His prose
clarified and set, that had before been very mixed and cloudy. He
slept well; he comprehended divine things; he was already half a
republican, when one fatal day - it was the feast of the eleven
thousand virgins, and they were too busy up in heaven to consider the
needs of us poor hobbling, polyktonous and betempted wretches of
men - I went with him to the Society for the Prevention of Annoyances
to the Rich, where a certain usurer's son was to read a paper on the
cruelty of Spaniards to their mules. As we were all seated there round
a table with a staring green cloth on it, and a damnable gas pendant
above, the host of that evening offered him whisky and water, and, my
back being turned, he took it. Then when I would have taken it from
him he used these words -
'After all, it is the intention of a pledge that matters;' and I saw
that all was over, for he had abandoned definition, and was plunged
back into the horrible mazes of Conscience and Natural Religion.
What do you think, then, was the consequence? Why, he had to take some
nasty pledge or other to drink nothing whatever, and become a
spectacle and a judgement, whereas if he had kept his exact word he
might by this time have been a happy man.
Remembering him and pondering upon the advantage of strict rule, I
hung on to my cart, taking care to let my feet still feel the road,
and so passed through the high limestone gates of the gorge, and was
in the fourth valley of the Jura, with the fifth ridge standing up
black and huge before me against the last of the daylight. There were
as yet no stars.
There, in this silent place, was the little village of Undervelier,
and I thanked the boy, withdrew from his cart, and painfully
approached the inn, where I asked the woman if she could give me
something to eat, and she said that she could in about an hour, using,
however, with regard to what it was I was to have, words which I did
not understand. For the French had become quite barbaric, and I was
now indeed lost in one of the inner places of the world.
A cigar is, however, even in Undervelier, a cigar; and the best cost a
penny. One of these, therefore, I bought, and then I went out smoking
it into the village square, and, finding a low wall, leaned over it
and contemplated the glorious clear green water tumbling and roaring
along beneath it on the other side; for a little river ran through the
village.
As I leaned there resting and communing I noticed how their church,
close at hand, was built along the low banks of the torrent. I admired
the luxuriance of the grass these waters fed, and the generous arch of
the trees beside it. The graves seemed set in a natural place of rest
and home, and just beyond this churchyard was that marriage of hewn
stone and water which is the source of so peculiar a satisfaction; for
the church tower was built boldly right out into the stream and the
current went eddying round it. But why it is that strong human
building when it dips into water should thus affect the mind I cannot
say, only I know that it is an emotion apart to see our device and
structure where it is most enduring come up against and challenge that
element which we cannot conquer, and which has always in it something
of danger for men. It is therefore well to put strong mouldings on to
piers and quays, and to make an architecture of them, and so it was a
splendid thought of the Romans to build their villas right out to sea;
so they say does Venice enthrall one, but where I have most noticed
this thing is at the Mont St Michel - only one must take care to shut
one's eyes or sleep during all the low tide.
As I was watching that stream against those old stones, my cigar being
now half smoked, a bell began tolling, and it seemed as if the whole
village were pouring into the church. At this I was very much
surprised, not having been used at any time of my life to the
unanimous devotion of an entire population, but having always thought
of the Faith as something fighting odds, and having seen unanimity
only in places where some sham religion or other glozed over our
tragedies and excused our sins. Certainly to see all the men, women,
and children of a place taking Catholicism for granted was a new
sight, and so I put my cigar carefully down under a stone on the top
of the wall and went in with them. I then saw that what they were at
was vespers.
All the village sang, knowing the psalms very well, and I noticed that
their Latin was nearer German than French; but what was most pleasing
of all was to hear from all the men and women together that very noble
good-night and salutation to God which begins -
_Te, lucis ante terminum._
My whole mind was taken up and transfigured by this collective act,
and I saw for a moment the Catholic Church quite plain, and I
remembered Europe, and the centuries. Then there left me altogether
that attitude of difficulty and combat which, for us others, is always
associated with the Faith. The cities dwindled in my imagination, and
I took less heed of the modern noise. I went out with them into the
clear evening and the cool. I found my cigar and lit it again, and
musing much more deeply than before, not without tears, I considered
the nature of Belief.
