Dawn of All by Robert Hugh Benson (100 best novels of all time .TXT) 📖

as they came out again.

"Care to lie down for a bit? We shan't be in till three. The Cardinal engaged a room for us."

He indicated a small cabin that bore his own name on a card.

Monsignor paused.

"Yes, I will, I think. I've a lot to think about."

But he could not sleep. The priest promised to awaken him in plenty of time, and he slipped off his buckled shoes and tried to compose his mind. But it was useless. His mind whirled with wonder.

Once he slipped to a sitting position, drew back the little curtain over the porthole, and stared out. There was little to be seen; but by the sight of a lake of soft light that slid past at some incalculable depth a dozen miles away, he perceived that they had left the sea far behind and were spinning over the land of France. He looked out long, revolving thoughts and conjectures, striving to find some glimmer of memory by which he might adjust these new experiences; but there was none. He was like a child, with the brain of a man, plunged into a new mode of existence, where everything seemed reversed, and yet astonishingly obvious; it was the very simplicity that baffled him. The Christian religion was true down (or up) even to the Archangels that stand before God and control the powers of the air. The priesthood was the priesthood; the Blessed Sacrament was the God-Man tabernacling with men. Then where was the cause for amazement that the world recognized these facts and acted upon them; that men should salute the priest of God as His representative and agent on earth; that air-ships (themselves constructed on the model of the sea-gull--hollow feathers and all) should carry the Blessed Sacrament on long journeys, that communicants might not be deprived of their Daily Bread, and even raise altars on board to the honour of those Powers under whose protection they placed themselves. It was curious, too, he reflected, that those who insist most upon the claims of Divinity insist also upon the claims of humanity. It seemed suggestive that it was the Catholics who were most aware of the competitive passions of men and reckoned with them, while the Socialists ignored them and failed.

So he sat--this poor man bewildered by simplicity and almost shocked by the obvious--listening with unheeding ears to the steady rush of air past the ship, voices talking naturally and easily, heard through the roof above his head, an occasional footstep, and once or twice a bell as the steersman communicated some message to one of his subordinates. Here he sat--John Masterman, Domestic Prelate to His Holiness Gregory XIX, Secretary to His Eminence Gabriel Cardinal Bellairs, and priest of the Holy Roman Church, trying to assimilate the fact that he was on an air-ship, bound to the court of the Catholic French King, and that practically the whole civilized world believed and acted on the belief which he, as a priest, naturally also held and was accustomed to teach.

A tap on his door roused him at last.

"It's time to be moving, Monsignor," said Father Jervis through the half-open door. "We're in communication with St. Germains."


CHAPTER IV


(I)

"Tell me a little about the costumes," said Monsignor, as the two set out on foot from their lodgings in Versailles after breakfast next morning, to present their letters of introduction. "They seem to me rather fantastic, somehow."

Their lodgings were situated in one of the great palaces on the vast road that runs straight from the gates of the royal palace itself into Paris. They had come straight on by car from St. Germains, had been received with immense respect by the proprietor, who, it appeared, had received very particular instructions from the English Cardinal; and had been conducted straight upstairs to a little suite of rooms, decorated in eighteenth-century fashion, and consisting of a couple of bedrooms for themselves, opening to a central sitting-room and oratory; the two men-servants they had brought with them were lodged immediately across the landing outside.

"Fantastic?" asked Father Jervis, smiling. "Don't you think they're attractive?"

"Oh yes; but----"

"Remember human nature, Monsignor. After all, it was only intense self-importance that used to make men say that they were independent of exterior beauty. It's far more natural and simple to like beauty. Every child does, after all."

"Yes, yes; I see that, I suppose. But I didn't mean only that. I was on the point of asking you yesterday, again and again, but something marvellous distracted me each time," said the prelate, smiling. "They're extraordinarily picturesque, of course; but I can't help thinking that they must all mean something."

"Of course they do. And I never can imagine how people ever got on without the system. Why, even less than a hundred years ago, I understand that every one dressed, or tried to dress alike. How in the world could they tell who they were talking to?"

"I . . . I expect that was deliberate," faltered the other. "You see, I think people used to be ashamed of their trades sometimes, and wanted to be thought gentlemen."

Father Jervis shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, I don't understand it," he said. "If a man was ashamed of his trade, why did he follow it?"

"I've been thinking," said Monsignor animatedly, "that perhaps it's the new teaching on Vocation that has made the difference. Once a man understands that his Vocation is the most honourable thing he can do, I suppose----There! who's that man," he interrupted suddenly, "in blue with the badge?"

A tremendous figure was crossing the road just in front of them. He wore a short, full blue cloak, with a silver badge on the left breast, a tight-fitting cap of the same colour repeating the same badge, and from beneath his cloak in front hung a tunic, with enormous legs in tight blue hose and shoes moving underneath.

"Ah! that's a great man," said the priest. "He's a Butcher, of course----"

"A butcher!"

"Yes; that's obvious--it's the blue, for one thing, and the cut, for another. Wait an instant. I shall see his badge directly."

As the great man came past them he saluted deferentially. The priests bowed with equal deference, lifting their hands to their broad-leaved hats.

"Yes: he's very high up," said the priest quietly. "A member of the Council of the National Guild, at least."

"Do you mean that man kills oxen?"

"Not now, of course; he's worked his way up. He probably represents the Guild in the Assembly."

"Do all the trades have guilds, and are they all represented in the Assembly?"

"Why, of course! How else could you be certain that the trade was treated fairly? If all the citizens voted as citizens, there'd simply be no fair representation at all. Look; there's a goldsmith--he has probably been to the King; that's a journeyman with him."

An open car sped past them. Two men were seated in it; both in clothes of some really beautiful metallic colour; but the cap of one was plain, while the cap of the other blazed with some device.

"And the women? I can't see any system among them."

"Ah! but there is, though it's harder to detect. They have much more liberty than the men; but, as a rule, each woman has a predominating colour, the colour of the head of her family, and all, of course, wear badges. There are sumptuary laws, I needn't say."

"I shouldn't have guessed it!"

"Well, not as regards price or material, certainly--only size. There are certain absolute limits on both sides; and fashions have to manage between the two. You see it's the same thing as in trades and professions, as I told you yesterday. We encourage the individual to be as individualistic as possible, and draw the limits very widely, beyond which he mustn't go. But those limits are imperative. We try to develop both extremes at once--liberty and law. We had enough of the via media--the mediocrity of the average--under Socialism."

"But do you mean to say that people submit to all this?"

"Submit! Why it's perfectly obvious to every one that it's simply human--besides being very convenient practically. Of course in Germany they still go in for what they call Liberty; and the result is simple chaos."

"Do you mean to say there's no envy or jealousy between the trades?"

"Not in the social sense, in the very least, though there's tremendous competition. Why, every one under Royalty has to be a member of some trade. Of course only those who practise the trade wear the full costume; but even the dukes have to wear the badges. It's perfectly simple, you know."

"Tell me an English duke who's a butcher,"

"Butcher? . . . I can't think of one this minute. Southminster's a baker, though."

Monsignor was silent. But it certainly seemed simple.

They were passing up now between the sentry-guarded gates of the enormous and exquisite palace of Versailles; and, beyond the great expanse of gravel on which they had just set foot, rose up the myriad windows, pinnacles, and walls where the Kings of France lived again as they had lived two hundred years before. Far up, against the tender summer sky, flapped the Royal Standard; and the lilies of France, once more on their blue ground, indicated that the King was in residence. Even as they looked, however, the banner seemed to waver a little; and simultaneously a sudden ringing sound from a shadowed portico a couple of hundred yards away brought Father Jervis to a sudden stop.

"We'd better step aside," he said. "We're right in the way."

"What's the matter?"

"Some one's coming out. . . . Look."

From out of the shadow into the full sunlight with a flash of silver lightning whirled a body of cuirassiers, wheeled into line, and came on, reforming as they came, at a canter.

A couple of heralds rode in front; and a long trumpet-cry pealed out, was caught, echoed, and thrown back by the crowding walls of the palace.

Behind, as Father Jervis drew him to one side, Monsignor caught a glimpse of white horses and a gleam of gold. He glanced hastily back at the gates through which they had just come, and, as if sprung out of the ground, there was the crowd standing respectfully on either side of the avenue to see its Sovereign. (It was up this avenue to Paris, Monsignor reflected, that the women had come on their appalling march to the Queen who ruled them then.)

As he glanced back again the heralds were upon them, and the thunder of hoofs followed close behind. But beyond the line of galloping guards, in the midst, drawn by white horses, ran the great gilded coach with glass windows, and the crown of France atop.

Two men were seated in the coach, bowing mechanically as they came--one a small, young, vivacious-looking man with a pointed dark beard; the other a heavy, fair-haired, sanguine-featured, clean-shaven man. Both alike were in robes in which red and gold predominated; and both wore broad feathered hats, shaped like a priest's.

Then the coach was gone through the tall gilded gates, and a cloud of dust, beaten up by the galloping hoofs on all sides, hid even the cuirassiers who closed the company. And as the two turned the banner sank on the tall pole.

"The King and the German Emperor," observed Father Jervis, replacing his hat. "Now there's the other side of the picture for you."

"I don't