The Cathedral (Huysmans)/Chapter XVI

The day had come for Durtal to strap his portmanteau and set out with the Abbé Plomb.

He became fidgety with waiting as the hours went by. At last, unable to sit still, he went out to kill the time, but a drizzling rain drove him for shelter into the cathedral.

After offering his devotions to the Virgin of the Pillar, he seated himself amid a camp of vacant chairs to meditate.

"Before interrupting the quiet monotony of my life at Chartres by this journey, shall I not do well to look into myself, if only for a minute, and take stock of what I have gained before and since settling in this town?

"The gain to my soul? Alas! it consists less in acquisitions than in exchanges; I have merely found aridity in the place of indolence; and the results of the exchange I know only too well; of what use is it to go through them once more? The gains to my mind seem to me less distressing and more genuine, and I can make a brief catalogue of them under three heads: Past, Present, and Future.

"In the Past.—When I least expected it, in Paris, God suddenly seized me and drew me back to the Church, taking advantage of my love of Art, of mysticism, of the Liturgy, and of plain-song.

"Still, during the travail of this conversion, I could not study mysticism anywhere but in books; I knew it only in theory and not in practice. On the other hand, in Paris, I never heard any but dull, lifeless music, watered down, as it were, in women's throats, or utterly disfigured by the choir schools. In most of the churches I found only a colourless ceremonial, a meagre form of service.

"This was the situation when I set out for La Trappe: under that strict rule I found mysticism not only in its simplest expression, written out and set forth in a body of doctrine, but mysticism as a personal experience, in action, simply an element of life to those monks. I could convince myself that the science of the soul's perfection was no delusion, that the assertions of Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross were strictly true, and in that cloister it was also vouchsafed to me to be familiar with the enjoyment of an authentic ritual and genuine plain-song.

"In the Present.—At Chartres I have entered on new exercises, I have followed other traces. Haunted by the matchless grandeur of this cathedral, under the guidance of a very intelligent and cultivated priest I have studied religious symbolism, worked up that great science of the Middle Ages which is in fact a language peculiar to the Church, expressing by images and signs what the Liturgy expresses in words.

"Or, to be more exact, it would be better to say that part of the Liturgy which is more particularly concerned with prayer; for that part of it which relates to forms, and injunctions as to worship, is itself symbolism, symbolism is the soul of it. In fact, the limit-line of the two branches is not always easy to trace, so often are they grafted together; they inspire each other, intertwine, and at last are almost one.

"In the Future.—By going to Solesmes I shall complete my education; I shall see and hear the most perfect expression of that Liturgy and that Gregorian chant of which the little convent of Notre Dame de l'Atre, by reason of the limited number of the Brethren, could only afford a reduced copy—very faithful, it is true, but yet reduced.

"By adding to this my own studies of the religious paintings removed now from the sanctuaries and collected in museums, and supplementing them by my remarks on the various cathedrals I may explore, I shall have travelled round the whole cycle of mysticism, have extracted the essence of the Middle Ages, have combined in a sort of sheaf these separate branches, scattered now for so many centuries, and have investigated more thoroughly one especially—Symbolism namely, of which certain elements are almost lost from sheer neglect.

"Yes. Symbolism has lent the principal charm to my life at Chartres; it occupied and comforted me when I was suffering from finding my soul so importunate and yet so low."

And he tried to recapitulate the science, to view it as a whole.

He saw it as a thickly branched tree, the root deep set in the very soil of the Bible; from thence, in fact, it drew its substance and its nourishment: the trunk was the Symbolism of the Scriptures, the Old Testament prefiguring the Gospels; the branches were the allegorical purport of architecture, of colours, gems, flowers, and animals; the hieroglyphics of numbers; the emblematical meaning of the vessels and vestments of Church use. A small bough represented Liturgical perfumes, and a mere twig, dried up from the first and almost dead, represented dancing.

"For religious dancing once existed," Durtal went on. "In ancient times it was a recognized offering of adoration, a tithe of light-heartedness. David leaping before the Ark shows this.

"And in the earliest Christian times the faithful and the priesthood shook themselves in honour of the Redeemer, and fancied that by choric motion they were imitating the joy of the Blessed, the glee of the Angels described by Saint Basil as executing figures in the radiant assemblies of Heaven.

"One is soon accustomed to endure Masses of the kind called at Toledo Mussarabes, during which the congregation dance and gambol in the cathedral; but these capers presently lose the pious character that they are supposed to bear; they become an incentive to the revelry of the senses, and several Councils have prohibited them.

"In the seventeenth century sacred dances still survived in some provinces; we hear of them at Limoges, where the Curé of St. Leonard and his parishioners pirouetted in the choir of the church. In the eighteenth century their traces are found in Roussillon, and at the present day religious dancing still survives; but the tradition of this saintly frisking is chiefly preserved in Spain.

"Not long since, on the day of Corpus Christi at Compostella, the procession was led through the streets by a tall man who danced carrying another on his shoulders. And to this day, at Seville, on the festival of the Holy Sacrament, the choir-children turn in a sort of slow waltz as they sing hymns before the high altar of the cathedral. In other towns, on the festivals of the Virgin, a saraband is slowly danced round Her statue, with striking of sticks, and the rattle of castanets; and to close the ceremony by way of Amen the people fire off squibs.

"All this, however, is of no great interest, and I cannot help wondering what meaning can have been attributed to cutting capers and spinning round. I find it difficult to believe that farandoles and boleros could ever represent prayer; I can hardly persuade myself that it can be an act of thanksgiving to trample peppers under foot or appearing to grind at an imaginary coffee-mill with one's arms.

"In point of fact no one knows anything about the symbolism of dancing; no record has come down to us of the meanings ascribed to it of old. Church dancing is really no more than a gross form of rejoicing among Southern races. We need mention it merely as noteworthy, and that is all.

"Now, from a practical point of view, what has the influence of symbolism been on souls?"

Durtal could answer himself.

"The Middle Ages, knowing that everything on earth is a sign and a figure, that the only value of things visible is in so far as they correspond to things invisible—the Middle Ages, when consequently men were not, as we are, the dupes of appearances—made a profound study of this science, and made it the nursing mother and the handmaid of mysticism.

"Convinced that the only aim that it was incumbent on man to follow, the only end he could really need, was to place himself in direct communication with Heaven, and to out-strip death by merging himself, unifying himself to the utmost, with God, it tempted souls, subjecting them to a moderate claustral course, purged them of their earthly interests, their fleshly aims, and led them back again and again to the same purpose of renunciation and repentance, the same ideas of justice and love; and then to retain them, to preserve them from themselves, it enclosed them in a fence, placed God all about them, as it were, under every form and aspect."

Jesus was seen in everything—in the fauna, the flora, the structure of buildings, in every decoration, in the use of colour. Whichever way man could turn, he still saw Him.

And at the same time he saw his own soul as in a mirror that reflected it; in certain animals, certain colours, and certain plants he could discern the qualities which it was his duty to acquire, the vices against which he had to defend himself.

And he had other examples before his eyes, for the symbolists did not restrict themselves to turning botany, mineralogy, natural history, and other sciences to the uses of a catechism; some of them, and among others Saint Melito, ended by applying the process to the interpretation of every object that came in their way. A cithara was to them the breast of the devout man; the members of the human frame became emblematical: the head was Christ, the hairs were the saints, the nose meant discretion, the nostrils the spirit of faith, the eye contemplation, the mouth symbolized temptation, the saliva was the sweetness of the inner life, the ears figured obedience, the arms the love of Jesus, the hands stood for good works, the knees for the sacrament of penance, the legs for the Apostles, the shoulders for the yoke of Christ, the breast for evangelical doctrine, the belly for avarice, the bowels for the mysterious precepts of the Lord, the body and loins for suggestions of lust, the bones typified hardness of heart, and the marrow compunction, the sinews were evil members of Anti-Christ. And these writers extended this method of interpretation to the commonest objects of daily use, even to tools and vessels within reach of all.

Thus there was an uninterrupted course of pious teaching. Yves de Chartres tells us that priests instructed the people in symbolism, and from the researches of Dom Pitra we know that in the Middle Ages Saint Melito's treatise was popular and known to all. Thus the peasant learnt that his plough was an image of the Cross, that the furrows it made were like the hearts of saints freshly tilled; he knew that sheaves were the fruit of repentance, flour the multitude of the faithful, the granary the Kingdom of Heaven; and it was the same with many pursuits. In short, this method of analogies was a bidding to everybody to watch and pray better.

Thus utilized, symbolism became a break to check the forward march of sin, and at the same time a sort of lever to uplift souls and help them to overleap the stages of the mystical life.

This science, translated into so many languages, was no doubt intelligible only in broad outline to the masses, and sometimes, when it percolated through the labyrinthine maze of such minds as that of the worthy Bishop of Mende, it appeared overwrought, full of contradictions, and of double meanings. It seems then as if the symbolist were splitting a hair with embroidery scissors. But, in spite of the extravagance it tolerated and smiled at, the Church succeeded, nevertheless, by these tactics of repetition, in saving souls and carrying out on a large scale the production of saints.

Then came the Renaissance, and symbolism was wrecked at the same time as church architecture.

Mysticism in the stricter sense of the word, more fortunate than its handmaidens, survived that period of festive dishonour; for it may be safely asserted that, though it was unproductive while living through that period, it flourished anew in Spain, producing its noblest blossoms in Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa.

Since then doctrinal mysticism seems dried up at the source. Not so, however, as regards personal mysticism, which still dwells acclimatized and flourishing in convents.

As to the Liturgy and plain-song, they too have gone through very various phases. After being dissected and filtered in the numberless provincial Uses, the Liturgy was brought back to the standard of Rome by the efforts of Dom Guéranger, and it may be hoped that the Benedictines at last will also bring all the churches back to the strict use of plain-song.

"And this church above all!" sighed Durtal.

He looked at his cathedral, loving it better than ever now that he was to part from it for a few days. To impress it the better on his memory he tried to sum it up, to concentrate it, saying to himself,—

"It is the epitome of Heaven and Earth; of Heaven by showing us the serried phalanx of its inhabitants—Prophets, Patriarchs, Angels and Saints, lighting up the interior of the church by their transparent figures; by singing to the glory of the Mother and the Son. Of Earth, for it connotes the elation of the soul, the ascension of man; it points out quite clearly to Christian souls the path of the perfect life. They, to apprehend its symbolism, should enter by the Royal doorway, and pass up the nave, the transept and the choir—the three successive phases of Asceticism; reach the top of the Cross where, surrounded by the chapels of the apse as by a Crown, the head of the Saviour lies, His neck bent, as we see them symbolized by the altar and the deflected axis of the church.

"There the pilgrim has reached the united ways, close to the Virgin, who mourns no more as she does in the agonizing scene on Calvary, at the foot of the Tree, but, under the figure of the Sacristy, remains veiled by the side of Her Son's countenance, getting closer to Him the better to comfort and to see Him.

"And this allegory of the mystical life as set forth by the interior of the cathedral, is carried out by the exterior, in the suppliant effect of the whole building.

"The Soul, distraught by the joy of union, heart-broken at having still to live, only aspires now to escape for ever from the Gehenna of the flesh; thus it beseeches the Bridegroom with the uplifted arms of its towers, to take pity on it, to come to fetch it, to take it by the clasped hands of its spires and snatch it from earth, to carry it up with Him into Heaven.

"In short, this church is the finest expression of art bequeathed to us by the Middle Ages. The great front has neither the awful majesty of that of Reims, pierced as it is with tracery, nor the dull melancholy of Notre Dame de Paris, nor the gigantic grace of Amiens, nor the massive solemnity of Bourges; but it is full of imposing simplicity, a lightness, a spring, which no other cathedral has attained to.

"The nave of Amiens alone grows beautifully less as it rises with as eager a spring from the earth; but the body of the Amiens church is light and uncomforting, and that of Chartres is mysterious and hushed; of all cathedrals it is that which best suggests the idea of a delicate, saintly woman, emaciated by prayer, and almost transparent by fasting.

"And then its windows are matchless, superior even to those of Bourges, where, again, the sanctuary blossoms with glorious clumps of holy persons. And finally, the sculpture of the west front, the Royal Portal, is the most beautiful, the most superterrestrial statuary ever wrought by the hand of man.

"And it is almost unique in having none of the woeful and threatening solemnity of its noble sisters. Scarce a demon is to be seen watching and grinning on its walls to torture souls; in a few small figures it shows indeed the variety of penance, but that is all; and within, the Virgin is above all else the Mother of Bethlehem. Jesus, too, is more or less Her Child; He yields to Her when she entreats Him.

"It proclaims the plenitude of Her patience and charity by the length of the crypt and the breadth of the nave, which are greater than those of other churches.

"In fact, it is the mystical cathedral—that where the Madonna is most graciously ready to receive the sinner.

"Now," said Durtal, looking at his watch, "the Abbé Gévresin must have finished his breakfast. It is time to take leave of him before joining the Abbé Plomb at the station."

He crossed the forecourt of the palace and rang at the priest's door.

"So you are sure you are going!" said Madame Bavoil, who opened the door, and admitted him to her master.

"Well, yes—"

"I envy you," sighed the Abbé, "for you will be present at wonderful services and hear admirable music."

"I hope so. And if only that could relieve the tension, could release me a little from this incoherent frame of mind in which I wander, and allow me to feel at home once more in my own soul and not in a strange place open to all the winds!—"

"Ah, your soul wants locks and latches," said Madame Bavoil, laughing.

"It is a public mart where every distraction meets to chatter. I am constantly driven out, and when I want to go home again they are in possession."

"Oh, I quite understand that. You know the proverb, 'Who goes hunting loses his seat by the hearth.'"

"That is all very well to say, but—"

"But, our friend, the Lord foresaw your case, when, with reference to such distractions which flutter about the soul like this, He replied to the Venerable Jeanne de Matel, who complained of such annoyances, that she should imitate the hunter, who, when he misses the big game he is seeking, seizes the smaller prey he may find."

"Ay, but even then he must find it!"

"Go and live in peace, then," said the Abbé. "Do not fret yourself with wondering whether your soul is enclosed or no; and take this piece of advice: You are accustomed—are you not?—to repeat prayers that you know by heart, and it is especially under those circumstances that wandering supervenes. Well, then, set those prayers aside, and restrict yourself to following, very regularly, the prayers of the services in the convent-chapel. You are less familiar with them, and merely to follow them you will be obliged to read them with care. Thus you will be less likely to have a divided mind."

"No doubt," replied Durtal. "But when I have not repeated the prayers I am wont to say, I feel as though I had not prayed at all. I know that this is absurd; still, there is no faithful soul who does not know the feeling when the text of his prayers is altered."

The Abbé smiled.

"The best prayers," said he, "are those of the Liturgy, those which God Himself has taught us, those alone which are expressed in language worthy of Him—in His own language. They are complete, and supreme; for all our desires, all our regrets, all our wailing are contained in the Psalms. The prophet foresaw and said everything; leave him, then, to speak for you, and thus, as your interpreter before God, give you his help.

"As to the prayers you may feel moved to address to God apart from the hours devoted to the purpose, let them be short. Imitate the Recluses of Egypt, the Fathers in the Desert, who were masters in the art of supplication. This is what old Isaac said to Cassian: 'Pray briefly and often, lest, if your orisons be long, the enemy will come to disturb them. Follow these two rules, they will save you from secret upheaval.

"So, go in peace; and if any trouble should overtake you, do not hesitate to consult the Abbé Plomb."

"Eh, our friend," cried Madame Bavoil, laughing, "and you might also cure yourself of wandering thoughts by the method employed by the Abbess of Sainte-Aure when she chanted the Psalter: she sat in a chair of which the back was garnished with a hundred long nails, and when she felt herself wandering she pressed her shoulder firmly against the points; there is nothing better, I can tell you, for bringing folks back to reality and recalling their wandering attention."

"Thank you, indeed!"

"There is another thing," she went on, not laughing now. "You ought to postpone your departure for a day or two; for the day after to-morrow is a festival of the Virgin. They expect pilgrims from Paris, and the shrine containing our Mother's veil will be carried in procession through the streets."

"Oh no!" cried Durtal, "I have no love for worship in common. When our Lady holds these solemn assizes to gel out of the way. I wait till She is alone before I visit her. Hosts of people shouting canticles with eyes straight to Heaven or looking for Jesus on the ground by way of unction are too much for me. I am all for the forlorn Queens, for the deserted churches and dark chapels. I am of the opinion of Saint John of the Cross, who confesses that he does not love the pilgrimage of crowds because one comes back more distracted than when one started.

"No. What it is really a grief to me to leave in quitting Chartres is that very silence, that solitude in the cathedral, those interviews with the Virgin in the gloom of the crypt and the twilight of the nave. Ah, here alone can one feel near Her, and see Her!

"In fact," he went on after a moment's reflection, "one does see Her in the strictest sense of the word—or at least, can fancy that She is there. If there is a spot where I can call up Her face, Her attitude—in short Her portrait—it is at Chartres."

"And how is that?"

"Well, Monsieur l'Abbé, we have no trustworthy information as to our Mother's face or figure. Her features are unknown—intentionally, I feel sure, in order that each one may contemplate Her under the aspect that best pleases him, and incarnate Her in the ideal beauty of his dreams.

"For instance, Saint Epiphanius describes her as tall, with olive eyes arched and very black eyebrows, an aquiline nose a rosy mouth, and a golden-toned skin. This is the vision of an oriental.

"Take Maria d'Agreda, on the other hand. She thinks of the Virgin as slender, with black hair and eyebrows, eyes dark and greenish, a straight nose, scarlet lips, and a brown skin. You recognize here the Spanish ideal of beauty imagined by the Abbess.

"Again in, turn to Sister Emmerich. According to her, Mary was fair-haired, with large eyes, a rather long nose, a narrow-pointed chin, a clear skin, and not very tall. Here we have the description given by a German who does not admire dark beauty:

"And yet both of these women were real Seers, to whom the Madonna appeared, assuming in each case the only aspect that could fascinate them; just as she was seen to be the model of mere prettiness—the only type they could understand—by Mélanie at La Salette and Bernadette at Lourdes".

"Well, I, who am no visionary, and who must appeal to my imagination to picture Her at all, I fancy I discern Her under the forms and expressions of the cathedral itself; the features are a little confused in the pale splendour of the great rose window that blazes behind Her head like a nimbus. She smiles, and Her eyes, all light, have the incomparable effulgence of those pure sapphires which light up the entrance to the nave. Her slight form is diffused in a clear robe of flame, striped and ribbed like the drapery of the so-called Berthe. Her face is white like mother-of-pearl, and her hair, a circular tissue of sunshine, radiates in threads of gold. She is the Bride of Canticles. Pulchra ut Luna, electa ut Sol.

"The church which is Her dwelling-place, and one with Her, is luminous with Her grace; the gems of the windows sing to Her praise; the slender columns shooting upwards, from the pavement to the roof, symbolize Her aspirations and desires; the floor tells of Her humility; the vaulting, meeting to form a canopy over Her, speaks of Her charity; the stones and glass echo hymns to Her. There is nothing, down to the military aspect of certain details of the sanctuary, the chivalrous touch which is a reminiscence of the Crusades—the sword-blades and shields of the lancet windows and the roses, the helm-shaped arches, the coat of mail that clothes the older spire, the iron trellis-pattern of some of the panes—nothing that does not arouse a memory of the passage at Prime and the hymn at Lauds in the minor office of the Virgin, and typify the terribilis ut castrorum acies ordonata, the privilege She possesses when She chooses to use it, of being 'terrible as an army arrayed for battle.'

"But She does not often choose to exert here, I believe; this cathedral mirrors rather Her inexhaustible sweetness, Her indivisible glory."

"Ah! Much shall be forgiven you because you have loved much," cried Madame Bavoil.

And Durtal having risen to say good-bye, she kissed him affectionately, maternally, and said,—

"We will pray with all our might, our friend, that God may enlighten you and show you your path, may lead you Himself into the way you ought to go."

"I hope, Monsieur l'Abbé, that during my absence your rheumatism will grant you a little respite," said Durtal, pressing the old priest's hand.

"Oh, I must not wish to have no sufferings at all, for there is no cross so heavy as having none," replied the Abbé. "So do as I do, or rather, do better than I, for I still repine; put a cheerful face on your aridity, and your trials.—Goodbye, God bless you!"

"And may the great Mother of Madonnas of France, the sweet Lady of Chartres, protect you!" added Madame Bavoil.

And when the door was shut, she added with a sigh,—

"Certainly, I should be very grieved if he left our town for ever, for that friend is almost like a child of our own! At the same time I should be very, very happy to think of him as a true monk!"

Then she began to laugh.

"Father," said she, "will they cut his moustache off if he enters the cloister?"

"Undoubtedly."

She tried to imagine Durtal clean-shaven, and she concluded with a laugh,—

"I do not think it will improve his beauty."

"Oh, these women!" said the Abbé, shrugging his shoulders.

"And what, in short," asked she, "may we hope for from this journey?"

"It is not of me that you should ask that, Madame Bavoil."

"Very true," said she, and clasping her hands she murmured,—

"It depends on Thee! Help him in his poverty, remember that he can do nothing without Thine aid, Holy Temptress of men, Our Lady of the Pillar, Virgin of the Crypt."