The door opened. It was the same sergeant again. He did not enter. He said to the corporaclass="underline" 'Once more' and then stood and held the door until the corporal had passed him. Then he closed and locked the door. This time it was the office of the prison com-mandant himself and what he-the corporal-assumed to be just another N. C. O. until he saw, arranged on the cleared desk, the utensils for the Last Sacrament-urn ewer stole candles and cru-cifix-and only then remarked the small embroidered cross on the coat of the man standing beside them, the other sergeant closing that door too between them so that he and the priest were alone, the priest lifting his hand to inscribe into the invisible air the in-visible Passion while the corporal paused for a moment just inside the door, not surprised yet either: just once more alert, looking at him: at which moment a third person in the room would have remarked that they were almost of an age.
'Come in, my son,' the priest said.
'Good evening, Sergeant,' the corporal said.
'Cant you say Father?' the priest said.
'Of course,' the corporal said.
'Then say it,' the priest said.
'Of course, Father,' the corporal said. He came on into the room, looking quietly and rapidly again at the sacred implements on the desk while the priest watched him.
'Not that,' the priest said. 'Not yet. I came to offer you life,'
'So he sent you,' the corporal said.
'He?' the priest said. What he can you mean, except the Giver of all life? Why should He send me here to offer you what He has already entrusted you with? Because the man you imply, for all his rank and power, can only take it from you. Your life was never his to give you because for all his stars and braid he too is just one more pinch of rotten and ephemeral dust before God. It was neither of them who sent me here: not the One who has already given you life, nor the other who never had yours nor any other life within his gift. It was duty which sent me here. Not this-' for an instant his hand touched the small embroidered cross on his collar '-not my cloth, but my belief in Him; not even as His mouthpiece but as a man-'
'A Frenchman?' the corporal said.
'All right,' the priest said. 'Yes, a Frenchman if you like-com-manded me here to command-not ask, offer: command-you to keep the life which you never had and never will have the refusal of, to save another one,'
'To save another one?' the corporal said.
'The commander of your regiment's division,' the priest said. 'He will die too, for what all the world he knows-the only world he does know because it was the one he dedicated his life to-will call his failure, where you will die for what you anyway will call a victory.'
'So he did send you,' the corporal said. 'For blackmail,'
'Beware,' the priest said.
Then dont tell me this,' the corporal said. Tell him. If I can save Gragnon's life only by not doing something you tell me I Thursday Night already cant and never could do anyway. Tell him then. I dont want to die either,'
'Beware,' the priest said.
'That wasn't who I meant,' the corporal said. 'I meant-'
'I know whom you meant,' the priest said. 'That's why I said beware. Beware Whom you mock by reading your own mortal's pride into Him Who died two thousand years ago in the affirmation that man shall never never never, need never never never, hold suzerainty over another's life and death-absolved you and the man you mean both of that terrible burden: you of the right to and he of the need for, suzerainty over your life; absolved poor mortal man forever of the fear of the oppression, and the anguish of the responsibility, which suzerainty over human fate and destiny would have entailed on him and cursed him with, when He refused in man's name the temptation of that mastery, refused the terrible temptation of that limitless and curbless power when He answered the Tempter: Render unto caesar the things which are caesar's.-I know,' he said quickly before the corporal could have spoken: To Chaulnesmont the things which are Chaulnesmont's. Oh yes, you're right; I'm a Frenchman first. And so now you can even cite the record at me, cant you? All right. Do it,'
The record?' the corporal said.
'The Book,' the priest said. The corporal looked at him. Tou mean you don't even know it?'
'I cant read,' the corporal said.
'Then I'll cite for you, plead for you,' the priest said. 'It wasn't He with his humility and pity and sacrifice that converted the world; it was pagan and bloody Rome which did it with His mar-tyrdom; furious and intractable dreamers had been bringing that same dream out of Asia Minor for three hundred years until at last one found a caesar foolish enough to crucify him. And you are right. But then so is he (I dont mean Him now, I mean the old man in that white room yonder onto whose shoulders you are trying to slough and shirk your right and duty for free will and decision). Because only Rome could have done it, accomplished it, and even He (I do mean Him now) knew it, felt and sensed this, furious and intractable dreamer though He was. Because He even said it Himself: On this rock I found My church, even while He didn't-and never would-realise the true significance of what He was saying, believing still that He was speaking poetic meta-phor, synonym, parable-that rock meant unstable inconstant heart, and church meant airy faith. It wasn't even His first and favorite sycophant who read that significance, who was also igno-rant and intractable like Him and even in the end got himself also electrocuted by the dream's intractable fire, like Him. It was Paul, who was a Roman first and then a man and only then a dreamer and so of all of them was able to read the dream correctly and to realise that, to endure, it could not be a nebulous and airy faith but instead it must be a church, an establishment, a morality of behavior inside which man could exercise his right and duty for free will and decision, not for a reward resembling the bedtime tale which soothes the child into darkness, but the reward of being able to cope peacefully, hold his own, with the hard durable world in which (whether he would ever know why or not wouldn't mat-ter either because now he could cope with that too) he found him-self. Not snared in that frail web of hopes and fears and aspirations which man calls his heart, but fixed, established, to endure, on that rock whose synonym was the seeded capital of that hard durable enduring earth which man must cope with somehow, by some means, or perish. So you see, he is right. It wasn't He nor Peter, but Paul who, being only one-third dreamer, was two-thirds man and half of that a Roman, could cope with Rome. Who did more; who, rendering unto caesar, conquered Rome. More: de-stroyed it, because where is that Rome now? Until what remains but that rock, that citadel. Render unto Chaulnesmont. Why should you die?'
Tell him that,' the corporal said.
To save another life, which your dream will electrocute,' the priest said.
Tell him that,' the corporal said.
'Remember-' the priest said. 'No, you cant remember, you dont know it, you cant read. So I'll have to be both again: defender and advocate. Change these stones to bread, and all men will follow Thee. And He answered, Man cannot live by bread alone. Because He knew that too, intractable and furious dreamer though He was: that He was tempted to tempt and lead man not with the bread, but with the miracle of that bread, the deception, the illusion, the delusion of that bread; tempted to believe that man was not only capable and willing but even eager for that deception, that even when the illusion of that miracle had led him to the point where the bread would revert once more to stone in his very belly and destroy him, his own children would be panting for the opportu-nity to grasp into their hands in their turn the delusion of that miracle which would destroy them. No no, listen to Paul, who needed no miracle, required no martyrdom. Save that life. Thou shalt not kilclass="underline" Tell him that,' the corporal said.