Books: The Master Christian

M >> Marie Corelli >> The Master Christian

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The Cardinal sighed deeply.

"Yes, my child, but He told us plainly WHY He suffered. It was that
we might learn to follow Him, and that there should be less
suffering for the future. And surely we have not obeyed Him, or
there could not be so much pain and difficulty in the world as there
is now."

"If He come again, you think He would be grieved and disappointed in
His followers?" queried Manuel softly.

"If He came again, I fear He would not find much of His teaching in
any of the creeds founded on His name! If He came again, then indeed
might the churches tremble, totter and fall!"

"If He came again," pursued Manuel, still in the same soft, even
voice, "how do you think He would come?"

"'Watch ye therefore for ye know not when He cometh,'" murmured the
Cardinal,--" My dear child, I think if He came again it would be
perhaps in the disguise of one who is poor and friendless 'despised
and rejected of men,' as when He first glorified the earth by His
presence; and I fear that in such plight He would find Himself, as
before, unwelcome."

Manuel made no reply just then, as they had arrived at home. The
servant who admitted them told them that Donna Sovrani had a visitor
in her studio,--so that the Cardinal and his young attendant went
straight to their own apartments.

"Read to me, Manuel," then said Bonpre, seating himself near the
window, and looking out dreamily on the rich foliage of the woods
and grassy slopes that stretched before him, "Find something in the
Gospels that will fit what we have seen to-day. I am tired of all
these temples and churches!--these gorgeous tombs and reliquaries;
they represent penances and thank-offerings no doubt, but to me they
seem useless. A church should not be a shrine for worldly stuff,
unless indeed such things are used again for the relief of poverty
and suffering; but they are not used; they are simply kept under
lock and key and allowed to accumulate,--while human creatures
dwelling perhaps quite close to these shrines, are allowed to die of
starvation. Did you think this when you spoke to the priest who was
offended with you to-day?"

"Yes, I thought it," replied Manuel gently, "But then he said I was
a heretic. When one loves God better than the Church is one called a
heretic?"

Cardinal Bonpre looked earnestly at the boy's inspired face,--the
face of a dreaming angel in its deep earnestness.

"If so, then I am heretic," he answered slowly, "I love the Creator
as made manifest to me in His works,--I love Him in every flower
which I am privileged to look upon,--I find Him in every art and
science,--I worship Him in a temple not made with hands,--His own
majestic Universe! Above all churches,--above all formulated creeds
and systems I love Him! And as declared in the divine humanity of
Christ I believe in, and adore Him! If this makes me unworthy to be
His priest and servant then I confess my unworthiness!"

He had spoken these words more to himself than Manuel, and in his
fervour had closed his eyes and clasped his hands,--and he almost
fancied that a soft touch, light as a falling rose-leaf, had for a
second rested on his brow. He looked up quickly, wondering whether
it was Manuel who had so touched him,--the boy was certainly near
him,--but was already seated with the Testament open ready to read
as requested. The Cardinal raised himself in his chair,--a sense of
lightness, and freedom, and ease, possessed him,--the hopeless and
tired feeling which had a few minutes since weighed him down with an
undefinable languor was gone,--and his voice had gained new strength
and energy when he once more spoke.

"You have found words of our Lord which will express what we have
seen to-day?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Manuel, and he read in a clear vibrating tone, "Woe
unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because ye build the
tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous."
Here he paused and said, while the Cardinal gazed at him
wonderingly, "Is not that true of Paris? There is their great
Pantheon where most of their prophets lie,--their poets and their
teachers whom they wronged and slandered in their lifetime--"

"My child," interrupted Bonpre gently, "Poets and so-called teachers
are not always good men. One named Voltaire, who scoffed at God, and
enunciated the doctrine of materialism in France, is buried there."

"Nevertheless he also was a prophet," persisted Manuel, in his
quiet, half-childlike, half-scholarly way, "A prophet of evil. He
was the incarnation of the future spirit of Paris. He lived as a
warning of what was to come,--a warning of the wolves that were
ready to descend upon the Master's fold. But Paris was then perhaps
in the care of those 'hirelings' who are mentioned here as caring
not for the sheep."

He turned a few pages and continued reading.

"'Well hath Esais prophesied of you, hypocrites, as it is written,
This people honoureth me with their lips but their heart is far from
me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, TEACHING FOR DOCTRINE THE
COMMANDMENTS OF MAN.'"

He emphasised the last few words and looked up at the Cardinal, then
he went on.

"'Whosoever will come after me let him deny himself and take up his
cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it,
but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake the same shall save
it.'"

"Yes," said Cardinal Bonpre fervently, "It is all there!--'Whosoever
will come after me let him deny himself,' LET HIM DENY HIMSELF! That
is the secret of it. Self-denial! And this age is one of self-
indulgence. We are on the wrong road, all of us, both Church and
laity,--and if the Master should come He will not find us watching,
but sleeping."

He broke off, as at that moment a knock came at the door and a
servant entered the room bringing him a letter. It was from the Abbe
Vergniaud, and ran as follows:--

"TRES CHER MONSIGNEUR! I preach the day after tomorrow at Notre Dame
de Lorette, and if you wish to do a favour to a dying man you will
come and hear me. I am moved to say things I have never said before,
and it is possible I may astonish and perchance scandalise Paris.
What inspires me I do not know,--perhaps your well-deserved reproach
of the other day--perhaps the beautiful smile of the angel that
dwells in Donna Sovrani's eyes,--perhaps the chance meeting with
your Rouen foundling on the stairs as I was flying away from your
just wrath. He had been gathering roses in the garden, and gave me
one with a grace in the giving which made the flower valuable. It
still lives and blooms in a glass on my writing-table at which I
have been jotting down the notes of what I mean to say. WHAT I MEAN
TO SAY! There is more in those words than there seems, if you could
but guess all! I shall trust to the day itself for the necessary
eloquence. The congregation that assembles at the Lorette is a
curious and a mixed one. 'Artistes' of the stage and the cafe
chantant are among the worshippers;--dames of rank and fashion who
worship the male 'artistes,' and the golden youth of Paris who adore
the very points of the shoes of the female ones,--are generally
there also. It is altogether what 'perfide Albion,' or Dame Grundee
would call a 'fast' audience. And the fact that I have arranged to
preach there will draw a still greater mixture and 'faster' quality,
as I am, alas!--a fashion in preachers. I pray you to come, or I
shall think you have not forgiven me!

"VERGNIAUD."

Cardinal Bonpre folded the letter and put it aside with a curious
feeling of compassion for the writer.

"Yes, I will go," he thought, "I have never heard him preach, though
I know by report that he is popular. I was told once that he seems
to be possessed by a very demon of mockery, and that it is this
spirit which makes his attraction for the people; but I hope it is
something more than that--I hope--" Here interrupting his
meditations he turned to Manuel.

"So you gave the Abbe Vergniaud a rose the other day, my child?"

"Yes," replied Manuel, "He looked sad when I met him,--and sometimes
a flower gives pleasure to a person in sorrow."

The Cardinal thought of his own roses far away, and sighed with a
sensation of longing and homesickness.

"Flowers are like visible messages from God," he said, "Messages
written in all the brightest and loveliest colours! I never gather
one without finding out that it has something to say to me."

"There is a legend," said Manuel, "which tells how a poor girl who
has lost every human creature she loved on earth, had a rose-tree
she was fond of, and every day she found upon it just one bloom. And
though she longed to gather the flower for herself she would not do
so, but always placed it before the picture of the Christ. And God
saw her do this, as He sees everything. At last, quite suddenly she
died, and when she found herself in Heaven, there were such crowds
and crowds of angels about her that she was bewildered, and could
not find her way. All at once she saw a pathway edged with roses
before her, and one of the angels said, 'These are all the roses you
gave to our Lord on earth, and He has made them into a pathway for
you which will lead you straight to those you love!' And so with
great joy she followed the windings of the path, seeing her roses
blossoming all the way, and she found all those whom she had loved
and lost on earth waiting to welcome her at the end!"

"A pretty fancy," said the Cardinal smiling, "And, as not even a
thought is wasted, who knows if it might not prove true?"

"Surely the beautiful must be the true always!" said Manuel.

"Not so, my child,--a fair face may hide an evil soul."

"But only for a little while," answered the boy, "The evil soul must
leave its impress on the face in time, if life lasts long enough."

"That is quite possible," said Bonpre, "In fact, I think it often
happens,--only there are some people who simulate the outward show
of goodness and purity perfectly, while inwardly 'they are as
ravening wolves,' and they never seem to drop the mask. Others
again--" Here he paused and looked anxiously at his young companion,
"I wonder what you will be like when you grow up, Manuel!"

"But if I never grow up, what then?" asked Manuel with a smile.

"Never grow up? You mean--"

"I mean if I die," said Manuel, "or pass through what is called
dying before I grow up?"

"God forbid!" said the Cardinal gently, "I would have you live--"

"But why," persisted Manuel, "since death is a better life?"

Bonpre looked at him wistfully.

"But if you grow up and are good and great, you may be wanted in the
world," he said.

An expression of deep pain swept like a shadow across the boy's fair
open brow.

"Oh no!" he said quietly, "the world does not want me! And yet I
love the world--not because it is a world, for there are millions
upon millions of worlds,--they are as numerous as flowers in a
garden--but because it is a sorrowful world,--a mistaken world,--and
because all the creatures in it have something of God in them. Yes,
I love the world!--but the world does not love me."

He spoke in a tone of gentle pathos, with the resigned and patient
air of one who feels the burden of solitude and the sense of
miscomprehension. And closing the Testament he held he rested his
clasped hands upon it, and for a moment seemed lost in sorrowful
reverie.

"I love you," said the Cardinal tenderly, "And I will take care of
you as well as I can."

Manuel looked up at him.

"And that will be well indeed, my lord Cardinal!" he said softly,
"And you serve a Master who will hereafter say to you, remembering
your goodness,--'Verily, in asmuch as ye have done it unto the least
of my brethren ye have done it unto Me.'"

He smiled; and the Cardinal meeting his glance wondered whether it
was the strong level light of the sinking sun through the window-
pane that made such a glory shine upon his face, and gave such a
brilliancy to his deep and steadfast eyes.

XI.

Meanwhile, Angela Sovrani was detained in her studio by the
fascinating company and bewildering chatter of a charming and very
well-known personage in Europe,--a dainty, exquisitely dressed piece
of femininity with the figure of a sylph and the complexion of a
Romney "Lady Hamilton,"--the Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein, an Austro-
Hungarian of the prettiest and most bewitching type, who being a
thorough bohemienne in spirit, and having a large fortune at her
disposal, travelled everywhere, saw everything, and spent great sums
of money not only in amusing herself, but in doing good wherever she
went. By society in general, she was voted "thoroughly heartless,"--
when as a matter of fact she had too much heart, and gave her
"largesse" of sympathy somewhat too indiscriminately. Poor people
worshipped her,--the majority of the rich envied her because most of
them had ties and she had none. She might have married scores of
times, but she took a perverse pleasure in "drawing on" her admirers
till they were just on the giddy brink of matrimony,--then darting
off altogether she left them bewildered, confused, and not a little
angry.

"They tell me I cannot love, cara mia," she was saying now to Angela
who sat in pleased silence, studying her form, her colouring, and
her animated expression; with all the ardour of an artist who knows
how difficult it is to catch the swift and variable flashes of
beauty on the face of a pretty woman, who is intelligent as well as
personally charming. "They tell me I have no heart at all. Me--
Sylvie!--no heart! Helas!--I am all heart! But to love one of those
stupid heavy men, who think that just to pull a moustache and smile
is sufficient to make a conquest--ah, no!--not for me! Yet I am now
in love!--truly!--ah, you laugh!--" and she laughed herself, shaking
her pretty head, adorned with its delicate "creation" in gossamer
and feathers, which was supposed to be a hat--"Yes, I am in love
with the Marquis Fontenelle! Ah!--le beau Marquis! He is so
extraordinary!--so beautiful!--so wicked! It must be that I love
him, or why should I trouble myself about him?"

She spread out her tiny gloved hands appealingly, with a delightful
little shrug of her shoulders, and again Angela laughed.

"He is good-looking, certainly," she said, "He is very like
Miraudin. They might almost be brothers."

"Miraudin, ce cher Miraudin!" exclaimed the Comtesse gaily, "The
greatest actor in Europe! Yes, truly!--I go to the theatre to look
at him and I almost fancy I am in love with him instead of
Fontenelle, till I remember he stage-manages;--ah!--then I shudder!-
-and my shudder kills my love! After all it is only his resemblance
to the Marquis that causes the love,--and perhaps the shudder!"

"Sylvie, Sylvie!" laughed Angela, "Can you not be serious? What do
you mean?"

"I mean what I say," declared Sylvie, "Miraudin used to be the
darling of all the sentimental old maids and little school-girls who
did not know him off the stage. In Paris, in Rome, in Vienna, in
Buda-Pesth--always a conqueror of ignorant women who saw him in his
beautiful 'make-up'! Yes, he was perfectly delightful,--this big
Miraudin, till he became his own manager and his own leading actor
as well! Helas! What it is to be a manager! Do you know? It is to
keep a harem like a grand Turk;--and woe betide the woman who joins
the company without understanding that she is to be one of the many!
The sultana is the 'leading lady'. Poor Miraudin!--he must have many
little faggots to feed his flame! Oh, you look so shocked! But the
Marquis is just like him,--he also stage-manages."

"In what way?"

"Ah, he has an enormous theatre,--the world! A big stage,--society!
The harem is always being replenished! And he plays his part so
well! He has what the wise-acrescall 'perverted morals',--they are
so charming!--and he will not marry. He says, 'Why give myself to
one when I can make so many happy!' And why will not I, Sylvie
Hermenstein, be one of those many? Why will I not yield to the
embraces of Monsieur le beau Marquis? Not to marry him,--oh, no! so
free a bird could not have his wings clipped! And why will I not see
the force of this?--"

She stopped, for Angela sprang towards her exclaiming,

"Sylvie! Do you mean to tell me that the Marquis Fontenelle is such
a villain?--"

"Tais-toi! Dear little flame of genius, how you blaze!" cried
Sylvie, catching her friend by the hand and kissing it, "Do not call
Fontenelle a villain--he is too charming!--and he is only like a
great many other men. He is a bold and passionate person; I rather
like such characters,--and I really am afraid--afraid--" here she
hesitated, then resumed, "He loves me for the moment, Angela, and I-
-I very much fear I love him for a little longer than that! C'est
terrible! He is by no means worthy of it,--no, but what does that
matter! We women never count the cost of loving--we simply love! If
I see much of him I shall probably sink into the Quartier Latin of
love--for there is a Quartier Latin as well as a high class Faubourg
in the passion,--I prefer the Faubourg I confess, because it is so
high, and respectable, and clean, and grand--but--"

"Sylvie," said Angela determinedly, "You must come away from Paris,-
-you must not see this man--"

"That is what I have arranged to do," said Sylvie, her beautiful
violet eyes flashing with mirth and malice intermingled, "I am
flying from Paris . . . I shall perhaps go to Rome in order to be near
you. You are a living safety in a storm,--you are so serene and
calm. And then you have a lover who believes in the ideal and
perfect sympathy."

Angela smiled,--and Sylvie Hermenstein noted the warm and tender
flush of pleasure that spread over her fair face.

"Yes, Florian is an idealist," she said, "There is nothing of the
brute in him."

"And you think Fontenelle a brute?" queried Sylvie, "Yes, I suppose
he is; but I have sometimes thought that all men are very much
alike,--except Florian!" She paused, looking rather dubiously, and
with a touch of compassion at Angela, "Well!--you deserve to be
happy, child, and I hope you will be! For myself, I am going to run
away from Monsieur le Marquis with as much speed as if I had stolen
his watch!"

"It is the best thing you can do," said Angela with a little sigh of
relief, "I am glad you are resolved."

Comtesse Sylvie rose from her chair and moved about the studio with
a pretty air of impatience.

"If his love for me could last," she said, "I might stay! I would
love him with truth and passion, and I would so influence him that
he should become one of the most brilliant leading men of his time.
For he has all the capabilities of genius,--but they are dormant,--
and the joys of self-indulgence appeal to him more strongly than
high ambition and attainment. And he could not love any women for
more than a week or a month at most,--in which temperament he
exactly resembles the celebrated Miraudin. Now I do not care to be
loved for a week or a month--I wish to be loved for always,--for
always!" she said with emphasis, "Just as your Florian loves you."

Angela's eyes grew soft and pensive.

"Few men are like Florian," she said. Again Sylvie looked at her
doubtfully, and there was a moment's silence. Then Sylvie resumed.

"Will you help me to give a little lesson to Monsieur le Marquis,
Angela?"

"Willingly, if I can. But how?"

"In this way. It is a little drama! To-morrow is Saturday and you
'receive.' 'Tout Paris', artistic Paris, at any rate, flocks to your
studio. Your uncle, the Cardinal Bonpre, is known to be with you,
and your visitors will be still more numerous. I have promised
Fontenelle to meet him here. I am to give him his answer--"

"To what?" enquired Angela.

"To his proposal."

"Of marriage?"

"Dear me, no!" And Sylvie smiled, but there was a look of pain in
her eyes, "He has an idyllic house buried in the Foret St. Germain,
and he wants me to take possession . . . you know the rest! He is a
villain? Yes--he is like Miraudin, who has a luxurious flat in Paris
and sends each lady of his harem there in turn. How angry you look!
But, my dear, I am not going to the house in the Foret, and I shall
not meet him here. He will come--looking charming as usual, and he
will wait for me; but I shall not arrive. All I want you to do for
me is to receive him very kindly, talk to him very sweetly, and tell
him quite suddenly that I have left Paris."

"What good will that do?" enquired Angela, "Could you not write it
to him?"

"Of course I could write it to him but--" Here Sylvie paused and
turned away her head. Angela, moved by quick instinct, went to her
and put her arm around her waist.

"Now there are tears in your eyes, Sylvie," she said, "You are
suffering for this man's heartlessness and cruelty. For it IS
heartless,--it is insulting, and selfish, and cruel to offer you
nothing but dishonour if he knows you love him."

Sylvie took out a tiny cobweb of a lace handkerchief and dried her
tears.

"No, I will not have him called heartless, or cruel," she said, "He
is merely one of his class. There are hundreds like him in Paris.
Never mind my tears!--they are nothing. There are hundreds of women
who would accept his proposals,--and he thinks I must be like them,-
-ready to fall into his arms like a ripe peach at a touch! He thinks
all I say to him is an assumed affectation of virtue, and that he
can easily break down that slight barricade. He tells me I am a
charming preacher, but that he could never learn anything from
sermons!" She laughed, "Oh, he is incorrigible! But I want you to
let him know that for once he is mistaken. Will you? And you shall
not have to say even the smallest figment of an untruth,--your news
will be quite correct--for I leave Paris to-morrow morning."

She was very quiet now as she spoke--her brilliant eyes were dark
with thought, and her delicate face wore a serious, almost
melancholy expression.

"Dear Sylvie!" said Angela, kissing her soft cheek, "You really care
for this wretched man?"

"I am not sure," she answered with a touch of hesitation in her
voice, "I think I do--and yet despise myself for it!--but--who knows
what wonders change of air and scene may work! You see, if I go away
he will forget at once, and will trouble himself about me no more."

"Are you sure of that?"

Sylvie hesitated.

"Well, no, I cannot be quite certain,--you see no woman has ever
avoided him,--it will be quite a new experience for him, and a
strange one!" Her laughter rippled out musically on the air.
"Positively I do not think he will ever get over it!"

"I begin to understand," said Angela, "You wish to make this callous
man of the world realise that a woman may be beautiful, and
brilliant, and independent, and yet live a pure, good life amid
numerous temptations?"

"Yes,--I wish him to feel that all women are not to be led away by
flattery, or even by the desire to be loved, which is the hardest
temptation of all to resist! Nothing so hard as that, Angela!
Nothing so hard! I have often thought what a contemptible creature
Goethe's Gretchen was to allow herself to be tempted to ruin with a
box of jewels! Jewels! Worthless baubles! I would not cross the road
to look at the biggest diamond in the world! But to be loved! To
feel that you are all in all to one man out of the whole world! That
would be glorious! That I have never felt--that I shall never know!"

Angela looked at her sympathetically,--what a strange thing it was,
she thought, that this pretty creature, with her winsome, bright,
bewitching ways, should be craving for love, while she, Angela
Sovrani, was elected to the happiness of having the absolute
devotion of such an ideal lover as Florian Varillo!

"But I am becoming quite tragic in my remarks," went on Sylvie,
resuming her usual gaiety, "Melodramatic, as they say! If I go on in
this manner I shall qualify to be the next 'leading lady' to
Miraudin! Quelle honneur! Good-bye Angela;--I will not tell you
where I am going lest Fontenelle should ask you,--and then you would
have to commit yourself to a falsehood,--it is enough to say I have
left Paris."

"Shall I see you again soon?" said Angela, holding her by both hands
and looking at her anxiously.

"Yes, very soon, before the winter is over at any rate. You sweet,
calm, happy Angela! I wonder if anything could ever whip you in a
storm!"

"Would you like to see me in a stormy humour?" asked Angela,
smiling.

"No, not exactly;--but,--you are TOO quiet,--too secure--too
satisfied in your art and your surroundings; and you do not enter at
all into the passions and griefs of other people. You are absorbed
in your love and your work,--a beautiful existence! Only I hope the
gods will not wake you up some day!"

"I am not asleep," said Angela, "nor dreaming."

"Yes you are! You dream of beautiful things,--and the world is full
of ugly ones; you dream of love and constancy, and purity,--and the
world is full of spite, and hate, and bribery, and wickedness; you
have a world of your own,--but Angela, it is a glass world!--in
which only the exquisite colours of your own soul are reflected,
take care that the pretty globe does not break!--for if it does you
will never be able to put it together again! Adieu!"