tree, whose big leaves showed blackly against the clear sky. Prada had moved on again, and continued to speak of Santobono, who evidently interested him. Fancy, a patriot priest, a Garibaldian! Born at Nemi, in that yet savage nook among the Alban hills, he belonged to the people and was still near to the soil. However, he had studied, and knew sufficient history to realise the past greatness of Rome, and dream of the re-establishment of Roman dominion as represented by young Italy. And he had come to believe, with passionate fervour, that only a great pope could realise his dream by seizing upon power, and then conquering all the other nations. And what could be easier, since the Pope commanded millions of Catholics? Did not half Europe belong to him? France, Spain, and Austria would give way as soon as they should see him powerful, dictating laws to the world. Germany and Great Britain, indeed all the Protestant countries, would also inevitably be conquered, for the papacy was the only dike that could be opposed to error, which must some day fatally succumb in its efforts against such a barrier. Politically, however, Santobono had declared himself for Germany, for he considered that France needed to be crushed before she would throw herself into the arms of the Holy Father. And thus contradictions and fancies clashed in his foggy brain, whose burning ideas swiftly turned to violence under the influence of primitive, racial fierceness. Briefly, the priest was a barbarian upholder of the Gospel, a friend of the humble and woeful, a sectarian of that school which is capable alike of great virtues and great crimes. "Yes," concluded Prada, "he is now devoted to Cardinal Sanguinetti because he believes that the latter will prove the great pope of to-morrow, who is to make Rome the one capital of the nations. At the same time he doubtless harbours a lower personal ambition, that of attaining to a canonry or of gaining assistance in the little worries of life, as when he wished to extricate his brother from trouble. Here, you know, people stake their luck on a cardinal just as they nurse a 'trey' in the lottery, and if their cardinal proves the winning number and becomes pope they gain a fortune. And that's why you now see Santobono striding along yonder, all anxiety to know if Leo XIII will die and Sanguinetti don the tiara." "Do you think the Pope so very ill, then?" asked Pierre, both anxious and interested. The Count smiled and raised both arms: "Ah!" said he, "can one ever tell? They all get ill when their interest lies that way. However, I believe that the Pope is this time really indisposed; a complaint of the bowels, it is said; and at his age, you know, the slightest indisposition may prove fatal." The two men took a few steps in silence, then the priest again asked a question: "Would Cardinal Sanguinetti have a great chance if the Holy See were vacant?" "A great chance! Ah! that's another of those things which one never knows. The truth is people class Sanguinetti among the acceptable candidates, and if personal desire sufficed he would certainly be the next pope, for ambition consumes him to the marrow, and he displays extraordinary passion and determination in his efforts to succeed. But therein lies his very weakness; he is using himself up, and he knows it. And so he must be resolved to every step during the last days of battle. You may be quite sure that if he has shut himself up here at this critical time, it is in order that he may the better direct his operations from a distance, whilst at the same time feigning a retreat, a disinterestedness which is bound to have a good effect." Then Prada began to expatiate on Sanguinetti with no little complacency, for he liked the man's spirit of intrigue, his keen, conquering appetite, his excessive, and even somewhat blundering activity. He had become acquainted with him on his return from the nunciature at Vienna, when he had already resolved to win the tiara. That ambition explained everything, his quarrels and reconciliations with the reigning pope, his affection for Germany, followed by a sudden evolution in the direction of France, his varying attitude with regard to Italy, at first a desire for agreement, and then absolute rejection of all compromises, a refusal to grant any concession, so long as Rome should not be evacuated. This, indeed, seemed to be Sanguinetti's definite position; he made a show of disliking the wavering sway of Leo XIII, and of retaining a fervent admiration for Pius IX, the great, heroic pope of the days of resistance, whose goodness of heart had proved no impediment to unshakable firmness. And all this was equivalent to a promise that he, Sanguinetti, would again make kindliness exempt from weakness, the rule of the Church, and would steer clear of the dangerous compounding of politics. At bottom, however, politics were his only dream, and he had even formulated a complete programme of intentional vagueness, which his clients and creatures spread abroad with an air of rapturous mystery. However, since a previous indisposition of the Pope's, during the spring, he had been living in mortal disquietude, for it had then been rumoured that the Jesuits would resign themselves to support Cardinal Pio Boccanera, although the latter scarcely favoured them. He was rough and stern, no doubt, and his extreme bigotry might be a source of danger in this tolerant age; but, on the other hand, was he not a patrician, and would not his election imply that the papacy would never cease to claim the temporal power? From that moment Boccanera had been the one man whom Sanguinetti feared, for he beheld himself despoiled of his prize, and spent his time in devising plans to rid himself of such a powerful rival, repeating abominable stories of Cardinal Pio's alleged complaisance with regard to Benedetta and Dario, and incessantly representing him as Antichrist, the man of sin, whose reign would consummate the ruin of the papacy. Finally, to regain the support of the Jesuits, Sanguinetti's last idea was to repeat through his familiars that for his part he would not merely maintain the principle of the temporal power intact, but would even undertake to regain that power. And he had a full plan on the subject, which folks confided to one another in whispers, a plan which, in spite of its apparent concessions, would lead to the overwhelming victory of the Church. It was to raise the prohibition which prevented Catholics from voting or becoming candidates at the Italian elections; to send a hundred, then two hundred, and then three hundred deputies to the Chamber, and in that wise to overthrow the House of Savoy, and establish a Federation of the Italian provinces, whereof the Holy Father, once more placed in possession of Rome, would become the august and sovereign President. As Prada finished he again laughed, showing his white teeth--teeth which would never readily relinquish the prey they held. "So you see," he added, "we need to defend ourselves, since it's a question of turning us out. Fortunately, there are some little obstacles in the way of that. Nevertheless, such dreams naturally have great influence on excited minds, such as that of Santobono, for instance. He's a man whom one word from Sanguinetti would lead far indeed. Ah! he has good legs. Look at him up yonder, he has already reached the Cardinal's little palace--that white villa with the sculptured balconies." Pierre raised his eyes and perceived the episcopal residence, which was one of the first houses of Frascati. Of modern construction and Renascence style, it overlooked the immensity of the Roman Campagna. It was now eleven o'clock, and as the young priest, before going up to pay his own visit, bade the Count good-bye, the latter for a moment kept hold of his hand. "Do you know," said he, "it would be very kind of you to lunch with me--will you? Come and join me at that restaurant yonder with the pink front as soon as you are at liberty. I shall have settled my own business in an hour's time, and I shall be delighted to have your company at table." Pierre began by declining, but he could offer no possible excuse, and at last surrendered, won over, despite himself, by Prada's real charm of manner. When they had parted, the young priest only had to climb a street in order to reach the Cardinal's door. With his natural expansiveness and craving for popularity, Sanguinetti was easy of access, and at Frascati in particular his doors were flung open even to the most humble cassocks. So Pierre was at once ushered in, a circumstance which somewhat surprised him, for he remembered the bad humour of the servant whom he had seen on calling at the Cardinal's residence in Rome, when he had been advised to forego the journey, as his Eminence did not like to be disturbed when he was ill. However, nothing spoke of illness in that pleasant villa, flooded with sunshine. True, the waiting-room, where he was momentarily left alone, displayed neither luxury nor comfort; but it was brightened by the finest light in the world, and overlooked that extraordinary Campagna, so flat, so bare, and so unique in its beauty, for in front of it one ever dreams and sees the past arise. And so, whilst waiting, Pierre stationed himself at an open window, conducting on to a balcony, and his eyes roamed over the endless sea of herbage to the far-away whiteness of Rome, above which rose the dome of St. Peter's, at that distance a mere sparkling speck, barely as large as the nail of one's little finger. However, the young man had scarcely taken up this position when he was surprised to hear some people talking, their words reaching him with great distinctness. And on leaning forward he realised that his Eminence in person was standing on another balcony close by, and conversing with a priest, only a portion of whose cassock could be seen. Still, this sufficed for Pierre to recognise Santobono. His first impulse, dictated by natural discretion, was to withdraw from the window, but the words he next heard riveted him to the spot. "We shall know in a moment," his Eminence was saying in his full voice. "I sent Eufemio to Rome, for he is the only person in whom I've any confidence. And see, there is the train bringing him back." A train, still as small as a plaything, could in fact be seen approaching over the vast plain, and doubtless it was to watch for its arrival that Sanguinetti had stationed himself on the balcony. And there he lingered, with his eyes fixed on distant Rome. Then Santobono, in a passionate voice, spoke some words which Pierre imperfectly understood, but the Cardinal with clear articulation rejoined, "Yes, yes, my dear fellow, a catastrophe would be a great misfortune. Ah! may his Holiness long be preserved to us." Then he paused, and as he was no hypocrite, gave full expression to the thoughts which were in his mind: "At least, I hope that he will be preserved just now, for the times are bad, and I am in frightful anguish. The partisans of Antichrist have lately gained much ground." A cry escaped Santobono: "Oh! your Eminence will act and triumph." "I, my dear fellow? What would you have me do? I am simply at the disposal of my friends, those who are willing to believe in me, with the sole object of ensuring the victory of the Holy See. It is they who ought to act, it is they--each according to the measure of his means--who ought to bar the road to the wicked in order that the righteous may succeed. Ah! if Antichrist should reign--" The recurrence of this word Antichrist greatly disturbed Pierre; but he suddenly remembered what the Count had told him: Antichrist was Cardinal Boccanera. "Think of that, my dear fellow," continued Sanguinetti. "Picture Antichrist at the Vatican, consummating the ruin of religion by his implacable pride, his iron will, his gloomy passion for nihility; for there can be no doubt of it, he is the Beast of Death announced by the prophecies, the Beast who will expose one and all to the danger of being swallowed up with him in his furious rush into abysmal darkness. I know him; he only dreams of obstinacy and destruction, he will seize the pillars of the temple and shake them in order that he may sink beneath the ruins, he and the whole Catholic world! In less than six months he will be driven from Rome, at strife with all the nations, execrated by Italy, and roaming the world like the phantom of the last pope!" It was with a low growl, suggestive of a stifled oath, that Santobono responded to this frightful prediction. But the train had now reached the station, and among the few passengers who had alighted, Pierre could distinguish a little Abbe, who was walking so fast that his cassock flapped against his hips. It was Abbe Eufemio, the Cardinal's secretary, and when he had perceived his Eminence on the balcony he lost all self-respect, and broke into a run, in order that he might the sooner ascend the sloping street. "Ah! here's Eufemio," exclaimed the Cardinal, quivering with anxiety. "We shall know now, we shall know now." The secretary had plunged into the doorway below, and he climbed the stairs with such rapidity that almost immediately afterwards Pierre saw him rush breathlessly across the waiting-room, and vanish into the Cardinal's sanctum. Sanguinetti had quitted the balcony to meet his messenger, but soon afterwards he returned to it asking questions, venting exclamations, raising, in fact, quite a tumult over the news which he had received. "And so it's really true, the night was a bad one. His Holiness scarcely slept! Colic, you were told? But nothing could be worse at his age; it might carry him off in a couple of hours. And the doctors, what do they say?" The answer did not reach Pierre, but he understood its purport as the Cardinal in his naturally loud voice resumed: "Oh! the doctors never know. Besides, when they refuse to speak death is never far off. /Dio/! what a misfortune if the catastrophe cannot be deferred for a few days!" Then he became silent, and Pierre realised that his eyes were once more travelling towards Rome, gazing with ambitious anguish at the dome of St. Peter's, that little, sparkling speck above the vast, ruddy plain. What a commotion, what agitation if the Pope were dead! And he wished that it had merely been necessary for him to stretch forth his arm in order to take and hold the Eternal City, the Holy City, which, yonder on the horizon, occupied no more space than a heap of gravel cast there by a child's spade. And he was already dreaming of the coming Conclave, when the canopy of each other cardinal would fall, and his own, motionless and sovereign, would crown him with purple. "But you are right, my friend!" he suddenly exclaimed, addressing Santobono, "one must act, the salvation of the Church is at stake. And, besides, it is impossible that Heaven should not be with us, since our sole desire is its triumph. If necessary, at the supreme moment, Heaven will know how to crush Antichrist." Then, for the first time, Pierre distinctly heard the voice of Santobono, who, gruffly, with a sort of savage decision, responded: "Oh! if Heaven is tardy it shall be helped." That was all; the young man heard nothing further save a confused murmur of voices. The speakers quitted the balcony, and his spell of waiting began afresh in the sunlit /salon/ so peaceful and delightful in its brightness. But all at once the door of his Eminence's private room was thrown wide open and a servant ushered him in; and he was surprised to find the Cardinal alone, for he had not witnessed the departure of the two priests, who had gone off by another door. The Cardinal, with his highly coloured face, big nose, thick lips, square-set, vigorous figure, which still looked young despite his sixty years, was standing near a window in the bright golden light. He had put on the paternal smile with which he greeted even the humblest from motives of good policy, and as soon as Pierre had knelt and kissed his ring, he motioned him to a chair. "Sit down, dear son, sit down. You have come of course about that unfortunate affair of your book. I am very pleased indeed to be able to speak with you about it." He himself then took a chair in front of that window overlooking Rome whence he seemed unable to drag himself. And the young priest, whilst apologising for coming to disturb his rest, perceived that he scarcely listened, for his eyes again sought the prey which he so ardently coveted. Yet the semblance of good-natured attention was perfect, and Pierre marvelled at the force of will which this man must possess to appear so calm, so interested in the affairs of others, when such a tempest was raging in him. "Your Eminence will, I hope, kindly forgive me," continued the young priest. "But you have done right to come, since I am kept here by my failing health," said the Cardinal. "Besides, I am somewhat better, and it is only natural that you should wish to give me some explanations and defend your work and enlighten my judgment. In fact, I was astonished at not yet having seen you, for I know that your faith in your cause is great and that you spare no steps to convert your judges. So speak, my dear son, I am listening and shall be pleased indeed if I can absolve you." Pierre was caught by these kind words, and a hope returned to him, that of winning the support of the all-powerful Prefect of the Index. He already regarded this ex-nuncio--who at Brussels and Vienna had acquired the worldly art of sending people away satisfied with indefinite promises though he meant to grant them nothing--as a man of rare intelligence and exquisite cordiality. And so once more he regained the fervour of his apostolate to express his views respecting the future Rome, the Rome he dreamt of, which was destined yet again to become the mistress of the world if she would return to the Christianity of Jesus, to an ardent love for the weak and the humble. Sanguinetti smiled, wagged his head, and raised exclamations of rapture: "Very good, very good indeed, perfect! Oh! I agree with you, dear son. One cannot put things better. It is quite evident; all good minds must agree with you." And then, said he, the poetic side deeply touched him. Like Leo XIII--and doubtless in a spirit of rivalry--he courted the reputation of being a very distinguished Latinist, and professed a special and boundless affection for Virgil. "I know, I know," he exclaimed, "I remember your page on the return of spring, which consoles the poor whom winter has frozen. Oh! I read it three times over! And are you aware that your writing is full of Latin turns of style. I noticed more than fifty expressions which could be found in the 'Bucolics.' Your book is a charm, a perfect charm!" As he was no fool, and realised that the little priest before him was a man of high intelligence, he ended by interesting himself, not in Pierre personally, but in the profit which he might possibly derive from him. Amidst his feverish intrigues, he unceasingly sought to utilise all the qualities possessed by those whom God sent to him that might in any way be conducive to his own triumph. So, for a moment, he turned away from Rome and looked his companion in the face, listening to him and asking himself in what way he might employ him--either at once in the crisis through which he was passing, or later on when he should be pope. But the young priest again made the mistake of attacking the temporal power, and of employing that unfortunate expression, "a new religion." Thereupon the Cardinal stopped him with a gesture, still smiling, still retaining all his amiability, although the resolution which he had long since formed became from that moment definitive. "You are certainly in the right on many points, my dear son," he said, "and I often share your views--share them completely. But come, you are doubtless not aware that I am the protector of Lourdes here at Rome. And so, after the page which you have written about the Grotto, how can I possibly pronounce in your favour and against the Fathers?" Pierre was utterly overcome by this announcement, for he was indeed unaware of the Cardinal's position with respect to Lourdes, nobody having taken the precaution to warn him. However, each of the Catholic enterprises distributed throughout the world has a protector at Rome, a cardinal who is designated by the Pope to represent it and, if need be, to defend it. "Those good Fathers!" Sanguinetti continued in a gentle voice, "you have caused them great grief, and really our hands are tied, we cannot add to their sorrow. If you only knew what a number of masses they send us! I know more than one of our poor priests who would die of hunger if it were not for them." Pierre could only bow beneath the blow. Once more he found himself in presence of the pecuniary question, the necessity in which the Holy See is placed to secure the revenue it requires one year with another. And thus the Pope was ever in servitude, for if the loss of Rome had freed him of the cares of state, his enforced gratitude for the alms he received still riveted him to earth. So great, indeed, were the requirements, that money was the ruler, the sovereign power, before which all bowed at the Court of Rome. And now Sanguinetti rose to dismiss his visitor. "You must not despair, dear son," he said effusively. "I have only my own vote, you know, and I promise you that I will take into account the excellent explanations which you have just given me. And who can tell? If God be with you, He will save you even in spite of all!" This speech formed part of the Cardinal's usual tactics; for one of his principles was never to drive people to extremes by sending them away hopeless. What good, indeed, would it do to tell this one that the condemnation of his book was a foregone conclusion, and that his only prudent course would be to disavow it? Only a savage like Boccanera breathed anger upon fiery souls and plunged them into rebellion. "You must hope, hope!" repeated Sanguinetti with a smile, as if implying a multitude of fortunate things which he could not plainly express. Thereupon Pierre, who was deeply touched, felt born anew. He even forgot the conversation he had surprised, the Cardinal's keen ambition and covert rage with his redoubtable rival. Besides, might not intelligence take the place of heart among the powerful? If this man should some day become pope, and had understood him, might he not prove the pope who was awaited, the pope who would accept the task of reorganising the Church of the United States of Europe, and making it the spiritual sovereign of the world? So he thanked him with emotion, bowed, and left him to his dream, standing before that widely open window whence Rome appeared to him, glittering like a jewel, even indeed as the tiara of gold and gems, in the splendour of the autumn sun. It was nearly one o'clock when Pierre and Count Prada were at last able to sit down to /dejeuner/ in the little restaurant where they had agreed to meet. They had both been delayed by their affairs. However, the Count, having settled some worrying matters to his own advantage, was very lively, whilst the priest on his side was again hopeful, and yielded to the delightful charm of that last fine day. And so the meal proved a very pleasant one in the large, bright room, which, as usual at that season of the year, was quite deserted. Pink and blue predominated in the decoration, but Cupids fluttered on the ceiling, and landscapes, vaguely recalling the Roman castles, adorned the walls. The things they ate were fresh, and they drank the wine of Frascati, to which the soil imparts a kind of burnt flavour as if the old volcanoes of the region had left some little of their fire behind. For a long while the conversation ranged over those wild and graceful Alban hills, which, fortunately for the pleasure of the eye, overlook the flat Roman Campagna. Pierre, who had made the customary carriage excursion from Frascati to Nemi, still felt its charm and spoke of it in glowing language. First came the lovely road from Frascati to Albano, ascending and descending hillsides planted with reeds, vines, and olive-trees, amongst which one obtained frequent glimpses of the Campagna's wavy immensity. On the right-hand the village of Rocca di Papa arose in amphitheatrical fashion, showing whitely on a knoll below Monte Cavo, which was crowned by lofty and ancient trees. And from this point of the road, on looking back towards Frascati, one saw high up, on the verge of a pine wood the ruins of Tusculum, large ruddy ruins, baked by centuries of sunshine, and whence the boundless panorama must have been superb. Next one passed through Marino, with its sloping streets, its large cathedral, and its black decaying palace belonging to the Colonnas. Then, beyond a wood of ilex-trees, the lake of Albano was skirted with scenery which has no parallel in the world. In front, beyond the clear mirror of motionless water, were the ruins of Alba Longa; on the left rose Monte Cavo with Rocca di Papa and Palazzuolo; whilst on the right Castel Gandolfo overlooked the lake as from the summit of a cliff. Down below in the extinct crater, as in the depths of a gigantic cup of verdure, the lake slept heavy and lifeless: a sheet of molten metal, which the sun on one side streaked with gold, whilst the other was black with shade. And the road then ascended all the way to Castel Gandolfo, which was perched on its rock, like a white bird betwixt the lake and the sea. Ever refreshed by breezes, even in the most burning hours of summer, the little place was once famous for its papal villa, where Pius IX loved to spend hours of indolence, and whither Leo XIII has never come. And next the road dipped down, and the ilex-trees appeared again, ilex-trees famous for their size, a double row of monsters with twisted limbs, two and three hundred years old. Then one at last reached Albano, a small town less modernised and less cleansed than Frascati, a patch of the old land which has retained some of its ancient wildness; and afterwards there was Ariccia with the Palazzo Chigi, and hills covered with forests and viaducts spanning ravines which overflowed with foliage; and there was yet Genzano, and yet Nemi, growing still wilder and more remote, lost in the midst of rocks and trees. Ah! how ineffaceable was the recollection which Pierre had retained of Nemi, Nemi on the shore of its lake, Nemi so delicious and fascinating from afar, conjuring up all the ancient legends of fairy towns springing from amidst the greenery of mysterious waters, but so repulsively filthy when one at last reaches it, crumbling on all sides but yet dominated by the Orsini tower, as by the evil genius of the middle ages, which there seems to perpetuate the ferocious habits, the violent passions, the knife thrusts of the past! Thence came that Santobono whose brother had killed, and who himself, with his eyes of crime glittering like live embers, seemed to be consumed by a murderous flame. And the lake, that lake round like an extinguished moon fallen into the depths of a former crater, a deeper and less open cup than that of the lake of Albano, a cup rimmed with trees of wondrous vigour and density! Pines, elms, and willows descend to the very margin, with a green mass of tangled branches which weigh each other down. This formidable fecundity springs from the vapour which constantly arises from the water under the parching action of the sun, whose rays accumulate in this hollow till it becomes like a furnace. There is a warm, heavy dampness, the paths of the adjacent gardens grow green with moss, and in the morning dense mists often fill the large cup with white vapour, as with the steaming milk of some sorceress of malevolent craft. And Pierre well remembered how uncomfortable he had felt before that lake where ancient atrocities, a mysterious religion with abominable rites, seemed to slumber amidst the superb scenery. He had seen it at the approach of evening, looking, in the shade of its forest girdle, like a plate of dull metal, black and silver, motionless by reason of its weight. And that water, clear and yet so deep, that water deserted, without a bark upon its surface, that water august, lifeless, and sepulchral, had left him a feeling of inexpressible sadness, of mortal melancholy, the hopelessness of great solitary passion, earth and water alike swollen by the mute spasms of germs, troublous in their fecundity. Ah! those black and plunging banks, and that black mournful lake prone at the bottom!* * Some literary interest attaches to M. Zola's account of Nemi, whose praises have been sung by a hundred poets. It will be observed that he makes no mention of Egeria. The religion distinguished by abominable practices to which he alludes, may perhaps be the worship of the Egyptian Diana, who had a famous temple near Nemi, which was excavated by Lord Savile some ten years ago, when all the smaller objects discovered were presented to the town of Nottingham. At this temple, according to some classical writers, the chief priest was required to murder his predecessor, and there were other abominable usages.--Trans. Count Prada began to laugh when Pierre told him of these impressions. "Yes, yes," said he, "it's true, Nemi isn't always gay. In dull weather I have seen the lake looking like lead, and even the full sunshine scarcely animates it. For my part, I know I should die of /ennui/ if I had to live face to face with that bare water. But it is admired by poets and romantic women, those who adore great tragedies of passion." Then, as he and Pierre rose from the table to go and take coffee on the terrace of the restaurant, the conversation changed: "Do you mean to attend Prince Buongiovanni's reception this evening?" the Count inquired. "It will be a curious sight, especially for a foreigner, and I advise you not to miss it." "Yes, I have an invitation," Pierre replied. "A friend of mine, Monsieur Narcisse Habert, an /attache/ at our embassy, procured it for me, and I am going with him." That evening, indeed, there was to be a /fete/ at the Palazzo Buongiovanni on the Corso, one of the few galas that take place in Rome each winter. People said that this one would surpass all others in magnificence, for it was to be given in honour of the betrothal of little Princess Celia. The Prince, her father, after boxing her ears, it was rumoured, and narrowly escaping an attack of apoplexy as the result of a frightful fit of anger, had, all at once, yielded to her quiet, gentle stubbornness, and consented to her marriage with Lieutenant Attilio, the son of Minister Sacco. And all the drawing-rooms of Rome, those of the white world quite as much as those of the black, were thoroughly upset by the tidings. Count Prada made merry over the affair. "Ah! you'll see a fine sight!" he exclaimed. "Personally, I'm delighted with it all for the sake of my good cousin Attilio, who is really a very nice and worthy fellow. And nothing in the world would keep me from going to see my dear uncle Sacco make his entry into the ancient /salons/ of the Buongiovanni. It will be something extraordinary and superb. He has at last become Minister of Agriculture, you know. My father, who always takes things so seriously, told me this morning that the affair so worried him he hadn't closed his eyes all night." The Count paused, but almost immediately added: "I say, it is half-past two and you won't have a train before five o'clock. Do you know what you ought to do? Why, drive back to Rome with me in my carriage." "No, no," rejoined Pierre, "I'm deeply obliged to you but I'm to dine with my friend Narcisse this evening, and I mustn't be late." "But you won't be late--on the contrary! We shall start at three and reach Rome before five o'clock. There can't be a more pleasant promenade when the light falls; and, come, I promise you a splendid sunset." He was so pressing that the young priest had to accept, quite subjugated by so much amiability and good humour. They spent another half-hour very pleasantly in chatting about Rome, Italy, and France. Then, for a moment, they went up into Frascati where the Count wished to say a few words to a contractor, and just as three o'clock was striking they started off, seated side by side on the soft cushions and gently rocked by the motion of the victoria as the two horses broke into a light trot. As Prada had predicted, that return to Rome across the bare Campagna under the vast limpid heavens at the close of such a mild autumn day proved most delightful. First of all, however, the victoria had to descend the slopes of Frascati between vineyards and olive-trees. The paved road snaked, and was but little frequented; they merely saw a few peasants in old felt hats, a white mule, and a cart drawn by a donkey, for it is only upon Sundays that the /osterie/ or wine-shops are filled and that artisans in easy circumstances come to eat a dish of kid at the surrounding /bastides/. However, at one turn of the road they passed a monumental fountain. Then a flock of sheep momentarily barred the way before defiling past. And beyond the gentle undulations of the ruddy Campagna Rome appeared amidst the violet vapours of evening, sinking by degrees as the carriage itself descended to a lower and lower level. There came a moment when the city was a mere thin grey streak, speckled whitely here and there by a few sunlit house-fronts. And then it seemed to plunge below the ground--to be submerged by the swell of the far-spreading fields. The victoria was now rolling over the plain, leaving the Alban hills behind, whilst before it and on either hand came the expanse of meadows and stubbles. And then it was that the Count, after leaning forward, exclaimed: "Just look ahead, yonder, there's our man of this morning, Santobono in person--what a strapping fellow he is, and how fast he walks! My horses can scarcely overtake him." Pierre in his turn leant forward and likewise perceived the priest of St. Mary in the Fields, looking tall and knotty, fashioned as it were with a bill-hook. Robed in a long black cassock, he showed like a vigorous splotch of ink amidst the bright sunshine streaming around him; and he was walking on at such a fast, stern, regular pace that he suggested Destiny on the march. Something, which could not be well distinguished, was hanging from his right arm. When the carriage had at last overtaken him Prada told the coachman to slacken speed, and then entered into conversation. "Good-day, Abbe; you are well, I hope?" he asked. "Very well, Signor Conte, I thank you." "And where are you going so bravely?" "Signor Conte, I am going to Rome." "What! to Rome, at this late hour?" "Oh! I shall be there nearly as soon as yourself. The distance doesn't frighten me, and money's quickly earned by walking." Scarcely turning his head to reply, stepping out beside the wheels, Santobono did not miss a stride. And Prada, diverted by the meeting, whispered to Pierre: "Wait a bit, he'll amuse us." Then he added aloud: "Since you are going to Rome, Abbe, you had better get in here; there's room for you." Santobono required no pressing, but at once accepted the offer. "Willingly; a thousand thanks," he said. "It's still better to save one's shoe leather." Then he got in and installed himself on the bracket-seat, declining with abrupt humility the place which Pierre politely offered him beside the Count. The young priest and the latter now saw that the object he was carrying was a little basket of fresh figs, nicely arranged and covered with leaves. The horses set off again at a faster trot, and the carriage rolled on and on over the superb, flat plain. "So you are going to Rome?" the Count resumed in order to make Santobono talk. "Yes," the other replied, "I am taking his Eminence Cardinal Boccanera these few figs, the last of the season: a little present which I had promised him." He had placed the basket on his knees and was holding it between his big knotty hands as if it were something rare and fragile. "Ah! some of the famous figs of your garden," said Prada. "It's quite true, they are like honey. But why don't you rid yourself of them. You surely don't mean to keep them on your knees all the way to Rome. Give them to me, I'll put them in the hood." However, Santobono became quite agitated, and vigorously declined the offer. "No, no, a thousand thanks! They don't embarrass me in the least; they are very well here; and in this way I shall be sure that no accident will befall them." His passion for the fruit he grew quite amused Prada, who nudged Pierre, and then inquired: "Is the Cardinal fond of your figs?" "Oh! his Eminence condescends to adore them. In former years, when he spent the summer at the villa, he would never touch the figs from other trees. And so, you see, knowing his tastes, it costs me very little to gratify him." Whilst making this reply Santobono had shot such a keen glance in the direction of Pierre that the Count felt it necessary to introduce them to one another. This he did saying: "As it happens, Monsieur l'Abbe Froment is stopping at the Palazzo Boccanera; he has been there for three months or so." "Yes, I'm aware of it," Santobono quietly replied; "I found Monsieur l'Abbe with his Eminence one day when I took some figs to the Palazzo. Those were less ripe, but these are perfect." So speaking he gave the little basket a complacent glance, and seemed to press it yet more closely between his huge and hairy fingers. Then came a spell of silence, whilst on either hand the Campagna spread out as far as the eye could reach. All houses had long since disappeared; there was not a wall, not a tree, nothing but the undulating expanse whose sparse, short herbage was, with the approach of winter, beginning to turn green once more. A tower, a half-fallen ruin which came into sight on the left, rising in solitude into the limpid sky above the flat, boundless line of the horizon, suddenly assumed extraordinary importance. Then, on the right, the distant silhouettes of cattle and horses were seen in a large enclosure with wooden rails. Urged on by the goad, oxen, still yoked, were slowly coming back from ploughing; whilst a farmer, cantering beside the ploughed land on a little sorrel nag, gave a final look round for the night. Now and again the road became peopled. A /biroccino/, an extremely light vehicle with two huge wheels and a small seat perched upon the springs, whisked by like a gust of wind. From time to time also the victoria passed a /carrotino/, one of the low carts in which peasants, sheltered by a kind of bright-hued tent, bring the wine, vegetables, and fruit of the castle-lands to Rome. The shrill tinkling of horses' bells was heard afar off as the animals followed the well-known road of their own accord, their peasant drivers usually being sound asleep. Women with bare, black hair, scarlet neckerchiefs, and skirts caught up, were seen going home in groups of three and four. And then the road again emptied, and the solitude became more and more complete, without a wayfarer or an animal appearing for miles and miles, whilst yonder, at the far end of the lifeless sea, so grandiose and mournful in its monotony, the sun continued to descend from the infinite vault of heaven. "And the Pope, Abbe, is he dead?" Prada suddenly inquired. Santobono did not even start. "I trust," he replied in all simplicity, "that his Holiness still has many long years to live for the triumph of the Church." "So you had good news this morning when you called on your bishop, Cardinal Sanguinetti?" This time the priest was unable to restrain a slight start. Had he been seen, then? In his haste he had failed to notice the two men following the road behind him. However, he at once regained self-possession, and replied: "Oh! one can never tell exactly whether news is good or bad. It seems that his Holiness passed a somewhat painful night, but I devoutly hope that the next will be a better one." Then he seemed to meditate for a moment, and added: "Moreover, if God should have deemed it time to call his Holiness to Himself, He would not leave His flock without a shepherd. He would have already chosen and designated the Sovereign Pontiff of to-morrow." This superb answer increased Prada's gaiety. "You are really extraordinary, Abbe," he said. "So you think that popes are solely created by the grace of the Divinity! The pope of to-morrow is chosen up in heaven, eh, and simply waits? Well, I fancied that men had something to do with the matter. But perhaps you already know which cardinal it is that the divine favour has thus elected in advance?" Then, like the unbeliever he was, he went on with his facile jests, which left the priest unruffled. In fact, the latter also ended by laughing when the Count, after alluding to the gambling passion which at each fresh Conclave sets wellnigh the whole population of Rome betting for or against this or that candidate, told him that he might easily make his fortune if he were in the divine secret. Next the talk turned on the three white cassocks of different sizes which are always kept in readiness in a cupboard at the Vatican. Which of them would be required on this occasion?--the short one, the long one, or the one of medium size? Each time that the reigning pope falls somewhat seriously ill there is in this wise an extraordinary outburst of emotion, a keen awakening of all ambitions and intrigues, to such a point that not merely in the black world, but throughout the city, people have no other subject of curiosity, conversation, and occupation than that of discussing the relative claims of the cardinals and predicting which of them will be elected. "Come, come," Prada resumed, "since you know the truth, I'm determined that you shall tell me. Will it be Cardinal Moretta?" Santobono, in spite of his evident desire to remain dignified and disinterested, like a good, pious priest, was gradually growing impassioned, yielding to the hidden fire which consumed him. And this interrogatory finished him off; he could no longer restrain himself, but replied: "Moretta! What an idea! Why, he is sold to all Europe!" "Well, will it be Cardinal Bartolini?" "Oh! you can't think that. Bartolini has used himself up in striving for everything and getting nothing." "Will it be Cardinal Dozio, then?" "Dozio, Dozio! Why, if Dozio were to win one might altogether despair of our Holy Church, for no man can have a baser mind than he!" Prada raised his hands, as if he had exhausted the serious candidates. In order to increase the priest's exasperation he maliciously refrained from naming Cardinal Sanguinetti, who was certainly Santobono's nominee. All at once, however, he pretended to make a good guess, and gaily exclaimed: "Ah! I have it; I know your man--Cardinal Boccanera!" The blow struck Santobono full in the heart, wounding him both in his rancour and his patriotic faith. His terrible mouth was already opening, and he was about to shout "No! no!" with all his strength, but he managed to restrain the cry, compelled as he was to silence by the present on his knees--that little basket of figs which he pressed so convulsively with both hands; and the effort which he was obliged to make left him quivering to such a point that he had to wait some time before he could reply in a calm voice: "His most reverend Eminence Cardinal Boccanera is a saintly man, well worthy of the throne, and my only fear is that, with his hatred of new Italy, he might bring us warfare." Prada, however, desired to enlarge the wound. "At all events," said he, "you accept him and love him too much not to rejoice over his chances of success. And I really think that we have arrived at the truth, for everybody is convinced that the Conclave's choice cannot fall elsewhere. Come, come; Boccanera is a very tall man, so it's the long white cassock which will be required." "The long cassock, the long cassock," growled Santobono, despite himself; "that's all very well, but--" Then he stopped short, and, again overcoming his passion, left his sentence unfinished. Pierre, listening in silence, marvelled at the man's self-restraint, for he remembered the conversation which he had overheard at Cardinal Sanguinetti's. Those figs were evidently a mere pretext for gaining admission to the Boccanera mansion, where some friend--Abbe Paparelli, no doubt--could alone supply certain positive information which was needed. But how great was the command which the hot-blooded priest exercised over himself amidst the riotous impulses of his soul! On either side of the road the Campagna still and ever spread its expanse of verdure, and Prada, who had become grave and dreamy, gazed before him without seeing anything. At last, however, he gave expression to his thoughts. "You know, Abbe, what will be said if the Pope should die this time. That sudden illness, those colics, those refusals to make any information public, mean nothing good--Yes, yes, poison, just as for the others!" Pierre gave a start of stupefaction. The Pope poisoned! "What! Poison? Again?" he exclaimed as he gazed at his companions with dilated eyes. Poison at the end of the nineteenth century, as in the days of the Borgias, as on the stage in a romanticist melodrama! To him the idea appeared both monstrous and ridiculous. Santobono, whose features had become motionless and impenetrable, made no reply. But Prada nodded, and the conversation was henceforth confined to him and the young priest. "Why, yes, poison," he replied. "The fear of it has remained very great in Rome. Whenever a death seems inexplicable, either by reason of its suddenness or the tragic circumstances which attend it, the unanimous thought is poison. And remark this: in no city, I believe, are sudden deaths so frequent. The causes I don't exactly know, but some doctors put everything down to the fevers. Among the people, however, the one thought is poison, poison with all its legends, poison which kills like lightning and leaves no trace, the famous recipe bequeathed from age to age, through the emperors and the popes, down to these present times of middle-class democracy." As he spoke he ended by smiling, for he was inclined to be somewhat sceptical on the point, despite the covert terror with which he was inspired by racial and educational causes. However, he quoted instances. The Roman matrons had rid themselves of their husbands and lovers by employing the venom of red toads. Locusta, in a more practical spirit, sought poison in plants, one of which, probably aconite, she was wont to boil. Then, long afterwards, came the age of the Borgias, and subsequently, at Naples, La Toffana sold a famous water, doubtless some preparation of arsenic, in phials decorated with a representation of St. Nicholas of Bari. There were also extraordinary stories of pins, a prick from which killed one like lightning, of cups of wine poisoned by the infusion of rose petals, of woodcocks cut in half with prepared knives, which poisoned but one-half of the bird, so that he who partook of that half was killed. "I myself, in my younger days," continued Prada, "had a friend whose bride fell dead in church during the marriage service through simply inhaling a bouquet of flowers. And so isn't it possible that the famous recipe may really have been handed down, and have remained known to a few adepts?" "But chemistry has made too much progress," Pierre replied. "If mysterious poisons were believed in by the ancients and remained undetected in their time it was because there were no means of analysis. But the drug of the Borgias would now lead the simpleton who might employ it straight to the Assizes. Such stories are mere nonsense, and at the present day people scarcely tolerate them in newspaper serials and shockers." "Perhaps so," resumed the Count with his uneasy smile. "You are right, no doubt--only go and tell that to your host, for instance, Cardinal Boccanera, who last summer held in his arms an old and deeply-loved friend, Monsignor Gallo, who died after a seizure of a couple of hours." "But apoplexy may kill one in two hours, and aneurism only takes two minutes." "True, but ask the Cardinal what he thought of his friend's prolonged shudders, the leaden hue which overcame his face, the sinking of his eyes, and the expression of terror which made him quite unrecognisable. The Cardinal is convinced that Monsignor Gallo was poisoned, because he was his dearest confidant, the counsellor to whom he always listened, and whose wise advice was a guarantee of success." Pierre's bewilderment was increasing, and, irritated by the impassibility of Santobono, he addressed him direct. "It's idiotic, it's awful! Does your reverence also believe in these frightful stories?" But the priest of Frascati gave no sign. His thick, passionate lips remained closed while his black glowing eyes never ceased to gaze at Prada. The latter, moreover, was quoting other instances. There was the case of Monsignor Nazzarelli, who had been found in bed, shrunken and calcined like carbon. And there was that of Monsignor Brando, struck down in his sacerdotal vestments at St. Peter's itself, in the very sacristy, during vespers! "Ah! /Mon Dieu/!" sighed Pierre, "you will tell me so much that I myself shall end by trembling, and sha'n't dare to eat anything but boiled eggs as long as I stay in this terrible Rome of yours." For a moment this whimsical reply enlivened both the Count and Pierre. But it was quite true that their conversation showed Rome under a terrible aspect, for it conjured up the Eternal City of Crime, the city of poison and the knife, where for more than two thousand years, ever since the raising of the first bit of wall, the lust of power, the frantic hunger for possession and enjoyment, had armed men's hands, ensanguined the pavements, and cast victims into the river and the ground. Assassinations and poisonings under the emperors, poisonings and assassinations under the popes, ever did the same torrent of abominations strew that tragic soil with death amidst the sovereign glory of the sun. "All the same," said the Count, "those who take precautions are perhaps not ill advised. It is said that more than one cardinal shudders and mistrusts people. One whom I know will never eat anything that has not been bought and prepared by his own cook. And as for the Pope, if he is anxious--" Pierre again raised a cry of stupefaction. "What, the Pope himself! The Pope afraid of being poisoned!" "Well, my dear Abbe, people commonly assert it. There are certainly days when he considers himself more menaced than anybody else. And are you not aware of the old Roman view that a pope ought never to live till too great an age, and that when he is so obstinate as not to die at the right time he ought to be assisted? As soon as a pope begins to fall into second childhood, and by reason of his senility becomes a source of embarrassment, and possibly even danger, to the Church, his right place is heaven. Moreover, matters are managed in a discreet manner; a slight cold becomes a decent pretext to prevent him from tarrying any longer on the throne of St. Peter." Prada then gave some curious details. One prelate, it was said, wishing to dispel his Holiness's fears, had devised an elaborate precautionary system which, among other things, was to comprise a little padlocked vehicle, in which the food destined for the frugal pontifical table was to be securely placed before leaving the kitchen, so that it might not be tampered with on its way to the Pope's apartments. However, this project had not yet been carried into effect. "After all," the Count concluded with a laugh, "every pope has to die some day, especially when his death is needful for the welfare of the Church. Isn't that so, Abbe?" Santobono, whom he addressed, had a moment previously lowered his eyes as if to contemplate the little basket of figs which he held on his lap with as much care as if it had been the Blessed Sacrament. On being questioned in such a direct, sharp fashion he could not do otherwise than look up. However, he did not depart from his prolonged silence, but limited his answer to a slow nod. "And it is God alone, and not poison, who causes one to die. Is that not so, Abbe?" repeated Prada. "It is said that those were the last words of poor Monsignor Gallo before he expired in the arms of his friend Cardinal Boccanera." For the second time Santobono nodded without speaking. And then silence fell, all three sinking into a dreamy mood. Meantime, without a pause, the carriage rolled on across the immensity of the Campagna. The road, straight as an arrow, seemed to extend into the infinite. As the sun descended towards the horizon the play of light and shade became more marked on the broad undulations of the ground which stretched away, alternately of a pinky green and a violet grey, till they reached the distant fringe of the sky. At the roadside on either hand there were still and ever tall withered thistles and giant fennel with yellow umbels. Then, after a time, came a team of four oxen, that had been kept ploughing until late, and stood forth black and huge in the pale atmosphere and mournful solitude. Farther on some flocks of sheep, whence the breeze wafted a tallowy odour, set patches of brown amidst the herbage, which once more was becoming verdant; whilst at intervals a dog was heard to bark, his voice the only distinct sound amidst the low quivering of that silent desert where the sovereign peacefulness of death seemed to reign. But all at once a light melody arose and some larks flew up, one of them soaring into the limpid golden heavens. And ahead, at the far extremity of the pure sky, Rome, with her towers and domes, grew larger and larger, like a city of white marble springing from a mirage amidst the greenery of some enchanted garden. "Matteo!" Prada called to his coachman, "pull up at the Osteria Romana." And to his companions he added: "Pray excuse me, but I want to see if I can get some new-laid eggs for my father. He is so fond of them." A few minutes afterwards the carriage stopped. At the very edge of the road stood a primitive sort of inn, bearing the proud and sonorous name of "Antica Osteria Romana." It had now become a mere house of call for carters and chance sportsmen, who ventured to drink a flagon of white wine whilst eating an omelet and a slice of ham. Occasionally, on Sundays, some of the humble classes would walk over from Rome and make merry there; but the week days often went by without a soul entering the place, such was its isolation amidst the bare Campagna. The Count was already springing from the carriage. "I shall only be a minute," said he as he turned away. The /osteria/ was a long, low pile with a ground floor and one upper storey, the last being reached by an outdoor stairway built of large blocks of stone which had been scorched by the hot suns. The entire place, indeed, was corroded, tinged with the hue of old gold. On the ground floor one found a common room, a cart-house, and a stable with adjoining sheds. At one side, near a cluster of parasol pines--the only trees that could grow in that ungrateful soil--there was an arbour of reeds where five or six rough wooden tables were set out. And, as a background to this sorry, mournful nook of life, there arose a fragment of an ancient aqueduct whose arches, half fallen and opening on to space, alone interrupted the flat line of the horizon. All at once, however, the Count retraced his steps, and, addressing Santobono, exclaimed: "I say, Abbe, you'll surely accept a glass of white wine. I know that you are a bit of a vine grower, and they have a little white wine here which you ought to make acquaintance with." Santobono again required no pressing, but quietly alighted. "Oh! I know it," said he; "it's a wine from Marino; it's grown in a lighter soil than ours at Frascati." Then, as he would not relax his hold on his basket of figs, but even now carried it along with him, the Count lost patience. "Come, you don't want that basket," said he; "leave it in the carriage." The priest gave no reply, but walked ahead, whilst Pierre also made up his mind to descend from the carriage in order to see what a suburban /osteria/ was like. Prada was known at this place, and an old woman, tall, withered, but looking quite queenly in her wretched garments, had at once presented herself. On the last occasion when the Count had called she had managed to find half a dozen eggs. This time she said she would go to see, but could promise nothing, for the hens laid here and there all over the place, and she could never tell what eggs there might be. "All right!" Prada answered, "go and look; and meantime we will have a /caraffa/ of white wine." The three men entered the common room, which was already quite dark. Although the hot weather was now over, one heard the buzzing of innumerable flies immediately one reached the threshold, and a pungent odour of acidulous wine and rancid oil caught one at the throat. As soon as their eyes became accustomed to the dimness they were able to distinguish the spacious, blackened, malodorous chamber, whose only furniture consisted of some roughly made tables and benches. It seemed to be quite empty, so complete was the silence, apart from the buzz of the flies. However, two men were seated there, two wayfarers who remained mute and motionless before their untouched, brimming glasses. Moreover, on a low chair near the door, in the little light which penetrated from without, a thin, sallow girl, the daughter of the house, sat idle, trembling with fever, her hands close pressed between her knees. Realising that Pierre felt uncomfortable there, the Count proposed that they should drink their wine outside. "We shall be better out of doors," said he, "it's so very in mild this evening." Accordingly, whilst the mother looked for the eggs, and the father mended a wheel in an adjacent shed, the daughter was obliged to get up shivering to carry the flagon of wine and the three glasses to the arbour, where she placed them on one of the tables. And, having pocketed the price of the wine--threepence--in silence, she went back to her seat with a sullen look, as if annoyed at having been compelled to make such a long journey. Meanwhile the three men had sat down, and Prada gaily filled each of the glasses, although Pierre declared that he was quite unable to drink wine between his meals. "Pooh, pooh," said the Count, "you can always clink glasses with us. And now, Abbe, isn't this little wine droll? Come, here's to the Pope's better health, since he's unwell!" Santobono at one gulp emptied his glass and clacked his tongue. With gentle, paternal care he had deposited his basket on the ground beside him: and, taking off his hat, he drew a long breath. The evening was really delightful. A superb sky of a soft golden hue stretched over that endless sea of the Campagna which was soon to fall asleep with sovereign quiescence. And the light breeze which went by amidst the deep silence brought with it an exquisite odour of wild herbs and flowers. "How pleasant it is!" muttered Pierre, affected by the surrounding charm. "And what a desert for eternal rest, forgetfulness of all the world!" Prada, who had emptied the flagon by filling Santobono's glass a second time, made no reply; he was silently amusing himself with an occurrence which at first he was the only one to observe. However, with a merry expression of complicity, he gave the young priest a wink, and then they both watched the dramatic incidents of the affair. Some scraggy fowls were wandering round them searching the yellow turf for grasshoppers; and one of these birds, a little shiny black hen with an impudent manner, had caught sight of the basket of figs and was boldly approaching it. When she got near, however, she took fright, and retreated somewhat, with neck stiffened and head turned, so as to cast suspicious glances at the basket with her round sparkling eye. But at last covetousness gained the victory, for she could see one of the figs between the leaves, and so she slowly advanced, lifting her feet very high at each step; and, all at once, stretching out her neck, she gave the fig a formidable peck, which ripped it open and made the juice exude. Prada, who felt as happy as a child, was then able to give vent to the laughter which he had scarcely been able to restrain: "Look out, Abbe," he called, "mind your figs!" At that very moment Santobono was finishing his second glass of wine with his head thrown back and his eyes blissfully raised to heaven. He gave a start, looked round, and on seeing the hen at once understood the position. And then came a terrible outburst of anger, with sweeping gestures and terrible invectives. But the hen, who was again pecking, would not be denied; she dug her beak into the fig and carried it off, flapping her wings, so quick and so comical that Prada, and Pierre as well, laughed till tears came into their eyes, their merriment increasing at sight of the impotent fury of Santobono, who, for a moment, pursued the thief, threatening her with his fist. "Ah!" said the Count, "that's what comes of not leaving the basket in the carriage. If I hadn't warned you the hen would have eaten all the figs." The priest did not reply, but, growling out vague imprecations, placed the basket on the table, where he raised the leaves and artistically rearranged the fruit so as to fill up the void. Then, the harm having been repaired as far as was possible, he at last calmed down. It was now time for them to resume their journey, for the sun was sinking towards the horizon, and night would soon fall. Thus the Count ended by getting impatient. "Well, and those eggs?" he called. Then, as the woman did not return, he went to seek her. He entered the stable, and afterwards the cart-house, but she was neither here nor there. Next he went towards the rear of the /osteria/ in order to look in the sheds. But all at once an unexpected spectacle made him stop short. The little black hen was lying on the ground, dead, killed as by lightning. She showed no sign of hurt; there was nothing but a little streamlet of violet blood still trickling from her beak. Prada was at first merely astonished. He stooped and touched the hen. She was still warm and soft like a rag. Doubtless some apoplectic stroke had killed her. But immediately afterwards he became fearfully pale; the truth appeared to him, and turned him as cold as ice. In a moment he conjured up everything: Leo XIII attacked by illness, Santobono hurrying to Cardinal Sanguinetti for tidings, and then starting for Rome to present a basket of figs to Cardinal Boccanera. And Prada also remembered the conversation in the carriage: the possibility of the Pope's demise, the candidates for the tiara, the legendary stories of poison which still fostered terror in and around the Vatican; and he once more saw the priest, with his little basket on his knees, lavishing paternal attention on it, and he saw the little black hen pecking at the fruit and fleeing with a fig on her beak. And now that little black hen lay there, suddenly struck down, dead! His conviction was immediate and absolute. But he did not have time to decide what course he should take, for a voice behind him exclaimed: "Why, it's the little hen; what's the matter with her?" The voice was that of Pierre, who, letting Santobono climb into the carriage alone, had in his turn come round to the rear of the house in order to obtain a better view of the ruined aqueduct among the parasol pines. Prada, who shuddered as if he himself were the culprit, answered him with a lie, a lie which he did not premeditate, but to which he was impelled by a sort of instinct. "But she's dead," he said. . . . "Just fancy, there was a fight. At the moment when I got here that other hen, which you see yonder, sprang upon this one to get the fig, which she was still holding, and with a thrust of the beak split her head open. . . . The blood's flowing, as you can see yourself." Why did he say these things? He himself was astonished at them whilst he went on inventing them. Was it then that he wished to remain master of the situation, keep the abominable secret entirely to himself, in order that he might afterwards act in accordance with his own desires? Certainly his feelings partook of shame and embarrassment in presence of that foreigner, whilst his personal inclination for violence set some admiration amidst the revolt of his conscience, and a covert desire arose within him to examine the matter from the standpoint of his interests before he came to a decision. But, on the other hand, he claimed to be a man of integrity, and would assuredly not allow people to be poisoned. Pierre, who was compassionately inclined towards all creation, looked at the hen with the emotion which he always felt at the sudden severance of life. However, he at once accepted Prada's story. "Ah! those fowls!" said he. "They treat one another with an idiotic ferocity which even men can scarcely equal. I kept fowls at home at one time, and one of the hens no sooner hurt her leg than all the others, on seeing the blood oozing, would flock round and peck at the limb till they stripped it to the bone." Prada, however, did not listen, but at once went off; and it so happened that the woman was, on her side, looking for him in order to hand him four eggs which, after a deal of searching, she had discovered in odd corners about the house. The Count made haste to pay for them, and called to Pierre, who was lingering behind: "We must look sharp! We sha'n't reach Rome now until it is quite dark." They found Santobono quietly waiting in the carriage, where he had again installed himself on the bracket with his spine resting against the box-seat and his long legs drawn back under him, and he again had the little basket of figs on his knees, and clasped it with his big knotty hands as though it were something fragile and rare which the slightest jolting might damage. His cassock showed like a huge blot, and in his coarse ashen face, that of a peasant yet near to the wild soil and but slightly polished by a few years of theological studies, his eyes alone seemed to live, glowing with the dark flame of a devouring passion. On seeing him seated there in such composure Prada could not restrain a slight shudder. Then, as soon as the victoria was again rolling along the road, he exclaimed: "Well, Abbe, that glass of wine will guarantee us against the malaria. The Pope would soon be cured if he could imitate our example." Santobono's only reply was a growl. He was in no mood for conversation, but wrapped himself in perfect silence, as in the night which was slowly falling. And Prada in his turn ceased to speak, and, with his eyes still fixed upon the other, reflected on the course that he should follow. The road turned, and then the carriage rolled on and on over another interminable straight highway with white paving, whose brilliancy made the road look like a ribbon of snow stretching across the Campagna, where delicate shadows were slowly falling. Gloom gathered in the hollows of the broad undulations whence a tide of violet hue seemed to spread over the short herbage until all mingled and the expanse became an indistinct swell of neutral hue from one to the other horizon. And the solitude was now yet more complete; a last indolent cart had gone by and a last tinkling of horses' bells had subsided in the distance. There was no longer a passer-by, no longer a beast of the fields to be seen, colour and sound died away, all forms of life sank into slumber, into the serene stillness of nihility. Some fragments of an aqueduct were still to be seen at intervals on the right hand, where they looked like portions of gigantic millepeds severed by the scythe of time; next, on the left, came another tower, whose dark and ruined pile barred the sky as with a huge black stake; and then the remains of another aqueduct spanned the road, assuming yet greater dimensions against the sunset glow. Ah! that unique hour, the hour of twilight in the Campagna, when all is blotted out and simplified, the hour of bare immensity, of the infinite in its simplest expression! There is nothing, nothing all around you, but the flat line of the horizon with the one splotch of an isolated tower, and yet that nothing is instinct with sovereign majesty. However, on the left, towards the sea, the sun was setting, descending in the limpid sky like a globe of fire of blinding redness. It slowly plunged beneath the horizon, and the only sign of cloud was some fiery vapour, as if indeed the distant sea had seethed at contact with that royal and flaming visit. And directly the sun had disappeared the heavens above it purpled and became a lake of blood, whilst the Campagna turned to grey. At the far end of the fading plain there remained only that purple lake whose brasier slowly died out behind the black arches of the aqueduct, while in the opposite direction the scattered arches remained bright and rosy against a pewter-like sky. Then the fiery vapour was dissipated, and the sunset ended by fading away. One by one the stars came out in the pacified vault, now of an ashen blue, while the lights of Rome, still far away on the verge of the horizon, scintillated like the lamps of light-houses. And Prada, amidst the dreamy silence of his companions and the infinite melancholy of the evening and the inexpressible distress which even he experienced, continued to ask himself what course he should adopt. Again and again he mentally repeated that he could not allow people to be poisoned. The figs were certainly intended for Cardinal Boccanera, and on the whole it mattered little to him whether there were a cardinal the more or the fewer in the world. Moreover, it had always seemed to him best to let Destiny follow its course; and, infidel that he was, he saw no harm in one priest devouring another. Again, it might be dangerous for him to intervene in that abominable affair, to mix himself up in the base, fathomless intrigues of the black world. But on the other hand the Cardinal was not the only person who lived in the Boccanera mansion, and might not the figs go to others, might they not be eaten by people to whom no harm was intended? This idea of a treacherous chance haunted him, and in spite of every effort the figures of Benedetta and Dario rose up before him, returned and imposed themselves on him though he again and again sought to banish them from his mind. What if Benedetta, what if Dario should partake of that fruit? For Benedetta he felt no fear, for he knew that she and her aunt ate their meals by themselves, and that their cuisine and the Cardinal's had nothing in common. But Dario sat at his uncle's table every day, and for a moment Prada, pictured the young Prince suddenly seized with a spasm, then falling, like poor Monsignor Gallo, into the Cardinal's arms with livid face and receding eyes, and dying within two hours. But no, no! That would be frightful, he could not suffer such an abomination. And thereupon he made up his mind. He would wait till the night had completely gathered round and would then simply take the basket from Santobono's lap and fling it into some dark hollow without saying a word. The priest would understand him. The other one, the young Frenchman, would perhaps not even notice the incident. Besides, that mattered little, for he would not even attempt to explain his action. And he felt quite calm again when the idea occurred to him to throw the basket away while the carriage passed through the Porta Furba, a couple of miles or so before reaching Rome. That would suit him exactly; in the darkness of the gateway nothing whatever would be seen. "We stopped too long at that /osteria/," he suddenly exclaimed aloud, turning towards Pierre. "We sha'n't reach Rome much before six o'clock. Still you will have time to dress and join your friend." And then without awaiting the young man's reply he said to Santobono: "Your figs will arrive very late, Abbe." "Oh!" answered the priest, "his Eminence receives until eight o'clock. And, besides, the figs are not for this evening. People don't eat figs in the evening. They will be for to-morrow morning." And thereupon he again relapsed into silence. "For to-morrow morning--yes, yes, no doubt," repeated Prada. "And the Cardinal will be able to thoroughly regale himself if nobody helps him to eat the fruit." Thereupon Pierre, without pausing to reflect, exclaimed: "He will no doubt eat it by himself, for his nephew, Prince Dario, must have started to-day for Naples on a little convalescence trip to rid himself of the effects of the accident which laid him up during the last month." Then, having got so far, the young priest remembered to whom he was speaking, and abruptly stopped short. The Count noticed his embarrassment. "Oh! speak on, my dear Monsieur Froment," said he, "you don't offend me. It's an old affair now. So that young man has left, you say?" "Yes, unless he has postponed his departure. However, I don't expect to find him at the palazzo when I get there." For a moment the only sound was that of the continuous rumble of the wheels. Prada again felt worried, a prey to the discomfort of uncertainty. Why should he mix himself up in the affair if Dario were really absent? All the ideas which came to him tired his brain, and he ended by thinking aloud: "If he has gone away it must be for propriety's sake, so as to avoid attending the Buongiovanni reception, for the Congregation of the Council met this morning to give its decision in the suit which the Countess has brought against me. Yes, I shall know by and by whether our marriage is to be dissolved." It was in a somewhat hoarse voice that he spoke these words, and one could realise that the old wound was again bleeding within him. Although Lisbeth had borne him a son, the charge levelled against him in his wife's petition for divorce still filled him with blind fury each time that he thought of it. And all at once he shuddered violently, as if an icy blast had darted through his frame. Then, turning the conversation, he added: "It's not at all warm this evening. This is the dangerous hour of the Roman climate, the twilight hour when it's easy to catch a terrible fever if one isn't prudent. Here, pull the rug over your legs, wrap it round you as carefully as you can." Then, as they drew near the Porta Furba, silence again fell, more profound, like the slumber which was invincibly spreading over the Campagna, now steeped in night. And at last, in the bright starlight, appeared the gate, an arch of the Acqua Felice, under which the road passed. From a distance, this fragment seemed to bar the way with its mass of ancient half-fallen walls. But afterwards the gigantic arch where all was black opened like a gaping porch. And the carriage passed under it in darkness whilst the wheels rumbled with increased sonority. When the victoria emerged on the other side, Santobono still had the little basket of figs upon his knees and Prada looked at it, quite overcome, asking himself what sudden paralysis of the hands had prevented him from seizing it and throwing it into the darkness. Such had still been his intention but a few seconds before they passed under the arch. He had even given the basket a final glance in order that he might the better realise what movements he should make. What had taken place within him then? At present he was yielding to increasing irresolution, henceforth incapable of decisive action, feeling a need of delay in order that he might, before everything else, fully satisfy himself as to what was likely to happen. And as Dario had doubtless gone away and the figs would certainly not be eaten until the following morning, what reason was there for him to hurry? He would know that evening if the Congregation of the Council had annulled his marriage, he would know how far the so-called "Justice of God" was venal and mendacious! Certainly he would suffer nobody to be poisoned, not even Cardinal Boccanera, though the latter's life was of little account to him personally. But had not that little basket, ever since leaving Frascati, been like Destiny on the march? And was it not enjoyment, the enjoyment of omnipotence, to be able to say to himself that he was the master who could stay that basket's course, or allow it to go onward and accomplish its deadly purpose? Moreover, he yielded to the dimmest of mental struggles, ceasing to reason, unable to raise his hand, and yet convinced that he would drop a warning note into the letter-box at the palazzo before he went to bed, though at the same time he felt happy in the thought that if his interest directed otherwise he would not do so. And the remainder of the journey was accomplished in silent weariness, amidst the shiver of evening which seemed to have chilled all three men. In vain did the Count endeavour to escape from the battle of his thoughts, by reverting to the Buongiovanni reception, and giving particulars of the splendours which would be witnessed at it: his words fell sparsely in an embarrassed and absent-minded way. Then he sought to inspirit Pierre by speaking to him of Cardinal Sanguinetti's amiable manner and fair words, but although the young priest was returning home well pleased with his journey, in the idea that with a little help he might yet triumph, he scarcely answered the Count, so wrapt he was in his reverie. And Santobono, on his side, neither spoke nor moved. Black like the night itself, he seemed to have vanished. However, the lights of Rome were increasing in number, and houses again appeared on either hand, at first at long intervals, and then in close succession. They were suburban houses, and there were yet more fields of reeds, quickset hedges, olive-trees overtopping long walls, and big gateways with vase-surmounted pillars; but at last came the city with its rows of small grey houses, its petty shops and its dingy taverns, whence at times came shouts and rumours of battle. Prada insisted on setting his companions down in the Via Giulia, at fifty paces from the palazzo. "It doesn't inconvenience me at all," said he to Pierre. "Besides, with the little time you have before you, it would never do for you to go on foot." The Via Giulia was already steeped in slumber, and wore a melancholy aspect of abandonment in the dreary light of the gas lamps standing on either hand. And as soon as Santobono had alighted from the carriage, he took himself off without waiting for Pierre, who, moreover, always went in by the little door in the side lane. "Good-bye, Abbe," exclaimed Prada. "Good-bye, Count, a thousand thanks," was Santobono's response. Then the two others stood watching him as he went towards the Boccanera mansion, whose old, monumental entrance, full of gloom, was still wide open. For a moment they saw his tall, rugged figure erect against that gloom. Then in he plunged, he and his little basket, bearing Destiny. XII IT was ten o'clock when Pierre and Narcisse, after dining at the Caffe di Roma, where they had long lingered chatting, at last walked down the Corso towards the Palazzo Buongiovanni. They had the greatest difficulty to reach its entrance, for carriages were coming up in serried files, and the inquisitive crowd of on-lookers, who pressed even into the roadway, in spite of the injunctions of the police, was growing so compact that even the horses could no longer approach. The ten lofty windows on the first floor of the long monumental facade shone with an intense white radiance, the radiance of electric lamps, which illumined the street like sunshine, spreading over the equipages aground in that human sea, whose billows of eager, excited faces rolled to and fro amidst an extraordinary tumult. And in all this there was not merely the usual curiosity to see uniforms go by and ladies in rich attire alight from their carriages, for Pierre soon gathered from what he heard that the crowd had come to witness the arrival of the King and Queen, who had promised to appear at the ball given by Prince Buongiovanni, in celebration of the betrothal of his daughter Celia to Lieutenant Attilio Sacco, the son of one of his Majesty's ministers. Moreover, people were enraptured with this marriage, the happy ending of a love story which had impassioned the whole city: to begin with, love at first sight, with the suddenness of a lightning-flash, and then stubborn fidelity triumphing over all obstacles, amidst romantic circumstances whose story sped from lip to lip, moistening every eye and stirring every heart. It was this story that Narcisse had related at dessert to Pierre, who already knew some portion of it. People asserted that if the Prince had ended by yielding after a final terrible scene, it was only from fear of seeing Celia elope from the palace with her lover. She did not threaten to do so, but, amidst her virginal calmness, there was so much contempt for everything foreign to her love, that her father felt her to be capable of acting with the greatest folly in all ingenuousness. Only indifference was manifested by the Prince's wife, a phlegmatic and still beautiful Englishwoman, who considered that she had done quite enough for the household by bringing her husband a dowry of five millions, and bearing him five children. The Prince, anxious and weak despite his violence, in which one found a trace of the old Roman blood, already spoilt by mixture with that of a foreign race, was nowadays ever influenced in his actions by the fear that his house and fortune--which hitherto had remained intact amidst the accumulated ruins of the /patriziato/--might suddenly collapse. And in finally yielding to Celia, he must have been guided by the idea of rallying to the new /regime/ through his daughter, so as to have one foot firmly set at the Quirinal, without withdrawing the other from the Vatican. It was galling, no doubt; his pride must have bled at the idea of allying his name with that of such low folks as the Saccos. But then Sacco was a minister, and had sped so quickly from success to success that it seemed likely he would rise yet higher, and, after the portfolio of Agriculture, secure that of Finances, which he had long coveted. And an alliance with Sacco meant the certain favour of the King, an assured retreat in that direction should the papacy some day collapse. Then, too, the Prince had made inquiries respecting the son, and was somewhat disarmed by the good looks, bravery, and rectitude of young Attilio, who represented the future, and possibly the glorious Italy of to-morrow. He was a soldier, and could be helped forward to the highest rank. And people spitefully added that the last reason which had influenced the Prince, who was very avaricious, and greatly worried by the thought that his fortune must be divided among his five children,* was that an opportunity presented itself for him to bestow a ridiculously small dowry on Celia. However, having consented to the marriage, he resolved to give a splendid /fete/, such as was now seldom witnessed in Rome, throwing his doors open to all the rival sections of society, inviting the sovereigns, and setting the palazzo ablaze as in the grand days of old. In doing this he would necessarily have to expend some of the money to which he clung, but a boastful spirit incited him to show the world that he at any rate had not been vanquished by the financial crisis, and that the Buongiovannis had nothing to hide and nothing to blush for. To tell the truth, some people asserted that this bravado had not originated with himself, but had been instilled into him without his knowledge by the quiet and innocent Celia, who wished to exhibit her happiness to all applauding Rome. * The Italian succession law is similar to the French. Children cannot be disinherited. All property is divided among them, and thus the piling up of large hereditary fortunes is prevented.--Trans. "Dear me!" said Narcisse, whom the throng prevented from advancing. "We shall never get in. Why, they seem to have invited the whole city." And then, as Pierre seemed surprised to see a prelate drive up in his carriage, the /attache/ added: "Oh! you will elbow more than one of them upstairs. The cardinals won't like to come on account of the presence of the King and Queen, but the prelates are sure to be here. This, you know, is a neutral drawing-room where the black and the white worlds can fraternise. And then too, there are so few /fetes/ that people rush on them." He went on to explain that there were two grand balls at Court every winter, but that it was only under exceptional circumstances that the /patriziato/ gave similar /galas/. Two or three of the black /salons/ were opened once in a way towards the close of the Carnival, but little dances among intimates replaced the pompous entertainments of former times. Some princesses moreover merely had their day. And as for the few white /salons/ that existed, these likewise retained the same character of intimacy, more or less mixed, for no lady had yet become the undisputed queen of the new society. "Well, here we are at last," resumed Narcisse as they eventually climbed the stairs. "Let us keep together," Pierre somewhat anxiously replied. "My only acquaintance is with the /fiancee/, and I want you to introduce me." However, a considerable effort was needed even to climb the monumental staircase, so great was the crush of arriving guests. Never, in the old days of wax candles and oil lamps, had this staircase offered such a blaze of light. Electric lamps, burning in clusters in superb bronze candelabra on the landings, steeped everything in a white radiance. The cold stucco of the walls was hidden by a series of lofty tapestries depicting the story of Cupid and Psyche, marvels which had remained in the family since the days of the Renascence. And a thick carpet covered the worn marble steps, whilst clumps of evergreens and tall spreading palms decorated every corner. An affluence of new blood warmed the antique mansion that evening; there was a resurrection of life, so to say, as the women surged up the staircase, smiling and perfumed, bare-shouldered, and sparkling with diamonds. At the entrance of the first reception-room Pierre at once perceived Prince and Princess Buongiovanni, standing side by side and receiving their guests. The Prince, a tall, slim man with fair complexion and hair turning grey, had the pale northern eyes of his American mother in an energetic face such as became a former captain of the popes. The Princess, with small, delicate, and rounded features, looked barely thirty, though she had really passed her fortieth year. And still pretty, displaying a smiling serenity which nothing could disconcert, she purely and simply basked in self-adoration. Her gown was of pink satin, and a marvellous parure of large rubies set flamelets about her dainty neck and in her fine, fair hair. Of her five children, her son, the eldest, was travelling, and three of the girls, mere children, were still at school, so that only Celia was present, Celia in a modest gown of white muslin, fair like her mother, quite bewitching with her large innocent eyes and her candid lips, and retaining to the very end of her love story the semblance of a closed lily of impenetrable, virginal mysteriousness. The Saccos had but just arrived, and Attilio, in his simple lieutenant's uniform, had remained near his betrothed, so naively and openly delighted with his great happiness that his handsome face, with its caressing mouth and brave eyes, was quite resplendent with youth and strength. Standing there, near one another, in the triumph of their passion they appeared like life's very joy and health, like the personification of hope in the morrow's promises; and the entering guests who saw them could not refrain from smiling and feeling moved, momentarily forgetting their loquacious and malicious curiosity to give their hearts to those chosen ones of love who looked so handsome and so enraptured. Narcisse stepped forward in order to present Pierre, but Celia anticipated him. Going to meet the young priest she led him to her father and mother, saying: "Monsieur l'Abbe Pierre Froment, a friend of my dear Benedetta." Ceremonious salutations followed. Then the young girl, whose graciousness greatly touched Pierre, said to him: "Benedetta is coming with her aunt and Dario. She must be very happy this evening! And you will also see how beautiful she will be." Pierre and Narcisse next began to congratulate her, but they could not remain there, the throng was ever jostling them; and the Prince and Princess, quite lost in the crush, had barely time to answer the many salutations with amiable, continuous nods. And Celia, after conducting the two friends to Attilio, was obliged to return to her parents so as to take her place beside them as the little queen of the /fete/. Narcisse was already slightly acquainted with Attilio, and so fresh congratulations ensued. Then the two friends manoeuvred to find a spot where they might momentarily tarry and contemplate the spectacle which this first /salon/ presented. It was a vast hall, hung with green velvet broidered with golden flowers, and contained a very remarkable collection of weapons and armour, breast-plates, battle-axes, and swords, almost all of which had belonged to the Buongiovannis of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. And amidst those stern implements of war there was a lovely sedan-chair of the last century, gilded and decorated with delicate paintings. It was in this chair that the Prince's great-grandmother, the celebrated Bettina, whose beauty was historical, had usually been carried to mass. On the walls, moreover, there were numerous historical paintings: battles, peace congresses, and royal receptions in which the Buongiovannis had taken part, without counting the many family portraits, tall and proud figures of sea-captains, commanders in the field, great dignitaries of the Church, prelates and cardinals, amongst whom, in the place of honour, appeared the family pope, the white-robed Buongiovanni whose accession to the pontifical throne had enriched a long line of descendants. And it was among those armours, near that coquettish sedan, and below those antique portraits, that the Saccos, husband and wife, had in their turn just halted, at a few steps from the master and mistress of the house, in order to secure their share of congratulations and bows. "Look over there!" Narcisse whispered to Pierre, "those are the Saccos in front of us, that dark little fellow and the lady in mauve silk." Pierre promptly recognised the bright face and pleasant smile of Stefana, whom he had already met at old Orlando's. But he was more interested in her husband, a dark dry man, with big eyes, sallow complexion, prominent chin, and vulturine nose. Like some gay Neapolitan "Pulcinello," he was dancing, shouting, and displaying such infectious good humour that it spread to all around him. He possessed a wonderful gift of speech, with a voice that was unrivalled as an instrument of fascination and conquest; and on seeing how easily he ingratiated himself with the people in that drawing-room, one could understand his lightning-like successes in the political world. He had manoeuvered with rare skill in the matter of his son's marriage, affecting such exaggerated delicacy of feeling as to set himself against the lovers, and declare that he would never consent to their union, as he had no desire to be accused of stealing a dowry and a title. As a matter of fact, he had only yielded after the Buongiovannis had given their consent, and even then he had desired to take the opinion of old Orlando, whose lofty integrity was proverbial. However, he knew right well that he would secure the old hero's approval in this particular affair, for Orlando made no secret of his opinion that the Buongiovannis ought to be glad to admit his grand-nephew into their family, as that handsome young fellow, with brave and healthy heart, would help to regenerate their impoverished blood. And throughout the whole affair, Sacco had shrewdly availed himself of Orlando's famous name, for ever talking of the relationship between them, and displaying filial veneration for this glorious founder of the country, as if indeed he had no suspicion that the latter despised and execrated him and mourned his accession to power in the conviction that he would lead Italy to shame and ruin. "Ah!" resumed Narcisse addressing Pierre, "he's one of those supple, practical men who care nothing for a smack in the face. It seems that unscrupulous individuals like himself become necessary when states get into trouble and have to pass through political, financial, and moral crises. It is said that Sacco with his imperturbable assurance and ingenious and resourceful mind has quite won the King's favour. Just look at him! Why, with that crowd of courtiers round him, one might think him the master of this palace!" And indeed the guests, after passing the Prince and Princess with a bow, at once congregated around Sacco, for he represented power, emoluments, pensions, and crosses; and if folks still smiled at seeing his dark, turbulent, and scraggy figure amidst that framework of family portraits which proclaimed the mighty ancestry of the Buongiovannis, they none the less worshipped him as the personification of the new power, the democratic force which was confusedly rising even from the old Roman soil where the /patriziato/ lay in ruins. "What a crowd!" muttered Pierre. "Who are all these people?" "Oh!" replied Narcisse, "it is a regular mixture. These people belong neither to the black nor the white world; they form a grey world as it were. The evolution was certain; a man like Cardinal Boccanera may retain an uncompromising attitude, but a whole city, a nation can't. The Pope alone will always say no and remain immutable. But everything around him progresses and undergoes transformation, so that in spite of all resistance, Rome will become Italian in a few years' time. Even now, whenever a prince has two sons only one of them remains on the side of the Vatican, the other goes over to the Quirinal. People must live, you see; and the great families threatened with annihilation have not sufficient heroism to carry obstinacy to the point of suicide. And I have already told you that we are here on neutral ground, for Prince Buongiovanni was one of the first to realise the necessity of conciliation. He feels that his fortune is perishing, he does not care to risk it either in industry or in speculation, and already sees it portioned out among his five children, by whose descendants it will be yet further divided; and this is why he prudently makes advances to the King without, however, breaking with the Pope. In this /salon/, therefore, you see a perfect picture of the /debacle/, the confusion which reigns in the Prince's ideas and opinions." Narcisse paused, and then began to name some of the persons who were coming in. "There's a general," said he, "who has become very popular since his last campaign in Africa. There will be a great many military men here this evening, for all Attilio's superiors have been invited, so as to give the young man an /entourage/ of glory. Ah! and there's the German ambassador. I fancy that nearly all the Corps Diplomatique will come on account of their Majesties' presence. But, by way of contrast, just look at that stout fellow yonder. He's a very influential deputy, a /parvenu/ of the new middle class. Thirty years ago he was merely one of Prince Albertini's farmers, one of those /mercanti di campagna/ who go about the environs of Rome in stout boots and a soft felt hat. And now look at that prelate coming in--" "Oh! I know him," Pierre interrupted. "He's Monsignor Fornaro." "Exactly, Monsignor Fornaro, a personage of some importance. You told me, I remember, that he is the reporter of the Congregation in that affair of your book. A most delightful man! Did you see how he bowed to the Princess? And what a noble and graceful bearing he has in his little mantle of violet silk!" Then Narcisse went on enumerating the princes and princesses, the dukes and duchesses, the politicians and functionaries, the diplomatists and ministers, and the officers and well-to-do middle-class people, who of themselves made up a most wonderful medley of guests, to say nothing of the representatives of the various foreign colonies, English people, Americans, Germans, Spaniards, and Russians, in a word, all ancient Europe, and both Americas. And afterwards the young man reverted to the Saccos, to the little Signora Sacco in particular, in order to tell Pierre of the heroic efforts which she had made to open a /salon/ for the purpose of assisting her husband's ambition. Gentle and modest as she seemed, she was also very shrewd, endowed with genuine qualities, Piedmontese patience and strength of resistance, orderly habits and thriftiness. And thus it was she who re-established the equilibrium in household affairs which her husband by his exuberance so often disturbed. He was indeed greatly indebted to her, though nobody suspected it. At the same time, however, she had so far failed in her attempts to establish a white /salon/ which should take the lead in influencing opinion. Only the people of her own set visited her, not a single prince ever came, and her Monday dances were the same as in a score of other middle-class homes, having no brilliancy and no importance. In fact, the real white /salon/, which should guide men and things and sway all Rome was still in dreamland. "Just notice her keen smile as she examines everything here," resumed Narcisse. "She's teaching herself and forming plans, I'm sure of it. Now that she is about to be connected with a princely family she probably hopes to receive some of the best society." Large as was the room, the crowd in it had by this time grown so dense that the two friends were pressed back to a wall, and felt almost stifled. The /attache/ therefore decided to lead the priest elsewhere, and as they walked along he gave him some particulars concerning the palace, which was one of the most sumptuous in Rome, and renowned for the magnificence of its reception-rooms. Dancing took place in the picture gallery, a superb apartment more than sixty feet long, with eight windows overlooking the Corso; while the buffet was installed in the Hall of the Antiques, a marble hall, which among other precious things contained a statue of Venus, rivalling the one at the Capitol. Then there was a suite of marvellous /salons/, still resplendent with ancient luxury, hung with the rarest stuffs, and retaining some unique specimens of old-time furniture, on which covetous antiquaries kept their eyes fixed, whilst waiting and hoping for the inevitable future ruin. And one of these apartments, the little Saloon of the Mirrors, was particularly famous. Of circular shape and Louis XV style, it was surrounded by mirrors in /rococo/ frames, extremely rich, and most exquisitely carved. "You will see all that by and by," continued Narcisse. "At present we had better go in here if we want to breathe a little. It is here that the arm-chairs from the adjacent gallery have been brought for the accommodation of the ladies who desire to sit down and be seen and admired." The apartment they entered was a spacious one, draped with the most superb Genoese velvet, that antique /jardiniere/ velvet with pale satin ground, and flowers once of dazzling brightness, whose greens and blues and reds had now become exquisitely soft, with the subdued, faded tones of old floral love-tokens. On the pier tables and in the cabinets all around were some of the most precious curios in the palace, ivory caskets, gilt and painted wood carvings, pieces of antique plate--briefly, a collection of marvels. And several ladies, fleeing the crush, had already taken refuge on the numerous seats, clustering in little groups, and laughing and chatting with the few gentlemen who had discovered this retreat of grace and /galanterie/. In the bright glow of the lamps nothing could be more delightful than the sight of all those bare, sheeny shoulders, and those supple necks, above whose napes were coiled tresses of fair or raven hair. Bare arms emerged like living flowers of flesh from amidst the mingling lace and silk of soft-hued bodices. The fans played slowly, as if to heighten the fires of the precious stones, and at each beat wafted around an /odore di femina/ blended with a predominating perfume of violets. "Hallo!" exclaimed Narcisse, "there's our good friend Monsignor Nani bowing to the Austrian ambassadress." As soon as Nani perceived the young priest and his companion he came towards them, and the trio then withdrew into the embrasure of a window in order that they might chat for a moment at their ease. The prelate was smiling like one enchanted with the beauty of the /fete/, but at the same time he retained all the serenity of innocence, as if he had not even noticed the exhibition of bare shoulders by which he was surrounded. "Ah, my dear son!" he said to Pierre, "I am very pleased to see you! Well, and what do you think of our Rome when she makes up her mind to give /fetes/?" "Why, it is superb, Monseigneur." Then, in an emotional manner, Nani spoke of Celia's lofty piety; and, in order to give the Vatican the credit of this sumptuous /gala/, affected to regard the Prince and Princess as staunch adherents of the Church, as if he were altogether unaware that the King and Queen were presently coming. And afterwards he abruptly exclaimed: "I have been thinking of you all day, my dear son. Yes, I heard that you had gone to see his Eminence Cardinal Sanguinetti. Well, and how did he receive you?" "Oh! in a most paternal manner," Pierre replied. "At first he made me understand the embarrassment in which he was placed by his position as protector of Lourdes; but just as I was going off he showed himself charming, and promised me his help with a delicacy which deeply touched me." "Did he indeed, my dear son? But it doesn't surprise me, his Eminence is so good-hearted!" "And I must add, Monseigneur, that I came back with a light and hopeful heart. It now seems to me as if my suit were half gained." "Naturally, I understand it," replied Nani, who was still smiling with that keen, intelligent smile of his, sharpened by a touch of almost imperceptible irony. And after a short pause he added in a very simple way: "The misfortune is that on the day before yesterday your book was condemned by the Congregation of the Index, which was convoked by its Secretary expressly for that purpose. And the judgment will be laid before his Holiness, for him to sign it, on the day after to-morrow." Pierre looked at the prelate in bewilderment. Had the old mansion fallen on his head he would not have felt more overcome. What! was it all over? His journey to Rome, the experiment he had come to attempt there, had resulted in that defeat, of which he was thus suddenly apprised amidst that betrothal /fete/. And he had not even been able to defend himself, he had sacrificed his time without finding any one to whom he might speak, before whom he might plead his cause! Anger was rising within him, and he could not prevent himself from muttering bitterly: "Ah! how I have been duped! And that Cardinal who said to me only this morning: 'If God be with you he will save you in spite of everything.' Yes, yes, I now understand him; he was juggling with words, he only desired a disaster in order that submission might lead me to Heaven! Submit, indeed, ah! I cannot, I cannot yet! My heart is too full of indignation and grief." Nani examined and studied him with curiosity. "But my dear son," he said, "nothing is final so long as the Holy Father has not signed the judgment. You have all to-morrow and even the morning of the day after before you. A miracle is always possible." Then, lowering his voice and drawing Pierre on one side whilst Narcisse in an aesthetical spirit examined the ladies, he added: "Listen, I have a communication to make to you in great secrecy. Come and join me in the little Saloon of the Mirrors by and by, during the Cotillon. We shall be able to talk there at our ease." Pierre nodded, and thereupon the prelate discreetly withdrew and disappeared in the crowd. However, the young man's ears were buzzing; he could no longer hope; what indeed could he accomplish in one day since he had lost three months without even being able to secure an audience with the Pope? And his bewilderment increased as he suddenly heard Narcisse speaking to him of art. "It's astonishing how the feminine figure has deteriorated in these dreadful democratic days. It's all fat and horribly common. Not one of those women yonder shows the Florentine contour, with small bosom and slender, elegant neck. Ah! that one yonder isn't so bad perhaps, the fair one with her hair coiled up, whom Monsignor Fornaro has just approached." For a few minutes indeed Monsignor Fornaro had been fluttering from beauty to beauty, with an amiable air of conquest. He looked superb that evening with his lofty decorative figure, blooming cheeks, and victorious affability. No unpleasant scandal was associated with his name; he was simply regarded as a prelate of gallant ways who took pleasure in the society of ladies. And he paused and chatted, and leant over their bare shoulders with laughing eyes and humid lips as if experiencing a sort of devout rapture. However, on perceiving Narcisse whom he occasionally met, he at once came forward and the /attache/ had to bow to him. "You have been in good health I hope, Monseigneur, since I had the honour of seeing you at the embassy." "Oh! yes, I am very well, very well indeed. What a delightful /fete/, is it not?" Pierre also had bowed. This was the man whose report had brought about the condemnation of his book; and it was with resentment that he recalled his caressing air and charming greeting, instinct with such lying promise. However, the prelate, who was very shrewd, must have guessed that the young priest was already acquainted with the decision of the Congregation, and have thought it more dignified to abstain from open recognition; for on his side he merely nodded and smiled at him. "What a number of people!" he went on, "and how many charming persons there are! It will soon be impossible for one to move in this room." All the seats in fact were now occupied by ladies, and what with the strong perfume of violets and the exhalations of warm necks and shoulders the atmosphere was becoming most oppressive. The fans flapped more briskly, and clear laughter rang out amidst a growing hubbub of conversation in which the same words constantly recurred. Some news, doubtless, had just arrived, some rumour was being whispered from group to group, throwing them all into feverish excitement. As it happened, Monsignor Fornaro, who was always well informed, desired to be the proclaimer of this news, which nobody as yet had ventured to announce aloud. "Do you know what is exciting them all?" he inquired. "Is it the Holy Father's illness?" asked Pierre in his anxiety. "Is he worse this evening?" The prelate looked at him in astonishment, and then somewhat impatiently replied: "Oh, no, no. His Holiness is much better, thank Heaven. A person belonging to the Vatican was telling me just now that he was able to get up this afternoon and receive his intimates as usual." "All the same, people have been alarmed," interrupted Narcisse. "I must confess that we did not feel easy at the embassy, for a Conclave at the present time would be a great worry for France. She would exercise no influence at it. It is a great mistake on the part of our Republican Government to treat the Holy See as of no importance! However, can one ever tell whether the Pope is ill or not? I know for a certainty that he was nearly carried off last winter when nobody breathed a word about any illness, whereas on the last occasion when the newspapers killed him and talked about a dreadful attack of bronchitis, I myself saw him quite strong and in the best of spirits! His reported illnesses are mere matters of policy, I fancy."* * There is much truth in this; but the reader must not imagine that the Pope is never ill. At his great age, indispositions are only natural.--Trans. With a hasty gesture, however, Monsignor Fornaro brushed this importunate subject aside. "No, no," said he, "people are tranquillised and no longer talk of it. What excites all those ladies is that the Congregation of the Council to-day voted the dissolution of the Prada marriage by a great majority." Again did Pierre feel moved. However, not having had time to see any members of the Boccanera family on his return from Frascati he feared that the news might be false and said so. Thereupon the prelate gave his word of honour that things were as he stated. "The news is certain," he declared. "I had it from a member of the Congregation." And then, all at once, he apologised and hurried off: "Excuse me but I see a lady whom I had not yet caught sight of, and desire to pay my respects to her." He at once hastened to the lady in question, and, being unable to sit down, inclined his lofty figure as if to envelop her with his gallant courtesy; whilst she, young, fresh, and bare-shouldered, laughed with a pearly laugh as his cape of violet silk lightly brushed her sheeny skin. "You know that person, don't you?" Narcisse inquired of Pierre. "No! Really? Why, that is Count Prada's /inamorata/, the charming Lisbeth Kauffmann, by whom he has just had a son. It's her first appearance in society since that event. She's a German, you know, and lost her husband here. She paints a little; in fact, rather nicely. A great deal is forgiven to the ladies of the foreign colony, and this one is particularly popular on account of the very affable manner in which she receives people at her little palazzo in the Via Principe Amedeo. As you may imagine, the news of the dissolution of that marriage must amuse her!" She looked really exquisite, that Lisbeth, very fair, rosy, and gay, with satiny skin, soft blue eyes, and lips wreathed in an amiable smile, which was renowned for its grace. And that evening, in her gown of white silk spangled with gold, she showed herself so delighted with life, so securely happy in the thought that she was free, that she loved and was loved in return, that the whispered tidings, the malicious remarks exchanged behind the fans of those around her, seemed to turn to her personal triumph. For a moment all eyes had sought her, and people talked of the outcome of her connection with Prada, the man whose manhood the Church solemnly denied by its decision of that very day! And there came stifled laughter and whispered jests, whilst she, radiant in her insolent serenity, accepted with a rapturous air the gallantry of Monsignor Fornaro, who congratulated her on a painting of the Virgin with the lily, which she had lately sent to a fine-art show. Ah! that matrimonial nullity suit, which for a year had supplied Rome with scandal, what a final hubbub it occasioned as the tidings of its termination burst forth amidst that ball! The black and white worlds had long chosen it as a battlefield for the exchange of incredible slander, endless gossip, the most nonsensical tittle-tattle. And now it was over; the Vatican with imperturbable impudence had pronounced the marriage null and void on the ground that the husband was no man, and all Rome would laugh over the affair, with that free scepticism which it displayed as soon as the pecuniary affairs of the Church came into question. The incidents of the struggle were already common property: Prada's feelings revolting to such a point that he had withdrawn from the contest, the Boccaneras moving heaven and earth in their feverish anxiety, the money which they had distributed among the creatures of the various cardinals in order to gain their influence, and the large sum which they had indirectly paid for the second and favourable report of Monsignor Palma. People said that, altogether, more than a hundred thousand francs had been expended, but this was not thought over-much, as a well-known French countess had been obliged to disburse nearly ten times that amount to secure the dissolution of her marriage. But then the Holy Father's need was so great! And, moreover, nobody was angered by this venality; it merely gave rise to malicious witticisms; and the fans continued waving in the increasing heat, and the ladies quivered with contentment as the whispered pleasantries took wing and fluttered over their bare shoulders. "Oh! how pleased the Contessina must be!" Pierre resumed. "I did not understand what her little friend, Princess Celia, meant by saying when we came in that she would be so happy and beautiful this evening. It is doubtless on that account that she is coming here, after cloistering herself all the time the affair lasted, as if she were in mourning." However, Lisbeth's eyes had chanced to meet those of Narcisse, and as she smiled at him he was, in his turn, obliged to pay his respects to her, for, like everybody else of the foreign colony, he knew her through having visited her studio. He was again returning to Pierre when a fresh outburst of emotion stirred the diamond aigrettes and the flowers adorning the ladies' hair. People turned to see what was the matter, and again did the hubbub increase. "Ah! it's Count Prada in person!" murmured Narcisse, with an admiring glance. "He has a fine bearing, whatever folks may say. Dress him up in velvet and gold, and what a splendid, unscrupulous, fifteenth-century adventurer he would make!" Prada entered the room, looking quite gay, in fact, almost triumphant. And above his large, white shirtfront, edged by the black of his coat, he really had a commanding, predacious expression, with his frank, stern eyes, and his energetic features barred by a large black moustache. Never had a more rapturous smile of sensuality revealed the wolfish teeth of his voracious mouth. With rapid glances he took stock of the women, dived into their very souls. Then, on seeing Lisbeth, who looked so pink, and fair, and girlish, his expression softened, and he frankly went up to her, without troubling in the slightest degree about the ardent, inquisitive eyes which were turned upon him. As soon as Monsignor Fornaro had made room, he stooped and conversed with the young woman in a low tone. And she no doubt confirmed the news which was circulating, for as he again drew himself erect, he laughed a somewhat forced laugh, and made an involuntary gesture. However, he then caught sight of Pierre, and joined him in the embrasure of the window; and when he had also shaken hands with Narcisse, he said to the young priest with all his wonted /bravura/: "You recollect what I told you as we were coming back from Frascati? Well, it's done, it seems, they've annulled my marriage. It's such an impudent, such an imbecile decision, that I still doubted it a moment ago!" "Oh! the news is certain," Pierre made bold to reply. "It has just been confirmed to us by Monsignor Fornaro, who had it from a member of the Congregation. And it is said that the majority was very large." Prada again shook with laughter. "No, no," said he, "such a farce is beyond belief! It's the finest smack given to justice and common-sense that I know of. Ah! if the marriage can also be annulled by the civil courts, and if my friend whom you see yonder be only willing, we shall amuse ourselves in Rome! Yes, indeed, I'd marry her at Santa Maria Maggiore with all possible pomp. And there's a dear little being in the world who would take part in the /fete/ in his nurse's arms!" He laughed too loud as he spoke, alluded in too brutal a fashion to his child, that living proof of his manhood. Was it suffering that made his lips curve upwards and reveal his white teeth? It could be divined that he was quivering, fighting against an awakening of covert, tumultuous passion, which he would not acknowledge even to himself. "And you, my dear Abbe?" he hastily resumed. "Do you know the other report? Do you know that the Countess is coming here?" It was thus, by force of habit, that he designated Benedetta, forgetting that she was no longer his wife. "Yes, I have just been told so," Pierre replied; and then he hesitated for a moment before adding, with a desire to prevent any disagreeable surprise: "And we shall no doubt see Prince Dario also, for he has not started for Naples as I told you. Something prevented his departure at the last moment, I believe. At least so I gathered from a servant." Prada no longer laughed. His face suddenly became grave, and he contented himself with murmuring: "Ah! so the cousin is to be of the party. Well, we shall see them, we shall see them both!" Then, whilst the two friends went on chatting, he became silent, as if serious considerations impelled him to reflect. And suddenly making a gesture of apology he withdrew yet farther into the embrasure in which he stood, pulled a note-book out of his pocket, and tore from it a leaf on which, without modifying his handwriting otherwise than by slightly enlarging it, he pencilled these four lines: "A legend avers that the fig tree of Judas now grows at Frascati, and that its fruit is deadly for him who may desire to become Pope. Eat not the poisoned figs, nor give them either to your servants or your fowls." Then he folded the paper, fastened it with a postage stamp, and wrote on it the address: "To his most Reverend and most Illustrious Eminence, Cardinal Boccanera." And when he had placed everything in his pocket again, he drew a long breath and once more called back his laugh. A kind of invincible discomfort, a far-away terror had momentarily frozen him. Without being guided by any clear train of reasoning, he had felt the need of protecting himself against any cowardly temptation, any possible abomination. He could not have told what course of ideas had induced him to write those four lines without a moment's delay, on the very spot where he stood, under penalty of contributing to a great catastrophe. But one thought was firmly fixed in his brain, that on leaving the ball he would go to the Via Giulia and throw that note into the letter-box at the Palazzo Boccanera. And that decided, he was once more easy in mind. "Why, what is the matter with you, my dear Abbe?" he inquired on again joining in the conversation of the two friends. "You are quite gloomy." And on Pierre telling him of the bad news which he had received, the condemnation of his book, and the single day which remained to him for action if he did not wish his journey to Rome to result in defeat, he began to protest as if he himself needed agitation and diversion in order to continue hopeful and bear the ills of life. "Never mind, never mind, don't worry yourself," said he, "one loses all one's strength by worrying. A day is a great deal, one can do ever so many things in a day. An hour, a minute suffices for Destiny to intervene and turn defeat into victory!" He grew feverish as he spoke, and all at once added, "Come, let's go to the ball-room. It seems that the scene there is something prodigious." Then he exchanged a last loving glance with Lisbeth whilst Pierre and Narcisse followed him, the three of them extricating themselves from their corner with the greatest difficulty, and then wending their way towards the adjoining gallery through a sea of serried skirts, a billowy expanse of necks and shoulders whence ascended the passion which makes life, the odour alike of love and of death. With its eight windows overlooking the Corso, their panes uncurtained and throwing a blaze of light upon the houses across the road, the picture gallery, sixty-five feet in length and more than thirty in breadth, spread out with incomparable splendour. The illumination was dazzling. Clusters of electric lamps had changed seven pairs of huge marble candelabra into gigantic /torcheres/, akin to constellations; and all along the cornice up above, other lamps set in bright-hued floral glasses formed a marvellous garland of flaming flowers: tulips, paeonies, and roses. The antique red velvet worked with gold, which draped the walls, glowed like a furnace fire. About the doors and windows there were hangings of old lace broidered with flowers in coloured silk whose hues had the very intensity of life. But the sight of sights beneath the sumptuous panelled ceiling adorned with golden roses, the unique spectacle of a richness not to be equalled, was the collection of masterpieces such as no museum could excel. There were works of Raffaelle and Titian, Rembrandt and Rubens, Velasquez and Ribera, famous works which in this unexpected illumination suddenly showed forth, triumphant with youth regained, as if awakened to the immortal life of genius. And, as their Majesties would not arrive before midnight, the ball had just been opened, and flights of soft-hued gowns were whirling in a waltz past all the pompous throng, the glittering jewels and decorations, the gold-broidered uniforms and the pearl-broidered robes, whilst silk and satin and velvet spread and overflowed upon every side. "It is prodigious, really!" declared Prada with his excited air; "let us go this way and place ourselves in a window recess again. There is no better spot for getting a good view without being too much jostled." They lost Narcisse somehow or other, and on reaching the desired recess found themselves but two, Pierre and the Count. The orchestra, installed on a little platform at the far end of the gallery, had just finished the waltz, and the dancers, with an air of giddy rapture, were slowly walking through the crowd when a fresh arrival caused every head to turn. Donna Serafina, arrayed in a robe of purple silk as if she had worn the colours of her brother the Cardinal, was making a royal entry on the arm of Consistorial-Advocate Morano. And never before had she laced herself so tightly, never had her waist looked so slim and girlish; and never had her stern, wrinkled face, which her white hair scarcely softened, expressed such stubborn and victorious domination. A discreet murmur of approval ran round, a murmur of public relief as it were, for all Roman society had condemned the unworthy conduct of Morano in severing a connection of thirty years to which the drawing-rooms had grown as accustomed as if it had been a legal marriage. The rupture had lasted for two months, to the great scandal of Rome where the cult of long and faithful affections still abides. And so the reconciliation touched every heart and was regarded as one of the happiest consequences of the victory which the Boccaneras had that day gained in the affair of Benedetta's marriage. Morano repentant and Donna Serafina reappearing on his arm, nothing could have been more satisfactory; love had conquered, decorum was preserved and good order re-established. But there was a deeper sensation as soon as Benedetta and Dario were seen to enter, side by side, behind the others. This tranquil indifference for the ordinary forms of propriety, on the very day when the marriage with Prada had been annulled, this victory of love, confessed and celebrated before one and all, seemed so charming in its audacity, so full of the bravery of youth and hope, that the pair were at once forgiven amidst a murmur of universal admiration. And as in the case of Celia and Attilio, all hearts flew to them, to their radiant beauty, to the wondrous happiness that made their faces so resplendent. Dario, still pale after his long convalescence, somewhat slight and delicate of build, with the fine clear eyes of a big child, and the dark curly beard of a young god, bore himself with a light pride, in which all the old princely blood of the Boccaneras could be traced. And Benedetta, she so white under her casque of jetty hair, she so calm and so sensible, wore her lovely smile, that smile so seldom seen on her face but which was irresistibly fascinating, transfiguring her, imparting the charm of a flower to her somewhat full mouth, and filling the infinite of her dark and fathomless eyes with a radiance as of heaven. And in this gay return of youth and happiness, an exquisite instinct had prompted her to put on a white gown, a plain girlish gown which symbolised her maidenhood, which told that she had remained through all a pure untarnished lily for the husband of her choice. And nothing of her form was to be seen, not a glimpse of bosom or shoulder. It was as if the impenetrable, redoubtable mystery of love, the sovereign beauty of woman slumbered there, all powerful, but veiled with white. Again, not a jewel appeared on her fingers or in her ears. There was simply a necklace falling about her /corsage/, but a necklace fit for royalty, the famous pearl necklace of the Boccaneras, which she had inherited from her mother, and which was known to all Rome--pearls of fabulous size cast negligently about her neck, and sufficing, simply as she was gowned, to make her queen of all. "Oh!" murmured Pierre in ecstasy, "how happy and how beautiful she is!" But he at once regretted that he had expressed his thoughts aloud, for beside him he heard a low plaint, an involuntary growl which reminded him of the Count's presence. However, Prada promptly stifled this cry of returning anguish, and found strength enough to affect a brutish gaiety: "The devil!" said he, "they have plenty of impudence. I hope we shall see them married and bedded at once!" Then regretting this coarse jest which had been prompted by the revolt of passion, he sought to appear indifferent: "She looks very nice this evening," he said; "she has the finest shoulders in the world, you know, and its a real success for her to hide them and yet appear more beautiful than ever." He went on speaking, contriving to assume an easy tone, and giving various little particulars about the Countess as he still obstinately called the young woman. However, he had drawn rather further into the recess, for fear, no doubt, that people might remark his pallor, and the painful twitch which contracted his mouth. He was in no state to fight, to show himself gay and insolent in presence of the joy which the lovers so openly and naively expressed. And he was glad of the respite which the arrival of the King and Queen at this moment offered him. "Ah! here are their Majesties!" he exclaimed, turning towards the window. "Look at the scramble in the street!" Although the windows were closed, a tumult could be heard rising from the footways. And Pierre on looking down saw, by the light of the electric lamps, a sea of human heads pour over the road and encompass the carriages. He had several times already seen the King during the latter's daily drives to the grounds of the Villa Borghese, whither he came like any private gentleman--unguarded, unescorted, with merely an aide-de-camp accompanying him in his victoria. At other times he drove a light phaeton with only a footman in black livery to attend him. And on one occasion Pierre had seen him with the Queen, the pair of them seated side by side like worthy middle-class folks driving abroad for pleasure. And, as the royal couple went by, the busy people in the streets and the promenaders in the public gardens contented themselves with wafting them an affectionate wave of the hand, the most expansive simply approaching to smile at them, and no one importuning them with acclamations. Pierre, who harboured the traditional idea of kings closely guarded and passing processionally with all the accompaniment of military pomp, was therefore greatly surprised and touched by the amiable /bonhomie/ of this royal pair, who went wherever they listed in full security amidst the smiling affection of their people. Everybody, moreover, had told him of the King's kindliness and simplicity, his desire for peace, and his passion for sport, solitude, and the open air, which, amidst the worries of power, must often have made him dream of a life of freedom far from the imperious duties of royalty for which he seemed unfitted.* But the Queen was yet more tenderly loved. So naturally and serenely virtuous that she alone remained ignorant of the scandals of Rome, she was also a woman of great culture and great refinement, conversant with every field of literature, and very happy in being so intelligent, so superior to those around her--a pre-eminence which she realised and which she was fond of showing, but in the most natural and most graceful of ways. * King Humbert inherited these tastes from his father Victor Emanuel, who was likewise a great sportsman and had a perfect horror of court life, pageantry, and the exigencies of politics.--Trans. Like Pierre, Prada had remained with his face to the window, and suddenly pointing to the crowd he said: "Now that they have seen the Queen they will go to bed well pleased. And there isn't a single police agent there, I'm sure. Ah! to be loved, to be loved!" Plainly enough his distress of spirit was coming back, and so, turning towards the gallery again, he tried to play the jester. "Attention, my dear Abbe, we mustn't miss their Majesties' entry. That will be the finest part of the /fete/!" A few minutes went by, and then, in the very midst of a polka, the orchestra suddenly ceased playing. But a moment afterwards, with all the blare of its brass instruments, it struck up the Royal March. The dancers fled in confusion, the centre of the gallery was cleared, and the King and Queen entered, escorted by the Prince and Princess Buongiovanni, who had received them at the foot of the staircase. The King was in ordinary evening dress, while the Queen wore a robe of straw-coloured satin, covered with superb white lace; and under the diadem of brilliants which encircled her beautiful fair hair, she looked still young, with a fresh and rounded face, whose expression was all amiability, gentleness, and wit. The music was still sounding with the enthusiastic violence of welcome. Behind her father and mother, Celia appeared amidst the press of people who were following to see the sight; and then came Attilio, the Saccos, and various relatives and official personages. And, pending the termination of the Royal March, only salutations, glances, and smiles were exchanged amidst the sonorous music and dazzling light; whilst all the guests crowded around on tip-toe, with outstretched necks and glittering eyes--a rising tide of heads and shoulders, flashing with the fires of precious stones. At last the march ended and the presentations began. Their Majesties were already acquainted with Celia, and congratulated her with quite affectionate kindliness. However, Sacco, both as minister and father, was particularly desirous of presenting his son Attilio. He bent his supple spine, and summoned to his lips the fine words which were appropriate, in such wise that he contrived to make the young man bow to the King in the capacity of a lieutenant in his Majesty's army, whilst his homage as a handsome young man, so passionately loved by his betrothed was reserved for Queen Margherita. Again did their Majesties show themselves very gracious, even towards the Signora Sacco who, ever modest and prudent, had remained in the background. And then occurred an incident that was destined to give rise to endless gossip. Catching sight of Benedetta, whom Count Prada had presented to her after his marriage, the Queen, who greatly admired her beauty and charm of manner, addressed her a smile in such wise that the young woman was compelled to approach. A conversation of some minutes' duration ensued, and the Contessina was favoured with some extremely amiable expressions which were perfectly audible to all around. Most certainly the Queen was ignorant of the event of the day, the dissolution of Benedetta's marriage with Prada, and her coming union with Dario so publicly announced at this /gala/, which now seemed to have been given to celebrate a double betrothal. Nevertheless that conversation caused a deep impression; the guests talked of nothing but the compliments which Benedetta had received from the most virtuous and intelligent of queens, and her triumph was increased by it all, she became yet more beautiful and more victorious amidst the happiness she felt at being at last able to bestow herself on the spouse of her choice, that happiness which made her look so radiant. But, on the other hand, the torture which Prada experienced now became intense. Whilst the sovereigns continued conversing, the Queen with the ladies who came to pay her their respects, the King with the officers, diplomatists, and other important personages who approached him, Prada saw none but Benedetta--Benedetta congratulated, caressed, exalted by affection and glory. Dario was near her, flushing with pleasure, radiant like herself. It was for them that this ball had been given, for them that the lamps shone out, for them that the music played, for them that the most beautiful women of Rome had bared their bosoms and adorned them with precious stones. It was for them that their Majesties had entered to the strains of the Royal March, for them that the /fete/ was becoming like an apotheosis, for them that a fondly loved queen was smiling, appearing at that betrothal /gala/ like the good fairy of the nursery tales, whose coming betokens life-long happiness. And for Prada, this wondrously brilliant hour when good fortune and joyfulness attained their apogee, was one of defeat. It was fraught with the victory of that woman who had refused to be his wife in aught but name, and of that man who now was about to take her from him: such a public, ostentatious, insulting victory that it struck him like a buffet in the face. And not merely did his pride and passion bleed for that: he felt that the triumph of the Saccos dealt a blow to his fortune. Was it true, then, that the rough conquerors of the North were bound to deteriorate in the delightful climate of Rome, was that the reason why he already experienced such a sensation of weariness and exhaustion? That very morning at Frascati in connection with that disastrous building enterprise he had realised that his millions were menaced, albeit he refused to admit that things were going badly with him, as some people rumoured. And now, that evening, amidst that /fete/ he beheld the South victorious, Sacco winning the day like one who feeds at his ease on the warm prey so gluttonously pounced upon under the flaming sun. And the thought of Sacco being a minister, an intimate of the King, allying himself by marriage to one of the noblest families of the Roman aristocracy, and already laying hands on the people and the national funds with the prospect of some day becoming the master of Rome and Italy--that thought again was a blow for the vanity of this man of prey, for the ever voracious appetite of this enjoyer, who felt as if he were being pushed away from table before the feast was over! All crumbled and escaped him, Sacco stole his millions, and Benedetta tortured his flesh, stirring up that awful wound of unsatisfied passion which never would be healed. Again did Pierre hear that dull plaint, that involuntary despairing growl, which had upset him once before. And he looked at the Count, and asked him: "Are you suffering?" But on seeing how livid was the face of Prada, who only retained his calmness by a superhuman effort, he regretted his indiscreet question, which, moreover, remained unanswered. And then to put the other more at ease, the young priest went on speaking, venting the thoughts which the sight before him inspired: "Your father was right," said he, "we Frenchmen whose education is so full of the Catholic spirit, even in these days of universal doubt, we never think of Rome otherwise than as the old Rome of the popes. We scarcely know, we can scarcely understand the great changes which, year by year, have brought about the Italian Rome of the present day. Why, when I arrived here, the King and his government and the young nation working to make a great capital for itself, seemed to me of no account whatever! Yes, I dismissed all that, thought nothing of it, in my dream of resuscitating a Christian and evangelical Rome, which should assure the happiness of the world." He laughed as he spoke, pitying his own artlessness, and then pointed towards the gallery where Prince Buongiovanni was bowing to the King whilst the Princess listened to the gallant remarks of Sacco: a scene full of symbolism, the old papal aristocracy struck down, the /parvenus/ accepted, the black and white worlds so mixed together that one and all were little else than subjects, on the eve of forming but one united nation. That conciliation between the Quirinal and the Vatican which in principle was regarded as impossible, was it not in practice fatal, in face of the evolution which went on day by day? People must go on living, loving, and creating life throughout the ages. And the marriage of Attilio and Celia would be the symbol of the needful union: youth and love triumphing over ancient hatred, all quarrels forgotten as a handsome lad goes by, wins a lovely girl, and carries her off in his arms in order that the world may last. "Look at them!" resumed Pierre, "how handsome and young and gay both the /fiances/ are, all confidence in the future. Ah! I well understand that your King should have come here to please his minister and win one of the old Roman families over to his throne; it is good, brave, and fatherly policy. But I like to think that he has also realised the touching significance of that marriage--old Rome, in the person of that candid, loving child giving herself to young Italy, that upright, enthusiastic young man who wears his uniform so jauntily. And may their nuptials be definitive and fruitful; from them and from all the others may there arise the great nation which, now that I begin to know you, I trust you will soon become!" Amidst the tottering of his former dream of an evangelical and universal Rome, Pierre expressed these good wishes for the Eternal City's future fortune with such keen and deep emotion that Prada could not help replying: "I thank you; that wish of yours is in the heart of every good Italian." But his voice quavered, for even whilst he was looking at Celia and Attilio, who stood smiling and talking together, he saw Benedetta and Dario approach them, wearing the same joyful expression of perfect happiness. And when the two couples were united, so radiant and so triumphant, so full of superb and happy life, he no longer had strength to stay there, see them, and suffer. "I am frightfully thirsty," he hoarsely exclaimed. "Let's go to the buffet to drink something." And, thereupon, in order to avoid notice, he so manoeuvred as to glide behind the throng, skirting the windows in the direction of the entrance to the Hall of the Antiques, which was beyond the gallery. Whilst Pierre was following him they were parted by an eddy of the crowd, and the young priest found himself carried towards the two loving couples who still stood chatting together. And Celia, on recognising him, beckoned to him in a friendly way. With her passionate cult for beauty, she was enraptured with the appearance of Benedetta, before whom she joined her little lily hands as before the image of the Madonna. "Oh! Monsieur l'Abbe," said she, "to please me now, do tell her how beautiful she is, more beautiful than anything on earth, more beautiful than even the sun, and the moon and stars. If you only knew, my dear, it makes me quiver to see you so beautiful as that, as beautiful as happiness, as beautiful as love itself!" Benedetta began to laugh, while the two young men made merry. "But you are as beautiful as I am, darling," said the Contessina. "And if we are beautiful it is because we are happy." "Yes, yes, happy," Celia gently responded. "Do you remember the evening when you told me that one didn't succeed in marrying the Pope and the King? But Attilio and I are marrying them, and yet we are very happy." "But we don't marry them, Dario and I! On the contrary!" said Benedetta gaily. "No matter; as you answered me that same evening, it is sufficient that we should love one another, love saves the world." When Pierre at last succeeded in reaching the door of the Hall of the Antiques, where the buffet was installed, he found Prada there, motionless, gazing despite himself on the galling spectacle which he desired to flee. A power stronger than his will had kept him there, forcing him to turn round and look, and look again. And thus, with a bleeding heart, he still lingered and witnessed the resumption of the dancing, the first figure of a quadrille which the orchestra began to play with a lively flourish of its brass instruments. Benedetta and Dario, Celia and Attilio were /vis-à-vis/. And so charming and delightful was the sight which the two couples presented dancing in the white blaze, all youth and joy, that the King and Queen drew near to them and became interested. And soon bravos of admiration rang out, while from every heart spread a feeling of infinite tenderness. "I'm dying of thirst, let's go!" repeated Prada, at last managing to wrench himself away from the torturing sight. He called for some iced lemonade and drank the glassful at one draught, gulping it down with the greedy eagerness of a man stricken with fever, who will never more be able to quench the burning fire within him. The Hall of the Antiques was a spacious room with mosaic pavement, and decorations of stucco; and a famous collection of vases, bas-reliefs, and statues, was disposed along its walls. The marbles predominated, but there were a few bronzes, and among them a dying gladiator of extreme beauty. The marvel however was the famous statue of Venus, a companion to that of the Capitol, but with a more elegant and supple figure and with the left arm falling loosely in a gesture of voluptuous surrender. That evening a powerful electric reflector threw a dazzling light upon the statue, which, in its divine and pure nudity, seemed to be endowed with superhuman, immortal life. Against the end-wall was the buffet, a long table covered with an embroidered cloth and laden with fruit, pastry, and cold meats. Sheaves of flowers rose up amidst bottles of champagne, hot punch, and iced /sorbetto/, and here and there were marshalled armies of glasses, tea-cups, and broth-bowls, a perfect wealth of sparkling crystal, porcelain, and silver. And a happy innovation had been to fill half of the hall with rows of little tables, at which the guests, in lieu of being obliged to refresh themselves standing, were able to sit down and order what they desired as in a cafe. At one of these little tables, Pierre perceived Narcisse seated near a young woman, whom Prada, on approaching, recognised to be Lisbeth. "You find me, you see, in delightful company," gallantly exclaimed the /attache/. "As we lost one another, I could think of nothing better than of offering madame my arm to bring her here." "It was, in fact, a good idea," said Lisbeth with her pretty laugh, "for I was feeling very thirsty." They had ordered some iced coffee, which they were slowly sipping out of little silver-gilt spoons. "I have a terrible thirst, too," declared the Count, "and I can't quench it. You will allow us to join you, will you not, my dear sir? Some of that coffee will perhaps calm me." And then to Lisbeth he added, "Ah! my dear, allow me to introduce to you Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, a young French priest of great distinction." Then for a long time they all four remained seated at that table, chatting and making merry over certain of the guests who went by. Prada, however, in spite of his usual gallantry towards Lisbeth, frequently became absent-minded; at times he quite forgot her, being again mastered by his anguish, and, in spite of all his efforts, his eyes ever turned towards the neighbouring gallery whence the sound of music and dancing reached him. "Why, what are you thinking of, /caro mio/?" Lisbeth asked in her pretty way, on seeing him at one moment so pale and lost. "Are you indisposed?" He did not reply, however, but suddenly exclaimed, "Ah! look there, that's the real pair, there's real love and happiness for you!" With a jerk of the hand he designated Dario's mother, the Marchioness Montefiori and her second husband, Jules Laporte--that ex-sergeant of the papal Swiss Guard, her junior by fifteen years, whom she had one day hooked at the Corso with her eyes of fire, which yet had remained superb, and whom she had afterwards triumphantly transformed into a Marquis Montefiori in order to have him entirely to herself. Such was her passion that she never relaxed her hold on him whether at ball or reception, but, despite all usages, kept him beside her, and even made him escort her to the buffet, so much did she delight in being able to exhibit him and say that this handsome man was her own exclusive property. And standing there side by side, the pair of them began to drink champagne and eat sandwiches, she yet a marvel of massive beauty although she was over fifty, and he with long wavy moustaches, and proud bearing, like a fortunate adventurer whose jovial impudence pleased the ladies. "You know that she had to extricate him from a nasty affair," resumed the Count in a lower tone. "Yes, he travelled in relics; he picked up a living by supplying relics on commission to convents in France and Switzerland; and he had launched quite a business in false relics with the help of some Jews here who concocted little ancient reliquaries out of mutton bones, with everything sealed and signed by the most genuine authorities. The affair was hushed up, as three prelates were also compromised in it! Ah! the happy man! Do you see how she devours him with her eyes? And he, doesn't he look quite a /grand seigneur/ by the mere way in which he holds that plate for her whilst she eats the breast of a fowl out of it!" Then, in a rough way and with biting irony, he went on to speak of the /amours/ of Rome. The Roman women, said he, were ignorant, obstinate, and jealous. When a woman had managed to win a man, she kept him for ever, he became her property, and she disposed of him as she pleased. By way of proof, he cited many interminable /liaisons/, such as that of Donna Serafina and Morano which, in time became virtual marriages; and he sneered at such a lack of fancy, such an excess of fidelity whose only ending, when it did end, was some very disagreeable unpleasantness. At this, Lisbeth interrupted him. "But what is the matter with you this evening, my dear?" she asked with a laugh. "What you speak of is on the contrary very nice and pretty! When a man and a woman love one another they ought to do so for ever!" She looked delightful as she spoke, with her fine wavy blonde hair and delicate fair complexion; and Narcisse with a languorous expression in his half-closed eyes compared her to a Botticelli which he had seen at Florence. However, the night was now far advanced, and Pierre had once more sunk into gloomy thoughtfulness when he heard a passing lady remark that they had already begun to dance the Cotillon in the gallery; and thereupon he suddenly remembered that Monsignor Nani had given him an appointment in the little Saloon of the Mirrors. "Are you leaving?" hastily inquired Prada on seeing him rise and bow to Lisbeth. "No, no, not yet," Pierre answered. "Oh! all right. Don't go away without me. I want to walk a little, and I'll see you home. It's agreed, eh? You will find me here." The young priest had to cross two rooms, one hung with yellow and the other with blue, before he at last reached the mirrored /salon/. This was really an exquisite example of the /rococo/ style, a rotunda as it were of pale mirrors framed with superb gilded carvings. Even the ceiling was covered with mirrors disposed slantwise so that on every side things multiplied, mingled, and appeared under all possible aspects. Discreetly enough no electric lights had been placed in the room, the only illumination being that of some pink tapers burning in a pair of candelabra. The hangings and upholstery were of soft blue silk, and the impression on entering was very sweet and charming, as if one had found oneself in the abode of some fairy queen of the rills, a palace of limpid water, illumined to its farthest depths by clusters of stars. Pierre at once perceived Monsignor Nani, who was sitting on a low couch, and, as the prelate had hoped, he was quite alone, for the Cotillon had attracted almost everybody to the picture gallery. And the silence in the little /salon/ was nearly perfect, for at that distance the blare of the orchestra subsided into a faint, flute-like murmur. The young priest at once apologised to the prelate for having kept him waiting. "No, no, my dear son," said Nani, with his inexhaustible amiability. "I was very comfortable in this retreat--when the press of the crowd became over-threatening I took refuge here." He did not speak of the King and Queen, but he allowed it to be understood that he had politely avoided their company. If he had come to the /fete/ it was on account of his sincere affection for Celia and also with a very delicate diplomatic object, for the Church wished to avoid any appearance of having entirely broken with the Buongiovanni family, that ancient house which was so famous in the annals of the papacy. Doubtless the Vatican was unable to subscribe to this marriage which seemed to unite old Rome with the young Kingdom of Italy, but on the other hand it did not desire people to think that it abandoned old and faithful supporters and took no interest in what befell them. "But come, my dear son," the prelate resumed, "it is you who are now in question. I told you that although the Congregation of the Index had pronounced itself for the condemnation of your book, the sentence would only be submitted to the Holy Father and signed by him on the day after to-morrow. So you still have a whole day before you." At this Pierre could not refrain from a dolorous and vivacious interruption. "Alas! Monseigneur, what can I do?" said he; "I have thought it all over, and I see no means, no opportunity of defending myself. How could I even see his Holiness now that he is so ill?" "Oh! ill, ill!" muttered Nani with his shrewd expression. "His Holiness is ever so much better, for this very day, like every other Wednesday, I had the honour to be received by him. When his Holiness is a little tired and people say that he is very ill, he often lets them do so, for it gives him a rest and enables him to judge certain ambitions and manifestations of impatience around him." Pierre, however, was too upset to listen attentively. "No, it's all over," he continued, "I'm in despair. You spoke to me of the possibility of a miracle, but I am no great believer in miracles. Since I am defeated here at Rome, I shall go away, I shall return to Paris, and continue the struggle there. Oh! I cannot resign myself, my hope in salvation by the practice of love cannot die, and I shall answer my denouncers in a new book, in which I shall tell in what new soil the new religion will grow up!" Silence fell. Nani looked at him with his clear eyes in which intelligence shone distinct and sharp like steel. And amidst the deep calm, the warm heavy atmosphere of the little /salon/, whose mirrors were starred with countless reflections of candles, a more sonorous burst of music was suddenly wafted from the gallery, a rhythmical waltz melody, which slowly expanded, then died away. "My dear son," said Nani, "anger is always harmful. You remember that on your arrival here I promised that if your own efforts to obtain an interview with the Holy Father should prove unavailing, I would myself endeavour to secure an audience for you." Then, seeing how agitated the young priest was getting, he went on: "Listen to me and don't excite yourself. His Holiness, unfortunately, is not always prudently advised. Around him are persons whose devotion, however great, is at times deficient in intelligence. I told you that, and warned you against inconsiderate applications. And this is why, already three weeks ago, I myself handed your book to his Holiness in the hope that he would deign to glance at it. I rightly suspected that it had not been allowed to reach him. And this is what I am instructed to tell you: his Holiness, who has had the great kindness to read your book, expressly desires to see you." A cry of joy and gratitude died away in Pierre's throat: "Ah! Monseigneur. Ah! Monseigneur!" But Nani quickly silenced him and glanced around with an expression of keen anxiety as if he feared that some one might hear them. "Hush! Hush!" said he, "it is a secret. His Holiness wishes to see you privately, without taking anybody else into his confidence. Listen attentively. It is now two o'clock in the morning. Well, this very day, at nine in the evening precisely, you must present yourself at the Vatican and at every door ask for Signor Squadra. You will invariably be allowed to pass. Signor Squadra will be waiting for you upstairs, and will introduce you. And not a word, mind; not a soul must have the faintest suspicion of these things." Pierre's happiness and gratitude at last flowed forth. He had caught hold of the prelate's soft, plump hands, and stammered, "Ah! Monseigneur, how can I express my gratitude to you? If you only knew how full my soul was of night and rebellion since I realised that I had been a mere plaything in the hands of those powerful cardinals. But you have saved me, and again I feel sure that I shall win the victory, for I shall at last be able to fling myself at the feet of his Holiness the father of all truth and all justice. He can but absolve me, I who love him, I who admire him, I who have never battled for aught but his own policy and most cherished ideas. No, no, it is impossible; he will not sign that judgment; he will not condemn my book!" Releasing his hands, Nani sought to calm him with a fatherly gesture, whilst retaining a faint smile of contempt for such a useless expenditure of enthusiasm. At last he succeeded, and begged him to retire. The orchestra was again playing more loudly in the distance. And when the young priest at last withdrew, thanking him once more, he said very simply, "Remember, my dear son, that only obedience is great." Pierre, whose one desire now was to take himself off, found Prada almost immediately afterwards in the first reception-room. Their Majesties had just left the ball in grand ceremony, escorted to the threshold by the Buongiovannis and the Saccos. And before departing the Queen had maternally kissed Celia, whilst the King shook hands with Attilio--honours instinct with a charming good nature which made the members of both families quite radiant. However, a good many of the guests were following the example of the sovereigns and disappearing in small batches. And the Count, who seemed strangely nervous, and showed more sternness and bitterness than ever, was, on his side, also eager to be gone. "Ah! it's you at last. I was waiting for you," he said to Pierre. "Well, let's get off at once, eh? Your compatriot Monsieur Narcisse Habert asked me to tell you not to look for him. The fact is, he has gone to see my friend Lisbeth to her carriage. I myself want a breath of fresh air, a stroll, and so I'll go with you as far as the Via Giulia." Then, as they took their things from the cloak-room, he could not help sneering and saying in his brutal way: "I saw your good friends go off, all four together. It's lucky that you prefer to go home on foot, for there was no room for you in the carriage. What superb impudence it was on the part of that Donna Serafina to drag herself here, at her age, with that Morano of hers, so as to triumph over the return of the fickle one! And the two others, the two young ones--ah! I confess that I can hardly speak calmly of /them/, for in parading here together as they did this evening, they have shown an impudence and a cruelty such as is rarely seen!" Prada's hands trembled, and he murmured: "A good journey, a good journey to the young man, since he is going to Naples. Yes, I heard Celia say that he was starting for Naples this evening at six o'clock. Well, my wishes go with him; a good journey!" The two men found the change delightful when they at last emerged from the stifling heat of the reception-rooms into the lovely, cool, and limpid night. It was a night illumined by a superb full moon, one of those matchless Roman nights when the city slumbers in Elysian radiance, steeped in a dream of the Infinite, under the vast vault of heaven. And they took the most agreeable route, going down the Corso proper and then turning into the Corso Vittorio Emanuele. Prada had grown somewhat calmer, but remained full of irony. To divert his mind, no doubt, he talked on in the most voluble manner, reverting to the women of Rome and to that /fete/ which he had at first found splendid, but at which he now began to rail. "Oh! of course they have very fine gowns," said he, speaking of the women; "but gowns which don't fit them, gowns which are sent them from Paris, and which, of course, they can't try on. It's just the same with their jewels; they still have diamonds and pearls, in particular, which are very fine, but they are so wretchedly, so heavily mounted that they look frightful. And if you only knew how ignorant and frivolous these women are, despite all their conceit! Everything is on the surface with them, even religion: there's nothing beneath. I looked at them eating at the buffet. Oh! they at least have fine appetites. This evening some decorum was observed, there wasn't too much gorging. But at one of the Court balls you would see a general pillage, the buffets besieged, and everything swallowed up amidst a scramble of amazing voracity!" To all this talk Pierre only returned monosyllabic responses. He was wrapped in overflowing delight at the thought of that audience with the Pope, which, unable as he was to confide in any one, he strove to arrange and picture in his own mind, even in its pettiest details. And meantime the footsteps of the two men rang out on the dry pavement of the clear, broad, deserted thoroughfare, whose black shadows were sharply outlined by the moonlight. All at once Prada himself became silent. His loquacious /bravura/ was exhausted, the frightful struggle going on in his mind wholly possessed and paralysed him. Twice already he had dipped his hand into his coat pocket and felt the pencilled note whose four lines he mentally repeated: "A legend avers that the fig-tree of Judas now grows at Frascati, and that its fruit is deadly for him who may desire to become pope. Eat not the poisoned figs, nor give them either to your servants or your fowls." The note was there; he could feel it; and if he had desired to accompany Pierre, it was in order that he might drop it into the letter-box at the Palazzo Boccanera. And he continued to step out briskly, so that within another ten minutes that note would surely be in the box, for no power in the world could prevent it, since such was his express determination. Never would he commit such a crime as to allow people to be poisoned. But he was suffering such abominable torture. That Benedetta and that Dario had raised such a tempest of jealous hatred within him! For them he forgot Lisbeth whom he loved, and even that flesh of his flesh, the child of whom he was so proud. All sex as he was, eager to conquer and subdue, he had never cared for facile loves. His passion was to overcome. And now there was a woman in the world who defied him, a woman forsooth whom he had bought, whom he had married, who had been handed over to him, but who would never, never be his. Ah! in the old days, to subdue her, he would if needful have fired Rome like a Nero; but now he asked himself what he could possibly do to prevent her from belonging to another. That galling thought made the blood gush from his gaping wound. How that woman and her lover must deride him! And to think that they had sought to turn him to ridicule by a baseless charge, an arrant lie which still and ever made him smart, all proof of its falsity to the contrary. He, on his side, had accused them in the past without much belief in what he said, but now the charges he had imputed to them must come true, for they were free, freed at all events of the religious bond, and that no doubt was their only care. And then visions of their happiness passed before his eyes, infuriating him. Ah! no, ah! no, it was impossible, he would rather destroy the world! Then, as he and Pierre turned out of the Corso Vittorio Emanuele to thread the old narrow tortuous streets leading to the Via Giulia, he pictured himself dropping the note into the letter-box at the palazzo. And next he conjured up what would follow. The note would lie in the letter-box till morning. At an early hour Don Vigilio, the secretary, who by the Cardinal's express orders kept the key of the box, would come down, find the note, and hand it to his Eminence, who never allowed another to open any communication addressed to him. And then the figs would be thrown away, there would be no further possibility of crime, the black world would in all prudence keep silent. But if the note should not be in the letter-box, what would happen then? And admitting that supposition he pictured the figs placed on the table at the one o'clock meal, in their pretty little leaf-covered basket. Dario would be there as usual, alone with his uncle, since he was not to leave for Naples till the evening. And would both the uncle and the nephew eat the figs, or would only one of them partake of the fruit, and which of them would that be? At this point Prada's clearness of vision failed him; again he conjured up Destiny on the march, that Destiny which he had met on the road from Frascati, going on towards its unknown goal, athwart all obstacles without possibility of stoppage. Aye, the little basket of figs went ever on and on to accomplish its fateful purpose, which no hand in the world had power enough to prevent. And at last, on either hand of Pierre and Prada, the Via Giulia stretched away in a long line white with moonlight, and the priest emerged as if from a dream at sight of the Palazzo Boccanera rising blackly under the silver sky. Three o'clock struck at a neighbouring church. And he felt himself quivering slightly as once again he heard near him the dolorous moan of a lion wounded unto death, that low involuntary growl which the Count, amidst the frightful struggle of his feelings, had for the third time allowed to escape him. But immediately afterwards he burst into a sneering laugh, and pressing the priest's hands, exclaimed: "No, no, I am not going farther. If I were seen here at this hour, people would think that I had fallen in love with my wife again." And thereupon he lighted a cigar, and retraced his steps in the clear night, without once looking round. XIII WHEN Pierre awoke he was much surprised to hear eleven o'clock striking. Fatigued as he was by that ball where he had lingered so long, he had slept like a child in delightful peacefulness, and as soon as he opened his eyes the radiant sunshine filled him with hope. His first thought was that he would see the Pope that evening at nine o'clock. Ten more hours to wait! What would he be able to do with himself during that lovely day, whose radiant sky seemed to him of such happy augury? He rose and opened the windows to admit the warm air which, as he had noticed on the day of his arrival, had a savour of fruit and flowers, a blending, as it were, of the perfume of rose and orange. Could this possibly be December? What a delightful land, that the spring should seem to flower on the very threshold of winter! Then, having dressed, he was leaning out of the window to glance across the golden Tiber at the evergreen slopes of the Janiculum, when he espied Benedetta seated in the abandoned garden of the mansion. And thereupon, unable to keep still, full of a desire for life, gaiety, and beauty, he went down to join her. With radiant visage and outstretched hands, she at once vented the cry he had expected: "Ah! my dear Abbe, how happy I am!" They had often spent their mornings in that quiet, forsaken nook; but what sad mornings those had been, hopeless as they both were! To-day, however, the weed-grown paths, the box-plants growing in the old basin, the orange-trees which alone marked the outline of the beds--all seemed full of charm, instinct with a sweet and dreamy cosiness in which it was very pleasant to lull one's joy. And it was so warm, too, beside the big laurel-bush, in the corner where the streamlet of water ever fell with flute-like music from the gaping, tragic mask. "Ah!" repeated Benedetta, "how happy I am! I was stifling upstairs, and my heart felt such a need of space, and air, and sunlight, that I came down here!" She was seated on the fallen column beside the old marble sarcophagus, and desired the priest to place himself beside her. Never had he seen her looking so beautiful, with her black hair encompassing her pure face, which in the sunshine appeared pinky and delicate as a flower. Her large, fathomless eyes showed in the light like braziers rolling gold, and her childish mouth, all candour and good sense, laughed the laugh of one who was at last free to love as her heart listed, without offending either God or man. And, dreaming aloud, she built up plans for the future. "It's all simple enough," said she; "I have already obtained a separation, and shall easily get that changed into civil divorce now that the Church has annulled my marriage. And I shall marry Dario next spring, perhaps sooner, if the formalities can be hastened. He is going to Naples this evening about the sale of some property which we still possess there, but which must now be sold, for all this business has cost us a lot of money. Still, that doesn't matter since we now belong to one another. And when he comes back in a few days, what a happy time we shall have! I could not sleep when I got back from that splendid ball last night, for my head was so full of plans--oh! splendid plans, as you shall see, for I mean to keep you in Rome until our marriage." Like herself, Pierre began to laugh, so gained upon by this explosion of youth and happiness that he had to make a great effort to refrain from speaking of his own delight, his hopefulness at the thought of his coming interview with the Pope. Of that, however, he had sworn to speak to nobody. Every now and again, amidst the quivering silence of the sunlit garden, the cry of a bird persistently rang out; and Benedetta, raising her head and looking at a cage hanging beside one of the first-floor windows, jestingly exclaimed: "Yes, yes, Tata, make a good noise, show that you are pleased, my dear. Everybody in the house must be pleased now." Then, turning towards Pierre, she added gaily: "You know Tata, don't you? What! No? Why, Tata is my uncle's parrot. I gave her to him last spring; he's very fond of her, and lets her help herself out of his plate. And he himself attends to her, puts her out and takes her in, and keeps her in his dining-room, for fear lest she should take cold, as that is the only room of his which is at all warm." Pierre in his turn looked up and saw the bird, one of those pretty little parrots with soft, silky, dull-green plumage. It was hanging by the beak from a bar of its cage, swinging itself and flapping its wings, all mirth in the bright sunshine. "Does the bird talk?" he asked. "No, she only screams," replied Benedetta, laughing. "Still my uncle pretends that he understands her." And then the young woman abruptly darted to another subject, as if this mention of her uncle the Cardinal had made her think of the uncle by marriage whom she had in Paris. "I suppose you have heard from Viscount de la Choue," said she. "I had a letter from him yesterday, in which he said how grieved he was that you were unable to see the Holy Father, as he had counted on you for the triumph of his ideas." Pierre indeed frequently heard from the Viscount, who was greatly distressed by the importance which his adversary, Baron de Fouras, had acquired since his success with the International Pilgrimage of the Peter's Pence. The old, uncompromising Catholic party would awaken, said the Viscount, and all the conquests of Neo-Catholicism would be threatened, if one could not obtain the Holy Father's formal adhesion to the proposed system of free guilds, in order to overcome the demand for closed guilds which was brought forward by the Conservatives. And the Viscount overwhelmed Pierre with injunctions, and sent him all sorts of complicated plans in his eagerness to see him received at the Vatican. "Yes, yes," muttered the young priest in reply to Benedetta. "I had a letter on Sunday, and found another waiting for me on my return from Frascati yesterday. Ah! it would make me very happy to be able to send the Viscount some good news." Then again Pierre's joy overflowed at the thought that he would that evening see the Pope, and, on opening his loving heart to the Pontiff, receive the supreme encouragement which would strengthen him in his mission to work social salvation in the name of the lowly and the poor. And he could not restrain himself any longer, but let his secret escape him: "It's settled, you know," said he. "My audience is for this evening." Benedetta did not understand at first. "What audience?" she asked. "Oh! Monsignor Nani was good enough to tell me at the ball this morning, that the Holy Father has read my book and desires to see me. I shall be received this evening at nine o'clock." At this the Contessina flushed with pleasure, participating in the delight of the young priest to whom she had grown much attached. And this success of his, coming in the midst of her own felicity, acquired extraordinary importance in her eyes as if it were an augury of complete success for one and all. Superstitious as she was, she raised a cry of rapture and excitement: "Ah! /Dio/, that will bring us good luck. How happy I am, my friend, to see happiness coming to you at the same time as to me! You cannot think how pleased I am! And all will go well now, it's certain, for a house where there is any one whom the Pope welcomes is blessed, the thunder of Heaven falls on it no more!" She laughed yet more loudly as she spoke, and clapped her hands with such exuberant gaiety that Pierre became anxious. "Hush! hush!" said he, "it's a secret. Pray don't mention it to any one, either your aunt or even his Eminence. Monsignor Nani would be much annoyed." She thereupon promised to say nothing, and in a kindly voice spoke of Nani as a benefactor, for was she not indebted to him for the dissolution of her marriage? Then, with a fresh explosion of gaiety, she went on: "But come, my friend, is not happiness the only good thing? You don't ask me to weep over the suffering poor to-day! Ah! the happiness of life, that's everything. People don't suffer or feel cold or hungry when they are happy." He looked at her in stupefaction at the idea of that strange solution of the terrible question of human misery. And suddenly he realised that, with that daughter of the sun who had inherited so many centuries of sovereign aristocracy, all his endeavours at conversion were vain. He had wished to bring her to a Christian love for the lowly and the wretched, win her over to the new, enlightened, and compassionate Italy that he had dreamt of; but if she had been moved by the sufferings of the multitude at the time when she herself had suffered, when grievous wounds had made her own heart bleed, she was no sooner healed than she proclaimed the doctrine of universal felicity like a true daughter of a clime of burning summers, and winters as mild as spring. "But everybody is not happy!" said he. "Yes, yes, they are!" she exclaimed. "You don't know the poor! Give a girl of the Trastevere the lad she loves, and she becomes as radiant as a queen, and finds her dry bread quite sweet. The mothers who save a child from sickness, the men who conquer in a battle, or who win at the lottery, one and all in fact are like that, people only ask for good fortune and pleasure. And despite all your striving to be just and to arrive at a more even distribution of fortune, the only satisfied ones will be those whose hearts sing--often without their knowing the cause--on a fine sunny day like this." Pierre made a gesture of surrender, not wishing to sadden her by again pleading the cause of all the poor ones who at that very moment were somewhere agonising with physical or mental pain. But, all at once, through the luminous mild atmosphere a shadow seemed to fall, tingeing joy with sadness, the sunshine with despair. And the sight of the old sarcophagus, with its bacchanal of satyrs and nymphs, brought back the memory that death lurks even amidst the bliss of passion, the unsatiated kisses of love. For a moment the clear song of the water sounded in Pierre's ears like a long-drawn sob, and all seemed to crumble in the terrible shadow which had fallen from the invisible. Benedetta, however, caught hold of his hands and roused him once more to the delight of being there beside her. "Your pupil is rebellious, is she not, my friend?" said she. "But what would you have? There are ideas which can't enter into our heads. No, you will never get those things into the head of a Roman girl. So be content with loving us as we are, beautiful with all our strength, as beautiful as we can be." She herself, in her resplendent happiness, looked at that moment so beautiful that he trembled as in presence of a divinity whose all-powerfulness swayed the world. "Yes, yes," he stammered, "beauty, beauty, still and ever sovereign. Ah! why can it not suffice to satisfy the eternal longings of poor suffering men?" "Never mind!" she gaily responded. "Do not distress yourself; it is pleasant to live. And now let us go upstairs, my aunt must be waiting." The midday meal was served at one o'clock, and on the few occasions when Pierre did not eat at one or another restaurant a cover was laid for him at the ladies' table in the little dining-room of the second floor, overlooking the courtyard. At the same hour, in the sunlit dining-room of the first floor, whose windows faced the Tiber, the Cardinal likewise sat down to table, happy in the society of his nephew Dario, for his secretary, Don Vigilio, who also was usually present, never opened his mouth unless to reply to some question. And the two services were quite distinct, each having its own kitchen and servants, the only thing at all common to them both being a large room downstairs which served as a pantry and store-place. Although the second-floor dining-room was so gloomy, saddened by the greeny half-light of the courtyard, the meal shared that day by the two ladies and the young priest proved a very gay one. Even Donna Serafina, usually so rigid, seemed to relax under the influence of great internal felicity. She was no doubt still enjoying her triumph of the previous evening, and it was she who first spoke of the ball and sung its praises, though the presence of the King and Queen had much embarrassed her, said she. According to her account, she had only avoided presentation by skilful strategy; however she hoped that her well-known affection for Celia, whose god-mother she was, would explain her presence in that neutral mansion where Vatican and Quirinal had met. At the same time she must have retained certain scruples, for she declared that directly after dinner she was going to the Vatican to see the Cardinal Secretary, to whom she desired to speak about an enterprise of which she was lady-patroness. This visit would compensate for her attendance at the Buongiovanni entertainment. And on the other hand never had Donna Serafina seemed so zealous and hopeful of her brother's speedy accession to the throne of St. Peter: therein lay a supreme triumph, an elevation of her race, which her pride deemed both needful and inevitable; and indeed during Leo XIII's last indisposition she had actually concerned herself about the trousseau which would be needed and which would require to be marked with the new Pontiff's arms. On her side, Benedetta was all gaiety during the repast, laughing at everything, and speaking of Celia and Attilio with the passionate affection of a woman whose own happiness delights in that of her friends. Then, just as the dessert had been served, she turned to the servant with an air of surprise: "Well, and the figs, Giacomo?" she asked. Giacomo, slow and sleepy of notion, looked at her without understanding. However, Victorine was crossing the room, and Benedetta's next question was for her: "Why are the figs not served, Victorine?" she inquired. "What figs, Contessina?" "Why the figs I saw in the pantry as I passed through it this morning on my way to the garden. They were in a little basket and looked superb. I was even astonished to see that there were still some fresh figs left at this season. I'm very fond of them, and felt quite pleased at the thought that I should eat some at dinner." Victorine began to laugh: "Ah! yes, Contessina, I understand," she replied. "They were some figs which that priest of Frascati, whom you know very well, brought yesterday evening as a present for his Eminence. I was there, and I heard him repeat three or four times that they were a present, and were to be put on his Eminence's table without a leaf being touched. And so one did as he said." "Well, that's nice," retorted Benedetta with comical indignation. "What /gourmands/ my uncle and Dario are to regale themselves without us! They might have given us a share!" Donna Serafina thereupon intervened, and asked Victorine: "You are speaking, are you not, of that priest who used to come to the villa at Frascati?" "Yes, yes, Abbe Santobono his name is, he officiates at the little church of St. Mary in the Fields. He always asks for Abbe Paparelli when he calls; I think they were at the seminary together. And it was Abbe Paparelli who brought him to the pantry with his basket last night. To tell the truth, the basket was forgotten there in spite of all the injunctions, so that nobody would have eaten the figs to-day if Abbe Paparelli hadn't run down just now and carried them upstairs as piously as if they were the Blessed Sacrament. It's true though that his Eminence is so fond of them." "My brother won't do them much honour to-day," remarked the Princess. "He is slightly indisposed. He passed a bad night." The repeated mention of Abbe Paparelli had made the old lady somewhat thoughtful. She had regarded the train-bearer with displeasure ever since she had noticed the extraordinary influence he was gaining over the Cardinal, despite all his apparent humility and self-effacement. He was but a servant and apparently a very insignificant one, yet he governed, and she could feel that he combated her own influence, often undoing things which she had done to further her brother's interests. Twice already, moreover, she had suspected him of having urged the Cardinal to courses which she looked upon as absolute blunders. But perhaps she was wrong; she did the train-bearer the justice to admit that he had great merits and displayed exemplary piety. However, Benedetta went on laughing and jesting, and as Victorine had now withdrawn, she called the man-servant: "Listen, Giacomo, I have a commission for you." Then she broke off to say to her aunt and Pierre: "Pray let us assert our rights. I can see them at table almost underneath us. Uncle is taking the leaves off the basket and serving himself with a smile; then he passes the basket to Dario, who passes it on to Don Vigilio. And all three of them eat and enjoy the figs. You can see them, can't you?" She herself could see them well. And it was her desire to be near Dario, the constant flight of her thoughts to him that now made her picture him at table with the others. Her heart was down below, and there was nothing there that she could not see, and hear, and smell, with such keenness of the senses did her love endow her. "Giacomo," she resumed, "you are to go down and tell his Eminence that we are longing to taste his figs, and that it will be very kind of him if he will send us such as he can spare." Again, however, did Donna Serafina intervene, recalling her wonted severity of voice: "Giacomo, you will please stay here." And to her niece she added: "That's enough childishness! I dislike such silly freaks." "Oh! aunt," Benedetta murmured. "But I'm so happy, it's so long since I laughed so good-heartedly." Pierre had hitherto remained listening, enlivened by the sight of her gaiety. But now, as a little chill fell, he raised his voice to say that on the previous day he himself had been astonished to see the famous fig-tree of Frascati still bearing fruit so late in the year. This was doubtless due, however, to the tree's position and the protection of a high wall. "Ah! so you saw the tree?" said Benedetta. "Yes, and I even travelled with those figs which you would so much like to taste." "Why, how was that?" The young man already regretted the reply which had escaped him. However, having gone so far, he preferred to say everything. "I met somebody at Frascati who had come there in a carriage and who insisted on driving me back to Rome," said he. "On the way we picked up Abbe Santobono, who was bravely making the journey on foot with his basket in his hand. And afterwards we stopped at an /osteria/--" Then he went on to describe the drive and relate his impressions whilst crossing the Campagna amidst the falling twilight. But Benedetta gazed at him fixedly, aware as she was of Prada's frequent visits to the land and houses which he owned at Frascati; and suddenly she murmured: "Somebody, somebody, it was the Count, was it not?" "Yes, madame, the Count," Pierre answered. "I saw him again last night; he was overcome, and really deserves to be pitied." The two women took no offence at this charitable remark which fell from the young priest with such deep and natural emotion, full as he was of overflowing love and compassion for one and all. Donna Serafina remained motionless as if she had not even heard him, and Benedetta made a gesture which seemed to imply that she had neither pity nor hatred to express for a man who had become a perfect stranger to her. However, she no longer laughed, but, thinking of the little basket which had travelled in Prada's carriage, she said: "Ah! I don't care for those figs at all now, I am even glad that I haven't eaten any of them." Immediately after the coffee Donna Serafina withdrew, saying that she was at once going to the Vatican; and the others, being left to themselves, lingered at table, again full of gaiety, and chatting like friends. The priest, with his feverish impatience, once more referred to the audience which he was to have that evening. It was now barely two o'clock, and he had seven more hours to wait. How should he employ that endless afternoon? Thereupon Benedetta good-naturedly made him a proposal. "I'll tell you what," said she, "as we are all in such good spirits we mustn't leave one another. Dario has his victoria, you know. He must have finished lunch by now, and I'll ask him to take us for a long drive along the Tiber." This fine project so delighted her that she began to clap her hands; but just then Don Vigilio appeared with a scared look on his face. "Isn't the Princess here?" he inquired. "No, my aunt has gone out. What is the matter?" "His Eminence sent me. The Prince has just felt unwell on rising from table. Oh! it's nothing--nothing serious, no doubt." Benedetta raised a cry of surprise rather than anxiety: "What, Dario! Well, we'll all go down. Come with me, Monsieur l'Abbe. He mustn't get ill if he is to take us for a drive!" Then, meeting Victorine on the stairs, she bade her follow. "Dario isn't well," she said. "You may be wanted." They all four entered the spacious, antiquated, and simply furnished bed-room where the young Prince had lately been laid up for a whole month. It was reached by way of a small /salon/, and from an adjoining dressing-room a passage conducted to the Cardinal's apartments, the relatively small dining-room, bed-room, and study, which had been devised by subdividing one of the huge galleries of former days. In addition, the passage gave access to his Eminence's private chapel, a bare, uncarpeted, chairless room, where there was nothing beyond the painted, wooden altar, and the hard, cold tiles on which to kneel and pray. On entering, Benedetta hastened to the bed where Dario was lying, still fully dressed. Near him, in fatherly fashion, stood Cardinal Boccanera, who, amidst his dawning anxiety, retained his proud and lofty bearing--the calmness of a soul beyond reproach. "Why, what is the matter, Dario /mio/?" asked the young woman. He smiled, eager to reassure her. One only noticed that he was very pale, with a look as of intoxication on his face. "Oh! it's nothing, mere giddiness," he replied. "It's just as if I had drunk too much. All at once things swam before my eyes, and I thought I was going to fall. And then I only had time to come and fling myself on the bed." Then he drew a long breath, as though talking exhausted him, and the Cardinal in his turn gave some details. "We had just finished our meal," said he, "I was giving Don Vigilio some orders for this afternoon, and was about to rise when I saw Dario get up and reel. He wouldn't sit down again, but came in here, staggering like a somnambulist, and fumbling at the doors to open them. We followed him without understanding. And I confess that I don't yet comprehend it." So saying, the Cardinal punctuated his surprise by waving his arm towards the rooms, through which a gust of misfortune seemed to have suddenly swept. All the doors had remained wide open: the dressing-room could be seen, and then the passage, at the end of which appeared the dining-room, in a disorderly state, like an apartment suddenly vacated; the table still laid, the napkins flung here and there, and the chairs pushed back. As yet, however, there was no alarm. Benedetta made the remark which is usually made in such cases: "I hope you haven't eaten anything which has disagreed with you." The Cardinal, smiling, again waved his hand as if to attest the frugality of his table. "Oh!" said he, "there were only some eggs, some lamb cutlets, and a dish of sorrel--they couldn't have overloaded his stomach. I myself only drink water; he takes just a sip of white wine. No, no, the food has nothing to do with it." "Besides, in that case his Eminence and I would also have felt indisposed," Don Vigilio made bold to remark. Dario, after momentarily closing his eyes, opened them again, and once more drew a long breath, whilst endeavouring to laugh. "Oh, it will be nothing;" he said. "I feel more at ease already. I must get up and stir myself." "In that case," said Benedetta, "this is what I had thought of. You will take Monsieur l'Abbe Froment and me for a long drive in the Campagna." "Willingly. It's a nice idea. Victorine, help me." Whilst speaking he had raised himself by means of one arm; but, before the servant could approach, a slight convulsion seized him, and he fell back again as if overcome by a fainting fit. It was the Cardinal, still standing by the bedside, who caught him in his arms, whilst the Contessina this time lost her head: "/Dio, Dio/! It has come on him again. Quick, quick, a doctor!" "Shall I run for one?" asked Pierre, whom the scene was also beginning to upset. "No, no, not you; stay with me. Victorine will go at once. She knows the address. Doctor Giordano, Victorine." The servant hurried away, and a heavy silence fell on the room where the anxiety became more pronounced every moment. Benedetta, now quite pale, had again approached the bed, whilst the Cardinal looked down at Dario, whom he still held in his arms. And a terrible suspicion, vague, indeterminate as yet, had just awoke in the old man's mind: Dario's face seemed to him to be ashen, to wear that mask of terrified anguish which he had already remarked on the countenance of his dearest friend, Monsignor Gallo, when he had held him in his arms, in like manner, two hours before his death. There was also the same swoon and the same sensation of clasping a cold form whose heart ceases to beat. And above everything else there was in Boccanera's mind the same growing thought of poison, poison coming one knew not whence or how, but mysteriously striking down those around him with the suddenness of lightning. And for a long time he remained with his head bent over the face of his nephew, that last scion of his race, seeking, studying, and recognising the signs of the mysterious, implacable disorder which once already had rent his heart atwain. But Benedetta addressed him in a low, entreating voice: "You will tire yourself, uncle. Let me take him a little, I beg you. Have no fear, I'll hold him very gently, he will feel that it is I, and perhaps that will rouse him." At last the Cardinal raised his head and looked at her, and allowed her to take his place after kissing her with distracted passion, his eyes the while full of tears--a sudden burst of emotion in which his great love for the young woman melted the stern frigidity which he usually affected. "Ah! my poor child, my poor child!" he stammered, trembling from head to foot like an oak-tree about to fall. Immediately afterwards, however, he mastered himself, and whilst Pierre and Don Vigilio, mute and motionless, regretted that they could be of no help, he walked slowly to and fro. Soon, moreover, that bed-chamber became too small for all the thoughts revolving in his mind, and he strayed first into the dressing-room and then down the passage as far as the dining-room. And again and again he went to and fro, grave and impassible, his head low, ever lost in the same gloomy reverie. What were the multitudinous thoughts stirring in the brain of that believer, that haughty Prince who had given himself to God and could do naught to stay inevitable Destiny? From time to time he returned to the bedside, observed the progress of the disorder, and then started off again at the same slow regular pace, disappearing and reappearing, carried along as it were by the monotonous alternations of forces which man cannot control. Possibly he was mistaken, possibly this was some mere indisposition at which the doctor would smile. One must hope and wait. And again he went off and again he came back; and amidst the heavy silence nothing more clearly bespoke the torture of anxious fear than the rhythmical footsteps of that tall old man who was thus awaiting Destiny. The door opened, and Victorine came in breathless. "I found the doctor, here he is," she gasped. With his little pink face and white curls, his discreet paternal bearing which gave him the air of an amiable prelate, Doctor Giordano came in smiling; but on seeing that room and all the anxious people waiting in it, he turned very grave, at once assuming the expression of profound respect for all ecclesiastical secrets which he had acquired by long practice among the clergy. And when he had glanced at the sufferer he let but a low murmur escape him: "What, again! Is it beginning again!" He was probably alluding to the knife thrust for which he had recently tended Dario. Who could be thus relentlessly pursuing that poor and inoffensive young prince? However no one heard the doctor unless it were Benedetta, and she was so full of feverish impatience, so eager to be tranquillised, that she did not listen but burst into fresh entreaties: "Oh! doctor, pray look at him, examine him, tell us that it is nothing. It can't be anything serious, since he was so well and gay but a little while ago. It's nothing serious, is it?" "You are right no doubt, Contessina, it can be nothing dangerous. We will see." However, on turning round, Doctor Giordano perceived the Cardinal, who with regular, thoughtful footsteps had come back from the dining-room to place himself at the foot of the bed. And while bowing, the doctor doubtless detected a gleam of mortal anxiety in the dark eyes fixed upon his own, for he added nothing but began to examine Dario like a man who realises that time is precious. And as his examination progressed the affable optimism which usually appeared upon his countenance gave place to ashen gravity, a covert terror which made his lips slightly tremble. It was he who had attended Monsignor Gallo when the latter had been carried off so mysteriously; it was he who for imperative reasons had then delivered a certificate stating the cause of death to be infectious fever; and doubtless he now found the same terrible symptoms as in that case, a leaden hue overspreading the sufferer's features, a stupor as of excessive intoxication; and, old Roman practitioner that he was, accustomed to sudden deaths, he realised that the /malaria/ which kills was passing, that /malaria/ which science does not yet fully understand, which may come from the putrescent exhalations of the Tiber unless it be but a name for the ancient poison of the legends. As the doctor raised his head his glance again encountered the black eyes of the Cardinal, which never left him. "Signor Giordano," said his Eminence, "you are not over-anxious, I hope? It is only some case of indigestion, is it not?" The doctor again bowed. By the slight quiver of the Cardinal's voice he understood how acute was the anxiety of that powerful man, who once more was stricken in his dearest affections. "Your Eminence must be right," he said, "there's a bad digestion certainly. Such accidents sometimes become dangerous when fever supervenes. I need not tell your Eminence how thoroughly you may rely on my prudence and zeal." Then he broke off and added in a clear professional voice: "We must lose no time; the Prince must be undressed. I should prefer to remain alone with him for a moment." Whilst speaking in this way, however, Doctor Giordano detained Victorine, who would be able to help him, said he; should he need any further assistance he would take Giacomo. His evident desire was to get rid of the members of the family in order that he might have more freedom of action. And the Cardinal, who understood him, gently led Benedetta into the dining-room, whither Pierre and Don Vigilio followed. When the doors had been closed, the most mournful and oppressive silence reigned in that dining-room, which the bright sun of winter filled with such delightful warmth and radiance. The table was still laid, its cloth strewn here and there with bread-crumbs; and a coffee cup had remained half full. In the centre stood the basket of figs, whose covering of leaves had been removed. However, only two or three of the figs were missing. And in front of the window was Tata, the female parrot, who had flown out of her cage and perched herself on her stand, where she remained, dazzled and enraptured, amidst the dancing dust of a broad yellow sunray. In her astonishment however, at seeing so many people enter, she had ceased to scream and smooth her feathers, and had turned her head the better to examine the newcomers with her round and scrutinising eye. The minutes went by slowly amidst all the feverish anxiety as to what might be occurring in the neighbouring room. Don Vigilio had taken a corner seat in silence, whilst Benedetta and Pierre, who had remained standing, preserved similar muteness, and immobility. But the Cardinal had reverted to that instinctive, lulling tramp by which he apparently hoped to quiet his impatience and arrive the sooner at the explanation for which he was groping through a tumultuous maze of ideas. And whilst his rhythmical footsteps resounded with mechanical regularity, dark fury was taking possession of his mind, exasperation at being unable to understand the why and wherefore of that sickness. As he passed the table he had twice glanced at the things lying on it in confusion, as if seeking some explanation from them. Perhaps the harm had been done by that unfinished coffee, or by that bread whose crumbs lay here and there, or by those cutlets, a bone of which remained? Then as for the third time he passed by, again glancing, his eyes fell upon the basket of figs, and at once he stopped, as if beneath the shock of a revelation. An idea seized upon him and mastered him, without any plan, however, occurring to him by which he might change his sudden suspicion into certainty. For a moment he remained puzzled with his eyes fixed upon the basket. Then he took a fig and examined it, but, noticing nothing strange, was about to put it back when Tata, the parrot, who was very fond of figs, raised a strident cry. And this was like a ray of light; the means of changing suspicion into certainty was found. Slowly, with grave air and gloomy visage, the Cardinal carried the fig to the parrot and gave it to her without hesitation or regret. She was a very pretty bird, the only being of the lower order of creation to which he had ever really been attached. Stretching out her supple, delicate form, whose silken feathers of dull green here and there assumed a pinky tinge in the sunlight, she took hold of the fig with her claws, then ripped it open with her beak. But when she had raked it she ate but little, and let all the rest fall upon the floor. Still grave and impassible, the Cardinal looked at her and waited. Quite three minutes went by, and then feeling reassured, he began to scratch the bird's poll, whilst she, taking pleasure in the caress, turned her neck and fixed her bright ruby eye upon her master. But all at once she sank back without even a flap of the wings, and fell like a bullet. She was dead, killed as by a thunderbolt. Boccanera made but a gesture, raising both hands to heaven as if in horror at what he now knew. Great God! such a terrible crime, and such a fearful mistake, such an abominable trick of Destiny! No cry of grief came from him, but the gloom upon his face grew black and fierce. Yet there was a cry, a piercing cry from Benedetta, who like Pierre and Don Vigilio had watched the Cardinal with an astonishment which had changed into terror: "Poison! poison! Ah! Dario, my heart, my soul!" But the Cardinal violently caught his niece by the wrist, whilst darting a suspicious glance at the two petty priests, the secretary and the foreigner, who were present: "Be quiet, be quiet!" said he. She shook herself free, rebelling, frantic with rage and hatred: "Why should I be quiet!" she cried. "It is Prada's work, I shall denounce him, he shall die as well! I tell you it is Prada, I know it, for yesterday Abbe Froment came back with him from Frascati in his carriage with that priest Santobono and that basket of figs! Yes, yes, I have witnesses, it is Prada, Prada!" "No, no, you are mad, be quiet!" said the Cardinal, who had again taken hold of the young woman's hands and sought to master her with all his sovereign authority. He, who knew the influence which Cardinal Sanguinetti exercised over Santobono's excitable mind, had just understood the whole affair; no direct complicity but covert propulsion, the animal excited and then let loose upon the troublesome rival at the moment when the pontifical throne seemed likely to be vacant. The probability, the certainty of all this flashed upon Boccanera who, though some points remained obscure, did not seek to penetrate them. It was not necessary indeed that he should know every particular: the thing was as he said, since it was bound to be so. "No, no, it was not Prada," he exclaimed, addressing Benedetta. "That man can bear me no personal grudge, and I alone was aimed at, it was to me that those figs were given. Come, think it out! Only an unforeseen indisposition prevented me from eating the greater part of the fruit, for it is known that I am very fond of figs, and while my poor Dario was tasting them, I jested and told him to leave the finer ones for me to-morrow. Yes, the abominable blow was meant for me, and it is on him that it has fallen by the most atrocious of chances, the most monstrous of the follies of fate. Ah! Lord God, Lord God, have you then forsaken us!" Tears came into the old man's eyes, whilst she still quivered and seemed unconvinced: "But you have no enemies, uncle," she said. "Why should that Santobono try to take your life?" For a moment he found no fitting reply. With supreme grandeur he had already resolved to keep the truth secret. Then a recollection came to him, and he resigned himself to the telling of a lie: "Santobono's mind has always been somewhat unhinged," said he, "and I know that he has hated me ever since I refused to help him to get a brother of his, one of our former gardeners, out of prison. Deadly spite often has no more serious cause. He must have thought that he had reason to be revenged on me." Thereupon Benedetta, exhausted, unable to argue any further, sank upon a chair with a despairing gesture: "Ah! God, God! I no longer know--and what matters it now that my Dario is in such danger? There's only one thing to be done, he must be saved. How long they are over what they are doing in that room--why does not Victorine come for us!" The silence again fell, full of terror. Without speaking the Cardinal took the basket of figs from the table and carried it to a cupboard in which he locked it. Then he put the key in his pocket. No doubt, when night had fallen, he himself would throw the proofs of the crime into the Tiber. However, on coming back from the cupboard he noticed the two priests, who naturally had watched him; and with mingled grandeur and simplicity he said to them: "Gentlemen, I need not ask you to be discreet. There are scandals which we must spare the Church, which is not, cannot be guilty. To deliver one of ourselves, even when he is a criminal, to the civil tribunals, often means a blow for the whole Church, for men of evil mind may lay hold of the affair and seek to impute the responsibility of the crime even to the Church itself. We therefore have but to commit the murderer to the hands of God, who will know more surely how to punish him. Ah! for my part, whether I be struck in my own person or whether the blow be directed against my family, my dearest affections, I declare in the name of the Christ who died upon the cross, that I feel neither anger, nor desire for vengeance, that I efface the murderer's name from my memory and bury his abominable act in the eternal silence of the grave." Tall as he was, he seemed of yet loftier stature whilst with hand upraised he took that oath to leave his enemies to the justice of God alone; for he did not refer merely to Santobono, but to Cardinal Sanguinetti, whose evil influence he had divined. And amidst all the heroism of his pride, he was rent by tragic dolour at thought of the dark battle which was waged around the tiara, all the evil hatred and voracious appetite which stirred in the depths of the gloom. Then, as Pierre and Don Vigilio bowed to him as a sign that they would preserve silence, he almost choked with invincible emotion, a sob of loving grief which he strove to keep down rising to his throat, whilst he stammered: "Ah! my poor child, my poor child, the only scion of our race, the only love and hope of my heart! Ah! to die, to die like this!" But Benedetta, again all violence, sprang up: "Die! Who, Dario? I won't have it! We'll nurse him, we'll go back to him. We will take him in our arms and save him. Come, uncle, come at once! I won't, I won't, I won't have him die!" She was going towards the door, and nothing would have prevented her from re-entering the bed-room, when, as it happened, Victorine appeared with a wild look on her face, for, despite her wonted serenity, all her courage was now exhausted. "The doctor begs madame and his Eminence to come at once, at once," said she. Stupefied by all these things, Pierre did not follow the others, but lingered for a moment in the sunlit dining-room with Don Vigilio. What! poison? Poison as in the time of the Borgias, elegantly hidden away, served up with luscious fruit by a crafty traitor, whom one dared not even denounce! And he recalled the conversation on his way back from Frascati, and his Parisian scepticism with respect to those legendary drugs, which to his mind had no place save in the fifth acts of melodramas. Yet those abominable stories were true, those tales of poisoned knives and flowers, of prelates and even dilatory popes being suppressed by a drop or a grain of something administered to them in their morning chocolate. That passionate tragical Santobono was really a poisoner, Pierre could no longer doubt it, for a lurid light now illumined the whole of the previous day: there were the words of ambition and menace which had been spoken by Cardinal Sanguinetti, the eagerness to act in presence of the probable death of the reigning pope, the suggestion of a crime for the sake of the Church's salvation, then that priest with his little basket of figs encountered on the road, then that basket carried for hours so carefully, so devoutly, on the priest's knees, that basket which now haunted Pierre like a nightmare, and whose colour, and odour, and shape he would ever recall with a shudder. Aye, poison, poison, there was truth in it; it existed and still circulated in the depths of the black world, amidst all the ravenous, rival longings for conquest and sovereignty. And all at once the figure of Prada likewise arose in Pierre's mind. A little while previously, when Benedetta had so violently accused the Count, he, Pierre, had stepped forward to defend him and cry aloud what he knew, whence the poison had come, and what hand had offered it. But a sudden thought had made him shiver: though Prada had not devised the crime, he had allowed it to be perpetrated. Another memory darted keen like steel through the young priest's mind--that of the little black hen lying lifeless beside the shed, amidst the dismal surroundings of the /osteria/, with a tiny streamlet of violet blood trickling from her beak. And here again, Tata, the parrot, lay still soft and warm at the foot of her stand, with her beak stained by oozing blood. Why had Prada told that lie about a battle between two fowls? All the dim intricacy of passion and contention bewildered Pierre, he could not thread his way through it; nor was he better able to follow the frightful combat which must have been waged in that man's mind during the night of the ball. At the same time he could not again picture him by his side during their nocturnal walk towards the Boccanera mansion without shuddering, dimly divining what a frightful decision had been taken before that mansion's door. Moreover, whatever the obscurities, whether Prada had expected that the Cardinal alone would be killed, or had hoped that some chance stroke of fate might avenge him on others, the terrible fact remained--he had known, he had been able to stay Destiny on the march, but had allowed it to go onward and blindly accomplish its work of death. Turning his head Pierre perceived Don Vigilio still seated on the corner chair whence he had not stirred, and looking so pale and haggard that perhaps he also had swallowed some of the poison. "Do you feel unwell?" the young priest asked. At first the secretary could not reply, for terror had gripped him at the throat. Then in a low voice he said: "No, no, I didn't eat any. Ah, Heaven, when I think that I so much wanted to taste them, and that merely deference kept me back on seeing that his Eminence did not take any!" Don Vigilio's whole body shivered at the thought that his humility alone had saved him; and on his face and his hands there remained the icy chill of death which had fallen so near and grazed him as it passed. Then twice he heaved a sigh, and with a gesture of affright sought to brush the horrid thing away while murmuring: "Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli!" Pierre, deeply stirred, and knowing what he thought of the train-bearer, tried to extract some information from him: "What do you mean?" he asked. "Do you accuse him too? Do you think they urged him on, and that it was they at bottom?" The word Jesuits was not even spoken, but a big black shadow passed athwart the gay sunlight of the dining-room, and for a moment seemed to fill it with darkness. "They! ah yes!" exclaimed Don Vigilio, "they are everywhere; it is always they! As soon as one weeps, as soon as one dies, they are mixed up in it. And this is intended for me too; I am quite surprised that I haven't been carried off." Then again he raised a dull moan of fear, hatred, and anger: "Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli!" And he refused to reply any further, but darted scared glances at the walls as if from one or another of them he expected to see the train-bearer emerge, with his wrinkled flabby face like that of an old maid, his furtive mouse-like trot, and his mysterious, invading hands which had gone expressly to bring the forgotten figs from the pantry and deposit them on the table. At last the two priests decided to return to the bedroom, where perhaps they might be required; and Pierre on entering was overcome by the heart-rending scene which the chamber now presented. Doctor Giordano, suspecting poison, had for half an hour been trying the usual remedies, an emetic and then magnesia. Just then, too, he had made Victorine whip some whites of eggs in water. But the disorder was progressing with such lightning-like rapidity that all succour was becoming futile. Undressed and lying on his back, his bust propped up by pillows and his arms lying outstretched over the sheets, Dario looked quite frightful in the sort of painful intoxication which characterised that redoubtable and mysterious disorder to which already Monsignor Gallo and others had succumbed. The young man seemed to be stricken with a sort of dizzy stupor, his eyes receded farther and farther into the depth of their dark sockets, whilst his whole face became withered, aged as it were, and covered with an earthy pallor. A moment previously he had closed his eyes, and the only sign that he still lived was the heaving of his chest induced by painful respiration. And leaning over his poor dying face stood Benedetta, sharing his sufferings, and mastered by such impotent grief that she also was unrecognisable, so white, so distracted by anguish, that it seemed as if death were gradually taking her at the same time as it was taking him. In the recess by the window whither Cardinal Boccanera had led Doctor Giordano, a few words were exchanged in low tones. "He is lost, is he not?" The doctor made the despairing gesture of one who is vanquished: "Alas! yes. I must warn your Eminence that in an hour all will be over." A short interval of silence followed. "And the same malady as Gallo, is it not?" asked the Cardinal; and as the doctor trembling and averting his eyes did not answer he added: "At all events of an infectious fever!" Giordano well understood what the Cardinal thus asked of him: silence, the crime for ever hidden away for the sake of the good renown of his mother, the Church. And there could be no loftier, no more tragical grandeur than that of this old man of seventy, still so erect and sovereign, who would neither suffer a slur to be cast upon his spiritual family, nor consent to his human family being dragged into the inevitable mire of a sensational murder trial. No, no, there must be none of that, there must be silence, the eternal silence in which all becomes forgotten. At last the doctor bowed with his gentle air of discretion. "Evidently, of an infectious fever as your Eminence so well says," he replied. Two big tears then again appeared in Boccanera's eyes. Now that he had screened the Deity from attack in the person of the Church, his heart as a man again bled. He begged the doctor to make a supreme effort, to attempt the impossible; but, pointing to the dying man with trembling hands, Giordano shook his head. For his own father, his own mother he could have done nothing. Death was there. So why weary, why torture a dying man, whose sufferings he would only have increased? And then, as the Cardinal, finding the end so near at hand, thought of his sister Serafina, and lamented that she would not be able to kiss her nephew for the last time if she lingered at the Vatican, the doctor offered to fetch her in his carriage which was waiting below. It would not take him more than twenty minutes, said he, and he would be back in time for the end, should he then be needed. Left to himself in the window recess the Cardinal remained there motionless for another moment. With eyes blurred by tears, he gazed towards heaven. And his quivering arms were suddenly raised in a gesture of ardent entreaty. O God, since the science of man was so limited and vain, since that doctor had gone off happy to escape the embarrassment of his impotence, O God, why not a miracle which should proclaim the splendour of Thy Almighty Power! A miracle, a miracle! that was what the Cardinal asked from the depths of his believing soul, with the insistence, the imperious entreaty of a Prince of the Earth, who deemed that he had rendered considerable services to Heaven by dedicating his whole life to the Church. And he asked for that miracle in order that his race might be perpetuated, in order that its last male scion might not thus miserably perish, but be able to marry that fondly loved cousin, who now stood there all woe and tears. A miracle, a miracle for the sake of those two dear children! A miracle which would endow the family with fresh life: a miracle which would eternise the glorious name of Boccanera by enabling an innumerable posterity of valiant ones and faithful ones to spring from that young couple! When the Cardinal returned to the centre of the room he seemed transfigured. Faith had dried his eyes, his soul had become strong and submissive, exempt from all human weakness. He had placed himself in the hands of God, and had resolved that he himself would administer extreme unction to Dario. With a gesture he summoned Don Vigilio and led him into the little room which served as a chapel, and the key of which he always carried. A cupboard had been contrived behind the altar of painted wood, and the Cardinal went to it to take both stole and surplice. The coffer containing the Holy Oils was likewise there, a very ancient silver coffer bearing the Boccanera arms. And on Don Vigilio following the Cardinal back into the bed-room they in turn pronounced the Latin words: "/Pax huic domui/." "/Et omnibus habitantibus in ea/."* * "Peace unto this house and unto all who dwell in it."--Trans. Death was coming so fast and threatening, that all the usual preparations were perforce dispensed with. Neither the two lighted tapers, nor the little table covered with white cloth had been provided. And, in the same way, Don Vigilio the assistant, having failed to bring the Holy Water basin and sprinkler, the Cardinal, as officiating priest, could merely make the gesture of blessing the room and the dying man, whilst pronouncing the words of the ritual: "/Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo, et mundabor; lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor."* * "Sprinkle me, Lord, with hyssop, and purify me; wash me, and make me whiter than snow."--Trans. Benedetta on seeing the Cardinal appear carrying the Holy Oils, had with a long quiver fallen on her knees at the foot of the bed, whilst, somewhat farther away, Pierre and Victorine likewise knelt, overcome by the dolorous grandeur of the scene. And the dilated eyes of the Contessina, whose face was pale as snow, never quitted her Dario, whom she no longer recognised, so earthy was his face, its skin tanned and wrinkled like that of an old man. And it was not for their marriage which he so much desired that their uncle, the all-powerful Prince of the Church, was bringing the Sacrament, but for the supreme rupture, the end of all pride, Death which finishes off the haughtiest races, and sweeps them away, even as the wind sweeps the dust of the roads. It was needful that there should be no delay, so the Cardinal promptly repeated the Credo in an undertone, "/Credo in unum Deum--/" "/Amen/," responded Don Vigilio, who, after the prayers of the ritual, stammered the Litanies in order that Heaven might take pity on the wretched man who was about to appear before God, if God by a prodigy did not spare him. Then, without taking time to wash his fingers, the Cardinal opened the case containing the Holy Oils, and limiting himself to one anointment, as is permissible in pressing cases, he deposited a single drop of the oil on Dario's parched mouth which was already withered by death. And in doing so he repeated the words of the formula, his heart all aglow with faith as he asked that the divine mercy might efface each and every sin that the young man had committed by either of his five senses, those five portals by which everlasting temptation assails the soul. And the Cardinal's fervour was also instinct with the hope that if God had smitten the poor sufferer for his offences, perhaps He would make His indulgence entire and even restore him to life as soon as He should have forgiven his sins. Life, O Lord, life in order that the ancient line of the Boccaneras might yet multiply and continue to serve Thee in battle and at the altar until the end of time! For a moment the Cardinal remained with quivering hands, gazing at the mute face, the closed eyes of the dying man, and waiting for the miracle. But no sign appeared, not the faintest glimmer brightened that haggard countenance, nor did a sigh of relief come from the withered lips as Don Vigilio wiped them with a little cotton wool. And the last prayer was said, and whilst the frightful silence fell once more the Cardinal, followed by his assistant, returned to the chapel. There they both knelt, the Cardinal plunging into ardent prayer upon the bare tiles. With his eyes raised to the brass crucifix upon the altar he saw nothing, heard nothing, but gave himself wholly to his entreaties, supplicating God to take him in place of his nephew, if a sacrifice were necessary, and yet clinging to the hope that so long as Dario retained a breath of life and he himself thus remained on his knees addressing the Deity, he might succeed in pacifying the wrath of Heaven. He was both so humble and so great. Would not accord surely be established between God and a Boccanera? The old palace might have fallen to the ground, he himself would not even have felt the toppling of its beams. In the bed-room, however, nothing had yet stirred beneath the weight of tragic majesty which the ceremony had left there. It was only now that Dario raised his eyelids, and when on looking at his hands he saw them so aged and wasted the depths of his eyes kindled with an expression of immense regretfulness that life should be departing. Doubtless it was at this moment of lucidity amidst the kind of intoxication with which the poison overwhelmed him, that he for the first time realised his perilous condition. Ah! to die, amidst such pain, such physical degradation, what a revolting horror for that frivolous and egotistical man, that lover of beauty, joy, and light, who knew not how to suffer! In him ferocious fate chastised racial degeneracy with too heavy a hand. He became horrified with himself, seized with childish despair and terror, which lent him strength enough to sit up and gaze wildly about the room, in order to see if every one had not abandoned him. And when his eyes lighted on Benedetta still kneeling at the foot of the bed, a supreme impulse carried him towards her, he stretched forth both arms as passionately as his strength allowed and stammered her name: "O Benedetta, Benedetta!" She, motionless in the stupor of her anxiety, had not taken her eyes from his face. The horrible disorder which was carrying off her lover, seemed also to possess and annihilate her more and more, even as he himself grew weaker and weaker. Her features were assuming an immaterial whiteness; and through the void of her clear eyeballs one began to espy her soul. However, when she perceived him thus resuscitating and calling her with arms outstretched, she in her turn arose and standing beside the bed made answer: "I am coming, my Dario, here I am." And then Pierre and Victorine, still on their knees, beheld a sublime deed of such extraordinary grandeur that they remained rooted to the floor, spell-bound as in the presence of some supra-terrestrial spectacle in which human beings may not intervene. Benedetta herself spoke and acted like one freed from all social and conventional ties, already beyond life, only seeing and addressing beings and things from a great distance, from the depths of the unknown in which she was about to disappear. "Ah! my Dario, so an attempt has been made to part us! It was in order that I might never belong to you--that we might never be happy, that your death was resolved upon, and it was known that with your life my own must cease! And it is that man who is killing you! Yes, he is your murderer, even if the actual blow has been dealt by another. He is the first cause--he who stole me from you when I was about to become yours, he who ravaged our lives, and who breathed around us the hateful poison which is killing us. Ah! how I hate him, how I hate him; how I should like to crush him with my hate before I die with you!" She did not raise her voice, but spoke those terrible words in a deep murmur, simply and passionately. Prada was not even named, and she scarcely turned towards Pierre--who knelt, paralysed, behind her--to add with a commanding air: "You will see his father, I charge you to tell him that I cursed his son! That kind-hearted hero loved me well--I love him even now, and the words you will carry to him from me will rend his heart. But I desire that he should know--he must know, for the sake of truth and justice." Distracted by terror, sobbing amidst a last convulsion, Dario again stretched forth his arms, feeling that she was no longer looking at him, that her clear eyes were no longer fixed upon his own: "Benedetta, Benedetta!" "I am coming, I am coming, my Dario--I am here!" she responded, drawing yet nearer to the bedside and almost touching him. "Ah!" she went on, "that vow which I made to the Madonna to belong to none, not even you, until God should allow it by the blessing of one of his priests! Ah! I set a noble, a divine pride in remaining immaculate for him who should be the one master of my soul and body. And that chastity which I was so proud of, I defended it against the other as one defends oneself against a wolf, and I defended it against you with tears for fear of sacrilege. And if you only knew what terrible struggles I was forced to wage with myself, for I loved you and longed to be yours, like a woman who accepts the whole of love, the love that makes wife and mother! Ah! my vow to the Madonna--with what difficulty did I keep it when the old blood of our race arose in me like a tempest; and now what a disaster!" She drew yet nearer, and her low voice became more ardent: "You remember that evening when you came back with a knife-thrust in your shoulder. I thought you dead, and cried aloud with rage at the idea of losing you like that. I insulted the Madonna and regretted that I had not damned myself with you that we might die together, so tightly clasped that we must needs be buried together also. And to think that such a terrible warning was of no avail! I was blind and foolish; and now you are again stricken, again being taken from my love. Ah! my wretched pride, my idiotic dream!" That which now rang out in her stifled voice was the anger of the practical woman that she had ever been, all superstition notwithstanding. Could the Madonna, who was so maternal, desire the woe of lovers? No, assuredly not. Nor did the angels make the mere absence of a priest a cause for weeping over the transports of true and mutual love. Was not such love holy in itself, and did not the angels rather smile upon it and burst into gladsome song! And ah! how one cheated oneself by not loving to heart's content under the sun, when the blood of life coursed through one's veins! "Benedetta! Benedetta!" repeated the dying man, full of child-like terror at thus going off all alone into the depths of the black and everlasting night. "Here I am, my Dario, I am coming!" Then, as she fancied that the servant, albeit motionless, had stirred, as if to rise and interfere, she added: "Leave me, leave me, Victorine, nothing in the world can henceforth prevent it. A moment ago, when I was on my knees, something roused me and urged me on. I know whither I am going. And besides, did I not swear on the night of the knife thrust? Did I not promise to belong to him alone, even in the earth if it were necessary? I must embrace him, and he will carry me away! We shall be dead, and we shall be wedded in spite of all, and for ever and for ever!" She stepped back to the dying man, and touched him: "Here I am, my Dario, here I am!" Then came the apogee. Amidst growing exaltation, buoyed up by a blaze of love, careless of glances, candid like a lily, she divested herself of her garments and stood forth so white, that neither marble statue, nor dove, nor snow itself was ever whiter. "Here I am, my Dario, here I am!" Recoiling almost to the ground as at sight of an apparition, the glorious flash of a holy vision, Pierre and Victorine gazed at her with dazzled eyes. The servant had not stirred to prevent this extraordinary action, seized as she was with that shrinking reverential terror which comes upon one in presence of the wild, mad deeds of faith and passion. And the priest, whose limbs were paralysed, felt that something so sublime was passing that he could only quiver in distraction. And no thought of impurity came to him on beholding that lily, snowy whiteness. All candour and all nobility as she was, that virgin shocked him no more than some sculptured masterpiece of genius. "Here I am, my Dario, here I am." She had lain herself down beside the spouse whom she had chosen, she had clasped the dying man whose arms only had enough strength left to fold themselves around her. Death was stealing him from her, but she would go with him; and again she murmured: "My Dario, here I am." And at that moment, against the wall at the head of the bed, Pierre perceived the escutcheon of the Boccaneras, embroidered in gold and coloured silks on a groundwork of violet velvet. There was the winged dragon belching flames, there was the fierce and glowing motto "/Bocca nera, Alma rossa/" (black mouth, red soul), the mouth darkened by a roar, the soul flaming like a brazier of faith and love. And behold! all that old race of passion and violence with its tragic legends had reappeared, its blood bubbling up afresh to urge that last and adorable daughter of the line to those terrifying and prodigious nuptials in death. And to Pierre that escutcheon recalled another memory, that of the portrait of Cassia Boccanera the /amorosa/ and avengeress who had flung herself into the Tiber with her brother Ercole and the corpse of her lover Flavio. Was there not here even with Benedetta the same despairing clasp seeking to vanquish death, the same savagery in hurling oneself into the abyss with the corpse of the one's only love? Benedetta and Cassia were as sisters, Cassia, who lived anew in the old painting in the /salon/ overhead, Benedetta who was here dying of her lover's death, as though she were but the other's spirit. Both had the same delicate childish features, the same mouth of passion, the same large dreamy eyes set in the same round, practical, and stubborn head. "My Dario, here I am!" For a second, which seemed an eternity, they clasped one another, she neither repelled nor terrified by the disorder which made him so unrecognisable, but displaying a delirious passion, a holy frenzy as if to pass beyond life, to penetrate with him into the black Unknown. And beneath the shock of the felicity at last offered to him he expired, with his arms yet convulsively wound around her as though indeed to carry her off. Then, whether from grief or from bliss amidst that embrace of death, there came such a rush of blood to her heart that the organ burst: she died on her lover's neck, both tightly and for ever clasped in one another's arms. There was a faint sigh. Victorine understood and drew near, while Pierre, also erect, remained quivering with the tearful admiration of one who has beheld the sublime. "Look, look!" whispered the servant, "she no longer moves, she no longer breathes. Ah! my poor child, my poor child, she is dead!" Then the priest murmured: "Oh! God, how beautiful they are." It was true, never had loftier and more resplendent beauty appeared on the faces of the dead. Dario's countenance, so lately aged and earthen, had assumed the pallor and nobility of marble, its features lengthened and simplified as by a transport of ineffable joy. Benedetta remained very grave, her lips curved by ardent determination, whilst her whole face was expressive of dolorous yet infinite beatitude in a setting of infinite whiteness. Their hair mingled, and their eyes, which had remained open, continued gazing as into one another's souls with eternal, caressing sweetness. They were for ever linked, soaring into immortality amidst the enchantment of their union, vanquishers of death, radiant with the rapturous beauty of love, the conqueror, the immortal. But Victorine's sobs at last burst forth, mingled with such lamentations that great confusion followed. Pierre, now quite beside himself, in some measure failed to understand how it was that the room suddenly became invaded by terrified people. The Cardinal and Don Vigilio, however, must have hastened in from the chapel; and at the same moment, no doubt, Doctor Giordano must have returned with Donna Serafina, for both were now there, she stupefied by the blows which had thus fallen on the house in her absence, whilst he, the doctor, displayed the perturbation and astonishment which comes upon the oldest practitioners when facts seem to give the lie to their experience. However, he sought an explanation of Benedetta's death, and hesitatingly ascribed it to aneurism, or possibly embolism. Thereupon Victorine, like a servant whose grief makes her the equal of her employers, boldly interrupted him: "Ah! Sir," said she, "they loved each other too fondly; did not that suffice for them to die together?" Meantime Donna Serafina, after kissing the poor children on the brow, desired to close their eyes; but she could not succeed in doing so, for the lids lifted directly she removed her finger and once more the eyes began to smile at one another, to exchange in all fixity their loving and eternal glance. And then as she spoke of parting the bodies, Victorine again protested: "Oh! madame, oh! madame," she said, "you would have to break their arms. Cannot you see that their fingers are almost dug into one another's shoulders? No, they can never be parted!" Thereupon Cardinal Boccanera intervened. God had not granted the miracle; and he, His minister, was livid, tearless, and full of icy despair. But he waved his arm with a sovereign gesture of absolution and sanctification, as if, Prince of the Church that he was, disposing of the will of Heaven, he consented that the lovers should appear in that embrace before the supreme tribunal. In presence of such wondrous love, indeed, profoundly stirred by the sufferings of their lives and the beauty of their death, he showed a broad and lofty contempt for mundane proprieties. "Leave them, leave me, my sister," said he, "do not disturb their slumber. Let their eyes remain open since they desire to gaze on one another till the end of time without ever wearying. And let them sleep in one another's arms since in their lives they did not sin, and only locked themselves in that embrace in order that they might be laid together in the ground." And then, again becoming a Roman Prince whose proud blood was yet hot with old-time deeds of battle and passion, he added: "Two Boccaneras may well sleep like that; all Rome will admire them and weep for them. Leave them, leave them together, my sister. God knows them and awaits them!" All knelt, and the Cardinal himself repeated the prayers for the dead. Night was coming, increasing gloom stole into the chamber, where two burning tapers soon shone out like stars. And then, without knowing how, Pierre again found himself in the little deserted garden on the bank of the Tiber. Suffocating with fatigue and grief, he must have come thither for fresh air. Darkness shrouded the charming nook where the streamlet of water falling from the tragic mask into the ancient sarcophagus ever sang its shrill and flute-like song; and the laurel-bush which shaded it, and the bitter box-plants and the orange-trees skirting the paths now formed but vague masses under the blue-black sky. Ah! how gay and sweet had that melancholy garden been in the morning, and what a desolate echo it retained of Benedetta's winsome laughter, all that fine delight in coming happiness which now lay prone upstairs, steeped in the nothingness of things and beings! So dolorous was the pang which came to Pierre's heart that he burst into sobs, seated on the same broken column where she had sat, and encompassed by the same atmosphere that she had breathed, in which still lingered the perfume of her presence. But all at once a distant clock struck six, and the young priest started on remembering that he was to be received by the Pope that very evening at nine. Yet three more hours! He had not thought of that interview during the terrifying catastrophe, and it seemed to him now as if months and months had gone by, as if the appointment were some very old one which a man is only able to keep after years of absence, when he has grown aged and had his heart and brain modified by innumerable experiences. However, he made an effort and rose to his feet. In three hours' time he would go to the Vatican and at last he would see the Pope.