The Miracles of Antichrist. Selma Lagerlöf
to appease her own conscience. “I have not wished to make a false Christ image. I have written in his crown: ‘My kingdom is only of this world.’ ”
Thereupon she wrapped herself in a big cloak, hid the image under it, and went up to Aracoeli. And she asked that she might be allowed to say her prayers before the Christchild.
When she stood in the sanctuary, and the candles were lighted, and the iron door opened, and the image showed itself to her, she began to tremble and shake and looked as if she were going to faint. The monk who was with her hurried into the sacristy after water and she was left alone in the chapel. And when he came back she had committed the sacrilege. She had exchanged the holy, miracle-working image, and put the false and impotent one in his place.
The monk saw nothing. He shut in the false image behind iron doors and double locks, and the Englishwoman went home with the treasure of Aracoeli. She placed him in her palace on a pedestal of marble and was more happy than she had ever been before.
Up on Aracoeli, where no one knew what injury they had suffered, they worshipped the false Christ image as they had worshipped the true one, and when Christmas came they built for him in the church, as was the custom, a most beautiful niche. There he lay, shining like a jewel, on Maria’s knees, and about him shepherds and angels and wise men were arranged. And as long as he lay there children came from Rome, and the Campagna, and were lifted up on a little pulpit in the basilica of Aracoeli, and they preached on the sweetness and tenderness and nobleness and power of the little Christchild.
But the Englishwoman lived in great terror that some one would discover that she had stolen the Christ image of Aracoeli. Therefore she confessed to no one that the image she had was the real one. “It is a copy,” she said; “it is as like the real one as it can be, but it is only copied.”
Now it happened that she had a little Italian servant girl. One day when the latter went through the room she stopped before the image and spoke to him. “You poor Christchild, who are no Christchild,” she said, “if you only knew how the real child lies in his glory in the niche in Aracoeli and how Maria and San Giuseppe and the shepherds are kneeling before him! And if you knew how the children place themselves on a little pulpit just in front of him, and how they courtesy, and kiss their fingers to him, and preach for him as beautifully as they can!”
A few days after the little maid came again and spoke to the image. “You poor Christchild, who are no Christchild,” she said, “do you know that to-day I have been up in Aracoeli and have seen how the true child was carried in the procession? They held a canopy over him, all the people fell on their knees, and they sang and played before him. Never will you see anything so wonderful!”
And mark that a few days later the little maid came again and spoke to the image: “Do you know, Christchild, who are not a real Christchild, that it is better for you to stand where you are standing? For the real child is called to the sick and is driven to them in his gold-laced carriage, but he cannot help them and they die in despair. And people begin to say that Aracoeli’s holy child has lost his power to do good, and that prayers and tears do not move him. It is better for you to stand where you are standing than to be called upon and not to be able to help.”
But the next night a miracle came to pass. About midnight a loud ringing was heard at the cloister gate at Aracoeli. And when the gate-keeper did not come quickly enough to open, some one began to knock. It sounded clear, like ringing metal, and it was heard through the whole monastery. All the monks leaped from their beds. All who had been tortured by terrible dreams rose at one time, and believed that Antichrist was come.
But when they opened the door—when they opened it! It was the little Christ image that stood on the threshold. It was his little hand that had pulled the bell-rope; it was his little, gold-shod foot that had been stretched out to kick the door.
The gate-keeper instantly took the holy child up in his arms. Then he saw that it had tears in its eyes. Alas, the poor, holy child had wandered through the town by night! What had it not seen? So much poverty and so much want; so much wickedness and so many crimes! It was terrible to think what it must have experienced.
The gate-keeper went immediately to the prior and showed him the image. And they wondered how it had come out into the night.
Then the prior had the church bells rung to call the monks to the service. And all the monks of Aracoeli marched into the great, dim basilica in order to place the image, with all solemnity, back in its shrine.
Worn and suffering, they walked and trembled in their heavy homespun robes. Several of them were weeping, as if they had escaped from some terrible danger. “What would have happened to us,” they said, “if our only consolation had been taken from us? Is it not Antichrist who has tempted out Rome’s holy child from the sheltering sanctuary?”
But when they came to set the Christ image in the shrine of the chapel, they found there the false child; him who wore the inscription on his crown: “My kingdom is only of this world.”
And when they examined the image more closely they found the inscription.
Then the prior turned to the monks and spoke to them:—
“Brothers, we will sing the ‘Te Deum,’ and cover the pillars of the church with silk, and light all the wax candles, and all the hanging lamps, and we will celebrate a great festival.
“As long as the monastery has stood it has been a home of terror and a cursed dwelling; but for the suffering of all those who have lived here, God has been gracious. And now all danger is over.
“God has crowned the fight with victory, and this that you have seen is the sign that Antichrist shall not be worshipped on the Capitol.
“For in order that the sibyl’s words should be carried out, God has sent this false image of Christ that bears the words of Antichrist in its crown, and he has allowed us to worship and adore him as if he had been the great miracle-worker.
“But now we can rest in joy and peace, for the sibyl’s mystic speech is fulfilled, and Antichrist has been worshipped here.
“Great is God, the Almighty, who has let our cruel fear be dispelled, and who has carried out His will without the world needing to gaze upon the false image made by man.
“Happy is the monastery of Aracoeli that rests under the protection of God, and does His will, and is blessed by His abounding grace.”
When the prior had said those words he took the false image in his hands, went through the church, and opened the great door. Thence he walked out on the terrace. Below him lay the high and broad stairway with its hundred and nineteen marble steps that leads down from the Capitol as if into an abyss. And he raised the image over his head and cried aloud: “Anathema Antikristo!” and hurled him from the summit of the Capitol down into the world.
III
ON THE BARRICADE
When the rich Englishwoman awoke in the morning she missed the image and wondered where she should look for him. She believed that no one but the monks of Aracoeli could have taken him, and she hurried towards the Capitol to spy and search.
She came to the great marble staircase that leads up to the basilica of Aracoeli. And her heart beat wildly with joy, for on the lowest step lay he whom she sought. She seized the image, threw her cloak about him, and hurried home. And she put him back on his place of honor.
But as she now sank into contemplation of his beauty, she found that the crown had been dented. She lifted it off the image to see how great the damage was, and at the same moment her eyes fell on the inscription that she herself had scratched: “My kingdom is only of this world.”
Then she knew that this was the false Christ image, and that the right one had returned to Aracoeli.
She despaired of ever again getting it into her possession, and she decided to leave Rome