As the Christian spoke, I had been absently looking at the features of the stone angel beside me. A forgotten artist had carved them with restraint and power. Whether Christ were God or not God, the spirit that Christ preached was excellently signified in the stone. Presently a little spider strayed across the statue's brow, traversed its eye, wandered down its nose, and from the tip launched itself into space, swaying and gyrating on its thread. It landed at last on the joined hands. Strangely this outrage did not sully the angel's glory; heightened it rather, stressing that this fair messenger was not, after all an actual, a living yet supernatural being, but inanimate stone and a symbol. A symbol of the spirit. Well, and Jesus? Surely his true glory also was not that he was a supernatural being, descended out of heaven, but that he was a human individual (actual or fictitious) whose life, through its unique perfection, had become a symbol reigning in the hearts of men, and strengthening them with the vision of love's divinity.

  While I was musing about Christ as symbol, the Christian, with downcast eyes, was telling me how, in the light of that bright presence, and of the virtue of the God-man's conduct here on earth, he came to realize with increasing shame and horror the true condition of his own soul, and the ugliness of his own conduct. "My sister," he said, "whom I thought I loved so deeply, I never loved at all. Indeed, how could I love her, never having really known her, save as a comfort for myself? And when at last she failed me, I was resentful. My wife, too, I never loved. Even when I surrendered her, loving her (so I told myself) more than I craved her, the truth was simply that, with her heart elsewhere, she was useless to me; and so, striking a generous pose, I left her. It was the same with all my self-righteous indignation at the barbarities of war. This too was a mere gesture, its nerve not love but a vulgar tangle of mere squeamishness and pride."

  With a rueful smile he looked at me and said, "Pathetic! That we should so deceive ourselves!"

  Continuing his story, he reminded me that he had entered the cathedral to commit some outrage; but now, he said, he had sat for a long time paralysed with self-loathing because of his new perception of the spirit which his whole life had violated.

  Presently (he said) he found himself kneeling with his face bowed in his hands and tears breaking from his closed eyes. His lips formed the silent words, "Oh God, unmake me, destroy me! I have ruined the soul that you created."

  At last, he said, the miracle was completed. Christ took full possession of him. His old self-absorbed self fainted into nothingness (or so he believed) and in its place awoke a new self, wholly directed to God. He knew, of course, that he would sin a thousand times daily, through inveterate frailty; but he knew that he was saved.

  Yet in a way, he said, he cared little that he was a saved soul, for he was wholly intent upon the loveliness of the spirit that possessed him. He had in a manner outgrown even the desire for salvation. "Strange," he said, "that, although the unregenerate self violently craves immortality, yet when it is killed and reborn, and assured of fulfillment in eternity, it counts this a negligible fact. Its whole beatitude is that now, without any thought of self, it sees God and adores him, and wills only to perform God's will of it." I quickly interposed, "Then why, if you no longer craved eternal life, must you still believe that we do in fact live on eternally as individuals?" He paused, smiling. "That was a shrewd question," he said. There was silence before he answered, "I can say only that I see our immortality, I see our eternal reality. Also, if God should neglect to save his creatures, he would be less than the divine lover, and so not worshipful."

  Ignoring my wry face, he pursued his story of his conversion in the cathedral. For a while he had continued kneeling in inarticulate worship, but presently he allowed his gaze and his thoughts to range happily over the cool stonework and the listless, vaguely groping sightseers. It became clear to him that, since Christ had saved him, he must in gratitude fit himself to be a servant of Christ. He must equip himself to the utmost of his power with the traditional wisdom of Christ's Church. So he diffidently approached a priest and begged for guidance. For many weeks he read the scriptures and the records of the saints; and every day he came into the cathedral to pray alone or to take part in the services.

  "And now," he said, "I began to discover meaning in all the well-worn doctrines of the Church that formerly had seemed so silly or incredible. For instance, the doctrine of the Trinity began to be intelligible to me. How clear it is that, while God must be thought of as indivisibly one, he must also be three-fold! He must, of course, be the omnipotent Creator; but also he must be the divine Lover, distinct from omnipotence so as to suffer the whole depth of pain and misery; but also he must be the Holy Spirit, emanating from the Creator, inspiring the Lover, and beckoning all of us."

  Triumphantly the Christian's eyes sought mine, demanding assent. When my brows puckered, he smiled, as though to a dull child whom one must not discourage. Then, reverting to a simpler matter, more suited to my halting intelligence, he said, "And think again of immortality! When at last my heart was opened to receive the full light and warmth of Christ's divinity, it became clear to me that, though indeed the evil in us must be utterly destroyed, the essential and particular spirit that each of us is must be secured of eternal life through Christ's love. I saw that my sister, generous soul, must (since God is love) find bliss in eternity, and with her, all of us must be destined for salvation; save perhaps some few who irrevocably damn themselves through impenetrable hardness of heart. But for my part I have faith that even these are won by the Love that is all-powerful."

  "But how can you know," I protested, "how can you possibly know that Love is God, is an almighty being who rules the universe?" He replied fervently, "I tell you, my heart sees unmistakably that it is so."

  Searching my unlit face, he added, "You also shall see. Through me, Christ will save you." We both fell silent. Then he continued his gentle attack on my unbelief. "My friend," he said, "you yourself have already seen that without Christ the universe is unintelligible and unendurably horrible. You are now beginning to see that through Christ a meaning springs to the eye. All the evil of the world, which so dismayed you when I first saw you, turns out to be for our own good, to chasten us, to waken us to the spirit; that we may all at last blissfully live the life of the spirit in eternity." Again he watched me in silent expectation.

  *****

  I did not answer. Avoiding his gaze, I looked across the close. The rain was now hissing on the flagstones, each drop a bullet with splashing impact. A yellow butterfly, shot down by the first volley, feebly struggled on the wet ground, its wings muddy. From within, since the short service was over, the worshippers were issuing one by one; a few dim women, an elderly man, and also, rather self-consciously, a soldier. Each glanced upward, frowning at the deluge. Some put up umbrellas and hurried away; some waited in the porch to shelter. Newcomers to the cathedral stamped their feet and shook the water from their clothing.

  I did not answer, because I was desperately perplexed. How intelligible, how humane and friendly, the Christian's account of the ancient faith now seemed to me! I thought of you. How humanly right it seemed that you should be yourself in eternity; purged, no doubt, transfigured; but essentially and recognizably yourself, the unique particular being whose life I share! And how right that I, purged almost beyond recognition, should be with you eternally! The annihilation of our union did indeed seem to make nonsense of the universe.

  Yes, and this loving, this spirit that holds us together and raises each of us to a higher level of awareness in relation to the whole universe--could I deny, had I any need to deny, that in some sense it was divine? This spirit, that so quickened us, must surely be the quickening spirit of the whole universe, and the only way of universal fulfilment. And had I not at least seen that this spirit of love, if it is indeed divine, must in some way be personified in a supreme individual, who out of charity needs must bear all the sins of the world, needs must suffer in his own heart all the evil of all the worlds? And had I not, under this Christian's influence, felt at last that Jesus was in fact this perfect embodiment of the divine love?

  And so, and so ...But on the very brink of the abyss, vertigo seized me, and a will to surrender to the gulf of this salvation.

  The little spider had by now climbed back along his rope and had strung another from the statue's nose to its chin, and from chin to breast, laboriously constructing the framework for its web. The Christian, following the direction of my gaze, saw the silken threads and their minute author. With a careless hand he swept the threads from the statue's face and blew the spider from his fingers.

  Suddenly I knew that to demand eternal life for the individual, even for the beloved, even for you, was childish, and a betrayal. Love was indeed the way of life; and maybe in so dark a sense, which is at present inconceivable, it presides in the very heart of the universe; but to pledge oneself to this belief would nevertheless be for me a grave betrayal of spiritual integrity. Calmly, and without dismay, even with unreasoning joy, I reminded myself that you and I, loved and loving, might well in fact be short-lived sparkles, merely, in an age-old pyrotechnic. The vastness of the physical confronted me, the boundless void and the astronomical aeons; before man; before the planets congealed; before the oldest of the stars first spangled the nebulae; before the unnumbered host of the nebulae themselves condensed from the expanding cloud of the young cosmos; back to the initial and inscrutable creative act, the atom bomb from which all sprang.

  Hugeness is in itself nothing, but it has significance. For if this little world of ours, this grain, can in its lowly way harbour the spirit, what of the whole? The hugeness of space and time did not dismay me. I accepted it with grave joy, awed less by its threat than by pregnancy.

  And so, our little loving is indeed hesitantly significant; if not of the inscrutable heart of all things, at least of the splendour that the cosmos may support in countless worlds, happy and tragic.

  And now I saw once more quite clearly that what matters, what finally claims allegiance is not the individual nor even mankind, but something else, which all of us together, on earth and in all worlds, imperfectly manifest. This something, I told myself, this spirit, is indeed the music of the spheres, for which we are all lowly instruments and players. Whether this music is only to be appreciated gropingly by the players themselves, or whether it is for the discerning joy of some cosmical artist, or perhaps in some incomprehensible way for the very music itself, we cannot know. Perhaps it is for nothing. On that high plane thought is impotent.

  Then you and I? If the end is sleep, all's well. For we have lived. Or if in death we do indeed wake into some ampler life, to contribute further to the music, then again all's well. If we live on, it is for the music; if we die, equally it is for the music.

  The rain had stopped. The trees heavily dripped. Sunshine drew from the moist ground vapours and fragrances. The drowned butterfly lay still. Presently the cat, emerging from some shelter, strode haughtily, with the mouse limp between its teeth.

  But now the Christian, who had so patiently waited, was saying, "At last you are seeing (are you not?) that Christ redeems all suffering." I could not answer, except by a gesture of perplexity.

  While I was searching for a reply, a starling alighted by the dead butterfly, cocked an eye in our direction, gobbled the prize, stood for a moment quizzically regarding me with its head on one side, squawked insolently and then took wing.

  Suddenly I saw the Christian and myself as two large and solemn bipeds making strange noises at each other. The words that I had been using in my own mind echoed in my memory as poor animal calls labouring to signify things utterly beyond their range. How can the primitive grunts of any terrestrial animal ever signify truth about the depths and heights of reality? The little net of human discourse can sample only the ocean's surface, and all its harvest is flotsam. How should it possibly reach down to the beauties and horrors of the deep? Human reason, a fluttering moth, can never soar.

  Then what, I asked myself, was the appropriate attitude to the dark-bright, hideous-lovely Whole? Fear? Proud rebellion? Obsequious worship? Rather, I told myself, a difficult blend of acceptance in the heart and cold scrutiny in the mind.

  Acceptance, merely? For a moment the presence of the Whole, or of some greater thing beyond the Whole, seemed to bear down upon me in inconceivable majesty. My heart whispered, "Thou! Oh, Thou!"

  But immediately another thought, another prayer, was wrung from me. "Oh, let my heart strongly feel that presence, but let my mind be utterly silent before it. For even if I say, 'Thou! Oh, Thou,' I say too much."

  Praying in this strange way, I laughed.

  *****

  Thereupon the Christian, mistaking my long silence and final bark of laughter, slipped his arm in mine and said, "My friend you have won through. Merciful Christ has saved you."

  But at his touch I had stiffened, and now his arm retreated. Our eyes met, and for a long moment each searched the other.

  I was preparing to do battle against his proselytising, and to conquer his faith. But his eyes checked me. For his Christ had indeed saved him from his self-loving despair; and without his Christ he might be lost. In his present state of partial waking (so I told myself, perhaps complacently) he could not endure the severer vision.

  So I said, "You have been very good to me, and very patient. But the upshot is that your way is not mine. You need belief; for me it is unnecessary. Without it I travel lighter, yes and perhaps farther. Strangely, in my unbelief I gain full peace, the peace that passes understanding. And joy too. I have found joy in the sheer given reality, with all its dark-bright beauty. Light has come to you in one way, to me in another. And though you have not won me, I am grateful to you. Let neither of us grudge the other his vision.

  He was silent for some time. Then in a low voice he said, "I think you do not fully know what suffering is, and the illumination that it brings. May God take all joy from you, may he torment you as he tormented me, so that at last your eyes may be opened, and the true light may save you."

  Smiling, I offered my hand in parting. He gripped it, and we stood in silence. Then, he said, "God works in a mysterious way. If ever you need me I will help you." And I, laughing, replied, "And if someday your faith fails you, remember there is another way, and perhaps I can help." I left him.

  Looking back, I saw him standing between the two stone angels, his eyes downcast, under the grooved archway, under the great west front that bombs had marred.

  *****

  Well, I have told you. And in your presence my mind runs clearer. For now I see that, though on a certain level the truth was mainly on my side, it was marred by an unwitting complacency, an intellectual and perhaps a spiritual arrogance. I did not after all take deeply enough to heart my own mind's inadequacy. Perhaps a more awakened consciousness would have seen in that Christian's faith a deeper truth than in my scepticism. Was he after all right when he said that I needed more of suffering?

  Perhaps! But even so, must I not at all costs be true to my own light, never pretending to reach farther than its beam can search? Yes, and I gladly choose the clear cold brightness of my vision, though darkness surrounds it. I prefer it to the Christian's more comfortable glow and warmth. I am loyal to it because it reveals more to me and demands more of me.

  Second Encounter:

  A SCIENTIST

  I have met a scientist, and now I must tell you about him.

  It was at the party, the congested, the conglomerate party, where I was taken "to meet people." If you had been with me, perhaps I could have made con- tact, but the man who had brought me was too soon swept from me by the throng's glacier drift. The few whom he had burdened with me had tried to include me, but we could find no catalytic. I was a goat penned among sheep. The bleating was alien to me, though alas not meaningless. With each new guest's arrival, the flood of sound rose higher. I was a trapped miner, the water rising toward his mouth.

  Yet many of these people were individually notable. From press photographs I recognized a cabinet minister, two famous writers, a popular actress, an eminent scientist. Among the bright female silks and the male motley of black and white, there was a high ecclesiastic in purple tunic and breeches. His face was old sandstone, crowned with snow; and under the white cornices of his brows gleamed serpent eyes, of wisdom or of cunning. Individually distinguished, and leaders of my species in this island, why should these creatures seem to me in my loneliness a bunch of chattering monkeys?

  Across the room, a young man stood alone in silence. His glass was empty. His cigarette ash dropped unnoticed. Intently, and with a secret smile, he reviewed the huddled flock. I thought of a sparrow hawk on a high branch, watching for prey; then of a mongrel terrier, scruffy, genial, mischievous, none too clean, with mud unnoticed on his muzzle. He was a raw-boned young man, wire-haired, with terrier eyes, and a complexion of uncooked shrimps.

  I struck boldly into a current that was setting in his direction. When I had emerged beside him, I waited a little, for decency, and to recover composure; then I said casually, "Do you know these people, mostly? I am told they are all distinguished, all leaders of our society." His response was delayed. Judicially, he replied, "Five percent, perhaps, I know; maybe seven. Leaders? Yes, of stampeding swine, heading for the precipice." There was silence. "These occasions," I ventured, "terrify me. Silly, isn't it!" He answered at once, "Just boring, I call them. When I find myself stranded, I play a game. I study the fauna." Silence fell once more, so I reminded him of my presence by remarking that a crowd of strangers did often strike one as mere fauna.

  To my surprise he let loose a flood of fantasy, couched in a jargon that was consciously literary. "First," he said, "I observe that these creatures are all specimens of Homo sapiens, and at bottom palaeolithic savages, though tricked out modernistically in tissues of vegetable fibre or animal hair, or the secretion of caterpillars, with here and there scraps of hide, bits of metal, and a sprinkling of rare crystals. That priest in fancy dress is the successful medicine man, skilled in spells, the practiced ventriloquist who makes the great idol speak laws or threats. That major there, unbelievably kilted, I see as a tribal warrior, with naked cart-horse muscles and a girdle of scalps. That other's waist-coated paunch might never have reached such magnitude in the hard early days of the species; but reduce it somewhat, and you gave the bulging and sweaty headman of the tribe, already past his rule, soon to be done away with by the scalp-girdled one. In the corner, there, a born herd leader wallows in the admiration of those withered women and those youths. See how his ears are pricked for every tremor of opinion, how he laps up the public's whims, to regurgitate them later as his own God-given gospel."

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10