‘She was so happy herself; she kissed me on the lips as never she had. She gave the whole of herself to me, as though it were a gift that my life might be spared. But I am not so ill — that is the wonder of it. I was told that when Mother was ill they needed to have a basin and a towel always by her. Mine is only a minor relapse. There is nothing to worry about.
‘Madeleine does not love me. She wants me to be big and true that she may pour her love on me, as some devotee would want her Shiva or Krishna to be big and grand, that she might make a grand abhishka with milk and honey and holy Ganges water. To anoint oneself in worshipping another is the basis of all love. We become ourself by becoming another.’
August 24. ‘That Georges is leaving in three or four days oppresses me. Something in him was like a solid stone wall, on which Madeleine lent to love me. He must have prayed to his God a great deal. But Madeleine is happy; she hates confusions. She thinks Georges’s God is something of a carnival god, with big teeth and terrible to see. “In the Middle Ages,” she said, “Georges would have been like that famous bishop who started counting his rosary the louder, that the torture of the heretic might be adequate. For the excellent bishop had said to the torturors, ‘He should be tortured until I hear his cry.’ So the bishop went on shouting to his Father that the sins of the Church might be forgiven.”
‘Fanaticism is such a force. It takes you to sublimities and gives you the sense of the heroic, the impossible. The fanatics today become mountain-climbers. It is ultimately a form of spiritual vanity.
‘Truth must be simple, natural and sweet.’
August 26. ‘Georges came to me on Saturday, when Madeleine had gone down to Auch to buy provisions. He sat with ease and reverence as though he had long communed with God. He said:
‘“You know, Rama, I have a last request to make. I say it from the depths of my sinful heart. I am a Russian, you are an Indian. We both have the messianic madness of the race in us — for us only the Absolute counts. Living beside you, as I do these days, you cannot imagine how much your Brahminical ‘aura’, as it were, helps to make me a better Christian. What we do with such an effort, such a desire for virtue, you do so spontaneously. What I admire is the frugality of your food, the generosity with which you open yourself to everyone and everything. Above all, and for a Christian what is fascinating, is your relationship with Madeleine. I have never seen a European couple act and behave with such innocence. The sin of concupiscence…” After that my mind went black. I would never have thought any intelligent man in the year 1951 could use such a crude word. It spoke more of Georges’s deeper mind than anything he had said. I can still remember him saying, “The sin of concupiscence!” I looked out into the sky, and saw the birds pecking away at the figs. I almost felt I should rise and throw a stone at them.
‘There was a long since. Then Georges said:
‘“Salvation is only for the baptized. You know how Maritain brought Péguy back to the Church. I tell you, Rama, there is no salvation, none, but in the Church of Christ.”
‘He burst into tears, and his face shone as did Alyosha Karamazov’s when Staritz Zossima rose from his dead body and appeared to him, hallowed.
‘“I will always pray for you. Father Zenobias already prays for you. There is no hope but in the Church of Christ.”’
August 29. ‘Strange that this has left so deep a mark on me. Night after night I have opened my eyes and looking out of the window have seen the nightbirds active in the trees; far away some light has shone, even as it might from the Pyrénées, and I have been filled with a longing for God — to kneel, yes, to kneel and worship something that has such a nearness of presence, such intimacy, such historical authenticity.
‘I can now understand the Muslim, for Mohammed was the last Historical Prophet of God. I realize that when the son of man comes to earth, he gives us the proof of God in a way that no religion of the pagans, be it Hindu or Greek, could ever offer. Shiva and Vishnu live in Kailas or Vaikuntha, and you may see them or not see them; and once seen they may again disappear. But religion with a prophet gives God a place in time, gives him a mother and father, even were he Virgin born and gives him friends and enemies. Judas more than St John made Christ Holy. You know Saint John in the same way that in some families they say, “Oh, the grandmother of Saint Louis was a La Rochefoucauld,” and it is immediately understood that Saint Louis must have been true, and that you yourself had fought in the crusades and won back the oriflamme of Jerusalem. Historicity is part of human certainty — it makes man real. If Christ — or Mohammed — were not historical there could be no God.’
August 30. ‘I came to work on my Albigensians and unknowingly my mind wanders away and I start speaking of myself to myself. And history makes involutes to prove me. Lord, how can one ever get out of oneself!
‘The historical presence of Christ and Mohammed, I was saying, is implicative of God. This is the true explanation, if ever, of Christian heresy. The Cathars, when pressed to answer if they did indeed believe in Christ, were not always so sure as when asked if they believed in the Holy Ghost. What is uncertain is an enemy of the people. It is a sort of spiritual Darwinism. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism belong here, but Taoism, Buddhism and Vedanta live in the chaos of the present: the present seen as present could never be Chaos. That is why Indians wrote no history; even Buddhism was too historical, and therefore too psychological, for India. Vedanta triumphed like Mahayana Buddhism — so near to Vedanta — did, and Taoism against Confucianism.
‘The Cathars, were they Vedantins? They feared no death, they believed in the Pure, they believed in Truth. The Church believed in God.
‘For these few days how happy I feel in the ancient fold of the Church. I feel protected, I feel confirmed in my humaneness. I feel truly happy.
‘Georges has lent me Berdiaev’s book on Dostoevsky and this is what I fell upon tonight: “Tuer Dieu, c’est en mime temps tuer l’homme… Ni Dieu ne dévore l’homme, ni l’homme ne disparait en Dieu; il reste lui-même jusqu’a la fin et pour la consommation des siécles. C’est ici que Dostoevsky se montre chrétien au sens le plus profond du mot.”
‘How I wish I could tell Madeleine I have begun to worship her God.’
August 31. ‘Yesterday as evening was falling Madeleine brought me home and went out again to have a longer walk. I came back to my room, remembered it was an old chapel, and turning towards the window knelt and prayed, saying inconsequent things. (My Latin is too poor to make a prayer, and only in Latin can one feel truly Christian.) Madeleine must have felt something, for she came back unexpectedly, saying she’d forgotten her cane and didn’t want to be bitten by Monsieur Robert’s dogs, but when she came she knew she knew me. There was a common area where we were together, and for the first time, I almost felt she would give me some cotton and say, “Rama, there are a lot of bacteria here. Take care.” Then she would kneel by me — just my bride. Yesterday I felt married to her as never before.
‘Which explains why she came to me last night. Perhaps, too, because Georges has left she knew that apart from the innocent servants nobody would think of Monsieur and Madame in bed together. Madeleine felt the thought of another was even more vile than the look of another. I think she has liked Georges less these last few days; when talking of St John of the Cross he dwelt so much on temptation. Womanhood has been swelling up in her for some days. Last night she rose as she always has, with a single gesture, and on my sick bed in the chapel of Montpalais, when the night was clear as one’s knowledge of oneself, she became my wife again and I called her many sweet names. I also called her my Isobel, and she gave a laugh that the mountains might have seen as a ripple of lightning.