En Route. J.-K. Huysmans
once: "Yes, but you must enter."
He was irritated at this change of front without change of place, and he tried to turn the conversation, as though it had been held with another, whose questions perplexed him; but he came back to it all the same, and, in his annoyance, summoned all his reasoning powers to his aid.
"Come, let us try to take stock at any rate! It is plain that as I have drawn near the Church, my unclean desires have become more frequent and more persistent; and yet another fact is certain that I have been so used up by twenty years of debauchery that I ought not to have any further carnal appetites. In fact, if I chose it, I could perfectly well remain chaste; but then I must bid my miserable brain be silent, and I have no power to do so! It is frightful all the same that I am more excited than in youth, for now my desires go a-travelling, and since they have not their ordinary shelter they go off in search of evil haunts. How may this be explained? It is a sort of dyspepsia of the soul, which cannot digest ordinary meats, and tries to feed on spiced dreams, highly seasoned thoughts; it is then want of appetite for wholesome meals which has begotten this greediness for strange dishes, this trouble of the mind, this wish to escape from myself, and jump were it but for a moment over the permitted limits of the senses.
"In that case Catholicism would play a part at once repellent and depressing. It would stimulate these sick desires, and weaken me at the same time, would give me over to nervous emotions without strength to resist them."
Wandering thus in self-examination, he came to a dead stand where was no issue, arriving at this conclusion: "I do not practise my religion, because I yield to my baser instincts, and I yield to these instincts because I do not practise my religion."
Brought up thus by a dead wall, he resisted, asking if this last observation were indeed true; for, after all, nothing proved that if he approached the Sacraments he would not be attacked with even greater violence. It was even probable he would be, for the devil makes a dead set at pious people.
Then he rebelled against the cowardice of these remarks, and cried: "I lie, for I know well, that if I made the least sign of resistance, I should be powerfully aided from on high."
Clever at self-torture, he continued to harass his soul, always on the same line. "Suppose," he said, "for the sake of argument, that I have tamed my pride, and subdued my body, suppose that at present there were nothing to do, but to go forward, I am still brought up, for the final obstacle terrifies me.
"Up to now I have been able to walk alone, without earthly assistance, without advice; I have been converted without the help of anyone, but now I cannot make a step without a guide, I cannot approach the altar without the aid of an interpreter, and the bulwark of a priest."
And once more, he drew back, for in former times he had been intimate with a certain number of ecclesiastics, and had found them so mediocre, so lukewarm, above all so hostile to Mysticism, that he was revolted at the very notion of laying before them the schedule of his requirements and his regrets.
"They will not understand me," he thought; "they will answer that Mysticism was interesting in the Middle Ages, but has now become disused and is in any case quite out of touch with the modern spirit. They will think me mad, will assure me, moreover, that God does not want so much, will advise me with a smile, not to make myself singular, to do as others, and to think like them.
"I have indeed no intention of entering on the way of Mysticism, but they may at least allow me to envy it and not inflict on me their middle-class ideal of a God.
"For, not to deceive oneself, Catholicism is not only that moderate religion that they offer us; it is not composed only of petty cases and formulas; it is not wholly confined to rigid observances, and the toys of old maids, to all that goody-goody business, which spreads itself abroad in the Rue Saint Sulpice; it is far more exalted, far purer, but then we must penetrate its burning zone, and seek in Mysticism, the art, the essence, and the very soul of the Church.
"Using the powerful means at her disposal, we then have to empty ourselves, and strip the soul, so that Christ if He will may enter it; we have to purify the house, to cleanse it with the disinfectant of prayer and the sublimate of Sacraments; in a word, to be ready when the Guest shall come and bid us to empty ourselves wholly into Him, as He will pour Himself into us.
"I know thoroughly well, that this divine alchemy, this transmutation of the human creature into God, is generally impossible, for the Saviour, as a rule, keeps His singular favours for His elect; but after all, every one, however unworthy, is presumably able to attain that majestic end, since God only decides, and not man, whose humble acquiescence alone is requisite.
"I see myself saying that to the priests! They will tell me I have no business with mystical ideas, and will give me in exchange the petty religion of rich women; they will wish to mix themselves up with my life, to inquire about the state of my soul, to insinuate their own tastes; they will try to convince me that art is dangerous, will sermonize me with imbecile talk, and pour over me their flowing bowls of pious veal broth.
"I know what I am; at the end of a couple of interviews I shall rebel, and become wicked."
Durtal shook his head, remained in thought, and began again—
"Yet one must be just; perhaps the secular clergy are only the leavings, for the contemplative orders and the missionary army carry away every year the pick of the spiritual basket; the mystics, priests athirst for sorrows, drunk with sacrifice, bury themselves in cloisters or exile themselves among savages whom they teach. So when the cream is off, the rest of the clergy are plainly but skim milk, the scourings of the seminaries.
"Yes, but after all," he continued, "the question is not whether they are intelligent or narrow, it is not my business to take the priest to pieces to discover under the consecrated rind the nothingness of the man; not my business to abuse his inadequacy since it is thoroughly suited to the understanding of the crowd. Would it not be, after all, more courageous and more humble to kneel before a being of whose brains you know the weakness?
"And then … then … I am not reduced to that, for indeed I know one in Paris, a true mystic. Suppose I go and see him!"
And he thought of a certain Abbé Gévresin, with whom he had formerly some acquaintance; he had often met him at a bookseller's in the Rue Servandoni, old Tocane, who had rare books on liturgy and the lives of the saints.
Learning that Durtal was looking for works on Blessed Lidwine, the priest was at once interested in him, and on leaving the shop they had a long conversation. The abbé was very old and walked with difficulty, therefore he willingly took Durtal's arm, who saw him home.
"The life of that victim of the sins of her time is a magnificent subject," he said; "you remember it, do you not?" and as they walked he sketched its lines, broadly.
"Lidwine was born towards the end of the fourteenth century, at Schiedam, in Holland. Her beauty was extraordinary, but she lost it through illness at the age of fifteen. She recovered, but while skating one day with her companions on the frozen canals, she fell and broke a rib. From the time of that accident to her death she was bed-ridden. She was afflicted with most frightful ailments, her wounds festered, and worms bred in her putrefying flesh. Erysipelas, that terrible malady of the Middle Ages, consumed her. Her right arm was eaten away, a single muscle held it to the body, her brow was cleft in two, one of her eyes became blind, and the other so weak that it could not bear the light.
"While she was in this condition, the plague ravaged Holland, and decimated the town in which she lived; she was the first attacked. Two boils formed, one under her arm, the other above the heart. 'Two boils, it is well,' she said to the Lord, 'but three would be better in honour of the Holy Trinity,' and immediately a third pustule broke out on her face.
"For thirty-five years she lived in a cellar, taking no solid food, praying and weeping, so chilly in winter, that each morning her tears formed two frozen streams down her cheeks.
"She thought herself still too fortunate, and entreated the Lord not to spare her, and obtained from Him the grace that by her sufferings she might expiate the sins of others. Christ heard her prayers, visited her with His angels,