The Great Weaver From Kashmir (44 page)

“Him, the Novice Master, starting as a novice! That's unbelievable! What does he think he will find with the Carthusians that he did not find here?”

“His humility and piety were great, monsieur. He was that man who never lost sight of the highest goal. He had felt the calling to the Carthusian life before he became a Benedictine monk, but his state of health prevented him from beginning his clerical life in a lifestyle that demands such limitless self-denial. He was originally nothing but a weak violin virtuoso who had been coddled all his life. But during the last few years his health started to improve daily. Now he starts again at the beginning, the humblest of all the Lord's poor. He will start by scrubbing the floors and feeding the pigs. The Carthusians have no freedoms resembling ours. They may not speak together except for one half-hour a week and must fast for eight months of the year, and never eat meat. Each monk lives in his own cell, and his daily bread is thrust in through a hole in the wall. They spend their lives in constant prayer. They get up at midnight and attend choir for three hours. No one is allowed to see them or to speak with them. The world does not know that they exist. Whoever becomes a Carthusian dies to the world and is buried. Dear friend, allow me now to accompany you to the refectory, and to give you coffee, milk, bread and butter and honey.
Maintenant c'est exactement l'heure pour goûter.
”
¹³¹

Steinn Elliði rambled away from the abbey and disappeared into the forest. Autumn's change of colors had come to the forest. Steinn thought about what an uncomfortable feeling it was to be startled. Perfect men never allow themselves to be startled.

Father Alban sets out from Sept Fontaines and buys himself
a ticket in third class. He takes his seat among spitting workers, screaming children, and unclean mothers with naked breasts nursing swaddling infants. No one suspects that this poor monk with his cowled head and his hands beneath his scapular had at one time been the golden idol of the concert halls in Paris and shared toasts with potentates and geniuses in Saint Petersburg and New York. He does not even have a knapsack on his shoulders or a staff in his hand. He is free. There is nothing between Heaven and Earth that binds him anymore, not even a flute. He chimes in with the poet and sings:

He has abdicated all positions of rank, the names of nobleman, virtuoso, and scientist, forsaken his gold and green forests, mansions and thrones, horses and cars, dogs and cats, lovers and loves, family and nation, country and arts. Finally he has said farewell to the sunshine of the Benedictine life, its beauty and peace, his rank within the monastic order: his positions as prior and Novice Master, the conversations and his friends – everything. Only one thing remains – God the Father Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, his only begotten son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Now he dwells in a cold district in a coniferous belt of the Alps, among the prisoners of the Lord, scrubbing the floor and carrying draff to the pigs, he whose cheeks are like those of a Roman emperor! What was it to walk the steep slope to Golgotha with one's gibbet on one's shoulders, if not this?

Soon Steinn Elliði emerged from the other side of the forest and stood on the highway. On the side of the road stands a little chapel with a coarse crucifix above the door. Steinn stops and looks at it. The body is straight-trunked, like a stuffed-up sack, blue gold in color, with a hideous, huge wound on the chest from which blood oozes, dark red sealing wax. The legs are far too short and far too stout; they are chunky! The face is broad and unshapely, resembling a grotesque caricature of a ragamuffin clipped from
Punch
or
Strix
.
¹³³
He who wishes to follow me must forsake everything. Steinn Elliði took off his hat and prayed. Christ, Christ, if only you could suspect all that you have on your conscience.

The monastery gate in Valle Sainte has been opened for Steinn Elliði. He is shown in to a bright and high-ceilinged waiting room in the guesthouse. He asks to see Father Alban, and the lay brother leaves silently. Steinn waits a long time without any further sign of life appearing in the house. He gazes at the copper etchings of Saint Bruno and the first Carthusians adorning the room, and then leans out the window and runs his eyes over the countryside. Over the mountains, the pine forest, and the river hovers a cold and gray autumn sky, but no human dwellings are to be seen. Valle Sainte is as far out in the countryside as a mountain monastery in Tibet; a man could sooner imagine standing face-to-face here with statues of the laughing Buddha and lamas than with Jesus Christ and his sons.
Finally the rustling of robes, the rattling of a rosary, and brisk footsteps are heard out in the hallway. The door is pushed open, and in walks a monk of indeterminate age, clad in a thick, white robe, with his hood pulled forward over his head. His face is marked with deep, sharp lines and is extremely pale, his lips pursed; his eyes burn with power; he gives the visitor a piercing glance; in the crest of his nose are two deep creases. He pushes his hood back from his tonsured head, bows deeply, and extends his hand, blue and cold, to Steinn.

“God bless you, sir! You are speaking to Brother Pascal, whose duty it is to greet the visitors whom he sends to us. What is your business?”

“Venerable Father! I longed to be allowed to speak with Father Alban, whom it was my honor to come to know among the Benedictine monks in Belgium. He was my confidant and Father Confessor.”

“You wish to speak to Brother Elias,” said the monk.

“Forgive me, Venerable Father, if I have not explained myself clearly. But it is with Father Alban that I wish to speak.”

The monk smiled broadly and replied:

“I know whom it is you mean, sir. The one you seek is here called Brother Elias, and he is one of our novices. I shall ask for permission from the master. Would you like to have a light meal now or later?”

Steinn had eaten on the train and chose to speak to Brother Elias first.

The monk asked Steinn to follow him and walked quickly ahead of him down silent and endless hallways; these corridors connected the solitary cells of the monks. They walked past numerous small doors and one broad oak door, and there the monk cast himself facedown, kissed the floor, and lay motionless for several moments.
Steinn knelt down; this was the chapel where the most holy sacrament was kept. Finally the monk knocked upon a door, and they waited for a moment until there appeared in the doorway an old monk, with a huge domed forehead and glasses with rust-colored frames in front of bright and shining eyes; he muttered something like
“Deo gratias.”

“Forgive me, Père Maître,” whispered Steinn's guide. “But we have here a foreigner who wishes to speak with Brother Elias. He is one of Brother Elias' old confessants, from Sept Fontaines.”

“Outstanding!” said the master, as if he had always been expecting this, and he shook Steinn's hand with a smile and bowed several times, then looked into his face with his sapient, elderly eyes, which still bore witness to his unbroken joy of life. He examined Steinn's soul but asked nothing, not even his nationality. The master gave Brother Pascal brief instructions, said farewell to Steinn with a handshake as if he were an old friend, and then returned to his immortal life; but Steinn and his guide undertook a new journey through the labyrinth. Finally the Guest Master showed Steinn into Brother Elias' cell and left after conveying the instructions from the Novice Master.

They greeted each other in monastic style by pressing each other's cheeks, and Father Alban led Steinn to a seat and closed the door. He was clad in a coarse gray cowl, far too close-fitting at the shoulders; his scapular reached only to his knees, as a sign that he was a brother of the lowest rank. His shoes were rustic, coarse, ugly winter shoes, his hands tanned and scraped from toil. His countenance still displayed the peculiar mixture of eagle and lamb, but the beauty of bereavement had replaced the severity of the superior; his voice
was still mild and clear, woven with musical effulgence. His home was this single room with a window in the front wall overlooking a small garden. Against one wall was a bench with a gray woolen coverlet, while the rest of the furniture consisted of two chairs and a prie-dieu, a little workbench upon which lay pliers and wires and half-finished rosaries, a wooden image of the mother of our Lord on a shelf, and a crucifix hanging on the wainscoting above the prie-dieu. On the door was a hatch through which a monk put his food at mealtimes.

“I have been granted permission to speak to you for half an hour, friend,” said Father Alban, and he laid his watch on the table and sat down opposite his guest. “I know that you have news to tell me of your soul. Your letter from the Netherlands has been sent here, but Carthusian monks are prohibited from receiving letters, so I have not read it. It is in the hands of the master. I am prepared to do for you what God wills, and now I ask you to speak.”

But all of Steinn's thoughts spun chaotically through his head, like cold suns in dead solar systems. He was situated opposite eternal life itself and there was no world in existence any longer where he could gain either a handhold or a foothold. He had hoped to have had the chance to speak with Father Alban about everything, over the course of several days, to let the monk observe the condition of his soul as it was now rather than for him to have to speak of it plainly. Business! He had no business here at all. He had come here as a simple traveler, wishing to speak to an old friend. He didn't have the slightest idea where to begin! All the same he felt that there was no excuse for hesitation on his part, so he let his tongue run free and took his chances on what might come out.

“It's a pity that you should not have been permitted to read my letter, because it is overflowing with observations. To be frank, I have a tiny bit of experience at being a man, and have spent time studying the things that the Catholic Church has for the most part neglected, and which therefore the Church is rather apt to overlook. I have investigated modern man to a nicety and understand him much better than the Catholic Church does. Telling these hounds to come to Jesus is an abuse of the name of God. They stick their tails between their hind legs and run howling away. It is useless to think that one can drive the Devil out of them with kindness. Evil shall be driven out with evil. The missionary sphere of the Catholic Church is neither in Africa nor Asia, as some believe, but rather in our own culturally straitened hemisphere, where the white race is on its last legs. And in the midst of those straits lies my homeland. And I have decided to use my life to reconcile the views of modern white men with the truths of the Catholic Church. It is good that there are monks, because the monasteries are the banks of the Catholic Church, the roots of the oak tree. But
oportet et hæreses esse
,
¹³⁴
and the history of the Church shows that nothing apart from the virtues of the saints has proven better for sweeping away the refuse from the Church's doctrines, for strengthening and consolidating its powers, revitalizing its ideals, and elevating its honor than precisely this: heretical teachings and lies. Of course I do not have the fortune to be a heretic, but I do know that the only way to fish for souls in our time is to clothe the truth in the costume of a lie and have one's writings blacklisted by the pope. Just as the Devil can be clothed in the garb of Christ, or establishes puritanical societies and home missions to beguile simple souls, in the same way the apostle
of our time must clothe himself in the guise of Satan, if he wishes to save modern men from eternal damnation. Because those apes are so misguided that they pay no regard to those who come in the name of the Lord.”

Father Alban looked with steady, calm eyes at his protégé and waited until he finished speaking. He gave no sign that he would discuss how necessary it was for the apostles of Christ to make their appearance disguised as Satan in order to preach the good news. On the contrary, he quickly saw that his protégé must have somehow betrayed himself, because every word that he spoke bore witness to his having fallen away from what should have been most pure in his conscious life, his soul stained by the fingerprints of the Tempter. It was obvious from what he said that he still wished eagerly to be a Christian, but not without making some sort of a deal with Satan; he must still be hiding something. And when Steinn looked into the monk's eyes he was startled, and found himself speechless and confused. Father Alban had not only listened to what he said, but also tuned his ear to the deepest movements of his soul as he spoke. Steinn sat here before the doctor, having concluded blurting out his description of his sickness, and he realized that the doctor would know the precise Latin name for his sickness, as well as the composition and doses of the medicines that he required.

The monk stood up slowly. He moved his chair over to the wall beneath the crucifix, took out a threadbare stole, put it over his shoulders, and sat down. Next he gave Steinn a sign that he should come over, pointed with his other hand to the prie-dieu at his side, and said simply:

“Confess!”

Something in Steinn Elliði's facial expression made him resemble a terrified idiot when he looked in the monk's face; or perhaps more than anything else an animal in a slaughterhouse awaiting its death-blow. His plea for mercy found no words; this order, at once unexpected and humiliating, robbed him of speech; the canon's hypnotic power enchained his personality, and he found that he had no other choice than to fall to his feet, completely exposed. His pride was given no space to secure a hold on his heart so that he might rise arduously against the lack of respect that this cowled tyrant was impudent enough to display to him; Father Alban's eyes rested on him, insurmountable and omnipotent, as he waited for his protégé to stand up falteringly and kneel beneath the cross. Finally Steinn stood up. He fell to his knees upon the prie-dieu and automatically recited the penitent's opening words: