‘And then at the child—there was terror in it and it was running away from something grown up; I saw that she was sitting still and she was running, it was in her eyes, and in her chin, drawn down, and her eyes wide open. And then I saw Jenny sitting there shaking, and I said: God, you are no picture! And then, Robin was going forward, and the blood running red, where Jenny had scratched her, and I screamed and thought: “Nora will leave that girl some day: but though these two are buried at opposite ends of the earth, one dog will find them both."’
CHAPTER SIX
Where the Tree Falls
Baron Felix, who had given up his place in the bank, though not his connections with it, had been seen in many countries standing before that country’s palace gate, holding his gloved hands before him in the first unconcluded motion of submission; contemplating relics and parts, with a tension in his leg that took the step forward or back a little quicker than his fellow sightseer.
As at one time he had written to the press about this noble or that (and had never seen it in print), as he had sent letters to declining houses and never received an answer, he was now amassing a set of religious speculations that he eventually intended sending to the Pope. The reason for this was, that as time passed it became increasingly evident that his child, if born to anything, had been born to holy decay. Mentally deficient, and emotionally excessive, an addict to death; at ten, barely as tall as a child of six, wearing spectacles, stumbling when he tried to run, with cold hands and anxious face, he followed his father, trembling with an excitement that was a precocious ecstasy. Holding his father’s hand he climbed palace and church steps with the tearing swing of the leg necessitated by a measure that had not taken a child into account; staring at paintings and wax reproductions of saints, watching the priests with the quickening of the breath of those in whom concentration must take the place of participation, as in the scar of a wounded animal will be seen the shudder of its recovery.
When Guido had first spoken of wishing to enter the church, Felix had been startled out of himself. He knew that Guido was not like other children, that he would always be too estranged to be argued with; in accepting his son the Baron saw that he must accept a demolition of his own life. The child would obviously never be able to cope with it. The Baron bought his boy a virgin in metal, hanging from a red ribbon, and placed it about his neck, and in doing so, the slight neck, bent to take the ribbon, recalled to him Robin’s, as she stood back to him in the antique shop on the Seine.
So Felix began to look into the matter of the church. He searched the face of every priest he saw in the streets; he read litanies and examined chasubles and read the Credo; he inquired into the state of monasteries. He wrote, after much thought, to the Pope, a long disquisition on the state of the cloth. He touched on Franciscan monks and French priests, pointing out that any faith that could, in its profoundest unity, compose two such dissimilar types—one the Roman, shaved and expectant of what seemed, when one looked into his vacantly absorbed face, nothing more glorious than a muscular resurrection; and the other, the French priest, who seemed to be composite of husband and wife in conjunction with original sin, carrying with them good and evil in constantly quantitative ascent and descent, the unhappy spectacle of a single ego come to a several public dissolution,—must be profoundly elastic.
He inquired if this might not be the outcome of the very different confessional states of the two countries. Was it not, he asked, to be taken for granted that the Italian ear must be less confounded because, possibly, it was harking the echo of its past, and the French that of the future? Was it conceivable that the ‘confessions’ of the two nations could, in the one case, produce that living and expectant coma and, in the other, that worldly, incredible, indecent gluttony? He said that he himself had come to the conclusion that the French, the more secular, were a very porous people. Assuming this, it was then only natural that from listening to a thousand and one lay sins, the priest, upon reaching no riper age than two score, should find it difficult to absolve, the penitent having laid himself open to a peculiar kind of forgiveness; not so much absolution as exigency, for the priest was himself a vessel already filled to overflowing, and gave pardon because he could no longer hold—he signed with the cross, hastily and in stress, being, like a full bladder, embarrassed and in need of an immediate privacy. The Franciscan, on the other hand, had still a moment to wait. There was no tangent in his iris, as one who, in blessing is looking for relief.
Felix received no answer. He had expected none. He wrote to clear some doubt in his mind. He knew that in all probability the child would never be ‘chosen’. If he were the Baron hoped that it would be in Austria, among his own people, and to that end he finally decided to make his home in Vienna.
Before leaving, however, he sought out the doctor. He was not in his lodging. The Baron aimlessly set off toward the square. He saw the small black clad figure moving toward him. The doctor had been to a funeral and was on his way to the Café de la Mairie du VIe to lift his spirits. The Baron was shocked to observe, in the few seconds before the doctor saw him, that he seemed old, older than his fifty odd years would account for. He moved slowly as if he were dragging water; his knees, which one seldom noticed, because he was usually seated, sagged. His dark shaved chin was lowered as if in a melancholy that had no beginning or end. The Baron hailed him, and instantly the doctor threw off his unobserved self, as one hides, hastily, a secret life. He smiled, drew himself up, raised his hand in greeting, though, as is usual with people when taken unaware, with a touch of defence.
‘Where have you been?’ he said as he came to a standstill in the middle of the block. ‘I haven’t seen you for months, and’, he added, ‘it’s a pity.’
The Baron smiled in return. ‘I’ve been in mental trouble,’ he said, walking beside the doctor. ‘Are you’, he added, ‘engaged for dinner?’
‘No,’ said the doctor, ‘I’ve just buried an excellent fellow. Don’t think you ever met him, a Kabyle, better sort of Arab. They have Roman blood, and can turn pale at a great pinch, which is more than can be said for most, you know,’ he added, walking a little sideways, as one does when not knowing where a companion is going. ‘Do a bit for a Kabyle, back or front, and they back up on you with a camel or a bag of dates.’ He sighed and passed his hand over his chin. ‘He was the only one I ever knew who offered me five francs before I could reach for my own. I had it framed in orange blossoms and hung it over the whatnot.’