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

of air and earth; as if diffused throughout this material plane was a world of more than matter and mind, more than of sense and perception--a world where all was reconciled and made at one--this clash of flesh and spirit--and that at last each answered to each, and spirit inspired flesh, and flesh expressed spirit. It seemed to him, for one blinding instant, as if at last he saw how distance was contained in a single point, colour in whiteness, and sound in silence, as at the very Word of Him who now at last had taken His power and reigned, whose Kingdom at last had come indeed, to whom in very truth All Power was given in heaven and earth. . . .


EPILOGUE


The white-skirted, clean-looking doctor came briskly and noiselessly into the little room that opened off Ward No. IV in the Westminster Hospital as the clock pointed to nine o'clock in the morning, and the nursing-sister stood up to receive him.

"Good morning, sister," he said. "Any change?"

"He seemed a little disturbed about an hour ago by the bells," she said. "But he hasn't spoken at all."

Together they stood and looked down on the unconscious man. He lay there motionless with closed eyes, his unshaven cheek resting on his hand, his face fallen into folds and hollows, colourless and sallow. The red coverlet drawn up over his shoulder helped to emphasize his deadly pallor.

"It's a curious case," said the doctor. "I've never seen coma in such a case last so long."

He still stared at him a moment or two; then he laid the back of his hand gently against the dying man's cheek, then again he consulted through his glasses the chart that hung over the head of the bed.

"Will he recover consciousness before the end, doctor?"

"It's very likely; it's impossible to say. Send for me if there's any change."

"I mayn't send for a priest, doctor?" she said hesitatingly. "You know---"

He shook his head sharply.

"No, no. He distinctly refused, you remember. It's impossible, sister. . . . I'm very sorry."

When he had gone, she sat down again, and drew out her beads furtively upon her lap.

It was a horrible position for her. She, a Catholic, knew now pretty well the history of this man--that he himself was a priest who had lost the faith, who had associated himself with an historian who was writing a history of the Popes from what he called an impartial standpoint, who had, as the doctor said, distinctly and resentfully refused the suggestion that another priest should be sent to help him to make his peace before he died. And, for her, as a convinced Catholic, the position had a terror that is simply inconceivable to those of a less positive faith.

She could do nothing more. . . . She said her beads.

* * * * *


There was a curious mixture of silence and sound here on this Easter Sunday in this bare, airy little ward, with the door closed, and the windows open only at the top. The room had a remote kind of atmosphere about it, obtained perhaps partly by the solidity of the walls, partly by the fact that it looked out on to a comparatively unfrequented lane, partly by the suggestiveness of a professional sick-room. The world was all about it; yet it seemed rather to this nurse, sitting alone at her prayers and duties, as if she had a window into the common world of life rather than that she actually was a part of it. Even the sounds that entered here had this remote tone about them; the footsteps and talking of strayed holiday-makers, occasional fragmentary peals of bells, the striking of the clock in the high Victoria Tower--all these noises came into the room delicately and suggestively rather than as interruptions, yet distinct and noticeable because of the absence of the usual rush of traffic across the great square outside.

The nurse dozed a little over her beads. (She had been on duty since the evening before, and would not be relieved for another hour yet.) And it seemed to her, as so often in that half-sleep, half-wakefulness, when the drowsy brain knows all necessary things and awakes alert again in an instant at any unusual movement or sound, as if these sounds began to take on them tones of other causes than those of themselves.

It seemed, for example, as if the steady murmur were the shouting of phantom crowds at an immeasurable distance, punctuated now again by the noise of distant guns, as, somewhere round a corner a vehicle passed over a crossing of cobble-stones; as if the bells of the churches rang with a deliberate purpose, to welcome or rejoice over some event . . . some entry of a king, she fancied, in a far-off city. Once even, so deep grew her drowsiness, she fancied herself looking down on some such city, herself up in the sunlight and air, floating on the cloudy vessel of her own sleep. . . .

"Pray for us sinners," she murmured, "now and in the hour of our death."

Then she awoke in earnest, and saw the eyes of the patient fixed intelligently upon her.

"Fetch a priest," he said.

* * * * *


"Father," said the dying man an hour later, "is that all? Have you finished?"

"Yes, my dear father--thank God!" . . .

"Well; sit down a minute or two. I want to talk to you."

The young priest, sent for nearly an hour ago in haste from the Cathedral, finished putting up again into his little leather case the tiny stocks of holy oil with which he had just anointed the dying man. He had heard his confession . . . he had returned again to fetch the Viaticum and the oils; and now all was done; and the old priest was reconciled and at peace. The young man was still a little tremulous; it was his first reconciliation of a dying apostate, and it seemed to him a marvellous thing that a man could come back after so long, and so simply--and an apostate priest at that! He had heard this man's name before, and heard his story. . . .

But he was intensely anxious to know what it was that had wrought the miracle. The sister had told him that until this moment the patient had steadily refused even the suggestion to send for a priest. And then, when he had come, there had been no preliminaries. He had simply slipped on his stole as the sister went to the door, sat down by the bedside, heard the confession, and undertaken one or two little acts of restitution on his penitent's behalf.

He sat down again now and waited.

The man in the bed lay with closed eyes, and an extraordinary peace rested over him. It was almost impossible to believe, so white were the reflections of these clean walls, so white the linen, that there was not a certain interior luminosity that shone over his features. His chin and lips and jaws were covered with a week's stubble, his eyelids were sunk in the sockets, and the temples looked shrunken and hollow; yet there was a clearness of skin, not yet dusky with the shadow of death, that appeared almost supernatural to this young man who looked at him.

"The sign of the Prophet Jonas," said the dying priest suddenly. . . . "Resurrection."

"Yes?"

"That is what I have seen," he said. . . "No; I know it was a dream. . . But it is possible; the Church has the power within her. It may happen some day; or it may not. But there is no reason why it should not."

The other leant over him.

"My dear father----" he began. The older priest smiled.

"It is a long time since I heard that," he said. . . . "What's your name, father?"

"Jervis . . . Father Jervis. I come from the Cathedral."

The eyes opened and looked at him curiously.

"Eh?"

"Father Jervis," said the young priest again.

"Any relations?"

"Some nephews--children. That's all of my name."

"Ah well! Perhaps-" (He broke off). "Did they tell me your name, before I became unconscious?"

"It's very likely. I'm the visiting chaplain here."

"Ah well! Who knows---? But that doesn't matter. . . . Father, how long have I to live?"

The young priest leaned forward and laid his hand on the other's arm.

"A few hours only, father," he said gently. . . . "You are not afraid?"

"Afraid?"

His eyes closed, and he smiled naturally and easily.

"Well; listen. Lean closer. . . . No . . . call the sister in. I want her to hear too."

"Sister----"

She came forward, her eyes heavy with sleep, but they were bright too with an immense joy.

"Can you wait up a little longer, sister?" said Father Jervis. "He wants us both to hear what he has to say."

"Why, of course."

She sat down on the other side of the bed.

Still the sounds from outside went on--the footsteps and the voices and the bells. They were beginning to ring for the Easter morning service in the Abbey; and still, within this room, was this air of silence and remoteness.

"Now, listen carefully," said the dying man. . . .
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Publication Date: 08-24-2010

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